A/N: Hi! This is my first Hunger Games fanfic, so I'm really nervous. But I had this idea, and it just wouldn't leave my head, so I had to write it down. English is not my mother tongue so, please, if there are any mistakes, kindly point them out to me, and I'll fix them.

This is the first story among five I have planned. I thought about different characters and their feelings during the war (and the situations that led to it), and then this came about - I decided to write a story with basically five different points of view. I hope the characters have stayed in character. I tried. Also, if I should put any trigger warnings, please tell me. :)

Well, without further ado, I present to you - The Soldier.

Arms wide open, I stand alone

I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone

Right or wrong – I can hardly tell

I'm on the wrong side of heaven

And the righteous side of hell

Five Finger Death Punch – Wrong Side of Heaven

Gale was born with blood boiling in his veins and an understanding that the world he lived in was unfair, and that this accursed life was not what it was supposed to be. For years, he had kept his raging fire tamed, never letting anyone – except for a girl he believed possessed the same kind of fire – see the inferno burning in his soul. For years he had poured icy water over his tattered, used up body, trying (and failing) to put it out. For years, he had struggled with the oppressive ways of his country's government and the belief that he was meant for something more. Until he'd finally gotten the chance to prove it.

And who else would it be that would grant him that possibility but Katniss, the girl he knew was on fire before anybody else did, his partner, his friend, the girl he loved.

How every piece of his being wept when she did what no one else had ever done before. He wept because of grief, pride, fear. She was such a reckless, selfless girl, one that would do anything for her baby sister, even jump straight to her own death. She was a hunter, though. She'd be okay. She would win, and return to him, and he'd tell her the words he didn't get to say when those damned men in white took him away from her. The words that stupid Merchant had so easily said – no, not those words exactly, but the sentiment was clear – in front of the entire nation.

It was a ploy, Gale had told himself, and he had to hold on to that thought every time their lips connected in that stupid cave, or in the moment when it really seemed that Katniss, his Katniss, had been ready to throw her life away because she couldn't keep the baker's son (he had felt so betrayed, though the logical part of him knew he had no right to, because, after all, the two of them never said anything to each other). In the end, it really had been a ploy – but how much of it, no one knew.

When she had returned, Gale was so confused. It was her, but she was different. He could still recognize her, but there were parts of her that were new and unknown to him. And he used to believe he would always know her better than anyone.

She and the Merchant had obviously had some sort of falling out, and it had given him hope, but she'd crushed it almost immediately when she made it clear that it was complicated, that she didn't love the boy, but she cared deeply for him, and Gale had realized her sentiments towards him were exactly the same. So he'd pushed aside the talk of what they were (for a while), and instead focused on the rebellion she had started.

It was unintentional, she'd said, but Gale believed that wasn't completely true – she might not have done it consciously, but she must have known, somewhere deep inside her mind, what would have happened after she'd buried that little girl, after she'd raised those berries to her mouth. She had to have realized it was a form of rebellion against the Capitol, against the unjust system that led twenty-three children to slaughter each year. But she was stubborn, said she only wanted to live peacefully, that her only concern now was Prim, and that she didn't have any intentions of further feeding the flames. He just had to be patient with her – she'd lived through such a horror – and eventually, she'd see the truth, see the magnitude of her actions, and realize what kind of power she held in her hands, and what she could do with it.

She'd asked him to runaway with her, though, and every thought he had of fighting had flown out of his mind, because Catnip had chosen him, and he loved her, and he could finally say those words to her. But any hope he had was crushed (yet again), only seconds later, and when she had admitted that everything had already started, the rebellion, the war, he forgot about his feelings for her (no, pushed them aside again), decided to stay and make all kinds of trouble.

If him being beaten to death was what she'd needed to finally decide to rebel, then so be it.

The Quarter Quell announcement had come, and she was taken from him yet again. By then, Gale was furious, and he knew that nothing could help him quench the flames now. He cursed himself, his inability to protect her, and spent his days desperate, angry, almost mad. He had helped them prepare, her and those two other Victors, but every day he had been furious at the fact that Katniss was determined to save the boy, not herself, and he'd probably been even more furious at the fact that the boy was trying his hardest to save her, so Gale couldn't hate him, because they had the same goal, and he would do anything he could to help (even smile for that stupid picture that had to be taken for who knows what reason). So they left, and he, the one left behind – as always, it seemed – could only hold his breath and put his faith into a boy he wanted to hate.

