OUTTAKE - GALE
Author's Note: This scene doesn't correlate exactly with a chapter, but it happens sometime after Gale's wedding and before the shooting.
I am sitting in our spot when I see Katniss's shadow reach over me. She's just as quiet as the day I first found her in the woods - small, defensive, fierce. The day our friendship began. We've resumed our routine of hunting every Sunday. We don't talk a ton, but we've never needed to. Just being out here together is enough. Moving with her, a team, like I've always wanted us to be. After Prim, I didn't think I'd ever be able to pick up the pieces of my life in 12, but I'm home. And I am happier than I could have imagined being.
Johanna makes me feel like I am alive in a way I've never felt before. She burns in the same way I do, she's passionate and she's all in. There is no hesitancy in our love, we've both jumped head first and that's it. It's her and me, forever, and I'm ecstatic. I loved Katniss for a long time, but I don't think I was actually in love with her. I thought I was. I thought about her; I worried about her and dreamt about her. I wanted her in my life, by my side, in my bed. But now that I'm with Johanna... Being in love with someone is different. I see that now. I loved Katniss. I think Katniss loved me too. But she was in love with Peeta.
She's particularly quiet today. I can tell something's wrong, but I don't push it. If Katniss wants to talk with me, she will. If she just needs the escape of the woods and to linger in its silence, she can have that, too. We travel far on foot, slipping miles and miles into the forest. It will be a long hike back, but I like that. Sundays with Katniss keep me sane. She finds a rock and props herself up as she begins field cleaning our game. I sit beside her and do the same. After a while, she quietly whispers, "Does Johanna ever talk about what they did to her in the Capitol?"
My blood runs cold. I try not to think about that time. I feel the vomit rise in my throat, and I swallow hard to push it down. "No," I barely breathe out. I can feel the fury simmering below the surface. I hate that piece of myself - the vengeful, raging, angry man who didn't see any good in the world. I try to shove it back in. "It's probably better I don't know. I think if I knew why she can't feel water on her skin, why she recoils at any sudden sounds... I think I'd kill someone. I think I'd hunt them down and," I stop myself. "That part of me needs to be behind me." I pick up a twig from the ground and begin peeling the bark away with my fingertips. I breathe through my nose and sow my breath as I toss the meticulously stripped stick to the side."Does Peeta talk about it with you?"
"Sometimes," she says. "We do Real or Not Real. But he leaves out chunks of time. I think he's trying to spare me. He knows I blame myself." She kicks the dirt. Her silence matches mine. I'm not going to try to convince her it's not her fault. She needs to come to that on her own.
"Sometimes, at night, he'll wake in a terror, and he just mutters incoherently to himself. I get bits and pieces, until I bring him back to reality. Last night he was… I've never seen him like that."
I immediately shift from anger to worry, and I can feel the concern spread across my face.
"Oh no, not like that. That part of him is dead, Gale." She means the Mutt. The violent part of him that could kill any of us if he wanted to. The part that, with hardly any resistance, broke Johanna's nose, dislocated my shoulder, and smashed in Katniss's face to a pulp. "He was… He had a nightmare, and he was paralyzed in fear. It was like a nightmare and a flashback all in one. I knew he was overtired from the day. He hadn't slept much the night before, and spent almost the whole day in his studio. I knew something was coming to a head. And then last night, I woke up and he was completely paralyzed. Every muscle in his body was clenched, and his face twisted in this grotesque mask of pain. I couldn't pull him out. I tried and tried. I did everything I knew how to do, but he was asleep and gone at the same time."
"So what did you do?" I ask. I've found Johanna in similar situations, but she'd kill me if I told anyone that.
"I squeezed a pressure point on his hand. I notice him do it to himself sometimes, but I've never done it myself. But I pushed this point in his hand, here…" She takes my hand and squeezes the fleshy part between where my thumb meets my hand, and I feel a dull pain resonate. "It was like he came up for air. It was hours before I totally had him back, but he just kept muttering things that made me sick. About Darius. Johanna. Annie. Nameless people that he stuttered irrationally about for hours. Doctors. Something called 'the gallery.' Johanna was everywhere."
