"You can't make me see him! I won't see him!"

Gale has never heard anything like it in his life. He hears Madge screaming like a torture victim through four feet of concrete walls. This is her third week in Thirteen. And nothing is helping. The hijacking is a part of her now. It is everything she sees. It is everything she feels. It is a piece of her, like her fingernails or her eyelashes. They could no more pluck those out than they could take away what the Capitol placed in her mind. And Gale is here to see her for the first time. Well, second. The first time was the day she stepped off the train. No one knew the extent of her torture until she refused to step off the train at the sight of him. They asked Gale to leave. He only caught a glimpse of her through a window.

Head in hands. Palms sweating. Closed throat. Gale cannot control his body. Madge's voice is all he hears. In his mind, he can see her, trapped in a tiny cell, thrashing about, blonde hair splayed across a white bed, eyes unseeing, throat straining, muscles pained. He can see her restrained by doctors. His arms ache to hold her, to make things right once more. But he is the problem. He is the one she refuses to see.

"I won't see him! Stop!" comes another anguished cry.

Her voice reaches a thrill, sobbing fever pitch. Then, Gale hears a splash. Madge is suddenly silent, deadly silent. He looks up from his clenched hands as a psychologist walks from Madge's room. The man in the grey lab coat rubs his face with a rag, wiping the dripping sweat and look of exhaustion clean from his face. The Undersee girl was more than a handful today; she always is when the young soldier is discussed.

"You can go in now. She's restrained," he says, pocketing his hand towel.

The doctor's face is pained. There are a million things he wishes he could say to the young man waiting in the hall. Things like: she will never recover, not from this. But, too soon, Gale is on his feet and through the door in a moment, not giving the man an opportunity to even breathe a hint of a heartbreaking sentence.

The world goes a shade dark when Gale enters the room, where all of the furniture is welded to the floor and the lights flicker with unreliable electricity. Madge sits, handcuffed at a table, her back hunched, her entire body shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Her entire body is soaking wet. Gale cannot tell water droplets from tears. Her hair drips on the floor with sickening ease.

Empty eyes stare at handcuffed hands. Madge gulps. Gale breathes.

Gale knows that hosing her down with ice cold water usually stops the hijacking spells. They explained it all to him very clearly. But he knows he will never get used to seeing her like this. The Madge he knows is the brave, bold girl in that obnoxious dress. She stands up to him on the Reaping Day. She hands off a rebellious pin to Katniss. She makes him survive watching the Games. But now, she is awfully small. The Capitol stole Madge away from herself. The Capitol broke her. If he could, he would take them all on again.

"They say you're not going to kill me," she wheezes.

This is the first thing Madge has said to him since the Bombing of District Twelve.

"Is that true?" She asks.

She looks up from her handcuffs, blue eyes wide and red from crying. Her hands are raw from thrashing; everything is wet. She cannot decide if her mind or her body is more tired. Gale speaks, the words falling from his tongue and his heart at once.

"I wouldn't ever hurt you."

Shiny memories flash across her eyes. Gale Hawthorne with a gun. Gale Hawthorne on a whipping post. Parachutes. Her entire body convulses. The metal handcuffs dig into her skin and she looks away from him with purpose, blinking until her eyes are sore to rid herself of the dragging phantoms of memories she isn't sure she belongs to.

"I don't believe you," she breathes.

Gale has to lean against the far wall for support. He is gutted. They told him that it would be like this, but his heart and his head lose track of one another. He says something and the moment he does he knows he isn't convincing either of them.

"You will," he vows,

He pauses and considers his words carefully. But he looks at her. Really looks at her. And he cannot help himself.

"I love you," he says, a confession that chokes him.

Madge builds up her walls. Her defenses are up. Memories are threatening to drag her under.

"I don't believe you," she repeats.

Gale talks to every specialist. He shouts and threatens every doctor who ever laid hands on her in the Capitol. He tries to understand. He falls short. Because no one understands.

So, he does the best with what he has. Madge has bad memories. He just has to fix them. Right?

One morning, Madge wakes to complete silence. No doctors. No bustling nurses. No machines. No clinking handcuffs. Her eyes slide open cautiously.

The room looks like a funeral. Or a meadow. Flowers. There are flowers everywhere. They look fresh, though Madge could not tell. She has not seen a real flower in a year. Her fingers linger across the soft petals. Her eyes slide closed. A memory stirs in the back of her mind, but it cannot break free. It goes forgotten for the moment.

Then she finds the note.

Madge,

On our first date, I took you to the meadow. You called me an idiot and I called you a princess. We talked about a revolution. I promised to take you hunting. You wore a white dress that I still remember and you laughed at all of my jokes. I think I loved you even then. At the end of the night, we sat in the meadow and I tried to pick you a flower, but you told me to save the flowers for later. You wanted me to surprise you. I hope you are surprised. I love you, Madge.

-Gale.

Madge merely clings to the note and breathes in the scent of the wildflowers. It is the first time that his name doesn't bring on a full panic.

So here is a story that I posted on tumblr about a year ago! I hope y'all enjoy it and please leave a review!