Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

001. Silk & Gold

The familiar brisk knock reminds me that I'd changed into my "presentable" reaping clothes too early. My current attire isn't best suited to welcome these particular callers, and it's not like I could blame them. The few yards of white silk for one occasion could well be worth as much as durable winter clothes for all their siblings.

I still open the back door with determination that matches their steely eyes.

"Pretty dress," says Gale Hawthorne instead of a greeting.

Katniss Everdeen tacitly reprimands him with a scowl from her rightful place beside him; where she stands in a worn outfit and the trademark leather jacket she inherited from her father. For a foolish second, I wish I could trade it for my white silk dress and fancy pink ribbon. It's not like wearing her clothes could warrant me something other than a hostile glare from her companion, but I allow myself a moment of indulging the fantasy.

Then I just press my lips together to hide my disappointment at the scathing nature of Gale's compliment, and force a strained smile. "Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?"

Of course it is the wrong thing to say.

"You won't be going to the Capitol," Gale replies coolly. His eyes, burning cold, skim my neckline to focus on the pin adorning my dress and threaten to melt the golden mockingjay into that stupid expensive fabric. The intensity of his gaze makes me squirm for reasons he would neither anticipate nor appreciate, and I wish more than ever that he could look past my trappings just like he looks past Katniss's ill-fitting jacket. Just like I look past his coal-encrusted prejudices to perceive something worth seeing.

The odds of that happening are not in my favor, and Gale must be thinking of odds too, because all he has to say is something snide about the number of my entries.

"That's not her fault," remarks Katniss, ever the curt friend I can count on.

"No, it's no one's fault. Just the way it is," Gale admits grudgingly. I can tell he is perfectly aware of the fact, but voicing it aloud in front of me might be a different matter.

Unfortunately, he's too right.

And it's not even his fault that I find the rebellious disapproval he wears with that grim and grimy pride of his so dangerously compelling. I wish I could resent him for it, just like he feels free to resent me for things that aren't my fault, but I can't bring myself to.

All I can do is to hide my reckless longing under an emotionless mask and shift my attention to the business at hand.

Isn't that the Seam way of dealing with things?

After sealing our usual bargain and exchanging good lucks with Katniss only, I turn away and close the door of the opulent cage where I supposedly belong. I, the Mayor's daughter who could have anything in this whole damn district except for what she's most interested in. Precisely because she is the Mayor's daughter.

And anything except for freedom, but that's a whole different, bigger matter. In that respect, we are perfectly equal. Leather jackets, pretty dresses and golden jewellery have precious little to do with it. And mockingjays... who knows?

After a few seconds, I move over to the window and furtively watch them leave. They are always walking in sync, but always at arm's length, these two Seam hunters who can't seem to catch each other.

What if…?

Today is the reaping after all...

Oh no. That would be… unthinkable, and I don't really want to think about it.

She is my friend and he is hers.

It's nobody's fault. It's just the way it is.

002. Badge of Courage

The crowd on the square has engulfed and swallowed me, my fancy dress and golden pin and all - including the imaginary Capitol seal people often tend to see stamped on my forehead. We are all equal at the reaping, despite the odds determined by age and number of tesserae.

After all, only one slip is pulled from each ball, and everyone has that many.

Even Primrose Everdeen.

Nobody, not even Katniss, could prevent that accursed piece of paper from being added to the reaping ball, and from attracting the long pink nails of Effie Trinket. Before the shock released its icy grip on my throat, Katniss has already cried out, volunteering to take the place of her sister.

The unthinkable just happened.

The resentment I've felt towards the Games ever since I can remember, daughter of a Capitol official or not, no longer touches me with the spectral fingers of an aunt I've never known, but cuts right through my heart.

It came down to the only girl I consider a real friend, so this time, it's personal.

What could I have done to personally prevent it?

I imagine myself on the stage… wearing not a dress too pretty by Seam standards, but something the Capitol calls haute couture in garish pink... and being an object of infinitely stronger hatred than I'm used to. Not the daughter of a vainly struggling Capitol magistrate, but the person they all see reaching for their names. In Effie's skin and wig and heels, I could have peeked at the paper and left it in the reaping ball… to save Prim and consequently Katniss and perhaps Gale too…

…but only by condemning another child to death…

Oh no.

How foolish. And cowardly.

The only way to help would be to raise my voice before Katniss, to don the armor of sacrificial bravery fastened by the suicide-sentence I volunteer.

It wasn't a decision I would dare to make, much less in the spur of the moment… unlike Katniss. Unlike my aunt almost quarter a century ago, who was quicker on the uptake and rushed to the stage in place of her twin sister.

Katniss made a difference now, not a secret one, but a difference everyone can see.

Now she's standing on the stage and furtively shaking her head towards the oldest boys' section. Despite his oh-so-high number of entries, Gale hasn't been reaped, and one difference is enough.

After all, there can be only one Victor.

Can I do anything to assure it would be Katniss? Do I even have the right to?

Could she make enough difference to make her victory survivable?

The most I can do is to give her a message. It's hidden in my most treasured possession, but I'll gladly give it to her, if there's any chance it will help.

I detach the mockingjay pin from my dress and clutch it in my hand until it pricks my skin and draws a tiny drop of blood.

In the waiting room, I vaguely wonder where Gale is, until I see Mr. Mellark emerging from Katniss's room. Did Gale see him enter and decided to go intimidate Peeta instead? I wouldn't put that past him. But it doesn't matter, not now.

I stride in and start speaking before the shock of seeing Katniss this vulnerable closes my throat.

"They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena," I say without preamble. If I tried consolation, I might break before she does, so I focus solely on the most important matter. "One thing to remind you of home. Will you wear this?" I hold out my pin.

"Your pin?" she says, wrinkling her brow like she couldn't fathom what I am giving to her and why. I can hardly comprehend it myself, but it seems like the only right and possibly significant thing I could do.

"Here, I'll put it on your dress, all right?" I don't wait for an answer and fix the mockingjay to her dress. "Promise you'll wear it into the arena, Katniss?" I ask. "Promise?"

"Yes," she agrees, still obviously perplexed, but there's no time to explain. Hopefully, it will compel Haymitch to keep interest in this "spunky tribute".

To let her shine.

I feel almost cruel for doing that. To both of them. But it might make just enough difference.

When a Peacekeeper opens the door, I turn and immediately find myself face-to-chest with Gale.

Before he quickly sidesteps around me, I steal a single glance up. His expression, however guarded, tells me just enough to realize exactly how deeply and personally the reaping cut him. The veiled pain in his eyes almost matches expression in Katniss's when her darling little sister tremulously passed us on her way to the stage, but not quite. Of course he won't miss her like a sister.

Katniss might be taking my pin, but now I know she'll be taking his heart.

In fact, just a little farther away.

On my way out of the Justice Building, I briefly, absurdly, selfishly wonder if Gale would notice the golden mockingjay on a dress that he must consider pretty without any sarcasm and resentment, just because it's Katniss wearing it.

But of course, stupid, I chide myself. He'd notice anything on her… and wouldn't hate it.

I wish I could tell him that I gave her much more than a posh bauble to show off in the Capitol. That it's more than a family heirloom… it's a part of a rebellious legacy that would be no use here, but could matter if Katniss does it justice.

And I believe she would. She might truly win the Games.

The girl doesn't even know how much she can win without even trying.

I wish I could wait for Gale to emerge, or more likely, to be dragged out, and tell him all that and more.

But I can't.

That would be too… personal.

003. Camouflage

They are coming home. Two Victors.

Now I feel almost ashamed for not trusting Katniss to contribute to the greatest difference of all. Judging by the news from other districts I managed to coax from my father, the girl with the bow and the poisonous berries and my mockingjay pin could have inspired real change.

We all watched her intently.

She was more radiant than the sun in fake flames, shiny like a precious jewel in her interview dress, dauntless and heroic in her tattered arena outfit.

Gale sure observed her most intently of all. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, I watched him watch her with curiosity I was almost ashamed to admit. Even to myself.

The fondness, admiration and faith he regarded her with increased after every obstacle she conquered, but he never looked surprised. As if he'd always perceived her like that, like the ardent and defiant consummate survivor, and only saw her real potential manifest on the screen.

The shock came later, when she (presumably for me, hopefully for Gale) played along with the most unprecedented angle in the history of Hunger Games and devoted herself to healing and protecting her fellow district tribute.

That was when the true difference started.

When she cared for Peeta Mellark every day and wore his chaste and protective embrace like a second sleeping bag every night, she was no longer entirely the girl that had set out to battle. As if something in her changed with the rules that have been altered to favor the "starcrossed-lovers".

When Katniss first appeared on stage after she'd tricked the Capitol into letting both her and Peeta win the Games, her wild fire was tamed to candle-like subtlety, and seemed to suit her more than ever. She embraced Peeta in his matching shirt and together they shimmered like some otherworldly light that illuminated even the arena and shone on beyond, unquenchable.

Against all odds, she emerged from the arena as one half of the victorious pair.

I could tell that the transformation cut Gale the most deeply and I wished I could do something to ease his angry and hurt frown.

A few months ago, I wouldn't have recognized the pain but I got to know him better during the Games. After Katniss's departure, we both moved a tiny bit closer to the place she'd vacated, but never quite able to fill the emptiness she left behind, never quite able to interact without our mutual friend as a mediator. Gale was reluctant and caustic about accepting my help (What the hell was I even doing? Trying to take over his job? Misplaced charity? ), but he couldn't hate me for trying to take care of Prim, the girl my only friend had volunteered into the Games for, could he?

He sometimes pretended to, but his half-hearted glares no longer fooled me.

I got to know him better.

He was no longer the dreamy-looking nightmare that materialized on my doorstep every week and sometimes obliviously brushed past at school when he accidentally decided to grace the place with his presence. Admittedly, he wasn't exactly the person I'd imagined him to be. Reality made him both much more obnoxious and much more fascinating.

After seeing the conditions Katniss's family lives in (and presumably his own too, though I've never been invited), I could appreciate the extent of his bitterness and constant worry for his loved ones he hid so meticulously under his cold hard armor. The strain of his endless and risky struggle to make their lives just a little more bearable every day. The resentment and mistrust towards everyone who was better off without having earned it the hard way.

Obviously, I was one of them.

But at least his realization that even the Mayor's daughter could lose her best friend to the Games just like he did earned me some benefit of doubt. We made a truce. An alliance dictated by the circumstances.

Unfortunately, I wanted more.

The more I couldn't get him, the more interested I was.

I guess pretty much the same is true for him and Katniss.

Katniss is far away now, both in terms of physical distance and personal change. Now she is is wearing a white, gauzy dress, at the first glance quite similar to the one I wore to the fateful reaping, and snuggles as close to Peeta as possible without actually sitting on his lap. Peeta embraces her as if she were his lifeline, though their costumes and posture seem to suggest the contrary.

At home, Gale and I are standing few inches apart, just far enough not to touch, and Gale keeps his hands to himself, currently for the purpose of cracking his knuckles. No wonder, considering the display on the screen. Prim is on my other side, and I scoot a bit closer to her, away from the almost tangible aura of Gale's anger.

Yet every time his eyes inexplicably dart from Katniss to me, just for a fraction of a second, I wish I could reverse the move. Perhaps to calm him, or to comfort him, or to coax him into believing that Katniss is not the only girl in the world who matters… The idea is preposterous, but I find it increasingly tempting, especially when I'm close to him like now, just far enough not to touch.

His proximity tends to rob me of composure and presence of mind, even though I know it can't be his intention. After all, he can't bring some stupid "composure and presence of mind of the Mayor's daughter" home for dinner. Gale definitely is well aware of the effect he can have on women, and rumor has it he wasn't above using it to his advantage, but probably only until he fell victim to the entirely subconscious effect Katniss can have. Surprisingly, not vice-versa. I'd seen her turn her head after him in school on occasion, and almost imperceptibly lift the corner of her mouth in greeting, but she never eyed him with lustful interest like other girls… or with the sparkle of something that glitters in her eyes now when she's looking at Peeta.

I'd never expect the level of devotion Peeta returns Katniss's gaze with, not from anyone, but I'd certainly prefer even the tiniest spark of recognition to the odd not-quite-a-glare Gale fixes me with as the interview concludes. Why-are-you-not-Katniss? he seems to ask.

"She's coming back," I reassure him. She is. But not to him, not really. Gale knows her better than I do, and surely senses the change in her, even across the distance and through the Capitol trappings. Now that the immediate and mind-numbing relief of her survival subsided, he probably finds the concept too strange to wrap his mind around. I can't blame him. I can only imagine how it feels. With the exception of my hardly-present-parents, I've never been close enough to anyone to be able to fathom loss. Though I'm no stranger to longing and unfulfilled dreams.

"Yeah, she is. I knew she'd do anything to win," Gale concedes. One corner of his mouth lifts in a wry smile, and his eyes do sparkle with fondness, probably at some memory of her. Then he shakes his head as if to clear it. "But this?" he motions to the screen, frozen with a still picture of the new Victors. "It's just…"

I raise my eyebrows. "Unheard of?"

He nods. "And it's supposed to be the good thing, right?"

Exactly. And everyone around is celebrating, perhaps without even realizing the significance of this victory. Prim and Mrs. Everdeen have already disappeared in a gaggle of well-wishers, just like the rest of Gale's family, who are now perceived as Katniss's aunt and little cousins. Even Gale obediently played her cousin for her sake, but I guess he'd exchange that act for a near-death by Cato, mutts and tracker jackers any day.

"She won. Really won. You know she wouldn't have accomplished that if Peeta died," I remind him, gingerly laying my hand on his forearm.

