A/N: Well hello there, it's been a month since I've put something up. I've been crazy busy, and there are probably a million other things that I should be doing (like working on that epilogue for Until We Meet Again *smiles apologetically*), but I just felt like putting this up. Seeing the Catching Fire movie put me back in the writing mood, so here you go. A nice little short story for your enjoyment. I'm grudgingly going to say that this is Everlark, but there's definitely some Galeniss if you want there to be :)

I want to have to care about something. I want to love and to love for real.

8. Welcome Home {Gale's pov}

"So this is where you used to live?" Jaze asks as we get off the hovercraft.

I look out at the blackened, scarred, and barren expanse of land that once held my entire life. It's hard to imagine what it used to be like- all the buildings, people, trees, the mines. Everything is gone. It's just ash...

"It didn't look like this back then," I reply, unable to think of anything else to respond with.

"Obviously," he comments.

I step down from the last rung, and I get hit by a huge rush of nostalgia. Memories flood back into my head from the war and the fire bombs and before. I see us walking around, filming the propos during the rebellion, but I also see kids lined up for the reaping facing the Justice Building. My chest constricts with conflicting guilt and accomplishment to the point where I actually stop walking. Jaze turns around, probably to tell me to move my ass, but he sees me frozen, staring into the horizon, and evidently thinks better of it.

Just a few yards in front of me, past the destroyed road, the forest remains. It's more overgrown and wild from when I last saw it obviously, but it's almost perfectly intact otherwise. They haven't come to strip it like the rest of the blackened district. They've left it here, standing, strong, and wild. I doubt anyone's been in there since before the bombing, actually.

I wonder...

Suddenly, Jaze speaks from behind me. "The others won't be here for a while, Gale. Go do whatever you want until then. I'll be here."

I turn around and look at him, and he's completely serious. He nods knowingly at the forest and sits down on what I think was the support pillar of the Justice Building.

"Radio me when you see the hovercraft," I reply as I take a few steps towards the forest.

"Will do," he replies.

And then I slip back into familiar territory. Despite all the years I've been gone and all the new places I've seen, the path through these trees- however overgrown it's become- still comes to me like second nature. I know the turns to make, the plants to avoid, and the sounds of danger. It almost feels as if I'm back in my teenage years when things were a lot easier. But of course I'm not. The aching, biting memories that bounce through my head remind me quick enough that I've tarnish any thought of returning to the past. I ruined any chance I had of going back a long time ago.

I step out into a small clearing of sorts, and it all rushes back to me in a wave. A few more steps, and I'll find the tree where we kept our weapons. Perhaps less than ten yards to the right is where the snare line started. I see memories of myself building traps, shooting animals, and digging up plants.

But mostly I see her. I see Katniss.

She flits around my head, tormenting and torturing me better than any of the Capitol's finest weapons. I see her smile, laugh, cry, and scream. Every moment of our lives out here beyond the fence burns my eyes from behind and kills every ounce of confidence I had gained since entering the forest. The guilt of the war and constant pang of loss pulses through me in hard waves, and it makes me want to turn back. To get on a hovercraft and fly back to the safety and distance of District Two.

But I don't. Something inside me makes me move all the way to the hollow tree and reach into its depths. And I'm shocked to find everything still there. The weapons are only slightly damaged from wind and rain, having been protected inside the tree all these years. Even the bow- my bow- seems as perfect as it was when I was eighteen the last time I used it.

It must be like riding a bike, hunting with a bow like this. I fully expected to be completely awful. To have lost all sense of aim, power, and stealth. But it comes back nearly the instant I have a bow and arrows back in my hands. I pull back the first arrow and aim decidedly at a wide-trunked tree about twenty feet away from me. I focus my aim for a second... And let the string go. I fully expect the arrow to be lodged in a tree three feet away from the spot I was aiming at, but I'm given another shock.

The arrow's head is buried in the tree I aimed at, about five inches to the left of my exact target.

I retrieve the arrow and look down at the familiar yet completely unfamiliar weapons in my hand. Maybe not everything has changed...

I'm immediately refilled with that painful ache of longing for what I had. Even though we had been as poor and as desperate as beggars, there had always been love, support, and family to go back to. It was easy to find a purpose in life. Now there isn't much that makes me even want to care.

And then it hits me. That's why it's so painful to look back.

I desire a reason to get out of bed in the morning beside the incessant need for me to wake up. I want to open my eyes and find something besides the tedium that I'm living now. I want the feeling I had back then. I want to have to care about something. I want to love and to love for real.

So that's why I step out of the forest facing the only surviving buildings in the ruins of District 12: the Victor's Village. The irony is not lost on me.

The Victor's Village is a bit larger now than it was when I last saw it. There are more houses over in this area, full of people who want to live in this isolated hole of a District. Their entire lives must be conducted in this tiny ringlet of space, considering no one goes in the other part of town- the burnt, jagged, scarred landscape of what used to be a community...

I look down at my radio. Jaze hasn't responded, therefore the hovercraft must still be far away. Technically speaking, I would probably have heard or seen the hovercraft before he could radio me, but that doesn't matter. All I know is that I have enough time to go see her. There's almost no danger involved with me crossing the grassy field to the Victor's houses.

