If We Could Change the World (Would You Try?)
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games, Catching Fire, or Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins does. There are a couple of line directly from the books, scattered here and there, and I don't own them either.
Summary: One moment Katniss is barely hanging on, relearning how to live and the next she's surrounded by her Prep Team, trying on dresses, just before the Quarter Quell. With the memory of all she's loved burning around her, Katniss is determined to change everything. UA.
Author's Note: So I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy again, and it kind of sparked my desire to write fanfiction again. And what kind of fan fiction do I love the most? Time Travel, re dos, fix it, whatever you like to call it. So I decided to try my hand at one.
Trigger Warnings: cannon violence, cannon mentioned forced prostitution, some cannon character death
Pairings: mostly cannon, will probably be Gale/Katniss/Peeta though. OT3
Chapter 1
I wake up choking, too many names to call out, too many faces flashing across the back of my eyelids. I don't even know who I was dreaming about anymore: Boggs, Prim, Finnick, Jackson, Leeg 1 and 2, the little girl in the yellow dress….they all merge and swim across my mind, mucking up my thoughts. I swallow gulps of her, block out the bright light from the window and try to reorient myself, try to place where and who I am.
I'm Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. There is no district 12. We are rebuilding district twelve. I was the Mockingjay. We brought down the Capital. Snow is dead. Coin is dead. Prim is-
The door cracks open, loudly, and I immediately shoot out of bed, blood pumping through my veins, looking for something to hold, to use—
"Surprise! Oh, you're awake!" And then Venia, Octavia, and Flavius are excitedly squeezing into my room, looking me up and down. They almost immediately delve into complaints: my nails, my hair, my skin, the whip mark on my face-my hand shoot up to touch it, and I must look devastated because they stop their usual histrionics about me the deteriorated state of my beauty to rush to reassure me it's not too bad, it can be fixed, you'll still be a beautiful bride.
I walk in a daze. They break me down to Beauty Base Zero in an excited chatter and all I can see is—
-Venia telling Octavia I won't hurt her, Octavia and Flavius, so flat and despondent, not looking me in the eye. The three of them huddled together. The drain pipe in the middle of the room-
I feel sick, can feel a scream bubble in my throat, want to take someone by the shoulders and demand answers, strangle them out if I have to-
"Oh, I know it's quite exciting!" Octavia gushes to me, taking one of my shaking hands. "But remember to breathe, dear!"
Venia gently rubs my shoulders and adds: "It's alright to be nervous."
I smile haltingly and let them blabber on, let them push me to the living room where my mother and Effie are. I dig my fingers into my palms until I can feel the fake nails digging half-moons into my skin, try to quell the rising panic.
Where am I? What's happening? How is this happening? Where's-
"Where's Peeta?" I manage to gasp out in between the bites my other feds me.
Just like last time, I think, and then what's going on!
"He's getting fitted himself, dear," Octavia squeals.
"He's looking dashing!" Flavius says, adding just a touch of his trademark purple lipstick –he's somehow managed to keep his orange corkscrew curls intact, but he's missing his usual vibrancy, his trademark purple lipstick-
It's just at this moment that Prim walks into the door, and all I can see is her burning to death surrounded by screaming children, the scent of fire and burning, bubbling flesh, the feeling my own skin bursting open in a sea of red-hot pain—
And I'm vomiting on the floor, my stylists squealing and jumping back, Effie frantically calling out orders to save the dresses, Prim worriedly checking my temperature my pressing the back of her hand to my forehead, and then blackness.
~.~.~.
I wake to Prim and my mother huddled over my bed, trying to wake me from my thrashing and screaming. When I stop thrashing around Prim holds one of my hands, telling me: "I'm here, I'm here, I'm OK."
I must have been screaming her name, I think, gulping down air and then slowly sipping the water my mother passes me.
"Katniss, are you alright?" Prim asks me, and I don't know if I want to stare at her, to memorize the features of her face or to back away and run, run, run until I can't move. How is Prim alive? How am I back here? Twelve burned to the ground, Prim burned. The last thing I remember was tentatively walking down to the lake with Peeta to teach him to swim after a talk with Dr Aurelius—
"I don't know," I manage to choke out. My mind is swirling, throbbing just as much as my ankle is—
-From when I dropped out of the tree to get back home, because Head Peacekeeper Thread had turned on the electricity—
I run a shaking hand through my air, clench my fists in my lap and close my eyes. Dr Aurelius talked to me about breathing exercises just last week, just last—
I break this thought off and just try to work on my breathing. In and out. In and out. In and out. Until my head clears a little and I can think a little better. I don't know if this is a dream, if this is Tracker Jacker venom, it can't be, it can't be, it's too real, to calm and quiet. There is no shiny, tipsy quality that accompanies Tracker Jacker venom, none of the otherworldly quality. Just us three, the faint moonlight through my window, and the rushing of my blood clogging my ears.
