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.
AN: Last chapter for now. Maybe, eventually, I'll add a chapter (or two) with older Sage and Briar, but for now I think this universe is settled. I need to focus on my other story, which I've been neglecting because of writer's block. Anyways...enjoy, I hope.
Kaleidoscope, pt 6
Gale makes sure Madge is snugly wrapped up before he leaves to hunt.
The house might be nicer than his family's, but it's still drafty. The windows bleed in the cold air and wind seeps in through the cracks under the doors, and the last thing he wants is her to get sick.
Sick pregnant women don't last long in the Seam he's found.
The woods give him a nice wedding gift, all his snares are full. Fat little rabbits in every one.
Not that it matters to Madge, she looks terrified of them when he comes home to drop them off.
"My mom'll be by and she can teach you to fry it up," he tells her, full well knowing she's never cooked a day in her life.
That's not her fault, it's just how it is. She'll have to learn though, and she knows it.
When he starts to go, she looks so small and alone, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a little kid that Gale hates to leave her. She needs him.
Food doesn't provide itself though, and he's got and extra mouth to feed now. He can't afford to lose a day of hunting, even if the alternative is spending time with her.
He isn't sure why he does it, he'd decided the night before to let things move slow, let her initiate contact, but he can't stop himself.
While her eyes are closed, he leans in and lightly kisses her cheek.
Her eyes pop open before he can even back off, and he half expects her to slap him.
No slap comes though, and Gale feels heat rise on his face as he starts to go.
"I'll see you tonight," he mumbles, reaching out and securing the blanket on her shoulders.
He heads back out after that, hoping his good luck will carry on and his snares will catch a few more and he'll get at least a couple of squirrels to barter with at the Hob.
The hours in the woods are spent imagining a couch, a chair, a kitchen table, maybe some tools for a garden. Madge had always grown vegetables, and he doesn't doubt her green thumb will carry over, even in the shitty Seam soil.
All those thoughts vanish from his mind when he walks into the Hob.
At first it's more the same, shouts of hello and a few congratulations, then someone sling their arm around him and starts to laugh.
"Shoulda known if one of us had a chance to nail a girl from town it'd be you," the man, Gale vaguely recognizes him from Greasy Sae's, slurs.
Gale shrugs him off with a 'yeah, sure' and tries to make his way to the man that normally sells tools.
Madge had warned him it won't do any good to snap at anyone, but it kills him not to.
"Bet it's nice, having some meat to hold on to," another person says, making a filthy gesture, causing Gale to grind his teeth.
"Don't know if I'd remembered to pull out either if I got those panties off."
"Bet she's a screamer. Does she scream your name, Hawthorne?"
Any semblance of patience and goodwill Gale had are gone in the blink of an eye.
The hit is so hard, right across the man's jaw with a sickening crack, that he falls back, taking a display of paperback books with him.
Debris flies everywhere. Gale gets cut across the cheek by a soaring screw and one of the books hits his ear, leaves a thin slice on his jaw, adding to the collection of scrapes and cuts he'd gotten in the woods.
Stepping over the scattered books, the upturned metal turnstile, Gale grabs the man by the collar of his shirt and pulls him up, their faces inches from each other.
"That is my wife," he growls, happy to see the man's eyes contract in fear. "What happens between us in none of your damn business. It gets back to me that you're talking about her again and I'm gutting you."
He shoves the man down after that, wipes the blood from his split knuckles on the back of his pants and stomps off. Tools could wait.
It isn't any better when he goes to work.
Some still congratulate him, but it's mostly dissolved to lewd comments, and it takes every ounce of self-control Gale has not to take his pick to their heads.
"Just ignore them," Thom mutters. "They're just jealous."
And creeps.
Worse than the men are the women.
Even once she's lost her job, they don't let up.
They aren't as loud, don't say it to his face, but Gale hears them just the same.
"Probably not even his."
"Nice guy, too bad he got saddled with that tart."
"Hope he's getting compensated well."
Gale just grinds his teeth. Madge is either a treasure he's won or a tramp he's stuck with, and he isn't sure which is worse.
His temper doesn't hold out well under the gossip.
He punches a few of the men, gets in their faces and warns them off, but it does about as much good as his explosion at the Hob.
"They'll move on," his mom tells him. "They'll find something else to gossip about. Just give it time and watch your head."
If they'd get a new topic sooner rather than later, Gale would appreciate it.
