Midnight

Peeta tossed and turned for an hour or so before giving it up as a bad job and getting out of bed. The one good thing about Katniss being pregnant was that she now slept like a baby, as opposed to jumping out of bed with a knife at the slightest creak. The habit was so reminiscent of Haymitch that it frightened Peeta a little. What if Katniss one day slashed him to ribbons, just because he snored a little?

He tiptoed downstairs – after all, Katniss was fast asleep but he wasn't taking any chances – and made his way into the kitchen. He began fixing himself a cup of hot chocolate, but stopped when he heard a sound behind him. Slowly putting the cup down and reaching for the knife nearby, he turned and snapped, "Who's there?"

"Hold your horses, it's just me," laughed Gale, and Peeta put the knife down. "I swear," said Gale, shaking his head, "you're almost as bad as she is."

"Well, don't sneak up on me next time," Peeta muttered, picking his cup back up. "You want hot chocolate?" he offered, just to be nice.

Gale considered. "Yeah, okay." He sat down at the kitchen table and watched as Peeta went about preparing two steaming cups of hot chocolate. When Peeta put down Gale's cup and started to walk away with his own, Gale asked, "Where are you going?"

"I'm drinking mine in the living-room," he told Gale. "You're free to come and join me."

Gale was visiting Peeta and Katniss for the first time after their marriage – their real one – and this was his first night here. He'd spent most of the day talking animatedly with Katniss and catching up on old gossip, as well as going through the book of memories that Peeta and Katniss had put together. Peeta had spent that time making cupcakes.

They'd never really been friends. Sure, Peeta knew that Gale had been the first to volunteer to rescue him from the Capitol, but he'd always assumed that he'd done it for Katniss. And Gale knew Peeta was grateful to him for being such a wonderful friend to Katniss, but that too was also for Katniss. There was nothing personal between them.

Gale followed Peeta into the living-room and sat down next to him on the couch. Taking a sip of his hot chocolate, he said, "So, you can't sleep?"

Peeta let out a short laugh. "No, I can't, because Katniss won't stop kicking me in her sleep."

"That's too bad," sympathized Gale. "Does she always sleep like that?"

"No," answered Peeta. "Just, ever since, you know –" He was blushing in the dim light.

"Ever since you got her knocked up," Gale ended for him, and Peeta's blush deepened.

"Yeah. That."

"This is really good."

"What, Katniss kicking me?" Peeta sounded offended.

"No, the hot chocolate," clarified Gale. "Though Katniss kicking you isn't too bad, either."

Peeta snorted and switched the TV on. "I hope she pulls a knife on you," he muttered.

"Oh, she has," Gale laughed. "More than once, in fact."

Peeta looked intrigued. "Really? Why?"

Gale pushed himself into a comfortable position before replying. "Well, the first time it happened, we were hunting and she thought I was a rather large deer."

"So why didn't she knife you then?" asked Peeta with a straight face.

"Because I yelled at her not to kill me," Gale told him, ignoring the jibe. "Though she nearly did knife me again for that, because I scared the game away. She took half of mine at the end of the day." He waited a moment before asking, "Did she ever pull a knife on you?"

"Once," admitted Peeta. "I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and the sound of my footsteps woke her. In a couple of seconds she was on me with a knife, and I yelled so loudly Haymitch came running over."

Gale exploded with laughter. "You woke Haymitch?" he exclaimed in delight.

"It's not funny," mumbled Peeta, glaring at Gale.

"It's hilarious," insisted Gale, but gave up when Peeta upped the intensity of his glare.

They spent a few minutes in silence, just sipping hot chocolate, before Gale asked, "How do you do it?"

"How do I do what?" asked Peeta in return, looking confused.

Gale wished he hadn't asked, but he wanted to know. "You've been in two Hunger Games, you've been captured and tortured by the Capitol, your entire family died. How do you still wake up in the morning?"

A dark shadow had passed over Peeta's face at the mention of the Games, but he smiled at Gale's question. "I do it for her," he said, cocking his head towards the stairs. "For Katniss."

"And is it... enough?" wondered Gale.

Peeta nodded. "Usually."

"What do you mean, usually?"

