a/n; This is it, folks. Thanks for reading.
chapter nine
At seven p.m., Madge finds herself sitting on Gale's couch. He's ordered pizza—plain cheese, which is her favorite even as she endures his teasing about how boring her choice is—and a movie is already playing on the television. Both are untouched and unwatched as they sit on the couch beside one another. They are content with staring. When once she would have been uncomfortable with anyone staring at her for longer than a few seconds, wondering what they see when they look at her—is she as hideous to them as she is to herself? She can't feel that way under his stare, because his eyes are kind and soothing and vulnerable, like he's looking deep inside her past the skin and bone into the crevasses of her heart. He has a soft smile on his face, and he's bordered by that indulgent, golden glow of the lamp on the side table. She can stare at him for days and days—and inside, she's still terrified and afraid of what this could potentially be, but she's grounded, here. In this moment, she is unafraid of her position on his couch—if only for this one night.
"Tell me something," he says.
"Like what?"
"Anything. Why do you love architecture? What do you do after work?"
So she tells him. She tells him the things that no one ever asks her and the things she's always avoided because why would anyone want to know?
She tells him she loves architecture because she can make things perfect, perfect for a day or a month before the structure begins to settle and crack from the vibration of earth. She tells him it's like making something new, like a rebirth in the District, and how it's what she needed after the war and what felt like the end of her own life.
She tells him that she runs after work. She runs and runs—but how it hasn't always been that way. She explains how she was before—how she experimented with exercise, with her hair, with her clothes. How she didn't know what she was doing, but that she was trying. How it was hard for her to feel anything after the war, and how she pursued the perfection of her work. How she pursued relationships to break out of her apathy. She tells him that she played piano, and that she had played endlessly back in District Twelve. She tells him she quit after the war, and how she started only a couple weeks ago. How it brought something back to her.
"I didn't know you played," he says. "I want to hear you, someday."
The thought of Gale hearing her play—the most personal thing she does—forces her to exhale a shaky breath. She doesn't even have it in her to be sarcastic.
"Okay," she answers.
She tells him how he made her feel in the quaint café two years ago.
"How did I make you feel?" he asks, genuinely surprised.
"You made me feel like you always have. I felt like the person I was trying to hide from. That…girl from District Twelve who couldn't do anything right. A few words from you cut through me, and I hadn't felt so vulnerable in so long," she says, and she's fascinated by how easy it is to tell him these things, now. How the words flow out of her like she's been wanting to say them forever.
He reaches out a hand and rubs his thumb across her cheek. "Madge, don't cry."
She's shocked that she is.
"Oh, I…" She jerks her head away from him, feeling the damp line of tears under her eyes for herself.
"You're alright," he says. His voice is so gentle. It's a wonder he can talk to her like this, so understanding and patient and kind. "I'm sorry I made you feel…so uncomfortable."
She smiles a little, and she reaches out to touch his hand. "If you didn't, I don't think I'd be on this couch with you."
He runs his fingers over her palm, slowly threading their fingers together. She watches them tangle, weaving tightly in a pattern of white and olive skin.
"Your turn," she says. "I haven't talked this much in…I don't know. Ever. Tell me about you."
He takes in a deep breath, and his eyes fall from her face to her collarbone. He's uncertain, and she realizes this is hard for him to do, too. To be vulnerable, still, even after coming to her office and telling her all the perfect things she needed to hear.
He begins eventually, telling her after the war that he ran away to District Two. He couldn't stand being in Twelve after everything, after having lived one life with the people he loved, only to have it all twisted and mangled. He calls his family frequently, to hear their voices, to make sure they were doing well without his constant presence, and how he hates that he can't be there because he is the worst kind of coward.
They visit him, a few times a year. He says that's how he's survived so long in this District. Without family, he feels as though he is nothing.
"It is lovely there, if you ever decide to go back," she says. "I'm sure your family has told you."
"They have," he tells her. "Maybe one day. I need to. I can't be so…afraid anymore."
The controlling power of fear is something they are both so intimately acquainted with. Madge feels the overwhelming need to kiss him, so she does.
"It takes time," she says.
He tells her that the fear was trumped by the guilt. Perhaps he shouldn't feel guilty, and Paylor has had the discussion with him before after she found him passed out in a bar. But that doesn't mean anything. It only means something if you believe it, too, and he can't even find the strength to try.
He tells her that first year after the war is a haze. He was drunk half the time, ingratiating himself with women the other half. He would take on odd jobs for Paylor occasionally, but he was inconsistent and didn't care, until she saw enough potential in him to keep him. She kicked him into living. She saved his life.
"I owe her everything," he says. "I can never pay her back."
That's how he met Johanna and his other colleagues. He had only just started when she ran into him on that mundane sidewalk, then a month later when she sat at his table in the café.
"You were a blast from the past that I didn't want. At all," he says, smiling sadly. "After that, you were in the back of my mind constantly. I thought, why is Madge Undersee in District Two? How did she get here? What does she do?