It isn't until he pins one of the men in his crew to the wall with his pick, threatening to strangle him in the mine and damn the consequences, that the dirty comments and nasty insinuations start to die out. Or at least get quieter.
The women are more a problem. There's no recourse against them. They keep whispering about her, spreading lies, and there's nothing Gale can do to shut their hateful mouths up.
He wishes the people putting her down could see how hard she's working. Not exactly succeeding, but trying.
Every meat he's brought home she's burnt to a crisp, despite his mom's attempts to teach her.
"At least she pretty," Rory tells him, when Gale comes by to drop off a rabbit for them. "Even if her cooking is shit."
"It's not shit," Gale defends her.
It's not good, but it's improved. He can almost tell the meats apart some days.
"Gale, I like Madge, but she's no cook," Vick tells him.
"In her defense, she probably can't see the stove," Rory adds. "Between her boobs and that stomach, she can't see much at that level."
Grumbling, Gale goes home and tries to teach her himself. Maybe his pervy brothers made learning too hard.
"Watch," he tells her, pulling her from the rickety chair at the hodgepodge table and standing her in front of the stove. "You just have to keep watching it. Never turn your back on the oil."
She nods, but her eyes are foggy, clearly not listening, so Gale grabs her and traps her between his arms, forcing her to face the stove.
"You aren't paying attention."
His own attention wanes a little after that.
She smells clean, not her expensive shampoo and soap, but still fresh, flowery and simple. Her skin is soft, delicate as a peach, and he half wonders if he'd bruised her all those months ago. Something as fragile as Madge shouldn't be in his possession, but she is, and he won't ruin her again.
What he finds most distracting is the blush that blossoms on her cheeks, vanishing down the front of her dress. It's too damn much.
It almost sends his lesson to the trash.
He only saves it at the last minute, when his cheek brushes hers, reminding him of his morning kisses goodbye. It's the only contact he's allowed himself, and it's sustained him, but having her as close as she is, smelling her skin, feeling her against him, it's more than he can handle.
It's only good luck that gets his mind back on the meat, taking it off the heat before it over cooks.
"See?" He says, a little brighter than he aims for, smiles a little too widely. "Easy."
Madge just nods, and part of him hopes it's because she's as rattled by the closeness as he is.
#######
"You don't have to do this," he tells her when she starts packing his lunches in the morning.
She does it so carefully, wrapping each food, making sure they're secure in the battered pail, that it gives Gale hope each day he opens it.
If she didn't care she wouldn't wake up to pack it, wouldn't put so much effort into it.
When she says she does it because she wants to, that hope multiplies.
Blue shadows form under her eyes, and despite her middle growing at an alarming rate while her cheeks hollow, much to Gale's frustration, she smiles when she sees him. She's happy when he comes home.
"She's warming up to me," he tells his mom one night as the winter is finally thawing, leaving only mud and damp, dead grass in its wake.
His mom just smiles.
"Of course she is," she agrees, taking his face in her hands and kissing cheek. "You've been acting like the gentleman I know you are. It's very attractive."
While doesn't think he's been acting particularly 'gentlemanly' he's been putting in a lot of effort to repair his image, and he's just relieved it's working.
"I'm glad she's got a pioneer spirit," she adds before grimacing. "Even if the skill isn't quite caught up to her."
He knows what she means.
Madge has been almost desperately trying to learn new skills.
Washing has been her biggest success. Every blood stain, all blamed on the mines cramped environment and manly clumsiness, have been scrubbed out meticulously. Her soft hands have dried and cracked so badly from it that Gale brought her home a salve to repair them.
"You should use this yourself," she tells him, trying to pass the ointment to him.
Gale just shakes his head. He wishes he could tell her he never wants her hands to get like his mom's, worn from a life of too much hard labor. If he had his way, her hands would stay impossibly soft as they are now.
That's not likely to happen, but he'll be damned if he won't try.
Sewing and patching were almost as quickly picked up. Gale would almost not even know she'd repaired his clothes if he hadn't done the damage himself.
"You could've been a seamstress," he jokes, inspecting a sleeve he'd torn on the fence.
It's perfect, a beautiful, tight seam at his elbow. She'd even gotten the stubborn blood from his injury out.
Her smile had dimmed.
"No one would've come to me."
He hadn't wanted to agree, but she was right. No one would take their clothes and pay for the repair from the daughter of a man with so much means. She's lucky she'd ever had a job at all.
