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: Sorry y'all, had to take this down for some editing. It's probably stuff only I'll notice, but...so it is. I've been working OT so it was just easier to take it down and fix it on my day off than trying to edit and replace. As before, this is just a random snippet from this universe.
Kaleidoscope, pt 11
Gale watches as Madge gently sways, her humming dim against the wailing of the ice storm raging outside.
Daisy is still limp in her arms, cheeks scarlet and purple shadows under her eyes, worse than she'd been when Gale had left that morning.
A sickness had made the rounds in the Seam the past few weeks. The bitter cold coupled with frequent snow and ice storms had already cemented this winter as one of the deadliest in District Twelve's history.
Every morning, as Gale battles against the icy winds to the mines, he spots the most recent victims of the cold, some wrapped in sheets if they can be spared, others simply set out with as much dignity as the family can manage.
The dead, with their sickness, stiff bodies, and sadness, have no place among the living.
So far, Gale feels they've been lucky. Their home isn't as drafty or leaky as most houses in the Seam and Gale's hunting gives them all extra reserves. Sage and Briar have come down with the sniffles, but beyond that they've been well.
Daisy hasn't been so lucky.
Her sniffles had lingered, never really going away, and the last few days it's slowly turned into a wet cough.
This morning, when Gale had gone to kiss her goodbye, she'd felt warm, and he'd warned Madge.
"I'll try to get to my parents and see if I can get some medicine for her."
He'd shaken his head.
"Don't be crazy. You'll freeze out there," he'd warned her, eyes resting on her belly, hidden under layers of clothing.
She wasn't due for at least another month, but with the stress of Daisy's illness, the endless snow storms with their winds and cold, and the dwindling food supply, which will only get lower if the storms don't let up enough for Gale to go hunting, that awful midwife has warned them she might go into labor too early.
Trundling through the knee deep snow and blistering winds was definitely not a good idea or her.
"I'll go after work."
Even though he'd hated leaving Daisy with a fever, there wasn't much of a choice. Skipping work wasn't an option, he'd end up arrested for truancy, and Madge certainly couldn't take her out in the storm.
His baby was sick and he was helpless until the end of work bell rang.
"I can go get the medicine," Sage offered.
"I can go too," Briar chimed in, hat already on and boots in hand.
"No," Gale told them, the firmness in his voice cutting off any arguments.
He wasn't having them come down with something worse than what their sister already had or frozen in a snowdrift. He'd go to the Mayor's house right after work.
There'd been no going to the Mayor's house though, despite Gale's hours long attempt. The road into Town was iced over and the snow had been blowing so hard Gale hadn't been able to see more than a foot in front of him.
A rattling cough echoes around the room as Madge settles down on the bed in exhaustion, laying Daisy down beside her.
She looks a little pink in the cheeks too, truth be told, and the thought of her being sick too turns his stomach.
Pregnant women who get sick in the Seam don't last long. Her chances would be worse than Daisy's if she caught something.
Reaching out, he brushes a strand of hair from her face, presses his hand to her forehead.
"I'm fine, Gale, I'm just tired."
"You need to sleep then," he tells her, leaning in and kissing her forehead, grateful not to feel a fever flushing her skin. "I'll take over."
She looks like she wants to argue, but she's just too run down to do more than wrinkle her nose in annoyance as she combs her fingers through Daisy's sweat soaked hair.
Getting up, Gale snatches up the washrag from the bedside table and heads out to dunk it in the rain barrel. Daisy needs to cool down, and cold water is the one thing they have in abundance.
He's barely out the door when he nearly trips over Sage.
"Can I go in?" He asks, peeking around Gale's legs. "Please?"
Despite not wanting him to catch whatever Daisy has, Gale nods. "Just don't get in her face."
Nodding, Sage rushes in.
Hurrying to the kitchen, Gale goes out the backdoor to the porch.
Taking a metal bowl he'd grabbed off the counter he breaks through the ice that'd formed in the rain barrel and dips out freezing water before rushing back in.
