Author's Note: Remeber when I said the little talk to baby Sam had meaning?...JB I am saying "creative licence" now because I know you're gonna say it doesn't sound right m'kay? Just lemme have my fun :P

Thanks goes out to JB and RR for the reviews

Chapter 94

Soldier's Heart

Ari POV

Sleep syrup was wonderful, I felt myself drift off as I hung up on Vivian. I couldn't do much else than cover myself in the thin sheet I had. I deserve worse, so much worse.

I closed my eyes every night to seeing my men dying, Boreal saying he was protecting me. Ken saying he hadn't waited for my order just did what I wanted to be done. Peeta protecting Katniss and almost dying. Plus along with my usual nightmares, now I see innocent children being bit by the vipers and decaying infront of me. Having to see more innocent lives wasted. Gale on machines…the sound of a heart monitor flatlining…

I wanted to sleep with no dreams. I wanted to sleep and not have to worry about nightmares.

I wanted oblivion.

So when I wake and I feel a cannula under my nose and the stinging of an IV needle in my hand.

I know I failed.

"No" I groan quietly.

"Good morning" someone says, and it's not Mav, or Gale or anyone I've worked with personally, its Dr Aurelius, "or rather mid-afternoon" he chuckles softly, "sleep well?"

"No because I woke up" I realize I'm not shackled but there are padded ones in the corner of the room.

"Want to talk about it?" he says.

"Let's pretend we did and not" I reply acidly.

He sighs, "y'know I'm working with Katniss? At least you're talking."

I slump in bed, "what do you want?"

"What everyone does I suppose, answers" he says, "why did you turn into yourself Crane? Why didn't you search out people? Your boyfriend?"

I sigh, "I didn't want to trouble anyone, I just wanted to leave." If I had said anything to anyone they would be hurt on my account...

"Leave your friends and family? Is it that hard now?" he takes out his legal pad, I know what he's doing, on a regular day when I wasn't being forced to tell people that their children aren't safe I would be toying with him. I don't feel like toying with anyone right now.

"You ever regret?" I say finally, "ever close your eyes and see dead friends and comrades? How they died, their last words echoing in your ears as you try and get some sort of rest?"

"No" he says, "you have I suspect"

No d'huh, he calls himself a doctor?

"How can I live when they have only done things to protect me, I was their leader I was supposed to make sure they got home safe" I make for the IV wanting to rip it out.

"If you touch that I will have a nurse suture the next one in" he warns, "no one is blaming you though" he adds.

"They should, I'm the one to blame" I clench my fists, "and now they want to revive the games again, bring back the horrors as a revenge, it will happen all over again and they want me to be a part of it."

"I have a feeling its more than that" he says, "I think Paylor is right and you have it in for yourself."

He doesn't wait for me to object, "let me say this, every victor has this part -however small- of themselves that they want to be the hero, protect who cannot protect themselves. I have a feeling when you were reaped you considered your life forfeit and still being alive after, what almost five years, is miraculous. Part of you maybe subconsciously wants to be dead."

I glare at him, the bastard, I hate him!...Because until now it wasn't explained, inside I felt it but I didn't know how to explain it, not in words.

"You know what 'survivor's guilt' is? I prefer another interpretation, it's an old term, it's called 'soldier's heart' old world veterans went thru this same thing Crane. Where they didn't think their lives were precious anymore, that they were very expendable" he looks at me over his glasses, "you never got over your games, and then you are put thru trial and trial and trial, with no real rest. Hawthorne told me of the rivalry he and another boy were having. So you never knew peace, or not for a very long time" I can feel my hands shake, "and just as you are close to it someone does something that brings you crashing back to earth with a jolt. The loss of close friends was one I am sure."

Ziggy, the Mellarks.

"And then you have to be alive and healthy while other friends are fighting to survive" he continues. "You can't deal because no one showed you how and you feel you don't know how to climb out so you do the only thing you have witnessed, only you didn't have a tub so you tried to do it chemically" he comes over and I flinch away. "Easy" he says and gently touches me, he touches my shoulder and I finally break. I haven't really cried, I mean I did cry but somehow the damn only allowed me a trickle to get past.

Now I break completely. Dr. Aurelius holds me for a while until Maverick and Gale come in, at least I think it's them because the tears blur my vision and I close them because the ache I have is loosening slightly. Like a knot finally released enough to allow people to untie it.

