Gale fought through the crowd. The firebombs were beginning to decend upon the Seam, unleashing horror, pain, tragedy. He had managed to evacuate the Seam, and had taken them all to the lake. He had rescued everyone he cared about - except one. And she was the most important. Yet still, he found himself staring, eyes wide at the horrors of seeing young children burning to death, being engulfed by flames and giving out heart-wrenching cries, pulling on his heartstrings. He berated himself, and tried to ignore the horrors in front of him, trying to get to Madge.
He focused on her in his mind, her spun-gold hair, her smiling green eyes, her laugh, and how hearing it was enough to put a smile on his face for the rest of the day. He focused on their first date, how he had taken her to a spot he had discovered while running away from a grizzly bear, and they had had a midnight picnic. He focused on not caring the next day that he was exhausted the next day, or that he was slipping in and out of slumber – the time he spent with her was enough. He focused on how he'd stopped having nightmares every night, to find no relief in waking. Instead he'd had pleasant dreams, and loved waking up, purely for the reason that each day bought a chance to see her.
He focused on how he loved her and never told her. He focused on the look on her face he could imagine when he told her .
Which hole in the fence was closest to her house?
The one by the apothecary, he thought to himself. But he was too late. He heard anguish- filled screams, and realized they were coming from him. His whole world had come crashing down – they had made up. He loved her. He had been flying with silver wings, only to find that they were now gone, and he was crashing to the ground. He was watching the girl he loved burn to death. He was far enough to see her, but be safe. He could tell she had seen him and had been trying to make her way to him. Yet there she was, engulfed in flames.
His heart was being ripped in half as he heard her shrieking, screaming for him. It was like he no longer had a heart, just an empty, gaping hole where it had been. He saw her... He saw her being... He heard her last... He saw her di... That was when he had blacked out, where Thom would later find him.
So months later, when he tried to fall for Katniss once more, he knew deep down, it was because of Madge. He needed a part of her somehow, otherwise he was just running on pain and emptiness. He couldn't do it. So when the rebels took the Capitol, Gale realised why he felt so strongly about his hatred for the Capitol. They needed to suffer, they had taken Madge away from him, so he needed to take something from them. But, when the rebels did, all he felt...
Emptiness.
He had never felt so alone, so cold, so hurt... It felt like he was drowning and trying to breathe for air and he couldn't...He could swim to the top yet nobody was there to pull him up, no Madge. It felt like the end of his life, and was. She was his life... All he wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep, never wake up again. Everyday was a tragedy. Dragging himself out of bed, trying to pull himself together for his family, while falling apart. Every part of him was broken, with Madge possessing the secret to putting him back together, yet she would never return, never smile once more, never make his heart race once more, nor give him that feeling of pure joy and happiness, of true love. He couldn't smile, he couldn't laugh. They were those things he could do with Madge, and only mean them truly next to her, but she was gone forever more. Life wasn't the same, his heart wasn't the same... it would never be that way again.
Madge. He never told her he loved her.
So in all those interviews he would sit through in the future, he would never truly say what he felt what his "biggest regret" was. For he knew, never telling Madge he loved her, and always would – after all, every fibre of his being still ached for her- was his biggest regret. On the truly awful days, he hated her, nearly as much as he hated himself. He hated her for existing, for allowing him to fall for her, for being such a wonderful person that he needed her, flaws and all. Of course, that was just on those days, which was why he tried to focus of the positives. Focus on Madge. At the end of the day, she was the reason he still lived. For her. Anything for Madge.
After all, he still loved her. He always would. For Gale Hawthorn, Madge Undersee was the one, something he had never believed in before he met her.
Strange that, wasn't it?