burnwithus | (gale) we're half-awake in a fake empire

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gale hawthorne

(gale) we're half-awake in a fake empire

It's hours before Gale finally wakes up, even with all the care it took to treat and bandage up his back. It gives me many, many moments to wonder why I'm still sitting in this chair. To wonder if I can talk to him at all, even though I thought I never would again. Gale Hawthorne gave me the last arrow I ever shot in Panem, and I was supposed to die after that.

That was the plan. It didn't work.

Now where does that leave us? My mind sifts through the details and the memories, trying to create some kind of order out of the chaos. Gale was whipped after I told him Eight rebelled. He doesn't know about the Quell, or the war, or the rebellion that he helped plan.

He doesn't know about Prim.

A flash of anger fires through me, tenses my muscles all at once. He should know! I want to scream. He should know, even though this Gale has never even seen a bomb in his life. Even though this Gale thrives best in forests with clean air and running water and wouldn't dream of living in an underground bunker.

It's petty, but I've never been forgiving. Peeta's the one who sees the good in people, or tries to. I see what's there.

But that isn't fair. It would be as if the husband of the Capitol woman I shot came and found me before the Quell. Before the world changed. I wouldn't understand why I would do such a thing. I'd think that it wasn't possible.

No amount of cruelty is impossible when it comes to humans.

I bury my face in my hands and take a moment to breathe, tears slipping out of my closed eyes. Gale can't see me - he's unconscious. There's no one else around. He looks younger and more peaceful asleep, like he wouldn't be capable of the deadly things I know he is.

There was never anyone as good as Gale when it came to snares. It was the quarry that changed.

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He's floating, or, at least, that's what it feels like. He's aware of his back as dead space, something not quite connected to him. It takes him a moment to remember what had happened at all. It might as well have happened to someone else. He lifts his head, slightly, stirring, and there she is, sitting in a chair.

"Hello, Catnip," he says, his throat tight and dry.

He's awake sooner than I expected him to be, forcing me to hurriedly brush my face using the cover of being tired. It feels like we could be back in the Seam, except I'm living a memory where the only thing that's changed is me. I force myself to take a breath before speaking.

"Hello, Gale," I tell him, sounding thin and weary and overly polite. He'll know something's wrong immediately and it seems cruel to add that on to a list of his injuries, but I can't pretend otherwise. I've always been good at hiding my emotions, but never around Gale.

He always could see right through me, as frustrating as it was.

He's always known her better than he knows himself. He can read her. He knows her. Even foggy and half asleep, he can tell that something's off here; he can tell that something's wrong with her. He tries to push up on his elbows but, even through the drugs, he knows that's not a good idea.

"How..." he frowns. "Where..?" He clears his throat, tries for a whole question. "What's going on, Katniss?"

He knows that she'd always tell him the truth.

"Go back to sleep, Gale." I whisper it because it's the only thing I know how to say at this point. No matter how well I explain it, Gale will never understand. Peeta still doesn't. Our world changed too quickly and violently to comprehend without seeing it firsthand.

Maybe it's better that way. It's too late for me - I've already crossed the point of no return. I'll never be happy again. But it isn't for Gale and Peeta. As much as I hate to admit it, the island is the closest thing to safe that any one of us have ever experienced. Even if I don't believe it and expect to hear explosions and the tromping of boots at any moment. I've seen too much to ever believe that good things stay the way they are.

They call it a blank slate for a reason.

"M'up," he says, though he's not entirely sure he is. An hour or so ago, he was mad at her, so angry he couldn't really breathe past it, but everything's changed since then. Dimly, he wonders how much he'll hurt if the drugs wear off.

Without thinking about it, he reaches out with one hand. He can't quite reach her where she's sitting.

I want to recoil when he reaches out for me, but he's hurting and I never was able to see that without an uncomfortable clenching in my chest. He's not the same. He doesn't even look the same. Soldier Gale Hawthorne had his hair cropped close and looked more than at home in a uniform. The legs of my chair squeak against the floor, and soon enough he'll see that I'm not the same either. The winter was harsh on my new fire-mutt skin, creating rough red patches that worsened because I didn't have any salve.

