Thank you for your continued support. Enjoy^^.

Year 66, November, five weeks after Finnick's sixteenth birthday, Creneis Town.

Finnick stared at the sea, seated at the edge of the steep cliff marking the edge of Victors' Village.

He'd dug her out, searching deep in memories he'd so long tried to bury, and now she wouldn't let him go. In the arena, she'd been his protector, and when he'd found himself before these strangers he was supposed to desire, he'd found himself thinking of her, her laughter, the way her hair fell over her shoulders and her legs had moved in the water. He'd taken the memories and woven them into a shield.

They were fake, taking a mind of their own, fantasies painted with vivid colors that had morphed into obsession.

He'd been so naive. He'd gone in there afraid of whips and chains, of sharp nails, clenched fists and evil laughter. He'd thought he'd heard, but he hadn't listened.

Cashmere's words were whispers on the wind.

"Gloss and I weren't the heroes of our Games, Finnick, but you were. Our angle is a prison. I was a cruel creature of passion and lust. I was power and selfishness and everything the darkest part of them aspires to be. But you, Finnick, you are loved because you are loyal, and strong and handsome. You have their respect. Most of your clients won't ask anything you'd be staunchly opposed to doing if it was someone you loved. The hardest for you will be to put that love in your eyes."

It had been a mistake, to take Delfina, the one girl he thought he might have loved, and hold onto her night after night, his imagination crafting a relationship that had never been. Or maybe it had been unavoidable. After all, it had given him the strength to play the part.

He was fine.

Except for that one time, none of them had been out to hurt him. He hadn't betrayed any secret. He hadn't made any promises.

No, really, he was fine.

He was fighting for his home, for his people, and he didn't mind getting hurt because you couldn't win a war without getting wounded.

But the feeling he'd been emptied wouldn't leave. Delfina wouldn't leave. She had faded just enough for Finnick to feel a gaping wound where his heart was supposed to beat. It was painful, to see Cereus and Mags together, hand in hand, leaning into each other, thousands of days shared filling each of their smiles.

Finnick tore chunks of grass out of the earth, watching the blades tumble down into the ocean. He was popular, he hadn't forgotten it once.

"I am pleased by your cooperation, Mr. Odair. You are now free to set your own prices and sell your time as you please. Don't make me regret it."

Free. Never completely, because there were some people he couldn't refuse, but freer than some. He'd faced this, and he'd done what he'd set out to achieve. Why couldn't he celebrate?

He remembered tracking Lyme down the moment he'd heard she was in the Capitol, finding the courage to ask her.

"Domitia and Lyall, my mentor and Brutus', struck an agreement with Snow years ago," Lyme said. "Twos are professionals, we cannot be separated from the Hunger Games. We are not models, or actors or fashion ambassadors. We deal with sponsors, exclusively, and we deal as we please. Lyall already exchanged favors under Achlys. Bahamut never did and never will be made to."

"You?" Finnick said uneasily.

Lyme was still taller than him, stocky and masculine, her manner brisk and her expression hard. The posters of the 43rd Games showed a warrior, dark and striking and strong, but there was nothing pretty about her. And Finnick knew the gentler, smarter side she saved for Mags, but he had seen her knock Gloss to the floor, and the Lyme before the cameras was relentless, protective and fierce. Finnick couldn't see a guy buying her unless he enjoyed being crushed.

Lyme smiled, a toothy predatory smile. "Some. But I agreed the first time in my late twenties, and they're usually younger, and want me because I'm… rough." Her smile fell. "I'm a single woman, Finnick. Occasional fun that can help save my tributes can't be compared to what you're made to do."

Finnick's dread had morphed into wary patience after that, into hope that it would get better. The Twos had managed to strike a deal; Finnick would too.

And he had. Snow was happy.

A voice pulled him back to Victors' Village. "It used to be smaller, you know."

It was Uncle Cereus. Finnick exhaled in relief. He held on to tatters of pride, it was stupid, but Mags was a woman, andnow that it was real, he just was too uncomfortable.

"When Mags won, there were barely four-thousand people here," Cereus said, his eyes on the bustling town below. "When I came to Creneis, the constructions and FLASH had already attracted a thousand more, and now Creneis is significantly larger than both Galene and Orithyia, nine thousand strong."

There was fury in Cereus' eyes, the same fury that lit Mags', but Cereus had little practice at hiding such emotions. It filled each crease in his lined face, and Finnick lifted his chin up, feeling vindicated by the daily proof that everyone agreed he was a hero for pulling through.

There's a frigging sex tape, Finnick wanted to say. With Gloss and Cashmere, even if they stop short of doing it together, to make sure the poor of the Capitol don't miss on the fun.

He refused to say it. Snow was counting on it, on hurting Mags and Cereus through him. They didn't need to know to care.

"Syrianus, you know, Glynn's husband, put a chip in my brain," he said instead, his lips twitching.

Finnick recalled the bright street-lights making it look like daytime, the woman with the dress made of silver and golden hair. He remembered the sudden weakness, being snatched like a child, and the agonizing pain. It was nothing, nothing, compared to the feeling of triumph when he'd understood.

"What for?"

