The Seasonal Woods
By rese
Summary: The woods, the seasons, they change too with and without them.
A/N: I can't change the way everything fucked up for Gale in the end. And I guess, neither can he. Verse from 'Roll Up Your Sleeves' by We Were Promised Jetpacks. So yeah I don't own that, and I definitely don't own anything recognisable to Suzanne Collins who has rocked my world.
…
And I can wait til summer
When you're warmer.
…
Gale never sings but he listens. The afternoons are still warm well into the evening and they are hunting, the woods as familiar as their homes. She's heard him rant and rage and maybe that in it's own way is singing enough, especially when she stops listening to his talk of the Capitol, and starts to understand how his throat tightens when he's truly mad, how his voice tries to break when real emotion takes over. She listens to the way each sentence raises and falls as his anger and hope die on his lips.
Katniss never says anything in those moments. Just listens.
In the end there isn't really much to say. They disagree about a lot of things but she's always there, waiting for him to finish before they go to crawl on their bellies under the fence.
He never sings though, and sometimes, when she lies in bed replaying the sound of her string as she releases and hits a bird in the eye, or the way the leaves fold, never crunch, under his step Katniss thinks that just once, she would like to hear what his singing sounds like.
…
He listens to her sing a ballad one Sunday, deep inside the woods. This far in, no one can here them, and although it doesn't matter, not really, he likes that she saves these songs for when it's just the two of them.
They're never about anything uncomfortable, like love, or death. Her voice is enough though, it's as piercing as if they were the only things she sung about, even as she recites a song about a boy selling a cow in the market for his father.
Gale wonders sometimes if she's even aware she's doing it. He notices her songs usually only come on after a particularly good run of shots, when the game sack is filling or the sun has filled them both until they lie on their backs by the stream, waiting for fish to take the bait. She sings when she's happy, when the world calmly breathes her in as she breathes it.
It probably isn't right then that when he listens to her sing, he's wondering how that voice sounds in the cover of night, painting pants and moans. Actually, Gale knows it isn't right at all.
She's only fifteen.
God, this is all Darius' fault.
But it's a Sunday and a good haul is a good haul so that's something worth singing about and Gale pushes those unwelcome thoughts aside and focuses on the melody, watching as the birds above them fall silent, listening as intently as he.
Yeah, Katniss definitely doesn't realise she's doing it.
But he can wait. It takes patience to hunt with traps and he's had plenty of practice at that.
…
They inspect the squirrel, dangling by one hind leg together. Katniss' brow is crossed and she can't say Gale's isn't either.
"I thought you said it'd snap its neck."
"Yeah. I guess I was wrong."
Neither moves and the cold air of autumn fills the silence. A crow complains above and Katniss shields her eyes to stare at it disapprovingly. It's probably one of the many that caused the tears in the dangling creature's sides, where the flesh has been torn apart.
She can only hope it died from the cold last night before this slow torture begun. The elements were not in this creature's favour. This just proves they really need to check all the snares before heading back to the District. Three days was too long.
"We should cut it down." Katniss pulls the knife from her belt but pauses, seeing Gale watching the dead squirrel unmoving.
"What?"
He blinks as though he's only just aware she's been talking to him now and scowls, slicing the rope snare with his knife in one elegant arc of his hand. Katniss doesn't say anything as he kicks some of the dead leaves from the trees overhead around the half-stripped carcass. They don't have a shovel but at least it won't smell so bad.
It's Gale's mistake and she realises maybe he's not such a whiz at this all the time. She's missed hummingbirds and a gopher once. Or twice. Katniss tries not to think about the time she missed a buck and it charged her instead. She'd been fourteen then and alone.
Okay, so she's not so perfect either.
Gale doesn't meet her eyes; he shifts the bow on his shoulder and heads off towards the stream, his footsteps silent even amongst the fallen leaves. Katniss frowns and follows him, keeping her eyes peeled for more scavengers drawn in by the scent of dead squirrel.
…
She slips on the ice and falls on her tailbone, gaping like a fish out of water. He wants to laugh so badly and feels terrible instantly.
Throwing a hand out Gale lifts Katniss gingerly to her feet, collecting her bow and the few stray arrows that flew out of her quiver from the jarring motion of her fall.
"Don't," Katniss gasps, holding her sides as she tries to breathe through the pain. He hates being winded too. "Laugh."
Gale flashes her a smile anyway, depositing the arrows over her shoulder, his hand brushing the end of her braid. Nothing much ever changes about Katniss and he supposes, and from the way she seems to read his mind right back he knows that nothing seems to change with him.
