DISCLAIMER: HG CHARACTERS DO NOT BELONG TO ME, BUT OC ONES DO

Chapter 157-The Mistake

March 6 (Saturday)

Cassandra looked out the window of her bedroom. She was in Red Rocks; at the rented cottage she had picked out with Gale. She has come here every week since they found the cottage six weeks ago. The weekend before Juniper's birthday he had met her in Red Rocks, and they had spent the day looking at places, once she saw the medium sized cottage, she fell in love with it immediately. The cottage has one floor, with a wide covered front porch. After walking up the small steps and into the front door, one enters the great room. The great room was large with a stone fireplace and has a small, built in mini bar on the other side of the room. A small hallway connects the great room to the kitchen, and the kitchen had a large pantry and a connecting small dining area attached. Behind the great room and kitchen area, were two bedrooms in the back, with a laundry room in between the two rooms. Her room was slightly bigger than the second bedroom, but both bedrooms were decent sized rooms with large closet space. She figured a second bedroom would be convenient knowing that eventually, she would want to invite her friends or her cousins to the cottage. There was one bathroom, which was right beside her room with a linen closet across the hall.

The cottage was much larger than her apartment, and it was brand-new construction. Gale signed and paid for a one-year lease. Feeling uneasy at first that he was paying for yet another lease, this time one with a high price tag, she began to feel less guilty about it once he explained to her that the cottage was "their place". The cottage had come furnished, and over the last few weeks she had begun decorating.

The routine so far had been that when she arrived on either Thursday or Friday, Gale would take a longer lunch break and take the train over to Red Rocks and have lunch with her. And except for Juniper's birthday weekend, he was able to spend Saturday afternoon's and early evenings with her at the cottage since Juniper did not return to riding lessons until mid-March. And she had begun spending time in Silver Lake, she had been invited to dinner with Gale and Juniper the night of her birthday, eating at a restaurant that overlooked the lake. While she was not present when Gale had surprised Juniper with her birthday gift, and Juniper had eagerly talked to Cassandra about her surprise gift, giving Cassandra all the details. The next day Gale and Juniper had gone to Hazelle's to have a larger celebration with the rest of the family. While she had been invited by Juniper herself to come, she politely declined. Because Gale's Mother-in-Law would be at Hazelle's, for she and Sienna had gotten a hovercraft ticket to fly in Saturday morning and fly out Sunday morning. Not feeling she was at the point yet that she felt comfortable meeting his late wife's Mother, even though she could have easily only stayed a couple of hours then leave to head back to the Capitol, she decided against it and returned to her apartment on Saturday instead.

She had also spent time in Silver Lake with Gale and Juniper going to some of the other restaurants and some of the shops. While it was too cold to spend time at the lake, they were able to take quick walks near the lake while shopping. Gale had told her that the lake was beautiful, and she saw first-hand that he was not exaggerating.

She moves away from the window and goes over to the nightstand and picks up her phone and sees the time is 1 pm. He still had not returned any of her calls or messages yet. Knowing he was still angry at her after what happened yesterday, she did not realize he would still be this angry, and she begins to softly cry while her thoughts turn to yesterday.

While she had spent a lot of time with Gale and Juniper in Silver Lake, she had not gone to the house, the closest she had gotten to it was from the inside of a taxi when she had taken the train into Silver Lake, and a taxi had taken her to the house to pick up Gale and Juniper when they had gone to dinner once on the other side of town. Once they had finished dinner, she had taken the train back to Red Rocks while Gale and Juniper returned to the house. But yesterday, Gale had unexpectedly gotten a call from his financial lawyer and had to take off the rest of the day to go to the Capitol to meet with him. He had called her and asked if she could be at the house by 5:30 pm. He explained that Juniper was having two of her friends over to spend the night, and that they would be dropped off around 6 pm. He asked if she could keep an eye on them until he returned home which he figured would be between 7:30-8:30 pm. For he did not arrive in the Capitol until almost 3 pm. He explained he wanted her there just in case there were any issues or delays with the trains, for on Friday evenings the trains were more crowded than usual due to weekend travel and he may be delayed in getting a commuter train back to Silver Lake.

She arrived at the house right before 5:30 pm, Juniper happily greeting her when she walked up the front steps of the large house. Having only seen the house from the outside, she was not surprised to see that the house was even more beautiful on the inside as well. She saw the hardwood floors leading from the foyer down the hallway into the back area of the house, the gourmet kitchen, and the multiple rooms on the first floor. While being given a quick tour of the first floor by Juniper, she saw a large, fluffy white cat with a gray face and gray coloring on the cat's ears and legs curl around her legs. Juniper explaining that was her cat Smokey. She bends down and pets the large cat, the cat immediately plopping down and exposing its belly to Cassandra while she continued to pet him.

