Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.
So shines a good deed pt 7
AN: This story got put on the back-burner for gadge week, but I was still working on it little by little. It got a little long, mostly bc I couldn't find a good stopping point and then I had to do some tweaking on it bc I apparently can't remember things after a week of not writing them straight through and totally mess up my plot. So…yeah. Sorry.
#######
"They really are beautiful," Hazelle tells Gale as she goes through the stack of dresses he's brought home after his dinner.
"Madge sent them," he explains.
Hazelle looks close to tears as she picks up the first one, investigating the delicate trim along the hem. They'd never be able to afford anything this nice, not with a hundred pay checks.
"I'll have to make her something," she murmurs, more to herself than to either Gale or Asher.
"She's not paying for strawberries again." Possibly ever, Asher thinks.
Gale's expression, which has been strangely guarded, settles into worry as he shakes his head. "She won't like that."
Before Asher can tell him that he'll drop the strawberries off on the porch without her ever seeing him, he's snuck under the noses of Peacekeepers for decades, he can avoid one girl, Gale holds up his hand. "Can we just-I need to talk to you two about something."
Something about his tone, the wary look in his eyes and the tension in his shoulders, let's Asher know whatever he's about to say isn't something he's excited about. It's not about Madge then.
Hazelle cuts Asher a look, her eyebrows drawn together as she silently asks him if he has any idea what they're about to hear. He just shrugs and drops down on the broken down couch, the stack of dresses between them.
Gale stares at them for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then he settles on the rickety coffee table.
Whatever Asher could've imagined, it wouldn't have come close to what Gale tells him.
Haymitch Abernathy is offering him a way out of the mines, practically promising to gift wrap it. It's something Asher had hoped to do with the failed strike.
"It's awfully soon to be offering you help in exchange for protecting Madge, isn't it?" Hazelle asks.
Asher sighs. "He doesn't really have a lot of time, Hazelle."
The geological corps likes to pick new members from among the freshest recruits. Young men just out of school. They've taken older men, but not in years, not since before Gale was even a glimmer in Hazelle's eyes. Haymitch would know that.
There's no time to waste. If Gale wants even a chance to escape the mines he has to act now.
"He's young, Ash," Hazelle says, her forehead wrinkling up as her eyebrows rise. "He's been on one date. That's not enough to make this kind of commitment. Not enough time to know if he wants to be in Haymitch's debt for the rest of his life, to take on the responsibility for the life of a girl he barely knows."
"Mom-"
"Gale," she cuts him off, "listen to me. You're just a child-"
"I'm about to get shoved in a hole for the rest of my life." His voice is low, almost defeated.
"One way or another his choices are a bit limited," Asher adds.
Hazelle isn't done yet.
"You care about Madge, right?" She takes Gale's hand, holds him in a watery look. "How is she going to feel if she finds out you and Haymitch are bartering for her life?"
Gale's eyes drop and he starts playing with the hem of one of the dresses.
Asher feels his stomach drop. He doesn't want his son living with a secret over his head. It isn't getting an innocent man killed, but manipulating a girl by not giving her all the facts of their relationship isn't much better.
"You have to tell her," he tells Gale. "Let her know what you're doing."
Bile rises in the back of Asher's throat.
What if Madge gets angry and breaks things off with Gale? What if she thinks he only likes her for what he can gain from her?
There's no good choice in the situation.
Either Gale tells her and risks not just the relationship but also the job, or he doesn't and possibly breaks her heart when the truth inevitably comes out.
Asher wishes he could stop caring about what happens with the girl. His first priority should be Gale, no matter the cost, but he's the reason she's got a manipulative drunk watching out for her. Madge Undersee only needs her future protected because of Asher and his foolishness. He owes it to the Mayor to look out for her.
"She already knows," Gale says with a shrug. "Seemedokay with it at the time."
What she'll think I the harsh light of day might be another thing, though.
They sit in silence for several minutes, frozen in thought when Hazelle sighs.
"I still don't like it."
#######
Hazelle finally goes to bed after Gale agrees to think about his deal with Haymitch a little more.
"Promise me, okay? I don't want you rushing into anything."
"Are you going to be disappointed if I don't change my mind?"
Hazelle takes Gale's face in her hands and pulls him down slightly, gives him a kiss on the forehead. "Never."
