Trigger Warning: There's a little bit of PTSD in here.


Bernard Barkley, District 7

"What a gift has been given me,

Here with my heart so whole where others may be grieving."

The Decemberists, 12/17/17


In District 12, he feels lonely.

There are no victors there, just officials and peacekeepers. Twelve must have had a victor once but Bernard can't remember what happened to them. He's grateful for Sean, his mentor. Without Sean, he'd be the lone victor in a sea of innocents.

It's strange that nobody seems to care about the kids who'd died, not even their families. Maybe Twelve is just so weary from decades of mourning that they've stopped caring.


In District 11, he feels guilty.

It's often the way with Seven and Eleven. Their tributes often have similar skills, skills that often lead to triumph in natural arenas.

Their tributes often steal the victory from the other district.

The rivalry had started with Sean's axe separating Kohlrabi's head from his shoulders. Then, the following year, Seeder had dropped a noose over Rowan's head and left him to hang. Bernard hadn't meant to carry it on. He'd just seen a shape moving towards him with a spear in the bloodbath and he'd slashed and slashed and slashed.

That shape had been a girl. And that girl had scored a nine in training and given District Eleven hope for their fourth victor. But with a few lucky strikes, she'd died in the bloodbath like so many Eleven girls before her.

The crowd jeers as Bernard reads his speech. Waves of hatred roll off them. It's clear they'd rather he'd died. He'd killed one of their children. They'd rather be listening to a Career speak than him.

Tradition mandates that one of Eleven's past victors gives Bernard a tour. He's grateful that it's Courgette Leland. Brock Eska and Seeder Howell are both sullen and vengeful but Courgette is good at faking a smile. Bernard almost can't tell the difference.

He wonders if her smile would have been real if someone else had won.


In District 10, he feels welcomed.

Sean had set up good relations between District 7 and District 10. They had started with his alliance with the boy from Ten in his arena and been strengthened by his Control Centre friendship with Palomino Burton.

Bernard had been nervous about meeting Palomino Burton. He'd only been twelve when Palomino had won. He hadn't even begun to understand the struggles that the boy from Ten with the wild, grey eyes had gone through in the arena.

Now they have a lot in common. They're the only two victors who'd won the games with a wedding ring on their finger.

Bernard had married his childhood sweetheart, Myla, about a year before he'd been reaped. He'd pushed himself to make those kills, to bathe himself with blood, in the hope that he'd be able to give her more than that. He'd realised, watching reruns of the Thirty-Eighth Games, that it had been that same desire to give more to the people he'd loved that had kept Palomino alive.

Palomino and his family greet them at the station. Sean immediately rushes over to him and gives him a hug. Bernard watches Palomino eagerly introduce Sean to his wife and kids, feeling a little left out.

It doesn't last long.

"Hey, Bernard," Palomino says, "How's the tour gone so far?"

"It's been good," Bernard lies.

"It must be hard for you to be away from Myla," Palomino says.

"Yeah..." Bernard says. "It is."

"It's okay. I know what you're going through," Palomino says. "I got to take my wife and my kids on my victory tour but I miss them so much when I mentor every year. It helps if you get to know the other mentors. They're like a second family. I know I wouldn't have managed without Sean."

"Neither would I," Bernard says. "I owe him my life."

"I do as well," Palomino says, quietly. "I think I needed someone to mentor me through being a mentor. If you need any help in the Control Centre, let me know. I'll do the best I can."

"Thanks," Bernard mumbles. For a brief moment, there'd been a darkness in Palomino's eyes that had reminded him of his district's first victor, Nate. Bernard hasn't seen much of Nate, since the older victor still refuses to be in the same room as him. Sean keeps telling Bernard that he'll eventually come around. He's just never had to deal with a really deadly victor from Seven before.

It makes Bernard feel even more like an outsider. Nate has no kills. Norah has three. Sean has two. Bernard has six.

"Now follow me," Palomino says, brightly. "Let's make District 10 the highlight of your victory tour."

Palomino is right. Bernard likes being in District 10. Unlike Twelve, where everyone had looked worn-out and Eleven where everyone had been angry, everyone in Ten welcomes Bernard with a smile. It can't have been because of something he'd done in the arena, since he'd hardly interacted at all with the tributes from Ten. Maybe it's just out of kindness.

Besides, he likes being away from his wife.


In District 9, he feels dirty.

He's pretty sure that he's eating his victory banquet with the proper manners that his escort taught him. He doesn't understand why Emily Yeast keeps looking at him like he's a dead rodent the cat left on the doorstep.

