A/N: The Games are over, but will they stay that way? What about Gale and Katniss? What happens to Sage, Lavinia, and Flex?

This works as something of an epilogue for A Lot of Hope. More to say at the end.

Chapter Fourteen: The Days After

"Are we ready?" Gale asked the group of people he had somehow become responsible for over the last week or so. They were assembled in a copse of trees, near the now-vacant hovercraft, and all had packs and bags with them. The sun was rising, stringing yellow ribbons of light through the branches far overhead, but on the ground, all was cool and shady. He scrubbed at his jaw with the knuckles of one hand, hearing the sound of his incoming beard. The other hand was entwined with Katniss's.

Thinking about it made him squeeze her fingers lightly and smile. She made a funny sound under her breath, which made him smile more broadly. "Is that a yes, Katniss Everdeen?"

"Yes, Gale Hawthorne," she answered with elaborate courtesy, clearly imitating Effie Trinket once again.

He didn't know what had happened to the rest of their team; he hadn't had the chance to check on them when he'd left the Capitol. None of the broadcasts they'd heard from the screens in the hovercraft had mentioned them, either.

"It's been twenty-four hours since President Coriolanus Snow was assassinated by Haymitch Abernathy, former Victor from District Twelve," Ginger Potter had announced the week before. "At this time, there is a Peacekeeping Council to maintain law and order, and we have enlisted District Representatives to maintain order and productivity in the Districts themselves. Chief Peacekeeper, Jan deForge, will be acting as our chief executive for the time being.

"Assassin Abernathy was executed by the Capitol Peacekeepers, as were his co-conspirators. At this time, there is no reason to believe that his co-Mentor, Gale Hawthorne, Victor in the 73rd Hunger Games, was in any way in collusion with Abernathy. Interrogations have revealed that Abernathy had long been a drunkard and malcontent.

"For those who have asked, the Hunger Games have been canceled for the time being. There were three surviving Tributes on record when the President was assassinated, and by joint declaration of the Gamemakers and the Peacekeepers, these survivors are all named as Victors of the 74th Hunger Games. Foehn Larson from District Five, Katniss Everdeen from District Twelve and Peeta Mellark, also from District Twelve. It is uncertain as to their current whereabouts; the Peacekeepers were called away from the Arena as President Snow's death was prioritized. If they are found, they are to be given all aid and succor. Please notify the head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, so they can be celebrated as all Victors have been in the past.

"Thank you, and have a good evening."

Gale hadn't dared to try to communicate with Effie, Cinna, or Portia. He hoped that so long as he didn't hear their names in a broadcast, they were free from suspicion and retribution.

"We've been ready since before sunrise," Hazelle called, a smile in her voice as she caught his attention. "So come on, already. The Peacekeepers could still be looking for this hovercraft."

Sal cleared his throat. "I'm the only one who knew he was going to be using it, Mizz Hawthorne. Should be fine."

"Well," Gale admitted slowly, "there was the lady who sent me to you."

With a tattoo-wrinkling frown, Salvatore nodded. "True. But. She's well connected and no one will think of asking her, will they?"

"Who're you talking about?" Katniss wondered.

"I'll tell you later. We should probably get moving. Rory, did you double check for fires?"

His next-oldest brother popped up on his feet. "Yeah, Gale! Me and Vick scattered the hearths and ashes, too."

"I helped!" Prim added, crossing her arms while managing to hold on to her goat's leading rope.

Katniss nodded. "Good. So where are we headed, again?"

"North. Ready?"

They were, they assured him, more than ready, so Gale took a breath and started hiking, Katniss at his side. He kept one of her hands in his as they started but didn't speak for a while. He wanted to listen, to see if they'd been found or followed. And he really wanted to know how stealthy this group of people could be; he wasn't entirely optimistic. He had to be alert. Just in case.

Perhaps something of his tension communicated itself to Katniss. She tugged lightly on his hand. "Hey. This is exactly like we planned, right?"

