TIME SLOWED.

The sound of her voice cutting through all the noise was a bucket of cold water doused over his head, a canned echo in his skull warping the world around him until it was the only sound in the tunnel of his vision: Papa! Behind you! Papa! Behind you! Papa! BehindyouPapaBehind youPapaBehind youBehind youBehind—

In a split second, a blur of golden hair threw itself in front of the monkeys. A flash of silver, and one fell to the ground, still, a short-sword buried in its face. The other slammed into Alecto without mercy, sending her sprawling to the ground. Just as its gaping maw bore down on her face, she raised her arms, pulling the strings of the parachute she'd wound around her arm across its open mouth, pushing its head back far enough. Still, its strength was outmatched, and its face leered closer and closer, her arms trembling with effort. Teeth gritted, Alecto thrashed and writhed beneath the monkey, but its weight was crushing and its claws had sunk into her right shoulder. Alecto let out an agonised scream.

Atlas snapped back into himself, moving before he could even register it. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he dislodged the sword that'd been embedded in the dead monkey's skull, and ran it through its companion. Instantly, its movements stilled and Alecto shoved it off. There was no time to acknowledge what'd happened just minutes before.

Wave after wave of mutts surged down from the canopy, descending on the tributes without relent. Despite the blood gushing from the wounds in her right shoulder, Alecto unsheathed her second sword, testing its weight before she snapped around and swung it directly into an incoming mutt's chest. With a weapon on hand, Atlas felt his panic stabilise. He kept to Alecto's side as best as he could. His daughter had always been tougher than most, but she was only human, no matter if she believed otherwise. They took each attack as they came, Alecto swinging the container like a mace, the crunch of metal connecting with dense bone a blood-chilling percussion. The wounds on her shoulder were slowing her sword-hand down, but the container was working. Atlas slashed and sliced, moving with a militant precision, head ringing as he cut through the next onslaught of mutts bearing down on them with a renewed aggression, all animal snarls and raised hackles.

There was no stopping. Each time they killed five, fifteen more pounced. Already, Alecto was losing steam, her injury an insidious handicap. Already, Peeta's leg was slowing him down, Katniss was down to her last two arrows, and Finnick was beginning to tire. A hopeless pit opened up in Atlas' gut. This battle was an uphill fight, an impossible boulder doomed to roll back down the slope over and over, crippling every inch of progress, threatening to flatten them. If they ever made it out alive, it would be in tatters.

At that thought, Atlas slashed at one of the mutts, but it evaded decapitation, lunging for Katniss' exposed flank instead. In a flash, Alecto was there, pouncing onto its broad back with a frightening fervour, parachute strings stretched taut against its throat like a garrotte wire. It reared its head back, attempting to throw her off, and in the same breath, Finnick's trident found its exposed chest. Alecto jumped off as the monkey stumbled, rolling clear.

Atlas tackled Katniss out of the way as another mutt crashed into the space she once occupied, snarling. In a stroke of luck, Atlas jerked his discarded spear out from the chest of a dead mutt and sent it through the advancing mutt. Katniss reached for her last arrow as more monkeys poured into view.

Another snared Alecto in its claws and sunk its teeth into her sword-arm. Alecto didn't scream. She pushed the monkey as far away from her body as she could, switched grips, left hand bearing her sword now. Before Atlas could react, she stabbed and slashed at it until it unhinged its jaw from her arm. And when she finally tore it out of the mutt's mouth, the skin of her forearm was ravaged, reduced to a bloodied mess of skin shredded to ribbons. Alecto unwrapped the parachute from her left hand with her teeth, and dropped the container on the ground. She kept her right arm tucked against her side. Atlas abandoned Katniss without a second thought and moved to stand guard beside his daughter, his heart pounding against his chest like a war drum.

"Peeta!" Katniss shouted. "Your arrows!"

In the minute it took Peeta to unstrap his arrows, a mutt had been preparing to launch itself at him. Atlas turned to shout a warning, but another mutt's warning growl occupied his attention. Both Alecto and Finnick were busy fighting off their own horde, the two tributes packed so tightly against each other to cover their weaknesses. Atlas was fending off his own, too, a steel tempest slashing and hacking away with his sword, blood painting his periphery red. Peeta was on his own. And Katniss was too far away to help him now.

Atlas had his back turned to the commotion, but he heard the rustle of vines, heard the unfamiliar shriek that didn't sound quite like any of theirs. And just as he ran his sword through the last mutt that swiped at him with its sharp claws, just as it went still, so did the others. Atlas glanced up. The other monkeys had begun to retreat into the canopy, far out of reach from the tributes.

