A/N: I wrote this for my sister as a birthday present (a very late one) because she is obsessed with all things Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. Unlike her I don't like the books or movies. I have read the books, and watched bits and pieces of the movies, but not because I like them, only because she wanted me to. One of the reasons I dislike the story is because Gale's (my favorite character) character is so suddenly destroyed at the very end of Mockingjay. He is not in 2 kissing another set of lips! That goes against every other part of his character that Collins reveals. I will not except it. This story is set right after the last chapter of Mockingjay. I am ignoring the Epilogue.
Criticism is very welcome; I want it and that is why I am posting this story instead of just handing it over to my little sister and saying, "Happy Birthday, I hope you enjoy this!". Please tell me if I have a fact wrong or if there are any typos. I want to give my sister the best that I can. I have tried my best to copy Collins' writing style. Is this age appropriate for a 12-year-old?
A note on the song, rights go to Brian Jacques, author of Mattimeo, though the last verse is mine.
A note on the bold print, rights go to Suzane Collins, author of Mockingjay.

Chapter 1

Three years after Prim's death and the end of the war:

So after, when he asks, "You love me. Real or not real?"

I tell him. "Real."

But even as I say it I remember who I am and what my track record is in these sorts of situations, and I wonder, will I regret my words? Because what I had with Gale before the Games and the war… it was something that betrayal shouldn't have been able to break. That friendship and camaraderie had been unchanged in the face of famine and poverty. We had shared the little we had, even if it meant that one or both of us would go hungry, we had shared even if it meant our families would go hungry. We had risked our lives for our families, and each other, even when there had been the possibility that neither of us would come back.

I remember the time two years into our partnership when the fence had been on and Gale had sprained his ankle. There had been a tree above us and at fourteen I had been light enough to shimmy out on one of its slim branches and drop down on the other side of the fence. Gale had told me to go, but I had refused. Why had I? Why had I risked discovery and execution, or at least a whipping? Why hadn't I obeyed Gale and slept safe at home in my bed? Why had I stayed and slept out in the woods with my friend? I had risked both our families losing their life-giving support to brave the cold autumn night with a friend. Was it because I wanted to comfort him in his pain, or was it because my fourteen year old self had rather she died with her partner in crime than live knowing she hadn't been with him—even if her sister suffered?

Just three years later, I lost Prim and I blamed him. The one whom I had been willing to put above her. What had changed?

I still hate Gale. I think I always will. This strange mid-night revelation doesn't change that. Somehow, though, telling Peeta I love him makes me realize and admit, I miss Gale. I hate him and I want to beat him to a pulp, I want to gut him like a wild dog, I want to torture him, and make him understand what he has done to me, but I miss him. Just him—his confident understanding and knowledge of what makes me, me (even if he he has used that to my disadvantage), and the rock beneath his personality's rebuffing exterior (I might disagree with him strongly, and I might feel betrayed by him, but I am never surprised by what he does, not really) that is unchanging. He is Gale Hawthorne, born, bred, and raised in the Seam, solid and unrelentingly loyal.

I roll away from Peeta's side as hot tears pour down my cheeks. War does strange things to a person, I should know! It turned me into a broken heap of terrified shards! It ripped what little innocence I had from my back and left me without my family. The sobs don't stop, the tears don't cease to run, the empty hole I had thought was closing is just as empty as before.

"Katniss?" Peeta whispers. But so quietly it sounds like Catnip.

Only he called me that. My throat constricts and memories over power me and I scream, "No!" in his face at the top of my lungs. I ignore his worry; I don't want to cry for Gale in Peeta's arms. That would just be wrong.

I hate Gale, but… in 13 he treated me no differently than he treated his mother and siblings. He did to me what I did to Prim and my mother. He tried to protect me from what he knew would hurt me, what he knew would break me. He did it because he loved me. Yes, he should have known better, but he'd only made the same mistakes as I had. He had treated me like I was his family, like I was his sister or wife. Protecting me was as ingrained in him as protecting Prim was in me. I could see him now, lying in his bed gazing up at the ceiling remembering; parsing to pieces; understanding; wishing with all his heart he could go back and do things with a clearer mind. I have to remind myself how proud Gale is, how he's probably kissing another girl like he can't live without her, and how he's probably telling that girl how he had a chance at The Mockingjay and he prefers her to the war hero and her bow.

