Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
A Few Years Later...
AN: Sequel to Detention Duty.
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Madge wiggles into the couch and pulls Gale's sweater tighter around her. It's dark and thick, smells of Gale's fading cologne, and doesn't have a single aquatic mammal, real or fictional, stitched onto it. She loves it.
He's out picking up their dinner and he'll be back at the apartment soon so Madge picks up her purple pen and tries to focus on her grading. One look at her student's handwriting makes her wonder if maybe she shouldn't have a small lesson on penmanship to make her job a little less agonizing.
She has her own class now, her own students and her own lessons to plan out, has for a few years, but it's hard to focus on those things when dinner is on the way. Her stomach growls as if to remind her that she's not eaten since lunch, a disappointing meal of steamed vegetables and some kind of bland casserole from the school after she'd left her carefully prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the counter at home.
"I offered to bring you something from the restaurant I was at," Gale reminded her when she got home.
Madge grumbled that she didn't need to be coddled. Though when he offered to go out and pick up dinner from her favorite Chinese restaurant while she caught up on her class work, Madge had jumped at the chance for some General Tso's chicken and vegetable fried rice.
Despite being comfortable and warm, snuggled on the couch as the rain came down in a lazy drizzle outside, Madge gets up and goes to the window, presses her forehead to the cool glass and peers down at the damp scene below. With a sigh, the glass fogs, obscuring the view of Central Park and all the cityscape around it.
She'd never expected to live in a place like this, like Gale's apartment. Madge's apartment had barely been an efficiency, a cramped single room with just enough room for her twin sized bed, dorm fridge, and a cabinet full of ramen noodles. The first time Gale had visited it he'd almost not been able to sit down with his legs out in front of him.
"It's…cozy," was about all he'd been able to come up with to describe it.
Considering his apartment could hold the entire story of Madge's apartment building with room to spare, it was a glowing compliment.
"You should come stay at my place," he'd always tell her after their dates. "I get a crick in my neck every time we stay at yours."
"It's not that bad," Madge had huffed.
He might not have exactly fit on her mattress, his feet dangled off the edge and Madge had to keep an extra set of blankets around during the winter to keep his feet warm, and the shower situation was best left not spoken of, but it wasn't the worst way to spend the night.
"I've gone on camping trips with my brothers and had more room to spread out," Gale told her one evening as they'd eaten leftovers on the fire escape. "And Rory's a kicker."
Still, if she wanted to stay at her apartment he stayed, and Madge was certain he enjoyed it in some ways.
"You like being able to reach the fridge without getting out of bed," she told him with a smirk as he used his foot to grab a beer from the mini-fridge.
He'd given her a grin. "I like not getting out of the bed at all."
Madge had tried to kick him off the side of the mattress after that.
The winters had been the best. Gale would show up in his long dark coat, snow clinging to his hair, with Madge's favorite caramel macchiato to walk her home from work. Then they'd stay in, order greasy food and watch Disney movies while trying to grade Madge's students' work. Cuddling and kissing was inevitable in such cramped quarters, and that was never a bad thing.
It had taken almost a year for him to convince her to move in with him. She'd gotten a job at the school after graduation and he'd pointed out that living with him would significantly cut her commute and keep her from having to take the subway.
"I can have a car for you every morning and it can come pick you up in the afternoon too," Gale had even told her as he tried to convince her.
"I don't need to be chauffeured around," she'd muttered, even though the idea of not having to take the subway was appealing.
In the end she'd had him go with her to buy a bike, though she still has him have a car take her to and from work when the weather is bad, rainy or windy or cold or too hot…
Sometimes she still misses her old apartment, but always coming home to Gale in his suits, or if she was lucky pajama pants, and the spectacular view of the city was a fair trade she supposed.
With another sigh, Madge walks over to the counter and deposits her stack of papers before flopping down on the barstool to try and focus. Just as she's about to attempt to finish adding up missed questions, the door opens and Gale appears carrying several plastic bags, the scent of dinner floating in with him.