"Get her," said Katniss, solemnly, and Atlas immediately thought the worst. Then he saw her. The female Morphling from Six, dirt streaking her sunken face, blood bubbling from a sucking chest wound. A dead mutt lay at Alecto's feet, and Peeta had the Morphling cradled in his arms. "We'll cover you."

Peeta led the way down the beach. Katniss kept her arrow nocked, but the monkeys were already gone, melted into the foliage, the former air of hostility now dissolved, the jungle resuming its birdcalls and elusive indifference. Alecto slinked up to Atlas then, her blonde hair matted, stained red with blood and bits of flesh. He almost didn't recognise her, but the moment she sagged against him as they stood on the edge of the water, watching Peeta take the dying Morphling down to the water, Atlas' head begun to spin.

It barely registered that they were essentially attending a funeral.

It occurred to him then that, through the two years of her silence, he'd forgotten the sound of her voice. and he felt his heart crack. Felt the world around him warp as the arena collapsed, felt a strange weightlessness as if his body was flying backward in time to the day Alecto woke up in the hospital room and he'd sat at her bedside, with his head in his hands. That day, he asked how she was feeling, but she only stared past him, her eyes shifting into focus as her gaze sharpened as realisation dawned upon her, could see the moment where the gears in her head clicked into place and the final bolt slid home, slicing right down to the centre of him, and she didn't speak. Upon the white sheets sat someone he didn't recognise, someone he couldn't place, and the silence pounded against his ears as he repeated his question, desperation clawing at his chest, the rising floodwaters of panic climbing up to his neck threatening to sweep him away. his daughter had made it out, but a part of her remained locked inside the arena, and in front of him sat a ghost cocooned in an impenetrable shell where no one could reach her—not even her father. And she never said a single word again.

Until now.

He should have felt happy. But he didn't. Only crushed. Atlas wondered why that was.

Atlas pressed his lips together so tightly, schooled his expression into its stone mask for some semblance of control. His skin felt too tight, tearing at the seams, the sands of his sanity slipping out in a thin stream. He swallowed the quiet gathering of a sob in the back of his throat as he cut off his sleeve and wrapped it around Alecto's maimed arm. His own throbbed with an agony that mirrored Alecto's. She didn't flinch away from his touch, didn't so much as make a sound, but watched him with her pressing stare, her eyes twin pools of ice. In that moment, he couldn't bear to look at her. He watched the Morphling in the rippling waves instead, her glassy eyes filling with the colours of the sunrise.

Atlas glanced up at the sky, too, vibrant hues streaked across the clouds, deep orange, dappled with pink, and fir the first time in a long time, thought of Alecto's mother, Thalia, the curve of her soft mouth, the roseate blush of her cheeks, the first time he'd seen her across the Square at one of his first Reaping Ceremonies. The sky was nothing but a projected screen, a domed cage reflecting controlled colours, but for the moment, Atlas let himself pretend that it was real.

Then the cannon went off, and Atlas watched the waves rock the Morphling's frail body into oblivion as Peeta and Katniss climbed up the beach to rejoin them. Finnick had been watching the trees, his trident readily at his side, but so far nothing had come up. Alecto cradled her mangled arm to her chest, and Atlas knew she'd been watching the water, too, her first time witnessing a gentle send-off. Back home, they sprinkled ceremonial breadcrumbs over their dead, wishing them well on their journey elsewhere. Alecto had only attended one funeral in her life, but she'd been newborn, too young to know that death had claimed the person who'd made her.

Alecto splashed a handful of water over her wound, hissing with pain as the saltwater ran against her raw arm. She dunked her head underwater, and washed the blood out of her hair. Tentatively, she dipped her bad shoulder into the water to wash out the blood. When she straightened up, her entire body was trembling, and her face had gone pale.

Atlas turned to Alecto then. She was staring into the distance, the way she always did, her ever-shifting eyes searching the plane for something no one else could see, something that existed only in her head and haunted her at every turn. He cupped her face gently with both hands as he had done a thousand times before, if only to draw her out of her head. If only to get her to look at him without retreating into her shell.

There was a ringing in his ears, an estranged sound that only grew in frequency. until he realised what it was—Papa! Alecto had screamed, a sound that sawed through all thread of thought and sensibility in his brain, the pent-up stress that wound a tight knot in the back of his mind woven from two years of nothing, of a pervasive silence that spread like a rot, blocking off any memory of what it was like before.

