Hola everyone. I'm back. I'm not sure where this will go and it won't be updated as fast as 'Forgiveness is Hard to Come By' but I'm willing to try and make this work.

I was going to update this yesterday but it was Canada Day and I didn't have time. Part of the credit for this plot belongs to my friend, it was a hilarious conversation ( She's not a Fanfiction user)

Song: Pale ~Within Temptation

I've decided it's easier if I put the song beforehand so you can search it (if you want) and read while listening to it instead of finding it at the bottom.

My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth and panicking when I come up with nothing. Only empty cold covers. Expecting her to have crawled in with our mother I drowsily open my eyes and look across the room seeking for her small sleeping form.

She's not with my mother either. The need to prove to myself that my nightmare wasn't indeed a reality fills me up whole so nothing else exists other than to reassure myself.

Without hesitating I swing my legs off the bed and pad downstairs with a hunters' tread, heart in my lungs, blocking everything. All I feel is fear. In an effort to calm myself I tell myself she must be in the kitchen, probably preparing the rest of the rabbit I shot yesterday. But once I walk into the kitchen I'm met with only a horrible emptiness. The weight of reality crashes down onto my shoulders like a brick, bringing me to my knees. Making it hard to breathe. With shaking legs I pull myself onto a chair and suck in large mouthfuls of air.

Knowing I won't get an answer I call out her name anyways. "Prim? Prim?" Nothing replies, just the heavy silence within the kitchen. I remind myself that my dream was a reality and that reality is just an awful ongoing nightmare.

I feel my throat close up, cutting off my airways. Still gasping for air I get up and stumble into our closet of a living room and sink onto the lumpy couch. Immediately it seems like my back protests, my tailbone already sore. The exposed springs and stuffing creating a painful shelter.

An oddly muffled, disgruntled hiss sounds from beneath me, a second later after much wriggling a skinny mangy orange streaks jumps off the couch and lands on the floor with an arched back. Buttercup gives an indignant sort of hiss and bats at my exposed toes viciously. Nipping down on the bare flesh.

Before I know what I've done I've slapped Buttercup on the rump. Hard enough to get my message across.

He looks at me in shock, because as much as I hate this cat I've never hit him before. "Sorry. Sorry. Come here." I say in a moment of weakness, trying to win him back. Because if I do then somehow I'm connected Prim, even though she's far, far away in some unreachable realm. Many days I feel like I can only reach her through pain and my nightmares. But maybe this would work just as well. Prim loved Buttercup to no end.

But Buttercup won't stand for this abuse. Shooting me one last dirty look through his squashed eyes he stalks off into the kitchen making sure his tail is poised up so I can get a clear view of his rear end.

I don't even know why Buttercup bothers to stick around. Prim isn't here anymore. He doesn't have any sort of tolerance for my mother or I. It must be the entrails from the kills I get that he sticks around for. It's like not any of us but Prim where actually affectionate toward him. After all I tried to drown him. I didn't need another mouth to feed, and he was infested with fleas and worms.

I sit for an indefinite amount of time. Watch the sun rise though one of our grimy, coal layered windows. A part of my brain keeps trying to remind me there was a reason I woke up so early on a Sunday. But I can't remember, though I know it must be important for me to wake up hours before dawn. I can't find a reason to get up and go through the motions of the day again.

The pain gets like this at times. In the beginning it was nothing short of awful and unbearable. I was like my mother when my dad died. I didn't have to provide for anyone anymore so I sat there, for hours at a time, looking at nothing. People would stop by at first and offer us support in the form of whispered words and food if they could spare it. The baker actually gave us bread. Not because he wanted too surely, but because Peeta asked him too.

I still don't trust my mother for leaving the first time but its better this time around. When I was younger I needed someone to comfort me and no one did. This time I knew what to expect. Well now I don't care, as much I need my mother's support I won't admit it. She's gone and she had been improving too, until the Games that is. Gone for good. I doubt she'll ever come back. And if she does she'll never be the same.

There's a hushed knock on the door but I don't get up. I found a relatively comfortable spot on this couch, no small feat and I don't plan on moving now. I might even be able to fall asleep again.

Another knock. Then another. Honestly I'm not going to get up and open the door so why don't they go away? Can't they see I'm better off being left alone? That I want to be left alone.

I think I hear sigh from the other side of the door. Then muffled and distorted so bad I can't recognize it, comes a deep voice. "Katniss? Katniss? Come on. Open up."

