Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
In the Looking Glass, pt 3
AN: Again, thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for beta'ing.
#######
When she wakes she's in her bed, covered in her blanket that still smells slightly of drink and sweat.
She's momentarily confused, groggy and emotionally exhausted. She looks around in a haze.
"Gale?" She murmurs before she realizes it should be obvious he isn't there by where she is.
Her stomach does a summersault when she realizes he must have put her to bed before leaving for the mines. Even with what is probably a spectacular hangover, he still had to work.
Kicking the blanket off she gets up and sees he's left his coat where she tossed it the night before.
She has a moment of panic, worried he'll be cold without it. Jumping to her closet, she reaches for the oversized coat of her mother's. The one she'd worn running to him during the blizzard to bring the morphling. She'll run his coat to him. But her hand only meets air. Her coat is gone.
He'd taken it when he apparently couldn't find his own.
With a sigh of relief she stumbles back to her bed and collapses down. She brings the inside of his coat to her nose and takes a deep breath.
Such a stupid thing to do. She thinks.
But it smells sogood.
#######
The days leading up to the Reaping are filled with taking her father's papers to the three daily training Victors and helping them with their training as much as her limited skills will allow. Her father tells her it doesn't matter anymore, if they see her going to the Victors' Village. Gale isn't laid up there anymore and enough time has passed that it doesn't look suspicious.
"We just need to put our boot on and trudge on, Pearl." He smiled sadly, "All we can do."
So she does.
Everyday after school she gathers up her father's papers and pretends to sneak them to the three Victors.
Peeta is the most studious, pouring over the papers and reading out interesting bits about the statistics and who they're likely to encounter during the Games. He takes an obscene amount of notes.
"Your father is from Ten, right Madge?" He asks her one day after reading an article about the five living Victors from the livestock District.
Madge nodded.
Squinting at the picture, his mouth turns down, "You'd think there'd be more of them, wouldn't you?" He jabs his finger at the picture labeled 'Mary Jacson'. "They should be really good at killing, but there've only been six total."
Before she answers, Madge considers how much Peeta needs to know. He's been tense, chilly, and with good reason, but she doesn't want to overwhelm him with unnecessary information that won't really help him in the long run. Besides, what good would telling him the truth do? District Ten's Tributes know what happens to prize animals-that they're sold to the highest bidder to be paraded around and worse-telling him would only make things worse.
"Livestock are raised to be killed," she starts carefully. "Despite how it seems, none of us really are. People know what's coming and fight back."
"We don't always know what's coming," he mutters to himself.
She almost asks him what he means, but stops herself. Some things are meant to be private, and while she isn't certain what's bothering him, she can guess it has to do with Katniss. Their troubles aren't her business unless he makes them so.
She stays with the three of them one evening, to watch tapes of former Victors and their 'glorious' triumphs.
Peeta, of course, chooses District Ten's.
"Since the Mayor is from there you might pick up on something from them," Peeta says.
Madge doesn't really think that logic holds up, her father only speaks of his former District occasionally, and Madge has never been there. Still, she shrugs and drops, cross-legged, in front of the couch.
The first tape shows a dark haired, caramel skinned girl, probably seventeen or eighteen, named Coraline Lons. She's proficient with a knife, snaps necks with ease. Tommy Brandsetter, the lone male Victor, is a redheaded beast. Though not tall, he's nothing less than a stack of muscles, and wields a sword with deadly elegance.
Mary Jacson, a tall, platinum haired girl is next. She seems harmless enough, but like Coraline Lons, she's able to break her opponents' necks with the frightening grace of a dancer in a macabre ballet.
The final two are the most recent, the 67th and 68th. Windy Parlez, a delicate looking girl, throws a tomahawk as if it were an extension of her own body. She's clever too, surviving, not like the other three, with force, but with her wits. Madge isn't certain, but she may know her medicinal herbs better than even Mrs. Everdeen.
The tape that catches Madge's attention the most, though, is the one labeled 'Phoebe Alameda'.
When the tape starts, it isn't the brisk Victor that greets them, but a confused little girl who doesn't even hear her own name called to the stage. Her wide eyes flicker around; to a girl she clearly knows that has taken a step away from her, frowns at her slightly. Then a Peacekeeper, blonde headed with a sad smile on his face, comes up to her.
