Spoilers: Major spoilers for the Hunger Games series.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. I'm only borrowing the characters for a while.

A/N: As mentioned in the summary, this fic follows my two previous one-shots that take place in this alternate universe, "Masquerade," and "A Gilded Cage." I think this alternate universe ate my brain, lol. I've been working on this story for the last several months. The ideas just kept coming, and I couldn't resist writing them. This fic is already complete, and it will be a total of four chapters.

As always, I also thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.

Warning: Like the other two fics in this series, this fic will include a number of disturbing topics. I am always careful not to write in a graphic way, but these topics are definitely present, and some of them will play a large part in this story. Just be aware that, at points, this story really will be very dark. I don't believe it's any darker than the Hunger Games are to begin with (essentially, if a dark concept is already in the canon Hunger Games universe, it's likely to be in this story too), but I did want to mention that up front.

Ignition Point

Chapter 1

Sage Mellark was going to die.

He knew that...he'd known it the moment his name was called.

The Reaping for the 94th Hunger Games was practically his execution order.

He could already picture the tearful audience reactions that the Capitol would broadcast when his cannon sounded...the solemn vigils they would hold in his honor.

But even if the crowds would make a show of mourning for him, they wouldn't riot. Maybe they would have once, right after his parents won, when the Capitol audience's devotion to the Star-Crossed Lovers was still at a fever pitch. Now, though...now they'd had twenty years to enjoy the Star-Crossed Lovers' "happily ever after," and most of them were ready for more drama.

Naturally, Sage's biggest fans were hoping that he would become the next Victor.

The thought of what he would face if he did win was enough to make it just a little bit easier to accept his inevitable death.

The night of the interviews, the peacekeepers escorted his parents and his sister to the front row, right at the foot of the stage, then took positions around them as soon as they were seated.

Sage watched them force proud smiles for the cameras, and he did the same when it was his turn. He talked about the future he would never have – the future that the audience had once so desperately wanted to see. He talked about the career he'd never pursue, the woman he'd never marry, and the family that he'd never raise.

Unhappy murmurs filled the auditorium when he was finished, and Sage sat back to listen, satisfied.

It wouldn't fix anything – it wouldn't change what was about to happen – but if the Capitol was going to take his life, well, then, he would do everything he could to make it hurt for them too.

Katniss didn't remember much after Sage died.

Only pain. And rage.

She'd tried to attack one of the peacekeepers, but Peeta had held her back...and then he'd just held her as she fell apart.

There'd been nothing else after that. Nothing but numbness.

She'd welcomed it.

They'd taken her somewhere. A hospital...or one of those private medical clinics that were dotted around the Capitol. It didn't matter.

She knew, distantly, that they were drugging her. She didn't know if the drugs were meant to keep her calm or to try to stop her from spiraling farther into the void that was threatening to swallow her.

She didn't care either way, as long as the numbness didn't end.

Peeta was there often, watching her with red-rimmed eyes as he sat beside her bed, holding her hand...anchoring her to the world of the living. It was hard not to resent him for it.

Helena was there too.

But Sage wasn't. He would never be there again.

Katniss had been terrified when she was pregnant with him.

Nightmares had been a constant since the Games, but after Gale's "accident," the mines had once again taken a starring role in her dreams, merging with her memories from the Games to create a new kind of horror. Her mother's letters describing Gale's injuries hadn't helped, but she'd needed to know what had happened to him. What she'd sentenced him to.

But that hadn't been the only reason she'd been afraid.

Her pregnancy with Sage had been even worse than her pregnancy with Helena because she hadn't realized, that first time, just how fiercely she would love her child until she'd held her newborn daughter in her arms.

Everything else had faded into the background in that instant. All of her fears, all of her dread and uncertainty...even her memories of the harrowing, desperate months she and Peeta had spent trying for a baby, wondering who would be taken from them next if they didn't succeed.

In that moment, there had only been Helena. Her daughter.

The second time, when the Capitol had demanded that Helena have a sibling, Katniss had known exactly how dangerous it was because the more she loved, the more she had to lose.

And she had known that, like her daughter, she would love her son so very, very much.

A sharp stab of grief sliced through the numbness, and Katniss let herself drift away little more, until the pain faded again.

Days passed...weeks, maybe, as the world drifted in and out of focus.

"Mom..."

It was a different sort of ache that reached her this time, one that pulled at something in her chest. A part of her wanted to fight it...to ignore the voice and drift back into that peaceful nothingness.

