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Three words.
They are on the tip of his tongue, souring like old milk.
He stares at her for a century, more.
Finally: "Katniss," he says, "I can't."
There is fire everywhere. It's worse when he closes his eyes.
He remembers: the first time he saw her on fire he fell in love.
--
Katniss was on fire again, this time in dark blue spun about in gold. She looked beautiful, sparse and raw and still, dangerous but a blunted, muted, traumatized kind of lethal.
He stood in the audience, Posy on his hip, Vick at his side, kissed his sister's hair and watched the girl on fire while Effie Trinket read out the rules of the Quarter Quell, fumbling and haltering like she couldn't quite believe them.
"Tributes will be under the age of fourteen," Effie said; even she looked a little sick.
Gale froze. He thought, Rory, and then he thought, Primrose, and thank god that Vick was too young for tesserae, still. His arm tightened around Posy; Vick pressed himself against Gale's side and Gale pulled him closer, shaking.
In the cordoned-off sections, Rory turned and looked at Gale. His eyes were their father's, dark and deep and fringed with long lashes; Gale could not read his expression but he hadn't been able to for a while, now.
Next to him, separated by the velvet rope, Prim stood in the girl's side. She was biting her lip and Gale thought, hoped, not again.
Effie’s hand went into the ball; Primrose, and if that wasn't bad enough, Rory.
On the stage Katniss was falling apart, caught in the tangle of Peeta's arms and Haymitch Abernathy's. She kept saying, no.
Gale couldn't breathe. His eyes were stuck on Rory’s, which he could now understand; I’m so scared.
He couldn't stop doing the math, counting Rory’s odds. It was, he thought, barely standing, almost inevitable. Rory’s name was in there so many times.
--
Rory said, "Gale, I can do this." His mouth was set in a firm line, defiant, like the first time he took out tesserae. Brave and defiant and terrified and so, so young.
Gale thought, said, "no," like he had said it when Rory was twelve, a rush of anguished desperate syllable, no grace.
He thought, you do not get another person I love, but it was pointless, futile anger that could not, would not come to fruition because he could not protect Katniss; how would he manage to protect Rory?
Rory shook his head. "We’ll come home, Gale. I promise."
Gale's blood was ice-cold. He thought about Katniss and Peeta at the end of the game, thought, it will not happen again.
He had been calm for Katniss when it was her turn. Now that it was Rory it was like he was being flayed alive but.
But this was all he could do.
He swallowed. "Keep to the trees. Let them fight amongst themselves. Get a bow, set traps like I taught you; you're good, you'll be fine. Stick with Prim, don't let each other go far. You're smart, both of you. You know how to win this because you both know how to survive."
He took a breath, thought, why didn't we run, Catnip?
Rory said, "Gale--"
"Remember that we love you," Gale said, heart frozen, refusing to beat. "Always."
--
Be proud, Haymitch says, bitter. We won the war.
Katniss touches Gale's shoulder and he feels like paper, her fingerprints lit matches catching him alight. All of his nerves are raw, frayed. He almost jerks away but doesn't.
Nobody won anything, she whispers, tired. Nobody ever does.
--
When Rory was born their mother pressed him into Gale's arms, to hold. Gale was six and he had understood responsibility, he thought-- be quiet while mother and father work, don't disturb the neighbours, don't make trouble even when you're so hungry your stomach is eating itself-- but Rory yawned and squished his pink face against Gale's worn, scratchy shirt and all of a sudden the world was different, because Gale's arms were around his little brother and he could not ever let him fall.
When Rory was eleven Gale found the tesserae and sat with his back against the wall for a very long time but did not say anything until he went hunting with Katniss Everdeen and missed an easy shot. She snapped, "What the fuck, Hawthorne," and he shook his head, because lying to Katniss Everdeen was always a pointless exercise, "Rory took tesserae."
"No," she said, eyes sick; they were both tesseraed to the gills but it was different for their siblings, this was not what they had wanted.
This was not how responsibility worked.
They didn't have time, money, leisure, but she took him to the river anyway.
Under the water, he could pretend he wasn't crying.
Later, Rory told him. "I'm sorry," and, "we needed the food," and, "it isn't fair that it's just you."
Gale's voice was wrecked. He said, "the world isn't fair," and then his brother's name.
Rory's cautious hand on his shoulder felt like defeat.
