Seven Weeks Until the Fight.

Nearly dragging himself into his house around nine in the evening, half-dead from training and mind already half-asleep in preparation to call it an early night and tuck himself into bed, Gale was not expecting the sound of a younger voice calling out from his kitchen table. Gale flicks on the light and jumps in surprise at the sight of his brother.

"So, you've been going around with Madge Undersee?" Rory asks from his place at the table.

He'd been sitting there for nearly an hour, in the darkness, waiting for his brother to show up just to get a rise out of him. Rory smirks when he watches his brother's hand fly to his chest to stop the shuddering feeling in his frightened heart. Grinding his jaw and now fully awake, Gale gives his brother a look that could melt steel.

"Fuck, Rory, don't sneak up on a guy like that," he growls, dropping his bag on the floor without a thought for cleanliness or keeping order.

The younger Hawthorne, however, isn't here for jokes or pleasantries or small talk. He's here to get right to the point, and that point is one of the simple frustrations that has been plaguing him since the last time he saw his brother, at that dinner with those big shot promoters at that nice restaurant uptown. Word travels fast in District Twelve; it's a neighborhood with little joy and even fewer news headlines, so word travels fast. And when Rory has to look at the guy who he buys cigarettes from and say, "no, I had no idea that Gale has been seen out with Madge every day of the last week," he feels a little out of the loop, a little left behind. Not that Rory doesn't have secrets of his own. It's just that Gale doesn't seem to be hiding it from anyone but his family. That might not be true, but it's how Rory feels. Though, he isn't going to come right out and say that. Oh, no. He's going to blame it on their mother.

"So, you've been going around with Madge Undersee and haven't even called Ma to tell her about it?" Rory accuses, not even trying to hide the indictment in his tone.

Gale sinks into the chair opposite his brother, his body cracking and crying out in pain as he tries to relieve some of the tension from his bones. His knees, in particular, are feel like they might give out the next time he tries to stand, and Gale wonders if he can sleep comfortably in this chair. Now that he's sat down, he isn't sure that he's going to be able to get back up. Defeat isn't really his way, but it's looking so appealing right now. How easy it would be to give up.

"What are you, Ma's keeper? She can call me if she wants to talk. The phone lines work both ways," Gale groans, not really meaning it.

He's just so tired. There's nothing to him but exhaustion. He feels like the only thing holding him up this last week has been sheer will power, but even that seems to be waning. Every day, all he does is train. Thrown into the deep end of the pool so early, he's been struggling to keep his head above water. And it shows in this interaction with his brother. The sleep deprivation and bodily stress is seeping into even the deeper stretches of his personality. He's lost the will to be gentle with even his own family. Rory's eyebrows reach toward his hairline and he reproaches his brother.

"What's wrong with you?" He barks, raising his voice.

In response, Gale only lowers his, letting his voice travel to gruesome depths to display just how little he wants to deal with this right now. In less than two months, he's going to be fighting the greatest boxer alive and it's going to be ugly and he still hasn't managed to convince Madge that he's an alright guy and the problems in his life just seem to be stacking themselves higher and higher and higher until they are all Gale can see.

"I've been training since four this morning, Rory. I'm not in the mood for to have a domestic dispute with you about me not calling Ma for a few days," he grumbles.

Gale knows that this isn't about Ma or about not calling, but he's going to play Rory's game because he's not in the mood for a pissing contest. Rory rolls his eyes and reaches out his hand.

"Whatever. You got your contribution?" He asks.

A black hole opens in the bottom of Gale's stomach. His contribution to the family's expenses. He usually hands over half of whatever he made to help Ma with groceries and field trips for Posy and other things... But he forgot.

"Oh, fuck," he moans, putting his head in his hands in shame.

How could he have forgotten his family? Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He needs to get his head on straight. He's just been so busy with training and everything else that he hasn't been able to keep his life in order. His one responsibility is to them. How could he have forgotten?

"Oh, fuck, what?" Rory asks.

Gale's in a full panic now, rising from his chair in spite of the protest from his body. He starts to pace as words come out from his mouth hastily and frustratedly. In this moment, he can't combat the feelings of hatred that he harbors for himself.

"I've been training…I haven't had time for a match-" He attempts to defend himself.

But Rory isn't listening to any excuses. Gale has never done this to them, not ever. He's always been loyal to his family and it's curious to Rory that all of that would suddenly stop now.

