Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"To remind those that even the strongest cannot overcome the might of the Capitol, but also to show the generosity and mercy of the Capitol only one tribute shall be reaped but they will come from the pool of existing male victors." Snow kept his promise, my family and the Hawthorne's where safe but he's going to punish me by sending the boy i love to his death... alone in the games, yet through this a survivor will be born.

Chapter 1

Katniss.

My screams echo throughout the forest, any game within a five-mile radius surely having fled. Today has been strange for me, my normal quiet steps have been uncharacteristically loud as though I where new to this and not a seasoned huntress. Though the fact doesn't illude me that, the empty game bag I'll be travelling home with today no longer means a night without food on the table. Winning the 74th Hunger Games have had some benefits... well only one, having too much money that I don't know what to do with it providing for my family is no longer a concern thus hunting has become obsolete and the new-found time I have goes by wasted. Perhaps the only reason I come out into the woods is to find solace in the familiar woods, enjoying the scents and feelings I grew up with and finding peace in the calmness that washes over me. This is really one of the only escapes I have from Victor's Village.

The strange exhausting feeling that washes over me make my steps feel weighted down, though lead was in boots. Unclasping my quiver, it takes place roughly discarded where I throw my bow in frustration as I slump down on the grass underneath a large boulder that rest on the edge of the lake. My trips into the forest always seem to bring me back to this spot. My eye's feel heavy, closing as the fresh, cool breeze blows over my face my mind wanders to the passing days... weeks? Hell I don't know, the days have begun to blur together and I've lost track of how long has passed since the ending of the 74th Games. That and the quick realisation that, upon getting back and thinking I could return to my old life-like nothing happened is that something did happen, I won the Games, nothing is the same and I'm finding myself wishing more and more that I could go back to before the Games because I know now that you never win the Games you simply become another pawn, player in them with the Capitol and Snow being the Game-makers.

At least me winning I can take some pleasure in the fact that Primrose loves her new life. Seeing her with a constant smile on her beautiful, porcelain face nearly makes it worth... hell I does make it all worth it because know I have no fear of her starving, freezing during a cold, hatred filled winter or wondering where I'll find the means to by her new cloths or things for young women that they need growing up. My only fear that remains when concerning Prim is that somehow Snow will try to use her against me. I see her ever day, the joy of Prim smiling as she enters and exits her new room, the times I come home from the merchant market with new, unused cloths that she'll be the first to wear. Beautiful cloths that we could only ever dream about before I won. She also loves the fact that she can pamper that ugly, mangy old fur ball buttercup, though I'd never admit it seeing her and him together brings a warmth to my heart. Between spending my time out here in the forest, the only other place I spend this much is with Primrose. Sat in-front of the large marble fireplace or huddled underneath the blankets of hers or my bed sheets as we talk about the day, about school and about an annoying boy that happens to tease her constantly. I would be tempted to go and see this boy and simply remind him of who I am but I know she's talking about Rory... Gale's younger brother and we, Gale and I have both noted before that the pair of them have a thing for each other but are too densely unaware of it that I comes off as playful teasing.

Kind of like you and Peeta... densely unaware...

my eye's snap open, instantly I push those thoughts away. Refusing to think, let alone broach that subject out here in the only peaceful place I have left. Though the brief thoughts about him cause my mind to wander and draw up images, thoughts, feelings and memories of Gale. Since being home I've personally seen him once, though he has tried harder to come and visit it's been at awkward times when the grief and nightmarish memories have crippled me. Though trying to seem him during the day is out, a new scheduling system set up by some new head of the mines has all the miners wandering from day-to-day when their next day off will be. They know a day in advance and only at the end of their shift. I think back to when I last saw him, roughly three days after getting back to District Twelve.

I'd been sitting in the living-room, feet curled up underneath me and shrouded underneath a blanket when a loud rumbling knock sounds out through the house. I'm so shocked that for a brief moment I startle in sheer panic before his voice rings out in my ear.

"Catnip!... CATNIP!..." exclaiming as I rush towards the door and throw it open, not even seeing his face as his strong arms encase me in a fierce, bone crushing hug. Staying like this for a few minutes before his breath tickles my neck while speaking. "I missed you Catnip."

"Me too Gale... me too..." I say to him, slightly becoming aware of the awkward feeling rising in my chest. He's never been this open about his feelings, his affections always choosing to be cold and stony when it came to things like this but I push it aside and just rest for a moment in the familiarness of him. Breaking away I finally stare up at him instantly noting the changes in him. He looks exhausted, his hair having grown longer and his jaw is covered in a dark stubble, his whole body is covered in a thick layer of coal dust and it's only then do I realise that he must have just finished at the mines. Gale being older than 18 means he is beyond reaping age but like most in the seam he has no craft to go to and therefore the only work that is available is in the mines. I feel bad for him, he is my friend, my best friend. Yes handsome, strong features and lean muscle that has been built up over the years of hunting. Any woman would consider him a great catch and wed then bed him in a flash. Yet I've never seen him that way, never felt those feelings for him, longed to feel his arms around me or lips upon mine. While yes my mind has though about it, young and hormones raging I did once think about what it would be like to kiss him but at the time survival was more important and those thoughts have died long ago. I can only see him as Gale, my brother, hunting partner and best friend. A friend I know, that losing him in some mining accident, like the one that took my father. Thinking of him trapped, crushed and never seeing his body but knowing its underneath the earth buried under black rock would destroy me. So it's why the words escape my mouth before I can think of them through.

