One shots

THG Oneshot 10: 58 Games

This was requested by @greasysaevior on AO3. I hope you like it. As always, I don't own the characters.

Mags Flanagan was 23 when she married Woof. They were fortunate enough to have names that were both very similar, and, to the Capitol citizens, were odd District names. So when Mags abandoned her maiden name and took on Woof's, the capitol did not bat an eye, simply assuming that they'd had the woman's name wrong originally, because of how silly those odd little District surnames were anyway.

She knew that Snow was far more intelligent than that, but he'd paid her little mind until he'd become president and by then, it was far too late for him to do anything about it. After all, he didn't assume power until the 24th games, and by then, they'd been married for 7 years.

It had been so long since then. So many years, many long years.

Things was messy for a while, as the Capitol set up the mentor system, and then again when District 4 became a Career district.

That had been some of their worst spats, because neither of them truly yelled or spoke about it. They just sat together awkwardly, Mags leaning on Woof, his arm around her shoulder, neither speaking. They sat tensely, spoke unsurely.

"Maggie, are you alright?"

"Yes, dearest. Are you?"

"I will be."

It wasn't anything personal between them. They simply didn't know where they stood. It took them an awkward few games seasons before they found rhythm again.

It's not long after that they both feel the sudden absence of children in their lives. During the 31st games, Lyme from 2 wins, and returns as a mentor with a steely surety, much as many of the previous Victors had. But then the Victors start winning differently. The games shift from being a competition solely of strength and bloodthirsty to a competition of who can survive and take the lives of others, not only through pure physical strength, but through creativity and playing their own strengths as well.

It's how Beetee Latier from 3 wins in the 44th, using his intelligence to make himself scarce until he obtained the materials needed to play his strengths of engineering. He sets an electric trap in the river of his arena and guides the pack into it when it's only him and the 6 pack members left. All 6 Careers are shocked to death, leaving a horrified fifteen year old boy from 3 alive on the other side of the river bank.

When he arrived to mentor the next year, all Mags could see was a lost 16 year old, who was suddenly tasked with teaching a boy older than him on how to survive in a game where no low level district had the odds to do so.

That was what started her on determinedly "adopting" each lost new tribute.

She and Woof had already taken on parental roles for Seeder from 11, the girl having been an equally lost 17 year old girl when she arrived to mentor, despite the girl only being perhaps 10 or so years younger than then, fifteen at most.

From there it was easy to keep going. She takes Beetee under her wing, Woof eagerly helping the boy as well. When Beetee brings home his own tribute, a young woman named Wiress Dart, five years later in the 49th, Mags takes the girl in as well, Woof helping yet again.

Haymitch Abernathy wins in the quell the next year, and since he has no mentors to care for him, Mags and Woof step up.

Chaff from 11, Meghan and Sam from 6, Brutus from 2, Blight from 7, and Cecelia from 8 join them all one by one before the 60th Games.

It's then that Mags starts to feel old age settling in. She's 65 at the start of the 60th games. Woof rests with her, as they watch the Capitol create an attraction out of a scared child, as they force a monster of their own creation into a little girl forced to kill.