Three Days Later

1. Breathe. You've won.

Kate's legs were technically perfectly healed, but they were still stiff from three days of bed rest. Her walk was a bit awkward as she emerged from her room into the camera lined hallway.

That didn't stop her from breaking into a run without quite meaning to when she saw Tony and Gibbs.

Tony caught her when she crashed into him. "Miss me, Katydid?" he whispered into her hair.

"No." The word was somewhat undermined by the choked tone and the way her fingers curled tighter around her shirt.

"Of course you did, we're best friends."

She blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

"Nothing." He shifted so that his arm was around her shoulders and steered her towards Gibbs. Cameras always stayed away from Gibbs. "I just can't wait to catch you up on all the exciting things that happened while you were gone." His tone was light, but his eyes had the same dark look in them as when he'd been warning her about magic. Kate suddenly wished her iron bracelet hadn't disappeared somewhere in the healing process.

"Tony . . . "

He smiled at her again, but it was the fake, shiny smile he normally saved for the cameras. "It'll be fine."

His tight grip on her shoulders said otherwise, and Kate's stomach twisted with the warning.

(You haven't won. You never had a chance to win. All you can do is keep breathing.)

Interview Night

2. These celebrations are for you. Enjoy them.

Caesar leaned forward. "So, Kate, I think everyone's been wondering about those final moments when it was down to two tributes. What was going through your mind?"

What you did for Susan, that's dangerous. You were kind, and not to an ally, but to someone who had killed an ally.

She was dying, Kate had protested. It's not - I didn't mean to -

And Tony had squeezed her shoulder and said, You did the right thing. And the Capital will destroy you for it if you don't try to cover it up.

Kate smiled at Caesar and apologized for her long pause. "I was trying to think - Honestly, I just don't remember. I think I must have been in shock. It's just lucky I outlasted her, really."

"Well, we're all very glad you did."

The audience cheered.

Kate thought of whatever family Susan had back home and felt her smile grow fixed.

(This is where the Capital sees if they can control you. You don't want to know what happens if they decide they can't.)

The Train Rides

3. Unwind. Enjoy a last taste of Capital luxury.

Mr. Tumnus made his way back to the - boxes. He settled between them, already sniffling.

Either of them might have had a chance if not for him. Susan, especially. It had been the curse that had killed her. The curse he had infected her with.

He laid a hand on her - box. "Next year," he promised. "I won't - I'm not a very brave faun, you know. But next year I shall tell her no." He meant it, too.

Outside, some wild creature the train was rushing past roared. Tumnus shuddered. It had been a rather intimidating roar.

But it made something in his chest feel warm somehow, too.

Anne had, after a perfectly dreadful day, once thrown herself onto a couch and informed Matthew and Marilla that she was in the depths of despair. Marilla had sniffed and told her that she had no business talking that way when she was so much better off than most. Matthew had waited until Marilla left the room and then shyly come to sit beside her and ask her what was wrong.

In hindsight, Anne saw, with a cold kind of clarity, Marilla had been right. She hadn't known what she was talking about.

The world rushed by in a blur out the window. Behind her, the escort was chattering meaninglessly about something. Anne couldn't be bothered to attend to her.

In her pocket, there was a small paper dragon. Another victor had pressed it into her palm, and she had let it fall into there.

A fanciful thing. Like her childish stories. Like the quiet rumors that Thirteen was still alive.

But then, she remembered bitterly, magic wasn't entirely fanciful. Some of it was all too real. Old scars tingled as she thought it.

And dragons. Dragons were a suitably vicious symbol. A symbol of Thirteen. A symbol of rebellion. A symbol of fire and teeth that could rip and tear the way she burned to.

"Once upon there was a kingdom that sacrificed children to appease a dragon," she whispered, the words no more than breath that condensed on the window. "Only one day, the dragon decided that the kind of king who would sacrifice children was far more deserving of being eaten."

"Are you alright, dear?" the escort asked. "It's time for lunch, are you hungry?"

Anne rose from the window. "Ravenous."

Morgan was not looking forward to her return to the district. Gawain was going to be -

She pressed her lips together.

Terence wasn't gone. Neither was Connoire, for that matter, and with the amount of magic that had been tinging the air, she suspected the Other World had gotten quite the influx of faerie blooded tributes. They were safe with the Seelie now, just like her niece.

