Author's Note: So this was just a weird little idea that I had, so I decided to make a story out of it! My first fanfic! Takes place after the events in the Doctor Who episode "Dalek" (Season 1), and it may contain spoilers for the first book of the Hunger Games. Also, I made a guess for what the year was, since it's never specified in the books. (None of the places, names, or charcters from Doctor Who or The Hunger Games are mine.)
Time Lords and Tributes
The sun was setting after another gruelling day of the Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen sat alone in the top of a tall tree, hidden by the vegetation. Just a few hours earlier, her fellow tribute and ally, Rue, had been killed by ther boy from District One. But Katniss didn't have time to mourn the loss of her friend. There was only one thing that the sixteen year-old had on her mind. Stay alive, like her mentor Haymitch Abernathy had told her back in the Capitol.
Katniss looked up at the sky through the tree branches. purple clouds standing out against a pink and orange sky. It was beautiful, but that didn't matter to Katniss. With every sunset came the end of another day, and each one could bring her closer to death. There were still other tributes out there: Cato, Thresh, even Peeta, Katniss's fellow District 12 tribute.
The boy with the bread... The boy who had proclaimed his love for her in front of all of Panem...
No, Katniss thought, trying to shake the image of Peeta out of her head. Don't think about him.
The arena had been silent the entire timeKatniss had been up in that tree. But the silence was broken bya strange sound.
Vworp, vworp, vworp.
Katniss's hands flew to her bow and quiver. She pulled out an arrow and strung it, ready to shoot. She had never heard a sound like that before. It wasn't an animal, or tribute. It sounded like a machine. Could the Capitol be bored with the Games already? Were the deaths of Rue and the District One boy not enough?
Quietly as she could, Katniss peeked through the branches, searching for the source of the noise.
And as if out of thin air, a lrage blue box appeared a few yards from the tree Katniss was hidden in.
"Here we are!" the Doctor said cheerfully. The TARDIS had landed shakily once again, now in a new place and time. The Doctor and his companion had just left 2012 after escaping a Dalek in Utah.
"And where exactly is 'here'?" asked Rose Tyler, smiling at the Time Lord.
The Doctor smiled back at his companion.
"Why don't we find out?" he said.
Rose and the Doctor rushed to the doors of the space ship. He turned to Rose, still grinning.
"Ready?"
"Yes!"
He opened the doors slowly and peeked outside.
"Would you look at that!" the Doctor exclaimed.
"What is it?"
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, Rose following him. The two of them stood in the middle of a dense forest. It was sunset, the sky several shades of pink and orange. Rose looked up at the purple clouds and bright sky.
"Wow," she breathed. "It's beautiful."
"Yes, it is," the Doctor agreed.
"I wonder where we are?" said Rose. "It looks like Earth."
"Yes, I believe you're right. Seems to have the right atmosphere," said the Doctor. He bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. He looked at it carefully.
"Yep," he said proudly. "Earth soil. Now if we only knew the year!"
While the girl and the Time Lord stood just yards away, Katniss's mind was racing. She had so many questions going through her head that it almost hurt.
Who were these people? They seemed to appear out of no where. Could they be from the Capitol? They had strange accents, but not Capitol accents like the one Effie Trinket had. Were they even from Panem?
Were they even from Earth?
Katniss shook her head. That's ridiculous, she thought, Where else could they be from?
If these people were sent from the Capitol, were the tributes supposed to fight them? Were they apart of the Games?
Stay alive, Haymitch told her, stay alive.
There were no rules in the arena. And anything could be a threat.
Anyone...
Everyone...
Everything...
She pulled back the arrow, concentrating on her target. Katniss aimed for the man first.
"There seems to be nothing but forest. Forest, all around!" said the Doctor in his Northern accent.
"Should we leave?" asked Rose.
The Doctor turned to stare at Rose.
"Now why would we do that? Who knows what we'll find? Or whom! Come on, we should have a good look-"
"Doctor!" shreiked Rose, pointing, "Up there!"
"What?" he said, but then he noticed the dark haired girl perched in the tree, bow and arrow in hand.
Katniss was about to shoot the Doctor until Rose saw her. She turned to the blonde girl and pointed the arrow in her direction.
