A/N: Finnick's POV

I woke up a bit late on the third day of training for the tributes and initially felt panicked. Why hadn't Mags woken me? Then I remembered that Mags and I had agreed to let Luke and Ligeia sleep in so that they would be well rested for the private sessions. She must have decided there was no point waking me up early when Luke wouldn't be up early, either. I pulled on clothes, stumbled out to breakfast, and found Mags sitting at the table, looking out on the Capitol, her back turned to the food.

"Sleep well?" she asked.

"Well enough," I replied, stretching out and sitting down. "Strange to think I'm almost sixteen. It's too bad I won't be able to have a proper party or anything. Maybe Haymitch will find extra liquor for watching the Games that day, or something."

She was surprisingly silent, staring out at the Capitol.

"Mags?" I said, sitting down beside her, trying to figure out what she was looking at. "You okay?"

She smiled sadly, put her hand on mine and said, "I'm old, Finnick. I'm getting too tired to do this for too much longer. Maybe Ligeia will take over for me, or maybe I'll die and you'll take on two tributes."

"Don't," I said earnestly. "You're not going to die, Mags. You'll outlive all of us and you'll have the strength to mentor for another fifty years."

She gave a humorless chuckle and patted my hand gently. She shook her head a little.

I didn't want Mags to die. She was just about the sweetest person I'd met in my life. She'd been around almost as long as the Games themselves, a familiar face to all and a beloved figure of the Games. What would any of us do without her?

Luke and Ligeia came in for breakfast and we greeted them, turning back to the table. We had discussed their strategies the night before, but it didn't hurt going over it all again, just in case. This would be the last time I saw them before they did their private sessions.

"So, are you ready for the big day?" I asked, more aware than ever of how I was doing as a mentor.

The truth of the matter was, Mags wasn't getting any younger. Other mentors had mentioned and I had noticed, that her speech was becoming less clear every year, although still several years out from simply becoming a garbled mess.

Ligeia had the same hard, determined look I remembered seeing on Stella's face the morning of my own final training day. Luke, on the other hand, looked a bit nauseous.

"Don't forget to eat up," I said, piling food onto his plate for him. "And be sure to eat a large lunch. If you're not thinking about your stomach, you'll do better."

"I'll be thinking about my stomach in the arena," Luke muttered.

"No you won't, stupid, we'll have all the supplies," Ligeia snapped.

"Things can happen to supplies, Ligeia," Mags said kindly. "It doesn't hurt to plan for the worst. Your chances of surviving will be greater in the event of something happening to your food."

Ligeia's mouth tightened, but she nodded. We sent them on their way as soon as they'd eaten and Mags said, "I'm worried about them."

"Ligeia's got a lot of promise," I argued. "Everybody says so."

"She's also got a lot of pride, arrogance, and not a lot of ability to listen to others," Mags sighed. "All of those can be incredibly dangerous. And Luke… he's got good instincts, but I don't think he's deadly enough to win."

"Just because he's not particularly deadly doesn't mean he's not capable of winning," I reasoned. "I mean, he could end up outlasting the others, letting everybody else kill each other off–"

"If you're a Career, that only works if you can somehow be in charge," Mags argued. "Otherwise, he'll be expected to do the dirty work and put himself on the line to protect the alpha. If he were on his own, absolutely, but he's not. He's got an alliance to put himself at risk for."

I bit my lip, looking down at the street. I hadn't thought of that. I knew he was weak and encouraged him to join with the Careers to help protect himself from them. Had I made the wrong call? Would he have been safer by himself, or with some unaffiliated ally, like Draven or the District Seven tributes? But there was no turning back, so I had to do everything within my power to keep him alive in spite of my possibly grievous miscalculation.

"They'll be fine," I reiterated. "You'll see. They'll get their scores tonight and everything will be fine. Just a couple more days and we won't have time to worry."

"No, we won't," she agreed. "We'll be too busy trying to keep them alive."

I shook my head, trying very hard to smile, but it wasn't easy, knowing from personal experience the things I would have to do to keep Luke alive, and he didn't hold half the promise Aidan had. I wasn't sure if it made it easier or harder to bite back my pride and put on my persona, knowing that Luke truly would not likely survive without my help, but it tasted sour, all the same.

"What have you planned for today?" she asked. "More secret planning with Lyme?"

"It's not secret," I said with an honest laugh. "You're certainly invited, too. No, Blight said he wanted to talk to me. I think it might be about Scarlett."

Mags gave me a bit of an exasperated look and I knew she wanted me to drop my concern for Scarlett, to focus on Luke, but how could I? Something was very, very wrong, and just because I hadn't figured out just what it was yet didn't mean it was all in my head. I even thought I'd seen Haymitch looking at her with concern at one point, but I probably imagined that.

