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    THE LAST THREE MONTHS had been hell. Tensions in District 2 had grown as the Reaping grew closer. The posters and the interviews for the original tributes had been recalled and taken down, but the lack of a replacement had shaken the people.

    Jupiter soon realised it was simply the only thing they had left to root for. Everyday she stepped into town, something else had shut down or grown cold, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore that something in the supply chain was wrong. She often thought back to her brief visit to District 4 and the way tensions had spilled over there.

    It scared her, the thought of riots in her home District. It scared her more because for the foreseeable future she was stuck in 2.

    She had always had a privileged life as a Victor, she knew that. The Capitol loved her and requested her almost monthly, and she was a mentor who spent weeks away from the house each year. Snow kept her under his thumb with the very promise of ceasing her visits because he knew her truth, but she had performed well, she had kept her head low and her shoulders straight.

    And for that she could not understand why nothing had happened in the last three months since the announcement of the Quarter Quell. No letters or correspondences had come. Everyday she checked the letterbox, and everytime she stepped into the house empty handed of anything addressed to her, Mars' smile grew a little more sinister.

    On the days he was home from work, which was still not as common as it used to be, he made a point of being hard on her. Jupiter suspected he tried to come home more often than necessary just to make her life more difficult, as he had Peacekeeper barracks on site, but Cassia was simply happy to have her son home at all.

    Jupiter hated being in the house, but she had grown to hate the Academy more and more over the last few months. Going there for training or to take her mind off things no longer worked, it simply brought everything to the forefront again, and seeing Brutus made her weary. Society was suddenly very interested in its Victors again, and Jupiter couldn't go into town without being dogged with sympathy or theories.

    For the first time, she was wanting the Reaping. She wanted that day in July to come and go, so things could slip back into routine. She wanted the excitement of the Victors repeating to be gone, and she wanted to be able to get out of the house. She wanted to attend the stupid balls in the Capitol and hug Finnick like she never had before, and waste the night away with him.

    "Ma, are you coming?" Jupiter called on the day of the Reaping, her mother absent from the TV as she put on her best clothes upstairs. The question was silly– everyone needed to attend. Cassia was just taking too long, and it was stressing Jupiter as one of the people most-expected to make an appearance.

    Mars wasn't present for once. As a Peacekeeper, security was more important than ever at the Reaping, and he had been called away in the early hours of the morning. That made it slightly more manageable for Jupiter to get dressed for the event, forest green dress shirt tickling at her throat.

    The floorboards creaking let Jupiter know her mother was on her way, and within five minutes the pair were out the door and making the trip down to the waiting bus. As the esteemed Victors, and as they lived so far away from the District's square, they were provided with transport for the event.

    Being packed in with some of the other Victors and their relatives was never fun, but Jupiter only stayed quiet like her mother. She supposed Cassia might have been used to it from over the years, having been with her father for so many years.

    Their arrival commanded attention in the square, as their IDs were checked by Peacekeepers and they were allowed through. Jupiter briefly wondered if her brother, under a helmet, was amongst the crowd. Cassia disappeared from Jupiter's side as they arrived, as she and the other Victors were escorted up to the front.

    To the left, in a roped off area in front of the stage, stood the female Victors of previous years. Some Jupiter hadn't seen the other day, some she hadn't seen leave their houses in years. Enobaria met her eyes, but Jupiter ignored it as she took her place and faced the crowd, her back to the stage. To their right, the male tributes gathered in a similar roped off area.

    "I never thought we'd be back here," Lyme murmured.

    "I know," Jupiter agreed quietly, ignoring the look Enobaria shot her from down the line.

    "Things are changing," Lyme continued. She had angled herself oddly, and Jupiter realised she might have been keeping her lips from being readable to the many cameras on them.

    Jupiter only looked at the older woman warily, as the square began to quiet down. The Reaping proceeded as normal, propaganda from the war and why the Hunger Games needed to exist played behind them. As if it were a normal Reaping and not an anomaly. And then Aurelia, the District 2 escort, took her place between the bowls of names.

    They were smaller this year, only containing those of the Victors standing in formation before everyone. With bated breath, Aurelia pulled out a name from the female's bowl, taking her time to stare down at it, even if Jupiter already knew the outcome of who would be going back in.

    "Jupiter Marrow."

    Silence.

    No one, especially not Enobaria, shouted 'I volunteer.' The silence stretched on, until the only thing Jupiter could fully hear was her heartbeat in her own ears. She dared to glance down the line at the Victor who had been chosen to go into the arena, but she was suddenly very interested in the crowd.

    Jupiter could feel her expression slip, trying to save face in front of everyone as her world fell apart around her. She wanted to scream, she wanted to dig her fingers into her skin and never lift her head again. But she couldn't, she could only step out of line on the stage and head right, passing those who knew full well she had not intended to play again.

    Her eye caught Enobaria's, and the glint was unmistakable. Jupiter's own were glossed with unshed tears as she turned back to face the front, taking her place beside Aurelia, who looked stunned by the turn of events. Jupiter dared not find her mother's face in the crowd, she only stared straight ahead, just above the horizon, where the mountains met the sky.

