DISCLAIMER: HG Characters do not belong to me.
Words not spoken in English will be italicized.
Chapter 39-Revelations II
Gale looked at Katniss, waiting for her answer. She continued to stare into his eyes, trying to think carefully of what words she should use in response. He then raises his eyebrows and says, "Katniss? You with me?"
She decides to hell with choosing her words carefully and automatically responds with, "Yes, I'm here Gale." She doesn't hide the annoyance in her voice.
"Well? Are you going to translate for me?"
Katniss sighed and turned to Red Bear and said, "How long until the others reach the Arikara tribe?"
"3 days ride" Red Bear says quickly.
Katniss turned back to Gale and said, "We have Sioux tribesmen on the way to meet us at the Arikara tribe, and they should be there 3 days from today. One of the men meeting us can speak the language. We will have to wait until they arrive."
"No-we are going now."
"Gale-we can't go now, every tribe speaks a different language I told you."
"You taught me those words to say to those women, they seem to understand me."
"But you don't know for sure, plus, I think hearing you speak Sioux words helped make them feel more at ease, they may or may not have understood what you said. Some of the words are similar in the languages-from what I've been told."
"Ok then-take us to them."
"I think we should wait until we have someone with us who we know can speak the language. We have serious matters to discuss with them."
"No shit. They killed my soldiers, they have two of my other soldiers. Who knows what they have done to them."
Red Bear tapped Katniss's arm getting her attention. He could sense the tension between them even though he could not understand what they were saying. "Everything alright?" he asked.
"Yes. He wants to go to the Arikara now."
Red Bear shook his head no in response and said, "No. They see me with them, they will not trust, bad things could happen."
Katniss figured this is what Red Bear would say. It was too risky going to the Arikara now. She would just have to get Gale to understand that.
Gale looked impatiently at Katniss, waiting for her to fill in him on what the two of them just said, "Red Bear says if the Arikara see him with us, they won't trust us. We have to wait and approach this the way we planned to from the beginning. Tell them about the cameras and we will discuss what happened with your soldiers. Look at this way, if they have them, we can make a trade with the two women we have."
"I need to know what is happening to my soldiers Katniss."
"Gale-we can't have innocent people die."
"Innocent people already have died Katniss!"
"I know, I meant anymore people. I'm sorry about what happened to your soldiers, I really am. But-you can't just go in there and attack."
"They took my soldiers" Gale said raising his voice.
"We don't know that."
"We just looked for the last hour, we didn't see them anywhere."
"They could have been hiding. Look-I have an idea. Why don't we look on the map and see where we can hide the hovercraft, like near a mountain or something. We send out tracking locators, if we can get images back or perhaps even images from the Capitol, we can see if your soldiers are with them. If they appear to be okay, can we wait until the other three tribesmen come please. We have a meeting location arranged."
Gale opened his mouth to say something but no words came out, he then closed it, pondering her words. It was a good alternative-for now.
"Okay, we can try that. But if they look in distress or look to be threatened in any way, we are going in."
Katniss nodded, "Okay."
Katniss went with Gale to look at the map of the area. She saw that the Arikara tribe was at the bottom of a mountain range. She asked Gale if the hovercraft could be landed behind the highest mountain, hiding them from view.
"We will have to circle around and see what the terrain looks like first" he said.
They came in from the east, away from the village so that they wouldn't be seen. Luckily it was raining heavily, spring showers dominating the landscape. The heavy cloud cover would also help disguise them. Once they flew around the mountain they saw at the bottom nothing but rocky surfaces. Five miles from the rocky surface they finally saw a grassy terrain to land. It was further away than what Gale wanted, but, there was no way the Arikara would know they were there and once they landed motion sensors were set up, alerting them if anyone approached the perimeter of the ship. One tracking locator was sent out, and Gale contacted the main military base in the Capitol asking for them to send stationary camera footage to their hovercraft.
The footage showed nothing unusual. It just showed tribe members doing regular activities such as preparing meals, taking care of their dogs (for it appeared they had a lot of them), and tool making. Katniss wondered if other cameras were placed somewhere else that were no longer working, for it looked almost like they were only seeing a part of the village. She expressed her concerns to Gale who agreed.
