Disclaimer: I don't own Hunger Games or the characters or places; I'm just playing with them for a while. No copyright infringement is intended.

Note: I'll be switching the POV between Peeta and Katniss chapter to chapter, and maybe adding in other POV's later on. I'll always indicate at the start of the chapter which POV is being used, and POV won't shift within the chapter. I hope this doesn't cause undue confusion! Also, this fic is very, very AU, and more than one character has been killed off before the story even begins. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away.

Prologue - Peeta

There's an iconic moment of the 70th Hunger Games. The male tributes from Twelve and Two meet each other in a rush of spear and knife, and Twelve is impaled but Two is gutted. It happens so fast – Twelve yanks his knife from Two's sternum and stabs it into Two's throat, drags it across, spraying blood everywhere. Twelve's face is streaked with it. Two gurgles, falls back, falls still. A cannon sounds.

Twelve stumbles to the treeline and leans against a trunk, the spear still sticking horribly out of him. "You can – you can come down now," he calls, and she drops from the uppermost of the tree's branches.

She's tiny. Easily the tiniest in the Games: easily the youngest. Her black hair is muddied in its braid, and her small hands try to brace Twelve as he falls to his knees. "Gale," she says. She's the other tribute from his District – arguably the worst person to ally with in the Games, especially when he's so young himself, fourteen to her twelve.

"Hey Catnip," he smiles around a bloody cough.

"Katniss," she says, like it's a reflex, and he laughs, like it's a joke.

"Katniss," he says. He coughs again, and his blood spatters her face. "Katniss, I'm sorry I couldn't get you further. You're going to have to make it through the rest on your own." Anyone watching – and everyone is watching – can see Katniss' face contort, the sob caught in her mouth. "You have the snares I set," he says, voice fading, "You have my knife. You can do this."

"I will," she says, and she's so strong to still be holding him up; she says, "Gale, I swear I will. I'll do this and go home and take care of your family like you take care of me."

"I know," he says. Blood is bubbling from his mouth; staining his chin, getting in her hair. "I believe in you." He can't lie down to die, not with how the spear is stuck in him. Through him. He paws at it weakly, and says, "Please," and she sees what he's asking and nods her head.

She lets go of him, stands back, takes a firm grip around the spear close to his gut, and yanks. She's stronger than she looks to wrestle it free from his meat. In that moment he screams, a pained animal sound, and the sob that was caught in her mouth breaks free, and she's babbling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and he's panting harshly for an extra breath. He starts to fall forward, and she throws the spear to the side to catch him with both hands. She eases him backward.

He's bleeding out, now, gushing dark blood that stains the ground black, but at least he's lying down. Her small hands brush the hair from his eyes, wipe the blood from his mouth. He smiles at her.

"They say," he whispers, "That when your father sang... even the mockingjays... even they went quiet to listen."

"That's true," she says. Her voice is tremulous.

"Sing to me?" he breathes out. "Sing me to... sleep."

She swallows hard as she nods, has to swallow again as she begins. Her voice is achingly sweet, pure as it soars, and everywhere everyone is holding a breath.

He dies as she finishes her song. She closes his eyes with her slim fingers, and her voice doesn't waver on the last note. She sings it true, and lifts her face to the sky, eyes upturned to keep her tears from falling. Everything comes together in that instant – the sunlight catching the tears in her eyes at just the right angle to flare her grey eyes into diamonds, framed by sooty lashes, transforming her girlishly pretty face into something transcendent, beyond beauty – that's when, with her song echoing, everyone, everywhere, in the Capitol and in the Districts, in all of Panem, falls in love with Katniss Everdeen.

Except for me. Because I'm in love with her already, and have been since I was five years old.

Chapter One – Katniss

I'm awake before the sun. Morning is cool and dewy wet, and I walk across it barefoot. I'm muddy, a mess, from digging myself out of my sleeping place. It's a good thing all the houses in Victor's Village come with hot water showers or else getting clean would be an arduous, unpleasant task.

