A/N: Venturing back into The Hunger Games fandom again. This fic was written for the Quantum Bang 2021. Check out ALL the stories from all the fandoms at Quantum Bang Dot O R G. :)

All hail to Katmom, Beta of Brilliance! She gave this fic her careful attention and it benefited greatly. Kudos, too, to Krani who did the original art over at the Quantum Bang for this story, though I had to kind of crop her main art to use here. (Sorry, Krani) Go check it out full size at the bang, along with all her chapter headers. So. Cool.

And of course, my sincere appreciation to Keira Marcos and her team of moderators and wranglers for the QB. They volunteer tons of time and energy for months on end for fic writers to fix things in fandoms.

The map of Panem I use in reference is the one issued by the blue-checked HungerGames account on Instagram, also issued by Lionsgate Films. Idea for the location of the Arena is credited to STORY DIVER on YouTube. This story is COMPLETE on my end and will be updated on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays until it is all posted. It's starting midweek because Katmom has her eyes open.

Because why not: I have many copyrights in the world, but this is not among them, nor will it ever be. All things HUNGER GAMES are the intellectual property of Suzanne Collins.

"A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous."

- President Coriolanus Snow, The Hunger Games (film)

Chapter One: The Day Before

The fact that there were only twelve houses in Victors' Village had struck Gale Hawthorne in a particularly ominous way when he had returned from the Capitol after the 73rd Hunger Games. Granted, District Twelve had only the one Victor in the Village for more than twenty years, but that wasn't the case with other Districts.

What happened when there were more than twelve Victors? The regulations stated that the Victor and their family could live in their marble mansion until the Victor died, after which time they were ousted unceremoniously back into their community.

He had never heard of a time when any Victor got shunted aside because there weren't enough houses in the District's Victors' Village. But that didn't mean they hadn't been disappeared, anyway. The Capitol had an obscene stance on the value of lives in the various Districts. Gale hated it. Hated basically all that the Capitol stood for.

Yet, here he was. Living in Victors' Village along with his mom, brothers, and sister.

Closing the door of his particular marbled abode, he shook his head. To him, the District 12 Victors' Village looked like nothing so much as an abandoned mine. The houses were empty, their windows sightless eyes that told him nothing. All save the house across the way and two over. That was where he was headed that morning. A new chapter in his life was beginning, thanks to the man in that other house. He strode with slow purpose, noting the drawn shades on the windows, the trim that needed paint around the eaves. It was not a happy house, but it was inhabited, and Gale knocked.

Haymitch Abernathy opened the door before Gale's hand had dropped. "You're early," the older Mentor stated.

"You're sober," Gale countered.

Simultaneous shrugs followed before Haymitch made an elaborate production out of bowing his visitor into his house. Haymitch, almost a year after acquiring neighbors, was still getting used to the idea. He'd spent a lot of years alone, out there.

Gale nodded and folded himself down into the chair his host indicated. "Thanks."

Haymitch shook his head and frowned before he asked, "How was it?"

Gale snorted. "The last trip?"

"Yeah."

"Usual." He tried to play it off, but knew his eyes tightened with impotent fury. He hated being a Victor. Hated what the Capitol demanded of him. But most of all, he hated lying about it back home.

"So, tomorrow then?" Katniss had asked, her gray eyes shining silver in the morning sun. They still hunted together when he was in Twelve. Though he didn't need to hunt to feed his family any longer, he still enjoyed doing so with her, and the meat sold well at market, to feed others. "I've got a surprise for you."

Something about her voice made his heart leap in his chest. He swallowed. Hard. "Oh?"

"Yeah. So…"

He swore under his breath. Her bright expression—she only smiled when they were hunting—evaporated as mist over the trees. "I can't, Catnip. I've gotta go to the Capitol."

"Again."

"Yeah. I hate this."

Her wordless cry communicated her dismay as she shot one hand out to cup his jaw. "No! Gale Hawthorne, you came back to me. To us. No. You're not allowed to hate that."

