Disclaimer: How did this ever get to be 50 chapters omg
Once everyone leaves for District 2, District 13 feels quiet. I've only been here a few days but I was already getting used to the fast pace. Now, however, it's more laid back in the halls. In the special defense area though, it's hectic. I don't go in that direction, it makes me nervous.
The first night Haymitch is gone I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. I can't sleep. I keep thinking about how District 13 is underground just like the prisons were. All of a sudden everything feels heavy and I force myself out of bed so I can wander the halls. I get scolded twice by people who look official but completely ignore their commands. Haymitch was the only person I could talk to and now he's over in District 2. I bet I could call him and talk to him, that would be reassuring, but I won't. Too much of a hassle. Instead I wander and wander until I reach the hospital wing. It feels homey to me.
Without realizing it I make my way to where Peeta is being held. There's no one in the observation room but I'm sure there's a camera trained on him somewhere. I watch as his chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm while he sleeps. "You're not supposed to go in there," a voice suddenly says, pulling my vision away from the restrained boy.
"I was just watching," I turn to the girl and let my arms fall limp at my sides. She has bruises and welts, much like Bristel has, but her head is shaved. She winces when she walks closer, looking in. "He looks normal when he sleeps."
"Everyone looks normal when they sleep," she shoots back, leaning against the window. "His cell was near mine, he'd talk in his sleep." I glance back and study his face; sure enough his lips are moving gently as if he's trying to get out a message. It's too faint, too weak for us to hear from where we stand. "Mostly just say her name, sometimes angry, sometimes not." I nod, knowing she means Katniss.
"Johanna!" a voice calls from out in the hallway. The girl in the observation room with me doesn't shift. "Johanna!" they call again, and she rolls her eyes. Finally, the boy from the other day, Finnick, strides into the room. "Gone for not even five minutes and you up and walk away! You can't just do that!"
"Just stretching my legs," she says back, walking toward him. "See ya later, princess," she calls over her shoulder to me. Finnick watches me for a moment and frowns, and then he helps Johanna back to wherever she needed to be. My arms wrap around my body and I sigh, feeling awfully lonely. I decide to go try to sleep again and make my way out of the observation room, back into the halls.
I've only been walking a few minutes when a voice calls to me. "Madge!" I turn slowly, it still makes me nervous that everyone knows my name, but I smile when I see the boy from that group therapy thing. Rory, his name was. "Hey!"
"Hi," I say shyly. He picks up his pace and walks beside me.
"Where ya going?"
"Oh, um, home. Or well, Haymitch's. My house too, I guess. I was gonna try to sleep." He nods and slows his pace, I slow mine too. "It's hard sleeping by myself, you know, with no one home. I've just been walking around," I admit quickly.
He smiles, "You can come to my house! My mom won't mind, you can sleep on the couch."
"Oh, Rory," I sigh, "I don't know."
"You used to stay at my house all the time anyways," he shrugs. "Come on, just for the night!" He looks so eager I find myself nodding and following him. He takes many twists and turns and eventually we end up outside some sort of housing unit. "I'm not supposed to be out either but I was visiting Prim." I smile lightly, they must like each other. I saw how he looked at her in the therapy session. "Nightmares?"
"Just feeling claustrophobic," I tell him weakly as he pushes his door open. On the couch reading a book is someone who must be his mother. She looks up, making eye contact with me, and lowers her book. "Hi," I say weakly.
"Madge," she frowns, putting in a bookmark and closing it, quickly standing and crossing the room to embrace me. Her arms wrap lightly around me and she sighs and lets me go quickly. "Sorry, they said you don't like be touched, I forgot."
"It's okay," I say, although my arms are in goosebumps and my hearts in my stomach.
"I'm Hazelle," she tells me, a bit of hesitation to her voice. It's obvious we've met before, but I just nod and smile politely. If she feels close enough with me that she can hug me, I'm betting I can trust her. "It's very good to see you. Very good."
