A/N: So... I haven't been able to reach my beta lately (I'm sure it's just life getting in the way; it happens to me all the time), so I decided I'd go ahead and get this one posted, because I feel bad for not updating for a while. It's a katCAM, so bear with me. I have the next chapter already written, but I'm going to wait and see what SubtleSpark is up to before it gets posted.

Reviews: I'm behind on responding! Bad Missi! But, a few quick responses.

First, I know you all are DYING to know what happened in Katniss' Games. And I keep promising you'll get the dirt here pretty soon. Soon, is probably several more chapters away. (hides) To Serafina Sky: Fight scenes suck. Epically. I hate writing them, I just have to do it so I trudge through for the sake of my lovely readers. ;) Glad my efforts are appreciated.

Second, I know a lot of you want to know what's the what with Madge... You'll get a smidgeon of her in the next chapter or so, but not a lot. She'll pop up a couple of more times, but I haven't decided if she and Peeta will have a direct run in yet. Most likely, they will.

Also, I think I've said this before, but I'll say it again for good measure: I don't actually hate Gale. I'm rather fond of him, but he's just not the one for Katniss. Him dying just worked with the story, that's all. So, Gale-haters are welcome, but this wasn't written specifically for you. x)

GO. VOTE. IN. THE. POLL. It's in my profile and currently at a tie. I'll close it by this coming Friday, so please, vote.

INTERMISSION: katCAM

In a lot of ways, I felt like I was haggling at the Hob again every time the Hunger Games came around. Because now that I was a strange mixture of "outsider" and "insider" I got to join in on the Capitol's "fun."

I preferred the Hob.

Where once my haggling had come in the form of trading game for money and other goods I couldn't get on my own, now I was bargaining and begging from rich suitors for the precious gifts they could send my tribute. And whatever the prices were for the sponsors—higher the greater the item and the father into the Game it got sent—they were always inevitably high for us mentors as well.

I never asked what it was Haymitch did to get people to sponsor his tributes—it's not like it was a frequent occurrence to begin with—but today, on the second day of the Games, I saw him out of the veranda talking with a jovial looking older gentlemen dressed in a purple, sparkling suit with wildly twisted hair that could have been designed to look like fire.

Fire styles had been overly popular since my Games.

Although they appeared casual, there was an undeniable urgency in whatever Haymitch was saying. I could tell only because I had been around the man more times than I preferred.

I couldn't hear them, the noises of the Capitol party—a social mixer, Cinna had called it—drowning out any words that might have reached my ears. These gatherings were done in excess during the Games, designed as opportunities for the mentors to mingle with the rich at the Capitol in order to win over sponsors. I always hated these events, but couldn't not go. That simply wasn't an option.

So Cinna put me in a slinky, maroon colored dress that made me look as though blood were pouring down my body in steady streams. A long cut raced up from the hem of the dress to touch my upper thigh and the heels I wore were a strange, snake-skin black. The neckline plummeted down my front to the base of my ribcage, outdone only by the bare expanse of my back.

This would not have been Cinna's first choice, I could tell by the frown he wore as he helped me into the dress. He had always had a touch of class that most of the Capitol seemed to lack, and kept me in relative modesty, emphasizing my "goods" as Haymitch called them, instead of putting them on display. But the Powers that Be—Snow—had insisted on something risque.

I knew why, too. It was no secret to me that we were selling ourselves more than our tributes to the crowd.

And to both Cinna and Snow's credit, it was certainly working. I hadn't been left by myself since I entered the room. Eyes raked over me hungrily, eagerly, and I never let myself go so far as to think what that hunger meant.

I used to envy the male victors. Used to think that they had it easier—no one was putting their bodies on display—until two years ago during my second year of mentoring.

I had noticed Finnick Odair, it was impossible not to, and he had always come off as frivolous, vain, and a little too flirty for my liking. I had always tended to avoid him when possible, and that party two years ago had been no different.

I was fifteen and Cinna's original dress choice—a little sun dress with a big poofy bow that looked ridiculous to me, all a yellow the color of daisies—was discarded and he was told to put me in something else. The new dress was flashy, sparkly, seemed to be made of sheer material that concealed only because of the shiny jewels that were sewn into the fabric. It was a bright red that encouraged attention.

Cinna had frowned at the new dress, but couldn't seem to do anything about it. The only thing he didn't make me wear were the tall glittery heels that were supposed to go with it. I got to wear the flats instead.

That dress had caused a lot of staring and a lot of whispering. It made me nervous, tightened my stomach in ways I didn't quite understand. It was the first time I had really noticed the hunger hiding in the multicolored eyes surrounding me.

That day could have ended very badly.

My tribute had been a girl that year. An eighteen-year-old girl from the Seam whom I had seen around a few times, but never talked to. She was gangly and small from malnutrition, her family was mostly dead, she had no siblings, and she had this broken look in her eyes. Even when she stood, she was hunched over her stomach, spine showing in a long line down her back.

I thought I had seen her at Croy's more than once.

It was almost impossible to get any of the sponsors to even consider her, but I tried anyway. Me in that stupid, frivolous, skanky dress and my little girl flats and my carefully curled brown hair and my shiny make-up. I didn't know what I was doing, couldn't have guessed. My mind just didn't work like that.

But Finnick knew, Finnick had guessed. His mind couldn't help but work like that now.

So when he saw me from across the room as I spoke to some blue-haired old man that should have had wrinkles, but had gotten rid of them so many times his face had begun to look like a piece of fabric stretched too tight against a skull, he moved to intercept me. I didn't know why at the time.

