an: This is for Aimy [lonely hands] for her birthday! I told you I'd write it!

I don't own anything [not the hunger games or the song]

slight edit on some parts of the books

PrimGale

It's wrong; it's wrong for him to think back and realise that he was in love with the wrong Everdeen sister, that he lost out on the chance to be with the girl who was really for him, because that would have been worse than what the Capitol had done to the children of the Districts, he thinks bitterly. To love a thirteen year old girl the way he thinks he does – did – would be worse, because it's something he has orchestrated, and certainly not part of some grand scale game that had been running for seventy five years.

And yet whenever he remembers Prim's face, her golden locks bouncing on her shoulders in that way only her hair could move, in an atmosphere so tainted by coal dust and years of disdain, he feels the pang of passion, of desire that he thought he used to feel for Katniss, before he realised that their similarities made them wrong for one another. Prim's gentleness, the way that she cared for him when nobody else seemed bothered, continues to astound him, because he thought that nobody could be like that; emotions and feelings like that are normally confined to the history books, back in the days when people wrote stories of love and passion, when public figures weren't dictators but rather the people who were so deeply in love, they were universally adored. Yet Prim made (makes) him realise that these emotions still exist in Panem; they're just different, more hidden because they're seen as weaknesses in a world obsessed by violence and war, things that ought to never be known about because they only lead to your downfall.

After all, look where she is now, eh?

And now, as he sits on the hills in District Two, looking for similarities and differences in the long grass that is slowly being cut down to allow for the District to branch out into the 'wilderness' to remind him of his home, a place where he'll never set foot again, he remembers all the memories they shared between her sister volunteering to save her and her death, as he realises he's responsible for everything in her life inbetween.

It just took her death to realise how big a role he had played.

~x~

She's screaming for Katniss, screaming that she needs to get back, that she shouldn't have volunteered for her, because who would she be without her big sister? Gale's able to hear her from on the other side of the Square, and it's an automatic move for him to rush and fetch the little girl who ought not to be in this situation.

(Though he can't help but think now that it would have probably been easier if Prim had gone to the Games, because then he wouldn't have ever 'fallen' out of love with Katniss.)

His arms wrap around her slim waist and he hoists her off her feet, making sure that she stays away from Peacekeepers, people who'll want to hurt her if she tries to get past the barricades and get to Katniss. The girl wriggles but she's not strong enough to get past him, her hysteria making her flop into his chest, sobbing about how it should be her, that Katniss shouldn't have volunteered for her, because she's not worth it!

"You are worth it, Prim," he whispers into her hair, turning to walk back to her mother, to allow the grieving family to console one another, even though he thinks of Katniss as part of his family. "She wouldn't have gone for anyone else. She only went for you."

Only after he says it does he realise that it's the wrong thing to say, that she could take this and enter another rage of screaming and sobbing, to the point that she's forcibly quietened by the Capitol guards. But she doesn't; she stays quiet and her eyes, so vivid in colour, lock into his, and they both understand that they're in the same position.

They both adore Katniss…and they both worry that she's not going to come back.

(There's twenty four of them, after all, and he doubts even Katniss has skills to rival the Careers.)

~x~

He makes good on his promise to bring game to the Everdeens; thanks to the Games requiring him to stay out of work until he turns nineteen, he has plenty of time to hunt when he's supposed to be at home, watching the Games. Everything's changing for him, he thinks bitterly; the girl he thought he loved is actually in love with Peeta Mellark – though it does make a good match, his heart concedes – and he doesn't understand what he's meant to do. The entire District seems to be aware of his feelings for her; he can't go anywhere, least of all towards town, without anyone commenting on his love for her. His mother knows it; his siblings know it; even the damned Mayor's daughter thinks that 'their shared friend' is reason enough for her to approach him and tell him that it's alright, that she loves him more than Peeta, anyway.

(He distinctly remembers his mother muttering, "she'll break his heart one day." he just hadn't realised that it would be today.)

