Lovers in a Dangerous Time
by FanficAllergy & RoseFyre
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Chapter Eleven: Requiem
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Last Time in Lovers in a Dangerous Time:
Ashley starts a dry recitation of names, "James, Chavez, Odair, Poindex—"
There's a cry of despair. A masculine cry. Mr. Odair. He chokes out, "Who?"
We all look at him with sympathy while Hayes asks, "Which Odair?"
"Frederic."
Not Finnick. Not the one I know. But as my mother-in-law gathers a sobbing Mr. Odair into her arms, that knowledge is cold comfort. The man who was willing to risk his life to save mine just lost one of his children.
"How did James die?" Hayes's voice is stricken. I guess he knew the man. Better than I did anyway. It took me a minute to connect the name to Coin's officious aide.
"Doin' his job, protecting the President. Coin's in a bad way." There's a moment of silence. "Docs ain't sure she's gonna make it. A lot of people ain't gonna make it."
I don't know how I feel about Coin. I don't like the woman. But that doesn't mean I want to see her dead. There's only one person I want to see in the ground. Snow. I'm going to make Snow pay.
I'm going to take everything from him and then, when I've done that, I'm going to put an arrow right through his heart.
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Trigger Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, including the aftermath of violence. War is not pretty, y'all. Think World War I mustard poison gas. And, by sheer chance, this is also going to be reminiscent of the current events in Israel and Gaza. If you want more details before reading, please message us.
More character death. Not the trio. Everyone else is fair game. That's all we're telling you.
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Chaos.
Dust-streaked soldiers meander through harried medical staff treating bloody and wheezing patients. No one knows where to go, so they move from place to place at the slightest hint of direction.
Screams.
A cacophony of sound surrounds me—so many screams. Of the injured. Of the scared. Of the dying. Of the mourning.
Tears.
All around me tears fill the eyes of the living. Fill my eyes. From smoke. From grief. From worry.
I know that worry well. I'm feeling it myself. I need to get to Peeta. To Katniss. To my children. But I can't. The nursery is in lockdown, no one in or out, until the all-clear is issued.
It hasn't been issued.
More bombs could be incoming. What little information we have implies that the worst of the attack is over, but the air is still saturated with poison gas. People are still dying. And in the medical bay, the dead are being stacked up in an abandoned exam room like so much cordwood. Smoke, dust, and death permeate the air in a fetid perfume. Coughs, cries, and claxons deafen everyone in the Medical Bay so much that what little information is being passed on is drowned out by the cacophony.
But even the chaos, screams, and tears cannot distract me from the horror playing out on TV screens. While Thirteen chokes and burns, Snow throws a party. But not the typical soiree that darkens our screens during the Victory Tour; this is a party celebrating death, and at its center stands a large scaffold with several jerking and swaying bodies.
Not just any bodies.
Prisoners of war. Children. Victors.
Capitolites.
And even here, in Thirteen's Medical Bay surrounded by the dead and the dying, the survivors of the attack watch to see who will be next. We do not have long to wait. Two Peacekeepers drag a skinny old man with lime green hair onto the scaffold.
Caesar Flickerman.
Gone is the suave host of the Hunger Games, a man whose smile could calm the most nervous tribute and who knew how to make anyone he interviewed look good. In his place stands a dirty, yet somehow defiant, man. His crimes are read quickly, perfunctorily. Sedition. Treason. Enemy of the State.
I have trouble believing it, but I'm the only one. Next to me, on what I've started calling the Figureheads' bench, Finnick shifts, his voice low in my ear. "He told me secrets. He didn't like what the Games had become."
"Did anyone?" Taylor asks from his other side.
"Snow did," Madge responds, her voice filled with venom. Madge has her arm around the Victor from Eight. Whether to comfort the girl or draw comfort from her, I don't know. Possibly both.
I wish Katniss and Peeta were here. I sure could use some comfort myself.
It doesn't take Caesar long to die. The executioner knows his craft. A quick flick and the trapdoor opens. A snap. And it's done. A lone hint of mercy in an otherwise merciless day.
