DISCLAIMER: HG CHARACTERS DO NOT BELONG TO ME

A/N: I just wanted to let the readers know, that while the main concept of this story is about Katniss finding peace and coming to terms with the tragedy/losses in her life, it is also just as much Gale's story too, with him trying to move on and find peace as well. I hope the people who have read this story from the first chapter were able to make the connection the title of the story is not just for Katniss. As always thanks for the reviews and continuing to stick with this extremely long story. From the start I had a plan from beginning to end (that I am going to stick with), but a lot of new ideas popped into my head in between and I am not going to rush the ending.

Chapter 148-Confrontation III

She begins biting his ear as his kisses descend from her face to her neck. After she pulls her teeth away from his earlobe she whispers, "I need you to fuck me right now."

Wanting desperately to give into her wish, he knows he has been gone long enough and that it is only a matter of time before Avery and Juniper begin looking for him. He ends his passionate kisses and looks down at her and says, "We have to get back. Juniper and I are staying at Avery's apartment tonight, the kittens are 8 months old now and can be left overnight with the older cat. Sienna is no longer living at the apartment, so Juniper is sleeping with Avery in her room tonight and I am staying in Sienna's room. I can meet you at the apartment around 9 after I take Avery and Juniper to dinner-I will tell them I am meeting my friend Spencer who lives here in the Capitol for a drink. They will not question it."

"Oh, that's right-Sienna started her residency" she says. He smiles at her and nods, happy that she has remembered the small details he shared with her during the times they had spent together. "Why don't you come to my place instead? You know it is much closer, that way we don't have to go all the way over to the other side of town."

Realizing that was a much better idea he says, "Ok, message me the address." Gale knew her apartment was only a ten-minute walk from Avery's apartment but did not know exactly which building it was.

"Sure-so you'll be over around 9 then?" she says eagerly.

"Actually, it might be a little bit past that. I actually do want to see my friend Spencer, so I'll see if he is free to grab a drink before I come over if that is okay?"

Knowing that when he was coming into the Capitol, he had spent pretty much all of the free time he had with her when he wasn't working, she understands that he needs to spend time with his friends. While it cuts into the precious time they have, she knows if she wants more than a continuous tryst with him, she must be willing to share his time with others. "Of course" she replies.

He gives her a quick kiss then rushes out. She stays back, checking herself over in her mirror and recombing her hair for his hand had grasped onto the back of her head as they kissed. Once she looks more presentable, she heads back out to the garden. She sees him talking to the executives of AMB, with Avery a part of the conversation beside him. AMB was the name of the company Avery worked for and the company Cassandra was in contract with. While watching them in deep conversation, Cassandra became envious, not because Avery was standing beside Gale, but because Avery was treated as an equal with the executive team at AMB. Having been in contract with AMB for a long time, she had not seen a young consultant and stylist rise through the ranks so quickly. She wasn't sure if it was because she was Gale Hawthorne's daughter, a well known and long time government official, former captain and soldier of the second rebellion, and widower of the mockingjay or if it was due to the fact she was an extremely talented and hard worker or a little bit of both. She herself hardly had any interactions with the executive team, only speaking and meeting with them when her contract was due for signature.

No longer wanting to mingle with anyone else, she heads back inside to grab her purse and leaves.

Later that night, he arrives to her apartment around 10 pm. Never having been to her place before, she gives him a quick tour. Like the layout of his place, she has a bigger living room/dining room area with an open kitchen area, down the hall is her bedroom which also has an attached bathroom. Her closet is not as big though, and she too has a smaller half bath only hers is located off the kitchen area. Her unit is on the 63rd floor, for the buildings in this section of town are much taller than the area where his place is located.

She pours him a small drink as he sits down on her couch. "How is your friend? I'm sorry, what is his name?" she says as she hands him his drink.

"Spencer. He is good, I was lucky he was off from work today. He's a surgeon here in the Capitol."

"You've never mentioned him before."

He hesitates before saying, "Spencer wasn't just my friend, he was also friends with Katniss."

She realizes this is the first time he has ever said her name in front of her. She was not sure if that was a good thing or bad thing.

Unsure of the right thing to say, she finds herself abruptly asking, "He still misses her?"

Gale nods sadly and says, "Spencer was one of Katniss's first friends when she left District 12. Growing up he and his parents really admired her courage and bravery. Her death was especially hard for him."

"I hope the two of you were not all doom and gloom tonight" she says trying to cheer him up, for his demeanor drastically changed.

"Oh no. At first, we were having a great time catching up. But then more drinks were ordered and well, one of us mentioned something that triggered a memory of her and then, we started talking about the past."