Birdy says something to him, but Madge can only make out the last few words 'I'm Phoebe Alameda'.
She looks so painfully small throughout the chariot ride that Madge wonders how she overcame such an obvious shortcoming. Then the interview comes on. She jokes about her opponents disadvantage ("My youthfulness is clearly my strong point," she tells Caesar with a cheeky grin. Madge has heard the joke somewhere before, yet can't place it), but gives a genuine answer when asked what she looked forward to if she won.
During her Game, the clever girl that Madge had met reappears in full force. It turns Madge's stomach watching someone so small slowly open herself up to becoming a cold-blooded killer.
When her District Partner is dying, his lung punctured after being stomped by the cannibalistic boy from Six, Birdy does what Madge is certain she could never do. She pulls the little dagger, the one Madge remembers her flinging at Gale, and cuts his throat.
Peeta shakes his head, covers his eyes, but Katniss and Mr. Abernathy simply stare.
"Forgot she had to do that," Mr. Abernathy mutters, more to himself than the others.
Somehow, Madge doubts Birdy has forgotten.
At the end of the tape, an avalanche, a Gamemaker ploy to keep the clearly disturbed Titus the Cannibal from winning, Birdy has lost her luster. Madge wonders how long it had taken her to get it back.
"I think we could beat that one," Katniss says, trying to glance at Peeta's notes. "She only won because of a technicality. I don't think she's a threat."
Peeta shakes his head, "Just because a technicality gave her the final push, doesn't mean she isn't a threat."
Prim, who'd come in from the kitchen with a few snacks, she's been constantly making Katniss a and Peeta eat, nods.
"She's the one that came to the District and prepped us for the interviews." She sits the bowl she's holding down, "She's…nice, but I think Peeta is right. She's definitely a threat."
Prim had seen the Victor's temper flare when Gale had threatened to walk out, and obviously remembers the glint in her eyes as she'd threatened Prim's newly christened 'cousin' with her little dagger.
"The Victors from Ten probably won't be a problem," Madge finally says. There's no reason for Katniss and Peeta to waste energy studying people that aren't even going to put in any effort.
Katniss' eyebrows arch up, "Why not?"
Madge frowns over at the bowl, searching for the words. How do you explain to anyone the logic of a District that takes out tesserae on its own orphans, uses the grain and oil to keep the District alive? That the Victors would see another win, another victory, a higher place in the feeding trough of the Capitol, as another insult in their miserable lives?
"They're about protecting the herd." Madge shrugs, "They'll consider the other Victors their family. They won't kill their family. They'll die to protect them."
It's part of the truth. Hadn't Birdy said she would do whatever it took to keep the greatest number of people safe? Right now the Victors were the ones in danger, dying would definitely protect the most of their Victor family.
"Plus," Mr. Abernathy grunts, "They're all a bunch of lunatics." His eyes flicker to Madge, "Pearl has it pegged. Trust me; I've known most of them for longer than I care to remember. They won't cause us any trouble."
They move on to planning out the route for the next day's run after that.
#######
Gale comes by on Sundays to help the three Victors. Well, two, Mr. Abernathy is of the mind that he needs at least one day off from the 'torture'. Madge suspects he's holed up in his house drinking himself into oblivion.
Madge tries to stay away on those days. Gale deserves as much of the dwindling time with Katniss as he can get, but Prim and Mrs. Everdeen seem to enjoy Madge's company more than watching snares be set, so she makes short stops during the afternoon just to appease them.
"They're all doing good, aren't they?" Prim asks. "I mean, doing well."
Madge nods, tries not to stare at Gale's back. She can imagine the lacy criss-cross of scars stretched across his taut shoulders as he explains something about a particular snare to Katniss and Peeta.
"They'll be as good as Careers in no time," she finally tells them with a smile.
It's a lie, and they surely know it, but they smile and accept the false hope Madge has somehow found herself handing out. The year before she'd thought it cruel, to build them up with a lie about Katniss' chances, but now she sees it's all they have to hold on to.
#######
Katniss and Peeta, being young and in good shape to begin with, fair well with all the training. Haymitch is a mess.
