Six
We settle into a routine after that, as much as anyone can settle into one with the world shattering into a million pieces about their heads. Katniss and Gale go hunting a lot more now, and every time they bring back meat and plants, Prim and I set to preserving them as best we can with vinegar and smoke and curing, and then we hide them and tinned food about the place, under loose tiles, behind the mirror in my bedroom – who even knew that was there? – in every little nook and cranny we're sure that no-one but us will be able to find.
Peeta comes by a lot more often now, to see Katniss, or Katniss walks down to the bakery, although that's less often because Peeta's mother is a cow and doesn't like her. Posy's regained a little bit of her old excitement – she's too little to understand, really – and Prim is trying to be optimistic.
In the evening, after dinner, Gale and I go out for long walks about the farm – even though it's after the eight o'clock curfew normally, it's our land and there aren't any other adults here to tell us what to do because the farmhands have all scarpered back to their families, which is sort of fair enough, really. We usually end up kissing against a wall somewhere because in all honesty, as much as I want to think it's because he's fallen for me, it's probably more to do with forgetting the fact that they're going to evacuate us any day now and the rations we get down at the shop are less and less and the fact the Hawthorne-Everdeen family are all orphans now.
I'm the only one with parents left.
Of course, when Any Day Now doesn't materialize and we're not ordered into trucks to be taken God Knows Where, the kissing escalates into something more and more often than not we end up stumbling to my room because it's the furthest away from everyone else's and actually has a lock on the door, not that I'd noticed before. The first night after we were just lying in each other's arms, listening to the wind whistle about the rafters, and I asked something about wasn't sex under a certain age illegal. It actually got a laugh out of Gale, the first one I've heard in the weeks since the bomb, and he shook his head and said that no, the age of consent in England is sixteen, so we're fine, and in any case no-one listens to the law so it might as well fuck off.
I laugh then, too, but there was this little doubt niggling at the back of my mind, because if he acts so flippant about martial law, he's on the right track to getting a bullet in his head. But there aren't any soldiers around this deserted corner of the British Isles, so at that particular moment, I force myself to stop thinking about it, and concentrate on learning all the little things about him that make me feel more and more like falling the more I think about it even though it's always a bad idea to fall for someone who probably doesn't return the feelings. Like the fact he tastes like salt and sunshine if of course sunshine could be a taste. And how long his eyelashes are. And the way his hair is all messy when he's just woken up and is smiling at me from across the pillow.
Even with the war and everything horrible happening around the rest of the world, I never want this moment to end.
.
"Tell me about America."
"What about it?"
He kisses my collarbone. "Stuff."
"That's very helpful."
"Okay, then. What was your life like before coming here?"
I sigh, and slide my hand down his back. I could lie. I could make up something about life in America being a rave, being loved by everyone but no, that's not right. I can't do that. "Lonely," I eventually say.
His eyebrows pull together. "Lonely?"
"It was only me, Mom and Dad – Dad's a senator, so he was always at work. Mom's been sick for quite a long time." At his quizzical look, I pull a wry face. "Cancer."
"God, Madge…I shouldn't've asked…"
"Don't worry. She's not going to die just yet."
"I thought you had it all easy when Mom told me about you. Always enough money, both parents still around."-
"What happened to your Dad?" I almost feel guilty asking, because in all the time I've been here, not one word of any parent apart from Hazelle has ever been mentioned.
"Mine accident."
"I'm sorry."
"It was years ago."
Another pause. He presses another kiss to the hollow of my throat. "Why did your Dad send you here?"
"Well, he obviously didn't think this would happen. The war. Not you and me."
He laughs, and brushes a piece of hair out of my eyes.
"It just sort of happened, really. I guess he was sick of me floating around the house on my own all summer. It's the best idea he's ever had, actually. Apart from the war bit, of course."
"Glad to know you think so. I do too."
.
In the morning, we are rudely awoken by Katniss banging on the door as though the hounds of hell are snapping their way up the corridor.
"Gale! I know you're in there, you've got to get up!"
She doesn't sound panicked or even worried, just more than a bit exasperated. Gale sits up and groans. For a morning person, he's being very lazy today – it's nearly ten o'clock, normally he'd've been in the woods for hours by now, leaving me to sleep.
"Wha-at?"
"Mr Mellark's come with Peeta. He wants a word with you."
.
When we eventually get downstairs, after getting dressed amid a lot of faffing and procrastination, Mr Mellark is settled in the kitchen with a mug of tea, talking to Rory about the garden, and Lady. Prim is sitting on the counter, swinging her bare legs, and Katniss and Peeta are nowhere to be seen. I follow Gale down the steps, going over to the stove to put the kettle on. Thank God they have a gas stove or we'd be pretty screwed by now.
"Good morning, Mr Mellark," Gale says politely, even though I know he's a bit irritated because I know exactly where he'd still like to be this morning.
"Morning, Gale. I just came around on behalf of the village to check that you're all doing alright. That you don't need anything."
"No, we're fine." Gale's tone of voice leaves a lot to be desired.
"It's kind of you to offer," I butt in, sending a be-nice glare to Gale. "We're pretty much set – I think."
He thanks us and just explains that everyone was a bit worried because of what had happened to Hazelle, but thankfully he didn't spout platitudes (which would have made Gale angry) and he didn't stay very much longer except to tell Gale that He Probably Knew This Already but to start stockpiling medicinal herbs as well because the pharmacy was fast running out of things and it wouldn't be long before everyone was looking at their old books and taking to the fields as much as they could under the laws of do-not-leave-your-area and the curfew. When he left, I put a cup of tea in front of Gale and one for Rory and Prim even though they didn't even ask for one, because the way Gale was shaking, I figured he needed it.
"We don't need charity," he says.
"No," I put my hand on his shoulder. "But it was nice of him to offer."
Gale nods once, curtly, and we don't speak of Mr Mellark's visit again.
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