after impact. lysander vt.

Enzo was always better at showing people around the district. So much more comfortable with strangers, just as wide-eyed and bushy tailed when he'd caught her all those years ago on the stairwell and she'd nearly fallen over the banister in shock.

She doesn't blame him for leaving. It still stings a little, signed papers and a son. She'd never wanted to bleed out on a table ever again and Mace understood that, he had half a dozen children to fill his heart - but Enzo, he was their son. From the moment he walked into their house with that mop of blonde hair and those big, big eyes and said so.

Her son. And then he just...

She doesn't blame him for leaving. Doesn't blame him for wanting more than the same old orange and gold hills, the cattle and the long grass and the stone-littered main roads he carted each and every victor around year after year. For Saffron, it is enough. It has always been enough. But she knew in her heart, as much as it ached to see him off on the train station platform, that it was not enough for Enzo. She wished it was. But when your heart stops beating and then starts once more, it begins to yearn for other things. Saffron knows that better than anyone - save for perhaps Lysander Mae. But her heart never wanted another child, and then suddenly it did. And then it tore in two - wanting to let her son choose his own path, and wanting to hold him tightly on that platform as they said goodbye and never let him go.

On second thought, perhaps it was better of him to leave. One unruly child was bad enough, Quinn still sulking and crying herself to sleep and asking when Enzo was coming back. She lets them chatter on the phone for a few minutes every other week and spent hours crafting cards and letters she gave to Beck in the Capitol to pass along. A photograph, Quinn half an inch taller than she was when Enzo left, Mr. TF still grouchy and crawling out of her outstretched arms. She hopes it makes him smile.

They all need a smile after that Games ending.

Saffron can't fault Lysander Mae. There was a time where grief would consume her every thought, bitter and angry at the wrong people for coming out of the arena alive. But there had been the faintest glimmer of hope when Oberon and Kahinta had sprinted towards the graveyard, knives in hand, charging toward the Career and the volunteer.

And then they had turned on each-other and Saffron switched off the television.

Kahinta, now that had left a welt across the District. She pictured Enzo and Temple sitting on the farm gates, chattering away as they walked down the path of their home, Saffron insisting she stay for tea. Kahinta falling to the Career's blade and never getting back up was like muscle-memory - Myara and Emberley and Clementa, just for a moment, caused her hand to twitch and fold into a fist.

But there was nothing she could say to the girl that had died and come back home then watched her loved one get so close except that she understood. Saffron knows that sometimes even that is not enough. So she keeps the welcome mat on the porch and carts herself around the District Tour with Blue and Lysander and tucks away her bitter grief for another day as she sits across her dining room table with Lysander Mae of District Five.

The chefs - all local, of course - cook them a fine meal. No doubt it would satisfy Mace. But Saffron isn't all that interested in pie and roast potatoes, instead she studies Lysander carefully and finds herself lost for words.

The girl no doubt has the same aura as Patricia. A little abrasive, a little war-torn, a little lost. She yearns for Enzo and his perky chatter, for Blue's small talk, even a poorly-timed tantrum from Quinn to excuse herself from the table. So alike they are - and yet so different. To die in the arena (Saffron still swears her heart stopped beating in the snow) and then to live is an experience she and Enzo had so easily bonded over.

But with Lysander, strangely, it is not. Maybe it's the fact that she volunteered, maybe it's because she helped to kill both children from Ten, or maybe it's because she reminds Saffron so much of Clementa.

Her spoon freezes mid-air at that thought. She returns it, suddenly not hungry, ghosts of bruises left by Clementa aching underneath her skin.

"Usually our house is much more full than this" Saffron confesses suddenly, gazing at all the empty chairs. Enzo, Quinn, Kieran, Paige, Coralee, Mason - none of them eager to meet the girl who helped slay Ten's first chance of redemption in years. "Apologies for the lack of a welcome wagon. Enzo usually does the tour, but I'm sure he'd be happy to give you one in Four."

She smiles through the doubt in her heart.