Author: hotpielookedlikehotpie
Fandom: The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Story Title: and it lives my bones
Series Title: and it runs through my veins
Characters: Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Annie Cresta, Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Wiress, Beetee, Coriolanus Snow, Primrose Everdeen, Effie Trinket, Haymitch Abernathy, Cinna, Mrs. Everdeen, Gale Hawthorne, Madge Undersee, Caesar Flickerman
Rating: M
Warnings: language; violence; mental illness; suicidal thoughts; religion; sexual themes; sexual situations; character death; physical/emotional abuse; forced sexual slaved/references to prostitution, etc
Notes: the warnings/ratings are amped up from the first part, as things progress it all gets more intense, liv it up
Disclaimer: All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

part i. in which she is reintroduced; on sanity and scars and of course those canaries; a woman clock's tock and a dripping, snarling woman that is a mirror in murky water of a girl; the three of color amongst the bleach and their jabber of too much; him with the silk and fire, and fire, and fire; no-help-at-all from a drunk and it's no real surprise; and then the camera's rolling and we're live in five

"Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts." – Edgar Allan Poe

The smell of sterility flowed through her to a point of suffocation and the blinding white all around her was too much to the point where she was tempted to beg to be put back into the ridiculous colors and designs of the Capitol.

(Or to go home. To go to the sooty place that was permanently overcasted with a grey, where nothing could ever be this bleached out white, to a house that barely was enough room really for anyone let alone three bodies, to the hidden beauty of a meadow just beyond the grime and untouched by the coal, to a little sister's laughs and smiles.

Let it go.)

(She knew what she really meant though. Let her go. Be happy that you have her to miss, and that she isn't here, that it's you. Let her go. Let her go.)

She hated how much she thought of home and of being home during her time stuck in the Hospital. They gave her the okay to leave, sure, but Peeta wasn't fully recovered yet, and she wasn't about to go and venture into the Village alone. She was going to wait for Peeta, and he wasn't awake.

Or maybe he was. Now when she passed his room the window was curtained and the door was locked, making her underlying dizziness sometimes become full blown nausea until she found her way back to the room she was staying at to lay in bed.

It didn't do much for her nerves. More than once Katniss found herself bickering with Haymitch, who she knew she should be happy about being there with her because he was finally acting like some sort of mentor, but he was so damn irritating. And more than once did Haymitch threaten to inject Katniss with enough morphling that she'd be knocked out until next donation.

She just needed to know. Know if he was conscious, if he was okay, if he was in pain, if he was even alive. (Of course he was still alive. She knew he was. She knew because she knew that she'd know, somehow, if he wasn't. He was alive. She had to repeat it in her head. He is alive. Alive. He's not dead. He can't be. I won't allow it.)

She hadn't seen him since the time she went into his room and the President talked with her afterwards. Nurses came into her room every now and then, just to make sure she was okay, but it was always avoxes. Avoxes with no tongues, who couldn't speak. Avoxes who she couldn't question about how Peeta was doing. She got out of the bed and went to the door.

"Where are you going, sweetheart?" Haymitch's voice sounded bored and on edge. He disappeared every now and then when he was staying in the Hospital with Katniss waiting, only to come back liquored up and a newly filled hidden flask. He was running low, and his patience was as well.

"For a walk," Katniss answered absentmindedly. She didn't want to deal with Haymitch right now.

"You're not going to get into his room, you know."

"I'm going for a walk, Haymitch." She shut the door loudly and made her way down the long hallway. There weren't many people milling about the hallways, most likely either in the different rooms, at the main desk, or the doctor's lounge. Katniss found the place by accident, much to all the doctor's dismay. When she came upon it they all fell silent and looked at her with a frown. One came straight towards her and gripped her arm and forced her down the hall back to her room. "Curiosity is a most unpleasant trait, don't you think?" he murmured into her ear before she was pushed a bit forcefully into her room and the door was shut behind her.

Alright, fine. She got it. They didn't like it when people looked around.

Or more, when the Reaped did. They couldn't be curious; that never fit into whatever role President Snow made for them. Dance and twirl, seduce and smile, laugh and cry, drink and roar, but never, never, never inquire.

Katniss' was simple of course. A nice little role for her to fit snug into, one of a girl in love, who snuck into his room to kiss him and hold his hand, who whispered to him of course with words that had to be sweet nothings, to, to–

(She wondered, fleetingly, if Snow realized the lack of knowledge and, to be honest, ability Katniss had in this area that she now would have to live in. He'd be absolutely delighted to know how marvelously she was destined to fail.)

Katniss was in the halls the next day, a quick skip in her step past the doctor's lounge, but she wanted to know who else was still recovering.

