Author's note: I don't know where this chapter came from. I meant to write about Gale's reaction to Peeta turning up at their camp, and instead wrote this. I hope you like it :)
The song is Undone by FFH and it was the first thing that came up on shuffle this morning.
It feels like a Saturday. I have the day off because of my school's open day, and tomorrow because of strikes. Which makes me very happy. I've been really busy up to a week ago, so I decided not to arrange anything and write fan fiction instead :)
Just in case you hadn't gathered by now, I am not Suzanne Collins and, most unfortunately, do not own the hunger games :(
Gale.
Madge scampers off to comfort Johanna Mason the minute Haymitch Abernathy tells her about how Johanna panicked when they flooded the street, and how far it has set her back... Which leaves me to wander around for a bit and try to get my head around the impending separation.
Coming to the conclusion that I both admire and resent Madge for the choice she has made doesn't help me much. She won't be out of danger- far from it, the healers are quite frequently thrown into more dangerous situations than the soldiers. The only difference now is that I won't be around to protect her.
I sigh, and put my head in my hands. We're going to have to go our separate ways for a month or two, until the downfall of the Capitol, at the very least. It is in no way a permanent separation, and in some respects not a separation at all, since we will still be allowed a phone call a day which is granted to the higher up of the soldiers to communicate with command.
The sooner I accept this, the better for everyone involved.
Due to meet Madge in a couple of minutes, I pull myself together, knowing that if I present a person who looks like he's five years old and just been told Christmas has been cancelled, she'll begin to have qualms about going at all.
This is the right decision, I remind myself. For her, this is the right decision.
My fingers close around the button in my pocket. I'm going to have to find a way to give it back to her, before I go. If I die, I want her to have a piece of me that can't ever be eradicated, and this button is the ultimate survivor. Thus far, it has proven itself to be bulletproof, fire proof, bomb proof... Basically, everything-that-you-can-throw-a-little-silver-butt on proof.
The training is accelerated, so we barely have time to talk at all anymore, other than mealtimes. Madge too is working hard, coming to the hospital in the early hours of the morning and leaving late at night. I think she has to make up for all the courses she missed whilst prioritising her friends and working around soldier training alongside. She says she knows a lot of it, but is enjoying herself rather a lot nevertheless...
Her only regret is Cyra, who has been given to the couple in apartment 616 after they lost their seventh child to miscarriage. She cried for seven nights, but was eventually forced to accept that, as an unmarried 17 year old girl with an almost 24 hour career and no relation to the baby other than a strong instinct to care for her, she didn't really have a long term claim to the child, and Cyra may have a better future ahead of her with these people, however hard it had been to give her up to strangers...
However, the loss of Cyra from our midst didn't just hit Madge hard. Katniss and Finnick are working with a level of ferocity rarely seen by man, trying to work away their grief. Annie had a set back so bad it put her in the hospital for a week. Madge and Prim were forced to sneak Johanna an entire box of morphine vials when she flipped out after hearing about it and was all geared up to march to Command and give Coin a dose of District 7's finest. Peeta just nodded, saying nothing until Madge left, where he smashed an entire row of 12 cupcakes with his fist, one by one.
Never again would I question the power of love and innocence and childhood, and it's pull on even the hardest of hearts.
Thus far, training wasn't much different, except that it included less building up of strength and much more working on shooting ranges. It turned out to work out in pretty much everyone's favour. Finnick, Katniss and I at the very least were much more competent when we had our own, familiar weapons back in our hands than when we were working with clumsy guns, though all three of us could still use a gun with uncanny accuracy.
It struck me, on the third day of training, that there was one huge difference between me and the rest of my squad.
I had only ever seen death on the big screens... Proper shootings, anyways. My only real experience of war lay in the ones I'd gained since I'd got here... The bombings of the hospital and the blowing up of the mines. I'd never actually looked at someone as I killed them, seen the light leave their eyes, know that it was my fault...
Everyone here had. And look how it had changed them... I had never known the rest of the squad before now, but I did know from Madge's stories that Finnick Odair had most definitely changed, and I knew without a question of a doubt that Katniss Everdeen was a girl changed virtually beyond recognition.
Vowing that I would never let it change me, I turn with a slight shiver and shoot the peacekeeper dummy at the far end of the shooting range, red paint spurting out across 10 metres.
And so, when Plutarch tells us we won't actually be fighting, we're all a bit annoyed. We are, after all, the most accurate overall shooters out of all the groups. And quite possibly the group that wants this most, has suffered the most to get here.
I look over at Katniss and realise. She never had any intention of staying in the squad at all. And now, neither do I.
Saying goodbye to my family, quite possibly for the last time, is excruciating. Posy, catching on to what is happening, that this might possibly be our last goodbye, dissolves into hysterical tears and can be consoled by no one, eventually running out of the room.
"She'll come back." My mother says, her eyes swimming with tears. "And so will you, Soldier Gale Hawthorne. That's an order."
"Yes ma'am." I say, giving her a salute. Then she pulls me into a bone cracking hug, her chin resting on my shoulder.
"I love you, Gale." She whispers. "Just, try your best to come home. I don't think any of us could ever manage without you."
"Love you too, mum. And I promise to do everything in my power to come back. You haven't heard the last of me, that I can guarantee."
Turning to face Rory and Vick, because the lump in my throat is becoming unbearable, I give each a military salute.
They both return it, chins wobbling as they try not to cry, try to keep their ridiculous Hawthorne pride in tact. Vick is the first to crack. He hugs me so tight I feel that, if the Capitol doesn't kill me, my family's hugs most certainly will. Rory then gives me one too. It's so uncharacteristic of both of them, I can't help but laugh.
"Hey there, Soldier Hawthorne junior and Soldier Hawthorne junior junior. What's brought this on?"