Finnick grinned at Cereus' frown.

"I got attacked one night, beaten up bad and dumped on a side street. I was hit me with a drug, pure pain. I thought I was done for. There was a public outcry and now I have this chip, it sends a distress call if my pain levels get hospital worthy." Finnick chuckled. "I saw the guy again, at the same hospital. He apologized, said he'd had orders."

Amazement and horror warred on Cereus' face. "I see why Mags has very conflicted feelings regarding Glynn's plans."

Finnick laughed merrily. There was an insanity in the Capitol, and he relished it, because it was so far removed from what he knew and understood that he just rode it.

"There was this undertaker," Finnick said, his laughter taking a hysterical edge, "he makes corpses pretty for grand funeral processions. He's the best, swims in money. He lives alone in a huge house filled with stuffed animals and black and white pictures of dead people. He's ridiculously creepy. He had me model naked for stuff, didn't really touch me. He told me to come back so we can train a falcon together."

"Is that Capitol slang for something?" Cereus said, his eyes narrowing in worry.

Finnick snorted. "No, no, real birds. There's this high tower where people raise them and everything. Mr. DeCharon has enough money to buy my clothed time, and it's okay, I like the insane ones. They make acting so much easier."

They talked. They didn't go into details, Cereus didn't want to know, Finnick didn't want to speak about that, about Delfina's ghost, or even Cashmere, with whom he didn't need fantasies.

"Finnick, what's bothering you?" Cereus said after a while. "You've convinced Mags that it's getting used to being intimate on command, and the pressure of keeping Snow happy and helping with the rebellion. It's not just that." Finnick flinched. "I see it in your eyes, you're not well, but you're coping. You've won this round and you're making yourself invaluable. What's wrong, Finn?"

Pride flushed Finnick's cheeks at Cereus' words. His Uncle had never been free with compliments. Finnick moved away from the cliff's edge, lying down in the grass, wishing the sun would burn it all away.

Delfina needed to be laid to rest, but Finnick didn't know how to do it without her. Drugs could handle his body, but not the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice, the strength in his grip.

"I don't seem to fit here anymore," Finnick admitted after a time, staring at the cloudless sky. "And…"

And Finnick felt it was easier, to remain the Finnick of the Capitol, the one who enjoyed theater, acting, fashion and good food, who rubbed elbows with the mighty and who occasionally escaped to visit the sick, the poor, or just crashed a party to enjoy the delighted look on the faces of people who would never buy him or any other like him.

The mirror in his room in Victors' Village was harsher than any in the Capitol. It showed him a manipulator, a boy who didn't deserve the confidence he broadcasted on every screen.

Finnick swallowed. "Over there, I feel superior, and powerful. Even when I…" Finnick took a shaky breath as memories of intoxicating scents and inappropriate whispers filled his mind. "The joke's on them, right? I'm using them. I pity so many of them."

"And you don't like yourself when you come back among the people who saw you grow up."

Hearing it made Finnick squeeze his eyes shut, hoping to disappear. "I don't want to become their creature," he whispered. "This should feel like home, and it does, but it's all wrong."

Year 66, late November, seven weeks after Finnick's sixteenth birthday, Creneis Town.

Finnick walked to FLASH to see Alyx Rivers. He owed her a heartfelt thank you for teaching him what was harmless banter and what went beyond. He'd have been a stuttering and blushing fool in the Capitol otherwise.

He was ambushed by Shale, Marina, Sheller, Rhain and Krill. Finnick bit back a groan, he knew that look on Marina's and Sheller's faces.

He didn't feel up to this.

"Were you ever going to start bothering again with little folk like us?" Sheller said, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Guys, seriously?" Finnick exclaimed. "I'm sorry I didn't come down. I'm sorry I was so self-absorbed when you came to see me, but come on, I thought we'd gone past the guilt-tripping phase, and established we were good acquaintances because we couldn't be more."

"Don't see you fighting for us," Sheller replied.

"No, I'm not," Finnick replied through gritted teeth. They lived in such a small world. He supposed the Capitol was an abstract concept to them, especially when they were angry. "It killed me to give you up but it's not worth it."

He hated how he was becoming condescending around them, but they were so childish. And Shale said nothing because he still felt guilty about Finnick volunteering and because it was easier to pretend everything could be fine than to accept what having won the Games really meant.

"They seem to think that jumping for your throat will make you want to spend more time with us," Rhain interrupted, glowering at Sheller.

Finnick chuckled, clapping Rhain on the back and smiling at him. He didn't want to lie to them, to wear his Capitol skin to pretend things were fine when they weren't.

"You don't know everything, Rhain. You don't watch TV. We didn't tell you."

Rhain narrowed his eyes. "What don't I know, Marina? Besides, TV is a load of crap."

The silence that fell was thick and ugly. Finnick's mouth went dry.

"Are you sleeping with Capitolites, Finnick?" Krill said with an eyeroll, cutting to the heart the matter.

Finnick blanched. "What are they showing of me in the Districts?" He whispered.

He hadn't asked… He'd blinded himself… Did everyone know?

"That you're… enjoying life," Marina said softly, tears forming in her eyes. "You're like a Capitolite on there."