At first I'm fearful, worried about who it could be. I watch the door apprehensively, wishing I had a weapon of some sort. My bow would be my first choice but I'd take a knife at this point. The kitchen…too far.

A face appears in the window and I have to stifle a scream. The window is so grimy all I can make out is a dark shape with vaguely recognizable features.

"Katniss. Open up." The person taps on the window insistently.

For some reason I glance up at it, my hand twitching toward it for a moment before falling uselessly to my side. Why can't people leave me alone when I want to be left alone? I want to be left alone.

"It's Gale. Katniss you know I'll break open the window and crawl through if I have to. And I know you're down there! I can see you!" There's silence for a few seconds as I take in what now is obviously Gale's face perched above me in the window. I wonder how I didn't recognize him before. He's right he will break the window. Let him. It's not like my mother will care. She doesn't care about anything other than herself now and days and even that's fading.

He yanks the window open much to its screaming protests and looks down at me. "Unlock the door will you?" He says. When I refuse to reply he sighs and shuts the window so hard that the glass seems to shiver. The window hasn't been opened in years resulting in the loud creaks.

There's a loud shuffling sound outside, so unlike Gale's usual quiet movements that I'm shocked it could be him. After a few seconds the door swings open and Gale walks in with the spare key in hand.

"You guys moved it on me." He says accusingly.

"It's the same place as it's always been." I tell him my voice sounding like a frogs croak.

"You sure?" He says in a doubtful tone. He tosses me the silver key and I catch it singlehandedly.

We stand there awkwardly for a few moments before Gale sits down on the seat next to me. "So did you forget the fact that we had plans for today?" He asks.

I want to smack myself for being so stupid. "Right." I say sheepishly. "That's what I forgot." I knew it was something important. How could I forget something as important as spending the day with my best friend? It's his only day off from the mines. Only day I get to see him. And I've actually tried on other days, but he's always sleeping if he's not working.

I've become a provider for his family as well. He works so much and gets paid so little that he doesn't get to hunt as often as he used to. I only have to support my mother and myself now and my mother's weight is plummeting by her desire not to eat. I've taken up the task of gathering a little extra for Gale's family. It gives me a purpose.

"You look terrible." He says honestly. "Another nightmare?"

I nod, not wanting to relive it quite yet. I want to prolong that moment when I finally tell him as long as I possibly can.

"What time is it?" I ask wondering how long I've kept him waiting.

"Well seeing as we were planning to meet at three am it's now eight am. It's fine you've only kept me waiting for five hours." He says his voice betraying of what's only a fraction of his frustration at me for keeping him waiting that long, that I can't get over it like he thinks I should.

"Did you wait that entire time?" I ask not feeling the least bit sorry for him.

"No. Are you kidding? I went home at five am. You obviously weren't going to show up." He growls accusingly.

"I wandered downstairs at some time, thinking she was here and then I realized she wasn't." I whisper missing the accusing edge in his voice and completely shifting the subject.

Gale doesn't answer, doesn't say anything consoling like a small part of me wants. He doesn't even pat my knee which is jabbed in his chest due to the small couch. His patience for me to get over Prim wore thin long ago. Now he thinks I should just get over it and he tries to help me by ignoring my passing comments and forcing me to get up when I'd rather sit out the whole day. Sometimes I would get away with it, unfortunately it usually didn't happen.

"Get up. Get ready. We have tons to do today if we want to eat the rest of the week."

I further annoy him when I refuse to move off the couch. I'm quite comfortable and really we have enough food for my mother and I to make it until Wednesday. I can always go hunting after school if I have to. Or better yet not go to school at all. "I think I can get by until Wednesday."

"Yeah well my family can't!" He snaps getting up and pulling me up with him. He looks down at me with his angry gray eyes, commanding me to get up and move around. "If you don't want a share of what we kill that's fine my family could use it. Yesterday I had a mint leaf for breakfast."

I wonder if he's exaggerating. There's a good chance he isn't.

I sigh, feeling small and breakable compared to Gale who's well over six feet. Already being eighteen he works his days in the mines and his already dark hair looks darker with all the accumulated coal dust in it. And while he's thin for his age he's muscular and undeniably strong. I never used to feel so frail before but things have changed. I've never been a very fragile girl until now and it's not that I'm frail but an emotional wreck.

"Is your mother sleeping?" He asks lowering his voice as he considers for the first time that I'm not the only tenant of this house.

I shrug my shoulders uncaringly. "Probably. Not like she does much else."

