So as you're no doubt aware, considering the fact that you actually had to opt into seeing the M rated fics, this fic is rated M. There will be some unpleasantness, the bulk of it to do with waterboarding and various other modes of torture.

If you don't want to read that, then I totally understand, but now is the time to go elsewhere.

Also, the title of this fic comes from a Dethklok song of the same name. There's actually the odd Dethklok reference in here. Call it irony.

I sit with Annie in silence. It's a companionable silence – neither of us feels the need to talk, and neither of us is particularly enamoured of inane conversation. I like Annie. People think she's mad, and she is, but so is every Victor to some extent. We all have our ways of dealing with what went on in the Arena, and for Annie, that involves seeming a lot less sane than she actually is.

She has her bad moments, but so do I. And neither of us has as many bad moments as Peeta, the poor kid. Her veneer of insanity is a defence for her, just like when I had pretended to be weak and terrified my first time in the Arena. People never notice the person who isn't a threat. Annie, as it happens, is the fastest person I've ever seen with a blade in her hand. That was how she won her Games. She's fast, she's silent and her aim is excellent.

After she'd won she was initially a lot worse than she is now. Finnick had done an excellent job bringing her back to reality, but he'd seen that the easiest way to keep her out of Snow's line of sight was to get her to pretend to be insane. And it worked.

Even on the days when she isn't at her best, it's comforting to be near her. It's almost like back in Seven before I was Reaped. My older sister Peggy had been in love with a boy who was Reaped the year before I was. He didn't make it back. She watched as he was beaten to a pulp by some Neanderthal from One. She was never the same girl after that. She hadn't been all there to begin with, but Mitchell's death pushed her over the edge. Three months later, she 'had a climbing accident'. I knew it wasn't an accident because she was afraid of heights. Sad, insane Annie reminds me of the time before Peggy killed herself. And it's nice, in a perversely morbid way.

But then after my Games, pretty much everything has some kind of trigger to remind me of my time in the Arena, so everything tends to be perversely morbid.

"'Anna." Says Annie, not moving, but probing to see if I'm in the mood to talk. Today is a good day for her, and she's excellent conversation when she's in the present. Annie started calling me Anna pretty much immediately. She had a friend who was Reaped who was named Anna, and apparently we had the same love of climbing things.

"I'm here." I reply, because sometimes on the bad days, Annie just likes to know that someone's there. It used to be Finnick, and now it tends to be me. Luckily the bad days are fewer now, and far between.

"How's your arm?" she doesn't care how my arm is. It's a way of asking each other, obliquely, if we're doing alright. Since our arms were where they had put the trackers for when we were in the Arena, it seemed as good a body part as any to bring up.

"It's doing alright today." I reply, and somewhat truthfully, which is nice. There are some things I still have trouble with, but my time in the Arena doesn't haunt me all that much any more. It's been replaced with what happened afterwards, but I'm working through it. "How's yours?" I ask, slightly on edge in case today turns into a bad day.

"It's not too bad. Painful, but it always hurts. Just like I know yours is hurting today, and every day, but you're too busy looking after me and everyone else to notice. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it. You went through it twice, and you're still too busy making sure everyone else is alright to even take a moment to reflect on yourself."

"Bullshit." I respond. "You know just as well as I do that if I'm busy with other people, I don't need to deal with my own problems. It's a coping mechanism and we both know it."

This is part of what I like about being with Annie. We can talk at length about our deep-seated issues as if they're someone else's. We don't judge.

Annie smiles and leans her head on my shoulder. We're practically the same age. I'm nineteen, she's twenty-one. That's part of why we became friends. That and when a fire alarm was tripped and the sprinklers came on and I panicked, she found me huddled in a corner, sodden and screaming. I don't remember anything after the water started falling, only waking up in her quarters with her handing me a cup of tea and telling me I'm heavier than I look. And that I have an impressive set of lungs on me.

