Chapter 10
Designated Successor

Three months later: December 20, HG 74
The day before the start of the Victory Tour

Three months into her marriage, a routine had developed in the life of Katniss Mellark. She woke up in Peeta's bed, they quickly showered (sometimes together), then they went over to Katniss's mansion. Peeta cooked breakfast, while Katniss talked to Aloe and Prim. After breakfast, Katniss washed dishes while Aloe (or Prim) dried the dishes, while Prim (or Aloe) and Peeta stood in the kitchen and talked to the dishwashers. If this was a school day for Prim, these events happened earlier in the morning; if Prim did not have school that day, things happened later in the morning.

After the dishwashing was done, if Prim had school, Katniss walked Prim to school. After Katniss returned from the school building, sometimes Katniss went into the woods and hunted. Sometimes Katniss posed for a Peeta oil painting. Sometimes Katniss and Peeta started out a painting session as artist and model, then one thing led to another. (Which was not a problem—Johanna Mason's wedding gift to the Mellarks had been box after box after box of latex condoms.)

This particular snow-covered morning, the walk of Katniss and Prim to middle school had been a talkative one. This was Prim's last day of school before Winter Break, and also was Katniss's last day to spend with Prim before Katniss and Peeta left on their Victory Tour.

Katniss now was walking from the middle school back to Victors' Village. She decided that today was too cold and snowy to hunt for wild animals; instead, she would offer to model for Peeta.

Katniss was smiling a slag-heap smile as she imagined how her morning might end up.

Katniss's smile disappeared when she saw a black limousine moving toward her from Victors' Village.

One second later

Katniss recognized the black limousine. Three months ago, it had rolled down the cargo ramp of the scariest hovercraft that Katniss had ever seen, onto District Twelve's meadow. In that limousine had been four bodyguards (one of whom had doubled as driver)—and Coriolanus and Minerva Snow. Later that day, the driver-slash-bodyguard had driven Minerva Snow and Madge Undersee around Twelve, in what Madge later described as the "Mayor's-Daughter Tour of District Twelve."

As the presidential limousine now came alongside Katniss, it stopped, and the door in the back of the limousine opened up. "Katniss, please join us back here," Snow's voice said.

As Katniss walked forward two meters toward the open door, she wondered who us was.

Us turned out to be Snow and Peeta, and their clothing surprised Katniss. While the bodyguards wore heavy coats and hats so that they could be outside briefly, Snow and Peeta were dressed for full winter weather, just as Katniss herself was dressed.

President Snow said, "Katniss, I wish for the three of us—Mister Mellark, you, and I—to talk in your woods. I presume there is a hidden access somewhere? Please direct Hefaestus how to drive to it."

The limousine went silent, as Katniss thought of a thousand reasons to refuse to answer. Possible hanging and possible flogging topped the list.

President Snow said calmly, "I trust you, Katniss. Do you trust me?"

And this is the only question that matters, isn't it? Katniss thought. Once I answer that question, everything else is a no-brainer.

Katniss looked at Peeta, who shook his head. "I'm not anyone's soulmate, Katniss—I can't advise you."

More silence passed.

Katniss said to the driver, "See that waist-high wall up ahead? Turn off the road left, just before the wall."

Two minutes later

"The sign says 'Electrified,' " Snow said with remarkable calm.

President Snow, Katniss, and Peeta were out of the limousine, which was parked near the "electrified" fence with the limousine's engine idling. The four bodyguards, no fools they, remained inside the toasty-warm limousine.

Katniss laughed scornfully. "Remember that Cray is the Head Peacekeeper here." Katniss pulled off a glove and grabbed a fence-wire with her bare hand. Still alive, Katniss said, "I haven't heard the fence hum since Cray came here."

President Snow said, "All right, then how do we get from here to the woods?"

Katniss took a few steps to where there was a snow-covered trough in the ground below the wires. "Crawl or slide under the wires here. Even if the wires are hot, you can go out and come back with no problem."

"How can you be sure, Katniss? We will all three die if you are wrong."

Katniss hesitated, then said, "My father went in and out here all the time. Even when the fence was humming."

Snow said, "Me, crawling—my bodyguards so seldom get to laugh. Come, Mr. and Mrs. Mellark, let us go see the woods up close. While we talk."

Katniss gestured toward the limousine. "You aren't taking any bodyguards with you?"

Snow gave Katniss a cool look. "Are you worried about an assassination, Katniss?"

"Yes, a four-footed assassination. Bears are hibernating now, but any other animal we meet will be hungry, and I have no weapons."