Remembering her glad shout of welcome when he'd returned from the 73rd Hunger Games, the way her body had wrapped around his in front of everyone in Panem, remembering the joy in her face and the happy tears that shone in her eyes, Gale smiled a little. "Okay. I just hate leaving you."

It was true enough. Being a Capitol Whore was not in the brochure he received during the Victory Tour.

"Well, now comes the fun part," Haymitch said with half a sneer. "Beats Capitol Sexing, but not by much."

The men clashed gazes. "The Reaping."

"Yeah." Sunlight angled in from the matching windows in the room, highlighting the emptiness of the space around them. It was in no way a cheerful sight, clean and modern and grand as it may have been. In District 12, cheerfulness wasn't usually an option.

Gale grimaced and leaned forward in his chair so that his hands dangled between his knees. "At least my family doesn't have a ton of tesserae, this year. I was able to do that much." Haymitch winced visibly and Gale held up one hand. "Sorry."

Haymitch blew out a huge breath before stopping in front of the stone-encased fireplace. "'S'kay. Tomorrow. Hell, this is just weird, you know? We haven't had two Mentors in Twelve, like, ever. I didn't even have one."

Gale skirted Haymitch's look. "I know. But now there's two of us. How can I help you, O Experienced One?" Gale respected Haymitch's ability to be of use; the man had come through for him the year before.

The girl who had been reaped for the 73rd games—Fern: a tall, slender, scholarly type who was drastically out of place in their community—had frozen in fear and hadn't even stepped off the pedestal before the Games officially began. The pedestal had exploded, as they had all been warned they would, and she had died. It had been hard to bear for Gale, but no actual, visceral guilt over her death had lingered; he knew he hadn't had time to do more than gasp in disbelief before he'd grabbed the first pack he saw and, fruitless tears dashing from his cheeks, headed away from the Cornucopia bloodbath.

Haymitch watched as the young man remembered; there were some expressions that were universal amongst the Victors. When the focused-but-distant look passed, Haymitch cleared his throat. "Well. Yeah. So, the hardest thing to know is that we'll have to probably choose just one."

"Huh?"

"I mean, we'll get a feel for the Tributes early on during training, but you have to realize we can't divide our resources, Hawthorne. One of our two Tributes will be more worthy"

"Stop," Gale said, hopping to his feet. "You mean… We have to abandon…" He started swearing and clenching and unclenching his fists.

Haymitch watched, waiting for him to calm. "You about done?" he asked after a few minutes.

With a glare and a final, pushed-out breath, Gale nodded. "Fine. Okay. But how do we do that?"

"Sometimes," Haymitch said with seldom-heard despair, "sometimes, we don't have to. Sometimes, one is chosen for us."

"Oh." Gale eyed his Mentor with a new appreciation, remembering Fern again. Haymitch might be the District Drunkard, but the man was canny and had survived what might put Gale Hawthorne to a bottle himself, given a year or two. "So. Tomorrow."

"We'll meet at the Justice Hall and be led out, same as every year. There'll be a chair up there for you, now. Remember the cameras are always effing on." He rolled his eyes. "Use this to your advantage."

Gale stiffened. "How?"

"C'mon, boy. Use your head. You've been real popular in the Capitol, haven't you? Some of those...new friends of yours...will be inclined to help you as a Mentor. And you need to play on that if you can. If it'll matter."

Gale couldn't seem to dampen the revulsion that roiled within him. "If it'll matter."

Haymitch shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels. "It might not."

Thinking of Fern—he never would forget—Gale could only nod his head, his resentment silent but palpable.

After another moment, Haymitch spoke again. "So. Cameras. You're new, you've still got friends and family in the District, so look confident. In control."

"Oh, like you do every year."

"Hell, I'm the drunk. They'll be so happy to see a handsome, sober face that we might make it through a Reaping without anyone bawling." They stared at each other for a moment before Haymitch lurched to his feet and shuffled off to the kitchen. Gale studied the room, remarking the absence of personal touches anywhere. There was a television screen on one white wall, a fireplace, and a bookshelf that had a coal-truck's worth of books on it.