They'd dropped that thought quickly, discussing the fact that the strawberries would be in season soon instead.
Knitting on the other hand, presented a larger problem.
He'd come home multiple evenings to find her raw fingers working furiously on some unknown pattern. She'd even gone to the library and brought a book home to study with.
It almost made Gale laugh. She was treating basic skills like a frustrating class at school.
The humor seeped out when he remembered it was about more than just making socks and scarves to Madge. It was about earning a place, proving she could survive.
Still when she proudly presents him with a pair of lumpy socks, not even big enough for one of Posy's dolls, he can't help but chuckle.
"Not bad. Maybe you'll make a sweater by next winter."
For half a breath he worries he shouldn't have teased her. She'd worked herself to death over those pitiful socks and she'd been so excited. He didn't want to squash her enthusiasm.
Her smile just brightens and her pale eyebrows rise in challenge. "Maybe I will. What color do you want?"
Gale knows better than to tease her, knows embarrassing her hasn't gotten him anywhere, but he can't resist her blushing. He isn't strong enough to not want it.
"Blue, like your eyes."
Just as he'd hoped, pink patches blossom on her cheeks, creep down her neck and across her chest, vanishing down the front of her dress.
Desperate as he is to ask her just how far it goes, if he can see, he bites his tongue. He'd gotten her flustered and to see that blush, that was more than he deserved for one night.
Instead of embarrassing her more, Gale just leans against the wall, arms crossed and a smirk he can't get rid of hanging on his lips, and watches her fuss absently with a bit of loose yarn on the socks before hurrying off to work on dinner.
When he comes home a few days later, he finds she's gone to the library again. Stuffed hastily under a basket of freshly folded laundry, there's a new book of knitting patterns and halfway through she's dog-eared a sweater.
Gale doesn't mention it, not even when he spots richly blue yarn tucked in a corner of the bedroom, half a length of clearly reworked knitting with the needles stabbed through it attached.
She's trying for him, and he doesn't want to ruin it.
#######
Gale sees the wildflowers coming up after the last of the snow melts.
They're skinny, underwhelming things, but they've got color, pretty shapes. He thinks they're a little useless, not edible, not medicinal, not anything but frivolously pretty, but Madge will like them. He hopes anyways.
For almost a week he watches them, the blossoms unfurling more and more, the colors becoming more vivid, until he doesn't think they'll get any fuller.
Plucking them up, he carefully wraps them in a rag and places them in his bag before heading back to the fence. He had trading to do.
"Any seeds?" He asks at each table in the Hob.
"Still no," one of the men, ancient, no teeth and leathery skin, answers. "Whaddya want seeds for? Nothing grows here."
Gale only shrugs, flipping through the old almanacs on the man's table.
"My wife's got a green thumb."
He feels the man's eyes squinted on him, hears his toothless mouth smack as he thinks, then he makes a garbled noise of recognition.
"You're the one boned the mayor's brat, aren't you?"
Making a low noise, Gale lifts his eyes from the outdated books and glares at the man.
"My wife isn't a brat," he growls. "You'd do good to remember that."
Backing up, the man gives him a gummy, apologetic smile.
"Didn't mean any disrespect. Just didn't realize you were the lucky bastard…" He falters when he sees the increasingly dark look on Gale's face. Mouth gaping for a moment, he recovers, his voice rising a little. "I get any seeds you'll be the first to know, sound good?"
Grunting an acknowledgment, Gale slings his bag over his shoulder and heads home. The Hob isn't relaxing today.
By the time he gets home he's almost forgotten the flowers tucked in his bag, it isn't until he spots a few fragile buds on one of the few trees that survive in the coal dust rich soil of the Seam that he remembers them.
They're a little bent when he takes them out, the leaves and buds a bit wilted, and he sighs in frustration.
His one bright spot seems pathetic now.
It's a waste to toss them though. They might be useless flowers, but he hates killing them for nothing, so he hides them behind his back and goes in.
"What've you got?" Madge asks, almost the minute he steps in the door.
His insides roll. He should've thrown the flowers out.
"I got you something," he tells her, his voice sounding strangle thick.
"Gale, let me see."
She tries to peek around him, she's off balance though, so he catches her around the middle and holds her tight.
