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: Someone gave me the prompt of Gale being a Mentor and Madge a Tribute, this is the mess that came out. Sorry.
Survival
Gale watches as Madge struggles to hold onto the rock wall, her fingers bleeding, nails probably gone, as the ground under her shakes.
Haymitch has his hands on the controls, knuckles white, desperate to do something to help her but clearly at a loss. There's no Sponsored gift in his arsenal that would save her. She's got to do it herself.
Her vitals are almost all red, blinking obnoxiously on their screen indicating she's under stress, which is hardly a shock.
"Come on, kiddo," Haymitch mutters through clenched teeth.
All his attention is on Madge. She's the first Tribute since Gale had won his Games that the old bastard has shown any fondness for, actually put any effort forward for. It's something that hasn't gone unnoticed by their fellow Victors.
"New girlfriend, Haymitch?" Finnick had asked, grinning cheekily. "Wiress will be heartbroken."
"You mean relieved," Chaff had chuckled. "Free to pursue her true love. Me."
Despite their teasing, Haymitch hadn't paid them much attention. In an uncanny show of focus, he'd gone out and chatted people up, stayed sober, actually acted like a damn Mentor.
It had been shocking enough that Gale actually wondered if he'd tried half as hard when Gale had been a Tribute.
Probably not, if his absolute shock upon seeing Gale alive had been any indication.
Still, it's nice to not be stuck with double duty.
Even if Gale's Tribute had gone against Gale's very simple advice and run headlong into the Cornucopia, getting his dumbass killed in minutes.
The ground on the screen stops shuddering, and Madge finally manages to pull herself into a small recess on the mountain. Her breathing and heart rate slowly come back down, turning green as she slumps listlessly against the mountain side.
"Good girl," Haymitch mumbles to himself, wiping sweat from his face with his hand before stumbling away and collapsing onto the couch beside Gale.
Gale offers him a drink, but he waves it off. "No, gotta stay clear headed."
Despite no longer being at the controls, Haymitch's eyes are on the screens. Madge's vitals, the other Tributes, and the smaller screen with her donation contribution tallied up on it.
She's made more money, received more potential gifts, than any Tribute from Twelve Gale has seen in his two years as a Mentor.
Haymitch refuses to send her a single gift though.
"She could use some food, you know?" Gale reminds him, taking a sip from his drink.
Not even glancing at him, Haymitch huffs. "She's fine. She's a smart girl."
Gale just rolls his eyes. "And she's popular. You've got enough mone-"
"I'm not putting her in their debt!" He snaps, slouching lower in the couch. "She's not going to owe anyone a damn thing when she gets out of there."
He gets up after that, goes back to the screen and paces back and forth for a few minutes before going to the dessert table and snatching up an apple and gnawing on it distractedly.
If he'd shown that kind of foresight a few years ago, maybe Gale wouldn't have quite so many debts to pay.
"You just do what they ask," Haymitch had told him, during his Victory Tour. "Don't be an idiot, boy, just do whatever they ask."
If the asshole had a conscience, Gale would've said he looked apologetic.
Gale had straightened up, glared suspiciously at him. "What are they going to ask me to do?"
Haymitch had just shook his head. "Just, whatever it is, you do it."
"Why?"
"Because you got a family," Haymitch had finally snapped. "And if you want to keep them alive you'll fall in step, understand?"
A few hour later Gale was introduced to his first purported 'date', a woman twice his mom's age that had undergone so many surgeries her face looked like a melted doll's.
That's when it had hit Gale, that even though he'd survived, been a popular Tribute and was looking to be on par with Finnick Odair as a Victor, he was still playing a game.
It didn't end. It never would.
Finnick had been his guide through the seemingly endless stream of women seeking his company, explaining the rules to the new game he was being expected to play.
It was deceptively simple, but painfully hard.
"They can't ask you to do that," his mom had said, looking horrified as she put some of the Capitol's healing salve on his back to repair the wounds his newest 'lover' had put there during her foreplay. "This isn't right."
Gale just grimaced. "There's not much asking."
He wasn't a person, he was an object, and his feelings on the matter didn't have much weight.
Besides, it was part of the game. Either he did what they wanted or his family would pay the price. He loved them too much to risk their lives by standing up.
It's what happened to Haymitch, and Gale wasn't stupid enough to follow in his so-called mentor's footsteps.
On the screen, Madge gets up, takes a deep breath, and continues to climb the mountain as Gale tries to imagine her as a Victor.
She's pretty enough. He can imagine her being tanned, glittered up, sewn into a dress that left little to the imagination and put on the market, just like Cashmere.
It would break her. Madge Undersee may just be tough enough to survive whatever twisted Arena the Gamemaker's throw at her, but he can't imagine her surviving being a plaything of the filthy perverts that fill the Capitol.
