kind of still having trouble figuring out who fits each character in the world of gilmore girls, but i'm trying! enjoy!
Madge had been reading from her American history textbook, taking notes while draining her coffee, when suddenly a shadow was cast over her notebook.
Her eyes flickered up; her blue eyes meeting Gale's grey ones. He smirked down at her, a coffee pot in his hands. "Refill?"
It still felt odd to see him in the diner, his mouth always twisted in either a scowl or smirk, depending on the circumstance. But it was entertaining watching him interact with his uncle, their humorous sparring matches usually causing her and her mother to giggle behind their burgers. Watching Haymitch get worked up over anything was always amusing.
She nodded, pushing her mug toward him; her eyes flashing up to meet his and then back to her mug. "I'd ask if that was the homework you were supposed to do last night, but I think I know better."
"Smart man." In fact, the reading assignment wasn't due for another week, but she wasn't going to tell him that. She would guess from the look of him that he was too cool for school.
His gaze was still on her. "Anything I can do for you?" She asked.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. "Nah."
He walked past two customers, their mugs raised for a refill.
Haymitch was probably better off without Gale ignoring or frustrating customers, but too often she found herself glancing in his direction. Sometimes she just watched him and other times she found herself attempting to figure out which book he was reading as he neglected customers at the counter. The book lover in her grimaced at the sight of his folded or rolled-up paperback, but looked on in interest as he wrote furiously in the margins of A Good Man is Hard to Find. Maybe she'd ask him for his thoughts later, she thought, scrambling to finish her coffee while simultaneously packing her backpack. There was a bus to Hartford with her name on it.
xx
The sight of so many townspeople outside of a planned event unnerved Madge.
"I mean what is he looking at? Is he trying to make fun of me or something?" Katniss was mid-rant about Peeta Mellark, her boyfriend's younger brother, who was in their age, but Madge couldn't help smiling knowingly at her friend. She knew exactly who Peeta was looking at, the same person he'd been looking at since they were in kindergarten.
"I wonder what's going on over there?" The brunette pointed across the street toward Coin's Market, where a crowd of townspeople was gathered.
"Is that police tape?" Katniss grabbed her wrist, dragging her toward the market, pulling her toward the front of the crowd.
It was a chalk outline right at the entrance to the market and Alma Coin was yelling at poor deputy Darius, her usually tamed grey hair in disarray, her thin finger pointed in his face. On the ground beside their feet was the outline of a body, the kind she'd seen on so many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. It was surrounded by police tape, blocking anyone from entering Coin's Market.
"My partner is making sure everyone is accounted for."
"What's happening now?" Beau Mellark, her boyfriend, appeared behind them, narrowing his eyes at his boss yelling. He was a bit taller than the both of them and therefore had a better chance of seeing what was going on.
"Someone's dead and Alma is blaming Darius."
"I told Alma that the chalk outline looked fake, but she wouldn't believe me."
"But you have such an honest face!"
"She must not love me as much as you do," Beau's hands went to her hips and he pressed his forehead against hers.
Katniss groaned, sticking out her tongue. "You guys are insufferable."
He stood up to his full height, throwing his arm around Madge's shoulders. "Katniss, you should be nicer to my brother."
The brunette rolled her eyes. "Tell him to fix his staring problem."
His chest shook with laughter.
Madge's gaze slid past Darius toward the town square where a smirking Gale was looking back at her. There was only one person who would ever actually do something to piss off Alma Coin and that was someone who didn't know any better.
Book in hand; his eyes glimmered back at her, a barely-suppressed grin on his lips. She suppressed a smile. Maybe it was just a little funny.
xx
Or at least she thought it was until the town meeting. As town select(wo)man, Alma Coin led the meetings, gavel in hand, completely power hungry as the most powerful political figure in the tiny town that was Stars Hollow.
On their way to the town meeting they'd bumped into Haymitch locking up the diner.
"Are we early?" Her mother asked.
"Haymitch is never late, so I think so." Madge tugged on the sleeves of her jacket, pulling them over her fingers. The night air was colder than she had expected this early in the fall.
"We should reward ourselves with donuts, Mitch, we'll only be a minute."
Haymitch checked to make sure the door was locked before walking down the steps. "And then we'd be late."
Her mother tapped her finger against her chin. "What a conundrum, but I still want a donut."
"Maybe after, if you're good."
Haymitch slid open the doors to Johanna's Gym and then everyone went silent. She was reminded of the teen movies she had always tried to avoid, but her mother forced her to watch because she loved to mock them. The gossipers always stopped talking with the object of their gossip entered the room in those movies.
"What's going on?" Haymitch demanded.
Alma sighed, "The business community needed to have a discussion so we started a little earlier than expected."
"I'm a part of the business community and no one told me."
"Just be honest with him," Johanna said from her place beside Alma.
Alma pursed her lips. "It's that miscreant nephew of yours."
Haymitch narrowed his eyes at her words. "What about him?"
"He's the one that drew that chalk outline in front of my store!"
"You don't have any proof of that Alma and you know it."
"He was seen exiting an arts and crafts store with chalk and was seen around the store late last night. Not to mention that he already has a past."
