The team had gathered together into a single car of the train to watch the re-cap of the reapings from the other districts. Peeta, who had become the default strategist simply by being the only one who actually still had the will to live, was jotting down notes on a pad of paper. On-screen, 'Brutus' was chosen to represent his district.

"Oh boy," remarked Katniss sarcastically, "I wonder who's going to be antagonizing me this year."

Haymitch shook his head. "It's like these people name their kids to be villains."

"And, honestly, I don't think it's good for them," reasoned Katniss, propping a leg up on her knee, "Anakin Skywalker didn't start out as 'Darth Vader', you have to earn the title for yourself."

As the recap concluded, Peeta began flipping through his notebook, and his fiance leaned over onto him to get a closer look. His dark countenance was a contrast to the certain level of easiness she'd been able to obtain by not caring.

"Looks like we're pretty much gonna coast this year too," she remarked, peeling herself off and resting her hands on the back of her head, "It's just us, old people, drug addicts, and some actual contenders who I should be able to wreck with some third-act protagonist power-up action."

"I doubt the Capitol will let things go that smoothly," Peeta said into his papers.

Haymitch sunk back into the couch as some insight flashed over his eyes. "She has a point. You're not the underdogs anymore."

"Please, I was never the underdog."

That night, as the subtle hum of the train rolled through the narrow, carpeted hallways between cars, Katniss wandered about sleeplessly. Entering a door underneath which had streamed a low, yellow light, she came upon Peeta seated in front of a small television.

"Are those VHS tapes?" she asked, pointing to the box beside him.

He nodded.

"The fact that those exist brings up a lot of questions that I'm too tired to get into right now," she said, taking a seat, "Also, we're definitely going to watch Haymitch's games, right?"

"Oh, yeah, totally," he confirmed, pushing the cassette into the player.

The pair of young victors were rushed by the old school, brass-band introduction music and more youthful voice of Claudius Templesmith to a time when teenagers killed other teenagers and there was no angst involved. Haymitch's year had also been a Quarter Quell, so the opening hours were a bloodbath.

Katniss jumped. "Pause!"

Nearly knocking the remote off the couch, Peeta stopped the tape. With the white light of the screen reflecting in her eyes as she crawled closer, Katniss pointed to a small object, obscured by the wideness and scale of the shot.

"Is that-"

"It is."

At the tip of Katniss's finger was her former companion, Backpacky, wearing a very calm face as the competitor he was attached to was slashed open with a machete. Katniss sat back down, and there was a brief silence as they thought through some of the implications of their discovery before Peeta played the tape again.

Their hero began in exactly the same way he had advised Katniss to: by getting to and then hiding out at the border. He had a couple brief encounters that he survived, but avoided major conflicts and alliances, skirting around the edge of the map. In one of the many shots of his wanderings that increased in frequency as the games progressed, he threw a stone over a cliff, and it rebounded back, directly into his hand.

"Oh man! It's going to come down to him and one other person, and he's going to jump off, then come flying back with an epic kick!" commentated Katniss, now on the edge of her seat.

As it came down to the final moments, Katniss's prediction began to seem more and more likely, as an older, ax-wielding girl pursued a bleeding Haymitch to the edge of the arena.

Katniss strained herself forward. "Come on, lets pull the trigger already, Chekhov."

One blood-stained hand clutching her stomach, the other raising her ax above her head, the girl took heavy, final steps out of the forest and onto the stone cliff-top, her prey staggering towards the edge.

Looking directly into the camera, Haymitch winked exaggeratedly. The girl hurled her weapon forward, and he collapsed. Katniss let out a cheer, fists clenched, as it arced back and connected with the girl's head.

"I'm gonna become an alcoholic," young Haymitch mumbled into the ground as the blood began to pool around him.

"And so he did," mumbled old, sad Haymitch from behind them, "And so he did."