I hope you like it. Just a bit of Gadge in this one, next one will have much more.
Chapter Four
She found herself walking back and forth outside her parent's bedroom closed door. An overwhelming amount of information floated through her head and she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to say to her dying mother. She needed to know about it. It was all she could think about lately.
Who would she be if she had been raised as a shadowhunter? Without Peeta by her side? Would she be more daring? Braver? Stronger, presumably. She imagined a Madge with more bite. That Madge would probably have had a boyfriend by now.
She entered the room; the shades were drawn, so the room was dark even thought it was bright outside. She could just make out the lumps on the bed in the shape of her mother.
"Madge?" She heard her mother croak out, her voice barely above a whisper.
Madge sat herself on the edge of the bed, by her mother's feet. "Yeah, it's me mom."
Her mother's hand reached out to find hers, so Madge leaned onto the bed, laying herself by her mother's side. She played with her mother's frail hand.
"Tell me what's on your mind."
Madge smiled. "How do you know there's something on my mind? We're in the dark. You can't even see me, let alone interpret my face."
"You'll know when you have children of your own."
Madge buried her face into the quilt, a family heirloom with Nephilim symbols covering it. When she was little she had always thought they were just artistic little somethings, but now she knew better. She'd seen a lot of them on Gale's arms, some of them dark while others were like white faint scars.
"There's a boy too. Tell me about him."
Madge stifled a grin, imagining Gale, whose dark hair constantly fell in his gorgeous grey eyes. Not to mention that he was so well built. He looked like a warrior, definitely, with muscular arms and he was tall. Tall was very good to her. She thought of his hard face and the few emotions that he let pass through the barrier.
"Does dad know?" She asked. Her mother's hand tightened around her own hand.
"Know what?" She asked wearily, as if testing her daughter on the information she obviously wanted.
"About your past life. About how Maysilee really died. Well she got jumped, but obviously not by people."
Her mother sucked in her breath. "I-I-No. He doesn't know. It was better for him not to know; so then he wouldn't be lying to you. He wouldn't have been able to handle that, lying to you. He didn't even want to lie about Santa or the Easter bunny. That was too much for him. How could he keep a secret like this from you?"
Madge nodded, her father's honesty was one of his best attributes to her. She'd always admired him for it. It's what made him such a good mayor
"Haymitch told me why you left."
Her mother's body tensed all over. "Haymitch?"
"Yes, Haymitch."
"Tell me from the start. How did this all happen?"
Madge told her mother the entire story, from seeing Gale slay a demon in an alley to him leading her back to the institute. She left out the part where he said he would knock her out if she didn't go willingly. She told her about how she returned with Peeta the next day. Her mother wasn't surprised how Haymitch bypassed the Clave's rules on humans.
"Did he tell you to come back? That you need to go back to the institute?" Her mother sounded worried, and her voice rose to a normal level, which sounded like screaming to Madge's ears in comparison to the level that her mother usually spoke at.
Madge shook her head, now leaning up slightly to look at her mother. "No. Haymitch didn't say anything, but I asked Gale if he wanted to teach me a bit. I didn't make any commitments."
The area between her mother's eyebrows creased. "As soon as they get you they'll want you for life. You won't be able to see your father or me again, Madge. They'll hook their claws into you."
Madge moved away from her mother, sitting completely upright.
"Mom, I don't know what to say."
"Promise me you won't go back. You have to promise me that much, Madge."
"But Mom-"
"But nothing, Madeline. You are my daughter and I took you away from that life for a reason. You've never lost someone close to you and that will happen to you if you join them. You will lose most everyone you love. You don't know what it's like to be the one left behind, the supposed "lucky" one. It's torture."
She knew her mother better than to argue with her at this point. She knew more about that world than she did.
The thought of losing Peeta, she couldn't even imagine it. It would be like losing an integral part of herself, like losing a physical part of herself. Just the thought of it made her want to crawl into a ball.
She felt incredibly guilty about standing up Gale. She had given him her word that she would return, but that didn't seem like it would be happening anytime soon. She hadn't promised her mother that she wouldn't go back, had made sure not to reply at all, so her mother would assume that her silence was acceptance of the new rule even if it wasn't.
She wouldn't go back, or at least she would try not to.
There was a pull to the institute and that path. She could feel everything in her pulling her toward the institute, her skin itching to be marked, her fingers yearned to be wrapped around the handle of one of those glass swords. She could see herself dressed in the shadowhunter gear. Black from head to toe.
But for now, they were nothing but daydreams.
Three days later, she heard a tapping at her window. She grabbed a University of Chicago hoodie, figuring it was Peeta after a hard night with his mother.
It was Gale. A shadow cast over his face, so she couldn't make out his features to see the look on his face.
She stared blankly at his figure, a thin sheet of glass separating them.
"Climb on in," she whispered, watching him maneuver himself through the window. Anyone else doing it would've stumbled, but Gale was graceful despite his long limbs. He had complete control over every bone in his body.
"Where have you been?" He asked, but his eyes didn't meet hers. His eyes were focused on her bare legs. She felt naked under his gaze and had wished she had thrown on a pair of joggers. She wasn't accustomed to this.
Boys didn't look at her like that at school. She knew that she wasn't ugly, but she'd never felt pretty. She never liked her curly hair, that seemed to frizz in every condition. It was long now, at her waist. She'd grown it out in attempt to weigh down the curls, loosen them. It had worked a bit, and yet she still didn't like it. It was too blonde, the color such a pale blonde. It wasn't golden like Peeta's. Her skin was too pale, blending too much into her pale gold hair. But Gale, well he looked at her like-like no one ever had.
"I talked to my mom about it a-and she didn't want me to go to the institute ever again. She wanted me to promise that I wouldn't."
He stared at her, his eyes unrelenting. She took in his grey irises, and wondered how they were such a stark grey, no blue, no green, and no hint of brown, just different tones of grey.
"Well then," he sat on her bed. He looked so odd to her in her bedroom. Only two other people constantly came in and out of her bedroom and that was Peeta and her father. Her mother used to be on the list, but lately she couldn't get out of bed, much less walk down the hall to her daughter's bedroom. "I guess we'll just have to bring the institute to you."
Madge sat across from him at her desk.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Aren't you almost done with school? Isn't there a time you have off in the summer?"
"Yes."
"How much sooner is it?"
Madge looked over at the Hello Kitty calendar hanging on her wall. "Twenty-seven days."
"Alright," he sighed, "We can meet up somewhere, maybe a few times a week if that's what you want."
She nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."
He sat up, wiping his hands on his black jeans. He walked around her room, picking up several of her knick knacks, spending an extra amount of time looking at a photo of herself and Peeta at the beach. "Cute," he murmured under his breath, most likely expecting Madge not to have heard it.
"I'll let you get to sleep," he announced, slipping out the window. "Goodnight, Madge Undersee."
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