#quell interview.

Of course, he should be careful what he wishes for. If he acknowledges Harbor on this stage, if he doesn't fall into line and pretend that he means nothing to him, then of course that means that Caesar will ask him about Harbor.

The biggest gaping wound in his life, and he's handed Caesar the knife with a side of mockery to boot. Of course Caesar is going to twist it.

"I was shocked," he says. Shocked doesn't even begin to cover it, the white noise that seemed to come over him, the way he threw himself against the Peacekeepers without even thinking about it, hardly aware of it, hardly aware of anything except for Harbor at the desire to get to him.

Somehow, it doesn't feel like that feeling has entirely gone away since the Reaping. Maybe it's because he still doesn't feel like he's really gotten to Harbor at all. Like even when he has Harbor standing right in front of him, he's not all there. Like the part of Harbor that was once Twig's is gone forever.

But he's never been a poet. Shocked will have to do.

"I never imagined that I would see him again. I thought he was dead, just like everyone else did." He should stop there. He really should. There are things that he hasn't even said to Harbor, because he couldn't imagine that Harbor as he is would want to hear them, but here he is saying some of them on Caesar's stage anyway. Rising to the bait like maybe he’s still following the script laid out for him, even if it leads to ruin. "And—to see him look so different, to think of what he could have suffered in the time that he was away. To think that I could lose him again just as soon as I got him back....I was so glad to see him alive, but it broke my heart all over again, too."

Really, it made him furious. But heartbreak is a more passive emotion, less dangerous. And he's playing with danger enough.

It feels telling. Like this a new chapter in the story the Capitol is trying to tell for them. First they were doomed, then they were celebrated, but now it seems that—no matter how well they played the part after coming out of the Arena—they're supposed to be doomed once again.

Torn apart by the Games in the end after all.

But, well, they're not going to go along with that. Everything they've done since their Games is try to portray a united front, and though Hudson is alone on this stage they still clung to Fava before taking their seat, a stolen moment between their interviews half in and half out of the lights, like they could have thought it was a private moment—when, of course, the two of them knew that it was anything but.

They look to the wings of the stage for her now, but the lights are so bright that all they can see beyond Caesar is darkness. Still, they know that she isn't far. And, as it always does, the thought comforts them. No matter what happens, they never have to walk alone.

"The Quell is—I don't have any words for it. We both knew our first year as Mentors would be difficult, but we couldn't even begin to imagine what was in store for us. But, when we got married, we promised that we would be there for each other through everything, and we didn't take that lightly."

Maybe it isn't what Caesar wants to hear, but they don't want to seem confrontational, so they have to sell it. They pause for a moment, then duck their head, like they're trying to hide the hint of a bashful smile. "Actually, it's kind of strange being up here without her. I don't think we've done an interview apart since the very first time I was on this stage."

Getting up on that stage makes them feel like a different person. Like they're no longer the Hudson Overgrove that they always knew. That Hudson, growing up with their family in District 12, felt like they could scream and scream and no one would hear them. But now he's someone different. Now he could whisper, and everyone would be hanging on his every word.

In this moment, they embrace it. They let themself feel like someone else. Someone who's strong. Someone who knows what he's doing.

"I haven't thought much beyond the Quell, to be honest," they say. "But it's hard to imagine Fava and I doing anything for a honeymoon that compares to what we've already done together. After the Games, we were able to travel to each District, to see all of Panem and meet so many of the people there. We got married in the Capitol, and the Capitol and all of Panem celebrated with us."

Caesar has a preternatural ability to look on the bright side, to put a cheerful face on the Games, skipping over the funeral to come to talk about a honeymoon that never will, but Hudson stays somber. They're mourning, because they want the Capitol to mourn with them.

"We—we've really been very lucky. There's not much more we could ask for. Except—except to have our siblings with us for whatever comes next. Except to keep our family intact, when we've only just become a family.”

He wonders what Caesar knows. If he knows that the Harbor the Capitol pulled out of whatever godforsaken torture chamber they'd put him in is one who doesn't even remember Twig, let alone love him. If somewhere, behind the wig and the facepaint, Caesar's laughing at him.

If he was laughing at him, all those years past, and Twig just didn't see it.

He wonders, then, what all of this will mean for Harbor's interview tomorrow. If Harbor will get up on stage and they'll ask him questions about Twig, now, instead of about being a traitor to the Capitol. That would be nice, wouldn't it? To think that he's done some good, instead of just sitting up here on this stage and pulling his heart out of his chest for nothing.

But, then, he doesn't know what questions Harbor would rather answer. If Twig's done anything to help him at all, tonight or any of the days that came before.

More importantly, he doesn't know how it's going to go at all. Harbor is going to get up on that stage, and he's going to sign, and are they even going to translate the words that he says, or just decide them for him? Are they going to steal his voice from him one last time?

But here Twig is. He has his voice, for all the good it's done him. When he hasn't said any of this to Harbor.

"I couldn't tell you, Caesar. Harbor obviously has more important things to worry about right now. And I—" he says, his jaw working for a moment before he continues on "—I made mistakes, when I was with him. I gave him up when I shouldn't have. So I don't think I exactly deserve a reunion now. No matter what I may want."

