A/N: I hope you guys liked that last chapter. If you guys made a correct guess as to who his savior is, good for you.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Just What We Need

I regain consciousness, my vision blurry from my dreamless sleep. I see that it's much darker than it was, and I realize that I have something obscuring my right eye. I feel it, and I recognize the texture, it feels like the gauze I had in my small medkit. I also realize that it is far too big to have come from my medkit. I slowly sit up, and I look around, and I find something silver nearby. It looks like a parachute, the ones that sponsors send. I wonder what was in it, or who it was for. As I look around, I notice someone behind a tree. The figure retreats quickly, but I know who it is, it has to be Rue. She's the only one who would hide and watch someone.

I stand up slowly, still slightly dazed, but now I have coordination, and walk over to the tree, and call to her quietly. She comes out from behind the tree when I reassure her I won't hurt her. She follows me back to where I was and sits with me.

I ask her, "What happened?"

"It was the boy from 7, he ambushed you with this." She pulls out a rock sling. It looks like it was carefully crafted, definitely a product of the Cornucopia.

"And then tried to finish me off." She nods. I put two and two together, "Were you the one that hit him, Rue?"

She confirms this, showing me her slingshot, and I reach over to her, and lightly hold her hand, "Rue. I don't know how to thank you for that." She saved my life.

"No need." She simply leans into me, like my brothers and Posy would. "7 didn't get far, before his cannon went off."

Suddenly, the realization sinks in, I just killed someone. So what if I was defending myself, I still killed someone. Someone died directly by my hands. Strangely, I don't feel an emotion, no sorrow, horror, or even self-loathing for what I did. I simply feel a vacuum of human emotion when I call the thought. Am I ruthless, just like the careers? Am I really as bad as they are?

Before I lose myself further, I speak to keep my sanity, changing the subject entirely. "You know, we should go check my snare traps."

She gives me a little mischievous smile, just like the one she had when she stole Cato's knife. She turns and pulls out two squirrels impaled on sticks. They're already cooked. "When did you go get these?"

"After that parachute came in." She hands me the larger squirrel. "It had a large bandage and some kind of cream. There was also a small bottle with a syringe." A gift from the sponsors to help me heal up, thanks Haymitch. "There was a note in it. It said, Cream first, injection second. H."

I start wondering, "Have you gotten any parachutes?"

She shakes her head. Part of me is saddened, but then again, she doesn't look like she actually needs any.

She asks me, "How are you feeling? That fight did a real number on you."

"My head still hurts, but at least now I can see and walk."

She looks me in the eye, "Katniss is far off now. I was following her, but then I saw you. Something told me it'd be worth it to stay by you, and it was right."

This little girl is absolutely amazing.

"They, Cato and the others, are further down the river, they haven't been there long."

"All of them?"

Rue nods. "They were talking about you guys. Again. They're trying to hunt you both down. Clove especially seemed angry."

"Those crazies have a whole lot of reason to envy me and Katniss." Mostly because of our training score. The people with the highest scores are the most prime of targets.

I decide it's time for us to call it for a night. We find the tree I've been using, and climb up to a branch, and I tie the both us to it, with Rue sitting in front of me, lying against my chest. The sleeping bag is big enough for us to fit both our legs in. With that, she drifts off to sleep. But me, with my earlier brush with death, find it hard to sleep for a while. That, and I can't shake the feeling that I'll hear a cannon go off and see Katniss's image in the sky.

I wake up late into the morning, my head feels so much better now. I realize that I'm alone, Rue is gone. The rope around me is tied in a different knot than that which I tie. She must've untied herself and left, but I don't know why. I take the bandage on my head off, and look at my reflection on my water canteen, I don't see anything that looks like bruise. That cream Rue was talking about seems to have done its job to the extreme.

The emotion of remorse and regret finally sink in when I start thinking about the boy from 7, the boy I killed. Whatever defense my mind was using to keep me safe from myself has now failed. I begin to tear up, this is something I can never take back. This was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's nephew, maybe someone's boyfriend. One of the 23 lives destined to be snuffed in this arena, was now by own hand. I just brought a family's greatest dreadful fear to life. Even if I was defending myself from him, it doesn't change that I still killed someone.

My mind quickly regains its defense mechanism, and forces me to be alert of my own surroundings. I quickly notice a large smoke column nearby. It's on the other side of the river, and its thick and black, it's a fresh fire. I wonder who started the fire that got out of control. Rue told me Katniss went that way, but I don't hear a cannon, and one didn't wake me up in the night. I get out of the tree and make my way to the river for a drink. Maybe she made it past the area where the is started.

As I start drinking and refilling my canteen, I notice that the smoke column suddenly and dramatically thins before vanishing completely. No forest fire that produces a smoke column of that magnitude goes out that quickly. I can easily guess that the fire was a product of the game makers. Guess the fight I had yesterday wasn't action enough for them.

