XLVII: The Capitol - Rose Point Estate.

Soran Faerber, 19
Applicant #8

Sleep doesn't happen.

Don't get it twisted, though - he tries. Man, does he try. He's tried harder than he's tried for anything else in the past year, at least, including surviving. He doesn't leave the library but he really hasn't for a while. No point now. He finds a small, if not slightly uncomfortable, couch tucked away in one of the corners near an old, unused fireplace.

He's not entirely sure how long he lays there. It feels like an eternity but he knows it can't be nearly that long - the light outside the window doesn't change in the slightest, and the moon hasn't even moved an inch.

Pandora's been harping on him for days now since she dropped the pregnancy bomb on him. Sleep, sleep, and more sleep. She probably needs more sleep than him, he wants to say, since she's the one with another person inside her. In the very least she needs to relax and stop getting on his case about every single thing that exists in the goddamn universe.

There's no relaxing him in now. It's just the list of names spinning through his name, from the beginning and all the way to the end. Even the ones he's crossed out are still there, flickering faintly in the back of everything else, trying to make him doubt it. What if he doesn't actually know? What if he was wrong? What if there's no point to this in the long run because they're fucked anyway?

They probably are. He's not sure what denying it is going to do.

And it's not like he's ever been a particularly optimistic type of person, so he's not sure why he's clinging to the hope that this might actually end well. Because he wants to believe it for everyone else, for Pandora and Evander and everyone else who believes in the possibility of a happy ending?

He can only sit there for so long before he has to get up. His body is too jittery to do anything else; it's been that way for days. He can't remember what being still feels like. That memory can only be associated with his briefly dead body, and it's not like he has the pleasure of remembering that one. He almost wishes he did, and you don't have to tell him just how fucked up that is. He knows.

Getting up results in pacing. He's been doing that a lot, too. He leaves the little tucked away office and heads down the main corridor through the stacks and then threads his way back through all of them until he hits the dividing wall. Then, he turns around again. Repeat process.

He doesn't want to repeat it anymore.

He has to, though. He can't sleep, so there's no other option. Even though his eyelids are so heavy they feel as if they could drag the entire weight of his body down he can't close his eyes without stressing it even more.

At least when he's awake he can think in some capacity. He could stop at the computer again, or start scanning the list again for some obvious standout that may or may not even exist.

Or he could just wander in fucking circles, which is about what he's doing right now.

The more he does it, the more paths he creates through the library, the more he feels as if he's run a marathon. The truth is, though, that's how he's felt for a while. His heart never stops pounding now, to the point where it can see it jumping up and down through the rise and fall of his skin. It's as if it's reminding him that he's alive; it would be nice, almost, if it wasn't consuming every waking minute of his day, which was approximately all of them. It's all he can think about. With how hard it's working it could give out any minute. It did once already.

Sleep would probably help. Sleep would definitely help, but he can't get any. He knows he slept like the living dead when Icarus was there, but he's not about to admit that aloud. It was the same way for both of them, but they were stubborn.

If he was any less stubborn he would have went crawling back by now - it should be him that goes crawling back. Regardless of his intentions or not he's the one that said the stupid fucking thing in the first place.

He doesn't blame him. Soran probably wouldn't go looking for someone that said they didn't matter either. Directly to their face, no less.

And he didn't mean it. He knows it's not true, and Icarus said that exact same thing.

It's not true, and he's just incredibly, overwhelmingly stupid.

On top of everything, now he's stressing about that, too. If he has to worry about one more thing he might just explode, no matter how little it is. It already feels like he could explode as is, or at least that his heart is going to.

There's a lot of things he feels like would help. Hitting something, for one. Maybe repeatedly, over and over again, until the feeling begins to dissipate or until his heart is too exhausted to keep up with it. He could keep walking and researching and stressing until he finally blacks out, which will happen soon if he doesn't sleep. No one would take kindly to finding him out cold on the floor in the morning with a probable head wound from the fall in the first place.

The worst part of it all is that he feels like he could easily burst into tears if he gave himself the opportunity. He can't even remember the last time he properly cried; when his mom died, maybe. Way over ten years then, so that must be great for his well-being. That was just how life went, though, and in the one he got dealt crying didn't get you anywhere. It got you beaten in the back-alley for showing any signs of personal weakness in the middle of a District that hated it almost more than anything else in the world.

