PK and Wawabang: Tausend dank!

AN: The following conversation chapter alludes heavily to my story Repaid. While I don't think it's necessary to have read it to understand this chapter, it might help you understand why the ending is the way it is. :D


Chapter Nine

Madge's POV


I close the Hawthorne's door carefully behind me and lean against the cool surface for a moment to steady myself. It's odd that, after wanting to see Gale so badly, I'm now slinking away. Of course, the reason is to see Katniss. But somewhere niggling around in my head, I know that this is a protective measure. I need distance.

The bone-penetrating fear from the knowledge that Gale's signed up with the Mockingjay forces, it's like watching him willingly run back through the fence around burning District 12 while the planes drop incendiaries overhead.

Which is pretty much what he did in order to rescue me.

So did I have the right to ask him to stay here with me earlier? No.

I wonder what Gale would have thought two months ago if someone told him he'd risk his life at least twice for merchant brats. He'd be more inclined to sucker punch the informant than laugh, I bet. At least that's how I remember Gale when we lived in Twelve. He's changed since then.

All the more reason to encourage him rather than beg him to stay. The conviction frustrates me, though. I push off the door and scurry down the corridor in a hurry to outpace my conscience.

The unexpected sight of a squat, wrinkly man just a few feet around the corner makes me jump. He's standing atop a ladder changing the long, thin lightbulbs in the ceiling. He looks equally startled to see me, but politely doffs his cap. The tag on his coverall reads Ernie.

"Morning, miss," he greets. His voice has a deep, guttural sound, like gravel. But the man has a kind, grandfatherly face that puts me at ease.

"Good morning to you," I reply and hurry toward the lifts before Gale realizes I'm gone.

I take an empty lift up to Level 3. The medical ward shares this floor with the gigantic server room, which is the technological center of the Underground, and the library. Unlike the book stall on Level 4, this library mostly contains manuals rather than novels or music books. Disappointing.

When the lift doors retract on the desired floor, I step out and look either way before spotting a placard with directionals indicating that I'm to veer left. A short walk down, two heavy metal doors stand sentinel below a rectangular glass windowpane with the words MEDICAL WARD painted across it in bold, san-serif. I push through into what looks like a waiting and reception room. Another set of double doors stands directly opposite of the ones I just entered through. To the left of the doors, nurses sit at a desk or wander about pulling out files or organizing boxes within the nurses' station. They're laughing over something one of the nurses said. Elsewhere, a few men and women sit scattered throughout square clusters of uncomfortable-looking couches and chairs, which are centered around chipped coffee tables littered with the occasional forgotten paper cup or pamphlets about communicable diseases.

I carefully tread past the sitting area toward the desk, slowing as I go because the nurses are not paying attention and I feel awkward interrupting them.

The awkwardness grows as I overhear their conversation:

A nurse with an open file in her hand casts a critical glance at her coworker from beneath thick, mousy eyebrows. "I think it's sweet that he spends so much time with Katniss."

"Well, I'm casting a vote for the poor girl he's stringing along," says the nurse at the desk. She stirs a cup of coffee, then gets her fingers caught in her massive blonde beehive hairdo. "I've lost count of how many messages he made me send out."

"Chapel," replies the eyebrow nurse, "he spent the night in Katniss's room. Honestly."

"She always likes to root for the underdog, Abbey," pipes in a third nurse with candy apple hair.

"Nurse Temple heard that he's her cousin," beehive nurse points out.

Eyebrows won't relent in the defense of her one true pairing. "Mrs. Everdeen denied that right away and she seems to think that Katniss and Gale have an understanding."

A what? My ears feel like they could split from the heat of my blush. I can feel the color begin somewhere below my neck and all the way up to my hairline.

I clear my throat, eager to end the gossip session as quickly as possible and get away. "Excuse me?"

The nurse with the beehive hair, Nurse Chapel, swivels around in her desk chair to face me. Her eyes flick from my face to the clock, as though she wonders what I could possibly be doing here in the wee hours of the morning.

"Can I help you, dear?" she asks sweetly.

"I'd like to see Katniss Everdeen, please."