My mind slips back to that night. I don't know if I should tell her this, but she's my best friend, she wants to know, and I need someone to talk to.
"The cells were all lining a gallery," I start, looking at my hands instead of her face. "It was obvious that's where they… hurt them. So everyone could watch. Had to watch. There were instruments, some sharp and glistening against the beams of the flashlights, others dull and rusted. Chains hung from the ceiling. It smelled like death – like rotting flesh and bile. There was a decomposing body in one of the cells. I have no idea who it once was. It was too mangled and ruined to even tell if it was a man or a woman. It was just left there for the rest of them to take in. Try to sleep next to. There was no escaping death in that room. The sight, the smell, the sound. It was hell." This the most I've ever talked about the rescue with anyone. Peeta and Johanna don't remember it clearly. It's a burden I carry alone.
"When I got there, Johanna and Peeta were holding hands through the bars of their cells. I didn't like him then, and I didn't even know Johanna, but it was a heart-wrenching scene for anyone. They were frail, and battered, and frightened, but they both clung to a tiny bit of humanity, comfort, in a place of torment. Just the tips of their fingers were weaved together, like they were…" I cough and clear my throat. "Even Boggs took a second when we found them like that."
I take a deep breath and continue. "When they saw us, they both retreated back into their cells. I went to see Peeta first, but he was out of his mind. His face was just a mess, I almost didn't recognize him. Clearly Snow was done using him for the camera. Peeta plastered himself to the far wall and flinched when I touched him. I barely touched him, Katniss, I just grazed his skin with my fingers and he recoiled like I'd burned him. I kept saying my name, thinking maybe he didn't recognize me, but it was like he couldn't trust what was right in front of him."
"I tried Johanna next. She was mad - completely disassociated from what was going on. She crawled into the back corner and spat at me. The floor of her cell was drenched. There were water droplets falling from the ceiling. When one splashed on her body she cried out for Peeta. She wouldn't let me touch her either. When Peeta heard her scream, he threw Boggs against a wall trying to get to her. Finally, we had to gas them and carry them out. On the way back to the hovercraft, a prison guard jumped us. I could have just incapacitated him, but I was blind with rage. Over what they did. In the gallery. In the districts. If you had seen Annie... I kicked his ribs and screamed in his face. He begged me to stop, but I was out of my body at that point. It was almost as if I watched myself choke him. I felt his life slip away. Boggs had to pull me off."
I can tell by the look on her face she hadn't known I'd done that.
"I'm not sorry. I'd do it again, right now, if I saw him." I fall silent again. Katniss doesn't break it. "I know what I said back in 13. That even if they tortured me, I'd never say what Peeta said. That was just stupid, Katniss. The psychological torment they were putting them through… It's one thing to allow persevere while someone hurts you, it's another to allow other human beings to be tortured and slaughtered before your eyes and stay silent for the greater good. A good you can't even see. Anyone would lose it down there." I wait. Katniss can't bring herself to say anything, but her eyes look forgiving. She leans over and wraps her arms around me. I hesitate for a moment, and then I pull her close into me. We just sit there for a while, holding each other, rocking, letting the pain seep away from our relationship. She pulls back and rests her head on my shoulder.
"She doesn't talk about it with me, but I know she does with Peeta. And she calls Annie a lot. But she won't tell me what happened. Does he tell you?"
Katniss shakes her head. It's a special kind of pain, to live with knowing someone hurt the person you love. That you can't go back and fix it, you just have to watch them live with it, and hope your presence is comfort enough.
"Johanna says she spends her Sunday mornings with Peeta while we are out here," I tell her.
"Peeta says Johanna is a terrible baker," Katniss replies. We both laugh. She reaches out and takes my hand in hers. She kisses my cheek, then stands, brushes her pants off with her hands, and reaches one to me. She hoists me from the ground and we start our journey back. Sundays are a day of healing, for our whole family.