"Finally!" Madge squeals as she dashes across the room to help him. She gives him a kiss and snatches one of the bags from him and quickly takes it to the counter, plopping it next to her papers.
Gale glances at the papers, apparently sees Madge hasn't made any progress since he left, and chuckles. "Are you going to give up and just do participation grades?"
Madge wrinkles her nose. "It's a test. So no."
He shrugs and begins pulling the food from the sacks, placing several containers out and pushing a couple towards Madge. "Do you want me to help you?"
"No," Madge sighs. "I'll do it. I just need sustenance."
Grabbing one of the white containers Gale had sat in front of her, Madge settles down onto the stool again and begins opening the top.
Instead of finding her dinner, though, she finds a crumbled napkin.
"Gale, they gave me a napkin!" She pouts, handing the empty container over the counter to him, her bottom lip jutting out.
With a skeptical look, Gale takes it and opens it a little more, pulling the napkin from inside and snorting. He continues to look down at whatever is at the bottom with a smirk as he walks around the counter.
He holds it out to her. "It's for you."
Madge leans back, if there's something scary in there she doesn't want to see it. Gale grins, giving the box a little jiggle. "Take a look."
"No," Madge shakes her head. He'll ruin her appetite.
His grin widening, Gale reaches into the box and fishes something out.
At first Madge isn't sure what it is, all she sees is a pale blue box tied up with a white bow gripped in Gale's tanned fingers. It isn't until he gives the ribbon a tug, begins taking the little top off the box that she realizes what it is.
He holds the now open blue box out to her and something glitters up at her.
It's a ring, a solid silver band with a sparkling diamond settled at the center. It's simple, but beautiful.
"I don't remember them putting those with the egg rolls last time," Madge says, eyes wide and focused on the ring.
"I paid a little extra," Gale tells her.
A little extra? Madge is fairly certain a ring from Tiffany's costs more than a small tip to the cook.
Carefully, he plucks the ring up and takes her hand, sliding the ring on her finger.
"I considered getting you a dinglehopper, but since we're eating Chinese it seemed a like a waste," he chuckles again. "Maybe my mom can make you a new sweater with a singing crab and yellow fish on it to make up for the oversight."
Madge's eyes are still wide as she takes her hand back and examines the ring, ignoring his jab at her goofy sweaters.
"Gale…"
He can't possibly mean what she thinks he means, but there are only so many reasons behind giving someone a ring.
Tears start flowing, rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her chin and onto her sweat pants.
"Is it that bad?" Gale asks, just an edge of concern in his voice as he takes her hand and examines the ring again.
Madge jumps up, throws her arms around his neck and tries not to rub her snotty nose on his well pressed shirt. His dry cleaner had a fit when Madge had smeared lipstick on the collar of the white shirt Gale had worn to an art gallery opening. At least he'd already taken off his jacket; those apparently are a little more costly to clean.
"I'm taking this as a yes," Gale chuckles into her hair, his hands pressing her to his chest. "Unless you're letting me down in a new and interesting way."
With a flurry of kisses, Madge begins laughing. "I love you."
Gale leans forward, presses Madge's back against the counter and slows the kissing down to an aching speed. Suddenly, he makes a snorting noise and catches Madge off guard.
"What?" Madge pulls back, nose wrinkled up in confusion.
Gale's eyes are squinted up in laughter. "I was thinking about Vick."
Madge rolls her eyes. "You are awful."
He begins kissing her again. "Don't worry. He helped pick out the ring. He'll be insufferable."
That makes her feel a little better. She'd felt badly when she and Gale had started dating and it was still apparent Vick had a crush on her. While she's certain he's past that, he's had several girlfriends since hitting his last growth spurt, she still feels a little like she used him even though it was all Gale, with his smooth talking and his painfully well cut suits, that had started their relationship.
In one smooth move Gale lifts her up and begins carrying her through the living area, past the wide window and the soggy view outside, towards the bedroom. Dinner and grading will just have to wait.