I took my leave of Mags after not too long, heading up for the seventh floor, and the first thing I saw was Scarlett sitting on the arm of the sofa, staring blankly into space, obvious tearstains on her cheeks. Something, something had happened to her. I suppressed a shiver when I sat down beside her and she didn't even notice my presence.

"Scarlett?"

She kept staring straight ahead as though she hadn't heard me. I placed my hand on her arm and she jumped, looking around at me with fear in her eyes.

"Scarlett?" I asked. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"What?" she said in a tired, anxious sort of voice. "Oh, yes. Nightmare."

Something in the pit of my stomach nagged at me, telling me that she wasn't being honest with me. But why would she lie? She very likely had nightmares. I certainly did, as did every other victor I had talked to.

"Scarlett, is there something you want to talk about?"

She shook her head.

"No, thank you, Finnick. I think I just need a bit of a lie in before training is over for the day."

Without another word, Scarlett stood, staggered off to her room, and left me sitting on the couch, wondering what could be wrong. It only took another few minutes for Blight to come out of his room, looking around in confusion, probably for Scarlett.

"Hey, Finnick," he said, still frowning. "Have you seen–?"

"Scarlett?" I said. "Yeah, she just went off for a nap, apparently. Is she okay? She looked really out of it."

"She didn't get much sleep last night," Blight said roughly, sitting down across from me. "How have you been?"

I blinked.

Something had been really incredibly off about Scarlett and Blight was engaging me in small talk?

"I've been fine," I said honestly. "Guess my nightmares aren't as bad."

"No," Blight said cryptically. "No, I don't imagine they would be."

I tried for a moment to puzzle out what that meant as he poured us some orange juice. But I didn't want orange juice. I wanted answers.

I didn't turn it away, though, when he held out the glass to me.

"What's really wrong with Scarlett?" I asked bluntly as he took a long drink of his beverage. "Why won't anyone tell me what's wrong?"

Blight just looked at me for a moment, considering me, before setting his glass down on the side table and saying, "Scarlett's got a lot on her plate right now. She's not been sleeping well and likely won't for quite a while. She's gone through a lot lately, and I'm sure you remember what it was like when you first became a mentor. It's not easy. Also, you have to remember that your first tribute was a friend of yours. Hers is maybe not a friend, but someone she's known most of her life. That's a lot of added pressure."

I shook my head. Yes, being a mentor was not a simple task, but Scarlett was an intelligent girl and a wonderful strategist, as she had proven in her own Games. The first year was definitely the hardest, but Blight wasn't just making her do it all alone, and she seemed to actually be doing far less of her share of District Seven's work than I had done of District Fours the year before. Certainly, Mags expected more of me in my second year than my first, but she hadn't let me sleep in or cruise along. And the other thing was that he would expect her nightmares to be worse, but what would be worse about her Games than mine? I was sure that something was wrong, and nothing was adding up.

"What are you all keeping from me?" I said softly. "You know perfectly well that Scarlett's tougher than this. Something really awful must be going on if I find her crying to herself and staring at a wall, not even realizing I was in the room."

"Yes," Blight said slowly. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence and say everything's fine, but it's not my secret to tell. When she's ready to tell you, she will."

I could have thrown something, I was so frustrated, but it wouldn't do to throw a temper tantrum. No one would be any more likely to tell me anything and I certainly wouldn't gain any of the respect of my peers. Technically, I wasn't even sixteen yet.

So I relented and we talked about the Games, discussed who we thought would get the lowest score, and the highest score, and who would be the one to beat.

"I guess Sebastien," I said without really thinking it through. "Or Ligeia."

"But there's also Blake and Draven," he said casually. "Don't count out non-Careers, Finnick. I know you're used to working with Lyme and Mags and Cashmere and Gloss and whatnot, but Scarlett came out of nowhere, and she's far from the first to do so. There are some interesting possible winners this year."

"I suppose you're right," I said diplomatically. In truth, I didn't see how Sebastien and Ligeia could lose unless their fellow Careers turned on them, which wasn't likely. After all, it was a reasonably weak group of Careers. They would need all the help they could get to just get by for a while.

We continued to talk until lunchtime, and then we both grew too distracted with the knowledge that in a few hours' time our tributes would be returning from training to await their scores and so we said our goodbyes for the day and I went back down to the fourth floor, my mind still half on Scarlett, wondering what could be bothering her.

"I was worried Luke would beat you here," Mags said casually. "Did you find your answers?"

