Naomi died.

They called it a suicide. But as Kayla and Austin sobbed, and as Will tried to muster up some emotion to show, it was obvious to him that she hadn't taken her own life. Will knew that it was a warning.

The Victory Tour was too soon after that, and Will thought that without Lee guiding him through it every step of the way, he might have been overwhelmed by everything.

They started off in 12. Will didn't know what to expect. He had been Nico's ally, yes, but he had let Nico die. He had let Zoe die. 12 might have thought that they'd finally get another Victor, but no. There was no one standing on either of the two platforms. The entire district stared up at him like dying cattle, accusing, tired.

(Diana wondered if she could have changed the course of events. She wondered if it would have been worth it at all.)

Will said his words and moved on.

It almost seemed fitting that Nico had grown up in such a dark, dirty place. But all of Will's visions of him didn't match the persona the Capitol gave him. Nico was vibrant. Alive.

11 was horrible.

The entire district glared up at him with burning anger in their eyes. Katie's sister stood on the platform alone. Her eyes were red, and she didn't even look up at Will. The guilt threatened to overwhelm him.

(Miranda felt the guilt creeping up on her, day by day. Maybe she wouldn't have survived the Games in Katie's place. But she would rather be dead than responsible for the death of her older sister.)

Connor's brother looked shell-shocked, broken, almost. But he still glared up at Will as if Will had killed his brother. Will wanted to scream at him. It wasn't me! It was Zoe! But he couldn't. His mere presence really meant that he was a killer of all 23 other tributes, didn't it?

(Travis should have volunteered. But he didn't. All he could do no was keep on breathing, day by day, somehow doing it without his brother and partner in crime.)

Hazel's mother looked dead inside. Will caught her glaring at him a few times, but he could see something in her expression, in her body language, that made him think that she only felt hate towards herself. Will caught himself wondering how long it would be before she died, too, and hated himself for it.

(The boy on the stage was vibrant gold, but he killed Hazel, didn't he? The colors spun wildly. Marie tried to glare at him. If Hazel had come back, then she would have kept her promise, definitely. But Hazel was dead and now all that was left was Terra, and then the comforting grasp of oblivion.)

Frank's grandmother didn't look at him. Will felt almost annoyed. She could at least acknowledge him.

Mostly, he wondered if he could have respected her in another world. She looked almost like a buzzard, tightly wound, wearing all black, but there was an undeniable strength in her posture.

(There was a certain respect that the old woman held for the boy that had won over her grandson. There was no reason to begrudge him his life. It just…it hurt too much to look at his face when it wasn't Fai's.)

Will gorged himself on anything he could eat that night, throwing it all up in the toilets before going back and smashing the plates, cutting his hands and arms open.

"Red doesn't suit you," Lee told him quietly, before hugging Will. Will sobbed into his arms.

They skipped 9 and moved on to 8, which was the easiest so far. There was no one on Ethan's platform, and somehow, that didn't surprise Will. He didn't know Ethan at all. He had seen Ethan do some bad things, but Will was pretty sure that Ethan had been some form of crazy during his last days. No one deserved to die in the Games, especially not a slow death like that.

(Alabaster didn't regret not volunteering for Ethan. Ethan wouldn't have done it for him. Alabaster valued his own life above that of his leader. Ethan had had a good run, anyway. That was the best that any of their useless selves could hope for.)

Will knew that Piper's father was a Victor, and that was why he was so surprised by how broken the man looked. Tristan Mclean was still young, and had always been the paragon of virtue and male beauty in the Capitol. Will couldn't see that anymore. Tristan wasn't crying, and with a cold shock, Will wondered if that was how he looked every night when he couldn't make the tears come out.

(Tristan should have done more. But now his little girl was gone. Tristan didn't begrudge her the last moments she had lived. They were brave and selfless. But he was almost glad that one of her allies hadn't won. He didn't think that he could deal with that. Tristan found Drew's face on stage. Her eyes were red, like she had been crying, but Tristan knew that the idea of that was ridiculous.)

7.

There was no one on Calypso's platform. But the people standing around it…they were packed in tightly, but they looked like they wanted to be there. They were solid. Unified. Will knew that the district had loved Calypso, but he hadn't expected this.

(Mellie wondered if her young son would make it through the flu he had caught that winter without Calypso's help. She turned her eyes to the gray sky, hoping that Calypso's spirit, wherever it was, was happy.)

