A DIFFERENT SORT OF GAME

A/N: I've decided to change the epilogue, I thought the one in the book didn't exactly make sense with the structure of the other two books, and so I sort of made a few (drastic) changes.

Reviews are greatly appreciated =), and I'm sorry ahead of time for any mistakes (I was just sort of freewriting, some of the structure's a little convoluted).

If you like it, I have a few other Katniss/Gale vignettes set after Mockingjay©

I wonder if I've left the plush leather couch since I shot Coin and returned from the Capitol. The stupid, red leather couch, whose color reminds me of Snow's bloody, bleeding mouth. The mouth that gurgled with blood as its owner died laughing. In retrospect, I wonder if he chose the color on purpose. The man was entirely too fond of sending his victors subtle, sadistic messages. Haunting their minds. And now, even months after his death, those messages still remain with me.

I contemplate Snow and Coin. They're both dead now…on my terms. I had dedicated those last hours of my sane existence to killing the first, but then, given the opportunity, I aimed my bow at the latter instead. At the time, I had done it for Gale, he'd understood everything before I did. He'd known the treachery that the woman was capable of, that she was no different from Snow on the inside. A fascist ruler, who would stop at nothing for his or her own gain.

He'd convinced me, in as many words. "Shoot straight," he'd said. In those few, short words, he had reminded me to look for the real target, decide who the real enemy was, just like Haymitch had told me before I entered the arena for the second time. He'd known what was true for me and him, for the country. He'd warned me not to be deterred by any capitalistic illusions they'd set for me.

And only know do I begin to understand all that Gale was to me. Now that he's off in District 2 without me.

I'm beginning to grasp the extents to which my faulty logic had run on those darkest days. Gale had known all along. He'd told me…those were his bombs, but also Coin's …he had wanted me to know that Coin had manipulated him, his abilities, all of us, all of our abilities. Under coin's reign, we were still nothing more than pawns…pieces in the never ending games that had captured our lives. Why is it always a game?

I remember the way our lives have been shattered to pieces, and then the way we shattered everyone else's in return. The entire world is a manipulative, cynically enterprising place. The capitol used district children to exemplify their power, to strengthen their hold over the people. District 13 took those children, now broken adults, and used them as a tool in the destruction of the capitol. Finally, those young adults used the strength bestowed on them by those said rebels to overthrow the capitol…succeeded…and then turned against their creators, destroying them as well.

And now what was left for the country? The world?

A continuation of civil war, eventually leading to the apocalyptic destruction of what was left of the human race?

Or was it the evolution of the human race? Had the society finally moved beyond the trivial matters that caused them to engage themselves in self-exterminating war games?

There was one thing that I knew. Our role in the shaping of this world was not over. We had gained too much power to fade into the distance, it was our responsibility to choose the next horizon our society would cross.

We need to finish what we've started. Gale and I, we know this. For the deaths of those who've been lost to us, those of us who've still got what it takes must not give up on Panem. We will be the true victors, of what will be the last game I ever plan on playing.

"Gale?"

"Katniss?" His voice is irritatingly crackly over the long distance phone call. "I never thought I'd hear your voice again."

"I'm sorry for what I thought. What I did," I apologize.

"I'm sorry for what happened."

"Don't be. I was mentally instable, and I need another chance. Think you could play one more game?" I plead with him, my best friend. I beg with him. I grovel. I argue mental insanity.

"Depends. Will I win this time?" he asks. I can hear the grin that's spreading across his beautiful face.

"That's the idea."

"Good."

"And Gale?"

"Catnip?"

"I love you."

"I've always, loved you, Katniss."

"I'm going back to the capitol," I tell him, observing his hung over state and the putrid smell of his home.

"Excellent. And I'm going to stop drinking," states Haymitch. In his drunken state, the sarcasm barely breaks through the stench of the alcohol.

Ha. Stupid, drunk victor.

"Listen to me. The train leaves tomorrow afternoon."