His dad sits at the kitchen table, staring at the glass of tepid water in his hand, probably wondering if tomorrow night he'll be comforting Gale after an ugly breakup if he throws Haymitch's offer away and Madge sees what a waste he is or congratulating him on the possibility of not spending his life in the mines.
As he's about to get up and go to bed, he still has work in the morning, Gale pulls out the seat across from him.
"Do you think something is going on with Haymitch?" He asks before his elbows are even against the wood of the table.
It's been rolling around in his mind since he'd left the Victors' Village.
Despite his calm demeanor, there was desperation in Haymitch's actions.
Gale isn't the kind of man he'd pick for Madge. He's a minor, poor, without a future, Haymitch should be trying to break them up and trying to find a better man for her, but he isn't.
"Why is he wasting time trying to make me into someone who can take care of her when there are plenty of guys who would bend over backwards for her?"
"None of them have," his dad points out. "Like he said, she picked you and he thinks that counts for something."
Gale arches an eyebrow. "You don't honestly think that's all there is to it, do you?"
His dad shakes his head. "No, but that's probably the best he's going to give you."
Sighing, Gale sits back in the chair and stares at the glass rolling between his dad's hands.
"Do you think this has anything to do with him coming back from the Capitol early?"
Because Gale does. The Capitol doesn't just let its Victors go home when they feel like it. There isn't a choice on attendance and his dismissal is strange.
His dad's eyes stay trained on the glass in his hands but he doesn't say anything.
"Dad-"
"No, Gale," his dad says flatly. "We aren't speculating."
Gale grits his teeth. "I'm not a little kid anymore."
He knows his dad hates the Capitol, hates the mines, and hates how the Districts are used. He knows his dad was part of the strike that the Mayor supposedly organized.
Gale also knows that the best clues they can get about what may be going on in the Capitol is their lone, drunken, Victor. Haymitch Abernathy is a pain in the ass, but he's also the person in the District that's closest to the source of their misery. He's a weathervane, and as far as Gale can tell, he's spinning wildly in the wind.
Getting booted from the Capitol before the end of the Games, making a deal with Gale despite clearly not liking him, planning for his own absence, it all point to something going down. He just doesn't know what.
"It isn't anything that'll matter to us."
"It might," Gale whispers harshly. "You didn't see him when he was talking to me. He's desperate."
Something is happening, something has Haymitch spooked, and Gale wants to know what it is. His dad does too, he has to.
"Maybe he'll tell-"
"Don't," his dad cuts him off, standing suddenly. "Don't ask. You don't know how dangerous trying to play the system can be. You don't know what it can cost."
"This isn't like the Mayor's plan with the strikes, dad." Gale runs his hands through his hair. "This might be an opening. Maybe something is happening, in other Districts, or in the Capitol, and we don't know. If Haymitch got sent home early because of something big we need to know."
That has to be it. Otherwise why send Haymitch back? It's never happened before.
"Gale," his dad's tone is warning, "drop it."
Biting his tongue, Gale stands up. It's obvious his dad isn't going to budge on this, not now anyway, so he might as well go to bed and let his imagination run wild without a disapproving glare on him.
"Fine," he mutters. "'Night."
#######
It isn't hard for Haymitch to convince the foreman of the engineering corps to agree to let the boy put his application in late.
Money talks after all, and if there's one thing Haymitch has, it's money.
He's glad the people of District Twelve are so easily swayed. Bribery is so simple, so straightforward and uncomplicated. Not like blackmail. That's messy.
"It's effective though," Wiress had told him once.
"It breeds resentment," he'd countered.
"Existence breeds resentment in some," she replied loftily. She was referring to him, he knew that, but he didn't give her the pleasure of knowing.
He resented her because she'd adapted to her life, her mantle of being a Victor, better than he had. He resented her for sacrificing any humanity she had in order to survive, for still having her family when he'd lost his, for being able to compartmentalize her life so effectively.
Maybe she was right, he resented her existence.
Still, she's useful and effective, and if good, old-fashioned bribery hadn't worked he was prepared to ask for her help.
The sun is already up, burning off the last of the early morning clouds and revealing a clear blue sky overhead. He'd left before it had even started peeking over the edge of the earth and hoped to be home before the girls woke up, wanting to avoid any questions-Madge will probably have plenty now that she's over her schoolgirl high from the night before and can think on everything that went down properly-and when he steps over the threshold and into the living room he thinks he might've succeeded.
