Notes: Before we begin, I have something to say that is very important to me. This fic includes both ships very heavily. One thing I hate: ship wars/drama. My goal is not to work out which ship is better, or to prove that the other is worse. I want to take a look at how the story might have unfolded. Both choices are valid, and I hope that I can honor the good and bad aspects of both relationships. Of all three characters. That means people will hurt and get hurt. One way or the other.

Now, if you are very much against one ship, please keep that in mind before or while reading. I want you to enjoy this, and I want to keep enjoy writing this.

Also, updates will require some time. Writing this fic has become a wonderful distraction, but I am currently in the last month of my training as a speech therapist, and so I can't let it distract me too much. That is, if I want to pass my exams. So, bear with me, be a little patient, and I'll love you forever.

The title is taken from A Falling Through by Ray LaMontagne.

UNTIL THEY CEASE TO GLOW

I burned so long so quiet you must have wondered
if I loved you back. I did, I did, I do.

Annelyse Gelman, The Pillowcase

the first year.

They marry in the Capitol.

When Peeta kisses her, the crowd roars, and Katniss screams. She screams until her throat bursts open, until crystal vases and chandeliers shatter and crumble into fine dust that rains down upon them. She screams until the laces and ribbons of her white dress tear, until her heart cuts evenly in two.

But nobody can hear her screams.

When her eyes open, she sees herself reflected in Peeta's tears.

To the thousands in the crowd, they are tears shed in happiness. To them, they are the seal on their future, a dark tunnel without any light waiting for them at the end.

Beneath them, the wheels of the chariot turn and turn, the Game never ending as they are driven through the beaming, pompous streets of the Capitol. Bright colors greet them everywhere – ruby, orchid, tangerine, teal, emerald, navy - but Katniss only sees the darkness beyond.

There is no heat as the flames lick around the elaborate braids that crown her head. Spikes of fire instead of gold, weighing her head down as she waves her hand – a stoic movement that her muscles have remembered over time. It requires no effort. Not anymore.

By her side, Peeta stands tall, fingers entwined with her own. She does not belong to either him or herself in this moment in this life – she is the girl on fire. Wrapped in white, suffocated by lace and ribbon, silk and silver. A bride that burns as the crowd fawns.

She burns before their eyes, yet no one takes notice. And so, silently, slowly, she fades away.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Polished. No blemishes, no scars, no hairs. She is wiped clean from everything she ever was, everything deemed an imperfection. Everything that defined who she was. Once.

In her ears, Katniss can still hear the soft hum of the train as it sped through the districts. But it is far gone now, replaced by slightly frozen dirt beneath her feet.

There is a crunch for each step she takes, further and further, the darkness of the evening only lit by flickering lights that dance behind thin glass windows down along the path.

Gale is awake when she knocks on his door. Waiting.

He has always waited for her.

There is so much he wants to say, and so little she can bear to hear. For both their protection, she silences him hastily with a kiss before he can even utter a single word. No gentleness can be found where they connect, only raw, tempestuous anger, a violent farewell to everything that could never be.

Never even had the glimpse at a chance.

Her wedding ring cruelly reflects the light from the oil lamp as she lies naked and exposed, and she is glad for the smears of ash and coal that Gale blows, slides, spreads and skims all over the pale planes of her skin.

Only he can give her back what the world has stolen from her.

Afterward, she feels her skin gleam with heat, but she welcomes the fire, allows it to simmer just beneath the surface of her skin – turn it red and raw. His calloused fingers form a star against her back, holding her close, swallowing her whole.

She has never seen him cry, but when he whispers Catnip into the crown of her head, a soft murmur she hardly perceives as language, his voice stumbles and chokes on tears regardless of how fiercely he fights to resist them.

She leaves before the sun rises. The setting and rising of the sun belongs to Peeta, and she has already given one away.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Peeta must know, she is sure of it.

That first morning, when she slips through the front door of their house – it is theirs now, neither hers nor his, they are husband and wife, after all – he is asleep on the plush couch, still dressed in the clothes they have returned in from the Capitol.

Just like her.

He wakes when she stops to study him, asleep and peaceful. Innocent. Beneath his kind eyes, dark circles have formed, and they make her wonder how long he has waited for her last night, how long he hoped for her to return to him.

