I kind of just published this as soon as I finished it so all the mistakes are definitely mine. Sorry for that! I'm still pretty unsure if this will be continued but it's decent enough to stand alone.

disclaimer: not my characters, just my plot!

Coors beer is probably the best cheap beer there is. It's the only drinkable thing at this party which is the only excuse Madge gives to herself as to why she's on her third can while sulking in a corner people watching.

She hates parties. She actually really just hates any type of social gathering that includes more than two people at a time. They make her feel like nothing has changed and she is still in District 12 desperately trying to stay in strangers good graces. But everything is different.

The revolution that changed the entire world that they lived in ended three years ago and all Madge can do is be miserable. She survived! Her friends, who never stood a chance after they survived the first time around, survived as well and nothing was ever in their favor! The fact that after everything they had been through, they'd managed to find solace within each other hurts Madge in ways she can't describe.

New Years is supposed to be a time to put the last year in retrospect and weather it be good or bad, you leave it behind. You welcome the new year with open arms and bouts of positivity. At least that's the basic idea that her coworker fed her in order to convince her to come to this party. She also promised not to leave her side, so apparently they were both lies.

Madge has had three years to overcome her past and work through her fears. She's had time to put it behind her and start fresh but the fact of the matter is that she simply can't. No matter how hard she tries, Madge succumbs to the darkest corner of her mind that holds all her fears intact and she is back where she started. A recluse. A lonely 20 year old woman that has a tiny apartment in the nicer parts of district two with a cat she found on a chilly night and took home.

If Madge Undersee were anyone else, her reasoning would sound mad, but she's not and in this cold world she lives in, figuratively and literally speaking, she knows why she can't move on. How can she when everyone she ever knew is either dead or assumed her dead and never bothered looking for her? She's stuck in a world where she's a ghost of a girl she once was or a person left behind by those that never made it out.

So as the clock strikes midnight and people abruptly cheer while others get lost in a warm embrace, Madge chugs down her drink in it's entirety and seeks solidarity the only way she knows how. She grabs her coat, swerves through the crowd of people that don't bother to give her a second glance and makes it out the front door as composed as she can be at a time like this. She doesn't feel the brooding stare she's had directed at her all night follow her out. The heart broken expression that is carved in at the realization that she is alive. The completely and utter feeling of being lost and then found with just realizing after three hours that yes, that is in fact someone from home and not just another figment of his imagination. Of his nightmares.

Without a crowd and the warmth of the house to suffocate her, she releases the tears she didn't even know she'd been holding in because for so long she promised she wouldn't cry anymore. She had nothing left to give. Everything she'd has was taken from her and there was just no point. She walks loudly and angrily through the cold streets wondering why she had to be so damaged. Why couldn't she move on? So many people had suffered through loses much worst than hers and they'd managed and here she was treating her existence as if it was a curse and nothingnothingnothing made sense and she was just tired.

"Madge."

And maybe she was even more tired than she had previously acknowledged because for so long she wished to hear that voice call her name in that exact tone and with that exact sound of longing. But it would never happen and just as quickly as she had stopped in her tracks she decided to trudge on because no one would be able to let Mr. Walker in after his midnight excursions chasing mice in the alley.

"Madge Undersee from District 12. Friends with Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Daughter of the Mayor. Buyer of strawberries on Sunday mornings from angry boys who knew nothing better than blaming you for everything. Madge Undersee who I thought to be dead for three years and a couple of months and days and honestly up until a couple of hours ago..please stop walking away from me."

And Gale Hawthorne has to clench his hands into fist to physically restrain himself from grasping her from her shoulders and spinning her around to simply make sure that those ohsoblue eyes belong to the girl he once knew. He stares at her back so intently that he can tell the moment she starts breathing again and then she's turning and he's suddenly the one having difficulties breathing because it is her. And she's crying and looking at him with wide disbelieving eyes and he can't help it anymore because this has to be a dream.

But it isn't and these last three years of feeling lost suddenly dissipate and leave his body the moment she snakes her arms around him and whispers his name into his chest.

And she feels like a new person that isn't so lost. She can finally feel something other than loneliness and the cold that the winter night has brought but most of all she feels the warmth that his body radiates and it's as if her heart had been on pause this whole time because she can finally feel it beat and she's never been happier to have attended an overcrowded party with crappy beer.