"Your number came in on this big fight and you haven't gotten a check yet?" He accuses.

It is everything Gale has not to pull his own hair out right then and there.

"I don't get paid until after the fight," he says.

Rory scoffs, rolling his eyes as he watches Gale frantically pace the room, as if that might magically make some cash appear.

"Great, so when you're dead, we'll have some measure of comfort, at least," Rory bites, caustically.

It is Gale's turn to scoff and roll his eyes, ignoring the fact that his brother seems content to watch him squirm.

"Don't be so dramatic. I'm not gonna die," Gale says.

But Rory isn't so sure about that. He and his mother have had this conversation time in and time out, on and off again for the last week. Gale's shots in this fight are slim to none. Best case scenario, he gets knocked out in the first round and is a laughing stock for the rest of his life. Worst case scenario, he goes home in a body bag. And while Ma attempted to be supportive at dinner that night, saying how proud she was of her son and the opportunity he has been given, as the days went on, she found herself wringing her hands a lot more than she used to when Gale was just boxing against two-bit ringers with poor training and even worse names.

"Thresh's last three opponents ended up in the hospital. And those are big-time guys. What do you think is gonna happen to you? Huh?"

Gale reaches above his fridge and pulls out a coffee can, peeling the top off before reaching his paw into it. He pulls out a wad of cash without reservation. It's his emergency fund, but this feels about as near an emergency as he's ever gotten before. He extends the money to Rory.

"Here. Here's my squirrel fund. Take it."

Rory shakes his head and doesn't reach for the money. He knows how important emergency funds are. Everyone in The District has one, and they've come in handy more than once when trying to pool donations together to get someone out of jail or to pay for someone's wedding ring.

"I'm not taking your emergency cash," Rory says, attempting refusal.

But Gale will have none of it. He drops it on the table in front of his brother, not taking no for an answer. This is his family, and he has a duty to them. He has to take care of his people, and that is that.

"Too late. Put it in your pocket."

Knowing that any fight would be batted off easily, Rory does as he's told and tentatively stands, heading for the door.

"Alright. And call Ma, would you?" He calls over his shoulder.

"Why don't I come over for dinner?" Gale asks.

Rory nods his head, but doesn't leave before giving what Gale takes as a cryptic, threat of a warning.

"Don't bring the girl."

A wave of prideful anger ruffles Gale's feathers.

"Why the fuck not?" He snaps.

Rory shrugs, knowing exactly the thing that Gale doesn't want to recognize. Madge is money and Gale is just a distraction; she would drop him in a heartbeat if she knew what his life was really like when he left her parlor. At least, that's how it looks from where Rory is standing.

"We'd scare her off."

For the first time tonight, Gale chuckles and looks at his feet bashfully. Thinking of Madge does shit to him that Rory does not now, nor will he ever, understand.

"Madge's made of stronger stuff than that."

"Okay. It's your life. Don't come crying to me if you lose her."

The next day, with his brother's words ringing in his ears, Gale returns to training. After his morning run and workout with Haymitch and Madge, he returns to The Mine, where he and Peeta are going a bout around the ring, dancing around each other as they size each other up, looking for an opening. Finally, Gale takes his shot, swinging his left glove. However, his swing never meets its target as he's thrown off by the sound of a shrill scream from the cheap seats.

"Hawthorne, watch your fucking feet!" Katniss calls, standing atop the bench beside the practice arena, where Gale and Peeta have stashed all of their bags and water bottles.

Her eyes are narrowed and her gaze steady when Gale turns to look at her. He gives Peeta a tap on the shoulder, signifying a break, and Gale walks over to the ropes, leaning against them to stare down at the frustrated trainer glowering up at him. Peeta steps back, ducking out before he can be caught in the crossfire of what can only turn into an argument between his friend and his girlfriend. Gale's eyes turn to fire as he stares at his heckler.

"What'd you say to me?" He calls.

Katniss does not balk. Instead, she raises her chin and tightens her jaw, repeating every syllable of what she just said so that he can hear her more clearly. If Gale wants to win this damn death match that he's gotten himself signed up for, then he's going to have to fix his damn footwork. Thresh's going to have a team of coaches working on his footwork, so dammit, Gale's got to at least keep an eye on his own.

"I said watch your fucking feet. Your footwork is sloppy," she articulates.

