Madge is burning alive. Smoke chokes her, flames burning through her skin. She tries to run, but no matter how fast she is, the fire's always faster. She hears screaming. "Mom?" She's in her house, and she needs to get to her mother. She rattles the door of her father's study. It's locked. She can't get out. Turning toward the window, she comes face to face with her father's melting corpse, the skin dripping off, his eyes –
Madge sits up.
The air is cool on her skin and in her lungs as she gasps it down. I'm in the woods. I'm with the Hawthorne family. We're safe. We escaped. Curling her arms around her knees she rocks herself back in forth, still trying to gulp down all the fresh air she can, but inside their little shelter, there's not enough. She needs out.
The nightmares don't happen every night. On rare nights, she's so tired she doesn't dream at all. A couple times she's dreamed her family is here with her, sitting around the fire and laughing as Gale and Rory bicker. If she's honest, those dreams are worse. They make waking up hurt. But the nightmares are rough too.
On nightmare nights, Madge usually finds herself sitting on the ledge beside the waterfall, a good ten minute's walk from their camp. The rush of the water is soothing, and there's something about sitting on the edge of a precipice that calms her, reminds her that she doesn't want to go over.
As a child, she'd never understood her mother's dependence on morphling, but she's beginning to now. A drug that could make all of the pain and the worry and the anger and the guilt go away... Madge isn't sure she could say no, if she had any more of it. But then she'd miss everything going on around her, like Gale and Rory's banter and Vick's shy smile and Posy. She really doesn't want to miss Posy growing up.
So on nightmare nights, when it starts to be too much, Madge takes herself to the waterfall to ground herself, to remind herself that she really does have a lot to live for, to be present for.
Tonight though, her spot is occupied. She hadn't noticed Gale missing when she'd fled the shelter, and out of all the places for him to turn up... It just had to be here, didn't it? She bites down her annoyance and turns to find somewhere else to go. His back is to her, and he doesn't seem to have heard her yet. Maybe she can slip away without him noticing. She's really not in the mood to talk. Not tonight.
"Another nightmare, Undersee?"
She freezes before turning slowly to look over her shoulder. Gale hasn't so much as twitched. "How...?"
Gale snorts. "You tramp through the woods like an elephant." His silhouette shifts in the moonlight, and his voice softens. "And I hear you, sometimes."
Madge focuses on the tension in her diaphragm, breathing in and out slowly, not knowing what to say – trying to forget her nightmare. She's silent just a beat too long, and Gale twists around fully. He must see enough of her face to know because in one swift motion he pulls her down beside him on the ledge. But as soon as she's sitting, he drops her hand and turns so he's facing the opposite direction again.
"Cry if you want." It should sound harsh, Madge thinks, directed at her. But it's not. It's as gentle as if he'd whispered it to Posy. "You don't have to hide it."
She pulls her knees to her chest and presses her face against them. She takes a shuddering breath before looking out over the treetops in front of her, squaring her shoulders. "I don't mean to always be crying."
Gale's head whips around. "You don't." The hand he resting on his knee fists. "Your family died. And you had to be there for that. I can only imagine–" He sucks in a breath. "And you never talk about it. You don't cry. You just pretend that everything's fine, but it's not, and I know it's not because I hear you whimpering sometimes in the middle of the night and I– I know talking won't make the nightmares stop. But if you want to talk about it, or cry about it, you should. Because Katniss and I didn't cry when we lost our dads, or when we almost lost all the rest of our family that first winter, or when we couldn't decide if we'd rather starve or be reaped – and look what it did to us."
He throws a rock off the cliff, his arm arcing across the sky with the force of it. They hear it splash a few seconds later. Madge blinks hard, but a tear slips out. For him or her or her parents or Katniss she isn't sure.
"I miss her. A lot. But I can't cry about it. So it just feels like a knot in my chest, all the time. Sometimes I think I'll choke. But I'm pretty sure something's wrong with me because my best friend's dead, the girl I thought – is dead. And I can't even–" Gale's breathing hard next to her, nostrils flared. Like a dragon preparing to breathe fire, Madge thinks. But then, he's probably just trying to put out the fire burning his heart to ash.
