So I just got new inspiration for this fanfiction and will be picking it back up. Yay!

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Hawthorne.

The name settles like ice water in my veins. I've heard that name all of once in my life, belonging to  a man who was sentenced to live out his existence in only the memories my parents have of him. I know him as a lost friend; as a man who made one fatal mistake.

Even with that, though, I know very little of who that man was and what story he left behind. His importance ceased to exist at the end of one fuse that burned Mom's world to the ground.

So who is Leif? A cousin? A nephew? A son? I don't know. I've barely had the time to absorb the name alone before I'm back in the house and helping Rye clean up the last remnants from dinner. I sneak glances of my parents, their brows drawn worriedly, and wonder if I should say something.  

Do you know who he really is?

Does he look like the man who was once your friend?

But I don't. Instead I silently repeat the name over in my mind, holding it like a lantern to a face with grey eyes.

_________

I like to think I know what they'll decide. 

And it terrifies me.

The next morning comes and goes in a silence that seems to grow more taut by the hour. I catch Mom looking at Dad and him glancing back. This is one way they communicate, knowing each other so well that they don't need to verbally speak in order for the other to understand. I've always found it kind of fascinating but as the days fall away, I begin to find it infuriating.

To make matters worse, Dad has told me to stop my hunting trips until decisions are finalized and that, if they do intend to take Leif up on his suggestion, I won't be allowed hunting privileges until they return from the Capitol. If there is as much unrest as Leif seems to be indicating there to be, things can change very quickly. 

And the moment they tell me that is the moment I see exactly what they have decided, and I hate more than anything to have been right.

"So you're going?" I ask Mom at dinner, who has her arms folded tightly across her chest, loose braid swinging down across her shoulder. Dad is sitting at the table with his fingers steepled on the counter, calm composure to my mother's hidden fire. "We . . . haven't made a final decision yet."

"Yes, you have," I say solemnly. Anger sparks like fire in my chest, hot and relentless. "Why would you even think to go? It's the Capitol, Dad!" It's disrespectful, but I don't care. I've heard the horrors that existed in the days the Capitol stood in dictatorial power, but my parents were forced to live in it. Through the wars that raged within the arena and outside of it, and the last thing they should do is return to the place that started it all.

"That's why we are taking it into consideration, Wils," Dad says in his usual calm voice. That's who dad is, after all. Gentle. Some might find it a weaker trait, but it is the one I admire him most for. 

After all, how could it be weak if it is something not even the Capitol could break?

Mom takes a deep breath. "Lives are on the line here, Willow. Lives have always been on the line when it comes to the Capitol. One war started with me." A pause. "It would be nice to stop one from happening this time."

"But you did stop it!" I volley back, flames around my words. "It started and ended with you! You don't need to go back! The Capitol, the President, the Board," I gesture towards the empty air as if every mention is present with us here in our kitchen, "let them take care of their mess. You've done enough." I glance over at my brother, but in moments like these, he is more like Dad, quiet and observant, letting the rest of us take up the space for fury. 

Mom pulls in a long breath, splaying her hands across the table. "It's not for the benefit of the Capitol." Her grey eyes are storm clouds. "Too much has been lost. I can't - we can't - just stand around and let any of it be in vain. If there's even the smallest chance of keeping things together . . . we have to take it."

"And if it's a trick?" I challenge, raising my eyebrows. "What if this is a ploy to get you back there? A government's morale isn't just reformed in a couple of decades. There are people out there who still remember the old Capitol, and as long as there are people who remember, then there are people who can try to - "

"That's enough, Willow," Dad says, his hand raised. His eyes pierce into mine. "Both your mother and I know what we are getting involved with. If we decide to do this, you need to accept that we see it as the right choice."

"To trust a complete stranger?" 

"Willow," I recognize Rye's warning tone, the one he uses anytime I'm about to go too far. But my brother doesn't know what I know.

Dad ignores him. "We've discussed it, and we agree that if Leif is speaking the truth, it has potential implications for all of us. And he's not the first one to have mentioned unrest. Stories have been circulating for a few months now."

"But you might be willing to trust him enough to actually go back, but I don't trust him, Dad."

He lifts both his hands, as if trying to calm a spooked horse. "I know, Willow -"

"Do you? Do you know what his last name is?" It's not fair to say it, not like this, and not like a weapon, but my fire is fear now, chasing away reason and leaving nothing but the image of my parents walking into huge doors they do not come out from. "It's Hawthorne."