Gale gives me a pointed look, a frequent one that I learned to translate as I-know-you-are-right-but-I-won't-admit-it-to-your-face, and turns back to the screen to drink in her image.

Why am I not Katniss? I ask myself.

Strangely enough, compared to her ethereal presence on the screen, I look more like the old Katniss now, even with my blonde hair and blue eyes. No make-up, no styling to speak of. I'm not even wearing a dress now, but trousers and tunic in earthy tones. Not vintage seventh-hand Seam-quality with a coal-dust finish, but certainly nothing fit for a proper Mayor's daughter. The practical, inconspicuous appearance that usually helps me blend in now only adds to my self-consciousness. Now I'm neither pretty nor Katniss and she is both and she is inaccessible.

And Gale is caught in her spell, which makes him inaccessible too.

Pretending to fill her place would only add insult to injury, nothing more. I can't even fully fathom why I find the fact so infuriating.

I follow Gale's entranced gaze to the screen.

"Pretty dress, isn't it?" my mouth remarks acidly before my brain can stop it. Of course it is the worst possible thing to say. All I accomplished was switching him from confusion to anger. The default defense I prefer to avoid, when I have the presence of mind to do so. Unfortunately, I fail too easily.

"Rich coming from you, Undersee," he grits between his teeth and pins me with a full-force glare. His eyes now remind me of the plates of steel that used to cover nuclear reactors in Thirteen I've read about, rattling from the pressure of anger and pain mixed into something too powerful to be unleashed without control. "You didn't have to go through the damn Games so that they will parade you around in one. Or do they make 'em pretty enough for you only in the Capitol?"

I feel the muscles in his forearm tense like steel cords and realize I'm still touching him. A tingling, almost burning sensation shoots up my arm, but I don't pull away. Neither does Gale, though he seems pretty oblivious of the contact in the first place. I suddenly wish to have my own stupid dress back on. Just for comparison. Perhaps with the pin that draws all eyes too.

"Does it make her any worse?" I counter, forcing my mind back to what truly matters. Might as well but him to perspective. One needs different camouflage in the forest and different while fooling the Capitol.

"She didn't ask for it. For anything. Not even that bread-brained accessory," he argues with a deepening frown.

I shake my head. "Gale, none of us asked for what we are dealt by the Capitol. I didn't ask for what I got either. It's just the way it is. After what Katniss and Peeta did, it might change." I'm whispering now, because the words are too dangerous to be spoken aloud even in the middle of a boisterous crowd. Gale has leaned closer to catch my words and I notice that the belligerence in his eyes gives way to grudging interest. "If their legacy falls on deaf ears, the chance will be lost."

"Why would you care for it not to be lost? You've got it made now." Apparently, I mistook suspicion for interest. I have a lot to learn.

"Wrong assumption there," I correct him softly. "I have as much to fight for as everyone else."

He snorts. "What exactly do you think it is?"

"Freedom. Life worth living. Without being pitted against people I don't want to be my enemies."

"Right," he concedes after few seconds and gives me a wry quarter-smile. There's an unmistakable hint of appreciation in his eyes. "I see what you're getting at."

"About time," I say, returning the cautious salute and raise the corner of my mouth.

He turns from me and glances back at the now-blank screen, the expression turning wistful. "Too bad things had to move along that way."

That rankles, and I bite back a selfish reply. "It's just the way it is. We have to make the most of it," I remind him and release his arm to calmly walk away. People around were slowly beginning to notice our odd interaction in the midst of the general carefree happiness anyway.

Let him mull it over a bit.

After all, we've all just seen a proof that unexpected and reluctant alliances might just work.

I imagine the glare he'd give me if I told him that, and my steps falter slightly when a treacherously pleasant little spasm courses through my body. But I force myself to continue without a pause or a backward glance, because I can still feel his gaze following me.

I can't keep the tiny, persistent smile from curling the corners of my mouth. What a difference. Change is in the air, floating and singing like a mockingjay, my extravagant golden accessory brought to life.

004. Red Stripe

Our Victors have returned.

During the celebratory banquet at our house, Katniss danced with Peeta, and still accepted his embrace with gratitude, but the sparks in her eyes were already subdued with uncertainty. Though she was still dolled up almost beyond recognition, the return home strengthened the vestiges of her old, detached self and she seemed to cling to these much tighter than to Peeta.

I watched them with my back to the wall, wondering. Waiting for Gale to arrive, impatient for a clue what happened between them after her return. Or perhaps hoping against all hope that we might share a dance on what was essentially a pity party for both of us.

But he never showed up.

In the following weeks and months, Katniss and I talked even more than we used to in school. The only female Victor of District 12 seemed more inclined to seek the company of the only Mayor's daughter after she found herself plagued by a similar kind of social isolation. She was perpetually subdued, haunted by everything she's been through, torn between what she'd been and what she's become and what she was suddenly expected to be.

Something in her ashen gaze reminded me of the expression Gale's eyes often assumed while she was away. Yes, they could pretend to be cousins, with their dark Seam likeness, but the connection they shared obviously wasn't that of kin. Apparently, she wasn't as aware of it as Gale was, nor missed him as intensely as he missed her, but his absence seemed to hinder her like a lost limb, especially when she allowed me to accompany her to the forest.

Upon entering, her head always subconsciously turned in a certain direction, and then she just shook it a little and started another way, with a deepening frown and sadness in her eyes. She seemed a little lost, as if she purposefully avoided known paths replete with memories. Memories she must have shared with Gale. The realization caused a sudden and unpleasant pang of remorse for every time I – however indirectly – wished him apart from her. It wasn't hard to figure out that some vital part of their bond has broken, opening a void nobody else could quite fill. Not even Peeta for her. (And definitely not I for Gale, I've learned that much already.)

Katniss flinched slightly every time a branch broke under my inexperienced feet and refused most attempts at conversation, so I just followed her to the best of my ability, savoring the stolen moments of freedom.

Sometimes, she even tried to teach me to shoot, letting me use her own bow while she took Gale's. It was about as successful as me trying to teach her to play my piano: not much, but we had something to do at worst, something to smile about at the rare best.

I met Peeta quite often at the bakery, where he continued to work even despite his Victor's income, perhaps to give his life some semblance of normality. He always greeted me as warmly as ever before, but his polite smile hardly reached his haunted eyes. I didn't dare to ask much about the Games or Katniss for fear of aggravating wounds that could never quite heal. But I easily inferred that the star-crossed lovers weren't spending much time together anymore.

But Katniss wasn't spending much time with Gale either.

Unfortunately, same went for me.

It took me embarrassingly short time to figure out how much I missed seeing him every day.

But I had hardly any opportunity left to do so.

The whole predicament was obviously killing him so badly he preferred to bury himself full-time in the mines, even though he definitely didn't have to, not after Katniss got the prize money she could never spend herself. Perhaps he hoped to unite fellow miners and organize an uprising to wrestle the district from Capitol's control and free Katniss of her predicament, I wouldn't put that past him. Apparently with no success, though, at least not until the Victory Tour. With no heads-up from Father and Haymitch, I guess it was better that way. If winning freedom was any kind of easy, we could have done it a long time ago.

Only after Katniss and Peeta left for the next – much more subtle – round of the Games, Gale and I tacitly returned to our old watchers' alliance. Standing between Gale and Prim brought back a sense of familiarity, almost of belonging, and gave me strength to watch my friends in a drawn out battle where one wrong word could mean death.

Time apparently wasn't ripe yet and they had to do what the Capitol asked of them. Their subdued demeanor after the live footage from District 11 that ended suspiciously early proved as much.

Watching as they spouted Capitol propaganda with tight smiles and barely contained disgust seemed to anger Gale even more than watching them as they shared affectedly affectionate kisses.

I approved the choice of priorities.

But obviously, a something I approve of can't ever last.

Things take a turn for the very worst the moment the full intent of the show becomes clear.

The Capitol wants their star-crossed lovers to get married.

Why else would the Girl Who Never Wanted To Get Married say yes, under these circumstances?

I make the mistake of turning towards Gale just in time to see his heart break.

He bolts into the deepening gloom as soon as the screen flickers to static.

I chase after him before I can think better of it. I know I can't possibly help… but I feel the need to try.

I break into flat-out run to eliminate his head start, but still can't seem to catch up with his fast, angry strides. Luckily, I don't have to chase him too far before I find him crumpled under a large elm in the tiny town park, elbows on bent knees and gaze buried in the ground. I guess he just needed to get out of sight. Breaking hurts badly enough, but still less than breaking in front of everyone.

I'm almost sorry for having followed him. Almost.

"Gale?"

He doesn't lift his head. "What? I can't even leave after the fucking mandatory viewing is over?"

"I-I just wanted to check on you. If you're… alright." How stupid that was? Of course he isn't alright.

"Never better, really. Odds in our favor and all that crap." He grits his teeth and takes a deep breath. "They took her life, even if they didn't kill her. I couldn't save her. "

Is that what rankles him most about it?

"She couldn't have expected you to, could she?" I try tentatively, at loss what to say.

He looks up now, but still not at me, just leans his head back against the tree with a distinct thud.

"We used to watch out for each other, you know. After the Capitol took her, I just couldn't protect her anymore. Not from anything." His voice had softened a little and something like remorse flickers in his eyes and I don't dare to ask what it is that he regrets. He can't feel guilty for what happened in the Arena, could he? "And that Mellark kid who'd never even spoken to her before could do everything… and… maybe she even wants to…" Gale suddenly falls silent, probably realizing he'd said too much. "Why the hell am I telling you that?" he mutters at last and stares into the darkness with a matching sinister scowl, lips pressed into an unforgiving line.

"Gale, you can tell me anything you want. It's okay," I say carefully.

He snorts. "Okay. Maybe for you. Why'd you even care?"

"I…" I can't explain it. I just do. "I want to help you."

No reaction.

I study his profile for several tense moments, uncertain what to do, and almost afraid of how he might react. Making him see reason seems crucial, though. It's good for achieving acceptance, or so I've heard. It's not like I listened to my own advice all the time.

With audacity I hardly knew I possessed, I extend my hand and lightly lay my fingertips on his cheek, coaxing him to face me. He flinches slightly, as if I startled him from deep (and certainly unpleasant) thoughts, but doesn't push me away and turns his head to meet my gaze. He is still frowning, but the certainty that his anger is not directed at me soothes me a little. From under the dark and heavy thundercloud of his eyebrows, his eyes shine like silver lining. They don't attempt to smite me with lightning for an offense I didn't commit, but I still shiver involuntarily as if an electrical current passed through my body when they fix on my own. Gale looks at me as if he almost appreciated my gesture. I wish I didn't have to be surprised.

My fingers tingle in contact with his skin and the sensation only intensifies as I gingerly trail them lower to brush over his rugged jaw. I close my eyes for a fraction of a second, struggling to regain concentration. Later, I'll have all the time in the world to dream about how the dark stubble would feel against my skin if he kissed me. The idea is preposterous, but I'll be most happy to entertain it.

Later.

Now I need to tell him something important.

"Gale, listen to me," I say softly. He raises one eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. "You know Katniss well enough to figure she'd never allow it to happen like that if she really wanted it. They had to do it. There's no way to take it back. I know it's terrible for you."

I know how it feels to want somebody I can't get.

Gale frowns harder, maybe he doesn't believe me; maybe he does and just wonders why I am wasting my breath telling him that. But he's still not pulling away from my touch, so my breath definitely doesn't feel wasted, not even if he weren't listening at all.

"But if nothing changes after all… she'd be much better off with him." And don't ask me to explain, I don't think I could handle that. I press on. "Just like in the Arena. The Victor's life would be much more bearable for them if they stayed together." I feel his jaw muscles tense as he grits his teeth and steel myself for the last part, which may well overstep my boundaries. "She's no longer free to choose. Trust me… she's not doing it because he's better than you."

She's no longer free to choose, I repeat in my head. But I'd be free to choose you, if you'd let me.

I'm certain I hadn't said the last sentence aloud, but Gale still fixes me with a very surprised stare, then blinks and shakes his head. "Things need to change," he says, ignoring my attempt at compliment, or whatever it was. I don't know myself. "I can't give up." He doesn't specify what, but it's not hard to guess. The icy determination in his voice stabs right through my heart, and he doesn't even realize it. Gale finally reaches for my hand and pulls it off his face, but slowly, giving my fingers a light squeeze in the process. "But I guess it was nice of you to say that," he admits with half a smile, which is much more than I dared to hope for in these circumstances, and returns my hand to my lap. One smooth unexpected motion later he is on his feet, leaving without a backward glance.

Torn between consternation and elation, I watch his dark silhouette as long as I can, but his quick, lithe strides carry him out of my sight all too soon.

What kind of reaction was that?

I shake my head.

He's never hesitated to vent his frustration with the Capitol and everything else in front of me before. And from what I've seen and heard he's never been reserved around girls. Well, except for Katniss, apparently.

Katniss.

I shake my head. Of course it all comes down to Katniss. He's not giving her up. He is being for all intents and purposes loyal to her, at least as far as I am concerned. If he accepts comfort from me without protesting, it's just a proof that the despair of repeatedly losing his love to circumstances completely outside his control messes with his head.

Unfortunately, I can perfectly relate.

The stalemate we – Gale, Katniss, Peeta and I – are all locked in is would be ridiculous if it wasn't so painful. A quadrangle of unrequited, tainted and forbidden affection, with razors for edges and spikes for vertices, lacerating all our hearts over and over again.

