"Peeta, before we go meet with Cinna and Portia, can we go see Gale? I need to know that he's okay." Katniss said.
"Yeah, sure, if you want to. Besides, we will most likely end up spending all day with our prep teams working on the wedding stuff, so going to the hospital first is probably a good idea. It will be quicker, and it will put your mind at ease."
"Thank you." she told him, "I hope you're right."
Katniss and Peeta walked over to the hospital, which was located in the same building as the training center. They approached the reception desk and spoke to a nurse who was sitting there.
"Hello," Katniss said brightly. "We're here to see Gale Hawthorne please."
"Your names?" the nurse asked.
"We're his mentors, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark."
"One moment please..." the nurse said, as she stood up and went to speak with another nurse. She had taken a chart with her, and she was pointing to the pages as she spoke to her colleague, occasionally glancing back at Katniss and Peeta. Both nurses returned to the desk together. The second nurse was apparently the shift supervisor.
Katniss did not have a good feeling about this.
"I'm sorry," the supervisor said gently, "but I can't let you in."
"Why not?" Katniss asked..
"Because Mr. Hawthorne has specifically requested no visitors." she answered.
"Well, surely he didn't mean us!" Katniss argued. "I'm his best friend, for God's sake!"
"Actually, he did mean you. He wrote it right here himself." the supervisor said, holding up the front page of Gale's chart for Katniss to see.
And sure enough, right there on the page in Gale's own handwriting, it said, "NO visitors, including Katniss Everdeen and/or Peeta Mellark."
"What?!" Katniss exclaimed. "What the hell is this all about?" she demanded. "Is he alright?"
"I'm sorry, but I am not at liberty to discuss Mr. Hawthorne's medical record with you, and he clearly does not wish to see you."
Kaniss was furious.
"Gale! GALE!" she yelled, hoping that maybe he was in one of the rooms nearby and that he might hear her.
"Okay!" Peeta interrupted, as he grabbed her arm and started leading her away from the nurses' desk. "We're sorry for the intrusion." he told the nurses. "We'll be going now."
Katniss tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he held on firmly, practically dragging her down the hall.
"Peeta, let go of me!" she said. "I need to go find Gale!"
"No, you don't. Not right now. If you go storming back there, they will have security escort you out and you won't be allowed back in. Is that what you want?"
"No! But-"
"But nothing, Katniss!" Peeta argued. "Just give Gale some time to recover! He's just been through a traumatic experience! You know how it feels! Maybe he just isn't ready to see you yet! Be patient! He's only been in the hospital for what, 12 hours?"
She stopped struggling against him, and stood still. She knew he was right.
"I'm just worried about him Peeta." she said in a much calmer tone of voice.
Peeta hugged her sympathetically. "I know you are. But let him have a chance to grieve for Prim in private, okay? It's probably going to be very hard for him to face you. He didn't plan for this."
Katniss hugged him back.
"Since when have you ever been inclined to defend Gale?" she asked, half teasingly.
He looked her in the eyes.
"Since I know how hard it would be for me, if I was the one who had to face you and tell you that I had let you down."
She swallowed hard, realizing that Gale probably did feel that he had disappointed her.
Peeta spoke to her again, this time very softly. "We can always check back later, okay? And if he's still not ready, we'll try again tomorrow. But you can't throw a fit if they tell you that you can't see him."
"Okay." she reluctantly agreed. "I promise I'll behave."
"Okay then." Peeta said, and then softly kissed her forehead. "Well, I guess we had better head over to see Cinna and Portia and get started on the wedding stuff. Come on."
He took her by the hand, and they got into the elevator to leave the hospital.
When they got to the studio, it was obvious that their prep teams had already been hard at work, trying to get organized for the enormous task ahead of them, to design and create their wedding clothes in just a few days' time. The tables in Cinna's studio were piled high with bolts of all kinds of fabrics- satin, lace, taffeta, tulle- and there were rolls of ribbons and boxes of fancy buttons, and sketch pads with drawings of dresses.
Portia whisked Peeta off to her studio around the corner from Cinna's, so neither the bride nor the groom would see what the other would be wearing. The prep teams were determined to keep their outfits a closely guarded secret until the wedding ceremony.
