Hi

This story takes place post-Mockingjay. Canon references throughout to HG, CF and MJ but as always, pure fantasy!

The story will alternate from Katniss/Peeta and Gale's POV. Any comments or reviews are welcome and would be appreciated.

Here goes…

DISCLAIMER: ALL HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY CHARACTERS AND REFERENCES USED IN THIS STORY BELONG TO SUZANNE COLLINS

J'ai ton amour et je veux ton revenge, j'ai ton amour, I don't wanna be friends

I want your love, and I want your revenge, you and me could write a bad romance

CHAPTER 1

New Beginnings

District 12 had been raised from the ashes. The wealth of the Capitol had been redistributed throughout each of the districts, and where there was nothing but the dust of the dead stands homes and shops, filled with people. A whole new community rebuilt from scratch. It doesn't have quite the same old feel, but it's at least something, resurrected against all odds. When I had seen the state of nothing it had been reduced to by the bombs, I would never have thought it would once again become a thriving place. My home in the old Victor's Village was one of the only buildings that remained and I still live here. It would have been too hard for me to return alone to where my old home was. That place is too full of poignant memories. My mother, from whom I must get my emotional cowardice from, true to form, had bailed on me for the second time. District 2 was her new home, where she worked in a hospital from what she told me in one of her only two letters since she left just after the rebellion ended two years ago. She has never visited me and I have never been able to leave District 12. I have accepted that I will probably never see her again.

I was the Mockingjay, burning brightly as a beacon of hope and a symbol of defiance, who had been instrumental in bringing down the Capitol and its regime. Yet for someone who had been in such an epic battle, I had been left physically perfect. When the Capitol fell and had been reclaimed, I was taken back to hospital there and my every burn and scar was removed from me by the best doctors Panem had to offer. I have checked and checked my body so many times since, and I can find no trace of a scar. Once I had taken a knife and cut at my wrist, wanting to know if I was even real. I had watched the blood pour out until I passed out. I was found by Peeta and taken to hospital, and this is now the only visible scar I have. I wasn't trying to die, or at least I don't think I was. Sometimes I want to, but I can't leave Peeta. He needs me. I run my finger along it. I like this scar more than my entire perfect body. It made me feel human. How was it even fair that it was all the people I cared about who had suffered but I was untouched and undamaged? What no doctor could fix was the emotional mess I had become. All the pain I had had to endure, culminating in the death of my sister, had taken its toll on me. I would be 21 soon but mentally I had aged my entire life in those 20 years.

It has been exactly four years since the day that changed my life. Since my sister's name was pulled out of the reaping bowl and I had volunteered to take her place. Even though there is no reaping anymore, I panic – reliving that moment once more in my mind. I see Prim's innocent face bravely walking forward, and the way she tried to tuck in the back of shirt into her skirt as I had always had to remind her. I feel the cutting stab that always accompanies any thoughts of my sister and her face that I will never see again.

Peeta Mellark and I spend most days together. He lives next door to me. He has no family or friends left from the past. I am the only one he has. We offer each other companionship. Sometimes he stays at my house, usually just long enough to allow me to fall asleep. The nightmares that used to haunt me have faded, but not disappeared. There are still some nights that I wake screaming, convinced I am back in that arena watching Rue die, or that Peeta is a rabid mutt trying to kill me. The worst nightmares I have are about watching Prim burn.

My mind is dark, too dark for me to see clearly. I cannot let Peeta know what he means to me. Sometimes I cannot even stand to look at him because I know what he has gone through because of me. He is still the Peeta who went to the games with me, but his innocence has been taken from him. Like me, he too had been cured from the tracker jacker venom that the Capitol had inserted into him to turn him against me. But I know he has as many scars as me inside. Beautiful, trusting, kind-hearted and peaceful Peeta - the boy who loves me so unconditionally deeply. He loved me enough to almost die for me so many times in so many ways. I could never be worthy of him. I was a creature incapable of returning such a pure love – the one thing the Capitol had never been able to change about him. Peeta calmed me and made life bearable. I had nothing else.

