Archive of Our Own

The sun shines the same as it ever did in the arena. It still seems wrong, like it should shine some artificial light on this side of the world. Britta closes the blinds to try to stop that line of thinking, how wrong it all is. She should be proud of where she stands, everyone says. Yet she isn’t.

“The reaping starts in an hour,” her hairdresser reminds as he runs a comb across his fingertips. It is a different man than the previous years – older, with a thick golden mane of hair curling about his shoulders. His skin has been tinted a bright orange color – possibly to signify summer or possibly because the mood struck him. The ways of the Capitol leave it up in the air. Otherwise he looks the same as any common man from a District, though perhaps more well-kept. The man clears his throat and Britta blushes, caught scrutinizing him. Britta moves to sit in a chair, pushing her hair over the back of it. The hairdresser makes an affronted noise at the state of her locks, tangled from the wind and time spent outside. The reaction makes her smile to herself momentarily, though the feeling passes quickly.

Her mind wanders as the hairdresser, yet to introduce himself, curls her hair silently. After winning, her mind had – perhaps obviously – not jumped to the conclusion that winning meant training someone else. Of course, now the actuality of it – even five years later – weighs heavily on her. The past five years aged her – not physically, though wrinkles had formed in her brow – and she feels ancient beneath the burden of another tribute being offered up. The hairdresser tugs at a knot in her hair and Britta grimaces at it, wrinkling her face into a scrunch of shut eyes.

“You could handle a battle to the death, but not a guy with a comb?” Jeff Winger sounds jolly. Britta turns to find the man leaning against the door frame, a half-smile playing at his lips. Her hair dresser hisses and readjusts her head to face forward again. From the corner of her eye, Britta sees the way Jeff had to stoop to fit in the frame, his suit hanging loose on him with an untied tie about his neck. Britta rolls her eyes at him as he cocks an eyebrow at him.

“No one pulled my hair in the arena,” Britta quips and Jeff’s grin becomes full-fledged. Britta tries not to feel proud at earning the reaction. The hairdresser steps back and Britta finds herself annoyed if such a simple comment offended him. Instead, the amber-skinned man claps his hands and announces he has finished with styling her. With golden hair flying behind him like a veil, the hairdresser marches out of the room. Britta rises and walks to the mirror. Her hair is piled atop her head, curls poking out haphazardly. It looks almost like tentacles, reminiscent of the District’s legacy - fishing.

“You seem irritable, Perry,” Jeff comments, strolling over to her. She meets the eyes of his reflection in the mirror, not replying to the comment. Unlike her, his hair seems the same as ever – though it may be due to the fact that he spends much of his time styling his hair on any given day. A grin sits on his face, though it does not reach his eyes, and he moves a hand to her hair.

“Don’t muss it,” Britta rebukes half-heartedly. Jeff merely wraps a finger about a curl in response, pulling it back before releasing it. The curl bounces, hitting against the others like it and Britta blinks as Jeff watches it. Before she can question his actions, the escort raps on the doorframe, interrupting them.

“Jeff, Britta,” he croons, his eyes trailing Jeff’s body. Britta smiles at that. “It’s time for the reaping.”

The pair that volunteers are an odd pair. The boy, a fifteen-year-old named Luka, has a stony gaze that makes Britta uneasy. His counterpart, Vicki, is less impressive. She stands on the stage after winning, swaying on her feet, looking almost lost. A boy in the crowd wails – an odd reaction. Britta has seen reactions on the recaps the Capitol shows, but from the poorer Districts, where winning takes a miracle. The girl seems spacey, yes, but the doubt annoys Britta. She wraps an arm around the girl’s shoulder, watching over the girl’s head as Jeff stands beside the boy stoically. A cheer goes out as Pelton announces their names again and Britta’s stomach twists at the sound of it.

While the tributes bid their farewells, Britta wanders about the building. She finds herself, almost automatically, beside Jeff at the balcony overlooking the town. They stand in silence for a time until Jeff turns to face Britta.

“If we did it over, would you have anyone to say goodbye to?” Jeff asks. Britta turns only her head, alarm in her eyes. Realizing her concern, Jeff corrects the statement. “I mean, even when you were the victor, hardly anyone could stand you. It doesn’t bode well.”

“If I did have someone, it’d be someone who matters. Meanwhile, I’m sure your many suitors would claw their way to kiss you goodbye,” Britta spits back. Jeff flinches at the statement, reminding Britta of the rumors that circulate. Britta moves to take back the statement, but Jeff is already composed.

“The real fun would be watching you fight them all off just to snark at me one last time,” Jeff says. Britta crinkles her nose at the statement.

“You think that I think you’re worth that effort,” Britta scoffs. Jeff shrugs, then nods at something over her shoulder. Turning, Britta finds Pelton motioning wildly at the pair.

“To the train then,” Jeff comments, bumping Britta as he walks by. He claps Pelton on the back as he walks by. The escort reacts visibly, even going so far as to touch the spot that Jeff did, as if in shock.

“His ego really doesn’t need that,” Britta calls to the man as she goes past him.

The tributes, as a whole, are unmemorable, Britta thinks as the tenth District’s boy finishes up. The only one worthy of note are a girl from One, Annie Kim, who somehow managed to be intriguing and threatening. The entire interview she was all smiles, but there was a razor-edge to it. One answer in particular rang in Britta’s mind.

“Now, if you can, will you share a little of your strategy? I’ll keep it just between you and I,” Duncan had joked, the crowd roaring in approval at the question. For a moment, the girl was a shark - all teeth and glint and blood thirst. The moment passed and her face had rearranged into a coquettish smile. Britta’s only indicator that she had not imagined the reaction was Jeff straightening in his seat beside her - he too was unnerved by her.

“My plan’s simple, Duncan,” Annie Kim said, leaning in as if she were to tell a secret. “I’m going to win - no matter what.”

The crowd cheered even louder at that, her earlier blood thirst spread to them. Annie Kim smiled at them and flipped her hair over her shoulder. Jeff exhaled slowly, frustrated. Britta reached over the armrest almost instinctively and grabbed his leg - comforting herself as much as him.

“It doesn’t have to stay between just us,” Annie Kim continued when the crowd had dulled slightly. She sat back in the chair, her eyes danced as she steadied her gaze to the nearest camera. “Every other tribute should know. I’m not their competition. I’m their champion.”

Perhaps she spoke the truth or perhaps having such a formidable and confident girl going first, but either way the rest of the tributes paled in comparison. Britta’s grip on Jeff’s thigh had loosened as the interviews wore on until by the time they got to Six, she had moved to lankily resting her arm on the armrest. Even her own tributes, Luka and Vicki, were unimpressive, Britta notes with annoyance as the boy from Eleven speaks.

Luka had done well enough, though he was not likable. His answers were short and concise - she hoped his leanly muscled arms had worked to make him somewhat intimidating. Conversely, Vicki had come across as helpless, albeit likable. Britta had wondered, when the girl talked softly into her hands as she responded to Duncan’s question, how the girl had been chosen - it was not the first time she had wondered such a thing. Luckily, Vicki had smiled nicely enough and talked somewhat animatedly about her love of dancing, so Britta hoped that appealed to a sponsor somewhere.

As the boy from Eleven finishes, the girl from Twelve takes the stage. As with anyone from the farther out Districts, she is rather thin - though her chest is ample, a fact that Jeff comments on - Britta elbows him in response. She reminds Britta rather of a bird, all angles and nervous movements. Nothing about her is particularly memorable, most likely a death sentence for her. The only hope tributes from those Districts have is being clever or strong enough to catch the eye of a sponsor.

“Now, pretty thing like you,” Duncan says and Britta watches rather horrified as his eyes drift rather unashamedly to her chest, then back to her face. “You must have a nice boy back home - someone to win this all for?”

The girl shakes her head, a blush flourishing across her collarbone and cheeks. Britta struggles even to remember her name, feeling uncomfortable as Duncan pushes the point. Part of her is glad to have at least one competitor basically out of the running but another part is rather upset at the lack of strategy from her mentor. Without anything memorable, the girl is doomed.

“There must be someone who you want to win this all for, a sister, a friend, a mother?” Duncan asks, not unkindly. Jeff mentioned once, a year or two ago, how Duncan always tries to coax something from each tribute that gives those watching a reason to root for them - so that whoever wins is well-liked.

“I mean,” The girl says after a beat. “There’s a boy and I... He never noticed me before and now it’s too late.”

The crowd coos at that and Duncan touches her hand sympathetically. Britta groans quietly at the motion and Jeff grabs her wrist - nodding at the screen to the left of the stage which is not focused on the young girl on stage. Instead, it is trained on the boy from her District who is looking on nervously.

“Well, you win it and he’ll surely notice you then,” Duncan says and a cheer goes out through the crowd. The girl, oddly, shakes her head at the comment and Duncan laughs at the reaction. The girl manages a tight-lipped smile as Duncan quiets the crowd before continuing. “Now, why wouldn’t he notice you then? You’d be the belle of the ball.”

“If I win,” she takes a steadying breath and the tiny smile disappears, “that means he loses. The boy is my partner, Troy Barnes.”

The crowd's infatuation with her shyness is nothing compared to their awe at her bold statement. Every camera, every screen catches the boy’s face. He is purely shocked, eyes the size of saucers. Jeff’s hand tightens around her wrist, gripping it so tightly the bones seem to bump against each other. Britta does not even wince, just grinds her teeth as the girl - Annie Edison, Duncan announces her name as she blushingly curtseys and exits - ducks her head and passes the boy. It is a damn good bit, from her blushing innocence to her pure dumbfounded look.As a mentor, Britta is admittedly impressed at this plan - this puts both of District Twelve on the map. The boy’s interview begins but Jeff leans over to Britta so she misses most of it.

“Meet me in my room tonight,” Jeff breathes the words in her ear. She nods - the same phrase was on her lips had he not beat her to the punch. He leans back away as the crowd applauds at something on stage.

It started the second year that she was a mentor. The first year she had spent scarcely talked to him - still angry about his lack of help when she competed. At the reaping during the second year, he waltzed over to her after the second night of the games, handed her a bottle of vodka and smirked.

“Wanna play strip?” He asked. “It’s simple, every time someone bits it, we take off a piece of clothing.”

“Are you always this sleazy or am I special?” Britta had returned, fire in her eyes as she spoke. Jeff merely laughed in response, shaking his head.

“Fine, Perry, I’ll play alone then, you can just enjoy the view,” he said, turning back to the television. She pointed out that she hadn’t invited him to join her, that she liked being alone, that she didn’t want to see that, yet he simply ignored her and slung off his necktie when a girl was decapitated.

The next few days continued like this - him showing up on her couch and slowly ending up in his socks and boxers, her drinking vodka and swearing she wanted to be alone, never truly meaning it. Then his tribute died. It was sudden - the boy was supposed to win, yet he had slipped up and ate the wrong sort of berry. Jeff did not show up that day.

Britta had piled on a sweater, mittens and a scarf before heading over to his apartment. When he arrived, Jeff opened the door in his pajama pants, more scruff on his face than she had ever seen.

“You’re probably going to lose at strip,” Britta had said, false confidence in her tone. Jeff stared for a moment before smiling and letting her in.

The pair had sat on the couch for a few minutes before Britta pulled off her scarf, mittens, sweater and one sock. No one had died, yet he kept making up rules (a fire meant having to strip, all the deaths she had skipped had to be made up for somehow) and she laughingly obliged him. Then a tribute’s blood had smeared across a camera, a real reason. She yanked off her shirt, heart in her throat and Jeff tugged off a sock of his own. Turning to her, Jeff rested a hand on a piece of hair - his expression undefinable.

“He was a good kid,” Britta said and Jeff rolled his eyes, annoyed at her concern.

“They all are,” he answered, his hand finding its way to the back of his neck. She sucked in a breath as he leaned near. “The bad ones are the survivors.”

If there was an argument against that, Britta did not know of one. Instead she closed the gap between them. He tasted of whiskey.

Vicki dies in the bloodbath. It is altogether embarrassing and Britta runs a hand over her face in annoyance more than anything. The girl had never endeared herself much - to Britta or anyone else - but to die so soon as one of the Careers is a disgrace. Next to her, Jeff laughs - more at her reaction than anything.

“Sometimes you get a dud, Britta. By that I mean, you can get a dud, whereas I never will,” he leans around her and grabs two drinks. He passes one to her, shoving the cold neck of it into her hands.

“Ass,” Britta rebukes before taking a long swallow of the drink. She turns her focus from the screen to him as he settles back into the couch.

It is not, she supposes, regular for two mentors to watch in solitude as they do. In all honesty, it is selfish and unwise - yet each year they do so. Their tributes always last long enough and attract enough sponsors on their own, no coaching needed. One year, Jeff’s tribute got down to the final two, actually, which ended up being a pain in the ass because he had to attend some banquet in honor of it. Britta watches Jeff’s profile - the sun illuminating his hair and teeth as he smiles at something on the screen. He seems golden for a moment, the Capitol’s ideal come to roost aside her. The grin turns to an actual laugh and Britta turns to see.

The girl - Annie, her name is Annie, simple like the land she came from - who loves her partner is standing shell shocked. Around her sit several tributes, their blood inking her hands.

“They thought she was vulnerable because she’s small,” Jeff smiles, an almost proud expression that makes Britta uncomfortable. “Then she ripped their throats out. Love-struck Annie’s one to watch.”

“I don’t think it is all that funny, that could’ve been Luka. Look at her, she looks like she’s going to be sick after that, it’s just wrong,” Britta says, the words escaping before she can stop them. She takes another drink but it tastes bitter. She looks at Jeff again for a reaction, only to find he is staring heavily at her.

“Careful,” he intones and she realizes how her words must’ve sounded. This is a truly foolish place to even insinuate such things. She clenches her jaw and looks away. A moment passes, then Jeff flops back, sprawling his legs onto the short table in front of them. “It wasn’t Luka anyways. I don’t train losers.”

“We haven’t had a victor since I won,” Britta points out. She turns to him with a smirk, preening the way a victor should. Jeff rolls his eyes and falls back into the old jokes he always makes - that she cursed them, that he’s pretty sure her year there was some sort of error - and she elbows him.

“Wanna go up to the roof?” She asks, some time later. Jeff waggles his eyebrows at her and she laughs, not disagreeing. The truth is, he knows that she would never need to take him up to somewhere so secretive to hook up. The Capitol can know of that, of them and whatever this thing is they are doing, but what she is about to suggest they can’t know.

“Did you take me up here to kill me?” Jeff asks. He folds his arms across him, his shoulders up around his ears and Britta realizes how cold he is. She nearly teases him before remembering the reason for being here.