"So, Cinna..." Katniss said, "What's the plan? What's our timeline look like?"
"Well, as you know, we have a lot of work to do before the wedding. Which, by the way, I would like to say congratulations to you both on!"
Katniss frowned and mumbled something along the lines of "stupid wedding".
"You're not excited about your upcoming marriage to Peeta?" Cinna asked, confused.
"My marriage to Peeta? Yes, I am happy and excited to be married to Peeta. This wedding though? Thisridiculous, overblown, pageant of a wedding, which we don't even get to have any say in? No, I am decidedly not excited about that. It's not at all what I would have wanted for my wedding day."
"Well, I will do what I can to give you as much say as possible in what you wear, at least. You can tell me what you have in mind, and I'll sketch some ideas out and we'll see what we can agree on, okay?"
"Okay, thank you. I would really appreciate that." she said gratefully. "I know you'll create something beautiful, Cinna. You always do."
"Don't you forget it, girl!" Cinna teased her. "Now, we are on a tight schedule, so we must work quickly. Today we will do all your measurements, and we will sketch out the design for your dress. As soon as we finalize a design, my team will start working immediately on sewing the dress, and they'll work around the clock until it's finished. Tomorrow you'll come back and we'll figure out your shoes, accessories, hair and makeup, so bring your victor's crown because we will have to try out different hairstyles with it."
"Whoa, wait a minute." Katniss said. "I have to wear that stupid crown?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so." Cinna told her. "President Snow insisted that you and Peeta both wear your crowns for the ceremony, since this wedding is kind of a publicity stunt to celebrate the Hunger Games and all..."
Katniss scowled at the thought of having to wear the crown.
"You have got to be kidding me!" she said, exasperated. "This wedding gets less and less appealing by the minute!"
"Sorry," Cinna apologized. "Nothing I can do about that one. But the rest of the outfit is up to us, and I'll make sure you're gorgeous."
"Fine." she pouted.
"Wow, what an enthusiastic bride you are..." Cinna teased her sarcastically. It was hard to stay pouty around him.
"Anyway, as I was saying," he continued, "by tomorrow afternoon we will hopefully have the dress mostly finished and we can do a first fitting and make any necessary changes or adjustments, and then on the third day you'll have to come for your final fitting, and that will be the full dress rehearsal, where we put everything together and make sure it works and everything fits just right."
"Well, guess we better get started then, hmm?" she asked.
"That's the spirit!" Cinna said brightly. "So, tell me what you had in mind for your dress..."
Katniss explained her vision of her wedding dress, the way she had explained it to Peeta, and Cinna wrote down notes as she talked.
He started sketching out some ideas to show her.
"Do you want the bottom of your dress to start at your natural waist or would you prefer a dropped waist?"
"I have no idea what that means." she answered.
Cinna grinned at her. "Sorry, it means, do you want the skirt part of your dress to start here-" pointing to the thinnest part of her waist just below her ribcage, where her body curved in like an hourglass- "or down here." said, pointing at the top of her hip bones.
"Dropped waist." she answered.
"Okay. Now we're getting somewhere!" he said."I would like to make the bodice- the top part- nice and fitted, laced up like a corset all down the back."
"Okay."
"And I know you said you wanted the skirt part to be soft and flowy, so I'll give you that."
"Thank you!" she said. "But not too big. I don't want a huge puffy skirt that looks like a marshmallow. I want it to move and flutter, and be easy to walk and move around in."
"How long of a train do you want on the back?"
"Well, I'd really rather not have any." she said.
"Oh no, you have to have some length at the back." he said. "This is a formal wedding, you need to look the part. I won't make it too long, okay? Just long enough to fan out behind you a little as you walk. It will be lovely."
"Fine." Katniss answered.
"Come over here and pick out a fabric for your dress." he said, leading her over to the table piled with yards and yards of fabrics.
He showed her several different samples of sheer fabrics... She looked them all over. She wasn't sure what to pick.
