Work Text:
Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?
Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?
Were you writin' a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy?
In fifty years, will all this be declassified?
★
Beetee is the one who finds District 12's missing victor.
He hadn't intended to. It was meant to be just another boring day of sorting through post-war artifacts in hopes of finding something of value. The Capitol was breathing on Beetee's neck to donate something, anything to the Games-themed museum that was under construction. The thought of the project made him feel quite sick.
He was reflecting on the ethics of it all when he accidentally knocked over a box of rejected relics. Beetee cursed underneath his breath and apologized profusely to the lab technicians who jumped at the sound. One of the interns got to her knees to help Beetee clean up.
The light hit a compact disk in the intern's hand, temporarily blinding Beetee. He squinted, irked, and caught sight of the jewel case right before it dropped back into the bin.
"Wait!" Beetee cried. The intern froze.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "But can you hand me that CD, please?"
The intern did as she was asked. Beetee turned over the CD case, wondering how the district's quality checkers could have missed something so potentially valuable. A single piece of tape gave away what might be inside: From the desk of Dr. Volumnia Gaul.
Beetee's heart pounded in his chest. Dr. Gaul had been Head Gamemaker, a professor of military theory, the head of the Capitol's Experimental Weapons Division. Anything from her personal archives was bound to be crucial to Panem's history.
Beetee hooked up a CD drive to his laptop and waited anxiously for it to load. His enthusiasm waned a bit when all he found was a single file. He'd been hoping for more; military blueprints, game-making files. Still, he thought as he pulled up the video. It was better than nothing.
Lucky Flickerman appeared on the screen, his arms extended in welcome. There was a bright candy smear on his palms.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Lucky. "Let the Tenth Hunger Games begin!"
Haymitch is the one who understands just how important Beetee's find is.
He's grateful that Beetee decided to come to him first. Knowing the Capitol, they would have cast the video aside. They would have probably insisted that it was of little consequence.
Haymitch knew better.
"I'll be damned," he mumbled as District 12's female tribute raced across the derelict arena, her hair flying behind her. Her male counterpart stumbled after her, foaming at the mouth.
"Rabies," said Beetee softly. "After the war, it was a big thing in the Capitol. Dozens died before a vaccination program was put in place."
Haymitch bit back the urge to tell Beetee that rabies lasted far longer in the outer districts. The Capitol had been strategic about which districts got help. They held back the vaccines until the death toll was undeniable and, even then, they did little to control the wild animals roaming the fringes. Haymitch lost a couple of cousins to the disease. He remembered it well.
For some reason, though, he couldn't remember this tribute.
When Haymitch won his games, the Capitol gave him a list of all the District 12 tributes before him. He had felt overwhelmed by all of it— this extensive record of slaughter— only to be dumbfounded by a year that was seemingly struck from record.
"Hey," he had told the escort assigned to him. "This year's missing."
The escort peered over his shoulder. "That was forty years ago, wasn't it?" she responded in a thin voice. "We don't really know much about the tenth. I suppose the Capitol forgot to keep record."
Haymitch, at all of sixteen years old, remembered finding it odd. The Capitol 'forgot' many things. It forgot to send food rations. It forgot to allot funds for infrastructure development. But it never forgot the Games.
Seeing that Haymitch was far from convinced, his escort threw him a bone. "That was the year the other tribute from your district won," she offered. "The people from 12 should know about it more than I do."
Haymitch might've endeavored to find out more about the 'forgotten' tribute if President Snow hadn't ordered his loved ones dead.
Here she was now, though. A thing of the past brought back to life. Many tributes weren’t half as lucky.
Haymitch watched intently as the Gamemaker's multicolored snakes wove around the humming tribute's dress. "They aren't attacking her," Haymitch told Beetee. "Why aren't they attacking her?"
"I... don't quite know yet," District 3's brightest admitted. "I've watched the Games a couple of times and there's no indication that she did anything differently. Maybe it's the singing?"
Haymitch snorted. "Singing doesn't repel snakes, Latier," he said.
"Do you think it's possible that she was a plant?" Beetee mulled. "The Capitol does that sometimes. Sending in someone orchestrated to win, to send a message of some sort. That could be why there are no records of her."
Haymitch was about to retort when the tribute began to sing. Honest-to-goodness sing.
"You're headed for heaven, the sweet old hereafter, and I've got one foot in the door," she crooned, her voice clear as a bell. "But before I can fly up, I've loose ends to tie up right here in the old therebefore."
The song went on for a minute. It could have been forever. The arena full of snakes thrummed along, swaying and hissing to the tribute's ballad. Haymitch barely heard any of it because, suddenly, he wasn't in Beetee's lab at District 3. He was back at home, seven years old, writhing in pain from the pertussis that his family was too poor to treat. His grandmother had been stroking his hair, trying to comfort him.
Singing was a rarity in their household. They had all sworn off music for reasons that Haymitch never really comprehended. But his grandmother carried a tune better than all of them, and it was the only thing that put Haymitch to sleep.
"I'll bring the news when I've danced off my shoes, when my body's closed down, when my boat's run aground, when I've tallied the score and I'm flat on the floor," Barb Azure Abernathy had hummed tearfully. "Right here in the old therebefore, when nothing is left anymore..."
The Haymitch of present-day blinked once, then twice. Beetee had paused the video.
"Are you alright?" he asked Haymitch, concerned.
