Hannah is floating. She gets like this, sometimes, when her mom used to get mad at her or when Lexie has a bad dream about the Games. She can't feel the ground beneath her, although she tells herself it surely must be there. Sounds are dull; the only thing more muffled than her friends' voices are her own thoughts. Someone might have a hand on her arm, but she can't see, and so can't be sure.
Daniel had been a good friend. Her first friend, that wasn't Ethan or Lex. The other kids at school think that she's weird, but Daniel always said she was cool. She isn't. She can't breathe and she couldn't save him because she is trash and her mother was right, she always makes things worse for everyone around her. Her fingertips are cold. It would make sense that the rest of her is too, but the rest of her doesn't exist right now. She reaches to pull at her hair, and to her surprise her hands find home, tugging on her plaits, the sensation bringing with it tiny bursts of pain.
The pain is real. She focuses on that.
...
Grace watches the three remaining members of her new alliance grieve. Steph and Pete have only known the kids for hours, but she can understand why they too cannot seem to even look away from the boy's body.
She had seen countless bodies that first day, of kids she had never even met, and it had almost floored her before she had remembered why she is here - remembered that she has to survive.
It is this remembrance that jolts her to her feet now, making her call out to Steph.
"I'm sorry." She says first, because she truly is. "But we should go next door. Away from..." She nods to the congealing puddles of blood, the motionless little girl kneeling in them.
Steph nods, although her eyes remain glazed over. "Right... ok. Ok." She shakes Pete's shoulder gently, breaking him from his trance.
"Take one of those pills for yourself." She tells him. "And keep the rest somewhere safe, for when that one wears off."
He does so, dropping the pack twice for the trembling of his hands. "Hannah?" He tries afterwards, putting a careful hand on her arm whilst Steph attempts to pull her off of her friend's body.
The girl doesn't resist, doesn't acknowledge either of them. Steph moves to take Hannah up in her arms, but winces before she even has her off of the ground. Her energy is spent after a day carrying Daniel around. And for nothing, she thinks bitterly. Grace sidles over and holds out her arms in offering, and between them they manage to hoist an unresponsive Hannah onto Grace's back in an ungraceful piggy back. Grace grunts a little at the effort, but says nothing.
As an afterthought, Pete reaches down and slides the blue headband from Daniel's matted hair. He pushes it into Hannah's limp hand, and she grips it with all of her strength.
"Goodbye, Daniel. Thank you for looking out for her." He whispers to the boy on the floor.
Then they trail out into the corridor, letting the door swing shut behind them.
...
The next room over has a stage, with a purple spotlight. Nobody complains, for by the time Steph declares the place to be safe and clear of other tributes, they are all too tired to even stand anymore. They all settle down in a corner behind an old piano - it is relatively sheltered from sight upon entry to the classroom.
"He wasn't in pain, at the end." Grace murmurs to Hannah as she rests her down on the ground. Hannah shifts so her head is in Grace's lap. Grace hums. "I know. He saved you, though. Remember that. And honour it, by living." A strange thing to say, from somebody whose eventual goal is to be the last woman standing. Grace doesn't know what the feeling that's come over her is, only that it wants her to protect this kid. So she leans back against a wall, and strokes Hannah's hair as the lovebirds settle back beside her.
"How are you feeling now?" Steph is whispering, forehead creased.
"Better, since I took that pill." Pete shrugs, then winces at the pain the movement caused. "Guess they really are painkillers like Grace said. Or its a placebo effect."
"What the hell is a placebo effect?"
Pete laughs softly. "Didn't you pay any attention in school?"
"Of course not." She scoffs. "You think my dad wanted me to spend precious campaign time doing homework?" Her voice breaks and she has to stop talking.
"I'll take first watch." Pete leans forward and announces to them all. "You guys get some sleep, and then when one of you wakes up we can swap, and I'll get some rest too."
"No, Pete. You're hurt." She has put her Mayor's daughter voice on, all diplomatic and in control, like she is obviously being the sensible one. He ignores it.
"Yeah, which is why I've spent the past day letting you do all the heavy lifting." He can see her about to argue so he cuts in quickly. "Plus, I could do with you fully rested for tomorrow, since I can't exactly do much fighting on my own."
