I'm sorry. I feel like a liar. I promised you Catoniss fluff and you're getting this instead. But I got ahead of myself and almost forgot about all of this heavy shit that needed to be dealt with. So here you are. But don't worry, the next chapter is mostly written and will be posted asap. Maybe even tomorrow. But def by New Year's.

And thank you so so much for all of the encouragement. It's very motivating, and I really appreciate it.

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Gale had been deployed to 2 a few months before Katniss gave birth to Violet, just as she was starting to show. The tension in the air between the two of them doubled after he found out she was pregnant, and they had hardly spoken in the weeks leading up to his departure. But just before he left, he had come to say goodbye, his voice and eyes full of repressed emotion. They held each other for a minute or so, their foreheads pressed together, tears in both of their eyes, and then he put his lips to hers three times before he turned and left.

Now he was back, and someone had directed him to little Violet's room in the medical wing.

Katniss gasped and threw her arms around him when he walked in the door.

"Can I hold her?" he asked after they'd spent some time catching up and filling each other in on the events of the last handful of months.

"Sure!" And she handed him her daughter.

He smiled down at her in his arms, but there was something sad about it. "She looks like you," he said wistfully. And then his smile faded and a scowl appeared in its place.

Katniss leaned over to see if Violet was hungry or needed a diaper change. But no. She had simply opened her blue eyes-Cato's blue eyes-and was looking at Gale in confusion, as if to say You're not my father.

And her heart broke. Because even though she wasn't in love with Gale, she still loved him, and she knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that things could never go back to the way they had been between them before her first reaping. Their bond was irreparably broken. Another casualty of the games.

He lifted his head and put on a brave front. "So when this is all over," he said, handing Violet back to her, "which it looks like it will be in a few months, are you gonna move back to 12 with her? Victor's Village wasn't really damaged in the bombing, you know."

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The company of soldiers Cato had been training that day was pulled from him earlier than expected to be briefed on their upcoming mission, so he decided to go see Katniss and Violet for an hour or so before dinner. He was almost to Violet's room when a familiar voice wafted through the cracked door and out into the hallway and made him stop in his tracks.

"So when this is all over," Gale was saying, "which it looks like it will be in a few months, are you gonna move back to 12 with her? Victor's Village wasn't really damaged in the bombing, you know."

"Yeah," Katniss answered. "Well I'll keep her for the first year, and then after that I'm not sure. We haven't really discussed it."

"We?"

"Yeah. Me and Cato. I guess I figure she'll spend at least part of her time with him. Wherever he ends up. If it's 2, that would be a long way, so she'd probably take fewer trips and longer ones, but I doubt he'll go back there. He'll probably stay in 13, and if that's the case then he'll be able to see her pretty often." There was silence. And then…"What?" she asked.

"Why the fuck would you let him ever take her?"

"Because he's her father, Gale," she bit out. "And he's good with her." It sounded like she was making an effort to stay calm.

"You're gonna let that rapist-"

"Don't call him that!" she erupted. "He's not a rapist and you know it!"

"Ok, fine, he's not a rapist. You're gonna let that murderer have a hand in raising her?!"

"He's no more of a murderer than me!"

"What?! No. No. It's different with you."

"Is it really?"

"Yes! It's completely different! He's a Career! They're monsters!"

"I'm not so sure about that anymore. Maybe they're the ones that got it right. 1 and 2. If we'd all done what they do there would have been no Rues killed. No Prims reaped. I don't think anyone realized it, but in their own way, that was rebellion. To take control over who went in. To try to minimize the damage to their children and to the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers."

"Are you fucking defending him?!" Gale spat out, his shock evident in his voice.

"I guess so, yeah."

"But after what he did to Peeta-how can you defend him? You can't possibly have forgiven him for that."

"I guess I have," she said slowly, as though her mind was realizing her words as fact for the first time. "Yeah...I do. I forgive him for Peeta. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't."

"And what about what he did to you during your second games?" Gale demanded.

"We've been over this Gale," she said in exasperation. "There's nothing to forgive him for with that. He didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't even his idea. We had to convince him to do it."

It was obviously too much for Gale. "I don't even know who you are anymore!" he accused.

"You're right. I don't think that you do." But there was no anger in her tone. Only sadness at the truth in what he'd just said.

There was the sound of something slamming (a fist into a wall, maybe?), and instinct drove Cato to duck into an empty room just as Gale swung the door all the way open and stomped down the hall.

Cato bowed his head and let out a shaky breath. He felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted off of him and he wanted to cry with relief.

