Here's Chapter 2 (enjoy everyone being alive while it lasts, mwahaha).

I also want to introduce a fun, and completely pointless game called "Heathers Soundtrack Bingo" - basically, I thought it would be fun to hide all the song titles from the soundtrack (including the West End songs, excluding reprises) somewhere in the fic - so see if you can spot them as you read (there was one last chapter and one this one).


It's still dark when Veronica wakes up from a fitful sleep. The luminous green clock on the wall informs her it's five. Training isn't until ten and breakfast isn't served until eight-thirty, so she flops back onto the mattress and tries to drift off, though she already knows it's futile.

Instead, she gazes at the elaborately decorated ceiling. Her bedroom is the most luxurious thing she's ever seen, especially considering it's designed to be mostly used while she is unconscious. There is a gigantic wardrobe filled to the brim with stupid looking dresses - entirely impractical for her remaining days alive, a TV that takes up an entire wall and even a collection of high tech game consoles (in case she wants to take a break from practicing for actual combat by engaging in fantasy combat).

The bed she is lying on is also a marvel of Capitol technology, a mattress as soft as a dove, which memorises the contours of the body for perfect comfort, feather-light blankets, which keep the user permanently at their optimum temperature and soundproofed pillows designed to give the sleeper an undisturbed night.

It is awful.

She is alone, comfortable and with no distractions to take her mind off her thoughts.

She rolls over, buries her head in her pillows, all the soundproofing in the world unable to muffle the chant of you're not going to survive, you're not going to survive, rattling around her brain.

xxx

Pauline grills them at breakfast just as much as she did at dinner last night.

Correction, Pauline grills Brad, (apparently one glance at a muscled tribute and she can already see every Capitol magazine vying for her on the front page), and pretty much ignores Veronica while Cecelia and Garfunkel, their district mentors (the ones who have actually competed in the Games so might actually have some good advice), can't get a word in edgeways.

Brad was a couple of years above her at school, was Football Captain and apparently has the right combination of strength, looks, stupidity and arrogance to have had half the girls in school in love with him and the other half wondering what the hell was wrong with their peers. He was the kind of guy that everyone knew. He, on the other hand, never noticed she existed and is clearly planning on keeping it that way.

Still, his boastful replies (he is so close to the Careers already, especially David, the biggest and strongest), are probably the most useful thing that's ever come out of his mouth. From Brad she finds out that – in a stroke of stunning originality by their parents – all three of the fierce looking female Careers are named Heather, while the guys are David, Kurt and Ram. All six of them are 17 or 18, were top of their class at a fighting academy for at least the past decade ("but there's no accounting for natural talent!" Pauline croons), are masters at both weapons and hand to hand combat and have already agreed to team up in the arena (and apparently are fine with Brad tagging along).

Yeah, she is dead. So dead.

xxx

"Sooooo," asks Betty, running up to her as they are waiting for training to begin and glancing, none too subtly at JD, "did you get your questions answered?"

"Yeah. He's a weirdo."

"A cute weirdo?"

"Yeah, whatever," She's not sure she wants to elaborate on the strange conversation she had yesterday. Nevertheless, she looks over and checks him out again. He's attractive, mostly in a my parents would have a heart attack if I brought him home sort of way, but she has until Tuesday to fit a lifetime's worth of teenage rebellion in, so that is just a bonus. There's a part of her that needs to have him before it's too late.

The rest of her simply knows that she doesn't want to be anywhere near him in the arena.

There's something about him. Something about the way he quietly takes everything in, always watching, never reacting. Something about the emotionless apathy he regards the rest of the contestants with, even as he assesses their every move. He's formulating a plan that no one else will have even thought of, she's sure of it, and it won't go well for anyone mixed up in it.

If she wasn't in the Games herself, and was the gambling over child murder type, she'd put her money on him. As it is, she's mostly just pissed that it's her Games he chose to volunteer in.

He's dangerous, and she loves and hates how hot she finds this.

He catches her gaze and holds it unashamed, until she gets embarrassed and looks away.

xxx

Betty joins her again for the training, as they make their way around the rest of the soft skills.

They both suck at plant identification. The instructor keeps going over different leaf shapes and colours of flowers, but the plants all just look different and more exciting than the moss at home (God knows, she'd never seen a real life tree until the day she got on the Capitol train). She memorises a few distinct looking edible berries and prays that it'll be enough.

Betty excels at anything that requires construction or logic, so easily puts together basic and more complex shelters. While Veronica can tie knots and weave nets with her eyes shut.

"If only we had an annual sew to the death competition instead. I think I could do that."

"I assume Brad would be pretty solid competition?"