She walked down the hallway, the stark and straight hallway that seemed to twist in her mind, and ended up in the threshold of Annie's room. She didn't spend much time with Annie, but then again she didn't spend a lot of time with people before the first donation besides Rue and Peeta.

Her heart stuttered over those two names in her thoughts, and she wondered which hurt more.
(The one I failed, and the one that I'm destined and set up to fail.)

She spent time with Finnick though, and thought she could really, truly, call him a good friend of hers already. One of the only she had so far in this new damned world. And his love for Annie, well, it made her love Annie too. In a way, at least. And the way that the doctors apparently were just waving her off as some mental disease, well, she felt she needed to investigate, so see how mad this mad Annie Cresta was.
So she stood there silently and looked at the small girl who seemed even smaller laying in the hospital bed, whose hair was even curlier, who was staring, staring, at nothing but there was a smile (not completely lost, look, a smile, not completely lost and gone like mother) and just took her in for a bit. The girl was beautiful.

And mad, to the doctors at least.

The doctors that were from the Capitol, that were controlled by Snow. Snow, that already had threatened Katniss before she fully woke up from donating a piece of herself to one of his loving citizens.

She would make her own decision about Annie, she decided, and would throw the Doctor's words for her to the window.

"Hey Annie," Her voice rang out as she took a couple of steps forward and the girl in the bed looked over at her. The smile on her face twitched bigger and her eyes searched Katniss' face, seeming to be slightly more in the moment than they were when she was sitting and staring just before. Katniss took more steps towards Annie, wondered if the girl remembered her. "It's Katniss. How are you?"

"As fit as a button," she replied and her voice was light and airy, high and beautiful.

Katniss didn't comment on the fact that that wasn't how the saying, any saying, went, but instead sat down next to her. "Good."

Annie was distracted, and her eyes roamed the hair of the girl sitting next to her. "Your hair is beautiful, the braid..." Her fingers landed at the bottom and then she looked back up to the grey eyed girl. "Can you turn around? I'd like to see the braid."

Katniss fought to keep a frown of confusion off of her face and just nodded, turning around and feeling the girl's fingers dance down as if wanting to touch each hair on her head. She repeated, "your hair is beautiful, Katniss. And your braid."

Katniss turned back around. "Would you like me to braid your hair?"

A smile seemed to take over Annie's face, a smile so joyous that she didn't know that anyone but Prim would ever be able to have one light up their face like that. "Oh, would you please?" Annie sat up straight in the bed, and turned her back to Katniss as she started to run her fingers through the girl's hair. She looked at it, all the curls and all of the knots and she wondered how she was going to be able to braid it, truly. "There's a hairbrush on my end table," Annie answered her unasked question, and Katniss picked it up wondering how mad a girl so observant could be.

It was weird. She only interacted with Annie a few times, but this felt like the first true meeting of her. And it was after they were Reaped, after they donated, after she was deemed "mad." And already, yeah, Katniss could pinpoint things of her that seemed a bit different, things she said or did that didn't make sense, but Annie also already had moments of such clear understanding and able to give such joy. The word "mad" seemed wrong, too finite. Annie sang low a song about a fisherman stealing a mermaid under her breath as Katniss began to brush her hair, and Katniss found herself humming along soon enough, morphing it into one of the songs from her own District about a coal miner in love with a canary's song.

Brushing through her hair, massaging her fingers on her scalp, Annie grew silent and Katniss continued to hum. Without realizing it, something caught her eye on the side of Annie's head when she parted away hair and looked again. There was a scar.

Katniss tried to push away her anger as she quickly moved Annie's dark hair back over the scar. She never wanted to see it again, and was quite sure it was intended to never be seen. Mad, the doctors said. No, Annie wasn't mad. Annie was damaged, and it was their fault.

Fuck, they all were damaged. And well on their way to more.

She kept brushing her hair, not braiding yet, and tried to stay away from the scar and tried to make her mind stop screaming. She thought back to the song of the canary that stole the miner's heart, and hummed it again. It was always one of her favorites, would be if only because it was a song that brought such warm and happy feelings to her mind about her mother and her father, of before everything. A miner working all day underground with no light, no other people around even. It was dark and his only friend were the rocks around him. And then the yellow canary came around and twittered around him. The day is done, and now you can live again, it seemed to sing out, and he followed it as it danced around him and brought him outside. But it was still sunny when he left with that canary song in his head, even though evening should have been coming. And the canary left the mines with him, and carried him into a meadow and before he knew it, he was a bird, singing a song of home and sunshine and flying through the sky side by side of that canary.

"Your mother is my canary, Katniss," her father would whisper to her and she'd giggle as she watched her mother blush and give him a playful slap, hearing him.

