Part 10
"Almost over," Mrs. Hawthorne tells Gale in what he assumes is an attempt to comfort him. She smiles and then turns her attention back to the sweater she's knitting for Vick.
They're all in the living room crowded around the little television, watching scenes of Katniss and Peeta in the Capitol for the Victory Tour and Gale's foul mood must be outwardly apparent. For one thing, it's taking a monumental effort to not get too annoyed at the boisterous game of 'Attack of the Tickle Monster' that Vick and Posy are playing (the game's most disruptive feature: Posy jumping on Gale as the 'safe base' approximately every five seconds). And beyond barely even being able to watch the stupid broadcast, he's worried about Katniss – she looks like she's getting skinnier, which is incongruous since by all accounts there's ample food on the tour. He wouldn't be surprised if her handlers are keeping her from eating in order to manipulate her, but she's still playing along at happiness at the formal events and he's left wondering as usual.
Still, like his mother pointed out, it's almost over and he's itching to see her in person again. She's never volunteered to talk about anything even slightly related to the Hunger Games with him and he's assumed she likes their hunting trips to be an escape from that world, but when she comes back he's got to ask and she's got to tell him. Maybe she'll be able to tell him what's happening in the other districts. Most importantly, once this awful tour is over surely they can resume some kind of normalcy.
But then Katniss gets engaged to Peeta Mellark and Gale immediately stops looking forward to seeing her. Engaged. It's too surreal to process. When Katniss says yes and starts hugging Peeta excitedly, Gale is so confused he has to ask, "What just happened?"
"Peeta just proposed to Katniss and she said yes," Rory offers hesitantly, as though he's worried Gale is a bomb about to go off.
Gale frowns. "I'm not the only one who thinks that's crazy, am I?"
Mrs. Hawthorne has stopped her knitting and casts a worried, disapproving look at the screen. "No," she finally says.
"Maybe it's not real…" Rory suggests.
"Does it matter?" Gale snaps. "It's on TV." He hands Posy over to Rory so he can pace the house, barely aware of his family warily trying to avoid getting in his way, his thoughts a jumble of trying to sort out who he hates the most. The Capitol obviously. Peeta obviously. Katniss for not being Katniss anymore. Whoever invented televisions. Whoever keeps filming every single breath Katniss and Peeta take. Himself for not volunteering for Peeta so he could have been the one in the arena with her. The Capitol again for ensuring that he couldn't have volunteered because he had to keep both their families from starving. The Capitol for everything.
It slowly dawns on him that Katniss is going to be on cameras the rest of her life as a mentor to future tributes, and the Capitol isn't going to let her story stray from what was presented on the broadcast tonight. If it turns out she was in love with someone else this whole time, it would undermine the two-person 'love story' victory. And that's putting aside that he doesn't have anything other than his own delusions to validate the possibility that Katniss thinks of him as anything other than a dear friend.
Gale grabs his coat and leaves the house, intent on getting out of the district. The fence is still electrified thanks to the need to broadcast and undoubtedly recap that obnoxious proposal over and over again, so he paces impatiently like the caged animal the Capitol considers him. The second the electric buzz stops, Gale slides under the fence and heads into the darkest part of the forest, consciously avoiding The Rock and instead hiking up one of the nearest ridges.
It's dangerous for him to be this far out by himself but he doesn't care, he just grabs his bow and arrows from their hiding place and dares any predator to approach him tonight. He scales 'the Haystack,' the rocky upper part of the ridge, focusing in the dim moonlight on the best handholds and fissures he can use to pull himself up. The rock is as cold and lifeless as he feels, and when he lies back on it to stare skyward with absolutely nothing in his peripheral vision, he can almost imagine the coldness is coming from his own bones.
#
The next day is Sunday and Gale mechanically takes Rory hunting with him. Rory wisely does not ask about Katniss and doesn't say anything when Gale goes to great lengths to describe hunting techniques as totally separate from Katniss. ("Some people like to climb trees to retrieve the eggs and you might be interested in that too since you're still pretty small, but I like to shake them out and catch them without letting the shells break. It's all in your technique. Some people don't realize that not everyone is tiny.")
Gale doesn't want to deal with the gossip and fallout surely waiting for him at the Hob – no matter how well-intentioned – and sends Rory on his own to trade. Gale wanders to the graveyard shed instead to see how much progress Madge has made in moving the Parcel Day supplies.
Quite a bit, actually. He can see where she dug a second hole on the opposite side of the shed and tried to cover it up with a wheelbarrow. A casual observer probably wouldn't notice the disturbed earth, but to Gale's eyes it looks a little too carefully smoothed. He fixes it and then pulls a shovel from a pile and starts working on another hole, so it will at least be ready for whenever she can bring more goods. It feels good to dig and focus on where to aim the shovel, where to deposit the dirt.
