We walked down the street to one of the more fancy bars, not the one that I met Jim and Sebastian in, but one where the rich hang out and sip wine more expensive than my old house. Molly knew where it was from her numerous years being a mentor, talking to the waiter, who eventually let us in without a reservation. The whole place was white, like the Capital Viewing center, so it must be funded by the Capital. The people were all very rich looking, and here that meant they barely looked like people at all. I immediately felt out of place in this suit, even though it was expensive I doubted they'd think of it as more than a handkerchief. Molly looked around, as if trying to find out who to ask first. I preferred loners, I wasn't confident enough to face more than one person at a time. But I stuck with Molly, knowing she must have some type of technique for getting their money. There were couches arranged, just like the Viewing Center, with TV's in almost every corner. At the moment I saw John, he was just walking but seemingly stalking a lone bird, holding his sword as if ready to strike at a moment's notice. Molly sat down on one of the only lone couches; I joined her and looked around at the clientele. They didn't pay us any attention; it was actually as if they didn't know we sat down, but Molly started talking to them as if they were old friends. It started with the pathetic introductions, yes, we were tributes, yes John was the one to get beat up by the wind storms, yes it was very close. They were annoying rich people and I didn't enjoy talking to them very much.

"He talks about you a lot, Sherlock right?" one of the people asked, here we go again, the desperate love stories they wanted to badly.

"Yes." I muttered with fake interest. Molly glanced at me as if trying to tell me to be nice, an impossible factor really. I really didn't want to talk about a sob story again, it was too much effort.

"John and he got pretty close actually, a lot closer than we imagined." Molly admitted after a little bit of silence. I smiled with annoyance, here we go.

"How close exactly?" A woman asked with a laugh, as if it was some joke and we actually weren't in love.

"Barely any space in between." I said with a small smile. I didn't know if I was trying to encourage them or make them run away from homophobia, but it definitely wasn't the answer they were expecting. Molly looked at me with shock and fear, obviously she wasn't expecting that either. The group we were talking to was silent, looking quite uncomfortable with the topic now.

"Well we didn't think they'd even talk to each other, but Sherlock actually smiled for a while there, something we thought we'd never see again." Molly said quickly, changing the conversation as if it would clear up what I said. But after a while the group on the couches got lesser and lesser, and eventually Molly and I excused ourselves, leaving the bar empty handed.

"Well I hope you're happy." She snapped as the door closed, walking onto the empty sidewalk.

"No of course I'm not, we got nothing." I pointed out.

"I wonder why." she sounded upset and it kind of worried me, when Molly Hooper was upset you know you've done something wrong.

"Well in my defense they did ask." I pointed out.

"Metaphorically, they didn't want to know how close you and your little boyfriend got!" she snapped.

"He's not my boyfriend! Not yet." I added in a small voice. Was this jealously I detected?

"I'm sorry to say it Sherlock, but you are extremely bad at being a mentor." She hissed, picking up her pace just like I had the other day. It was kind of scary that our places were switched.

"Well we all knew that would happen I'm rubbish with people." I defended.

"And manners, and posture, and avoiding very awkward conversations." Molly snapped.

"They asked!" I protested.

"No they didn't Sherlock, they were joking but it was quite obvious that you were being serious. I don't know if you thought it would be funny or you just don't care about him anymore, but that is not a way to get sponsors!" she said loudly.

"Someone's a little bit hormonal today." I commented. I guess that wasn't the right thing to say at a moment like this, because she turned and smacked me in the arm with her purse. I didn't know what was in there, but it felt like a ton of bricks and it hurt a lot.

"I'm not hormonal I'm done! Every year these games are so stressful, now with you crying and screaming over John I just feel like I have to save him because I'm the only one who can! If this is how it's going to be every year with you as a mentor I don't know if it's worth it!" she yelled, making me step back in case I got a purse to the head this time. What do I say to that?

"I'm sorry." I muttered. Her face seemed to relax a bit; maybe she was a little bit surprised or relieved. It was like she'd never heard those two words from my mouth.

"Well, thank you, I guess." She said with a huff. And with that she walked back to the Tribute Center as if this happened every day. Weird, and definitely hormonal. I followed at a safe distance, rubbing my arm where I was sure a bruise would form. When we rode up the elevator I kind of stood towards the back corner, but Molly didn't really pay me much attention, just looked at the doors as if wanting them to open desperately. When they did she went over to the kitchen and started making tea, what she had said was her substitute for drugs.

