Chapter 6:

Peeta and I are stunned. All we can say is "What?"

Haymitch can sense both the surprise and the request for further information. He starts to explain. "They are going to take a "no killing each other" pact with the tributes from all of the rebelling districts- twelve tributes in all. The goal is that they will form an alliance to take down all of the tributes from the other six districts, including the Careers- but when it gets down to the twelve of them, or however many of them survive, they won't do any harm to each other at all. The Capitol will be forced to acknowledge their failure."

I am immediately skeptical. I need some questions answered before I'm willing to even entertain this possibility on behalf of Prim. I ask him: "Well, what if the Capitol just decides to kill all of them but the winner through natural causes?"

"Well, that's the beauty of it," he replies. "First of all, the Capitol doesn't want the Games to end that way, it's boring and clearly manipulated, there's no sense of reality to it at all. Secondly, the tributes in alliance will be together- so it will be exceedingly difficult to have natural causes kill all but one of them. It just doesn't make sense."

"Okay, so let's say five of them are left after the Careers are taken out," Peeta says. "Those five will simply sit there? Not do anything? Not attack each other?"

"That's right," Haymitch replies. "And believe it or not, it has never happened before. There have been several instances where only the members of an alliance were left- it has happened a few times with the Careers, in fact. But there was always the expectation that there was only going to be one winner, and there were always cracks in the alliance that would happen as the Games progressed. So by the time the arena was whittled down to four or five tributes, they were in it for themselves and no one else. They were near the end and wanted to win, wanted to get out of there, go home to their families. So the alliances have always crumbled."

"How do we know that it won't happen again?" I whisper.

"Because, Katniss," Haymitch says. "The tributes are going to be thinking of themselves as rebels, part of a larger plan to take down the Capitol. They have to. And if they lose their lives in the process, then so be it. But that's what we all have to do."

I take this in. Haymitch is right. And for the first time, I am not completely dreading the Quarter Quell. This is our chance. A chance for all of the districts that want freed from the Capitol's tyrannical grasp to make a statement that we weren't going to play their Games anymore. It's absolutely brilliant- if it works. The logistics sound incredibly complicated.

"How are they going to get past the Careers?" Peeta asks. "I mean, some of the tributes haven't even been selected yet. They won't have a lot of time to train."

"Well," replies Haymitch, "In a few of the districts that haven't produced many winners, similar to ours, there is talk that the tributes have already started informal training, like we're doing. If you know your chances are going to be that high in getting picked, why wouldn't you? Also, we're all going to have to keep very tight communication. The tributes will all have access to each other during training and will be able to solidify their alliance, secretly, of course. They also might receive some clues during their training as to what type of environment the Games will be in. We need to instruct Prim and Paavo to pay close attention to the survival skill stations and report that information back to us. We, along with the other mentors in rebel districts, are going to have to pitch some possible strategies for taking down the Careers based on the information that we receive. Hopefully, the tributes will be receptive to those ideas and share them with each other, and decide on one that might actually work."

Wow, do we have a lot to think about. Haymitch dismisses us, letting us mull things over tonight before being there to make the announcement with him in the morning to Prim and Paavo. I decide to stay with Peeta tonight; there is no way after feeling this abuzz from excitement that I will be able to keep the information from Prim if we are in the same room. Peeta and I, on a high from the news and having a plan to put into action, hold hands on the brief walk to his place. Since we're a little earlier than normal, we haven't missed the sun set, and we slow our pace even more, not wanting to go inside until it disappears. The sky is lit up with orange and pink hues, and Peeta looks at it, mesmerized. He then looks at me and brushes a strand of hair away from my face.

"What a gorgeous evening," he breaths. His eyes are wide, his long lashes curling back to his forehead.

"Yeah, it is," I reply, allowing my head to rest on his shoulder. We are outside his house now, watching from his porch the sun beginning to drop over the horizon. "Peeta, what do you think about everything Haymitch said today?"

"I'm not sure. I- I just hope that it works as well as Haymitch made it sound like it will," he says carefully.

"Yeah, I agree." I chuckle. "I'm not used to planning rebellion in advance. I'm usually pretty good at creating it spontaneously."

Peeta looks at me seriously. "You accomplish a lot without thinking ahead." I know he doesn't mean this as an insult necessarily, yet I feel a little sting by his remark. And I know instantly what he is referring to.

"I thought that you weren't going to act so hurt anymore?" I am thinking back to our conversation a while back when he apologized to me for letting his bruised ego dictate how he treated me after the Games.

"I'm not acting, Katniss," he says sadly. "This is just so crazy. We're getting married soon." But after a moment, he makes an effort to keep his emotions in check. His voice rises considerably. "So how do you think Prim will take the news tomorrow?" he asks me.

"I think she'll be relieved," I say. "She just doesn't have the natural ability that some of the other tributes do. She's not as strong. I think she'll feel more secure knowing that not all of the other tributes will be out to hurt her." I look at him. "What about Paavo?"

"I- I'm not sure," Peeta replies. "He isn't one for the spotlight, doesn't like so much attention being focused on him, so this is never something he would have signed up for on his own. But he's always been the most aggressive one in our family. I get the sense that he thinks that he could have a chance to win the Games, and he has a tendency to fixate on things. I think he might actually be disappointed that he won't have a shot at being the winner."

"They'll all be winners," I respond. "Every one of them, if they can pull this off."

"Yeah," he muses, "…but will we?" I know that he isn't talking about the Games anymore. He's talking about our Capitol-arranged marriage.

It's on my mind, too. I can't help but think that the ceremony is going to be intimately interwoven with the Quell somehow. I look at Peeta, thinking back to his offer to provide Thresh and Rue's families with an annual month's winnings. I think of Haymitch's words: 'You could do a lot worse, you know'. Looking at him now, earnest and attentive as he waits for my response, it's easy to decipher his feelings for me. My feelings for him will never be as pure or uncomplicated, especially as long as Gale remains even at the fringes of my life. But I will marry the boy with the bread, and hope that our life together, while containing a lot of pretense and showmanship for the Capitol, can also contain those moments where no one else exists but the two of us, completely comfortable with ourselves and each other, like we experienced a few precious times in the arena, or right here at his house. I meet his eyes. "Yes," I whisper, "I think we will."