A/N: This was requested by Batmarcus. I don't own HG.
Let her go
Gale was letting her go.
She was going to go back to district twelve, or rather what remained of it, and he was staying in thirteen, at least for a while, from there he would see where his path took him.
He was letting her go, because he had nothing to offer her.
He let her go, because she would never be whole with him.
She had to go through the Games twice; she had lost her sister and her father, whilst he had managed to save his. She had almost lost Peeta, who was admittedly what made her strong.
He had seen it in the arena the first time. Katniss liked to think she was dislodged from her emotions, but she wasn't.
She was a good actress. Yes, she was very good, but he knew all of her tells and her weaknesses – and she had fallen for the baker's boy. Gale didn't like it, and he tried to win her affections back, but he couldn't force her to be with him. He wanted to, but it wasn't in him.
Gale couldn't blame the other tribute for loving her, because while Katniss wasn't perhaps the prettiest, she was smart and resourceful, she was kind and caring, she was selfless. She was everything Gale wasn't.
He also knew she could be a bit mean, because he knew that she could never forgive him for the fact that his brain-child killed her baby sister.
The man had watched her leave with the baker's boy, his heart shrinking a bit. He would probably never love again. It was a new time for them, a new era with no Hunger Games looming over their shoulders, with no threat of death, where not everything was watched and controlled.
It wouldn't be perfect. It would be better than what they had now, though. Anything would be better than sending your children to the slaughterhouse.
He watched go, letting her go, and decided to keep his distance. She would find happiness in Peeta, because he had stayed with her through it all, even after they got him back from the Capitol.
Letting her go was hard, but it was the best decision in his life.
. . .
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