"You loved her." She says, because someone should.
"Yes," his voice cracking around the word. "I think. I don't know. Not like Mellark with his sappy stories about the first time he saw her and her braids and her singing in school. I just – I needed her. And she needed me. To survive. To laugh with. To be happy. So it just made sense, you know? That we'd be together. Who else could understand?"
Who else could understand losing your dad in the mine? Or having to feed your whole family when you're really just a kid yourself? What it was like to be so desperate you'd brave the woods to survive? Who else would understand that, once you did, the woods really meant freedom?
He doesn't say it, but it hangs in the air between them. Madge sits and waits. Another tear slips out.
"But more than anything, I wish I could just mourn her and be done with it. Because I thought I hated them before, but now it just gets worse and worse until I feel like I'm gonna burst. I want to pull the Capitol down brick by brick myself. And I don't know how much longer I can control it, and...I'm not sure what will happen to my family if I don't." He takes a deepth breath, like he's drowning. "So cry, Undersee. Cry so you can be human and take care of them if – If I can't, anymore."
She does.
Silently, but her tears are hot, and they fall and they burn tracks down her face until her nose runs and she's heaving and swaying. She thinks about Katniss and Peeta dying. Rue. Her father. Her mother, the blood pooling on the bathroom floor. Nita. She cries for them all, and for Gale, since he can't cry for himself. She's rocking back and forth so much he tugs her away from the edge. She's sure he only means to put his arms around her the moment it takes to drag her back to the tree line, but she curls into his shoulder before he can pull away, and they stay like that – Gale's left arm around her, her face buried in his shoulder – until Madge cries herself to sleep.
Gale nudges her awake just before dawn, when the last star is about to fade. From the looks of things, he'd fallen asleep too, but Madge is still mortified. She jumps up and dusts herself off, whispering a "thank you." She hears Gale grunt in response before she darts off toward camp.
She washes her face and considers slipping back into the shelter so no one will notice, but Rory's already begun to stir. Madge decides to start breakfast instead; she'll say she woke up early and just couldn't go back to sleep if anyone asks. No one does.
"Deer again," is all Rory mutters, looking over her shoulder. "Yum."
Gale comes back after checking his snares just as they're starting to eat. Hazell dishes him up the venison Madge has prepared, and he eats it while he makes plans with Rory for a more permanent structure. Madge has no idea how they'll pull it off without tools, but Gale and Rory seem to know something she doesn't. Posy is tired this morning and climbs into Madge's lap for an after breakfast nap. Madge smiles and strokes her hair.
But soon enough, it's time to get to work, and they slip back into their familiar routines. It's as if her midnight cry on Gale's shoulder never happened. So Madge ignores it too.
On a rare occasion that Hazelle doesn't need her help watching Posy, Madge finds herself wondering the woods, looking for a cave or something else that could be made into a permanent shelter. Today though, she hasn't had any luck, and it's getting late. She should probably start heading back, but maybe if she looks over one more ridge, she'll see it: the perfect solution.
She doesn't.
Madge tries not to let that make her anxious. She knows Gale's worried about this too and that he and Rory are supposedly working on it, but he hasn't said much about it recently, and she's worried. She once read something about curing animal hides, perhaps if she could remember how, they could-
"You know, anything I'm trying to hunt has heard you tromping around from a mile away and ran off."
Madge jumps two feet in the air and then whirls around to glare at Gale. "I'm sorry not all of us can walk around like self-righteous, bitter half-wraiths. I'll keep working on it," she snaps.
"Fair enough." His lips twitch just enough to let her know he's amused.
Still, Madge feels a twinge of guilt. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I know you've been working really hard to take care of all of us and –"
"Doesn't mean I'm not a self-righteous, bitter half-wraith at heart." His mouth twists into a wry smile.
Madge shrugs. "You've been scowling less since your back's healed, so perhaps there's hope for rehabilitation. In fact, you've almost been…nice." She pretends to shudder.
