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: This will probably be the last update to this story in this collection. I'm planning on moving its timeline to a separate story all its own eventually, after I figure out how I want to handle it. I can't decide if I want to do a linear story, plot and all, or a mish-mash story like most of my others, jumping around in time to look at the family's life, into the kids heads, maybe even giving Madge and Gale grandkids. I'm leaning toward the mish-mash honestly, mostly because I can't think of a good plot and it gives me a lot more room to play. Anyways, thanks to those that have reviewed, you've kept me writing, for better or worse.
Kaleidoscope, pt 10
Madge gently places a wedge of goat cheese in the second lunch pail, lodged between a small satchel of strawberries and a chunk of bread Abilene had brought by the evening before.
She's a sweet girl, quiet and shy, but she loves Sage to pieces, Madge can see that.
"I baked it myself," she'd told Madge when she'd come to their door, eyes wide at her own bravery in venturing into the Seam alone for the first time. "I wanted to do something nice for Sage's first day at the mines. It's his favorite."
The she and Sage had sat out on the back porch for nearly an hour after that, talking mostly, though Miles and Wren had spied on the pair and made sure Gale and Madge knew there was plenty of kissing going on as well.
"Will you stop watching them?" Gale grumbled as he mended his game bag.
Madge almost laughed at that, wondering if Gale was actually annoyed on Sage's behalf or just remembering his own youth with nosy siblings spying on him.
Briar snorted, "He can't. He's trying to get pointers."
Miles rolled his eyes. "Not in that lighting. All I can see is shadows."
Wren nodded her agreement. "And hear smacking."
Grimacing, Daisy shook her head and took the bag from Gale, deciding to distract herself from all the talk of kissing by patching his bag up for him.
When Sage came back in his face had been a little darker and he'd gone straight to bed, refusing to indulge Miles and Wren's teasing questions about how his kissing had been.
It had been nice, listening to the kids laughing and playfully badgering one another, acting like the next morning was just like any other. Acting like it wasn't the day Madge had dreaded since she'd first heard Sage's little cry.
He was headed for the mines.
Gale had never understood how she'd been able to focus all her fears on the mines when the Reapings had always been his biggest concern.
"They could just," he snapped his fingers, "and one of them could be gone."
Being Reaped, though, was only a possibility. There was a one in thousands of a chance it would be one of their children's names plucked from the bowl.
Reaping, terrifying as they were, could be avoided, but the mines, the mines were inevitable.
Not even Madge's father could keep him from his fate, despite his best efforts.
"There's no way around it, Pearl, I'm sorry," he told her. "I've been trying to find a way out for him since he was a baby."
But the Capitol is nothing if not thorough. Men from the Seam are expendable, and even if he is the mayor's grandson, Sage is just one more warm body to be used up and tossed away.
Not that anyone cares to know that. The entire District still believes Madge and her children are privileged above them, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
"Mom?"
Turning, Madge shakes off the anger at the unfairness of it all and finds Briar and Daisy standing in the entry to the kitchen, both wearing grim expressions on their faces.
"We got up early, you know, to see Sage off," Briar tells her, dropping into her seat at the kitchen table and drumming her fingers before pulling her hand back and sitting quietly.
It'll be her first day at work too, though her job will be less dangerous. At least that's how it'll seem to those on the outside.
The Justice Building will hardly be a dream come true, especially for a girl like Briar, but she won't be at risk for bodily harm. There's plenty more to be afraid of at a Capitol run building, Madge knows that, but Gale was relieved when Madge's father had found her the job.
"I don't want her at the mines. Not at the payroll offices or in the uniform department...all those men looking at her…" He'd given her a guilty glance. "She's a pretty little girl and I don't want them getting ideas or making her uncomfortable."
"She'd punch them before they could get a hand on her, you know that right?"
Briar was Gale's daughter through and through, and Madge is grateful for that.
Her prickly nature might not endear her to everyone, particularly boys, much to Briar's own annoyance, but it'll keep her safe.
No one will take advantage of her, get her in trouble. Even if it had turned out okay in the end for Madge and Gale, they were more the exception than the rule.
Daisy, on the other hand…
Daisy is the one they need to lose sleep over someone hurting.
Gale chuckled, clearly enjoying the thought of Briar decking someone. "Yeah." Then his expression had dimmed. "Still…I'd rather have her surrounded by half blind old women filing papers than dirty men."
While she understands his concern, the thought of Briar in a building with ears and eyes in the walls and ceilings all belonging to people who'd as soon see them die as toss them table scraps, doesn't set well with Madge.
