A/N: hey, guys. As it stands, I'm working on the sequel to 'playing house in the ruins of us', but because I saw The Hunger Games three times in a week and because my best friend evenmoreso is so supportive and wonderful, this was born. I know there's another, much better hunger games crossover au floating around, but I'd appreciate it if you guys would bear with me…and maybe even try to keep the two separate in your minds? I haven't read the other AU and I don't expect that I will until this is finished (it's already outlined in detail and I have two or three chapters written), so hopefully there won't be any overlap. You should be able to recognize some of the characters; they're all much younger here.

In case you're curious, here are some of the faceclaims: Saorise Ronan as young Maura, Katie McGrath (with brown eyes obviously) as young Jane, Joe Dempsie as Grant, Eddie Redmayne as Pike, and smirky Mr. Max Irons as young Hoyt.

Happy reading! Reviews appreciated.

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Jane wakes up wondering if the Reaping is different everywhere. She supposes the answer to that question is yes, but she can't imagine it being any different than it is in District 10; can't imagine what life is like anywhere else. She's never had any reason to. She reserves the morning of the Reaping every year to think about the rest of Panem. The rest of the year is spent working. The rest of the year is spent surviving.

She's eighteen, as of last week. It's her last year in that glass bowl. She's in it 50 times.

Tessarae was the only option this year, after two of their cows died off, leaving them with just the one. It hadn't bothered her to apply, and she hadn't told anyone n the family. They had to have noticed when she came home with grain and bread and husks of meat, but none of them said a word. It wouldn't have done them any good to be angry with her- even Angela knew that.

It's early, maybe four in the morning, and she knows better than to think she'll sleep again, so she climbs out of bed and slips past Tommy and Frankie, into the yard. Jo is waiting for her and jumps to her feet to follow the path Jane makes out to the pasture. Joe's a good dog; small and quiet but company enough. Between Jo and Lloran, Jane's mornings are the most social part of her day.

Lloran is grazing in the dewy grass behind the cattle barn when she finds him. He greets her with a low nicker and his soft nose against her arm, and because it's so early she doesn't bother to saddle him. Instead she swings up onto his back after untying his leadline, and they set out into the pastures.

The reaping doesn't matter here. Nothing matters here but the cattle and the horse beneath her. She can feel the rise and fall of Lloran's ribs beneath her legs and each soft breath of wind across the grass. She cannot feel the anxiety of another reaping. She cannot feel death creeping up on the District like a thunderhead, looming and inevitable. She thinks, as she often does, that if she kept riding she could get far enough away that she wouldn't have to come back again.

But she does come back. She always does.

By the time she's done the milking, Frankie and Tommy are already back from the pastures, being forced into starched shirts and pants that are far too big for them. They don't speak. Angela does enough for the three of them, anyway, assuring them that the odds really are in their favor, that if they stand very still and look very clean they won't get chosen anyway. Jane knows that none of this is true. The odds are absolutely not in her favor today, and even if she could manage to look clean or stand still she knows it wouldn't change the fifty slips of paper with her name on it.

"We should skip it one year," Tommy says as Jane herds them out of the door, Jo snuffling at their heels. "Just not show up. What's the point anyway? There're too many people in the district for them to choose us." Jane doesn't answer him, because the statement is too stupid for her to bother and because she's not sure she'd be able to, past the lump in her throat. Because what if she's leaving the house for the last time? What if she never sees the stupid cow again? What if she never rides another horse? "Shut up," Frankie shoves Tommy, who doesn't even have time to go after his brother before Jane has them each by an ear and pushes them into line ahead of her.

They're very clearly a family. In a district where almost everyone is small and sturdy and fair-haired, they stand out like a trio of idiots. Especially Jane and Tommy, who stand at least three inches taller than most of the others- and Tommy's only fourteen, so she's sure he'll outgrow even her within a year. Frankie at least skipped out on the lanky gene and fits in stature-wise with the rest of their known world, but he's still dark-haired, and he's still one of them. Which in turn means that he gets teased just as much as she and Tommy do, even if he refuses to admit it.

They don't say goodbye because they're all too superstitious for their own good, and saying goodbye makes it far too likely that one of them will never see the pastures again. As the square fills, Jane fidgets. It takes every ounce of her willpower not to run for the hills in the distance, to the lowing cattle and restless horses and swaying grasses she has always called her home. She's so busy pretending she's far away that she hardly even hears the film being shown, the introduction, any of it.

She doesn't notice anything until she realizes that everyone is staring at her. And that's when she hears her name.

.,.

Miles away, Maura fights the urge to turn and run as fast as she can. This was not supposed to happen. The odds were supposed to be in her favor. She sees her parents out of the corner of her eye and they are impassive as ever. She hates them for it. She hates the whole District for it.

She woke that morning with a start and a gasp from the same nightmare she'd been having for weeks. She could never remember it, but some way or another she always knew when she woke that it was the same dream. Her parents were gone when she woke, as they usually were. It was only about an hour later that she remembered it was reaping day and nearly speared her thumb with a needle.

And now what? She has no siblings to volunteer for her. She can't fight, really, and she knows it wouldn't matter if she could. She walks fast enough that the Peacekeepers are a few feet behind her the whole way. She nearly stumbles up the stairs to the platform, but nobody laughs. She's sixteen. She's a tailor's daughter. She's already dead.

