Disclaimer: Hunger Games does not in any way belong to me, it's the property of Suzanne Collins, etc.

Yearning

or,

The Four People Who Wanted To Be Katniss, and the One Person Katniss Wished She Could Be

o1. Grahan Mellark

Grahan is the middle son of the Mellark family; he's two years older than his younger brother, Peeta, and it is his last year in the reaping.

He is as disconcerted as the rest of the crowd when little Primrose Everdeen gets reaped – no one likes it when someone as blatantly helpless a twelve year old is chosen.

Grahan is shocked when Katniss Everdeen, the girl who sometimes sells his father poached squirrels, volunteers to take her sister's place. Shocked, and admiring. He thinks that he can understand her feelings, the desire to protect a younger sibling from certain death even if it is at the cost of your own life.

He thinks he would do the same, in her position.

And then Peeta Mellark's name is read off that innocent slip of paper.

Grahan's breath catches in his throat, panic seizing his limbs. He can't do, can't even force himself to open his mouth, much less get the words out.

He can't even look at Peeta. His gaze remains frozen on Katniss' impassive features, the fearless way she stares straight ahead. As if she is better than this. As if nothing can affect her.

Grahan's mother always told her sons that people from the Seam were scum.

He wonders what it says about him, that he wishes he had the courage of a sixteen year old girl from the Seam. He wonders what it says about him that he resents Katniss Everdeen as much as he want to be her, for being able to do what he cannot, and for showing him how much he is lacking.

o2. Rue Bloomen

Rue watches the reaping recap with trembling hands clasped tightly in her lap. Seeder sits beside her, Thresh on her other side. He is so much bigger, and stronger, than she is, yet she doesn't even notice as she leans forward, her eyes fastened on the girl volunteering to die in her sister's place.

Rue thinks that this could have been her, in a couple of years.

She is the eldest of six siblings. Her mother is pregnant with her seventh child. Her father is the only one who brings any money in for their family. Rue took out nine tesserae this year, one for every member of her family and an extra for her mother, who needed it to support her unborn child.

There were other people in Eleven who had far more entries than Rue did, but she was still the one whose name came out of the reaping ball.

Rue watches Katniss Everdeen and she just knows that she will never be anything like Katniss. She has been reaped for the 74th Hunger Games, and Rue knows that she's not going to be coming back.

It doesn't stop her from wishing that she could have had the chance to look after her siblings like that, instead of being faced with imminent death.

o3. Finnick Odair

Finnick can't help but envy Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire. She has had everything handed to her, it seems to him, on a silver platter. Sure, she had to survive the Hunger Games to get it, but even her victory sets her apart - she came out of the arena with someone at her side.

Katniss, under the pretence of being half of the 'star-crossed lovers', will not be forced to endure the sexual slavery that other 'desirable' Victors like Finnick have to go through.

She even has a sweet, sane (and doesn't he hate himself for thinking that, for betraying Annie like that but it's true-) and earnest lover willing to cater to her every whim. Finnick had seen how Peeta Mellark stared at Katniss Everdeen. The boy would go through hell (he already had) for her.

So she has to keep up her sham of a romance with Peeta to appease President Snow? Finnick would jump at a similar chance. Peeta genuinely loves her, unlike the endless parade of 'lovers' that Finnick has gone through - the blond actually wants her for who she is, not what she looks like or what she has done.

Finnick wishes he could trade lives with Katniss, not only because he wants everything that she has been freely given but because then she would know how lucky she really is.

o4. Alma Coin

Alma remembers being sixteen, seventeen, growing up in what amounts to a warren, just another dutiful rodent of District Thirteen. She wouldn't relive those times for anything - she has done many, many things to become President of the rebel District - and she deserves it.

So, no, she doesn't want to be Katniss Everdeen, exactly. What she wants is Katniss' influence: she wants to be the symbol of the rebellion.

Alma sees the girl as little more than a happy victim of circumstance - she happened to be one of the rare few that had an actual chance in the Games when they foolishly volunteered for their sibling. Cinna happened to be on-hand, provocative (incendiary) designs waiting to be trotted out for the nation to see. Peeta Mellark happened to be madly in love with her.

Circumstance. Katniss has done nothing to deserve what she has, and she squanders it like the ignorant girl she is. If Alma had Panem's heart as Katniss did-

She'd own Panem.

But she's going to own it anyway, meddlesome girl-on-fire or not - not right now, but someday. And she can finally say that the day will arrive sooner rather than later.

o5. Katniss Everdeen

Katniss used to sit on the front stoop of their crappy little shack in the Seam and watch Prim play with Buttercup or tend to Lady, carefree and innocent in a way that defied everything that Panem stood for, defied Katniss' own comprehension.

Prim was idealistic and a little bit naive, delicate and cared for in a way that Katniss would never be. She knew of the bad things in the world and yet she still found the goodness within herself to smile like that.

Katniss used to wish that she could be the little girl that Prim was, protected by an older sister and with relatively few memories of a nearly-comatose mother and not enough food.

Gale would walk up, never outright saying so but something about his stance would alert her - they had to go hunting - or her mother would call them inside for a dinner of stewed rabbit or-

Regardless, the spell would be broken, and Katniss would push her silly wishes away. If wishes were horses, maybe she'd have some use for them, but they wouldn't help her feed her family, and it felt good to be needed, to provide for her family.

So Katniss would forget her yearning for someone to protect her and resume her mantle of protector.

A/N: I've had the first two written for ages (months). Finally sat down and finished this. Any mistakes are my own because I'm impatient - feel free to point them out!

Feedback of any sort is greatly appreciated!