Chapter 7: No Place Like Home
The only other time Madge arrived by train to District 12 was when she was 4 years old, and she had no idea on that trip how much her life was about to change. She hadn't known the Capitol doctors had operated on her mother to give her a chronic headache condition and that she would be largely deprived of a mother from that point forward. On this trip, she's at least aware of the awfulness waiting for her: the ashy wasteland that used to be her entire universe.
"The delegates from 12 are meeting us at the train station," Perri says, peering at Madge over the wire frames of her glasses as she takes a break from the newspaper from District 6, where the train had stopped briefly and Madge had been able to visit Patty while the rest of the group took a tour. "They arrived a few days ago and will show us the rebuilding highlights. Then the historian will interview you and you can visit your friends."
Madge nods absently, the queasiness in her stomach growing more pronounced the more familiar the terrain outside the train becomes, flat yellows and browns building into the rolling green hills covered with types of trees she recognizes. She knows the historian will ask whatever he needs to about how her father ran District 12 and that she'll share whatever she remembers. It's the questions there aren't answers to she's most concerned about. Like how can she say good-bye to her parents when their bodies and the family home are gone? How could an entire district have been destroyed in a few hours? How can everybody still alive ensure it never happens again?
Well, she has some ideas on that last one.
And so does Aunt Perri. During the early stages of the journey, Perri proposed her idea that Madge should work as an assistant to the delegates from 12. Perri's theory was that since it's so far for the delegates to travel from 12 to the meetings in 2 and since they wanted to spend as much time as possible in the district with their families and building their new homes, Madge could help them from District 2 by keeping them updated on the events they didn't need to attend in person. Then they would only have to travel for the formal sessions and votes.
Madge had declined and promptly pretended to fall asleep. But the topic periodically resurfaces and she can tell from the way her aunt is setting the newspaper down on the table that she's preparing to launch into another pitch.
"Perri, I already have a job." Maybe if she preempts the topic her aunt will drop it.
"A dangerous job."
"It's not that dangerous," Madge mumbles as she looks out the window, aware she can't fool Perri on this point and not putting much effort into trying. She prefers to think of her job as risky, not necessarily dangerous.
Perri lets Madge shift uncomfortably under her steely gaze for a moment and then tries a new angle. "Your father would have been proud to know that you were helping the people of your district, and you could do a lot of good this way."
"I'm helping people with what I do now."
"At what personal cost, though? How many trips to visit us did you have to cancel in the last month? When was the last time you saw Gale?"
Madge feels her body tense. She didn't tell her aunt and uncle that Gale had rejected her (she can't even call it breaking up since they were never together), partly because she doesn't understand what happened, and partly because it feels too wrong to be real. She has a hard time comprehending that he might not like her anymore, and an even harder time acknowledging that she might have screwed things up for exactly the reasons Perri is implying.
"Madge," Perri says in a softer tone, "you knew your district far better than the delegates did, and after this trip you'll have an even better understanding of the current state of affairs. Twelve was your home, and Gale's too, and what if you want to move back—"
"That isn't going to happen," Madge says sharply.
"Well, clearly not anytime soon," Perri says in an exasperated tone. She hasn't hid her irritation with Gale in refusing to go on this trip, or her more generalized impatience with him. "But eventually he'll get over whatever is keeping him from 12, and in the meantime you could be well-positioned to have an important role here—"
"I don't care about that," Madge interrupts angrily. "Just because Dad was the mayor doesn't mean I'm entitled to anything here. That's not how it works anymore."
Perri sits back, seemingly offended. "That isn't at all what I meant. You would have to prove yourself, but this would be a good opportunity to do so, and more importantly, I think you would be good at it and that it would make you happier."
Madge isn't sure about any of that and scowls at Perri's newspaper between them on the table. Perri doesn't know her well enough to know what would make her happy and is probably just projecting her memories of Madge's father onto Madge. And Perri definitely doesn't know when or if Gale will 'get over' his mysterious Katniss issues and newfound disdain for Madge, which Madge can't even think about without feeling sick.
Once it's clear Madge is no longer participating in the conversation, Perri murmurs that the job is something worth thinking about, and then picks up her newspaper again. Madge crosses her arms and looks out the window, trying to distract herself from the frustration and confusion sitting like undigested wartime ration bars in her stomach. She sees charred trees beginning to appear outside the train's window, burned branches giving way to entire stands of blackened trunks. Then the train's speed slows noticeably, confirming that they're now in the burn zone surrounding District 12. Unable to look away from the window, Madge feels her anxiety increase with each inch closer to 12 they move. Is she ready to witness her entire world flattened, burned, twisted, and gone?