My next door and only neighbour, Haymitch Abernathy, is outside too. It doesn't look as if he's slept at all, and he salutes me with his ever-present ever-emptying bottle of liquor. Usually this is when he would take the opportunity to say something caustic or crude, call me sweetheart, tell me I'll wreck my voice if I stay out all night like this: usually, but not today.

I creep into my house, knowing how far I can open the front door before the hinge creaks, knowing all the spots in the halls where the floorboards will sound my step. No one has ever lived in my house before me, and it's the very best building the Capitol can provide, but it's home to four rambunctious children and two long-suffering mothers, and it's really no surprise that all the life within it has aged it, made it homey, weathered it with laughter and shouts.

I crawl up the steps – the trick to keep them silent is to distribute weight through hands and feet – and sidle down the hall, to her room. Prim's. My little sister, with her soft heart and healer's hands. All the doors in this house lock, but she leaves hers open just a crack, for me. She knows I like to look in on her most nights, knows I need to see her sleeping face, safe. She's curled up in bed with her golden hair falling everywhere, and Posy Hawthorne tucked into her side.

Posy does to Prim what Prim used to do to our mother, climbing in to sleep with her whenever she has a bad night of dreams. Prim doesn't mind; she says it helps soothe her own nightmares, and she has a lot, especially before days like this one. She's not alone.

I edge the door closed and pad silently to my own room. It's a barren place. I don't like to keep my things in it, and don't sleep well in its bed. The window shows only pale gray light, the sun still down, and I think my prep team will probably kill me for it, but I don't want to spend hours pampering my skin Capitol-ready. I shuck my dirtied night clothes and grab the first set of semi-clean shirt and pants I can find. On quick feet, I head down the stairs and back out the front door. Haymitch doesn't look surprised to see me again.

"Try to make it back before your stylist gets here," he grouches, "Or it'll be me the lunatic attacks with fabric."

"Threaten him with vomit again," I suggest, and don't stay long enough to hear his retort.

District Twelve isn't a large district. We only have one industry, really, and that's coal mining. A layer of fine black dust lies over everything, and the oldest miners cough up black from inhaling it for years where it's thickest, underground. Not everyone's a coal miner though, or comes from a mining family: the richest, the merchant class, can afford a different kind of life. They live in the town. The coal mining families, the poorest, live in the Seam. No one eats well in District Twelve, but it's usually the ones from the Seam who starve. I was one of them, would have died one of them, if it weren't for two loaves of bread and a dandelion.

There's a sort of unspoken divide between town folk and Seam folk, though it's a distance that has been crossed before. My mother was from town, after all, and my dad from the Seam. She must have loved him a lot to have given up her merchant-class life. I've never doubted my mother's love for my dad, not that it exists, not that its depth is drowning deep. Her love for him is why I stopped trusting her a long time ago.

I set off across town at a lope. It's still very early, though usually by now I'd see coal miners setting off to work: but no one stirs on the streets. It's a holiday after all.

I pass through the unofficial border between town and the Seam, and set off across the Meadow. The Meadow is really an overgrown, weedy park, a common green area for Seam families to take their kids to run around in, a patch of civilization set right next to the hulking wilderness of the woods beside it.

A fence, supposedly electrically charged though hardly ever truly dangerous, guards the Meadow from the woods. It's illegal to leave the boundaries of this fence which stretches all around the district, but I've never let that stop me. There's a hole dug under the fence, one my dad showed me when he was still alive to show me things, and I crawl through it. A little ways into the woods is where I've stored my bow and arrows.

I feel better as soon as I have my bow in my hands, my arrows slung across my back. I always forget how defenceless I am until I'm armed again, and then the rush of relief that hits me is so strong it's euphoric.

I take my game bag with me down to the river, set up some fishing lines, and go back into the trees to hunt. I alternate, for the next few hours, between checking the fishing lines and shooting squirrels and rabbits. It would be easier to do all this with a hunting partner, but I don't have one of those anymore.

