A/N: The games are almost here.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Not Backing Down

"..."

I just groan at the sound I just heard. I'm too tired to deal with this right now.

"...Hey..."

I still don't rouse from my semi conscious state. Whatever I'm hearing then starts hitting me with something soft. When I finally completely awaken, I can barely make out that it's Portia. I'm not feeling as invaded as I normally would, maybe because I know her well, maybe her gender, or maybe because she's already seen me when I was completely nude. Nonetheless, as internally upset I am, I try not to let it show.

"Hey Portia. What time is it?"

"8 in the morning." There's an undercurrent of apology in her voice. "I turned both your alarms off yesterday, though you might've needed the extra rest. The two of you need to get ready for your private sessions, which are in an hour."

Katniss is still asleep next to me. "I'll get her up, we'll be on time."

She turns to leave, "Good."

"Wait, Portia."

She turns to me.

"Can I talk to you alone before we go to the sessions?"

She nods, "Of course."

With her out of the room, I turn my attention to Katniss. I simply turn her so I can pick her up, and I carry her to the bathroom. I want to have a little fun, so I place her in the shower. Neither of us are clothed, so this is easy. I find a button that turns on ice cold water. The gurgling scream she gives is absolutely hilarious.

She's struggling to even stand. She groggily manages to croak, "Damn you, Gale."

When she finally gains enough energy to stand and turn the shower off, she glares daggers at me. I'm still laughing. "Cat, you made that so easy."

She tries to charge at me, but she barely has enough coordination to step over the edge of the shower, and she trips and slips right into my arms. She's freezing, but I don't pay any mind to it. "I. Am. Gonna. Fucking. Kill. You."

I still tease her, "Good luck."

I push her and myself back into the shower, and this time turn on warm water. "What time is it?"

"It's early. Portia woke me up."

Katniss, still groggy, leans into me. "Today's. The last day?"

I don't answer, she and I already know the answer to that question. The atmosphere becomes much more somber at that point. We don't talk for the rest of our shower. Mostly because we can't with our lips in constant contact. Nothing too crazy happens, unlike what has happened for the past three days. Today's far tamer than the last few days have been.

Breakfast was as monotonous as ever. Haymitch reminded us of everything we needed to know about the private sessions, again. Even he seemed annoyed, but felt he had to do it.

After breakfast, I went to the roof, saying I wanted to be alone for a moment, though really, I'm actually waiting for Portia.

"Gale?"

"Hey. Thanks for coming up."

"No problem, what do you need?"

I'm ever so grateful to have Portia, Cinna, Effie, and even Haymitch here. Had it not been for them, our stay here before what would be our last two weeks alive would've been dramatically worse and maybe dreary. The four of them made me, and I hope Katniss, feel rather content, since they treated us as humans, not just dirt from 12. "I need you to get me something for me, before the interviews."

"What?"

"A ring, that looks like it's from home."

"As your token?"

"I didn't bring anything with me from home, I was kinda busy."

Portia comes to me, placing her hand on my shoulder. "Of course I can. And that reminds me, does Katniss have a token of her own?"

I'm just about to say no, when I remember that she has the mockingjay pin I got for her on her birthday. "Yes. A gift I gave her for her birthday."

"Very good, Gale. I already have something in mind in for you."

"I can't wait to see what you in your infinite creativity will get."

Portia gestures for me to go with her. She brings me down to the elevator, on the way giving me some words of inspiration to help me get through the next few hours.

God almighty, the one thing I wish Haymitch warned us about was how much waiting for this eats away at your mind. Us being last makes all the tension build and build as we see the room slowly empty. So far, only the careers have taken up a long time, all 15 minutes. The others typically are taking 7-10 minutes. Women are going first, leaving me the very last one. When Rue's turn came, she took longer than most of the others, giving me the idea that she impressed the gamemakers enough that they waited for her to finish. Thresh took a long time as well. He's so strong that I wasn't surprised, he's probably showing off any abilities he has, since he almost literally didn't do anything with the other tributes.

Now it's Katniss's turn. Right after they call her up for her session, she gets up hesitatingly. I look at her, and I tell her, "You'll do fine Catnip."

She looked back at me, and seemed to relax slightly. She simply nods, then walks off to her session. I sit there alone for the first time in hours, and I feel exhausted. I guess doing nothing is as taxing on your mind as having too much to do. I can only focus on Katniss right now, thinking about how she's doing. I hope she uses the snares I taught her, and I hope that she doesn't lose her concentration with the bow. This keeps echoing in my head for every second, and every second feels like several minutes. Unlike everyone else, I don't realize and take estimate of how much time she's been in there. Finally, she comes back in and leaves, I don't know how much time she spent in there, so I have no clue as to what her score could end up being, based solely on her time.

Gale Hawthorne.

This is it. This is my last chance. Okay, I have knife-throwing, some arching skills, and I can set up a fatal trap that hangs the victim by their neck. I slowly walk inside, expecting the gamemakers to be overly bored with everything, the monotony of the tributes coming in and out. However, I was dead wrong, because they all seem to focus on me in an instant. Maybe the scuffle with the careers endeared us to them. Ironic. But regardless, I can't back down, I have to go forth, and I must do my best, it's my only chance.

