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Twice Chosen

"This isn't working."

"Thank you for pointing that out," I said, cursing my bitter tone as I took in Peeta's initial sorrow at my bitter retort.

Despite my hopes that the time off yesterday would get us in a better mental place to attempt morphing today, once we started training the next day it was soon clear that we weren't making any particular progress. It wasn't as though we'd started arguing or anything, and everyone recognised that even Peeta didn't know how he'd pulled off that particular stunt, but we'd already spent most of the morning just fighting the latest wave of putties and hadn't made any progress on anything deeper. Rue had spent most of the day back in the ship looking over the computers, and Alpha had spent more time helping her than he had trying to motivate us.

It wasn't that I didn't appreciate Rue finding something she could do here even if she wasn't a Ranger- one of the things that made me so proud of Prim was that she already knew what she wanted to do with her life and was already comparatively good at it- but the idea that Alpha wasn't bothering to spend more time with us right now…

"Maybe… we need to spend time together?"

"What do you think we're doing?" I pointed out, indicating the cavern where the other three Rangers were practicing their own combat styles right now.

"That's just training, and… look, to be blunt, we already spent time doing that with the idea that we'd kill each other with what we were learning, so we've… maybe it left us with a certain idea about how things will work out because of this that we can't shake off," Peeta explained, a cautious expression on his face as though he was taking care to choose his words. "We need to do something that we've never done before… maybe something that we've never really done with anyone…"

"What are you thinking?" I looked at my last connection to District Twelve as he looked thoughtfully upwards. For the first time, I found myself appreciating Haymitch's point that Peeta was good at getting people to like him; if he had an idea that might help us connect as a team…

"I was talking with Alpha about the morphing experience after my close call yesterday, and he told me that part of this whole thing was something about how we have to 'shed our masks to wear our armour'," Peeta explained, shrugging helplessly as he took in the stare I gave him at that description. "Yeah, it sounds stupid, I know, but it got me thinking… maybe if we spent a bit of time talking outside of this arena…"

"We talk when we're eating-"

"I was thinking about something more… relaxed," Peeta looked at me with a thoughtful smile. "I just… do you go camping when you're out hunting?"

Once the idea had been put forward, I was surprised at easy it was to sell it to the others. I wasn't sure if it was just Peeta being that good at convincing people to go along with his ideas, or if everyone was as frustrated with being stuck here as I had been, but it only took a couple of hours after Peeta proposed the idea for the six of us to be sitting around a campfire in another wood I'd never seen before, roasting a freshly-killed deer on a spit I'd erected earlier. Zordon had been uncomfortable at the idea of us spending a night outside of the ship, but once Alpha had confirmed that he could send us somewhere far away from the traces of energy produced by Rita's coin, while maintaining a 'lock' on us in case something else came close to our position, the face in the wall had agreed with the request. We grabbed a few bottles of water from the ship's kitchen area- I didn't know precisely where the water came from, but at least it tasted fine- along with a few 'weapons' that could be adapted as tools, and then Alpha had sent us off just as requested.

Once we found ourselves in the woods, it was easy enough for us to sort out a makeshift campsite. We all recognised that actually sleeping out in the open was too dangerous, so we didn't need to set up a tent or any other kind of 'accommodation' for us to spend the night in, but we were able to use the axes to cut down some wood to make a fire and a few 'seats'.

Even the actual experience of preparing the meal had been kind of fun. Peeta and Liv had focused on getting the fire set up along with establishing a basic campsite, Rue had been able to help me find a few herbs around the woods to give the meat some extra seasoning, and Thresh and Glimmer had even volunteered to help me prepare it for cooking. I'd had to take sole responsibility for actually getting the meat because I was the only 'qualified' hunter, but once I came back with another good-sized deer Thresh and Glimmer had been willing to cut and prepare the meat according to my directions while I sat against a tree and had a rest after the hunt. Peeta and Liv had used the opportunity to get in a quick spar to exercise themselves while Rue spent time looking over a few notes that Liv must have given her, but eventually we were all sitting around the campfire once again, enjoying a well-cooked deer and the warmth of the outside world.