The place damned near had its own echo, it was so empty.

When Haymitch returned, he was balancing lunch and two bottles of beer on a tray, as well as two pads of paper and pencils. "Now, ready to work?"

"Work?" Gale shifted in his chair—which he had to admit was comfortable, despite the neglected decor of the room. "What kind of work? How to get Sponsors? Because, you know, that's still kind of terrifying for me."

The older man snorted as he portioned out the food and drink, which they put on the small occasional table between them. "We'll get to that. No, this is something else. Tell me, Hawthorne. What would you do to get out of the Capitol Brothel forever?"

Shock jolted Gale's whole body; his heart even seemed to sputter for a moment before it started up again, strong and firm. "Just about anything. This whole system is so…" He gestured, not feeling that words were adequate.

"I am in full agreement. So, let me tell you what I was thinking."

Hope remained in Gale's mind, even as he wondered who amongst his friends in the Capitol would help or hinder what Haymitch was daring to think about. There was a lot of unrest in Panem, more than Gale had picked up on during his Victory Tour and since then. Tight bundles of folk, unconnected and unwilling to be moved.

But maybe…Gale finished his beer and held Haymitch's sharp gaze. "Really?"

"I think so, Hawthorne. I thought so last year, too. Fricken flame of hope burns eternal or some crap like that."

"But will it burn hot enough?"

Haymitch pushed himself to his feet and paced to the cold hearth. "A fire needs three things, right?"

Gale rolled his eyes and used his fingers to indicate the numbers. "One, fuel."

"Two, heat."

"Three, air."

"Well, oxygen," Haymitch corrected with a nod.

"Fuel would be what needs to burn. The Games need to go, Haymitch."

"Snow needs to go, Hawthorne."

"Granted." Gale watched as Haymitch shifted to shove his hands in his pockets. Then Gale added, as the older man seemed to have lost himself in thought, "The heat is what we bring to it. To catch it on fire."

"Right. We'll bring…" He turned and directed a diamond-hard look at Gale. "I want him gone. He's a monster and I want him gone."

Gale's heart jumped in no small amount of nerves. "Gone. Nice euphemism."

"Yeah," Haymitch agreed before smacking his lips. "I'm good, like that."

With a long exhale, Gale crossed his legs, still holding his bottle of beer between his palms. "And the air?"

They both drew in deep breaths, chuckled, and thought on it. "Air is invisible. Unseen. Makes everything keep going, though, right?"

Wondering where Haymitch might be headed with his analogy, Gale could only nod. "And?"

"I know who makes the Capitol do its thing."

He put the bottle down on the floor and stood. "Who?"

Haymitch smirked and rocked up and back, toe to heel. "Not tellin' 'til I make sure it'll work."

"Hey!"

Holding up a hand, the older man became entirely serious. "Just in case something goes really effin' wrong, Hawthorne, I don't want you to know."

He was going to protest, but decided against it. "Fine. For now. But count me in."

The smile was back; Haymitch had as many masks as anyone in the Capitol ever had, Gale supposed. "Of course, I'm counting on you. Couldn't do it without ya!"

One thing about being a Victor that Gale appreciated was that the house in the Village was his, not his mother's. Victors received a lifetime's income for themselves and their family—but if and when the Victor died, the family would be immediately tossed out to fend for themselves.

He didn't have to allow his family to live with him, but he chose to. Even if he sometimes regretted it.

"Gale? Where have you been?" his mother demanded to know as soon as he returned from Haymitch's house. Hazelle Hawthorne hadn't been so sharp, years ago when her husband—Gale's father—had still been alive. It had been four years since the mining disaster, though, and times were hard for everyone. She hurried across the polished hardwood floor and stared up into his eyes and sniffed before firing her accusation. "You've been drinking!"

"I'm old enough to drink, Ma," he reminded her, pushing down his immediate flare of temper. He wasn't an angry man, all things being equal, but the Hunger Games the year before had changed him in many ways. "And I'm home."