I'm sorry, she whispers. It is the first and only time she apologizes for what she has done, for what she can and can not feel, for whatever their future might hold. She apologizes for a great many things, none of them she can voice out loud.

Instead of anger, instead of pain, Peeta responds with kindness. Slowly, he stands, the thud of his boots on the floor boards like impending doom, and her heart rate picks up nervously. But he never walks further, never crosses the line she has drawn so clearly between them. So am I. For everything. There is no accusation. When he turns away, she hears his sigh.

(when she lies awake later that night, after the sun has risen and set again, she allows her mind, just for a moment, to imagine peeta's lips.

stained in red juice. stained with death. she falls asleep and in her dreams, peeta's face fades into gale, into prim, into her mother, her father, herself.

she wakes screaming.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

She finds a flawless, white rose on her doorstep one morning. A delicate white paper note tied to the stalk. As she slowly unties is, her finger pricks on a thorn, thick blood soaking into the snow white petals.

Careful, it reads.

She stares as the rose turns red in the palm of her hand.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Each Sunday, she waits for Gale at their old spot, hidden behind the thickness of the trees. Not even there does she feel safe anymore. Each breath is lined with caution, her eyes scooting from one tree to the next. Scanning. Assessing.

There is no place in this world that is safe. There never has been, truly.

When Gale shows, he always looks tired. It is who they are now. Cautious. Tired. Dark circles shadowed beneath dark eyes.

Once, he told her her laughter was linked to the canopy of trees, their shelter. It has fled now, her lips uncurled, stoic. Sometimes, she catches him as he watches her – the resolute tension in her arms before she kills, the cutting focus in her eyes. Waiting for a smile that never tickles her lips anymore.

They hunt in silence because there is nothing to say that will change the way things are.

Some days, he finds her hand. She drops it.

Some days, she pushes him against the rough bark of a tree, unbuckles his belt so deftly the metal clasp bruises her fingers as it flings back. He never stops her. Not when she wantonly pulls herself up against him, clawing at him like a cat. Not when she pulls them to the dirty ground, sinks down onto him with a frenzied sigh which she suffocates with his lips-

Some days, he tenderly pants her name into the crook of her neck. It hurts each time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The nightmares belong to Peeta. Only he can understand, knows what she sees behind closed eyes when the night comes.

For months, those wretched nights are the only times she can let him in. When she screams, he is there again, just like before. He holds her in his arms, and to the beating of his heart, she breathes again.

Gale can never understand. He would never know the torment, or the horrors. To him belongs the girl in the woods, fighting for food, struggling for warmth, granting a rare but genuine smile.

She is more than that now. There is the part that was born in flames during the Games, split from who she was, a part that only Peeta can aim to comprehend.

She never stays with Gale further than the setting of the sun, slips away, ignores the lingering heat of his hand on her back as she dresses, sometimes even a hopeful muttering of her name, almost a question. A plead.

Months pass, night after night spend in Peeta's arms. Then, he kisses her one night, just as her panting has calmed down. She can still hear Cato's agonized screams, sees the blood speckled across the sky, and so she keeps her eyes open, allows Peeta to lay her down beneath him.

He is calm and quiet, never stops touching her. As she pulls him into her, the nightmare fades away, vicious barking and the tearing of flesh replaced by Peeta's blissful whisper and a sweet tremble. Blood red replaced by soft yellow and orange.

With Peeta, she feels comfort.

With Gale, she feels alive.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Effie is the only person who ever calls. Whenever the phone rings, a shrill, unfamiliar sound, Katniss winces. It catches her off guard.

Some days, Peeta notices, rests a tentative hand on hers, a small act of comfort. Even when he doesn't, he always picks up the phone.

They want to come and film us, he announces one day, standing in the doorway of their living room, eyes weary. Katniss can see that he weighs every word on his tongue carefully, that he keeps a distance for a reason.

Why? Her fingers fidget with a nearby cushion, dread filling her, a heavy weight that pushes her further into the couch. Have they not given them everything already? What more can they want?

Effie said they want to make a special broadcast after the wedding. We're suppose to... Well, talk about married life. Show them around the house.

