It's almost the holidays to me, okay? So here's the first chapter to my fluffy yet slightly sad holiday fic. I was intrigued by the idea of Gale being a veteran returning from war, and then I was possessed by the Christmas spirit.
Disclaimer: Scattered mentions of PTSD and Gale's experience in the navy
"Do these lights even still work?"
"Sure they do. And they draw in customers, so I need to get them up as soon as possible," Delly explains, getting up onto a stool so she can reach the top of her display case.
It's funny how quickly things can fall back into the way they used to be. Just yesterday, Madge was at university, finishing up her studies and saying farewell to her friends, and today she's back at home. She's hanging out at the Cartwrights' and decorating their storefront with Christmas lights.
"Madge, could you grab the string of lights over there? The white ones?" Delly asks, and Madge digs around the cardboard box looking for the string she's asking for. The box hasn't been touched for almost a year, and there's a thin layer of dust coating everything in it.
"These ones?" Madge holds up a couple of tiny LED lights, strung together by wires and her friend nods excitedly, taking the end away from her and starting to put them up on top of the windows of the shoe store.
Everyone in town always gets really excited during the holidays, and although this year it feels a bit chillier, and little more forced, Madge is trying to get into the Christmas spirit. It's just not the same without her mom here. Ever since she passed away two years ago, the Undersees' house has felt frigid and hollow, unlike the bustling and warm home that always felt magical in December, like something out of a picture book. The times when she visited, Madge has always found the house empty, with only the maid hanging around to keep the place clean.
"Is your dad still having a party this year?" Delly brings up, pinning the lights up while standing on a ladder. Madge nods, leaning against the red bricks every shop in town are built out of. "Yes, he is. I don't know how. I think he's just hiring a bunch of staff to organize it for him."
"Well, it is tradition," her friend points out. "It'll be good, think about it; it'll be nice to have some people fill up the mayor's house again."
Madge can't do anything but agree, shrugging and staring out into the town.
Up and down the streets, people are talking loudly and jumping from store to store buying presents and sipping warm drinks. She sees children holding the hands of their parents pointing their chubby fingers at toys through the windows, and a couple of adults are enjoying their Saturday morning, walking along the sidewalks and relishing in good weather.
Amongst the busy crowds she sees a tall, dark haired man with a little girl sitting on his shoulders. He looks familiar, but in such a small town like theirs it's impossible that Madge doesn't know every person close to her age. She went to highschool with all of them and still sees most of them all of the time, but she can't quite put a finger on who this boy is.
As they get closer, she realizes that the girl is Posy, and suddenly it clicks in Madge's head.
"Delly, is that Gale Hawthorne?"
Her friend turns her head, staring at him and squinting her eyes. "Oh yeah, he went away to the army, remember? I suppose he's back."
Well, he's definitely back. She can see him approaching them now with his siblings and chatting happily amongst them. But Madge wonders how long he's going to stay. She hasn't seen him since high school, and Gale looks different than the last time she saw him. He's stronger, no longer the lanky and too tall boy he was before, and his hair is much shorter, probably because of his military issued haircuts.
"Do you know if he's back for good?"
"Like, is he going back to the army? No clue, you could ask him," Delly offers casually, knowing that Madge would never do such a thing.
But still, she feels the strangest urge to call out to him and wave, so she bites her tongue. She was two years behind him in school and he probably doesn't even remember her as anything more than the mayor's daughter, and would be weirded out if she tried to greet him.
So she lets him walk by, and Madge swears she sees him gaze over with his piercing grey eyes. It only lasts for a second, and Gale returns to looking at Vick and listening to his little brother's jokes, but still, her heart skips a beat.
Gale Hawthorne can't remember the last time he saw Madge Undersee. Maybe it was at his high school graduation, or just somewhere around school when they happened to bump into each other. That was all four years ago, but when he sees her in town in front of the Cartwrights' shoe store, it's almost as if nothing's changed.
It's almost as if she's still just the mayor's pretty daughter, hanging out with her town friends and preparing for the holidays. But Gale knows she's more than that, and that everything has changed. Something about the way she's staring at him or the way she fidgets with her sleeves makes him curious, makes him want to know more about a girl he thought was only a part of his past.
Further down the path, Posy and Vick drag him store to store, pointing at all the things they want under the tree and in their stockings. Rory is too old to want to go out with them, but the two younger ones still admire Gale enough to want to spend time with him ever since he got back.
"Oh please can we go get cookies from the Mellarks, Gale?" Posy asks insistently, and Vick is already making his way to the door of the bakery before Gale can object.
The bakery is busy as always, and even if he rarely ever visited the store when he was a teenager, the Mellarks' feels like an important relic from his past, before the army took him away and changed him. Surprisingly, he finds Peeta and Katniss both helping out behind the counter - just two more people he hasn't seen in almost half a decade.
"Gale," Katniss breaths out when she sees him in the doorway. She leaves her post at the cash register and pushes past the customers to embrace him, hugging him tightly and familiarly. She smells like sugar, which is new, but her hair is still in a braid, which is so familiar it almost hurts.
He hugs her back for what feels like hours, until they notice the customers trying to shuffle by through the door. Katniss lets go, still holding onto his hands.
"You were gone so long," she comments. "I can only write you so many times before I realize how much I miss you. I'm so glad you're back."
"You too, Catnip," he says curtly; he was never really one with his words. But his best friend nods vigorously and pulls him into the bakery, where Peeta has taken over with cashing the customers.
