Gale gets pulled along to District 2, and despite his hatred (and memories) of the place, he can't really find it in himself to fight against it. He finds a place to live, and he works and works and doesn't even bother decorating the place. It sits grey and drab, empty walls and floors to match his sunken chest. He does his best, but the place never really feels like 'home', and when he describes the lavish apartment using the word, it feels foreign and wrong on his tongue. Home tastes more like fresh air, smells more like the woods and looks more like the red tint to her hair. Gale decides to leave on a whim, because District 2, with all it's lavish, fake beauty just can't be home.
Gale holes up in the small home in the woods just outside of District 12. He waits for his old, brash, raging courage and bravery to come back to him, but it escapes his grasp. (Some courage does come eventually, but when it does, it's not thundering or nearly as strong as it used to be. Anyway, Gale figures that foolish courage was for another time, when he was a soldier and it was the best weapon he had.) Gale wanders into town, his foolish, knowing feet taking him to the gates of the Victor's Village. He's just at the gates, just about to step forward when he sees the two of them on Haymitch's porch, clearly just leaving from paying the old drunk a visit. There's a playful scowl on her face, and a wide, young grin on his. They're holding hands. They're just two kids, really, and they look like nothing but in that moment. Gale doesn't get angry as he turns on his heel. He doesn't even get sad, really, and he doesn't storm up any hatred for either of them. (He can't hate Peeta, really - he mostly just feels thankful to him. And Katniss? Gale knows he never could've found it in him to hate her. He can't blame her for never having a choice. He could've guessed the end to this song back when he was eightteen. And Gale just doesn't have it in him to hate anymore. He just can't manage it, and he doesn't try. All of that hatred was for someone else, another boy, another man, years and years ago.) District 12 hasn't been his home for a long, long time. Gale thinks maybe he's known this for a long time, but he only just understands the feeling of truly being without a home.
Gale goes to 7, because he figures that the trees will remind him of District 12, of some sort of comfort. He spends a month there with Johanna in her cabin. After the first week, their time is mostly taking up by them fucking, by her yelling and screaming (and sometimes crying and pleading when she thinks he isn't listening). Gale stays mostly silent for his time there, because he was never too good with words, and he knows they won't do any good. He's never been good at comforting or coddling, anyway. When Gale says he's leaving for 4, for the beach and water and (he hopes) comfort of normalcy, Johanna doesn't cry or really say much of anything. She walks him to the train station, and Gale isn't so sure, but he thinks he sees her smile as she walks away. He's almost sure of it - because he recognizes it, back from when she'd wait to tell everyone the punch line only she knew. But Gale isn't so sure his mind is entirely the most trustworthy place anymore (or if it even was to begin with), but it's a nice thought, Johanna smiling, so he locks up the memory in the back of his mind to keep for when he'll need it.
Gale finds that 4 isn't so bad. It's not as busy as 2, is without trees so he doesn't remember 12... Gale doesn't even mind the beach so much. He buys a small, unowned house, and lives quietly. He doesn't speak to many people, and he mostly just wanders around the District, the foreign taste of salt water on his tongue beginning to feel natural. Gale feels like he needs time - though he isn't sure what he needs time for. He's sure he's waiting for something, and he's really just too tired to go out searching for whatever it is. He's just tired. So tired. Gale walks down the beach one day, further then he's ever gone, and comes across a line of trees. They don't remind him of 12; they're much thinner, with different colours and textures. Gale weaves through them, and he finds a nearly miniature beach, with a slouching, comfortable-looking cottage resting just on the shore. Out of curiosity and boredom and other things he can't really name, Gale walks up to the cottage, and walks right in, his loud footsteps nearly echoing throughout the house. It smells like salt water and rain and Gale decides nearly right away that he likes the smell. He stands in front of a window, facing the sea, for a few hours. He can't really feel the passage of time anymore, but soon enough, it's dark, and there's the sound of muffled, soft footsteps outside.
Annie comes in to the cottage, her curly hair long and shiny, her skin tanned. There's freckles lining her cheeks and nose, and a smile on her face. There's a boy in her arms, with bright hair and blue eyes. Gale's mouth forms into a small 'o', and Annie doesn't really do anything when she finds Gale standing there in her home. She makes him a cup of tea, as though she'd been expecting him, as though he isn't unkempt and random and foreign to her. After she puts Echa to sleep, she comes and sits with him. Annie asks if he'll be staying in the extra room, all casual and calm. He cannot imagine this woman covering her ears away from the demons no one else could see. Gale moves into Annie's guest room, and he sleeps a bit better. Gale stays and stays and stays, and feels less tired and watches Echa try to sit up. Annie still needs Gale to take the boy sometimes, when she gets lost in her own mind. Gale tries to help, and he prides himself on doing the best he can with what he's been given (or, rather, what's been taken from both of them).