"Usually the reason I start insulting you is that I'm worried," Sheller said with a tight smile. "You're not left with a choice, are you? I mean, you could have gotten any girl at FLASH, you never did. That's not you, Finn."

Finnick chuckled, it wasn't a happy sound. "I'm not who the TV shows, but I'm not that guy anymore, Sheller." His jaw tightened. "I can't talk about this."

"You mean you really –" Marina bit her tongue. "You're going back?" She asked sharply. "Before the winter?"

Finnick slowly nodded. Their faces fell. Finnick felt ill.

Shale spat on the ground. "I should have been on that stage and died," he snarled. "I gave you to them, and look at what you're becoming!"

Finnick stepped back, a hard mask concealing how hard Shale's words had struck.

"Make your life worth something, Shale, what else can I say?" He said coolly. "You're making Marina happy. You've got friends, stop whining for a minute." He looked at them squarely. "Let's make this clear, I don't regret it. And I wouldn't regret it even if Shale had died the day after my victory."

A sharp gasp met his words. "Your grandmother, your parents, our friendship, are you bloody serious?" Shale said, incredulous. "What happened this winter, Victor Eirene? This you in the Capitol?"

Finnick stepped back further, his eyes wide and his chest constricting painfully. He was hurting them, they were hurting him and they wouldn't understand. They'd pull him back, make him doubt, feel guilty and weak.

"Don't ever speak to me again," Finnick breathed, terrified to know he meant it.

Better this, better make it clean. They would be fine. He would be fine. FLASH, Creneis Town, they weren't part of his world anymore.

"Finn!"

Finnick turned to Rhain, who stood shocked and wide eyed. He winced at the hurt on Krill's face but he shook his head.

"I can't. I tried to hold onto you, guys, but I can't. We're just hurting each other. Leave me alone and move on with your lives. I have great memories, I love you all, but this isn't possible."

His heart pounding in his chest, Finnick turned his back to them and ran away.

People watched him pass, and now that he knew, Finnick saw pity, doubt and condemnation in every stare.

You're like a Capitolite on there.

Finnick took a ragged breath, swallowing back tears. Gamemaker Plutarch was a Capitolite, a socialite even, enjoying that life but working just as hard as Mags to plan for the rebellion. There were worse things to be.

Year 67, April. The Capitol.

Muted laughter bounced off the walls of the immense closet of the Hollywood studios.

"You can't run away forever," Finnick said, his voice a threatening purr as he moved from rack to rack, just loud enough so she could hear him.

A door creaked open and Finnick dashed behind a tower of shoes, now stealthy as a ghost. A security guard. It was part of the game, the poor man had no idea a rich lady had elected this spot for a tryst with the new victor.

It was the thrill of being caught in public, the scandal of it all. Rumors were Finnick was the adventurous type, and Finnick was loath to deny them: the setting alone had them so worked up that the act itself was quick and simple. Finnick blushed when he remembered the one time he had been caught.

Finnick could smell her, almonds and cinnamon. You'll recognize me, the note had said.

She wore a hood, hiding all but beautiful dark eyes. Finnick felt confident. He was always near, lashing out when she didn't expect but weak enough to let her escape. Until she slowed, her rapid breaths deepening, her hands twisting around the fabrics she hid behind, and Finnick felt his own pulse quicken, and he let himself go, surrendering to the man he had to be.

"Enough games," Finnick whispered, his voice husky from months of practice, "you have nowhere to run, milady."

It all shattered when the she removed her hood, letting lose curls of raven hair.

Finnick's eyes widened, he stepped back. "No," he muttered. "No, you can't -."

"This is my gift to you, Finnick," the-woman-who-couldn't-be said with a loving smile. "You can live it now. You don't have to mourn anymore."

Delfina. The wrongness was there, in the details, but it was enough her to break the illusion and shatter the mask.

Finnick' jaw clenched, all softness gone from his face as he stepped further back.

"You don't like it?"

Delfina didn't pout. He voice was no chiming whistle and she didn't smell like almonds.

Finnick's mouth crashed to hers. His fingers dug into soft skin and never had he struggled so hard not to bruise. Finnick kept his eyes shut, his frantic heartbeat filling his ears, her moans tearing through his mind.

How dare she!

He left her there, gasping and satisfied. He stormed away, slick with sweat, desperate to be faster that the overpowering, mounting rage that screamed for blood.

How dare she? How dare she!

"Eyes!"

Finnick barely avoided colliding with a waiter. Alarm replaced the red veil before his eyes. He'd stumbled upon a reception.

The man who saved him had glitter in his dark blonde hair and a feline's grace to his movements. Gloss grabbed him by the arm, his other hand twirling a champagne glass.

"Pardon me," he told the bystanders, his smile arrogant and hard because that was who Gloss was. "I promised to teach this darling boy a few tricks."

"I know that look," Gloss whispered, grasping Finnick's chin when they were outside. "Saw it in the mirror. I'm surprised it took you so long, little boy."

"How would you like it, if one of them altered herself to be Cashmere's twin?" Finnick snarled, his breaths painful and ragged.