It's not like he's poor anymore. It's not like he'd done anything that bad in the arena, either. He'd just quietly killed people. Nothing scandalous, like the great feats that Nine's two most recent male victors had achieved.

He asks Sean why Emily keeps giving him dirty looks the moment he boards the train to Eight. Sean explains that it's just how she looks at everyone.

It still hurts.


In District 8, he feels confused.

"Have you ever seen any reruns of the Tenth Hunger Games?" Woof Casino asks during the banquet.

"No," Bernard says. "I don't think there are any."

"Exactly! Why do you think that is?"

"Because it was boring?"

"That's exactly what they want us to think!" Woof cries.

"Who are they?" Bernard asks, utterly mystified.

"I don't know. But I know that they took my brother and they want to cover it up. I'm sure of it."

Bernard isn't sure that Woof is sane and the reruns he's seen of the Seventeenth Games back that theory up.


In District 6, he feels grateful.

Their two victors are both complete messes. Taia Warden refuses to come near him, convinced that he's still covered in the grime of his swampy arena. Lua Toyota gives the tour with glassy, unfocused eyes and slurred speech. She's obviously high.

Bernard is grateful that, despite all the guilt and the nightmares and the loneliness, he still has his mind mostly intact.


In District 5, he feels jealous.

Luka Starkwain gives the tour. Understandable given that Sotope Baymark is probably still angry at Bernard for killing her tribute and Turbin Bloodhawk is famously reclusive. Throughout the tour, Bernard tries to find the courage to ask Luka a very difficult question. It hadn't felt right to ask Palomino and it wouldn't feel right to ask any of the Careers. It has to be an outlier, one who'd killed effortlessly.

"Luka," Bernard asks, "Was Callisto ever scared of you because of what you'd done in the arena?"

"No," Luka says. "I know it goes against your instincts but you shouldn't feel guilty about what you did in the arena. You did a service to your country in ensuring that there will never be another rebellion. It might be a little unnerving for Myla but she'll figure out that you're not someone who should be feared. You just did what you were meant to do and, now you're out of the arena, you'll never kill anyone ever again."

"Okay," Bernard says, feeling like some of that reassurance hadn't applied to him.

He didn't feel like he was out of the arena.

He'd been having nightmares about the arena ever since he'd come home. One night, he'd woken up to Myla's scrams and found out that he'd attacked her in his sleep. Ever since then, they'd slept in separate beds.

Myla had told him that she couldn't understand why he'd changed so much. Nothing that bad had happened to him for the entire games. Maybe if he'd been wracked with guilt over his kills like Palomino Burton had been, she'd understand. But he'd made it look easy.

Bernard had made killing six kids look easy.

But he'd never wanted to. He'd just been so focused on survival.

He spends the rest of his stay in District 5 wondering why a volunteer like Luka Starkwain ended up with eight kills, a happy wife and two kids - a nuclear family in the power district - while Bernard has to watch the love of his life slowly drift away from him.


In District 4, he feels destructive.

"And here's the archery range," Surf Depthell leads Bernard around District 4's training academy, where children became killers. He'd never realised how much work the Careers put into the games every year.

Surf doesn't even acknowledge that he's talking to the killer of a boy from this academy.

It's like this every year. The Career districts send in their academy kids with their hopes and dreams and ambitions. Five of them - sometimes even six - have their hopes stolen from them.

Bernard thinks of all the hope, all the training, all the years of hard work and perseverance that a Career tribute needed to volunteer. Every Career victor seemed to have worked hard to get where they were.

But some years, a tough outlier plucked out of the reaping bowl by nothing more than fate came out of nowhere and won.

Bernard is the wild card. The spanner in the works. The one small variable which meant that all the Careers' years of punishing training meant nothing.


In District 3, he feels false.

Bernard is welcomed like a hero. He doesn't feel like a hero. He'd come across the boy from Three about a week into the games. The poor child was starved, wounded and feverish.

Bernard had sliced his head off with one blow of his axe.

Clearly, the people of Three appreciate a quick death rather than a long, drawn out one. A mercy kill.

Bernard is too ashamed to admit that it hadn't been a mercy kill. He'd seen how crafty Three tributes could be. He'd thought the boy was faking his weakness to lure other tributes into a trap.


In District 2, he feels resentful.

There are so many victors at the table, and two of the earlier victors hadn't even shown up. Bernard wonders if it's because of Career might?