I want to say you too, but I don't remember her. Instead I say, "Thank you."
"Can Madge sleep on the couch?" Rory asks, shoving his hands into his back pockets. "She can't sleep cuz Haymitch isn't there."
"Oh, yes, that's fine," Hazelle scurries off down the hall and opens a closet. It's most likely filled with blankets and pillows. Her voice travels down the hall, "You can always sleep in Gale's room if you'd like, I'm sure he wouldn't mind."
"Gale?" I spit out quickly. Rory turns to look at me and squints. "I, he lives here?"
"He's my brother," Rory laughs. "Come on, Madge," he leans forward and taps my head. I know he doesn't mean it to be demeaning, like it's just a simple thing. It even makes me smile, but inside I'm sweating. This means I've spent nights with Gale a lot. He said I spent time at his house all the time. We must've been really serious.
"I, I'll just sleep on the couch," I interject. Of course Rory and Gale are brothers, they look exactly the same! Why hadn't I realized it earlier! Hazelle rushes back out and makes up the couch for me while I awkwardly stand there. The action is utterly silent. Then she moves into the kitchen to make me some sort of hot chocolate for me and Rory. I sit nervously on the couch and glance around the room, it's a lot like Haymitch's only smaller. Which doesn't make sense because there's more people here than at his. It's just me and him there. Was only supposed to be him. Here they have Hazelle and Rory and Gale, I'm pretty sure there are a few more siblings too but I'm not sure.
Rory sits down next to me and Hazelle hands us mugs. "I'm going to go get some sleep, goodnight you two."
"Goodnight, thanks for letting me stay."
"Night Ma," Rory says, drinking from his glass heavily. He waits a few moments until he hears a door shut and then finally pulls the mug down. "Are you going to drink that?" I realize I've been watching him and he gestures to my mug. I laugh and sip from it, the sweet chocolate flavor sliding down my throat. Rory leans back on the couch and kicks his feet up on the coffee table.
"So," I say, licking my lips to get the moustache the drink gave me off, "I spent the night a lot?"
"Oh yeah," he nods. "You and Gale would sleep until noon. My mom always complained but you could tell she loved it. She'd mutter things under her breath but she always had a smile on." He removes his feet from the table and leans up again so he can drink from his mug without spilling it. "It was like, almost every night."
"Really," I frown, sipping from my mug again to keep myself busy. My eyes start feeling heavy, the warmth of the drink is a good comfort when it comes to sleep. "What else?" I don't want to know, but I do.
"Oh, um," he reaches down and puts his cup on the table and then rests his elbows on his knees. "About what?"
"What about you and me, you said I got you cupcakes once. Anything else that we did together?"
"Oh," he grins, "that day you got me cupcakes we did a whole lot. First we got shoes or something, then we went to the cupcake place. You knew the guy who owned it, it was Peeta's dad." I nod as his face suddenly goes dark. "There was this guy, I don't remember his name… C something. He tried pulling you away before I got out of the shop. It was scary, you were really shaken up by it." I think for a moment.
"Cassius?"
"Yeah," he deadpans, turning to me. "I think that was it. How do you remember him?"
"He…" I swallow, the memory flooding me, wrapping around me like a suffocating blanket, "he attacked me." Of course the Capitol wouldn't replace the painful memories for me. They couldn't do that. Too humane of them. The name Cassius forces me underwater, smothering the goodness out of me. Yes, I remember Cassius. Rory watches me for a moment, his eyes narrowing in my direction. "I remember him grabbing my wrist and trying to pull me away." Just the girl I wanted to see. I shudder, that was before he even really attacked me, and Rory places his hand on my shoulder. "I'm okay," I nudge him off. He's gone, Cassius is gone. "I'm okay. After that we… we went somewhere else didn't we?" As long as this memory of Cassius is with me I might as well try to get something out of it. "Another shop… a… a jewelry store?"
