A/N: Thanks to Appaloosa13, Mocking Verse, and RoseMaple (x 2) for the reviews.

Cato:

The interviews are over. The last part of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games is finished, and now I'll be going home to District Two. But not to the tract house I grew up in; to the Victor's Village. For the first time since the Games begin, I let myself think about my family. My mother, my father, my half-brother Crow and my younger sister Aurelia. I never said real goodbyes to them, sure as I was that coming home as the victor was a foregone conclusion. It'll be good to see them again.

District Twelve is led off to their floor to collect personal belongings from their rooms, but a Gamemaker who was supervising the interviews beckons the District Seven crew over to join Brutus and I. This time it's Lief pushing Spirit's wheelchair, not her crabby mentor.

"Due to the close proximity of your districts, you will be traveling home on the same train," the Gamemaker informs us.

"Oh, goody!" Spirit's mentor says with fake enthusiasm. She shoots a vicious glare at Brutus. "Just pray I don't kill you in your sleep, you -"

"Thanks for telling us!" Lief says loudly over whatever Johanna was going to call Brutus. The mentors from District Seven have a longstanding feud with District Two, and I can see why; in every year since Johanna won, a tribute from District Two has killed the tributes from Seven. It must be bugging Brutus to have his winning streak ended.

"When do we leave?" Spirit asks.

"Now."

They take us to the train station in a car with blacked-out windows. I guess they don't want any crazy Capitol fans harassing us on our way home. Lief and Spirit's mentors argue under their breath the whole ride there, while Brutus just sits stony-faced on the opposite side of the car. Lief, Spirit, and I are silent. I get the feeling that if I open my mouth, Brutus will jump across the aisle and strangle me. Me holding Spirit's hand is probably bothering him enough.

Spirit is the only one to speak during the ride. "Nice job in the interview," she says to me.

"Thanks. You, too."

By the time they get us all onto the train, I'm glad to get away from Brutus and the other mentors. As soon as I can, I escape to the sleeping car and hole up in one of the rooms, waiting for the train to get moving. The distance between District Two and the Capitol is small; we'll be there early tomorrow morning. From there, it'll be a train ride of an hour or two for Spirit and Lief to reach District Seven. And then it'll be four months before the Victory Tour.

Or, as I've been looking at it, four months before I see Spirit again.

The train ride is so smooth that I don't know we're moving until I see the Capitol blurring past outside the window. Maybe it's finally safe to go out.

I check the dining car first, but I don't see Spirit or Lief. I pick up a roll to snack on and keep looking, coming across Lief in one of the living rooms in the next car over.

"Spirit's in the next room. They set her up with another transfusion and told us to leave her alone," he warns me, looking up from the book he's reading. "She's not in a good mood."

"Who is?" I mutter.

The next room is nearly identical to the one I just left, except it has a fireplace where the giant flat-screen TV was. There's a smaller TV balanced on a shelf, going full-blast with replays of our interviews. People in the Capitol seem to think we can't go without seeing our lives spread all over the news. The first thing I'm doing when I get home is throwing the TV out the window so I don't have to watch it anymore.

Spirit is stretched out on the couch opposite the fireplace. She's still wearing her interview outfit - even the stupid shoes - but the armbands are gone, and in their place she has an IV line dripping blood into her veins. There's an IV stand, and a bag of dark blood hanging from it. In spite of all the new blood they're pumping into her, Spirit looks sick and pale, staring into the fireplace with a blank gaze.

"Hey," I say. Spirit doesn't move, so I try her name. "Spirit?"

Her eyes flick toward me. "Cato. Hi." She tries to smile, but it doesn't work. She still looks like she's going to burst into tears.

I've never seen Spirit cry. Hell, she had enough reason to during the Games, but I never saw her break. "Are you okay?" I ask, dragging one of the armchairs closer and sitting down.

She shrugs, making the bag of blood sway on the IV stand. "My feet hurt."

I glance at the shoes. "It's too bad you didn't have those in the arena. Could've been useful."

"Tell me about it. If I could just get them off -" Spirit pokes at one of her feet with the other one, trying to pull off the shoe, but it doesn't budge. "Dammit."

I reach up and pull off the right shoe, then the left. She has red marks on her feet from the straps; some of them are already turning into bruises. "There you go."

"Thanks."

I take her hand. "I've been wanting to talk to you all week."

"I've wanted to talk to you as well." Spirit twists onto her side to get a better look at me. "Thank you for what you said in the interviews."

"What did I say?" I think I spent the interview trying to dodge probing questions, most of them about my relationship with Spirit.

"When he asked you what the most dramatic part of the Games was. Thank you for what you said. About me being…like I am."