The lights are still off, the quiet of sleep is still settled over the house and he silently pulls his shoes off and carries them into the kitchen.
"Where have you been?"
Madge is up, arms and legs coiled tightly and her expression so icy he thinks it might take setting her in the noonday sun to thaw her.
"Went on a walk, sweethear-"
"Don't," she cuts him off. "Don't 'sweetheart' me, okay?"
She stands and it's then that he realizes she's shaking.
"Mom woke up and went to get you because she wanted to show you the mockingjay she's been telling you about, the one outside her window, but guess what?" She glares at him. "You weren't there. Not even a note."
He starts to ask where Matilda is, but Madge is already on a roll, anger overtaking her.
"She got upset, thought they'd come and taken you. Thought that you'd left early without asking and they'd come and taken you away in the middle of the night. She was terrified, and I honestly couldn't tell her that she was wrong." Her lip quivers and tears start spilling down her cheeks. "I had to give her a double dose of her morphling just to calm her down enough that I could figure out just what the hell happened to you. The only reason I knew you weren't dead is because I doubt the Capitol would let you stop to get your flask when they were dragging you off."
Cold guilt settles in his stomach.
He hadn't meant to upset them, but the fact that both Madge and Matilda had realized his vanishing in the middle of the night is a very real possibility only reinforces to him that he needs to make sure things are taken care of if something really did happen.
Glancing up at the ceiling, to where Matilda is probably going to be sleeping off her morphling for the rest of the day, he sighs.
"Where were you?" Madge asks, none of the steel gone from her voice.
It's a little like he's ten again and his mother is scolding him for being out too late with his friends.
For a second he considers lying to her. She doesn't need to know what he's up to, he's a grown man after all, but then she narrows her eyes and sets her jaw and he knows that even if he weaves something believable she'll see right through it.
It's exactly like he's ten again with his mother.
"Had to go see an old friend," he tells her. It's the truth, mostly.
One of her eyebrows arches up. "A friend?"
"Yeah, a friend." He has friends. Drinking buddies mostly, but that's a kind of friend.
"Before breakfast? Without leaving a note?"
She isn't going to let it rest, so he crosses the room and collapses into one of the kitchen chairs and rests his arm on the table, drumming his fingers on the tabletop as he considers what he's going to say.
"I went to see the foreman of the engineering corps for the boy, alright?" He finally gives in.
For a minute she goes quiet, her eyes wide and curious, then she bites her lip.
"Oh, that." Her eyes drop and she begins toying with the hem of her robe. "Does all this have something to do with you coming home early from the Games?" She asks, her tone softening, edging with worry.
Haymitch glances up at her. Her nose is scrunched up in concern and her eyebrows are knitted together. She presses her lips together as she gently sits back down, her eyes never leaving his. "It does, doesn't it?"
He loves that's she's smart, but he also hates it. Being too smart gets you in trouble, and with him in her life she's got enough of that.
When he doesn't say anything, just drops her gaze and stares at his hand, still tapping out some slow tune on the table, she takes that as a confirmation.
"What's happening?"
He can't tell her, because, to be entirely honest, he isn't sure himself. Wiress might be wrong, and he hopes she is, but there's always the chance she isn't, and that's what he's planning on.
"I don't know, Pearl." He looks up at her wearily. "I only have guesses."
Madge leans in, eyes widened. "Then tell me your guesses."
#######
She doesn't want to be blindsided if, when, something happens.
That's something she's grateful for in her past, that her father had given her knowledge. His death hadn't come as a shock to her. She'd had time to prepare herself for the worst.
Maybe she hadn't had enough information to destroy anything, but there was definitely enough that she could've hurt people. He'd known full well she might break, and it was a dangerous gamble to make, but she thinks that was probably a risk he was willing to take. If the screws had been put to her, if she hadn't been dismissed as nothing more than a child, she had a bargaining chip.
Her life for the lives of anyone her father had allegedly conspired with.
That same sense of foreboding, an anxious buzz in her veins, that had permeated her home all those years ago is hovering around Mr. Abernathy now.
"I need to know." She needs to prepare, plan, decide how best to protect her mother and herself, maybe others.
"You don't," he tells her firmly. "I'm taking care of it."