"Well, Rory's been asking after you," she said, spinning on her heel and returning to the kitchen. They could hire people to work for them, but his mother had scoffed at that idea. "What would I do if someone else cooked and cleaned?" she'd asked when he'd initially brought the idea up.

His mother had a point, Gale supposed. Still, he wished sometimes that she had something else to do with her days. Maybe, if things worked out, he could get her a place of her own in town, closer to her friends…

Right. Friends. "Rory can come with me. I'm heading over to see the Everdeens."

Hazelle's voice softened. "All right, then. I'll send over some tea sachets you might take to Violet," she murmured, speaking of Mrs. Everdeen. "She's not been...right...lately."

Gale nodded. "Thanks. I'll get cleaned up and tell Rory to do the same."

His mother started to work on that, and he could hear the subtle scraping of glass jars opening and closing as his mother hummed while she prepared the sachets. Gale had no idea if anything could help Violet Everdeen; she'd been next door to a wraith since Katniss's dad died in the same mine accident that took Gale's father.

Katniss had assumed the role of breadwinner in her family, just as he had in his own. They'd started hunting together a couple of years or so before. He'd been astonished at just how good that girl was. And then, she'd started to relax with him in the forest, to respect his own skill with his blade and bow, and they'd become friends. He wanted more. He hoped for more. He could provide a good home for her, now, if she wanted and…

"Hey, Gale! Get your head outta the clouds and help me with this!" Rory called, interrupting his thoughts. "I gotta figure out how to do this math problem and you're good with numbers."

Bending over his brother's homework—word problems made sense to him; Rory used words well, but not when it came to math—Gale said, "Come with me to see Prim and Katniss, will you? Mom's making some tea for Mrs. Everdeen and I wanted to see Katniss before tomorrow."

Rory stiffened. "Right. It's Prim's first Reaping, tomorrow."

"Yeah." Gale took his brother's pencil and wrote out the equation needed to solve the problem; Rory could take it from there. "I wanted to go over, you know."

"Prim's so tiny," Rory murmured, finishing the math. "She just turned twelve. I'll be twelve in a month, and I'm taller than she is already." He frowned. "What if she…"

"She won't be," Gale promised. "I bet you a cake from the baker's that she'll only have her name in once."

Rory shuffled his homework together and the two of them moved away from the kitchen table and headed toward the stairs. The family bedrooms were all upstairs and each room had its own bathroom. The luxury was astonishing. Carpeting softened their steps as they went up. "I know you put your name in a lot for tesserae before, Gale."

"I did."

"I felt like total crap when you got reaped. I wondered if that slip with your name on it was in there for food I ate." He stopped at Gale's bedroom door, and Gale could not have been more surprised at the pain in his brother's gray eyes, so like his own. "I know you took some for, for us." Gale couldn't even answer that; it was true, but he never thought to put off his responsibility to anyone's else's shoulders. "Katniss probably has too, right? But she won't let Prim. And she hunts, so that's helping, right?"

"Yeah, and you're right. We'll make sure Prim only has to put in the one entry, right?"

"Right!" His brother brightened at the idea. "I won't tell her, though. The Everdeens are…kinda proud."

Gale snorted. "Aren't we all? So, you sweet on Primrose Everdeen?"

Rory's face went red in a heartbeat. "I never said that!"

After ruffling Rory's hair long enough for his brother to push him away, Gale went to his own room. One of the things he had to appreciated by the improved housing, he reflected as he stripped down in the bathroom, was that he had his own shower. And heated water that didn't take an age to reach it! In the, sure, there were all sorts of frills and scents and extras in even something as mundane as a shower, but for the Hawthornes, this was richness.

The Everdeens didn't even have a shower. They had a tub that they used to bathe in. No, you will not be thinking of Catnip in the bath, Hawthorne. Stop it.

But he was an eighteen-year-old male and the thoughts didn't go away while he was soaping up. He did his best to ignore the inevitable reaction, however, and ruthlessly scrubbed at his hair before just as ruthlessly shunting the water over to COLD.

It didn't really help, but he did finish his shower in record time.