While earlier today she had hoped that their relationship was moving in a more forward direction, hearing about this friend that he saw tonight made her realize, she had a long way to go before he would ever mention let alone introduce her to anyone else in his life. But she knows today is a step in the right direction, him coming here. She is pulled away from her thoughts when she hears him say, "I didn't see you after we left your dressing room."

She looks down as she says, "I saw you, you looked pretty busy talking to the executives at AMB."

"Yeah, Avery wanted me to meet them, they were quite chatty."

"I left shortly after, didn't see any reason to stay."

"Well, I would have liked to have seen your beautiful face before leaving, even from a distance" he says as he leans forward.

"Oh" she says teasingly.

He kisses her softly then says, "I especially like the hair."

Looking slightly self-conscious she says, "I decided to give my hair a break, but naturally it hardly looks blonde, only in the sunlight does the blonde show. You really like it?"

"Yes" and he begins kissing her again showing her how much he likes the way she looks now.

An hour later they are laying under the covers of her bed. Her arm draped over his chest as he strokes her hair. Seeing it is almost midnight Gale says, "I better go."

Not looking up, she says, "Can you stay a bit longer? Please."

"I can't, they will be worried, I've been gone since 8" he says as he rises out of the bed and begins putting his clothes back on.

She sits up and pulls the covers over herself as she watches him. He goes into the bathroom checking over his appearance before he emerges and sits down in front of her and says, "When fall comes, I can begin coming over here more. Avery will be moving into a smaller apartment now that Sienna is gone. She has to be out by September 30th, it is doubtful she will be able to find anything near this area right now, and I really don't want to be contributing to her rent, it was one thing when Sienna was with her, Sienna was in medical school. But Avery has a job, and she needs to learn to budget within her means. I should have put my foot down when she said she wanted that huge apartment in the first place."

She remains silent, for she does not want to anger him if she told him what she really thought. She knew the apartment building Avery lived in was considered luxury housing, the units were huge, each one having two bedrooms and two full bathrooms along with a full laundry unit inside. While she knew Avery had a good salary, she knew no one just starting out with a career in the Capitol could afford an apartment like that unless they were a doctor or worked for the government. 'Still a Daddy's girl' she thinks to herself, thinking that Gale probably will be providing her rent money as he does now.

She puts on her slip as she walks him to the door. Giving him one last hug as he leaves.


July 31 (Friday)

"Juniper told me you were in the Capitol today; I wish you would have told me you were coming" Avery says to Gale. He sees she is irritated, for they are on a virtual call.

"You actually want to hang out with your old man" Gale says teasing her. Seeing that his joke did not go over well he says, "You know how my job requires me to be in the Capitol on the first Friday of the month, well, next week three of the government officials will be on vacation so we moved the meeting to this Friday."

"What time do you get off? I know that Jack is keeping an eye on Juniper today, she mentioned that you said you will not make it back home until late tonight."

"Why do you ask?" Gale says beginning to feel uneasy.

"I need your help, well, your guidance really. I informed the apartment complex I was not renewing my lease yesterday, so they made it clear I had to be out by September 30th. The problem is, when I started looking for available apartments yesterday, I was having a hard time finding rental units within my price range near work. I found a lot of places that were looking for roommates, but I am not at University anymore, I need my own place. I was wondering if you could come with me to check out three places I found, they are in areas of town I am not familiar with. I took off work today so I could check these places out in case no one is there on Saturday."

He tries to keep a neutral face, for he does not want her to see that he is annoyed with her. Never one to plan, Avery was the opposite of Sienna when it came to being prepared and having a back-up plan. And of course, she would be unwilling to be in a unit with other people even on a temporary basis until another apartment became available.

He does not tell her he has already taken the afternoon off to be with Cassandra. But knowing that she needs his help and staying true to his promise to himself that he will not help pay her rent, he tells her, "Tell you what, let me see if I can take the rest of the afternoon off. If I can, I'll send you a message on your phone and I'll head over to your place."

She has a huge look of relief on her face and says, "Thanks Dad, you are the best" and he ends the call and looks at the time and sees it is 12:37 pm. He then dials Cassandra and when she answers he says, "Hey, it's me. There has been a change of plans, I'm sorry but I cannot meet you at the apartment until around dinnertime. I have to go help Avery go look at apartments." She responds by telling him she will bring dinner this time, and to let her know when he is heading over.

He then messages Avery, letting her know he was on his way.

