A/N: And thus, this chapter was born.

D12- 16- (Katniss Everdeen)

Chills creep through me as I walk through the small crowd of people. It's all miners who are awaiting their fate, since the mines are blown up. But still, they stare, and I walk right past them, my head down, my eyes glued to the ground, cursing out my peripheral vision for making me see those eyes who see right through me, who see my wrongs, who punish me for them silently. Maybe one of them knew Peeta…

No, I can't think like this. I am supposed to be a victor. I am supposed to be strong.

But I'm not. I really wish I could collapse into Gale's strong arms, but instead I life my head and continue to silently walk between him and my mother, their footsteps matching mine as we walk quickly over to the doctor from the Capitol as she tends to a broken girl, one they say could be Prim, but they needed three people who knew her well to look at her and make sure it was her. She can't exactly speak yet because of post-traumatic stress.

"If it's not her, are you going to…?" Gale trails off.

I glare up at him. "Don't mention that ever again."

I believe a little bit of post-traumatic stress may've affected me, too.

He nods grimly and marches forward, as grim as I. I am trying successfully to not get my hopes up about this, because for this kid to be alive, she would have had to be in the back of the group—or the middle—and would have had to escape out of the mines and into the woods somehow. Prim was supposedly in the front of the group. Unless Rory was confused…

It's all too much to think of right now. Instead of pondering and giving me another migraine, I decide here and now that, before I even see the girl, it isn't Prim. It is not Primrose Everdeen.

But then again—could it be? Is my little duck alive?

No, she isn't. Her ducktail will always stick out as the fire came through unexpectedly, destroying her and turning her to ashes…

I can't think like that either.

I take Gale's hand, more for support than because I want to. If I don't get someone's hand to grasp onto, someone to catch me if I suddenly fall, I will fall, long and hard, to the ground, and if I fall now, I don't think I'll have the strength to get back up. Not without Prim; not without Rue, or Peeta, of Father. I have four people left in the world to hold dear. Actually, that's more than my usual three.

I have Gale. He is my best friend, my protector. He will always have my back, will always keep me safe. He could never and would never betray me, and we know everything about each other. He is my one constant in the world; the one I know won't drift to insanity and will hold me just as dearly as I hold him always.

I have Mother. She hasn't always been there for me. She is flakey and I am just now slowly getting over my grudge from when she left Prim and I to rot as she sat blankly, in her own world, replaying the explosion again and again. Though, now that I am pretty much doing just as she did, I respect her a little more despite my lingering bits of anger.

I have Cinna. He is my other confidant, someone I can tell anything to. He is going to be there for me at all times, and he is going to make me look memorable and, well, pretty while doing so. He is a genius and he is so unlike any of the other Capitolites I have ever met, but in a good way. He is simple. He is caring. He understands. He's Cinna.

And then…I think I have Haymitch. He's my mentor. He kept me alive. And despite his drunkenness, and his annoyingness, he's smart. He knows things and keeps me informed and always has, even when he didn't tell the things he told me to Peeta. Though, I wouldn't consider him a close friend like I would for Gale or Cinna. "Mentor" is the perfect word.

We finally reach where the doctor is hanging over the girl. Mother clears her throat softly, and the white-coated doctor whips around with a huge smile, a weird spiderlike tattoo, and orange, sparkly eyes.

"Hello!" he exclaims in his Capitol accent, cheery as ever. "She's going to live, if you are, in fact, as good as an apothecary as these miners say, ma'am." He flashes Mother a grin and winks. "Is she your girl—Primrose? Pretty name."

"Yes. Yes, that is Prim," Mother says immediately. "That is Prim."

Though part of her hair is singed as though she was so close to a fire that her hair caught—I wouldn't be surprised if that happened—I can tell that it's blonde and can just see the hints of what used to her cute French braid, hanging down from the back of her head, replacing her two braids like the ones she wore at the reaping. Her eyes aren't open, and her skin is burnt in places. Her face is red and has slight burns. The only place I see a major, horrible burn is on her head, which isn't good. The rest range from minor-to-moderate burns that Mother can heal.

It's Prim. It's definitely Prim.

A smile lights up my dark face. I beam down at the lifeless-looking twelve-and-almost-thirteen-year-old girl as her eyelids flutter as though she is deep in a dream, or is in a light sleep and is fighting to stay asleep. If I were her, I'd fight to stay asleep to. Sleep is where it doesn't hurt.

"Yeah," Gale mutters. "Prim."

I nod absently.

Prim's eyes snap open so suddenly; the doctor jumps and then gives a hearty laugh. I question whether he has a true medical degree or not.

Prim opens her mouth like she's about to say something, but then just closes it. Her eyes lock on mine for a second, and I know all the words she was trying to say with her mouth: "I'm Prim. It's Prim. I'm alive."

"I know," I mouth back, and she nods. My heart skips a beat at the sight of her.

My mother looks like she wants to throw her arms around Prim, but, knowing she can't, she also looks like she wants to throw her arms around every person near in giddiness. I don't blame her. It's Prim! She's alive! This is all too good to be true.

