8. One Little Slip

Shockingly, I felt a lot better the next morning. I didn't feel sore anywhere, so I assumed Peeta stopped having the nightmares after he went back to bed. I was sure the red marks on my cheek were probably faded if not gone by now.

I flickered my eyes open, stretching under the sheets. Peeta and I hadn't unlinked fingers all night, which was weird considering I thought our hands would detach from each other.

I flipped over only to see Peeta in a calm sleep. His face didn't show any stress lines, indicating that no nightmares plagued him. I grinned and kissed his forehead. I just realized that was the first time I really gave Peeta any affection in return.

Naturally, that woke him up. His eyelids rose sleepily, threatening to close on him again.

"Morning," I chirped.

"You seem to be in a good mood this morning." He yawned. "What's got you so happy?"

"I don't know." I sat up; I could feel Peeta do the same behind me. He kissed the nape of my neck.

"There has to be a reason," he said, resting his chin on my shoulder.

"I just feel good today." I looked at him. "You didn't have any nightmares after that episode we had, did you?"

"Nope," he confirmed. He kissed my cheek. "I owe it all to you. I think you're the reason my nightmares didn't come back."

"Are you sure?"

"Do you have a better explanation?" he countered. I didn't. "I was thinking we could just stay in bed a little longer this morning..."

Peeta pulled me to him, kissing me all over. I relaxed into it, knowing it was wrong to do so. I didn't bother to try and kiss him anywhere; I was too much in a trance by him. He pushed me onto the bed, straddling me. I giggled stupidly as he searched for a soft spot. I wouldn't know if I had one.

I closed my eyes and just bathed in the bliss. Katniss didn't know what she was missing. I wondered if Peeta even showed this much affection to her daily. Our personalities were different, and Peeta was supposedly seeing a different Katniss, so he could be showing more love to me than he would to her.

One of his hands brushed my throat, soon staying there. I could feel a bit of pressure on my throat. I looked up at him. There was a change in his eyes, a scary change. I saw no love in Peeta's eyes, but rather a dangerous look. It scared me.

"Peeta?" I whispered. "What is it? What's wrong?" Had he figured me out already?

Peeta shook his head. His eyes looked normal again; the pressure from my throat was lifted. I sat up. Well, I don't think he knows I'm an imposter. If that's not it, then what is with him?

"I'm fine," he said coolly. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" I got close to his face. "Look me right in the eye and tell me that nothing is going on, and that everything is fine."

"Nothing's going on, everything's fine."

"Then why do I not believe you?" I folded my arms over my chest. "I saw you change, Peeta. It looked...unnatural."

"It was nothing, Katniss." He kissed my hand and held it. "I promise."

"I still don't believe you." I could feel his grip on my hand tighten. I wriggled my hand uneasily and looked into Peeta's eyes. The normal twinkle in his eyes were gone and replaced by an evil glint. "Peeta, stop it."

"Stop what?" His voice was a growl.

"This. You're hurting me."

He looked down at the hand he held. He quickly released, like I had shocked him. I glared at him, confused. If Peeta didn't suspect me of being a fake, then what was going on with him?

"Peeta?"

He leapt off the bed. I sat on my knees, head tilted to the side, confused. I slid off the bed and went towards him, but he backed up as I advanced. Something was obviously spooking him.

"Don't come near me, Katniss," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me? Why would you hurt me?"

"I think I need some air." He started to head for the door.

"Peeta," I called. "You might want to at least dress before you go out!"

Peeta thumped back into the bedroom, grabbed the first things he touched, got dressed in the bathroom, and walked back out.

I sat on the bed, astonished. This was unusual behavior for Peeta. Was there something he wasn't telling me? Was he having an affair with someone? He is now, I reminded myself. I shoved that thought aside. Besides, he wouldn't look angry at you if he was cheating on Katniss with somebody else.

"Well, looks like I've got the house to myself," I mumbled.

Since I knew I wasn't going out after Peeta-I was afraid of what could happen if I did-I stayed in my pajamas all day. I didn't eat breakfast because I didn't trust myself after yesterday's incident. Even though I had more knowledge now, I still didn't want to risk getting myself ill.

I decided to explore the house and really get a good look at all the other rooms. I didn't want to draw today; I wouldn't be able to concentrate.

I found two spare bedrooms, one completely white everything except the bed headboard, and the other a mixture of crazy colors. The white bedroom looked a little dusty, so I figured I'd clean that.