"Mom...please..."

Katniss was eleven again, and she'd just given Prim the last piece of the jerky their father had made for their winter supplies. It wasn't winter yet, but there wasn't anything else in the house, and Katniss wasn't sure how she was supposed to get more. She left Prim at the table and walked silently to the back room...her parents' room. She pushed open the door, its hinges creaking softly, and her gaze immediately landed on the still figure in the middle of the bed.

"Mom?" Katniss tried.

Nothing. She wasn't sure why she'd expected anything different. There'd been nothing for weeks.

Her throat closed up, angry tears burning in her eyes. "Mom, please! Wake up! We need you!"

Katniss blinked, her eyes fluttering, and Helena swam slowly into focus. She was sitting beside the bed where Peeta usually did, her Seam-gray eyes filled with tears.

Her eyes. Helena had her eyes.

Sage's eyes were blue. Like Peeta's.

Grief roared up inside Katniss, clawing and tearing at her chest, and for a moment, the nothingness called to her again. But there were still tears in her daughter's eyes, and Katniss reached for her, the unused muscles in her arms trembling with the effort.

Later, it was Peeta who was sitting beside her again, holding a bowl of broth...the first thing she'd eaten on her own in longer than she could remember.

It tasted like dirt and ashes and death.

She ate it anyway.

For a while, Peeta had dared to hope that Sage's death would be enough.

He felt sick even thinking it because his son's death was like a phantom limb, a terrible, constant, hollow ache of emptiness that his mind didn't want to accept, even four years later.

But he knew Sage had hoped the same thing...that, somehow, his death would mean their safety.

After all, the Capitol had gotten what it wanted from Star-Crossed Lovers, a warning written in his son's blood for all to see: This is what happens to those who try to beat us at our own Game.

But now, Snow wanted his daughter too.

He and Katniss had come home from long days crammed with public appearances to find Helena waiting for them, dressed in one of the loose, pale blue lounge sets she preferred when she changed out of whatever outfit she'd been forced into by her stylist. She was wearing a tight smile that didn't reach her eyes. The tub wasn't draining well in the her en suite bathroom, she said, and then asked if they would both come take a look at it.

Peeta had gone cold, and Katniss went rigid beside him.

It had been a long time since they'd tried to hide from the bugs in the house that way. It had been easier when the kids were young enough to need help in the bath or with getting ready for bed, and they had some excuses for the whole family being in the bathroom together. But, as the kids had grown, it had gotten harder and harder to find believable reasons to make that happen, so they tried to use it only in emergencies.

The fact that Helena was risking it now said it all, and Katniss's hand had trembled faintly in his as they followed Helena down the hall.

They reached the bathroom, and the moment the water was running, Helena dropped down onto the edge of the bathtub, her legs giving out from under her, her knuckles white as she gripped the tub's porcelain rim.

Peeta barely heard the rushing water as Helena told them about her unexpected summons to a meeting with President Snow, his threats...and the clear expectations Snow had for her with the man she had been introduced to...Tiberius Beaumont, the newest member of Snow's Cabinet.

Peeta had never thought of himself as a violent person before the Games. He knew better now. If Snow had been in front of him in that moment, he wasn't sure that he would have been able to stop himself from wrapping his hands around the man's throat, regardless of the consequences.

Katniss was pale next to him, her eyes pained and dark as she stared at their daughter. "When will you...?"

She trailed off, like she couldn't bear to finish the question.

"In a couple days." Helena kept her own gaze locked on the bathroom's tile floor. "There's a dinner where they'll officially announce Tiberius's appointment as the Minister of Finance. My graduation interviews were rescheduled for tomorrow. I'm supposed to mention that I'll be at the dinner with him. I'm not sure how long it will be before they want m-more..."

Helena's breathing stuttered and she closed her eyes, swallowing hard.

The worst part, Peeta thought, was the resignation in her voice...like she'd never really expected anything better.

Sage had been the same way after his Reaping.

The profound sense of helplessness was nothing new as it joined the rage that was still making Peeta's heart pound in his chest. There was nothing he could do and nothing he could say that was going to change the outcome. Nothing. He couldn't save himself, he couldn't save the woman he loved, and he couldn't save his children.

It was a bitter reality that had never gotten any easier.

And now, his daughter had just been condemned to a charade that was even worse than the decades-long one he had unknowingly sentenced himself and Katniss to when he'd revealed his feelings for her in his interview.

