**Disclaimer: None of the characters that are in the previous installments of the hunger game series are mine. This is just something that occurred to me as I watched the elections. Thank you, and May the odds be ever in our favor this 2016 election.

Prologue

District 12: Four years after the death of President Snow

Katniss walks around the district remembering where she and Prim would walk around. The school she attended and the classrooms she loved to go to. Where she and Peeta would sit and learn together. As she turns to get back to her husband and children, she sees a woman around the age of sixty eight walking around with a young girl holding her hand. She looks at the girl. It is Snow's granddaughter. The woman seems to be telling her a story. The young girl turns to Katniss. Katniss stays paralyzed but the young girl runs. The woman turns to Katniss, then to the young girl shouts for her to come back. Katniss continues to walk toward her home. As she arrives, Peeta has the table set up with food. Katniss seems to distance herself as she tries to figure out why Snow's granddaughter would be in District 12 of all places. She doesn't seem to understand why- "KATNISS!" she hears Peeta say. "What?", she replies. "I said you seem to be thinking about something? What is it?" Peeta looks concerned for his wife. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." she smiles to him. "Shoot, I'm all ears." "I saw Snow's granddaughter today. She was walking with this woman by the city hall. She saw me and ran." she looks up at him to seek an answer. "Maybe it's just an hallucination from the games. Or from war." he looks down at his plate to continue eating. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door. Peeta stands up to get the door. Katniss fiddles with her food trying to search for answers in it. "Katniss, you better come here." says Peeta from the other room. Katniss walks to the door and sees Snow's granddaughter and the woman both standing there, both holding some suitcases. The woman smiles at Katniss, "May we come in, please?" Katniss nods. "I'd like to seek shelter for my granddaughter and me. If that is alright with you." Katniss looks at the woman, "Your granddaughter?" The woman looks to Katniss and smiles, "Yes, my granddaughter." "So you are Snow's wife. I thought she had died. Rumors stated you had committed treason." The woman turns to her granddaughter then to Katniss, "Perhaps this is a conversation for a more private area." Katniss nods and directs her to the library.

Katniss allows her to sit in the same chair her husband sat in when he had paid her the visit before the Victory Tour. The woman looks a bit like her husband, but much more powerful and much more benign. She sits patiently awaiting for Katniss to ask, so she does. "Why aren't you dead?" The woman looks around the desk and spots the Mockingjay pin, "It looks so much different from when I wore it. But, I see it carries the same power. It's a pity I had to sell it for food... I was pardoned by my husband, and was forced to leave Capitol forever. My children were to never see me and they were to grow up with me as an enemy. I lived here in District 12 as nothing but a miner. I was born here, just like you, Katniss. I knew my way through these areas and I knew what I would be doing to save myself from being exposed. I worked underground. Every time I got sick, I would secretly send my husband a letter saying I needed medicine, money, food, etc. He would kindly deliver with threats that it would be the last time, but her never stopped. He loved me. So, when everyone vanished to the isolation that is District 13, I moved myself to District 2. There I stayed until war followed. That is when I reached the Capitol. I had to see him. I knew he'd be sick. Sick in health, and sick of war." Katniss looks at her, "So..." "Rose" "My sister's name was-" "Primrose. I do recall. My condolences." "Thank you. Why not go to District 13?" She laughs, "I wouldn't trust that manipulator for a split second. That brat could have been dead by now if she hadn't pulled her little stunt in the Quarter Quell. But no less. Everyone believe us to be dead. I was transformed into a Capitol citizen and ideal First Lady, until Coin exposed me as being of District 12 and plotting to end the games for the benefit to reign over Snow and ruin Capitol lifestyle. I'm not as cunning as she. Power wasn't my suit. Hope was. That's the one thing Coriolanus lost when he vanished me. The idea that we could survive without the games. She knew where to hit him." Katniss looks in her brown-gold eyes, "What did you say to him? He said he was going to surrender, but Coin dropped the parachutes. Did you encouraged him to end the war?" The woman looks at her, "Yes. I did."

