They were happy. Life had never been sweeter for Katniss Mellark, Peeta, their two children, and even Haymitch. The fear that had overwhelmed Katniss when she had become pregnant the first, even the second time had long passed. She had been lulled into a place of dandelions spreading their seeds in a warm breeze.

That hope now swelled within her chest everyday. An unbearable hope that was made bearable by the fact that there was now a growing Panem that was peaceful. Her children were beautiful and safe, Peeta was always by her side, and Haymitch was still a drunk but one that would put down his bottle of liquor when a little girl and boy would run into his yard to play. She had even been trying to repair her relationship with her mother, however grudgingly at first. Yet, with Peeta and Delly's encouragement, she was right on track.

Years passed this way. There were some nights full of nightmares, and days where Peeta had to grip a hard object in his hand, hold onto something steady. But at last, their biggest fear had been wiped clear from their conscious. There were no Hunger Games. That now only existed in the pages of history books and the memories of the ever-aging.

It only made it more unbearable when her children were gone.

Briar Mellark awoke in a dark room. It felt slightly cold, and as he blinked to adjust his eyes he could tell the room was bare straight in front of him. All that occupied the room in his line of vision was a small television set. As he came to his senses, his gleaming Seam grey eyes widened in a panic. Where was his sister?

"Crescent!" he shouted, feeling that she was not near him, was not next to him like she should be. "Crescent! Can you hear me?"

"Briar?"

Briar scrambled to the right side of the room, pressing his ear against the very thin concrete wall.

"Crescent, are you okay? Where are you? What can you see?"

It took a few moments for her to respond, dazed from her time in oblivion.

"A dark room," she replies. "There's…there's nothing but a TV…" Her voice is growing panicky. Briar hears the slow beginning of what will soon be erratic breathing a dry heaves. He has to calm her down.

"Crescent, listen to me, I'm right here. It's okay, it's okay, I promise. Calm down. Take deep breaths, like dad tells you to do."

He could hear a pause as she closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. Briar closed his eyes and imagined her smooth face, that olive complexion flushing as she breathed. Her dark hair would fall up and down as she inhaled and exhaled, and her crystal clear blue eyes, like the beautiful sky above their home and the beautiful woods, would focus.

Briar may have been the younger sibling at sixteen years old while his older sister had just turned eighteen, but no matter how much she looked like their mother, she was the perfect blend of their father and the aunt they never knew. Sometimes when his mother took him out to hunt, just the two of them, she would say to him,

"I'm glad I didn't name her Primrose. She may not look like her, but the way your sister acts sometimes… I'd be a mess."

He knew his mother didn't mean it in a negative way, but sometimes he couldn't help but feel sorry for Crescent. She would always be the one his mother and father felt they had to protect. He knew he felt the same.

After a few minutes Crescent spoke again, her voice more steady.

"Briar, what happened? Do you remember anything?"

"We… we had just come back from Grandpa Haymitch's house. We had stayed with him because Mom and Dad had gone to District 4 to visit Grandma, and Aunt Annie and Kai…"

His squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember.

"Yes," Crescent said, encouraging. "Yes, and we helped Grandpa Haymitch wash up after he drank, put him to bed… We… We went home because it was the last night anyway, and we thought we could leave him alone,"

"And you suddenly wanted to make cheese buns!" Briar teased, the memory was warm and pleasant.

She giggled but their mirth quickly died when they recalled where we were. It was silent for a few more moments.

"Yes, I wanted to make them for Grandpa Haymitch when he woke up," she said softly.

"The old drunk," he scoffed, but his voice was hollow.

The memory suddenly came to Briar though, with searing clarity. They had been caught of guard. Crescent had been pulling the buns out of the oven, Briar looking over her shoulder to laugh and tease her when suddenly, he had been seized from behind. Crescent barely had time to scream when the stranger brought Briar's head against the polished wood of the kitchen counter. Briar remembered Crescent screaming as someone else, with a face he could not recall, grab his sister and put a cloth over her face. She was out after a few whimpers.

He had realized it was chloroform in the few seconds it took to fade into nothingness when the cloth descended over his nose.