I hadn't really formulated an opinion of her until then, but the fact that she managed to drag me up two flights of stairs and through an impressive system of corridors whilst eight months pregnant earned her more respect than I held for anyone. Because when she needs to be, she's tough as nails.

I lean my head on her shoulder and close my eyes. Little Finnick is asleep on Annie's lap, and it's a lovely day in the Capitol.

It won't last though. Annie is planning to go back to Four, and as much as I don't want to stay where I am, I haven't been deemed fit enough to go about on my own. Even if I was, I wouldn't know where to go. I can't go back to Seven. Everyone I knew there is dead.

After a time, we're roused by a nervous looking girl of about 14. "You're wanted in command." She stammers, waiting to see what we'll do. I remember that after the executions of the high-and-mighty of the Capitol were done, there was a profusion of orphans. These orphans had, of course, been significantly fewer than there would have been had they not been bombed just before Snow's mansion had been taken, and the fact that almost everyone they knew had died had been taken into account. They had no skills whatsoever apart from administration and paper-shuffling, and so they were all being trained to be the civil service of the new republic. The cleverer ones were recruited as runners, and as a result were able to sit in on some of the command meetings. Apparently, this one was clever.

I stretch and groan. "Do you know what this is about?" I ask, standing up and stretching again.

"No, ma'am." She answers, seemingly petrified.

I glance at Annie and we both shrug. "What's your name?" I ask. I've made it a habit to find out a little about the children who were raised so differently from those of us who were born in the districts. It helps to remind me that they weren't behind all the things that happened to us. They were innocent to some extent.

"Minerva, miss Mason." She answers.

"Call me Johanna." I tell her. She seems a nice enough girl.

Annie stands up, with little Finnick strapped to her back in a carrier. He's asleep on her shoulder, and it's adorable. Minerva sees what I see and looks a little less terrified. We start walking through the gardens of the presidential mansion towards the Justice building where all of the governing takes place.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I ask. This question works whatever the answer. If they're all dead, I let them know that mine are too. If they aren't, they start talking about their families, and they calm down a little.

"I have an older sister, Diana." She answers. "She's training to be a doctor."

"You don't want to be a doctor?" I ask. She's less scared now that she's talking.

"I did." She says. "When we were all penned up in the gardens here, I was patching the kids up as many kids as I could, keeping the toddlers warm… they all died anyway. That's when I stopped wanting to be a doctor." She says matter-of-factly.

After Katniss killed Coin, the plan for a final Hunger Games was put on hold. After all, Coin, the driving force behind them, was dead; Katniss was more or less banned from ever going anywhere near the Capitol again, so her vote was all but discounted; Haymitch was no longer lucid thanks to his rediscovery of alcohol; I had actually started to get to know the children of the Capitol, and I saw that they were basically the same as the rest of us had been. Powerless.

More importantly, when Coin had called together all of the surviving Victors, she had neglected to enlist the opinion of Lyme, the two metre tall giant from Two. So the vote was declared void. And nobody really wanted to initiate another. The populace were over all the bloodshed.

"Do you have any idea what you'd like to do now?" I ask her.

She shrugs, and we climb the steps of the Justice building. The guards wave us through, and we follow Minerva through a maze of corridors to a room. Annie pauses a moment. She's not sure whether she should bring in little Finnick. "I can take him." Says Minerva. "I'm good with babies."

"Thankyou." Says Annie, who unstraps him and hands him to Minerva, who has sat herself on the floor outside, leaning against a wall.

We go inside, and sit ourselves at a table across from Paylor, the new president. She jumps right into it. "Annie, it is my job to inform you that you have been elected district leader of Four. You were planning to head back eventually, so we've just moved that forward. Two days from now, you'll be going home. Sorry for the short notice."

I glance over at Annie. She looks stunned. I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back. She's got a familiar glint of determination in her eye. She'll do fine. I look back up at Paylor. "You said you needed both of us?" I point out.