I'm good, though. Even I can admit it, and Prim says getting me to say nice things about myself is like pulling teeth. But how can you believe it when people call you beautiful, say you're funny or smart? There's no proof. Not like seeing the arrow I shot going through a squirrel's eye.

My snares aren't the best, but practice has made them better, and when I check the ones I set earlier I find a rabbit. My lines have caught eight fish by the time I check the sun and see I should be getting on home. I foraged yesterday for my mother's medicinal plants, so I don't bother with that today, though I make quick stops by the strawberry and blackberry patches. Posy loves them, and so does her brother Rory, though he won't admit to it now that he thinks he has to be the man of the house. All in all, a good morning's work – the eight fish caught by lines, three squirrels, two rabbits and a turkey with my arrows, and one rabbit with my snare, plus around a gallon of mixed berries.

I look at my collected bounty, breathing in and out steadily, with pride. I know I have money enough now that I don't have to do this, don't have to go to the forest and hunt, gather, dig. But that money is covered in blood and when I use it, so am I. Out here I feel clean. Besides, what else do I have to do with my time?

I stow my bow and arrows back in their safe place, wrapped in waterproof cloths, and drag my catches back under the fence. I won't take all of it home, or even most: most of it will go to Greasy Sae, in the Hob, which is the old defunct warehouse that has turned into the district's own black market. Greasy Sae is an old woman who make a meal out of anything, and make it taste good (or almost good, anyway) no matter what the ingredients. We have a deal worked out that I give her fresh game free just about every day and in return, if a Seam kid comes by looking starved, she'll dish them up a bowl of hot soup. I guess if a town kid came by looking starved she'd feed them, too, but I don't think that's happened yet. I know I can trust Greasy Sae to keep true to the arrangement, and she knows I trust her judgment when it comes to which kids need feeding.

Some people wave at me in the Hob, and others stare but look away as soon as my eyes sweep over them. I keep my camera-ready face on, like a mask. Greasy Sae greets me with a gap-toothed grin and cackle-chortle, eyes shining and bright as I offload my haul onto her. I give her seven of the fish, two of the squirrels and one of the rabbits. I'll give my mother and Hazelle Hawthorne the turkey and the other two rabbits to prepare for dinner tonight, a regular feast, and the fish for Vick, Rory's little brother, who is in a picky eating phase. He's such a spoiled little boy, nothing like how Prim was when she was his age – but then, when Prim was his age, she was starving to death. Anyway I like to indulge Vick. I know it's not making him strong, but he doesn't have to be.

Greasy Sae presses a bit of paraffin on me in thanks. She doesn't have to, but it makes us a little more – even? Maybe. I salute her and head out of the Hob, back into town. Two more stops before heading back home where I'll probably be screamed at by my horrified prep team and sighed at by my beleaguered stylist.

First, the bakery. Mr. Mellark comes quickly when I knock at the backdoor, and beams a bit when I hold the squirrel up by its tail. He ducks back into the kitchen and reappears almost instantly with two loaves of fresh-baked bread, way more than the squirrel deserves.

"That's too much," I protest.

He smiles. "Don't worry about it," he says.

I bite my lip. Mellark is too soft. It's a wonder the bakery keeps solvent, though maybe not when considering his wife, whose meanness more than makes up for his kindness. I dig around in my pockets for some of the money I have stashed away. I hold out the coins, and say, "How about the squirrel and this money for the two loaves and some cookies? Pretty ones, for the kids."

"Deal," Mellark says, and a few minutes later I'm heading off with a paper bag full of artfully decorated cookies and two still steaming loaves of bread.

My last stop before going home and facing makeover torture is the back of Mayor Undersee's house. He has a weakness for strawberries, and I know his wife – when she's not too bedridden and medicated, anyway – likes blackberries. They were very kind to me when I was younger and I try to return their kindnesses now.

Their daughter, a pretty blonde girl my age named Madge, answers the door. She's out of the standard drab school uniform and in a pretty white dress, beribboned in pink, with a gold pin flashing close to her neckline. After seeing all the high fashion the Capitol has to offer, I can still honestly say that Madge's dress – with its sweet, honest simplicity – and Madge herself, with her steadfast surety, is a lovely sight.