Peeta tells me I am beautiful. I believe he means it when he says it, although I don't even try and make an effort to look nice. It takes a lot of effort for me to even bother to brush my hair. I have stopped braiding it now. On the outside, physically, I could very well be the same but I am no longer that girl anymore. She died when Prim died. Why doesn't Peeta see how ugly I am? Why is he so blinded to all my many faults? I know what I am capable of and how detestable I am. He only ever sees the good in me, which I don't even know what that is. I have never cared enough to look, only question time and time again why someone so pure could want someone so tainted. I take so much from him and he continues to give abundantly without reserve.

We were the 'star crossed lovers' created by the Capitol that had become friends who had shared so much suffering together. This bound us together in a way that no one else could understand. We didn't need anyone else now. I had a brand new body but I was dead inside unless Peeta was with me. I have nothing else to live for. Peeta has never asked anything of me. He accepts my friendship and my company, however limitedly I can offer it, and he seems content with it. I am comforted by him just being here. He doesn't pressure me to return his love, but he knows who he is to me. This makes me hate myself more. He deserves to be loved by someone who can show him each and every day just how special he is. I cannot live without Peeta but I have never told him this. Peeta is 21 now. There are other girls he could be spending his time with, instead of letting precious days of his life go by with a shell of a person. I'm just not strong enough to tell him to leave. I cannot face the isolation of being abandoned by the only person in this world who I know loves me.

Like Gale abandoned me. My best friend for so many years may have been responsible for the death of my sister. Knowing this was enough to make him turn his back on District 12, and on me. I haven't seen Gale for two years. Sometimes Peeta and I see him on the news, but I can't stomach it and I have to switch myself off – something I have become an expert on doing. It hurts me to see Gale or even hear his voice. I can't breathe when I think of our last outing in the woods the day of Prim's reaping. We were just a young boy and girl from the Seam trying to feed our families. How carefree we were, so completely unaware how much our lives would soon change irrevocably. It aches so much I just can't go back there in my mind. The woods aren't surrounded by electric fencing anymore and I can go hunting whenever I like. But even that pleasure has been made a slave to my haunting memories, and I find I can never stay there longer than a few minutes. I have never been to the woods with Peeta. I know he hates it anyway. I feel Peeta tense up every time Gale is on TV and I know he wonders whether I miss him. He never asks me though and I don't speak about Gale. I can't even bring myself to say his name – not even to myself.

I do miss Gale. Painfully. More than I would care to admit to myself. I miss the way we used to laugh together. I miss the way we were two parts of one whole. Joking about the Capitol together, hunting, and just surviving and trying to make the best of what little we had in our lives. When I'm in the woods, I wish with all my heart that he would appear from the trees behind me as silently as he used to with that playful smile I used to love and we could just go back to the way it was. But then Prim's face comes to my mind and that horrible feeling seeps into me. Gale, although perhaps indirectly and unknowingly, had had a hand in her death. It was too sickening to contemplate - I have to shut my eyes when I think about it and wait for my mind to push the thought away. It was also something we both had to recognise and swallow. I still cannot accept this, nor find any peace in it. I could never have imagined that the one person I had entrusted my sister to when I had gone to the Games would be the one to end her life. Fate was cruel that way to me. I don't even know why I was surprised. The odds had never been in my favour.

Peeta works in the bakery a few streets away from our house. He brings home the most delicious cakes covered in pretty handmade patterns each day for me. I do nothing all day. I sit and wait for him to come back, lost in my own jumbled thoughts. Sometimes they are too much and my head hurts, so I go and help Peeta in the bakery. When I get too tired to concentrate, Peeta lets me wait in the back. He checks up on me every few minutes, always with his warm sunny smile that shines from those sky blue eyes. It makes me feel better. I don't speak to many people here in District 12.

People come to visit me from around the district - Greasy Sae, Haymitch, and a few others who live here. I sit and let Peeta talk. Before long the awkward monosyllabic answers I give lead inevitably to long silences in conversation, and a cue for them to leave. I can't help it. I don't want to speak. I have nothing I want to say. I just want to be alone – either alone or with Peeta. I seem to have lost my ability to make friends now. I have no friendship to offer. All my friends are either dead or gone.

