This chapter contains reference to domestic violence and sexual assault (which is why I bumped it up to M, also for safety in the future). Also, I didn't have internet yesterday… So those reading any of my other stories can expect updates probably tonight or tomorrow (Pending they don't shut off my interwebz tonight again).

I don't own the Hunger Games! :(

"Is this heaven?" I ask dumbly, kicking at the white haze that surrounds us. I'm still in my funeral dress, afraid to take off the beautiful satin, though I could wear anything…

So I settle for a t-shirt and jeans, still sans shoes.

"Oh my no, heaven is only for spirits done their job on the mortal plain," her heels click behind her, even though there is no end to the haze, no solid ground.

"What what what?" I chase after her, trying to get her to stop to explain this to me but no matter how hard I tried she was always just out of reach.

"Ahhh yes," she flips through her clip board.

"You'd think they would have bought you guys iPhones or something," I smirked.

"Oh I have one on the mortal plain," she waves, "These will be your quarters. I know you don't sleep anymore but we just like keeping new spirits accounted for… Sometimes they tend to you know, wander off and go dark and… shady…"

A door appears out of nowhere, when I throw it open I'm in a blank white space with no haze, "You can make it whatever finds you most comforting," I remember the family vacation to Disney World my parents took Prim and I on when we were young, the room instantly taking on the bright cheerful look of our hotel room. With the memory come Prim and I, her ten me thirteen bouncing on the bed hopped up on so much sugar I'm sure we drove our parents nuts.

A sob chokes me but Effie waves her hand, the space growing dark, a plush bed with a bright yellow comforter in the center of the room, "This is the default, you can use it as long as you like, or change it to something that doesn't cause you pain. You may come and go as you please, but I have been summoned elsewhere," she bids me goodbye.

"Wait, you implied that I wasn't done in the mortal world… What do you mean by that?"

She just smiles and blinks out of existence.

Damnit… I mutter flopping down on the bed. I close my eyes, I'm not sure how long passes, time seems to work strangely here, constantly going forward at whatever speed you wish, it feels like only hours ago I was watching myself die, but it had been days. Watching the living was a lot like watching TV you only saw the important things and the filler you wanted to see.

"Miss Everdeen," I sit up only to fall through the bed.

"Don't you knock?" I ask annoyed as I struggle to get through the plush bed before my body goes solid again.

"I've been knocking for the last week," she says in her chipper voice, "You've been recharging this whole time!" she's blue this time hair and suit matching perfectly.

"It's only been a few minutes…" the room never got darker, there was no way to tell how time had passed.

"Oh don't be silly, come come! We have a big big day!"

"You said that when you dropped me off here," she nods and I take her hand.

"You could have gone anywhere, but now you must go to prove yourself!" I blink and we're in another pure white room, only the ever present haze is here.

"Ok, you've been granted permission to return to the mortal world, but to do this, someone needs to die, so even if you have permission if you're not worthy you leave purgatory and move on, your earthly business never to be completed," her face contorts, "Unfortunately this leads to a lot of uneasiness upstairs, agitated spirits, jailbreaks, shades…"

I just nod as a silver door appears in front of me, it's cool to the touch and in a metal plate dead center my name is etched in a beautiful script Katniss Everdeen.

"ooo they're ready, make me proud!" Effie kisses my cheek, I can't feel her lips, though I really don't want to.

The door creaks open to a dark room, a beam of white light follows me as the door slams shut to a single bench positioned before a long table where ten men and women sit.

"Miss Everdeen, please sit," the stool creaks under my "weight" I have to wonder if this is an illusion or the objects here react to my spirit as objects back home react to my body, "We are deeply sorry for your loss. You were but sixteen…" the man at the center starts, his hair is slicked back, his beard shaped perfectly to mimic fire licking at his cheeks.

"I… Thank you? I'm sorry, this is all confusing…"

No one else speaks but this man, "We understand, I am Senca Crane, this is my Council. We are the ones judging whether or not you may return. If you are worthy…"

I nod weakly, only able to think of Prim, "So tell us Miss Everdeen, why should we give you a second chance at life?"

I can't find words, truly I can't think of why they shouldn't just let me move on, but apparently I had unfinished business… yeah another sixty years of living!

