The Hunger Games One Shots

6. Goodbye, Gale.

"She's dead because of you."

Deafening silence settled over the room, his guilt flooding throughout. Katniss knew he felt guilty; after all, he'd created the bombs that'd done it. But his guilt wouldn't bring her little sister back. A single tear trailed down her cheek, and she wiped it off with the back of her hand.

"I know. I'm so sorry Katniss," Gale said, trying his best to find the words to say. He knew there would be no returning to "normal" after this, whatever normal was with them. He and Katniss hadn't known normal since she'd volunteered for the Games. There was no normal.

"Sorry doesn't bring Prim back to life," Katniss said simply, standing up and facing a window. She looked out at the garden, Snow's rose garden, and her nose crinkled. She could still smell them. Their heavy, infuriating scent.

He was still alive and watching her. Snow, the one who'd torn her family, her world, her, apart, was alive and waiting for his execution.

Gale was hopeless. He knew, in his heart, there was no getting Katniss back. The Katniss he knew- and loved- was far gone. She had been replaced by an empty, spiteful spirit. Gale understood that he had ruined any chance of that weeks ago in District 13, when she made it clear her heart belonged to another. No sane, unloving woman would go back to the man who had attacked her. Not if she claimed her love for him was simply an act, nothing more than fallacy provided for the entertainment of the higher class.

She perked up. He glanced at her, then looked away.

The simplicity carried by the language of averted eyes.

"I know why you did it," she stated simply, no anger or hurt behind her words. Her recollection, thoughts turned into words. Words mimicking actions. Her tone was calm; one could make the assumption that she was talking to a newly born infant. And yet, she was not. She was speaking to an old friend who- in her mind- had committed the unspeakable. A murder of the most treacherous kind. A genocide of the masses, resulting in the death of the one person who truly mattered in the world. A person more important than God himself, though Katniss highly doubted he existed, for she had seen too much evil and witnessed the deepest, darkest portions of humanity. And so, she spoke: "You were jealous of Peeta."

Gale sighed and rubbed his face with the bottom of his palms, collecting his thoughts before responding to Katniss' carefully planned question. She had jumped to conclusions once again, as she was prone to doing, and decided to use them as a martyr against Gale's wishes. He had been jealous of Peeta, once in his life, very long ago. He'd wished to be in the other male's spot during the Games. He didn't believe the other man was worthy of Katniss, not until he saw how Katniss looked at him, how he made her feel. How devastated she was when the Capitol captured him. "I was," Gale said, forcing Katniss to meet his eye. "I was jealous of him, months ago. Maybe my entire life I was, I don't know. But after the Capitol took him, and we saw what they did to him, I felt nothing but guilt. Guilty for ever wanting to live in his life. He wasn't a perfect, rich boy; he was a weapon molded to the Capitol's wishes. I bet he always was."

Katniss stood up, her force contorting with anger. "How dare you say Peeta was a Capitol creation! He was innocent! The Capitol took him, used him for profit, they made him what they wanted him to be after the Games. Not before. You may think he lived a wonderful life, always fed with the cakes and breads at the bakery, but you're wron-"

"HE ALWAYS WAS, KATNISS! WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!"

"-and now he has to live with HIS guilt for the rest of his life, while you get to go around prancing like a hero because you were a part of a team that KILLED MY SISTER!"

Tears fell from Katniss' eyes like leaves from an autumn tree, and Gale faltered. Her tears turned into sobs, and she turned away from him. Her once friend, almost lover, now enemy. There was no repairing the glass of a friendship that had broken. It was as destroyed as their home, District 12. There was no way to restore it to what it was.

"Katniss..."

"You need to leave," Katniss said, still. "Goodbye, Gale."

He turned around, and left. He and Katniss never spoke again.

There were times where they ached for each other's company, but they filled the gaps of each other with new people. Gale found a girl in District 2, and eventually married her. Katniss was invited to the wedding, but she burnt the letter the moment she pulled it out of the mailbox. Katniss reconnected with Peeta, they wed and had two children. After awhile, she told the story of her and Gale with nothing but calm recollection. They moved on without each other, and soon, neither was anything more than a memory.