He hadn't realized that he needed someone, anyone, but especially her, to forgive him for the things he'd done until she spoke the words.

He made his way quietly back out into the hall and over to the doorway to see Katniss sitting with her back to him, her shoulders shaking as she wept without making a sound.

He watched her for a few seconds, and then, feeling like a voyeur, he turned and slipped away.

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Violet was over five pounds and had started to nurse on her own, so she moved into a bassinet in the room that Katniss shared with her mother and sister.

Katniss had just brought her down to visit Cato half an hour later than they had agreed upon the day before. "Sorry," she said as she entered. "She was hungry and screaming and impatient. I figured the visit would be more enjoyable if she had a full tummy."

"Thanks," Cato laughed, and took her from Katniss's arms. "What's it like to be hungry?" he asked once his daughter was settled against his shoulder. "I mean really hungry."

Katniss didn't say anything at first, and her gaze became distant and unfocused, as though she was reaching deep into her past. "It feels like your insides are trying to eat themselves. And you're lightheaded but you have a headache at the same time. Your muscles cramp up. And even the littlest gesture feels like a monumental effort. At some point you get in danger of just not caring anymore."

"But you remembered the stuff your dad taught you."

Her eyes snapped to his face. "How did you know about that?"

"Haymitch was telling Brutus about it on the tour. He said you almost starved to death but then you remembered the stuff your dad taught you."

"Peeta is why I remembered."

"What?"

"He saved my life. We'd never even spoken to each other." And then she told him about Seam kids and town kids and the day she'd rummaged through the trash out back of the Mellark bakery because she'd taken to boiling old mint leaves in water, and how Peeta burned the bread on purpose and took a beating for it and then threw it to her.

And how the next day, as they met each other's eyes, she glanced away, embarrassed, and her eyes fell on the dandelion. "And then I remembered that my father had taught me that dandelions were edible, and that there were all kinds of other plants I could gather, too. And that he'd started to teach me to hunt and he'd left a couple bows and some arrows hidden in the woods. So foraging led to hunting and fishing and, eventually, after I met Gale, to trapping too. So Peeta saved my life. And Prim's and my mom's."

"So it wasn't fake."

"What wasn't?"

"With you and Peeta. It wasn't fake."

She dropped her eyes, which were starting to tear up, and opened her mouth, then closed it again. "It was and it wasn't," she managed. "I can't...I don't know how to explain it." And she turned her face away so he wouldn't see her cry.

It was terribly awkward for a minute or two, as Cato, who understood how to comfort his daughter, but not her mother, averted his eyes and patted Violet's back.

And then Violet let out a rather unladylike belch and spit up all over his shoulder and he burst out laughing.

Katniss turned and scrubbed her hand across her cheeks, and when she saw what had happened, she started to giggle too.

So then everything was ok again and they didn't talk about Peeta Mellark anymore.

But that night Cato thought about him. A lot.

Five times-at least that he knew of-he had saved Katniss's life. Maybe more.

First, when he threw her the bread. And he took a beating for it.

Second, when he thought to come up with the whole star-crossed lovers thing, which eventually led to the rule change.

Third, when he convinced Cato and the other Careers to try to wait her out under the tree during their first games.

Fourth, when he took the stab-Cato's stab-intended for her.

Fifth, when he hoisted her up onto the Cornucopia during the mutt attack.

And Cato had actually felt contempt for Peeta, when really, he was pretty much the reason that Katniss-and therefore Violet-was alive. He had been every bit as brave, every bit as tough as Cato, if not more so. But on his own terms, and not his district's.

He even saved me from myself, Cato thought. From killing her.

It was a humbling realization.

I'm sorry he said silently to Peeta Mellark. And thank you. They seemed so inadequate, those words. They weren't enough. But Cato had never been good with words.

And then his thoughts turned to Katniss.

She was every bit as tough as him too. He could picture her at twelve years old, thirteen years old, fourteen years old, slipping off every morning to secure her family's food for the day before she went to school, becoming lean and tough and cold because she'd had no other choice. She'd had her own training for the games. Only hers had come from real life and made his time at the Academy look like some foolish imitation.

And he wondered what she would have been like if her father had never died. If then there would only have been the soft, warm side of her. The one she showed to her sister and her daughter and sometimes-sometimes-to him as the father of her child. And not the hard, cold side that she presented most of the time. And he was sad that her father had died.

And he felt sorry for Katniss, who had experienced so many tragedies. Besides the death of her father, there was Prim's reaping and Peeta's death.

But the selfish part of him was glad that Effie Trinket had drawn Prim's name from the bowl and that Peeta had sacrificed his life for Katniss's. Because if neither of those things had happened, his daughter would not be alive.

