Author's Note:

It appears that I spoke (wrote?) too soon about getting back to a more regular update schedule. Apologies. I'd go through a list of excuses but it's painfully long and quite a few of them aren't very good anyway. And then once I did have the chance to write, I had to reread most of CF for a refresher, and then all of my own story because I started losing track of my own canon (sad). So I'm trying, guys, I really am – I just want to do this right and being thorough is time consuming. As always, thanks for all the lovely reviews and encouraging support – it's honestly the only reason I didn't end up going a whole month between updates.

Katniss continues to drop by from time to time even though all the Capitol sponsored events are over, and though I am glad for the company and happy to know that we were actually friends all along, I cannot help but feel awkward underneath it all. I avoid mentioning anything to do with the Hunger Games, mostly because I expect that she doesn't want to discuss any of it but also because I cannot let on that I – and others – saw defiance along with love in her final moments in the arena. For her sake and for mine. I avoid mentioning anything to do with Peeta Mellark because the few times I ask how he is doing just to be polite it seems to make her uncomfortable, as if she is having trouble letting herself care. Because something about the discomfort makes it clear that she does. I avoid mentioning anything to do with Gale and that is embarrassing in itself. But not telling her what is going on between us seems less embarrassing than telling her.

And on top of all of that, I have to find a way to sit and talk with her while I wonder whether her father's death was an accident or an execution.

Half of me wanted to ask my parents directly, and the other half reminded me that I ought to have learned by now that ignorance is bliss. What would I have done if I found out that it wasn't an accident, and worse, if my father knew about it? Somehow I knew that I ought to decide how I would handle that information before I actually get it, so I kept my mouth shut. And I still haven't been able to decide.

Our interaction is a struggle at first, because we both need something normal but neither of us are quite sure how to do it. It takes a few tries but we learn eventually. Katniss tells me that she has to choose a talent to develop in her newfound free time as Victor, and isn't sure what to do because the only thing she is good at (hunting) is illegal. I offer to teach her to play the piano (because technically that's the only thing that I'm good at that isn't illegal) and she agrees to try – which gives me something to do besides wonder what exactly happened to her father. She learns to play a scale without too much trouble, but says she'd rather listen as I play an actual song. I don't use any of the music I play for Gale, because that is ours.

It gets harder when Katniss invites me to have dinner with her family toward the end of the week, and I have to face not only my friend but her sister and mother. Their kindness helps some, but I wonder if they would still be so kind if they had the same questions floating around their heads that I do. Still, I can't help but enjoy the chance to spend a little time as part of a family, even if it isn't mine and I have to pretend. And then, in the end, even that makes me feel guilty; I miss my parents because they are often absent, not because they are dead.

I spend all day Saturday at the piano because everything that was so difficult with Katniss will be more so with Gale. I practice a series of challenging drills that I despise, but hating them probably just means I need the practice sorely, and it keeps my mind from wandering too much. Katniss' wasn't the only father to perish in that explosion. And, more than that, Gale spends his week in the same place himself now. The thing that makes it so worrisome is one of the things that I love about him – his determination. If something like what happened in Eight were to start happening here, there is no doubt that Gale Hawthorne would be first in line. We haven't heard any rumors of uprising or rebellion here in Twelve, but would we? Seeing him learn to hope had been such a beautiful thing to witness, because he had seemed to think it so impossible at first, and it used to make me happy to think that maybe I had a part (however small) in giving that to him. Now, I almost wish I could take it back. Because hope could make someone like Gale very dangerous. And the Capitol has made it abundantly clear how they prefer to deal with threats.

….

Madge is waiting for me on the porch when I arrive on Saturday evening, and I find it a bit disconcerting because she has never done this. I pause for a moment to look at her before she notices me; she sits on the bottom step, perfectly still, eyes downcast, somewhat folded into herself. Still lovely, but a far cry from the sharp, animated, ferocious Madge that I have come to know. I wonder what is wrong.