And now her voice was all he could hear.

And he had to know if she could hear it, too. That he wasn't just imagining it.

"Just now," Atlas began, his voice ragged with some unchained emotion, "you said—"

Alecto nodded, the confusion draining from her features, the crease in her brow unknitting. Her voice was a whisper, raspy with two years' worth of misuse, and it tore his chest wide open. "I know."

Atlas' vision blurred, his throat sticky and warm, and his lungs constricted. When he blinked his vision cleared, and he felt something warm drip down his face. Something dark and convoluted flickered over Alecto's expression, and the point between her pale brows creased as she frowned up at him. he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. He wondered if she'd retreat again, if this would be the last time, if this was just a fluke. What was happening under there? What was the trigger?

"Papa, I'm sorry," Alecto rasped, and Atlas pressed his forehead against hers. His whole body throbbed with an agony that felt more like a shattering than an ache.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said, blowing out a steadying breath. "I just... I've waited so long to hear you say something, anything, that I..."

It seems like, in the middle of the crisis they were having, the others had retreated from the water.

Bloodied arrows in hand, Finnick approached them. "What's wrong?"

Alecto cut him a glare, as if he were intruding, and Finnick put his hands up in mock surrender.

Atlas shook his head, and the mask slid back into place, though there was now a lightness. "Nothing. Let's set up camp. Doesn't look like the monkeys are coming back."

Numb, they stared at the jungle. Though there was nowhere else to find shelter, and logically, they would be much safer concealed by the foliage, Atlas was reluctant to head back into the dark twists of the jungle. Something insidious lay within it, but there was no other option. The Cornucopia was too far away, and they were too exhausted to swim, and who knew if some other tributes had set up camp there?

Eventually, Katniss went first, followed by Finnick and Peeta. Atlas went next, but stopped when he realised that Alecto hadn't moved. She stood on the beach, staring out into the water, something like longing in her eyes. Then she turned to the jungle, and for a flash of a moment, Atlas saw fear flash across her expression. In a second, it was gone, replaced by her cool mask of callous indifference, her eyes assessing rather than frightened. But it was enough to crack his heart into two.

"Come, Alec, let's get you some water," Atlas grunted, reaching for her. He placed an arm over her shoulder, careful not to jostle her wounds, and gently guided her into the trees. Whatever it was she saw, he didn't know, nor could he do anything about it, but what he could control was letting her know she wasn't alone, that he had her back, and no shadow in the valley could take her with him standing at her back.

✷

In the last hours of dawn, they'd laid down to catch as much rest as they could. When Atlas closed his eyes, he dreamt of the old arena, the snow falling around him, the mutts circling in the dark. and when the jaws closed around him, he heard a scream that cut through the storm: Papa!

Atlas jolted awake, blinking himself back into his body for the thousandth time this year. Alecto slept, twitching like a dog running in its dreams, and though the anguish creasing her features indicated a restless sleep, some nightmare shape chasing her through the dark behind her eyelids, she didn't wake. He felt her forehead and worry clawed at his chest when her skin felt hot to the touch, the fever already savaging her body. Her face was paler than usual, and her lips were blue. So Atlas let her run. She needed as much rest as she could get.

Finnick had opted to take watch nearly the whole night, which wasn't surprising when he was nowhere to be found. Katniss and Peeta were tangled up together at the base of the tree, fingers fisted in the fabric of their jumpsuits, and a part of him wanted to believe their story. Another part wondered if love was as primal as survival. A soft beeping noise alerted him to a gift from a sponsor, and the parachute landed a couple feet away, near Alecto's slumbering form. Atlas cracked the container open and found a note that read: For Alecto. No indication of who'd sent it.

In it was a set of clean bandages and a glass bottle full of murky green liquid and a label that read: Drink Me. It had to be some kind of medical tonic for her fever or the infection ravaging her inside out. Atlas glanced at the sky, concealed by the canopy, and whispered a quiet thanks.

Atlas tapped the tree using the spile, gathered enough water to wash his face and gulp down enough water to feel his belly swell. Then he unwrapped the bandage around Alecto's arm from the first set of medical supplies Iko had sent them, which had begun to smell, washed the bloody wounds out with clean water, and got to work with the fresh set of bandages. He set the bottle of medicine next to Alecto, placed a shell filled with water next to it.

