AN: Thanks for all of the awesome reviews. Glad to know that people are into this. I know there are some other fusion fics out there, but they never seem to get finished, which just isn't fair. I want to know who the victor is, darn it! (And yes, I've already decided on my victor – feel free to guess who it is!)
There's a sudden chatter in the audience as they watch Blaine and Rachel smile tearfully at one another. Women are cooing, and even a few men are brushing at their eyes. I just cross my legs. This is supposed to be my moment.
Ever since I can remember, my parents have been grooming me to be a competitor in the Games. My father in particular always used to tell me that the minute they called my name I would be a hero, a goddess. Everyone would cheer for me and it would be the greatest moment of my life.
He was right.
But now. . .now they aren't clapping for me, they're staring with awestruck eyes at some big-nosed freak and her hairy little boyfriend. She's not even pretty – it's like she never bothered to get a haircut, or eat a proper diet.
"Don't worry, Quinn. We'll take care of them at the Cornucopia," Dave whispers. That's enough to bring a smile back to my face, and I settle back into my seat on the stage. What he means, of course, is that he'll take them out early on. My entire role is to be pretty and charming.
I get the gifts from the sponsors. He takes care of the other tributes.
I turn my attention back to the screens. They've moved on to District Three now, all whirring neon lights and clicking computers. District Three holds their Reaping inside, which is appropriate, I suppose, for a district of people wearing glasses because their eyes have been damaged by computer screens and electric wires. I must have missed the calling of the first tributes name, but I manage to catch her making her way up. Dave snorts and begins to chuckle, and I have to bite my lip to keep from doing the same.
The girl is huge. Seriously, she probably weighs three times as much as me, and she's not pretty at all. Her eyes are tiny and pinched, the color barely discernable behind her thick-framed glasses. Her hair is thin and mousy looking, and even though her lips are a pretty shape, they're tiny. She crosses her arms and frowns out at everyone. It's probably just a show. She's trying not to show weakness, but when Dave catches my eye, I know that we're both thinking the same thing.
Easy meet.
The representative presses a button on a computer, and a screen lights up behind her. Names scroll down, moving too fast to actually see, lighting up one by one. It stops, abruptly, and the rep leans forward to call out a name.
"And our male tribute will be. . .Artie Abrams!"
There's a shocked gasp from the audience in District Three. This Artie kid must be the mayor's son, or something. One of those kids from a special family that somehow never gets chosen. Whoever he is, he's slow. The audience continues to shift, while our audience, our District One members, slowly turn their attention back to Dave and me. Dave preens under the attention, while I just smile shyly and peer at them from beneath my eyelashes.
Sue, the previous champion from District One, has told me that it's my best look.
There's finally a parting in the crowd of District Three, and the camera zooms in. I still don't get what the big deal is – Artie is perfectly normal looking. Not attractive, but not ugly, per – se. He's wearing glasses, too, but that's not a surprise from the electric district. He has a really bad haircut, and a downturned mouth.
But then the camera zooms out, and I understand why everyone is so shocked. Artie is in a wheelchair. He's pushing his way forward, but there's no ramp to get to the stage in his District, and he has to pause awkwardly just outside it. He's not trying to look tough, like the girl. . .his arms are trembling, and he's biting his lip, clearly trying to keep back tears.
"Talk about a bullseye on his back," Dave sneers. "They're making it too easy for us."
I feel a moment of pity for poor Artie Abrams. You can't allowed to bring anything into the Games, including a wheelchair. The minute the games begin he's going to be stuck, unable to move, to defend himself. Dave won't even need to bother trying to take him out. The poor kid will starve to death in a matter of weeks.
If District Three had any propriety, any sense of honor at all, someone would volunteer to take his place. I hold my breath, waiting for it to happen, and I can tell that everyone else in District One is similarly waiting. But a full minute passes, until finally the rep says, "well, that's it from us! Moving on to District Four!"
There's even more muttering from the audience now, people turning away from the monitors to talk to one another. Everybody feels bad for the cripple – even I know that it's blatantly unfair to make him compete. He has the entire nations' sympathy. As I glance out the side of my eye at my partner, I notice that Dave looks positively excited at the prospect of taking out the kid. I pray that he won't do anything stupid in the beginning of the game – he's so certain after all his training that this will be easy. I don't think it will.