Snow shrugged. "The bodyguards stay here. Being the president of Panem involves taking risks from time to time—a fact you shall learn one day, Katniss."

Katniss did not understand Snow's last sentence.

Minutes later
In the District Twelve woods

Katniss had walked Peeta and President Snow far enough into the woods that the electrified fence and Snow's limousine could no longer be seen.

Now Snow looked at Katniss and said, "I have two problems that are on my mind every day. And discovering that you are my soulmate, Katniss, has only confused my thoughts further."

"What are the problems?" Katniss asked.

"My big problem is that there is unrest in the districts, and it is getting worse. I have made the laws harsher, then harsher still; I have made punishments harsher. District Eight and District Eleven are big prisons now. The Rebels cannot win if they rebel; perhaps they themselves even know this. Yet sooner or later, Panem will have rebellion again, which will ruin much of the country. I cannot think of anything more to do—short of making every infraction a hanging offense, which is impractical—to make the districts quiet down."

Katniss said, "Three words: Stop the Games."

"Be practical, Katniss!" Snow snapped.

"It's you who isn't being practical," Katniss said, glaring.

Peeta asked calmly, "And what is your other big problem, sir, that you think about all the time?"

"My health is failing. I have between one and four years left. The logical person to name as my successor is one of my Cabinet ministers, but this will not work. One of my ministers would be a disaster for Panem as president. The rest are good enough to head a ministry, and I even like most of them, but they are unfit to be president."

"Unfit?" Peeta said. "Unfit how?"

"They lack vision, they lack boldness. They are plodders, all of them except for the degenerate. A plodder is unfit to be president, just as reserved Katniss here is unfit to take over Caesar Flickerman's job."

Katniss shuddered. "No. No. I don't even slightly want Caesar's job. But if the job is opening up, Peeta would be perfect, hint-hint."

Peeta grinned at Katniss. "Of course, if the Hunger Games stop, my job will go away right when I get it!"

Katniss scowled. "Ha, ha, very funny."

Then Katniss looked at Snow and said, "If one of your Cabinet people won't work, then I guess you should look outside your Cabinet."

"Exactly!" Snow said, smiling at her.

"Like, say, a Head Peacekeeper or something. Just don't pick Cray—talk about unfit."

Snow said, very seriously, "It was not Cray whom I was thinking of."

"Oh, shit," Peeta muttered.

"I don't follow you," Katniss told Snow; then she looked at Peeta in puzzlement.

Peeta said, "I think I follow him, but my idea is crazy."

Snow said, "No, Mr. Mellark, the idea is not crazy at all. It made perfect sense, once I moved past my hatred of district people."

"What are you two talking about?" Katniss demanded.

Peeta bowed to Snow, making a go ahead gesture.

Snow said, "Katniss, I shall declare you to be my successor as president of Panem."

An instant later

"What?" Katniss said. "This makes no sense!"

"Not so," Snow said calmly. "You have vision—from the moment that your sister was Reaped, you had ideas about how things should be, and you acted on those ideas. You showed boldness is blowing up the mined food at the Cornucopia, and you showed definite boldness when you pulled out the nightlock berries and defied the Capitol."

"I didn't defy the Capitol! I didn't even think about the Capitol. I just decided that killing Peeta was not an option."

"Which showed both your vision and your boldness—I see now. At the time, though, I was strongly tempted to order your mother and sister to be executed in front of you."

Katniss stared at the older, bearded man. Then she growled, "That would have been the most evil thing you have ever done."

"No, Katniss, I have done worse. Ask Miss Mason. Or your own Mr. Abernathy."

Peeta said with fake cheerfulness, "President Snow, I will never be the guy to argue someone out of saying Katniss is one of a kind. But how can you be sure she's up to this? She's sixteen now—plus kind of a Rebellion sympathizer—"

Katniss raised an eyebrow. " 'Kind of' a Rebellion sympathizer?"

Peeta said to Snow, "Anyway, how do you know Katniss can do this? You can't know what kind of woman she'll be when she's forty."

"Ah, Mr. Mellark, but I do know—Katniss is my perfect match—I have her handwriting on my arm to prove it. As president, she will act as I would myself act if I faced the same problem."

Katniss said, "Suuure, I'll be just like you. Except for the 'evil' part. And the 'favoring rainbows and screwing over the districts' part. Have you thought this through? Because even before they drop your body in the ground, I'll announce, 'No more Hunger Games.' "

"Katniss, I do not understand how you can think this way. You have a much better house now, you have much money now—the Hunger Games have been good to you!"

"Spoken like someone who has never feared a Reaping. The Hunger Games were all set to kill my sister Prim, and Peeta here—two good and kind children who absolutely did not, no fucking way, deserve to die! And Eleven's Rue and Thresh did die!"

