Spoilers: Major spoilers for the Hunger Games series.

Disclaimer: I still don't own the Hunger Games, but I've had quite a lot of fun playing in this universe.

A/N: Once again, my very sincere thanks to everyone who has read and especially to those who have reviewed.

As always, I also thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.

Ignition Point

Chapter 4

Things had moved quickly in Twelve after what amounted to their declaration of war.

In just a few minutes, the forces from Thirteen had divided the district into non-combatants (those who couldn't fight and those who refused to take part – though there had been surprisingly few in that last group, Peeta thought), logistical support staff, combat volunteers, and reserves. The non-combatants had been taken to the safety of Thirteen, while the logistical support staff had been assigned to their various roles behind the front lines. The combat volunteers had been sent to join Thirteen's units in the field, and the reserves had been stationed around the district's key areas, ready to defend them.

It seemed almost surreal to watch it all happen after so many weeks of waiting and worrying. He and Katniss were with the combat volunteers, though it had been a battle of its own, early on in the planning stages, to get the rebellion to agree to that at all. But in the end, they'd reluctantly agreed that Panem needed to see the Star-Crossed Lovers fighting for the cause they were pledging themselves to on national television. It would do more harm than good, Peeta had pointed out, if they asked other people to risk their lives and then proved that they weren't willing to do the same.

President Boggs had accepted the arrangement, but he'd insisted that they were to remain only on the outskirts of the active combat areas, and that they would be escorted by a detail of the most experienced soldiers that Thirteen had to spare. He'd told them in no uncertain terms that they were to obey any orders those soldiers issued, both for their own safety and the safety of those around them. A camera crew was to be embedded with them as well, led by a veteran filmmaker-turned-rebel named Cressida Letray, and they were to "accommodate her when possible," since the overarching goal of their particular mission was to gather enough footage for the additional broadcasts Thirteen had planned. They'd readily agreed to those conditions.

Helena and Gabe, thankfully, were with the non-combatants. He and Katniss had hugged them both tightly, then held each other as they watched their daughter and grandson board the hovercraft headed for Thirteen. (They'd both been relieved that Cinna and Portia would be going with them as well.) Aster and Prim, however, were with the support staff, assigned to work with the medics who would be taking care of the wounded. They wouldn't be in direct danger, at least, but Katniss had been pale as she hugged them both too, clinging to her little sister like she was afraid she would never see her again. His own parents, and Rye and Ellie, had all been sent to the reserves in the Town. (Their goodbyes had been far simpler – brief hugs from his father and sister-in-law, a pat on the back from his brother, and a dismissive glance from his mother.)

After that, he and Katniss had endured a hasty crash course in military tactics and protocol before being sent out with the other combat volunteers to meet the first wave of the Capitol's retaliatory barrage.

Peeta wasn't sure how long they'd stayed on the battlefield.

Once, he wouldn't have imagined himself wanting to fight like a solider, but now, he couldn't have pictured himself anywhere else. He would never have denied that he was afraid, but that fear had seemed more useful than anything, making his senses sharper, his reactions quicker. He felt like a far cry from the teenage boy he'd been when he'd been thrust into the arena all those years ago. Maybe it was because he'd had years to prepare himself for this moment, while back then, he'd barely had enough time to wrap his mind around the fact that he was probably going to die. He still didn't want to die – and he would protect Katniss with everything he had until his very last breath – but death didn't scare him, not the way that it had.

He and Katniss had seen too much, lost too much over the years, and they both fought as long and as hard as they could, neither of them willing to leave until they had to, eager for the chance to hit the Capitol back for once, instead of having to nod and agree and smile and laugh and pretend that they were thrilled to obey.

There was a not-so-small part of Peeta that reveled in that – hitting back. (It was almost funny, now, to remember how determined he'd been to keep the Games from changing him. The Games changed everyone – they stripped you down to teeth and claws and desperation. If you won, the beast that had been unleashed in the arena had to be caged and hidden away. It never really left you, though. Peeta knew that firsthand.)

Thankfully, it turned out that there was an advantage to staying on the outskirts of the combat – a little like staying on the edges of the arena, he supposed. It offered them the chance to pick their targets out more carefully, which worked perfectly for Katniss. The rebellion had given her a bow, a beautiful, militarized bow that had made her eyes light up when she'd seen it, enhanced with the sort of technology that Peeta could never hope to understand. Katniss had seemed equal parts annoyed and relieved when she told him that she barely needed any strength to draw it – the rebellion had wanted her to use her signature weapon for the benefit of the audiences who would recognize it, but clearly, they'd also anticipated the fact that she hadn't been allowed near anything that even resembled a bow in twenty-six years.

