Madge is in her kitchen, stirring up a biscuit mix and watching a news bulletin about some sort of boxing thing- apparently the championship match set to be held in town soon is in trouble because one of the guys got hurt or something... Madge isn't entirely certain, she was only half-listening- when the phone rings. It's Sunday night and the family dinner that she goes through the motions of preparing every week is halfway finished. She picks up the receiver.
"Hello?" She asks.
She knows who is on the other line. Not because of caller identification or anything like that.
"Madge. Sweetheart."
It's her father. Right on schedule.
"Hey, dad," she says with a sigh and a put-upon cheerful voice that almost sounds sincere.
She wedges the phone between her ear and her shoulder and goes back to cooking. She rolls the biscuits into spheres before placing them on the cookie sheet in front of her. Idly, Madge wonders what excuse he'll be using this time, and even more than that, she's wondering if she has enough energy to even pretend to be surprised or upset at the 'revelation' that he won't be attending the dinner she spends every Sunday making for her family.
"I just wanted to call you and let you know that I won't be able to make it for dinner tonight," her father's gruff voice says from the other end of the line.
In her mind's eye, Madge envisions him in his plush office in City Hall behind a desk overrun with papers and folders. Bags under his eyes and a coffee cup in his right hand. Her father's a good man, and hard working, too, but sometimes Madge wonders if he uses his work to escape. He gives so much to the city, especially to the entire District Twelve neighborhood, but he never manages to spend much time at home with Madge and his dying wife. The realization that he's letting his wife waste away in a bed down the hall from the room they used to share together always makes Madge a little bit queasy.
"You don't say," she mumbles, knowing that he is only half listening.
Her voice is carelessly surprised, knowing that he actually doesn't care to hear her reactions. He is wrapped up in his work now, wrapped up in city planning and galas and handshakes.
"I'm meeting with Thresh and his team to discuss television rights. Very important work for the neighborhood," the Mayor continues.
In the background, she can hear some of his Aides walking back and forth, talking about this meeting and that lunch appointment. Her kitchen has nothing but the sounds of the television and the bacon sizzling in the pan for the baked potatoes she has put in the oven.
"Mh-hm," she groans, acknowledging him and waiting for him to just come out and say it.
That's, perhaps, the thing that Madge hates the most about his casual brush-offs of her Sunday meals. It's the lying. He will tell her "of course I'll be there next week" or "I'm so sorry I missed it. Something came up at the last minute." Every. Single. Week. But Madge keeps cooking the food and her father keeps mysteriously not showing up, so perhaps they're both lying to themselves more than they are lying to anyone else.
"All that to say that I don't want you to wait dinner for me," he finally says.
And like a good little soldier, Madge draws in a steadying breath and responds:
"Yes sir."
Perhaps Mayor Undersee wanted to say something else. Perhaps he wanted to tell his daughter that she should stop getting her hopes up or that she should yell and scream at him and demand that he come home. But he doesn't. His breath hitches and he holds it inside long enough to say,
"Goodnight, Madge."
With a fake and aching smile that she knows he cannot see, Madge nods her head once.
"Goodnight."
She'll have to take one of the place settings off of the table and the realization makes her sigh.
It takes the young man at the Mayor's door a few moments before he can buck up the courage to raise his cut and bandaged knuckles to the wooden paneling. Gale arrives early and Haymitch answers on his first knock, as though he was waiting on the other side for the younger man to appear. The man is noticeably well-dressed-well, better dressed than he was the last time Gale saw him; Gale assumes that Madge makes him clean himself up for her beloved Sunday dinner-and also, to Gale's surprise, noticeably off-put. There's something lost in the Haymitch Abernathy swagger today.
"Hey, kid," he says with a wave of his free hand, opening the door wider to allow the young boxer inside.
The young man nods once and lets himself in, his grip tightening the a paper plate covered in plastic wrap that he carries before his body like a shield. Gale doesn't let his voice waver, doesn't show any trace or hint of fear, but Haymitch was a hunter once, just like Gale is now, and he can smell fear a mile away.
"Haymitch."