It takes every fiber of her being to keep from snapping at him that he can't protect her from everything. If anyone knows the limitations of one person, no matter how much they love you, it's her.
Plus, his 'taking care of it' is probably not something she'll approve of. That's why he's being evasive about it.
"What did you do?"
It sound accusatory even though she's trying desperately for it not to be.
When he doesn't respond though, she thinks maybe she should let it be, but he's obviously guilty of something. Something that might affect her. She can't just let it go.
She narrows her eyes. "Mr. Abernathy, look at me, what did you do?"
He still keeps his eyes down, following his fingers as they trace lines in the table.
"Nothing for you to worry about."
If she hadn't been before she certainly is now. Whatever he's done it's either illegal or dangerous. Possibly both. Probably both.
Madge covers her face with her hands as he gets up and pads past her, mumbling something about checking on her mother, leaving Madge to all the worrisome possibilities her imagination can come up with.
#######
Without waking Rory and Vick, Gale rolls out of bed and pulls on a shirt before stumbling into the kitchen the next morning.
His dad is packing his lunch, a few measly scraps of bread and a bruised apple, before he turns and mumbles a goodbye at Gale.
"See you tonight," Gale grumbles back.
Once he's gone, Gale quietly nibbles on a piece of goat cheese, courtesy of Prim, before getting up and getting dressed.
He's out in the woods before the first rays of sun stretch over the horizon. The air is thick, but the cool of the night still hangs over the woods, under the shade of the trees.
Katniss might come out today, but he might miss her. He wants to talk with Madge, see how she feels really about Haymitch's little proposal without a steak dinner in her belly.
A few hours burn off, Gale picks a pail full of the biggest strawberries he can find and checks his snares, one fat rabbit and one skinny one, before he decides Madge should be up. It's well into the afternoon after all.
Dragging his feet, Gale makes his way back to the fence, under it, then cuts around the town until he comes up on the path up to the Victors' Village.
Madge is sitting on the back porch when he spots her through the thick green foliage that conceals the path. Her legs are crossed and she's holding a glass between her hands, staring at it blankly.
She doesn't notice him until his boots softly touchdown on the bottommost step up the porch.
Eyes widening, she looks ready to bolt right up until she realizes who it is.
"Gale!"
The fact that she says his name so enthusiastically gives him a little hope that she's still not opposed to him taking Haymitch up on his offer and that she hasn't decided that Gale had used her for his own benefit.
She's up and flinging her arms around his back before he's fully up the steps, almost knocking them both off the porch and onto the grass below. He regains his balance quickly though, she doesn't even notice.
"I-why are you here?" She asks as she pulls back. Her nose wrinkling up.
"I said I would." Had she already forgotten that?
Her smile falters, starts to slip off her face as she scrutinizes him.
"Oh, sorry. It's been a weird morning," she finally says, her arms slipping from around his neck.
He starts to shake his head, but he can't. Something may be wrong very soon.
"Let's sit."
He guides her to the bench swing and they both sit, a small chasm between them filled with silence until he decides there is no good way to go about this.
"So about Haymitch's offer to help me get into the engineering corps..." he begins carefully.
For a moment she's quiet, staring at him blankly before her eyes widen in horror.
Then she puts her elbows to her knees and buries her face in her hands.
"I didn't ask him to," She begins, her voice muffled and shaky. "He's just-I don't know what's gotten into him..."
Finally, Madge looks up, over at him, her eyes shining.
"I swear, I promise, it doesn't matter to me what you do, Gale. I'm not like that."
Gale feels his stomach drop to his feet. This conversation isn't going like he'd planned.
He had only meant to see if she still thought it was a good idea to take the offer, not make her think he was accusing her of being too good to be with a miner. Can he not open his mouth without sounding like a jerk?
"I know, Madge-I didn't think that!" He sputters. It never would've crossed his mind that she would be like that and he's a little horrified that it had come across that way.
"Why not?" She finally whispers, her voice brittle. "Everyone else does."
"Well I don't," Gale almost snaps. "I knows what life is like in the Seam and I want better for you."
Wet eyes turn to him. "And you'd sacrifice your future happiness for someone you don't even know that well?"