I don't know what this is, but Prim is here, she's alive, and so I take her hand and press it to my check.
"It's just nightmares," I say, looking at her, studying her face. She's the same as I recall, the soft blue eyes, the light hair, the little freckles at the corner of her eyes and forehead. Prim hums, pressing her other hand to my check and I sigh at the coolness of her hands.
"Her fever is a little better," She tells mom, who swoops down to check my temperature herself with shaky hands.
"You had a high fever this morning, sweetie," mom says. "It's probably not making your nightmares any better."
I nod, my throat closing in on itself. The water, the breathing exercises have made things a little easier but I can't wrap my head around where, when, I am. Prim and mom excuse themselves, tell me that I know where they are if I need help, but not before mom makes me eat a roll and gives me a dose of a foul tasting medicine that's supposed to help with my fever.
The second they close the door is the second I'm out of bed, pacing, trying to ignore the throbbing in my foot. Octavia, Venia, and Flavius were just here, this was when I was trying on my wedding dresses, just like before, which means that next…that next the Quarter Quell is going to be announced, that I'm going back in the arena for a second, no a third time. The panic rises in my throat again, and I have to sit down on the floor and physically restrain myself from running at the thought of being trapped in there. Again. Like a bug under a microscope, fighting to live, the Capital sitting around and watch for entertainment while I bleed, cry, and everyone dies.
I don't know how long it takes me to calm my breathing, to clear my mind like I've been practicing for a week now. In and out. In and out. Repeat my mantra, remind myself who I am, ground myself. It works considerably less because I don't know who I am now, don't know where I am, but I try because if this isn't a cruel dream then it means I can fix things. I can change things.
The sun is barely rising when I get dressed and quietly leave the house. There are hints of spring in the air, and I'm not surprised to see Haymitch, tipsy, moving around his kitchen. Hazelle hasn't shown up yet, though, because I don't hear her sweeping, don't hear her footsteps.
I look him straight in the eye, know that he'll understand me when I say: "It looks nice out, doesn't it? Too nice not to take a walk."
Haymitch looks like he's about to say something contrary, but stops when he looks at me. He swirls the contents of his bottle almost regretfully, then stands up and follows me. We make small talk until we get far enough away from the others. When we get far enough away, we stand shoulder to shoulder and I rub at my chin thoughtfully to hide my mouth as I rush out what I know he'll think is crazy. Normally I would speak in our shorthand, but I really don't know how to say this in a non-straight forward manner and get him to understand, not when I barely understand myself.
"The Quarter Quell is a re-reaping. It's all victors," I say, lowering my hand and adding. "Crazy, right?"
I can feel Haymitch tense beside me, can practically feel his confusion. I don't care if he believes me now. He doesn't need to. If I can build up a rapport for being right, maybe I can get someone to believe my crazy story, maybe I can get myself to believe it while I'm at it.
What, that I'm from the future? I almost don't believe it myself. But every second I'm here, every second I see people in the street, the intact houses, Prim, is a second I can feel my panic quell and my anger ignite. I can change this. I can save these people, my people I can save Prim, can make sure Peeta's never captured—
Never Highjacked.
I continue talking before Haymitch can interject, can scornfully throw away what I said or turn and walk away.
"I've been thinking about being a mentor, you know, I'm so excited to meet Johanna and Blight, Finnick and Mags, Chaff and Seeder, Woof and Cecelia," I say casually. "Do you think the Morphilings will be the mentors? Of course Enobaria and Brutus will be. I'm a little embarrassed to say I don't really recall the names of the others, but I'm sure I'd know them if I saw them".
"Sounds like a real party, sweetheart."
Haymitch is looking at me, strangely, and I can feel he thinks I'm crazy. So I smile, pat him on the shoulder, and tell him to wait for tonight after they air my wedding dresses.
My mother scolds me when I get back for leaving the house sick, makes me take some more medicine and stay in bed until Prim comes home after school, bubbling over about the mandatory announcement and when she says it's probably my wedding shoot I smile and agree. She's too happy about the possibility of seeing the wedding shoot that she only gives me a halfhearted scolding and tells me to try not to move around too much until I feel better. I smile and agree again. Silently, I tell Effie: See, I have this smiling thing down.
For a second I wonder how they'll get the last two dresses I missed when I vomited. Probably shop me into something—they have the other dresses, and I know they can do it. If they can distort voices so perfectly into otherworldly screaming, they can make those photos. Besides, I already know what dress will be chosen. And I know what Cinna will do to it.
