"So when was your first one?" Cato asked

"My?..." Glimmer replied coquettishly raising an eye. Lyme had left them for the evening, slipping an extra passkey into Cato's hand along with a warning not to disturb her sleep whenever he finally got around to coming back upstairs. It was an idle threat though, she knew the boy would be there til just before dawn and by then no doubt Enobaria would be downing breakfast and the day would have already begun for the residents of the second floor. Still, she liked to have a backup plan in case he needed to return early. It was one of the reasons Cato and every Victor before him admired her as a Mentor. If Clove had the general's mindset, Lyme's was surely that of a commander in chief.

"Not that" Cato chided back, though he was dying to know the answer to that question as well. He suspected Glimmer had made at least one roll in the hay with her district partner, perhaps two or three at most. Marvel seemed too naïve, too innocent (if such a word could apply to him) to have gotten the amount of free and uncomplicated sex that Cato had whilst rising through the Academy rankings, it just showed the guy had little to no game. Still, he could tell by the easy camaraderie he enjoyed with Glimmer that more than just a close friendship had transpired between these two and that was well before he'd even known of their long engagement beforehand.

"Though I'll admit, I'm curious"

"Curiosity killed the Cat-o" Glimmer replied

"And satisfaction kept him coming back….oh" Cato smiled, satisfied with his pun

"It's really none of your business" Glimmer shot back. Her tone of voice betrayed a sudden irritation that to Cato's mind bordered on irrational. He looked at her with barely concealed surprise. It's not like I judge you for it he thought. It's a well-known fact that helps you with rankings from the Mentors-especially amongst the female candidates.

Wait.

Gloss? He wondered now, and the conclusions fell into place like tumblers on a lock. The awkward way Glimmer always seemed to pull away from Gloss, totally unlike Steel or Cashmere or heck, even Finnick who had seen fit to greet her with a full-on-the-mouth kiss, leaving Glimmer shocked and confused amidst the laughter that ensued amongst the elder Victors. Apparently, it was something Finnick just did. But that hadn't given Cato that creepy, under-the-skin revulsion he felt anytime he was around Cash's brother too long.

It better have been consensual was all Cato could think. He'd murder the District One Victor himself if ever he learned otherwise.

"Seriously? You're asking if I hooked up with Marvel?" Glimmer continued, her expression perplexed as she looked up at Cato from where she lay across his lap. "Did it really matter?"

"No, no silly, not at all. Hey, I didn't know about you two having a thing and all before you even got Reaped, and it's cool. I have a past too," Cato answered quietly.

You may not have noticed, but I am a bit of a chick magnet" he continued with a smirk

"You don't say? I had NO idea. Completely news to me" Glimmer replied in a most unconvincing deadpan voice as they both laughed.

"And no, we didn't have a thing exactly before we got here. I mean, we planned to perhaps marry. We were sweethearts I guess you'd say." Glimmer said, looking down at the shining diamond ring ringed with emeralds that Glory had given her as their District's gift. She felt a twinge of sadness knowing it was the same stone that was to be her engagement ring someday. From the kind of boy who kept a girl's hairclip since he was seven... just because he liked her

"You mean, you guys never..."

"Before the train ride? During? No, silly, never. We kind of fell into it the night of the Chariots, after the tribute parade"

The night you were looking me up and down like a fat kid lusts for cake? Cato wondered.

Man, Marvel, what lucky timing you had

"Yeah. We were both drunk and horny and figured hey, one of us is going to die, maybe both. Might as well"

"Wow. I had no clue. What was it like?" Cato asked, perhaps with a bit too much enthusiasm for the details. He'd never admit it, but he felt he lived in the shadow of a dead man more often than not, even if the words were never said as such.

Glimmer thought for a moment, gazing at the ceiling before returning her eyes to Cato's.

"It was...sweet. Sad a little for both of us. Rushed really."

"Guess being a virgin is overrated in a guy, huh?" Cato quipped, trying to lighten the mood. He didn't want to disrespect her memories but another, more primal part of him was insanely jealous that Glimmer had given herself out of at least friendship, if not love, to Marvel that first time but only out of lust and the need for survival the first time with him.

Though he loved Glimmer Celestine with all his heart, Cato wished that was the one thing he could undo, how they'd first come to be together in the true sense of the word. He could never admit it to his wife, but even he wasn't sure that night if he'd hear her cannon or not before their conversation ended in the cave. Something in her spirit had caught his murderous instinct off-guard, causing him, just as it had her, to hesitate for just a second too long to make the clean kill.

"Perhaps" Glimmer replied. "But it was infinitely better than the three nights I had to spend with Seneca thereafter"

Ouch!

"I'm sorry" Cato answered, stroking her hair and absently braiding it as he went along, the same as he had done for his sister so many times when she was little. "I didn't mean to bring that up"

"It's ok. I'm living it now, and will every year I return here to Mentor so I guess I better learn to accept it" she replied as nonchalantly as saying one would say they preferred lemon cupcakes to orange ones.

