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: Got one more chapter finished before break. Thought I'd end it on a little more hopeful-ish note for the time being.
Kaleidoscope, pt 14
Gale gets up early and heads to the mines.
He pulls the keys to the shift supervisors' office from his pocket and forces them in the lock, jiggles tether, then shoves the door open.
The office he shares with the two other supervisors is barely the size of his and Madge's bedroom. It's cramped quarters, three old school desks shoved in the corners and a pair of dented and overflowing filing cabinets taking up most of the space.
Sighing, Gale forces the lower drawer open and digs through the front files until he finds the one marked 'Barrows, Rowan'.
Taking it out, he goes to his desk and plops down, flopping the file open and reading through it.
He's got a sterling record, never late, never mouths off, no disciplinary concerns, not a single complaint. There's even a notation that he's up for promotion to crew chief when a spot opens. If he hadn't just destroyed his daughters' relationship, Gale would say he's a good guy.
Right now though, he's just a giant ass.
Tossing the file down, Gale scrubs his hands over face.
How is he supposed to work when his girls are fighting about some idiot?
Well, Briar is fighting. Daisy mostly just cries.
The image of Briar's last smile, Daisy's tear streaked face, are competing in his mind when he hears yelling outside.
Pushing, his worries away, he hurries out the door, certain something has broken down again and one of the men is hurt.
What he finds isn't men trying to rescue an injured friend, but a circle of men shouting.
"You see what happened?" Someone asks him.
Shaking his head, Gale pulls his cap lower on his head and goes to the crowd, pushing his way close enough to see over the men in front of him.
"Goddammit," he swears when he sees what's going on.
One of the men has another one down, his face pushed into the gravel.
Gale curses again when he sees just who is fighting.
"Sage!"
Rory has already pushed through the crowd with Vick and Thom, pulling Sage off Barrows.
Thom whistles as he eyes Barrows growing shiner.
"What'd you do to piss off Sage?" Rory asks, as Vick holds his nephew back, though Sage has stopped struggling and is simply glaring.
"Come on! Everybody get out of here!" Gale shouts as he shoves the men in front of him out of the way, finally getting to his brothers and Sage as the crowd disperses.
"Sage, bud, what has gotten into you?" Rory asks.
Without answering, Sage simply shrugs Vick off, continues glaring at Barrows.
Rory looks at Gale. "Do you know what's going on? Because this is your calm child-I'm a little lost."
"I sat up with her all night," Sage growls, angrier than Gale has ever seen him. "She woke up and cried all night."
Barrows struggles to his feet, blood dripping from his nose.
"Why is she crying?" He asks, wiping his nose, smearing blood across his face. "Did something happen?"
Sage makes a frustrated noise, shakes his head. "No-not her."
Vick frowns. "Not who? Who are we talking about?"
"I feel like I should be mad about something, but I'm not quite sure what yet," Rory mutters to Thom who nods his agreement.
Gale steps past them to Sage, grips him by the shoulder and waits until he drags his eyes from Barrows and looks at him.
The anger evaporates instantly, replaced by weary sadness.
"I thought-I just saw him and-he hurt them both," he shakes his head. "I just thought I ought to hit him at least once."
Gale almost laughs, even though it's not the least bit funny. Barrows hurt his sisters, that's about the one thing that would make calm, quiet Sage angry enough to pummel a man.
"What's happened to Daisy?" Barrows asks again, looking increasingly anxious.
Rory grabs him by the front of his filthy shirt, pulls him within an inch of his face.
He might not know what's happened, but he heard his niece's name, and that's enough to let him know the bastard has done something to one of his girls.
"What're you asking about her for? What did you do? If you hurt her…"
Thom stands up a little straighter, crosses his arms, trying to make himself look more intimidating despite looking no more threatening than a stick bug, as Vick frowns, looks at Gale and Sage.
"What's wrong with Daisy?" He asks, not looking certain he wants the answer.
Gale closes his eyes. There's no avoiding it. They'll have to tell them eventually.
"Daisy...Daisy's pregnant."
Something cracks, and Gale only realizes it's Barrows' nose taking another hit when Sage turns and grabs Vick's arm, keeping him from throwing another punch.
"She's a kid!" He snarls as he pulls a hand free and tries to grab Barrows by the hair. "She's a little girl!"
For half a breath, Gale considers taking a swing at the jackass too. He deserves two black eyes to go with his undoubtedly broken nose, but stops himself. Daisy loves him.
Thom grabs Barrows off the ground, locks his arms behind him.
"Make sure you don't break his hands, we need him to be able to sign papers," Rory tells them as he balls up his fist.
Groaning, Gale grabs Rory. "Stop."
