Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
Because
Gale can see the blonde head of the ADA through the doorway to her office.
Madge is leaning over her desk, reading through a report and scribbling down notes, biting her lip as she does. Every now and then she stops stretches her arms up or pops her neck before returning to her uncomfortable slouch.
For a minute he watches her, enjoying her soft expressions as she reads, makes faces at what must be particularly unpleasant parts before reverting back to a slight frown. When she suddenly looks up he feels his face warm at being caught staring. He hoists a cup of coffee up and walks through the doorframe and into her cramped little office, which had probably been a closet at one point.
"Thought you might be burning the midnight oil."
Gale sets the hot cup on the desk in front of her.
Madge eyes it for a minute, and her frown deepens. When she doesn't reach for it, Gale slumps into the hard wooden chair in front of the desk, reaches out and pushes the cup a little closer to her hand.
"I didn't poison it."
She doesn't look entirely convinced, and he can understand why. He hadn't exactly been the nicest to her.
When she'd first walked into the station, in her pretty little suit and her expensive shoes, he hadn't thought much of her. Just one more ADA they'd break in that would bolt to a better position when the opportunity came.
After their first case, the suspicious death of a young girl named Rue, whose family had upset a local crime boss, though, she'd earned some respect from him. Madge had gone after the man, who'd used a young boy to do his dirty work, fiercely. Not only had she gotten the conviction on the man and the murderous boy, she'd also pieced it to several cold cases, some going back decades.
Now, several years out, she was still with them, and along with the District Attorney and the help of dozens of other ADAs, she was building one of the biggest RICO cases that had ever been seen.
It was a dangerous undertaking. Coriolanus Snow, a former government official, who was both well connected and inexplicably well funded, was at the center of the case. He was a law unto himself, connected to money laundering, gambling, extortion, as well as human and drug trafficking. There was nothing he wouldn't do, up to and including killing anyone who got too close to exposing his operation.
In the past few years, while the case had been in its infancy, several detectives and ADAs had disappeared, vanished from the face of the earth.
Some had turned up dead, sometimes days, weeks, or in a few cases, years later, but most were simply lost to Snow.
Madge wasn't the biggest name in the tangle against Snow, not anymore than Gale's was, but she was definitely one of the hardest fighters against him.
Her father, a councilman, had been killed, rather suspiciously, after blocking one of Snow's proposals. Her mother had died of an overdose, with drugs no doubt supplied by Snow as well.
Gale had people waiting on him at home who'd notice if he never arrived. He had Katniss watching his back, when she wasn't busy being schmoozed by that dope Mellark from the Feds.
Madge is alone in the world.
She could get snatched right off the street and no one would probably notice for days. A thought that doesn't sit well with Gale.
Finally, after a long minute of determining if the coffee offering is safe, Madge takes it and slowly sips a tiny bit out. She smiles. "Carmel Macchiato, thank you, Detective."
He thinks it's a bit of a stupid drink, coffee should be black and bitter, but he knows it's her favorite, so he'd swallowed his pride and ordered the stupid thing.
"You about done for the night?"
Her nose wrinkles and she sighs, rubbing her delicate fingers over her eyes, "No. I want to get a few more of these witness statements done."
Gale nods and tries to get himself more comfortable in the chair. She watches him for a minute and he shrugs, "I'm just getting comfortable."
"Why?" Her mouth turns down and her eyebrows knit together.
He make a face, grunts, "Because the security guards here are a joke and you don't need to walk out by yourself."
Madge gives him a small smile, "You don't have to."
"No." But he needs to.
Because he doesn't want her to be the next missing person on the news he sees.
#####################################################
Every chance he gets, no matter how late he leaves the station, he goes by her office. If the coffee shop is still open he picks up her sickeningly frou-frou drink. When it's not too late they call for take-out, sometimes Chinese, sometimes pizza, or the deli down the block. Occasionally Gale cooks them something, though she's a little suspicious of his abilities at the beginning.
At first he walks her to the subway, then he starts calling her a cab, but after an attempt is made on Chief Paylor's life he insists on driving her home himself.
The first time he sees her apartment building, ancient building that doesn't even have a buzzer or a doorman, something he'd expected from her, he's a little appalled.
"Anyone could just waltz up and get to your apartment," he grumbles.
"Does yourapartment have a doorman or a buzzer, Detective?" She asks, eyebrows arched and mouth in small smirk.