Suddenly, I realize what Spirit's getting at. "You mean about you being a mutant?"

She nods. She looks almost nervous.

"It's not a problem," I tell her. A strand of her hair has escaped the feather clip, and I brush it out of her face. "I meant what I said. It was amazing."

"Amazing because I was saving your life?" Spirit raises her eyebrows.

"Sort of, I guess." I can feel myself getting embarrassed, stumbling over my words, and for the first time in my life, I wish I could talk about my feelings without acting stupid. "But mostly because it was you."

Spirit's cheeks flush. It's like all the blood in her body goes straight to her face.

"We have to talk," she says. "This thing, whatever it is -"

"Us?"

"Yes, that." Spirit's getting more and more anxious. "I care about you, Cato, but I don't see how this can work."

"Why not?" All the week she was unconscious, I was telling myself that even if she was alive, this might happen. She might not want to be in a relationship with me. But it hurts more than I expected.

"Because we're from different districts. Because you're from the Peacekeeper district and I'm a mutant," Spirit says. She makes an angry motion at her injured leg. "Because I'm going to be crippled for the rest of my life and you're going to be fine. You can't really think the Capitol is going to let us -"

"They let there be five victors. Anything can happen."

"No, it can't!" Spirit says. She's pushed herself up on her elbows, but now she sinks back down. "You don't know anything, Cato."

"Yeah? What don't I know?" I shoot back. People call me a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them, and that seems like what she's saying. "Let me guess; you've been pretending this whole time to get sponsors?"

"I don't play to the cameras!" Spirit yells. Behind her, the door opens and Lief peeks through, looking for the source of the noise. I glare at him and he backs out again. "I got myself crippled saving your life, and President Snow almost had me killed for daring to be a mutant in Panem. You think I was doing all that for fun?"

"You're asking the wrong person. I don't know anything, remember?" I get up, walk back into the room Lief's in, and slam the door so hard that the wall shakes.

Lief stares at me and shakes his head. "It's a good thing she likes you."

I walk up and down the train for maybe half an hour, trying to calm down, and when that doesn't work, I pick up a vase and throw it the length of one of the train cars. The noise draws Brutus down on me, but instead of giving me a lecture, he just smirks and walks away, which is almost worse. When I finally decide that I've overreacted and go back to try and work things out with Spirit, she's gone.

She's not at dinner, either. To say that dinner is awkward is an understatement. Nobody, not even Lief, dares to open their mouth. Brutus and I sit on one side of the table and the District Seven crew sits on the other, with Spirit's chair next to Johanna conspicuously empty. During the third course, Lief's mentor falls asleep facedown in his dinner plate. I guess that happens a lot, because Lief just turns Blight's head to the side so he won't choke and keeps on eating.

Over dessert, I make the mistake of asking Johanna if she knows where Spirit is, and why she hasn't come to dinner. Johanna smiles at me. It's not a nice smile, it's one of those aren't-you-stupid smiles. "Am I my victor's keeper?" she asks, and even without the glare Lief's giving me, I know enough to drop it. As soon as dinner is over, I excuse myself from the table and all but run back to the sleeping car.

One of the doors is shut. I'm guessing Spirit's in there, but when I try the door, it's locked. This makes me sort of nervous - I remember what happened the last time I lost track of Spirit - but then I decide that she's fine. She's either still pissed at me or asleep. I'll leave her alone. I can talk to her in the morning.

I haven't really had a good night's sleep since, well, before I went into the arena. But every time I've fallen asleep during the past week, I've woken up panicked from nightmares. Once, I sleepwalked all the way into the living room and took a chair to the flat-screen TV. I think I was dreaming about Thresh that night. Brutus said he didn't care if I was dreaming about the goddamned end of the world - I wasn't to go around smashing things.

So, yeah, my sleep hasn't been particularly restful for the past month. But who knows? Maybe tonight will be my night.

It's not.

The dream I have starts off normally enough; I'm in the practice room back at the battle school in District Two, running through sword drills. And then the dummy I've just stabbed in the chest moves. It pulls my sword out of its chest and throws it at me. I stagger backwards, the sword just missing my head, but then I trip on my own feet and fall right into the arms of another dummy. This one grabs my neck and gives it a sharp twist to the side. I actually hear the snap of my spine and that's when I wake up.

My heart is going fast, and the sheets on my bed are soaked with sweat. I strip the heavy comforter off the bed and ball it up on the floor. Then I go into the bathroom, turn on the shower as cold as it will go, and stick my head in, hoping that I wasn't screaming. I don't think I was; the dream was short, and I got my neck broken too fast to make any noise. Just like the boy from District Three…

I give my head a shake and spray droplets of water everywhere. Just be glad your head's still attached, Cato, and leave it at that.

