A/N: Ayo. I'm redoing this fic that I did a while ago, because I realized I could do it ten times better (hopefully) than it was originally. Reviews, suggestions, and constructive criticism are appreciated.

Chapter 1

Gale Hawthorne

"This town is colder now, I think it's sick of us
It's time to make our move, I'm shaking off the rust
I've got my heart set on anywhere but here
I'm staring down myself, counting up the years
Steady hands, just take the wheel...
And every glance is killing me
Time to make one last appeal... for the life I lead."

-Stop and Stare, OneRepublic

Love. How did I find it? There were always girls back in 12 who were crazy about me, back before the rebellion. Then there was Katniss. Even now when I think about her, lying in bed beside another woman, my heart melts. If I could see those gray eyes again. If I could hold her face in my hands one more time. If I could go hunting with her behind the Seam, when everything was normal and I didn't have to go to the mines. But now she had Peeta, and she was happy with him. I felt the grudge with in me harden when I think of him, but it's not how it used to be, when they got married and did the toasting and I wasn't informed. I can't say I blame her now.

Time ticks by. I count the seconds that gradually slip into minutes, and when I look at the clock again, half an hour has passed since I opened my eyes. I don't blink. I just stare up at the whitewashed ceiling and sigh. The sun will be up soon. It's time to start another day in District 2.

I'd been here for five years now, six long years away from Katniss. In those years, 2 had changed a lot, but it would be decades before the district was ever really stable again. But since then, since I first moved here, I'd met her. And I had a job now, one that didn't involve mine shafts and suffocating darkness, one that I enjoyed. I worked, and that was it. Criminology, mostly. And I have Oline now. Oline Roberts. She's a sweetheart. I'm not sure if she loves me, but I love her. I'm crazy about her. We aren't married. Not yet, anyway. But maybe soon, when I know that she loves me.

And I have Ezra now. He rarely comes by-he's a busy guy, what with the kids and Sabille expecting again and his work and life and his affairs-but it was Ezra. He's always a busy guy. He's only twenty-five, and already the best at work. He and I are the ones who track criminals, normally. They were usually former Capitol politicians on the run from their trials. He used to be a Peacekeeper. He once tracked a man seventy-three miles through the wilderness surrounding District 2, put a bullet in his chest, and then kept him alive long enough to take back for his trial and execution, an execution Ezra had been in charge of. He loved his job. He was a sociopath.

The sun was rising outside on the horizon, shining through the large windows of Oline's bedroom. She must not be working today at the university.

She taught classes at the university, in mathematics. Trig, I think. Something I had never learned, on the lines of trig, anyway. She was around the same age as most of her students. I had gone to pick her up after I'd gotten off early one day. I'd stepped inside of her room, an amphitheater-type room with maybe a hundred seats and half as many students. I'd stayed in the back of the room, by the door, and listened as she explained some complicated math equations to a struggling student. When she had at last looked up, her gaze fell on me in the back and she had lost her train of concentration, and a smile had bloomed across her face. Since then I hadn't gone back into her class, out of fear it would get her in trouble and her pay would be docked.

It's one of the six universities in Panem. They're in the larger districts that still have a sustaining population. The Capitol had one, as do 1, 2, 5, 11, and 13. Oline has several students from 12 and 8 and the districts without universities. But most of her students are from 2.

The university is at the old training center for the Careers, with several new buildings on the campus. There were the names of all the district's victors on a bronze plate outside of the main office, along with all the tributes from District 2 ever. All one hundred fifty tributes. They didn't write for the last year of the Games. Just 1 through 74, and the four tributes who had come on the second Quarter Quell. Once I was bored before picking up Oline and had went to stare at the list. Clove, Cato, Lyme, Enobaria, and Brutus. Those were the only familiar ones to me. But Oline recognized nearly all of them, being a District 2 native her entire life. Her own father had been the Victor of the 46th Games. They were just names to me, and I'm sure their faces would be just that to me-faces. Enobaria lived somewhere in the district, but the last time I'd seen her in person had been when she'd been buying drugs off of someone in the market in town. That had been a year ago.

I get out of bed and change. Nice suit, nice tie, nice shoes. My mother had pitched in to buy me clothes for work one Christmas.

When I'm ready for work, I duck back into the bedroom and glance at the clock. I kiss Oline on the forehead. "Oline," I say lightly, "I'm about to leave."

