Author's Note: Welcome to my Hunger Games fan fic! This takes place in Chapter 24 of Mockingjay, when the team is preparing to approach Snow's mansion. It is from Gale's POV. Please read and review. Remember, I own none of these characters! Enjoy!

Darker Places
Chapter 1

When I wake up in the cellar in the middle of the night, the first thing I do I look over to make sure she's still there. And she is, curled up across the cellar with her head on an old pillow. My throat is dry, so I grab a small bottle of water and have a few sips. I try to forget the last dream flying through my head but it won't go away. I've just got to the ladder and I'm climbing and I can hear Finnick below me. I get to the top but then the mutts are on him and I can't look away, and it's Katniss that finally let go of the Holo and puts Finnick out of his misery, just like she did for Cato in the first games, and just like she's promised to do for me. I'm noticing a theme.

"Are you awake?" I hear. I look up to see Katniss sitting up. She'd been sleeping in the far corner of the cellar, while I was at the foot of the steps, close to Peeta.

"Did I wake you?" I ask. She doesn't answer. No one is sleeping very well, but to give them what little sleep we can, Katniss responds by moving over beside me. I put an arm around her, just to pull her close for a second. We are silent. "I can't stop thinking about tomorrow."

"You too?" Katniss asks. I glance at her but I can barely see her face in the fading candlelight. I shake my head. There is any number of scenarios that could happen tomorrow. The plan for Katniss to reach the mansion and kill Snow is a possibility, but along those lines, there are many other outcomes. Any one of us could die on the way to the mansion. Peeta could get captured and have to use the nightlock, I could get captured and Katniss be unable to kill me before they take me alive, and even Katniss… I can't even think about the horrors that could be in store for her. I want to think about a good outcome: of Snow dying and the capital folding and Katniss, and Peeta, and I, and the rest of the team, on a hovercraft back to Thirteen by tomorrow afternoon.

And then what? What happens when everything else goes according to plan? I want to know who she can't survive without and then I also don't want to know because I can't deal with another negative thought invading my mind.

"I haven't seen the sun in months." Katniss says. "Even now." She gestures to the single candle burning. It's true.

"I've been to darker places." I say, softly. "Down in the mines, it is so dark, whenever my head lamp burned out, it would feel like the air was pressing down on me from all sides, slowly suffocating me, and it's all I can do to change the batteries as quick as I can so I can see again, and until then, I have to wonder if that is how dying feels. Like a never ending blackness."

Beside me, Katniss shivers. I never talked about working in the mines, not to my mother, my brothers, or anyone. Katniss and I never even discussed the explosion that took our fathers, but as far as accidents in the mine go, I would rather go quickly then suffer through a collapse I can't be rescued from. I don't wish to linger in front of the inevitable.

"I'm sorry you had to go to work down there." Katniss says.

"I had… I have a family to support." I reply. "That was how it was for us, and you know that. It was either run away or go to work in the mines. I couldn't run."

Peeta stirs, lifting his head up for a second before dropping it again. I wait until his breathing evens out before I continue.

"My family kept me going when I was down in the mines." I finally say. "Just knowing I would see them when I got back to topside was what made the day pass that much faster. Thinking about you kept me going as well." I see her smile, just a tiny bit.

"You know, everyone calls you the girl on fire but I honestly don't see it. To be on fire means to eventually burn out, and if you were going to burn out you would have done it long before now. And you don't even burn bright, like fire. You are simply bright. You're the sunlight I wished in the mine, and if I am lucky enough to see the sun ever again, then I want to be able to see it with you by my side." Once I start, I can't stop.

"I know you think that I only started to pay attention to you when you were with Peeta, but that's not true. I've known you forever and I have been noticing things to love about you for that long. I may have never proposed to you in front of an entire country but I've been always been willing to die for you. And I know you can survive without me. That fact only makes me love you more."

"Gale." Katniss says.

"I know, before…" I began. "That time in the woods, with the kiss… when I said I had to do that just once, well, I lied because I wanted to do it again and again. If we would have had another chance I would have taken it. But we never had a chance." She shakes her hand. "I'm sorry. The odds aren't in my favor tomorrow and I couldn't go down fighting without telling you how I felt. I never wanted there to be any doubt."

"Gale." Katniss says, and I know that now is not the time or place. "I want to sleep now." And just like that, she lies down next to me, and some time, much quicker then I expect, we are both sound asleep.

When I wake up what has to be an hour or two later I feel better rested then I have in a while. Katniss and I are curled up on a pile of furs which have kept us warm on the cold concrete floor. She's lying on her side with her back to my chest and my arm is loose against her stomach. The entire time my eyes had been shut I hadn't had one nightmare. I'm trying to figure out, what, exactly, woke me up, when I hear the heavy gasps coming from across the cellar. They remind me of the mutts from an immeasurable amount of days ago, but they aren't saying anyone's name.

Immediately I focus my eyes into the shadows and meet a pair of cold, blue eyes glaring back at me. His face is bathed in sweat and he's straining so hard against his hand cuffs that fresh trails of blood are running down his arms. I've seen what his hands can do to a person. He's frightening.

"Peeta." Katniss whispers. "What's wrong?"

If he has to be mad at someone I want him to be mad at me because I can't bear the idea of him hurting her because of me. I know how this is going to end but I had to try. He's been trying for two years. He has to know how I feel.

Peeta is still not speaking, but his gasps have become higher pitched, like he's struggling to breathe. Katniss crawls over to him and pulls out a key.

"Don't." I say, because Peeta, in this state, could harm more than just me.

"He's fine." Katniss says, and I can see him visibly relaxing in her presence but he's still looking at me and even if he doesn't say another word I'll always know that when he woke up last night he never really fell back asleep. He heard everything. And so, because he can hurt more than just me, he does, with one single sentence directed not at me, but at Katniss. He levels his gaze with her and with a disgusted look on his face very calmly plays his hand. It comes out softly and hits the floor hard.

"I can't believe you slept with him."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please review!