A/N: Hey everyone, here's Chapter Eight. This one is a little longer, hopefully you'll like it!

"Mother, I'll get up in a few minutes," I mumble. I turn over in my bed, rubbing my eyes. I plop my head back down on the pillow, but the knocking on my door only gets louder. I sigh, and pull myself out of bed. It's still dark outside, the snow still coming down hard, casting shadows around the room while the wind rattles the windows.

I trudge over to the door. "I'm awake," I say, and pull it open.

It feels like someone has punched me in the chest and knocked the breath out of me. I look down at the ground, my knees wobbling. I wrap my hand around my mouth to keep from screaming. His hands gently pull my arm from my face, and he leans down and kisses me right on the lips.

I pull away abruptly. "Peeta!" I gasp. He grins, his blue eyes warm and bright.

"What…I…what are you-"

He pulls me close to him, wrapping his arms around my waist. "Wishing you good luck for today, sweetheart," he says, and leans down again for another kiss. Despite my shock at him being here, alive and healthy, I can't help but wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back hard.

I pull away slowly. "I'm glad you're here, Peeta," I say. I grin up at him, about to go in for another kiss.

"Katniss!"

My eyes fly open, and I see my mother standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I immediately groan and shut my eyes against the bright sunlight coming through the window.

"Katniss," my mother says, walking toward my bed. "You have to get up. They'll all be here soon."

I slowly lift myself up, still rubbing sleep from my eyes. "What?"

"You have to eat breakfast and take a bath before they all get here." My mother helps me up from the bed, and leads me downstairs to the kitchen. There is a cup of tea and a dish of eggs and toast on the table, and I sit down and dig in. Prim comes into the room, already dressed and ready for the day. She kisses me on the cheek and sits down next to me.

The day I have been dreading for months is finally here. The start of the Victory Tour has arrived. For the next three weeks, I will have to tour all the districts of Panem, where everyone will have to pretend to congratulate me on my victory in the Hunger Games. I will have to look into the faces of dead tributes' families, and endure countless parties, ceremonies, and endless amounts of camera crews tracking my every move. I will have to go back to the Capitol for another interview, another feast, another ceremony, all to keep fresh the horror of the Hunger Games in the districts' minds.

After breakfast, I take a long bath, resting in the foamy water and trying to keep myself calm for the rest of the day. After I get dressed, I sit in the living room staring at the wall for hours. My heart beats fast, my legs shake and sweat forms on my neck as I play out the coming weeks' awfulness in my mind. I decide that all attempts at staying calm are useless and I resign myself to misery.

Prim comes later, and she tries to distract me by playing card games. After Prim beats me for the fifth time in a row, I hear car engines roaring down the pavement on the street, car horns honking, yelling, and sounds of greeting. Someone knocks on the door, and Prim gets up to answer it. Effie Trinket, my escort from the Capitol, runs in. She sees me sitting on the couch and skips over, picking me up into a bear hug.

"Katniss! It's so great to see you!" She grins from ear to ear. She pulls back, and resets her bright orange wig on her scalp.

"You too, Effie," I mutter.

She pats my hand and says, "I told you we'd see each other soon!"

My prep team, Venia, Octavia and Flavius, walk through the front door. When they set their eyes on me, their faces break into large smiles, chanting my name and clapping their hands giddily, so much happier to see me than they were after the Games. They try to engage me in mindless small talk, but I shrug it off, leading them upstairs to my room to get my makeover done with. They set to work, waxing my eyebrows, shaving my legs and arms, putting nail polish on my fingers, fixing my hair until it is soft and silky, and applying makeup all over my face to hide the sagging and yellow tinge of my skin from the morphling. When they are done, Octavia goes downstairs to fetch Cinna.

"Katniss." Cinna smiles and walks over to me, taking me into a warm hug. He pulls back, still smiling down at me. "How are you?"

"I'm fine now." And I mean it. Now that Cinna's here, I feel less nervous and miserable, if only in the slightest.

Cinna asks my prep team to leave, then goes out in the hallway to fetch my outfit for today. He dresses me in brown pants made of warm, thick material, and helps me into a simple white button-down shirt. He hands me black heeled boots just as my mother knocks on the door. Cinna lets her in, followed in by my prep team. She blushes shyly, and braids my hair the way she did the day of the reaping. The prep team ooh's and ah's, and my mother assists Flavius with a section of my hair, correcting him and giving him some pointers. All three are so kind and respectful to her, watching intently her every move, that I almost feel bad for looking down on them and their silly frivolity.

