I have no idea why Katniss is so much sassier in this fic than she was in TS. I think it makes for a more fun read though. There are several F bombs in this chapter, if that's something that bothers you.

Okay yeah I DEFINITELY fudged the order of the Victory Tour and included the QQ card reading purely for convenience of storytelling. Don't judge.

I was right. The Victory Tour is agony. It's bad enough that Gale and I are separated, but of course, it's not just that. I hate listening to Gale talk about the Games- I know he hates it too. It's something we've both tried so hard to put behind us. How else could we live with ourselves?

Madge is at the center of every bit of it. Madge. My feelings toward Madge are complicated, but overall negative. She was Gale's first love, while I watched from the sidelines, so the first emotion I would associate with her is resentment. That changed during last year's Hunger Games, where she and Gale were allies. She was braver and tougher than I expected her to be, and she kept her good heart until the end, when she took her own life to save Gale's. That brought the admiration, and the gratitude, quickly followed by guilt for wasting no time sinking my claws into Gale.

Maybe I shouldn't feel guilty. Maybe she would have wanted him to be happy. I don't know. I try not to think about it. It's just hard when viewing is mandatory and somebody brings her up every two seconds. I know Gale hates it too. He never talks about it- easier to just forget, easier to forcibly move on- but the memory of Madge is painful for him, much more so than it is for me. She was his first everything- yes, I mean everything. He wears her ring on a chain around his neck, the one he gave her when they were in the arena and they were in love.

I don't resent her anymore. She is dead, after all. Instead, she's become the impossible standard I compare myself to, the voice in my head that drives me mad at my lowest points. She most definitely does not have a positive impact on my life.

I don't know if Gale feels quite the same way as I do, but I can tell he's struggling through his speeches and interviews, even on our grainy television screen. He reads directly off a card, barely looking up at the stony-faced audiences that probably don't want him there any more than he wants to be there. In District Eleven, the crowd is deadly quiet as Gale stumbles through his speech. There is no clapping, no cheering, not even cries of mourning as he offers his condolences for last year's tributes, Rue and Thresh, who both died heroically and before their time.

It's much the same in every other district, except for Seven. In the middle of Gale's speech, right when he is talking about the power of love and how he only survived because others died, someone bursts out, "LONG LIVE THE MOCKINGJAY!"

Just like that, static. We never hear the end of Gale's speech, and I am more puzzled than I've ever been before.

I watch more carefully after that- it's something to think about other than Madge and/or guilt- but nothing else as strange shows up. The days crawl by. I go to school. I hunt. I miss Gale.

School is cancelled the day of the second-to-last Victory Tour, the Capitol. This will involve more than a speech at the local justice building. It's the Capitol. Excess is kind of their thing.

I would have just as soon gone to school. With this weather, there's no point in going out to the woods. Snow is falling in thick, heavy clumps, ensuring that every animal holes up in its den. Even if anything was out and about, I would scare it away long before I got within shooting distance because there's no way to walk quietly through six inches of slush. So, I don't waste the energy. I stay home.

It's not such a bad thing. I love my family, most especially my sister, Prim. Despite being four years my junior, we are as close as close can be…well, we were at one point. I've left her in the dark lately, about some things. She knows Gale and I are together, and she knows it has to be a secret, but I've avoided telling her exactly why. I can't tell her the truth; it would scare her too much that my life is in danger from a new front. She always hated when I would scuffle with the local Peacekeepers, who only recently got off my back- I think Gale has paid most of them off, but we don't talk about it.

If Prim resents me, if she's annoyed that I've spent every spare moment in the woods, she doesn't show it. "Katniss, you have to try this!" she cries, beckoning me over to the stove.

I sigh heavily. Prim is what I would consider a master of the domestic arts, but you can only make so good of a stew with dried venison and a couple scrounged vegetables. I humor her, though, and taste it. "Mm. Meat water."

"It's stew!" Prim says accusingly, and I laugh.

"Okay, okay, stew. When it's done, it'll be very good."

