The Hunger Games – A Song For You
Maybe one day, it would be okay
The world as Gale knew was over.
It had been five years since the end of the Capitol, since Katniss speared Coin, since Snow finally fell, since Gale walked away from the only girl he had ever loved because she couldn't look at him like she did before and he couldn't bear to face her anymore, not after Prim. Innocent, sweet, giving Prim, who died a horrible, if swift death, probably because of Gale's efforts in how to better kill and end Snow's increasingly bloody rule.
Five years, and so much had changed. So much had changed in only a few days, right up to the day Katniss was allowed to return to District 12 after killing Coin, with Gale going from best friend, maybe even a possible lover, to a pariah. His decision to move to District 2 was a quick one as well, and he never quite regretted it. No one truly knew him there, and no one would ever ask him how it felt to carry the lives of so many innocents on his shoulders, especially Prim's.
Those who knew he was from District 12 and 13, that he had helped in the Rebellion and designed plans to better assist the fight seemed captivated by his mere presence sometimes, though he sometimes allowed himself to admit he was good looking, and while that alone had never been enough to entice Katniss to his side, other girls, girls who weren't Katniss and never could (would) be were not as dismissive of his looks and charms. His smile at them only ever dimmed when they asked what exactly he had done for the Rebellion, because then it all came rushing back, and he couldn't breathe. For the first year or so, he could only run when someone made him remember Prim.
The mere mention of Snow's fall was enough to remind him of his role in it, of how children were killed with his bloody hand not on the trigger, but close enough. It was enough, and that nearly destroyed him.
Still, those who were unaware of the truth thought him a hero of the Rebellion, brave and bold and strong, like everyone in the Squad 451. They fondly made him out to be almost like Finnick Odair, beloved, beautiful and eternal, and God, but that made him throw up sometimes. Finnick hadn't died because of Gale, because of anyone, really, but he was sure he wasn't the only one in the Squad who could still faintly hear his dying screams.
He wasn't a Tribute, he had never been anywhere near a Hunger Game, and joining the Squad had been a way to keep Katniss protected and alive, to help bring down the man who had caused so much misery and suffering throughout his life. In the end, Gale couldn't put his finger on what he had done to help, other than getting Prim killed. Whatever people told him he had done was bullshit, anyone else could have done those things, anyone else would have, if the girl they loved ever looked at them the way he thought Katniss looked at him sometimes.
Never again, though. After Prim, she could not look at him again, and no other girl ever looked at him like that, anywhere near that. The love and fondness and exasperation and friendship and history he had with Katniss were gone, and he doubted any girl he met would ever be able to love him like he thought (hoped) she could've, if not for Peeta. Or maybe even despite of Peeta.
Gale only ever wanted to help the Rebellion, he only ever wanted to avenge his District, his entire family, and to make Katniss smile again, as she once did at him, before the Games (before Peeta). He had done it all, but in the process, he lost Katniss's ability to smile at him and only him. She was kind enough to write him once it was possible (he had hoped she would've sent him a video – but that was probably too much to expect), and told him about the slow progress into anything resembling normalcy. She didn't mention Peeta, but Gale knew.
Peeta was the one to receive Katniss's smiles now, the brave and bold and beautiful hero the girls who circled Gale told him he was, the one who could soothe Katniss's nightmares the way Gale never could and never would be able to. He wondered sometimes if one day he would be able to see her again, if she would welcome him into her home, like she once did, if she would be able to look at his face and not see Prim in his guilty expression.
Then he thought– Maybe it was going to be okay. Five years was a long time but a short time, especially to someone like Katniss, who kept everything so deep inside it never, ever came out, and to someone like Gale, who could bury his feelings to such a degree he could pretend they never existed. Maybe in another five years, or ten, or twenty, when Gale finally found a girl (a woman) who didn't think he was the Rebellion's hero, he might be able to return to District 2 and see Katniss again, see Peeta and not resent him.
Maybe one day, Gale's first instinct when someone called him a hero and asked for a story of the Rebellion, of his days in the bowels of District 13, of his Squad time, wouldn't be to cry and scream and shoot the person and himself. Maybe one day, he might be able to accept that only those who were there could possibly understand, and while he could never be a hero to himself or to the person he loved most, to those untouched by the guilt he knew he would always carry, he might be, and it was just something else he would have to accept and move on from.
It was a new world, but some things were still beyond Gale's ability to change them.
For whatever bizarre reason, I started honest to fucking God tearing up from the middle forward, and seriously, I don't even care that much about the movies (never read the books) or Gale, but man, it got to me.
WTF