Sobered steps make their way forward and Haymitch welcomes Gale into the Mayor's house, not speaking or doing anything but smirk the slightest of smirks at the younger man's obvious excitement. In spite of everything, in spite of finally getting the opportunity to see Madge somewhere other than her shop, Gale still looks at the vaulted ceilings and glittering lights of this house, this mansion, and feels infinitesimally small. Like some great hand is going to come from the sky and pluck him out of here for even daring think that he belongs in a place like this. Suddenly Gale wishes he had washed his clothes a second time or scrubbed his boots even harder than he did this morning; he feels like a speck of dust in this otherwise glistening palace. He clears his throat as Haymitch sinks into an arm chair, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table before him.
"I brought cake," Gale offers, saying the first thing that comes to his mind and hating himself for it.
A patronizing look settles onto Haymitch's face.
"I can see that," he responds as if to a small child.
Gale wonders idly where Madge is- where her mother is, even-but the thought is interrupted by the reminder of something heavy in a bag hanging from his wrist. The weight of it cuts into his skin, so he twists it off and extends a bottle of Vodka to the man across from him.
"And this."
A hand, scarred and mangled from a lifetime in a boxing ring, reaches out and takes the bottle from Gale's outstretched arm. Haymitch eyes it carefully and speaks out of the side of his mouth, not even giving his attention to Gale's awkwardly standing figure.
"Madge doesn't like it when I drink in the house," he says, the words rolling between his lips.
It was an extra bottle that his mother had in her house; she hardly ever drinks and encouraged Gale to "get rid of it" sometime ago, before his younger and impressionable brothers realized that it was in the cabinet above the sink. Gale kept it in his place for a while, but never had the impulse to get smashed drunk, and took only three shots of the handle in his entire time having it. All three times, he used the liquor to clean fresh wounds when the peroxide ran out. He shrugs and eyes Haymitch carefully, attempting to ignore the time bomb ticking in his stomach. Where is Madge?
"I thought I owed you something."
Haymitch's smirk grows wider and he stands to find the small bar located under a window across the room, pouring himself a healthy and generous glass of the liquid fire.
"Well, shit, I'm not one to turn down a gift," he says, throwing back a gulp.
A silence settles in the air, and Gale looks around. He's never been in a house like this before, not once. There's a marble fireplace along one of the walls and a chandelier and the furniture doesn't have holes in it and-
Beep beep. Beep beep. A kitchen timer.
"Haymitch!"
The offended party freezes, mid-drink. His eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. Gale's brow furrows at the sight of such a shift, but doesn't quite suspect anything in particular.
"Mm-hm?" He manages.
It's Madge. Madge just called Haymitch's name and whether he knows it or not, a light flickers in Gale's eyes.
"Dinner'll be ready in a few minutes," she calls.
Haymitch just finishes the rest of his drink and pours himself another, wondering to himself why he thought this was a good idea at all. Fuck young love. Fuck the memory of Maysilee and fuck it all. He has a handle of Vodka and that is looking like a better plan than anything to do with love. He gulps hard, loving the feeling of clawing flames ripping down his throat as the clear liquid goes down.
"So, what does she think about all of this?" Gale asks, cautiously optimistic.
Now that Haymitch has thought about Maysilee, he can't stop. Is she really standing outside on the sidewalk; is he really seeing her through the window? Or is it a trick of memory and alcohol?
"Huh?" He asks, distractedly.
Gale watches Haymitch's mind retreat from the conversation, so he speaks in clear, concise words laced with a quiet desperation.
"Is she excited? What'd she say when you told her?" Gale encourages.
The image of Maysilee out of the window disappears and Haymitch rubs his eyes lazily. He's so tired. Is it normal to be this tired all of the time?
"Well, kid-" He begins.
But then, the older man locks gazes with the younger man, and he loses his nerve for the truth. He sighs and pats the kid on the shoulder.
"She's real excited. Real excited," he says in a voice so thin that it's almost sad.
A flurry of a white dress, bare feet, messy, pony-tailed hair and bright yellow spatula erupts from the swinging kitchen door on the far wall of the room, and suddenly Madge is in their midst. Her voice is light, easy.
"Haymitch, Dad's not going to be here, so-"
She stops dead in her tracks; if this were a cartoon, her eyes would pop out of her head and her knees would visibly knock together like bowling pins. She sees Gale. Not his hopeful eyes or the cake he brought for the occasion. Not the attempts to clean himself up or the careful new bandages he put over his visually offensive marks.
"What are you doing here?" Madge blurts, not rudely, but flittering and taken off guard.
Gale doesn't hear her. He's too ecstatic. A rush of excitement fills his chest and he extends the plate in his hands out to the blonde girl in front of him, never breaking the gaze from her pretty eyes.
