Dislcaimer: I don't own THG or any of the characters.
Warnings: violence, rape/non-con, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, drug/alcohol abuse, mild sexual content, language
xxxxxxxxxx
The next time she visited the Capitol, about a month later, Plutarch gave her a holo.
"This has your schedule of events and a map of the arena. It's all very detailed, but you're gonna need to study it until you memorize it. You'll be with Finnick, Mags and Haymitch, of course. Mags goes first. Finnick next. Then Haymitch. And then…then the fireworks begin."
"What about the other 20?"
"They got the map as well. And each has their own schedule of events. Don't worry about that yet. I don't want you getting confused. For now just focus on committing this to memory."
xxxxxxxxxx
She wasn't a great actress and she knew it. So when Caesar and Claudius made the announcement about the quell twist, she just sat absolutely still and stared at the tv, unblinking, so they'd all think she was in shock.
But then Gale flipped over a chair and grasped his hair in his hands, and Prim started crying and so did her mother, and so she cried too.
But it wasn't because she was afraid of dying.
It was because life-this life with these games and what they did, not to the tributes, but to their loved ones-hurt too much.
xxxxxxxxxx
She stayed up late the night before the reaping and found her mother in the kitchen, her eyes red and watery.
"I need to tell you something."
Her mother turned to her and Katniss put her hands on her shoulders. "I need you to remember, when the time comes, that no matter what you see, no matter what it looks like, no matter how bad it seems, I chose this. This was my choice."
"How?" her mother asked in disbelief. "How is any of this your choice? You're the only female victor from our district. There was no other option."
"Just trust me mom. And promise me that you won't let Prim watch. Promise." Her voice was fierce and she shook her mother firmly. The thought of Prim witnessing the finale made her stomach churn. She wouldn't understand. She'd be scarred for life.
Her mother gulped. "I promise."
"Ok. One more thing. At some point, a group of Peacekeepers will try to take you away. Go with them. Without protest. You and Prim and Buttercup. And the Hawthornes. They'll take them too. It will feel like you're being arrested and it will look like it too, but trust me." Her mother was staring at her in shock. "You'll notice that the head of their squad has dark brown skin and wears a red cord around his wrist. It won't be visible most of the time, because it will be under his glove, but he'll make sure you see it somehow. It could be as early as right after the reaping that they take you, or it may be as late as the end of the third day of the games."
"Katniss," her mother breathed. "Did you know about this? That you were going to be reaped?"
She wanted to spill everything out to her mother, but the less she knew the better. "I'm not gonna answer any questions mom. Just do as I'm saying and trust me." Her tone left no room for protest or argument.
"I love you," she said, her voice softening, as she took her shaking mother into her arms. "And tell Gale," she whispered against her shoulder. "About this being my choice. All of it. Because he won't understand."
xxxxxxxxxx
She found Gale early the next morning in the Meadow, and they sat, shoulder to shoulder, without saying a word, and watched the sunrise.
When the air turned thick and golden and the bees started humming in the clover, she knew she needed to head back. The cameramen would be outside her house soon.
She turned her face up and kissed Gale on the mouth, and he shuddered and let out one small sob. She caught it on an inhale and swallowed it.
Then she ran her fingers along his jaw, so that his sandpapery stubble caught on the callouses of her hands, before she stood and turned and left him there.
xxxxxxxxxx
Cato sat at the breakfast table in his mansion in Victor's Village, staring out the window. He was thinking about Katniss. About how soon it would be time for her to leave her house for the reaping. About how she was probably saying goodbye to her mother and her sister. About how she was probably saying goodbye to that boy who had kissed her.
No one would come to say goodbye to him. For one thing, they all thought that one of the older Victors from 2 would volunteer. But even if they'd known that it was Cato who would enter the quell, they probably wouldn't have shown up anyway. He didn't love anyone like that. No one loved him like that.
