Katniss's eyes are as wild as ever, a stray lock of brown hair escaping from the knot it is tied back in. But the familiarity of her face is not the main reason my heart constricts painfully in my chest - it is the children standing in front of her.
There's no denying who their father could be. One glance at them defines what genetic inheritance means - they're Mellark children if ever I've seen them, but their mother's distuinguishable features are fused with those of his. Peeta Mellark.
The look of fear on the children's face, along with their mothers, proves to me that they're not here for a friendly visit; not after over a decade of lost contact. Still, seeing her now I feel as though I never left her that day, her skin a patchwork piece of art that felt nothing like my best friend to me. Her skin has healed, but it is quite obvious her soul has not. The wildness in her eyes is still there but now it is accompanied by fear of something stronger. I recognise the expression she wears - it's the same expression that laced her features when she felt concern for Prim, or her mother, or even me sometimes. And, as always, my body aches to help her.
"Gale!" a whisper rushes through her lips as undeniable recognition filters across her face. She carefully yet forcefully brushes past her onlooking children, and before I know it, her arms are around my neck and I am holding her in the comforting embrace I've been longing to give her for all these years. "Gale," she says breathlessly into my shoulder, relief wholly evident in her tone. "It's really you. You're here. You're safe." The words I never thought I'd hear her say hit me harder than an arrow launched by her would have. I'm the one who never found her, who worried about her safety and well-being everyday since I unintentionally ruined her life, and now here she was telling me she was overjoyed to be in my prescence. It felt wrong, but so right I was numbed more than the drugs ever could numb me.
"It's me, Catnip," I sigh, giving in to my rigid posture and folding my arms around her. "It's me."
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The Hunger Games: Book Four - How it Might Have Been ... Gale.
FanfictionThe end of the Hunger Games - abrupt, unsatisfying, mysterious? Gale Hawthorne was forgotten after the Rebellion ceased - now he is back to tell his tale. Living alone in District 2, Gale still feels as though something is missing in his life - her...