“Do you think that all this is right?” Britta says. Jeff’s eyebrow raises and she fumbles to explain. “I mean, the games. Are they right?”

“Britta,” Jeff shakes his head. He looks beyond her, at the sun as it sets. Cautiously, Britta places a hand on his collar, tugging him so close he has to look at her. Her fingers rest on his sweater but her thumb lies on his neck. She wishes it was nearer to a vein - to tell if he is as nervous as she is.

“We can fight this. Fight them, the things they make us do. Now’s our chance,” Britta pleads. Jeff stares at her, wholly dumbfounded. “Jeff, I have to do this and you know that-”

The hatch opens behind Jeff, but before Britta can even react Jeff kisses her. His fingers bite into her shoulders and she scrambles to wrap her other arm around his neck. The man tastes of whiskey, same as he ever does, and Britta forgets for a moment why he jumped at her. She forgets where they are, just catches on to his lips and the feel of his sweater in her fists.

“Hey,” Pelton snaps his fingers angrily until they break apart. Britta finds herself blushing, embarrassed more at forgetting why Jeff had kissed her - to distract, to lie, nothing else - than anything. Jeff looks over his shoulder at Pelton, his hands still on her shoulders and Britta has to lean around him to see. Pelton looks truly perturbed. “Just what do you think you’re doing up here?”

“Britta was propositioning me,” Jeff explains. His fingers dig into her shoulders and she realizes she should be offended by the statement. Pelton gasps, offended enough for them both, all drama and lipstick. “Of course, I can’t deny a pretty lady much, so I said yes.”

It takes Britta a moment to catch on, to find that double meaning that seems to always reside in his words, but when she does she grins. Pelton barks at them about standards and protocol and proper behavior the entire way back to the dining car, but Britta hears not a word of it. She simply ducks under Jeff’s arm and hums to herself, some half-forgotten song of hope. Behind her, Jeff sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Luka slits the throat of a girl from one of the middle Districts and looks up to camera with a grin. It is a short, ill-lit shot of him - a leer splattered with blood - before the camera turns elsewhere. Jeff groans as the camera zooms in on the boy from Twelve. He is simply sitting by a stream, nothing of note. Jeff hops off the couch and begins to pace. Britta apathetically grabs a blanket and tosses it over herself, sprawling comfortably.

“Who the hell is their mentor?” Jeff spits the question out as he crosses Britta’s line of vision. Around him, she can see the boy wiping away tears. She chokes out a laugh at the sight and Jeff turns at the sound. He growls at the sight, pointing at it. “How did they come up with this? The old biddies are going to love that. He’s sensitive and in touch with his feelings.”

“I think their mentor is still Pierce Hawthorne,” Britta says as she pulls the blanket up to her chin. Jeff stops in front of her, his legs the only thing she can see. She motions wildly, wrinkling her nose until he steps to his left. When he does, Britta glances over at him. “They still don’t have a female mentor, right?”

“Not since Michelle Slater died,” Jeff confirms, turning to the television. The camera has moved on to the announcers who are discussing some recent development in one of outer regions of the arena. Britta watches them blankly, not really taking in what is happening.

“I hate them,” Jeff says, flopping back onto the couch. He scrubs a hand over his face and Britta wonders if he means it. She slips her feet onto his lap and he glares over at her.

“I like them,” Britta says and it’s only partially to annoy him. He pinches the back of her ankle in response and she kicks at him.

“Dammit,” Jeff throws the bucket of popcorn at the screen as the cannon sounds. Britta freezes at the bar counter, turning around to see the body of Luka - a knife protruding from his skull. Jeff sits completely still but as Britta approaches him, she can see his jaw working. She crouches next to him, one hand dropping onto his knee. He looks over at her, his expression dull.

“Next year will be better,” she says and isn’t sure if she means it, or even if she cares. Jeff nods, his face still blank. She sighs and stands up. “At least we’re done for this year.”

Britta meanders back to the counter, grabbing the bottle of scotch and her own drink. Taking a gulp from her glass, she passes the scotch to Jeff, her eyes on the screen as Annie Kim - the killer of Luka - runs a finger down the knife. The girl must’ve retrieved it from his body, Britta thinks dully, as the glint of sunlight falls across the blade. Annie Kim smiles, too wide and entirely mad, and again Britta knows - the way she knows too many sad truths - who will win this year. It’s down to about seven tributes - Annie Kim and her partner, a boy with freckles from six, a blonde named Paige from seven, the pair from Twelve and someone else. Britta struggles to mentally list the tributes who have been struck down in order to figure out who she has missed in the round-up of the living.

“What if we weren’t?” Jeff interrupts her thoughts and Britta stares at him as he takes a swig of scotch, straight from the bottle. He turns to look at her over the back of the couch. “You like the kids from Twelve, I like the kids from Twelve, they could use more help than Pierce Hawthorne.”

“You said you hated them,” Britta points out. “Besides, we can’t help them both. What are we gonna do, flip a coin to decide who gets our favor? That isn’t fair.”

Jeff stands and begins to pace, clutching the scotch to his chest with one hand and motioning haphazardly with the other. Britta grinds her teeth, annoyed at his sudden interest in the games. His advice to their own tributes, his level of effort for them, has always been minimal. Not so little that anyone gets nervous and asks one of the older victors - there are two other male victors in their District still alive - to step in, but nearly enough. Britta remembers her own troubles with it, back when she was about to enter the ring.

“What should I do if I get pinned or if I can’t find water or if I have to...” Britta had trailed off and even six years later she can remember licking her lips to stall and that they tasted of salt - tears, she had been crying at some obscure point. Jeff had looked down at her, seeming so large and powerful and wise, and smiled. It was one of the toothy smiles she now knew to be a forced one, but at the time it seemed so real and her heart beat faster at the sight of it.

“You’re pretty,” he had said it like a fact. “Convince some poor boy to save your life and ride that out.”

“So you aren’t going to give me any advice on fighting or anything?” Britta remembered the way Jeff shrugged then, how it felt like a slap. She had crossed her arms and actually stomped her foot. “I’ll figure it out on my own then.”

“Britta,” Jeff had called after her as she walked out of the room. He looked pained. “Don’t trust anyone in there. Don’t even trust yourself fully.”

He had looked so sad when he said it. Britta remembered that most of all.

“I figured it out,” Britta comments. The night around them gives the illusion of privacy or maybe she is letting the melancholy of Luka being killed influence her. As she collects her shirt from the floor. Jeff looks over at her and she smiles at him as she adjusts the hem of the shirt around her waist. “It’s simple really - just get them to change the rules. Two winners won’t be a big deal, right?”

“Ssyeah,” he stumbles over the word as he leans back on the pillow. His hair sticks up goofily and one of his sleeves is rolled up to his shoulder. “Do you know how angry the big guy would be if that was a thing? I mean, that’s basically a big fuck you to-”

“Let’s suggest it,” Britta says, suddenly serious. Her eyes are alight with the idea and Jeff freezes at the sight of it. She reaches out a hand for him to grab. “Let’s talk about it somewhere more private.”

He doesn’t take her hand as they wander about the apartment the Capitol gave him, but he does rest a hand on the small of her back as she climbs the ladder to the rooftop. The contact makes her nearly slip on a rung, which is stupid considering all the things they’ve done together. The sun is rising as Britta waits for Jeff to join her. He spills out of the hatch, all elbows and legs.

“So what, we ask them to pretty please let two people win, just this once? It won’t prove anything anyways,” Jeff says, his eyes roving the horizon, as if expecting someone to burst from the skyline and attack them for hiding away.

“We make up some reason for it. Look, it’s not much, but it’s a change,” Britta motions with her hands, staring steadfastly at Jeff as he looks everywhere but her. He gets this way sometimes, like if he ignores her she’ll stop. Usually it works - she’s dropped the topic of his father, getting tattoos, a variety of things, but not this time. “Maybe it would... spark something.”

“Spark something? Really?” Jeff looks at her for that, his eyes wide with incredulity. Britta shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest in annoyance. Jeff sighs, tapping his foot for a moment in thought. “Alright, fine, let’s say we do this. We convince someone higher up that two winners - any two winners - will mean more Capitol spirit because...”

“Love,” Britta says it softly. Her cheeks flush at the idea of it. It’s the sort of thing Capitol people will like - the games forcing the kids into another’s arms. “We sell them on the idea of love. Sponsors are the only people left who believe in it.”

“As flowery as that is,” Jeff says, “that just may work.”

Chang agrees to meet with them - with the stipulation that they have to meet during breakfast. The man has always been eccentric so Britta is unsurprised by the guideline, though Jeff is annoyed by it.

"Why does it matter to you?" Britta asks As the pair of victors walk down a Capitol avenue to the breakfast spot that Chang instructed them to meet at. To keep up with Jeff's pace - faster than usual, a sign of anger with him - Britta has to practically sprint. It winds her enough that she pants for a moment when they get to the cafe.

"How did you ever win the games?" Jeff asks, smirking at her. She sticks her tongue out maturely at him in response. Jeff chuckles and the duo walk back to the presidential suite - Chang's usual spot. The game maker does not disappoint - a lavish spread of food across the oversized table, a pair of Avoxs standing stoically on either side of his seat and the man himself wearing a faux-military jacket and ht.

"Winger. Perry. Two of my favorite victors," Chang says, a grin spreading his lips thin across his face. Britta and Jeff bid their hellos and Chang motions one of the Avoxs to close the shades on the nearest window. As she does, Jeff and Britta seat themselves.

"Now, what could you two possibly want? A best man for the wedding?" Chang swirls a spoon in his coffee cup as he speaks. Britta looks at him over the top of a pile of fruit, squinting to see in the darkness.

"It's about the games," Jeff begins. Chang's grin grows unsettlingly large before he nods at Jeff to continue. "There's a pair of tributes - not our own, sadly, but I think that really shows how their plight has affected us on a level of-"

"Get on with it Winger, I'm a busy man," Chang leans back, taking a plate of pastries with him. He motions at Britta with a croissant. "And you, eat something, you make me nervous."

"Two victors," Jeff says and Chang barks out a laugh. Britta grabs a bagel and stuffs it in her mouth nervously. "It'd be great for moral. Two kids who fell in love amidst the games and came out the other side together."

"Good for moral? Does that mean those rumors of an uprising are true?" Chang says and leans forward - fingertips spread across the tabletop and dishes atop it. Britta sucks in a breath and across from her Jeff stares down Chang.

"You know where our loyalties lie, Chang. But rumors don't start without cause," Jeff says, his voice steady. Britta's heart thuds against her rib cage as Chang considers.

"There are things you could do to prove those loyalties," Chang says. Britta feels utterly invisible - clouded in darkness as Jeff avoids her gaze. The room is utterly silent, whatever argument is happening between the men an unspoken one. Chang glances at her, eyebrows raised and Britta wonders if part of the argument is about her.

"Then I'll do them," Jeff says and Britta is convinced that whatever it was, it was related to her. Chang claps his hands,  a gleeful child, and Britta swallows the lump in her throat. Jeff looks only at the table.

"Perhaps two winners would make the games more exciting," Chang says. It doesn't feel like much of a win as Britta watches Jeff stalk out of the room without even sparing her a glance.

Britta finds herself in the viewing gallery as the day wears on. The games are uneventful - all seven tributes are spread too far apart for any action - until a fireball in one corner shoos Annie back into the fray. As she runs, Britta watches her, clenching her fists as the tribute trips over a tree root and releasing it again when Annie flops into a stream. The camera focuses on her as she breathes raggedly on her hands and knees in the water. Eventually it turns away and Britta relaxes her in her seat.

“She’s mine, y’know,” the man seated across her says, leaning towards her. Britta recognizes him vaguely - some Capitol sponsor she’s most likely smooth-talked for funds.

“You sponsor her? I think that was a very good decision,” Britta says smoothly. The man blanches before shaking his head.

"No, I'm her mentor," he says, peeved at her mistake. Britta stares a beat too long and the man - Pierce Hawthorne, she realizes - smirks. "Guess I don't exactly look like I did back in the day, eh?"

"It's not that," Britta attempts to cover but he simply laughs and flops a hand at her. He tosses one arm around her shoulders, squeezing and promising that it's alright.

"An honest mistake. I'm sure it's hard to keep men straight for girls like you," Pierce says kindly. Britta scoffs at his insinuation but before she can argue, Jeff drops onto the couch nearby. She turns to greet him and finds a hicky burned onto his collar bone. When her eyes land on it for too long, Jeff rubs a hand over it.

"Don't," he says, voice low. Britta swallows - embarrassed that she cares. Jeff shrugs towards the television. "Things are about to get interesting."

The chimes of an announcement sound and Annie freezes onscreen. The screen splits the focus into six screens - one for each of the contestants. There's a rumble as Duncan clears his throat before beginning.

"In the interests of livening up the competition, a rule change will be put in effect," Duncan pauses and it's golden. The tributes look vastly confused. "If two tributes from the same District survive to being the final two, both may be crowned victors."

Annie Kim growls, the other contestants react in various way, but the most interesting reaction comes from Troy. He blanks for a moment, clearly still not grasping the announcement's meaning, before his eyes light up.

"Annie!" He screams, excited. Scrambling, he hops to his feet and takes off. He looks fifteen then and Britta is pained by the reminder. "Annie, c'mon, we can do this! Annie!"

He runs aimlessly, yelling for her. It is obvious that he’s sustained some injuries or at the least is exhausted, as he trips over rocks and roots. Britta realizes, as she watches the screen drop most of the competitors feeds, that she has never seen the boy kill or attack anyone else. She wonders if he even has as the feeds drop out on all but three. Then one more is dropped. The cameras narrow down to two - Troy's and Annie Kim's.

"Why just those two?" Jeff asks, voicing the question that had been resting on Britta's mind. She watches the two and realizes, grabbing Jeff's arm.

"It's the same place," Britta whispers as if the tributes may hear her otherwise. Annie Kim may not hear Britta but she obviously hears Troy. A smile glows on her face in the dark forest and she draws something from her bag as she creeps along. Troy obliviously calls the other Annie's name, until Annie Kim slips out of the thick forestry. The scene comes to a standstill - Troy dropping off midcall as Annie Kim laughs. It's not a happy sounding laugh and Britta'a blood runs cold at the sound of it. Her fist tightens in the sleeve of Jeff's shirt and his own hand is gripped tightly around a napkin.

"I've been looking forward to you. Don't worry," Annie Kim says. "I'll make it quick."

Her knife wedges into Troy's shoulder and he yelps. She shrugs, grinning wider. Her teeth seem sharp and Britta can already imagine her as a victor - sharpened teeth and claws inserted for nails.

