There was a decision to be made, that President Coin brought before the surviving Victors.
Do they allow the Games to be continued but with the Capitol children as the tributes? Or do they just do without it?
A vote, with whatever the majority happened to be, to be the deciding fate.
District 2 Enobaria. District 3 Alec Hardison. District 3 Beetee. District 4 Sophie Devereaux. District 4 Mags. District 4 Finnick Odair. District 4 Annie Cresta. District 5 Piper Halliwell. District 5 Phoebe Halliwell. District 6 Bobby Singer. District 6 Dean Winchester. District 7 Nathan Ford. District 7 Johanna Mason. District 9 Colin "CHAOS" Mason. District 9 Althea Phoenix Wilde. District 10 Apollo. District 10 Parker. District 11 Eliot Spencer. District 12 Haymitch Abernathy. District 12 Peeta Mellark. District 12 Katniss Everdeen.
Twenty-one people to decide the fate of generations of children. Children of enemies that had chosen to side with the demons that had enslaved them. Twenty-one people to determine how this new nation, created out of flames, would go forward.
"No." District 4 Annie Cresta emphatically gave her opinion, and thus the first vote was thrown. "They're children."
At her side, District 4 Finnick had an arm wrapped about Annie's shoulders, and nodded his agreement. "We can't be like them."
District 9 Colin 'CHAOS' Mason laughed, but it held no mirth. "Why shouldn't they? They forced us, why not force them to feel the same?"
With an inebriated laugh, filled with a type of heartache that didn't ever seem to fade, District 7 Nathan Ford gave his vote, "Make them feel the pain of losing a child, like they made us feel time and time again."
Two four, and two against. A tie for a moment, but just a moment.
"We fought so no more children would die." District 4 Sophie Devereaux, curled up against Ford's side, gave her opinion with a bit of a whip in her voice.
"Then they shouldn't have killed ours." District 7 Johanna Mason bit out, "For it." The torture that the capitol had put her through was still fresh in her mind.
"No." District 3 Alec Hardison said from his place beside District 10 Parker. "We can't kill any more people."
District 4 Mags gave her opinion in a soft tone. "I wish to say no." The older woman told the group, "I want to say no more death, but I remember seeing so many boys and girls go into that arena, and even the few I saw come out, weren't the same." It seemed to take physical effort to say the rest, "Powers forgive me, but I say yes."
"My brother would say no." District 6 Dean Winchester shrugged. "But I'm not my brother. Saving people, hunting things, that's the family business. To me? They're no better than things."
At this, District 6 Bobby Singer was shocked. "Dean? What's the matter with you, boy? They're people too. You saw what happens when people are possessed. You know they had no choice."
A sneer covering his face, Dean spoke, "That's the thing, Bobby. Most of the people? They chose to be possessed. I saw the records. It was a 'mutual beneficial arrangement'. They chose to make the deals."
"But the children, Dean?" Dean refused to respond to Bobby, and so Bobby gave his vote, "No. They've been through enough."
Another tie, five to five. Eleven more people left to vote.
"No." District 3 Beetee, silent during this time, finally gave voice to his opinion. "Wiress died to protect the Mockingjay, to protect hope. Children are the hope…" His voice mumbled off into something one he himself could hear.
District 5 Piper Halliwell, she voted a way she wouldn't have earlier, "They killed my sister." An audience on her, she took a breath, "And I know…I know that most of the people there weren't coerced into acting the way they did." She looked around the group, "They acted like demons, because they could. Because they have the power. We have the power now. So yes, at least for a time."
"Piper?" District 5 Phoebe Halliwell questioned her sister. "Prue died in an accident."
A laugh, another mirthless laugh to fill up the now silent room. "They ripped her apart, Phoebe. And their children? I saw a group of them laughing along with them."
"They're still children." Phoebe murmured.
"And a demon is a demon, no matter their age." Piper remarked back.