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Haymitch came to see him two days later, his face grave.

"Sit down son. I need to tell you something."

Cato knew this couldn't be good, and his insides filled with dread.

"The war is officially over. We won." Haymitch said. "There's gonna be an announcement later today."

"That's a good thing."

"Yes, but there was one last...skirmish. In 2. The citizens rose up against our occupation yesterday."

"Brutus-"

"He's fine."

"My parents-"

"I'm sorry son."

There must be some mistake. "But Plutarch said he'd keep them safe." The gamemaker had deemed it too risky to try to smuggle Cato's parents out of 2. For one thing, almost all of the Peacekeepers in that particular district were loyal to the Capitol, and Plutarch had very few of his people there working undercover for the rebellion. For another thing, almost all of the citizens were loyalists-including Cato's parents, according to the few informants Plutarch did have there.

In spite of their political leanings, Cato and Plutarch had been concerned that if Snow figured out that the quell was faked-or if he was just mad at Cato for "inadvertently" riling up the people-he would have the Hadleys arrested and tortured anyway for revenge.

But Plutarch had been a master of deception, and had managed to pretend to be on the President's side throughout the entire uprising and the war that followed immediately on its heels. Snow never suspected that the 75th games had been a facade, and Plutarch had also managed to convince him to abandon Cato and Katniss in the arena and focus all of his resources and energy on the riots in the districts. It had not been a difficult case to make, and Snow had simply assumed that Cato had killed Katniss and that Cato would either die in the arena from starvation or be plucked up by the rebels so they could torture and execute him for the rape of their beloved mascot.

It had worked out perfectly, but if Cato's parents suddenly went missing, it would have raised some red flags and made the President suspicious. So Plutarch finagled things so that the handful of high-ranking District 2 Peacekeepers sympathetic to the rebellion kept a detail on the Hadleys, ready to scoop them up and out of harm's way should Snow for some reason decide to mess with them.

"He did keep them safe," Haymitch said. "From Snow and the Capitol. But he couldn't keep them from joining in with the other people of 2 and attacking our forces. They were both shot to death."

Cato just stared at Haymitch in shock.

"If it's any comfort, they died quickly. They didn't suffer," the older man said.

Cato was silent for a minute as he processed it all. And then, all of a sudden, he was on his feet, shaking and angry. "How do you know they're not lying to me?" he demanded, his voice fierce and his feet pacing back and forth across his floor. "Maybe they're just saying that. Plutarch has lied before. This whole fucking war was started with a lie. Maybe he never kept my parents safe. Maybe Snow had them all along and tortured them."

"Whoa, whoa, easy there son." Haymitch said, rising and raising his hands, palms out, in front of him to try to placate Cato. "Brutus is on his way here. He identified the bodies for the authorities. He can tell you when he gets here. Or if that's not enough, Plutarch will have them flown here-or you flown there, whichever you prefer-so you can see for yourself."

Then Haymitch pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up a text that Brutus had sent him. "Here," he said, handing it to Cato. It was a photo of his parents. Dead and lying beside each other in black plastic body bags, unzipped to show their faces, their skin pale, their lips blue. One gunshot wound in each of their foreheads. All of his fight left him and he had to sit down on the floor immediately to keep from fainting.

He hadn't know them well, but he had cared about them. They were his parents, after all. He had felt enough love for them to let himself be pimped out to desperate Capitol housewives. But they were dead anyway now. And it was all his fault.

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He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his head in his hands when she entered. Haymitch had come to get her. "Bring the baby," he said after he explained everything. "He needs to be cheered up."

"Cato," she said in an aching voice when she saw him. He didn't look up.

So she sat down beside him and waited.

"It's my fault," he finally said.

"No it's not. They made their own choice. They fought for what they believed in. It just happened to be different from what you believed in."

He laughed bitterly. "Thank you," he said. "For thinking so well of me. But do you really think I agreed to the whole quell plan because I gave a rat's ass about freeing the people of Panem? Because I didn't. I did it for selfish reasons. To get back at Snow and all these Capitol fucks. And so this is karma bitch slapping me across the face for it. I'm not good like you. I really am a monster."

"You're not a monster," she said, and she meant it. "I've seen you with your daughter. I've seen you." She set Violet down and reached up and pried his hands from his head, and then she placed the baby in his arms. Violet immediately snuggled into her father's warmth, and Katniss felt his body relax just the teeniest bit beside hers. "Maybe you did it for selfish reasons, but look at all the good it's caused. Look at her. Look at your daughter. And all of these children who won't be reaped. And all of these people who won't be held down by their government anymore. Who won't have to endure starvation and violence anymore at the hands of Snow."