He knew she hated relying on the targeting system built into that bow, but the first few shots she'd tried on her own had gone wide. Eventually, though, she'd fallen into a kind of rhythm, old muscle memory slowly beginning to return, and Peeta had gotten used to the gun he'd been given – even if his aim still couldn't compare to hers. (For Sage, he'd thought every time he pulled the trigger. For Sage. For Bannock. For Posy and Gale and Haymitch and Effie.)

Unfortunately, exhaustion had started to get the better of them much faster than either of them would have liked.

The Capitol had demanded that they stay in good physical shape, expecting them to resemble their sixteen-year-old selves for as long as possible – but thirty minutes on a treadmill, five days a week, and a little bit of weightlifting just didn't compare to hours in an active war zone. They'd had no way to really train beyond that either, since the Capitol would have noticed if they'd suddenly starting spending all of their free time in the gym at their house, and they were watched too carefully to try to go anywhere else.

Peeta had half hoped that being generally fit would be enough, but comparing his present to his long-ago wrestling days told him just how much conditioning he'd lost. He knew Katniss had felt it too.

When their weariness had started to interfere with their effectiveness, the commander in charge of their small unit had ordered them to withdraw. They hadn't argued, as much as they'd been tempted to, both of them exhausted and aching. His left leg was throbbing fiercely where the prosthesis met the actual flesh below his knee, Katniss had a gash on her temple, and they both had a few, other small cuts and minor burns from an explosion that had gotten too close. Cressida, at least, had assured them that she had all the footage she needed, and they had fallen back behind the lines where they'd been quickly transported to the mobile command post Thirteen had set up in the woods just outside of Twelve's fenced in border. There, they'd been treated for their injuries and then taken to a briefing.

They'd had no way of knowing, while on the ground fighting, how the rest of the battle was progressing, and they were both relieved to hear that the rebellion's carefully planned surprise attack seemed to be working. Things were especially promising in Twelve, where their early foothold had given them an advantage. Thirteen's hovercrafts had defended Twelve's air space, minimizing the damage done from falling bombs, and though the Capitol had sent in additional ground troops, most of their defenses had held. A few "incursions," as the officer in charge had called them, had taken place around the Town, though, and Peeta knew that the bakery – and his parents and Rye and Ellie – couldn't have been far from where they'd happened.

(Katniss had wrapped her arms around him when they'd heard that, her head tucked under his chin, and Peeta had clung to her in return, his nose buried in her hair. They'd stayed that way for a while. The armor they were both still wearing didn't make it especially comfortable, but neither of them cared. They just hadn't wanted to let go.)

There had been positive reports about the battles in the other districts as well. Seven had come out in force, and District Eleven wasn't all that far behind Twelve in pressing their advantage. Three had disabled the Capitol's communications for miles around their district, and Five, Six, Eight, Nine and Ten were all holding steady. There'd even been good news from One, Two, and Four. (Apparently, even the Careers had balked at the idea of sending whole families into the arena to die, and the rebellion had found more allies in those districts than anyone had expected.)

The tide had really begun to turn when the news broke that Tiberius Beaumont was dead. (Peeta and Katniss had looked at each other then, both thinking of Helena and wondering if the news had reached her too.) The Capitol had been unprepared for attacks on multiple fronts to begin with, and the loss of their leader seemed to destabilize the chain of command. It had also sparked a round of infighting in the Capitol's government, opposing factions all scrambling to exert their influence and fill the sudden power vacuum Beaumont's death had left behind. The rebellion's forces had begun making inroads into the territory around the Capitol itself not long after that, and one by one, the Capitol's strongholds had started to fall.

The war was far from won, and there was a chance that it would stretch on for weeks or even months in the areas where the Capitol still had the advantage, but by the time that the sun was beginning to appear above the horizon the next morning, Twelve, at least, was fully under the control of the Allied Forces of the Free Districts.

As soon as they'd been cleared to do so, he and Katniss had left the mobile command post and headed back inside the district to the field hospital where Aster and Prim had been assigned. Katniss had run to hug her sister as soon as she'd seen her. Prim had hugged her back just as hard, and Katniss's tears hadn't stopped when she'd hugged her mother too, almost shaking with relief. Aster and Prim both looked rough, their clothing stained with blood from the many patients they'd helped to treat, but they were quick to assure him and Katniss that none of the blood was theirs. They'd immediately demanded to check him and Katniss over, in fact, wanting to see for themselves that nothing had been missed by the medic back at command, something neither he or Katniss had tried to argue about.

When the exam was over, Peeta asked Aster and Prim if they knew anything about his family. They hadn't really been able to tell him much, except that none of the Mellarks had been among the wounded they'd treated. That didn't necessarily mean that they were safe – he was trying not to think about the Meadow where a number of graves were already being dug – but it was enough to give him some hope that they'd made it through.

He desperately want to check on them, to find out if they really were alright, but he knew that Katniss wouldn't be able to bring herself to leave Prim just yet, and he didn't expect her to.