When he's exhausted the digging-related tasks, he walks around the outside of the shed collecting wood he can start fashioning into spears and arrows, like he'd started to do back in the fall. He doesn't care that wood weapons are almost too pitiful to waste time on; wasting time is essentially his goal. Plus, using a knife and making sharp points are surprisingly satisfying ways to avoid thinking about anything other than how much he hates the Capitol.
Eventually he hears the door creaking, and a second later Madge's face appears, melting into relief when she sees it's him. "I was worried someone else had discovered this place…" she says shakily.
"Just me. Disaster averted for now." He turns all the way and sees that she's carrying her basket filled with evergreen branches. "Here, I'll put those away."
She hands over the basket and starts stretching her arms, eyeing him carefully. He's sick of being treated like he's a delicate flower (or a loaded weapon, depending on who you ask) so he ignores her questioning expression and inspects the basket's contents: below the boughs are several cans, boxes of rice, and vacuum-sealed packages of dried meat.
"Good job," he says, nodding to the shed. "You've been busy." He finishes transferring the goods into the crate and pats the dirt down. "What next?" Even he can hear that his tone is falsely enthusiastic.
"I'll keep sneaking things from the leftover Parcel Day supply. But I think there might be some opportunities at the Harvest Festival."
Harvest Festival. Also known this year as the Big Finale to the Katniss and Peeta Victory Tour Engagement Extravaganza. It sounds like Gale's definition of hell. "Like what?"
"Well, first there's the dinner at my house tonight when the train gets in," Madge says, leaning against the wall and watching him.
"You think you'll be able to do something at the dinner?"
Madge frowns. "No, I was wondering if you were coming."
"Why on earth would I go?" He drops any pretense of being anything other than exasperated.
"You're on the guest list. All of Katniss' 'cousins' are invited. I dropped the invitation off at your house this morning, but I guess you haven't been home yet."
Gale runs his hand through his hair. "I think I can safely say there's no way in hell I would attend that dinner. Katniss seems to be just fine managing without her cousins."
He feels raw and exposed as Madge studies him. Why isn't there more digging he could do? Madge surprises him by closing the distance between them and suddenly hugging him. He tenses at the contact at first and then relaxes and lets himself be comforted.
"I'm sorry," she whispers quietly. She's warm and soft in the cold shed, and he eventually puts his arms around her too because it feels too weird to just leave them hanging at his sides. She pats his back the same way his mother does to Posy when she hurts herself and won't stop crying, the same way Mrs. Everdeen did to Prim all during the Hunger Games. Gale thinks he must seem like a wounded animal in one of his traps, injured but not fatally… Just suffering.
Madge eventually steps back and cautiously asks, "Do you want to talk?"
Gale makes a noise in his throat that resembles "uh-uh" enough that he's satisfied it functions as a response. He does actually want to know if Katniss has said anything to Madge that might help make sense of any of this, but he can't make the words come out and he doesn't think there's any explanation Madge can offer that won't hurt just as much as not knowing. In what kind of messed up world should he have to ask other people for insights into Katniss?
"Do you just want to sit here for a little while?" Madge asks. "I don't really feel like going home yet, either. The event organizers from the Capitol have taken over our house again." Madge looks up at him and then pulls him next to her so they're both sitting with their backs against one of the walls. Gale can feel the coldness of the ground on his legs, even though these are his heaviest trousers. He knows he could survive in the woods, even with cold like this. As long as he could have a fire and his hunting gear…
He stares blankly at the opposite wall and thinks back to when he and Katniss talked about running away the morning of the reaping. He still can't quite wrap his mind around the surreal sequence of events that led to Katniss almost dying in countless different horrible ways and now planning to marry the baker's son… Katniss who he'd wanted to kiss for months and months but didn't because he thought she wasn't ready and would freak out and never speak to him again – the same Katniss who now kisses Peeta on television on what seems like a daily basis and who doesn't truly talk to Gale anyway. How could she let herself get so swept up in whatever has happened?
Because she's no longer the same Katniss he knows. Someone else has moved into her body, pushing out the real Katniss and replacing her with this complacent version of herself who goes along with whatever the Capitol wants, including compromising one of her strongest held beliefs – that she would never get married. If anyone was going to change her mind on that particular issue, it should have been him, not the scumbags in the Capitol. He can speculate through all manner of explanations for her strange behavior, but the one thing he knows for sure is that she tried to pretend he never kissed her and she doesn't tell him anything anymore. To add to the insult, he has to find out about her life from watching the broadcasts like a stranger.
