A week later, I awoke in the morning to an empty bed. Prim had returned to her room. Gale insisted he would take the floor, since he was almost healed. At all of our insistence to take a bed in the Everdeen household, he refused to impede on anyone any further. I peered out the window to find freshly chopped fire wood stacked high on the side of the house. A dozen new arrows, whittled and fashioned just how I liked them, rested next to the wood pile.

Shortly after the morning Gale awoke alone in my bed, he had busied himself with chores around the house, in spite of Primm and my mother's concerns.

"Can't you speak to him, Katniss? Maybe he'll listen to you and find some sense." My mother asked after she had come back from the town square one afternoon to find an ornately crafted medicinal closet in the kitchen and the majority of the trees in our yard, hacked to the roots. I promised her I would speak with him, knowing I never had any intention to.

I knew this was Gale's way of coping with the situation we were in. Before his whipping, he would have taken out his frustrations in the forest, found solace high in the hills and licked his wounds. But now, he was just as trapped as I was. Trapped in a life that had been decided for him and forced into a future that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. I wouldn't take his work away from him; take away his coping mechanism.

We didn't see each other much in those weeks following although we were sharing a roof. I made myself scarce in my bedroom, while Gale took to the outdoors. He didn't leave the confines of my back yard in case Peacekeepers were out looking for trouble. When we did bump into each other, he was amiable and did his best to treat me as the same girl he had found in the woods on her first hunt those years ago. We were friends.

"You don't need to be in any rush to leave, son." My mother said.

Inspecting her handiwork, she peeled away the bandages from his back. The torn, broken body which was dumped on her kitchen table a few weeks past, showed signs of considerable healing. A network of newly formed scars ran across Gale's back. I stared in amazement at my lurking place in the kitchen doorway. Gale most likely knew I was there. He always knew.

"Your wounds have healed amazingly well, there's no denying that." My mother continued, applying antiseptic to some of the scabbing. "But you technically have some open wounds and until this scabbing comes off completely, there is the risk of infection."

I smiled sadly at the concern in her voice. My mother would never admit it, but she had grown accustomed to having a man in the house again and was sad to see Gale go.

Not as sad as I was.

"I really should be getting back to my mother and brothers," he said. He craned his neck, peering over his shoulder to look at her. "I'll be back for regular check ups, I promise." he assured. She gave him a wilted smile and nodded as he shrugged into his shirt. He turned turned to her, rested his broad hands on her frail shoulders and looked down at her.

"Mrs. Everdeen, I don't know how I could ever thank you enough for –"

"I was just answering the call." My mother said.

She reached up and brushed a smudge of soot from his jawline.

"You can thank me by staying alive. I don't want to see you back here on this table, young man." There was a motherly sternness in her cadence – one that I hadn't heard in a very long time.

"Yes ma'am," he said with a lopsided grin.

Knowing he was about to leave, I forced myself into view. I couldn't bare the thought of not saying goodbye, but I couldn't bare the thought of it at the same time. His grin faded and upon my materializing and his eyes suddenly changed. We looked at each other in silence for a long while; my mother caught in the awkward middle.

"Well, I have some herbs to categorize for my beautiful new cabinet..." she segued, mercifully scuffling off.

Gale closed the distance between us. I felt so heavy, where I stood as if all the weight and sorrow of the world was on my shoulders. My rational mind knew I was being melodramatic. People were dying of starvation, tortured at the capitol's hands, while others were being maimed and forced into servitude. If I were a bigger person, I would accept that people had worse tragedies than me. Others didn't survive the games, as I did; let alone survive them with a boy they deeply cared about from their own district. But watching Gale get ready to say goodbye to any future we could have together, seemed like the most insufferable cross to bare.

I must have looked pitiful. A very small smile tugged at his bottom lip, his eyes shining as he wrapped his arms around me. I closed my eyes and let myself exist in his space. I pressed my cheek against the solidness of his chest and breathed in his scent, trying to memorize it.

"Hey, Catnip. This isn't goodbye." he said. After all that happened, he was consoling me.

I breathed him in one more time and looked up at him with the most composed expression I could muster.

"You're right. I'll see you in a few days." I nodded at him. "You're check-up with the doc." I wondered if he heard my voice waiver.

"Right," he nodded.

Again, we stood in silence, not wanting to part ways. Finally, Gale went in for the kill. Being the braver of the two of us, he was willing to end the misery. He cradled my head in his large, warm hands and tilted my face up to him, looking right into me.

Only this time, I didn't look away.

His silver eyes grew in intensity as he saw everything he'd spent so many years looking for. I felt boneless and flimsy as he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, in a soft kiss. He tasted of mint, like the ones I had fed him when he was ill; when it all began.

"I better get going." he whispered against my forehead. I nodded, unable to form words. He planted one last kiss on my cheek and left without a sound.