"Madge?" Peeta's voice rings out quietly through the darkness. I sigh in relief and lower the knife, thrusting it back into the holder on my side. "You still out here?"

"For heaven's sake, Peeta Mellark, I swear I would've killed you," I breathe.

His chuckle rolls through the air. "Are you done peeing yet?"

"Thankfully," I mutter. He marches into the space near me, ducking under branches and maneuvering around bushes before I can see him. He brushes his fingers through his bangs. I go to leave him alone to do his business, but he stops me, his hand resting on my arm. "What?" I ask. "Scared of the dark?"

"I'll pretend you didn't say that," Peeta mutters. When he was a little kid I would tease him about his fear of darkness which was totally mean, I know, I just couldn't resist. It only makes sense that he wouldn't want to take a leak all by himself. "This is the only time I could talk to you."

I freeze again, shifting back on my feet and narrowing my eyes. "What do you mean? We just talked at dinner." And we did. His eyes kept trailing over to Katniss so I kept conversation short, knowing he was worried about something, but it was talking nonetheless. "What's wrong?"

Despite my eyes adjusting to the darkness all I can really see is Peeta's outline. He shifts uncomfortably. "Can I ask you something?"

"…Sure?"

"It's… personal."

I cough to clear my throat, glancing over my shoulder despite not being able to see anything. "Um, sure, Peeta."

"It's about your mom," he adds rapidly. Relief that it's not something entirely awkward, as well as intense confusion washes over me. That, and it suddenly feels like I've been punched in the gut. I don't want to talk about my mom. "Madge?"

"Go on," I choke out. But I'll do anything for Peeta. He's lost enough people, has been through enough trauma, that he's allowed this privilege. We've been friends for as long as I can remember. "Ask."

"When she was sick," he speaks at a rapid pace, constantly throwing glances over his shoulder. "With the real thing, you know? How did she act? What were the symptoms?" I blink a few times, not sure why it is that he's asking me this. "Never mind," he blurts quickly. "I just – I was just wondering. It's really—"

"She was never bitten," I finally muster out. Whenever I close my eyes I can still see her. Weak and frail. How did she come to be like that? Was it because of her already fading state? I'll never know. "But she, um," I cough again, clearing my throat. "More withdrawn than before. Her eyes were… they were always red." It's getting harder and harder to swallow. I take a deep breath. "Why do you want to know?" I blurt out.

"I was just thinking about it," he murmurs. "I know it's hard for you, I just… I'm sorry. I don't know. I can't stop thinking about it."

Peeta has always been able to move a crowd with the way he speaks. He's always been able to lie his way out of anything because he's so dammed good at it. But not this time. I can hear it in his voice.

"Something's wrong," I croak. He flinches. "What is it?"

"Madge, I—"

"You want to know what was wrong with my mom?" I ask, stepping toward him. Anger bubbles up inside me. Why will no one tell me what's wrong? "She coughed. All the time. Like she was trying to get her own lung to come up her throat." Peeta turns his head away from me. "And she threw up blood like she had been drinking it." He lets out a sharp breath. "And she was cold. Her fingers were cold. Like she was slipping into hypothermia no matter how many blankets we piled on top of her."

"Madge," he tries again.

I can't stop my voice from rising, "But sometimes she wasn't. Sometimes she was on fire. It hurt to touch her because of how hot she was. Nothing would cool her down." I know it's not right for me to do this. It's not fair. I'm being selfish and rude but I can feel my throat closing and I'm starting to suffocate and I can't breathe. "So tell me what's happening!"

"Madge?" Gale's voice comes from over Peeta's shoulder. "Are you okay? Who are you talking to?" Peeta spins around but I'm still panting, out of breath, just like she was out of time. All I see is red and red and more red. Gale moves into the moonlight and freezes. "The hell are you doing out here?" he snaps at Peeta.

"Gale, I had to ask, I had to—" Peeta can't even get a word in.

Gale growls and charges forward, "I told you to keep her out of it! What did you tell her?"

"Nothing!" Peeta yells back. "I didn't—"

"Tell me about what?" I croak. Both boys turn to face me, their faces changing when they realize that I'm still here. "I knew something was wrong," I whisper. "I could feel it." Peeta looks sorry. Guilty. Gale is panicked. Angry. "I already know something's wrong," I whimper. "So just tell me. Please. Please just tell me."

Peeta glances back toward Gale who looks as though he's going to strangle him right here and now. Eventually he tips his head forward and Peeta starts toward me.

"It's Katniss's mom," Peeta whispers. "During the attack she… we think she was bit… or something, we just… we don't know." My eyes dart over to Gale who remains frozen, only his gaze isn't on me it's somewhere else. That's why Katniss has been out of it. That's why I haven't seen Mrs. Everdeen apart from the very first night we arrived. They must've taken her somewhere. "We're just trying to figure out what to do."

"Why don't you ask her what happened?" I rasp. I need something to drink. I need to lie down. "Why couldn't you have asked someone else what happens when they get sick?"

