AN: Well here it is, the very last chapter of "These Games We Play"! (This thing would have been up HOURS ago, but the site login wasn't working...)

It's the first interview Lucy and I have had since we won the games.

Not surprising, really, seeing as we just got out of the hospital yesterday.

And for people who are declared fit to leave, I have to admit, we look bloody awful.

Because Peter refused to let them surgically alter any part of Lucy, and Johanna-with much less vim, I might add-told them to let me recover naturally, too, we look like war refugees.

Skinny and pale, with blank, dull eyes.

I'm almost afraid to look at my own reflection half the time. It sort of scares me when I don't recognize myself. And I don't. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was a perfect stranger staring back at me.

Somebody I've never seen before in my life.

I know Lucy has the same problem. She tries to hide it, but I've seen her glancing in the mirror at herself from time to time with this sad expression on her face.

More often than not, if I'm in the room and I don't completely ignore what she's doing, she'll out-right ask me if I think she's pretty.

Of course I do. But she doesn't always seem to believe me when I tell her so. She mostly just sighs and moves on.

Which, honestly, I don't understand at all.

She's too thin from being in the Hunger Games, and her body shows signs of malnourishment, sure, but aside from that, I can't see anything wrong with her. I can't figure out exactly what it is she wants to change so badly. What in the world she could possibly be sighing at.

The only visible problems can be changed by time and proper care, after all. And I know Peter will take care of that. Make sure she eats when she has to and gets enough rest.

Portia has designed a black-and-gray tunic and woolen tights that makes me look a little bulkier. Whoever thinks black always has a slimming effect has never seen this thing.

She says it's due to a lot of horizontal lines and the placement of the gray cloth. I don't get it, or care. All I understand, all I need to understand, is that it will keep me from looking starved in front of the live studio audience.

And everybody says the camera adds on some pounds, so nobody in the districts or watching the broadcast from their cushy Capitol mansions will think I look like the bloody Grim Reaper.

It's all part of the act.

Another part is that I'm supposed to pretend this is the first time I've seen Lucy since they separated us after we won.

Everybody in the hospital, and nearly all of the past victors who are friends or acquaintances of Peter or Johanna, know this isn't true.

After that one night I took out my IV needles and went into her room, we got visitation rights. Under the rule that I never take out my IV needles again or go wandering without an escort.

So, obviously, we've seen each other almost every day since then.

The white smocks all say I'm unmanageable and 'truly impossible to take care of' when they don't let me see her.

But the Capitol wants a big joyous reunion. And that's what they're going to get. By order of Lord Snow.

I'm almost positive Lord Snow himself knows we've been seeing each other, that this staged reunion isn't real.

But, hopefully, if we pull it off, he won't care.

I don't care.

Johanna makes it seem like it's a big deal, constantly telling me not to mess it up. I demand to know who allowed her to storm into my dressing-room and bark orders at me. To which she just rolls her eyes and tells me to shut up.

Really! Like it's going to be hard pretending I'm happy to see Lucy. I'm always happy to see her. I'm happy she's even alive, for pity's sake! And kissing her on live television? Yeah, been there, done that-it's not exactly a novelty.

So, waving off Portia's well-meaning smile and Johanna's "Don't make yourself look like a rebel or I'll kill you if the Capitol doesn't first," scowl, I step up onto the stage.

Hopefully, it just looks like I'm waving to the cameras.

I am on 'Live With Caesar Flickerman'... again...

And here's my host... Caesar Flickerman!

Shocker.

Caesar tells me to have a seat on the two-cushioned red couch, but before I can sit down, here comes, from the other side of the stage, the other victor-the one I threatened the Capitol to save-Lucy Pevensie.

She's dressed in a red velvet gown that obviously has a lot of padding in it (because I know her waist is currently much, much smaller than that) and her hair has been left loose, partly braided on one side, with the bottom curled.

The stage is a little uneven where she's standing, and she trips, lurching forward.

But I've already reached her and caught her before she comes close to falling.

The audience is clapping and "Aww"-ing like mad. And they go even more nuts when I kiss her and she intertwines her fingers with mine, staring into my eyes as I slowly pull away.

I could almost believe we hadn't seen each other since the last episode of this year's Hunger Games myself, if I didn't know better.

For added effect, I pull her in for a hug and hold onto her with my eyes closed for a long time, ignoring Caesar's polite coughs for us to remember we're supposed to be doing an interview.

Not that the audience cares. They're absolutely loving this. It turns out Lucy and I even have a fan club.

That's right.

A whole bloody club dedicated to how 'cute' our relationship is.

Don't any of these people have lives?

