A/N: This fic was edited by the fantastic, wonderful, brilliant, marvellous, splendid person we call imawordbender. Any mistakes found are solely my fault because obviously I wrote this. I don't own it though, just my own obsessiveness.
Mutts snap at my heels and I run like hell, deep into the forest, going as far as I can from Peeta's dead body. I can't stop it though, can't do anything. Every time I look up I see him hanging like a puppet from every tree. Every time I look down I see Rue's flowers stained with blood. There is no where I can go that isn't filled with death; even Marvel has his place – kneeling in a field of grass, arrows raining down on him as he screams in agony.
And then suddenly, I clear the woods. The sunlight blinds me, but I spin round to see where the mutts have gone. Their grey bodies leap from the dark trees but as the sunlight touches them they disappear into wisps of smoke, till no sound remains and nothing moves. It's just me, standing at the edge of the forest, bathed in sunlight but still cold, far too cold.
Far, far, far too cold. Ice appears rapidly on the tree branches and when I take a step back, snow crunches under my leather boots – my ones from home, not the ones I wore for the arena. Since when was I wearing these? My breath becomes mist in front of my face. I don't understand it, but I know that whatever the Gamemakers have come up with now is bad, bad news. In my own way, I don't want to understand it. I want to remain in this silent moment of just watching, and not knowing. Knowledge can be a bad thing, a painful thing–
It's always when things are going badly that you think of something worse. And the first rule of hunting is always knowing what's behind your back. I don't know what's behind my back. Slowly, carefully, silently, I turn round, the snow beginning to soak into my boots and my fingers going painfully numb.
"Gale!" I sprint, slipping and sliding on the wet snow. It's getting deeper as I run faster towards him, but it wouldn't have mattered if I had flat ground, I could never have got there in time to stop the whip, crashing down on his bloodied back. He yells in pain as it snaps down, barely recovering from the first blow before the next falls down. Though of course it's not the first. It looks more like the fiftieth than the first.
Only when I have seen his head fall, his wide shoulders slipping into unconsciousness, do I get to him. The podium forms around my feet, the arena falls away and I'm in the town square, wrapping my arms around him. He is warm and I can feel his heartbeat even as the whip snaps down on me this time, burning like acid. Even as Haymitch jumps in to save me I can feel it, beating underneath my fingers. And I can feel it slowing, even as I scream for him, even as Haymitch rips me away and tries to restart his heart, I can feel it still in my hands and under my skin, hear it stuttering and fail in my ears. I can feel it when I cling to him, whispering to him, begging him.
It doesn't work. I push Haymitch out of the way, kneel beside him. I hold him in my arms, and he gives me that grey eyed, beautiful stare and I lose him. I lose them all.
"Katniss, Katniss stop!" I wake in a blinding panic. Warm, unfamiliar arms loop around me and I cling to them. I can barely breathe, tears blurring down my face. I bury my head in the crook of his neck, inhaling the strange smell on his skin – blood, and the smell of medication that I know from my time in the Capitol. And under it, the smell of earth and trees and smoke, so unmistakably Gale that I ignore reason and just breathe, knowing he is here with me, knowing he is alive with me.
But the memories come rushing back, and even though he didn't die on that whipping post he was still there, and it's a miracle he's awake from all the morphine he's been given.
"Catnip?" He asks tentatively, softly rubbing my arm in a comforting way. I swallow and blink, trying to wake up again, stretching out beside him. He relaxes slightly but doesn't let me go – instead he slips his arms more tightly around my waist, holding me to him. I can't understand how he's doing it, how he isn't screaming in agony. He's wide awake now and looking at me like I was the one who nearly died, not him. Remembering our kiss from yesterday I blush and duck my head into his shoulder blade, breathing in the smell of his skin and trying to think past all the distractions.
I don't know what to do, how to act. I don't even know what I should be acting, if doing this, starting this love story with him is right or wrong. No, I already know that, I know how wrong it is. Affair, cheater, unfaithful. I try the words out in my head, trying to come to terms with them. It isn't easy. But when I think of the fire I felt when I kissed him, and all the memories of how much he's done for me – he is mine, and I am his. When I think of love, I see his face. When I think of my future, I see his hand in mine. And when I think of the revolution that I set in motion with my flames and mockingjay pin, it's his courage that I see leading the way.
Some things aren't a choice. Some things are just everything we need to live boiled down to one person who can give us life, and that one person is more precious than the oxygen that passes through your own lips. I will love him forever, just as I sort of have since he carried me home when I was fifteen – unable to feel pain with his arms around me and his voice soothing me into sleep.
"Catnip?" He asks again, and this time his voice is strained. Scared for me, worried. I tilt my head back to look at him, taking in his grey eyes, black hair and olive toned skin, the face I've known and cared for since I was twelve. My hands reach out to him, stroking the black silk of his hair, the hard line of his jaw. He says nothing, just watches me as I examine him with all the wonder of a child and all the love and passion of an adult.
"Gale, do you love me?" I need to make sure, to know forever that this is what he wants, what he needs. I hold his chin lightly in my hands and stare into his deep eyes. In an entire district I've never seen someone with as beautiful eyes as him, the grey that holds the red of passion and the green of kindness and the blue of the dream of freedom.
"Always, I will love you till the end of time, Katniss, you know that." In his voice there are so many things; confusion, trust and the ghost of hope, hope that I asked that question for a reason.
Reaching up I touch my lips to his, and that hope comes to life like the spark that becomes the inferno, blazing between our lips as I grip on to him as though this is our last moment of life. He whispers my name but I barely hear it, consumed in the chant that goes round and round in my head, Gale, Gale, Gale. I go back to stroking his soft skin and hold him to me, in love with him. I am in love with him and for the first time, I truly understand why they call me the Girl on Fire – I love him so much, I'm surprised that flames aren't dancing between my fingers, tying us together till the day that death claims us both, and maybe even beyond that.
Our kiss comes to an end, my breathe coming shallowly between my teeth as his lips graze over my face, kissing my nose, my eye lids, my forehead. He is about to say something, his mouth opening to speak when the front door slams, and we both freeze. In a heartbeat his hands are pushing me away, and as fast I can I disentangle my legs from his. My shoes make a sharp sound as they hit the floor but I don't have time to worry about it, because we can never, ever be caught while the Capitol is in power. From his bed Gale stares up at me, and I lean down and kiss him once, lingering only for a second before my feet wrench me away and I slip, silently, to my room.
Once there, I am lost again. I can hear my mother welcoming Peeta downstairs, and the soft sound of Gale, my Gale, asking how his family was. I don't know what to do with myself, though I'm pretty sure I don't want to look Peeta in the eye any time soon. With that in mind I start the shower, slipping off my clothes and stepping gingerly under the hot spray. I haven't left enough time for it to warm up, but that's okay – my skin is still too warm, shivers tingling and racing up and down like electricity. An image flashes through my head, of the water turning to fire where I stand and I grin, grin like a maniac in love. Burning rain. What a beautiful concept.
Ok, so how was that? I did it as more of as a 'writing exercise' than anything else, to see if people liked the overdramatic, unrealistic stuff that sums up the above. It's a style I like writing in, but I want to know what you wonderful people think.
So if you do, tell me. If you don't, please, tell me. If you liked most of it but thought one part was utter teenage crap, also tell me.
Thank you so much for reading this (if you have, you might have just skipped to the A/N, though that would be really quite weird) and please, review before I go insane! (Or more insane, whichever seems more achievable to you….)