Why can't every district be able to train tributes? What makes One, Two and Four so worthy.

Bernard had killed both tributes from Two. He tries to ignore the fact that every victor at this table will probably encourage their tributes to target Seven next year.


In District 1, he feels helpless.

"I look forward to seeing you in the Control Centre," Coco Montclaire says, as she finishes the tour of the third training academy that Bernard has seen.

Bernard thinks about mentoring. He really thinks about it, for the first time since his victory. He realises that he'll have to do it every year, until he finally mentors a victor. And he'll have no way of controlling how strong his tribute will be. District 7 might suffer a victor drought, like some other districts had.

He could be mentoring for decades.

Bernard realises, in District 1, that the Capitol controls everything. Their influence is so strong here, especially over the victors. He sees it in the perfectly symmetrical features of Coco Montclaire's face. He hears it in the slight Capitol accent in Emerald Kiesler's voice, after three decades of travelling back and forth.

Bernard Barkley quietly hopes for freedom.


In the Capitol, he feels lucky.

Capitol citizens look at Bernard with hunger in their eyes. They want him. He's aware that he's a good-looking man. He's not the most impressive lumberjack in the district but he's definitely more rugged than District 7's first two male victors.

But the Capitol can't act on their desires. Bernard's a married man. They can't touch him.

It's one of the reasons why he's fighting all the nightmares to keep Myla close to him. If they were to divorce before he retired as a mentor, the Capitol would be able to do whatever they wanted to him.


In District 7, they are lonely. Those who knew Bernard Barkley before he was reaped knew him as a warm and happy man. There's an empty space where he used to be that Bernard the victor can't fill.

They are dirty. They go out into the woods every day with their tools and come back with calloused hands and muddy boots. Then they storm into a local tavern and slosh ale into glasses in the warm, honeyed light. They sing rude songs with rough voices and smiles on their faces.

They are jealous of Bernard because he doesn't have to work anymore. He used to join them in the evenings but it wasn't the same. A drink with your friends after a long day's work isn't the same without a long day's work.

They are welcomed into Bernard's home. All of Seven's other victors are known for being lovely people. Norah and Sean both have a caring smile and a kind word for everyone. Nate, who's quiet and withdrawn, donates a large portion of his money to community homes every year. Even though he'd never killed anyone, never needed to prove himself as a good person. Bernard tries to be like his fellow victors. He gives away money and hosts dinner parties. But it always feels stiff an unnatural, especially when he's pretending that his marriage to Myla is working.

They are false when they smile back at Bernard.

They are confused. They don't know why he hasn't divorced Myla yet. They only seem to fall out of love more with each passing day.

They are resentful for every year he fails to bring a tribute home.

They are grateful when Bernard finally mentors a victor. It's less about the boy he saves and more about the extra food parcels. They also notice how Bernard and Myla split up before Blight's victory tour has even begun. He finds a new wife, has a son and he seems to brighten up.

They are guilty when Bernard's son is reaped. Especially since the boy is thirteen. Especially since he is reaped the year after District 7 won, when the Careers are at their most vengeful. Johanna Mason had killed all six Careers, after all.

They are helpless against the might of the Capitol. Until the Mockingjay wins her games. Until Lumas Taffeta's body is found on the train and Eight begins to fight back. The Capitol must be really scared if they're willing to murder victors. The remaining victors of District 7 know this and begin to plan. Bernard soon becomes their leader.

They are destructive once they learn that Bernard had been shot in the Control Centre for his involvement with the rebels. They join the fight against the peacekeepers. They win.

They are lucky that they'd had Bernard Barkley as a victor. He hadn't been a perfect victor but he'd tried to help his district as much as he could. That was the best they could've asked for.


I got the idea for the victory tour layout from Oisin55's The Victors Project. It's one of my favourite layouts in the whole story so check it out if you have the time. It seemed to fit Bernard really well. He's one of the deadliest outliers so he's got to deal with the consequences of his kills.

Bernard's a bit of an odd one out among the District 7 victors because there are the nice, sweet, sensitive ones (Nate, Norah, Sean), there are the scary, aggressive ones (they'll come later but they will include Johanna) and then there's Bernard. He's ruthless but it's not because he's angry. It's because he just wants to go home. He's also proof that you don't need to have to be an innocent outlier with very few kills (for example, Nate and Lua) to be damaged by the games. Sometimes just being in the arena is enough to break someone down, no matter how easily they won.