Nurse Chapel startles, then blushes, knowing that surely I've overheard their careless conversation. "Oh! Well, eh," she stammers. "I'm afraid visitors to Ms. Everdeen are restricted," she tells me with a sympathetic smile. "And she's supposed to be resting…it's 4:30 in the morning."

Standing up a little straighter, I smooth my face into the stoic look of authority I've seen my father use when he'd have to meet with Cray. "It's all right. Mr. Abernathy sent me," I fabricate.

Her penciled-on eyebrows lift toward her teased hairline. "Who?"

"Um, H-Haymitch?" Who? Her question shakes me out of my authoritative persona for a moment.

"Oh!" she cries, her face finally registering recognition. "Oh. Haymitch." Nurse Chapel starts shuffling random papers in a distracted manner. "Well…I suppose. But you'll have to fill out a visitor form first."

I'm grateful that my ploy worked, yet it feels surreal to think of Haymitch as an authority figure down here, when he's always been considered an oaf back home.

The nurse hands me a clipboard. I whisper my thanks and proceed to fill it out in front of her. My hand shakes with the anticipation running through my veins as I fully realize how close I am to seeing Katniss with my own eyes for the first time since the reaping. Why did I wait so long?

Nurse Chapel accepts the completed paperwork. I watch the color rise on her face a second time as she reads my name and recognizes it from the "innumerable" messages she's sent to me from Gale. She looks up sheepishly and mumbles Katniss's room number, pressing the button that releases the security doors.

A wall of antiseptic-scented air makes me feel woozy as I start down the hallway, looking at all the numbered doors. My lungs are reluctant to pull chemical-enriched oxygen in. The ventilation's usually on the stale side on every other floor, but I feel this is worse.

I pass an empty gurney and hear soft babbling farther down the hall. Otherwise, the wing seems completely deserted. The overhead lights reflect off the waxed floors and the smooth plastic facades of the medical wing. It hurts my eyes. With all the overlay, it's hard to remember that we're living in huge rock catacombs rather than in a hovercraft.

I hesitate at the threshold of room 306, not really sure what I'm expecting to find within.

I poke my head in the unmarked door. The other rooms have nameplates for patients. They must not want her location to be obvious. A small table lamp creates a soft halo of light near a bed, instantly drawing my eyes that way. I suck in a breath because she looks…so normal.

Katniss wears the same drab outfits that the rest of us have been given, though she hardly fills them. She didn't bother donning the pajama pants we've been given, the ones I'm currently wearing. Katniss plated her long black hair into her usual braid, which hangs over her shoulder. Her cheeks look pastier, more sunken than I remember, but on the whole, she's all Katniss. Every detail from the anxious crease in her forehead to the constant downward slant of her lips.

Katniss sits stock still with her knees pressed up under her chin, while she fixates on a photo lying on the blue knit covers in front of her feet. Maybe the one Gale gave her of Peeta?

"Katniss?" I whisper, not wanting to startle her too badly. It takes a couple tries before her face squinches up and she realizes that she hears something. Odd of her not to notice with her hunter instincts. She must be very absorbed in the photo. Her eyes find the source of the sound, which is me, standing in the doorway and she blinks a few times.

She shakes her head bemusedly, then must have decided that I'm the real thing. "Madge?" she gasps.

It's a testament to how quiet the hospital wing is that I can hear her. I smile. "Can I come in?"

Katniss swings her legs over the side of the bed and she's at the door with her wasted arms around my neck before I can blink. I recoil at first, until I realize she's hugging me.

"I didn't know you escaped Twelve," she rasps.

I feel my throat constrict as a dozen different emotions rush over me. Gratitude that she's alive. Sorrow for her loss. Tenderness toward this rare display of affection on her part. The unacknowledged loneliness of not having another girl my age to talk to. The sadness of coming in contact with another person from home. I wrap my arms around her thin body and hug her back.

"How are you feeling?" I manage to choke out.

Katniss shakes her head against my shoulder. Not a safe question. I try another.

"Gale didn't even tell you I'm alive?"