"Leave the mines... I'll give you money to live..."

"No Catnip." the cold look he give me is enough to end that line of thinking right there and then. He just like me and everyone else from the seam is too proud to accept hand-outs and would rather work and earn the money for themselves.

"Okay but... please... please be careful..." he nods, giving me a sad smile before we fall into a silence. "Are we still going hunting... on Sundays?" I ask with hope but again he gives me that sad smile.

"i can't... the new foreman at the mines has come up with a new working schedule. I don't know when I'll be off next but when I do, we'll go." trying as hard as he can to make his voice sound assuring I know it'll be quite some time before we get to go hunting again. Again the silence falls and I expect him to leave but I freeze surprised as he inches forward and leans down to place a chaste kiss on my lips. Yet before he can, I back away and slam the door shut in his face before falling against it and ignoring his voice. Burying my hands in my hair, covering my ears I try to drown out his voice and the thoughts of romance. Repeating a mantra over and over in my head.

"My name is Katniss Everdeen, I'm 16 years old. I enter the 74th Hunger Games. I won, I don't want a family, I don't want kids, I don't want love."

over and over I repeat it until another voice fills my head.

"Katniss... Katniss..." my little sisters voice fills my mind and I allow her and my mother to lead me to my bedroom. Settling me down under the covers I finally note the darkness outside and realise that I must have sat there for hours muttering the same mantra over and over before I finally sub-come to the darkness.

"Arggggg!" I scream, scaring off everything twice over in the forest. Just thinking about that day brings back the conversation I had with Haymitch a few hours after breaking the boy with bread's heart.

"I wasn't lying... when... when I said I was confused." Haymitch just lowers his glass looking at me and expecting me to continue. "It... It wasn't all an act in the Game but the closer I get home, back to my family the more I just get so confused by everything to do with him."

"A comforting fact sweetheart to finally drop on us." Anger is all I feel at his comment, he damn well knew about this and to act as though he didn't know a thing about it... he can fuck off. The only one who has that right is Peeta. I'm about to shout at him when he voice comes again. "I told you the Capitol wasn't to happy with all this, that the only thing that has, is and can get you both through this alive is if everyone... and I mean everyone believes that you to are together... so with that in mind I really think you should go speak to the kid."

"I'm almost certain that he'll slam the door in my face if I go." remembering his hollow eye's and voice as each word I spoke destroyed his heart over and over. For him this wasn't an act, he loved me, he truly loved me and wanted to give me everything, to give me the world and I broke his heart before knowing that I truly had it.

"Sweetheart..." Haymitch slurs, slightly straightening himself in the chair. "The kid loves you, head over heels and with your warm kindness to guest and especially guest that love you he'll not not want to see you." if glares could kill Haymitch would be dead but I am considering jamming the knife in his throat for that little comment. This is a real problem, Peeta has only ever looked out for me, sacrificed for me and I've been nothing but bitter and hostile to him.

"He hates me... I could see it in his eye's." I whisper, eye's drifting down to my clasped hands in my lap.

"He isn't you, pretty sure the boy doesn't know how to hate and when concerning you he's a goner." I scowl and raise to leave but Haymitch beats me to it and pushes me back down. "Listen here sweetheart, you need to sort what ever this out with the kid NOW! You think because you won and your back in good old District twelve doesn't mean that Snow is watching every little move you make, that he has in any way stopped looking for an easy solution to be rid off you! WAKE UP!" he shoots right next to my ear before whispering to me. "He has spies everywhere, cameras everywhere." he lets me go before sternly looking at me. "Fix this thing with the boy and keep the god damn act intact." before leaving the cart. I sit there until night fall feeling sorry for myself before heading off to my compartment.

I think of one more thing about the whole situation I'm in. a comment prim made to me a couple of days after my melt down with Gale. Just before bed as I was tucking her in she surprised me.

" I saw Peeta today, he gave me a sugar cookie." the shock written all over my face but that doesn't stop her and she continues. "You should speak to him Katniss, he looks lonely and sad... just like you."

"Things are difficult at the moment Prim." I think for a brief moment that this will satisfy her but she just looks at me with her big blue easy before speaking.

"I think you both being difficult, I think that you like him more than your letting yourself believe you do." she snuggles down into the covers and I'm left dumbfounded and wordlessly start to leave but not before a finally cutting comment.

