Ricochet

Chapter 3: Sunday, bloody Sunday

Author: Carla, aka cali-chan
Rating: Most likely PG-13. Nothing worse than what's in the books.
Genre: Adventure/suspense/drama/romance... again, pretty much what's in the books.
Pairings: Peeta/Katniss, Rory/Prim... and probably others. You'll see soon.
Canon/timeline: Same-context AU- this fic still happens in the same world as THG, but the actual events in the books never happened. I'm adding about five years to the characters from the age they were at the beginning of The Hunger Games. Katniss is 21.
Disclaimer: Yeah, just let me go get my transfer laser and switch bodies with Suzanne Collins. Also, the title for this chapter comes, of course, from a song by Irish band U2. Don't own that either!

Note: I've never really tried this before (and I'm sure it will eventually come back and bite me in the behind), but each chapter will be from the PoV of a different character. You should be able to tell whose PoV it is fairly easily, though.

Note 2: I absolutely cannot write Gale. Urghhhhhh. *Pulls on hair*

Summary: "Primrose Everdeen." This can't be happening, Katniss thought. She desperately pushed through the crowd. I volunteer!, she wanted to scream. I volunteer as tribute! But she couldn't, because she wasn't eligible for the reaping anymore. There was nothing she could do.

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It was finally Sunday, and they were out in the woods, and Gale couldn't keep a grin off his face.

There was something about the forest that never failed to put a (metaphorical) skip in his step. It wasn't the hunting itself, although he did like the feeling of victory when they got a good haul. But maybe it was more about being on the other side of the fence, having nothing to bound him, nothing to limit him. He took a deep breath, letting the air fill his lungs to capacity; the earthy, fresh scent of the woods warmed him up from the inside. Oh, yeah. This is why Sundays were so good.

Or maybe it had something to do with the company.

He looked at Katniss as he checked the snare lines. She was sitting on a rock, tightening the string on her father's bow, which she found to be a little loose today. Her usual braid was slung over her shoulder and the end of it brushed the sleeve of her hunting jacket as she worked. Her lips were pressed tightly together; anyone else might think she was annoyed, but Gale had known her long enough that he knew she was just focused on the task at hand. It didn't seem like it was going very well.

"I don't think glaring at it is gonna make it anymore cooperative," he quipped teasingly. Katniss lifted her gaze to him and pointedly lifted one eyebrow. It clearly read as "look who's talking" and she had a point: within the borders of District 12, he was just as well-known as she was for having a serious attitude. Posy had told him more than once that her little grade-school friends thought of him as dark and brooding. He actually felt kinda proud when he heard that.

But they weren't within the borders of District 12, and the same rules didn't apply. He could be himself here, with her. Not to mention, since he was about the only person beside her sister Katniss allowed to tease her and walk away unharmed, he was going to take any chance he got. Hey, it wasn't his fault she wasn't the type to tease him right back.

He came to the end of the line and was disappointed to find nothing but a pair of salamanders that were too stupid to get away. The last couple knots had given way. He sighed. "Rory set these up, didn't he?" he mumbled. Katniss nodded. Every once in a while, Katniss would take his younger brother Rory to the forest to teach him how to hunt and forage (against Gale's wishes, might he add). "Well, I guess it doesn't run in the family," he mumbled.

For the longest time his misfit of a brother had insisted he wanted to help the family somehow. Gale didn't approve. He wasn't killing himself in the mines for nothing! It was bad enough that Rory had taken out tesserae behind Gale's back; he didn't want him risking getting caught on the other side of the fence on top of that. But last year, he'd finally buttered Katniss up enough that she'd relented. Or maybe she just jumped at the chance to keep him away from her sister for a while.

"His mind wasn't in it," Katniss intervened, and it sounded like she meant it in Rory's defense at first. And though her tone didn't sound like she was being sarcastic, he knew she was implying something about his brother- most likely that he'd been daydreaming about Prim instead of paying attention to his knots. It wouldn't be the first time that happened.

