Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Based off the prompt (with a little twist) I received on tumblr:"If a clock could count down to the moment you meet your soul mate, would you want to know?"

Broken Clocks

Gale's watch had stopped exactly thirteen years, seven months, three weeks, and one day ago. It's absolutely useless.

The stupid thing, which was supposed to tell him when he was going to meet his 'soul mate', whatever that meant, had simply stopped dead mid tick. He'd met his supposed 'other half' sometime during a game of kickball and hadn't even noticed until after the game ended.

He'd checked the watches of everyone he'd been playing with, girls and boys, because what did he know at the age of four and a half what his future held, and while some had stopped none had stopped at the exact time his had.

After that he'd put it out of his mind. He wasn't like the people who continually checked their watches, saw them jump forward or fall back due to unforeseen changes in fate. Gale had already met his 'soul mate' and missed his moment. The rest of his life would be spent either alone or with someone he chose himself, and that suited him just fine. He didn't like the idea of some stupid clock telling him who he was supposed to love anyway. Besides, he was hardly the only person with a stopped clock.

Vick is preoccupied with his, which is slowly counting down, still years off.

"I want it to be the candy girl," Gale overhears him tell Rory one day when they're walking home from school.

Rory rolls his eyes. "It can't be the candy girl, Vick. First off, she's way older than you, and second, you've already met her."

"Not officially," Vick counters. He turns to Gale, "Don't you have to officially meet them for it to count?"

Gale just lifts his arm and points to his stopped watch and shrugs. "Doesn't seem like it, does it?"

Vick wrinkles his nose and turns back to Rory. "Whatever, Just 'cause Gale doesn't remember meeting his person doesn't mean he didn't 'officially' meet her, maybe he just didn't know."

Gale chooses to ignore Vick's doubt of his ability to know whether or not he met a person, shoves his hands into his pockets and trudges on.

"Maybe I'll go in there today and introduce myself," Vick says. "Then when my watch stops you'll feel pretty stupid, Rory."

"You'll feel pretty stupid for flirting with a girl that's like, I don't know, six years older than you," Rory mutters.

"She's only five years older than me," Vick tells him loftily.

Gale isn't sure if he's impressed that Vick has done his research on his 'candy girl' or horrified that his brother has a crush that has taken him to such lengths. He settles on annoyed when Vick passes the turn to their house and begins marching toward the town, a look of utmost determination on his face.

"Vick!" Gale groans. "We need to get home!"

"Why?" Vick asks as he turns. "What's so important at home that trumps true love?"

He's lost his tiny little mind. That's the only explanation. Vick has been fed some kind of concoction and is having delusions of grandeur. Gale, as always, suspects Thom. That boy lives to make Gale's life misery.

Jogging after his brother, with a giggling Rory trailing behind, Gale plans out what he's going to say to convince Vick that this is a terrible idea.

"She's from town," Gale tells him. He's a little out of breath. "Even if her clock stops she isn't going to drop everything and run away with you."

"Plus, you know, you're like nine, Vick," Rory adds.

Gale feels a little stupid for not having mentioned that first.

"Exactly," Gale begins again, "wait a few years, until it'll be reasonable for her to date you and then introduce yourself."

Maybe by then Vick will get over this weird little crush and move onto a girl he actually has a chance with. Gale just doesn't want to watch his brother's little heart get shattered in the middle of the Donner family sweet shop.

Vick isn't listening though, is single mindedly determined to carry out this ridiculous quest, as he trudges through the cobbled streets of the town.

When the shop comes into view with its window display of lurid, brightly colored candies and chocolates, Gale tries one last time to convince Vick not to go through with this plan of his.

"What're you going to do when your watch doesn't stop?" He asks, pointing out the most likely outcome.

Vick stops, shrugs. "Then I'll know. There's always a chance it will though."

Gale and Rory stand outside the shop as Vick pushes the heavy glass door open and the little bell overhead jingles cheerfully, announcing his arrival. They catch a whiff of caramelized sugar and chocolate dipped confections as the door drops closed behind their younger brother.