(Gale had not felt anything worse until I volunteer, and then Rory's name, one more time.)
--
Gale's fingertips tangled in Katniss' shirt, fabric ripping under his hands. He caught her up against him, the warmth of her body seeping into his: girl on fire.
He had never not been gentle with her, never not been patient and careful, waiting.
Until now.
Her eyes were dark, hollow like his. "Shh," she said, Capitol-long nails tearing lines down his back. "Don't stop."
--
Annie Cresta kisses Gale's forehead, hands cool like the river, like the ocean he has never seen. His skin is all red, hot and too small for his body.
Shh, she says, just sleep.
His head is fuzzy and all of his limbs are disjointed and everything hurts but he struggles up and up, "Rory."
Her hand smoothes over his hair; shh, shh.
Everything goes black, and warm.
--
Gale's mother kissed his forehead, said, "do what you have to do." Her voice was gentle, not bitter, not disappointed even though she should have been because it was Gale's fault, Gale's and the Capitol's.
"I love you," she said, like Gale had said it to Rory, because she had always known Gale better than anyone in the world, and could read his intentions on his face. He had already spent one Game lost, useless, screaming futilely at the television screens; he could not, would not, do it again. "If you need me I will always, always be there."
She did not say, this is not your fault, or, promise you'll come home.
She just said, "I love you," again, and again, and again.
He let her arms envelope him, just for a moment. When he was small this had felt like safety, but he is an adult, now.
--
Haymitch Abernathy said, "I don't think you know what you're doing," but there was something like admiration in the wrecked tenor of his voice.
Gale said, "Look after my brother," and, "look after Prim."
Haymitch nodded. He was, after all, as Seam as Gale.
He had to understand.
He had saved Katniss from burning alive.
--
He wakes in Finnick Odair's arms, screaming.
"Breathe," Finnick is shouting, "god damn it Gale breathe!"
Gale sucks in air and it's-- like being on fire.
He tries to say I am, Finnick, I am but it hurts too much; he just screams and falls back into the dark.
--
Lavinia wrote, let's burn them down. There was a mockingjay, a rough outline, drawn in charcoal underneath her words.
He thought of Katniss and her pin, now over Prim's heart.
"First we get the kids out." His voice was low, steely.
She turned, wide-eyed, like he had surprised her; she did not bat an eyelash pulling him off the train, dragging him into the tunnels, telling him start a revolution, but compassion was what startled her. He was overwhelmingly glad that he had never been an Avox.
How? she asked.
He shook his head, swallowed. "I haven't gotten that far yet."
--
They showed the Games in the squares here, too.
Not mandatory, though. The people here didn't have to be encouraged to watch; this was entertainment. He dug his fingernails into his palms, drinking in the sight of Rory’s face, thin and worn, next to tired, scratched-up Prim. Tired, bleeding, starving: all of these were better than dead.
Johanna Mason tucked her arm through Gale's. "C'mon, Twelve," she murmured, "let's get you out of sight."
On the screen, Rory's hand was squeezing Prim's.
It took all of Gale's willpower to turn his face away.
--
Finnick looked Gale up and down, eyelashes fluttering in an unmistakeably sexual sweep.
"I don't know how I feel about this," he said.
Gale said, "I don't actually care." His patience was on the verge of snapping; the numbers of tributes were dwindling, the longer they waited the more children were dying. (The more likely, Gale thought, doing the math, that Rory and Prim would be the next two cannons fired.) "I just need you to sign off on it."
"Dealing with Thirteen is a tricky business," Finnick said, velvet-voiced. His face was extraordinarily symmetrical in person. "Are you sure you can handle them?"
"To get into the arena we need hovercrafts," Gale said, "I don't-- we need them. They want the Capitol gone." He had never liked not having other options, but he's from District Twelve; it wasn't a new experience.
Katniss had said, they're the closest thing we have to a rescue team, hair falling around her face in manufactured elegant waves, smelling a little of Peeta's cologne.
There was a little of her lipstick on the inside of his wrist, where she had kissed him. For luck.
--
Prim says, "Gale you can't go down there." The words tumble out of her mouth, too fast; she's panicked, terrified, despairing. There is soot smudged all over her; she drags in deep breaths, like she's not used to air.
Katniss' arms are around her. There is blood on Katniss' cheek and her hair is a mess. "Gale," she says, "he wouldn't want this."
