AN: Once again another huge thanks to my gorgeous reviewers: sam21, you're too sweet, fcajoymartin, glad you figured it out, MorningxLight, your reviews are too funny and so awesome, pk, thanks!, DemigodWiththeBread, hopefully I'll be a bit faster at updating now, IsForWinners, loved your review!, roj (twice!), Medea Smyke, don't worry, I'm all about happy endings, Butterfingers13, your English is great, and hollah, thanks, I'm pretty sure I will continue!

I've rewritten this chapter a couple of times so I'm just posting it even though I'm not even sure what it says any more. Erm, be gentle?

Chapter 7

Part I

The blaring of my alarm pulls me from sleep. I slap haphazardly at my bedside table until I hit the right button and the alarm goes quiet. My limbs are heavy and my head is aching and it's a struggle to haul myself into a sitting position and then up and off the bed.

I make the mistake of stopping in front of the mirror before I turn on the shower, and I realize that I look exactly as horrible as I feel. I had fallen asleep in my dress from last night, the strap ripped and ruined. My eyelashes clump together, a gluey tar of mascara and tears. My hair is a tangled mess, my face still red and puffy from crying.

And I have to work a morning shift at the bar.

"Damn you, Gale Hawthorne," I mumble, half angry and half devastated, before turning on the shower and starting what I know will be a horrendous day.

And I'm right. The bar is full of men: unshaven, hungover, rude. They make disparaging comments about the blondness of my hair and the tightness of my dress, and normally it wouldn't bother me. I would think about my home and my dad and the fact that I'm the daughter of a political leader and rebel martyr and suddenly the men's petty comments wouldn't mean anything. But today their words are like salt on an open wound: hurtful and biting, and the back recesses of my mind whisper, true. Come here, pretty thing. Where's my drink, you whore. Come give daddy a kiss, sweet. And Gale, groaning with desire, his fingers rough on my skin, "Yes, baby."

And I want to leave this bar forever. Throw down my tray and rip off the dress and damn them all for making me doubt myself and for thinking I'm trash, and for making Gale think I'm trash too.

But I can't leave because I need the money. Their money. And all I can do is tell myself to hold on. Wait until tonight to collapse into a heap and cry, cry, cry away my pain and my inadequacy and my broken heart.

Because men don't tip girls who cry.

So I laugh and smile and take their insults and their money, and the whole time I feel like I'm shattered inside.

And I'm also stressed because I have a massive exam this evening. So between shifts and during quiet moments, I hide in the kitchen behind a burlap sack of flour, and I try not to gag at the smell of frying eggs and old tomato juice and fermenting white liquor as I study lists of radioactive compounds and models of chemical structures and drawings of bonding patterns until my head spins and I feel faint.

And when my ten hours at the bar are finally over, my hair smells like grease and smoke and my dress is pinching uncomfortably tight under my arms and I feel sticky with sweat. But I don't have time to go home and change. I wash my face in the bathroom sink and slip on a pair of flat shoes and tie up my hair so the smell won't waft around every time I move my head, and then I grab all of my books and charts and my tall pair of boots and run up to the third floor where my school is located. And I keep my head down as I rush to class in case Mazer is waiting for me and I have to explain about last night.

But Mazer isn't waiting for me—only the examiner. And the other ten students, looking fresh and clean and prepared.

And the exam is a bitch. My head hurts from squinting at the tiny chemical structures I scratch out on the page and from trying to remember how obscure reactions proceed and from manually calculating the half-life of hypothetical compounds. And I'm dizzy because I've hardly eaten, and the smell of those infernal eggs still clings to my hair like old yolk.

And the whole time, all I can think is that I should have spent last night studying instead of going to that bloody, bloody Mockingjay Ball.

And finally at eleven o-clock at night, I gather my books and my boots and turn in my test paper and trudge to the elevator, my entire body weak with exhaustion and hurt and disappointment. I'm just so tired, and I feel fragile and bruised. Like I've been battered from all sides, and I just really, really want to give up.

When I finally reach my apartment, I fumble with the keycard, trying to slip it inside the reader without dropping any of my bags or books or papers. And inside it's so hot because of the broken air filters and the shelf is still a mess from when I was trying to find my bottle of liquor last night, and I just drop all my stuff in the middle of the room because I really couldn't care less. And as I make my way to my room, all I can think is that I want a shower and I want my bed and I don't want to wake up for a long, long time.