Her eyes dart up when she hears the latch on the gate, and when they land on me she comes to life. I can't help but smile at the sight of it, the way she brightens and moves like sunlight on water. This is the girl that I missed so much. Madge meets me halfway down the garden path and I pull her close against me, eager to feel the way she fits me again. How have I managed to go a whole week without this? After a moment, she exhales deeply and I feel her speak against my chest.

"I'm glad you're here."

"Me, too," I confess, slightly surprised by my own honesty.

She leans back to look me in the face and she seems tired. She holds my gaze steadily, though, intense and observant as ever. Worn, I note, but not weak. I look as her curiously, tilt my head and cock an eyebrow to ask a wordless question.

"I'm okay," she says reassuringly. "I just worry about you."

For some reason this response surprises me. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. "What?"

"You…" she trails off for a moment, as if searching for the right words, "think you're invincible. I like that, but it makes me worry." She pulls away and leads me back toward the porch.

This makes me laugh a little, because I like hearing that she likes it. "Don't worry about me," I say, because I don't like seeing her distraught, even if it's only a little. But there's still something about it that makes my heart skip a beat at the same time. Something that makes everything that has happened between us seem even more real than before. It wasn't long ago that I never believed that she'd give me so much as a second thought. "Being invincible means you don't have to."

She smiles a little sadly, as if I am foolish to make light of it. Which I probably am. But I don't think she realizes the strength that she has given me of late. "What you do is dangerous, Gale," she says, "so I'm going to do it anyway."

"Stubborn," I grumble teasingly as we top the steps.

She stops short and stares up at me. "And that from you," she says before opening the door. I laugh at her because there isn't much I can say in response. She softens a little, moves closer to me again, but remains serious. "You walk a fine line, Gale, and you walk it well. Just… be careful. I don't want you to stop. That wouldn't be you. But I'm glad you're here - I want you to keep coming back."

All joking aside, I know she has a point. I work in a place that has claimed countless lives. I hunt illegally to feed my family. I (proudly) manage to commit treason on a daily basis with the things I say and do. I should have starved, or been crushed in a cave-in, or been executed by now. So far, I've scraped by largely unscathed – but I am still acutely aware that it's all very dangerous. Especially now that my brother is on the edge of it, and I don't want him walking the same line that I do. And since I started carefully working toward getting others to think they won't have to walk it either. I've made a life out of cheating death. And you can't do that without a little trace of fear, like it or not.

"I'll keep coming back," I tell her.

….

I wonder if I've made my point sufficiently. Once he realizes that I was serious, Gale seems to take my words to heart. But I still can't help but worry that someone who gambles his life so often out of sheer necessity might have a skewed perception of risk. I had considered whether I ought to tell him what I know, but it was hardly a debate; I know him well enough now to know that it would never have inspired him to keep out of trouble. If anything, it would have done the opposite. So I settle for being vague. Gale is no fool; I know he is too shrewd to do anything blatantly reckless, but I hope that hearing me say that I want him to be careful will make him more cautious even with things that are not. In the end I know there is nothing I could say that would hold him back if rumors of rebellion reach his ears. I wouldn't change that. We are more alike in that respect than he knows. I just want him to survive it if it happens.

I start water on the stove for tea; the evenings are getting cooler now and I want something warm when we go sit outside. While I do this, Gale chooses a seat at the kitchen table and watches me carefully, almost as if trying to decipher whether he has me convinced. I must still look a bit skeptical. "I know how fine the line is, Madge, believe me, and walking that fine line allows me to keep others from having to do it. So I'm not going to screw it up. Me doing it means Rory doesn't."

I give him a small smile over my shoulder, because that does make me feel better. Then Gale asks me if I remember the day that I told them about the training scores and his brother had left his freshly-caught fish on the table, and when I say that I do, he surprises me when he begins to tell me about the rift that it had opened up between them. Rory wanting to help contribute, Gale wanting to keep him sheltered. Bitter arguments and festering grudges. An unsatisfying compromise.

