Author's Note: This story was originally posted in April/May 2012. It was inspired by the fabulous/fabulously cheesy 1980 movie 'Blue Lagoon', in which two children are shipwrecked on a tropical island and have to come to terms with puberty, death and sex as they grow up in an isolated environment and fall in love with each other. I loosely adapted this sort of scenario to the world of The Hunger Games and even borrowed some situations and lines directly from the movie. I 'remixed' other lines and themes from THG and included them in here as well. This is a canon divergence that begins during Catching Fire after the Victory Tour. It is rated M for explicit sexual content and depictions of PTSD/violence that may be disturbing to some.

Chapter 1: Running

The little concrete house near the lake smelled like oranges. I remember it well.

Oranges were something of a novelty, a treat, especially in the dead of winter in District Twelve, but I could afford them now that Peeta and I were victors. I had been peeling one, eating it section by section as the juice dripped down my fingers. Gale, however, had just taken the fruit I brought him and turned it over and over in his hands. At the time I'd thought that maybe he was offended by my expensive gift.

"Well?" I huff, arching my eyebrows questioningly at him. He was the one who asked me to meet him this afternoon, and he still hasn't explained why we are here. I know it isn't to hunt. We are here to talk. Nevertheless, I have my bow and he has his, just in case we do come across a wild turkey or something.

"Well..." Gale stands, paces, looks out the door, then paces again. I've never seen him this nervous before. "I figured out how we could do it. How we could run."

He stops pacing and gives me the strangest look, then takes both of my hands in his. Mine are sticky.

"I think I know how we could pull it off and still keep everyone safe," he says.

I stare at him in shock for a second, then sputter, "What? How?"

"We have to convince them that we're dead."

My shoulders sag. He actually had my hopes up there for a second.

"Gale, how on earth-"

"Listen," he rushes on. "Just listen. There's no way we could run with both our families and... Haymitch and Peeta." He says the last part spitefully, like it tastes bad in his mouth.

"Gale-"

"Right? There's no way. We've decided that already. It'd take a lot of convincing, and I don't think we'd get away with it. Especially not if Peeta's family has anything to say about it."

He looks resentful for a moment, but then opens his eyes expectantly, almost frantically at me, prompting my response.

I sigh.

We had this conversation last time we were here - about running, I mean. It had been my idea, originally, but we reasoned out that there were too many problems with it and we hadn't spoken of it since. I was under the impression that Gale had wanted to stay and start a rebellion in District Twelve, and I had resigned myself to inevitably being crushed under the giant boot that is President Snow on any given day. So I'm at a loss as to where this is all going.

"You're wrong about Peeta's family," I counter, though I'm not so certain of that, myself. "But sure. Okay. How would we convince the Capitol that we're all dead?"

Gale swallows hard and grasps my hands tighter. He's really acting strangely. I narrow my eyes.

"No. Not the Capitol. We would have to convince our families that we are the ones who are dead. You and I. Then we could do it."

We're both silent for a minute, searching each other's faces. I try to process the implications of what he's saying.

"Have you lost your mind?" I finally ask, incredulous. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of!"

"Think about it," he presses. My wrists are starting to hurt, he's holding them so tight. "We'd never convince them all to run, not realistically. And we couldn't escape alone and just leave them behind, either. They'd be unprotected."

"Which is exactly why it's not an option!" I interject, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"But if we didn't run, Katniss, if we were dead as far as our families or anyone else knew, then there would be no threat to them. No one would be looking for us."

Gale chooses his words carefully, but my blood still runs cold. I know what he's really trying to say. It's what Snow confronted me about that day at my house - I'm dangerous. I've caused problems by fanning the flames of an uprising. If everyone thinks I'm dead, I would no longer be a threat to the Capitol's total power and, subsequently, a threat to the safety of the people I love.

I'm the threat that needs to be removed.

Peeta would be sole victor of the 74th Hunger Games. Since Snow didn't buy our so-called engagement during the Victory Tour, that would probably his next best plan, anyways - knock me off and present the whole relationship as an inevitable tragedy. But if I were 'dead', Prim and my mother would have to move back to the Seam, and who would take care of them then?

"Katniss?"

I snap back to the reality of what Gale is saying.

"It's what the Capitol wants, isn't it?" His voice is thick with contempt for Panem's government. "Wouldn't our deaths come as a welcome accident? We'd just be helping them out."

"Stop saying 'our'," I snap. He's not saying what he really means, which is uncharacteristic of him and grates on my nerves. "You mean my death. They want me dead."

"Snow wants me out of the picture, too," he says bluntly, "You told me yourself. Why else would you have asked me to run with you?"

I look down at my hands, still clasped in Gale's. The last time we were here, talking about running away, he'd confessed his love for me.

"If I could just give Snow what he wanted, you would be safe again and you wouldn't have to," I say quietly. I swallow hard. "I could run for it by myself and save you a lot of trouble."