But as I approach my room I hear a strange clanking sound. And my stomach drops because I know I don't have a deadbolt, but I never thought it would be a problem because I don't have anything worth stealing. And I just want this horrific day to be over, and I can't imagine a worse way for it to end than this. And so I'm totally blindsided when I actually push open the door, and my mouth falls open because I can't believe what I'm seeing:

Gale Hawthorne is standing in the middle of my room, a wrench in one hand and the guiltiest expression I have ever seen plastered all over his face.

Part II

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

Pain. Pounding. Ugh.

I wake up groggily, pulled out of sleep by the intense pound, pound, pounding of my head. I sit up gingerly, my eyes gummy and my mouth stale.

I feel like shit.

And that damn pounding just won't stop. And the memories from last night, they won't stop either.

Madge kissing Mazer, her fingers curled around his neck, her eyes dusky and dark. Pound. Pound. Katniss grinning at Peeta, their fingers intertwined. Pound. Pound. Peeta looking up at me from the ground, his eyes swirling with pity and forgiveness. Pound. Pound. Pound. And Madge. I hate to remember Madge. Her face broken and her eyes wet, waiting, waiting for me to say something, anything to make it right.

Pound. Pound. Pound! POUND!

And that's when I realize that the pounding isn't coming from inside my head, but from outside my door. And I know that today I have so much shit to deal with and things to fix and regrets to add to my too-long list, but all I want to do is hide under the covers and never come out. And so I try to pull the sheets over my head and bury my face in my pillow, but the pounding just won't stop, and I know I should probably deal with it and my head is absolutely killing me, so eventually I haul myself out of bed and pad towards the door.

And of all the people I hurt last night: Madge and Mazer and Peeta and all those girls I led on and rejected, I find Katniss at my doorstep, a scowl on her face and her hand curled in a fist, ready to continue pounding and pounding, and a look of surprise because I actually opened up.

She recovers quickly with a "What the hell is the matter with you, Gale?" and a painful shove as she shoulders her way into the room.

And the only thing I can think is that at least I'm getting the least painful conversation over with first. Because conversations with Katniss are straightforward and therefore relatively painless. Not exactly like the quick rip of a bandage—more like getting executed with a shot to the head rather than being imprisoned and tortured for years. So I try to rub away the growing ache in my forehead, and I just go ahead and say the words that I know she wants to hear: "Listen, Katniss, I'm sorry about Peeta. It was way out of line."

And I expect her to yell a bit, rant that I don't understand him and won't give him a chance and that he never meant me any harm, maybe give me another shove, until all her anger dissipates like a Capitol flash bomb: banging and bright and destructive, but that burns out the instant after it melts all your skin away. But Katniss doesn't yell and she doesn't shove me either. All she does is turn to face me, and then she says, "Peeta? I'm not talking about Peeta."

And I have no idea what the hell she's talking about then, unless there's something elseI did last night that is worse than knocking out her precious Peeta. Her moony Mellark. And I can't think of anything except other insulting epithets for her dopey doughboy, and I'm pretty sure those won't be appreciated by present company, so eventually all I can manage is, "Huh?"

"I'm not talking about Peeta… at the moment," she amends, her voice laced with warning. Suddenly her eyes narrow, and the air crackles with her ferocity as she takes a step towards me. "No. At the moment I'm talking about Madge."

"Madge?" I say, my heart sinking.

"Yes, Madge," Katniss says, taking another step towards me. I don't even try to fight the impulse to back away.

"How do you know about that?" I say, and I hope she doesn't realize that I'm stalling for time. Because I don't know what to say about Madge. I haven't had a chance to process how much I've screwed things up with her, leave aside figure out how I'm supposed to explain my actions to Katniss.

"I don't know about it," Katniss answers, "and that's the problem. All I know is that she didn't come back to the Ball after she left with you, and when Peeta and I went to check on her, she answered the door sobbing."

"She was crying?" I say, and my voice cracks on the word.

"Yeah, but she kept saying she was fine. Insisted on it, then shut the door in my face." Katniss's eyes are on fire. "Now I want you to sit down, put a shirt on, and then tell me what the hell you did to her."

My instinct is to fight back at the accusation in Katniss's voice; tell her she's crazy and can't demand anything from me and to back the hell off. But I know she's right. That everything she's imagining I did to Madge is true, and probably worse.

So all I do is sigh and pick up a crumpled t-shirt of the bed and sit down at the tiny metal table while Katniss stands over me with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.

"Now tell me what happened," she says.