There's nowhere that's truly safe though.
They just have to take what little security they can get their hands on and hope for the best.
Besides, Madge's father has promised to have Briar mostly being his secretary. She'll be close to her grandfather, a man who knows how to play the game, and with any luck, he'll teach Briar enough of it to keep her from trouble. Just like he had Madge.
She'll be far safer than Sage could ever hope to be.
Forcing a smile, Madge takes the pair of lunch pails and places them on the table before sitting across from Briar.
"Did you put in the cheese?" Daisy asks, her voice just above a whisper as she settles into the seat next to Briar.
Nodding, Madge tries to keep her smile bright as Gale comes through the entry.
He's looking grayer the past few months, silvery wisps at his temples and dusting through his thick hair. Not even his stubble has managed to avoid the stress building inside Gale as the day Sage and Briar finally start their jobs approached.
"I think I finally understand why the mines scared you more than the Reapings," he'd confessed, just days before, when he'd arrived home with a thick layer of coal dust hanging over him. "Equipment breaking down, supports needing replaced…we're one failure away from a cave in."
Madge's insides rolled at the thought.
Gale rarely has to go into the mines since being made a supervisor, but Rory and Vick aren't so lucky.
And now her baby is going to be down in one of those holes too.
"I don't want Sage in the mines," he finally sighed, rubbing at his neck. "Not for one second."
Madge dropped beside him on the little bench by the door, took his hand and pressed a kiss to it.
"I know. I don't either."
Squeezing her hand, Gale grimaced, took a long breath.
"Abernathy have any news?"
Forcing a weak smile, Madge shook her head.
"No."
It was a sign of just how desperate Gale was not to have their son in the mines, that he was encouraging Madge to associate with 'that filthy drunk' as a means to save Sage.
"He-he said his friend has him at the top of the list, but there's just no openings."
Months ago Mr. Abernathy had come to Madge, before Gale and the kids were home for the day, and told about a possibility for a different, safer future for Sage.
"I love that boy as much as I love you, you know that Pearl?"
Nodding, Madge waited, not really understanding what he was working towards, rubbing his rough hand over his face and wincing.
"Well I-I went to school with the foreman for the engineering corps, and he's a bit of a dick, but I think I can talk him into giving Sage a chance. If you want me to try anyways."
He'd looked worried, almost as if he expected her to throw his offer back in his face, but Madge had only burst into tears.
"Mr. Abernathy-I-do you really think he could have a chance?"
It was more than she could ever hope for. She had told Sage to apply for the corps, of course, but the Capitol had cut the budgets of nearly all the mining services the past few years. They hadn't taken a new member in at least four years.
"Boy that smart? They'd be fools to waste him in those pits," he chuckled, wiping tears from her cheeks and pulling her into a hug, pressing a kiss to her hair.
"Thank you," she'd sighed, squeezing him tight and inhaling the scent of cigarette smoke and faded cologne from his clothes.
"Don't thank me yet, sweetheart." He'd shifted, sighing. "Wish I could do more than bribe Amos Lane. Danny-boy would if he could."
There was so much self-loathing in his voice, comparing what he can do to what Madge's father would've or could've done if he had the option, that Madge scowled, shook her head.
"But dad can't," she'd pulled back, given him a stern look she so often used with the children. "You can help, and you are."
And he had tried, but there were simply no open positions, at least not until someone died.
"Aren't some of those guys old?" Gale asked, glaring out at the back yard as they'd met with Mr. Abernathy to hear the outcome of his meeting with Mr. Lane. He'd given Mr. Abernathy a little shrug. "Any of them close to kicking the bucket? Any of them need a little nudge?"
"Gale!"
Mr. Abernathy looked a little too thoughtful. "Some of them, yeah-"
"Mr. Abernathy!" Madge fixed him in a glare. "You are not killing anyone."
"I wouldn't do it myself, sweethea-"
"No."
She had to draw a line somewhere, and that line was apparently at murder. Or at least something close to it.
Sage would never forgive them for it.
They had purposefully not told him about Mr. Abernathy's attempts to give him an advantage. Sage had inherited Madge's sense of fair play, and he wouldn't have appreciated their attempts to subvert the system, even to save his life.
Madge understands her son's desire to be level with everyone else. She'd been the same way most of her life. When it comes to her children though, she's found she's a little more lax about unfair advantages.
Not that it had come to anything. All the positions within the engineering corps have stayed filled, with not so much as a case of the sniffles threatening any of them.
It disgusts her that she wakes each morning hoping to hear of one the men's deaths. It makes her an awful person, even if Gale promises her it doesn't.
