Ruth Fleming is stronger than most people think she is.
She doesn't cry, because she learned a long time ago that it doesn't change anything.
She doesn't complain, not about the things that really matter anyway, because nobody listens.
She doesn't speak up, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have a voice just the same.
When the Peacekeepers come to burn her home to the ground, she finally starts to use it. She shouts to her friends, tells them to run as she grabs one of the little ones from the orphanage and dumps her into one of the older girl's arms. The Capitol have been at it for what feels like hours, and they'd been sheltering in the basement of a nearby building before a man with long hair that they didn't recognise had fought his way to them and breathlessly explained that they needed to run. People are dead already and everything is burning, but she can still save these kids, the family she has left.
Pete.
The last thing they'd seen of the Games had been him and Steph clambering through a window together, before the footage had been cut completely. The past few days have been torture, watching him hurt and scared, but somehow brave through it all. He could be dead now. The thought winds her and she staggers to a halt for a moment, until she hears a familiar voice.
"Ruth!" Richie is shouting from the next room, and she rushes through the doorway as the walls shake and plaster rains down on her. The deafening sound of an explosion comes next, half a second after she spots her friend. He's leaning over Nora, one of the ladies who works at the orphanage doing cooking and cleaning. The window of the room has been blown in, and she is very clearly dead - blood runs from her ears and her eyes are frozen wide open. Richie himself is bleeding too, and there is something sticking out of his shoulder, but with his uninjured arm he is still shaking Nora. "Ruth, I don't know what to do." He wheezes.
"Leave her." Ruth commands. She reaches for him, and he staggers to her side. He is heaving air into his lungs like a man rescued from drowning, so Ruth reaches for a scrap of the room's torn up curtains and passes it to him to hold over his face. She keeps one arm covering her mouth and nose and her own breaths short and shallow so as not to breath in any of the nasty shit raining down on them from the bombs and the rubble. Together, they run haphazardly out of the building, around to the back - the main highstreet is burning so they'll have to circle through downtown to get to the Victors Village, Ted and Charlotte, the only place she can think to go. Richie is coughing and slowing, tugging at her sleeve but she drags him on, feeling heat at her back.
They barely make it twenty yards before another explosion rocks the ground beneath them, and they stumble. Ruth hits her knees and Richie follows suit. They don't even make it up again before three Peacekeepers round the corner; Richie yells something unintelligible and the last thought Ruth has before they smack her over the head is that they're going to die.
...
Sometime later, there is light.
Too much, piercing even through her closed eyelids. She groans, barely moving for fear that she'll discover some horrific injury.
But she feels... fine. Save for her throbbing head and the light burning her retinas.
The last day floods back to her and she forces her eyes open as her heart sinks to her feet. "Richie?" She frowns at the dark haired figure sitting down across from her.
His head shoots up and he winces - blood is matted across his hairline and one of his arms is bandaged. He's wearing all white, and it hurts her still adjusting eyes to look at. "Hey," He whispers, relieved. "Oh thank god. Are you alright?"
"Uh - no?" She whines, blinking heavily. Things are coming into focus - there are white bars across from her, on all sides except one in fact. The final side is made up of white panels, and Richie's silhouette presses against it. When she looks down at herself, she feels an unpleasant shiver down her spine at the realisation that someone has changed her into oversized, all white clothes too.
"Ok, um, me neither." He lets out a funny little laugh that sounds mostly just crazy. "Its alright; its not just us here, Mr Matthews can help us."
"Mr Matthews?" She frowns, glancing around until she spots a figure slumped in the next cell along. Its him, Pete's brother's friend, their friend too by proxy, she supposes distantly. "How..." She shakes her head.
Richie shrugs. "But if he's alive, do you think Pete could be too?"
"Heck, if even we are, they all could be." She mumbles. "Shit." She staggers to her feet, and with Richie's unsteady guidance, they move shakily as close as they can get to the man in question. They almost topple over in the last stretch, and the bars clang as Ruth braces herself against them. "Hey!" She grunts and Richie scowls.
"Sorry, you're heavier than you look." He pants before coughing harshly.
Mr Matthews cries out and they both jump back, grabbing at each others arms. He's sat bolt upright now, one hand shading his face and the other bracing himself against the ground. "Emma?" He slurs.