"We will just have to wait for the tracking locators to come back" he said.
One hour later the tracking locator came back. Since they knew where the tribe was, they programmed the locator to go straight to the village. The images showed at first the images they had seen sent by the Capitol, but then, other images started to appear-another section of the village they didn't see before.
"I knew it" Katniss said out loud.
"Commander-look!" Robin cried pointing to the screen, in the distance of the one of the pictures was Sloan and Reggie. It appeared from the images they were eating, huddled close together. Other images that came in after showed them being escorted back into a tepee, their weapons and uniforms gone. They were wearing clothes worn by the tribe.
'That's why they didn't respond to my radio calls' Gale thought to himself. He wondered where the Arikara put their weapons and clothes.
The section of the village they couldn't see before was much, much larger. It was where most of the tepees were and where most of the social activities appeared to be taking place from the images. Katniss wondered if it over the years the village decided to move to this other area, or if a camera malfunctioned, as she originally thought. She also couldn't help but wonder if the Arikara knew about the cameras, perhaps that is why they have always been so hostile to any non-native person entering their territory.
'But why keep the cameras up?' she thought to herself and then realized-better to keep your enemies close. She knew she would have to discuss this theory with Red Bear later.
"So, it looks like they are okay, they are being fed. Can we wait here then for the others to arrive?" Katniss asked Gale once the images stopped appearing on the screen.
"Yeah-we can wait. But tomorrow I am sending out another tracking locator, I plan to check every day."
They set up camp right outside the hovercraft, inside the motion sensor area. Katniss stayed with Red Bear for the rest of the day, informing him of her theory. He agreed that it was possible the Arikara knew of the cameras for quite some time and choose to keep the cameras there. He said it was something they would ask once they arrive at the Arikara village.
Red Bear also spent time with Katniss teaching her more words in Sioux. While she was able to make general conversation, there were still quite a few more words she needed to learn, and they had the next 3 days to practice.
The next day, Gale sent out the locator again, this time programming it to go straight to Sloan and Reggie's tepee. The images that came back again showed them being escorted around the village, still appearing unharmed. Gale hoped as long as the two women were missing from their tribe, Sloan and Reggie would remain alive.
Katniss was able to talk Gale into going hunting with her and Red Bear. Gale got to see first hand what Katniss loved about the wild territory. The fresh air was breathtaking, along with the scenery, the large mountain behind them in the distance.
Gale, Katniss, and Red Bear caught some fish in a small lake that they found. They figured fish would make a good meal for tonight. While Red Bear took the fish to help prepare for later, Gale and Katniss sat down on a large rock that sat beside the lake.
It reminded Katniss of the time they last hunted together, in District 13. She remembers savoring the moment of being free from District 13's walls and breathing fresh air and laying her head on Gale's shoulder for comfort. She quickly found herself doing that again. With her head on her shoulder she could feel him tense again, like he had when they hugged the other day. He didn't put his arm around her. She realized she had hoped he would.
After a few more seconds she leaned back up and said, "Did I do something wrong?"
"No" Gale said without hesitation. "I just-this is hard for me."
Katniss's face turned from a look of concern to confusion. "What is hard?"
"I still have a fiancé Katniss."
Katniss became angry. "Of course, like I could forget. I just leaned in for a friendly embrace, what is wrong with that? We've always done that."
"Back then I didn't have a fiancé and you weren't with Peeta. Just because you ended things with Peeta doesn't mean I plan to end things with Dez."
"I never asked you to, and I never would" Katniss said defensively.
"I'm glad. But-we can't just-go back to the way we were."
"Gale-"
"I mean it Katniss. I can offer my friendship, but that's all. I can't be that guy you went to when you longed for comfort."
"I did do that before, I admit it. But-this time-I swear-I was just reminiscing. It reminded me of us back in the woods-our woods."
He stared at her. He wanted to go to her, to grab her and kiss her and tell her he loved her, and that he never stopped. But he couldn't. He couldn't forget all that happened between them. A part of him wanted to say to her, 'Where were you 2 years ago? 1 year ago?'