"No! I already told you, your plan is crazy but I'm coming with you."

"Whose crazy plan is it now, huh?" I ask. "Faking our deaths sure wasn't my idea! You do realize that it would mean that we'd never see anyone ever again, don't you?"

"What are our other options?" Gale counters quietly. "If we stay, they're going to kill us, who knows in what horrible way. If we run, the others are targets because Snow will think they have information on us. But if we're dead as far as anyone knows... he can't hunt down people who are already dead, Katniss! If they want us dead, let's give them dead! There's at least a chance that we could all actually survive this way. Your mother, Prim... even Peeta. But this is how we have to do it."

Gale must be really trying to convince me if he's playing the empathy card in Peeta's name, given how upset he was when he first heard the news of our engagement.

"Gale, I..." but I don't know what I'm trying to say. I sigh. "I'm too tired to think about this right now."

He releases my wrists but grabs my shoulders instead and leans in close to my face.

"There's not time to think about this. There's not time to just wait and see what happens. We need to do this now. If you love any of them, this is the best option," he says firmly. His eyes are shiny and he looks like he's on the verge of tears.

"You know I love them," I say in a hurt voice, offended.

"Then they can't know a thing. They have to really think we're dead. They can't know anything that would put them at risk. It will hurt them at first, but it will save us all in the long run. We can do it."

"But I can't leave Prim," I protest.

"If you let her go, they can't use her against you or you against her. It's the only way to make sure she's really safe."

I'm silent for what seems like a long time, and only one thought keeps running through my head.

"I knew they had to have their victor," I finally mutter.

"So how do we do it?" I ask flatly. Even though Gale explained the reasoning behind his plan, I'm still not convinced that we could actually pull it off.

"We burn down your house," he says, so casually it's almost scary. "The one in Victor's Village. With everyone thinking that we were inside."

He's kneeling down, roasting some chestnuts over a small fire he has built. We're a ways from the cabin now, having walked halfway around the frozen lake while I'd grilled him with questions and tried to figure out the details of his plan. He talks about destroying my house so easily, the same way he talks about hating the Capitol, and it bothers me a little.

"So, we move all of my mother's and Prim's things back to-"

"No, that would arouse suspicion. We'd have to take our chances that some of the stuff could be saved and just let the whole place burn."

"Are you kidding!" I spit, my protective instincts swelling up inside my chest. He doesn't even look up to acknowledge my tone and just keeps expertly roasting the nuts.

"I'm dead serious. No pun intended."

"Ha ha. Not funny," I mutter. I pull my cold hands up inside the sleeves of my father's hunting jacket and kick around a hollow chestnut shell. "And just how are we supposed to convince my mother and Prim not to be inside, without arousing suspicion? Just take our chances and let them burn, too?"

Gale looks at me like I'm crazy and says in a frustratingly calm voice, "No, Katniss. We can't plan out where they should be and then realistically convince anyone that the fire was an accident. We'll just wait until they both happen to be out of the house at the same time."

"Oh, like they were this afternoon?" I ask sarcastically.

"Just like this afternoon," he responds, in all seriousness.

"Who's to say when that'll happen next? I thought you said we had to act before it was too late?"

Gale says nothing.

"You really are a mastermind at creating death traps, you know," I puff, my breath creating a cloud on the cold air.

He's ignoring the chestnuts now and just watching my face, giving me one of those wordless looks that we normally exchange. I usually catch on to his meaning immediately, but this time I'm at a loss for what he's trying to communicate.

"What?" I say, frustrated. When he still doesn't answer, I continue. "And I suppose we're both just going to come out here with only the clothes on our backs, so it's not suspicious?"

"That would be stupid," he says bluntly, turning back to the chestnuts, "but we couldn't take much. Just enough, just until we can find a place near running water where we could build some kind of permanent shelter."

"We wouldn't just live in the house by the lake?" I motion over my shoulder, to the location we had walked from.

"Too close to the District," Gale says gruffly. He offers me a hot chestnut, which I juggle between my hands then pop into my mouth when it's cool enough to eat. It still burns my tongue.

"We're hours away, it's hardly close," I mutter. I position my boot over the chestnut shell I've been kicking and crunch it, then drop down to sit on Gale's oversized game bag. The thing could fit a whole deer. I'm surprised to find that it's lumpy and half full, which is odd because we haven't been hunting.

"Hey, what's in your bag..." I start, when suddenly all of the pieces fall into place.

My whole body turns to ice.

I am so stupid.

I don't have to keep debating whether or not Gale's plan will work - he's already put it into motion. We are running right now. And I'm sitting on our stash of supplies.

"Gale?" I stare at him, alarmed. "When you asked me to meet you out here this afternoon..."

He turns to face me and returns my horrified look with one of steely determination.

"Gale, what have you done!?"