Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Hi! Thanks for deciding to read this story. It's the sequel to my last story, From The Ashes, so you might want to read that first. Phoenix is my AU version of Mockingjay so it's probably more focused on the rebellion than actual games. I hope you enjoy it!


Ramona

I try to run when the car door opens. It doesn't work. The peacekeepers grab me the moment my feet touch the gravel.

I'm dragged towards Snow's mansion, just like I was when Gloss kidnapped me a few hours ago. Except he didn't really kidnap me. He was just bringing me to where I needed to be to assassinate Snow.

Last time I was brought to Snow's mansion, I thought I'd be able to escape. This time, I know I won't.

Plutarch is gone. The rebels are all gone. I'm the only one who didn't make it out.

The peacekeepers shove me through corridors decorated with paintings and ornaments. Snow always liked to show his wealth. I wonder if the new owner of the mansion will redecorate. If he knows what's good for him, he probably won't. Manel Lobos has more important things to think about.

The war, for example.

When we reach the stairs, I know exactly where I'm going and my blood runs cold. One of the guest bedrooms in Snow's mansion is made for prisoners who are too important to keep in just a regular cell. I've never been there before but I've heard enough rumours about it. That's exactly where Manel would want to keep me. He'd told me, when I was handcuffed to a chair with no chance of escape, that I'd be a guest at his new mansion.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life here.

I freeze. I can't take another step. One of the peacekeepers just lifts me up over his shoulder and carries me up the stairs. I'm carried all the way to my room. Then I'm dumped on the floor and the door is locked behind me.

I look around my new room. The window is covered with bars. There's a four-poster bed with cream-coloured sheets against one of the walls. On the other side of the room is a makeup table. I walk over and open a bottle of perfume. Then I gag. It smells of roses - Snow's favourite flower. I find two doors beside the makeup table and I test them to see if they lead to a secret passage I can use to escape. I'm well aware that I'm desperate. One of the doors leads to a bathroom. The other opens on a walk-in wardrobe.

It's full of my clothes.

They're not my clothes exactly. I couldn't choose a dress at random and remember all the times I wore it. But every dress is blue, white or silver - the colours I stopped wearing when my husband was murdered. They bring back so many memories. I bet they all fit me perfectly as well.

There's no way Manel could've had the time to put them there. He's only been president for an hour or so. This must've been Snow's doing. He must've planned to keep me in here.

I slam the door and stumble backwards, sitting down on the bed. I notice something resting on the pillows. A bouquet of white roses. Just like the one I held in my hands when President Snow made me marry his grandson. I know exactly what kind of message he was planning on sending me by putting those flowers there.

I own you, Ramona. You're mine. You'll never escape me.

I shudder. I still feel like Snow has some kind of power over me. Even though I watched him die.

Even though I was the one who killed him.

I'm in exactly the same situation I was in when Snow forced me into an arranged marriage. Except this feels worse, somehow. I accepted my marriage to Alexander Snow. I didn't love him but I liked him. He was much kinder than his grandfather and I believed I couldn't do any better. Now, I know I can.

I remember kissing Lumas just before Gloss took me away. I was going to run away to District 13 with him. I was going to finally let myself heal after everything the Capitol did to me. I was going to let myself love someone and have a happy life. After years of living in a different district to Lumas and being separated from him every time the Hunger Games ended, I was going to be able to see him every day.

But I was going to kill Snow first. That was my undoing.

I wonder where Lumas is now. Is he on his way to District 13 with the rest of the rebellion or did he insist on staying behind when he found out I was captured? I don't know which is worse, the thought of him abandoning me or the thought of him risking his life to rescue me.

Part of me hopes that Manel will capture him and bring him here. I'm sure, if he had Lumas, he wouldn't be cruel enough to keep us in separate cells. In fact, Manel and I used to be friends. The only reason why he took me hostage in the first place was because I'd poisoned Snow and I was his only hope of finding the antidote. He could hold his gun to my head knowing that, if I died, Snow died.

And Snow really didn't want to die.

It just hurts to think of Lumas out there, worrying about me. Over the years, I've given him plenty of reasons to worry. But I'd always volunteered willingly, whether it was for the Hunger Games or a dangerous mission to kill a tyrant. This time, I don't want to be here.

It sounds stupid. I'm not in danger of being killed or tortured. I just don't want to waste any more time in this room. All my friends are out there, fighting a war, living their lives, and I'm trapped.

