A/N So this is my new story, which is basically a How I Live Now AU of the Hunger Games - I've taken some plot points from the book (which literally changed my writing style/ life) and the movie (which is brilliant and highly recommended, but different from the book and very...uh, graphic) and then twisted a lot of it to make it my own. I don't own either canon, sadly. So yeah, onto the good stuff. Enjoy! :)
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One
It's a bumpy landing. Not that I would know, really, having never landed on a plane before, but the way the plane jolts and judders and the screwed-up expression on the face of the man next to me is enough to say this pilot obviously didn't get a distinction on this part of his exam. Or her. Could be a lady.
The seat belt signs flicker off, and they're opening the doors – the last rays of English summer sun, all weak and wish-washy, filter through the windows and the two doors and we all get up and get luggage and stuff. It doesn't take long to get off the plane, into a hall with faded EU PASSPORT and OTHER PASSPORTS signs where we queue for ages, even though the first sign seems utterly pointless because I remember them saying on the news back in D.C. that the EU wasn't a thing anymore.
Surly passport officer, eye-scanner, metal detector – it's dark by the time I'm through the heightened security, soldiers with guns slung over their arms standing at ease by every doorway. I lug my reclaimed duffel – should've taken Mom up on the offer of Dad's old wheelie suitcase, would've been much easier on my poor arms – and try to ignore the video of Paris being blown to smithereens that I've seen on every TV, all hours of the day for the past week. I don't want to be upset in my first hour on English soil, and I always feel like crying because Paris was a beautiful city and it's just not fair – why did they have to nuke it, why wasn't it good enough just to capture it and leave it be?
In any case, I'm looking around, going up on my tiptoes to see above the head of this hugely tall soldier who is standing in my way, trying to look for anyone with dark hair and grey eyes – apparently our family friends who I have never met all look the same, colouring-wise at least. I start to think they're either late or no-one's coming and I'll have to sleep at this airport all alone when there's this girl shoving her way through the crowd holding a blotchy sign covered in felt-tip flowers. If I squint, I can just make out MARGARET UNDERSEE.
"Hi," I say, dragging my duffel behind me towards her. I didn't realise there was a girl my own age in the family – just another thing Dad neglected to tell me.
"Hi." She narrows her eyes at my floral dress and flip-flops. "You must be Margaret."
"Madge, actually," I correct. "You are…"
"Katniss."
"I didn't know Hazelle had two daughters."
"She doesn't. I'm the cousin. Come on, we've got to clear out. Didn't pay in the carpark."
She strides off without looking over her shoulder, and I half run to keep up with her, my flip-flops not helping in the slightest so the second we're out onto the tarmac I take them off and run, the duffel thumping on the ground. She stops at a battered old Jeep, dirty glass and bent fenders and heaves one of the doors open, taking my bag and throwing it inside so easily I'm jealous, especially with how skinny she is.
"Get in," she says, and so I do.
.
When we get onto the highway – the motorway, Katniss corrects me – she steps up the speed until we're racing along at over a hundred miles an hour, and I'm gripping the edges of my seat because Dad never drove this fast and in the little bit he's gotten around to teaching me, I'd only ever gotten up to forty miles an hour or so.
"Isn't this illegal?" I say loudly over the whoosh of the wind outside.
"Yeah," Katniss says without looking at me. She's relaxed against her seat. I don't get it – how can you be so chilled out at a hundred miles an hour in a vehicle that's not supposed to go over seventy? "I'm not seventeen yet."
"Seventeen?"
"It's when we're supposedly allowed to learn to drive. Government gave up on caring a long time ago, so Gale taught me."
"Gale? That's Hazelle's oldest son, isn't it?"
Katniss makes a noise that I assume is yes. It doesn't invite further conversation, so I focus on the cramp in my fingers and how We Are Not Going To Die Because I Completely And Utterly Trust Katniss. Like anyone would believe that.
At one point in our journey, when Katniss has thankfully slowed down because we're on a road that's much smaller and windier than the highway, there's a scream above our heads and five fighter jets roar through the sky in-front of us, trails of lights cutting swathes through the night. Katniss rolls her eyes. I think about how, if there are planes shooting about in the sky, England must be taking the war much more seriously than America and the world and my Dad thinks it is. She slows down even more, thank God, until we're going along this unlit, twisty lane with branches scraping at the car and fields rising up on either side of us.
She doesn't say anything, just looks out of the window and suddenly turns into a little driveway, goes down the driveway, and then we're there. At least, by the way my bum aches after sitting still for so long, I hope we're finally here rather than this just being a pit-stop, or somewhere to spend the night. Katniss opens her door and jumps down onto the gravel. A light switches on somewhere in the flowers flinging themselves wildly about over the porch, and I see the house for the first time – jumbly, a mix of yellow and grey and red stone as though people stuck odd bits on whenever they felt like it. There are no lights on.
I'm still staring – it's so different from our house and the squeaky clean (or not, as the case may be) apartment blocks and houses in D.C. that only date back to the 19th century at the very latest, whereas this must be as old as the medieval times or something – when Katniss appears at my window, my bag slung easily over her shoulder. There's a faint half-smile on her lips.
"Are you going to sit there all night?"
I flush. "No, no, I'm coming."
"Okay. We've got to be quiet because everyone's asleep."
She leads me in through the back door, not the one with the porch, into a kitchen with plates messily stacked up on one side, and a several cats sleeping in random places. There's a note on the kitchen table, and Katniss snatches it up, reads it, screws it up and lobs it into the sink in one fluid, casual motion.
"What was that?" I ask.
"Gale," she says. "Do you want anything to eat?"
"No, thank-you."
"Drink?"
"I've got some water. Thanks, though."
"I'll show you your room."
.
The house creaks and crackles to itself as Katniss and I climb a set of stairs with a rope bannister that slope so sharply I'm amazed anyone gets up them at all. If I were friends with the popular lot at school, the girls would go on about it would be amazing for toning your butt, all that climbing, but I'm not, so they'll never hear about this wonder staircase, run up and down it a few times and bikini body here we come. Then it's along a corridor that turns a sharp angle at one end and into a room with a lamp on and another cat curled up on the throw.
"Buttercup, out," Katniss hisses. The cat looks up and glares beadily at us with huge eyes of some indistinct colour. It doesn't move. "I swear to God, I'll throw you in the cookpot…"
"Really, Katniss, I don't mind…"
"Go and find Prim – Madge doesn't want you on her bed."
The word Prim seems to be magic – Buttercup unfolds himself snootily and stalks to the end of the bed, throwing a hiss in our direction before leaping off and disappearing out of the half-open door.
"Katniss, you really didn't have to…"
"He's got fleas," she says shortly. "Goodnight – see you in the morning."
She turns on her heel and follows the cat, shutting the door behind her with a gentle click. I settle down on the green comforter and look around at the flowers on the desk and the old, murky windows and the message someone has left there – Welcome to our family, Margaret – in uneven, splotchy letters. How is it that here, even with Katniss' sort of unfriendliness, though I don't think it's being unfriendly, it's just the way she seems to be, is so much more like a home than the house I've spent my whole life growing up in?
I sigh, and get under the covers. I'm not tired – in America, it would only be about seven o'clock, but I try to go to sleep anyway because it's midnight here and I don't want to feel like a zombie when I have to meet the rest of the family tomorrow. I just hope they're less…abrupt than Katniss.
A/N Please review - I'd love to hear from you all. N xxx.