Rory is the first to pull away, his grey eyes sparkling unusually bright. "I'll see you on the battlefield, Soldier Hawthorne senior."
"Yeah, and I just get to miss out on all the action, but I'll see you at the surrender anyway." Vick says, his face frustrated. I see my mother wince, and turn away.
The 14-15 year old soldiers, like Rory, are only going to be exposed to the low risk streets. Still more than I'm going to be able to do, by the looks of it. On orders at least. But it's a sore spot with my mother. The moment she heard, she went off in a rant about how it was no better than the hunger games, sending such young children into a war zone. The fact of the matter is, it's highly unlikely Rory will be exposed to anything life threatening. Nearly as possible as snow in august. And even if he is, he's a good shot.
None of which will stop my mother worrying. Or me, for that matter.
I follow the sound of the music, and the sobbing. When I reach the door, I rest against the door, just listening to her singing. She's good. Hasn't the power of Katniss's... Mockingjays wouldn't fall silent to hear her voice. But it is incredibly sweet, and makes you stop in your tracks. It puts me in mind of those sweet strawberries and even sweeter kisses, of sunlight and laughter and the woods and my home...
There is something about her voice which conveys so much that a million years of talking and discussing and speeches and storytelling couldn't give you... Sending chills up my spine.
Open up wide, swallow down deep
No spoon full of sugar could make it sweet
The cancer inside, stealing my sleep
Night after night, it keeps haunting me
The secrets I keep are tearing me up inside
I try to hide and then I wonder why
I wonder why I'm still running
When I know there's no escaping
Come undone, surrender is stronger
I don't need to be the hero tonight
We all want love, we all want honour
Nobody wants to pay the asking price
Fall on my knees, fall on my pride
I'm tripping over all the times I've lied
I'm asking please but I can see in your eyes
You don't need tears for alibis
It's true what they say, love must be blind
It's why you're still standing by this sinner's side
You're still by my side
When all the things I've done have left you bleeding
Come undone, surrender is stronger
I don't need to be the hero tonight
We all want love, we all want honour
Nobody wants to pay the asking price
I don't think I can drive it home tonight
I don't think I wanna be alone tonight
Come undone, surrender is stronger
I don't need to be the hero tonight
We all want love, we all want honour
Nobody wants to pay the asking price
Come undone, surrender is stronger
I don't need to be the hero tonight
We all want love, we all want honour
Nobody wants to pay the asking price
I can't listen to it anymore, and push open the door gently, disguising the sound of my footsteps until I'm directly behind her. I put my hands on her shoulders. She doesn't jump.
"You know, I'd forgotten that you could do that. How easily you could sneak up on me." She turns to me, her eyes glistening with a thousand tears I know she will never cry. "How much more can I forget, Gale?"
I don't have an answer. So instead I just open my arms. She walks into them without question, resting her head against my chest. It's so comforting, and so familiar, I thread my fingers through her loose hair.
Pulling away, she turns her face the other way, wiping tears from her eyes. "Your sister was in here earlier."
"What?" I ask. "Where did she go?"
"Command, I think. I couldn't persuade her to stay. She went to tell Coin that you weren't allowed to go."
I laugh, sitting down beside her on the piano stool.
"Good luck, Coin." I take Madge's face in my hands, and wipe away the tears with my thumb. She sighs.
Kiss me hardy, kiss me quick.
It was from a history textbook dictating a life before Panem, the life of the ancients... our ancestors. Some dude called Nelson, who said it on his death bed. I reckon he had the measure of this crazy world pretty good.
Kiss me hardy, kiss me quick.
And kiss me Madge does. Somehow it means so much and so little all at the same time. We go so much deeper than just this.
"Can I hear it? The piece you were playing before I came in?" I ask.
Slowly, she nods, her fingers trembling slightly as she places them lovingly on the yellowing keys.
Once she has started, she can't stop, engrossed in the song as she is, her hands flying across the piano, coaxing the beautiful music out of the reluctant instrument. This is how I love her best.
In every one of her forms, condensed into one Madge.
Sighing heavily, I know I have to leave, while she's still absorbed in the music... While she'll still let me go. So I get up, plant a kiss on her cheek, and walk out of the door... This is me, Madge Undersee. Never looking back.
As I leave, an inexplicable drop of salt water splashes onto one of the embossed, fading keys.
We never did actually say goodbye.
Eventually, I track down Posy in a supply closet. She's crying in a broken way that makes it sound as if her heart is broken into a million pieces, knees brought up to her chest with her arms wrapped around herself, and it breaks my own heart to see.
I don't say anything as I sit down next to her, assuming the same position, staring blankly at the wall opposite.
"Do you really have to go?" Sniffles a small voice.
I sigh, wishing I could give a different answer. "Yes." I whisper. "But I'll be back. Just you wait and see."
"When?" She sniffles.
Grinning, I take a pencil from the box on the nearby shelf. "Stand up, Rosy Posy."
She complies. I make a mark on the wall, and write in neat lettering 'Posy Hawthorne, the day her brother went to war.'
She looks at me blankly, eyes still full of tears.
"I'll be back, Rosy Posy, as soon as you're this big!" And I make a mark on the wall, just a couple of inches below my own height.
She can't help it. She bursts into laughter.
I bend down so I am at her height, and look her in the eye, taking her face in my hands just as I had Madge a couple of minutes ago.
I memorize everything about her. The large, grey eyes framed by beautiful lashes, the olive toned skin, the long dark hair... She was a Hawthorne, alright. But she was the only Posy Hawthorne there would ever be. She was my little sister, and she was so beautiful.
She was five years old. She should not be suffering through this.
"I don't know when I'll be back, Posy. But I know that I will. I promise you that much."
And I meant every word.