Gale rolls his eyes and tries to readjust his gloves, attempting to brush away the annoyance at his old friend's sudden critique of his form. There's nothing wrong with his form, and as much as he likes Katniss, she has no place in his training routine. She's just going to get inside his head and mess with his very delicate system. She doesn't need to be giving him advice.

"Yeah, well, you aren't my trainer, so I don't think-" He begins.

But she cuts him off, not caring to hear his brush-off of her. She knows what she is talking about and there is nothing that's going to stop her from saying what she stood on this bench to say.

"You're right. I'm not. But if I were on your team, I'd tell you that you footwork is fucking sloppy," she thunders, her voice carrying across The Mine until some fighters stop in their tracks, turning to look at the altercation in process.

That reminds Gale of something. They've been friends their entire lives, worked in The Mine together forever, for fuck's sake, their fathers died in the same accident, and yet she isn't helping him with the fight of his life. It's bullshit, is what it is, and the reminder of it makes Gale angry all over again.

'Why aren't you on my team?" He asks.

Katniss rolls her eyes and a smug look crosses her face.

"You couldn't afford me, Gale," she says.

But then, like a sudden rainstorm in the middle of a day full of sunshine, someone appears in the middle of their conversation. Romulus Thread, the owner of The Mine, walks up between them, picking a piece of gum from a packet in his pocket before sticking it in his mouth. He's been listening this whole time from a spot on the wall. In fact, he's been watching Gale spar all afternoon, just waiting for an opportunity like this one.

"How much do you cost?" He asks, casually, strolling into this argument as though he belongs there.

The air is sucked straight from the room and Katniss hesitates, pulling her braid off of her neck to keep it from sticking to her sweating skin.

"A lot," she replies.

It's a bargaining tactic more than anything, and Romulus knows that. She's going to see just how much money she could get out of someone by playing this "go away closer" game with money. But he's a better bargainer than anyone, and he's going to use his powers today.

"I like to work in dollars and cents. A lot isn't exactly a number I can write on a check," he says, the picture of civility even as his tone bites with carefully placed barbs.

Katniss thinks for a moment, wondering just how much she could squeeze out of a man like Romulus Thread.

"For someone like Gale with potential half-million dollar earnings, I'd make about three large," she says, going daring with a wild, completely inaccurate number.

And, as fake as the sums sounds to Gale, it still knocks the air from his lungs. Three thousand dollars. Holy shit. So, imagine his surprise when Thread says:

"Consider it done. You start tomorrow."

He's going to pay for the rest of Gale's training. There aren't words that Gale can formulate to properly spell out his confusion and gratitude and hesitation and terror. Katniss attempts to object.

"I can't-"

But Romulus has already turned his attention away from her, having gotten what he wants. Now, he looks up at Gale, who is still leaned against the ropes of his sparring arena. He twitches his head in a motion of get down here now.

"C'mere, kid," he says.

Gulping down his fear, Gale nods his head and obliges.

"Sure."

This is Romulus Thread, the man who recruited him into The Mine, the man who hasn't so much as looked his way since he was fourteen. And now, he's paying a ludicrous sum of money to train Gale for this fight? It seems... Suspicious. Gale follows Romulus back to his office, taking a chair when it is offered to him, trying to quell the fear congregating directly in the center of his chest. Thread leans back in his chair and sizes up the young man before him.

"You're Gale Hawthorne."

The young man nods.

"Yeah. That's me."

Romulus raises an eyebrow and wonders just how much the young man remembers from his early teenage days.

"You know who I am?"

Again, Gale gives affirmation. Of course he remembers the guy he practically sold his soul to at age fourteen.

"Romulus Thread," he replies.

A smirk spreads across the older man's lips, thin and vile.

"Yeah. That's right. You remember, don't you?"

Gale nods.

"You've been making lots of headlines, kid. Big news around town, you know?"

Once, Gale watched The Little Mermaid with Posy, and suddenly, the tone in Romulus' voice makes him feel like he's about to sing into an evil witch's shell.

"That's what they tell me," Gale responds tersely.

This kid is good, Romulus thinks. He's playing his cards close to his chest, not giving too much away but not being stingy, either. It's a smart kid who can do something like that to a man as powerful as Romulus Thread. He's cautious and smart, this Gale Hawthorne.

"What if I said that I had a proposition for you?" Romulus asks.

The hesitancy in Gale's eyes hangs dangerously low as he gives his consent for the older man to go on, knowing all the while that Thread would have continued to speak with or without his permission.