He sometimes forgot that Katniss knew him just as well as he knew her, though, and a small glance in the direction of the bakery was all it had taken for her to figure it out.

"Go," she told him, squeezing his hand. "I'll be fine here."

"You're sure?"

She nodded. "I'm sure."

He turned to leave, but then stopped just long enough to turn back and kiss her, relishing the fact that he could do that in public now without caring about who was watching. There was no audience to pacify, please, manipulate, or impress, and he had no other motive except that he wanted to. She seemed to know what he was thinking because she was smiling when he pulled away.

It was a struggle to keep that pleasant image in his mind when he reached the Town a few minutes later, guilt weighing heavily on his shoulders as he took in the damage that the war had caused – a war that he had helped to start.

The butcher shop and the old candy shop had been the unfortunate targets of the bombs that had made it through Thirteen's defenses in the air, leaving only a piles of rubble behind, and the Cartwright's shoe shop was missing one wall, the roof sagging badly on that end, threatening to collapse too. Peeta hurried closer and scanned the debris, afraid that he might find someone still laying in the wreckage.

He hadn't talked to Delly in years, not since Bannock had died. He'd been too worried that she would become a victim of the Capitol like his brother had. (He'd said his goodbyes to her at Bannock's funeral. When she'd hugged him, he'd asked her to stay away, telling her he couldn't explain, but that it was safer for her and her family. He knew she'd see just how serious he'd been. She'd hugged him a little tighter and then let go, tears shining in her eyes.) He'd only seen her from a distance a few times after that, and living in the Capitol, it was hard to get any sort of news second hand, though Aster had mentioned once that Delly had married Trace Reeves, whose family ran the grocery store. The grocery store seemed relatively untouched, at least, and the crumbling shoe shop looked empty, but there weren't any clues about what had happened to the occupants of either building, and Peeta knew he would just have to wait to find answers later. Hopefully, Delly and her family were alright.

Finally dragging his eyes away from the destruction, Peeta starting walking once more, forcing himself to keep moving forward. It didn't take him long to come up behind where the bakery stood...and it was, he was happy to see, actually still standing. Several of the windows were broken, and one side of the building was scorched and pock marked, but it looked mostly intact. Even the pig pen was still there in the back, though it was empty. Either someone had deliberately let the pigs out so they could run to safety during the fighting, or they'd managed to make it out on their own.

Drawing a deep breath, Peeta headed up the small alley that ran beside the bakery and led to the front of the building. If he didn't find his family here, he'd have to look elsewhere...starting with the lines of sheet-covered corpses awaiting burial in the Meadow.

His shoulders slumped in relief when he turned the corner and saw his mother's familiar silhouette sitting on the cement steps leading up to the main entrance.

She must have changed clothes at some point because instead of what she'd worn to the Reaping, she was dressed as she usually was when she was working at the bakery, with practical khaki-colored pants and a short-sleeved white top, covered by a white apron. Her gray-streaked, auburn hair was pulled up into a bun and hidden under the brown kerchief she always had on during her shifts in the kitchen. It wasn't really unexpected to see her rolling pin beside her, and though it was hard to tell in the limited light of the early morning, a few darker stains on her apron told him that the rolling pin had probably seen some use.

In her right hand, she was holding a glass tumbler, filled with some sort of amber liquid, and resting near her feet, there was a glass bottle. After a moment, he recognized it as one of the bottles of brandy they kept in the back for use in some of the cakes. Peeta's eyebrows rose faintly. His mother rarely drank, something he was sure would have shocked most people given her old reputation around the district as "the witch." (Growing up, Peeta had always thought that it would have been easier if she did drink – then he wouldn't have known that she was always sober when she hit him.)

She tolerated him these days, at least. He would never have called them close, but she seemed to loath him a little less. The monthly stipend he sent from his Victor winnings probably had a lot to do with that. Whether that was also why she had never seemed to blame him for Bannock's death, he wasn't sure. (He blamed himself enough as it was.)

He could also say that she seemed genuinely fond of both of her grandchildren and her great-grandson...or, well, she was as fond of them as she ever was of anyone at all. (She hadn't said a word at Sage's funeral, which might not have sounded like much to anyone else, but there'd been no pointed barbs or scathing comments – not even about the fact that they'd had to wait to have the funeral until Katniss was well enough to attend.)

Peeta stepped a little closer, his feet scuffing the dirt, and his mother's eyes flickered over to him at last, her stony expression unchanged when she realized who it was...and even when she saw the small cuts peppering his face and neck. He hadn't expected anything else.

"Mother," he greeted.

"Peeta."

He let his gaze sweep over the otherwise empty porch and the bakery's darkened interior, and he frowned when he realized his father wasn't nearby.

"Where's Dad?"

She took a sip of the brandy from the glass she held and nodded in the direction he'd come from.

"You just missed him. Finally went to see the medics – got a graze to the shoulder."

