A Lot Has Happened

by Flyza

Gale returns to District 13 after three years of heavy fighting. Lonely and angry, he tries to deal with losing Katniss and fighting in the war. And what should he do with the return of an old acquaintance from District 12? Post-CF, not compliant with Mockingjay. Some dark themes and language. COMPLETE.

10. Chapter 10

A/N: Hey friends! I know it has been ages and ages, but good news: I've finished my first year of dental school! I can hardly believe it. And I will say that all of your words of encouragement were so, so appreciated. I was really struggling for a while, and your positive energy really helped my pull through…so thank you!

More good news! This story won for Best Alternative Pairing WIP at the Pearl Awards! Um, not certain who nominated me or who the heck is voting, but thank you! Seriously, that is amazing!

Also, a huge thanks to my wonderful reviewers: SuperObsessive, thank you!, Howlynn, gosh, what great reviews, and I have so much to reply that I think I will have to PM you, but at least let me say: David Foster Wallace is freaking awesome and I love that I finally know another fan of his!, nebakanezer, thanks, it's always nice to hear from new fans, carrieabanner, pansy25, I'm still amazed at how upset readers were about Mazer!, Estrunk, papermoth, where the heck are you? I miss your stories!, SuperJule, Sparkledith, charlie is so cool like fan, katehaven, what a nice review!, Ireth Tasartir Elf Princess, TheNerdiBarbieDoll, I love your enthusiasm…it makes me happy!, Hgteampeeta, I always love your reviews!, technicolor-dreaming, thanks so much! I'm totally paranoid about my writing since I'm out of practice so your words mean a lot, roj, Solaryllis, your reviews are always so helpful and sincere; also, I can't wait to catch up on your stories when I have more time!, IsForWinners, Lovestoread1996. I apologize if I forgot anyone!

Also, a special shout out to Estrunk who kept sending me messages pushing me to keep writing…so you can all thank her because I probably wouldn't have had the motivation to continue if it wasn't for her perseverance. Thank you!

Chapter 10:

Part I.

We're almost there. The heart of the Capitol.

Last week we breached the walls around the center of town, finally breaking through the formerly ornamental marble gates, now transformed into a vicious barricade bristling with machine guns and patrolled by fire and barbed wire and sleepless eyes.

It's disgusting, the way the politicians and richest Capitol citizens live inside the walls. Bloated and contemptuous in their gargantuan homes, gabled and landscaped; smug with their sweeping balconies and lush flowers, fountains and peacocks and gilded gates.

But their wealth can't buy these hoarders and thieves safety or mercy. Their rolling lawns and vast facades have been turned into staging grounds for the Capitol's forces. The clean white lines of their mansions are marred with soot and riddled with bullet holes. Their loggias are now vantage points for snipers. We raid their golden banquet halls, using the furniture for firewood and the space for ammunition storage.

It's terrible, this final push towards Snow's palatial residence at the town center. The Capitol is furious in its desperation, refusing to yield an inch.

Every time we kick down a door, swarms of Capitol soldiers pour out. Each block is a tortuous minefield of traps and shrapnel and gunfire. Flaming debris fall constantly from the sky as the Capitol's last hovercrafts desperately dogfight with our few remaining fighters.

Nights are the worst. We hunker down in trenches, hastily dug in the churned up mud of once-beautiful gardens, the genetically engineered and sickeningly perfumed flowers a strange contrast to the dirt and fear and infection rising with the water at our feet. Sleep is nearly impossible with the freezing damp of the mud below and the harsh spitting of gunfire above, so constant it is impossible to lift your head without the fear of losing it.

But even cramped and crowded in our grave-like beds, I can see the grim understanding etched into the lines of the rebels' faces, the hardness of their eyes. We don't have the choice to fall back, or the manpower to launch a new assault. This is our final stand. Our only chance.

Slowly our ranks grow, as though this bleak knowledge is somehow transmitted throughout Panem. Rebels from around the country hear our silent calls for reinforcements. The lines fill with old men, fragile and hunched, wispy white hair and emaciated with hunger. Boys materialize in the fog, their skin glowing and young, their cheeks curving softly like babies, their eyes wide and afraid. Men already injured limp into our camp. Men with one eye or one arm or burns marring their faces.