He's so busy trying not to drop the bowl from his shivering, that he doesn't notice Briar shutting the door behind him.
"Is Daisy gonna die?"
For a moment Gale pretends not to hear her, focuses on brushing snow from his shoulders and hair and finding the rag he'd dropped. Then she asks again.
"Dad, is Daisy gonna die?"
Swallowing down doubt, Gale doesn't look at her as he tries to find an answer that won't make him a liar.
Truthfully, he doesn't know. Daisy is still little. In the Seam, the very old and the smallest among them are the worst casualties of the yearly illnesses. He doesn't like to think of how many tiny bundles he's seen vanishing in the snow piling up beside the houses.
Bile rises in his throat at the thought of Daisy wrapped in a quilt, put out in the cold like garbage.
He won't let that happen. Not to his little girl.
"What makes you ask that?" He finally asks in place of an answer.
"Rowan's little sister died," she answers, eyes dropping to the puddle forming at Gale's feet. "The last day of school, Ms. Holly told us. She got real sick, real fast, and she died."
She fidgets for a moment, before looking up, her eyes shining.
"I know she's stupid and little, and I don't like to play with her, but I don't want Daisy to die!"
Fat tears begin rolling down her cheeks, dripping down the front of her shirt and her face crumples before Gale can even register what she's said.
Reaching out, Gale pulls her into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"Shhhh," he tries to calm her, but she only sobs harder.
It takes several minutes of Briar shaking against Gale's chest before her tears slow and she's left with sniffles and hiccups.
"I'm s-s-sorry," she stutters, rubbing her eyes on her shirt sleeve.
Kissing her head again, Gale sighs. "I know, baby girl, I know."
"Jus' tell me," she looks up at him, her eyes still bright with tears, "is she gonna die?"
#######
Gale squints into the wind, pulling the multiple coats tight around him as he struggles through the snow.
"I'm going to Abernathy's," he'd told Madge, as he'd dug out several extra socks. "He keeps medicine, doesn't he?"
He'd hoped so. Something needed to go right. Daisy wasn't going to die, not if Gale had strength left in his body.
Madge frowned, looking away from Daisy for long enough for Sage to take the rag from her and begin dabbing his sister's forehead.
"I-He used to. For when he was hung over…" Then she'd shaken her head. "He might not now though. You might get all the way up there and for nothing."
But since Haymitch Abernathy's place was closer than the Mayor's, more accessible through sheltered back routes, it was Gale's best shot.
Briar had tried to follow him, bundled up and tumbled out the front door after him, but Gale had sent her back in.
"Help your mother," he'd ordered her.
"She has Sage."
"She needs you too, tough girl."
Grumbling, she'd gone back in, casting Gale a sulky glare over her shoulder as she'd shut the door.
After what feels like hours, might actually be, Gale finally reaches the break in the wood.
He can't seen Abernathy's house, the snow is falling too thick, but he trudges in the direction he knows it is.
Stumbling, Gale finally finds the back steps.
He slips a few times, catches himself on the crumbling railing before finally getting to the back door.
Abernathy isn't home. He'd been whisked away to the Capitol for the Victory Tour, but he never locks his doors.
"What've I got to steal?" He'd muttered when Gale had complained about how unsecured his home was when he'd come to pick Briar and Sage up from him a few years ago. "If the kids stayed all night I'd lock it up so tight a cockroach couldn't squeeze in."
"They aren't staying here," Gale told him simply, eyeing the filth littering the house with undisguised disgust. "Ever."
Grunting, Gale pushes the door open and reaches to where he know the light switch is and flips it. Nothing happens.
Apparently, the Capitol's ability to keep the electricity on lost out to Mother Nature's ability to bury the entire district in snow and ice.
Despite the dark, he can see the kitchen is disgusting.
There's trash everywhere, tossed haphazardly on the table and countertop, littering the floor, and molding food spilling out of the trashcan. If it weren't for the cold, Gale is pretty sure the room would reek of rot.