Gale laughs. "Careful. You'll ruin my reputation." He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Look, I'm sorry about being rude to you before the reaping. And about the morphling."
She blinks at him. Surely he realizes that allowing her to cry (and fall asleep) on his shoulder was more than enough to make up for his rudeness when he was in pain and worried about trying to protect his family. Or before he really knew her. She shrugs again so it's clear. "It's fine. Most people thought I was a spoiled brat, and in a lot of ways they were right."
Gale unstrings Katniss' bow and puts it in the quiver. "Well, you've done well out here," he says. "But I'm still not letting you near me with a needle anytime soon."
Madge smiles. "Fair enough."
He walks her back to camp. She wants to ask him about what, exactly, his plans are for finding them shelter for the winter. But she sees the stress crease between his brows so she doesn't. She just has to trust him. Gale will come through, he always does.
They wind up together at the ledge again one night after Madge has one of the good dreams that hurt worse than the nightmares. This time they trade confessions between patches of companionable silence. Madge sees why Katniss and Gale were such good friends; he doesn't have to talk all the time. Doesn't demand she talk either, if she doesn't want to.
"I know there I was nothing I could do, but I can't help feeling guilty sometimes," Madge whispers.
Gale doesn't respond. And there's something more comforting in his silence than anything he could say. So she picks out the constellations her father patiently tried to teach her. Before, Madge never really cared about them, so she was never very good at it. But she thinks she's found Orion's belt when Gale clears his throat.
"I used to pretend Dad was just working overtime at the mines, so I didn't have to think about how he's just – gone. Or how much I wished he was here, to tell me what to do."
Madge finds the Big Dipper. "Sometimes I wake up and forget that I can't just go back to the house and see them again. And when I remember I can't see anything but ash. And that's all my fault. I set the house on fire."
The leaves rustle as Gale shifts. "Don't tell Mom, but I've almost forgotten what my dad looked like."
"For most of my life I resented my mother for always being sick."
"I resented you for being the mayor's daughter. I thought if my dad had been the mayor, he wouldn't have died."
"I know," she whispers, hoping he takes it as the forgiveness she means it to be. He doesn't say anything else, but the air between them is soft and easy so she thinks he does.
They sit there like that until the stars disappear.
Eventually, Madge realizes that Gale has, essentially, two faces. The first is the one he shows his family: attentive, loving, teasing, and capable. The second is – well Madge doesn't know what it is exactly. His true self? The part of him that is grieving Katniss and his father? She isn't sure how deep it runs, but she suspects it's closer to his heart than he lets on. Whatever it is, it's heartbroken, bitter, and angry.
Gale Hawthorne has always been surly and angry in Madge's estimation, but she'd chalked that up to his resentment of the Capitol, his father's death, and the role of provider he was forced to fill while still just a boy. If he had been able to find some semblance of happiness, if he had been able to run away with Katniss, she thinks he might have outgrown the terrible force of it. He's happy in the woods with his family, she knows. There's a certain freedom here that makes him less rigid than he was when he sold her strawberries at her back door, and when he's joking with his brothers or roughhousing with Posy, scooping her up and blowing raspberries on her little stomach, Madge enjoys being around him. But when she glimpses the dark storm brewing inside his soul, he terrifies her – partly because she's afraid of what he might do, and partly because she recognizes the same dark hatred festering within her own soul, growing with every nightmare.
But there's nothing either of them can do against the Capitol right now. So Gale sets about creating a place to store their salted meat and the root vegetables Hazelle digs up. Madge is supposed to be watching Posy while Hazelle gathers, but really she's recruited Posy and Vick's help in attempting to tan hides. She remembers enough to know that you use the animal's brains and scrape the skin with a sharp rock. Both her and Posy think it's disgusting, but Posy has been asking for another blanket as the wind has picked up, so they stick with it. They ruin three squirrel hides before Madge manages to remember the order in which she is supposed to scrape, wash, and tan the hide. It's likely imperfect, but it seems to work well enough for the three of them to show their work to Gale.