"Good point." He agrees giving me a light push towards the stairs, telling me to hurry up. That we're wasting a hunting day. I stumble for a few steps and regain my balance.

I take the stairs slowly and venture quietly into the bedroom I share with my mother. She's still asleep of course. Blonde hair plastered to the pillow as she snores gently, her dreams untroubled. How is it that she got off scotch-free from nightmares?

I change as quickly as possible without making any unnecessary noise so I don't wake her up. I like her better asleep. When she is awake, aware and talking she keeps fretting and babying me. Begging me not to go hunting because she can't lose me along with the rest of her family. Some days I think she tells me that just because she doesn't like Gale any more. I gave up trying to tell her that he makes me feel better, that he and woods are my salvation. She doesn't understand, she never does because she never moves on she just holds onto it forever. I try and tell her that if I don't hunt we don't eat. And some days I want to scream at her that I've lost everyone including her, that she's as good as dead to me. But I never do. And half of the time she just sits there and doesn't do anything.

Downstairs Gale is waiting for me, leaning on our rickety kitchen table with an air of impatience. His fingers tap a mindless rhythm. They stop as soon as he notices me.

"Ready?" He asks raising an eyebrow as if I've somehow forgotten something. Which I don't think I do but I check to make sure I have my socks on. I feel a minuscule breath of relief escape when I see my mismatched, holey socks on my feet.

"I'll just do my hair on the way," I sling my father's hunting jacket onto my arm and grab my hunting bag.

"I don't think that'll make you look any better." He tells me truthfully, almost bluntly. "Honestly you look like a downright mess. Do you even sleep at night?"

"No. With the combined nightmares from Prim and my father I'm lucky to get three hours." I remind him with acid creeping into my tone as my own patience wears thin. I shut the door quietly behind me and lock the door and stow the spare key under the eaves.

"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" He asks and I wonder what he's getting at. What could possibly be so bad that Gale would want me to look in a mirror? I try and avoid mirrors at all costs. I always did. More so now than ever before.

"No." I say curtly wanting him to stop. He's not making me feel any better; he's almost making me feel worse as he reminds me how much of a mess I am. I know I'm a mess right now but what does he expect? That I can just pick myself up and continue on? Maybe I did with my dad but that was only because my mother refused to get a job and just sunk further into her depression. I had Prim and myself to look after then. Now there's only me. I can grieve as long as I please and no one can really say different. In the Seam I now seem to be known as the girl that lost both a father in the mines as well as a sister in the Games. Most take pity on the girl who has nothing left but her best friend and her unreachable depressed mother. I don't want the pity. I broke my promise. I said Prim was dead. I never do. Because somehow that makes it final.

As Gale and I walk through the town, now later in the day then we would normally dare to venture out to hunt, because the town has come alive. People are throwing open their shutters to capture the unexpected rays of sunlight.

It makes it infinitely more dangerous for us to sneak out to the woods. While many of the residents of District 12 turn a blind eye to our illegal hunting, there are others we still have to watch for. They'll be the ones who will inform the Capitol, for a reward of course. Then where would Gale and I be? Getting whipped at the best. However it's not the Peacekeepers we need to watch for. They're our best costumers, Cray, the head buys wild turkey, and he loves it. Besides they're paid well enough, they don't need to. It's the Seam people who need the money.

We head off down the main road that leads to the square, but our destination is far from the square. Despite it still being fairly early in the morning, we pass quite a few people on our way to town. Some smile and wave at us, everyone is in a good mood. It's a Sunday. A day of from work for most.

I'm actually starting to feel again. I'm not numb anymore. Maybe it's because my mind is preoccupied with the fact that I'm going hunting with Gale and that only happens on Sundays now that Gale has started in the mines.

A haggard, pale looking man with blonde hair shuffles past us. Shoulders slumped in defeat. He raises his blonde head from the concrete and meets my eyes briefly before the blue eyes flit quickly back to the pavement. It's enough to know who he is. I doubt I could forget him I tried. And I have.

"He looks terrible." I say the broken blue eyes still burned into mine. He does. He looks beyond his years. Not that he looks elderly or particularly weak. He probably still wrestles and lifts weights like before. He looks in his early twenties instead of late teens. But a twenty year old who grew up too fast in all the wrong ways. Like he was beaten down and stepped on every day. His once ashy blonde hair has an almost gray sheen to it, unhealthy and old. Or maybe it's the lighting or the coal dust. But his ancient eyes, beyond his years, spill the whole story onto the concrete. Trying to say sorry.

