Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.
For Auld Lang Syne
New Year, Freshman Year
AN: Happy New Year!
#######
Madge flops down on the sand outside her grandparents' condo and sighs.
There are worse places to be stuck for New Years than Florida, but at the moment it doesn't seem that way.
She hadn't thought it would be this hard, but after talking to Gale, who sounded a bit sulky, it's getting that way. He's back on campus already, in the freezing cold and snow flurries, trying to patch together how he's going to get his reading material for the next semester, and Madge is sunning on the beach.
Her grandparents are great, they really are. Madge is their only grandchild, so she's the sole focus of all their seasonal activities.
Disney for a few days and then Universal, a trip to Miami with her grandmother to shop and then a day on the water with her dad and grandfather watching them fish, everything was planned out without question. That's just how it's always been.
"We're going to do a spa day," her grandmother told her one morning, waking her early for a walk on the beach with their yappy little dog before dragging Madge to the expensive resort for a day of pampering.
It wasn't bad, but it was a bit stifling.
"Would it be too much to ask just to have a day to relax?" She'd complained to her dad when she'd gotten back and collapsed into one of the loungers on the balcony that jutted out from the living room.
"Getting a manicure and a pedicure isn't relaxing?" He'd asked, tiny smile twitching up on his lips.
"Not with grandma micromanaging every little detail."
He nodded. "Sounds like her."
Madge had barely survived Christmas, getting drowned in expensive gifts and the attentions of one of her grandmother's oldest friend's grandson.
"Have you decided what you're going to major in?" Dylan asked. "Financing or business, like your dad?"
"No," Madge had told him, a little more curtly than she'd intended.
"Madge is going to be taking chemistry next semester, Dylan," her grandmother had said, trying to sound offhanded and trying to keep the two talking. "You took chemistry didn't you?"
"Passed with flying colors," Dylan answered as he smirked at Madge. "I'm pre-med."
"Isn't that nice, Madge? Maybe if you transfer…"
She was off babbling, planning out how Madge's life could go if she transferred and if she did just what her grandparents wanted her to and if she happened to get together with Dylan.
"They would be just the loveliest pair," Dylan's grandmother, a woman much more elderly than Madge's grandmother, said with a dreamy smile.
Madge tried not to gag. Dylan wasn't a bad guy, just annoying and a little stuck up.
"I have a boyfriend," Madge had quickly told them, almost shouting it at them, her face warming when she realized they were staring at her.
"Oh," Dylan's grandmother's smile hadn't faltered. "That's lovely child."
Madge's grandmother, however, just chuckled. "They only just started dating, Helen. And you know how flighty children are these days."
"Gale isn't flighty," Madge grumbled.
"He's not exactly from an outstanding family," her grandmother had added, ignoring Madge completely.
Muttering about needing to refill her glass of sherbet and pineapple juice, Madge had skulked off.
She loved her grandmother, she did, but she treated her like an accessory most of the time. Nothing Madge wanted really seemed to matter to her.
"Still trying to marry you off to Dylan the Dick?" Her grandfather had asked, tapping the end of his cigar into the flowerpot next to the table where he sat.
Nodding, Madge dropped down next to him, determined to use him as a human shield.
"Don't worry," he chuckled deeply. "I wouldn't let her sell you off for anything less than land in Palm Beach."
He was only joking, and the fact that he put so little stock in his wife's meddling made Madge a little happier.
"You'll like Gale, Gram-pa," Madge said, looking down at her phone and the last picture of Gale she'd taken before she'd left, him in Peeta's goofy Santa hat and elf ears. "He's really smart and he's pulled himself up pretty much all by himself and-"
He'd held up a hand.
"If you like him, that's all the recommendation he needs," he'd assured her.
She'd kept her head down after that, texting Gale and complaining about the fact that her Christmas tree was nothing more than a little potted palm covered in canned snow and glitter. His texts were the only bright points in her days sometimes.
'I feel like Kevin McAlister' She texted him after taking a picture of the little tree, which wasn't bad, just not really Christmas enough for her.
'Who's Kevin McAlister?'
Madge just rolled her eyes.
"He's probably just after your money, child," her grandmother had told her over breakfast the next morning. "You've got to be more careful about who you associate with. People will take advantage of that sweet streak you have."
"He isn't taking advantage of me, grandma," Madge growled, spearing her cantaloupe viciously. Gale couldn't possibly be with her because he likes her. That would be unfathomable.
"You're young and smitten. You can't see it." She'd given her a condescending smile and sipped her morning cocktail. "Someday you'll see."
It was useless to argue, even if she desperately wanted her grandmother to see Gale in a good light, so Madge had simply gotten up, mumbling about not being very hungry.
