A/N: The outcome of my extreme boredom. A random one-shot about Gale losing Katniss (*tears up*). And set after Mockingjay before Gale leaves for District 2, so there may be some spoilers!
Disclaimer: I own zero percent of the characters, etc.
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Her half-grin still leaves me speechless. Her laugh still makes my heart pound. And her scowl still lights up my whole world. But amidst all that, there is one thing that makes me want to scream; Peeta is getting those grins. Peeta is getting those giggles and well-aimed scowls that I used to get.
What has he done? I was always there for her, and now she spends more time in a bakery than in the woods. This is not the real Katniss I knew. The real Katniss would have pulled through this in maybe three months and been back to normal life in no time, hunting and being the tough girl she used to be.
Maybe I should be easy on her. Maybe the Rebellion has just tipped her over the edge. Maybe she just wants to stop everything and forget about the past.
Or maybe Peeta's just winning over my Katniss's heart.
We used to simply meet up at my house in the mornings, messy bedheads and all, and then we started routinely going to the woods every morning. We trusted each other. I still remember the first time I saw that girl. Gray eyes, dark, coffee-colored hair done up in a braid, she instantly caught my eye. There was something different about Katniss Everdeen, like even in a huge crowd of people you notice one, single person. That person would be Katniss.
Now it's all different. The Rebellion is over. The Capitol is over. And now I walk through the forest in solitude, without her by my side. The woods are my safe haven, where I go to think and sit for hours, trying to ignore the hopeful tug on my chest that Katniss might come sprinting into view and everything will be back to normal.
As I walk through the dark, hanging trees, I inhale the deep, foresty scent of moss and tree bark. The smell has always been a comfort to me, and makes me feel more alive. Something hits my ears, and I would recognize that voice anywhere. It's beautiful, but eerie, sort of like a full moon halfway covered by thick, blanketing clouds.
And it's the singing, her singing, that puts me on edge. Gritting my teeth, I snatch my bow tighter to my body and keep my head low. Smoothing out my dark hair, I break through the clearing, where I know a certain dark-haired girl will be, sitting on a moss-covered rock. But my uncontained smile quickly fades. There also happens to be a certain blond-haired boy sitting on a moss-covered rock too, right next to Katniss.
It's him.
The singing fades off, and her gray eyes are drilling into my own. "Oh, Gale, what a surprise," she nods and tries to smile warmly at me. "What are you doing here?"
Her sentence sounds awkward and almost robotic, like she really doesn't want me here at all. I hold up my bow in an answer to her question, and at the sight of the weapon and the glint of the arrows, Peeta instantly tenses up. I quickly drop the bow to the ground and kick it into a sheet of mossy rock. Wouldn't want more Katniss-killing rage from Baker Boy, would we?
"Hey," Peeta is obviously struggling with his darker side, pupils dilated and hands curled into fists, but he regains his composure and his blue eyes are back to normal. I wish my life could change back that easily.
I nod tersely back in his general direction, almost wishing Katniss was gone so I could give Peeta a proper punch on the jaw. It'd probably be a good stress reliever.
But I'm here for Katniss now, and I guess if she's too nervous to say anything, I will. "Can we maybe talk?"
She bites her lip and tugs on her uneven bangs, something I've always thought of as cute. "I suppose, but Peeta ca-"
"I can find my way out, eventually," he shrugs. " Just cut through some trees and find a meadow; I'll leave you guys alone." Could that be the same, cold voice I've been using all along? But Peeta is off, sliding through the trees, rather noisily, in fact, either from anger, his mechanical leg, or both.
An unsteady tone comes from Katniss, and a flush has risen to her already rosy cheeks. "Gale, please, Peeta doesn't need your coldness; it's hard enough for him already." She twiddles with the expensive buttons on her coat, probably something from Effie, judging by a pale pink hue. Even her fashion sense has changed. I liked the girl in the ratty T-shirts and worn leather boots better.
"It just makes me mad. Seeing you with him," I blurt out. "I hate it."
"Gale, you know tha-"
"Know what?" I snap, my eyes blazing. I lean up against a tall oak tree, my jacket rubbing up against the rough bark. "That he's yours and you're his and I can't speak to you anymore, let alone see your face?"
Her voice is meek and quiet, but also has a little bit of bitterness thrown in. "I was going to say I loved you both."
"Oh," my disappointment is evident, and I know I'm being selfish. Of course she loves him too. He got her out of two Hunger Games in one piece, but I can't help but think it's something more than that.
"Can we maybe talk about this later? Peeta wanted me to show him more of the Meadow. He's getting really detailed with his paintings and he wants to do some landscapes."
I suspect the she is using that as an excuse to get away from me, but her face displays innocence. Painting with Peeta? And I thought that girl could never be tamed.
"Whatever," I basically rip my bow up from the ground, taking some grass with it, and mutter something about hunting and going to bed early.
Katniss looks baffled, but I am too. Surely she can sense my emotions. Believe me, I don't think the Games kills someone's brain cells that much. Maybe Peeta's, but definitely not my old hunting partner.
I leave her sitting on that moss-covered rock, and resolve to spending the rest of my afternoon sitting in a tree trying not to shoot every mockingjay the flies past.
Rain used to terrify me. Even a drop of water falling off a tin roof would set me off into a frenzy. And especially dark thunderstorms through the night. Gale Hawthorne seemed like Mr. Tough even when he was five, but give him a few clouds and that was over. Now though, the petty fears pushed aside, a few minutes of rain seem quite a nuisance.