The only danger I'm in is of getting my will to live crushed. And, honestly, that could be okay with me. As far as I see it, as I'm walking towards her house, she's my last ounce of hope. If she shoves me away, rebukes me, and injures me beyond repair, then I see no point in trying to fix my life. If I'm the only thing I'll allow myself to have, then maybe heading down this lonely track is where I'm meant to go.

I get to her front door, and I realize I've still got a bow slung over my shoulder. Maybe that'll help me; maybe it'll be threatening. I don't know. But there's no going back now. So I reach out to knock on the door.

Pause.

Is this the moment where my whole life is dangling in the balance? Which way will my fate go? Will I finally be given a chance to reconcile the only love I ever had for a woman? Or will she be given a chance to make sure I suffer for my wrong-doings? Could this be the moment where I realize everything or the moment where I lose sight of what little I've found?

I'm not sure, so I let my knuckles tap the door.

A few moments of complete silence pass, and I'm concerned that either no one's home and I've missed them while my courage is up or that no one even lives here anymore. I swear, I'm swallowing up the acceptance to walk away from the door when I hear someone moving around inside the house.

The door handle jiggles, and the door is opened to reveal a very familiar and somewhat unwelcome face. He still looks the same as he did back then- blond, well-built, kind- unnervingly so.

"Peeta," is all I can bring myself to say.

That's when it seems to hit him as to who I am. His eyes widen and his mouth falls open into a comical o. "Gale?" he asks in disbelief. "Is that you?"

I wonder if I've changed. Ten years of military training can't have left me entirely the same. Looking back on my twenty-year-old self- the last version of me he would have seen- I must look completely different. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.

"I'm sorry if this is an inconvenient time," I begin in an almost strained voice, "but I was wondering if I could see Katniss."

He looks at me for a second, and then I hear, "Daddy, who's at the door?" Before I can mentally prepare myself for such a blow, two kids- one about six and the other about three- peek around his legs. The younger boy has Peeta's hair, and the girl his eyes, but all I can see is Katniss. She's all that fills my head.

Something- either extreme heartbreak or overwhelming acceptance- fills me. I smile down at that little kids that stare up at me with their sparkling eyes, and that really foreign, painful emotion explodes from my heart out to my extremities. It chokes my throat and burns my eyes. And I can't tell if I'm happy. Katniss deserves this life, surely, but am I so selfish as to be falling apart over her luck on her doorstep? No, never. I won't allow that.

I hold myself in one piece and move my gaze back to Peeta's face, asking again if I can see his wife- or at least I hope I'm assuming this all correctly.

I'm starting to wonder whether I've assumed wrong on their relationship, when Peeta moves out of the doorway slightly. "Of course you can see her," he replies, a bit delayed. He turns back into the house and calls, "Katniss! There's someone at the door for you!"

I steady myself, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

Peeta moves out of the doorway, allowing me a full view of their entry hall. I hear muted muttering from inside the house, and then she turns the corner. Katniss- my Catnip- stops short, eyes wide. Surprisingly and unsurprisingly, she looks almost exactly as she did. She's no taller than she was, but she's filled out more. Her clothes no longer hang limp off her form at least. And her hair- that's the biggest difference. The long braid is gone, and her dark hair now brushes at about shoulder length.

I stand there in the doorway, just staring at her and preparing for whatever might come. She looks shocked, but, beyond that, I can't tell what's going to happen. At least I can hope that she won't beat me too hard in front of her children.

Before I can think of any worse end to this situation, she's running down the hall towards me. I expect a few punches, a slap, or a kick, but instead I see her jump into the air... And into my arms. The force of her jump knocks me straight off the porch step, but I throw my arms around her waist to keep her close to me. I spin in a half-circle under the control of her momentum before I can set her down on her feet.

And for the first time in what seems like a million years, a smile breaks across my face like the first patch of grass that sticks itself out from underneath the long-stuck snow.

Katniss looks up at me with her familiar gray eyes and smiles with equal intensity. She squeezes herself back against me, hugging me even tighter, and whispers my name over and over again.

"Katniss," I whisper close to her ear. I can't get enough of her closeness. I never thought she'd stand to look at me, let alone allow me to touch her. "Katniss, I'm sorry... Sorry for everything..."

She presses her palms against my chest and pushes me back a bit. "Don't apologize. I've already forgiven you," she says before pulling herself back against me. "Beetee told me what really happened with those bombs, and I felt awful for making you feel that you were entirely to blame. It should be me who's apologizing."

I have so many arguments that I could start up, but they just seem futile in my immense joy at having Katniss back.

"Daddy, who's that?" the little boy asks Peeta from inside the house.

Katniss immediately shifts herself a bit away from me and grins down at her son. Peeta reaches down and ruffles the boy's blond hair and says, "That's Uncle Gale. He's your mom's best friend from when we were kids."

Both the boy and the girl turn their innocent gazes to me and give the sweetest smiles. I feel a real, warm smile grow on my face too, and Katniss takes my hand.

"Why don't you come inside?" she says gently.

Keeping her fingers intertwined with mine, she leads me up the porch steps and into the house. Peeta holds the door open for me and really, earnestly smiles at me. He gives me a nod and says, "Welcome home, Gale. You have no idea how long she's wanted to see you."

I have a feeling I understand just how long that was...

I reach to my belt and flick the off button on my radio. So what if Jaze and I get in trouble for my whereabouts later? I've finally made my way home...