"I did." She admits. "Gale Hawthorne, whom I'm sure you'll remember, is currently in Two being trained for command. He however can't run the country on his own, and so we're looking for other similarly skilled individuals."

Well that's a surprise. "So you chose me?" I ask. After all, I'm not the pinnacle of mental stability at the moment.

Her answer surprises me. "I didn't. He did. He specifically suggested you. The phrase 'untamed wildcat' was mentioned, along with a lot of miming of axes. You can refuse the spot if you wish, but I think we all know just how little you like it here."

It's better than I could have hoped. Two has forests. Not as much as Seven, but there are still trees. I grin widely. "When do I start?" is the only question which remains to be asked.

"You'll be leaving two days from now, just like Annie. Packs have been left in your quarters with the things you will need. I'll see you again when you leave for a final debrief." And with that, the meeting is over. We stand and walk to the door. Annie takes little Finn from Minerva, thanking her, and we walk back towards our rooms.

"So…" I say, giving Annie a nudge. "District leader. Look at you, rising up in the world all speedily."

Annie just looks at me with her eyebrows raised. "And look at you, little miss 'I just got myself a cushy job with whatever black ops is being run in Two, specifically requested by Commander Tall, Dark and Handsome'." I open my mouth to protest, but Annie stares me down. "Don't think I didn't notice you looking, little missy. You wouldn't mind carving yourself a slice of coal miner."

I stare at Annie, shocked. Not that she had noticed the odd lingering glance, she's perceptive after all, but that she's capable of such euphemism. She seemed so sweet and kind. My respect for her increases significantly. I just flick my hair and regard her coolly. "That you would think such things of me is an affront. You know that I am as innocent as a newborn…" but I can't continue as I've dissolved into giggles and so has Annie.

By the time we finally calm ourselves down, we're back at our rooms. As promised, there are packs on our beds. Annie leaves Finn with Cassandra, the baby nurse assigned to help her raise him, who informs her that Mrs Everdeen will be accompanying her to Four to oversee the construction of the new hospital there. We sit cross-legged on my bed. We sit in silence, looking everywhere but at each other for a while, before we say at the same time "We should tell Peeta."

We tend to visit him every day, although he tends to spend most of his time with the head doctors. When he isn't with them he tends to just be sad because he misses Katniss. I feel guilty for abandoning him when he feels so alone, but surely he'll be deemed sane enough to return home at some point soon.

I knock on his door, and Annie and I walk in without waiting for a reply.

Of course no reply was going to come, because the room is empty. On the bed there is a note. 'I'm in the kitchens.' We shrug and off we go. We find him kneading a mound of dough, surrounded by more baked goods than I think I've ever seen in my life.

"Congratlations." He says.

"How did you know?" asks Annie.

Peeta shrugs. "They told me about a week ago. Wanted to give me time to get used to it before you guys left."

I pick up a bit of dough near me and throw it at him. "You knew for a week and you didn't TELL us?" I demand as he picks it out of his hair.

"I wasn't allowed to tell you." He replies, sounding a little lost.

"After all we've been through together, Blondie," I say, vaulting over the benchtop to give him a hug, "you couldn't even give me a hint?"

"It wasn't finalised yet. I didn't want to give you false hope that you'd be out of here."

This boy is quite possibly the best person I have ever met.

I walk back around to sit next to Annie. "It's not permanent." I respond. "The whole idea is we're being trained up to run this mess of a nation. So eventually I'll be back here permanently…" I pause for a moment. "Or I'll be insane. Let's be honest, it could go either way."

Both Annie and Peeta regard me reproachfully. "You know that's not going to happen." Says Annie firmly. "If for no other reason than the fact that far too many of your friends, both alive and dead, would judge you harshly for it. And I would be at the forefront of their ire." As she says this, she's casually twirling a knife she's picked up somewhere, with the same glint in her eye that won her the Hunger Games.

We've been keeping each other sane in the Capitol, and I have a feeling that separation isn't going to change that.