They're still starving and it doesn't look like any of the dogs are hungry enough yet to leave the den. As winter turns harsh he knows, just like every year, a few of the desperate ones will venture out. They're skinny pickings, but meat's meat.
"Come on, Catnip." He touches her side gently, leading her onto the snowy bank. They should keep off the rocks and away from the stream after all.
Katniss takes a slow step forward, wincing at the feeling of her aching back and, Gale imagines, her constricted chest. Once on the snow she slides down onto her knees, doubling over for a painless breath. Gale squats beside her and rubs her back slowly, keeping his eyes out for game. It won't do to go home without supper today.
He hasn't eaten for two days and he knows Katniss hasn't eaten for three. They save all their finds for their families now game is sparse. Sucking on dried mint only works for so long. He can hear her stomach juices working on nothing as she huddles into herself, still gripping her sides.
The pines offer some shade from the brightness of the sun where they sit and Gale looks up to spot any birds. It's just that nobody is crazy enough to venture out into the woods at this time of the year, only two desperate, starving kids.
Looking back at Katniss he sees her breathing easier now. She sits up a bit, her hands inspecting the damage on her person and he just grins when her hands move to rub her sore backside. Katniss glares back at him but he can see the twitch of her lips as she tries not to laugh at her own clumsiness.
"I hate this time of year," She says as though that's why she fell unceremoniously on her butt. Gale can't help it now, he laughs brightly at her, ducking as Katniss moves to swipe him over the head.
"Hey! It's not my fault you slipped. Didn't I warn you about the stream?"
She purses her lips and he knows she's thinking he's right. "Yeah," she admits, looking up at him as though yeah, this is kind of funny but she'd rather not make a complete fool of herself.
Too late, Gale thinks and pushes her so that she falls back in the snow. Katniss flails and grabs for his arms, pulling him down over her. They laugh together, rolling back in the snow, too hungry and tired to move just yet.
Gale tries not to notice when she doesn't push his arm off her stomach and they stare up at the impossibly big, blue, empty sky, listening to their bellies rumble.
…
He yelps and she almost laughs at the unusual sound.
"Sorry!" She groans and huffs, readjusting her grip on his waist as he leans heavily into her, his arm around her shoulders. The game bag feels like it weighs a tonne even if it's only filled with five fish and two turkeys. It's Gale that weighs a tonne really and she knows it.
"Not much farther to go."
She can feel Gale roll his eyes over her head but doesn't waste the energy or time to look up and find out. They hobble up the hill together, their boots getting stuck in the slush of snow that is slowly beginning to melt.
"Your mom is gonna freak." Hazelle can't afford for Gale to be holed up for a week resting this ankle but he had no business testing the ice so carelessly. The season has only just turned but he'd insisted on fish, and fish meant making a hole in the ice. "Idiot." Katniss reprimands him.
"Okay, I know already." He sounds as tired and fed up with this slow, horrible pace as she but darkness is quickly settling in the woods as they travel closer to the fence. They'll be cutting it close if they want to trade anything worthwhile today and Katniss is already considering they just take the game for food themselves.
Those turkeys – pure luck – will spoil too quickly for their two families. She sighs knowing they'll have to detour through the black market before she can take Gale to see her mother.
…
He's been blind to a lot of things except Katniss for a while now.
Rory asked him yesterday when he and Katniss would get married. Was he going to wait until he worked in the mines? Gale had stood there gaping at the boy.
Out of the mouths of babes.
Gale looks across at her skinning a rabbit and lets himself - just for a minute - consider that future. Subjecting her to a shared life in some cramped house as they toil in the mines, risking so much more in the darkness than they do out here in the woods. Hunting is illegal and there are dangers in predators and punishment but in the mines, so much more is out of their hands.
He doesn't want to consider that it wouldn't matter. She'd never say yes.
There are better futures to think of. Like rabbit stew for dinner tonight. Like running away.
He doesn't say anything though and for once, when he doesn't share his thoughts with her he doesn't feel guilty. It would just upset her, more than his rants about the Capitol, more than his worries about Vick's health since winter and how well Prim's doing in school.
"What is it?" He looks up and finds Katniss watching him intently, the knife hanging limply in her hand, the stripped carcass in the other. Maybe they know each other too well.
He flashes an easy smile and shakes his head. "Nothing." He looks out across the blooming valley, squinting as the sun hits his eyes.
It's always beautiful this time of the year. So much more than the Seam, but almost anything would look better than that place.
"Looks like the deer will be back in a few weeks." Gale says.
Katniss nods, dropping the skinless rabbit into the bag, moving onto the next furry body. She spends a moment eyeing the way the light hits the tops of the pines at mid-morning, all glittery from dew before lowering her gaze back to the task-at-hand.
