Running right into the fire

*Set in Catching Fire* "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him you know." Haymitch is right. What other boy could still love me after what I've done? What other boy would still stick by someone pregnant by another? Katniss/Peeta/Gale

- Rated M for mature themes

- Originally had this on another account - WeChangeWeWait - but I've decided to go back to using my original one. Sorry for those who did review, favourite, alert and whatever else to that one. If you want to do that to this one, that would be awesome too :)

Chapter 1

"Take a bath Haymitch," I say frostily, avoiding Peeta's gaze as much as I can. But I can feel Peeta's eyes on me as I squeeze out the window and drop to the ground. I hear a sloshing sound and then a large groan that comes from Peeta, and I am secretly glad that he is staying behind to fix Haymitch up to a presentable standard while I head home. I cross through the thick, coal stained snow, leaving a trail of boot prints behind me.

I look down at my boots and my father's hunting jacket and I know I will have to change my outfit before they come for me in an hour for the tour. I reach the front door but my hand pauses on the doorknob. If I track snow in, my mother will kill me. She's been obsessed with keeping the place clean since we moved into the Victor's Village, probably because she knows that there will be cameras coming, following me and she doesn't want to seem lesser in the eyes of the Capitol.

As I am attempting to slide them off on the front porch, the door opens.

"I'm taking them off," I mutter to her, finally pulling them off my feet. As I chuck them on the mat, my mother grips my arm, holding me in place. Is she that paranoid about me making a mess?

Her hand drifts up my shoulder and she shrugs my game bag from my shoulder. She laughs, but it comes out odd. It is high, nervous like, and it is then that I notice the man behind her in the kitchen doorway.

"Don't worry about the snow," she says. "It's good you've come back from your walk."

I don't even question why she says the word 'walk'. The man looks like the epitome of a Capitol citizen – a fitted, tailored suit wrapped around a lithe yet muscular body and a face that has been unnaturally enhanced. My mother is smart enough to not mention my illegal activities that take place in the woods.

I lean around my abnormally pale mother and smile as broadly as I can at the man. Then I turn back to my mother, and pretend that I don't see the panic that is stretched across her face. "Isn't it still early," I say good-naturedly. "Or has Cinna come to make me look presentable?"

"No Katniss, it's –"

"This way Miss Everdeen," the man interrupts. He gestures down the hallway. A flare of irritation rises in me at this – a capitol man showing me around my home – but I ignore it and simply follows his hand. I smile at my mother as best as I can. I know she is worried for me so I say, "Probably more instructions for the tour." They've been sending me all kinds of stuff about my itinerary and what protocol will be observed in each district, most of which I've only scanned. But as I walk toward the door of the study, a door I have never even seen closed until this moment, I can feel my mind begin to race. My palms begin to sweat and I wipe them down the side of my pants.

Who is here? What do they want? Why is my mother so pale?

"Go right in," says the Capitol man, who has followed me down the hallway. I twist the polished brass knob and step inside. My nose registers the conflicting scents of roses and blood and it screws up. A small, white-haired man who seems vaguely familiar is reading a book. He holds up a finger as if to say, "Give me a moment." Then he turns and my heart skips a beat, or several. I'm staring into the snakelike eyes of President Snow.

Whenever I have pictured President Snow, it has been in front of marble pillars hung with oversized flags. He has a regal, stately kind of aura that surrounds him and so it shocks me to see me surrounded by the ordinary objects in the room like the desk that has lost its varnish or the bookcase that has several screws loose. What could he be doing here? I've never known him to leave the Capitol, especially to visit a victor in their district, especially if its 12. If he's made the journey all the way from his city, it can only mean one thing. I'm in serious trouble. And if I am, so is my family. A shiver goes through me when I think of the proximity of my mother and sister to this man who despises me. Who will always despise me. Because I outsmarted his sadistic Hunger Games, made the Capitol look foolish, and consequently undermined his control. There is no one who deserves his hate more than I.