As I was searching for cleaning things, I heard a knock on the door. Curious, I found Gale standing at the door when I swung it open.

"What are you doing here this early?" I asked.

"Nice to see you, too," he greeted me.

"Sorry."

"I saw Peeta roaming around, so I figured I'd sneak by here and talk to you." He shrugged. "Why is he out? Did you two fight or something?"

"No. Peeta was acting strange this morning."

"Strange?"

"At times he got these instant mood swings. One second he'd be fine and the next he'd just look pissed off."
"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Kind of." I grabbed my hand that Peeta had almost crushed. "But he didn't know he was doing it. I tried to get to the bottom of his problem but he shut me out and left."

"He's still having that problem," Gale grumbled.

"How about we talk about this inside?" I suggested. I let him in and shut the door. Since I couldn't find any cleaning supplies, I went back to the white bedroom and scanned for anything dirty. "So what problem is Peeta still having?"

"He was taken by the Capitol a few months ago when the rebels were trying to fight back against Snow," Gale explained. I looked at everything carefully inside the bedroom. "They tortured him by hijacking him."

"Hijacking?" I sat on the bed to look at Gale. Hijacking was not a term I was familiar with. It didn't sound very painful, but I could be wrong.

"Yeah. They used tracker jacker venom to make him believe hallucinations that the Capitol planted in his head."

Yeah, scratch the thought of hijacking not sounding like a dangerous thing. "So I'm guessing they planted bad ones about Katniss?" I asked.

"Yes."

"You knew, and you never bothered to tell me?" I screeched.

"You never asked."

"Umm, I had asked if there was anything that I would need to know!"

"You were too tired; you probably would have forgotten it."

"I highly doubt I'd forget something important like that. I wish you had told me sooner." I folded my arms over my chest. "So...any plan?" I prayed that today would be a good day. So far it wasn't.

"I'll have it formed by tomorrow, I promise."

Not the answer I wanted. "You better."

"I'm trying my hardest."

"You're not being quick enough," I snapped.

"Whoa, what's gotten to you?"

"The pressure, Gale, the pressure." Not to mention the lack of sleep, I added mentally.

"You think I don't feel pressure?" He came in the bedroom.

"No, because you aren't in the situation I am." I stood on my feet, glaring at him evilly. "I have to pretend to be someone I'm not. Do you know how hard that is?"

"You wouldn't know the meaning of the word."

"Yes, I would. I have this on my shoulders, I survived the bombing of District Twelve, and I'm still learning to try and cope with the death of my family!" I fought back tears. "I know you've been through your rough times too, Gale, but this has all been thrown at me over the time span of a few months!"

"Katrina, you need to calm down."

"Screw that. I can't deal with this anymore, Gale." An idea popped into my head. I knew it would screw everything up, but I was so stressed that I didn't care anymore. "There's only one way to solve my problems: I'm going to tell Peeta the truth."

"If you tell him, everything is going to be ruined!"

"Things are falling apart as we speak!" I screamed at him. "He deserves to know. If he doesn't know now, he will sometime."

I shoved past Gale and headed for the bedroom door, but Gale beat me to it. He slammed it in front of my face. I whipped around to yell at him, but he had me pressed against the wall, trapped. I struggled for all of two minutes before I was calmed down with Gale covering my mouth with his. My heart sprinted so fast I thought it would burst through my chest. My eyes closed and his hands went to my hips.

I could feel this tingling sensation in my stomach, and it felt weird, but good at the same time. I breathed evenly through my nostrils and opened my eyes once Gale pulled away, but his face still hovered near mine.

"You don't know how long I've wanted to do that," he panted. Before I could even speak, he was on me again. I wanted the good feeling to stay with me for a while, so I got into it, too.

I squeaked in surprise when Gale's hands slid under my legs, picking me up by them. My arms clung to his neck as he and I fought for dominance. Why was I bothering to fight when I never won anything when I argued with Gale?

I felt a temporary falling feeling in my stomach as Gale fell on the bed. He sat up, hands slithering under the shirt to caress my back. I shivered under him as my legs coiled around his waist. I could feel his hands try to push up the shirt, but I stopped him. He pouted, pleading with those big eyes of his.

"No way," I said. "I'm not that confident."