He didn't allow that to happen; this could be his punishment, now. Crying ten years too late and then inevitably stressing about the fact that he's crying alone in a library instead of fucking doing anything about it.

He does three more circuits of the library before he stops somewhere in the middle of it on the fourth pass. His heart is definitely coming out, one way or another. It's going to burst right out of his chest. He's not just going to black out - someone's going to come in here tomorrow and find him dead.

History really does always repeat itself.

He sits down with a thud and leans back against the shelf. He's still shaking. That's consistent of the past while. His chest hurts again, but this time he can't blame it on something in there being broken, being wrong. It's worse that he's almost perfectly fine and it feels that way anyway. It goes to show that they can do everything to put you back together, pump you full of whatever they need to to send you on your way, and none of it matters in the long run.

He's losing it. He's well and truly losing it, and on top of that he's probably going to keel over dead in the next hour. Great. A huge fucking apology to whoever has the misfortune to walk in on that tomorrow morning.

Today, really. The whole not-sleeping thing has really screwed with his sense of time along with everything else.

He props his head up on his knees and tries to close his eyes, but nothing comes of it. Just more names, over and over again. It's not even a specific one anymore. Only a blur.

It feels like a long time that he sees them all merged into one. Too long to still be alive with his heart the way it is.

Somewhere not very far away, a door opens. Soran opens his eyes.

He, for some strange and miraculous reason unknown to him, is not dead.

Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10

They finish their list. He doesn't sleep that night until they do.

They finish their list, and they start their plan. It's a painful one when even getting off the grounds seems impossible, but it's necessary. There's no other obvious connection to be found.

It's three long, painful days that feels like three years, in reality. He's not even sure it's a plan. They're going to get out and do something - what, he's not sure. They'll figure it out when they get there.

But first, he's going to get Soran.

It takes all three days to convince himself to do it, in which case he doesn't see him even for a split second. As of yesterday, in Evander's words, he's on the fast track to becoming a library hermit. The image would have made him smile if the circumstances weren't so stupid and fucked up. He's not even sure how this conversation is going to go, if it's going to go at all. Icarus isn't planning on waking him up to come along if he finds him asleep.

He isn't even really expecting a conversation. The others are already waiting to go. He just feels bad leaving him here none the wiser.

And maybe, if he gets lucky, it'll fix something. Or at least it'll be the start to a solution.

Soran said it so many days ago now, not long before Icarus left. Not long before he kissed him for the first time.

I'm not fighting with you. And he's not. He's fucking done, and it has nothing to do with how heavy he feels when he's not around.

No, it has everything to do with that. He never thought he would be living in a world where he needs him but it feels like that's where he's at. He needs him, he really does. For once in his life, because of that, he's going to be the bigger person. Someone ought to give him an award.

He's never even stepped foot in the library, for starters. It's very dark when he goes, and he nearly bumps into the first shelving unit that he comes across, holding out a hand until he comes to the end of it. The area closes in, then, to a little corridor that leads all the way through them clear to the other side before taking a left, out of sight.

If he's not in here Icarus has no idea where he's even going to begin.

He keeps a hand out to guide him, picking his way through the stacks. There's not even a sound in here except for his footsteps on the hardwood floor and the soft click of the door as it finally glides shut behind him. Unless he's asleep, though, Soran would have heard him. And if he has, he's not making it very obvious where he is. Icarus really isn't in the mood to play hide and seek with him when he could be doing something else, something much more important.

Whatever that even is.

"Soran?" he asks into the shadows, which might be a mistake. For all he knows that's going to chase him further into hiding.

Or not, because five or six feet later he nearly steps on him.

It takes everything in him not to scream as he jumps back, as the shape on the floor morphs into a rough, Soran-sized shape. He looks up at him - his eyes are narrowed into confused little slits, like he doesn't quite understand what's going on.

"I thought I was hearing things," he says roughly. His eyes dart away for a second, back the way he came, and then focus back on the floor again. That's weird.

