Chapter Text
The hovercraft hanger was quiet, almost empty. Only one vehicle was being prepped for takeoff, and less than a dozen people were around.
The takeoff would be unheralded, inconspicuous, as would the two drop-offs the hovercraft would make.
Two trusted people, two sets of forged records, two names replacing all others in two separate glass bowls, and a destroyed Arena. Then the war would truly begin. At last.
Flames swirled up the walls, consuming the house and everything in it. The screams of a woman mingled with the crying of a baby and young child, and beyond the smoke pouring into the street, a cackling laugh sounded.
He could see the man, standing invulnerable in Peacekeeper white, his eyes flashing yellow in the light of the raging fire. He wanted to kill him, to tear him apart with his bare hands.
But he couldn’t move, couldn’t leave the sobbing child or the wailing baby, couldn’t do anything but watch their home burn down.
A young woman walked past, unrecognizable to him if he didn’t already know who she was. The hundred tiny alterations to her face and the changing of her hair color rendered her a new person, a new self to go with her entirely new name. Such extreme measures hadn’t been necessary with the other operative.
It figured that choosing both had been a lottery, a random choice of names from a pool of volunteers. He still hated it.
“Why am I here, Mrs. President?”
She merely gestured at the screen, and someone hit a play button on the scene of yet another Reaping in District Nine. He didn’t understand what was so interesting about it until he heard the male tribute’s name read out, saw the teenager walking through the crowd, heard and saw the younger boy screaming and running towards his brother, being forced back by Peacekeepers.
Devastation, rage, terror, hitting him like a physical blow. “This is my fault,” he whispered when someone paused the video. “I did this to them.”
The woman by his side said, “You can’t know that.”
But she was wrong. This had to be his fault.
He waited until she was mostly done saying goodbye, stepping back from a long embrace and wiping tears from her eyes. Then he approached, hesitant, unwilling to do this again. Except this would be different. This was planned.
He’s too young, he thought was the eighteen-year-old gave him a small smile. This is a waste. This is wrong. I shouldn’t allow this.
“Watch your back,” he said gruffly.
She sniffled, he refused to shed any tears, and their boy said, “I will. I promise. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Sammy crying, Azazel laughing, Dean swinging a black blade downward.
John Winchester wrapped his arm around Kate and watched Adam disappear into the hovercraft, destined for a Hunger Games arena. He watched, and made a silent promise, like all the ones he’d never managed to fulfill before.
Whether or not he comes back, I will burn the Capitol down.
This time, at least, he knew he wouldn't be alone.