Once my heartbeat calms down, I decide to have another shot at sleeping, because I'm just too tired to do anything else. This time, the nightmare doesn't even pretend to be a normal dream. It's like I'm living the last hours of the Games in fast-forward; running through the woods, climbing up the Cornucopia, getting shot in the hand and falling down into the pack of mutts. Only this time, there's no Spirit to save me. I'm on my own. And I'm going to die.

I wake up just as the mutt's teeth close around my throat, and this time I know I was screaming, because Brutus is standing over my bed. "Quiet down," he barks. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

Who's trying to sleep? We're all victors on this train, and if everyone's time in the arena was anything like mine, nobody's sleeping. "It's not my fault," I snap at him. "I haven't slept well in a month."

"Try a sleeping pill. They keep them in the cabinets in the bathroom." Then Brutus is gone. The light from the hallway comes in for the brief second that the door is open. I go into the bathroom and just like Brutus said, there are sleeping pills in one of the cabinets. That's the first nice thing Brutus has done for me since I won the Games, but the only reason he did it is because he wanted me to shut up. I'm going to be glad once we get home and I won't have to see him every day.

Back home, victors - especially new victors - are celebrities. I can probably expect the first few weeks back home to be a lot like when I was in the Capitol, just not as annoying. The closer I get to home, the more I have to start thinking about the Games as an accomplishment instead of a nightmare. That's how everyone else will see it. When the victors used to come talk to us trainees in battle school, they'd go on and on about the joys of being a victor, the confidence, the sense of pride. They never talked about this side of it; how you can't sleep at night, and how everything you see reminds you of the arena.

I down the sleeping pills and crawl back into bed, thinking that I can't get home soon enough.

Whatever's in the sleeping pill is powerful stuff, because by the time I open my eyes next morning, bright sunlight is already coming through the windows. I jump up, trip over the comforter, and catch myself on the windowsill, staring out at the mountain ranges of my district.

Brutus bangs on the door. "Get ready. We'll be arriving shortly." Then, to somebody else, he says, "Stay out of the way, would you?"

I can't hear the other person's response, and I get dressed as fast as I can. When I come out of my room, still buttoning my shirt, I see that the door to the room next to mine is open. I go to shut the door, but as it closes, it runs into something, and Spirit says, "Can you leave it open, please?"

I back up and she comes out, pushing herself in her wheelchair. She looks up. "Oh. It's you."

I'm not sure what to say. "Your arm's bleeding," is the best I can come up with.

Spirit looks at it. "Yeah. I'm not supposed to move around on my own, but if I waited for Johanna to come get me, I'd never get out of there."

I glance out the window. I can see the train station of District Two getting closer all the time. This is it. After this, I'm not going to see her until the Victory Tour, and I know I'm going to miss her. I feel like we should kiss or something, except I haven't decided whether or not I forgive her.

Spirit makes the decision for me. "I'm sorry for what I said yesterday. I was angry, and, um, it wasn't about you. It was my fault."

"It's okay," I say. "Look, Spirit, what I meant was -"

"Cato!" Brutus hollers from one of the other cars. "We're arriving!"

"We'll make it work," I say in a rush. I lean down and kiss her. "See you on the Victory Tour."

"I'll write to you."

"Better yet, you can call." I grin, remembering that the houses in the Victor's Village have phones.

"Cato, NOW!"

Spirit winces as Brutus yells again. "You'd better go."

I run to the end of the train car, but I stop at the door and half-turn to look back at her. She makes a shooing motion with her hand, and a drop of blood comes off her arm and hits the carpet. I wave goodbye and take off through the train, making it onto the station platform just as someone announces my name.

The next few minutes are a blur of people shaking my hands and giving me hugs and congratulating me. I hear the train whistle and see it pull away, bound west for District Seven to drop off Spirit and Lief. There are people everywhere, friends from my neighborhood, old rivals from battle school, but I'm looking for my family, and I can't find them anywhere. And then somebody tackles me from behind.

The crowd steps back in shock, forming a ring around me as I wrestle with my attacker. I'm pretty sure I know who it is. I manage to pin the guy and I grin down at my older brother. "Got you again, Crow."

Crow lets out an offended snort. "Yes, Cato. You're a victor; of course you can beat up on a poor hovercraft mechanic like me."

I notice that he's wearing his full dress uniform, complete with the winged-gear insignia of the mechanic corps. They must have held back his graduation from the Peacekeeper Academy so he could see me come home.