Closing his eyes, he remembers her at his homecoming.
They'd had a dinner at the Mayor's home for him, set the table with fancy silverware and plates, served more food than Gale had seen in a lifetime, but he hadn't been able to stomach a single bite.
While everyone else was talking, he'd bolted outside and dove in the bushes beside the deck and thrown up.
Everytime he'd closed his eyes he'd seen the kids he'd killed, both with his snares and with his hands, seen all of them flashing in the Arena sky. He couldn't forget them, get them out of his head no matter how far he was from that hell now, and it was tearing him up.
He hadn't thought anyone had noticed him rushing out. His mom was busy with Posy, while Vick and Rory were pestering each other, and everyone else was laughing and having a good time, but when he emerged from the bushes he nearly ran into a little blonde.
She'd probably just barely a teenager, still had a bit of a baby face, but the rest of her body had clearly gotten the message that she was going to be a woman. He hadn't noticed it so much when he'd been selling her berries on her back porch, but he did now.
If he hadn't just thrown up, if he hadn't just survived the Hunger Games, he might've tried flirting with her, teasing her, but he hadn't been able to. That was the old Gale, and he'd died somewhere in that Arena.
For a minutes she'd just stared at him, her nose wrinkled up as she studied him, before pressing her finger to her lips and beckoning him with her other hand.
Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, Gale had quietly followed her in the house, skirting past the still laughing and chatting people at the table by going in the servant's entrance and up a set of back steps.
Madge had led him to a hall, their feet not making a sound on the well-treaded carpet, to her room.
It wasn't what he expected, just a plain room with a dull comforter, a bookshelf, and a few dolls, a far cry from the decadence he'd always assumed it would contain.
"You can clean up in my bathroom," she told him, pointing to the door, her cheeks pink.
It was a kindness he hadn't earned. Gale had never been particularly nice to the Mayor's mousy daughter, and he didn't deserve whatever sweetness she spared him, no matter what he'd just been through.
Still, he'd eagerly accepted it. He wanted those few stolen moments with a pretty girl, away from his party, just to be still and pretend none of the awfulness of the past few weeks had actually happened.
The bathroom was just as plain as her bedroom. White tile, white tub, white sink...if it weren't for a few soaps and a washcloth it would almost be barren.
Gale washed his mouth out, scrubbed his face, trying to rub off the shameful tear tracks from his cheeks, before coming out.
Madge had been sitting on her bed, apparently reading a book that she'd quickly put down and walked to him, her nose wrinkling up again as she reached out and gingerly reached out and brushed a hair from his face.
Her face had turned redder and she'd quickly looked away, mumbling an apology as she'd gone back to her bed and plopped down.
The party was still loud downstairs, and Gale had no desire to rejoin it, so he'd eased down beside her and just sat.
For several minutes they didn't talk, just stared at the rug below their feet, before Madge finally sighed.
"It'll get better," she'd whispered.
Shooting her an incredulous look, Gale asked, "How do you know?"
She'd mulled over the question for a few minutes before finally giving him a weak smile.
"I don't, but," her smile widened a fraction, though her eyes stayed dull, "I know you're tough. I know you're a survivor. You'll survive this too."
There'd been such certainty in her voice that Gale had believed her. He'd even let her words echo in his head on his worst nights in the Capitol, being forced to pretend he was enjoying being a plaything for the monsters that lived there.
You'll survive this too.
They'd gone back downstairs after that and Gale had made mostly polite conversation until his family had left for the Victors' Village.
"Haymitch will watch out for you," she'd whispered as she gave him a small, unexpected hug, blushing furiously as she'd ducked away.
When he'd come back from his Victory Tour, Madge had given him another of her sad smiles, and he'd half wanted to tell her what he was being made to do. Haymitch was hardly watching out for him.
He hadn't though. He'd kept those details to himself.
Madge wasn't his friend, not really, and she had still been so young. She didn't deserve to be burdened with his problems.
Even if he was half certain she already knew his fate. She'd lived in the appendage of the Capitol most of her life. That defeated look in her eyes had been the knowledge of what was ahead of him, even if she hadn't known the sick details of it.
He couldn't blame her for not telling him. It wasn't her place, it wasn't the place of any child.
Sometimes he'd see her going to Haymitch's house and he'd wave, or the boys would chase after her, eager to talk to a pretty girl that had wandered into their midst.
He never talked to her though, not after that night. She was still innocent, she didn't need tainted by him.
Now, watching her struggle up a mountain, he wonders if he'd be able to tell her she'd survive after the Games too.
The answer, he knows, is no, and that's probably for the best.
People like her don't deserve the hell that is a Victory.
