Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games and am making no money from this.
This story, like most Hunger Games stories I've read will be told from various points of view. As normal, I'll note when they change.
Katniss
Winters in 12 were always hard. It was cold, it snowed, game was scare, and on a lot of days it was either storming or just plain too cold to go out and hunt. Gale and I always had to prepare for winter months in advance; get ahead on supplies, hunt extra to trade for things we'd need, have extra food stockpiled, and even then it was a gamble. If winter ran long or was a bad one by the end we'd be in rough shape.
This winter has been nothing like that. It's been my first winter spent outside District 12; actually, I'm outside any district, not even in Panem technically I guess. Last year we set up in this old city called Charleston, abandoned since the Dark Times. It's far from the nearest district too. I think the closest one is 11, and that's something like three hundred miles away. It might as well be on the other side of the planet though; Charleston feels like a whole different world from Panem and its districts.
Charleston is too far south to get snow. Actually, it doesn't even get below freezing that much. And food? Not a problem at all. Our deal to get extra food from 10 has held, so we've had no shortage of meat. Our house is in good shape too. The roof was fixed, the walls patched, foundation fixed up, all that kind of stuff got done, and before it started to get cold too. The inside is even sort of fixed. I mean, there's all new water pipes, electrical and vents for heat and AC and stuff, the walls even got patched, but it isn't necessarily so pretty. All the nice trim and stuff is apparently specialty work that the people we have aren't so great at. The old mansion Glimmer picked out for us has a ton of that too. It doesn't really bother me that much (ok, maybe a little). Glimmer did her theatrical grumbling though.
Like we hoped, the war's basically been on hold, at least our part of it. 13 and the Capitol kept fighting, focusing on the food districts mainly, like we expected. There's been a few raids on our districts, just seeing if we could respond and defend what was ours I guess, but nothing big. We made sure the people were ready to defend themselves, and it worked fine.
The war part that directly involved us has been really routine, actually. Everyday it's breakfast, hearing the latest of what's going on (not much), what we need to do (not much) and then practice. Basically the same sort of practice we've been doing since after the Victory Tour, basic conditioning stuff like running and all that, then practice with weapons. We're not trying to master every weapon anymore, just the ones we use. And of course, there's guns; those we practice with a lot.
In the afternoons, well, I'm not sure what Madge and Gale do in the afternoons. War stuff probably. I don't know, look at more reports or fly to one of the districts to look over things or something? I don't know. Johanna and Enobaria are in the districts training people a lot, so maybe Madge and Gale go to check on them. Who knows?
Glimmer and I bail on any stuff like that. After lunch, we don't have anything to do with the war at all. All winter, and into early spring days like today, Glimmer go out exploring in the afternoons. At first it was on foot, but after not too long it was by car.
Glimmer actually taught me how to drive. We have one of those big SUV things now. We got it off a car dealership lot, and it was in pretty good shape, but it didn't drive when we found it. It took some time for Beetee to fix up, but he did a great job. He even got the sound system working for us. I guess it sounds kind of silly for a Seam rat, but I've gotten to really like having music to listen to while I drive. Cinna even redid the interior for us. I know it's silly and soft sounding, but I'm sorry, leather seats (heated ones too) are just plain nice to have.
We're heading out to a place we scouted before. It's quite a few miles out, but Glimmer thought it'd have some good stuff, so we're going there now. It's my turn to drive, but I haven't gotten very far at all before I have to stop. Gale and Madge are standing in the middle of the road just a few hundred yards from our house.
I open my window and poke my head out. "Um, hi. What's up, guys?"
"Heya, catnip," Gale replies. "You two heading out somewhere?"
"Yeah. We're just heading out to explore some."
"Mind if we join you?"
I look at Glimmer, who just shrugs a bit. Since she's no help I look back to Gale. "All right, hop in, I guess."
Gale and Madge get in the back seat, moving the packs Glimmer and I have there into the cargo area in the back.