But we are still the luckier ones. At least we are alive and well enough to concern ourselves with such troubles, so petty in the grand scheme of things. A grand scheme that seemed to have started with a love-affair in the Arena and hardly progressed anywhere since then.

However selfish my concern might be, and however much I shouldn't, I find it hard not to think about Gale now.

And I find it hard not to think about Katniss too, of course.

It's the first Sunday after Katniss agreed to marry Peeta on the Capitol stage, and after their return from the tour few days later. Now she's surely with Gale and they are trying to make some sense of the situation. I bet it's not easy, since neither of them is too good at talking.

Fortunately, I manage to refrain from futilely and selfishly wishing for an outcome that would send Gale seeking consolation to me. (After all, whatever happens, he sure wouldn't admit it to me, of all people. What happens in the woods stays in the woods and I'll never know.)

Besides, there are worse concerns afoot. A new Head Peacekeeper has arrived around noon, on a Sunday of all days, and unlike old Cray, he looked like he meant business.

I pace the piano-room restlessly, thinking hard.

Gale and Katniss are out there, beyond the fence, breaking the law, unaware of the change of guard. What could I do? … I can't exactly go patrolling the fence myself in order to catch them first and warn them… that would only draw unwanted attention there.

Actually, the best I can wish for is that they return well after dark and have no game to parade through the town.

I bite my lip and nervously clench and unclench my fists.

Maybe if I asked Mother, I could play while waiting for… I don't even know what for. I just need to get rid of all kinds of frustration.

A phone rings somewhere beyond the wall.

Minutes later, the front door shuts with a bang as someone, presumably Father, heads out.

I panic at the sound. What happened? Have they been caught? Or is it too early? Or does the new Head Peacekeeper just want a head start on getting acquainted with district business?

Just as I'm about to rush after Father to investigate, when Mother shows in the doorway.

"What happened?" I blurt at her.

She flinches slightly at my inconsiderate tone. "What should have happened?"

"Um…" I can't exactly answer that. "I don't know… it's just that… Father keeps working so much nowadays and today is a Sunday and the new Peacekeeper arrived and…" … and I can't tell you why exactly it worries me so much.

"Yes, a new Head Peacekeeper arrived," she concedes the obvious. "And certain matters need to be taken care of."

"What matters?"

"District administration. Nothing that concerns you, darling," she says soothingly.

I nod. Well, it usually doesn't, not directly, but…

She suddenly smiles, a smile more vivacious than I've seen in years, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"Meanwhile, would you play something for me? " she asks, gesturing to the piano. "Something in presto, if you please. We could both use a little cheer on such a gloomy day, couldn't we?"

My mouth slackens momentarily, then clamps shut and spreads into an answering smile. My mother is, by some miracle, feeling well enough to request music… And I've been itching to play all day, to calm my ragged nerves… it's too early for Gale and Katniss to have returned, anyway… I'm just jumping to conclusions. I'm almost as paranoid as if I'd been in the Games myself…

I sit on the stool in front of the piano. It's my favorite sanctuary, where I can let the music transport me somewhere beyond imagination, untainted by death and injustice. I can feel free.

When playing, I forget everything else, if just for a little while. Now I need it more than ever, otherwise the apprehension drives me crazy.

Trying to make the most out of the opportunity, I pick my favorite piece, as difficult as it is beautiful, hoping for a cathartic experience. A pure moonbeam to illuminate my despairing mind.

Yet I can't achieve it.

Due to Mother's frequent demands for silence in the past weeks and months, I'm a little out of practice. So I play a little louder than necessary, compensating precision with intensity. By the time I reach the third movement, I'm beating my frustration into the keys and pouring all my agitation and restrained passion into the music. Presto agitato, the way it shouldn't be.

It feels so good it's almost inappropriate.

The sonata concludes too soon, last notes reverberating in the air. Slowly, I turn my head towards Mother, a wild, yet satisfied smile still playing on my lips. She cowers on the couch behind me; eyes scrunched shut in the all-too-familiar expression of pain. Guilt instantly washes away my elation. Why didn't she ask me to stop playing, then?

"Mom, what…" I begin just as the piano strings cease their hum and another sound penetrates the sudden silence. From the outside, muffled by the thick walls of our house. Probably from the square. A whistle. A crack that makes me shudder, though I don't quite understand why. I jump to my feet. "What's happening?"

Mother shakes her head and grips her temples. "Don't go there, May... Madgie."

"Why? What's going on?" I struggle to keep my voice steady in order not to hurt her anymore, but it keeps rising into shriller heights with every word.

Her hands shift to her ears. Was it all a ploy to keep me inside?

"Don't…" she whispers. And maybe something more, but it gets drowned in my hurried footsteps. I run through the house to the front door, remember to grab my coat at the last second, and rush outside.

A thick crowd has gathered in the square and I push through, suddenly aware that in the center I might find the answers for the odd behavior of my parents… and the source of the odd sound, the slow rhythmic cracks.

What could possibly make such noise?

A whip.

An instrument of torture in the hand of the new Head Peacekeeper.

I don't really need to look to know whose skin it's been drumming on.

But I can't stop myself either.

It's Gale.

So he returned early today… and presumably alone.

He's standing, but just barely, with his head limply hanging down and wrists tied to the ancient whipping post that's been hardly ever used, at least as far as I can remember.

He's wearing a pair of worn trousers and countless lashes coating him in blood and pain.

The sight freezes me in my tracks and I watch, transfixed, as the Peacekeeper's whip descends again. Gale emits only a soft choked sound and sways in place, held tight by leather straps cutting into his wrists. One more lash and his legs give out, knees hitting the bloodied cobblestones with a sickening thud.

What could I do?

Crack!

Run to find my father? Where is he? Wouldn't he put a stop to it... if he could?

Crack!

Run to the Peacekeeper, tell him my father, the Mayor, didn't sanction the punishment (he couldn't have!) and hope for the best?

Crack!

Tell him that the Mayor summons him to the Justice Building? Or has Father already tried and failed? He must have been running here… where is he now?

Crack!

How can I get the new guy away from Gale?

The other faces under the white helmets are familiar and mostly disapproving, the whole force hasn't been replaced yet… out of sight of their new commander, they might let Gale's friends do the rescue…

Crack!

Hot tears splash on my cheeks, though I'm not even aware of having started to cry.

What the hell am I doing, just standing here?

Crack!

Gale no longer feels the pain, but his blood keeps running out… his time keeps running out…

Crack!

I have to do something!

I can't just watch them kill him. I can't watch them hurt him. I can't stand how much the sight hurts me.

Crack!

I can't watch Gale Hawthorne, bleeding on his knees. It's…

Crack!

… unthinkable.

Crack!

I realize exactly how much I hate seeing him broken.

Crack!

I realize how much I-

"NO!" shouts the best known voice in all Panem.

Crack!

Katniss has careened through the crowd like a fireball and now stands between the Peacekeeper and Gale, with a matching red mark on her cheek. She didn't think. She acted.

Haymitch and Peeta rush in seconds later, ostentatiously to her rescue, but I know she won't let them rescue her alone. She saved Gale.

Of course she did.

Perhaps Father went to get her and Haymitch? Called the Victors to help when he realized his own power wasn't enough?

What will happen now?

The Peacekeeper eventually gives in, but I notice the ominous gaze he sweeps over the Square before heading back to the quarters he'd appropriated this very morning. Ominous for the whole District.

So now the Game begins for all of us… or perhaps begins to end?

Nausea and horror root me to the spot. With tear-tracks freezing on my face. I'm shaking in my warm coat. Even its beautiful pure white now feels disgusting as it matches the uniforms of the peacekeeper, and the snow smothering the ground and swirling in the air.

I wish it was me wearing the red stripe, a mark of defiance, a mark of standing up for justice… and love.

But I didn't. I just stood here, thinking what I could do.

They already have Gale untied and on a makeshift stretcher, presumably rushing him off to Mrs. Everdeen.

Is there anything… ?

Oh yes.

There's one thing I could do to help. Give him something not even Katniss or her mother can give him now.

Hurrying back home, I suppress a tiny cowardly wish to be able to take the morphling unnoticed and explain later. Instead I force myself to hope Mother will be still conscious and coherent, so that I'll be able to ask her. She, of all people, knows best that some pain is too much to bear. And since she tricked me to keep me here, she knows that some pain is too much to witness. She'll oblige. She has to.

I find her on the couch, just like I'd left her. Come to think of it, I hadn't been gone for long. Twenty minutes at most. How much can change in a few minutes? And why am I still surprised? I'd been forced to watch how much can change in a second year after year all my life…

I lean close to her ear. "Mom," I whisper, as gently and furtively as I can bring myself to. "Mom, I need morphling. Please."

She curls into a tighter ball, trembling. "Don't go there, Madgie…"

"I've been there! It's over! And he needs something for the pain." Tears well in my eyes and choke my throat, turning my whispers hoarse. I reach for her hands and pull them off her face, trying to convey all my despair into my gaze. "Please."

"Madgie, you can't just…"

"I have to." The finality surprises her, and no wonder, since it surprises even me. "Please."

Third time's the charm, isn't it?

She studies me intently for a moment, and nods.

Few too-long-minutes minutes later, I rush across the square, right through the congealing pool of Gale's blood and melting snowflakes. The terrible mixture splashes under my hurried footsteps and stains my shoes.

Paying it no mind, I press forward, struggling against the blizzard. Struggling against snow. Aren't we all?

By the time I arrive to Katniss's house in Victors' Village, I'm stiff with cold and my knuckles threaten to shatter on the door as I knock rapidly, hoping to be heard through the commotion inside.

Mrs. Everdeen opens the door, with Katniss and Haymitch thick on her heels.

I press the damp cardboard box with six vials of morphling into Katniss's hand. "Use these for... your friend," I say breathlessly. Who I am kidding? That's too… casual away to describe someone she'd just jumped in front of a whip for. But I can't think of any other safe way to call Gale, and don't trust myself to say his name for fear of my voice breaking. Or betraying too much.

Katniss opens the lid to peek inside and fixes me with a look I don't dare to fully interpret.

"They're my mother's," I say hurriedly, in a way of explanation. "She said I could take them. Use them, please."

I turn on my heel and run back to the storm before anyone can ask why.

By the time I arrive home, I'm frozen to the bone, but what is such little discomfort in comparison to a stroke of a whip?

This cold will pass in a matter of minutes.

As for the cold gaze Katniss, maybe even subconsciously, stabbed me with when I so suddenly arrived to bring help against all rules… I don't know.

Father waits for me in the hallway and wordlessly opens his arms when I throw my coat on the hanger. "I'm sorry, Madge," he whispers as he clasps me to him. "It was the best we could do."

I nod into his shoulder and squeeze him tighter. I know that.

The game's on, and we are breaking the rules to the best of our ability.

The change is still hovering in the air, but with Capitol weapons poised to shoot it.

005. Heart-Shaped Glasses

Gale's blood has trickled through my nightmares ever since that fateful day.

I'd think that after a lifetime of being forced to watch the annual Hunger Games, no act of non-lethal violence could affect me as deeply. But this one did.

Yes, I experienced it more personally than anything before. I saw it live. I could smell Gale's blood while I helplessly watched it trickle out of his body and pool over the flagstones.

I ran through the puddle later and I still have the shoes stashed under my bed, uncleaned, because I couldn't bring myself to perform the oh-so-simple task.

But that's not everything.

I'm not surprised that I cared, or how much I cared. I'm surprised how I cared. It was a primal, visceral reaction to the man I want-need-love being mutilated. A silent scream of denial issuing from every cell of my body, a vicious and possessive 'Don't touch him, of all people!'

It wasn't just the compassion, the denouncement of the injustice or the consternation at the cruelty of the punishment - that is, the feelings I experienced at the sight of every punishment that occurred after.

Because however terrible were the nightmares, the reality that ceaselessly assaulted my senses in waking hours has been incomparably worse, even though it didn't impact me just as personally.

The blizzard continued for days, smothering the district in snow, and President Snow used its cover to smother the district in Peacekeepers. I watched them from my bedroom window, through the curtain of fabric hanging inside and the pall of snowflakes swirling outside as they worked tirelessly to set up their new and improved instruments of torture.

And then they lost no time in putting the devices to 'good' use.

It didn't take me long to figure out that my father had absolutely no power to stop or as much as to influence the decisions of the Head Peacekeeper.

We were under martial law.

When I returned after giving Gale the morphling, Father had told me, "It was the best we could do". It was true, in a way. But the best he could do was nothing. Nothing. And I couldn't even blame him for that.

If it wasn't for Katniss, Haymitch and Peeta…

I hadn't seen either of them for long days after the incident and dared neither call nor navigate the Peacekeeper-infested town all the way to the Victors' Village again.

After a run to the apothecary I had to make to restock Mother's morphling supply, I finally met Haymitch shuffling through the icy square, presumably making his way from our house. He lifted his eyes to me just as I was about to greet him and seemed to stumble in surprise. Obviously, my mother is not the only one who sometimes mistakes me for a ghost.

With bravery I didn't know I possessed, I caught his arm.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Thanks, sweetheart," he mumbled. "Nice safe ways we are having, huh?"

"Oh, of course," I said with the same hint of polite avoidance. "All the ice and snow. How… how are you doing…" my voice faltered. "Up there?" I finished lamely, nodding towards the Victors' Village.

"How we do best. Drinking, baking, sulking." He leaned uncomfortably close and studied my face for a moment before answering the question I needed answered the most and was too embarrassed to ask. "Boy's stitched back together. No longer needs your morphling."

I bit my lip hard.

No longer needs my morphling.