"He's about to be squashed like a bug," Rory nods to himself.

Gale is inclined to agree.

They watch as the ancient candy man, Herschel, comes out, pushing his glasses up his nose and trying to dry his hands on an old towel. Vick begins speaking animatedly to him and the old man laughs, hold up a finger and disappears into the back again.

Vick's 'candy girl', who Gale finally remembers is named Madge and is a few years behind him in school, appears behind the counter. Gale can see why Vick is so enthralled. She's pretty, but not overdone like so many girls from town often are. Her hair is pulled back, out of her face, and she already has a streak of white powder across her cheek.

Gale watches as Vick introduces himself and quickly looks down at his watch. A look of complete disappointment takes over his features. Madge notices and comes around the counter, leans against it as Vick begins talking, no doubt explaining his silly plan.

For her part, Madge doesn't laugh or look annoyed, maybe she gets boys introducing themselves to her on a daily basis, she only nods and offers Vick a sympathetic smile.

When Vick finally finishes she holds out her watch and shows him it, either that her future beau is still years away or she's already met him and the wedding is set for the minute after she graduates, and smiles sadly.

Vick frowns at it, studying it for a minute, nods, then practically leaps at her and gives her a hug.

Gale imagines she probably wants to throw boiling chocolate at Vick for his accosting her, but she just pats his back before making him pull back.

After she's given him a small paper bag of some unknown candy, straightened his cap, she waves goodbye.

Not looking quite as devastated as Gale had anticipated, Vick emerges, hand already grubby from reaching in the bag of chocolates Madge had given him. He gives Gale a chocolaty grin. "I know something you don't know."

"If it's that your watch is still happily ticking away, we got that," Rory huffs as he tries to reach into the back of candy.

Vick snatches it away. His eyebrows rise and he looks at Gale. "I was talking to Gale."

Gale isn't in the mood for guessing games. Gale just wants to go home and relax for a few minutes before he and Rory have to start making rounds with his mother's laundry bag. Though because of this detour, that probably won't happen.

"Vick just tell me," he grumbles as he runs his hand down his face.

Stuffing a hunk of chocolate in his mouth, Vick says, "Madggi's wash ish shtopt doo."

"What?" Gale makes a pained face.

Vick swallows down the enormous bite and grins again. "I said 'Madge's watch is stopped too'."

"When's the wedding," Gale asks offhandedly as he takes Vick by the shoulders and tries to steer him away from the sweet shop.

Digging his heels in, Vick spins around. "There isn't one, dumb-dumb. She doesn't know who it is."

While that's interesting, Gale isn't keen on starting a support group for people who've missed their 'one true love' and will live their lives alone. "So?"

"I looked at the time on her watch," Vick tells him slyly. "It looked real familiar, so I looked at it really good."

Again, Gale rolls his eyes. "So?"

"It's your time, Gale," Vick finally tells him. "I'd know it anywhere."

#######

For the next week Gale contemplates what Vick had said, continues to say.

Apparently, if Vick isn't going to be Madge's match, he'll take having her as a sister figure. He makes sure to tell Gale at every opportunity that he's wasting more time with his future wife.

"I bet she'd give us free candy all the time," Rory adds.

Gale just covers his head with his pillow and tells them again that if they tell their parents or Posy Gale will lock them both in their mother's hope chest and never let them out.

Instead of walking his brothers home after school, Gale heads off by himself and sneaks by the sweet shop, working up the nerve to go inside and see if Vick is telling the truth. He isn't a liar, not like Rory, but Vick does have an ornery streak. Gale wouldn't put it past him to fib just to embarrass the pant off Gale.

Finally, on the next Friday, a full week after Vick had gone in, Gale is standing carefully out of the eye line of the shop's counter, watching Madge rearrange the chocolate covered strawberries, when the gloomy gray sky finally does what it had been threatening to do for two days. It opens up and pours down.

In a fit of shock, Gale jumps through the door, hears the little bell jingle overhead, as he tries to shake off the droplets that had come down on him.

He runs his hands through his hair. It's a soggy mess now, wild looking. Best way to make a good impression.