Haymitch touched his face. He hadn't realized that he'd been openly crying.
The screen featured a tight shot of District 12's tribute. Her gaze was defiant, hungry. Haymitch recognized it all too well.
"Not a plant," he croaked to Beetee. "That's a tribute, through and through."
Peeta is the one who convinces Katniss to watch the Games.
"Is it really so hard to believe that I want nothing to do with the Games ever again?" Katniss demanded. They had been trying to enjoy their dinner when Peeta brought it up again. "Peeta, you of all people..."
He reached across the table to place a comforting hand over hers. "I wouldn't be so insistent if I didn't think it was important," he said softly, soothingly. "But I think you really need to see this one."
Katniss rolled her jaw. There was always something new that she had to see. The doctors were on her side, for once, saying that extensive involvement in the post-war rebuilding efforts might not bode well for her 'post-traumatic stress disorder'. It was a mouthful of a disease that Katniss didn't like bringing up too often. When she first heard of it, she merely thought that each surviving victor likely had enough PTSD to go around.
Still, Beetee spent his days poring over possible items for memorials. Annie spoke about Finnick at events across Panem. Even Haymitch, who once agreed so vehemently that the Games ought to be a thing of the past, had fallen down the rabbit hole of Beetee's latest find.
"I don't care about District 12's first victor," Katniss lied. "Her Games were lost to obscurity. So what? It happened to so many others before her and after her."
"She was Snow's tribute."
Katniss reeled back. "What?"
Peeta cleared his throat. He seemed to realize that he was treading delicate territory. "It took a lot of research, but Beetee and Haymitch found some answers over at the University," he said. "A mentorship system was introduced during the Tenth Hunger Games. The mentors were chosen from Capitol Academy students and Snow was one of them. His name was right next to the victor's."
"Is that why..."
"Her games were covered up?" Peeta shook his head. "We’re not sure. It happened around seventy years ago, so there's not a lot of people who can talk about it."
The two sat in silence for a minute.
"Snow mentored her," said Katniss slowly. "And she won."
"And she won," Peeta confirmed.
"Did he mentor anyone else?"
"Records show that Snow became an apprentice Gamemaker afterwards. It's possible that this is the only tribute he ever mentored."
"What happened to the tribute?"
Peeta faltered. "I did some digging. District lore says the mayor had her killed for causing trouble, but there's no proof of it. Just that she was never seen again."
A small part of Katniss felt a twinge of envy. That could have been her. She had thought of running from it all; leaving the district, the Games behind. How differently would her life have turned out then? Without Peeta. Without the Capitol's downfall. It had only been a couple of years ago, and yet it felt like an entire lifetime away.
She could have easily turned out like Lucy Gray Baird.
Maybe that's why Katniss squeezed Peeta's hand and, with a sigh, said, "Alright."
"I'll watch her Games," she said. "But it will be the last Games you ever make me watch."
Peeta kissed the back of his wife's palm. "Promise," he said. He meant it.
Livia Cardew-Snow is the only one who remembers Lucy Gray Baird for who she is.
The surviving victors unanimously agreed to release the lost recording of the Tenth Hunger Games. Games fanatics were overjoyed. The general public was indifferent.
But Livia was furious. She watched the re-run of the Games on her home television, feeling decades worth of rage build up from inside her.
Livia had escaped lifetime imprisonment. Perhaps Paylor, the District 8 insurgent turned Panem President, knew that house arrest would be a more suitable punishment. It was a fate worse than death for a Capitolian raised to be a socialite.
Livia watched, incensed, as Lucy Gray tired the remaining tribute to death. She had been a smart one, that Lucy Gray. Charming the Capitol. Singing to the snakes. Livia had never been convinced. She'd always thought of Lucy Gray as someone conniving and evil. A showman, at best. But a deserving Victor? Never.
But those were not the reasons why Livia despised District's 12 songbird.
The real reason was the look on eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow’s face when the camera cut to him, announcing him and his tribute as the winner of the Tenth Hunger Games.
Coriolanus had never looked that happy in all the years Livia knew him. Not on their wedding day. Not when she birthed their children. Not when he was inaugurated president.
Livia knew the rumors, of course. That a romance had blossomed between Coriolanus and Lucy Gray. That he became a Peacekeeper to follow her to District 12. That she went missing, never to be seen again, and Coriolanus’ grief was so deep that any mention of her would put him in a foul mood.
Livia had thought she could be smart, too. She hired a private investigator to track Lucy Gray down. She had tea with Hunger Games conspiracists, where they discussed Lucy Gray’s win. She even took singing lessons!
All of her efforts were in vain. Lucy Gray haunted the Snow's marriage. Livia learned to stop bringing her up. At one point, she also gave up looking for her.
To say that Livia lived her life second best to Lucy Gray would be generous. Snow cared for no one else.
Livia’s only consolation had been that no one remembered Lucy Gray, or the once-happy Coriolanus Snow. Now, even that was being taken away from her.
She screamed and screamed until her throat was hoarse. She hurled furniture at the television. She cussed out Lucky Flickerman, and Volumnia Gaul, and Katniss Everdeen, and her husband.
Her poor, dead husband, who let a girl from the outer districts destroy everything. Twice.
Her husband, only in name. Her husband, who loved a ghost until the day he died.
Her husband, her husband. The smallest man who ever lived.
★
And in plain sight you hid
But you are what you did
And I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive
The smallest man who ever lived