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Epilogue

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In her dreams, she climbs a silver ladder up and into an inky black sky pebbled with stars. She's been climbing for years and years, so long that the ground is a distant patchwork of dark greys and browns and greens below. Her limbs are infused with lead, and she crawls slowly until the stars drift all around her, moving and blinking slowly, sweeping across the shadows on vague breaths of wind. She climbs over and above them, letting them dance beneath her feet and then slip away into the darkness.

And then, inexplicably, there is Prim at her side, smiling and shining with life.

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Katniss wakes in hell. The air is stale and foul, making it hard for her to fill her lungs with enough of it to drag herself from slumber. She rubs her eyes with the heel of her right hand to loosen them. When she finally manages to scrape them open, she's in a dim, windowless room, almost a closet, really. The curved steel door makes her think prison, which is logical whether she really is in hell or whether the Gamemakers have pulled them from the arena for some alternate purpose.

Her thoughts are still sluggishly processing the shock of her life, namely, that she is still (possibly) alive, when her eyes fall on the empty wooden chair at her side. A smattering of empty glass bottles litter the floor around it, a few set on the bedside table as well, and her first thought is of Haymitch and the careful arrangements of bottles and glasses that have always peppered every surface of his home back in District 12. Definitely hell, if he's here, she thinks stupidly. Not that I'm that surprised.

She runs a finger across her forehead and into her short hair, which has been loosed from its ponytail and feels surprisingly clean. She's in a bed. It's softer than anything she's slept on in days, so thick it seems to threaten to swallow her up, but upon reflecting, Katniss realizes that it's the heavy and tired weight of her limbs that keep her in place, not the cushioning. Her left arm in particular is numb with pain and feels stuck to the bed.

Weakly, Katniss turns to find her sister's head pinning her arm to the pillow. Prim's asleep, but her face is clear for the first time in days, her hair clean and smelling faintly of soap, and Katniss has never been happier to see anyone in her life. She swears violently and pulls Prim toward her, startling her sister from sleep. Prim yelps and struggles before she recognizes Katniss, who thinks that she probably looks as confused as Katniss feels.

"Katniss?" Prim says, blinking, and then she plasters herself against her sister, laughing. "Katniss, did we…? How did we—did you—?"

"I didn't do anything," Katniss says. "I don't know what happened; I just remember you and me in the tree, and then…was there a silver ladder?"

Prim looks at her doubtfully. "I don't think so. Where are we?"

"I just woke up too." Her eyes fall onto an empty whiskey bottle. "I don't know if we're safe or not."

"We must be."

A sinking feeling settles into Katniss's stomach. "No. It's not over. Why would they just let us go? Why would they let Haymitch—or someone else—take us out? And where's everyone else?"

Prim watches her sister slip out of bed to pick up one of Haymitch's empty bottles, examining its strength and weighing its sturdiness in her hands. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we find out what we can based on how they act when they see us out of the room," Katniss replies, trying to figure out who 'they' might be.

"Wait." Prim wiggles from the sheets and stumbles over to press one hand against the door. The knob turns when she tries it—which is a good sign, because they aren't locked in—but Prim doesn't open it right away. "Are you ready?" she whispers.

Katniss grips the bottle but holds it behind her back. "How good are you at fake crying?"

Though she rarely uses it, Prim has a strange ability to cry on demand, which she has done periodically throughout her life to get Katniss out of trouble. Now, she smiles wryly. "Still pretty good."

"We might need some dramatics. Just be ready, in case."

Prim's mouth smoothes into a grim line, and she nods. Quickly, she swings the door open, and it pivots silently on its hinges to reveal a long corridor lined with other doors placed at uniform distances from each other. The whole place seems gloomy and sterile, and it reminds Katniss of the Justice Building in District 12, all functionality and neatness.

It's silent. Or mostly silent. Above them is the buzz and flicker of fluorescent lights. Katniss thinks the distant, steady whirr must come from an air conditioning unit somewhere.

But there's a faint murmur like the flow of conversation spilling from their right; Katniss's good ear picks up on it straight away. Prim hears it too, and she looks up at Katniss as if to ask Toward the noise or away from it?

