What's Left Here

Part Seven

After the Rescue - District 13

"Maybe I asked for too much, maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up. Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well. Well, you call me up again just to break me like a promise—so casually cruel in the name of being honest." – All Too Well, Taylor Swift

Peeta won't let go of her hand. Or maybe, Madge won't let go of Peeta's hand. Well, to be fair, all four of them don't like being separated from each other for long. Peeta and Madge hold hands. Johanna won't touch anyone, just huddles up in the corner, but she won't take her eyes off of them, watching protectively. Even Annie, despite being back in Finnick's arms, likes to check up on her fellow prison-mates every couple hours.

"Just to make sure," she pleads with Finnick, who takes no convincing at all, anyway. As long as he can come with her.

Perhaps the worse of it all was right after they came back from the Capitol, when Peeta caught sight of Katniss, who came running towards him. He froze, and Gale saw his pupils dilate, his fingers clench. A pulse in his jaw jumped. He looked like an animal. He looked like how Gale had felt all those weeks. Unhinged. Insane.

Madge saw the warning signs and put herself in between the two. Katniss looked about ready to haul her out of the way, but Madge Undersee—pretty, perfect mayor's daughter—threw a hard, icy, commanding look Katniss's way. Don't come closer and turned her back on the frozen Mockingjay. She faced Peeta and took his hands.

"Peeta," she said, but his voice sounded like a song from her lips. "Pee-ta. We're safe now."

The guards, the doctors, everyone, seemed to freeze, unable or unwilling to interfere.

"She's a Mutt," Peeta muttered, screwing his eyes shut tightly. "She'll hurt us."

"That's what Snow wants you to think," Madge reprimanded. "Remember?"

"Promise?" Peeta asked, his voice cracking, and Gale heard Katniss hold back a sob. There was such blatant trust there, trust Katniss hadn't heard from Peeta in months.

"Of course," Madge said. "And Johanna and Annie know, too."

"Of course," Peeta parroted back, but it was her hand he held tighter.

Now they stand watching them behind glass windows, Katniss and Prim and Haymitch and Finnick and Gale, with Beetee and Plutarch standing a bit apart, watching them watch. Doctors fuss over Gale—he has a shoulder injury; nothing huge, but enough to take him out of things for a few days—but he won't leave. He lets his eyes feast upon Madge hungrily, like a man parched.

Annie, though a bit traumatized, isn't worse for wear. They didn't torture her, a small mercy—just keeping her captive was enough for the Capitol to hurt Finnick like they wanted. She'll be released to his care, living with him. Gale can't help but be jealous, but after Finnick's confessions he understands how hard it's been for Finnick to live apart from her for so many years.

The other three are a different story.

Beetee explains about hijacking, and Gale sees Prim grip one of Katniss's hands tightly as he explains the effects and how there might not be a cure.

"To be honest," Beetee explains, "I have the feeling it could've been a lot worse."

"Worse?" Katniss asks scathingly. "How can you say that?"

Beetee gestures to the room. "It seems that Miss Undersee there has been helping him fight the effects, helping him to distinguish true memories from false ones." Beetee shakes his head. "If he hadn't had her…"

Katniss's knuckles are white around Prim's. Gale's eyes narrow in upon them. Is she… jealous?

Gale focuses back in on Madge and Peeta. They're sitting closely, blond heads bent together as they talk quietly. He studies Madge's expression. She doesn't look at Peeta like she looked at Gale, but one never knows. Peeta would treat her better than Gale ever did, and despite Peeta's devotion to Katniss, the Peeta that came from the Capitol is not the same boy who entered it, not by a long shot.

The next few days are filled with more evaluations. Johanna was tortured physically instead of psychologically, while Madge was a mixture of both.

"They wanted to try and turn me into a… a special soldier," Madge says softly, her hands rustling the white sheets in her hospital bed. She talks softly to a doctor, Peeta at her side like a guard dog. Katniss and Gale are, again, outside watching. "I was the best option because I'm the complete opposite of a soldier. No training, no skills."

"What sort of soldier?" the doctor asks kindly.

"Transforming physically would've been easy," Madge says. "They do it with mutts all the time. But they wanted me to be—mentally strong. Invincible. Impervious to anything, including hijacking. They experimented with me a lot. Shock therapy. Hooking me up to machines, injections."

The doctor pauses. "Did it work?" He asks mildly. "Can you combat hijacking? Other poisons and hallucinations?"

"They hadn't begun testing for that yet," Madge answers. "But—there were some side effects."

The doctor leans imperceptibly forward. "Such as?"

"Stupid things, really," Madge says, twisting the sheets further. "I can tell when someone is pregnant. When they're dying—from a disease. Even if other people can't tell by just looking at a person, I can take one look and know."

"How?"

"I don't know," Madge says. "But I haven't been wrong yet."

