Prims Pov
The square is crowded; people and news crews hover about like insects drawn toward light, frantic. I am glad today their eyes are off us, the constant buzz of the cameras these last few weeks has been though at first whimsical and dream like is now nothing more than a nuisance, I don't want them here, don't want them to see this not when they have already seen so much. I hear the train before I see it, that lighting fast rod of a sound and suddenly I can't stand still I feel as I did the first night of the games, frightened and scared, nervous and sick. Mother is gripping my hand, it almost hurts but I don't mind, how can I when it shows she is still here, still caring. Stand up straight she says stop moving she says but I can't. I think I might be sick my face is hot, I feel as if all the blood has rushed to my forehead leaving my fingers cold, I have to keep moving them to keep them warm. The noise is getting louder and like the train my thoughts are moving a mile per minute. Will she look different, act different? Who will she live with? Peeta? How is he? What about mom, what will she do? What's freedom like? Will she be mad at me, hate me? This is the thought that has plagued my sleep just below the one about her coming home safe, but now this is the only one left with the ability to kill.
Everybody sees the train at once and in between the trains' stopping and the crowds' yelling there is no greater noise. I can't breathe and mother holds me tight. The train doors finally open showing Katniss and her Peeta and my heart skips a beat, this is it, this is real. I knew they were alive but until now, until I saw them some small part of me must have doubted like a kid playing hide and seek, knowing the other kids were out there just isn't enough, you have to find them to know they didn't leave you when your eyes were closed.
I see her frantic eyes searching for me, searching for us and gripping Peeta's hand as mother grips mine. I catch her eye and relief floods through, she is not mad she could never be all my doubts and fears were for nothing.
"Prim" she screams and runs towards me. I yank my hand from mamma's grasp and run into her arms and she holds me there, both of us crying. This is where she belongs, here with me, never leaving my side, forever. But there is no such thing as forever and soon she has to let go. There are others to see, others to greet. She is welcoming our mother and it is a first time in a long time that my mother truly smiles and Katniss smiles back.
There is something in her face, something even through the happiness and tears I can see, hiding there just under the surface though I don't know what it is, it worries me. Her eyes are searching now, looking for someone I can only guess is Peeta so she doesn't see Gale sneaking up behind her to give her a hug and it scares her when his arms wrap tightly around her. Her face changes once again into something I cannot name and she jumps as the fear floods, doing some weird turn around in Gales arms, throwing hers to his chest and putting distance in between. A moment of recognition and a sigh of relief then she hugs him back but only for a minute and then there is more space between them then there has ever been. I can see the whisper of hurt in his face and then it is gone as he too backs away. Gales face turns dark and it is then that I see Peeta, how he got to Katniss I'm not sure and how he saw her I am lost. She left Gale for Peeta though still something plagued them she looked more comfortable in his arms than she ever did in Gale's. It was then that I knew things had changed, that she had changed. That a part of her would always be in the games, always fighting for her life, a part of her would never come home.