    Aurelia finally cleared her throat. "And now for the men." She weakly filtered through the bowl, pulling out a slip. "Lionel–"

    "I volunteer as Tribute," Brutus interjected before the name could even be finished, which was a surprise to everyone but the other Victors. Jupiter watched him move to join her on stage, the older man looking down at her fondly, as she allowed herself a small flicker of relief.

    "Our tributes for the 75th Annual Hunger Games everyone!" Aurelia announced. "Jupiter Marrow and Brutus Lennox!"

    He took her hand in his, Jupiter numb to the movement, as he raised their entwined hands to the sky. The action was met with applause, as Jupiter stared out over a crowd of people she'd never see again.

    The moment only lasted a second before they were being pushed off the stage, and Jupiter could only think the people she wanted to say goodbye to were not in her District. Usually, they would get time in the Justice Building to process and say goodbye to close relatives. But it soon became clear that there was a new policy.

    They headed straight for the train. No cameras, no spectators like there usually were. Aurelia was nowhere to be seen. The train station, that Jupiter had frequented so much, passed through her one last time.

    Brutus moved towards her on the platform. "Stay with me, kid," he grumbled, putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. Jupiter let him, accepting the warmth, no matter how feeble it was at lifting her spirits.

    She had spent so long accepting she would never return, that no one would ever want to send her back in after the mess of her first games, that the idea of something going wrong had not even crossed her mind. Not even irrationally or late at night had she thought anything other than Enobaria volunteering would happen.

    And yet here she was, swept up by the change she had seen simmering under the surface for so many months. But this time it was much harder to ignore.

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    ELSEWHERE, on a train from District 12, Haymitch Abernathy stood before the same tributes he had mentored only a year earlier, though this time with a far heavier disposition. The lack of alcohol in his system was gnawing away at him, but recapping the Victors the two teenagers would have to face was more important than any bottle.

    The recap of the Reapings played for them over dinner, beginning from the top at District 1, the brother and sister duo that had won consecutive years– Cashmere and Gloss. And then onto District 2, which had made even Haymitch's eyes widen in surprise.

    "Brutus Lennox, fitting name for a terrible man. Won the 48th Games when he was sixteen by caving in the last tribute's head," Haymitch explained briefly, looking at the man who had won only two years before himself. "He volunteered of course, probably planned. He'd love to get back out there. Always mentors if he can."

    "I didn't see him last year," Peeta pointed out.

    "Took a year off," Haymitch shrugged. "Wanted to come back for the Quarter Quell. Funny that."

    "Who's the girl?" Katniss asked thoughtfully. She looked younger, dressed in a green dress shirt and black pants, eyes darting around on screen.

    Haymitch sighed. "Jupiter Marrow, 68th Games when she was also sixteen." He gestured to the screen between the pair, who were raising their attached hands to the sky in what must have been a symbol of unity.

    "He mentored her when she was a kid and then she became a mentor and they've worked together since. They're like a pseudo father and daughter– her real father, actually, Victor himself," Haymitch added absentmindedly. The pair in front of him looked worried. Haymitch shook his head abruptly. "Oh, he's very dead. A great man, but very dead."

    "You didn't say how she won," Katniss said quietly.

    Haymitch exchanged a gleeful look with Effie, who only looked put off. "She killed them all, sweetheart," Haymitch said simply. Katniss made a face. "Careers stick together in a pack– you remember. Except Jupiter, here, realised the one thing that matters most in the Games– there is only one Victor."

    Katniss exchanged a glance with Peeta as Haymitch paused dramatically. "She was on watch for the night– and she killed all of them before they could even realise what was happening. It's lightwork from there when you're the only one with actual training."

    Haymitch moved on quickly so as not to miss the recap of District 3's, but the summary of the 68th Games had seemed to put the others off their dinner.

    Katniss might not have believed that. She had seen the Careers firsthand and their sick loyalty to each other, the odd sportsmanship they displayed in a game with only one winner. But she and Peeta stayed up that night rewatching the tapes Haymitch had given them earlier in the year after the Quarter Quell was announced.

    At the time, they had ignored Jupiter Marrow's when training for the Reaping. Haymitch had said something along the lines of she'd never be allowed back out there, so they hadn't bothered with Number 68. It was one less gruesome game they had to watch. But suddenly it was fascinating and horrifying, and necessary.

    Katniss watched for hours as the small sixteen-year-old girl with wide, glowing eyes volunteered for the 68th Games, and slowly turned cold. Katniss watched the switch flip in her, shadowed by the darkness of night and the infrared cameras of the Capitol as she got to her feet, a knife in each hand, and made peace with what she was about to do.

    Katniss thought the screams were the worst part, of allies waking up to violence from someone they had trusted enough to fall asleep beside. Unprepared, they were no match for the small girl, who sat down once it was done, the clearing's quiet deafening compared to the noise only seconds before. Katniss could hear the cannon going off in the back of the recording, five times, and she knew the hovercraft would arrive soon.

    But the camera was solely focused on Jupiter, her eyes empty and hooded, turning one of the knives in her hand. Blood decorated her face, hands and torso, none of it hers, and Katniss felt for a moment that nothing had embodied the spirit of the Hunger Games better before.

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this is officially the explanation of what jupiter did to be shunned so bad and yeah, that's it

next chapter we get some finnick after a small break, and the rest of catching fire is in full swing