The train was like nothing either of them had seen before, but their equal distance from the prosperity of the Capitol only brought them closer together. Katniss sat in one of the plush arm chairs bolted to the floor of the main room and waited alongside Gale for their mentors to come in. Effie was their capitol mentor of sorts although her official title was as their escort. Haymitch was their in game mentor however and was an essential part of whether they lived or died. Katniss felt empty, what should she do? Prepare for her survival or for Gale's? Both were necessary aspects of her life and choosing between them was like choosing between two halves of herself.
When Haymitch entered the train car door he headed directly for the liquor bar and closed the door behind him. Katniss moved to get up and follow him, but Gale stopped her, "Let him have one more night of booze. I'll make sure in the morning it's his last."
Katniss shrugged and looked back over her shoulder towards the two doors behind them. She was willing to bet that there was one for each of the two tributes, bedrooms for their stay on the train, but it wasn't until Effie gave them a run down of the train cars that their arrangements were confirmed. Each had a private bath and Effie assured them that they would want for nothing in their accommodations. Dinner was in four hours, and after a recap of the reaping would occur, but for the next four hours their time was theirs and Katniss knew they needed it as much as Gale did.
Once Effie left the filed into the left most bedroom together and shut the door. Gale inspected every corner of the room carefully before whispering in Katniss' ear, "Four cameras and two microphones; be careful what you say."
Katniss nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him close to her and resting her head on his shoulder. "Did you mean it?" Gale asked softly in her ear, "When you said you had decided? Would you have said the same if neither of us had been reaped?"
Katniss sighed lightly, "Yes Gale, I meant it. It wasn't just a spur of the moment decision, this has been coming for months, I just wasn't ready to see it, because I was terrified of the Capitol taking you from me." She reached up and stroked his hair down the back of his neck and back up again soothing him. "I was sure before Peeta came to see me that you were everything I wanted, but I didn't know why. There was some part of me that knew I had options, that there were suitors waiting around the corner, but I wasn't focused on that and none of them got too close so I didn't really have to deal with it. Now I see that was partially your doing." Gale at least had the courtesy to blush a little. "I was mad at first, but I realized that they lacked the most important thing I need in a man…"
"And what's that Catnip." Gale asked softly just above her left ear.
"Equality. Peeta is better than me, he has more money, a better station, a real career in his future, and he's just over all a better person. He never had to make some of the hard choices we did. I can't offer him anything real. Others look down on me because I'm poor or fight like a boy or hunt for my family. Even some of the people in the seam who have nothing regard me as beneath them because at least their women don't have to work to survive. Boys who have no more ahead of them then a stint in the mines feel like they're doing me a favor by seeking me out because they feel that living on next to nothing and being half starving all day with nowhere to be but in the house with the kids is better then me being out hunting. You are the only person who is truly my equal. The only person who understands why I do what I do and that it makes me stronger. You're the only person that doesn't want to save me, you just want to suffer along side me. I could never be with someone like Peeta. The perfect Baker's son with no guilt or crime to his name. A boy with no understanding of what it is to look death in the face and tell it to fuck off, because I'm not done protecting the people I love yet… I decided before either of us went up on that stage, but it took looking perfection in the eyes and realizing I wasn't that girl anymore to be sure that I made the right choice." She explained still wrapped in Gale's arms.
"Perfection?" He asked a little sourly.
"If Posy came to you twelve years from now and said that she had an offer to marry the sweet baker's son who ices cakes so pretty even the Capitol would buy them and live up in the city with a sturdy roof over her head and plenty of food in her belly what would you say to her? If he truly loved her and his only motive was to give her the best life possible what would you tell your little sister?" she asked him trying to make a point.
Gale hesitated for a moment, but it was clear that he was thinking exactly what Katniss wanted him to think, "I'd say he was perfect Katniss and that you should go to him now and accept." He said grudgingly.
"But I'm not Posy, Gale. I didn't have a big brother to raise me and keep me happy and fed. I'm Katniss Everdeen and I have had to fight for every god damn thing my family and I have. Perfection? Not interested. I need something more Gale. I need someone who understands why I do the things I do. Why I am who I am. I need the other half of me and that could never be anyone other than you."
Gale tilted her chin up to face him. Her eyes were even and clear with no doubt in them at all. "You know how this has to go then Catnip. We have to be the closest we've ever been. We have to be one singular fighting machine in that arena. That's the only way we're going to win this."
"Gale" Katniss whispered "We can't win this. Not both of us and I can't do this without you. The Capitol won't let us. We don't have a chance of both getting out of this."
"There is one thing I promised myself I would never let them have when I started all this, and that was you. I plan to stand by that."
"Started all what Gale? You only got picked yesterday." Katniss protested, but it was clear Gale was not going to respond. He just kissed her forehead and took her hand between both of his.
"From now on you don't leave my sight. If you go in a room without me you go alone and I stand outside the door and vise versa. They have to think of us as one person." Gale said softly. The tone of his voice was meant to sound sweet like a lover whispering assurances, but Katniss knew the steel that laced through his undertone ever so delicately; he was plotting.
"You were going to volunteer weren't you?" Katniss asked the obviousness of his plan striking her now.
Gale chuckled dryly, "I thought about it. I even planned on it I guess you could say, but after my mother and the baby… I'm just not sure I would have gone through with it. I would have found another way. Then when you were chosen I knew I had to stay and take care of everyone. So no I didn't plan on volunteering, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to make the most of the opportunity we have."
