Hi there,

Last.

Chapter.

I'm sad to see this story finished, but it's possible that if inspiration strikes, more could be added… I wish I could be more sure, but I'm not. I have a serious medical condition called Spontaneous Writing Disorder.

This chapter is a little bit convoluted... just a warning. But don't I always write sort of convoluted-like?

The Camera is Stepped On

Gale's POV

Catnip is on the train to the arena at the Capitol, and I'm thinking so fast that I am painfully aware of everything around me. Especially people, because they stare. Stare.

Days later I go hunting. I bring in a catch; it is of botched up turkeys with gouged out eyes and slashes in their valuable throat meat. The knife in my hand had a mind of its own. Maybe it was my hand with the mind of its own. Or maybe I have a mind of my own.

I get paid three times more than I did for the ugly turkeys than for that young buck me and Katniss shot that day in spring.

The merchants hand coins to me without looking in my eyes, being careful to drop the coins into my palm without touching me. As if I would break into a million pieces, like a shiny blue glass bottle of hand salve (with rosemary). I feel like screaming at them because this is what happened after my father was blown up in the mines. I don't want pity or charity- good pay is a reward for hard work, not weakness. And besides, Katniss did not get blown up. She is on fire. There's a difference, you know.

She would laugh if I could tell her that through the TV.

I start in the mines, but it's not new. Men in the mines used to pay me and Garrett, (when we hit the age of fourteen and looked old enough to pass for eighteen) to take their IDs and take their place for the dangerous days where they bomb chunks of rock. They had families to go home to, and so did we. Except ours needed more food and desperate people who want to survive pay really well. Katniss never knew about this, but I know that if she did she would want to come too, and borrow Garrett's hat to look like a boy, but she really wouldn't look like a boy because her cheekbones would be too nice. I would tuck her braid into Garrett's hat and she would grin. I shake my head and shoot a goose in the brain with an arrow. I work hard in the mines, but I wish I could hunt all day. Does Katniss know that I still hunt on Sundays?

I am watching her on TV one night, and she tells the story of that spring day when we shot the buck and bought a goat for Prim. Does she remember that pink ribbon on the goat's neck? Does she remember that I carried the goat home for her? I think she does but she doesn't tell the boy with the bread, who is fascinated by anything coming out of her mouth.

Her mother and sister mostly ignore each other, except for apothecary work. I mostly stay with them now because they like to occasionally yell and scream at each other. Not about Katniss, but about who used up the rest of the rosemary hand salve. My part is to add in that my mother might have some rosemary left in the cupboard for more salve. I go out and take some coins I got by mutilating turkeys (the coins that I didn't slip into the Everdeen's wallet when they weren't looking) and buy some rosemary from Peeta Mellark's mom. When Katniss gets back, I know that her mother and Prim will stop fighting. Ironic as it is, Katniss hates fighting. Prim and Mrs Everdeen want Katniss to come back and be happy.

One day, I see Katniss sorting berries into piles. She is cross legged on the grass in the arena and Peeta isn't there. She's humming a Capitol lullaby, which makes me laugh. The lullaby is something about a man named Revel who grows up in the Seam in a garbage bin made of plastic and propylene glycol and becomes a Peacekeeper through many trials and tribulations. Only Katniss would sing a song with subliminal messages to obey the government, all the while fighting for her life against them. The best part is that she doesn't even know she's on camera. It's almost as if we're behind the fence again.

Suddenly, I miss her and it feels as bad as hunger.

I see her look up from her piles of sorted berries and smiles right at the camera. I can't look away. The screen goes black, and then I see the back of a bare foot, and then a boy with blond hair sitting beside her and messing up the piles of berries. I wince. He even squashes one under his knee. I realize that she was smiling at him walking towards her.

Probably, she loves him. Who am I to tell? I don't know anything about love. Plenty about the other stuff, but not love. He loves her, I know for sure. He's a horrible actor; the only angle Haymitch could play in the games was the truth. Thankfully, that angle makes plenty of sponsors pour in cash for the lovebirds because Katniss and Peeta, the starstruck lovers from District 12, have their hands wrapped around everybody's hearts. Mine too. Mine's wrapped in a fist.

Sometimes I even have to fight Katniss' mother for the coins in her hands. She tries to sneak to the Hob when she thinks I'm asleep and tries to donate all of their money to Katniss and Peeta. Doesn't she know that I don't sleep anymore?

One day on TV, Katniss is in a clearing. The sun on the camera distorts the image and spots dot the edges of the film. The camera is in a tree this time so Peeta can't step on it again. She really is alone. Her braid is in and it stands out against the rest of the image. The rest is washed out. Her hair shines so black it's almost blue. Her fingers tie knots that I showed her. Sometimes, the footage completely whites out from the sunlight exposure. I remind myself that the sunlight is actually a lightbulb simulating natural light, but not until the footage is over and turns to a girl with a pinched up face eating porridge.

Before the footage is finishes rolling, I notice that her braid is smooth and silky. Beautiful. I remember the time she was about to steal my rabbit traps, that first time in the forest. The time I thought she said Catknee, and when she shook my hand like a Capitol Peacekeeper making a business deal. The time her grey eyes looked like the exact same colour as her dad's, but I didn't tell her that. The time she held her father's arrows like she might eat them if there wasn't enough chicken for her at dinner. Her baby hairs were wild like a halo around her head.

Suddenly, I am in love with her.

Thanks for reading, you there. Do you think it was confusing? Hopefully, it was confusing in a good way that will leave you puzzled YET understanding and reeling.

Team Gale forever, and ever, and ever, and ever… I know I am repelling potential Peeta-loving reviewers right now, but integrity counts, right? Right.

If you're wondering what propylene glycol is, it is a random chemical I chose for the artistry of the piece and to display the sad and chemically twisted society the Capitol has made. And, uh, that's all.