THIS IS A SEQUEL!

If you haven't read "The Other Victor" turn back now or pay the consequences!

Consequences include: Confusion, refusal of the author to answer your questions about previous events, trolls in your closet, and the smell of fudge where there is no fudge to haunt you.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Hunger Games series, it's characters, or ideas. I do however own the OC's presented within this story.

That is all.

PART 1: SECRETS

Looking back on all the events in the last two years made me feel like an old wrinkly woman. That's what I honestly should be with all that emotional, physical, and mental trauma disguised as life experience I had received from playing in and Mentoring the Hunger Games. Yet as I even now looked in the mirror this crisp January morning, all I saw was long curly golden blonde hair, stormy blue eyes, nearly flawless ivory skin, beautiful curves covered in a tank top and sweat pants, and a vacant expression.

Shivers ran up and down my spine as I thought of my meeting with the ruler of my home country Panem President Snow. All in all the man was handsome with his curly chocolate brown hair, and strong features that were coupled with an almost hypnotizing charisma. Only one thing threw off the whole image. His snake-like green eyes that were filled with cold uncaring made every other aspect of his appearance inappreciable.

In four months' time I would be working in the rich and luxurious Capitol making special 'house calls for a respective clientele'. Not that Snow had fooled me for a second about what was really going to happen. I was going to be the unpaid hooker for the highest paying slimy Capitol bidder.

Well, unpaid isn't entirely true. By working for Snow's clients I would be earning my loved ones' rights to live. I had learned the hard way what refusing— or even delaying— Snow's agenda meant: death to whoever would hurt me most.

Downstairs a door slammed and brought me out of my deep thought. Peeking into my larger than necessary bedroom, that was in my larger than necessary house, in the nearly pristine District Twelve's Victors Village, I caught sight of the clock on the nightstand that read 3:34 am.

Taftan Mellark was here. Every morning before going to work at his family's Bakery Taftan stopped by to make sure I hadn't done something stupid like try to kill myself. Not that I would or anything, Taftan just worried too much.

Most people were asleep at this hour, but that is what I had Taftan for. Ever since Mentoring the 49th Hunger Games I hadn't been able to sleep on my own without waking up from extremely violent nightmares. I'm not really in the mood to share what they were about, so let's just say they caused me to wake up covered in a sheet of icy sweat, screaming my lungs out, and made it impossible to sleep afterwards. But Taftan always knew how to help me fall asleep again.

A knock sounded on the closed bedroom door, "May I come in?"

Every time my friend visited me he would knock and ask to permission to enter. The first time he did that I couldn't help but think that Taftan would eventually stop asking to come in once he got more comfortable in my house. Nope, apparently as long as Taftan thought there was the remotest possibility that I might be indecent he would knock and ask to come in.

A trait I appreciated.

"Yes you may." I responded in my most awake voice.

Stepping through the door, I took in Taftan's appearance. At five-foot-nine Taftan was three inches taller than me. Taftan had to have the most muscled build in all of District Twelve because of the flour sacks he moved around all of the time at the Bakery. Usually his short blonde hair was well combed, but this morning it was rather disheveled looking. Finally I looked at his comforting blue eyes and noticed the bags under them.

"You have to sleep more, Taftan." I chided as I ran my fingers over the almost bruise colored flesh.

"It's nothing Titania, I'm a big boy— I can handle a little sleep deprivation." Taftan gave me a gentle hug before examining my face, "Now why don't we see if it's possible for you to get some. The bags under your eyes make mine look well rested."

Crossing the cold wood floor to my soft warm bed, I sat down and Taftan sat down next to me. For a few minutes he had me tell him about a happy memory from my childhood. After six months of similar exercises Taftan knew pretty much every inch of my childhood except for the time I spend in the woods. That covered my teenage years and not my childhood anyways so it didn't particularly matter.

Next Taftan would have me climb in between the covers and for a few moments he would tell me a story or two about himself. This morning it was about the time Taftan's older brother Colby had taken his shift for him at the Bakery.

Wait a second.

"You didn't work in the Bakery as a child." I reminded him.

Taftan chuckled and patted my hand, "Colby offered to take a couple hours of my morning shift so that I could get a little shut eye."

"Then why aren't you at home, you know, sleeping?" I teased him lightly.

It was no secret that he came because Taftan was still in love with me and wanted to make sure I was okay before he took any time for himself. When I went and played in the 48th Hunger Games Taftan and I had been together; we may have eventually been married. After the Games however, I was too afraid to be around the people that I cared about. In the Arena everyone I had grown to care for had died. It was just too hard to go back to it being okay to love without the fear of the other person's imminent death so I broke it off with Taftan. Breaking up with someone who loved me unconditionally was inconceivable. Only the fear of him being killed for my mistakes made it possible.

