Work Text:
One:
The sun slowly sinks to kiss the horizon, washing the forest and the two teens walking through it in an orange glow.
“I didn’t realize how fast it’s getting dark these days,” says Gale, glancing at the sun perching atop the electric fence.
“Winter will be here soon,” says Katniss, voice too heavy with worry for her thirteen years.
He hums in agreement and looks at the sky again. “I’m going to have to book it to get home before sundown.”
“We still have to sort out the game. There’s no way you’ll make it.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but she beats him to it.
“Just spend Shabbat at my house,” she says exasperatedly.
“I wouldn’t want to imp--”
“Come on, it’s not like one extra person will make much of a difference. And the more time you spend arguing, the less time you have to get home.”
“I--thanks.”
“Anytime.”
They reach the Everdeens’ house with barely fifteen minutes to spare. Katniss snaps into action the moment they step through the door.
“Prim, are you dressed? Good. Now, fix the table while I get ready, and set a place for Gale.”
She shoves her game bag into his arms and pushes him towards the door. “Just put it in the shed--it’s cold enough that it should keep until Sunday. You can use the well out back to wash up. Prim, are you waiting for the sun to set?! Hurry!”
Gale does as she says and returns minutes later to find that tensions have only grown. Katniss is already cleaned, dressed, and back at work, rummaging through the cabinets for food and shouting directions over her shoulder.
“For the love of--Prim, get the cheese off the table! What do you think I was hunting for today?”
Gale enters the fray, whisking the offending comestible from the table so Prim can catch her breath and fetch the candlesticks out from their spot in the cabinet. The fervor grows with every minute until, finally, just before the sun completes its descent, Katniss calls them to the table.
The fourth seat stays unoccupied, like they are waiting for Elijah, but it is Mrs. Everdeen missing. Gale looks around, wondering where she could be, until the snap-hiss of a match being struck brings his attention back to the table. There is Katniss, standing resolutely behind the candlesticks, gingerly setting the match on the table to burn itself out. She raises her arms above the candles, and Gale idly thinks it’s good the candles have grown so short because she surely couldn’t have reached over taller ones.
After a few moments with her eyes covered, she takes her hands away from her face and, with the same determined confidence with which she does everything, says the blessing.
“Baruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-olam A-sher Ki-de-sha-nu Be-mitz-vo-tav Ve-tzi-va-nu Le-had-lik Ner Shel Sha-bbat Ko-desh.”
Gale had long since stopped thinking of her as an annoying child and started thinking of her as a partner. And he knows she shoulders most of the responsibility in her family. But seeing her be the matriarch? This is something else entirely. All he can do is watch in awe.
Next, she uncovers and blesses the bread. Gale doesn’t need to ask why there is no kiddush wine. There is no money for it--as it is, the two loaves of challah on the table are the smallest he’s ever seen. Finally, she distributes the challah and dishes up the soup for dinner. Over his objections, Katniss gives him an extra ladleful, sternly telling him there was more than she and Prim could eat between them.
They eat quietly, interrupting the silence every-so-often to try to make polite conversation about school or the weather. The unused place setting drives a wedge of ice between the sisters. Prim gives the empty chair across from her sad, wistful looks. Katniss catches her looking and scowls into her soup. Meanwhile, Gale observes it all uncomfortably, unable to do anything but try to steer the conversation back to the tediousness of school.
Perhaps it is a blessing or perhaps only a matter of circumstance, but without much conversation, dinner ends quickly. Katniss waves Prim away, saying she can clear the table herself (although Gale can’t stop himself from helping). When the dishes are piled in the sink, she takes out two chipped mugs and uncovers a teapot that had been wrapped in a towel to keep warm.
“Stay a while longer?” she asks as she presses a mug into his hands.
“Of course,” he says, even though he knows his mother will rage at him when he gets home.
They sit back at the table, watching the candles grow shorter. Katniss pours the tea.
“Should we save some for Prim?” Gale asks as she refills his mug.
Katniss shakes her head. “She’s talking to Mother,” she says, and it’s clear she doesn’t agree with what her little sister is doing.