I'm not left alone, for a couple weeks at least. If it's not Gale it's Hazelle or Maverick and Jo, or his parents, or Ken and Delly, or Castiel. Vivian comes to see me, and we talk, she forces me to talk. She asks me about my life in the Capitol, what I did those two years here, Gale asks too.

I don't know why they are so interested in what I did for two years here. I suspect it's Aurelius' doing, forcing me to talk. He said I should tell them what was going thru my head but I don't know how to explain myself. And I still have so much anger in me since the meeting.

One day close to my final release Peeta is released and he insists he, Gale and Vivian take me out. I have taken little sun and the snow is finally melting and the sun is warmer. Spring is coming and they want me to get fresh air in my lungs. Peeta wears protective leather gloves over the gauze on his hands, I think it's so he won't rip off the bandages, I bet it itches something awful, I can only suspect because he is the one with burns almost over half his back and arms and neck and…

Stop it Ari! You won't go there!

Gale takes me arm in arm, free of the cane he wants to pick me up and cradle me but the doctors say I should get out under my own strength or not at all. Plus I'm not disabled, I was lost for so long, I was drilled and forced to pretend horrible things weren't witnessed then forced to say they did happen. And all that time the thing that I could never explain was why I felt so hollow. Even with Gale, and saying I was finally in love with someone, there was always a part of me that felt I didn't even deserve it, that I was meant for fodder only.

It's because I wish I wasn't there. As much as I loved Gale and still love him with every fiber of my being. I was reaped, it was a death sentence, and yet I survived above everything else and it doesn't feel right.

"I have to show you guys something" Vivian says, "I was walking this area a couple days ago, y'know there is a path behind the victor's hall?"

Peeta and I shake our heads, Gale shrugs.

"There is its just hidden, you have to be looking for something that looks like a path…" Vivian smiles

It's true there is a path its just not made of bricks! There is clover planted in a secret pattern leading us to a gate that is surrounded by ivy and clematis. Still dead from winter's chill.

Vivian opens the gate and leads us thru. It's a beautiful garden, not one rose in sight, lots of wild flowers would be growing in here and ivy. I bet in the spring tulips will be in the piles of dirt that line the blood red brick path just past the gate.

"Come on," she urges

Peeta leads with Paylor as Gale keeps me by his side.

"How are you really?" he asks finally

I shrug, "I'm sorry Gale" I say and he pats my hand.

"I didn't ask for an apology Ariana" he says warningly, I flintch and his voice softens, "because you don't have to, you were protecting us I know, when you should have been reaching out for help. That's what Clint was telling us"

"Who is 'us'" I ask

"Everyone but Coin and Plutarch, let's face it they don't care" he says I can hear a bit of anger in his tone.

"They don't deserve even our anger right now" I urge him.

"Wow" we hear Peeta say softly, it's so quiet it travels and Gale scoops me up and runs to the astonished exclamation.

Wow indeed.

It's a marble fountain, purest white marble with a bird flying out of fashioned flames. The whole of the work is covered from wingtips to the base where it touches the soft dark earth. With names.

"There's Cato" Peeta says pointing out one of the tributes from his first game, "and Clove, oh god Rue…" he sinks clumsily to his knees, "they're all here."

Gale puts me down and I lead him around searching for them, for all of them.

Farrow, Archie, Celena, Renard, Abbeline, Jade, everyone is here.

Maverick is even here.

"Oh god" I say feeling my heart being tugged, "someone wanted us to remember, who?"

"I dunno, but this should be moved, or at least make sure people see this" Vivian says, "I mean it starts from the twenty-sixth to the seventy-forth."

"Can we?" I look at Vivian, "can we move it?"

She smiles, "was talking to Beets about it, he's working with some masons from two, they are figuring it out as we speak, I just wanted you to see it" she kneels with me as I touch Maverick's name, "it's a step in the right direction kid, its part of justice, 'remember so as not to repeat history' right? I mean that why you studied law while you were here, to understand how justice is supposed to work."

I nod slowly.

"Paylor" comes over her walkie talkie, "commander come in"

She sighs, "this is Paylor"

"We just got word; the meeting is tomorrow for the victors" is said, "Plutarch wants you to pass the message on."