"Relatively quick," she corrects herself. It's malicious and awful - the viewers will love it. For a second, it looks like it's all over for Troy. She raises the knife again and he's begun to cry.

It comes from the forest with no warning. An arrow. It lands in Annie Kim's thigh and she drops the knife with a shriek of pain. Eyes wild, she turns to find the shooter. Annie, face painted with blood, steps out. Britta cheers almost automatically, releasing her grip on Jeff to turn and hug him. Misinterpreting the gesture, Jeff leans in and kisses her - biting her lower lip and wrapping hands in her hair as she unthinkingly reciprocates the kiss.

Pierce coughs and the pair jump apart. Britta finds herself blushing but Jeff looks nonplussed. Onscreen, Annie Kim makes a break for it - weaving through trees, one hand on her thigh - as Annie crouches near a frightened Troy.

"I'm going to help you," she says quietly. Even in the dim lighting, Troy's Adam's apple bobs violently - whether at her words, her appearance or the whole ordeal, Britta cannot decipher. She's far too busy trying not to think of the hicky on Jeff's neck.

Britta has always been a loner, though rarely by active choice. It just seemed to work out that way, her few attempts at friendship as a child often ending with a broken nose (usually theirs) or crying (always them). So when Jeff starts giving her the slip, she is unsurprised. In fact, she manages to nearly convince herself she isn’t upset by it. The Capitol newsfeeds - when they tire of rehashing how the tributes aren’t killing each other fast enough - begin little stories on how ‘playboy’ Jeff Winger is back at it. It stirs at Britta’s memories, the slow realization of what he’s doing nibbling away at her.

The president waited nearly two years - perhaps he thought her too volatile to approach any sooner. Yet approach her he did and one August day she found herself escorted to his garden in the dewy morning lights. When she arrived, he looked up with a smile. His looks always surprised her - they were so unindulgent, a commoner’s looks - but she managed a smile in return. Then the offer came.

“You’re a pretty girl,” he opened with.

Britta refused it all, getting angrier and angrier at his suggestions until she stormed away. The gate to the garden had locked and she had slammed her fists against it in a rage, cutting her palm on a decorative spike. The president had waltzed up behind her and she turned, ready to strike.

“You will regret this,” he had promised. The door had swung open with a squeak - a purposefully one, Britta realized in one of her many recountings of the event, as nothing at the Capitol made a noise without the president meaning for it to - and Britta bolted. Two days later, a fire killed her father and brother.

The games become almost boring - Jeff avoids her, leaving her adrift as she watches on screens beside sponsors and Pierce Hawthorne. Annie Kim, despite her injury, cuts and hacks her way to the final four. The camera spends nearly as much time on her as the duo - who are obviously a crowd favorite. They laugh together a few times, like the kids they really are, and Britta watches those around her fall in love with them. She hates it all but not nearly as much as she hates that she misses Jeff. In a hallway, she passes him and he doesn’t even spare her a glance. It should make her angry, but it just makes her sad.

“Troy, do you think we would’ve gotten together without the games?” Annie asks. On-screen, she seems to glow in the bright beach sun - her hair lit by the sunshine as she fishes with the boy. Britta watches her with something like jealousy, taking a swig of beer.

Troy looks out at the body of water - the lake where the two have taken up residence the past few days, dwelling there as Britta delves more into her solitude. She had yet to leave her cavernous apartment in the past three days - nearly a century in games time. The camera shakily makes its way back to Annie’s face. The girl smiles rather sharply and Britta thinks not for the first time that perhaps the girl isn’t as love struck and helpless as she seems.

“No,” Annie says quietly. The word is without malice or blame - it’s a fact. “I suppose we wouldn’t have.”

Britta takes another swig of beer and wanders back to her bedroom - blocking the television out with pillows.

It comes down to the three of them - Annie Kim, Annie and Troy. Britta watches it unfold - the three of them each realizing it is down to just them, Annie Kim’s eyes narrowing angrily when it clicks - from her couch. When she moves to find more booze, a knock at the door interrupts her process. Rather suspicious, she makes her way to the door - peering out the peephole, she finds Jeff.

“What do you want?” Britta asks as she opens the door. She expects Jeff to push past her or start explaining himself. Shockingly, he stands and stares at her. Leaning a hip against the door, she cocks an eyebrow at him. “Well, did you come here just to look at me confusedly?”

He lunges into her - one hand twisting in her hair, another on the curve of her waist - as he kisses her. The door blows back on its hinges behind them as they stumble into her apartment. He takes longer steps than her - his cursedly long legs - so she begins to trip as they fall back. Her legs wrap around his waist as an answer to the problem and he growls at that, pulling back and burrowing his nose into her neck.

“We can’t,” he whispers against her, the feel of it raising goose bumps along her arms. He sighs and distangles her from him. Britta blushes as she smooths her shirt and he turns from her. “That’s what I came here to say. We can’t.”

“Screw you,” Britta yells after him. He doesn’t flinch at that. When a scream rings out from her television, he does halt. Britta runs over to lean over her couch and watch.

Annie Kim’s knife protrudes from Annie’s shoulder, jabbed cleanly through. Annie - who assumedly screamed moments ago - is crying and attempting to pull Annie Kim around from behind her. Britta holds her breath, hoping for Troy to show up. Unfortunately, the camera pans to show the boy laying on the rocky shore, clutching his stomach - another knife jabbed into it.

“Get them,” Jeff growls, his voice low enough that Britta realizes she was not meant to hear. Her stomach flips as something clicks into place.

“You want them to lose? We-”

“I have to go,” Jeff cuts her off. She watches after him for a beat, until he slams her door too hard behind him. When she turns, Annie is holding Annie Kim under the shallow water.

Annie Kim thrashes wildly, but Annie’s grip against her collarbone stays strong. One of Annie Kim’s hands grasps something and Britta swallows a shriek as the hand darts up. The rock clutched in it knocks Annie away and Annie Kim struggles to sit up, coughing. Annie bounces back up, looking a little dazed. Before she can react, a thwack of an arrow sounds and suddenly an arc of blood shoots from Annie Kim. Annie shrieks and the camera haphazardly turns to Troy. He breathes heavily, laying on his back with the bow resting on him.

“She’s dead?” Troy pants as Annie crawls up to him. Annie laughs, her hands shaking as she touches his shoulders nervously. Britta lets out a breath, dropping onto her couch with a smile that she feels deep into her toes - Jeff is forgotten. Then the rumble of the announcer sounds again.

“Well, it is with a heavy heart that I must,” Duncan says and he truly does sound upset. Britta freezes, afraid to even look at the screen. She turns to Jeff, who is stony-faced, the only sign of distress the tetch in his jaw. “I must announce another rule change. There may be only one victor. Thank you.”

Jeff swallows and Britta burns at the injustice of it. She digs her nails into the couch back, turning away from him. Britta stares at the screen and watches it unfold. Annie’s face crumples, her jaw working furiously as she tries to keep from crying. She is unsuccessful, having to quickly wipe at her face with a hand. It comes back bloodied more than anything and Britta feels nearly sick. Troy simply stares up, his expression pure confusion.

“They ruined us,” Troy says. His hand flails for a moment before finding Annie’s face - he traces her jawline and a sob escapes her. He drops the hand to grip hers. “The Capitol, these games, they ruin people. Don’t forget that.”

Annie opens her mouth to argue, but Troy is faster. With the hand not in hers, he dives an arrow into his chest. Someone shrieks - Britta cannot tell if it is her or Annie, in all honesty - and the camera looms over as Annie tries to save him. No cannon sounds and Britta begins to hope. Troy sputters, spitting blood and Annie drops her head onto his chest.

“Stay with me,” Annie whispers. She stays very still for a moment, then reaches around Troy, picking up the knife Annie Kim dropped. Swallowing and closing her eyes, Annie holds the knife out from her body. Troy rasps a weak protest out - Britta studies him, wondering how close he is, if he’s teetering on that edge that she once felt. Annie looks down at him and smiles. “Both of us, okay?”

Annie wraps a hand back around one of Troy’s and steadies the knife in the other hand. Troy uses his spare hand to wrap around the end of the arrow’s shaft - Britta assumes to shove it back in and assure his death.

“Stop! The last rule change has been redacted! The victors of the seventy-fourth annual games,” Duncan bellows the words, they trip out over each other in his haste to speak them. Annie opens her eyes and cheers, Troy loosens his grip on the arrow and Britta loosens her grip on the couch with a sigh, crescents marking where her nails dug in. Turning, she finds Jeff gone, her front door ajar. The pit of her stomach does not loosen and she realizes why. If Jeff was rooting against this, something is wrong.

Britta is there when the helicopter with the kids lands. Part of her wanted to include Jeff, but she also knows him well enough to know that he is most likely dodging her and it was one more heart ache she could not stand at the moment. She’s part of a large crowd but manages to elbow her way towards the front. Annie exits of her own accord, an arm in a sling, but Troy is carted out on a stretcher amongst a crowd of medical crew. Britta sucks in a breath at the sight.

“It’s a pity, isn’t it?” The man next to her says and Britta is struck when she realizes who it is. Turning, she looks up at the president. He glances down at her and smiles. “I hate it when things work out this way, don’t you, Miss Perry?”

Britta stares up dumbstruck as pieces of the puzzle click in. The president looks away from her - focusing on the helicopter as it flies away. The crowd disperses but Britta stands next to the president, quiet.

“It was lovely seeing you again, Miss Perry. I didn’t know if I would get a chance,” the president says and turns to leave. The words sink in and Britta’s blood runs cold.

Britta knocks on Jeff’s door and he does not answer. The process repeats itself for a while and she finds herself remembering when she won. Jeff had greeted her when the helicopter landed, his face stony as she was escorted off by a platoon of soldiers. He had stepped out from the short line of people – a line in which he had already stood out, tall and stoic in his stupidly long coat – and intercepted Britta from the soldiers. She had let him drag her away, his hands warm on her arms that were still cool from the arena. It wasn’t until they were off the platform, in a car to her new house that she even looked at him. He seemed less impressive there, in the low-lights of the backseat of their car, the beginnings of wrinkles in his forehead, his eyes sad. Britta smiled at him floppily.

“I didn’t need your help after all,” she had said, half-proud, half-accusatory. Jeff had leaned over to her, a hand moving to her hair. Britta jerked away, still in the mindset of the games, and he blushed.

“You had a hair, I was going to,” he trailed off, leaning back with a shrug. Britta remembered his face then – the man who had sad eyes was gone, replaced again by the man she always had seen on the television during games. Biting her lip so hard it bled, Britta had pushed back her hair, securing it behind her ears. Luckily, Jeff took the action for what it was – an apology.

“You may not have needed me in the games – and you didn’t, so congrats – but you’re going to need me now,” Jeff had said, his voice seeming to boom in the dark car. Britta knew her expression must have changed because he scrubbed a hand through his hair with a groaning sigh. “Look, I had Slater when I won and she really helped.”

“What, do you think that if you help me I’ll go into fits of grateful arousal?” Britta put venom in her words and Jeff had merely smirked back at her.

“Don’t flatter yourself, kitten,” he had winked at her and she made a face. It only served to amuse him, the smirk growing. The car pulled up then at her house and she slipped out the door, slamming it behind her. The air had felt insane – nice and clean and safe. Britta thought of that moment at times. It may have been the time she was the most free – standing in front of her new house with her life freshly earned, the blood still drying on her knuckles.

“Jeff, I know what you did,” Britta says. His door remains closed - as it has for the past two hours. The moon is Britta’s only compatriot as she waits outside his doorway. She wonders if anyone can see this - she knows there are cameras canvassing the land, but she assumes and hopes no one pays any mind to them. Halfheartedly, she raps her fist against the door again. “I’m not leaving.”

The door finally slides open and she fall inside on her back. Peering up, Britta finds Jeff glaring down at her, clad in a pair of pajama pants. The stripes on them make him look even taller - it’s almost obscene, Britta thinks.

“It’s the president, you took him up on his offer,” Britta says, her hair splayed on the floor beneath her like a crown. The words are inelegant and she instantly wishes to suck them back in - to correct them, make them softer. She’s never been soft and this is perhaps the first time she’s wished to be different in that regard. Jeff sighs, looking out his doorway instead of at her.

“Something bad is coming,” he says. There is no acknowledgement of what she said as he pads back into his house, leaving her to follow him - scrambling up and shutting the door. “We don’t get both of those kids without some sort of payback. Capitol wouldn’t allow that. Hell, the universe wouldn’t allow that.”

Jeff sways and it dawns on Britta that he is very drunk. He turns to face her, a grin on his face.

“You and I, kitten? We’re doomed,” he says. She swallows and rolls her eyes. Fighting disappointment, she turns to the door again.

“I had nothing to lose,” he yells after her. “You ruined it all Britta. Goddammit, y-you Britta’d it and now it’s all going to go to shit.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Winger,” Britta spits back at him, turning on her heel. The words don’t hurt as bad as the disappointment of seeing him like this. It feels like he’s giving up. “I don’t even know what the hell you mean, you assh-”

“They’re going to get back at us - at you and I - for those two kids surviving. I don’t know how yet,” Jeff spits the words at her and Britta blanches. Her assumption that it was related to their relationship seems stupidly weighted now. She blushes, feeling like a fool taken by a magician, too busy watching the right hand to see what the left is doing. Jeff’s voice drops to a lower volume, more like a growl than a yell now. “You’re the weak spot in what used to be a flaw free armor!”

“They can’t kill us,” Britta says evenly. “Jeff, people like us, we’re their mascots, they can’t-”

“Can do whatever they want,” Jeff cuts her off, his voice low. Britta bits her lip and steps towards him as Jeff shakes his head. “Just go.”

The news goes wild four months later when Troy publically splits with Annie. Some of the Capitol is heartbroken and Britta – though she’d be loath to admit to the fact – is rather saddened herself. She considers heading over to their District, but is struck with the realization that they have no connection to her. Surely they have no idea that a pair of victors from one of the career Districts saved them. Her doorbell rings on the third day of the news blasting the story and she’s surprised to find the events to be related.

“I don’t know that we should be seen together still,” Jeff says, head leaned against her doorframe. He looks exhausted, haunted eyes and the collar of his shirt looser than it was in her memory. She opens her door wider but he shakes his head.

“So what then,” Britta says, suddenly very annoyed with the entire situation. “You came here to tell me to leave you alone? Job done, I’m-”
“I came here because I thought you’d want to see me. And to say that those kids are stupid,” he says, not rising to the bait entirely. He stares steadfastly at a spot on her doorframe.