"You two going camping or something?" Gale asks.
"No, it's just stuff that's good to have, you know? Med kit, some rain gear, bit of food, water, emergency blanket, lighter, cordage, that kind of stuff," I reply.
"What's all that for?" Madge wants to know.
"Just stuff that's good to have. Never know when you might need it and all," Glimmer explains. "Be stupid to not go out prepared."
"Where are we going anyway?"
"A place a few miles away. Glimmer and I saw it on a map and wanted to check it out," I explain.
"This is what you do every afternoon?" Gale looks at me. "You just wander around sightseeing?"
"No Gale, we explore, yeah, but we help out a lot while doing it. Who do you think got all of Beetee's equipment to the bridge to build that power plant of his? Or scavenged all the spare parts for his big workshop? For that matter, where do you think the playground for the kids came from? We found it, we pulled it up, put it all on that trailer Beetee made for us, and we brought it back."
Beetee's been busy over the winter. He made this sort of power plant thing, attached it to one of the bridges. It's sort of this hydro electric thing, works by having the river water move across it. Supposedly it isn't as good as a real dam, but it's good enough for our town. Beetee's got this big workshop too, this old converted store where all the shelves are covered in spare parts and broken tech things. I don't know what any of it is, but Glimmer and I found most of it. We even brought back the car parts for the garage he has in the back.
"Ok, ok, I guess you two haven't been completely slacking off. It's not really our jobs, but it does help I guess."
"We're here," Glimmer announces. She's not driving, but I'm pretty sure she wanted to cut Gale off regardless.
We actually are at our destination. I've got the SUV parked right by one of the entrances to an old shopping mall. I've never been to one, but Glimmer's described them to me before, and they actually sound interesting. Lots and lots of stores, all different kinds, it sounds like a great place to find stuff.
We all get out of the car, and Glimmer and I get our packs and the assault rifles we carry for this sort of thing. There's no sign of danger here, we haven't seen anything to worry us all winter in fact, but you can't be too careful.
"What the heck is that?" Gale asks, pointing to my gun. It's an assault rifle, just, well, customized a bit. One night, Prim was over at our house, we were talking, joking around, normal stuff and somehow one of us thought playing with the painter's paint was a good idea. After a lot of joking and teasing my rifle ended up with some leaves and vines and stuff painted all over it. It's actually kind of pretty, honestly. Prim's a surprisingly good painter.
"It's a gun, Gale."
"I know, just I've never seen one that looks quite like that."
"What's wrong with her gun?" Glimmer asks, carrying her own pink paint adorned gun. Gale just shakes his head.
"It's fine," Madge reassures. "It's not like they're going to take those into actual combat. Wait, you two aren't, are you?"
"No, of course not," I laugh.
"This isn't a warzone. It's just us, so relax. It's casual here." Glimmer's right, we have treated this as casual, and that means no radios in our ears, no armor, just two girls in casual clothes. For me that means I dress basically how I did when I'd hunt out in the woods, for Glimmer it's a typical girlie outfit. It might not be what most people would think is appropriate for exploring ruins, but I love how she looks in short skirts, so I find a way to deal somehow. "Anyway, let's go. We got a great parking space, shouldn't let it go to waste."
The mall is a big place, two floors and set up like a super long hallway. The second floor has the middle open, and the roof used to have skylights (the glass is long gone) so it's light enough to see as we walk around. The stores are dark, but Glimmer and I have flashlights attached to the barrels of our guns (which is really convenient), so we can still go in and see what's there.
Glimmer was right, there's a lot of good stuff in this mall. There's a gift shop that has this really nice chess set all made out of some sort of fancy stone that I make a note of. Glimmer and I can pick it up later as a birthday present for Beetee. There's bookstores too, of course;bookstores are always good. We can get books from 5 and 11, but the books there are all sanitized by the Capitol. All approved stuff, almost all from after the Dark Days, and all sort of similar and boring. I guess the Capitol censors don't like variety. This stuff is about all kinds of subjects though. The books are old and a lot are in bad shape, so it's real hit or miss what can be saved, but there's enough here that we can bring a few back per week and have books for years.
