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since hattie has gotten home, she had spent the entirety of her time in her room. cypress has gone home to welcome his mother home for the first day. after hattie arrived, and when he had gotten back, he found hattie in a mountain of blankets on her bed, watching the meaningless TV.

"okay, crazy lady, what's the get-up for?" cypress confronted, throwing some blankets around the bed to make room for himself. "i can't let them die." "who? peeta and katniss?" "i'm a fool. i made myself become a mentor to make sure they didn't end up like rue, and now i can't let them die." "can't?" cypress rhetorically asked. "if i let them die... no, that won't happen. it can't happen." the 16 year old told herself.

"hattie." "i have to watch out for them." "hattie." cypress said a bit louder. "i made attachments and relationships with them. i'm such an idiot." "hattie !" cypress shouted, making hattie jump. "listen to me." he looked at her, then shook his head, "get outta those blankets. i can't take you seriously in them." she somersaulted out of the blankets, and laid herself down at the bottom of the queen-sized bed. cypress brought himself down to lay beside his best friend. he turned his head to her, but her eyes stayed on the ceiling.

"as long as they have you in their corner, they will never fail." he insisted. "yeah?" she asked, unsure. "of course. you've always had my back. i bet it's no different with them. and you're not stupid for making relationships. never see that as a weakness." he assured. hattie finally looked at him, and cuddled her head into his chest. "i guess you're right... how's your mom doing?" "she's been like you, stuck in her room. i heard her sobbing all night long." he sighed. hattie nodded, "yeah, she was a wreck the other night."

they stayed quiet for the next couple minutes, just laying next to each other in the dark, until cypress looked at hattie. "so... peeta?" hattie looked to him, confused. "huh?" "i mean... there had to be something going on. come on, harri, i know you. i saw that envelope he gave you when i walked in. so cute, it said 'to my harriet'. why don't you read it?" "he told me to only read it if something bad happened or if he died." cypress' lips turned into a thin line, nodding his head. "well, it's like romeo and juliet, then ! tragic romance. come on, hattie, don't make me do all the optimistic thinking." hattie sighed, and sat up. "what are you suggesting?" he scoffed at her, "that he's in love with you."

at that, she scoffed louder. "we've known each other for less than a week. how do you suggest he's in love with me?" cypress glanced at her, and realized that she seriously wasn't taking it. "love waits for no man." he said. "i don't care, cypress. he barely knows me. i'm the enemy's daughter." "it's seriously forbidden-love ! romeo and juliet called, they want their story back."

she rolled her eyes. "he's engaged to katniss, cy." "engaged my ass, harriet ! didn't you say you didn't believe in their shit?" cypress said, starting to stand up and point his finger at hattie. she shrugged pointlessly, "cy—" "no, tell me, yes or no." she rolled her eyes at him, "...i did say that." "and did that opinion change when you mentored them?" "no." hattie shook her head. "and their wedding is obviously cancelled, yes?" "yeah." she sighed, "then why does it matter? it's obvious they're not in love, so let your imagination run free !" she couldn't help but laugh at her best friend, "why, you want katniss to yourself?"

cypress stared at her with wide eyes, a grin growing on his face. "oh-ho, you wanna say that, now? come here." he grabbed a pillow and wound up, making hattie giggle and jump off the bed. "no !" cypress hit her right in the face, making her fall to the ground. "hey !" she grabbed the pillow and stood up, seeing him with another pillow in hand. they both let out battle cries, and started fighting with the pillows in the dark, the city illuminations being their only light.

"oh, let's stop, i'm tired." hattie panted, falling back onto the soft bed. "you just know i won." the 18 year old shrugged, but followed her actions. they sat there, letting their breath fall back into its normal rhythm. "hey," hattie said. cypress turned his head, "hm?" "did i ever tell you what peeta did for me?" now, he turned his whole body towards the girl. "no... tell me, tell me !" he hit her legs. "okay, so..."

no matter what happened, the fire and trinket boy and girl would be with each other at the end of the day.

