I just want to say thank you to all the reviewers! I appreciate your reviews a lot Also, because someone commented on my writing style, I just wanted to throw it out there that I'm not actually trying to copy the books' narrative storytelling style. I really dislike first person point of views. (Me putting it lightly). I just don't like it, because when I'm reading a story and it has stuff like "… and then I picked up X and felt Y …" I know that it's not me. I don't feel the characters like I do in third person. Plus, you also get a feel of other people as well.

Cookie points to the person that spots the poetry verse in the text!

CHARCOAL

CHAPTER 2 : GLASS

But even if we won't admit it to ourselves
We'll walk upon these streets and think of little else
So I won't show my face here anymore
I won't show my face here anymore

All that's left behind
Is a shadow on my mind

— Bastille, These Streets

Gale has never been inside of the Justice Building, something that, ever since he'd been old enough to wonder about things, had held his curiosity. Now he would rather have lived his whole life without knowing what was inside of it, or how it looked.

He doesn't pay much attention to his surroundings, just stares at his feet as he walks over carpeted hallways. What little he does take in while in his numbed-out shell state amazes him.

The carpet is a sort of warm grey, a bit like the colour of his father's eyes — and oh what would his father think of this? Would he rage against the dying of the light? Would he mope? But everything would be different because if Gale's dad was actually still alive everything would be different — and stretches across the middle of the hallway that they're walking down, disappears around unexplored corners. The rest of the floor that the carpet does not cover is marble, black and white like chess. It gives the place a sort of cold feeling, but the walls are a sort of soft white, and it looks a bit like it has a life of its own, soft glow emanating from the walls. It disturbs him. There are also some paintings hung up, and there's one of Madge's father too, along with a surprising painting of Haymitch, young and fresh and soul torn out through his eyes, winner over twenty-three dead kids.

The image stays stuck in his head, as well as Katniss' farewell. Together, as he's shoved, alone, into a nondescript room that looks warmer than the hallway, his mind replays the images of a dirty blonde haired boy with dirt scuffed on the bridge of his nose and blue eyes sad and mouth in that tilt that tells everyone that he's not happy, not at all, even though he's survived, and Katniss, walking in to that Hell that Haymitch had barely survived as he was flung out of it.

Gale wants, so hard, to be able to scream. Freak out.

But he can't let go of the anger inside of him, or the fear that is rapidly sinking icy hooks into his chest, dragging him down to murky, dark depths, because if he does — he remembers Catnip complaining to him about her mother, how she's just a shut-in shell, remembers that after his father's funeral he turned into an animal, saw everything through a haze of red for three months until he finally met Katniss is the forest — then he won't be able to trust himself to stop.

He's got to stay strong, at least until his family have left, hold it in for a few more hours until he can get himself somewhere quiet and where there's no chance for people to disturb him. But the thing is though, — will there actually be a safe place for him? Is there ever going to be a time when he'll truly be undisturbed?

As he's standing there in the middle of some foreign room, contemplating the pros and cons of freaking out and hurting his family, or hurt himself by keeping his feelings contained, the choice is made for him as a peacekeeper opens the door, gives him this unidentifiable look through his plastic visor, and then his entire family is pouring through the door like a tidal wave. He feels his lungs turn to ice.

Rory is the first to reach him, and as soon as he's close enough he leaps up and wraps his arms around Gale's midsection. Vick follows soon, also barraging into his torso, lower body swinging into Gale's shins. Rory is sobbing uncontrollably by the time Hazelle reaches him with toddler Posy in her arms.

Gale can already feel the raw square forming in his throat and the itchiness behind his eyelids, years-old signs that tell him he's going to be bawling into his mother's chest soon, whether he likes it or not.

He wraps his arms around Vick and Rory, ruffles their hair with a little more force than usual, and stares, lost, at Hazelle. His mother leans forward and Posy reaches out from her spot in their mother's warm embrace to curl her little fingers in Gale's shirt.

Hazelle's eyes, a warm light brown that none of her children inherited, are locked with Gale's, and under her gaze he feels hopeless, feels like his soul weighs more than all the coal in the Seam.

"Gale," she says, lower lip threatening to wobble. Rory cries harder and Vick is starting to hurt Gale's ribs with the pressure of his hugging.

Hazelle hesitates. "Even, even though Katniss is in it —" her voice wobbles as Posy pulls at Gale's hair and Gale rubs her small back.

"Please, — for me — all of us." Hazelle blinks tears, then gives in and crushes all four of her children as she hugs her eldest son with all of her might.

"Survive,"

Gale's not sure what that means, survive. Survive like outlive Katniss? Survive like get killed by her? Survive like get killed by a Career or survive like win? Can he do that? Survive because his father didn't?