The tears come uncontrollably now and they soak my pillow. The sobs wrack my chest and I can't seem to get enough air into my lungs. This isn't how this night was supposed to end. I was supposed to slip asleep in Peeta's arms and wake in the morning knowing irrevocably that I love him. Peeta says my name again—louder this time—he tries to shake me, tries to get me to speak to him, but for once I don't want his help. He can't fix this part of me. I push him away, slide out of bed, and throw on some clothes. He turns on the light, he tries to restrain me, but since when was he stronger than me when I wanted to be alone? Since when has he used his full strength on me? Never, and he doesn't start now. So despite his cries and pleas I flee out into the night. Somehow, hours later, I find myself in the woods at the old meeting place.

As I look around I find that it hasn't changed since I was last there. The berry bushes are still in their places—abet wilder and larger—and as it's early summer they're flowering. A robin sings a cheery tune nearby and a whippoorwill answers it. It's dawn. The first sunbeams are slowly lighting the woods and the valley before me is gorgeous. It reminds me of the many sunrises I have watched with Gale. For some reason though, I don't hate it. I'd like to believe it is because Prim used to say when she was little that she wanted to live in the sunrise when she grew up, or that it's because I can see the tint of orange that I know Peeta loves, but here with the birds and the sky I know I can't lie. It's because it doesn't remind me of the man Gale was during the war, I enjoy it because it reminds me of the one he was before.

I'm curled up on the rock shelf in such a way that I don't need Gale to fill any extra empty space. There isn't any. But his absence in my heart is far greater than his lack of physical presence. It feels wrong to be here without him. It feels sacrilegious to be here alone, to watch this sunrise without him. So staring out across the valley, I realize that while I might hate Gale, I haven't gotten out of the habit of loving him. But whether he's the brother I never had or the lover I turned away from in anger and confusion, I don't know.

I stand up stiffly and make my way back to the fence. I pause there out of habit and listen for the hum that will tell me that its alive, but it isn't. It's propped up with tree branches. I close my eyes and sink weakly against a tree. This place isn't good for me. Not without someone who understands. I don't open my eyes just yet, I still need to figure out what I'm going to tell Peeta. It's not like I can go up to him and say, "Hey Peeta, you know what? I'm still a pathetic teenager who can't figure out who she's in love with—if anyone."

In the end I realize that there is nothing I can say to him that would be nice. You just can't say you don't actually know if you love him to a guy who you've been leading on for years. It's an impossible situation, especially when I hate one of the men and the other is the one who has taken care of me for years.

I push off the tree, only to realize that it is the one that six years ago I refused to climb. I look down at myself and wonder how much those five years have changed me. It doesn't help to realize that I'm wearing my father's hunting jacket and my old boots. But I push past physical appearance and try for the first time to understand why Prim's death has affected me so much.

At first I try to analyze my emotions at the moment she died, but that doesn't help. Not at all. Then I look at what I have become after her death in comparison to what I was before. And I understand. It's not just that she was my sister, or that she was what I saw as the embodiment of my father, or that it was Gale who probably created to bomb, that destroyed me—though that was part of it— it was because the only reason I survived my childhood was because I had something to fight for. After my father died I didn't care to go on and neither did my mother, but I had refused to make that decision for Prim. In my first Games I fought for her. In the second Games I fought for Peeta because I owed him something intangible, love, and I was trying to repay it with life. In the war I fought for her and I fought for Peeta, but only because he was in the Capital's hands because of me—I was repaying a debt. Why didn't I feel the need to repay Gale, he's done far more for me than Peeta ever can? I can't answer that, but I now know why I'm waining away, I have nothing left to fight for.

I walk away from the tree, unable to stand it anymore and find my way home. Home? My home is burnt. I live in an abode. Without a family I have no home, home is where the heart is after all.

I sneak into the house and hang up my jacket. My shoes I stash in the hall. Then I find the bathroom and take a steaming shower. I don't even compare it to the Capital showers. Then I find my way to the dining room where Peeta sits hunched over a bowl eating. He looks up when I enter and I open my mouth try to give an explanation but he buts in.

"I know, Katniss. I know." Then he looks back down. As it turns out, Peeta's guessed what happened and when he looks up from the unusually meager breakfast he had prepared I see how worn out and weary he really truly is.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to understand the way you work. There are times when I think I have and then… then you just twist around and I'm…" he sighs, "He always understood you. Even when he hurt you he understood why it hurt you."

He always did. Which is why everything hurts so badly. Gale did know, or should have known that his actions would hurt me. If he didn't, then…

Then he was too focused on himself and his agenda to be there for me. I know I was. And I wish I hadn't been.

"I'm sorry," is all I can say to Peeta, so I say it. What else is there to say?

"I know," Peeta murmurs dejectedly, "I know, but you shouldn't be. I think that's your problem, you can't stand to hurt me because if you do then you will owe me and you hate to owe anyone anything."

