Author's Note

So it's now been over a year. This &%^$*ing thing was supposed to have been done by now. :) But I was also not supposed to take three weeks to update, either. However, it's been fun! Thank you to all my wonderful readers for sticking with me for so long. Your support keeps me writing!

Also, a warning for this chapter for somewhat graphic/disturbing imagery. Nothing much different from the original Hunger Games Trilogy, but still… just so you know.

I'm about four steps toward home after school when the sound of my name stops me in my tracks.

"Miss Madge!"

I turn around just in time to brace myself as Posy Hawthorne catapults herself into me. I can't catch her as easily as Gale does, so we hardly have the graceful reunion she often shares with her brother. Her little body impacts into the side of my leg so hard I don't know how she doesn't knock the wind out of herself, and I stagger sideways and nearly lose my balance as I try to keep the backpack sliding off my shoulder from landing on her.

"Posy!" I return cheerfully, leaning down to return the hug she has thrown around my knees. The backpack flops over on my arm and I fling it away completely to avoid squashing her with it. Gale's little sister grins up at me, oblivious to the fact that my school bag has now spilled open and is spewing papers into the breeze.

"Posy!" Rory Hawthorne says his sister's name with none of the cheer that I did as he darts our way. "You can't just tackle her like that!" He begins chasing down some of my escaping homework, and offers me an apologetic, half-hearted smile. "Sorry. Vick, come help, please…."

"I haven't seen you in forever!" Posy chirps excitedly, choosing to ignore her brothers completely since what they have to say does not interest her in the slightest. "You haven't visited since Katniss won!"

"I know," I say, and something about it stings a little. "But I get to see you now, right?" I haven't seen any of Gale's family since the end of the Hunger Games. He has never invited me. To be fair, I've never invited him to be around my family either, so I suppose I don't have much right to be put off.

"I haven't seen you at school before," she says. Gale had mentioned that she had started school, but I hadn't looked for her (or the boys, for that matter); I didn't want to push myself into his family more than I already have before he decided he was comfortable with it.

"Well, there are a lot of grades between us," I explain. "I'm glad you found me."

"This is most of it," Rory interrupts, handing over a messy stack of papers. "I think a couple still got away," he says as he glares at his sister.

"It's okay," I tell him. "It's for Mrs. Cooper anyway. I don't think she actually reads any of it. She'll never miss a few pages. Just a tip for when you get her in a couple years," I add with a wink. This pulls a smile out of him.

Posy yanks on my wrist enthusiastically, springing up and down on her toes like an excited puppy. "You have to walk home with us!"

I waver for an instant as to whether this would be a good idea or not, but Rory saves me when he tries to placate the little girl. "Pose, she might have stuff to do. You can't just demand like that."

Wide gray eyes come back up to me. "Pleeease," she begs.

"Well, I guess that was nicer," he grumbles, and I stifle a laugh because he reminds me so much of Gale. He looks at me apologetically again.

It's easy to see how she has her eldest brother wrapped around her little finger. What's the harm? I don't have much reason to be home right after school since my mother's health has improved, and she and Rose are accustomed to my spending some of my afternoons with Katniss. "Okay, since you said please," I tell her. "If I take them home, you won't have to," I offer to Rory, making an effort at subtlety so as not to embarrass him in front of his brother and sister.

Rory smiles and nods as he catches my drift, but Vick pays closer attention than he lets on and snatches up this little hint like someone has handed him a piece of candy. "Yeah! If she takes us you can go with Prim!"

Rory slouches a bit as the embarrassment I was trying to spare him creeps across his face. I get the distinct impression that he's mentally reciting a quick count to ten before he chooses to ignore Vick altogether and tells me, "Yeah. You better do it. I might strangle one of 'em."

Posy drags me with her down the sidewalk to the road back to the Seam while Vick trails closely behind. I don't have to worry about making small talk because Posy takes care of that on her own, so my primary responsibility becomes answering her myriad questions in a timely fashion and moderating the conversation to give Vick a chance to get a word in here and there. By the time they get me to their home, I have an in-depth report on all the best parts of kindergarten and why fourth grade is so much better.