Nothing like how I remember him when I watched him on the TV while he toured the Districts a few months ago. Or maybe he just had so much make-up caked on it was hard to tell. They always plaster on make-up in the Capitol. And he did look rather different on camera. When he first came back he never left his new house so no one really show what he looked like. Not that I pay any attention to him but that was mandatory viewing. Usually I pay as little attention to him as I can.

"That's how you look," Gale says quietly. "Not like you survived the Games but you lived through it through the eyes of someone else."

I look at him like he's crazy because he's making no sense.

The sight of the should be young boy fills me with a sudden rage. He should look happy and glowing with good health! He's a victor! One of the rich who rose above us all. He won the Games relatively unscathed! He has food! He shouldn't look the way he does, he won didn't he? Twenty three other kids died for a crime they didn't even commit. And what did they do to deserve such a fate? Nothing just being born after the Dark Days was enough to land them in the arena.

But someone has to go. I think. And in our case it had to be Prim. Innocent. Just like the other kids. The monstrous boy from 2 appears in my mind and it dawns on me that maybe not all of them were 'innocent.' It has to happen. Something has to give and it's always the Districts.

Peeta should look happy. He's home and whole with his family who loves him. While I'm stuck with a depressed mother who may as well be dead for all the use she is. She's worse than dead. It's like she's always been dead and now I'm alone. Two of my family members are dead. While he came home alive, rich and well, to his overjoyed family. He tried to get into our funeral and say he was sorry but I shunted him out the door and slammed it in his face. What could his words do? No matter how powerful his words were he couldn't bring her back and never could. Why can't he realize that? He made the mistake.

"Catnip?" Gale says.

"Stop calling me that." I retort with less than my usual amount of vinegar I usually inject when he calls me that. What's the point? It comes out half committed and flat.

"Never." He says mimicking my tone to perfection.

"Well then what? You never call me that unless you want my attention."

"We're here." He says conversationally, changing the subject abruptly.

"Great." It doesn't sound great the way it comes out. I make it sound like I'm walking to the gallows. At least then I could escape and see Prim. There's nothing here to hold me to this Earth. My mother isn't a concern. Gale. Prehaps the only one whom I would miss. Would he mourn me? Would Peeta because he never got to make his amends for killing my sister?

That's why I'll never be able to forgive him. Because he killed her and home was so close she could taste it, feel it. I had begun to hope and he crushed it within seconds.

After throwing a cautious glance around Gale watches as I crawl and wriggle my way under the fence. I whistle to get his attention once on the other side. Seconds later Gale has joined me.

Looking back at the town through the fence it feels miles and miles away. Like it's not there. It feels like I'm not part of that world anymore. Disjointed and unwelcome. That's how it looks to me. Forbidding. Maybe I should never go back. Now I could do it. Before I had Prim, now all I have is Gale. Why didn't I take the offer up when I could've? We could have done it. We would have it. We would be living in the woods right now, free from the Games, death and starvation at every turn. It would take us just minutes to gather our belongings and splitting. We would've taught our families to help. Made a house. I would have saved Prim and therefore save myself.

"Hunt or fish?" Gale says as if from a distance. I snap out of my daydream. It was so real. I could almost smell the wood and the roasting rabbits. Taste it on my tongue. Hear Prim and Posy's laughs filling the woods as we fished. It's like it's all been taken away. Snapped from my grasp forever.

"I don't care. But we have all day."

Gale sighs like I'm being difficult. I'm not. "Fish."

"Great." A nasty edge creeps into my voice as feeling comes back into my body. My hand finds the light switch momentarily, flooding the cave I feel trapped in, with light. It feels like I'm stuck in a cave with no light, and while I know the light switch is there I just can't find the reason to find it. What's the point to finding it? Because I know it'll just burn out again. I'll run out of a reason and feelings and it'll just shatter like the last time. My hand has found the switch and turned it on but how long will it be until it burns out again? A week? A month? A year? Never? Leaving me alone and with the night. So that it can swallow me in its all consuming darkness.

First Chapter is always the shortest for me. Expect longer ones soon! Once the ball starts rolling it, um, rolls! I promise this will make sense soon.

Can anyone guess what or whom the last paragraph is relating too? Virtual cakes for the ones who get it right.

I know Katniss could be considered OOC but I was doing a more Mockingjay esque Katniss but it was strange because there is no Mockingjay. In short I was attempting to make her like Katniss was at the end of MJ but MJ never really happened.

Thanks for reading, please review.