This is my life now.

/

'Soldier Hawthorne', calls the stern voice of my superior, Sergeant Alders. 'Is everything ready?'

'Yes, sir', I say.

We exchange salutes and he walks off. Since the fall of the Capitol, I am part of the new government which now runs Panem. Since I turned 21 a few months ago, I have recently been promoted to commanding soldier. I oversee major military outings and ensure security is of the highest standard. President Paylor will be undertaking the first annual tour of the districts. In each one, she will be making a speech in remembrance of the fallen – the ones who lost their lives during the rebellion, and the countless children who died under the Capitol's Hunger Games regime. I take pride in my new position and this will be the first time I will be in charge of such a high profile event. This is the first year that this is being done. I haven't been away from District 2 since I arrived here two years ago. I have mostly been doing internal work but now that I have been promoted, I will have a chance to get out and see how much change this new government have put in place in the surrounding areas. Although I am relishing my new responsibility and excited to see the other districts, there is one district I am dreading going back to. It's not so much the place, but more that I am nervous about seeing her - the one person who meant the most in the world to me. The girl who I know hates me more than I can hate myself, my friend who holds me responsible for the most heinous of crimes.

I remember our last conversation, the last time I saw her. I had travelled to the Capitol to see her in hospital. She had been in for months after being burnt alongside her sister in the bombings there. During that time, there were so many rumours about the Mockingjay. Some said she had died, others said she had gone mad and killed President Coin. There were some that even mulled over the possibility that she was a traitor, working alongside President Snow in secret. Those rumours were never said to my face. If they had been, I would have retaliated with my fists. Katniss was later acquitted of killing President Coin, but that never mattered to me anyway. I never thought of her as the Mockingjay. To me, she was just my Catnip.

Katniss had been in too delicate a state to be allowed visitors so I patiently waited, trying to work up the courage to face her when the time came. I practiced what I would say time and time again, but no words I could find sounded like the right ones. When she was finally allowed to see me, I held my breath and walked into the hospital room. She had looked so tiny and fragile, so sad and broken. Very unlike the fiery determined girl I had known for so long. She waited for me to speak, her eyes downcast, but it was a long time before I could trust my mouth to open.

'Hi Catnip', I said. She didn't respond to my nickname for her. What could I say? Sorry I might be responsible for killing Prim? I had never imagined that something I had helped to create would hurt her so much more than anyone else ever had.

'Tell me it wasn't you', she said, her voice blank. 'Please, Gale'.

I moved forward closer to her and tried to take her hand in mine, to try and explain. She pulled hers away before I even made contact. She didn't want me to touch her. My hands are covered in her sister's blood. I don't even have a certain answer to her question. I don't even know who dropped that bomb. I don't know if it was the one I had designed. Chances are I would never know. And neither would she.

'I don't know, Katniss', is all I can manage to say to her. It isn't enough, she deserves to know the truth but I can't convince her one way or another when I just don't know myself. When she eventually met my eyes again, I saw not hatred or disgust or anger, just a deep hurt and betrayal.

'Prim's gone', she said, her voice full of raw emotion, her eyes welling up. Katniss hates to cry, I know that. This knowledge coupled with the tears in her eyes sends daggers through me. I cannot bear to see the way she has been wounded. I longed to pull her into my arms and comfort her, to reassure her I was here – but we both knew I couldn't do that. I had nothing to offer that could take it all away.

'Katniss, I'm …' I start, my voice burdened with remorse, but she doesn't give me the chance to finish.

'Just go, Gale', she said weakly, her voice not more than a hoarse whisper. 'Just go'.

My heart broke at that moment, and it had never mended since. I took one last look at her and left.

I didn't just leave her, I left the District altogether. I couldn't face her again after what had happened. Fortunately I was allocated a post as far away as I could get from her. My family were allowed to come too and I made a new life here for myself. I have never forgotten her though, and she is on my mind constantly – especially when I am alone at night. There have been other girls, some I take to bed for a couple of hours - but they come and go. They aren't like her. I think of her laugh, and the last time I saw it. Seems like a lifetime ago.