But the reasons for what happened go so far back that I don't even know where to start. I mean, how do I explain how I got all screwed up in the war and how I used to love Katniss so much that it hurt, and everything made me so mad and sad that I couldn't think and all I could do was drink. And somehow in the tangled mess of my mind and my life, I realized that Madge understood and being with her somehow made it better. Made me better—less angry and less reckless and more hopeful and maybe even happy. And that's saying a lot considering I never really thought I'd make it out of the war alive, leave aside feel things like hope and happiness again.

And how am I supposed to explain that when I saw Madge kissing Mazer Preston, I couldn't handle that blinding shock of hurt and betrayal a second time. How can I tell her that I couldn't handle my anger and my emotions, and that's why I went to the bar, and that's why I punched Peeta, and that's why I kissed Madge until her lips bruised. Because I couldn't handle it. The one whose been handling war and rebellion and starvation and raising a family and breaking the law to hunt for years and years. I just couldn't handle it anymore.

How can I tell Katniss all this when I haven't even had a decent conversation with her since she left for her first Games? How can I explain when my throat has been clogged for years with things I haven't told her: How it killed me to watch her fight for her life. How I hate that I can't even hate Peeta because he's such a nice guy. How I ache with loneliness because she left me for someone else, traded me in for a better friend and a better lover. How I've been avoiding her ever since the war started because I can't bear to look at her and remember all that I've lost: my life and my home and my best friend. How the war has systematically and tortuously broken me down to such a point that if she actually bothered to get to know me again, she wouldn't recognize the broken shards of the person I've become.

Where the hell do I even start?

And being the idiot that I am, I start with the stupidest thing possible: I tell Katniss I was drunk.

And she doesn't believe me because I used to rip Haymitch all the time back in District 12 for wasting his time and all his Victor's wealth on being a worthless, wasteful drunk.

And when she tells me all of that, I get really pissed off, partly because she's throwing my words back in my face, but mostly because she's right. And because I'm so angry and because I hate that she's judging me, I refuse to apologize. Instead I tell her that, as a matter of fact, I'm drunk a lot of the time nowadays. And I also tell her that it doesn't matter that I was drunk since I would've punched Peeta anyways because I really can't stand the guy.

And Katniss doesn't say anything, just kind of peers at me like she's seeing me for the first time, and it really isn't all that far off considering how much we've drifted apart lately. But maybe she still does know me because she figures out pretty quick that I brought up Peeta to distract her from my drinking. But at least she doesn't figure out that I'd rather talk about my drinking than talk about Madge.

So she stays on subject, asking me how often I drink and how much and where do I even do it, and eventually she gets to the real question: but Gale, why? And her face is so serious that I know I can't evade any longer. So I lean forward, elbows on knees, and I avoid looking her in the eye. And then I tell her that drinking helps me deal with things sometimes. And she moves to say something, but then she stops because she knows if she says anything now, I'll clam up for good.

And then I have no choice but to tell her that I started drinking during the war. Because of all the things I've seen, and, God, all the things I've done. And I try to explain that there's just something about war: the senseless destruction and the cruelty and the anger. And how once you get back to civilian life, all of that is still there, it doesn't just go away, and sometimes I get so angry, and I can't shoot anyone or blow it away with a well-placed bomb, and it just burns and burns and burns inside of me until I don't even know what to do.

"I know, Gale," Katniss says, and her voice has softened a little, and her eyes have softened too. "I've been through it in the Hunger Games. I know what it's like."

And that makes me angrier than anything because she doesn't know, she doesn't get it. Because she had Peeta, someone to help her through it, to look out for her throughout the Games. Me, I lost everything. And when she brings up my family, I tell her that they moved on in the three years I was away. They found new ways to cope and get by and survive, and seeing that made me feel like I had lost them too. And then I tell her that she's my family, and when she chose Peeta over me, it made everything so much worse.

And her face starts to fall, and I know she feels really guilty about choosing Peeta over me, but I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear her list all the reasons why Peeta is better than me, and so I cut her off. And I tell her that she was in the Hunger Games, what, three weeks? I've been at war three years. And she killed two or three kids because she had to, because that's what she needed to do to survive. When kids die on my watch it's called collateral damage and it's because of a miscalculation or bad planning or some stupid mistake. And it's my fault. It's my fault. And who did she even lose in the Games? Rue? I've lost so many people—my friends, my comrades. Almost every one in District 12. I watched them all die. I watched them burned and tortured and, and…

And that's when I stop, and I tell myself it's because I don't want to sound like a whiny bitch but really it's because I'm afraid my voice will break. And I squeeze my eyes shut trying to block out the images, the memories, the list of dead marching towards me and around me, threatening to choke me with their pain and their loss and their accusation because it's all my fault. Because I wasn't good enough, quick enough, smart enough to keep them alive.