Gloss' eyes flashed. His body seemed to have turned to stone. "Come, little boy."

The training center was silent as a tomb, the weapons glistening on the racks. Gloss removed his shirt and threw it in a corner. His feet on the wrestling mat, Gloss turned to face Finnick, crouching forward with a menacing glint in his eyes. "Don't hold back, I sure won't."

Every gentle touch, every caress and flattering word, every moment he was violated without feeling pain. Every single time Finnick had pretended to purr when he could have snapped their necks without even trying.

A snarl escaped Finnick's lips and he let it out, the rage he'd pushed deep behind the masks, the fury born of fear and injustice and humiliation.

Finnick and Gloss woke up in the same hospital room.

"For the record, I knocked you out, and then turned myself in to have my concussion checked," Gloss said, more patronizing than anyone in a hospital bed ought to manage.

Donna was staring at them appalled, but a slight smile graced her lips. Finnick chuckled, drained and angry but liberated, burying his face in his pillow.

Mags slammed the phone down in the receiver. Cruel stupidity should be a crime.

A hand on her hip and a soft kiss on her cheek had her take a calming breath. "Glynn says Finnick needs me. Some… fool, altered herself to look like Delfina," Mags spluttered.

Cereus' arm slid around her stomach, trapping her back against his chest. "Don't fret, Love," he whispered in her ear. "As long as Finn acknowledges that he is distraught, we know that he means it when he says that he is alright. And you can bring back a custom cake for our anniversary."

Those warm eyes would make her feel safe at the heart of a tornado. Mags smirked. "Not sure Snow would appreciate my choice of custom cake. I'd love a big target with –"

Cereus' eyes narrowed in warning. "No fantasies about other men, if you please."

Mags chuckled, pressing a firm kiss against his lips. He was cute when he pretended to be jealous.

The flat was stifling, oozing luxury.

A socialite stood, his back to her, staring out of the large window. Only the unaltered tanned skin and the tousled bronze hair betrayed his origin.

"They don't go into training willingly. They're selected," Finnick said darkly.

"In One?" Mags said, her fists clenching of their own accord. She'd suspected, from One's victors' silence on the topic. "When Vicuña was alive, when Achlys was alive, One's were the actors, Two's were the warriors and the Capitol chose every year who they preferred," Mags said through clenched teeth. "It changed for the worse under Snow, Two was able to negotiate, One was not. Did Cashmere tell you?"

Finnick turned to face her. Mags was almost surprised to recognize him in this alien setting. His smile was thin and rueful.

"No, a client did." Finnick sat and stretched like a content cat on the couch. "They tell me a lot." His smugness faded, and Mags was astonished at how he flickered from Capitol socialite to the sixteen-year-old she knew.

She wanted to freeze on those expressions, the ones where he was hers, and chase the Capitol far away. He had grown so charming and manipulative. He'd become ambassador for the sickly children of Mercy, and while Mags despaired at seeing the bonds linking Finnick to Creneis Town fray away, she knew he was coping as well as he could and that the Capitol had not harmed his ability to care.

"He's choosing them well," Glynn had told her. "He needs no doctor and very little drugs. As long as he's confident the rebellion is happening, he'll be fine. He's a soldier, Mags, short of killing him, he's not stopping. But hug him a lot, he needs it."

Choosing them well, most of the time, or Mags wouldn't be here.

"Oh, and look," Finnick added excitedly with a true smile that pushed Mags' dark thoughts away. He took a picture from small table next to the sofa. "Got this from the hospital, I'm so lovable they can't resist."

Mags grinned when she saw Cecelia and a tiny newborn with huge gray eyes. "I have to visit her!"

"Why do you think I threw such a fit about that Delfina doppleganger?" Finnick said with a wide smile. "Snow thought for a minute I was going to resign."

Mags' eyes snapped back to him, his voice had been smooth, his face was relaxed, nothing indicated a lie.

"Finnick," she said warningly. He was becoming much too good.

The mask slowly cracked.

"It was a shock," Finnick whispered, his face darkening. "I could have killed her. How dare she –." He took a shaky breath. "Lucky Gloss was there."

Mags wrapped her arm around his shoulders. He let his head fall in her lap. "That's why I need the hospitals, the weird music groups, the theater… I need them badly, Mags, because they remind me Capitolites are like us, deep down at least."

Mags caressed his hair, worry creasing deep lines in her brow. "You're making your stays longer and longer, Finnick. Have you made any friends here?"

Finnick narrowed his eyes at her. "Friends?" He exhaled, as if it was all ludicrous. "Mags, look at me, I'm not… me! " He said, his voice hitching. "Friends are equals," he snarled.

Mags sighed. She remembered when Krill had come in her office, staring at his shoes and saying they'd failed Finnick. Poor kids, they'd never stood a chance against the Capitol.

"You can be friendly and fond of someone you don't confide in. Have some fun, Finn, find people you'll willingly see for free. Equal relationships are for husbands and wives and your very closest friends. You can't take care of others if you're not taking care of yourself," Mags said sternly. "I'm not allowing you to spend so much time in the Capitol if the only person you uncurl your toes around is Glynn."