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but he shakes his head.

"Eat."

And I do.

The next day I wake early and go hunting. I check the snare-line out of habit and find them all empty, I haven't set them since I came back. I do so now. Then I begin my silent search for meat. By the time the sun has risen above the trees I have an exemplary catch for having hunted without a partner. For a moment I stare at all the meat. I don't need it and even with Haymitch and Peeta's large appetites it would take us weeks to go through this much.

I take it to Greasy Sae out of habit and silently volunteer to help her as she stews for the men and women who are working to make District 12 livable again.

She excepts my meat and help with a thankful grunt and sets me to chopping meat at a board which is crisscrossed with grooves from decades of use. Her granddaughter plays quietly nearby with the blue yarn I gave her last spring. Within minutes I fall into the old pattern, slice open the belly, scoop out the entrails, let the blood drain, yank the skin off easily, cut off the head, bone the game, chop it into little pieces, toss it in the pot, repeat. The smell of blood and fresh meat mixed with the delicious aromas of browning rabbit and sautéd squirrel is both vomit worthy and mouth watering. It is a strange combination but it smells like home for some reason. As I wield my knife I keep looking up, expecting to see Gale and my ears keep straining for the jokes he used to crack while we skinned and gutted our haul. It drives me to do the previously unthinkable act. I ask Sae for her opinion about boys. Love triangles in particular.

She looks up from stirring the pot and stares at me the shock evident on her worn and wrinkled face. "Forget it," I mutter and continue chopping rabbit. I sweep the pieces into her pot and rinse my fingers. Then I take up a squirrel and begin the process of making it ready for the next pot of stew.

"I'm afraid I can't help much," she answers without seeming to have heard me, "but if I were you, I would find that cousin and get all those bottled up emotions out in the open. Don't let them fester. Hate is like trackerjacker venom: it causes hallucinations and it won't come out till you force it up with an antitoxin." I look back up with raised eyebrows. My knife-hand freezes mid slice. I never thought she would give me real advice.

"You know Gale—he is a man and men are the most infuriating creatures—but he loved Prim." A strange, longing look comes over her and I know she is thinking of Prim. Her scratchy voice is chocked when she speaks again, "When you were in the arena they were inseparable." The look leaves, but I see the tears glistening in her eyes. Her voice is stronger now as she remarks, "I bet you he's way out in 2 thinking he's doing you a favor by not coming to see you. If he'd stop and think for a moment he'd know he isn't, but you know what happens when a body starts thinking." She gives me a knowing look before turning back to her pot. I am not surprised that she knows about my nightmares. She was there when I first returned to 12, she knows how bad it was. I also wouldn't be surprised if she had her own night demons. Most Seamers do. It's hard to survive without them.

I turn back to my cutting and contemplate her words, I do know what happens when a person starts thinking: they can't stop. Then your days are as bad as your nights. I never knew, though, that he and Prim had grown so close. Neither told me. I suppose, though, that they saw no reason to remind me of the arena. I didn't ever bring it up, and so neither did they.

I spend the rest of my day with Sae and her granddaughter cooking, and then finally serving, dinner to the hungry, sweaty workers. As I pass around the bowls of steaming stew they laugh and joke, but it's all forced. I see the sadness that each has tried to burry. Watching them, the grave diggers and the rebuilders, I think that it is the cleaner-uppers who are the real heroes, not the ones who made the mess. We're too cowardly to face the dead.

I stand in grave silence, trying to be invisible but failing because anyone with a ladle is recognized as a Godsend and is lauded as one as well. Whether they are a war hero or an old woman. The men call for me to join them in their feast and so I do. The food is good and the liquor better. They remember somehow that I can sing and the drunkest ones beg for a tune. Thom remembers my distaste for performances from somewhere and he steps in and tell them to knock it off, but I brush his help off and take a shaky stand on the table. I'm feeling reckless tonight so why not sing? My mug of beer prompts my memory. And the song that pops into my head is one I learned in the Hob. It's a drinking song and well known. But not one I have ever sung myself. The tune is catchy and simple and the words are so ridiculous that you can't help but remember them, so I had and now they tumble out in a drunken rush.

O if I feel sick or pale,
What makes my eyes shine?
Some good October ale
And sweet blackcurrant wine.
I'd kill a dragon for half a flagon,
I'd wrestle a stoat to wet my throat,
I'd strangle a snake, all for the sake
Of lovely nutbrown beer….
Nuhuhuhut broooowwwwwwnnnnn beeeeheeeyer!

