Chapter 3 - Diamond at the Bottom of the Drain
"And Districts 3, 5, and 8 have been declared free of unexploded ordnance; next priority is repairing critical roads, bridges, and railway tracks so land-based trade can resume." Gale glances up briefly from his notes and squints into the cameras, lights, microphones, and sea of faces hanging onto his every word. He's still not used to giving the press briefings, not even after a full month of doing this. Although, comparatively speaking, this part isn't that bad as long as they don't interrupt, and he's nearly to the end.
He looks back down at his papers. "Last, travel issues. Rail routes have been restored between the Old Capitol City and the major hubs. After all military and essential personnel have been moved, civilians will be allowed to travel between districts declared safe. Subject to route and seat availability." Obviously.
He flips the folder shut and pauses for a moment, studying the patterns of the wood grain on the podium to buy some time. This next part is the worst and he tries to put it off as long as he can, but eventually has to face it. Like a battle. He looks out into the sea again and imagines the reporters are Peacekeepers, armed with cameras instead of guns. Narrowing his eyes, he issues his challenge.
"Any questions?"
Hands promptly attempt to scrape the ceiling and he scans for the least offensive looking reporter to call on. "You," he says, pointing to a nervous looking dark-haired man in the front row.
"Um, has there been a decision yet on the new government's structure?"
"No. It's slow going." Excruciatingly slow, in Gale's opinion, as someone who has to sit through the endless and seemingly pointless debates amongst the delegates. "I wouldn't hold your breath."
"What does President Paylor think about the Reconstruction Committee's pace?"
"Ask her yourself. You, in the back."
"Lieutenant, you mentioned non-essential civilian travel between the districts would be allowed… Any estimates on timing or ticket prices?"
Amazing, the rare worthwhile follow-up question. "Tracks to the major hubs will probably be open within a week or two. I don't know where people think they'll be going, but they'll be free to figure it out for themselves. Schedules and fares will be posted in the stations." He omits mentioning he doesn't know how people will afford the fares; the early estimates he'd seen were shocking. But he's also becoming aware that he and others from the poorer districts have a very different sense of what things cost compared to how natives of the Capitol and District 2 perceive prices.
"What do Committee members think of Rich Tyler's resignation?" A plump woman in a bright blue suit and matching hair calls out the question from the side of the room, much to his annoyance. He likes his press conferences to be orderly. He makes a mental note to put Blue Hair on his Trouble List; also because her question is a pathetically transparent attempt to reinvigorate last week's scandal about the married commander from District 3 who was caught having an affair with a former Hunger Games commentator.
With a sigh he looks at Blue Hair disapprovingly so she'll get it that she's on his List, but he answers the question to make a different point. "We're not thrilled to have to wait for a replacement to be appointed and then learn all the issues. Wasn't someone else just asking about delays? This kind of thing doesn't help. Make sure to take some of the credit when you report on it." That jerk Tyler of course deserves most of the blame for not being able to keep it in his pants, but the resulting media circus was so far out of proportion it still rankles and he wants them to know it.
When the questions devolve into inquiring about his opinion on the newly forming sports league, he ends the press conference with a sneering "We're done" and returns to the office where the other committee members are reviewing reports in preparation for their formal session later that day. He looks over his own notes, but Command didn't have anything particularly relevant for him to share and he suspects the rest of the day will be a struggle.
He's right. Chairperson Mercer immediately gets off schedule both by starting late and then by letting Plutarch Heavensbee play a video clip promoting some obnoxious singing program. During his first days of serving on the committee, Gale had tried to steer everyone back toward productivity and keeping to a schedule—that's how they did things in the army—but he soon learned the pointlessness of his efforts. Sometimes they just collectively needed to debate tangents, or there were political reasons for letting certain people waste everyone else's time. Heavensbee is the perfect example of that. So now Gale usually just hunkers down, tries to stay awake, and thinks about the next time he can get to the climbing wall at the old quarry near his apartment.
As the afternoon wears on and the effect of the caffeine wears off, he resorts to stabbing the point of his pen into his thigh under the table, one of the most effective tricks in his arsenal for keeping himself awake. Next, he holds a trial in his head and finds Committee Member Douglas guilty of the dual crimes of speaking in a monotone and having no point whatsoever. The man routinely drones on and on about absolutely nothing—in great detail—and Gale can't believe they haven't figured out a way to get him kicked off the Committee yet.
