Chapter One

Gale:

He had never been inside of Katniss Everdeen, never touched the planes of her breast, or kissed the faint freckle he new existed on the top of her left hip. But he loved her, would always love her and had resigned himself to the simple truth that she would always haunt him.

Sitting on the train, hurtling at a terrifying speed towards Twelve, he found himself thinking of her. Did she still have that half hearted smile, that faraway look of someone who was always thinking of something or someone else. Did she still hunt? Had she married Peeta. Did they have children? Was she happy?

Gale tried to clear his thoughts, the train itself was beautiful; red plush seats, nearly empty with wide vast windows that made him feel like he was traveling through air. Each district a blur of landscape that came and went with a hush. A girl who was about his age walked up and down the isles every hour to offer food or drink. At first there had been many passengers, but as the districts rolled one into the other, they dissipated until it seemed it was only him, falling towards the far reaches of home on the edge of Panem.

He had stayed in Two because he had to. He couldn't live a life of watching her live without him. To be a soldier meant giving up control, allowing someone, or something else tell you who to be and what to do. Every decision, premade, and part of a larger plan. And so he did it, because it was all that was left of his life. March. Put one foot in front of the other and don't look back.

A few weeks earlier, his contract had come up, it was time to re-enlist or resign. They had all assumed he would re-enlist, but he had called his mother, who with her crinkled sweet voice made him feel homesick and adrift.

"You should see Posy" she gushed, "She's such a beautiful woman." His sister, a woman? Or even close to one, it had hurt, and he tried to picture her, but he couldn't. It had hit him, suddenly that he had to come home, come back to who he was, or it would be too late. The uniform, the strategy, all of the hours spent cleaning up after the rebellion were over, and if he didn't leave then soon all he would be was uniform wearing a man and not the other way around. He had completed everything he had set out to do, and Katniss, no matter how much he loved her, wasn't the sole owner of Twelve. It was his too, and he deserved to go home. He had paid his penance and now it was time to follow the bonesick yearning for the familiar trees washing over the hills like green waves.

"Sir…. Sir…are you sure there isn't anything I can get for you?" the girl who had been stalking the isles asked, holding out a tray of pastrys.

"No thank you" he said. She turned to go; "Wait" he said "Do you have anything to drink." She turned and smiled at him, that happy fake robotic smile of someone whose profession is in sales and customer service. You don't know how lucky you have it he thought.

"Of course."

"Anything hard?" he asked. She blushed and glanced down at his lap. Then looked back at him all youth and smiles.

"Why yes, what would you like?" He didn't drink much, if ever.

"You choose, just not something two sweet." He almost asked her if she had white liquor, but thought better of it. In twelve it was the drug of choice, but here among the comfortable pillows and the gleaming wood, he doubted she had ever heard of it.

It was funny, they were the same age, but he didn't find her attractive at all. He felt as if he was old enough to be her father. It had been like that in Two as well, all of the girls seemed so young. There had been girls, but when he had sat across from them found that he had nothing to say to them that he thought they would understand. So he took them to bed, but not to dinner.

Over the years he had called her a couple of times and then hung up. He had laid in bed, when he couldn't sleep and told her about his day, about his thoughts, and how lonely he felt. Sometimes he imagined that there was a cord between them, and no matter how he tried to sever it, it always grew back. In the beginning he hated her, truly hated her because there was a knowing in his heart, an irking, heavy suspicion that she was the love of his life, but he wasn't the love of hers.

"She will never forgive me" he had said to Haymitch the day after her trial.

"Not for a very long time" Haymitch had said "And when she does she will be an entirely different person." Gale had decided in that moment that he wouldn't seek her out, wouldn't try and say goodbye, or make one last plee for her affection. Instead, he enlisted, and tried to not look back.

"Here you go its all we have left" the girl said handing him a tall glass of brown liquid. He fumbled through his wallet to pay her but she waved her hand "It's on me. There's no one else here anways."