It doesn't, but he has a gun and he knows how to use it. Maybe Madge needs a gun…
"No, I don't," she huffs. "I'm more likely to shoot myself. I'd be terrified."
He wants to come up, make sure her locks are in good order and that her fire escape isn't putting her at risk, but he decides she probably isn't in the mood for his 'insanity' as she puts it, or she might get the wrong idea.
"Thanks for the ride," she finally says, after a few minutes. It's freezing out and she keeps eyeing the snow flurries swirling in front of the windshield warily, working herself up to get out of the car and into the cold.
She has the sleeves of her coat pulled down over her hands, she'd lost her gloves at the beginning of winter and had been insistent that she didn't need to buy more, her old ones would turn up. Gale can see the ends of her nail, a little chipped, poking out.
His hand itches to reach out grab her frozen fingers and warm them in his palms, but instead he grips the steering wheel tighter.
"No problem."
Her lip puckers and Gale can see her chewing her tongue, "You don't have to."
No, he doesn't, but he needsto.
Because he doesn't want her to be another obituary for him to read in the early edition.
##########################################
As the trial date looms closer, witnesses are taken into protective custody.
Gale takes it as his unofficial duty to keep an eye on Madge.
Katniss comments that Gale sees Madge more than she sees Peeta, and she and Peeta are actually dating.
When the trial starts and some of the dirtiest detail come out, fingers are pointed, and long kept secrets are exposed, Gale finds Madge sitting in her little office, just as he always had. Instead of poring over documents and making notes though, she's just staring blankly at her desk. Her hands are fidgeting with a pen.
He knocks gently on the door, "Can I come in?"
She squints up at him, lost in thought, before she nods.
Closing the door, he lowers himself into his usual spot, in the hard chair across from hers, he leans forward with his elbows to the scuffed wood of her desk.
Without thinking, Gale reaches across the table and takes the pen from her before wrapping his fingers around hers.
He looks up, watches her eyes as they continue to stare down at their hands. Squeezing them, he gives her a small frown, "What's wrong?"
At first she looks like she's going to say 'nothing', which he knows is bullshit, but then she shakes her head and sighs.
"I just wish we could've been a little faster."
Gale's calloused thumbs rub over smooth knuckles. "You did everything you could as fast as you could."
She frowns deeper, he can feel her tense, "But…" She sighs again, "I guess I wish someone had been able to do all this earlier. So many of these lives," her eyes flicker to a stack of papers, "wouldn't have been ruined. So many families would still be together, Gale"
Including hers.
Tears begin forming in her eyes, she blinks rapidly to try and fight them off. It only serves to make them fall more quickly, and after a few seconds, fat tears roll down her cheeks, dripping down and onto her blouse.
Gale quickly gets around the desk, squeezing between it and the wall, before crouching down and cupping her face. He shushes her as his thumbs brush across her cheeks and smear droplets on her face. Little blubbering noises and hiccoughs softly make their way out of her.
"A lot of people wish that." Including him. If someone had taken the initiative, battled as hard as Madge and the others had sooner, then maybe his father, another of Snow's collateral damage, would still be alive. "But we're saving people in the future. That's all we can do."
Madge nods, swallows thickly.
Her eyes are a little puffy and red, she's put some kind of concealer under them, probably having sleepless nights over all the things that could go wrong with the trial. Part of her hair, normally a tight bun, is down, as if she'd tugged on it in frustration.
She's disheveled and sloppy, but Gale thinks she looks as pretty as ever.
As she tries to reach past him, snatch some tissue from the edge of her desk, Gale leans over, catches her lips with his.
It only lasts a second, just long enough for him to taste her stupid caramel drink, but he memorizes every aspect of it, just in case he doesn't get another chance.
Her lips are soft, taste like the strawberry chapstick she's constantly using and her silly drink. He can smell her body wash, something with raspberries and her hair still has the clean scent of her shampoo clinging to it. His rough hands memorize her skin, the curve of her cheeks and jaw, though they tingle to tug at the material of her jacket, feel her waist, hips, the smooth material of her skirt…
Wide blue eyes stare at him, a little dumbfounded. Her breath comes out in little puffs, pants, that breeze past him, warm and sweet.
Finally, her eyes drop, "You didn't have to kiss me."
He leans in and presses his chapped lips to her soft ones again, savors them a little longer. A little shock shoots up his back when she starts kissing back.
No, he didn't have to kiss her, but he wanted to.
Because they deserve to not have their lives ruined by that monster again.