Of course not. Now that the worst is over, I guess he has Katniss to soothe the pain, I thought with bitterness.

"Thanks… for helping to save him," I choked out instead. I'd wanted to say that for a long time. Unlike Peeta and Katniss, I presumed I could thank Haymitch without embarrassment.

He chuckled heartily, instantly proving me wrong. "You know, his fiery cousin never bothered to say that. And from what I gathered, she never told the poor bastard to what exactly he owes the wonderful pleasure of still being alive either."

I frowned at the confusing wording. He didn't even sound as drunk as he looked a minute ago, but maybe I was too sober to understand him. "But still… you helped," I tried valiantly.

He grimaced in response. "Not my idea, sweetheart. That boy is much more trouble than he's worth."

Ice seemed to stab straight into my stomach and I had no idea how to answer that.

"And if he doesn't want his pretty head blown off, he should be kept away from her," Haymitch continued with a wink and then disengaged his arm from mine, leaving me perplexed and frozen in place.

Then I realized that my assumptions had been entirely wrong.

It all came down to Katniss.

Father couldn't have done anything, Haymitch couldn't either and wouldn't have tried, because it would have been neither prudent nor strategic nor halfway logical.

Only Katniss had gone and done the impossible, without regard for consequences.

Because she wouldn't let anyone, not even the Capitol take Gale away from her.

So much for my chances. How could I even think about it?

Katniss is my friend.

Only much later, when I finally intercepted Gale on his way back from a check-up with Mrs. Everdeen, I surmised from his surly and disappointed expression that Katniss probably kept cold-shouldering him even after having stepped in front of a whip to save him. Just like she cold-shouldered Peeta after having saved his life in the Arena.

Apparently, she's capable of all kinds of impossible things.

Surprisingly enough, Gale walked me home and talked to me as if we were still allies. With Katniss avoiding him, he obviously found himself in a dire need of a new ranting partner, and I gladly listened.

He told me he'd returned to the mines as soon as he could. Part of the reason was interaction. Listening to rumors and spreading them. Making plans. Tentative steps towards long-overdue resistance. The people were close to a breaking point, one way or another, and he was obviously hell-bent on grasping at every straw of rebellious potential before the spark entirely drowned in the sea of intimidation.

Unfortunately, there wasn't more than mere straws. What are pickaxes compared to guns?

"People have every right to be afraid," I reminded him bitterly.

"Yeah," he agreed. "But it looks like we're all gonna end up the same, fight or not."

Is death by starvation or cruel punishment better or worse than death in a fight? I wouldn't know, I've never really been in danger of either.

"But in that case… wouldn't it be better to act faster?" I said tentatively, secretly wondering what my father thinks about it. He hardly ever talked to me anymore, and meticulously locked his office.

Gale shrugged. "You know people can't even gather together anymore. And down there… Walls have ears," he explained.

"Here too," I retorted. It was unfortunately true, and also a good explanation why I couldn't invite him in for any important conversation when we reached my house, so we opted to sit at the dim back porch instead.

He looked over my head through the partly glass door, frowning at the visible sliver of our cozy, well-lit, well-stocked and empty kitchen.

"Sure," he smirked. "But they're not as likely to fall on your head."

Too true. The very idea made me shudder. "Be careful, Gale," I blurted before I could stop myself.

"I'd better." He rolled his shoulders compulsively and his jaw tensed.

"Yeah. I-I saw it," I stuttered before I could stop myself, wondering if it still hurt.

He grit his teeth audibly and I guessed that the knowledge that almost everyone has seen the whipping rankled even worse than the memory of pain. "Sure you did. Everyone in the square saw everything, right?"

I nodded, not quite certain where he was heading.

"And when I asked Katniss why she had her face bandaged, she told me she'd slipped and fell. And she expected me to believe it," he said bitterly.

So that was the worst part, I surmised. Being saved by the very girl he so obviously thought he'd failed to protect. And it would explain what Haymitch told me. Katniss saved Gale, and didn't even let him acknowledge it.

Gale opened his mouth as if to say something more, but obviously thought better of it.

"You know she's been through a lot," I said in a careful attempt to fill the ensuing uncomfortable silence. "Still going through a lot, since they aren't letting her off radar. Maybe…" I paused, but remembering what Haymitch told me I decided to risk saying the words aloud. "Maybe you should give her a break."

He looked away, frowning ominously. "Sure," he growled.

Surprisingly, he didn't lash out anymore, but when he finally turned back and spoke, his tone carried equal amounts of frustration and sadness. "I know. I just…" Can't. His voice faltered and he didn't say it aloud, but I didn't have to know him as well as Katniss did to figure out why. He took a deep breath and changed his course a little. "But even when I give her a break, she doesn't give herself a break. She just keeps breaking." Gale snorted derisively at his own word-play. "And I don't know how to help her," he admitted, sounding more defeated than I've ever heard him. "I guess all this mess is something we just can't cope with. As in Katniss and I."

He stared right at me now, with an unfathomable expression in his eyes, but I doubted he could fathom his own feelings at the moment. And I could hardly understand why was he telling me that.

"I don't know how to help either," I said uncertainly after having stared at him for a bit too long. Once I started, I always found it almost impossible to look away.

It's true. I don't know how to really help Katniss. And I don't know how to help you. So I have a hunch about how you feel.

I couldn't say that aloud, so I didn't, and wished I could just do something.

On impulse, I extended my hand towards him, not even knowing what I want to do, but I was spared the obligation to decide when he caught it in his own and squeezed it lightly.

"You do. You made… make… things better. During the Games… and now too," he said. His voice was gruff and more than a little embarrassed, but still, the confession was so much more than I'd ever dared to hope for.

If you only knew, I thought, studying his face intently for any hints of sarcasm or secrecy. Yet I saw nothing but sincerity. His eyes were almost black in the gloom, but a spark of something shone from their dark depths like a glimpse of silver through a layer of tarnish. Careful, restrained. Perhaps confusedly and pointlessly battling his deeply ingrained feelings for Katniss. But it was there, and he'd lowered his steely mask to let me see it. The sight made my knees tremble more than any of his glares ever could. But it was fine, because this time I was sitting beside him, close enough to touch, and that made withstanding the earthquake deceptively easy.

Gale stared at our joined hands for a moment and then shook his head slightly. "Thanks… for everything. I'll be going."

"Sure," I breathed, trying to contain the pang of disappointment. "You know where to find me, right?"

He smiled a little. "Yeah."

I concluded that he doesn't know about the morphling. Katniss didn't tell him and she must have sworn everyone else to secrecy. Should I have told him instead of keeping the secret along with her?

Once again, I watched him leave and wondered whether he would stay if he knew.

Would it be the right reason for him to stay? Would I care if it's right?

Probably not, I decided. On both counts.

Certainly not if he decided to give me a thank-you kiss.

He didn't stop by in the following weeks, but rumor had it he's been seen with some Seam girls on Sundays.

Maybe they looked more like Katniss. Maybe he didn't want me as distraction.

Maybe he didn't want me at all.

Maybe I'll never know, no matter how hard I think about it and analyze the past.

And it certainly doesn't matter, because what's my private little heartache compared to the ordeal the whole district is going through?

I try my best to help, and the futile little attempts give me at least some sense of purpose. Even though father gladly accepted all my requests for pocket-money increases, as if that could compensate for his absolute lack of free time, there's only one of me and so many of them. And nothing can be done officially, the district is supposed to be suffering Capitol-punishment after all. Father has warned me not to do too much, or too ostentatiously, so that we won't lose what's left or our tiny chance to do anything at all.

But still, every faint grateful smile tugging on hollowed cheeks warms my heart a little and I keep telling myself that it can't be any worse, and with a bit of effort, things could be made better.

Of course, the it can't be any worse part is degraded to wishful thinking soon enough.

All my hope for improvement is crushed by the clever wording of the Quarter Quell announcement. I watch it alone as always, because father is at work and mother retreated to morphling-dreams at the first tone of the Capitol anthem. Why, I know all too well.

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

There is one person in the district capable of beating all odds. Katniss.

And she is going back to the Arena. The odds have been stacked 100% percent against her. As a reminder to us that… oh yes.

My first impulse is to run to Katniss. Acting on it at once, I'm almost out of the door when I realize that she probably wouldn't need me to. She has so many people by her side. Her sister. Her mother. Peeta and Haymitch, her co-Victors in misfortune. Gale. He must be running there at this very moment. My presence would be superfluous. Maybe even embarrassing.

There, like anywhere else, apparently. The huge, ornate house surrounding me is dark and silent, full of ghosts that don't care whether I come or go.

But I'm not going anywhere.

Katniss is going to the arena. My tacit friend who'd already survived it once. The girl who managed to save her fellow tribute and give hope to us all. Katniss is going to the arena. And Peeta probably too, since I can't imagine him not volunteering if Haymitch was the one reaped.

As a reminder to the rebels…

My forehead bangs against the cold hard surface of the back door and my fingers slip limply from the doorknob.

When the first tears come, I feel stupid.

My tears can't help anyone, shedding them is just a waste of effort.

I feel selfish.

I'm not going anywhere, yet I feel as if my absence made no difference if I did, and that hurts.

Stupid.

Selfish.

I make no attempt to stop the tears from falling, though. I cry them for everyone, but there's nobody to see them. The salty waterfall that streams down my face, unstoppable once released.

It feels almost indulgent.

I can still afford to cry. How many can no longer do that?

Is Katniss crying?

I don't know and I do care, but I'm not up to finding out.

My knees wobble in tune with my quivering chin and trembling lips and I slowly sink down the length of the door, unabashedly pouring out my misery to blind and deaf walls until the tears run dry and my soaked handkerchief can't hold any more and my head spins and aches.

It's also exhausting.

I must cry myself to sleep, because I'm unaware of passing time until I'm awakened from my stupor by someone knocking on the door, so rapidly that every blow echoes in my skull. It takes me a few seconds to realize that my forehead is still leaning against the door. My legs are crumpled under me, stiff and sore. When I dazedly use the doorknob to pull myself up, the door cracks open in the process and the frantic caller pushes against it from the outside. Even if I considered avoiding the visitor, I can't do so now.

I recognize him instantly, even through the mess of tears and disheveled hair blurring my sight.

Gale.

He came to see me. Too.

I don't know which one of us moved first, but the next thing I know, I'm pressed against him, my face buried in his chest, my fingers digging into his shoulders, one of his arms taut around my waist, his other hand tangled in my hair – messing it even further, but I don't mind in the slightest.

For an eternally short moment, nothing else exists. Even if we are driven together by a desperate need to seek comfort in the worst possible circumstances, even if we are nothing more than allies doomed to watch the Games… it feels good to hold on. It makes the loss that unites us a bit easier to bear. He smells of sweat and alcohol, not like he'd been drinking but like someone poured it right over his clothes, but I don't care. I close my eyes and cling to him, inhaling him like the essence of comfort. And judging by the way Gale clutches me in his anguished embrace, he must be drawing some kind of comfort from me too.

"I'm so sorry," I choke out when I pull away just far enough to get the words out, my forehead still resting against his chest. I don't want Gale to see the drowned wreckage that is my face and I don't think he wants me to see his either.

"Me too," he sighs, his hands shifting to grip my arms.

"How's Katniss?"

"Passed out drunk," he mutters. "Obviously went to Haymitch's first."

So Haymitch must be passed out drunk too. Who can blame him?

"Peeta?"

"Didn't meet him."

I sob in acknowledgement and Gale hugs me tighter again.

Couldn't this moment just last forever? So that Gale would be holding me and nobody would ever have to go to the Games?

For a few more moments, I allow myself to believe it.

But of course it's not true.

Time is as cruel as inexorable as anything else around here.

Clock chimes softly from inside. Three quarters. And judging by how dark it already is…

"You should go," I mutter, however much I don't want him to. "Curfew."

"Yeah," Gale agrees, but with unmistakable reluctance that gives me a slight shiver of elation. He gives my arms a light squeeze and I expect him to let go and leave.

I'm keeping my head down, so I don't see him move, but suddenly feel his lips pressed against my forehead. The touch is everything I've ever imagined and so much more and so not enough.

"'Night, Madge," he whispers against my skin and pulls away. All my breath has fled my body and I tighten my hold on him to prevent myself from either falling down or soaring high, I don't even know what would happen if I let go.

I finally look up, smiling slightly through the liquid haze of old and new tears. Maybe I should feel more ashamed for them, and for my overall appearance now, but I can't bring myself to, not when Gale is almost-smiling back. Not really, and I know he can't possibly have the will or energy to do so, but almost. We do make things better for each other. We are in this together; allies helping each other pull through.

"Goodnight," I choke out. For a second, it doesn't sound like such a heinous exaggeration.

And then Gale disappears into the darkness.

Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch start a rigorous training regimen to prepare for the Games, and I do my best to help, at least to gather information about the competition and the meagre available news about what's going on in other districts.

I stop by irregularly, depending on how much I manage to find, but always make a point of appearing on Sunday.

Because Gale is there on Sundays and why couldn't all allies meet up?

The memory of how he held me in his arms after the announcement always clashes with the reality of how he looks at Katniss, but I do my best to quell every selfish thought and not to dwell on it.

After all, she is going to the arena. Not me, not Gale.

Katniss is going, to remind us that against the Capitol, nobody is strong enough.

When I stay too long, on purpose or not, Gale dutifully walks me home through the gloomy back alleys to avoid the majority of Peacekeeper patrols, but usually keeps his hands deep in his pockets and his lips pressed together in a silent and tense frown. He never initiates conversation and gives me only brief answers when I try to do so.