He'd told her as much when she'd stumbled into the dining car of the train while he'd been drinking, preparing for the Capitol.
Her hair had been a mess and she was still in her Reaping dress, she'd been cloistered in her room and had apparently not bothered to clean up.
For a moment she'd just stared at him, looking uncertain if she was allowed in, until Gale finally jerked his head toward the food still laid out from dinner.
"Go ahead." He'd eyed her carefully. "Didn't the drunk bring you something?"
Gale had watched Haymitch, grumbling and muttering, gathering up two platefuls of food that he'd taken in her general direction. Not that that had meant anything, apparently.
Nodding, Madge kept her eyes down. "I-I just wanted to go for a walk."
She'd just hovered in the door, puffy eyed and pale skinned, before turning to go and leave Gale to his brooding.
Before she'd vanished back down the hall, she sighed.
"Haymitch wants me to fight."
Taking another drink, Gale shrugged. "I wouldn't if I were you." He'd glanced at her, his eyes tracing her the outline of her body. "Not if you know what's good for you."
Madge nodded, took another ragged breath, and then sat at the far end of the table.
"I'm sorry I didn't warn you," she whispers. "I just…how do you tell someone something like that?"
Gale almost snapped that it was simple, but stopped at the look on her face. Broken and small, still innocent.
He wouldn't have known how to tell someone that awful truth, and he can't blame her for being just as lost. It wasn't her place, and besides, what good what it have done?
Gale was a Victor, and Victory had a price.
Running his hands over his face, Gale let out a long breath.
"You don't. I couldn't. It wouldn't have changed a damn thing." He'd fixed her in a steady gaze. "There's only one way to stay out of this mess."
The moonlight had bounced off her blonde hair, making it look white, washing her already pale skin out and looking deathly.
She was nothing more than a corpse awaiting burial, and she seemed strangely at peace with that as she nodded.
"I know."
Standing, she'd started for the door, and Gale found himself grabbing her by the wrist to stop her.
"You deserve better than this."
That sad smile, the one he'd seen her give him a hundred times since his Victory, at every Tour dinner and when she walked to Haymitch's, twitched up on her bloodless lips.
"I don't."
She'd pulled away after that, disappeared down the hall, and avoided Gale the rest of the trip. He thinks that was for the best.
Haymitch reappears, glaring at Two's screen and grumbling to himself before turning his attention back to Madge.
Getting up from the couch, Gale stands beside him and sighs.
"What?"
Gale just grimaces as Madge loses her footing and slips several feet down the side of the mountain, scratching her arms and legs up in the process.
"I just hope she goes quick."
She's a gentle soul. She deserves a quick end.
"Not gonna go at all," Haymitch snaps, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes, as if he could get Madge up the mountain through sheer force of will.
Pressing his fingers to his eyes, Gale groans.
"You can't possibly want her in this life, can you?"
Death would be a kinder fate for someone like Madge Undersee.
"She won't. I know what I'm doing. I'll watch out for her."
"Like you watched out for me?" Gale shoots back icily. "She's definitely better off dead if that's the case."
He starts to turn to go, but is stopped by Haymitch grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and jerking him to within inches of his face.
"I gave you solid advice. I told you how to save your family with what you had." He shoves Gale away. "She's got other assets-"
"Like they'll care about those when her physical ones are more appeal-"
"Shut your mouth!"
He's inches from Gale's face, flecks of spit flying from his mouth as he grabs Gale by the front of his shirt and holds him in place.
"Your problem is you've never understood strategy," he growls. "That girl does, and that's why when she gets out she's gonna be okay."
He shoves Gale away and turns back to the screen where Madge has made her way up the cliff and is taking shelter behind a rock, her knees pulled up to her chest.
"She's gonna be just fine. I'll make sure of it."
Gale watches him for a minute as he mumbles to himself, glares at the queued up silver parachutes with Sponsor's gifts waiting to be deployed, then goes for another apple.
Madge crawls away from her rock, to a bush of berries.
She inspects them for a minute, and while she's doing so, Gale taps a few keys and brings up details on it to his screen, certain he knows what kind it is.
Nightlock.
Holding his breath, Gale isn't sure if he wants her to eat one or not.
It would be a peaceful way to die, but he isn't quite sure he's ready for her to die on him yet.
Instead of popping it in her mouth, Madge gathers up several more berries and takes them to her rock, using the blade of a knife she'd ended up with to crush them up, then depositing them in a small container.
What her plan is, Gale doesn't know, but he can't help but be curious.
"That's my clever girl," he hears Haymitch chuckle from behind him.
Gale doesn't look back, just keeps his eyes on Madge as she continues her trek.
She may just survive these Games after all, and he can only hope Haymitch really does have a plan to keep her from being eaten alive if she does.