THREE YEARS LATER
"Hi." His voice is warm, instantly familiar in a way I hadn't thought possible.
"Hi." My own response is breathy, light. His stubble is a few days old, giving him an almost rugged look. It makes him look older, different than I remember but still exactly the same, even after all these years.
We stand awkwardly in the doorway, not speaking. His fingers drum out a beat on the open door's frame as his eyes study me. Neither one of us knows what to say. We don't know who we are anymore, not sure where we fit together. I spent the entire ride on the way here pondering, and I came up with nothing.
"It's cold," he comments, as if mentioning a squirrel caught in one of his traps.
"Same kind of cold we have back home."
"No need to freeze. Come on in." He steps back, holding the door wide invitingly.
I face the same uncertainty as always when I see him, but this time is different. The fight that has burned inside me for over a decade has no rage left to feed it. I look at his tired eyes, so early in the morning, and he's just an old friend I've been missing.
I pause inside the doorway. My arms twitch by my side, unsure. Then they reach up, and I'm not sure if I control them or not as they hesitantly wrap around his neck.
He steps into me, his body melting against mine as he releases the door to slide his arms around my waist. We merge together, he warmed by the heated air, I chilled by the early morning winter frost. "Hi," I say again as I breathe him in. He even smells the same. The wool of his sweater scratches my cheek as I press my head into his chest. I wonder if his mother made it for him, shipped all the way from Twelve as a birthday present one year.
The muscles of his forearms dance on my back as his hold tightens. I feel them pulse against the tight leather of my jacket. My outfit was not the best choice for the time of year, but it felt appropriate and it lends me strength I so desperately needed to make the journey out here.
"Where's Peeta?" he asks slowly. He speaks the words against the top of my head. My hair moves with his breath, tickling my scalp.
"We decided it would be better if he didn't come." I don't elaborate, and he thankfully doesn't probe further.
"It's good to see you. I was beginning to worry you decided not to come." He doesn't mention the other time, a few years back. He doesn't have to, for I know what he's referring to.
"Snow held us overnight at the last station. It was a long ride."
"Well I'm glad you finally made it."
It only took me eleven years to get back. But he doesn't say that either.
"I thought I heard voices," a voice calls in the distance.
I jerk away, my limbs untangling from Gale in an instant. Old habits die hard, I guess.
A blond head pokes around a corner. The tattoos on her scalp hide under a full head of hair pulled back in a messy bun. Flyaway strands dart out in every direction, but the smile on her face is warm. "Katniss," she says with a soft nod, stepping into the room. "We weren't sure you were going to make it."
"For a while there, neither was I." I doubt she catches the double meaning in my words.
Hugging her is the same as Gale. It is warm, familiar, a song once forgotten that you return to instantly by memory alone. When she whispers, "Glad you finally made it," she gives me a tight squeeze. The way she says it, I wonder if perhaps she did catch my meaning.
"Me too," I say. To my own surprise, it isn't a lie.
Her gaze darts back and forth between the two of us for a moment. "Well I'm sure you have a lot to catch up on. I'll leave you to it. But Holly's awake if you want to meet her. We'll be in the play room, just down the hallway."
I give her a mute nod. With a soft wave that seems uncharacteristic, she disappears as quickly as she arrived.
"Come on," Gale says, catching my arm and guiding me forward, "kitchen's this way. I know you don't have long to stay. But I'm glad you came." His house is just as I remember it from my one and only other visit. There are more pictures in frames littering the tables and walls, and toys are strewn about the floor, but the furniture remains unchanged and it feels familiar.
"I'll make us some tea and then we can talk," he says as he guides me through the living room to the kitchen.
Talk we do. Endlessly, for hours. The entire time I'm here, we talk. If not one of us, then the other. Sometimes we talk at the same time, interjecting into each other's sentences. I even laugh, something I thought I would never be able to do with him again. We broach the topic of Prim, though it feels stiff compared to everything else. He talks about his daughter, Holly, and how she's changed him. He mentions his son on the way, whom they've already named Hunter. He talks about being a father, and how he realizes now what he could never understand when we were younger. He talks a lot about regret, how if he could go back, he would do things differently.
For my part, I talk about Peeta. I hadn't realized how wholly my life revolves around him until I start to talk about my life. Gale knows some of it already, learned from the feeds or gossip or even some from my mother. A lot, though, he doesn't know. A lot we keep private, and it's hard to talk about now. I tell him about the fights, the disagreements. I confess my fear, and how this is the one war I don't know how to end. He doesn't interrupt when I get to this point. He sits on the chair next to me, our knees brushing as we lean slightly into each other, our tea long finished and forgotten. I lay all my doubts out in front of him, the way I can't bring myself to do for Peeta. After listening to Gale talk, I know he will understand. He has been broken in the same ways I have, different ways than the torture that Peeta endured.
When I'm finally done, when it all tumbles out of me, an avalanche off the side of a mountain, I look up, waiting for his response. This is way I came here, and he knows it. I have to know what made him believe the world is a better place, safe for his children. I want to be able to change my mind.
Gale doesn't say anything. Instead, he stands up. He catches my elbow and pulls me to my feet. Without a word, he pulls me through the kitchen back to the living room. He directs me down the hallway, to an ajar door on the right at the end. Inside, Cressida sits on the floor, playing with a young blond girl. When she looks up at us, my heart lurches. Standing directly behind me, Gale reaches up to lightly grab my shoulders. He squeezes them softly, as if he understands. He must. "I see her every day," Gale whispers behind me. "I look at my daughter and I see her. I think of the decisions I made, of the things that became that couldn't be undone. It breaks my heart sometimes, when she looks at me and all I can see is Prim."
I can't hold back the tears, couldn't even if I tried. Holly takes no notice and barrels full steam ahead, pushing up onto her feet and running straight at us. She snakes around me first to hug her daddy. Then she rips my arm off next, trying to get me to pick her up and hug her properly. She tugs on my braids and begs me to play. So play I do.
At some point, Gale slides closer. Cressida casually adverts her eyes, pulling Holly a little further away from us. His hand brushes against mine as he reaches for the train I'm playing with. The symbolism of trains to us is not lost on me, especially not with the coal filled car this one pulls. "You'll see, Katniss," he tells me softly. "When you have your own, you'll see. No matter how much you think it's impossible, it will happen. You were born to be a mother, and you deserve the kind of love you give your children. There will never be a guarantee that the world will be a safe place, but you'll know that you'll keep your children safe from the world we grew up in. We have that power now. I can guarantee you that. That's the world I fight for every day. That's the world we sacrificed for, the world we created. This is what we get in return." He pushes the train toward Holly. Cressida smiles softly, her hand idly stroking her swollen belly as she suggests that Holly should show me her flute and play me a song.