*Flashback

Snow sits on his chair in his office. Two peacekeepers guarding his door. Suddenly the sounds of blades on flesh are heard. A peacekeeper opens the door. A person in a black hood is scene with a bow and an arrow. She shoots at a peacekeeper. Snow prepares himself to be killed by Katniss. She walks to him. She removes the hood. "Rose?" says Snow. "Coriolanus." she replies. "Why are you here?!" he ran to her and chokes her. There is no point in you hurting me. I warned you as to how far the games would take you. Now you know. How long until she takes your power?" He lets go of her and hugs her, "I'm lost. She played me like a fool. I don't know what to do." She looks at him, "Surrender to the people, not to Coin." "Rose, take her with you. They will kill her if she stays. Runaway with her." Rose turns to the door and sees her granddaughter standing there. She turns to him and nods. She looks at him and starts to see him as she did during the games, "This is what happens when we cheat the system." "I'm not the one who put there name in there fifty times." She smiles at him, "No. But you volunteered." He walks to his desk and pulls out a box, "Take it, Rose. I don't want them to see." An explosion is heard outside. Snow looks at his wife, "Take her now!" Rose runs out through a secret passway with her granddaughter and the box. Gunshots are heard coming from the office. The little girl is in tears. Rose holds her tight.

As they reach the outskirts of the palace, Rose sees a group of people running to loved ones. She sees a few rebels running around and makes eye contact with one. She looks up at him in disappointment. His guilt struck face just shakes her off as he runs to a burn victim near him. She and her granddaughter run toward the streets as chaos breaks loose and she can get away. Rose and her granddaughter grab a tank and drive through the Capitol. As she drives beyond District 2. She turns to her granddaughter who is soundly asleep.

After several days of travel, they finally reach District 12. Abandoned and isolated. They go into a small home she had built in the woods. She smiles at her granddaughter. Her granddaughter returns her kindness with a hug.

"You're the woman that lives in that house." Katniss says, "The old witch." "Yes, Katniss. I would see you and Gale hunt. I made that bow and arrow for you the day after your father died. I myself was good with a bow and an arrow during the games." "Gale burned it. He said it was unlucky to grab something from a witch." Rose smirks, "Of course." Katniss looks at her demeanor, "You carry yourself so gracefully I wold have thought you were still first lady of Panem." "My dear Katniss, grace is not a virtue to be carried, its a lesson to be taught. And the only way to teach grace is through peace and order." "Your husband once believed the same thing." "Yes, but he lost the key to grace somewhere." "Which is?" "Support. When you have the support of others, its easy to feel carried by life. Why do you think people who feel disgraced drag themselves around? Because they have no support." "But he had the support of Capitol." Rose shakes her head, "For the face of a revolution, you are quite naive and ignorant. Do you think Coin felt graceful before you came along? You have the support of your family and a nation. Coin and Snow had the support of people who believed as they did, not of people who believed in them. You can believe in ideas and still hate a person. Coriolanus had no love left when I left. Tell me, how much of a Mockingly will you be if Peeta would have died in the first games you fought?" "I probably would have been dead by now." "So you have grace now with your children because you have his support." "I could have chosen Gale." "Yes, but how much more fun would that have been. There is something about a man who understands your nightmares that intrigues your sense of... Grace." "He once said that the thing you love most destroys us. Why did you leaving caused such a repel in him?" Rose looks at her, "I have brought you a gift, Katniss. Read them. Understand them. I have for four years and I understood it the first time. There is just a way to how he talks that keeps you coming back to them." Rose stand up and walks to the door, gracefully. She turns to Katniss, "May the odds be ever in your favor as you read them." She exits the door and Peeta nods to her room. Peeta enters the office, as Katniss walks to the entrance of their home. On the front door she sees a box. She opens it and sees several journals. She opens one that says The Reaping.