Only it wasn't the same, something she feared that Terence had never quite grasped. There was always something undefinably different about the dead in the Other World and, of course, the dead could no longer travel home to this one.

She sighed. What was done was done.

She just hoped her favorite nephew would someday forgive her for not doing more.

They had replaced the plates that Ella had broken when she'd tripped in one of her many fits of clumsiness.

When Myrtle had dreamed of adventures in her youth, she had never thought about this part.

When the chefs served soup for supper, Robin hurled it at the wall. The tureen hit with a clatter and bounced off. The soup hit the wall and stuck, only slowly dripping down.

It had been tomato soup, so the wall dripped red.

"Perhaps something else," Marian suggested to the Avoxes. They hurried out, heads lowered, to provide it. Marian turned a reproachful look at Robin. "Was that really necessary?"

Tuck's look was slightly more sympathetic. "As much as I understand the urge, I doubt our initial hopes to send the boy some calming soup were noticed enough to make this a deliberate jab," he said mildly.

Robin nodded stiffly and rose from the table. "Excuse me. I am unfit company tonight." He stalked out of the room and through the train cars until at last he got to the balcony. The night wind sliced through him, and he took deep, comforting breaths in the cold.

A few minutes later, Marian joined him. She leaned her head against his shoulder. "You managed to dent the wall, if it's any consolation."

He snorted and brought his arm up around her shoulders. It was too loud out here for bugs. "I plan to do a lot more than that."

A name was not really much to go on. Nor was the way people kept walking through him.

With nothing better to do, Jack had followed the body that looked so much like him onto the train. Or, rather, he had seen it put onto a train, and now he was following it from the air. The wind carried him playfully along, and he hadn't wanted to be confined in the metal cars.

He could go anywhere like this. Fly away and be safe.

Safe from what?

He didn't know. He needed to find out.

So he followed the train and hoped that it might provide some answers.

Gibbs stood in the doorway to the car and watched his kids. They'd curled up on the couch to make fun of whatever was playing on the television. Kate had fallen asleep an hour ago, and Tony was being carefully still so as not to wake her. They'd be alright.

Gibbs slipped back out and headed to the back of the train where his other kid waited for him. The one he had failed.

The box he was in was rough. Gibbs could build a better one when they got home, if the family would let him. Some years they didn't.

For now, he sat in the silence and listened to the ghosts.

Relda waited on the little balcony. Her old hands were gripped tight around the rail to keep them from shaking. She looked up when Canis joined her. "Well, old friend?"

He shook his head. "Deer scent," he said roughly. "Nothing else."

Relda let out a long breath.

Just a deer. Not Puck.

Which rather raised the question: Where was he?

It was always too quiet on the train ride home. Gru stared glumly at his sketches for new inventions. He just could not dig up any enthusiasm for them tonight.

Nefario laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It was always a long shot for either of them. At least we saved the boy who should have gone in."

"Yes," Gru agreed.

Neither of them mentioned the president's warning of what would happen if they ever tried that again.

"But I am not sure losing Bob is much better," Gru added.

Nefario patted his arm and left him to his brooding.

Hastings had never exactly been a laid back guy. Jack hadn't expected these Games to change that.

But whatever bit of humor and peace that Hastings had still had was gone. He burned now more than ever, and Linda, who had initially crumpled, caught renewed fire from the blaze.

Jack would fight with them when the time came.

But in the meantime, he was almost afraid to see what was in Hastings' eyes.

Knightley returned from the phone. "Mr. Woodhouse is dead," he announced to the room at large. "He had a collapse." He paused for a moment, some great emotion in his eyes. "Excuse me." He abruptly left the room.

Darcy considered going after him, remembered how inept he was at handling such conversations, and thought better of it.

Bingley would have gone.

(You are still being watched, and there is little to enjoy.)

Two Days After the Return

4. Learn lessons from the Games. Don't get attached.

There was no one at the door.

A box jingled. Gru looked down.

Margot stood there with red rimmed eyes and a collection box. Agnes gripped her hand tightly. A bunch of badly wilted dandelions were being crushed in her other hand.

"We're collecting money for the funeral," Margot told him, shaky voice on just the wrong side of accusing. "The Capital pays for tributes' headstones, but we want to buy flowers."

Agnes brandished her bundle of weeds. "I wanted to get her juice," she confided. "But Margot said she wouldn't be thirsty."

Margot looked about ready to cry, "Agnes, we talked about this."