"You're the only one that's really seen it," Peeta continues. These families survived by hiding out and avoiding the plague. I survived by luck. He's right. I know more about this than any of them. "We've been keeping her sedated, it might… it might help, we don't know." He takes a step toward me, trying to rest his hand on my arm but I jerk away. "Madge," he tries.

But I don't want to hear it. I can't hear it. I don't want to. I won't.

I push past Peeta and I push past Gale and I focus on my breathing and my breathing and nothing but my breathing. In and out, inhale exhale. I'm not even all the way back to camp yet when someone's arms are wrapping around my waist.

"Don't touch me," I hiss, desperately trying to push him away. "Don't touch me!"

"Madge," Gale growls. "Be quiet, people are sleeping."

"You knew!" I snap at him. Gale only drags me backwards, away from the other survivors who are passed out. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep waking people. "You knew," I repeat, dropping my voice. "You knew and you didn't say anything. You said nothing was wrong."

"Because I knew you'd act like this," he grunts. "Listen to me," he murmurs. Gale spins me around, pinning me against a tree. "They're not sure if she was bitten." I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. "Hey," he whispers. He cups my face with one of his hands. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

"You should've said something."

"I know. Now can we go to bed?"

"No."

I don't want to go to bed with him. I want to go on a walk. I want to break into a sprint and take off from this place. I want to run until I can't feel my legs anymore, until I'm heaving in air because I can't breathe. I want my mom.

"You're mad when we don't tell you," Gale grunts, "and you're pissed when you find out. What do you want me to do, Madge?"

And again, Gale is right. I had a right to know, I did, but this is something I should have stayed away from. Peeta should've known that. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. I swat at my eyes and turn away from him but he doesn't let me get far. His hand reaches forward, sliding around my hip and tugging me back toward him.

And what ever happened to my dad? Did he go through the same torture my mother did? Get bitten and then hole himself off somewhere, hiding and waiting to die? Did he end his misery before it could overwhelm him? Was he torn apart, piece by piece?

I shudder at the thought and Gale wraps me in his arms.

"Let's go to bed," he whispers. I don't have the strength to pull away again.

Gale slips into a deep sleep before I can. I know he tried to stay up with me, his hand tracing random patterns gently on my back. It was soothing for a bit. It reminded me of when I was a little girl and I had a bad dream, and my mother would sooth me back to sleep. But Gale isn't my mother. My mother is dead.

He murmurs something in his sleep I can't make out and I roll into his grip. If I can't sleep at least I can stay warm in his arms. Right?

Gale shifts. I don't know what time it is but I haven't slept yet. I keep staring at the sky, looking for something. I don't know what. A shooting star, maybe. A change in the color of the night. But when he shifts he stirs, turning to me with heavy eyes.

"You're still awake?" he murmurs. His voice is thick with sleep. If I wasn't so emotionally drained it might make my heart flutter. He tugs me back against his chest and buries his nose in my hair. "Get some sleep. For me."

"I can't."

His lips skim my earlobe. "Even for me?" Even for him. I turn my body away from his and feel his arm settle around my waist. How did we end up like this? A hopeless situation has thrown us together, but why? Does he even really care about me? Just as I think he's fallen back asleep, Gale sighs. "Don't close yourself off."

"I'm just thinking."

And if he does, what's there to like about me? He wants to protect me because he feels like he has to. But why? Not because he likes me, he can't really like me.

"About what?"

"It's late," I blurt. "Go back to bed."

"About what?" Gale asks again, his voice softer.

"You." And it's true. "I just don't understand."

"Because everything and everyone is dead," he breathes. "Even me. And you make me feel alive again."

In the morning I'm not sure I'm groggy again. Like I need to sleep. Questions pulse through my veins but I can't decide if I'd rather lay here and wait for Posy to wake me or if I should just wake up. It's overly conflicting.

You make me feel alive again. What a line. He was half asleep when he said it, I was half asleep when I heard it. Maybe I didn't hear it at all. Maybe I made the whole thing up. Maybe he was just rambling. I groan and feel Gale's arms tighten around me.

Warm. He's always so warm. I nuzzle into his chest and listen as he exhales, murmuring my name. My lips curl into a smile. I decide on sleep.

Her hand was cold in mine, despite the fact that she was sweating. Her skin had faded from pale to gray.

"I don't have much time, Madgey," she told me. I shook my head. I didn't want to hear it. As long as she kept on fighting, as long as she powered through this fever, she'd be okay. She was always okay. She was the strong one of our family. "It's different this time."

"It's just a bug," I told her. I wanted so badly to believe that it was just a bug. That whatever was inside her wasn't slowly killing her. That whatever caused her this much pain wasn't sucking the life out of her. "You'll be okay soon."

She tried to smile for me. It was awful how she was the sick one and I was still the one who needed reassurance. It was rude. It was selfish. She needed me more than I needed her and yet without her I wouldn't have been able to make it on at all.

