Previously In Fanning The Flames: Cato, upon seeing a threat to Glimmer, refuses to fight Gale and Katniss. The four make clear gestures of rebellion and join together against arena hazards. They and their families are evacuated by rebel hovercraft to the still existent District Thirteen. They share a wedding date with fellow two-victor couple Finnick and Annie. Rebel forces save most of District Twelve's population, and the evacuees begin a new life.

A/N

The song idea is old; this was just my first chance to reference it. A version of the lyrics was my first fic; another version is one of my recent fics. The conversation with Rory was inspired by having covered it from Rory's perspective in my new story Not So Little Anymore. Reaping Beauty focuses on female-female relationships; I was perhaps inspired by the Madge coming out scene late in Chapter 4 of this story.

Chapter

I looked up to see the televisions showing clips of our wedding, the exchange of vows in particular. The We will's rang in my ears as sweetly as they had three weeks ago. However, this broadcast was ironically not the rebels' doing. I heard Snow's vile voice cut in to harangue the nation again. "You just heard the most worthless thing in the world – the promises of traitors – for in their betrayal, they have proven they cannot be trusted. Who will they turn on next? Each other? Expect the sham to fall apart as surely as the rebellion itself shall disintegrate." Don't you dare insult my love for Katniss. You snake, you always manage to find a way to make me hate you even more. Then the bastard read my mind. "They may crow about loyalty to their families, their lovers – but that optional loyalty is nothing compared to the mandatory loyalty all owe their country. Sadly, they have chosen what they want to do over what they must do. Only scum would take such lazy immorality to such a level. Treason does not merit death, treason is death – we will deliver it if the disloyalty continues." Oh well, I was already incorrigible, you slimeball.

He faded out – whether that was intentional or the work of rebel hackers I don't know. Most Capitol propaganda was about intimidating the average citizen. This broadcast did that to some extent, but seemed to mainly be about sowing dissension amongst those who had already turned rebel. It tried to take away the momentum the resistance gained from the wedding, and it distracted from the liberation of District Twelve. The rebels advertised the people happy in District Thirteen. They broadcasted all of Peeta and Bridget's song, which had a bit of militancy to it before the actual military activity – the new soldiers training to put their righteous anger into action, the Peacekeepers casting aside their white uniforms to put on gray ones.

Snow must figure that lambasting the 'fall' of Twelve would only draw attention to our greatest success in the war so far. There were more such victories to come.

The next morning, Plutarch spoke at the start of the council meeting. "Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the many brilliant generals from long before Panem, once said 'An army marches on its stomach'." he announced. "It's as true now as it was over six centuries ago. The Peacekeepers are no different."

"I think I know why, sir," I answered.

"Go on, Soldier Hawthorne," he replied.

"Twelve's Peacekeepers tolerated our illegal activity partially because it meant more food for them too, not to mention a soldier needing to keep their strength up for battle."

"Yeah, morale and logistics in one handy phrase. For us, that places a high priority on liberating Four, Nine, Ten and Eleven. Circumstances call for Ten first – the local rebels are particularly active."

I'd keep my plans for Dalton's flag secret for now, but I said "I trust we're striking at the key facilities in the district. I'd volunteer for the Justice Building detail."

Beetee and Wiress weren't the only rebellious District Three victors; some of the others had just been extracted from their Victors Village. Most of the present victors, including myself, went to the District Thirteen hangar to welcome them. Beetee was a fairly old man. I noticed his glasses and wondered if his eyesight had weakened with age. His hair was also fading with time, but his upper lip more than made up for his cranium. He wasn't the only victor with facial hair. Catnip didn't care since I was still the same Gale underneath – well, she doesn't like to shave and I don't either. However, Glimmer was even more attracted to a bearded Cato.

An old man with a long gray beard addressed Beetee as "Bernard". I suppose 'Beetee' meant that B and T were his initials and this is what the first of the first letters stood for.

"Dmitri," Beetee answered, giving the other victor's name. As part of my general distaste for the Games, I hadn't paid attention to such things.

After the introductions, Dmitri delivered some news about the District Three evacuation. "Nathan still believed the Capitol's lies, even once that boy named after him died in the arena this year. He killed Marie to prevent her from joining us. Regina had to kill him to escape. Silica also made it out." Like most victors, the two young women were easily identifiable, even more so in a small crowd such as this.

The victor soldiers had been grouped fairly close together for the liberation of Twelve, and this was intensified for the mission to Ten. Our unit was assigned to the force attacking the Justice Building, as per my suggestion to Plutarch. Johanna's arm wound was worse than we thought; she certainly wasn't ready to go back out into the field. Regina took her place. Silica, like many from Three, was clever but not soldier material.