Peeta blinked in surprise. He'd known his father had been assigned to the reserves, but it was hard to imagine him defending anything.

"He fought?"

"For once."

It wasn't really funny, but Peeta snorted at it anyway, and for just a moment, his mother's lips twitched upwards in a faint smirk, a strange sort of unspoken understanding passing between them.

The moment passed as quickly as it had come.

His mother looked away, glancing over at the the tailor shop that Ellie's family ran, her lips curling again, this time into a much more familiar sneer.

"Rye and that wife of his took off to celebrate as soon as they could. Whatever that means."

Peeta scoffed softly. That certainly sounded like Rye, and Ellie too, for that matter. His mother...he wasn't sure that his mother had ever really celebrated anything in her life.

"Glad to hear they're okay," he said simply.

His mother didn't respond, instead reaching down to pour some more of the brandy into her glass, then setting the bottle back down on the cement with a clink.

"I should go check on Dad."

His mother grunted something that might have been agreement and took another sip of her brandy.

Eager to get back to Katniss, and wanting to find some information about Delly, Peeta turned again in the direction of the medical tents and left her to it.

If Gale had ever wanted anything, almost his whole life, it was to fight the Capitol. He'd wanted to fight the Capitol even when he'd been just a stupid, angry boy who'd spouted off to Katniss in the woods.

He still wanted to fight. For Posy. For every single person the Capitol had killed...for all those whose lives they'd changed forever, like his. But he couldn't. He could barely stand on up on his own some days, let alone fight.

He'd tried anyway. He'd signed up for a medical evaluation a few weeks before the 100th Games were supposed to happen, taking advantage of his newfound connections with Thirteen, but all that had gotten him was some fancy scans of his shattered left arm and leg and a firm "no."

He was stuck watching it all from behind the scenes instead, which was satisfying in its own way, but it wasn't the same. Thankfully, his and Madge's leadership roles in Twelve meant that they ranked high enough to sit in on the daily briefings and offer their input, so he did have a part to play, even if it wasn't the part he'd always wanted.

That would have to be enough.

It wasn't dull, at least. Even in the safety of Thirteen's underground bunker, the rebellion was busy waging a different sort of war over the air waves, and almost every hour, there was something new to broadcast. Propos, they called them.

There were updates, sometimes. Inspirational speeches. Footage of rebel victories. (Katniss and Mellark had been featured in more than a few of those propos, though as far as he knew, they'd only fought in one battle themselves.)

The most interesting propos were the exposés. The Capitol had made that part of the rebellion's job easy, Gale supposed – the rebellion had horror story after horror story to draw on, and there'd been no shortage of people who'd come forward to give their testimony about various atrocities the Capitol had committed...including Finnick Odair.

The whole bunker had fallen silent after Odair's story – he'd told it himself, staring right into the camera, his voice never wavering, his eyes haunted.

Thirty-five years. He'd lived that nightmare for thirty-five years. Gale wasn't sure how the man was still sane. Then again, maybe he wasn't.

The famous Victor had managed to hold it together for the propo, but the next time Gale had seen Odair in one of the common areas, he'd just been sitting there, staring at the rope in his hands, tying it into knots, one after the other. When he'd run out of rope, he'd untied everything and started all over again. Annie Cresta had been sitting next to him, leaning into Odair's side, resting her head on his shoulder and talking to somebody that no one else could see. Odair had murmured something in her ear every couple of minutes, pressing distracted kisses to her head while he kept working on the rope.

The few other Victors who'd made it to Thirteen hadn't seemed much better off.

Gale had seen a red-faced Johanna Mason arguing with a doctor about her own medical evaluation not long after she'd arrived at the bunker. (It looked like she'd gotten a firm "no" too.) Another Victor from Seven, a man named Blight Williams who had a permanent nervous tic over his right eye, had finally managed to pull Mason away from the doc, but she'd still been spitting and cursing and looking like she was moments away from turning around and attacking the doctor who'd signed the report.

The old Victor from Three, Wiress, who was heading up the rebellion's tech division, was usually sitting in a corner somewhere if she wasn't needed in command, rocking back and forth, humming an off-key tune or muttering to herself.

Then there was the Victor from District Eleven who'd won just a couple years ago – a kid whose good looks had resulted in many comparisons to Finnick Odair. He'd mostly kept to himself...until someone had bumped into him in one of the hallways. He'd started beating the man who'd done it and hadn't stopped, screaming at the guy not to touch him. (It had taken four of Thirteen's guards to finally subdue him.)

For a while, a quiet District Four woman who'd come with Odair and Cresta – the Victor of the 89th Hunger Games who'd slit the throats of her last opponents while they slept – had seemed like one of the sanest of the bunch...until Gale saw the way she couldn't stop staring at the knife on her tray in the mess hall.