Now, as Taftan leaned against my headboard— claiming he was only going to stay for a few more minutes— and I looked up at his tired handsome face from my head's position in his lap, I knew that I had made the right decision. Taftan and I were good for each other as friends; great for each other as best friends. As a couple though, Taftan and I would not be able to make each other truly happy. Not when I was busy pining for someone else the entire time.

"Is it wrong for me to wish that you had never been Reaped?" Taftan's deep tired voice mumbled.

"I wish it all the time." I replied drowsily.

"Not for the same reasons."

"Not all the same reasons."

Taftan half-shrugged, "It doesn't matter now does it? Wishes don't come true in Panem."

"My wish for you to get some more sleep would come true if you just let it." I teased with a sleepy giggle.

Taftan just chuckled and sat up, "I should go home to sleep."

"Yeah." I nodded only half conscious.

Gently sliding out from under me, Taftan tucked me under the covers like a little kid, and kissed my forehead, "Goodnight."

"Good morning." I smiled just before drifting off to sleep.

Moments later I sat bolt upright screaming my head off as the nightmares faded into nothingness. I looked at the clock and saw that I had slept for almost four hours instead of the couple of minutes it had felt like. A new record.

Deciding I'd had enough sleep for one night I went downstairs and fried up some eggs. I liked eggs best when they were scrambled with ham and cheese. Sunny-side up used to be my favorite before the Hunger Games, but… it triggered the bad memories to cut into the yolk and have it come spilling out. So scrambled would do.

The front door slammed and I didn't have to ask who had barged into my home without announcing themselves: my boyfriend, Haymitch Abernathy.

It seemed that only someone who could teach a thing or two about being stubborn to a mule was able to withstand all of my issues. The nightmares alone were tough enough to deal with, but I also had strong and random flashbacks to my time in the Arena. They were so potent that one time Haymitch had been cutting up some carrots for a stew and the next thing I knew I had Haymitch pinned to the floor with the blade against his throat. That had been a close call to say the least.

"How are you this morning?" Haymitch asked cautiously as he eyed the hot skillet in my hand and vacant expression.

With a mischievous smile I scooped the eggs onto two plates, "Why don't you find out for yourself?"

Giving me his most debonair smile, Haymitch strode over slowly, kissed me on both cheeks gently, and just when I thought he was going to kiss my lips he planted one right on the tip of my nose.

Swatting his arm, I let my voice drip with mockery, "You shouldn't tease me like that."

"Your sarcastic tone suggests otherwise." Haymitch winked at me as he took one of the plates off the counter for himself.

"Excuse me?" I placed my hands on my hips in fake anger, "What if I made those eggs for someone else?"

"Do you have another extremely handsome boyfriend named Haymitch who visits around this time ever morning? If so, I must give him my sincerest bravo for hiding so long before I knock out his teeth."

Before I could respond Haymitch grabbed a fork and dug in.

Happily frustrated, I sat across the width of the table from him. The table was more like a huge slab of ornately decorated tree which could hold as many as twenty people, but usually just had me and Haymitch. And occasionally a certain Mellark.

"You ought to let your family visit you sometime." Haymitch suggested.

"Please, not this again." I complained.

"Titania, they're the only family you've got." My boyfriend pointed out for the millionth time. Recently he had been in the habit of making me blissfully happy and then bringing up my family. A horrid trick if you ask me.

I dropped my fork onto my plate, "Do you think I don't know that? It's not that I don't love Mother and the boys— because I do. It's just hard after what happened to my Father, okay?"

A couple months ago Father had met his untimely death. To everyone else it was a tragic accident that he was knifed when someone tried to rob the shop late at night. I was the only one who knew that the robber was actually one of the Peacekeepers guarding District Twelve. I was the only one who knew that my Father's 'accident' had been a very purposeful murder ordered by President Snow himself to tell me that there was a price for keeping his valuable Capitol patrons waiting. Haymitch was the only person I had told and I'm not entirely certain he believed— since I hadn't told him about my working for the Capitol soon— that Snow would personally issue orders for my Father's death.

"Titania Fellcrest, you need to stop existing and start living." Haymitch reprimanded me in his best motherly tone.

"Forgive me if I'm unsure how to live after I died." I snapped and instantly regretted the words as Haymitch gave me a look filled with shock and hurt.

