Oh My! I've never received so many reviews in less than 24 hours. I woke up this morning and had like 15! So I wrote an extra long and especially early chapter for ya! I want to personally thank FearlesswithHimJC, HGFan47189, Woldheart4 and canadianboy98 for reviewing my last chapter in 'Together' I don't know how many of you are reading this story as well, but thanks all the same Once again I'd love for all of you to read my other story and tell me if it is worth continuing, please!

A few of you were confused last chapter on whether Gale was captured and thrown into prison with Katniss or if he came to rescue her. Well I thought that it was clear so I'm sorry for those of you who are confused. Gale was captured and thrown in, it'll be easier to understand in this chapter I thought that by saying he was flung in would show that it was against his will, but whatever.

Thanks again, hope you like this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games or the characters.

Chapter 45! (I think, lol)

"Gale?" I ask in disbelief.

"Yep, it's me."

"What in the world are you doing here!?"

"I came to rescue you, but as you can see, that didn't work out too well." He chuckles quietly and sits on my metal bed where I am still imprisoned.

"I see that." I reply. "So, now that you're here would you mind getting me out of this thing, I'm going crazy."

He chuckles again and walks around to the other side of me and presses the button that releases my bonds. I sit up slowly and go through the same routine of rubbing my arms and legs until they aren't so numb anymore.

Before I really know what I'm doing I scoot closer to my best friend and throw my arms around him in a big hug. He sits still, probably stunned, but then puts his arms around me and hugs back.

"Why did you come Gale?" I ask into his shirt. He inhales then exhales slowly before he answers my question.

"He wants me, this is all because of me."

"Gale! You saved yourself and Madge and escaped the arena of course he's mad, but please don't blame yourself for everything.

"I had to come rescue you, I couldn't leave you hear with him, and I almost succeeded but was caught looking for your cell and they threw me in here as well."

"Well on the good side I have a cell mate and don't have to stay strapped to this thing all the time." I say brightly.

"Yeah, I guess so."

We hold each other comfortingly for a little while until the door opens and light floods into the small room. Just like every other day I'm expecting Lily to bring in my food but instead two soldiers enter and start making their ways towards us.

I hold onto Gale tighter trying not to let my emotions show.

"What do you want?" Gale asks angrily.

"We have orders from the president to bring you to him, immediately." He points directly at Gale and I squeeze my friend even tighter.

"I'm staying right here." Gale glares at them defiantly.

"But you were ordered by the president, you have to come with us."

"I told you I'm not going, so get that through your heads!" He yells at them. The soldiers stand there, stunned that anyone would dare talk to them like that. "Be careful." I whisper to Gale. I don't want his rebellious talk to get us both into more trouble than we already are.

The soldiers start coming closer and one of them reaches out to grab Gale's arm, but he's too fast and in one quick motion he twists the man's arms backwards until you can hear the bone crack.

"I'm staying here." Gale says once more. The other man who had been standing a little behind the other one takes a walkie-talkie out of his belt and before Gals can pound him he's summoned more troops to help him out.

A minute later, half a dozen soldiers burst into the room and make a move together towards Gale, completely ignoring me. I decide to out my combat skills to good use, one look at Gale and one slight nod and we're pounding them like crazy. I steal a gun from one of them and start bashing them over the heads with the butt of it. More soldiers are called and about 12 enter the room a few seconds later.

Gale doesn't have any weapons but he uses his fists to beat in their faces. I get quite a few of them on the ground by kicking them fiercely between the legs. Groans and grunts are heard in the room, I give Gale a smile as I fell another man. Pretty soon we're both tired and overwhelmed. Two huge men pick me up and strap me once again to my prison bed and a few more grab Gale's arms, he's defenseless, unable to do anything more.

"Gale!" I scream.

"I'll be back!" I start thrashing around but the bonds are secure and I just end up drawing blood from where the metal rubs on my ankles and wrists.

"Be careful!" I yell to him. "He gives me a small smile before a fourth soldier uses a stick of some kind to stab him in the stomach, hard but not hard enough for it to break the skin beneath his shirt and jacket. He doubles over in pain, clutching his abdomen and gasping for breath. I scream louder this time but someone comes over to me and ties a gag around my mouth so I can't make any noise.

The last thing I see before falling unconscious is Gale being dragged from the room. I wouldn't be surprised if the president just killed both of us right now.

When I regain consciousness something cool and wet is being dabbed gently on my forehead. I slowly open my eyes to see Lily caring for me.

"Where is he?" I ask in a raspy voice. She shakes her head, a sad look on her face.

"Is he okay?" I persist. She turns away and picks up the pen and paper and begins to write furiously.

I'm very sorry Katniss. The soldiers took your friend to the torture room to try and get information about a rebellion out of him, threatening to torture you as well if he didn't give them the answers that they want.

I finish reading, a look of shock on my face.

"How do you know this?" I ask and hand her that paper and pen back.