"Why the fuck are you just sitting here?" he asks. He's not sure what else Soran is supposed to be doing, but it's worth asking. "Can you get up and come with me? I need to tell you something and I'm not sure how long we have."

Soran glances up again, eyes flicking up and back down in seconds that Icarus can't even keep track of. "I'm just gonna stay here."

"Jesus christ," he mutters. "Can you not be difficult for five minutes?"

Soran doesn't respond, this time. He re-wraps his hands around his knees, tighter this time, as if he's trying to force his fingers still. Icarus watches as they continue to tap anxiously against the tops of his shins.

"Soran," he says, but he doesn't even twitch. "Hey."

That gets something out of him, but when he glances up he looks confused again as if he forgot Icarus was standing there in the first place.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asks, and it sounds like it came out harsher than he intended. It almost seems like something is legitimately wrong, but he can't put his finger on it.

"Is... is something wrong with me?" Soran asks. The confusion is stronger than ever. He can't even look him in the eye for more than a few seconds, although it looks more as if he's staring off past Icarus' shoulder and trying to figure out what's going on.

"That's what I'm asking you," he says. He could just leave. That would probably be easier, and a hell of a lot quicker. So what if Soran wants to stay on the floor for the rest of the night - that's his prerogative. But something's wrong. He knows it. Icarus crouches down beside him, putting a hand against the stack that he's leaning on, but a better look doesn't do much. He can see that he's shaking but the revelation does little - he doesn't look fearful of anything, just confused and very, very tired.

"I think I might be dying," he says. "Or having a heart attack, which I guess is the same fucking thing."

"What?"

"What do you mean, what, I can't fucking breathe so it feels an awful lot like I'm—"

"Don't say it again," he snaps. "Seriously, what the hell is wrong you?"

Repeating it doesn't go over great. Soran looks more alarmed this time, like he's devoting too much attention to figuring it out when he's already got so much going on. It really does look like he's struggling for breath, shaking every time he inhales and then breathing out too fast to be getting much of it. There's probably not enough oxygen getting to his brain to allow him to think clearly.

If he wasn't past concerned at this point he'd think Soran was like that all the time, and he'd say it aloud.

Right now he keeps his mouth shut.

"Look at me," he insists. "You know you're fine, right? You're breathing. You're definitely not dying."

"It doesn't fucking feel that way."

"I know it doesn't, but fact over fiction right now. You're not dying."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Because I'm more intelligent than you give me credit for. You're just freaking out, and that's making it worse. Did something happen before I got here? What set this off?"

"What didn't set this off?"

Icarus wishes he was going to get clarification on that anytime soon, but it doesn't appear as if that's happening. Okay, so it's a lot of things. He can understand that. He's experienced that too, which makes it easier to understand. He's ended up on the floor in this state more than he'd like to admit after working himself up into a frenzy.

"I can go get someone," he says, beginning to rise to his feet. "Do you want me to—"

Soran's hand launches out so fast he doesn't even see it coming when it latches onto his wrist, fingers digging in to the point of pain. "Don't you fucking dare."

He looks down at him. "What do you want me to do, then?" he asks softly.

This time it doesn't look as if Soran even hears him. He's got his eyes closed, now, but Icarus can still see the exhaustion and strain all over his face, the focus he's trying to put towards his breathing. He hasn't let go, either. When he's holding onto this way he feels bad for not noticing how bad he was shaking the moment he found him like this.

He hasn't said anything but he hasn't let go, either.

That has to be mean something.

"I'm sorry," he says at long last.

"For what?"

"You know what for."

"I'm the one that called you an asshole."

"And I'm the one that heavily implied that you didn't matter in the slightest, so if you're really trying to sell me on the fact that you're a more terrible person than I am then you're not getting anywhere fast."

Icarus eases back down next to him, painfully slow. He feels like any sudden movement could put him even further into hysterics. "I don't think you're a terrible person."

"I'm pretty sure I am," he answers. "I'm fine with it."

Doing terrible things doesn't make you a terrible person, though. Everyone in the world can fuck up over and over again but that doesn't mean you're instantly written off as a human being. At least he killed people as a part of the game - it was Icarus that decided to murder two guards back at Witsonee because he was scared of being there for any longer. And for good reason.

But that doesn't mean it was good in general.