She stirs and opens her eyes drowsily. They're dark green, like the forest. That was what had first made me notice her. Those eyes reminded me of when I'd been in 12, in the forest, hunting with Katniss. Rory had been visiting, on his twenty-first birthday, when he'd stayed up here for a few weeks. It had been seven months ago, and we'd went to a bar. Rory could pass for my age. He was all grown up, more grown up than I had ever been. Back when we still lived in District 12, before the rebellion, I'd wanted better than for him to work in the mines and take out tesserae to live. Ironically, I had a better job than the majority of Panem now, and I still sent them money every paycheck, and he still works in the mines. At the time I'd been living in a small apartment that overlooked the market, which was one of the worst parts of our town in 2.

"How's Mom?" I had asked Rory.

"Hazelle's fine," he answered briskly, and it surprised me that he referred to her as "Hazelle."

"Vick and Posy?"

"They're good. Vick's sixteen now and Posy's thirteen."

"Jesus. I haven't seen them in years."

"You should come down," Rory said.

I shrugged. "Work, you know," I said. "Speaking of which, is there plenty of work in 12?"

He shrugged. "Hazelle sews mostly." There it was again. Hazelle. "A lot of jobs in construction, obviously, and the mines, still. The black market is thriving, if that qualifies as work. Vick does odd jobs in the summer-he's not old enough for the mines. Thom builds houses-he built ours, it's nicer than anything we could ever afford. Posy and I go hunting a lot, we sell our catches at the Hob."

"Is she good?"

"She's a great shot. Got a good ear for it, too."

"That's good. Got a girl down there?"

Rory grinned. "Yeah, she's from the Seam, too. What about you?" he adds, a note of curiosity in his voice.

"Me? No. I don't have time. I just work." Which was more than less true.

Rory snorted in disbelief. Then he'd glanced around, nodded in the direction of a dark haired girl. "What about her, Gale?"

And that had been how I'd met Oline. It hadn't been anything romantic and I hadn't expected anything to come of a little flirting over beer. But it had, and now we were living together, and I was wondering when would be the best time to propose.

"Morning already?" she asks with a yawn, sitting up, the sheet puddling around her. She reached over to the nightstand to grab her cigarettes. "So do you work today?" she asks me.

"In the office, we're getting a new case on one of Snow's old advisors. Are you at uni today?"

She shakes her head and smiles at me. "Nope, my schedule's different this semester. Just Mondays and Thursdays."

I press my lips to her forehead. "I'll see you when I get off." With that I headed out of the room and outside. Thank God. I hate it when Oline smokes. The house gets stuffy and it smells like sulfur. It reminds me too much of the mines. I unlocked the car and started the engine. It was a company car, straight from District 6. I drove through the new parts of town, the parts constructed after 13 won the war. Then I headed past the blackened ruins of the older sectors, the slums where the poor lived. I keep driving. I don't look at the soot-stained, barefoot children on the side of the street, picking through rubbish. I don't look at the charred remains of the houses, nor the ash-streaked headstones of the cemetery. I keep my head straight and forward, eyes on the road, so I don't have to see the carnage, partly because I'm responsible for it.

I drive out on the winding road. It's new. It had just been paved when I was transferred here. It's part of the Reconstruction of Panem, as they call it in the books now. At the office we just call it cleanup. That way's easier. We don't really have to think about all the stuff getting "reconstructed" then, the stuff that we destroyed in the first place.

The office is huge. It's a large building for the large amount of people who work there. There are maybe a hundred thousand people in our area of 2, and a million in the entire district. Almost three thousand work here, but not all of them are District 2 natives. Most of them, like me, had been recruited by 13 during the rebellion. They lived here now. They were workers, doctors, analysts, or operatives, like Ezra and I. I go inside. The secretary waves me over to check my ID. "Hawthorne," she muses aloud. "Sounds familiar."

"It's a common name," I say smoothly, not wanting to explain why she recognizes it, that I had been the one to destroy the Nut, that I was the reason 2 was wallowing in hell.

She lets me through to the elevator and I head to the second floor conference room, where the presentation would be today. Ezra was already there, a cup of coffee sitting in front of him as he reads papers. Ezra's always here early. He slides the newspaper across the table to me as I sit down. "Do you believe this shit? 'Mayor of District 4 Under Investigation'. Like hell he's the one who started all of this."

"What's it say?"

"Some media outlet in 1 published a story about the bombings, you know, because it's big news, everyone's covering it. They hinted something about the mayor being at fault, and now Paylor has people investigating him."

"What the hell?"