"…Good job," Thresh said at last, looking up at me as he finished his last bit of meat.

"Thanks," I replied with a tentative smile, my own food finished a few minutes earlier. "Like I said, I've… done a lot of cooking since my dad died."

"Didn't your mother help?" Rue asked.

"She…" I began, wanting to default to my usual lie before I reminded myself that there was no need for it right now. "She never really got over losing Dad."

"She's not allowed to grieve?"

"Not when it leaves her basically catatonic for months when she had me and Prim to look after," I responded to Thresh's query, a part of me surprised at how I was actually talking about this for a change. "I had to re-learn most of my dad's old hunting lessons basically from the ground up to provide for us before I was old enough to take out tesserae to give us more food, and even there were often days when it took everything I had just to find enough for Prim to eat…"

"At least you know that your mother cares about you," Peeta observed. "My mother… I'm never sure if she's that bothered about any of us."

"Katniss… said your mother was basically a witch?" Rue asked.

"She's…" Peeta began, before he sighed and looked around. "Let me put it this way; when my family came to see me after the Reaping, she said that at least this year District Twelve might have a shot at winning, and I knew she wasn't talking about me."

"She said that to your face?" Thresh looked at Peeta incredulously. "Damn, that's harsh…"

"She said that about her own son?" Rue's expression could best be described as bewildered as she looked at Peeta.

"Some people just… aren't good parents," Peeta shrugged as he looked at Rue. "Be grateful you had good ones."

Rue just nodded at that, even as the anxious expression on her face as she looked at Peeta once again reminded me of how Prim sometimes couldn't understand the things I had to do to stay out of trouble and get us food.

"Tough break," Thresh nodded at Peeta and me with a sense of sympathy.

"…Thanks," I said, wondering at the strange sense of relief I felt at the lack of judgement in his voice. "I mean, it's not that I don't understand that my parents cared about each other, but when Dad's loss drove her that far…"

"It's never easy for anyone," Thresh observed. "After my dad died, his savings helped Gran cope with having to take us on at first, but…"

"How old is your sister?" Peeta asked.

"Few years younger than me," Thresh clarified. "Fray's tough, and gran didn't get to her age by being weak, but it's still… I mean, I don't know what it's like in your District, but how long would you think a single grandmother can cope with a kid Fray's age on her own?"

Glimmer and Liv just sat in silence, but Peeta, Rue and I all nodded at Thresh in acknowledgement.

"I'm worried about my family," Rue put in.

"Why?" Peeta asked. "I mean, I get that you're worried about how they're coping if they think you're dead, but from what you've told us about them, they sound as though they're happy-"

"They are, but… well, like I said, I help them out a lot, and if they all think I'm dead…"

Rue trailed off, but the rest of us understood enough about life in our own Districts to guess what she was concerned about. Recalling how my mother had reacted to losing my father, I decided to just hold on to a private hope that it would be 'easier' for the parents to cope with losing one child when they had so many others to take care of, as opposed to how my mother had fallen apart when she just had Prim and I to look after.

"I've never had anybody to be there for me."

"Huh?" Peeta looked at Liv in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I live in a group home," Liv explained, her face lowered as though it was easier not to look at us while she spoke. "My mom died in an accident at the plant when I was about three, she had no living parents I could go to, and I never knew anything about my dad; I'm not even sure if he and my mom were in any kind of relationship or if it was just some sort of one-night-stand thing…"

"One-night-stand?" Rue asked.

The sheer innocence on her face as she asked that question made it clear that the girl didn't know what the term meant. I was suddenly reminded of how it had felt when Prim was old enough to ask if we could have another sibling after our father died, and my mother and I had tried to give her a suitable explanation for why that wouldn't work.

"It… just means that… you know that you need a mom and a dad to have kids?" Peeta said at last, once it was clear none of us were entirely comfortable at giving Rue the full details.