"But-but he…"
"She says she loves him. He asked her to marry him," Gale tells him, eyeing the bloody mess that will soon be his son-in-law.
Vick and Rory deflate.
"Then why...why did Sage say she was crying?" Rory asks, fist still ready.
"She wasn't-well, she was-" Thom tightens his grip as Gale tries to explain "-but not because of him."
Not entirely, anyways.
"Let him go, Thom."
Reluctantly, Thom lets Barrows go, shooting him a dirty look for good measure.
An awkward silence settles over them, punctuated by the sounds of men just arriving, others whispering loudly behind buildings, all making wild conjectures about what had made gentle Sage Hawthorne start a fight.
"Go, get ready," Gale tells his brothers and Thom. "I need to talk to these two."
They all look ready to argue, but none do. They leave quietly, casting filthy looks at Barrows as they go.
"What's wrong with Daisy?" Barrows asks again, once the others are gone. "Why was she crying?"
He looks frantic, and Gale sympathizes with him for a moment. If someone had even implied Madge was crying, maybe hurt, he'd be at their throats, demanding answers.
"Is she okay?" He asks again, blood dripping down his front, though he doesn't seem to notice
"She's fine." Mostly.
"Then wh-"
"Briar," Sage answers simply.
Gale watches as Barrows closes his eyes, then spits blood, shakes his head.
"Briar?" He looks at Sage, one eye swollen shut. "Still?"
Sage nods, expression grim.
Barrows sighs. "I thought Daisy was joking. I thought she just-I figured she was just using that as an excuse-that she was worried you'd be freaked out because I'm older than her."
"That doesn't help," Gale grunts, crossing his arms, setting his future son-in-law in a stern glare. "She isn't even out of school."
"I know," Barrows tells him, wiping some of the blood from his face, smearing it on his pants. "It was an accident."
"I'd hope so," Gale snaps.
Because if he did it on purpose Gale is getting Haymitch and his murderous friends involved. There's no way his baby is staying married to a manipulative pervert.
"I swear." He looks between them. "It was my birthday an-"
Gale cuts him off with a glare. "Don't finish that sentence."
"Please," Sage adds, face pulled in disgust.
Nodding, Barrows spits more blood out before looking back at Sage.
"I thought Briar was over her...thing," he tells him. "I told her-I told her ages ago- she's just a friend. She's one of the guys."
"She's a girl," Gale reminds him, bristling on his daughter's behalf.
Briar is a girl, and a pretty one. If Barrows can't see that he's blind, and not good enough for either of his girls.
"I know but…" he glances off, searching for the right words. "Briar is like a-like a field guide. Daisy, she's a book of poetry, I just-I like poetry, not instructions."
They're just different, and that's no one's fault.
"I thought she was over it," he mutters again.
Gale takes a breath. "Would that have changed anything? Would you have stayed away from Daisy if you knew?"
Barrows stares for a moment, probably wondering just what answer Gale wants.
The problem is, there's no right one.
"I don't know," he finally admits. "She's the best thing about my life, you know? I spend all day in a hole, and then I come up, and I get to see her and it makes it okay...I don't know if I could've passed that up."
It sounds selfish to Gale.
It also sounds like a question he'd asked himself, more than once, over the years.
Each time something happened, someone would get sick or go without, Gale had asked himself if he was selfish to have dragged Madge down with him.
Would he have given up all their happy times to let her have a safe life? No kids, no him, just her parents and him with only the mines and one night stands?
His answer had always been the same.
Even if Madge's life would've been easier, better, his would've been dimmer. He couldn't give her up, as selfish as that was.
He always convinced himself it didn't matter. Madge loved him, their life and kids. She wouldn't trade any of it for safety or ease.
She and the kids were his bright spot, and Gale couldn't have passed them up.
If Daisy is that to Barrows, Gale understand exactly what battle he'd be fighting, and just why he wouldn't fight it.
The first warning bell, calling the men to the elevators, rings out and Barrows looks back toward where several men from his crew are watching curiously.
He turns back to Gale and Sage and sighs. "I have to go." He takes a step then turns back. "I'm sorry about Briar. I am."
Gale nods. He actually believes the asshole.
Barrows takes off, leaving Gale and Sage standing awkwardly in the middle of the yard.
"I need to get to the Corps office," Sage finally mumbles, rubbing his neck.
Gale nods. "Yeah."
Neither of them moves.
"She was up all night crying?"
Sage stuffs his hands in his pockets, nods.
"Off and on." He looks off, in the direction Barrows vanished in. "Why does it have to be so complicated?"
Shrugging, Gale scratches at his stubble. "We aren't all as lucky as you. Not everyone gets it right the first try."