She was about the size of one of the minions, Gru realized. They didn't understand why Bob wasn't coming back either.

Gru cleared his throat. He needed them gone, now. He had - work. So much work. "Here. Money." He scrabbled in his pocket and pulled out a handful of bills that he shoved in the box.

Margot kept holding it out.

"Flowers are expensive," she reminded him.

Gru looked past the front door at the smog thickened sky and at his own soot stained walls. Even out here, the grime reached. Pretty things did not do well in grime, did they? The flowers would have to imported. The ones in his house's garden were, he thought.

His house. Tall and filled with delicate, expensive machinery. And the girls were still standing there, one accusing, one innocent, and both too thin to have resisted bright red berries on a bush.

"Flowers," he coughed out. "Yes, flowers. I will - go get more money. I will go with you. As many flowers as you want." Proper ones, not the shriveled things in his garden. "Whatever kind she would want."

Margot picked the most expensive kind that came in pink that she could find, and she put them on the counter like a challenge. Agnes started munching on the dandelions.

"No, no!" he told her, snatching them away. "Those are not for eating!"

Margot shrugged. "They won't hurt her. We've had them before. Edith usually - " Her jaw snapped shut.

The flowers cost less than the beakers he bought by the dozen because the minions kept breaking them. A proper meal wouldn't even cost that.

"Let me get you something," he said. "Since I took your dandelions."

(It's not safe to get attached, but then, nothing's ever really safe.)

Four Days After The Return

5. If you're supposed to be dead, don't make waves.

Jack wasn't sure what to make of this town. There was something disturbing about the black sand that went out every night. The bright lights that went out to fight it interested him, but after so long unseen, he was afraid to approach them.

He had to do something though. For lack of anything better to do, he flew up high enough to see the whole town and tried to figure out where the black sand was coming from.

It twisted so much it was hard to tell, but he thought - There.

"Alright, wind." He gripped his staff tighter. "Take me there."

He dived down through the night, laughing at the way the wind tugged at him. He came to a stop just outside the entrance to -

A hole in the ground. Great.

He peered inside at the branching tunnels.

"You can get me out again if I get lost, right?" he whispered to the wind. It tugged at his clothes reassuringly. He took a deep breath. "Alright, then."

He slipped into the darkness.

There was something wrong with the tunnels, he decided almost instantly. Something whispering, just on the edges of awareness. Something that made instinctive terror seize his mind.

They were also very, very cold.

Jack took comfort from that and kept going, ice playing at his fingertips.

"You came back."

Jack froze. The hoarse voice was almost too quiet to hear. And, he realized quickly, not directed at him.

He peered around the corner into the nearest tunnel. At the far end of it was some kind of cage. He couldn't see it very well, though. A tall, thin man in a black robe wrapped in shadows blocked the tiny enclosure.

"Afraid I'd leave you alone down here to starve?" The man's voice was coolly amused.

"No." The other voice caught.

"Liar."

Jack's hands clenched tighter around his staff. He didn't know what was going on here, but it wasn't good.

The man continued. "I actually came to give you news of your friend. The one who got reaped for the Games?"

"Jack?"

Jack's breath caught. Surely it wasn't - They weren't talking about him.

Were they?

"Hm." The man examined his fingernails. "He's dead."

Something thumped against the bars. "No. You're lying! He probably wasn't even reaped for the Games."

Jack thought back to the body that looked so much like himself and the way people walked throug him.

The man might be a liar, but he had a sick feeling that he might be right about this.

The man shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. Insulting your host. I suppose you don't want your supper after all, then."

"No!" The cry seemed involuntary.

Jack gritted his teeth and started sneaking forward. He wasn't going to let this go on any longer.

What can you do? something in him whispered. They can't even see you.

The man turned back. "Say it, then. Say that your brave friend Jack is dead. That he failed."

There was a brief, shuddering silence.

It was broken by a thin, defiant whisper.

"I believe in Jack."

Something shuddered through Jack.

The man shrugged. "I'll be back later then. Or not." The shadows climbed up him and he vanished.

Jack could see the person in the cage clearly now. It was a boy, maybe a little younger than Jack. He was slumped against the bars. Clothes worn to rags barely covered a body that looked like little more than bones.

Jack edged into the hallway.

The boy looked up. His eyes went wide. "Jack!"

Jack froze. "You can see me?"