I leave tomorrow. In just over a week, I will be in back in District 12. I am going back to face Katniss Everdeen.

/

My hands work quickly and expertly, drawing swirling lines on the icing. I am lost in my work. I love watching the patterns form and bringing beautiful things to life in my designs. Flowers, butterflies, birds and hearts – there are so many wonderful things to paint. I am now the sole owner of this bakery, and the only remaining member of my family. I often think of my life back then, and while mine wasn't the perfect home life, I at least had people I could call my family. Many things have changed since then.

My life now is uncomplicated. There aren't many things in it. Running the bakery takes up most of my time as I open it every day of the week. My mornings and evenings are spent with Katniss. We sit together and just do ordinary things like eat and watch TV, I tell her about my day at the bakery, let her know if anything eventful happened, or fill her in on any gossip I may have heard. She laughs when I tell her something funny and I am reassured that I make her happy for a few seconds in some small way. I love her laugh so much. As quickly as she starts laughing, she stops and I am again reminded how my affection has never really been enough for her. I spend my nights in my home alone and these are at times the worst moments for me. I am revisited by nightmares and have no one to hold me. I don't tell Katniss, she has enough going on in her own mind. Katniss and I have never spent a night together since we came back here. Sometimes I stay with her until she falls asleep but never until she wakes. We kiss sometimes too. Not as much as I would like to, but I don't complain.

Still, she remains the dearest person in my life now, more precious to me than life itself. She is the girl I love. The girl I have always loved from the moment I saw her, and will always love until the day I die. I feel her sadness every time I am near her, but I also feel it ebb away slowly when I hold her. When I kiss her, I feel myself draining all that pain from her and absorbing it into me. As soon as my arms let her go, I watch as it all seeps back into her face. Those grey eyes which burned with passion start to lose their colour, as if a light inside her has gone out and she isn't really here at all. I try so hard to bring her back so I can keep her with me. I love her. I know she cares about me, deeply. She saved my life, and she stood by me. She loves me in her own way. Yet her love is such a complex one. We are bound together through our experience, and through a connection that no one can understand.

When I kiss her, although her lips are on mine, I do not feel her return my kiss. The hands that tended to my wounds and protected me do not grip mine as tightly when I hold them in mine. Something holds her back and doesn't allow her to let herself go. She cannot dare to feel the pleasure that comes with sharing love. I know she feels she doesn't deserve it and I endeavour to make her see the good things about her which I love. She is fiercely loyal, brave, spirited, caring and loving. She would do anything to protect me, and she always has. She is amazing. This is why I love her, but I hardly ever get to see that girl anymore. She has locked herself away – not just from me but from everyone. She refuses to like anything about herself. I know the real her so well but sometimes, she could be someone I just don't know at all. She has played so many different roles in my life - my friend, my lover, my protector, my partner, my enemy and now my love. She makes me complete.

We live next door to one another but her mind has put many oceans between us. Her heart is closed, hidden behind walls so tall and thick that even the force of my love which I tirelessly shower her in cannot break them down. I know it is because she has been hurt so many times, endured agonies too painful for someone so young and seen horrors far beyond anybody's worst nightmares. She blames herself for everything that happened, and most of all, she blames herself for what happened to me. I see it in her eyes. Her sister's death only compounded her self-loathing and lack of joy or interest in life. I don't know how to take that away so I just concentrate on giving her the small moments of joy that I can. I will never leave her. I can't. She has ingrained herself into my mind, my life, my heart and my soul. She did that the moment I first laid eyes on her.

The president's speech which is taking place next week in the rebuilt Square will be tough for her, just as each and every reminder of the people we have known and lost is. Not that we need reminding, those faces will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Most people will attend, as she was the Mockingjay. Most people credit her with the fall of the Capitol and hold her in high regard – she is the reason we all enjoy the freedom we have now. She has been forgiven by everyone for the death of President Coin, her mental state deemed far too unstable and tortured to have been able to be thinking soundly when she fired that arrow. Katniss is guest of honour, and her attendance is obligatory. I am her rock and her light, and as always - my place at her side is also compulsory. I am the only person she trusts and I will never let her down.

/To be continued...

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