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: So, the next chapter is written, and if I get it cleaned up before this evening I'll post it, but in the likely event I don't, it'll wait until next week. Real life y'all.
Kaleidoscope, pt 26
Madge closes her eyes, wills the tears pricking at her lids to stay back.
One week. It's been one week since Miles left. A week of waking to sobs and cold sweats, fear for her baby.
She should be spent of tears, but they still seem to sneak up on her in the middle of the night, when her mind has too much unfocused time.
"Shhh," she hears Gale murmur as he runs a hand over her hair.
Swallowing back the tears, Madge nuzzles in closer, focuses on the steady beating of his heart.
The sun isn't up yet, isn't even sneaking over the horizon and peaking in. Only silver white moonlight streams through the curtains. They have a few hours yet before Gale has to go to work. He should be sleeping.
Instead he's awake, comforting her, holding himself together through sheer willpower because one of them has to. It's unfair to him, and Madge wishes she weren't falling apart at the seams.
She is though, no matter how hard she tries.
"Go back to sleep," she whispers, pressing her ear to his chest, closing her eyes and willing the memories to let her rest, let Gale rest. "I'm fine."
Even though she isn't. Even though she may never be.
"Nightmare," he asks, voice thick with sleep, ignoring her assurance.
She shakes her head.
It had been a pleasant dream, actually. A memory of her and the kids making candies.
There was nothing special about it, nothing that stood out. It may not have even been one memory but a collage of a dozen. Somehow though, Miles had vanished from the kitchen, and the abruptness of the moment had startled her awake.
Tilting up, Madge presses a quick kiss to Gale's jaw, forces a smile.
"I just-I hope he's doing okay."
Arms tightening around her, Gale sighs.
"Yeah," he whispers. "Me too."
#######
Snapping the end off a bean, Madge tosses it to Goat.
The garden has put off a ridiculous amount of beans, in no small part because Miles had planted extra.
"He did that on purpose," Briar grumbled, after several days of green beans for dinner and lunch. "He knows I hate green beans."
Sage grinned. "He would."
Briar had tried to look soured, but ended up laughing.
Snorting at the memory, Madge snaps another bean.
"Those beans must not be the same ones you're feeding Briar, they sure as hell don't make her laugh," a deep voice says, startling Madge, making her spill the basket.
Dropping down, Madge starts gathering the beans, glancing up when Ephraim crouches on the steps and begins helping her.
"Sorry," he apologizes, scooping the last of the beans up and tossing them in the basket before settling on the step beside her.
Madge shrugs, sets the basket down and snatches up another bean, snaps the end off. "I wasn't paying attention. Nothing to be sorry for."
Smiling, he picks up a bean and snaps the ends.
"How're you holding up?"
Madge shrugs.
"Some days are better than others."
He nods.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, snapping and tossing, watching Goat try to eat the bush peeking through the fence rather than the snapped ends behind her.
Finally, Madge sighs.
"Miles planted extra beans." She smiles. "He knows Briar and Sage hate them."
He laughs, loud and booming.
"That was a long game he was playing."
"Very long," Madge agrees.
But it's very Miles. He had an abundance of patience, and even if he wasn't getting to see the pay off, she knows he's having a good laugh at his siblings' expense.
Finally, after nearly an hour, they reach the bottom of the basket and Ephraim stands, holds out his hand and helps her up.
Scooping up his helmet, he taps it on his thigh for a moment before glancing toward Town.
"Guess I should get back to pretending to do my job, huh?"
Madge forces a little smile. "Is it harder during the Games?"
Most of the other Peacekeepers seem twice as nasty, and she's always presumed it was due to Capitol influence. The Games emboldening their bloody hands. Ephraim has always seemed to get quieter, smaller, no small feat considering his height and presence. She isn't sure why, and she's a little afraid to ask.
He shrugs.
"I don't much care for the Games."
"Imagine that."
He chuckles. "Yeah, well, it's not for the reason you think."
When Madge just frowns, he leans onto the railing of the porch, drops the helmet and folds his arms on the top, rests his chin on them.
"Did I ever tell you how I ended up a Peacekeeper?"
Shaking her head, Madge leans forward, but jerks back just as quickly when his radio squawks.
"Lewes! Need—at the—!"
Shrugging, he quiets the radio and gives Madge a grin.
"Another story for another day." He sighs, smile fading a bit. "Keep your chin up. They may think they've got us until the seas dry up and the stars burn out, but they don't. It'll be okay."
He starts to go, but Madge calls out, stopping him.
"Ephraim, what do you-how do you know it'll be okay?"
Because it certainly doesn't feel like it will be.
He shrugs, points to the garden, overflowing with beans.
"Same reason Miles planted all those damn beans even when he knew he wasn't gonna be here." His grin ticks back up. "Just 'cause we aren't there for something, doesn't mean there isn't a tomorrow, and if there's a tomorrow, it's gonna be okay."
Radio wailing again, he rolls his eyes and hurries off, leaving Madge staring at her bean overrun garden, wishing she had half as much hope for a tomorrow she can't see as him and Miles clearly do.
#######
Madge is in the middle of laundry, digging out the clothes from the bottom of the hamper, shouting for Wren to keep the girls from playing in the wash water, when she pulls out one of Miles' ratty old shirts.