"I know, it's ridiculous. And I got some stuff on Mallory. Apparently the jackass gave his oath that he would become a regular citizen of the Free-Districts-of-fucking-Panem, moves from the Capitol to 6, marries a rich bitch who owns an automobile company. He joins a mob group. Then she gets murdered, he flees to another district, the company goes bankrupt because he embezzled it all and killed her. Paylor says it doesn't matter, it's not a big deal, people are corrupt everywhere."

"So?"

"He's the main suspect behind the bombings, did Paylor just pull that out of her ass?"

"It could be true," I say, flipping through the pictures.

"So could my first marriage, but you see how that turned out," Ezra retorts. "Paylor's losing my mind, if you ask me. First she says let them go, now she's making us go back and find him."

"Ezra, your second marriage isn't all that true, either," I say.

"Yesterday," he says, lowering his voice, "I went home and found Sabille with another man."

"That's tough," I point out, "but you've screwed what, ten other women since you've been married?"

"That was after Maria, before Sabille. But Sabille's five months pregnant. She's not supposed to cheat on me, the father of her children, when she's pregnant. The kids weren't home, they were at her mother's. She left with him. Said she's filing divorce today."

"You could be a better role model, you know, for your kids."

Ezra snorts. "Just wait until you and Oline get married. I wouldn't be surprised if you get her pregnant on your honeymoon. Hell, she probably already is."

"Ezra, what are you going to do when Paylor walks in and hears you talking like this?"

He ignores me and sips his coffee. "Just wait until you have kids, Gale. You have to watch your mouth around them. And say goodbye to sex."

"I'm not stupid, Ezra." I glance around to make sure no one else is in the conference room. The other chairs are empty. "I won't get her pregnant."

"Just wait until you want kids."

I ignore him. "Why are we here?"

"Paylor's guys are doing the presentation on Mallory, and then they're assigning this case. I hope I get it."

"You won't get it. Your wife's four months pregnant. There's an insurance policy."

"I'll get it," he answers confidently.

I open my mouth to say something witty, but before I can a tall, dark haired woman walks in. Ezra and I stand to salute. She returns it. We sit back down.

"Hawthorne, I trust that Gardner has shown you the details on Mallory."

"Yeah. I mean, yes, ma'am."

I see a smirk flicker across Ezra's face. Ezra doesn't refer to Paylor as "ma'am" because he disagrees with everything she does. He probably criticized Snow less than he does her. Paylor gets an amused look on her face at my blunder and pulls a picture out of Ezra's papers. I see his grip tighten around his coffee, and for a second I think he might puncture the Styrofoam. But he doesn't. Paylor holds up the grainy mugshot. "That's our guy."

"Beg your pardon, but why am I here?" Ezra asks with cold politeness. There was disgust in his voice as he addressed Paylor.

"Since Mallory is our top priority because he's our main suspect behind the District 4 attacks, we're sending our best operatives after him. I may as well say now that you and Hawthorne, along with one of our best analysts out of 6, are assigned to this case."

Ezra shrugs like he doesn't care, but his eyes shine with some kind of adventurous light. He finds another newspaper in a drawer. It must be recent, because it reads Bombing in 4: 18 Dead, 93 Missing, 244 Injured, Story Cont. Page 7. We'd sent seven people out of our floor to District 4 this week to handle the situation. I'm on the second paragraph while reading it over Ezra's shoulder when he flips the page.

About fifteen minutes later all twelve chairs are occupied. Paylor, Ezra, and I are now sharing the room with four other men and five other women in business suits. Paylor takes her seat at the head of the table and clears her throat. "As you all know, a man by the name Garrus Mallory is now wanted for acts that go strictly against the law-" at this Ezra shoots me an irritated look- "and is suspected for being behind the bombings in District 4. Beecher and Slowe have the presentation."

Jared Beecher is an analyst who for some reason despises Ezra. Cassia Slowe, the other analyst giving the presentation, dated Ezra between his marriages. They begin droning on about everything that Ezra had summarized for me, but two minutes in something takes me by surprise. I raise my hand to stop Beecher midsentence.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "What is it?"

"Did you say that Mallory fled to the forest bordering 6, and was last seen near 12?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

I glare at Ezra, but he drops his gaze to the table. Paylor gives me a scrutinizing look. "Is there a problem, Hawthorne?"

"No, ma'am." But my heart was sinking. I might see her again. And Ezra seemed to forget to mention he was in 12.