But then she'd done it again. And now, even if what she had done in her first Games was just a desperate attempt to survive (and save a boy Gale – at the time – had thought wasn't really worth saving), what she did in her second Games could pass for nothing, but an act of defiance. So the moment he saw her draw her arrow to the fake sky above her head, Gale was ready to fight. He'd saved those he could save (not enough, never enough), and when the soldiers from Thirteen came to lead them far away from the wreckage of what had once been their home, Gale joined their forces without a second thought.

It hurt him to see her so broken, when they'd saved her and she had learned that not only was her home gone, but the one she had desperately tried to save (yet again) was not there with her. But Gale had always believed in Katniss, believed in her fire, and he knew that it would be just a matter of time before she joined him in the fight, not as an ordinary soldier, but as their leader, as the light guiding their way. So what if she had her conditions? Of course she had them - she was Katniss Everdeen, and Katniss Everdeen always put the safety of her loved ones before anything else. If she wanted that stupid boy back, hell, he'd go right into the lion's den and save him! Why she needed him, Gale would never know, because she was much stronger than both of them, but at the moment that wasn't even important. If the only way Katniss would look at him, truly look at him, was to bring the other one back, he'd do it. He'd do anything for her and the rebellion.

But he should have known that that was a stupid idea. Of course the Capitol had messed him up. Of course they had turned him into a weapon against her. Why anyone would think they wouldn't do that (why he himself didn't think they would do that) was beyond him. And now he'd probably lost his only chance at a fair game against the damned mutt (because that was what he was now, a Capitol creation, and Gale felt a strange sadness and a weird feeling close to longing for his old rival). Now Katniss could never be his. Now she would forever live in the past, unless he recovered by some miracle. That's why he'd let it go (for a while, again, again, again), and she'd let it go, and they focused on the more pressing matters.

(She refused to let Gale kill him and end his, hers, the mutt's misery once and for all.)

Slowly, Gale had come to realize how different the two of them actually were. He'd been noticing it for some time, but he tried to turn a blind eye to it, to ignore it, to convince himself it was all just temporary, that the war was turning them into something they weren't. But the more time had passed, the more Katniss seemed to think of him as someone cruel. It hurt and Gale retaliated by thinking of her as someone too stubborn, too idealistic (no doubt under his influence), and too unwilling to make a few sacrifices for the greater good.

The brief moments when they would work together like they used to, when they were just hunting partners in the woods outside of the fence of District 12, came and went in life threatening situations that called for reflexive actions, and Gale wasn't sure whether he should have been happy they could still work in sync, or should've mourned the fact that they only seemed to do it when neither of them was thinking.

…

That day, it all had ended.

The two of them had left the shelter together, a team again (a team for the last time), and they braved the enemy's streets with one goal in their minds – to kill the man who had taken so much from her, from him, from everyone. As they advanced, they saw the true horror of war: innocent people on the enemy's side; children lost in the hail of bullets; people struggling to survive.

Still, they had fought. He had saved her - but then it all fell apart. She'd broken her promise to him (she should have killed him then, Gale would sometimes think). He'd broken his promise to her - he had failed to save her sister, the number one thing she'd always expected from him. Worse yet, he – unintentionally, unwillingly – helped lead her to her demise. Katniss couldn't forgive him. And if she ever forgave him, Gale knew, she could never forget it. So it all had ended. The rebellion, the war, the complex relationship the two of them had formed years ago, when misfortune destroyed their innocence and lead them to each other; and he grieved.

But she wasn't fair. Gale loved Prim. She'd been like his sister. He had taken care of her, he'd saved her several times, he had never, ever wanted her to die. He wanted her to live in the new world he, Katniss and all the other rebels, Prim herself helped build. He wanted her to smile freely. To live a life she wasn't allowed to before. Simply, he had wanted her to be happy, had wanted his siblings to be happy, without counting the seconds to the next bad thing that would happen.

That was why, even years later, her beautiful blue eyes and the wistful smile of a child forced to grow up too soon would haunt his dreams, sometimes even his waking moments. He would hear screams of children, and would feel their blood all over his tattered, used up body. That blood, he'd think grievously, was what would finally extinguish the fiery inferno that had burned him down to his very bones.

Gale was born with blood boiling in his veins, but he believed he would die with nothing but ashes in the shell of his skin.

A/N: I believe that Gale was hurt by Prim's death almost as much as Katniss, and it honestly pains me when I see him portrayed as a monster. He was just a child, like all of them, and the war had changed him just like it changed the others.

The relationship between him and Katniss always reminded me of an endless loop - one moment they were friends, the other angry at each other, then they were something close to lovers, and it all played out in the same way again and again and again. I think he was really frustrated by that, but he tried his best not to let it show.

I would really like to hear your opinions on this story, and if you have an advice or anything like that for me, I'll gladly hear it!