Vick opens the door and makes a feeble attempt to warn his mother that he and his sister have brought home a guest before Posy interrupts him and establishes herself as the center of attention all over again. "Mommy! Look who I found!" she says proudly, as if I am some long-lost toy for which they had all been searching.

Hazelle looks up from a washtub of steaming, soapy water and smiles when her eyes land on me. "Well hello. Haven't seen you in a while," she says warmly as she dries her hands on a worn towel. "Rory sucker you into bringing them home so he could tag along with somebody else?"

"With Prim, Mom. Obviously," says Vick with a comical eye-roll before disappearing through a dark doorway that I presume leads to a bedroom.

I laugh a little at the notion that this is not the first time that Posy and Vick have been escorted home by someone other than their brother. "Actually, no. I offered after Posy insisted."

"Uh-huh," she says as she eyes her daughter with good-natured disapproval. "She does that. I try to break her of it, but I turn around and Gale just tells her 'yes' for everything." For her part, Posy simply frowns slightly at her mother as if to say why would he say anything else?

"Thanks for walking with them," she continues, "It makes me feel better knowing there's somebody keeping an eye on them."

"No problem. I don't mind," I say as I watch Posy dig a school book out of her bag. "Your kids are actually pretty fun."

Vick reappears, changed out of his school uniform faster that I'd have thought possible, and announces that he is going outside to meet some friends down the street.

"Am I going to find your school clothes in a heap on the floor in there?" Hazelle asks casually.

He backtracks quickly and reemerges with confidence.

"And I suppose your homework is done already, in the thirty seconds you've been home?"

Vick frowns. "That's not fair. I bet Rory's not doing his homework right now."

She sighs. "Okay, fair enough," she concedes. "You get one hour then, one. And don't wander too far. Or by yourself," she adds as he darts out the door. When she looks back at me, she appears skeptical that I could have used the word fun in reference to her children.

I am about to excuse myself to leave as Posy clambers into a chair at the table where Hazelle has stacked several columns of neatly folded laundry and decides that there isn't enough space for her book. She pushes a pile of clothes out of her way – thereby sending the pile next to it toppling off the opposite edge of the table. I see it coming and lurch forward to catch it; I keep most of the clothes from hitting the floor but a few shirts manage to get away from me. Nearly all of them come unfolded.

Hazelle frowns at her daughter. "Posy! How many times have I told you to watch what you're doing?" She takes the armful of clothes from me with a grateful "thank you, dear," while Posy tries to explain that she needed more room to open her book.

"You can't just shove things around willy-nilly like that, honey. There's a perfectly good couch right over there that I'm not using right now. You can look at your book there," she says in a tone that is kind but still makes clear that it isn't a suggestion.

"But I need help with it!"

"I can help you with it as soon as I'm done, but I have to finish this first, Pose." Hazelle begins refolding the rumpled garments with military precision. "This is all I do all day. Negotiate. I could have been a lawyer."

Posy's big pleading eyes come back to me as if she is hoping that I will somehow intervene and allow her to get her way.

"I can stay a while and help her," I offer, "so you can finish without having to do everything twice."

Hazelle glances from the trousers in her hands to my face as a small smile twists her lips. "She just gave you the puppy-eyes, didn't she?" She chuckles when I nod sheepishly. "Alright, well, if you don't mind doing it, I'd appreciate the help. Why don't you stay for supper then, let me feed you to return the favor?"

I wonder for a split second what Gale's reaction would be if he came home and found me sitting in his living room with his sister, and immediately decide that I don't care. For one thing, it couldn't be any worse than the first time it happened. But even more than that, I like the feeling of family and warmth here. My own home is always so quiet and, more often than not, mostly empty.

….

"It's all just a bunch of talk," hisses the man next to me. His name is Glen, and he is one of the veteran miners on our team. "People have been sayin' stuff like that off and on for years."

"Yeah, but it's different this time," counters Thom, our lead. "Other things are happening."

Someone else comments, but I miss what he says when my shovelful of coal crashes into the bottom of an empty bin. Rory. I would much rather have a pickaxe in my hands; hacking away at a wall is far more cathartic.

"-Hawthorne said." I perk up at the sound of my name. "The Capitol didn't win the Games this year."