It's thinning, irreparable holes at the elbows, and a tear at the collar that refused to stay mended. To say it had seen better days was an understatement.
She'd told him to toss it in with the rags a hundred times, but he'd always squirreled it away, rescuing it from the pile.
"Mom, this is my lucky shirt," he explained.
"It's lucky to be in one piece," Madge countered.
He'd pretended to be offended.
"I make all my best sales in this shirt," he grinned. "It ads to my irresistible charm."
The memory of his grin, the way his eyes lit up, sends the laugh bubbling up, out and into the kitchen as she holds the ragged thing in her hands.
He must've worn it only a few days before he'd left, maybe the day before the Reaping, for his last round in Town selling what he'd caught and gathered in the woods.
Pressing it to her nose, Madge inhales the scent of the woods and dirt, her baby boy.
Tears slide down her cheeks, onto the shirt, but for the first time in nearly a month, they aren't sad.
"Mom?"
Turning, Madge finds Wren standing just inside the door, nose wrinkled in confusion.
"Why are you crying?"
Sniffling, Madge holds out the shirt, reluctantly lets Wren take it from her.
She inspects it for a moment, eyes the holes and threadbare material, then sighs.
"Well, it's ugly." She says, hands it back. "Not burst into tears ugly, but it's ugly."
For a moment, Madge just stares at her, processing what she's said. Then Wren grins.
There's something so ridiculous about it, crying about a shirt, Wren's attempt at a joke, that Madge can't help it. She laughs.
Wren starts to say something, but gets cut off by Daisy and Briar arriving from work.
Briar glances between them, nose wrinkled in confusion until Daisy reaches out and pulls the shirt from Madge's hands.
"She just saw how ugly it is and started crying," Wren explains airily as Daisy hands the shirt off to Briar. "Then she started laughing."
Briar snorts, looks like she might say something, but stops when she sees Daisy gently laughing.
Handing the shirt back, Briar grins at Wren.
"Well, it is an ugly shirt."
Wren's lips twitch.
"It always was." She sighs, a little dramatically. "He he would leave his laundry for us, wouldn't he?"
Daisy shrugs. "Well, he probably wasn't thinking about it."
Madge just smiles, folds the shirt up and sets it aside.
Maybe it was happenstance, or maybe it was another joke by Miles. She'll never know.
She doesn't care.
She's glad for it either way.
#######
Gale watches as Sage and Briar pick the last of the strawberries, carefully tossing them in their pale.
"We can make ice cream for them," Sage tells them. "If we trade for enough cream."
Briar nods, wipes the sweat from her forehead.
It's their first outing since Miles left. The fence had been on for the Games, but they had a few hours window to try to salvage the week, make sure they have more than beans and squash to eat until the next break in electricity.
"Maybe we can catch some fish," she offers. "Nothing is gonna be running around right now. Too damn hot."
She isn't exaggerating. The sun is blazing, not even the shade of the trees is cutting the heat much. The woods are quiet except for the buzzing of bugs and their own soft footsteps.
They spend an hour fishing without luck. Not even fish seem to want to deal with the heat, before Briar stands and swears at the lake, announcing she's heading back to the shade of the woods.
"Let's set some snares and pray we can get out here to check them before the dogs get at them."
Frustrated and exhausted, Gale gathers his pole and waits while Sage does the same before they hike back to the woods.
They find Briar sitting on a stump, legs and arms crossed, glaring at a snare already with a rabbit in it.
"That was quick," Sage chuckles.
Briar shakes her head, rubs her nose, eyes a bit pink.
"I didn't set it."
At first Gale starts to panic, quickly looks around, sure there's another hunter about to appear out of the surrounding trees, then he looks closer, spots the telltale signs of the setter.
"Miles," Sage mutters as he walks to the snare, stares at it for a moment.
They'd know his work anywhere.
Briar nods. "He must've set a few his last day."
It was a risky move. As many days as they'd had to wait to come to the woods, all that he'd caught could be rotting in the heat or eaten by wild animals, but with any luck there'll be some salvageable meat.
The rabbit looks fresh, at any rate.
Sage gathers it up, carefully tucking it in his game bag before gesturing for them to walk on.
"If he set one he set more."
They check all his favorite spots, most with rabbits in them, resetting the snares before leaving.
When they get to the Hob, Briar barters for cream and sugar, salt and vanilla, before heading home.
Gale waits until everyone has headed home to tell Madge what they'd found.
She smiles, shakes her head.
"There's always a tomorrow, isn't there?"
Gale shrugs, not really sure what she means.
Reaching out, she takes his hand, gives it a squeeze.
"Nevermind," she tells him as he sets down beside her. "It was just-just something someone told me."
"Hmm," Gale grunts, pressing a kiss to her hair.
She links their hands, twinning their fingers as she leans into him, rests her head on his shoulder.
"We raised a smart boy, didn't we?"
Gale chuckles. "I think we over shot a bit."
Madge snorts, looks at him with bright eyes for the first time in a week.
"We do that a lot."
Pressing a kiss to her hair, Gale sighs. "Yeah."
Unlinking their hands, Gale wraps his arm around her shoulders, focuses on the sound of her breathing.
Finally, she tilts her head, kisses his jaw.
"He's okay, wherever he is, he's okay." She smiles. "We're gonna be okay."
Gale nods. "Yeah."
They will be.