"I'm listening," he says.

Romulus leans his elbows against his desk, his voice light and enticing, a promise for good things to come, though Gale knows it cannot be all that it's swearing to be.

"What if I told you those three thousand dollars were an investment in your future?"

Gale's apprehension runs deep enough that he manages to catch the double meaning in what the older man is saying. This isn't a no-strings attached sort of deal. He's a racehorse who will get shot if he gets a broken leg.

"I don't know what you're getting at," Gale mumbles, the lie only slightly quivering his tone.

Having people everywhere and rumors weighing more on him than fact, Thread knows the inner details of Gale's contract. He knows the inner workings of the young man's life. After all, he wasn't going to come in here and offer the young man a proposition without stacking the decks of this game in his favor. When he looks at Gale and when he looks at the opportunity that has been afforded to him, where some might see a good, home-grown boy with the chance to make it out of this neighborhood, Thread only sees dollar signs.

"You're making a half million dollars on this fight, aren't you? Win or lose?"

Unsure of just how exactly Thread discovered that information, Gale contemplates whether or not he should confirm it. But, coming up empty on reasons why he should deny the truth, Gale confirms:

"Yes."

A glint appears in Thread's clear, grey eyes, and his smile grows like the Grinch's just before stealing Christmas. It makes Gale's stomach turn in the way that signals some sort of inevitability looming on the horizon.

"What if I told you I want to make you a millionaire?" Thread nearly whispers with reverence hanging in every syllable.

Gale doesn't even attempt to hide what he's thinking now. He's beyond the point of tact or courtesy.

"I'd say that sounds like a scam," he says, bluntly.

Thread rises from his desk and begins to stroll around his room with an easy grace, looking at the various photographs and trophies and prize belts lining his walls.

"You know how many people are gonna be betting on this match?" He asks.

Gale shakes his head.

"No."

Romulus' earliest estimates seven weeks out are probably nowhere even close to what the actual number will be, and the earliest estimates are still mind-blowing.

"Everyone you know, probably twice over," Romulus assures the young boxer.

Gale's eyes follow the man across the room, and he thinks long and hard about what was just said. Romulus Thread just nearly confessed to being a bookie for this fight. It's been rumored, of course, that Thread is the one who runs the circuits around here, but no one wants to put his name to something so underhanded lest he catch wind of it and try to, well, correct someone's blasphemous tongue. People who speak out against a guy like Romulus don't often speak out ever again. But that's just rumor, of course.

"And I'm just saying, were you to lose the match, that would be very good for my business," He says, gliding over what he really means before giving Gale a meaningful look, "And I help the people who help me."

The pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place in Gale's mind as the implications of what Romulus Thread is offering begins to weigh on him.

"So you get your training done and look real good at the weigh-in, and I'll be very anxious to see the outcome of this match, you understand?"

And that's when it clicks. Romulus Thread is trying to get Gale to throw the match. He's trying to get Gale to look the part, train hard and look well enough that people think he's got an actual shot, then throw the match so Romulus' bookie earnings go through the roof when people lose their money betting on him. Bile rises in Gale's throat and he has to swallow it back as best he can.

"I think so," he says.

The older man sees the flicker of rebellion in Gale's eyes and decides to come in with a threat that he wasn't intending on making. But it tastes delicious on his lips all the same.

"Good. You think real hard on that. Because, listen, I've got eyes on that pretty blonde you've been around with lately, you know? And your brother just put in an application to work as a sparring partner and there are some pretty big guys who've been looking for someone just his size to work their touch on."

The sharp, rat-like eyes of the old conman meet the eyes of his newest workhorse, and he asks the question that twists the knife right through the middle of Gale's convictions.

"Are we on the same page now, Gale?" Thread asks.

They are. They aren't. They never will be but they are right now.

"Yes."

Thread smiles, cold and malicious.

"Good. Here's twenty bucks. Go buy yourself a new pair of shoes, alright?"

Thread puts the greenback in Gale's hands and ushers him from the room, telling him to go home and get some rest. He looks tired. Gale does so, but on the way, a storm of feelings rages in his mind and all he can think is Madge is going to be so disappointed when I lose.

There we are! Another chapter! Please leave a review and let me know what you think! i love hearing from y'all! Look forward to another chapter (to make up for last week's schedule mess-up!) either later tonight or early tomorrow! Please review!