"Why did you come in here?" Soran asks, while he works on gently prying his fingers loose from around his wrist until he can just hold his hand, instead.

"Doesn't matter."

"It does."

"Oh, it does," he says. "But not right now."

He's already spent more time than he thought he would in here, for an entirely different reason. He does need to tell him about Kestrel, but not right now. This plan can work another night, though he should probably tell the others that. They must all still be waiting for him, growing more anxious by the second as the minutes tick on and their time grows shorter. There's only so much he can do, though, and it seems like the most important thing might just be right here.

Who's he kidding, really? It's definitely right here.

He inches forward, closing the last of the space between them, and then curls his other hand around the back of Soran's neck. His pulse is racing under his fingertips, but despite the speed of it it's even, a repeated, reliable pattern. Nothing is really, truly wrong with him.

"Just take it easy," he murmurs. "If I go for five minutes, will you be okay? I'll come right back."

"Yeah," he says, voice a little thick. "I won't die, apparently. So."

"You won't," he assures him. "Remember to breathe. I'll be right back."

He lets go of him in every sense of the word, albeit reluctantly, but leans down at the last second to press a kiss to the top of his head before he can tell himself not to. It feels much too soft for the two of them, dangerously so, but perhaps that's what they need right now. Maybe no bad can come of it if that's the case. Soran doesn't go all twitchy on him, doesn't come anywhere close to hyperventilating. Everything is solid save for the slight tremble that's still got his hands.

He turns on his heel, not quite running back down the corridor and out the library door. He can't make it seem that urgent.

It's not happening tonight, if it even was. But it definitely isn't right now.

There's only one thing he needs to do, and it involves getting back.

Emmi Langlois, 17
Applicant #13

"Do you think he got lost?" Tarquin muses. "I think he got lost."

"Probably, knowing him," she mutters. They're sneak-out and take off plan isn't going to work so well if one of them goes fucking missing before they ever even leave her room. Ria looks like she's about to fall asleep, and Emmi wouldn't blame her. Tarquin's rolled over, back and forth, so many times on her bed that he's just about successfully unmade it without even trying.

She's about two seconds away from grabbing them and leaving. Icarus and Soran can stay here for all she cares, because they're wasting time. Soran probably wouldn't have even come in the first place.

The door flies open. Tarquin nearly falls off the bed.

"Alright, change of plan," Icarus announces. "You three can have fun. I'm staying here."

"Excuse me?" she asks, but he's already gone. That was fast. He already looked a little winded, as if he had run here in the first place. She immediately got the sense that he didn't run for much, so whatever this was must be important.

More important than getting out of here and possibly solving all of their problems?

It better be important.

"Stay here," she insists, and rolls off the bed after him. He is quite literally gone when she gets out into the hall, but she can hear him down the next. He's making too much noise for this hour of the night. All the subtlety of their plan has now been thrown out the window and then stepped all over by the passerby's walking below and it doesn't seem like Icarus cares much.

Neither does she, then.

"Hey!" she yells after him, though she still has to force herself to a near sprint to finally catch him. "Hold on for a second!"

She gets close enough to grab his arm and jerk him back, though he doesn't look too happy about it. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. It's fine."

"I'm sorry, isn't talking that way exactly what screwed the two of you in the first place?" she asks, refusing to let go of his arm. He can drag her, if he wants to. She's up for that. "Tell me."

It looks like that worked. That's good, because it's true. He's told her enough details of that stupid fight that happened that she knows he won't walk away after saying the same thing, regardless of the circumstances. He tugs away from her grip but doesn't go anywhere - she was fully prepared to tackle him to the ground if he even so much as tried it.

"I found him like, mid-panic attack, on the floor, convinced he was dying. He's definitely not going anywhere right now and I told him I'd come right back. If you wanna take the two of them and go then you better hurry up."

"You think that's a good idea?"

"If you don't think it's a good idea then why the hell were we ever going at all?" he asks.

"You said it yourself - there's no one we can legitimately trust except each other."

"And that's going to do a whole lot of good if we fuck something up and then all die for it, right? I know what I said, but we might need help more than we think. I just told you what state I found him in. Isolating ourselves doesn't work."