Without bothering to knock the snow from his boots, Gale stomps in and glares around, wondering where a filthy old drunk would hid his medicine.
"He keeps his pills in the bathroom," a tiny, muffled voice answers his unasked question.
Grinding his teeth, Gale turns.
"I thought I sent you back in the house?"
Briar, snow caked to every inch of her and clinging to her eyelashes, gives Gale a sheepish shrug.
He should've known she wouldn't stay in. Playing caretaker isn't in her nature.
"I wanned'a help," she mumbles through her scarf, eyes casting down.
Deciding now wasn't the time to punish her for very deliberately ignoring him, Gale sighs.
"Any candles around here?"
Tottering over, Briar fumbles with her mittened hands, trying to open one of the drawers before Gale goes over and opens it for her.
There are a few half melted candles inside, alongside some cigar stubs and a battered tin.
"He keeps the matches on the fridge, 'cause he thinks Sage and me can't get to them up there," she tells him, rolling her eyes. Clearly, Abernathy underestimates them.
After a few minutes of fumbling around, Gale finds the matches, lights one of the dusty candles, and lets Briar lead him up the stairs to where she thinks the medicine is.
"How do you know he keeps the pills in his bathroom?" Gale finally asks, once some of the cold has seeped from his bones.
Pulling her scarf down, Briar smiles.
"He told me. He said, 'kid, don't mess with this, but if I need it, you'll know where it is'."
Praying that Abernathy's stash is more than just painkillers, Gale grimly follows Briar through the first door on the landing.
The bedroom is as bad as the kitchen. Piles of clothes, some that look like they've been there since before the Dark Days, are in every corner. The bed is little more than a stack of pillows and what might've been pants once upon a time, and the window has a ragged bath towel pinned over it.
Rolling his eyes and wondering how anyone could live like this, Gale walks beside Briar as they enter the bathroom.
There are towels and moldering clothes all over, in layers over the tile, and the bathtub has several socks and shoes in it.
"What a slob," Gale mutters to himself as Briar opens a drawer.
She pulls out several bottles and holds them out. "Which one is it?"
Frowning, Gale stares at the bottles, foreign names written on them, for several minutes before shaking his head. His stomach drops.
"I don't know."
#######
Gale hasn't been to Katniss' house since before her Victory Tour, and in the years since she'd cut him from her life without so much as a goodbye he's had no desire to revisit it.
He has a good life, and Katniss Everdeen has no place in it.
Katniss isn't home though, and he needs someone with medical knowledge, and for the moment, Mrs. Everdeen is his best bet.
Briar's hand tight in his, Gale struggles through the snow, to the dark steps leading to the Everdeen house.
He knocks on the door, and for a few minutes waits.
"Maybe they aren't home?" Briar offers, cupping her hands and pressing her face to the glass of the door.
Balling his hand up, Gale bangs on the door louder.
"Mrs. Everdeen! Prim! It's Gale Hawthorne! Can you come to the door?"
From inside he hears the scuffling of feet, then the clicking of locks, before the door slowly opens and blue eyes peek out.
He hasn't seen Prim in years. She doesn't venture to the Seam and she doesn't have many friends since her move to the Victors' Village, so Gale hardly has the opportunity to run into her.
She's faded, like a washed out version of the girl he'd held the hand of during the 74th Games. Her skin is paler than Madge's, hair limp, but when she smiles, there's a glimmer of the girl she'd been.
"Gale?" Her smile brightens once she sees it's really him. "Gale, what are you doing here?"
A strong gust of wind nearly knocks Briar off her feet before he can answer, and Prim yelps, opening the door wider and waving for them to come in.
Picking Briar up, Gale steps across the threshold and instantly feels warmer without the wind on him.
"Come in the living room," Prim tells them, ushering Gale toward room to their left, to the faint yellow glow of a fire in the hearth.