Katniss jerks her head to the side, and they follow the sounds wordlessly, Prim limping a little. Katniss thinks all the while that if someone means them harm, they've gone through a lot of trouble to get them out, and that if they go for Prim, she's going to need a better weapon than an empty bottle.

They approach the corner, and Katniss realizes that the voices are ones she knows. Still dubious and uncertain, she peeks just into the open room so that only one eye can see into it.

It's a large room arranged a bit like the waiting room at the Peacekeepers' garrison in District 12, except bigger and ill-lit. The people nearest her are no one Katniss recognizes. A tall, pale-faced woman. A man in what looks like a uniform. A woman with a sheet of grey hair. She's the one speaking, standing over everyone else in the room.

But seated on the metal chairs facing her are Beetee and Wiress, neither of whom Katniss had ever expected to see again, and she's surprised at the surge of warmth that courses through her. They both look the worse for wear, exhausted and somehow unwholesome, as though they are on the verge of illness.

Beside them sit Finch and Rue and Peeta, all of them looking fatigued and ragged but clean and alive. The slipshod bindings on Finch's arm have been removed to make way for a hard plaster cast. As if she can feel Katniss's eyes, Finch looks up.

At some point, Katniss has stepped out into the open without fully intending to, and the room gradually falls into silence as its inhabitants turn to stare.

"Katniss," Beetee says, his voice a deep rumble and his smile creeping into a crooked slant across his face. His eyes flicker down to the bottle that hangs limply in her hand. "I hope you weren't intending to fight your way out of here."

Her shock is so complete that she can't work out a reply. Prim curls around her side to answer. "We didn't know what else to do," she says in a quiet voice.

"Honestly. We set Haymitch to explain so that something like this wouldn't happen," Wiress remarks, striding across the stone floor to their side. Gently, she takes the glass bottle from Katniss's grip. "You won't be needing this," she explains. "You two will be safe here."

Safe. Hearing the word from Wiress makes it so. Something thick creeps into Katniss's throat, and she feels her eyes grow watery. She grits her teeth and fights the tears back, because there are still people staring at her, some of whom she's never even met.

"Katniss and Primrose Everdeen," says the grey-haired woman. She approaches them, and Wiress automatically steps back to make way for her. The woman's eyes are a murky grey, her cheekbones high, and she holds her chin at an angle. Something about her unyielding expression and stiff movements remind Katniss of coldness and steel. "I know all of this must come as a surprise to you. You couldn't have known what we were planning."

"Where are we?" Katniss asks instantly. "What happened to the end of the Games?"

"Oh, they've ended," the woman says, a twisted smile crossing her face. "We've made sure of that. We pulled you from the arena before they could take things any further. You were all half-dead," she remarks offhandedly, turning her body slightly to glance at Rue and Peeta and Finch, including them in the statement. "We just managed to get to you in time."

"Where are we?" Prim asks, echoing Katniss's earlier question. She has planted herself firmly at Katniss's side, no longer bothering to half-hide behind her sister as she habitually does with strangers.

The woman turns to face her, slate-grey eyes flashing. "You're in District 13," she says simply. "In one of our underground bunkers."

The statement is so preposterous that Katniss instinctively pivots to take in the others' expressions. Rue and Finch stare at the woman blankly, offering no guidance, but Peeta nods and shrugs.

"It's true, Katniss," Beetee adds, rising. "We have been working extensively with District 13 for several years now."

"District 13 is gone. It was destroyed during the First Rebellion," Prim says, reciting the words as though from a schoolbook, despite the uncertainty in her tone.

"That's what you've been told. That's what everyone's been told," the woman says. "It makes things easier."

"Easier? Why did—how did—?"

"We'll save the history lesson for later," the woman says. "Suffice it to say that District 13 is alive and well, and we're actively engaged in finding a way to stir up a little fighting in the other districts and to loosen the hold of the Capitol."

"How are we supposed to believe this?" Katniss asks.

The woman smiles grimly. "Well, you're speaking to its president." She sticks out a hand for Katniss to take. "President Coin. It's nice to formally meet."

Katniss shakes the hand, still casting doubtful looks at Beetee. President Coin takes Prim's hand as well.

"Why did you get us out?" Prim asks suddenly. "And why only at the end?"

President Coin drops the hand. "Now, that is an interesting question. And we were just getting to the answer. Maybe you'd like to sit and join us?"