With a chuckle, Sage nods. "Yeah. Some people gotta chase their Katniss Everdeen, I guess."
Gale grimaces. "Told you about that, huh?"
Sage smiles tightly.
"She did." His smile dims. "At least we know where the girls get their poor choices from."
Huffing, Gale crosses his arms again.
He's right, but Gale is hardly going to admit it.
########
Sage's house is further in the Seam, closer to Hazelle's than Madge and Gale's. There'd been no houses in the nicer section for Madge's dad to try to get for him.
It's more rundown, the roof had to be patched and the porch rebuilt, but it's nice. Abilene hasn't complained once that Madge has heard, not about the distance from Town or the state of her new home. She's happy to be with Sage. That's all that matters to her.
Pulling her jacket tighter, Madge steps up onto the porch, knocks on the door.
No one comes, then Madge hears shuffling on the other side of the door.
Slowly it cracks opens and Abilene's blue eyes peek out at her.
"Madge!" She opens the door and ushers her in.
The living room is sparse, a sofa and a ragged rug, but it's clean, warm from the small fire crackling on the hearth.
Abilene pulls her into a hug, the bulge of her belly between them.
She steps back, pats it, smiles softly. "The midwife said everything looks great. Said I have perfect hips for having babies."
Her smile falters.
"You aren't here for a baby update though."
Sighing, Madge shakes her head. "I do appreciate it though."
Knowing that things won't be as bleak for Sage and Abilene as they'd been for Madge each time she'd been pregnant is a relief. One less thing to worry about.
"How is she?"
Abilene's hands settle on her stomach as she glances toward the kitchen. "Angry...angrier than usual, and sad."
Forcing a smile, Madge reaches out and pats her hand before going to the kitchen.
Briar is at the small table, a chipped glass in her hands as she stares out the back window.
She doesn't look at Madge, doesn't even acknowledge her, so Madge sets across from her and waits.
"I don't want to talk," she finally mumbles, taking a drink of what Madge prays is water.
"Okay."
"I'm serious."
"That's fine."
She finally glares at Madge. "Go home, mom."
Folding her arms on the table, Madge shakes her head. "Not yet. Not until you talk to me."
"I told you-"
"You don't want to talk, I heard you," Madge tells her. "I can wait."
She's got nothing but time.
Running her tongue over her teeth, Briars makes a frustrated noise.
"What do you want? Me to apologize to Daisy? I won't." Her eyes shine. "She did this."
Madge nods. "She did. She fell for the wrong guy. She made a mistake."
A moment passes, then another, before Briar takes a shaky breath.
"I've liked him for years, mom," she finally says. "She knew that and she still…"
A few tears trickle down her cheeks, drip onto her dirty shirt.
"I knew he'd never like me, but...I thought I would be okay if it was someone else. Not Daisy though. Why did it have to be Daisy?" She wipes her face on her sleeve. "Why is it always her?"
Madge shrugs. "I used to ask myself the same thing."
Briar snorts. "You're an only child."
Smiling, Madge shrugs. "Everyone has someone better. You think Daisy is yours, and she thinks you're hers."
"Right," she huffs, flopping back and crossing her arms, setting Madge in a dull look.
"She adores you. She's adored you her whole life."
Briar smiles coolly. "Is that why she ignores everything I tell her? Why I can't teach her anything? Why she's nothing like me?"
Madge sighs. It's no good telling her Daisy does try, because she won't believe it. There's no gray area with Briar. The fact that her sister simply has different ways of going about life doesn't make sense to her.
If she weren't so hurt, she might see that for all their differences, Daisy is so much like her, always trying to find a way to compliment her with the skills she does possess.
While Briar hunts, and can make the food edible, Daisy researches spices, ways to make the food worth eating. When Briar brought small pelts home, Daisy cleaned and tanned them, stitched them together, made things for her to trade with at the Hob.
Briar complained Daisy was trying outshine her, even when Madge and Gale tried to tell her Daisy was just trying to help.
Daisy was desperate to not be useless in her eyes, and it only made Briar resent her more.
Tears start prickling at Madge's eyes and she tries to blink them away.
Across from her, Briar's cold expression melts, replaced by a hopelessness Madge recognizes too well.
"I love her. She my sister and I love her, but…" she blinks out a few tears, swats them away weakly. "When she's around...it's like I'm not. She's prettier, and nicer, and smarter, and I'm invisible. And I know she isn't-she doesn't try to do it, but that almost makes it worse. Because that just means-if she's just so damn perfect without trying, what chance do I have?"
Getting up, Madge goes around the table and pulls Briar out of her seat, tight into a hug, trying to think of something to say.
"Sweetheart, you're perfect too, just differently."
Briar snorts. "Not in a way any guy likes."