"Duh," Rue looked at him with a semi-teasing grin before she looked more seriously at him. "What does that have to do with standing for one night?"

"That's… not actually what that term means, Rue," Liv explained with an awkward smile at her unofficial research assistant. "'One-night-stand' basically means that my parents… made me… one night, and then my dad left, probably without even knowing my mum was pregnant."

"Oh," Rue said, the rest of us waiting in silence for her to process that detail until she looked more curiously at Liv. "But if you lived in a group home, doesn't that mean-?"

"Just having a bunch of people in the house doesn't mean that I really get along with them," the would-be Blue Ranger explained. "It wasn't that any of them were outright bullies, but I never really… I mean, when you feel like you're the smart one even by the standards of a stereotypically smart District, you tend to feel a bit out of place…"

"You were that smart?" Rue looked at Liv with a grin.

"And that was a bad thing?" Glimmer looked at the girl from Five with a curious expression.

"It is when I don't have a… specific interest," Liv clarified. "The whole point of our education is to find the area we can work best in; I just… dipped in and out of everything I could read about without ever just picking something and really committing to it…"

"How is that a problem?" Rue looked at Liv uncertainly. "I… you seem pretty smart to me… you've been so focused…"

"Yeah, when I'm learning about something totally new I can focus, but once I've learnt enough to satisfy my interest I just…" Liv trailed off with an awkward shrug. "I mean, I could do most jobs back home if I wanted, but I couldn't find anything where I could say 'I want to do this for the rest of my life' and commit to it."

"And then you ended up here, huh?" Thresh observed.

"Yeah…" Liv nodded in response, a solemn expression on her face even as she gave him a sympathetic smile that made it clear she understood what he meant. "I'm… I mean, I didn't come here wanting to die, but I didn't even really have a plan for how I'd even win the Games before… this… all happened. If I hadn't noticed Thresh and Katniss heading for the cave and become curious, I would have probably just ended up sneaking around, grabbing supplies where I could, just trying to outlast the rest of you until I had to fight someone…"

Her voice trailed off as she looked awkwardly at the rest of us with a tentative smile. "Probably a stupid plan, I know, but-"

"No, I… I can get that," Peeta said, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. "It's… it's like I told Katniss before we went into the arena; I don't mind dying, I just don't want the Capitol to make me into something I'm not…"

Glimmer suddenly let out a scream and slammed her hands to the ground before she turned away, her fists clenched and her shoulders shaking from some suppressed emotion. For a moment, I wondered if I'd just missed something to prompt that kind of reaction, but a brief glance around was enough to confirm that the other four were just as confused about what she had done as I was.

"…Glimmer?" Liv asked at last, reaching out a hand towards the former Career's shoulder, only for Glimmer to slap it away.

"Back off!" the would-be Pink Ranger said bitterly.

"We… Glimmer, we need you if we're going to do this, and part of that means… we need to be there for you in turn," Peeta said, looking uncertainly at his initial 'ally'. "If I… said something wrong, I'm sorry-"

"Says the guy who actually got to do what he wanted to do in the Games!"

"…I'm sorry?"

"Yeah, you got to go into the Games with a clear plan to save the girl and screw worrying about if you were going to make it; bully for you, lover-boy," Glimmer said, her tone still bitter as she resolutely kept her back to the rest of us. "Everyone else here just entered the arena with the goal of not dying, but you had to be the goddamn noble idiot who's willing to get himself gutted if it means giving the girl a chance to go back…"

"I… I didn't ask Peeta to do that for me-" I began cautiously.

"I know that!" Glimmer stood up and turned to glare at me, her expression so hostile that the rest of us quickly got to our feet as well. "You want to know what my problem is? My problem is that I spent years as part of an academy that taught us that the best way we could help our District was by being the best warrior in the Games when we got here, and after all that effort I put into being better than everyone else out back home, I… I killed kids!"