My mother bursts out of the crowd. "Oh, Crow, you've ruined your dress uniform!"

Crow stands up and dusts himself off. "Mom! Cato just came home from the Hunger Games and all you can talk about is my dress uniform?"

Mom pushes past Crow and catches me in a bone-crushing hug. She's a stonecutter, and I don't care what the trainers at battle school say, nobody has bigger muscles than the stonecutters. I feel like she's going to break my back. "Hi, Mom."

I think Mom is actually crying. "I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're home."

My younger sister Aurelia grabs onto my leg and refuses to let go. I've tried to tell her she's too old for that - she's twelve - but she won't give it up. "Cato, I was so worried," she scolds. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

My dad is the last one to come out of the crowd. He works in the mines just like Mom, but he's always been sort of sick, and he's not looking too good. He still has marble dust in his hair. He pats me awkwardly on the shoulder. "Good job, son."

I try not to roll my eyes. "Thanks. Dad."

Crow digs an elbow into my side. "You know, Cato, half the girls in District Two are home crying right now."

"Why?"

"Because you've got a girlfriend," Crow says, grinning. He elbows me again. "You broke all their little hearts. And what's that on your necklace? A promise ring?"

I bring my hand up and realize that Spirit's ring is still there. Damn! I was planning to give it back to her, but then we had that fight, and this morning I ran out of time.

"It's pretty," Aurelia says, finally letting go of my leg. "Your girlfriend has good taste."

"Aurelia," my mother says warningly, and she shoots a quick glance at the cameras ringing the station platform. "Behave yourself."

They've organized a parade. Me and my family get to ride in an open-topped car from the train station to the Victor's Village, with an honor guard of final-year battle school trainees. Most of them look sick with jealousy, like they wish they were the ones who'd just won the Games. People line the streets, throwing flowers at us, and Mom and Aurelia just love it. Dad hunches awkwardly in his seat, like he doesn't want to be here, and Crow uses the ride as an opportunity to give me the lowdown on everything that's happened while I was gone.

"So, I graduated from the Peacekeeper Academy, but I'm not going to get deployed until after you come home from the Victory Tour," he says. "Damn you, Cato. Now I have to wait five more months to leave this stupid place!"

I laugh. "Sorry."

"And Aurelia's at the top of her class. She'll brag to you about that later. Oh, and Mom's pregnant again." Crow adds this last in an undertone.

"Again?" Personally, I think one younger sister is enough, but Mom doesn't agree. It's like every time she and Dad get bored, they have another kid.

Crow nods. "Smile, little brother. We're almost to the village."

The Victor's Village in District Two is set on the side of one of the smaller mountains, and with the sunlight coming in through the clouds, the whole thing is glowing. The other victors are standing outside their houses, clapping politely for me as the car parks in front of one of the houses.

Brutus steps up and opens the door to the house. "All your family's things were moved in yesterday," he says as I step inside. "Welcome to your new home."

The floor's made of marble. Whenever I take a step, the heels of my shoes make a weird noise against it. Aurelia bobs alongside me as I wander through the lower floor, spouting out little facts about the house.

"It has five bathrooms, Cato," she says. "One for each of us."

"That's big news." It really is. Back in our old house, we had two bathrooms for five people, and half the time the water wasn't working. It always killed Aurelia to have to go to school without washing her hair. She must be thrilled.

"We all picked out our rooms," she continues as I climb the stairs. "You and me and Crow can rotate around if you don't like the room we picked for you - Mom said we have to, since this is really your house - but I thought you'd want the room that had the best view. Here."

I stop beside one of the doors and go to open it, but Aurelia does it for me. "Do you like it?"

The first thing I see is the window, taking up one whole wall of the room. I can see the mountains - the real mountains, not the ones that have been mined out - for miles and miles. Most of them don't have their snow cover yet, but it's only August. There's still plenty of time. "It's great, Ari," I tell her.

She relaxes. "So I don't have to switch my room?"

"No. Just tell me one thing, though; which way does the window face?"

"West," Aurelia says. She bounces on the balls of her feet, ready to get moving. "Can I show you my room now? You have to promise that you're not going to make me trade it to you."

"Promise."

Aurelia sets off down the hall again, and I follow her, letting her finish showing me around the rest of the house. Then we go back downstairs to rejoin my family. Mom's just as happy - if not happier - than Aurelia. She's practically glowing, and for once, Dad doesn't look like he's about to collapse from exhaustion. Getting this for them was worth the reaping and the arena and watching myself be played as a murderer on TV. Maybe it's even worth the nightmares.

If it's made my family this happy, how can winning the Hunger Games make me feel so sick?