She has to grip Perri's arm tightly as they disembark in the makeshift train depot, really just a slab of concrete. Building materials—lumber, tiles, crates of nails—are stockpiled nearby and people she doesn't recognize are transporting items by wheelbarrow and cart. Numbly, she forces her feet to follow Perri and the rest of their small fact-finding group as the two designated delegates, former miners Madge doesn't know, lead everyone on a tour of the progress clearing and rebuilding the district.
The delegates' voices seem muffled, the way sounds were muted when she swam in the ocean in District 4 during the war. Her brain is probably storing some of the information they're sharing, but all she's aware of is flatness grayness jagged remnants of buildings. No trees remain, only stumps, so there's no shade anywhere to offer relief from the oppressive sun and there are no landmarks to indicate where they are. She becomes vaguely aware that they're looking at what used to be the mines and that the delegates are describing new mining methods to be used in areas farther outside the district's old boundaries, but she can't focus and instead stares at the oversized truck rumbling down the road toward them, sending clouds of fine ash into the heavy, hazy air.
They end up back in town. What used to be town. She doesn't remember walking here, but Perri is still firmly supporting her so she guesses she was steered. She hears Perri asking her something in a gentle tone and nods because it's easier than explaining that words don't make sense right now. And then they're standing on a stretch of sidewalk with a crack shaped like an 'M,' which she'd always thought was fitting since it sat right outside the gate to her house. M for Madge. M for Madge's house. M for Mayor.
Only there is no house anymore. There's a hulking pile of blackened boards that look like scattered toothpicks loosely corralled by what used to be walls. And nothing but air where the second and third stories used to be. Her bedroom. Her father's study. Her parents' bedroom. Where they'd both been at the end… Where they must have fallen through the floor when the house splintered apart… Tumbling amidst the crackling flames and crashing sounds of collapse Madge remembers all too vividly…
#
The next thing she's conscious of is cool pressure on her forehead. Reaching up, she feels a wet cloth draped above her eyebrows and when she opens her eyes, she sees Perri leaning over her, looking worried. Blinking, Madge tries to sit up but feels weak and only manages to lift her head slightly.
"Drink this," Perri murmurs, pushing a glass of water at her. Madge focuses on taking a few sips while Perri nervously fusses with the rag. "I shouldn't have brought you here. I'm sorry, Madge. We could have done the interview with the historian by phone. I thought this would help you…"
Madge still doesn't know where her words have gone and puts all her energy into drinking the rest of the water. And then she notices she's wearing a different shirt.
"You threw up, too," Perri admits, sounding like she blames herself. "I pulled one of your other shirts from the suitcase." She exhales slowly and pats Madge's arm. "Rest. We can stay in here for the afternoon."
Where is here? Madge doesn't recognize the room she's in, though it has the makeshift look of the temporary trailers she periodically had to inhabit in other districts during the war. The fact that it was never part of 12 is comforting and she lets her eyes close as she sinks backward onto the cot…
When she wakes up again, she's alone, although she can hear Perri's voice nearby, speaking calmly and insistently. Staring up at the trailer's ceiling, she wishes she could talk to Gale. Wishes he'd come here with her on this trip. He's the only person from 12 in her life—if he still counts as being in her life—who endured and survived the bombing. A tear escapes and rolls down her cheek, so she shifts onto her side to wipe her face on the coarse fabric of the cot. Why is he so confusing? And why is she so weak? In that propo when Gale and Katniss came back to 12, neither of them threw up or fainted, and at that point there hadn't been any cleanup. Unless the producers selectively edited… But probably not: Gale and Katniss are two of the toughest people Madge has ever known.
Madge sits up. She has to see Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch; she can't forgo this opportunity. Unsteadily, she rises and has to clasp the nearby desk while her body orients to being upright again. Purely by habit she starts scanning the numerous papers littering the desk's surface and is alarmed to see a large schematic of what looks like a mountain with its summit lopped off. She's just starting to inspect the drawing more closely when she hears footsteps approaching, a reminder that she isn't here to be doing this, so she promptly abandons the desk and returns to the cot.