"Uncurl my toes around?" Finnick said archly. He looked down in a more familiar display of embarrassment. "Fine, I'll open up a tad. Speak to people who are healthy company instead of just useful, I promise."

Mags just hugged him, not liking how he clung to her, but preferring that infinitely to having him shied away.

Year 67, August, 67th Hunger Games, the Capitol.

Mags was surprised to see Blight at her door. The victor from the fifty-first Games, who'd clawed his way out of an arena even smaller than Finnick's where every step could lead to an agonizing death, rarely sought company.

"Come in," she said. He didn't smell of morphling or alcohol. Mags' curiosity spiked.

"Mags, I'd like to share a story with you. You know me, I'm angry and pretty much useless at this time of the year. Our tributes keep being good and keep being shot down because they know weapons and the Careers don't want surprises," Blight said, baring his teeth. "Please just listen."

"Of course," Mags said with a frown, "sit down, Blight."

They sat down in the lavish quarters the Capitol granted the mentors of District Four, and Blight seemed to withdraw into himself.

"After I won, it was all fog. It looked like it would never get better. Keith was a good mentor, and Rowan was gold, but he died two weeks laters… But it did get better," Blight said, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

Mags sat next to him, her hands folded in her lap. Why was he telling her this?

"Parcel Day," Blight said. "You've lived it I'm sure, but I hear starvation has been beaten out of Four. In Seven, food is still a struggle for many."

"The children gather first, on the train platform. They're the ones most willing to believe it. The others, they've been so hungry for so long, they've stopped believing in miracles. So they come more slowly. But soon half the district is there, they've come from every village. Old men and women, loggers, carpenters, children, the teenagers, the victors come too. There are officials there, a reporter or two, but no one pays them any attention. They're waiting for the train."

Mags' chest constricted, because now she knew, why Blight was here. Parcel Day, instated after Seeder's victory, to make sure the outliers would fight, to make sure the mentors wouldn't band together, because it wasn't just about two children anymore, but about their whole districts.

"The train stops and they pull out crates," Blight said, his eyes far away. "The entire district holds their breath. The first boxes are broken open. There are oranges. Oranges, Mags, and bananas, and deep red apples, and berries of every kind. The Six workers start passing them out to the children, who pass them back to their parents, who pass them back to the old folks, and there is nothing like watching a sixty-five year old woman bite into her first peach in decades. Thirty years, Mags," Blight said. "Thirty years between Keith and me. The Careers never give us a chance."

"There's laughter, laughter like you wouldn't believe," Blight said, his wistful smile back. "Then comes the real food. Bags of flour, real flour, not just tessera grain. The teenagers step forward and carry them. You see it in their faces. The joy. No one, no one will starve this year! You see that. And you know, deep down, that you did it."

"After the flour and salt comes the meat. Hams and loins, sausages, oh the sausages," Blight said with a grin. "Salted venison, lamb. Baskets of shrimp and fillets of fish. Can you imagine what it's like for people who eat marsh frogs to survive the winter, to suddenly have a whole ham in their hands? And after the meats, wheels of cheese and loaves of bread, real soft bread."

Blight had tears running down his cheeks, and Mags knew she mirrored his expression. Six Careers in a row. Five Parcel Days in One and Two, and Mags knew it well, the wonderful sight of nine thousand people singing in the streets, on the beach, of the long wooden tables heaped with fresh foods and delicacies and knowing everyone would have more than enough to bring home. It had been forgotten after Finnick's victory, when the Homeguard came to starve them instead of respecting the rules.

She recalled Cereus telling her of the anger rippling through Four. Esperanza's assassination had been too fresh for Mags to care. Now Mags was furious, for Finnick. He had deserved to see that.

"And then," Blight finished, his voice thick with emotion, "when the whole crowd is loaded down with enough food to feed ninety thousand for a month and you think it can't get any better, the Six workers start throwing the sweets, and they rain down in a rainbow of colors and the kids whoop and cheer and scoop them off the platform. And then it's all packed up and the workers are waving and saying 'See you next month!' and hundreds of people are pressing in around you, thanking you for feeding their families."

Blight's voice fell to a whisper. "That's when I knew, I did right to keep fighting. That's when the nightmares stopped being so bad."

Mags couldn't meet his gaze. In the lower Districts, Parcel Day wasn't a boon, a simple luxury, it was life. It was what kept people eager for the Hunger Games, because maybe, maybe they'd win and that one year of eating their fill would keep them safe from illness and let their children grow strong.

"I, -" anger entered Blight's trembling voice once again. "Six years of Careers… I don't know how much you can do, but I thought you should know, Mags. I thought you should hear it."

"Thank you," Mags said hoarsely, "for reminding me." She forced herself to meet his eyes. She'd never thought Blight capable of such passion. "I think you should write this down, so we can give it to every new victor, when the nightmares become too much," she said with a wan smile.

The seventh Career, victor of the 68th, was Brutus' girl, Phoenix, attractive and fierce and honorable and a perfect Two, and Mags knew that Two had quarries and grime and poverty, but she couldn't shake away the image of a sixty-year-old woman who had tasted ripe peaches only twice in her life.