"Hawthorne!" the blond greets warmly, also giving him a hug. "It's crazy to see you back. A lot has changed, eh?"
Gale shrugs. "Sure, the two of you, for one. How's the married life treating you?"
The couple exchange a few looks, and Peeta shrugs jokingly. "I don't think Katniss is making the cut anymore, probably going to divorce her after New Year's."
Katniss hits him on the arm and laughs, "Why then?"
"Because it was my New Year's Resolution to have a happy marriage with you, I mean, I've come this far, right?"
The three of them laugh, and it feels good to be talking to his old friends (and enemies) again. Soon Posy and Vick approach him, carrying a tray of cookies that they've picked out. Katniss takes it from them and begins to package it into a delicate box.
"How much?" Gale asks, fumbling for change in his pocket, but Peeta waves him down.
"Don't worry about that, or your pride, Hawthorne. It's Christmas, and consider it your coming back present."
He wants to protest, but instead Gale thanks him humbly and urges his siblings to thank him too. They do, and after bidding farewell and making vague plans to catch up soon, they're on their way home. Posy and Vick practically run along the path, eager to eat the cookies they'd just been given and show them to their mom.
"Mom, mom! Look!" Posy shouts as she bursts through the door, putting the paper box on the kitchen table and opening it up.
Hazelle sighs tiredly, putting the washcloth down from doing the dishes at the sink and walking over to greet her kids. "They look delicious, dear. Did you get those from Peeta and Katniss?"
"Mhm," the little girl responds, shoveling a gingerbread man in her mouth.
The two kids both sit down at the round wooden table, eating the cookies happily. Gale finds himself standing near the doorway, unsure of what to do with himself. It's been so long since he's seen the house and been in it, and even though so many parts of it were kept the same, he can't help but feel like life has moved on around him. His siblings are all grown up now, Posy's eleven and Vick is fifteen, they're different people yet exactly the same.
"Gale," his mother calls, pulling him out of his trance. She walks over to him and the woman frames his face with her two calloused hands, staring at her son with pride and happiness. "How was it? Being out and about?"
"Good. Weird, a little bit," he responds honestly.
"How come?"
"Everyone's different, you know? Down at the bakery, it's crazy that Mellark and Katniss are married," Gale comments, and his mom nods, urging him to continue. "And I saw Madge Undersee today, doesn't look like she changed one bit."
Hazelle thinks about what he's said and shrugs, agreeing mostly with what he's said. "Well, a lot has changed for the Undersees. Madge went off to college, you know? But soon after she was gone, Meredith passed away. I think it was hard on the mayor and her daughter. Especially the mayor, he's alone in that house now, isn't he?"
Gale had no idea Madge had lost her mother. He cringes at the thought; he doesn't like to dwell on death and endings too much anymore. It reminds him of being at sea and events that he'd rather block out of his head. The memory of the shouting, the pain and the cold have him clenching his jaw, trying to keep himself in the present.
His mother seems to sense his anxiety, so she holds his face tighter and angles it down to meet her eyes. "Don't worry about that, okay? You're back home, and I couldn't've asked for a better present. My baby is home, and I'm so proud of you."
He smiles tightly, so his lips form a thin line, and he hugs his mom whose body has gotten skinnier and more frail through the years. She's never stopped providing for her kids and keeping them happy, and for that Gale is more than grateful.
She lets him him go, smoothing out the imaginary wrinkles of his shirt and returning to the dishes. Gale decides to take a seat at the small table, and when Posy offers him a cookie he politely declines.
"Just not hungry?" she asks innocently, knowing that that's the answer he's given many times ever since he got back. There are just too many thoughts and fears contained in his body right now, and Gale doesn't think he can stomach any of it. He nods, and smiles weakly at the young girl.
"Yea Pose, just not hungry right now."
She gives him an understanding smile and props her head on the table with her elbows, looking a little worn out from a day of walking around. Of all his siblings, Posy has changed the most. She's still the same playful and hilarious girl she was when Gale had enlisted, but now she's also so mindful and observant. Posy seems to always know when it's appropriate to talk or to comment, and Gale hopes he has something to do with it.
"Can you take me skating tomorrow?", she asks abruptly, fiddling with a strand of hair that's fallen loose from her ponytail. "It's the perfect weather for it.
Gale lets out a full-bellied laugh. "I don't think I've skated in eight years, at least. Do we even own skates?"
"You can rent them at the rink, it's not expensive," Posy reasons, "Everyone's going to be there probably, not just like, eleven year olds, if you're worried about that. Your old friends go skating sometimes."
He wonders who she means by old friends, but nods along nevertheless. Maybe he'll see Peeta and Katniss again, it'd be great to catch up then and learn more about their lives. He's heard snippets from Katniss's letters to him, but Gale wants them to fill in the blanks. Or maybe he'll see Thom or some of his old friends from high school, because that wouldn't be the worst thing ever.
Maybe Madge will be there, and that idea has gears turning in his head. He was never the nicest to her, always carrying the assumption that the mayor's daughter was snobbish and self-righteous in some sort of way. But retrospectively Madge was anything but that, and perhaps if they see each other Gale can apologize or make it up to her in some way.
Five years is a long time for someone to wait before giving a petty apology, and maybe Undersee will see right through it and know that he just wants to get to know her. That wouldn't be the worst thing ever either.
"So that's a yes?" his sister asks hesitantly, smiling with an open mouth awaiting his reply.
"Sure, Posy. It's a yes."
What do you guys think? Do you like Corporal Gale? Are you excited for the holidays? Let me know in comments, I always love to hear input. 3