"How'd it go dears?" Mrs. Hudson asked from the couch.

"Not good, how's John?" I asked, priorities.

"He's fine, cut up his shirt to make some bandages, thought of you." Mrs. Hudson said with a little laugh. I just scowled, that was just the type of teasing I wanted to avoid by not telling them anything other than what they need to know. Now with drugs and my feelings for John it was like I had handed them my diary. Not that I had one, of course.

"What went wrong out there?" she asked.

"Oh, the usual Sherlock." Molly sighed, pouring cream and so much sugar in the tea that I thought it would end up just slushy sugar lumps in a cup.

"What did you do?" Mrs. Hudson asked suspiciously.

"Nothing I thought was too bad!" I defended.

"Well I was trying to go down the road to the sob story, you know, one true love almost sentenced to death and said how close they were getting. So then one of the girls, jokingly," she glared at me and I raised my hands defensively, "And guess what he said?"

"I'm pretty sure she'll just tell you." I added as Mrs. Hudson opened her mouth to guess.

"He said barely any space in between!" Molly said as if that was a world class crime.

"Oh dear..." Mrs. Hudson exclaimed.

"Am I the only one who doesn't think this is wrong?" I defended, but obviously I was.

"So you two did kiss then?" Mrs. Hudson asked, as if that was the most important thing here.

"None of your business." I snapped. "If you must know, Molly had a little bit of a break down on the street; she raised her voice and hit me with her purse." I pointed out. I thought Mrs. Hudson would find that more outrageous than my comment, but she just gave Molly a smile and thumbs up. I rolled my eyes and went to go back to my room when Caesar started talking excitedly, which probably wasn't good.

"What's going on?" I asked nervously.

"There's smoke coming from the volcano." Molly muttered, being able to hear from all the way over there should be considered a miracle to be honest. It showed the black smoke rising in the air and the girl on the mountain running for her life down the slopes. She was a bloody idiot for staying up there so long, not to mention a dead man. The lave must really getting to peak then. It switched to the Careers, who were watching apprehensively and muttering to one another. I guess they had found water somewhere; they were drinking from canteens and water skins and looked pretty refreshed. I could only hope that they were stupid enough to not clean out the water first. Then it was John again, looking up at the smoke from his hiding place in the rocks. Mrs. Hudson had been right, he had pretty much destroyed his shirt for bandages, I made sure to keep my eyes on his head just to avoid those two making fun of me. If they could all see the volcano from where they were it was obvious that the final battle was meant to happen on or around it. I knew the girl who was running was practically dead, all she had was a small pocket knife and if she ran into the Careers running down the mountain she'd be out of breath and almost defenseless. John looked nervous, I could tell we were thinking along the same path, except he didn't know where the Careers were and he didn't know the girl was on the mountain.

"It won't explode until tomorrow probably, they want everyone to be watching and people might be in bed by now." Mrs. Hudson assured, checking her watch. It was around eight o'clock, so she was probably right. They might make it explode tomorrow; it might all be over tomorrow. Molly sat down with her tea, watching the screen as the girl was sprinting down the rocky slopes; sliding along in the boots they were provided.

"She's as good as dead." Molly decided, as if reading my thoughts. I certainly hoped she wasn't though. Mrs. Hudson nodded sadly.

"She should've known it wasn't the best idea to camp on an active volcano though." She pointed out. When she put it like that it was almost did sound like suicide, but this was the hunger games, the whole thing was pretty much suicide.

"Well I think I'll be heading to bed, if you need me wait until morning unless it has to do with John." I decided, thinking that was a fair thing to say. And with that I walked off to my room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I changed into my pajamas and sat on the bed again, not wanting to sleep for fear of nightmares. But I decided, if the whole thing might end tomorrow, I might as well tap into the little drugs I had left. I stuck the needle in my arm and sighed with relief, curling into a ball under the covers and missing the reassuring touch of John's hand in mine. But it was okay, nothing was too wrong now, the world seemed very flat at the moment, it was okay.