"I brought a cake," he says.
Her eyes dart down to the offending thing in his hands before going straight back to him.
"What?" She asks, furrowing her brow.
He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly feeling a rush of heat up his back; she seems tense, frightened. Not at all what he expected. If Haymitch told her, and she didn't call it off, surely that means that she wants him here.
"I made it and my mom helped a little, so at least the icing is edible."
A breathy laugh escapes his lips and he watches Madge's unamused expression turn to one of utter confusion. She looks at his clothes, proud and washed even if they have holds and are faded from years of use, his freshly cleaned face, this cake that he brought and she can't help but ask:
"What are you doing here?"
Gale's stomach sinks. Hope stalls.
"I-" He begins, smiling even as he is afraid.
A hearty hand slaps his shoulder, and a voice lazily approaches Madge's ears.
"Sweetheart-" Haymitch begins, trying to calm the young girl.
She realizes. She realizes what is going on here and her voice turns into one of pleading. Oh, she hopes upon hope that what she thinks happened isn't what actually happened. She cannot handle it if Haymitch betrayed her like this. A bitter taste of terror fizzles in her throat.
"Haymitch, you didn't-" She nearly whimpers, taking a step backward.
It is Gale's turn to be confused.
"He didn't what?" Gale questions, looking at the older man.
Madge sees the glass in Haymitch's hand, and her eye travels to the fresh bottle on the wall bar.
"And you brought him liquor?" Madge snaps, her eyes too betrayed and hurt to be accusing in the slightest.
So intensely, raging deluges of emotion pour through her entire body, betraying her heart before she can guard her physical body from exposing her. Her eyes are wide, her heart pounding, her lips turned down. The hummingbird that rests in the place where her heart normally rests is fluttering its wings so fast Madge can hardly breathe.
"Haymitch invited me," Gale attempts to explain, but Madge cannot look at him, much less listen to a thing he has to say.
Her attention is clearly on the offender, staring Haymitch down with eyes that beg him to tell her that it isn't so.
"You know how I feel about this," she says, her voice small and broken.
If Gale weren't watching her so intensely, he would have missed that her hands are shaking and her eyes are pooling with tears. Haymitch is too drunk and too emotional to take her condemnation in stride. He twists the knife, his lips turned up into a nasty snarl.
"How do you feel? Afraid?" He asks, raising a prodding eyebrow in her direction.
For the first time, Madge speaks at her normal voice, as if Gale weren't there. She cannot look either of the men in the eye.
"Yes. And you know that. Okay? Yes. I'm afraid. Happy now?" Madge says, her voice cracked and her sad expression leaving no room for either man to reproach her.
She turns on her heel and retreats back into the kitchen, disappearing behind a swinging door before they can notice that her tears have begun to slip down over her cheeks. The silence that comes after a bomb has just exploded sinks between Gale and Haymitch, heavy and oppressive as a cloudy night sky.
"You didn't tell her," Gale accuses through his teeth.
Everything in his body is tense and he can do nothing but stare at the place where Madge stood only a second ago, as if her imprint is still hanging in the air there. The cake still sits in his hand, but, like the hope he felt when he walked in this house, it is a little deflated and sad now. Haymitch pours himself another drink.
"I thought the surprise would make this whole thing go smoother," Haymitch says, shrugging.
He downs the entire glass in his hands and calls out to the young girl.
"Madge-" He calls.
From the other side of the door, Madge is quiet, attempting to collect herself as she approaches her emotions in a series of easy, simple tasks. Wipe the tears from your eyes. Walk to the oven. Put on your oven mitts. Wipe a few more tears away. Open the oven. Pull out the convention.
"I've got a torte in the oven. I don't want it to burn," she says, a flimsy excuse.
Haymitch knocks on the wall beside the kitchen entrance, not wanting to push the swinging door with his knuckles on accident and startle his niece any more than he already has.
"Sweetheart, don't be like this," he calls.
She doesn't respond. When Haymitch gives up trying, Gale feels his hope disappear.
"What the fuck?" Gale mutters as sharply as if he were yelling, getting into Haymitch's face, blocking the older man's attempt to cross the room toward the bar. Haymitch tries to defend himself, knowing all the while that it is a flimsy excuse.
"I was just trying to help. She needs a shove in the right direction, that's all," he contends.