At length, he and Rory were on their way to the Everdeens' house. It wasn't a short walk by any means, but for residents of District 12, getting about on foot was the norm. Gale felt that they were just lucky that the Village wasn't too far from the mining town where he used to live.

"It's weird," Rory remarked as they hit the crossroads that would take them to their old neighborhood.

Gale flipped his knife from its holster into his hand, taking reassurance in the worn leather of the hilt. "What is?" He squinted to see into the tree line. Not that he was too worried about Peacekeepers, today, though they'd be infiltrating in preparation for the Reaping, but it wouldn't be unheard of if some hungry Seam kid tried to steal something.

He hadn't done it himself, but he knew people who had.

"It's just weird, seeing the differences, Gale. I mean, we pull a lot of coal out of the mines, so why aren't we warmer, here? Why are we always so hungry, when we have woods with game and the fuel to cook with? It doesn't make sense."

Gale pushed a low whistle out from between his lips. "Well, that's a heavy thought for the afternoon."

Rory snorted. "It's not as if I never heard you and Katniss talking, you know."

Heat sped up the back of Gale's neck. "Well, never you mind what you hear us talking about." He paused and clapped his brother's shoulder with his free hand. "Just keep those thoughts to yourself, you hear? No one needs to be thinking the Hawthornes are…rebels." He blanched at the thought of it. The Capitol was a harsh teacher.

"Right, sorry, Gale," Rory murmured. Then, he brushed Gale's hand from his shoulder. "So, are you sweet on Katniss?" he teased.

"Hey!" Gale said, half laughing in his shout. Rory started running and Gale was happy enough to chase him all the way to their old haunts.

They reached the slanted shanty in time to see little Primrose Everdeen giving her pet goat a bath. She grinned up at them, bending over to keep the bleating animal in the tub of water. "Hi, Rory! Hi, Gale!"

Rory held up the package their mother had sent them with. "Our mom sent your mom some teas, Prim."

The girl blushed brightly. "Oh, that's so nice! Please tell her thank you! Mama's inside."

"Where's Katniss?" Gale asked, not wanting to interrupt his friend if she were in the middle of something personal.

"She's around back, hanging up the wash," Prim said in a casual way. "You can go on back, Gale. Rory, if you'd help me with Lady, here, we can bring the tea in for Mama."

"Sure, Prim!" Gale grinned to see his brother roll up the sleeves of his new shirt, take off his shoes, and wade right into the bath with the goat and Prim. Their laughter and Lady's noises were bright spots in a day that had thus far been punctuated by alcohol, cynicism, and plotting, as well as his mother's disapproval.

He pushed all of that aside when he saw Katniss and her laundry basket. Her dark hair was loosely braided into a wide rope down her back. She was wearing a faded blue shirt, denim shorts, and a pair of her oldest hiking boots. She was shaking out an apron when he called her name. He had to laugh when she jumped and spun to face him.

"Gale Hawthorne!"

"Catnip Evergreen!"

"You come closer and say that," she challenged with a look before turning her back on him to pin the apron to the clothesline. "Better yet, hold the clothespins for me?"

Well, of course he'd do that. How many times had he hung the clothes on the line before the 73rd Games? "Give 'em here," he said, holding out his hand.

She went digging in the baggy pockets of her shorts and produced several wooden clothespins. "Here." She eyed him before bending to snatch up a dress he recognized as belonging to her mother. "So. Reaping tomorrow."

"Yep."

She still stared at him and he met her ash-gray gaze with his own. "You ready?"

He shrugged and offered her a couple of pins. She rolled her eyes and clipped the dress to the line by its shoulders before turning back and eyeing him sternly. He blew out a breath. "Katniss," he said softly, deciding to tell her today, even if he couldn't the next day. "How can I possibly be ready to be a Mentor? Tomorrow, there'll be two people hoping like hell I'll be able to help them and…I don't know if I can."

She was solemn and silent, then, bending over at her waist to pick up another piece of wet laundry. A shirt, that time. A green one that he'd seen Katniss wear before. They'd been friends for years, sure, but seeing her hang up her own laundry flustered him.