Actually, he does know why: Douglas is filthy rich and lent the rebels crucial financial support during the final days of the war. But that doesn't hold with Gale, since the money was no doubt earned off the labor of district types like Gale himself and because the scumbag only loaned the rebels funds once it became clear that they were going to win the war. And now the sleazoid has been rewarded with a role on the Reconstruction Committee and the privilege of wasting everyone's time on this neverending afternoon.
Chairperson Mercer finally stands to make the final announcements of the day. Gale sits up straighter and glances out the window—sunny, with quite a bit of daylight left. He probably has enough time to get in a climb. Best part of his day.
"Tomorrow we're taking a tour of the quarry in Hyland Village," Mercer announces, adjusting his glasses and sounding as pinched and harassed as ever. "Directions available at the door for those unfamiliar." He glances at Gale, who scowls at his desk. Just because they gave him a defective map that made him late to the last off-site tour doesn't mean he's chronically lost. "Tour at 9:00, and then we'll be meeting in the Whistler building for the rest of our business. It's at the center of the village, can't be missed. We'll be meeting the new sub-committee members."
It's about time. There were meetings about meetings to determine what the sub-committees would be, more meetings to determine each sub-committee's members, and finally it sounds like these new people will be starting to work. The president recently expanded the Reconstruction Committee's mission so its members can hash out a new structure for the government that will then be presented to the citizens of the country for a vote. That meant they needed experts in a variety of subjects to help with the planning, which Gale acknowledges was probably a good idea, but pessimistically he knows it means even more voices squabbling with one another and that their progress will be even slower.
But that's a problem for later—he's done with this stuff for today. The second they're released, he bolts from the room. It's like when he was in school in 12 and couldn't get out of the schoolhouse fast enough on the afternoons when he needed to hunt. He and Katniss used to race each other to the rock, and the loser would have to gut the fish…
The familiar feeling of dread starts to build in his chest at even a happy memory of Katniss and he decides he can't deal with the gauntlet of photographers and videographers waiting outside the front door for the exiting committee members. Instead, he targets a side door he hasn't used in a while. He's mostly successful—there are only a couple of reporters waiting and they clearly weren't expecting him because they only get a few pictures.
As tempting as it would be to tell them off and smack their intrusive cameras out of their hands, he restrains himself. The types who lurk in alleys feel entitled to follow him everywhere in hopes that they can provoke him into doing something interesting, and he learned the hard way that destroying their cameras qualifies as interesting. Unfortunately, not doing anything isn't much better, since these types have no qualms making up stories about him. Beyond the lies, the feeling of being hunted, rather than doing the hunting, is what really burns.
He cuts through the downtown area, slipping first into the shoe store on Second Avenue and then using the linked internal doorway to enter the outdoor gear store, where the owner lets him use the back door as an alternate exit. His pursuers haven't figured this trick out yet. He decides he might as well pick up a new climbing rope while he's here, since his is getting frayed. Nodding a greeting to the owner, a graying man who rarely moves from behind the counter, he heads straight to the rope section.
"Got a shipment of yew in today," the owner says from across the room. There isn't anyone else in the store, so Gale realizes the man is talking to him, even though he appears to be studying a catalog from his stool at the counter.
"I need some rope," Gale calls back, running his hands over the strong, brightly colored smooth cords to test how they feel.
"Good quality yew branches," the man continues, now raising his eyes to peer at Gale over his glasses. "Strong, elastic. Thought you might be interested."
Why would he… Oh. Branches... He realizes the man is suggesting Gale could make a bow from the wood. District 2 used to have a thriving black market trade in weapons—families who wanted their kids to volunteer for the Hunger Games could easily (though illegally) obtain nearly any weapon imaginable as long as they used them in private. So many families had relatives serving in the Peacekeeper forces and the district was so coddled in general that nobody was all that concerned about the weapons being turned against the Capitol… This man's business must have been part of that trade. Gale glances around the store to see what other inventory besides the ropes could have been useful for Hunger Games training and spots nets, burlap that could be used to create targets, and feathers for arrows, among other things.
