Thanks to everyone who has given me prompt requests! Alas, this will be my last one for a while: I still have one for Jenny and a Snow White one to finish up, in ADDITION to all the stuff on ff. net AND planning my (first!) NaNoWriMo story. Thanks again, everyone! I will let you know when I'll be accepting drabbles again.
Gale doesn't mean to overhear them. He's at his mother's new house, checking to make sure all her plumbing and electric is working correctly, and, finally satisfied, he heads downstairs. He hears female voices— Katniss is here, too. Prim and Rory are getting married next month and Katniss is absolutely agonizing over her maid of honor speech. She and Hazelle are helping to plan the wedding, and Gale, on the landing, plans to call out, but he stops, silent and still like the hunter he is, when he hears his and Madge's names.
"I had a hunch they might end up together," Hazelle says. "I wasn't so caught up in grief that I didn't notice who it was that saved his life."
Gale frowns. Whose life? His?
"It bothered me at first," Katniss admits in a moment of rare emotion. "I was still— pretty unsure of my own feelings for Peeta. And in a lot of ways, I considered Gale to be mine."
"Madge might be from Town," proclaims Hazelle, "but there are parts of her that are pure Seam. Braving a snow storm to bring medicine to a man who barely tolerated you? That's some sort of bravery— or stupidity, but I know that girl, and she's anything but stupid."
Katniss gives a chuckle. "Definitely not stupid," she asserts before Gale can bristle too much at the thought of anyone calling his wife stupid. "Besides, they're married now, so clearly she did something right."
"Doesn't Gale not know, though?" Hazelle wonders.
Katniss nods. "Yeah, though I'm not sure why. I don't know if Madge never thought to tell him, or if it was intentional. I just know he still thinks my mom had it and it's not my place to tell him anything different."
"I would hate to be there when he does find out, though," Hazelle says. "He hates to be kept in the dark."
"Agreed," says Katniss. "I'd hate to be Madge, then."
000
Madge knows that there's something wrong with her husband. That morning, he was perfectly fine when he went to his mother's and yet when he came back… He's sullen. Brooding. Gale has always been serious, but rarely has Madge seen him like this since they were war torn teenagers. It's, to say the least, very disconcerting.
He grunts and mutters in answer to her questions, and eventually she leaves him alone. He finally speaks as they're cleaning up after dinner; he's washing and she's wiping.
"I overheard an interesting conversation today," he announces into the silence.
"Oh?" Madge queries, her tone rich with wry humor, exasperation, and annoyance.
"Yes," Gale says, a trifle too cheerfully for Madge to feel at ease. She tenses, slightly, waiting for an attack.
Gale doesn't disappoint. "They were talking about when I was whipped."
Madge's hands still on the drying cloth.
"You know, I wasn't conscious much during that time, so I never knew what happened—" Madge flinches. Gale carries on. "But when I found a morphling bottle a few weeks later, I assumed that Katniss or Mrs. Everdeen got it for me. I thanked them for it, and never thought anything more about it, and no one ever corrected me." Madge knows this is hard for him to say. By not correcting him, Gale feels that Katniss, Mrs. Everdeen, and even his mother betrayed him in some way.
But not compared to her.
"And yet yesterday," he says softly, "I learned what really happened. That you— who I, at the time didn't think highly of— risked your life to save mine is baffling. And the fact that you— who are now my wife— never told me about this is equally as baffling and— and heartbreaking," he whispers.
Madge covers her mouth with her hand and breathes in deeply.
Gale stares at her stonily for a moment, but at seeing her tears, he breaks down and wraps his arms around her, guilt trip forgotten. "Aww, sweetheart," he says, "please don't cry. I didn't mean for you to get this upset."
Madge punches him on the shoulder. "Of course you did! God, why else would you turn all of your tactics on me?"
Gale chuckles a little. "That's true," he says. "But still. You know why I'm upset, right?"
Madge bites her lip, nods. She wraps her arms around his neck and looks up at him. "Truth?" She asks.
He nods and tightens his arms around her.
"It wasn't as though I meant to keep it from you," Madge says. "When it first happened, I didn't really want you to know, but I didn't tell anyone that there was a condition of secrecy. Things were hectic then, as you know, and bringing you my mother's morphling was highly illegal, so everyone probably didn't say anything to you just out of pure fear and habit. I mean, you had just gotten whipped for doing something illegal, for goodness sakes. And things were still weird between you and Katniss." Madge swallows, clears her throat.
"What about when we saw each other again?" Gale challenges. "At 13?"
"Right," Madge says. "Well, I mean, other than being half-starved and close to death when I first was picked up, you can't say that we saw each other a lot."
"We saw each other enough," Gale says softly, thinking of unexpected meetings in darkened hallways, of debating ideals, of talking strategy, of speaking about fears and dreams.
"We did," agrees Madge. "But honestly? You know I was so in love with you during that time, beyond that hopeless infatuation that I had when we were in 12, and what was I supposed to say? I didn't think of it as withholding information, but… I did think about what if I told you. And things were so tentative between us. I thought saying it would ruin our friendship, that you would just think about what you owed me and not understand that I did it because I simply couldn't not…" she trails off. "And when we started dating," she whispers. She's silent for a moment.
"When we were dating?" Gale prompts her, raising a hand to brush away a tear she didn't realize she was shedding.
"I didn't want you to feel like you owed me, or that because I did this you had to be in a relationship with someone who you know wanted it more than you did," Madge turns her face away, ashamed. "I didn't want you to love me for what I did for you— I wanted you to love me for who I was."
"Baby," he turns her face back to him, his charcoal eyes meeting her robin's egg blue's. "You know I do." He waits until she nods. "So why did you never tell me? Even after you knew I loved you and we were married?"
Madge shrugs, laughs a little embarrassedly. "It's not as melodramatic as everything else. I just… didn't think about it. Sometimes it's difficult for me to connect who I was in 12 with who I am now. And it's difficult for me to do the same with you. Who you were then is so different to me than who you are now. But I'm sorry," she tells him, "I'm sorry that I never told you. I know if the positions were reversed I would be mad, too."
"I don't want there to be secrets between us," Gale says. "And I don't know how I would've reacted then, but regardless, I just want to say— thank you."
Madge gives him a look. "I don't need your thanks, Gale."
"No, hear me out," he tells her. "You saved me then, in 12, with the medicine; you saved me in 13, when I was so angry and you were so kind; and you save me every single day, with your goodness and bravery and hearing what you did for me makes me love you more." He looks at his shocked wife. Flowery speeches are not Gale Hawthorne's forte, but sometimes the stars align and his passionate nature can express itself verbally.
Madge doesn't say anything else, and neither does he. They just hold each other at the kitchen sink, letting the moonlight filter in through the window, happy, alive, and together.