Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine
Winding Up
AN:Follow up the the story 'Broken Clocks', the soulmate watch story.
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Madge watches out the window as Gale chats with one of the girls from the Seam.
She's tall, dark haired and gorgeous. Everything Madge isn't, and she feels a flame of jealousy flare up in her stomach.
As quickly as it lights, she douses it out. An icy lump takes its place and she turns her back on the scene with a sigh. There's no reason to look, it'll only make her feel worse.
Her whole life, well, at least since her watch had stopped what felt like a lifetime ago, she'd expected to be alone. The longer the watch was stopped, the more distant the chance you'd find your match.
"You don't need some stupid boy, Pearl," her dad had told her, only a few years before, after she'd watched an older girl and boy meet for the first time in the middle of her grandfather's shop. "You'll do well on your own."
Madge had huffed, shot him a filthy look before muttering to herself. "And die an old maid with a cat."
"Don't be ridiculous," he'd pulled her into a hug, pressed a kiss to her hair. "I'd make sure you had two cats."
She'd snorted a laugh at that, mostly because she was fairly certain he wasn't serious. He loved her and wanted her to find someone to make her happy, even if she was positive his life goal would be to make whatever boy got stuck with her terrified of him. He'd see it as his fatherly duty.
Standing behind the display of half sold candies, in her frilled apron with a smear of cream down the center, watching the boy that had the match to her watch flirt with half a dozen girls, though, has made her think that a couple of cats doesn't sound so bad.
A strawberry, still chilled, pops in front of her face.
"What's the matter, love?" Her mother asks, hazy blue eyes blinking over at Madge.
With a shake of her head, Madge forces a little smile. "Nothing."
Her mother tilts her head, studies Madge for a moment longer, then sighs. "It's your little boyfriend, isn't it?"
Heat floods her face and Madge takes the strawberry from her mother's still hovering hand. "He isn't my boyfriend."
And he certainly isn't little. Not by a long shot.
"He comes by after school everyday and his brother said his watch and yours are stopped together, are you sure he isn't your boyfriend?"
Taking the strawberry, Madge turns and looks sadly outside. "Does it look like he's my boyfriend?"
While Madge takes a bitter bite of strawberry, enjoying the tartness of it on her tongue, her mother frowns across the storefront, out the window, at Gale and his little troop of admirers. "Oh."
When one of the girls gives Gale a playful nudge and he grins back, Madge decides she's had enough and heads to the back of the store and slumps into one of the little wooden chairs by the back door.
Gale could do better than her. In fact, he probably had done better than her. She's heard about his reputation around school, about the slag heap and his Saturday nights.
Finding his matching watch probably hadn't been as much a relief to him as it had been to her. Finding Madge had meant he'd have to stop dating, doing all the things he apparently enjoys.
She'd offered to pretend she hadn't seen his watch, let him carry on with his life as a happy un-matched, but he'd turned her down.
"I only go out because I didn't think it mattered."
He thought it mattered now that he'd found her, or at least he'd said as much.
Yet there he stood, only a few yards from her family's storefront, chatting up a group of girls.
Madge presses her fingertips to her temples and sighs, looks up at her still sadly smiling mother. "Was it this hard with you and dad?"
Her mother crosses her legs and drops down in front of the chair, peers up at Madge through her messy bangs.
"I don't think he was very happy," she says simply, her smile still lazily on her face. "He ignored me right up until the day May died, and even then he was just being polite because of your grandmother."
Her smile brightens and her eyes rise, focus on something to Madge's right, but it isn't until a warm hand comes to a rest on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze, that she realizes her mother is looking at someone.
"Then she just kind of wormed her way in," her dad says, dipping down and pressing a kiss to Madge's cheek before reaching past her and pulling her mother to her feet and into a kiss.
He's dirty, though not quite as filthy as the men that go down deep in the mines, like Gale's dad. One of the perks of being a foreman, he always says.
His hair is coated in soot, embedded in his skin and clothes and coal dust clings to his heavy boots, leaving a faint trail through the front room that Madge will have to clean up before closing, but she's too happy he's home early to really care.
She lunges at him. "Dad!"
Her apron and dress will need to soak to clean them, but she needs a hug from him after the afternoon she's been having.
While she's nuzzling into him her mother pulls a washrag from her pocket and wipes at his face, worrying her lip between her teeth. "Did something happen?"
Madge pulls back, her mind instantly jumping to Gale's dad and all the awful things that could've happened to him and the other men. Her dad just chuckles.
"Some of the engineers found some weak points and they closed down for the day. Nothing to be worried about, sweetheart."
The front bell rings and Madge's mother reluctantly goes to answer it, leaving Madge still wrapped in her dad's sooty embrace.
"What's got you down, Pearl?" He finally asks, resting his cheek against her hair.
She shrugs and he pinches her side. "Don't be like that."
Pulling back, she drops back into the chair. It's stupid; she and Gale have only known they were matched for a couple of weeks, he's entitled to decide he doesn't want to try with her. It isn't like he'll have any shortage of girls waiting to take her place. He hadn't even chosen her.