I let out a scream of frustration and hurl the bouquet at the window. Then I lie back on the bed and start plotting my escape.


Binah

Over the last few months, Ramona has warned me so many times about moving to District 13. She kept telling me it would be hard to adjust but I never listened.

I should've listened. It's strange living underground, especially never having lived anywhere but the city. There's a strange, unfamiliar feeling that I just can't name. I'm sure Ramona would be able to figure out all the changes. She's been forced to uproot herself enough times.

But she's not here. She's still trapped in the Capitol. I've been trying not to worry about her and mostly succeeding. I know there's nothing I can do to rescue her just yet. We're planning to claim a foothold in some of the districts before taking the Capitol. I haven't been able to get involved much. I'm a hacker, not a soldier. I'm told I'll be needed but not yet.

So I have plenty of time to visit my boyfriend in the hospital.

If someone had told me, three weeks ago, that I'd have a boyfriend, I would've laughed. If they'd told me that my boyfriend would be Fawkes Chau, I would've cried.

Fawkes was my district partner, my final opponent. My biggest rival. We'd been in a strained alliance for most of the games, struggling all the way to the final two. Then he'd been attacked by a venomous mutt and I'd started getting sick from being poisoned by the girl from Ten. We'd both agreed, dying in the cellars of our arena, that we'd put our rivalry aside and see who succumbed to the poison first.

Then the parasitic creature that the mutt had planted inside Fawkes had started to burst out of him. He'd begged me for death. I'd given it to him.

I hadn't expected the Quell three years later to clone a small selection of second place tributes. I hadn't expected to ever be responsible for mentoring Fawkes and keeping him safe, even when the trauma from what the mutt had done to him brought him close to suicide. I hadn't expected to be so scared of losing him, either to the Quell or his own demons.

Somewhere, between our final battle on the last day of our games and the day he'd gone into the Quell, I'd fallen for Fawkes Chau. And I'd never expected it. Not in a million years.

I know the way from my new home to the hospital by heart. I probably spend more time beside Fawkes' bed than I do in my room. Even though he survived the Quell and I've reassured him, time and time again, that he's safe, he still has nightmares. They've been giving him drugs to try to get him to sleep but that doesn't mean the nightmares stop, just that he can't wake up.

I've been waiting patiently for the day they release him from the hospital and let him move in with me. Fawkes relies on me for comfort. He only seems to fully wake up from his nightmares when I'm around. I think it's because he's injured. There's nothing he can do but lie there and think too much.

But his leg was really badly broken in the bloodbath of the Quell. Over the course of the games, Fawkes struggled to escape mutts in the jungle heat and ground his broken bone down to splinters. By the end of the games, the bone had pierced the skin and his allies were carrying him around. The doctors say it might never fully heal. Fawkes might need to walk with a cane for the rest of his life.

Fawkes told me he won't complain as long the cane looks cool.

I suppose he's just glad to be alive. The Quell was hard for him. He had so many close calls with angry Careers and vicious mutts.

I walk into Fawkes' room and find him sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in one of District 13's standard grey jumpsuits. His right leg is in a metal brace. For a moment, he looks like a rebel soldier, sharp, lean and dangerous.

He doesn't look like himself.

Then he looks up at me and his eyes brighten behind his glasses. His face breaks into that brilliant smile.

"Binah!" He cries. "They're letting me out today."

He reaches for a pair of crutches resting beside his bed and stands up. He manages to take a few shaky steps towards me before I reach him and wrap my arms around him. Then Fawkes kisses me. For a moment, all the white hospital walls melt away and I'm in a completely different world.

We haven't been together long enough for this to be familiar. I still feel a little out of my depth. It takes me a few seconds just to get my breath back.

"Let's go," I say.

As I lead Fawkes through the corridors and passageways of District 13, I notice that he looks tense. I put my hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I don't like being underground," he says. "The feel of it, knowing all that earth is above me…"

I know. It brings back bad memories. Lumas Taffeta, one of my friends from the Control Centre, had a completely underground arena. He hated it so much that he left at the first opportunity. Now he's off fighting peacekeepers in District 8. Our arena wasn't that bad. It was a haunted house with a large basement but most of the fighting happened on the upper floors.

But that was where the mutt dragged Fawkes. That was where he waited for hours in the dark, too weak from the venom to move.

"It's okay," I say. "You're safe here. This isn't the arena. This is District 13. If you need me to protect you, I will."