Grover didn't seem to have parents. There was just his girlfriend on stage, still sobbing, even after six months. Will did a double take as he saw her clutching at her stomach.

She was pregnant.

(Juniper kept one finger on the ring that she had found under Grover's bed the day that he had died and tried to keep herself from hating the Victor too much. She failed.)

"I'm sorry!" Will screamed that night, between retching and sobbing.

District 6 was next on the list.

Clovis's family was big. He seemed to have several brother, several sisters, or maybe they were cousins? There were adults, too. With a start, Will wondered if he had been justifying his own life with the idea that his family needed him most. Well, Clovis had many more people waiting for him to come home.

Will didn't deserve any of the gifts that he had been given.

(15 times 10 is 150, Moran reminded himself. His younger brother had used the numbers to stay awake, but Moran could use them to keep himself from attacking everyone around him. Someday, justice would come. He had to believe that.)

There were two people on Rachel's platform, undoubtedly her mother and father. Her parents stood slightly apart from each other, straight and tall. Will felt hate shoot through him. He imagined Rachel's father rushing away from the Tour after he was done, trying to get back to work as soon as possible. Will dragged on the speech for as long as possible on purpose.

But after he was done, Rachel's mother collapsed into her husband's arms, and they stayed there for a minute or two. The man's face was buried in his wife's shoulder, and with a start, Will realized that he seemed to be crying. But then Mr. Dare stood back up straight and left.

(Mrs. Dare couldn't believe that her daughter wasn't coming back. There was blame to be placed somewhere, that was for sure. Was it her fault, somehow? Her husband's? Rachel's, for not being strong enough? Was it the fault of those who had killed her? Mrs. Dare didn't even consider blaming the Capitol as she pushed the blame onto the people of her district, the ones that hadn't volunteered to save her little girl.)

Will wasn't looking forward to 5 and Jason.

There were five girls on Ella's podium. Two of them almost looked like they were smiling. The other three looked bored. Will wondered what Ella had gone through. She had seemed very strange, yes, but intelligent nonetheless. What had her life been like?

She had deserved a chance, that much was obvious. She had never gotten one, though. Her life had been cut off prematurely.

It wasn't fair.

(Ocypeta refused to mourn her sister. Ella was the reason that their mother had died and that their father had left. Still, she couldn't help but wonder…in another world, another time…what could have happened to change the course of events?)

Jason's sister stood alone on her platform. Tanya…Thalia! Will recalled. She couldn't be more different from her brother. She was kind of scary, hair black and spiky, face angry. She glared up at Will, but as Will met her eyes, he understood that she wasn't angry with him.

Just the world.

(The world had killed her little brother. Thalia should have been able to save him, yes. Somehow, she should have found a way. But the world were the ones that had killed him in the end, and Thalia would find a way to wreak havoc and finally get her revenge.)

And then District 4.

Clarisse's platform was packed, too. There were her parents, and person Will recognized as her brother from the interviews. Then there was her boyfriend. While the rest of Clarisse's family was just glaring, Chris looked like he might have been crying earlier.

Will almost wished that Clarisse had made it back to her loving boyfriend. They could have lived happily ever after. It would have made a wonderful story.

Then he remembered the truth of the matter and how he really did value his own life.

Stories were nicer than the real world.

But the real world was where Will was still alive.

(Chris imagined what Clarisse would've said if she knew he was crying. She'd pretend to be angry, but then get that gruff sound in her voice that meant she was close to crying. Then they'd do something stupid and laugh. Chris was sad that she was gone. He didn't understand how he could make it without her. But Chris hoped in his heart that wherever Clarisse was now, she was as free as she deserved to be.)

On Percy's platform were two men, a woman, and a young boy. Maybe as old as Kayla. Will felt bile rising in this throat, and self-hatred rose in his body, choking him. Lee tapped the small of his back slightly, and Will took a breath, feeling more grounded. I'm sorry, he wanted to say.

But he didn't.

He couldn't.

(Sally didn't want to face the fact that her son was gone. She couldn't. She had been a horrible mother, a horrible person. She had inadvertently killed her son. She gripped Tyson's shoulder tighter, swearing that he'd never fall victim to the Games. Not like Percy had. A tear trickled down her cheek. He was gone.)

3, where Will couldn't save Annabeth.

There was a single boy standing on Leo's platform.

His brother.

Will almost threw up right there. It wasn't fair! Leo's brother was on his own now, and Will couldn't do anything about it!

But something strange happened.