On instinct, Gale's nose nuzzles in her hair. Despite the fact that she hasn't had her fancy shampoo in ages, it still smells wonderful, and he finally decides it was never that overpriced shit to begin with. She just smells nice naturally.
"Hold still and I'll show you," he chuckles as she squirms against him.
Pulling the flowers from behind him, he thrusts them in front of her
"I've been watching them for a few weeks," he explains awkwardly. "Figured they wouldn't get any prettier."
He lets her go, immediately missing the warmth of her body against his but too distracted by her examination of the wilting flowers to give it much mind.
"Gale…" She half whispers his name, her nose scrunched in confusion. "They're really pretty. What're they for?"
They're just because they're pretty, and she's pretty, and she deserves pretty things, even if he's got no means to give her any. She brightens the gray of the Seam for him and he wants her to have something to brighten her day.
None of that comes out though, as he tosses his game bag to the ground and stares at the ground, his hand jumping to his neck to rub out the mounting anxiety that the flowers were a stupid gift.
"Thought you'd like them," he mutters, wishing he'd left the damned things in the ground. They're ruined and she deserves better and she has to know that. His mouth can't let the explanation end at that though, just keeps running uselessly. "I'm looking for seeds, you know, because I remember you always had a garden. The ground here is shit and no one really has any luck, but I figured if anyone could it'd be you. I-the flowers seemed like a good idea."
Though clearly he should've gone with his first instinct to trash the damn things. They're a stupid gesture.
When the silence gets to be too much, Gale mumbles that he's going to warm up dinner and quickly ducks into the kitchen to mull over just how stupid he is.
A few minutes pass as he picks at the food, not really paying it much attention, when he hears his name.
For a second he wants to ignite her, let the awkwardness pass without comment, but that method is what got him to this point in the first place.
Preparing for the worst, he turns.
"Ye-"
Madge is on him before the acknowledgment is even formed.
"Thank you," she whimpers, tears soaking his shirt. "Thank you for not walking away."
He almost laughs. How could he walk away from her? From their baby? It's laughable that she'd think so.
His heart sinks. He had walked away, given her the worst version of himself to believe in. All her doubts are pretty solidly founded.
"You're trying so hard and I'm just," she cries harder. "I'm just not-"
Whatever she's about to say is going to be ridiculous and appalling, and Gale can't stand to hear it. So he quiets her the best way he knows how.
Madge doesn't push him away, if anything, she holds him closer, one hand fisted at the collar of his shirt and the other wrapped around his neck as she kisses back with every ounce of pent up frustration she has in her.
"You're great, you're wonderful, you're-"
Perfect.
He doesn't get it out though.
"An absolute disaster!"
She's absolutely ridiculous.
"Not," is all he can growl in response.
Somehow they end up in the bedroom, tearing clothes off, throwing them and kissing.
Gale isn't sure how they get there, he wasn't much paying attention, and he doesn't care.
His wife is finally giving him a chance, and he isn't stupid enough to miss a minute of it on details like how he got in the bed or where his pants got tossed.
He should've tried flowers earlier.
#######
Gale spends the next few weeks in a delirious kind of happiness.
He recruits Rory and Vick to help build a crib out of the best wood he can trade for, though they're both more hindrance than help.
"Why d'you want it to fit between the bed and the wall?" Rory asks, after remeasuring the space for accuracy.
"So I can get to her at night," Gale answers, wishing he'd sent his brothers home after they'd finished carrying the wood.
"Why? You do realize you don't have the right equipment to feed her, don't you?"
Gale doesn't dignify him with a response.
It doesn't matter if he can't feed their baby, he's going to get up in the middle of the night when it needs him. His child will know its daddy's voice means safety, even if it equals sleepless nights and his brothers' teasing.
"I want to take care of her."
"Or him," Madge reminds him, for what feels like the millionth time.
Gale just grins. "Naw, that little peanut is a girl."
He's sure of it.
Maybe it's a lifetime of old wives tales, but he just knows it.
"It's the way you're carrying," he tries to explains.
Madge just rolls her eyes. "You're mother told me I was carrying like it's a boy."
Much as he hates to disagree with his mom, she's absolutely wrong.
"The midwife said it looks like a boy too."
That all but verifies Gale's suspicion. The midwife is a fraud. The only reason he's even still letting her look at Madge is because his mom swears by her.
"She told Madge she doesn't have the right hips for childbearing," Gale grumbles. "I shoulda told her to go to hell."
