Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
Remembrance
Twelve's new cemetery, new memorial, is simple.
It's built at the edge of what used to be the Town, at the edge of the Seam, along the meeting point for the two halves of the now ruined District.
Trees have been planted, most are little more than saplings, barely providing shade for the few visitors that are there on the day Madge and Gale are. Towards the back, though, there are older, stronger ones, trees that had somehow managed to survive the bombing. They're charred, missing limbs and have bald patches here and there, but they still stand tall. The sprigs of new growth on their remaining branches held high, proving to all those that see them that the Capitol had tried its best to destroy them, but that it hadn't. It couldn't.
Madge's eyes try to focus on the stones, each carefully sculpted in Two, etched with the name of one of Twelve's former residents. They're flat, dark rocks, they almost look like stepping stones from the entry. Madge finds that strangely appropriate.
Twelve had been used as a launch pad for the Rebellion, after all.
They're grouped by the year they died, oldest at the front, newest, the victims of the bombing, towards the back.
Gale's gray eyes flicker over the horizon. He hadn't had to come, Madge had told him that she could do this if it was too much for him, but he'd insisted.
"I know you can do it. I know you don't need me to hold your hand," he'd sighed, run a hand over his face, "but you don't have to do it by yourself. You shouldn't have to."
She's grateful for his chivalry, but she thinks, as she sees his eyes begin to shimmer, that maybe he'd needed to see it too. Maybe he needed her to hold his hand.
He presses his fingers to his eyes, they come away dampened, not that he would tell her. She doesn't ask, it would only embarrass him.
Thinking maybe she needs to give him a moment of privacy, Madge takes the first few tentative steps onto the grounds.
Her eyes wander along the rows, the names of people who'd died long before she'd even been born.
The first name she recognizes is 'Delmond Seward', the oldest Victor from Twelve, Mr. Abernathy's former Mentor. Unlike most of the stones, which have broken chains chiseled into them, above his name is a small crown, just barely discernible to Madge's eyes. She stares at it for several minutes, wondering what horrible things he'd been forced to do, or refused to do, before he'd finally died, frozen during one of Twelve's painfully cold winters while out searching for his beloved dog.
Taking a breath, Madge follows the path a little deeper, several years in, and finds a name she knows all too well.
'Maysilee Donner'.
Someone has left daisies on her stone, which has a broken branch above her name. She's nestled beside the two other children Reaped with her all those years ago. No daisies rest on their stones though.
Madge gives the name a soft look.
For so much of her life Madge had resented the name 'Maysilee Donner'. It was a ghost's name, a spirit that held her mother down, kept Matilda Undersee from being a parent. It was an unfair thought, Madge knows that now. Maysilee was a victim, had been murdered on national television for no reason other than the Capitol's amusement, but as a child all she had known was that the possessor of that name was slowly crushing her mother.
A few tears spill down her cheeks, trickle down to her chin, and she swats them away. She wonders, briefly, where her grandmother's grave, a woman that had died during childbirth, is.
It would've been a kindness, Madge thinks, to group the stones by family. The Donners could've been whole for the first time.
Wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, Madge looks around.
Gale has wandered further in, has stopped several rows in and over from Madge's aunt's stone.
Carefully, Madge picks her way across the cemetery, the memorial, to where Gale stands.
She stops, frozen in her tracks, when she sees the name.
'Asher Hawthorne'.
Gale's cheeks are wet, smeared with his tears. He doesn't notice Madge as he crouches down, reaches to the stone and runs his hand over the name, wipes away imaginary dust.
Quietly, Madge takes a few steps to him, drops to her knees beside him. Not breathing a word, she twines her arm with his, laces their fingers before lifting his hand to her lips and pressing a quick kiss to his knuckles, then letting her head come to a rest against his shoulder
"He would've liked you," Gale says softly, a little thickly. He rubs his nose, tries to hide the tracks of his tears by rubbing his face again, "He would've told me I was an idiot for not liking you earlier."
Madge chuckles, "Sounds like he and I would've had a lot in common then."
A garbled little laugh sputters out of Gale's throat, makes him sound like he's choking. His moist eyes, red rimmed and a little blood shot, flicker down, meet Madge's.
He jerks forward, presses a kiss to her forehead, lets his lips linger there for a few moments, his warm breath rustling her hair, skimming along her scalp. She shivers and he bends his head, puts his forehead to hers and locks their eyes. There are flecks of tears still clinging to his eyelashes.
"I wish he could've met Posy, seen Rory and Vick grow up," he swallows, his throat bobs slowly. "I wish he could've met you."
Madge had long ago learned that wishes were more or less futile. That was the reality of life under the thumb of the Capitol. Nothing in your life was ever your own, everything had strings attached and eyes watching. Every action had consequences, and they were never pleasant. Hoping, wishing for anything else was a pointless venture.
They're in a shiny new world now, though, and she's trying to unlearn those hard learned lessons of her childhood, trying to let the jadedness and sadness that had ruled her life go.