The woman gestures to the chairs, and now that she has stepped fully into the room, Katniss realizes that the seats have been arranged to face a floor-to-ceiling television monitor. Katniss drops into the empty seat beside Finch, and Prim takes the next one, both of them bemused and faintly disbelieving, feeling as though they've stumbled into the world of a dream.

The screen flickers to life with a push of the button on a remote. Katniss recoils at the sudden sound of screaming before Coin turns the volume down. Masses of bodies swarm at each other like insects across the square of one of the districts, overturning the Peacekeepers that try to mow them down. Then the video switches to a shot of District 10—Katniss can tell by the banners—conspicuous for the absence of people and the presence of several smoldering buildings. Then another district whose Justice Building has been nearly overrun by residents.

"The Capitol isn't broadcasting any of this, of course, but they're monitoring it." Coin leans against the wall, looking at them and not at the images. "And we've got Beetee on our side, so we're monitoring it as well."

"What is it?" Prim asks, and Katniss turns to find reflections of the violence in her sister's glossy eyes.

It's Beetee who answers. "Uprisings," he says simply. "Some of them small, some of them—just displays of discontent, really. But consistent. More consistent than we've ever seen."

"This has happened before?"

"Oh, always," Coin says, her voice for the very first time growing excited. "Usually smaller, and maybe in one district every few years. Never on such a large scale. Districts 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, all within the last few days. All because of you."

"Because of us?" Katniss shakes her head. "How can thatbe our fault?"

"Your little displays of solidarity got pretty popular," Coin remarks casually. "Not killing each other. Doesn't happen often in the Games, not past a certain point. Alliances always fall apart. Except for yours."

She inspects them all carefully, and Katniss stares back at her with rigid disbelief. Whatever Coin sees in them appears to please her. She slits her mouth back open to speak but is interrupted by the arrival of a bespectacled man. "President Coin—"

"I know," she interjects. "I'm coming." She glares at him pointedly until he leaves, and then she turns back to them. "I apologize, but I have other matters to attend to. Beetee and Wiress will answer some of your questions in a few minutes. At any rate, I suppose we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on. I look forward to it."

Without waiting for a response, she sweeps from the room, taking her silent entourage with her, and Beetee and Wiress trail after them. Katniss glances at Prim and the others and sees reflected in their expressions, for only a moment, the same exhausted wariness she feels. Something subtle in the way they look at Coin, something formal and distant in their bearing that fades as soon as she leaves the room. And with this confirmation of her sentiments toward this President Coin comes the realization that the games have not yet ended. Not that Katniss thought they had, not really. All of them, all of the remaining tributes, have been inexplicably removed from the certain death of the Hunger Games arena only to be cast into another game of some sort, but this one seems different in ways they don't yet understand. And they have no time to prepare for round two.

She has little time to process the thought, because the sudden absence of President Coin seems to have removed some damper that had thickened across the room, and it suddenly becomes apparent to both Katniss and Prim that—Games or not—they are alive and may have the opportunity to remain so for the foreseeable future.

"Oh, my God," Prim squeals suddenly, her eyes huge and round before she throws herself onto Katniss. "This is real. This is real." Bubbly and excited as Katniss has ever seen her, she pounces on Finch next, knocking the redhead back into the arm of her chair. Finch laughs, and Prim then turns to Rue and Peeta, catching them both simultaneously.

Katniss turns to Finch, who pulls her hair from her face and straightens her shirt. "Is this real?" Katniss asks the girl in a low voice beneath Prim's chatter.

"It still seems too good to be true to me," Finch replies in a similar tone.

Katniss nods. "When did you get here?"

"A little while before you did. Beetee and Wiress brought me here, but President Coin had just started to introduce herself when you came in."

"Your arm's okay?"

Finch looks down in consideration, wrinkling the freckles of her nose. "I guess. It stings a little. They offered me medicine for it, but…" She trails off.

"Yeah," Katniss agrees, wondering at the dedicated medical center of this district. She's not sure she would have accepted any unknown medical procedures just yet, either. "What do you make of all this?"

"What, getting pulled out of certain death?" Finch rubs the back of her head. "Well, not that I'm not grateful to be here and all, but—"

"But they didn't just rescue us out of the goodness of their hearts," Peeta continues. He frowns at Finch.