Call me crazy, but there must be something more valuable to spend their time doing than standing in the back row holding up a sign that reads: Lumund 4eva!

Perhaps they could start by learning to spell the word 'ever'.

Just a suggestion.

We take our seats and Lucy leans on my shoulder till she notices Caesar looking at her and sits up.

"Oh no, sweetheart, you can lean on him if you want. Go ahead, it won't ruin the interview," he says. "That was precious."

The audience is giggling.

Caesar waits for them to quiet down, then says, to us, "Now, before we show the three-hour recap of the 77th Hunger Games highlights, I'd love to ask the both of you some questions."

I nod; Lucy blinks.

"First question is for you, Edmund," he says. "I think it was pretty obvious from the start that Lucy had, shall we say, a bit of a crush on you..."

It was? How did I miss that?

"...but the real fun, I think, for the audience was watching you fall in love with her. For me, the moment when your feelings were most apparent was when you first kissed her after being in that cave for, what, three days? So I guess the question is, what was going through your head at that moment?"

My cheeks feel hot.

Not because I'm embarrassed, but because I'm actually a bit angry.

That was, more or less, the exact moment I realized I was in love with Lucy. If they had picked another random time to pin-point my feelings to, it would be easier to keep the play-acting for the cameras separate from what's real. Them picking the real moment and bringing it into this fake reunion, this television version of my relationship with Lucy, annoys me for some reason.

It shouldn't make me cross. All that should matter is getting through this. But I can't help being upset. The best I can do is try to play off my flushed expression as embarrassed; hide the real thinking behind my sudden vulnerability.

"Well," I say, swallowing hard, "everything was happening so quickly... I guess I was just thinking I'd never known anybody quite like her." Well, that's true. And maybe in a less public moment I can say that (to her, not a bunch of strangers and cameras) in a less stiff-sounding tone of voice.

"Ah, indeed," says Caesar easily, smiling. "And I think we all knew that to be the case when you thought she was dead."

I stare at the nearest camera blankly.

I'm trying to figure out which moment he's referencing.

When Cato told me my 'blue-eyed ally' was dead? When, after the coma berry incident, I nearly ate nightlock, thinking Lucy wasn't going to wake up? When we were in that tree at the end, looking down at the wolf-mutts? Or perhaps he means when I had to give her stitches and she stopped making noise and I thought...?

Could he be referring to all of that with one simple comment?

"Lucy." Caesar shifts his attention over to her. "Would you care to tell us what your first impression of Edmund was?"

She blushes and lifts her head up. "You mean, at the opening ceremonies?"

"Sure, start there."

"I didn't really know him then," Lucy begins. "Except, he..."

Casear nods encouragingly.

"He fell out of his chariot, and everybody knew who he was after that."

Et tu, Lucy?

"At first I thought he was kind of..." Lucy's eyes flicker from Caesar to me. "Kind of scary."

Me? Scary?

"Oh, yes," agrees Caesar, "you did seem a little afraid of him. Like when he shoved you during the cornucopia fight the first day in the arena. That must have been before you realized you liked him."

Golly, I was a real ass, wasn't I?

Lucy shakes her head. "No, I liked him before that."

"Well, you really seemed as if you thought he was going to kill you when he saved you from the tracker jackers."

"I did think he was going to kill me," Lucy admits, lightly biting her lower lip. "That doesn't mean I didn't like him."

"So at what point exactly did you start to like him?"

"Well, it was at the Training Center," she says softly, looking downwards. "I was cold and he put his dres-er, I mean coat-over my shoulders."

I remember that night. The night I spied on the mentors. The same night I saw Caspian and Lilliandil together (I think I lost Lilliandil's token somewhere during my last day in the arena, so I can't give it back to him like I planned). But, the thing is, we were both somewhere we weren't supposed to be. I wasn't supposed to be on that floor. She was supposed to be in bed. And it was a dressing-gown, not a coat.

What strikes me the most about her sad attempt to tell the truth and lie at the same time is that she liked me then.

I hadn't the foggiest notion.

Glancing at Peter, off to the side with the VIP part of the audience, I see he's raised an eyebrow.

He caught Lucy's little slip of the tongue. He knows I never, during any point in time when the tributes from other districts were supposed to be in the same room, or even on the same floor, gave Lucy my coat.

"Oh, so this whole romance started outside of the arena?" Caesar teases.

"Not really," says Lucy. "I don't think he looked twice at me before we became allies."

I sort of mumble, "I might have looked at you as many as three times. Just not so you noticed." Even before I was in love with her, I kept track of her. That is, I noticed her. Even worried about her a little, though I tried not to.

"So, one last question before we roll the footage," says Caesar. "For Edmund."