"Katniss," she smiles, and I smile back. We clasp hands and give each other half-hugs. I'm filthy so I don't want to make her a mess, but she doesn't care. Even when I did go to school, Madge was my only friend: she's my only friend now, too. I didn't know that we were friends until I came home and she hugged me, tight, held me, for hours, telling me how glad she was that I was alive. Normally reserved, her polite walls broke down that day, and she told me of the aunt she'd never gotten to know, how she was so glad that she could know me.

We've been conspirators ever since.

"You look beautiful," I say, honestly, and Madge makes a rueful face. I know she's going to say something next about today, what today might bring, so I cut her off by bringing out the portion of berries I kept separate for her family. "For your parents," I say, smiling, and then I dig around again, open the paper bag full of cookies and pull one out. "For you."

She accepts my offerings gracefully. "Thank you," she says, smiling. Her eyes dart to the side, and I know she's glancing at a clock. "You should really get going," she warns, and I sigh.

"Yeah," I say. I start to walk backwards, and wave at her, calling, "Good luck!" as I leave.

It's not far from the Mayor's house to Victor's Village. Still, I drag my feet. Haymitch has disappeared into his house by the time I make it to mine, and as I open the front door – no need to pay attention to the hinges, not now – at least three different voices call, "She's here!"

And just like that, I'm whisked into the whirlwind that comes around every Reaping, the start of my season at the Capitol, where I have to look my most beautiful and act my most charming and bury my heart, so no one can guess I still have one.

oOoOoOo

Cinna glares at me. I'm naked in my room with the new dresses he's designed scattered on my bed. No single person, not even my mother, has seen me naked as much as Cinna has – but then, he's my stylist. I think he knows more about the dimensions of my body than I do, and right now he's very unhappy.

"You've lost weight again," Cinna says. "We've talked about this, Katniss."

I squirm. No one can make me feel guilty like Cinna. It's like some strange power. "Sorry," I murmur, and Cinna sighs.

My prep team has worked me over, bewailing the condition of my skin, hair, nails; scolding me for coming in so late and making them rush; telling me, in between these complaints, the newest gossip from the Capitol. In the wake of their concentrated chaos, I'm buffed and polished, shined up and ready to be made beautiful. I've had this prep team for the last year or so, or rather, Cinna has.

I've known Cinna for years – since I was twelve. He was actually on the first prep team I ever had, when he was just an apprentice stylist. I remembered him as being the only kind face in the room, the only one who, before my then-stylist took over, held my hand very gently and accepted me for who I was: a terrified little girl. He told me he was rooting for me, and I believed him.

"Well," Cinna purses his lips, "The green dress is out. It needs more curves than you have right now to pull off." This is a pity: green's my favourite colour. He holds up a red silky thing. "This might work," he muses. "Do you want your mother to do your braids again?"

Everyone agrees that the classical way my mother arranges my hair best suits my features. By 'everyone' I mean everyone who cares what I look like. I certainly don't. She's taught each person on my prep team, as well as Cinna, how to manage the style since they have to recreate it for me at least once in the Capitol, and they're all very good at it, but it's become a tradition for my mother to do them when I'm in District Twelve.

I nod, and shimmy into the underclothes Cinna brought before stepping into the red dress he holds open for me, feeling him secure it closed. It's a dark red, like old blood, not very bold, but with a shimmer underneath. Black is threaded through the skirt, tapering off towards the bust. When I move, the black gleams through the red, and it looks a little like the gradations of a coal as it flickers its heat. Cinna calls for my mother to do my hair while he works on my makeup, and they work together in practiced rhythm. When they're done I step into my shoes, heels thankfully low to the ground, and they motion for me to twirl for them.

"Passable," Cinna says, but there's a twitch in his lips and his eyes are warm, and I know he thinks he's done a good job. My mother's face is all misty, too, so there's no question what she thinks. "You need to go get Haymitch if you want to make sure he'll show up on time," Cinna says, and I nod.