He feels a little offended that she thinks he barely knows her, though it's a little true. She's guarded and quiet, she probably thinks no one has ever wanted to know her. Gale does though. Anyone that can tolerate Katniss' sometimes sullen quiet and Haymitch's obnoxious drinking, who can keep their temper in check when people are not so subtly making jokes at their expense, who can come back from the dead and not speak ill of the people who benefited from their pain, is a person worth spending a lifetime getting to know.
Besides, who says he won't be happy with her?
"I know enough," he tells her. "If you want me to go tell him where he can put it-"
"I want you to do what you want to do, what's best for you and your family," she gently cuts him off, her soft hand reaching out and covering his much rougher one. "If you want it, I'll tell Mr. Abernathy to keep his promise. I'm-I don't have to be part of the equation."
And by her fragile tone, she probably doesn't think he should want her to be either.
"Damn it." Gale runs his hands through his hair. "Madge, you don't understand. You aren't some chip in a poker game. We aren't playing a game with your life. We're trying not to play one."
"Gale..."
"I..." Gale presses his palms to his eyes. "Just listen, alright? I'm going into the mines in the fall, and then what? Weekends. That's all I'm going to have because I'm going to be too worn out to do anything but sleep after twelve hours in the mines. That's how all the young guys are until they get worn in. Being trapped down there, not seeing you or my family, or dragging you into that hellhole, that's why I said yes. no other reason."
Not because he thinks she's a snob and not because he expected a helping hand to keep dating her. He's doing it for as many selfish reasons as selfless and she needs to see that. It's probably confirming some of the nasty things Haymitch has been saying about him, but Gale doesn't care at the moment. If it gets her to stop thinking that she's a burden to be shouldered then he'll take it.
With a late application he'll be in the mines for three months, maybe less if he's lucky. Then he'll be above ground, learning about rocks and surveying, bullshit things like that. He won't be slowly dying in a pit, too tired to appreciate life, to appreciate Madge.
He reaches out and takes her hand, running his thumb over her knuckle, hoping she can feel his sincerity through his skin.
Finally, she turns her hand over, wrapping it around his as much as she can.
"It's a pretty big gamble. What if you end up hating me?"
Gale shakes his head, letting the edges of his mouth twitch up. "Not gonna happen."
#######
I knew he was up to something, Madge thinks as she watches Gale's thumb trace circles on her hand.
Her mind sluggishly starts back on the path it had been on before he showed up.
Mr. Abernathy had gone out to see the foreman of the geographical corps. He wouldn't tell her about it much though, she thinks, because he wants it to fall to the back of her mind. He wants her to forget about it, or at least not think about it. It's not that Mr. Abernathy is helping Gale, it why he's really helping him that he's trying to keep from her.
It isn't financial security. He's smart enough and devious enough that if he wanted to set her up for the rest of her life he could, man or no man. Whatever has him making offers and brokering deals must be something that could prevent him from keeping money hidden away. Worse, though, is the possibility that it isn't money he's trying to ensure, it's actual physical security.
Gale is strong and skilled, if something were to happen he could take Madge and run. He could make sure she's safe from anyone trying to take her to use against Mr. Abernathy.
Something's going on in the Capitol, that has to be it.
Her stomach churns and tightens into a ball of anxiety.
He was sent home early, now he's making deals with Gale, being secretive. Something is definitely going on.
Madge's eyebrows pull together. "He's scared.
Gale frowns. "Who?"
"Mr. Abernathy."
His eyebrows rise. "Scared?"
Mr. Abernathy is a lot of things, annoyingly smug and cocky are the first things that come to most people's minds, but cautious and frighteningly clever are what they should think.
That's how he got to be a Victor after all.
If he's scared, then there's good reason for it.
"What's he got to be scared of?" The 'other than liver failure that is', is clearly implied in Gale's tone.
Madge's lip puckers in thought as she turns to Gale.
"Everything." Madge stands and gives Gale a waning smile. "I'll talk to you later."
She needs to talk to Mr. Abernathy. Something is wrong and she needs to find out what.
"I'm coming with you," he says, getting up and straightening the legs of his pants.
"No, Gale, you don't need to get involved." Mr. Abernathy might be paranoid, but justifiably so. The less Gale knows about whatever sordid things have urged him into deals he'd otherwise avoid the better.
"I'm already involved," he points out, a scowl forming on his features. "Haymitch involved me when he offered to help me get a job."
"That's not the same. For all they know he's just being nice to my...you know," she feels a blush creep up her cheeks.