The visitor is Perri, and Madge discovers that she's able to speak again, assuring her aunt that she'll be able to do the interview with the historian; she just wants to visit Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch first.
#
Madge walks along the road to the Victor's Village by herself later that afternoon, disturbed that the formerly familiar path is now unrecognizable and even more disturbed that the Victor's Village is the only part of the district that wasn't bombed, a lingering reminder of how twisted the Capitol was. The Village looks almost the same as before, only now all the homes are occupied, many with repainted doors and curtains on windows. Haymitch's house is in as terrible shape as ever, but it looks like someone has done some landscaping at Peeta's and Katniss' houses.
Feeling slightly shaky, Madge walks to Katniss' house and slowly climbs the stairs. After several attempts from the trailer to call all three of them, she finally caught Peeta and arranged to meet them here.
The door opens before Madge can knock, and she finds herself looking into Katniss' face. Not the Mockingjay, but the girl Madge used to eat lunch with everyday, a girl who's deeply familiar and at the same time, different: scarred from burns, gaunt and even more underweight than when they were classmates, and with a skittish look in her eyes.
"Madge?" Katniss croaks, clearly having trouble with words. But it's enough of Katniss' voice and it's such a relief to hear her in person that Madge feels her limited composure start to melt away.
She nods and takes a step forward hesitantly, not sure if a hug would damage Katniss' delicate skin, but Katniss darts out of the doorway and hugs her first. Madge closes her eyes and remembers that the last time she saw Katniss in person was at the final reaping. Over a year ago, though it feels like a lifetime has passed. She starts to cry, remembering how terrible that day had been, and how it had only been a shadow of the horrors that followed…
When she opens her eyes again, she sees Peeta hovering slightly behind Katniss, his eyes misty but still recognizable as belonging to the small boy she used to encounter sitting outside the bakery on hot summer days, always eager to slip away for a glass of lemonade in the Undersee kitchen. Katniss moves aside and Peeta takes his turn hugging her.
They explain that Haymitch was 'asleep' last they checked on him, and migrate into the kitchen to sit at the table and catch up, which first involves a grim acknowledgment of their dismal family statistics. Between the three of them, only Katniss has a surviving immediate family member and even that isn't joyful information because Mrs. Everdeen is living in District 4 rather than with her daughter. Madge hides her dismay and doesn't ask why, picking up on Katniss' discomfort. She tells them her cover story about having been rescued by the rebels and working for them during the war, and now working in an economics office in the Capitol. They don't ask for details about the war, she assumes because they don't want to talk about it either.
Peeta's good at steering the conversation toward more positive topics, like who from 12 has returned. He reports that a handful of their classmates are thinking about settling in the district again.
"There isn't enough housing yet for more than the cleanup crews and initial builders," Peeta explains. "And the supply shipments haven't been steady enough to support everyone, though we get by well enough, thanks to Katniss." He smiles shyly at her, as though she might balk at the compliment.
"You bake," Katniss murmurs, looking at the floor rather than Peeta.
"I couldn't forget the Mellark recipes if I tried," he says weakly, and then frowns faintly at the floor.
Since they're both studying the kitchen linoleum, Madge looks around the room, noticing for the first time how many gouged-out holes are near the light fixtures, as though giant mice gnawed into the walls from the outside. And then she realizes the holes are most likely situated where the Capitol's surveillance devices were. She momentarily pictures all the places in her own family's house where the bugs similarly need to be removed, until with a jolt she remembers her house is nothing but rubble.
Standing up, she moves closer to inspect one of the holes and sees a tangle of severed wires inside the wall. Running her hands along the wall as she visualizes the path of the wires, Madge explores the underside of the nearest cupboard and finds a hole the right size filled with a thin metal disk—one of the Capitol's devices. Katniss and Peeta watch as she points it out, and then Katniss wordlessly retrieves a mini-axe from a drawer and hacks the device away.
"Where else?" Katniss asks, focused and assertive now.
Madge shows them a few other likely hiding places in the room. Katniss and Peeta got all but the trickiest ones. As Katniss hacks at them, Peeta asks Madge in a suspicious tone, "How do you know where all these things are?"
"They were listening at my house, too," Madge says, dodging a full explanation since she obviously didn't purge all the devices from her house before the Capitol bombed it into oblivion and because she wouldn't have known where to look until recently. She knows no one is monitoring these nodes and doubts the machines even work anymore, but she isn't taking any chances. "And I picked up a few tricks during the war," she adds vaguely.