A District One tribute hasn't won in four years. I think that's testament enough to the fact that sometimes training just isn't enough.
Besides, I've heard stories about what sponsor's gifts can buy. Vials of poison and once, even, a gun. I'll never be able to defeat Dave on strength. But if I can win the love of the wealthiest people in the Capitol, well. . .
Quinn Fabray won't go down easily.
There's no excitement in the next few districts. Some of the tributes cry, some of them look proud and fierce, but they all walk forward with shaking limbs, leaving behind wailing family members and friends. It isn't until District Seven that disaster strikes.
It shouldn't, really. District Seven is home to paper mills and lumber yards. It's not exactly known for putting out fierce competitors. I have no doubt that it won't in this case, either.
They name their male tribute, first: a good-looking boy named Michael Chang. He sucks in a deep breath when he hears his name, but there's no other reaction. As the camera zooms in on his conservative, Asian features, however, I can se the fear in his eyes. They're practically screaming "terror".
Before he's taken even three steps, however, there's a scream, and a girl throws herself forward, wrapping octopus-like around his body. She's a blubbering mess of tears and snot, and involuntarily my lip turns up. Really, I don't see why anybody should ever lose her composure like that. It's undignified and frankly a bit demeaning.
She's yelling something, now, but between the crying and the plugged nose, and the way she keeps burying her face into the boys' shoulder, I can't figure out what it is. She looks like she could be his sister, at least to my eyes, so accustomed to the rosy skin of District One. But the way she's acting. . .well, it seems incredibly inappropriate if they're just siblings.
Finally, Michael seems to understand what she's saying, and pushes her back, frantically saying "no, no, Tina, you can't."
"What?" their rep asks, leaning forward. "What is she saying?"
"Nothing," Michael says frantically. "She's not saying anything. Go back to your family, Tina."
"No, no, no," the girl keeps saying, shaking her hair, long black tresses blowing in the wind. "I volunteer, I volunteer."
The rep looks confused. "You want to go in Michael's place? But you can't, he's. . ."
"I want to go with him," Tina says frantically. "I'd rather die with him than live without him."
The bottom falls out of my world. This is ridiculous, it's unacceptable. I know that I can still get sponsors away from Rachel. I'm far prettier than her, and she seems a bit self-centered. Her love story is weak. But this girl has a wild, exotic beauty, and she is clearly head over heels with Michael. I wonder, briefly, if I should fake a love affair with Dave. It only take a brief moment of glancing over and seeing his piggish, hate-filled eyes and bulky build to realize that won't work. Nobody will buy it, and it's not in the plan.
I look into the crowd, trying to find the figure of Sue Sylvester. She'll be our mentor, having absolutely decimated the competition the year that she'd competed. She'll have a plan, I think desperately, she'll know how to spin things so that people still love us – love me. But I can't find her in the press of bodies.
The rest of the Reaping passes in a blur. There's an anemic looking boy and a brassy black girl from District 8, a cute looking guy from District Ten and an even cuter one from District Eleven.
The crowd starts to filter out as the Reaping finally arrives at District Twelve. Nobody likes to stay and watch this part. It's too pathetic, the way the mining town tries to deck itself out for the annual celebration, the way all of the hungry, depressed looking people dress in what they clearly think is their best clothing – all of it decades out of fashion. There's an air of grime that lays over the district, and I almost feel like I can smell it.
The area is only about half-full, then, when the rep calls out the name of "Santana Lopez." A dark-haired, fiercely beautiful girl walks forward. She's the first tribute that I can remember who doesn't look scared, who doesn't tremble or stumble. She walks forward with her chin held high and her shoulders back, as proud and confident as if she were a Career. Dave hunches forward in interest.
She leaves behind a group of wailing children, all with the same dark features. Younger brothers and sisters, I suppose, and realize with a flash of pity that she'd probably taken out tesserae for them. I've heard of the tradition, of course, but it's rarely practiced in District One. The Fabray family has certainly never had to stoop to such measures.
But then the rep calls out the name of the boy. "Jesus Lopez."
That's enough to break the girl. Her eyes flash and she darts forward, throwing the representatives microphone to the ground, screaming "no", her hands reaching forward like sharp talons. There's a collective gasp from everyone gathered, and the streaming exit abruptly stops. Everyone wants to watch this.