All I was doing was trying to keep Peeta and myself alive. Any act of rebellion was purely coincidental. But when the Capitol decrees that only one tribute can live and someone has the nerve to challenge it, I guess that's a rebellion in itself. My only defense was pretending that I was driven insane by a passionate love for Peeta. So we were both allowed to live. To be crowned victors. To go home and celebrate and wave good-bye to the cameras and be left alone. Until now. Perhaps it is the newness of the house or the shock of seeing him or the mutual understanding that he could have me killed in a second that makes me feel like the intruder. As if this is his home and I'm the uninvited party.

"I think we'll make this whole situation a lot simpler by agreeing not to lie to each other," he says. "What do you think?"

I think my tongue has frozen and speech will be impossible, so I surprise myself by answering back in a steady voice, "Yes, I think that would save time."

President Snow smiles and I notice his lips for the first time. I'm expecting snake lips, which is to say none. But his are overly full, the skin stretched too tight. "My advisors were concerned you would be difficult, but you're not planning on being difficult, are you?" he asks.

"No," I answer.

"That's what I told them. I said any girl who goes to such lengths to preserve her life isn't going to be interested in throwing it away with both hands. And then there's her family to think of. Her mother, her sister, and all those ... cousins." By the way he lingers on the word "cousins," I can tell he knows that Gale and I don't share a family tree.

Maybe that's better. I don't do well with ambiguous threats. I'd much rather know the score. President Snow takes a seat at the large desk of polished wood where Prim does her homework and my mother her budgets. Like our home, this is a place that he has no right, but ultimately every right, to occupy. I sit in front of the desk on one of the carved, straight-backed chairs. "I have a problem, Miss Everdeen," says President Snow. "A problem that began the moment you pulled out those poisonous berries in the arena." That was the moment when I guessed that if the Gamemakers had to choose between watching Peeta and me commit suicide - which would mean having no victor - and letting us both live, they would take the latter. "If the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, had had any brains, he'd have blown you to dust right then. But he had an unfortunate sentimental streak. So here you are. Can you guess where he is?" he asks. I nod because, by the way he says it, it's clear that Seneca Crane has been executed.

"After that, there was nothing to do but let you play out your little scenario. And you were pretty good, too, with the love-crazed schoolgirl bit. The people in the Capitol were quite convinced. Unfortunately, not everyone in the districts fell for your act," he says. My face must register at least a flicker of bewilderment, because he addresses it. "This, of course, you don't know. You have no access to information about the mood in other districts. In several of them, however, people viewed your little trick with the berries as an act of defiance, not an act of love. And if a girl from District Twelve of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to stop them from doing the same?" he says. "What is to prevent, say, an uprising?" It takes a moment for his last sentence to sink in. Then the full weight of it hits me.

"There have been uprisings?" I ask, both chilled and somewhat elated by the possibility.

"Not yet. But they'll follow if the course of things doesn't change. And uprisings have been known to lead to revolution." President Snow rubs a spot over his left eyebrow, the very spot where I myself get headaches. "Do you have any idea what that would mean? How many people would die? What conditions those left would have to face? Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse." I'm taken aback by the directness and even the sincerity of this speech. As if his primary concern is the welfare of the citizens of Panem, when nothing could be further from the truth. I don't know how I dare to say the next words, but I do.

"It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down." There's a long pause while he examines me.

Then he simply says, "It is fragile, but not in the way that you suppose."

"I didn't mean to start any uprisings," I tell him.

"I believe you. It doesn't matter. Your stylist turned out to be prophetic in his wardrobe choice. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem," he says.

"Why don't you just kill me now?" I blurt out.

"Publicly?" he asks. "That would only add fuel to the flames."

"Arrange an accident, then," I say. He could certainly do it, easily too.

"Who would buy it?" he asks. "Not you, if you were watching."

I wouldn't. But that's beside the point. "Then just tell me what you want me to do. I'll do it," I say.

"If only it was that simple." President Snow runs his tongue over his tight lips. "Peeta. How is the love of your life?" he asks.

I find then that I can't hold his gaze. Peeta. Gale. I can't think about one without thinking about the other and what I have done to them both.

Good," I say casually.

"At what point did he realize the exact degree of your indifference?" he asks, leaning back in his chair with something of a smirk playing on his lips.

"I'm not indifferent," I say as firmly as I can.

"But perhaps not as taken with the young man as you would have the country believe," he says. "Who says I'm not?"