I go and I start setting my snares back up for the day, as well as checking the ones from the night. They didn't catch much, just one rabbit.

Before I can start to do anything with it, I hear Rue's voice call for me. She's climbing down a nearby tree.

"Rue? What's up?"

"I found Katniss."

Great, now I can find her, and I'm not gonna leave her at all. "Where?"

Her face and voice aren't excited, more worried. "The other side of the river. That fire pushed her back to us. The careers found her and they chased her."

Oh my God. "Is she okay? I didn't hear a cannon." Oh my God, are they doing something to her for fun? If they are, those sick fucks will pay with blood and pain.

"They have her trapped in a tree. They couldn't climb after her, or shoot her with the bow, they're gonna and try and starve her out. I saw her doing something to her leg, and whatever it was, it clearly hurt her a lot."

I simply collapse back to the ground, covering my face with my hands. I feel just as helpless as I did during my nightmare. There's no pain or death right now, but it's just as bad. We can't do anything against 6 people, even if 2 of them are incompetent.

"Gale," Rue easily tells how I currently feel, "She'll be okay, we're gonna figure something out."

I know Katniss can last for a bit without food, but she'll be marooned there for days. Food is one thing, but water is another situation.

"I'll go back, and scout things. We'll find a way to help her." She comes over and sits in front of me, and I look at her.

"Rue. I don't know if there's anything that can be done. She can't move like you can between trees. And we'd be two against six. Plus, knowing her, she probably doesn't have any weapons, she probably took the first thing she could and then left."

Rue doesn't contest that tidbit. She'd been watching her before, she would've seen if she had a weapon on her. That and judging from the color of the pack she had earlier, she got it from the edge of the field too. But she does try to reassure me, "We don't know that. Maybe we can somehow lure them away from her."

I concede to her, I guess it's better to try to find a way out than to simply surrender. With my formality of permission, she goes off to the river, where I see her vanish into the leaves of the trees. I don't want to just simply give up on Katniss, but I have to be realistic. But she's right, if we can't attack them, we could very well distract them. If we set up decoy fires, maybe that'll do the trick.

It's well into the afternoon when she comes back. This time, she seems more optimistic, compared to earlier today when she seemed disappointed.

"I think I know a way to get the careers away from Katniss."

I stand up and walk towards her. "Whatcha got?"

"I found a nest in her tree, a hive of some kind. I think they might be tracker jackers."

Those are some of the most lethal things in existence. They're mutts that look like wasps, products of the Capitol produced in the first rebellion. Their venom attacks your mind, inducing powerful hallucinations. I remember being told stories about them when I was young. The venom is also deadly, one sting alone is enough to send someone into a delirious state. In this arena, delirium is deadly to the victim, preventing them from being able to defend themselves. True to their name, they're said to chase down anyone who disturbs their nest trying to kill them.

"The branch the nest is on is thin enough to cut down."

"Rue, you are brilliant."

"I signaled to Katniss to try and drop it on them, but she made it clear she didn't have anything to cut it down with."

I remember something. "Wait I think I may have something." I reach to the knives on my belt, and I found the knife. It was the one with a ridged side, like a saw. It can probably cut through the branch in short order.

"How are we gonna get this to her?"

Rue seems more than ecstatic, "I can."

"Okay, I have an idea." I scoot in closer to her. "Let's get this to her early in the morning. Odds are she'll be awake before the careers. She can drop it on them then, catch em off guard."

Rue responds, "Good."

For some reason, Rue suddenly changes the topic. "How's your head?"

"Much better. Been better however."

She stands up and looks at the spot where I was hit. "There's hardly anything here. Barely even a trace of a bruise. You're lucky, you know that right?"

She has no clue. "Oh I know I'm lucky. Lucky that you were around when that happened."

"Not what I meant. You're lucky that the injury wasn't worse. Had that sling been stronger, your image would've been the one in the sky."

"Guess I won the lottery twice in that case." She's been so concerned about me, I haven't shown anything about her. "But what about you? Where's Thresh?"

She sits next to me after checking the spot on my head. "He knew I didn't really need protection in the truest sense. He left to the wheat field not far from the lake. He's been hiding in there like a land shark. It's working, the careers left him be."

Smart guy. "I guess what works, works."

She leans into me. It brings back a familiar feeling, one I get from Rory and Prim. It's so bad when I think about it. Just the sheer possibility that people so young can be put into this death trap is awful enough on its own. Then for the two of us, we live in some of the worst conditions anyone can imagine.

"You know Rue? Back home I got three younger siblings. Two brothers, and a sister. The oldest brother is your age. We spend a lot of time simply sitting around like this."

She sits up straight and looks at me. "What are they like? Your family?"