"Yeah, the jewelers. You knew the boy that worked there. He showed me,"
"The things that heat the metal," I finish the sentence for him as the vision unravels around me, Rory rushing into the back of the store while I browse the jewels out front. I squeeze my eyes shut, picturing the boy who worked there.
"You remember," he observes, his eyes widening as a smile spreads slowly on his face.
"A little bit, not all of it. It's… it's like it's muffled."
"But you remember a bit!" he grabs my hand and squeezes it. "Madge, that's great! What else? Anything?"
I pause for a moment, squeezing my eyes shut. "The boy, he, he had green eyes," I say through a strangled voice. Rory shrugs, obviously not paying attention to what color his eyes were, and then fiddles with the hem of his shirt. I remember the boy with green eyes, he's the boy in the video the Capitol showed me right before Boggs got me out. "Do you remember his name?" I ask, my eyes shooting open.
"Do I?" he laughs, and then panics because he thinks he offended me. "Sorry, yeah, it's Jace."
"Jace," I nod, my eyes flittering shut again. I reach up and press against my lips like I had wanted to do when they showed me the video, but I feel nothing. "He's dead isn't he?" He doesn't answer, which is answer enough. I press my hands into my eyes. "I guess there are some things I'd rather not remember after all, huh?"
"I don't know," Rory says quietly. "If I forgot everything like you did I'd like to remember the good and the bad."
His answer startles me, "Why?"
"Because there can't be good things without bad things. I mean, you can't be who you are without having both sides. It's like a black and white picture, it has to be both colors or you don't even have a picture. It'd just be black. Or white I guess, but no picture. You know?" I guess I kind of know what he means. "I was really mean to you a few times, Madge," he says suddenly, his voice going softer than before. Strained, even. "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything I said."
"Aw, Rory…"
"No," he shakes his head and runs his fingers through his hair. "I kept thinking maybe if I had been nicer," he continues to shake his head and now he starts pulling on his hair. "We thought you were dead for awhile, all of us. When Gale told us he just… he got all quiet and then he went away for a really long time. A really long time, and then he got angry and he's been angry ever since and all I could think was maybe if I had been nicer then you would've lived…"
"Rory," I say again as I watch his tiny eyes fill with water, my own threatening to do the same.
"And then you were alive and you were okay and I was going to tell you sorry but they said I couldn't see you because of the Capitol, because you were still scared. And I kept thinking, she hates me, Madge hates me,"
"I don't hate you," I say forcefully.
"You don't know that!" he throws his hands up and rubs the back of his hand up his face to stop the tears. "You don't remember me! What if you did hate me?"
"I couldn't," I choke out. I'm watching this little boy break over me. "There's no way I could ever hate you."
He ignores my words and finally lets tears start falling without a care. "I kept thinking of you in a Capitol cell just thinking I hated you and I didn't! I didn't hate you! And I'm so sorry…" so I throw my arms around him, and I let him cry. "I'm so sorry…"
"Shhh," I stroke his hair as sobs wrack his body. "It's not your fault, Rory," I whisper. "What happened to me is not your fault. Okay?" His crying becomes muffled and less and I feel him nod. "Good. Don't cry over me."
Rory pulls away and looks up at me, his cheeks wet with tears and his face pink. "I didn't mean anything I said," he croaks, his eyes filling again.
"Rory,"
"I said Gale didn't love you but he did, he does, Madge, he still does," he reaches up and rubs at his eyes. "And I called you spoiled and said you got everything you wanted. I didn't mean it, I really didn't."
"I know you didn't," I reach up and push his bangs off to the side of his head.
"I said I wished my life was perfect like yours," his voice gives out and I pull him to me again, wrapping my arms tightly around and holding him. And then I start laughing. "M-Madge?" He pulls away and wipes at his eyes again and I just keep laughing. It just bubbled out of me before I could stop it. Perfect. Perfect! And then he starts laughing too, slowly at first, but eventually we're both in hysterics. I only stop when my sides start hurting and even then I still let out little bursts of entertainment.