"Oh, I know just what you need!" Cinna exclaimed. He dug through the pile and found one that was perfect. It was very light and sheer, just a shade off of white, with just the faintest hint of shimmer to it, like the glow of a white pearl. Katniss touched it and it felt as soft as a butterfly wing.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Organza." he told her. "This will be perfect for your dress. And wait until you see how it looks in the sunlight! You will look positively radiant, like you're glowing from within!"
So far, she was pretty happy with the design of her dress. It wasn't too far off of her original idea, and she had total faith in Cinna, that he would make her look stunning.
They spent the rest of the afternoon going over the rest of the fine details, and Cinna took a million different measurements of her body.
Peeta was done with his session long before Katniss, so he went into the shopping area of the capitol. He wanted to get her a gift. This was one thing that he thought was pretty great about the capitol. Anything you wanted, as long as you had money, you could find it here.
He asked around for the best florist in the capitol.
When he walked into the florist shop, the owner recognized him immediately and was star struck.
"Oh my gosh, are you Peeta?" she gushed.
"Yes," he laughed. "I would like to order some flowers for my fiancee please."
"Oh my, I can't believe I have one of Panem's most famous victors in my shop!" she exclaimed.
Peeta blushed and smiled. "I'm just a regular guy, buying flowers for his girl." he said modestly.
"Well, what exactly did you have in mind?" the shopkeeper asked.
"A bouquet of all different flowers, not too structured or too perfect... mostly wildflowers...things you would find if you took a nature walk through meadows and woods."
"Is this for the big wedding?" she asked excitedly.
"No, the president is providing roses for the wedding. This is just to make her happy."
"Oh, that's sweet!" she said. "Let's see what kind of flowers you think she'd like."
Peeta looked through a whole catalog with her, picking out flowers.
"Let's see.." he said, poring over the pictures in the catalog. "White daisies, orange tiger lilies, purple asters, lily of the valley, black-eyed susans, bluebonnets..."
"Do you want any cuttings of flowers that grow on bushes? You know, little sprigs sticking out here and there for some height and dimension? Maybe some yellow forsythia and purple lilacs?"
"Yes, that sounds great." he said.
"Any roses?"
"No." he replied. "No roses. She doesn't really care for them. But how about yellow primroses, can you get those?"
"Absolutely!" she said.
"Lots of those." he said.
"Okay. Any greenery? Like ferns, maybe?"
"Yes, ferns would be great."
"And how do you want the stems tied together? We have all types and colors of ribbons- Satin? Lace? Taffeta?"
"Satin ribbon. Her favorite color is green... dark green, like the forest."
"Okay, well, I guess that about does it then." the shopkeeper told him, as she finished writing up her notes. "When would you like to pick up your flowers?"
"How about in two days... Friday morning?" he asked.
"Sure, I'll have the bouquet ready first thing in the morning Friday." she assured him.
"Great! Thank you very much for all your help! Katniss is going to love it." Peeta said. "I'll see you then!"
Peeta returned to Cinna's studio to wait for Katniss. She seemed to be in a good mood when she finished, so he figured it must have gone well.
"You're happy with how your dress is coming along?" he asked.
"Yes, I think it's going to be very pretty." Katniss said, beaming. "I can't wait for you to see it! At least there will be one detail of this wedding that I'll be excited about. Well, besides seeing you up there at the front of the aisle waiting for me, of course!" she said, leaning over and kissing Peeta's cheek.
"Would you like to stop by the hospital and try to see Gale again before we go home?" he asked her.
"Yes, I would." she answered.
"Okay, but let me do the talking, alright? No losing your temper!"
"Okay, okay." she agreed.
They returned to the nursing unit at the hospital where Gale was, and approached the nurses' desk, holding hands. Katniss was trying hard to be hopeful.
"Hello," Peeta said to the nurse. "We were here this morning, and we were wondering if Gale Hawthorne is accepting visitors yet?"
The nurse looked at the chart on the desk.
"I'm sorry, still no visitors." she replied.
Peeta looked at Katniss, and she looked very disappointed.
"Well, would you please give him the message that Peeta and Katniss stopped by? And tell him that his best friend is very worried about him and wants to talk to him?" Peeta winked at Katniss.
"Yes, I will be sure to give him the message." the nurse said.
"Thank you." Peeta said, as they turned to leave again.