He's impressed. She can see it in his eyes, and it makes her proud, makes her feel useful. The next time he kills a deer, he's careful to keep the hide in one piece for her, and she starts on Posy's blanket. She hopes she's right and that this works the way she thinks it will. Vick and Posy are helping her stretch the pelt between saplings when Gale sneaks up behind them and clears his throat.
Madge jumps.
Gale's smirking down at her.
She frowns. "Can I help you?"
He's standing with his hands behind his back, but there's something lazily smug about the way he's rocking back and forth on his toes – like a preening cat. Like he's trying very hard to appear indifferent about something he's proud of. "I just wanted to check on y'all. Make sure you're doing it right."
Madge puts her fists on her hips and fixes him with a look. "And what exactly would you know about tanning hides, Gale Hawthorne? Everyone knows you spent more time at the slag heap than you did reading in high school."
She doesn't really mean it, and he probably knows that, but his expression when he meets her eyes is a new kind of dangerous. Madge shivers. "Jealous, Undersee?" His words are low and deliberate. "Don't worry. The rumors about how much time I spent there were greatly exaggerated."
"What's the slag heap?" Posy asks innocently. Madge blushes. She should have remembered Posy before bringing it up.
"It's a place where they put what they can't use from the mines. Smart people don't go there," Gale says in his Big Brother voice. Madge has to turn away to hide her smile. "Madge was insulting me." He shoots her a look that is supposed to be annoyed, but isn't quite.
Vick frowns. "But that's where people go to kiss. Rory told me. Can't smart people kiss?"
Gale is going to have a talk with Rory later, Madge can see. "No," he drawls. "They can't. Especially if they're girls." He looks meaningfully at Posy.
Understanding dawns in Vick's eyes, but it's quickly replaced with mischief. "Does that mean you've never kissed anyone, Madge?"
She blushes, but answers honestly. "It does."
"Never ever?"
"Never ever." She can feel Gale's eyes on her, so she turns back to tying the hide to the tree.
"Not even when you sneak out at night with Gale?"
Madge freezes. How had he known about that? But then, they all slept in one shelter. All Vick would have had to do is wake up one night and notice both Madge and Gale were missing from their spots. She turns slowly, blushing to the roots of her hair.
"Vick." It isn't Gale's Big Brother voice; it's his Dad Voice.
Vick looks a bit confused, but he looks sincerely remorseful. "I'm sorry, Madge," he says meekly.
Gale is still scowling at him disapprovingly, so Madge sighs. "It's okay, Vick. To answer your question, no." She hands him one of the rocks they've been using to scrape hides. "Here, if you start on the right, I'll do the left."
Vick takes the rock, but hesitates. "Does that mean you and Gale aren't getting married?"
Madge stares at him. "No, of course not!" She's sure she's beet red now. Gale looks like he's swallowed a frog.
"Oh." Vick looks crushed but turns to get to work.
"Does that mean you're going to leave us?" Posy wails. There are tears in her eyes, and Madge's heart breaks.
"Of course not! Why would you think that?" Madge cries as Posy flings her arms around her legs. Madge untangles Posy enough so she can bend down and hug her properly.
"Only families live together, and momma said that the only way someone who isn't your brother or sister can be part of your family and live with you forever is if you get married. Please don't leave us, Madge!" Posy cries into her neck. "If you don't want to marry Gale, that's okay! You can marry me!"
Dumbstruck, Madge cranes her neck up to look at Gale for help. She half expects him to be laughing, but instead he's pensive. And refuses to meet her eyes. "Thank you for the offer, Posy. But you're a little young to be proposing marriage."
Posy rips away to throw herself at Gale. "Please, Gale. You've got to make Madge want to marry you! You've got to! That way she can't leave us." Her face is tearstained and pleading.
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Don't worry, Pose. She's not going anywhere. Come on, let's go sort this misunderstanding out with Ma." He scoops her up in his arms. "I was going to show y'all our new house. But I guess that'll have to wait for later," he calls over his shoulder as he makes his way down the ridge.