"It's Ruth, Mr Matthews." She whispers carefully.
"And Richie." The boy adds over her shoulder.
"Pete's friends?" She says hopefully.
"Ruth?" He murmurs, rubbing at his face. "No... no, you're in District 3." He shakes his head, then winces.
"We don't know where we are." Richie explains. "But the Capitol attacked District 3, Mr Matthews, and then the peacekeepers found us and now we're here." He's wringing his hands compulsively as he talks, and Ruth gives his arm a squeeze. There's still blood under his nails from trying to help Nora.
Paul blinks heavily and pats himself down, like he's checking for injuries underneath his own pearly t-shirt and joggers, disturbingly pristine. Then he turns slowly and assesses their surroundings. Finally, he speaks.
"Ok." He mutters. "Ok. Ruth, Richie, I think that we're in the Capitol." He turns to them, and Richie looks away to avoid the eye contact. "I think that maybe... well, I'm here to take to fall for what we did, but you two - Steph and Pete were a big part of this, so it could be that you're here to keep them in line."
"What? Mr Matthews, you're not making any sense." Ruth could almost laugh at the idea that she and Richie are considered important, and by the Capitol of all people.
"It's Paul." He corrects gently. "And it does make sense. You're special to Pete. And they want to hurt him now, and Steph."
Richie scoffs. "Stephanie doesn't care about us."
"She cares about him. And he cares about you." Paul's smile tastes bitter. He can't quite believe that this is the way these kids are finding out that they are loved. By being held as hostages over their best friend's head.
There's groaning from the cell on the other side of Ruth and Richie. Paul's jaw drops; it's the boy from before, who's leg he'd tourniqueted before reaching out to Dr Perkins for help. His black hair sweeps over his eyes and his leg must be bandaged now, no longer bleeding at least that he can see. Lying next to him is a girl with long brown hair covering her face. The first thing he does is reach for her.
"Lex-" He coughs. "Lexie, baby, wake up." He looks around bleary eyed at the people he can feel watching him. Paul, Ruth and Richie stare back.
"Not Lex Foster?" Paul manages breathlessly.
"Who the hell are you?" The boy fires back, eyes wide and awake now. "Where are we?"
"I'm Paul Matthews, I was... the District 3 mentor this year. I saw you at the Games Headquarters, you were hurt..."
Recognition flashes in the kid's eyes and he nods once. "Ethan." He introduces himself. "And this is Lex." His hand rests on her shoulder protectively; her chest is rising and falling steadily and she doesn't seem to be in any pain.
"Hannah's sister." It isn't a question. Ethan nods anyway.
"What's gonna happen to us, Paul?" He asks, face set stubbornly like a child trying to convince the adults he's a grown up. "Where are we?"
Paul looks across the room, at the four teenagers trapped with him in hell. This wasn't what he'd meant to do, but bad things rarely happen on purpose, and he's beyond used to dealing with the shit that comes his way by now. His hand still feels cold as it did when he lost hold of Emma however long ago it was when Dr Perkins betrayed him. He needs her to be safe; he needs these kids to be safe the way he hasn't been since his name was called in the Reaping all those years ago.
"Nothing is going to happen to you." He says with a fierceness that settles into his bones. "I'm going to get us out of this."
He thinks of the first time he saw Emma's true smile, of Steph and Pete teasing each other in training, of Charlotte and Ted and Bill singing him happy birthday whilst he groaned and rolled his eyes.
It feels so unlikely that he, just one person, could do anything to fight against the power of the Capitol. The odds are near impossible, even. But he can't bring himself to care; as if something like powerlessness could stop him now. He has saved lives, and he has taken them. He has protected both of his tributes in the Hunger Games, a feat never before achieved. He has fallen asleep on the sofa with a Capitolite, feeling safe and content in her arms.
Paul Matthews is fed up of hearing about the odds.
END
A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed my first foray into Hunger Games AUs! They're tricky to write. Please feel free to leave feedback, and let me know if there is interest in a sequel - it may not happen but I'm aware this story, much like the second Hunger Games novel, did not have a happy ending. Anyway, thanks for reading! Take care and have a lovely day :)