His feelings for Katniss these days were as strong as they had ever been – even stronger, in some ways – and he knew that, over time, she'd grown to love him in return. But he would never know what it might have been like to be with her freely, to live in a world where they could choose each other, where they were more than just playthings, prisoners, survivors, and lovers trapped together in an elaborate, never-ending arena.

Helena wouldn't even have that much with the man that Snow had chosen for her.

Katniss must have been thinking the same thing because a moment later she was walking forward to pull Helena into her arms, and Peeta followed her, wrapping his arms around his daughter from the other side. He felt Helena take another, shuddering breath before she pressed into their embrace, burrowing more deeply into their shared warmth.

Peeta wasn't sure how long they stood that way, but they were all keenly aware that they couldn't stay in the bathroom too long without it becoming suspicious, and soon Helena was pulling away from them. She shut off the water and thanked them for their help with the drain, that same, tight smile from earlier making a reappearance, but there was a tell-tale sheen in her eyes. She walked them back out into the hall, wished them both a good night, and then closed the door of her room quietly behind her.

Katniss was back in Peeta's arms a moment later, clinging to him tightly in the middle of the hallway, feeling frail in the way she had since Sage died...like a bow string that had been overdrawn too many times. Peeta wasn't sure if he was any better off, but he always tried to be what Katniss needed, so he just held her.

When she stepped back at last, they made their way to the master bedroom together, neither of them speaking.

They didn't have to.

Katniss headed for the shower first, and Peeta stood by the dressing table, unhooking the cuff links of the suit he'd been in since that morning.

He had to stop when he realized his hands were shaking.

He closed his eyes for a moment, drawing a deep breath.

His temper had gotten worse over the years. Some days, it was a raging, boiling thing he could feel simmering just under his skin. Like steam building up in his veins, the pressure would get to be too much, and eventually, there was bound to be an explosion. He would never hurt his family, never, but he found himself understanding his mother in a way he never wanted to.

"I'm as much her son as I am his," he'd told Katniss once, after a visit with his parents. "I used to forget that. I don't anymore."

Peeta grit his teeth.

His son was dead. His son was dead, and it had only bought them four years.

There was a flower-filled vase on a nearby dresser, and Peeta lashed out with his hand before he'd even really thought about it. It shattered as it hit the floor, a mix of colorful shards and petals scattering around his feet.

Helena's cheeks hurt from smiling, but she didn't stop. She didn't dare.

It was her wedding day, after all. It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life, and everyone was watching her. Tiberius was watching her.

He'd been surprisingly patient at first. They'd had moved slowly in public over the last six months to build up to something believable, and even when they weren't in front of the cameras, he'd seemed willing to give her time.

But his chaste kisses had gradually grown more demanding, more insistent, like she'd known they would, and inevitably, his patience had run out.

She'd thought about about Finnick Odair then. She'd met him once or twice at post-Game parties with her parents, and she saw him fairly often from a distance as he was paraded around on the arm of wealthy Capitolites. A couple years ago, he'd been hospitalized for several months, supposedly with chronic migraines – that, all the media reports claimed, explained the rumors that he'd been found wandering around a hotel downtown, holding his head in his hands and muttering to himself.

He'd been a Victor for nearly thirty-four years.

She hadn't really understood just what his life must be like until that night. She wasn't sure how he endured it...how she was supposed to endure it, even with only one man.

But she had to. Other nights had followed with Tiberius, and then an engagement ring came soon after.

There were two rings on her left hand now, nested together like they set they were, and she was acutely aware of the weight of them as she thanked yet another guest for attending her wedding. She didn't recognize this one. The room was a sea of the Capitol's most influential people, invited at Tiberius's – or Snow's – behest.

Her own guest list had been far smaller. Cinna and Portia had designed her wedding dress like they had her mother's, so their attendance was both welcome and a foregone conclusion. She had wanted to invite Haymitch, but he could barely leave his hospital bed these days. So, she'd settled for visiting him the week before, telling him all about the wedding with feigned excitement for the benefit of the hospital staff, while Haymitch watched her with eyes that saw far too much. He'd squeezed her hand when she'd left, and the silent comfort from Twelve's oldest Victor had made her composure waver precariously.