When my mother is done, she and my prep team leave, and Cinna helps me into a thick white jacket, and drapes a red scarf around my neck. He leads me to the mirror, assessing me for any finishing touches. Looking at myself, I can tell Cinna is going for an innocent, girly look.

He nods at me through the mirror, satisfied. "You look wonderful, Katniss. All you need is a little smile," he says, and tugs my shoulders. I laugh, showing off a smile, and Cinna grins back.

We leave my room and walk downstairs. I am greeted at the bottom of the staircase with the wonderful sight of Haymitch Abernathy. Surprisingly, he has managed to clean up; his wet, clean hair is pulled back, his white shirt is tucked in his pants, and his beard has been shaved. The only thing remaining of Drunk Haymitch is his bloodshot eyes and a half-empty bottle of spirits in his hand.

He smirks at me. "Sweetheart." He comes over and rubs his hand across my cheek, but I smack it away.

He chuckles. "Looks like you've got your feistiness back. How's your leg doing? All healed up?"

"Its fine, Haymitch," I spit out, my jaw tightening.

"That's great, sweetheart. Oh, it'll be a long three weeks." He laughs and walks away, taking a swig from his bottle.

Cinna comes over and hands me note cards on "my" wonderful fashion creations, and I read them off out loud for the cameras. Soon enough, my prep team, Haymitch, Cinna and Effie are all lining up by the front door. Cinna places a floppy knitted hat on my head, and my mother fixes my old Mockingjay pin to my scarf.

"For good luck," she says, then kisses my forehead. I rub the pin, and the gold feels cold on my fingers.

I give a hug to my mother, kiss Prim on the cheek and embrace her one last time, and then Effie throws me out into the cold, sunny afternoon. The cameras are waiting on the sidewalk, following me for the whole country to see as I walk outside my house toward the dark car waiting a few feet away. I don't make eye contact with them, but just focus on my boots as I trudge through the melting snow. A snowstorm had blown through the past few days, blanketing District Twelve in two feet of snow, but it cleared up just in time for the Victory Tour.

I make my way to the car. I look up, and Haymitch is staring at me from outside my house. He puts his hand up, as if waving. Grudgingly, I take his cue and wave half-heartedly at the cameras. I look back and he is grinning maniacally at me, his bloodshot eyes boring out of his head. I lean down and cough into my scarf, hiding my laugh from the cameras. I bring my head up and smile, making sure to show my teeth. My entourage walks over to me, and we all pile into the car. At the train station, more camera crews are waiting and I smile and wave as best I can. Some of them throw a microphone into my face, asking me questions, but Haymitch guides me by the elbow away from them.

We make it onto the train. As it pulls away, I keep my hand on the glass door, watching as District Twelve grows smaller and smaller. We cross through low mountains and snow pounds the windows, blocking the landscape from sight.

XXX

As the train chugs along toward District Eleven, the first stop on the tour, I retire to one of the bedrooms. I lie down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, but don't sleep. I think about how I'm going to Rue's home district, and how I will have to face her and Thresh's families. How will I look into the eyes of their relatives, knowing that I couldn't save Rue, and that neither of them is coming home?

I fish around in my coat pocket, and bring out some morphling. I'd sneaked the last of it into my pockets before leaving the house, and as the train rocks along through the snow, I take some into my mouth, immediately relaxing and forgetting my problems as the drug pulls me under. I lay in bed, entering the dream world with Peeta again. As Peeta and I fly through the clouds, laughing, kissing and running around, a fierce tugging pulls me out of my trance.

I open my eyes, and I see Haymitch looking down at me, just like he did the day I woke up in the hospital after the Games. I sigh and try to get up, but my head starts ringing and I flop back down.

Haymitch grabs me roughly by the arm, pulling me up. He puts his hand under my chin, and forces me to look straight into his bloodshot eyes.

"We need to have a talk, sweetheart." He points his finger in my face.

"Let me go, Haymitch," I gasp. He sneers and grabs around the bed for the morphling, opens one of the windows and throws it out into the snow.

"No." He grabs me roughly and pulls me along. He reaches down on the floor and throws my hat and scarf at me, and I pull it on quickly as we make our way out into the hallway. He pulls me to the doors leading outside the train, which must've stopped for a bit to refuel while I was pulled under by the morphling. Haymitch leads me down the pathway, as far away from the train as possible. I shiver in the cold despite my hat and scarf, and finally he sets me down next to a snow bank several yards away from the train.