Snow said calmly, "This can be debated another day. But to go back to something you said shortly ago—that as president, you will not be evil, and you will not favor the Capitol over the districts. Would it surprise you that I approve? President Everdeen will make reforms that no Capitol-raised president would think of, and I am gambling that you can bleed off resentments in the districts instead of the districts raising rebellion."

"Whoa," said Katniss. "No pressure."

"Make no mistake, I still hate the Dark Days rebellion—it killed my parents. I hate the idea of a Second Rebellion nowadays. I think of District people who are working for a Second Rebellion as evil, stupid, misinformed, or ungrateful—"

"Wrong," said Katniss.

"—but my soulmate is the hero of the Rebellion, soulmate-matching is never wrong, so I figure that a rebellion nowadays somehow must have some good to it."

Peeta asked Snow, "Why are you telling us all this now? You're not on your deathbed."

President Snow answered, "Because it changes your Victory Tour."

One second later

Katniss shook her head. "I don't understand."

President Snow looked at both Co-Victors and said, "In previous years, you both have been forced to listen to previous Victors give speeches during Victory Tours. How would you describe the speeches?"

Peeta said carefully, "When they talked about Twelve's tributes, they used the words honor and sacrifice a lot."

Katniss rolled her eyes. "R-i-ight, like underfed District Twelve kids chose to go into the Games and chose to die."

Peeta looked at Snow and said, "The Victors' speeches also used the phrase 'generosity of the Capitol' a lot. And there were always words in there like 'These Games are how we keep the peace.' "

Katniss said, "Yeah, Coriolanus, and you know what I think about those pretty words."

Snow said, "Indeed I do. The sad thing is that, after seventy-three years of the latest Victor saying those words and all twelve districts hearing them, nobody believes those words. Not the Victors, not the districts."

"So why keep saying them?" Peeta asked.

"Why, indeed?" Snow asked. He looked at Katniss and said, "One day you will be president. You can do almost anything—no laws of Panem will stop you, only human nature is beyond your power. But you will learn—hopefully, not too much to your sorrow—that with total freedom comes total responsibility. Whenever you choose to do something, or to not do something, whatever the result is, it's on you."

Katniss shook her head, not getting Snow's point. She looked over at Peeta—he looked puzzled as well.

Snow said, "This Victory Tour will be your first lesson in acting as president, Katniss, because I give you total freedom to speak. You may call me evil, you may call the Games evil, you may say that a district's two tributes were losers who deserved to die—you may say anything, and you shall not be arrested, edited out, or even publicly rebuked. Of course, you are also totally free to say the 'pretty words' that nobody wants to hear but that everyone expects you to say."

Katniss and Peeta both stared at Snow. Eventually Katniss asked, "What's the catch?"

"The 'catch' is that whatever happens, you caused it, because you started the ball rolling in whatever direction you chose. If your words cause a riot and Peacekeepers kill rioters, you killed those rioters, Katniss, as surely as if you had arrowed them."

"Shit," Katniss said.

Peeta grinned. "Katniss, if the people of a district don't riot, and instead they chant your name and carry you around on their shoulders, that's on you too."

Katniss shook her head. "Won't happen. I'm just an ordinary District Twelve girl who's good with a bow and arrow."

Peeta said to Snow, "She has no idea, the effect she can have."

President Snow said, "I am an old man, and I am getting cold, so let us wrap this up. The Victory Tour will end with a President's Ball in the Presidential Mansion. This is where I will announce two things: that you are my soulmate, Katniss, and that you are my designated successor as president. Tell your stylist to make you an outfit for the announcements that does not hide your soulmark. When I make the announcements, I will not be hiding my soulmark either."

Katniss whistled. "After this, life is gonna get exciting for all three of us."

AUTHOR END NOTE: So not only will Katniss eventually become president of Panem in this AU, she will get the job at a young age. And Snow is no longer myuhaha-evil in this AU. Katniss is in love with Peeta and is married to him. So everything is wonderful for Katniss now, right?

Not exactly.

Septicus Kopf really wants to be the next president of Panem, and he is not the type of person to lose gracefully.

Then there is Alma Coin. She has been looking for a way to start a Second Rebellion, to then depose Snow, and then to become the next president of Panem. Coin plans to turn Katniss Everdeen into a figurehead Mockingjay in this Second Rebellion, as soon as Coin figures out how. So Snow's upcoming announcement will mean that Coin has to trash Plan A—Coin will probably be very unhappy with Snow and Katniss both.

All in all, later chapters of this story will be exciting.