Prim looks over at Gale and she knows that he is dying, and no one else notices.
He turns to her, aware of her eyes on him because of course he is, he's always aware of everything, it's survival instinct. "You don't have to check up on me, Prim. I'm fine."
His voice sounds gruff and angry and he won't look at the screens, but why would he? Except that her eyes are on them now and she sees Katniss and Peeta and they're tangled up so close together that they must be breathing the same breath, and then they're kissing. And Gale makes a noise that sounds like he's choking and when Prim turns back to him, he's staring at the screens after all.
She sighs, and takes a step closer to him. One step, then another. He doesn't push her away, which is something. "It's not real, Gale. It's just for the Games."
"It looks pretty real."
Prim rolls her eyes. "I used to think you were smart. You're smarter than this." This stupid jealous thing. Is this just a guy thing?
Gale looks so miserably exhausted, coming off a night shift in the mines to come over here to… what? Watch the Hunger Games? To get a glimpse of Katniss, the only way he still can. To make sure that she's still safe, still alive. If she wasn't, he would know. Wouldn't he?
Prim softens somewhat. She understands what he's doing, because she does it too. They would watch those screens even if there weren't Peacekeepers standing guard, making sure that they do.
Gale thinks she doesn't catch the way he watches those Peacekeepers out of the corner of his eye, afraid to provoke them and desperately angry enough to take a swing if they get close enough, and it's only that those two impulses cancel each other out that keeps him safe, for now.
He is dying. This life in District 12 is killing him. She feels it too.
"You should go home. Get some sleep."
"What are you, my mother?"
"I'm your medic."
"I don't need a medic anymore."
Does he remember when she shot him up with morphling? Probably not. But since that day, he doesn't treat her like a kid anymore. He still calls her that: "kid," he always has, for as long as she can remember, but he doesn't treat her like one. He's about the only one that doesn't. Her mother, so scared of losing Katniss after losing their father, won't let Prim out of her sight whenever she's home. It's suffocating. It's so oppressive that coming out here to what used to be the Hob to watch the Games is almost a relief.
What is happening to her? She didn't used to be this bitter.
There is a cannon shot echoing through the screens that make her and Gale both jump. But it isn't Katniss. Or Peeta. Peeta matters too and she feels guilty that it took her more than a handful of seconds to remember that. She should go to the bakery, she can afford it now, with Katniss' blood money that Prim never spends if she can help it.
She's standing close enough to Gale now that she can take his hand, so she does.
He frowns down at her. "What are you doing?"
"Getting you out of here. You've seen enough for now. It'll still be here in a few hours. She… she'll still be here."
She can't bring herself to imagine that Katniss won't come back from the arena, and she knows Gale can't either, even though the odds are anything but in their favor. She would have volunteered for Katniss this time, but as soon as she'd had the idea, Haymitch had told her flatly that the special rules of the Quarter Quell canceled out that option. He'd been drunk, but he knew what he was talking about, and after that she hadn't told anyone she'd even thought about it.
She lets go of Gale's hand as soon as they're out in the sunlight, and she half expects him to run away from her, but he matches her pace and they walk side by side through the coal-choked streets of the Seam. They steer clear of the Town Square because nothing good happens there anymore, and that's just one more thing the Capitol has taken away from them, because even though the Square was always where they were penned in for the Reaping, Prim remembers celebrating holidays there too, dancing under twinkling lights like artificial stars. There used to be good and bad, but now there's only bad.
She feels Gale's hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "Hey, kid. You okay?"
She takes several seconds before she answers him, with a quick shake of her head. No, she's really not. She's carrying too much. They both are. They all are.
She hadn't been lying when she'd told Katniss that she was behind her in whatever this fledgling revolution is. She knows what happened in District 11, Katniss hadn't been able to keep it a secret, not after waking up screaming after the Victory Tour. And then Commander Thread and his new task force had invaded District 12, to make sure that they were all too scared to even think about disobedience. It's a good thing the Peacekeepers can't read minds, or she'd be dead. Gale would be, too.
She's walking toward the fence before she realizes that's what she's doing. Gale runs ahead of her, stopping just short of the barrier, which is electrified again now even though it hadn't been for her entire childhood. She tilts her head back to look up at the coils of barbed wire clinging up at the top. Caging them in. Gale has his hands clenched into fists and she's afraid he might try to punch the metallic wall despite the certain consequences, but he doesn't. He just sits down, and tangles his fingers in the grass, and takes a long, slow breath.
"Sometimes I almost forget what it smells like," he murmurs. He spends so much of his time underground. Awake or asleep, it seems he's always trapped in a nightmare.
"You're not fine," Prim points out.
"I'm not bleeding."
"There's more than one way to get hurt."
He lays down on the grass and stares up at the sky for a long moment, then rolls over onto his stomach so he can look at Prim.
"You really think she's faking it? With him?"
"I know you don't have to be jealous. She doesn't talk about him like she talks about you."
"She… talks about me?"
"I take back what I said about you being smart."
"What does she say?"
"Gale!"
"Okay. Fine." His curiosity is twisting itself into knots in his stomach, though. He never knows where he stands with Katniss. She doesn't broadcast her feelings for him the way she does with Peeta. Maybe Prim is right. Maybe that's how he knows she's faking it. For the cameras. All too obvious. It still drives him crazy, though.
He presses his forehead down into the grass and inhales the scent of it. He can almost imagine that she's here with him, if he keeps his eyes closed and doesn't move. He's so tired. Prim is still watching him, though, fiercely enough that he can't fall asleep. He sits up.
There are only a few hours until he's due back in the mines, and there is freedom just on the other side of the fence. But he didn't run with Katniss when he actually had the chance, and he can't take back what he'd said to her then. People want to fight. He wants to fight.
Before he realizes what he's doing, he whistles, calling out to the mockingjays that flitter through the trees just on the other side of the sparking barbed wire, a four note melody that could get him shot, but there's no one close enough to hear it, except Prim, and she just grins. She whistles too, a low counterpoint. Four notes. The mockingjays change pitch, their voices echo all around them.
"It means we're safe," Prim whispers softly. "Everything's alright."
Gale shrugs. Katniss made up that tune with Rue, it was just random. Rue's dead, nobody's safe. The mockingjays don't care, they're just copying.
He whistles again anyway, louder now, stronger. He tries to imagine Katniss can hear it, somehow, even though she is so incredibly far away from him, and fighting for survival.
"I'm going home," he tells Prim. "Gonna get some sleep."
She nods, following slowly in his footsteps as he walks away. "Gale," she calls, as they the boundary where the meadow ends, dropping them back into the narrow streets of the Seam. He turns to her. "You can talk to me, you know. If you want. She says I'm a good listener."
"I know, kid. Thanks for being my medic."