“Maybe they aren’t. Love’s stupid, nut up and-”

“Die alone,” he finishes with her. It’s one of their oldest jokes, yet at the moment Britta finds the humor of it almost painful. She sighs and moves to close the door. Jeff steps back and Britta pauses, face scrunching in concentration.

“Thanks,” she says, the word inelegant for what she feels. He shrugs a shoulder and turns to go. She watches him and hollers after him. “You’re still an asshole.”

Jeff looks at her over his shoulder, flashing a grin. It makes her sad to think how many women have received that smile – but then she thinks of the photos of him and his various Capitol sponsored dates. It was never that smile.

Reporters begin to buzz around Britta nearly five months later, asking her about her thoughts on the winners. It’s incredibly late and she wonders why they’re asking now. Her answers are vanilla - it’s always nice to see love in the world, the Capitol is being generous, etc - all the things she should say. Until a newsfeed blazes across, citing former victor Jeff Winger as saying the same things. Nearly the exact same things. Except, he has an arm looped around the shoulders of some brunette and sunglasses dangling nearly off his nose. Her throat swells up with something she is afraid to place and Britta finds her way to a reporter.

“The reason I love the story of the two victors so much is because they inspire change and because,” Britta pauses to grin, to blush, and it sells, “well, because recently, I’ve also found love.”

It hits the newsfeeds in minutes. Then it’s trumped in minutes.

“Victors to be reaped for next games!” The headline displays. Britta feels entirely too hot as she receives the phone call confirming the fact. She steps outside and reporters swarm her.

“I have no comment,” she has to yell to be heard. By the time, she pushes her way through the crowd, she realizes that she has no destination. Or rather, none that she feels any certainty about being accepted at. Regardless, she makes the short trek to Jeff’s house.

His crowd of reporters is smaller, but still worthy of being called a swarm. She makes her way to the door, pushing through with elbows out, and the door swings open as she raises her hand to knock. Jeff grabs her wrist and tugs her in, slamming the door after her.

“So, you were right,” Britta says. The reporters are yelling outside, the sound of it dulled through glass panes and doors and whatever lies between the pair. Britta tucks hair behind her ear. “Congrats on that.”

“Thanks,” Jeff says bitterly. He crosses his arms and turns his gaze to the window looking out at his yard. In two strides, he reaches the blinds and pulls them down violently. Britta jumps at the noise, further startled by the fact that Jeff doesn’t turn back to her once the blinds are closed.

The room is darkened without the natural light and when she walks to him, pieces of light shift in through the blinds. She places a hand on his back to no reaction.

“You’ll have to compete. I might have to compete,” Jeff says, the briefest of pauses between the statements. Britta nods, then realizes that with his focus on the blinds he may not have seen her.

“It’s kinda shitty,” she admits, in lieu of confirming his statement. Jeff huffs out a breath that may be a laugh - Britta, admittedly, cannot tell. Then he turns to her.

“Well, I guess we better get ready then,” he says, his tone decisive. He claps his hands onto her shoulders. “Britta, I’m going to train you this time.”

It’s five years too late. She kisses him for the effort, leaning up on her toes and wrapping a hand in the front of his shirt. Jeff hoists her up, her legs wrapping around his waist as he cups her ass. He walks backwards as they kiss, bumping her against a wall - she yelps, then laughs as he laughs around an apology - until they flop against his bed. He drops her softly, then looks down at her before covering her body with his.

“This could be the worst idea,” he whispers against her.

“Shut up, it could be the best,” she whispers back.

They argue and fuck until morning.

Britta is happily sleeping when Jeff arrives at her doorstep. She can see him from her bed - which is warm and cozy - as she leans toward the window. He motions for her to join him, miming running and she shakes her head in response. Jeff rolls his eyes and slaps his palm onto her doorbell. The doorbell rings for nearly ten minutes before Britta finally accepts that the only way to get him to stop is to answer the door.

Cocooning herself in a blanket, Britta shuffles down the stairs, around the corner and to her front door. With a sigh, she swings the door open to find Jeff smirking.

“Not very appropriate running gear, Perry,” Jeff says. Britta tries very hard to remember why she has ever spent time with him when he begins jogging in place. Somehow the reasons seem to slip her mind.

“It’s five in the morning,” Britta says. In response, Jeff simply shrugs, as if time is entirely meaningless. He points his thumb over his shoulder and Britta looks out at the beginnings of the rising sun.

“Sun means heat. We can go now while it’s cool and you can complain while running or we can go later when it’s hot and you’ll be dying and in no condition to whine,” Jeff explains. Scrunching her nose, Britta drops her blanket and motions him inside.

Tugging her hair into a ponytail, Britta reminds Jeff not to break anything as she heads back to change into running gear. Jeff calls back to her, threatening her if she falls back asleep. Half-heartedly, Britta flips him off without turning. As she fumbles through her drawers in search of a pair of running shorts, Britta becomes aware that Jeff is looming in her doorway.

“Being creepy or need something?” She inquires without looking up. Triumphant, she brandishes the shorts. Shimming out of her pajama pants, Britta turns to find him holding a box. He stares down at it quizzically, looking up only when she nearly topples over during an attempt to pull on a pair of shorts with one hand. His mouth turns up slightly and Britta flops onto her bed, shorts around her shins. Making a face, she informs him, “I give up.”

“Pull on your pants,” Jeff says, setting the box on the dresser. He walks over to her closet and begins to shuffle through the shoes on the floor of it. Britta tugs her shorts up to her waist before sliding onto the floor. Watching him, Britta tries very hard not to feel at home with the situation.

“The box has these tapes from the games. I was talking to Pierce Hawthorne a while ago and he said it was a good way to train for this,” Britta says. Jeff turns, throwing her a tennis shoe that she nearly drops, and makes an odd face.

“So Pierce Hawthorne is the best person to ask for advice?” He says the name as if it’s venomous. Britta rolls her eyes and begins lacing up her shoe.

“It sounded solid, we could make a drinking game out of it,” Britta promises hollowly. It isn’t much of an incentive, she realizes, as life itself is basically a drinking game between the two of them. Jeff passes her the other tennis shoe before walking back to the box.

“Fine,” Jeff says, opening the box. Britta laces her tennis shoe and stands as he pulls out several of the tapes. As she changes into a sports bra, Jeff digs to the bottom of the pile. Britta sidles up to him as his face changes at one of the tapes. Before she can ask, he shoves it back into the pile and turns to her. “C’mon, pokey, we need to get running.”

Two days pass before Britta finds the tapes again. Settling onto her bed, she drops the box next to her. Her intention is to sort them into two piles - living victors and dead - but pauses to consider inviting Jeff to join her. It’s the sort of thing he’d be good at - he has an almost creepily good memory of other victors, while she has a harder time placing names with faces - yet something about the two of them and a bed generally led to less work being done. Deciding, Britta took the first stack out of the box.

The tapes are labelled by year and victor’s name. As Britta puts several from forty years ago in the pile she has mentally defined as ‘most likely dead’, she wonders who had the job of putting the box together. If they liked it or found it morose, if they had to do many boxes or just hers. The questions float through her mind as she sorts through most of the earlier years until one tape interrupts her thoughts. The tape is from twenty-four years ago. The time seems wrong - that it should be both longer and shorter - as she calculates. The name on the tape - in the same print as every other, though Britta feels like it should be somehow different, bolder or magnified - reads “William Winger”. Britta stares at it for a long while before she realizes she has no idea which pile to put it in. So she leaves it in her lap, moving the other tapes around it as she works.

Jeff arrives the next morning at five, as he has been for the past three days. This time, for the first time, Britta is prepared. He seems shocked as she brushes past him, slamming the door behind her, yet he says nothing. The pair jog on, Britta quiet in her thoughts, hoping that Jeff doesn’t notice. If he does notice, his only indicator is running faster than usual. His speed is so bad that Britta decides that he’s doing it to get her to admit to being able to keep up. This idea only spurs her on, which works well enough for most of the route. Her breath comes more and more in gasps as they reach the end of their trek.

“You’re acting weird,” he says as they round the corner back to her house. Britta huffs - partially out of annoyance, though partially because Jeff’s pace is murderous - and Jeff manages to speed up enough to run backwards ahead of her. She glares and he grins. “Stop acting like you’re dying, I’ve seen your body, you can’t be that out of shape.”

“You’ll never,” Britta starts, intending to threaten to withhold sleeping with him, but wheezes before she can continue. Slowing to a stop, she rests her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Jeff stops as well and she looks up at him through the hair that has been displaced from her ponytail. “I’m not acting weird, this is what people who are being run to death look like.”

“I’ll take note of that,” Jeff replies, not a note of sympathy in his voice. With a roll of her eyes, Britta stands again. Jeff motions her onward. “Finish strong, let’s go. I know you, you can do this.”

“Do you?” Britta asks. The question spills out, like blood from the sliver of a cut. The oddity of it shows on Jeff’s face, so Britta clarifies. “I mean, you don’t know anything about who I was five years ago or my family or-”

“First of all, who you were five years ago, who you were before the games, doesn’t matter. Second of all,” Jeff steps closer to her as he speaks, stopping only when he’s right to her. If she moved, she’d touch him, so she stays still, save to look up at Jeff. He stares at her almost angry in his determination, whatever the rest of his statement is being carefully chosen, the words rolling around in his mouth before he speaks. Shutting his eyes, he finishes, “you found the tape.”

Whatever answer he’s looking for, Britta comes up blank. It wasn’t a question, yet she knows an answer is still expected of her - an apology or explanation, she’s unsure. Jeff sighs and steps away from her.

“Jog back at your own pace,” he calls over his shoulder. Britta stands for a moment.

“What the hell was I supposed to do, Jeff? Not notice? Not make the connection?” Britta yells after him. The sun is risen now and she has to blink against it at his back.

“I don’t know, you’ve been dumb enough about enough other stuff,” Jeff shouts back without turning. He stops though and Britta realizes how odd the two of them must look. Two victors in their District, yelling down the middle of a street about something that seems so meaningless, just a stupid tape. Jeff’s insult barely hits her, though it brings up memories of the coverage from after her games. Somehow she had gotten the dolt reputation, one she truly hated.

“Can we talk about this inside?” Britta asks, walking towards Jeff. He does not look up when she places a hand on his arm. He doesn’t shrug her off either.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he says, his voice low and soft. “My dad won then he decided to stay in the Capitol after winning. End of story.”

Britta tries to find something to keep him talking about this. She drops the hand from his arm before asking, “how old were you?”

“Six months old,” Jeff replies. “My mom was seventeen. I don’t think she ever forgave herself.”

“So you never forgave him,” Britta adds. “Is he alive?”

Jeff shakes his head. For a moment, he seems to want to say more, but thinks better of it - Britta watches it all play out on his face, wondering all the while if he’s easy to read or if she knows him that well. She wraps one hand around his. It’s something they rarely do, hold hands like children, yet he squeezes her hand as she tugs them to her house. As she fiddles with the lock one-handedly, Britta decides to believe that his face is hard to read. She’s simply good at reading it.

Jeff settles next to her with a bowl of popcorn and the remote. Immediately, Britta dives for the remote, which Jeff allows her to take - sighing as she does. The tapes are queued up - enough to last nearly the day - but Britta finds herself wanting to just forget it. The tapes seem too definitive because while she knows that she will be picked at the reaping, the gory reminder of what she will face is not something she needs. Swallowing the thought, Britta plays the first tape.

Many of them are unmemorable - though Jeff jots down notes throughout - and it doesn't take long for them to get to William Winger. Though he died - and he did, Britta checked the records, not because she thought Jeff would lie but because if the situation were reversed, she might have - Britta included the tape. As the year appears, Jeff straightens next to her. She pauses the tape.

"My parents and I never got along. They adored my older brother Micah but never really understood me," Britta begins.

"Britta-"

"I need to tell you this," Britta says, her voice a plea. Jeff goes quiet and the room suddenly feels too small. "Right, so then I won the games and I thought they'd love me but they still liked Micah more. Then, I refused the offer and they were dead and so it didn't matter anymore really."

He doesn't say anything for a long time, just runs one hand through her hair, tangling it up in it. Then he nods, leans over and plays the tape.

The reaping starts and Britta stands alone. The room for the reaping is regal and stately - it smells of wine and something unplaceable. Across an aisle, Jeff stands flanked by the other three male victors of their District. They seem older than they are - Britta knows even the oldest one is only in his mid-fifties - as if their lives have gone more rapidly than the people she passes in the street. She remembers once, in the haze of someday, Jeff waxing on about how time wasn’t linear.

The pair of them had sprawled across his couch during a games - not really watching save when his tribute was on. They were a little more drunk than usual - it had been the day her victor had died, not Vicki, the girl before - and Britta had made some joke about it.

“Time isn’t linear,” Jeff had said. This was how Jeff was when drunk, bold proclamations that he later reversed his stance on or occasionally completely denied saying. Britta had, on multiple occasions, wondered if he was ever that drunk at all. She never asked or implied that because it seemed to cross some unspoken, unacknowledged boundary.

“I’ll make your ass linear,” she had teased nonsensically. Jeff had made a face and she shoved at his shoulder in response, untangling from him. She turned to face him, though he continued to look straight ahead, as if paying attention to the screen. With a laugh, she had continued. “C’mon, you can’t just say shit like that and not explain it.”

“It’s like this: time for us, it’s fast. One games stretches out, marks the whole year,” Jeff motioned with one hand, the other wrapped around a glass. He did not face her still, Britta remembered this the same way she remembered smacking his shoulder so he did. With an exaggerated wince, he turned to her and finished his statement. “For someone in the Capitol, it’s all slow because it doesn’t mean as much.”

“That’s stupid,” Britta had snorted, crossing her legs. “It goes faster for them.”

“Why would that be?” The ‘you nincompoop’ was implied, even then Britta was too well-versed in their relationship to know what he meant.

“It means less. It’s like, when you’re doing something you like, it goes faster than like something awful,” Britta had explained. She smirked, proud of the logic in the argument. “That’s why sex with you is so quick.”

“Really,” Jeff drew the word out, staring Britta down then. She shrugged a shoulder then asked him to refresh her memory.

Now, Britta tries to catch Jeff’s eye for some indiscriminate reason. Part of her wants to offer comfort or mock the proceedings. Another part, the part she can’t stand to admit to, wants to know she is not alone in this. Though she hopes that his name will not be drawn - a twenty-five percent chance is not much of one, she has been reminding herself for the past month - it helps to know she will have someone on the outside. Obstinately, Jeff stares straight ahead, expression painfully neutral.

Britta’s name is drawn without much fanfare - Pelton smiles at her, a rarity, as she takes the stage. She returns the sentiment and faces the cameras with a wide grin. Looking out at the small crowd, Britta stares at Jeff. He meets her gaze for a second, winks, and looks beyond her. Pelton waves his hand around the bowl for what seems like a long time before drawing one out. Britta finds herself holding her breath and releases it - she has always been annoyed by the idea of some tradition or outside force changing the fate of the reaping.

