[Flowers] • The Hunger Games

Nineteen

Asteria locked herself in her room for hours on end. She'd bothered the avoxes to bring her a second TV to her room. On one played the current games, on the other were recaps and highlights. Ways each victor had won over the years.

Madge was slowly getting better from the medicine. She'd had another seizure during the time Gale had run for the feast. The medicine turned out to be an injection, a shot that came with instructions. Gale had given it to her the moment he came back. He was soft, with her. More tender than she thought he could be. Asteria didn't know where the act ended and true feelings had started. But she couldn't concern herself with all of that now.

Her eyes watched the past games more closely than the current one. Herself, Finnick, Johanna. Beetee and Wiress, Cashmere and Gloss. Haymitch. Mags. Anything at all that she might be able to use, she made a note of.

There was a way out of this. There had to be. A way to keep Seneca from taking back his own rule hidden in the very fabric of the games. There'd be a loophole, a loose string she could pull and unravel it all.

All she had to do was find it.

Haymitch's games played on screen. Though he was an old, bitter bastard now, an angry alcoholic who always managed to get on her last nerve- he'd been rather handsome when he was younger. Broad shoulders, clean-cut blond hair. He was undoubtedly from the Seam, or at least one of his parents had been. He looked well-fed, compared to the other three tributes from the district that year.

The second Quarter-Quell. Where twice the amount of tributes were reaped, with only one winner. Now here they were, with the regular 24 tributes- and the game makers said there could be two. In the grand scheme of things it seemed so unfair to the other districts. 47 dead kids, and Haymitch was the one who walked. 22 dead kids, and Gale and Madge would be the ones to return. Disproportionally making 12's past victors all the more tragic.

There was one other victor before Haymitch, she remembered. Though she supposed that would've had to be whoever won the tenth games. In all her rewatches, she'd never seen the tenth games all the way through. She'd strung some clips here and there- but she honestly wasn't even sure she'd seen all of the tributes, let alone the full cut of those games. It bothered her sometimes. That missing game. But, it was 64 years ago now. She hardly thought anything that could've happened would've played too much into the way the games were now.

Of course the universe was only kind to those from their district when it made them look like monsters to the rest of Panem. Giving them the opportunity to survive, if they were willing to scorn their own names and become hated by the nation as a whole. One more sick joke at the expense of their impoverished district.

A small knock came to her door.

"Come in." She muttered, absentmindedly. She hardly needed to look up to know it was Finnick coming to pester her. As awful as it was to say, his own tributes had died before day two bad even begun. About a week and a half ago by Panem time, and over two weeks by the arena's time. He didn't have much else to do these days besides going to parties and coming to bother her.

Though, she couldn't really find it within herself to mind.

"You're...not as excited as I thought you'd be." He noticed immediately.

He came to sit on the edge of her bed as she sat at the end of it, scribbling and crossing out pages and reworking ideas. She needed to see them written down to decide if they were good or not. And so far, none of them were. She'd danced with the idea of telling Gale to kill the other tributes before Seneca could announce the change. But, that wouldn't work. He'd wait to tell them until it was just the two of them. Make it all the more tragic, lover against lover, for the Capitol to watch. Or she considered telling them to go off on their own. Let the odds truly decide. But that would be letting Snow win- something Asteria would not let happen this time. Those kids had fought too hard just to be cheated out of their happy ending.