He looks down at me, still grasping my arm. "Katniss, get off the morphling for now. We can't have you drugged up as you address the districts."

"We're not arriving to Eleven until tomorrow. And if I remember correctly, you're the one who gave the morphling to me." I manage to wrench myself free from his grasp, but he just grabs my shoulder again roughly.

He shakes his head. "When you're in Twelve, you can take it, but not now. You need to be alert for the districts and not look like those drug addicts from Six."

I'm not exactly sure what he means by District Six, but I'm annoyed at the other part he said. "I am not a drug addict, Haymitch."

"You're acting like one," he answers gruffly.

The fury rises in me and I start yelling at him, my words slurring because of the morphling. "Oh, look whose talking, the drunken mentor from Twelve who can't pull it together enough to save his any of his tributes!"

As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn't. I put my hand over my mouth, and shake my head. Now, all I'm thinking of is Peeta, and I know that Haymitch must've beat himself up over his death almost as much as I did, drowning himself in spirits to escape the pain.

"I…Haymitch, I didn't mean-" He pulls his hand from my shoulder, and walks away. I hear him muttering about how he should've never gone to Ripper for the morphling.

He rubs his chin, and turns to me. "Katniss, this Victory Tour is serious. Act depressed, if you must, but don't look like you're on drugs."

He starts to walk away, but turns back. "Any more morphling?" he asks. I shake my head. I have a feeling that there will be no box waiting at home for me for next month, or the rest of the year, for that matter.

Haymitch chuckles. "I'm getting sick of these pep talks, sweetheart. But know that the whole country and-" he stops himself, and clears his throat. "The whole country is watching you." He starts walking back to the train, and I follow him a few feet behind. Just before we walk through the door back inside, he turns to me.

"And you know what, sweetheart? I sobered myself up enough to save you. Maybe I sobered up for the wrong tribute. Just remember that." Before I can respond, he rushes inside.

XXX

In my dreams that night, I'm with Peeta, smiling and laughing and speaking as if nothing's wrong, as if we were awake and he was alive and healthy. The dream ends too soon when Effie knocks rapidly on my door early in the morning. I spend the rest of the morning getting done up by my prep team, and after Cinna dresses me in a long, silky turquoise gown. He finds my Mockingjay pin in my room and places it directly over my heart.

He puts me in beige sandals, and I look at myself in the mirror. My dress snakes its way all the way down to my toes, and it looks elegant with just the right touch of girliness. My makeup is light and airy, and my skin no longer looks yellow or sagging. I look into my eyes, and immediately spot the unmistakable look of sadness I've had since the Games. No amount of makeup or beautiful outfits could disguise the desolation I constantly feel.

By noon, District Eleven comes into view through the windows. I am taken aback; a large fence dots the landscape, interspersed with watchtowers every few yards. There is no way that anyone could break through this fence, not like at home. Eleven spreads out for miles and miles, so much larger than Twelve. In the fields, men, women and children are all out collecting crops for the harvest, and I see orchards spread out farther back from the fence. I imagine Rue would be there today if she were alive, singing her four-note tune from the tops of the trees.

Soon, we make our way to the train station. It is hot, humid and sunny, much different from the frigid cold of my district this time of year. Cameras wait for us at the station, but as soon as we step onto the pavement, a group of Peacekeepers escort us to the back of a truck, where we all pile in. Effie looks unsettled; she must be thinking we should be riding in a nice car, not a heavily-guarded truck.

We make it to the district's main square, where the Justice Building stands. It is a large, towering marble structure, but the building looks to be in disrepair, with vines covering its crumbling walls. The entire square looks run-down too, making District Twelve look opulent by comparison.

The Peacekeepers push us out of the truck and through the back door of the Justice Building. We are taken to a large room in the front of the building, with sofas, paintings, desks and rugs, but the sunlight streaming through the large windows only illuminates the room's shabbiness. As we wait, Effie runs through the schedule one more time. I am to make a short speech out on the verandah outside the building, addressing the district. Prim and my mother drilled the speech into me just weeks before the start of the tour, but I am also supposed to make my own expected speech for my former ally, Rue. At home, whenever I tried to write something, I would just end up staring at the piece of paper for hours, random words crowding my mind but nothing coming together. Thinking about Rue again only made my heart ache and then made me crave morphling to get away from the pain.

