The interviews were the most terrifying part. They were suppose to feel comforting, for you to have the chance to be treated amazingly, get the capitols reactions to you. Zoya knew what this was like though, she'd already experienced it once and didn't need to feel it again. But, just as before, she ended up right back out here, sat infront of Caesar Flickerman yet again.

But one thing had been different this time.

"Zoya, i'm having a hard time telling if you're happy to see me or not." Caesar spoke, staring at her motionless face, sat in a flickering dress. "Why don't you tell me what you're thinking? I'm sure you've got thoughts on the victors before you?"

Finnicks words to Anne were moving, moving the way the siblings from one wished they'd been. By the time came for her, she felt like she was floating, like she wasn't actually in her body. Zoya took a breath. "I think you'd be scared if you knew what I was thinking, Caesar."

"Uh oh, drama with you and a fellow victor?" he teased, making the crowd laugh.

Zoya looked toward the crowd, meeting his eye again. "The last thing i'd ever expected was the come back to the games."

"I can imagine it was hard leaving Rosalind behind." he sympathized with her, nodding sadly, as if he actually cared.

"It was." Zoya said back, she had a slow, terrifying blink in her eye. "Almost as hard as le- Never mind."

"No, no." he leaned in curiously to get her words, nodding. "Go on, dear. You can tell us anything you'd like."

Zoya swallowed, and all she could hope was that what she was about to say without get her killed before the Games ever began.

"Leaving Roz was almost as hard as leaving behind my son." Zoya spoke, and a million questions flooded through the crowd. Zoya and Peeta knew that the only way to ever promise their own lives was to bring up the life of a child. It was sick, that you weren't valued until someone who was just younger then you had to be what kept you safe.

"Son? Zo-" Caesar began, the yells from the crowd distracting. "Obviously, we all are shocked by this news. You've adopted a child?"

"No, I had a child. In secret, that is." Zoya nodded her head with a tiny smile, making herself start to cry. "I didn't want to hide him, but I just wanted to guarantee he'd be safe for the time being."

"Wha- We are so shocked." Caesar held her leg as she fake sobbed right infront of him. "When was this son born?"

"Three months ago." Zoya rubbed her face as she snuffled loudly. "It's why I haven't come around the Capitol, my home. It's why I haven't visited all of you much, my family."

The crowd awwwd at her words, moved by being part of her family.

"And now i'll never get to share my little Archer with all of you." Zoya cried as she shook her head. "He'll never know me, his mother. He will grow and have to watch my death over and over, already struggling without my care."

"Call off the games!"

"O-oka- Zoya-" Caesar began again, the yells from the crowd over powering. Zoya rose her her feet, hugging Caesar as she hurried off to stand with the victors.

Finnick gave a half grin as she fell in line next to him. "Nice going."

"Best i've ever done." she said back, whipping her fake tears as Caesar took quite a while to get the audience to calm down, slowly bringing more victors into stage, but no one seemed to care now that they knew about the secret child of Zoya Butterfield.

No one stood out to Zoya aside from Joanna, who cussed out the capitol, storming away. She's stiffed a laugh, still trying to play the sad mother of a non existent child that went by the name of Archer. It wasn't until Katniss was announced, coming out in a large wedding gown, that anyone truly seemed to care about any of the tributes after the bomb Zoya dropped.

They cheered for her as she smiled, taking Caesars hand as he practically showed her off the the crowd. "Now Katniss, this is a very big and a very emotional night for all of us. Wouldn't you say?"

"Don't go crying on me now, Caesar." Katniss teased him as the audience, and himself laughed at her words.

"I can't make any promises. You know me." he teased her as they laughed harder. Zoya had the urge to let out a wail from the stand to remind them she was a mother, but she had to stiff a laugh at the thought of anyone, let alone herself, doing such a thing.

"You know I wouldn't believe you, even if you did." Katniss faked laugh alongside the pink haired man.

"I love her! The Girl on Fire is so cheeky." Caesar laughed with the rest of the stands of capitol people. "But, Katniss, on a more serious note. I think we're all here a little disappointed, that a certain wedding did not take place. Aren't we, folks?"

The crowd awed in response. "Alas. But am I correct in assuming that this is the gown that you would have worn on that day, yes or no?" Caesar asked her with a gentle tone.

Katniss swallowed in sadness, whispering out. "Yes, President Snow thought everyone would want to see it."

"President Snow, as usual, was right." Caesar agreed, giving his usual obnoxious laugh. "Wasn't he folks? I love it! I love it! It's incredibly! Will you do us the honor? Please? Please? Please?"

Katniss stepped forward in her wedding dress, Zoya leaning to the side some to watch how this would play out. She began to spin in a circle, the fire forming at her feet, slowly traveling up her sides. Zoya gapped as the wedding dress slowly started to form into a raven gown, tight around her small frame. Caesar was last at words when Katniss rose her arms, wings embroidered to bracelets on her arm.

"That's how you do it." Zoya nodded with a raise of her eyebrows.

"It's a bird. It's got feathers. It's like a bird." Caesar stumbled, trying to find the exact thought as to what Katniss truly was right on that stage.

"Like a Mockingjay." she smiled out to the crowd, the lights shining down onto her stunning dress.

"Your stylist certainly has outdone himself this time." Caesar admitted as the crowd cheered. "Cinna! Take a bow!"

Zoya smiled as she saw Cinna stand, waving to the ones who had applauded him. Katniss joined the rest of the tributes not long after, looking back at Zoya, who nodded. They both knew she knew something Katniss didn't, and as Peeta was brought onto the stage, she knew something was about to drop, something the two smartest people in the room had planned as one.

"But, Peeta, the wedding, the marriage, never to be?" Caesar asked Peeta, who for once, Zoya was not matching with.

"Well, actually, we got married." Peeta nodded as he spoke into the mic. Zoya held her breath the entire time he spoke, almost terrified as to what both their major news would do to the crowd. "In secret."

"A secret wedding?" Caesar asked in shock. "All right. Do tell."

"We...we wanted our love to be eternal." Peeta met his eye, looking absolutely beautiful under the lights. "You know, Katniss and I, we've been luckier than most. And I wouldn't have any regrets at all if it weren't-if it weren't-"

Zoya held her head up higher.

"If it weren't for what? What?" Caesar asked him quickly.

"If it weren't for the baby." Peeta breathed out as the audience lost it again, yelling, as they did Zoya. The Butterfield girl held back what she wanted to do, wanted to smile as she heard more people yell for the games to be canceled.

As Caesar tried to calm the crowd down, Zoya walked down the line of victors. She stoped before Katniss, crying and nodding as if she knew what she was feeling, placing a hand on her own stomach. That alone, seeing a new mother and a mother to be, is what had sent the crowd over board, uncontrolled yells and shouts echoing all through the capitol.

Peeta joined, hugging Katniss before he hugged Zoya as well, seemingly just to comfort her. She hugged him back. "We did it."

"I know." he said back, holding her a moment more before they let go. Zoya didn't go anywhere, between the two victors as they latched onto her hands, the other victors doing the same, all raising their hands to show they are one, they were fighting as one, against the Capitol.

The lights were cut before they could let the moment linger.

•

kylie speaks

mama z did not come
to play this time.