AN: This is a short teaser that was supposed to be tacked on to the end of the last chapter. But the POV switched awkwardly, so now it's standing alone.

Thanks to Ceylon205!



Chapter 10

Gale's POV

Under the cover of night, I finally have the privacy to let my mind drift back to the afternoon – the majority of which focus on the grey patch in the grass opposite me. Right now, Madge lies curled up with Posy across the pit, where the fire's banked low. I cross my arms beneath my head and watch the way the blanket rises just slightly when she breathes.

She hasn't said much since, well, I kissed her. We left the fish line behind and I showed her how to rig a snare along a game trail we passed. Madge doesn't have much of a knack for snares. Although, I guess her heart wasn't in it at the time. I don't really blame her. I grit my teeth – you don't just kiss a girl and then all but admit you don't know what it means. I cringe and wonder if we'll ever have an uneventful conversation like normal people. If we aren't fighting, Madge up and reveals world-bending secrets or gets me to reveal my own. Hell's teeth. I don't remember the last time I've talked to anyone about what happened when Dad died. Or Katniss.

The kiss just sort of happened. I guess talking about all that feelings stuff had me keyed up. But it'd be a lie to say that I haven't wanted to kiss Madge. Admittedly, without Bristel smarming all over her this morning, it would've taken longer for me to come around to admitting it.

A slow grin spreads across my face. I wonder what Bristel would say if he heard Madge admit that if she liked him, she'd let him kiss her instead of me. Sucker.

Or maybe I'm the sucker, I don't know. When her lips moved beneath mine, the first thought to skitter through my consciousness was this is what it's like when a girl kisses you back.

And then I realized that the girl is Madge. Not Katniss. Not even a girl from the Seam. I knew I should stop, but I took my time about it. It didn't feel truly wrong until after she confessed…everything. The guilt felt like a punch in the gut. I remember that first laundry run, when my mom got back on her feet after Posy came. I don't remember seeing Madge, though. Not till Katniss and I started selling strawberries to her family. She'd been thinking of me that whole time, while I hardly noticed her except to criticize.

I could stay away from her, of course.

But I won't. I know I won't.

And out here in the middle of nowhere who's to say I should?

It's something, seeing her with a few trace blisters on her face, a little dirt on her nose. And beneath all that, white skin and freckles. Bright blue eyes like alyssum.

Beneath that, someone attainable. And to hear her tell it, maybe I have something to offer her.

I mean, I love Katniss, but I noticed other girls. Maybe a part of me felt inadequate around Madge? What does a guy from the Seam have to offer an official's daughter? Nothing. It's laughable for a miner to even think he could court a merchant girl. And offers of friendship are met with suspicion from every concerned merchant father.

Intensify that by ten for a father who's got a three-story house in the Officials' Circle. Man, every one of her family members could have an entire floor to himself. I would have been thankful for my own mattress.

I end that thought before it drudges up old irritations.

The fact is not everybody can pull an Everdeen. And that marriage is a classic example of why a guy shouldn't try. Merchant girls just don't hold up.

Except for Madge.

Images of her flicker through my mind. Madge running through the district while the ash falls around her. I remember swatting burning coals out of her hair. Yesterday it smelled like flowers and soap, and it tumbled loose down her back. My fingers curl, remembering the feel of it.

I remember her lying in the grass the day Vick found her. She looked ghoulish and filthy, nothing like her normal, pristine self. Untouchably clean. Delicate. I wonder when she stopped looking so vacant?

Then there's Madge defiantly announcing that she gave herself poison itch on purpose like a crazy girl, or telling me to shut up while she grips a knife. And Madge who smoothes Prim's hair. Or stands poised in the creek with her spear, wearing nothing but a shirt. Her little victory with the bluegill.

Madge the revolutionary with a secret life, but also a daughter who took care of her mother. They could've paid for a nurse, but they didn't. It's a side of the Undersee family I'd never considered.

She's hurt, that's certain. But she isn't broken. Maybe a little unhinged, but who isn't these days? Lately I've been feeling a bit unhinged myself.

It's hard to sort through all the things I'm thinking and feeling. There's the feeling of wanting Madge, of longing for Katniss, of that red-hot feeling of betrayal.

Hatred for the Capitol and for Peeta Mellark. Involuntarily, the memory of watching the Quarter Quell comes to me. If there's anything real within that mess of intrigue they had going on, it's that when Peeta would kiss Katniss, Katniss kissed back. She said that she needed him, not that if she were somewhere else then maybe she could feel differently junk.

Why should I feel guilty for wanting Madge? I laid my feelings out plainly for Katniss and she didn't want me. And I saw the want in her eyes when she said her last goodbye to Mellark.

But I know it isn't guilt as though I betrayed Katniss…I feel like I'm betraying myself. Because, even though Katniss is dead, I still want her. And if she were alive, I know she still wouldn't choose me.

And now she simply isn't here.

But I'm still alive – and I have a fighting chance of staying that way. And hopefully there's a District 13 to run to where my family can find a new community to belong to. A place where my brothers and sister can grow up and have families. There's even that possibility for me, if I give myself the chance.

I never want to have kids

I might if I didn't live here.

Of course I wasn't completely level with her when I said that. I felt more than willing to settle down with Katniss and start a family, in Twelve or out of Twelve. But how do you admit that to a girl who just denounced any desire for a family at all? I thought Katniss would be my comfort when I'd come home from those grueling days in the mines. The idea of that future made it seem bearable. And I suppose on some level I didn't really believe her when she said she didn't want to get married or have kids. Otherwise, I wouldn't have misinterpreted her motives behind running away with our families last winter. And by the time I actually began working under the crust, Peeta Mellark had limped into her life, spoiling that comfort forever.

If there is one positive thing about kissing Madge, and judging by the physical reaction that memory causes, I'm guessing there is more than one, then it's the new possibility that it has opened up. I can be with someone. I can want someone else. Someone who wants me. Maybe I'm still too full of Katniss? Of course I am – it's only been a matter of days since she died. But there's time to move on, right? Time to know Madge better.

All the time in the world.


TBC

Thanks for reading!