Chapter 54

Vick takes a sip of water and I smirk from across the table. I take a bite of the Ahi Tuna that Annie had made for dinner.

Katniss is sat between Hazelle and Peeta, she watches me as I harass the boys.

"What are you smiling at?" Vick asks.

I chuckle and watch him take a bite of fish.

Rory scrutinizes me over his cup. I chuckle as he puts the cup down. That's when they both make the connection.

"What'd you do to our food?" Vick demands.

"You'll find out later." I say shrugging.

Peeta leans over. "What did you do to their food?" He whispers in my ear.

I snicker. "Nothing," I whisper back.

Peeta chuckles and goes back to chatting easily with Hazelle and Annie about Tai.

Posy coos at Tai, while Vick, Rory, Katniss, and I are all silent.

Although I'm tormenting the two boys, Katniss just seems left out.

"So Birdbrain," I say looking over at Katniss. "What's on your mind?"

"Prim," She blurts out quietly.

The whole table goes silent as everyone looks at her. She looks down at her plate.

I make eye contact with Annie; she immediately starts to change the subject.

Soon, the table is back to its normal noise, but the air around us has gone cold. I watch Katniss as carefully as Peeta does. Although Peeta keeps up conversation, I don't bother. These people have gotten used to my lack of conversation when I'm thinking.

Finally, Katniss puts down her fork and leaves the table. She practically runs out the back door.

Peeta moves to go after her. I stand up and shove him hard back into his seat by his shoulder.

He looks up at me. I ruffle his hair and walk after her slowly.

She's standing close to the ocean. Not close enough to have the water touch her feet, but close enough to make me weary.

I stand beside her and cross my arms. "Rough ain't it?" I say as we stare off at the setting sun on the horizon. "It's rough having people dance around you like that."

I can see tears fill her eyes.

"I'm guessing everything here reminds you of Prim."

She nods allowing a tear to fall. She wipes it away quickly. She doesn't want to show weakness.

I don't look. I'll play along. I know what it's like. Gale's right. I lost two sisters to Snow. She volunteered for Prim, went through a war she didn't even want, and even then she still couldn't save her sister in the end.

"Do you remember Annie's Games?" I ask after she composes herself.

She shakes her head. "That was the year my dad died. I didn't pay much attention."

I look at her. "My sister Scarlett was the District Seven tribute that year. She was one of Annie's allies."

Her mouth drops open. She closes it quickly.

"You weren't lying were you?" She says after a long bout of silence.

"Huh?"

"When you said, during the Quell, that you had no one left you loved?"

I chuckle. "No, I wasn't lying." I say drily.

She falls silent again. "Were you close to Scarlett?"

"Of course," I say without hesitation. "I wasn't just a sister, I was her mentor, and I was practically her mother. I gave her a daily ass whooping and I worked my ass off alongside her. Yet, I could've just gotten in bed with a couple of desperate creeps and she'd still be here." My voice cracks. "I could've done something."

She glances at me. "Do you regret it?"

"Every day,"

"But you laugh, you carry on, you're happy."

I turn to her. "Really? What makes you say that?"

She looks taken aback.

"People don't just heal." I say stonily. "They eventually move on, that's me, but they never heal."

"How did you move on?" She asks desperately.

"I didn't." I say looking back at the sun. "I only keep going because they told me to."

I show her my scars on my wrist without looking at her.

"There's a life after death." I whisper. "But it's not the same. You can't feel alive there. It's peaceful, but it's not life."

"How close have you been to dying?"

"A pair of sweaty palms," I murmur mesmerized by the sunset.

She seems to be confused for a few seconds, before a sharp intake of breath indicates that she understands.

After several minutes I look back at her.

"Why do you hate Gale?" I ask bluntly.

"I don't," She says looking at me curiously. "I just, I can't forget that he built the bombs. That he created her death."

I nod. "Would you still have killed Coin if Prim hadn't been in the bombs?"

"Probably not," Katniss says after awhile of thinking.

I nod a small smile on my face. "You really are a Victor. Welcome to the club." I say patting her on the shoulder before walking away back towards the house.

That night I don't have the usual Manticore nightmare.

Instead, I watch as Scarlett goes up in flames. I watch as she burns to death, then drowns, and then burns to death again.

