How It Could Have Been ~ The-Mockingjay-xx

Chapter 7

Immediately, I jolt backwards. I watch Peeta's heart sink to the bottom of the deepest depths of the blue ocean and through the seabed. His raised arms drop and the glass of water in his hands lands neatly on a table. I can see him choking on his words as he splutters out,
"I... I'm so sorry... I..." he trails off. Using my jumper I wipe the remaining tears from my eyes and look at him, the boy with the bread, completely clueless as what to say next. Guilt builds up inside me and I gulp hard.
     "It's... it's ok," I stutter. Neither one of us is sure what to say next, until Peeta finally breaks the ongoing silence.
     "Well we've pretty much done here so I'll get going then unless you need some more help," he says as he picks up his coat.
     "Um... no it's ok we're sorted now but thank you for your help," I reply.
     "No problem, if you ever need any more help you know where to ask," he says. The door clicks shut and his footsteps echo around the hall as he leaves the house.

     Without speaking Gale retrieves my water from on the table which Peeta placed it on and returns to my side. He sits me on his knee, on the floor, like a child and I obediently take sips from the glass.
     "Are you ok Katniss?" he asks, rocking me gently in his lap. My head plants itself into his chest and I nod. After placing my empty glass on the floor, he wraps one arm around me protectively and using the other hand he brushes the stray strands of hair off my forehead. This is the safest I have felt in a long time ; I never want him to stop. And he doesn't. We sit together on the floor in an empty space in what is a contrastingly crowed room around the edges, surrounded in each other's arms. And we don't speak, just sit in silence, Gale still combing through my hair with his fingers. With my hand I reach up and stroke his cheek, a smile spread across my face.
     "I love you Gale," I whisper.
     "I know," he tells me. "And I love you too." We both smile and then Gale lifts me off his lap and begins to get up. But I reach out and clasp his hand in mine.
     "Stay with me," I ask. Gale looks back at me, his expression startled but calm at the same time. He sits back down and lays me in his lap, his arms around me as they were, and resumes playing with my hair.
     "Always," he whispers.

     A/N : I know I stole that speech from Suzanne Collins, I occasionally use one of her sentences to make the story similar but completely different in my own way. However most of the writing is entirely mine and I have only used two of her sentences so far, (the other was the very first sentence of the first chapter).

     I must have drifted off to sleep because judging by the light, it is mid afternoon when my eyelids flutter open. Gale is propped up by a table which he must have pulled over to use as a back rest ; he has also given way to his eyelids and fallen asleep in a pretty much unchanged position to the one he was in before. As I sit up and sweep the hair off of my face, Gale begins to stir and his eyelids open. The inky black of his pupils which lie submerged in his grey irises dilate sharply to the immediate change in light. "Feeling better now?" he asks, his hand rubbing my thigh gently.
     "Mhm," I say, standing up and holding out my hand to Gale. "Now what do you say to painting the living room?" He gladly places his hand in mine and I pull him to his feet.
     "I say let's get started!" Gale replies.

     So we make our way to the hallway where we have been keeping the paint and I select a very pale shade of green. Thank god we decided to wear old clothes because about three quarters of the way through the first splash of paint descends on me. I turn to Gale, my expression a mixture of anger, shock and laughter but the mischievous grin now spread across his face cracks me and I give in to the laughter side. Gale is speckled with green paint before he can even raise his brush again to launch a second attack. My paintbrush is lavished with the stuff and fired straight at his upper body within milliseconds of being coated by it myself. By now we are both giggling, something I have never seen Gale do before, and continually splattering each other with green paint.