Regardless of flavor, a hot meal is a blessing on a cold January day- New Year's Day, to be exact. Our house is drafty and offers minimal protection from the storm, and we can't afford to keep the fire burning any hotter than it is, even though I supplement the coal with walnut branches I've dragged back from the woods.

There's a knock at the door, which I instantly regard with suspicion. "Katniss, can you get that?" Prim calls. "I have to keep stirring!"

"Can't Mom get it?"

"She's busy!"

Busy staring at a wall and thinking about plants, maybe. But I don't argue. I get the door, knowing perfectly well who it is. I carry a small hope that it's Rory, collecting laundry for his mother, but it's not. It's Peeta, holding a trio of rolls.

A small smile comes to his face as mine withers away. "Oh. Hi."

He pushes the rolls towards me. "Hi. Prim asked for these."

I take them numbly, pursing my lips. "Did she, uh, have any notion of how she was going to pay for them?"

"Come on, Katniss. You know I wouldn't charge you."

There's something undeniably shitty about feeling like a stranger towards the person you were once closest to. Especially when he keeps being so nice to you. My stomach turns as I look him over, just the same as he always was, but so far away from me now. He, of course, is acting like nothing has changed, even though everything is different now.

Why show up here?

Why make we remember what I said goodbye to?

"You know that's not how I do things," I grumble. I dig around in my pockets, look around the house for something I could trade for the rolls. Perhaps we could do with one less dining chair? Maybe he would take a bowl of soup…

"Oh! My rolls!"

Prim is by side suddenly, wheedling the rolls from my hand. I scowl at her. "I thought you had to keep stirring."

"It'll be fine for a minute," she says innocently. "Thank you so much, Peeta!"

She hugs him quickly and then bounds away, back to the stew she's so damn proud of. So much for paying for them, I guess.

"Thank you for the rolls," I say somewhat grudgingly. Gratitude has always been hard for me, and I owe Peeta so much already. It's made worse when I've given him so little in return, barely spoken to him, and he keeps showing up here, keeps giving.

"Of course. How's Gale?"

I shoot him a reproachful glare. "You know just as well as I do."

"I doubt that."

"It's not like he sends me letters on carrier pigeons. I truly don't know anything you don't."

I instantly feel bad for snapping at the kindest person I know, so I follow it up with. "…sorry."

"No, I understand." He shakes his head, dislodging the golden curls that frame his face and giving me the urge to reach out and realign them.

Does he really understand? The urge to explain it to him is there; it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't make myself even make an attempt. I know there's no point. The words might make sense in my head, but they would never make sense coming out of my mouth.

So why even try?

"I should…I should really get back to cooking," I say by way of an excuse, when it becomes clear Peeta will not leave of his own accord.

"Right. Of course." He tips his head goodbye and turns around. "I'll see you around, Katniss!"

"See you around," I echo, but the truth is, I hope I don't. I'm not interested in feeling this kind of guilt again, especially for a choice I thought I'd already reconciled with.

Prim insists she doesn't need my help in the kitchen. In a bid to distract myself, I turn the TV on to coverage of Gale's stay in the Capitol, even though the mandatory viewing period doesn't start for a few more hours. I turn it off just as quickly. I don't want to watch interviews of architects and party planners. If I'm going to sit through this crap, Gale needs to be onscreen, and that's that.

Even when Gale does come onscreen, after dinner, it's difficult to bear. He's dressed in a black suit- for Madge, for mourning- that makes him look nothing like himself. He takes center stage by himself, but the camera pans to show the slew of Capitol citizens gathered for the "party of the century", as if there's anything to celebrate about the Hunger Games. I hate them; I hate all of them.

