Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine
Everest
AN: This is my pathetic attempt at this two shot, so the sequel to 'Wildfire'. I know nothing about climbing, but it just came out like this. My apologies to people who know anything about climbing. See? I don't even know what it's actually called. I'm so sorry.
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Gale feels his face fall into a scowl as he watches Madge laugh with the hulking man dancing with her.
Despite his size, Gale will admit the guy is light on his feet. Then again, they are in an advanced level class. He's probably been dancing with Madge for the past five years, getting to know the little nuances of her moves, the way her hair moves, her nose wrinkles and her eyes twinkle in the poor lighting of the dance studio.
He grits his teeth and battles down the jealousy boiling up in his stomach.
Gale had put himself in this position. He'd been the one to toss their relationship, and with it the right to be jealous of any man Madge might feel any inkling of affection for, away the night of Katniss' birthday, when he'd kissed her.
At the time he'd thought he'd needed the confirmation that Katniss, the girl he'd had the smallest bit of a crush on for ages but had passed up so he didn't ruin their friendship, wasn't the one he really needed or wanted. What better way to figure that out than to kiss her?
Several, was apparently the answer.
The kiss, which was as lackluster as getting his face cleaned with a napkin soaked in his mother's spit, had ended with a sharp slap.
"What is wrong with you?" Katniss had asked him, wiping her mouth as if Gale's kiss were the portal of entry for any number of vile germs. "Seriously? What is wrong with you?"
He hadn't had an answer then, and years later he still struggles to come up with a good answer.
The best he's managed is that, after years of suffering, he'd still been trying to look for the next step up. Being at the bottom had taught him to always be looking higher. In school, he'd fought his way through and then moved to the next battle ground, determined to reach the next goal, the next highest point. It was his way of life, and somehow he'd made himself believe that very principle that guided his every action needed to apply to his relationship.
If he'd been half as smart as he thought he was he'd have realized that eventually you reach the top.
Gale had been so focused on finding that next battle, reaching that unseen next highest point, that he hadn't noticed he'd been scaling Everest. Madge had been the summit of the highest mountain and he had brushed right past her.
Much as he enjoyed having Madge around, she was pretty and funny and easy to talk to, he enjoyed being able to scale new mountains more. In his mind, she'd been nothing but a hill, a small barrier that he'd known he would eventually cross, have to pass by. It had just happened much more suddenly, much more unpleasantly, than he'd expected.
Freedom had been painful for Madge, but in the end, Gale thought at least, both of them would be better off for it. They'd climb higher for having been through their relationship, be stronger. He hated having hurt her, but it would be for her benefit in the long run.
That's what he told himself then, and in some ways, he still thinks that.
Madge did come out the better for their relationship. She deserved to.
Gale didn't.
It hadn't been immediate, realizing that he'd made a mistake.
At first, it was liberating. No Madge asking him questions, texting him to make sure he'd made it home after a late test or offering to come pick him up when he drank too much with Thom. No Madge moving his things, disrupting his organizational flow. No Madge making his bed for him. No Madge asking him if he liked her dress or the newest body spray she'd picked up at the mall.
The girls that came after her were quick and easy. One night stands or less, and Gale was contented. He felt he deserved some nice flat runs of life after the struggles of his relationship with Madge. It was simple, they were simple, though, and eventually he began to hunger after the challenge of a relationship, the tangles that had drawn him to Madge.
Despite looking, drinking to dull his senses and make them all a little more interesting, none of the girls held his attention. They might've all been the same girl for all the variation they showed.
Then Johanna Mason had come back.
She'd been his first mistake, years before, and he should've lost Madge for that fiasco.
There was no Madge now, though, no reason not to finally scale the complicated cliffs of the wild girl he'd come so close to attempting to battle up when he'd only been a teenager.
At first that had been enough. Johanna was wild, quick and fun, but still a challenge. She didn't let him get bored. There was an intensity in her that he craved. A burn that he fed in himself.
Johanna didn't call to check on him. She didn't care if he liked her clothes or how she smelled. She didn't make his bed. In fact, Gale couldn't remember a single morning after they'd woken up together.