I can't wake up. There's no one to wake me up, there's no way I can wake up either. I'm stuck, chained to the Capitol dungeon walls as water creeps up on me, and I watch Scarlett's pale white body float face up towards me. The electric shocks begin and I watch as her face comes closer and closer to me.

Then, I'm bleeding from every pore in my body as I watch Renee get shot.

I'm begging. I'm telling them they can do whatever they want to me, but I'm begging them to leave them be.

Peeta's screams in the other room pierce through my own agony, and I'm struggling in the water.

But I can't move.

I fall flat on my face, my ax in hand, onto the ground.

Shooting pain goes through my abdomen and I cry out in agony. I roll over and look up at the ceiling.

The room turns from a dingy white, to a comforting blue-green.

A shiver runs down my spine as I touch my wound. It doesn't hurt much anymore, but hitting it on the ground was pure agony.

I sit up in pain. I scramble to my feet and look blearily around the room.

It's still dark outside, but there's a slight glow, indicating that it's morning.

I stretch my arms with a yawn and change into my uniform.

I walk into the kitchen to find Katniss wearing a leather jacket at least five times her size, her bow and quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder as she chews on a piece of bread.

She has a burlap sack looped onto her belt.

She makes eye contact with me as I enter the room with slightly raised eyebrows. "Hunting, in District Four?"

She shrugs.

"It's easier to just fish."

"Maybe I'll go bow fishing." She says her mouth full.

"And maybe I'll go do a hundred sit ups." I say sarcastically. "If you get a rabbit I'm making some nice socks."

She smiles slightly. "You've got a deal."

We chew on some bread in silence for awhile. "Where are you going?" She asks looking me up and down.

"Going for a little run," I say shrugging.

"In full gear? With guns?"

"Why not?" I counter.

"You'll scare people." She says a crooked smile on her face.

"Because Johanna Mason without weapons is scary enough, correct?"

She laughs quietly. I smirk in amusement. "You're right." She says shaking her head and moving from where she was leaning on the counter.

"Of course I am." I say smirking. "But, just to make things clear, what am I right about?"

"It's funny because it's true." She says leaving the room.

"It most definitely is." I say to the empty room.

Two weeks of harassing Vick and Rory goes by so quickly. I have them practically begging to just get it over with already.

I smirk as I sneak into their room early in the morning, a ball of twine in my hand.

I unroll it and tie an end around each of their arms and legs. Then, I tie an intricate web of twine to everything in the room, snickering quietly to myself.

Once I have everything done I walk out of the room and wait for an hour or two.

Finally, I just can't wait any longer. The only people not awake anymore, is Peeta and the boys.

Katniss follows me out of sheer curiosity.

I open the door revealing my beautiful handiwork.

"Rise and shine lazy teenagers!" I shout flickering the lights on and off repeatedly.

They both simultaneously jerk their arms over their eyes and roll over, knocking quite literally, everything to the ground.

I howl in laughter and even Katniss laughs.

They both sit up, entangling themselves even more in the twine.

I cackle evilly and hold up a pair of scissors. "You want these?"

Rory narrows his eyes at me and Vick nods vigorously.

"I'll put them right here for you." I say putting them at my feet, in the doorway of their room.

I cackle as I walk down the hallway Katniss breathless, following me.

"Okay, you are extremely mean." Katniss says wiping tears from her eyes.

"You're just realizing this?" I say falling onto the couch in the living room.

"What did you do Johanna?" Hazelle asks coming into the room.

"I just showed your sons who's the boss around here." I say smirking. "Quite brilliantly by the way, they'll probably spend the day cleaning their room."

"You got them to clean their room?" Hazelle asks in awe.

"Well, I destroyed it further, but you can bet your sweet ass I'm not helping them clean it up." I say clutching at my wound, as my laughing has made it tingle.

"Hey," Hazelle says chuckling. "Whatever works, right?"

She walks down the hallway and stops by her son's room, laughing at the sight.

I stretch out my arms and chuckle again. "Well, that was my entertainment for the day."

"That was, eh, interesting." Katniss says shaking her head with a smile.

"It always is," I say walking out the front door to sit on the porch with Annie.

I grab up a chunk of wood and start carving into it.