He feels Madge shift slightly next to him, leaning over some papers she's been studying to get a closer look at them. Some sort of roughly sketched diagrams. When he looks at her for an explanation, she says that they're the logistics plans for the Harvest Festival. She saw a master map when she was snooping and hastily drew her own replication of it.
"They're going to be storing crates of food at the Justice Building and my house, and doing most of the cooking in the community center and at my house. I think we could find a weak point in the supply chain to take advantage of the chaos and get some of the excess. Because obviously there will be excess, and I don't want them burning the leftovers like last time."
He's grateful to have something else to think about other than his own mess of a life and pulls the diagram closer so he can look at it. "I can't picture any scenario chaotic enough where we could just walk off with crates unnoticed."
"I was thinking more that we could hide some things for now – maybe in the basement of the community center or in my house – and then later move them here in smaller batches the way I've been doing with the Parcel Day leftovers. The cellar in my house might be safe, and no one goes into my room."
"Madge, if they find stolen goods in your room…"
She grimaces. "Yeah. Maybe I could cry and act confused?" She smiles weakly. "Pretend I have some sort of hoarding disorder?"
"What should I do?" He's desperate for a task, some concrete action he can take to help take down the Capitol.
"They're going to be hiring locals to help move things. I could make sure you get hired and then you could help divert some of the larger items without attracting much attention. If anyone hassles you, you can always claim confusion. They think we're all idiots anyway."
It sounds like a decent enough plan, and he desperately needs to do something. If he doesn't, he knows he'll just end up brooding in the forest. Like he'll probably do tonight when the rest of his family goes to the dinner at Madge's house.
"I'm in," he says. "Where are you going to be?"
"I'm always kind of floating around," Madge says. "People are used to seeing me everywhere in the Justice Building and my house… I help however I can." She smiles. "They just don't know who I'm helping anymore."
Gale watches her return to studying the schematics, concentrating and looking at another handwritten page with some kind of schedule on it, and he starts to feel calmer than he's felt all evening. They're doing the right thing. As satisfying as it would be to firebomb the entire Capitol and end its oppression in one swoop, given his current lack of weapons of mass destruction it's good at least knowing they're doing what they can to lessen District 12's dependence and build up supplies for when the time is right. The idea of stealing back from the Capitol is also appealing, even if it's just a fraction of what they've taken from him over the years.
Madge must feel him looking at her because she glances up briefly and smiles automatically, and then returns to examining her papers. He still can't get over how someone so unassuming can do so much to steadily and stealthily advance the rebellion...
Not that there's anything even approaching an organized 'rebellion' yet, but surely this is how these things start… A few people decide they've had enough and start doing something about it, bringing others in. Gale feels like he hates the Capitol enough to fuel multiple rebellions, and Madge's access to the inner workings of District 12 is unparalleled. Maybe they really are the beginning of a District 12 rebellion, the two of them sitting here in this cold shed, hiding food stores and plotting how to get more. At the same time, he thinks it's a sorry state of affairs that they – essentially a couple of kids – are the rebel organizers of District 12. Unless there are other people similarly laying low… If so, they're laying pretty damn low.
#
Early the next morning, Madge easily gets Gale hired onto one of the work crews with a few whispered words to the woman assigning tasks. His group is supposed to move food crates from the flatbed to the staging tent in the town square, and from there he makes sure he's part of the sub-group carrying food to the community center. He spots Madge hovering nearby, tracking his progress, and once she sees where he's walking she scurries ahead.
The community center, normally used for plays, classes, meetings and other activities Gale generally avoids, has been transformed into a massive meal production staging area. A series of makeshift cooking stations have been set up in the main room, with half-opened crates of food strewn haphazardly everywhere and frazzled people rushing around. The chaos is perfect — nobody thinks twice when he follows Madge into one of the classrooms being used for extra storage. A harried woman rushes out as they enter and Madge swiftly shuts the door.
"There's a dumbwaiter over there," she says, still leaning against the door and pointing across the room to a small door.
"A what?"
"A mini-elevator. They use this room for set construction for the plays and have to transport things up from the basement… Put the crate in that little door and press the button; I'll meet it downstairs."
Gale does what she says, and as soon as he's pressed the button the he presumes will send the crate to the basement, Madge opens the door again and disappears. He doesn't see her anywhere so he returns to the staging tent and retrieves another crate for the community center. As he enters the building, he spots Madge loitering on the stairs that lead to the basement. She retreats downstairs as soon as she's sure he's seen her so he returns to the room with the mini-elevator, waits until he has the room to himself, locks the door, and quickly sends the crate downward.
