A/N: Soooo sorry for the late update, but I had a hard time with this chapter. I always find that it's hardest to write the moment when everything wraps itself up because that's the last thing you leave everyone with... Oh, well, I think I ended up with something that satisfied me, so I hope you enjoy it too.

9. The Train Station

Katniss's feet pound against the road, filling her ears with a constant drum beat. Her heart thuds along with it, but her pulse races, unable to be controlled. She hardly even feels the exertion of this endlessly long run— the hammering of her heart is caused by the possibility of reaching the train station and watching the train rush away into the distance. She imagines it happening, and her nerves scream. She imagines how painful it would be to have Gale ripped away so fiercely like that…

Katniss pushes back her sleeve and glances down at her watch.

Ten minutes.

That's enough to make her run faster, pushing harder towards train station. Everything goes by in a haze. Houses, people, trees. They all rush together as she sprints by, thoughts blurring with feelings and sights in a smudge of color and sounds that's almost mind-numbing.

Katniss feels like she's on fire. Her whole body resists the constant motion. She gasps for breath, sucking in oxygen to fuel her thoughts and her muscles. It burns so fiercely, but it's less about the physical exertion than it is about the panic.

Every tick of the clock raises another vein of terror. With every passing moment, Gale could be nearing the train's closing doors. Every single step he takes across the platform could be leading him endlessly away from her. No one else would see it. The fire is only between the two of them, and it burns for their loss.

Then, like a beacon of hope, the train station rises out of the blur of colors. Katniss feels like she's flying towards it at the speed of a hovercraft. It feels like she'll never be able to stop. She takes a moment to check her watch.

Five minutes.

It's a dead sprint now. She couldn't physically move faster if she tried. If her body would obey the command of constant acceleration, she probably would have collapsed in a strained, destroyed heap at least five minutes ago. But no matter how her body screams for mercy, something keeps pulling her forward.

Gale must have a sort of gravity. He's that type of person who'll take a chance and let you inside his massive fortifications, and he'll have such an effect over you that you'll always be drawn to him. He insists that his soul is dark and heavy, but he'll always retain the quality of perseverance, bravery, and light. He'll never lose that, no matter what he insists. There's always that candle in the darkness. The flame flickers and dances in the wind, but it always burns. Always. Endlessly. Infinitely.

Katniss doesn't understand why she didn't always see that flame. How could she not have known the extent of his love for her? Sometimes she wonders if she was blind before she was reaped. She doesn't understand why she couldn't have seen that she mattered to him. That would have made things so much simpler. If she'd known then, it would have saved a million years' worth of heartbreak.

The train station is emptying, and the train is filling up. The last few stragglers are milling around the platform— some waste time; some take in their surroundings one last time; and others say goodbye.

There's a man in the center of the train station saying goodbye to empty space. He stands tall but broken like a soldier returned from war with too few comrades and too many demons. He stares out into the tree line beyond the train, but, inside, he's saying goodbye to a woman who he believes has lied to him, and his strength is shattering from her final blow.

But that woman, who hasn't lied, is here, too. She is prepared to never lie again, amazed by the amount of bravery and honesty that the man can put into a letter. She is stunned by his ability to rip out his soul, twist it into words, and give it to her without second thoughts.

Because that man, Gale, is more than just some man. He's amazing, and he needs to know that.

Letting him leave would be the worst decision Katniss could ever make.

The platform is silent except for the soft, caressing whistle of the wind and the dull chatter of people getting on the train. Everything is muffled besides the heartbeat that is pounding in Katniss's ears, and she is fully prepared to shout his name for all its worth across the platform. She's not scared to cause a scene or shatter the silence of the platform. Not at all. She's propelled forward by Gale's intense courage and unfailing strength.

Her mouth opens, lips barely parting to call out his name, but she doesn't need to say a word to get Gale's attention. Out of the corner of his eye, he must see her like a ghost. Ever so slowly, as if he's worried she's just a figment of his imagination, Gale turns to face her.

When their gazes connect and lock onto each other, it feels like a slap. The intensity of emotion is tangible and thick in the air. They say a million things without opening their mouths.

Katniss tries to think of what she can say out loud, but just looking at Gale seems to have changed all sensible thought into nothingness. Gale used up all his words in that letter, so nothing must seem relevant for him to voice.

His eyebrows knit together, and his shoulders roll in an honest shrug. I have nothing left to say. I'm sorry.

That sparks the fire inside Katniss once again. The words return, and she finally breaks the silence. "Don't you dare!" she shouts. It cracks across the platform like lightning. "Don't you even dare, Gale!"

Gale's expression dissolves into something between exasperation and weariness. "Don't I dare do what?"

"Leave, Gale!" Katniss shouts desperately. She suddenly finds herself near tears. "Don't you dare leave!"

Something breaks in Gale's eyes. "Katniss," he sighs in a gruff and tired voice. "We've… we've had this argument before. A million times—"

"And we'll have it a million times more," Katniss snaps. "I will continue to argue with you until I get it through your thick skull that you know nothing about what's going on in my head!"

"I'm just trying to make it easier!" Gale says loudly. "We always fight about this, and obviously there's too much fire between to two of us!"

"Shut up, Gale! If you knew anything at all about what I'm feeling then you wouldn't have left!" Katniss shouts.

"Come on, Katniss!" Gale says loudly. "Stop trying to protect me or whatever it is you're trying to do! I don't want you to sacrifice your happiness for mine!'

That hits Katniss as hard as a moving train. A million parallels between Peeta and Gale pop into her head, and they drown out everything else. No matter how much Gale insists that Peeta is a better man than him, they're really the same when you get to the core of it. They're both just men who were broken by a war they fought to save the ones they love. That's really all there is to it.