"I believe the story is mixed up. Your canary song is the one that lead me to the sunlight." And then he'd sing the song to her, and she'd flit around him, as if the canary, and they'd flit around each other, as if one another's canaries, and it always ended with them both in the sun, both in the air singing, both together.

And that's how it ended, really, didn't it? A new thought of it all overtook Katniss and she tried to concentrate on the hair in front of her. Her father was a canary that brought her mother to life, and when he died, when he was in the sunlight flying and her mother could only chase after, well, she followed him. She didn't die as well, no she wasn't dead, but she was also more dead than he was. More decayed than his body would ever become. Because his song would always live, would always play in the sunlight, and she just went back to the mines, never finding the exit without the canary's song to drag her out.

"That's a pretty song, you have a nice voice."

Katniss shook her head. She had trouble concentrating after the donation, or rather since she volunteered. She wondered if it was just a side effect of the Capitol. She always felt like she was worrying or in mourning. "I'm only humming."

Even with her back to her, Katniss could feel the smile that Annie was wearing. "I bet your singing is beautiful. I bet if you stood on a beach and sang all the seashells would echo your notes."

A voice that silenced birds came to her mind, but she pushed it back down. "I don't do that much singing anymore." She couldn't lead anyone out of the mine, her song stuck in her throat.

"Oh, could you sing for me please Katniss? It'd be nice."

Not that song, she decided right away of the one she'd been humming while with Annie. After all of her new thoughts to it, she wondered if she could sing that song ever again.

Her mind went quickly to a song about a meadow, but she erased that thought just as quickly as it entered as well. That was the last song she sang with her father, the song she sang just days ago to Rue who didn't wake up. She wondered if those notes were some kind of culling song; she wondered if it'd catch up and snatch her too.

She didn't sing anymore, no, not since that day years ago, but she still remembered every song, with every word and note. She had to. She drew her strength from them, built herself up in the marrow of the lyrics.

Most of the songs her father fancied were rebellious and banned from her by her mother (meaning she knew them all, every note). Some were dark while others were just rousing, but the thought of what the Capitol would think of the words made her try and think through other songs she knew. She thought of songs from home, from District Twelve, school songs and valley songs, songs about the far off mountains and secret people that lived there, and songs that miners sang while they came up from under the earth to finally see the sky only to have the sun setting on them. She thought of their funeral songs, of the songs that were sung at her fathers memorial, she pushed those ones away. She brushed the girls hair as she hummed louder, and then finally did sing, a song from grade school that she was sure she had forgotten but somehow the pleas of this girl brought it back to her. She plaited Annie's hair and without even meaning to brought the hair into two braids. She didn't even realize what she was doing, she meant to give her one braid that went off to the side like the one she wore. But instead Katniss gave her braids that she was used to doing in another person's hair.

Blonde hair flashed before her eyes and she hid her grimace when Annie found her reflection in the mirror and gushed over it..

(Let her go. Let her go. Let her go. The words took root in her bloodstream, came throbbing in her mind with every heartbeat. Let her go. Let her go.)

She left Annie's room quickly after that, making up a feeble excuse that she was sure Annie saw through (but the girl just smiled, smiled, smiled), feeling more mad than deemed-mad Annie had been at any point during her visit.

Another day, and she found herself in another room. It was a busy room, and big. Katniss found herself in it from curiosity, not knowing who was in it. When she looked she saw three beds, two with curtains around them and one with the woman sitting up looking at her hands.

When Katniss made her way into the room, Johanna Mason's eyes shot up at her and her eyebrow quirked in question.

"What are you doing in here, brainless?"

Katniss bristled at the nickname she gave her, but didn't regard it. "I was in the neighborhood," she told her. She didn't add that she felt like she was going mad from being cooped up in the hospital, for deciding herself to be cooped up.

"So you decided to visit me because I had no visitors and guilt led your feet in here?" Her voice was harsh and Katniss scowled. She didn't like this woman, really, she was too much salt and she felt like slapping her more often that not.

Which was a bit of an entertaining notion, for the feelings were the same the other way around.

"I didn't know who was in here," she told the woman in the bed (woman, just a few years older than me, but she's a woman, and I'm just a girl) and looked around. "Besides, you seem to not be in here alone, guilt didn't drive me here."

Johanna flicked her hand. "The room that I was supposed to be in got taken over by some hot shot or the other that had to die. I don't know, don't care. So now I'm with these two," she jutted her head to the two screened beds. "Nuts and Volts."

Katniss didn't understand why that was so, why Johanna needed to go into a shared room. There were empty rooms she passed, empty rooms that used to room now dead people. Dead people that were dead because of me, she added in her head. I made sure of that. She looked back at Katniss and gave her a heavy smile. "Why didn't you get put into a room with others from Seven?"

