and she knows
He tells her he loves her, and she knows.
1.
At fourteen years old, Gale Hawthorne isn't ready to face the world.
In mourning with the rest of his family, all he can think is – why did you die, and leave me to support the family?
He doesn't bother to look across to the other coffin, where a twelve-year-old Katniss Everdeen is resting her chin on the glass, and obviously thinking the same thing.
2.
Gale is a hunter. He sets snares and other strange contraptions that somehow manage to trap animals that he skins and takes home for his mother to stew. He can barely remember how he set his first snare. All he remembers is how he took some wire, bent it into an odd shape, and set it near a rabbit-hole.
The next day, he found a rabbit trapped within, writhing and fighting.
The only thing he can't really master is shooting with a bow and arrow. He doesn't get much practice. He once found a set concealed in a hollow log, and fired a few shots, but practicing with someone else's weapons made him feel uncomfortable. He retrieved the arrows and replaced the weapons. He's never returned to that hollow log since.
Then he meets her. The way they fit together is so perfect it's almost painful – he sets the snares, and she shoots. They make an unbeatable hunting team. No animal can get past them.
He teaches her how to set snares, and in return she teaches him how to shoot. Gradually, they warm up to one another – and after Katniss smiles at him for the first time, all Gale can think of his how pretty she looks when she smiles.
That's how he fell in love with Katniss Everdeen.
3.
"We could do it, you know." He says, lost in thought. "Run away, and never come back."
She merely shrugs. The light in her eyes is questioning. "Why did you say that?"
Because I love you, he wants to say. But it's the morning of the Reaping, and he cannot be so sure that neither of them will be reaped. Only when the reaping is over, and both of them are safe for another year, will he tell her the truth.
But then Prim is reaped, and everything falls apart.
4.
Watching the Games is almost painful for Gale, as he sees Katniss onscreen with him. Daily, after he returns from the mines, he watches the Games, and each kiss the two exchange is like a stab to his heart.
It's all an act, he tells himself. Katniss doesn't love him.
Maybe she doesn't love him, but does she love me?
Maybe he would find out, if he ever got the guts to tell her that he loved her.
5.
The mines are cold – and without Katniss, they're even colder. Gale wields a pick about as well as he would a trident – he has no experience whatsoever with the weapon. Hacking away at a coal seam almost clumsily with his comrades, he tries to concentrate on the singing of the canary. Katniss can sing like that, he thinks to himself. She can sing like a canary.
And then, another thought – she's my canary. Not Peeta's.
Or is she?
But he could never bring himself to tell her those three words – I love you.
6.
"Katniss Everdeen, will you marry me?"
Gale's eyes widen at the sight of Katniss actually blushing and seeming at a loss for words. She's acting, he tries desperately to console himself. She doesn't love him.
"Yes."
And he turns away from the television, tears glimmering in his eyes, not wanting to watch any more.
7.
The night of the Harvest Festival in District 12, Gale returns to their meeting place to see a flask, a pair of fur-rimmed gloves, and a leather satchel. There are tracks in the snow, and following them, he soon finds a pair of twigs, pointing in a certain direction. Katniss must have done this, he reasons.
The gloves are obviously Peeta's, and they sicken him. Her gifts sicken him. Why is she doing this, when she is engaged to Peeta? He doesn't want her pity. He doesn't want any of it.
He lifts the three items and heads in the direction the twigs point, which lead him to a small cement house. A fire has been lit, and peering through the window, he sees that she's curled up by the hearth, brooding. He stands in the doorway, unsure of whether to turn back or enter the house.
"President Snow threatened to kill you, personally."
He raises a single eyebrow, still hovering in the doorway. "Who else?"
"I don't know, but our families were definitely on that list."
Maybe she had a reason for agreeing to marry him.
And so she gives him the reason. Right from the very beginning, of the night she was crowned victor. Her words give him hope. Maybe she does love me, after all.
"Let's run away."
"What?" He can barely believe his ears. And a while later she's in his arms, and he's lifting her into the air, spinning from giddy joy.
After he's set her down on her feet he leans in, resting his forehead against hers, and feeling her heart beat against his, he finally finds that courage to tell her what he's always wanted to.
"I love you."
"I know."
He tells her he loves her, and she knows.
Doesn't she know how many times he's longed to tell her that? Doesn't she understand how he feels? Maybe she doesn't. She doesn't love him.
"You...you know what you are to me."
I'm a brother, to you. And I will forever be.
This time, he doesn't even attempt to force a smile.
Finally, Gale Hawthorne musters up his courage to tell her those three words, "I love you," and all Katniss Everdeen says is, "I know."
She knows. Well, that's some comfort.
A/N: My first HG fic! :D
It's not fantastic, I know. I wrote this in about...half an hour? That's even shorter than the span of time I take to write my poems. I rewrote the dialogue for some of the scenes, just because.
Review?