Can I even blame him?

There's hardly anything pleasant to talk about. Definitely not anything good enough to distract him from the fact that the girl he loves is going to be reaped again and there's nothing he can do to prevent it, and precious little he can do to help her prepare.

And it only gets worse as the fateful day draws near.

One the second-to-last Sunday before the reaping of Victors, Peeta offers to walk me home instead. Katniss looks a little puzzled and irked, and Gale looks a little too elated for my comfort. But Katniss doesn't protest and Peeta gives me an odd pleading look I can't bring myself to ignore, so I agree.

He must need something important. And most important is…

"You know I want to save Katniss?" he broaches the subject after we walk few minutes in awkward silence. The pain and strain in his voice is carefully hidden, but still audible.

I know. But I've watched them for long enough to know something else too.

"And you know she wants to save you, right?" I say.

He nods tensely. "I know, and I need to persuade her otherwise."

I freeze in my tracks.

Peeta stops along with me, takes a look at the deserted alleyway and pulls something small from his pocket. A golden locket. He opens it to reveal a photo of Mrs. Everdeen and Prim on one side. The other side is empty.

I stare at it, dumbfounded. What could he possibly want from me?

"I'm taking this into the Arena. As my district token. I'll tell Katniss she has to return for her family. You know she values her family above everything else."

"What?" I can't quite believe my ears and it's too much to process anyway.

"You heard me, Madge," he says softly. "I need…" his voice wavers slightly, but only slightly. "I need a photo of Gale. For the other side."

I open and close my mouth, but no sound emerges.

"And you think that might work?" I finally choke around the lump rising in my throat. It's a stupid thing to say to someone who just all but told me he's planning to try and sacrifice his life for a girl so that she could live with someone else. Is there anything sensible I could tell him?

"It's the best shot I have," he says with a light shrug. "We all know how stubborn she can be, but I believe she'll come 'round."

How can someone be that selfless? It's almost scary. And if Katniss really returned without him… no, I don't want to think about that. It's only because I absolutely refuse to entertain the idea of Peeta dying in the Games. So I tell myself.

"And why are you asking me?"

"I don't want Katniss to know beforehand. I don't know who else to ask and I trust you to keep a secret. You do talk to him sometimes, don't you?" Peeta looks at me with hope. Oh, what kind of hope that is?

"Oh… yeah." Not as often as I'd want to, and not like I'd want to, but I undeniably do. "He usually walks me home after your… sessions," I say.

"Try next time. Please. I'm counting on you," he says. As if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Is it?

"I'll try. Promise," I say shakily. "But Peeta-" I begin in a last futile attempt.

"Shh," he says softly. "Please don't, Madge. I made up my mind."

Next Sunday, I arrive purposefully late, so that I could stay late too, and hope to coax Gale to walk with me.

To my surprise, he suggests it himself, even though we'd finished earlier and the sun is still visible in the sky.

He walks with his hands firmly in his pockets, as always, but occasionally shoots me an indecipherable glance and bites his lip as if he wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

I find it unnerving.

Why does he have to look at me so strangely, today, of all days, when I have something important to ask of him? I can't fail Peeta. A tiny-horrible-selfish part of me might want to, but I just can't.

When we arrive on our back porch after a journey in uncomfortable silence, I decide to bite the bullet and ask.

"Wait," I say, even though Gale'd leaned against the railing and crossed his arms as if he wasn't intent on leaving. I reach for the camera I'd stashed in my handbag in order to have it handy. Gale's facing slightly away from me and obviously hasn't noticed the movement, so I take a moment to study his profile, illuminated just right by the orange-golden rays of the dying sun.

I suppress a sigh.

He sure is to live for.

If only…

Shut up.

I take a big breath as if I could inhale the courage from the air of the district that's almost devoid of it. "I need to take a photo of you," I say.

Gale startles, as if I'd torn him from deep thoughts, and turns towards me.

"What?" He stares at the camera, probably to confirm he'd heard me right. "Why?"

I pull out the locket I'd kept carefully hidden since Peeta gave it to me for safekeeping and open it.

"Peeta's taking this to the arena. He wants your photo here." I indicate the empty half. "To persuade Katniss to return to her family." He frowns at that. "You noticed she's doing her best to prepare him, didn't you?" I continue valiantly.

Gale nods slowly. "Yeah, I did. She…" his voice trails off and he shakes his head. "That guy is just plain…" he doesn't finish the thought either.

"Incredible, isn't he?" I fill in for him.

"Yeah," he admits through clenched teeth. "And you think it might work?"

I shrug. I don't want to think about what will have to happen in the arena. "Peeta obviously does and I promised to help him. And it's in your best interest, isn't it?" I ask. Ignoring his raised eyebrows, I gesture with the camera slightly and continue, "So smile. For Katniss."

"I don't think that will work anymore," he says instead, the heartbreak and pain in his voice thinly veiled by his practiced tone of anger. He knows Katniss best after all.

"Are you giving up?" I challenge him.

He just shakes his head. "No. But what I believe or not doesn't matter anymore. And being a charity case doesn't equal fighting," he adds bitterly.

"What do you mean?" What if…

He doesn't answer. "Why are you even doing this, Madge?" he asks instead.

"Doing what?"

"Everything you do. For Katniss. For me." He falls silent for a moment, but I just stare at his lips, waiting for more. "I found out you brought me the morphling. After the…" he can't quite make himself say "whipping", but it's not hard to figure out he's thinking about it. "Prim told me. Just today, I swear. Why did you do it? And this, and everything else? "

Oh. How could I possibly explain that?

I study the swirling emotions in his eyes, not quite sure what to make of them. There's a lot of shame and confusion and guilt and anger. And that hint of elusive tenderness I'd want to catch and keep there. But I'm not the huntress.

"I care," I say simply. It somehow sums up as much of my motivation as I can express verbally, and I don't trust myself with more words anyway, not when I need to keep my cool under his intense gaze. "Now you do something for me and smile."

He frowns instead. Puzzled, not hostile, but still, it's not what I need.

"Or is it too much to ask?" I say, twisting my own lips into a smile to encourage him.

Gale watches me for a moment and then smiles. A full, sincere smile I've never seen directed at me before.

For a second, it stuns me entirely.

Then I lift the camera and snap a picture, even though I'd momentarily forgotten all about my purpose. Maybe it was a just subconscious impulse to make the smile last forever, to keep it.

Somewhere deep inside, I feel it was meant for me.

Gale blinks in surprise and the smile falls. I can almost hear it shatter on the ground.

"So that was the smile for the camera, huh?" there's a slight edge of bitterness in his voice.

"I…" I don't know what to say. Yes? No? There are too many truths.

"Doesn't matter." He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. "Thank you, Madge. For everything." His face darkens. "There's no way I could repay you."

Oh, you Seam kids and your debts… It's not like you had to repay me.

But if you insist…

"Of course you could," I say before I can stop myself and lay the camera on the porch railing. I step closer.

Gale shrugs and holds his hands away from his body as if offering himself for inspection. "What could you want from me? All I have is coal-dust and trouble." The slight smirk that suddenly appeared at the corner of his mouth indicates he's not entirely serious. Katniss must have messed his confidence a bit, but not that badly.

I'm sure he could think of ways to repay me and I could too. I bow my head to hide my blush, but I suspect he noticed.

I know what I'd want. But it's not exactly something I could ask for if he doesn't want to give it to me.

It wouldn't be right that way.

Either way, I don't dare to say it aloud.

"Hey." Gale runs the backs of his fingers down my cheek, gently, carefully, as if I were a china doll that could break under his touch.

Who am I kidding? Gale has probably never as much as seen a china doll and neither has his lovely little sister.

I'm not a china doll, but the tentative caress does break something in me. Perhaps self-control.

When he tilts my chin up, I meet his piercing gaze with unflinching purpose.

I know what I want.

Strawberries are out of season, perhaps forever, but we can still seal a sweet bargain.

Gale searches my eyes, I don't know what for, but for once I believe it's not the gray steel of an arrowhead.

Then he brings his other hand up to cup my cheek and presses his lips against mine, as if he understood me, at least once.

His touch is warm and gentle and I close my eyes and press my palms against his chest as he covers my face with caresses of apology and kisses of gratitude.

It's beautiful.

Comforting.

Unreal.

Careful tenderness laced with a hint of obligation.

I suspect he's not kissing me how he'd want to (provided he wanted to at all), but how he thinks I'd want him to, and he's wrong.

After getting a taste of what I could have I want more. Even the Mayor's daughter can go all kinds of hungry.

I slide my fingers into his hair and my nails scrape over his scalp as I clench my fist, yanking him closer. It must have hurt a little, but I don't care. He'd hurt me inadvertently more than enough, just to make himself feel better. So can't I hurt him a tiny bit too, just because I need it?

And Gale obviously doesn't mind either, because he takes over the kiss for real. My knees go weak and I clutch his shirt for support, clenching the worn fabric between my fingers, pressing my closed fist against his chest to feel the rise and fall of his ragged breath and the rapid pace of his heartbeat. Our faces mesh together, Gale's rough stubble brushing against my cheeks and lips, and the friction sends tantalizing shivers to my core.

When he moves in to deepen the kiss, I let him, only to discover that or tongues can do something much better than arguing.

Now he kisses me as if he wanted to and even as my head starts spinning with lack of air, it feels like everything I ever needed. The hunger doesn't quite go away, on the contrary, it seems to gnaw deeper into the pit of my stomach, but now that I discovered the passion that can sustain it, I dare to hope I'll never starve.

If I only could keep him…

But when we finally pull away, he presses his kiss-swollen lips between his teeth as if he wanted to punish himself for the moment of weakness and the expression in his eyes is more contrite than elated.

He holds me for few more moments, his large hands almost encircling my waist, making me feel small and safe and loved. At least a little.

Then he drops them and takes a tentative step back.

Cold rushes in.

I search his eyes, desperate for that bit of affection I need to see, or at least imagine there. I think I just notice it disappearing under a pall of remorse.

"Hey, it was just..." his voice trails off.

Just for the Games? I want to ask, but the lump in my throat prevents me from doing so. If it wasn't for the Games we would never... and Gale must know that, because he looks so torn I can't help but to feel somehow responsible and can't bear the responsibility. I've shown quite enough audacity for today and have no strength left to deal with the consequences.

"Sorry," he says softly, a meaningless apology for whatever it is that has just gone wrong. It's not even his fault. It's just the way it is.

I grab the camera and bolt inside without answering.

Gale doesn't try to stop me.

I slam the door and lean against it, slowly letting myself sink down and wrapping my own arms around my body to simulate the embrace I just had and lost. It takes a long while for my pulse to stop pounding, my lips to stop tingling, my breath to stop catching in my throat, my fantasies to stop swirling in my head.

For my heart to stop breaking. For my brain to take over, at least long enough to chastise me.

Honestly... what more did I expect?

Gratitude can go only so far when his heart is about to be reaped again. The prospect must be messing with his head, and he already regrets succumbing to…

… what?

Kissing an ally even though he didn't necessarily have to?

A bit of solace that only intensified the guilt of those left behind.

It's all for the Games.

A week from now, Gale will be watching whatever new incarnation of the Girl on Fire Cinna creates, and he'll be watching her through the same invisible heart-shaped glasses I inadvertently wear when I watch him.

The whole ordeal would probably be less painful to bear we could just take them off, throw them to the bloody flagstones of the town square and let them shatter.

Sometimes, I wish the decision could be just as easy and arbitrary as picking out clothes in the morning.

But it's not, and I don't even try to fight the bittersweet blindness.

There's hardly anything left worth seeing anyway.

006. True Colors

My hands are small and soft and pale, the fingertips colder than the rest of my body unless I warm them inside.

They don't feel right anymore.

I want other hands to be touching me, especially now that I know how they feel against my skin, large and strong and warm, so rough yet so gentle.

I cherish every aspect of that grateful-regretful kiss in my memory, vainly striving to relive the solid pressure of Gale's body against mine… the surprising softness of his lips… the raw intensity of his kisses during that delicious moment when he'd lost himself in our embrace. Whatever he said after, it didn't feel fake or forced, and Gale must have realized it as well, however much he didn't want to admit it.

I wanted him to come back, to stop fighting both me and himself, because that wouldn't help anyone, least of all Katniss. I wanted him to come back, to let me touch him, to let himself touch me, to make things at least a tiny bit better, at least for us.

But he never showed up.

Only in my sleeping and waking dreams, he touches me as much as I want him to and how I want him to. Gale no longer bleeds in my nightmares, but the fantasies he inspires are still torturous, if for different reasons.

I want him, I need him, I love him, more than I ever did before, and hate him a little for not giving us a chance and hate myself a lot for indulging and wallowing in my idle little aches.

Because when I leave the makeshift embrace of my blanket – warm enough but too soft and lifeless, and the makeshift world of my imagination – pleasant enough but persistently not real, I have to emerge into the hard cruel world of actual suffering.

I want to escape, at least into a perpetual dream, but I know that I, of all people, shouldn't seek a way out, not when everyone else has to endure incomparably worse predicaments.

So I force myself to rise, to dress, to go out, to do whatever little I can do to help.

Yet my willpower seems to wane with every day that brings us all closer to the reaping.

The reaping of Victors, because nobody is strong enough to fight the influence of the Capitol and win. At least that's what they want us to believe.

However hard I try to fight the idea, I find myself losing.

When the reaping comes and goes and I really see Katniss and Peeta mount the stage and be shipped off to the Capitol without as much as a goodbye, everything feels lost.

