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

It was a cool spring day when he finally made the trip out to District 12. The sky was a bright blue and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Flowers were beginning to bloom on the trees which sent pink petals dancing in the light breeze. It was Gale's favorite time of year, when everything was coming back to life like this. It used to mean that winter was over, that he and his family had survived the cold and would make it another year. Now it meant that he had survived another year. He hoped with the life bursting around him he could feel something blooming inside him as well, a new beginning.

Today was not yet the day for new beginnings, he had decided. Not yet, not when his previous story hadn't ended yet.

That's why he went to District 12. His family was there of course, and his friends were eager to see him (Katniss included, surprisingly), but he had to put the demons inside of him to rest before he could again. That's what his therapist had told him, anyway. Gale had spent months trying to negate what his doctor was saying when one day he realized he was still having nightmares, so clearly this wasn't working. It was then he began opening up, talking about the war, and in small ways he began to heal.

"You need to say goodbye," his doctor had said. "You need to move on with your life, Gale."

So there he stood, ten feet outside of the memorial garden for those lost in the bombing of District 12, ready to say goodbye. Only he couldn't. He had spent the entire train ride to 12 preparing himself for this moment, the moment he would walk into the garden and see the names of those who he hadn't been able to save, and move on. Put them in the past. But he was frozen, staring at the metal gate that opened into the garden.

He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. In a rush the night returned to him, the screaming and the fire and the smell that overwhelmed his senses. Gale's eyes snapped open and he found himself closer to the garden, clutching the gate. He blinked a few times and let out his breath, looking at the flowers that were blooming brightly on the other side.

"Excuse me?" a soft voice broke his gaze. He tilted his head to the small office-like room that was off to the side. "Oh," the girl startled when she saw him. "Gale?" Again he blinked a few times, his eyes focusing on the woman who was slowly moving toward him. "It's me," she said.

"Undersee," he exhaled. His voice was rough, his eyebrows furrowed.

They spoke at the same time. "You remember me?"

"You're alive?" His hands unclenched from the gate and he opened it, sliding through and into the garden. He started toward her quickly and she froze in her spot. Gale reached out his shaking hands but stopped just a few feet in front of her. He had been expecting to find her name on one of the stones in this very garden, a memory of the mayor's daughter who was stolen from the world much too young. "What—they told me, you—"

She nodded once, "I've heard it before." They found bodies in her home, bodies so badly burned beyond recognition that it was assumed the Undersee family had gone up in flames alongside most of District 12. "There was a second string of survivors," she told him. That was all she thought he deserved to know at the moment, having not been home to learn the truth before today. "I'm alive."

He studied her breathlessly. She had been a frequent visitor to his night terrors, her screams echoed in his head. He reached out again but his hand fell, hesitant to know if she were a figment of his imagination or actually in front of him. Madge was beautiful. He golden hair was shorter than he remembered but it framed her face well, had lost some of the wild curls she had when she was a teen. Her eyes were the same blue as the sky, her lips a soft pink. She had a few scars on her face, scars that hadn't been there before. Gale was overwhelmed at how badly he craved to know everything about her in that moment, everything she had been through, how she came to be here.

Madge awkwardly cleared her throat and shifted on her feet. "I, um, I'm the groundskeeper of the garden," she said. He struggled to pull his gaze from her and glanced back out at the garden where the flowers grew freely. "Would you like a tour?" Gale hadn't yet looked back at her when he felt her by his side. Her warmth radiated and the ends of her hair brushed his skin. "Let me give you a tour," she said softly.

Still too overwhelmed to speak Gale simply nodded his head. Madge moved back him and tipped her head. Follow me. So he did. They walked in silence for a few minutes, Gale spent the time shifting his focus from the flowers to the girl a few steps in front of him. He had been looking at the flowers when she stopped and he nearly ran into her. Madge gestured to a small patch of primrose flowers and Gale's heart sank.

"This patch is for the children," she told him. "The one's we lost." His chest felt icy. His first impulse was to yell at her, ask why she would bring him here of all places, but he swallowed it down as quickly as he could. It was something he was working on, trying not to be as angry. Next came the guilt. It crept through his body starting in his toes and made him nauseous. Madge bent down and rubbed one of the stones with her thumb to remove some dirt, revealing a name Gale didn't recognize. "It was Peeta's idea to make the flowers primroses."

The question bubbled out of him, "Is her name here?"

Madge tilted her head up. "Prim? No. Katniss didn't want that." She looked back at the stone she had just cleaned. "Prim has a headstone in the cemetery." That didn't make Gale feel any better. "But primroses, they're nice flowers. And Prim was a child when she was taken, though it wasn't in the destruction of 12." Her shoulders lifted slightly. "I think she'd like it."

Gale watched as Madge cleared a few more stones, revealing more names he didn't know. "I shouldn't have come," he murmured.

He turned to leave as Madge stood back on her feet, cocking an eyebrow at him. "Back to 12? Or to the garden?" He didn't answer. "No one blames you." Blames him for what? Not saving these thousands of people from the burning district? Potentially being the creator of the bomb that took the life of Primrose Everdeen? She answered his unasked questions without pause, "For any of it."

He shook his head and turns his gaze away from her, casting it back out over the rest of the garden. There were butterfly bushes on one side and with the spring the butterflies had begun to swarm them. Elsewhere there were sunflowers, roses, tulips, such a wide variety of flowers expanding the garden. Gale started walking away from her but she was quick and didn't let him get too far before her short legs were matching his stride.

"You can't run away again," Madge said quickly, her voice louder than he ever remembered it to be. His steps faltered and he turned to her. "The war was hard on a lot of people, Gale. Not just you." His gray gaze was intense but she held her ground. "You couldn't save everyone. That isn't your fault."

The words spilled from Gale's mouth, "I came here to say goodbye. I came so I could move on. Put this all in the past."

Madge shook her head, "That's not a thing you can do. You can't put things like this in the past."

"Yes I can," he growled. "It's the only way that I—"

"That you, what?" Madge cut him off. "That you can heal? That you can grow?" She shook her head again. "You're wrong." Minutes ago he had thought Madge Undersee was dead and now here she is with her eyes full of anger, looking more alive than ever before. "You think me putting the death of my parents behind me would make me stronger? That I can pretend they just never existed? And that's how I heal? That's what you're equating this to, Gale!"

He struggled for air. "That's not true."

"That is true! You didn't cause the bombing of 12, why would it be your fault that these people are dead?" Madge extended her hands to the flowers. Her voice rose with every word, "And Prim, you didn't drop that bomb either! Maybe it was your creation, maybe not, but you never would've used it that way!"

"How did you—"

She sighed loudly, "Katniss told me." Madge took a step toward him and he didn't retreat. "This place," Madge started softly, "this garden, it wasn't meant for people to say goodbye and just carry on with their lives. It was made so people can remember the people that we've lost, so that people can know it's okay to move on even though this happened. Not to forget about it. Or them. Or anything we've been through. That wouldn't make us stronger, Gale. That wouldn't help us heal."

He reached out one last time. She was close enough that his fingers could toy with the ends of her hair. Gale's voice was but a whisper, "Are you here?"

Madge let out a light breath and nodded once. She instinctively stepped toward him and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing Gale toward her. He felt her warmth, he could smell the vanilla of her shampoo. Gale lowered his chin to the top of her head as she held him tighter.

It was a cool spring day when Gale began to heal. He didn't have to say goodbye to do so. Instead, he said hello.