Because we have no choice. Regardless of age or injury or previous service, we are all sentenced to die if we don't win this final fight.

And it is a fight. Each inch a bitter conquest; crushing the bodies of our comrades under our boots with each step. And despite our terrible, terrible losses, each day brings us a little closer to Snow, our gains carried on a roiling, bloody sea of the dead.

I forget what fresh air feels like. What my fingers look like when they aren't covered with smears of blood. I fall asleep holding my gun, because I feel strange without it's weight in my hands. My vision blurs with dehydration and disease and lack of sleep; my ears ring with the sounds of gunshots and screams and shouted orders. The air is tinged yellow with noxious gas and death, and I can taste the metallic flavor of blood and desperation in the wind.

And in the haze of killing and noise and screams and blood, there is only one thing I know. One thing I think. The mantra that keeps us moving, even if it does not keep us sane: Almost there. Almost there. Almost there.

…

"It's a girl, Captain!" the soldier cries over the whistle of missiles and thudding of tank fire, waving me over frantically.

"Cover me!" I yell to the young soldier next to me. He pivots up from behind the blackened hull of the burnt-out hovercraft we are hunching behind and lets out a burst of fire. I crouch and run forwards, my boots crackling the gravel and shrapnel underfoot.

I duck behind a pile of broken bricks and twisted metal, the only remains of a lavish two-story and look where the lieutenant is indicating. A little girl, not more than four, lies on her back, one side of her face a bloody pulp, the other strangely pristine and pale, looking for all the world as though caught in the innocence of childish sleep.

"Shit," I breathe out, touching her cluster of brown curls, so much like Posy's hair when she was a baby. "How did this happen?" I say, turning to the lieutenant, the sound of gunshots concealing the crack in my voice. "I thought the city was evacuated!"

"It was, sir," the soldier shouts over the sounds of battle raging around us. "But some were kept behind!"

""Kept?" I ask, confused, trying to ignore the lump growing in my throat and the pool of blood spreading out from the girl's body and soaking the knees of my fatigues.

"Look," the soldier says, lightly lifting the limp hand of the girl at my feet. It's pale and soft, plump and small with girlish pink nail polish. And then I see what the soldier means. What I thought was a delicate silver chain around her wrist is really a set of handcuffs, one ring around her wrist, the other attached to the charred remains of the balcony rail.

I look up in horror, meeting the soldier's eyes. Just as quickly I look at the advancing line of the rebel assault, already several blocks ahead of us. And the soldier in a voice heavy with dread confirms what I fear with all my heart but I already know to be true:

"Sir, they're using the children as human shields."

Part II.

In the silent, most secret places of our hearts, we all knew it was bound to happen to one of us. But it is still a heavy blow when Vick falls ill, another victim of the plague tearing through the Underground. No one knows the cause of the disease, perhaps some insidious mix of malnutrition and dehydration and despair.

But we do know that it is impossible to afford medical care. And we also know that no one comes back from the free government quarantine rooms. So we risk keeping Vick at home, sweating, groaning, curled under a thin blanket as we take turns wiping his forehead and whispering hopeless prayers to anyone who will listen.

Vick was always more gentle than his brothers, and it breaks my heart to see his wide, sensitive eyes glassy with fever, his lips raw and chapped, his little chest straining under the force of his coughs.

Rory's eyes are heartbreaking too. They become dark and hard, glittering with toxic malice, a new hate growing inside him. I watch helplessly as he hardens like Gale once did. His shirt stretching over his shoulders, and his hands perpetually curled into fists, a boy forced to bear the burdens of a man, the burdens even no man should have to bear. And I know it's only a matter of time before he too is on the front lines.

Posy changes as well. She is no longer laughing and precocious. Instead of giggling and running and playing make believe with her dolls, she bites her lips and doesn't speak much. She hides behind doorways, her eyes wide and cheeks hollow. Scared to leave home, quiet and afraid. Trembling, pale, clutching to me, always unsure.

And then there is Hazelle, rushing home everyday from work, entering the house with fear and panic in every movement. The relief is visible in the sagging of her shoulders when she sees Vick is still alive. And every day she kneels by his bedside and strokes his limp hair with hands cracked and bleeding, her spirit broken, tears mingling with the dark shadows under her eyes.