"So it took a rainstorm to get you in, huh?" A soft female voice asks.

Gale turns and finds Madge standing behind the counter, wiping her hands on her chocolate streaked apron. There's a faint smile on her pale lips.

"Huh?" Gale feigns ignorance. She doesn't buy it.

"You've been creeping around out there for a week," she points out. "I was beginning to think maybe you were planning on robbing us."

He isn't sure how she'd seen him, he had been very careful to stay out of view of the counter.

She points to a round object on the wall with a very reflective surface. A mirror. Damn.

"Oh," he fumbles his words. "I was just…"

There's no good explanation for why he had been hanging around her family's shop for a week. All he can offer her is a shrug.

She props her elbow on the glass case next to her, the arm with her watch dangling down by her hip. "Well, the least you can do is buy something if you're going to drip all over our floor."

Looking down at the puddle forming at his feet, Gale nods and takes a step toward the case.

He doesn't exactly have a lot of pocket money, especially to waste on candy, but it'll give him an opportunity to look at her watch a little closer.

After a good five minutes of debating, Gale picks the least expensive thing he can find and gets the minimal amount possible.

Madge bags it up, weighs it, rings him up. When she reaches across the counter to hand him his change, Gale, tired of catching only glimpses of her watch, grabs her hand.

"Hey!"

She tries to pull it away, probably thinks he's a lunatic, but Gale finally gets what he's needed for days. Confirmation.

Before she can wiggle away, he rolls his wrist and points at it. "Look."

With one last tug, she finally huffs and looks at his watch. Her nose scrunches up for a second as she takes in what she's seeing. Then her eyes widen.

"Oh."

They stay there for a few minutes, both staring at the identical times on their watches, frozen at the same points in their lives.

Same time.

Same date.

Finally, Madge frees her hand from Gale's and begins rubbing her wrist.

"Could be a coincidence," she says, not meeting his eyes.

"Could be," he echoes. Though that's not likely. The damn things were precise, and in a District as small as theirs it wasn't really much of a possibility.

Gale had spent the last few days wracking his brain, trying to remember meeting Madge on that wet, early spring day all those years ago. He couldn't though. As much as he tried, he couldn't. He'd been too young, and despite having tried to cement the memory of that day firmly in his mind, he'd lost most of it to the ravages of time.

If Gale had been too young, Madge certainly had.

Their first meeting, something that should have been a memorable event, or so Gale was told, was nothing more than a lost memory.

"If you-If you don't want it to be I won't say anything," she says softly, picking at a spot on the counter.

He stares at her. She's offering him an out.

"Don't want to lose status, huh?" Gale says a little coolly.

Her eyes finally look up, blue and watery. She wrinkles her nose. "I've heard about you and girls. Finding your 'match' would put a damper on your social life. It won't do much to mine."

A warmth floods Gale's face and he clenches his jaw. His father has always told him his rushing to conclusions would make him a fool more often than it would make him right, and not for the first time he's right.

"I only go out because I didn't think it mattered," he tells her, a little more evenly this time. "My watch had stopped ages ago, before I really knew what it meant. I just figured it was never going to matter."

Now it did though. He'd found his elusive match.

Madge nods, considers what he's said for a minute. After a minute of deliberation she reaches over into the glass case and pulls out one of the chocolate covered strawberries. She holds it out to him.

"These are my favorite," she tells him.

Gale carefully takes it from her, not really understanding why she suddenly wants to give him a treat. "Okay."

"Do you have a favorite?" She asks as she waits for him to do something, probably eat it.

"Um, no, not really." He'd never really had the opportunity to develop a taste for any of her family's candies.

"You will, eventually, maybe," she says. A little smile creeps up her face and Gale finally understand what she's trying to say.

A smile, just as small and just as knowing, finds its way onto his face. "Yeah, I guess I will."

Gale still didn't like the idea of some stupid clock telling him who he was supposed to love, but it might not turn out so bad. With a little time and effort, he might just love the girl he doesn't even remember meeting, thirteen years, eight months, and one day ago.