During a daily run Madge takes pity on him and slows to a jog to walk it with him.
"Am I going to have to carry you?" She asks, half joking, but mostly serious. He's breathing hard and fast.
He wheezes and shakes his head before doubling over, hands to knees.
She pulls a small bottle of water Katniss' mother had given her from her waistband and hands it to him.
"You need to drink more water."
He grimaces before snatching it from her, "Yeah."
"I'm serious Mr. Abernathy. Alcohol will dehydrate you."
He simply rolls his eyes before emptying the entire contents down his throat. She watches his Adam's apple bob as he swallows. He's in dire need of a shave.
"How's that mother of yours, Pearl?"
He says it offhandedly, like it's small talk. He stares off into the tree-line and fiddles with the now empty bottle between his fingers.
"Okay, I guess."
She isn't, not really. The box of morphling she'd donated to Gale had put her already strained supply at a breaking point. She is barely able to take a quarter the dose daily that she had been. Though she's more coherent, she's in considerably more pain. Madge has even consulted Mrs. Everdeen quietly, begging for discretion, about herbs and roots that might alleviate some of her pain.
"I'm sorry dear," Katniss' mother had told her. "There's just nothing to compare to that morphling."
Mr. Abernathy nods absently.
"Hurting, huh?"
Madge shoots him a narrow look and nods.
"Tried to get her some more, you know. Have a few people that are friendly, drinking buddies of mine, back in the Capitol, thought they might be able to get their hands on a few more vials for her. To replace the ones she gave to the cousin." He lets out a long sigh and rubs his eyes.
"Why?"
He's always done kind things for them, or at least as kind as she's certain he's able, when he isn't busy being an enormous pain in the backside. He's made sure to attend every one of her birthdays since her eighth (a feat not even both her parents can claim), brings her chocolate from the Capitol after each Games, and comes by to keep her mother company on particularly bad days.
He turns to her, studies her for a few minutes. Then ignores the question entirely. "You still lusting after the cousin?"
She fights the desire to roll her eyes, "I was nev-No! I'm not and I never was."
Mr. Abernathy smirks at her. He reaches out and moves a wayward hair from her face, pushes it behind her shoulder, "Wouldn't get so worked up if it weren't true, would you, Pearl?"
He's being difficult deliberately, to irritate her, just for his own amusement. She huffs and turns to run off ahead, but he catches her by the wrist.
For several moments he stares at her, a little fuzzy, and Madge wonders if he isn't having some kind of stroke. She should've given him the other water at her waist. Then he pulls her hand to his face and gives it a dry kiss, his prickly beard scratching her skin.
"You look just like her."
She wrinkles her nose in confusion, "Who?"
"Your mother. Your aunt. Both of them. Beautiful."
Is he having some kind of fit? Madge frowns at him and begins to ask him if he's feeling well, he isn't making any sense.
He pats her hand in a paternal kind of way. "Your father is lucky."
Then he trots off, leaving Madge wondering if maybe he hasn't answered her question after all.
#######
One Sunday Gale offers to walk her home.
It surprises her. He hasn't spoken to her since his meltdown, since she'd let him sleep in her bed, a fact that still threatened to bring a fierce blush to her cheeks.
No one has told him about the morphling, as far as Madge can tell. They have their reasons for it and she's okay with that, he has enough to worry about without stressing about repaying her for something she wants no compensation for.
They walk in that similar uncomfortable silence that had plagued them back during the 74th Games, the silence that begs to be broken.
"Thanks," he finally says.
She isn't sure for what and gives him a weak look.
"For, not ratting me out, when I," he rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably, "drug up in your yard."
Madge gives him a short little nod.
"I have your coat, my mom is cleaning it. You have mine, somewhere. I couldn't find it, uh, that morning."
She can feel her cheeks beginning to warm. She's been using his coat, turned inside out, as a sort of security blanket, inhaling his scent as she drifted off to sleep.
Madge bites her lip.
"Oh? I haven't seen it," she lies.
It's pitifully thin and patched. There's no way it keeps the cold from him. Her mother's oversized coat, which is actually a man's heavy coat, is a better choice for him.
"Just keep the one you took. Since I lost yours."