Katniss blinks back tears. "That's the same thing Peeta told me before I came here to stop you."

That finds Gale just above the heart. He grits his teeth and turns slightly aware from her. "Oh Jesus Christ—"

"But it was only relevant when Peeta said it because I really would be compromising my happiness if I let you leave," Katniss says, holding her voice as steady as possible.

"Really, Katniss?" Gale shouts, his eyes flashing. "Would you really be compromising your happiness? You seemed pretty damn happy before I showed up!"

"I wasn't happy, Gale!" Katniss shouts back. "I was just floating by! I wasn't happy— I was hardly living! Peeta and I have been limping along these past few years! I didn't realize how happy I could be until you came back into my life!"

"Oh, come on! I wish we could be happy together!" Gale says bitterly. "We've done nothing but fight these past few days! Can you imagine what a lifetime of that would be like?"

A single thought of spending forever with Gale almost knocks Katniss over. "I want that, Gale!" she says desperately. "I want that so badly! We fight all the time, but we always figure it out in the end, don't we?"

A bitter laugh escapes Gale's lips. "What if we can't figure it out this time? What if you're making another promise you can't keep?"

Katniss boils over. "I hate that you can't trust me anymore. I hate that," she bites out.

Gale cringes. "Just trying to make the best decision… I'm just trying—"

"To make my decisions for me," Katniss finishes sharply, "and you try to deny every feeling I have for you."

Gale can't seem to really come up with a response to that. "Well—"

"You told me once that I would pick whoever I couldn't survive without," Katniss says, forcing her voice to stay steady and even.

"And you made that decision, didn't you," Gale says. His head snaps to the side so that he's staring out at the tree line again. Looking upon past memories. Painting the sky red with thoughts of the war.

"No, I didn't," Katniss says harshly. "You did. You made that decision for me. You just left— you didn't give me a chance to choose otherwise."

"Be serious, Katniss!" Gale says. "Like you would have chosen me if I had stuck around."

Katniss's mouth opens to retort but hangs there for a second.

Gale breaks a little more. "See—"

"I might not have picked you initially, but choosing Peeta wouldn't have been the right decision," Katniss says firmly.

That doesn't satisfy Gale, though. Not even close. "Are you kidding me? You can't survive without Peeta, Katniss! He's so essential to you!"

"He's important to me, but he's not essential in that way, Gale," Katniss says. Her voice is rising again. "I know that last night I said you were important to me, but I was just trying to make it easier on him. You're the one who's essential to me."

Gale flinches and closes his eyes. "I said you'd make a decision based on who you couldn't survive without out. Peeta—"

"I wanted to need him," Katniss says desperately. This is the last leg of the race. If she can't convince him now, she'll lose him. "At the end of the war, I wanted it to be Peeta that I needed, but it was never him. It was always you."

Gale swallows. He's losing ground. His argument is falling. "Katniss—"

"Because I love you, Gale," Katniss says. It slips out almost without her permission, but she doesn't regret it as it passes her lips. There's so much feeling behind her words that it sweeps away everything else. "I love you, and I have always loved you."

Gale sucks in a breath, and it echoes around in the silence that Katniss's words just created. If she wanted to, Katniss could probably count Gale's heartbeats. She can almost feel them beating with her own in her chest. For a couple seconds, it's just the two of them. Everything else disappears, and they're both left to absorb what Katniss just confessed to.

Suddenly, Katniss is close enough to Gale that she could memorize every fleck of light as it hits his steel gray eyes. She's staring up at him, and he's staring down at her. The only sounds in their universe are their soft breaths and the slight ringing in their ears.

Gale's mind almost falls to shambles as it works through what just happened. Katniss's voice repeats itself in the back of his head, echoing slightly as it comes forward into his consciousness. For the first time in the whole conversation, Gale doesn't even consider not believing Katniss. In the past she's kissed him, assured him of her affections, and promised never to go back to Peeta, but she has never said that she loved him. Until now.

Rays of light break through a decade of darkness, and it's like the last puzzle piece has finally fallen into place. It's like that feeling when you wake up after a deep sleep and see the sun streaming in through the windows, and you realize just how beautiful the light is.

Gale can feel Katniss's breath on his neck— that's how close she's standing. She looks up through her eyelashes at him, and he can see a depth of emotion that he wouldn't have been able to see before.

"Do you need proof for that, too?" Katniss asks quietly.

Considering that it all feels too fast for a second, Gale nods. "Maybe."

Without a single touch of hesitance, Katniss closes the distance between the two of them completely and hops up on her toes, pressing her lips against Gale's. Colors dance behind his eyelids as he blocks out everything except Katniss. His hand finds the back of her head, pulling her lips harder against his, and all thoughts of his doubt in Katniss's love disappears within a blink. It's proof enough.

Gale is blinded by the sunlight when Katniss finally lowers herself back onto her heels. He wonders why she pulled away for a flicker of a second, but then he hears the train whistle. The locomotive pulls away just as Gale turns his head to look at it.

"Regret missing that?" Katniss asks, her hand finding his.

"Not in the slightest," Gale replies. He means it.

Katniss's fingers lace themselves between his, and it feels like a dream. But, in reality, Gale's finally woken up from the nightmare. He's been living in the darkness of sleep these past few years, and the demons have finally loosened their grip enough to let him free.

Gale looks at Katniss, and he realizes that he's never seen a more beautiful light.

A/N: So there you go! I'm pondering writing an epilogue of sorts, but, for all intents and purposes, this is how the stories ends. What do you all think of an epilogue? Should I write it? And, overall, what did you think of the story?

Thank you so much to everyone who stuck with this story and gave me such wonderful reviews! You are all the most fantastic readers I could ask for!