"

So I have been doing very little writing lately, but these last couple of days have been sort of inspiring. I really hope you all enjoy it.

Not sure if im going to stick with this, or delete the last couple chapters and start from scratch. Feedback would be fantastical!

thanks, as always, for visiting my humble fanfic :D

Clearly Mags made a mistake, and it's a mistake I intend to fix. Now.

I navigate the byzantine train corridors toward Mag's car with the spectre of the girl in the bathroom rattling around in my brain. The spectre has a name, and its name is fear.

I don't like it.

I Don't like her, with her clarity of mind, her infuriating kindness and her unmitigated beauty- what can I do with that? How can I save her without living with the image of those phantom capitol claws pawing and drooling at her if she wins? How can I save her without losing whatever is left of my soul in the process?

Mags gets to her car just a moment before I do. She sees me in the hall but enters her car anyway, closing it behind her. I take a second to collect myself before I go in.

"Whats done is done" Mags says to me before I even have two feet through the threshold "too late to switch tributes now"

She's wearing a smug smile that from anyone else would have elicited a violent response from me. It felt mocking.

"I'm sure the girl won't mind." I persist "I doubt she'll even remember tonight, you know Pandora gave her some of those horse tranquilizers she called motion sickness pills and by the time I left she was talking to herself in the bathroom"

Mags smiled "there was an anti-anxiety pill in there, I think"

"how do you know?" I ask

"The girl took three. One was pink, the other two were white. She wasn't looking when Dora put them in her hand and just took them. I think Dora was trying to help her"

"That's a contrast to earlier, when she was cursing the girl for not tipping her off that there could have been a brawl for the tribute title" I say. Pandora really was furious when she finally had the presence of mind to put everything that happened at the reapings together. She'd torn a strip out of Mags and I for our interference in the whole thing, and was only calmed down when I promised I'd take her to a private dinner Ceasar Flickerman was hosting to celebrate the games after the opening ceremonies. "Since when does she care?"

"Dora just wants her to get a good sleep so she has a fresh face for the beauticians to work with in the morning."

"I should have thought of that." I say "I still think the girl will be better off with you though"

"too late. Aiden and I have already been working together." Mags turns on the screen in her room. The reapings will be playing over and over with various commentators conjecturing for the rest of the night. Mags always makes a point of watching, not because she enjoys it, but because commentators have ways of getting information quickly, and whatever she knows about the other tributes, the better to prepare her own. She's a damned good mentor.

"I can't do this Mags" I say, and I mean it. I see my desperation register in Mags' eyes but she's unmoved.

"dramaqueen" Mags rolls her eyes "yes you can. You have no choice"

"how do you do it mags?"

"Finn, I have no idea what you mean and im tired. Speak plainly"

"How do you help them? invest yourself and get disappointed year after year?"

"I don't get disappointed year after year." She answers simply, folding down the top sheets on her bed "I've got you" she adds, as proof.

"but how did you justify helping me win, knowing what would end up happening to me?" I ask. It's a heavy question, and the weight of it slumps her shoulders. Mags is my rock, and she always has been, but since my victory, since the first time I got a call from President snow asking me to make a visit for him- we've never really spoken about it. None of the victors do. It's one thing to live with the memory of the games and the ghosts of your victims, and the multitude of burdens that comes with being victor- but to train others for your same fate is the icing on the crazy cake. Very few can handle it, nevermind talk about it.

Mags looks about the room and I know she doesn't want to answer, not when they can hear us. "People like you finnick." She says emphasising how much they like me when she raises her brow, as if giving a hint "you didn't need my help to influence the audience." Her eyes are searching mine to see if I understand.

I'm not sure if I do.

She sighs, frustrated "you didn't need my help to win. But I do need your help with these" she says sternly, shaking the bedsheets with her frail hands. Mags doesn't like things over her when she sleeps, but hates the feel of a made bed under her.

I take the other side and help her pull them down, and fold them at the base of the bed layer by layer. As we fold the final layer Mags starts humming laz's tune. She's watching me while she does it. Still searching for understanding in my eyes.

And then it dawns on me. She has bigger plans then just being a good mentor- she thinks that victors hold sway over the capitol. The people.

I'm a pawn to her too.

She finally breaks eye contact with me. She knows I get it and she stops humming "that damn song really is catchy, isn't it?"

"I don't think so" I answer. My first instinct is to feel betrayed, but then I think of her son, who died the year after I was reaped for treason. Of the boy Laz who was too young to die with them, whipped in the square. I always knew there was a streak of rebellion in Mags. One I thought I shared- but to sacrifice a life to gain a possible future upper hand is low. Too low for my Mags.

"Oh I don't know" Mags says in an airy voice. She won't make eye contact with me – I know there's an element of shame there. "It creeps up on you" she says with a bite of bitterness.

"Goodnight Mags" I say dismissively, slipping through the door

"Finn" she calls after me.

I hesitate, but turn to go back in.

"you've got to do what you can while you have the power to do it." She's explaining herself, but theres advice there too "do what you can live with doing. We're all going to die, Finnick. Victors live with being mentors because they have to – sometimes they go the extra mile because a tribute presents something vital- and the mentor can't live with letting that light get snuffed out. Motives are meaningless if you don't put them in the context of the perpetrators heart"

"I'm not following you Mags"

"You could have saved Avin last year. You chose to let him die, rather than suffer a the fate of victory" she says "The only reason I didn`t judge you for not going to dinner with that advisor was because I understood where your heart was. That you couldn't bring yourself to do it"

"I see" I answer, before turning and making my way back out of the car and toward my own, every step forward belabored by the new burden on my back; this insane notion of rebellion- of victors being capable of inciting or even assisting such an endeavor is so fantastical that I can't help but Feel sorry for Mags. Her terrible life, all the pain she's seen, has truly made her delusional.