"I'm not particularly their most favorite person – not that I know why." Katniss tried to hold back a snort of laughter, but Johanna had let hers through. She quieted after a bit, and her voice grew quiet too. "This years Reaped from Seven didn't make it."

Katniss couldn't even place their faces and that made her feel even guiltier. "I'm sorry."

Johanna shook her head, trying to rid herself of the quiet, the somber. "It's not your fault." Yes it is, Katniss bit back. She wondered if those from Seven would still be alive if it wasn't for her. She wondered how different all the Reaped would be off if she never stepped forward when asked for volunteers. A butterfly's flutter can cause a hurricane, so surely everything to follow suit of Katniss' volunteering was to be a disaster. "I didn't even know them, but they were home. They still smelled like Pine when they first stepped onto the train." She paused, and looked away. "The smell's gone by the time we got to the Capitol."

Katniss nodded, and an uneasy silence passed between the two. What was there even to say? Katniss was looking for a way to leave without being rude (why did she even care about being rude? Especially with this woman? She was about to decide that she didn't care about that either) when Johanna spoke again.

"If you're wondering, you're my first visitor."

"I wasn't wondering," Katniss tried to dismiss, but couldn't help how she actually felt about that realization. Where were the other ones from her district? Weren't her and Finnick friends, why hadn't he visited?

"Don't worry, I don't care," Johanna kept going as if Katniss didn't answer. "I wasn't expecting anyone to."

Katniss felt incredibly uncomfortable. "Well...surprise," she deadpanned, and Johanna barked a laugh and she heard a muttered 'please' amongst other unintelligible words.

"Did you have any visitors, Miss Everdeen?" Johanna asked as Katniss decided to bite the bullet and take a seat nearby her bed.

Being called 'Miss Everdeen' set her blood to run thin and cold, and Katniss tried to suppress a shudder. Thinking of her visitor made her want to crawl into a closet with all the lights off and lay there for days, but she didn't want to show anything of what she was feeling to Johanna. She had a feeling that Johanna was a bit too rough for any sort of sympathy, but wondered if threats from the President would soften her up. "President Snow visited me," she told her, trying to sound non-chalant. She didn't bring up Finnick, and definitely didn't bring up going to Annie. She didn't know how close Johanna was to them, or if she expected visits, and didn't know how she'd react to Katniss seeing them.

Johanna's eyes lit up, interested with this detail. Inside she screamed and almost shuddered, but she didn't let it out. She wouldn't let it out. "So you're one of the lucky ones," Johanna mused with a smile that was anything but warm and inviting. "All of your loved ones got threatened?" Katniss merely nodded, she couldn't get into this with her, with this person she was certain hated her. "Tell me, how do you enjoy being a victor?"

"Victor?" Katniss asked, confused.

The smile grew bigger. Colder. "Yes. Victor. A nice name given to us poor district folk that were Reaped and survived and now get to live with the comforts of the Capitol. Us victors."

Katniss was quiet for a bit. She certainly didn't feel like a victor. Nothing about her situation felt victorious. She felt in a large black hole that threatened to consume it all, and all she could do was watch as she slowly, inch by inch, got taken in only to realize she was the black hole herself. "I, uh, well I haven't left the Hospital yet. So uh."

"Why not? Something wrong with you, brainless?"

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. "No, no. Just..." She didn't want to talk about this, especially with her. She didn't want to talk about anything with Johanna. Johanna set her on edge, and she knew that she'd not be given any amount of sympathy or any easy route at all with her. She hated it. "Peeta's still here, and I didn't want to go back to the village alone."

Johanna guffawed, and Katniss felt more red. She tried to think to when she became so weak, having to wait for someone to go somewhere.Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. "Right, I forgot. You and loverboy. You sometimes come up on that TV," Johanna jerked her head to a television set. It was unplugged, the remote lying next to it broken. "Well, used to come up on it. How is loverboy, by the way?"

Brainless, loverboy. Katniss was sick of her stupid nicknames, and could feel her irritation in her voice. "Not awake yet. Hence me still being here."

Johanna seemed amused by Katniss' growing irritation over her and was about to pursue pushing her past her limit, just to see her explode, just because she was so damn bored, but was interrupted by someone behind one of the screened bed.

"Tick-tock," a voice sang out. "Tick-tock."

Katniss' anger went away immediately and felt a panic rise. "Tick-tock," rang out again, and then there was rustling of one of the screens moving. Johanna flopped herself on the bed with an annoyed sigh, and Katniss looked over. A man with beady eyes and glasses stood up, moving away the screens around one of the beds. It was, who was he, who was he, and then Katniss remembered meeting him briefly. His name was Beetee.

He fixed his glasses quickly, looking over at Katniss and Johanna. "Hello there, Katniss."