He glanced down at her, bringing her still-bandaged hand to his lips to press a kiss to a strip of bare skin. "Yeah." Adding in three skilled but speechless rebels, Greasy Sae and her granddaughter, the five Mellarks—Peeta's elder brothers didn't live at home any longer, but Gale had insisted they come along, so they couldn't be used as hostages by the Capitol should someone decide that would be a good idea, even without Coriolanus Snow—Foehn, and Salvatore. Foehn had barely spoken since she'd joined them.

Peeta had noticed first. "Gale," the one-eyed Victor murmured the day after Greasy Sae had gathered their families to meet them in the woods. "What are we going to do about Foehn? My folks are mad that they had to leave the bakery, but I get it, and I'm grateful, believe me, that they're here." He almost rubbed at the back of his neck, but Gale could see him flinch the moment a finger touched the bandaging protecting the burns he'd received. "But what about her family?"

Pursing his lips, Gale had studied the red-headed girl. Her hair, surprisingly, was only lightly singed. The fire had mainly wounded her feet, so that she was still unable to walk and had to be carried about. Hazelle, Violet ,and Prim had all worked with her, making poultices and washes for her feet, as well as super-protective bandages.

"Feet are the worst," Prim had stated in her thin voice. "So hard to treat. She keeps jerking away and we have to hold her still and it's so hard."

"Did she mention them to you?" Gale asked Peeta.

"Haven't had much of a chance to talk to her, getting my folks settled in," Peeta admitted, looking embarrassed.

"I'll do it." He'd pointed to the hovercraft, which they were using as a base while they studied maps, hunted, and gathered supplies for what was going to be a long walk, at the very least. "Rest your eyes, yeah? You heard Mrs. Everdeen. You've got to be careful with the muscles."

Peeta grimaced. "Yeah. I've had cramps. In both eyes. It's…so weird."

"Hey, Foehn," Gale called softly as he reached the girl. She eyed him warily, even then. "Peeta's worried about your family."

"I don't have one," she'd whispered. "Well, I mostly lived with my da', but he's out on the boats every day, so I lived alone once my ma died."

Gale winced. "I'm sorry. My dad died in a mine accident. It's hard to lose a parent."

She shrugged and studied her feet. "Could be he wasn't even watching the Games," she said flatly. "So I'm not worrying about him. B'sides," she added, finally meeting his eyes, "I'm not from your District. They probably won't be looking for me. Might even think I died from the fire. I'm fine, Gale Hawthorne."

In the days since, Gale's sister Posy had taken to spending time with her, and that had been a relief.

He never heard her name again in a broadcast.

"Just like we planned and then some," he murmured at length to Katniss. "How're you doing?"

"Good." She flexed her free hand to show him. "No bandages on this one, anymore. Mom and Prim made a great salve."

"She, your mom, seems to be doing better." He kept his voice low, but he felt compelled to keep Katniss talking. He was still so grateful she was there with him.

Katniss tossed her head a little, but her lips tilted in a small smile. "Yeah. And all it took was the dismantling of the Hunger Games and evacuating our District. Who knew?"

"You really think we've dismantled them forever?" he asked. "I mean, I'm all for hoping we did, but—"

Frowning, she glanced back over her shoulder. He focused ahead, conscious of the rising sun to his right and thinking of the maps he and Flex had studied aboard the hovercraft. "I hope we did. But," she dropped her voice, "we're heading to Thirteen, aren't we? Or where it used to be?"

He nodded. "We've seen in the propaganda that the place is a wreck, but it's also left alone. They won't look for us, there."

She blew out a quiet breath. "That's a long walk, and Foxface—"

"Foehn, Catnip, come on."

She snorted. "You call me a nickname, why can't I call her one?"

"Because she's not your girlfriend?" He let himself chuckle at that.

"You were calling me Catnip long before I was your girlfriend," Katniss remarked, her voice a bit too casual. He tugged her a bit closer as they continued to walk, adjusting the pack on his back as he did so. It was heavy with a tent and supplies and clothes and medicines.

"That's probably because I'd always kind of hoped you would be, eventually," he said, also trying to sound casual.

They hiked in silence for a while after that, and he could hear the hushed conversations of those who followed him.

"I'm glad," she said eventually. "Glad you were hoping."

