Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
Follow up to Because, Safe, and Witness
Evidence
Madge shakes her head as she flips through the pages of bank records.
They belong, well, belonged, to Crystal Otto, the woman that had shot Haymitch. Everyone involved in the case had hoped she'd flip on Snow, implicate him and have some kind of evidence to back it up.
All those hopes had been dashed when Otto had been found dead in her cell with no apparent cause of death.
The autopsy had showed poison, probably slipped in her food.
"Let's face it," Birdy, the medical examiner, had told them between bites of her lunch, "it wouldn't be hard to pay off one of the cooks. Especially if they get paid half as crappy as I do."
Now all they have are records.
Bank, phone, and travel, each as unhelpful as the next.
"We may just have to chalk this one up to a loss, sweetheart," Haymitch tells her from his desk on his first day back.
He'd been released from the hospital only days after the shooting, mostly because he drove the staff crazy and kept ignoring rules. When he flat out told the doctor he'd do as he wanted, the poor man had left the room and immediately written discharge orders.
The department hadn't let him come directly back, basically forcing him to wait and recover a little more before allowing him even back in the building.
Despite being week's out in his recovery, he's still weak, still having to take it slow.
To make him more comfortable, and to keep an eye on him, Madge had camped out in his office during the day and planned on making sure he gets to his car, now with its own personal plainclothes officer to drive him.
"I'm not giving up," she tells him through gritted teeth.
Just like Gale had said, Snow is getting sloppy. He's going to make a mistake, might already have made one, they just have to keep looking.
"You're smart," Gale had whispered against her skin as he'd held her during the night, trying to lull her into sleep. "If anyone is going to find the loose thread in Snow's network, it'll be you."
He has too much faith in her. She doesn't deserve it. She doesn't deserve him, and she's just waiting for him to realize it.
The sun slowly sinks, making the shadows in the office grow longer and longer, until they finally have to turn on extra lights to keep reading.
"Let's call it a day, Pearl."
She doesn't actually want to go. Even though she's no closer to finding a tie between Snow and Otto now than she was earlier, she still wants to barrel on. The thread she needs to link them might be on the next page and she doesn't want to wait until tomorrow to find it.
Still, Haymitch is already getting up, his chair squeaking loudly as he groan and stretches, groping around beside the desk for the cane he's been using since the shooting, and she wants to make sure he makes it to his car.
Looping her arm through his, Madge helps him out the door and toward the elevator.
"You want a ride home?"
Madge feels her face begin to burn.
She hasn't told him that she isn't staying at her apartment anymore, mostly because she knows exactly what he'll say about her current, temporary, living situation.
Gale isn't exactly his favorite person.
"He's a hothead," he'd said, back when Madge had been assigned to the Twelfth precinct and had gone to him to vent about 'Detective Hawthorne's' treatment. "Full of himself. Don't let that dick get you down. You'll be the best thing to happen to that cesspool in years."
Despite the fact that since then she's told him that Gale's behavior has improved, he still likes to counter every kindness with disparaging remarks.
"He's not bringing you coffee 'cause he's nice, sweetheart," he'd told her when she'd mentioned Gale's increasingly frequent stops by her broom closet office late at night. "Bastard finally pulled his head out of his ass long enough to see you're gorgeous. I've heard about him, kiddo. All he wants to do is get in your skirt."
Madge rolled her eyes. "By bringing me coffee?"
"It starts with coffee." He'd given her a stern look. "Then it's 'oh, let me get you home' and 'let's go grab a bite to eat' then he's got his filthy paws all over you and you're too sweet to see he's just looking to add a notch to his bedpost."
She supposes things had progressed more or less as he'd predicted, though she doubts he'd have anticipated Madge practically moving in with Gale before they even officially had a date.
"We can swing by Sae's and get some of that soup you like."
"You like that soup," she points out as the doors to the elevator chime open. "And...I don't need a ride."
Their footsteps echo through the empty halls.
It's nothing like the day of the shooting, when the halls had been bustling and the sunlight had been filtering in through the high windows, but Madge can't help but think about it.
They'd been walking just like this, her arm linked with his, discussing food, tactics, and giving Peeta a hard time about Katniss, when the gun had gone off.
Madge hadn't even had time to register that someone had pulled out a gun before Haymitch had gone down.