That was just a handful of the Victors, too, the only ones that Thirteen had been able to rescue, and there was no telling how many of the others were like them. They certainly didn't seem like they'd been living the glamorous, fantastic life that the Capitol had always shown in the media, and it made Gale wonder about the rest...especially Katniss and Mellark.

He'd seen Katniss face to face for the first time in years, just yesterday. She and Mellark had arrived in Thirteen not long after Twelve had been declared secure, and they'd been taken straight to command.

Aside from the still-healing cuts she had from the battle, Katniss had looked almost exactly like she had when she'd left for the Games, and yet, somehow, nothing like herself at all. (He knew what she must have seen when she looked at him: a man made old before his time, lines of pain etched permanently into his face, his posture stooped, a single crutch the only thing really keeping him upright.)

She hadn't changed so much that he couldn't recognize the guilt in her eyes when she'd caught sight of him, but then she'd dropped her gaze and just clung to Mellark like he was the only thing keeping her standing, and Mellark had hung onto her the same way. They were always touching, Gale had realized while he watched them, like they needed the physical reminder that they were together just to make it through the day.

They'd attended the daily briefing that afternoon, and Heavensbee, who was heading up the rebellion's media division, had suggested that Katniss and Mellark to do a tell-all propo of their own, like Odair had.

They'd refused.

"No," Mellark had said, his grip on Katniss's hand tightening as his voice rose. "No. We're done now. They can't have us anymore! Do you understand? We're done."

Heavensbee had pulled out all the stops to try to convince them otherwise, talking about their importance in the public eye, insisting that it would do "a great deal of good" if the public learned the truth about what the Star-Crossed Lovers had suffered, that it might even persuade a few of their devoted fans in the Capitol to throw their lot in with the rebellion.

By the time his little speech had finished, Katniss hadn't said a word, but she was staring darkly at Heavensbee like she wished she still had that fancy, new bow she'd been given for the battle, and Mellark had looked like he was on the verge of going at the man with his bare hands.

It was then that their daughter, who'd come with them to the briefing, had quietly offered to do the interview instead.

Katniss and Mellark had turned to stare at each other questioningly, an entire conversation seeming to take place in those few, silent moments, and then they'd looked over at their daughter and asked if she was sure. She'd insisted that she was.

Gale wondered about her too. He'd only ever seen Helena Mellark on television – and, for the last couple years, nearly all of those appearances had been with Beaumont. The Hawthorne "cousins," thankfully, hadn't been invited to her wedding in the Capitol, so he'd never had to meet Beaumont himself – but he knew enough to be glad that the man was dead.

(There was a wild rumor going around that said that Helena Mellark had poisoned her husband with nightlock berry pastries. Gale wasn't so sure about that, but he did know that the rebel leaders had issued her a full pardon for something, stating unequivocally that her actions had been at their orders, and that removing Beaumont had been necessary to ensure "a peaceful and prosperous future for every citizen of Panem.")

He'd hoped that he might get some answers about that during her interview, but he hadn't, not really. Mostly, she'd had talked about her childhood, growing up under the Capitol's intense scrutiny, living a life of "constant fear, grief, control, threats, and intimidation," as the interviewer had aptly summed it up. Gale got the impression that there was still a lot she wasn't saying, protecting her family's hard-won privacy even as she satisfied Panem's curiosity. (He'd certainly appreciated that she hadn't mentioned Posy or the Hawthornes by name at all, saying only that the Capitol had targeted an "innocent little girl" early on to ensure that her parents knew the cost of disobedience.) She talked about her uncle's death at the Capitol's hands. About her brother's. She talked about her forced marriage to Beaumont, and the terror she'd dealt with the last few years, trying desperately to keep him happy so that everyone she cared about got to live another day.

The interviewer – a woman Heavensbee seemed to favor for these "hard hitting" propos – had skillfully danced around the topic of Beaumont's demise, only stating that Helena Mellark, who was expecting her second child, had sided with the rebels against her husband.

"We now understand what you and your family have endured for years," the interviewer had said, "but still, that couldn't have been an easy choice. I'm sure our audience wants to know – what prompted you to make that decision?"

Helena looked away for a moment, then turned to stare right at the camera, her gray eyes glinting and her jaw set in a hard line. Gale had always thought that the girl looked more like Mellark, but in that moment, her expression was pure Katniss.

"He threatened my son."

The interview, Heavensbee said afterwards, had been a wonderful success, and he'd tried to encourage Helena to do another one, but whatever had prompted her to accept the first time hadn't been enough to make her agree to a second. Heavensbee had clearly been disappointed by her refusal, but he'd found another subject soon enough – an Avox who was working for one of the film crews. (The Avox had told his story with the help of his brother who'd sat by his side throughout the interview, faithfully translating his silent gestures for the camera.)

The war raged on.