Weapons for civilians are still officially illegal and as an officer Gale should probably report the guy, but he's more irritated at the man's assumption that since a bow was Gale's weapon of choice during the war, he'd likely be interested in making one now… Even though he would, he bristles at the implication that this man thinks he knows him based on what he's seen on TV. And then he feels the earlier dread start to intensify at the unintentional reminder of why he doesn't hunt anymore. He can't even explore the plentiful woods surrounding District 2 because hunting and forests trigger too many painful memories of Katniss, and Prim, and all of District 12…
Climbing, on the other hand, lets him clear his mind of anything other than which fissures will best lead him up the wall. The rocks don't remind him of anything from home—each wall poses a fresh puzzle waiting to be conquered. Added benefit that climbing uses his body, making up for being sedentary all day, and usually tires him out enough that he can sleep without having to take the pills.
He has to admit that Milo was useful at least for turning him on to climbing. They might even possibly be friends now that they don't work together anymore, though Gale doesn't put any effort into the friendship. He just doesn't decline 100% of the time when Milo invites him climbing. Milo actually shuts up once they're on the wall, apparently focusing on the climb or exorcising his own demons, and Gale finds he doesn't mind the company.
"Just the rope today," Gale says firmly as he yanks a bright red rope off the display hook and carries it to the register. He wants to warn the man to mind his own business, but he can't burn this bridge—he needs the escape route and the supplies. Luckily the owner doesn't say anything else and dutifully rings up the purchase.
Gale successfully exits through the back door and walks the few blocks to his apartment without being discovered. Although he's still officially enlisted, he's 'on detail' to the Reconstruction Committee and is being given a housing allowance instead of having to live on the military base. His apartment complex is a blocky stone building, like most of the other structures in 2, and aside from a few stray bullet holes in the stairwell, it survived the war largely intact. Probably saved by its fortifications of ugliness.
He climbs the stairs to his apartment and as soon as he approaches the door he hears the telltale creak of his neighbor's door opening. Time for the routine to begin.
"Hawthorne!" Obnoxiousness Personified is leaning out of the doorway and leering, clad in his standard lazy uniform of a pink T-shirt his belly has outgrown, too-small shorts, and bare feet. The sparse bristles on his chin round out the look to drive home that he doesn't just act like a pig. "What's the news today? Any new girlfriends you want to introduce me to?"
Gale ignores him and focuses on unlocking his door; sniping back just encourages the harassment. It's just his luck to have a nosy, annoying neighbor who doesn't appear to have anything to do other than get into his business. In a way it's refreshing that this guy is immune to the adoration virus so many other people are infected with, but it doesn't make up for the incessant hassling.
"Any more scandals from your group? It's been a few days—time for something new. I think it's your turn. Maybe your loony cousin has some dirt—"
He can't help himself—he lunges menacingly in the pig man's direction. Just a few feet and nowhere near making contact with the guy, but it works: he retreats back into his pen. Coward. Gale enters his own apartment and slams the front door behind him, leaning against the back of it and appreciating the barrier from the outside world. Some day he's not going to be able to stop himself from punching that guy's sniveling face and then he'll just end up on the news again. Not worth it, he reminds himself. But just barely.
He throws his keys on the island in the kitchen and kicks off his shoes, pausing when he notices the blinking red light on his phone's display. Most of the calls he gets are from reporters who shouldn't be bothering him at home or from other people he doesn't want to talk to; his mother and commanding officers call him on the secure line at work if they need anything. But the red light, rather than the blue one, means he's out of storage space and that he's going to have to clear out some messages if he wants to continue to ignore people in peace.
He presses the button and listens to the first one. "Lieutenant Hawthorne, Darcy Scott from the Free Press. On a deadline and I'd sure appreciate a reaction quote from you about the fight you broke up last night at the Hollow Soldier Tavern—" He presses the delete button. That fight was ages ago and the deadline has passed by now, not that he'd have provided a quote anyway—the Free Press always twists their stories about him into war hero profiles.
"Gale," his mother's voice starts on the next message, "I don't know why I'm bothering with this machine since you seem to ignore it—" Delete. The message is old and he talked to her this morning from work. She didn't need anything or have important news, like usual, and he gets it that she's worried about him, but she doesn't need to call so frequently.
"Hello, this is Pam from the library. We notice you haven't returned the—" Delete.
"This is Tungsten Ferry with the District 2 Rocky Gazette, looking for an interview about—" Delete.
"Gale! Wall? Saturday at 7? Unless you're too hungover you jackass." Milo. Delete. Funny, though: he ended up running into Milo at the quarry that morning without planning on it.