The surviving Leeg, while heartbroken over her sister's death, insisted on returning to battle. Her fireteam included Lustre, Jack Barton and Cecelia's husband Alexander in a squad commanded by Jackson.

We deployed to District Ten a week later. I understood that we were flying over District Eleven, but the invisibility shield that kept others from seeing in also kept us from seeing out. The pilots had feeds from small clear sensors so they weren't flying blind, but we were riding blind.

"Shit, I thought they'd drop us off at the top of the building, not the bottom," I muttered.

"Guess we're fighting our way in, not out. Go go go," Lyme barked. She shot the lock open and pushed in the damaged door. The Capitol must not have had advance intelligence of our strike; it was easy to take the few guards in the building by surprise. In the rush to the roof, we swept only the areas near the staircases; we'd clear the rest of the building later. At the top of the stairs, there was a hatch that was easy to bust open, and we emerged onto the roof. It was flat and covered in black asphalt shingles. There was a concrete ridge around the edge with drainage holes. It was embellished near the front. That was near the base of the flagpole. I whispered to Lyme, and she announced "Strike their colors."

"We haven't won yet," Brutus observed.

"Not seeing the Capitol flag would embolden local rebels," Lyme countered. "Soldier Hawthorne, get those things down," she ordered. I was glad to comply and rushed to the flagpole. I looked around to see most of my comrades with rifles rested on the ledge. There wasn't much to shoot from up here; Katniss was the most successful at sniping what few targets there were. The flag rope was secured to a hook near the bottom of the pole. I untangled it and began to pull the flags down – one bearing District Ten's seal, a cattle head and crossed knives, was under one bearing the Capitol seal, both brown on a tan background. The flags were clipped to the rope. Cato detached the district banner while Finnick removed the Capitol one. Hook presented both of them to Lyme, and she slammed the Capitol seal onto the ground. I pulled Dalton's flag out of my knee cushion and ran it up as quickly as the others had gone down. Its blue X crossed out its red background as surely as we hoped to end Capitol bloodshed.

We found no one else on the first few upper floors, but soon stumbled into an ambush. The non-victor squad was first into the room and took the brunt of it, eight of the thirteen gone in moments. Lotus was the first of our squad in as the survivors of their squad fell back. The water flower bloomed blood. Her district partners Hook and Finnick flew into a rage, using the butts of their guns to bludgeon the wounded Peacekeepers. We ambushed another group on the floor below.

Further on our way down, we found a treasury room that was no longer guarded, and liberated several sacks of Capitol coins.

There were no other incidents until we got down to ground level. Peacekeepers in alternate uniforms emerged from the basement surrounding a small group of civilians. Katniss led the effort to pick off the guards but not their charges. One was a fat woman in regalia I recognized from the Undersee house back home – we had captured the District Ten mayor and her family, a husband and several children of similarly large size. I grabbed 'Miranda McGraw' by the collar and started yelling at her. "Fuck you. You stuff yourself while ruling over a starving populace."

Once we were ready to leave, Leeg kicked the main door back open only to receive a leaden greeting from Peacekeeper reinforcements. The sixteen of us remaining quickly took cover, under windowsills for the most part, and promptly mowed down the squad of white-armored government thugs. Thirteen lives ended, just like that, in a river of blood on the steps. Sadly, it was quite simply better them than us.

Katniss held a dying Leeg as the life faded from our District Thirteen comrade's yellow-flecked eyes. "I'm sorry," Catnip stammered.

"Don't be. I caught them before they caught you. Tell my father I died alongside the only brothers and sisters I had left," she answered before dying.

We walked out into a burning landscape, bodies of rebels, civilians and Peacekeepers littering the streets. District Ten only ever had four victors. Wyatt had won a very early Games and had died of natural causes years ago. Belle and Bill mentored this year, and were in Capitol custody. The other was another Annie. We saw her running towards the Justice Building with what she could carry. She followed us towards the train station. Many poorer refugees joined us.

Sure enough, Capitol air forces eventually arrived with intention to bomb this district back into submission, but it wasn't going to happen. Hovercraft had to drop their shields for an attack run, and we were more than glad to pour small-arms fire into their weak points. Rebel planes more than countered what we couldn't shoot down from the ground. However, we couldn't evacuate the citizenry the way we had in Twelve – the district was way too large and there was too much Capitol interference.

We finally made it to the train station. The converted Peacekeepers had deployed in District Thirteen uniform, and had done an excellent job securing the train depot. They had interrupted the export of supplies to the Capitol, and those trains could be redirected to District Thirteen. The tracks ran through District Eleven, so we'd liberate that district next.