Gale itched with inactivity as the days passed, hating that he was sitting around and attending meetings when there was still so much that needed to be done...so many battles left to fight. (Madge had done her best to help, seeming to understand his feelings in a way that he was just starting to appreciate, but welcome as her presence was, it hadn't been enough to banish his restlessness entirely.)

It looked like he wasn't the only one who longed to be doing something, either – he'd seen Johanna Mason prowling the bunker's halls at all hours, even long past curfew. He'd seen her around so much, in fact, that it caught his attention when he went almost a full day without seeing her again, and since his meetings had already finished for the afternoon, he decided he might as well try to track her down. A Victor like her could be a real threat to innocent people if she wasn't thinking straight, and trying to find her at least made him feel like he was making himself useful.

That was how he'd wound up in the mess hall, limping over to the table where Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta were sitting for lunch. They both knew Mason, and it seemed like as good a place to start as any.

The District Four Victors looked up at him as he approached, almost eerily in sync, their hazy-eyed stares making him uneasy.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I, uh, wondered if I could talk to you."

Cresta gave him an absentminded smile. "Of course." She looked over at the empty chair beside her. "We don't mind, do we, little one?"

Not really sure how to answer that, Gale just muttered a thank you and carefully lowered himself down into the chair across from the Victors, ignoring the way the joints on his left side protested the change in position. He turned his head a little, trying not to be too obvious about it, but wanting to make sure they saw the rank insignia pinned to his collar. He hoped it would be enough to convince them that he had the authority to ask a few questions, if nothing else.

"I'm Gale Hawthorne."

Odair's head tilted, and he squinted at Gale like he was trying to remember something from long ago. "You're Katniss's cousin that was hurt in that mining accident."

Gale snorted. "Yeah. Except it wasn't an accident, and I'm not actually her cousin."

"Hm." Odair didn't seem surprised to hear that.

Gale drew a deep breath and decided not to beat around the bush. "I was hoping you might be able to tell me where Johanna Mason is."

Odair's eyes narrowed, a flicker of a threat flitting over his features this time. "Why?"

Gale stiffened at the subtle reminder that Odair could be just as dangerous as Mason if he wanted to be, but he held his ground. "I've seen her around a lot lately, and she's seemed...upset. I just want to make sure she's okay and that nobody else gets hurt."

Odair stared at him for a long moment, then glanced over at Cresta, a silent question in his eyes. Cresta smiled again, looking unbothered, and that seemed to be enough for Odair, who turned to face Gale once more.

"You won't find Johanna...not here." He looked up at the ceiling, nodding vaguely at the world above the bunker. "She's out there."

Gale blinked, leaning back in his seat in surprise. Of all the answers he'd imagined, he hadn't expected that one.

"Out there...you mean fighting? How?" he demanded.

Odair shrugged. "Don't know. When Blight realized that she wasn't going to give up no matter what those doctors said, he finally agreed to help her, but I'm not sure what their plan was."

Gale shook his head in disbelief – and with a little bit of admiration too – trying to figure out how Mason and Williams might have managed to make it past all of Thirteen's elaborate security measures. The hovercrafts, maybe. If they'd managed to sneak onto one with some cargo... (That would never have worked for him, though, even if he'd been bold enough to try it. Between the crutch he had to use and his limp, any sort of stealth was pretty much impossible.)

"Blight promised he'll watch her back if she'll let him," Odair added.

"If she'll let him?" Gale repeated. Mason's Games had been years ago, but he knew she'd played it smart back then – her abrupt transformation from blubbering girl to brutal killer was hard to forget. "Mason never struck me as a careless fighter."

"She's not, usually. She's just...angry."

Gale frowned. That certainly matched with what he'd seen of her around the base.

"Why didn't you tell anyone what Mason was planning?"

Odair smiled thinly, a bitter look chasing away the haze in his eyes for a moment. "Because I know how she feels."

Cresta reached over to take Odair's hand, leaning closer to press a comforting kiss to his shoulder. Odair squeezed her hand in answer.

Gale's frown deepened. His self-appointed mission was turning out to be a lot more complicated than he'd expected it to be. Williams seems like he was mostly just along for the ride, but Mason... What exactly was he supposed to do about a rogue Victor?

"Look," he said at last, "if she doesn't want to come back, is there anybody who could talk her down? Family, maybe?"

"They're dead."

"All of them?"

"Yeah."

Gale's jaw clenched at the matter-of-fact response, his gaze dropping to the plain, gray table top between them. He didn't want to imagine himself in Mason's shoes. He still missed his dad fiercely, even after all these years, and losing Posy had gutted him. He couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of losing anyone else...let alone everyone else.

They'd come close enough to another loss as it was. Vick, who'd been with the combat volunteers in Twelve, had gotten caught up in an explosion around the Seam. He'd survived, but the docs in Thirteen had needed to amputate his right arm from the elbow down. The first time he'd woken up after the surgery, he'd gone real quiet at the news and then said that, for a world where his kids could grow up without the threat of the Games hanging over their heads, he'd have given up the other one too.