"I do," says the president. "And I wouldn't be here if I were the only person who had doubts. How's the handsome cousin?"

"I don't know ... I don't ..." Nausea takes over and I find that I can't continue. Discussing two people who I care about, who know me more than anyone else, with Snow makes me feel sick to my stomach.

"Speak, Miss Everdeen. Him I can easily kill off if we don't come to a happy resolution," he says. "You aren't doing him a favor by disappearing into the woods with him each Sunday." If he knows this, what else does he know? And how does he know it? Many people could tell him that Gale and I spend our Sundays hunting. Don't we show up at the end of each one at The Hob loaded down with game? Haven't we for years?

The real question is – do they know what goes on in the woods beyond District 12. Have they followed us, tracked us through cameras?

A thought hits me and I feel sicker than before. It's possibly even worse than my feeling in the arena with the mutts and Peeta's leg wound and Glimmer's melting body.

Does he know? Has he seen? That never even crossed my mind until this moment. The woods have always been our place of safety, our place beyond the reach of the Capitol, where we're free to say what we feel, be who we are. At least before the Games.

If they had been watching before the Games, they would have seen two people hunting, saying treasonous things against the Capitol. But not two people in love. Except now…

It only happened once. It was one moment of stupidity, and blindness, and passion but it happened.

When Peeta and I returned home from the Games, it was quite a while before I could get Gale alone long enough to have a proper conversation with him. There was celebration after celebration, cameras that stalked up for weeks and weeks on end. I had to hang off of Peeta, kiss him whenever the situation demanded.

When they finally left, the façade between Peeta and me instantly dropped. He barely talked to me or tolerated my company. But it seemed that that was how it had to be. Everything had returned to normal. Everyone returned to their daily routine - work in the mines, school, even Peeta and I not talking like we had before the Games – and it was only right that I should return to doing what I usually did. Hunting.

One morning, I just woke up, collected my supplies and took off into the woods. It was only dawn but warm enough that I could get away without wearing a jacket.

As usual, the fence was not charged and it was simple to slip into the woods and retrieve my bow and arrows. I went to our place, Gale's and mine, where we had shared breakfast the morning of the reaping that sent me into the Games. I waited at least two hours. I'd begun to think that he'd given up on me in the weeks that had passed. Or that he no longer cared about me. Hated me even. And the idea of losing him forever, my best friend, the only person I'd ever trusted with my secrets, was so painful I couldn't stand it. Not on top of everything else that had happened. I could feel my eyes tearing up and my throat starting to close the way it does when I get upset. Then I looked up and there he was, ten feet away, just watching me. Without even thinking, I jumped up and threw my arms around him, making some weird sound that combined laughing, choking, and crying. He was holding me so tightly that I couldn't see his face, but it was a really long time before he let me go and then he didn't have much choice, because I'd gotten this unbelievably loud case of the hiccups and had to get a drink. We did what we always did that day. Ate breakfast. Hunted and fished and gathered. Talked about people in town. But not about us, his new life in the mines, my time in the arena. Just about other things. By the time we were at the hole in the fence that's nearest the Hob, I think I really believed that things could be the same. That we could go on as we always had. I'd given all the game to Gale to trade since we had so much food now. I told him I'd skip the Hob, even though I was looking forward to going there, because my mother and sister didn't even know I'd gone hunting and they'd be wondering where I was. Then suddenly, as I was suggesting I take over the daily snare run, Gale took my face in his hands and kissed me.

I was too stunned to do anything except stand there and let Gale kiss me. You would think that after all the hours I'd spent with Gale-watching him talk and laugh and frown - that I would know all there was to know about his lips. But I hadn't imagined how warm they would feel pressed against my own. Or how those hands, which could set the most intricate of snares, could as easily entrap me. I think I made some sort of noise in the back of my throat, and I vaguely remembered my fingers, curled tightly closed, resting on his chest.

I wished I felt something, anything. But I didn't. I couldn't tell him that though.

"I had to do that. Just once," he whispered against my cheek. His face, rested against my own, was hot. I could feel him breathing hard against my lips; he was close, he could have easily pushed his lips against mine.