"People of Panem, I thank you, and it is an honor to be here in the Capitol." Gale still reads off a card, but there's a little more life to his voice tonight. Maybe he's excited, knowing how close he is to going home. "I never thought I'd get here; I saw myself losing, dying, in so many different and painful ways. Since I was first Reaped, my life has changed so much and become almost unrecognizable, but the one thing I know for sure is how lucky I am. When I first met Madge…"

I tune this part out. I know the story of Gale and Madge by heart, and could probably recite the whole thing to Prim as a bedtime story if I wanted to do something that would make me projectile vomit. Instead, I focus on the images and the lights, the pink-toned bulbs that turn Gale's face a shade of rose. I block out the words and watch Haymitch and Effie, his mentor and escort respectively, watching from the back of the stage. Haymitch has always hated Gale. I don't know what Effie thinks, but right now she looks as nervous as Haymitch does drunk.

I'm relieved when Gale's speech comes to an end and the floor goes to President Snow, our fearless leader who has surely never seen anything more dangerous than a tax audit. While Gale had center stage, Snow speaks from a balcony on the other side of the auditorium, probably fifty feet off the ground. Maybe he's worried he'll be assassinated if he's within the people's reach; I don't know. He's a tiny speck in most everyone's viewpoint, but big screens show his face all around the room.

"Welcome. Welcome, everyone." Snow booms out, echoing over the microphone. His voice is deep but elegant, like a bullfrog that went to prep school. "Mister Hawthorne, your story is, as always, a delight, and I commend you for your bravery. May you live a life of glory, honoring the Capitol with every word."

The screen shows Gale for a moment, his eyebrows knit and jaw set. For once, I can't get into his head at all, but it's pretty clear that he's upset.

"We are gathered on a very auspicious day," Snow continues. I don't really know what that word means, but Mother shushes me when I ask. "…the reading of the card. Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come: we are to celebrate our third Quarter Quell."

"What's a Quarter Quell?!" Prim squawks, and of course Mother answers her question.

"Every quarter of a century- so, twenty-five years- they have a special Hunger Games with an extra twist," Mom says flatly, staring straight ahead. Talking about the Games (and lots of other things, honestly) is hard on her mental health. I know a friend of hers was Reaped as a child, a friend who obviously didn't make it out. "Seventy-fifth Hunger Games, Third Quarter Quell."

"Haymitch won the last Quell, didn't he?" I ask, but it's not really a question. I know the answer just as well as she does.

Mother nods, a scowl twisting her otherwise-pretty face. "Yes. He did. That year, they sent twice as many tributes as usual."

So Haymitch won out of forty-eight, not twenty-four. It's impressive, in a way, but I still think he's a putz.

An attendant bows as he offers Snow an envelope in a velvet box. He plucks it out and breaks the wax seal, red and pressed with the image of a rose. My heart rate spikes as he begins to read, even though this is the beginning; this is nowhere near as terrifying as the Reaping will be, when my life and Prim's will be on the line.

"In the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games," Snow begins, his voice echoing over the square and our television set. "As a reminder that inter-district fraternization is what brought on the Dark Days, we will allow two tributes to win, provided they are from the same district."

Mother gasps loudly. "Oh my god."

"Big fuckin' deal," I grumble. "They're killing twenty-two kids instead of twenty-three this year; it's still awful."

"Katniss!" my mother exclaims, and I'm not sure if she's scolding me for the language or the treasonous words. Probably the latter. It's no secret that the walls have ears in District Twelve, and the authorities really do not take treason lightly. I do feel bad for swearing in front of Prim, though.

My sister doesn't seem concerned with my use of the 'fuck' word, at least. "I think you're wrong, Katniss," she insists, her blue eyes boring into mine. "It is a big deal. That's a-whole-nother life spared! That's a huge deal!"

"But in the grand scheme of things…"

"I'm not talking about the grand scheme," Prim says stubbornly. "I'm talking about that one person. How much it will mean to them, and their family. Imagine if Gale and Madge had been reaped this year instead of last!"

I swallow hard as I picture it. If they had been chosen for the year of two, Madge would still be alive. They would still be together, still be happy. As much as I love Gale, and as pleased as I am that he's mine, I never would have gotten in the way of his relationship with Madge. I would not begrudge him a love like that.