First Caesar tries to make them feel insecure, reminds them that everybody loves Fava more than them, that they're just an accessory to the captivating Girl on Fire. But then comes the flattery. Everyone else loves Fava, but Caesar likes Hudson best. And, of course, where Caesar goes, so many of the Capitol sheep follow.

If, after helping propel Fava to stardom during last year's Games, Caesar is now trying to position Hudson as the favorite, then there must be a reason. He must think that they're the weak link, that they can be somehow co-opted, brought over to their side.

That Fava's too dangerous now, but Hudson isn't. They can still serve some use.

It's a bitter thought, but it isn't new to them. Next to Fava and her bow and her fire, they were always going to look weak. They knew it when Teal Pitsmith put her hand around their throat at their Victory party. They knew it all the way back when their name was called in District Twelve.

But they don't wish that they were different. All they've ever wanted, through all of this, was to hold onto the ability to be themself.

If the Capitol thinks that makes them weak, then fine. They'll learn otherwise eventually. Hopefully when it’s already too late to stop them.

"Well, I'm very flattered," they say, though they feel more threatened than anything else. "But I don't think I have any exciting plans. I married Fava but, with the Quell, we've hardly had a moment that wasn't focused on the Games. I just—I want to go back to Twelve. I want to build our family. I'm sorry if that sounds boring, but maybe I'm just not that exciting after all."

When Caesar typically tries so hard to be jovial, the question is shockingly blunt. This, more than anything, feels like a message from Snow himself. A reminder, to Hudson and everyone watching, that while they cheated the Capitol once, they will not be lucky enough to do it a second time.

Suddenly, on that stage, they feel very small, and very alone. The truth is laid bare for them, and no amount of words or PR-friendly smiles can change it. They can't change it.

They bite their lip, hard, look out into the lights until they can convince themself that their eyes are watering from the brightness and not from the hopelessness of their own situation.

"I'm not." They say after a moment, clearing their throat once before continuing again. Gathering themself as much as they can. If they can't speak, if they can't do something to pull at the Capitol's heartstrings, then all of his sadness is useless. Then they're just as helpless as the Capitol wants them to be. "I'm not dealing with it. I just—I want to see Wren grow up. I want her to keep teaching me how to sign. I want her to be safe, and kind, and soft, because she deserves that, and everyone who's ever met her can see that."

"I want Gage to be able to go home to his wife. I want him to be able to meet his own child, and to raise them with all the love I can tell he already has for them. To give them a better life than we had growing up."

"I don't want to have to go back to Fava's parents, or my own, and look them in the face knowing—knowing that their children are gone, and it's because of us. Because we loved them too much."

It's a question they've been getting from all sides, it seems. If they resent Fava. If they want the limelight for themself. From the Capitol, it's easy to see what game they're playing. Fava and Hudson were at their strongest in the Arena, a fistful of berries held between them. If they can drive a wedge between them, then that power suddenly goes away.

But Hudson has never wanted the limelight. They've wanted—a home, a place to belong, a family that wanted them rather than just being stuck with them. They wanted to be loved. That's what matters to them. And they get that from Fava.

They could never get that from the Capitol. Not in any way that was real. They wonder if the Capitol realizes that, or if it thinks that anyone can be bought.

"I, more than anyone else, know what it's like to love Fava. So how could I ever blame anyone in Panem for looking at her and loving her the way I do?" Though, of course, they don't. They love the Girl on Fire, the thing that Fava was forced to be, and not the Fava that Hudson married in secret in District Twelve.

And, though it isn't quite as obvious, though there isn't a moniker that goes with it, Hudson has their own part to play. Panem first met them on this very stage, confessing their love for Fava. And that's what they'll keep doing. They’ll profess it over and over again. Even as it becomes less and less convenient for the Capitol.

"If she's the blushing bride then, well, I'm her partner. I'm the person who's lucky enough to stand beside her. And there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

Coming on the heels of the last question, he understands abruptly what the warning was for. He's being given a chance—one last chance, maybe—to continue to play the part he's been playing for two decades. To do what he did when he left Harbor behind the first time: to forswear him, to pretend that he meant nothing to him, and thus keep himself safe.

It could be a kindness, a chance he didn't expect to get. Instead, if feels like just another cruelty. Like, after everything they've done to him this year, they're still handing him the hammer, and forcing him to drive the final nail into his coffin himself.

And he'll do it. Leaving Harbor was a mistake the first time. He knows that now, deep in his bones. And while nothing that has passed between them since his return has convinced him that Harbor would care one way or another what he does, it's not a mistake he will allow himself to make again.

He may feel old, most days, set in his ways, but never let it be said that he can't learn new tricks.

"It's not like you to not have done your homework, Caesar," he says, turning that same chiding tone back on him for a change. The smile he flashes at the end of it may be enough to convince some in Panem that he's only joking, bantering with Caesar like he always does, but he knows it won't fool the man himself.

"Harbor is—very dear to me. If he wasn't, then what was his name even doing in District Seven's bowl?"