Peeta's POV
Gale laid on the table after being whipped in the town center, bleeding slightly even after we patched him up. It didn't make any sense.
Yes, Gale had been defiant, and there was no way they would have let him go unpunished, but this was beyond anything we had ever seen.
We had just gotten back from the capitol and all of the violence from the Hunger Games, and here at home, there is still more to deal with.
A breeze hits the room, and I head for the door, knowing Gale is that more vulnerable to the cold and sickness. I reach the threshold, and something across the square catches my eye. My door. Open.
Everything hits at once. A man is walking out. Dressed in all black. He carries someone with him. Someone pale, and bloody, and limp.
Y/N. No.
I speed into action, but he is already gone. He was gone the moment he saw me. I make it to my door, and hold onto it, lest I fall. I stumble past, into the kitchen, and see blood.
So much blood. Too much.
No one could have survived that much loss. She was gone, dead. And I didn't even gave her body with me to hold. To bury. To say goodbye to and have closure from.
I must have cried out, because there are suddenly people next to me. I process Haymitch and Katniss next to me, kneeling with me in her blood. I don't move, don't think, don't breathe.
This can't be possible.
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We had a funeral the next day. It was a faster process, since there was nothing to bury. Nothing to get ready. We buried an empty coffin. We had a grave marker made for an empty grave. A meaningless date carved on with her name.
And all the while, we still put on the show of star crossed lovers. Comforting each other in their grief of losing a close friend.
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It was over. We had dethroned Snow.
But it did not come without scars.
I was brainwashed by the capitol, thinking that everyone was my enemy. I almost killed Katniss when they first brought me to 13. In my head, she had killed Y/N.
I couldn't see her for months without also seeing Y/N's ghost behind her. It was too hard.
Then I was pulled out of the fog that was telling my those lies. I made my rounds of apologies and made amends.
Y/N's death hit me anew when I no longer had anyone to blame. It was like a gap in my heart, there was no filling it.
I thought that when we put an end to Snow, that everything would somehow slowly heal. And maybe it will. But right now, it was still just as big of a gap when we were fighting for our lives as now.
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Y/N's POV
The light was blinding. We were all slowly being shuffled outside. It was the first time for some of us in months. For others, like me, it was years.
