A/N: Sorry for the over-month-long update. School hates me. I'm on Sring break right now, though.
Book: Mockingjay
Scene: When Gale and Peeta talk in Tigris's cellar type thing
Pages: 238-239
Point of View: Gale
Another request from Peeta-Mellarks-Katniss! Hope you enjoy! I wasn't exactly sure what you meant by "when Gale and Peeta talk" but then I remembered this. I hope it's the right one, though I don't remember any other scenes of them talking…
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. I don't think I could be that depressing.
Why am I doing this? I think as I hand Peeta the cup of water. Oh, yeah, for her.
"Thanks for the water," Peeta tells me, taking the cup with his free hand. He takes a shaky sip.
"No problem," I tell him. I might grumble, but I really have a lot to thank him for, namely Katniss, and it really wasn't a problem. "I wake up ten times a night anyway."
A knowing look comes into his blue eyes. "To make sure Katniss is still here?" His face says he understands the sentiment.
"Something like that."
Peeta looks away from me, occasionally taking drinks of the water. When the cup is empty, he sets it back down. Then he raises his wrist, a silent askance to shackle the arm up again.
I don't understand this. He's obviously stable enough to have coherent conversations without trying to kill her; the shackles seem a little extreme. But yet, I think they make both of us sleep better at night.
"That was funny, what Tigris said," Peeta says when I've finished, "About no one knowing what to do with her."
"Well, we never have," I say, my voice a bit dry. We laugh, and I think, if circumstances were different, maybe we could have been friends. But they aren't, and because of him I might lose Katniss forever. And even though I don't completely hate Peeta, there will always be that little part of me that loathes him with reckless abandon.
"She loves you, you know," Peeta tells me. He's watching me carefully, almost like he's reading my mind. "She as good as told me after they whipped you."
I shake my head ruefully, wishing he were right. "Don't believe it. The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell… well, she's never kissed me like that."
"It was just part of the show," Peeta says, though he sounds a bit doubtful. His eyes take on a faraway look for a minute and I get the feeling his thoughts are echoing my sentiment. Then he shakes his head. I can almost see the words going through his mind: I won't let the hope that he's right get out of hand. No sense being crushed again when it turns out not to be true.
I imagine he told himself that on a daily basis. I used to.
Maybe that's why I find myself saying, "No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that's the only way to convince her you love her." I pause, wondering if I would have been in his place, had I volunteered for him their first Games. "I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then."
"You couldn't," he tells me, "She'd never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter to her more than her life."
I smile derisively. "Well, it won't be an issue much longer. I think it's unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it's Katniss's problem. Who to choose," I yawn expansively. "We should get some sleep."
"Yeah." He slides the handcuffs down the support, trying to get comfortable. I shake my head at him, still wondering about the necessity of those. "I wonder how she'll make up her mind."
Now that is a question I can answer easily.
"Oh, that I do know. Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't live without."
Because to Katniss, everything is about survival.
A/N: So? It doesn't feel as up to snuff as the others. But I like it.
I imagine that Gale feels a sort of camaraderie with Peeta, who also knows what it's like to deal with Katniss and has been affected by this war like he has.
Plus, they're on a mission together, and Peeta is the only boy around his age. Finnick's dead by this time (*cries*) and it probably comes down to a"If you were put into a room with older people of your gender and younger people of your gender, which group would you choose?" kinda thing.
