A/N: Canon-typical violence depicted.
PEETA POV
The Games were finally underway and for the very start of them, Haymitch, Katniss and I were in the control room while both Lark and Maevis sat in a little playpen. Maevis, now eight months, was a lot more interesting of a playmate for Lark, so the pair of them were rolling a ball between the two of them. "No, Meevis, roll it to me!" Lark exclaimed at her little sister, who had rolled the ball past Lark, and Maevis simply giggled and clapped her little baby hands. I smiled at my two girls playing together, then turned my attention back to the screen before me, which was in countdown.
The arena was something else new this year - an underground cavern, something that had never been done before in the last seventy-seven years of Hunger Games. It was dark, with only some constantly-lit lamps to light the tunnels and the huge cavern where the cornucopia and the tributes were, and there was no access to the outside world. The arena was entirely underground, which was likely going to make for a very interesting Games this year. Our tributes were on opposite ends of the cornucopia, and Lucy had planned to ally up with Lucas for as long as she could, but Lucas seemed very resistant to the idea. He wanted to work alone, but with his minimal survival skills and choosing to favour weapons in training, he wasn't going to get very far. There weren't a lot of opportunities for natural food sources in this arena at all - maybe bats and some insects, and some minerally water, but there weren't any plants that I could see in this arena. These Games were likely going to be over very quickly.
The countdown ended and the bloodbath commenced. It was always hard to see where our tributes ended up, but within the first five minutes of the Games, we could already see one of the trackers of our tributes disappear - Lucas's - signalling that he had already been killed. It was very dark and with all the ensuing chaos, it was very hard to see what exactly had happened to Lucas, but we'd probably see it later this evening in the recap, when everything calmed down. By the end of the bloodbath, eleven tributes were dead - the girl from One, Peridot, surprisingly, Cellyk from Three (which was predictable), both Iness and Neuro from District Five, Plug from Six, Mystere and Hollick from Eight, Quest from Nine, Ostriny from Ten, Rig from Eleven and Lucas from Twelve. The recap showed Lucas being slashed across the chest and throat by Peridot, who was soon after rammed through the chest by a spear from Cassius of District Four. This left thirteen survivors - Chrome, Freya, Odysseus, Geometra, Cordelia, Cassius, Juness, Jereka, Rowan, Lebellum, Venom, Penance and Lucy.
"We're down one, the boy," Haymitch said, stating the obvious.
"We knew that, Haymitch. We knew that was going to happen, too," I told him.
"And you wanted to save the boy," Haymitch replied.
"I wanted to save both of them, but that's impossible in the Games," I spat back.
"You gave him hope, and that made him cocky," said Haymitch, and I let out a sigh.
"Daddy," I heard a little voice say, and I felt a tug on my pant leg. Looking down, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter looked up at me, her beautiful silver eyes wide with wonder.
"Honeybun, how'd you get out the playpen? You're supposed to stay in there!" I said, picking up my older daughter and holding her on my hip, and then I looked at Katniss. "Someone's got your habit of escaping, I see."
"Keep a wild girl in a cage, she'll find a way out," Katniss told me cheekily.
"What's the matter, honey?" I asked my daughter, turning my attention back to her. "Do you have to go potty? We can go to the potty if you want." She shook her head, then pointed at the screen.
"What happen?" she asked, watching the recap of Lucas's murder on the screen. She knew what blood was, and she knew what happened when I cut myself with a knife in the kitchen when cooking. "He have boo-boo. He need help." I let out a sigh - death was too much for my little girl to comprehend right now, or at least, I thought it was. God knows we'd all been desensitised to the horrors of the Hunger Games since we were Lark's age.
"He's hurt, sweetie. He'll be okay. He's gonna go to a good place and be made all better," I told her. I didn't like the idea of my daughters in the same room as the screen that showed the Games. It was easier when Lark was younger, too young to pay attention to the screen and too young to really understand what was going on, but now, she was starting to have an idea. "Can Daddy put you back to play with Maevis now, honey? Daddy's gotta work."
"No!" Lark exclaimed, and I sighed. Katniss then stood up and came up to me, holding her hands out for our daughter.
"I'll take her for a walk," she said, and I passed our daughter into her arms. "Just keep an eye on Lucy, all right? We're getting her out."
"Absolutely," I said, and she kissed my cheek before she left the room with Lark.