"Mr. Hawthorne, this is Dr. Nash. You've skipped our last three sessions—" Therapist. Delete.
In fact, those remaining messages are all probably equally useless. He especially doesn't want to hear other messages from that head doctor who just doesn't get it. He deletes everything else without listening and walks to the bedroom, which is just as sparsely adorned as the rest of the apartment. That is, it has the bare minimum for functionality: here, a mattress and a dresser. He doesn't actually use the dresser, though, finding it more efficient to have one pile of clean clothes and one pile of dirty clothes.
He pauses next to the pile of clean clothes and debates whether to go straight to bed or to change so he can go for a climb like he'd planned. He still has time, but if he curled up and went to sleep right now, he could skip the bother of dinner and be unconscious until it's time to show up for work again, when he'd be guaranteed another 8 hours of distraction from how terrible he is. The risk is that if he goes to sleep right now he might wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get to sleep again, leaving him with hours in the dark by himself with nothing but memories and images and guilt.
The vial of pills on the dresser beckon… they would ensure he wouldn't wake up until morning…
He's pulling off his dress uniform and starting to crawl into the bed when the phone rings. He doesn't even entertain the idea of answering it. The answering device switches on and Milo's disembodied voice floats through the apartment, attempting to goad Gale into meeting him at the quarry.
Gale pulls the covers over his head and decides definitively not to go. Next time. Maybe. He reaches for the pills, but then at the last second he hurls them across the room, listening to the unsatisfying sound of them bouncing off the wall and then scattering across the floor. He deserves the nightmares, too.
#
The quarry tour the next day is the least boring thing the Reconstruction Committee has done in the entirety of Gale's involvement. It's invigorating to be walking around outside, and he even feels the comforting echo of his pre-war anger to see how hard the quarry work was; the workers were probably just as frustrated as he'd been as a miner in 12.
This particular quarry is associated with the Hyland Village, one of the further outlying villages within District 2. The quarry has been shut down for a few years, but there's been talk of opening it again to satisfy increasing demand for building materials.
"You going to say good things about us to the press?" The former quarry manager asks Gale with a grin. "Build support for re-opening?"
Gale gazes coolly at the man. "You going to treat your workers fairly?"
"Sure we are," the man says with the same stupid smile, and Gale can't tell if he's joking or not. Maybe the idea of treating quarry workers well is so absurd the man feels like Gale's joking with him.
Rhoda overhears the conversation and chimes in, whispering loudly to the quarry manager with the intent of having Gale overhear her. "Careful, don't set Hawthorne off. He's our toughest critic."
She grins at him so he knows she's teasing, but he's not in the mood so he continues walking down one of the loading ramps. Rhoda is the next youngest committee member and she's still at least 15 years older than him. All the committee members are from more privileged positions in their home districts, too. He's pretty sure he's the only one who used to work in a mine, or a factory, or a field, or a quarry. Between feeling so different from everyone and having to listening to their squabbling all day, it's no wonder his preferred company in his free time are the rock faces in old quarries. And it looks like this quarry has some potential… He wonders if he and Milo could sneak in here this weekend…
After the tour, the guides take them to the Whistler mansion in the center of the village. It belonged to the village's magistrate before the Capitol fell, and afterward it was seized as government property so it could be used for things like Reconstruction Committee meetings. The home's interior is lavish, full of heavy curtains, thick carpet, and ornate light fixtures, their delicacy marred only by layers of dust. The fine furnishings needle Gale in the same way the quarry did—a reminder of the injustices the people of Panem suffered for so long.
As they sit down to be introduced to the sub-committee members, he quietly asks Rhoda what a magistrate is.
"You didn't have them in 12?" She's another native of 2, where apparently magistrates were prevalent. Gale gives her his 'shut up and just tell me' look so she explains. "The mayor was in charge of all of 2, but there were so many villages that the day to day managerial tasks were delegated to a magistrate for each village."
"We only had a mayor in 12," Gale recounts. "I guess we too small to need more than him." An image of Mayor Undersee pops into his head, which of course triggers a cascade of memories of Madge. There are so many more blondes in District 2 than there were in 13, he keeps thinking he sees her and Prim everywhere. No doubt his brain is trying to find a way for them not to be dead.