As District Twelve's Victors, Haymitch and I need to be front and centre at the Reaping. Haymitch had a stylist too, once, or so I've heard: Haymitch does not go easy on his stylists. There is usually vomit involved. I'm not Haymitch, though; I can't afford to be like him. Not when I have my family, Gale's family, to look after. I know of the two of us I'm the lucky one, because I have something to lose.

Haymitch has already lost. Everything.

Stepping out of my room, a small body instantly runs into me, and I start to topple on my unsteady heels before strong arms catch me from behind. "Woah!" Rory says in my ear, and Posy giggles on the floor in front of me.

"Pretty!" Posy points at me, and Rory settles me back onto my feet, stepping in front of me with a broad grin.

"Very pretty," Rory agrees. Rory at fourteen looks so much like Gale that it hurts. Gale was as tall as a full grown man, six feet and climbing, when he was fourteen, and Rory might just beat him. He's had better nutrition for the last few years, and that always helps. Rory has the same Seam grey eyes that Gale had and I have and both our fathers had; Rory has the same dark hair and olive skin. He's calmer than Gale, steadier and more thoughtful, but he loves his little brother and sister fiercely, and that, more than anything else, reminds me of Gale.

"You're the pretty one," I tell Posy, and bend down to pick her up. She's still just a baby, four years old, and in her Reaping dress she's a perfect little angel. I bounce her on my hip and let her touch my face, probably irreparably mucking up the careful makeup Cinna has just applied. We go down the stairs together, Rory behind us, meeting Vick, Prim and my prep team in the kitchen.

Prim is showing Vick and the fascinated, yet disturbed, prep team how to clean the game I brought home; she's a horrible hunter, crying for the animals and begging to try to save them, but once something is dead she knows just how to take it apart and use every possible scrap. She's just tidying up when I come in, though there's not much mess. Prim is very neat, and unutterably beautiful in the dress Cinna brought her from the Capitol. She takes after our mother, who was also said to be quite beautiful when she was younger, with her blonde hair and large blue eyes. She unknowingly echoes Posy when she sees me, pointing and exclaiming, "You're beautiful, Katniss!"

I roll my eyes at her, reach over to tug one of her curls. Her hair is in easily the most elaborate style it has ever sported, probably thanks to my prep team's long wait for me to get home this morning. They all love Prim, who is like a living doll – well, everyone loves Prim. It's hard not to. "The team made me beautiful," I tell her. "You just have to wake up in the morning and you're there already." She blushes.

I nod to my prep team, knowing they'll be heading back to the train with Cinna, not going to the Reaping. "Thank you again," I say, sincerely. Venia, Octavia and Flavius are skilled at what they do, though their prattle is often inadvertently offensive; I'm fond of them, in a way, like a trio of spoiled little pets.

I turn, giving Posy to Rory, and pat Vick's head before I head outside for Haymitch's. Outside the day is warm, the sun heating everything up.

I haven't seen Hazelle yet. It's hard for her to look at me on this day, harder still for her to look at her children. The children she has left. I probably won't see her until I'm back from the Capitol.

It's different for Vick and Posy, because they were so little when Gale died. Posy sometimes gets sad and cries because she sees her mother being sad and crying, but she doesn't really understand why. Vick barely remembers Gale, and Posy doesn't remember him at all; only Rory does, and he's – well, he's forgiven me. Or he's said there's nothing to forgive, anyway.

We all get by. Mostly.

I don't bother knocking on Haymitch's front door, and find him lying in the trashed remains of his kitchen, clutching a bottle to his chest. I nudge him with the sharp toe of one of my shoes, and he rolls over, so I know he's not completely out. That makes this easier.

"Come on," I say, already exhausted with today. "Haymitch, come on."

He groans and blinks at me, bleary-eyed, before sitting halfway upright, twisting suddenly, and puking. Well, at least he didn't get it on himself this time...