Part III.

A haze.

A surreal, impossible haze.

The sharp, stinging sound of gunfire. Billowing smoke. The acrid scent of burning and dying in my nostrils.

The words: We can't go back.

An explosion. Fire. Flaming debris falling from the heavens.

I'm lost in hell.

We can't go back, Hawthorne.

And the children, everywhere the children. Rory and Vick and Posy and Prim and we have the advantage. We can't go back.

They're just Capitol children anyway.

I scream. I fight. I call the Commander a bastard, my throat scraped raw.

Another terrible explosion rocks the ground. A blinding rainbow of light and death and screams. Rocks flying and buildings collapsing, folding over like pieces of paper. Cheers from the men as hovercrafts fly overhead, strafing the remaining Capitol forces with their guns.

The children! Damn it, the children! Am I the only one that sees the children?

Their wrists bound together, their screams muffled by strips of tape. Some writhing in the ground where rubble has fallen. The roads strewn with their broken bodies.

And the rebels are cheering.

Dead eyes staring at me. Blaming me. Betrayal written in their shattered skulls and twisted limbs. No. No.

NO!

I feel hands pulling me back to the truck. Thrashing, struggling. My mind blank with shock, playing tricks on me in the smoke and wreckage. I see Rory on the ground, blood spilling out of his cracked skull. I see Vick lying under an overturned truck. And Posy. Posy everywhere, in every bunch of windswept curls, in every ripped dress.

My fault. My fault. My fault. The words crash in my head in time to the jolting of the truck. The chaos of the battlefield recedes slowly, though I can still hear the wailing of the children long after I've lost sight of the battle. Why hadn't I noticed it before?

Or is it a figment of my imagination, just another haunting creation of my fevered mind?

They drop me off at our deserted camp outside the city wall. All of the men have cleared out to help in the fight. The only sounds are a clanging in the mess tent and the groan of the truck emitting a puff of exhaust as it departs for the front lines again.

"Are you alright, soldier?" A soft hand on my cheek and the trace of perfume in the haze.

I look up. Dark eyes and a painted smile.

"I'm fine!" I yell, turning away, ready to run back to battlefield even though I know there is nothing I can do.

"Let me help, darling," she whispers, her voice a quiet point in the chaos.

"The children!" I shout panicked, broken. My skin feels feverish with panic and anger. Why doesn't she understand? But maybe she does, with her hand cool on my skin.

"Hush," the girl whispers, her fingers press gently to my lips. "Don't think on it now."

My eyes can't seem to focus. "No you don't understand. They're just ki-" I try again as her lips touch mine, the rest of my words lost in our mingled breath.

"Hush," she says again before pressing herself against me. "Let me help you forget."

Forget. Help you forget.

I can't. But to forget…

"No," I try half-heartedly, turning one more time, but the heat and the rage and the madness are receding, and her lips are insistent and my head is swimming and I feel her hand tracing a slow trail down my chest and my stomach and unbuttoning my pants, and I feel so damn confused and lost. And forget. She'll help me forget.

And I put my hands in her hair and pull her closer to me, and she's so soft. I hear her groan and feel her nails digging sharply into the skin of my back where she's wormed her fingers under my shirt.

And she's warm and supple and thank god alive. And in a world where everything is smoke and nightmares, damn it, she's real. And her teeth are scraping against mine and her shirt has come off in my hands and her hair, god her hair. Her hair, like blond silk and the way she bites her lip. And her cheeks flushed that perfect pink, her eyelashes fluttering, her breath at my ear whispering my name-

"Mmm," she whispers, her breath hot on my face. "Tell me what Madge likes."

"What?" I say, thickly, blinking the girl into focus.

"Madge," she says, kissing my neck. "You just called me Madge." Her lips are wet on my skin, and suddenly I see her. So thin her hips jut through her waxy skin, her bony wrists on my chest, her hair dark and eyes painted with kohl. And Madge. I called her Madge.

"Holy shit!" I say, pushing her away in horror. "I didn't mean it. Please, just leave me alone," I say, turning away, and she must hear the desperation in my voice because she doesn't follow.