"Gale?" Katniss lets go and steps back a little. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Does he know you're in the Underground?" she asks.

I blink at her, realizing I have no idea what Gale has actually said about me. Nothing at all, from the sounds of it, which seems careless as I am Katniss's friend – surely mentioning that I'm alive would do more good than harm. Maybe he thought he'd have to explain our relationship in more detail if he did?

Well, that was a wasted effort. I'm here to set the record straight. I've only ever kept one secret from Katniss, which was my attraction for her best friend. And I held my tongue because I believed she was in love with him…and knew he was in love with her. It's different now. If Gale's going to follow through with this scheme to rescue Peeta for Katniss, then it's only fair for Katniss to know how things lie with the four of us.

I take a deep breath and say, "Really? Gale helped me escape from Twelve. We arrived here together."

"He did?" Katniss still looks confused. "Gale didn't tell me anything. He hasn't said much about the firebombing." She paces back to the bed, with her arm wrapped around her waist and the fingers of her other hand gently tapping her lips. She slowly rounds on me. "So…you were together when it happened?" She says it like it's the very last thing she expects, but can't make sense of any other possibility.

I shake my head and close the door behind me so I don't have to see her face. "He had to run across town to get to my house. The planes were already bombing the Seam."

"Wait," Katniss murmurs. I turn back around. She's holding up a hand. "He ran opposite the direction he needed to go in order to get you." She seems baffled by his inexplicable, illogical behavior. "I didn't even think you were friends."

"We weren't." I cringe, remembering how crushed I felt when he confessed that he rescued me because his mother asked him to. We weren't friends. Definitely not. "Gale said he owed me for—"

"The morphling," Katniss finishes instantly, which throws me off. She climbs back into her bed, sitting against the headboard. Her eyes wander to a point over my head, like she's watching the scene on her front doorstep play out again on the ceiling. I leave my place by the door and draw closer to her bed. On the other side of it, tucked between the wall and the nightstand is a chair. Probably the one Gale's spent the majority of his time in the Underground sitting in. I take a seat.

"That makes sense," Katniss finally says in a dismissive tone. "About the rescue. He'd want to repay you for the painkiller."

"Yeah," I mumble, wondering if non-observant Katniss has spent a lot of time ruminating over my motivations behind the delivery on that snowy evening.

"So, why'd you do it?" she asks.

"Huh?" I gasp.

"Why would you bring Gale your mother's expensive medicine that she needed so badly? I never understood that." Her eyes narrow shrewdly. "I didn't think you two knew each other. You know, besides the times we sold you strawberries."

I suck in air, wondering where to begin and how badly this conversation could go.

Stop it, I order myself. This conversation could go really well. She isn't in love with Gale, after all, and never has been. Still, I feel like I've been encroaching on her territory this whole time, where Gale is concerned.

"Would you like the long or the short version?" I ask with a nervous laugh.

"Short."

"Are you sure?" I squeak. Hell's teeth, that's the hardest one.

Katniss nods her head gravely. Of course. For once I wish she were more of the gossipy type. Not that I am that way, either, but it's help to cushion the truth with some minutia. I feel unnerved by how steadily she's watching me.

Maybe I should've let Gale do this?

Then it would never happen, I reply to myself.

Point.

My hands feel clammy, and it doesn't matter how many times I wipe them on my pants. I don't need to fear telling her the truth. There's no crime in how I've felt about Gale – and it went way beyond the vapid admiration of all the other girls at school who constantly prattled about his good looks in the hallways. Still, it feels like a sixteen ton weight's crushing my chest. I focus on the floor tiles.

"Katniss, I brought Gale the medicine because I've had feelings for him for ages," I say with as much confidence as I can muster. "And," I blink back the tears that suddenly prickle painfully behind my eyes, "I hated thinking of him in pain like that."

I can't look at her right away. But as the silence lengthens I find I can't bear the suspense and finally pull my eyes away from the floor.

Her face looks blank, except for the very thin line of her lips that almost frown.

"Katniss?" I murmur.

"You…liked…Gale?" she grimaces. "All this time?"

"Yes?" I say, though my watery voice makes it sound more like a question.