Katniss replied with a "hello" back, but it was drowned out by the "tick-tock, tick-tock" coming from the other screened bed. Beetee went to the other screen and pulled it back, revealing the woman named Wiress, her black hair a cloud of knots surrounding her. Her eyes were large and unseeing and she repeated the two syllables as Beetee tried to calm her down.

"Do you see what I'm dealing with. Fuck," Johanna muttered, moving over to where her IV was dripping morphling and messed with the settings. "I'll see you later, Brainless," she said, and Katniss was going to question what she meant but then Johanna was knocked out by the dosage of morphling.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock," Wiress kept saying, despite Beetee trying to quiet her down.
Katniss wondered if this woman, this Wiress, was sent to make audible the ticking of her life. Tick-tock, it ran through her head. Tick-tock. She was living on borrowed time. There would always be dues.

"Wiress, Wiress," Beetee tried calling out. Katniss stood up, she needed to leave.

"Drip-drop," Wiress started then, alternating between the two. Drip-drop, all the blood that was sucked out of the dead because of her. Katniss inched towards the door.

"I have to uh," She took another step to the door. "I have to go now."

Beetee didn't look surprised or confused. Wiress' eyes were still wide and she was still blubbering. "That's fine Katniss. We'll see you soon," Beetee answered.

Katniss left the room, but it was no use. Tick-tock, drip-drop, it was stuck in her head.

She tried to run back to her room, hoping that maybe Haymitch would be there to piss her off and take her mind out of those sounds, those debts, that panic.

Haymitch wasn't in the room, but it wasn't empty.

"Katniss! We have been waiting for you!"

They stuck out amongst the Hospital almost painfully, and Katniss had to blink her eyes a bit to adjust to their sight. She was yearning for something besides all of the sterile white of the hospital, but this. This. Their colorful hair, eyes, tattoos, skin, it was too much against the sterile and bleach, and Katniss had to just stare at the trio in front of her and blink to try and stop a headache from crashing into her.

Her prep team was there, full of expectant smiles. No wonder the drunkard left her out to dry.

"Uh. Hi guys. Nice to see you," She said uncomfortably. They smiled and dragged her into the room.

They started all talking at once, and soon she found herself being led out of her hospital room and down the corridor to the prep room she had been in only once before for her interview.

"We're so happy when you didn't end up in the Catalogue, Katniss! Although I wouldn't mind those knobby knees of yours, word on the street is they are the next big trend but you didn't hear it from me!" Octavia cooed as they undressed her. She wondered if she should say thank you to it, but decided on a smiling silence. It was either that or start vomiting up all of the shitty hospital food she'd been living on, all of the vitamins she was still taking (and will be taking for as long as you're around! We need you always healthy and fit, and we have much work to be done to get that District unhealthiness out of you).

An important thing that she started to realize in her week leading up to the donation, and in the presence of these three especially. You could talk to the Capitol citizens, but they won't listen. They see a blazing smile, hear a word or two that they were expecting, and they were happyand gushing and that's really great but let me tell you about myself more and please, please, let me know every detail of yourself. They were intrusive and full of hot air, and Katniss, as long as she concentrated, found herself able to fill them up and have them take over the conversation, only having to give a smile or a nod. The smile was always important. Katniss' cheeks hurt, never having been one for a smile.

Living in soon-to-be-luxury was a lot more demanding than she realized, and in all the ways that she was not prepared for.

They tsked at her naked body. "Oh Katniss, honestly," Venia muttered as they laid her on the bed and started the process of waxing. She had to go through one before the interviews so that she looked better than her absolute best, but they told her then that it'd be just a quick one. "We're not going to waste good product and time on just a dead body you know? So survive and we can really make you beautiful!"

Everything they said disgusted Katniss (almost wanted her dead just for her a trend. Honestly?), and she felt on the verge of ripping her hair out just to see how they'd react as well as wishing for her bow so they'd just shut up. But they were so...so foolish. They didn't know better, and she knew they had no ill-will towards her (unlike a certain President). This was the life they knew, as sick as it was. And they really were genuinely happy to see Katniss still alive, whether or not that meant they missed out on her soon-to-be trendy knobby knees or not.

"Now that you got through your first Reaping, we get to do a more permanent hair removal, which honestly, thank goodness. Do they breed yetis in District Twelve? You're all so hairy!"

Katniss smiled. "It's a lot more barbaric out there." We don't take people's knees for fashion statements, for one.

"Oh, of course!" Octavia cooed. "You poor thing you, growing up in that." She was attacking Katniss' nails with a fury, muttering under her breath the likes of really, Katniss, you really had to bite your nails and give me only the chance at getting a miracle in order to fix you?.

"Don't worry though, sweetie, because you don't have to be in savage living anymore. You'll be living in the Village now, a part of the Capitol for all of the surviving Reaped."