I tell her all about my family. Particularly my dad, though that's more for me. More so that I can keep his memory alive in my head. Posy, how she's still so young and has yet to learn the true cruelty of the world. Vick, not old enough to be reaped, still has a lot to learn. Rory, spunky as ever, rebellious, and loves to make fun of me and Katniss. It's not often that kids can be kids in this world.

Rue tells me about her family as well. About her parents back home and her five younger siblings. She told me about the sheer heartbreak and the heart-wrenching scream her mother let out, especially when the escort asked for a volunteer, the former of which they didn't air. She also told me how she helps her family in a very risky way. She forages for food in their fields for more food, an action for which there is severe punishment. Kind of mirrors Katniss, in that she and I illegally hunt out in the woods outside of our district.

After the sun sets, I suddenly have an idea. "Rue, I need you to take me to the careers's camp."

"Why?"

Then I remember, the sun already set. It's too late, too dark. "Never mind. It's too late."

She pulls my face to look at her, "Don't leave me hanging, I wanna hear what your idea was."

"It doesn't matter, it's too late, too dark."

She retreats back, and pulls something from my bag. The full moon lights things up just enough for me to see it's my sunglasses. "Rue, what are you doing?"

"Just put these on." I don't see any point in protesting, so I put them on. She reaches to the left leg, where I remember the button is. Suddenly, the whole area's lit up. It's in a green like texture, but very clear. Rue's eyes are glowing with this, and then I realize, they're night vision. How could I have been such an idiot? "Wow, how did I not know these were night vision?"

Rue simply shrugs. "Will you tell me your idea now?"

I explain to her my idea, for us to scout the area around the careers's camp, and determine where they would run first. I want to do this so I can set a trap for one of them. Make sure that one of them doesn't escape from the tracker jackers.

She makes it clear that she doesn't like the idea. But I can take a guess that we both know that our lives are at stake here. We stop when we can clearly see the fire the careers started in the distance.

"Rue, you can get a better view of the area." I hand her my night vision glasses. She seems to understand what I mean, since she can climb trees and move through them swiftly.

She nods to me. "You stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can."

I watch her dark silhouette vanish into the leaves above me. "Good luck." I look over in the direction of the flames, and I think about what Katniss is feeling right now. I hope she's hanging in there.

She reminds me so much of Prim from back home. Home. Before the reaping. When me and Katniss were worried about entering the same mines where our fathers died. I wonder how things would've turned out had the reaping not turned out how it did. I start wondering if this is really any worse than the mines. I start thinking about all the what ifs. This was my last reaping, after this, I would've been condemned to a lifetime of working in the mines, 12 hours a day only to come home to a run down shell of a home, and quickly darkening my complexion to a coal dust color. It's a life that truly doesn't seem like it would be worth living. Then again, at least there's a chance at living a full life in the mines, in here, odds are I'll be dead in the next few days. I have been and will be lucky to keep seeing the light of the next day. A whole bunch have already fallen victim to these odds, and anybody could be next.

I'm startled out of my thought-filled by something hitting me. I impulsively react and pull out a knife looking for whoever threw it.

"Gale, it's just me." It was Rue.

"I've been trying to get your attention, but you were really lost. Thought that touching you would be too risky." Wow, she must have come back while I was staring off towards the light of the flame, and I didn't even notice her approach. I'm lucky that it was only her, and that nobody else came by and tried to sneak up on me again. I gotta make sure I don't do that again. I need to keep my concentration throughout this god-forsaken event.

"I'm sorry Rue. I was...thinking."

"Yeah well, think about this. I found something that might be of interest. Follow me."

She brings me to what looks like a tiny clearing. It's frighteningly close to the careers's camp, in fact, you can actually see them from here. Not just figures in the distance, but you can actually tell who's who from here.

Rue's voice drops to a low whisper, "I think. They'll run this way. The nest is directly on the other side of the tree."

Rue is really smart for her age. But I guess growing up moving through trees like she lives in them, you learn how to perceive things differently.

I can set a good trap here, a snare designed to trap someone by their foot. I need a counterweight of some sort, maybe Rue's backpack.

I ask her what she has in there, and she tells me it's not much. I tell her my idea to use it for a counterweight, and she likes it. She puts the rest of her stuff in my own bag, and we quietly start gathering rocks to use for a counterweight. We fill the bag until it's definitely heavy enough that depending on how we set it up, could actually hang someone by their foot if they're light enough.

I have her go up a nearby tree, with the rope I had, measuring it out so that it's the proper length when I cut it, not giving the victim a chance to step away once they step on the trap. She had a small amount of wire, a thin but strong one. Good thing she kept it, cause I use it as the trip wire for the bag. After working for a couple hours, we finally have the trap done. I just hope that the trap works, and we didn't just waste our time.

We go to a tree a little bit further away to call it a night.

Song credit: Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap