Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
In the Looking Glass, pt 2
AN: Again, many thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for beta'ing.
#######
Madge has hardly stepped out the doors of the library, when another cool gust hits her. It cuts through her skirt. She glances up at the cold gray sky, a storm is coming up, she can smell it in the air. She'd only come out to pick up a book on the history of candy making for her mother and one on wiring for her father, otherwise she would be curled up in her bed, avoiding Mrs. Oberst and pretending to not exist. Taking a bracing breath, she adjusts the too big coat she had decided to wear. It's her mother's, one she had been given by Mr. Abernathy years ago when she and Madge had ventured to his house for his birthday ill dressed for the cool night air.
She's just finished wrapping it a little tighter at her waist when she hears it. There's a crowd gathered in the square, and while that wouldn't be unusual during scheduled viewing of the games, their presence is ominous and unusual at the moment.
They're in a state, frantic. Something is very wrong.
Did dad forget to tell me about an announcement? It isn't unthinkable. He's been increasingly distracted. The pressure from the Capitol, her mother's dwindling morphling supply, Katniss and Peeta, the uprisings, have all worn him thin. He forgets things that aren't necessary more and more, and more often than not those things concerned Madge.
Carefully, she weaves through the crowd until she can see what all the uproar is over.
At the center of the mob is a man, a Peacekeeper, Madge has never seen before. His hair is a more steely gray than Mrs. Oberst's, and is in a harsh, short cut. He's facing away from the crowd, back straight, shoulders stiff, and legs apart in a wide threatening stance. He, Madge can tell without so much of an introduction, is the new Head Peacekeeper her father had been worried about, and he is plainly not a man to be questioned.
In his hand is a length of leather, a little broader than her own thumb and just longer than her arm, but thick enough. A whip.
Her mother had told her once, that before Cray, whippings had been common. Madge has never seen one in her short life, though. It had never even been a distant possibility in her mind.
She watches, mesmerized, as the unfamiliar man's arm rises up, comes back down in a graceful, powerful arch.
It's only then that Madge remembers that for a whipping, there has to be a person to be whipped.
Another man, broad back bloodied and in ribbons of flesh, is tied by his wrists to a post. He hangs, bonelessly, his energy clearly ebbing, either passed out or nearing it.
Dark haired, olive skinned, obviously from the Seam…
Her heart stops. She drops the books into the dirty puddle at her feet.
No.
Time seems to freeze as the unknown Peacekeeper's arm comes down again and his whip meets Gale's skin. The crowd might be crying or cheering, they may be silent in shock, Madge doesn't know, she can only hear the hollow echo of the whip as it carves Gale's back into a lattice of bloody lace.
She urges her feet to move, her voice to cry out, to do something. But what can she do? She has no power, has less power than most even, at the moment. She isn't even a pawn in the Game; she's useless to Gale and everyone else.
Instead of stopping it, which she has no hope of doing, she watches, tries to force her eyes closed, but can't. All she can do is stare at the bloody display, the painful caution, as Gale inches closer and closer to death.
It happens so fast she almost doesn't even see it happen, doesn't realize it is happening.
Katniss is there. Unlike Madge, she isn't frozen in mute horror, she takes action. Though Madge still can't hear, can just barely see her friend as the crowd closes in, readying for the next grisly show, she knows what's going to happen.
While Madge isn't even a pawn, a worthless piece in the game, easily sacrificed for the greater good, Katniss is a queen. She's in great danger, but she'll only be sacrificed if absolutely necessary. Even if she's only just realizing it, Katniss the most powerful piece in this game.
In a part only she has the ability play, Katniss puts an end to it. She saves him.
And that's why you don't deserve him.
In a flurry of nerves and fear, once the spectacle is over and she's certain the now injured Katniss is going to be able to get Gale off that awful whipping post and get him to her mother, Madge turns on her heels and runs.
She flies, feet carrying her faster than they've ever done. Then she's back at her house, bursting into it.
"What are you doing?" Mrs. Oberst hisses.
Madge looks down and sees she's tracked a trail of mud and gravel into the house. She doesn't care, though, what are angry housekeepers when a man could be dying?
With a look of utmost contempt she pushes past the fuming housekeeper, takes the stairs two at a time.
She falls through her parents' bedroom door, tipping over her own careless limbs, and finds her mother at the window, staring out in confusion.
"Madge, what happened in the square?" A small crease has formed between her eyes and her nose scrunches just the smallest bit.
"Mom, mom, please, I need you-I need your help," she grabs her by the shoulders, looks her square in the eyes. She has to see in Madge's eyes how deadly important this is.
She brings her hand to Madge's cheek, rubs it with her palm, "You're crying, love."
Madge runs her own hand over her face, and, sure enough, it comes off wet. She suddenly feels more hot tears come pouring out of her eyes.
"Mom, p-please, please, they've-they w-w-whipped him-m," she's crying so hard she can hardly breath. She starts to hiccup, can't even get his name out, just a garbled mess of saliva and tears and snot.
Her mother's eyes widen, she blinks before turning and walking to her bedside table. She opens the top drawer and pulls out a box, cardboard and battered looking.
"I've not always been a very good mother," she plucks one of the vials from the case and looks at it fondly. "We all have our failings, love."
With a thwap she shoves the vial back in the box before holding it out to Madge.
"Please don't get caught."
#######
The snow storm starts before she's even reached the Square.
It wraps her and blinds her. It conceals her. Another blessing in disguise, like the diminishing of her mother's morphling supply from the Capitol.
She barely registers the look of confusion on the occupants of Katniss' house before turning and running back to her own home.
As soon as she crosses the threshold Mrs. Oberst has her by the collar.
"Brat of a girl! Tracking mud all over my clean floor! Like some common urchin! When the boss gets home-"
She's building into a full blown tirade, bound to bring up every perceived sin Madge has ever committed against her, when someone places their hand on her shoulder.
"That'll be enough, Mrs. Oberst."
The steel haired old woman looks as though she'll die of shock. Madge's mother has never, not in the nearly twenty years she's served as the Mayor's housekeeper, told her that anything would be enough.
"I'll take care of my daughter."
She brushes past the old woman and takes Madge, soggy, filthy shoes and all, up the stairs and into the master bedroom. Madge watches her, still as ethereal as ever, still with her airy voice and glazed, hazy eyes, but she's more there than she'd been since Madge was very small.
"Get out of those wet clothes. Go take a warm bath. I'll get you something to wear."
#######
Whether her mother ever tells her father about the morphling or not, Madge never knows. They never speak of it. It may as well have been a dream, or a nightmare, more like.
They sequester themselves the next few days, holed up in the master bedroom.
Madge has a bit of a cold from her run, a small price to pay to ease Gale's suffering.
She wants desperately to go back, to check that he's making it okay, that her small mercy had given him the nudge he needed to live. She knows it isn't safe to do so. The Peacekeepers will be watching and seeing the Mayor's daughter running back and forth to the side of a known poacher, a tried and convicted criminal, and his believed to be treasonous 'cousin' would put the entire District at risk.
Even a trip to the Hawthornes' house in the Seam is out of the question, for much the same reason.
So she sits, waits, for what she isn't sure. She lets her anxiety eat her up from the inside as things get worse outside their home.
The mines close, people starve, children take out tesserae in droves, and people are punished for offenses so slight they've been forgotten. Food supplies are cut; Madge's father tells her he suspects it's partly due to actual shortage and partly as punishment for being the birthplace of the nuisance Victor. When the mines reopen, Madge is sickened to learn that the wages are being cut, a decree from the Capitol itself. Even worse, the men are sent to the less stable areas, all to supposedly make up for the weeks of lost coal. Madge knows better.
Not even the much anticipated Parcel Day brings any good tidings. All spoiled, eaten by rats.
As the days drag by Madge begins wondering how much more the District can take.
#######
When the snow clears from the ground, leaving a mess of mud and soggy vegetation, Vick turns up once more.
She'd gone out to the square, seen the whipping post and gallows and stockades her father had told her had been put in place along with guns. Her eyes had flittered, of their own volition, to the patch of ground that had been splattered in Gale's blood, but it was gone. Swallowed up by the ground and melting snow.
"In Ten," her father had told her in the green glow of the little bug detecting compact she'd become so fond of, it was a permanent fixture in her bedroom, "stockades are used daily. Hangings are almost as common."
He'd never thought it would come to that in Twelve, hadn't either. Things were bad enough in the District, the thought that something as miserable as all that was coming to pass would come crashing onto their doorstep was too terrifying to imagine.
As she opens her back door, she finds Vick sitting at the counter, drinking hot chocolate with her mother.
He gives her a small little smile, his dimples just barely visible, and she forces one back at him.
She takes him up to her room, lets him bounce on her bed for a while, jump up and down, forget that his eldest brother is a bloody mess still. His mother apparently can't find work, Posy is just getting over the measles, and Rory has gone and signed up for tesserae.
It isn't until he stops jumping and laughing, runs to her and throws his skinny arms around her and tells her it'll be okay, that she even realizes she's crying. Hard.
"Shhhh, Madge, it's okay," he tells her soothingly.
It's stupid, because she's practically an adult and he's just a little boy, but he's comforting her. She sinks to the floor and pulls him to her side, sobbing into his hair.
"I'm-m s-s-s-sorry, V-v-vick!" She blubbers.
She hates herself for it. She's just one more weak Town girl. Like her mother when her sister died. Like Mrs. Everdeen when her husband died. Only no one had died on Madge. It only felt that way.
They stay sitting on the floor in their awkward hug for a long time, until the sun starts to sink and Madge knows Vick needs to get home. There's a curfew for him to worry about now.
#######
He's back the next day.
"Are you okay today?" He asks her, looking a little hesitant.
She gives him a brave nod. She can't fall apart on him; he has enough falling apart on him as it is.
They go up to her room again and she lets him pick out some books to take home to read to Posy while she's recuperating.
"Alice in Wonderland," she hands him the ragged looking book. "Read the first one then I'll give you the second one, alright?"
He nods and studies the book, the blonde on the front and the white rabbit.
"Madge? Can I ask you a question?"
It's odd, for him to ask permission for a question, he's never done it before and it makes her a little worried. She nods.
"Well, Katniss has to marry Peeta, right?" He looks at her and bites his lip.
She nods again.
He takes a few steps over, to the bed, and sets down, before looking at her again.
"Well, Rory and me, we talked about it, and well, Katniss, you said she likes Peeta well enough for her, for Katniss," he takes a deep breath and ponders over what he's about to say. "Well, if she's marrying Peeta then she can't marry Gale."
Vick's wide eyes stare at her, willing her to understand him, but she doesn't. Not in the slightest.
"No," she says carefully. "You can only marry one person at a time, Vick."
He nods solemnly.
She stares at him, still not sure what he's getting at.
His eyes scrunch up and he sighs, "Well…you like Gale…"
Ah.
"Vick…"
How is she supposed to tell him his brother despises her? That she ranks somewhere between entrails and fungus in his book, but that at least he sees a point in both those things…
"No, Madge, just listen. Katniss likes Peeta well enough, and Gale likes you well enough. It's the same thing!"
It's not though. Katniss and Peeta don't have a choice in the matter. Their lives, their families'lives, the District, all depend on their love affair.
And besides, Gale does not like Madge well enough.
He barrels on, "Look, I know he's grumpy and he stinks when he comes home from the mines and he's dirty, really, really dirty, and he's hairy, he's got hair in places you don't even want to know about…"
Madge feels her face turning crimson. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. She fights off an embarrassed smile.
"Vick, you-Gale and I, we aren't-no, Vick."
"But," he looks crestfallen, "I promise he'll take good care of you. Girls really like him, so he must know how to treat them."
I'm sure he does. Madge thinks wryly.
"Is it because of the hair thing? Rory said I shouldn't say anything. He said it was normal, but I dunno."
Madge snorts, "No, that's not it."
Vick looks down at his hands, "Is it because of the whipping?"
She sinks into the mattress beside him and takes his hand, "Vick, that…should have never happened. Gale didn't deserve that. No one would ever argue he did."
"See? You care," he leans on her shoulder. "He needs someone, Madge. You like him, I know you do. You look at him like mom looks at dad's picture."
He seems to shrink right in front of her. A fragile little boy just trying to make his brother feel better by giving him someone that will love him.
It's a little misguided, but done out of love none the less.
"Vick, don't you think Gale needs to have a say in who you marry him off to?"
She feels his head shake, "He doesn't always make good choices."
#######
The prep team arrives for Katniss' wedding shoot earlier than expected, but come and go without incident. Madge hears an announcement at the school, mandatory viewing that evening.
Delly Cartright, says it's probably Katniss' wedding dresses.
"Prim said she had the shoot yesterday, and you know how quick they are."
Madge nods in agreement. The Capitol is quick, but wedding dresses are hardly the stuff a mandatory viewing is made of.
She wishes she weren't right.
When they announce that it's time for the Quarter Quell her mother disappears into herself and her father pats her hand.
They are safe. But Katniss isn't. Peeta isn't.
"Haymitch," her mother begins crying. "Haymitch will have to go back."
Heaving sobs begin racking her mother's already frail frame, and she falls over onto her husband.
Madge watches her mother sob on her father. There's something about it that doesn't sit evenly, but there are pieces missing, and Madge can't puzzle it together without them.
Instead of worrying, though, about something so trivial, she leans onto her mother and hums her favorite nocturne.
#######
Madge is in the twilight of sleep when she hears someone banging around in her back yard.
Gale has shown up, out of the blue, in the middle of the night, absolutely reeking of alcohol and raving. He's spent months practically ignoring her and now he wants her as his personal therapist. A small, rather vindictive part of her half wants to let him make such a racket that the night watchmen catch him and take him to the tank to dry out. Then she remembers Thread, the whipping post, Vick, Posy, and Rory, and of course Gale's already poor standing in the community and she can't.
"It isn't fair!"
He's pacing back and forth in her garden, trampling a couple of her last cabbages.
"She's s-s'ppos'd t'have a happily ever-ever after." He runs his hand over his face. "She's the s-s-star-cross'd l'ver!"
"Lovers," she holds up two fingers helpfully. "There are two of them. A pair. A couple."
"Shut up, Unders'see," he mutters. "I don't care about Mell'rk."
He trips over his own feet, tumbling into a tomato cage before landing on the carrots. She sighs and takes a seat next to him, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her cheek against them.
"She shouldn't have to go back. They changed the rules once." His voice quivers and he looks to her, "Why can't they do it again?"
Madge forces a small, sad smile. "Because the 'Star-crossed lovers' is a tragedy, Gale. It's meant to come to a bad end."
"It's a love story," her murmurs.
She snorts, "Not even close. Don't you remember freshmen literature?"
Gale glares, "I had bett'r things t'do freshmen year than read some s-stupid play."
Her face flushes and she feels a little cruel. Of course Gale had had better things to do than read a story by some long dead playwright. He didn't have the luxury of a comfortable home and full stomach that she did.
"Romeo and Juliet die. They kill themselves. And they got a lot of people killed along the way to their end." Now she thinks about it, it's actually a pretty fair comparison for Katniss and Peeta, considering how their Game nearly ended…
"Peeta will protect Katniss, Gale. He's going to get her home again. You'll see." She inspects the now ruined cabbage, "Peeta, he's a good guy. I know you don't want to think about it, or admit it, but he is."
With a grunt, Gale flops back and Madge flinches. Her poor cabbages.
"I know he is." He growls. "Goddamnit, I know he is."
The emptiness that follows is hollow. She wishes she had something more than empty hope to offer him. Something like the morphling she'd taken to him after his whipping. A real, physical balm for his aching soul, but there is nothing. Katniss and Peeta are all but condemned, and there is nothing she or Gale can do.
"Would he die for her?"
She almost doesn't hear him; his voice just barely reaches her over the thick blanket of quiet that has settled over them.
Madge stares up at the sky, the moon peeks out at her from behind a cloud, and she nods, "Yeah, he would. He will."
"He loves her?"
It sounds less like a question and more like a child needing affirmation. Madge nearly laughs, not because it's funny, but because it's so painfully sad.
"Yeah, he does."
Gale sits up, turns slightly green, then flops back down.
"You're drunk," she reminds him.
"Yeah, yeah, I remember." He presses his fingers to his eyes.
You're going to have one hell of a hangover come morning. She thinks as she watches him struggle to sit up, slower this time.
Once he's back in the upright position he fixes her in his fuzzy gaze.
"Could you do it?" He asks. She frowns, unsure what he's talking about now. He seems to realize he's lost her and tries to refocus.
"Could you die for someone you loved? I mean, if you didn't know if they loved you too, or at least not-not like you loved them?"
Madge remembers running through the bitter cold, through blinding white sheets of snow and stinging wind. She remembers praying the new peacekeepers didn't catch her until she'd made her precious delivery. She remembers a dull ache in the center of her chest, wanting to be brave, wanting to ease his pain.
She shrugs.
"Don't know," she gives him a faint smile. "Let's hope I never have to find out."
After a few minutes of thick silence, Gale's sluggish voice breaks the night again.
"Went and saw her," he mutters. "Been drinking with Haym-mitch."
Oh good, he has a drinking buddy now.
She hears a couple of Peacekeepers coming around the corner, can see their outline in the streetlight. Before they can see she and Gale sitting in the garden she grabs him by the hand and pulls him up onto the porch and in to the house.
There's no curfew for adults, but Gale is a known troublemaker and stinking drunk, so it's probably not the wisest decision to let him wander the streets alone.
Her mother was given a half dose of her remaining morphling, so she won't wake for much, and her father is exhausted. Madge could throw a party and they wouldn't know it.
Docile as a puppy, he lets her pull him up the stairs to her room. If he were Mr. Abernathy she'd just put him in the guestroom, but she wants to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't wander off and get himself and his family into more trouble. He's working again, unhappy and unpleasant a prospect as that is, and Hazelle has a job keeping Mr. Abernathy from living in filth, but one wrong move could jeopardize everything.
She shuts the door and turns to find him staring at the bed.
"Trying to seduce me, Un-undersee?"
He gives her a drunken little grin. She might've found it cute were it not for how irritated with him she's feeling.
"I was under the impression all it took to seduce you was low standards and a secluded spot at the slag heap?"
He snorts, "Slag heap or a nice soft bed, e-either one."
Her stomach flops. He's toying with her again. Whether he knows it or not.
Madge bites her lip and puts her hands on his chest, pushes the drink sloshed coat off, and shoves him to the bed, "Sleep it off, Gale."
She has the presence of mind not to scream when he grabs her and pulls her down with him. He isn't trying anything, not that she can tell anyway, just seems to want the comfort of a living body next to his. She might've been Prim's goat and he'd be just as happy.
Well…maybe not just as happy.
He nuzzles his face into her hair, inhaling, she can feel his lips against her scalp. She's hyperaware of his body pressed a little too tightly to hers, the heat from him, the smell. If he can't feel her heart pounding madly against him he can't feel anything, she's certain of it.
He's half on top of her, one of his hands at the nape of her neck and the other clutching at the lowest part of her back. He's crushing her. He's a stomach sleeper, and she wonders if he always has been or if he only does so because of his still surely painful back. Her face is pressed into his neck, the hollow space between his chin and his chest. She could count every coarse hair on his neck and jaw if she wants. Part of her does.
Then he begins snoring softly.
He's passed out.
Carefully, so as not to wake him, she disentangles herself, crawls out from under him. She pulls the little blanket up from the bottom of her bed and covers him, smoothes his messy hair, kisses him goodnight, just barely brushing her lips to his rough cheek. She takes his disgusting coat and kicks it to the corner.
"'Night, Gale."
She curls up in her reading chair, pulling her robe closer around her and starts her vigil.