He doesn't budge though. She knows why.
The Capitol is just as paranoid as Mr. Abernathy, maybe more so. They'll connect the dots just like Madge has, like Gale is doing. Pretending they won't is foolish and dangerous.
The knot in her stomach twists tighter. Each new thought makes the situation worse.
"Gale…" Tears start to form behind her eyes. She should've known nothing good can come her way. She's tainted, always will be. There's only one thing to do.
"Go home. Go home and work in the mines...find someone else."
The mines might be a bleak future, but she apparently has no future, maybe she never has. Dragging him with her isn't an option. If he walks away now it might look like he was never told anything, or at least that he didn't want to be involved. She hopes they'll see that as loyalty and not complacency.
She starts to turn and go in, leave and force him to reevaluate his choices, because the one to stay with her is going to be a death sentence, but he grabs her by the hand.
"I'm not going," he almost whispers. "I told that old bastard I'd take his help back when I thought he was just being jerk because I l-like you. I'm not backing down now just because the stakes might've changed. If anything, fighting back against the Capitol for everything they've put us through is more incentive."
His eyes are hard, steely gray and narrow, and his hand burns on her skin.
Gale won't back down from a fight. Not with her, not with Mr. Abernathy and not with the Capitol. It's just not his nature. She should've never let him kiss her. It was the beginning of his end.
It's going to get him killed. She knows it.
He leans in, presses a hard kiss to her lips, trying to dissolve her resolve, but she backs up.
"Gale, this is too dangerous."
"If you don't let me come with you to talk to the-to him, then I'll just track him down when he goes to buy liquor," he tells her firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.
She has no doubt he will.
With one last shuddering breath, a quick rub of her eyes, smearing unshed tears across her cheeks, Madge nods. She isn't happy about this, but Gale is nothing if not persistent.
They cut through the kitchen, letting the door screech open and clatter shut as they go into the living room.
Mr. Abernathy is on the couch, pillow over his face, blocking the sun, as he snores loudly.
Madge crosses her arms and clears the thickness from her throat. "Mr. Abernathy."
He startles, grunts and chokes awake as he yanks the pillow off his face. He twists, glaring at her. "What no-" He rolls his eyes when he spots Gale, arms crossed as he stands protectively behind Madge. "Certainly don't give a man time, do you, you little asshole?"
Madge drops into the couch beside him as he rolls and sits up, rubbing his eyes before glaring at Gale again.
"You know you aren't limited to being nice to people only once a year, right?"
He mutters something that sounds like 'whatever' as he scrubs his hand over his face again before sighing.
"I thought I was being nice," he grumbles. "Making sure you didn't end up in the slums."
Gale makes a harsh noise as he drops into the over-stuffed chair diagonal from Madge and Mr. Haymitch.
"You're from the Seam too," he snaps. "Hypocrite."
"Would you want-if you literally fought for everything you have you wouldn't be so hot on your kid marrying down," Mr. Abernathy snarls back.
"Stop." Madge grabs his hand. "Mr. Abernaty what's going on?"
He gives her a flat look. Not budging.
Finally, after what must be a full minute of staring, he sighs and glares at Gale. "Alright, sweetheart, if you want something then the brat has to g-"
"No," she cuts him off. "Gale stays. You brought him into this."
She wishes he hadn't, but what's done is done and Gale isn't budging now.
The expression on his face darkens and Madge is certain he's going to get up and storm off like a petulant child, but instead he just narrows his eyes and huffs in Gale's direction.
"One word, boy, and I'll have you drawn and quartered, understand? I know people."
Madge presses her fingers to her temples. He probably does 'know people', but he isn't nearly as hard-hearted as he wants Gale and everyone else to think. He wouldn't call his so-called friends on anyone short of his worst enemy.
Gale scowls, crosses his arms, but finally nods.
Mr. Abernathy waits a moment, lets an uncomfortable silence settle over the room, before he sighs.
"Look," he starts, pulling his flask from his shirt pocket, "like I said, I've only got guesses."
"Then give me guesses," Madge pleads again. He's smarter than anyone gives him credit for, maybe even Madge at times.
After a long, tense moment, he takes a long drink from his flask and sighing.
"All I know for sure is that they wanted us out of the Capitol. That nutcase said they didn't want us hanging around each other, talking."