"Why have they stopped jumping off the platforms?" Asclepiad from Five said, livid. "They tried to convince us that trying was worth it… What fools we make."

"Maybe kids are just born stupider every year," Blight said with a bitter smile, his eyes meeting Mags.

"Once, the odds were in our favor," Beetee said, his eyes burning with hate. "The arenas favored the untrained. The Careers remained so superior that we were blind to it, but now it is undeniable."

"Those sickos from Two aren't above paying the Gamemakers not to try so hard," Haymitch said, a huge belch leaving his lips as he stretched noisily. "Back in my day, volcanoes torched those trained bastards. Nothing like that anymore."

It was what Mags had wanted, the anger. Even before Seneca Crane's blindness, even before their efforts to get the Careers to win, outlying districts had often gone decades without a new victor. But this year, Mags shared their crushed hopes, and the pain was barely bearable.

Mags saw Plutarch that night. "Don't let them, Plutarch."

"Let them what?"

"Tear Two apart. District One will be quick to rebel, but Two…" Mags took a shaky breath. "I can't say if Two will. Why would they? They're taught to work hard and be proud and they owe the other Districts nothing. They don't expect anything from the Capitol but know the Districts will be quick to hate them, for having peacekeepers, for the Careers."

"You'll be there too, Mags."

Mags gave him a tight smile. She thought of the thousands of kids in the Annex, defenseless and belonging to a world that would make no sense after a rebellion. They'd be the first to pay.

"I dearly hope so, but you, and Glynn, don't you dare let them, Plutarch," Mags said, her fingers digging into his arm.

July 69, Creneis Town.

Mags couldn't stop shaking. People spoke and moved around, but she had no strength to spare for them. The sun was too bright, the town below kept moving when all Mags wanted was for everything to stop.

How could it all keep going? Why wasn't it all collapsing?

"Sol, for the ceremony –"

"No, Lorelei, he's from One," Mags abruptly said. They weren't taking him away. "He'll be buried, near the cliffs." Near her.

Mags had let her mother and Esperanza sail away, but Cereus would stay here, in this soil.

The chest pains had started and he'd made her swear. 'Don't take me to the Capitol. They'll blackmail you, my health for your retirement. We'd gain a year or two together, and lose everything.'

Finnick had come home, and Mags had hoped it would be nothing, just another illness, another fright. But Cereus had slowed down, and the day he'd postponed his visit to the barracks, Mags had cut the cables of the phones in every victors' house. It had been a fit of rage, at the world, at the Capitol, but also desperation, because she had a promise to keep, and she wasn't sure of her own strength.

The last month had been a blissful torture, every source of anger and anguish was turned into a joke, as they craved each other's laughter and looked back upon fifty-years of crises avoided and hurdles crossed. It had forced them to find the time to reconnect with their family, to indulge themselves to dwell in the past. A whole month away from the Capitol for Finnick, and Mags could see it had done him a world of good. He'd spent hours with Cereus, soaking up his knowledge, and Mags realized she'd been so focused on the future that she has pushed so many happy memories to the back of her mind.

She'd forgotten, how many beautiful things they had lived.

For the first time in what seemed an eternity, they had taken time, for each other, but nothing could have prepared Mags.

You don't need me.

Mags stared at the wall unseeing, replaying conversations. She could hear his voice then, and a ghost of a smile graced her lips.

"You're not mentoring this year."

Mags' met her daughter's eyes. "I am bloody well mentoring," she whispered harshly. "And have the house cleared out, shut down, and I'll be moving in in Finnick's when I return, Lorelei."

"Mama –" Lorelei said in warning tones, dark shades of mourning under her eyes.

"I need that, stakes, a timetable, and something to do," Mags staid, staring at her hands. "Finnick has to go. I'm going with him."

"Yeah, the kid needs you," Sol said, nodding to himself. Mags couldn't remember when she'd heard her lively boy speak so softly. It was her husband's brown eyes who were looking away with bravely concealed pain.

Her throat clenched, and she stood up. She was being unfair.

She pulled her little boy into a long overdue hug and turned to Lorelei, grasping her hands. "He was your Dad too. We're here for each other. He's dead, whatever you say will be insignificant compared to that, don't tiptoe around me. Don't let me forget I'm your mother," she begged, tears held too long finally spilling down her cheeks. "We'll get through this, together."

She had a whole living family. A family Cereus had given her. The heat was stifling and Mags felt the irrepressible urge to run to town and play in the waves like she and Esperanza had so often done as girls, each moment crystallized by the years into a cherished memory.

When was the last time she'd done something just with her three children?

"Whatever Larimar is doing, get him here," she said.

August 69, 69th Hunger Games, the Capitol.

Mags stepped into the mentors' room with Finnick and she could almost pretend. Here the void left by Cereus was less stifling, because her husband had never had his place in the Capitol.

Snow had heard the anger, because the arena of year 69 was something no Career had ever prepared for.

It was gray and full of craters, but the sky... It was magnificent. A myriad of colors and lights that could only be glimpsed on the clearest nights in Four, stars and galaxies and constellations. A humbling reminder of how wide and mysterious the Universe was.