000

Katniss has an awful row with Coin, making her revise her Mockingjay contract to include Madge in the list of spared people.

"Just because her father was in the Rebellion doesn't mean she was," Coin says scathingly to everyone's surprise. Gale feels like he was punched in the stomach at the news. Staid, old Mayor Undersee was a part of the Rebellion?

Haymitch looks grim as he confirms it. "As was Mrs. Undersee," he says, and Gale remembers about Maysilee Donner.

"She's helping Peeta," Katniss hisses at the austere woman. "And I won't do a single more thing for this damned Rebellion if you don't add her on the list. What's it to you, anyway?"

But they all know: it's a power play, pure and simple. But even Coin can't come up with an explanation on why one girl was so significant, so she agrees. If anyone asks why a Mayor's daughter was spared, Coin says the story would be that the entire Undersee family was part of the Rebellion. Gale thinks back to his and Madge's old conversations in District 12 that seemed like a lifetime ago. How she would share intel, how he thought she was hiding something. Perhaps she was in the Rebellion, even all those months ago. Maybe her parents didn't want her to make it official in case something happened. The old Gale would have called it cowardice, but the new one, the one who knows what it feels like to lose Madge Undersee, understands.

He goes to visit her one night, after they send Katniss off to District 2. Katniss feels helpless, here, can't stand to look at Madge and Peeta together, and Gale doesn't try and convince her to stay. He might go a few days later with Beetee, but he really wants to spend some more time with Madge. He neglects his work with Beetee—he wonders if Madge would approve of his recent plans. He knows Katniss didn't when he showed her, and if Katniss, who is full of fire against the Capitol, dislikes his work, then what about gentle, kind Madge Undersee? It burns him because he already knows the answer.

Regardless, he stays away and close to Madge. He is absent-minded when he's not with her, and the few times he's with his family they can tell. His mother talks to him like a cornered animal, and he forgives her, but doesn't correct her all the same. He thinks she should save her apologies for Madge.

The three remaining hostages are in one room all together, a long, large one, three hospital beds in a row, Peeta in between them. Gale understands the gesture—they're protecting him on both sides.

"All our cells were in a row. Annie, then Madge, then Peeta, then me. We're familiar with each other's screams," Johanna told him once, a statement meant to hurt him, he knows, but he doesn't visibly react. She seems to know, that sly girl, what Madge is to him, although he doesn't know if Katniss is aware yet. She has to be. He certainly doesn't come to the hospital every day to see Peeta.

Gale feels three pairs of eyes on him when he steps in the room. "If it isn't Heartless," Johanna sneers. Gale rolls his eyes. Katniss is 'Brainless' and he is subsequently 'Heartless'. Well, he'd take it.

"Mason," he raises an eyebrow at her. He swings his gaze to Peeta and nods. "Peeta."

Peeta's eyes are on him, and he looks like he can't make up his mind about something. He looks over to Madge, his new lifeline.

"It's fine, Peeta," Madge looks back at Gale steadily. "He's here for me."

Gale hears Johanna chortle but he won't look at her. "Well, well," she hoots, "looks like this love triangle became a love square. Or has it always been that way? I thought I saw something between you two when we were rescued. Looks like you've been holding out on us, Undersee."

"I thought you and Katniss were in love," Peeta says boldly, nearly spitting out Katniss's name.

"Maybe at one time I thought I loved Katniss," Gale responds truthfully, Madge scrutinizing him. He can feel it. "But I don't. Not in that way. And she doesn't love me like that, either."

Peeta's eyes flicker to Madge, who nods slightly. Gale is bewildered by the exchange, but lets it go.

"Can we talk?"

Madge's eyes slide to the guards posted outside her door. "You tell me," she says. Peeta isn't allowed to leave the room, though Johanna and Madge are—they just don't want to.

"I have clearance," Gale says awkwardly.

"Fine," Madge says, and they leave the room. She's wearing her hospital gown, but has a cotton robe over it. Her face has little cuts on it, but her hair is brushed and clean. She's thinner, but still has the grace of a mayor's daughter. Gale looks at her every movement longer than he should. He can't help himself.

She catches him looking. "Miss my pretty dresses?" She teases.

Gale shakes his head. "Missed you more."

They both pause mid-step. Gale's words are matter-of-fact, said almost like an afterthought. It's what makes them too real, too honest. It's the first real thing he's said to her in months.

No, that isn't true.

Madge thinks about the words he said to her in the depths of the Capitol when he saw her, the raw relief and pain on his face. When they freed her from her cell he wrapped his arms around her and wouldn't let her go with anyone else. Madge was shell-shocked and numb and could only listen silently as he said her name over and over into her hair as he held her, how he told her he was never letting her go again.

But that doesn't change the past, doesn't change what he told her all those months ago on her back porch.