She is in awe when she sees the large great room, with the large stone fireplace. Juniper goes over and pets another cat, a smaller black cat that was curled up in a ball on the floor in front of the fire. She tells Cassandra the black cat was named Jade. Juniper tells Cassandra that she will have to come to the stables soon to see Cedar, her horse. Officially named 'Cedar the Magnificent' due to his striking all black coloring, she called him Cedar for short. Cassandra had not seen the horse since the auction, but found it fitting that Juniper gave the horse a tree name, like hers. Just as Cassandra was about to tell her she would love to see the horse again, the doorbell rings, one of her friends having arrived.

Cassandra meets Juniper's friend Yari, and Juniper tells Cassandra they are waiting on one other friend to arrive. Juniper and Yari head up to Juniper's room with Yari's bags and Cassandra takes out her phone and sends a message to Gale letting him know that she was at the house and that Yari was there.

Gale sent a message back telling her there was plenty of food in the refrigerator if she did not want to wait to order pizza with Juniper and her friends. He also tells her to make herself comfortable in the great room.

It is not lost on her that he is implying in the message that she is to remain on the first floor. While waiting in the great room, she sees on the mantle of the fireplace, pictures of Gale with Katniss with their children, all at different times in their life. She sees a picture of a much younger Gale and Katniss, both appearing to be in their late twenties or early thirties. She sees Katniss is wearing a silver dress and he a black suit with a silver tie. She then sees pictures of Gale and Katniss with Sienna and Avery as young girls, another picture with the four of them with Jack, who looked to be about 2 or 3. And then she sees three pictures with Juniper included. She sees one picture with Juniper as a baby, with an older looking Sienna and Avery with Jack still looking like a young boy. The next picture she sees is of Juniper looking to be about 8 or 9, with Sienna, Avery, and Jack clearly looking like teenagers in the picture. She sees Gale and Katniss begin to age in this picture, but both still looked young, especially considering they had four children. In the last picture, Juniper looked to be about 12 or 13, Cassandra guessing this was the last family picture taken, for Gale looks the same as he does now and Sienna and Avery do not look much different either. The only one looking different was Jack, for in the picture he still looked like a teenager, and now he has a more mature look.

She then hears the doorbell ring and turns around and begins walking to the front door. By the time she reaches the door, Juniper has already raced down the stairs and opened the door for her friend Blythe. Cassandra is quickly introduced to Blythe and her Mother, Juniper introducing Cassandra as her Dad's 'girlfriend'. She sees Blythe's Mother raise her eyebrows in surprise but remains polite and tells Cassandra it was nice meeting her as she heads out the door. Knowing that the woman was casting judgement as everyone did by the apparent age difference, for some reason it felt worse here in Silver Lake for she felt an extra level of judgement being passed on her that she could not explain.

After Blythe's Mom had left, Juniper asked her friends if they wanted to order pizza, confirming that they did, they all head into the kitchen to place their order. Juniper asks Cassandra what she would like and tells Cassandra that she will order a meat pizza for that is what her Dad likes, but that she will also get a veggie pizza for that is what they like.

"I will eat the meat pizza; I am not picky" she says.

"Are you sure? I can order a small cheese one if you want. My Dad left plenty of money."

But Cassandra assures it is fine, for she was not all that hungry anyway but did not tell Juniper that. While Juniper calls the order in for the delivery Blythe turns to her and says, "I like your hair, it is really cool."

Her hair now lilac in color, she had enjoyed the light purple coloring but again had found it hard to maintain, needing to frequently get it re-colored. And while she had gotten the occasional compliment outside of the Capitol when her hair was silver with holographic highlights, she was surprised that she had gotten more compliments with the lilac color.

"Thanks" she says with a genuine smile.

The food comes 45 minutes later. Cassandra eats at the large kitchen island with Juniper, Yari, and Blythe as the three teenagers tell Cassandra about their school, and their likes and dislikes of Silver Lake.

"It must be exciting to live in the Capitol" Yari says.

"It is, but sometimes it can be hectic. Being here makes me realize I have forgotten what peace and quiet sounds like."

"It can be so boring here sometimes, most of us have relatives in the surrounding villages if they don't all live here in Silver Lake, not downtown or in the Capitol like Juniper here" Blythe says.

"And most of us don't have famous parents" Yari says teasing.

Juniper rolls her eyes and explains to Cassandra that she prefers to keep a small close-knit group of friends, explaining that there is another girl in their class that they are close with. But she is only close with about six of her classmates, explaining that she takes more after Sienna, who also only had a small group of friends. She tells Cassandra that Avery was extremely popular in school, and that Jack was very popular with the girls.

Seeing that Jack was an exact copy of Gale in looks, Cassandra was not surprised by this, and was not the least bit surprised to hear about Avery's popularity.