She seemed to come to the same realization, because she was beginning to dry heave again. Briar placed his hand against where his head had been smashed. There was a scab, and it was tender but it surprisingly did not throb like he expected. He focused on the wall where his sister was. He tried to block out her heaving so he could better concentrate on calming her down again.

"Crescent, don't panic on me now," he said. "Please, I need you as my older sister to help me on this."

Her breathing slowed again. That always did it. Reminding her that she was the first born, the one that had a responsibility to keep her younger brother safe. It was something she had felt a need to do since they were young, but as they grew older it was Briar who had taken up the sheltering role.

That never stopped Crescent from wanting to be the older sister she felt she should be though.

"Okay," she sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just… I can't figure out why…"

Before she could finish though, the TV in the corner of Briar's room lit up. He jumped in surprise, knocking his head against the wall. Crescent squeaked on her end. He assumed her TV had turned on too. At first there was nothing but static, but them a face appeared before their very eyes.

"Welcome, tributes of Panem! Citizens, its an exciting time of year!"

It was a woman speaking. Her bleached blonde hair, almost white, was short and curled into tight ringlets against her head. Her lips were plump, almost puffy, and her eyes were the sharpest, coldest, cobalt eyes. They were like that of a deranged snake's. A white rose was pinned to what Briar presumed was a red dress.

"I'm Clytemnestra Snow, and Welcome to the 76th Annual Hunger Games! It has been a long time coming, I'm afraid, so, let the odds be ever in your favor!"

Briar heard Crescent scream.

Katniss was screaming. She had come home, prepared to have her teenagers run into her arms, kiss her, ask about District 4 and gossip about Haymitch's drinking habits. Yet when Peeta and her had walked into the kitchen all they had found was an open oven, a pan and cheese buns scattered and ruined on the floor, and blood smeared all over the edge of the counter.

Peeta was holding her desperately trying to calm her down. Soothing her as best he could, yet he was frazzled enough as it was. His children, his precious son and daughter were gone, with signs of a brutal struggle.

This just added something else for them to have nightmares about.

"Katniss you need to calm down. Look, you can do this. We will do this, calm down. This is not the time to freak out!"

Katniss went from terrified to angry in a second.

"What are we supposed to do Peeta?" she yelled, throwing herself out of his arms. "They're gone, and there's blood, what are we… where are they?"

Peeta took hold of her arms and held them tightly in his strong, bakers hands.

No, Katniss thought. They weren't those hands. They were the hands of a fighter, someone she had thought had taken a deserved, permanent vacation long ago. But more than that they were the hands of her husband, and father to her children.

"Lets concentrate," Peeta said, trying to keep his voice even and steady. "Look at the blood, what do you see?"

Katniss didn't want to look at the blood, but one look into Peeta's eyes and she knew she had to. She took in a deep breath and looked, her hunter's eyes scanning the scene.

There was blood, yes, but on closer inspection it was not enough blood to bleed out completely. There were not any blood marks on the floor to, so it was probably a superficial head wound. A concussion was possible though. The blood mark was on the other side of the tray, leaving her to believe it was Briar who had been hit. Briar wasn't one for baking, preferring his much more skilled sister to do the work while he watched. So she was holding the tray when she was taken by surprise.

The bread, having been thrown about, indicates a struggle. Nothing outside of the kitchen is disturbed though, which means…

"They must have been knocked unconscious," she let out shakily. "Possibly drugged. I think Briar… that he was the one that was hit."

Peeta's face was noticeably paler, but he nodded. Better Briar then Crescent. He could withstand the force of it. He was not so sure about Crescent though. Immediately he was repelled by the thought. Choosing on child to be hurt over the other… It was a sick, twisted feeling he had not felt in a long time.

They ran over to Haymitch's house in the Victor's Circle, crashing the door open without any notice. As they suspected, he was already at the table, drinking from his bottle of white liquor. He popped his head up.

"Did you have to go breaking the damn door down?" he snapped. He looked around them, his face turning into a frown. "Where are the-"

"That's what we'd like to know," Katniss growled, grabbing his bottle and flinging it against the wall where it shattered into pieces, alcohol flying everywhere.

Haymitch stood up, swearing but Katniss pinned him against the wall, stronger than him now as he had aged.

