When the pit of my stomach is half quiet and the tiredness in my head is half numb, I let myself half wonder what would happen in another world. Only for a half a second, I only let myself wander through the half real forests and half real towns of a half nice world where everything would be half different and half better. And when I emerge, I am confronted with enough whole problems and whole struggles that I completely forget my half awake daydream.

Gale has never been more whole with an idea than he has with this idea of running into the forest. He's never been one to half ass something, but he's also never held on to something for quite this long. Never mind that there's nothing in either of our lives that is forever, I didn't even think he had it in him.

It leaves me wanting to give him the gift of going through with this, the satisfaction of having a plan in place. It half makes me want to say yes.

"Look, Catnip. This— I don't know, okay?! I don't know. I don't have any good reasons why you should go and leave your family and everybody behind to go run off into a forest where we could get killed. There's no logical reasoning that could make you want to come with me," he looks down. "And yet, I can't give you a reason not to come with me. I can't find one reason that would make you not want to go."

"You can't give me one reason to not come with you," I repeat quietly, tasting the words in my mouth. "Not one."

"Not one," he swears.

"I guess that's reason enough for me to come."

And Gale smirked, and I didn't even feel half a regret as he towed me into the forest and we figured out everything — from when to leave, what to say, who we'd tell, what to bring, how to act, to where we're going, why we're leaving and who we'd bring back.

We decided we'd leave as soon as possible. The longer we waited, the more we'd risk accidentally telling someone, which could get even the passive Peacekeepers on our case. As far as who and what to tell, we both hesitated. Telling our families straight out would mean they might not even let us go, or such a scene of tears and crying would ensue, neither Gale nor I could tear ourselves away and run off. Not telling them would leave them all worried sick. Eventually, we decided that all they would need was a hug and a kiss goodbye, and our word that we'll be out on a long trip. Bringing things was another matter, but Gale quickly determined that the more things we towed along with us, the more suspicious we'd look heading into the woods. Besides, we'd be better off making what we could out there. It'd mean less evidence left back home of us ever leaving. We knew we were heading towards the valley, but the idea of where wasn't decided. We didn't have enough experience out there to know where to have, but I wasn't exactly sure we had the chance to explore before we were out there for real.

When Gale asked me who we were bringing back, I pressed my lips together and shook my head. "We're not going to decide now. We're going to get back, and then we're going to choose," I explained, but I had lost all the momentum to explain why with any sort of vocabulary or meaning. I had grown increasingly tired with this discussion, with this idea, maybe even with Gale.

"Fair enough," he said with a shrug, watching me for a moment. He stood up from where he had nestled himself under the tree, and stretched out his limbs. "It'll be better, you know," he said, likely in an effort to get me to perk up. Too bad I was feeling fiercely unexpressive.

"That's what you've been telling me," I say half heartedly as I turn to climb back up the slope to our forest, and then back to town.

"Come on, Everdeen," he called as I had made it half way up. He was still back where I had left him, a couple hundred feet away in that damned valley, eyes soft and smile faint. "Come on, Katniss. Come back."

I made a face and shook my head. "No. I don't want to."

"Please?" I heard him cry as I made it to the top. I hovered by the edge for a little bit and stared back at him.

"I need to be alone," I projected my voice down the hill to him, still waiting for me to rush back towards him. I didn't have the energy to drag myself home, and certainly not enough to muster up the emotion to deal with this for however longer. "Before I decide to back out of this whole thing."

"Katniss, please!" was the last I heard as I took the long, pitifully quiet walk home.

I wasn't quite sure why I was acting like I had had the wind knocked out of me after Gale and I had planned everything out. I felt so painstakingly … unpassionate now. For whatever reason, I was just going through the motions.

I poked around in the kitchen, trying to make myself useful in the empty house, as my mother and Prim were out who knows where, likely with the Hawthornes, if I had to guess. But, I couldn't bring myself to do anything, I couldn't will myself into putting anything together.

I sauntered over to the one, pale window, where the early fall sun burned bright as it hung below the trees. I felt guilty for holing myself up in the house when there was always something to be done, always something to do that required daylight. Yet, here I was, inside and wasting away.

I moved to the couch, simply falling into it and pressing my hand to my face. This isn't how I can afford to act. Gale was probably fixing up the last of our plans, probably using the last sunlight to bring down some more kills for them to store, while I let myself lay in uncomfortable, uneasy silence.

I needed to help, I needed to do. I was always able to push myself through whatever, but when I looked around the small cabin, through every bland fiber of the worn and dirty rug at my feet, through every dent in the wooden table with the tea mug rings across the top, or the general dirty quietness of the house, I felt every ounce of energy slip into blackness.

My eyes followed suit, growing heavier and growing heavier. I was left in an equally uneasy state of consciousness for far too long, long enough to hear my mother and Prim slip inside, long enough to hear Prim ask Mother if she should wake me, long enough to hear my mother say "No, she needs her rest", and toss a blanket across me.

It briefly occurred to me that my mother and I had switched places, as I lay too tired to sleep and function across the couch, and as she quietly prepared dinner. And that terrified me.