"When I ran into you later on that same damn sidewalk, I tried not to care, but I had to know. I…started researching you, asking around about you, finding out about you working in the Reconstruction Division, and…" he trails off, and he is beginning to look embarrassed. "It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud."
"It sounds like you were stalking me, Hawthorne," she teases.
"I didn't realize that's what it seemed like at the time," he admits, glancing off to the side. He tends to do that when he's uncomfortable, she's noticed. "At first, it was just a distraction. Doing it helped me stop thinking about myself. My attention was finally focused on something else instead of what I had done before." His throat bobs in a swallow. "I guess I didn't think to just go up and ask you. I thought you might be…I don't know, suspicious, and not tell me anything."
"You're probably right," she says.
He tells her how he had learned a lot about her from her colleagues. He talked to her boss under the guise of gathering information for Paylor, when it was mostly for himself. He had seen what constituted as her resume, seeing the list of jobs she had been in charge of, from her meager beginnings in District Twelve to a woman who had her own office in District Two.
"There were no gaps in your working timeline. It was impressive," Gale says. "So when the job came up, I knew immediately. It was going to be yours."
She stares at him. "That's how it went."
"Now you know the whole story."
"Almost," she says. "You're forgetting something."
"What?"
"You were my bodyguard."
At the words, his cheeks turn pink, and he truly looks sheepish.
"That was…"
"Another plot you masterminded?"
"I was essentially putting you in danger. The least I could do was help protect you from it," he says after a few thoughtful moments.
She touches his cheek with her hand. He sighs into it.
"No wonder Paylor thought we were friends. You recommended me and then agreed to protect me."
"A bit pathetic when you think about it."
They gaze at each other again.
"Nobody has ever…" she begins, but her throat catches. She can't manage anything else.
Gale runs his fingers up her forearm, from wrist to elbow and back. Goosebumps raise in his wake.
"I was so unfair to you," he says, flipping her palm over and running his thumb over her knuckles. "Such an asshole."
"You know what the funny thing is? I probably wouldn't have been interested if you weren't."
This pulls a grin out of him. "Is that why your relationships didn't work? They were too nice?"
She is distractedly touching his other arm. He has veins that protrude along his forearm, and she takes his lead, running her fingers up to his elbow, following their pathways. He's always wearing his jumpsuit or long sleeves at work. She doesn't see this. They emit an undeniable strength that she hasn't detected from him before.
"Oh, I don't know," she whispers. "Probably. They were…boring. I'm going to sound like the snobbish mayor's daughter that I am, but…" she says, trailing and trying to smile. "But it didn't feel like anything. No passion, nothing unexpected. It was like we played parts, following a structured process. And then once that was finished, there was nothing else left to do."
He shakes his head. "When there's no chemistry, there's no chemistry. It's either there, or it's not."
She feels the underlying zaps fluttering underneath her skin. Chemistry.
"Do you find it often?" she asks, not sure why. She doesn't really want to know, or talk about other girls he's had chemistry with while they both leisurely touch one another on his couch.
"Not really," he says. "Fleeting chemistry? Of course. But not the kind that keeps you coming back."
That satisfies her. Her fingers find his chest and makes unintelligible patterns on his cotton shirt. It's soft and thin, and if she concentrates, she thinks she can imagine touching his skin. She feels him exhale, can almost feel his heartbeat behind his sternum.
"I couldn't stop looking at you during the gala," he says quietly.
She's surprised. Her fingers stall on his chest. "You couldn't?"
"I knew I had to do something. For the first time in a long time, I knew. I hadn't been so certain about anything for…years."
She stares at him, and he stares back. He isn't glancing off to the side.
"I was an idiot. I didn't go about it the right way. You were gorgeous, standing there talking to me, and I said the wrong thing like I always do."
His words jack her heartrate up. Her body thinks she's running while she's curled up on this couch. "No, I was the fool, Gale," she says, inching closer to him. "I let fear control me. I ran away."
He lifts his hand and combs through her hair. She's left it down, today, which is a deviation from the normal ponytail. She inches forward some more, and their faces are very close to one another. She breathes in his exhales, and they're sweet and warm.
"Let's try to conquer our fears, then," he says. "It might be easier together than apart."
Her insides swell at his words. They are consuming her again, puffing up like a chemical reaction, destroying her rotten insides and cleaning her to a healthy shine.
She grips his neck and kisses him. She begins to realize she's spilling her heart into the action, spilling all the combusting emotions that are stretching her skin. He runs his hands along her waist, digs his thumbs into her hips. He cradles her in his lap, and she wraps herself around him like a vice. The kisses are decadent, and the touches are generous and full, and when they break apart, she's looking into his eyes like she's looking into her mirror and she thinks,
What's wrong with Madge, tonight?
For the first time, the answer is nothing. Nothing. She searches and searches and there is nothing wrong. It's finally achievable, and she knows if it's achievable, it has the potential to leave. If it's achievable, it can come back. It can stay. It can settle into her bones, it can mend, and it can purge her doubt.
She is alive.
"Okay," she answers him, and she smiles. "We'll conquer them together."
TheEnd