Atlas found Finnick at the water's edge, trident gleaming in his hand, poised over the water, his net in hand. Finnick spotted Atlas as he waded through the shallows, the water coming up to his hip, and flashes Atlas a wry grin. "How'd you sleep, old man?"

"Fine. You didn't get any sleep last night. You should rest."

Finnick shook his head. There were shadows under his eyes, which were bloodshot and puffy, and when he spoke, his voice was raw and tremorous. "Can't. I... Every time I close my eyes I keep seeing Mags walking into the fog. When I came back from my Games, I was a mess. I didn't come out of my house for weeks after my Victory Tour. On the second day she let herself in and cooked in my kitchen. She fed me, made sure I washed, made sure I didn't do anything stupid. She did that for Annie, too, when she came home from her Games. I'm alive because of her. And now she's gone. I wasn't strong enough, Atlas. I owe her everything and I couldn't carry her. And I have to live with that."

Mags was the freshly fallen snow, melted away from Tribute to Victor, from brutality to forgiveness. Atlas didn't say anything. He was never good with words, even worse with comforting ones, but he knew loss, and so he said, "Let me help you with the food."

For about twenty minutes, Finnick taught him how to hold the net and lure the fish in so he could spear them with his trident. Between them, they managed to catch seven fish, skewering them through with dry sticks.

After a moment, sweat glistening over his face, Finnick said, quietly, "I heard her, too."

Atlas sucked in a sharp inhale at the reminder, the tide of emotion rising once more. A part of him still felt like he'd imagined the whole thing. "I almost forgot what it was like."

"And now you're worried that she'll regress back to that state again," Finnick said, his tone gentle, "and that this will be the last time you hear her speak. Trust me, I know a thing or two about madness."

Atlas pursed his lips. "She's not crazy."

"She's traumatised," Finnick drawled. "We all are. The Games are never over even when we've made it out of the arena. Some people are just pushed further to the breaking point than others. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I've watched her Games, too, y'know. What happened in her arena... it was pure psychological torture. Considering all that and the aftershocks, she seems like she can take care of herself."

"She's my kid," Atlas grumbled, though Finnick's words struck a chord in him. "I'm always going to worry."

When they climbed up the beach onto a dryer strip of sand with the spoils of their hunt, Atlas left Finnick to check on Alecto. She was awake now, blinking up at the sky, too weak to move. Peeta was still asleep, and Katniss had gone to see what Finnick was cooking. Atlas' head was still ringing.

Atlas smiled and sat down next to her. "Morning."

Alecto winced as she swallowed, a laborious motion.

Atlas felt his heart sink with disappointment. He hadn't expected her to start speaking normally, but he'd harboured hope that she would, eventually. The more rational part of him attributed it to the possibility that she might be too weak for words at the moment. That was fine. Atlas could wait.

"You need to drink this. It'll bring down your fever."

Alecto took a whiff of the tonic and wrinkled her nose in disgust. But she didn't resist as Atlas tilted her head upward and put the rim of the jar to her cracked lips. Screwing her eyes shut, Alecto drank it all in three gulps, shuddering as she swallowed. Finally, he gathered water in the jar and let her wash the tonic down with it. Then he helped her sit up fully. The bandages around her arm were soaked through with blood, but in minutes, Alecto was standing on her own, strong enough to walk over to where Finnick was shucking shellfish.

Katniss was already there, eating with him. Finnick handed her a stick of cooked fish, which she devoured ravenously, picking out the soft, gelatinous meat between the tiny bones and the gills with her bare fingers.

"Scallop?" Finnick offered, a piece of shellfish resting on his palm.

Alecto cocked her head at it, but took it anyway, studying the soft, muscle in the shell with unreserved curiosity. She took a whiff, blinked, but the growl of her stomach collapsed the mistrustful exterior. She gave in to her hunger and ripped the meat from the shell before devouring that too.

Finnick grinned as he watched her eat, his gaze softening with mirth. "You like it? There's more. Take whatever you want."

Alecto nodded. Every once in awhile she would subconsciously scratch her scabs. Atlas' skin blazed, too, but his self control was much stronger. Alecto, on the other hand, was essentially gouging out her thigh with her fingernails. Katniss' were the same, crusted over with blood, but not from any outstanding wounds. She, too, must've been scratching through the night.

"You know, if you scratch, you'll bring on infection," Finnick warned. But Alecto kept on scratching, his warning fallen on deaf ears.