"Sorry, here," I say turning back to her. I empty the coins from my pocket, trying to keep steady though the world is spinning. "Here," I shove them at her. "Just leave me alone."

She grasps eagerly for the coins, some of them falling to the ground as I thrust them towards her. She drops to her knees, her bony fingers like spiders scrabbling for the pieces of silver as they roll in the mud. I stumble away in a panic, disgusted. My mind a mess. Reeling. Hallucinating. The children. Vick. Posy. Madge. Shit. Shit. I stumble on a rock jutting out of the ground and fall forward, stars bursting in front of my eyes with the shock of the pain.

Vick. Madge. Dead. All dead. The mud is cool against my skin. Madge. Madge. Madge. No.

Darkness swirls in front of my eyes, and the last thing I remember is being desperately thankful that I finally get to rest. And then, oblivion.

Part IV.

I wake with a start in the middle of the night. Sweating, heart pounding. My ears ringing with metallic fear and silence.

The room is dark and quiet and cool. It was just a dream, I think with relief. Just a dream.

I pad softly through the hall and cup my hands under the sputtering sink. The cloudy water tastes musty in mouth. I stare at myself in the cracked and spotted mirror—hair limp, face sallow, skin white as a sheet.

Was I dreaming of Vick, with his gentle eyes and his little hands and his sheet dusted with specks of coughed-up blood? Or was I dreaming of Katniss, dark shadows under her eyes, as she calls for rebel aid on the television, her words fierce but her eyes dead, pleading for help more out of habit than anything else? Or was I dreaming of hunger, that monster hunger, always gnawing at the inside of my belly with acid and shards of glass and razor-sharp jaws?

Or was it Gale? The thought rises unbidden in my mind.

Gale. A burning twist of fear coils in my stomach. There hasn't been a letter in weeks. Only static on the television. Our only hope the supply trucks that still leave for the front lines. Our only news incomplete lists of the dead pinned to the wall of the army office, old, outdated, curling with age and the constant handling of the fearful families left behind. Rude candles and pictures placed underneath, rudimentary offerings to nonexistent gods. Impotent prayers for mercy or salvation or hope. A token to all things lost.

Gale. Who has vanished in the gunfire and smoke of war. I clutch his pendant, the one I wear so close to my heart, my only evidence that Gale exists, that I didn't dream him up all along.

And suddenly I feel a spark. Something strange and energetic and alive. And suddenly I realize that it's anger. A molten rage burns through my limbs and crackles out of me to the very ends of my hair and the tips of my fingers and I scream and I push all of the empty bottles and jars from the counter, tired of shaking and scraping each one for the last, last drop of everything. Tired of being helpless. Tired of the hate in Rory's eyes and the defeat in Hazelle's heart and Prim, just a child, trying to nurse Vick with her concern and her sweetness and her ineffectual cold compresses, and Posy silent and transparent as a specter. I rip the sheets off the bed, hurl the pillow across the room, ransack the drawers of all my clothes. Because I'm tired. Tired of tears and fears and being the plaything of fate and disaster, at the whim of the world and events around me.

I didn't come this far to fail. I didn't lose my mother and my father and my home and my love to lose everything and be so, damn alone and helpless.

I fall to the ground, exhausted. And amid the ripped and broken pieces of all that I have left, I stare, heaving, at the ventilation system, the only thing that still works in this God-forsaken place. And I think of Gale when he showed it to me, his grin like a burst of sunshine. And it feels like it was years and years ago.

I force myself to slow my breathing. I know tomorrow I will clean and fold and sweep up the mess and get back to the daily struggle, the awful, impossible attempt at survival. But for now it's just me in my ruined room, all alone at night with the memories of the lost.

But I squeeze my eyes closed and push those memories away with all my might. Lock them in my heart where they can't hurt me. Dig my nails viciously into my hands until the pain defeats the prickling in my eyes.

And instead I think of home. Before it turned to dust. I think of sunshine and flowers in my hair and strawberries on Harvest Day, tasting like summer and sunlight, and a time before war.

And I think of Gale with his cheeky grin and a shock of hair falling in his eyes. The way he would cook for me or rub my feet after a long day at work. The way he would smirk when I couldn't reach the top shelf.

