Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
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AN: This is the follow up to Wildfire and Everest (the cheating fics). Many thanks to nursekelly0429 for making sure this wasn't an incoherent jumble.
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Madge's new relationship with Gale was an uncertain vessel, tossed and beaten in a wild storm.
She didn't know how long it would hold together. It was familiar, but the storm they'd come through, Gale's infidelity and lack of respect for her, had left it weakened and uncertain. The necessary repairs needed were many and despite Gale's promises that he'd changed, she was still cautious.
Before Katniss and Peeta's wedding, trekking back across the country together, Madge and Gale had gone on a few date trying to get to know each other again.
"I'm working for an engineering firm. I travel out here a lot, doing ground work so the lawyers can draw up the contracts," he told her as they shared a plate of nachos on the pier. The evening settling in over them as the sun set out on the ocean.
"Sounds…exciting," Madge snorted. Gale had hated the tedium of that kind of work five years before and she couldn't imagine him enjoying it now.
He shrugged. "There are worse things. I get to lay the ground work for a lot of interesting projects and I'm out here quite a bit."
Madge didn't miss the hints, the not quite subtle nudges, letting her know he was in her area on a frequent basis. She hadn't said anything, just nodded.
Things between them were tentative, and she refuses to give him false hope. They weren't a certainty, there was no guarantee that they would make it across the ocean of hurt he'd created when he cheated.
However, the possibility did exist, like land just over the horizon.
He was steady now, a far cry from the unhelpful co-captain he had been, who had let her hold the wheel and keep them from capsizing, turning over in their sea of misery and drowning. He wanted to keep them afloat just as much as Madge did, and, she considered that a promising start.
"What about you? What are you doing?"
The genuine interest he showed was a first.
Before, when they'd dated, he had never cared to ask about her life. Madge was merely an extension of Gale, and his accomplishments overshadowed hers. In Gale's opinion, she'd had an easier life, hadn't struggled to make her way the way he had. In his mind that made her less interesting, less in need of recognition.
"I work at the hospital," she'd answered simply. "I work in the nursery."
Working with newborns had been cathartic for Madge when she'd moved out to live so far from home. Babies didn't ask questions, they didn't expect anything from her except a clean diaper and a bottle. They didn't know how miserable she was.
The babies in the nursery were her life lines when she'd struggled to stay afloat in the early days after abandoning her relationship with Gale. They were tiny miracles that kept her from drowning when she began to sink into the black depths of the ocean of her empty life. They were her port in the storm.
After months of avoiding life, focusing all her energy on clinging to her little lifesavers, Madge's friends had dragged her out of her safe haven, dried her off and warmed her up. They forced her to rejoin life.
"One boy isn't worth drowning over," Katy-Jo Lewes had told her.
Birdy had shaken her head. "Just because you're lost right now, doesn't mean you have to stay that way."
Her friends forced Madge to go with them, on trips to the zoo, to Disneyland, the movies, and shopping. They did anything they could to get her mind off Gale and the maelstrom of her mind. When she had too much time on her hands her own tumultuous thoughts were too heavy and threatened to pull her under.
"He wasn't good enough for you, sweetie." Katy-Jo Lewes constantly told her. "That boy used you as his life-preserver. You kept him from sinking in his own stupidity and now he's going to have to deal with that. You need to realize you're so much more than that. No relationship is worth losing yourself over."
Slowly, painfully, Madge began to believe them, seeing herself as independent. There was still a hollow place in her chest that Gale had occupied-and still did if she was honest with herself-but there was more to her than that now.
As the years passed by, and time tried to heal the hole in her heart Gale had created, Madge found herself.
She wasn't perfect, but she also wasn't doomed to be unhappy because of it. Gale wasn't the only thing she had in her life that could bring her joy.
Dating was tedious. Despite the knowledge that Gale was anything but a prince, none of the men her friends set her up with could sink the memory of her cheating boyfriend. They simply weren't Gale. She wanted to try and move on with her life, she did, but it felt impossible. They couldn't give her a new course.
"I don't think I'll ever not love him," Madge finally confessed.
It was embarrassing. Gale wounded her deeper than she'd imagined possible, but she still loved him.
"We don't chose who we love, Madgie," Birdy had comforted her. "That would make it too easy."
It certainly would've.
"But just because you love someone, doesn't mean you belong together," Katy-Jo Lewes added.
"That's exactly what it means," Madge snapped, rubbing tears from her eyes.
"No," Birdy shook her head. "Love shouldn't destroy you. Love shouldn't be a stone that drags you down. Love should keep you afloat. Until that boy learns to swim on his own, not drag you under, his love is something you can live without."
After a while, after many long, tear-filled conversations with her friends, with her parents, with herself, Madge finally saw the truth in their words.
She could live without Gale, without his love, because as much as she loved him, he clearly didn't love her back with as much fervor.
They didn't complete each other, not like they should, and after a while, she realized why.
'Do what makes you happy.'
