(The part two that inevitably gets dirty, because I screw up everything I touch.)

(Our death sentence is now a story…
…who'll be digging when we finally let it die?)

He still has my back.

When we deal with the rut and protocol of Thirteen, when we are hunting up on the surface, moving in sync, or when I decide that late wandering around the corridors and hiding in closets might be better with company.

Neither of us can sleep much at night, I know that, not with fire raining from the nightsky behind his lids, not with a clock tick-tocking behind mine, recounting every moment of my arenas and counting every second of Peeta's imprisonment.

Sometimes, I touch the pearl in my pocket even as I crouch in Gale's embrace, silently begging for forgiveness.

Just when I want us to be entirely alone, I tangle it into the light fabric of the parachute and hide it under my pillow before I leave to tap on Gale's door.

We walk together and whisper, and then sit silent in a closet I'd discovered and grown fond of, with Gale leaning against the door so that nobody would open it, me curled between his bent legs, back pressed against his chest.

Unlike me, Gale does keep his schedule and doesn't nap in secret places during the day, and he sometimes falls fast asleep when we sit together like this, chin on my shoulder and arms around my waist. Idly running my fingers over the lines of his hands, I let his breath – so peaceful in those precious moments – lull me to a semblance of comfort as well.

I'm glad he can still draw comfort from me, after all I'm still his friend too, and relieved I don't have to do anything to give it to him, just be.

Even that feels too hard nowadays. I'm still struggling, but I feel safer and more solid now, like I've climbed from the precarious ice onto solid ground. Just with high frozen drifts to wade through.

Everyone supposedly sees me as the spark, but I'm still trying to find one inside me and make it strong enough to melt the snow.

Gale is helping a bit, his arms keeping me warm, his breath in my hair fanning the flame. Even when we aren't sitting outside on our rock but cramped in a dark closet, a part of our old bond survives, and I grasp on it for support.

.

Sometimes, it's not enough.

Then I press my lips against his, not because he's in pain, but because I am. We'd just washed the ashes of our district away again and I taste my tears in his mouth, but some of the misery dissipates as he kisses me breathless.

I welcome it.

While I can breathe, I can still think, I can still worry, I can still feel myself slipping away, and sometimes I'd give my soul to make it stop.

Gale's kisses are different than Peeta's in the arena, but a part of the hunger they wake in me is the same. Another part is different, hot, mindless, coiling deep in the pit of my stomach.

I run my hands over his clothed body, the night garb a bit softer than the jumpsuits we wear during the day, than the military uniforms, but it still gets in the way. I need more, to strip the layer of Thirteen away and get to his skin, groping for life and heartbeat in the darkness.

Without shame, I let him lay me bare me too; it doesn't even matter here where no light can find us, and the walls can come tumbling down for all I care. I need to be touched, need to be reassured that I'm still alive, that my body isn't a heap of ashes that would blow away in the wind.

Our doorway to sustenance and sanity is elsewhere now, and opens only at a strict schedule, but we can still be each other's key.

We adapt, and devour each other instead.

Gale kisses me in places I've never even thought viable to be kissed, sending shocks of pleasure throughout my body, making my blood boil.

Instinctively, I tangle my fingers in his hair and press him further down, feel a rare chuckle against my skin at the urgency.

I give a choked laugh in response and tug at his scalp, gasp when his hot mouth covers my lower lips.

Blood is rushing in my ears and a crack opens in my heart, and I tumble into the emptiness.

Somewhere between Gale's tongue and deft fingers and rugged cheeks brushing the soft skin of my inner thighs, I let go and forget for a moment, bite my own flesh to suppress a scream.

No sweet dreams come to me when I nap in his arms after, but no nightmares either.

.

He has my back when we fight too, throwing his body over mine to protect me from explosions, shooting at my cue, our bodies moving in unison even in the midst of war.

If we burn, you burn with us, I scream, too angry to be afraid.

Most of it peters out by the time we get back, sore and dusty and dirty, my head laying in Gale's lap on the hovercraft floor, but not all.

Part of the rage is still simmering, turning ice to lava, welding the pieces of my mind together, into something steel-firm but twisted.

I'm beyond fearing death, and now I know I don't need to be afraid of life either, at least not for the time being.

Having to chase what little nutrition I could get in the woods, my body had managed only a few natural cycles before I was called into the first games. None since because even a full body polish and victory spoils weren't enough to return me to full health.

Even if I'd really made love to Peeta sometime before the Quell announcement, after a secret toasting and in hopes of carving out a tiny bright future just for us, there would have been no baby.

My body is about as barren as my district now, and since my fake propaganda-pregnancy had just been publicly terminated; fixing it is nowhere near Thirteen's priority.

I'm not afraid of life, but there's a little death I crave, a moment of abandon.

.

The sun is setting behind steely clouds, a brilliant disc with no orange shadows to soften it. Red like a recording light, red like innocent blood.

We are hidden outside in the woods now, moving as two parts of one being still.

Gale's body is a war-torn landscape just like mine, with the whipping scars etched deep into his back, his right arm singed from Twelve, some shrapnel-scratches marring his torso. Now in the dying light I can see it all, and dive right in regardless, to take what's left of my anger out on him, leaving deep pink marks on brown skin, watching his pupils dilate, watching the storm rage in his dark gray eyes. Clawing at him as we get closer, his shoulders, his back, the lean curves of his ass. Gasping as I let him bury himself inside me, trying to bury myself in him along with my grief and guilt.

This is what I wanted, isn't it?

I have chosen Gale and the rebellion.

I repeat that in my head, over and over as he slams into me, one of my hands seeking purchase on the rough bark of the tree we are leaning against, another digging nails into his hip to spur him on.

We devour each other, but to no end.

Gale tangles his fingers with mine and squeezes, not hard, reminding me he'd hold my heart more gently than I have him treat my body. I dig my nails into the back of his hand, and don't know if I could say the same.

Sweat and anger under my nails, his blood pulsing deep under my skin. Heat and raw pleasure. And when he drives me over the edge, explosions beneath my lids, like planes blown out of the sky.

My breath catches in my throat and thoughts combust together.

I'm full of him, full of fire.

.

(Only a part of my heart remains empty, where the key to salvation would fit.)