They go with the presentation, basically covering all that Ezra had told me, minus the foul language. Slowe finishes with, "We're sending two operatives and an analyst to District 12 to find information on Mallory or Mallory himself, and they are Gardner, Hawthorne, and Moffat, who you will meet in 6 when your train stops there."

"Slowe, when are we leaving?" His voice is polite. I see her stiffen.

"One week. You will have three months to find Mallory, and if you can't in that time, this case will be reassigned. This is one of the most dangerous and longest assignments you have had. If you find Mallory, you are to contact Paylor and a group will come to detain him.

"And if he somehow dies in the process?" I ask.

"He dies. We're fairly certain he's guilty."

Ezra nods, like he was expecting that, and then goes back to the newspaper, apparently half listening.

"You will receive train tickets tomorrow," Slowe finishes.

Dammit. Three months away from Oline. I don't envy Ezra, who will come back to a wife about to go into labor.

Or three months with Katniss, Mom, and the kids.

Paylor starts explaining other things, but my mind's not on it. I'm near the day I've been both dreading and anticipating for six years. I might see her again.

Katniss.

"Why didn't you tell me he was in 12?"

"What did you expect me to say?" Ezra shoots back. "'Hey Gale, we're going back to your district so you can relive your shitty childhood and kill someone.' Sorry that I didn't want you to ruin your chances of getting a case."

"I can't go back there," I say, shaking my head. "I can't."

"Because of your dad? The war?"

"Katniss," I say quietly.

"You've got Oline," Ezra says quickly. "You love Oline. You aren't like me, Gale. You've got Oline, and you love her."

Three months away from Oline. Or three months with Katniss.

A headache throbs behind my temples and I excuse myself, mumbling something about how I need to get home.

I pull into Oline's driveway and pause for a moment, briefcase in hand, as I think. How long ago had it been since I'd seen Katniss? Would I even see her in District 12? And if I do, will I even want to come back to Oline?

Katniss won't want to see me after Prim's death. After the bombs I helped make killed hundreds of innocent kids. But had she forgiven me? When was the last time I'd even seen her?

Christ, I can't even remember.

I steady my pace and walk in, locking the door behind me. Oline sits in a chair in front of the television, leaning in to watch new footage. There aren't details on the news channel, aren't opinions. In many ways, nothing's changed since before the war. There are just no Games.

I catch the headlines on the channel. DISTRICT 4: TERRORISM AND CHAOS. The video shows a large market on a dock, fishing boats moored to it. Everything seems peaceful. The skies are blue. I've watched the video countless times at work, but what happens next always terrifies me. I grit my teeth together as a sound like thunder strikes, and one end of the dock falls into the sea. There are screams. A wall of fire had started somewhere, and as I watch, a man who had just been unloading crates tried to make a run through it. His shirt catches fire. Flames crawl up his body. Smoke fumes from his hair. He shrieks and runs, jumping off the pier to the water below. The whole dock had caught fire by then, and the front crumbles and crashed into the waves with people on it.

The footage stops rolling and goes back to a clean, safe newsroom. The anchorwoman says that that had been only one of the four bombings in the district. The rest had been too graphic to show.

"Gale, do you believe this? Another three died today."

"I've got to talk to you about something," I say, avoiding her question. "I've got a trip to go on next week."

"How long?" Oline is used to my trips.

"Three months, at the most." That's longer than any of the previous ones. She glances up from the television, bewildered.

"The others were maybe two, max."

"This is a big case, hon."

"Where are you going?"

"It's classified, hon."

She nods. She was expecting that, but she still looks worried. "What about Rory? He was going to come up. He'll be disappointed."

No, he won't. Aloud, I say, "I'll call him tomorrow. He can come up when I get back."

The people on the news channel are discussing the possible suspects for the attacks. They don't mention Garrus Mallory. I clench my fists. What's Paylor playing at?

"Gale, is this about 4?"

"No," I lie. "It's classified, Oline."

She nods again. Most of our conversations are like that now, unspoken or few words passing between us. We eat supper. We kiss for a while on the couch. One thing leads to another, and when we're done I go to the bathroom and take a shower. For a long time I stand under the warm spray, a pain in my chest.

I had never expected that I would see Katniss again. It had never been in my intentions to visit her, or see her. We both made it clear that we didn't want to see each other after Prim's death. She wasn't in the equation. But it now it seems like she's always been a variable.

You love Oline, Gale.

I go back to the bedroom and find Oline already asleep. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her forehead, but I can't help but compare her to Katniss. I remember how it felt to hold Katniss in my arms.

Oneweekoneweekoneweekoneweekoneweekoneweek.