But Gale isn't buying it. Haymitch knows Madge like perhaps no one else does. He should know better. He should know better.
"You fucked up. You should have told her," Gale protests.
He didn't want this to be what their first...whatever this was supposed to be...to be like. He wanted her to be excited, wear her favorite dress and a new lipstick and smile when he arrived at the door. He wanted her to feel for him the things that he feels for her; he doesn't want to cause her to go into fits of panicked nerves at the mere sight of him.
"She needs-" Haymitch attempts.
But Gale has been trying to help Madge in any way he can for a while now. Haymitch should know by now what Gale knows.
"To have a say in things. I've been taking things so slow and now she's going to hate me," Gale says bitterly, convincing himself that it is the truth.
Haymitch could say any number of things. He could explain to Gale that Madge is terrified of love because she's watched Haymitch destroy himself because of love. He could explain that life is easier for her if she doesn't look at it too closely, if she watches it pass by her like a television program that she's not too keenly interested in at all. He could explain her fear. But it isn't his place. Instead, he lowers his head and motions toward the kitchen door.
"Go talk to her."
Gale rolls his eyes.
"She doesn't want me to."
The drunk shrugs, his voice honest and dry.
"Well, then she won't listen, but the least you can do is try."
Teeth grinding together and muffling the sound, Gale begins his walk toward the kitchen door, which seems to get taller and more imposing with every step he takes closer to it.
"You should be fixing this, asshole."
Haymitch shrugs and looks disappointedly at the empty glass in his hands before speaking and heading up the stairs with the handle of Vodka.
"Well, she wants to talk to me even less than she wants to talk to you, so I'll let you take this one for the team."
Ignoring the other man as best he can, Gale raises his cracking, scarred knuckles to the wooden doorframe, tapping twice, timid and skeptical.
"Hey, Madge. It's Gale."
Silence.
"I know this was a dick move on Haymitch's part, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor."
He rubs the back of his neck and listens for any signs of life on the other side of the wall he's leaning against.
"I'm not such a prize or anything, I get it, but it's Sunday and I'm basically free."
He waits. Nothing.
"Fish aren't much to talk to," he continues.
Gale laughs at his own joke and he wonders if Madge is laughing. Smiling, even. He would be happy if he even got her to smile a little.
"Anyway, I was thinking that maybe you'd like to..."
He trails off, unsure of how to approach that subject. If you'd like to go out with me? Eat dinner with me? Marry me and spend the rest of our lives together? Not that I've been thinking about that lately...
"Well, I get why you wouldn't want to, Madge."
He thinks of the kind of guy he is. A boxer. A cheap, dirty boxer with a one room apartment and nothing to show for his life in The Mine but scars and debt.
"So, if you don't want to be with me or anything, that's okay."
He wishes he could take away her fear. Oh, he wishes it more than he's ever wished for anything in his life. A woman like Madge doesn't need to be afraid. Not when the world could so easily turn for her.
"You know, in boxing we have people in our corner, people who root for us and help us out."
Gale isn't sure if he should go here. But he gulps and takes a risk.
"And if it'll help you get brave, I'll wait out here as long as you want. Just so you know that someone's in your corner."
More silence. Gale settles himself against the wall, preparing for an awfully long wait. But the clock on the wall ticks a few times more before its steady pace is overscored by the creaking swing of the kitchen door. It is slow, tentative, but a step in the right direction. The blonde woman steps out and stands in front of him, her breathing and her hummingbird calmed to a manageable rate.
"Hi," Gale finally chokes out.
He's so happy and trying so hard not to let it show.
"Hi," Madge responds, quietly.
A wash of chocolate smelling air pours from the cracks in the kitchen doorjamb and Gale's stomach growls.
"How'd your torte come out?" He asks.
Madge nods.
"Perfect," she says, her lips hardly even moving.
Unsure of how to proceed, Gale doesn't speak. Finally, after moments of agonized thought, Madge runs fingers through her hair and looks at the floor miserably.
"This is stupid," she stammers.
Gale shakes his head this time, looking her in the eye and attempting to say the right thing, though he isn't sure he's every managed to do that in his entire life.
"No. It's a chance. You're taking a chance," he says, reassuring and calm on the outside, though his heart is pacing like he's just done a thousand jumping jacks.
"And what about you? Are you taking a risk?" She questions.
Gale looks down at his hands and grimaces a smile, a joke quick to his tongue.
