A/N: My first Hunger Games fanfic. This is a conversation between Peeta and Gale designed to take place in between the first two books. Peeta's point of view.

Enjoy and Review :)

Disclaimer--I don't own the Hunger Games, or Peeta, or Gale, or Katniss, or Peeta's magnificently decorated cakes and cookies. I don't even own district 12. sigh. Gosh Suzanne Collins, didn't your mother ever teach you to share?!

I walk up to Gale with a hard look in my eye. It's all I have now, the roughness. All I have to hide the pain, constant and terrible. He isn't looking at me, he's looking at the frosted cakes in the window. I still frost the cakes, although I don't have to anymore. The people of District 12 still need beauty, even now.

He doesn't look at me when I walk up behind him. I clear my throat, but he still seems beyond noticing. There is pain in his eyes--I'm empathetic to that pain--but the rest of his face is hard, just like all of mine. He loves her, too. I recall. I can't help but feeling bad for him. Anyone who loves Katniss is likely to be destroyed. Either she destroys them by hurting herself, or by hurting them. There are so many ways to be destroyed by love; one of them is hate.

Katniss doesn't hate Gale, she might even love him for all I know. That doesn't matter though, because she hurt him. Not like she hurt me, but pain is still pain.

I wait for him, determined not to be the first to break the silence. He asked me to come here, he would speak first. After a few minutes he tears his eyes from my frostings to my face. There isn't one hint of sadness in them now. It has all been washed away.

"Peeta," he says gruffly by way of greeting. I nod. "How's Katniss?" he asks me, forcibly.

I'm momentarily astounded, before I realize that he is just messing with me, trying to hurt me more than I'm already hurt, mocking me. "How should I know, Gale? You see her more than I do."

He looks surprised by my retort. "Quite a feat you are accomplishing, than. I don't even see her once a week."

That throws me off. "What do you want?" I ask impolitely.

He shrugs, eyes straying back to the cakes and cookies in the window. "To talk."

I roll my eyes, but he doesn't see. "Why don't you see Katniss?" he asks me. "I thought you loved her."

"I do love her," I reply, unsuccessfully attempting to hide the pain in my voice. "But she doesn't want me."

"It seemed like she did," Gale tells me. I know what he's referring to. The Games. That's how he was hurt. He couldn't stand to sit back home, safe and sound, and watch his beloved Katniss pretend to care about me. I wouldn't have been able to do it either, but I wouldn't have ever said anything to him about it.

"She was messing with the Capitol. Trying to keep us alive. She never cared about me anymore than she cared about the next random tribute. The only difference was that she had a chance to keep me alive with her, not so with anyone else." I wonder why I'm telling him this. He already knows. I think he is mocking me, trying to hurt me more. That must be it. This whole meeting was only designed to hurt me. I turn around to walk away, but his hand rests on my shoulder, tugging me back. His grip is surprisingly light, friendly even. I turn back to him, wondering what else he could possibly say, how he could possibly hurt me more. I know he can't. The only thing that could hurt me more would be losing Katniss forever. Though, that might be a small relief; at least than I could die myself, without being blamed too harshly.

"Katniss is a terrible actress, Peeta. She couldn't have fooled everyone like that. It had to have been real, at least part of it." His eyes are horribly sad. It hurts to look at them. They remind me too much of what I have been going through, I don't want that. The only way I have been able to keep going is to pretend. I pretend that the nightmares never happened, pretend that Katniss loves me, pretend I'd never been hurt, pretend that Gale doesn't exist. Yet here he is, existing right before my eyes, reminding me of all the things I pretend aren't real. I don't want to face reality.

"You couldn't have believed that." I say to him. But I can tell that he did. It was too real. Katniss' survival instincts had taken over, and she'd become the best liar that the games had ever had--ever. Sometimes I thought she was even lying to herself, but that was probably just my pretending.

"You believed it." Once again Gale's words cut me to the bone. This is worse than the time I was really cut through to the bone. Worse than the blood poisoning. Worse than slowly bleeding to death. Worse than losing my leg. Worse than any physical pain I had ever been through.

"I know," I say, looking straight into his eyes, they remind me of Katniss. "But I wanted more than anything to believe the lie. Just like the people of the Capitol. It made everything I had ever lived for possible. You didn't want the lie. You wanted the truth. Lucky you."

I turn again to walk away, and this time he doesn't stop me.

A/N: Whether you like/hate/love/despise it, or are simply indifferent, please review. It would mean the world to me! And it would make Peeta and Gale happy too, I just know it!

Thanks :)