Warmth filled his chest. "Me, too."

Two weeks and five days later, they reached the edge of what had once been District 13. The mountain they were on was rich and green and replete with wildlife, but the valley below them seemed bereft of humanity. To Gale it was filled with possibility.

The nineteen people who had traveled with him gathered with the sounds of shuffling feet and lowered packs. Lady, the goat, bleated before turning to munch on a stalk of flowers nearby. Gale wrapped his arm around Katniss's shoulders with an ease he wouldn't have believed would come to them so soon. "Well, I think this is far enough. What do you think?"

"We'll have to get ready for winter, you know."

Flex grunted in his characteristic manner. He, Lavinia, and Sage were teaching the rest of them how to understand a sort of hybrid sign-and-grunt form of communication so they didn't have to engage in what Foehn had wryly called interpretive dance whenever they wanted to talk.

Flex was thorough as he made a list: Houses, plants, hunting, looking for other people.

"Yeah, I agree," Gale told him. "All right. Let's see what we can do."

"You mean we're stopping?" Vick asked, practically bouncing next to him.

"I mean we're stopping."

Vick shouted in glee and dashed off to make plans with Rory and Prim. Gale smiled as the others clustered to make their own plans, leaving their packs in the dirt and giving the high ground overlooking the valley a quick survey.

"What d'you think, Catnip?"

She turned in his arms and wrapped her own loosely about his torso before turning her bright gray eyes up to his. "I think this is good. And I think you're amazing, too. In case I hadn't told you."

She hadn't, but that she did now delighted him. "Thanks."

That night, the group set up shelters that were open to the breezes available above the valley, lighting fires to cook with and tell stories by. New groups took the places of old families, Gale noticed as he leaned against a granite boulder.

Peeta's dad was working with Katniss's mom on Peeta's eye, which had grown inflamed over the past couple days. They looked a bit…furtive…with one another and Gale wondered if they had a secret or something. No way was he going to ask, though.

His own mom was with Vick and Posy and Foehn around a separate fire. They were drawing in the dirt with sticks and gesturing as they spoke. Rory and Prim were tending to Lady and sitting close together at a small fire of their own. Gale thought about teasing them.

He didn't, though.

Salvatore and Sage were at another fire with Lavinia and Flex. They were clearly paired off and Gale had seen that coming before they had picked up the families from District 12. He wouldn't be surprised if they built two small homes for themselves. Avoxes couldn't marry in Panem, but he would wager that those laws wouldn't hold, up here. He wasn't going to mention it.

His shelter and fire held four people: Katniss, Greasy Sae, her granddaughter Sadie, and himself. Sae had been instrumental in what he deemed a covert extraction of their families. He and Katniss had always spoken with her and they got along well enough, and he was truly grateful for her help over the years as they had traded for needed supplies in The Hob back in Twelve.

That night, after they'd had a dinner of freshly killed rabbit and dried vegetables in a stew, Gale was happy enough to hold Katniss's hand while they fell asleep.

Sae was telling Sadie a story when they woke up the next morning. Katniss sat up first, pushing her sleeping bag off and sliding on top of it. Gale smiled at her softened expression as she seemed to study him.

"What?" he whispered, not wanting to be overheard.

She appeared to start to talk, then stopped. He waited; Katniss's words were generally worth waiting for. "This, this is good, Gale. And I'm glad you, you fought for us. You did all this planning and work and got my mom and Prim out and safe." She paused and looked away for a moment. "I miss Haymitch, you know. Is that weird?"

"I miss him, too." Haymitch Abernathy had a quiet room of his own in Gale's memory, but he kept the door closed to it for now. "But he made it possible for us to...to escape, you know?"

"I know. I wonder what's happening, back home."

"I just hope they're not looking for us."

She shrugged and started tracing patterns on his sleeping bag, which was still pulled up on his chest. He could feel the pressure of her fingers, though, and enjoyed it probably more than he should have. "Me, too. But do you think we should find someplace more…sheltered, for the winter? Winters are harder, higher up, you know."