There are a lot of people like me here, no one pays attention to us, but just because we can't speak doesn't meant that we don't hear everything they say. All of us hate Snow and little by little we are gaining important information.

When I'm done reading it she takes the sheet of paper from me, rips it into a bunch of tiny pieces and burns it with the small candle on my tray, probably for the sole purpose of burning our messages. The ashes are put into her pocket for disposal later on.

Lily watches me intently as I eat my food, and then it dawns on me. How does she eat without a tongue? Do they feed her enough?

"Do you get enough to eat Lily?" She just shrugs and doesn't answer.

"Here, you can have some of my food, I'm not hungry anymore." I push the tray towards her and she just looks at it. It's not completely a lie, I'm not starving anymore but it wouldn't be too hard to eat all of the food I am given.

I push the tray closer, finally setting it on her lap. "Go on." I prompt her. She finally takes the last piece of bread and bites into it, moving it around in her mouth with her teeth. It's a little while before she actually swallows, I don't know how she does it. Then she ends up shoving the rest of the slice into her mouth and chews it quietly. After taking a sip of water she takes the pen in hand and begins to write.

Thank you Katniss, for sharing your meal. You are the best friend I've ever had and I cherish your friendship. Thank you, but I must be going before one of us gets in trouble.

You're Welcome Lily, thank you for taking care of me while I was unconscious, by the way how long was I asleep?"

About four hours.

"And they still haven't brought Gale back?!" She shakes her head, sympathy showing in her eyes. She squeezes my hand and kisses my head then picks up the tray and leaves me alone and once again I am utterly alone in the darkness with only my thoughts.

I have no way to tell the time so I don't know how long I sit on my bed and think about home and Prim and Peeta. A while later though the door is opened again, something or someone is thrown in and just like that the room is pitch black again.

"Hello?" I venture into the darkness. I'm met with complete silence. "Is someone in here?" I try again. I'm met with a quiet moan then silence once more.

"Gale?" I slide off my seat and putting my hands in front of my face I put on foot in front of the other, slowly coming towards where I think he might be, which it probably is Gale.

When I think I'm close I get down on my hands and knees so I don't accidently step on him. A few minutes later my hand comes in contact with hard muscle covered with a thin t-shirt; I take it to be Gale's chest. My feelings are confirmed when I come to his face a little higher up. His eyes are closed so he must be sleeping, or knocked out. Boy I wish I had some sort of light right now to check out his injuries, I can't imagine him getting hurt for me. Madge would go crazy if she knew what was happening to him, I can't believe that she let him come rescue me.

I doubt that he's going to wake up anytime soon so I lean down onto his chest and listen to the steady beating of his heart, before I know it, I'm asleep as well.

When I wake up my pillow is hard but not as hard as what I've been sleeping on the past few days. A hand is lazily running through my hair, and I sit up quickly.

"Gale! You're up!" He smirks. "Have been for a while, you're the one that's been sleeping."

"Sorry I didn't mean to fall asleep on you." For once I'm glad that its dark in here because my face is probably as red as a ripe cherry.

"No problem." He chuckles, then winces in pain.

"Are you okay?" I ask, concern in my voice.

"I'll be fine."

"What did they do to you?"

"I don't really want to talk about it okay?" I clamp my mouth shut. After a few minutes Gale speaks up.

"Your avox friend stopped by a little while ago to drop off a small light and some bandages and things, I think she was a little scared of me but I guess she figured that you trusted me so she left it quickly then hurried out.

"Where is it?" I ask suddenly.

"Somewhere beside me." I reach over his body and feel around until I find a burlap sack and pull it over to my lap.

"Let's see what we have here." I say, mostly to myself. I find the lantern first and set it up, it's not very bright but it sure helps a lot. I silently thank Lily for thinking of it. When I can see easily I begin digging through the bandages and creams and stuff. How Lily was able to bring this all to me I'll never know.

"Okay, where are you hurt?" I ask Gale.

"Catnip, seriously I'm fine."
"Gale you are not seriously fine. You're hurt and I'm going to help you feel better now stop being so stubborn and tell me where. I know I'm not Madge but you'll just have to deal with me for now."

"I know, and I appreciate it, thanks Catnip. Um it's mostly my back and rib area, there might be a few broken ribs, I'm not sure though."

"So the first set of tortures was just a beating?" I ask.

"Just a beating! Are you kidding me, it was more than just a normal whipping, I guess you'll see." I help him slip of his jacket then carefully pull his t-shirt over his head. I can tell that he's trying hard not to cry out by the way his face is all contorted in a weird way and his eyes are tightly shut. It takes a few tries before the t-shirt comes all the way off because it had started to get stuck to his back and the blood.

"Okay Gale, you can open your eyes now." I say smiling. He opens them. "How bad is it?"

"Hold your horses, I haven't checked yet."

