*crawls back from primordial filth* ... so I heard there is a renaissance going on?

VI.

The Mines

One lesson Katniss doesn't want to learn

Past his last Reaping, after the Games are over and the train brings home another couple of kids in caskets, it's time for Gale to start working in the mines. A healthy young man from the Seam, with no other trade than illegal hunting, has no way of avoiding it.

After years of his ranting and raving and making fanciful plans of escape, now it's Katniss who voices wild ideas – how about we run off to live in the woods, just don't go down there into the dark, don't, don't – and it's him who kisses her quiet.

(They both know that time is nowhere near ripe for such plans.)

One of the many reasons she's glad they've crossed the line to kissing: it takes away the need for words when she has no idea what to say. Instead, if they catch a moment together before the dawn, before their ways part – his deep into the darkness, hers to check the nearest snares before running back to take herself and the kids to school – she lets him taste her unsaid words on her tongue, kisses him as if she wanted to press clean air into his lungs to sustain him until he surfaces.

Then she has to let him go, his warmth lingering on her lips, her fingertips, in the undying flame of hope that he comes back to her.

The cold, hard coin he earns helps a lot, Katniss hates to admit that. Money can be traded more readily for other necessities, and their families get to keep most of the food she brings in throughout the week. They even manage to save up a little, for emergencies.

(Or perhaps for running away, neither says aloud.)

With the passing months, she can see the toll it takes on him, in the stiffer set of his shoulders, the harder line of his mouth. The kids are thriving, Gale tells her when he catches her worrying, it's alright. Katniss nods, silently grateful for every day without a disaster.

Spending most of her time in the woods alone again is something she's still getting used to, though, reflexively looking over her shoulder only to find her own shadow.

Every week, as she breathes in the sun-dappled breeze, she pushes thoughts of suffocating darkness away and counts the days to Sunday, his only free day.

On Sundays, she has him to herself from sunrise to sunset, and they both like it that way. In front of their families, they behave more or less like they always have, perhaps sitting just a little closer together, brushing their hands a bit more often. Katniss would swear, though, that their mothers can tell something has changed between them, and Prim and Rory may have caught a hint too, judging by their winks and furtive grins. She's not about to give them anything to confirm their suspicions yet, kissing Gale in front of everyone would be mortifying to say the least. With both their families present, the most she'd really like to do would be to curl against his chest and take a nap after dinner… but then again, she'd have to compete with Posy for the spot.

Alone in the woods together, they do their best to make up for lost time. The late summer and early autumn have been kind to them so far, bountiful and with mild weather. And a chill dawn is quickly made warmer when they find each other at their place, their lips meeting in a cloud of white breath.

They hunt and gather throughout the morning, checking and resetting the farthest snares, and when the sun climbs to its zenith and game rests in the thickets, they take their time to relax, too.

This time it's Katniss who flops to the ground first, feigning to be the one more tired, and Gale gladly follows suit. She sits with her back against a large tree, October sunlight filtering through the sparse canopy, and Gale stretches on the lush grass, strewn by golden leaves yet untouched by frost.

He lays his head into her lap, so that he can look up at the sky and at her, drinking in two sights sorely missed, before his eyes slowly flutter shut.

Katniss keeps a lookout and strokes his hair idly as he drifts off, the raven black strands slipping through her fingers, glinting almost dark blue in the sun. To a Capitol viewer, they might look alike - when a pair of Seam kids gets reaped for the Games, which happens all too often, they keep getting asked if they are cousins, as if they were all interchangeable, as if the joke was fresh and funny year after year. To them, though, it's anything but funny, and anything but true, if one just cared to look.

There is something her mother in the shape of her features, the warmer highlights in her hair, but Gale's whole family, just like the father's side of hers, dates back thousands of years before Panem, to the times before all the others came.

(The stories forbidden and scattered along too many trails of tears, but alive in whispers, alive in their blood.)

She caresses his sleeping face, the backs her fingers brushing deep hollows under high cheekbones, the tip of her finger scaling the proud line of his nose. Admittedly, it took Katniss years to look at Gale properly, but now she can't get enough, especially in moments like this, sunlit and untroubled.

The quiet rhythm of his breathing changes and Gale blindly presses his face against her palm, kisses her inner wrist. "It's you, Catnip," he mutters against her skin.

"Of course it's me," she laughs softly. "Who else would be out here?" And who else he'd allow himself to be this vulnerable with? No one but her.

He opens his eyes and reaches for her, long fingers curling around the back of her neck, thumb caressing her cheek. "I mean down there. It's you I think about to get through the day. It's Sunday I think about to get me through the week. Maybe it's selfish but… that's how it is."

The simple truth of the words would have been disconcerting not so long ago, but now it feels just… right. Katniss realizes she likes to hear it, likes the assurance of something new and special growing between them, tender but hardy. She leans into his touch. "I could say the same about the Sundays." Then she grins. "The kids would be jealous, though."

"We better not tell them, then."

"My lips are sealed." She puckers her mouth exaggeratedly and Gale plants a resounding kiss there. "Now they are."

Then they take time for a proper kiss, slow and deep and indulgent, so much sweeter than the quick moments stolen on weekdays.

When they pull apart to catch their breath, he rests his forehead against hers. "See, I am selfish. I'm keeping the best catch for myself."

"Same here." She steals one more kiss, just because. "Hopefully they forgive us."

"I don't think we need to worry about that."

"At least something, right?" Gale gets to his feet reluctantly and pulls Katniss up after him, hugging her close. "I wish I could give you better life than this. To each and every one of you. Without all the worrying." He presses his lips against the top of her head, tucks her under his chin.

An idle wish, they both know, with all the odds stacked again a happy, fulfilling life in Panem. "You know I'm not expecting any miracles." She pulls away slightly, just so that she can look up into his eyes. "Just like that, I wish you didn't have to go down there. That I could give better life to you."

"Fair enough. But for the record, you already do. Make everything better."

"So do you." She braces her palms against his chest, rises to her tiptoes to kiss him. "And now we should make everyone else's life better and bring them some dinner."

"Right away."

One last long kiss and they set out again, to beat the setting sun home and share the other fruits of their hunt with their family.

Before the Monday dawn parts them again, she clings to his hand, rough and warm, the new calluses from mining already learned by heart, and entwines their fingers together. The size difference between their hands used to be funny when they were kids, but now, something about the way her hand fits into his palm makes her throat go a little dry. Life-lines aligned, she realizes again how dear he is to her, how badly would losing him would blight and uproot her, too. Something about the blank stare that haunted her for months on end after that fateful day years ago is slowly beginning to make sense.

She kisses him with renewed desperation before she has to watch him go again, tall and proud, unbent and unbroken, hoping against hope that her mother's lesson is one she'll never have to learn.