"That's what I've heard," Katniss said, before she went down to the water's edge to wash off the blood. When she was done, she stalked up the beach and glared at the sky. "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin."

Alecto lifted a brow, amusement lighting her features.

In no time at all, the parachute came drifting down. Katniss caught the silver tube attached to the parachute, and brought it over to them. She sat next to Finnick and uncapped the tube, lifting it to her nose to take a whiff. From across the fire, Atlas could smell the pungent ointment. At first, Katniss squeezed out a dollop to test it against the scabs on her arm, and when she realised it didn't sting, her face lit up with relief. She squeezed out more, and smeared the dark green paste over her face. Finnick stared at her in abject horror, disgust twisting his features.

"Here," Katniss said, her voice surprisingly gentle. She offered Atlas the ointment. "Maybe you could use it for Alecto's arm later on when it scabs, too."

Atlas sent her a soft smile. "Thank you."

Katniss nodded.

Finnick glowered at the ointment. "Good God, is this what it's like to be...ugly? How do you live with yourselves?"

"My wife settled," Atlas grunted, his tone only half-joking, noting Alecto's look of surprise.

"Oh, don't be so modest, old man, you were handsome maybe a century ago."

"Eat your fish and keep quiet."

Finnick grinned.

As Katniss and Finnick shot snide remarks at each other about their appearance and the less-than-flattering state the ointment left them in, they passed the tube between them. After sniffing her ointment-filled hands and stifling a gag, Alecto smeared it over her face, the dark paste striving against her naturally milk-white skin, tentatively while Atlas got to work slathering her back with the ointment, slapping away her hands where she was tempted to scratch her leg. The tonic seemed to have worked its wonders, subduing the fever and returning the colour to Alecto's complexion. He worked on himself next, and Alecto snatched the tube from him to help get his back where he couldn't reach, working one-handed with her good arm.

"I'm going to wake Peeta," said Katniss, searching for her partner through the trees.

"No, wait," Finnick said, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his. Come with us, Alecto."

Atlas smiled as Alecto's face lit up with a light grin, and his chest ached as she watched her scurry after Katniss and Finnick to scare Peeta. It was no secret that Alecto was never well-liked by her peers back in school and even in the Academy days. Back then, Alecto always came home from school upset or in a mood, but she never spoke of what happened. Unlike the other kids, she never brought home friends, nor stayed out late to hang around the markets with anyone. Much like himself, Alecto preferred her own solitude, but he had a feeling that it wasn't by choice. Then she went into the arena that first time, and when she came out of it, she avoided people like the plague.

This might be the first time she wasn't excluded from a fun activity.

When Atlas heard Peeta's stunned shout, accompanied by Katniss and Finnick's uncontrollable laughter, he smiles. He caught Alecto's eye, her smirk laced with mirth rather than malice, and inside his chest, a warmth began to glow. In this moment, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if these young victors met under different circumstances. If the Games didn't exist, and they were allowed to be kids.

Another parachute floated down, this time, bringing them a loaf of bread. Katniss divided it equally between the six of them. They ate more shellfish with the salty bread until they were stuffed so full they could barely move.

Just then the water surrounding the Cornucopia swelled. Moments later, a tall wave washed over one sector of the arena, cresting to the top of the hill before sloshing back into the central pool. Amidst the roar of the wave, they barely heard the cannon. In the distance, in that tangle of trees, a hovercraft appeared, metal claw lowering to collect a body. It disappeared within minutes, and the lighthearted mood was sobered by the reminder of where they were. Atlas fiddled with the gold band around his ring finger, turning it over and over.

In the distance, the jungle spat out three figures drenched in some red substance onto the beach. They came staggering out from the mouth of the tree line. One tribute spearheaded the group, dragging the second along the sand. The third milled in circles, like a bee bumbling around in loops mid-flight, confused and disoriented. At one point, the first tribute practically threw the second to the ground with a vehemence that suggested frustration rather than sadism. She stomped, as if throwing a temper tantrum, let out a growl that ripped through the air, before doubling back to drive the third, clearly mad, tribute further down the beach.

It took Finnick only a second. Beside Atlas, Alecto's spine went rigid, a convoluted storm thundering over her expression.

"Johanna!" Finnick called, relief puncturing his tone.

"Finnick?" Johanna Mason shouted back. "Finnick!"

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
well yes! we all knew what we were getting into.
ANYWAY. our fav wlw ship is getting back together :)))

THANKS FOR READING!!! AND SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT BETWEEN PREVIOUS UPDATES LOL