Mother and Prim were always the healers in the family, whenever a sick or injured person was brought in I went to the woods. But right now I'll just have to suck it up and do my best.

"Well?"

"It's pretty bad alright." His back is one bloodied mess. Pieces of raw flesh were barely hanging on and one of his ribs didn't look so good. What I really want to do right now is run away and let someone else handle it, but there is no one else, and no place to run to, so I find a few cloths and gently dap some of the fresh blood, trying to clean him up a bit before seeing the real damage.

Gale can't lie on his stomach because he says that it hurts to much, so right now he's sitting up as straight as he can because bending over hurts from the bruised ribs.

Once I've cleaned his back as best I can for now I take one of the jars with healing cream and rub it all over. Gale instantly sighs in relief.

"Feel better?" I ask.

"Much."

"It must be capitol medicine from the capitol if it has this effect." I muse.

Next I take a roll of bandages and wrap it all around him, front to back until he looks like a mummy. When that's done I help him put his shirt back on.

"All done." I say, feeling quite proud of myself. I doubt that Madge could do any better.

"Thanks Catnip."

"Hey, that's what friends are for." I smile at him.

"I feel tired." He says suddenly.

"Okay, let's move you away from the door and then you can sleep." But as soon as he tries to move he cries out in pain.

"Okay, forget that idea, guess you're staying here." I set his head in my lap as he falls asleep and absentmindedly run my hands through his long dark hair.

"Sleep well Gale." I say just before he drifts off.

Gale sleeps most of the day, well at least I think he does, it seems like a long time to me. About an hour or two after he fell asleep Lily came in and brought two trays of food but wasn't able to stay any longer than just a few minutes. I had eaten my portion already and used the bathroom while Gale slept on. His stew would definitely be cold by now but I don't think he'll mind. I'm actually surprised that they are feeding us, I mean I sure am not complaining it's just that Snow is so evil I wouldn't be surprised if he just let us starve and then bring us out to be tortured when we're so weak that we can't even stand up.

I'm really hoping that those soldiers don't come to have Gale beaten again anytime soon, the way he looks now they could do some internal damage. If they came and he was asleep I'd volunteer in his place, it's nothing that he wouldn't do for me if our places were switched. I can't have him half dead because of me when we get rescued, Madge would freak out and probably faint from shock.

I wonder how long we'll be imprisoned here before help comes. It shouldn't be too far away because all the Districts are all ready for war, they were just waiting for the perfect time. They could be on their way right now for all I know. I'll have to ask Lily if she's heard anything next time she brings our food.

Gale stirs a bit a groans from the movement.

"Hey sleepyhead." I joke. He just groans again.

"Lily brought us some food, you want some?"

"Sure." I help him into a sitting position and place the tray in his lap. He eats like this will be his last meal and in less than 5 minutes the tray is completely empty, he washes it all down with his glass of water.

"How do you feel?"

He shrugs. "Better I guess."

"You guess?"

"Okay, yes I feel better, but not that much." He rests his head back into my lap again, eyes already beginning to close. I lean back onto the wall and close my eyes as well, all of a sudden feeling quite droopy. A few minutes later we're both off in dreamland.

So extra long chapter today! How did you like it?

Thanks to my awesome reviewers last chapter:

~Guest: Well I guess you'll see! But don't worry I won't keep them separated for too long! Hope you liked it!

~thatclovelytribute: Thanks! Glad you liked it! I've never done it in his point of view before What did you think of the chapter? :D

~Katka (Guest): Wow thank you so much! Well I know the exact time I want her to say it and it shouldn't be to long from now. Glad you like the story!

~Guest: Aw thanks! That really means a lot because I've gotten a few negative reviews one especially saying that I'm a terrible writer and need a beta and stuff, so glad you like it!

~Paulitapg13: thanks a lot! Yeah isn't she sweet? I really like her too Yeah you're probably right hope this chapter answered your question! Thanks again!

~HGFan4719: You're so sweet! I'm so glad! Thank you so much for your awesome reviews!

~Liv (Guest): oh ok, yeah I figured Thanks for the review! You're the best

~Hejsanhejan: Really? Wow cool! Thanks so much! Hope your question was answered by this chapter thanks again!

~TragedyIsTheKey: Aw yeah, we're pretty close Thanks! Yeah I do to, just had to add her in ther

~hatgal012: yep, that's what happens to avoxes, I do too! Yes Gale is the only one that calls her Catnip. Thanks for the review, glad you are enjoying it!

~jessy0622: Yeah, I just had to have him rescue her, no problem, stories with action and drama are definitely the best! See you name twin!

~FearlesswithHimJC: Thanks! Hope you liked this one too!

~stopdroplove: Ooh thanks Twin! And you were the first to review this chapter, thank you! Here's a cookie for you…(::)

Thanks again!

Zbohom moja úžasné čitatelia! (Slovak) I use google translate for some of these so they probably aren't always totally correct

Until next chapter!

~FirePearl