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Katniss looks…
Older. That’s how she looks. She looks older.
She also looks about seven months pregnant. Gale never thought, not in a million years, that he’d ever see his Catnip pregnant. She’s so round that her legs are splayed to the sides a little, and she’s leaning back to compensate for the extra weight. Her face looks remarkably similar to the way it did when she was eighteen, though she’s shiny with sweat from the summer heat and her hair is a frizzy mess and she’s got some smile lines (smile lines!) that she didn’t have before.
She’s not smiling now, though. When she first opened the door, confusion, and then naked, dumb shock painted her face. Within seconds though, a scowl had replaced it.
“Hey, Catnip.”
“Gale. What are you doing here? We haven’t spoken in…what, twenty years?”
“Eighteen,” Gale corrects, wincing. “I tried to get in touch, Katniss, but you never…”
Katniss frowns harder. “You were in Two. I had no reason to contact you anymore. Not after…everything.”
Right. That.
Katniss opens the door a little wider. “Well, you’re here. Might as well come in. Peeta’s out right now, but he’ll be back soon. Would you like some tea? Juice? Coffee?”
“Coffee would be great, thanks.”
The door creaks shut behind them. Katniss leaves it unlocked, which isn’t like her, and Gale almost comments on it until he remembers that Peeta’s coming back soon.
Peeta.
Gale’s eyes flick to Katniss’s very, very swollen belly. No doubt the child growing there is his.
Gale’s approaching forty. He’s too old to be feeling this…petty, childish jealousy. He has children of his own, five of them, back in Two. He even, until recently, had a wife who he loved. But here he is, jealousy simmering in his chest, ugly and sharp, envious over something he never really had to begin with.
The effect Katniss can have on people, even now, swollen with child and waddling around the kitchen, preparing Gale’s coffee, is truly maddening.
“Here.” Katniss places a tray with a steaming pot of coffee, three mugs, a small pitcher of milk, and a bowl of brown sugar on the table in the living room. “Make it how you like it. There’s no caffeine, though. My mother warned me against it until after I have the baby.”
“How is your mother?” Gale asks, plopping himself on the sofa and reaching for the coffee pot. He pours himself a mug and watches the steam curl towards the ceiling. “She still in Four?”
“Yes, and she’s going to retire soon. She and I talk often on the telephone. She’s very happy there. I even have a stepfather, but I haven’t met him yet since they just got married. His name’s Marlin.”
“I never thought she’d replace your father.”
“She didn’t replace my father, Gale. She’s just building something new with someone else.” Katniss finally manages to sit in an armchair after some maneuvering. She sighs loudly. “And…what about Hazelle?”
“Good, she’s…she’s good.” In truth, Gale hasn’t spoken to his mother in some time. It’s not as if they chose to stop speaking, they simply…grew apart with time. She’s still alive, as far as he knows, but it’s been over a year since they’ve spoken. “I don’t think I have any stepfathers, but…we’ll see.”
Katniss awkwardly moves to pour herself a cup of coffee. She adds a generous pour of milk and a small spoonful of brown sugar. She mixes it, but doesn’t make any move to take a drink. Her eyes, those grey eyes that have haunted his dreams for twenty years, are trained on him. Finally, she speaks. “Why are you here, Gale?”
“What, I can’t stop by to see an old friend?”
“Not when we haven’t spoken in so long. Not when you’re…all the way across the entire country from me. What’s the real reason, Gale? And do-don’t play coy with me. We’re adults. I’d appreciate it if we could act like it.”
“My wife left me.”
Katniss’s face returns to the same shock it held when she opened the door to Gale. She stops stirring her coffee. “Oh.”
“Yeah. She, uh…she said I wasn’t who I was when she married me. We’re still…married, legally, but she said she was going to petition the mayor for permission to divorce me. She’s…she’s going to take the kids, too.”
“You have children?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I guess you were the one who wanted kids,” Katniss says, leaning forward to set her coffee on the table. She breathes a little awkwardly when she does it, her belly pressing into her chest. “But what does this have to do with me?”
Gale’s eyes feel glued to Katniss’s belly. For just a moment, he can see it; the press of little legs from the inside, warping the flesh, making the green and white plaid of her dress shift.
“I just…wanted to see you.”
“You just wanted to see me,” Katniss says, and it sounds even more pathetic coming from her mouth. “Okay, you’ve seen me. Is there anything you want to say?”
“I don’t know.”
Katniss scoffs, but her lips turn up into a smile. It’s just as dazzling as Gale remembers. “Okay, so you came here to see me and to waste my time. What else? If you want to make small talk, go somewhere else. Go to Haymitch and Effie’s. Effie can talk your ear off. She started knitting about ten years ago and it’s all she talks about. Did you know there are countless different knitting styles? I’ve started going over there whenever I need a nap, and Effie doesn’t seem to mind. She just talks and talks and talks.”
“Haymitch and Effie’s?”
“Yeah, they live together. Haymitch keeps geese, and Effie knits, and they both drive each other insane. But they got married a few years back. What a pair they make, huh?”
Just how much of life here has Gale missed? He may not have ever been close to either Haymitch or Effie, but he remembers them, he remembers them, he remembers them.
How much have they changed? They must both be in their sixties, now. Has Haymitch sobered up? Does Effie still talk in that trilling, girlish Capitol accent? Do they make each other happy? They always seemed to just tolerate each other for the Games, and Gale didn’t interact much with them in Thirteen.
He feels like a fool.
“I didn’t come here just for small talk. I wanted to know how you’ve been.”