"I'm sorry, honey." he told her, squeezing her hand.
"Oh well..." she sighed. "Like you said, we'll just have to try again tomorrow."
Peeta and Katniss left the hospital again and headed for the hotel.
Meanwhile, in the hospital, the nurse went to Gale's room to see him and pass along the message they'd left for him.
"Gale, your friends were here to see you again. Peeta said to tell you that your best friend wants to speak with you. Are you sure you still don't want any visitors? They seem to really care about you."
"No." Gale said weakly. "I can't face either one of them right now."
Gale was listless. He was devastated about Prim, and felt that Katniss would probably never forgive him for letting Prim out of his sight, which gave Curran the opportunity to kill her.
"What do you want me to bring you for dinner?" the nurse asked him, as she stood next to his bed, checking on the bag of IV fluid that was running into the vein in his arm.
"I don't want anything. I'm not hungry." he said quietly.
"Gale, you need to eat something." the nurse scolded him. "Isn't it bad enough that you need this-" she said, pointing to the bag of IV fluid hanging on the metal pole, "because you are so dehydrated? You aren't eating or drinking anything! If you keep this up, the doctors will be forced to feed you through a tube!"
"I don't care. I just don't feel up to eating right now."
"How's your sleeping been?" she asked.
"Terrible. I can't sleep at all. My brain won't relax enough to sleep, and the few times I have drifted off, I wake up screaming with horrible nightmares. I'm exhausted." Gale explained.
"Do you want me to give you some sleeping medicine?"
"No, the nurse last night tried that. It only made it worse. I went to sleep, but then I was stuck in my nightmares and couldn't wake up. It was like being held underwater. I don't want any sedatives."
The nurse frowned at him.
"Do you need pain medicine?" she asked.
"No, my physical pain is very minimal. I don't need anything."
"Let me see your hands, I need to change your dressings." the nurse instructed.
Obediently, Gale held out his hands to her and allowed her to remove the bandages. The cuts on his hands had already improved quite a bit just since yesterday, thanks to the fancy medicated ointment they'd been putting on them. She cleaned all the cuts, put fresh ointment on and wrapped his hands with gauze again.
"Well, let me know if you need anything." the nurse said. "And please call for one of us if you decide you feel up to eating something! Whatever you feel like eating, we'll get it for you, day or night."
"Thank you." he said quietly, just staring out the window at the sunset. It looked beautiful, with the sky all painted in shades of red and orange and pink, but he couldn't even seem to find enjoyment in that. He found it hard to believe that this was the same sun that he and Katniss had watched set together so many times, back in the woods of district 12.
He feared that nothing would ever be the same between him and Katniss. In his nightmares, she always blamed him for Prim's death, and swore that she would never forgive him. That was why he couldn't bring himself to see her now. He didn't have the strength to face the possibility that maybe that was how she really felt.
Gale turned away from the window so he would stop thinking about her. But what else was there for him to think about? He couldn't eat, and he couldn't sleep. It was going to be a very long night.
As the hours slowly ticked by, Gale suffered through the same repeating pattern again and again.
He would stare out the window at the vast darkness of the night sky and watch the moon as it slowly crept across the horizon. He would stare at it until his body and mind finally succumbed to fatigue and he would drift off to sleep, only to wake a very short time later, screaming and crying from the horrific nightmares. The nurse would come running, asking if he was alright.
He wanted to shout, NO! I am NOT fucking alright! Do I look alright to you?!
But he didn't. He knew that if he yelled at the nurses, they would have him sedated, and he desperately did not want to be sedated again. That just made the suffering so much worse because he couldn't escape it.
He suddenly missed Katniss so much. He wondered if she was suffering too, the same way he was. At least she had Peeta to soothe her though. Gale felt so alone.
If only Gale had known that just a short walk across the square, Katniss was having the same kind of night as he was, being robbed of her much needed sleep by the nightmares about Prim, making her wake up crying over and over.
If only he had let her in today, he would have known... known that she understood what he was going through... known that she wasn't angry with him... known that she was so worried about him... known that she missed her friend so much it hurt.
But he didn't, so he just lay there enduring the agony of his mental anguish and watched the sun rise, just as he'd watched it set last night.