"It was all a lie. What I did in the arena."

"Well, and I lied too. Do you hate me for it?"

"No."

"Then logically you can't really hate yourself for it either."

His body relaxed a little more, but after a couple of minutes of silence he let out a snort. "I may as well have just told Snow to fuck himself when he told me I had to screw all those women. It didn't do my parents any good in the end. I didn't do my parents any good in the end."

"Yes you did. If you'd said no to being whored out Snow would have had them tortured. You saved them from suffering."

"What do you think they thought of me?" he asked. "Of what I did to you during the quell?"

The question took her completely by surprise. She didn't know what to say. "I don't know. Are you worried that they thought badly of you because they didn't realize it was planned?"

"Yes. But I'm even more worried that they didn't think badly of me. I'm worried that they were proud. They could never see past 2. They lived in a bubble. They were brainwashed. You should have heard the way they talked about people from outlying districts-the way I used to talk about people from outlying districts. Like they were less than human. God. They were so proud of me when I got into the Academy. And after my first games. It's sick, the way I was raised." He fell silent and put his lips to Violet's hair.

Katniss didn't say anything. She just sat there beside him as he hugged his daughter.

And then after a few minutes she reached out and took the hand that was closest to her and she opened her mouth and she began to sing.

After a couple of songs, she thought of something else she wanted to tell him, so she stopped.

"Snow killed Finnick's parents. You know that right? And he killed off Johanna's family. And Haymitch's. Because all of them fell out of line at some point. So if you're really struggling with the guilt of all this, of your decision, talk to them. Even though it's not exactly the same, I know they'll be able to relate. They all feel some responsibility for the death of their loved ones. And I feel responsible for Peeta's death. And Rue's. Even though I didn't technically kill them."

She opened her mouth and sang a few notes, and then she stopped again.

"And I know you haven't spoken to Brutus since the tour, but I think...I mean you should do what you want, but maybe you should forgive him. You don't know why he made his decision to fall in line. You don't know what the alternative was. Plus, he's like family to you."

And then she started to sing again.

And as Cato turned to look at the mother of his child, he remembered what Brutus had said to him.

The other Victors. They're your family now son. They understand you better than anyone else. And you understand them. You just don't realize it yet.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall and he concentrated on the sound of her silver voice and the feel of her hand in his and the comforting smell, milky and powdery, of the baby in his arms.

Brutus was right, he decided. And Katniss was right too.

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Haymitch told her about 12 a couple of weeks later.

She was asking him if he thought they could go back any day now, since the war was officially over, and he frowned and eyed her so sadly that it made her heart freeze up in her chest.

"What?" she asked. "What is it?"

"They bombed 12 early on sweetheart."

"I know that Haymitch."

"Yes, but they didn't tell you the extent of it. There's not...there's not really a District 12 to speak of anymore." He winced as he waited for her reaction.

"Like…?"

"Like it was blown to smithereens."

"Well at least almost everyone got out." He winced again. "Haymitch. I said at least almost everyone got out. Right?"

"Yes. A lot of people got out. But a lot of them didn't."

"Like how many of them didn't?"

"About a third."

"A third?!" She jumped up from her seat. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Because you were pregnant and we didn't want to upset you and have something happen to the baby."

"I haven't been pregnant for months!"

"I know, but then you were so happy and we didn't want to rain on your parade and so we just kept putting it off and putting it off and…"

"I want to see it," she said, her voice shaking.

"Sweetheart…"

"I WANT TO SEE IT!"

So he pulled up the photos on his phone and showed her. Apart from Victor's Village, it was nothing but a pile of ashes and rubble. And skeletons.

"Who didn't make it out?"

"Sweetheart…"

"WHO DIDN'T MAKE IT OUT?!"

"Greasy Sae. And Darius. And Ripper. And Madge."

White. Everything went white. She felt nothing. She saw nothing. She heard nothing. There was no such thing as time. The world ceased to exist. There was nothing but white. Nothing but blankness.

And then somewhere off in the distance, she thought she heard a baby crying, and a familiar voice. A man's voice that she couldn't place a face or a name to. And she was mildly annoyed because something was shaking her. And then colors and shapes began to form in front of her eyes and compose themselves into the familiar surroundings of the room she shared with Prim and her mother. And the man's voice became louder and clearer, and his face, with its sharp angles and blue eyes, came into focus mere inches from hers.