That's what Peeta had told her what felt like a lifetime ago. She'd wondered at the time what it was that would make her happy?
Not dating men who would never be Gale, that was for certain, and not floating through her life, focusing on her work and nothing more.
Though she wasn't in danger of slipping back under anymore, she was aimlessly drifting through life.
Madge needed to be happy, with herself, with her life, separate from Gale, separate from her work, separate from all outside forces.
Looking at him, a little bit of salsa smeared at the corner of his lips, Madge reached up and wiped it away and smiled.
"I've been making myself happy."
She knew, looking at him and his dark hair and dark eyes that had haunted her nights so often when she'd first moved, that five years before he couldn't have made her complete. No one could have
To do that, she would've needed to be happy, missing only one essential piece of her person. The Madge that had dated Gale five years prior had been more than one piece shy of complete.
It was only leaving, learning to keep herself afloat, that she realized that.
Her life before had been so much about holding on to Gale, being his anchor and his life-preserver, that she'd never tried to determine what she wanted.
Dance classes and trips to the beach with her friends, no pressure to make anyone but herself contented, were what she needed. Madge needed books and trips and freedom. She needed to find herself, who she was and what she wanted in life, separate from Gale.
And, in the last five years, she had.
While there was that dull ache in her chest, that empty spot where her relationship with Gale had settled, she decided the one missing one piece, which had caused her so much pain, was something she could live with if the rest of her was full of life.
Gale smiled, pushed a loose strand of her hair from her face. "It suits you."
#######
Katniss and Peeta's wedding was beautiful, mostly, Madge thought, because of Prim. Katniss was never much on decorations and frills and Peeta had his hands full with the cake.
"Katniss looks gorgeous," Madge murmured as she watched the newlyweds started their first dance.
"She doesn't hold a candle to you," Gale whispered into her hair, nuzzling his nose into the messy updo Prim had helped her create.
He was buttering her up, she knew that, but she didn't care. He'd never complimented her so freely, so often, when they'd been together, and some small part of her felt like she deserved it.
"Don't let her hear you say that," Madge snorted, burying her face into his chest.
"I already told her."
Madge squinted up at him. "You didn't."
"Cross my heart."
Her face burned knowing he'd probably annoyed Katniss and Peeta both telling them he thought Madge outshone the bride. Not wanting him to see her pleased embarrassment, Madge slipped her arms around his waist and pressed herself tight to his body, soaking in his warmth. She'd missed it.
When the party finally ended, the last song played and the last table piece stolen, Gale took Madge back to the hotel.
He walked her up, rode with her in the elevator and to her door, then tried to lean in and press a kiss to her lips.
She turned her face, only let his press a warm kiss to her flushed cheek.
When he pulled back Madge's heart broke to see the look of disappointment on his face.
"I'm sorry," they said, almost simultaneously.
They watched each other for several long moments, a heavy, awkward silence settling over them.
"I'm just not ready, Gale," Madge finally whispered, her eyes still focused on her feet.
Gale's fingers, just as rough and calloused as they'd ever been, reached out, tipped her face up gently with the smallest amount of pressure under her chin.
"I'll wait."
#######
He called her every night, asked her how her day was going, told her about his latest trip-how bad the coffee was and how loud the people in the room next to his were being-then told her goodnight. There were never any unexplained female voices in the background, no loud music or yells and catcalls.
It was just Gale.
"I love you. I miss you."
Madge always smiled, bit her lip and imagined him reclining on the hotel bed, before answering back. "Miss you too."
She wanted to say I love you, because she did. That empty spot in her chest had begun to fill up again, warm her soul, but her head was more cautious now.
The memory of his cheating, all the nights she'd cried herself to sleep and questioned her own worth, still haunted her. She didn't want to drown again. She couldn't let herself.
Whatever he thought, Gale was a man of his word. He didn't pressure her. He just kept reaffirming to her that he loved her, he would wait for her, just like she'd tried to wait for him all those years before, when he'd ruined their life together.
On the weeks he was too far away to visit he sent flowers, huge bouquets of brightly colored blooms, with little notes attached.
He rarely wrote anything more than a line or two, Gale was never much for words.
Sometimes he drew her little sketches. They were terrible, harsh lines and sharp angles, stick figures doing various things-sitting on a beach, walking down a street, sitting on what she thought was a plane-that always made her laugh.
Other times he sent her postcards.
Sunrises and sunsets, views of the ocean from his room, mountains with sugary white caps, trees that stretched to the sky, places he was at and she wasn't.
'Wish you were here'-Gale
Each note, each text and call, made her smile.
He was trying.
Gale had pulled their relationship back from the depths, from where he had sunk it, and even though he'd known it was broken, he still wanted to salvage it. He was trying to patch the holes.
When they'd dated before it had always been Madge working to keep them above water, steering them through the storms, making repairs, now though, Gale was making the effort.
Every time Madge called, expecting it to roll over to voicemail, he answered.
No matter what the time difference, which she forgot about on a daily basis, he texted her back.