This statement makes me a little uneasy. It's true that I've said far worse about the Capitol, but I've always taken care to ensure that I do it where there aren't so many people around to hear it. "Hey, now," I growl as I spear my shovel back into the pile of coal. Vick. "Don't be draggin' my name through the mud…." I may have instigated a lot of this talk, but I don't want anyone to be able to directly pin it on me.

"What, change your mind?"

"No, far from it," I say as I heft another shovel into the bin. Posy. "Just if anybody important overhears…"

I don't get the chance to explain further. We all stop abruptly at a loud, ragged fracturing sound, which is followed closely by a tremor rippling through the ground and walls around us. Everyone remains still for a second, two, three after it subsides. All except for me, that is; for once I am glad to have the thick darkness surrounding us as I strafe to the side of the beam from a headlamp so that no one can see how badly I am shaking. The cracking noise had been alarmingly close, near the mouth of the tunnel where we are working, and the ensuing reverberations frighteningly real.

"What the hell was that?" Bristel asks. I can barely hear him over my own pulse pounding in my ears.

"Sounded like a fissure opening up in the stone back there," says Glen carefully.

"Didn't sound – or feel – like the stuff we do on purpose down here," Bristel returns, his voice taking on a subtle note of panic. He is right. This was markedly different from the sound of work being done, even from the rumble of dynamite that they use from time to time.

"Just give it a second," says Thom patiently, though his tone is a little too tight to be soothing. "Don't go anywhere, it might just settle."

I fight the urge to run as I notice that the air has become eerily silent, even the echoes of other teams working nearby vanishing as everyone waits with bated breath to be certain that something bad isn't about to happen. Everything in me says that I need to escape, claw my way free of this grave that I am digging for myself. I fight hard against it, remembering that I can't run, that I have a family relying on me not to run. Then the cracking sounds come again but this time they distort, and it takes me a moment to realize that it is the thunderous roar of collapsing rock walls as thick dust billows around and blinds us all.

Madge.

….

I spend the afternoon paging through the kindergarten school reader with Posy. She had been slightly insulted when I started on the first page because her reading ability had already surpassed the basic lessons there, and insisted (as usual) that we skip ahead to the better parts. It becomes clear that this is not a homework assignment - she is so genuinely thrilled to have a new book in her hands that she wants to try to read as much of it as she can whether her teacher required it or not. It's heartbreaking, because having books around the house is something that I have taken for granted for years. When you're worried about how to put food on the table every day, even something as simple as owning a book or two is a luxury. Posy surprises me that she reads so well for her age; Hazelle explains that once she was old enough to realize that her brothers could read while she could not, she pestered them relentlessly until Gale started teaching her the alphabet just to keep her quiet.

Rory comes home and smiles appreciatively when he sees me, and I guess that he's glad to have someone here that isn't actually going to tease him about Primrose Everdeen. Hazelle does, however, but she does it gently when she inquires if he remembered to ask whether Prim's mother had any laundry that needed done. Rory reddens a little at the question and admits that he forgot altogether, but brightens again when she tells him that he'll just have to stop by tomorrow to ask.

Vick arrives not long after his brother, and I am surprised to see that he dutifully pulls out his schoolwork with little prodding from his mother. He might try to weasel as much as he can out of her, but he holds up his end of the bargain, which I suppose is an indication that she is an excellent lawyer and parent. After a while, he looks at me sidelong and seems to debate whether he ought to initiate conversation, then finally swallows his pride and asks for help with a math problem. This makes his sister slightly jealous, but she contains herself after he says "You have to share, Posy," which makes me laugh and gives me a chance to work through a few exercises with him.

Hazelle finishes her laundry and begins cooking dinner, and once she says that our meal is almost ready everyone suddenly seems to notice that it's getting a bit late. The sun isn't quite set yet and the day has hardly ended, but there is still one family member missing from the crowd.

"Gale isn't usually this late on a weeknight," she remarks carefully. It is clear that she is concerned, but does not want to cause her other children any undue worry.

