Dust in the Wind by Kansas

Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind.

Fanchon, 28, Capitol Stand In

I haven't left the room behind Venice's since the day he was brought inside. I never expected either Caprice nor Venice to be the one who would make it out of the arena. The odds were simply not in their favour and I had allowed myself to silently mourn them as I watched their progress. After Caprice was the first to fall I didn't have much hope left to instil in the boy, and yet there he is hardly ten feet from reach with only a one way mirror to separate us.

I would have been allowed on the hovercraft that went to extract him from the arena had I asked. All three of us were given the option to board, but I was the only one who rejected the invitation. Bette and Pascal had each formed bonds with Eileen and Santana. Both were eager to be the first ones that they would see if it was them that was victorious.

I knew that Venice would not have wanted to see me.

We were pleasant and formal during his stay with me in the Capitol. I helped him and the girl as best I could allow myself without growing attachments to either of them. It was in my mind that they would be dead so I never expected to be looking at him right now.

The boy, Venice Durante, a Victor despite everything I have failed to provide him with. I was ready to let him die and yet he was unwilling to lay down and meet that fate. Every time I look at him it is only with awe. I have failed him in every way that I could have, and yet here he is. A Victor.

"Miss?"

I turn around and see one of the nurses standing at my door. She is not the same one that has been bringing me food and water when I requested it and by the look of the plate on her uniform she is surely in charge around here.

"Yes?" I ask. It has been one of my only requests that I be left alone whenever possible. As Venice's mentor I have already been subjected to more press and annoyances than I can bear. I do not want to answer for all of the actions that Venice has made. Those are his alone to account for.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you," she begins, her voice soft and yet stern. "I have been instructed to bring you to meet someone. I assure you it is of the utmost importance."

I sigh but rise from my chair. They have not been so unkind to bother me on the two days since Venice's return to the Capitol, so I must assume that this is indeed an important matter.

"Follow me," she nods and I do. We only walk across the hall before she opens a door and ushers me inside.

It is a small office, nothing more than what you would expect a doctor's office to be. The walls are white and the window blinds are drawn, but from the cracks between them I can see that it is past nightfall. The person seated at the desk spins around in the chair and I have to hold in a gasp when the light catches his face.

"Sir," I whisper, immediately bowing my head in respect. I cannot believe that the President is the one that called for me and yet there he is, sitting right in front of me. He looks exactly as I expected him to from television, but somehow older.

"Please," he smiles. "Call me Albinus."

As if I could ever look at the most powerful man in all of Panem and call him by his first name. I take a seat in front of the desk when he motions me to do so and wait for him to speak. The last thing I wish to do is offend him by rushing into the reason for my being here.

"I asked you here because you are the one that can best advise me on Mr. Durante," he says finally, his eyes leaving mine as if in embarrassment.

I don't have the gall to tell him that I know very little about the boy. It would seem as if I had not done my job properly, and that is the very last thing I wish for him to think of me. "I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific, sir."

I do hope that I haven't offended him.

"He is not happy here," he says, choosing his words carefully. "He has been through a lot, and I wish to make everything as easy for him as possible from here on out."

"Send him home, then." The words come out of my lips before I can think about how they will sound. I know that the statement is what I meant to say, I am just so terribly afraid of coming off as rude. I do not want him to think ill of me, but in this moment I know that I must speak for Venice as well as I possibly can. The President is right, he has been through a lot and he is unhappy. The nurses had little to attend to in the way of injuries save for the broken nose he retained from his fight with the Arell boy. He has spoken to no one except to ask a few questions, and when I heard his voice for the first time since his return I did not recognize it.

"I wish it were that easy," The President sighs. "I promise you that after a few more days I will send him back to his family, but the people I have placed in charge of this event have told me that he is needed for a few more things before we can let him go."

I nod, knowing that he is making these promises to me as Venice's caretaker. I should have done more for him, but the truth is that he didn't need me when he was in the arena. He won without the help that I was unwilling to provide. Now that he is in the Capitol he does need me to advocate for him, and I am finally ready to do that, yet it is now that I am powerless to do anything for the boy.

Venice Durante, 18, Victor of the 1st Hunger Games

I wish that they would let me out of this room.

I have seen nothing but stark white walls and various people in crisp uniforms since... since whenever I was brought here. I do not remember the exact events that led up to it, only one moment as a man in a red tunic washed blood off of my hand. I know, really without knowing at all, that the blood was Santana's. It could not have been mine, for she never hurt me.

It has been so long since the last person came to my room, or perhaps it is my imagination that tells me so. I am not hungry yet I wish for the woman with the kind smile to walk through the door just so that I will no longer be alone in this place. I do not know where 'this place' is exactly and the only answer I have gotten from the attendants is that I am in a hospital. I am not injured and so I do not understand why I am still here.

I touch the place on my nose, half-expecting the bandages to still be there even though I know they were removed. Was it yesterday that they were taken off? The day before that? I am not sure. There is no clock to tick the hours by and even if there were I would not be able to trust that days had not past as I slept off the medicines they gave me.

The medication has done nothing to dull the pain of the sadness that stabs at me like a million of their tiny syringes at once. My mind is blurry and my thoughts are incomplete, but the terrible aching is still there. Except without the thoughts the feeling is seemingly without meaning. I know to mourn Santana, but that is the only clear thought that I can grasp. So I hold onto it with every ounce of concentration that I have left.

The door swings open and I vaguely recognize the man that steps in to greet me with a wide smile on his face. He motions back to the people behind him, again two women and a man that look somewhat familiar to me, and the four of them gather around my bedside.