It did out there. She's not out there anymore, though. She survived on her own for several long, agonizing days but that may not be an option anymore.

"What do you want to do, then?" she asks.

"I really don't care," he tells her. "I don't anymore, I'm just gonna go sit in there with him."

She's not about to stop him. He watches her for a moment, perhaps gauging what his chances are, but he turns around and starts walking again unscathed. Almost as fast as before, but not quite. Every passing second is draining them more and more, and apparently to some people it's doing more damage than she thought possible.

She hurries after him, not quite matching his pace but lurking a few steps back. He notices, she's sure, but doesn't say anything. She's not out to get under his skin tonight, and especially not Soran's. All she needs to do is make sure that everything is relatively okay, at least for tonight, and then apparently she needs to re-evaluate. This really isn't working for anyone.

"I swear to God, I told him to stay put," he hisses. She leans around him, eyeing the already-open library door. Maybe it was closed, when he left? It probably was.

He nearly rushes in, but she grabs his arm to stop him. He looks put out, about to snap at her, but she shushes him. There's noise coming from in there, far too much. She can't place any of the voices, but there are several, and she can't pinpoint one of them as Soran's. It's not anyone she knows, no matter how long she focuses on them.

So who is it, then?

She almost thinks Peacekeeper when a shape steps around the corner to look at them, the shape of whoever it is imposing and rigid. It's not that, though, not the deathly white of their uniform. It's darker instead, less obvious until she spends a few long seconds staring at him.

No, that's just a Capitol Police uniform.

On second thought, that might be worse.

"Icarus Devereux?" he asks, and then steps closer to get a better look at her. "And Emmi Langlois. Correct?"

"Never heard of them, sorry," she says, voice stunningly even. He gives her a less than impressed look. Well, at least she tried.

"I need the two of you to come with us."

There's a lot of them. More than she thinks is necessary, but what does she know? Nothing, apparently.

"Why?" she asks. Icarus, for once in his life, and probably wisely, is keeping his mouth shut. If she wasn't holding onto him he'd probably be forcing his way in there right now, and she can't picture that ending well.

"Questioning. That's all."

Questioning. In the middle of the fucking night. With Capitol Police Force officers who didn't even have to force their way in. How the hell did they even get through the gates?

"I'd prefer not to have another fight on our hands," he says. "So if you'd come with us..."

Okay, so Soran may or may not have put up a fight about this. He probably did; it's a very Soran-like thing to do, this she knows. And in the state he was apparently in that may have just made it worse. An escalation where no one really wanted one. Even him saying it makes her want to punch him more, and judging by the look on Icarus' face he's thinking the same thing. If she so desperately was trying to avoid getting punched she would. He looks like he can hit harder than she'd really like to be hit tonight.

Which is to say, not at all.

"He's fine, if that's what you're wondering," he says. "We've got him."

Hopefully Ria and Tarquin have the good sense to hide if they see this coming. Run, and hide, because Soran's already gone.

And she gets the feeling that the two of them are about to be.

Kerensa Quinn, 55
Former Interim First Lady of Panem

It happens even quicker than she expected, once the gates are opened.

She doesn't see the commotion, but she hears it. Even from a distance it's more people that have moved through this place in pack-like unison than in dozens of years. She stays tucked away upstairs for the worst of it, until she can hear nothing any longer save for the vehicles down in the front circle, the opening and slamming of car doors.

They brought a dozen of those squadron vehicles through the gates, silent and dark. No one had saw them coming.

Besides her, but it was easy to see them coming when you let them in.

They're not properly gone but she heads downstairs regardless. The halls are quiet, ghostly almost. Most of the workers haven't even been disturbed; a few are poking their heads free from their nightly shifts to take a look around, but every single one stops when she passes by and returns to what they were doing as if they never even stopped. It's a neat trick.

Another few minutes now and they would all be gone. Not for long, she assumed, though Tate hadn't told her anything about that. It wasn't up to her where they went after this - back here or into holding seemed like the only two real options. Although they didn't appear that way they were the same in the long run. The same endgame was in mind for both.

Only one person beats her to the front doors, but she's not surprised by that. She gets one quick, split-second glance at the wreck that is her son, half-dressed and frazzled as can be, before he steps outside and she loses him. There's a phone to his ear; calling his sister, most likely. She can do more than he can, but neither of them can do anything right now.