I do my best not to succumb to the  moment of weakness, but it takes all the willpower I have left and more. I overcome the urge to sink down and cry and slowly disentangle myself from the distraught crowd instead. I'd seen Gale run after the cars that took them to the train station, certainly for the last glimpse of Katniss - live and alive -, a last chance to exchange a word or at least a glance. (And can I blame him?)

I know I probably should leave him alone, whatever the outcome of his attempt, but my instinct refuses to listen to reason and my feet inexorably carry me forward.

I find Gale few hundred yards beyond the station, sitting right on the rails.

There won't be another train coming for a long time, and he seems to be sorry for that.

My steps crunch on the slag that is used as track ballast in our district. Gale must hear my approach, but he doesn't move to acknowledge me, not even when I sit right beside him, close enough to touch.

"She'll make it," I mutter in a futile attempt to convince both him and myself. "She's done the impossible once already. She's determined. Smart. Strong."

I don't even know why I'm saying that. It's not like he didn't know that and it's not like I wanted him to dwell on what will have to happen for her to win. But the words make me feel better as they flow, and I can only hope I'll give some measure of comfort to him too.

"She's everything, isn't she?" he growls at his own knees, few moments after my words helplessly die in an embarrassed silence.

That's not what I wanted to say. I wish you didn't think so. Luckily, I don't voice any of that.

Gale grits his teeth so savagely I'm momentarily afraid I did say it aloud after all.

But he's just caught up in his own misery. "Damn, she's even better at letting go. When it's her leaving."

I nod. "Yeah, she is." I take a deep breath and very tentatively lay my hand on his. "But… we'll cope, right?"

He shrugs, but doesn't pull away. "We've got no other choice, do we?"

There's a slight, but detectable hint of need in his fake-nonchalant tone and he tangles his fingers with mine, holding on tightly. Then he finally turns his head to face me and the space between us seems to diminish very abruptly. Impulsively, I lean forward and Gale mirrors the movement, but only to lean his forehead against mine. I inhale deeply, breathing in his proximity, and lift my hand to caress his hair.

If time passes, I'm oblivious. Gale doesn't pull away and neither do I.

We are left behind and we are coping and I feel that we somehow belong together, and that Gale somehow acknowledges it. However much I shouldn't, I find the idea too appealing.

When he suddenly tilts his head to kiss me, forehead creased and eyes tightly closed, lips chapped and rough with desperate need, I don't even think about resisting.

I don't think about anything at all.

I just return his kisses with equal verve and savor every second of the stolen, bittersweet bliss.

Gale pulls back too soon, anyway.

"Madge?" he mutters. Equal parts acknowledgement and accusation, at least I suspect so.

"I'm sorry I'm not Katniss," I snap. I know it's not time or place for wounded pride. I know that he loves her and that she's gone to the Quarter Quell, for crying out loud, but still can't keep the hurt from my voice.

She's not the only one who can be hurt. And he has no right to hurt me because of her.

Gale shakes his head, almost defensively. "I don't want you to be her. I just…" his voice trails off and he bows his head, harshly rubbing his knuckles across his forehead as if he needed a bit of physical pain to bring him to reality. He exhales loudly. "I don't even fucking know anymore."

He falls silent and looks at me for a few moments, then gazes away into the distance, where she'd gone, then back to me. I try to read his eyes, but I can't, all I see is gray steel like that of the rails, endless and hard and stretching into distance.

"I just want her to be safe," he says finally.

I can't argue with that, and I don't want to, not in the slightest. Of course I want her to be safe too. And then maybe, just maybe, then the whole situation would be slightly less painful.

"I know," I say quickly. "Me too. Both of them. But while they are gone…" this time I can't finish. What do I even want to say? Is that even right? I don't want to be with him only while they are gone.

"Life has to go on," he says detachedly, as if a part of him left as well. Oh well, she did. "Katniss would be the first to tell me that."

Katnisss.

"She'd be right," I concede, yet I can't help but continue. I need a tiny bit of acknowledgement to cling to, just like Gale needs a tiny bit of solace. "Do you want it to go on this way?" I wave my arms around to indicate I mean us being somehow together. After all, we are still sitting very comfortably close. "Or are you with me just because she's gone and you don't know what to do?"

"No, I don't." He gives me a wry smirk and shrugs lightly. "But if I remember correctly, you went after me."

"It's not like you were complaining," I snap, caught between heartbreak and anger, directed both at him and at myself. Am I really that… convenient? And stupid and blind, just because I allow myself to be? Is he that blind? "And if I remember correctly, you kissed me. Just because I was… here?"

Gale frowns and shakes his head. He bites his lip and I want to kiss it better all over again. Stupid.

Then he turns towards me like the movement cost him extreme effort. When he meets my gaze, his eyes are hard, but the rekindled anger seems to be projected inward.

"I wanted to kiss you. Dammit, Madge, I needed to kiss you," he admits surprisingly, shooting the words as fast as possible, as if he wanted to get them out before he could think better of it. "I…" this time the shot doesn't come, but I'm so mesmerized by the first two sentences I hardly mind. He changes his course. "Both now and then," he says and tilts his head back towards town to indicate he means the grateful-kiss-turned-something-more we shared on our back porch. He grits his teeth. "Doesn't that just make it worse?"

I'm still reeling from his confession. "Why should it?" I choke out.

"It's not fair to you," he says.

I raise my eyebrows. I don't know when or how he started caring, but I certainly welcome the turn of events.

"Not even to Katniss," he continues. Her, always her. "Not really."

I shrug, surprising even myself. I don't even know when and how I got beyond caring, it just somehow… happened. "The world is an unfair place, Gale. Why not use a bit of the unfairness to our advantage?"

He raises his eyebrows in surprise. Then the corner of his mouth in a smirk. And then he laughs. I've hardly ever heard his laugh, and I certainly didn't expect to hear it in this particular moment. It's bitter and sarcastic, with a slightly uncontrollable tinge of despair, but still, it is a laugh, and my body inadvertently trembles in tune with the sound.

Then he stops abruptly, as if he realized what he was doing, and stands up. "That would be a first, right?" He frowns. "Well, not for you, I guess."

His voice holds no actual accusation, he's just stating a fact. It's just the way it is. Why does he have to blame both me and himself for trying to make it a tiny bit better?

I shake my head, at loss for words.

I wish I could find enough courage to tell him that Katniss is with Peeta now, that she is also gone beyond the point of betrayal.

But I don't, so I just watch him nod a reluctant and rather embarrassed goodbye and walk away along the tracks.

Where to, I don't know.

But I know he'll have to return.

I hug my knees tightly and press my still-tingling lips together. Do I have to look forward to it so much?

It's almost unfair.

But of course, nothing compared to things that are really unfair.

We get to see Katniss and Peeta again soon enough, paraded through the Capitol for the second time.

As proof that the one victory they'd achieved was just an insignificant battle in a war only the Capitol can win.

That is unfair.

But they seem ready to fight every circumstance. In dark outfits flickering with ever-changing reds and oranges of living fire and adorned with half-crowns of metal, they resemble glowing embers pulled straight out of the hearth. Too dangerous to touch, too uncontrollable to claim.

I can only wish the invisible fire in their hearts that carried them all the way there will burn on strongly, too strongly to be extinguished.

Reluctantly ungluing my eyes from the screen, I glance to my left and don't dare to presume what Gale thinks about it. Of course, he focuses on Katniss alone, drinking in the ethereal image of his 'stolen' companion turned into a dark warrior-goddess as if nothing else in the world existed.

I can't quite resist the urge to try and remind him that's not true.

In my traditional place between him and Prim, I'm standing so close to him already I don't think anyone else would notice, so I brush my hand against his. I want to hold onto him, I want us to be anchored together here on the coal-dusted flagstones of Twelve, just like Katniss and Peeta are on their blazing chariot.

Allies to the last.

To my surprise, Gale responds to my touch and returns my grip. But his gaze belongs to Katniss alone and that hurts, so much more than the inadvertently painful pressure of his strong fingers.

I grit my teeth.

How can I be jealous of a girl that's being sent to the Arena to fight for her life? How can Gale be jealous of a boy who's more than willing to sacrifice himself for her?

I tighten my grip on Gale's hand, so ferociously my own knuckles hurt.

Aren't we horrible people who deserve each other?

Perhaps we are, because when the time for the interview comes, we find ourselves side by side again.

This time, it's Gale who grabs my hand, when Katniss bursts into flames as she twirls in her morbidly beautiful white wedding dress. I don't let him pull away in embarrassment and hold on tightly as she sheds her silk cocoon in the fire.

Soon the smoke subsides to reveal her transformed gown, the silky whiteness replaced by black glossy feathers. She stands on the stage, slightly mortified, her features arranging themselves to acceptance, and I see exactly how a much the golden pin and a pretty dress matter after all.

Because the girl on fire has been turned into the Mockingjay.

The symbol of defiance.

Was I hoping for something like this back when I first gave her the pin? I don't know, I can't tell, I couldn't have predicted this course of events.

I couldn't imagine wearing her mantle, not even if I'd volunteered instead of her.

Now I stare in awe and don't spare a thought about Gale doing the same.

She is gone somewhere beyond us, gone to a place beyond our help and beyond our comprehension.

Katniss became an icon, we are just little shadows in her light, coal and pearls disintegrating in her fire.

What have I done to her? What have they done to her?

And most importantly, what will happen now?

At the very end of the interview, the victors rise to form a single chain of unity and one thing is certain: the whole Panem is playing now, and we don't know when or how is the Capitol going to retaliate.

My pride immediately mixes with apprehension, because we all know what happened last time District 13 started a rebellion.

The Capitol never lets us forget.

And never forgives.

When the victors enter the arena, I feel like I entered it with them.

They are lost inside, seeing only one glimpse of horror at a time, but we watchers don't take long to figure out the arena is a giant clock, with disasters striking every hour.

A giant clock, ticking their lives away and perhaps ours too.

Tick tock, the ticking of the clock, I feel it in every nerve, every bone, every heartbeat, ever wishing for something, anything to drown it out.

The ultimate entertainment consumes ultimately, attacking bodies, minds and hearts. Of the contestants and the watchers alike.

I watch the first day of the games alone, but can't help but wonder what Gale must be thinking.

During the interview, when Peeta shattered the audience by declaring that he and Katniss are married and that Katniss is pregnant, we both knew for sure it was just a ploy to sway the public opinion, nothing more than a lie, .

But when Peeta collapsed after walking into what must have been the force-field surrounding the arena and Katniss hysterically threw herself at him, ear over his still heart, looking like hers was about to stop as well, there was no more doubt left.

Something between the star-crossed lovers is real, more real than Katniss herself realized until that fateful moment.

The love between allies can become real after all.

The despair that shone so clearly in Katniss's eyes until Finnick resurrected Peeta with a technique people from Four use on the victims of drowning haunts me even as I strive to fall asleep. The images of the first day in the arena swirl behind my closed eyes, interspersed with the poisonous mist that chased them and claimed Finnick's district partner, and the blood that rained on the tributes for 3 and 7 hours before…

Mist and blood and suffering.

Mist and blood.

Blood.

I wonder what Gale thought about it all. I haven't even seen him today.

What would I do if something like that happened to him?

I don't know… I don't even want to know…

The summer night is warm and I wouldn't even need my heavy blanket, but I still snuggle against it tightly, hugging it to have at least something to hold onto, and wish Gale was here with me instead.

Everything would be a little bit better that way.

When dreams finally find me and he deigns to visit me in them, I embrace him with carefree happiness, only to pull back in horror when the wounds on his back open under my touch, bleeding, bleeding until he collapses against me. I desperately try to hold him upright, my own limbs heavy with the sway of the nightmare, but I can't, I can't and the weight is crushing and the blood flows and his chest presses against my face.

It's unmoving and suffocating, his heart must have gone still. I'm still trying to hold him, but he seems to disintegrate under my touch, my fingers digging deep and encountering hardly any resistance.

I wake to guttural screams and it takes me few moments to realize that they were mine, muffled by my blanket. So that's what was suffocating me. Throwing the offending thing away, I sit up abruptly, willing my breathing to calm and the shaking to subside. Moonlight illuminates my pale hands and paler sheets, but no blood.

No blood.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

Just a nightmare.

Getting off the bed, I pad to the window, opening it wider and letting the pleasant night breeze dry my cold sweat. I gulp relief with huge breaths. I wish I could see Gale, just to make sure he's okay, but I know I can't really go looking for him now.

It was just a nightmare.

After a few minutes, I finally calm down, but the idea of returning to bed still seems unbearable. On impulse, I throw on a dressing gown and shoes and quietly make my way out, at least to the garden.

I glance on a huge clock in the hallway. It's getting quite close to dawn, anyway.

Tick tock.

I quicken my pace, suddenly seized by a burst of irrational fear that the tiny ticking would make the walls crumble and fall.

Outside, I finally breathe freely and watch the sky lighten and the stars fade.

The birth of the day is so beautiful I can almost make myself believe it will bring something pleasant. Just as the shadows of the dawn give way to light, I make out a lone figure in a miner's uniform crossing the square from the direction of the Victors' Village.

No need to wonder who it is.

As if on cue, Gale pauses and looks towards my house. Before I can stop myself, I jump from my dew-covered seat and wave.

He hesitates for a moment, and then strides towards me.

"Hey," he says softly, lays his pickaxe down at his feet and leans against our garden-fence. The gesture brings us almost eye to eye. "Couldn't sleep?"

He looks sad and tired, as if he didn't sleep at all.

I just nod, knowing there's no need to ask what thoughts plagued his night. "Nightmares," I explain noncommittally. Tentatively, I step even closer and reach out to brush his arm, to confirm he's still alive, to confirm my touch won't hurt him.