"Perhaps we should switch the subject. But before we get off-track, what I was GOING to ask you was about Academy. About the first one you killed"

"Oh, that" Glimmer acknowledged, twisting her lips together in thought. "Well I only had three, so it wasn't hard to remember"

"Three? That's not a lot," Cato stated. He remembered telling the kid from Nine who stole his knife that he'd killed a dozen before him and then realizing that the other tribute had no way of knowing that the Career wasn't bragging...he was being completely honest.

To graduate top of his Academy class for the Seventy Fourth games, Cato Macedonia had killed fifteen people to get there.

"No, but I think our training isn't as strict as yours either."

"Granted. What was it like for you?" Cato was truly curious. How could she have so many issues with Rue if she had already killed several others before even coming to the Capitol? It was an idea foreign to his nature.

"The first one, he was married. Had a wife and three children. I know because he kept telling me that over and over. Cato, I felt so bad for him. He just broke down sobbing and here I was, standing with a brand new pair of my favorite knives in my hand."

An image of Clove's face flashed before Cato's memory, happy and smiling for once because she had received her first set of knives truly her own as well, getting ready to pass the same test as Glimmer's. He could still hear her excited squeal, filled with surprise and wonder.

Oh Cato did you see that? I hit her square in the forehead on my second shot! It was so easy, just like practice!

"And there I was, with a crying grown man as my only opponent, begging me to think of his family. Honestly I don't even know what he did to wind up there. He was just standing there crying and he wouldn't even fight me. Finally, I just got behind him and tried to slit his throat, just so I could get all the noise and drama over with"

"Even that was hard because I couldn't do it right with a mezzaluna and he was gargling all over me. I wound up I think hacking him to death. No form, no finesse"

Cato could imagine that. Glimmer was more of a provocation killer, she had no hesitation with taking out someone attacking her or taking what she thought was hers. But as he had witnessed in the Arena, neither of the District One tributes seemed real keen on just walking up and killing another tribute. He suspected peer pressure had been the only reason she'd taken out the girl from Eight or chased down the milkmaid's crippled son.

Interesting. One's volunteered for the glory, but they truly weren't in it for the kill. Most seemed interested in the fame and wealth. They were more for the show. Yet Clove loved to drag out her victim's endings in a spectacular way. Both Marvel and Glimmer, while proven ruthlessly efficient, were decidedly lackluster in method. More warrior than weapon in their presentation as tributes, whereas Clove and Cato and all those before them pretty much were walking weapons concealed within human warrior bodies. It seemed a basic difference that ran to the core between their two Academies.

Glimmer's next sentence though caught him by surprise.

"And then all of a sudden, it was easy the next time"

"How?"

"Well my second opponent about four months later was a prostitute"

"They must take that REALLY seriously in District One!" he said half laughing.

"No, it wasn't for that….are you kidding? Nobody there cares, half the Capitol gets their escorts from the girls, and heck, even some of the boys, who don't go to Academy or learn a trade in Five Towers. This one was guilty of extortion. She apparently had threatened to out some senator from the Capitol to his wife who is the patron who sponsors the interview dresses of our tributes every year and they charged her with treason so it was a capitol offense. Pun intended"

"Did you do better?"

"The second time around? Yes, as a matter of fact, I did"

"This one fought back. She called me all sorts of names I would be loathe to repeat let's just say they had to do with my illegitimate heritage and some choice names for the female genitalia. She couldn't shut up about how privileged I was being a Victor's bastard daughter and how I'd never had to work in my life and blah blah blah…you know, I just kinda lost track of what else she said"

"Because all it did was make me mad."

Glimmer's voice got very soft then, and Cato could tell she was fighting some demon down that threatened to take it over. It was the side of her he remembered seeing as she stabbed the girl from Six at least a dozen times before she could stop herself.

Deep inside, there's a rage that would make Clove's temper look cold

"She knew my mother was a Capitol prostitute, just like her. I never had any respect for those who would choose that way to make a living over sloughing through the Academy or at least picking up an apprenticeship. I fucking hated Five Towers but even that was damn sure better than whoring myself out."

"Cato I just...snapped. I lost it on her. She tried to call me out like I was the enemy; I was the problem with society. Ever since then, sometimes I just sort of zone out when I have to kill someone. I know I wound up chopping her tongue out but I don't really remember much more of the details, only that my classmates were cheering for me and I apparently scored very well.

"But Rue, no" he said equally softly. "That was a line you couldn't cross, no matter what you told yourself."

"Cato, you're right. I guess it's because I saw Dazzle every time I looked at Rue. They're the same age just about. And now Prim. I just don't get it. It's not a fair fight; it's not even an honorable one to have us against a starving twelve year old who still plays with dolls. "

"You didn't have any problems with Sixes and Sevens" Cato replied evenly

"No, I didn't. I saw only a hick sixteen year old from some crummy factory in Eight or whatever running off with our stuff. At first I thought 'let her go, she'll just die in the woods later'. But it was strange. Like I realized if I did kill her, she wouldn't have to go back to those factories, just like I wasn't going back to Five Towers. In some twisted way I felt like I was doing a favor and the sooner the better. The reality I was free of my horrible future hit me the second I stepped in the tube. And it was just so much easier to realize we were really dead all along, just one of us would still be walking and talking amongst the living when it was over. It gave me I don't know…..a strange sense of calm I guess. I just went with it."