"Oh!" Octavia squealed after Katniss was in a vat. This was taking so long, so so long, them saying they were taking her down to what they call beauty base zero. "That boyfriend of yours! How is he?"

The word "boyfriend" could have made her cringe, but she remembered that these are just simple-minded people who didn't know better, and well, she needed to get started on working on this farce, she decided. She held back a sad frown, and all three of them instantly drew in close to her with puppy eyes. "I don't know," She answered honestly, and she almost started panicking at how much she didn't have to try to make her voice break at the phrase. She really didn't know how Peeta was, and that freaked her out. Tick-tock, tick-tock. "I saw him once, I visited him when he was still asleep but after that–"

They started to gush, apparently unable to deal with sad uncertainties. "Oh, I'm sure they just started to gussy him up for you!" Venia cried out.

Flavius nodded. "Of course! I mean, I can't imagine how dreadful he must've looked laying there. Nothing a good shampoo and condition to the hair could fix him right up and make you fall in love with him all over again."

Their squeals in agreement hid the wrinkle in Katniss' nose at that stupid, stupid word they insisted on using.

"I cannot wait to see you guys finally moving into the village. Ah, just, just young love. It's so sweet that something so pure can still come from the Districts!" Octavia gushed.

By the time Cinna came into the room and all three of them left – a lot of screaming, Katniss make sure you say your thanks to us on camera we deserve it for getting rid of the yeti on you! – Katniss had a horrid headache. She took comfort in Cinna's presence like she did before, and he gave her a true smile.

No, a smirk. "How has your day been?" He found this all hilarious.

She'd be furious, but it was Cinna, and fuck, he out of anyone knew how it felt to be in the presence of those three rabid chipmunks. "They wanted to, to implant something in my chest to give me, give me bigger breasts!" She didn't know why, out of everything they suggested and said this is what she told him, but it was a hell of a day and she wasn't about to question herself about it.

"If you don't want any of that done, I'll make sure it's not. After all, I am the designer. And now, you're official designer. So I'll have the last say in any body alterations. Anything you want? Skin coloration? Tattoo? Thigh reconstruction? Cheek augmentation?"

She didn't know what he meant by the different procedures he listed, but she knew her answer. "No." She wasn't going to let them change her body, just like how she wasn't letting them take away all of the old scars she had from hunting.

(Oh, Octavia cooed, but they're so ugly, and degrading, and really you deserve to be flawless! I really think your scars are going to detract from your look, I mean, you could be almost really attractive without them, really!)

(When Katniss suggested to Octavia that she got the scars from a lifetime of using a bow and arrow to hunt, the woman went back to waxing – a particularly painful spot, that which didn't go over Katniss' head.)

"Very well. Then you have nothing to worry about." Cinna walked around her, sitting on the table in her robe. "I am your designer now, meaning that everything you wear I will be making. We'll be meeting in the next couple of days to figure out your style stance–"

"Style stance?" The Capitol was getting more and more confusing.

"Style stance. Your clothes will say a lot about you, Katniss. A comfortable yet stylish girl? A femme fetale? A heartbreaker?"

"Snow wants me as smitten girl in love."

"And what do you want?"

Katniss looked around, and Cinna understood and nodded. No cameras. No bugs. Not in the prep rooms. What talk would happen between the Reaped and their prep team that would be worth listening to? "I want to be me."

"And who are you, Katniss Everdeen?"

She paused, silent. Who was she? Everything she was, well... she couldn't see it translating it to here. She was Prim's big sister. She was one of the illegal hunters of District Twelve. She was a girl from the Seam. "I," she started, confused. Who the hell am I? "I'm just...me. I'm just, just Katniss Everdeen."

Cinna smiled, sympathetically. "We'll figure it out." He flourished a black garment bag that he had in his hand suddenly, and gave another smile. "Tonight however...you are the girl on fire."

Katniss looked at him, confused. "The girl on what?"

"Fire." He seemed rather amused. "You haven't been watching the gossip columns talk of the Reaped?"

"No," Katniss answered firmly. "I don't give a damn about that."

"You should. They're talking about you."

Oh yeah. But still... "I never cared what anyone thought about me."

"You have to start caring," Cinna told her, becoming more serious. "At the end of the day, your life is in the hands of these people. However they feel about you effects you, and anyone you have befriended here."

Katniss blinked and swallowed hard. Like Rue. She nodded. "Alright. I'll pay more attention." She took a deep breath. "So I'm the what?"

"The girl on fire."

She paused. "The girl on fire," she repeated it, trying to see how it tasted. "Are you going to set me on fire?"