"You're late," Madge said, voice soft with worry as she took him in. His clothes and hair were more rumpled than usual. His mouth was pinched. He's scowling. "Is everything all right?"

"Madge," Gale wouldn't meet her eyes and Madge felt dread pool in her stomach. "I think we made a mistake."

"Listen," Gale says. "Breaking things off with you was the worse decision I ever made." Madge hates the look in his eyes right now, anxious and vulnerable. What right did he have to look that way?

"What?" Madge couldn't be hearing him right. This had to be a bad dream. "I don't understand."

"I don't know why I thought this could work," Gale shook his head. "Who are we kidding, Madge?"

"But you did it easily enough," Madge says coolly. "Rather enthusiastically, if I recall."

Gale winces. "You don't understand—I had my reasons, none of which had anything to do with how I felt about you."

"This will work, Gale!" Madge wanted to touch him so badly, grab his hands, touch his cheek, but she somehow knew he'd flinch away. "Why are you doubting us now? I want to be with you." She looked searchingly in his eyes. "What's changed? Talk to me."

Madge shakes her head. "I know what those reasons are," she tells him. "I've known since I brought you Morphling last winter."

Gale swallows. "I heard about that," he says softly. "Just the other day, actually."

Madge flinches. "So that's why you came to rescue me?" She demands. "To repay a debt?"

"No," Gale says emphatically. "I came because I care about you. Because I—" He can't say it. Not like this. The moment feels too ugly for declarations of love, and he knows how much he failed with Katniss.

"This will never work," Gale said. "You and me. We're too different. You think I'm what you want now, but you don't. I can never be a part of your world, Madge. And you can't be a part of mine."

Madge's fists clenched. "I'm stronger than that," she said. "This won't deter me! You think I haven't thought about this either? You're what I want. I choose you."

The hope in her eyes almost breaks him, but Gale thinks about Alys Everdeen. Maysilee Donner. His mother. His family. "You really think you could make it in the Seam?" He laughed and it's bitter. "You? You wouldn't last a week."

Madge shakes her head. "I believe you," she says. "But that doesn't change everything. I know you gave me up because you were scared. Because your mother was scared. Because you were worried for your family."

Gale's confused. "I don't understand," he says. "If you know why I had to break things off with you…"

"Then why am I angry?" Madge scoffs. "You didn't just break things off with me. You capitalized on my every weakness, every insecurity. You destroyed me."

"I don't believe you," Madge argued, and she hated that her voice began to hitch. "You know me. You know that I'm not afraid to work hard, I'm not afraid to fight for us."

"You don't know what it's really like," Gale shook his head. "You're a weak, spoiled little girl. I could never be with someone like you. I could never love someone like you."

Gale feels something in him crack and die. He knows how harsh he was. He regrets it every damn day of his life. "I wanted to make sure," he says hoarsely, "that was the only way I knew how."

"Regardless of your intentions," Madge says dully, "what hurts the most is at the end of the day, I was still right. You don't really know me or understand me."

She's crying now and not bothering to hide it. "Why are you saying these things?" She rasped and he wished Katniss was here, if only to shoot him in the chest with an arrow and be done with it. "Why are you being so cruel?"

"What?"

"You could've told me the truth," Madge says, looking away for a moment, repeating words Gale's thought in his head a million times over. "You could've told me the truth and I would've understood. I wouldn't have pushed you; you know that. I know how important your family is to you. I would've been hurt, but at least I would've known that you truly did like me; that you would've been with me if you could. But you didn't trust me. And I—I don't think I can ever trust you."

"I'm just telling you how things are," Gale said, with a careless shrug. "Someone has to."

"We can't—" Gale hates the hope in his voice. "We can't start over, then? You won't give me another chance?"

"Oh, Gale," Madge sighs, and it's as though the fight has gone out in her. He hates to see it. She deflates, shoulders slumping. She looks tired. "I loved you," she says softly, and Gale tenses because he hears the deliberate use of past tense. "I loved you so much. I don't think you understood—or will ever—how much I did." Her eyes are kind when she looks at him and he hates it. "The Capitol took Peeta's memories of Katniss away. They took my love for you away—well, whatever was left that you didn't slaughter yourself after that day."

Gale wonders how he's still upright. "And you'll never be able to get it back?" Did they take her ability to love, too? Had they taken her from him forever, just in a different way?

Gale barely felt the slap of Madge's palm connecting with his cheek. He only knew it happened because of the sting and redness later. He's numb.

"Get out," Madge trembled with her anger and her pain. "Get out. I never want to see you here again."

"With pleasure," Gale spat, though he was feeling anything but. He wanted to vomit. He knew he wouldn't be going home that night but would be in the meadow, counting the stars in another sleepless night.

She slammed the door before he even turned around.

"I don't know." She holds his gaze. "But I wouldn't want to even if I could."

He goes to District 2 the next day.