"But you hesitated with me. I never understood that Glimmer"

"I don't know what came over me. It was for a moment like I thought perhaps you were the one who should win in the end. Like the best one out of our group, maybe the one who could get through being a Victor the easiest? Just for the tiniest second and then I realized I really wanted to live. But it was too late when I made that decision"

"It wasn't too late at all" he said, bending down to kiss her softly. He nodded his forehead to hers, the heat between them a barely perceptible but oh so there presence. It brought back images of their first night together, awkward and frightening and yet strangely comforting to both of them at the time too.

Who else but another Career would ever understand him? He knew Glimmer was the right one in the end, now he did. How Cato wished he had known that sooner though.

"Maybe not. But I know you wouldn't have hesitated when it was time like I did"

Glimmer said this with all the straightforwardness of a fact, not a judgment. To Cato's ears though the statement sounded heartless and without remorse.

Worse, it was untrue.

"Actually, I did."

Glimmer straightened up from his embrace, sitting up sideways on the bed to look directly at her husband. Cato was not a man of many words but he never said anything he didn't mean either. Most of the time that trait kept him silent.

"Really? How?"

Clove forgive me.

Cato sighed. "That night when all hell broke loose. But before Katniss dropped the nest on us. Clove was starring daggers at you for two days and I knew it. She'd told me earlier that night she wanted to just slit your throat in your sleep and dissolve the alliance early. Marvel would try to avenge you and I'd kill him and then we'd go hunt down the rest of the group. "

"Wow. So soon?" Glimmer seemed genuinely shocked

"Can't say that, One, you were pretty close to offing me around the same time if you remember?"

Ok, he has a point there

"She knew something happened between us. And I think she knew exactly WHAT that "something" was. I never thought of her that way. She was fourteen for Pete sake! I am not trying to get with a girl who probably hasn't even had her first monthly cycle yet"

"Shoot, you'd never tell that by the attitude she had…that was one bitch ALWAYS on the rag" Glimmer replied laughing.

"Yeah, she had her moments. But I told her it wasn't time. We still needed you and Marvel. I told her some lame story about the supplies from the sponsors and despite the stuff we had from the Cornucopia, we still needed a back up plan. She would always say "I AM the backup plan" but I always wanted to have another option. She never was big on alliances, so I knew no matter who we got paired up with in the group that she'd hate it on sight."

"Would you have killed me yourself Cato?" Glimmer asked. Her emerald eyes searched Cato's sea-blue ones, looking for truth behind them.

"I prayed I wouldn't have to, I'll be honest. I hoped it would be her or someone else or something else."

"Yeah, I guess that almost happened too" Glimmer replied, touching one of the scars on her chin. The poison would come and go, leaving marks where it would occasionally come back and burst in small places and then subside. The scars on her face were a visible reminder that even her beauty had not remained completely intact coming out of the Arena, even if her life had.

"I'm sorry. I didn't wish that on you Glim. I wasn't thinking straight, all I could do was try to figure out where to go, how to get to the lake. I never meant to leave either you or Clove and I couldn't save you both"

"I live in a dead man's shadow but I owe Marvel a debt I can never repay for what he did for you and for Clove and killing Katniss like he did. I was so damn mad he took my kill but I never stopped to think how selfish that was. He didn't care about the betting odds. All he was thinking about was saving you and that gave me a chance to save my own ass. In the end, he was the better man"

Glimmer nodded. Even now, a year later, it was hard to think of her former district partner. The little diamond cluster on her finger winked back at her every morning, a reminder of the promise he made that he would get her home safely and why.

Her missing finger was a reminder of the cost of that promise.

"But you know what Glimmer? I want you to think about this. When you go in the Arena this time, you can't be thinking like Marvel did. It's all about saving your own skin this time. You don't have to kill Prim, someone else will do that. She'll probably die right at the Bloodbath and Haymitch with her. But you don't have to save her either. And I want you to realize there's a difference."

"I know." Cato could see there was conflict in Glimmer's face and her voice was strained with emotion. Watching Prim die would be like seeing Rue and Dazzle in front of her all over again.

"You can't afford to think like that. You have to think like I did. Even if you're not out to kill the others, they have to be eliminated. You just hope it won't be you having to do the deed. But baby, if it comes down to it, you're going to have to"

He grabbed her chin, looking back and leaning in as he spoke. "Even if it's Brutus. Or Gloss. It doesn't matter. You may not get a second chance if you hesitate this time. Don't make Marvel's death for nothing. I can't live this life alone without you. Nobody understands me, what its like to see what we've seen. But you do."

"I do. And I love you."

"I love you as well. One way or the other, we'll get you home. This time, I want you to believe those words"

I'm working on chapters as I can, and we will be going into the Interviews next and then the Arena! It will be a very fantastic Final Four that makes it to the showdown. But before that Snow will have a very interesting interview for Glimmer to witness that will change the stakes of the Games she's playing in. 24 will go in. How many will come out?