"What about Peeta?" asks Haymitch, his Seam eyes glinting with what he expects to be his ace in the hole.

And it is a terrifying prospect, leaving Peeta here. But somehow, the boy is no longer there. He's no longer the boy with the bread, his strong, steady façade is broken now. He's become another victim of the games. I'm losing him, just like I've lost everything else.

"I still have to go," I reiterate.

"Are you going to tell him goodbye?"

"Tonight. Are you going to tell me goodbye?"

"Careful what you do, sweetheart. You've got the world in your insane little hands, don't screw it up."

I don't tell him that screwing everything up again is exactly what I plan to do.

And I do see Peeta that night.

I cross the invisible boundary between my side of the street and his, I knock on his front door. I know he won't answer.

I leave, go back to the shelter of my own home. I am a coward.

But then, Peeta comes to me.

"Hey."

I smile sadly, apologetically. I remember when I needed this boy. "Hey."

"It's good to see you up. Moving."

"You too."

We both smile again, awkwardly.

"I needed to tell you something."

"Yeah?"

I'm not an eloquent person. "Sorry."

"What for? You haven't done anything, I should be sorry, I –"

"No, Peeta," I say. "I'm leaving."

He's shocked, his jaw literally drops.

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Oh."

I am tremendously guilty. I've always known that I loved Peeta – love him. Present tense. He was by my side in the games, he was the one who was captured and tortured and still tried to save me, he was the one who gave me that life-saving loaf of bread, back when I was eleven, when I was a starving child with no hope. He gave me that hope. I wish I would tell him that. I wish I could tell him that. I wish I could sit here in District 12 and hide away forever. I wish my world was over…but there's one more responsibility I've got to take care of before I can be free.

But first, I need to pay Peeta his dues.

"I loved you, Peeta."

His eyes are hurt. I know that he still loves me.

"You saved me. Three times." I wish I cared more about myself, I wish I still valued my own liberties over those of whoever's left in the world. That way, maybe I could stay.

"I know, Katniss."

It occurs to me that he says my name a lot.

"You'll always be the boy with the bread."

"Like you're still the girl on fire, and the mockingjay? It's too bad those won't go away…"

He's thinking the same things as I am. It's too bad that we are right. If only we could be wrong for once, I could hide here with him…allow myself to be rebuilt into a quiet, caring person. The person he wants me to become. But there have been too many tragedies. The war and the hunger and the instinct for survival have taken over, leaving little holes in the pieces of my heart where peace and comfort should be. Mentally insane, that's what my little plastic hospital bracelet had said. And I wish that I could patch my heart up, but I'm responsible…for the country. I still have work to do.

"Spend the night here, Peeta?" I ask him, knowing it's not fair to either of us. I regret my lack of a filter between my brain and my mouth.

But he does stay.

"Alright."

We eat lamb stew for dinner, he knows it's my favorite. We sit at the big dining table that I don't think's ever been used. Him across from me, his hands supporting his chin as he stirs the soup. Me tearing a hunk of bread into pieces, leaving crumbs for the mice to eat later. Not actually putting food in my mouth.

After our awkward meal, I clean up. I scrub the dishes, put away the uneaten bowls of stew. I wish I could go back to the time when it was impossible not to hungrily eat every last morsel on my plate, when I was still hungry. And young, and not the Mockingjay.

I feel Peeta's breath on the back of my neck. It's warm, sweet, unchanged. I can't help thinking that this boy has trouble acknowledging trauma. He just keeps going, in his steady, almost naïve way. It irritates me.

Now his hands are at my waist, they're warm and large.

I whirl around, force him to face me. His face is closer than I expected, our noses are almost touching. His blue eyes are the same way they always are. Pleading me to be the Katniss he wants.

I think for a moment. Consider the consequences. Then, slowly, I plant one light kiss on his lips. It's one of the rare kisses we've shared that aren't staged, that are true and genuine.

