"Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?"

"You won't be going to the Capitol,"

It was the morning of the reaping for the Third Quarter Quell, and my mind was running a mile a minute. I recalled my bitter, short-lived, conservation with Gale Hawthorne so long ago and it ran a sour taste over my tongue. It didn't feel like I was safe, and being the mayor's daughter didn't give me the assuredness I was hoping for, begging for. But still I dressed in my pretty white lace dress that came to my knees, with gold colored sandals and my hair in loose curls framing my face. I was a bundle of nerves and I waited by the side door, waiting for the time to come to walk to the Square where I would be herded with my age group, the sixteen-year olds and then I would silently wait while everyone eyed me about being the mayor's daughter. A brief knock jolted me out of my reverie and I sighed, jumping down off the counter to open the door, expecting some Peacekeeper or one of my father's coworkers. Instead I was staring at the chest of a much taller Gale Hawthorne. He was dressed in the same shirt he wore for the last reaping, and smelled of pine needles and something sweet that I couldn't place.

"Hello, Gale."

"Um, mornin', Madge." He shuffles around and looks behind him, probably seeing if he can escape back the way he came, coward.

"What brings you here so early?" I clear my throat and stare at my feet, somehow this encounter has an awkward feel to it, one that makes me shift my weight from one foot to the other anxiously, waiting for his answer.

"I…don't know, really."

"We still have an hour then, want to walk around a bit then go to the reaping?" When I bring up the reaping he clenches his jaw and then unclenches it, and I regret ever asking him to walk with me.

"I guess." He shrugs and motions for me to go outside. I scrawl a note on a pad of paper with my favorite pen, telling my father I won't be going with him to the reaping, I'm walking with a friend.

We don't talk for a while and the silence becomes unnerving, I still don't know why he came to my house, he only ever came with berries, and that was only with Katniss when she was alive. And then I realize all at once that he's scared, fearless Gale Hawthorne is scared of the reaping because she was killed.

"Brings back bad memories, doesn't it?" I ask, in the softest tone I can, trying to be gentle.

"Of course." He snaps, and I wonder why he even bothered to walk with me for so long.

"I miss her all the time, I don't have anyone to talk to anymore." I can see his jaw clench again and wish I could retract my comment. He must feel way worse than I do, having known her his whole life. But I can't take my words back so I wait for his snarky comment to come, praying it isn't too rude.

"Me too, Madge, every day." His voice breaks at the end and I wonder if he's going to cry, it doesn't seem like it, he's tough, but today of all days, he just might.

We pass the bakery and he curses under his breath, we can see Peeta Mellark moping on the front step, wearing a fine pressed shirt smeared with flour, the same flour that is laced through his hair. He doesn't seem very happy for a victor to the 74th Hunger Games, though if I had to watch the one I loved die so I could live, I wouldn't be so happy either. He looks up and meets my eye, he flicks his hand up for a moment in greeting and I smile back, just a little, so I won't upset Gale. He picks himself up from the step and his pant leg lifts to reveal his Capitol engineered leg, he pushes it back down and hobbles up the steps, slowly and painfully. He'll be seated on the makeshift stage today, next to Haymitch Abernathy, the only two winners D12 has ever produced.

"He looks empty, just like he died in the arena." I sigh, my thoughts exiting my mouth before they fully register to my brain.

"If he did, Katniss might have won." He snaps, his voice laced with acid. He storms ahead towards the Square and I run after him, my head hanging low, feeling like an idiot.

"Sorry…"

"Shut up." He grunts, pressing faster toward the Square.

"Fine." There's no fight in me today so I shut my mouth and we walk in silence towards the Square, where we're herded into our respectable pens and I watch him from afar, carefully counting how many times he clenches his jaw. I thank my father for my impeccable eyesight.

50…

56…

71…

92…

"Welcome, citizens of District 12!" Effie shouts like a chipmunk on steroids, I block her voice out like I do at most of the dinners we host at our extravagant home, supplied for the very reason to host unbearable dinners.

Sometime after I peek over at Gale and notice he's staring straight ahead at the ball full of his name. He's nervous and biting his lip, like he senses something that I don't and then I realize, he has a feeling he's going to be picked. I find myself more worried for him than I am for myself, and realize all too late that I should have prepared myself for when Effie reached into the giant ball, drawing out a shimmering sheet of paper.

"Margaret Undersee!" Gale is gaping at me, and so is the rest of the town, it's come to them now, even before me, that not even the mayor's daughter is safe from the Capitol.

I'm in a stupor, and when I reach the stage all I can do is grip the skirt of my dress in my clenched fists and hope I don't faint, or throw up, or both. Haymitch stumbles over to me and whispers something about a Maysilee, who I don't know and then he falls at my feel, in a giant heap, causing me to squeak in disapproval.

