Title: Extant

Status: Ongoing. Unplanned.

Pairings: Gale x Katniss. Ish.

Warnings: Drabble for now.

Comments: I like Gale better than Peeta but I respect Collins choice. Still, though.

Chapter One: Gorge (Before)

Loving Katniss was some of the more natural things that had happened to Gale. Around two years after he had met Katniss, sixteen or seventeen perhaps, he'd seen a boy talking to her while he waited for her at the outskirts of school.

It was strange to see Katniss talking with anyone, nevertheless a boy. She was a true loner, but she didn't know or care. Gale studied the boy's insistent, narrowed expression. The more he looked at it the more cross he felt. Later in the evening while eating meagerly it occurred to him that somehow somewhere in the span of his he had formed a mindset that Katniss belonged to him.

Girls were curious creatures. He thought about them like the other boys, not as much because he had better things to wonder about, but he did think about them. He liked them in dresses and he liked the way they walked and their coyness around him, and for the most part he didn't find point in them.

And he never thought about Katniss in dresses or how she walked or if she ever acted coy (and she didn't) but Gale found point in Katniss. It wasn't cemented at first, because he thought he thought this way.

The days went by and he watched around Katniss more, cautiously and curiously, reflecting of their friendship quietly but not forcefully. He saw more and more that boys looked and tried to talk with Katniss. They all had the same look of wonderment, and they watched her like Gale did.

He walked with her through school one day, and around him he saw boys giving Katniss, sly shy peers. They weren't really a lot, but enough to make out that Katniss was actually more popular than she thought, only secretively. It wasn't obvious.

And anything not obvious to Katniss, she wouldn't get. Gale knew from the beginning that Katniss looked at life very straightforwardly, no nonsense. And she wouldn't ever bother to think about it, let alone notice it.

He became immensely frustrated, perhaps for an hour, as irritated and agitated he could get against the Capitol, if even more so. It was her fault, anyways, he thought, that she never noticed things like that. It took him a while to also take into account that he hadn't really noticed either.

But then he began to notice things such as this more, and he finally concluded, very easily, that he had always thought of Katniss and him together.

Katniss belonged to him and he belonged to Katniss.

And everyone else knew this too. Otherwise, why would they look at them together like that? Gale knew lots of girls had it going for him, but they never confessed to him, or anything of the sort. Katniss never got anything either. And it was so easy to see that everyone else, too, thought they belonged to each other.

But boys did have it going for Katniss. He was slow to realize, because Katniss was not beautiful, but there was something gorgeous about her, an unconventional beauty and a quiet allure, some soft appeal. Of course Katniss didn't realize it, but Gale was starting to.

He was starting to fantasize too, not often and unconsciously. Most of the time it would be late at night, and he would be tired, and he imagined her small body underneath the sheets, sleeping soundly.

By eighteen it was clear and natural to think that Katniss would end up together some time. He imagined kissing her a lot now, too. Nothing detailed, no situations, just a more tangible warmth and comfort. The fact that he was eighteen, and he really wanted to kiss a girl, admittedly helped too.

It was the last year of his compulsory education. Worthless. He'd be going to the coal mines straight after. They'd probably marry, combine their families together, and live a mild kind of happiness, maybe rebelling against the Capitol, maybe just living inside the fence. Gale hadn't planned it out. He wasn't planning on planning it out, because back then he wasn't a planner. In his mind, it would happen sooner or later.

Then again, Katniss was not much of dreamer. To him, she was incurably egocentric, and lived in a world that only spanned inside what she cared about. She never thought of life outside as often he did, and sometimes it annoyed him, but he was growing to his ideals too. She'd agree with her, someday. Probably.

They'd gone through four reapings together, and each was a slow kind of imperative, an aching irk. They worried about being chosen, even made a pact, but neither of them truly thought they were going to be reaped. It was more of a pain, a burst of full on anxiety, and then it ended and they went back to their lives, resenting the Capitol immensely.

After that particular reaping, he'd be done, and in two years, they'd be done, and it would be a relief for them to be done, because all in all it was easier to worry for others than it was them. At least, that's what he thought.

When Katniss screamed, and stepped on the platform, he realized that her kind of love was nothing like his. His first thought was that he wished Katniss loved him the way she loved Primrose. Later he became infuriated at himself for thinking something like that.

When Peeta stepped up, one of those boys who watched her, he thought about volunteering too. Just so he could protect her, and he because he didn't want Peeta beside her. And it was such a thought so selfish that rattled him, and he composed himself to become rational, trying to decide what to tell Katniss and what he'd do without her and ignoring the pain that came with it. He'd tell her she would win, because she would, and he'd tell her that he'd take of her family and that everything was going to be alright. He couldn't tell her he loved her, because she probably hadn't realized it and it would surprise her and there was simply no sense in it.

It was all thrown out the window when he came into the room and saw her face. She wasn't crying. Typical. But he wasn't either.

And she looked beautiful like that, and Gale realized that he always though Katniss as beautiful, it was just embarrassing to think such. He couldn't remember anything he wanted to say when he embraced her.

But then she starting babbling, and he remembered and leaned down a bit because he had always been much taller than her. He almost told her he loved her, too, because he couldn't help himself, but he was taken away too quickly to make it out. He was grateful for it immediately after and very heartbroken later.

Thanks for reading.