Fawkes smiles at me. My heart flutters.

We reach the door of my home - soon to be our home. Compartment 370. It's just two rooms - a bedroom and a bathroom. That's all someone needs in District 13. Both of us stop and take a deep breath.

"This is it," Fawkes says. "The first time I move in with a partner."

I feel my stomach drop, like I'm in a hovercraft taking off. Fawkes is almost three years younger than me but, when it comes to relationships, he's had so much more experience. If this is a big step for him, it's a massive one for me. I'll be going from having had no romantic relationships and living alone, sometimes going days without talking to anyone, to letting my intense, exhausting boyfriend who I've only been with for a week move in with me.

And, to top it all off, it's in a completely new district. The only scraps of my old life I have left are the clothes I was wearing when I came here and my laptop.

Fawkes blinks back tears and takes a deep breath.

"This isn't how I imagined it," he says.

"Hey, at least you've imagined it," I say. "My only dream was to move out and play video games all day. That wasn't how I imagined it either."

"I always thought… my parents would be here…"

He sobs. I wrap my arms around his waist and let him lean on my shoulder. Both sets of our parents were executed by the Capitol after our games, for what we did in the arena. In Fawkes' case it was because he tried to outsmart the gamemakers because (absolutely shockingly) he wanted to live. In my case it was because I tried to annoy the gamemakers and gave them the middle finger.

My relationship with my parents had always been somewhat strained so I'd been able to move on pretty quickly. I think I was more angry at the Capitol for trying to upset me than sad about my parents. But Fawkes loved his parents. He only found out they were dead shortly before the Quell and he was absolutely devastated.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like if we weren't both orphans. Maybe we'd be able to take things a little more slow if Fawkes still had parents to live with. He can't look after himself. It's not because he's useless, just because there's nobody to protect him when he's alone. He draws strength from others.

And, if my parents were still alive…

Would I be trying to fix things with them right now? Would they stop putting pressure on me, since I'd survived the Hunger Games and become one of the most successful people in the district overnight?

I imagine myself introducing Fawkes to my parents. "This is my boyfriend. Here are all the reasons you'll probably disapprove of him: he's bisexual, he's probably not a virgin anymore, he almost failed chemistry, he's had three detentions for talking in class, he never planned to go to university, his parents didn't go to university either, had a kid at eighteen and fix TVs for a living, he doesn't have a job unless you count rebel figurehead, he's been in two Hunger Games and he's still not technically a victor. Oh, and I love him. Do you want me to make you a coffee?"

"You didn't even get to meet them," Fawkes says. "They used to love meeting my partners."

"If it helps, they knew who I was," I say. "They actually mentioned me in their final eight interview. They said they trusted me to look after you."

I remember watching recaps of my games before Fawkes was cloned, trying to get a sense of who he was so I didn't let him down again. They'd surprised me. Fawkes' parents were almost twenty years younger than mine. They must've been almost forty when they died but they looked about thirty. Fawkes' father was like an older version of him, right down to the glasses. His mother had pink streaks in her hair and a lot of makeup. Most of the things they said about Fawkes were painful to listen to. They loved him a lot. They thought he'd win.

When they were asked about me, I'd expected them to dismiss me as a troublemaker. Instead, they'd said nothing but nice things about me, mainly about how they were grateful that Fawkes had such a good ally and that I had excellent hair. I get the feeling they would've approved of me if they'd seen how my relationship with Fawkes had developed.

Fawkes sighs. "They knew better than I did. I think they would've loved you. What about your parents? Did they say anything about me?"

I bite my lip. I can't believe I forced myself to watch my parents' interview but I did.

"They didn't want us in an alliance," I say. "They said you were a disgrace to District 3 and they weren't sure whether they were more scared of you seducing me or infecting me with your gayness."

Fawkes bursts into laughter.

"That's a new one. I kind of wish they were still alive just so I could mess with them. We could've turned it into a competition, seen which of us could to get them to storm out of the room first."

I find myself laughing as well. I can see a trace of who Fawkes used to be before the games and the trauma and the guilt, a teenage heartthrob able to battle his way through countless awkward meetings with his partners' disapproving parents. A master of charming smiles and clever words, capable of talking circles around someone. Fearless.

These days, he can still be brilliant and confident. There are just a lot of things that scare him. I'm glad to see he's not scared of everything.

"Thanks for 'seducing' me," I say.

