The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins.
What if Gale, overtaken by the grief of seeing his oldest friend about to be swept into the monstrosity that is the Hunger Games, volunteered for Peeta and took his place?
Gale Hawthorne x Katniss Everdeen
"I have been smashed and put back together so many times.
Nothing works right,
Nothing is where it should be,
Heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats."
—Elizabeth Scott
"—she's unstable! Stop the bleeding, get the—"
"—infections. We're going to need to transplant multiple—"
"Katniss Everdeen of District 12, Victor of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, if you can hear m—"
"She's unresponsive. Get her to intensive care! Do it qui—"
"—blood is stale, old, not clotting, hook her up on th—"
"District 12. District 12, hello? If you can—I saw her blink! She blin—"
"Stop crowdin' her! The girl's heart just started working again, for cryin' out loud!"
"Mr. Abernathy, we're going to have to ask you to leave the room."
"Leave the room, my ass! That's my tribute you're cuttin' into, and I'll be damned before I let the Capitol b—"
"Sweetheart?"
"Sweetheart, please. Wake up."
"Wake up."
"Wake up."
The words were carried on frosty breath, swirling across my skin with the lingering coldness of mashed mint leaves. Icicle fingertips delicately crooned my heavy eyelids, barely making contact, barely there. They dipped downward, a sigh of touch against the hollows of my face.
Sitting up was like sprouting wings and hovering without a trace of effort. The soarness in my body was replaced by complete numbness; it was the kind that felt like fluff in my muscles, like a shot of morphling sinking into the scruff of my neck.
Through heavy eyelids I saw a source of white glow—a face. Darkness pooled in the shadows under his cheekbones. Quicksilver highlights fingered the bow of his lips, the borders of his eyes. Through bristled eyelashes were blue irises—impossibly blue. They put all the skies and oceans in the world to shame, and they looked at me achingly.
"Katniss?" His voice was like static whispers. "What are you doing here?"
The individual details of him sank in lazily, as if my mind was too exhausted to process them. It took a few moments for me to see his black hair, his strong brow, his sharp jawline.
"Marvel," I said. And that was that. It was a statement of fact, not a greeting. It was cold and numb like the anesthetized deadness I felt flooding stagnantly in my core.
"Yes. I'm surprised you remember." His mouth drew tight in dismay, his pupils shrinking until they pierced me like pinpoints. "Now tell me. What are you doing here?"
I exhaled slowly, and it drained me of more than breath. My lips parted in preparation to reply, but I didn't seem to be able to speak anymore.
Marvel seemed to be growing more panicked by the second, his eyebrows furrowing angrily together and his shoulders tensing. "This doesn't make any sense," he quaked, "You won, Katniss! You w—"
His voice halted with a throaty, pained choke, and I abruptly felt the distinct chill of a steel bow in my hands. I looked down to see a wooden arrow jutting out of Marvel's chest, his trembling fingers hovering around it.
A shriek tangled itself in the knotted coils of my vocal cords, hurting like a swallowed blade. I dropped my bow and immediately moved to pull the arrow out of his shaking ribcage, only for it to turn into the rubber hilt of a knife the moment I touched it.
Stunned, I peered upward to see a round, ebony face and slanted, tear-coated eyes. High-pitched hiccups as melodious as the sad warbles of a raven slashed at my eardrums.
Her name caught in my mouth, tasting of copper and acid—Rue.
I tugged the knife out—the sounds it made against her sliced flesh enough to nauseate me—and firmly pressed my palm against her wound in an attempt to control the bleeding. My head was whirling, the once calm sensation of numbness quickly turning into something that physically hurt. I felt heavy, dense; stiff like a corpse.
My vision blackened, and suddenly, I was pinned to the ground. I was able to make out tufts of red hair and yellow eyes in the darkness for a fleeting second before feeling an excruciating pain in the crook of my neck. Fangs sunk into my flesh, and the numbness faded, leaving me to flail in agony. My mouth gaped open in a silent scream.
Throbbing, stabbing through my chest in bitter waves—it felt like violent electric shocks. They strangled my heart and roused my pulse until it became rabid.