Following the speeches, a special dinner will be held in my honor in the Justice Building, after which we will pile back onto the train, making our way to District Ten, the next stop on the tour. Soon, I am given last minute makeup adjustments, and then the Peacekeepers are walking me towards the front door to the verandah. The mayor of Eleven announces my name, the doors open and I am pushed out into the blazing hot afternoon.

XXX

I gaze out at the square, taking note of the many people assembled. This must be just a tiny fraction of the entire district's population, since farmers must be needed in the fields and the district is just too big to try to assemble the people in this tiny square at one time.

I am led over to a chair in the center of the verandah, and off to my right, the mayor makes a speech in my honor. I look down, and see the special platform set up for family members of the dead tributes. A woman I assume is Thresh's grandmother sits stern and upright, but her eyes betray a deep look of despair. A younger tall, muscular girl sits next to her, who must be Thresh's sister. To their right sits Rue's family. Her five younger siblings look so much like her; small and lithe like birds, one of the girl's arms extended slightly from her body like wings, just what her sister used to do. Her parents sit sad and hunched, their faces turned down, the loss of Rue still fresh and terrible in their minds.

The mayor ends his speech, and I am given an elaborate plaque and large bouquet of flowers. It is time now for me to make my speech in front of District Eleven.

I walk closer to the edge of the verandah, set down my flowers, and look across the square. Hundreds of faces stare up at me, and for a moment I am paralyzed with fear. I notice the cameras at the edges of the square, all trained in on me, broadcasting this moment across Panem. I clear my throat, and the words that Prim and my mother drilled in me come out of my mouth, surprisingly unshaken, confident and loud. I try to make eye contact with the crowd, but every time a pair of eyes sets on me, a cold hand takes hold of my heart and I have to turn away, looking at some point above their head.

Just don't look, just keep talking, just keep going, I drill into my head over and over.

Finally, I make it through my scripted speech, but I know I still have to make my own special words to Rue and Thresh's families. Although I have not thought of anything to say to them the past month, the words come out of me as if they'd been there all along, memorized and meaningful.

"I'd like to give my thanks to the tributes of District Eleven." I turn first to Thresh's sister and grandmother. "I only spoke to Thresh just once, but it was long enough for him to spare my life. I admired him for his strength, and his refusal to play the Games on anyone's terms but his own. I respected him for that, for his courage." Thresh's grandmother gives a slight smile at that, a look of pride in her eyes.

I turn to Rue's family. I look into the eyes of her younger siblings, who look so much like my former ally. I clear my throat again, and begin to speak.

"But…I did know Rue. Her beauty, strength and kindness will always be with me. I…I see her everywhere. In the sound of the mockingjays, in the flowers like the ones I gave her in the arena-" my voice breaks as I remember, and I look down.

I breathe through my mouth, and look back at her family. "But…most of all, I see her in my younger sister, Prim. Her demeanor, her size, her kindness, and her beauty will always remind me of Rue." I look over and see tears silently streaming down Rue's mother's face.

I glance at both Thresh and Rue's families and say, "Thank you for your children." I smile, and reach down to pick up my flowers, finally starting to relax. I begin to move back toward the doors to the Justice Building, when I remember something I forgot to say. I turn back abruptly, holding up my hand to the Peacekeepers who were about to escort me inside. I turn to the crowd, and before I can process what I'm doing, the words spill out of me, like water spilling over a dam.

"Wait! I'd also like to thank all of District Eleven." I pause and glance across the crowd. "For the bread."

I look out at the crowd for a few moments, and see looks of recognition in some of their faces. I nod at the Peacekeepers, and they begin to lead me back inside. I turn back and wave at the crowd one last time, but then I do something I know I shouldn't. But I can't control it, just like I couldn't control what I just said to the crowd. Even though I said and did more than I already needed to, I still put my three middle fingers to my mouth and then extend them out to the people in the square. It is the gesture of District 12, and the last goodbye I gave to Rue in the arena.

The Peacekeepers begin shoving me toward the doors, but before the doors close behind me, I turn my head and see the people in the square, what looks to be all of them, extending their arms and returning the gesture to me. The Peacekeepers follow my gaze, and when they turn back to me, I can see a hint of fury in their eyes.

What have I done? I think.

A/N: Sorry I had to end it there, but it was necessary. I hope you enjoyed, next chapter should be up in a few days!