The thought of Cinna chokes me up, the idea of having to watch him beaten again, and my mind is swirling with ways to change things, and I have to stop thinking, count to twenty, and breathe, breathe, breathe until I can clear my thoughts. By then they're half way through my dresses and I reach out, pull Prim towards me and cuddle with her as we watch the rest of it.
We get through the dresses just as before, with two false pictures of me wearing the last two dresses, when the announcement is made.
I block out Snow as he retells the history of the Hunger Games, for the Quarter Quell, just barely managing to catch what mom says about Maysilee Donner when the real announcement is made. "..the male and female tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors."
All the reactions are the same but my own. My mother make a strangled shriek, Prim buries her face in her hands. Only I don't run, I stand my ground even though the wind has been knocked out of me, and my mind is running-
-with the sound of clicking, a body in scattered parts being pulled away by a hovercraft, Peeta's heart stopping, Mags sputtering, morbid death dance, the female Morphling whose name I still don't know dying in Peeta's arms—
Prim is crying my name, face buried in my chest, and I sooth a hand down her back. Tell her it'll be alright. And it will be. Because none of these things will happen. I don't know how I'm going to keep these people alive, but I will. I will.
Haymitch bursts through the door while my mother is rocking me and Prim, both of them crying too much to talk, my mother an odd mess of incoherence and determination. Determination for what, I don't know.
"You have some things you want to tell me, sweetheart?" Haymitch says, and I detangle myself from my family, tell them I'll be back.
"I have a lot of things I want to tell you. I don't know if I'll tell them all," I say.
I can tell Haymitch wants to ask, to demand more, but this is not the place. No place is really the place, I think. If we were on the train, we could talk on the ledge like before where it was too windy to be overheard.
Haymitch surprises me by dragging me far away from Victor's Village, to some of the older houses, the houses closer to the Meadow and towards the Empty Valley. My leg throbs after a block or two, but I keep quiet, grit my teeth, and keep walking.
I've never been here before, although I know it exists. Back before, not quite in the Dark Days but after the Games had been established, the houses in District 12 were pushed together more, so that more people could live here. The purpose was so that more hands would work, so that even as they starved and worked themselves to death there would be more workers. Eventually a fire started—and it didn't stop. Everything in District 12 is covered in the coal dust, which is just perfect for sparking and feeding flame. Things were the same back then, even after only three years. The fire sparked, spread, and consumed at least five blocks of housing before it was extinguished.
Most of the houses were rebuilt, with some space in between them even though the coal dust assures another fire will spread out like before, but a block of housing by the wall have been kept intact. Or, rather, they have been kept burnt, crumbling, and unusable. I've heard it was because the fire wasn't an accident, because the Capital wants to remind us all what can happen so quickly, so easily. I don't doubt it, but no one knows for sure.
"So do you want to stare at the wall all day, or do you want to start talking about how you know about the Quarter Quell?" Haymitch bites out after watching me examine the room he led me into.
He had picked a building at seeing random, walked us to the very top of the four story apartment building, and picked the first room he saw—445. Both of us had to pry open the door, but it was thankfully empty when opened except for the burnt furniture and dust that billowed like smog whenever we moved too much.
"I don't know, Haymitch. Were you every going to tell me you knew about 13, about Coin, about the Rebels?" I ask.
I can feel anger ignite in my stomach, bringing though to the tips of my fingers and toes as I remember that these secrets are the very reason Peeta was captured. Hijacked. Despite this, for an instant I want to keep my secrets to myself, to horde them out of spite, but I can't. I won't. There's too much at stake.
So I push past my hostility, tell Haymitch to shut up, and tell him as much as I know. That is:
"I don't know where to start. You won't believe me. I certainly don't. But for some reason I know what's going to happen. So you're going to shut up and believe me because we don't have time for either of us to start doubting."
I tell him bits and pieces. Not too much, but with some details thrown in so that he has to believe me, or at least has to listen. About the Quarter Quell—tick tock , it's a clock. I brush over who dies in the arena, how Haymitch plans an escape but leaves Peeta, that he's Hijacked, that we're taken to 13 where the rebels are. I tell him who I know was in his Quarter Quell pact, about Cinna's costume, brush over being the Mockingjay. I briefly talk about his plan to get us out of the arena. Nothing is in order though. It comes out in a jumbled mess, but I don't care. Can't care. Everything is a jumbled mess in my head, anyway.
By the end I don't know if Haymitch knows what to believe. His face switches between condescending, hostile, and confused. I can tell he wants to both keep up the charade of indifferent ignorance, and to demand more, and he can't do both. It's so comically I want to burst into laughter, but I can't risk him thinking I'm joking.