"You'll do no such thing," his mom warns him. "You want the best for Madge and she's the best."
She waits a minute, looking apologetic.
"And, honestly, Madge's hips are a little narrow."
Huffing, Gale just ignores her and encourages Madge to do the same.
"What if she's right though?" Madge worries, after one of Vick's less than helpful visits with his graphic medical books and frightening understanding of the birthing process. "What if I can't deliver?"
"Your hips are perfect," he assures her, dipping in and kissing her, almost getting carried away until she stops him.
"Gale, we have a lot to do," she tries to deter him, albeit a little half heartedly, trying to go back to her knitting. "We don't have time for that.
He just chuckles. There's always time for that.
"You want that kid outta you don't you?" He mumbles, kissing her neck, hoping her resolve wanes a little more. "I've heard it's a good way to speed things up."
"I'll bet you have," Madge laughs, letting her knitting fall as she shifts on the bed and pulls Gale onto her, kissing him breathless.
Either she bought his lie about speeding things up and is desperate, or the other rumor he'd heard about pregnancy is more true than he'd thought.
He assumes the second, because she only gets more anxious as the due date approaches, even as his excitement increases.
"Because it's not coming out of you," she complains, apparently certain he isn't concerned about what both his mom and that useless midwife have said.
That isn't true though. He is worried, but letting Madge see that wouldn't do any good. She needs as much confidence as she can heading in.
Even if it is all bravado.
#######
Each day as Gale heads to work he half expects to come home to a baby crying, despite his mom's assurances that Madge won't deliver that fast.
"First babies are the hardest," she reminds him. "You took ages it felt like."
That's not much comfort, but he takes it.
"Any day now," Thom announces, entirely unnecessarily, each day he sees Gale at work. "Any day now I'm an uncle."
"You are no-"
"I am. You know it."
Thom aside, work does get better. Most of the men seem genuinely happy for him as the day gets closer, offering him clothes and advice he doesn't really listen to. The fact that they aren't making nasty comments about his bedroom life or trying to verify their wives' horrible suspicions about Madge makes it worth it.
Finally, after a week on pins and needles, expecting Madge's water to break in the middle of the night, it happens.
It's stormy out, a gray, rainy morning and a rumbling afternoon. Gale hates thunderstorms when he's at work.
The ground shudders around him and he pictures his dad, trapped in the mines, right as they collapsed in.
That could be him. Dead before his firstborn has even taken its first breath.
He shakes the thought off. He might yet die in the mines, but not today. Today has better things for him.
Gale is barely off the elevator when he hears his name coming in frantic shouts from the main gates.
Pushing through the listless, bone tired men, it takes several minutes before he sees Vick racing toward him, gravel flying up in his wake.
"Something's got his pant on fire, doesn't it?" Thom mumbles, frowning as Vick tears toward the wash barn.
"Gale!"
Vick doesn't even see Gale, and nearly runs past him, only stopping because Thom manages to grab him around the middle.
"No I have to get to Gale," Vick sputters, struggling to get away.
"I'm right here." Gale pulls him from Thom. "What the hell is wrong?"
He already knows, but he needs to hear it to make it real.
"Madge is in labor. Rory went to get the midwife-"
There's no waiting when he hears the word labor, Gale takes off, drops his lunch pail and runs as hard as he can toward home.
Rain begins to pour as he reaches their street, and by the time he throws open the front door he's soaked to the bone, but he can't help but grin when he sees Madge on the bed.
Collapsing beside her, he kisses her quickly and takes her hand.
"You look gorgeous," he whispers.
Madge rolls her eyes. "I look disgusting. I'm all sweaty and my hair is a disaster."
He'd normally argue with her, but considering the circumstances he decides to just laugh. She's ridiculous. Gale knows gorgeous when he sees it.
A few minutes tick by before Gale realizes that horrible midwife hasn't shown up.
"She'll be here, Gale," his mom assures him. "The weather is bad."
In Gale's mind she's just another awful person wanting to harm Madge, and with the perfect opportunity to, so when she shows up he simply glares. She needs to know he's on to her.
"About damn time," he grumbles as she takes off her soggy jacket and shakes out her hair.
She ignores him and goes straight to Madge, but she heard him, he knows she did.
After she gives Madge a once over and encourages her to walk, Gale's suspicion that she's something less than subpar increases.
"That's bullshit," he grumbles, glaring at the useless women.