"Perfect," I chuckle, rubbing at my face. "Oh, hell. Listen here, Rory," I throw my arm over his shoulder and lean back on the couch as he rubs tears of mirth out of his eyes. "There's no such thing as perfect. As far as I'm concerned, you've got a family that loves you, always has." He nods. "That's what matters. Right?"
"Right," he says weakly. "I really am…"
"Don't you dare say sorry," I squeeze his shoulder and he laughs. "This is me formally forgiving you. Okay? It doesn't matter what the Capitol did to me, I'm going to be fine." We sit there for a moment and I sigh. "Go get to bed, alright? I'm tired."
"Okay," he says, pushing himself off the couch. "Goodnight Madge."
"Night, Rory."
"You're going to remember everything," he says quietly once he's in the hallway. "I'll make sure."
The sound of a whip echoes through the air. Grunts of pain, yelps of agony, flashes of dripping blood, someone tied to a whipping post. I scream until my throat goes raw, clawing forward through the crowd, trying to see who's tied down. My heart aches in my chest, my brain races. Ghostlike white wisps circle around me, snow tinkles above. I keep screaming, pushing forward. The more people I get past the farther away the whipping post seems. They'll kill him! I scream. I scream and scream pushing past faceless orbs. Everyone watches me, everyone looks at me.
Finally I get to the front, I'm forced forward and collapse on my hands and knees. In front of me is a boy with red hair, a bruised face, a lump forming on the top of his head. I reach forward, his skin is cold to the touch. His eyes shoot open and he starts screaming, he's an avox. I stumble backwards, disgusted, shocked, terrified, and another echo of the whip is present. I glance up, and then I see the person being whipped. Gale.
My eyes snap open and I take in a deep breath. Just a dream, it was just a dream. "Madge," a little girl is looking over me, her hair tickling my face. "Are you okay?"
"Posy, not so close, dear," Hazelle says from another room. The girl named Posy leans away.
"I'm fine," I force out, reaching up to rub my eyes. I forgot I was at the Hawthorne's. "Bad dream, that's all." Light flickers from above me and it makes it gives the feel of daytime despite being underground. "Time is it?"
"9:30," Hazelle answers for me. "Vick and Rory had things to do, they didn't want to wake you." I sit up slowly and watch the little girl in front of me.
"Hi," I say to her, and she smiles. "How're you?"
"You're like an angel," she tells me. She must be only four. "You were dead but now you're not." I laugh and sit up more, reaching up into the air and stretching, sighing with relief when my back cracks. "I always knew you were an angel."
"Posy," Hazelle scolds, but she wears a warm smile on her face. "Coffee?" I nod and Hazelle scurries back into the kitchen. "What was your dream about?" she calls out. Posy scoots up on the couch and sits next to me, her gray eyes widening every time I look down at her. She's so innocent, quiet, she hesitates to touch me. Eventually though, her hand grabs mine. "It's good to talk about it," Hazelle continues, entering the room with a mug similar to the one from last night. "It could help." Posy nods, tightening her grip on my hand.
"It's nothing, I'm sure," I say, taking the mug with my free hand and sighing with relief at the first sip. It's made perfectly. "It was just… just someone getting whipped," I tell her quietly, considering Posy's next to me.
"Gale was whipped," Posy tells me. "Awhile ago."
"He was?" I furrow my brows as she nods.
"Posy," Hazelle frowns. "I'm sure that had nothing to do with Madge's dream," her voice is skeptic, I'm sure she just doesn't like her daughter talking about her son's whipping. Instead of answering them I busy myself with drinking my coffee, my hand sliding out of Posy's so I can grip it with both hands. "Right?"
"Right," I nod, but she knows I'm lying. She raises an eyebrow but I go back to drinking the coffee.
"Posy, can you go in your room for a little bit? Play with your dolls?"
"Okay Mommy," she smiles. "See you later, Madge," I wave goodbye at Posy scampers off to her room, her knotty tangled hair falling behind her.
