A/N: This was written for The Ice Within. You, my dear, are a lovely person. I love you so much, as you already know. Even though I'm posting this really late, I hope you enjoyed your birthday.

I wrote this in December. But I'm only getting around to posting it now; I'm so smooth. 8D

This is a three-shot, by the way. I hope you enjoy.

Steadier Footing

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Part 1

It starts with a cough.

Just a small wheeze, really. Nothing unusual for someone living in District 12. Everyone gets sick from time to time, and it doesn't worry Katniss Everdeen too much. She still hunts and goes about her life, putting food on the table in the only way she knows how.

But of course, the cough progresses. It becomes a runny nose and rattling breath. Soon enough, it feels as though she's getting punched at her ribs and organs from the inside out. A week later, each lungful of air hurts like shattered glass resting in her lungs.

So she does what all poor(er) District 12 people do. She gets help from her mother, which means herbal tea and bed rest.

It's not like they have anything better to give Katniss, anyway. There's only so much that can be done on a budget.

The cough persists.

In the mornings when Katniss opens her eyes, she finds blood smeared on her hand, stained on her pillow and resting on her chin. The taste of copper is heavy in her mouth.

Naturally, it worries her. If she died, who would feed Prim and her mother?

Katniss can only grit her teeth and deal with it. She has, admittedly, been closer to death before. She tells herself that if she could survive so much, a silly chest-ailment wouldn't kill her. She's not afraid of death itself, but more of what would happen in her absence. She makes Gale promise to help her family out of she dies.

"You're not going to die," he hisses. "You're stronger than this."

Katniss rolls her eyes – sighing would hurt her chest too much.

"Reaping," she chokes out.

Gale knows her well enough to understand. "Yeah, I'll take care of Prim. Although she's more nervous about you at this point than she is about her first reaping." Gale's eyes are filled with worry.

Katniss nods and lies back down on the hard mattress, trying – and failing – to get comfortable.

Three days pass. Her breathing becomes easier.

It's time for the reaping. Katniss is formally excused to prevent spreading of her disease. The fact that she spattered some blood on one of the Peacekeeper's shoes, and the other one was a customer of hers probably did help her case just a bit.

Of course, Katniss wants to be at the reaping. It's Prim's first, and will most definitely be the one Prim will be most nervous for. Katniss frets over the fact that she's not there to tell Prim that the odds are definitely in her favour, and that she can't shoot her sister a reassuring smile the moment before the Reaping Ball is spun. She doesn't even consider that Prim might actually get reaped. The chances of that happening are so slim that it's hardly a concern.

She sighs, ignoring the faint taste of copper in her mouth and falls into a sort of peaceful doze. For a brief half-an-hour, the Games doesn't occupy her mind.

When the sound of the door opening awakens her, she feels slightly better – then she sees her mother's expression and knows that someone is about to die.

"Gale?" She rasps, her heart sinking in her chest, tearing and peeling everything inside of her as it falls.

Mrs. Everdeen shakes her head. The realisation dawns on Katniss; there's only one person that would make her mother look so worn, so lost. So much like a destroyed mother.

Prim.

Katniss can only suck in her breath with shock – it feels as though crying would break her chest. Her mother sits down at their kitchen table and sobs into her hands. Katniss gets onto her feet uneasily, trying her best to hobble to where her mother is. Katniss just barely makes it to her seat, trembling with exhaustion.

She tries to comfort her mother, she really does. But this isn't a situation where comfort couldn't possibly exist. Prim was about to die.

Deaddeaddead.

Sweet, innocent Primrose. Gone.

Katniss listens to her mother sobbing. If Katniss's mind had a sound right now, it would be what she was hearing.

But Katniss is too empty to cry. It feels like it would snap her ribs – which wouldn't be too bad, seeing that her heart is already broken too.

Katniss puts her arms carefully around her mother, the same way someone might hold a paper statue.

After what feels like hours, they must go to say their goodbyes to the youngest of the Everdeen clan. Her mother gives Katniss another dose of her herbal tea and helps her towards the designated building, the pair of them hobbling weakly, their faces tear-tracked, clearing little rivulets of their skin from coal.

They are ushered into a room by two Peacekeepers. Katniss's eyes are instantly drawn to Prim, sitting on a velvet couch. She looks so small and frail, tugging nervously at her immaculate dress.

It's easy to tell that she's been trying not to cry and put on a brave face – it is practically a mirror of Katniss at that age.

Katniss's voice is raspy and it hurts to speak, but she doesn't care. "I'm so sorry, Prim, this is my fault and Ishould'vehelped –" Katniss's words blend together and her throat closes up, refusing to let her abuse her voice any more.