"Hey, Katniss, check it out," Glimmer calls from a store near the center of the mall, waving something in the air. It's a bit too far to see what it is, even with Glimmer's light on it. "They got the sequel."
"Really? Great, grab a few," I reply. Old electronics are great, but sitting here for seventy-five years a lot of them don't work anymore. That's why Glimmer is putting a handful of copies into her bag.
"Wait, the sequel?" Gale asks. "What is that? A movie or a video game or something?"
"A video game." It actually took a lot to get old video games working. The games themselves aren't bad, and they're small, so if one doesn't work it's not a big deal to have grabbed two or three spare copies. The game machine itself though? We had to scavenge almost a dozen, and even then Beetee had to pick and choose parts and splice them together to get one machine that actually worked.
"What the hell? That's why we're here, so you two can get a god damned video game?"
"No, we're here exploring. You saw the place, there's a lot of stuff here for lots of things and people."
"Besides, even if we did come here just for a video game, so what?" Glimmer asks, coming out of the store she was in.
"This is what you do every afternoon, just waste time on this crap?"
"What's it to you?"
"There's a war going on, and in case you forgot we're supposed to be running it. You're the one who wanted it, convinced us all to go start our own side, now what, you're bored with it? Can't be bothered? Got tired of it all?"
"Gale, what we do has made a difference in Charleston," I insist. "We've gotten stuff for Beetee; a lot of stuff. Actually if you look in any house in town I bet you'll find stuff that Glimmer and I brought back. Oh, and all those cool old school decorations everyone loved at Christmas? Do you have any idea how many people's houses Glimmer and I had to go into to find them, how many attics we crawled through getting them all?"
"Christmas decorations? What the hell, catnip? There's a damned war, that's a bit bigger than some pretty lights and crap to hang off a tree."
"Hey, just what is your problem?" Glimmer demands.
"My problem is you two have been ducking this all winter. Now the fighting's going to start again for us and you two don't seem to give a shit. You should be looking whose forces are where, looking at what districts we can attack next, reviewing our defenses, not wandering around every afternoon finding video game crap."
"I don't remember agreeing to any of that."
"What are you talking about? This is your damned war. We followed you into it, being the big heroes and all that."
"Yeah, and for my trouble I've been blown up, had a god damned bio weapon stuck in me and had my mom used as a hostage and a human bomb. And for all that we've got what? Half the districts we need to fight for real and no plans to get any more."
"Oh, so what, now you two are retired or some shit?"
"Gale I had Prim tell me it was time to say goodbye to my girlfriend. You remember that? You have any idea what that feels like, to be told that the person you love is going to die?" I ask.
"Yeah, I remember, and ok, that must have been terrible. I remember watching your first Games, it was bad stuff. But we started something bigger than us. We have a responsibility to Panem to see it through."
"Responsibility to Panem? What the fuck are you talking about?" Glimmer demands.
"Starting a war doesn't just mean looking pretty for a few propos, you know. There's real work to be done. Work you don't seem to want to bother with any more."
"I didn't start this war, 13 did. And the only reason we started our war was because they sucked. You remember them? The people who had seventy-five years to plan, to build up and train an army, to produce weapons, get guns, tanks, hovercraft, all that sort of thing? They started this. The only reason we did what we did was because they're no better than the Capitol."
"Yeah, fine, but the point is, we started something, and we have a responsibility to see it through."
"Yeah, no. Not going to just go on suicide missions to satisfy your sense of responsibility."
"Yeah, that's rich: responsibility. What about taking responsibility for the logistics of the war? All that boring stuff you two barely pay attention to every morning, and all the stuff you don't even show up for every afternoon. Madge and I are running this thing with Haymitch long after you two have wandered off to have fun. See, that's the difference, we run a war, you play war."