It really is beautiful out here. This is his life, what he lives for. Running through these woods, hunting with Katniss. Watching the sun climb into the sky on a Saturday morning, or set behind the hills on a Sunday. He's not even sorry only he and Katniss can see these sights.
…
There's a lot of blood. She's never lost this much blood before.
Katniss looks down at the sight of those ruby droplets staining the patch of dandelions she holds herself over. It looks like they're swimming in a pool of her blood now.
"Wait. Just hold on." She's never heard Gale's voice so unsteady before and it makes her more nervous. This wound must be deep. He won't meet her eyes.
"I don't know if I can walk," Katniss says simply. Her hand feels wet where she presses it into her hip.
"It's okay," Gale is hurrying, the ripping sound of his shirt making her eyes dart to the skin of his stomach. "I've got you." He wraps the strip of material like a bandage around her. She can see his hands are shaking.
"Oh, man," His makeshift bandage soaks bright red within seconds. He clenches his eyes shut and she wonders if he's going to be sick. God, she feels lightheaded. "I'm sorry, it's not – I'm so bad at this." Katniss thinks he knows how to bandage a wound better than she does. He saved that pup this time last year. It was spring, she can remember the flowers in the field, just like the ones around them now. Green, purple, pink blue. Are those spots?
"Gale," Katniss swoons. He catches her quickly, his arms under her armpits, holding her on her feet.
"Come on, we have to get you back to your mother."
"Uh-huh," She says faintly, finding it hard to focus.
"Katniss," Gale grits his teeth and swings her arm around his shoulder, bending down to accommodate her much smaller frame. He feels strong, the only thing anchoring her to the moment, even as she tries to remember what colour fur that pup had. "Katniss," he repeats and she turns her head to look up at his face.
His head is ducked close to hers and she sees the real fear in his grey eyes.
"Come on."
She doesn't resist when he swoops her into his arms and they shuffle back towards the fence. Katniss moans, thinking of the steer carcass they leave behind. It will go to waste and it could have bought them medicine, more matches, enough paraffin for cooking for what – a month?
It hurts to keep thinking so she shuts her eyes and listens to Gale's heart thumping hard against her ear.
…
The smoke is choking his lungs but he pushes people further in, helping some old man as he stumbles over the roots of an old moss-covered tree in the dark. There are some kids crying behind him and he only stops to look back once.
Gale slows to a stop and waits for everyone to move ahead. They'll need him to find a path once everyone is deep inside the woods and he'll have to pick a destination for the survivors of District 12.
He can feel the heat of the District on his back, standing on the edge of the forest. The flames are rising high, licking at the melting metal of the Fence. He shifts his bow as it lies across his chest, and tries to count as many heads as he can whilst they run into the night.
The lake is as good a place to group everyone together. He'll lead them there first and they can wash wounds, fill what they have with water and start again tomorrow.
Any peace he ever felt here shatters with every breath he takes of the acrid air. Faces of people he's surely seen a hundred times, and still doesn't know their names disappear into the woods and it hurts because he knows it's not enough. The rest of them are buried under fallen roofs, burning alive in the rubble, or lying in pieces from the first bombs.
He looks up into the canopy and thinks of Katniss. She'd know what to say to these scared, injured, homeless people. She'd know where to go and how to get there and how to keep them all alive.
But she's in the Arena, struggling to keep her own life right now.
Gale takes his first step into the woods and wishes this day had never come.
…
Sometimes it feels like summer will never come. And when it does, it feels nothing like the summers of her childhood. She isn't yet twenty but those days are so long ago she might as well be fifty.
It's sticky and muggy and awful and she stares at the smoking ruin of her district.
How does it even come to this?
The woods are at her back, cool and inviting and she wants to turn and run. Only, Katniss learned a long time ago she's not as much of a coward as she wants to be. She feels Gale's eyes on her, and a couple of more pairs too, including a camera lens that has been fixed on her the moment the pilot spotted District 12 on his sensors.
There's no use moaning over the unfairness of it all. That never used to put food in her belly or keep Prim from having her name drawn at the Reaping, and now it doesn't stop the sight of her District, black and grey, a smudge in the valley.
It's her last chance to pretend that everything she finds in there won't break her heart. Maybe some part of the District will still be okay. Some part of her home, Gale's home is preserved.
Honestly though, as she turns back to look at everyone waiting on the edge of the forest with her, this is her home. Her real home. And it hasn't gone up in flames. The trees she knows like the back of her hand aren't lying in ashes and she's just grateful for something for the first time in months.