"It's tha' time again?" he slurs out.

"Yeah," I sigh. "It's that time again."

oOoOoOo

People are gathering in the Square by the time I've bullied Haymitch into washing his face, rinsing his mouth and changing his shirt, and dragged him out there. We're on time, but barely, and Mayor Undersee and Effie Trinket, the Capitol's escort, look relieved when they see us climbing up the stage steps and taking our seats.

When I was younger, Haymitch was a terror on Reaping days. He still is, but he's my terror, I guess. Everyone has handed off the responsibility of getting him ready and present to me, I think because they imagine we have some sort of mythic Mentor-Tribute bond. Really it's that when I was thirteen I got so angry with him that I tore off my left shoe and threatened to blind him with the spiky heel. I wasn't joking, either: I meant it, insanely meant that if he made me face Effie's "May the odds be ever in your favour," alone, I would hurt him.

They say I'm the only person in District Twelve Haymitch will listen to; I say other people don't know how to make him listen.

The children are grouped by year, twelve to eighteen, all eligible to be Reaped and entered into the Hunger Games; all eligible for Capitol-sanctioned murder. This is the first year Prim's name will be entered for the Reaping, and the third year for Rory. Vick and Posy, thank God, are still too young. Statistically speaking, Rory and Prim have good odds. They've never had to take tesserae the way Gale and I did. I made sure of that.

I wave to them and they wave back, nervousness brightening their eyes, twitching their limbs. Prim stands out amongst the rest of the twelve year old girls because she's so beautiful, and Rory stands out amongst the fourteen year old boys because he's so tall and handsome. They're safe, I tell myself. I've kept them safe.

I firmly squash the niggling voice that reminds me I was only twelve, that even with tesserae my name was only entered four times, that I wasn't safe...

My eyes find Madge in the group of sixteen year old girls, and we lock gazes for a few seconds before she nods slightly. I nod back. She's where I would be standing, if my name had never been drawn four years ago.

At exactly two in the afternoon, Mayor Undersee begins the ceremonies.

It's tortuous, listening to the same recitation we've heard every year, the history of Panem, of the Districts and the Capitol, and how we deserve the Hunger Games for our role in bringing about the Dark Days. I've read history books in the Capitol that tell more involved stories, slightly different: but in such slight differences, a wealth of meaning. Haymitch beside me is twitching for a drink. I know he wants nothing more than to be even drunker than he already is, if only to make it through what's coming.

The Reaping.

Even though it's worse than anything to sit and let anticipation build, it's even worse when Mayor Undersee winds down, ending his speech by listing District Twelve's past victors. There are only three of us, officially, and the first one is long dead. Still, Mayor Undersee places a significant pause between stating Haymitch's name and mine, and I know most people are thinking Gale Hawthorne in that empty space.

It's true Gale didn't come home from the Hunger Games, but it's false to say he lost them. He played by a different set of rules and, by those rules, he won.

Finally it's Effie's turn to shine. Her pink wig is immaculate as is her wide, brightly white, toothy grin. Everyone knows that Effie has been angling for years to get a better District to represent; since I came home four years ago, though, she's been a little happier to be here. Less desperate to escape, not least because I'm popular with the Capitol for whatever reason, and she gets to ride on the coattails of my supposed glory.

Effie gives her trademark, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour," before going over to the large glass sphere where she'll draw the unlucky girl's name. She tries to bring a semblance of showmanship to this, exaggerating her movements and gestures for the cameras – pandering to the things that I usually try to ignore exist. I know they've been taking close-ups of me all afternoon, and I've kept my expression pleasant and interested in what's been going on, hiding all of my mixed boredom and anxiety behind firm mental shields. "Ladies first!" Effie says, and pulls out a furled slip of paper. She carries it back to the podium.

She flattens it. She reads it. I'm so focused on her face that everything seems to slow, and become impossibly loud and bright. Am I imagining it? Is Effie hesitating? Is she turning paler? Is she – glancing at me?