"No," I said, frowning, as I sat down beside her. "Only more questions."

"That is often the way of things," she said, offering me some stew.

We sat in almost absolute silence, waiting for Luke and Ligeia. When Luke came in he didn't look especially pleased with himself, which meant I couldn't hope for a surprisingly good score from him. Ligeia, however, came puffed up like a fisherman who'd gotten the catch of the day on her first go round and I couldn't help but feel a bit envious of Mags. Getting her sponsors, keeping her alive, would be so much easier than my task of keeping Luke alive. Just once I would like to have the favored tribute instead of the underdog.

They went to their rooms for a few hours to rest and sit anxiously in wait of the announcements of training scores. It would be quite a while, after dinner, when they would announce the scores, and that was one of the disadvantages of going so early. Their anxiety was greatest when they had already gone, however, and not before. The poor people in Districts Ten, Eleven, and Twelve had to wait for hours in anxiety for the other tributes to display their skills. It was better to be nervous when it was all over than when you were trying to be impressive.

Dinner was silent. I noticed that Ligeia's silent smugness was very different from her cousin's talkative smugness. Stella had rambled on and on about her accomplishments, about her great abilities and their display, and how she was going to have a great score. I probably should have been grateful that Ligeia wasn't quite as verbally obnoxious, but I honestly couldn't have said which of them annoyed me more.

When it was finally time for the announcements, we all sat down in front of the screen waiting.

Sebastien received a ten, then eights for the rest of District One and Two. Luke got an eight, which was respectable but certainly nothing special. Ligeia puffed up proudly as Caesar Flickerman announced her ten. Even those of us who had considered him impressive were surprised when District Six's fourteen-year-old Blake earned an eleven. Cephalus and Charlotte earned an eight and a six, respectively. Here were many fours, fives, and even the occasional six or seven, but I was certainly shocked to find that Draven Dupre of District Ten had earned not a ten, or even as low as an eight, but a six.

Luke let out a bit of a sigh of relief, but Ligeia continued to watch the screen with a hard, unreadable expression. I supposed that she wasn't ready to stop being suspicious just yet, knowing that Draven's greatest danger might not be in something he showed to the Gamemakers, might not even have been something he could have displayed in a training session… Not to mention that he came toward the end of the string of tributes on the display. The Gamemakers were hardly paying attention by that point, and who could blame them? They had seen mediocre performance after mediocre performance for hours by that point. Why bother continuing to watch?

"You should probably go off to bed now," I said softly, still staring at the screen. "We've got to train you up for your interviews in the morning before we send you off to the stylists."

They agreed, going off to their rooms and I looked over at Mags.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Should we split the work? I don't think I'm rather up for teaching Luke posture and whatnot."

"Are you suggesting that I work with them on presentation and you do content?" Mags asked, an amused smile on her face.

I shrugged.

"If you don't mind," is said slowly, hoping she wouldn't.

"No," she said with a nod, "as long as we agree to strategies to try before I send you off, and I warn you that Ligeia may not listen to you, anyway."

"I'm honestly not particularly worried about her content," I said. "With a ten she could pretty much flash a pretty smile, wear a decent dress, and get sponsors no matter what. It doesn't hurt that they've been talking about her relationship to Stella, as nobody's forgotten how close Stella came to winning."

"I think the fact that you won ensures that until there's another year with half as exciting an end," Mags whispered thoughtfully, "not a soul in Panem will forget how close Stella came to winning it all."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Sure Scarlett–"

"Scarlett's ending was anti-climactic and lacking in drama," Mags said. "The fact that you left your District partner to bleed out on a beach while you put out of her misery a girl from another District who had probably spent the whole time thinking of a way to kill you."

"They both were," I pointed out, rubbing my eyes tiredly. "And Alana had been my ally, at least."

"True," Mags conceded, "but I think there was a misconception that you and Stella had a weakness for each other, that there was some sort of romantic history implied in your refusing to ally together, hoping someone else would do the other one in."

"That's absurd," I snorted. "That's just ridiculous Capitol gossip, Mags."

"Oh, I know," she said with a smile, "but you would be surprised what sort of gossip is told often enough to become as good as fact here in the Capitol."

It was a sickening fact, but true and we talked for a little while longer, making a shortlist of interview methods to try out with the tributes in the morning, and then we said good night, and I went into my room, changing into night clothes, staring at the Capitol bed and wondering how my life, how my reality would have been different had I never been reaped for the Games, had I never been drawn into the world of the Hunger Games. I wondered, as I rolled into bed, pulling the covers up around me, what my life would have been like if the Capitol had never even heard of me, much less made me the subject of their idle gossip.