"But they did rescue us. They're not bad people," Rue says quietly. Prim nods slowly at her side, both of them looking as stubborn as they ever have.

Katniss shoots Peeta and Finch an exasperated glance, which they respond to in amusement, and she is struck by the sudden thought that they—the five of them—are no longer allies. Or, rather, that they are, but they can allow themselves to be more than that. Katniss's trust of them in the arena had been born of necessity and tempered by constant suspicion as she doubted their every move and motive. Here, in the outside world, the survival of one of them no longer means the death of another.

Spurred on by a common goal to discover the motives of these rescuers from District 13, they can be teammates. They can be friends. Katniss, blinking in surprise, realizes that she can actually allow herself to be their friends.

"They did rescue us," Katniss says finally, shaking her head. "But what do we do now?"

"We don't know anything yet," Finch says. "They haven't told us anything, and I get the feeling they're trying to feed it to us real slow. But I think that for now, they aren't going to hurt us, far as we can tell. So we should keep a close eye on them. And on each other."

"And find out everything we can," Peeta says. "Whatever they're not telling us yet."

"Do you think they'll try to split us up?" Rue asks.

Katniss frowns. "I don't think so," she says slowly. "They seem to be after us to cooperate. If it looks like they're going to try to get us apart, just make a fuss over it. We'll see what they do then."

"Why do you think they want us?"

Before Katniss can make any guesses, Beetee and Wiress return to them. If the victors are surprised by their closeness, they don't show it. Here, with the other tributes at her side, Katniss comes to another sudden realization.

"You knew," she says accusingly to Beetee, who sinks wearily into a seat as though under the weight of her incoming diatribe. "You knew all along that we had to cooperate. That's why you sent me signs when we were in the Games!"

"Signs?" Prim echoes.

"The food!" Katniss growls. "Bread meant Peeta, and bread from District 5 and District 11 meant Finch and Rue. I went along with it because I thought you thought it would help me save Prim, but you just didn't want us to fight! Did you know all along that this was going to happen? Were you working with District 13 the whole time, from the very beginning?"

"I was," Beetee replies wearily. "But only because I have always been in contact with them. We've been waiting for years for something we could use to incite the people of the districts. Most of what we need is in place; District 13 has the facilities to create all the supplies we may need. But we've never had the backing of the people, and without that, we knew we would fail."

"Wait, you're—" Rue interrupts, and then she snaps her mouth shut apologetically before Beetee gestures for her to continue. "You're talking about a real battle. Like a war. You're talking about taking down President Snow?"

"If we can," Beetee says, and he lets that settle in for a moment, lets all of them process just how far this idea reaches, and then he continues his story. "So. We needed backing. That's where you come in, Katniss. I told Coin about you from the moment you showed up on my doorstep. Like I told you once, part of me never thought you'd actually do it, but there you were all of a sudden, and I realized you might be exactly what we needed: a sign of rebellion against the Capitol, but not an overt one. Nothing that could really be struck down or extinguished. You were only protecting your sister, and that would gain you too much compassion for the audience for the Capitol to do anything to harm you. But the sympathetic story would also make you a focal point so that no one could avoid noticing the fact that you twisted the rules. Nothing was broken, of course, but it's obvious that this isn't how the regulations were meant to be taken.

"And before you even got into the arena, you were causing a stir. Someone who had killed for her sister in the past and would do it again, a favorite to win. And of course, they played up the discussion of your innocence, Prim, but that normally would have just made for a good story in the Games.

"Until the two of you started fighting for each other and forming a strong alliance. Every time you thought about ending it and didn't, the unrest grew throughout the districts. 'If they're not going to kill each other, the Capitol shouldn't kill them,' people said. All of you deciding to stay with Prim after her injury. Your fight against the Careers, all joined together. Finch returning to the fight after Katniss told her to run. Rue, saving you from the tracker jackers. Prim killing Thresh for Katniss; Katniss killing the Careers for Prim. Peeta comforting Rue and Prim to distract them from Katniss leaving. Finch packing a bag one night and then unpacking it once she decided to stay after all—though I suppose none of you knew about that."

They hadn't. Finch's face is as bright as her hair. "It was in the beginning. You looked like you were going to kill me," Finch grumbles to Katniss, who grins in spite of herself.