Vick, Gale is pretty sure, has just used Gale's shirt to wipe snot off of his nose with. As Gale stands there, being crushed by all of his family while wearing his father's last Sunday's best shirt, feels like he's down the mine shaft, choking on ash and rubble and explosive gas and being crushed on all sides by collapsed tunnel rock.

It's like they're saying goodbye to his father — light white shirt wrinkled with their touch, filled with their scent, soaked with their tears, still alive of the beat of Gale's heart as he says goodbye to his family like any other day and never returns. That's what it feel like for Gale, as he stands there and takes in all of their last seconds.

He sees a peacekeeper by the door, realises that he's there to take his family away, so he wraps his arms tighter around them for one last time, burrows his head between their bodies so he's breathing the same air as them, smelling the same things as them, and closes his eyes. He feels them all move around him, tries ingraining the shape of their embrace into his memory, and then breathes in as deep as he can, inhaling their scent, the sensation of family, and holds it in his lungs for as long as possible.

Finally, as they're forced to release him, he whispers in his mother's ear; "Go to the Hob and ask for Greasy Sae. Tell her that I'm calling in on my favour. I also have a spare bow hidden under the planks under the cupboard at home if worst comes to worst. Hide it if anyone comes to the house." Her eyes widen at his admission, eyes wide and sad, but she nods and kisses his cheek.

Then, louder, for everyone to hear, he says "I love you all,"

The peacekeeper huffs like he'd rather not have to forcibly drag his family off of Gale, but he would if they didn't do it within the next ten seconds. Vick and Rory end up slipping away from his fingers, and the warmth on his chest leaves as Posy is returned to her mother's arms. His mother's eyes feel like a brand as she stays looking in to his eyes until she disappears behind the door.

Gale is left standing very alone in the room, feeling very vulnerable.

He's flummoxed when Catnip's mother and Prim walk in to the room next, probably having just visited Katniss.

Katniss' mother looks unconfident and unsure, and hesitates and stands next to a plush armchair. Everything in the room looks like it would take a thousand years of their wages to buy a single item, which simultaneously makes Gale feel like a hundred dollars (an old phrase with unknown origins, but Greasy Sae is adamant that it comes from the Capitol) and like he's just dreaming it all, like nothing is real anymore.

Prim comes up and hugs him, which leaves a weird feeling in his gut, as if he'd rather that she wouldn't touch him in case she remove the imprint of his family from him. "Gale," Prim says, voice a little hiccup-y and tear strained.

"What you said to her," She's undoubtedly talking about Katniss, "did you really mean it?"

He's not sure what he feels anymore, to be honest. Cheated maybe, but also sad and really really angry, but that's being buried down for now, a white-hot rage buried in the sand, and when Gale brings it to the surface it will have become glass, and he'll be smashing the shards everywhere, making sure that the explosion will shatter his life over the entire continent.

He tells her the truth.

"I don't really know what I'm feeling anymore, but yes, when I said those words back then I felt them."

Prim's big brown doe eyes blink up at him, shiny. "Not anymore?" she whispers, like he's — oh.

Prim's thinking that he'll abandon his feelings for her now that they're going to have to kill each other, or maybe worse yet, manipulate Katniss in the Games.

Yes, he does still feel that torturous spark for her older sister, feel it kindle into a friendly warm fire where his happy place might have been, in what feels like a billion years ago but was only just this morning.

"Still do, just not sure how to go on from here." He says, then emphasises with; "There's not a lot of time," It indicates to the peacekeeper outside the door that will probably come in during the next two minutes and to the amount of freakishly short time he and Katniss have before they're going to face each other off in the Games.

Katniss' mother speaks up from her spot next to the armchair. "Well," she says, wrings her hands through her skirt, "we wanted to come and wish you good luck,"

Gale feels a bit like snorting and laughing at them. Good luck? In what? Getting killed? Killing her daughter? Prim's big sister? He knows that he wants to lift Katniss higher — how, he's not sure — but he's also got a responsibility to his own family, to survive for their sake.

The way he sees it, though, is that if they're both dead then they're well and truly fucked. If one of them survives then at least it won't be as bad as the alternative.

It's not much of a promise, but Prim smiles weakly at him and gives him another small hug when he kneels to be at the same height with her and says; "I'll take care of her as much as I can, okay?"

Prim seems happy with that, at least, as happy as someone can be when their life has been grasped by the roots and given a good shake before being uprooted completely.

There's a painful twist in his chest when he sees the door open a fraction and the peacekeeper peeks his head in before closing it again. Like there's a hook around anything that is Katniss, and that if even that leaves it will feel like a part of Katniss is missing from his side. Prim's mother glances at the door, eyes darting around the room in her nervousness.