"Hey, Jo," Annie says curiously, looking up from playing with Tai. "Do you think you could make a little chair for Tai to sit on? Maybe, one that's just his size?"

"I don't think, I know I can," I say distractedly. "I'd need to make some measurements, but it'd be like chopping a tree. I could do it in less than a week. It's something to do too."

Annie smiles at me. "That'd be great."

"No problem then." I say shrugging. "What do you want it to be like? Rocking chair, simple straight back, decorative straight back, gliding, what kind of chair?"

She looks at me with a small smile. "You know I have no idea."

"I'll just surprise you." I say smiling at her.

She laughs. Tai's bubbly giggling fills the silence as I carve into my chunk of wood and Annie sings to him.

Finally, Annie takes Tai inside for his nap.

Once he's down she comes back out and sits with me. "He looks so much like Finnick." She whispers. "I miss him."

I look at her. "We all do."

She chuckles. "I still have flashbacks." She says a sad smile on her face. "What makes them worse is that he's not there to protect me. But what makes everything worse, is that I know that I can't heal with him here." She whispers. "He fights all of my battles for me. Now, he's not here, and I can step to the plate, but, if he were here-"

"You'd still be Crazy Cresta." I finish bluntly.

"Exactly," She whispers. "But it still hurts to be without him. So much, you can't even imagine."

I'm sure I could. But I won't think about that now.

"I don't think I'll try." I say wincing. "He might not have allowed you to heal, but he loved you. Now you have to love Tai enough for the both of you. I don't think it'll be a problem."

"Yeah," She says smiling at the thought of Tai.

I smile crookedly at her. "I'm still gonna protect you tooth and nail though."

"Yeah, yeah, you promised Finnick." She says teasingly.

"That's right."

She laughs. "He really loved you like a sister Jo."

Way to go Annie! Twist that knife in my stomach! It's a great feeling!

"I can see why too. You two are so similar." She says still laughing. "It's funny. All of your antics are all the same as Finnick's."

I laugh too. "That's because I taught them to him."

"That would make sense."

We stop talking and laugh easily. Maybe we're all healing a little.

Annie and I sit in silence for a while. It's a comfortable silence. She finally yawns. "I'm going inside for a bit." She says smirking. "Maybe laugh at Rory and Vick a bit."

"Go right ahead." I say winking at her.

Several hours go by and I finally finish my little statuette. It's of, can you guess it? Lincoln.

I don't know why I made Lincoln. I haven't really given him much thought recently. I've mostly been preoccupied with people I met long after he died.

I stare at him for awhile. He's got his tissue sticking out of his back pocket, his nose his bleeding, although I've yet to paint him, and he's wearing his usual punk clothing we all wore when we were younger.

I glance up to notice a tall, dark, and fucking gorgeous figure walking up.

I smirk as he walks up to the house leaning on the front porch.

"What? No running up and jumping into my arms and exclaiming how much you missed me?"

"Have you not met me?" I say cocking an eyebrow. "I'm a lazy person. Not only that, but you're a romantic prick."

"I can fantasize can't I?"

"About me? You didn't already? Please, everyone and their brother fantasize about me. You'll have to be special to catch my attention." I say scoffing. I go back to examining my statuette.

"I didn't already?" Gale asks wickedly.

I look up at him smirking. I guess I'll play along. "Well," I say exaggeratedly. "Not with a shirt on."

"It's just clothes; you can undress me in your mind all you want." Gale says flashing his white teeth at me. "Or your room, pick one."

"Seeing as my room is currently the living room. I'll stick with the first option." I say winking. "But you could be less obvious when you look down my shirt."

"You could be less obvious when you drool over my muscular muscles." He says flexing a bicep.

"Aw that's no fun." I say snickering.

"I guess I'll go talk to everyone else. As much fun as you are." He says making it clear he meant that in more ways than one.

"I'm talented." I say shrugging.

"That you are." He says opening the door.

I follow him inside.

"Hey look what I scraped up off the streets!" I say as we enter the kitchen.

Hazelle throws herself into Gale's arms. Katniss looks horrified as she takes several steps backwards. Peeta smiles tautly and shakes Gale's hand.

Annie hugs Gale, and Posy jumps into his arms.

