Your Heart Outside Your Body

The District

Finn's cannon sounded, and a sob wrenched out of Carole's throat. Otherwise the Hudson-Hummel apartment was silent, despite the number of people crowded in.

The Careers on the screen were regrouping. The District 4 girl, Shell, was hurt, and a District 4 boy was nursing a nasty bruise on his face. Others were looting the bodies, taking anything that might be of value. Carole was savagely glad that the boys had nothing on them- just Kurt's knife and his water bottle.

The Careers began to leave, and the hovercrafts came to pick up the bodies. Next to Carole, Burt was sitting as still as a statue, tears streaking down his face. Carole kept her eyes on the screen until Finn's body was gone, and then buried her face in her hands and cried.

Someone turned off the television. No one protested.

Carole's sobs were the only sound in the apartment, and no one knew what to say to break that awful silence.

Burt was the one who stood up. "We're doing this," he said, his voice ragged with pain. "We're doing this, and we're doing it tonight."

***

Ever since the day that they'd put Kurt in his arms, Burt had been afraid of losing him. He'd checked on him twice each night when he'd been an infant, terrified Kurt would somehow smother himself during the night. He'd been worried about playground equipment, the tenement stairs, the Peacekeepers who patrolled the street. That terrible winter when his wife had died, when Burt's stomach had been hollow and Kurt had cried from hunger, had twisted him into knots. The bullying at school, the death threats, the diseases that could sweep District 8, the thefts and killings over food… and then there were the mills and factories to poison lungs and take limbs and work people to death. Kurt's death was Burt's worst fear. And ever since he'd married Carole, Finn's death was second. Not only to lose that son, but to watch Carole experiencing that pain and being able to do nothing….

To have them both taken in the same moment, to watch them both be slaughtered and not be able to do a thing to stop it… that was the culmination of everything Burt had feared from the moment both boys were called for the Hunger Games.

Burt stood in the room that Kurt and Finn had shared. Kurt's bed was still neatly made, Finn's was still lumpy and haphazard. Their clothes were still in the dresser, Kurt's treasured little hoard of grooming products was still lined up on a shelf, and Finn's drumsticks lay on the window sill. Their winter jackets hung unused in the corner, and their schoolbags sat under them. The room looked like it was still waiting for Kurt and Finn to come in, bickering about their day and bringing it back to life.

"A dad should be able to protect his kid- his kids- from anything," he said quietly to the empty room. "I couldn't stop them from taking you. They would have shot you first, then me. Only thing that it would have done was make us all dead. I'm sorry about that- real sorry- but I guess there wasn't anything I could do.

"But now, me and Carole…" Burt sat down on Kurt's bed, running his hand over the blanket. "It's not some grief-mad thing. It's not because you're both gone. It's because you shouldn't be gone, and the Capitol has got to see that. And showing them that is more important than anything else, and believe me, with how much I love Carole, that's saying a hell of a lot."

He rubbed his face. "I was real proud of you boys, you know," he said. "There in the arena. You both could have turned on each other, but you didn't. I would have understood if you had. I know you thought about it, I heard what you said. I don't care. It takes more guts to fight something like that than it does to do it, and you boys fought it. You both died with your souls intact, and that's about the only comfort I've got right now. So, thanks for that. Both of you. Me and Carole, we might not do so good with that bit, but I can't even care. Not anymore.