Mags swallowed. She couldn't stop the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"We've accomplished everything we've set our minds to, Love. We'll meet again beyond. It'll take more than chest pains to keep us from each other more than a time."

"Mags?" Cecelia said carefully.

"I'm feeling sentimental," Mags replied hoarsely, grabbing Finnick's hand. She didn't want them to know.

Mags noticed the chains keeping everything on the ground when the gravity field activated.

The cameras zoomed back, revealing a field of rocks large and small floating in that artificial space.

"It's the moon," Beetee breathed, "and an asteroid field. I can't imagine the expense."

Mags' mouth had gone dry. She imagined the expense was directly proportional to how afraid Snow was the Districts would rebel if there was another Career victor.

Mags' theory was confirmed when the couple from Two were squashed between two of the floating boulders.

Zero-gravity was messy and a flock of robots helped the tributes out, but in the end there was still a place for blood and murder.

Claudius Templesmith announced the victor after thirteen days, Wader from Six, and the mentors cheered louder than Mags had ever heard them. Mags didn't cheer. The boy had been reaped with a girl he knew, and Mags knew rage when she saw it. Wader hadn't been strong enough to fight beyond reason for himself, so he'd let vengeance take him. No mentor in Six had the ability to handle that.

"Good it wasn't a lab rat this year," Chaff said, raising his bottle with a chuckle.

In Six, many teenagers were sickly, selling their bodies for clinical trials, or studying to death to scrape the top hospital jobs, experimenting on cadavers, for crash tests or autopsies, or supervising the very trials that drained their classmates' health away. Kids from transport were tougher, but destined to more thankless jobs. Train driver or mechanical engineer was just for the luckiest. Pilot was granted to less than a handful every year, and they had then to leave and join the peacekeepers.

Wader hadn't mentioned he could pilot. Tears in her eyes, Mags wondered, not for the first time, how stupid the Capitol had to be not to just rig the reapings once and for all to avoid this.

Wader had stumbled when they reestablished normal gravity, and he'd looked so disoriented that the guards just lead him in, without bothering to check him for weapons.

The arena had been right next to the Capitol. Within two minutes, Mags knew something was wrong. That hovercraft wasn't flying towards the hospital. Within ten seconds, she established that Snow's office was too deep in the city for Wader to target it, even if he knew where it was, but that he'd do what any furious and desperate tribute would do in his stead.

He'd crash against the tallest tower. The golden Gamemakers' Tower, twenty-five stories high, rebuilt from the ruins of an ancient skyscraper. On level twenty there was a bubble, everything was screens and glass and all the Capitol's socialites met there to see the finale of the Games.

Mags rushed for a phone, Finnick right behind her, confused.

"Mags, what's happening?"

She dialed Plutarch's emergency number. "Plutarch, that hovercraft looks controlled by Wader, get everyone out of there!"

The stunned look Finnick gave her was a mix of shock and betrayal. Mags glared, slapping his shoulder. Plutarch was in there, and Finnick would soon see that her warning would not save all those people.

Finnick swallowed. "He's really going to crash it?"

Mags abruptly wondered how many of those socialites Finnick would personally know. How many she would know. Her eyes burned. Wader, dear child, what have they done to you? Violence begot violence, and it never seemed to end.

"If he killed the guards for the controls, he'll think he has no other choice." Wader had no other choice.

Mags and Finnick were looking through the window of the avoxes' wing, soon joined by the other victors.

The hovercraft had already gone over the city walls, heading towards the shimmering arrow-like building at full speed, straight for the bubble. There had been no time for interceptors to be launched.

The tower exploded in a shower of golden glass and soon flames were climbing up the building, where Plutarch had been less than five minutes before.

"Oh fuck," Haymitch said in slack-jawed horror. "We're going to pay for that big time."

The silence was complete. Hot tears fell down Mags' cheeks. So many lives ended, how many deserved it? How many wives and husbands would wake up alone in the morning? How many more would come?

There were no casualties among Gamemakers or avoxes. They had listened when the building's alarms had blared. But the socialites, their bodies pumped full of drugs and alcohol as they celebrated the end of the Hunger Games… they'd thought it was a drill, and when security finally realized that no one was getting out and made an announcement in the building, there had been a stampede. Of the nine-hundred Capitolites trapped on that floor, four-hundred suffered wounds, often grievous, and a hundred and sixty-three paid for their love of inhuman entertainement with their lives.

There would be no Parcel Day this year. Mags wondered if there would ever be one again.

September 69, Creneis Town.

"You're not going, Finnick," Mags said. "During the first years, there were attempts on victors' lives by Capitolites. The Districts were the enemy and they are once more. The dead were all from wealthy families, it's much too dangerous."

She couldn't lose anyone else. Not now, and not Finnick, not ever Finnick.

"You're right," Finnick said, his face in his hands. "But we need to know what's happening in the other Districts, in Six. We can't spend a whole year blind and deaf to everything. We know about Fustel and Daphne only because he wanted us to know."

There would be no Victory Tour, no celebrations of any kind and word was that the two youngest victors from Six had died from a gas explosion.

Fustel, Daphne. They'd taken his daughter and made her into a grim clown. They had already suffered so much.