I catch the sly smirk Gale sends over her shoulder toward me.

"Where are Rory and Vick?" Gale asks looking around.

Everyone except Katniss bursts into laughter. "They're still trying to get the scissors." Annie says between gasps of laughter.

Gale tilts his head.

"Come check out what I did to your brothers." I say beckoning him to follow me.

There Rory and Vick are stretching as far as physically possible to reach the scissors at our feet.

Gale's mouth drops open. He looks between me and the boys as I start teasing them. "Oh c'mon you really can't reach that? That's pathetic. Really? You've been struggling since this morning." I taunt. "You would've thought that you would have gotten it by now."

"Gale!" Vick says happily. "How's it going? Hey, could you hand us those scissors?"

Gale bursts into laughter. "You are the best Jo." He says between gasps of laughter. "Sorry guys, but you're on your own."

He follows me back into the kitchen.

I notice a distinct lack in a special girl who started a war.

Gale seems to notice too. He smiles at the room anyway.

We chat for several hours, me harassing anyone within arm's reach, and Peeta charismatically leading the conversation.

"So where have you been recently?" Annie asks Gale as I perch myself on the counter beside him.

Even when I'm sitting on the counter he's a solid four inches taller than I am.

"Well," He says leaning against the counter. "I've been with Jo, in District Two; I think she's super human."

"Don't tell them," I beg.

"Her train got hijacked on the way into the District. She led her entire squad plus some, away from the train before it exploded, across the District and to headquarters." He says elbowing my shoulder, careful to avoid my wound.

"You told them," I say rolling my eyes. "It's not anything special-"

"That's not the only thing she did too."

Everyone's looking at me by now.

"Would you stop interrupting-"

"You probably know that she got shot, after getting shot-"

"Not fun getting interrupted is it?" I say smirking.

"She crawled through a ventilation shaft in a mine. You've seen what they're like Mom." Gale says to his mother. "Cramped and the like, then she walked down a mountain, and through a decimated and abandoned District. She's not human."

I roll my eyes again. "You can shut up now." I say shoving his shoulder.

He barely moves of course.

"What?" He says all too innocently. "I admire you."

"Yeah, kiss my ass." I say rolling my eyes.

"Gladly," He mutters so that no one else can hear him.

"You're pushing it." I say shoving him again.

He cocks an eyebrow and turns back to the room.

"Hey, I didn't go running into burning markets to save orphaned children." I say smirking triumphantly at him.

"You did that Gale?" Hazelle says surprised.

"Of course he did." I say my smirk growing wider. "I wouldn't lie."

Finally Rory and Vick arrive, twine hanging from their limbs and entangled in their hair.

"You people like her?" Rory asks pointing at me.

"Of course they do, have you looked in the mirror?" I say bursting into laughter.

"Yeah, I have." He growls. "You'll pay for this."

"So scared," I mock.

"Yeah I wouldn't sleep tonight."

"I've gone days without sleeping a bit sweetheart, you'll be the one exhausted tomorrow." I say smirking.

"How long have you gone without sleeping?" Vick asks.

"Most I've gone is four and a half days." I say matter-of-factly.

"We can't beat that Rory." Vick says turning to his brother.

"I know. We'll think of something." Rory threatens as he and his brother scrape the twine from their bodies.

"You do that."

Rory scowls at me as he walks by, he glares at his brother. "Thanks for the help."

"Anytime," Gale says mock saluting him.

"I patiently await your reprisal." I say elegantly.

Reprisal, now where did that come from?

"Yeah, yeah," Rory grumbles as they trudge back to their room to put it back together.

"Well," I say stretching. "I'm going to go chop that tree for the chair." I say looking at Annie. "Any preferences? I have a few ideas."

"I don't care Johanna." Annie says rolling her eyes. "Ask me when you're talking about fish."

"Alright," I say chuckling and jumping down from the counter.

I grab up my ax from the corner of the living room and swing it over my shoulder.

Gale had followed me from the kitchen. "Mind if I come with?"

I roll my eyes. "Getting clingy, eh Gorgeous?"

He smirks. "What's wrong with that?"

I smirk at him. "I have an extra ax. If you're coming with, you're going to work."