"You know what? Screw you. I've got better things to do than listen to you acting superior."
"Doesn't look like you have anything better to do to me."
"Oh, want me to do something? Fine, here's something. I'm telling you to get walking."
"Get walking?"
"That's right. Because you sure as fuck aren't getting a ride back to town in Katniss' and my car. So unless you want to try camping with squat for camping gear I'd get walking now and just maybe you'll make it back to town before dark."
Glimmer and Gale just stand there staring at each other for a while before Gale breaks the silence. "Fine." And with that Gale turns around and starts walking off.
"What about you?" Glimmer demands, turning on Madge, who's been silent this entire time.
"I'm just here to see what you two do every afternoon," Madge insists, with her handsup in surrender.
"Sorry."
"No, it's ok. I know the end of last year was really bad for you both. After all, that bomb in your mom? My dad put it there. That or at least had a hand in it. It's not the sort of thing a girl forgets."
"So what do you want to do?" I ask.
"I don't know. If there's a way to do it, I'd like to keep fighting. But yeah, at the end of last year it didn't go great for us, and it's not like a lot has changed over the winter. Yeah, we didn't lose anything, but we still don't have a good move to make either. So we're kind of stuck."
"And just what does Gale want from us?" Glimmer asks.
"I don't know; I guess to feel like you two haven't given up? He's as frustrated as the rest of us, believe me. No one really knows what to do, and we're almost out of time to decide. Either we figure it out or some army will show up in one of our districts and decide for us."
"And if that happens we won't be able to hold them," I state.
"Maybe against 13, but not against Snow," Madge confirms.
"And if Snow does come for our districts we'll be stuck in Charleston full time real quick, spending the rest of our lives wondering when Peacekeepers will show up to kill us all," Glimmer completes the scenario. Cheerful stuff.
Haymitch
It's late in the day when the kid comes into my house. Doesn't knock or shit, just walks in. Actually, he looks kind of crappy. Like tired and surly. "Had fun out with the girls?" I ask.
"Yeah, loads, so much I walked home from some god damned mall miles away."
"Why the hell you do that? I thought they had one of those big car or little truck SUV things?"
"Oh shut up. Things didn't go great; Katniss and Glimmer aren't exactly interested in the war much anymore and they didn't like hearing what I had to say."
"I'm sure you were charming and subtle talking to them"
"Look, you asked me to talk to them and I did. The end of last year really screwed with their heads. I can't say I don't understand or sympathize. I mean, things kind of did go to shit for those two."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I was there. All right, thanks kid."
I'll have to see what girlie has to say. She at least had the tact to not have to walk home, but I'm figuring on basically the same answers from her. No great revelations there, just confirming what was pretty damned obvious over the winter: the girl's hearts just aren't in this anymore.
Despite the stupidly ridiculous odds, it wasn't bullets or bombs or shit like that, no the girls survived that. Their damned spirit though, that's fucked. Sounds like even if I could get them back in the field they may just go through the motions. Sure, they've trained and their going through the motions is better than most other people's best, but when you need fucking miracles the girls phoning it in just won't cut it.
No, if I'm going to get them out and fighting again it has to be something that they'll really get excited about, have their hearts in it and shit. Not that I've got any sort of plan that remotely qualifies. The whole thing of four kids just landing in a district and magically liberating the place is a great story and all, real novel and uplifting and shit, but Snow and 13 are on to it. There's no place so lightly defended or that's got that much of an insurgent network for them to use that I know of anymore.
Anywhere I look we need a god damned army to invade, and we don't have it. What's worse, everyone knows we don't have one, so we can't bluff or shit like that. Snow and 13 both know we aren't a factor and that we can't really increase our presence, so they can just leave us alone and deal with us whenever the hell they feel like and there's not a fucking thing we can do about it.
I don't know what the fuck to do, not for getting more territory, not for getting princess and sweetheart to give a fuck again, none of it. That doesn't change overnight either; it's another bullshit boring logistics briefing over breakfast. Yeah, yeah, food supply this, army training update that. I'm bored, the kids are bored, this shit's all meaningless and everybody knows it.