A wail erupts from Taylor as the next victims are dragged up. "Cecelia! No!"
Almost unrecognizable with a shaved head and several angry red scars, the Victor from Eight stands proud, her eyes hard. Behind her cower three children all under the age of seven and a slender man covered in bruises… her family. I know what's going to happen. I don't need to see it; more than that, Taylor doesn't need to see it. No one's around to turn the damned thing off, so I do the one thing I can.
I tear the fucking screen out of the fucking wall.
It clatters to the ground, drawing all eyes to me. I don't care. There's enough pain in this room—Capitol-caused pain—and they don't deserve more. My heart hardens into stone. I've hated Snow my whole life, but it was the hate of the oppressed for their oppressor. This new hatred is personal.
I am going to kill President Snow.
From behind me comes slow, measured applause. I turn to see Heavensbee watching me with calculation in his eyes. "I wish I'd had a team here to film that. My, was it glorious!"
Anger burbles up inside me. "What do you want?"
"Me?" He spreads his hands wide. "I don't want anything. Alma's asking for you."
I nod once, striding down the hall to the well-protected room where the President lies. As I pass the armed and alert soldiers guarding the doorway, I pause briefly. Not out of respect, but in shock. The woman who's been so antagonistic toward us appears to be a shell of her former self. I never realized how thin and delicate her frame was. She's always put on a militant air. An air of strength. Like titanium wire or wooded vine. The woman before me now seems old. Decrepit.
Dying.
This isn't going to be good. Dying people are unpredictable people. I know this from all of the Hunger Games we've been forced to watch. People who know they are going to die have no filter, no limit. There's nothing they fear. Nothing to hold them back.
I wish Peeta were here. I know I'm going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. How am I going to navigate this minefield?
"Gale," she says, dissolving into a cough on the G. "Good." Another cough.
"I'm glad you survived, Madam President." I'm not really, but what else am I supposed to say?
"James saved me," she says, referring to the aide that had given us so much trouble when we first arrived. "But we don't have time to mourn. We must retaliate." She breaks off into yet more coughs and waves away a nurse who tries to fuss over her.
"I want to kill Snow." The words slip out before I can stop them.
It seems to have been the right thing to say. Her eyes glitter with some emotion I can't even begin to name. "Good. Keep that feeling. When these idiots let me out of here, we need to send a message to the Capitol that no bombs, no deaths will destroy us. The Capitol's days are numbered. And I want you by my side. Truly by my side, not as a figurehead, but as a leader of District Thirteen."
Oh shit. What'd I get myself into now?
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Hours later, when the all-clear sounds, I'm standing in one of the morgues, taking stock of the dead. So many dead. One exam room stacked full of bodies became two, then three. Now I don't even know how many there are.
Too many.
At some point, my sister-in-law joined me. I don't remember when. Prim just showed up and took my hand in hers, and together we went on a self-imposed pilgrimage through the makeshift morgues. I don't know what her reason for this journey is, but I know that I must honor and remember the names and the faces of everyone that the Capitol murdered tonight.
The list is long. Too long. In addition to my mother-in-law, Mrs. Paylor, and the cats, the list grows to include Thom, Leevy, and Ripper from Twelve. I'd traded with them at the Hob, and while they weren't true friends I liked them well enough. We find Haymitch standing next to the bodies of Chaff and another Victor who I think was from District Six. We don't say anything; no words are necessary. It's just one more thing that the Capitol has taken from these survivors of the Games.
But most heartbreaking are the small bodies of the children. While those under the age of five were kept safe in the nursery—a fact I am supremely grateful for—the older children were educated and trained on the floors closer to the impact zone. So many children died, including all of Justus's siblings. The couple from Two stand in shock in front of the three small bodies. I'd expect tears or even screams, but there's an unnerving stoicness that causes me to move on quickly. I can't even imagine the pain and anger they must feel. I hope they don't do something rash. Next to them, I find the bodies of Henry's wife and oldest child. I can't help but feel guilty that only Henry's youngest children, unborn at the time of their father's death, survived. They'll never remember the honorable man who protected the kids in the Quarter Quell and worse, they'll grow up as puppets of Thirteen. I wonder if there's something I can do about that. Maybe adopt them? They're the same age as Rain. It wouldn't be too hard to raise them alongside him and Ash. I'd have to talk to Katniss and Peeta first.