She nods. They should have known. You never get off this train echoes in her memory, sharp as the day it was spoken. She can still almost smell the liquor on Haymitch's breath.

Two days later, camera crews arrive, Cinna is there, offers her a kind smile, cups her cheek in his palm. In his eyes, Katniss sees the one thing nobody else can give her: understanding. Not pity, not sadness on her behalf, not even anger or frustration. He understands, and he understands that no words can fix what has been broken and taken from her.

They dress her in soft pink, her hair falls in fluid waves across her shoulders, her face paler than it ever has been, lips and cheeks tinted as soft as roses – she looks innocent, like a page from a long forgotten story book. She puts on the gold wedding ring that wraps delicately around her finger like a leaf takes it from the nightstand where she usually leaves it behind, puts on a smile (she notices its hollowness when she walks past her own reflection).

Peeta wraps his arm around her waist, nudges his nose against her temple as he greets invisible crowds, welcomes them kindly to their home. They stand there, on the threshold, a camera pointed at them like a gun, and a reporter dressed head-to-toe in bright turquoise bombards them with silly, shallow questions. How is life as married couple? What has changed? Could you be any happier?

Katniss smiles and nods dutifully when the moment calls for it, but Peeta does most of the talking, just as he has always done. Every now and again, she gives a joyous sigh, looks up at Peeta, serves them what they desire.

Her blush pink heels click against the floor as the camera follows them through each room of their home. Everything has been prepped, all of Effie's sweat and blood poured into making their home look ready for the crowds. One would think it has been abandoned for years, she had muttered earlier in the morning, scrunching up her nose in disgust. Half of the items that sparkle and glitter in the bright lights now do not even belong to them.

Nothing belongs to them.

I could imagine nothing that would make me happier than sharing a home with Peeta. I look at him when I wake up in the morning, and I just can't help but smile.

Somewhere in the other room, Katniss can hear Effie fawning, and Peeta smiles down at her so brightly – she knows he is pretending that she means what she said. They meet in a chaste kiss, right there in middle of their kitchen, and Katniss, too, pretends that she means it, if only to keep everyone she loves alive.

Including Peeta, and the contradiction stings sharply in her chest.

When the cameras are gone, when Cinna has kissed her forehead and said his goodbyes (she can barely hear the: I'm still betting on you, but she holds on to it, nonetheless) and when Effie has pressed her into her corseted chest, Peeta silently retreats.

The door of the guest bedroom clicks softly as he closes it behind himself, and Katniss falls asleep, irritated and conflicted, in their bed alone, a flat palm pressed against cold sheets.

She does not see him for three days.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

In Gale's silence, Katniss finds only confusion.

Back before everything changed, he had voiced his concerns openly – to her, to his family, always with the security that his words would have no serious consequences. Consequences they simply could not afford.

She remembers the fire that stoked in his eyes when he talked of how the system should be overturned, the Capitol taken down, the people freed. The people. How the people needed to stand up tall and united against the force that suppressed them.

Now, he never mentions it anymore. Not to her, anyway.

Perhaps, she wonders, it is because she is now just another wheel in that big system. (she is never sure if he hates her for it or fears for her because she had had no choice)

The memories of the Victory Tour are sharp, blood red graffiti – the odds really never have been in their favor, she feels that now more than ever – the old man, the sounds of guns and raging crowds. Who protects them? Haymitch's words echo in her mind as she loosens her arrow, watches it cut through the air, hit the rabbit straight in the eye.

Gale's hand on her shoulder is encouraging, and as he marches through the undergrowth to collect her kill, she can almost picture him as a soldier. Broad shouldered and tall as he is, the armor and gun strapped to his body are not difficult to imagine.

Not for the first time, she debates with herself if telling him about the uprisings would be a good idea. He deserves to know, and it pains her that she has kept it from him all these months. What she has seen, what President Snow has told her, what she has caused.

He might even be proud of what her risky stunt with the Nightlock has stirred in the districts, the fire it has awoken. A joint suicide attempt that has sparked a long dormant rage. (she can not remember anymore – had it been only an act to save both peeta and herself? or would she really have eaten those berries? if it came down to it.

sometime she wishes that she had.)