"You know what, fuck it. We're going to the fancy hologram table." This crap won't get anyone to give a fuck. If normal war shit won't cut it then I'll try as bat shit crazy as I can think of.
The kids grab their coffee cups and a few pieces of bacon and follow me into the war room. I'm sure it was made as a living room or parlor or some shit, but we stuck a holographic table in there and it's been the room for running the war. Well, ok, the room for the kids; I've got my entire house covered in war shit, reports, photos, intel briefings, everything. The girls though, it's just one room for them.
I fire up the hologram table and have it show a map of Panem. After a bit of dramatic looking, panning across the map and zooming in there's a holographic fuel stop next to some train tracks hovering in the air above the table.
"So this is a fuel stop, last one outside our target district. We're going to use the hovercraft we have to ferry our troops to this area. With only a few hovercraft it'll take a while. So our people get there, then sit and wait, and when the last train of the day comes in and that's the ride for our army," I explain.
"So we're hijacking a train?" girlie asks.
"No, you won't be anywhere near there."
"Why not? The army's going to need our help," the kid points out.
"Won't make a difference. We've got about half the number of people I'd like to have. It doesn't matter how damned well you all can shoot; it's just not enough."
"So what the hell's the point if we're just going to send people off to die?"
"You four are going to take over the Peacekeeper command and control stuff. Send out fake orders, split up their troops, send them all over wasting their time and feeding bunches of them to our forces to overwhelm. It'll take a while to do it, but over the course of a night if we coordinate you four with the forces on the ground we can split the Peacekeepers up and eliminate them one group at a time."
"Wait, you want us to go into some district and sneak into a Peacekeeper base? Because the last time we tried to sneak into somewhere it didn't work so well, and that was only a factory," sweetheart complains.
"Can we even sneak in to a Peacekeeper base? Those places haven't looked like the sorts of places we could get into, not even Gale, not with the walls those places tend to have," girlie points out.
"Matter of fact I do have a way to get you all over the wall." I grin; the kids are going to love this next part. "Your insertion point is here."
I move the holographic map to show 6, the source of our stolen hovercraft and the place where princess got blown up by some asshole's grenade and got a bio weapon stuck into her side for her trouble. There's a little hovercraft icon sitting a mile or two outside the wall. It looks innocent enough until I rotate the view around and everyone can see the little icon isn't on the ground, it's way up in the air.
"Uh huh. Cute," the kid glares at me.
"Your insertion point is a few miles outside the district's outer boundary, 10,000 feet up in the air," I explain. "Cinna found this thing called a wing suit in some of the old crap the girls brought back. It's this outfit made of some weird material that basically lets you fly. Well, glide, but basically the same thing."
"Wait, you actually mean we're going to just fly? What, like we jump out of the hovercraft and then we land on the roof of some Peacekeeper building?" princess asks.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on there," sweetheart looks at princess. "Glimmer and I need a minute to talk. We'll be right back." Sweetheart takes princess' hand and drags her out of the room. Princess just smiles like she thinks her suddenly pushy girlfriend is the funniest thing in the world.
Glimmer
Katniss drags me out to our backyard. It was all overgrown when we got here. I mean, duh, it'd been abandoned for seventy-five years, of course it'd be a mess. It's been cleared out though. Got my mom to thank for that. She doesn't exactly have a lot of skills that are useful in a place like Charleston, so she's done stuff trying to pretty the place up. It meant a ton of clearing out the scrub and jungle and all that kind of junk basically. After that was making places for gardens and areas for plants and all that. Now that spring is almost here I imagine she'll be planting stuff soon. For now though it's just empty and apparently a good place for a private conversation between Katniss and I.
"Something on your mind?" I smile at Katniss.
"You know exactly what's on my mind." From the look on her face I guess Katniss isn't amused.