I remember that the man's grin had been like a tear in his face-fabric and that I had been so disgusted by it's appearance that I wanted to do something to make it disappear.

The man had put his hand on my bare arm; his nails were a bright blue with white tips. The tear in his face widened. His eyes gleamed. There was something dark in his voice as he whispered something that I didn't understand. He leaned forward, ready to repeat the words in my ear. I couldn't lean back. His lips were almost touching my skin and I wanted to run from him.

And then Finnick was there, making apologies and charming excuses and saying something about how I had promised him a dance earlier. A lie. His hand gently tugged at my elbow and I let him pull me away from the thing that couldn't have been a man, but might have been pure evil.

"Our little bird should be more careful," he chided with a smile, his voice light and breathy as always. But there was something terrified in his eyes that I didn't understand yet. "Wouldn't want break your wings."

Since that day, I have decided that I owe Finnick Odair for the kindness he showed me, and the horrors he's seen.

…

There were screens everywhere around the room, so that the guests could still keep track of the action in the Games. I had begrudgingly done so and managed not to punch anyone when Peeta first got himself stuck in a ditch, then managed to find himself an ally.

I considered that a personal victory.

Now I just had to figure out how to get him sponsors, because that was all I could do. And I hated feeling helpless. So, with one eye on the screen and Peeta, and the other on my audience of Capitol creatures, I attempted to mingle.

"...such lovely tributes this year," someone of an indeterminate age, gender, and species informed me. "Still not as spectacular as yours, of course." The she-man-thing giggled flirtatiously and batted her or his eyelashes at me.

I resisted the urge to hurl.

Putting on my best fake smile—Cinna always had me practice in a mirror before going to these things, and it was a damn good idea—and thanked her-him-it as graciously as I could.

"I have confidence in my tribute," I told It. "Peeta's tougher than people think."

True. Although Peeta's first reaction usually was one of passivity and kindness, that didn't mean that he didn't have a certain fire in him. I had seen it in the form of anger—I seemed to spark that in all people—and beneath the anger might have been passion. Those were two things I could work with.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peeta trudge through the darkness, chatting quietly with his ally, Spencer. On another screen was Madge. Her arm was bruised, her face had small scratches, but she was mostly alright and still forging ahead determinedly.

I was surprised she had lasted this long.

Here at the Capitol, the It seemed to consider my words. It tapped it's finger exaggeratedly against it's chin, and puckered it's lips. Eyes glittering, it gave me a thorough once over, and smiled wickedly.

"Do you know him well?"

I worked to keep my face blank. No, I didn't know Peeta well. I knew him barely at all. Though we went to the same school for thirteen years—I had stopped attending quickly after my victory in the Games—lived in the same district for seventeen, and inevitably saw each other around the market, we hardly ever interacted. My experiences with Peeta Mellark included twice with the bread and once in the market. He stuck mostly to the merchant kids, which made perfect sense, seeing as how he was one of them. The most we really had in common had been Madge...

"Well enough to know that he's a fighter."

Maybe a lie. I didn't know that Peeta was a fighter, wasn't sure that, when it came down to it, Peeta would really fight to get out of that arena alive. I thought he might fight for someone else. For Madge. But whatever he was planning, I was going to fight to get him out.

"I see..." It seemed to be after something, the smile revealing pearly white teeth behind lavender lips, but I didn't know what it was. I was so inept at this sort of thing and it had stopped being funny years ago. "Well, perhaps I might be willing to sponsor someone who seems to have won your favor."

It winked at me and walked towards the counter where It could register to be a sponsor, hopefully for Peeta.

I didn't understand what It had been talking about. My favor? What did that have to do with anything? Every tribute I had trained to this day had had my favor. I had worked as hard as I could every year to get them home alive.

Even if I had failed.

I frowned.

Suddenly anxious, I glanced around the room looking for Haymitch. He wasn't where I had left him earlier, no longer talking to the Man in Purple. Not at the table lavished with food and drink—where he usually was during the Hunger Games—and not annoying Effie with atrocious table manners. Instead, all I saw was Peeta. Sweet, kind, innocent Peeta smiling at the girl from Five who was too tall for him, gangly and awkward and maybe pretty.

I tried not to let the anxiety get to me.

They were talking together, the girl still had her ax, the rain was still pouring, they were talking and smiling like they were old friends and I couldn't decide if I wanted to like her and damnit where was Haymitch?

I felt like throwing up. I never ate at these things from a combination of not trusting the food and not trusting my own stomach. There was nothing to purge, but I still felt the acid burn the back of my throat. I was breathing heavily, my heart going erratically and I just really wanted to find Haymitch, because now it was Madge's face on the screen.

Sweet Madge. My friend Madge. The soft-spoken Madge. The pretty Madge. Peeta's Madge.

There was a rock. Their sleeping schedules were off. There was a crunch. The rain stopped. Blood poured from the wound. It had started to drip, drip dry. She was dead.

I swallowed back the bile.

"It never gets easier," Finnick whispered in my ear, his cheek nearly pressed to mine. "...deciding what delectable goody we should go for."

We were standing at the table of food and I knew he said that last part, because they were listening. They were always listening. He couldn't let anyone see that the Games were hard on him, that they were hard at all of us. So he hid what he was saying. Finnick was good at twisting words.

My stomach churned. So was Peeta.

A/N: As just a side note, I MADE MOCKINGJAY CUPCAKES! I took some pictures and they're posted on my LJ. x) In case anyone was wondering. Link in my profile.