As New Years approaches, she wishes more and more that she could just go home. Texts and phone calls aren't enough and her grandmother's attempts to set her up with Dylan are getting tiring.
This is the first New Year's Eve she would actually have someone to kiss at midnight, and where is she going to be? On a friend of the family's houseboat, avoiding Dylan and her grandmother and their pointless efforts to pin her down in the life they've planned out.
Plus, Gale had mentioned that he didn't really have any plans. Katniss and Peeta were going out, some opening night thing for one of Peeta's friends in the arts, and Gale's other friends were going out to parties. He's going to ring in the new year all alone
"You weren't invited?" That hadn't seemed right. Gale rarely got snubbed.
"Turned 'em down," he answered. Madge could almost see him shrugging. "I'm just gonna go hand out at The Hob then head home."
He'd sounded so miserable, more than her, that she'd felt like a complete failure as a girlfriend.
She's considering going on another walk, just to avoid brunch with her grandmother, a car has just pulled up and Madge would bet money that it's Dylan and his poor grandmother, when someone steps between her and the morning sun, casting a shadow over her.
"Enjoying the view?" Her father asks, smiling as he holds out a hand to her.
Taking it, she lets him pull her to her feet.
"Did grandma send you out to get me? I'm not having cocktails with them right now." Or ever. If she wants a drinking buddy then she needs to call up Haymitch because Madge isn't interested.
He squints at her, little crow's feet pinching up at the corners of his eyes as a small smile forms on his lips. "Maybe after noon?"
Madge just scowls at that, causing him to chuckle deeply.
After a few seconds, listening to the soft roll of the water onto the beach and the birds calling in the distance, he holds out an envelope to her. "Here."
For a second Madge just stares at it, plain and white and uninteresting, before he gives it a little shake.
"Take it, Magdalene."
She shoots him a curious look and plucks it from his fingers, toys with the flap for a second-it isn't sealed-before opening it.
Inside is a print off, an itinerary for a flight leaving in a few hours for home.
"Dad, what is this?"
The wrinkles at the corners of his lips deepen as his smile widens. "A very late Christmas gift."
"You want me to leave?" She knows she hasn't exactly been great company, but that's mostly been around her grandmother. With her dad and grandfather she's enjoyed herself for the most part.
"Want? No. You want to though, don't you, Pearl?" He takes the paper from her hand and looks at it for a second before sighing. "Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love. Sometimes that sacrifice is time."
Madge opens her mouth to protest, he shouldn't have to spend New Year's Eve alone, but he shushes her.
"I've had almost all of your New Year's since you were a little baby," he tells her, patting her cheek. "Besides, if I could get out of an evening with the 'Golden Girls' mafia, I would. I'm rescuing you from drunken old ladies making backroom deals over their grandchildren's futures. Especially not when you apparently have a boy you're so smitten with back home that not even multiple rides on the Tower of Terror could get you to stop texting him."
For a long moment she just stares at him, processing what he's saying, before she throws her arms around his shoulders and crushes him in a hug.
He chuckles. "Well, I hope he's worth it at least. I'll be sorely disappointed if I meet him and he's not half as wonderful as you paint him."
"He is, dad."
They stay like that for a few minutes, the sun warming them and the ocean lulling them into a calm before Madge lets go.
"Thank you so much, daddy." She falls back on her heels, tears starting to well in her eyes. "I love you."
He presses a kiss to her forehead. "I love you too, Pearl."
#######
The snow starts coming down hard once Madge's flight lands.
She drags her suitcase away from baggage claim and waits at the revolving doors until she sees her ride.
As the little battered car pulls up and the dented miscolored door flies open, Madge runs out.
"Get in, loser!" Birdy yells over her radio, which sounds to be playing 'Flight of the Valkyries'.
Madge wretches the backdoor open and shoves her suitcase into the seat before falling into the passenger side door.
Birdy slams on the gas and cuts around a stopped van, yelling something out the window at them as she passes by.
Pulling out her phone, Madge looks at the name of the place Gale had told her he'd be spending his New Year's Eve.
Birdy grins. "Couldn't resist the allure of an arctic New Year, huh?"
Rubbing her hands together, Madge stares out the window at the falling snow, turning to black slush at the edges of the road and glittering in the headlights of the cars.
"It's a surprise," she tells her. "Gale doesn't know I'm coming in."
"I figured as much." Birdy frowns as she weaves in and out of traffic. "Decided to spend the Eve with your parasite of a boyfriend instead of your richer than Midas grandparents. Bad choice, Madgie."
"He isn't a parasite," Madge grumbles.