Two people were approaching the stage. A man and a woman. A few Peacekeepers made a ring, keeping them back. But a chant started. "Let them by! Let them by!"

The Peacekeepers took a step back.

The boy on the platform broke into tears as the man and the woman joined him.

So maybe Leo didn't have very much biological family. But Will prayed that he could get by, with these other two people by his side.

(Nyssa felt a strange sense of satisfaction as she stood by Harley's side. Maybe she hadn't been able to save Leo. But she had been able to change something. You thought that no one cared about you, she thought to Leo. But we do. More than you can imagine. That boy had been family to her. Maybe she couldn't save him. But she could save Harley.)

Annabeth's father stood on the platform, her stepfamily slightly behind him. There was another woman and a young man who stood on the platform separated from the others. Annabeth's mother, maybe? A brother? Will hated himself for not wanting to know.

(Frederick cried every night as he thought of the relationship that he never got to have with his daughter. He didn't even deserve the name of 'father.' He had let his little girl go. He deserved to die. I'm sorry! He thought. I'm so, so sorry. He looked at his former wife, who had her eyes fixed to the stage. Their daughter's face flickered behind them on a gigantic screen.)

The first thing that Will noticed in 2 was the two dogs that were on Reyna's platform. There were also two women. They had resemblance to the dark-haired tribute who Will had faced down. There was something in their stances, in their dark eyes, that made Will absolutely sure that they were all family.

Will wondered what was going on behind their eyes. Were they grieving? Ashamed? Angry? Unemotional? Were they proud?

(Hylla couldn't single out any one emotion at the moment. She felt anger at the Capitol, at Will, everyone. But anger towards those places was utterly futile. The only thing that she was sure of was her pride towards Reyna. Reyna hadn't come back, but that just made Hylla regret her own decisions. Reyna had faced her death with grace. Reyna was a true warrior. Hylla was proud of her sister.)

Will was almost startled to see that Octavian had family. There were two people on the stage, probably his parents. Will remembered how the district had refused to volunteer for Octavian, and remembered how Octavian had killed Lou Ellen. What kind of people could raise such a monster?

(Octavian's father felt hate towards his district. His son was gone. That was never supposed to happen. Octavian was supposed to be someone someday. He wasn't supposed to die. But they had let him. They had killed him!)

"Don't do it," Lee told Will.

"What?" Will asked, annoyed.

"Whatever you were thinking about, Solace. Don't even…think about it." It came out as a question in the end, and Lee flushed, annoyed.

Will gazed upwards at the plush red velvet ceiling of the train. "Okay, Lee."

"And don't you dare—really?"

"Yes. Please shut up."

"You shut up."

District 9's two male Victors eventually went to sleep, across from each other at the brown wooden table. Hattie found them in the morning, and reprimanded them for not getting enough rest for District 1.

There was a man who was on Nancy's platform, standing on shaky legs, who at one point wasn't even standing up. Instead, he sat down on the platform, legs hanging over the wood. Was that Nancy's father? Will hated Nancy. He didn't want to know about her father's inadequacy. It made it hard to hate her.

That's not what I'm trying to do, Will reminded himself. Forgive. Forgive.

It was just so hard!

(Allina didn't regret anything. Except maybe she did. She remembered when Nancy had been younger. Just as ugly, just as annoying, but friendly enough, at least a little smart and fun to be around. Allina hadn't ruined anything. It had always been Nancy! Why couldn't Allina make herself remember that?)

Will almost believed that Castor was alive again, but on second glance, it was just a boy who was almost identical. Castor's twin.

Will got choked up again as he imagined Austin, standing like Castor was, bereft of the person he was closest to.

He was glad that he was alive.

Castor's father was there, too, leaning heavily on his remaining son. What was going on with him? Were all the fathers in District 1 this inadequate? Will didn't really want to know.

(Pollux missed his brother. So much. It was as if half of him had been ripped away. Now, all that was left was anger towards his father. Pollux was going to make something of himself. For himself. And for Castor.)

Then the Capitol.

Will met up with Antaeus again. With the Gamemakers. The President. With all of his sponsors and people who had supported him and bet on him. He was like a circus attraction. The most popular one. The one that everyone wanted to see.

He was glad to go home.

Everyone else was dead. They were all dead.

And somehow he was still alive.

Austin took his hand as they walked through a field together under the sun, as they had started to do. "You're alive," he said.

"You always sound so surprised."

"I'm just grateful."

"Me too."

Will was alive.

That would have to be enough.

*The End*