Having a ray of sunshine for a little sister makes it so hard to be bitter.

"I guess you're right," I eventually concede. "…but I highly doubt we'll see another love story this year. Really, what are the odds?"

§

The finale of the Victory Tour is at home, in Twelve. As much as I've hated everything to do with the tour so far, I can't help but be excited for this part. There will be music and dancing and free food, aka things that pretty much never happen here. Most importantly, though, I will get to see Gale. Actually, that's not what's most important. What's most important is that everyone in the district is expected to attend this party, and Gale is the guest of honor. For the first time since before the Games, I'll able to interact with him outside of the woods.

It won't be the same, but it'll be so much better than nothing. Especially after the weeks we've spent apart, weeks that have worn on him just as much as me, there's no denying that we deserve this. We won't be able to kiss or anything, obviously, but I'll be able to talk with him, at least. Maybe even steal a dance later in the night…I daydream about it all through the day, until I'm unsure the actual event will live up to my expectations.

It does. The town square is almost unrecognizable, transformed by the Capitol's healthy budget. Streamers in every color line the courtyard, with spotlights mounted in the corners so the party can go on late into the night. Tables are lined up and overflowing with food- something that never happens here- and there are even warming stations set up, to combat the harsh January chill.

When we get there, the tables are roped off and the band is not yet playing. The festivities won't start until Gale arrives and makes his obligatory speech, which I'm excited for even though I'm sure it will be the same as it was in every other district. To see him, to hear his voice- it'll be good. That's all I have to say.

"This is wonderful!" Prim marvels, taking in the extravagantly-decorated square. We're all bundled up as much as we can be, anticipating a long night in the cold. Prim has on one of my old jackets on top of her regular coat, allowing for more layers underneath. I'm not as worried about all that. My trips to the woods have gotten me used to low temperatures, and once we start dancing, I'll forget about the cold altogether.

It's relatively boring until Gale takes the stage. He's dressed warmly but stylishly, with a scarf and a fur cap that were obviously made in the Capitol. His expression is hard; I'm surprised. I expected him to be happy to be home, but maybe the relief won't set in until after his speech.

"Hello, everyone." The crowd turns as one, all eyes finding Gale. People push and shove- I shove back, making sure Prim has room- to get closer to the stage. I resist the urge to find my way there too. I can hear and see fine from here, and I have learned my lesson about keeping a low profile, many times over.

"It's good to be back in District Twelve," Gale continues, although his face says otherwise. "While I greatly enjoyed the generosity of the Capitol, there's nothing quite like being home."

He pauses to look down at his cards.

"While I've spoken to many of you since my return, I realize I've never truly thanked any of you for your part in my survival." He doesn't sound anything like himself. This is worse than the Games, when at least I recognized the person in front of me. "The rope, the berries. I know that was a gift from all of you. Thank you."

The gifts were more from me than anyone else, but it's definitely for the best that I share the credit.

"And Madge…"

I shrink back a little at the obvious pain in his voice, but I can't tune this out like I tuned it out in eleven other districts.

"…I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her," Gale declares, which I don't necessarily believe. "I can never make up for what she did for me. To her family…I grieve with you. She was a wonderful girl, Madge. She was a kind soul who lit up every room she walked into. Even in the arena, she stayed kind, and gentle. I admire her for that."

I'm not the jealous type- at least, not like Gale is- but it still grinds my gears a bit to hear him talk about someone else so affectionately. Even someone who is dead. Like I said, all feelings regarding Madge (both for me and for Gale) are complicated and usually I just ignore them until they go away.

"So, to all of District Twelve: thank you for your sacrifice," Gale intones, stuffing the cards into his jacket pocket. "And it is an honor to be your Victor."

The clapping starts out slow, which doesn't surprise me. There are a lot of people who don't like Gale, people who think Madge should have won instead of him. I can see where they're coming from, I guess. Madge had the entire country charmed, but in the end, she made her choice. It's not right to take it out on Gale, who is struggling as it is.