Effie is always conscious of the cameras, of the public face she presents to all of Panem. She told me once that when she feels like she won't be able to deliver a line properly, she takes a big breath and swallows slowly.

She does these things now.

Finally, she reads the name on that slip.

It's Primrose Everdeen.

oOoOoOo

The day before my first, and last, Reaping, I was out hunting in the woods. I had too much nervous energy to know what to do with it, and all of my shots were going horribly wide.

That was how Gale found me, berating myself with angry whispers about having missed an easy squirrel. I was just a little girl, and he was already almost a man, but he didn't talk down to me or condescend. We'd barely formed our hunting partnership – both of us naturally suspicious, desperate to survive, with the weight of our families' dependence on our backs. It took trust neither of us had to work together, but we had to, if we wanted to bring home enough food to keep everyone alive.

"It's one day, Catnip," Gale said. "It's one day and then it's over, and we go on."

"It's a horrible day," I said, and almost threw my bow down in anger. I could never do that, though, no matter the state of my emotions; my hands clenched, instead.

"Well, yeah," Gale said.

I was so afraid. I was half-wild with fear.

It was intense, and reached in so many directions: I was afraid of my name being called, I was afraid of dying, I was afraid of what would happen to my mother, to Prim, of how they would eat, how they would live, without me there. I was afraid that my mother would slip back into her terrible sadness, the one that still had its grips in her, and that Prim would truly starve to death the way she almost had just a few months ago.

I looked at Gale, needing to release this torrent of fears on him, but the look in his eyes stopped me. His eyes were burning. Where all my fears were, he only had anger. Such terrible rage. I could see he was keeping it tightly leashed, maybe because he didn't want to scare me, maybe because we didn't know each other enough to be that open – and I wondered, suddenly, if the reason why he'd come out here was to shout, and scream, and drain himself dry of that volcanic fury.

But he kept it under control, because I was there; and so I had to keep myself under control, because he was there. Or we could both lose control together, and I could drown us with my fears and he could burn us with his rage.

In the end we did neither. We made a pact, instead: rudimentary, but heartfelt. If one of us was Reaped, the other would do as much as possible for the bereft family. Neither of us anticipated that we'd both be going to the Hunger Games.

When we were in the Arena, I made a promise to Gale that I would take care of his family. That I would honour our pact. That I would always be around to make sure they were fed, they were warm, they were safe.

I'm sorry, Gale. It looks like I'm breaking that promise.

oOoOoOo

It seems like I come back to my body in a dizzying rush: the shock of hearing Prim's name wears off and adrenaline jolts through me. I'm breathless, ready to gasp, and Prim is already almost to the stage. Her face is pinched and white, terrified, but she's still walking forward.

I stand, so violently that my chair crashes over backward, and then I rush forward, down the steps, I meet Prim and push her away. "No," I shout, "Prim, no," I push her away, push her back into the crowd of children – they're all children – and I turn. Desperation has made me violent and I shout, "I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"

Prim is behind me. She's safe, she's behind me. She's clawing at my back, screaming my name, screaming no, but I ignore her. I stare up into Effie's gobsmacked face. "I volunteer," I say again, insistent and loud.

"I, um," Effie stammers. "I'm not – I'm not sure you're eligible, Katniss dear," and Haymitch, blessed beautiful wonderful Haymitch stumbles forward.

"She's sixteen," he slurs. "You need to be between twelve and eighteen and the same gender to volunteer. That's all."

I nod furiously. "I'm sixteen, I'm eligible, I volunteer," I say, talking so fast it's a wonder my words don't blur together. Prim is shrieking in my ear, trying to pull me back; her beloved voice screaming, "Katniss you can't," and I push her away. Push her back. Strong hands help me, and I see Rory pulling Prim off of me, the look on his face stern and heartbreaking.

"Go on, Katniss," Rory says. "I've got her." Prim twists in his arms like an agile, furious cat, but Rory doesn't lie, and he does have her. He won't let go. I nod at him, and shakily walk back up the steps.