"Not a fan of that plan I'm guessing."
"Glimmer, the thing was practically custom made for you. It's no secret we aren't exactly 100% on board with this war anymore and now all of a sudden bam, here's this mission that everyone knows you'll love."
"Katniss, they're going to make us fly. Like actually fly. You're telling me that doesn't sound absolutely amazing?"
"See, that's exactly what I mean, that look in your eyes right there. It's like you've forgotten all of last year."
"I haven't forgotten, Katniss. But, well, ok, how about this. What do you want to do?"
Katniss stops and thinks for a while. "I don't really know. If it was just this one district, then maybe. But even if it all works and we win, we're still one short. It doesn't sound like much, but Haymitch keeps saying we need four…."
"I'm not sure we should just say no because of what might have to happen after. Let's just look at this one mission."
"No, if we go do this we'll be on the hook for more. Everyone will go on how we had a chance to say no, we didn't and now we have a responsibility to keep going and all that. You know exactly how it'll go." She's right, I do. It'll be like that argument with Gale yesterday, just scaled way up.
"I guess we could do something about that. We are in charge and all,so we just tell Haymitch that it's up to that other team of Finnick, Johanna and Enobaria to take a district on their own, without our help at all, or the whole war thing doesn't happen."
"That sounds kind of selfish, Glimmer. Holding the whole thing hostage like that?"
"So what? We've risked our lives, had all this terrible stuff happen to us, I'm tired of it. We brought those three to actually do things. The way I see it if they can't pull their own weight then screw it. I didn't propose this war planning to have to actually personally kill each and every Peacekeeper in Panem. So Haymitch and them find some way to make it happen or screw it, we go scavenge malls and play video games and crap full time."
"So you want to actually do it then? Go back to fighting?"
"Well, I didn't say that specifically. Just how we could do this one mission and not be on the hook for everything else."
"But you do want to do it," Katniss insists.
"I'm not exactly hard to read I guess? It's a chance to fly, that sounds awesome. How can I say no to that?"
"It's not just a chance to fly. We could get Cinna to make us those wing suit things, whatever they are without the war."
"I know," I agree. "But Katniss, you know I'm the sort to fight; it's just who I am."
"But what about all the stuff we've been doing all winter? The exploring, finding all kinds of lost things, helping people around town, heck just hanging out and doing whatever we feel like, you don't want to do all that anymore?" There's almost a hint of desperation creeping into Katniss' voice.
"I like that stuff, it's been a really fun winter, the best I've had in years it's just…." I trail off. "You know what, I'm fine either way. Whatever you want to do is fine."
"What?"
"It's up to you. I'll be ok either way. Do what you think is best, what you can live with and be happy with and whatever it is I'm good with it."
"You're just dumping this on me? What the heck, Glimmer?"
"I'm not dumping it on you, I don't want to do that at all. But really, I can live with either outcome. If it was just me, yeah, I know what I'd do, but it isn't just me. It's both of us, and I care a lot more about you being happy than I do about my desire to hurt Snow and his minions."
"So I decide how the entire war will go."
"Katniss, I told you a while ago that if you ever wanted to walk away from all that I'd back you, no questions asked. That hasn't changed. So just do what you can live with, what will make you happy, and either way, I'm with you."
Yeah, I know Katniss probably thinks it's unfair to make her decide everything, but really I don't see another way. I don't want to push her either way, and if I didn't totally back off this decision I'm pretty sure I would. Me? Yeah, I'd probably do it. I default to fighting usually, and flying is just too cool to pass up. But this life Katniss and I have had all winter isn't a bad one; I could totally live with this. So it's all up to Katniss now.
Author's Notes:
So part four has started. And for those wondering about the title, it's Latin for 'On Uncertain Wings'. Or so Google tells me. Machine translation is not the most perfect of things.
Of course, thanks to that-fan for his help with this. And thanks as well to people who've stuck with me and read all the way to this fourth story in the series. I appreciate it.