Rory and Prim had been an item for a long time now. Everybody around them was used to it by then, but Katniss still liked to give Rory a hard time about it to keep him on his toes. Mostly because Prim was such a giving, open girl, it was hard not to want to shield her from the world. It also didn't help that what started years ago as sweet, adorable puppy love was now subject to teenage impulsiveness and overactive hormones. Heck, Gale could remember how he'd been at sixteen and, well... maybe Katniss had a point, being protective of her little sister. If Rory ever got that fresh with Prim, Gale might have half a mind to thump the boy himself.

"Come on. I mean, you like Rory, right?" It was a rhetorical question; he knew Katniss thought of him, his siblings and his mother almost as part of her own family.

"Yeah," Katniss responded, as expected. "But still, that's my little sister." She finished tinkering with the bow and came to stand near him as he fixed up the snares. She stared around, and Gale knew she was looking for a sturdy tree she could take a couple shots at, just to make sure she'd gotten the string tight enough.

He shook his head, a hint of a smile on the corners of his lips. "They're in love. Give them a break." He understood why she was so tough on Rory; as head of the family, she had to be tough on the suitors just on principle. But everyone could see that those two were good for each other. Even Katniss.

She rolled her eyes at him as she pulled an arrow out of her quiver. "Right, like you don't give the evil eye to any non-Hawthorne boy who comes within three feet of Posy." She ended the phrase with a scoff, which, really, was it necessary?

He glared darkly, not at her but down at his hands as he worked. "That's different," he grumbled. And it was true; there were plenty good reasons to scare grabby kids off before they could get too close to his baby sister. He could come up with a thousand... eventually.

"She's nine," she reminded him, smartly.

He huffed. Well. Good day for his hunting partner to develop a sense of humor, it seemed. "Oh, shut up," was his response. Not the best comeback ever, which already made him testy. And then she had the gall to chuckle, and he was resolute to bring the conversation back to their original topic.

His trained ear caught a slight shuffle, which told him she was setting up for a shot, and then the dull "thunk" of her arrow as it hit a tree trunk. As he finished the last snare and turned his head, he noticed it was embedded on a large beech tree about 30 yards away from them. Katniss started to make her way toward it, to retrieve her arrow. "You're gonna have to get used to it when they get married," he pointed out, hands in his pockets, as she pulled the projectile free from the bark. "'Cause, you know... they will get married eventually," he stated. That was just a fact.

She kept silent as she got in position to fire again. Anyone else might think maybe she hadn't heard him, but he knew she was probably just avoiding the issue; silence was her usual method of dealing with subjects that made her uncomfortable. If they were anywhere else, she would have just walked out on him, but since they were in the forest, it wasn't as easy as walking out the door. She didn't even acknowledge he had spoken until a second arrow was lodged in the tree. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," she asserted as she put her bow down.

"She's not gonna need you forever," he was quick to bring up. Maybe it was a little cruel, but that's the way it worked between them: they had each other's back, and they weren't afraid to point out the hard truths. No sugarcoating. She needed to hear it; Prim was seventeen already and she needed to start thinking about this sooner rather than later.

"I know that," she said, almost between her teeth, and started moving toward the tree again. Her shoulders were squared off, her steps abrupt. Randomly it occurred to him, if she were a cat, she'd be hissing, her hair standing on end. Funny how much she had in common with that mangy old tomcat of her sister's she hated so much. Either way, he knew that meant she wanted out of this conversation.

Well, tough luck. "Do you, really?" he pressed on. She'd been avoiding this- them- too long, and it was time she face it. "'Cause soon she'll go off to live her own life, and what are you gonna do? Who's going to take care of you?" He treaded closer to her as she came back, putting the arrow back in her quiver.

Her eyes cut up to his, fierce stubbornness glinting behind the grey. "I don't need anyone to take care of me," she snapped at him, tightly.

"I know that," was his reply, tensions rising in his tone as well. "I know that better than anyone else in this godforsaken district," he reiterated, intensely. "But that doesn't mean you have to go at it alone." He took a step closer and saw her bring her bow to her front, almost like she was getting ready to shoot him if he came too close. He knew she would never do it, of course, but it was almost an automatic reaction in her. It hurt that she'd react that way to his advances, but given what happened every other time they broached this topic, he wasn't surprised.