By the time they finish combing the house, Katniss looks fatigued and keeps leaning into Peeta, realizing it too late, and then jumping back from him. Madge and Peeta venture into the crawl space under the house to check for other stray wires, and when they return, Katniss is sitting on the front porch of her house holding a backpack, sleeping bag, and bow and arrow.
Peeta takes in the scene as though he's seen it before. "Need company?"
Katniss looks at him and then away. "If you want."
Apparently this is more encouragement than Peeta normally gets, because he grins involuntarily and then tries to hide it before Katniss notices.
"I'm not leaving yet," Katniss clarifies. "We need to work on your house, too." She looks at Madge for confirmation, and Madge nods. The three of them trudge across the lawn to Peeta's house and spread out to use Madge's tricks to root out the remaining microphones.
#
Some time later, Madge finds herself sobbing in a pathetic little pile on the floor in the middle of Peeta's study. She'd forgotten he had painted a mural of the District 12 town square buildings into the walls and when she entered the room she had been overwhelmed to see everything how it exists in her memory: her house, the Justice Building, the community center, the stalls on market day… All gone now, and she witnessed the exact moment of destruction for nearly every structure.
"Madge?" Peeta asks hesitantly from the doorway.
She looks up from where she crumpled and wipes her eyes, still feeling uneven. "I forgot you made this mural."
He sits next to her on the floor and gazes up at the buildings. "I spend a lot of time in this room." Madge glances around and sees the clutter of an active painting studio: several half-covered canvases on easels near the windows and paint splatters and brushes scattered on the drop cloth. "Remembering growing up in town has helped me…" He trails off but then looks back at Madge. "They can't take that away."
"Sometimes I can't see my parents' faces anymore," she admits quietly. It feels like a betrayal.
Peeta stands up and retrieves a large book from the table. He hands it to Madge, who starts flipping through it. "Katniss and I are making this. Haymitch, too. Sometimes. It's things and people we want to be sure we don't forget. There's a whole section about town…" He flips to an area at the beginning of the book and sets it back in Madge's lap.
More scenes of the town square. Several of the bakery and Peeta's family. And then she comes across a sketch of herself and her parents, standing on the elevated town stage during what looks like the Spring Blossom Festival a few years ago. She remembers the day because her mother was actually well enough to attend the ceremony and Madge had felt like she had a normal family… She fingers the edges of the painting tenderly, appreciating Peeta's care and skill. And accuracy—her parents actually look like themselves. The happy versions of themselves, which is even better. She has too many sad memories threatening to crowd out the happy ones.
"You can have it," Peeta says, pulling the book toward him and removing the page.
"No, I couldn't do that," she protests.
He holds up his hand to cut her off. "I can paint another one, and you need this more than I do."
"Thank you, Peeta," Madge whispers, still drinking in the images in the painting. A few seconds later she senses, rather than hears, Katniss in the doorway.
"I finished upstairs," Katniss announces. She sets the axe down and walks into the room, joining Madge and Peeta on the floor.
Madge picks up the book again and continues paging through it.
"We try to work on it a little each day," Peeta says quietly. "It helps."
After the section on town, there's a series of scenes in the Seam, although not as many, since like Madge Peeta probably didn't go into the Seam much. Then there are paintings of both of Katniss and Peeta's Hunger Games, including sketches of the other tributes. That's followed by another section on people, family members and friends.
The most recent entries seem to be from Gale's family. There's a child's drawing of flowers signed POSY, a barely legible scrawl detailing what appear to be the rules for a game called cinder ball, and a delicate lace white doily Gale's mom must have knit. There are also sketches of the Everdeens' cat performing various tricks, labeled with captions like 'Rory's Half-Cat Twist' and 'Hide and Seek Prim.' With a pang, Madge remembers that Gale's brother was the same age as Katniss' sister and that they must have been friends…
Madge slowly turns the page, bracing herself for something related to Gale, but it's blank. She's at the end of the book.
"Gale's not in here," she observes with a frown, looking at Katniss for an explanation. She instantly regrets bringing up Gale because the effect is like a physical assault: Katniss flinches and looks like if she really were a mockingjay, she'd fly away to the highest branch of a tree.