"Gale," Katniss whispers, and there's something in her voice that makes me look up at her. There are tears glittering in her eyes, and that shocks me more than anything because I've never seen Katniss cry. "I didn't know. I didn't know…" she says, and suddenly she's leaning down and wrapping her arms around my neck, and in her warmth she doesn't have to finish her sentence because I know what she means: I didn't know you felt that way. I didn't know you were going through this. I didn't know you needed me. I didn't know.

And I just sit there for a while, feeling the warmth of Katniss's arms around me and hearing her shaky breathing as she tries to hold back her tears, and I keep my eyes closed and try to be thankful to have my friend back. And then I try to let some of the bitterness go.

And after sitting there for a few minutes, Katniss gets her breathing under control, and I can feel her grip loosen. She lets go and looks down at me again.

"Now," she says, and all the anger is gone from her voice. "Tell me about Madge."

And with guilt coiling in my gut and a blush clawing up my neck, I tell Katniss that I kissed Madge.

"You kissed her?" Katniss says, and her voice is incredulous.

"Yeah," I say, and now I definitely feel uncomfortable. "I've liked her for a while now, and I don't know, I just did it."

And Katniss just gives me this look, and it's this strange mix of understanding and pity and something like amusement. And then she confuses me even more when she sits down next to me with a sigh and tells me that the spontaneous kiss doesn't work for me.

And she must see that I'm pretty confused because she explains by bringing up the way I kissed her after she came back from her first Games. And then she rubs it in some more by telling me that not only was it completely spontaneous, but that then I never even said anything about it afterwards.

"And that's why you chose Peeta?" I say dubiously. "Because I kissed you spontaneously?"

"No, dummy. I mean that you can't just kiss a girl and expect her to work everything out for herself. You actually have to talk to her. Tell her how you feel."

And I tell her that she's the dummy because I kissed her, which means I showed her how I felt. I didn't need to talk about it. And I also say that, if she hadn't noticed, I made Madge cry, and that I think that means we're beyond talking about my feelings. And what I really want to say is that only girls like Peeta Mellark talk about their feelings anyways.

And Katniss, damn it she's so quick, she asks me why Madge started crying anyways if all I did was kiss her.

And I figure since I'm being honest, I might as well get the whole thing out now. And so I tell Katniss that I did a little more than kiss Madge. And when Katniss starts to lift her eyebrows, I don't know, it all kind of comes out in a rush, and I tell her that I'm pretty sure Madge thought I didn't know it was her.

Katniss's eyebrows are lifted so high they've disappeared under her side-swept bangs. "So she thought you were just kissing some random girl…" she trails off, and when I don't respond she finally gets it. "She thought you were…looking for a lay," she chokes on the last words, and I would grin at her awkwardness if I didn't feel so horrible.

"I don't know," I say again. "She said a lot of things after. About me still loving you and how she isn't a wh-," I can't bring myself to say the word whore so I change tack, "how she isn't like that. And then, well, then she slapped me and ran off crying."

"She slapped you and ran off crying," Katniss repeats.

"Basically."

"So let me get this straight," Katniss starts. "You like Madge so you kissed her, but Madge thinks you're in love with me and you only kissed her to forget about me." She looks at me expectantly.

"Erm, yes. More than kissed. But that's the general idea," I say.

And Katniss just kind of looks at me like I'm the biggest fool in the world, which I can't really help but agree with. But it's funny because there's the hint of a little smile playing around the corners of her lips, and it makes me think that maybe, just maybe she's enjoying this a little bit. Like it's her and me and we're on another adventure together.

And eventually Katniss says, "Gale, I think you need my help."

And I must be really desperate to fix things with Madge because I nod in agreement even though I'm pretty sure Katniss is the last person I want to be taking advice from about a girl.

And then Katniss looks me up and down critically, and like the painfully honest person she is, she says, "I have an idea, but, um, maybe you should shower first."

Part III

"Gale?" I say, my eyes going wide. And I could kick myself because my words don't sound angry or accusing, just tired. Because I am tired. And I look like shit and I feel like shit and I don't want Gale to see me this way.

"Oh, crap. Hey, Madge," Gale falters. "I, uh, didn't know you would be home so soon."