Chewing her lip, she peeks up at him, scrutinizing him. "Can I tell you something?"
He crouches down in front of her, a crease forming between his eyes. "What?"
"It isn't bad," she starts. "Well…not bad for me anyways."
Or she hadn't thought it was.
Taking a breath, she toys with the edge of her apron, eyes focused on a loose thread. "I found my match."
Several seconds pass, and when he doesn't say anything, Madge looks up.
His mouth is turned down and the line between his eyes has deepened. A huff comes from his nose. "He do something to you?"
He stands and reaches in his coat, probably for his pocket knife. "I'll castrate the little basta-"
Madge jumps up and grabs him by the arm. "Dad! He didn't do anything! And you don't even know who he is."
She snatches the knife out of his hand and hides it behind her back while he's distracted by his lack of knowledge. He tries to grab it back.
"No, dad, no, bad."
"I'm not a dog," he grunts.
"Then don't act rabid." She forces a smile. "And if you castrate him you'll never get grandchildren."
"I can live with that," he tells her flatly making another failed grab for the knife.
Before he can make another dive, Madge's mother comes in and gently takes his hand. "Haymitch."
With a little grunt he gives her an irritable, sidelong look. "What?'
She pops up on her toes and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Play nicely with the boy. He seems nice. Where would we be if daddy had tried to kill you."
"Herschel couldn't kill a squash bug," he points out. "Besides, who wouldn't want me for a son-in-law. I'm charming."
Madge doesn't even try to keep her snort of laughter at that in and earns an exasperated look from her dad for it.
"Madge-love, your little not-boyfriend came in. He wants to talk to you."
Though she isn't sure she wants to talk to him, she's been watching him flirt shamelessly with other girls for the better part of an hour, Madge takes a deep breath and starts out to the front. She stops though, when she feels her dad at her heels.
Turning, she raises her eyebrows.
"I just want to meet the little pig-testicle," he tells her, not an ounce of innocence on his face.
Madge gives him a flat look. Finally, she sighs. "Give me a minute."
Pushing through the thin door separating the front and backrooms, Madge finds Gale waiting, doubled over and relaxing against the counter where the register sits. He straightens up when he hears Madge come in.
"Hi," he says.
He isn't nearly as at ease as he had been just minutes before, surrounded by girls and laughing cheerfully.
"Hi," Madge answers back.
When an uncomfortable quiet forms between them, not unlike the ones that so often formed during the past few days, Madge goes to the glass case of candies and begins rearranging them.
Gale watches her, his gray eyes jumping from one spot to the next as she shuffles the candies and makes them more presentable. Finally, she can't stand it anymore.
"I'm still not holding you to it."
He looks up suddenly, a little frown on his chapped lips.
"You can still back out. If you want to see other girls," she clarifies, feeling her eyes begin to water. She blinks back the tears.
A scowl forms on his face. "Who says I still want to see other girls?"
"I have eyes," she snaps, her voice nearly breaking. "You were out there laughing and having a good time and then you come in here and…"
He's miserable. He's saddled with her and he doesn't want to be and she hates that. He barely talks to her and the closest he's been to her was the day he grabbed her wrist to look at her watch. There's always a barrier between them and anytime she tries to break it he takes off.
"…you barely say two words to me," she finishes lamely. It isn't everything, but it's all she can force out without breaking down.
For a minute she keeps her eyes fixed on a row of peanut butter and chocolate swirl fudge, tracing the whirls with her eyes just to give herself something to do, until something reaches across the top of the display and gives a loose strand of her hair a tug.
Looking up, she frowns as Gale twirls the strand around his finger, studying it.
"I don't know what to say to you," he finally says, letting the strand drop from his fingers and falling back on his heels on the other side of the display. "I haven't really dated any girls I've had to have a lot of discussions with. I didn't want to sound…stupid, I guess."
"So was the plan to never speak to me?" She asks, not sure if she should be upset for him or at him.
"I can think of plenty of things to do that don't involve talking," Gale tells her with a slight smirk.
"Not if you leave every time I come around the counter," she points out.
His face darkens and he rubs the back of his neck. "Well…"
A smile creeps onto Madge's face. "Are you scared of me?"
Gale's eyebrows rise, as if she's asked the most ridiculous question ever. "No."
Madge laughs. "You are, aren't you?"
He doesn't look her in the eyes, just studies the strawberries in the case and grunts something that sounds like 'sure, whatever'.
Feeling a little more brave, Madge goes around the counter until she's beside him.
"I'm scared too," she whispers. "But if you're willing to try then I am too."
Reaching out, she takes his hand, the band of her broken watch pressing into his forearm, reminding him of the bond they had, even if they hadn't chosen it.
Glancing over at her, a little smile forms, just barely reaching his eyes. "I'm in."
Giving his hand a squeeze, Madge's smile widens as she remembers who is probably trying to listen in on the other side of the door.
"You don't need to be scared of me, Gale." She gives him a tug. "But you may want to be just a little wary of who is on the other side of that door."
Gale's expression drops into one of concern. "Who?"
"My dad."
He pales.