The shots hadn't sounded real, more like firecrackers than she expected, but even so everything had been muted after.
She'd been pulled down with him, in a sudden haze of dull screams and rushing feet.
Then had come the blood.
There'd been so much of it.
Thick and crimson, warm with the life it was spilling out...
Without thinking, Madge had pressed her hands over the gushing wound as she sobbed and watched the color drain from Haymitch's face. He was dying, and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop it...
He makes a frustrated noise when Madge stops as they reach the steps leading down and out of the building. The place he'd been shot.
She shakes the thought off.
"Why's that?" He asks, apparently not for the first time.
When Madge falters, her train of thought derailed, he shakes his head.
"You're tired. Long day. I'm getting you a cab at least. You shouldn't be using the subway."
Shaking her head, Madge begins fidgeting, toying with the cuffs of her sleeves. "I haven't used the subway in ages and I don't need a cab."
Swallowing down anxiety, and mentally preparing herself for his disapproval, Madge quickly sputters out, "Gale'scomingforme."
For a minute the only sound comes from the huge clock hanging against the back wall of the main entry, ticking the seconds away, and the swoosh of cars driving past on the nearby highway while he processes what she's said.
Finally, he sighs.
"I was wondering when you'd tell me."
All the worry settled in her chest is quickly replaced by confusion, then irritation.
"Peeta," she almost growls. Traitor.
Haymitch leans more on his cane and chuckles. "Ah, don't be too hard on him. I'm a hard man to say no to." He shrugs, scratching at the growing stubble on his cheek. "I was worried about you when I saw you leaving with that prick one night and Peeta just calmed me down."
"Why didn't you ask me about it?" Because discreet wasn't normally something he was.
He smiles, reaches out and brushes a stray strand from her face. "You're a big girl now. You're entitled to make your own mistakes and to have a secret or two."
Madge rolls her eyes. "You had Peeta do a federal level background check, didn't you?"
Grinning, Haymitch pulls her into a hug. "Would you believe me if said no?"
She would not.
Kissing her hair, he rests his cheek against her head and sighs. "He's not good enough for you, Pearl."
Snorting into his shirt, which smells of cigar smoke and cologne, Madge smiles. "You'd say that about anyone I dated."
"And I'd be right." He pulls back. "No one will ever be good enough for you, but if you want to take your chances with that dumbass, I'll watch your back."
He pauses, thinking before adding.
"And he hurts you I've got a file with every misdemeanor he's ever committed back to the age of eighteen. It's enough to drive him crazy anyways."
Madge laughs.
"You don't understand," she tells him softly. "He's the only thing that's kept me from falling apart since you were shot. He's wonderful, Haymitch, you just need to get to know him."
#######
When they finally emerge from the building, after Madge convinces Haymitch that she's happy with Gale, the cool night air is filled with the scent of restaurants' cooking and car exhaust.
Down by the curb, waiting like he has for the past weeks since the shooting, is a dark, battered Crown Vic with Gale behind the wheel.
Haymitch's car is waiting too, a short way down, but when Madge tries to walk him to it, he shakes his head.
"I can't be rude, Pearl. Gotta go say hello to Detective Hawthorne."
Dreading it, Madge trails along beside him, jogging past him and hopping in the car seconds before he gets there and rolling down the window.
"I'm gonna have to talk to him, aren't I?" Gale asks, his head already against the steering wheel.
Madge just sighs.
"You treating my girl right, Detective?" Haymitch asks, leaning down and peering in the window.
Looking over, Gale narrows his eyes. "Yes."
"Better be."
"I am."
"Good."
Grinding his teeth, Gale barely opens his mouth as he speaks. "Can we go now?"
Haymitch stares narrowly for a moment longer before turning, tapping the side of the car with his cane, and walking away.
"See you tomorrow, sweetheart."
They pull out and drive for a moment before Gale sighs.
"Guess you told him, huh?"
Madge gives him a sheepish grin. "Well, I told him you were driving me home. I just didn't clarify whose home."
For a second Gale is quiet, his eyes focused on the road as he merges into traffic, then he chuckles.
"Always a lawyer, aren't you?" He glances at her. "I need to watch my back around you."
Silence settles over them with only the radio playing softly and the sound of the tires against the wet highway to break it, and Madge bites her lip as she remembers all those old conversations with Haymitch again.