Gale plops into the seat beside Daisy and grimaces before running a hand through his hair.
"Didn't wake Wren?"
Daisy shakes her head, her lips forcing into a smile. "We didn't want to upset her."
"Plus she sleeps like a rock," Briar adds, popping her neck and slumping in her chair. "We couldn't'a pried her outta bed if we tried."
Chuckling, Gale nods his agreement, probably remembering past attempts at waking his youngest. Wren simply woke when she woke, which, thankfully, was before school started.
It was not, however, when Gale left for the mines.
A silent moment passes as they sit around the table, no one eager to start a conversation, when someone clears their throat from the entry.
Madge's heart stops dead in her chest.
Sage is dressed in his new mining uniform, his hair combed down, face somber as his gray eyes scan the room.
He looks so much like Gale that it's almost like looking into a rip into the past. Sage could be Gale twenty years ago, heading to his first day in the mines. It nearly breaks her heart, imagining the changes the mines will inflict on him, the ways they will try to break her baby.
She's seconds from tears when Sage gives her one of his crooked smiles.
"Ready?" he finally asks, eyes cutting to Gale.
If Gale's unnatural pallor, his ill expression, are any indication, then no, he isn't ready, and Madge doubts he ever will be.
"Yeah," he grunts, though Madge doesn't think he's ever sounded less ready in his life.
Getting up, he follows Sage into the living room, the girls trailing after them, with Madge snatching up the lunch pails at the end and trying to blink back the tears threatening to fall.
Madge clings to the pails like they're lifelines, watching as Sage and Gale pull on their coats, lace up their boots, pick up their hats, wishing all the while they were only going out to the woods.
She almost laughs. The wilds outside the fence are safer than the mines. She's never thought of it that way before…
"I'll go out to the woods after-when I get off," Briar tells them, her eyes dropping guiltily. She'll be off work hours before either of them.
Gale gives her an absent little nod before glancing at the clock. It's time to go or they'll be late.
Handing Gale his pail, Madge gives him a smile before turning to Sage and holding his lunch out to him.
"Don't worry mom," he tells her, pulling her into a hug. "I'll be okay. I'll be with dad."
He'll be with Gale. There's nowhere safer than with Gale.
Pulling back, Madge sniffs, hopes the tears don't start sliding down her face as she pops on her toes and presses a kiss to Sage's rough cheek.
"I know, baby, I know."
He kisses her cheek, then pulls both Briar and Daisy into hugs before taking a deep breath.
Before Gale can open the door, something crashes in the short hallway, and half a second later, Miles tumbles in, followed by a doughy eyed Wren.
"Oh good, you're still here," Miles sighs, nearly tripping over his bare feet as he stumbles to Sage. He grins broadly. "Didn't want you to head out to your first day without seeing my brilliant smile first."
Sage rolls his eyes and ruffles Miles' already messy hair before glancing down at Wren.
"And I got a present for you," Wren tells him through a yawn, reaching into her nightgown pocket and producing a rock. "It looks like a clover leaf."
Taking the lumpy rock from her, Sage squints, clearly doesn't see anything resembling a clover, then smiles.
"Yeah," he agrees, obviously lying. "Just like a clover."
She smiles sleepily and then flings her arms around him.
"Have a good day, Sage."
She releases him and goes to Gale, giving him hug as well, before drifting to the couch and flopping down.
"I'm going back to sleep."
It's more than Madge expected of her, but then Wren is constantly surprising her, so Madge just smiles as Wren falls back to sleep while Gale opens the door.
The early morning air is brisk as it finds its way into the house.
Madge grabs Gale, holds him tight for a moment before inching up and pressing a quick kiss to his rough lips.
"Keep him safe."
With a grim nod, Gale sighs, letting his forehead rest against hers for a breath.
"I will."
Blinking tears back, Madge turns to Sage and smiles as brightly as she can as she reaches out and smoothed the front of his uniform, memorizing ever crease and wrinkle before focusing on his face. She studies him for a long moment, wanting to commit every bit of him to memory just as he is now, before the Capitol starts to break his spirit.
"Be careful."
"I will."
"Make sure you eat all your lunch," she warns him, her voice almost breaking. "You'll need the energy."
It's a stupid thing to say, but it's something solid. She can't keep him from the mines but she can keep him fed. She's still his mother.
"I will." He hugs her again, gives her another kiss. "It'll be okay."
That's a lie, but he makes it sound like such a truth.
He follows Gale down the steps, stopping when he hears Miles call out.