Gale breathes in, looks down at the arena, criss-crossed with fire, bright in the light.
It is their fault.
He is Rory's brother; the decision is not hard to make.
Falling is not flying but if he closes his eyes he can pretend gravity has no hold on him.
--
Gale had never not been on Katniss' side. It had never been a zero-sum game. For a moment after Rory's name was pulled, he thought about Primrose Everdeen's body, limp on the ground. He thought about Katniss, who would never speak to him again, who would be broken, but-- if Rory got out, he thought, he would live with it.
He spent three long sick days thinking about Rory's chances, objective as he could manage. Prim’s were lower, even than Rory’s.
On the fourth day, he caught a clip of Katniss in her fire dress on the public televisions.
He reached back to the man he'd been at sixteen, all fire and fury. He thought, time to burn the fuckers down.
--
She said, "let's do this," and was the bravest he had ever seen her. The most beautiful.
He had to do it: lean forward, kiss her.
"We could die tomorrow," he said, tracing the curve of her cheekbones with his eyes.
"We could live tomorrow," she said, tangling her fingers in his. "Either way, tomorrow will be different."
Really, that was all they could ask for.
--
They film Peeta and Katniss together, in front of a screen showing pictures of the tributes in the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games. They are both wearing black, clean-cut and practical.
People of Panem, Peeta says, you know that this is wrong. He sounds-- his voice ripples through gale's heart, sets something alight in him that Katniss' flames had not already stirred. Too long we have stood by. These are our children.
Katniss says, this is my sister, Prim. She saves stray cats.
This is Ioan Cresta. He loves dolphins; when he was seven he almost drowned but one saved him.
Peeta's hand is on Katniss'. This cannot be who we are. How can we just pick one?
Time to tell them no.
--
They leave Peeta on live broadcast because he has a good voice, good charisma. Gale thinks he might, if circumstances were different, follow Peeta into a war.
Cinna says, "Don't worry, I'll look after him," and catches Katniss up in a hug, whispers be careful, Mockingjay, please.
"Don't worry," she murmurs. "Peeta's better with people anyway."
Gale checks his gun, knife, armour. As soon as they get over the arena Beetee will override the Games broadcast with Katniss and Peeta, and they will jump in and get everyone out.
Right now, Prim and Rory are holed up in a cave surrounded by mutts. Honestly, given enough time Gale thinks Prim probably could have them domesticated, but time is what they absolutely do not have.
What they do have is District Thirteen's bombs. A lot of them.
--
Gale plummets through the fire and the smoke and lands on his hands and knees.
"Rory," he's shouting, air too thick, clotted, lungs giving out. "Rory!"
That's when he sees it; the mutt is a dragon, huge and wide-winged, breathing fire from its nostrils. (Perfect match for a mockingjay, Gale thinks, then how could we be so stupid).
In his ear, Katniss says, get out of there we need to kill it.
Later, they will tell him that it was spawning, engineered for rapid reproduction. That they had one chance to destroy it, before the Capitol would mobilize the whole flock of them.
Later, they will tell him that killing the dragon now is what won the war, that it crippled the muttation programme which was key to the Capitol's defense.
Later, Prim will say, we knew we weren't going to make it out.
None of that will matter because what Gale sees now is this:
Rory is standing in front of the dragon and there is a sword in his hand, an ornate Capitol-wrought thing gleaming in the light. He is small, still, painfully small and Gale can see him trembling but he is still there, still defiant.
Rory is standing in front of the dragon until he isn't, because all of a sudden there is a hurricane of fire sweeping down on them, and all Gale can hear is the sound of his own voice, screaming, and all Gale can see is Rory's tiny body bursting into flames.
--
Peeta Mellark looks at Gale, all big blue eyes, an innate sweetness to him that he will never shake despite all the things he has accomplished. "You should forgive her," he says. "She loves you; you love her."
Gale says, "She loves you, now. It’s better." He doesn’t say for who.
Peeta shakes his head. "You should forgive her."
Gale's hands are all scarred up. "The thing is," he says, "the thing is that there's nothing to forgive." He thinks, the thing is that I just can't forget.
--
He says, "I'm sorry, I can't."
Every time he looks at her he sees fire, licking up her hands, curling around Rory's body.
She says, "Gale, I love you."
He loves her, too.
But she gave the order, in the end.
He never wanted to not be on her side.