He squinted, caught her hand in his, and shifted to sit up. Sae and Sadie immediately focused on him. "Yeah. Maybe we should have an expedition down further into the District. To see what's left."

Sae cocked her head. "I got long-sight, you know? I seen bodies movin' with lights in the middle o' the night."

"That's not good," Gale muttered.

Then, surprising everyone in earshot, little Sadie yelled, "Not good!"

Katniss blinked and then grinned and crawled immediately over to the little girl's side. "Well look who's talking?"

"Not good!" the girl said again, eyes mostly vacant, but still smiling.

Gale smiled too, and got up. "Well, I guess we better go check it out."

"You're Gale Hawthorne, Victor from the 73rd Games."

Hefting his hunting knife in his hands, Gale froze at the voice that came to him out of the dark when he'd been on watch, standing on the highest outcropping of rock near their encampment. He turned slowly, hearing the grind of rock under the soles of his boots. "Who're you?" he asked the tall, dark-skinned man who held himself like a Peacekeeper.

"Name's Boggs. And if you're Hawthorne, I've been sent to find you." His voice was deep and spare, sounding assured. "You Hawthorne?"

Boggs. The name was familiar and Gale studied the other man as he tried to remember where he'd heard it. "Who sent you?"

The man's smile flashed white and fast before disappearing into the general darkness. "I'm from down there," he said, pointing to the valley. "And if you're who I think? You've saved us all one hell of a big fight. You have the survivors from the last Games with you? You're all welcome. I count twenty of you, right? Plus a goat and a cat."

Both impressed with the man's information as well as concerned that he had it, Gale cleared his throat. He wished Haymitch were there to handle this, but he was on his own. "Yeah. What do you want with us?"

"Your stories," Boggs said, smiling again and gesturing to the rock. "Can we sit? I've been out here watching you for two days now, and I'm tired."

"Sure?" Wary, Gale asked, "Are you armed?"

"I am. But so are you. Don't pull that blade on me and I won't do anything either."

"Fine. So, why do you want us, really?"

Boggs let out a loud sound. "You've given us hope, Gale Hawthorne. We don't know how you did it, but Panem is different than it was when you dropped off the radar. And we want you with us." He hesitated before adding, "Besides, Abernathy was a good man."

That's where he'd heard the name. Relief spread from his chest to his limbs. "Right. He, he told me to look for you."

The men shook hands and sat down together, and Gale told him the story of the 74th Hunger Games.

"Panem, this is Ginger Potter, Administrator of Alpha District. On this five-year anniversary of the Great Reorganization, let us stand in silent appreciation for those who brought us hope."

In their home in the renamed Omega District, Gale stood with Katniss at his side as they watched the broadcast from what had been the Capitol, once. She leaned into him and he held her up, playing with her long, thick hair as they saw faces familiar and unfamiliar scroll by on the viewing screen. The one that caught at him, though years had passed, was the blue-eyed visage of Haymitch Abernathy, who'd had a plan.

"Look, it's Daddy," Katniss murmured as Gale's own face filled the screen, his name underneath it in big white letters. "See, Anders?"

"Da!"

Shock distracted Gale from the annual broadcast, and he bent to nuzzle his son's dark hair. "He said Da!"

"First word," Katniss declared, sounding smug. "I'll have to tell our moms." She set Anders down to toddle about as the broadcast ended. "That's not all I have to tell them, though."

Gale gathered her up against himself. "Oh yeah? What else?"

She looked down between their bodies. "You know, I never figured to have kids because of the Games, right?"

A sort of anticipatory dread swept through him. "You said so when we found out about Anders. Are you okay?"

With a laugh, she brought her head up once more. "Pretty much. So…what do you think of the name Hope?"

The End

*/* Thank you so much for reading! *\*

Note for anyone who is interested in the Author's Headspace...

2020 was a rough year. I lost two close family members within two months (Alzheimers and cancer). Writing was hard, plotting was harder, and I signed up for the Quantum Bang on the very last day to see if I could work my way through a novel-length story again.

I really wanted to fix something, you know? Thank you for reading this bit of fic-therapy.

May the rest of this year bring peace and productivity to us all. ~LJ