Hope, which had been such a dangerous thing, isn't a threat anymore. Before the fall of the Capitol she never would've dreamed she would end up with Gale, never would've hoped for it, that would only have led to more heartache than she already had. Dashed hopes ruined lives, led to bitter souls and angry thoughts, rash actions that got people hurt, things she couldn't've afforded when she'd been the Mayor's daughter.
So she wishes Mr. Hawthorne could've met his daughter, watched his youngest sons grow, met Madge, even though they're wishes as unattainable as the stars.
"I wish it didn't hurt so much," he murmurs.
Madge drops back, lets her bottom rest against her heels as her knees sink deeper into the soft ground.
She understands what he means, the ache that takes his breath away is stinging in her chest too. She doesn't wish it away though.
"I wouldn't wish away the hurt," she tells him. When he frowns, clearly not understanding what she's saying, Madge gives him a watery smile. "Hurting comes and goes, gets better and worse, but we need it." She looks over at Mr. Hawthorne's grave. "My mother only ever focused on the hurt, she forgot there was a reason she could hurt. You can't feel that kind of pain unless you've felt something just as wonderful."
It's a beautiful kind of ache, Madge thinks, to hurt for love. She wishes someone could've told her mother that, that she could've told her mother that. It was a hard learned lesson, though, one Madge has only just learned herself.
For a few minutes Gale is quiet. His eyes are focused on his father's stone, blinking away tears. Then he sighs.
"I think you're right."
She forces a smile, "Of course I am."
He chuckles, it warms her inside out, fills her with a sense of accomplishment.
They sit there for a few more silent minutes before Gale stands, stretches, then reaches out, offering her his hand.
Grabbing it, she lets him pull her to her feet before he wraps his arms around her, buries his face in her hair, and tangles his fingers in it, begins toying with the ends.
"Let's find your parents."
#######
Madge detours back in the yearly rows to find her Poppa's grave, leaves a few peppermint candies at the edge, they were his favorite, before she and Gale venture to the far back of the cemetery.
She finds Mrs. Oberst's stone first, beside her daughter's and her grandchildren's. It's strange, seeing 'Melisent Oberst', bold and bright, staring accusingly out at her. Madge can almost see the old woman glaring at the grass stains on Madge's skirt, where she'd been kneeling with Gale.
Carefully, Madge pulls a small hank of fudge from her bag. She breaks it in half and puts a piece on each of the two stones belonging to Mrs. Oberst's grandchildren. While the old woman hated Madge, wouldn't have wanted anything from her, her grandchildren had always liked Madge and her mother's fudge and Mrs. Oberst almost always took them some.
It's a bit stupid, she knows that, but somehow, she thinks it might earn her a begrudging celestial smile from her family's old housekeeper.
With a final smile, Madge walks a few paces down, finds her mother and father's stones.
It's a little funny, she thinks, as she stares at the stones baring her parents' names, that people had given her family such filthy looks in life for their wealth and security, two thing that only existed on a tenuous cliff, when in death they had no place of honor. Their stones were just as plain, just as lacking in ornamentation as everyone else's.
Her father's stone has a cigar on it, the kind he and Mr. Abernathy used to sit on the back porch and smoke all those years ago. Madge can't imagine the old Victor coming to the memorial, but she also can't imagine anyone else who might leave such a thing.
Beside her mother's name is a small bouquet. A few stems with clusters of yellow flowers at the tops, Madge vaguely remembers her Poppa calling them some kind of asphodel, a half dozen yellow tulips and some white honeysuckle are bundled together and carefully tied with a length of blue ribbon.
Focusing back on the names, she traces the etching with her eyes, memorizing each letter.
This is all that's left of them. Not even their bodies, which aren't so much as dust in the wind anymore, are there.
Madge reaches in her bag, pulls a few sprigs of rosemary out. She splits them apart, inhales the scent deeply before setting some down on each stone.
Gale eyes the little bundles oddly, frowns, but says nothing.
"Rosemary is for remembrance," Madge tells him. "My Poppa had a book, it told the meanings behind different flowers."
She didn't remember much of them, rosemary for remembrance, daisies for innocence, honeysuckle for devotion…
Different colors, combinations, they all had meanings, not that she could remember them all. She'd tried to find a copy of the book in the library, but it must've been an antique, a singular copy, because none were to be found.
The libraries had books that told of the different meanings, but none quite like her Poppa's which was now, like her parents, beyond dust.
Madge picks the older bundle by her mother's name up, adjusts the flowers a bit, then sets it down again.
"My mother loved tulips." She frowns, "I can't remember if they meant something though."
It was nice of Mr. Abernathy to remember her though, remember Madge's father, and she would bet he'd put the daisies on Maysilee's stone as well. He didn't have to. They were part of a painful past, a past he would probably never put behind him, and he didn't have to pour salt on his wounds by trudging out to this final resting place, putting mementos out for them.