"I don't know! To be honest I don't, I want to tell you that I'll change people's lives, I was going to go to Yale or Tulane… They're really good schools back on earth," Crane smiles.

"We know, Miss Everdeen, all of us were mortals at one point, though this was our calling."

Weird…

"I want to say that I could become a doctor, find the cure for cancer, or AIDS, or some other disease. I also sang, maybe my words could change lives? Inspire people to live on?" this all sounded like such bullshit as I pleaded my case. I never gave any though as to why I should be given a chance to live again.

Then I remembered the warm feeling on my hand when Peeta held my dead hand, how when I spoke or touched him he looked in my direction as if I knew I was there.

"There… There's a boy!" I stand up, "He can hear me, he can feel me even like this, not even my parents or sister could…"

"That's impossible, Miss Everdeen.."

"No!" I plead, "I know it sounds crazy, but when he held my hand I could feel it, it was warm… I can show you!"

Crane eyes me suspiciously, "This room can be anywhere you want it to be, Miss Everdeen, show us."

I could barely keep myself from falling through beds and floors, how was I supposed to find Peeta, prove to these ghosts that he could feel my presence, that we had some crazy connection?

I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered his name, remembering his smile, his bright eyes, even his tears at my funeral, then I heard it.

"Katniss…" he sobbed, my nonexistent heart burned his grief, his pain, all because of my death… Because I couldn't look both ways.

"Well done, Miss Everdeen," Crane sat back down at his desk, though we were in Peeta's bedroom there were no walls, the only way to tell the difference between Purgatory and his room the scuffed hardwood floor.

I put my hands on his cheeks, they didn't go through his skin, in fact they felt warm, he jumped a little, "Peeta… I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I don't have a lot of time…" his eyes stared right through me.

"Katniss…" he whispered, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Everything will be ok Peeta, I promise! Everything will be ok!"

"Everything will be ok…" he echoed, I looked up at the council, enjoying their shock.

"I'll come back to you," I broke the connection between us, my hands growing cold again, "I'll find my way back to you, I promise!" the room disappears.

"You are dismissed, Miss Everdeen. Please return to your room while we deliberate your case," they all look ghost white, as if I've shown them a miracle.

I smirk a little, I could go home… but in what state? Would anyone recognize me?

I bit my lip as I closed my eyes, willing myself back into the tiny dark room I had apparently wasted a week in.

A whole week, I was gone from my family for a whole week, "Mom… Dad… Prim…" I sobbed, the grief I had pushed away during all this finally coming to me. When I opened my eyes I was in their bed, lying between my mother and father, Prim and her beast of a cat curled up between them.

I closed my eyes and listened to their breathing, their hearts beating… I couldn't find comfort in Purgatory, but I could find it here, with them. Maybe they knew my presence because when they woke up in the morning they seemed calmer.

"Katniss," I groaned and looked up, Effie was floating above me, "The council has made their decision, time to go!" I sighed and sat up before taking her hand and was delivered back to the Council's room.

"Please have a seat Miss Everdeen," I sit on the creaky stool, I had to wonder how many detached souls sat here waiting to hear their fate, "After a long deliberation we have decided to allow you to return in the body of another."

I would cry if I still could, "I… Thank you!" I could go back to Prim, to my mother, to my father, to Peeta. I would figure out why he could sense my presence.

"Miss Trinket will guide you to your new body, you will have no memory of your past life, or of what transpired here until you find them on your own. She will be involved in your mortal life as well though you may not recognize her," I nod, I was going back, I was getting a second chance!

"You do know that this is a gift not always given, but we have seen the effect you have on the boy, you are both destined for your own greatness, but neither of you will get there until you are returned to a body." Crane's voice was even, collected, calm.

"Have you any questions Miss Everdeen?"

"When can I go back?"

"Soon… Katrina DeAuguste is almost ready…"

Katrina

They all stared at the dark bruise on my cheek, deep purple against my olive skin. I tried covering it up with my hair, with make-up but nothing worked, so I gave up. I was getting hit, what of it?

It wouldn't matter much anymore, dad was in the slammer, mom was on her way there as well and I'd be on my way into the system… Again.