"Oh really," He says challengingly. "You just happen to have an extra ax?"

"District Seven," I say gesturing to myself as I go to a closet in the hallway.

I stand on my toes to get it, but I eventually get it.

"Here ya go," I say tossing it to him. He clumsily catches it.

"So I really am going to slave over a tree for you?" He asks as we walk out of the house.

"Yeah, you'll probably end up chopping more than me. But hey, you can't control fate." I say sticking my tongue out at him.

He retaliates by shoving me. "How's your wound been?"

"Healing well, still not ready to cut the stitches, but it's not infected." I say shrugging. "It's about damn time though."

"Just because you're as tough as a super human, doesn't mean you heal like one." He says teasingly.

"I have high standards." I say smirking. "Unfortunately, you're falling a little, eh, short." I say suggestively.

"Last time I checked, you didn't have any complaints."

"Not out loud." I say sticking my tongue out at him again. "Some things I keep to myself for your ego's sake."

The woods start to get denser.

"I do nothing but compliment you, and this is how you repay me?"

"No, I repay you by harassing you just a bit less." I say winking.

"Please, I'm your favorite target."

"You are." I say laughing.

He pins me to a tree. "We're finally away from everyone else." He whispers.

I cock an eyebrow. "You're a smart boy; you could've come up with some reason to get me alone."

"I figured I'd let you do the honors." He says smirking. I can feel his warm breath on my face.

"Oh what was I thinking?" I say mockingly. "I'm so vulnerable. Help, help,"

"Oh c'mon, you've screamed louder than that."

"Naughty," I say laughing.

"Every day,"

"Are you going to kiss me or are we just going to stand here making immature and rather disturbing remarks towards each other?" I say tilting my head.

"Hm, they both sound fun." Gale says pretending to weigh his options in his head.

"You know what also sounds fun?" I purr catching him off guard.

I push him away and swing my ax back onto my shoulder. "Chopping a tree down," I say smirking at the irked look on his face. "Sorry Gorgeous lost your chance."

He rolls his eyes and chuckles following me deeper into the woods as I search for the right type of tree.

"What are we looking for?" Gale asks.

"I'm looking for a tree that's sturdy, yet flexible, and strong but malleable. It's complicated. I'm thinking, here we go, right here." I say coming to a good tree. "You have the first hour or so of chopping off, I have to get the branches first."

He smirks at me. "Thought I had to do most of the work?"

"You will," I say chuckling. "Do you know how easy it is to chop branches?"

"No,"

"Almost as easy as chopping the actual tree," I say poking his chest.

Gale grabs my waist and pulls me to him, bringing his lips to mine. I smirk slightly through the kiss and wrap my arms around his neck, burying a hand in his hair.

An arrow goes flying past our heads and we dive apart.

"Damn it Katniss," I snap looking at the arrow embedded in the tree we were about to chop down. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get an arrowhead out of a tree like this?"

Katniss comes jogging through some brush.

"You're not a deer."

Gale smirks, knowing what I'm about to say.

Well, almost.

"And you're not a platypus, now that we know what we're not; let's talk about what we are. I'm Johanna, and you're dead." I say threateningly.

"I'm sorry, it's not like it impaled you or anything. My aim's getting off." She says dully walking over to the tree.

"Oh no," I say my voice rising in pitch in an attempt to irritate her. "My aim's getting off; I didn't kill two people that I mistook for deer. I guess I better practice."

Gale sniggers behind his hand.

"It was a mistake." She says getting annoyed.

"What're you gonna do? Shoot at puppies thinking they're squirrels?" I say sarcastically. "Speaking of, where's Raider?" I ask turning on Gale.

"Oh, uh," Gale says his face falling.

"Tell me later." I say tilting my head. I turn back to Katniss as she starts to dig into the wood with her knife.

"No, no, no," I snap ripping her away from the tree. "I'll dig it out after it's been chopped. If, the shaft is still attached." I growl.

"Fine," She says lifting her hands in surrender. "Okay,"

She jogs off in another direction in search for other animals.

I look at the arrow in frustration. "She's not getting the arrow back." I growl snapping the shaft off.

Gale chuckles. "That's the mature thing to do Jo."

"Yeah, well," I growl looking at the imperfection. "What happened to Raider?"