Except he didn't. His hands, buried in the top of my scalp, above my braid, slid down to my neck. I jerked my body away when he didn't move but he came with me when I stepped backward, his mouth smashing back into mine.

Gale seemed to take that as me demanding more. We fell back into the long grass, his body on top of mine. He was careful not to let his weight crush me. My hands moved to his chest as he tried to lower his lips to mine again. And he stopped, and sighed. His head reared up a little and I thought for a second he was going to cry.

"Gale." He looked back down to me. And then I yanked on his shirt hard to kiss him again.

I don't know what made me kiss him. Maybe it was the desperation in those Seam grey eyes. Maybe it was knowing that I had hurt him, much more than he had deserved, during my time in the Games. I could only imagine how he had felt seeing me with Peeta, pretending to love him, kiss him.

I wished I could take away his pain, love him as much as he loved me. I wanted to give him something that showed him how much he mattered to me. How he was one of the most important people in my world. I wanted to make up for the fact that I couldn't reciprocate his feelings.

His lips drifted away my mouth, down my neck. "I love you," he breathed into the hollow of my neck.

I held back the tears in my eyes. Why did he have to do this to me? Couldn't he just take what I was giving him?

I didn't answer, pulling him back up to me and busying our mouths, so he couldn't say anything else that killed me inside. His hands went to my hips, fingers digging into the loops of my pants. My breath hitched, and he seemed to sense my hesitation, lifting himself up to fix me with his grey eyes.

"Katniss," he said softly, catching his own breath. "We don't – nothing has to –"

I realised then that allowing his hands to roam my body, his lips to meet mine in kisses that feel as necessary as oxygen was not all I could give him. There was something else, something no one else could ever have.

My virginity.

"Please, just, just, Gale, please." I couldn't say aloud what I wanted but I hoped my eyes could convey enough.

He seemed to get the message. His fingers began working at his belt and I looked pointedly away. He sat up off of me and I heard the swishing of his pants and underwear sliding down to his ankles and settling in the grass. When he leaned down to me, he looked awfully hesitant. That was when I figured out that he was waiting for my approval to him to take off my pants.

Gritting my teeth, I nodded. To his credit, Gale kept his eyes on me as much as possible, sending my slacks and underwear off in a swift, blind movement. The cool, sudden air caught me by surprise and I shivered, though I'm sure my face was flaming red. Girl on fire indeed. I grimaced a little. It wasn't the most romantic setting that I'm sure Gale had imagined numerous times but hopefully it was enough.

Gale stroked my cheek. "Are you sure?"

I had to do this. For him. "Yes," I squeezed out.

Gale's body dropped until it was pressed firmly against mine. I gasped. I could feel….him. I had never thought about him wanting me that way nor had I ever thought about him this way.

He stopped. "Are you okay?"

I nodded quickly, blinking back a few tears. Gale kissed me, and I kissed him back for the first time. Perhaps he was hoping to distract me. But it didn't work. I still felt the sharp pain below my stomach as he entered.

"Katniss," he crooned in a soothing voice. I buried my head into his chest so he couldn't see my face. As he moved, I gripped his shoulders through his thick shirt. I was glad we'd left on our top level of clothing; I wasn't sure I was ready to handle that kind of intimacy yet.

Gale's breathing picked up. The knot in my stomach simply grew and I thought for a crazy second, I might vomit. I was no stranger to pain, but that didn't mean I didn't feel it. I had never become accustomed to this kind of pain before. It was an entirely new ache.

This was for Gale, Gale, I chanted as he shifted slowly inside me. When he suddenly rocketed forward, deeper than he had been before, I let out a noise that was somewhere between a moan and a gasp and a cry.

Gale stopped. "Katniss?"

I supressed the 'no' inside of me. "Keep going," I urged him, my voice muffled against his body.

It seemed Gale needed no further pushing because his pace picked up again. I kept my face hidden in his clothes, a few tears leaking from my eyes. I heard his heartbeat, pounding like a jackhammer and it was so familiar, almost like my own. I could pick it out from almost anywhere I was sure.

The pain began to dissolve slowly until it was almost….pleasurable.

I had underestimated the knot in my stomach.