I amazed at the fact that he is so willing to share these cares with me, this brick wall of a man. Though his manner is calm and matter-of-fact, it is clear that this conflict has weighed heavily on him. Part of me wants to offer words of comfort, but I know that there is nothing that I could say that could make any of it easier for him. So I remain quiet and let him talk. I decide that it is the highest sort of compliment that he would take me into such confidence. By the time he tells me that he was selfishly pleased that his brother failed miserably at catching anything with his snares, the water has begun to steam and I pour us each a mug as I listen. "I know I'll probably have to let him do it eventually, but the longer I can make it alone, the longer the odds are a little more in his favor," he says. "So I'm not going to screw it up."

"I know you'd never just do something willy-nilly and ruin everything you've worked for, Gale," I tell him. Like keeping Rory out of Tesserae. I pull a jacket from the hook on the wall as I wave him toward the door. "I'm just saying –"

He interrupts me by taking the coat from my hands and replacing it on the hook. "I'll keep you warm," he says casually as if it was silly of me to have considered using it, and for a split second I forget how serious our conversation is as my heart flutters in my chest. "I hear what you're saying," he continues as he steers me back out the door. "And I'm telling you how aware I am that the things that I do are dangerous. I'm telling you that I have good reasons not to screw it up. So don't worry."

I give him a look that says that I can't make any promises on the matter.

He stops short and gives me that familiar hard stare. "I don't think you're hearing me," he says with just a trace of exasperation. He glances away, searching for the right words, and when his gray eyes come back to me I lose track of everything else. "I'm telling you that I'm careful, that I would be anyway." It seems to take effort for him to speak. "So that isn't what I meant when I said I'll keep coming back." His gaze softens a bit, becomes almost pleading as he watches my face, as if hoping that I'll connect the dots on my own.

It takes a second, but I get there. He is telling me that this is more than just fleeting, novel attraction between us. He is telling me that I mean something to him. The flood of joy that sweeps me away is almost painful. Because now I am more terrified than ever. Now I truly – truly – have something to lose.

….

I spend the evening propped against one of the Undersee's old elm trees with Madge nestled into the crook of my arm. There is no more talk of worry, and she does not press me for more about why I will keep coming back. I look down at her while she rests her head back on my shoulder and take in the little details of her; the waves of her golden ponytail that turn up in curls at the end, the slender fingers circled around her mug of tea for warmth, the shape of one long, silky leg kicked out along the length of mine… It's a wonder that such a bright, beautiful creature would be content to sit here like this with me. But somehow she is. I hope she doesn't wake up.

Madge elbows me playfully in the ribs when I tease her about how she had wanted to wear a jacket, which is exactly the reaction I had hoped for because it leads to a lighthearted shoving match. It ends when I pretend to let her win for a moment, then pull her back against me and kiss her, the taste of sassafras and honey all the sweeter because it is on her lips. A delighted squeak escapes her when I twist her body across mine and pin her gently to the ground. I pause long enough to see her smile at me and bite her lip in anticipation before I kiss her again. Her arms slip further around my shoulders, and I never thought I would like being so tangled up.

I stay a little later than I usually do on Saturdays, because when she is with me it seems that the sun never quite sets. Finally I pull her to her feet when I can't put off leaving any longer, and she smiles mischievously as she thanks me for keeping her warm. I give her one last, slow kiss and hope that she can feel the things that I don't have the words to say. She does, I am certain, because she always reads me so well. Because she has taken me apart and she knows and she has put the pieces back together better than the way they were before. There is nothing that could happen that could keep me from coming back.

Footnote:

For those curious readers out there: Sassafras is a fragrant tree native to most of the eastern United States, including the area where District 12 is located. All parts of the tree have been used for all sorts of things, from medicine to root beer. When used fresh, it has a sweet lemon scent and flavor. A word of caution for those inspired to try it in their tea - it contains a chemical that is a suspect carcinogen, so if you want to taste it find something sassafras flavored at the grocery store.