What's Left Here
Part Three
The Victory Tour
"You're in my arms, and all the world is calm. The music playing on, for only two… And when I'm with you, so close to feeling alive." – So Close, Jon McLaughlin
When it comes to Gale Hawthorne, Madge Undersee has learned over the years that one must have certain expectations. She expects disdainful eyes when she opens the door for a trade. She expects a frown that deepens into a scowl when he sees what she's wearing. She expects him to drop her like a flaming piece of coal once Katniss is back from the Games. She expects fire and resiliency and a hard, unyielding sort of quality about him. As if he is unbreakable.
Over the past few weeks, her expectations have shifted—not entirely, but enough in a way that matters. And perhaps they're not expectations, per se, but they are things that were once kept tightly locked in her deepest fantasies and dreams, and now can be let out into the light. How he's been acting towards her gives her hope—when it comes to Gale Hawthorne, Madge Undersee has hope, and that in itself is a precious thing.
She hopes that what small connection they've accrued during the Games isn't severed so abruptly. (It isn't.) She hopes that when he sees her, at her back door, around town, or even coming to and from the Everdeen's in the Seam, his eyes light up. (They do.) She hopes his shoulders relax, she hopes they'll talk a little bit—about their lives, his in the dark mines, hers in her stifling home. (They do.) She hopes he can see her worry for him, but not her adoration. (He sees it all.) She hopes he thinks much better of her than he once did. (He does.) She hopes they're friends. (They are.)
Katniss has just left for the Victory Tour, and although they are not obligated to watch the Tour like they did the Games, they are highly encouraged to, and, in a show of solidarity, what seems to be the entire district comes out to the Square again to watch. Madge likes to stop at the edge of the crowd, her eyes on Gale's tall figure in the middle, because she likes to watch the way his silver eyes scan the crowd. She's neither stupid nor modest enough to deny that he's looking for her. A shot of pleasure, like a sunbeam breaking through a cloud, darts through her whole body.
The night at the Meadow changed things. He is still guarded around her, to be sure—she's never anticipated winning Gale Hawthorne's trust quickly—but there is a softening to him when she's around. He doesn't relax, not completely, but he knows now that he doesn't have to be so on edge with her.
When he comes to her door on Sunday afternoons—his only day off from the Mines—with whichever berry is in season—he stays for a little while. They go into her kitchen and she fixes him a glass of lemonade, sometimes cutting up a few of the strawberries he brought her to sweeten the glass. He narrows his eyes at her, and his mouth twists, but he smirks and takes a huge gulp anyway. His lips close around a strawberry and the juice makes his lips red until he licks it away. Madge never learns to avert her eyes completely.
His smirk grows bigger.
The first night that the Tour is broadcasted—when Katniss and Peeta are visiting District 11, Rue and Thresh's district—things shift again. Although the camera is abruptly cut, they can still see the violence erupting, the old man forced to his knees, the chaos, the shots to the crowd. It's the Games all over again, and the last flash they see is Katniss's strong, angry, heartbroken face and the fear in Peeta's eyes as they are herded away.
Prim breaks down in tears as Madge's father tells everyone via the microphone that they can go home now, but before Madge can reach Prim, Rory, to everyone's surprise, puts his arms around her. Hazelle and Gale raise their eyebrows momentarily in stunned expressions, but both look impressed at his boldness. Gale looks over to Madge for her reaction, a habit now, and he is unprepared by her shaking countenance again. Tears run down her face; he assumes she is devastated, and she is, but she is also so angry and feels so useless that the only way she can express these emotions is through her tears.
Gale, perhaps thinking of Rory and Prim, perhaps not, puts his arms around her. If he had been looking, he would have seen Hazelle's eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. As it is, he focuses on the blonde in his arms.
"Hey," he tells her, pressing her face into his shoulder, his mouth muffled in her hair. It's like the crowd melts away. "They're fine, okay? Shhh."