                Lava. Lava and blood was all that was left of the floor now. I was stranded on a rock in the middle of the pool, trying to keep my balance on the unstable surface. I saw John holding on for dear life to a rock, screaming as his legs dangled so close to the liquid fire. He was screaming my name, I couldn't hear him through the rush in my ears, but I could tell by reading his lips. He was terrified, his strength weakening, somehow this had to be my fault, I was responsible for his misery. I tried to tip the rock I was on towards him, but I couldn't move without actually falling in and swimming. His grip was failing; he was screaming desperately, there had to be something I could do, anything I could do to make sure he wouldn't drown.

"Hold on!" I screamed, but he didn't need me to encourage him, he was already doing that.

"Sherlock!" this time I heard him, his screams pounding against my ear drums, so loud that I thought my skull would crack. "Help me, what are you doing, help me!" he shrieked. I tried to move, anything. The rock he was on was crumbling, his feet splashing in the fires. "What are you doing help me!" he repeated. I was trying; there was nothing I could do but watch. The rocks crumbled and with a heart ripping scream he plunged in, almost in slow motion, the last I saw of him was his terrified glare, this was all my fault, he was dead and it was my fault.

"John!" I screamed, debating whether or not to jump in and try to get him out. "John!" I repeated, but the lava just bubbled tauntingly. "Sherlock!" Molly's voice tore me to reality, I opened my eyes and saw that I was almost hanging off of the bed, not a rock, and John wasn't dying in front of me it was only Molly and Mrs. Hudson. They were both in pajamas and looking very worried. I blinked a couple of times, looked around with embarrassment.

"Sorry." I muttered.

"It's fine, are you okay?" Molly asked.

"Ya, dream, go back to sleep." I sighed, crawling back under my covers.

"We were scared to death, you were sort of screaming." Mrs. Hudson pointed out.

"I'm fine now. How'd you even get in here, the door was locked!" I pointed out. Molly held up a bent up paper clip, once again I underestimated her. I just frowned, but kind of touched that they were that worried about me.

"I'm fine, have a nice night and please shut the door behind you." I said with a smile.

"Well, if you need anything we're right down the hall." Molly insisted.

"No of course I won't, good night." I assured, burring myself in my covers and waiting until a little while for them to leave. Then I turned on the TV again, watching as all the Careers slept in a close pack, weapons and supplies cradled to them like teddy bears. John was asleep too, huddled under a cluster of rocks, he looked restless too, he knew something was coming just like we did. He was breathing heavily, all the sudden shaking and bolting up in his sleep, hitting his head off the rocks with a beeped out curse word. I smiled to myself, he was so adorable. But I didn't want him to be suffering, I didn't want him to have nightmares like me, it was such a dangerous road to go down. He rubbed his head and looked around, his sword hilt gripped in his hand nervously. When he noticed there was an all-clear he settled back into the rocks, getting his breath back and pulling the note out of his pocket again. By now it was all crinkled, he must have unfolded it and refolded it numerous times, like he read it a lot.

"God, now I really need you here." he muttered. It obviously wasn't something he was expecting me to hear; he probably thought I was asleep. I really hoped his time in the arena damaged his brain that much though, because if he knew me I didn't sleep much.  He had no idea how much I needed him at the moment too, if there was anything in this whole entire world I could do to get him out of there I would, but I was stuck here watching him helplessly. It was just like the lava I suppose, a deadly metaphor, I could see him, a couple of feet in front of me, but there was nothing I could do to prevent him from falling in. That had definitely been the worst dream I've had, the helplessness, apparently everything I screamed in the dream was screamed in real life. John sighed, tucking the note in his pocket but trying to fall back asleep with the necklace grasped in his hand. The cameras switched again, and if he got to sleep I didn't know, but I certainly didn't. I was up all night again, watching the tributes sleep and forcing myself to stay away from the drugs, the one syringe laying tauntingly on the dresser, as if beckoning me to it. The sun came up in the arena long before it did in real time, I guess now the gamemakers were messing around with the night and day changes, which couldn't be good signs. They always like to have the final battle in darkness, it adds to the creepy factor. I got to my feet and pulled on my robe, sighing with annoyance at having to face another day. But I was pretty sure this would be all, this might be the last day I had to spend alone, or the last day I spent with the hope that John might return to me.