The boy grabbed the bars. His hands were shaking. "Of course I can see you!" He frowned. "What happened to you?"

"I don't know," Jack admitted. He hurried over to the cage and started examining the lock. "Wind, do you think you could - ?"

The wind obligingly slipped into the lock and began undoing it. Jack grinned up at the boy. "We'll have you out of there in no time."

"You're really here," the boy breathed.

"In the flesh," he agreed. "I think." The door clicked open. "So we've established that I'm Jack. Who're you?"

The boy's face froze. "You don't remember?"

"I don't remember anything," Jack admitted, wincing. "I'm hoping to find someone that could help with that." The kid wasn't moving, so Jack reached in and lifted him out. Skinny as he was, the kid wasn't going to be much good at running, so Jack just kept carrying him as he hightailed it for the exit.

"Jamie," the kid finally said. "I'm Jamie." His face took on a determined cast. "And we'll get you those memories back."

(If you're supposed to be dead, take advantage of the opportunity.

A Month After

6. Say the right thing to your family.

Time passed differently in the Other World. Judging by the look on Sabrina's face, Puck had been gone too long.

She stomped toward the portal that he still stood in the doorway of. "A month!" she shouted. "You made us wait a month! We were afraid the Capital had grabbed you!" Her face was an angry, blotchy red, but there were tears welling in her eyes. She stopped just outside the portal and jabbed a finger in his face. "Give me one reason I shouldn't punch you."

He didn't say, I saw the future once. He didn't say, It was in the Dark Days, when all that magic opened up a rip and I fell through. He didn't say, I saw your sister, all grown up. She wore a black coat with her pockets filled with enchantress's tricks that she'd made herself and an eyepatch that didn't hide the whole scar. I saw Terence, a little too distant like the dead always are, but I saw Gawain crack that, make him smile. I saw a whole army there, and they were a part of it.

I saw you, and you didn't wear my people's colors because you're far too independent for that, but you were there in Avalon, holding one of Trebuchet's swords, and you smiled. Smiled at me.

He said, with a careless smile, "Because you're happy to see me." Seeing that those words had perhaps not been advisable, he hurried on to say, "And because I brought you a gift." He stepped to the side to reveal the Healer's ward behind him.

On the beds behind him were Sabrina's parents, rescued from the Capital.

"That was an adventure to remember," he told her with a boastful smile before it faded to a worried one. "They're - not well yet, Grimm. They'll have to stay here until Ganscotter can figure out to help them."

Sabrina took another step forward, her eyes locked on her parents. "They're alive."

He nodded. "I can let you through if you want. I just can't guarantee how much time will have passed before we get back."

She wanted to. He could see how badly she wanted to. But - "I can't just disappear," she realized, shoulders slumping. She bit her lip. "Thank you, Puck."

He bowed. "Always, my lady." He grinned at her glare.

A glare that was rapidly becoming more uncertain. "You're outside the barrier right now."

"Good detecting skill, Grimm." As long as he stayed on this side of the portal, he wouldn't be caught in the Capital's enchantment over the district meant to catch the faerie's there.

She swallowed and nodded. "So you're staying there, then."

He stretched lazily and grinned. "Nah." He stepped through the portal. It closed behind him.

She gaped at him.

"Do you have any idea how much work they tried to shove on me as soon as I showed up?" Puck demanded with a put upon shudder. "That can wait for Their Majesties, thank you very much. Paperwork gives me hives, look." He shoved his arm at her.

She danced back, but he'd startled a laugh out of her. "Puck!"

He grinned at her. "Besides. You'd get bored without me, Grimm."

She rolled her eyes. "In your dreams." But she hesitated a moment before hugging him tightly. "I'm glad you're back."

"Good to see you too, Grimm."

(Even if you say the wrong thing, it's alright. You'll figure it out.)

Historian's Note: The collection of rules that has been attached to this account of the Seventy-Third Hunger Games were found hidden in Victor's Village in District Five. The house they were found in was never officially occupied, but handwriting and textual analysis leads many historians to believe that they were pi=enned by Anthony DiNozzo Jr, winner of the Sixty-Ninth Hunger Games.

A/N: I've already begun a brief prequel dealing with Tony and Games in the leadup and aftermath to Tony's Games that I plan to post soon. After that's finished, I want to write a sequel dealing with Jack and Jamie, and another sequel with some fluff for Gru's soon to be new family.