"Wait!" cried the Doctor when he spotted Katniss among the trees. He ran in front of Rose. The Doctor held his hands up over his head.
"We're not armed! Don't shoot!"
Rose held up her hands too. She looked desperately at the Doctor, breathing quickly. Katniss lowered her bow slightly. If these people could, or wanted to hurt her, they would have done so already.
Katniss glared at them.
"Who are you?" she demanded, raising her bow again.
"I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord said, " and this is Rose Tyler." He gestured towards his companion.
"Uh, hi," the girl said nervously.
Rose. The name reminded Katniss of her little sister back in District 12, Primrose. Prim. The last time Katniss had seen her was before she had left for the Capitol, telling her that she would try to win the Games. Promising her.
"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked Katniss.
Katniss didn't realize that she stopped looking at the strangers and was focused on the ground, thinking about home. She turned her attention back to Rose and the Doctor.
Katniss climbed out of the tree, walking towards the companions. Rose and the Doctor lowered their hands when Katniss put her bow away.
"What's your name?" the Doctor asked Katniss.
"Katniss Everdeen," she replied.
"Lovely," the Doctor said. "Now, could you tell us where we are, Miss Everdeen? More importantly, the year."
"How do you not know where you are?" said Katniss. "Where did you come from?"
"Well, we just came from Utah, 2012. Bit of a sticky situation, but, problem solved!" the Doctor said.
Utah? Katniss had never heard of a place called that, but she didn't care. But 2012? That was almost 300 years ago.
"You're crazy," Katniss said. "The year is 2309."
"We can explain," Rose said, "but it's a little crazy."
"Here's the thing," said the Doctor, hands in his jacket pockets, "Miss Tyler and I- well, me at least-, I am not from around here. And I don't mean from this country- I'm guessing by your accent this is America- I mean this world. I know, I know, this seems strange, but we can explain."
"We're- time travellers," Rose told Katniss.
"And this," announced the Doctor proudly, placing a hand on the large blur box, "is my TARDIS. Stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. A time machine. I can travel to any point in in time or- Katniss?"
The Doctor stopped talking when he saw the girl's legs begin to shake. Katniss lost her balance and fell onto the ground, she was trembling so hard. Rose ran to her side.
"May have rushed into the whole 'time travel' thing a bit too soon," he said, seeing Katniss's pale face.
"I'm fine," Katniss snapped, pushing Rose away. She stood back up and brushed the dry leaves off her body.
I'm crazy, she thought, I'm going mad. The very idea that she was going crazy terrified Katniss. She would become like tributes in the past who had gone insane; slaughtering without hesitation, devouring freshly killed tributes like animals. Katniss shuddered.
She looked back up at the Doctor,glaring. Rose saw the anger in her eyes and returned to the Doctor's side. Katniss reached for her bow again.
"Katniss, wait!" the Doctor said, "I understand this all sounds mad! But if you just-"
"I don't know if I'm crazy or not, but I swore to Prim that I wuoldn't lose!" Katniss snarled, aiming her arrow staight at the Doctor's heart (well, one of them, but she didn't kniow that).
"Lose what?" Rose asked Katniss.
The tribute turned her bow to the blonde girl again. Katniss was breathing heavily, her gray eyes staring down the Time Lord's companion; she saw the fear and concern on her face. Katniss lowered her bow again.
"The Hunger Games," Katniss replied.
Rose looked at the Doctor, hoping he would know what Katniss was talking about. He looked at Katniss.
"And what are the 'Hunger Games'?" he asked the sixteen year old.
Maybe they're crazy, Katniss thought, If they were inside my own head, they should know what's happening. She looked back at the Doctor.
"You really don't know where you are, do you?"
"Nope."
Katniss exhaled.
"It's- it's a very long story."
"Long story, eh? I like long strories! Why don't we just step into the TARDIS so you can tell us? It's already dark." The three of them looked up at the sky: It was now black and starry.
Katniss looked over at the blue box. Despite its size, was it able to fit three people?
"Come on," said the Doctor.
"O- okay," Katniss stammered. She put away her bow again and followed him and Rose into the TARDIS. When Katniss walked in, she almost fainted.
"What the-"
"Katniss Everdeen, welcome to the TARDIS!" the Doctor exclaimed.