The self-loathing in her voice as she spoke was such a surprise that I had to glance around at the rest of the group to confirm that they'd heard the same thing I had. All of us knew that Glimmer had killed some of the other Tributes in the opening bloodbath, but hearing her openly acknowledge that she actually felt guilty about that…

I had spent years in a situation where I could only trust Gale with my life, but from what Alpha had told us, we would have to trust each other if we were going to survive this, which meant that we couldn't keep secrets from each other.

"…The Academy trained us all to be the best of the best," Glimmer said at last, once it was clear that none of us were going to say anything after that particular proclamation. "I spent years training in everything to be at the top of my class; I can use basically every weapon they might give us in this arena even before we started getting all this freaky alien training, but then… the first time I actually used that training for real…"

"You killed kids," Thresh finished for her, his tone displaying no judgement as he looked at the girl he'd dismissively been calling 'One' just a few days ago.

"Yeah, kids," Glimmer repeated, a new level of self-loathing in her voice as she spoke. "All that training, all that practice, all that skill… and I used it to kill a bunch of kids while I was on an adrenaline rush to take out every possible threat around me… seriously, did I actually say threat? None of those kids even wanted to be there; I think the first girl just fell into me by accident, this guy was basically in my way and it was easier to stab him than shove him when I'd already grabbed the knife, and then I found some little shrimp trying to get away from the Cornucopia with a bag and hit her in the head with a fucking axe…"

She fell silent for a moment once again, the rest of us too shaken to even try and say anything else until we knew what else she would have to say, before she looked solemnly up at us once again. "And the worst part of it? I couldn't tell anyone how I felt when I first looked at those bodies because the rest of the Pack would have ganged up on the weakling, and I've had to spend the last few days just trying to get us all into good shape so we can take part in a fight that actually fucking matters and I still end up dreaming about those kids… I'm trying to save lives and I can't get those three faces out of my head… God, I think that first girl wasn't much older than the tag-along over there, and now…"

As Glimmer bent her head and began to sob into her knees, it was ironically Rue who was the first of us to move, standing up and walking over to give Glimmer's shoulders a cautious hug. As though she'd been waiting for the cue, Glimmer turned around and wrapped her arms around Rue, her head practically buried in the small girl's chest as she continued sobbing. The rest of us could only look awkwardly at each other for a moment before Peeta stood up and walked over to join Rue in giving Glimmer a hug, followed by myself and Liv. Thresh was the last to join our sudden huddle, but he took care to crouch down so that he was eye level with Glimmer as he reached past the rest of us to put a hand on one arm.

"Thanks."

"…For what?" Glimmer sniffed, turning away from Rue's chest to look tearfully at him.

"For showing us why Pink chose you for once."

"Oh yeah," Glimmer snorted with a disdainful sob, "because a compassionate person kills kids-"

"Maybe not, but she mourns them like this if she does," Peeta put in with a cautious smile at the blonde. "You… were caught up in the moment, Glimmer; it doesn't excuse it, but what you're going to do from now on does."

"What I'm going to do?"

"Save the world," Rue said, as we all stepped back from Glimmer to look at her with new understanding. "We're going to stop Rita so you don't have to do that again."

"Agreed," Liv said, as Peeta and Thresh nodded along with her. All I could do was give Glimmer a tentative smile that I hoped would show my support even as I had to wonder if we could go along with that particular promise.

It was good to see Glimmer showing such genuine humanity and concern for others, considering that I was used to the idea of the Careers just seeing the rest of us as their designated victims in the Games, and I suddenly knew that I'd never see her as 'just' a killer ever again, but the idea that we could make sure Glimmer wouldn't have to kill like that again…

Once again, I found myself thinking about what we could do for the world as Rangers after Rita had been dealt with, and it left me ever more intrigued at the possibilities if I could just present it to Zordon the right way…

"…Are we friends now?"

"Huh?" Thresh said, speaking the thoughts that I was sure were on all our minds as we looked at Rue after her last question.

"After… all that…" Rue waved a hand at the group of us around the fire. "Are we friends now… or are we just- you just- Power Rangers?"

It wasn't exactly a relief to realise that nobody else sitting around the fire knew how to answer that question any more than I did.