He stops and stares at her for a moment, trying to catch her lie, but she's had a lifetime of practice. He won't.
Finally, he lets out a long breath before waving her on, toward her house.
They reach the back gate and she's about to tell him goodbye when he catches her hand, "Hey, Undersee?"
He runs his thumb over her knuckles and she closes her eyes just a little. Why does he do those things?
"I, uh, I'm sorry, about the past few months." He's looking at her hand, holding it like he had the last day of the Games. "I've been a real asshole to you."
She forces a little laugh. "What's new?"
He shrugs in resignation, as if to say yeah, you're right.
"Get home safe, Gale."
She gives his hand a little squeeze and runs to the porch.
#######
Vick and Rory come almost daily with her after school, first to her house, then to the Victors' Village to meet up with their mother.
She's glad for the company, though she could do without Rory's daily recap.
"…and Seamus said he saw the side of Braxton's boob, but I don't think he really did."
Vick shakes his head, eyes flickering to Madge's chest, "Braxton doesn't have boobs."
"That's what I said!"
Shifting her shirt, Madge quickens her pace and leaves the conversation behind.
When they reach the back of the Everdeen house Madge hears her name.
"Madge!"
Mrs. Hawthorne waves her over to Mr. Abernathy's back porch.
With Rory and Vick trailing behind her, tying up the loose ends of their boob conversation, Madge jogs over to the steps leading to the open backdoor. Mrs. Hawthorne seems to have been tossing things into a bin by the side of the railing, probably from Mr. Abernathy's horrendous icebox.
She gives Madge a small look before calling out to her sons. "Boys, go play with your sister."
They groan. Rory starts to protest, but his mother cuts him off with a sharp look.
Her gray eyes follow them as they trudge up the stairs and through the door. Vick turns, gives Madge a small, pitiful wave, before his mother kicks the door shut on him. "Go."
When she turns back to Madge her expression is concerned. She takes a few steps to the small table that sits at the far edge of the porch and picks up what looks like a stack of papers. For a second she studies them, determining whether or not she even wants to do what she's started out on, then sighs.
"I found these, while I was cleaning. I thought you might want them."
Hand out, Madge takes them.
They're a mixture of papers and pictures. Madge recognizes them as ones she'd given Mr. Abernathy over the years. There are several birthday cards, faded and falling apart, that Madge had made him every year since she'd been about nine. He has a collection of her school photos, his scratchy handwriting noting her age and school year on the backs of each.
There are also a few notes from her mother. They're too faded to read, yellowed at the edges. Madge only knows who wrote them by the name on the back, 'Haymitch', in her mother's delicate looking scroll.
He's also cut out a few newspaper articles like Madge's birth announcement and the honor roll for the school.
After spending several seconds trying to read her mother's notes, without success, Madge shrugs and hands the stack back to Mrs. Hawthorne.
"Okay. I really don't want them."
Mrs. Hawthorne frowns, a little crease forms between her eyes. "Should he have these?"
Madge nods, "I gave him most of it." Though she doesn't know why he's kept any of it.
"It's a bit odd, don't you think? Him keeping all of this."
It probably is, but it's Mr. Abernathy, so Madge doesn't think too much of it.
"He probably just didn't want to hurt my feeling by tossing it all out." As if she'd have even known.
"Maybe…" Mrs. Hawthorne stares down at the papers. She looks up, still clearly not thrilled with putting the papers back wherever she'd found them, "Are you sure you don't want them?"
If Madge wanted her own picture she would get it taken and she doesn't really want any of the other papers. Mr. Abernathy doesn't have anyone, maybe Madge and her mother's little tokens are the only things even remotely resembling family he has.
"He's not being a creep, Mrs. Hawthorne, I promise."
#######
Mr. Abernathy walks her home the next day.
It's balmy, sticky, she half expects him to pass out, but he doesn't, just presses on. The Reaping is tomorrow.
"How's that damned Bird's gift working out for you?"
The little compact is still shining bright green when she checks it. The red screen Birdy had warned her of hasn't appeared yet. The Capitol's signals can still be blocked.
"Good."
"Good," he echoes. "How's your mother?"
He asks every day. As if the answer will change in the less than twenty four hours since he's seen her.