"Sure, sweetie," she nodded. Her golden hair was lackluster. Greasy and dirty. I squeezed her hand. "I love you darling, you know that, right?"

"Of course," I had said. I knew she loved me. She was my mother. And I loved her. I still do, despite the fact that she's gone. "And I love you."

"Like the bees love the flowers," she continued weakly. I didn't want to cry so I didn't respond. "Like the moon loves the stars." That was supposed to be my line, but mothers always know when their children are frail. She smiled again, a bit brighter than last time but still lacking the usual flare she used to have. "It's different this time," she said again.

"Mom—"

"Margaret, honey," her voice was soothing. In death, in her broken state with red-ringed eyes, she was still so soothing. "I need you to listen to me." And I always listened to my mother. "I can feel this… this darkness inside of me." I held my breath. I didn't want to hear it. "It's strong. Stronger than me."

"No it isn't," I protested. Nothing was stronger than my mother. "It isn't. You're just a bit under the weather, you'll get better."

But my mother couldn't pretend forever. Not even for me. She wrinkled her nose and turned her head away from me. She coughed. It was so loud and gravelly that I leaped from my seat. When I went to assist her she held her hand out and forced me away, coughing into her arm harder and harder until I thought she couldn't breathe.

"Go, Madge," she choked. My mother pointed toward the door. I wasn't ready to leave. I sat back in my seat. She sighed. My mother was strong. She had taught me how to be stubborn. "You shouldn't be in here. I don't want you sick, too."

I could see the blood on her arm. The blood that she hacked up from her coughing. I knew she didn't want me to see it. I pretended not to. It was easier to pretend.

"How'd you even get sick anyway?" I asked her. It's not like she could go outside and catch a cold. We barely even opened the windows for her.

"Those Capitol citizens always bring their illnesses here," she said tiredly. I knew she wanted me to leave, but I couldn't. "Some of them were in here the other day. I woke up to them poking at my IV." Anger rumbled in my chest. It still does when I think of the citizens from the Capitol. Prying around and snooping through the house as though they own the place. We might not have owned it either, due to it being Capitol property, but it certainly wasn't theirs. "They left at once. Something felt off."

I dropped my voice. "You think they tampered with it? Gave you something?"

Her shoulders lifted as high as they could, which wasn't very high at all. "It's hard to say," she told me. My mother hated conspiracies and she hated believing that the government was rotten, even though it really was, and she knew that. "Maybe just because I was already ill that—"

"That it affected you more," I continued for her.

Again she smiled. "That's right, sweetie," she nodded. My mother turned to the IV by her side. "I'm tired, now," she told me. "It's very dark."

I glanced out the window. It was nearly noon. Not a cloud in the sky.

That was only the beginning.

I wake, smothered in Gale's arms. My forehead is sweating, my chest is heaving. Gale is shushing me again and again, his hands cupping my cheeks and forcing me to look at him. Shhh. It's okay. It's okay. He wipes my forehead with the back of his palm. He rubs circles on my back. It's okay.

"I want to see her," I blurt. I'm still panting but I know what I want. "I want to see Mrs. Everdeen."

Gale's eyes narrow and his head is tipping side to side before he even says anything. "Not a chance," he growls. His hands fall from my cheeks and a certain anger flares up in his vision. "Don't even ask again."

My jaw drops. "Why not?" Gale tenses as though he's annoyed I've opened my mouth. "You have no right to—"

"No," he snaps. His voice is filled with so much rage is sends me into silence. "We talked about it for all of twenty minutes and you're back to nightmares already, Madge!" I go to protest but he's talking before I get a word in. "The answer is no. You're not going to see her and she's not going to see you and we're never going to talk about it again because I don't enjoy watching you fall apart at the fucking seams, alright?"

I shift away from him and turn my head. When he reaches out I jerk backwards and grunt, "Don't."

He drops his hands and growls again. "You don't want to heal," he tells me plainly. There's an obvious amount of frustration in his voice. "You don't want to move past this. You want to dwell on it. You want to suffer." Gale shakes his head and shoves himself to his feet. "Fine. Go talk to Peeta, he'll take you."

I want to scream. Gale marches away from me without looking back, his footsteps soft against the wet grass of the morning. He's not even going to come with me? I ball my hands into fists and launch myself into a standing position. It takes me less than 10 seconds so spot the youngest Mellark and I'm running over to him at once, not caring that the water from the grass is soaking through my socks.

When I reach Peeta he looks upset. On the verge of some long drawn out apology for the night before. But I don't give him the chance to speak.

"Take me to her," I demand. He stares at me for a long time, but eventually, he nods.

A/N: Shout out to S. Lily Potter for guessing what was correctly happening! How she figured it out I have no idea but hey, good job. Of course Gale is angry. He doesn't understand why they're going into the Capitol and he doesn't understand why Madge is going to Mrs. Everdeen because the only thing that makes sense to him is leaving all of this behind and everyone just continues to dig into it. You know? Poor Mrs. Everdeen. Mayhaps we'll find out what's happened to her in the next chapter.