It obviously doesn't, because he stretches is arms over the fence, bringing them around me in an awkward embrace. Perhaps he saw how much I needed it. Perhaps he needed it too. Either way, I lean against him, holding tightly onto his strong shoulders, and press my face into his chest, grateful for the confirmation that his heart still beats, strongly as ever, grateful for the comfort he gives me. Moments later, I feel his lips press into my hair and then he slowly disengages himself from me. His reluctance makes me happier than I should admit.

My head spins slightly as I look up at him, and the vertigo immediately strengthens when I notice that at least some of the sadness from his face has disappeared.

"You watched up there yesterday?" I blurt stupidly and nod towards the Victors' Village, before Gale has a chance to say I gotta go yet again.

Gale nods. "Yeah, we all watched at the Everdeens' They have a few patients that couldn't be moved yet. " He grimaces.

I know what he means, I've heard of the surprising little cave-in that occurred during the first shift after the start of the games. Perhaps it were some of the walls that have ears? Katniss's transformation yesterday caused quite a stir, and maybe, just maybe-

"Prim and Mrs. E wanted to stay with them, and we went there to watch too," he continues. "Moral support, you know."

I nod. Of course the Everdeen-healers preferred to stay with their patients when they didn't have to be on the square for a mandatory viewing. And I can only imagine how Gale felt about seeing his colleagues in a predicament he must have only narrowly escaped. But I suppose he'd do anything to give Mrs. Everdeen and Prim the support they need.

I feel slightly guilty for asking, but the words are out before I can think better of it.

"Would you watch with me tonight?"

Ha raises his eyebrows in surprise.

Maybe I should've asked if I could come with him to the Everdeens'. But this version flew out of my mouth first. And Gale looks like he might use at least a little time off from being strong for everyone else.

Is that selfish motivation or not?

Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe he won't come at all.

He considers the answer for a few moments, his hand absently caressing my cheek.

"I'll try to make it," he says finally.

I can't suppress a smile.

Then the clock chimes from inside.

Tick tock.

Gale's jaw tenses for a moment, but then he leans forward to brush his lips against mine with surprising gentleness. A little touch of guilty pleasure that only leaves me craving so much more.

"See you after the mines."

I'm too stunned to answer, but luckily, I don't need to, because he's already on his way there.

But he'll return to me. He must. He wouldn't break his word, would he?

The glimpses of live footage of the Games I catch during the day make me both crave Gale's presence and wish I hadn't asked him to come. When Katniss, Peeta and their allies narrowly escape another bloodshed at the Cornucopia, I believe I wouldn't see anything worse today, but I'm mistaken.

Later they wander into a section of the clockwork jungle they've never visited before, only to encounter jabberjays, the Capitol-muttated ancestors of mockingjays that torture them with fake screams of their loved ones. I know they have to be fake, no new people from the Capitol or peacekeepers have arrived during the day, and everyone was okay back when I'd met Gale in the morning. My heart breaks when Katniss starts after the emulated voice of her sister, screaming her name as if she were undergoing even worse torture than the scrambled recording suggests. And then breaks again when Katniss just as desperately starts after a male voice that must be a twisted parody of Gale's, and childish screams that she presumably identifies as belonging to his family.

I shudder and bite my nails, and turn off the sound after few moments, because I can't bear it much longer. But she has to; she has to endure it all until the ever-ticking clock releases her from this particular horror.

How would Gale react when the scene comes up during the highlights?

I regret calling him here all over, but it's too late to revoke the invitation anyway, as I have no way of reaching him down in the mines. I have enough trouble to reach him when he's right next to me.

It feels unfair that I know what will happen and he doesn't, not yet. But he will have checked on his family before coming here.

He'd know it's not real.

I'll be here to help him cope.

Will it be enough?

We shall see how our alliance holds.

Gale knocks on the back door seconds after the anthem announcing the start of mandatory viewing starts playing, when I already thought that he wouldn't show up. Yet again, I'm relieved to see him safe and sound, to get a living confirmation that the screams were not real and to get a proof that he cares about me enough to fulfil a promise.

He's wearing the clothes he wore last year to the reaping and to the family interviews during the 74th Games. Since he stubbornly refused all Katniss's "blood money", I presume it's the most decent set of clothing he owns. He doesn't have choice. I have to pretend that I'm wearing the dress he'd called pretty a year ago by sheer coincidence. Just to myself, because Gale most probably doesn't remember.

"Hey," he greets me and gives me half a smile. I detect a tiny hint of masked nervousness there, as if he was still struggling with the decision whether to accept my invitation or not. He studies my face for a few moments, then smiles a little wider and extends his hand, opening his palm to reveal a marigold. Just a single perfect flower on a short stem, stripped of the pungent leaves. He must have nicked it from some merchants' windowsill on the way here, but I still appreciate the gesture.

"Thanks," I say sincerely, giving him the widest smile I can muster. I tilt my head and Gale gets my hopeful hint and pushes the flower into my hair. The backs of his fingers brush against my cheek on the way down and the ticking of the clock in my mind quiets down a little. "Is everyone okay?"

His jaw clenches. "As okay as we can be."

I nod tensely, motion him inside and lead him to the TV room.

The flower keeps falling out of my hair, so I find a clothespin and fasten it to my dress, where the mockingjay used to be. Gale watches with a slight smile and his gaze burns hot as it brushes over my skin.

I don't even bother trying to suppress my blush.

During the highlights, he allows himself to hold my hand and I allow him to pretend it's for my sake only. I tangle my fingers with his and clutch him as tightly as if it was true.

But his grip grows desperately painful when the screaming starts. Cold sweat glues our hands together. It take all my self-control not to fling both arms around Gale just to make sure they won't hurt him, not now, not ever.

"Bullshit," he growls with the familiar anger-masked-pain when he overcomes the initial shock. I can only imagine how terrible it is for him to hear his family like that, and to see Katniss so desperate. "They were all fine today." He bites his lip at another scream. "We were all fine."

"Of course you are all fine," I reply softly, but I still breathe an inadvertent sigh of relief. It's getting hard to tell what's real and what's not, and every confirmation is precious. And Gale believes it's not real, if he didn't he'd already have run home to make absolutely sure again.

"And there's no fucking way they'd make me sound like that," he growls into my ear with bravado I can't help but appreciate.

"Sure." I nod earnestly. Of course I want to believe that.

Then a surprising laugh escapes me, and a significant part of the tension goes with it. And Gale laughs with me.

Luckily or not, the terrible recap is cut short because of an interesting development in the arena.

The Star-crossed lovers are watching over their sleeping allies together, sitting hip-to-hip and facing in different directions. Katniss is leaning against Peeta's shoulder and he's stroking her hair.

I feel Gale tense beside me, but don't pull away. We are sitting hip-to-hip too, both facing the TV where destiny unfolds.

They acknowledge out loud that they are trying to save each other at all costs and Peeta tries to persuade Katniss that she is the one that should make it out. But however much Peeta emphasizes that Katniss's family needs her, the argument he considered most persuasive – that locket – gets only confused frowning for reaction. She obviously has a different priority now.

"No one really needs me," Peeta says at last.

Katniss looks over the locket she seems to have all but forgotten, her full attention on him.

"I need you," she states, conclusively.

When Peeta tries to protest, Katniss kisses him to shut him up, and proceeds to kiss him so fervently as if devouring him were a surefire way to escape the Hunger Games.

Gale watches them with a silent and deadly intensity, his face immobile.

But when I crane my neck to look into his eyes, I see pain that would match the fake tortured screams from before.

He won't give up on her, not even now, and witnessing his foolish dedication only serves to fuel my determination not to give up on him. His fierce loyalty is both infuriating and irresistible. I wouldn't want to destroy it. I'd want to win it over. Especially now that Katniss has relinquished it.

She made her choice.

My pin on her chest smolders in the artificial pink sunset, a token for the all-but-drowned girl on fire that's been nothing but cold to him and now burns for someone else.

Gale obviously doesn't need me to point it out. He seems to have forgotten I'm there and glares at the TV so intensely I expect the screen to shatter under his gaze any second. I think my hand would break on his stony expression if I succumbed to the temptation to slap him into reality. That wouldn't work anyway, so I try a different approach.

"Gale?" I say softly and touch his hand. My voice almost breaks on his name.

It takes him few seconds to react and turn towards me, but when he does, his eyes soften a little.

Then he frowns and his eyes dart back to the screen.

"She can't fucking die in there," he chokes through gritted teeth. "Not for him. Or for anyone else."

I gasp for breath.

Gale had also realized what exactly her choice means. Unless some miracle happens.

I'd like to believe that I wasn't being selfish when I didn't consider things from this perspective at once. I'd like to think it was just because I simply refused to entertain the possibility that one (or both!) of them won't return. That I forgot the Games are only about death and found my reprieve, just like Katniss and Peeta.

I want to believe they'll both get out, and I want Gale to believe it too.

Maybe if we believe enough…

Before I can change my mind, I lean closer and bring my lips to his ear. Almost close enough to touch, pretending it's necessary to avoid detection by the surveillance. I inhale his scent and almost forget the words I wanted to breathe into his ear. Gale tenses in surprise, but doesn't pull away, and I know I have to say something.

So I say what I need to say aloud to make myself believe it's real. "Haymitch's gonna get them out. Both."

Now Gale pulls away abruptly, his eyes piercing mine, searching for truth.

For all I know, I've just told him a horrible, horrible lie.

But I want to believe it, so much he must see my conviction in my eyes. Because Gale wants to believe it too, he wants it to be real.

I expect him to do a lot of things, but I don't expect him to kiss me.

But that's what he does. Like he needed to. Like he finally allowed himself to. I press my body against his, as close as I can without actually sitting on his lap, and ecstatically return the favor. After few delirious moments, Gale pulls away and looks at me, as if seeing me for the first time. Then he shakes his head to clear it, and glances back at the TV.

Katniss is still kissing Peeta.

Allies can kiss.

It's okay.

Gale's words from few days ago echo in my head. Dammit, Madge, I needed to kiss you.

Dammit, Gale, and I need you to kiss me now, I don't say aloud. And you need to kiss me.

There's so much to fight against. We should we keep fighting ourselves?

"I should go," Gale says abruptly. He has some sort of reason for that every time, or at least thinks he should have.

The expression in his eyes tells me exactly how close to the edge of control he is, a rock poised to cause an avalanche. Too close to doing something… unthinkable… before he can think it over.

Well, there are plenty things I'd want him to do to me. Now. And I can't risk letting him run out of here and do something stupid like try his luck against the whole Peacekeeper force, right?

I purse my lips. "C'mon, then. I'll walk you to the door."

He rises mechanically, looking over his shoulder at the TV, and lets me take his arm. He's so lost in thought he notices that I've taken him in a wrong direction only when we stop at a door in an unlit hallway.

The door to my room.

Like Peeta was Katniss's personal rebellion in the Arena, I'd like Gale to be mine here.

With the TV out of sight, he looks at me again. Pretty much like I've always wanted him to look at me.

"Madge…" he begins, but lets his voice trails off, because he probably doesn't know what exactly to say. But his expression tells me enough.

I've been wrong. He's not close to the edge, he's balancing right there, on a sharp, unforgiving blade.

The tiniest push would tip him over and make him fall.

I gingerly extend my hand and press my fingertips against his chest.

I don't want to see him fall. I want to hold him.

I don't want to see him break. I want to hold him together.

I wish I could take him to a place with no Hunger Games. I wish he would take me there.

As I let my fingers trail down his torso, Gale backs further into the wall, and all but melts into the shadow, dark and chiselled like a statue carved into the coal seam by some gifted pickaxe-artist.

His heart might be with Katniss in the arena, but it's also here with me, quickening under my touch as I splay my palm over his firm muscles and move it in a careful caress.

"What the hell are you doing?" His voice is very low and doesn't want to be angry. It sends a shiver of pleasure through my body.

Just a tiniest pull and I'll fall with him.

He places his hand over mine.

Dammit, Gale, just kiss me. It won't hurt anyone. You won't save anyone by not doing it. I promise.

"This is our Arena," I whisper, tilting my head up. "And I'm sick and tired of making war. Aren't you?"

Gale lifts his hand from mine, cupping my face, lightly tracing my cheekbone with his thumb.

"What d'you want to do, then?" he asks, his self-control breaking with an audible hitch in his voice, and he kisses me just as I part my lips to answer. His eyes are shut, but I keep mine open, just to reassure myself it's really him.

Here, with me.

I don't know who is he thinking about and don't dare to find out, but when I press closer, I can believe that no answer would make our situation any less real. That's as good as I can get, and I'll sure take it.

Maybe I'm taking advantage of him. Maybe I'm letting him take advantage of me.

Doesn't that cancel out? We are just trying to find a little comfort.

Maybe it's all for the Games, but why couldn't we get some pleasure from our alliance? There's nobody watching us, and if someone cares to overhear, we might as well let them know life has to go on.

"See, it's not that bad when we agree on something," I mutter as we part for breath.

He nods with half a smile, letting his hand slide from my cheek down my neck and along the neckline of my dress to the place where I used to wear the mockingjay, and where I'd pinned the marigold now. A tiny silly gift from him that I find more precious than all the jewels of the world.

"You know, the dress really is pretty," Gale mutters as his fingers slide past the orange-yellow flower and continue lower, setting my skin aflame even through the soft fabric. Now I accept his compliment without doubt, but I don't want the dress on me anymore.

If I were wearing only his touch, I could be a girl on fire.

