Okay guys, I'm really sorry, but I was busier this weekend than I thought I was going to be, and I didn't get the Mrs. Mellark drabble done. This one is a little longer than usual, which will hopefully make up for it being late. I'm going to try my very hardest to have it up later tonight or tomorrow, but I can't make any promises, I am absolutely SWAMPED right now. Again, I'm really sorry for the delay. Anyway, this drabble is different than the others, since the District 10 boy never really interacts with Katniss. Consequently, she's in here a lot less than she was in the other drabbles. If I had made it all about her, it would have been OOC, so hopefully this is good. This was requested by gethsemane342, and I hope she enjoys it. Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to my beta/friend, SilverwingedSacrifice. Despite the fact that she hasn't read the Hunger Games, she's faithfully read and critiqued every one of these drabbles, and without her input, I wouldn't be half the writer I am now. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this drabble!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games.

I wish I could hate District 12 girl, but I can't. I can't hate someone who's been thrown into the same mess that I have. It's not her fault that she stands a chance at winning this, and I don't.

But I have to wonder…would I have had a chance, if she hadn't volunteered in the place of her sister? Maybe. I'm pretty sure that over half the potential sponsors are sponsoring her, but would any of them have sponsored me? If it weren't for my foot, I'm sure I would have gotten more sponsors anyway. I'm smart, and I'm handy with a knife, more than most of the people here can say about themselves. But it's hard to see past a disability like mine, and I'm used to being overlooked because of it.

It doesn't really matter now. I'm not going to make it home, that much is obvious. I'm never going to see anyone of them again, my family, my friends. Or Candace.

Candace. The thought of her makes my throat tighten. I remember what would have been her last words to me, as they dragged her out of the room, after my name was drawn.

You have to win, Lysander, you have to come back! For us both!

And by us both, she didn't mean her and I. She meant her baby-our baby-the one who would now never meet its father.

They'll be all right, though. She's rich enough that her fiancé, the fool he is, will still marry her, and raise the child as his own. And as much as that thought hurts me, it's better than her starving to death on the streets because her family threw her out and disowned her. That's what would have happened, if I had revealed our secret at the interviews. In our district, there is a terrible price to pay for a mistake like the one we made.

I thought about telling Caesar Flickerman and the whole of Panem the truth-that I did have a girlfriend back home, and a child I want nothing more than to see in this lifetime. But in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't. There can only be one set of star-crossed lovers in the Games, and they are the District 12 tributes.

The Careers are tracking me, I know it. It's only a matter of time until-

Something tightens around my foot, and before I can do anything, I'm jerked up into the air by my leg, dangling there helplessly.

It's over.

In that moment of terror, absolutely clarity flashes through me, and I know in my heart that I want the girl from District 12 to win. The little girl doesn't have a chance; the surviving Career tributes are monsters; Thresh and the red-head don't deserve it. And for the District 12 boy to win, the girl would have to die. He does love her, and to live knowing that the person you love had to die for you to survive would be…unbearable. She's the only one who could win and stay sane.

It's not the life I've already lived that flashes before my eyes, but the one that could have been, the one that is now lost.

When I hear the snapping of branches and the excited laughter of the Career who caught me, I turn my face away from where I know the camera will be, and I pray that Candace, wherever she is, is looking away, too.

I don't want her to have to see me die.