Order- April 2014

District Thirteen runs like a machine- everyone has their place in line, a duty, and they all know the consequences of stepping out of place. It would rankle- but unlike in District Twelve, this particular form of order is necessary. Space and food aren't scarce by any means, but there's not a lot of excess either.

If those rules didn't exist, Gale would have placed money on District Thirteen being just as run down and hopeless as Twelve had been. There's purpose in this order, rather than fear and despair.

That said, despite being 'the Mockingjay's Best Friend', Gale is fairly low on the information ladder- not quite the bottom rung, but not too far off of it. So when the rumours start flying about a serial killer in the Capitol, they take a while to reach him.

At first, they don't mean much, except that he's glad someone's killing the bastards. Even if it is probably one of their own, it's still dead Capitol people.

Then the rumours take a different tone- almost shocked, incredulous and a little hopeful all at once. They say that the dead are the ones who destroyed District Twelve. The second that a District Twelve refugee had heard the new rumours, the tale spreads like fire.

Someone's avenging District Twelve. The dead, left to rot in the streets while they sought for survivors, would not have their murderers live free.

Gale is never sure what he feels about this information- if it's even true. He knows enough about propaganda that he's not going to believe anything he hears third hand.

So he follows the story as details filter down, and carries on with his life. Working with the rebellion, keeping Katniss sane, and looking out for his family. And then, one day, he receives an order to report to a tiny office room, not too far from what he thinks of as 'Rebel HQ'.

When he gets there, they explain. Of hundreds of refugees from Twelve, there are three that have clearance to know what they're going to tell him. Katniss is unofficially considered both too volatile and too vulnerable to see this, while Haymitch has better things to do, and was too isolated from his District, being a Victor in Victor's Village for twenty five years to be able to offer any information.

They have footage of the killer he's been hearing about. They want him to see if he can see anything, as a District Twelve boy rather than one of Thirteen's analysts. Gale, fool that he is, agrees.

He knows his place- and he's got nothing to gain by refusing.

The footage is grainy compared to the Hunger Games footage, the light dull. There's three plain blank doors in a hallway. The time in the bottom right corner is speeding forward, he watches as a woman and what appears to be a security team march into the one in the middle, moving like bizarre marionettes under the speed.

The analyst turns off the fast forward, seconds before the door furthest from the camera opens. The Killer steps out- and it's a girl. He's so shocked by the slender form in the dark dress that he almost forgets to look.

"Townie." He says immediately- no seam girl walked that way, one foot almost directly in front of the other, like Effie Trinket did when she was escorting tributes.

He can't see the girl's face- she keeps it held low, and the bird on her shoulder hides- wait, bird? Yes, there is a bird on her shoulder. The camera can't seem to focus on it, it's flickering in and out of sight. When it's there, it hides what little would be visible of her face.

When it isn't, he can see some sort of face paint. His gut churns as he tries to see what the design is, but the bird flickers too quickly.

"Hair's fancy." He says, instead of mentioning the paint. They've all seen the video before, it's pretty obvious they haven't brought him here to say what they already know. "Vein-braids are for toastings, but they should meet in the middle of the back of her head. Those don't."

And what does that say about the girl, that the sign of two lives and families meeting is left undone? Mourning braids. No future, the past left unfinished. He feels a surge of empathy for her- especially when he sees that not only do the braids not meet and become intertwined, her hair is completely loose at the back. He doesn't have words for that kind of braid- and wonders if she does.

The way she pushes her shoulders back as she reaches for the handle, almost dislodging the bird, rings a bell. But that's impossible- the girl who did that is dead, left to rot under coal dust and open skies.

He knows the order of the world even better than he does the order of District 13- there are no miracles, no second chances, just tragedies and those lucky enough to avoid them when they can. Madge Undersee is dead- she'll never eat strawberries, or straighten up before opening a door, or play her piano ever again.

The quiet, serious girl is dead, and wouldn't have been a killer if she had lived. She'd been the pampered Mayor's daughter, entertaining the Capitol with her family every year she'd been alive. She wasn't a murderer.

(In the back of his mind, Haymitch laughs bitterly. The Capitol makes us all killers.)