Primrose comforts her – how wrong is that? Primrose is the one dying, not Katniss. "This wasn't your fault," she says. "I still love you. You still love me. That's what counts."

Love is what counts? What a joke. Prim's dead and breathing, and no love will ever make that better. Katniss ignores Prim's invalid argument. "If I was there," she pauses, regaining her breath. "I could've volunteered –" She cuts off.

This. Is. Her. Fault.

Primrose shakes her head. "Well, nothing we can do. Besides, you've got a place here in Twelve. Tonnes of people here count on you to get food into our District. Think of Gale's family when he leaves for the mines."

Katniss may be more needed, but Prim will certainly be more missed. They both know it. It hangs in their silence and ripples in the air. Katniss tries to speak, but her throat is closing up.

There are no promises to come back home. No reassurances, no crazy plans of survival. They say their goodbyes and final farewells, because they all know that this is the end of their family. It's a joke to think that the last two Everdeens could ever be functional together and alone.

.

Waiting for the Games to begin is the worst part of it all – well, at the beginning it is. Seeing Prim die on national television is far worse, but for now waiting is the worst agony Katniss has ever felt. There's a period of silence when all the screens of Panem simply replay the reapings while the tributes get transported to the Capitol to become pretty and false and clean.

It takes Katniss a week to recover to the point where she can go slowly hunting again. She spends the days determined to heal herself, drinking whatever remedies put in front of her. On her first day back in the woods, she collapses after shooting some wild dog. It takes her several minutes before she can move on.

Even though every part of Katniss's world has deteriorated, every star in her sky has gone out, many thing still stay the same. She goes to school. Hunts. Sells her game. Every now and then she gets a tap on the shoulder or a muttered; "I'm sorry" from someone she doesn't quite know.

She pulls herself into her own world, retracting herself from Gale, which is easy since he spends almost all of his time in the mines. She tries to be happy for the relationship flowering between him and Madge, but Katniss just feels empty. Drained of life.

For their brief meetings on Sundays, Gale does try to help her. But she's still reeling from Prim's death sentence, and he may as well try to comfort concrete for all the reaction he gets from her. She hunts for his family too, letting her arrows shoot through the animals and killing them quickly and painlessly, like she hopes Prim will die.

…She hates herself for hoping that her sister will perish quickly. But it's the world they all live in, and no amount of complaining or mourning will change that. Katniss knows this better than anyone else.

She can't think anymore – well, she refuses to, at least. She sweeps through the motions each day while waiting for the Games. Her marks at school rise and her amount of kills get bigger and bigger, and so does her income. Their need for food has dropped by a third, she painfully notes each time they cook up too much food or accidentally lay down an extra plate at their table.

Mrs. Everdeen does the same as her daughter, throwing herself into work. The pair hardly speak to each other because they both know there's nothing to hold their family together anymore. They just try to keep out of each other's way and go about their lives, knowing that they're not living at all.

Eventually, it is time for the opening ceremony. Crowds gather anxiously around screens, waiting to see what ridiculous things their tributes will wear this year. Katniss is sort of excited to see Prim again, alive and safe for now, but also terrified of what the Capitol might've done to her.

Katniss glances at her mother sitting next to her. They're in an auditorium filled with tired District people shooting piteous glances at the pair, all thinking; I'm glad that's not us.

Katniss doesn't blame them one bit. They've got good sense.

The speeches are made. The chariots make their rounds. The tributes blur before Katniss's eyes in a mass of already-done outfits and traditions, and soon it's District 12's turn.

She holds her breath. How much would the Capitol have changed her little Primrose? Would she even recognise her sister?

The pair soar onto the screen, cutting through the dark in a blaze. All Panem sees is fire. Katniss's first reaction is to scream and tell them to put Prim out, but she quickly realises that she's is just fine under her sparks.

The blonde boy – who is Peeta Mellark, she finds out from the caption on the screen – steadies Prim on the chariot when she stumbles. She smiles gratefully at the boy and Katniss thinks that they could be siblings, with their blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. Prim doesn't look anxious, just innocent and sweet and glowing. For a moment, the whole charade looks innocent, like any bright sparkly parade.

Katniss mentally kicks herself. They're lining up the dead underneath the pretty dresses and painted makeup.

The interviews drag by. Prim's interview is smooth, soft and pretty, and some of the Capitol people wipe away tears. No-one likes tribute dead from the start, and Prim is sure to be one of those. Maybe she'll get some sponsors out of pity. Or maybe no-one will bet on her at all, which is the most likely situation. Katniss can't crush that tiny hope inside of her, though. That tiny seed of light says that as long as Prim is still alive, things will be more or less bearable.