"How was last night?" Haymitch asked me once Katniss had left. He knew what we'd had to do, and he knew what the goal of the evening was. "Any luck?"
"We won't know for a couple more days... I don't know how they know so early. Katniss says that women don't know in the districts until they're at least a month, but usually closer to two," I replied, sitting back down in my seat.
"I just hope all this works out for you two. I hate seein' ya both so damn miserable," Haymitch replied. I hated it, too, Haymitch, more than anything in the world. I hated how afraid of Snow Katniss was, and I hated how afraid she was of the reapings. This girl, who didn't fear people who held a knife to her, who laughed in the face of danger and feared nothing, was reduced to a shell of the woman she once was. All because of her fear of losing the people she loved most. Prim still had three more years of reapings left, in nine years, Lark would have seven reapings if Katniss hadn't made the bargain to keep her safe from them, and in eleven years, Maevis would also have seven reapings. And this next one - our son - would have seven reapings in twelve years.
I'd always wanted children ever since I was a child myself, but never like this. I always pictured myself with a daughter that looked like Katniss, with her brown hair in two braids and Katniss's beautiful grey eyes, and then a son with my mop of blonde hair and blue eyes. I wanted us to plan for children and decide when we were ready for them, not when the Capitol 'needed a distraction'. I loved my daughters more than anything in the world - Lark, who was born out of love but raised for the Capitol, and Maevis, who was born out of necessity for the Capitol - and I knew I would love my son, too, but I was miserable with my situation. My children weren't here because they were wanted by two parents who were grown and able to care for them, they were here because the Capitol demanded them to be - because Snow required them of us, two people who were still kids themselves. I imagined many scenarios of myself and my family over the years, but this was never it. Never could I have imagined a scenario so horrible, and it was only going to get worse.
The second day of the Games saw the deaths of Juness and Cassius at the hands of Chrome, who had no allies but himself, and Geometra was killed by an attack of bat muttations. The only alliance that had formed was the one between Odysseus and Lucy, who found each other on the third day and agreed to work together. "I don't think this a good idea, but I'll stay with you as long as I deem myself able to," Lucy had said to him.
"I already told you, if it comes down to it, Lucy, then I won't kill you," Odysseus replied.
"Why aren't you with the Careers? Or Freya, at least?" Lucy asked the District Two boy.
"Peridot's dead, Chrome's an idiot, and Freya... we have different goals," Odysseus replied. "She wants a chance to win, but I want you to win."
"So she'll probably kill us both if she sees us," Lucy stated, and Odysseus nodded.
"Most likely, yeah," he said honestly. They made a good pair, managing to find a few bats and cook them for food, but they stayed well hidden. On the fifth day, Odysseus protected Lucy from a poisonous snake, which had been unleashed on them by Jereka and Rowan from District Seven. Rowan got away, but Odysseus managed to kill Jereka before he and Lucy fled to a safer tunnel. By the sixth day, the surviving tributes were Chrome, Freya, Odysseus, Cordelia, Rowan, Lebellum, Venom, Penance and Lucy - nine tributes left.
A few days after the Games began, Katniss was brought to her appointment at the hospital to check for conception, and sure enough, all those fertility treatments confirmed that she was pregnant, and Katniss and I breathed a sigh of relief. We wouldn't have to stay in the Capitol to try again, and we'd only have to come back in a few weeks' time to confirm the gender of the baby, which was fine by us. We were finally free to focus on the Games and our remaining tribute.
On the eighth day, a feast was held to bring out the tributes from hiding after a day of no action whatsoever, and it brought out Odysseus, Freya, Cordelia, Rowan, Venom and Chrome. A fight broke out, of course, and Venom had managed to coat the blade of his knife with the venom of a poisonous snake. While Chrome took on Rowan, Cordelia and Freya, Venom slashed Odysseus's arm and while Venom ran, Odysseus threw a knife in his back, killing him. Now wounded and poisoned, Odysseus raced back to Lucy while the cannon went off two more times, signalling the ends of Cordelia and Rowan. We sent them food and fresh water as well, and a set of bandages for Odysseus, but we just couldn't afford medicine. The mentors of District Two likely did have the funds to send their tribute medicine to save him, but for some reason, they weren't.