As we walk, we pass more mourners including some of the Odair family and even that Poindexter guy from Three. It seems like more Transplants than Thirteen Natives died in the attack. I wonder if it was because the Natives knew where to go in an emergency or if Thirteen deliberately put the Transplants in a less safe area. I'll need to talk to Peeta about this, but for now, I need to continue taking stock of the dead.
The act is somehow made worse every time Prim stops and mourns over people who I didn't even know she knew or remembered or cared about. Finnick's nephew, who is all of five years old, too old to be safe in the nursery but too young to be laid out on the cold cement floor. Thorn, that Peacekeeper who we encountered back at our cave so long ago. Rooba, the butcher from Twelve, her face twisted with claw marks on her neck. Dobby Scott, the kid who tried to kick me in the nuts because his friend was Reaped in place of me.
"Why did they do this?" Prim asks, hiccuping, staring at the body of Dobby Scott. "Why?"
"Because they're bastards."
"I mean it, Gale. Why?" Taking her hand from mine, she wipes her eyes. "I know we're at war, but they're attacking children. Innocents." Her voice breaks. "Noncombatants."
"No one's innocent in war." The words come out as my eyes land on another small body under a tarp.
Prim stares at me. "You can't believe that!"
But I do. Even my sons, who are too young to understand what's going on, aren't innocent. They've been turned into symbols of the rebellion. And that makes them fair game—at least in the Capitol's eyes. In their eyes, each dead child is one fewer person who will grow into an angry adult who might try to rise up against them.
It's always been this way.
Long before we left District Twelve, the Capitol murdered children to keep the rest of the population in line. They worked starving men and women to death to fill arbitrary quotas. They created laws and rules that no one could hope to follow just to have something to punish otherwise-innocent people with—people that they thought might be rebellious. Or they just didn't like the look of. Growing up in District Twelve, I've always felt the underlying threat of violence and known that I could be killed at any moment.
Innocence is a luxury that I've never known.
But I can't tell Prim that. Katniss and her mother have worked hard to allow her innate optimism and hope to bloom and flourish. Her innocence was fought for and was one of the catalysts for our escape. My wife wouldn't thank me for undoing a lifetime of work in a few seconds.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. "I'm not you, Prim. I'm not good like you." It's not the answer I know she's looking for.
She tilts her head. "But you're a good person, Gale. I've seen it."
"Your sister and Peeta make me want to be a good person." I pause and glance around, trying to give voice to the thoughts swirling in my head. My eyes light on a bit of smoldering rubble. "I guess I'm like a fire. Properly cared for, I can do good, be good, provide comfort. But if left to my own devices and given too much fuel, I'll just burn everything to the ground."
Prim puts her hand back in mine and squeezes. "Then we just have to make sure you don't get too much fuel."
"Tell that to the Capitol."
"I will." She bites her lower lip and says slowly, "I think I know how you're feeling. I'm really mad, too, and I want to do something to the people who killed my cats and my mom. And I feel so guilty, like it's all my fault! Mom died because she went to go get my cats."
I look at her sideways. "You don't know that."
"But I do! She knows how much they mean to me. Of course she'd go get them!" She swipes at her tears again.
I don't really believe that's what happened, but it's not important now. What's important is that Prim does. "But it's not your fault even if she did choose to go get your cats. She's an adult. She made her decision."
"But Buttercup didn't! He's just a cat. I should've left him in Twelve! He would've been fine if we left him behind."
"You don't know that," I say again, feeling like a broken record. "The Capitol bombed Twelve. He might've died then. At least by bringing him with you, he had a chance to have a family."
She squeezes my hand. "You know, that's true for you too."
"What?"
"The guilt." Her eyes are surprisingly firm as they meet mine. "'Cause I know you're feeling guilty."
