A/N: Hello! I'm back in action and while I haven't updated my other stories yet, here's a little oneshot that I may or may not extend. Hope you enjoy! xxx
[grief]
He sat down and crossed his legs. The grass was soft and long and it tickled his calves, just like it always did. Everything seemed just as it had always been, but the difference between then and now was as obvious as it was heartbreaking.
The grief and regret that filled Gale's heart was overwhelming. The thought that he would never, ever feel her warmth again, leaning heavily on him, expanding and contracting with her breathing, was simply too much for one man to handle.
"I want them all back," he said. His fingers pushed forcefully down through the loose earth. "I want Father back. I want Catnip back." His fingernails were crusted with soil, and broken pieces of grass were strewn haphazardly around the small pit he had scraped. Small, sharp bits of rocks cut into the skin under his nails and the earth pushed them deeper in, but he didn't stop. He continued to force his fingers through the soil until the pain became too great and he had to stop.
For the next two hours, he sat, staring at the sky, watching it darken while the tears gathered in his eyelashes and fell like rain onto his greasy trousers. He didn't try to stop them or wipe them away. He simply let them go,
When the sun finally sank out of his sight, he stood, turned and left. The deep furrows in the earth watched him go, and when he had gone, they too faded into the darkness.
+
[agony]
Sometimes, when he was down in the mines, halfheartedly chipping away at a coal seam, Katniss's image would drift from the back of his mind to the back of his eyelids. He would wonder what she was doing then. Was she hunting? Was she fishing? Was she lying up in a tree, thinking of him? Was she even breathing? Not knowing the answer to these questions agonized him greatly, and sometimes he felt like he might cry.
Today, though, was the seventh day that he was going to spend without her, and he did cry. His cloudy, grieving gray eyes glistened with wetness and his throat tightened. A lonely tear rolled down his cheek, tracing a thin, clear path through the dust coating his face. He quickly raised his hand and wiped it off. He was a man now, and among other men. He shouldn't be crying.
The weathered sixty-something year old man next to him heard his slight sniffle and turned to face him. "Cheer up, mate," he murmured. "She's a survivor and she ain't gone yet."
The older man didn't know it, but his words were what moved Recruit Hawthorne steadily (if not slowly) along for the next few weeks leading up to the conclusion of the 74th Hunger Games.
+
[hope]
From that day onwards, Gale decided to keep his head up and believe in Katniss. He counted the number of tributes left each evening when he returned home, and every time someone died, he would think to himself, that's one less bastard left standing between us. And he would look at his mother and smile, no matter how tight his throat got.
He was doing fine until the rules changed, and she screamed another boy's name from the top of a tree.
A/N.2: Sooooo did you like it?! I'm sorry I've gone AWOL for a while, I've been really busy, but now that I have some time on my hands, I'm back and I'll probably be more active. :) Review and tell me if you think this should be more than a oneshot! xxx