“So, um...is this how Shabbat usually goes?” He gestures to the remnants of challah, the empty chairs, the candles Katniss had lit.
“Think about it, Gale!” Katniss snaps. “She forgets to feed us or even herself! Do you think she draws the line at Shabbat?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s fine.”
After a long, looming silence, Gale speaks again. “The challah was good. Is it from the bakery?”
“No,” Katniss scoffs. “Why would I trust a goy to make my challah?”
“I don’t know. It seems like you’re friends with the youngest one.”
“Well, I’m not. And even if I was, his whole kitchen is milchig, Gale, you know that.”
“Where’d you get it, then?”
“I made it.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“But we hunted until after dark yesterday.”
“‘He who toils on the eve of Shabbat,’” she quips, “‘Will eat on Shabbat.’”
And then he notices the dark circles beneath her eyes, the heavy way she props herself up on the table, the length of her blinks as she stares at the candles.
“Catnip,” he says gently, “Why don’t you go and get some rest?”
“What?”
“Go to bed.”
Katniss glances at the candles. “But--”
“I’ll watch the candles,” he says, preempting her objections. “You let me eat here--it’s the least I can do. Besides, another half hour isn’t going to make my mom any angrier than she already is.”
In the end, her exhaustion wins out. “Thank you,” she says as she gives his arm a friendly squeeze.
He smiles. “Anytime. Shabbat shalom, Catnip.”
“Shabbat shalom,” she yawns.
Two:
Gale receives quite the tongue-lashing when he gets home that night. But after hearing about the Everdeens’ circumstances, Hazelle's compassionate side takes over, and she insists Katniss and Prim spend the first meal of Shabbat with them next week. It takes some finesse on Gale’s part to persuade Katniss to come. Just like him, she is wary of anything that could be charity or pity. He finally convinces her by pointing out that she hosted him last week and it is only fair that he return the favor.
They come back from the woods early that afternoon to give Katniss time to fetch Prim and get ready. A half hour before sunset, Gale opens the door to find the sisters cleaned and polished as if it were Reaping day. Prim is starched and ironed within an inch of her life, hair braided with military precision. Katniss’s hair, still damp from washing, is braided, too, and her cheeks are pink from scrubbing. He invites them in, and as Katniss raises her fingers to her lips and then the mezuzah, he notices a triangular burn from an iron peeking out from under her sleeve.
Stepping into the house is stepping into chaos. Rory and Vick run around putting dishes on the table while Hazelle pulls the challah from the oven. Gale turns around just in time to catch Posy before she toddles into the open oven, sweeping her onto his hip and out of danger. Meanwhile, the younger boys catch sight of the guests and begin to chatter excitedly.
Hazelle steps forward to greet them, adjusting the slipping scarf over her hair. “Katniss, Prim, Shabbat shalom!”
“Shabbat shalom, Mrs. Hawthorne,” Katniss says sincerely. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”
“Call me Hazelle, please. We’re just glad you could join us. Although, I must apologize for the madness in this house...”
“Not at all, Mrs.--Hazelle. You have a lovely home.”
And she does. The whole house is filled with activity and joy and noise. It is the exact opposite of the Everdeens’ house, and Prim and Katniss love it.
Soon, they all gather around the table, Gale still holding Posy while Hazelle lights the candles and says the blessings. It reminds Katniss of how her father used to hold Prim, keeping her tiny fingers away from the flames and shushing her through the blessings. As painful as it is to remember, there is an odd sort of peace that accompanies the happy, simple memory.
She doesn’t have much time to ruminate, however, because Rory and Vick start their conversation up again the moment they finish passing the challah. Rory gets Prim laughing about something that happened in class that day, and Hazelle asks Katniss about school and hunting and even wheedles her into taking a larger portion of stew. After the table is cleared, they talk and play games in the living room until Prim’s eyes begin to droop with sleepiness.
“Come on, chavaleh,” Katniss says as Prim nuzzles into her shoulder. “Time to head home.”
They say their goodbyes and thank-yous and start the trudge back. It occurs to Katniss that this is the happiest Shabbat she’s had in years. When Gale invites her again the next week, she can’t make herself refuse. They welcome almost every Shabbat with the Hawthornes after that.