He holds her like she's Posy, and she doesn't want him to get the wrong impression, think that she's crying out of weakness instead of anger, but her body wracks again and she gasps a large sob.
"Do you want to go home?" He murmurs as his arms tighten. He can't seem to let her go, even though he knows he should. People are beginning to stare; he can feel the world come back to him. He wonders if her father's looking—or her mother, propped up in a chair and exhausted, but doing her duty as the mayor's wife.
Madge lets out a shuddering sigh and her tears begin to dry, but she feels exhausted, drained, hopeless. It's one thing to be a semi-active part of the Resistance, to aid her father and Haymitch in scoping out information and discussing strategy, but to see such brutality outside of the Games makes her feel like she isn't really doing anything at all. That things will never get better. And she's tried so hard for so long not to get caught up in that hopeless mentality that the rest of the districts have settled into these long, long decades, but things seem to be spiraling out of control. Though the unprecedented Hunger Games is a long-planned, long-hoped for victory, it seems unreal that so many months and years of planning have come to fruition, and that everything suddenly seems to be going in motion is both exciting and frightening. And of course, there's this unexpectedly awful Tour in District 11 the Resistance must contend with, and the whispers that workers in District 8 are planning an uprising…
"Yes," she says finally. "I would like that very much." Gingerly, she disentangles from his arms, not registering their reluctance to let her go. Even though Prim is in Rory's arms, Madge gives her a sideways hug and a friendly embrace to the frail Mrs. Everdeen. She gives Hazelle and Vick and Prim a watery smile and then she turns to Gale. Her cheeks flushed, embarrassed. "Thank you," she whispers, and then she goes to move away.
Gale frowns to himself, and before he even registers what he's doing, he grabs her hand. "You're not leaving by yourself," he tells her.
Madge raises a brow. "My house is only a few minutes away," she says. "I'll be fine."
Gale shakes his head. He knows this, of course, but he just can't seem to let her go.
"Let me walk you," he says bluntly. "You're still upset."
"I'll be fine," she says again, frowning at his commands.
"Why won't you let me help you?" Gale demands, like I let you help me.
Madge's shoulders tense. She misunderstands, though not unfairly so, that he is offering merely to repay a debt, not out of any other kindness. "I don't need your help," she snaps.
Gale's shoulders droop, his jaw unclenches. "Madge," he says softly, as though admitting defeat, "I want to walk you home."
She sees his surprising earnestness, and relents. She really has no sense when it comes to him, although she can't say she minds.
They walk slowly back to her house, not touching, but incredibly aware of the other person. Madge suspects that both of her parents will be cooped up in her father's office, no doubt discussing plans with Heavensbee or Haymitch, so she invites Gale in with no hesitation.
He raises his eyebrows at the grandeur of the house, but perhaps he's learned some tact, after all, because he doesn't comment.
Madge sees his face anyway and sighs. "You know my family didn't have anything to do with the design or décor of this house, right?" She says. "It's the Mayor's house, not the Undersee family house."
Gale nods, feels a bit ashamed. The Undersee's hadn't always lived in the grand manor, it just seemed that way because Mayor Undersee was elected when right before Madge started school.
They toe off their shoes and Madge trails into what Gale recognizes as a family room. It's towards the back of the house, near the kitchen, and out of the way enough that during parties and when Capitol guests are over no one bothers to come into the little room, so unlike the rest of the large house.
Madge's mother must have decorated it, and Gale is surprised by how much he likes her taste. The walls are a warm golden yellow, and the couch is more comfortable than fashionable, with plump pillows and hand-knitted blankets adorning it. Instead of the gleaming baby grand piano in the front sitting room, a smaller one with a scratched, dark brown façade and faded yellow keys sits in the corner.
"Did you learn how to play on this one?" Gale asks her, running his hands lightly over the keys.