She sat down across from him and smiled. "So you're headed to Twelve?" she asked "Why?" He shrugged. He had never been much for words.

"I used to live there."

"So what are you going to do there? I hear the place is a terrible bore."

"I would like to build a house in the woods, hunt, fish. Get reacquainted with my brothers and sisters." The woods; he could almost smell them, the only place he had ever felt completely himself.

"Sounds boring" she said giggling at him a little, her eyes slanted down. If he wanted to he could take her to a small compartment and wrap her about his waist, and make her feel small and unbound. "Say, if your from there you must know the Mockingjay?" she asked.

He almost smiled, one of the perks of going back to twelve was that no one going to ask that question. "Yeah I know her" he said.

"I just love her" the girl gushed "So brave and beautiful. It's such a shame she went crazy. Did she ever end up with Peeta?" Yet another question he hated. But the drink was strong and he was beginning to feel himself unravel, one little, carefully guarded thread at a time.

"I don't know, I think so."

"I hope so. True love you know. It's just so romantic."

Gale nodded. "It's nice to think so isn't it" he said.

When the train finally pulled up into Twelve it was late in the afternoon. Gale had been traveling for nearly two days. The station was empty, with an exception of a few waiting to collect goods, and supplies. For fifteen minutes he sat in his seat and watched from the window. It looked different, but familiar, a shinier version than the Twelve from his dreams. Home.

Finally he got out and stood feeling lost on the platform. Of course know one would come to great him, they didn't know that this day was the day he was coming, but it would have been nice to see a familiar face, and then he saw her, she was facing away from him talking to one of the workers. He would recognize the thin straight shoulders with a dark braid hanging down her back anywhere. So much of his life had been spent watching her always walking in front of him, never looking back. All that was missing was the curve of her bow and a large game bag.

"What do you mean the flour isn't on board. It was supposed to be here" she said. He stood frozen to the spot, unable to move. Of course, today of all days she would be in this place, the one person he couldn't quite face just yet. "Check again. I came all the way from the Victors Villiage to pick it up. If its here you better go get it." As if she felt his eyes upon her she turned and met his gaze. Open, shock flooded her face. Then she had not seen him she turned away from him and walked away, the flour forgotten. He watched her go, staring openly, noting that even now her foot fall was quiet, but quick, and her spine unbending. Then she was gone and he shook himself out of his daze.

"Well that was odd," the girl from the train said, who had come to stand beside him. In her hands she held his jacket that he must have left on the seat. "I thought you said you knew her."

"I thought I did too" he replied. She handed him his coat and walked away, suddenly done with his company. He gathered his bag and made his way toward the Seam, where even though she could have moved, his mother still lived.

He had imagined coming home and seeing Katniss for the first time. He had hoped that she would smile at him, maybe embrace him, make small talk, and pretend that they were acquaintances that were capable of talking about the weather. But silence? Never. Silence. She had walked away like she didn't even recognize him, as if he had never existed. How was that even possible?

By the time he got to the Seam it was nearly evening. Some of the houses had been left to rot and fall into the earth. Other had been tacked back together by wood scavenged from other houses. But there was life, and little lights shown out from the windows. Children played in the street, their soles covered in dirt. Yards of occupied houses seemed bright and full of life, not as desperately poor and sparse as he remembered them. Gardens spilled out of picket fences, and husbands and wives leaned in the doorways looking fondly out at the hills.

To soon he was on his mother's doorstep. The house was larger, rebuilt into a two story house, perhaps the largest one on the block. It was the pile of old lumber he remembered it to be afternoon the bombing. She had told him once on the phone that the Seam was home and to leave it didn't feel right, after all it was where she raised her children, loved her husband, and built her life. "I couldn't leave the home your father built for us," she had said. But it went deeper than that, she had lived all of her life in this part of town, and truthfully she couldn't bare to leave it. From the open window Gale could see her sitting quietly by the fire, reading a book and drinking out of a large mug. Home he thought. Yes this is home.