At the end of my Hunger Games I had tried to save the only other tribute left, my friend from District Four Evelyn, by sucking the snake venom out of her wound. However I got poisoned as well and it became a competition of who could survive the bloating effects of the venom longest. I only outlasted Evelyn by seconds before I succumbed.

Haymitch had to watch the entire thing with his drunk for a Father next to him telling him to shut up every time he so much as breathed to hard. The experience of watching me die had cut Haymitch to the marrow and every time the subject came up, even a year later, he was a little sensitive about it.

"Your family is a part of you Titania. They died that day too and you need to let them back in." Haymitch stated matter-of-factly.

Part of me wanted to argue that I had the full capability of keeping my family out of my house in Victors Village. But I knew he was right. For months Haymitch had been trying to reunite me with my family and had made little progress other than annoying me. It was about time that I test my new level of sanity. After a couple long months of waiting I should see my family again. Before Snow's clients break me completely.

"Fine," I conceded thoughtfully, "tomorrow they can come for dinner."

Haymitch choked on his eggs. Rushing around the table and patting his back, I started to freak out. I had gone down the whole suffocate to death thing and Haymitch could go any other way. Just not like that.

"I'm okay." he rasped with a couple fits of coughing, "I was just surprised you said yes."

"Don't scare me like that." Terror leaked into my voice and face.

"I'm sorry." Haymitch apologized sincerely after reading my expression.

As Haymitch moved a stray blonde hair behind my ear I hoped he would kiss me already. Ever since the kiss we shared when we started dating a year ago it was almost as if Haymitch had been avoiding doing it again. I'm not complaining about the other little things he did like squeezing my hand when the pressure of being in a crowd was too much for my hyperactive spacial awareness, or cuddling up with me on the couch and listening to me for hours on my rougher days, or staying with me until I fell asleep on occasion so that I would subconsciously feel safe and fall into a more restful sleep. I just wished that Haymitch wasn't avoiding a kiss like Capitol Fashion.

"Do I have bad breath?" I asked inquisitively.

"Is egg breath bad?" Haymitch chuckled.

"You tell me." I finally stopped waiting for Haymitch to make a move and just kissed the idiot.

A wave of heat sparked through me and I pulled back in surprise. That had definitely been one of the odder sensations of my short seventeen year old life— and that list included suffocating, going to heaven, coming back from the dead, and waking up after a blood-lust induced blackout soaked in crimson head to toe. But this weird on a different level. It was a good weird.

"Finally." Haymitch smirked, "My lips were beginning to feel like a desert labeled 'no crossing this boundary into the incredibly tempting landscape'."

"I was waiting for you to kiss me!" I shot back.

"Oh no, no, no. I learned my lesson last time what kissing you without permission meant: a bruised shoulder and deflated ego." Haymitch shook his head with a chuckle.

"I'm sorry I bruised your shoulder."

"It's okay, I made that part up."

"You're horrible!"

"I know." Haymitch waggled his eyebrows and picked up the plates from the table, "But you love me anyways."

Following him into the kitchen we washed our dishes and put them away. The day had been normal thus far and it stayed that way. It seemed that my life had no problem having a form of regularity while my mind was on the fritz.

During my dinner preparations Taftan came over and helped me bake this type of buttery roll that I had yet to master the flaky without being burnt balance. Haymitch was cutting up trout fillets for the main course and the three of us chatted. The boys got along well enough, but I couldn't help the feeling that Haymitch was pretending to be friendly. The jealous boyfriend wasn't out of Haymitch's broad repertoire.

"So I finally convinced Titania to let her family visit." Haymitch smiled as he made a precise incision into the fish's underside.

"That's great!" Taftan cheered and spun me around in a gigantic hug.

Wheezing slightly from the tightness of the embrace I said, "You should both come— it wouldn't be dinner without you guys."

"Tomorrow night is good with me, what about you Taftan?" Haymitch asked as he beheaded our main course.

"Uh, tomorrow I have to work the afternoon shift to pay Colby back for this morning." Taftan admitted, rubbing his neck, "But I could make it here before dark."

"That's fine." I shrugged and pulled out a pot and pan; handing the latter to Haymitch, I put poured some goat milk into it and began making a creamy sauce to go with the Trout.

The meal was delicious. Usually we all would tuck into the food without any conversation other than the occasional 'mmm' or 'tasty'. Tonight seemed more like a cautious celebration of my agreement to see Mother and the boys than the usual meal to sustain necessary life. We chatted nonstop about preparations for tomorrow— a strangely non-manly thing for Haymitch to participate in— and maybe how to maximize my chances of not succumbing into crowd shock, going crazy, and carving up a person rather than a roast leg from a deer I'd bought from my friend Jack Everdeen this afternoon. Really all we came up with was to have everyone spread out so that it was more like a room full of individuals rather than the much feared crowd. That and not letting me carve the deer leg.