"Save some coal for me," he tries to joke, rubbing his neck. "Just a few years, right?"
Madge's insides turn at the thought of her silly Miles trapped with his brother and father, digging coal until he dies.
He's more frightened of the mines than he'll ever say. He'll only ever make jokes, but Madge feels the anxiety rolling off him.
Sage can bury his fear for his siblings' sake, but it's not a skill Miles has ever honed.
Giving him a crooked smile, Sage nods. He understands his brother and sisters almost better than Madge or Gale.
"I'll try."
With that, he follows Gale out into the dewy morning, his pail and his mining helmet gently banging against his leg, leaving Madge with an empty feeling at her center and tears finally sliding down her cheeks.
#######
Sage doesn't speak the entire walk up to the main road.
It isn't unusual, he's never been talkative, but there's a heaviness to the silence that's unnatural.
He's terrified, even if he won't say it.
Gale can see it though. Sage is his son, even if he's more Madge's in personality.
"You're gonna be in Rory's crew," he tells him, finally breaking the silence. "Him and Vick will keep an eye on you."
Rory may be a pain in the ass, but he loves his nephew, he'll keep him safe. It was nothing short of a miracle a spot had opened up in time for Gale to assign him to the crew.
If only a spot had opened up on the engineering corps instead.
He shakes his head, trying to force away the bitterness building in his mind.
"I'll check on you as much as I can-"
"You don't have to," Sage cuts him off, one of Madge's sad little smiles hanging on his lips. "I'll be okay. You don't need to go down there anymore than you have to."
He knows Gale hates going into the dark, closed space of the mines. It had been a blessing he'd made supervisor, cutting his time down there by half. He'll gladly brave it though, for his son.
"With all you green recruits?" Gale grins, trying to sound half as casual as Miles always manages. "Have to. Need to make sure none of you wash out."
It's a flimsy lie, and Sage is too bright to fall for it. There's no option of washing out, giving up. The Capitol won't allow it.
Still, he lets his dad tell him little white lies. It makes Gale feel better to try to comfort him, and Sage has too much of his mom's kindness in him to tell him he knows there's no truth in the words.
Sad smile still fixed on his face, Sage just nods and fixes his gaze ahead of him. Toward the mines.
No one joins up with them, like they normally do. None of the men feel much like socializing on the first few days when the new men, boys, their sons and grandsons, are freshly being sent to the mines. There's much less laughter on those days, as they watch the light die in those kids' eyes, as they watch them settle into the mines that will be their graves.
After a few minutes, the gates to the yard come into view and when they cross from the gravel road to the broken concrete of the mines, and Gale hears his name coming from one of the tin buildings used as a locker area.
Rory's hair is sticking out at wild angles from under his helmet but his uniform is a little more pressed than normal. The words 'crew chief' are more visible on his chest than they have been in months. Since the last fall, to be exact.
Chaparral had clearly freshened it up, anticipating the new miners need to identify their leader in the dimness of the mines. Just like all the years past, since Rory had gotten the promotion.
Vick is at his side, just like he's been since they were little, though he's several inches taller than Rory now, despite his slouch.
He's been offered a promotion himself, a few times actually, but his desire to stay with Rory beat out any ambitions he might've harbored. They're best friends to the very end.
Gale hates to admit it, even if it's just to himself, but he's always been a little jealous of their friendship. He loves his brothers, and they love him, he knows that, but he'd been forced to be a parent to them more than a brother for much of their lives.
That, more than the distance between their ages, has always kept them from being as close with him as with each other.
They come to a stop within arm's reach of Gale and Sage, force smiles, before Rory chuckles.
"Ready?"
Sage shrugs. "As I'll ever be."
Rory laughs, a big booming laugh, so much like Gale remembers his dad's being that his breath catches in his chest, before reaching out and musing Sage's hair.
"Ah, never fear, little nephew, I'll keep you safe. Anything happens to you and Madge'll have Haymitch rip my balls off and feed them to me."
A real smile forms on Sage's face as he rolls his eyes.
"Mr. Abernathy'd make you feed yourself."
Laughing harder, Rory grabs Sage around the neck and half drags him toward the tin building to introduce him to the other men on the crew, all milling around in the haze near the elevators.
Vick keeps quiet for a moment, watching them go, before looking to Gale and sighing.
"I'm counting the days until Boone has to come here with me," he finally says, his voice just barely carrying over the dull hum of men talking and equipment warming up.
"I think Miles is too," Gale tells him, running a hand over his face. "I thought the Reapings were the worst, you know? But this...this is..."