"He's goin' against everythin' that District Two stands for in the Games," Haymitch said. "Doesn't wanna kill, won't kill the girl... They picked their other tribute and they're leavin' him to die." It was heartbreaking, actually, to watch his slow decline over a period of a couple of days. On the tenth day, Chrome had managed to kill Lebellum and on the eleventh, Freya and Penance had a spat that ended in Penance's death. This just left Chrome, Freya, Odysseus and Lucy - four tributes left. On the twelfth day, it was obvious that Odysseus was on his last legs, and Lucy did all she could for him. She'd tended to his wounds and tried her best to prevent infection, but to no avail. So she sat with him and sang to him, a sweet song that Katniss had once sang to Rue when we were in our arena, now three years ago.
'Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes,
And when again they open, the sun will rise.
Here it's safe, here it's warm,
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true.
Here is the place where I love you...
She touched his face lightly, and he smiled at her, his breathing heavy and his face likely warm from fever. They resembled Katniss and myself from a memory long ago - the fair-haired boy dying in a dark cave, and the girl with the dark hair hovering over him, tenderly giving him her care in an effort to keep him alive. She lowered her face to kiss his sweaty brow, then led a trail of kisses down his face until they sweetly touched his lips. Suddenly, footsteps approaching alerted both of them to a nearby presence - it was Freya, who stood bathed in the unnatural light of the lantern.
"Lucy... go..." Odysseus muttered quietly, but Lucy didn't move, not even when Freya began to carefully approach the pair. As she came into the light, the expression on her face wasn't a murderous look, but instead, sympathetic. She fell to her knees beside Odysseus, her hands resting on her knees.
"You're dying," she said to him.
"Lucy, you need to-" Odysseus began to say to Lucy, but Freya stopped him.
"I'm not going to hurt her," she whispered quietly. At the time, I was in the lobby with other Capitolites and victors, standing beside Finnick, Glitter and Aristotle Archer, who had once been Glitter's mentor, as we watched the dramatic scene before us. There was an audible gasp from the Capitol citizens at Freya's shocking admission - she, too, was defying expectations of District Two. "You love her... I'll keep her safe. For you." Freya placed a hand on Odysseus's shoulder, and he weakly covered hers with his. Lucy laid down beside him, her head on his chest, and the two girls sat in silence with Odysseus while he slowly died. It took another hour or so, but his breathing slowed until it stopped completely, his cannon signalling the end of his short but chaotic life.
"I can't believe it," Finnick muttered. "Both of them... They're not..."
"They're not killers," Glitter said, finishing his thought.
"No wonder they didn't ally with our tributes," Aristotle said. He was on the young side, like us, having won the 63rd Hunger Games, the year before Finnick.
"No," I chimed in. "She... She's allying with Lucy... But there's three left."
"She must really care about that boy," said Finnick, looking at me. If there was anything Finnick and I knew best, it was of notions of the heart. Finnick and I both loved wholeheartedly and unconditionally, and we'd both made sacrifices for those we cared about most. A small part of me hoped Lucy wouldn't trust the District Two girl, as she had proven to be cold-hearted and determined to win in the past, but something told me that Freya's intentions were true.
The final showdown would be later that same day, between Lucy, Freya and Chrome. Chrome might be dumber than a sack of flour, but he was strong and he was anxious for the Games to come to an end, and he wanted to be the victor. He vilely taunted the two girls, threatening to end them in a way most horrible for the sake of glory, but his cockiness would get in the way. He miscalculated exactly how skilful Freya was at misdirection and he took a knife in the shoulder, but he was still standing. "Is that all you've got, girl ?" he taunted, and with his injured arm, he still skillfully threw his spear at Freya, who dodged it and threw another knife, this time sinking it into his neck. He stumbled backwards and held his hand to his wound, cackling as he began to spit up blood. "Congratulations, Victor," he spat, and then he died.
But the Games weren't over yet. Freya turned to face Lucy, seemingly prepared to sacrifice herself, but Chrome's spear was embedded in her abdomen - just like the one that had been in Rue. "No," I whispered, my hands over my mouth.
"No... Lucy!" Freya exclaimed, running to the other girl's side and catching her as she collapsed.
"Looks like you get to win after all," Lucy muttered weakly and with amusement.
"I didn't want it to be this way. He wanted it to be you," Freya told her with emotion.
"Well... Life wouldn't have been much fun without him anyway. Think I'll try it this way," Lucy replied, grimacing from the pain. "Make our deaths count..." Freya nodded as Lucy slipped away.