A tiny moan escaped my lips. My hands reached around to Gale's back and I dug my fingernails into the soft material of his shirt as hard as I could. I hadn't expected this. The pleasure I mean. It was for Gale, just for Gale and yet I found that I couldn't deny the intense feeling building within me. Gale shook above me, sprinkling me with sweat.

And unexpectedly, I was fighting to breathe and panting just as he was. I was a mockingjay, floating through the sky, hanging above our heads. I was soaring. Gale held me in a grip that was almost painful and for a fleeting second, I tried to imagine our lives. I would look after our child while Gale worked in the mines. He would come home, covered in soot and smiles. He would try to kiss me and I would run away, laughing about getting dirty. He would chase me around the kitchen, wrapping me and our kid up in a huge hug, and we would collapse on the floor in a fit of giggles.

And then it was over. All of it.

Gale began to suck in as much oxygen as he could and I lied there under him, trying to put myself back together. He slid out of me, fixed himself up, and was soon standing over me, fully clothed. My pants and underwear were in his hands and he slipped them back onto me as I lay there motionless.

He helped me up and we stood there, not looking at each other for what seemed like the longest time. We were just those two children who met in the wood so long ago. Hesitant. Alone. Craving companionship.

He finally wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. Then he kissed the top of my head and I swore I heard him whisper, "Thank you."

I closed my eyes and he let me go. When I opened them, he was gone.

Despite the fact that the sun was setting and my family would be worried, I found myself unable to walk home, sore and numb. I collapsed after a few steps by a tree that was close to the fence.

It was difficult to discern all of the feelings inside of me from one another. Did I love Gale? Maybe. But could I love him in the way that he wanted? Could I love him enough to marry him, spend the rest of my life with him?

The answer, I was almost certain, was no. I had no previous experience to compare the – my mind stuttered over the word like it was a forbidden, not to be talked about subject – but it didn't really matter. It hadn't been about pleasure or desire. It was about a love, a pure, simple love that didn't need titles.

Finally I went home. That week I managed the snares and dropped off the meat with Hazelle. But I didn't see Gale until Sunday. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I needed to say. But in the end I didn't have to say a word. Gale acted as if it had never happened. But I had a feeling that it wasn't by choice. I think he knew that I had done it for him, and he probably knew that I might never be able to give him the love he needed, that he deserved. But he probably hoped that this experience, that these fleeting moments might make me change my mind one day.

But no matter how Gale tried to pretend, no matter how he tried to smile at me and joke as easily as we had, I couldn't meet his eyes the way I used to. I couldn't stare at him too long without seeing his grey Seam eyes roll back into his head as he came.

This all flashes through my head in an instant as President Snow's eyes bore into me on the heels of his threat to kill Gale. How stupid I've been to think the Capitol would just ignore me once I'd returned home! Maybe I didn't know about the potential uprisings. But I knew they were angry with me. Instead of acting with the extreme caution the situation called for, what have I done? From the president's point of view, I've ignored Peeta and flaunted my preference for Gale's company before the whole district. And by doing so made it clear I was, in fact, mocking the Capitol. Now I've endangered Gale and his family and my family and Peeta, too, by my carelessness.

"Please don't hurt Gale," I whisper. "He's just my friend. He's been my friend for years. That's all that's between us." I'm lying. I'm lying. "Besides, everyone thinks we're cousins now."

"I'm only interested in how it affects your dynamic with Peeta, thereby affecting the mood in the districts," he says.

"It will be the same on the tour. I'll be in love with him just as I was," I say.

"Just as you are," corrects President Snow.

"Just as I am," I confirm.

"Only you'll have to do even better if the uprisings are to be averted," he says. "This tour will be your only chance to turn things around."

"I know. I will. I'll convince everyone in the districts that I wasn't defying the Capitol, that I was crazy with love," I say.

President Snow rises and dabs his puffy lips with a napkin. "Aim higher in case you fall short."

"What do you mean? How can I aim higher?" I ask.

"Convince me" he says. He drops the napkin and retrieves his book. I don't watch him as he heads for the door, so I flinch when he whispers in my ear.

"By the way, I know what happened in the woods." Then the door clicks shut behind him. And I am on fire.