"They think you're planning something?" Gale asks, his eyebrows pulling together. "What?"
"Our next read for the book club," Mr. Abernathy answers snottily. "What do you think?"
Madge's stomach clenches up. This is worse than she could've imagined. The Capitol thinks its Victors, or at least some of them, are plotting against it.
"Rebellion," she says, more for her own benefit than for anything else. She'd known it, somewhere in her mind, but saying it out loud makes it real.
It's her father all over again.
The room seems to shrink in around her, makes it hard to breathe, impossible to hear, blurring the living room from the edge in until it's nothing more than a vague memory. She can picture the cell, feel the icy floor and wind through the bars of the widow, taste the stale bread and dirty water all over again.
She's eleven and helpless and being locked away again.
Warm, rough hands begin rubbing circles on her back.
"Shhh, Pearl, nothing's going to happen to you," Mr. Abernathy tells her.
He's lying though. He can't protect her, just like her father couldn't. She's at the mercy of the Capitol again.
She wants desperately to be mad at them, her father and Mr. Abernathy are playing games with her life but not giving her a choice on whether to participate. It isn't fair.
But nothing ever is. Not her father dying, not her mother's headaches, not being tossed into the community home. Not for her and not for anyone else.
That flare of anger evaporates in her chest when she thinks of the other children in the community home. Nothing has been fair for them either.
A rebellion might get Madge killed, and her participation, or at least her being implicated in it, may not be up to her, but it will save more people, children, from losing fathers, having sick mothers, and being sent to community homes. She can't doom them all. Her father wouldn't, he hadn't, she can't either.
Somewhere, she distantly hears voices. They could be behind a door, muffled and dull, impossible to understand.
"Sit up, sweetheart," Mr. Abernathy's voice rumbles in her ear as he wraps an arm around her and pulls her to his side.
A glass is suddenly in front of her, a little water sloshing in her lap as someone tries to give it to her.
"Stop that!" A heavy hand reaches out and snatches it from where it seemingly floats. "Idiot."
Slowly her breathing steadies out and the room begins to refocus.
"Need a drink?" A voice asks, offering her the glass.
Madge shakes her head, but takes it anyway. Her actions are disconnected from her words.
Gale is standing off to the side looking confused and worried while Mr. Abernathy continues to gently rock her.
Finally, the blurred edges of her vision clear and the tense voices sharpen.
"She'll be okay," Mr. Abernathy says, not to her, but to Gale. She feels him pull her closer and press a kiss into her hair. "You're okay."
Madge pulls away, rubs her temples. An episode like this always makes her more sympathetic to her mother. If her headaches are half as bad as the ones Madge gets when she has a...'moment', then there isn't any wonder she's tried to live in a morphling haze during so many points in Madge's life.
"Are you?" She asks, her voice strangely brittle.
"Am I okay?" Mr. Abernathy gives her an odd look. "Well-"
"Are you planning something?" She clarifies, even though she knows he doesn't really need it. He's just being difficult. "Are you planning a rebellion?"
His eyes drop from her, down to the glass still held in his hand, and he lets out a long breath.
"Madge…" He smiles weakly. "You don't have to worry about it. I'm not getting you dragged into this."
"I'm going to be no matter what," she reminds him, her voice gaining a little strength.
"We'll talk about it later," he says, standing and running a hand through his already wild hair. "You need some rest and this idiot needs some lessons on not drowning someone with a cup of water."
Gale opens his mouth to argue, but Madge beats him to it.
"I'm fine now," she says sharply. "I need to know."
He hesitates some more, but Madge grabs his hand and squeezes it. She isn't weak, she just knows how bad things can get and it scares her.
That's perfectly normal.
"Fine, but like I said, it's all guesses," he grumbles, dropping back down beside her on the couch. "Wiress, that pain in the ass, she's been trying to figure something out for decades. Had some wild plan about making our own Tribute-"
"Like a Career?" Gale interrupts.
Mr. Abernathy cuts him a look. "Yeah, dumbass, like a career." He rolls his eyes and continues. "Anyway, this Tribute would have all of us backing them. We could get them out, use them to spearhead the rebellion."
"Just because you all would support them doesn't mean the Districts would," Madge points out. It seems like a fickle plan.
He nods. "That's what the kid said after the Seventy-Second Games. Said it would have to be organic to be practical. It would be too big a scale to control otherwise." His hands rub over his face again. "And it doesn't seem likely to happen, anyway."