Perhaps not the one… But the one willing to burn with him.

Standing on my tiptoes to meet his lips again, I find myself kissing him like Katniss had kissed Peeta moments ago, and I don't know how would Gale kiss Katniss, but now he's kissing me and anything better than this seems impossible.

A moan escapes my parted lips as Gale releases them to trail ardent kisses along my jaw and down my neck.

"Want me to go on?" he whispers into the hollow of my clavicle. The frantic edge of his voice grates against my nerve-endings, awakening pure instinct. Need drives me closer, my body pressing against his, my bent leg sliding up to cradle his hip. Gale's hand hooks under my thigh and travels up, closer to where I need it, and I shiver as his lips continue along the path his breath had traced.

"Yeah. Don't stop," I whisper just to be on the safe side, choking the words out through the grip of desire. My fingers curl in his hair to prevent him from pulling away. I need to hold him tight lest he vanishes like a dream, as he did so many times before. "Don't you dare stop."

Maybe he'd dare, but he obviously doesn't want to. And I don't want him to either. When he's touching me like this, my blood sings and my whole body thrums with desire, the symphony drowning out the tick tock of the clock that seems to be counting our lives away. I banish all foreboding and think only of a future that lurks only a few layers of clothing away.

For the Games or not, I'm most willing to play.

I find just enough presence of mind to manoeuvre us into my room – an awkward task given our sudden unwillingness to break contact, and lock the door from the inside. Just in case.

Gale immediately presses me against the closed door, his body flush against mine, but I push him slightly away and unbutton his shirt impatiently, eager to touch him, desperate to have him all for myself. He shrugs the garment off without hesitation.

As he shifts his arms behind him to free his hands from the sleeves, my delicate pale fingers are already on him, tracing the shadowy outlines of his muscles, defined and hardened by a lifetime of rough struggle. I caress my way over his firm chest, down his stomach, and skim over the sharp hipbones just above his tightly cinched belt.

"Hey." He flinches slightly as I slide my hands along the waistline of his trousers to the small of his back, and touch the slick scar-tissue there.

I freeze in my tracks and blink away nightmares of blood. "Does it hurt?" I don't want to hurt him. I want to take the pain away.

He hesitates. "No… not really." The physical pain might be gone, but the raw agony of wounds that run deeper than flesh echoes in his voice, however hard he tries to hide it. Something in him keeps bleeding, and I want to make it stop.

"Then it's okay," I whisper softly. Another lie I want to make true. Perhaps Gale wants that too, because he doesn't push me away, but wraps his arms around me instead, pulling me closer. Emboldened by his response, I press my cheek over his heart, feeling his frantic pulse and greedily inhaling a heady scent of desire and freedom and rebellion.

I venture up his back, gingerly navigating the intricate maze of scars carved into his skin. No blood, no pain. They are a part of him, marks of survival, and I want to rid him of the humiliation he associates with them just like I'd helped him with the pain. It must be working, because I feel him relax against me, his breath deepening, but heart racing ever faster.

His fingers trace my own back in response, sliding down instead of up, as low as he can reach, and then gather the skirt of my dress with agonizing slowness.

"Madge?" he breathes, unspoken question in his eyes.

"Go ahead," I whisper back, and lift my arms away from him to let him the slip the dress up.

He does so, with some some frantic pulling at the seams, and my wish to be wearing nothing but his touch comes true soon after. It feels like fire, hot and all-consuming. The heat spreads all over my body and fingers feel warm enough to melt metal when I move to unbuckle his belt.

Maybe Gale doesn't think he loves me, and he certainly doesn't say it.

But he does love me.

I don't want to think of any other way to describe it. Would he lift me in his arms and carry me to my bed and spend so much time making me feel this wonderful if he didn't? Would he let me touch him like this if he didn't?

I have no presence of mind left to doubt it.

Gale's callused palms feel rough against my pampered skin; but he caresses my body with tender care and precision, touching me like I would touch the keys of my piano and eliciting sounds I'd never imagined I could make. Perhaps I should be ashamed for them, but I'm too lost in my bliss to waste a thought on propriety. Both my parents are absent one way or another, so there's nobody else to hear my own moonlight sonata. The most delightful version.

Everything feels new and almost terrifying in its intensity, because no dream or solitary play could possibly match this happening for real. I welcome and encourage it, though, doing my best to match Gale touch for touch, sliding my palms along his skin, tangling greedy fingers in his hair, coaxing him where I want him the most.

When his fingers cross the most intimate threshold, I arch my hips against his deft touch and caress his chest, wishing I could find my way into his heart just as easily as he enters my body.

And maybe I can. I see the way there in his eyes, no longer barred.

"It might hurt a bit now," he whispers with a tinge of remorse as he braces himself above me, teasing my entrance with the lightest pressure.

"Now you're afraid of that?" I laugh a little.

He opens his mouth to speak, but I press my fingers against his lips. "It's okay. I'm ready."

Even if this part were to hurt, like I'd heard some girls whisper, I'm not afraid, and I know Gale won't hurt me on purpose.

Not when he's in my bed, propped on his elbows above me and lightly stroking my cheeks with his thumbs. Not when his breath hitches deliciously as I arch my back just a little higher, to press myself against him and to savor more of the heat that radiates from his body. Not when he looks at me with the strange mixture of lust and tenderness that can be so easily mistaken for love.

Not when I know he wants me so much he needs me.

He doesn't try anymore talking.

The slight discomfort I do feel as he slowly pushes in is lost somewhere in the moonlit depths of his eyes and swept away with the tear he gently wipes from my face.

I breathe deeply and gradually relax around him, encircling his waist with my legs and crossing my heels behind his back so that I'm both above and below him, making us as equal as we can be. We begin to move together, then, finding our rhythm more easily and naturally than I dared to anticipate, and even if we weren't in love, the indulgence is sweeter than I imagined possible.

There's no tick tock of the clock, no games, no jabberjays, no Mockingjays… just the beat of our hearts and the song of our breath and the liquid fire coursing through our joined bodies.

Anchoring my arms behind Gale's neck, I lift my head to press my forehead against his. My eyes trace the taut, square planes of his chest and stomach all the way down, and I watch him slide in and almost-out, wearing nothing but fluid traces of me. We don't match, but we contrast most beautifully.

Letting my head fall back and my eyes fall closed, I shamelessly whisper and moan his name. I want him to hear, I want him to know I want him. Gale quickens his pace in response, his fingers digging into my hips and lips marking my neck, but he remains silent save for ragged breaths and occasional throaty groans that send shivers all over my body and seem to bring me closer to the edge. As I feel the sensations mounting to the climax, some tiny part of my mind that is not completely unravelled wishes he would say my name, and hopes he wouldn't say a different one.

But when he spasms in pleasure above me and says nothing, only bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, I'm already beyond caring.

I just tangle my fingers in his wild hair and yank his face closer to kiss the drop away. He smiles at me then, bright and sincere, a slight red smear on his lip, and shifts to hold me his arms.

Allies to the last.

We both won a little and died a little in this game, and it was perfect.

I turn in his embrace to face him and stare at our entwined bodies in content fascination. Moonlight glistens in the sheen of sweat we are wearing together, hiding all our contrasts under a silvery cloak, light and dark, right and wrong, all melted and fused together to create something wonderful.

Gale drifts off before me, and that's fine, because that means I can watch him sleep. I savor the opportunity and trace his features with my eyes, committing them to memory: full lips slightly parted, forehead devoid of the familiar crease, moon-cast shadows softening the sharp angles of his face.

Extending my hand, I gingerly stroke his messy dark hair, careful not to wake him.

He looks peaceful in his sleep, and I'm free to think I've brought him the peace. I know he's done that for me.

At least for tonight. We'll have to see what tomorrow brings.

I idly turn my head to the window just in time to see a shooting star cutting the sky in a graceful arc. I silently wish it would bring a future we could share, and nestle deeper into Gale's embrace.

001. Flawless Wings

I wake to a cool silky caress.

Soft summer breeze wafts from the window and lightly ruffles the white dress that rests over my body.

My blanket is mostly crumpled under me and tangled between my ankles.

Lazily, I lift my arms and press the material of the dress closer to my skin. Then I hug it to myself and roll over, burying my nose in my pillow. The scent of sweat and love has mostly evaporated, fled through the open window like a dream, but a trace still lingers.

Gale was really here. With me.

Now I'm alone again, but every cell in my body knows that I hadn't imagined it, not this time.

My imagination takes over easily, though, I just need to close my eyes to see him above me, kissing the slight bruises from the night before, his morning stubble teasing my skin. Too pale and soft, too easily bruised. Nothing we've done hurt me, but a few marks remained like scattered violet petals.

I'll have to hide them under my dress like dirty little secrets.

Said dress is crumpled from the hours it spent discarded on the floor, in a pile with Gale's clothes. He must have picked it up before he slipped away, and covered me with it. Upon closer inspection I notice few all-but-ripped seams. So much for pretty dresses.

Despite the damage, I put it on again, running my hands over the soft fabric and smoothing out the wrinkles.

I check my appearance in the mirror and then tie a light-blue scarf around my neck.

Nothing more to hide.

And nobody to hide it from in the empty house, with Father always hard at work and Mother asleep in her darkened room.

The Games are live and Katniss and Peeta and the other are alive, too, and reasonably well. Peeta has found a pearl in an oyster and given it to Katniss, it gleams in the sun as she rolls it between her fingers. I think of Gale deep down in the mines, coal dust and anger under his nails, and something deep down in me is relieved he can't be watching right now.

The day stretches before me, ticking away slowly as I wait and wait. For what? For my friends to die, for my friends to live, for Mother to wake, for Father to come home, for Gale to finish his shift in the mines… and to come see me… or not.

Gale does appear, sneaking in between Peacekeeper patrols, just before the evening mandatory viewing. He's cleaned up well after the mines, black hair still damp like he'd been in the Arena too. He seems to be at loss of words, and so am I, but we are facing each other, somehow changed, somehow bound. I don't exactly know how to go on from here, and obviously, neither does he. But we can figure it out together, can't we?

Not yet, though. At this point, it's not like we could settle for a quiet life, neither in the Seam nor in the half empty Mayor's house, not even if we both wanted to.

Tick tock goes the clock, I feel it ticking away time to… something, some upheaval of the world as we know it, with its confines and meagre certainties.

And even if it led to something better, what are the odds of both of us living to see it?

"I promised Prim to watch with them today again," he says, bringing me to reality. "Will you come too?"

"I'd like to, but… Mother is sleeping, I should be here if she wakes. Father is stuck at the Justice Building, I don't know what he's doing. He might tell me something if he shows up during the viewing."

"Then I could sneak in after. If you want."

Yes, I do.

"That would be dangerous," I say instead.

"Worth it."

"Okay."

For a moment, he clutches my hand – tiny and pale in his, reminding me of how Katniss clutched the pearl in the Arena – and a fleeting spark of faith that things can be good again brightens his eyes. With a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips, he presses my fingers against them and whispers, "See you at midnight."

Katniss says the same thing to Peeta as they part, to finish their respective tasks in the grand plan Beetee cooked up. Something with a wire and tree and lightning, and then Katniss is shooting her bow right at the sky, and there is a blinding flash and sudden darkness.

Darkness complete, because the TV screen goes black and the lights go out.

Then silence, even the clocks forget to tick.

Then rumbling, heavy feet running, engines starting, their roar fading in the distance…

… only for another roar to come closer and closer, wings slicing through the air.

A single pair of feet running, our door crashing open.

Father.

He grips my arm and wrenches me from the couch in front of the TV where I'd sat frozen in confusion.

"Out! I'll get your mother. You run as fast as you can."

The urgency in father's voice propels me forward without protest, but when I sprint towards the door it's already too late.

There is a deafening crash and the world goes black.

I wake to pounding pain and a pervasive smell of smoke, the world rumbling and crumbling around me.

And burning.

I'm not in the mines, but after all, the walls can fall on my head here too. I roll over to avoid a falling beam, scramble up and immediately fall down, scraping my knees bloody on the blackened carpet.

Then I'm up again, trying to run, but every step seems to take an eternity and I can't outrun the smoke and the flames. My lungs are burning.

And the windows on the side of the house that's not ablaze yet are darkened by heaped ruins. No escape that way.

I'll die as I lived, trapped by the walls of the Mayor's house.

The rubble in one window shifts.

A hand, dirty and bloodied, pokes through. Then another, frantically pushing the crumbled bricks aside.

Gale's face appears in the gap, dark with soot and despair. He's yelling something but I can't hear over the roar of the fire and new explosions. Or maybe my ears have stopped working altogether, I wouldn't even know.

I'm tripping forward, towards the crack in my prison, towards the glimpse of hope. As fast as I can, but not fast enough. My skirt catches fire, flames are devouring the whiteness, melting it orange and turning it black, skin and fabric alike.

Momentum still carries me forward, but time seems to stand still. My legs, screaming in pain, fail me and I stumble, the fire spreading up my back, my arms instinctively flapping out.

Disjointed images flash before my eyes, white dress burning turning black, turning into a Mockingjay, no that wasn't me, I am…

"Madge!" I think I hear Gale roar. Bloodied stones tumble from the barricade he's trying to dismantle to get to me.

Blindly reaching forward, I'm almost close enough to touch his outstretched hand, but fall short.

My own wings of flame can't carry me forward, and I'm beyond wishing for anything else.

Nothing, no more.

Only a fraction of a second when I'm the Girl on Fire.

I glimpse myself reflected in a single pair of terrified eyes, blazing gold in molten silver.

I am as radiant as the sun.