So as slight tapping on my windowpane wakes me up with a start at it's-way-too-early o' clock, I give a miserable grumble and toss the covers onto the floor. The bed frame gives a shrill squeak as I stretch myself into a sitting position, rubbing my sleepy eyes and tousled hair. But as my eyes graze over the window, I am instantly awake, no splash of cold water on the face needed.
Katniss always used to do this, show up at my house in the middle of the night, still cheerful and perfectly awake. But now, she seems more stressed than anything, and as she taps her small fingers on the glass and glares at me to open the window because it is freezing even in September, I let out a huff of air and give in.
This better be good.
The moment I wrench open the wooden frame, Katniss jumps her slight frame through the window. I notice with slight satisfaction that she is in her usual attire: her old boots, worn shirt, and a pair of black pants, the ones with the hole in the knee from when she used to attempt to jump trees.
Katniss give me the one eyebrow raise, and says, her voice laced with laughter, "Gale, put a shirt on."
I stare down at my bare chest. Oops
"Oh, haha, sorry," I probably blush because my face heats up, and the moonlight is shining on my face in a way that I think Katniss sees it too. I snatch up a blue shirt from a heap of clothes on my floor and pull it over my head. "Outside?" I nod my head towards the trees in the distance of the night.
"You're not mad?" she bites her bottom lip, something that has always made me smile. I shrug, because Katniss usually has explanations for these types of things, and the last time she said she loved someone, she was jokingly referring to her drunk mentor Haymitch. My odds are hoping that this is a joke too. "It's about ready to start pouring," she crosses her arms nonchalantly.
"Okay, so you just want to hang around in Gale Hawthorne's bedroom?"
"Good point." And with that, she taps my shoulder and climbs out the window again, her boots barely making a sound.
She was right about the rain-dark clouds are swirling around the moonlight now, casting long, dark shadows across the uneven grass. Moments pass where there are areas of total darkness, but our walk is one of a memory. The fallen, rotted trees, the stream snaking its way through the grass, even the flowers seem familiar in a bittersweet sort of way. We've done this countless times, tiptoeing through the woods at night, hoping to be undiscovered by Peacekeepers.
But this time I'm hoping for an answer.
In my heart, I already know the answer, though. I never expected our life to be a happily-ever-after sort of story, but I sure didn't think it'd end up as a harsh, cruel tale of a girl forced to choose between two boys as different as fire and ice. The I'm-still-uncertain-about-you look must still be plastered on my face, because Katniss shoots back one that tells me something bad. It's regret with a shot of pity.
"Who?" I ask as we sit on the rock, the one where we would sit and watch the sun rise together, the one that I would pour all my feelings about the Capitol to her. I try to also ignore the fact that Peeta Mellarks butt was sitting on this rock only hours ago.
"Both?" she guesses, being so close to me for so many years that she instantly knows what I mean.
"Katniss, you know you can't go back and forth. It has to be one. "
"Gale Hawthorne, maybe I just don't know. I-I never knew you felt that way about me until..."
We both think about that day in the woods, by the lake. "I've always liked you," I spit out bitterly. "But maybe I should have moved earlier. Then maybe Pe-"
"Gale," her voice is so low and shivering that it has a stronger effect than yelling ever would have. "Bear with me here. I know who I want."
"And it's him," I snarl. "Him. The pathetic baker, no, psychopath, actually. Maybe it was never an act, you and him, maybe it was a pathetic love story after all."
"I..." A horrified look flashes onto her face, while a bolt of lightening strikes in the distance, illuminating the sky before a rolling tendril of thunder.
"Who knows, maybe he even did get you pregnant!" I know I've crossed the line, but Katniss, she means everything to me. And seeing her with someone else just fuels my fire.
She doesn't need to speak, she knows what I've done. I've shattered her heart, when all she needed was me to stand by her side. Maybe I should have been more comforting to her when her sister died, but I'm not one for reassuring. Maybe I should have kept quiet, but I've never been one to let things slip through my fingers. Maybe I should bake more bread and cupcakes, but after all I'm no Peeta Mellark. And maybe, just maybe, he's the one for her.
"Katniss, it's okay," I choke out, never thinking I would ever say this, but someones got to give. And before I can say more, Katniss lashes out.
"How is this okay, Gale? You think that going off and saying those things is okay? Gale, wounds aren't the only things that can hurt. I just got metaphorically stabbed in the stomach by you, it's not o-"
I raise my voice out over the rain. "No, it's okay. He's okay."
"Gale, this won't change me," she gives me a cautious look. "You know that, right?"
"Yes." My tone is strong. "You two are good for each other. I may not like it, I may hate him, but I'll accept it."
She gives a terse look and slowly turns around, tears glistening in her sad, gray eyes. I nod slowly, letting her slip out of my grasp. The laughs, the scowls, even the moments when we've just sat and done nothing, I've lost it. I've lost her.
No doubt she will go home and cry to Peeta over what I've done. No doubt they will slowly forget about the boy with the snares, the one who was her best friend. The boy who secretly loved her, but that boy is gone now. He is just another lost man out there, waiting to be found.
And as that amazing girl, the same one who's stitched up my wounds, kissed me lightly on the lips when I was dying, walks on, I feel regret. The rain pours down from the crying sky, and I just let it fall on my hair and blur in my eyes. I just watch her, the one that got away, as she flips her braid over her shoulder and takes small, slow steps in her worn hunting boots.
And through the rain, I think I see her turn her head over her shoulder, like she sees something that she regretfully lost too.
A/N: Well, that was depressing. But please review, and I was maybe gonna make more of this story? If only you like it, of course. Please check out my other story Breakthrough, and happy reading to all!