There Are No Words
6.22.2012
AN: This is a one-shot, I have a few chapter fics coming out soon, but it doesn't look like there is much of a following yet for FF in the HGseries but hopefully this does make it across some screens.
Summary: Gale's POV one-shot from the moment Prim's name is called to being pulled out of the Justice building. Hopefully a little different than what everyone else has written.
"Prim! PRIM! PRIM! I volunteer! I volunteer as a tribute!" The words are ripped out of the throat of the girl who fit the looks of the seam but nothing else. Her actions right now proved just how very different she was from all around her. Yet she's part of the seam, very deeply engraved in it. Part of the working nebula that makes everything run.
The arm she used to pull back the arrow was now pulling Prim behind her, the muscles stood out as they worked. Her eyes and her entire being is frantic. She is fighting to keep her family alive, just like the very first time that I saw her.
The clown-woman is saying something superfluous. Something about the correct process of things. I hated the woman, everything she stood for and who she was in particular. She was high-pitched, self-preening and wholly unnatural. Now to top it all off, she was taking Katniss away from me. Katniss was mine. Everyone of the Seam knew it, even if she didn't.
I had been intending to tell her that this morning but stupid words came out instead about wanting to run. I knew she wouldn't go for it, she was too sentimental, and she clung to this land, clung to her sister and her deceased father. She often wore his jacket and disappeared for parts of the day. She wouldn't be in town, I wouldn't see her walking by with her sister and she wouldn't be at our meeting place. As we couldn't go in together or be seen leaving as one. I imagined that her disappearances were attributed to her desire to be on her own and connect closer with her father. She must have found some sacred spot that they shared. I'd never know now where it was or if she'd ever trust me enough to bring me there. I'd never know a lot of things now.
I barely paid attention to the boy that was called as I held Prim, who was making it harder for Katniss to keep a straight and stoic face. I knew what was going on behind her mind, knew how she wanted to appear strong for everyone. The town drunk was rambling on too in between me snatching up Prim for her and when the boy was named.
Then the plaza was cleared and Katniss was inside a building and the remaining two members of her family and I were going to join her soon. I requested a private meeting with her, but it meant that my time was considerably shorter.
I didn't know the words I was going to say, I didn't plan them, and I don't know if I'll say them anyway if I get a chance. I know it will be too late if I don't, but like Katniss, it might just be easier on the both of us if they remain unsaid. I don't even know if she'll reciprocate my feelings and she doesn't need any distraction if she's to come out alive.
I still don't know, but when I'm finally let in and the door closes behind me, I don't need any words. We both know that the other cares for each other greatly and I open my arms for her. We don't touch much, but we move in sync and our minds are connected, knowing the other so well. At times in the last four years I thought of her not only as my sister, but also my twin.
I have a sister and there is not a thing about her that is similar to me. Katniss and I share parts of that in common as well. My heart warmed a little to learn that she didn't even need to think about accepting my embrace. It had taken her so long to warm up to me, to even give me a smile that part of me still feared she'd reject even this small amount of comfort.
That reminded me, I only had so little time and so much to say to her and we were eating it up, and I was loathe to break the contact. So I spoke quickly, knowing now that I wanted her to do everything in her power and be prepared for it, to come back to us, that I might have a future with her afterall if she could just make it through these next weeks. I give her a lot of advice, telling her about making sure she gets her hands on a bow and if she can't find one, to make one. I hope that it's even possible but it might not be.
Then the door is opening, but I'm not done yet, there is still so much I want to say! Now that I have freed the words to be unlocked and she's being taken, I must get it out! I must make her know that I feel so much more than she'd let me present these last years. Now that I knew that I wouldn't be shunned for my feelings. I knew her so well but there were still hidden parts to her that I still couldn't reach or understand but I was starting to. She felt something more for me too! "Remember, I -" But hands were on me and they were pulling me out. The door closed before I finished and a whisper ended my rash need for declaration. "need you." Not love, I could tell her that but it wouldn't matter, but to be needed, she'd respond the best to that. She'd feel it her sense of duty to come back and she liked being needed, wanted it, but shunned it too, but not how she would shun unexpected declarations of love. That would surprise and floor her too long and my ego would be crushed though I rationally already knew that.
So I didn't say it, and I regretted it anyway. The best I could hope for, was her return. She was a good shot with that bow and if she could get enough arrows and a good position, she could drop them one by one and turn out the victor. That was best case scenario. Anything else meant her death. And I was sure it was her death that we'd be dealing with next.
As people buzzed around me and I saw the baker's wife waiting, then saw the baker himself exit not too long after me, I realized that there was another person that we'd be mourning as a collective whole, another person that the capitol would take away from us. Another reason for me to hate those in power. Another reason to exact revenge and rise up the rebel forces. Another face to proclaim as being taken too early and without good reason.
Before I died, I promised myself that I would see the end of the capitol, peace makers and panem as we knew it. People would be allowed to do what they were good at and wouldn't be starving in the streets. There would be no more hunger games!
If things went right, there would be no words needed to incite the end of all the injustice. No need to say anything pointless about doing what was right. Effie and her type would have nothing to say and we wouldn't have to sit through years of mind-numbing jabber. No more words.