Old fears begin to creep up, infectious in her mind.
She isn't good enough. People are only nice to her and she only got her job because of who she is and who she knows, not merit. She's not worth the effort, the trouble, especially for a guy like Gale, who has so much going for him. He's going to realize she isn't good enough for him anytime now. All the evidence against her, that she's just a half-rate lawyer and an even worse girlfriend, will come to light, and then this fling will be over and she'll be alone again with only her work to keep her company.
Much as she wants to keep him, all the evidence is stacked against her. Gale's got a string of ex-girlfriends as long as Haymitch's, even she's aware of that. Maybe once all the danger is past he'll see they're nothing more than a flash in the pan, not something to last. They're built on a foundation of panic and fear, and that isn't meant to last.
They aren't real. They aren't meant to last.
Finally, she sighs, rubbing her eyes.
She doesn't want that. She wants more, she wants to fight for more, and she hopes he wants to too.
"Gale?'
His eyebrows scrunch together and he grunts an acknowledgment while keeping his eyes on the road.
Forcing down uncertainty, the fear that she's going to break whatever this fragile thing is between them, Madge forces herself to talk.
"Are we-is this-" she can't find the words "-this is real, isn't it? I'm not just another conquest or something, am I?"
When he doesn't immediately answer, she begins to panic, heart pounding painfully in her chest, air too thin.
"Because that's not what I want. I like you and I want this to be-"
"What did that asshole say to you?"
Madge freezes.
Pulling the car over, Gale puts it in park along the shoulder and unbuckles, turning to look at her.
"Madge, how many girls do you think I'd let move in with me? Turn my bathroom into a spa? How many girls would I want to meet my mom? How many girls would I subject myself to Abernathy over?"
The questions hang in the air between them for a minute, settling in Madge's mind, before she shrugs.
Reaching over, he cups her face.
"None, to all those, and if Abernathy says otherwise he's an idiot and doesn't deserve to be the DA."
Nodding, Madge feels tears begin to prickle at her eyes.
Before she can think better of it, the front seat is too narrow and the middle console is in the way, she lunges at him, throwing her arms around his neck. "Thank you."
For not running away when she's a mess, which is more and more often, for picking her up and making sure she eats, for wanting this to be more, just for being there.
"I don't need a 'thank you'," he mutters into her hair, "but you're welcome."
Burying her face in his neck, she inhales the scent of coffee and wind from his skin and soaks in his warmth. He's here for her, he cares about her, whether she deserves it or not, and that's more a comfort than he'll ever know.
They stay like that, uncomfortably stretched over the console, until Madge's back begins to ache and she reluctantly lets go.
Smearing wayward tears off her face, and probably mascara and eye shadow, she settles back into the seat as Gale pulls back onto the road.
"Do you want to go by your house and get the rest of your stuff in the morning?"
Smiling, she looks over at him. "I think I've got enough of my junk in your place."
Before Madge moved in, his house was barren, a shell of an apartment. The addition of Madge into the delicate system of his home had seriously, and disastrously, upset its balance.
"There will never be enough of your junk at my place."
It takes her a second, but when she finally processes what he's said, she just looks at him.
He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing under the stubble on his neck as he tries to find his words.
"I, uh, yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about-see I think-I mean I want you to stay with me. I want you to live with me. Not just temporarily."
Madge can see a little gleam of sweat across his forehead as he keeps his focus on the road, refusing to even glance at her.
"You want me to move in. Permanently."
Nodding, Gale sets his expression, determined.
"Look, your apartment building isn't secure and the lighting around there is shit and the locks on the doors are pathetic I'm pretty sure it isn't up to fire code and-"
"I get it, you hate my apartment building," she laughs. "The rent is good though."
"Money doesn't do you any good if you're not around to spend it," he mutters to himself. He takes a deep breath and cuts her a look. "So, what do you say?"
There isn't even a question.
She feels safer with Gale than anywhere, and with the storm brewing in their fight against Snow, she needs at least a small amount of security.
They're probably jumping into this too quickly, she's sure they are, but she doesn't care. If he wants her close, she's okay with that, because she needs him close too. This thing between them can be something more, and if this is the first step, she's willing to jump in feet first.
"So," she smiles, "we're going by and getting the rest of my stuff in the morning then?"