The air outside is warm and sticky, heavy with the threat of a thunderstorm. He hasn't noticed her but she steps forward to put a hand on his shoulder before he can make his way down the steps. He whirls on her, dislodging her grip with an ease that almost manages to unnerve.

"Mom," he says, relief seeping into his voice. Odd considering she hasn't seen or spoken to him since he tried to chew her out. "What the hell is happening right now?"

Evander starts forward again, and she grabs him this time even harder. He stops, and she hopes it's for good.

"Don't intervene," she says. "Nothing good will come of it."

"They can't just come in and do that," he says wildly. "Who said they can do that? Who—"

"The President, I assume," she tells him. "You can't fight him too."

He'd try if she let him go. Two of the cars pull away and he almost takes off running. Two of five, and one more to follow. He's a fool like his father was, always trying to take on things too big for them to handle individually.

"Mom?" Pandora asks. Silhouetted in the doorway behind him, odd shadows cast across her face, she looks even more harried than her brother. It's hard to associate this one before her with the graceful, put-together Pandora she used to know. She must have run all the way up here from the back cottage, shoes not even properly done up.

Oh how the times are changing.

"I'm going to get a car," Evander mutters, and he pulls away from her, shouldering around his sister back into the house.

"Following them won't do any good. They won't let you intervene in the questioning."

He's gone, so he doesn't answer. Pandora looks as if she's about to pick up where he left off, though. They ought to have been born twins - it would have saved her the initial pain.

"They can't take five kids and not expect someone to come running."

"And when it's several felony offenses on the table they're all adults in the eye of the law. They're all at least sixteen. They all knew what they were doing."

Talking this way is useless when Pandora's already mentally left the building. Hell, she's already beaten the squadron cars back to the police station and will get there even before Evander does.

"Mom," Pandora says again, although this time very voice is much smaller. It sounds like she's a little girl again, like she woke up scared from a nightmare. The few steps she takes closer are hesitant, nervous. As if she's the murderous monster now, when she just got rid of them. There's very little to fear anymore, but Pandora doesn't believe that.

Stubborn as always.

"Please tell me you didn't," she says quietly, but it's not phrased as a question.

"The President asked me if they'd need to acquire a warrant to get in. I told him not to bother."

"So you let them in?" she snaps. There's the fury she was waiting for, though she doesn't like the look of it on Pandora's face. Her daughter wasn't meant for anger. Her father used to tell her that when she was young, too, but maybe that changed when he did. Or maybe it all fell apart when he left.

"I can understand you hating him, okay, I can," she continues. "But this is not just about him. You're letting five of them get ripped apart for no good reason when we already lost nineteen."

"And that's exactly why I've done it," she says. "You said it yourself. Nineteen kids died out there because of this. They have families and friends who want justice. And they deserve that justice."

"And what about the justice for the ones still left alive?" she shouts. "When did you start caring more about the dead than the living? You can't say this all started with Dad, because the person who killed him is dead now, and it was the five of them who killed her. How's that for justice?"

"You can't fight the legality of this."

"Well, I'm going to try," she insists. The turn she does on her heel almost manages to look impressive. She hadn't even noticed Crynn lurking behind her, but once Pandora is gone it's just him there, staring at her with narrowed eyes. Normally if she stared back long enough he'd look away, or he'd leave. Now he's getting bold with her.

It lasts a few more seconds before he goes after her, no doubt to meet Evander in the garage. It's many more seconds than he's ever lasted in their staring matches previously.

She looks back down over the drive, where the last of the squadron cars is disappearing. It wasn't just a ploy to get her children to stay here for the night - there really isn't anything they can do to stop it. It's already in motion.

And if what she believes to be true is, then she already knows the ending.

Realized approximately twelve full hours after I finished writing it that Emmi's POV was actually supposed to be Ria's. Rocks in the brain, am I right? I know we're pretty much seeing everyone every chapter anyway, but my bad. At least it was a funny realization for myself.

Anyway, welcome the 50's :~) I repeat to kill me, I guess, but at least I'll only have to say something like that one more time.

Until next time.