Part of me needs to leave. I can't be near him without seeing that scene, over and over again. But he's part of the past that wasn't always perfect but was at least simpler.

I don't speak. There's nothing to say.

The chair scrapes closer and his hand finds the bony bulb of her knee. It's something to hold onto. He groans softly and presses his nose into the pillow. He shifts against the matress, feels the bandages pull around his ribs.

"Where's your Mom?" he asks. He's bandaged; there's only one place you'd go in the Seam to get that. There's only one place Katniss would ever have brought him. "The kids aren't here, are they?"

"She's not here. You're not in 12," there are people on the island that have given this speech dozens of times, but I'm not one of them and I hardly know where to start. My hand travels up to the scar across my cheek, pink and fading but still permanent. A souvenir from a time when there was nothing I wouldn't have done for Gale.

I remember that I wanted him to shoot me. If my plan went awry, if I failed to swallow the pill. One good, clean shot and everything would end. I know he wouldn't fail me like I failed him.

"It's...hard to explain," I begin. "It's an island."

For a moment, he feels like he's dreaming. Nothing that she's saying to him makes sense and he's sure that it's the drugs or the pain or his head. He drags in a breath and forces his eyes open to look at her.

"...What?"

"An island," I repeat myself, in case he hasn't heard me or believes that he's hallucinating. If the painkillers he was given were anything like the morphling Madge brought over, then it's a feeling I know well. Floating, as if on water or foam. Opening doors to both the living and the dead. It's hard to know what's real or not when you can't trust your senses.

"It's..." Peeta should be doing this, not me. Peeta would know exactly which words to say. The most I can do is attempt to make sense. I'm the worst person for this job. "I don't know how we got here. But it isn't even in Panem."

Edited 2011-01-06 20:23 (UTC)

It isn't even in Panem. His eyelashes flutter against the white cotton. He swallows. Right at the edges of it, he can feel the pain starting to leak back in. He ignores it. He tries to ignore it. His mouth is so dry.

"At least you're here, Catnip."

I can't answer that.

Instead, I kick back my chair and walk towards a table that holds a jug of water and some cups. It's easier to have something to do in order to take my mind off things. Going through the motions of living to see if life will eventually mean something. It hasn't yet, and I'm not holding my breath.

I pour him a glass and hand it over. His throat is so scratchy that it isn't hard to guess what he wants, especially since I've known him for so long. Even talking was no longer necessary after awhile. Better than scaring away the animals. We learned to communicate through signals.

Gingerly, he does push up onto his elbows, and reaches for the glass. It definitely hurts now, but not enough to stop him. Dimly, he wonders if he's bleeding again. The water tastes good, though, warm but clean.

"How many was it?" he asks, his voice still feeling raw. "I lost count after twenty."

"Forty," I wince automatically at the memory of the one lash I received, its white-hot pain cutting through every sense. Since then, I've been shot and stabbed, strangled and burned, though only the last came anywhere near pain beyond belief because it was mingled with grief. This is something I understand. "I can ask them for more drugs if you need them."

"Forty."

The sentence had been fifty, he remembers that much. He takes another swallow of water and feels his empty stomach roll. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the pillow. "My Mom didn't see?"

It's really important to him, somehow, that his mother was nowhere near it.

I can't lie. Not to him, and I never could. He would know in an instant, just like he always does, because there's no one else on this earth who knows me better than Gale. Except for Prim.

Prim. My voice catches in my throat for a second before I clear it.

"She saw eventually. Vick, Rory and Posey didn't, though."

His jaw tightens, but he nods. That's...it's not good, but it's not as bad as it could be. At least the kids didn't see. He watches her for a long moment, hair tumbled across his forehead.

"What?" he asks her.

What? It's a simple enough question with bigger implications. Maybe this should wait for when he isn't half-dead on a bed in the clinic, but I doubt Gale will let it go. I know how he thinks. He's stubborn enough to follow this line of questioning through to the end.

"Sometimes the island takes people from different times. It's been a year longer for me." that's vague and he won't understand it. Frustrated, I try again.

"I'm from the future."

