Katniss

Even with the ongoing fireplace blazing just a few feet away, the dining room in our house is still extremely cold. I shudder as I pull on my sweater, trying to properly cover up my chest while biting into a freshly baked croissant. Mr. Mellark, the baker of 12 and Peeta's dad, has been very generous with his trades as of late. What would've gotten us a few stale crackers and maybe a small loaf or two in the past can now afford us large, thick loaves of bread and iced pastries. I try to think it's because Gale's hunting skills have improved over the months, but I know it's tied to Peeta's death somehow.

"More gravy?" asks Hazelle, holding out the bowl of the rich brown liquid to me. I shake my head, offering a slight smile before I go back to sulking. It's no use being so depressed that I shut out everyone and anyone trying to help. Still, it's easier said than done.

"So, Prim," Vick pipes up, sending all our gazes over to him. "I heard you and Rory hit it off well last week." I turn to Prim and raise an eyebrow. Is this true? I seem to ask. Vick continues as if there's nothing strange about this. "I mean, didn't you guys spend forever in the shed with Lady? What was that all about?"

"Shut it, Vick," Rory hisses from his left. Surprised, we all look at the usually sweet, quiet twelve-year-old. "There's nothing going on." By the way he's blushing, and Prim's avoiding his eyes, I can intuit that there's something going on. I make it a point to ask her about it later.

"Oh, whatever," scoffs his younger brother, gearing up to strike again. "You wouldn't be the first Hawthorne head over heels for an Everdeen, now would you?"

"Now you've done it," Hazelle mutters, pressing her fingers to her closed eyes. She takes deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. I see she's the only one that's bothered to hide her rage. Gale, on the other hand, is flaring his nostrils and staring daggers at his food. By the way he rips off part of the croissant and dunks it in the gravy, splattering all our placemats, I can tell in his mind it's not the bread that he's destroying.

"What? I'm just saying!"

"Well, stop it!" We all turn to my mother, who's spoken up for the first time tonight. She looks really upset, her face flushed, her eyes slightly teary as they go from looking at Vick to looking at Rory and Prim, sitting awkwardly side by side and as far from each other as physically possible. "You're upsetting—"

I don't hear what else she says because by the time she finishes her sentence, I'm already on the second floor, halfway through the door to my bedroom. I fling myself on the bed, throwing the covers over my entire body, including my head, so as to hide from the outside world. I'd been trying to hard to forget everything, so hard to just let it go, move on, have a pleasant supper for once…and then Vick had to come along and ruin it. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it. He was just teasing them! He is, after all, barely eight, not nearly old enough to understand the possible conflicts arising from such poorly chosen words.

Not after long, I hear the door creak open like it had that morning, down in the study. Gale steps in and sits at the edge of the bed, running his hand over where he must've thought my back was. I didn't move for fear that he might discover that was, actually, my side. "Just ignore him," he says quietly, pulling the covers off of me. Thankfully, I haven't been crying, so he's not immediately preoccupied.

"Well, is it true?" I dare myself to ask, sniffling a little bit. I avoid his gaze, and instead focus on Gale's quick hands, which are braiding my hair down my shoulder.

I can tell the question shocks him, and his hands falter, letting a strand of my hair fall through his fingers. His other hand scurries to catch it, and he weaves it back into the rest. "Yes," he breathes, tying a small string around the end of the braid. His forefinger, blackened by weeks of coal mining and roughened by years of setting snares, winds around the loose end of my braid, and he gives it a small, playful tug. I try not to wince, but the truth is that, since Johanna gave me that concussion, everything in the head hurts. "But I'm not expecting anything from you."

"Oh." I'd been ready to give him a speech about how I couldn't give him a family, how I'm too damaged right now to even think that way. I hadn't expected this from him. Given his demand the past winter season, and hardly anyone would've expected him to so understand the matter. I chew my bottom lip before asking my other question, the one that kept my head throbbing. "Gale, how do the Peacekeepers recognize you? You said before it…it had something to do with protesting…" When he doesn't reply, I get a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I sit up so quickly the room starts to spin around me, and I grip his arm to keep my balance. "Oh, no. Gale, what did you do?"

That's when he explains to me everything that happened during the Quarter Quell, while Peeta and I had been fighting our own battles in the arena. He tells me how, at first, there was talk in the mines of overpowering the Peacekeepers. Then he tells me about their futile attempt of doing so: providing too much coal in highly flammable places to ensure that they went up in flames, only resulting in more casualties than necessary. By the time Gale finishes his story with the arrival of more Peacekeepers, I'm on the brink of crying, if only because I realize I'm the reason for these newly implemented security measures. If I hadn't become the Mockingjay, our little district would never have been attacked so severely by the hand that supposedly fed them.

Gale must notice this because he takes my face in his hands, which are surprisingly soft compared to the rest of him, and wipes away my tears with his thumbs. "Catnip," he murmurs, tucking my head under his chin as he soothingly runs his hands over my back, "you've got to stop blaming yourself for this."

"But it's my fault!" I cry out, trying to stop the horrible hiccup-like noises I'm making as I sob. I feel him shake his head, and I'm utterly confused, until he explains.

"Don't you understand? You gave us something that nobody can take away, something worth dying for," he tells me, pulling away so I can look him in the eyes.

I loo down at my hands, filled with shame. "I gave you guys a war that isn't yours," I mutter in reply, deciding to let myself be petty.

"No," he says, more firmly this time, as if he's determined for me to agree. "You gave us a fight. You gave us a leader." He grabs my chin, forcing me to look up at him. "And you gave us hope. And that's so much more than we could ever, ever expect from you."