Her eyes narrow as she thinks through his logic. "You wake me in one hour." She says sternly, finger pointed at his face.
"Alright, fine!" He concedes, not mentioning that there is no clock in here. If only he had a watch.
"I'm trusting you this once, Spankoffski." Grace mutters from where she is clearly already drifting off. "But if I die tonight, I will kill you myself."
Pete finds he has nothing to say to that, mostly because if Grace does die tonight, it will almost certainly mean that he is already dead too.
...
Capitol bedrooms are huge. This is something that Paul has unfortunately known for a long time. Its always been off-putting to him, having to much space like that - the ceiling being so high above the bed, the walls far from him at any given moment. It doesn't feel like a shelter at all, more like a display cabinet or an enclosure at the zoo.
That's one of the reasons he is glad to be invited back to Emma's flat again on the third night of the Games.
He is one part grateful for the excuse not to be near to the Sponsors for an evening; he is another part suspicious because he expects that is why Emma extended the offer.
"I can protect myself, you know." He had frowned as they'd walked down the brightly lit path outside her apartment building.
"Of course you can, Paul." She'd placated. "I just thought... this way we can have each others backs, can't we? And we'll be close by if anything happens in the Games that we both need to be in the loop about."
That much is true - they are settled now on her sofa, baby pink and velvety, skipping through feeds of the Games' at dizzying speeds to find their tributes. They had heard about Daniel's passing, a friend calling Emma to let her know as they were on their way back to her flat. It had been sad but not altogether surprising, and although she felt like shit for doing so, she rather thought it was a relief that it'd been Daniel and not Steph or Pete.
"Aha!" She exclaims triumphantly, locating a video feed of a stage, a grand piano, and a small group of kids huddled in the corner.
"There." Paul sighs, and visibly relaxes upon having visual confirmation that his tributes are still alive. He leans back into the sofa cushions, his arm coming to rest against Emma's as they breath quietly.
"Are you alright?" Emma breathes. "Do you need anything?"
"No, its ok." He shakes his head. "I just... I'll feel this way until the Games are over, always do."
She raises an eyebrow at him and he swears his heart skips a beat when he remembers. "I guess maybe I won't this time." He says slowly. "If things all go to plan..."
"Do you think she'll manage it soon?" Neither of them have any more knowledge than Steph does about the layout of the arena, so they have no way of predicting how close she is to the perimeter. She has the jammer though, so when she finds it, she'll be ready.
"I think she must be close." He taps his closed fists together in that little nervous tic that he has. "I should be helping." He says, speaking the thought he has had a hundred times out loud for the first.
"You have. You are." Emma puts a hand over his tapping fingers, soothing him. "But Pete wouldn't want you hurting for his sake."
"What, but its alright if he's hurting? He doesn't even deserve it." Paul bursts out.
"But you do?" The woman who Paul has never understood has a near perfect read on him, he swears. "I know how it feels, Paul, to believe that you are responsible for people being hurt just because you weren't able to stop it."
"Really?" He means for it to come out angry, but instead its just bewildered.
"When I first saw you in the Games. Every day after. Every year after, when I watched the Reapings and wanted to hold those kids and tell them everything was going to be ok. When I watched them all die." She has starting sniffling as she speaks, and to her embarrassment, tears are dripping down her cheeks.
She nudges Paul away when he reaches to brush them off her face. I'm meant to be comforting you, not the other way around! She wants to scream. Instead she takes a deep breath and gets a grip.
"I only mean," She tries again cautiously. "That you are doing everything you can right now, and that has to be enough. You can't pour from an empty cup."
"Did your sister teach you that?" Paul's heart glows a little when that makes her smile.
"No talking about my sister in this house, please." She laughs quietly. "She has already invaded every other aspect of my life. This is my safe space."
"Well then, thank you for having me here, Miss Perkins." Paul turns back to watch Steph drifting into sleep on the TV screen. Hannah is dozing in a snoring Grace Chastity's embrace, and Pete is sat up straight, keeping watch true to his word.
"Thank you for coming here, Mr Matthews." Emma hums, letting her head drop down to the cushions behind her.
If, in a few hours, Paul wakes up to find her head buried in his shoulder and his hand thrown haphazardly around her waist, then he may or may not have smiled to himself and held her a little closer.