I remember his laugh and his tears and this look of his that would send starbursts of desire spiraling through me every time. I remember his hair, black silk under my fingertips. I think of his strong arms holding me; the way I felt protected in their circle as he held me safe against his chest, solid and hard.

I think of his hands, so firm and so gentle when his fingers intertwined with mine. I remember the touch of his stubble against my cheek. The fire of his skin as it brushed against mine. The sound of his breath hitching in the dark.

Heat pools inside of me, and my limbs tingle remembering his touch, his taste, his warmth. The nip of his teeth, the ridged planes of his back, the fierce blazing in his eyes as he consumed me with his heat and his strength, my body alive and singing in the dark.

But when I open my eyes, it's just me, alone in the gloom. The vent fanning my heated cheeks with a cool breeze. But I'm not alone. Not really. There is the fear. Always the fear, like a stone in my gut. The fear of losing him. Of living without him. Of being the only one left behind.

Part V.

The war ended today.

I wasn't even there to see it. I was in the med tent, amid the shrieks and the chaos and the smell of antiseptic. I swore to myself that I'd rather die than go back to the med tent. The med tent, where for two weeks after my breakdown over the Capitol's use of human shields I had lain in a heated delirium, disoriented, hallucinating, pumped full of antibiotics and sleep syrup, screaming, battling infection and dehydration and my own demons.

I was cleared for service not long after, and three months later I was at the front lines, leading the assault through the gold and marble corridors of Snow's palatial residence. Our boots slipping on the slicks of blood covering the stone hallways, our throats clogged with smoke and gunpowder and fear, the fighting final and fierce.

It was madness. A maze of flames and explosions, bloodcurdling screams and collapsing walls. My legs were burning with fatigue, my throat hoarse from shouting orders, my arms numb from the constant shuddering of my machine gun.

There was no plan, no stratagem. Just kill. Kill all of them. Tactics and prep and strategy were useless against an enemy that only knew how to destroy. And so our plan was to overrun Snow's palace. Kill until there was no one left to kill. No one left but Snow.

And so we killed. Running through the impossible labyrinth. Dodging bullets and fire, covered in blood, dripping sweat, grime encrusted to our very eyelashes. A nasty surprise behind every corner; a horrifying maze of death. Racing past our fallen comrades, not daring to look at their faces, and oh God, please don't let me be next.

I'm rounding another corner, gun firing, when a blast rips through the corridor. My vision goes black as a force like a punch in the gut throws me back into a stone wall. I hear a crack as my neck whiplashes forward, and red spots dance on front of my eyes. I crouch and cover my head, trying to ignore the searing pain slicing through my back like a red-hot lash, as lethal hunks of rock fall from the ceiling, amid shouts and the wet thunk of stone crushing flesh.

The rocks don't even settle by the time the rebels start firing again. I shake my head, trying to think through the fog of pain clouding my head, and I scrabble backwards as my vision clears and I see a chunk of human leg, meaty and thick, right in front of me.

"Shit! Focus, Hawthorne," I tell myself, breathing hard.

And when I do focus all I see is the owner of the leg. Lying several feet away, the remains of his limb crushed under a stone pillar, his body convulsing with pain. And I know if I leave him here he'll bleed out in minutes.

"Damn it," I mutter, crouching and running toward him, bullets zinging around me. I grab the soldier below his armpits and drag him from under the crushing weight of the stone, leaving a wet patch of skin and leg behind. The soldier screams in agony, his eyes wild and dilated, his skin feverish with the pain.

And I make my way back through all of the twists and turns and hallways and anterooms, chambers and passageways, stairs and rooms I had fought through minutes before. Some of the rooms still blaze with fighting, others are heavy with the groans of the injured.

And the whole way the soldier screams, inarticulate with anguish, as I lug him over shrapnel and debris and others who are fortunate enough to already be dead, his leg nothing but a gory stump, punctured by yellow shards of splintered bone and wet with flaps of skin, leaving a bloody trail behind us.

When we finally reach the med tent, I sink into a chair, exhausted, as harried medics pull the soldier away, scrambling to staunch the blood flow and calling desperately for morphling that is already in short supply.

