I know I said I'd do Katniss' meeting with Coin this chapter, but I got too into her conversation with Gale so it'll be next chapter Thank you EStrunk, HopeNeverDies and iluvdinos for the reviews!

I wake up one morning with Buttercup lying next to me (the stupid thing has now decided to like me) and Gale sat in the chair across the room, watching me with gentle eyes.

'Morning, sleeping beauty,' he smiles.
I inwardly cringe, this decision is getting harder by the second.

'Morning,' I attempt a half-hearted grin.
We spend a few moments in a peaceful, comfortable silence until I break it.
'I'm sorry,' I say, almost inaudibly.

'What for?' he asks, seemingly oblivious.

'For not shooting you, when they captured you.' I mumble, wondering why I even brought this up.

'Well, if you had, I wouldn't be here now!' he grins. 'But I shouldn't've asked that of you anyway.'

'I guess,' I murmur, wondering if I really would have been able to shoot Gale.

'Have you been avoiding me?' he says, asking me the exact question I'd been avoiding since he appeared by the side of my bed.

'I've had some thinking to do,' I mutter, trying my best to stay vague.

'About me and Peeta,' he comments.

'And other stuff,' I reply. 'Can we get out of here? I need some air.'

We're still living underground in 13 and I hate it more than ever. I also can't get over my slight paranoia of people listening to my conversations.

'Sure, I'll meet you just outside the woods?' Gale understands me immediately, that's what I love about him. Uh...love...

'Yeah,' I smile in agreement, forgetting those thoughts as soon as they had appeared.

Gale shoots me one last grin then leaves me to get dressed.

I have a quick shower, throw on the nearest set of clothes and run outside, breathing in gulps of fresh air, ecstatic to be outside again. I spot Gale and walk over to him, my mood considerably improved due to the change of environment. We walk deep into the woods and stop as we come to a clearing, sitting on a pair of tree stumps that rest by a small stream.

'So in guessing there's something you wanted to talk to me about,' Gale says cautiously. 'That's why we're here, right?'

'Yes,' I say, and suddenly the words just come flooding out of my mouth and I tell gale everything: what Boggs said before he died, my conversation with Snow and his dying words that have been circulating my brain since the moment he said them. Gale sits silently, seemingly deep in thought, until several minutes after I've finished speaking. I don't push him for a response, I just sit and listen to the sounds of the forest.

'Do you think Coin's gonna use Peeta to get rid of you?' Gale asks, pointing out the exact thing I've been asking myself for the last two weeks.

'I don't know,' I reply honestly. 'The tracker jacker venom has done half her job by making him think I'm a mutt. One click of her fingers and she can reverse the treatment and he'll go back to wanting to kill me.'

'You have to speak to Coin,' Gale says, stunning me into silence. 'If you want to make any sense of this, then you need to see what she tells us about Snow.'

'Well, would you come with me?' I ask timidly. 'I don't think I could face her alone, she might kill me there and then.' I force a laugh.

'Of course,' Gale says, deadly serious. 'But first I want to speak to Peeta.'

Peeta's POV.
Katniss has been avoiding me, I know she has. But I don't want to pressure her, so I'm waiting for her to come to me. It's hard, but I know it's what I have to do. Gale was right; she will choose whichever one of us she thinks she can't live without. I just hope that's me, because without Katniss, I have nothing...

'Penny for them?' Gale asks (Gale!), as he sits down opposite me.

My confused look tells him that I have no idea what he means so he carries on:

'I'm gonna cut straight to it,' he says, staring me straight in the eye - I can tell this is serious. 'Are you a danger to Katniss?'

I baulk. That was not the question I expected.

'I don't know,' I answer honestly. 'The venom isn't totally gone, so I could try and kill her, unintentionally, at any time. Anything could trigger it.

'Okay, thanks. Bye,' he grunts and walks off, leaving me stunned and confused as to what just happened.

Katniss' POV.
The day after my trip to the woods with Gale, I decide it's time to stop burying my head in the sand. So after breakfast, when my schedule is stamped on my arm I am shocked when I see where I'm supposed to be at 7:30am:
Command.
That means only one thing; she's back.