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"let the 75th hunger games begin. may the odds be ever in your favor. ten.. nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one."

hattie stood nervously in her bedroom, pacing the room back and forth. she couldn't sit still. "harri, come sit." cypress tried to calm the girl, but it was like talking to the wall. "don't." she pointed a finger at him while staring at the TV. he didn't respond, just put his hands up in surrender. hattie immediately spotted katniss, and saw her dive into the water, swimming to the rocks so she could run to the center. "kat..." she mumbled.

from the bird's view of the camera, hattie spotted peeta start to get into a fight with a man that she noticed as rook. "peeta !" she whined quietly, putting her fist to her mouth. mags stood on the rocks, pointing to them. "mags." she muttered. finally, finnick and katniss found the two fighting, and katniss tried to pull an arrow at rook, but they flew underwater so she couldn't reach them anymore. finnick swam towards them, and a canon fired. "please." hattie mumbled. she had already lost her sister, she couldn't lose someone again. not now.

finally, after what seemed as if forever, peeta resurfaced, and hattie let out a relieved breath. "oh, oh," she covered her mouth with her hands and tears released from her eyes. "he's here. he's still here." cypress assured her, coming up behind her, rubbing her arms. after a couple more minutes, the canons fired three more times. "they are just dropping like flies, jesus christ." he commented, shaking his head.

"hopefully they remembered my lessons." she murmured. "how could they not? you have two rules. get a head start, and go for above the waist. specifically the neck." he counted the reasons off his hand. as hattie continued to observe the arena, a spark flew from below. "what.. what was that?" cypress asked nervously. "peeta !" hattie heard a panicked scream. "it's peeta." soon, they saw finnick odair doing CPR on the boy, and hattie's breath started to become uneasy once again.

"please wake up. please." katniss sighed, starting to tear up on screen. "come on. come on !" finnick muttered. "peeta. please. don't leave me here." hattie cried. suddenly, on screen, the boy gasped back to life. "oh, my god." the girl cried louder, hugging cypress. "oh my god." they heard katniss say. "be careful. there's a force field up there." peeta remarked. hattie laughed, wiping her tears. katniss kissed peeta's cheek, "oh, my god. you were dead." she told him.

cypress noticed a familiar golden ring on peeta's left ring finger. "is that... my mom's ring?" he asked in a whisper, squinting at the screen. hattie glanced behind her shoulder to her best friend, a wide-eyed look on her face. she didn't want to tell him the story.

"uh... about that..." the boy immediately looked down to the girl. "what did you do?" a guilty look overcame her face, starting to play with her hair, "well... she gave me the ring, and..." without finishing her sentence, cypress knew where she was going. "you gave him the ring?" he gasped, "are you guys married?" hattie laughed happily, "of course we aren't married !" "you gave the man a ring on his marriage finger." he scoffed. she rolled her eyes and looked back to the hologram.

peeta whispered something to katniss, and she nodded. "i bet she is. she's okay. she's watching right now." katniss said to him. "looks like it's not over for our star-crossed lovers yet." the commentators said as the two hugged, letting the camera zoom out to concentrate on the other tributes.

"oh, my god. thank god." she mumbled, softly crying. "he's alive." cypress expressed, rubbing her back. "i can't." she sighed, blotting her tears. she looked at the water of the arena, and realized there was no one nearby. she observed the water. and the way it cascaded, and realized something.

"wait..." her eyes narrowed. "what?" hattie thought for a moment, before running to the portrait of herself over her canopy bed, and lifted the bottom of the frame. out fell the grey notebook. she looked at the cover, and flipped through it, mumbling words she had written in the pages.

"the water isn't fresh." she concluded, pushing the journal back behind the potrait and walking off her bed. "what do you mean?" "your mom told me and the group that the capitol spent all expenses on the quarter quell, no doubt. and look at the TV. there's sand surrounding the water. no one has gone near the water since the games started. peeta and katniss must be so dehydrated." hattie explained.

she rushed over to her desk, and grabbed the stack of papers the size of the index cards. "grab me a pen." cypress reached into his pocket and threw her a black pen, catching it midair. quickly, she wrote down 'water spile'. when she was finished, the paper morphed into the circular gift box with a small pink parachute. she opened the gift box, and inside laid a small piece of paper. she picked up the paper and wrote down 'drink up and tell peeta to not try to kill himself again. -hattie. to : katniss'. she placed it inside the box, and the moment she closed it, it disappeared.

she threw the pen back to cypress, keeping her eyes focused on the TV. a couple seconds later, she heard an electronic chime come from the hologram. "yes !" she jumped up and down.

