AN: Smut, smut, smutty, smut ;)

Early Thirties

After three months of couple's therapy, Gale sublet his apartment for the remainder of the year long lease. Madge had finally agreed to let him move back in. The one bedroom apartment with its conjoined kitchen and living room and stained carpet had never felt much like home. He was ready to return to his real home, the two story farm house he and Madge had bought and fixed up together four years ago. He whistled cheerfully as he loaded the last of his boxes into the back of his Ford pick-up.

"You're in a good mood," said Thom, leaning against the truck.

"Why shouldn't I be?" said Gale. He and Madge were doing better than they had been in over a year, no more lengthy stretches of giving each other the silent treatment, followed by earth shattering blow outs, no more cold shoulders, broken dishes, saying things to each other that later stifled the air with regret. He'd just been promoted at his engineering firm, which was good, because they'd need the extra money when the baby came. Everything was falling into place. For the first time in a long time, he was happy, over-the-moon ecstatic, on track and heading in the right direction. Saving their marriage from the pits of despair hadn't been easy by any means, but the work they'd both put into counselling, into each other, was worth the result.

"You sure you're ready to live together again?" said Thom.

"Yeah, we're ready," said Gale. "Sorry, man, I know you were looking to swoop in become the next Mr. Undersee, but you're just gonna have to find your own wife."

"I'm being serious," said Thom. He took one end of the bungee cord in Gale's hands and walked around the truck to hook it in.

"That's a first," said Gale, securing the cord, tautly stretched over his boxes, to the other side.

"I'm glad you've worked things out," said Thom. "I just hope you're not moving too fast because of the pregnancy and all. Maybe you've forgotten how bad it was towards the end, now that you're all caught up in the second honeymoon phase, but I haven't."

Gale had not forgotten. Not one bit. How could he? His knuckles were scarred from punching the wall last summer, the night he walked out, called it quits, almost put a hole in his wife's face instead of the drywall. It still terrified him to remember how enraged he'd been in that moment, but apart from the marriage counselling, he'd enrolled in an anger management class. He hated it. He hated the thought of hurting Madge more. Besides, she was seeing someone about her depression, had finally agreed to take the necessary medication, and owned up to the reality that her family's hereditary mental illness wasn't something she could ignore, something that would get better on its own. They were each doing their part. They were ready for this step.

Anyways, in the past month he'd spent more nights at the house than his town apartment. Most of his clothes were already there. They still weren't having sex, he usually slept in the downstairs guest room unless they fell asleep watching t.v., but they made out. A lot. A whole lot. Thom said they were in the midst of a second honeymoon period, when really it was more like they were experiencing the high school sweethearts phase they'd missed out on when they'd been actual teenagers. The physical aspect of their relationship had gone from nothing to everything without the build up in between. He liked the in-between stuff, though he'd be lying if he said it didn't kill him a little every time they started getting heavy and she hit the pause button. He never complained, out loud. Learning patience was a big chunk of his anger management.

"I appreciate the concern," said Gale. He tossed his water bottle to Thom. "But me and Madge are good. Really good. We've got this."

"You better," said Thom. "Because if you break her heart, I'll break you."

"Thought you were supposed to be on my side," said Gale.

Thom looked at him sternly and said, "You've been my best friend since pre-school, my brother, and you know I've got your back, whether you're in the right or the wrong, except with Madge. If you two ever do get divorced, she gets custody of me."

Gale put his hand over his heart in mock hurt. "I'm sure she'd be thrilled at having two babies to look after," he said. "She'd probably put you up for adoption and don't expect me to rescue you from the foster care system."

"Nah, she wouldn't do that me," said Thom. His fleeting seriousness gave way to the crooked grin Gale had known since they were kids. "She loves me too much. I am her firstborn, after all."

"Yeah, thirty five years old and you still can't wipe your own ass."

Thom chucked the water bottle at Gale's head. He ducked just in time.