Once the smattering of applause dies down, Gale backs away and is immediately fussed over by his escort, wild-haired Effie Trinket. The mayor takes center stage, and I automatically wince. Talk about a person who hates Gale. Mayor Undersee is Madge's father. The mayor and his wife are both extremely kind people, but they loved their daughter far too much to ever consider forgiveness.

Admittedly, Gale did also kind of rub it in when he first got back to Twelve. Before he knew better. He would never do such a thing now.

Mayor Undersee reads his speech off a card as well, in a completely monotone voice. Someone else must have written it, because it praised Gale highly and referred to his relationship with the mayor's daughter as 'beautiful', and I know that's not how the mayor feels. The look he shoots Gale after the speech is certainly not 'beautiful'.

And then, it's over. At least, the hard part is over. Attendants rush to remove the ropes from the buffet tables, and the band- professional players from the Capitol, not our ragtag bunch- strikes up a jaunty tune. I look to Prim, who is grinning. "What next?"

"Food!" she says right away. "I'm starving, and somebody didn't let me have dinner on time!"

I roll my eyes. Yes, even though yesterday- New Year's Day- was Parcel Day and our kitchen was stocked, I insisted we skip dinner and eat in the square. I can't help it. We've gone hungry too many times for me to not hoard food.

I let Prim drag me to the end of the buffet line, and we load our plates up with food. I am in heaven. Never before have I seen so many different foods, all warm, all delicious, all free. Lamb and plum stew, sweet rolls fresh out of the oven, carved slices of beef- we've never been able to afford beef! I try everything and go back for seconds. Prim is laughing at me, but she's enjoying herself just as much. Mother scolds both of us and reminds us to use napkins- she was raised a townie, so that kind of thing is important to her. It's crazy how a woman can forget to take care of her children for multiple months at a time, but she has not once shut up about salad forks.

When we can eat no more, we dance. It's not easy to jig and spin when you're full to bursting, but it's better than the alternative, I guess. Lots of boys and girls pair up, but I stay close to Prim. If I can't dance with Gale, I don't want to dance with anyone.

My cheeks burn as I remember the last dance I had attended, where I had definitely not danced with Gale. It had been in the middle of the Games. Peeta. I had danced with Peeta, all night long.

Oh, shit, and he's here. I'm scanning the room for Gale and I catch Peeta's eye instead, just my luck. He smiles when he sees me and gives me that half-wave that makes me feel like a terrible person. I try to smile back but it comes out more like a grimace. I look away as fast as I can.

I spot Gale in the crowd, and that's a relief. He's doing what he's supposed to do, drifting through the square and schmoozing with the crowd. I can't get him to catch my eye, but when he excuses himself to warm his hand under one of the heat lamps, I nudge Prim with my elbow. "I'm gonna go talk to him, quick."

"That's a bad idea, Katniss!" she warns me, but she also doesn't hold me back.

I'm small and lithe, good at slipping through crowds. I duck past dancers and people who are somehow still popping Capitol biscuits into their mouths to get to Gale. People are near him, but for all practical purposes, he is alone. Most importantly, he is not with Haymitch.

I'm not stupid. I don't sidle up to him; I stand across from him and take my gloves off so the heat lamp can work its magic. For whatever reason, Gale still scowls when he sees me. "Katniss," he hisses. "You're not supposed to be here."

"What do you mean? The whole district was invited," I say innocently.

"That's not what I meant." He shakes his head irritably. "It's not safe here."

That doesn't make sense either. With the marvelous excuse of Gale's victory party, I can't think of a place that would be safer.

"You have to get out of here before someone sees us talking," Gale insists, and something about his tone convinces me to obey. "I'll explain later. But the woods…the woods aren't safe anymore, either."

That is too far, though. "What am I supposed to do, let my family starve?"

"You'll figure something out. Now go!"

I huff at him as I turn away. Stop going to the woods? Stop hunting? He doesn't even understand what he's asking. Whatever, Gale.

Please read and review! I'm putting my heart and soul on the line here.