"You haven't watched him work his way through half the females on campus for the last two years," Birdy laughs. "He's smooth, but that doesn't mean he's changed."
"That doesn't mean he hasn't either."
"Don't be a romantic. Love isn't magic. Belle didn't make the Beast all better just by loving him hard enough."
"Belle didn't love the Beast until he changed," Madge snaps. "And Gale was never bad."
"Whoa." Birdy cuts her a look. "What's crawled up your ass?"
Madge glares at the front dash, mesmerizing the windshield wipers, eyes focused on the little patch of dust at the center of the window they can't reach.
"You sound like my grandmother," Madge finally mutters. "She hates Gale and she's never even met him."
"If only we could all have such good foresight."
Making an irritated noise, Madge turns sharply in her seat. "He came all the way back on Thanksgiving, in the snow, to keep me company, he took me out to look at Christmas lights, he held my hair when I was sick after eating that horrible sushi, and even before we started going out he took me for coffee and he helped me move into the apartment and-"
"Madge!" Birdy shouts, turning her radio almost completely off. "First of all, I'm only teasing you. Dorothy is…he's not a complete dick, I know that. If you say he's stopped his sleeping around, being a general petri dish of stds, then I believe you. Though I still strongly encourage you to take him to the county health department before you let him stick his little friend in your lady bits." Madge rolls her eyes at that. "But all that aside, you know him better than me. All those things he's done, those are worth more than your grandmother's complaints. She isn't dating him, you are. Don't let other people get under your skin so much."
If it were only that simple, but Madge's life has been spent worrying about what other people thought, taking their opinions into account. Stopping now seems like a futile attempt.
They cut across traffic, earning honks and flashed lights, onto the exit and into a dimmer part of the city.
When Birdy stops the car, outside a dingy looking bar that Madge is sure probably gets frequented by people who only deal in cash, she turns and gives Madge a small smile.
"Here's your New Year's resolution, stop worrying about other people's opinions. Your grandma, me, anyone. If Dorothy treats you right and you trust him, you don't need to justify it. If it makes you happy, don't sweat it."
Madge stares at her for a minute, uncertain she's heard what she thinks she's heard, before letting a little smile creep onto her face. "Thanks, Birdy."
"Don't mention it." She gives Madge a sharp look. "Really. Don't tell Lil'D I did him any favors."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Opening the door, Madge crawls out and grabs her luggage from the back.
"If you end up needing a ride, let me know," Birdy yells from inside the car. "I'm going to one of the swankier bars on campus, I'm working with the tipsy tow. Need to get some high class customers, but I'll come get you if you need it."
With that and a wave, she's gone, off into the swirling snow.
Gripping her luggage in her hand, Madge pulls it along and up to the grimy looking door, pushing it open and stepping in.
It's smoking, sickeningly so, and Madge has a fit of coughs within the first few steps. Her eyes burn and she immediately wishes she'd left her luggage in Birdy's trunk.
After a few minutes of hanging near the exit, avoiding eye contact with every drunken patron slurring and flirting, dancing unsteadily on the tiny dance floor, Madge spots Gale.
He's at the bar, shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his cheek leaned against his left hand as he runs the fingers of his free hand through the condensation his beer has apparently left on the bar.
Weaving through people, trying to avoid rolling over anyone's foot with her suitcase, Madge makes her way to him.
"Fancy seeing you here," she says as she leans against the bar, cringing. Could she have picked a stupider thing to say?
Gale glances at her, not really seeming to register she's standing there with his hazy eyes and sagging expression, then he sits up straighter.
His head turns so sharply Madge is sure his neck will be sore in the morning.
"Madge?"
She smiles weakly. "Surprise?"
He blinks, once, twice, then shakes his head before his face breaks open in a grin.
"Madge!"
His arms wrap around her and he crushes her against him, pulling her between his legs and burying his face in her hair.
The smell of stale beer and smoke is thick on him, nauseatingly so, but she doesn't care. This is where she wants to be, more than anything. No matter what her grandmother thinks or wants, what Birdy or anyone else thinks, this is what Madge wants.
Gale pulls back, his eyes glazed and his breath heavy and hot with the smell of beer.
"You came home," he says, cupping her face in his hands and frowning. "You flew in early."
She nods.
She already knows what he's thinking, that it was probably too expensive and that shouldn't have wasted her dad's money, even though it was her dad's choice to do that, but either way, she doesn't care. It made her happy, even if it probably was pretty wasteful, and she isn't going to sweat it.
Before he can get a word out, she grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls him to her, pressing her lips to his and tasting the cheap beer coating them.