The only place he can go is the Everdeen household. Even with their relation to the girl in the arena – the Girl on Fire, he mutters under his breath – they don't judge him, don't make him feel as though they pity him, because all Prim and her mother want is for Katniss to come home. They can't do anything about the outcome of the Games, not from here, with them being as impoverished as they are, but they can hope.

And that's what they do.

When he walks in, Prim takes his hand and helps him with the game, offering him some of the baked goods the baker seems to bring round every day (Gale remembers a muttering about something Prim said that Katniss had told her about the baker, and realises that he hates Peeta even more) and chattering away to him as though they've always been best friends, rather than two people whose lives cross over in more than one way.

He begins to understand the way that she can be so gentle in the midst of such anger and despair, how she can cope with the dire situation she lives in simply by adoring the things she has. The cat, Buttercup, seems to be part of this, and the goat he remembers she got from Katniss because she knew that her kid sister could cure it, and Gale's sure that this is the sort of person everyone ought to be: caring and compassionate, qualities so few people have because of the history of Earth and all the ways that their ancestors destroyed it.

(He finds himself hating Katniss less the more that he likes Prim, because he can't hate in equal measure to love, can he?)

~x~

He finds himself missing Prim more than Katniss when he's working in the mines, because she was the one who can understand what he's like. Katniss is too involved in her own thoughts, her memories of the Games that she doesn't want to share with anyone, and he doesn't feel close to her like he used to; things came between them, and he can't put that straight. So he stops spending time with her on his Sundays off, never happens to meander up towards the Victor's Village, so never seems to see Prim.

(There's the feeling that he only wants to go there for Prim, but he's sure that he's still in love with Katniss anyway, even if the love is futile and completely and utterly unrequited. (He saw the way that she looked at Peeta in the cave.))

And so he swings his game bag over his shoulder on a Sunday and heads to the woods to try and feed his family, as he'll never accept anything from Katniss, never, because he's too proud. This is what he does, this is how he's survived for years. He'll never change that, not for all the money in the world.

(When he's whipped, the only positive thing he can think of is that he'll be taken to the Everdeen house, so maybe he'll be able to say hi to Prim after all this time, and ask her how Lady's getting on.)

~x~

He doesn't see Katniss anymore, not even in the woods, because they've been shut off, now. Ever since the Quarter Quell announcement, he knows that she'll have been training (even she isn't naïve enough to forget that there's no other female victor than her) but the fact that it's been with Peeta lingers on his mind. It mixes with all his other feelings towards her, and he decides that he's going to hate Katniss more than he can love her, so why not eradicate the feelings as much as possible? She'll be his best friend, nothing more, and that's what she wants, so he sort of has to give her that.

He just makes it easier by not going to see her.

On Reaping Day, he stands with Prim and her mother, his face grim because he knows that he should have said something to her; if only for Prim, to reassure Katniss that he'll look after her, no matter what, he should do it. So as he makes the decision to go see her, to tell her he's sorry for not being around enough and that he's a jerk, he finds out that they can't see the tributes before they leave.

They've change the rules because of what the star crossed lovers did in the last Games, and it robs him of his last chance to say goodbye.

It's him who allows the tears through this time; a year older, Prim is more cautious, more aware of what happens to people in this world, and it makes him want to cry harder because the little girl's innocence is gone. She's not as young a girl as before, granted, but she was supposed to be the one who could believe in anything, allow herself to see the best in situations – that was her. She was one of the optimists they did about in the pre-Panem history that seems too flaky and unrealistic to be real, one of the people who said that things could be different if people only believe, that there's a higher power and that those who believe join them when they die.

If he believed, he'd think Prim's an angel.

"Hush, don't cry, Gale," she murmurs as they walk slowly back to her house, her mother trailing behind, talking to his, and she places her tiny, white hand in his. The enormity of his hides hers, yet it's easy enough to pretend that she's bigger and stronger than she is, or smaller and weaker, dependent on what he thinks that she should be like; it changes, you see, changes every day, as to whether she should be able to stand up for herself, or go back to being meek and unaware of the horrors the world holds for them.

Today, he prefers her to be small and meek; not weak, but more naïve than she's become, thanks to the Capitol.

