Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins obviously does.

While I Live

Because Gale didn't just vanish off the face of the earth when he left for District 2...


Prologue

I was sure my heart had completely broken towards the end of the war. I was sure that I couldn't possibly hurt more, given the facts that I had been unable to protect Prim (Instead, I killed her. Oh, the irony.), that Peeta was probably going to live happily ever after with Katniss, and Johanna Mason (yes, that Johanna Mason), was the only one who had attempted to offer any comfort at all (strange, yes), and even that was a lecture on how I should give up on Katniss, because it'll only hurt more. I should've listened to Johanna...

Because in the end, it was me and not the Capitol that truly broke Katniss, almost beyond repair. I killed Prim, Primrose Everdeen, Katniss's only comfort in a world full of darkness. I killed the person who could make Katniss smile on the worst of days. The reason Katniss went into the Games in the first place. Prim was one of the reasons the whole damn rebellion started in the first place, because of Katniss's desire to protect her. In the end, she died anyway. Were they my bombs? I don't think so. But I felt responsible. Because I had failed.

My already shriveled up heart completely and utterly died, though, at that moment when Katniss screamed my name when she shot Coin. Immediately recognizing me as the person Katniss wanted, I had been seized myself by Peacekeepers. "Your cousin's going to be safe," they told me gruffly, and I didn't believe them for a second. I thrashes around to no avail. It was at that moment, when I couldn't keep my final feeble promise to Katniss Everdeen, to kill her in danger, was when my heart broke, and someone was poking the broken pieces with a cold metal rod.

After Katniss's trial was over, I would've returned to District 12. I wanted to. It was the only way anything could ever go back to normal for me. But I didn't, because Katniss would surely go there and I didn't want to disturb her anymore than I already had. I wanted her to be as happy as she possibly could. "Let her have her happy ever after with the baker's son," I told Beetee when he questioned my choice, "She doesn't love me anymore. She never will. Let her marry him, because even though she said she wouldn't, she will."

Prim, Bombs, Games, Peeta, Katniss, Explosion, Capitol, Catnip, Death, Misery, Baker, Games, Prim. My life was revolving around that at the moment, and I needed a fresh start.

So I got a job in District 2 as a television reporter through Beetee, who was still reluctant about me going, and packed the scraps of belongings I had left. I told my family they could stay in 12, but my mother refused to be separated from me. Besides, Rory wasn't taking Prim's death too well. Great job, I told myself, You killed off your little brother's best friend. Rory refused to talk to me, being just as stubborn as me.

Life in District 2 wasn't horrible, I guess.

The first thing that I had to get over when we arrived in District 2 was that District 2 bordered the new Capitol, which wasn't a place I liked to think about, even though the new Capitol wasn't hell bent on killing 23 kids each year for entertainment. District 2 itself also gave me a bad feeling, since I had created the plan to blow up The Nut, and a shiver passed through me whenever I saw the remains of it. So, so many people killed. So many kids left without fathers. For all I knew, by blowing up The Nut, I could've put hundreds of kids in my own position, a giant burden on the shoulders of the eldest children of the fathers I killed. But that wasn't likely, I told myself, District 2 was a Career district, these people were allies with the Capitol. The guilt hung over me like a black cloud, and whenever I forget it's there for just a moment, and look up and remember it all over again.

So much death…

The Games had their effects on me too, even if they were indirect. I had horrible nightmares almost every night now, and since I lived apart from my family in a small one bedroom flat the TV station had given me, there was no one to comfort me. I would spend way too many nights just pacing in my room and thinking and regretting what I had done in the war. I don't know what I had been thinking when I designed those weapons, I don't know what I was thinking when I had designed all of those war plans. It's like I was on some Capitol drug and I had stopped taking it only now, and the full weight of everything hit me.

I was twenty years old but I refused to get too close to any girls, even if they wanted to just be friends. They all reminded me of either Katniss or Prim in some distorted way. Prim and Katniss, Katniss and Prim. Once I saw someone with the same hairstyle as Katniss and completely freaked out, another time I saw a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes that reminded me of Prim, and the worst incident was when I saw some girl with straight black hair and light blue eyes that looked gray from far away.

I overanalyzed everything. A kind gesture from a stranger or friend left me thinking of their motives at night, and I practically interrogated every friend that Vick, Rory, or Posy brought home from school. My mom finally had to drag me away once and gently told me that it would be best if I didn't hang around at times like that.

Despite everything that happened, all of the weird habits I developed, and the social issues I had, I somehow never completely lost my head. My family was always there for me, and Posy, who was now seven and going to an actual school, could still make me smile anytime. Fay and Calv, two of my friends from work, always managed to cheer me up at work or bring me back to earth if I spaced out during the day.

But yesterday was the last straw, and I snapped.