From the future. She says it like it's the easiest thing in the world. He stares at her for a long moment and that's when he notices the differences in her. They should have been obvious; he knows her like the back of his hand.

"Katniss," he says. "Come here where I can see you."

I take a few steps and pull up the sleeve of my left arm. He'll see it there - the lumpy, rippled scar from Johanna's knife, the size of an apple or a fist. And the half-melted fissures where old skin met the new grafts. The doctors of 13 did what they could, but they aren't miracle workers. They can't erase scars this deep.

It's some form of proof, or at least it will be in Gale's eyes.

Edited 2011-01-06 22:28 (UTC)

He stares. He does. For over a year, now, he's been in love with her but he's never made the mistake of thinking that she's perfect. For a moment, he just stares. He swallows.

Suddenly, everything hurts.

"You're from a year ahead of me?" he asks again, wants more water but doesn't dare drink it. "You need to tell me what happened, Katniss."

Of course he asked. I knew he would - he wouldn't be Gale if he didn't ask. My throat suddenly feels dry. I swallow painfully, balling my hands at my sides. They used to be slippery with his blood, but I scrubbed them clean hours ago. "You don't want to know," maybe it's better for the both of us if he didn't know. If Gale never dreamed of violence or even thought of the word bomb.

How am I supposed to tell him? I keep my eyes trained on him the whole time. I ask him not to push it.

He's never liked it when she lies to him. He can always tell and it always gives him a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Because they don't tell lies to each other. They neverh ave. There's nobody in the whole of Panem who knows him like she knows him. Not even his own monther.

"I want to know why you don't want to tell me." e reaches out as though he's going to touch her scared arm. "What happened?"

"The revolution happened. There was a war. We won." No, we didn't. Not really. There isn't anyone who wins after a war like that, except maybe those who weren't born. They're the ones who get to inherit what's left of the world. I started the revolution in order to build a better world for Prim. One where she could become a doctor, something that would never have been allowed in District 12.

It didn't work. And with her died all my hope of ever believing in humanity as a race. It feels wrong to adopt such a bitter viewpoint, because it's the opposite of everything she was, and I know what Prim would have wanted for me. But she isn't here, and all that's left for me is to try.

I threw the Nightlock away. I could have taken the easy way out, but I didn't - because of her. Because I know she would have wanted me to live. "The rebels won. Not me."

Edited 2011-01-07 04:10 (UTC)

He remembers her telling him about the uprising in Eight but then...it's been a year and the rebels have won? They've won. It doesn't occur to Gale to assume that he wouldn't have been one of them. He swallows down the fluttering excitement in his chest.

There was a war. We won.

"So why are you so mad at me?" he asks.

"I'm not," it's a feeble attempt that he'll see through instantly, so I have to try again. "I'm angry...at the war. At everything. It...changed you." It feels like such a contradiction to be saying these words. I'm a hypocrite. Of course Gale changed - we all did. Even Peeta, though his was against his will. As usual, Peeta was the only one among us that kept his goodness through his decisions. If the Capitol hadn't taken him...if I hadn't failed...

I've done terrible things. I shot an unarmed civilian, a Capitol woman. I lied to my squadron in order pursue my own agenda and as a result, half of them died. I voted yes to another Hunger Games. I've killed enough people that there's a list. These are the things I've done for various reasons, but Gale-

Gale's ruthless. He's practical. The amount of lives lost is secondary to completing a strategic objective. If given the choice, I'm sure he would turn around and do the same thing again. If it would help his cause. The cause that I was supposed to believe in too. When did I stop?

I close my eyes and take deep breaths, filtering these thoughts. It feels terrible to be thinking them about someone I've known this long. But it hardly matters.

I'll always be thinking them.

I can never erase them.

He's more and more aware of the pain, of the tightness across his shoulders and how hard it is to breathe. It's hard to look at her smouldering like that. All of a sudden his brain is filled with the Girl on Fire.

"Changed me how?"
He's not sure that he wants to know, but he has to ask.

He's in pain. That much is evident, given by the stiffness of his movements. It's something to latch on to, if things go as wrong as I'm sure they will. Gale was born to be a rebel. More than any of us. The anger I saw in him all those years ago had started with discontent about things like tesserae and had grown to a larger scale. I can't lie - I wanted change, too. I wanted people in the Capitol dead as much as he did at times. Maybe the problem is that we're too similar.

