How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Katniss/Gale, Katniss/Peeta)

Title: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Author: jacyevans
Summary: AU - Katniss kills President Snow, and his granddaughter participates in the seventy-sixth annual Hunger Games. Everything changes. Everything stays the same.
Ships: Katniss/Gale, Katniss/Peeta

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is a tragic and moving AU fic. It shows a different side of the ending of Mockingjay from when President Snow is overthrown. The basic premise is  that Snow's granddaughter is thrown into a final Games, which does go ahead - but this fic goes deeper than that. Jacyevans uses it as a way to make her characters express things they didn't in canon.

There is a sense of horrible revenge in the air, that Coin and everyone else on the rebellion's side is just as blood-thirsty and ruined as the people they fought against as the Games are set up for the final time. Characters are eager to watch Skylark Snow die. With Coin not immediately dealt with by Katniss, this horror continues.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Plutarch’s voice carries through the streets, echoing off of the empty houses, “May I present the victor of the seventy-sixth annual Hunger Games: Skylark Snow.”

Skylark raises her face to the sky, throws back her head. A hovercraft blocks the sun overhead, and she climbs onto the lowered ladder, letting it carry her up and away, out of the arena and into safety.

Into President Coin’s waiting hands.

She laughs, because she can’t do anything else, lets her arms fall to her side. Her blood slides in soaking rivulets down her legs to drip onto the floor.

What does it matter? She’s dead anyway.


Jacyevans shows a final parting of Katniss and Gale, and Prim being mourned; Buttercup makes an appearance and Peeta and Katniss continue on. It's got so many canon elements which are changed into quiet moments that really make it feel like the series has come full circle.


“We survived," Peeta says quietly, standing at her side. "Real or not real?”

Katniss glances at him, watches his lips twitch into a smile. My name is Katniss Everdeen, she thinks. I am seventeen years old. I live in District Twelve. This is what I fought for.

“Real,” she says, and takes his hand.


How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is a carefully transformed alternate take on the last few chapters of Mockingjay; I'm sure some of you would even preferred this more nicely rounded off version. It's heartbreak all over again with a simple sentence structure, and it is wonderful.


Happy reading!
~ Little Miss Mionie