"All of that built it up," Beetee continues. "But it was the last day when people started going crazy. When you threw your weapons into the fire. The districts exploded with people calling an end to the Games. Some of the Capitol citizens were even upset about it. And that was all Coin really needed. She's got agents sprinkled throughout all of the districts, and she's been spreading whispers throughout the district about a possible rebellion. Her agents stirred some of it up further, but not much needed to be done. People are incensed still, and the Peacemakers trying to crush them just makes them fight harder this time. Especially once the broadcast ended while you were all still alive as a team, climbing out of the flood together."

He finishes his story, watching their faces. Peeta, frowning, voices a thought Katniss hadn't considered. "Why save us, then?" he asks. "Wouldn't it be better for her if we were dead? She could point at what the Capitol did and say, 'Look how they treat us.'"

Beetee smiles. "That's one way of doing it. And Coin might have…" he hesitates, shaking his head. "I don't know. But Wiress and I thought of another. Taking you out of the Games—which have played out, uninterrupted, for seventy-four years—is one of the biggest acts of rebellion we could create. People are still stunned, by all accounts. The Capitol managed to stop the footage from broadcasting before it got too far, but they still showed a foreign hovercraft taking all of you up. People know you're free. It won't be long now before they wonder where you are and who took you."

A sinking feeling has begun to pool in the pit of Katniss's stomach. "But that's not all, is it? That's why she wants us to cooperate. That's why she kept us alive. She wants us to help her with this rebellion." After a moment, Katniss corrects herself. "You want us to help us with this rebellion."

Beetee nods. "That's why you were rescued."

"What do you want us for?" Katniss asks, feeling strangely betrayed.

He grimaces apologetically, dark eyes earnest as though willing her to understand. "We have work for you to do."

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Later, Prim finds Katniss leaning against the railing outside of their private compartment.

The entirety of District 13 is underground, Katniss has discovered. Thinking that they have lied to her on this account, Katniss sneaks away at dinner, telling Prim to stay put at the table with Finch and Peeta and Rue. She climbs every flight of stairs she can find, the whole world dim and sterile and quiet, but there's no escape hatch she can find. She has the feeling of being watched wherever she goes, and as little as she knows Coin, Katniss wouldn't put it past the president to have the entire district under surveillance. Still, if anyone notices Katniss's wanderings, no one ever shows up to usher her back into place, and for that she's grateful.

Eventually, she sinks down onto a metal stair and puts her head in her hands, only partly lost. She feels confident that she knows the direction of the mess hall, but it will take her some time to retrace her steps.

Even with all they've been told about their new roles—being filmed by camera crews to increase strength and morale, playing perfect little models like the other uniformed inhabitants of District 13—it's Cato who remains on Katniss's mind now.

She hadn't seen Marvel when he died. That had been a quick thing, there and gone, just as she'd planned. But Cato had suffered, and she'd made sure of it. She couldn't remember whether or not she'd meant it that way or if she'd only shot him in the gut once she saw his slimy face. But he'd suffered, and he'd suffered for ages. By her reckoning, over half an hour had passed between her shot and the cannon, though it's hard to say so with any degree of certainty.

And when she's done with Cato, she sees Finch and Rue and Peeta lying bloody on the ground beside him.

Katniss sits there for some time. Every few minutes, she hears someone walk around her on the stair, but no one stops. At least, not until a woman touches her shoulder gently to ask whether she is alright. The woman looks nothing like her mother except in the eyes. Katniss nods wordlessly and begins the long trek back to the mess hall.

Coin has promised that she will make every effort to bring her mother and Gale and his family to them. When it happens, Katniss will believe it.

They are guided to their private quarters by a uniformed young man who explains that she and Prim will share a compartment, if they don't mind, as space can be limited. Prim hops into the shower the moment they are alone, hoping to get the soapy smell from her skin, and Katniss feels trapped enough by the confined space that she steps out into the hall.

The railing blocks her from falling out into a huge, open sort of courtyard—or what would be a courtyard if there were any sunlight. Workers cross the area below on their way to stations and jobs and whatever it is their tattoos tell them to do. Coin has promised that it will all become clear to them as they spend more time in the district, but the thought of all this new information makes Katniss want to vomit.