Gale's face falls again. He scratches the back of his neck. "He got hit by a truck."

What? Raider's dead?

"Oh," I say sadly. "Was he in too much pain?"

"He died close to instantly Jo." He says wrapping his arms around my waist.

I nod and allow him to hug me.

"Let's get started." I say pulling away from him.

I launch myself up the tree towards the top.

I perch myself on one of the smaller branches. The branches are positioned in a way that I could only get to the right branch if I am on top of it.

"Great," I mutter climbing past the branch. "This'll take longer than expected."

I swing my legs over, hook my ankles around a thin nearby branch and swing down, upside down, my ax in my hands.

"Johanna?" Gale says looking up worriedly. "You're gonna fall!"

"No I'm not." I say rolling my eyes and aiming a powerful strike towards the soft spot of the branch, showering Gale in chips of wood. "I've lost count how many times I've done this."

"Be careful!"

"I'm fine!" I grunt. I have to crunch my body forwards to get the right angle, so my wound stings.

Well, more of burns with the power of a thousand suns.

"Gale!" I say after about an hour of chopping. "It's about to fall, get around to the other side of the tree!"

He follows my directions and three chops later, there's a cracking sound, and half of the tree comes splitting down, hitting me in the back of the head with a couple of twigs.

It pretty much splits the tree in half. I swing up and grip the branch I'm perched on carefully silently hoping the tree doesn't come down with its major branch.

I bite onto my knuckle as the tree sways precariously.

Gale seems to have paled several shades.

"That worked a little too well." I grumble to myself as I scramble down the tree.

"That almost took the whole tree down." Gale says walking over to me.

"I know." I say shading my eyes and looking up at the tree. "I guess I found the heart."

"Yeah I guess you did." Gale says looking at me.

"Let's get started then." I say swinging my ax to rest on my shoulder and sauntering over to the tree.

I slam my ax into a weak notch in the tree. "Aim there," I say to him as he picks up his ax.

He slams his ax into the tree, going upwards.

I rub my temple. "Really? Has no one taught you to swing an ax?"

"I was taught how to swing a pick Jo." Gale says cocking an eyebrow.

"Okay, well you want to swing at an angle, kind of push the blade downwards like this, and then rip it off, chunks will come chipping off. You kind of make a wedge out of it, and then when the tree falls, it comes down this direction. We just run out of the way." I say swinging the ax in a demonstration.

Gale watches and smirks at me. "How are we going to carry this?"

"Maybe we'll recruit Peeta, but for the most part, it's not difficult. This isn't a big tree Gale."

"Isn't a big tree? What planet are you from?"

"The tree planet," I say smirking. "This is a training tree."

I swing my ax, getting a sizeable chunk from the tree. "I'll sharpen the blades again tonight; tomorrow I have to chop this into more reasonable chunks."

"You know how to make things Jo." Gale says smirking.

I laugh. "I'm better at destroying them."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you've known me long enough to understand that I'm not normal." I say smirking.

Gale and I chop for an hour before we take a break.

He sits on the ground leaning against the already fallen branch, he had lost his shirt awhile ago, and I lay on the ground beside him, with my feet propped up on the branch beside his head.

I prop the back of my head on my hands and look up at the tree tops above us.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

"I don't like it here." I say scrunching my nose.

"Why not? I thought you loved forests?"

"The soil is damp, salty, and sandy, the trees are short and far apart, and the air is humid and just as salty, all the trees are brittle and the sky is too blue. The clouds are wispy, not heavy and dark, and the rain is never warm. The breeze blows the wrong way, and there's no sweat stench or the sounds of chopping. The birds are the wrong type of birds and the leaves are too broad and elongated. There aren't any bears or wild cats; there are no fox holes or coyotes." I say scrunching my nose. "And there's no crackpots preaching about God and religion standing on old tree stumps. Come to think of it, there aren't any tree stumps."

Gale raises his eyebrows. "You remember all of that?"

"Of course I do." I say looking at him oddly. "You don't remember those kinds of details in District Twelve?"

"I remember the smell of laundry detergent, pine, and animal carcasses. I don't miss it though. I especially don't miss the sounds of starving children or wailing babies." He says a shiver running down his spine. "I didn't grow up in the good part of the District."

