A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, but I really want this story to be good. I'll get the next chapter up sooner, I hope, and as always, reviews are appreciated.
I am locked in the gaze of Gale's cool gray eyes, and I can't move, even though I'm getting the feeling that Peeta would really like to go. It's the strangest feeling. I am thrilled to see him, nearly as happy as I was to see Prim again. At the same time, though, I feel a rush of something that reminds me very much of guilt.
Despite the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I can feel the smile that stretches across my face, and I see the corners of his lips twist up into a smile for just a second, until his eyes flick over to the boy standing at my side, arms still around me. I can't quite place the look on Gale's face. He's seems to be battling something inside himself, and the smile is gone, replaced by a stony gaze.
"Excuse me," I mumble to Peeta, and to the reporters that are gathering like hawks around us. My feet carry me across the square, following a dark head of hair as it weaves in and out of the crowds. It's harder to get through the crowds than I expected – everyone it seems wants to congratulate me, and I have to plow through them to keep pace. Finally he stops, standing by the mouth of an alleyway only a few yards ahead of me.
I break through the final edges of the mass of people to see him leaning against one of the gray stonewalls of a shop, raking a hand through his shaggy black hair. He's looking down at the ground, so he doesn't see me at first, but when he does the reaction is immediate. Just like before the games.
I run forward and launch myself into his arms. He smells like soap and wood smoke and the forest – he smells of home. "You kept them safe," I whisper into his shirt. My voice is sort raw sounding, rough with emotion.
"Of course." Gale replies, pulling back. He's grinning at me. "You won." He says in the exact same way.
"Of course." I answer, smirking at him.
"I wasn't so sure, you know," he admits, half-teasing, but half-serious. I see a sort of shadow settle across his features as he speaks. "When that girl had you at the feast."
"Clove." I murmur. It's so strange to think that she's dead. They're all dead. Everyone last one of them besides Peeta and me. All of a sudden, I'm hit once again by the deaths of everyone in the arena; Thresh, who spared my life; Glimmer, driven mad by the tracker jacker venom; Cato who I despised; Rue, who I loved.
It's all too much. The Games and the death, the tired faces of my family, the hollow look in Peeta's eyes. Back farther to Prim wasting away, my mother's emptiness, and my father's death. All of it is too much and I can't think, I can't breathe.
"Katniss? Katniss!" I hear someone calling my name frantically, as the ground swirls up around me. I am dimly aware that it hurts, everything hurts, and then the world is black.