"Just walk with me Gale."
Hours seem to pass, but before Gale knows what's happening, Madge is pushing.
"You're doing great," he encourages her. "Almost there."
She gives him a dark look, obviously disbelieving. Gale doesn't blame her. Things don't feel like they're moving the way they had with his mom when she'd delivered Posy, the birth that was clearest in his mind.
Before he has a chance to worry too much though, Madge's scream mixes with a new noise.
Looking at the midwife, Gale sees her holding a squirming, screaming, bloody baby.
"You have a boy."
He's so small, much smaller than Gale remembers any of his siblings being, but he's still perfect.
Dark haired and fighting the midwife's attempts to clean and swaddle him, Gale knows he's going to be tough. A true boy from the Seam.
Before she can hand his son over, Madge almost doubles over again.
"It's just the afterbirth," the midwife tells them.
"I don't remember it being quite so rough," Gale growls, glaring at her.
"How many babies have you delivered?" The midwife grumbles. "Not half as many as I have."
She looks less confident with each passing minute, until finally Madge is practically screaming again.
"This isn't an afterbirth," Gale snarls at her, desperately cradling his screaming son in one arm and trying to support Madge with the other.
"No," she agrees, sweat glistening on her face. "Not afterbirth."
Something is wrong, very wrong.
Half an hour later he knows just what's wrong.
"Your daughter."
Gale shakes as he stands up, not fully comprehending what's happened just yet as the midwife wipes the baby clean.
Then she puts the second baby in his arms.
His daughter is every bit as perfect as her brother, squirming and crying, messy hair, tiny fists balled up, ready to take on the world.
They finally start to quiet, maybe sensing their womb mate near again, and look to Gale in newfound curiosity.
He's a dad now. He's got two babies.
"Twins," he whispers in amazement. "How the hell?"
"Runs in my family. Guess I should've warned you," Madge explains, her voice raw from yelling.
She almost sounds apologetic, as if she'd chosen to push two babies out as opposed to one.
"Doesn't matter," Gale assures her, shaking his head. It's unexpected but not unwelcome. He'll make it work. "They're perfect."
Madge's voice, soft, barely any strength behind it, cracks across the room.
"I want to see them. I want to see my babies."
Looking up, Gale expects her to be sitting up, beckoning him with her delicate fingers, but she isn't.
Instead, he finds her still limp in the bed, pale and drenched in sweat, her eyes barely open, not even focused as she looks at him.
The midwife is busy with something, but Gale doesn't look, just carries the babies to the bed and settles down. Maybe seeing them will help Madge perk up.
It seems to, her ghostly pale finger reaches up and runs over their son's features, then their daughter's, before dropping back onto the bed in exhaustion.
"They look like you," she sighs, eyes fluttering closed for a second, then blinking back open.
"I think they take after you," he quickly counters, kissing the baby closest and smiling. "Gorgeous, the both of them."
He waits for her to say something, tell him he's got blinders on, that he's impossible, but it doesn't come.
Looking over, he finds her passed out.
"Madge?" He tries to wake her, needs the assurance of her bright eyes that she can wake, but she doesn't stir. "Madge?"
"She's passed out," the midwife explains unnecessarily. "Lost a lot of blood. This girl's not built to deliver one baby. Two is...not good."
Panic starts to swell in Gale's chest as he looks back at Madge.
She's as white as cream, almost transparent, lips pale, a strange, washed out version of Madge.
"What-can we do something?" There has to be something. He can't lose her.
"I'm doing my best."
Gale almost snaps that her best isn't going to be good enough, but Madge's life is in her hands. He should probably keep his sniping to a minimal.
"What can I do?"
She glances up, her expression more annoyed than anything, and jerks her head toward the door.
"Go introduce your family to the little ones, and let me work."
Gale starts to tell her he isn't leaving Madge, but then one of the babies makes a little noise and Gale swallows down his agitation. This is no place for them, and Gale will be more use without both hands full.
"Fine," he grunts. "But I'll be back."
Shifting the babies in his arms, Gale shoots Madge on last worried look, mentally promises her he'll be back soon, and opens the bedroom door.
His family is in the kitchen, the only place with seating, and Gale can hear their murmurs as he starts to come around the corner.
They're all huddled around the table.
Posy is asleep, slumped down in her chair, Vick and Rory are playing what is probably a very dirty game of cards, and their mom has a glass of water clutched in her hands, not really paying any of them much attention.