"My oh my, it appears we have the mayor's daughter here, what a lucky girl!"

Lucky isn't the words I would have picked but I stare blankly at her instead of screaming and ripping out her bright blue hair. She says something about it being an honor and I tune her out again, up until the big ball with the boys names screeches to a halt and she pulls out a slip of paper, snaps the paper so it makes a crisp noise, and reads out the name of the boy that will either kill me, or be killed by someone or something else in my vicinity.

"Gale Hawthorne!" The first thing anyone hears is his little sister Posy, her bloodcurdling scream rips into my ears, and she screams over and over again for her big brother and I watch him come up on the stage, not hearing his velvet tread. He doesn't look me in the eyes, and if I had to take a guess, he was already planning how easily it would be to kill me. There was that kind of look in his eye, and hell, I was a good judge of character.

We were supposed to shake hands, a mandatory thing, but instead he shoots me the stink eye and holds his arm firmly to his side. I want to cry, oh why did we have to fight this morning? Adding more fuel to the ever-candescent fire of Gale Hawthorne, I suppose while fighting down the bile rising in my throat. We stare each down for a while, while Effie bids goodbye to the crowd of people, probably already wishing me dead. My father places a hand on my shoulder and soon it's wrenched from me and was being forced behind the curtain and into the train. It's odd, and soon I realize we don't get to say goodbye, this thought must have occurred to Gale as well because he looks broken, he won't get to say goodbye to his big family. Peeta is standing in the middle of a huge room, with a television the size of the wall and a couch, made of red leather, ringing the room, looking plush and inviting. I push past him and follow the Avox to my room. I've been on a Capitol train once, but nothing like this, this one is extravagant and even less inviting than its interior seemed.

I wrench off my stupid dress, and strip down till I'm naked and shower for what seems like forever. I exit the steaming room to find an outfit waiting for me, black silken pants that cinch at my ankles and a blouse, short sleeved and crisp white. I slip it on with a pair of undergarments I find in a drawer and pad out into the room from before, after tying my long hair into an intricate knot on top of my head. I find Gale sitting on the couch wearing black pants and a long sleeve white shirt. Great, they already have us matching, I sigh. He's barefoot as well and I pad over to the couch and take a seat, reaching for a plate piled high with tiny sandwiches, picking one with cucumber in it. You can tell he hasn't touched it, so I pick one out that I think he'll like and hand it to him. He looks at it – sniffs it even – and then devours it in one go, grunting in approval. At least he didn't yell at me for helping him like before. Soon Peeta and Effie join us, sitting opposite of us on the couch. We're going to watch the other tributes be picked, lovely.

First is D1, and I hold my breath in, knowing the Careers will be fierce and all too unforgiving. The first name called is a female one "Shimmer", she saunters up on stage, and she's tall, 6 foot at least, she looks scary too and I cringe into the couch. She has soft red hair that's cropped short to her head and her skin is pale, but beautiful. The next name to be called is "Flicker", he's tall as well, and ripped as far as I can tell, his hair is like spun gold and his skin is pale and smooth looking. I find him attractive, but then drawback, knowing he might kill me and thinking he's attractive is just stupid.

Second comes D2, and the bile in my throat is threatening its way to the surface, out all over the expensive clothes I know I'm wearing, however plain they seem. The first to come to the stage is a scrawny young girl, looking barely fed, who is soon walking off the stage again and is replaced by an average height girl with a vicious grin. She looks eighteen and must have realized she was coming up on her last chance to win, it's sickening. She's muscular but pretty with dark colored hair that comes to her shoulders, curly and wild. She announces her name as "Rika" and grins down into the crowd, probably to her family. The second name to be called is "Nicol" and he saunters up to the stage. He's tall, but lanky and I'm taken aback by how sad he looks. The announcer says something about him being Clove's brother and I realize that his sister died in the last games, tragic as it is, I know he's going to be out for revenge.

I don't pay attention to the other districts, rather I curl up and go to sleep right there on the couch, the buzz of the voices drifting away from me as I drift into a nightmare. I wake up to some movement on the couch and I see the television is frozen on our reaping, frozen on my face. I look lost, and I regret not crying because now the tears just won't come. I turn and see Gale sitting there, a death-like grip on the remote, staring at my face. I move and open my mouth to speak and I startle him, causing him to drop the remote.

"Shouldn't you go to bed? We're meeting our stylists tomorrow." I mumble in the darkness, noticing that it's obviously late at night. He yawns and stretches, but doesn't move.

"I think we should stop being friends now, Madge, this will be hard enough without any emotional ties."