He decided not to say anything. Why let her know that had she showed up earlier, he would have left Dez for her. That wasn't happening now. Dez made him realize he could love someone beyond Katniss Everdeen.
His silence began to concern her. "Gale—you said I didn't do anything wrong."
"I meant it. You didn't. I just-I just ask that you please respect my wishes."
"Meaning what? I can't touch you? I can't hug you?"
"Katniss-you have had other male friends over the years. Spencer is your friend now, would you just do to him what you did to me?"
Katniss paused and thought about what Gale said. She wouldn't lean on Spencer or Haymitch that way. She wouldn't have leaned on Cinna or Finnick that way either. It made her realize just how un-platonic their relationship really was back then. "Okay-I see your point, I will try."
Gale smiled and said, "Thanks."
The three of them walked back to camp-content that they found dinner. Katniss ate with Red Bear while Gale ate with Penny, Robin, Stone, and Abraham. Katniss was still trying to keep her distance from Abraham, she knew he didn't like her and the feeling was mutual. She also didn't want to isolate Red Bear and preferred just sitting with him as opposed to trying to translate back and forth conversation.
She noticed Gale would occasionally stare at her while they ate. It annoyed her. Here he was putting up that wall of defense again and telling her things can't be the way they were but here he was-staring at her like he had back in District 12. He often stared at her during the reapings, while they passed each other in school, sometimes out in the woods. She ignored it back then, but now that she was older and more aware, the signs that he had feelings for her were pretty apparent back then. She cursed herself for being such a fool, and again blamed the Hunger Games for never allowing herself to reciprocate those feelings back. She realized now she was too late-Gale was with Dez, they were getting married, the opportunity for her and Gale was long gone.
It didn't help when that night she had yet another dream about the two of them. This time making love on the large rock by the lake they had fished at earlier. She was on her back while he was above her, pumping into her so hard and so fast her body was getting all cut up from the sharp edges of the rock. She could feel the cuts bleeding. She didn't care, she welcomed the pain and was too overcome with ecstasy to care about anything else.
"Look at me" he said for she had shut her eyes the pain was becoming too intense, her head turned to the side.
She forced herself to open them and turned her head to look at him. While looking into his eyes he said, "Tell me how you feel about me. Only then will this stop."
He then leans down-his mouth on hers, engulfing his tongue in her mouth in a deep kiss.
She then wakes up. She wants to scream, releasing all her frustration over these dreams. She contemplates what he said to her in the dream, if she confesses her true feelings, will the dreams stop? Deep down did she want them to?
The next day Gale again sent out a tracking locator, but it never came back. He hoped the locator had malfunctioned and landed on the ground somewhere. He didn't want to think that the Arikara had found it and destroyed it. He was going to send out another tracking locator when Katniss informed him that they needed to head to the area where they were to meet the Sioux tribe members.
"We are to meet them on the other side of the mountain. We need to head out now" she said.
"Do you want us to fly you there?" Gale asked in response.
"No-Red Bear and I will go alone. Besides, I don't think we want to take the chance of the Arikara seeing the ship. Can you have Spencer and the others be flown here? Spencer has the coordinates for the cameras and we will need the two Native women. We will bring the Sioux members here, we should be by back by tomorrow morning at the latest."
Gale agreed to Katniss's request and had Penny send a message to the other hovercraft. It was a good idea for the other hovercraft to come, they needed more fuel to be brought. He decided not to send the other tracking locator out, if the Arikara were responsible for the locator not coming back, then they most likely would destroy any other ones coming and Gale needed the other tracking locators in case something happened to Katniss and Red Bear.
"Be careful" he had to her while she and Red Bear were about to leave.
"I will. We will try to get back as soon as we can."
He leaned in and hugged her. At first she wasn't sure if she should respond to the hug, remembering what he had asked. But then she figured he made the move first and decided to put her arms around him in response. She wondered if she should tell him what her dreams were telling her to do-to tell him that she loved him and that she was sorry she waited until it was too late to realize it.
She decided not to. She decided to wait until this whole ordeal with the Jay Killers and the Natives were over. She didn't want to say or do anything that would distract them from the task at hand.