There was a chance of getting out of the Reapings, not being picked. A bigger chance of not being picked than there was of being chosen.
There's no being passed over for the mines.
Sage will live out his days here, then Miles will have the silliness crushed out of him, and finally Vick's boy, poor little Boone, will get tossed in alongside his cousins.
It's an impossibility, getting out of the mines.
"This is torture," Vick finally sighs.
Torture is a pretty good description for it, Gale silently agrees.
He starts to say something, make an empty promise or offer cold comfort, but his voice catches when the horn blows signaling the start of the day, beckoning them to the elevators.
Exchanging one last hopeless glance, Gale pats Vick on the shoulder.
"Watch out for him, will you?"
Vick nods. "Like he was my own."
#######
"He's making it," Rory tells Gale, when they emerge for their all too short lunch, while Sage and Vick are washing as much coal and dirt from their hands as they can. "Better than most."
It's little comfort to Gale, but it's something.
Silently, he curses Abernathy, wishing he'd done more for Sage.
The dirty old drunkard loves Madge and the kids, and he'd given them a taste of hope because of it.
"He's going to try," Madge had whispered, after telling Gale what Abernathy was planning, bribing or begging his old school mate to give Sage a place in the engineering corps.
Gale hadn't questioned it. He'd encouraged it. This was his boy's life and he'd even take Abernathy's help to save it.
For the longest time he'd resented District Twelve's oldest and least likeable Victor.
Abernathy had too much free time, and spent an alarming amount of it with Madge.
"He's helping," Madge explained, shaking her head at what she clearly saw as irrational thinking. "He brings my mom out and plays with the kids. He wouldn't hurt me."
Somewhere in his mind, Gale knew Abernathy would die before he hurt Madge or the kids, but his presence still made him uneasy.
For a long time he'd thought maybe he was afraid the asshole had a crush on Madge and was using Gale's time at work to butter her up, steal her away.
Then he'd come home one evening and found Briar and Sage playing in the backyard seemingly alone.
He'd watched for a moment, wondering if he'd ever been so carefree, before Abernathy stepped out from the shadows of the house, laughing at them.
They pulled him into their nonsense, giggled and played, until Madge called for them from the porch to come clean up before Gale got home.
Abernathy had pressed kisses to both kids' heads, ruffled their hair, then sent them scrambling in, before he ascended the steps himself and saying something to Madge.
Then, just as he'd kissed Sage and Briar, he hugged Madge and pressed a kiss to her hair, and it finally clicked with Gale.
Madge wasn't a pretty woman to Abernathy. She was still very much a little girl. He talked to her, treated her, a lot like Gale's mom treated him.
The more he paid attention, the more clear it became that Abernathy saw Madge as a surrogate for all the kids he'd never had, never would. It was almost enough to make Gale feel sorry for the asshole. Almost.
He still felt the sting of jealousy when it was Abernathy who got to spend the last few hours of daylight playing with his kids while Gale was trapped in the mines. Even if he knew the fondness Abernathy carried for both Gale's wife and children might be all that could keep them from starving or freezing if Gale were killed.
He'd hoped that love would save Sage.
Abernathy had done all he could, though, for all the good it did. Gale still wishes there were more.
"He isn't killing anyone," Madge scolded both Gale and the drunk, when they'd discussed the only way to get a position opened for Sage.
The option had only been a fleeting thought. Gale knew she was right. They couldn't let Haymitch Abernathy put someone in the ground, even if it was for their son. Sage would never look at them again, he had too much moral fiber for it.
"He'll choke on his morals," Abernathy grumbled. "I can live with him hating me if it means he does live."
After a little thought though, Gale realized he couldn't, and he still isn't sure if that makes Abernathy the better man or not.
"I never wanted this for him," Gale says to no one, not even realizing he's spoken until Rory grunts an acknowledgment.
"No one does," he finally mutters. Grimacing, he shakes his head. "No stopping it though."
Gale nods, bites into his bread, not even tasting it.
"It's why I'm not having any," he adds. "I-I couldn't-to love someone that much and know what's coming. I couldn't do it."
"You think it's stupid?" Gale asks, not angry, just tired.
"I think it's brave," he answers simply. "I'm a coward. But at least I found me another coward to finish this life with, right?"
Snorting, Gale shakes his head. "I dare you to let Chaparral hear you call her a coward."
Rory grins. "Not a chance. I'm a smart coward."
Gale smiles and wonders if his children will be bravely stupid like him and Madge, or cowardly smart like Rory.
He wishes he knew which is the better option.