"I don't like her talking about it," Hazelle tells me quietly. "The whipping. She was sick around then anyway, it was just a bad time."
"It's alright, I understand."
"Your dream, though, it was about Gale wasn't it?" I nod slowly and she sighs. "Yes, he was whipped. He was caught hunting, you brought him medicine."
"I did?"
She dips her head into a yes, "Saved his life." I frown, placing my now empty mug on the coffee table. "Maybe you should tell someone about your dream, maybe it means you still have all your memories somewhere in your head. They could try to do something, try to…"
"What would they do?" I ask dully. "Strap more wires to my head? Tie me down like Peeta? No thank you."
"Madge," she sighs.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything," I bite out a little too harshly. She sits straighter and nods, reaching for the mug and taking it into the kitchen."Hazelle you don't know what it's like," I follow after her, exhaling quietly. "Always being scared to sit down incase metal straps shoot out of the chair to tie you down, always feeling claustrophobic, being scared to watch a TV in case you forget whatever you see." She places the mug in the sink and pauses, leaning over it. "I will, okay, I'll tell someone. But not now, I just need to breathe for a bit. You can understand that, right?"
"I'm sorry," she sniffles quietly. It's so strangled, so strange, at first I don't understand that's what she's doing. Crying. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually like this," she chokes, turning to me. "They said that we're not supposed to cry around you just in case it makes you upset but," her voice gives out and she wipes her eyes again. "Sorry, I'm sorry."
"It's okay," I say, the faintest smile spreading on my face.
"Back to," she breathes deeply, "back to Gale, you two had been fighting, I guess. After the whipping you got sick and then you two started talking again, I'm pretty sure. He tried not talking about it but sometimes he'd let things slip with me."
"Hazelle," I rest my hand on her shoulder, and then she instantly leans over me, hugging tightly.
"I'm sorry," she says again. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. It's all I can think about."
"Hazelle," I say again. "They were right, you shouldn't cry around me. I'm not good at comforting people." Then she laughs and pulls away with tearstained eyes. "I'm alive, that's what matters. Okay?"
"But you don't remember my family, me, Gale," she shakes her head. "You two were so precious and I was against it for the longest time. Not openly, of course, but against it nonetheless."
"What did I say?" I can't help but smirk.
"Sorry," she says again, and I laugh a bit.
"I should go, okay? Wander around the hospital wing, maybe help with Peeta some." I can't be around crying people like this, I need to give them time to cool down, room to breathe. Sooner or later they'll be able to see me without tearing up, and that's what we both need.
"My couch is always available to you," she says weakly. "Here, wait a second," and then she scurries off down the hall into her room, emerging a few moments later with a bag stuffed with books. "Take these."
"What for?" I accept the bag carefully.
"District 13 has this huge library," she tells me. "Filled with history books and love stories and action stories, basically anything. All the books from before the Capitol, all these books that would be seen as illegal to us." I raise an eyebrow as she smiles weakly. "It'll keep you occupied. Keep your mind off things while everyone's gone. They're really interesting, very inspiring."
I can't help but grin, "Thank you." I straighten the loop of the bag over my shoulder. "Really, thank you." And that's what I do, I keep my mind occupied. I read book after book, sitting in the hospital wing, with Thom and Bristel in the cafeteria, next to Rory as he does his homework. Book after book, page after page. At least one a day, it seems. People don't interrupt me, they just talk and sometimes I listen. I read fairytales from before the Dark Days, and I read about America, the place before Panem. I read love stories and stories about spies and stories with plot twists. I'm so absorbed in this story about a boy wizard that I barely hear the voices that rush past me in a panic into the hospital wing.
"She's been shot!" they scream. "Katniss has been shot!"
A/N: Not much gadge in this one, but Gale will be back next chapter so there'll be more interaction. Also, in Mockingjay there were a few Katniss/Gale makeout scenes when they went to 2, but that didn't happen in my story. Just clearing that up!
