"Sherlock Holmes."

Mycroft gives him his token, a stepped-on inhaler; "We're all rooting for you, Sherlock old boy," he says with just the tiniest hitch in his voice.

Watson rests his head on Holmes' shoulder and cries silently, his shoulders shaking, for the entire five minutes.

On the train, he watches the recaps of the reaping. The fourteen-year-old girl from District 9 purses her lips at the camera in a small, enigmatic smile, and he knows without a doubt that Irene Adler will be the rival to beat.

On the first day of training, he leans over her shoulder and gives her the final missing answer to a Capitol newspaper's crossword puzzle. She responds by introducing herself in Morse code. They become allies without ever really discussing it.

Four tributes left after the Gamemakers exploded a third of the forest by shelling it from above, killing Rene Dukka from District 10. A shame- he'd never actively disliked the boy. The night feels brutally cold; nevertheless, he's half-asleep when she slips out of her sleeping bag and into his.

"Irene-"

"Ssh," she murmurs, holding a finger to his lips. "Don't speak."

She's gone when he wakes up. So is half of his food.

According to the recaps, Irene died at the hands of the mathematical prodigy from District 3. (Poison in her water bottle; the commentators relate that it made the capillaries in her lungs burst, causing her to drown in her own blood; Holmes still recalls the feeling of tumbling over the waterfall, his fingers locked around the boy's throat- it's the one kill he doesn't really regret.)

Holmes knows better, though.

After all, he noticed the hole in the force field.