"Well, I made this cake. So we might both be taking a risk by eating it."
Something magical happens then. Madge's lips tilt upward in a smile. An honest-to-God smile.
"We'll have a good time tonight, Madge," Gale says, his eyes lighting up. She smiled. She actually smiled.
Madge looks up at him from under her eyelashes.
"You promise?" She asks.
Gale nods.
"I hope."
In a luxurious hotel suite uptown, which is in truth only a few miles from Gale and Madge but what might as well be a universe away, a few men are arguing as the phones are ringing off the hook.
"God damn mother fucking shit-" Seneca Crane shouts at the top of his lungs, slamming the receiver of his telephone down on the table furiously.
"Language!" Plutarch Heavensbee snaps, looking from the stacks of boxer profiles in his head and looking from his fellow Match organizer to the young girl sitting on the edge of her older brother's bed, watching television quietly amidst the chaos around her.
Rue shrugs, looking up at Plutarch with the eyes of an angel, making the older man wonder why he ever doubted Thresh's judgement in bringing her on this particular trip. Not that his doubt would have made any difference, anyway. Thresh is never parted from his younger sister, and there is nothing in this world, not his fame, not a Championship Match, that could change that. They came from nothing. Their parents farmed sugar cane in the deep south, a life that hardly was a life at all, and now that Thresh's boxing stardom allows him to give his sister the world, he'll be damned if he misses even a moment of that.
"It's alright, Mr. Heavensbee. It isn't anything I haven't heard before," Rue says with a smile before turning back to the TV.
Her older brother furrows his brow and looks down at his sister, unsure and a little disturbed at her casual response to such crude manners.
"From where?" He asks.
He's always done his best to protect her. He'll be damned if someone's been using foul language around his little sister.
"Just around," she says simply with another shrug, picking up a bag of pretzels and proceeding to steadily shove them into her mouth with glee.
Thresh furrows his brow at her, but smiles all the same.
"We'll talk about that later," he promises, giving her shoulder a tiny, brotherly squeeze.
Then, like everyone else in the room, he gives his attention to the reporter on television. They're talking about his opponent, Marvel, who has miraculously decided to pull from the fight because some doctor declared him unfit to fight. Now, he and the producers of the fight are frantically coming up with some solution to their sudden match without a match-up.
"How did he manage to get a doctor to say he's all of the sudden got a heart condition?" Plutarch wonders, his body tightening in frustration.
A heart condition. Thresh could laugh at how ridiculous it all is.
"He's afraid to fight me, that's all it is," the World Champion scoffs, sitting beside his sister and reaching into the bag of pretzels before producing one for himself.
"We need a new opponent," Plutarch says.
Seneca eyes the calendar on the wall. Less than two months before the fight.
"Who else is available?" He questions.
Plutarch shakes his head, holding up the files in his hand. Fifty ranked boxers. All of them dead-ends. No one wants to fight Thresh without at least six months notice.
"No one. No one'll fight him," Plutarch responds dimly, his face downcast as he frantically grabs for a solution.
Thresh watches the television with intensity as the sports caster gives way to the evening news. Their top story tonight? The bust of a massive contraband ring in the neighborhood commonly, famously, referred to as District Twelve. Thresh has heard of the fighters from that part of town. It's where his sparring partners are coming from. They're tough bastards.
"What about someone from District Twelve?" He says, expertly cutting into the other two men's conversation.
Plutarch raises an eyebrow.
"You want a guy from the neighborhood?" He questions.
"It's got appeal, doesn't it? I was from a place just like it. I rose up and became the greatest boxer in the country. Don't you think the people would like to see that again? Get some boxer from the neighborhood and tell him he's got a prayer of beating me and then I'll knock him in the third round. Hear that? It's the sound of money in the bank, gentlemen," Thresh says, smirking as he goes.
The other two consider it for a while. It could be massive. The fight of the century. Two men enter the arena. One Victor emerges. One victor and one loser. Millions of dollars in television royalties, tickets sold, merchandise... The money would print itself, practically.
"It could work," Plutarch concedes.
Satisfied that his work here is down, Thresh bows his head and nods at his younger sister to stand.
"Good. C'mon, Rue. Let's leave these gentlemen to find me an opponent."
Here we are! Sorry it took so long! It's been a trip trying to get this chapter up! Thank you all for your lovely reviews. Please send me a review and let me know what you're thinking! :)