He didn't avoid her. Talking to her, listening to her, wasn't a chore to be dealt with.
It was refreshing, and with each smile he put on her face, each piece he added to the hole in her heart that he'd created, she felt herself growing closer and closer to letting go of the wheel and letting the winds carry them.
Gale had, with time and maturity, with effort Madge never knew him capable of, repaired them. They were no longer in danger of sinking from the old wounds, letting their past drag them back to the bottom. The patches Gale had mended them with were visible, but they were sturdy and strong.
Madge and Gale were separate people, but for the first time, they were whole. Not because they needed each other, they'd existed and flourished alone, but because they'd learned just how painful being without the other could be.
There was life in them without the other, but it wasn't complete.
Gale had learned to swim on his own, learned to survive without dragging Madge down. She could live without him, she knew that, but she didn't want to.
#######
It's nearly two in the morning. His flight had been delayed nearly four hours.
"You don't have to bring me something every time you visit," she laughs when Gale pulls a little box from his bag as they pulled into the parking lot of his hotel.
They were better, spent almost every moment together they could when he was in town, but Madge still kept a few barriers, like making him stay at the hotel. It was the last bit of control she had, and she couldn't let it go.
"I know, but I want to." He held the box out to her.
With a small smile, Madge takes the box and examines it.
Plain and white with a shoe lace tied in a bow at the top. She cuts him a sidelong look.
"They wouldn't wrap it for me, just gave me the box," he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck, his face darkening several shades.
With a snort, Madge pulls the string and tosses the shoestring at him before carefully removing the top.
Inside, nestled in a bed of soft fluff, was a small, iridescent, bumpy looking rock.
Reaching in, Madge pulls it out and examines it in the palm of her hand. It glows under the illumination of the security light overhead.
"A pearl." She rolls it between her fingers, cool and irregular, smiling at it.
"Madge means 'pearl', right?" Gale finally asks, watching her carefully. When Madge nods, he lets out a log breath. "It's a natural pearl, the guy said they're really rare."
Madge nods again.
"I know it looks a little funny, but I promise, that's what they're supposed to look like." He swallows and Madge watches his Adam's apple bob, waiting for him to continue.
"Well, pearls are made when something gets into the shell of an oyster, or something, and it protects itself by coating that something in carbonate to protect the oyster from that, uh, thing." He rubs his hand over his face and sighs. "Anyway, I thought about you, 'cause of your name, and because…"
It takes several long minutes but Gale finally looks over at her, a little smile pulling up on his lips.
"I'm not saying I'm your pearl, but you can't deny I annoy you. I thought it might remind you of me."
Madge battles down a little grin.
He is her pearl. She's spent months letting him settle back into the shell of her life, all the while keeping him at arm's length.
She's walled him off, just like a pearl.
Eyes flickering back to the little sphere in her palm, Madge feels the last chink in her heart slip back into place.
Without thinking, Madge lunges over, grabs Gale around the neck and presses her lips to his.
He still tastes like his last cup of coffee, strong and warm and a little bitter, and his lips are still as rough as they ever were. He licks them too much.
The scent of his cologne is faded, but still there, hanging on his clothes as the last vestige of his morning routine.
Pulling back a fraction, Madge lets her eyes flicker up to Gale's, now heavy and dark. "I love you."
It takes him several seconds, he's been up for almost twenty-four hours after all, traveling from the other side of the world just to spend the weekend with her, but when it finally clicks with him just what she's said, a cautious grin forms on his lips.
"Really?"
Madge presses another kiss to the side of his mouth, brushes her hands over the prickly stubble on his jaw and cheek before running it through his hair, standing it on end.
"I've always loved you, Gale," she breaths out. "Love was never the problem."
He lets her lips travel over his cheeks, press to his temple, before he makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and pulls her across the consol and into his lap.
Once she's there, he doesn't kiss her, just stares at her for a long moment, his fingers tracing a pattern on her thigh.
"Madge, I'll never make up for what I did. We lost years, years, because I'm an idiot." He sighs. "I just want you to know, love was never the problem for me either."
With just a beat of hesitancy, he leans in, presses a tentative kiss to her lips.
Huffing, Madge throws her arms around his neck again, pulls him towards her, deepening the kiss.
They'd lost time, and now was the time to make it up.
"Can you cancel your hotel room?"
Gale's hands, which had made their way up the back of Madge's shirt, still instantly. His eyes widen when he inches back.
"If you're inviting me to stay with you then I don't even care if I get a fine."
Madge's smile widens. "What if I tell you it's just an invitation to stay in my car?"
The corners of his lips twitch up. "Still closer to you than this joint."
He catches her lips again and Madge sighs.
Their ship is battered, patched together with hope and love, but it's tested against the worst life has to offer. Madge doesn't have to steer them alone, do every task without any offer of help, Gale is invested now.
The sea they have to navigate may not always be smooth, but together, they'll survive. Their sails are full at the moment and they're going to make it.
Madge knows it.