A.N: There are only three more chapters left. We finished this a while ago, and we kinda rushed the ending. But for us, we tried to lead it up to Catching Fire. Review! But yeah, we keep forgetting to update.

District 12
Chapter 11

Sniffling, I hoisted myself into a tree when I could find one. The forest felt so familiar, but so far away from me at the same time. My legs swung over the branch, keeping me balanced on the tree.

Peeta's mom word's hurt. A lot.

I've been through the games. Getting burned and starved and cut. But those were physical injuries. I've only had emotional injuries twice; when my father died and when I told Peeta the truth on the train coming home.
This was another time. The thing that Peeta told me in the arena felt like another world. His mom didn't really believe that I would be the one to come home. She hated me.

Hated me enough to want me to die.

I buried my head in me knees and started humming Rue's song. I didn't notice the branch sag and the arms wrap around me until he spoke.

"What happened?" Gale asked.

I hadn't seen Gale since the banquet, and I had been so confused since then. The arms wrapped around me were comforting to such and extreme that I forgot completely about how frustrated I had felt a few minutes ago. Gale wanted me alive, and that was what mattered.

"Peeta's mom... said she wished I had died in the arena. Said I had turned her sun into a zombie and that I should leave him alone, make you a zombie instead. She accused me of poisoning Haymitch."

"Poisoning Haymitch?!"

"Yeah, that's what the scream was."

"Haymitch screams like a girl."

"No!" I actually laughed through my tears, almost a choking sound. "No no, that was Effie."

"Maybe it was Effie that poisoned him," Gale speculated. "Revenge for the Reaping incident."

"No no no no no," I smiled at how uninformed he was. "They're uh...they're sharing his room."

"Ok, EW," he said and I could feel his face scrunch up against my hair. "And you know this how...?"

"Uhm..." I stuttered.

"You were snooping!"

"Gale? Katniss?" asked a wide-eyed Greasy Sae, standing at the base of the tree. "Katniss! But I thought you and Peeta-" She ran off to spread the word that one of the champions wasn't in love with the other.

We panicked.

"Wait! Catnip, we can fix this!" Gale interrupted my anxiety attach. "I can't be seeing you if I'm in love with someone else, right?"

"I-I guess, but-"

"So I'll see someone else."

"Madge," I blurted out. "It's perfect."

His eyes narrowed a little bit, but he caught himself when he realized what he was doing. "Y-yeah. That way no one would even think that we were together." He sighed.

I cleared my throat, staring into his grey eyes. "But we aren't together." He looked away after my statement.
When he replied, I could hear the numbness in his voice. "Yeah. I know."