"Well, boys are stupid sometimes," Madge grumbles, causing Briar to chuckle.
"Like dad, when he was chasing Katniss Everdeen when you were right there?"
Pulling back, Madge tries to smile. Thinking of Gale pining after Katniss, even if it was a lifetime and five kids ago, still stings. Her girls come by their insecurities honest.
"Exactly."
Briar nods, rubs her nose and sniffles.
"I don't wanna come home yet," she finally says. "Sage and Abby said I can stay. I know it's not forever, but...I think Sage likes someone here to help while he's at work, so it seems okay for now."
Forcing a smile, Madge nods.
It's not coming home, but she's not vanishing into the woods, and that's a start.
#######
Madge sends Daisy to Hazelle's after school.
"You need to tell her, then Nona and Papa." She frowned. "And then Mr. Abernathy. He'll never forgive you if he isn't on the list."
Nodding, Daisy forced a smile.
"He's gonna want to kill him."
"He's all talk," Madge told her, taking her face in her hands and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "He'll do what makes you happy."
Madge is proof of that. Otherwise Gale would've vanished the night of their toasting.
"Should we go with her?" Miles asked before she could even get to the door.
Madge shook her head. "She needs to do this."
She needed some normalcy. Going to her grandparents is routine, and after the turbulence of the last day, that's exactly what she needs.
Plus she needs to be anywhere that Briar's absence won't be quite so painful.
Miles and Wren had settled down at the table, pulled out their school work and started to work.
They'd both known for weeks about Daisy's pregnancy.
"Miles caught me crying…" Daisy explained, voice still wobbling. "I just needed someone to know. Someone who wouldn't hate me."
And Miles, despite his age, is her protector. He's stood up for her against everyone since he'd been tall enough. Madge is grateful he wasn't home when Briar had started in on Daisy the night before. The house couldn't handle the fight that would've come up.
Wren had known about her seeing Rowan since the beginning, and had apparently guessed that she was pregnant.
"It was like when Kitty got pregnant," Wren told Madge, when she asked how she'd known. "I just knew."
Miles laughed. "She's got a future in fortune telling. Can you divine the answers to this stupid test next Monday? I have better things to do than study all weekend."
"Not unless you want to be waitlisted for those spots opening up on the corps, you'd better not," Madge warned him before going back to the stove.
Once the stew is simmering, Madge pulls out her knitting and starts on another set of booties. Daisy will need some now too.
"This is the stupidest story I've ever read," Miles grumbles, flipping the page of his battered book.
Frowning, Madge leans over and squints at the faded name across the top of the page.
"Romeo and Juliet?"
"Dumb and dumber," he counters, flopping back in the chair, running a hand through his shaggy curls. "No wonder they named Everdeen and Mellark after them."
Madge sighs. He's so critical. "I doubt anyone in the Capitol has ever read the story."
He nods in agreement.
Wren turns the page in her book and squeals.
"Look mom! It's Mr. Abernathy!" She jabs her finger at the old photo at the top of the page.
Leaning over, Madge inspects the page.
Sure enough, smirking out at her, looking confident and infuriating, is a much younger, much handsomer Mr. Abernathy.
Miles squints over at the picture.
"Ugly bastard, wasn't he?"
"Language," Madge scolds him.
He chuckles. He loves Mr. Abernathy as much as she does, but he loves pestering him, even if he's not around.
Wren looks up at him, clearly ready to defend Mr. Abernathy, but stops. She stares at him for a moment, then her eyes drop back to her book, studying the picture more closely, before looking at Miles again.
She looks at Madge, frowning.
Before Madge can ask her what she's thinking, something wild and fanciful no doubt, the front door opens.
"Dad!" Wren apparently forgets whatever has her so confused, jumps up and runs to Gale before he's even taken his coat off.
Frowning, Madge looks at the clock. She'd lost track of time.
Getting up, she goes to the living room and wraps her arms around him, happy to have his warmth around her. It's easier to pretend things might be okay when he's holding her.
He runs his fingers through her hair, sighing. "You see her?"
Madge nods, holds him tighter.
"She okay?"
Pulling back, Madge tries to smile, keep her tears blinked away. "Not yet, she will be though."
Briar is tough, just like he's always said. It'll take time, more time than either of them would like, but she'll be okay.
Whether she and Daisy will ever get past this, Madge is less certain.
One hurdle at a time, Madge thinks to herself, as Wren pulls Gale away and to the kitchen table, telling him he has to help her with her homework.
"Promise me you're never going to date," she hears Gale say to Wren.
Wren nods, clearly not even listening to him. "Okay."
Going back to the stove, Madge watches out the back window for Daisy to come back, wishing she had a hope of Briar coming home too.