Madge was starving by the time she got off work. The whole forty-five minute drive home, she thought about food. Lately she'd been putting Tabasco sauce on everything. Literally. Yesterday Peeta nearly had a heart attack when she slathered one of his precious homemade banana nut muffins with a few of the hot sauce packets she kept in her purse. Before the spicy cravings, she'd been all about spaghetti with maple syrup, and the week before that it'd been doritos dipped in clam chowder. She'd even been struck by a strong desire to try the bubbly, pink dish soap, but had managed to refrain from that particular craving. Though she had snuck a spoonful of wet cat food (chicken pate) at the Everdeens Thanksgiving get-together awhile back. She wasn't proud.

When she pulled up to the house, however, the sight of Gale's faded blue pick-up in the driveway momentarily wiped all thoughts of food from her mind. He was home, officially, permanently. She'd lived alone in their house for so long that she felt an odd flutter of nervous excitement. Or maybe it was just nausea, or heartburn, or the result of having been constipated for three solid months. The baby stirred as if aware that something had changed. In fact, the baby always seemed to move a lot more whenever Gale was around. She joked that her son or daughter already had the nose of a bloodhound and could smell its father from a mile away.

Madge stepped through the front door and found the hall cluttered with cardboard boxes. She heard Gale's heavy footsteps upstairs. The creak of floorboards, once so familiar, seemed out of place now. Wanting a few more minutes to wrap her head around his presence, she didn't announce herself, wove through the maze of boxes, and headed straight for the kitchen. She riffled through the fridge, uncovered the jar of jalapenos she'd been searching for, and grabbed a few slices of American cheese as an afterthought.

By the time Gale descended the stairs, she was popping jalapenos wrapped in cheese, with a drizzle of dijon mustard holding it all together, into her mouth one after the other. "That's disgusting," he said, making a face at her. Madge licked a fleck of mustard from the corner of her mouth. Her gaze travelled over her husband, from his black hair sticking up on end, down his bare chest glistening with sweat from hauling boxes all day, to his denim clad thighs, all the way to his feet. A hot flash came over her. She yanked her sweater over her head and tossed it carelessly onto the counter, fanned her flushed face with both hands, blamed the sudden heat on the jalapenos though she'd been fine a few minutes ago.

Lately, too, she'd had...other cravings. They were still weird. Just last night she'd had an intimate dream involving Mike Tyson, Richard Gere, and an eggplant. Katniss had laughed for a solid twenty minutes when Madge called to confess her nighttime foray. When she wasn't hungry, she was horny, and when she wasn't horny, she was hungry, and when she wasn't horny she was weepy, and sometimes she was all three. The nuances of pregnancy never failed to surprise her. Right now, though, watching Gale dip his head under the kitchen faucet, rivulets of cold water trickling down the back of his neck, she was just horny.

Gale grinned when he caught her staring, a jalapeno raised to her lips and forgotten about. "You better move those boxes before I trip over one," she said, hoping she'd successfully masked the strain of desperate longing in her voice, hoping he couldn't read the thoughts blazing behind her eyes, how much she wanted to rip off those damned jeans of his and lap up the sweat from the hollow between his collarbones. Gross, she told herself, stop that.

"Sorry about that," he said, towelling off his hair with a dishcloth. "I got sidetracked working in the nursery. I'll finish unpacking after dinner." He turned around, lifted his arms to open one of the top cabinets, the muscles in his back rippling under his deliciously tanned skin. Madge was just about drooling at this point. "What do you want?" he said.

You, she almost blurted, all of you, right now, right here, on the kitchen floor. "Spaghetti," she said instead.

Gale smiled over his shoulder at her. "Maple syrup or boring, old marinara?"

"Sriracha," she said. "Gallons of it, please." Then she fled the room. As the old saying went, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen, and she was burning up. She needed a long, cold shower.

Over dinner, they followed their therapist's orders, telling each other about their day in minute detail. As Madge recounted one of her students' mishaps with an oboe (which he'd somehow gotten stuck in his nose), she was distracted by the way Gale ate, slurping up his pasta noodles like a kid. It was rude, kind of repulsive, ridiculously sexy. Goddamn him.

She didn't want to have sex yet. Well, she wanted to. So, so bad. But it was too soon. He had only moved back in a few hours ago. One step at a time, that's what their therapist prescribed. Today was a huge step. They shouldn't push it. Best to hold off until they settled into living together full time again. Madge stared hard at her plate. As long as she didn't look at him, everything was fine. At least that was the idea, but she still heard him slurping noodles, sensed him sitting mere feet away.