Madge and Vick work in silence until the hide is done. Then Vick lays down his rock and studies her. "Why won't you marry Gale? Is it – is it because of us?"
"What?" She's unsure how on earth the Hawthorne siblings have gotten it into their head that she and Gale are remotely romantically compatible, much less marriage material.
"Well, I mean, you saved Gale's life and came out here with us, so you've got to be in love with him, right? And there's no one else to marry out here."
Madge needs to sit down if they're going to have this conversation, which, frankly, now looks unavoidable. She plops herself down under a nearby maple and rests her forearms on her knees. "Vick, there's – this is – it's complicated. I didn't come with y'all into the woods because I love Gale. I came because the Capitol killed my parents and wanted to kill me too. I had nowhere else to go."
Vick blinks. "But, why did you save Gale then?"
Madge sighs. "Saving Gale…was something I did because it was the right thing to do. I didn't want to see the Capitol kill anyone else. And I knew that your family would be a target for the new Peacekeepers. Plus, and this is selfish to say, but I knew I couldn't survive out here without you. And a friend offered to help me do it."
"Oh." Vick sits down beside her. "So what does that make you to us then?"
Madge hugs her knees to her chest. "I don't – I don't know." Posy's right: she isn't family. And while she doubts Hazell or Gale would ever turn her out into the wilderness alone, having no family of her own still makes her feel small and lonely.
"Do you think you ever could love Gale?"
Madge glances over at Vick sharply. But his face so somber for him to be just a kid that it makes her shove down her annoyance. "I'm sure crazier things have happened, though I can't think of any right now. For one thing, Gale loved Katniss, so the past few months have been really hard for him." Vick looks up, surprised. Madge feels bad about divulging Gale's secret, but she'd never actually been told it was a secret, and apparently Vick needs to know. "I don't want to fall in love with someone who is already in love with someone else. And I doubt Gale could ever see me that way."
"But you make him happy," Vick protests. "He laughs with you, and he teases you."
Madge sighs. "Gale and I are friends, Vick. That's all. Why does this matter to you so much?"
Vick rips a leaf in half, and then quarters, and then eighths till it's ripped to shreds. "Gale used to talk to Ma about running away to the woods before graduation, so he wouldn't have to go to the mines. I didn't mean to overhear; they'd just be up late at night, talking when they thought all the rest of us were asleep. He said we could all make it out here just as well as we did in the Seam, even better. But Ma asked if he'd be happy, living out in the middle of nowhere with just us. Didn't he want to get married and have a family one day? And Gale said that he'd bring a wife with him. Ma said he was crazy, but when we ended up here, I thought–" Vick swallows. "I just want him to be happy for once. To not feel like we ruined his life because he had to take care of us."
Madge doesn't know what to say. She knows how much the Hawthornes love each other, knows they all want Gale to be happy again, to move on from Katniss one day. Madge wants that for him too. But if Gale ever would, well…Vick's right. She's the only eligible woman around for miles. It makes her want to laugh at the irony. Poor Gale Hawthorne, exiled from the District with the one girl he'd hated.
She wonders if he ever really thought his plan all the way through, back when he was talking it out with Hazelle. What was he planning to do when his siblings came of age? Not that there wouldn't be things that they'd need from town before then. Like medicine, since they didn't have Mrs. Everdeen. And shoes, and clothes, and tools. And that's when Madge knows within her heart that living in the woods with the Hawthornes is only a temporary solution to their problems. The old guilt from their first days out here settles back around her shoulders. What has she done to these sweet kids? How can she ever fix this for them?
Right now though, she has to comfort a boy who only wants happiness for his older brother. She ruffles his hair as she stands. "Don't worry, Vick. Somehow, I'm sure Gale will find someone else he loves and wants to marry one day. But when he does, that will be his decision. It will have nothing to do with wanting to escape from you guys. I know Gale loves you more than anything, and I know he doesn't regret doing whatever he had to to take care of you." She smiles down at him. "In fact, I think that y'all are the brightest parts of his life. You make him happy, and you should be proud of that."
She heads down to their camp for dinner.