I am not particularly fond of Gale's character, I will admit, however! I did see some potential while I was out today in how he felt and adding something to his personality. I don't know. Maybe I won't do him justice but this is just a 2-part piece I threw together this afternoon during lunch. I hope maybe someone likes it. I just wanted to explore his character a little more.
He wasn't particularly good at keeping his cool. He ranted and raved about the lot he had gotten in life. He was absolutely a vengeful person. There was little point in trying to deny that fact. It was unarguably a fact. Of all the people in the world, she would be the one to know it best. It was the reason she had been straying from him, it was probably the reason she was choosing him instead. It's hard to hate him, though, because he is so much better of a man. He had all of the qualities that she needed. But that's when Gale's thoughts would get confusing. Which he did he mean? Just when he was sure he was talking about Peeta he was switching them out for thoughts about himself. Gale was a selfish man, the type of man he never would have once described himself.
Gale hands over what is in his grasp. It is a sheath of arrows for her impeccable precision with an arrow. She is so predictable, even in her unpredictability. He loved that about her, of course, because that's the girl he's grown up with, she's the girl he would have given his life for. When she takes the sheath she holds it only for a moment, only having paused to look at Gale sternly. Although, her stare was blank and almost hard to read. Only almost, however, because Gale could usually see right past that lost look.
"I brought this. It's supposed to be symbolic. You firing the last shot of the war..." Gale responded. He was putting as much optimism into my statement as he possibly could conjure at that moment. It was pointless, however, because Katniss would not change for anyone. She was always so easy to read, and that was the only thing he could ever bring himself to hate about her.
"What if I miss? Does Coin retrieve and bring it back to me? Or just shoot Snow through the head herself?" She always thought about the what-ifs. Katniss thought in the alternative, which is unsurprising since her life was always reliant on what she can suppose for the future. Arguably, though, Katniss had little to actually worry about. Gale already sensed what she would bring up next. His best attempt to forget the events that occurred were to avoid the topic as best as he could.
"You won't miss." His last ditch and final defense effort was to put the sheath on her. It very well may have been, at the time, the last chance he had to interact with her, the last time he would get to touch her. Katniss was far too smart to not see what he was trying to do. At the end of the day, Peeta would be by her side. She can't live without Prim, but she has to – that means, logically, she can't live with the one who she thought caused it. It was obvious how Katniss felt. Everything was so obvious with her. Gale couldn't tell himself that enough. Especially at the time because he had been trying to convince himself that maybe she wouldn't be predictable this time. He had hoped her unpredictability would put her in his arms instead. Besides, that was the way couples should feel when with one another. Unfortunately, Gale knew that even though she may have once chose him for that exact reason at some discernible point in time, and now she would never.
"You didn't come see me in the hospital." Her voice was low and nearly silent. It even cracked at tears that Gale was sure were trying to escape. Prim was the reason she entered the games, the reason she paired up with Peeta, and the reason the rebellion was able to move so quickly. Katniss had been the reason so many of the districts had been devout the whole time through. Ultimately, Gale believed, Katniss was the reason anything had been successful. However, Prim would always be the reason why Katniss resented Snow as strongly as she did. Without Katniss' love for Prim none of those events would have happened and he would not had been in that position. He may have ended up with Katniss in the end; caring for Prim, her beautiful goat, and that ugly cat that Katniss hated so very much. Gale saw the future and reflected on how long lost it was. He dropped his gaze to the ground. Her words were stinging him in ways more painful than tracker jacker poison could ever hope to damage someone.
"Was it your bomb?"
Gale was breathless. He couldn't miss a beat, though, because that is not the person he was. He loved Katniss, and he would always love her. However, he could not change who he was, particularly if it wouldn't make a difference either way. He opened his mouth and spoke of exactly what he knew, or rather, didn't know.
"I don't know. Neither does Beetee." Gale had asked many times which bomb it had been, whether it had been one that Gale had helped design. He wanted to have an answer, aware that that moment would be inevitable. As soon as Katniss found him Gale knew she would be asking if it had been his. Gale had been so very desperate to know if it was his bomb. He no longer wished to even call it his, but there was nothing to be done about it then. It had happened in the past. Gale could only be thankful for one thing when Katniss confronted him: that it had been in such a civilized and calm manner. She had been in a relatively unstable state and she could have killed Gale on the spot had he said the wrong thing. Not that she ever would, he had secretly hoped. "Does it matter?" She looked like she was shaking her head, but Gale figured it was his imagination. She had grown visibly colder since he saw her last in a stable setting. If Gale had been honest with himself then he would have understood that Katniss lost the ability to love unconditionally when Prim was killed. If he had been sensible, the way he always saw himself before, he might have been able to identify the fact that Katniss' love would always be a broken love. Gale may not have cared, since he only wanted her love to be his own. If anyone could make Katniss love that way again, though, he assumed it would be Peeta. In Gale's heart he knew that Peeta was the guy for her. He would accept that. Jealousy and bitterness were the only emotions he could feel. "You'll always be thinking about it." It had felt as though his throat was ripping open inside. He would never understand how he managed to sound so calm.
