A Collection of Gadge

by jennycaakes

Drabbles I've written concerning Gadge. None are related to each other, but someone suggested I put them all on. Some may be made into longer stories, others not. AU. Some are long, some are short. All individuals. Will be updated as new drabbles are written, but for all intents and purposes it's completed.

26. Three Weeks Too Late

Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.

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He paced the waiting room, refusing to go back to his assigned housing unit in District 13. It had been like a miracle, finding a broken angel among the wreckage. Slow heart beat, cold pale skin, but alive. He carried her all the way to the rendezvous point himself.

When District 13 finally arrived to carry them off to safety he held her hand, whispering sweet reassurances. "You're okay," he told her. "You're safe now."

But the doctors weren't sure sure. They did it all, trying to up her heart rate and bring color back to her skin. No matter what they did she couldn't get warm, wouldn't wake up. Gale still held her hand though, pleading with her as though she could hear.

They told Gale time and time again that she wasn't going to make it but he wouldn't leave, wouldn't go home. "Mr. Hawthorne, you were just too late," they had said. He shook his head, he couldn't lose Madge too. First Katniss, then his home and all his friends, but not Madge. They couldn't have Madge.

But he did. One day her heart monitor went flat. The single beep that echoed around the room forced Gale to his knees, pleading with whoever was in the sky that it was just a nightmare, a bad dream. But it wasn't.

He waited in her room as they carried her out slowly despite the protests from the doctors. He watched as they covered her graying skin with a white sheet. He stared at her now empty hospital bed that would soon be housing another ill patient.

"It's a shame," he heard a doctors voice echo from the hallway as he sat with his head in his hands. "The poor girl would have made it if it wasn't for the baby."

"She was pregnant?" another doctor asked back. Gale lifted his head and leaned toward the hallway. He could practically hear the doctor nodding.

"Three weeks, her body gave everything it could to the thing trying to keep it alive." Pregnant. Madge had been pregnant. "It's devastating." Gale felt a trickle of bile in the back of his throat and he rubbed at his eyes. His girl, his baby, it had all been his fault. He hadn't been able to save her because he was the one that killed her.