"Thanks…you're something special, Prim." He doesn't know what to say, because he had all these words for Katniss and they're not ever going to be said, are they? He can't tell them to Prim, because then she'd pity him for having loved her big sister and then realising that he's no match for Lover Boy, as the District Two tributes called him last year, but he wants to tell her that she means more to him than anyone else still in their District.

She smiles, and when she does, her entire face lights up, brighter even than before. "You're special too, Gale. Why else would you be still here, despite everything?"

Her face darkens as she realises what she's said, but he doesn't care; all he does is sweep her into a hug, press his face into her hair and understand that he wishes she were older, Katniss's age, because then to feel something for her at all wouldn't be as bad, would it?

~x~

The bomb alerts go off.

He heads to the Victor's Village straight after alerting his own family to the impending doom, yelling on his way for everyone to get down to the Meadow now; that's the only easy access to get to the safe place.

But he can't go without Prim and her mother; she's holding a place in his heart that he didn't realise had been empty before, and he knows to let her die would be a sin, a crime against humanity that would be even greater (or, at least par with) than the actions of the Capitol, so he has to try and get to her before the bombs hit.

"Prim, Prim!" he yells her name as he barges through their front door, not caring because otherwise niceties could cost them their lives. "You have to run! Now!"

She runs through from the living room, her eyes cast with doubt, though she has to hear the rumbling from overhead, doesn't she? He's worried that she's not going to believe him, not going to believe that they're under attack until they are hit – and he can guarantee that there's going to be nearly nothing left of District 12, not if this is because of everything Katniss and Peeta have done. The Capitol will want to eradicate the District which ignited the ticking time bomb, the one that will lead to the demise of everything that the Capitol wants and needs, and he'll be with it, if he isn't careful.

"What is it?" she cries out, her eyes betraying her fear, because she's never faced a situation like this, never been in a potentially life threatening situation, because of Katniss. "What's going on, Gale?"

He breathes heavily, leaning against the door as he tries to catch his breath enough to explain to Prim why she has to run, to run now, to save her life rather than perish like she could do.

"They've sent bombers," he says finally, his heart thudding as he watches her face intently. "They want to destroy District 12, razor it down to the ground. We're the District from which the rebels have their leaders; we're the cause of it. If they watch us go down, the Capitol hopes the rebels will calm down as well."

Her face is horrified, and it's with a new frantic edge that he's never seen before that she begins to pack the few things she wants to take, begins to fret that Buttercup isn't here so she can't take him, cries for her mother to tell her what to do. To her mother's credit, Gale notices, she's decidedly orderly, thinking it through quickly as to what they need to take, her focus being on the medicine she can use to treat the injured rather than anything for herself.

They're headed for the trees within five more minutes, and the noise of the hovercrafts is greater than before; they're almost here.

It's with an effort that they even get through the chain link fence before the first bomb is dropped – right on the mayor's house, he thinks, from the position of the plume of smoke, but before he dwells on whether Madge and her family got out, there's another bomb.

And another.

But his gaze falls on Prim Everdeen, and he knows that he's saved everyone he can, including her, the girl who makes everything worth it.

(Or so he thinks.)

"Where do we go now?" her lower lip quivers and he can't help but think back to the last time he saw that; the time when he was injured, when he was being told about District 13 by Katniss – Prim had caught herself on the side, and she was begging herself not to cry. So her lip quivered…and it was the same effort as it is today to stop crying, but he half wishes she would, so then he could cry.

(Looking back, though, he realises that he was always following her; everything he did was for her, after all.)

~x~

They spend time together – all of them, not just him and Prim – whilst they prepare in District 13, waiting for Katniss to become the Mockingjay, hoping that the time is right for the strike. He's beginning to worry her with some of his ideas, the pent up anger inside of him finally being allowed to show itself, and so he tries to distance her from the fighting talk, persuading Coin to send her to the infirmary to help – "she's not Katniss, after all; she's a little girl, with a gift for healing. Why would you want her here anyway?" – he argues, until finally the president allows her to go to the infirmary and let Gale work on the plans which revolve around the Capitol finding itself prone to more losses than they could ever imagine.