There are cat calls and whistles and the men give the returning verse with gusto:

Fight a flagon an' drink a dragon,
Gizzard a lizard an' split his blizzard,
Ride a spider for good ol' cider,
Gooooood oooooold ciderrrrrrrrr!

A silly smile spreads over my face and I drag up a tall lanky young man, who in my dizzy state I mistake for Gale. He's too far gone to notice that I call him by the wrong name and he readily joins his voice with mine as I call out the next verse, and my audience begins to keep time with their hands.

O if I have an achy head,
What tastes delish?
Damson cordial in a great big swish
And a bottle of whisky from Ned.
I'd wrestle a fish upon a dish,
N' cut off his head while he's in bed,
An' take a rat and make him dead,
For goooooood ooooooold aaaaaayyyyylee!

As they call out the answering lines a few of the younger boys jump up on the table and begin to dance a jig. I join the fun with a:

Chop up a rook'n make a soup'
Send him to bed wivout any bread,
Dip his tail in 'tober ale,
An' good ol' magpie pie!
All fooooorrrrr some strrrrrrooonnnnng whiiiiiiiteeeeee liquoooorrrr!

I sing for them far into the night and I dance till I can't stand on my feet. But I have my first fun since the war. I don't know what time I return to the house, but it's late at night. When I wake in the morning Peeta is standing over me with consternation on his face. I have a pounding headache.

"Here," he mumbles, "Thom said you would need it."

Then he hands me a mug of some foul smelling tea and stalks away. I gulp down the brew, which tastes as bad as it smells, and go back to sleep. When I wake in the late afternoon Haymitch is the one above me. My head hurts less now, but it is still fuzzy. The light is too bright and I want to vomit. I do and feel immensely better after. Still Haymitch doesn't speak. It begins to get on my nerves and finally I explode.

"I don't want to talk to you!" I growl.

"I know you don't." He nods knowingly."You've found the magic of beer. D'you think you're going again tonight?" I stare at him. Then turn away. "I heard you loosened up quite a bit. Your songs are all they're talking about today. Sae says that half the male population's in love with you. Seems to think you'd be happy about that."

"Go away!" I snarl into my pillow. But I have no such luck. He stays right where he is and rolls me over. I don't have the wits to fight him.

"What happened? You were improving so much and then… Did you and Peeta have a fight? Is that why he won't talk to me about you?"

"It's been a day. Stop acting like it's been a month," I grumble as I try to pull my pillow over my head. He takes it from me and tosses it across the room.

"You've been out for two and half days Sweetheart. Thom brought you by in the early morning on Friday, it's Monday." He informs me.

"Thom?" I mumble.

"Yes Thom! Now tell me what's with you and Peeta?"

"Gale," I spit. "Now I've answered your question let me sleep!"

And to my surprise he does. For a moment after he leaves the room I consider getting up and retrieving my pillow, but in the end I figure it's not worth the hassle and I roll over and burry my face in my arms.

I sleep dreamlessly, and when I wake Buttercup is beside me. I fondle his aging head—something that three years ago I would never have dreamed of enjoying—because he is all I have left of Prim. He rubs his jaw against my hand and gives his rare throaty purr. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and step in the puddle of vomit. Grimacing I wipe my feet off and then change into some clean clothes. Then I mop up the mess with my shirt and throw it all in the laundry. I feel icky and so I draw a bath. There aren't any oils or scents in it like the one my mother drew for me before my prep-team arrived so long ago. Vaguely I wonder how they have fared with the new changes to their home.

I stay in the water till it cools and then I stay in the tub till it drains. I stand wearily and towel myself off. As I stare at my face in the mirror I see the scar across my cheek. Gale's scar. The one the Peacekeeper gave me when I put myself in front of the whiplash meant for Gale. I glance away but my gaze lands on my hands and the scar there too. In a furry I yank on my clothes and stomp out of the room. I meet Peeta in the hall and I ask him if there is any more of that stuff Thom had brought by. He nods and finds it. But he doesn't give it to me. He just stands there in front of me.

"Why did he bring you home?" He asks sharply. There is something in his eyes that I have rarely seen before, and always associated with Gale.

I blink, then begin to laugh hysterically. "You! You thought…." I double over. "You thought that there was…there was something between us?"

The idea is ridiculous, Peeta jealous? But this isn't funny so I force myself to stop laughing. I pull a straight face and answer his original question, "I don't know why he did. But it doesn't matter, the party was great."

Peeta scowls and shoves the tea leaves into my hands then he walks out the door. He doesn't come back till late, but I can't say I miss him. It feels wrong to admit that after all he has done for me, but it's true. After all I only miss him when my nightmares are bad.

That night I sleep alone.