I start where I'm most comfortable, the snare-setting. I quickly set up two traps, one that pig-snares the victim, the other that hangs the victim fatally. I decide to spice it up and take a few knives with me for a little show. I throw a single dummy onto the pig-snare trap. As the dummy spins and swings chaotically, I take a leap of faith in my knife-throwing abilities, and throw one. Even to my surprise, I hit the dummy in the dark red circle marking its heart. I saved the best trap for last, and when I throw the dummy onto the death trap, it works perfectly, hanging the dummy by its neck. I turn around to the gamemakers, and I see a lot of them looking at that in awe, maybe nobody's seen a trap like that before. The next thing I do is head to the bow and arrow. I take a bow proper to my size and a full quiver, and get a feel for its draw weight, and a feel for it in general. The set up is different now, similar to the knife throwing, with light up dummy targets. After prepping myself, I start the test. Only one chance.

I switch to automatic pilot, and program myself to simply respond, draw, shoot, get another arrow. It feels like the test ends as quickly as it started, and I look at the dummies, and I see that I hit only one in the dead red, the rest just in the chest area, where it would still be fatal without treatment. I look at the gamemakers, who to my surprise, seem impressed at the sight before them.

I finally do the knife-throwing test. I use the same tactic that I used with archery, moving myself to autopilot, letting muscle memory take over. This one was far better than my arching, with each knife thrown swiftly striking each dummy's heart. When the test is over, I see every dummy with a knife protruding from the darkest red. With the last of my unseen skills displayed, I turn to the obviously pleased gamemakers, and give a slight bow, before they dismiss me. They all seem to be happy with what they saw, but I don't feel like I did good at all.

I still feel like I'm running on autopilot when I return to the floor, I'm still running on my impulses. My instinct is telling me to find Katniss, and I find her in her room, lying down on the bed. I first see the clock, and it says it's almost 3 in the afternoon, to my surprise, I thought far more time passed. When Katniss sees me, she immediately gets up and comes over to me, and her words snap me out of my feeling of being on automatic mode.

"How do you think you did?"

"I don't know," I'm not lying, I'm definitely not certain about what they thought of me.

"Gale, don't leave me hanging, what did you do?"

When I told her the things I did in the time I had, she looked rather stunned. I guess I keep undermining my own skills. Maybe it's better that way.

"What about you, Catnip?"

She used something similar to what I did, using a snare trap designed to hang someone by the ankle, and then using the bow she had to shoot it in its heart. She then did the same archery test I did, with far more success, hitting each dummy in the heart, and one even in the head. Doesn't surprise me, she's the best shot I've ever seen in my life. That was all she did.

Both of us seemed inspired by one another's performances for the gamemakers. If they really liked us over these last four days, then we'll find out in less than two hours. I'm dreading the scores, especially because they could mean so many things either for or against us. If it's low, they may be dangerous predators waiting for us to let our guard down. If it's high, we know they're a legitimate threat. But no matter the reason for a score being low, if ours are, we're on our own, and we better be lucky if we're gonna survive this.

Portia comes into the room, telling us that the others want to know what happened in our sessions.

Effie seems enthusiastic and ecstatic, to say the least. Haymitch, always the more reserved of the group, simply smiles and compliments us. Cinna and Portia are elated. Everyone's excited for the scores, saying that the gamemakers and citizens already love the two of us. If the rumors ring true, we should be set with sponsors, especially if our scores are high.

Suspense is at its highest when the anthem plays on the holographic television. It ends with Caesar appearing, explaining how the score display will occur. He'll name the district, and its tributes, who will appear on either side of him. The score will materialize beneath each respective tribute.

District 1 of course has pretty high scores, Marvel has a 9, and the girl, who he names as Glimmer has an 8. No surprise that she got a comparably mediocre score since she's worthless with a bow. District 2, Cato and Clove both have a 10. I don't pay much mind to District 3, maybe Catnip is. District 4's boy got an 8, so he may be one to watch. The girl from 5, who he fittingly lists as Foxface, got a 5. Once again, she makes it impossible to get a read on her, smart move on her part. I don't pay much mind to the rest of the tributes until we get to 11. Rue got a 7, good for her, she stands at least some kind of a chance. Guess the gamemakers found value in how she could move between trees like a bird. Thresh has a 9, probably for his sheer strength, he stands a chance too.

Finally it's our turn. Katniss is on Caesar's left, I'm on his right. Our images are there for what feels like forever before the numbers finally appear. I expected nothing greater than 8, at least for me. Nobody says anything when the numbers appear on the screen, 11. Both of them. Are 11s. I couldn't believe it, I thought I barely did good, let alone material to outdo the careers's scores. Katniss, I'm not surprise. Everyone in the room erupts in laughter and cheers, even the reserved Haymitch lets out a small cry of happiness. Even Caesar seems amazed by the score.

Haymitch says, "They must have liked your guts. No one, and I mean, no one stands up a career unless they have a death wish."

Effie immediately stands up, her jaw almost hitting the floor. Cinna sits up and proposes a toast to us. "To Katniss and Gale, the couple on fire!" I personally like that little moniker for us.

Portia stands next to Cinna, and they communicate nonverbally. She turns to me and Katniss and tells us, "Me and Cinna are gonna go get your outfits, go and get showered up, in your own showers, please."

Song credit: Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys