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Pre-Blast Survey
It’s dark in the mines.
They don’t tell you that. They tell you about the cold, icy humidity of the underground, the actual backbreaking work of mining itself, the monotony of the lifestyle, blending the days all together until you can’t tell what was yesterday and what is today, but they don’t tell you how dark it is down there.
You get a light, of course. One attached to your head. It’s faint, but it’s as important as your arm, because without it you would just be mindlessly throwing your axe into an expanse of oblivion.
Still. The light isn’t enough. Gale’s never been afraid of the dark, but he does find it suffocating in the mines. More suffocating than the dust of the coal itself—the thing that actually is seeping into his lungs and suffocating him.
(It suffocates everyone in the end).
It’s not even the idea that there could be something out there in the depths of the mine that you can’t see. It’s the opposite, actually.
It’s the idea of there being nothing out there. The idea that it’s just you, and you’re alone, and if you were to fall, no one would hear your body hit the ground over the clanking of axes hitting the wall and no one would see you, would save you, as you lay there, sweating, bloody, and dying.
It’s just you.
No one else.
It takes the breath out of Gale’s body sometimes, the oppressiveness of the dark.
There’s a great relief in surfacing for the day, in holding up his hand in the light of the setting sun, in being able to see it—to know it’s real. That he’s real.
There’s a feeling of not being real down there.
Like you don’t exist.
Gale wishes he didn’t exist sometimes.
It’s not that he doesn’t like being alive. No, he likes the sun on his face, laughing with Katniss, hunting; he likes the salt of deer jerky on his tongue, the smell of the grass after it rains. He likes the act of building things, drawing maps, and exploring as much of the woods as he can.
What he doesn’t like so much is the electric fence he must carefully climb over every day in order to get into those woods.
What he doesn’t like is that the materials he uses to build things he must scrounge and hide (because if he’s caught, they’ll punish him, and his family, and probably a stranger, too, just for the hell of it).
He doesn’t like that he only has deer jerky twice a year, because most of his hunt goes to the black market so he can afford the slop he and his family need to survive.
He doesn’t like that he rarely sees the sun anymore, because he’s always underground, mining, mining, mining.
He itches to break free; to smash his ax into the ceiling of the mine and allow the sun to reach the darkest corners of the underground; to slice the necks of peacekeepers in the street and see their head roll to the ground like the coal he hacks off the wall.
(He’s so angry. All the time, he’s angry, and it hurts, hurts, hurts, burning him up from the inside out).
He aches to fight to free himself, to free twelve—-to free them all.
But he can’t. Not without dying in the process.
And Gale likes living.
He just doesn’t particularly care for the existence the Capitol has given him.
***
Five
When Katniss wins her games, Gale is relieved beyond measure.
She’s his best friend, and he’s pretty sure he loves her. He’d always assumed they’d get married. The idea is nice, and it’s something to fight for. There’s a lot Gale would like to fight for that he can’t—justice, freedom, revenge—so he fights for what he can: little things, like survival. Like deer jerky.
Like Katniss.
He’s less enthused that the baker's son has also won. He hadn’t really care for him before—just another rich asshole who had never known true struggle, who never did a thing to help them fight back.
But Katniss is different now. It’s like she has forgotten how to fight. And Gale feels that the boy is somehow responsible.
On the screen, she had been fearless, defiant, angry—everything Gale knew Katniss to be. He didn’t really understand the romance she had concocted with the boy, and it had hurt to see that, but Gale had been willing to overlook it because it was the Games and things… happened in the Games sometimes.
But then Katniss had come back and it was like all the fight had been drained out of her.
She’s still Katniss, sure. And she’ll come with him on his hunts, sometimes. And he can tell she’s still angry—still has that fire inside that also burns in him—but something’s off. It’s a brittle anger—fragile and laden with something he can’t quite identify, and he doesn’t understand, doesn’t know how to reach her, and so he does the only thing he knows how to do: he fights.
But it feels like the more he fights her—fights for her—the more she slips away. He’s losing her, more than he lost her when she got on that train a year before.
Katniss has been taken from him, just like every other good thing Gale has ever had, and he blames the boy, and he blames the Capitol.
(He’s so, so angry).
***
Four
Katniss and the boy are reaped again.
Again.
And Gale is devastated, of course. Even distant and different, Katniss had been safe and alive in twelve, and now she could die and he would truly lose her.
But there is a small, terrible part of Gale that is hopeful. Hopeful that now she will come back to herself. Now, she’ll be ready to fight, be back to normal, as long as she can survive again. As long as she leaves that coward of a boy behind.
Gale prepares himself for another year of pent up anger and pitch fucking black mines, even though he is not sure he can stomach it, because he is so tired of this bullshit, of oppression—of the Capitol thinking it could get away with anything and that he’d just lay down and take it—but then.
But then there is a whisper.
And another whisper. And then a rumor that if you, or anyone you knew, wanted to pave the way to freedom, to get revenge, to fight back, then you could meet under the hanging tree at midnight. And Gale was careful—-of course he was careful, he knew what the consequences of getting caught were—but he went. There weren’t that many people there, but there were more than he thought there would ever be—meeting under the cover of night to commit an act of treason they could all be killed for.
It’s wonderful.
The mines didn’t feel as dark, the air not as damp, the world not as small. He has a purpose. A team.