I cock my head slightly to one side in acknowledgment.

"When you shouted out that you would kill yourself if Lucy died," he says, "what was going through your mind?"

Here it is. The question I knew he was going to ask. The question I have to answer just right or both Lucy and I are done for.

Yeah, no pressure.

"All I was thinking," I say, as clearly as humanly possible, "was that I didn't want to live if I lost her for real. Nothing else." To make myself seem even more like a pathetic lovesick boy with half a brain (which I'm starting to wonder if I actually am), I add, kind of snorting, "I mean, you all saw me almost eat nightlock. It's hard for me to think straight when Lucy's in danger. That's all."

Lucy is gaping at me. "You almost ate what?"

Oh, that's right, she didn't know about that. I spat them out the moment I saw her finger move.

Caesar laughs. "Somebody's in trouble."

"The important word here is 'almost'," I protest.

The audience laughs hysterically.

Almost to my relief, they begin roll the Hunger Games recap and everybody shuts up.

There are all these huge screens facing just about every direction. No one can possibly miss this. In the districts, this is part of our required viewing. As if it wasn't bad enough the first time they made us watch it.

This year is different from any other, though, because I lived it, but I've never seen any of this footage.

I never saw what everybody else, back home and in the Capitol, saw.

Till now.

It's amazing how they managed to condense the whole thing into only three hours.

Of course, they've left some parts out. The duller scenes. Parts with tributes walking or ducking behind trees.

Lasaraleen is left out almost entirely. We see her at the cornucopia but never again after that. The highlights don't even feature her death, or me being nearby.

Myself and Lucy get the most screen-time.

I guess this can only be expected, since we're the victors.

We do see quite a bit of Jill Pole during the first hour. How her alliance with Eustace started out. She was supposed to fight him to the death, but spared him deliberately so he could be her ally.

There's a brief shot of my one conversation with Foxface. Her up in that tree, me below, sword in hand, carrying the net I stole after I let Prim go.

Watching it play out makes my stomach hurt. I think Foxface will always be one of my life's biggest 'what ifs'. The girl who was almost my friend.

Then it shows me setting up the net.

I can feel Lucy's eyes shifting away from the screen and landing on me.

This is a moment I've been dreading. I couldn't make myself tell her that I was responsible for Emeth's death. I tried, several times, in the hospital, but my throat always went dry before I could get it out.

She puts her hand over mine, currently resting on my lap, and I know she forgives me.

We see Gael and Prim die, and our on-screen reactions.

(Lucy playing the funeral song for Gael on the violin is not shown. I guess it smacks a little too strongly of rebellion.)

Lucy shudders and pulls herself closer to me.

More or less every second of my fight with Cato is featured. Including when he told me Lucy was dead. We see Eustace decapitate him, then go into shock.

I'm rather put-off to see that the recap has also kept in me completely losing it in the cave when I returned and Lucy wasn't there, before I realized she had to still be alive because her face wasn't in the night sky.

But what I see next stops me from feeling even remotely sorry for myself.

I see Clove and Jadis hurting Lucy. The look on Lucy's face when Clove cuts her lower back. She cries and begs them to stop several times, but they ignore her. When they finally let her go, I see her staggering around helplessly. She falls flat on her face more than once and seems to have trouble getting back up again. It's a miracle she reached the stream where I found her at all.

Peter can't even look at the screens. Required viewing or not. He looks like he might cry or vomit at any given moment.

Seeing it live must have just about killed him.

I know I'm not handling it much better. I have to keep looking at Lucy, sitting right next to me, to remind myself it's over. She's not being hurt now. She's going to be fine. What happened is in the past. Nothing will ever hurt her again.

When it reaches the part with Jill and Eustace dying, a strange feeling washes over me. I'm not so sure what they ate was nightlock. But I have no way of knowing how that turned out.

I wish I could ask Lucy what she thinks, if she believes her cousin would really eat nightlock, but I can't risk it.

Not even in private, when 'Live With Caesar Flickerman' is over. It's still the Capitol, after all. It would put us at risk. And we won't be going home together. She's going to District 1, and I'm going back to 7.

Finally, they show us fighting the last mutts the gamemakers sent out. Those bloody awful wolves with dead-tributes' eyes. My threat. Us both being declared victors.

Then the screen goes dark.

There's thunderous applause.

I hate everyone in the audience, victors included, except for maybe Peter.

The anthem plays.

We're told Lord Snow has a touch of the flu and can't attend the concluding ceremonies this year, so we'll receive our victor crowns and official plaques while on tour.

I bet they just couldn't get a second crown made in time. They're never needed two in one year before.