Three:
The week before Katniss’s fourth Reaping, she and Gale are out in the woods when the fence comes on. Gale kicks the ground and curses the Capitol. Katniss implores him to get it together and keep quiet. This close to the fence, they are at risk for being heard by a Peacekeeper or passerby. She leads him away to their rock, where they slump down and watch the sky turn orange.
“I hope Prim went to your house without me,” Katniss remarks as the sun moves closer and closer to the horizon.
“Stupid, fucking Capitol!”
He makes a move like he is going to get up, but Katniss stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, hey, hey. I hate it, too,” she says. “I hate that we’re stuck out here because they won’t give us enough to eat in the first place. I hate that the stupid fence is keeping me not only from my family and my home, but from my faith. I hate that this is another thing they ruined.”
Wordlessly, Gale gets down from the rock and takes two pieces of waxed paper from his bag. He rolls them into tubes and plants them in the dirt, affixing a piece of rope to the top of each one. Finally, he takes out the leftover bread from lunch and a book of matches.
“What are you doing?”
“You said you didn’t want this keeping you from your faith. So it’s not.” He hands her the matches. “I know it’s not a proper table, but...Shabbat shalom, Catnip.”
She smiles. “It’s great, Gale. It really is.”
“They’ll burn fast,” he warns.
“That’s alright,” says Katniss. “I can do it quickly.”
Gale watches as she lights the makeshift candles, covers her eyes, and welcomes Shabbat into their woods. Into the home they share.
Four:
A month before Gale’s eighteenth birthday, Hazelle gets sick. Really sick. Sick enough that one afternoon when he and Katniss are sitting on their rock, she asks after his mother, and he buries his face in his knees and whispers that he doesn’t want to be an orphan. Instead of saying useless platitudes, she moves her hand up and down his back and lets him fall apart in the safety of the woods where there is no one he had to be strong for.
When she sees him at school a few days later, he is happy to report that Hazelle has turned a corner and is expected to make a full recovery.
“Gale, that’s fantastic news,” she says, wrapping her arms around him with a smile on her face.
“It is,” he agrees. “But she’s got a long way to go still. She can’t even really get out of bed. You’ll understand that dinner’s off tomorrow, yeah?”
“Nonsense,” says Katniss, releasing him so she could look at him while she argues. “Prim and I will take care of everything.”
“That’s nice of you, but--”
“No buts! You all deserve a proper Shabbat after all you’ve gone through. If there’s anyone that needs rest and blessing, it’s you.” She tilts her head so he can’t avoid her gaze. “Your family’s been so kind letting us come over every week. Let us pull our own weight a bit.”
“Alright,” he acquiesces, partly because it has been a fortnight since he’s eaten dinner sitting down and partly because he would do almost anything to make Katniss happy.
An hour after school lets out on Friday, Prim and Katniss troop over to the Hawthornes’, Prim carrying a basket and Katniss carrying an enormous stockpot.
“You know, we have food and pots here,” Gale says as he opens the door.
“Not ones that have been simmering all day,” says Katniss, adjusting the pot in her arms so she could touch the mezuzah.
Gale smiles faintly and sets the pot on the stove for her. He leans over her shoulder as she takes the lid off the pot and fishes out the chicken feet. “That smells amazing. Thank you.”
Katniss brushes off the compliment, angry at herself for the blush rising on her cheeks that has nothing to do with the heat of the stove. It’s hardly the first time they’ve had close, physical contact, but this time is different. There is something intimate, something electric about the press of his body against hers. She shivers despite the steam from the soup. She isn’t ready for this. She needs a distraction.
“Matzo!” she exclaims, almost hitting his nose as she jerks her head up.
“What?”
“I still need to add the matzo balls,” she says. “Do you think Posy wants to help me make them?”
“Uh, probably?” Gale says dumbly, still trying to comprehend what just happened.
“Great! Well, I should find her so we can get started on those. It’s not getting any earlier,” says Katniss, discreetly trying to wipe her sweating hands on her dress before taking off in search of the youngest Hawthorne.