"You became a soldier. We all did. But you were a strategist. You made...bombs." my mind, my legs - everything is telling me to just run. Before I completely fall apart.

Bombs.

He doesn't...he can't think past the ache in his heart and the throb in his back and he can't look at her because all he can think about is her scars and bombs. He swallows and nods.

"I don't..." He looks at her through her hair. "Don't tell me anymore right now, Catnip."

There are things I should do. I should tell him that I've done worse, that there was a chance it wasn't his invention. I could make things right at this very moment and accept that this Gale wasn't the same. I know all of these things, but I don't do anything. The only thing I do is nod once, numbly.

I nod, and hate myself a little bit more.

"Do you need anything?"

He shakes his head. He lies back down. He doesn't look at her.

"I'm fine."

"Do you want me to leave?" I might as well just say it. There's no point in being less than direct with Gale. There never was. Even before he was a soldier, that part hadn't changed. Part of me wants to leave, too. It's cowardly, but today has brought up too many things from the past already.

Things that I shouldn't forget, even though I want to. Because if I forget, there will be nobody left to remember.

"Do you want to stay?"

He can feel the unpleasant sensation of blood seeping through bandages, sticky and hot. He shifts his weight in the bed and still doesn't look at her. It's easier if he doesn't.

No. I don't want to stay. But I can't say that, either. "Let me see your bandages," I move closer to the hospital bed, motioning for him to turn over. There's a good chance they need to be changed, considering how much time has passed since his back was first wrapped. It's bad luck that Gale arrived just after the snows, but there are doctors here who are far more capable than I am.

The last time Gale was hurt I was sewing stitches into his shoulder. I sewed Jason up, too. But I'm not my mother, and I'm sick of having blood on my hands.

Obediently, he shifts, breath catching as stitched skin pulls. He looks up at her through his hair.

"That wasn't me," he says to her, quietly. "I only just got you back. You...gloves. You tried to give me gloves. That's the last thing I remember."

"I remember," and suddenly the only thing I feel is tired. Both my brain and my body feel it, seeping through and sucking the fight from me. "It feels like ages ago," an entire lifetime, before the war and the Quarter Quell that changed everything. Yet it wasn't impossible to see the path we had started out on, even before I shot the arrow that started a war. Even before the berries. The stirrings of thought inside the Districts that were just waiting for their moment to rebel.

If I could go back in time, I wonder if I would change things. I wonder if my actions would have made a difference. Or would the Capitol's cruelty gotten through in the end anyways?

On his belly on the bed, Gale lets his head hang down. There's a tightness in his chest that's got nothing to do with how much his back hurts. So much has happened here that he's failing to understand and mostly because Katniss isn't telling him anything.

"How's it look?" he asks, trying to force his voice light, trying to amke it sound like it always has between them.

He's bleeding through the bandages, just as I thought he might be. I reach a hand out towards his back but don't touch him. No need to add to the pain anymore than I already have. "You'll live. The doctors here have more than my mother did. But your bandages should be changed." I glance down the hallway, hoping there's at least one doctor there. As far as I can tell, they work in shifts. "Do you want me to get someone?" My eyes glance over at the white cloth on his back, stained with blood in places. I've seen far too much of it in the past year that even now, the scent of it makes me gag.

"You can leave it, Katniss," he says because, right then, the last thing that he bear is her sounding like she's forcing herself to be there. Maybe it's the blood. Maybe.

"Somebody'll be here. I'm fine."

I should ask him if he's sure. I should offer to stay. But I don't do either of those things. "I'll come back," I promise him. He should know that it's one I'll make good on. "I just need to..." breathe is the word I'm looking for, but it sounds too harsh to use here. "Think," is what I use instead. It won't hurt him any less, and I know that's what I'm doing at this very moment. It's hard enough to watch without inflicting it myself.

But there's a weight in my chest that I need to get rid of and the forest is the only place I can breathe these days.

Edited 2011-01-08 23:44 (UTC)

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(gale) we're half-awake in a fake empire

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