Katniss was lost for words. Despite all of the enormous buildings, structures, and incredible things she had seen in the Capitol, this was beyond anything she could have imagined. The TARDIS was bigger on the inside than the outside. Right in the center of the spaceship was a huge console of buttons, switches, and levers. The ceiling was several feet high, and there was a countless number of doors. Katniss couldn't help but think how beautiful it was as she stared in wonder.
"You like it?" said the Doctor, smiling.
"Yeah," gasped Katniss, "but... it's- it's bigger-"
"On the inside than the outside," Rose finished for her. "That's everyone's first response."
"But how? How is this possible?"
"Some things aren't easy to explain," the Doctor replied. "Now! What about that whole long story about the Hunger Games? Let's hear it!"
Katniss sat down on a set of steps. The Doctor and Rose sat on either side, and she began.
She told the two companions all she knew about the fall of North America, Panem, and the war between the Districts and the Capitol. Katniss also told them about the Reaping, how Prim had been chosen but she took her place as tribute, coming to the Capitol, everyhting leading up to the Games, and the purpose of them. Rose looked at Katniss in horror as she described it; each District giving up one boy and one girl to fight to the death on live television.
"That's horrible," Rose gasped.
Katniss nodded.
"I know, but it's been going on for 74 years. And it's not stopping any time soon."
"Maybe we can do stop it," suggested Rose. "Prevent it from happening. The Doctor and I- Doctor?"
Rose looked over at the Doctor. He had stopped listening to Katniss's story and walked over to the TARDIS's controls, both hands gripping the console.
"Doctor?" Rose repeated.
"How did this happen?" the Doctor asked. "How?"
"I don't think anyone really knows anymore. Everyone who was alive during that time is dead; it's been so long," Katniss told him.
The Doctor shook his head. He looked over at the two girls.
"Rose, I doubt that we can go back and stop this. Where do we start? There's 300 years between where we come from and now. Anything could have occured."
"But- not us, right, Doctor?" said Rose.
"I don't know, Rose. I don't know." The Doctor sighed.
His head shot up.
"Wait! Katniss!" the Doctor said suddenly. "You said that the Gamemakers have cameras everywhere, all around the arena, controlling everything. They know what you and the other tributes do every minute of the day. It's possible they can't see the TARDIS, but Rose and I would be obvious to them. Why haven't they done anything? Why?"
Katniss hadn't considered that. How did the Gamemakers react to seeing two strangers appear out of nowhere? Why hadn't they done anything?
"Maybe they thought I would kil you," Katniss said softly. "You know how much the Capitol enjoys slaughter."
"You almost did kill us!" Rose said. Katniss ignored her.
The Doctor nodded. "From what you've told me, yes, they do."
"But they won't get anymore of that tonight," she said firmly. "Not unless I get my hands on another tribute."
"Good to know," said Rose quietly.
The Doctor walked back over to Katniss.
"I think Rose and I should leave. You ahve a Game to play. To win."
Katniss gave him a small smile. She stood up, looking around the TARDIS one last time.
"I'm glad I met you, Doctor. You too, Rose Tyler. Goodbye."
"Bye," Rose said, a little sadly.
"Goodbye Katniss Everdeen," the Time Lord said, "the girl who was on fire."
Katniss smiled at the companions for the last time, and walked out the doors of the TARDIS. She headed back to her tree, but when she heard the space ship go vworp, vworp, vworp as it was about to leave, Katniss couldn't but feel empty. When she looked back, the blue box was gone.
A tear fell inexorably down her cheek.
"She wasn't that bad, you know. Katniss," Rose said to the Doctor. "A little grouchy, maybe, but not completely unlikeable."
"She's going to win," the Doctor said. "I know it. Katniss isn't just a survivor, but a fighter."
Rose thought for a second.
"Do you think we could- you know- go and see if she did win?"
The Doctor looked at his companion. It seemed like a good idea, but then he said:
"No."
"Why not?" asked Rose.
He exhaled.
"I can't stand the thought of her not winning." Rose had never seen or heard the Doctor this sad before.
"Neither can I," Rose agreed. She sighed. "Where to now?"
"No idea," he said. Just then, the TARDIS landed shakily like it always did. The Doctor smiled.
"But now we can find out!"
THE END