He can't just brush it aside, though. I've named names, I've laid out information I shouldn't know, and neither of us really knows how to handle it.
"That sounds like a real nice fantasy land you're living in, sweetheart—" He starts, but I cut him off by slamming him against the burnt wall.
"You either believe me—and you and I both know I've dropped enough information for you to have to—or we both watch this play out like I've said." I grit out.
He's watching me, calculating, and brushes off my hand and the cloud of dust that has settled on his clothing.
"There ain't no way for you to know all of this. So how do you?" He scoffs. "You don't know how you know, right? How convenient."
But he's not denying anything, not telling me I'm nuts—it's not perfect, I never expected it to be, but it's a start.
"Peeta's going to go to you, ask you to save me, not him. He's going to get us to train like Careers. He won't let you drink," I add.
One of Haymitch's eyes twitch in annoyance, he squeezes the half empty bottle I only now see in his hand. I expect him to argue, to throw something, but he mostly mumble to himself that we'll see about that.
"Anything else you want to predict?" He asks, tone overly sweet.
"No," I say. I'm ready to start talking strategy, but then an image pops in my head. Peeta tossing the vase across the room, his rage at being kept in the dark, the old man being shot.
It nearly knocks me over. Do we tell him? Do I tell him?
"Not until I know for sure you aren't just having vivid hallucinations. We'll want to go on more than a hunch or some information you pulled out of your ass," Haymitch says, reading my mind.
"He won't be happy to be left out," I mumble, mostly to myself, because I can't argue. Haymitch is hard enough to convince. I can still see the doubt that clouds his eyes, still read the disbelief in his body, but I also know he knows that there's no way that I could just pull all the things I know out of my ass. President Alma Coin, Plutarch who I mention by name. District 13, some of the victors aligned with the rebel—whose names I say in our code, just in case.
"Let me think this through" Haymitch says.
I agree. We have three weeks until the reaping, and I just dumped too much information on him to expect us to come up with a plan today. Even my head feeling foggy, my ankle throbbing from too much walking.
When Haymitch turns to leave, I grab his hand. "Actually, just one more thing. If Chaff kisses me again, I'll punch him."
I leave to the sound of Haymitch's guffs, barely hear him say "That sounds like the old Bastard, all right" as I limp home. My ankle had been easy to ignore until now, but now it's an angry, throbbing, painful mess.
Prim and mom are more put together when I get home, mom offering me some vegetable soup she made to help me feel better, Prim gripping my hand under the table with a determined expression. I can't help but think about her in 13, how she holds herself together so well, ready and willing to throw herself into any situation to help out one of her patients.
How she dies because of it.
I don't know what brought me back, or how I'm back. But I silently thank it, because this means I have a chance to save the people I love. I can fix my mistakes, I can make a difference. I'm no longer in the dark, and while the thought terrifies me—I can't save them all, I can' save them all, who will die?—it also makes me hopeful.
I can't save them all, but I can try. And I can save some of them—Prim, Finnick, Boggs, Mitchell, Madge, maybe even more than the eight hundred of the seam who were saved last time.
And it's enough spark to push me forward.
I've barely finished my soup when there's pounding on my door, when I see Gale rushing in when my other opens it. In a second I'm in his arms, and he's telling me he's wrong, it's not too late, we can run—
And I'm thinking about Prim bursting into flames, feeling angry and grateful and spiteful and hopeful. My heads a mismatch of so many emotions I can't keep myself from bursting into tears, from sobbing until there's snot and tears on us both. Gale doesn't seem to care, though. He didn't care when I sloshed him with alcohol, either. He's just petting my hair while I say yes, that it is too late. Prim is holding back her own tears when she grabs my hand, my mother crying silently while she hugs Gale, Prim and I.
I can' help but think of the Prim who cried when I did even before she knew why, who now is holding back tears and gripping my hand silently, supportively. She's almost as tall as me now, her eyes burning, but not with my hatred. Not with Gale's resentment. With a desire to help, to change things.
I can't help but mourn that she's already changing. But I also feel reassured, relieved, that I know Prim can hold her own. That I can rely on her to hold up and not go under when I'm in the games, or in 13.
I don't pass out this time, so I see when Peeta walks through the door. He pauses when he sees our group, still clinging to one another, and I think he's going to back away before he's noticed so I call his name and hold out my hand.
He takes it without hesitation, and I pull him into the middle of the group so he's sandwiched between Gale and myself. There's so much I want to tell you, I think.
Instead, I squeeze him tight and prepare myself for the next three weeks of agony that'll come from his drill like training.