Mags hoped that was the worst of it, but experience wouldn't let her believe it. No image of the burning Gamemakers' Tower had reached the Districts' screens, at least not in Four, but Snow had never felt the need to tell the Districts why they were being punished.

"It's easy to avoid this kind of thing," Finnick said gloomily. "They just need to sedate new victors and have two hovercrafts at all times."

"And rig the reapings to avoid reaping siblings and pregnant women and the only child of the single rich family who has enough influence to hurt the Capitol…" Mags said with a sigh. "I'm counting on Snow's paranoia. As soon as we're there, we can find another excuse to stay a bit longer. Speeches to avoid having an anticipated Quarter Quell with two hundred tributes thrown into a shark pit for example…"

"Why don't we bring tokens, from the whole of Four, to show that our hearts are with them," Finnick said. His tone was lower, his eyes fiery, but narrowed and far away. Mags straightened, because this was the Capitol's Finnick, the rebel in a socialite's clothes. "It would be a gift to them, rather than something they take from us. I don't think it's ever been done."

Mags watched him in wonder, that kind, clever boy. She thought of weapons and strategy, but he would win them over with a smile.

"No it has not," Mags said, her eyes sparkling as she grasped Finnick's wrist. "We just have to convince people to go with it."

She and Finnick shared a tentative smile that bloomed into a grin. The first stitch to the gaping wound in her heart.

Cereus would be proud.

Years 69 and 70, Autumn and Winter.

Some habits were too rooted, too ingrained in one's character to be recognized for what they were. As the summer had faded into Autumn, Mags had gone to Orithyia with Alyx, visiting every farm, every artisan to put Finnick's plan in motion. She travelled to Lycorias and Galene with Finnick to keep her network alive. In Creneis, she oversaw the last of the house constructions, and she and Lorelei made sure that the partnership between peacekeepers and civilians would survive Cereus' passing. Mags supervised her Career Instructors until she was certain the void Eirene had left had been filled, and she watched a half-starved Annie Cresta shudder at Barnacle's on-screen death and shakily vow to survive and remember.

It never occurred to Mags to do any less.

There was no Victory Tour, but Mags and Finnick presented the Capitol with a man-sized cross of pearl and shells bearing an inscription. 'Together we mourn and remember'

They walked triumphant in the Capitol, ambassadors of Four, and for those weeks, Finnick wasn't sold. Mags would forever remember Snow's gobsmacked expression. They were invited and heard, and slowly the rage directed at Six faded to hot embers and slowly to cold ashes as they accepted it was all a tragic accident.

She went to Six, and told people to express their condolences, that the Capitol was prepared to accept their apology. It sounded so simple, it was a war in itself.

When Lyme told Mags she was driving herself raw, Mags shrugged it off, not pausing to notice that Careers didn't coddle or that no matter how Mags felt, her body was seventy-eight.

Mags was back in Creneis, and a ship came, three weeks after schedule, blaming late winter currents and hiding an emissary from Thirteen. The stealth technology recovered from the ruins of old war machines was finally working. He'd told them they now had the means to bring a couple hovercrafts close enough to the Capitol to attack or evacuate, that they could send crafts out in the Districts without radars instantly spotting them.

The first strike would happen during the Hunger Games. The details weren't set, but it had to be the Games, when every TV on Panem was lit and the Capitol distracted. But during the Games, the mentors would be in the Capitol, and they would need a quick way out.

Mags went to inform Plutarch, and found Cecelia there, beaming and eight months pregnant, teaching her first-born puzzles. The toddler was a darling, and a little miracle, so seldom did victors dare to take responsibility for something so helpless that made them so desperately vulnerable.

Mags stopped every night by Cereus' grave and spoke of their fights and successes. She leaned against the granite headstone, her fingers tracing the rough engravings, his loving smile fresh in her mind.

With Gilly and Nori, Mags planned their yearly trip around Four, to recruit for FLASH and walk among their people, to remind them that the Victors were here for them.

As the spring crept over Panem, Mags never once thought of that time, before FLASH had even been built, when Esperanza had taken her crutches and shouted at her for blindly risking her life, for letting herself drown into work in times of pain until it became too much for her. Mags had forgotten.

Until the day she woke up in a hospital bed, stiff and disoriented in a body that wouldn't respond, and they told her she'd had a stroke.

They tried to foist three types of therapists on her, but Mags just wanted to go home.

"You'll get visits," Plutarch promised.

And Mags felt guilty for the fear in his eyes. She should have been wiser.

She couldn't have done any less.

I'm stopping here, almost where I promised I'd be. Just a few months until Annie's Games, and Mags won't be mentoring those.

Blight's speech on Parcel Day was graciously granted to me by Oisin55, it's so close to what he wrote in "Fall into the River" that I won't even pretend I "inspired myself." It's a rip off, and it was better than anything I could have come up with after having read it.

This was emotionally a very tough chapter, I hope I did it justice. It also feels like a good place to stop, and say BOOK IS DONE. The stroke means Mags can't have such a central role anymore, but after so many years of fueling the fire, the dissent in the Districts is taking a life of its own.

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