"Little early for you two to be ringing in the New Year, isn't it?" The barkeeper asks, leering at Madge a little.
Without half a glance, Gale frowns at him before reaching in his pocket, pulling out his wallet, tossing some money on the counter and grabbing Madge's suitcase.
"Let's get out of here."
The air is sharper when they leave the stale warmth of the bar and trudge through the slush of the parking lot, to where Gale's truck is parked.
He fumbles with the keys for a minute, leaning heavily on Madge, before opening the door and gently pushing her suitcase over to the far side of the seat.
"Here," he says, holding the keys out to her. "Had a few."
As if she couldn't tell.
Madge takes them and frowns. "How were you planning on getting home?
Climbing in the truck, Gale pulls Madge in before digging in his pocket again and pulling out a card. "Tipsy tow." He frowns at the brightly colored card. "Mellark gave it to me. Guess he knew I'd be…a little down."
And since Peeta and Katniss weren't going to be in any shape to drive, it was the next best thing.
Staring at the card, Madge smiles. She hadn't told Birdy where to take her when she picked her up at the airport.
#######
They get back to Gale's house, which was closer to Gale's chosen bar, about a quarter 'til midnight.
The drive would've been quicker, but Gale's wandering hands had made Madge's already shaky driving that much harder.
"Gale, you're distracting me," she'd told him.
"Then pull over," he grumbled. "I haven't seen you since before Christmas."
She almost points out that it had only been a few weeks, but doubts it would really matter to him. He's tipsy and eager and not in the mood to be reasonable.
"Let's get inside," she says as she makes sure the truck is securely parked before winding her arm under Gale's and around his middle, giving him a little extra support.
He fishes out his keys and lets Madge open the door as he continues to nuzzle his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply every few seconds.
Inside is sparse, a threadbare couch and an ancient television on a questionable looking stand, a couple of lawn chairs and a fold-up table and pinned on the fridge, several pictures Posy had sent over the years.
Gale starts kissing her again, the stubble on his face is scratchier than usual, and Madge gets the sneaking suspicion he hasn't shaved in a few days.
"I can't believe you came home early," he mumbles against her neck, his fingers working their way up under her shirt and grazing against the skin of her lower back.
Madge shrugs, runs her hands through his hair and lets her lips trace along his jaw, catch on the overgrowth of his whiskers. "I didn't want you to be alone on New Years, Gale. You came back for me on Thanksgiving."
"I didn't have to get a plane ticket to do that though," he points out, his breath hot on her neck, ghosting down the collar of her shirt.
"Idea is the same."
He makes a grumbling noise, as though he doesn't think so, but doesn't say anything, just keeps kissing and nipping at her skin.
While he's pushing her coat off, letting it fall to the ground and into the bit of slush that they'd trailed in with their shoes, Madge sees the electric glow of the tacky neon clock on his wall. Almost midnight.
"Gale," she whispers into his ear. "Gale, it's almost midnight."
He hesitates for a minute, his lips lingering on her collarbone, before he straightens up and presses his nose into her cheek. "I'm gonna miss this year."
Madge nods. She is too.
"Or at least the last few months of it," he quickly adds.
"We're gonna get a whole year this time," Madge reminds him.
"Right," he murmurs, looking down at his watch.
Eyes focused on the neon red of the minute hand and the electric purple of the second hand, Madge waits until the hand is only a second away before pulling him back down to her, getting her first New Year's Eve kiss.
Fireworks start shooting off in the distance, someone fires off a gun, then another, then a car alarm sounds and several dogs start howling.
"Happy New Year, Gale," Madge finally says, when she pulls back, air becoming a necessity.
Gale dips back in, lips against hers, "Happy New Year, Madge."
#######
When Madge wakes up the next morning, Gale is still asleep, snoring softly with his cheek pressed into chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her.
They're in his bed, still in their stale smoke and beer stinking clothes, covered in a worn out looking quilt that Madge thinks Gale must've grabbed from his couch sometime after Madge fell asleep.
It's still snowing outside. She can see the bright white of the sun filtering through the thin curtains of his window and the shades he hadn't bothered to close the night before, to the lazy first day of a new year outside. Fat snowflakes are drifting down, just barely discernible, but she can still make them out and can see the frost forming on the panes of the window.
The air around them is cool and crisp, fresh smelling, encouraging them to stay nestled in Gale's warm bed for as long as possible. When Gale mumbles something, nuzzles deeper into Madge's chest and lets out a long, warm breath against her skin, she decides to oblige.
This is where she wants to be and who she wants to be with, and no one's opinion is going to change that.
Pressing a kiss into Gale's smoky hair, she sighs.
"Happy New Year."