Someone is tugging at the handle when he opens the door again. "Sorry," he says. "I must have accidentally hit the wrong button. My hands were full."
The man, from the Capitol judging by his accent, gives him a dirty look. "You should be more careful. We're already behind schedule."
Gale ignores the man and returns to the staging area tent, where the person in charge directs him and some others to take a crate of supplies to the mayor's house. He glances back toward the community center and doesn't see Madge, but hopes she'll figure out he was sent elsewhere and proceeds to 'mistakenly' pick up one of the food crates to take to her house. He and the others pile the crates in the Undersees' living room, and before he leaves to collect another, sure enough, Madge appears in the doorway. He catches her eye and gently kicks the crate he just set down so she knows which one to guard or pilfer from. He isn't exactly sure what their plan is at this point, but he trusts she'll figure something out.
He's able to bring several more large food crates into the mayor's house before his sub-group is reassigned to help set up tables and chairs in the square. Once that's over, it's mid-morning and his crew is paid and dismissed. He enjoys the poetic justice that they're paying him to steal from them.
He walks back into Madge's house without knocking – there are so many people coming and going, it's practically part of the town square. Lulu looks like she's doing ten things at once, and aides from the Capitol are rushing around. The living room, where most of the crates are located, reminds him of an ant hill it's so busy. About half the crates are open, with various staff people digging through them.
Madge herself is pawing through a crate on the far end of the room. When she sees Gale, she rises and asks loudly if he can carry it to the second floor. "This one contains items my father needs in his study upstairs." He picks it up nervously, but everybody is so concerned with their own tasks they don't pay the slightest attention.
On the second floor they take the crate to Madge's bedroom, which surprises Gale with its simplicity. He'd have expected a lot of frills and pink lacy nonsense, but she seems to have more basic tastes. Still, the contrast to his own house is striking; her bed looks like a big fluffy blue cloud rather than the thin, narrow mattresses he's used to. He gets distracted imagining what she looks like when she's sleeping, and only snaps out of it when Madge nudges him. They don't speak because of the surveillance, just quickly hide the cans and packages in Madge's closet behind a row of dresses.
Next they sneak a crate into the Undersees' basement, putting the food in a cellar that's usually covered by plastic sheeting and other stored items. They alternate between Madge's room and the basement, blending the empty crates into the growing pile of other empties in the living room.
Finally, they empty the last crate in Madge's closet and stare at one another incredulously at their accomplishment. As long as they can get this last empty crate out of Madge's bedroom without being detected, they'll have gotten away with stealing and concealing crates and crates worth of food from the Capitol. Gale feels more hopeful than he has in he can't even estimate how long…
Madge walks to the door to open it and he stands right behind her, holding the empty crate with one hand. Without thinking, he smoothes down the parts of her hair that got mussed when she was rummaging around in her closet. She smiles gratefully and pats her head herself to make sure nothing is awry and then opens the door and peers into the hallway.
Gale hears another door open nearby, and suddenly Madge gestures behind her back for him to leave the crate.
"Ah, there you are." Gale hears a man's voice speaking in their direction. "I've been wondering where the prettiest First Daughter in District 12 had disappeared to." Gale hastily throws the closest piece of fabric (some silky thing hanging on the back of her door — a robe?) over the crate and then shoves it with his foot so it's mostly under her desk.
Madge is in the hallway already, standing with her arms crossed and looking hostilely at a man who Gale swears is leering at her. "Do you need something, Simon?"
Simon… The name is familiar… Gale thinks that might have been the name of the Capitol tool who showed Madge how to modify the population database. Simon comes into view and spots Gale, who smoothly closes the door to Madge's room – hopefully in a non-suspicious way – and joins them in the hallway.
Simon smirks and says, "Well, well! What a model hostess you are, Madge, entertaining your guests so personally. Isn't this your bedroom? No wonder I couldn't find you."
"Watch what – " Gale starts to say, but Madge cuts him off.
"What are you doing, Simon? Is my father in his study?"
"No, it looks like I just missed him," Simon says, not phased at apparently being caught exiting Mayor Undersee's empty study. "Pity. He'd probably be less impressed than I am with your hospitality, wouldn't you say?"
"He probably wouldn't be so crazy about you skulking around his study either," Gale snaps before Madge can stop him.
Simon smiles and looks like he's endlessly entertained by Gale. "So suspicious! Madge knows I tease, don't you?" He winks at Madge and Gale decides the guy would look much better crumpled and broken at the bottom of the stairs, preferably after having been pushed by Gale. "But I don't want to keep you two from the Harvest Festival! Why don't we all go enjoy ourselves?" Simon speaks pleasantly, as though he hadn't just crudely made insinuations about Madge and been caught possibly snooping in the mayor's study. It pains Gale to think that the guy can get away with all of that and more just because he's part of the power structure in the Capitol. Disgusting.