"And I never once picked up on it." Then she gasps. "Does he know?"

I open my mouth, then snap it shut again. I simply nod.

Her eyes soften and she wrings her hands like she's in distress. "Oh, Madge. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" I gasp, noting the sympathy in her voice. "Why?"

Katniss plays with the end of her braid like she's uncomfortable saying anything. "Well, Gale isn't fond of merchants. And he…well, you know how he'd dig at you sometimes."

Yes, I remember. Especially the reaping a year ago, when I made that foolish comment about my dress. That's all the information Katniss has to go on. She doesn't know about the time Gale intervened with those Peacekeepers during the Harvest Festival. She doesn't know about the entire journey from 12 to 13.

And so she's trying to let me down easy. Not because she hates the idea of Gale and I, but because she's concerned for my feelings, and believes that Gale couldn't possibly return them. I feel the weight on my chest lift and almost laugh.

"I think he's over that now, Katniss," I quip.

Her eyes flash with more surprise. "What makes you think that?"

I chew on my lip, trying to think of the best way to lay it out. "A lot has happened since the firebombing," I tell her. "You don't need to know all the minutia of the time we spent in the wilderness, but – Katniss, Gale's my boyfriend."

Katniss's eyes squinch shut, then open very, very wide. "Your what?"

"I love him and he —"

I bite my tongue when her head drops in her hands.

"I think I need to lie down," she chokes. No kidding. Her face is white as a ghost. She sinks down into the mattress. Her arms hang limp on either side of her body.

"Is it that bad?" I cry with alarm, jumping out of my chair in case I need to fetch her a glass of water. Or a defibrillator. My hands hover uselessly over her prostrate body, like they're trying to figure out where it hurts. "I'm sorry, Katniss, I shouldn't have said anything. It's my fault. I'm sorry," I babble.

Her hand pops up and covers my mouth, shutting me up. I blink down at her in surprise.

"It's…not bad…just strange," she stammers, shaking her head. Then she drops her hands but her eyes still fixate on me. "Even more strange than finding out I was married and pregnant all at once." She smiles sadly. "Which is saying something."

I swallow thickly. Peeta's stunning announcement during the Quart Quell interviews completely slipped my mind. "This is more strange than one of Peeta's fabrications?"

Katniss winces. "To me it is…I don't think of Gale that way, not as someone's…whatever."

I cross my arms over my stomach, as if I could hold myself together. For so me reason, her doubt hurts more than I thought it would. "Well, he's my whatever now," I murmur.

She smiles a little, but it's quickly replaced with concern. "He told you he loved you?"

I search my memories and draw a blank. My nose wrinkles and I feel oddly vulnerable not having a concrete statement on which to base my claims. It'd probably be a bad idea to tell her about the couch and all the other ways he likes to show me how he feels.

So, I settle for, "Well, he hasn't said it out loud, but that's the general idea."

Katniss bites her lip, as if she's struggling fwith herself. "Madge, not that long ago he asked me to run away from Twelve with him." She pulls at her braid with fresh gusto. "I'm not calling you a liar, but…how did he change so fast?" Katniss continues to shake her head and stare at the ceiling in shock. "I thought he despised you." Her eyes quickly shoot me an apologetic look. "Sorry," she whispers.

They were going to run? The thought of them following through with that plan makes my stomach cramp painfully. I'm glad I'm sitting in a chair. Could Gale honestly suggest running off with her? I knew before that my chances of ever being with Gale were slim when we lived in Twelve, but I had no idea how very near I came to losing completely.

And if they had run...what would have happened to Peeta? Or to the rest of us. I wonder if the bombing would ever have happened. Gale would be gone, but my parents would still be alive. Maybe. The possibilities makes my head swim and I have to stop.

It takes me a moment to realize that Katniss is waiting for me to reply, to tell her how Gale could go from wanting her to wanting me. I tell her the truth. Though it's not very flattering. Not for me.

"He thought you were dead, Katniss. Then we nearly died. A few times. It changes things," I murmur. "Are you upset?"