Gale would fight. He would find a way. If only he knew.

He would burn for the cause. And she can not lose him.

So, she pushes her legs to cross the distance, takes the blood smeared arrow from his hands, and watches calmly as he smiles.

(she wants to see his insatiable fire, but she only sees embers now. in his fire, the capitol might have burned. she stands in flames, but it is not enough. but she wants it to be, wants snow's flesh to blister and melt away. her fire is not enough, but perhaps together they could be. like he imagined, once upon a time.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The rain comes streaming down from above, gray clouds hiding the blue sky. It soaks through her sweater, her shirt clinging to the planes of her back and stomach. She can feel the drops weighing down her lashes, but she keeps gaping nonetheless, stares up ahead into the gray mass of clouds, and she wishes it would all come falling down, crush her beneath its weight.

Katniss, you'll catch a cold. It is Prim's confounded voice, somewhere far away. The wind carries it lightly, twists it – Katniss clings to the sound, her eyes falling shut with fatigue.

Her braid is heavy where is sticks down her back, but still she stands tall. There is no way further down any more, so she will not let the ground consume her.

Katniss, come on!

Her palms are faced towards the sky, trying to catch the rain, and as it slips through her fingers, tears prickle in her eyes. Tears that mingle with the rain, becoming invisible for the world.

Come on, sweetheart. It startles her. It's not Prim. Deft hands curl around her arms, pull and maneuver her away. She wants to fight, wants to tell the phantom no. But she stumbles along anyway, boots sloshing against the ground, the smell of liquor pungent and the smell of rain eventually fading.

Suddenly, everything is piercingly quiet. No wind howling in her ears. No rain drumming down from up above. For the briefest moment, long enough to hold a breath and feel the pause between her heartbeats, she wonders if perhaps this is it. Perhaps she is dead, perhaps it has all been a shadowy, foul dream.

(if she tries frantically, she feels the relieving piercing of an arrow through her heart. tastes the sweet taste of nightlock.)

Nimble hands frame her face, delicate fingers, and when she surrenders, opens her eyes, she sees a coat of tears in Prim's eyes that not even the rain can conceal.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The light of the sun is still cold, despite the pleasant breeze that soothes the exposed skin of her arms – her coat forgotten and abandoned on the rack in the hallway. Carefully, she closes the front door, wary of each noise she makes. It is almost like she is hunting again, even the smallest movement of her body studied and precise.

It is so early, just after sunrise, the world still calm and quiet, except for the birds that fill the air with their songs.

What has driven her to his door, Katniss does not know. It is not Sunday, but she knows he is working a late shift today, has remembered when he mentioned it the week before in the woods, dropped into their scarce conversation like a beacon of light.

After she knocks, carefully, it takes a few moments before the door is pulled open – it hurts to know he was asleep, not expecting her to really show. There is no hope inside of her, and she feels as though she is suffocating it in everything and everyone she touches.

No matter what everyone says.

There is a dark bruise forming on Gale's temple, almost black in color, a wound treated hastily and sloppily with gauze. What happened? The door falls shut behind her, and gone is the warm breeze. The cold early morning light. Her question is lazed with fear.

Accident in the mines, Gale rasps, still sleepy. He has his arms crossed in front of his bare chest, keeping her out. There is little he can do to protect himself from her, she knows.

She adds nothing after that, gently sits him down, determinedly cleans the wound, eases her fingers down his temple. His eyes drift shut when she sifts her fingers through his hair, from the top of his head to the base of his skull.

(she imagines him in the mines, down there where their fathers died, covered in a grave of ash and coal, never to be retrieved. The gruesome thought makes her sick, and so she kisses his forehead, hopes that it will erase the haunting images the way peeta's kisses make her nightmares fade from her memory.)

It is different this time. Perhaps because Gale is still slow and weighed-down by sleep. Perhaps because Katniss is suddenly overcome by an unbearable and terrible fear of losing him.

He kisses the side of her neck, his warm chest pressing into her back. His touch burns itself into the indentations of her skin, where she locks them. The heat soaks soothingly through her thin shirt, and she is glad she has not bothered with a coat earlier.