They start small, tiny acts of rebellion that don’t truly matter in the grand scheme of things, but Gale can smell that they want to do more, that they crave more, that they are going to go on to bigger things soon.
His hunting skills and his familiarity with the terrain make him a valuable asset. Hours spent building rocking horses for Prim and mapping the forest and sharpening arrows to hunt with became hours building weapons and mapping the terrain in case of an escape and teaching the others how to shoot a bow and arrow. He’s a natural at it, leading. Teaching others to kill.
And for the first time in a long time, Gale feels alive.
***
Three
By the time his counterfeit radio buzzes to life with an urgent crackle and the SOS signal, Gale is already running. Gale had known it was time as soon as Katniss had tilted her bow and arrow to the sky of the arena.
Their network of rebellion had expanded to the Capitol at that point. Someone in twelve had known someone in eleven who had known someone in nine who had known someone in four who had known someone in one, and they knew something big was happening, and it had something to do with Katniss ( the girl on fire, they whispered in reverent tones, and Gale bristled for a reason he couldn’t understand), with the Games, with some of the tributes.
There’s going to be a signal , they were told, And then you need to get out.
His team (he likes to think of them as his team) had eyes on the games at all times; the women watched during the day since they didn’t have to go in the mines, and the men watched at night. It had happened an hour into Gale’s night shift. The camera had been zoomed in on Katniss’ face, and there was a glint in her eye—a glint Gale recognized, because he knew her, even now—and Gale had known exactly what was going to happen next.
He tore through the streets, warning everyone he could, gathering everything he could, and barking orders at his team of rebels—who are just the town blacksmith, the miner behind him in the meal line, his older brother’s friend from school, the woman who patched up his clothes, but who in this moment are soldiers, people to turn to, who knew what was going on and how to survive it, and Gale has never been more proud.
They couldn’t get everyone out, but they do get some people out, and as Gale corrals them towards the evacuation route he had painstakingly crafted months before, he can hear the sound of twelve being wiped off the map behind him.
***
Two
In Thirteen, Gale flourishes.
He already has the respect of those in twelve, and he is determined to gain the same standing in thirteen—so he does. He is strong, he is fearless, and he is passionate. He runs drills with vigor, he strategizes constantly, and he knows this is what he was meant to do.
(Is it horrible that the only thing he has ever been good at is war?)
(Is it horrible that he can’t bring himself to care?)
Everything is good. Everything… except for Katniss.
Katniss, who has now survived two games, who has seen the evils of the Capitol up close, who has felt their oppression, their darkness, firsthand— that Katniss doesn’t seem to care about the fight at all.
All she seems to care about is the boy. Getting him back. And when they do get the boy out, she is still off.
It’s strange.
Katniss is there. She’s in thirteen, yes, doing things, following orders (for the most part), but she seems detached. Not truly dedicated to the cause. The only time she seems to be motivated to do something is when Prim or the boy are in danger.
And one day, it dawns on Gale.
For Katniss, it has never been about the revolution.
It has always been about her people.
Volunteering was not an act of rebellion, like Gale had thought, but a desperate bid to save her sister. Destroying the stadium—an act of survival. Working with thirteen—a way to get the boy back. Everything else—being the face of the revolution, working with the team, even fucking training for basic drills—had to be forced on her.
In fact, Gale is relatively sure that if she could, she would run away with Prim and the boy (Once upon a time, he would have made the cut, too, but it was different now). She would leave it all behind, leave Panem to burn. She didn’t care about the ideals he pours his soul into.
It hits him like a ton of bricks. It’s so obvious, and he cannot believe he’s missed it all these years.
Katniss may have been angry too, may have also hated the Capitol, but not for the reasons Gale was.
Not for the right reasons.
And Gale feels a wave of revulsion for Katniss Everdeen. He had always thought that they were so similar. Two sides of the same coin. But he and Katniss weren’t alike at all, not if this was what guided her—not if she was this selfish and short-sighted.
In that moment, Gale knows he has truly lost her, and perhaps he had never had her at all. He allows himself a brief moment to mourn her.
To mourn the loss of his best friend.
And then he gets up, laces his boots, and goes to brief his team.
Just as any soldier would. As any should .
Because they have to. Because the greater good is bigger than one person.
Katniss would do what she needed to for those she loved, and Gale would do what he needed to for the world, no matter the cost.
***
One
Gale knows that there are civilians there.
This was his plan, after all, and he has the schematics memorized forward and backward.
He also has the final say. If he doesn’t give the “okay,” the go ahead, then it wouldn’t happen—simple as that.
But it needs to be done. It’s the right thing to do. And the Capitol deserves it—to feel the pain he and everyone else have faced for decades—they deserve it, too.
He thinks of the games. Year after year of watching children kill each other for the entertainment of the Capitol.
He thinks of the peacekeepers, brutalizing his district for the fun of it.
He thinks of hunting with his best friend (his only friend), of staying quiet, of making sure they won’t be caught so that they aren’t whipped in front of their families for trying to make life even a little bearable.
He thinks of the cold winters where he was never sure if he would have enough to eat that day, if he would survive the night.
He thinks of the darkness of the mines. The suffocating, all-encompassing darkness that seeps into every pore of your being, and he thinks of the Capitol not caring at all about any of it. Not one bit.
Gale is so angry.
And he has been fighting for so long.
Justice. Freedom. Revenge—they were all worth it.
They had to be worth it.
*
*
*
Gale picks up his comm.
Zero.