Peeta answers when Katniss doesn't. "I guess not yet. We're not finished with the book, though." He looks pointedly at Katniss, but she's fixated on a large red paint splotch on the drop cloth.
Madge has no idea what's going on and looks back and forth between Katniss and Peeta, but Katniss seems to be blocking out everything and Peeta is intently focused on her. The air in the room feels strained and Madge uneasily wonders if maybe Gale was right in not wanting to visit Katniss.
"Have you seen him, Madge? In District 2?" Peeta asks, though he keeps his eyes on Katniss as he speaks, watching her reaction instead of Madge. "Doesn't he work with your aunt on that committee?"
Feeling like she's intruding on a conversation between Katniss and Peeta, Madge says hesitantly, "They're both on the Reconstruction Committee. I've seen him a couple of times." It doesn't seem helpful to add that they made out in her aunt's kitchen and then fought in the District 2 square, not that she knows what any of that means.
Katniss leaps to her feet. "Did you check under the house yet, Peeta?" He shakes his head and she shoots an accusing glare at him before leaving. When they hear the front door shut, Madge relaxes slightly, not having even realized she was that tense.
Peeta leans forward and rests his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes. "She won't talk about him. The doctor says it helps to talk about things, but nobody can make Katniss do what she doesn't want to…" He picks up a dry paintbrush lying on the floor and flings it angrily across the room. "He's like a loose thread on a sweater. He could unravel everything."
Peeta eyes Madge suspiciously. "Was there something between you and him?" He sounds surprised to hear his own words and quickly scrunches his eyes closed for a few seconds and seems to put all his energy into taking a series of unsteady breaths. "Did I make that up?" he asks softly. "I must have. I wanted him out of the way so badly." He opens his eyes and quirks his mouth in an embarrassed gesture. "Selfish, huh?"
Madge starts to feel panicky, her old guilt making an unwelcome resurgence. "I liked him," she admits quietly. "I wished there was something, but of course that was absurd." It's embarrassing to reveal that not only was she a rotten friend to Katniss by liking Gale, but she might as well have been one of those silly girls at school who traveled in packs and had obvious crushes on him.
"Is he… coming back here? He told me he wouldn't."
"He's not. That's why my aunt came on this trip."
Peeta visibly relaxes and then exhales loudly. He seems nearly as upset about Gale as Katniss was, and Madge realizes she can't bring herself to ask either of them to explain what happened between Gale and Katniss. In all likelihood it involved Peeta, and he seems only slightly more stable than Katniss, less so now that Katniss isn't around.
When Peeta starts flipping through the scrapbook again, Madge turns to stare at the mural in quiet contemplation, soaking it in so she can recall it later. She can almost transport herself back to a time when there still was a town and when her parents were alive. If she strains, she can hear the happy bustling sounds of market day and her parents debating whether or not to order new carpet for the parlor. She doesn't know how much time passes, but eventually Peeta says he wants to check on Katniss so he and Madge venture outside again.
They find Katniss on the Victor's Village lawn sitting next to her getaway gear. She looks small and anxious, glancing back at her house periodically, but when she spots Peeta she focuses on him and stops fidgeting. Madge feels like she's disrupting their lives; it was her revelation about the bugs that triggered Katniss to want to leave and she's clearly only delaying her departure because Madge is still visiting.
"I need to get going," Madge tells them. "I'm going to try to see Haymitch before I meet with the historian."
"He might not be in any condition for visitors," Peeta warns.
Madge glances in the direction of his house. "I'll risk it. He and my mom were friends."
"Really?" Peeta asks. "I guess that makes sense. At least as much as anyone being friends with him makes sense."
He smiles gently and Madge thinks she sees Katniss' mouth stop frowning for a microsecond. Madge gives Katniss and Peeta long good-bye hugs and promises to call, but as she walks away, she thinks what she needs is for them to promise to answer their phones, not for her to call.
To reach Haymitch's door she has to weave carefully through a flock of bedraggled geese and their droppings and stray feathers, and then she has to ring the buzzer three times for successively longer periods before she hears stumbling and cursing from inside the house. He does open the door, though, and stares at Madge as though she's a ghost.
"You never die, do you?" It's not an accusation; she hears a hint of admiration in his tone, though she isn't sure if he's aware that she's Madge, not Maysilee.