"Same."
He nods.
She doesn't ask him how he's feeling, because she knows the answer. Horrible. Peeta will go in with Katniss no matter which of their names are called. He's fond of both of them and watching them go back into the Arena will devastate him.
"They'll forgive you, you know?"
He looks at her and she stops, takes his hand and squeezes it.
"Katniss and Peeta, they love you, in their own way. Like you love them in your own weird way." She chuckles, "They're your kids."
He snorts, "That's why I never raised any. That's what I'd end up with."
Madge sighs and tugs him along, "You could do worse."
"Or better," he mutters, more to himself than her. She pretends not to hear.
When they reach her house they both sense something is wrong. There's a darkness settled around it, seeping out from under the doors and the window frames.
Madge bounds over the two steps to the porch and stops dead in her tracks when she sees a man in a Peacekeeper's uniform standing in the kitchen.
Thread.
#######
Mr. Abernathy invites himself to dinner, though they all pretend it was planned.
Romulus Thread also invites himself to dinner, but no one pretends it was planned.
"A little get together is long overdue," he tells them.
He insists they use the small table in the informal dining area, 'more intimate' he tells them.
"No need to sit so far apart. Officials like ourselves should be cozy with each other."
Cozy is most definitely not what Madge wants to be with him, of all people. The thought of breaking bread with such a vile excuse for a human being zaps any hunger she might have felt.
Her mother is wedged between her diplomatically straight faced father on her left and a glowering Mr. Abernathy on her right. Madge ends up between Mr. Abernathy and Thread.
She can't help but glance at his hands as he cuts, with little grace, through his meat. Those hands nearly killed Gale. For the first time in her increasingly miserable life, Madge wants to cause actual physical harm to another human being. She wants to take her little steak knife and cut off his hands, so they can't hurt anyone like they hurt Gale ever again.
"From Ten, originally, aren't you, Mayor Undersee?"
Madge's father nods as he wipes his mouth, "Yes, emigrated from Ten nearly twenty years ago. My grades won me a place in the local magistrate. I moved on from there, through the Capitol's special classes, you know."
Thread chews noisily on his meat, his mouth is closed, but the gnashing is still loud and sloppy.
"Cut my teeth there," he tells them as he mixes his potatoes with his meat. "Run much tighter than this ship."
"This isn't Ten, the people of Twelve are a different breed."
"They just need to be whipped into shape."
Madge nearly drops her fork at the word 'whipped'. Thread shovels far too much of the potato and meat concoction into his mouth and stares at her. She can feel her skin crawling under his eyes.
"Ten and Nine, disciplined Districts. Know how to behave. Manners. Give it a few generations, maybe you can breed some good sense, some manners, into these mongrels." His eyes flicker to Madge. "Not hungry, girl?"
She's been sitting, frozen with her fork lancing the smallest piece of meat on her plate. She swallows down the bile that has risen in her throat, "No, sir."
"See," he keeps his eyes on Madge, "manners."
She suddenly wishes her neck line were just a few inches higher and the material of her dress a few weights heavier as his cold eyes travel down her neck and along her chest and arms.
Mr. Abernathy chokes loudly and messily, disrupting Thread's roaming stare, knocking over his wine glass and spilling the contents across the table. The red mess goes like a waterfall over the edge and onto Thread's white Peacekeeper uniform.
"Damn it!" He swears as he stands, jostling the table and sending the rest of the drinks to the floor. "Damned inebriate!"
Madge's mother, who has stood to pound on Mr. Abernathy's back, gives him a sharp look, "Language, sir."
Thread glares.
"I think we have some club soda in the study, Mr. Thread." Madge's father's tone is even. He brings his hand up and gestures toward the door.
Thread gives them one last hateful look before stomping out. Her father gives them a cautious look, plainly saying 'I'll deal with this', then follows Thread out.
Mr. Abernathy's, many lined face wrinkles up and a wicked glare appears in his eyes. He finishes coughing with a final pat on the back from Madge's mother.
They take him to his regular bathroom and begin helping him clean the bits of food and drink that had stained his clothes during his coughing spell.
"You shouldn't've upset him, Haymitch," her mother tells him as she gently wipes potato from his collar. Her heavy lidded eyes are steady on him.