I laugh. "None of us did."

"We were the poor District." Gale says shrugging.

"We were the illiterate District." I say smiling up at him.

"I don't think any District really focused on education." Gale says chuckling. "I'm sure you didn't have to worry about that though."

"Right," I say looking away.

That's right. Education is totally my strong suit.

I sit up so that I'm sitting cross-legged beside him, facing the branch.

He pecks me on the lips and sits back stretching his arms. "I'm going to be sore tomorrow."

"Oh grow a pair." I say teasingly. "I've done that since I was nine."

"Nine?"

"I wasn't supposed to start chopping until twelve, but I couldn't follow directions from the eleven year old logging team leader, because you have to float the logs down and the kids do better with keeping them straight and stuff and I didn't like following directions. So the foremen got annoyed and just put me on the chopping team and sent me into the branches three years early." I say proud of myself. "I was a special child."

"Special indeed," Gale says smirking as he looks me up and down.

I scoff and shove him. "I'm special in many ways, let's not get specific."

He smiles wickedly. "Why not?"

I lean in so that we're so close we can practically feel our lips brushing against each other. "Let's get back to work shall we?" I say wickedly.

I wrench away from him and stand up. I hold out my hand to help him up.

He takes it and pulls himself up. He doesn't let my hand go as he pulls me close to him. "Let's,"

He whips around and walks over to the tree. I watch him for a split second, smirking.

"I don't know if I should call you Gorgeous, or Tease right now." I say slamming my ax into the tree.

"You started it." He grunts, his ax thudding into the trunk.

"So what if I did?" I say smirking at him. "Hey, back off." I say holding my hand up and backing away as the tree sways. "Here, lemme finish it off. Stand over there."

He nods and backs off to where I pointed.

There's really nothing sexier than a slightly sweaty, muscular, shirtless man with an ax over his shoulder.

Especially if, that man is Gale Hawthorne.

I slam my ax into the tree several more times before the tell tale crackle tells me it's time to move out of the way.

I jog towards where Gale is standing and watch as the tree tumbles down, snapping and splintering. Birds take flight and several other animals run from their hiding spots.

"So now it's getting that back to Annie's." Gale says looking towards me for guidance.

"Alright, let's get moving." I say slamming my ax into the trunk so that it stuck out.

Gale attempts to do the same thing, but ultimately fails.

"District Twelve, lacking proper ax handling education." I mutter sticking my tongue out at him and grabbing up his ax, sticking it next to my ax with a dull thud.

"I bet you wouldn't know how to wield a pick." Gale says sticking his tongue out at me.

"So? I'd learn fast."

"Sure," Gale says sarcastically.

"C'mon," I say rolling my eyes. "You stand at the base, and I'll get the branch side."

"We're not going to be able to lift-"

"Lift with your knees not your back." I say getting a grip on a couple of branches and knots in the trunk. I crouch down and prepare to lift. "One, two, three,"

We grunt as we manage to lift the trunk off the ground and position it on our shoulders.

"How the fuck did you know we would be able to lift this?" Gale says shocked.

"It's called estimation." I say laughing. "Now let's go."

We walk through the forest, every now and again Gale would stumble or trip and I'd end up grunting in pain, but for the most part it was easy chopping from there.

"An entire tree for one little chair?" Annie says as we walk around the bend.

"Okay, knees not back." I say positioning the log so that I could settle it down.

"Got it," Gale grunts. "Ready?"

"Ready," I say. We set the log down in front of the house on Annie's front lawn.

I spring up immediately ready to get to the next part.

Gale sits down leaning against the log wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"What is Gorgeous tired?" I tease poking him with my foot.

"Not everyone is as gifted as you are at being superhuman." Gale says back at me.

I smirk down at him. "Tomorrow comes the hard part."

"You mean that was the easy part?" Gale asks breathless.

"Of course, what did you expect?" I ask perching on the log beside his head. "Picking dandelions and hunting deer?"

"Right, deer," Gale says chuckling.

A/N Hey guys! So, exams week, I'm a stress ball, I've had one kickass martial arts class. Basically, I'm just a writing machine this week. So, do me a favor, and voice your gratitude, or complete disgust, in a review? Please?