I don't think Lord Snow is ill at all. I think he wants to scare me as deeply into submission as possible with his lack of presence.

It's easier to make yourself not fear something you've seen in person.

If I see a doddering old man in a fancy suit glaring at me whenever his back is turned to the cameras and the audience can't catch his expression, I can talk myself into being less afraid.

A governmental power backed up by an important person I've only seen on television and on a balcony, looking down at all twenty-four tributes during the opening ceremonies, is a great deal more unnerving.

After the show, I have to go to the bathroom.

I don't realize it's one of those single-person bathrooms. Much less that it's occupied.

It's unlocked.

"Oh, sorry!" I blurt out, when I see Peter standing at the sink, splashing water on his face.

He turns to see who just walked in on him and I'm surprised to see he has two black eyes.

"Ouch. What happened to you?"

He looks both ways, making sure there's no one behind me. "Get in and close the door."

I do so. "You look terrible."

"I know." He shrugs.

"So how..." I just saw him a few minutes ago. How could he have possibly gotten beaten up since then?

"They really didn't like the little stunt I pulled," he tells me. "You know, sending Lucy that violin, pretending it was from a sponsor."

"So they beat you up for it now?" I ask, confused.

He sighs and shakes his head, smiling bitterly. "No, Edmund, they beat me up for it five minutes after that violin went through. Then again right when she finished playing that funeral song."

"But-" I begin.

"I've been covering it with makeup." He looks in the mirror, then at me. "Don't tell Lucy."

"Pete..."

"Listen, Ed, there's a lot of things about my life I'd rather she didn't know," Peter says softly. "And this is one of them."

A realization dawns on me. "This isn't the first time Capitol officials have beaten you."

"Oh, great Scott, no!" He almost sounds like he might laugh. "They threw me out of a window once. Now, that... that really hurt." He really is laughing, chuckling to himself. I wonder if he's gone round the bend. "This is nothing."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

I take a deep breath. "Does it ever go away?" I'm sure he knows what I mean. The games. The images shown in the recap. The memories.

"No," he tells me gently. "It doesn't."

Suddenly the door swings open.

I jump.

Peter curses under his breath.

"Relax, Pevensie, it's only me."

"Oh, hey, Fin." Peter looks relieved.

District 4 mentor, Finnick Odair, is wedged in the doorway. "Are you going to be much longer? I have to go."

"No, I have to go," I insist.

"Just let me cover up these black eyes again, then you can flip a coin or something," Peter says.

"Oh, by the way, Peter," says Finnick, "thanks for the advice."

Peter crinkles his forehead. "What advice? That you should buy beach towels in bulk?"

"No, no," he snorts, waving it off. "The other advice."

"Oh," says Peter. "That advice."

Finnick nods.

"So it worked?"

"Sure did," Finnick says proudly. "I spent all night cleaning vomit, and no one was the wiser. You're a genius."

All right, I'm completely lost...

"Don't mention it," Peter says, smearing a tan-coloured powder over his right eyelid. "Seriously. Don't mention it."

"Well, I might have already mentioned it to Johanna."

"Dash it, Finnick!"

"She says we're idiots and we're going to mess up and get caught. Oh, and be thrown in the federal pokey, whatever that is."

"Of course she did," Peter grumbles. "And what did you tell her?"

"To stop being so negative."

"Ah."

"Maybe she's right." Finnick sighs. "We double-cross Lord Snow, and we're all going to the pokey."

"Fin, don't use a word if you don't even know what it means." He's almost finished covering up his black eyes.

"Ahem." I clear my throat pointedly, to remind them I'm still here.

Finnick looks embarrassed. "Uh, Pevensie..."

"He's one of us now," Peter reminds him.

"So he knows about..."

"Not yet."

"When are you going to tell him?"

"On tour, maybe, but only if I have to." Peter wipes his hands on a paper towel. "Here's hoping the subject in its entirety never comes up."

"Him is standing right here," I grunt.

"Amen," Finnick agrees, ignoring me.

They both leave me standing alone in the bathroom, brow furrowed, frowning at the door.

I guess I won the hypothetical coin toss.

If I'd thought of it, I could have blackmailed Peter into telling me whatever he's holding back in exchange for keeping quiet about those black eyes of his.

But I don't think I could go through with that, anyway.

I wouldn't want Lucy knowing her brother took a beating to send that violin to her in the arena.

So it's moot.

It would have been a shallow bluff, at best.

Besides, do I even really want to know what they were talking about?

Night comes. I'm back in my room at the Training Center on the 7th floor. And I can't sleep.

I decide to go to the roof.