Gale decides to start staying during Annie's episodes. (He isn't quite sure when the change came; it happened before he could realize.) In the beginning, he doesn't know what to do, so he just sits beside her, handing Echa over to a neighbour for a few hours, or putting him down for a nap. Eventually, Gale gets more comfortable, and tells her stories of 12 (even using the word 'home' for that place doesn't feel right anymore, and Gale feels lost again) and holds her hand. Once, Annie hugs him tight, rubbing her thumbs against the nape of his neck. Gale does his best to keep the smile off his face, but he simply can't - not to mention the effort was half-hearted.
Surviving becomes less of a worry, more of a gurantee, and living becomes easier with Annie. She is easy to be around; she's quiet, sure, and conversation topics are few and far between, but she only talks when she feels it's needed. Gale can respect that. He might even like that. After all, just being in her company is pleasant. She's relaxed, and Gale is taken aback by it. He is used to constant panic and worry and anger. Annie takes Gale out to collect sea shells to fill empty jars, Echa strapped to her breast with a sort of sling. She spins them around in front of echo, light shining off of them. Annie takes the two of them out for walks along the beach, she sings for Echa nearly every day (every good day). The day Echa takes his first two thumping, clumsy steps on his chubby little legs, Annie cries and Gale isn't sure he's ever seen anyone so happy, so proud, so content. For a brief, sick moment, Gale wonders what the feeling would look like on Finnick's face if he were here.
Annie kisses him on the beach when the sun is rising. Gale couldn't sleep, just kept turning around in his thin sheets. He wandered outside, and waited for the sun to come up, to shine off of the water. Annie was out there, her feet wet in the shallow, and turned to him before he could manage any lame words of comfort slip out. She was all soft, soft, soft skin and lips, and Gale smiled into the kiss. She was so soft it soothed Katniss' hardness, and Gale couldn't even remember how her hard lips pressed onto his. Only soft, soft, soft Annie. Soon, the kisses become more frequent and playful, and after Annie crawls into Gale's creaking bed one night, it becomes theirs. For the first time in a long time, Gale feels himself happy to share something with someone. (Maybe that's just because it's Annie.)
Happiness goes from being an afterthought to becoming an attainable goal, and soon, smiling becomes easier and doesn't come with the naseuating sensation of guilt. Echa learns his words - 'Mam' is the first noise he manages to peep out, and that night, Annie whispers into Gale's neck that she wants another, another, another. Gale doesn't find it in himself to argue. Gale works for the government, works to keep the peace, to keep people fed and with a roof overtop their heads. The world heals slowly, and so do they.
When they're sitting on the beach at sunrise one early, early morning, the tide whipping around them, Annie cups her hands and lowers them into the water. She raises her hands out of the water, and lifts her arms above Gale's head. She opens the spaces between her fingers before Gale can do anything, and he sputters as a small smile comes to her face. Water drips down his face, and Gale raises his eyebrows at her, searching for some sort of answer, but Annie just raises her fingertips to his face, beginning to rub the water into his skin. It feels fresh and different from the other times he's washed himself in this water, but he can't tell why. Not one to question Annie, Gale relaxes, and smiles a bit when she kisses the tip of his nose, the water dripping there resting on her lips. Annie gestures to Gale, and he goes through the same motions with her.
"Okay," Gale says slowly when he can't focus anymore, his hands cupping Annie's cheeks. Annie just nods, and the same look plays on her face as it did that first day he came to the cottage. Gale thinks maybe she knew all along, right from that day. Maybe she always knew. Later, when the sun peeks up from over the horizon, painting all purples and oranges across the water, they break bread and feed each other. Gale calls his mother later in the morning, and she cries over the phone. Annie doesn't have anyone to call, but Gale doesn't mention it. He doesn't need to. They've got each other know, and they're trying to make that enough. (It is, most days.)
Gale slips into comfort in District 4 without meaning to. He never really wanted to stay, never wanted to feel peace and comfort. (Annie suggests maybe he didn't feel he deserved that.) He finds home for the first time, without looking for it, really. It slips into his lap and he adjusts to it. Gale doesn't have so much anger anymore. That was for a different time, a different place, a different world, a different Gale.
Home becomes the cottage with the sloped in steps, with the smell of sea salt always fresh in the air. Home becomes sand between his toes and Echa's toothy grin. Home becomes the curve of Annie's breast and how his name sounds in her mouth. (When she says his name, it feels right in her mouth, on her tongue. It feels right, real, like it's his name, finally his name, like it never really was his name before it was on the tip of her tongue, before she found it.)
Gale, one night as Annie sleepily traces shapes onto his back, thinks that maybe it was always this. Maybe this was always home, maybe this was always just here, just waiting for him to stumble on it. Gale can remember hunting and even being hunted, but he finds it more difficult to remember just being happy. Annie's tracing slows down as she slowly falls into sleep. She always says that they'll be okay, that it'll be okay - and Gale, despite his past, despite everything, believes her. He wandered here despite everything, and Gale knows he'll stay despite anything. It's the best they've got.