"Earth to Margaret," he said. "You listening?"

"What?" she said.

"I asked how you got the oboe out of the kid's nose."

"Right, um…" She risked a quick glance at him, a mistake, forgot how to speak for a second, and then shook her head. "Very carefully. It was stuck in there pretty deep."

"Oh yeah?" said Gale, his smirk suggestive, one eyebrow cocked high. "How deep?"

Madge choked on a mouthful of pasta. Goddamn him, indeed.

His boxes were unpacked, his work boots by the front door where they belonged (so he believed, though Madge disagreed), and his toothbrush beside her's in the ceramic cup on the bathroom sink. He was home and he didn't plan on ever leaving again. Blowing on a cup of hot chamomile tea, he stepped out onto the front porch he'd built board by board with Thom and Rory's help. Summer was coming, but it was still too chilly at night for the cicadas to come out and sing.

Madge was sitting in her favorite rocking chair, gazing across the dark yard, which was long overdue for a trim. He paused a moment to admire her. There was definitely no hiding the pregnancy now. At six months along, her stomach swelled like a balloon tucked under her t-shirt. He'd never seen anything more beautiful than his wife in her maternity sweatpants, hair piled on top of her head, wispy blonde curls framing her peaceful face, cradling his unborn child. Gale passed her the cup of tea, before perching on the porch rail opposite her. Their first couple of years living in this house, they'd kept the same nightly routine, sitting on the porch together before bed, Madge with her tea and him with his guitar, until everything fell apart.

He hadn't played since they separated, even before that, and he was looking to forward to starting up again, getting in some practice, so that he could teach their son or daughter as soon as they were old enough. Tonight, however, Gale had left his guitar in its case upstairs. He didn't want anything to distract him from Madge.

"How do you feel?" he said after a few minutes more. She took a sip of her tea before answering.

"It's still kind of weird," she said. Then she met his gaze. "Good weird, though. I never really got used to you not being here. What about you? Missing your bachelor pad yet?"

"Not one bit."

Madge rose from the rocking chair. She set her mug on the railing to wrap her arms around his waist. Smiling softly, almost shyly, she kissed the corner of his mouth. Being close to him, having him here where he belonged, she realized she hadn't felt quite whole since he'd left. She didn't care at the moment about taking things one step at a time. They'd never done anything in the right order, always moving backwards, letting their feelings for each other cloud their judgment. Sure, they had problems, but she wasn't worried anymore. She and Gale had always had problems. Yet here they were, together, a family, home.

"Come on," she said, taking his hand and leading him back inside. "Let's go to bed."

Madge felt a pinch self-conscious without her clothes. She glanced down at her bulging belly, red stretch marks like she'd been clawed by a feral animal, and the mild rash around her popped out belly button. It'd been a long time since anyone had seen her completely naked. Would Gale still want her as much as she wanted him?

"Well?" she said, daring to look back up at him.

Gale was at a loss for words. He gaped at her, desperate to touch her, but a little afraid to, a little nervous. Finally, he found his voice again. "You're so fucking beautiful, sexy...perfect."

Madge threw back her head and laughed. The sight was too much to resist. He went to her, kissed her like a drowning man, put his hands on her marvellous body, skin to skin for the first time in months. She shivered at the touch, sighed into his mouth. Their hands roamed, reacquainting, remembering.

It took awhile of clumsy fumbling, breathy laughter, frustrated groans, before they found a position that accommodated her pregnant belly. Gale was careful not to put an ounce of weight on her. She was already carrying more than enough. He watched her face closely as he moved in and out, slow, thoughtful, patient. It was almost like the first time, only her stomach was proof of the opposite. As she came, she reached for his hand, their fingers locked together, inseparable. He wouldn't lose her again, not ever, because his life was empty without her.

Sweaty, exhausted, he collapsed beside her, the woman he'd married eight years ago and wanted to marry again and again, every day until he died. He was overcome with happiness, here in his bed, holding his wife, their unborn child cradled between them.

"Perfect," he murmured. Madge nestled her face against his shoulder. That night, she slept better than she had in months, knowing that he was there, that he would always be there.