"Wake up."
"Wake up."
My eyes flew open, my chest heaving with each of my frenzied gasps. A heart rate monitor beeped loudly and wildly at my side. I thrashed in an attempt to sit up, only to find that I was strapped tightly to what seemed to be a hospital bed.
My wrists were fastened at my sides, and a dozen needles and tubes snaked dizzyingly out of my arms; I immediately thought of the wire twine around Gale's wrists and began screaming. It didn't last long; the pain in my abdomen became excruciating with the strain, and I was reduced to choking back tears and wriggling helplessly.
"Tranquilize her," a calm voice ordered from a distance, and a cool liquid seeped into my veins from one of the needled tubes in my arms.
I was knocked out instantly.
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"Heart rate, fifty-five beats per minute. Breathing is stable. Cholesterol levels a—"
"—nd she's healthy. Remove all IV's except f—"
"—esident Snow wants a full body polish on b—"
"Let her feed herself, dammit! Get that tube out of her!"
"Mr. Abernathy, these things take time. You know that. Please leave the room."
"My fist will take time on your face when I—"
"Oh, she's beautiful."
"Not a flaw left on her."
"Double-check for scars, remove any—"
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I tried to stop them. I tr—"
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"Wake up."
The first thing I registered was the buzzing din of ceiling lights. I was afraid to move. Slowly, hesitantly, I opened my eyes, staring upward at the soft yellow gleam dawning over me.
It had felt like I was in a strange, continual twilight—always conscious, only slightly. Of course, I knew there was a lag between the end of the games and the presentations of the Victor (they needed to put the starving, filthy, wounded carcass of a person they had plucked from the arena back together again), but I couldn't help but feel the haunting chill of bewilderment hang over me. It almost moved me to tears—I felt the hushed pressure at the back of my eyes, the prickling in my skull.
Where was Gale? Didn't he win? Didn't I make sure that he won? I knew that he would take care of our families. I knew that my mother and Prim would understand. I knew that—in a hopeless situation where we were forced to make a choice—he was the better option.
Gulping, I allowed myself to experimentally move. The pain that was once an agonizing bombshell in my abdomen was now completely absent. I sat up, noticing how only one needle remained in my arm and how my goosebump-cloaked skin met the light flow of a hospital gown. I thought that I was free of my restraints, but one jostle of my legs proved that my ankles were still strapped to the bed. The image of the wire twine around Gale's ankles was like a slap to the face. Were they reminding me on purpose?
I inhaled deeply, smelling something sharp and antiseptic; it stung in my nostrils. I brought my hands up to cover my nose and found that my skin had been—replaced?
Where hunting and burn scars once stood was now a pure, glowing, flawless swathe that looked like milky satin. My nails were cleaned and filed into perfect crescents, sloping like the moon.
Suddenly very dizzy, I tentatively touched the skin of my neck. Smooth. As if nothing happened.
After running my fingers through my hair and finding nothing but newly silken strands, I punched my fists into the mattress of the hospital bed, gripping the covers and choking back sobs.
They didn't just fix me.
They changed me.
They changed me.
A soft beeping sound followed by the keen grind of machinations caught my ear. I turned in the direction of it, terrified, only to see that a portion of the wall had slid open, revealing the red-headed Avox girl with a tray in her hands. She stepped in with an air of apologetic empathy, the bow of her lips pursed with worry and her eyes flashing with silent messages. I winced automatically when she set the tray on my thighs—a reflex from the arena, no doubt.
My eyes fell on the tray dazedly. It had a bowl of brown broth, four crackers laid out on a napkin, a glass of water, and a sealed cup of applesauce. The Avox handed me a spoon, and I glanced up at her as I took it. I must have looked particularly crestfallen because she gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze afterward.
"Thank y—" I began to say, biting down on the words once I realized that we were probably being closely monitored. After a shaky pause, I briskly nodded at her—just a slight twitch in my neck. She nodded back, a sad smile on the white pallor of her face, before turning on her heel and exiting the room.