I'm not sure how much time passes as my vision slips in and out of focus, my back throbbing heavily like the rhythmic pounding of shotgun slugs, my body aching with tension and exhaustion.

"It's over!" A voice rings out, like a clear brass bell in a haze of fog. I wake up suddenly at the sound, instantly on the alert. "We have Snow! It's over!"

The medics take up a ragged cheer, and even some of the patients manage to clap each other on the back. Confused, I sit up straighter, my grip tightening on my gun, feeling like it's a trick, feeling like I should be doing something. How can it just be over?

"Stop celebrating and help me!" a man cries, and suddenly we are all back in the present, in the med tent, soldiers still moaning and writhing.

But I look around and see that shoulders are a little straighter, eyes a little less panicked, voices whispering excitedly as the news travels.

A man lying on a bed next to me groans and screams then, that awful, animal shrieking scream that men only make when the pain is unendurable. And I don't even have the energy to feel concern. To feel excitement about the war or hope for the future or anger that the man I pulled from Snow's palace will probably die even though the war is over.

I just feel tired. I don't even care when my eyes drift shut. I just give in, and I let myself fall asleep and dream of home.

Part VI. 4 months left.

An official letter came with the first hovercrafts returning from the front lines. It said that even though the war is over, Gale hasn't completed his full tour of duty, and he is needed for recovery operations, to help deal with prisoners and survivors alike.

Ever since that letter, I refuse to look up at the sky every time I hear a new hovercraft rumble above, refuse to feel that spark of expectation that maybe, just maybe Gale was released early.

Instead I let myself be patient and content. Content that I can finally breathe in the sunlight. I haven't had a breath of fresh air in two years, and I still haven't yet. The air above District 13 is laced with radiation and invisible noxious fumes. But even the metallic, recycled air of the Underground, canned and compressed into an oxygen tank, feels fresher now that I'm allowed outside to work on radiation cleanup, out of the claustrophobic hallways of the District where the air tasted less of metal and more of fear and desperation.

I let myself be content now that food supplies have slowly started increasing again. As a few, scattered doctors return from the front lines. As we are told that medicine, the best the Capitol has to offer, is coming soon.

I let myself be content that I finally, finally have a chance to do something useful, to rebuild. And that Gale does too. That he can finally use those sharp eyes and capable hands to create instead of destroy. I know his heart is good, and that he was never meant to fight and kill, that that burden was thrust upon him with the war. No, Gale was meant to help people survive and grow; that's why he was able to take care of his family for all those years in District 12, why he helped all those people, too poor or too panicked to think to bribe the Peacekeepers, when our homes were being burned to the ground. And now that the war is over, Gale can finally put down his guns and his armor and the thick walls he has built around himself so he can endure the fighting, and he can finally fix and construct and help, just what he was born to do.

And I am content with the whisper of a feeling I know is growing in my heart. A feeling I don't even let myself put a name to. But even though I refuse to acknowledge it, I know it's there. That glimmer building in my chest, that little smile almost tugging the corner of my lips. I start eating better, taking care of myself. I scrub my skin so it will glow. I start soaking my hands in oil to begin healing the cracks and blisters I never cared about before. I trim my hair and wash it carefully, checking every day if it's healthy enough to curl the way he likes.

Because I know that the feeling in my heart will only grow more potent. Every time I look up and feel the sunlight on my skin. Every time I see Vick getting stronger now that he has proper food. Every time I hear Posy giggle again. Every time I think of Gale, every time I smile, every time I think about the future. I know that feeling, though I never imagined I would experience it again. That strange, bubbling, dizzying, delightful feeling:

Hope.

…

A/N: So part of the reason it took so long for me to get this chapter out is that I found it really, really difficult to write all of the battle scenes. I would really appreciate any feedback you have because I really had no idea what I was doing! Also, I know these past two chapters have been super dark, and not much has happened romantically, and maybe the characters have done things that aren't really likeable, but I just wanted to show the extreme circumstances they had to endure. I'd really love to know what you think!

Also, I think I really only have one chapter left in this story, unless some strange inspiration strikes. So hopefully I'll be able to pound it out this summer before I get super busy with school again!

Cheers, friends!