"When we think of the past, it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that."

Madge didn't tell Katniss about the pregnancy. There was no need. They had a friendship built on silent understanding. Despite their surface differences, at heart, they were more alike than anyone guessed. Now, more than ever, Madge was grateful for the seam girl's company.

As they ate lunch together, she felt almost normal, listening to Katniss' story of Prim's failed attempt to give Buttercup a bath that morning. A few times, she even smiled, but never managed a laugh, though Katniss' impression of Buttercup was hands down hilarious. She was mid-yowl, when Peeta approached their table. Immediately, Madge's expression turned grim again, her eyes hardening into two blue stones.

"Hey Katniss," he said. She jerked her head in reply. Then he turned to Madge. "Can we talk?"

Madge said nothing, wouldn't even look at him. Three days had passed since their argument and they hadn't spoke since. Not that Peeta hadn't tried. He came by her house at least three times a day, only to be turned away by the maid. Madge reserved her lunch periods for Katniss. He wasn't supposed to bother them. Until today, he'd respected the girls' time together, never intruding. He felt uncomfortable here, at their table, under Katniss' steely inspection, waiting, hoping, holding his breath.

"Just for a minute," he said. Madge continued to stare at her uneaten lunch, ignoring him completely. If it weren't for the way her cheek muscle twitched whenever he spoke, he might've thought that she really couldn't see or hear him. No one gave the cold shoulder quite as efficiently as the mayor's daughter. "Please," he added, desperate to set things right. He couldn't bear the distance between them, especially not at a time like this.

Katniss rose from the wooden bench, intent on giving them some privacy, but Madge stopped her before she could take a single step. "Stay," she said, looking at Katniss. Then she finally turned her stony eyes on Peeta. "You, go away."

"Madge, I-"

She held up a hand to silence him. "Go," she said, cold as the dead of winter. Peeta withered under her glare. Head hung low in defeat, he retreated from the table. Katniss watched him shuffle across the yard, his shoulders sagging, every step heavy with misery, and something unfamiliar stirred in her. It took a moment for her to figure out what the emotion was. Sympathy. No, pity. She hadn't thought it possible to feel sorry for breadboy, but he looked so broken, so tragically inept.

"Maybe you should forgive him," said Katniss, sitting back down. Madge looked at her as if she'd suggested stabbing herself in the neck. "He means well."

"He's an idiot," muttered Madge.

"Yeah, well, he's a boy," said Katniss, as if that explained everything. "You're going to need him, though."

Madge winced. That was the closest Katniss had come to mentioning the pregnancy out loud. She knew the seam girl was right, and, to be honest, she wasn't angry with Peeta, not anymore. She was just afraid he'd want to talk about it again, and that was a conversation she couldn't stomach. Her belly, and her head, were full enough already.

"It's your choice," said Katniss. "But, obviously, he's sorry for what happened. Now isn't the best time to push people away."

The bell rang before Madge mustered a response. "We'll be late for class," she said, hurriedly packing up her lunch, hands trembling. She joined the other students, flooding back into the school building, but Katniss lingered at their table a while longer. It's none of your business what goes on between them, she told herself. Madge's relationship with Peeta, like her own with Gale, was off-limits.

Yet, for Madge, and maybe even a little for breadboy, Katniss knew she had to do something. Their lives were painful enough, without making things harder on each other.


Peeta moved through the rest of the school day in a melancholy fog. He could throw a fifty pound bag of flour, one handed, over twenty feet, yet he felt weak. What was the use of physical strength, when he couldn't seem to do a damn thing to protect his best friend from the Capitol? He couldn't do anything to comfort her, either, without making a mess of it. Maybe his mother had been right about him all these years. He was useless, utterly useless.

Lost in a spiral of self-degradation, he didn't see Katniss Everdeen until he slammed into her. "Watch it, breadboy," she snapped.

"Sorry," he muttered, stepping around her. Katniss moved with him. She'd been waiting at the edge of the yard since the final bell rang.

"Hold up a second," she said. Peeta went still. His eyes were unfocused, drifting past her. He looked like he hadn't slept, or bothered to comb his hair, in days. Again, that odd feeling of pity rose up in her. It was difficult to hate him when he looked so pathetic.

"Let me give you some advice," said Katniss. She snapped her fingers close to his face to draw his attention. "If you want Madge to forgive you, you've got to promise not to talk about the…" She couldn't bring herself to say pregnancy. A cursed word. "...you know."

Peeta's eyes cleared, just enough to let her know that he'd heard, and comprehended. She rushed on, eager to be done with this conversation. Hopefully, breadboy would get his act together and there'd be no need for them to talk again. "She needs you, now more than ever, so don't push her. Just be there. You got that?"

"Yeah," said Peeta, slightly dazed still. Advice on friendship from Katniss Everdeen was the last thing he'd ever expected to happen. She only had two friends in the entire district, after all, but it was for that very reason that he trusted her counsel. She wasn't popular, or even very likable, but she was genuine, and zealously loyal. That she was here now, when he could clearly see she'd rather be anywhere else in the world, was proof of that. For Madge, for her friend, she was willing to do the thing she hated most, talk to him.


District 13 had destroyed most of the records detailing life in Panem before the Dark Days, but they'd kept a few carefully selected documents of the Old Capitol, to exhibit the greed and opulence of the country's corrupt once-rulers. These pictures and videos were meant to instill disgust for the old and appreciation for the new. Look at the wastefulness, her teachers would say, all of those skyscrapers built on the backs of the common people , to crush them. But when Madge looked at the pictures, she couldn't help thinking how beautiful it all was. The pleasure gardens were her favorite: sprawling green lawns, labyrinths of rainbow colored rosebushes, golden paved pathways, and crystal fountains.

Town had its own garden. At least, that's what everyone called it, but the square patch of rough grass, dotted by a few scraggly trees, didn't come close to the breathtaking beauty of the Old Capitol. She used to stare for hours at those old pictures in her textbooks, pretending she was there, imagining the smell, the soft green, the lullaby of the fountains. Now, as she crossed the square, the dead summer grass crunching under her shoes, she found it hard to believe such beauty had ever really existed in this world. Perhaps it was all just another lie fabricated by the New Capitol.

Peeta was sitting on their favorite bench, near the shallow pond, which had dried up in the summer drought, leaving the red clay bottom exposed to crack under the harsh sunlight. As soon as he spotted her, coming his way, he leapt to his feet. They stared at each other for a minute, before blurting out in unison, "I'm sorry."

And that was that. They sat together, in their favorite place, without speaking another word as the red sun sunk below the horizon. Madge reached out and took his hand. She felt like crying, but couldn't, her body as cracked and dry as the sad, little pond.

Katniss' words from lunch mingled with the words from Gale's letter. Now isn't the best time to push people away. Funny that there's an us. The next nine months stretched before her. For the first time, she didn't shy away from them. Instead, she stared them down. Funny how you can know someone for most of your life and not know them at all. You're going to need him. Katniss had been talking about Peeta, but his face wasn't the one that surfaced to the forefront of her mind. His hand wasn't the one she wanted to be holding now. You're going to need him…

She had Peeta, and she had Katniss, but it wasn't enough. Though they were trying, neither of them could ever fully understand what she was going through. There was one person who could do that, only he was avoiding her. Madge was terrified, confused. Even more, she was desperate, desperate enough to seek out Gale Hawthorne, on the small chance that he'd hold her the way he had on their last night together, when they'd been, for a brief moment, not a you and me, but an us.


AN: Short chapter and no Gale, sorry. But get ready, because the Gadge confrontation you've probably all been waiting for is coming up in the next update!