Johanna had intensity in spades, but what she didn't have, Gale realized one morning as he crawled out her bed before the first streaks of morning light filtered into her room, was intimacy.
There was no connecting with her, and that's how she liked it. That's how Gale thought he would like it. All the exhilaration of the climb without the baggage at the end.
It wasn't though.
Without the baggage, the cuddling and the calls, the concern, the battle felt pointless, a hollow finale.
He'd looked at Johanna, sleeping without a care in the world, about Gale or anyone else, and realized he wanted the payoff. He needed it, and he didn't know how to get it back.
Months stretched on into a year, then two, and the battles changed, became less about getting to the top and more about staying anchored in place despite the avalanches coming down on him.
It wasn't until a knock came on his door, what felt like a lifetime after his and Katniss' kiss and Madge's running off, that he realized just how far he'd fallen.
"You look like shit," Mellark told him, blonde eyebrows arched up and a little frown on his lips.
"Thanks," Gale muttered, trying to shut the door in his face.
Mellark stopped the satisfying click from coming by stuffing his foot in the jam. He put his hand on the door, and with a small shove, pushed it open and stepped in. His nose wrinkled in disgust the minute he was through the threshold.
"Love what you've done with the place."
"Stuff it, Mellark," Gale grumbled, tossing an empty beer bottle into the overflowing garbage. He shot the idiot a sharp look. "What are you doing here?"
There was no reason for it. They weren't friends, not before Gale had kissed Katniss and certainly not after, and without Madge to bind them to one another there was no tether between them. They were as good as strangers if not for occasionally meeting up when Katniss found time for Gale.
"Your mother called Katniss. She's worried about you," Mellark began, kicking an empty pizza box with his shoe. "Since Katniss currently thinks you're a waste of oxygen for all this crap you've been pulling with Johanna Mason I figure I owe it to at least Madge to make sure you don't burn yourself."
Gale snorted, dropped down onto his collapsing couch.
"Madge? Madge hates me too. Dumped my ass and ran off to god knows where." He hadn't even checked to see that she'd made it. He was an asshole.
"You're complete dumbass, you know that?" Mellark chuckled darkly. "It would be so much simpler if she hated you. Hate is a hell of a lot easier than loving someone that's a complete jackass."
Gale opened his mouth to argue he wasn't a jackass, but found he didn't have the words to. He had no defense for his actions.
Despite apparently getting past his little hill, one named Madge, he hadn't found a more impressive challenge, more happiness and contentment after. He couldn't say the kiss with Katniss wasn't a mistake and he certainly couldn't say whatever the hell he had with Johanna wasn't a disaster.
"Whatever," was all he managed.
Mellark looked at the couch, then around the room. "Yeah, whatever."
They stayed like that, Gale staring at his increasingly filthy floor and Mellark watching him, for several minutes before Mellark let out a long, low whistle.
"You know what your problem is?" Mellark finally said.
Gale had a pretty good idea, but he knew Mellark would make it sound so much more articulate and so much more damning.
"You think everything that isn't a fight isn't worth your time." He shook his head. "You're so used to punching your way through everything that when you have something, someone, that's willing to give you an inch of help, you write it off. It's not enough for you."
While he was only voicing the thoughts Gale had been tossing around in his head for the past few years, it still nettled him that Katniss' golden boy was pointing out his fatal flaw to him.
"And what exactly do you suggest I do about that?" Gale asked, crossing his arms and glaring up.
"I suggest you break off this toxic thing you have with Johanna, call your mother so she can stop worrying about you, and get your head on straight before you lose your scholarship." Mellark mimicked Gale's position, settled his eyes on him. "I suggest you learn some perspective."
After that he left, leaving Gale with his thoughts and annoyance.
The next day, after blowing off Johanna the night before and calling his positively fuming mother, Gale went by Katniss' apartment.
"She's in class," Mellark told him as he let him in.
"I'll wait," Gale muttered, taking a seat at the tiny bar and resting his elbows against the formica.
Mellark tilted his head, thinking, then smiled. "Well, she's coming by the park after, so you might as well come with me."
Gale took in Mellark's appearance, a tank top and pants he was pretty sure were only sold in the juniors section, and shook his head. "No."
"Afraid?" Mellark asked, smirking.
