A/N: I try my best to go according to cannon, but the true artist is Suzanne Collins. I own none of her original characters or universal space, only my own.
I gasp, quickly jerking from sleep to sit up in bed, eyes open wide, paralyzed with fear. I try to catch my breath, panting uncontrollably, hyperventilating in the dark of night.
The window sits open three feet to my right, Peeta liking a breeze as he sleeps, though resting under every cover on the bed. I pry myself from beneath four layers of cotton, stumbling over to the window, dry heaving with fear. My hands grip the window pane as I hunch over the cool night, bile threatening to spew over the purposeful array of plants Peeta decided wouldn't cripple under the District 12 winter.
Pant, pant, pant.
The lights across from me in Haymitch's house still glow their artificial yellow hue from his living room, probably forgetting to turn them off or not caring. Either is entirely probable.
I haven't slept more than five hours at a time for months, standing in this spot, the lawn getting dead spots and me pretending that I don't know why. I still get nightmares every night. They've become less frequent since Peeta started staying with me again, but they still haunt me night after night, screaming out into our near-vacant neighborhood.
"It's okay, Katniss. It's not real," Peeta says, rubbing his eyes and coming over to rub my back, his feet slowly padding across the floor. He rests his head on my shoulder and kisses it, taking the spot beside me.
His hands try to get the image out of my head, rubbing slow and methodical circles for my mind to focus on. I steady my breath to it as I stare out into space, the yellow light fading into one large ball of light.
"It was Snow," I whisper, the words seeping out of my mouth like the poison from his sores. "He took her from me. He destroyed her. I was supposed to protect her, but I failed. She called out for me, but I was too late, torn apart..." my voice becomes inaudible as I work myself up, too choked up to talk. "She was so young and so pure and I let him do that to her," my sister who I had volunteered for in the first games, the sister I swore to protect with my life, now dead. Waking up wasn't going to make that go away.
"She was already inside the gates," he assures, softly, but he knows I can't just let it go.
"I could have gotten to the square quicker; warned her," I say, my hands shaking, my arms struggling to support me any longer as my breath continues to beat me, heaving with an arches back into the cool darkness.
"You know that's not true. You'd both be gone and she would never forgive you. The thing she wanted most was to help you, to keep you alive. Why else do you think she became so strong? It wasn't because she had to, but because she wanted to, to protect you. She would want you to be happy and move on. Wouldn't you want the same thing for her?"
Somehow he always knows what to say.
"Just go back to sleep. You need your rest," he continues, bringing me close and kissing my forehead. My eyelids drowsily beat shut in a peaceful silence as he carries me back into bed, something only achieved by me in his arms.
I wake up a few hours later to the tickling smell of eggs and rabbit tips, fresh from my last hunting haul I presume.
Peeta isn't in bed, his side of the bed disheveled with blankets laying amuck in mountains of all different directions. It frustrates me when he refuses to wake me after his nightmares, putting my sleep above himself. He says that "My nightmares are usually about loosing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here," although he still has trouble falling back sleep once up. How am I supposed to support a pile of pillows?
I quietly climb out of bed, tiptoeing down the stairs, trying not t wake my mother and Prim, though I know they're not really there. It's still a force of habit.
The sun is barely peeking out from the horizon, the sky sill swarmed in a pink and yellow haze, blue barely coming into the picture from behind the sun's direct beam of light. I block my eyes out from its direct gaze with my hand, hopeful to get at least another hour of sleep before an official rising.
Sweat drips down his face as he rushes from one side of the kitchen to the other, slaving over the hot stove. Three loaves of fresh baked bread sit on the counter, steam still flowing from their warm centers. He works another over with his hands on the counter. Four plates filled with food and other pastries sit beside them as he continues to make more, flour spread about the counter with jams and knives and egg cartons. A pot of eggs poach in a pot while more raw rabbit tips wait to be cooked beside perfectly grilled ones. The entire place is overrun with food.
As soon as I walk in the room, he looks at me. He's a nervous wreck. I can tell something is wrong just by his look. He never was good at hiding things from me.
"Peeta, what happened? What's going on?" I ask, quietly inching closer towards the counter and picking up a grilled rabbit tip, almost losing my focus in its perfect tenderness.
"What do you mean?" he smiles, dusting the flour off of his hands, but his eyes refuse to meet mine. His lips has the slightest uneasiness to it and I can tell that he's nervous. "Who says I can't make you a nice breakfast just because?"
"Peeta, this isn't breakfast. It's a four-course feast," I laugh. "Don't lie to me. What wrong?"
"You got a letter from District 2," he pauses, his palms and neck turning red. "They sent it to Haymitch by mistake. He dropped it off an hour ago. It doesn't look good."
I can feel my fingers go numb. I already know his answer, and yet the feeling creeps on slowly, like sleep syrup.
"What happened?" I insist, my voice shaky, and he knows it.
"It's Gale. He's gone."
I don't realize I'm screaming at first. It's like I'm in a trackerjacker simulation again. Everything is hazy, spinning around me, my voice coming in and out of my ears. I just feel the pain, ripping through me. It's excruciating. I almost pass out, collapsing to the floor, my knees hitting the hard wooden floor like they've been cut from my body, curling into a ball against it, sobbing "no."
Peeta struggles to catch me, running across the room as my body began shrieking uncontrollably, but his prosthetic making it difficult to maneuver towards the ground. He pulls my shaking body close to his chest, but by that time I'm bawling. My whole face is wet, eyelashes drowned and hanging over my eyes, choking as my throat runs itself raw. It's at least an hour before he slowly helps me up from the floor, though my legs still aren't that useful at supporting my weight. I feel almost dizzy, Peeta tucking me in under the blanket on the couch beside the fireplace.
"What happened?" I ask, holding him beside me.
"His roommate found him." He pauses and sits in the crook of my knees, stroking my back, though his pity makes my skin crawl. "He killed himself."
"No, Gale wouldn't do that. What about his family? What about me? He would have told me," I say, trying to climb out of the couch, but I'm too weak.
"He left a note, Katniss. He's gone."
As grief settles in I feel even more helpless. I don't talk much, at all, not for the next week or so. I don't even move out of the chair. All I do is stare at the fire, all day, like somehow it will bring him back.
I hold onto the possibility that it is just a mistake, that somehow he will walk through the door and everything will go back to normal; us hunting in the woods and trading our game at the hub; him and I against the world. But, I soon remember even that isn't normal anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. I haven't seen him in months. And yet, that's what hurt the most; all the possibilities. All the opportunities for us to see each other again and attempt to get things back to what they used to be, or close to it, are gone. It's just like the mining accident, the parachutes, or the bombings. Everything I have ever known is suddenly gone, and it's never coming back.
A/N: This is only the beginning. I know this chapter is short, but they get longer as I go on. Please review. I love to hear everyone's first reactions to this chapter.