Title: Minutes to Midnight
Author: karebear
Rating: M
Characters: Katniss, Gale
Disclaimers (Hunger Games): The Hunger Games trilogy was written by and belongs to the brilliant Suzanne Collins. I'm just borrowing the characters and world for a short while.
Summary/Notes: "I do plan on saying one or two things to him after the reaping, when we're allowed an hour for good-byes. To let Gale know how essential he's been to me all these years. How much better my life has been for knowing him. For loving him, even if it's only in the limited way that I can manage. But I never get the chance." - Catching Fire page 186 (ish - I'm on the Kindle version).

So I decided to give Kat the chance. Pure and unapologetic Katniss/Gale fanservice; a birthday gift for my very good friend Ellenka.

When I asked her what she wanted, she said "physical contact" and "maybe some lovely moment before the Games" (but didn't specify which one, so... you know, my natural inclination is angst, Quarter Quell it is!)

I believe this also marks the first time I've actually written first-person Katniss a la the books.

I sit on the front porch of this house that isn't my home, suffocated by the choking humidity of a summer so oppressive that even the darkness bring no relief. Thick clouds obscure the moonlight. There is no comforting breeze. The overwhelming chorus of cicadas is so loud it drowns out all other sound.

Which is perfectly fine with me, because without them all I'd hear is my own living nightmare. I scan the sky and try to estimate the hours remaining until dawn, until noon, until my name is read aloud on live television and I am snared in the Capitol's inescapable trap.

"Even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol," I mumble to myself, over and over again until the words lose all meaning except for the fact that I feel the meaning; heavy in my chest, a weight in my stomach, pulling me down. Even the strongest among them... I don't feel very strong.

I hug my knees close to my chest and stare out into the darkness. The shadows of the woods don't frighten me. It's what waits beyond that keeps me awake.

Gale's footsteps pound through the stillness of the air. I know it's him without even having to look, I hear him coming though he moves with the silence of a practiced hunter. Perhaps I feel his nearness, can sense it; a somewhat supernatural talent built through years of working side by side, keeping each other alive.

He slips into place next to me; his tall, strong body just fits, and when I nuzzle against him it is not through any conscious decision but simply because this is where I belong. My body knows it, and something inside me knows it too; because the tense knots of anxious fear dissolve, melting into my blood. Still there, but easier to confront, now that I am no longer alone.

"What are you doing here, Gale?" I whisper, though what I should be saying is 'thank you,' if I have to ruin this saying anything at all.

He inhales sharply, and I notice the way his fingers clench tightly, into a fist, ready to fight. I know how he feels.

"Katniss," he says, and I hear the slight trembling in his voice, the carefully contained anger and worry that he will never let anyone else see. The breaks in the armor. The cracks I could maybe fill if I weren't equally fucking broken. "I just... can't," he demands, his other hand locking over mine as the intensity of his tone, his need, draws my gaze to meet his. "I can't lose you, too."

I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to breathe, feeling his eyes on me the entire while. I can feel my heart pounding; a little too loud, a little too fast. Gale smells like coal dust and pine needles and all the afternoons we spent out in the woods, scaling trees and laughing even as hunger gnawed at our bellies. When we stopped, lingering longer than we should've to watch the sunset, what filled me wasn't whatever small amount of food we'd decided we could share, but the warmth of his arms wrapped around me, so much stronger even when we were kids.

I feel safe with him. I always feel safe with him.

I feel him begin to pull away, but I grab tighter. "Gale, please," I whisper. I don't know what I'm asking for, except for more of this. He nods, and hugs me to him, my head resting against his chest, cradled by the steady beating of his heart. His arms shield me, close around my body, and the relief of it brings tears to my eyes.

He slowly shifts my body so that we are face-to-face, his lips trailing kisses along the curve of my neck, igniting a familiar spark in the pit of my belly, and lower. I remember our kiss out in the woods, how insanely good it felt, how "at least once" is not enough, and we both know it. My hunger for Gale in this moment suddenly seems more real and desperate than the clawing ache of starvation that we both understand far too well. I scramble to pull him closer, grasping for any part of his body I can reach.

I choke briefly as my fingers find the still-rough scars across his back, and I try to apologize again, knowing it's my fault no matter how much he tries to convince me otherwise. He grips my wrist gently, guiding my searching hand away as his lips crush mine, silencing my objections in the most efficient way possible. His thumb traces my cheek, following the spiderweb-line that is the only remaining evidence of the lash I'd taken. Because the Capitol needs me to look pretty for the cameras. Only someone who knows to look would see it. I know to look. And so does Gale.

I squirm beneath the inconsequential pressure of his touch, as it floods me with heat: equal parts desire and guilt. We can't do this. Snow's threats still scream in my mind, tangled up with whip cracks and cannon booms and the concussive shock of explosions underground.

"Gale..." I whisper, but my protests remain trapped inside. Tears of frustration and fear and want sting my eyes, tears I never let myself cry in front of Peeta. In front of the cameras.