Clearing his throat, Gale forces a grin.
"You're officially a grandma."
His mom looks up so quickly Gale thinks she'll have a sore neck come tomorrow and the boys both drop their cards. Posy doesn't so much as shift in her seat.
"Gale!" His mom is on her feet and in front of him in the blink of an eye, peeking into the bundle closest to her.
A second passes, she smiles at the baby, then Gale, and down at the second swaddle before it hits her.
"Twins!"
Tears start shining in her eyes.
Rory and Vick both squeeze in closer, eyes wide in amazement, and for once Rory seems speechless.
"Oh Gale," his mom sighs. "They're just beautiful."
"Well of course, they look like Madge."
Almost speechless.
"Can I?" His mom asks, painfully eager to hold her grandbabies.
Gale dips a little and hands her one of the babies.
Her smile brightens and she cradles him carefully, tapping the tip of his nose and pushing the blankets back to examine the messy dark hair under it..
Before he can give her the second baby, Rory jumps in and holds out his hands, smiles weakly. "Please? I won't drop…"
He hesitates, looks uncertain, but eases when Gale nods.
Rory might be a bit of an asshole, but he wouldn't do anything to hurt his niece.
"Briar," Gale finally says. "Her name is Briar." He nods at the baby in his mom's arms. "And that's Sage."
Carefully, Gale places the baby in Rory's arms.
True to his word, Rory treats Briar as if she's glass, gently rocking her in his arms as he and Vick stare at her in amazement.
For a moment Gale almost forgets that he's scared. He just watches his family adoring his children, commenting on their hair and testing out their names, before letting the dread of what he's going to find when he goes back into the bedroom hit him again.
"I need to-uh, I'm going to check on Madge," he softly tells them.
His mom smiles brightly, peaking into Briar's blankets before glancing back to Gale. "Tell her they're just perfect."
Keeping his anxiety inside, Gale just nods.
He won't worry them if he doesn't have to.
Slowly, he makes his way back to the bedroom, stays frozen with his hand on the door handle for a full minute before opening it.
His heart stops cold in his chest when he sees Madge on the bed, the only light from a still burning candle on the bedside table casting her in unearthly shadows.
Her color is no better, and when he looks to the floor and finds a stack of bloody towels and sheets, he knows exactly where her color went.
"Madge?"
She doesn't respond, just stays still, and for one painful moment, Gale is sure she's dead. He's lost her.
Then his eyes adjust to the light and he sees her take a shallow breath, his heart starts again.
The midwife a voice calls to him from the bathroom. "She's just lost a lot of blood."
Dropping down beside the bed, Gale smoothes Madge's sweat soaked hair from her face, presses a kiss to her clammy skin.
"She'll be okay though, right?"
Shrugging, her eyes land on Madge, and she sighs. "It was a lot of blood."
"She's gonna be okay though."
For a minute she just stares at Madge, seemingly trying to find the answer hanging around her, before she sighs. "I don't know."
There's no energy left in him to snap at her. Gale simply slumps on the bed and watches Madge breath, and prays she doesn't stop.
#######
It's several hours before she wake.
Her color is no better, still a chalky white, but she actually sits up and feeds the babies.
"I can't believe you didn't tell us what was going on," his mom scolds him.
"I didn't want to worry you," he mumbles.
She sighs, shakes her head, then gives him a weary smile. "You don't have to carry the weight of the world all alone."
He knows that, but he still doubts he'd have done anything different. His family didn't need to worry until it was necessary.
Vick immediately goes for his stack of medical books, and within an hour is giving Gale tips and hints to help build her blood back. For once, Gale listens, using his brother's advice to plan out meals for Madge for the indefinite future.
Madge seems more amused than anything with the situation, indulging Gale and his attempts to get the color back in her face.
"I'm really fine," she assures him.
Her dad doesn't help when he comes by the next day and mentions that her mom had a 'difficult birth' with Madge too.
'Difficult' didn't even touch what Madge had gone through, and if it weren't for his relief that she'd started to recover, Gale probably would've told her dad about it, consequences be damned.
Instead, he pushes all the worry and fear to the back of his mind as he plays host to all their visitors.