Likely misinterpreting his discomfort, she kept her eyes on him even while she clipped her top to the line. "Gale. You'll do great. You won, last year. And you've been back to the Capitol, well, a lot, and you've met a ton of people, right?"

He felt a bit sick inside when he nodded that yes, he had. "But Katniss, they're not…not the kind of people I'd want to rely on in a pinch, you know?" How could she know? He'd never told her, really, what he had to do in the Capitol. He didn't think he ever could.

She nodded and pinned up another part of her washing. A white shirt, that time. He hoped she didn't have any…underwear…in that basket. She saw his face heat and smirked a little. "Don't worry, I hang up the—" she shifted her voice into a falsetto remarkably like Effie Trinket's—"ladies lingerie, ahem, inside."

"Thank goodness!"

She almost laughed. "So, why are you here, anyway?"

"Brought some teas for your mom from mine. She says hello, by the way." Katniss nodded while finishing hanging up the last couple of items of clothing: a pair of shorts and…a dress. "That's new," he noted, flicking one hand toward the pale dress with the bits of lace at the collar.

She blushed, surprising him. "Ah, yeah. Mom wanted me to wear it for tomorrow. I," she faltered, her hands fluttering oddly as if she didn't know what to do with them. With affected casualness belied by the flush in her cheeks, she continued. "I outgrew last year's dress."

Gale coughed and pretended to examine the dress she'd just pinned up. "Well, I, er, usually only see you in hunting clothes, so I hadn't noticed." Desperate to change the topic, he blurted, "Can you go today, hunting?" Her eyes widened and he backtracked. "Wait, yeah. No. Too late in the day, right? Sorry. I had a meeting with, er, Haymitch Abernathy and it threw off my entire day."

She glanced over her shoulder before reaching for him with one hand, her firm fingers wrapping around his wrist. "About tomorrow?"

"Yep. First Reapings are…known to be hard." He didn't want to talk about that, after all; he wanted to talk with her about something else. "Hey, I was wondering if we could meet up later tonight, maybe?" He covered her hand with his own. "Maybe a picnic?"

"Gale?" She cocked her head like a bird. "You must be really nervous," she said decisively, patting his hand with her own. "We'll get through this one, you know. It'll be hard, but you'll…you know you always figure out how to win, right? I bet," she went on, and he was captured by the sudden fire in her eyes, "that you'll do it. You'll bring one home from this one, Gale. Like Haymitch brought you home."

His heart pounded as he studied her face, heard the positivity in her voice. "I want to, Catnip, but…even if I am able to help with the people I've met in the Capitol…" After grimacing he took a deep breath.

"What, Gale?" she whispered urgently. "What is it?"

"I can only bring one home. One." Here, looking into her face, he felt a cold ball of ice form in his gut. "There can only be one Victor. What if I can't bring…" You. He couldn't say that last word but mouthed it silently.

She blanched and her whole body seemed to spasm. "No. I've been lucky so far."

"I was lucky until last year. I was seventeen. It was my last year and still—"

She tried to be flippant, letting go his hands and dipping quickly to pick up the laundry basket. "I'm only sixteen, so you'll have at least one year of Mentoring experience before—"

The mere idea made him want to vomit. "Stop. No." He took her basket and ignored her protests about it. "So, a picnic isn't a good idea?"

"Not tonight. Not before a Reaping."

His heart plummeted. "Tomorrow, then?" He leaned close to her. "We can go to the woods."

Her face lit up and that's what he had been hoping for. She was always happiest in the woods. "Yes. In the morning."

He brushed a lock of hair from her forehead and wished he could keep his hand there, in her hair or on her face. "We always go on our Happy Hunger Games hunt, don't we?"

"Even now, that you're a Victor?" She looked down and up and then away. "A Mentor? Living in the Village?"

"I'd rather hunt with you than be anywhere else tomorrow," he confessed with a shrug.

"Me, too."

Thanks for reading! Remember, this is complete on my end, so I won't leave you hanging. ;-) - LJ