“Pavel Iwasziewics,” Pelton coos the name. Britta smiles again, wider and truer as Pavel, only mid-thirties yet seemingly elderly, nods to himself. Pavel brushes a hand down his shirt and Britta looks at Jeff. She grins at him and he simply stares. Shutting his eyes for a moment, Britta feels dismissed and tries to ignore the sting of it. Looking down, she tries to reason with herself - Jeff, she knows, is hopefully upset at her having to compete.

“I volunteer,” Jeff says. Britta jerks her head up and he’s stalking towards the stage in long strides. Her mouth goes dry as he grins at her, a cheeky thing accompanied by a wink. Pelton sputters before announcing Jeff as the new tribute. Britta simply stares at him - anger welling in her as the shock subsides. Jeff bumps her shoulder as he walks by her to stand on the other side of Pelton.

“Well, shake hands,” Pelton says, his tone almost dismissive. He glares at Britta, whose hand shakes - she curses it for betraying her as it does - as if Jeff volunteering is entirely her doing. At least that has gone back to normal, Britta observes as Jeff grabs her hand. For a second it is simply a handshake, then he tugs her to him. Even before he leans down, she finds herself going onto her tiptoes, the kiss almost automatic. As she wraps her hands around his neck, she realizes this is more than a kiss. The cameras roll around them and it strikes her that this is a declaration.

Annie approaches her the next day at training. Britta is practicing at the rope tying station when the girl sidles up, eerily quiet. Her hair is braided back lazily and she sits next to Britta with a small smile. Britta nods a greeting and continues with the ropes for a moment before noticing that Annie has not even picked up a piece of twine. Looking up, she finds Annie staring off at Troy, who is engaged in some sort of training with a lanky man that Britta has trouble placing. With a headshake, as if to clear her mind, Annie turns back to her.

“Your boyfriend approached me yesterday,” Annie says. If there is malice in the term ‘boyfriend’, Britta does not hear it. There should be malice, she thinks, but instead Annie just seems rather sad.

“He’s not my...” Britta lets it drop with a sigh. It’s inconsequential what people think of them as, though she hardly knows what they are herself. For a nice girl like Annie, ‘boyfriend’ is right. Britta goes on another thought. “Should I be upset or was it about something other than-”

“Other,” Annie cuts her off, blushing. She tucks an errant hair back into the braid and looks down. “I figured I could accept with you as much as him. Being allies will be good. I have some figures of how to allot time in the training center and I’ve been having Troy and I add cardio when the training gym is closed, so you and Jeff could do the same.”

Britta blinks at her and Annie’s face crinkles in concern. “You don’t know what you’re doing with these ropes at all, let me help you.”

“How do you know where we should allot our time?” Britta asks as Annie takes the rope from her. Annie untangles the knot in seconds and Britta tries not to resent the girl for it - the games were a while ago for her, it isn’t Annie’s fault she is rusty. Knots, despite being a fisherman's tool and therefore something from her District, have never been her strong point. Hence, her working with them now. Yet, with the youngest victor and tribute catching her in this, being inept at something, Britta wishes she had chosen another venue.

“I watched your film and took notes,” Annie says as she slowly loops the rope around itself. Slowly, she explains how to tie a rather intricate trapping knot and Britta follows along with a rope of her own. Annie seems to hold no ill will against Britta for being unable to tie knots. There is an almost teasing tone in her explanation at the simpler parts but Britta tries to find it as friendly.

“Hey, Annie,” Britta says as she fiddles with the finished knot. “It was pretty shitty that Troy left you after all that.”

“He thought it was safer,” Annie says, head snapping up. Her body is rigid, as if Britta had slapped her. Britta blanks at the reaction. “Troy’s a good guy.”

“Look, all I know is what I saw and that combined with the fact that he-”

“Then you don’t know much,” Annie snaps, her neck flushed. Britta remembers how it had done the same at the first interview, what seems like eons ago. Stammering, she tries to apologize but Annie is already standing. “I should go, I don’t need any work on my knot tying.”

As she practically sprints away, Jeff ambles over to Britta, who stands shell-shocked. He asks something but Britta is distracted. Annie weaves her way over to Troy, who rather dismissively continues his fisticuffs with the lanky boy. Jeff touches her shoulder and she snaps out of it.

“So is she our buddy now?” He asks. Britta shrugs in response, dropping the knot Annie helped her with.

“She says so, but I may have screwed it up,” Britta admits, walking past Jeff towards the plant identification station - one of her talents. “You need to win her back over, it’s impunitive.”

“Imperative,” Jeff says and Britta waves a hand at the correction. “Why do I have to win her over?”

“Because she knows our weaknesses,” Britta answers. Then with a final grin over her shoulder, she adds. “And she’s got a crush.”

Lunchtime comes quickly and Britta sits at one of the emptier tables, surrounded by mounds of potato dishes and meats, as well as a literally cornucopia of fruits. As she sorts through the cornucopia in search of a pear - her favorite fruit - the birdlike boy from earlier slides into the chair across from her. Looking up, she smiles and he returns the sentiment briefly. Within moments, Troy plops into the chair beside the boy, still midway through some conversation.

“So I was like, look if it involves my-” Troy’s statement drops off as his eyes slide over Britta. He grins at her, the expression making his face look younger. “Hey, you’re Britta.”

“Bingo,” Britta says, quirking one eyebrow. “And you’re Troy and this is?”
“Abed,” Annie breaks in. Troy jumps at the sound and Britta has to stifle a laugh at his expression. The brunette stands over their table, annoyance etched in her features as she glares down at the birdlike boy - Abed, Britta knows now - who in turn stares up blankly. Britta motions to a chair near her and Annie takes it, her expression haughty as she focuses her attention back on Troy. “So are you teaming up with them?”

“What?” Troy looks nervously from Abed and Britta, as if one of them will explain. Annie shrewdly stares at Britta. The decision not to include Troy had been a logical one, Britta reasons, and returns the look to Annie, biting into her pear with zeal.

“I believe it was part of a team-up that we were not invited to join,” Abed explains, sounding unoffended, to Troy, who does not take the slight as well. Troy gasps and Britta wonders how much of his ensuing sniffling and jaw-clenching is faked. It works regardless, Annie begins apologizing and rubbing circles into his back. She glares at Britta, leaving Britta to respond in the most mature way she can.

“Put your tongue back in your mouth,” Jeff drops a hand onto her shoulder as he speaks. Britta turns and before she can speak, he nods towards another table.

“Lovely talking with you all, I’m sure,” Jeff says, looping his arm around Britta’s shoulders as they walk away. Britta waits until they are out of earshot before smacking his shoulder. When he looks down, she raises her eyebrows in question. He explains, “Right, I forgot to tell you about Shirley. I’m done with Annie and the boys, they’re not really worth the effort if they’re going to be assholes.”

“Who?” Britta asks, latching onto the first point as her eyes rove the crowd. Jeff points one hand at a table. Following where Jeff points, she finds a familiar face. The woman is not someone Britta has spoken to before - she clutches a bottle of something alcoholic to her chest like it’s a child and glares steadily at those passing by - but Britta remembers the tape of her games. The girl - she had been only twelve at the time - had not slashed her way through. Instead, she had scampered up a tree and hid. Her survival had been based on cowardice rather than blood thirst, making her an odd partner for Jeff to draw to.

"Shirley, this is Britta," Jeff says, folding himself into a chair as he speaks. Shirley stares, fully sizing Britta up, before nodding a greeting. Britta takes that as a cue to be seated and does so.

"You favor your right side, sweetie," Shirley says after a few seconds. Britta looks up to find the woman staring at her. "If I can see it, so can Abed and so can Leonard."

"We hate Leonard," Jeff says simply, pointing boldly at an old man wandering around one corner of the room. The man, either hearing Jeff or summoned by the hate clearly ebbing from Jeff and Shirley, turns to them and grins. He reminds Britta a bit of a pumpkin, a fact she keeps to herself given her table mates' obvious issues with Leonard. She pulls a stalk of celery from the center of the table before speaking.

"So are we allies?" Britta asks, assuming the brash approach is best with Shirley. The woman hisses under her breath, glares at Jeff and takes a swig out of her bottle.

"I'll help you but you two don't help me," Shirley says, her voice final. Jeff groans at this and Shirley tuts at him in a way that is almost motherly. "Jeffrey, I don't want to make it out of these games and you'll respect my wishes, so help me God."

Britta bites into her celery, staring at Shirley blankly. The woman does not notice, her eyes locked on Jeff’s. For a moment, Britta is eerily reminded of the intense meeting with Chang - Jeff appears to be having the same internal debate. In an attempt to be comforting, Britta reaches a hand towards Jeff. He jerks away almost automatically.

“We’ll see,” Jeff says, his voice final. Shirley makes a face at that, but accepts the answer and reaches for an apple from the center of the table.

“So are we giving up on Annie?” Britta asks, watching Jeff as he moves about the room. He shrugs so apathetically that Britta rolls her eyes at the forced nonchalance. “What, you think her hang up on Troy will hamper things or is this just a lack of faith in your own charm?”

“Shut up,” Jeff remarks wittily as Britta makes an obscene gesture. He steps into his pants before answering. “I just don’t think we need her. We’ve got Shirley and I can probably sway Abed-” Jeff pauses to rummage through her drawer for a spare set of socks before continuing “-I just don’t think that Annie is exactly a team player.”

“She helped Troy,” Britta points out, lazily rolling on her side as Jeff comes to the side of the bed. She wraps a hand around his wrist as he leans for his shoes. “You could stay, y’know.”

“She helped Troy because she thought she loved him and she knew they could both make it out of there,” Jeff says, his wrist still wrapped in Britta’s impossibly small hand. For a second, she can see his thoughts as they play out on his face. As she moves to remove her hand, he dives forward, kissing her. His lips trail to her neck and she swallows headily, an action he clearly feels because he looks up at her inquiringly.

“Interviews are tomorrow,” Britta explains, a hand knotting in his hair as he pushes her into the bed. One of his hands drops to her waist and she moves against it.

“You have to be charming,” Jeff whispers, ducking his head back against the crook of her neck. The words vibrate into her skin. “They need to love us so much that they hate what we have to do.”

“I know,” Britta says, her annoyance at his obvious statement tempered by the kisses he trails down her neck. He stops and she sighs. “What, scared I can’t do it?”

“We have to be married,” Jeff’s eyes are wide with excitement or fear, Britta cannot tell. She laughs breathlessly at the statement but Jeff sits back on his heels. “No, think about it. People went nuts for Troy and Annie’s star-crossed lovers bit, we have to outdo them.”

“Don’t you think that people will be able to check the facts on that?” Britta asks, mind racing. The idea has strong points but the mere idea of it makes her want to push Jeff out the door. At her question, Jeff sighs and flops onto his back next to her.

“We could - I don’t know, like, actually get,” Jeff stops. Britta watches him, the way the words seem to stick in his throat like he is physically unable to speak them. Finally, he turns to her with an odd expression - some cross between helpless and hopeless. She stares, unsure of what to say.

“So tonight?” Britta asks, incredulously. The notion seems ridiculous, especially looking at Jeff - half-dressed in his socks and pants. She studies him, from the scar on his stomach that he won’t talk about to the look in his eyes that she now recognizes. It is desperation.

“We aren’t both making it out of there,” Jeff whispers the words. The words are facts, the ones that have always laid unspoken between them. Britta is amazed that he is able to say that, yet still tongue-tied when it comes to an actual proposal. It feels entirely too earnest, yet Britta nods hollowly.

“Okay,” she whispers back. Jeff’s face does not go alight at the possibility. He simply nods at her. Britta swallows and rolls away from him. It isn’t that his reaction has upset her - she isn’t thrilled by the going ons either - it’s more that she feels hurt. Jeff would never marry her if they weren’t going back into the arena.

“Call Shirley and someone else to witness,” Britta says. She tugs her hair up easily, leaving in the bumps that form from the lazy curls she wore earlier in the day. Jeff sits up and wanders towards her as she walks to the closet. When Britta is elbow-deep sorting through Capitol outfits that she’s never worn before, Jeff drops his hands around her waist and spins her around.

“Hey,” he says, “I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t you.”

Britta sags against him, smiling at the thought. One of his hands slides up to her hair and undoes the ponytail she put it in, weaving in the loose curls. Britta tips her chin against his chest and looks up. “Y’know, ditto.”

Shirley agrees to come only if Britta wears white. It’s not a tradition in their District, but it means a lot to Shirley so Britta compromises. There’s a dress from last year - white with sea foam green bits - that fits too tightly, but at least she can pull it on. She wears galoshes in her own private form of retaliation. When Shirley arrives at the ceremony, she glares at Britta’s feet before sighing, clasping her necklace in one hand and smiling.

“It’s a distinct look,” Shirley says, her voice cloyingly sweet. Britta nods noncommittally, thankful when the door reopens and Jeff enters.

“I got the idiot brigade,” he says, stalking to Britta. He glances down at her and nods. “You look nice except for those shoes.”
“Galoshes are a traditional shoe of our people, Jeff,” Britta claims haughtily. Which, okay, they are, she knows, but mostly they’re comfy and make her feel like she has control over something. Jeff rolls his eyes and adjusts his tie. Behind him, Troy, Abed and Annie trail in slowly. Britta glances between the trio and Jeff.

“I thought they didn’t like us,” she comments finally. Jeff shrugs.

“They like weddings,” he says, annoyance inking his tone. It sounds like an argument she missed and Britta drops it. Annie approaches Britta with a sheepish smile - obviously remembering their earlier interaction. Britta shrugs and accepts the girl into her wedding party. The thought of the interviews looms in her head as Annie scampers over and Britta decides it best to convince as many people as they can that this is legitimate. There’s no bouquet to be thrown, but if there was, Britta thinks she would throw it to Annie.

Britta and Jeff’s chariot is made to look as if they are riding waves in. Her outfit is almost feathery, the soft feel of the fabric against her skin almost making her forget how skimpy it is. The hem of it lasts only to her mid-thigh, making her glad that she won’t have to move much in the outfit. Jeff seems to appreciate the outfit as well, Britta watches his eyes trace her frame. If she feels a thrill at that, she would never admit it.

“You’re short, they were obviously just trying to make you look taller,” he claims, a shit-eating grin stretching across his face. His outfit is a pair of navy blue tuxedo pants and a pair of suspenders, no shirt. While Britta doesn’t mind the view, her joy is marred by his complete nonchalance at the clothing.