"Shh, Kat," Gale responds, "I've got you. I promise."

I shiver as he holds me, and I know he's lying; I know that there is nothing either of us can do to save me from the arena. There will be no coming back a second time. Here in Gale's arms, somehow, I am still afraid of dying. And I am afraid of all the things worse than death that the arena will force upon me.

I try to force myself to remember why I don't want this: because Peeta deserves better than someone who rubs his face in the hollow emptiness of a fake relationship by fucking someone else, and because I'm not actually certain it's fake, when I wake up haunted by nightmares that only he is capable of understanding. There were moments, there are feelings, tangled up with Peeta, that are confusing but certainly real. There are Snow's invisible eyes watching me constantly, not to mention my mother, just inside the house, and there is the fact that Gale deserves better. What good could come of teasing him with something that we both know is completely impossible?

I am going to die.

The thought, the absolute certainty, pushes me over the edge. The silent tears I've been struggling to hold back break into desperate sobs that shake my whole body, a flood that streams down my cheeks, soaking into the familiar softness of Gale's shirt. He holds me, and doesn't bother with comforting words that will be no comfort. He's simply there, the callused palm of his hand gently running up and down my back, along my spine. I can feel it through the thin fabric of my shirt, sweat-soaked and sticking to my skin. I push myself against him; all the logic of my arguments drowned away. I pull at my clothes, and his, anything to remove this barrier between us.

Gale's breathing is heavy, but so is mine. He catches my wrist easily in his strong hand and stares down at me, his eyes dark with worry, but I see something else in them, feel it, know it in a way that I've never let myself admit, for years. What I see is desire, but more than that, deeper. What I see is love. Peeta told the TV interviewers that he's loved me since forever. And I see now that Gale has too, though neither of us would ever say it.

But there's nothing else to lose, now, and I want Gale to want me.

I don't move, except to breathe; quick inhalations that gather barely enough oxygen from the heavy, humid air. I'm afraid that if I blink I'll lose my nerve. Or Gale will suddenly realize what a mistake he's made, coming here.

"Are you sure?" he asks, as I tug at the waistband of his pants, shuddering as his fingers dance over the bare skin of my stomach as my shirt rides up with my movement. My only response is to pull him closer, refusing to let go.

How can he ask me that? We've been two halves of the same whole for so long now; I can't face the thought of dying without having this. Without knowing what it feels like.

"I have to do this at least once," I finally manage to choke out.

A familiar wry smile lights up his face, and for the briefest moment, I feel lighter, freer, the way I used to feel when we laughed in the face of insurmountable odds. And anything has to be worth this. I no longer fear the "what ifs," not when I know that there is no hope for a future, not for us.

I can feel his erection, pressing up against my leg, tantalizingly close but too far away. I wriggle free of my own pants, as he pushes me toward the wall just an arm's length behind me; something solid to catch me before I fall. When I'd dreamed about this, in long-time-ago fantasies, it had always been the rough bark of trees and the scratchy softness of grass that blanketed us. But as Gale's tongue explores my mouth, tasting like the forest, I realize it doesn't matter at all. It's him I want, nothing specific to the woods. There were trees in the arena too.

"Katniss, I don't want to hurt you," he says softly, his fingers still weaving through the hair he's tucked behind my ear.

I actually laugh at that; a bitter, choking sound that almost turns into more crying, except I don't let it. After everything that's happened, he's afraid of hurting me?

"You won't," I promise him.

I see his eyebrows raise and feel his hesitation in the way his fingers stutter, as though he's deciding whether he should be touching me or not. But he nods, and when he pushes I respond, in sync, the same unspoken language we've always shared.

I can still hear his heart beating, or is that my own? We are tangled together, inseparable and alive. It doesn't not hurt, but the sensation of pain is almost unrecognizable blended as it is with a surge of electric excitement as he thrusts and grinds, and I move with him, trusting in the rhythm we have always been able to create without trying. I speed up, and he pushes harder, moaning at my ear. This whisper of his breath tickles my skin, and I flush, shivering with anticipation. My fingers lock at the back of his neck and I pull his mouth toward mine. I swear his lips taste like blackberries as I shudder under the unbearable assault of ecstasy.

The solid warmth of his arms around mine anchor me, yet in the aftermath the pleasure is overwhelmed by the sudden shock of the logic we had abandoned: the clock is still ticking, racing, midnight has come and gone. I am sticky with sweat and the night air clings to me along with the heat of Gale's body, but I feel cold.

"I'm sorry, Gale," I whine, my curled up fingers resting on his chest, vibrating with the beat of his heart. He hugs me tighter and rests his head on mine, his fingers gently untangling my hair.

"I'm not," he whispers softly.

Crushed safely against his body, I think of the speech I'd been preparing in my head for weeks, all the things I was planning to save for the daylight goodbye with the Peacekeepers pacing just outside the door, and cameras both hidden and visible all around. Those words which would never have been enough, because they have never needed to be said.

I nod, and close my eyes so that I don't have to see the sunrise. This is enough.