Before eating, I weaved the stem of the spoon steadily between my fingers, its silver expanse blinking in the light. I studied my blurred reflection in it, noting how the basic features of my face were untouched. Of course, I thought, they still wanted me to be recognizable.
Still, I couldn't seem to be able to get rid of the lump in my throat; I had to swallow around it as I dejectedly ate my homecoming meal.
After I had finished and set the tray aside, the cool liquid began to trickle into my veins again. It was like ice, a liquid hypothermia skulking itself through my body, and it dragged me into the depths of unconsciousness once again. I fell backwards and hit my pillow with a thump.
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"—can't believe you let them do this to her, Effie."
"Haymitch. Believe me when I say it's in her best interest. You went through it, too. Remember when you won?"
"I've been trying to forget."
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The next time I woke up, it was with a jolt—a lightning strike that bursted in my stomach and traveled into my mouth. I sat up, panting, just in time to see the last needle be uprooted from the fleshy bed of my arm. A looming Capitolite quickly brushed a waxy substance over the small, bleeding pucker of skin the needle left. He smelled of copper. He turned away before I could study his face, wheeling away a cart of what looked like numerous medical instruments with him.
The moment he exited, I checked to see if my ankles were still restrained. They weren't. My heart did a cheery somersault as I tossed my legs over the edge of the bed and began to stand up.
Abruptly, the wall slid open again, revealing a hunched-over man in a loose dress shirt and slacks. His gray hair hung in tousled strands next to the point of his chin, and peppered stubble framed his worry-wrinkled mouth like stars.
My heart swelled painfully at the sight of him. "Haymitch," I choked, and he took long, urgent strides toward me. He reached out his arms, and I almost thought he was going to hug me, but instead he took my hand and lightly flicked my wrist with his index finger—not nearly hard enough to hurt, but enough to leave me staring.
"What?" I started. "Was that a punishment? Was that a—child's punishment?"
He nodded resolutely, trying desperately to appear stern, but he couldn't for the life of him hide the softness in his twinkling eyes. "You're damn right it was a punishment," he grumbled, and I never thought I would miss such a rough voice. He continued—"You deserve it! You had me worried sick! I must have lost ten years of my life watching you dawdle out there, making every possible mistake you could, I can't believe how stupid you were, strong girl like you should know better"—and I couldn't help but smile as he endlessly scolded me.
"Like you did any better," I accused, arching a brow, "Stale bread? Really, Haymitch? You decide to send out a parachute, and it has stale bread in it?"
"It was a message!"
"It was your leftovers from lunch! Two years ago!"
And suddenly, we were laughing together. Any outside observer would think that we were fighting, but I could discern the true meaning in his words: I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'm glad you're alright.
We sat on the edge of the bed, and I could tell by the tightness in his shoulders that the environment put him on edge. I wanted to ask him a million questions, but I was silenced by the hidden cameras and microphones in the walls. I chose my words carefully; I knew he would understand me regardless.
"What happened to my wounds?" What did they do to me?
"Full body polish. Surgical alterations. It's customary." They did it to me, too.
"How's everything back home?" Did they hurt my family?
"Completely ordinary. Ready for you to come back." They're all safe. Don't worry.
I took a deep breath, bracing myself. "Never heard those last cannons. That's kind of strange, don't you think?" Gale. Tell me about Gale.
"Cannons don't go off unless you're a certain amount of feet away from the...bodies," he swallowed hard, staring at the ground with hardened eyes, "The one you got upset over? It was District 11's. The boy's." It wasn't Gale's.
I exhaled sharply. I know that. I saw him alive, remember? Before I...
"District 5 female and District 2 male died. You...You died, too."
I paused, widening my eyes. Haymitch wasn't talking cryptically anymore. This part he could say out loud.
"And Gale." His chest deflated with a sigh, and he very purposefully avoided my gaze. "He died, too."
"What?" I hissed, and suddenly I felt as if I was fainting, as if that icy poison was being injected into my quivering veins again.