The first place they arrive to, they find out the available one-bedroom unit had just been taken that morning. This was extremely frustrating for the first place on her list was the closest place to her work, however, the apartment complex states they can place her on a wait list and she and Gale still check out a one-bedroom unit so she will not have to come back later should a unit become available. Liking the layout of the apartment and the location, she tells Gale she hopes a unit opens up soon as they head on the train to the next place on the list, in a section of town southeast of the Capitol square. Once they get off the train and begin walking in the neighborhood of the second location, Gale tells Avery she is not living here, for he recognizes the area and knows as government official, that this section of town is at times, unsafe at night. They turn around and head back to the train station before even seeing the apartment complex. Frustrated but appreciative for this was why she asked her Father to come, they then head out to the final location, heading west towards the southwest area of town. As they begin walking in the neighborhood, Gale becomes anxious, hoping they are not heading towards his apartment complex. Lucky for him they do not, for the third place on Avery's list was around the block from his. And he got even luckier because she did not like the unit, though it was the most affordable. But that only left her with one option at this point, which made it look very unlikely she would have a place by the September 30th deadline.

On the train ride back towards her apartment he says, "You need to speed up your search."

"I know" she says as she takes out her portable computer from her large bag and begins researching other places.

Seeing that she is pre-occupied, he takes out his phone and sees the time is 4:17 pm. He sends Cassandra a message asking her to meet him at his place at 5:30 pm.

"What are your plans for tonight if you are not heading back to Silver Lake right away?" Avery asks.

He puts his phone away and says, "Having dinner and drinks with some of the government officials."

She nods and says, "Nice, I'm sorry again about all of this. I hope you didn't get in trouble for taking off."

"I've been there long enough it is no problem; besides, we had our big meeting already this morning."

They get off the train and head towards her apartment, he sees the time is 4:45 pm, he knows he is cutting it close with the time, for once he takes Avery back to her apartment it takes 30 minutes from her place to get to his apartment. As they walk down the busy street, he sees they are heading in the direction of Cassandra's apartment, feeling his anxiety rise, he knows the chances of them passing her are slim, for most likely she already left if she was going to pick up food.

He soon realizes he spoke to soon, for he hears Avery call out, "Cassandra? Is that you?" and sees his daughter begin to walk towards the left away from him.

Cursing to himself he slowly walks up behind Avery and sees his daughter talking to her. She is dressed in a navy and white polka dot dress but is wearing white tennis shoes, her hair down, she is wearing a large white hat to complete the look.

"Wow! I love your dress, your shoes, the hat, you look so cute" Gale hears Avery say as he approaches.

He hears Cassandra nervously laugh as she says, "Thanks Avery, that means a lot coming from you-I think I have upped my sense of style since you started styling me." He knows Avery is unaware that she is nervous, for she had told him that Avery does not engage in conversation with her at AMB outside of their styling appointments together.

"Do you know my Father? Gale Hawthorne? He's been to a couple of our shows, but I don't know if you two have formally met-Dad, I want you to meet Cassandra Rawlings, she's one of the models over at AMB." and Avery steps aside and reaches her arm out for Gale to move closer.

Forcing himself to act as normal as possible, he clears his throat as he says, "We met about a year ago, at the first show I came to, nice to meet you again." and he quickly extends his hand for her to shake.

"Yes, hello-nice to see you again" Cassandra says while she quickly shakes his hand.

Oblivious to the awkwardness of the situation, Avery says, "Is that food I smell?"

He sees her look down in embarrassment as she says, "Yes, I cooked a casserole."

"Looks like you are going on a romantic date" Avery says teasingly.

Gale is glad he stands over a foot taller than his daughter, for she cannot see his face at the moment, she is shorter than Sienna and it is unknown if Juniper will grow taller but for now the two were the same height. His face shows his discomfort at Avery's comment.

He sees he is not the only one uncomfortable. "Yeah, I am, I'm heading over to my boyfriend's place" Cassandra says, deciding to make it known to Gale that this was a rule she wants broken.

"Well, you will have to tell me about him the next time I style you." Avery says.

"Sure" Cassandra says in a tone implying that was the last thing she plans to do.

"Well, we have to get going, I promised my Father I'd have him back to my place by 5, he has dinner plans tonight with important people at the President's mansion."

"Nice meeting you again" Cassandra says, and she quickly turns around and begins walking away.

"Bitch" Avery says under her breath as she and Gale turn around and begin walking away.

"Was that really necessary?" Gale says.

"What?" she says defensively.

"I heard what you said under your breath."

"I tried to be nice to her and did you hear that smug response? She is a bitch Dad-all of the other models think it as well. No one likes her over at AMB."

Forcing himself to keep a straight face he says, "You didn't have to say I had dinner plans at the President's mansion, you make it sound as if I am more important than other people."

"You are! You have done more for Panem than pretty much anyone else has. Besides Mom."