The night air and the faint hum of the force-field won't feel so alien to me as my room does. It's sort of like being in the arena. It's funny, how I suddenly crave being in the one place in the Training Center that's most similar to it.

Then again, this whole building is, in its own way, as much of a prison as the arena; perhaps the real reason I crave being on the roof is because I know the night sky above me there will be something natural, not something created by the Capitol for a dark purpose.

There will be no faces in that sky. Only stars. Real stars, not a Gamemaker's idea of what an ideal star ought to look like.

When I climb up, I see somebody has set up a few pillows and blankets.

Then I see Lucy sitting there, on top of one of the blanket piles, looking out at the Capitol.

"Hey, Lu."

She turns round halfway. "Hey, Ed."

"Thinking about home?"

"A little," she says.

I've been thinking about my home, too.

We'll see each other again, on tour, since we're both victors, but this is our last night together.

Part of me wants it over. So I can go home and try not to think about this terrible place and all the people who I saw die. But another part of me wishes I had a hundred more days here, so I could spend them all with Lucy.

Back in District 7, when I really miss her, perhaps I'll even find myself wishing I was back in the arena. Wishing I could have all those bad experiences back, just so I could have the good ones, too.

Falling in love, learning to stand on my own two feet, learning-albeit slowly-to like myself, maybe just a little bit... Would I have ever known what any of that felt like if my name hadn't been drawn in the reaping for the 77th Hunger Games?

I guess I'll never know.

"I'm sorry you won't get to see the ruins," I say, sitting down beside her.

I guess they think it would seem too rebellious to have her go there-given the way we won. Not even Peter, who'd give her just about anything she wants, can risk it.

Lucy shrugs and stretches out, lying down on the blankets.

"Will you tell me about them?" I ask, lowering myself down onto my elbows.

"How can I? I never saw the Cair Paravel ruins."

"You must have an idea, in your mind, of what it's like," I tell her. "You can tell me about that." I roll over onto my side.

She presses her back against my chest and, reaching backwards, takes my hand, holding onto my index and ring fingers.

So she tells me.

About the great castle by the sea, all crumbling towers and shattered stone courtyards now, but once upon a time, back when Panem was Narnia, a building that was a wonder of the world.

For a place Lucy has never seen, she makes it sound wonderful.

The play-world of a young girl from District 1, created to keep the Capitol's darkness out, to let her believe that, even though things aren't good now, they used to be, can lick the real world, the unfortunate thing that is currently Panem, hollow.

Her voice trails off, peppered by yawns.

Soon she's asleep.

I follow shortly, but those ruins she told me about are the center of my dreams tonight.

Lucy and I are walking along the shore, wading ankle-deep in the water, looking up at what used to be the castle.

Cair Paravel is a graveyard.

We can see it's fallen to bits. Just like the heaps of stones Lucy described. The tower facing us is missing more than half of its roof.

But as we start walking up the cliff-like hill towards it, getting closer and closer, something odd happens.

The building seems to be putting itself back together.

As if by magic.

The stones gather and change colour. Holes in the wall close like new skin over a wound. The wooden doors that long ago rotted away have grown back, as if they were nothing but leaves on a tree, dead only for a season, now back in bloom.

It's going to be lonely, I think, just the two of us in a castle that large.

But as we walk inside, to what I take to be the main throne room, we see that everybody is already there.

I can see my parents, Susan, Tumnus, Johanna, Peter, Finnick, even people who have lived nearby my home in District 7 for years but I don't know well enough to put names to.

Everybody is here.

And I mean, everybody.

I see all of the dead tributes from this year, not bloody or in anguish, as they were last seen, but as alive and well-dressed as they were for their pre-Hunger Games interviews with Caesar Flickerman.

The boy and girl tributes from districts 8, 9, and 10, standing together.

Foxface and the dwarf I killed.

Clove and Cato, linking arms.

Prim, holding a fat cat with one arm and raising the other to wave at Lucy and me.

Gael, smiling.

Jill and Eustace, both with garlands made of what looks like cuttings from a bush of coma berries on their heads.

Ash, wearing a new pair of spectacles.

Heath, winking at us in passing.

Lasaraleen and Emeth.

Lilliandil, beaming, holding hands with Caspian.

Glimfeather and Peridan sitting on opposite sides on the sill of an open window.

Even Jadis occupies a shadowy corner, sort of cut off from the rest of the castle's guests.

And a man and woman who look just like the picture in Lucy's locket are standing near where Gael and Prim are.

Music plays, though I can't see any speakers or musicians.

And on the roof of the Training Center, holding Lucy for what might be the last time for quite a while, I do something I think must be an extremely rare occurrence for victors of the Hunger Games.

I smile in my sleep.

-End of fanfiction one-