"I am?" I'm pretty sure I'm just angry. And yes, there's a little guilt because I lived and they died, but it's not my primary emotion. That's rage. Pure unadulterated rage. But Prim seems to think she's onto something, and I'm not going to stop her because at least she's not crying or asking me existential questions about the nature of war that I can't answer.
"Yeah," she says, warming to her subject. "Over Mrs. Paylor. It wasn't your fault she died."
I know that. I don't think it was my fault. I'm not the one using poison gas.
"None of it is your fault. You might deny it, but I know you, Gale. You take things on yourself. I bet you think that you could have gotten Mrs. Paylor to safety sooner if you'd only run a little faster."
She's got me there. But I don't feel guilty about that, at least I don't think I do.
Not waiting for a response, Prim continues, "I bet that you're thinking that we should've never left the cave. That if you'd stayed, if we'd all stayed, none of this would've happened."
"Well it wouldn't."
"You don't know that," she says, throwing my earlier words back in my face. She takes a breath. "I bet you're even thinking that we never should've left Twelve. That you should've just died in the Games."
"I might've won." I feel the need to point that out. After all, I'm strong, I can hunt, and I'm older than most of the other tributes.
Prim just gives me a look.
"What?"
"Sure, Gale." She rolls her eyes.
"Okay, now you're just being a brat."
She sticks her tongue out at me. "I'm a younger sister. It's in my contract."
I can't help the way the corners of my lips turn up. She reminds me so much of my own siblings, especially Rory. "I don't remember signing any contract stipulating to taking shit from you."
"Sure you did," Prim counters, a gamine grin on her face. "That's what you get for marrying my sister. You don't just marry a person, you marry a family."
"Where did you get that idea from?"
She waves a hand. "Oh, I don't know. I just heard it somewhere."
Before I have an opportunity to counter that, my brother skids into the room.
"Finally!" Rory pants, like he's been running. "Do you know how many places I had to look for you?"
"Sixteen?" Prim hazards a guess, turning her teasing from me to my brother.
Rory holds a hand to his chest. "More than that!" He starts to count the places on his fingers.
"Was there a reason you're looking for us?" I interrupt. I don't want to be treated to the Prim-and-Rory show.
A flush spreads across Rory's cheeks as his eyes dart toward Prim. "Um, no reason. And… and… I'm sure Katniss and Peeta are looking for you!"
Ah, I understand. He was worried about Prim. Dropping Prim's hand, I say, "I should probably get going. Thanks for everything."
She smiles up at me. "No problem. What are sisters for?"
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AN:
Written: 12/21/2023
Revised: 1/7/2024
The title of this chapter comes from the song "Requiem" by Avenged Sevenfold.
So, yeah, it took us almost five years to update. Stuff got shoved on the backburner as we started doing more with our original writing and editing. And then… one of us got cancer. Make that three cancers. And that, rightfully, took focus. And in the midst of all of this, both of us started suffering burnout. For one of us, this is the first thing we've written in over a year. For the other, it's been ten months.
It's very likely that chapters are going to be shorter in the future. We are going to work on this when we can. Health issues (including cancer) and burnout are still very present.
This chapter was not inspired by current events. We've had most of this chapter written since 2020. This was about taking something that happened in canon (the bombing) and taking it to a logical conclusion about radicalization. This has been planned in some form since 2015. Covid, this… are we disturbingly good at predicting shit or what? (We did not want to be disturbingly good at predicting shit. We do not want to be playing Apollo dodgeball.)
While we were going for World War I imagery in a lot of this fic (Spanish flu, mustard gas), we do acknowledge that there is also some Holocaust and Israel/Gaza imagery at work here. One of us had a grandfather fight in the trenches of World War I, the other is the descendant of Holocaust survivors. We're doing our best to treat it respectfully, but we acknowledge the possibility of accidentally triggering someone.
Things that were randomized in this chapter:
— Who died.
— Who survived.
You can get more information about our original writing here: RoseLark Publishing
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Until next time! Thanks for reading!