Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.
I watched it all, the steady build up of their relationship in the Games. It made me feel strange, upset, because I knew Gale wasn't faking it. The way he looked at Madge, he had only looked at me like that a number of times. I know he had started it out as a ploy to get them sponsors, to get them both home, but it grew into something more than that.
The final battle, the one between them and Cato, it was brutal. Cato standing over Madge with a knife at her throat while she screamed Gale's name. She was terrified. She wanted nothing more than for him to save her.
"But he won't," Cato had told her maliciously. "He's not going to save you, princess. He doesn't actually love you." She wept and screamed and waited for Gale to arrive.
He did, of course. There wasn't enough time for Cato to slit Madge's throat, Gale was too quick with the bow and arrow. His skills improved when necessary, the time it went through Cato's neck being one of them. Madge screamed as his body collapsed limp on hers.
Gale yanked him off and pulled Madge into his arms. "Should've came sooner," he mumbled into her hair. "The mutts, they stopped me," and she cried into his chest while he kissed her over and over again on the forehead. Some say the arena is a hopeless place to fall in love, that it's not real, but I see. Gale isn't that good of an actor, he loves her and she loves him.
That's why the announcement that there can only be one Victor causes me to become sick to my stomach. Madge can't kill Gale, and Gale can't kill Madge. They stare at each other for a long time as words echo the empty arena. Two soul tributes, two should-be Victors, but only one can come home.
"Just do it," Madge croaked out. "Make it quick."
"I can't," Gale shook his head and forced kisses upon her lips. "I'm not going without you, not without you. I can't, I can't, Madge."
"Don't let the mutts take me," she pleaded. "Please, Gale. Go home for me." He continued to shake his head.
"We'll think of something, I'll think of something I won't let them take you from me." Tears leaked down her face and Madge scratched some of Cato's dried blood off of her weakly. "They can't do this."
But that's exactly what they've done, and as Gale formulated a plan pacing back and forth while not exactly looking at her, she dug into her pocket and extracted a knife. Everyone watching knew she didn't plan to use it on him.
Just as he turned around and caught sight of what she was doing, the knife pierced her stomach. She cried out in agony and collapsed to the ground, my innocent friend was sacrificing herself. He was too late, she did it a few more times before he could reach her.
"Go home for me," she croaked out. "They need you there."
"I need you," he pleaded, throwing the knife as far away from them as he possibly could. "Madge, I need you. I can't go back without you, I can't."
"You don't have to pretend anymore," her voice was only a whisper now. He held his hands to her wound and searched her eyes. "It's okay."
The cannon fired and he collapsed over her, his head buried in her chest. "But I wasn't…"
And now he stands before us, a hollow Victor. He does not smile, he does not cheer about his win. Sometimes I'll stop by his house late at night only to find him staring emptily into the fire drinking from a bottle of white liquor. I know he will not heal, that there's nothing I can do despite how hard I try. And it's all because of the girl who liked strawberries, the girl who loved him more than herself.