"Hey Gale," Primrose pipes up at Gale, him being a tad surprised as he leans over her, caught in the action of standing up to his full height. He crouches down again, and the motion hidden from the peacekeeper's view behind her back, hooks her three fingers around his and gives it a childish shake.

Gale wants to literally let the floor open up and let him drop to the depths below. He wants to escape this, this situation where Prim and her mother trust Gale, like he will continue looking out for Katniss like he's always done in the past. He doesn't want this because he can't trust himself to not change while he's in the Games, can't trust himself to still be loyal to Katniss that way. He's stuck between that happy warm spark for her and the wellbeing of his family, he's stuck between a life of unhappiness and shame and death. If he somehow manages to make it to the end — the two of them, Gale knows that he would not be able to live with himself, or ever look at the Everdeens again, if he killed her. Or, he could sacrifice himself for her, and Katniss would be the one living a miserable life of guilt, going around District 12 with a face like Haymitch's and partner less as she hunts the woods. It's not fucking fair that Primrose Everdeen gets to place her trust in him and invest in the belief that Gale will continue to love and protect her big sister — Gale's Catnip.

Prim gives him this questioning look as she leaves the room with her mother, maybe wondering in her bright, curious young mind why Gale Hawthorne is frozen like a statue, still crouched down with fingers now clenched in a fist — the peacekeeper must never know what Prim did — and face looking crushed as a few tears leak from his grey eyes.

But Primrose Everdeen will never know, will never find out why Gale feels like the anger he buried deep down, feels that the hot rage he buried in the sand like an ostrich's head, has solidified into glass and has cracked, a thousand miles under the surface.

Maybe Katniss also feels like this, but never Prim, because the girl he loves has made sure of this.

The Hunger Games will be his undoing, but before he's even thrust into Hell's fiery arena itself, he knows that the thing that will kill him the most in the Games is his belief, his emotions, the expectations placed upon him. Gale's conscious is his own biggest threat.

Like his father dying in the mines, Gale feels himself suffocating on his need, primal and bare and vulnerable, to be safe, to be away, to literally be in any other person's shoes but his own.

Visiting time apparently concluded, the peacekeeper that was guarding his door guides him to — fuck knows, all Gale feels right now is shell-numb and overbearingly emotional. Hand on the doorknob, the peacekeeper half turns to him. "You'll wait in here until the train is ready to depart," he says, and numbly, Gale thinks depart, wow, like at least this peacekeeper is a bit smarter than the rest of the peacekeepers skulking around the Seam.

The peacekeeper opens the door and Gale steps inside and instantly has to raise his hands to shield his eyes from the sunlight streaming in from the window directly in front of him. The door closes while he's still blinking sun spots from his eyes.

Maybe what he'd thought earlier — about the aching need to escape from the situation, to jump into someone else's shoes — is also felt by Katniss, because when he finally spots her in the middle of the room, half in the sunlight, half in the shadows provided by the curtains, her face also looks broken.

"Gale," she croaks, and that feeling in his chest aches at her voice.

That's all she says before she's running at him, hunter speed and athleticism strong as she wraps herself around him and he around her. He's not going to press anything, not going to do anything other than hold her tighter than she's holding him, because they need this, because she still smells a bit of forest and of a time when they could have run away together.

"Catnip," he says, strokes her dark brown hair and curls his fingers around the nape of her neck and holds on tight.

He wonders, morbidly, if they'll ever end up looking as broken as the young Haymitch painted on canvas, sadness and tears dripping through and down the walls as it hangs there. If there will be two paintings, whether they'll look sad and haunted or if they'd look numb and surprised that they made it through alive. Or, darker thoughts still, if next year there will be a single portrait of Katniss hanging next to Haymitch, and if she'll look determined or if she'll look like she'll kill herself.

Those are the thoughts that race through his head and makes him shudder and pull Katniss closer in their hug.

I guess that I'm just picky with my POV's, because I don't like first POV, or third POV where it changes characters' POV every other paragraph. xP (Then there's also second POV, which is "You feel X whenever you look at them. You like Y…" and stuff like that. I think that in all of my internet-reading years, I've only ever read two 2nd POV stories! :O ).

Haha, I also forgot what the name was of one of the buildings in The Hunger Games, so just Google'd "the building tributes get taken to after the reaping", found out that it's called the Justice Building. XD

God I've realised just how angsty and sad that I've made this, but I was looking at the word count and determined to make it to 3K words. I'm sorry it turned out like this :/

Please review! I love getting your reviews and encouragement! (Urgh, am stuck with a stupid Sociology essay for my university, I really don't want to do it but it's worth %45 of my marks).