He frowns, trying to figure me out. His finger extends, touches my cheek. I realize that he's catching a tear. I didn't know it was there. He examines it carefully, probably imagining how he would paint it.

Paintings are false, though.

And now I know that what I need is real.

I kiss him again, he stays with me until I fall asleep, perched on the edge of my bed. Just as I'm drifting off to sleep, an idea occurs to me.

"Call Annie, okay?"

"Why?"

"Please, just do it? I need you to check on her."

"Alright."

"Promise?"

"Yes."

When I wake up, he's gone.

I'm sitting on the train, regretting my impulsive decisions. Peeta's hurt face, as his blue eyes followed the train out of district twelve's dismal station. And now that short part of my life, when he came to me in the mornings, with the bread…trying to put me back together, into someone I'm not…is over. Too bad I couldn't have been the Katniss he wanted. But that was also the Katniss who had a father, who wasn't a victor of the Hunger Games, had not been the face of the rebellion, shot two presidents.

That had been the Katniss with a little sister.

The train brings back memories of when I had hope; of when there was hope for my future; when I had the misconception that I could conceivably save us all. The days when I had been happy with Peeta, when I had been blissfully ignorant of the fact that the capitol as I knew it would come crashing down around our heads.

When I had feared the repercussions of my actions.

The train pulls into district two.

I search the crowd, looking for someone in particular.

I spot a tall head toward the back of the station. I run toward it.

"Gale."

"Katniss."

He pulls me tight into his chest, and carries me into the station. He kisses my face, plays with my hair, twirls it between his calloused fingers. He hasn't changed.

We spend the afternoon together, in complete bliss.

He takes me to his apartment, it's small and grey and concrete. He has a foldout mattress in the center of the main room, off to one side is a kitchen and behind another door I think is the bathroom.

He carries me over the threshold, then sets me down in the center of his bed. I watch him from behind as he goes into the kitchen. I hear banging. Water. And he comes out, having produced two mugs of tea. It's strong, black. Not sweetened with milk and sugar and honey, the way Peeta would've made it.

It's more real this way.

I gaze into the murky depths of my drink, preparing myself to ask the question that's looming over me. Gale and I are in for quite a conversation. But he beats me to it.

"I loved her, too, you know." He's talking about Prim.

"I know." It's true, he took care of her better than I ever did. He watched over her, made sure she didn't go hungry when I was away in the games.

"She was like a little sister. Like Posy."

I sit, quiet, just waiting for him to go on. I'm expecting him to try and convince me that he knows what I feel, that he understands.

Instead, he blows my mind with his next remark.

"But it was different for you. And now I am a monster, I always will be."

Once again, I have a chance to contradict him. I remember when I didn't, the epiphanies that have come to me since I left the capitol. Now I have a chance to change my answer.

"It was a war, Gale. It was another game. I don't understand, it'll never be okay. But I forgive you."

His eyes look at mine, incredulously.

"They manipulated us, again. That's why we have to go back. I want to make us better."

And suddenly, he's all over me. His mouth is on mine, in my hair, I taste him and he tastes better than he ever has. I know this kiss is a long time overdue. It's the one that concedes everything, that means the end of our old ways and the start of something new.

I feel his hands, running up and down my back, and I slide my fingers under his shirt. He's muscular, lean, toned. I'm enjoying this too much, I've needed it for too long.

Gale starts to withdraw his mouth from mine, to soften the kiss.

"Wait," he murmurs, leaning over me, placing my head on his pillow. His lips leave mine, move across my cheek, and trail down my neck.

He gets up, opens a drawer in the dresser across the room, then comes back to me. He sits down by my side, carefully holding the small object where I can't see it. Then he opens his hand slowly, and I see what it is.

It's my Mockingjay pin. I've got no idea where he found it, how he got it, but it's here, and he has it.

His eyes meet mine momentarily, and he carefully pins it right above my heart.

"Remember who you are," he cautions me.

This is who I am.

I hope you liked it.