Veronica waves this hypothetical problem away, "I'd sabotage him, or stab him with a needle beforehand, it would be fine."

Betty lets out a pearl of real, genuine laughter. Veronica is unable to resist grinning in response and lets the lack of complete despair such a friendship offers wash over her. Veronica's never really had a best friend. She's always been described as "nice" or "sweet" by the other girls who considered her a friend and she's hung with them in their groups, but there's never been someone attached at the hip, who she can trust with her deepest secrets and have weekly sleepovers and numerous in-jokes with. She thinks in another world that best friend could be Betty.

She's never met someone quite like her. The girl wears her heart on her sleeve and she finds it astounding that, in a place like this, she's found someone she feels actually cares what happens to her. It feels like she's known Betty for years, not just a little more than a day. It's probably just denial but, it's hard to feel like your life is completely doomed when you have someone in the same position as you to almost enjoy it with.

Soon after lunch, she notices that the Careers are finally slowly migrating from their dick measuring contests at the weapons section and are moving over to dabble in surviving in ways that don't just require monopolising all the resources.

She points this out to Betty, "Shall we try them out?"

But her friend shakes her head, "No, you go ahead, I'll be no good at fighting and I don't really want to learn to hurt people."

Veronica's stomach sinks, she doesn't want to think about what this means. Suddenly all the mirth from the morning is gone and their situation seems all too real, "I don't think we have much of a choice."

Betty's face hardens, her expression is closed, "There's always a choice, it might be limited, it might result in my death, but no one can force me to be who I don't want to be."

"Are you sure?" says Veronica finally. What else is there to say? I'm sorry? Pity doesn't do anything.

Betty smiles sadly, "Yes, I'm sure, I have been for a while."

Veronica can only nod and shuffle off. When she looks back, her friend smiles at her, but it does nothing to ease the knot in her stomach.

She wonders if Betty expects her to refuse too, but she's not going into the arena with no way of defending herself. Friend or not, Veronica's not sure she can risk having Betty as an ally once they enter the Games.

But the idea of Betty suffering, of dying alone, in pain and scared is no more appealing. Maybe they'll both die in the bloodbath and then she won't have to deal with such issues.

She does her best to push it all out of her mind as she approaches the nearest weapons station.

"Experience with swords?" asks the trainer.

"Um… I use a knife to cut fabrics and prepare food back home and I've seen swords on TV before."

If the trainer is disappointed with her being a complete amateur, he doesn't show it. He calmly sorts between the blades, until he finds a small sword that she can swing, and gently grasps her wrists guiding her in the basic strokes. The movements feel foreign to her. She's never even really been in a fight before. Sure, there was that time when she was 8 and had a scuffle with a girl who stole her skipping rope, and there have certainly been times when she's wanted to hit people who said stupid things, but she didn't want to be hit back nor known as the girl who hits people who say stupid things.

Eventually, he decides she's ready to try her techniques out on a real target and points her towards a line of dummies.

She examines the dummy, it doesn't really look like a human, it has no face or hair for a start, but even so, it looms above her, a head taller than her and a whole lot more muscly. She tries a few moves on it, it's sort of ok, but hitting a target is a lot easier if it's not screaming for mercy or worse also attacking you with a much bigger sword.

After he's vaguely satisfied, the trainer switches the sword for a knife, which is thankfully a little easier to manage, and shows her closer combat, how to block, how to stab, how to slit a throat. It's a bit like extreme sewing, it's all about memorising the movements that have the most impact with the least amount of effort. She leaves thinking, if nothing else, she might at least be slightly better at not dropping the knife on her foot.

She's much worse at archery (it takes her a good minute to string her bow and then the arrows fall pitifully a few meters from where she was standing) and her javelin lacks quite a lot of the necessary accuracy to do much more than disturb some leaves and reveal her location.

By the last hour of training, she's exhausted, her arms are aching from lifting the heavy weapons, her legs are complaining about being forced into completely new directions for fighting stances and her mind just wants to stop thinking about different ways to cause damage.

She looks around the hall guiltily and sees she's far from the only one, the Heathers are huddled in a corner pointing and giggling at any contestant who is struggling, the nerdy guys have given up any attempt at actual fighting and are hitting each other with wooden swords and the stoners have disappeared altogether. Even Brad has moved on from showing the Careers his strength, to bragging instead about his (admittedly good, he is from the textile district) knot tying skills, as he and David sit at the ropes station making elaborate traps and netting.

She shuffles over to the camouflage area, picks up a paintbrush and a canvas, vaguely attempts to remember what the edible plants look like, and ignores the world for a little while focusing on the brushstrokes and how the colours work together.

JD comes over from the knife station.

"Nice flower."

