Author's Note: So, this is based on the movie, not the book. It's also a WIP which I've never done before so bear with me. It's a WIP because I actually need to go see the movie again to make sure I get the details right. Writing a fic was the LAST thing I had on my mind when I saw it the first time. I haven't written fanfic in 10 years but there was a certain look on Seneca's face in the film in regards to Katniss that stunned me and this story would not stop writing itself in my head all day and all night. I hope you enjoy it. Updates coming soon.

Katniss couldn't sleep. Who could in her situation? It wasn't the frantic hypothesizing of her mind imagining all the different scenarios she would soon be facing and how she might fight for her life that robbed her of sleep. That's what she imagined Peeta did when he tried to rest. She could practically smell his desperation. She didn't feel contempt for Peeta but neither would she ever allow herself to appear frantic and weak. It didn't matter what she felt inside. None of these people would see it, not as long as she could control it, not when it was the only thing she could control. Besides, she actually felt calm. No, not calm. Numb was more accurate but she made it look like calm. She would cling to her dignity for as long as possible. What she saw when she closed her eyes to sleep, Prim reaching for her at the reaping, equal parts terror and relief on her face, and her mother, dead behind the eyes, frozen in a battered wooden chair from which she refused to rise for days at a time, these images threatened to rob her of that dignity so she found other ways to occupy the night.

On this night she turned on the video screen. She could not allow herself the comfort of the forest scene. It would make her remember Gale and their moments of stolen freedom and him tempting her to run away. She had to forget everything except the need to return to her sister. She had room in her mind for that one thought only. She saw other scenes that meant nothing to her, places she had never been and would never see. If she survived she would return to District 12 and live out her life amid coal dust and clapboard houses. It did no good to look at things she would never see firsthand. A dream was just one more thing to mourn when it died so it was better if it was never born.

She eventually stopped on a channel showing 24 hours of games coverage. She watched as her own image from the reaping was replayed for entertainment. The stoic, resigned faces of her people were not intrigued by the scene she made when she sacrificed herself for Prim. There was no excitement, no empathy or sadness, just the weary acceptance of people too used to sending their children off to die either in the games or the mines. It hardly mattered which. The inset screen showed the reaction of a live audience watching in the Capitol as they drank and laughed and ate food the other Districts didn't even know existed. Their avaricious amusement disgusted her as much as their bizarre, colorful but tasteless clothes and hair.

She was about to turn it off when they cut to Caesar Flickerman doing a play by play commentary and talking with another man. She was struck by the other man's comparatively austere appearance next to Flickerman and every other resident of the Capitol she'd seen. He wore no glittering make-up, no false eyelashes or beauty marks. His clothes were practically monastic in this city of fops and buffoons. She supposed he had no need for outrageous artifice when his naturally night black hair highlighted his cool blue eyes making them glow like a piece of blue glass lit from behind. His only nod to extreme fashion was the intricate beard that decorated his face. It's design reminded her of the swords she knew she and the other tributes would be practicing with tomorrow, some of them so wickedly curved her blood ran cold just remembering them from previous games, imagining the wounds they could inflict. The screen flashed his name, Seneca Crane, Gamemaker, and she wondered what wounds he would inflict before her trials were over. He was arrogant and spoke of her offering herself as tribute in her sister's place as though he supposed some people might find it interesting but in truth it bored him. The sinister intensity she saw in his eyes belied his tone and filled her with unease and defiance. So, he thought her nothing more than a footnote in the annals of the 74th Hunger Games did he? Her anger grew hot and her breathing heavy as her heart beat hard and fast. Her lip curled as she stared at his eyes no longer hearing what he was saying. If she did nothing else before she died, she would make Seneca Crane pay attention to his game pieces and see them as people, pay attention to her.

Finally, the screen cut to the procession wiping his cold blue eyes from her vision. She turned the video screen off in disgust and only then realized how agitated she had become. Seneca Crane...she couldn't stop thinking his name. He would control the game, her, like a puppetmaster. She was angry with herself because for a short moment when she'd first seen his face, before she knew who he was, she'd thought him handsome. She had never been given to such girlish thoughts before. She'd never had the time nor the inclination to think about men that way. Life was keeping her mother and sister from starving. The whispers and rumors already spreading like wildfire about what was between she and Peeta as a result of the show they put on during the opening ceremonies had obviously infiltrated her mind. That was the only explanation. It made her think things she would never bother with otherwise. For that one brief moment she had looked at Seneca Crane and thought he was the type of man she might be attracted to if she ever allowed herself to feel such a thing. The boys she knew were just that, boys. Gale was like a brother and she could never think of him any other way. Peeta was … young. They were the same age and yet she looked at Peeta and felt so much older. Seneca Crane stirred something in her that she'd never felt before and she hated herself for feeling it for him. Disgusted with herself, Katniss went back to bed. This time when she closed her eyes she was able to sleep but she did not rest. She was pursued relentlessly through a dream forest by a great black cat with chilling blue eyes.