Chapter Forty-Nine

Gale's POV

Watching Clove come in milliseconds after the other girl was sole destroying. It all came down to us- our scrambled together team of no-hopes and misfits.

"You ever won anything before Peeta?" I asked half-heartedly.

"I won a pie-eating contest once," he joked, at least I hoped he was joking, I didn't know him well enough to know if he was serious or not.

Instead of replying I just sighed and went to collect the other two boys. I have never wanted Cato so badly in all of my life, which was something I never thought I'd think. Our team was amazing, unbeatable, unstoppable, the best of the best, or at least it had been until they'd taken our starter away from us.

"You boys ready to win?" Finnick chirped up, our teammates trailing behind him.

"Absolutely," Peeta replied. I was sure he was lying.

"Great, great. Now I know losing Cato is a major blow but I think we'll manage without him just fine. I'm going to switch the order a bit just to accommodate for Peeta. So Peeta you'll start, followed by Jackson, then Mitchell and lastly Gale," Finnick explained. I mentally noted the only change was that Peeta was replacing Cato but I assumed there would be some reason for him acting like Peeta wasn't the only uncertainty in the team.

"Sounds good, any advice?" Peeta questioned.

"Yeah. Don't fall," Finnick answered encouragingly, patted him on the back and then walked off. Peeta looked after him as if hoping he would come back any second and explain how running worked to him. But he didn't. He wouldn't.

Jackson and Mitchell wandered off to go warm up and if Peeta hadn't looked so damn hopeless and I didn't want to stick it to that Thresh guy so badly I would have left him.

"Ok when you get up there don't listen to anyone else, focus on what you need to do, which is put one foot in front of the other as fast as you can. That's all you can do. Jackson has amazing reflexes; you put that baton anywhere near his hand he'll get it so don't worry about that. So long as you run, we can catch up so don't worry about it. All you need to do is be there and you've done your part," I explained. He still looked as though he was about to fight to the death or something.

"Ok, I think I can do that," Peeta nodded, a look of steely determination trying to cover the fear in his eyes.

"Also here's a thing to know about Katniss. She cares more about people who care than people who are good at stuff. So just for agreeing to do this, you're in her good books," I tried to smile at him reassuringly but I know smiling isn't one of my strong points. I decided instead to head over and warm up with the others and have to admit it was oddly reassuring for Peeta to follow me over.

Peeta's POV

Guys do stupid things for girls. Mostly lying to big themselves, but that's normally where it stops. Most of them don't somehow end up running in stupid races with people who actually cared about the outcome trying to impress her. No that was for complete lunatics. I'm sure there was worse things I could do, I mean it wasn't like I was going to kill anyone, other than myself. Although Gale might kill me before I get the chance to die of exhaustion or embarrassment or any of the other things you can die of by trying to run to impress a girl. Maybe I was being to pessimistic. Maybe I'd just seriously injure myself.

"You can do it, just focus about getting to the end," Gale said in what I assumed to be encouragement but I could never really tell. The boy never smiled.

I puffed out my cheeks before exhaling heavily, fidgeting with my shirt in determination not to think about what I was doing. Although I knew I should think. I could see the others all mentally preparing for the event, thinking through every move. But thing is they knew what every move was meant to look like, how it was meant to feel. I was slightly more blind in the situation. I knew how to run, I knew how to do that bit, but it was how to do it well, effectively, efficiently that troubled me. Surely there was some technique to it.

I stood at the end of the lane we would be running in, grinding my feet into the floor a bit. It didn't feel like I was going to slide onto my ass… or face… or any other body part. That was a nice feeling. Everyone around me appeared to be doing some kind of warm up, the guy next to me was swinging his arms around like crazy and I was permanently aware of how close he came to smacking my chest a few times. I took a step back and carried out similar motions, wondering if it was actually effective. It felt good, like I could feel blood pumping into my muscles, feeling excited instead of nervous for just a second until I got too carried away and smacked my arm into the side of another competitor.

"Sorry," I mumbled. Ok, so maybe I'll stand still. Yeah I can prepare myself mentally.

"Panem High?" a man interrupted my thoughts and I snapped my head up to look at him.