"You're welcome," Fawkes replies. He pulls away. I can see tears on his cheeks but he's smiling.

I open the door for Fawkes and he limps inside. He looks around at the bare walls, plain bed and small chest of drawers for the small amount of personal belongings we have.

"Is this it?" He asks. "I was expecting more… things…"

"This is District 13," I say. "There seems to be a major shortage of things."

He sighs and sits on the bed, looking drained.

"Is something wrong?" I ask.

"I shouldn't complain," Fawkes says. "I know I'm lucky to be alive. I just… I have nothing. I'm not wearing my clothes. I won't be sleeping in my bed. I won't be living in my room. I'll just be part of District 13, part of the scenery. It'll swallow me up."

"You've got me," I say, sitting down beside him.

"I just want to own something. You're not a thing, Binah. I don't own you. I feel like I'm adrift in the ocean. You're like… a friendly mermaid. You save me from drowning. But all I want is an island. I want solid ground where I can make a paradise with you. This doesn't feel like a paradise. This feels like somewhere strange and unfamiliar and I'm so lost here."

He breaks down. I wrap my arms around him and let him kiss me. His lips are soft and gentle against mine but I can feel this desperation in him, this hunger.

Give me your love, he seems to beg. Give me something that makes me feel human.

I know how crushing it must be for Fawkes to live here. With everyone wearing the same clothes and living in the same compartments, District 13 must be where individuality goes to die. And I think Fawkes takes a lot of comfort over having enough control over his life to be an individual. He likes to have options, otherwise he feels like a puppet.

Or worse…

"Look," I whisper, once we've broken apart. "We are going to make the most of this. I love you and I will do anything to make you happy here. I know this is new and scary but I'll always be there for you. You'll get used to living here. And, when the war is over, we can live somewhere else. Wherever you want."

Fawkes smiles, one of those fragile, hopeful smiles that he wears whenever I make him feel better. I'm about to kiss him again when there's a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," I say. I open the door and Plutarch Heavensbee is standing there. I smile. Maybe I can get him to help Fawkes. Since Plutarch defected from the Capitol, he must be used to a life of luxury. He must be finding it hard to adjust as well.

"Can I talk to Soldier Chau, please?" Plutarch says. I glance over my shoulder at Fawkes. He still looks a little upset and definitely nothing like a soldier. Everyone over the age of fourteen is called a soldier in District 13, whether they're a fighter or not.

"He's just settling in," I say. "What do you want?"

"Since Soldier Chau is the Phoenix, President Coin and I thought it would be wise to make the best use of him we could. We are going to make a series of propaganda films - propos - with him to get as many people as possible on our side."

"I thought rescuing him from the Quell would be enough for the time being," I say. "I know this is really important but Fawkes has just got out of the hospital. He's still really badly hurt. He's exhausted. I don't think it's a good idea putting so much pressure on him. He really needs a break."

Plutarch frowns. I know what he's thinking about. Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the two tributes we were trying to rescue from the arena, both died in the bloodbath. It almost made us abandon our plan to break tributes out of the Third Quarter Quell. But when Fawkes saw the two victors' faces in the sky, he made a speech about how the rebels shouldn't give up and convinced the entire country to keep fighting.

That was when he became the Phoenix. The rebellion's new hero.

"I was on the gamemaking team when Seneca Crane sent that mutt into the arena," Plutarch says. "It was absolutely appalling and I wish I could've stopped him. I can only imagine what Soldier Chau is going through. I want to help as much as I can and, the sooner he agrees to take on his new role, the more leeway I'll have. He can have special treatment, he just needs to earn it, otherwise President Coin won't view him as anything more than an ordinary citizen. If I were him, I'd take the job but demand that certain conditions are met."

"I understand," I say. "I'll tell him right away."

I smile as I close the door. Fawkes might have problems with moving in here but I'm one step closer to fixing them.


This chapter turned out longer than I expected. I decided to give Ramona and Binah POVs to show how different their situations were but I might try to keep it to one POV per chapter in the future. The first few POVs are probably going to be longer because there are fewer major characters and less action than in From The Ashes.

This chapter is about characters adjusting to their new situations. Ramona has to adjust to being a prisoner (or just refuse to adjust and try to escape), Binah has to adjust to living with Fawkes and Fawkes has to adjust to living in District 13 (and just being alive in general). If you're wondering, Ramona's POV is set between the last two chapters of From The Ashes and Binah's POV is set about a week later.