"I promise," she muttered quietly, and the cannon went off, signalling the end of the Hunger Games, and of Lucy Greyson. Freya Deshannon of District Two was the victor of the 77th Hunger Games, and she made it clear that she didn't want to be.
We were due to head back to District Twelve a few days after the Games came to an end with two more names to add to our list, but Katniss seemed to have other plans. "Take the girls and hold the train for me. I have to do something," she told me, handing Maevis to me.
"Katniss, what are you doing?" I asked her, concerned she was getting herself into something she very well couldn't get out of.
"I'll tell you later. Just wait for me," she replied, and she gave me a chaste kiss on my lips before rushing off to God knew where.
KATNISS POV
I wanted to see Freya, if I could, and that likely meant sneaking into the Tribute Tower and onto her floor, the second floor. I'd seen all of her mentors in the lounge of the Hotel sharing a celebratory bottle of champagne or five - Milla Darwin, the oldest, Talin Barkley, Nova Teller, Reglin Grigg, the rather smug Lenerok Kifflin, Brutus Athens, Magnow Rose, Enobaria Heller and Cyrus Tyranny, getting drunk instead of spending time with their new victor. Because of this, I knew she'd be alone, so getting into her room without arousing suspicion would be easy. I got on the elevator, telling a peacekeeper that Lucy had left an item in her room and I had yet to retrieve it, and made my way to the second floor. The elevator let off immediately into the suite, so when I came in, I scanned the room, but it was empty. I cleared my throat. "Freya?" I called. I heard shuffling come from the bedroom and the door opened, and the eighteen-year-old girl with strawberry blonde hair and a silver stare exited from the room. She was young, but only a year younger than myself.
"Katniss Everdeen," she said suspiciously, surprised to see me in her room. "What brings you here?" She crossed her arms.
"I wanted to thank you... for what you did for Lucy in the arena," I told her. "It was... incredibly brave... and unheard of, especially for..."
"For a Career?" Freya asked me, and I nodded.
"Why didn't you kill her?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. Freya shrugged.
"I didn't save her. Does it matter?" she asked.
"She was a girl from District Twelve, and she was hovering over your dying district partner."
"I knew she didn't kill him. I knew she wouldn't. And I cared a lot about him." I nodded subtly, glancing at my feet.
"Congratulations, on winning... We'll be seeing each other soon, on the Victory Tour."
"District Twelve is my first stop, isn't it?" I nodded. "Then I guess I'll see you then." I couldn't say what I wanted to say to this girl here, not in the middle of the Capitol in one of the most likely bugged rooms in the entire country. I sent her a warning with my eyes that her actions put her on thin ice, and I only hoped she could read them; she gave a subtle nod, then went back into her room. I think she did understand me.
When I returned to the train, I found Effie freaking out over the fact that I was 'making everyone late' by some last minute errand I needed to run, but I brushed her off and simply climbed onto the train. I sought out my husband, who was putting our daughters down for a nap in the room that once was mine when we were on this train as tributes, and then as victors. I stood in the doorway and watched as he tended to them. "Goodnight, my beautiful girls. Daddy will see you soon, when nap time is over," he told them both, kissing their little cheeks and tucking them in. "I hope you both have the sweetest dreams." He turned to leave the room, stopping when he saw me, and then exited the room and closed the door when we were both in the hall. "So," he asked me. "What was that about?"
"I'll tell you at home," I told him, reaching up and wrapping my arms around his neck. "I'm so glad to finally be going home..."
"Me too, but we'll be back on this train in a few weeks, when we have to go back to the Capitol to see if the baby's a boy," Peeta reminded me, and I let out a sigh.
"I know... but at least we can have a little peace," I replied. Neither of us wanted to acknowledge the fact that we were, again, returning home with no tribute - our list had been bumped up to eight names now. I'll never forget those eight names - Penelope Ruewood, Thelma Ruewood, Sage Darcy, Eliza Darcy, Millie Dawson, Vick Hawthorne, and now, Lucy Greyson and Lucas Steele. Eight people that trusted me and Peeta and Haymitch to bring them home; eight people that we had failed.
A/N: Why would Freya want to keep Lucy alive? What could possibly have motivated this District Two Career to want to spare the life of a girl from District Twelve?
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