Phoebe nodded, having to vanquish Cole during the fighting because he was definitely on the Capitol's side, no matter what promises he had made, had definitely made her question her view of the world. "Alright. Paige would say no. But okay. Like you said, just for a time."
"I don't want anyone to end up like me…" District 10 Parker murmured to herself, and in the silence, to the group as a whole. "So, no. No more games."
District 10 Apollo smiled at his fellow district member. "Why not? You're awesome. And to the vote? Again, why not? They made us, so why not them?'
"I follow my Thief." District 11 Eliot Spencer with a one armed hug around Parker. "And my Hacker," a quick squeeze of Hardison's hand and he looked around the room. "The Capitol made me do things that I'd prefer to never remember. Mostly for Damien Moreau, but for a few others as well. But the kids are kids, and shouldn't be punished because of the mistakes of their fathers and mothers. No to the games."
Eight to eight. Five more votes to go.
District 12 Peeta Mellark, the boy who could move the crowds with words, and unite them under the Mockingjay, looked about the room in a type of outrage. "They are children. Never."
"We were once children." District 12 Katniss Everdeen gave an opinion, in her mind the bomb landing on those kids and how close her sister had been to being killed, again. "Yes." She ignored the look Peeta was sending her way, with a focus on the image in her mind.
A laugh, not so dissimilar from Nathan Ford's, came out of District 12 Haymitch Abernathy's mouth. "They killed my family, my loves, and used me." Another drink, "But I can't…Powers that be, I can't. I can't be the one to vote others to go into that hell hole. No."
"I'm still in their age group." District 9 Althea 'Ali' Wilde muttered just loud enough to be heard. "I see them laugh. Happy. Not knowing what their parents did to me behind closed doors." She had curled father into herself, as though in pain. "It makes me angry, that they're able to still smile when I can't. It hurts, knowing that they got the chance to have a childhood, when I was born with a target on my back. It hurts, and I hate them. I hate every being that crawled out of this place. I want them to understand what it is like to be hurt, just a fraction of how I was."
Ten to ten. One vote left, a vote to decide.
A flash of sharp teeth, sharpened by the Capitol to fit with an image, District 2 Enobaria stood up and with a slap of the table, gave the deciding vote, "Why not?"
Break:
The Mockingjay was given the chance to execute President Snow.
In the crowd, somewhere, was her mother and sister, saved just by a split moment and luck that Paige had known what to do, and had the moment of clarity to react like she had.
Katniss Everdeen marched up to the cowering man, who didn't seem to be cowering all that much. "You nearly killed my sister."
Blood dripping teeth seemed to make up his entire face as he smiled up at her, "Why was she on the front lines?"
Katniss walked back to her position, the center of the 21 remaining Victors. She pulled back her bow, but his words kept running through her mind.
Why was her sister on the front lines?
Why were the three younger siblings of four separate Victors in the front lines? When, before those same Victors volunteered to be the frontal assault, it came with the promise that the siblings would remain safe in District 13?
A look at a place of honor above Snow sat President Coin, blood thirst in her gaze.
The monsters in Panem weren't just supernatural, but also human.
Human greed.
She pulled back the string, and let it fly.
Right into Coin.
Snow's laughter was quickly cut off by a wave of Piper's hand.
Before a single act could be performed in retribution, the 20 other Victors were surrounding Katniss, being a human shield for her.
Around the Victors came the families that were either related to the Victors here, or the Victors that had fallen. With the families came friends, and fellow fighters that had watched the people in the circle fight their way back.
District 13 could get retribution, if only they were willing to fight another war. A war, this time, with their numbers split and against the other districts.
They weren't.
And so no retribution was sought.
And the leaders that came afterwards, learned from this moment, that their power came from the Heroes that fought, and the people that loved them.
Surrounded by these people that she had looked at with indifference; Peeta's hand in hers; her sister within sight.
Katniss Everdeen realized something that never thought of before.
These people were her family.
Not a family of blood, but by choice.
Cause, as Hunter Bobby Singer is so fond of saying, "Family don't end with blood, boy!"