She shakes her head, but her eyes shimmer with tears in the lamplight. She swipes underneath her eyes with impatient fingers. "No…just…the world isn't working the way it used to. I feel overwhelmed."

"I shouldn't have told you," I say apologetically. "You have a lot on your mind already."

"No, it's okay. Just let me recover a moment," Katniss replies, holding up her hand. She gives me a sidelong glance, a lot like the ones Gale gives me when he's trying to gauge my reactions. "I guess I missed a lot while I was gone."

I blow out a long breath. "Yeah."

We fall into an uneasy silence, at least on my part. I resist the urge to pace, because that probably wouldn't help either of us much. But it doesn't last long before Katniss bolts upright in her bed and pins me with her hard grey eyes. I gulp, feeling like one of the squirrels she used to bring in.

"He's still my hunting partner," she barks. The pitch of her voice is desperate, not angry.

"O-o-okay," I stammer, feeling slightly bulldozed by her changing emotions.

She nods, more to herself, as if that settles everything. I blink at her for a bit before I realize that's her way of saying that Gale's still her friend even if I'm dating him. That she expects me not to be a proprietary girlfriend that won't let him hang around other girls.

"I can handle that," I continue with a steadier voice. "I don't want to take your friendship away from him. You're one of the most important people he has."

"That's that then." Katniss shrugs. Her lips purse and she blushes. "I'm glad that he found someone who'll love him back," she says like she has lockjaw. Not because she's being insincere, but because she's Katniss. Saying something that personal…well, this whole conversation really…rests well outside her comfort zone. I feel intensely grateful then. Her lips slant into a crooked frowny smile, like she can't decide. I blush but smile back.

"I care about him a lot, Katniss," I tell her. "I love him."

"I wish I could have, but…" then she frowns deeply. "Oh."

"What?" I ask, wondering if I've done something wrong.

Her eyes close slowly, then open again. Now she's the one not looking at me. "Gale's going to rescue Peeta."

"I know," I whisper. And now here's the part where I should beg her to talk him out of it…but the words don't come.

She cringes and rubs her hands together erraticly. "I—"

"I know," I cut in gently, but firmly enough that she lets it go.

The truth is, I don't know what she would have said. That she needs Gale to do this for her? That Peeta needs, no—deserves, to be rescued? That she's sorry Gale will be in danger? It doesn't really matter. Like Gale said, it changes nothing. I just don't want to sit through another apology tonight.

"Look at this." Katniss scoots over to make room for me on the bed. She holds up the picture of Peeta for me to see, which is a little dog-eared after Katniss prostrated herself on the bed. It shows his profile while he leans against a brick fence, or something. Sky scrapers break up the skyline like colorful popsicles. Katniss explains that this is the Training Center roof, how anybody who tried to jump over the half-wall would get thrown back onto the roof by an energy field.

I can't ask her to talk Gale out of going. Not after seeing the way Katniss looks at Peeta in the photo. Not after seeing the photo for myself.

Doing the right thing hurts. A lot. But being selfish, that would hurt too, in a different way. I want to be alone now, maybe go curl up under the covers of my dorm bed until some resignation sets in to offset the fear I have.

But I don't leave. We stay on her bed for a couple more hours and talk about everything that's happened. An attendant comes in with her breakfast and kindly brings back some more for me. Katniss is reluctant to tell me much about the arena or the rescue. Mostly she asks me about the escape from Twelve. She holds my hand in an unusually friendly gesture (for her) when I tell her about my parents. I skip to better things, like my first triumph over Liquor with the poison ivy bower. Her facial contortions make me laugh, which is the first time I've ever found anything amusing about that brief but disastrous acquaintance.

"You are a crazy girl," she mumbles.

"What?" I gasp. Maybe it's because I'm an only child, but I'm not used to people calling me names.

"That's what Haymitch called you when you delivered the morphling," she tells me. "Purposefully rolling around in poison ivy confirms it."

I blush and look down. "Oh." No wonder Haymitch read into things when I told him I escaped with Gale. He's been keeping tabs.

Mrs. Everdeen pops her head in at that moment. "Oh," she gasps. "Hello, Madge. Good morning," she chirps.