"It was a pleasure to meet you, Gale," Simon adds, before walking down the stairs ahead of Madge and Gale. "I've heard so much of you."
Gale freezes, acutely aware of never having given his name to this Simon creep. Which means he must be one of the people who listens to the surveillance tapes – he was practically flaunting it with his reference to hearing 'of' Gale. Madge apparently realizes it too and meets Gale's angry gaze with a horrified expression. They wait until Simon descends and then retreat to the backyard, where at least if they speak quietly it's unlikely they'll be recorded.
"He works for Secretary Redwell," Madge whispers. "Maybe he gets the surveillance memos."
"Or the recordings themselves." Gale feels like his skin is crawling. "I can't believe you thought he might be on our side," he accuses.
Madge frowns thoughtfully. "He's a pain, but I still think that might be true."
"Madge. Please." Gale can't believe she's entertaining this idea.
"Last night at the dinner he warned me they're going to be auditing the population database." She explains that the conversation was brief and very cryptic, probably necessarily so because of the surveillance and because Secretary Redwell kept interrupting, but that she got the sense he was signaling to her that he knew she'd been adjusting the database numbers upward and was trying to keep her from getting caught. "Also, he could have turned me in months ago but hasn't."
"Great, let's give him a medal." Gale scowls back at her house; he doesn't want Madge to have to keep living under these conditions. And that creep is no doubt staying in one of the guest bedrooms… "I hope you have a good lock on your bedroom door."
"I do, but remember – everything's all safely hidden in my closet," Madge says distractedly. She checks her watch and then looks up at him. "We still have plenty of time before the rally starts. I thought about this last night and wasn't sure... But, this went so well - Gale, we can do more."
She describes how the Capitol visitors always travel with extra medical supplies since District 12 has virtually nothing useful. "They store the medicine in the Justice Building while they're here – I know where they're keeping the boxes. They'll take them away when they leave, but as long as there are no emergencies, nobody will look inside them or notice if we've taken some things. They don't even keep track of what they have – anyone traveling with the group can just help themselves. We have a very small window of opportunity. Just think of how useful medicine could be if there are injuries during fighting…"
Gale realizes how serious she is; she's already thinking about the likelihood of injuries. He knows from Mrs. Everdeen that any medical supplies would be an improvement. But the idea sounds a little crazy.
They quietly debate the pros and cons of stealing some of the medicine from the Justice Building and whether Simon suspects what they were really doing. Madge thinks he was deliberately indicating to them he knew they knew about the surveillance, which would explain why he was being a jerk – he was performing. Gale voices his doubts the guy needs any excuse to be a jerk and was probably just taunting them. But he finally lets himself be persuaded when he considers that the medical supplies could contain something he could use to immobilize the Peacekeepers – knock them out or make them sick. They also both agree that the opportunity is too important to pass up, and decide to stow whatever they can in their coat pockets and Madge's largest purse. If conditions seem right, they can make a second trip.
The Justice Building guards wave them through security with barely a second glance. "We're looking for my father," Madge starts to say, but they just gesture for her and Gale to move along.
Gale feels uneasy in the cold, sterile building, which he only associates with anguish, and keeps his head down as he follows Madge through the stairwells and hallways to a basement room filled with boxes. He can easily make out the new additions to the room: a set of non-dusty boxes marked with the medical center symbol.
They each select a box and start pulling out vials periodically to store in their coat pockets, working quietly and efficiently in the dark to avoid drawing any attention to the room and to avoid being recorded by any bugs. Gale pays special attention to any bottles whose labels seem like candidates for debilitating the Peacekeepers.
As he works, he remembers back when he thought Madge would never put her words into actions and has to shake his head in disbelief about how wrong he'd turned out to be: Madge does not mess around. Each time she gets away with something it seems to give her an extra shot of boldness, which in turn infects him – he probably wouldn't have suggested breaking into the Justice Building on his own. Not just because he wouldn't have known medicine was in here, unguarded and available for the taking, but because it just seems so risky. But Madge seems to know what she's doing…
He's musing about just how far she might go when it comes time to fight and organize other people into risking their lives when he notices the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside.
Someone is walking toward their storage room.
A/N: I debated splitting this into two chapters, but thought the Gale angst fest needed to be counterbalanced with some forward plot action. Plus the angst is sort of a motivator for the action... Hope it worked out OK. Thanks to everyone following along and reviewing!