"You'll lose him if you take forever to admit it to yourself."

I shake my head, clearing all thoughts about everything before getting to my feet and checking around me and the edge of the lake. Picking my bow and quiver up, setting them close together and easily accessible I strip down to my underclothes, the warm summer sun beating down on me I wade into the lake and begin to swim just like my dad taught me. This will be one of the last times this year I can do this, summer is ending soon and autumn will soon set in with the milder, colder climate. Spending the last few remaining hours swimming before letting myself brief dry off, dressing and heading back to the boarder fence of Twelve. Crawling underneath the fence I start back to Victor's Village, kicking through the thin layer of coal dust that coast the District as I make my way from seam into town and before I notice my feet have led me to the one place I don't want to be. The bakery.

It's already closed, locked up tight and empty my mind wanders to Peeta and I think this must be what his house looks like and not the above apartment that looks full of life. His family choose not to move in with him, so he like Haymitch was left alone to deal with the horrors. Though Haymitch is slightly better off with his way of cooping. Peeta has no one, nothing to help him and I know then and there that Haymitch and Prim, in a way are both right. We can't continue on like this, ignore each other and pretending the other doesn't exist because only together will we be able to survive the Capitol.

As I enter Victor's Village, the sunlight having dropped below the horizon, knowing Prim will be worried I push all the fear I have down deep and cross over the other side of the Village to Peeta's house. When looking at it it seems impossible more daunting than the rest, even Haymitch's house carrys more light than the small flicker that comes from the main room of Peeta's house. Raising up the marble steps, each one feeling colder than the last I stop in-front of the large blue door and before my mind can think of a thousand ways to stop me I knock.

It only takes seconds for him to answer the door but it feels like hours when he finally does and I'm there shocked to the core at the sight in-front of me. Peeta stands there completely silhouetted against the pitch black backdrop of his dark house. Only his bright blue eye's shine in the darkness.

"Katniss..." a statement and question rolled into one, his eye's shine the surprise he feels about me showing up.

"Hi..." the lamest response to anyone ever but it's all I can come up with. Especially when it concerns the boy... the man whose heart I broke because calling Peeta anything but a man after everything we've gone through would be a slap to the face.

"Umm... if you're looking for Haymitch he's in town, at some card game with the local friendly peacekeepers." of course he wouldn't think I came here to see him, he thinks that I'm only here to try to find Haymitch and me being me does the only thing I can think of... I lie.

"I know, I passed him on the way in... he... em... he wanted me to check in on you." I lie straight to his face, knowing that there was no way I would be able to admit that it was me worrying about Peeta.

"I'm fine." sort and quip he eye's disappear as he turns to leave.

"Wait!... please... turn a light on so I can see... the steps might be slippery." he lets out a large sigh, both knowing that the steps are bone dry and that I'm making use of the worst excuses ever but never the less he turns the porch light on and I get my first real look at him since the day on the train platform when we left each other. His hair is messy and the large bags underneath his eye's tell me that just like me he sleeps very little if any.

"There... I'm fine Katniss and you should be able to see know and tell Haymitch to stop acting like my father. He isn't... now if that's all I need to get back, it's late and I have work that needs doing before tomorrow. Goodnight Katniss."

I hate hit, the cold, dryness of his voice devoid of all emotion. This is the first time Peeta has ever been callous to me and I hate it, I hate knowing that I'm the sole cause of this new attitude.

"Peeta!" I cry before pushing against the hardwood door, forcing him to reopen it and look at me. As much as I want to run I need to sort this, to get us on speaking terms because we need to survive Snow and the Capitol.

"i needed time... time to think..."

"About?"
"Us... the games... and what I want... about what it meant." this isn't a lie, there hasn't been a single day where those thoughts haven't crept into my mind and plagued me. I think about it all, from Cinna to rue settled in a bed of flowers, glimmer and the trackerjackers, Cato, the mutts chasing us and Peeta, always Peeta. They occupy my dreams, haunt my dreams and most if not every night I awake screaming and terrified that I'm still trapped in the arena. I think that Peeta does as well.

"And..."
"I miss you... I miss the friend I made... I want to try to be your friend..." I whisper looking at him, pleading with my eye's.

It's strange knowing something but not believing it, a feeling I can't quite describe. I betrayed Peeta, the trust we built together through the Games was destroyed the moment I lied to him in the Games... it just took a while for it to catch up. That's why I know his answer before he says it but it doesn't hurt any less.

"... No..."

With one word Prim's premonition comes full circle and the tears fall as his door thuds shut and the light switches off leaving me alone, scared and in the dark. The flames that were created dying with Peeta's answer.

A/N;

I've had this idea for a while and wanted to see what people think about it. Any constructive criticism about how I could improve would be great and I really hope you like this. Chapter 2 is already under works and I'm hoping to post it Saturday... so see ya;-)