Rory, thankfully, had made it through the battle in Twelve alright, but then he'd volunteered to be sent out to some of the other districts, providing reinforcements for the troops who were already on the ground. He was still out there now, somewhere in District Five, last Gale had heard. (If there was anything that made it just a little easier for Gale to be stuck in Thirteen, it was the relief in his ma's eyes every time he was nearby...safe, even when his brothers couldn't be.)

Gale finally dragged his eyes away from the table top to find that Odair and Cresta were both watching him again.

He wondered suddenly just how many people they had lost. Odair hadn't talked about that when he'd done his propo, but then again, though Gale had seen countless reports in the Capitol media about Odair over the years, he didn't ever remember any of them mentioning family.

A heavy sort of feeling settled in his chest.

Gale sighed, leaning back in his chair and bracing his good arm against the table. "I'll have to tell command about this."

"I know."

"I won't mention you."

He felt like he owed the Victor that much.

Odair's eyebrows rose faintly in surprise, and then he nodded once in gratitude. Cresta smiled at him from Odair's side.

Gale returned the nod, though he didn't quite manage to return the smile, then he reached for his crutch and pulled himself out of the chair, still feeling the Victors' eyes on him as he went. He started off in the direction of the command center, slowly making his way through the crowded mess hall.

He'd meant what he said – command needed to know. There were at least a couple high-stakes operations he knew about that Mason and Williams could interfere with if they accidentally tipped the Capitol off early.

There was also the question of whether or not Mason was actually mentally fit for combat (Gale had a feeling that the docs hadn't thought so).

But no matter what...he hoped she had the chance to fight, the way she wanted to.

That was what he'd wanted for himself, wasn't it? To fight on his own terms. To stand up to the Capitol and prove that they didn't own him after all. To make them pay for everything...everyone...they'd taken from him over the years.

Johanna Mason, he figured, deserved to have that too.

The war, in the end, had lasted for five and a half months.

Thousands had died. Thousands more had lost everything.

But they were free. Finally free. It didn't make the losses from the war any less painful, but that freedom had been bought and paid for in blood, and it seemed even more precious because of it.

Helena still found it hard to believe.

She and her parents had stayed in Twelve, moving in with Aunt Prim and Grandma Aster. The house in the Victors' Village was large enough for all of them, and after so many years of having to rely only on letters and phone calls – and the handful of visits the Capitol had allowed – none of them had felt like being very far from each other now that they had the choice.

District Twelve didn't quite seem to know what to make of them. Some people were convinced that they were heroes. Others accused them of joining the rebellion solely because they'd seen which way the wind was blowing, and they'd wanted to stay on the winning side.

Helena didn't care. She'd told the truth in the interview she'd done...as much as she'd been willing to share, anyway. She'd understood why her parents had refused to do a propo of their own – they'd been forced to give away so many pieces of themselves since they'd won that it sometimes felt like there was hardly anything left for them to keep. But Helena knew how the media worked, and war or not, and if the Mellarks didn't give them something, the questions never would have stopped. There was still speculation, of course, even with her interview, and people would believe whatever they wanted to, no matter what they were told. That would never change. But she'd tried to offer just enough to satisfy most people, and her interview seemed to have done that much, at least. Anything beyond that, she wasn't going to worry about.

The only people whose opinions she cared about now were the ones who knew them outside of the roles they'd been forced into so long ago, like Cinna and Portia. The two designers had returned to the Capitol, but they'd promised to visit Twelve as soon as the new public transportation network was up and running. (The recently reformed military – now consisting of volunteers from all over Panem – had offered Cinna and Portia a lucrative contract for their "metamorphic textiles," like the kind they'd used for her parents' armor. Cinna said they hoped to use the money from the contract to fund some of the charities that were working to help those displaced by the war.)

Another person whose opinion mattered was her dad's childhood friend, Delly Cartwright. Delly's father and brother had both died defending the Town, but in spite of her grief, the teary-eyed woman had somehow still managed to be warm and friendly, welcoming them all with open arms. (Her parents had used some of their Victor's winnings – now considered reparations – to buy construction materials for the new shop. Delly and her husband were determined that the Cartwright's Shoe Store would be open again by the end of the summer.)

Madge Undersee had become yet another one of those people, not long afterwards. Years working in the Capitol's bureaucracy, plus the role she'd played in Twelve for the rebellion, had quickly drawn her back into the political sphere as Panem began working to rebuild. Madge had been the one to help her parents cut through the red tape to purchase those supplies for Delly, and she'd also been the one who'd helped ensure that Gabe had dual-citizenship in both the Capitol and Twelve, so that there was no question about his right to live inside the district. (There were still a few people who would have preferred that the Mellarks remain in the Capitol, and "reformed government" or not, none of them had wanted to risk being forced back to the city because of underhanded legal tactics.)