"Katniss don't do this. DO NOT do this. DO NOT do to Violet and me what your mother did to you and Prim. Cry or scream or yell or break things," Cato said to her, his hands on her shoulders, his eyes on her face. "Do whatever you have to do. But don't check out on us."

His words snapped her out of her fog immediately, and sent her plummeting into grief and despair.

"But it's my fault!" she wailed. "It's all my fault! I never should have said yes to Plutarch!" And she opened her mouth to speak again, but a sob came out instead. And then another and another and another, and then she was weeping uncontrollably. Her guilt was eating her insides and stabbing her heart and stealing the breath from her lungs and she wished more than anything that she had simply died in her first games.

But then Cato's arms were around her and he was hauling her into his lap. "It's no more your fault than mine," he said into her hair, as he cradled her head against his chest. "And what choice did you have? You could have sat back and done nothing, and watched children starve-I know you know how awful that is, you almost starved to death yourself. It's just like you said to me a couple weeks ago. The games would have continued and little girls like Rue would have been reaped and killed and people would have been beaten and women raped by Peacekeepers and the oppression would have continued. So you made this choice instead. And maybe there were more deaths in the short-term. But not in the long-run. And they were quick. Their suffering wasn't drawn out. It wasn't ideal, but it was what you had to work with. And like you said about my parents. They made their own choices. So did the people in the districts. They were ready to rebel and fight back. You just provided them with an excuse."

"But I'm a liar," she whimpered, her voice pitiful and thick with tears. "I lied to the entire nation."

"We both did. And maybe we did the wrong thing, I don't know. But when all you have are two awful choices in front of you, you make the one with the consequences that seem the least horrible. And that's what you did. Don't you remember what you asked me? Do you hate me for what I did that last day in the quell? On the beach? For my part in the lie?"

"No," she whispered.

"Then you can't hate yourself for your part in it, even if you have regrets and guilt over it. You have to forgive yourself. Because at least you did it for the right reasons. You're not like me. I did it because I was pissed at Snow and the Capitol for whoring me out. And because I was pissed that being a Victor didn't turn out to be everything I thought it would be. I did it for revenge. And I did it to prove to myself that I wasn't a coward like Brutus who just went along with the system and let them make him their puppet. I did it for my own pride. You did it to free Panem. And because of it, our daughter will never be reaped. And she'll never starve."

She didn't think she'd ever heard him say so much-and so articulately-at once. He was incredibly persuasive, as persuasive as Peeta at his finest, and it calmed her down immensely, though she still continued to cry into his chest for a while. But eventually, she lifted her head and pushed her hair out of her face and wiped her nose and her eyes. "Did you know?" she asked. "About how bad the bombing was?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation, his eyes on hers. "But I assumed you knew too."

She nodded. "Where's Violet?"

"She's right here," Cato said, lifting her off of him and helping her to a standing position. Then he turned and retrieved Violet from her bassinet and placed her in Katniss's arms. "She's the main reason you have to forgive yourself. And if you start to check out again, you have to remember that. Because I would try to raise her on my own. But I don't know if I could. I don't know if I could do for her what you did for your sister."

"Yes you could. You'd be fine. And you wouldn't have to do it on your own. My mom and Prim would help."

"Still…promise me."

"I promise. I promise I won't check out."

He released a shaky breath. "Ok. Good. Because, you know, she came out of our lie. So it can't be all bad."

She wiped her nose on her sleeve again and looked up at him. "You're right," she nodded. "You're right."

And then there was a soft knock on the door and Prim poked her head in. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah. Or I'm better than I was at least. I don't know if I'm ok yet. But I will be."

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That night Katniss thought about Cato as she lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. About everything he had said.

DO NOT do to Violet and me what your mother did to you and Prim.

I know you know how awful that is, you almost starved to death yourself.

But when all you have are two awful choices, you make the one with the consequences that seem the least horrible.

It was unnerving, how well he understood her. How he'd known exactly what to say to snap her back into reality, and then what to say to comfort her.

But what really made her shiver was the way he referred to them as a unit.

When he had needed comforting, she'd referred to Violet as your daughter.

But he had referred to her as our daughter.

And he had implied that he needed her too. DO NOT do to Violet and me what your mother did to you and Prim.

She had thought that her dreams that night would be terrible. That they would be filled with blood and flames and the ghosts of Greasy Sae and Darius and Ripper and Madge.

But she saw nothing but black, and she dreamed of nothing but the feel of Cato's strong arms around her. Of nothing but the feel of his chest, warm and solid, against her cheek. Of nothing but the sound of his voice, low and soothing, in her ear.

It was so vivid that she almost cried when she woke to find herself alone in her bed.