"So," Madge bites her lip, "they sent you away so you couldn't plan?"
"That's the guess," he nods. "But it probably had more to do with the fact that the nutter has it in her head that she needed to figure out what the 'twist' to next year's Games is going to be."
The next Hunger Games, the Seventy-Fifth. A Quarter Quell.
Madge barely gets the question past her lips. "Did she?"
Mr. Abernathy shakes his head. "Wiress already had some ideas, though."
When he doesn't elaborate, Madge prods him. "What ideas?"
A long sigh escapes his lips and Madge gets the impression he's doing some quick thinking. "She's convinced they're going to Reap from Victor families."
"Well," Madge's stomach rolls, Mr. Abernathy's worry about her certainly makes more sense now, "that certainly narrows the pool."
"You don't have a family," Gale says suddenly. "That wouldn't work very well in Twelve then."
That makes Mr. Abernathy flinch and Madge shoots him a dark look over her shoulder.
"Families aren't defined just by blood, Gale," Madge tells him softly. "Families are defined by the Capitol as anyone living under the same roof."
It's how her father had explained his home District's manipulation of the tesserea system. Children in their community homes were all considered one family, and with no one to stand up in their defense, their legal guardian, a District official, could take out extra tesserea on them.
Madge and her mother would be considered Mr. Abernathy's family.
Gale continues to look confused. "But you're both girls and your mother isn't reaping age-"
"It's a Quell, you dimwit," Mr. Abernathy snaps. "Regular rules don't apply."
"If mom and I can't be Reaped...then what?" Dread pools in her stomach.
She can guess what the answer is, and judging by the pitiful look Mr. Abernathy gives her, that guess would be right.
If there's no family, he would be his own. Like he said, it's a Quell, regular rules don't apply.
They all go silent after that, letting the grim possibility sink in. Then Gale makes a snarling noise.
"Then it isn't enough for me to just get a better job. Madge would have to move out." He paces. "We'd have to get married for that-"
"Well," Mr. Abernathy coughs, "that was the next little talk we were going to hav-"
"No!" Madge stands up and tries to control her breathing; her head is starting to swim again. "I'm-You two aren't marrying me off!"
Especially if it's going to guarantee Mr. Abernathy's death.
"Madge…"
"It might be the only way, sweetheart," Mr. Abernathy says sadly.
Collapsing back onto the couch, Madge presses the heels of her hands to her eyes until little stars form behind the lids and her mind whirls.
Finally, she looks up and gives Mr. Abernathy a half-hearted smile. "You know they'll just change the rules again."
It's their prerogative. There's no way they'll let a Game, a Quell no less, pass with a lower body count than normal. He won't be going back; the Capitol will make sure of it.
Madge is sure of it.
Torturing their current Victors on live television, showing that they have no control or way to save the ones they love, would ensure they break. It would make them impossible leaders. Because if they're proven to be nothing more than human, not great heroes beyond the Capitol's grasp, then how can they start a revolution?
All their planning over the years would be for nothing, because their credibility would be bled out.
If the people of the Districts hadn't noticed how bad their Victors' lives were, then they certainly would after the Quell, and they'd want no part in it.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that too.
Minutes tick by, stretch into what must be early evening if the shadows are anything to go by, until Gale finally makes an agitated noise.
"I need to head home."
Madge gets up and follows him out, leaving Mr. Abernathy to his thoughts, whatever they may be.
When they get to the porch, Gale leans down and snatches up his game bag, he must've dropped it earlier.
"Brought you some strawberries," he mumbles as he pulls a little pail from it.
Madge stares at it for a minute, her arms and hands limp at her sides, then they come to life, flinging around his neck and nearly making him drop the pail.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs into his neck, her nose grazing the stubble already there.
He shouldn't have to deal with this. Her life is a mess, always has been and, for what little time is left, always will be. She wishes he had never kissed her. The life he had might not be a dream, but at least it wouldn't be a nightmare.
His arms wrap around her, tightening as he lifts her until only her toes scrape the wood of the porch.
"It's going to be okay," he whispers, his warm breath tickling her ear. A warm kiss presses into the patch of skin between her collar and her neck, his whiskers scratching pleasantly. "I promise."
Coming from him, it's almost believable.