It was through Madge that Helena had finally met Gale Hawthorne and his family...the ones who'd paid such a high price because of their friendship with her mother. She'd seen Gale around Thirteen quite a few times, but never approached him, unsure what she would say. Her mother didn't seem to know what to say to him either, even in Twelve, and Gale himself had looked just as stiff and uncertain. A little of the tension had finally eased when they'd learned about Vick Hawthorne's injury during the war, and her dad had offered to get him in touch with the prosthetic specialists he knew in the Capitol. Seam pride not withstanding, the family had seemed grateful for the help. Helena didn't think that Gale and her mother would ever have anything like the the friendship they'd had before – there was too much distance, too much pain, and too much loss wrapped up in that – but she hoped that, someday, they might find some sort of peace with each other again.

Peace, Helena thought, was all that any of them really wanted, but that was easier said than done when, even now, the cruelty of the Capitol had a way of following them. She'd seen the pain in her parents' eyes when they'd found out what had happened to their former escort, Effie Trinket, a woman Helena only knew about from her parents' stories. She'd been just eighteen months old when Effie Trinket had been labeled a dissident and turned into an Avox. (After Effie's initial arrest, Haymitch and her parents had been allowed to submit their testimonies in writing on her behalf, though they'd all known that it was just a formality – nothing they could say would change the outcome. They'd been informed of the Capitol's verdict two weeks later, supposedly as a "courtesy.")

They hadn't known, though, that Effie had begun working for the rebellion afterwards, and her parents had been furious that Plutarch Heavensbee hadn't told them about her death any sooner, especially after learning what she'd done to pass on a list of rebel Victors for Thirteen. Plutarch, now the head of the Media Oversight Committee, said he'd feared that the news might distract them at a critical moment. (The next time Heavensbee had tried to contact them, they'd slammed the door in his face.)

It hadn't made it any easier that, not long after they'd learned about Effie, there'd been a flood of stories in the media about the many casualties among the ranks of the Victors. The headlines had been inspired by a recently released government report, stating that a rebel unit in District Three had been saved from an ambush by a man and woman both wielding axes. The man and woman had managed to hold off the Capitol forces just long enough for the unit to get their wounded to safety. (Blight Williams's and Johanna Mason's remains had been found in the area the next day.)

Helena tried to focus on other things, things that reminded her to hope, and hidden among the stories of the Victors who'd been lost, there'd also been a headline announcing that Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta had been granted a marriage license. They had, the article said, been secretly married in a private ceremony almost twenty years ago, and they'd wanted the license to "ensure that their marriage was finally recognized in the eyes of the law." (They'd produced a witness statement, written by the late Victor Mags Flanagan, as proof that the private ceremony had taken place.)

If there was anything that really gave Helena hope, though, it was her son.

Gabe loved Twelve.

He seemed fascinated by the wildness of it, which was so different from the superficial polish and artificial order he'd known before, in the Capitol. Helena didn't think she'd ever get tired of watching him run around in the grassy fields and open meadows. (Her mom had taken them beyond the old fence boundary herself, walking the overgrown hunting trails she'd known so well before the Games, her hand brushing the bark of every tree she passed, like she had to remind herself that they were real.)

Gabe's excitement about the bakery was contagious too, and if he wasn't running around in the fields, he wanted to help his grandpa, great-grandpa, and great-uncle frost the colorful cakes that were displayed in the bakery's front windows. (The frosting on the cakes was never quite as neat when he was there, but even Grandma Jan didn't seem to mind that too much.)

There were times, though, even if they were rare, when Helena found it hard to look Gabe in the eyes...eyes that were, and would always be, so much like his father's. She didn't regret the choices she'd made, but she knew that someday she would have to look into those same eyes and tell her little boy exactly what she'd done. She wasn't going to keep it from him. He deserved to know the truth...both of her children did.

Gabe's little brother joined them on a bright, February morning, just when the sun had really started to melt the snow left over from a storm a few days before. Grandma Aster and Aunt Prim had delivered him, while her parents had kept Gabe distracted in the living room downstairs.

Even though this was her second child, Helena's labor had been a long one, starting in the early afternoon and lasting all the way though the night, and she wasn't sure she'd ever been so tired in her life.

But that didn't matter. When it was over, she had another boy...a wonderful, beautiful, baby boy with a head of dark hair and eyes that were a Mellark blue, with just a hint of his father's sea green.

Helena drew him closer to her chest, smiling at him through her tears.

Her son blinked up curiously at her, then turned his head to watch the world from her arms with a serious, thoughtful expression that looked almost out of place on his small features, his tiny, perfect fingers curling around the blanket he was wrapped in.

Helena named him Sage.

Fin

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!

Take care and God bless!

Ani-maniac494 :)