~ A drop in the ocean,
a change in the weather,
I was praying that you and me might end up together.
It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert,
but I'm holding you closer than most,
'cause you are my heaven ~ Ron Pope.
Sae thinks this was a long time coming, and yet it's still not how she expected it to happen. She sighs, a big, long dramatic sigh. Stupid girl, she thinks, she supposes he's no better either though. Sae doesn't care to admit to herself, but she's always had a soft spot for the raven haired little girl. The day they met is clear and fresh in her mind, Katniss was but a scrawny little 7 year old, and boy, did she have a mouth on her.
'This doesn't taste like beef,' she remembers seeing the girl's mouth twitch downwards in disgust, Sae had laughed.
'Well, what else is it gonna be, miss?' She'd said whilst sharing a grin with the girl's father, no one had ever called her up on what was actually in her stew, Sae didn't even really know herself, chopping up whatever she could find spare, it sure as hell wasn't beef though.
The girl had pursed her lips, she didn't like being laughed at, and the glare she gave her was enough to make Sae certain of that. The memory was enough to make Sae laugh again.
Katniss Everdeen always was a special one, she thinks. Sae just wishes she knew back then how special she really was. Special in district 12 has always been synonymous with doomed.
Sae has watched her closely over the years, and she's always been good at reading people, Katniss Everdeen is the most goddamn open book she's ever come across. Uncomplicated, no-nonsense and simple. Three words Sae knows people use often, when describing her, some idiots go straight in there with the unfeeling type bullshit that gives Sae an anger she can't describe when hearing the girls name mentioned among the insult.
Sae knows though, she knows how Katniss works. She doesn't care about most things, only worrying about the here and now. But when she does, it's obvious, her actions prove so much and Sae thinks it's a wonder nobody else has grasped onto this concept yet. Sae sees it in the way the girls head snaps up at the mention of her sister or late father, she sees it in the way her hands always placed on the boys when Darius or whoever's messing with her becomes just a little too provoking in their approach. Sae sees it in her eyes too, lit up like the stars above, whenever he speaks.
Sae does not see this in Katniss's eyes now, though she still leans down a kisses the bakers injured son, so forcefully that Sae nearly falls for it. Gale obviously has. The somewhat unusually quiet square has been disrupted by his knocking over of some crate, he couldn't get out of here fast enough, she thinks that if it wasn't for the direness of the situation it would almost be funny. The boy finally figured it out, finally. Sae knows she ought to go after him, she doesn't, but she should. Better to let him cool off, besides, whys he gonna want an old women telling him what to do anyway.
She doesn't see him for a while after that, not 'til the morning of their return, their as in Katniss and Peeta, or the 'star crossed lovers of district 12', as some prefer. Idiots, Sae thinks.
'Shouldn't you be wearing the biggest grin in this place?' she says whilst ladling up the soup and shoving it in front of him. He doesn't look up at her.
'Somethin' like that' Gale quips back, his voice devoid of all emotion. She won kid; she wants to scream it at him, but when he does look up his eyes tell her he's not in the mood to be messed with, cue Darius and his shrewd remarks.
'What's wrong Gale?' his tone is probing, sharp. Sae knows what's coming; she just can't find it in herself to interfere, the boys always been too damn stubborn for his own good, never backing down in a haggle but always making sure no more is given than its worth, he's like her in that way. Fair. Maybe he needs this, she hopes more than thinks.
'Upset your little buddy's found a new playmate, now she's been away?' Darius laughs a gruff laugh at his own joke, and Gale stays silent, suddenly mesmerised by the inner rim of his soup bowl. Sae's always found the peacekeepers interactions with the hunters amusing, but there's something so remarkably unfunny about his last comment that she can't remember why she ever let him speak in the first place.
The choice words she had chosen for him stay on the tip of her tongue though, cut off by Gale's very silent figure retreating back out of the hob.
Only then does she remember that he didn't trade anything with her.
Over the next couple of months her interactions with both the hunters become far and few between and rarely are they ever together. The boy starts his string of life long mine shifts, Katniss is occasionally seen aimlessly wandering around town and Sae finds herself missing the pair that used to smile at each other when they came in with a big haul.
Sae thinks it's sad, what has happened to the boy and girl, once so close, and now never close enough.
Sae has never been so damn wrong in her entire life.
A few days after spring starts blooming, and the last droplets of ice begin to melt away, Sae finds the note taped to the bottom of her stool, she recognizes the two types of handwriting from years of signing for squirrels almost immediately, and she's bewildered by what they could want with her. Though lying if she said she was not curious, she leaves straight away after making sure Ripper doesn't let anyone help themselves, she's got a living to make here. She says she won't be long, anyway.
Sae underestimates the trek; she hasn't been beyond the fence for years. It feels oddly frightening, though it shouldn't, she spent near enough every day of her youth out here, along with Si, Haymitch and the rest, all of them free and alive. But she never told Katniss or Gale and she knows for sure nobody else ever did.
She chuckles to herself at the thought of their faces finding out what she's kept secret for years, she's also far to consumed in wondering how they did, and how she missed the fact that there silence towards each other was no more than unspoken communication. Sae doesn't notice the figure that has now fallen in step beside her but when she turns to see Haymitch brandishing a replica of the note she received, whisky bottle in hand, she's caught off guard.
'You too, huh?' she rights herself and he grunts in acknowledgement.
'Better be good,' it's the last thing either of them says before coming to the clearing that reveals the lake. Sae sucks in a breath, she hasn't seen it since the day before the reaping of the 50th hunger games and she's had such a perfect image of it in her head all these years that she doesn't want anything to ruin it, she's disappointed.
The lake is silent, bizarrely so. There are no chirpings of birds as Sae remembers, in fact there seems to be very little wildlife around, if any. The grass surrounding them is an eerie brownish green and Sae halts just before the entrance to the cabin, Haymitch nearly knocking into to her from behind.
Sae's good at reading things, and she thinks she knows what lies behind the four walls awaiting them.
'Always leaving me to clean up your mess, eh sweetheart,' Haymitch's muttering, tinged sad and hollow, and confirms it for her.
She swallows and enters into the frame.
It's bittersweet when they find both the hunters curled around each other, his hands holding her hair pressed against his chest, her hands interwoven with his. Sae fights back the tears pooling in her eyes, when she sees the reason they brought them here. A crumpled piece of paper and 5 words.
Take care of our families.
The wind blows in then, but that's not what knocks Sae of her feet, it's the blown away piece of paper that then uncovers the berries, as blue as ink.
Nightlock.
She knows then that it's a statement from them. The real star-crossed lovers of district 12.
Sae thinks the long time coming is over now.