"Only of those pants," Gale answered.
Mellark's smile widened. "You know what? I think you need to come with me. You need a challenge, and I'm about to give you one."
Nearly ten minutes later, after being told he needed this new 'perspective', Gale was out in the park, a look of disgust on his face.
"You want me to do yoga?" Gale huffed. "How exactly is sissy ass yoga supposed to teach me perspective?"
Mellark rolled his eyes. "By showing you just because something isn't 'fast and furious' doesn't mean it's 'sissy' or unchallenging. Believe me, you need this."
Just because he couldn't stand the thought of being shown up by Mellark, who was already down on his little black matt stretching and chatting with the earthy looking little instructor, Gale decided to humor the idiot and show him up.
That, he realized when he'd been left behind during a downward facing duck or some other ridiculous sounding stance, was a mistake. It wasn't until he tumbled over, straight into the grass, while trying to do some lame impression of a tree, that he came to the conclusion that Mellark might have had a point. Not that he'd ever admit to it.
"Not as easy as it looks, huh?" Mellark smirked when the class ended.
Gale glowered up at him, from his 'corpse pose', the only move in the whole hour he was certain he had down well, and made a threatening noise.
"Next class is Thursday," Mellark told him.
Despite still thinking it was sissy, and feeling like a complete dork trying to do the slow moves and holding the poses, Gale grunted an acknowledgement.
He showed up the next two months.
It was a challenge, different than his classes and different than his now floundering non-relationship with Johanna. Like them, it's seemingly simple, straightforward, something he could conquer and move on, but it isn't. It's different.
There's more to it than he realized, breathing and balance, concentration, otherwise it all falls to pieces and you hurt yourself. Kind of like a real relationship. Like the one he'd had with Madge before he'd jumped headfirst down to the earth, scorched and blackened by his own stupidity, below.
She'd been helping him along. Gale had thought he was a solo climber, inching his way all on his own, but while trying to hold some kind of 'boat' pose, he realized he most definitely hadn't.
Madge had been his anchor. She'd been belaying him and he hadn't paid her the slightest bit of attention.
He supposed that was what Mellark had meant about perspective.
Sitting on a thin piece of recycled rubber, in what he was certain was a military grade stress position, Gale's stomach lurched. Madge had been holding a stress position their whole relationship, and Gale hadn't appreciated that.
It took far more strength to hold on, to cling to the side of a mountain and preserve, than it did to let go and find something else to climb and start over, begin again at the base. Madge and his relationship hadn't been a struggle, it hadn't been easy either, but it had been worth it.
"Glad you finally opened your eyes," Mellark told him, when after several long sessions Gale told him just that. Katniss was still avoiding him. Something he'd done under the influence of several six packs and Johanna had put Gale on her shit list. Damned if he could remember what that was though.
With a nod, Gale had rubbed his hands through his hair, damp with sweat, and sighed.
"So," he massaged his neck, looked anywhere but at Mellark, "what do I do next?"
Mellark's smirk fell. "Next?"
Gale cut him a look. "Yeah, for my, uh, perspective?"
"Whatever you want," Mellark shrugged, taking a swig from his water bottle. "It all depends on what you want to do."
"Get Madge back," Gale told him firmly.
Water sputtered out Mellark's mouth and he made a sound reminiscent of Scooby-Doo.
Whatever Gale wanted apparently couldn't include that.
"You've hurt her enough," Mellark told him, wiping his spit covered mouth with the back of his arm. "She's long gone."
That hadn't deterred Gale. Mellark had instilled in him a desire to fight hopeless battles. He'd survived yoga, actually enjoyed it the more he did it, and if that was possible then anything was.
It had taken him another few years, and more than one apology to Katniss over the 'Subaru incident' as it became known, before she trusted him again. Even after that, Mellark still wasn't swayed.
"I watched you break her down, Gale," Mellark told him as he kneaded a lump of dough for Katniss' favorite rolls. "You were so important to her, she loved you and she worked so hard for you, and you treated her like she was barely worthy of respect."
Mellark wasn't about to give his blessing to Gale, and for more than one reason, that was important to him.
Instead of giving up, which Gale suspected is what Mellark expected, he kept on his path.