Gale still didn't look into her eyes because he couldn't bring himself to see everything that he had lost. All those girls he had kissed before, all the early morning hunts, and the shared silences. The meaningless crushes and flings, all of those things were pointless. He had such a strong relationship with her and somehow Katniss was the one to grow up and be the heroic, wonderful person that she had always harbored deep inside. Gale, on the other hand, had become a derranged monster only capable of thinking for himeslf. Somehow along the way they had gotten separated, but there would never be anything Gale could do about it. She may have seen herself as the evil person who was self-motivated, but she saw Gale just the same after the bomb. He would wonder until he died what happened to their relationship.
Her eyes were glued to him. In a hushed voice he managed one last truth…
"That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family." Katniss did nothing when Gale looked up, which he expected. Nothing was going to help him with the mess he had been in. His misfortunes were his own fault and he would have to make peace with the pain as a punishment. He was not the man he thought he was, but more important he hadn't been the man Katniss once loved. That would be his new life. Katniss-less, loveless, and hopeless. "Shoot straight, okay?" The only indulgence he would allow himself was wishing death upon President Snow, but even in those last moments Katniss appeared to oppose the idea of executing him. A compassion had filled her eyes. It was the look she would get when her thoughts raced around to put together a puzzling set of events she had come across. He loved the way she looked when she was thinking that way, but it scared him in those moments what she might know that he somehow had not found out as well. He slid his hand onto her cheek and cherished the time he had left dearly, as if his life depended on in. In a huge way, Gale did rely on it. When he realized his presence had become unwanted he pulled away from her and left to wait for Katniss' public execution. He decided he wanted his last memory of her to be of her heroic deed – her killing the man that ruined everything anyone had ever loved in life.
He had been standing with Plutarch when Katniss was brought out to execute Snow. She was clearly at war with herself. He saw it, even at a distance. Gale jad thought of Peeta and himself. So many questions flew through his mind seeing her expression: Was she mulling over her decision? Was she considering coming back to him? Gale slapped himself in the leg to remind himself that that thought was impossible. Prim was dead and nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever convince Katniss that it wasn't his fault. Gale had one realization after another that day. He remembered how she openly protested his involvement in the weaponry division on more than one occasion. What happened only confirmed her the worries she had, ones that forced her to deal with a death she would never be ready for - a death she never planned to be alive to see. The death, however, had been as much a detriment to Gale as it had been to Katniss. His selfishness was aside because he, too, loved Prim as his own sister. He grieved over her as much as Katniss.
Before Gale could wrap his mind around any of the events that had occurred, the actions continued to take place. President Coin, who was not more than six feet away then, was suddenly on ground with an arrow demanding her death. Chaos was everywhere and the only thing he saw was Katniss being pulled by guards. He couldn't help but scream for her. "KATNISS! KATNISS! LET HER GO! KATNISS!"
His body writhed around, to and fro, through the crowds. He had tried to make his way down to the halls before the guards were too far away with her, before any damage could be done to her already beaten body. He moved quickly, but it was not nearly quickly enough. After fifteen minutes of yelling he heard some guards saying that she got locked away in the farthest cell from civilization. Gale chased the walls until he reached a gate that blocked the public from the prisons. He stood at the wall. Gale sent his fists pounding hard against the stone until they bled. It was the first time he allowed himself to fall apart and be an emotional mess since his father's death. He somehow knew that that would be something painful that he would never forget.
"KATNISS! WHY? KATNISS!" He would repeat this to himself over and over until his sleeves were covered in blood and his eyes were hurting from all the crying. He eventually sunk down to his knees and granted himself a few final sobs of his trauma before he forced himself upward. "I love you, Katniss. I am so sorry. I will fight for you, I swear. I will fight for you the way I should have fought before." He yanked himself back to his feet and swept his bloodied fist across his face in order to push the tears away. His expression hardened again and he found the strength to seek out Plutarch. He could not let Katniss be imprisoned, he could not let what life she had left be taken away from her. Gale had never known her to make the wrong decision. Even when she picked Peeta over him...