Gale sets Briar down and urges her to warm up, briskly rubbing her arms with his gloved hands before he's happy she isn't frozen, then stands and turns to Prim.
"Gale…" She smiles again, then shakes her head, looking down at Briar. "Who is this?"
Briar's teeth are still chattering, so Gale answers for her.
"My girl, Briar."
Prim's smile dims, just enough to be noticed, as she stares at Briar, like she's never seen anything quite like her before. Then she shakes her head, forcing her smile up again.
"I'd heard you had kids," she raises her eyes to him. "How many do you have?"
"Three," his lips twitch up. "About to have four."
"Momma's pregnant," Briar explains. "She's gonna have another baby even though dad said Daisy was the last."
Covering her mouth, Prim laughs. "Oh? That's so?"
Briar nods. "Yeah-"
"Prim," Gale cuts in, both afraid of what Briar might say next and anxious to get answers and get back to his sick kid and pregnant wife, "I need you to look at this medicine and tell me if any of it is for fevers."
Without waiting for a response, he pulls all the bottles from his pockets and pushes them into Prim's hands.
"My youngest, she's sick, she's burning up and she has a cough and she looks…" he bites his lip. "She looks terr-"
"Prim? Prim is everything okay? I heard-" Mrs. Everdeen stops at the entry, expression frozen in confusion as she spots first Gale, and then Briar. "What's happened?"
#######
"It sounds like pneumonia," Mrs. Everdeen tells him as she hands him peppermint leave, wrapped in a small bag. "The peppermint will help her breath, the cupping will help break it up, and make sure she drinks plenty of fluids, it helps thin secretions."
The years have worn her down as much as they have his own mom, maybe more. Her hair is almost entirely white and the wrinkles on her face are more pronounced.
Her smile and her spirit are still kind though, ready to help a poor man in desperate need.
She picks up one of the bottles and hands it to him as well.
"This will help with the fevers, only give her half of one every six hours, tepid baths, and no blankets, she'll cook if you wrap her up, am I clear?"
Nodding, Gale takes the pills and stuffs them in his inner pockets.
"Now get home," Mrs. Everdeen tells him, smiling softly. "It was good to see you, Gale."
For a moment Gale considers hugging her, but stops himself. Too much has happened, too many years have passed.
"Thank you," is all he manages to say, his voice breaking.
"I hope she gets better."
Gale nods. "Me too."
Putting his coats and gloves back on, Gale gathers up Briar, who'd settled down by the little fire and nodded off against Prim's shoulder.
"She's beautiful, Gale," she whispers as she puts Briar's hat back on. "You're so lucky. You have no idea how lucky you are."
Prim's wide blue eyes shine for heartbeat, focused on Briar's sleeping face, before she blinks away the tears.
Gale wants to ask her why she's become a shut in, never ventures any further than the Mellark Bakery, why her circle of friends has dwindled in the years since Katniss' so-called victory.
He doesn't though.
They aren't friends, haven't been in many years.
He has no right to their secrets.
"Yeah," he says instead, shifting Briar in his arm. "I know."
Even though, he thinks maybe he doesn't.
#######
When they finally battle their way home, through howling wind and snow that turns to ice raining down as they reach their front yard, Daisy is boiling.
Her soft blonde hair is plastered to her forehead, eyes bright with the fever, and she doesn't even try to sit up when they blow in. A feeble cough and a pathetic whimper are all she manages to greet them with.
"Take this, baby," Gale coaxes her to take the half pill, crushed up and mixed with some mush to hide the flavor. "Just a bite."
Ever his easy child, Daisy's eyes open fractionally before coughing and letting Gale spoon the medicine into her mouth.
"Now we have to drink," he urges her to sip from the cup.
She whimpers but lets him tip the cool water into her mouth, a disconcerting amount dribbling out and down the front of her hand-me-down nightgown.
"Good girl," he tells her as she lays back on the bed, eyes drooping closed again.
Settling down beside her, Gale presses a kiss to her temple and listens as she struggles to breath.