The name bounces around the room, and I find my attention turning from Dad to Mom, fixing on her face, waiting for the recognition to dawn. For her to side with me on the heels of this realization. But her expression remains the same. 

And that tells me everything. "You already knew that, didn't you?" The words leave me in a whisper.

Dad sighs, one hand silently reaching to cover Mom's. "We suspected."

Some of the frustration in my chest deflates. I guess he does look like his father.

I try in vain to shield my glower. I'm not really mad at them, after all: I'm mad at the beasts that wrote the rules of the games; at the man in a white suit who once sat at the heart of the Capitol and drove thousands of people to their deaths. I'm mad at the past for being so hellbent on clawing its way back to the present.

Mom shakes her head. "Your father's right. That's enough for now." And she leaves the kitchen, back straight, hands fists at her sides. Yes, she is still the Girl on Fire, but she has learned how to control the flames.

I watch her leave, resisting the urge to follow after her and apologize when Rye follows suit. He doesn't look at either of us as he slips from the dining room, but I still catch the hollowed look in his eyes, and I know that he is just as much afraid as I am.

When he has gone, silence settles over Dad and I for two moments before I break it, in a quiet voice that breaks, too. "But why? Why does it have to be you and Mom?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. But I'm not asking as the 17-year-old I am. I'm asking as the little girl I used to be, who slipped into her parents' bedroom in the middle of the night, having been awakened by the sound of her mother screaming in her sleep.

"Do you know what happened after the Uprising?" Dad says after a long moment. He's not looking at me but staring into his hands, as if seeing all the way back, back to that day. Then his gaze slips up, fastening on mine. "After Coin was killed."

"Mom was imprisoned," I say, voice monotone, like quoting something from a book. "Later, she was released and sent back home."

Dad nods, a quick dip of his chin. "Did you know that after Coin, those of us left were asked to take a vote?"

I pause, rifling through my memories. What he speaks of from that day really is in books, because it is history. Our history. But I don't remember this part. "A vote for what? Who would become the new President?" I thought that happened weeks later, after Mom was already back home.

Dad's eyes never waver from mine. "We were asked to take a vote on whether or not we should continue the Hunger Games . . . with Capitol children as the tributes."

I lean back, as if his words have physically impacted me. Slowly, I shake my head. "I never . . . we didn't read about that in class." I don't mention how Mom never told me. Neither of them did.

"You wouldn't have. We didn't tell anyone we'd even deliberated over such a thing."

"What happened?"

"Of course, it was a military tactic on Coin's part, but it doesn't change that there were those who voted against it, . . . and others who seriously considered it."

I take this in. I shouldn't be surprised that there remain things I don't know about, pieces of the story still shrouded in mystery. I sometimes wish they would just tell me, and not leave anything out. But I don't think the entire story is mine to know.

And still.

"Why are you telling me this?" Something that happened so long ago, in a small room with a handful of people that started and ended an entire regime. "What's it got to do with the Capitol now?"

Dad stands, his expression solemn, like there are weights in his eyes. "I'm telling you this because some voted in favor of it. To continue the Games, out of revenge. Out of their own pain. If you take away the people who would vote against something like that, what would the outcome be?" He squeezes my shoulder. "That's why we have to go. To make sure we never find out."

_________

The final decision is more of a formality and yet, it still hits me like a punch in the gut. This reality that my parents are going back to the Capitol. 

It comes the following afternoon, and to my dismay, I'm handed the responsibility of bringing Leif to the house. I'm tempted to tell them who he is, use it like a stone to disturb but I don't need them to undertake anymore jarring news so I keep it silent as I head into town.

My eyes fall longingly on the trees I pass as I go, my hand itching for my bow and arrow. Seven days without the smell of pine and bark puts a physical ache in my heart but I shove it away. If it helps my parents, I'll endure it.

But that doesn't make me any happier.

In town, I check the market I saw him in earlier first, but don't see him. Next it's the smaller shops until I'm left wondering if he is in the forest like last time. I sieze the opportunity and head into the woods, ignoring the empty hand my bow should be in. Today, I'm hunting for something I can't shoot.

It takes about twenty minutes before I see him, shrouded in the brush of the forest. His arms are drawn up where the string of a bow is placed between his hands, the tip flashing in the sunlight. Then there's a snap and something falls to the forest floor.

My eyes land on the bird, the arrow impaling his neck, and I feel suddenly smug. The neck is a much easier target than the eye.

