Author's note: This is a quite short chapter but I quite enjoyed writing it anyways...

I don't own the hunger games :(

Gale.

I wake up to an anxious knocking on the door. My mother sits up, and Posy stirs feebly. Next to me, Vick mumbles incoherently, coming around. Only Rory doesn't stir, snoring lightly next to Posy. In fact, he doesn't wake up until Posy punches him.

"Ow, Posy! What was that for?"

"Your snoring was annoying me." She said nonchalantly, shrugging.

"So you punched me?"

"Whoever would be at the door at his hour?" Cries my mother, effectively cutting through their argument. I shrug, and swing my legs off the bed.

When I open the door, it is to find Madge stood there, already fully dressed and with a huge grin on her face.

"Sorry, Mrs Hawthorne. I didn't mean to wake you up. But it seems Gale has forgotten something."

I frown, trying to remember, before I recall our conversation with Haymitch Abernathy last night.

"I'll be one second!" I tell her, already pulling a coarse jumper over the t-shirt I slept in last night. She smiles, and averts her eyes, striking up a conversation with my mother, who she hasn't seen since the day of the bombing.

Madge and my mother's relationship always confused me. Madge was the privileged (but never snobby) Mayor's daughter who had everything anyone could ask for and had never, ever had to skip a meal. It was everything my mother could hope for for her children, and everything she couldn't have.

Besides that, they were each others opposite in every way. Madge was delicate but strong, and my mother was the tough washer woman who found a way for her family to survive when it had all seemed impossible. Sure, they were both pig headed stubborn, but other than that... what did they have in common?

Now I started to think about it properly, quite a lot.

"Knock knock!" I called out, walking into the house with a huge grin on my face, Madge's hand in mine. My mother looks up from the sink, a smile on her face despite her raw hands, holding out her cheek expectantly. I kissed her, and sent her a look that quite simply said 'Do not mess this up for me.'

"Mum, this is Madge. Madge, my mum."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Madge said. She had no idea what to do. All her fancy training in the art of detached smiles and pretty manners had in no way prepared her for this.

"And you Madge." She says. "I've heard so much about you, and that's just from Posy!"

Madge laughs. "She's such a lovely little girl. I hope you don't mind me stealing her away so often!"

My mother laughs. "No, it's wonderful for her to have something to do. I do worry about her, she's always playing on her own. She doesn't like dolls very much, like all the other girls seem to. The only thing that could ever motivate her was singing, and I don't have much time for that."

Madge just smiled gently. "Well, she seems pretty motivated when she's with me. I've never seen such a natural at the piano."

My mother smiles back. "Well, I'm glad. And the tales she comes back with of strawberry cakes and teacups and sheet music and pretty dresses. I daresay she's in heaven. Oh, and I'm not sure if she mentioned, but thank you for the cupcakes you sent last week. They were delicious!"

Madge smiled again. "You're very welcome. Posy made them, anyway. I've never seen such a mess in my whole life! Icing sugar everywhere! We had so much fun."

I furrow my brow now, because it sounds like charity. Me and my family survive just fine. I don't need Madge or, indeed, Katniss, to feed us.

"It's not charity." Madge whispers under her breath. "Posy brings laughter into our house. It hasn't been heard in a long time, Gale. And trust me, we need it."

I remember Madge's mother, and realise she's right. So I let it go without comment.

Throughout dinner, I can feel Madge absorbing every little thing about our home. Not maliciously or with any kind of judgement- that isn't Madge's style. Just with the natural curiosity that seems to characterise everything about her.

I try to see my home from her point of view. There's a framed piece of embroidery on the wall- a wedding present from my grandmother, who sold embroidery at the hob to boost the income my grandfather made, which, trust me, wasn't a lot. Hard wooden chairs around an ancient table, a threadbare rug by the unlit fire, a worn sofa, a little sink, a stove and cupboard which pass for a kitchen, a tin tub on the floor in which my mother does all the laundry, and two rooms leading off- the room which Rory, Vick and I share and the room which Posy and my mother share.

It's a poor show, but it's home. Madge, however, is watching everything in evident enjoyment.

"Here, let me help with that." Madge says, collecting all the plates and bringing them over to the sink. She herself refused all food, insisting she wasn't hungry. I knew she just didn't want to take food out of our mouths, when we clearly had so much less than her, and I was grateful. She was bullied into accepting a cake by Posy and my mum, however, and had drunk a cup of tea.

She washed the dishes twice as quickly as my mother, hands still clumsy from all the laundry she'd been doing, could have done. Without another word, she picked up a scrubbing brush and began to wash the clothes, some of which were hers.

"You don't need to do that, dear." My mother said, touching Madge's smooth, unblemished hands with her own sore, rough, wrinkled ones. Madge smiled, and when she did the entire room seemed to light up.

"I want to." She said firmly. My mother didn't question her after that.

...

"So, what do you think of Madge?" I asked my mother.

"She's a lovely girl." My mother smiled. Her facial expression darkened a little. "But Gale, you have to understand, sweetheart. She's the mayor's daughter."

"What of it?" I asked, stubborn as ever.

"Darling, moving from the town into the seam is hard on anyone, and going from a privileged, adored young lady to a miner's wife is no easy transition. You just have to look at Rosemary to know that. It takes someone very special to make you want to, and someone very strong to have the courage to follow their heart."

I sighed. "What exactly are you saying? That you don't think I'm 'special' enough or you don't think Madge is strong enough?"

"No. I'm saying I think both. The way she looked at you, and you at her should be testament enough of that, and Madge appears to me to be one of the most strong, stubborn young ladies I've ever met. That's exactly the problem." Seeing my face, she touched my cheek and smiled sadly, picking up her basket of laundry. "All I'm saying is, I hope she had enough practice of washing dishes and clothes and going without meals this afternoon to prepare her for what life may hold."