I can't remember a time that there's ever been violence at a Reaping.
A small boy begins walking forward, one of the ones who had been crying just minutes before. He can't be older than eleven, just barely able to be entered into the drawing. He keeps brushing his hands against his eyes even as Santana continues to scream.
I notice their similar features, the identical surname. He's her brother.
The boy only makes it to the bottom of the stairs, however, before a heavy hand lands on his shoulder. The boy stops, and turns to look up at the new figure, his gaze full of trust and hope. I'm standing now, shaking my head angrily. No, this cannot be happening. There are usually one, if any, volunteers during the Reaping. Oh, there are the Careers, of course, but that's not the same. That's not Blaine, trying to help Rachel, or Tina refusing to let Michael go alone. That isn't this young man, firmly putting Jesus back with his sisters before ascending the steps himself.
Santana is still crying, but she's closed her hands into fists now, and she pounds them into the boys' chest.
"This isn't any better," she cries. "This isn't any better, you jackass. This isn't what I want."
The boy just turns and grins into the cameras. Quinn gasps, because he is the single most beautiful being she has ever seen. His eyes are a gentle hazel, and he has full lips and. . .well, his hair is absolutely horrible, just one strip across the top that looks like roadkill. But other than that, he looks like a dream.
"Yo," he says, his voice low and pleasantly smooth. "The name's Noah Puckerman, and I'm gonna win these Games."
Xxx
There's a final banquet for Dave and myself, before they set us on the train for the Capitol. I've heard previous victors talk about the banquet: it's a celebratory affair, with delicious food and dancing, and proud mothers and fathers. It's supposed to be, anyway. There's a somber overtone to this dinner, however, my mother and father silently cutting into their steak, while Dave's father keeps nervously biting at his lower lip and glancing around as though afraid.
Only Sue Sylvester seems as confident as she had in the morning. She's loudly talking about the weaknesses of each candidate, about how a story doesn't matter if you're killed at the Cornucopia, or by tracker jackers, or when jabberjays trick you into drowning in a lake. As the night wears on, I realize that she has a point.
Dave will take out half of those fools within the first hour. We'll decide who is strong enough to team up with – usually we'd pair with the Careers from District Two, but I can already tell that I don't like the girl, and I imagine that Dave feels the same way about the guy. I find myself idly wondering if we'll get along with the tributes from District Twelve. They look surprisingly strong for people from the coal mining district.
By the end of the night my mother is smiling again, and Daddy is back to looking confident and smug. Sue is right. A compelling sob story won't help those tributes if they're dead. In a few hours I'll be back to being the golden girl, and everyone will love me again.
We're all leaving when my mother comes up to me, her eyes wide and back to being filled with the glimmer of tears. Dave walks past, to board the train, and both his parents and my father veer to the right to head home. Mother, however, reaches out and grabs my hand. She presses something small, cold, and sharp into my palm, closing my fingers over it.
"You can take one thing with you into the games," she whispers to me. "One memento of home."
I know what she's given me before I even open my hand. Still, it's an automatic reaction, an almost rabid curiosity to see what she' handed me. I pull my fingers apart and stare, almost uncomprehendingly, at the small gold necklace.
It's a cross. I close my hand around it and glance up at my mother. I'd known what it would be, but I'm still shocked to see it.
"Wear it under your clothes," she says, before wrapping me in a hug.
My mother's cross, passed down since before the Dark Days, when people worshipped different gods and there were more religions than just the Capitol's amorphous form of Christianity. Her cross has the figure of Jesus on it, in his crucifixion. It's not allowed by the Capitol. There's a part of me that wants to hurl the gift away. If I'm caught with this. . .
But there's another part, a stronger part, that clasps it around my neck. It's my own little act of defiance. I'm born and raised to win these games, and I plan on doing so, but that doesn't mean I like them. It's hard to like anything that sends defenseless 11 year olds to their deaths.
Jesus Christ died for our sins. Now we, the children of Panem, go forth to die for our grandparents'.
AN: Wow, this chapter is so much cleaner than the last one. Thank you, Quinn, for your proper diction and filtering.
COMING SOON: Finn finds a surrogate father figure, Brittany ponders the unpopularity of sporks, Will Schuester attempts to scheme and all of the tributes come closer to the Capitol.