“So you’re staring at my ass to try and judge if I look taller?” Britta asks, the start of a smile shaping her cheeks. Jeff shrugs a shoulder,  not leaning up from propping himself up on the side of their chariot.

“You’re my wife, I’m allowed,” Jeff says, the lilt in his voice teasing. Britta laughs at that, the oddity of the fact that he’s right - not that he’s allowed, but that she is his and vice versa. Before she can comment, Jeff’s gaze shifts to beyond her, eyes narrowing in annoyance.  Turning, Britta finds Troy sheepishly looking up at the ceiling, his cheeks flushed. Her hands go to the hem of her skirt automatically.

“Annie told me to come over and tell you guys she says ‘yes’. I don’t know what she meant but she was freaking out about how she couldn’t come over or she would mess up her dress,” Troy pauses, his eyes still resting on the ceiling as if the answers to the universe could reveal themselves to him from the water stain on the hall roof. He bites his lip. “Also, Britta, I was not looking at your butt but if I theoretically was, I’m sorry but it’s only because theoretically it’s a good butt.”

A moment follows where Britta is deciding between being offended, flattered or amused. She’s struck by, not for the first time either, how young Troy seems. His outfit - a suit that seems to sparkle, obviously meant to symbolize diamonds or some other mined mineral - only adds to the affect, the fitting of it a little loose. He seems younger than her and Jeff obviously, but even younger than Annie. She remembers suddenly, his face as he stabbed Annie Kim - how truly scared he looked.

“It’s alright, it is a nice butt,” Britta says. Troy’s ears blush red and he nods before turning to scamper back to Annie and their chariot.  Britta looks at Jeff over her shoulder, nearly cracking up. Jeff rolls his eyes, muttering something about her ego, jealous marking his tone. It feels suddenly, like two years ago, and Britta remembers the time with a pang.

Jeff’s tribute was a sweetheart. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, a shy smile that Britta loved to earn from him and a pair of hands that were well calloused from his days as a sailor. Britta found herself spending most of her time with the boy. She was only nineteen then to the boy’s sixteen, a reasonable age gap, it seemed to her. If Jeff changed, Britta was too busy to notice - he wasn’t her problem regardless, she had assured herself one day when he jogged - in his stupidly short shorts, the ones that she always made fun of him for, she still remembered those vividly - past her house without even waving in greeting. Then, one day her phone rang at 2:15 a.m.

“Brit,” Jeff opened with and Britta could practically smell the alcohol through the telephone line. He let out a breath shakily and Britta heard someone in the background laugh. “Listen, listen, so I know that you and that guy are like, whatever, but don’t. The thing is us.”

“What’s that?” Britta had asked, one hand drawing shapes on her kitchen counter, the other gripping the phone so tightly her knuckles whitened.  There was a long pause, the sound of a door shutting the only indication that Jeff was still there. Finally, after leaning against the counter, Britta tried again. “Jeff?”

“There’s no us,” he said, his voice low. “I wish that... You’re the anti-me, y’know? Like ying yang and left right. It works, so just...”

He trailed off, the silence ballooning between them until Jeff finally sighed.

“I didn’t think you’d answer,” he said, the ‘s’  in answer slurring. Britta remained silent, assuming he had more to say. She remembered this moment more than the rest, how it felt almost infinite as she held her breath, feet knocking against the cabinets below her, head resting on the side of her fridge as it churned noisily. Her imagination ran wild with Jeff’s location - a bar, his head ducked low to avoid interruption, his house, staring at the old picture of her she had found last summer, her front walkway, finger eternally hovering over the doorbell.

“It’d be easier to tell your machine. You never make things easier,” Jeff said. Britta imagined him then too, motioning to the bartender for his tab, turning away from her picture, shoving his hand into his pocket.

“Neither do you,” Britta replied, feeding off Jeff’s drunkenness and pretending it was her own. She swallowed, licking her lips. “I can hang up, you could call back. I won’t answer.”

“I’m not jealous of him, I just think it’s stupid because we both know it’s going to be us,” Jeff said this with force, as if the words leaped from him unbidden - which, in his state, they probably had, Britta knew this even then.  Her words were lost to him, as if she had never said them, and she realized then that whatever he had planned to say would forever go unheard. “You and I are always going to be something, kitten. I don’t’ know why, but I know that.”

“I’m going back to bed,” Britta said, her skin suddenly prickly and hot with his statement. It felt binding and final, an itching contract that had always laid unspoken between them. She hung up, half-tempted to throw the phone down her garbage disposal.

Later, Jeff apologized, claiming he had no idea what he said, but whatever it was, he was surely sorry for it. Britta had let it slide, let them both believe that he had made a simple booty call because it was easier, lighter not to have that between them.
His words still haunted her some nights, if she let them.

“Jeff,” she asks now, shaking herself from the memory. He nods at her, raising his eyebrows as well for some reason. His forehead crinkles as it always does and she wonders for a split second when he became the person she knew best. “It was always going to be us ending like this, wasn’t it?”

“With fire and death and tearing down anyone we can with us?” Jeff holds out a hand to help her onto the chariot as a bell rings, indicating the start of the parade. He keeps his hand wrapped around hers even after she is situated next to him. He looks down at her, down that stupid nose and lovely mouth and Britta feels both very old and very young at the thought of how long she has known him and how long she would know him if things were different. “You and I, kitten, were never going out any other way.”

The interview of the girl from the first District goes unheard by Britta. All she hears is the buzz of her own nervousness, not even broken by Jeff squeezing her hand. Unbidden, her mind drifts back to her first interview. It had been painful, awkward and overall terrible. That, combined with her small frame, had made her less than a crowd favorite. No one was as surprised as Britta herself when she showcased an affinity for killing anyone who attacked her.

“You weren’t supposed to win,” Jeff had said, holding her at arm’s length, when she stepped off the tarmac. She shrugged then, trying at nonchalance.

“I don’t react properly to anything, I guess,” Britta had said. Jeff smiled. It was the first time he had truly smiled at her. It was the bright point of her month.

Now, Britta digs her nails into Jeff’s palm until he turns to her. Onstage, Duncan is laughing with the guy, his teeth glinting in the limelight. Britta swallows.

“What if they hate me?” Britta asks, her voice small. She keeps her eyes on the stage, but feels Jeff’s eyes study her. After a long moment, he removes his hand from hers and puts it on her shoulder, his free one going to the other shoulder, and he turns her to him.

“Britta, they’ll like you,” Jeff says, his voice so firm that she nearly believes him. “Who doesn’t like you?”

“According to Pelton, almost half the people that meet me,” Britta says. She winces at how helpless and whiny she sounds.

“Half is better than last time,” Jeff says. His forehead crinkles as he smiles, amused by her turmoil, and Britta turns away from him with a huff. Suddenly, she feels very stupid for asking him - he’s always been the Capitol’s golden boy.

While focusing solely on the stage - watching as Duncan and the guy start some sort of chant through the crowd - Britta feels Jeff move her hair off her shoulder. The chant grows in strength and Jeff leans so close, she can feel his breath on her neck. If she shuts her eyes, she thinks, maybe the rest will dull, leaving just her and Jeff. The crowd breaks into pure cheering as the buzzer rings indicating the end of the guy’s time.

“If I can love you, so will they,” Jeff whispers, voice low and guttural, words nearly lost in the crowd. Britta turns, shocked, finding him leaning back away, and feels herself go pale. Duncan calls her name and she shakily stands.

When she makes it to the stage, she waves, her smile caught somewhere between actually happiness and nervous. She can’t see Jeff but she imagines him smirking, nearly to laugh at her looking so out of place. At the thought, Britta squares her shoulders and sits down, grinning at Duncan.

“So I heard that you and Mr. Winger have some news that may come unexpected to some of us,” Duncan says. Britta stares at him dimly for a moment. The kernel of an idea forms in her, feeling the pressure of what was always unsaid between Jeff and herself. Finally, she nods.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, then coughs. Her cheeks burn hot and she makes up her mind. “Well, the marriage, it was just, I mean, we’re so much... Bad timing, right?”

The crowd laughs scatteredly and Duncan caws a laugh, dropping his hand onto hers. She pulls it away, glaring at him for a split second. Duncan asks her to explain and Britta sighs shakily, running her hands over her dress, settling on the hem.

“We wouldn’t have done it, except if one of us makes it out, we want it to stand. Like proof that we were an us,” Britta says. The crowd coos at that and she looks out at them, feeling very sad for them. It’s illogical, but somehow she pities them for a second. Then, she nods and speaks again, accidentally interrupting Duncan.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, halting herself. Duncan waves her on good-naturedly and she swallows. “It’s just that we’re so in love and it’s awful to think about winning without him. Sometimes I think that, well, if it came down to the two of us...”

The crowd goes silent and Britta has to bite back a smile. She pushes her hair back - she can practically hear her hairdresser gasping as it musses it - and looks at Duncan.

“It’s just so hard, you win the games and they promise you a happy life and then to be thrown back in things,” Britta shrugs a shoulder, as if it can’t be helped, and the crowd seems to rumble. Before she can say more, the buzzer sounds. It seems that they have cut her short and Britta smiles at that. With a curtsey, she exits the stage. As she heads back to her seat, Jeff passes her. He grabs her by the elbows and pulls her close.

“Be ready, react right and don’t screw this up for us,” he practically breathes the words, they’re so quiet. He spins them around and winks at her as he steps onto the stage. The crowd roars and Britta dazedly sits back down.

Duncan is one of Jeff’s drinking buddies and it shows. The two of them start the interview on a more upbeat note, shooting the breeze about how nice everyone looks. Then, Duncan asks about Jeff’s wife. Britta tries not to feel odd at that.

“Well, you saw her, she’s great. Keeps me in line, you know how it is,” Jeff smiles out at the crowd and Britta has to resist rolling her eyes. One camera lingers near her and she wonders if Jeff meant that. Then, he looks down, tapping his fingers against his knee. Britta recognizes the nervous habit and her throat tightens.

“The hardest thing about all of this - and I think she didn’t mention it because she didn’t want to be the, y’know, the pity vote,” Jeff looks to where Britta is and apologizes at this point. The crowd seems to lean in, wanting to hear whatever secret Britta dared keep from them. Jeff turns back to Duncan. “The hardest thing is that we’re going to be a family. Britta’s having my baby.”

Britta drops her gaze to her shoes, trying to keep from reacting further. The crowd is incorrigible - a baby is too much of an offense, an irony Britta can’t help but see. The buzzer sounds then, but it can barely be heard over the roar of the crowd. Britta looks up, managing a small smile as she looks to where Jeff is, feeling the camera next to her zoom in. She drops her hands to her stomach, knowing that it is far better to play the role than blow his story. Jeff makes his way back to her, kissing the top of her head before he folds himself into the seat next to her.

“Now they’ll love you,” he says quietly as the girl from District three steps up. Britta can’t look at him.

Interviews fade into each other. Shirley is terrifying, all soft answers sharpened to a point like something from a child’s nightmare. Her partner, the aging man from the cafeteria - Leonard, at whose name Jeff growls - makes rude comments instead of answering Duncan’s questions. The interviews continue in this fashion - the hostility growing with each tribute. A line has been crossed, Britta notes. Nothing can be taken from them, the only thing the Capitol has left them with is their lives and with that in danger, people do not hold back.

“I just don’t think the Capitol understood how much everyone has grown to love us,” Abed says, nodding oddly at the crowd. All his movements seem uncomfortable in his stupid foliage outfit. “It was different when we were just kids but they know us, they’ve connected with us. You won’t know what to do without us.”

His words seem to loom over them as the next interviewees take the stage. Britta feels Jeff’s arm drop across the back of her chair but she refuses to allow herself to lean into it. The interviews get shorter with each tribute- the buzzer only inciting the audience to a growing roar of displeasure. Britta watches them more and more as they get closer to the last tributes. When Annie takes the stage, the crowd is practically frothing at the mouth and Annie’s appearance only adds to their rage. Her hair is softly held up, pieces falling about her shoulders, her dress is a simple (yet rather tight) black shift that glints under the lights. The final touch are her cheeks which are streaked with coal - perhaps it once lined her eyes and she truly cried or perhaps it was all in the interest of making her look vulnerable and hurt. Either way, the effect is devastating. When she sits down, she does not smile.

Duncan asks about her outfit, its inspiration.

“I’m in mourning,” Annie says, her voice clear as a bell on a winter’s day. It’s the most confident Britta’s heard her. She turns her head to face the crowd. “I’m in mourning for all of us who have been damned. Even whoever lives through this is damned. It’s not living, we’re-”

The buzzer cuts her off just as her voice begins to go shrill. Annie stops, the smallest of smiles on her face because Britta knows as well as she does, that the buzzer only proves the girl’s point. She stands to step off the stage. As she does, the dress begins to deteriorate, leaving only the sparsest of remains. In any other circumstance, it would be scandalous, yet in lieu of her words, it is almost sad. As she walks away, she passes Troy - the boy stares at her dazedly - and looks up at him for a second before brushing past him.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Troy says, once he’s sat down. He looks to the victors and swallows. “I think we all thought this was done. It should be done.”

He pauses, most likely waiting for the buzzer Britta assumes. There is none.

“We don’t deserve this. No one does,” Troy says. It’s the simplest thing anyone has said but there’s an honesty to it that cuts to the core. Britta smiles, wobbly, at it and reaches over and brushes her hand against Jeff’s. He grips it instantly, as if it’s a lifeboat and he’s sinking. Britta turns to him and nods.

She’s unsure what she’s trying to convey and yet somehow he understands it. Her focus is broken by the hand of the man from the first District - they call him Magnitude, she remembers faintly - as he offers her his hand. Britta takes it and turns to watch as it happens down the row.

As Troy makes it to the end of the line, Annie reaches out and grabs his hand. For a long moment, the victors stand like that, a wall united. The crowd is cheering and screaming but Britta does not care. Down the line, their faces stay stony and unforgiving - this is not happening for the sake of the crowd or the sponsors or anyone except the people it is happening to. This is the smallest of rebellions and somehow an incredibly large one, Britta thinks. It seems infinite, this moment of harmony, then someone in the middle steps back. It ends as quickly as it started, though Britta keeps her hand in Jeff’s. The lights dim before they step backstage.

“Before you start, you should know-”

“It’s done,” Britta says. Jeff’s mouth moves for a second, clearly stopping whatever argument he had already formed. She drops his hand and starts down the hall. “I don’t want to fight.”

Jeff stares after her, looking down at her strangely.

“You’re taking this alarmingly well, does that mean that you’re...?” He trails off, one hand on her shoulder. Britta laughs.