The rest of her list consisted only of her parents, Grandma and Grandpa Mellark, Uncle Rye and his wife, Ellie, and Grandma Aster and Aunt Prim. (The idea that all of her remaining, extended family would need to board a single train to travel to the Capitol and then back to Twelve had only added to the dread that had gathered in her stomach as the wedding approached. It would be far too easy for the Capitol to stage a terrible, "tragic accident" if they weren't happy enough with her performance. Tiberius must have sensed her hesitation when they'd discussed the invitations because he had pointedly assured her that he would expedite all of their travel paperwork himself, the promise sounding more like a threat than a favor.)

Another guest stopped in front of Helena to shake her hand enthusiastically, overflowing with praise for the beautiful reception, and Helena nodded gratefully in answer, thanking the woman again when she stopped to add an elaborately wrapped package to the growing pile of wedding gifts on a nearby table.

(The only gifts Helena really cared about were the ones she'd already gotten. Her mother had given her a gold necklace with a fine chain and a small pendant made of flowers – an aster for her grandmother, a primrose for her aunt, and some katniss for her mother. It felt like a token, her very own version of the mockingjay her mother had worn in the arena all those years ago, and she'd put it on right away, tucking it under the collar of her dress. Her dad had surprised her with a smaller, more intricately detailed version of the clouds he'd painted on her bedroom ceiling, a piece of the sky that she could take with her, and she'd hugged him hard in answer. Haymitch, she'd learned, had sent something along of his own, a small package wrapped in brown paper. She'd opened it to find a beautiful, antique metal comb with a scrollwork pattern running across the shaft, above the teeth. The small note included with it said simply, "It belonged to my Ma.")

Yet another guest took the last woman's place, a stout-looking man with brown hair this time, and he offered her a stilted bow that was somehow condescending even as he repeated many of the same compliments she'd heard before. He seemed more determined to talk to her than many of the others had, though, and she realized why when she noticed the pin on his lapel, marking him as one of the Capitol's under-secretaries. Clearly, he was hoping he could gain favor by impressing the Finance Minister's new wife.

Helena's pleasantries were beginning to stretch thin when Tiberius suddenly appeared.

"Pardon me, Henri," he said to the under-secretary. "I'm afraid I have to steal my beautiful wife away from you. The photographers are ready for us."

Henri graciously waved them off, and Helena took Tiberius's hand, letting him lead her across the room, towards the elaborate, standing archway that had been staged specifically for photos.

Flash bulbs starting going off as Tiberius slid a possessive arm around her waist, and Helena leaned obediently into his side, exhausted, hollow, brittle, and still smiling.

Haymitch had a lot of experience with death.

He could have said that even as a kid in the Seam, where death had taken the baby sister he'd barely gotten to meet, his father (though the man hardly deserved the title), and the whole family who'd lived next door, victims of a raging fever that had raced through the Seam one winter.

But forty-seven years as a Victor had given him a front row seat to more death than he'd ever imagined possible.

First had been the other tributes who'd been in the arena with him, including the ones he'd killed, and Maysilee, whose last moments still played behind his eyes sometimes. Then his ma and his little brother. His girl. Nearly all his own tributes...all seventy-eight of 'em. Seventy-eight kids he'd led to their deaths. Seventy-nine, if you counted Katniss and Peeta's boy, and Haymitch did. (He'd been semi-retired from mentoring then – Katniss and Peeta had insisted on it as his health really started goin' down hill. But he'd come back for Sage, helping with the mentoring duties, making deals behind the scenes, trying to see if he could give the boy some kind of edge...hopeless as he'd known it was gonna be.)

There was just one kind of death Haymitch hadn't experienced yet: his own.

He'd come awful close more than once – including when those peacekeepers had shoved him down the stairs of his house in the Victor's Village as a threat to the kids. But somehow, he'd always come out the other side still breathing.

That wasn't gonna be the case this time, though.

He knew that. It wasn't just what the Capitol quacks told him when they offered grim updates on his "condition." He could feel it, the slow-motion crawl towards the inevitable. Every day, he got a little weaker, a little more exhausted. The stuff the docs were pumping into him managed to keep him mostly comfortable, all things considered, but he hadn't missed just how often they were having to increase the dose. He was on oxygen too, though some days, just sitting up in bed was enough to leave him winded, and his skin had taken on that particular yellow hue he remembered from seven years ago, during his first serious bout with his failing liver.

He would have happily let nature take its course back then if he'd had his way, but his kids...his boy and his girl (and their boy and their girl)...had begged him not to.