My heart is thundering, my palms are clammy and wet; I don't even want to know what my expression betrays. Effie pulls it together before I do, and beams out at the Square. "How about that, folks?" she says, smiling broadly. "Your past Victor is so eager to get back into the Arena that she jumps to volunteer! How about a round of applause?"

No one laughs. No one claps. Everyone stares at Effie, stares at me, stony and implacable, refusing to condone what has just happened. Refusing to celebrate it. Refusing to agree that this, any of this, is anything other than depraved and disgusting. In that moment I'm so proud it almost crowds out the terror.

The people of District Twelve all stare at me, and I stare back, and, slowly, as one, they lift the three middle fingers of their left hands to their lips and then extend them to me: an old gesture of my district, a mark of respect. My throat is tight and I nod, tears in my eyes, acknowledging them.

And then, because the whole set-up smacks of district wide rebellion and Haymitch is a wily bastard, he defuses the moment by slinging his heavy arm over my shoulder and shaking me, drunkenly yelling into the cameras, "That's my girl! She's got – got – spunk!"

Thank you, Haymitch.

He takes it further into the realm of the ridiculous by getting up close and personal with the nearest camera, shouting complete with flying spittle and stabbing finger, "More than you! More than you!"

I pull Haymitch back and shove him, semi-gently, in the direction of his seat. He stumbles there on his own and I stay standing, while Effie rallies all her self-composure.

"Well!" she says. "What an eventful Reaping! And we haven't even gotten to the male tribute." As if that's her cue, she starts walking over to the glass ball that has all of the boys' names. I stare blindly into the crowd. Rory has hauled Prim away, hopefully to my mother, so that they can calm each other.

I'm dead already, I know. A Victor going into the Arena again? It's like going in with a giant target strapped to my back. All of the Career Tributes are going to be aiming for me. Even though I'm no threat – even though everyone knows I only survived the first time I was in the Arena because of my allies – that doesn't matter. They'll want to get rid of me as soon as possible, likely at the Cornucopia bloodbath, and they won't be wrong to do so...

Effie's pushed her hand deep into the glass ball. She's pulled out a slip of paper. She's walked back to the podium, her equilibrium firmly re-established. She's unfurled the paper.

No name she reads out could be as bad as when she read out Prim's, I think, not even Rory's. I love Rory, love him like he's my own, but I'm in shock right now.

I see Rory rejoin the crowd, arms empty, and mouth Thank you to him. I know he's found my mother, know right now she and Prim are clutching one another already grieving me. Rory stares at me with the dead weight of determination in his eyes and I know, right then, that he's planning on volunteering so that he can be with me, protect me, follow in Gale's footsteps. I widen my eyes in alarm, shake my head slightly. No. I glare. You're not allowed.

His expression firms. Defiant, jaw jutting. Yes, he's saying.

He can't. He can't. They'll kill both of us, the other Tributes, they won't let history repeat – and I'll die for Rory before I let him die for me. Vick, I mouth. Posy. Prim. Hazelle. These are all the people he needs to look after, when I'm gone. My mother. No, I think again, fierce, and stare him down.

Rory is stronger than I am. He's taller. His legs are longer and I know he can outlast me in a race. But I've had years of being in charge, and that authority makes it easy for me to wither him with my stare. In the Capitol my grey eyes are infamous, though I don't know why – they're common in the Seam; but I've learned how to use them. Rory's face whitens. Fine, it says, and he nods, tight and curt and hurting. Fine. I'll stay.

Satisfied, I turn my attention back to the stage. The male tribute has been called while I was distracted with Rory, and he makes his way forward now. I see his blond hair first, then his broad shoulders, then his fair-featured face. Oh, no.

It's the baker's youngest son, a boy my age, Peeta Mellark. We used to go to school together. I always saw him at the centre of a pack of friends, laughing and playful. Every once in a while he would look in my direction, as if to check if I were still alive; I guess he felt responsible for my life. He'd saved it, after all.

I don't think I can kill this boy. In the Hunger Games, I might have to.