"Oh I told them to stop the intravenous this morning," he says and the lisp in his voice is enough to bring his name forward. Julian, my stylist from before the arena, and the rest of his team whose names do not present themselves. He looks over at the other man. "Get a nurse in here to remove it, the boy is half comatose!"

"Oh Venice, you look so much better than when we first saw you," one of the women coos, tracing her hand down my cheek. I wish to slap her hand away, but the limpness in my body allows me to do nothing but groan in response.

"Oh Tula, hush up!" The other woman exclaims, hitting her playfully on the arm. The name sounds familiar but like most other things it seems to lie just out of my grasp. A nurse rushes in and I watch her pull the clear tube from my arm, though I feel nothing. I had forgotten it was even there in the first place.

Julian asks the nurse for help in sitting me upright and I have no choice but to let them. The nurse pushes a pill into my mouth and urges me to swallow. Minutes later the world begins to focus again, though the numbing blanket still sits comfortably over my skin. I can call forth the names of the other two members of the prep team- Ylaine and Garrith- but I still am unable to put a word to the chilly emptiness that burrows deep in my stomach.

"Just like before," Julian instructs his team. "Tula you work on his hair, Ylaine on skin, and Garrith finish getting the garment ready. We only have a few minutes until they need him! Let's get to work!"

I consider asking who needs me and why, but I know by now that I will get no answers by simply asking. There seems to be an unspoken rule that no one let me in on anything that is happening whether it affects me, and I can be sure that it does, or not. So no I do not ask anything. I stay silent, barely feeling what they are doing to me as the tiredness gnaws at my mind.

"Venice?" Julian asks, waving his hand in front of my face to get my attention. When my eyes move to him I see him grimace, the look quickly covered by his usual grin. "I thought I lost you for a second. We need to get you up and dressed. Fanchon will be in to get you in just a few minutes."

The best that I can do is not push against him as him and the others get me to my feet. Oddly enough I feel relatively steady once my feet hit the floor. I allow the women to strip me down and then put me into a grey suit with a blue tie and a white undershirt. I sit down on the bed and by now I am feeling secure enough to put the socks and shoes on myself.

Sure enough, Fanchon appears in the doorway just as Julian told me that she would be. She nods to the prep team and they all leave, Julian giving me a hard squeeze on the shoulder as he passes by the bedside. When they have all left, Fanchon closes the door behind her and walks over to sit tentatively on the edge of the bed beside me.

"Venice," she breathes and just looks at me. "Tonight is important. You are going to be presented to all of Panem as our very first Victor."

The tears come all at once without warning. She puts one hand on my shoulder and I tense. She gets the message and places her hand back at her side.

"I know this is difficult," she begins.

"It wasn't supposed to be me," I say, unsure where the words are coming from. As soon as they leave my lips I understand. The aching pain strengthens, as if cued by the feeling that follows the statement. It all comes back. I had remembered that Santana was dead, that I killed her, but nothing else. Now I know.

"Venice you don't understand," she tries again.

"I understand," I say, clenching my jaw together in a desperate attempt to keep my voice steady. "She was going to kill me. I won by accident. I didn't kill her."

"Your victory was not an accident," Fanchon says, and the firmness in her voice shocks me enough that I remain silent as she continues. "The Capitol wanted you. The fog was meant to block the three of you in. It didn't move for Eileen but they moved it from you when it should have burned you to a crisp. The quake that shook Santana off her feet when she tried to rush at you, and yet never touched the ground where you stood. None of it was accidental, Venice."

I remember all of it. "Why me?"

"It doesn't matter," she says.

"It does," I retort.

"I don't know why, Venice," she says firmly. "I just know that they wanted you. They saved your life and you should be grateful to them for the gift they have given you, no matter the reason."

"They killed her."

I can tell that Fanchon does not have a fancy reply to that. If the Capitol, for whatever reason, saved me then that means that they killed Santana. There is no way of going around that fact and I will not let her even try.

"Look," Fanchon sighs. "They don't tell me much more than they tell you. I watched the finale and I know that this is what happened. I also know that they will be watching you closely because right now you have every person in Panem wondering what you are going to do next. I was told to come in here and make sure that you smile and say nothing bad about anything the Capitol has done. I need you to do that for me."

"You never did anything I needed you to do for me," I say through gritted teeth. "Why would I do anything for you or for the people that killed Santana?"

"Because if you don't there will be consequences. The President is a good man, but right now this is not in his control. They have kept you alive by mercy, but the gift can be taken at any time. You have to pretend that you are grateful-"

"Even if I'm not," I interrupt.

"Even if you're not," she echoes.

Song: Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

A/N: Alright well that's the end.

I have enjoyed writing this story so much. It has allowed me so much creative freedom than anything else I have written in this fandom. I've grown to love each of these characters for the role that they played in making this story what it is, and I have all of my wonderful submitters to thank for that.

I have posted tribute obituaries on the blog. Basically they're just little moments from after the tributes' deaths to show how their families (or in so many cases, lack thereof) have coped. I worked very hard on them and I hope they give some sort of closure to the plotlines you guys have read.

I have a final set of questions that I would love everyone to answer if they could spare the time.

Are you happy with the Victor?

Are you happy with the story as a whole?

What was your favourite moment?

Who was the most shocking death?

Advice for future writing and/or comments about the writing.

And I guess that is all... I am pretty sad to see this story complete but also insanely happy with how it turned out. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Now I'll be moving onto All Eyes and I hope a few of you will be following me through that as well. I guess this is goodbye to Devils and Dust!