"If it's not the Little Everdeen herself," he suddenly says, and I'm struck with the knowledge that he knows I'm here, even having not looked. My footsteps still. "What, no bow?" he turns to face me. "And why's that?"

The fact I can't read his expression grates on my nerves. Is he arrogant? Or just impassive? I can't tell and I hate it just as much now as I did over dinner.

"My parents have made their decision," I state bluntly. "They sent me to bring you by the house."

He lowers his bow. "What is it?"

"I guess you better come with me to find out," I deadpan.

Leif gives me a dubious look, but slings his bow nonetheless. He stands by me and waits and after an awkward pause, plunges ahead of me, back the way I'd come. I tail behind him, trying to keep up the pace and actually start to suspect he's trying to lose me by the time we break past the tree line. I try to quiet my labored breathing as he starts walking again, this time towards my house.

He has a keen sense of direction, I think to myself, a bit begrudgingly. I'll give him that.

By the time we reach the porch of the house, I'm sweating. To my annoyance, though, Leif appears unaffected, standing stoic in front of the door as if he hasn't just practically jogged through dense foliage for a handful of miles. But I swallow my ire and motion him inside.

My parents come to greet him and then they branch off into the office, leaving me behind to settle matters. I purse my lips and stare at the closed door, steadily burning a hole through it.

Seventeen. I'm seventeen years old, still being forced to hold a glass cup to the surface of a door. 

"What are you doing?" Rye asks me and I jump back, casting him a glare. But then I see him, my almost-twenty-year-old brother, holding up his own glass, and I motion him over, too.

_________

An hour passes. Maybe two, I don't know. It's enough time that I'm forced to put away the glass and wait around the living room instead.

When they finally do exit the office, I try to read the expressions, but whether grim or not, I can't tell. Mom and Dad just come and join us around the table as Leif stands awkwardly away. Our eyes meet for a moment but I look away first, focusing my attention on my parents.

Dad glances between us before settling on Mom. "We are going to take the train to the Capitol for a week," he says, and despite the fact that I anticipated as much, the mention of the Capitol still sends me clenching my teeth together so hard, I'm sure they'll chip. "Just to make the broadcasting and see the results."

I can tell Rye wants to protest. I already did my protesting, but I have new concerns now. Concerns that stand a little over six feet tall, who knows the layout of my home and the history of my parents. "What if he's lying, though?" I ask, even knowing he is standing only a few yards away and can hear everything I'm saying. "What if he's tricking you and you don't come back?" That's what I'm really worried of. That the Capitol will take away even more from us than they have already; that they'll purposefully show off the leaders of the Uprising just to publicly tear them down.

Before Mom or Dad can answer, I whirl on the man in question. "You could be just another Capitol puppet," I practically yell in his sullen face. "I don't care whether or not you think it's changed, but if it hasn't and my parents get hurt, I will hold you personally responsible. And my punishment won't be delivered lightly. You see how well I shoot squirrels, and you're a much bigger target."

"Willow!" Mom yells, and I snap my mouth shut. But I don't take my eyes off of his that are staring intently back at me. If my threat has fazed him, he doesn't show it. Big surprise.

"Luckily for you," Dad starts in his leveled-tone, "you won't have to be worried about him lying. Because he's staying here."

I look over at Dad so quickly my head spins. I stare at him, aware of my open mouth. "He's what?"

"He's agreed to stay here for the week."

My jaw drops further and I raise my eyebrows. "What, like a babysitter?" I scoff. "This has to be a joke, right?"

"He's not a babysitter. You were worried about him not being trustworthy. So, to make sure he's true to his word, he's agreed to stay and only leave once we return. Safely."

I stare for a few more moments, waiting for a punchline that doesn't come. I close the distance between myself and my parents, but this time it is Mom I turn to, pitching my voice just low enough for her ears alone. "Are you honestly willing to trust him, Mom?"

I know better than to say more. To touch upon old wounds that no amount of time can fully heal, because I don't have to for Mom to understand. "I trust you," she says it like it is a declaration, and I know she means it. "I don't like any of this either, but . . . I'd rather have him here, under your eye. At the first sign of anything out of the ordinary - and I mean anything, Willow - you call us. Understood?"

I search her eyes, the same as my own, looking for the hesitation, the concern. I find them, but I also find the resolve, too, and it is the loudest of them all.

My throat grows tight and I can only manage a nod. But she must see it in my face because in the next moment her hands are cupping my cheeks, looking at me intently. "We'll be back before you know it, Little Duck."

I guess the only thing left now is for me to trust her, too.