Hey, guys! I had this idea last night for a one-shot. Its not that great, but I thought I'd post it anyway. I'm not giving up on Starbright, this is just something a little break for me. I'm going back to finishing Chapter Eight now, actually! Well, anyway. This has a little Gale/Katniss, Peeta/Katniss and Gale/Madge in it. It takes place on the hovercraft at the end of Catching Fire! Oh, and I'm going to pretend Madge made it out of District 12. Enjoy and please review! :-)

My Katniss

Gale Hawthorne's point of view.

Everyone had always expected us to get married. I'd work in the mines; she'd look after the children and help run my mother's laundry business. It was just the way things ran in the Seam.

I should have known Katniss would never want that.

Now, I watch her as she sleeps; her face thin and scars on her hands. The drip is her only source of food. She won't eat now, not without him.

Him. Peeta Mellark. The name is like acid on my tongue, bitter and sour. Jealousy and rage flitter about my head as I remember his smiling face, looking down at Katniss – my Katniss – with a locket in his hand, urging her to choose me. No, to choose us. Her mother, Prim and I.

Her shallow intakes and outtakes of breath are what hold me to earth at the moment. I listen to them, trying to calm myself. She loves you, deep down she really does. And I know that. But she loves him too.

And it cuts me like a knife.

I ponder what it would be like without her, if she had truly died in the arena as President Snow had intended. I'd be a lonely man for the rest of my life. A broken man. I'd have my family, sure. But would that always be enough? I'd always pictured myself a father, but not the father of my own siblings as I'd practically become over the years.

Until Katniss learnt to love me and me alone, I'd never have that. Who else would love me? There was nobody left. District 12 was gone.

I imagine my life as it should have been.

I'm walking home, a deer pelt hidden in my game bag. The streets are quiet, as they usually are in the Seam. I push open the door of the house I grew up in, expecting to see something of a family.

Instead, I see no one. My mother Hazelle, gone. My brothers and sister, gone. But others should be there in their place. My children, my wife.

Katniss…? The silent question lingers in the air, unanswered. Perhaps, I think, if none of this had ever happened.

I stroke her hair, savouring the feel of it under my finger tips. I then run my fingers across her face, feeling her sharp cheekbones. She looks gaunt, fragile, as vulnerable as game under the aim of her bow. But what can I do?

If you were Mellark she'd eat, a dark side of myself supplies menacingly. She doesn't want you, she wants him. You need to accept that.

I nod slowly as if agreeing with myself. I will always love Katniss – my Katniss – but she will always love him. No matter how much she hides her feelings away. I've seen it in her eyes. After all, I know her best.

But who is right for me, the lonely, heart-broken Gale Hawthorne?

My thoughts are interrupted by the quiet shuffling of feet behind me. I jump upwards, running a hand through my ruffled hair.

I look down into the pale merchant features that remind me so much of him. Her wavy white blond hair. The gentle curve of her eyelashes, the way her blue eyes shine with little emotion. There's a certain hardness there, something that reminds me of Katniss.

"Gale, Haymitch wants to speak with you," says the intruder.

Madge.