My mouth pops open. Mrs. E sounds a lot less hostile than she did days ago: the effect of getting her daughter back, I guess.

"I'll…I'll come back later," she says, stepping back out the door and closing it.

We're alone again. Katniss and I both yawn.

"I should go, Katniss. Neither of us slept at all last night," I tell her, rising from the bed and handing the photo back. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

"You'll come see me again?" she asks, grasping my hand tightly.

I squeeze it in both of mine. "Yes, I'll come."

She nods contentedly. "I haven't seen anyone but Mom and Prim and Gale. Besides the nurses."

"Nobody?" I ask, surprised. Isn't she the rebellion's special symbol? I thought loads of people would want to see Katniss Everdeen. "Not Haymitch or anyone?"

Katniss shrugs. "I don't have anything to say to Haymitch until he keeps the promise he made me to save Peeta," she says indifferently, which tells me she's trying to conceal strong emotions on the subject. "Beetee's not really in a position to see anyone, and Finnick." Her façade crumbles here. "Finnick hasn't come near me since I said…they'd use Annie for bait." She hangs her head and looks so dejected that I wrap my arms around her shoulders in another hug.

"I'm so sorry," I murmur. "I'll come back as soon as I can."

Someone clears his throat, causing Katniss and I to startle apart.

We both turn to look and find Gale watching us studiously while he leans against the doorframe. Ugh – I never hear him coming! And neither of us heard the door open. My heart leaps into my throat, like I've been caught red-handed, though I have as much right to visit Katniss as he does. How long has he been standing there?

Standing there in a brand new Mockingjay uniform!

The sight of him in the black jumpsuit sends a jolt of unease through me, like this mission really is going to happen…which it is. But now it's real.

Gale's eyes dart between us as he tries to figure out what transpired in his absence. I don't give anything away, I think, but Katniss gawks at him like she's never seen him before. Gale gives up and enters the room with a few stiff steps, filling it with his presence like a cumulonimbus cloud, though he stays near the door. He addresses himself directly to Katniss.

"I brought someone who'd like to visit you," he says. "If you're up for it."

Katniss's wide eyes dart to the doorway then back to Gale. "Not Haymitch?" She cringes.

"Not Haymitch," he replies, folding his arms. His eyes dart to me for a second. "Someone else you'll be happy to see. Trust me."

"Okay," she mumbles uncertainly.

Gale ducks back out of the room without another word. Katniss and I exchange a glance, and I wonder if Gale's lack of acknowledgement means he's upset with me for disappearing this morning, or for seeing Katniss without him, or if he's still trying to maintain the rouse that we're not together, or that this visitor is very, very important that he's ignoring everything else?

Lots of possibilities. All of them go flying out of my head when he returns with the last person in the world I expected to see. Truly.

Because I thought he was a slave in the Capitol forever.

I feel the color drains from my face.

Darius. My mouth forms the word but no sound escapes. I stand beside Katniss's bed, paralyzed as a barrage of memories and emotions assault me. Blood on the cobbles. The crack of Thread's whip. Trying to push through the bodies squeezed together in the square. Darius warning me to keep out of it. Then the thuck of the whip handle as it smashed against Darius's skull. I thought he died. Thread punished him. He was just gone without a word. My fault.

Yet here he is. Ginger hair and all.

Darius nods to Katniss, his easy smile spilling across his face. She sits in stunned silence like me.

Then his blue eyes meet mine. I expect him to try to say something. Anything. Even though I know he can't. Instead, his brows crease with concern and he's moving toward the bed.

My blood roars in my ears. Lack of sleep and hunger and shock make my head feels like it's spinning. I look down at my feet, which feel like lead. Bad idea, I realize, as I feel the floor rush up to meet me.


TBC

Wow, way to recycle a cliffhanger. To find out how Gale wrangled up a uniform since Madge scarpered off to visit Katniss, please see Chapter 6 of We Hope You Enjoy Your Stay. If you haven't already. Or even if you have. See it again. Why not, eh?

Thanks to Ceylon205 for beta and thanks to MoonNRoses for cheerleading!