The alarm beeped and Gale turned it off immediately. He hadn't slept much. He hated waking up at four thirty in the morning, especially when there was the risk of waking up Johanna, who hadn't been sleeping very well as of late.

It seemed that pregnancy had caught up to her. On top of getting tired easily, she had started to feel sick often with headaches and other various minor ailments that kept her up. Gale had made it his personal mission to let her sleep as long as possible when she was able to sleep. He hoped he got to the alarm before it woke her.

Considering a hand grabbed his arm, he had not gotten so lucky.

Gale chuckled. "I gotta go,"

Johanna groaned into her pillow. "It's so early,"

"I know." Gale replied, rolling over to face her.

Johanna turned her head to look at him. "Why can't you just stay here?"

"Come on, Jo. You know I can't."

Johanna groaned again.

Gale had to go to District 3 for mandatory crisis training, which he would've had to do regardless of moving to District 12. There was a hovercraft coming to get him at five twenty-six on the dot and he would be gone, with no contact allowed, for two weeks, and he had to be there 20 minutes early. Only blood relations and spouses were allowed contact in the case of an emergency, and Johanna was not any of those things to him. He felt alright leaving at least. Not that he worried much about Johanna, as he knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but he felt more comfortable leaving her around people she knew than he would've if they would've stayed in 2 where she knew no one.

He kissed her forehead. "I really have to get going, Jo."

Reluctantly, she let go of his hand.

He smiled and got out of bed. He had a feeling she wasn't going to back to sleep at least until he was gone. They had not gone more than a day at a time without being able to contact each other. That was going to be the hardest part, he knew it. And she had admitted it a few days prior also. He was really good at talking her out of panicking and out of nightmares. She was very good at snapping him out of his occasional moods of self-loathing. Two weeks without that was going to be hard. He tried to keep the mood light, though, as he got ready.

"I'm sure you and Katniss are going to get into heaps of trouble the next few days." Gale said as he dug through his bag, double-checking he had everything he needed. Peeta had two wedding cakes to work on, which meant he was going to be very busy for the next little while and it was no secret Katniss enjoyed having her friend around.

Johanna chuckled softly.

He left his bag on the floor and went off to do the other things he needed to do in the house before he left. By the time he was finished, he had just enough time to say goodbye to Johanna and gather his things before it was time for him to leave.

Unsurprisingly, Johanna was still awake when he returned to the room, the blanket pulled up to her chin. He leaned over.

"I'll be back in two weeks,"

She nodded.

"Don't celebrate me being away too much while I'm gone."

She smiled at that and he kissed her.

"I love you,"

"I love you too," she responded.

"Try to get some more sleep?"

"I'll try," she replied with a small smile. She grabbed his hand and placed it on her abdomen. "We'll miss you,"

"I'll miss you too," He kissed Johanna again. "See you soon, okay?"

She hummed in response and he smiled a bit and headed out of the room.

He walked past the closed door of the room they had decided would be the baby's. It was a work in progress, but it was slowly but surely turning into a livable space. It was cleaned top to bottom and Peeta was going to be painting it, and he was simply thrilled with the responsibility. He was going to paint the room white first, and then he'd do more once there was some sort of decision on theme or color.

Gale hoped he wouldn't miss too much in the two weeks he was away. A lot could happen pregnancy wise in that time span. At least he knew there'd be plenty of people willing to fill him in on all the things Johanna would probably not mention when he returned.

He walked out of the front door into the dim, early morning light, and locked the door behind him. He slid his bag over his shoulder and headed down the sidewalk out of Victor's Village and towards the side of town where hovercrafts took off and landed, near the law enforcement building that was being built- where his job would move to once the building was completed.

There were two other people waiting for the hovercraft when he got there, and one more came shortly after. Soon, the aircraft landed and they boarded it, and before Gale knew it, they were in the sky, already headed out of 12.

"Do you like it in 12, Gale?" Asked one of the other people on the aircraft, a smiley 23 year old District 8 transplant named Eisley asked him over the low rumble of the hovercraft. She had thick, curly hair that was pulled back from her friendly face into a ponytail. She was a pleasant person who was a friend of Rory's. She was a data analyst, and a pretty darn good one at that, as she was going to the crisis simulation. She was excellent with numbers.

"Yes, it's nice to be back." He responded, to which Eisley nodded.

It really was. And now that he was back, two weeks was far too long to spend away from it without Johanna.