No Johanna, less drinking, focus and determination.
He would prove himself to Mellark and then to Madge, however long that took.
Five years, which was far too long, but Gale also knew, not nearly long enough for him to suffer for his shit decisions, ended up being the number on the calendar when his newly learned patience was rewarded.
Mellark had shown up late to the park, looking a little flustered, and barely kept up with Annie.
Gale frowned and toweled off his hair, ignoring the sweaty girls making eyes at him, before making his way over to him.
"What's up with you?"
Mellark popped his neck, sighed. His normally bright expression was a little dull, and Gale wasn't sure what to expect.
"I need to ask you a question," he began. He hesitates, thinks for a second, then sighs. "I want you to be my best man."
That was far from what he expected.
"Me?" Gale had thought that when the disgusting love birds finally set a date one of Mellark's obnoxious brothers would be by his side. "What about Rhys or Emmer?"
"Yeah," Mellark nods. "Katniss is going to have Prim as her maid of honor and I thought Rhys or Emmer would be my best man, but I hate choosing between them, and honestly I'm closer with you than I ever have been with them."
That was both touching and sad. Gale didn't point that out, though, just took his water bottle and dumped it over Mellark's sweaty blond head. "I'm it then."
That night, as Katniss was arguing with Prim over what color the bridesmaids' dresses were going to be ("I don't know what color sea foam even is, Prim."), Mellark handed Gale a slip of paper.
"That's Madge's address," he pointed to the front of the envelope. "You go out to the coast often enough, maybe you can swing by there and drop off her 'save the date' for us. Save us some postage."
Gale stared at the little envelope, white with the name 'Miss Madge Undersee' written in impeccable script across the front.
It's still in his pocket. He'd gone by her apartment, met her horrible roommates and received Robert De Niro levels of animosity boiled at him, despite having Mellark on the phone vouching for him.
"You sent us a broken bird," the dirty blonde named after the nutcase from Friends told the Mellark over the phone. "And we have healed that child!"
"Almost rehabilitated her wounded heart," the tall dark skinned girl added with a jab. "She's out living it up, dancing the night away with a tall, dark, and sexy man of means."
"She's at her weekly dance class with Thresh, who she has personally described as a 'Ginger Chaser', and he's an animator or something, how much money do they make?" Mellark sounded bemused more than anything.
"You are unhelpful incarnate," the dark girl huffed.
"You can forget that standing mixer we were going to go in on halvsies for you and angry-pants," the Friends girl muttered.
"Just tell Gale where the dance class is," Mellark finally tells them.
And that's how Gale found himself in the dimly lit studio, watching the girl he chased off dancing and laughing with a man that despite Mellark's reassurances, Gale still feels threatened by.
"Madge isn't seeing anyone," Mellark had told him, several dozen times since giving him the invitation. "She hasn't been seeing anyone. She's been on, I don't know, ten dates. Ten dates in five years, no seconds. She's still hung up on you, even with everyone telling her you're a waste of carbon. Seriously, I've told her, and Birdy, and Katy-Jo Lewes, and-"
"Yeah, I get it, you all think I'm an asshole," Gale grumbled, trying to find the entrance to the studio.
"I don't think you're an asshole. I mean, I did…"
Gale had been too afraid to ask if Mellark had updated Madge on his personal growth. He doubts it. Mellark was Madge's friend first, and not mentioning Gale, whether he was transforming himself from a douche bag of epic proportion or not, was to her benefit.
When he spots them across the room, Madge happier, glowing, than she'd been at any point during their relationship, and for an instant he considers walking out. She deserves so much better than him.
She's still hung up on you.
It's that glimmer of hope, that hint of the summit at the horizon that keeps him from leaving. If Madge still thinks about him, even just the smallest bit, he has to try. She'd always put herself out there for him, and this is his chance to return that to her. His heart is hers to squash.
Gathering his courage, he strides across the room and taps the monster of a man on the shoulder.
"We're a closed couple," the man says, not even sparing Gale a glance.
He can't see Madge, not even a hint of her soft hair, to make even the most passing of contact with her, and that leaves him more than a little frustrated.