I look down and away from her, letting some of my hair fall in my face so no one can see the blush that floods my face; he is consistently late on Saturdays, and I am the reason why. But today is not a Saturday. I try not to pay any attention to the terrifying scenarios that begin to play out in my mind's eye; surely he only had to work a little late today, or had to run an errand before coming home. It's difficult to force down dinner, though, while I think of what had happened in District Eight only a few weeks ago or the murky details of his (and Katniss') father's death. Even while Posy remains chipper and largely oblivious, I can't not notice that Rory's somber eyes fix on the front door waiting for the brother that has tried so hard to keep him sheltered. He is only a few years away from finding himself in the same place, and it seems that he is beginning to understand exactly what that really means.

I enlist Posy's and Vick's help in cleaning up the dishes for their mother just to have something to do. Part of me almost feels guilty for doing it because Hazelle clearly needs similar exercise, but she busies herself with sweeping the floor and straightening what little there is to straighten in their bare living room. Once we finish, I can't decide if it's worse for me to remain here and wait with them or to go home and leave them to themselves. Once Posy finally picks up on the fact that something is amiss, I offer to sit with her and read a while longer to keep her occupied, which everyone seems to appreciate.

It is dark outside and Hazelle has begun to pace nervously back and forth across the kitchen when the front door finally cracks open. All of us snap around at the sound, and are relieved to see Gale – bedraggled, exhausted, but alive – lean inside. I can't help but smile brightly as Posy squeaks his name happily from where she is curled up at my side. She moves to dart across the room and throw herself at him, but I slip an arm around her little frame when his eyes meet mine and he holds up a hand to tell her to stop. Everyone becomes unnaturally still.

"Just… wait, Pose," he mumbles softly. "Lemme clean up first."

He steps fully inside and past the door and now we can see that his uniform – typically a dull gray – is stained with broad black splotches. I have often seen his clothes smeared with soot (even happily shared in the mess), but this time there is something odd about it. This time, when he turns just so to face his mother and the fabric catches the lamplight, I can see that it isn't dust.

….

It's all I can do not to stagger across the room and throw my arms around Madge Undersee because the fact that she is unexpectedly present on this of all days seems like a perfect, provident twist of fate. She is what I wanted – needed – and here she is, sky-colored eyes full of kindness and strength. But I can't, not like this, not yet. She deserves better than to be stuck with picking up the pieces again.

My mother always has a kettle of hot water ready for me when I come home so I can clean up, but today when I take it from her I don't have to say anything for her to start a second pot boiling. She stares at me, frightened, so I reassure her before I lock myself in the bathroom. "Don't worry, Mom. It's not mine."

I strip off my ruined uniform and decide that I won't even let my mother try to wash it; even if she did manage to get it clean again, I don't know that I could stand to wear it. I can ask for a new set tomorrow to replace them. My boots aren't something that the mine provides for us, and I don't have the spare money to replace them, so I'll have to live with that. The shock of cold tap water as I wash my face in the sink reminds me that I'm alive, though I'm not sure whether that is good news. A real bath would be my first choice but the thought of soaking in filthy water deters me, so I set the kettle in the bottom of the bathtub – old and yellowed but clean, which is the most I can ask for - and sit on the edge of it so I can scrub the layers of dirt and blood from my skin.

Brownish-red rivulets trickle toward the drain as the day's horrors replay themselves in my mind: the sheer terror of the collapsing tunnel, the howls of pain from a trapped worker, the nauseating guilt that came with the indecision about whether to help or to run.

Madge was really the one to make the choice for me, in the end, the girl that admires the fight in me, who believes me to be brave and honorable. It felt like it took an eternity for me to act like the man she thinks I am, but Thom told me afterward that my reaction was nearly instantaneous; I charged toward the stone avalanche before anyone else moved, because I knew that no matter how frightened I was I couldn't abandon the injured miners there. Maybe that means she is right.

The crumbled rocks didn't completely block the tunnel so we could still scramble over them to help, but once I got there I knew there was precious little I could do. I found the screaming man in hysterics, half his body buried by what had once been a wall. Another of his teammates lay nearby, unconscious but clearly breathing, one leg caught under the debris and one arm bent obscenely underneath him as if broken when he fell. I tried to calm the conscious miner as I shouted for help to my team, and when they appeared seconds behind me we began doing our best to heave stones out of the way to free them. Thom managed to rouse the man with the broken arm, who informed him that there were likely at least two others buried in the rubble.