Eventually, Prim rescues her from her thoughts. "You look like you swallowed a frog," she says suddenly, limping forward to lean against the railing as well. Her hair is still wet from her shower, and she wears an identical cotton shirt and pants to the one she'd worn earlier. Katniss looks at it in distaste. "I know," Prim remarks, flicking the hem of the shirt. "I changed, I promise. That's all the clothes they have for us, for now. I guess we'll get some kind of uniforms later."

Katniss hums.

Her sister follows her gaze down to the ground below, and they both spend a few moments watching the regimented ebb and flow of workers. Prim is close to her, so close that her arm is pressed against Katniss's and her warmth bleeds into Katniss's skin. "What happens now?" Prim murmurs suddenly, her voice lowered in spite of the general buzz of voices.

Katniss shoots her a sidelong glance. "We keep our eyes open. Learn what we can. Get out if we can."

"I want to help," Prim retorts. Katniss has been expecting this, so she feels resigned instead of disappointed.

"Of course you do."

"You don't."

"No. But it's probably the best thing to do right now. Maybe the safest."

"I don't think they'd hurt us if we refused."

Katniss thinks of the steely set to President Coin's eyes and half-doubts it, but she bites her tongue anyway. "I just don't like following…all these strategies. All of them are thinking of how to use us like we're soldiers or models or something, and I just wouldn't put it past them to get us hurt if it helped them."

Prim frowns. "That won't happen. Like you said, eyes open. And Peeta and the others are with us, too. We'll figure something out. We'll help them, but we'll do it safely. Our way."

"Why do you want to do this, Prim?"

Prim shifts her weight, putting her chin in her hands. "I don't think the Hunger Games and how the Capitol treats the districts—I don't think that's right. You don't think it is either," she adds knowingly, and then pauses. "And if Beetee and President Coin are right, this might be the best chance we have to make it so that this stuff never happens again, so no one has to do what we did. It's…we started all of this, Katniss. We didn't mean to, but we did. Maybe it's our job to finish it."

Whether it is or isn't their job doesn't matter anymore. Katniss can tell by the sure set to Prim's voice that she is decided on the matter. And Katniss will follow her sister to hell and back. She already has. "I wish you were a little less right all the time," she says instead.

Prim smiles and wraps her arms around Katniss, and Katniss has never been sure what it is about her sister, but when she holds Prim close, some of the meanest and most bitter parts of her seem to bleed away for a while. A whirl of emotions swim through her—regret at all she's done, happiness that they're free of the Games, worry because they aren't really free—and it takes several moments for Katniss to pull away.

"Why do you look like you swallowed a frog?" Prim asks Katniss once they are leaning on the rails again. She absently reaches out to touch the gash on Katniss's cheek, which the doctors here have said will leave a scar for some time.

Katniss debates offering Prim responses about her suspicions of President Coin, her wish to be out in the open forest somewhere, but Prim will see through these distractions at once.

She could tell her sister about Cato. Katniss has the feeling that Prim already knows that Katniss went back for him, that his death was purely murder and not self-defense, but Katniss doubts she knows the full extent of it. Probably Prim will see it televised at some point—but then again, she might not unless she seeks it out. District 13 doesn't seem keen on displaying Capitol recaps on their televisions, and everyone they have come into contact with has been careful about what they say about the Games.

But Prim doesn't need to know what Katniss has done for her. Katniss doesn't think her sister really wants to know.

The rest of it is worse, but it's easier to say because Prim already knows the details. "I was just thinking about how the Games could have gone," she explains. Then she snorts and shakes her head. "Actually, I can't stop thinking about it."

"You mean that we almost died there?"

Katniss nods. "Yeah, but…also the rest of it at the end. After the Careers were gone, when it was just us. I came really close, Prim. I really wanted to kill them, Rue and Peeta and Finch. I was afraid for me and I was more afraid for you."

"I know," Prim says, taking her hand. "It's okay."

"But the thing is," Katniss continues determinedly, "I really would have done it. Maybe I should have, because if Coin hadn't needed to save us, we all would have just died. Maybe we'd be together, but we all would have died. Instead of you getting out alive. And it's just, thinking like that—I just…I really would have done it."

"No, you wouldn't have."