Posy is easily persuaded into matzo ball making, which has the added benefit of keeping her out from underfoot while Gale scrambles to get the boys ready for Shabbat. Posy likes feeling like she is helping, and she likes it even better when helping doesn’t mean being quiet or keeping still. As Gale does his myriad tasks, he catches tiny, adorable snippets of Posy and Katniss’s interaction: Katniss talking to Posy in that low, sweet voice she usually reserves for Prim, taking the little girl’s hands in her own to show her how to make the matzo balls, and showering her with praise when they finish one. It makes Gale’s chest squeeze in a way he isn’t brave enough to identify.
After the matzo balls are safely simmering in the stock, Katniss helps Posy wash up, bending down to clean the matzo dust from her face and hands and gently brushing her hair into two neat plaits. Gale glimpses it as he brings in some clothes from the line. The squeeze tightens.
Then, a crash somewhere in the house.
“Gale! Vick hit me!”
“Did not!”
He sighs and leaves to deal with the latest crisis.
By the time he settles the argument and gets both boys cleaned and dressed, he has barely enough time to change clothes and run a comb through his hair. He arrives at the table just as Katniss is taking the matches from the tall kitchen cabinet where Hazelle keeps them out of Posy’s reach. She smiles slightly as she strikes the match and goes through the familiar motions.
“Baruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-olam A-sher Ki-de-sha-nu...”
It’s the same lilting, haunting, heart-stopping voice he hears sometimes when she sings in the woods.
“Be-mitz-vo-tav Ve-tzi-va-nu Le-had-lik Ner Shel Sha-bbat Ko-desh.”
He is utterly spell-bound, because she isn’t just a girl in the woods anymore; she is a woman, and she is his best friend. And when he squints he can imagine the children around the table are theirs, and oh, yes, that’s what the squeeze in his chest is.
“Amen.”
Five:
Katniss isn’t really sure what day it is when she comes home from the Games. She’s dimly aware of eating dinner and crawling into a bed in Victors’ Village that isn’t really hers. She’s not really sure what the day after that is or the day after that or the day after that. She eats and sleeps and helps Prim roll bandages, but mostly she feels like she’s underwater and the real world floats just above the surface, just out of reach.
Until, after some indeterminate number of days, Prim rips off Katniss’s bedcovers in the middle of the afternoon and drags her into the bath.
“Come on, hurry up! We have to go soon!” she prods as she wrenches the brush through her sister’s hair.
“Go where?” Katniss asks numbly.
“Hazelle’s,” Prim says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Why? Gale was just here yest--” she breaks off, realizing that she can’t remember if it was yesterday or today or maybe three days ago.
Prim sighs. “It’s Friday, Katniss!”
Friday. Shabbat, Katniss thinks. After all this, that’s still happening. Tears spring to her eyes at the thought, and even though she isn’t sure if they are happy or melancholy, the water’s surface is suddenly much closer than it seemed a moment ago.
“We should bring something. For dinner,” Katniss says, and Prim grins because it’s exactly what Katniss would have said before everything happened.
Katniss decides there is no better way to spend her newfound fortune than on the Hawthornes, so the girls dress hurriedly and venture into town to do just that. They arrive at the Hawthornes’ doorstep with two cans of gefilte fish and a bottle of wine, extravagances previously scrimped and saved for to have at Passover.
The moment Katniss’s fingers leave the mezuzah, Hazelle wraps her in a long, tight hug. From under the older woman’s arm, Katniss can just make out the children playing, the challah on the table, the smile tugging at the corner of Gale’s lips. And that is when she finally breaks the surface. Her vision clears, and the sound of life roars back into her ears as she breathes in the ritual like oxygen. Things are finally getting back to how they should be.
Six:
Katniss takes her dinner of unidentifiable food to a sheltered table in the corner of the District 13 cafeteria, trying to avoid the stares as she walks. Technically, Peet’a hijacking isn’t public knowledge, but news travels fast when there’s nothing else to do, and her neck is still covered in bruises. She can feel people looking at her, and she hunches her head into her shoulders, staring at her tray. She’s about to pick up her fork when someone enters her peripheral vision.