"Sometimes, when I'm half-asleep," began Peeta, wondering why he was telling all of this to Gale of all people, "I think about the jackers. And I remember what they did to my memories of her. And sometimes, I wonder if it was real, what they said."

"That must be bad," mused Gale, not looking at Peeta's pained face.

"It's horrible," Peeta told him. "But then she threatens me with death if I don't wake up, and I remember that if she didn't love me she wouldn't have married me."

"That's probably worse," Gale cracked, grinning.

Peeta smiled too. "No, it's alright if you get up within five seconds of her threatening you."

"Or...?" questioned Gale.

"Or she'll come after you with anything that can be used as a weapon," Peeta told him happily. "'Course, she hasn't been doing it lately, because of the baby, but sometimes I wonder if it's too much to hope her violence won't be passed on to the baby."

"For your sake I hope it doesn't," Gale said. "Though it would be entertaining if it did. Imagine, Peeta Mellark, Hunger Games victor, chased into a corner by two women."

"I do not find that image funny," Peeta stated plaintively. That, of course, made Gale laugh again. "No, really," insisted Peeta. "It's a scary thought." Gale kept right on laughing.

"Haymitch can help save you, maybe," he finally said when he was able to breath again.

Peeta scoffed. "Yeah, by snarking them to death? Katniss is just as grouchy as he is sometimes."

"That's true," Gale agreed.

"So," Peeta said, after an amiable silence. "Have you found anyone yet?"

Gale thought about it for a moment. Finally, he said, "You remember Madge?"

Peeta nodded, surprised. "Wasn't she... dead?" he asked tentatively.

Gale shook his head. "No, she made it somehow. I ran into her a few months ago, she's helping with the sick and injured in District 2."

"So you two have a thing going?" asked Peeta.

Gale shrugged. "I'm not sure, really. I mean, I like her, and I'm pretty sure she likes me, but we've neither of us said it, you know?"

Peeta nodded. "It'll work out," he said encouragingly. "Just tell her how you feel. Worked for me."

Gale looked uncertain. "Okay," he finally said. "Thank you," he added awkwardly.

Peeta shrugged. "It's alright."

After another silence, Gale said, his tone strange, "And also – thanks."

"You already thanked me," Peeta pointed out.

"That was for the advice," Gale said.

"What's this one for?"

Gale hesitated. "For taking care of Katniss. And for helping me. You know, when Thread got me."

Peeta shrugged again. "Any time," he said, and his voice was so sincere it threw Gale off-guard.

"You don't really mean that."

"Of course I do."

"Why?"

"Because you're my wife's best friend. You've taken care of her too. And you've helped me, too."

"When did I ever help you?" asked Gale, nonplussed.

"You helped get me out of the Capitol," Peeta reminded him. "And you looked after me when I was, uh, out of commission."

"Damn, you remember that?" Gale was surprised.

"Of course I do," Peeta said sharply. "Were you honestly expecting I'd forget it?"

"Yes," confessed Gale. "After all, you and I aren't exactly best friends."

"Doesn't mean I'd forget kindness, even if it wasn't exactly for my sake," Peeta said.

"What do you mean?"

"It was for Katniss that you did everything, wasn't it?" said Peeta, as if it was a fact he was astounded Gale didn't know.

"No, I didn't," admitted Gale. "I did it for you too."

It was Peeta's turn to be surprised. "Why? Like you said, we aren't exactly best friends."

"I don't know," Gale answered uncomfortably. "I guess you're not too bad after all."

"You neither," Peeta replied.

They sat in a comfortable silence after that admission. Peeta finished his cup of hot chocolate and put the cup aside. He stood up and yawned. "Well, I guess I better get going then, before Katniss wakes up and raises hell."

Gale smiled a little. "Yeah, okay."

Peeta turned when he was at the foot of the stairs. "And Gale? Thank you," he said sincerely.

Gale offered a full, real smile this time around. "You too, Peeta. For everything."

Katniss never understood the camaraderie that Gale and Peeta shared from the next morning onwards, but she never commented on it. It wasn't her business, as long as they weren't shooting hostile glares at each other behind her back.

Only from then on, the hostile glares had become friendly smiles and sometimes laughs. They weren't enemies, so it only made sense that they should be friends. And so they were.

Reviews are love.

-Peace