Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
Singin' in the Wire
Gale glares at his phone and curses his shitty reception.
He hates the dinky little airport he's stuck at. They don't even have wifi for him to send an email and his service is almost painfully slow.
Is it too much to ask just to talk to his wife?
He's been plane hopping for almost six months, jumping from city to city, doing quality checks on his company's projects. If he'd have known getting an education was going to mean losing time with his family and friends, he would've picked a different profession at least.
Running his hands through his hair, he drops into one of the ancient looking metal chairs in existence and glances at his phone. No change.
All he wants to do is hear Madge's voice. It's late, she'll be yawning and rubbing her eyes. There'll be a delicious softness to her tone, a velvet quality brought on by the tasks of the day.
He groans just imagining it.
Gale narrows his eyes as he stares out at the almost empty 'airport', though he would just barely call it that. It's probably been around since zeppelins were the hot new thing in air travel.
The tiles on the floor are dingy and chipped. The dull fluorescent lights overhead flicker constantly and are giving him a headache. Gale had tried to get a snack out if the barren vending machine, but the undoubtedly stale chips got stuck. He almost added himself to the yearly count of vending machine related deaths trying to dislodge the stupid things, with no success.
Being half starved probably isn't helping his mood.
If his flight hadn't been delayed for the weather he'd be one city closer to home. A few hundred miles closer to his own bed and the person he shares it with.
His mind taunts him with another image of Madge, so vivid he can almost smell her shampoo. She's curled up in her faded night gown, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, sitting in bed reading a book. Her feet would be bare, freezing cold too, and if Gale were there she'd keep trying to sneak them under his legs to leech off his warmth.
Gale would happily let her steal his warmth now. His body almost physically aches with missing her and that bit of contact would be readily welcome.
Annoyed with himself for torturing his own senses with fantasies, Gale rolls up his jacket and shoves it onto his carry-on bag. He flops over onto it, pulls his well worn hat down over his eyes and decides to try and sleep the delay off.
He's almost drifted off, is at the precipice of sleep, when the little woman at the counter, who is probably as old as the building itself, begins yelling over the PA.
"All delayed flights will be resuming in one hour."
Gale sits up and glowers. The room isn't much bigger than his parents' living room. He's one of only three people in this hellhole. All three of them are waiting on the same flight. Why couldn't she just tell them without using the PA and blowing out his eardrums?
She cheerfully puts the mouthpiece down and grins at Gale. He does not return the gesture.
As he's gathering his crap together he feels a hand on his shoulder.
"Do you need to use the phone, dear?" The old woman asks.
How she glided, frighteningly silently, over to him, Gale doesn't know. His exhausted mind tells him irrationally that she might be a ghost. He quickly shakes that thought away and decides he needs coffee as soon as possible, he's losing his mind.
When he doesn't respond she gestures to the ceiling. "This is an old building. Makes it hard on the cell phones I'm told. I saw you having some trouble and thought you might want to ring someone up."
It's the first halfway pleasant thing that's happened to him since he rolled into this backwater town, and a relieved smile finds it's way into his face.
"I'd like to call my wife and let her know I'm coming home."
The old woman waddles away, waves over her shoulder for Gale to follow her.
He's lead to the little desk, a hideous sea foam color on front with a gold speckled formica top, and she picks up boxy black phone with a dozen buttons for nonexistent multiple lines to transfer onto. She plops it onto the counter and smiles.
"Dial nine to get out."
She waddles over to a microwave after that, pulls out a bowl of what smells like cabbage, and sits down to her meal while Gale calls out.
Carefully, he dials Madge's cell and takes a breath when the line starts ringing through. He hopes she answers since it's an unfamiliar number. She's started screening out calls from unknown numbers the last few months.
It takes a few minutes, the line acts finicky, like it might cut out, but she finally picks up.
"Hello?"
Gale lets out the breath he'd been holding.
"Madge-"
"Gale? Why are you calling so late? Is everything okay?"
"I'm fine," he tells her quickly, calms her frantic tone. "I just-I need to tell you something, and I don't want you to get mad okay?"
The line gets quiet and Gale wonders if the stupid thing has cut out, but the. Madge sighs.
"Don't scare me like that. I think you shaved ten years off my life."
Gale rests his elbows on the counter and imagines her in her nightgown, flush with worry and taking deep breathes to calm herself. He smiles at the thought.
"Why are you calling me in the middle of the night, Gale?" She asks once her fit is over.
"I need you to be at the airport in the morning to pick me up," he tells her evenly.
He almost hears her smile through the phone.
"You're coming home?" Her voice rises in excitement. "Gale! Why did you wait 'til now to tell me? I could've told your mother an-"
"I want to see you first," he cuts her off. "I was going to get in earlier and surprise you, but my flight got delayed and now I just want to see you."
He needs to hold her and kiss her and not just imagine the scent of her shampoo like he's done most of the last half year.
"How long?" She asks, just like always. His time home has been limited.
Not anymore though.
"This is where I need you to not get mad," he starts. When she doesn't say anything he continues. "I quit."
Gale Hawthorne is officially unemployed.
"You..quit?"
She doesn't sound angry, simply confused. Gale had fought tooth and nail for his job and to just quit is probably confusing to her.
"Look, I just can't take this travel crap and being away from you and my family and-"
"Gale, I'm so happy!" Something thuds and she starts cussing, she must've dropped the phone. When she apparently tumbles off the bed and retrieves it she's laughing.
"I wanted you to quit ages ago. I miss you so much when you're away, but I knew how had you worked to get that position-I'm crying I'm so happy!"
"Thing'll be tight for a while, but I think-"
"Gale, I don't care. As long as you're home, I don't care if we eat ramen noodles for the next year," she tells him. He can hear the tears in her voice now.
"Well, I don't think it'll come to that," he snickers. "I'm sure I can find a new job. One closer to home this time."
Gale smiles as she spurts off 'I love you' a dozen times.
He can't wait to get out of this little airport and, if at all possible, never step foot on a plane again once he's back home, wrapped in Madge's arms. There'll be no more 'goodbyes' for them, even if the 'hellos' are kind of worth it.