"It's only me," he crooned as he kissed my ear. I let out a whimper. Even if it was just Gale, I would not be topless here. The only person who would be topless would be him, not me.

Gale never protested when I pulled his shirt over his head. Despite how gorgeous a body he had, I could only stare into his eyes.

"Oh, sure, I let you take my shirt off, but you won't let me," he whined.

"You aren't self conscious," I sang as I kissed his jaw. "Men are different than women."

"Women are more self conscious, and men are the more dominant sex."

Well, he did prove that in one motion of whipping us around so he towered over me. Gale was a little more hardcore than Peeta was when it came to kissing the body. Gale was determined to find a soft spot on me; he kept nipping and sucking on every inch of my neck until he found it. He had found a few sensitive spots, but none that really got me.

It wasn't until he found a spot high up on the right side of my neck that I gave a moan of pleasure. I felt him smirk against my skin.

He was definitely determined to leave a nice red love mark on me. It wasn't until I finally snapped out of the trance that I realized that was a bad thing. When Peeta would come home, I'd have to cover that sucker up. He could not see it, otherwise that would definitely raise suspicion.

My fingers were knotted in Gale's hair as we went back to softly kissing, though Gale tried to be a little rough. Nipping on my lip wasn't helping me cover up the fact that here I was pretending to be Katniss, yet I was making out with my best friend.

This just complicated things.

I had to rip myself from him so I could take in breaths. I panted heavily; Gale was trying to gain his breath back. He stroked my face and kissed my forehead as my hands rubbed his scarred back. I felt him tremble under me.

I couldn't believe that all this time Gale felt this way. I knew he loved me, just not in this way. I always thought of him as a brother to me. Well, after this, that was out the window. This made me see him in a whole new light.

I closed my eyes as Gale peppered kisses along the side of my head. I was actually kind of glad Peeta was out right now, because I got this to happen to me. I doubt this would have worked at night.

"How long were you holding this back?" I whispered.

"I'd say quite a while," he confessed. "I never thought I'd get the chance to, not even now."

He kissed me sweetly once more. But the words that came out of his mouth were words I had heard once before.

"I love you, Katniss," he whispered against my lips.

I yanked away from him, my eyes wide in shock, mouth dropped. What did he just call me?! He did not just call me Katniss! Gale looked at me, confused. How could he not notice the mistake he just made as quickly as I did?

"What?" He was obviously confused by my reaction.

"I knew it," I whispered as I propped myself up on my elbows. "I should have known!"

"Known wha-" His face went slack in horror.

"Oh, you just now figured it out?" I snapped. Gale clambered off the bed, going bright red with embarrassment. He had good reason to be, he just called me Katniss!

I should have known it was too good to be true. It was a lie, all a lie. As if I wasn't dealing with enough right now! He still loved Katniss, he never loved me. We were still brother-sister love, not I-want-a-relationship kind of love. How could I have been so stupid to think for one minute that Gale actually felt that way about me? Why would he? He loved Katniss that way, not me.

I could never compare to her.

"I got confused!" he panicked.

"Confused?" I roared. I hopped off the bed, steam sprouting from my ears. "Gale, you talked to me the past two nights and never once did you call me her name!" I advanced towards him, he stepped back. "How could I have been such an idiot, thinking that this actually meant something for us both when really it wasn't for us at all?"

"Katrina-"

"Don't even!" I hissed. "I want you out of this house right now before I come at you with a frying pan."

"You wouldn't."

"You want to bet, Gale?" I snorted. "Get out." I picked his shirt up off the floor. "Take this with you." I chucked it at him, he caught it easy. "I don't want to see you back here ever again, got it?"

"But, Kat, what about the pla-?"

"I said get out!" I screamed. Just for good measure, I chased him out of the house. Gale got out the door just before I could get a good hit on him.

I slammed the door then slid against it, huddling into a ball. I sobbed into my knees; I was so frustrated right now it wasn't even funny. Katniss was still at the Capitol, Gale couldn't even figure out a plan, and now he hurt his trust with me. Peeta had a little odd behavior for him this morning and was out of the house. If Peeta was here, I felt so overemotional that I would confess everything right now. Don't do it. Just lie around him, and pray he doesn't see that love mark Gale gave you.

I hoped Peeta didn't come back for a while, because I needed the alone time.

**So things just...happened. Who's got a ship name for them? It's kind of hard with their names, really.

Poor Katrina. She can't seem to catch a break, huh?**