"Now you just sound like the Capitol Propaganda Gale. What has gotten into you?" She demanded, "Opportunity? This is a kulling and there is no other way of putting it. You think they are going to give us something for this? That our families will be better off watching us die on screen? We have no power Gale, we are their puppets sent up to an arena to die for their sick amusement." Katniss was screaming in Gale's face by the end. Gale was still and patient waiting for her to scream herself out knowing that she wasn't finished yet. "Not even the victors win. Have you seen them? Half of them are blind with drugs or illness and the other half might as well have a collar around their necks." she said more subdued.
"We do have power, and they're going to give it to us, but that's a conversation for tomorrow." He assured her. Let's take a nap before dinner and we can deal with everything went the time comes.
"I'm not sure I even know you anymore Gale." Katniss said fingertips trembling a little as she reached out to trace a hard frown line at the corner of his chapped lips.
"I will explain everything to you, I promise. You will know everything I know, but we're to public right now, I can't. Tomorrow. I promise. Just have a little faith in me until then. You know me Katniss just think back, this isn't really new for me. I've been talking about this for a long time." He implored.
Katniss thought; she thought back to their least public times. Those moments in the woods, on their bluff, by their lake. They had spoken of so many things, but in relation to the Capitol the only thing they had really ever discussed was either running away or bringing it down… Katniss' eyes grew round and a lump formed in her throat as she realized exactly what it was Gale had been planning. He wanted to bring down the Capitol.
Katniss had always discouraged these lines of conversation fearing one day it would get him killed, but hadn't she said it herself? Hadn't she just said the Capitol would't let both of them out alive? The only way they were going to both escape this was to defy the Capitol and if they were going to die anyway, maybe their deaths could bring about the start to some sort of change. Maybe the killing that took place in the games could mean something for once.
"Like you said Katniss, not even the victors are really free." Gale reminded her.
He was right. From this day forward, really since the day they were born, their only chance at freedom was to bring down the Capitol. She knew that continuing this conversation under their current scrutiny was too dangerous so Katniss let it go. Instead she lead them over to the bed and curled up under the thick soft comforter. The bed was meant for only her, but it was far larger then the bed she and Prim shared at home and when Gale climbed in it was only the feeling of broad wired muscles instead of Prim's childish figure that made the space feel foreign. Despite the difference it was still Gale and it wasn't long before the slight smell of wood, leather, and coal sunk into her mind and soothed her as his presence always did.
Katniss stiffened when Gale's large warm hand came to wrap around her side making him chuckle, "Relax Catnip, it's only me." He assured her pulling her back against his warm chest and nuzzling his face into the side of her neck. She relaxed quickly and Gale brought his fingers up to unbraid her hair letting it flow in waves between them. "We used to fall asleep on the side of the hill in the woods all the time. That's not so different." He reminded her.
Katniss snorted knowing that they both knew exactly how different that had been, "You weren't holding me quite so close then, nor where the blankets quite so soft or warm." She reminded him.
"Semantics." He responded teasingly. Katniss couldn't help the smile that bloomed on her face despite their situation. "Explain something to me Catnip." Gale said toying with a strand on her hair, "How is it that half of the seam boy are drooling after you and you don't even notice, but you can spot a squirrel fifteen trees over."
Katniss laughed lightly, "It just never made any since. Why should they want me? I just assumed it was mindless teen wanderings not anything serious. Even so I never really had time for all that anyway. When would ever spend time with anyone? At school? While I'm hunting? During free time? You know as well as I that any moment I don't spend hunting means my family goes hungry, or yours."
"Most of them weren't serious, not in the since that you should have considered them anyway so I figured you would't mind me keeping them from waisting your time." He said smiling playfully at her when she glared back at him. "Some of them just wanted a good time and figured a seam girl would be easy," He explained voice and shoulders rigid with anger, "Others were more interested in breading stock or finding a wife to support the household for them to avoid to mines than anything else. Those were the ones that took particular convincing. You should have seen the look on your Mother's face when I sent Danny Fletcher soaring after he brought bread for a toasting ceremony to your house to try to bribe your mother into marrying you off."
Katniss sat up and stared at him, "Danny Fletcher asked my mother to give me up for marriage?" She asked in disbelief.
"He wasn't the only one thinking of it, he was just the only one dumb enough to do it. I was bringing some of Rory's cloths over for Prim to mend while you were at the Hob one evening when he happened to stop by." Gale explained with a sly grin. "You should have seen his face. He was not happy to see me there, but he just went ahead and asked anyway. Luckily his Mamma only lives three houses away so I was able to kick his ass all the way to his front door." He said with a laugh.
"My hero" Katniss said in a flat sarcastic voice, "But really I didn't need you clearing the way for me." she said a little crossly.
"Aww don't be mad at me Catnip." He teased pinching her hip gently, "Besides Peeta was my only real competition. You should have seen him puff up like a ripe hen when I told him to lay off. Looked me dead in the face and told me I was neither your husband nor father and if I wanted him to back off he would have to hear it from you." He said with a snort of amusement.
"He was right you know." Katniss said still glaring a little.
"That's why I let him stay. The others didn't care about you. They only cared about the convince; once I was in the way it was more trouble than it was worth for them. Does't matter anymore anyway." He said nestling down against her so that he surrounded her completely, "You're mine now and I don't ever plan on letting anyone take you from me." He promised with a little more steel in his voice than the occasion would usually warrant.
Katniss sighed a little recognizing that he was right and allowed herself to be held as they both drifted into a light nap.