The washcloth I am using has stopped doing much good; it is so soiled now that it is only moving the dirt around instead of wiping it off, so I toss it aside and reach for another. The dark puddle in the bottom of the tub is sickeningly reminiscent of the one I had knelt in on the mine floor while the trapped man clawed at my uniform and begged us to save him. I run the faucet for a moment to wash it down the drain. A light tap at the door precedes my mother's voice telling me that she has more hot water and a clean set of clothes, so I crack the door open just enough to receive them and shut it again so she can't see the mess inside.

It takes a while to get myself completely clean – blood is stubborn once it has dried, and I expect it will be a long time before I feel like it is all gone, even if it's no longer visible on my skin. There will be no forgetting the sight of a leg so badly broken that that bone had split the flesh wide open, or the metallic smell of the blood gushing so freely that it soaked through my uniform, or the shrill shriek of pain when I looped my belt around his thigh as a makeshift tourniquet. We are in our own kind of Arena, here in Twelve. Other workers had carried the man away once we freed him, delirious but still alive, but I doubt that he survived much longer. Even with the help we – I – gave him, most of his life had bled onto the ground and me. And then there were the others we found, after we worked furiously to clear away more stone….

Once I decide that further scrubbing will only remove layers of skin, I dress and prepare myself to walk back out into the living room. When I open the door, everyone is quiet as if waiting for me to set the tone. Without thinking I let my eyes settle on Madge, the warm, fierce drop of sunlight that holds my gaze fearlessly. I had thought of her so desperately today in the darkness, was grateful to the point of pain to see her here when I finally made it home, and she is still there waiting, patient and willing to let me do all of this at my own pace. Posy is snuggled next to her on the couch with a book, perfectly at home. My sister stares suspiciously at me, wondering what is happening and waiting for some cue to act.

I hold out my arms. "C'mere, chickadee," I say. Smiling, Posy hops from her seat and throws herself into my arms. As soon as she catches her breath from the tight squeeze she gives me, she starts in a mile a minute about Madge walking her home from school and helping her read some new words in her storybook. I have a hard time keeping up, but at least she eases the tension in the room.

Eventually Posy has to pause for air and I take the opportunity to set her down and turn my attention back to the girl on the couch. "It's late," I say. "Let's get you home." She nods in agreement and gets up to give my sister a goodbye hug while I tell my mother to throw away my old uniform and warn her that I will likely be late. When she doesn't protest or ask for details, I guess that she thinks I'll be dropping by the Victor's Village; I'm actually just hoping to stretch out the walk to the Mayor's house as long as I can.

While I watch Madge thank Mom for dinner and wave at my brothers, I can't help but wonder again at how this is all so starkly different from how it was only a few months ago. Then I would have been mortified to find her sitting in my home when I walked in, and now it is the only thing I could have wanted. When once I ushered her out the door to get rid of her, I now do it simply because I want us to be alone.

Once we round the corner at the end of the street, Madge looks at me carefully and asks, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I answer. "I'm okay. Nothing hurt."

She doesn't press, and I appreciate her intuition. She is mercifully quiet for the rest of the way, and it is enough to be near her, to know that she knows, to see that she understands that I will speak of today's events in my own time (if ever). Her presence is soothing in a vibrant, unshakeable kind of way. A beacon of daylight in the dark. The walk doesn't take nearly long enough. Following her down the garden path to her back porch is like watching the sun set before you're ready for the day to end.

Madge pauses under the amber light by the door, glittering blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully, perfect lips pursed in that expression she gets when she decides that she is very determined about something. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she says, "but are you alright?"

I offer her what little of a smile that I can, though it's probably a pretty sad one, and reach out to pull her close to me. "I have to be," I say, because it's the truth. She returns the smile, equally sad, and the look of her makes the confession spill out so easily that I wonder if I actually speak it aloud. "It helped that you were there when I walked in."

Her arms tighten around me as she glances over her shoulder into the dark house inside the doorway. "Do you want to stay with me tonight?" she asks gently.

For a second it seems almost cruel that she should make such an offer. I am angry, saddened, bitter – but I'm not suicidal. Still, I'm not ready to let go of her yet and surely she wouldn't have asked if she didn't think we could get away with it. "Yes" passes my lips before I think better of it.