"Yes?" I questioned, probably a little too panicked. Maybe they'd cancelled the race, maybe I wouldn't have to make a fool of myself after all! Then again maybe they'd decided to make it an obstacle course. The way my luck was going today it was far more likely to be the latter.

"Baton," the man held out a small metal rod and I grabbed onto it, gripping it tighter than needed out of fear of dropping it before the race even started.

"Right, thanks," I muttered as he handed out the others.

"Competitors take your position," the man with a mega phone announced. I'm sure that never happened for the girls. Then again the girls were probably organized enough to be in position as soon as they got here and not ambling around smacking other competitors.

I exhaled and leaned forwards onto my left foot like the others seemed to be doing, just having time to pray I wouldn't make too much of a fool of myself before the instructor started again.

"Take your marks-"

The others sunk down lower and so I copied a second later.

"Get set-"

I tensed slightly.

And then the whistle sounded.

Gale's POV

Peeta wasn't half awful. Heck he was probably better than any of the reserves we'd actually planned to bring with us. I could hear Katniss cheering him on loudly in the background and figured that was probably helping spur him on. Professional runners could block out noise, anything, so there was only them and the race but for beginners like Peeta knowing she was there supporting him would be serious encouragement. Enough encouragement to get us into second place at the change over!

Jackson had the baton, his legs moving almost too fast to see pushing out into the lead. The cheers grew louder from every side, some in excitement, some in motivation but I couldn't distinguish them. I shook my arms one last time before turning my back on the race. I knew that in a few seconds Mitchell would have the baton. I knew that in about ten the baton would be in my hand and then all I had to do was to get over the finish line.

I focused on the end of the track, the clear end of the line, the end of the competition. The deciding factor of the whole competition came down to this result. I refused to give the other team the satisfaction of getting Cato kicked out the competition and beating us overall. I knew the Thresh guy was running at the same time as me, I knew that he was good. But I knew I had to be better.

The cool metal hit my hand, my fingers wrapped around it by instinct and before I knew what was happening my feet had taken off. It was all or nothing, I could feel my feet striking the ground and pushing off in a rhythm I was familiar with, with a rhythm I knew. It comforted me almost, until I saw out of the corner of my eye Thresh edging forward. He wouldn't win I couldn't let him.

Before I could do anything else I spotted a figure running to the end of our lane, a small figure I'd recognize anywhere. Damn it Johanna, what the hell was she doing there?

"Gale move it!" she screamed, the only thing I could hear over the blood rushing through my blood vessels was her yells. Her wanting this for me as much as she wanted it for herself. I needed to win this, not just for me but for our team, for the work we'd put into this, for the late nights and early mornings. For everything we'd been through together and everything we still had to go through this had to be worth it. Damn it.

Something inside me pushed me forwards at a speed I don't think I've ever reached before. Running was the most natural thing in the world right now, I needed to get to Johanna, I needed her to see me win.

A few more strides and it would be over we would be done. Johanna jumped up and down as she screamed and I took those final strides towards her, not knowing where I had placed and grabbed ahold of her by the waist and lifted her up. Of course I did not think through the physics of the situation and balance had never been a strong point of mine so we went toppling onto the ground.

"Gale you moron!" Johanna half laughed have scolded, at this point I was too giddy to care. I just held onto her, and her potentially broken back, and laughed. It was over. Whatever happened now we were done, we were free.

"Gale please remove yourself from my niece," Finnick sighed and I stood up quickly.

"How'd we do?" I asked, Johanna still on the floor, Finnick looking at me happily.

"And the winners of the boys relay and the athletics competition is…"

Authors Note: And cliffhanger! Just to not be mean I will update soon(er than usual) with the result of the relay and the competition! If you are still reading this thank you thank you thank you so much! I cannot say that enough, I know I am crappy for updating and how annoyed I get when other people have stories they don't update so for putting up with me you guys are absolute heros! I hope the next few chapters will make it up to you and that you will love the ending of this story! Remember if you want to ask me any questions please comment and I will do my best to reply, or PM me and I will definitely get round to replying as soon as I realize I have messages (I'm having email issues at the moment so had no idea people had PMed me :( ). Alternatively ask me on twitter Boydie93 which I am slowly getting into! Anyways until next time dears!

-R