Chapter 4- How Lovers Meet

"Annie, Gale, Katniss, I'm back!" Finnick says our names casually like he's known us our whole lives, not just more than the few brief conversations we've had with him and strangely, I don't mind. It must be something in the water here. He then passed Gale and me something. I take a look at my ID. I am Katniss Cresta, age 18, due to turn 19 just before the 75th Hunger Games reapings. Out of habit, Gale and I switch to make sure everything looks good. He is Gale Odair, age 20, due to turn 21 in a month.

We nod and pass them back to the other, not saying a word. When we look up we see Finnick holding Annie's face and her holding onto his shoulders, staring into each other's sea green eyes. No one seeing them could doubt their love.

We quickly and awkwardly excuse ourselves to the hut floating on the water. "So Catnip, how do you like District 4?"

I shrug. He gives me a burst out into a smile. "I love it. I can't believe how easy life here is though. I thought the victors would be jerks but they aren't. They're helping out everyone in town, not like Haymitch." I pull out one of the dead squirrels from the bag we had the sense to take out here with us. We lay out a sheet of plastic and begin cleaning our catch.

"Do you miss it?" He asks his voice catching.

I start to nod then I realize that I don't miss it. Everything there reminded me Prim, my father or even of my mother. "I'm sorry to say that I don't. I'm sure you do though. You left your family."

Gale shook his head. "I didn't leave them. A new Peacekeeper transferred and didn't like my poaching. When he saw I wasn't home he- he-" He buried his face in his hands. I had never seen Gale Hawthorne -Odair- cry. Shyly, I lifted his face with my right hand and put three fingers from my left hand to my lips and held it to the sky.

Gale let out a small smile before taking my head in his hands and kissed it ever so gently. When he finally pulled away I was gaping. "Sorry, you had something on your face and I-"

I put my hand over his mouth. I removed it moments later and placed a kiss on his lips. "Don't apologize when you did nothing wrong." I was then even more shocked. Did I just say that?

I must have because he leaned in for another kiss but I shook my head. "What's wrong, Catnip?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It just, doesn't feel right. It's too confusing."

Gale looked at me questioningly. "How can it be confusing?" I smiled.

"Well my sister and your brother are probably about to go at it on the back porch." I said, suppressing a laugh. I hoped it covered up what I really was thinking that it's confusing because I shouldn't love him. We're hunting partners and nothing else, right?

Gale let out a smile. "Of course." He said casually but I caught the hurt in his eyes. Finnick and Annie came back into the house, all smiles, Finnick holding Annie's hand. Jokingly Finnick said, "Time to go, little bro!" Gale rolled his eyes and smiled at me before he left.

As soon as they were gone Annie looked at me questioningly. "Did anything happen between you two?"

I laugh, actually laugh, out loud, from the nerves. "Why would you think that?"

She smiled. "It's the way you two act around one another. It's weird because it's exactly how Finnick and I used to act around each other. Best friends, teasing, denying but eventually… I guess we couldn't deny it anymore and we realized we loved each other."

"Well Gale and I aren't like that at all. We're friends. We've been friends since he was fourteen."

Annie made herself more comfortable on the couch as she asked the next question. "How did you two meet?" With that I plunge into my story.

I hold my bow in my hands, still shaky. This is the first time I've been in the woods without my father. He isn't here to tell me where to go, how to catch something or even how to spot it, I'm alone and there is nothing around me but the trees. If I don't come back with food this venture would have been worthless. I had set a couple of snares up but I have never been good at that sort of thing. I have to do this, for Prim. Snap! My attention is turned to the left. My bow is up and I am prepared to run if I have to but as I go closer I see it's a rabbit hanging by one foot, dangling in the air. "That's so neat."

I am inspecting the intricate knots and smiling at the perfection. "Maybe if I take the rabbit off I could see what the knot it better then I could just put the rabbit back and-" my mutterings are interrupted.

"Stealing is a crime punishable by death, you know." He jumps out of the tree where he had been watching me. I shrugged. "What's your name?"

"Katniss." I whisper but it's so low I'm sure he can't hear me.

"Alright Catnip, I'm Gale." He smiles. I furrow my brow.

I shake my head. "No, my name is Katniss."

Gale laughs. "Sure it is." He scanned the way I look; his eyes examining me like a piece of prey. I felt like running until I saw pity in his eyes. "Your father died in the mine accident, didn't he?" I nod. "Mine too. Here, I'll teach you snares. From the looks of you your family might be the only one hungrier than mine."

He goes over basic snares with me and then we go hunt together, not fully trusting each other but when your family's life is on the line you're not picky. He goes to his other snares, fancy, elaborate, even better than my father ever made, each holding a prize, some as small as sparrows and mockingjays but another holding a prize of wild dog. "You made these?"

Gale nodded. "Yeah, I've been fascinated with snares ever since I was young. My father taught me a couple, like the one I taught you, and I branched off on my own and made these." He then eyes my bow. "Can you shoot that thing?"

There is a rustling in the bushes. I get my bow up and see a lynx. Gale laughs as the lynx stalks toward us. Not in a threatening way but in a feed me way. "Wow, you really are Catnip!"

"Am not!" The lynx starts to let out a low growl and I shoot him hitting him in the eye. "We can get a nice trade for his pelt and he'll have some good meat on him."

"Ah so you do know how to shoot!" He smiles and nods approvingly. I can't help but smile back. It was the beginning of something amazing.

Annie smiles at my tale. "How did you and Finnick meet, not wanting to let her off the hook. She smiles.

"Well, he was nine, I was eight."

I open my eyes under the salty water. I don't care about the stinging. I got over it years ago. The water is so perfect. I see colorful fish swimming away as I approach their sanctuary .I laugh and bubbles escape my lips. I swim to the surface and retrieve some more of the precious air that allows me to become one with the water. Oh how I wish I was born with gills.

I close my eyes as I swim. Sometimes swimming blind is amazing, just feeling the water around you, becoming one with it. I'm happy. Then I'm stuck. I'm trapped and swimming frantically, trying to get to the surface to breath. I am starting to see the world turn black when I feel myself get pulled out of the water by a pair of arms. I cough once I feel air surround me. "Are you alright?" My response is more coughs.

A pair of muscular arms surround me and pick me up like a doll. "Finnick, you have to be more careful. Luckily I saw she was splashing more than a fish should otherwise we would have killed this girl." I finally open my eyes and see a boy -no- man, about seventeen years old.

"Sorry, Reef." I look behind the boy, Reef and see another, not so much older than me who looks exactly like a younger copy of my savior.

"Don't tell that to me, tell that to this girl!" He is furious at his naïve younger brother. "What is your name, sweetie?"

"An-" I let out a few more coughs. "Annie. Annie Cresta."

The younger brother comes to me. "I'm sorry for throwing the net on you, Annie. I'm Finnick. My older brother, Reef, is teaching me to fish." He smiles. "You could learn too!"

I start to nod but let out a few more coughs. "I'll- I'll watch. Is that okay?"

Finnick looks at Reef begging. "Please, Reef!"

He rolls his eyes at his brother but smiles. "She can stay."