February 24, 2020
empressakura655! How did I miss your review last chapter? I'm sorry... and thank you.
Author's notes: see bottom
Chapter 5: ep·i·logue
noun(a final or concluding act or event.)
—
Years after the day she kissed him came the days he tried to ask her to marry him: he'd tried subtle, and he'd failed subtle. She looked at his little attempts mockingly. Wrapping a katniss root around a hawthorne branch did not bode well. She raised a brow, laughed for his pleasure, and he smiled sheepishly. Then, she turned away.
For a while, he thought she was ignoring his gestures, in between all the kisses. Ignoring his silent request, because she doesn't want to marry, never wanted to. She told him that; he knows that. He has the urge to just ask, but fear holds his throat. What if she doesn't want him as much as he wants her? They'd never discussed what they were, never had to, but now he wants to. She had kissed him, and then it was just normal.
But then, "if you want something, Gale, you're gonna have to ask." She sways her eyes to his, and nonchalantly throws a rabbit over her shoulder. His fear climbed high, but a challenge was set.
She is never subtle, and Gale never turns down a challenge.
He raises his shoulders and he hardens his gaze, two grey rocks, rough and uncensored. This little dare of hers sparks his bravery. The coal in his fingertips whisper encouragements.
"Marry me." It's a desperate question, but it comes out certain. Like his voice knew the answer before his heart did.
There is no hesitation, his subtly hid nothing from the start. "Of course." She looks him in the the eye softly, and then turned around. It was that easy, and Gale wishes it could've always been that easy.
But it wasn't, and now, they're getting married.
—
Two weeks later they signed papers, and they are supplied a house—a shack, really—to call home. Their mothers gifted them small herbs and their siblings danced and sang for them. It was all they could afford and it was perfect.
Katniss was married. At a point in her life she thought of this as weakness and as a risk. She chose to marry him despite that.
At first she'd been worried: they'd never had so much space to breathe. Gale never slept in a room with less than three kids, and Katniss never left her room without her mother withering away—or later, thriving with medicine—in the kitchen. The table is empty, and there are no snoring children.
(It is quiet.)
Gale lights a fire. They're toasting bread, a district 12 tradition. It's supposed to be a silent, romantic affair. They can do silent, but Katniss Hawthorne does not do romantic. He toasts the bread, breaks it, gives her the bigger half.
(It's like the woods, she realizes.)
He feeds her the bread sweetly, which she eats bashfully; when it's her turn, she shoves it in his face with no hesitation, squishing his eyes shut as the buttery bread filled his mouth. Katniss Hawthorne does not do romantic.
(Quiet and perfect and just them.)
He gasps in shock, and she laughs, laughs so hard. It's full and free and she gives him it. The unconventionally beautiful parts of her are blazing.
There is a flare in the way she wears his jacket on her small shoulders, barely filling it up, but touching every crevice of every seam, and he knows her smell will cover him tomorrow in the mines. He will smile a little the next day, tuck his nose into his collar: flashes of her smile will fill his mind as he digs his pickaxe into coal. They will motivate him, the images. He always thinks of her when he wonders why he comes to a death sentence 72 hours a week.
(This is what she wants. A life like the forest. Silent steps and knowing each other in every way.)
His fingers trace her lines, and hers pull at his hair. They've done this before—in the woods funnily—but this time, the first time as husband and wife, it feels so much different.
They've never done this within the district, not even at the slagheap. Katniss' insecurity refused to go there and Gale never even suggested it. This is different, though.
(It feels like a commitment, one that Katniss has no fear of.)
It's in the way he watches her hair fall completely from its confinement, the way she kisses the melted butter from his scruff, whispering about how not a drop should be wasted: it's intoxicating. She pushes his shirt over his head, runs her hands down his unscarred back.
She clasps their hands, gives him her last piece.
(Gale will take that piece and hold onto it for the rest of his life. In ever moment he'll hold it close. Because, if Catnip gives you something, she's giving you permission to break her and she's hoping to god you never do.)
—
(They still trade at the bakery, hand in hand now. Peeta Mellark meets them across the countertops, smiling. His eyes catch their hands every time and Gale squeezes hard, clutching onto inadequacies he still feels, and then their eyes meet, blue on grey. And Gale knows.
He knows, when their eyes meet that there's a version of the world where Katniss is not his.
He also knows there will never be a world where he isn't hers.)
—
Later, Gale decides there is no such thing as unconventional beauty: back when he a kid, he was overgrown and small-minded. He was just a blind, stupid boy trying to convince himself he wasn't so dumb.
He had to have been stupid though, because only a blind, stupid person could overlook Katniss Everdeen so many times while the rest of the world looked her straight in the eyes.
—
And that's that. This was a wonderful to write. I have more coming (hopefully) too.
I have been working on one for a while.
So many keep your eyes open for that lol.
Shameless self advertising here.
Thank you to Ellenka, rebecca-in-blue, and previously forgotten—somehow? I think I was just posting a chapter when you reviewed. I'm sorry—empressakura655. Your guys' reviews were so kind and lovely, especially you Ellenka. Thanks.