Haymitch shot forward, approaching Alma at her podium, his finger pointed in her direction. "He returned that money and he apologized!"
"You are missing the point, young man. I was forced to close the market all afternoon because of the stunt that ruffian nephew of yours pulled! That is money right out of my pocket. Mags had to buy the head of lettuce for her lunch in Woodbury because I was closed."
Snorting, Haymitch reached into his pocket pulling out his wallet. "How much does a head of lettuce cost? A dollar? Here's a five. Give me five heads of lettuce. Does that about cover it?"
"You're missing the point!"
"He's been here for a week! How much damage could he have done?"
"He was teasing the members of my gym last Tuesday," Johanna mentioned, arms crossed. "Got everyone all self conscious."
"And he took a bouquet of flowers without paying from my flower shop," Annie added in a small voice.
"My son said he set off the fire alarm in school," a voice in the crowd exclaimed.
"Alright! Alright! Alright!" Haymitch was red in the face from hearing everyone speak ill of his nephew. "Maybe this side should get the tar and this side the feathers. Does that sound good to you?"
"No one said anything about tar and feathers, Haymitch. We are just having a discussion."
Madge watched her mom stand, her blue eyes narrowing at the townspeople who were attacking one of her closest friends. "Leave Haymitch alone! You're just attacking him now! Any of you could have approached him if you were having a problem with Gale. You've got to give him some time to deal!"
"I'm not saying any of this is a problem, by the way!"
Her mother faltered before continuing, "Well not that there's a problem, but if there was a problem you should give him some time to deal with it. We're talking about a kid here, not the wrong kind of twinkle lights." Madeline exhaled harshly before sitting back down.
"Yeah!" Haymitch added. "And to think I was going to stay open just in case anyone was hungry! You guys can starve for all I care!" Madge's eyes followed his figure storm out of the gym, the door sliding shut with a bang.
"That was bad," she muttered to her mother.
The older woman sighed, "really bad."
xx
Madge was leaning into her boyfriend's chest, his arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist, as they walked toward Alma's market.
"She's just so finicky. If I don't pick it up before five she puts it into this safe in the back and I can't get it out until tomorrow, but it has to be before five. But then I have to sit through her lecture on saving money in the bank and then that goes straight into investing one's money in the market to stimulate the economy. And I'm not even listening the entire time, but it's just so boring."
The petite blonde leaned up to kiss her boyfriend's cheek. "Poor baby."
"I'll be right back, hopefully."
Madge glanced down underneath her feet at the slightly faded chalk outline. Beau had spent most of yesterday's shift trying to clean it completely off, but to no avail.
"Should you be alone out here? I hear this is a dangerous area."
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'm fine."
"Are you feeling particularly succinct today?"
She crossed her arms across her chest. "Pretty much."
"Did I do something to offend you?"
"Not me. You might think of asking Haymitch that question."
"What?"
"You've got this whole town against him."
"And just how did I do that?"
"You know what you did, Gale."
"Y'know I'm not that familiar on the town's laws. Did I throw a gum wrapper on the ground? Did I forget to recycle the milk jugs?"
She gestured toward the ground beneath her feet.
"Oh. That. What about it?"
"The entire town knows you did it. They even had a town meeting to discuss it."
Gale smirked. "You actually went to that thing? They're just so To Kill A Mockingbird."
"Yeah I was there and so was Haymitch and as soon as he got there everyone ganged up on him. They want you gone."
"Huh."
"Haymitch is just standing there defending you and all you can seem to do is make his life harder! Just go! I don't want to talk to you anymore!"
Watching him leave the scene of the crime just further incensed her. "You don't care at all about Haymitch's feelings!"
"You got a second wind?" He turned back around, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"You just do whatever you want with no consequences and now you've made Haymitch the town pariah!"
"He was defending you and all your stupid little pranks and you don't even care! I guess it's okay because you're trying to be Holden Caufield, but I think it really stinks! Haymitch has done a lot for me and my mom and I don't like to see him get jumped like that!" She huffed. "Second wind over."
"I didn't know they were coming down so hard on him, okay?"
"Well now you don't have any excuses."
He kicked at the outline on the sidewalk underneath his feet. "It's kind of funny. You got to admit that much."
She chuckled despite herself, glancing down at his feet. "That is so not the point, Gale."
"It kind of is."
The bells from Coin's Market chimed. "I got it!" Beau had his check in the air, a smile on his lips.
"I don't think you two have met. This is Gale, Haymitch's nephew. Gale, this is Beau."
"Boyfriend?" He asked, sizing him up.
"Of course," she answered, pressing herself further into his side.
"Oh," he looked toward Beau. "You didn't say."
She rolled her eyes.
"How you doin'?" he said, his voice loud and simple as if Beau would have a hard time understanding him.
"Alright, well, see you around.
Gale smirked, glancing toward Madge. "Yeah that seems to be the case now, doesn't it?"
Madge wrapped an arm around her boyfriend's waist, both of them watching the brunette male leave.
"So that's Gale," Beau said, his cheek resting on the top of her head.
"Yeah, that's Gale."
thank you for reading!
reviews are welcome and appreciated!