Once they are finished eating, the girls clean up and Juniper puts the pizza away for her Father to eat later. The three girls then retreat upstairs, Cassandra hearing their laughter as they run up the stairs.

She looks and sees the time is 7:53 pm. Knowing that Gale should be back within the hour, she goes back into the great room and sits down. The TV had been turned on while they were waiting for the pizza, and Cassandra flips through the channels trying to find something to watch. She sees another large white fluffy cat come into the room and lay down in front of the fire. She figures this cat must be Sophie, for the cat had the same color pattern as Smokey, but had darker color markings in the face, legs, and ears.

Suddenly she hears a loud noise from above. Worried that something happened, she goes upstairs and calls out to Juniper. Once she reaches the top of the stairs, she sees nothing but darkness, with light coming from one room. She heads towards that room and knocks on the door.

Juniper opens the door and apologizes to Cassandra, explaining that the three of them were playing around and that Yari had fallen off her bed. Yari comes to the door and says to Cassandra she is fine, giggling as she tells her what happened.

Cassandra tells her she will be downstairs, and once Juniper closes her bedroom door; she finds herself surrounded by darkness again. She feels along the wall for a light switch, eventually turning the hallway light on. She looks around and sees multiple doors, all of them closed except for two. She peeks in one room and sees it is a laundry room, and heads to the other door nearby. She sees the door is open as she approaches, and quickly realizes it must be Gale's room. Knowing she shouldn't go in but curiosity getting the better of her, she peaks inside and turns on the light by the door. Once inside she knows for sure it is Gale's room, for the room is extremely large. She sees a king bed, with identical lounge chairs in opposite corners. She looks around the room and sees a large bathroom. She figures the size of the bedroom and bathroom is almost the size of her apartment, for she saw two doors which she figures were most likely walk-in closets though she did not open them.

Just as she was about to leave, she sees some pictures on the large dresser by the wall. She goes over and sees individual pictures of Sienna, Avery, Jack, and Juniper, all at different ages, but she also sees individual pictures of Katniss, all at different ages as well. One of the pictures she recognizes, it is a picture of Katniss when she was crowned the victor of the Hunger Games alongside Peeta Mellark. But in this picture, it is a photo of only Katniss wearing a dress with a mockingjay pin on it. She had seen this picture of Katniss numerous times in District 5 in school when they were taught about the Hunger Games.

She picks up the photo and looks at it more closely. Knowing she should not let the picture bother her, for Katniss was the Mother of his children and his deceased wife, she cannot help but feel lesser than. She wonders how long this picture has been on his dresser. Has it been here the whole time? Was it placed there after Katniss died?

She puts the picture back as close as possible to where she found it. As she turns around, she sees an object dangling from right above his bed's headboard that catches her eye. Curiosity again getting the better of her, she approaches his bed and sees a circular object, brown in color, with a web inside. She sees beads and a single feather inside the web. Never having seen an object like this, she finds the object odd, but somehow mesmerizing. She leans forward onto bed and reaches out and touches the object, running her fingers along the edges of the circular part.

Suddenly she hears Gale say, "What are you doing" in an unfriendly tone.

She gasps as she turns around, quickly getting off the bed and saying, "Gale! You scared me."

But she sees he will not be offering any apology for she sees anger on his face and hears it in his voice as he says, "What are you doing in here? I know the lights were off when you came up here."

Feeling guilty she says, "They were, I….was curious to see your room."

He looks over to his dresser and says, "Did you touch my wife's picture?"

Shocked that he would notice that she didn't put the picture back in its exact place, she says, "Yes, but I put it right back" unsure of why she had to defend herself.

"I think it is best if you leave" he says coldly.

"Ok, I will be downstairs" she says as she heads towards the door.

But before she leaves the room, he shocks her again by saying, "You need to leave this house, you should go back to the cottage."

Crushed that he is treating her this way, she says, "Look, I am sorry. I know it was wrong for me to come up here, but-it was just a picture."

"You have no right to touch my wife's things!" he shouts at her.

Realizing that the object above his bed must have belonged to Katniss, she nods her head and says, "Trust me I know I don't. I'm aware you will never love me as much as you do her" and she quickly walks out and heads down the stairs.

She grabs her purse and pulls out her phone, calling a taxi. She waits outside on the front porch in the cold until the taxi arrives.

Figuring she would hear from him later that night, for it was not like him to not send a message. For even when they had fought in the past, he would still send a message as a way of reaching out. But before she went to bed, she did not hear from him, she pulls out her phone and types the following message to him:

I am sorry for what happened, I hope I can still see you tomorrow, I love you.

Tomorrow he was supposed to come to the cottage, for she wanted to look for a rug to put in front of the fireplace.

When she woke up this morning and had seen that he had not responded to the message, she became more worried. She sent the following message around 9 am:

I cannot stand it when we are angry with each other, words cannot describe how sorry I am.