Katniss wasn't one to talk feelings. Neither was he, of course, but he didn't like pretending everything was fine and dandy, either. He could hold himself in check long enough, make believe that they were nothing but hunting partners and it didn't bother him in the least. But every once in a while, he simply couldn't keep down the urge to stop the games and put everything out in the open, damn the consequences.

He'd come to realize he felt something more for her a few years previous. He must've been around eighteen or so. They'd been inseparable back then, having fallen quite easily into their routine as partners, and then friends. He knew most people around them thought they'd get married eventually, and that sometimes other guys from the Seam who would've risked taking a chance on her held back because of him. He'd known, and hadn't bothered to correct those assumptions, but for the most part it changed nothing between him and Katniss.

Until he found himself glaring at every guy who even remotely expressed any interest in her, and making sure they clearly understood what was behind that glare. He could be really intimidating if need be; nobody wanted to mess with him when it came to girls he felt protective over, be it his mother, his sister or just a friend. But the urge that rose in him to pound Darius' face in when he attempted to flirt with Katniss that one time was certainly not something "just a friend" would feel.

He held it in for almost seven months. Prim's first reaping came and went, as did his starting to work at the mines. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn't yet used to seeing her only on Sundays, he didn't know. But that day, they somehow managed an amazing feat: they caught a wild boar- admittedly a small one, but it wasn't every day they had that much luck. They were ecstatic to say the least; he picked her up, spun her around in his arms and they were both laughing and cheering. As he put her down again her arms were around his neck, and somehow in his effervescence he couldn't stop himself: he just leaned in and kissed her.

He should've known it would freak her out, he should've known it wasn't a good idea. In his defense, it wasn't so much an idea as it was an impulse, but still, he shouldn't have done it. Katniss wasn't like other girls; she didn't waste time thinking about romance and was blissfully ignorant that any guys could be attracted to her. During their hunting time, he'd been subjected to many a speech about how she'd never get married and she'd never bring kids into this horrible world. And he knew she meant it.

He had rested his forehead against hers, and whispered that he loved her. She had looked up at him in shock and all but croaked: "Gale, don't."

He had stepped back then, terrified his actions had pushed her away for good. He wasn't going to take his feelings back- he was a man of his word and he took responsibility for everything he said or did. But he rushed to make it clear that he wasn't trying to pressure her. She wasn't ready for this, and that was fine. He just needed her to know. And if she changed her mind one day, when the situation got better for their families, maybe they could give it a try. They would be good together, he knew it.

She insisted she wouldn't change her mind. He decided it was better to leave it at that. Through the years, he had tried to get to her, and his attempts unfailingly ended up with them arguing, her retracting, and him taking out his frustration on his crewmates for a week. It was always the same arguments: she wasn't ready, she had to take care of her family, she was too young. He didn't dare bring the topic up for months after Mrs. Everdeen died, knowing it would upset her.

In the meantime, they kept up their roles as hunting partners. She focused on getting her and Prim through each day, especially after their mother's death. And him, well, he certainly never lacked for female companionship, but it all meant less than nothing since they weren't Katniss, and that one kiss still haunted every moment he shared with her.

And now, when the situation for their families had gotten better, it seemed she was still as unreceptive to the idea as she'd been back then.

He exhaled loudly, frustrated by her hardheadedness. "You just don't get it, Katniss," he persisted, trying to make her see that she needed to deal with this. "It's bad enough for two girls on their own, can you imagine how much harder things will get if it's just you?" Because it could get really bad, surely she had to know that.

It wasn't that he doubted her; he knew she was more than capable of defending herself from just about anything- she'd once held her own against a black bear, for goodness' sake... at least long enough to get away safely. But that didn't help the worry. District Twelve was a lawless hellhole, and while sometimes that was a good thing (like when it came to their poaching), he couldn't be comfortable with the idea of her being on her own in a place where the Head Peacekeeper routinely took desperate young women into his bed, luring them in with a few coins.