Flopping down onto the couch once the dishes were taken care of, Haymitch and Taftan sat at separate ends of my couch.

"Come here sweetheart." Haymitch waggled his eyebrows and I had to stifle my laughter.

With a cheeky sashay of my hips I sat down next to him then leaned over until my head was on Taftan's thigh, "What's up?"

A light blush colored his pale cheeks but Taftan just tipped his head back and laughed.

Haymitch grabbed my hand and pulled me upright with a properly embarrassed growl, "Get over here."

Curling up to Haymitch's side I felt one of Taftan's large warm hands resting on my ankle. So of course Haymitch got all tensed up when he saw it. Nothing would ruin the night more than having Haymitch attempt to throw Taftan out of my house and then getting tossed out into the snow by me for such obnoxious overprotective-of-your-Victor-girlfriend behavior. Casually, as if a war was not about to erupt on my sofa, I grabbed a remote and turned on the television. Luckily the distraction worked. It just worked a little too well.

The Quarter Quell theme announcement was on tonight. I'd completely forgotten about it entirely. Between the almost war and the anxiety of seeing my family for the first time since my Father's death the next impending Hunger Games had slipped my mind. The three of us tensed as President Snow walked onto stage and a short raven haired Avox girl carried a small box for him. First off he had to get the usual propaganda about how we brought the Hunger Games on ourselves for attacking the mighty and omniscient Capitol and he even told the history of the Quarter Quell. Not that I would ever repeat the tragic true story or the tainted version Snow fed to us.

On cue the Avox opened the wooden box that contained hundreds of yellow envelopes. In these Envelopes were instructions for special Hunger Games twists that would make winning more a game of chance rather than skill. The kids who won the Quarter Quell were never the strongest of the bunch, but the smartest who knew to trust nothing inside the Arena until they had solid proof that it was harmless. Or out of sheer dumb luck.

"All those envelopes." I whimpered.

"Multiplied by twenty-five." One of the boys added in shock.

We sat in silence as President Snow decided the fate of Panem's youth with one nonchalant grab into the box.

"This year there will be twice the number of tributes Reaped to remind the Districts that for every Capitol citizen murdered, two rebels were killed in retribution. One lone Victor will stand at the end of this, the Second Quarter Quell, as a reminder of the Capitol's mercy in sparing the remainder of the traitorous Districts."

The television went dark. One of the boys had turned it off. Apparently I had stood at some point during the announcement. Waves of terror ran through me along with the senseless urge to run away. But run where? As District Twelve's only Victor I was going to be forced to Mentor those four poor souls. There was no rock I could hide under, no ocean I could swim across, no cave deep enough for me to hide from the Hunger Games. I had no place or person to run to.

Wrong, my body responded.

Bolting out the front door, much to Haymitch and Taftan's surprise, I sprinted with waves of tears blurring my vision and brutally cold January air stealing whatever heat the theme announcement hadn't ripped from me already. Merchant shops blurred by as I navigated the familiar dark streets that had once been my home. Three times I slipped on patches of ice and landed on my face which only made me run faster and cry harder. A single shop had the lights on downstairs— as I'd been told was a nightly ritual to bring a lost loved one home— and I burst through the door, sobbing and out of breath.

There, just across the worn wooden counter of the shop I had once worked in stood Mother. Before she could react, I ran around the counter and hugged myself to her as tight as was humanly possible.

Not matter what, you will always have your mother, my instincts told me.

"Honey...?" Mother whispered, unsure how to react.

"Mom I... I-I hav-ve t-to train-n them a-all." I sobbed like a small child, "I c-can't d-do it ag-gain."

I began to apologize over and over again for not seeing them, for being the reason Father died— not that they knew or believed it was the truth—, and for every single moment of my life I had not cherished her company and guidance.

"Shhh." Mother wrapped me into a warm protective embrace stroked my hair, "Shhh. It will be okay."

I knew she was wrong but there was something about the way Mother said it that made me believe her. The boys eventually came to investigate the source of so much noise and instantly scrambled down the steps to wrap their arms around their big sister. For the first time since I had come home Victor over a year and a half ago the Fellcrest family gathered together into a group hug. Instead of freaking out and feeling crowded I felt safe.

Like everything would be okay.

Oh my. We all know from past experience that Titania's life is most likely never going to be okay, and when she says that it will, things only get worse.

I hope you guys like the new characters that I'm bringing in!