Deciding that maybe he should wait until the class lets out, Gale turns to go. He doesn't want to upset her in the middle of what are probably a group of her friends. He just hadn't thought this through…
"Gale?"
Her voice is so soft, like rain after a drought, and Gale can't help but smile at the sound.
"Hi, Madge."
She stares at him for what feels like an eternity and he drinks in every last detail of her. From the loose strands floating out of her ponytail to the chips in the polish on her toes, just barely hinting out the ends of her flats, she's more beautiful now than she had been the last day he'd seen her.
Not having tears rolling down her cheeks, caused by him, also makes a difference.
"Gale Hawthorne?" The giant shoots Madge a look. "The asshole kissed your friend right after she got engaged? The one cheated on you with the hooker?"
"She wasn't a hooker," Madge mutters. The fact that she defends him is yet another hopeful sign.
Her friend doesn't look impressed. "What do you want?"
Gale tries to make himself a little taller, a little more intimidating. "I came over to dance with Madge. I want to talk to her."
"Guess you're out of luck then. She's a bit occupied at the moment," her friend tells Gale, his hand protectively around her waist.
Much as Gale appreciates that Madge has such protective friends, he wants to talk to her. She deserves to knock him down herself if she wants. "Doesn't she get to make that call?"
After a beat of thought, Madge sighs. "Let him say his piece, Thresh."
The giant gives Gale one last dark look before kissing Madge on the cheek, saying something to make her laugh, and heading over to the crockpot in the corner.
"Why are you here, Gale?" She finally asks, once Gale has maneuvered her from the deadly gaze of her companion.
Gale swallows down the anxiety bubbling up from his stomach and focuses on her hair, tries to remember the exact scent of her favorite shampoo. Something fresh and soft. "I came to apologize."
"I hurt you. I didn't realize what you-I didn't appreciate what I had." He chances a look at her, and is relieved to find a thoughtful expression on her soft features before he refocuses on her hair. "I was selfish. I kept thinking I was going to find something better. My whole life I'd been trying to burn twice as bright as everyone else, get noticed, be someone, but..."
He lets his eyes lock with hers, feels heat building up behind his eyes.
"I didn't remember that you burn out twice as fast that way too. And I burned, Madge. You weren't there to keep me from burning out, keep me going, and I burned out."
He'd fallen from whatever point he'd reached and had to start all over at the bottom, this time without Madge to steady him, watch his back, keep him from tumbling down and burning below, in fires of his own making.
They stop dancing, freeze in their corner, and Gale lets one of his fingers trace along her jaw.
"I've spent the past few years trying to put myself together, after I got my head out and realized how bad I'd screwed up with you," he blinks, back tears and lets a small smile tug up on his lips. "I grew up, Madge. I realized I need you."
"Thing don't pick up where they left off," Madge says softly. He's hurt her too much for them to go back to how they'd been. There's a breach of trust, a frayed ends on the rope that had tied them together that Gale had created.
He's going to mend it, though.
"Wouldn't want it to," he says with a weak smile.
When her expression doesn't shift up, turn into a smile, Gale's slips a little.
"If you want this to work, you have to help me. I know I wasn't perfect, far from it, but I was so caught up in making myself someone you'd love that I lost myself. I've grown up too. I'm not going to break myself down for you again. I can't. I have too much respect for myself now, too much life built to give it all up."
Madge has changed, just as much as Gale has, and he thinks maybe they really had needed this time apart. He likes the intensity burning in her eyes. It isn't like Johanna's, Madge could never be like that, but it's enticing. A new facet to her that he wants, needs, to discover.
The little smile twists up, brightens on Gale's face. "Ready, willing, and able."
He cuts his eyes over and gives her glowing friend, eating stale queso from the crockpot, a look. "You think you can call off your bodyguard for me though?"
Madge's smile returns and Gale feels his hear skip a beat. She takes his hand and gives it a squeeze as she pulls him off the dance floor.
Gale lets himself soak in the chill of her fingers, wrapped so neatly in his sweaty palms.
This time he's going to appreciate the wonder and the beauty of her, never let himself think she's being anything but gracious with him when he doesn't get knocked from her and down to his own charred earth below.
She was, will always be, his Everest.