It's better this way he lied to himself. It makes it easier.
xxxxxxxxxx
Two hours later he stood on the podium, third from center stage in a long line of male victors. "I volunteer," he said before Paris, District 2's escort, could even read out the name he had drawn.
No one challenged him.
He could imagine the commentary from Claudius and Caesar already.
About how, even though they'd expected one of the older men to volunteer, it wasn't all that surprising that Cato Hadley had stepped up to the challenge. After all, he'd been livid when, one year ago, he had been forced to share his victory with Katniss Everdeen, and why wouldn't he be excited at the prospect of a do-over?
xxxxxxxxxx
Effie Trinket was cheerful as ever as she pranced across the stage, covered in monarch butterflies.
"As always, ladies first," she said and reached into the glass bowl to retrieve the one slip of paper it held. She took her time making her way back to the microphone, as if to draw out the suspense, and unfolded the paper. Then she shook her shoulders back, opened her mouth and-
"Oh jesus christ." Katniss spat, rolling her eyes. "This is so fucking stupid. I volunteer." And she strode to the center of the stage, as Effie glared at her for stealing her thunder.
"I volunteer too," Haymitch echoed. He winked at her as they shook hands and then they turned their backs to the audience together and walked into the Justice Center, leaving Effie and the Peacekeepers who were supposed to escort them into the building standing there stupidly.
xxxxxxxxxx
Cato liked his costume for the parade this year much better than the last one.
After he'd agreed to the plan, he'd felt strangely relieved. He wasn't excited for the things he was about to do in the arena-he dreaded them in fact-but for the first time since he'd won his games, he felt like he had some control over his own life.
And so he had cut way back on the alcohol and the morphling, and his burns had mostly healed, and he started working out again, quickly regaining the perfect physique he'd started to lose after his victory so that he looked incredible in the getup his stylist, Acadia, had concocted for him.
She had spackled his skin and hair in some kind of stone colored makeup and draped a stiff matching toga over him, and then she had spent hours using putty and delicate little tools and makeup a shade or so darker to create cracks and veins and chips and embossed patches so that by the time she was done he looked like a living statue. The best part, he thought, were the black contact lenses that covered the entire visible portion of his eyeballs, covering up the whites and irises completely.
Enobaria, who matched him, was also enthusiastic.
"Now just stare at 12 once we're on camera," she said to him as they climbed into the chariot. "With those creepy black eyes. It'll get everyone talking about how much you hate her and how determined you are to kill her. It'll really set the tone for this whole thing. Oh god, the buildup to you two will be incredible."
He did just that. And Enobaria was right. When they watched the coverage of the parade later that night, they couldn't stop talking about the menacing way he'd stared Katniss down.
He rolled his eyes. Little did they know he'd just been admiring the way her body looked in that dress.
xxxxxxxxxx
Training was much more relaxed this time, since all 24 of them knew how this whole thing was gonna go down anyway.
No one hid their talents, and in fact, they all gathered around and watched each other with admiration.
"Oh god this isn't gonna be fun," Seeder from 11 said as she watched Johanna from 7 launch an ax into a dummy. "That's gonna be me in a few days."
Johanna turned and grinned. "You gonna chicken out, old woman?"
Seeder reached out and cuffed her affectionately. "Show some respect for your elders young lady."
Cato wandered over to the spear station, where old Woof from 8 sat cross legged on the floor, watching Cashmere practice.
"Why did you agree to this?" he asked as he sat down beside him.
Woof shrugged. "I'm old. It's my time. And I'm sick. I'm on my third bout of cancer, and I just don't have the energy for the chemo this time. My whole body hurts. I'm tired son."
Cato nodded and clapped the older man on the shoulder gently. "So...I'll snap your neck?"
"Sounds good. Sounds a hell of a lot better than wasting away."
xxxxxxxxxx
"You look tired," Katniss said to Finnick on the second day.
"I was up late last night. With a client." He gave her a wry smile, but his eyes were sad.