Now, he knew Katniss would never stoop that low; even if her situation really got that dire at some point, he knew she'd find some other way. But it made him worry, the idea that someone, anyone, might think her easy prey. Everybody in the district, especially in the Seam, went through similar struggles, but that didn't mean they were all good people. There were all kinds of bastards out there. Most men kept away because of her "unapproachable" reputation, but that could only get her so far when she was alone. And those who backed off because of him, well... as the years passed and their relationship remained nothing but hearsay, that restraint would only become more and more flimsy.

But if he was honest with himself, the real reason why he was so insistent about this now had nothing to do with other people taking advantage of her, and more to do with Katniss herself: he was scared to death that, once she no longer had to take care of Prim, she would simply take off and leave him behind.

They'd talked often about what it would be like, to simply cross the fence and go live in the forest, away from Twelve and the oppression of the Capitol, depending only on themselves to see what was out there, beyond the woods. Him and her... they could make it, they both agreed on that. But it wasn't only them: Katniss had Prim, and he had his mother and three younger siblings to think of. There was no way they could sustain that many people, and the risk of getting caught was too high. So for the moment they remained there, their illegal hunting and foraging the most they would push the rules.

But that didn't mean they hated their situation any less. And if Katniss no longer had Prim, he might not be enough to hold her back. She might...

He snapped out of his thoughts when she shook her head emphatically. "Listen, I just can't think about this right now. The reaping's coming up soon and I just..." She closed her eyes for a second, as if her thoughts overwhelmed her for a moment there. "I just don't wanna talk about this right now, okay?" she finished, pressing her lips together tightly- and this time, it did mean she was annoyed. That said, she took a few steps away from him and started looking around, checking for movement that would indicate a target was close.

He recognized that as the clear-cut evasive he'd been expecting from her since the beginning of this conversation. And quite frankly, it pissed him off. Bringing up the reaping was low, and a poor excuse when two of his own siblings could be drawn as well, but if that's the way she wanted to play it, fine. He was going to state his position, and that was it. "I'm twenty-three. I'm not gonna wait for you forever."

Her eyes flashed, her braid flinging to one side quickly as she turned sharply toward him. "I didn't ask you to!" she spat back angrily.

And there it was, the crux of the matter. He clenched his jaw tightly. "Fine," he said, curtly. She was right. This was him- it was all him, never her. She had never given him any indications that she was even entertaining the same notions he was. He'd gotten caught up in expectations and had made a fool of himself one too many times, and he was pissed as hell, because it was all his own stupid fault. "Fine. Let's just hunt," he sentenced and, grabbing his own bow roughly from its resting place against a fallen log, he stalked off deeper into the woods, never even bothering to check if she was following him. He knew she could keep up.

Well, there went his Sunday.

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Author's note-

As much as it makes for a good story, I don't subscribe to this fandom idea that people in District 12 marry right out of school. It makes sense anthropologically speaking, I guess, as they probably don't have a high life expectancy. Perhaps people in the Seam marry younger than people from town do (as it often happens with middle-class vs. low-class in our time). But, still it just doesn't hit me that people behave that way from the books. Two main reasons:

First, Katniss keeps repeating that she's too young to be thinking about marriage. She states several times that she thought she'd have a few more years before having to face the topic at all, and according to her, Mrs. Everdeen isn't too happy about her being in a relationship- let alone engaged- so early. I figure if it was commonplace for people to marry at 18-19, there wouldn't be so much hubbub about an engagement at 17.

And second, when they're watching the tapes of the Second Quarter Quell, Katniss is startled to see her mother "at her age," so I assume Mrs. Everdeen would've been around 16-17-ish back then. Katniss wouldn't have been born until about 8 years later, so I think it's most likely the Everdeens got married somewhere in their early-to-mid twenties.

In my head I kind of see that as the "norm" for the district. There are exceptions, of course (Prim and Rory are considering marriage right out of school, as you'll see in the next chapter... oops, is that a spoiler?), but in my headcanon, the average marriage age in D12 would be a good few years out of their teens, a little higher for men than for women.

So going with that assumption, "that ship hasn't sailed yet" for Katniss at 21 (or for Gale at 23). But as Gale helpfully pointed out in this chapter, it will sail sooner or later. And we'll see how Katniss deals with her aversion to marriage through the fic. I hope you'll all stick with me for that! And please review, your comments always help out immensely. ^_^