Cinna laughed. "No. Not yet at least, but don't rule it out. It came about from some columnist high in the business naming you that for your temper and how you, well how did they word it..." Cinna trailed off, thinking. His eyes lit up in amusement when he thought of it. "Oh right! They called you a spark, a girl on fire with how you seemed to ignite Mister Peeta Mellark."

"Oh honestly!" Katniss threw her face in her hands and knew that she was the girl on fire with how hot her face is burning red.

Cinna chuckled. "Relax. The name caught like wildfire–"

"Are we done with the fire jokes?"

He held his smile, and then continued. "Everyone rather enjoys the nickname, Katniss. They love you."

Katniss scoffed. She wasn't used to that kind of sentiment, of the idea of strangers loving her. She hardly believed it. Cinna unzipped the garment bag. "I see that you also enjoyed the nickname," she commented dryly as she noticed the colors.

"You have to admit it's quite catchy. And the ability for the design theme is too much to pass up. I'm just glad they picked something inspirational like fire rather than something like the girl in dirt. Now that even I would have trouble beautifying."

Katniss rolled her eyes and tried to look more at her girl on fire dress. She could see a part of it, the bright warm colors that it was made of but Cinna then closed the zipper. "Ah, ah. Close your eyes and lets get this on and do final touches to hair and makeup. Then you can look."

Something was gnawing at Katniss though. A few things (a lot of things), really, but she decided to go after only a couple. She bit her lip. "Cinna, what exactly am I getting dressed up for?"

He cocked his head at her. "They didn't tell you?" She shook her head no. "You have an interview today with Caesar Flickerman. They decided they couldn't wait anymore for the girl–"

"On fire, yeah I get it," she finished for him dismissively. She was hesitant about next question. "What about Peeta?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure. They'll let you know before the interview most likely. Portia is Peeta's designer, and we aren't to talk about our clients with one another."

"So naturally, you know everything and just aren't telling me." Katniss felt slightly betrayed by Cinna, who she counted as a friend, her only Capitol citizen friend and one of her only few in this entire place. Why wouldn't he tell her? Unless. Unless...

"I'm not allowed to tell you Katniss. I'm sorry. But everything will be fine, alright? Just worry about shining tonight and then after that we'll deal with details." Katniss sighed deeply and Cinna gave her an encouraging smile. "Now let's get you into this dress and engulf the audience with your flames."

He laughed as she looked for something to throw at him, wishing she wasn't naked just for the fact to be able to have a shoe or something to throw and stop the stupid fire jokes. She could only imagine how much worse it'd get.

The games were just beginning.

When she looked in the mirror, she had to admit to herself that she could maybe (just maybe) get used to this whole fire thing. Her dress was silk and strapless, a deep red that flickered into softer (but warm, warm and strong) tones of deep reds and burnt oranges on the way up. From the waist down the silk tiered in ruffles that moved and danced with every step, and she felt like a flickering flame truly, as if she was in the middle of an inferno. Gold embellishments made their way from the waist up on the corset-fitted top, and so as she spun and it seemed as if flames were on her, the gold twinkled and caught the light in such ways that she didn't ever know was ever possible.

Natural make-up was applied to her, (You want to be yourself, you want to be Katniss Everdeen. Let's give them your face, your natural beauty, and see how much it shakes up those done up porcelain dolls, hmm?) with a slight red lipstick and mascara. Her hair was down and wavy, one small braid that took some hair on the right side of her and pinned to the back (That braid is you, too, isn't it? It's you. You will still be Katniss Everdeen, I promise.)

Cinna knew what he was doing, and she was grateful for that. "Cinna, this is beautiful."

He smiled from behind her in the mirror. "And it's yours. Although I would not advise wearing it to another event. The Capitol frowns upon double wearing of an outfit."

She frowned as she lightly touched the material. "That seems a waste," she muttered.

His smile this time didn't have humor behind it. "It is." He turned her around and moved a piece of hair that got in front of her face away. "But the show must go on."

"Well you certainly at least look the part."

Haymitch circled her like a wolf circling their prey, and she felt as if she was about to be devoured. If not by Haymitch's insults (or almost–compliments, she figured) then by the audience that she was soon going to be sitting out in front of, talking in front of, most likely being demanded a part of herself in just another way for them. She was just being thrown around from one person to the next, and the most infuriating part was that no one would give her any information. Just a couple of get here and go here and make sure to see this person, but when she brought a question past her lips they shushed her or told her later, later. Her anger was at a boiling point when Haymitch stumbled into her vision right next to another person that she recognized from seeing around every now and then but couldn't remember his name.

"Ta-da!" Haymitch pronounced as he swept his arms out in proclamation. His friend, Chaff, started guffawing. "I'm here, I'm here, no need to miss me anymore." Katniss was set in a rigid stance with her arms crossed and a scowl deep on her face. This man was useless, and was the only person that could help her at this point. Meaning she was useless. And done for. Tick-tock, tick-tock. If she didn't let herself be angry at him right then she knew, just knew, she'd find herself in the middle of a panic attack.