“You can’t lie a pregnancy into existence, dumbass,” she says. Satisfied, Jeff falls into step with her. Their silence is a comfortable one as they reach their rooms. The doors are next to each other and Britta assumes the rooms are mirrors of each other. For a moment, they stand there - Britta can feel the unasked question weighing between them.

“Do you think you’d want kids?” Jeff asks. “Theoretically.”

“Whoa,” Britta breathes out the word. The question floors her and she leans against the doorframe, rubbing her thumb against the hinge. Finally, she looks up at him. “What about you?”

“Put on something nice and we’ll see,” Jeff replies. His grin is entirely too proud of himself and Britta moves to him, meaning full well to smack him. Instead he grabs her arm, still smiling and pulls her into his frame.

“I never used to want kids,” Jeff says. There’s more - there always is, Britta knows - but she lets it slip away, forever unsaid, as he leans down to her. Sometimes there seems to be enough things unspoken between them, the force of it could power all the Districts for years.

Britta wakes up with Jeff’s arm wrapped too tightly around her middle. She shifts, trying to pull away, but he only tightens the grip around her with a grumble. Britta makes a face and pinches his forearm - Jeff awakens with a yelp, sliding away from her. Triumphant, Britta sits up, the cover pooling around her waist as she pushes her legs over the side.

“You gonna make coffee?” Jeff asks sleepily. Britta looks at him over her shoulder, making a face until he laughs. “Right, stupid question, you can’t make coffee.”

“That was one time,” Britta says, smiling at the memory. She tucks her head against her shoulder as Jeff sits up with a groan. “You sound like an old man, Winger.”

“Shut up,” he replies, bumping her with his elbow as he stands. His knee pops as he stands and Britta is struck by how fragile he suddenly seems. He stretches when he stands, twisting enough to pop his back. His forehead crinkles when he catches her looking at him. “Stop looking at me like that, ding dong. We’ve only got a day before the games, let’s get breakfast.”

The morning is a lazy one - Jeff even accepts Britta’s refusal to go for a run after breakfast. Instead, they get their cardio workout in another way. Lounging in his bed, the pair fall into the sort of deep discussion that comes as easily as small talk or banter. She discovers that Jeff actually enjoys cooking - his talent for it has long been fact to her, many of their nights were punctuated by the flipping of pancakes or the baking of potatoes - when he smilingly explains how he used to have to cook for his mom who worked three jobs during meager seasons. Britta herself reveals that she has rather extensive knowledge of flowers - not just the sort that are edible or poisonous, but rather the sort that have meanings like ‘secret lover’, ‘close friend’ or ‘worse half who makes me better’. Jeff laughs at her and nearly slips up. He starts some statement about promising to buy her one that means ‘favorite irritant’ then lets the sentence drop. It looms over them, this lack of a future, and Britta reaches over and grabs his hand.

“Don’t worry. They don’t have flowers for that anyways,” she says, a teasing note in her voice. Jeff laughs uneasily and Britta smiles. “Besides, we’re married, you’d have to buy me nice flowers. Or I’d divorce you.”

“You wouldn’t divorce me, you love my body too much,” Jeff claims. Britta throws a pillow at him as he laughs, pleased with himself.

The afternoon meanders in much the same manner. The pair work their way through a bottle of scotch from Jeff’s stash - Jeff stops Britta before beginning and makes her swear up and down that she is not, in fact, expecting his child. She smirks and emphasizes that she is not expecting his child, laughing when his face muddles up in annoyance. With a note of finality, she grabs the bottle from him, swears herself barren and takes a long swig.

“Y’know, I never wanted to have a person,” Britta says as she pilfers through Jeff’s wardrobe. She pauses to pile a scarf onto her ensemble - already outrageous with an oversized hat, suspenders, two pairs of gloves and rain boots. “I mean, I wasn’t going to because it’s dumb and like everyone dies alone so like, why bother.”

“Nut up and die alone!” Jeff cheers from the bed. Britta turns to point excitedly at him. She bounces, then stops when the room spins. Britta turns her gaze upwards, remembering some old trick about how the plainness of a ceiling can stop dizziness. It works - or perhaps, she believes in it hard enough that it works - and she returns to her excitement, jabbing her finger in a point at Jeff repeatedly.

“Exactly!” She shrieks, so excited the word comes out breathlessly. Jeff’s smile turns sad and Britta feels her own heart slow. While she doesn’t know where his mind has gone, she can imagine. Scenes from her games flash through her mind - those she killed, those she saw killed - and Britta finds her excitement dimming to nothing.. The room seems heavy as the pair stare at each other for a moment.

“Be there when I go,” Jeff says finally. Britta nods, frightened in the best way by his gaze. His expression is pleading, honest in his fear and drunkeness, and she shimmies off the gloves - awkwardly tugging at the ring finger as she plies off the bottom pair with the top.

“You have to be when I do, if it works out like that,” she says, stepping to the bed. It’s selfish, but she wants it to be that way. She does not want to comfort him as his breath slows, as his blood spills, as his eyes slip shut. He removes the hat and scarf with a smile she can’t place - it doesn’t look to be a happy smile, but his eyes crinkle in the way they do when his smile is a true one.

He tucks hair behind her ear, cautious. It feels oddly intimate, so much so that Britta nearly laughs at the idea - her husband brushing her hair back feeling like some sacrilegious act despite it all. The innocence of it makes her uncomfortable and she wraps her hands around his neck and draws him close.

“I won’t have to be there. You’re going to win,” he says finally. When Jeff makes bold statements, Britta finds herself almost always believing them. So she kisses him and trusts him and hopes to God he’s wrong.

The next morning, the pair are awoken by pounding on the door. Britta shoves Jeff out of the bed with a kick – earning a glare as he rights himself – and rolls onto her side. Jeff makes as much noise as he can walking to the door, enough that Britta finally sits up and stares at the doorframe, waiting for him to return. The room is dark and it strikes Britta that it must still be nighttime – or at the least, before sunrise. She stretches her arms above her head with a yawn before flopping back down onto the bed. Her heart hammers as she waits, trying to focus on happy memories.

“We’re supposed to head down to the planes. They brought us an escort of soldiers,” Jeff says. He grabs Britta’s knee and pulls her down the bed, ignoring her quiet yelp as he does. She sits up to find him looming close to her.

“It was nice of them to send an escort,” Britta jokes hollowly. Jeff acknowledges the comment with a roll of his eyes before turning around and leading the way down the hall. At the front door, he pauses, rapping his knuckles against the frame of it.

“I’m going to find you as soon as I can after everything starts. Don’t get killed before then,” he says finally. Britta smiles up at him for a moment before grabbing his shirt collar, spinning him and kissing him. Grinning, she ducks around him and into the crowd of soldiers waiting on the doorstep.

“Ditto,” she calls over her shoulder as the soldiers surround her. One grabs her arm roughly, but she barely notices.

Britta stares at her hands as the platform rises. Surprisingly, they do not shake. She anchors them on her thighs, feeling the quaking of the platform as it breaks through to the ground level. The light is nearly blinding – preparation took so long that it must be nearly noon. Heat whooshes in to her, the humidity of it frizzling her hair in its ponytail. Britta smiles slightly as she takes in the environment. Pools of water separate the tributes, waves that are surely artificial break at the spots of land on which they wait. Beyond that, Britta spots an island in the distance. Craning her neck, she finds that on the horizon the water pools seem to stop – forestry begins in its place. She mentally catalogs it all quickly, her thoughts breaking when the countdown starts. Swallowing, she rolls her shoulders to loosen them and taps her fingers against her thigh. They shake now, she notices with a wry grin. The countdown ends. Britta leaps into the water.

When Britta was four, she learned to swim. At six, she was a very good fisher. The water was her home field. Now, she treads water for a second, deciding which direction to head. Shouting makes the decision for her and she dives under as she makes her way away from the noise. The water stings her eyes when she opens them underwater but she swims on, the feel of it reminding her of her childhood. After nearly ten minutes of swimming – coming up for water four times, then diving back under in hopes that anyone around will not see her – Britta’s foot catches on shore. Stumbling, she makes her way up it, her lungs screaming as she goes. The shore is rocky more than sandy and Britta forces herself to keep going until she reaches the tree line. Once there, she drops to her knees, catching her breath.

It is the first time she has truly been grateful for Jeff training her. While she’s winded, part of her knows that she could push herself onward if needed. Righting herself, Britta begins to search for any sort of shelter or supplies.

She follows the tree line for a short jaunt, stopping whenever she thinks she hears something. Two cannons booms in quick succession and she shivers at the sound and its familiarity. She drops to a crouch when she spots a backpack unattended on the beach. As she makes her way to it, her eyes rove the landscape. When she finds no one, she starts to reach for it. Before her hand grasps it, someone slams into her side, knocking her to the ground.

“Not you,” the person shrieks. It takes Britta a moment to place the voice before she realizes that it is Troy. As he climbs off of her, she stares up in confusion.

“We rigged it,” Annie calls. Britta turns to find her sitting in a tree, staring down with an odd expression. The girl does not hop down as Britta stands, refusing the hand that Troy offers her. Annie looks down at Britta coolly, cocking her head to the side as Britta approaches the base of the tree. “You would’ve blown up.”

“Well, thanks,” Britta comments. Annie shrugs a shoulder and turns her attention to their left. Britta follows her eyeline but finds nothing.

“Thank Troy, I didn’t save you,” she says. Britta turns to Troy, who shrugs floppily, a shy grin on his face. Before Britta can thank him, Annie jumps from the tree, grabs Troy’s arm and breaks into a run. Britta starts after them, but before she makes it more than a few seconds, she finds herself once again thrown to the ground. This time, no one has shoved her. As she flies to the ground, it occurs to her dimly that the backpack must have exploded. Then everything goes black.

A cannon booms and Britta jerks up, awakened by the noise. Her cheek stings as she hops up, awkwardly pulling herself up to stand. Her breath comes in short, nervous gasps as she takes in her surroundings. The forestry around her is thick and heavy, but more importantly, it is also entirely unfamiliar. She tries to remember the layout of the land that she did know, but finds that she cannot contain the dizzying fear as she stumbles towards a tree. Someone, she knows, moved her off the beach.

“Calm down,” a voice calls to her. Britta looks up to find Shirley staring down at her crossly. The older woman makes a clucking noise with her tongue before reaching behind her. When she turns back, she’s clutching a knife. Britta steps backwards, nearly tripping over her own feet.

“W-who brought me here?” Britta asks, backing up until she bumps into a tree. Shirley settles her gaze on Britta – a glare that resonates deep in Britta’s bones. Britta swallows. “Was it you?”

“I promised Jeffrey I’d help you two and what with the baby on the way, I couldn’t exactly let you rot out there,” Shirley says. She darts suddenly, plunging the knife into the tree and smiling. Extracting it, she point to the tip of it, where something is smeared against it. “Bug. It kept buzzing, bothering the bejesus out of me.”

“Thank you,” Britta says, trying to return her breathing to normal. She lets a hand rest on her stomach and walks back to Shirley’s side. As she leans in, Shirley pulls away until Britta cups a hand around her ear. “There is no baby.”

“Hmph, so you think,” Shirley says dismissively. Britta blanches at a response and Shirley shoulders her knife again. “Well, let’s go, we’ve got to find your husband.”

Shirley keeps a slow pace, taking care to watch out for other competitors rather than get to a destination faster. It strikes Britta that there is no destination, that Shirley knows the area no better than she does. Regardless, she lets the woman lead.

“So, Shirley, when we were at lunch and you said that you didn’t want us to save you, why-“

“Is this your idea of polite conversation?” Shirley breaks in harshly. She looks over her shoulder as she steps out of the forest. Britta shrugs awkwardly, blinking in the sunlight that surrounds her as she too comes out of the trees. Shirley pauses for a moment before reaching into her bag. She extracts the knife again and Britta charges backwards.

“I am sorry okay? I was curious, forget I asked,” she shrieks, sliding around a tree. Leaning against it, she listens and hears only the breathy sound of Shirley’s laugh. It’s the first time she’s heard it but when she leans around, Shirley has one hand clasped over her mouth, unmistakably laughing.

“You’re so paranoid, sweetie. I was going to pass this to you, just in case,” Shirley jabbed the knife into the ground and looked back up at Britta. She shook her head. “Jeff’s an old friend and I keep my promises. You don’t need to worry about sleeping alongside me.”

“Thanks,” Britta says and Shirley nods her approval. “I won’t ask about the lunch again anyways.”

“Do you know how annoying Jeff found you at first?” Shirley asks, the question called over her shoulder as she turns to walk down the rocky beach front. Britta catches up to her, falling into step easily. Shirley tuts under her breath. “He used to come by my house a lot then, right after you won, and complain about you.”

“When did he stop?” Britta asks. She stops momentarily, put off by an ashy outline in the rocks – obviously where the backpack exploded. Swallowing, she pushes on.

“I never said he did stop,” Shirley says. Britta turns to find a small smile etched into Shirley’s features. Shirley catches her looking from the corner of her eye and shrugs. “I’m a sucker for a good love story.”

“Ever had one of your own?” Britta asks. The smile tightens for a moment before dropping from Shirley’s face.

“You know why most people dislike you, it’s because you say stuff like that,” Shirley says. The words sting slightly, yet Shirley speaks them almost conversationally. After a few moment, Shirley sighs. “Sweetie, the thing is, all of us have love stories. Mine just isn’t one worth telling.”

They walk until nightfall. Britta suggests they camp for the night and Shirley considers the option for a long time before agreeing. The memory strikes Britta. In Shirley’s game film, a supposed ally had tried to slit her throat. That kill had been Shirley’s first.

“I had a brother, Benjamin. He gave me this necklace for my first games,” Shirley says. The pair are camping against the base of a thicker tree on the edge of the beach, each on one side of the tree. Britta brings her knees to her chest on her side nearer the beach.

“It was something he whittled. Benji was only seven but he could whittle better than anyone I knew. It was a tiny tree – the usual sort of symbol for our District, you know – and it had a silly little face carved into one side of it,” Shirley continued. Her voice was soothing and motherly – Britta had no trouble picturing the woman as an excellent caretaker, listening to Jeff’s gripes, taking care of a little brother.

“I won and they asked me to do… Well, the things I imagine they ask every victor to do eventually. I refused because I wanted some shred of decency left. Anyway, the president thought it was my family holding me back, so he took care of the issue,” Shirley stops. Britta considers offering her condolences or confessing her own experience, but Shirley clears her throat before she can.

“Well, it upset me so much, I marched right back down to his office and punched him. I only got one hit in, but, let me tell you, it was a good hit. His men restrained me, he reached over, took the necklace and threw it in the fire. Since then, I’ve refused to do anything they want of me – that includes winning these godforsaken games again.”