There's a pause before they move on, and from her vantage point Maura makes eye contact with her mother, who immediately looks away. Then their escort's hand is in the bowl again, and before Maura knows it, the tallest boy in the district is standing beside her, blinking uncomfortably under all the attention. His name is Pike, and she's never met him before. He's 18 and she knows without having to really think about it that when the sponsors have to choose between them, it won't be her that they choose. The odds, as they say, are not very much in her favor.

She's hustled onto the train and jostled around by the peacekeepers and by Pike, who doesn't seem to notice her at all. She curls up on one end of the couch in their luxury car and tries to shut everything out. If she's going to die she wants it to be soon. If she's going to die she wants it to happen now so that she doesn't have to think about it. But isn't that the point? Isn't the point really that by the time they, as tributes, get into the arena…they've lost their mind thinking about the kids they'll have to kill and the fact that they're going to die, no matter what choices they make?

She knows that it is.

Their mentor's name is Murphy and she's blonde and very stern. Pike asks questions and Murphy answers them in clipped tones; Maura doesn't take any of it in. She tries, but a moment later she's forgotten them all. It's only when they get around to watching the overviews of the other Reapings that she can focus, because Murphy is gone, and Pike is picking at his fingernails and ignoring her.

District one: Nitya, the girl, is slight but looks as if she's both fast and cunning. There's something in her face that makes Maura nervous. Not as nervous as she is when the boy steps up onto the stage. Hoyt is lean and muscular and he smiles winningly at the audience as they cheer for their champions. He's the kind of Tribute that could easily kill a twelve year old begging for mercy and not lose a wink of sleep. Maura's stomach twists into knots and she sinks further into the couch.

Hoyt looks into the camera and into Maura and smirks.

.,.

Jane immediately sees that she isn't too bad off, as far as Tributes go. This year it seems like the Careers, for the most part, are pitted against each other. This is strange because they usually band together; she can't help but be suspicious of them pulling a trick, and she doesn't even think about trying to ally herself with any of them. They're scum, anyway. Lapdogs. And much more likely, on the whole, to win. District one's tributes clearly hate each other. She only catches a glimpse of the boy from one, but it's enough to know that he's the real contender. He has a perpetual smirk that makes her want to punch him repeatedly in the face. Much like she wants to punch the boy from her district, Grant, repeatedly in his face for having an ego the size of the Capitol.

But districts five, six, and seven are mostly non-threatening. The boy from five is no older than fourteen and scrawny. She watches him move from training station to training station and knows with an air of solidarity that he will be dead almost immediately, unless he's hiding something incredible. She swallows what might have been pity or sadness and turns her head away, knowing that emotions won't help her now. Both tributes from 6 are around her age, and the boy isn't bad with knots or camouflage. She thinks about asking him for help before she realizes that he's blind, and that the girl is the one talking him through every step. Something about their partnership seems exclusive, and Jane's too busy being distracted to wonder whether or not she should approach either of them.

Seven has a girl who has to be 18, and who seems to have missed most of her training. Either that or she's purposely missing targets with the axes she should have been able to throw with absolute precision. The boy of her district is preoccupying himself with the poisonous plants table, which is something Jane has no experience in and can't understand the use of studying. There's no guarantee there are going to be any plants in the arena, needless to say any that are recognizable to any of them.

The girl from district 9- Thyme was her name- seemed to be more than relatively skilled with fire, but that isn't really something you could teach, and even if it was Jane has no desire to ally herself with someone who walks so loudly when she knows that her best chance to survive at all is to hide until it's all over.

In fact, the truth of the matter is that she doesn't want an ally at all. She knows better than to think she'll win the Games, but she knows she could, more than likely, survive until the top eight, simply because she's a good hider; a good distance runner, and mostly inconspicuous.

.,.

Maura doesn't think Jane is inconspicuous. Jane is, in fact, the person she pays the most attention to. Partially, that's to distract herself from Hoyt. Jane is fast and strong and beautiful, olive-skinned and muscular with hard, bright eyes. Maura can see Jane watching everyone else in the training center and wonders what's going through her head.

Maura, for her own part, tries to stay under the radar. She works with some plants, some fire, and some rope. She avoids the combat because that is her weak point and she doesn't need to be reminded of how easily most of the other Tributes could snap her in half. She does, however, find herself drawing to the climbing net.

Once there she realizes that Hoyt is behind her in line. He's talking animatedly with the girl from district 4- Pomme is her name- and telling her how he was the fastest climber in district 1. For a moment Maura can't help but wonder if it's possible to get out of line, but she knows that the sponsors will see it if she does, and she's already in enough of a dilemma. She just really, really does not need Hoyt to notice her.

As it happens, the odds could not be less in her favor. She takes the first cautious step and then she's climbing. She's small, and she's logical and she thinks fast enough to know where she needs to put her feet and why that works. She's to the top before she knows it. And once she's there, once she turns around for the return journey, she sees Hoyt looking up at her with his perpetual smirk growing by the second.

He zeros in on her and she trembles slightly as she rappels herself back to the ground. She's no longer under the radar- in fact, she is exactly in the center of Hoyt's. He brushes past her on the way to the net, whispers to her.

"I'll be looking for you, Eight."

She doesn't sleep that night.