Chaff almost looked scared at the look on Katniss' face. "Alright, I'm off Haymitch. I'll see you in a couple of days." He started walking off. "See ya later, Fire." Now they were going to just call me that? Dammit.

"So are you going to actually mentor me now that you're done with your drinking buddy?" Her anger felt like it was bristling.

Haymitch just rolled his eyes at her and she wondered if he was actually the teenage girl and she was his caretaker. "Did you think that you were the only person that I know around here or something, sweetheart? Sorry if I couldn't hold your hand as your prep team waxed your unmentionables."

A blush creeped on her face but she pushed it down. They didn't need to talk about that; it was bad enough while it was happening and Katniss was sure it'd just straight up kill her if she had to discuss it with Haymitch. "Haymitch, I'm getting interviewed by Caesar Flickerman within a half hour and you're supposed to be my mentor! I don't even know what to say, I don't know what they want me to say. I'm not ready for this. Where is Peeta and why has his door been locked? Why did they decide to finally make me interview? I want to go back to the Hospital room."

"Slow down, slow down, dammit sweetheart." He opened up his flask and poured some liquor down his throat. "I get it, you have a lot of questions. I'm not going to answer most of them."

"But–"

"Shut up, or I'll answer none, you got that."

She just grunted and crossed her arms, knowing full well she was acting exactly how she shouldn't be in a dress that she was in.

"Stand still," Haymitch told her as he walked around her, and told her, "well you certainly at least look the part."

He stood in front of her and she cocked her eyebrow. "What part?"

He shrugged. "Your part. Whatever they decide. It's their game, and you get to become whatever they want you to become."

"What if I want to just be me?"

"Then you'll be dead by morning. Honestly sweetheart, you and I both know that there's nothing charming and endearing about you."

She knew that about herself, but she got angry at having Haymitch point it out. "Like you're any better."

He just smiled at her. "I never claimed to be." He tried to get serious again and stared at her. "I wish I had a way to get you some etiquette or...or personality lessons before going into the lion's den."

"I thought they liked me already." I'm still alive now, aren't I? The only reason that Snow's request for my death didn't go through was because they recognized my popularity with the crowd? Even Cinna said they liked me, no, loved me.

"They like you with him. You're vulnerable, and actually human. And he can actually get a damn smile on your face." She smiled large for Haymitch to show that she could smile just fine on her own, dammit. He barked a laugh. "Yeah yeah yeah. It's still him. They love him loving you." He didn't reverse it, didn't say and love you loving him because he seemed to know the discrepancies about it, about that word.

"So it all comes down to him." She asked. She noted how they weren't saying his name, and she wondered why. Maybe...

"It will always come down to him. Now shake out your nerves or something, sweetheart. You're onstage soon, and once you are there's no turning back. The games begin."

She felt a headache coming on from that thought. It felt like the games were already beginning. They hadn't? She can't do this, she can't...

The call for people to get to their places came around. "That's your cue, sweetheart." Haymitch told her, pausing and then awkwardly patting her shoulder for assurance. She realized suddenly, that he really didn't answer any of her questions. She tried to take deep breaths as she was ushered to the side of the stage, looking out onto the dark in front of her, knowing that there was a couch waiting for her, a smiling Caesar ready to dissect her with cutting questions, and the audience, and the cameras.

They were all waiting for her.

She tried to calm down, tried to get herself into the feel and look of her dress, of a victor. When she was off-stage she could question and scowl and hide in her bed all day. She had to seem as put together as Cinna made her look. She wondered fleetingly why she was even going through the steps of this all, why she didn't just go out there and tell the Capitol to shove it and fuck off, but she knew it was because it wasn't just about her anymore. A loose wildfire burns all those surrounding it. She wasn't going to be everyone else's downfall, she couldn't fall to that guilt.

"We're on in five, four, three..."

The music started up and she watched as the lights came alive to a smiling Caesar and the cheering crowed. And waited.

a/n: this is being cross-posted on ao3. To be honest, I was just going to post it on there, but I know that there's a good amount of people on here that have me on author alert and want to read the next part so I'll post it here as well. None of my stories have been removed, but this story will be earning that m rating more than the first part, so to say. So we'll see. If worst comes to worst, my username on ao3 is the same as it is here, so you can check it out there. I was going to post again in one big chunk like I did the first part but I'm instead just going to do in parts. I don't know how many parts and I'm still working things out, but I'll try and update as much as possible. I'm working on a playlist for this part, which I'll be posting on my livejournal soon and it'll be linked on my blog and my ao3. Enjoy xx