For the most part, he rushes them in and out, his family, Madge's parents, Thom and Bristol, and that drunk Haymitch being the few who manage to linger for a little too long. The rest, neighbors and miners, people from the Hob, he shuffles in and out quickly. She and the babies aren't an exhibit, and seeing as half of them had been bashing her for months, Gale doesn't feel too badly about kicking them out.
Still they brighten Madge's spirits, and she looks so delighted to show off the babies, that Gale supposes they aren't all awful.
Greasy Sae grins at the pair, propped in Gale's arms. "They're just the prettiest things."
She shoves several awkwardly shaped bowls onto the table, all stuffed full of soups and meats, before she leaves.
By the end of the first week, they've got more clothes than Gale thinks they'll ever be able to dress the babies in, but he doesn't care. His kids deserve to be a little spoiled.
He ventures to the Hob and barters for a rocking chair, the one thing no one had been able to gift to them.
His mom looks exasperated. "You can have mine."
Gale shakes his head. His mom still needs hers, she'll babysit eventually, and beside that, he wants Madge to have one all her own.
Even if Gale plans on using it every bit as much as her.
"I'll make you both a bow," Gale whispers to Sage. "And you and Briar can learn to skin and gut, then you can help your mom."
Sage looks about as interested in that as he is in learning to dance, still, he seems soothed by the sound of Gale's voice. His eyes droop as he gums his fist, until finally he drifts off to sleep.
Carefully, he places Sage in the bed beside Briar, already fast asleep, leans in and kisses both their soft dark hair.
He isn't sure how he got so lucky, but he's glad he had. He can't imagine being happier than he is now. Things aren't perfect, but they're pretty damn close.
Pressing a kiss to Madge's hair, he settles in for the night. "Thank you."
She'd given him a chance, even if he hadn't deserved it, and he's come out the better for it.
Madge looks up, nose wrinkled. "What for?"
Gale pulls her closer. "For marrying me."
She starts to argue, sighing his name, but Gale cut her off.
"No," Gale shakes his head. "I know your dad pretty much made you, and you had all the reasons in the world not to, but...I'm glad you did. I hope you're glad you married me too."
Madge shifts, leans up and presses a lingering kiss to his lips before easing back.
She doesn't consider her answer for half as long as she should.
"I'm happy."
There's no hesitation, just honesty, and even though it takes Gale a second to process what she's said, he smiles.
Words fail him, so he uses his go to method of conveying most things with Madge and begins kissing her.
Her lips are still pale, but they're no longer cool. Her skin is soft and warm, not frighteningly clammy, and even more enticing than he remembers it.
The memory of her looking so sick though, quickly curbs his ambitions. She's nowhere near ready for anything physical.
"I'm happy too," he growls, hoping she can't sense the disappointment his body is feeling. Because even if it's frustrated, every inch of him loves her and would wait forever for her.
Her lips switch a bit as she waves toward the cradle. "I'd hope so. I did give you twice the children of a normal woman."
Gale grins. "Hey I contributed you know?"
"Well don't be so ambitious next time," she snorts.
A scowl forms on Gale's face. "Next time?" She's nuts. "There's no 'next time' Madge. Two is plenty, especially with how hard the delivery was on you."
She's lost her mind if she thinks he'd want to do that again.
"Gale…"
"No," he cuts her off, he won't listen to it. It's nonsense. "You didn't see how much blood was there. I've never seen that much before. You wouldn't wake up. I thought you were gonna die Madge."
And he'd been helpless to do anything. He never wants to feel that way again.
"I just got you and I thought I was gonna lose you." He feels his heart speed up and his arms tighten around her. "We got two perfect kids. Let's not push our luck."
He's got more than he deserves after the way he treated her, and he doesn't want to jeopardize the happiness he's got, however little he deserves it.
Madge stares at him, her nose wrinkled up in thought before she lurches forward, her lips a tantalizing breath away.
"Gale…" she whispers, "I love you."
Stunned speechless, Gale just stares at her, trying to make sense of her words.
Even if he was awful to her, treated her badly, she loves him.
He smiles, a weight he didn't even realize he'd been carrying vanishing from his shoulders.
"I love you too," he whispers, brushing a pale strand from her face. "I loved you from the start, even if I was shitty about it."
Madge scoots forward, her soft body pressing agonizingly on him, until her forehead is against his, her bright eyes locked with his for an heartbeat before her lips are on his.
She pulls back an inch, her eyes shining.
"Me too."
Gale catches her in another kiss.
Kissing gets his thoughts across better than words anyways.