Thinking for sure he would respond back; she takes a shower and once she is dressed and her hair fixed, she picks up her phone and sees he has not responded; she then begins to panic. She calls him, but he does not pick up and she leaves a rambling message, begging him to call her back.

She tries to calm her nerves down by reading, but she is not able to keep focus. She begins cleaning, trying to keep her mind from thinking the worst. Once she is finished cleaning, she begins pacing around the cottage, eventually going to her room, and staring out the window.

Coming to the realization that he was not going to respond or come over, she packs her bags and heads for the train station.


When Gale had gotten the call from his financial lawyer saying it was important that he come to the Capitol, he had no idea what his lawyer wanted to show him, only telling him it was imperative he come as soon as possible.

While he was still not comfortable with Cassandra going over to the house, he had no choice, for it was almost 1:30 pm and depending on how long the meeting with his lawyer would take, he may not be home till after 8 pm. He needed someone at the house for Juniper's friends would be coming over tonight, and he did not want Yari and Blythe's Mothers to think Juniper would be home alone all night.

Once he got to his lawyer's office, he was shocked by what his lawyer showed him. His lawyer had profusely apologized to him, explaining that the person responsible for the mistake has been suspended for two days. Not understanding at first why his lawyer was stumbling over his words and acting strangely, it soon all comes together. His lawyer explains that two months before Katniss had died, she had come to the Capitol and arranged a meeting, explaining that she had a package of items that she wanted entrusted at the lawyer's office upon her death. She had provided written instructions that the items were to remain in a safety deposit box in the Capitol and removed three years from the anniversary of her death and were to be delivered to Silver Lake.

The lawyer had explained that they had placed the items in a safety deposit box at a bank not far from their office, but that unfortunately one his assistants had incorrectly marked the date they were to remove the items from the safety deposit box. The assistant writing that the items were to be removed four years after Katniss's death, not three. The mistake was caught while the lawyer was inventorying the safety deposit boxes, for he needed to reserve more safety deposit boxes and needed to see how many boxes would be free in the upcoming quarter. He said while conducting the inventory he saw that Katniss's box was still occupied, and suspecting that something was off, he took out her original signed statement and saw that the items should have been delivered last August. Once he discovered that the assistant had incorrectly written the wrong date down and that was the reason the items were not delivered, he suspends the assistant for two days starting Monday and called Gale right away.

Gale accepts his lawyer's apology, telling him people make mistakes. His lawyer tells him that his practice does not make mistakes like this, for many loved ones who entrust items that go into a safety deposit box are items that have significant importance.

The lawyer hands Gale a box and tells Gale to take as much time as he'd like, and his lawyer then leaves giving him privacy.

He prepares himself as he opens the box, for he had no idea Katniss had gone to see their lawyer. Solidifying his belief that she hid her declining health, he sees inside the box a stack of letters addressed to him, Sienna, Avery, Jack, Juniper, and her Mother. He sees they each also have a recorded video message. He also sees framed pictures that he has never seen before, pictures he realizes she had taken of all of them over the years. Desperately wanting to see the video message, he opens his and begins watching it.

Seeing her face and hearing her voice brings tears to his eyes as soon as her holographic face emerges from the small device. Once the video ends, he takes out her letter and reads it.

Overcome with emotion, he sits by himself in his lawyer's office for he does not know how long. Realizing he needs to get back to Silver Lake, he puts all the items back in the box and leaves, heading for the train station. While waiting for the train to arrive, he receives a message from Cassandra letting him know that she arrived and that Yari was dropped off at the house.

He tries not to think about Cassandra or Katniss on the way home, for he was feeling conflicted after watching Katniss's video.

But once he arrived back at the house sees no one downstairs, his anxiety increases. He places the box on the island and heads upstairs. Once upstairs he hears Juniper and her friends outside the door of Juniper's room, he then sees the light to his bedroom has been turned on. He goes inside and sees Cassandra kneeling on his bed and touching Katniss's dreamcatcher.

He is furious, and he abruptly tells her to leave. He knows he is being irrational, but he does not care. After seeing Katniss's video, he does not want Cassandra anywhere near Katniss's things or their room. For he still looked at the house as their house and his bedroom as their bedroom. He cannot imagine sharing that room with anyone else and after watching the video, his feelings on the subject were reinforced.

Before he goes to bed, he sees Cassandra's message and sees her messages and listens to her message on his phone the next day. He knows he needs to apologize, but he can't bring himself to do it.

While he too could not stand it when they were not talking to each other, he still needed time by himself.

He takes out Katniss's letter and re-reads it, longing for the sense of familiarity and comfort in her words.

A/N: You will see what Katniss had written to Gale and Peeta in the next chapter, for this story is winding down and will be wrapping up….though I am moving at a snail's pace lol.