"And the President."

"Look-I was hurt she rebuffed my offer of getting to know her better ok?"

Gale smiles, relieved to see that his daughter has not become a mean person and says, "Sounds like you have let the other models influence you."

"Only when it comes to her-she has no friends at AMB, she mostly keeps to herself there."

"Doesn't mean she doesn't want any" he says.

"I know, I'll try."

He wraps his arm around her as they reach her apartment, quickly heading inside.


August 10th (Monday)

Avery sits in a taxi as she is being driven back to her apartment. Feeling sick, she had to leave work and wanting to get home as soon as possible she decided to take a taxi, not wanting to wait for the train.

She looks out the window, trying not to throw up. She is unsure what is wrong with her, for she felt fine this morning. By lunchtime it was a different story.

Since it was a Monday, not as many people were going to lunch at this hour, but it was busy as usual on a typical day in the Capitol. She continues to stare out the window when suddenly, she sees something that catches her eye. She sees her Father walking down the street, recognizing him anywhere, she quickly sees he is walking beside and discreetly holding hands with a young, tall woman and as Avery turns her head as the taxi passes by, she sees the woman beside him is Cassandra!

Not believing what she has just seen, she yells to driver, "Stop!" The driver pulls the car over and Avery gets out, ignoring him when he tells her that he owes her money for she pre-paid for a trip that was longer than the one he provided.

She begins running down the street, trying to catch up with Cassandra and her Father. She briefly saw Cassandra in black sleeveless mini dress, her Father in his usual work clothes.

She finally sees them ahead of her and sees them enter a restaurant. Once she in front of the restaurant, she peeks in and watches Cassandra and Gale head to the back to get seated. Knowing her Father, he most likely made a reservation. She also realizes, that the 'boyfriend' Cassandra mentioned a couple of weeks ago is in fact her Father and that her Father had lied to her when he said he was meeting co-workers for dinner, he was really meeting her. But meeting her where?

She is furious, still feeling extremely nauseated but rage overtaking her, she forcefully opens the door and begins heading towards the back, ignoring the server. She sees her Father and Cassandra sitting at a two-person table in a back corner and before anyone notices her, she approaches full speed towards the table. She sees her Father's eyes shift her way as she comes up to the table and slaps Cassandra hard across the face.

"Bitch!" Avery screams at the top of her lungs.

Avery watches as Cassandra's hand reaches towards her jaw, feeling the sting from the slap. Avery goes in again for another slap but feels her Father's hands on her, forcefully pulling her back and away from the table.

"Stop it!" he says loudly.

Drawing looks from everyone in the restaurant, it is complete silence as everyone is in shock as they watch Avery try to wrestle herself out of Gale's grip. Gale firmly holding on to her.

Still shocked and unsure what to do, Cassandra slowly rises from her seat and says, "Gale" timidly.

But hearing Cassandra call her Father 'Gale' sets Avery off even more. "Shut up whore-you stay away from my Father!"

Once people realize the situation in front of them, snickering ensues. Cassandra glances around and sees people looking at her in judgement, she sees some of them looking at Avery in pity, while some look at Gale in disgust.

"Let's go" Gale barks at Avery and he releases his grip and grabs her by the hand, pulling her away. Avery turns around and shouts, "You are finished at AMB, I will make sure of it." Gale then begins walking faster, dragging her away like a child.

Once they are outside and walking away from the restaurant, Gale turns around and releases her hand. She glares at him and says, "You disgust me."

He looks down at the ground in shame then raises his eyes to hers and says, "I'm sorry I lied to you."

"How could you do this to Mom? How could you be with a cheap whore like that?"

"Stop calling her a whore."

"I'll call her whatever I like" Avery says seething.

"No, you won't. I will not allow you to disrespect the woman I am with."

"Excuse me?" Avery says, enunciating each word.

"Avery, Cassandra and I are together, we have been for a while."

"No" she says in response furiously shaking her head.

"I wasn't ready to tell you or anyone else. I'm sorry."

"You've been together all this time? Ever since my first fashion show?" the conversation from two weeks ago replaying in her head when she thought she was introducing them.

"Yes" he says softly. "But it has been off and on."

Her glare returns and she says, "I can never look at you the same way again. You are disgusting! What is this, a midlife crisis Dad? You need a hot model to get it up?"

"Apologize, now" Gale says through gritted teeth.

"No. I do not expect you to be celibate, but I will not accept you being with someone who is such a downgrade compared to Mom. Not to mention the fact you are twenty years older than her! You should be ashamed of yourself." And before she can turn around to leave, she finds herself bending over, throwing up uncontrollably.

A/N: This story will probably not be updated until next week.