Katniss makes a face like she’s got a mouthful of sour grapes. “I’m still alive. Doubly so, if you count this one.” She runs a hand over her belly, and her expression softens a little. “They make sure I’m alive every single day by jumping on my bladder in the morning to wake me up.”
Gale chuckles. He slurps at his coffee. It’s burnt, but Katniss has never been much of a cook, so he doesn’t complain. “That’s not really an answer, Katniss.”
“What, do you want to hear about my morning sickness and nightmares? The fact that Peeta has to sleep on the sofa because it’s too hot to share a bed with him anymore? The urge to eat dirt? It’s not exactly sunshine and berries here.”
“No, that’s not-” Gale’s cut off by the sound of the door opening. It swings shut, and then a voice cuts in.
That’s not Peeta’s voice. That’s the voice of a small child.
“Do you think Mama’s gon’ like it?” the little voice asks, lisping a little and dropping sounds where it can’t quite make them right, “It’s pretty like her.”
“I think she’s going to love it,” and that is Peeta’s voice, maybe a quarter-octave deeper, rougher with age, warmed with so much affection it makes Gale’s chest ache for his own children, the youngest of whom isn’t yet one, “you worked so hard on it, she’s going to be so proud of you.”
“Really?” the tiny voice asks, and Peeta laughs a little, his footsteps clomping closer.
“Really, really! It’s so lovely, I think she’ll…” Peeta trails off as he steps into the living room and finally sees Gale. Peeta looks…really good, as much as it makes Gale feel childishly jealous to say it. He’s stocky, like he’s always been, and his hair is just beginning to thin at the temples, and he could use a shave, but he looks healthy and strong. The little girl in his arms is maybe three. She has long, dark hair, but that’s where Katniss ends. Her face is practically a carbon copy of Peeta’s. In her hand is a crown of woven flowers, daisies and queen anne’s lace and a few others Gale can’t recognize anymore, likely mostly made by Peeta, but there are a few flowers jammed in at awkward angles that say they’ve been woven in by little fingers.
“Daddy, who’s that?”
Peeta’s jaw clenches. “Katniss?”
“Gale’s just here visiting,” she says carefully, voice tight. “I’m…still not really sure why, but I thought I’d at least be polite to him. Willow, say ‘hi, Gale.’”
“Hi, Gale,” says Willow, and shyly waves a hand at him before burying herself in Peeta’s neck. “Okay, he seed you. He can go.”
Katniss, Peeta, and Gale all laugh at that, but it’s tense. “Willow’s a bit shy,” says Peeta, depositing the little girl on the ground where she promptly runs to her mother, burying her face in Katniss’s knees. “We’re trying to get her to talk more, but it’s feeling like a lost cause.”
“Haymitch says she gets it from me,” Katniss grumps, but she bends down to pick Willow up anyway, placing her on her lap. “What’s this?” Katniss asks, smiling warmly and taking the flower crown from Willow’s hands, “Goodness, it’s so pretty!”
Gale misses his children. He misses them so much it aches. Sorrel’s about Willow’s age. He wonders if they could be friends.
Katniss puts the flower crown on. It droops down over her forehead, a little bit big for her, and snags on her frizzy hair. Her skin is shiny with sweat, and her face shows its age. Her smile lines deepen when she smiles at her daughter, the daughter Gale didn’t even know she had until two minutes ago.
She is breathtaking.
Peeta’s a lucky bastard.
Willow squeals in delight when Katniss plucks one of the more awkwardly-placed flowers from the crown and places it behind her ear. It’s a wild garlic blossom, of all things, though it must be one of the ones since garlic usually blossoms during spring in Twelve. But it’s pretty, a pale purple color that brings out the bright blue of Willow’s eyes, and sits neatly in her hair. She’s cute as a button, really, even more so when she’s smiling and her fat little cheeks bunch up, but she looks so much like Peeta that it’s a bittersweet thing.
“Daddy, c’mere!” Willow squeaks, and when Peeta steps over, she drags him down to push a flower behind his ear. Peeta smiles at his daughter and presses a sloppy kiss to her cheek, causing her to giggle.
Gale feels like he’s intruding. He is, isn’t he?
Gale quietly stands, leaving his cup of coffee on the table, and goes to leave. Katniss stops him just before he can shut the door behind him. Her face, still somewhat covered by her flower crown, is painfully neutral.
“What did you expect out of coming here, Gale? Really?”
Gale swallows. His eyes still feel glued to Katniss’s belly. “I don’t know.”
Katniss huffs. “So you thought you could just…show up after eighteen years and all would be the same?”
“I’m not that stupid, Katniss.”
“Then act like it.” Katniss sighs wearily and turns her face to the sky. She rubs a hand over her belly almost absently. “Gale, I’m happy to see that you’re well, I really am, but…I have a family now. One that you’re not a part of. One that you’ve given me no reason to make you a part of.”
She’s angry. She’s still angry at him about her sister. It’s quieted from a roil to a simmer, but she’s still angry. Katniss doesn’t trust him. His Catnip, the same girl who used to go hunting with him at her back, doesn’t trust him anymore.
“I don’t know who you are anymore, Gale!” Gloria shouted, tears streaming down her face. “What happened to you?”
Gale’s heart lurches. He misses his wife, his Gloria. He misses Lyric and Sorrel and Honey and Pearl and Klyne. He misses his mom.
Is this what Gale does? Does he push people away?
“I’m…sorry, Catnip.”
Katniss presses her mouth into a thin line. “Goodbye, Gale.”
Gale just gets to hear Willow shouting “Bye-bye!” before Katniss shuts the door in his face.
He is standing so close to her, and yet they are worlds apart.
Perhaps they always have been.