Tears begin prickling Madge's eyes at that final thought.
This is the last stop for her little family. She's come to say her goodbye to them, the goodbye that had been snatched away the night of the bombings.
This is her closure, something she hadn't even realized how badly she needed.
Gale's arms are suddenly around her, pulling her to his chest, his rough hands rubbing gentle circles on her back and his murmurs vibrating comfortingly to her.
Hot tears begin soaking his shirt, he doesn't seem to care though, just keeps whispering softly to her, pressing his lips into her hair.
It takes her a second, but she feels her hair start to get damp.
She almost cries harder when she realizes she's upset him again.
"I'm sorry," she sputters into his shirt.
"Shhh."
They stay there, holding one another for what Madge imagines is only a few minutes, but feels like an eternity.
Her mind races, wonders whether her parent's would've approved of her life as it is now. Would they have liked her being with Gale? Or, if nothing had changed, if Twelve still existed, the Rebellion never happened, in some distant, impossible life, if Gale had given her a chance, would they have approved of them?
She wonders about Peeta's brothers.
In any of the possible worlds out there, Rebellion or not, would they have married? Had children? Would they have gotten closer with Peeta, helped him with the multitude of problems that now plagued him? If they'd survived that night? If Madge had been a little faster?
Would Mrs. Oberst's grandchildren have turned out like her? Bitter and hateful or stayed sweet and kind?
The memorial, the cemetery, is full of lives cut short, potentials turned to ash by a vengeful government, and Madge had very nearly been one more name on a cold stone.
She suddenly feels very small, very inconsequential. Her life was no more important than any of the people whose names stretch out around her, yet here she was.
"We'll all just be faded memories someday, Magdalene. That doesn't mean we aren't important."
That's what Birdy Alameda had told her during the Quarter Quell, before things had gone to pieces.
Madge feels her tears slow, lets one last wet cough escape as she calms herself.
She and Gale, her parents, his parents, everyone they knew, would be lost to the gears of history someday. They would be forgotten or distorted, martyred or erased, but that didn't matter.
Even if she was reduced to a name, she's been cut down to that before. When she was first in Ten, after the bombings, all she'd had was the name 'Madge Undersee', and she'd been okay. She'd survived that.
All she'd had was a name, all she amounted to was a faded memory, but that had been enough to bring Gale into her life. Being taken down to her bones hadn't made her any less of a person, and so she supposes that means she isn't any less important than she'd been when she'd been the Mayor's daughter.
Being reduced to names on stones didn't diminish any importance from the lives of the people the stones represented.
Pulling back, she wipes the last of the tears from her face, smears her cheeks with them.
Reaching up, she runs her thumbs under Gale's eyes, brushes away his tears as well.
That warm ache hits her chest, jolts through her, that longing for something that had been both wonderful and tragic. Her old life was gone, and she was always going to miss it, but the here and now, Gale and the life she had with him, was infinitely better. She feels a little guilty at that thought, but she supposes that's part of grieving, learning to accept that you'll be happy, maybe happier, after the storm has passed.
Gale catches her hand, takes her fingers and kisses the tips, "You okay?"
A water smile flicker on her lips as she nods.
She's at the crossroad between the Town and the Seam, the narrow point bridging the past and the present, and she has to learn to walk it, not be trapped in the pain like her mother, need something to numb her senses, nor try to ignore it, as she'd tried so hard to do before Gale found her.
"I think-I think I will be," she tells him.
And she thinks she will be. It's still going to take time, and the hurt will never go away, but it shouldn't. Grieving is a process, the dull ache, that beautiful hurt from loving and losing, is her faded memory of these people, and they're important enough to deserve that.
In all her learning and unlearning, she thinks this is probably going to be the longest lesson in her life, standing at the precipice of moving forward and falling back. Determining when she needs to let go and when she needs to hold on, it's part of growing up.
She's always been a good student though.
The pain will come and go, just like she told Gale, and that's okay.
Her life hadn't been perfect, but it had held bright spots, and she couldn't hurt if she didn't love it and all the people she'd left in it just a little. They were, are still, important.
Taking Gale's hand, she gives it a squeeze before pulling him back toward the path leading out.
She gives her parents' stones one last look, a final goodbye, she may never come back. Her peace has been made with her missing farewell, the need to see those lost memorialized, her lack of closure. All those needs have been met and she knows has to move forward, stop hating herself for surviving.
Knowing that there's something permanent for the lost residents of the District she'd grown up in has lessened the weight on her shoulders. She knows it isn't really important, that even without the cemetery, they were still important, but she, Gale, any number of other survivors, needed this.
There is no grand opening, not speeches, nothing elaborate, but that seems fitting.
Twelve's memorial is a place that lets you decide what to leave and what to take with you, and Madge has decided to leave her guilt over surviving and take all the happy memories of her family.
It's a simple thing, but that's what makes it so important.