"Then what are you doing here?" I ask, and my voice is hollow. And my insides are hollow too.

"I, um, I…" he puts down the wrench and takes a deep breath. "I came to apologize."

"To apologize?" I say, and I feel so empty and ugly and tired that it doesn't really seem all that important.

And just when I thought Gale Hawthorne couldn't break my heart any more, he says, "Yeah for kissing you last night. I was way, way out of line."

"You're sorry you kissed me?" I say, and my voice sounds strangled.

"Er, yeah. Total mistake. I'm really sorry," he says like he's trying to reassure me.

And I can't believe he said he's sorry he kissed me. Not he's sorry he ripped my dress or treated my like a whore or made me cry, but that he's sorry he kissed me. And even though I know he doesn't like me like that, it still hurts. God, it hurts. And I feel so empty and exposed and horrified, and I just stand there staring at Gale with the blood draining from my face.

"So anyways, I just wanted to apologize for that kiss last night," he says again, and I guess he really wants me to feel like dirt. "Clearly I wasn't thinking straight at all."

"You weren't thinking straight?" I say faintly, and my whole body starts to tremble.

"Yeah, absolutely," he replies. "I would never have done that otherwise."

"Right," I say, my voice a little higher pitched than usual, and all I want to do is hold it together until he leaves. "Well you apologized so you should probably go."

"Yeah sure, in a second," he says. "But first I want to show you something." And I can't do anything but stand there, empty and pale and shaking. "Look!" Gale says, and he reaches over and flips the switch on my ventilation system.

A blast of cool air passes between us as the system comes to life.

And Gale turns to me with this beautiful, beaming smile of pride. And I just stare at him, frozen, unable to speak because he cracked my heart down the middle and then did the nicest thing anyone has done for me in years.

He takes one look at me and the smile slides off his face.

"I fixed your vents. They were broken for so long, and I know you can't afford it-" he explains in a rush, his eyes darting around nervously.

"Your vents, Madge," he repeats, "I thought you wanted them fixed-"

And I burst into tears.

"Whoa, shit, Madge," he says. He's in front of me in two strides, his hands on either side of my face.

"Tell me what happened. Tell me what I did. I can turn them off if you want," he tries, his voice panicked. And it's so painful and so sweet that I just shake my head and cry harder. And then I bury my face in Gale's chest and sob and sob, and I can feel the wetness soaking through to his skin.

"Seriously, please, Madge, I thought you'd like it," he says frantically. "I'll turn them off if you like. I just wanted to say sorry, that's all, for ki-."

"Don't!" I lift my head from his chest and stamp my foot.

"What?" he says bewildered.

"Don't say it again! Just don't say it again!" I cry, and then I'm back to clinging to his top and sobbing into his chest.

"Madge-" he starts.

"Just don't," I plead, and my voice is muffled against the fabric of his shirt, "I know! You're sorry you kissed me! Just please, please don't say it again."

Part IV

And then it finally hits me.

That even when I'm trying to tell her how I feel, I can't seem to do it right.

"Madge," I say, and I gently lift her face so she's looking at me.

Her face is flushed and her eyes teary. And with her pink cheeks and her mussed hair and her cute little hiccoughs as she tries to stop her tears, I know that it's now or never.

I push the hair out of her face, and then I say the words clearly to make sure she understands: "Madge, I'm not sorry that I kissed you. I'm sorry how I kissed you."

There's a long pause, and I know my heart is in my throat and my hope is in her hands.

"What?" Madge breathes out finally, and her lips part in surprise. And I want nothing more than to pull her into my arms and kiss her pouty lips until she's crying and gasping my name.

But instead I take a deep breath. "I've wanted to kiss you for a while now. And last night I was just so angry when I saw you with Preston that I, I… just did it—all in the wrong way. And what I should have done is tell you that I know I'm not good enough and I know you deserve better, but Madge, I want you to be with me."

And I can't breath by the end of my little speech, and I'm pretty sure I left out a lot of the things I wanted to say, and I'm actually afraid of looking at Madge because I'm so sure I screwed it all up, so I close my eyes and I hope and I pray and-

"Yes," Madge says.

"What?" I say, my eyes flying open.

"Yes," she says again. Her eyes are closed but I can see the shadow of a smile playing at the edge of her lips. "Yes, Gale Hawthorne, I'll be with you."

"Really?" I say, staring at her searchingly.

Madge opens her eyes, wide and blue and beautiful, and she's really smiling now. "Yes," she says again, and I don't need to be told twice.