"Haymitch," she says shakily. "I wanted to thank you in person for helping Simon get those identification papers for me—"
He cuts her off with a crushing hug. Despite the fact that he clearly hasn't bathed recently and white liquor fumes are practically coming out of his pores, she hugs him back and finds herself crying again. It's true that she's grateful for his help in getting the false papers for her, but he's also one of the few people left in the world with a connection to her family—being in the Quell with Maysilee, being friends with her mother…
Releasing her, he kicks a few bottles on the floor out of his way and gestures for her to follow him. He picks up a mostly empty whisky bottle from a table in the hallway, sending the fly that had been resting on its rim fleeing into the air.
"Want a drink?"
"No, thank you." It feels odd to politely decline something so obviously foul. As far as she knows, he lived in squalor before the war, too. Maybe this is comforting to him.
Haymitch pushes a pile of yellowing newspapers off the couch and gestures for Madge to sit down. "So. I assume they made use of you during the war."
He seems to be waiting for an explanation so Madge carefully tells him her cover story, which he appears to see through but responds only by nodding approvingly. "And still working hard, I take it?"
"Aren't we all?" She has a feeling he'll understand that that's as much of a direct answer as she can provide.
"Some of us retired." Haymitch tips the bottle back and swallows. "Sounds like you're not there yet."
Madge shakes her head, but then she finds herself describing Perri's idea of working from District 2 for the delegates from 12. "My aunt says my dad would have wanted me to carry on. That he would have been proud."
She looks up at Haymitch to see his reaction: a shrug as though the statement is obvious. "Probably," he says and keeps watching Madge. He leans forward. "What do you want, permission from Mommy not to do it? You knew her better than I did."
He sighs heavily when Madge continues to stare expectantly at him; she does want him to give her some kind of insight into what her mother would say. "Listen, all she cared about was keeping the Capitol's claws out of you. Mission accomplished; you're free to do whatever you want, kid. You don't owe anyone anything. The world owes you."
Madge quietly considers his words, thinking Perri would probably hate Haymitch in twenty different ways if she ever had to deal with him. Luckily, it doesn't seem like she will—drinking himself into oblivion in the company of geese seems to be the only item on Haymitch's agenda.
"You see the famous cousin in Two?" Haymitch asks after a few moments, raising his eyebrows.
Looking up, Madge nods slightly.
Haymitch takes a drink from his bottle and exhales loudly, as though he's exhausted. "Good. He's not my problem," he says defensively and then gestures vaguely toward Katniss and Peeta's houses. "I have enough to deal with, keeping those two semi-functional. But that cousin could use a friend." He glances sidelong at Madge. "Or whatever you are these days."
Madge bites her lip. "He won't see me." Saying it aloud hurts, makes it seem more real and she feels tears fill her eyes. Simon is the only other person she's told about Gale's strange reaction to her, and that was before she'd left. She's so raw today, it apparently doesn't take much to push her over the edge, and she doesn't feel like she needs to put on a brave front anymore now that she's not around the new, fragile versions of Katniss and Peeta. "He was so happy to see me at first, and then suddenly he wasn't…"
Haymitch narrows his eyes. "That damn cousin nearly tore my head off in 13 when I wanted to know what happened to your family in the bombing. I made the mistake of asking if he was sure none of you made it out. Seemed to be offended and blaming himself at the same time." Haymitch pauses and swirls the remaining inch of amber liquid in his bottle as he shakes his head sadly. "And that was for something where he really was blameless… He must be a real mess now."
Is Haymitch implying that Gale is guilty of something? Maybe related to Katniss? Madge can't even imagine it; Gale has always been devoted to Katniss and has been the model rebel, focused and effective at getting rid of the Capitol and now utterly dedicated to rebuilding. How could he have done anything blameworthy?
"Haymitch," Madge starts hesitantly. He always seemed to know everyone's secrets, especially anything related to Katniss, and he seems to be implying that he understands why Gale is so determined to be miserable… She has to ask. "Do you know why Gale and Katniss aren't friends anymore?"
His gray eyes meet hers. "Kind of hard to be friends when they both think he killed her sister."
A/N: Sorry this update took longer than usual—I had a really busy week. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing (also to MiSoMyself, since I couldn't reply individually). I appreciate it!
Also, if anyone hasn't seen it yet and needs a fix of happier times in District 12 and Gale and Madge actually interacting (I needed a fix myself), I started a ficlet called "Saturday Night in the Seam." It's not related to this story.