His gray eyes flicker up to Madge and he mutters, "Didn't like the looks he was giving little Pearl here."
"I can handle myself," Madge tells him. She won't have people getting hurt on her account. He was only looking, after all. She didn't like it, but she could live with it.
Madge runs upstairs to grab a shirt of her father's for Mr. Abernathy. He has a special batch specifically for when District Twelve's oldest Victor has a spill in their presence.
She takes the stairs down two at a time and when she comes to a stop, a few paces from the door to the bathroom, she sees her mother wrapped in Mr. Abernathy's arms.
His chin is resting on the top of her now messy blonde hair. Her pale, thin arms are draped gently around him. Mr. Abernathy's hands are on her back, one pressed to the middle and the other at the nape of her neck, toying with the furls of her hair that have escaped their band.
Madge feels like she's intruding on something very intimate. Which is ridiculous, it's her mother and Mr. Abernathy.
She wants to interrupt. They shouldn't be holding each other like that; she's about to when her mother breaks from him. She tips his head down, stands on her toes, whispers something, and gives him a chaste little kiss on the cheek. Then she glides out, leaving Mr. Abernathy staring at the air she's just vacated.
They stay frozen like that for a while, him staring at the empty space in front of him and Madge watching him, still not sure what she's witnessed.
A hand settles on her shoulder and she turns sharply, finding her father behind her. She holds his gaze, wondering how long he's been there, what he's seen.
"Dad?"
He gives her a small, sad smile before brushing past her and down to the bathroom.
"Haymitch?" It snaps the old Victor from his trance.
"Oh, Daniel, I, uh…"
Madge's father smiles and pats him on the back, "Thread's gone and Madge has a shirt for you. Get changed and get home. Big day tomorrow, right?"
#######
Silently she helps Mr. Abernathy change his shirt, as she'd done a hundred times before, maybe a thousand.
She walks him to the door, unsure what she's going to say, if she even should.
Her mouth is about to take off, ask him what the hellhe and her mother are doing, when he grabs her and pulls her into a bone crushing hug.
"You stay alive, you understand, Pearl? You keep playing this game out and you stay alive."
Too stunned to begin her tirade, Madge nods dumbly into his shoulder.
He pulls back and gives her a searching look, holds her face between his rough hands, "Say it. Say it, kid."
He has more intensity in his eyes than she's ever seen in another human being.
"Okay, okay, I'll stay alive. I-I'll play it out."
His thumbs run over her cheeks and he studies her for what feels like several minutes, memorizing her, from her eyelashes to her nose.
He pushes forward and gives her a rough kiss on the forehead then rushes away, down the steps and through the gate.
She reaches up, runs her hand over her face, which is slightly wet, but she hasn't been crying.
#######
"I think it started a few years after he came back from the Quell," her father tells her. "Haymitch's family was killed, under very mysterious circumstances. Your mother felt a connection with him because he'd been kind to Maysilee. They were both very alone I suppose."
Bugs buzz in the distance as Madge and her father sit on the back porch.
Mr. Abernathy and her mother had been something to each other, she'd always know that, but it had always been a pair of fellow mourners. Nothing more.
"They parted ways before your mother and I got together. He didn't want to put her at risk, I think. It's nothing."
It had certainly looked like something to Madge's eyes.
Her father leans back, takes a long swallow of his ice tea then rattles the glass and catches a few small slivers of ice in his mouth to chew on.
"It doesn't bother you?"
It had to. His wife apparently carries a torch of some kind for another man. A man her husband invites into his home, a man he lends clothing, a man he's cleaned vomit off of when he's drank himself sick.
He gives her a soft look and pulls her to his side, "Haymitch was a danger, to himself and those around him-"
Madge jerks back, "And he's not now?"
"He's been a sad drunk for nearly twenty years. Until recently, no, he'd done a fine job of making at least those who could potentially be hurt by association to him, safe."
She rests her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes.
"-if you don't know your history you keep making the same mistakes."
"I mean it, sweetheart, he's no good for you. He and that girl, they're more trouble than you need, you hear me? Understand?"
Her stomach lurches and she wonders how much history she's missed that she may end up repeating herself.