She smiles at him, a tad sarcastically, looking up from under her eyelashes, "It shall be the talent that wins me the Games."

He looks faintly amused.

"It's calming, ok? I like art, I'm good at it. I'd have loved to have been a designer back in 8, but you end up in a factory if you don't have connections."

"In 12 you end up starving unless your family got rich from sucking up to the Peacekeepers," he says, nodding at his district partner who is struggling with a running exercise on the other side of the room. She is about twice the size of him, "Martha's father's the Mayor, I imagine it's quite a scandal back home. Must be nice to have a shitty father who is rich, rather than a shitty father who's a drunkard."

She doesn't ask for more information about his family life, it feels like a can of worms she's not ready to open, "And yet, she was reaped and you were not."

He chortles, "No one is safe, no matter how much they think they are, not here in Panem. And, as for me, I'm sure they were just biding their time."

She thinks about asking for clarification, but decides he's spewing enough treason without her encouraging it. Instead, she gestures at Kurt and Ram who, unlike their contemporaries, are still beating the stuffing out of some unfortunate dummies, "Still think you have a chance at winning?"

"I knew those idiots' tactics before I laid eyes on them. They won't be an issue."

Oh to be an adolescent male, with all the confidence in the world, "You might be forgetting the other ways to die. There are animals, natural disasters and poisonous plants. I still feel like, you know, not volunteering, would have been a safer choice."

"If we die, we die. At least we know we tried. We'll all die unfulfilled in this hell hole anyway. Why not go out with a bang…" He trails off, looks around and, for a mad moment, she wonders if he's actually regretting his treasonous words.

"Do you want to get out of here?" His eyes leave no room for mistaking his intentions and she puts up no resistance. He grasps her hand and tugs her out of the room. Betty raises her eyebrows as she sees them go, "I want to show you something."

When they enter the lobby, he looks around for the cameras on the ceiling, but instead of shying away, he just smirks at them, checks one is following their movement and pulls her into a nearby closet.

His lips are on hers before she has a chance to protest. She wasn't planning to anyway, she just pulls him closer and moans in his mouth as his hands slide underneath her shirt.

His mouth is on her collarbone, her neck, so he's not doing a great job of explaining whatever point he's trying to make, but she ignores that issue for now.

What am I doing, she thinks, how is this happening on the eve of my death with a boy who in a week might be my murderer? Even as she shoves her hands down his pants when he's not moving fast enough.

He grunts, pushes his pants down to his knees and then abruptly kicks the door open, holding her wrists as she unsuccessfully scrabbles to close it.

"Look at the camera," he mutters in her ear.

Blushing furiously, she obliges. It's no longer facing them, in fact, it's facing the opposite direction. He lets her squirm uncomfortably for a few seconds more before he shuts the door and continues the more important task of pulling down her pants.

He chuckles softly, "Violence, child death, all ok, but God forbid they show an act of consensual sex, the Capitol wouldn't ever want to traumatise the children. This is the most privacy we'll ever get in the Games."

She's not sure if she believes him, but she'll be damned before she dies a virgin.

xxx

Afterwards, she leans against him, readjusting her clothes and catching her breath. Outside, the bustle of the rest of the world has returned, though through the slit in the door she can see the cameras are still pointing away from them.

She glances at them curiously, then looks back at him, all of yesterday's questions seem even more important today, "What are you planning?" she asks, not particularly expecting an answer.

His smile is less affectionate and more superior than she would like, given the circumstances.

"That would be telling, you'll know when the time is right."

She leaves quickly after that.

xxx

All attempts to return to the Training Hall unnoticed prove entirely futile, as she spots Betty hanging around by the door.

"What happened? What happened? You have to tell me!"

"We did it, in the closet."

Betty's eyes widen as she's caught between scandal and excitement, "What was it like?"

We're still children, oh God we're still such children, "It was nice. Now I'm not going to talk any more about it, and will skip any awkwardness by avoiding him for the rest of my life."

A good plan, considering the circumstances, but one she's still not sure she'll pull off (and only partially because Betty looks like she'll thrust a spear through her, pre-Games rules be damned, if she doesn't get a few more details).

xxx

She barely listens to Pauline and Brad's rambles that evening and, even when Cecelia asks her questions directly, she grunts one word answers.

Her head is spinning, and now it's not just because of the whole I'm going to die next week thing.

There's a bar in the suite's lounge that gives you whatever drink you say to the microphone. Her experience with alcohol mostly involves the odd stolen bottle of home brewed wine shared in the corner of the playground after school, but she orders several shots of vodka (which apparently here have specks of gold in) and downs them without hesitation.

She'll probably have a headache in the morning, but it's worth it for the peaceful sleep.