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katniss and finnick sat beside each other in the dark.

"eight." she said, referring to the dead people. "mhm." finnick agreed. they sat in silence for a moment before a chiming came from above. "hey." a small gift box fell beside them. katniss stood up and ran over to the box, opening it quickly and finding the small note. "'drink up and tell peeta to try not to kill himself again.'?" katniss read. "what is it?" finnick asked. "it's from hattie... i think it's a spile." "a what?" without a response, katniss jogged over to a tree and stuck it inside the bark.

nothing happened for what felt like hours, until water started to spill out of the spile. katniss gasped, going to put her mouth under the running water and swallowing the gulp of water. "you're kidding me. you're kidding me. hattie rocks." finnick grinned. "get some water." peeta ran over and took some water, letting finnick have a turn next.  he walked over to stand beside katniss and wiped the excess water off his chin. "who...?" he trailed off. "hattie." katniss answered, nodding for a moment before she sighed, "i was wrong about her." "better late than never." peeta smiled. she slapped his arm, "thank god for your girlfriend, then." he looked at her, then just shook his head.

"i'll get some water for mags."

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as the day passed, hattie stayed in her room, and only left when she went to retrieve cypress for help or for food. she only ripped her eyes away from the TV when she went to the bathroom or to take a shower. she had barely slept anymore. through the poisonous fog, constant nightmares, the death of mags, the blood rain, tsunamis, and the baboons, how could she? luckily, peeta remembered a lot of hattie's lessons, and could fend for himself when the baboons came.

as the TV continued to play the hunger games in the middle of the day, the commercials flickered onto the hologram and hattie started to write in her notebook again. she flipped through the pages, momentarily stopping on the page that wrote : "STOP CORIOLANUS SNOW." and under had all the possible ways he could be killed, or how she could kill him herself.

at the sound of footsteps, hattie's eyes widened and she quickly stood up into her bed and his the notebook behind her portrait. she jumped back down on her bed just as she heard the door knock. "come in." she called. as the door opened, it revealed to be her father. "darling, why don't you come done for breakfast? talk to your dad for once." he chuckled as if nothing had ever happened. she refused to call him dad. "no, i can't, i'm—" "the TV is on downstairs. you can come watch at the table. come on, darling, julio made a crepe cake just for you." hattie cringed at the incorrect pronunciation he used for their cooks name.

"it's julio." she corrected him, slowly getting out of bed and starting to walk past him. "right. of course." he nodded, closing her door behind them.

downstairs, a nutella-crepe cake waited for hattie at the table, and sure enough, the hologram-TV was on and still playing commercials. it would be for the next half hour. uncomfortably, hattie took a seat at the head of the table, across from her father. cypress walked up to her and cut her a slice of the cake made of breakfast materials, placing it on her plate. "thanks." she smiled, but he barely made eye contact or even responded as he walked away. weird.

with the yard-worth of distance between them, president snow smiled at his daughter. "it feels as if i haven't spoken to you in years. how was mentoring? did you make friends?" she slightly nodded as she chewed on her food. when she swallowed, she responded, "yeah. saw old friends too." "wonderful, wonderful !" he replied, as if a surprise to him, "and peeta and katniss? make friends with them?" "mhm. sure." she dryly said, grabbing the pre-poured glass of orange juice in front of her. she drank 1. 2. 3. 4 sips. then, she placed it back down.

"how about the baker boy? make friends with him?" he asked. no expression came over hattie's face, but she noted that he had just asked the same question, but with a different set of words. "yeah, i guess." she shrugged. "any romance between the both of you?" she finally looked up from her plate when she heard the question he spoke. something was up. when her father saw the subtle look of suspicion on her face, he shook his head. "just curious. you can be honest with me, you know." he said, picking up a bite of scrambled egg whites and chewing on them.

when he swallowed, he saw that hattie still hadn't responded. "you can tell me." she looked up from her plate to him once again. "but, if anything passed the line of platonic actions, i will have to eliminate peeta as soon as possible." as she made eye contact with her father, hattie felt her eyes widen an unnoticeable amount, and gears started to shift in her head. she should've known her father was going to try and catch her off guard. try. what he seems to keep forgetting is that he has done things similar to this to her before.