"Katniss, stop!" Peeta yelled, but Katniss was too far gone.

"You were supposed to be watching them!" she screamed. "I trusted you, you blasted drunk! I would think you'd take care of your own… your own grandkids…" she faltered and suddenly, the dam broke.

Of all the things in this world that could make Katniss cry, she only knew three things for sure.

In those private moments she had with Peeta, those rare days where the beauty of how lucky she was struck her with such strength that she cried. Her tears would flow, Peeta would hold her, and she would swear to love him so much better because he had loved her so much more.

When her children had been born.

When her children had been taken.

Her Crescent, who looked exactly like her until you saw her beautiful eyes, Peeta's eyes. As she grew how her kindness was as if she was Peeta and Prim rolled into one gorgeous creature, full of hope, dandelions, and fresh baked bread. Her strong Briar, the boy that looked everything like his father, from the pale sking to the blonde hair. Yet his eyes were from the Seam, and his passion for the woods and the hunt made her identify with him on a level she had not felt since her old hunting days with Gale. Yet it was so much more because he was her son.

Peeta extracted her hands from Haymitch's collar, enveloping her in her embrace. Haymoitch just stood there, thunderstruck, for once at a loss for a sarcastic comment. He had none to give, because they were gone. Two little brats that had become a regular prescence in his world had disappeared.

Peeta could see a mixture of fear and guilt enter Haymitch's eyes and quickly he explained everything they had seen and deduced.

"We need… we need to call someone," Haymitch said. "We can't just rely on us."

"Gale!" Katniss exclaimed, lifting her head from Peeta's shirt. "He has a big position in District 2! We can ask for his help!"

"It might not come to that," Peeta said. "They might be nearby. Besidesm I don't think Gale… well, I don't know if he'd be happy…"

He let that hang in the air. Although Katniss and Gale still held a tentative friendship, it was a fragile one. They rarely spoke but every few months, if not just to be updated on their family life.

There was a buzz and a flicker, and the trio turned to peer into the living room. Beyond the absolute mess that Haymitch made, there sat a TV on a mahogany shelf. It flickered and buzzed until a woman with tight curls, puffy lips, and a white rose pinned to her red dress filled up the screen.

"Welcome, tributes of Panem! Citizens, its an exciting time of year!"

Her voice was too cheery, too ecstatic for these words. The three adults looked at the screen in utter horror.

"No," Peeta breathed. Haymitch and Katniss were shocked into silence.

"I'm Clytemnestra Snow, and Welcome to the 76th Annual Hunger Games! It has been a long time coming, I'm afraid, so, let the odds be ever in your favor!"

Flashing across the screen were images made to look to grand, of Hunger Games from the past. As if being sped up, footage from the first to the very last flew by the screen. Katniss watched as she saw everything. Mags own victory in one of the early Hunger Games. Enobaria ripping out another player's throat. Annie losing her mind and swimming to victory, Finnick's triumph with his trident at age 14. Haymitch holding Maysilee's hand as she died. Katniss holding Rue, her and Peeta in the Cave, later with the berries, those damn blessed berries. The Quarter Quell… all of it flashed by in a matter of three minutes but reliving those memories was as if all her nightmares had compounded before her eyes.

She did not notice the phone ringing on Haymitch's wall, and Peeta stumbling to answer it.

"Hello? What? How did you know we were here? Calm down, calm down! No… Don't, don't panic, what?"

A hideous pause.

"Crescent and Briar are gone."

Another pause.

"Keep watching the broadcast, I'll call you back."

Peeta hung up and wandered over to his wife and Haymitch as the gory, terrifying reel of clips ended.

"Annie's son, Kai, is missing."

Katniss clamped a hand over mouth.

Haymitch just kept staring at the television screen as that woman, that woman that Katniss could just imagine smelling of faux roses and blood said,

"Now, lets watch the Reaping's of our brave tributes, shall we?"

A/N: I'm afraid I'm very well aware on how behind I am for Letter's from my Son, but that's a story that doesn't completely have a plot. It's kind of like a bildungsroman that I just leisurely take my time on.

This story is different. Its an idea that has been spinning in my head for awhile now. I just hope it turns out well.