"No matter how hard I try to convince myself that it's the right thing to do, it still hurts too much." I sigh and stand up in the darkness, searching for something to help me get to my room. A blanket falls to my feet and I realize that someone put it there, but push out the thought that it could have been Gale. He's going to need to win this for his family, so I decide to let him kill me if he has to. It's the best I have to offer him now.

"I know, Madgey, I know." There's something about how he uses my nickname so nonchalantly that strikes me, and makes me feel like I've been slapped. I stumble my way up the hallway and leave him in front of the television, the light of the screen dancing off his hardened face. I don't know how I'm just supposed to sit by and watch these games destroy him all over, but instead of doing anything about it, I slip into my room and fall into my bed, dreaming of murder and insanity.

I'm shaken awake several hours later with strong, male hands, one covering my mouth, the other gripping my shoulder firmly. It takes me a moment but I squint into the darkness and see Peeta Mellark seated next to me, his face unreadable. I should have approached him earlier, then maybe he wouldn't have woken me up so late, but he's here now and I pull his hand from my lips. However, he speaks first.

"I'm sorry, Madgey, I really am." His use of my nickname is more comforting than Gale's, and it gives me a familial sense. Peeta was like a brother to me in D12 and it's nice to hear his voice amidst the darkness.

"It's alright Peeta Rabbit, it's hard, but you couldn't do anything to stop it either." I throw in his nickname, one I used when I was barely 5 when he used to come over to draw with me. He slips his hands around mine and squeezes them tight, and finally tears threaten to overflow in my eyes.

He's still wearing the clothes from earlier, but they're crumpled and his shirt is untucked. His fake leg is sticking out at an awkward angle and he catches me staring at it and curses under his breath, I know he hates it, he confided in me about it when he came home.

"Madgey?" His voice shakes me out of my stupor; I had been staring into space for what seemed to be ages.

"Welcome home, Peeta Mellark." He sighs and collapses in a chair, complaining about his leg and how he sometimes still feels it.

"This blasted leg, with the Capitols engineering you would think they would've made it easier to walk with." I give him a pained look; it's all I can do. We're seated in my room and he's still in the clothes he walked off the train in, it's only been a few hours and I found him standing outside my door, crying his eyes out. They're dry now and the only evidence is the splotchy red skin around his eyes.

"How'd it happen?"

"You mean they didn't show it?"

"I don't really know, they might have, I didn't watch." He nods in understanding and breathes in heavily, waits a moment then sighs and begins.

"They set fire to the arena, to drive us all together, it was a good idea but I think it was put there to play with 'the girl on fire', y'know?" I nod, and he continues. "I ran into Katniss then and she didn't even raise her bow like I figured she would, she just ran away, but for some reason I followed her. She was smart, she could find us a place where the fire couldn't reach, I think that's why I went after her, and I wasn't going to kill her. I didn't get that far and by now there were only three of us left: Cato, the guy from D2, and Katniss and me. He found us first and cornered her, I tried to help her but he speared my leg, I couldn't even move. You know how much I love her, er, loved her, don't you Madgey?" His voice catches and I flinch, hoping he doesn't cry. I wouldn't know how to comfort a crying man, I wouldn't know what to say.

"Like a proper romance novel, please continue Peeta Rabbit." He nods and keeps going.

"By the time I got myself free, yanked the damn spear right out, I was bleeding out over the forest floor. She screamed something that I didn't hear and he snapped her neck, and just like that she was gone." This had turned into him spilling his regrets more so than how he lost his leg, but I let him press on.

"Something came over me then and I sprang on Cato like an animal, dragging his spear with me. And then he was gone too and I blacked out and the next thing I knew my leg was gone and I was sitting in a hospital bed with a bunch of Capitol assholes staring me down outside a glass wall."

He's holding me now and I'm crying into his shirt and he's saying he'll train me to be the best but I know there's not enough time and I'm not willed enough to win. He's petting down my hair and every so often he'll run his finger across my shoulder blade drawing pictures of things I can't see. I'm on his lap now and I'm held against his chest and he's mumbling about how I can't die and how I don't deserve it, and I can't think of a single reason why I don't.

"First Katniss, now Madge, you've got a sick liking for girl's that are gonna die, Peeta Mellark." A voice scoffs from the doorway and I recognize it instantly, knowing it belongs to Gale.

I'm pushed off his lap and he stands painfully, letting out a slight grunt and pushes his way past Gale out into the dark hallway. I dry my eyes with my sleeve and stand to address Gale for speaking a hell of a long way out of line but instead he turns on his heel and leaves, not letting me explain. But I convince myself that I don't need to explain myself to him and sit in a chair in the corner of my room and wait for my stylists to come. Sleep refuses to come to me so I wait and wait and wait for hours until day break.