Previously in Gale's Hunger Games: Prim and Rory get reaped; Katniss and Gale volunteer for their respective siblings. Haymitch discusses Games strategy with the pair and senses their feelings for each other, and the Everthorne romance starts to develop. They make a grand arrival at the Capitol. The tributes start to meet each other that night. Katniss makes a splash with the Gamemakers, Gale makes a splash with the interview audience, and then they make a splash with each other. Gale and Katniss both enter the bloodbath so Katniss can get a bow. Gale and Katniss meet in the woods and they carry out a toasting, the key District 12 marriage ritual.

A/N

Like the rest of the story, this is from Gale's perspective. As usual, Beautiful Plans and Gleam In His Eye present the events according to Glimmer and Cato respectively. Glato Versus Everthorne is from the POV of various other characters.

I draw from my Boy Scout camping experience to write about the campsite and equipment. Admittedly this does not involve girls or people trying to kill me. :P

Review Commentary

I wanted to quickly resolve Gale's worries about Katniss, so I opened with the Mark Twain line.

Well, it seems the wedding scene went over well with everybody – good, since it's such a key part of the story. I purposely made 'bride' the last word of the chapter. AliceW said it was a great ending to the day. That works, but I wanted to move the story along, and say they first slept together the night before their wedding. I figured a subtle private wedding was perfect for Gale/Katniss. Their first kiss wasn't even in front of Haymitch or Effie. Cato/Glimmer are much more public, and Glimmer seems like a 'big fancy wedding' girl, so wait and see. :)

'Catotonic'? Ellenka's turn for some wordplay. :)

To be thorough, I decided to name unnamed tributes. I'm sticking with it, although maybe I'll think up better District Seven wood-themed names.

Chapter

I kept looking through my pack while Katniss slept. Her jacket worked well enough to hide the glow from my flashlight. I found leather gloves, rain gear, spare clothes, more matches, a compass, rolls of tape, a knife sharpener and a first aid kit. I left the medical supplies for Katniss to look through in the morning. Her sister was the one to take after their mother, but Catnip would still have a better understanding of it than I would.

It was an uneventful night. Maybe the Careers were also resting. Maybe they were looking for Thresh, Rue, the Seven girl or the pair from Five instead.

This stimulant-fueled all-nighter was running out of steam. I had to wake Katniss up, and I knew just the way to do it. I was so stealthy that even she couldn't detect me sometimes; I tiptoed up to the sleeping bag and pulled back the top of it to reveal her sleeping head looking up at me. I breathed lightly on her before leaning in for a kiss. She took a moment to stir. "Good morning, husband. I almost thought I was still dreaming."

"Catnip, I'd also choose dreams about my lover over nightmares about the other 22. Now it's about time to lie down and have them. Nothing much happened last night, but it turns out I grabbed a lot of good supplies – you might want to take a look at the medical stuff."

We were well-supplied but lightly armed except for the archery set. I wielded the bow and arrows while Katniss was indisposed, but handed them back to her now. Similarly, I would keep Katniss' knife from yesterday except while sleeping. I handed it back to her. Once I slid in the bag and laid down on my side, I quickly fell asleep.

Katniss woke me up a few hours later, with no time to do it romantically. "The pair from Five!" I rushed to get out of the sleeping bag as Katniss handed me the knife. They were pilfering our supplies. Foxface swept up some piles of food and tried to make a break for it. She ran a route that obstructed Katniss' aim, so a couple arrows lodged in trees and a couple more sailed into the ground. As Katniss went to retrieve the arrows, Christopher tried to grab for the whole pack. Even once he realized it was a fatal mistake, it was too late. He dropped it and tried to flee like his district partner, but I was able to catch him. If I must do this, it seems right to do it quickly and cleanly. If you end someone's life, you should look them in the eye and hear their final words. If you can't do that, maybe they don't deserve death. A ruler who relies on executioners soon forgets what death is. I drew the knife across his throat. Christopher revealed Foxface's real name as he died. "May the odds be in Marissa's favor – they weren't in mine."

"And then there were eleven – Glimmer, Marvel, Clove, Cato, Nathan, Marissa, Logroll, Rue, Thresh and us." Soon after we killed him, I heard another cannon go off. Was Nathan kicked out of the Career alliance? Were they able to do what we didn't, catch Marissa? Did they find Logroll, Rue or Thresh? This second day had a much shorter deaths recap. "District Five, Christopher. District Seven, Logroll."

The third day brought no deaths. Nothing eventful of any sort happened on our end. We were trying to stay out of trouble. The Careers were evidently looking for it somewhere else. Rue had even announced her intention to avoid confrontation. Thresh probably had a similar strategy. Were they working together? Could we link up with them? For obvious reasons we feared an ambush, and Thresh would make for a much stronger defensive position. Rue would make a good scout. "Catnip, how about we try and find Little Flower tomorrow?"

"We could all use each others' help."

That fourth day, we didn't find anybody, whether or not we wanted to find them. However, it was a change of pace to be moving around instead of holding our defensive position. On one hand, my traps are stationary. On the other hand, I wanted to find a location that could be particularly well fortified.

We had gotten into the habit of going to bed after the recap. Today, Foxface had been outfoxed somehow some way. This time, Katniss would take the nighttime watch. I pointed out the stimulant pills and which side pocket of the pack contained them. "It is by that yellow powder that thoughts acquire speed, but the body acquires shakes, and those shakes become a warning." I heard another cannon before drifting off to sleep.

The next morning, we heard from Templesmith again. "Attention tributes! I have a special announcement. We are now down to the final eight, including both members of both couples. If either couple are the final two, they may win together." It wouldn't have to be me or Katniss! But… One and Two each win more than a third of the time, and now they might both win? That's what the Capitol wanted, to toss their favored districts another favor. Screw that! Love Katniss and hate the Capitol, my two favorite things.

"Also, there's a baby on the way and a marriage, but for different pairs." He didn't say which was which. Those Capitol clowns were probably making bets right now. Haymitch was the only person in the Capitol that would have any clue about the toasting, so he must have had something to do with this. Was Glimmer being careless, or did she know exactly what she was doing? We could keep it in our pants, especially while in the middle of such a dangerous situation, but if Cato got Glimmer knocked up already, I can guess how they'd be celebrating this announcement. We couldn't bear the thought of children in the Reaping; they would probably celebrate it.

I started a pep talk. "Anything that's worth having is sure enough worth fighting for. Quitting's out of the question. When it gets tough, gotta fight some more. Let's seal the deal!"

"As always, I'm with you a hundred percent."

"And I with you. We understand each other so well because we've lived the same circumstances together in the same way; Victor shall be yet another bond."

Two cannons went off in quick succession. They obviously hadn't found us, and I now thought Thresh and Rue were traveling separately. The Career alliance had to split at some point. Which two of those misguided kids had fallen?

They always interviewed the families of the final eight. Twelve didn't have firsthand experience with the camera crews, but we were subjected to the footage from other districts. Usually both of our tributes were killed in the bloodbath or soon after, and now both of us had made the cut. I had wondered what they were thinking back home. The rest of the country would find that out first, or at least find out what they'd dare to say to the Capitol's face. Surely we'd win together and go back to hear it ourselves, wouldn't we?