"no. no, we were just friends. why would you ask that?" she asked, becoming defensive but not so much it seemed like she was hiding something. she wasn't. "oh, that's right, isn't it?" the man nodded, not answering her question. "yes." she nodded, as if obvious. "then, may i asked, what is this?" the president reached into his suit chest pocket and pulled out a familiar looking envelope, placing it onto the table at him maximum arm length. hattie looked at the envelope, and flipped it over. 'to my harriet' it said. it was hers.

"you went through my room?" she asked, being careful to control her emotions to a certain extent. she didn't remember seeing her father come into her room since that afternoon, and she had barely slept. "why don't we answer my question first, yes?" her father said. "this is an envelope peeta gave me in case he died and katniss survived, to tell me what to do." she pressed the envelope into her pocket. "why didn't he give it to her, then? she is his fiancé, anyway." "my question first." she demanded. "i didn't go through your room. i asked for a favor." as he spoke, hattie knew immediately what he talked of. he got cypress to steal it.

"now, my question." she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "he didn't want katniss to deal with it. she would be grieving. how dare you ask cy to go through my room?" "i didn't have to force him, he wanted to." she looked into his eyes, and her expression stayed blank.

"remember who the real enemy is."

he was just trying to get her mad at cypress. try to root her against the people she would need most. hattie took one last bite of the crepe on her plate, and looked up to her father. she stood up and wiped her mouth with the pearl white napkin, "well, i think i will excuse myself. not that i didn't enjoy this wonderful interrogation out of nowhere to try and catch me off guard, but, i have to get back to my room. good day." then, she grabbed the plate of stacked crepes and left.

she ascended the stairs with ease, and when she single-handedly opened her bedroom door, hattie saw cypress sitting on the foot of her bed, as she predicted. "really? stole the letter you know i would most-likely have to read soon and gave it to my father?" she asked, kicking the door shut. he stood up, shame painted and written all over his face. "i know. i'm sorry." "i know you're sorry, cy, but i didn't expect you to rat me out so easily." she said to him, picking out the envelope and shaking it around in his face for a moment before throwing it to the side.

"he threatened to kill my mom." cypress confessed. it didn't show physically, but hattie froze. "he did?" "yeah. he did. i denied at first, until he threatened to kill her. i couldn't..." "no. no, of course, you couldn't. i'm sorry." she looked up at him and sighed, "remember who the real enemy is." she mumbled under her breath. "you couldn't have known." they two embraced one another, and when they came away from one another, cypress crossed his arms. "did you know cinna died?"

hattie's eyes widened. "he did?" "apparently katniss watched him die. peacemakers beat him to death right before katniss came up to the cornucopia. apparently your dad did not like katniss' wedding dress." "don't call him that." she immediately responded, "but that's awful. we need to do something. anything." "well, can we maybe start off with eating that crepe cake? i haven't eaten all day." "as long as you're cool with sharing a fork." "that's a silly question."

a while later, cypress ate the last bite of the makeshift cake, long after hattie became full. they sat on her bed as they now watched the hunger games once again, and hattie couldn't bare to eat anymore. "thank god for me, without me, you wouldn't be able to finish shit." cypress spoke, and hattie tore her eyes away from the TV, starting to wipe his face.

"and without me, you would walk places with jam and nutella stains all over your face. c'mere." she licked her thumb and continued to rub away the stains.

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"katniss, i don't... i don't know what kinda deals you made with haymitch, but he made me promises too. same with hattie, undoubtedly." peeta told her, sitting at the shore of the beach. he took off his medallion, and played with it. "if you die, and i live, i'd have nothing. nobody else that i care about." "peeta." katniss said. "it's different for you. your family needs you." peeta insisted, handing her the medallion. inside were blank pieces of gold. "you have to live. for them." katniss stared at the medallion, and closed her hand over it.

"what about you?" she asked.