...

"Ready to go?" she asks, holding out a hand. I smile.

We walk through the deserted corridors of thirteen in comparative silence, but it's comfortable, and I don't feel the need to break it.

"Down here." She says, tugging gently on my hand.

"What? In the studio?"

"No, the room off it where you can watch everything that's going on. We sat there yesterday, remember?"

"Oh." Is all I say.

It seems an odd place to hold a meeting about Katniss being the mockingjay, when it's the scene of the worst performance Katniss ever gave. The worst performance anyone in the world ever gave.

Madge stifles her laughter, knowing what I'm thinking without having to ask, as always. "I think that's why Haymitch chose to host it there. He wants us all to know what an awful job Fulvia and Plutarch are doing of utilising on our mockingjay. Katniss can't act. Everything she does needs to be real, and the cameras don't feel real."

I nod, but don't elaborate any further as we step into the room.

Haymith looks dreadful. I'll never be his biggest fan, but I have to respect him, even if only slightly. If he can't be given sole responsibility for Katniss's survival, then he sure as hell did help. She needed him then. And, whether she choses to acknowledge it or not, she needs him now too.

His face is sallow, yellowing skin hanging off him. He doesn't look like he's transitioning very well.

It's an extremely odd assortment of people gathered there. There's most of 12, Boggs (a pretty little bruise flowering on his cheek) and Katniss's prep team.

I can't explain the anger that flows every time I catch sight of them. I guess it's their pathetic air, that they are so completely incapable of defending themselves, that they hid behind their supposed ignorance.

Ignorance is never an excuse. Not in Panem. Not anywhere.

Besides, I don't believe for one second that they, what exactly? Never registered that the children they so enjoyed making over in their ridiculous Capitol fashions were about to be thrown into a fight to the death that they could never, ever be equipped for in a million lifetimes?

I didn't buy it. There wasn't anyone thick enough for that. Not even someone who'd been brought up with the Capitol's morals drilled into them. Nobody had such a thick skull as to not even realise the children they were dressing up were like a meal presented on a silver plate. Murder or be murdered. That just about summed up the games.

Madge throws me a look. It's the look that says 'Stop being an idiot.'

How exactly I am being an idiot, how exactly she expects me to control myself in the presence of those utter morons, I do not know. But I give her hand another reassuring squeeze anyway.

We sit down in adjoining seats, hands still firmly entwined.

The meeting, it turns out, is about Katniss's awful performance. However did they pick that up? I lose interest, and concentrate on the stray curl that has escaped Madge's pony tail.

She, on the other hand, is listening in rapt concentration, not even noticing my intense gaze. It isn't until she speaks that I realise what vain the conversation has taken.

"When she was dragged away by the peacekeeper, in District Twelve, and didn't get to say goodbye. She was screaming, and then she caught my eye inexplicably. I'd already known she wasn't coming back, but that was when it hit me, properly hit me, what was going on. She mouthed 'look after them.' And the fight just seemed to drain from her. The look on her face isn't something I think I'll ever forget." Madge says. She meets Katniss's eye, and there is an understanding passing between them, of something I can't comprehend.

Katniss looks at her hands, and the people around the table are silent for a moment, before someone chips in with the iconic poisonous berries moment, and the moving Katniss moments tennis game continues.

There are a million moments which I can think of. When I was being whipped, and just before I lost conciousness, heard her scream my name. When she begged me to look after Prim and her mother, and not let them starve, just before I was dragged away by the peacekeepers in charge. When she first came back, and looked at us all in the station, and there was such relief in her eyes it was unreal. When she was at the party after winning the games and never once let go of Katniss's hand. When she was talking about Prim on the interview night before the games. When she tracked down Peeta just after they announced that two victors could go home. When she shot the arrow at Cato, and you could tell that it wasn't out of vengence, but out of mercy. When she was with Rue, and she was so gentle and teasing, a real big sister. Just like Rue had needed. When she had made that speach, in 11, on the victory tour, and you could just see her heart breaking. When she stood up in command the other day, incensed beyond belief, defending the other victors and bargaining for their lives.

I looked at Madge, and saw the memories in her face, too.

When I woke up after being whipped, and she was there, just waiting. When she broke down in the woods, the day after her mother became critically ill, and thought she was her aunt. When she first played piano for me, and it was like there was magic pouring out of the instrument into the air. When Posy was sick, and she sat by her bed, not stirring, hardly eating or even sleeping, just sat there. When she was watching the games, and she practically moved right along with Katniss. When she was comforting Prim, just after Rue died, her mouth a tight line of worry. When she was teasing Vick and Rory. When she told me I was forgiven, and it was like I had been dead, and was now revived. When she too had faced down Coin in command the other day, and had been so magnificent, so beautiful, it was scary.

She looks at me now, and I know for some reason, this ordinary moment is one I will never forget.

I could live a thousand lifetimes, and none would be as good as this one. Because there was suffering, and there was pain, and there was hate... Yet I could feel. I could feel it all, experience every single moment, appreciate it all so perfectly. Yes, there were experiences so traumatic at times they made me wish I had never even experienced them at all, but you had to experience the bad to experience the good. It was just the way this screwed up world worked.

Some prices should never have to be paid. Katniss never should have gone into the games. Madge should never, ever have been put through the torment of watching her mother waste away before her eyes, of having her loved ones taken away from her one by one, of waiting anxiously to find out who was next...

But it was all this which allowed me to perceive clearly what others could not. To realise the extraordinary nature of the girl sat next to me, to feel the life pulsing so perfectly through the hand held in my own.

It was shock that I realised something extraordinary...

I wouldn't have traded a single second of it.