My heart sinks at this thought, but only slightly. What if it is too good to be true? What if the girl before me was telling me with her eyes, "It's not Prim. I'm not your sister. I'm sorry"? I write it off as paranoia and smile at Gale, who seems to have paranoid thoughts floating through his head too. I know he doesn't like to do anything involving emotion in public, but I know he was worried about Prim too, and if he wasn't thinking overly suspiciously, he'd be at least faintly smiling, or he'd have squeezed my hand instead of letting go. Little Gale-like things.

"She's pretty bad," says the doctor. "But with—"

"I know," Mother says. "Please, let us take her home."

"She'll need a medic's att—"

"I'm an apothecary."

"This'll take more than an apothecary's works to—"

"Let her come home," Mother says sternly but softly.

"I'm afraid that—"

"Let," I say, interrupting before my mother can, "my sister come home."

The doctor looks at me a second, and then up at Gale, and then over at mother. But his eyes linger on me the longest as he narrows his eyes and sighs. Gale's rigidness tells me he's ready to pop and attack anyone at the slightest moment's notice, which I'm not sure is comforting or exasperating.

The doctor steps back and writes something down on a sticky note. He hands it to Mother, picks up his stuff, and walks off. Prim gets off the gurney tentatively, but Gale picks her up gently before she has time to collapse, walk, or do anything. She doesn't complain except to whimper slightly, and Gale shifts her so she's more comfortable. It's Prim.

Prim is home.

"He says here she can't speak," Mother says, and my heart quickens. "But it's just fear. It'll pass." I sigh, relieved, but I don't think I can wait until it passes. I need to know with absolute certainty that this is Prim. I need to hear the story of how she escaped unnoticed but so very harmed. Though, I do have my theories, but theories are not like knowing for sure.

But I don't know anything for sure anymore, do I? Except one: I have to go back soon. Back to the Capitol. Back to where hell erupted, where Cato pinned me to the wall, where Peeta confessed his undying—ironic, isn't it?—love for me on live television, where I was engulfed in flames, where I became the girl on fire and Cato didn't like it and Clove hated it.

Where they were all alive, not just Cato and I. Marvel, Clove, Glimmer, Cato, Foxface, Thresh, Rue, Peeta—everyone was alive. Twenty-two lives hadn't been taken yet. We all held a little bit of innocence that anyone who comes out of the Games loses the minute they step into the arena. Why? Because in the arena, it's inevitable. You're thinking of killing another person. And you need to. You want to.

You're going to.

But some people didn't. They died before they could—but they still thought about it. They thought long and hard and they imagined going home and breaking Prim's little heart and sending mother into silence and making Gale hunt for himself, all alone, until he could train Rory to hunt with him. That alternate universe seems empty. Prim really needs me back.

And there's nothing in my right mind that could make me take, well, myself away from her. But as it has been displayed in the reaping bowl, through Effie's lips, and up to all the events leading to now—Prim can't keep herself from being taken from me, and it's obvious that I need her too. I need her to keep me sane enough to try and hold the insane in. I've seen Rue die, and I've seen Cato die—twice—and it's my fault that Peeta died, and people have wanted me dead, and Prim has died, and twenty-two kids died because of Cato and I—it's hard not to start feeling worse and worse until I'm insane when it comes down to that.

But he's a Career. So he doesn't feel it. Because Careers don't feel.

D2- 17- (Cato Allens)

"You're not my mentor, Haymitch." I don't know what to do - glare, stare, or scowl.

"Oh, but yes, I am, and Brutus is Katniss's as well as yours, just as I am hers and well as yours now," Haymitch tells me formally. "You both won the Games together. That calls for needing some advice from an extra person, don't you think?"

"What do you want?" I snap irritably, deciding to scowl at him.

Haymitch smiles, and his eyes skirt around the study. They fall on my victor's crown. He stands up for a moment, but then sits back down, muttering something like, "I smashed mine," or "I had a gash in mine," or "That is mine." He sits up straight again and scowls at me like I am to him, barely keeping in a smile. "You don't scare me, Cato. You don't make me feel anything except the urge to laugh," he spits, and I narrow my eyes.

"And why is that?"

"Because you're stupid! You're so stupid." Haymitch offers no more explanation and instead dives right in why he decided to welcome me in to the house I am staying in until I go back to my home in District Two and why he's even speaking to me at all. "Now, here's an example of your stupidity, but it's actually what I want to tell you. You're in trouble."

I shrug. "Like?"

"You were never supposed to let Katniss in the Careers," Haymitch tells me. "You were never supposed to love her. She was never supposed to love you. And, most of all, you were never supposed to die." Hamitch shrugs. "But all those things happened, didn't they? And now the blame's on you. All on you."

A/N: It's short, it's sweet, and it's OOC, but hey! I've been totally worked until I die, so...yeah. Expect a much better, longer, Catonisser next chapter.

No, wait, that's a lie. Expect *gags* Galeniss next chapter. Lots and lots of *gags more* Galeniss.