The wind howls and the windows rattle, but they aren't louder than the awful noises his daughter makes.
#######
The ice and snow are too much for the ancient mining equipment, and the next day the mines are closed, much to Gale's relief. He hadn't slept the entire night.
Instead he'd stayed up, watching Daisy take ragged little breathes, praying to whatever god would listen to him that she'd take another.
Daisy's fevers spike and break several times, crushing Gale's hope with each cycle. They cup her back, just as Mrs. Everdeen had told him to, force her to drink, take the medicine, press cool rags to her fevered skin, but she stays flushed and fevered.
It isn't until the third awful day, that her fever stays down.
She's still pale, lips cracked, coughing, but her eyes lose that awful brightness of sickness and she asks for water before they force it on her.
"We can make snowman?" She asks, once Gale carries her to the living room on the second day without a fever, lets her look out the window at the now gentle snow.
"Not today, cupcake." She'll be lucky if he lets her outside anymore this winter after the scare she'd given him.
"Tomo-ow?"
Gale chuckles and squeezes her tighter to his chest, presses a kiss to her hair.
"You're too sick to go outside," Sage reminds her.
"I no sick," Daisy informs him, looking slightly offended. "Daddy, I no sick no more. Remember that to him."
Dropping onto the couch, Gale sets Daisy down and watches as she weakly makes her way to the fire happily crackling on the hearth.
Sage hovers anxiously at her elbow, waiting until she sits down before plopping onto his knees beside her.
"Want me to read you a story, Dais?"
"Story!" She cheers, clapping. "I pick story?"
Nodding, Sage takes her hand and pulls her up, let's her cheerfully, if slowly, pull him down the hall to the bedroom where the few books they have are tucked away.
Madge waddles in a moment later, looking marginally more rested than she has the past few day, with a small bowl of steaming soup in hand.
"Here," she hands it to Gale.
Taking it, Gale lets her plop with as much grace as she has left, beside him, before inspecting what will be passing for their lunch.
The bowl is only half full. A weak broth with a handful of wilted vegetables and the last of the meat.
It's hardly enough, but it's more than most are getting. With the storm letting up finally at least he has the hope of going out to the woods to stock up before the mines thaw and take all his time up again.
He should be worried about a week without pay, but he can't find it in him.
Time with his family is too precious, and he won't regret being with them instead of being in a frozen pit.
Reaching out, he pulls her close, kisses her hair and lets his hand snake around and rest on her growing belly.
"He's kicking," she grumbles, rubbing just below her ribs.
Gale almost says kicking is good, it means the baby is alive, but doesn't. He's exhausted with fighting for signs of life and hope.
Instead he watches as Briar carries three small bowls of soup to the living room one at a time, set them in front of the fireplace, then rush off and return with the pillow from her bed as Sage and Daisy come back with their book.
"Sit on the pillow, Daisy," she tells her, not even giving her sister a chance to question her.
She gently shoves Daisy onto the pillow before plopping down beside her.
"I blowed on your soup, see if it's cold enough."
While Daisy tests her meal, Sage opens his book and sets it between them so the other two can see the bright pictures on the pages.
Gale and Madge watch as Sage animatedly reads to his sisters and Briar tips a little of her soup into her sister's bowl as Daisy is too absorbed in the tale to notice.
It's an uncharacteristic moment of peace after the turbulence of the past few days, and Gale is all too happy to enjoy it.
Glancing out the window, Gale decides that if the snow keeps thinning, he'll go to the woods before evening. They need food and the twins deserve some kind of respite. They've been dutiful helpers and some time outdoors is as good a reward as any. Then they can have a real meal for dinner. No sharing, full plates for all of them.
For the moment though, he sets his half eaten soup on the ground with plans on covertly pouring it into Briar's bowl when she isn't looking, then pulls Madge closer.
He's lucky. Luckier than most. More than he probably even realizes.
They're all alive and well for the time being, and he doesn't want to miss a moment of it.