Part V

This time when Gale kisses me, it's perfect.

His hands are gentle as they cup my face, and his lips are slow, so slow, and agonizingly tender. He nibbles the corner of my mouth and then moves to my lips. I shiver, and he pulls my lower lip into his mouth, sucking it gently.

I feel warmth spreading through my limbs and I'm melting into Gale's arms and all I can feel are his lips moving slowly, gently against mine.

And I don't care that he's changed his mind and I don't care that he never hinted that he liked me before. I don't care. I don't care about anything except the soft grey of his eyes and the hope in his voice when he told me he wanted to be with me. And I know that this time it's real, it's actually real, his words and his feelings and his lips sweet on mine, teasing and tempting and full of promises.

And I want to be closer, so much closer, so I snake my arms up Gale's chest and thread my fingers in his hair. Gale makes a low sound in the back of his throat, and I sigh when his tongue enters my mouth, hot and full and deep. And I don't even try to stop myself from moaning, and it feels like it all melts away: my longing and my loneliness and pain.

One of Gale's hands moves to my waist, tugging me closer and the other is sliding up my back, pressing me into his chest. His hand reaches my neck, my jaw, my cheek, splaying in my hair and drawing me into him, his length and his heat and his pulse. His lips are like a drug on mine, slow and hungry and hot. And I can feel my hands curling with pleasure at the base of his neck and hot, liquid warmth pooling inside me.

Then he's moving, his nose grazing my jaw, his lips hot at my throat and his hands at my back pressing into me as I rock against him in time with his kisses. His lips burn across my collarbone, along my shoulder, into my curls, and then back to my lips. I rake my nails through his hair, and Gale groans. His kisses become harder, more aggressive, scraping teeth and needy moans, and his breathing is ragged as his hand slips under the hem of my dress and slides up my leg.

"Gale," I whisper, and he shudders, kissing me more firmly. And I'm overwhelmed by his heat and his taste and his hands and the desire rushing through my body like liquid fire. I let my head fall back, gasping for air. And all I can hear is my own breathy moan as Gale pulls my earlobe into his mouth, biting it and laving it with his tongue. And then his lips are hard on mine and his hands are at my waist, fisting my dress, dragging it along the curve of my hip, ruching the fabric up over my thigh.

And his other hand is like fire moving up the skin of my leg and the curve of my spine, and then Gale's fingers are hot at the base of my neck and he's unzipping my dress, and I tense.

Gale freezes, and I could kick myself for hesitating.

My eyes are screwed shut and I can't bear to look at him, and all I can do is wince and say, "I'm sorry."

And then Gale, still breathing hard, is zipping my dress back up, and his voice is no more than a breath in my ear, "No, I'm sorry."

And then he places a warm, tender kiss at the base of my neck, and I realize that it really is all right.

Slowly, gently he moves up my throat, my pulse, my jaw—warm, soft, sucking kisses. And with each kiss he breathes into my skin: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry until I'm sighing and gasping and melting away.

And then he wraps his arms around me and just holds me.

He doesn't accuse me or ask anything of me or say anything at all. And with my face cradled in his neck and my arms on his chest, my senses are full of his smell and his feel and his warmth. And my eyes start to prickle again because I can't remember the last time someone held me like this: warm and enveloped and safe. And not alone. At last, not alone.

And all of the confusion and questions and "what changed your mind"s and "are you sure"s die on my lips. And we just stand like that for a long time, our heads together, our bodies merged, our breaths even and mingling.

And I realize that for the first time in years, I'm happy.

…

A/N: MOCKINGJAY SPOLIERS!

So I get the feeling we all abhorred Mockingjay. I know I did. I mean, Gale is not some angry, mass-murdering man-whore! Well, he kind of is in my story, but that's because of the war—not because of his natural tendencies that just come out in war. (Though I will say, I was all like "go, Gale!" when I found out that he got to make out on the slag heap. Get it, get it!) And he certainly would not prance around in District 2 on some smarmy job! Frankly, I think the crash-and-burn of Gale's personality was just a cop out so SC could get Katniss and Peeta together without feeling guilty. LAME! Also, side note, their kids have grey eyes and blond hair and then brown hair and blue eyes?…puh-lease, that is the most clichéd and genetically improbable thing I have ever read in my life! Gah! Anyways, if any of you liked the book, I'd love to hear why, because aside from Finnick's wedding and the fact that Katniss and Peeta finally did it, I saw no redeeming qualities to this book! Meh.