Against her stomach, their hands are entwined. Lazed tightly, locked so nothing can separate them. A fantasy. No sound but Gale's soft breathing against her ear disrupts the silence.

It could have been like this, once. Lazy early mornings spend in bed, tangled in each others arms. Now, there is no point in giving life to the illusion. There is no purpose in what ifs and what could have beens, but she cherishes the quiet moment all the same.

I love you, Catnip.

She wants to say I know because she does. Truly, always has known. Now that she looks back upon cold days spent beneath the canopy of trees, she sees it in everything he did, hears it in everything he said. The way he smiled or joked, the help he offered without ever demanding anything in return. Those simpler days have long passed, the days when she would have told him that.

Now, she says nothing instead.

The Reaping weighs her down, and she knows she will find no sleep the next few days until she will officially become a mentor. Until they drag her to the Capitol again, fit her bright colors again, drive her into Peeta's arms. Again.

not prim. not rory. please.

She shuffles, turns until her eyes meet Gale's. I love you, she thinks, pressing her forehead against his. I would have chosen you. But they took that choice from her.

They would have been together, found their way to each other. Perhaps it would have all stayed the same, treasured Sundays spend hunting. Perhaps, she would have allowed him in, fallen into his waiting, open arms. One day, she muses now, she might have agreed to marry him. It might have been like this, intimate and bare, or just as it had always been, unchanged and good.

Now, they will never know what might have been.

When their lips meet eventually, it is softer than usual. This morning, there is no rush, no despair. No anger.

Just sadness and grief.

It feels like goodbye.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The first year, Auburn and Wespon are reaped.

Katniss throws up her meager breakfast as soon as they board the train, and it is Peeta who strokes her back, says nothing because there is nothing anyone could say to suffocate the guilt and shame she feels for being relieved.

Not Prim.

Not Rory.

Auburn drowns.

Wespon bleeds to death slowly, drop for drop seeping out into the sand. The whole country watches as the life slowly fades from his eyes. When the canon blasts.

The clock keeps turning without them.

Katniss stares at the screen with empty eyes, sees none of it as Peeta clutches her hand.

They return to District 12 with two coffins, and more shattered, broken pieces never to be fixed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Haymitch opens the door before she even has the chance to lift her hand to knock. She's grateful, feels as though all her limbs are weighed down by the events of the past two weeks. The last year.

She sees the dead children, hears their tears and screams of anguish and fear. Hears the crowd cheering as Peeta kissed her, Caesar's laughter, his dewy hand as he took hers to marvel at her wedding ring.

The children they all have failed. All three of them. Haymitch. Peeta. Her.

She does not need to be comforted.

She does not need to feel alive.

She needs to feel numb, to forget, even if it is only for a little while.

Not a single words is exchanged between them. Not when Katniss roughly pushes past Haymitch into his messy living room. Not when she grabs a bottle half-filled with clear liquid from the floor. Not as the suns sets outside and the bottles begin to empty one by one.

When she wakes, her head throbs severely, each pulsing of her heart sending a shock wave of electricity through her entire body. The stench of alcohol mingles with the luscious smell of freshly baked bread, and she suddenly realizes that the warm weight around her middle is Peeta's arm.

Let's go home, he gulps, and even though his voice is barely above a whisper, the words cut through her like knives.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Perhaps she could be happy with Peeta.

One day, it might be enough. To settle with what she was forced to give in to.

He is kind. Gentle. He offers her comfort freely. He loves her. So much more than she will ever be able to love him. It isn't fair, neither to him nor to her.

The weeks in the Capitol have brought them closer, their shared pain a link forged in blood and flames, one that can not be broken.

The days change slowly. Katniss begins to long for his fleeting embraces, begins to laugh more when he attempts to make her smile. Begins to talk to him. He changes as she does, the light she used to see in his eyes returns slowly. He glows, the circles under his eyes ease, his face seems younger, engaged, more innocent.

They are not what they pretend to be. They are not glamorous, no dazzling star-crossed lovers. There is no perfection within them.

But there is love, somewhere deep down inside her. Some unfamiliar form of it. There could be happiness. A small, more pliant part of her could accept. Could manipulate herself. Could learn.

One day.