"Yes," Madge says, with such a fond look in her eyes it's as though she's looking at a living being. "In our old house. It's been in the Donner family—my mother's side—for ages. We're a musically inclined bunch, I hear."
"Will you play?" He asks her, the words bursting out like a long repressed wish.
"Now?" Her eyebrows raise slightly and she blinks once, twice.
Gale clears his throat, a bit embarrassed. "If you don't want to—"
"I will," she smiles at him, and hopes that he doesn't see the vein in her throat thrumming. She can feel it, how it leaps at him, a mimicry of her heartbeat. She can't let him see how much she cares.
It's tempting to let the piano speak for her, to pour her emotions out as she normally does, her hopes, her dreams, her wishes and despairs; but she ruthlessly squashes that urge and plays something slow and serene, thinks of a calm morning sunrise, with crisp air that 's cool and sweet.
Gale leans across the top of the piano, watching her fingers skip smoothly across the keys and takes her in. Today she is wearing a dress, a light, filmy thing that reflects the warm summer day. It's a pearl blue and doesn't match her eyes at all, with more grey in it than blue, but brings them out anyway. The piano is situated next to the window that faces the backyard and the western sun is rich as it lingers in the summer twilight, catching the gold of her hair and the easy smile on her face. She enjoys playing, he can tell, and he enjoys watching her.
He has a sudden image flashing in his mind, disturbingly detailed and realistic. They're in a room, like this one, not terribly big, but well-furnished and comfortable. Madge is sitting at a piano—not the one she's at now, but one that is also well-loved—and she's playing the same song. He is in a chair nearby, a large, comfortable one, and he is fiddling with something—either a book or some paperwork, but every once in a while he'll look up and their eyes will meet and they'll smile at each other, not speaking, but utterly content.
He snaps out of the scene as quickly as he went into it, and he's struck dumb for a long moment; he looks at Madge and sees a vision of a life he suddenly knows he wants desperately but never thought he could have, never dreamed he could have. Before her, he saw a life—one with Katniss as his wife, of Sunday's hunting, of six days in the Mines, of watching his siblings grow up and marry and watching over his mother. That future isn't terrible, he tells himself, but it's not a dream. It's not what he wants so much as what he expects. But when he's with her, he dares to want impossible things. Being with her makes it all seem possible.
Madge finishes and looks at him expectantly, her hands folded in her lap. "Did you—" She clears her throat, tries again. "What did you think?'
"Not bad," Gale says with a daring little smirk that he doesn't feel.
She rolls her eyes in response.
"It was…" Gale can't think of the right words to say. Hearing her play gave him something he thought he had lost a long time before. Hope. "You're really good," he says lamely instead.
"I'm glad you liked it," she says sincerely.
Gale gazes out the back door and sees the sun is nearly gone. "I need to go," he says.
Madge nods and walks him out to the back door. "I'll see you for the next viewing?" She asks quietly.
He surprises himself when he feels a little lurch in his stomach at the thought. He recognizes the anticipation and while he's a bit frightened by it—by how it's directed at her, of all people—he doesn't shy away from it; he doesn't push it from his mind. He's run from these feelings for a while now. It's hard to ignore how much he wants her now that he knows her; it was easier before, to dismiss it as something trivial. But now he knows what he feels is real. He gives in to his wants and admits it: he wants to see her and talk to her and—and more. He wants it all.
So instead of turning around and leaving, he smiles down at her, and Madge sees a tenderness there that surprises her. It should look out of place on him, this man who is already so hardened, but it doesn't. If anything, oddly, it looks more natural than his anger.
Before her, Gale has never thought about Town girls romantically, not seriously, anyway. In his mind, such a pairing couldn't work, like two puzzle pieces that can't fit together. He would think of Katniss's parents and the thought of someone from the Seam and someone from Town seemed wrong, even unnatural. And yet, when he leans down, with his usual simple decisiveness, and kisses Madge Undersee on her back porch at dusk, nothing has ever felt so right or natural to him; nothing else at all.