Gale catches her gaze and they stare at each other, the shade of the trees not quite long enough to reach them. The heat is emanating off the black straps of his jacket and it makes his face shimmer, just a little, enough that Katniss allows herself to pretend this is all just a bad dream. Just for a moment.
She can't read his true expression but she knows the way he purses his lips. He wishes she didn't have to see this. Silently she tells him it was going to happen sooner or later. She was always going to come back here and have her heart broken. It's so hot; she can feel the sweat on the back of her neck, collecting under her braid. He doesn't want her to go in there. He doesn't want to go back.
But she has to turn back to District 12 and lead them on. There are people to please and it's never her and Gale.
…
She isn't married. Not yet. Katniss will take the baker's son's last name over the toasting, something he has never wanted to see. Never wants to see.
Gale doesn't know if he's surprised or not when she arrives at their old meeting place in the woods, but he knows he feels something. A loud voice inside his mind – and why does it sound so much like Prim, poor Prim – tells him it's love. The worst of it is, he knows it is. He finds things haven't really changed, even though everything has. Katniss is wearing a dress a similar colour to her Reaping dress from when she was sixteen and he was a coward. It was her mother's but this one looks new. That shade is bad luck for her.
"When did you get here?" Her voice is genuinely curious, not demanding or pained and he decides to bite back the bitterness that threatens to creep into his own voice.
"Sometime this morning."
Katniss nods quietly, moving to sit down beside him, her whole right side pressed against his. There never was much room, even when they were skinny, starving kids.
"Were you going to tell me?" He asks, unable to keep the hurt from sneaking in now. When did they start being so secretive and mistrusting of each other? When did everything she hid and everything he lied about begin? Was it with Peeta in that arena?
He knows it's not from a time inside these woods. She was only ever Katniss Everdeen, and he, Gale Hawthorne. Hunters. Best friends. There was no Victor, Soldier, Miner, Tribute. He wishes he could hold her and crush those titles out of his mind, out of existence.
But they can't change who they are and what they've done. Gale knows this. He's tried to do just that for the past two years.
Katniss hangs her head and he knows her answer before she says anything. "I didn't want –"
"What?" It's easier if he keeps his eyes trained on the valley, not her olive skin and grey eyes, so much like his own. Like she was made to be his other half. Just an extension of his being, in this woman who can't even look back at him.
"I didn't want it to feel like I was rubbing it in your face." It's the first honest thing she's said to him in years and it still punches him in the gut.
"Well you should have. It was worse finding out about it through…" Gale remembers he isn't supposed to tell her that he's talking to her mother these days.
She doesn't press it and he knows she's thinking it was going to hurt no matter who told him.
"You should have told me." Gale repeats uselessly, like if she can go back and fix one tiny mistake it should be that.
Katniss finally looks at him; he can feel her eyes burning right into him. He doesn't tear his gaze from the valley. There's a flock of sparrows dancing in the wildflowers fifty feet away. He wonders if she still shoots. It's strange not knowing whether to hope if she does or doesn't.
"I don't want to hurt you, Gale."
Too late, he thinks, kicking his feet out, his arms falling from their purchase on his knees.
Maybe this is it. This is when he finds out it was never going to be them. Even back when he was teaching her traps and listening to her sing and learning how to shoot owls in the twilight. The idea of it hurts enough.
"You didn't have to come back." Translation: I didn't want you to come back, Gale thinks.
Gale bucks up and forces himself to turn to her. His last chances are flying quickly out the window and he needs to stop pretending that her marrying Peeta won't break him. "Yeah, I did."
He watches her eyes flick across his face, from his eyes to his lips, to his eyes again. Does she know he wants to kiss her? He always does. Always did since the moment he knew he wanted her, just her, in the Hob. The thought of Darius is as dangerous as any other.
It's not that he doesn't have things he wants to tell her, but Gale is no good with words. That was always Peeta's thing, from the moment those camera's started rolling. Gale wants to tell her they're two parts of the same whole. That he doesn't care if nobody likes it, it's just between the two of them. Not Peeta, not her mother, not Haymitch. He wants to tell her he's missed her every fucking day in District 2. It may as well be on the other side of the planet. It's not these woods.
"Why?"
She isn't dense. Katniss knows what he will do as surely as he knows she's thinking if coming here at all is betraying Peeta.
Gale touches her cheek, his thumb caressing her skin, lingering on the shape of her jaw before he leans in and kisses her properly for what feels like the first time in an age.
Katniss doesn't pull away and he feels her hands curl around the collar of his old hunting shirt. Because although everything's changed, he's waited, she's waited and it's summer in the woods.
Last chances only exist here and he isn't going to let them go.