Her heart broke for him. "How do you get through it?"
"Well they give me a pill to help with the physiological part of it. So that I can perform."
"That's not what I meant. I meant emotionally."
Finnick studied her for a moment before he answered. "I pick something random to focus on like the pattern of the wallpaper. Or the base of a lamp. And I study it. Everything about it. Its outline, its texture, the way the light reflects off of it. Everything. After a while, everything else fades into the background."
xxxxxxxxxx
Cato and Katniss met every night in the sparring room for an hour or so.
She had suggested that they practice ahead of time.
"Practice?" Cato had asked her skeptically.
"Well not the whole thing, obviously. But the lead up, yes. If I know what I'm expecting it will make it..easier...for me."
"If we draw it out enough, do you think maybe they'll riot in enough time that I won't need to-"
"No. I wish I could say that I thought that would work. That we could draw it out long enough. But the reality is I don't think we can. Well, I take that back. We could. But then I would really suffer before the end of it. I think it's better if we just get it over with."
Cato sighed. "Alright. How do you want to start?"
"I don't know how I feel about the sword. What if you don't have one at the time?"
"I'll have whatever weapon we plan for me to have. He'll make sure of it."
"Even best laid plans can go awry. Best to be flexible."
Cato sighed again and tossed the weapon to the side of the room. "Fine. No sword."
xxxxxxxxxx
He was terrifying in his interview.
He was itching to get back into the arena, he told Caesar.
He would kill as many tributes as he could, but it was the Girl on Fire he was most excited for.
She had robbed him of his victory, he said.
This was his chance, he said. His chance to finally get what he deserved.
He would make her pay, he said. He would make her pay dearly. She would wish she had never been born.
She was unimpressed by his threats, she said, when it was her turn to go on.
He was dead already, she said.
He just didn't know it, she said.
No I know he whispered as he watched her on the monitor backstage. I know I'm dead.
xxxxxxxxxx
"I see we're continuing with the theme of objectifying the victors," Katniss said to Cinna the next morning as he helped her into her black bikini. "What are the guys in?"
"Black swim trunks," he said. "No shirt."
"God, we're all gonna get nasty sunburns. Or at least those of us who make it past the bloodbath."
"It's not real sun," Cinna reminded her, and handed her a bottle of water. "Drink up. You won't get that spile until after dark."
"Poor Chaff," she said as she downed the entire thing in three gulps.
"Poor Chaff," Cinna agreed, as the technician entered to inject her with her tracker.
"And now, Miss Everdeen, look that way for me please," she said when she was done with the tracker.
"It tickles," Katniss complained as the woman inserted something into her ear.
"Well it's going to hurt in just a sec-"
"Aahh!" she cried. "God, what did you do, stab me in the eardrum?"
"More or less," said the technician with a smile.
"Fucking sadist."
"Katniss? Katniss can you hear me?" Plutarch's voice said in her ear.
"Yes. I can hear you. My family and the Hawthornes. Are they safe?"
"They're still in 12. My Peacekeepers are shadowing them. They're the highest ranking unit in 12 right now, so no other squads will argue with them about anything they do. And the hovercraft is just outside the fence."
"Good."
"Ready to go?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
xxxxxxxxxx
As they rose up out of the salt water, they shielded their eyes with their hands until they adjusted to the artificial sunlight.
Finnick located the trident at the back of the Cornucopia, exactly where they had said it would be.
Cato located the sword.
Johanna, the ax.
Cashmere, the spear.
Gloss, the longknife.
Katniss, the bow and arrows.
Enobaria bared her teeth.
Haymitch caught Katniss's eye and winked.
Seeder gave Chaff a sympathetic look.
Cecilia from 8 smiled sadly at Woof. Goodbye my friend her eyes said. He nodded at her once, and returned her smile.
Cato turned his head to stare down Katniss Everdeen. I'm coming for you he mouthed.
And then the timer ran out and the games began.