This time, it wasn't just his liver that was failing, but he was putting up with the few treatments the Capitol docs could offer him – ones that only delayed the inevitable a little bit more – because he had some unfinished business.

He'd debated long and hard over the years about what Katniss and Peeta needed to know when it came to the rebellion, and he'd spent a lot of time wondering whether or not ignorance would be bliss – or, at least, marginally safer for them. He'd thought that it would be, for the most part, especially after what had happened to Effie.

Sage's Games had changed that...and Helena being forced down the aisle with Snow's new, favorite lapdog had convinced him all over again.

The kids needed to know. Everything. All of it.

But that wasn't gonna be easy. The Capitol had kept his kids' on a short leash since their Games. There were layers and layers of surveillance around them, and they lived in a mansion that was wired up with bugs like it was another arena. Plus, they had handpicked business staff, security staff, and house staff, all of whom answered to the Capitol directly. Every move they made, every conversation they had was tracked. He was pretty sure the Capitol had reports somewhere about how many times a day his kids blinked.

There was only one chance that he could see now. One opening. He just needed a few things to make it happen.

That was the real problem, though, because the rebellion, once a well-oiled machine, now moved like a rusted out husk. Even the simplest messages traveled at a snail's pace, and a request like his needed to be approved by all the higher-ups. And that was before the actual tech came through, which would take even longer to make its way back to him if he got the okay to go ahead.

So, Haymitch had made himself hang on for as long as he could. He'd taken all his meds, eaten all his vegetables, and listened to whatever the docs told him. He'd hated every second of it, but he'd done it.

And then, a few days ago, an unfamiliar nurse had walked into his private room to replenish the small stack of books they always put at his bedside table, trying to keep him entertained when he got sick of wading through the trash on Capitol television. She'd added a pen and a pad of paper on top of that stack, and then left without a word.

Finally.

All he'd needed after that was a visit from the kids. Thankfully, he knew he wouldn't have to wait long.

The kids never went more than a week without stopping by, and better yet, it was all Capitol approved because his terminal diagnosis had been pretty big news. Washed up Victor though he was, bringing both of his tributes back alive had dragged him into the spotlight again, and after the 74th Hunger Games, he had a new pool of fans who seemed convinced that he was some sort of misunderstood, strategic genius. (The fact that he hadn't managed to save anybody else in all his years as a Mentor had been quickly and conveniently forgotten. Haymitch never forgot that, though.)

The enthusiasm had thankfully tapered off with time, but it hadn't gone away completely, and now, Capitol photographers waited outside the hospital every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Star-Crossed Lovers as they visited their beloved Mentor on his death bed, the man whose wise advice and careful planning had helped save their lives in the arena.

Today, the photographers had been in luck because the kids showed up like clockwork, looking pale and haggard beneath their Capitol polish. (That had gotten even more noticeable since Helena's wedding, at least to Haymitch's eyes.)

He didn't bother with empty pleasantries – he didn't have time for those.

"Close the door," he told them.

Peeta frowned faintly but did as he'd asked, then followed Katniss over to the chairs set up for visitors.

Haymitch drew a deep breath – or what passed for a deep breath these days, anyway.

"Listen," he started, "I'm not sure how much longer I've got left-"

Katniss was already shaking her head, something desperate in her eyes. "The doctors said you could have half a year, and maybe, by then, they'll have some other treatments."

Haymitch bit back a sigh. He knew what Sage's death had done to the girl – but he didn't have time for denial either.

"When they dragged me out of that arena forty-seven years ago, I'd just taken an ax to the gut. Found out afterwards that it took the surgeons three tries to get my heart started again. This might be a lot slower, but trust me – I know what dyin' feels like."

Katniss swallowed hard, and Peeta reached for her hand.

Haymitch leaned towards his bedside table, picked up the pad of paper and the pen, and then he clicked the pen four times. The lights in his room and all the monitors he was attached to dimmed for just a split second, fast enough that the security cameras in his room wouldn't have picked it up...not that it mattered now. For the next several minutes, all the Capitol would see and hear was a dying man talkin' about his will.

The kids shared an uneasy look, then turned to stare at him with narrowed eyes, and Haymitch leaned back in his bed, licking dry lips.

"There. Now, I got a few things I need to tell you."

TBC

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think! I'm planning to post the next chapter next Thursday.

Take care and God bless!

Ani-maniac494 :)