The Hanging Tree

After: Remnants of the Rebels

Three years passed. 

I suppose things got better - my mentoring skills certainly did - but everything still felt the same. I could still feel the President breathing down my neck every step of the way. And I still hadn't brought home a victor. 

I had gotten close that year, though. The girl had actually managed to make it out of the Cornucopia Bloodbath, a first since my Games, and she seemed to actually have a chance...that is, until she was tracked and killed by the Careers on the third day. 

And so I returned home once the Games had ended, empty-handed, and trying to avoid the parents that surely hated me. Yondrie, on the other hand, seemed in unusually high spirits. 

"Oh, Jay, you're home!" she said, practically dancing into my arms. "I missed you so much."

I was too tired to think much of it. "I missed you too," I said before kissing her. 

She moved into the kitchen. "Are you hungry, love?"

I wasn't particularly and quite honestly just wanted to sleep and forget all about the past several weeks but I caught a glimpse of what she was cooking and it looked pretty complicated so I agreed. Before long I was talking about the Games once more. 

"Those blasted Gamemakers! It's like they want us to fail. If that fog hadn't lifted right then, that girl might still be alive. It aggravates me to no end!" 

"Uh huh," she said. 

"Don't get me started on the sponsors either. None of them talk to me. None of them! They talk to Ivy from District 7 who hasn't been sober one day in her life but they don't talk to me. Because 12 is just too strange, I guess."

"How disappointing."

"And then there's these so-called "stylists" they now thrust upon us. Why, it was only a few years ago that you just needed a prep team when you went into the Games and now you need a stylist? The one they force me to work with for 12 is just unbelievable, some stuck up creature who believes she's better than me just because she was born in the Capitol. It's her fault our tributes are dying. She never tells me what her strategy or angle is, just because she doesn't like me, so we send out mixed messages. These kids die, Yondrie. They die because of a few fools in the Capitol who refuse to work with me."

"That's lovely, Jay."

"Yondrie," I said, now completely out of patience, "did you even hear a word I said?"

"Of course I did. You were talking about the Capitol."

"Yondrie!" I said, now becoming angry. "I was talking about the atrocity of those Games! I was talking about how we watch our children die here in 12 because of the ignorance of the Capitol!"

She looked up from her plate, her eyes holding a strange depth. "You're right, I'm sorry. Those poor children, they never get a chance to live." And her face looked mournful, like she was about to cry.  

I was getting genuinely concerned. "Yondrie, are you feeling alright?"

She waved her hand. "Of course, of course. But I'm sorry about ignoring you."

"I don't care about you ignoring me, I care about you. You seem a little...different."

"I am a little different," she said and she smiled once more. "Jay, I have something to tell you."

I leaned back, trying to look casual even though by this point I was terrified. "By all means, enlighten me."

"I'm pregnant," she whispered. 

I almost fell off the chair at that. "You're...pregnant?" I repeated dumbly as if the concept was absolutely foreign to me. 

She laughed. "While I was beginning to suspect that was the case before you left, it wasn't until I went to the doctor that it was confirmed." She clasped my hands. "We're going to have a child, isn't that exciting?"