"I only didn't because you were there. And you didn't want me to. And it's—I can't decide if it's better or worse, if I should have or shouldn't have, if I would have or wouldn't have. I thought about it so many times, how easy it would have been to just shoot them in their sleep. And maybe I should have, but now that we're here, I'm really glad I didn't."

The tears that have been threatening her all day begin welling up in her eyes, and she scrubs at them in anger and then presses the heels of her hands to her eyes.

"You wouldn't have," Prim repeats. "Even if I wasn't there. You wouldn't have done it."

Katniss laughs, but the sound comes out oddly cracked. "How would you know? Prim, I—I mean, you know what I've done. I've done other things. The poison, and inside of the Games, all the tributes I shot."

"That's different."

"That's not different. You don't even know—with Cato, Prim, I—" she bites her tongue.

"I don't care what you did to him," Prim hisses, gripping Katniss's forearms with surprising strength, almost digging her fingers into Katniss's skin. "It doesn't matter. Katniss, I know it wasn't…I know you're still upset about it. I think it hurts you more than if…but anyway, I need you to really listen. Because you wouldn't have hurt them."

Prim's blue eyes are so fierce and glint with such anger that Katniss is shocked out of crying.

"How do you know?" Katniss asks her eventually, her voice faltering.

"Because you're not that type of person. You already loved them by then," Prim says simply.

"Loved them?"

Prim smiles. "You do, you know."

Katniss shakes her head slowly, caught in the shock of it all. She thinks back to that moment, that final moment after Caesar Flickerman's announcement, when she had stared down the others half in determination and half in horror and dismay. It's hard to bring it all back. It's as though that Katniss was a wholly different person, someone familiar but removed, and that version of Katniss is too hard to read.

She can't work the answer out for herself, can't work out all of the variables. But Katniss trusts Prim.

Because in the end, Prim has always known her better than she knows herself.

Wordlessly, she pulls her sister closer. Prim nods. "Good. I think it'll be…hard to just come away from this, and everything's so different now, and everyone expects things from us. We can't just forget what happened in the Games, but we're still alive, and we're still together. And that's all we need." She says the last part as though she's begging.

Katniss wipes her eyes, glancing around quickly to be sure no one's watching. "You're right," she says. She doesn't smile, but it's a near thing.

Long moments pass. A uniformed worker walks across the catwalk behind them with only a glance in their direction. From somewhere below, there's a flurry of movement in response to an order. Above them, the fluorescent lights flicker. Eventually, Katniss takes a breath and adds, "Okay. Fine. You and me are going to make some changes around here."

Prim's expression is nothing less than triumphant. "Exactly. We have work to do."

The two of them stand at the railing for some time, Prim a solid and steady warmth against Katniss's side, until the hour of curfew approaches and the floors begin to empty. Gently, Katniss pulls her sister into their compartment, shutting the door behind her to block out the last sounds of footsteps as the citizens outside retreat to their burrows. The Everdeens clamber into one of the twin beds by unspoken agreement, pulling the blanket up to their chins.

Long after her sister has fallen silent, Katniss listens to the sounds of Prim's breathing, her hand resting lightly on Prim's neck so that the steady drum of her sister's heartbeat reverberates faintly through Katniss's skin. It lulls Katniss to sleep.

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End

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A/N: Soooooo I couldn't actually kill them all. I tried really hard, but they were too clever. Sue me.

As a whole, this story is really about Katniss and Prim and the choices they made, and I think that leaving it off here is the only possible ending to the story I wanted to tell. And so although the end is left sort of open, I'm not currently planning to write a sequel.

Anyway, all of this came about when I watched the movies again and got the impression that Beetee, Haymitch, Wiress, etc. could easily have been prepared to move to District 13 in secret from day one. And I think if Katniss had been more rebellious outright, if they'd known they could use her from the start, District 13 might have been much quicker to make a move and save her. In the books, it's only after she wins that they realize her usefulness. So a part of this story came when I wondered, what if they'd known in advance, "This is a girl we can use?" Because then, ironically, the Katniss who comes to the Games thinking she's prepared to kill anyone and everyone becomes part of the unexpected alliance that changes everything—not without significant help from Prim, of course.

Thanks so much for reading along, and I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed writing it :-) If you've made it this far, let me know what you thought!

Peace,
ket