"You both died." Haymitch reached into his pocket, fishing out his flask. He didn't drink from it. He just held onto it, untwisting and twisting the cap. "After you stabbed yourself, Gale didn't even hesitate. Took a throwing knife from the kit next to him and just..." He thumped the bottom of the flask against his knee. "Right into his heart."
"W-Why would he...?"
Haymitch turned his head to look me firmly in the eye. "Love." Rebellion.
I bit the inside of my mouth until the sure taste of blood twinged against my tastebuds. I nodded, my neck rigid.
Haymitch let out a long, lulling breath, his gravelly voice twisting through the room. "So. There wasn't a Victor. Everyone died. All twenty-four of you. Four cannons went off, and the screens went black."
He got up then, fiddling ardently with his flask. There was no sloshing sound, and I realized that it must have been empty. Did he just carry it around for comfort?
One of his hands went to his chin, scratching his stubble thoughtfully as he lingered idly about. "Everything went to chaos. The Gamemakers decided on the fly to save the tribute that lasted the longest. They checked your trackers. Checked the exact time your pulses stopped. It was down to the absolute millisecond." He paused in his steps, craning his neck to look at me with flashing eyes. "You and Gale died at exactly the same time. Exactly."
I visibly blanched at that, my face prickling as blood drained from it. "He's alive, then?" I asked, my voice strangled and my head light from the quickening of my pulse. "Gale is alive?"
Haymitch grinned, his teeth wolfy. Just as he was opening his mouth to answer, a number of noises echoed from behind the walls. Surprised, high-pitched shrieks and the clattering of fallen equipment surrounded us, all followed by two pairs of booming footsteps. One was noticeably more hollow, as if coming from high-heels.
"Haymiiitch!" a feminine voice squealed. I recognized it as Effie's. "I tried to stop him! Help me! He's out of control! No manners! Oh, how embarrassing!"
I raised my eyebrows in absolute puzzlement.
"Katniss?!" A gruff voice yelled out. And my bones turned to absolute mush, my heart swaying and my stomach squelching.
It was Gale's voice. Gale's voice. Gale. Gale. "Gale! I'm here! I'm in here!" I shot up from the bed, running over to where the walls shifted open and pounding on it with closed fists. "I'm here!"
The barrier slid aside, leaving me to punch at empty air. Breaths wheezed through my throat as I woozily ambled out of the room. "Gale?!"
Pivoting on my heel, I saw him—clean, healthy...running. He was running at me. Soon, he had me in his arms. He picked me up and spun me around, smiling and laughing so hard that he choked.
"Katniss," he whispered into my hair, followed by a noise of pained, strangled longing. He pressed his lips onto mine, and they somehow tasted like pine and acorns and sunshine—like home. The kiss only stopped because I couldn't help but stretch my lips into a shaking smile. The tips of our noses pressed lightly together, our tearful gazes locked.
"We won. We won." His breaths were uneven and frantic, his gray eyes glossy and bright. "It's over."
Okay, so...This ended up being less of an epilogue and more of a chapter in and of itself. Oops!
I'm so sad about how strict the formatting is on this website. The dialogue doesn't exactly have the effect I wanted it to. It would have been better if each of the quotes had its own page. I did make a compromise with the rows of ellipses, though. You should count how many there are in each section, by the way. ;)
And, hahaha, sorry, I'm such a sucker for dream sequences. I always try not to do them unnecessarily, though. And this one is sort of special! It has elements of the medical procedures Katniss was undergoing in the real world—shots of morphling, electric shots to the heart, etc.
You should also know that I toyed with the idea of making Cato and Foxface survive as well. That was the original plan! There would be not two, but four victors. I eventually decided that that would be too sloppy, even with everyone dying. Only one district can win, after all. I'm a little sad that it didn't pull through, though. Cato and Foxface are so interesting, and I would have loved to get the opportunity to make their characters more deep and complex.
Anyway! I do have the first chapter and a plot outline done for a sequel, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth writing. I cut the conclusion short for this story so that a majority of the loose ends are tied, and a lot of people seemed to have moved on from this story and the Hunger Games fandom in general. I don't know. Would anyone even read it?