“Hey, Catnip,” Gale says as he drops into the seat beside her. It’s the first time they’ve spoken to each other since she left the hospital.
“Hey,” she says, voice still quiet from lack of use.
“Look, Katniss, I know a lot of...stuff has happened, and I just wanted to make sure we’re still...okay.”
“Of course,” she whispers, brushing her hand against his on the table. And then she says, “I’m sorry. Thank you,” because even though it feels inadequate, it’s better than saying nothing.
He doesn’t need to say anything back. Instead, he squeezes her hand with familiar, calloused fingers that reassure her more than words ever could. When he lets go, she moves to pick up her fork again, but he stops her.
“Wait,” he says. “I need your help with something.”
Gale pulls a rucksack from under his chair, and Katniss realizes he must have come straight from training. From the rucksack, he takes out what appears to be a lumpy, gray dishcloth. She frowns at him quizzically as he gently unwraps the towel.
She gasps sharply when he pulls back the last piece of cloth. In his hands are her mother’s prized Shabbat candlesticks.
“How?” she stammers, running her fingers over the tarnished silver reverently.
“Found them when we did that propo back home.”
He must have gotten them while she was busy looking for her mother’s herbs. Before everything went to hell and she tried her best to hurt him. And yet, he was still here.
“I wanted to give them to you sooner, but the last few weeks have been--”
Kstniss cuts him off by wrapping her arms around him tightly, leaning halfway out of her chair and into his lap. He returns the embrace as best as he can without dropping the candlesticks. To her horror, she feels tears in her eyes, and she presses her face into his shoulder to keep him from seeing them.
“Thank you,” she breathes into his shirt, and for a split second, she feels something that might be a kiss on the top of her head.
Eventually, she untangles herself from him and simply stares at the candlesticks on the table. She realizes that, between the Games and hospital stays and almost getting blown to bits, she hasn’t observed Shabbat in weeks, and she suddenly feels awful.
Gale checks his communicuff. “Sunset in twenty minutes.”
He digs around in the rucksack again until he finds the matches in his survival kit. He holds one out to her.
Katniss takes it, but an avalanche of thoughts still her hand before she strikes it. She’s mentally disoriented. She shouldn’t have matches. She’s already the girl on fire, and look where that got her.
“Catnip?”
She strikes the match and lights the candles anyway.
Seven:
Sometimes they still go to Hazelle’s for the Friday Shabbat meal. The kids love to see their Bubbe and aunts and uncles and cousins--so many cousins. But many times, like tonight, they spend it just the five of them.
From her place at the stove, Katniss only has to turn her head slightly to see a pixie-ish blonde girl chase her little brother, a sturdy, dark-haired toddler, around the dinner table. They shriek in delight when their older sister, who looks so much like her mother, decides to end the game by hooking an arm around them as they pass her and tickling them until they fall to the floor.
It’s times like this that Katniss thinks everything was worth it. Her children have never known hunger. They wear clean, well-fitting clothes and live in a safe, warm house, surrounded by people who love them. They are confident that their needs will be met. The government is no threat to them, and they live in a world of justice and peace. Their worries are infinitesimal; their possibilities, innumerable. She could have never imagined such happy human beings, yet here they are.
As it should be, Gale is by her side. Literally, at the moment. He stands at the counter next to her, chopping potatoes for tomorrow’s cholent while she carefully removes the challah from the oven. The light from the oven flames glints off the plain gold band on his finger that matches the one on her own.
The sun dips lower in the sky, and together they manage to get the kids quiet and gathered around the table. The older two stand across the table from each other while the littlest one perches on Gale’s hip so Katniss can light the candles.
Gale looks at Katniss standing behind the candlesticks--the same ones he returned to her back in Thirteen--and all the memories of past Shabbats they shared fly through his mind like an arrow. His chest squeezes in a way he’s not afraid of anymore as he watches his best friend, the love of his life, the mother of his children, the best thing that ever happened to him light the candles.
And Katniss, when she covers her eyes, says not a supplication, but a thanksgiving.