A/N: I know I should be updating my other stories but I wrote this for an assignment for school and won tickets to see the movie so I decided to put it up. Is it good? P.S. I don't own Hunger Games or any of it.

I travel through the white halls in District Two, following a path so worn I could almost see the rut in the pristine marble floor. I go in the conference room and sit down, awaiting my orders for the day. Every day for me has been mechanical, the same thing over and over again. I retreat to the back of my mind, before the war, before the 74th Hunger Games, before Peeta, and relive my life. Except in this world, she picked me…

"I'm home, Katniss," I holler through the house in the Seam. Her voice floats through the doorway from the kitchen.

"Make sure you leave your mining boots outside. I don't want the coal dust in the house."

"I don't even get a hello kiss before you're giving me orders," I laugh in mock horror, taking care to leave the boots outside. I look up from under my hair and see Katniss looking at me, smiling. She has a bit of flour streaked across her cheek, stark against her olive skin. I grin at her and she laughs a tinkling laugh, eyes sparkling. I lick my thumb and wipe off the flour, still grinning like a fool. She makes a look of disgust as the flour is replace by my saliva. I laugh and kiss over it. She stretches her sleeve over her balled up fist and rubs it violently over the spot right over her sharp cheekbone.

"Why are you rubbing off my kisses!" I say in horror, a grin playing on my lips. She just sticks her tongue out and turns to prance back to the kitchen. I sneak up behind her on hunter's feet and grab her around the waist, heave her over my shoulder, and make my way to the bedroom. She squeals high pitched, loud, and in my ear. I throw her on the bed and run my fingers over her sides. She tries to squirm away from me, trying her hardest to push my tickling fingers away from her sensitive ribs.

"P-p-please st—" her cry was caught off as another bout of laughter bubbled up from her lungs and erupted into the open air, reverberating around the small house and shaking the thin windows in their panes. I pull back and instead hover over her, our noses touching, looking into her gray eyes that are wet with unshed tears of laughter. I peck her on the lips gently and hold my hands out to pull her up. She takes them and I heave up her small frame. I lead her back to the kitchen on the other side of the room and let her finish dinner.

After we ate, we go to the bed and lay next to each other. I loop my arm around her waist and pull her side flush with mine. I look at her and kiss her cheek.

"I love you, Katniss," I whisper in the darkness, "so much it hurts." She just smiles at me, eyes crinkled at the corners.

"I—"

"Gale? GALE!" I come back to a hand waving in my face and Beetee looking at me with a worried expression "Are you okay?" I nod glumly. Beetee looks at me with an I know what you were doing and it's not healthy look and says, "I don't think so, Gale. Just go home." I hear the double meaning behind his words. Just go back to District 12, but I can't do that. I can't live with seeing her and him and their kids running in the Meadow, over the mass grave of my District, of my real home. I nod to Beetee, gather my things and make the trek to the outside world. I walk to my assigned house and open the door, imagining Katniss' voice telling me to leave my shoes outside. I don't have to but do anyway. I go straight to the cabinet in the corner, pull out a bottle of the white liquor I got and took a long, hard swig. This is how most of my nights end up, drinking until I pass out on the floor, then getting up for work again the next day. Rinse and repeat. I'm a walking corpse, feeling no emotion but sadness. I take another swig and think about what I could've done to win her back. I do this every night, but not usually this quickly. Usually, this pops in my head between the second and third bottle. I take the last drink, sipping any dregs I missed and throwing the bottle across the room, grabbing another as it sailed through the air.

After two more bottles, I lay in a drunken heap on the floor, waiting to pass out from all the alcohol in my system. I felt like a cup bouncing in an ocean of white liquor, more and more alcohol gradually sloshing into the cup as it rolls around in the waves. Eventually, sleep's fingers will pull my thoughts from my brain, folding them into neat squares and storing them for when I wake up. As I teeter back and forth on my little cup in the frothing alcohol, my face sticky from crying, I sob out, "I love you, Katniss." I waited for her to say it back before I was pulled under the waves for good, but she never did.

A/N: Was it good? Please review and tell me!