Britta scoots around the tree, ignoring Shirley’s half-hearted comment that she’s making too much noise, and holds out her hand. Shirley scoffs before taking it.

“I don’t really have anyone either,” Britta admits quietly.

“Oh sweetie,” Shirley says, her voice bubbly. “That’s just not true. But thank you all the same for trying.”

Britta awakens to a knife against her throat. She freezes up for all of six seconds before grabbing the perpetrator’s wrist and twisting it round. In the same movement, she dives forward, shoving her weight onto theirs, pinning them to the ground. The knife meets their collarbone, blood spraying against her knuckle as she puts weight on it. It comes as naturally as it did the first time around and Britta is as unsettled by her actions and their ease as she was the first time. Panting – not from exertion, but rather from the fear and shock – she relieves some of the weight and looks down at the intruder.

“I’m not your precious baby daddy,” the attacker calls up to her. Britta slits his throat in one quick motion. He gurgles for a moment, then stops. She backs away to the cannon booming and wipes the knife off on her pant leg. Her hands do not shake. The cannon booms again, two times in quick succession. Britta spins in an attempt to find Shirley. In the dark, she cannot find her partner and cold dread fills her as she tries to accept that one of the cannon booms may have been Shirley’s.

“You alright, Shirley?” Britta calls, as loudly as she dares. There’s a beat, quite long, and what was left of Britta’s faith begins to leave her. Shirley hacks a cough and Britta lets out a breath, smiling as she does.

“There were two on me. I think Leonard sent them,” Shirley says. She coughs again. “Bastard.”

“Should we keep moving?” Britta asks. As she speaks, she crouches over her attacker and rifles his pockets. Aside from the knife he used on her –which Britta has already pocketed – she finds very little. A parcel of raisins and a crumbled water bottle line his jacket and she takes the former, deciding to let the latter be taken with the body.

“Good plan, let’s get moving,” Shirley says, her voice raspy. A click sounds and Britta’s blinded for a moment with light. Then, Shirley turns the flashlight elsewhere, leaving Britta blinking out bright dots as she makes her way to the other woman. When she reaches Shirley’s side, Britta can hear the struggle in Shirley’s breath.

“Are you alright? Did they spray you with something?” Britta lays a hand on Shirley’s shoulder. She shakes it off almost immediately, ignoring Britta’s questions. Instead, she takes a large step forward, leading the pair through the forest.

They make it nearly a quarter of a mile, to Britta’s calculations, before Shirley stops. She is so quiet about it Britta would have been none the wiser, save the fact that the beam of light bounces for a moment before dropping. Britta turns to see Shirley wheeze, hands on knees, flashlight forgotten and dropped in the dirt.

“The air,” Shirley croaks, one of her hands flailing until it grabs Britta. She yanks Britta to her. Britta crouches to hear the woman better and finds herself frightened. Shirley seemed – both in Britta’s personal experience and the tapes from her games – to be some sort of insurmountable force.

“Isn’t it less?” Shirley asks. It takes Britta a moment to connect the thought to Shirley’s previous one, but when she does her brow furrows in contemplation.

“I smoked for a while so maybe I’m used to it, if it is,” she says. Shirley pauses in her gasping to stare up at Britta, her expression caught somewhere between anger and shock.

“Not how it works. You’d be worse,” Shirley says, shaking her head as she stands. Her breathing seems to come easier now, a fact Britta is very grateful for.

“What time is it?” Shirley remarks oddly. Britta shrugs, having no way to tell time and her partner makes a face, muttering to herself as they begin the trek anew.

They stop two more times for Shirley’s breathing troubles. When it begins a third time, Britta is nearly to suggest stopping for the night when a twig snaps nearby. She freezes for a second before stepping away from Shirley silently. Nodding her understanding, Shirley continues to try to catch her breath.

Britta picks her way to the noise carefully, holding one of her knives in her fist. Another twig cracks and she dives towards the noise, knife held upwards. The intruder grabs her arm effortlessly, lifting her and slamming her against a tree. One hand wraps around her neck for a moment before Britta manages to tug the knife Shirley gave her out of her pocket. Aimlessly, she jabs with it, grazing skin on the arm holding her up. It’s enough for the person to drop her and she struggles to her feet, dazed in the aftereffects of near choking.

Before she can make another defensive move, her attacker grabs her again. This time, however, the grab is not violent – as arms hold her in a bear hug, trapping her own arms to their sides, she realizes that it is actually Jeff. He mutters quietly into her hair as he clutches her to him.

“You should’ve told me it was you,” Jeff murmurs, his chin resting against her ratty blonde hair. Britta rolls her eyes at the comment, the reaction lost to her husband in the darkness. She pushes away from him, though his hands lock around her upper arms before she can get far.

“Not like you gave me much of a chance. You were going to attack Shirley,” Britta says, a defensive look in her eyes, once again lost to the night sky. Jeff huffs and Britta can clearly imagine his face as he does. It twinges in her gut as she realizes that she’s found him and her hands jump up to his forearms, the action almost a reflex.

“I would’ve seen it was her first,” Jeff says, barreling up to an argument. Britta grins at the familiarity of it, the feel of home in his voice. She knows full well her role in this – she should point some detail in his point that is entirely wrong (he would not have seen her, not first, etc) and he would dismiss it and they would continue on. Her mind runs on the track of what she should do, while her body leans up and pulls Jeff down to her for a kiss.

Her back slams into the tree again moments later, his arms cupping her ass as she wraps legs around him. One of her hands musses his hair while another scratches around his nipple, hitching his breath as it always does. He pulls back from her lips, dropping his own onto her collarbone. His tongue finds the cut from the earlier attack and a growl rises in his throat. Britta tries not to be turned on by his protective reaction – her back arches at the sound regardless.

“Are you two done?’ Shirley asks, her tone beleaguered. Britta jumps at the interruption, head whacking into the tree. Similarly, Jeff’s grip quickly loosens as he untangles from his wife. Blushing, Britta runs a hand through her hair – though, admittedly, the mop of blonde curls was no better before being slammed against a tree trunk. She walks over to join Shirley, apologizing half-heartedly as she approaches and feels Jeff’s hand brush hers. She smiles. He grabs her ass and she yelps.

“Pumpkin, if you two can’t keep quiet, I’ll take my wheezy self elsewhere,” Shirley says, sweet as sugar. Britta stifles a laugh – she knows from her brief experience around the pair, pumpkin is a term used only for Jeff. Beside her, Jeff groans.

“Sorry, Shirley,” he says. He sounds like a schoolboy, caught by his teacher, and for a split second, Britta’s mind snaps to a picture of a much younger Jeff, undaunted by the demons of his past. The idea fades quickly, her resolve stopping the thought from fully forming – imagining Jeff’s past would be too close to imagining their future, she thinks, considering the reality of their future is none.

A cannon booms and Britta nearly falls out of the tree she’s hiding in – she clumsily catches herself on a branch beside her, yelping as she does. On the next branch, Jeff snorts a laugh – she looks over to find him whittling at something in his hand, not even looking up to check if she’s alright.

“Where’s Shirley?” Britta asks as she rights herself. Her cheeks flame as she brushes bark from her sleeve. She finds herself grateful when Jeff keeps his focus on the whittling, shrugging one shoulder in response.

“She went to get supplies a while back,” Jeff says. He pauses in his whittling to look up, face pinched up in thought. “The cannon wasn’t her.”

“I didn’t say it was,” Britta says, suddenly defensive. Jeff turns to look at her and she motions wildly in response. “I didn’t! Don’t look at me like that, it was a simple question.”

“We should check,” Jeff says. He unhooks the rope – his sole contribution to the group was a length of rope that was luckily long enough to use as a tether for all three – and begins his way down the tree. With a groan that’s more of annoyance than effort, Britta unties herself and follows. When she reaches the bottom limb, Jeff holds out his arms to catch her.

“I don’t need that,” she snaps, sliding further back onto the branch. He quirks an eyebrow at the response.

“C’mon, kitten,” he grits through clenched teeth. Britta remembers then of the audience. Their plan – as flimsy as it was – has not panned out in support from anyone. Regardless, she decides it better to play along and leaps toward Jeff. Unfortunately, she jumps too far or with too much force and slams into his chest, avoiding the arms altogether, and knocks them both to the ground.

Jeff hisses in pain as she scrambles off him, standing without offering a hand up to help him. He glares up at her, propping himself on his elbows to properly give her an evil look. His face changes suddenly and Britta spins to find Shirley. Shirley staggers toward her, wheezing as she walks and arms flailing in an effort to grab something. Britta moves to her but Shirley steps away.

“The air, don’t go north,” she rasps. Swallowing, she manages a small smile before collapsing to the forest floor. Britta crouches near her and Jeff crawls over to her. Shirley waves them both off. Britta tries to grab the woman’s hand but she refuses. Finally, Jeff reaches across and tugs Britta to him, wrapping his arms around hers. Britta is shocked to feel her cheeks wet with tears. A cannon booms and around her Jeff yells.

Before Britta can turn to him, Jeff stands, tugging Britta up by her arms. He grabs her hand and begins to run, towards what Britta assumes is the beach. She nearly trips at the speed he keeps, held up only by his ironclad grip. When they reach the beach, they come to a sudden stop, so much so that Britta slams into Jeff’s back.

“Annie,” Jeff says, his voice cautious. Britta peaks around him to find the girl. Her hair is gone – chopped close to her scalp – and her eyes look wild as she stares at the pair of them. She seems to not understand what’s happening, lifting her hands out as if to reach for them. Her hands are bloody, some of it dried and caked into her nails, but most of it wet and dripping down her fingertips. Britta stares, trying to fight the urge to run as Annie has proven herself an ally in the past. Annie’s face shakes itself into a smile for a second before it flattens back into a frown when she catches Britta staring.

“Troy kept bleeding. He wouldn’t stop and he started crying,” Annie’s voice shakes, her hands turning to fists against her sides. Britta moves to step around Jeff, meaning to comfort Annie, but he touches her arm delicately. From the corner of her eye, she watches him shake his head. Something about the action resonates in her and she obliges him.

“He died. I watched him die. No one attacked him, he just started bleeding and crying and now he’s dead,” Annie says, the words spilling over each other. She stops, her breath coming in small shaking gasps, before her eyes widen and she spins suddenly. The back of her shirt is nearly shredded through and Britta gasps at it. At the noise, Annie turns back, knife in hand. Britta stumbles back, apologizing, and Jeff steps in front of her.

“They cheated. You fix it,” Annie says, her voice firm now. With a smile, her eyes slink over Jeff, then Britta. Britta moves towards her and Annie steps back, the action almost reminiscent of a dance. Annie shakes her head, at Britta and – Britta assumes – at the whole situation. Annie’s face stretches out into a grin, a sad mockery of what Britta imagines her actual smile to look like. Annie’s eyes raise to the sky, to whatever camera must hover near. Her voice does not shake when she speaks, it is in fact the most confident Britta has ever heard her. “Because I’m done.”

Then she rams the knife into her throat and chokes on her own blood.

Britta lets Jeff set up a camp on the beach. They have little – a few bananas from the trees, the rope that remains, Shirley’s empty backpack – but Jeff starts a fire and leans against the backpack, using it as a pillow. Britta makes a disgruntled noise and then another when Jeff pats his chest, indicating where she should lay her head, but curls up next to him regardless.

“How many of us are left?” She asks sleepily. Jeff’s arm loops over her side, pulls her to him easily. Relenting, she moves to lean against him, kicking at his leg as a final act of rebellion.

“Enough of us,” he answers. Britta looks up at him, the angle making his face unfamiliar for a moment in the dim firelight. His arm rests against her back and she finds herself oddly wishing that he would grab her ass or try to slide it up her shirt – something to let her pretend this was back in his house instead.

“It’s going to be just the two of us, isn’t it? They’re punishing us for getting married or for helping Troy and Annie or whatever it is that truly pissed them off,” Britta says. Jeff moves and she nearly slips off him with the motion.

“Don’t say that,” Jeff growls. Britta rolls her eyes.

“What else can they do to me? Kill me like they did Shirley or Troy? Drive me crazy like they did Annie?” Britta laughs wildly, pushing off Jeff to sit back on her haunches. “Guess what? I’m already crazy and I’m already dying, so bring it on!”

Jeff leans up to her and pulls her mouth down to his. She topples onto him, his arms clutching at her waist. For a second, as his lips mark their way down her neck almost innocently, she considers pulling away, continuing whatever argument she was trying to start. Then, he bites against her pulse, entirely too hard in the way that makes her move against him, one hand pulling her hair, and all other thoughts blur into oblivion.

Britta wakes up alone. She scrambles to her feet, pulling her knives once she is standing. Down the beach, Britta sees him. Jeff lays on his back, any injuries he has sustained unrecognizable. Britta wonders as she slides to her knees beside him – rocks ingraining themselves in her legs as she does, a vague pain despite it all – if the Capitol has poisoned him or if he ate something of his own accord. Britta leans over him, hair spilling over her shoulders. She looks at him, he smiles up. It’s a broken thing – that smile – but still the true smile, the one she used to have to earn. There was some point she crossed where those smiles – while still wonderful and not to be confused with that forced smile he gave cameras – became a fact of her life, not some prize she had to fight for. The thought strikes her as she rests one hand on his chest, her breathing going ragged for reasons entirely different than his.

“I lied, it is just the two of us,” Jeff says, his voice rough. Britta nods, her eyes tearing up. Jeff’s smile is bloody she notices with a pang. “Give them hell, kitten.”

His hand moves to her face and she jerks away, an old instinct she thought she had forgotten. If he’s hurt by the action, it doesn’t show on his face as it pales.

“I was going to move it,” he says. His hand drops back to her lap and she clasps it in her own. Britta squeezes it, an unspoken apology. Jeff stares up at her dazedly for a second before his eyes change. She knows the reaction well enough that she hears the cannon coming before it actually booms in the sky. For a moment, she blinks back tears, wiping an errant one from her cheek.

Then, she stands. Her mind zooms at memories – Shirley, the kids, Jeff – and comes to rest on her and Jeff on a rooftop. Her stupidly hopeful promise of change sticks in her mind as the helicopter whirls above her. The rungs drop and she stares at them thoughtfully. A sad smile begins, more the promise of a smile than an actual one lighting her face, and she steps onto the ladder.

The sun shines the same as it ever did in the arena. Britta sees it through everything after and realizes what is different. The sun is ever unchanging, a static object. She steps up to a podium, in a room with less people than she’d like. Her hair is loose around her shoulders and Britta smiles proudly at the crowd. The sun is the same. It is her who is different.