In the morning, Gale rises before the sun and reminds himself that Madge Undersee is dead.
He washes his face, and gets dressed, drinks coffee, skips breakfast, and remembers that Madge died.
He goes to work, where he draws up plans and answers some mail, attends three more damn meetings, tugs on one of Celia's long curls to tease her– promises that he'll get a drink with her sometime– then eats lunch alone. There's a girl in front of him in line at the café, with long honey-colored hair that reaches her waist. She's wearing a colorful sundress. He thinks, Who wears a dress that light in April? and remembers that Madge Undersee was killed.
He flies out to the newest site, in One– where they're ripping down all the old Capitol pleasure palaces, much to his satisfaction. He talks to the manager of the project, talks to the workers. One of them shows him his kids' pictures, stowed in a wrinkled wallet. He reminds himself that Primrose Everdeen is dead. He goes back to Two, and calls his mother.
Hazelle is doing well. She's started her own full-sized laundry business, with a tailoring shop out front. Vick's out at the bakery. Rory doesn't speak to him.
Hazelle says, "It's been a year, Gale. When are you going to visit?"
"Soon," he answers truthfully. He's been planning to go down to Twelve next month. He'll be there in time for his mother's birthday. He's planning to surprise her with a fancy cake and a new dress. "I promise." He stops for a moment, and then says all in a rush, "Today's the anniversary."
He doesn't know why he says it. Hazelle knows as well as him when the bombing was. Everyone in Twelve remembers– it's practically a holiday, now. There's probably been a constant stream of people past the window of the Hawthorne house, going to the graveyard for their loved ones' death-days.
Hazelle pauses, and he can almost see her, standing by the kitchen counter in a floury apron, chewing on her lip pensively like she always does when she's about to say something that makes him feel foolish.
"Oh, Gale. When are you going to stop torturing yourself?"
There's no answer for that, and she knows it. There's a silence in which Gale legitimately considers hanging up.
"How's Posy?" he asks, just to put the conversation somewhere where he can keep an eye on it. Hazelle sighs a little, and mutters some unkind things about stubbornness and damn kids and therapy, and then plunges into the simple intrigues of elementary school. Gale welcomes them.
When his mother finally winds down and says her goodbyes, he goes to the little bar just a block from his house, and orders a beer. It's a seedy place, but the bartender doesn't try to make conversation, at least, and the other patrons are quiet. He drinks the beer slowly, savoring the slow, low burn that it lights in his belly. When he's done, he orders another. Then another, and another, and another, until he's sitting with his head on his forearms while the television flickers behind him and Madge is dead, Madge is dead, Madge is dead.
He doesn't remember going home– but he must have at some point, because when he wakes up in the middle of the night to piss, he's lying on top of his covers fully clothed.
The lights outside flicker like fireflies when he goes back to bed. It's almost the same as being back in Twelve, if he squints. Almost. He watches them for a long time, until sleep finally takes him. And Madge is there, with arms wide to welcome him and strawberry curls brushing against his face, and she is wonderfully, assuredly alive.
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AN: Whew! More angst. Reading The Hunger Games always seems to bring out the tragic romantic in me. I like the juxtaposition of Gale and Madge– a real "opposites attract" situation– and I've always thought that there was a definite subtext about them. You don't run through a storm to give painkillers to an ordinary acquaintance, right? So I wrote this with the vague idea of a fledgling relationship between Gale and Madge going on in the background of the book; a romantic attraction if not an actual involvement. The title of the piece is taken from a quote by Cicero: "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."