She just got me back too, just got out of prison, just got clean. Then she started syphoning pills from her work, addictive painkillers she sold for money on the side.

I was stealing one a day, it wouldn't be long now. I wasn't going back into the system just to get kicked onto the streets in a year… To be leech on the world.

One last hurrah before I go. No one would miss me anyway… Well, maybe Ronnie, but he and I shouldn't be messing with each other anyway. I was sixteen, he was twenty-one with a girlfriend, but it didn't matter, I'd slink into his bed without hesitation.

Things would work out better for him without me anyway.

"Miss DeAuguste," my teacher snapped, "Are we boring you?"

I only had one night left, I picked up my bag, "Yeah, actually you are. I'm out of this hell hole. Peace mother fuckers," Misses Grayson's jaw dropped, I was never the ideal student, but I always came to class, I had to earn my C average somehow.

I passed through the metal detectors a security guard asking for my hall pass, I flipped him off and ran for the SEPTA station two blocks down, throwing my backpack over an overpass and pulling out my phone.

"The usual spot?" I asked Ronnie when he picked up.

He just chuckled as I got on the train from North Philadelphia to Center City, we'd go to Love Park, grab something to eat then head back to his place for one last lay.

That's all I needed, to feel human touch one last time.

"We can't keep doing this kid," he'd say as we shed our clothes.

"Just this one last time," my lips would find his, our dark eyes would clothes and I'd lose myself in his hallow touch.

No one would miss me, he'd get over it even if he did. He had a career girl, no kids, a job.

I pushed my door open over the broken bottles, empty Bud Lite cans and cigarette butts, "What the fuck you doing home?" my mother asked, an elastic band on her arm as she pushed the needle in her skin, "Ain't you got school?"

My mother was attractive once, full of life, my dad took that away from her when he introduced her to heroin. Such is life.

"Fuck off," I walked up to my room but she was on me, her hands in my hair.

"Don't you talk to your momma like that!" somehow she over powered me, somehow, she frail but still high as a kite, ripped me from the top steps sending me tumbling down, crashing through our glass door onto our front porch.

"What the fuck!" I shout, the neighbors are staring, but this is nothing out of the ordinary, "You throw me down the stairs!" I come at her, my fist meeting her face.

"You learn to respect me girl! I give you a place to live I put food in your damn mouth!" she slaps me, I punch her, this goes on until her new husband would come home. He'd join in too some times, sometimes he'd walk over our brawl open up a beer and wait for my mother to pass out and me to slink away injured to my room where he'd be on me in a second.

His vial hands everywhere. I just stand there as his dirty fingers grope where Ronnie's empty hands just were, it would be all over soon. Not the ongoing sexual assault my by step-father, but my life in general.

Guardian angles come in many forms, mine came in the form of the Philadelphia Police Department. You don't trust cops, ever… Well, usually.

They pull my step-dad from me, and cuff him. I pull my legs into my chest trying to hide the bloody mess that is my body. I hadn't received a beating like this in months, now I was there, naked on my bare mattress unable to hide it form the cops.

They've ruined everything, I would be in a home before the sun went down.

I hacked, blood spewing out of my bloody mouth, I had never felt more tired in my life.

Maybe this was death, maybe it would come easy. Just wish it was on my own terms…

Katniss

I watched in horror as this girl's final day unfolds, she's so helpless, so gone already.

"I can't live like that!" I gasp watching her lay limp as the second man of the day pounds his careless body into her.

"This is a gift, Katniss, besides, she'll be in foster care, you'll be in foster care when you wake up…" Effie tells me in her chipper voice, "We've chosen her for a reason…" I nod

We're in the hospital as her heart stops, her spirit leaves her body and is taken away by a male escort, though they don't see us, I see her ghost smile. She's at peace.

The gold tether is connecting me to her body now, it starts dim, tarnished but glows with every shock she receives from the paddles.

"Clear!" it glows more and more, I feel drawn to her body, "Clear!"

"You can do this Katniss, just take a deep breath. I may not know you, and you may not know me, but we'll find each other and find your purpose together," I nod as everything goes white and I'm pulled to the broken body under me.