When Katniss shows her face, he comes to understand what his mind wants him to understand; he must think like Snow to beat him. That's how you work; you have to think like your enemy to pre-empt his moves, and above all, to understand how you can destroy him from the inside. And he decides that he has to make them hope, to make them think that they'll be spared – and then strike.

But to think like this, he finds himself losing his ability to love, and it's scary, because he thinks that he loves Prim, far more than he loves Katniss (or used to love Katniss) because she's sweet and gentle, everything he's come to realise he's not. He's a blazing fire, someone who will go out with a bang and send sparks flying when the day comes that he's taken from this planet.

(As he remembers this, he hangs his head in regret, because it's all his fault that Prim died the way she did, in the blazing inferno that was, in all honesty, his idea.)

And so they talk, but never about the war, never about 13 or the way that they may or may not survive. They talk about home.

He tells her about her father, things he remembers his father telling him, and she reminds him of the positives of 12: Greasy Sae and the kindness of those in the Hob; the way that they could keep livestock; Cray and the way that he never flogged Gale for the game, not once, and how his bad points were usually overlooked because of this…everything that Gale has come to forget, Prim brings back, her sweet voice making sure that he recalls the good things about 12, as well as the bad.

It makes him forget that, now, it's just a pile of rubbish and burnt bodies, the corpses of those too unfortunate to get out alive.

And as she presses her lips to his cheek the night before he's dispatched to the Capitol to fight (though he won't, he knows, because Katniss is too valuable to be put in danger) he thinks about how this could have all been different if she had just been older, or if he had been younger.

He doesn't think that he may never see her again.

~x~

Her body is the first thing he sees when he reaches Snow's manor, the brokenness of her corpse seeming too impossible to be true; she shouldn't be lying at that unnatural angle, only recognisable because of the brightbrightbright hair that could never be wholly burnt away, no matter the strength of the fire. She's the one he sees, not the other hundreds of bodies, not Katniss, the Mockingjay, mere metres away – she's the cause of this, he thinks sharply; if it wasn't for Katniss, her sister wouldn't be dead.

It's as he thinks this that he realises how he's changed, how he's become someone he doesn't recognise, all because of his thinking like Snow. He killed Prim, with his stupid idea about aid, he wants to scream, but he doesn't because he needs to focus on getting the still living out of there and saving at least some of the people he tried to kill.

But he can't get the image of his Prim out of his mind, can't forget the way that she lies on the floor, forgotten about in the melee of the moment, and the way that he would have asked her to be with him in a few years, if they both got through it.

The only issue is that they didn't.

~x~

He doesn't go back to District 12.

He knows his one time best friend does. He knows Peeta does. There's no longer the old animosity there between them; Gale understands that he was never meant for Katniss. He was meant for Prim.

And she's gone.

He can't return to the place which is devoid of Prim now, return to the place whose only good points had been picked out by the girl with the blonde hair; she'd haunt him everywhere, and he'd truly go mad, more than he already thinks he has. The war has destroyed them all, him especially, because of his role in the destruction of so many of their people. Killing Capitol children was never part of the plan; they didn't understand; they were just like his siblings, really, and so they didn't deserve to die.

And so he sits on the grass atop of a small hill just outside of District Two and breathes in the air; it's cleaner than his old home's air, but less comforting. There was something about the coal in the air that made him feel at home.

Here, he's just running from the nightmares, running from her, and so it can never be home.

He's doing alright for himself; he's high in the media side of the redevelopment of the District, making it one for development rather than defence for the Capitol. He's famous and wealthy enough to survive comfortably, but he doesn't want more than that as there's nobody to share it with.

That person is dead now, dead because of him, and he's destroyed the remainder of the family; because of him, Prim is dead, her mother can never return home, and Katniss is still broken – he can tell that on the phone, whenever they speak, though they're not as close as they used to be.

He just hears Prim when he hears Katniss.

So he closes his eyes and imagines Prim standing there before him, her hand reaching out for his. Her breath tickles his as she whispers,

"I'll see you when you die."

an2: I'd appreciate it if you didn't favourite without reviewing.

Vicky xx