Prim talks about her nervousness for the Games, as well as her life back home. Katniss wants to break at the mentions of her and life in District 12, because every word Prim says is embedded with the thought of never coming back.

She's in the Capitol. In the Games. She's about to die.

Katniss leaves the screening room before the last interview is done. Peacekeepers assault her and she hisses at them, clawing. They drag her out onto the street and beat her somewhat gently, probably out of pity. She'll only be bruised and slightly bloody in the morning.

She doesn't care as she pushes herself off the gravel and hobbles home. The pain actually feels kind of nice. It distracts her.

If she had stayed, she would've heard Peeta Mellark's words about his fellow District 12 tribute. "If it comes down to Primrose or me, it'll be her. She has a lot of people that care for her back home, and I want to make sure she gets back to them safely."

If sending Prim back in a white coffin is a 'safe' return, then Peeta would live out his wish.

.:o:.

The day the Games start is the day Katniss is sure to watch her sister die in the name of entertainment.

She reckons that the bloodbath would be the safest way to go out; they're quick deaths.

The canons go off and Prim runs like she is being chased by hell – which would be true if any of the other tributes paid attention to her – and disappears into the forest before most of the tributes leave their plates. Her speed was one of Prim's few talents that would help her in the arena.

Katniss deflates. If a Career finds her now, her death will be slow. Despite that, a small part of her is relieved, that crazy part of her mind that's irrational and stupid and breeds hope.

Katniss watches eleven people die. Some are stabbed, others torn, sliced, ripped. There was one particularly creative death involving two bodies and the Cornucopia, but Katniss hardly sees it.

Prim all but disappears from Panem's view as the days tick on. She survives on her knowledge of plants and ability to stay hidden.

In the first week, her only encounter is one with a boy called Thresh. He finds her under a bush, looking angry.

"Children don't deserve to die in the Games," he tells her, looking disgusted. "Next time we meet, Twelve, I promise to give you a swift death. But I hope I won't be the one who has to do it."

Prim scurries off and Thresh heads back into his grasslands. After that, Prim's camera-time is limited to brief flashes in overviews just to reassure Panem that there's one more obstacle that needs to be taken care of.

The Mellark boy receives a lot more attention from the cameras. He originally paired up with the Career team, the only one wasn't spectacularly bloodthirsty. On day three, he managed to kill three of them using a rotten tree trunk. A voice-over remarks dryly; "Watch out, Panem, it seems we have a potential Victor that uses nothing but his wits, and apparently, balls carved from granite."

Katniss hopes Peeta doesn't win. She wants him dead. She wants every single tribute dead except for Prim.

Does that make her a bad person? Most likely.

The Games drag for another week, with the Mellark boy nursing a knife-wound near a river and Prim avoiding pretty much as many people as possible.

Their paths eventually meet. She stumbles across him while looking for food, while he's hidden in mud. They exchange some friendly banter, their conversation easy and light in front of the cameras. They smile without joy and laugh dryly while she helps him treat his wound. She does far better of a job that what Katniss would ever be capable of.

She helps him hobble into a nearby cave and starts with the more delicate procedures of cleaning out the wound properly. While she works, Peeta tells the story about Katniss and the bread. Prim's eyes shine.

He then confesses his love to Katniss.

The girl he loves in Twelve sits in her seat, reeling from shock. She dismisses it as a lie. Why else would he tell Panem something so personal? It's probably some survival tactic.

.

Two weeks go by, achingly slow. More and more people die. The pair of them befriend Rue before a spear rips through her too-young body.

They have a two-person funeral for her. Katniss cries quietly to herself, wondering if that would be Prim's fate.

Eventually, they're down to the final three. Foxface, Prim and Peeta. Katniss has already forgotten the names of the dead tributes.

Katniss starts to hope weakly. Actually, it's a roaring sensation that she tries to ignore, but some part of her believes that this Game might not be so bad after all.

There's a feast, one made to drive the remaining tributes together. Before they leave, the pair gather some food from nearby bushes. Katniss guesses that they're genetically engineered to spawn multiple types of berries, since Peeta collects a handful that ranges from dark blue to bright red.

He doesn't eat any of the few he can find, but gives them to Prim instead. She takes them happily and chews them, offering the rest to Peeta.

Before she can even uncurl her fingers, she drops dead.

Katniss can't scream.

The berry-juice looks like blood. She feels sick.

...That's a lie. She can't feel anything, except for the funny feeling in her chest that's stopping her from breathing.