"The meeting will come to order," Mercer announces with one of his typically feeble throat-clearing sounds that makes Gale want to throttle him.
They spend the rest of the day hashing out sub-committee assignments and introducing the new members to everyone else. It's actually one of the more interesting days, since things are starting to feel more concrete. He volunteers for the national security and communications sub-committees, in keeping with his role as one of the primary military liaisons and spokespersons, even though the idea of being on Plutarch Heavensbee's communications sub-committee turns his stomach. He also signs up for the ethics and justice sub-committee because he thinks he could stand to learn more about those topics, not because he has any kind of expertise to offer… Not by a long shot.
When the session adjourns for the day, Gale hangs back to monitor the press situation. A peek behind the heavy curtains in the parlor reveals that news teams are still swarming the exiting committee members for tidbits of news about the committee's progress, or even better, for salacious gossip about its members. He recognizes a few of the chronic offenders on his Trouble List and decides to wait until they leave so he doesn't lash out at them and make the headlines for that.
"Not up for the wolf pack yet?" A grizzled security guard asks Gale from the entryway as he reaches to pull some beat-up looking boxes from a closet.
"Give me real wolves any day," Gale says with a grimace as he turns away from the window. Give him his old bow and arrows at the same time and see how they'd do…
"Need some help?" He asks the guard, who's struggling with a heavy box and agrees gratefully. By the looks of him, Gale guesses he's a refugee from one of the other districts. He has that sad look of someone who's endured, and lost, too much.
"Just trying to clear out the former owner's stuff," the guard says, handing Gale the box. "Set it near the door."
Gale throws himself into helping move the boxes, which at least uses his body and leaves him with a sense of having accomplished something afterward. This man's quiet company is also a welcome break from the chattering that had so recently filled the house.
As Gale sets the last of the boxes by the door, he stretches his arms and checks out the window to be sure the reporters are gone. Finally. He moves to open the door when a photograph in the nearest box catches his eye.
He kneels to inspect it more closely: a photograph of a little girl younger than Posy with pale yellow hair and a shy smile that reminds him of the way Madge used to look when she'd spot him from a distance. He's fully aware of how sappy he is for still missing Madge and spares himself one of his internal lectures about moving on so he can indulge in remembering her for a few moments. If he doesn't, who else will?
The guard is watching Gale sadly. "It's funny. I didn't have many pictures back home, but what I wouldn't give to have just one of them…"
Gale nods. "We only had a few, but they were all that was left of my old man and now we don't even have those…" Thanks to the Capitol firebombing everything he knew. He hates thinking about how fuzzy his mental image of his father is becoming. His mom says Vick is starting to look uncannily like their father, but to Gale Vick just looks like Vick. Or at least he did the last time Gale saw him, which was before he left for the invasion of the Capitol with the Star Squad.
He's about to leave when something else in the box catches his eye. The photo right behind the one he pulled out is of a man and a woman and the same little girl, and the adults look awfully familiar.
Fishing out the photo to inspect it more carefully, he feels a shiver like a ghost just passed through his body: the man and the woman are Mayor Undersee and Madge's mom, which means the little girl is Madge. Not just some little girl who reminds him of Madge, but actually Madge. He immediately paws through the other photographs and finds a series of pictures documenting Madge growing up: infancy, toddlerhood, missing her baby teeth, sitting at the piano in their house with her mother, a whole series with pig-tails as she got older… On the back of each photograph is her age…
"Whose stuff is this?" Gale demands. "Did this belong to whoever lived here before the house was seized?"
"I think so… Why?"
"I know these people," Gale says, holding up the photographs. "Knew. In 12. Who lived here?"
"We call it the Whistler place on the caretaking schedule. So I guess someone named Whistler…"
Gale feels his hopes deflate. He remembers Madge had relatives somewhere and for a moment he had entertained the crazy idea that maybe he could find them. Just talking to someone else who knew her and remembered her might make the loss sting less. Beyond the sheer horror of that night when 12 ceased to exist, which he still tries not to think about, it haunts him how many people won't be remembered. If Madge had relatives, he could tell them about how brave she'd been and how determined she'd been to rebel even without anywhere near adequate support. It would be like a little piece of her could reach out from the ashes and be bright again.
The guard disappears elsewhere into the house so Gale keeps digging through the box, looking for more information. There are letters from Madge's parents and a few from Madge herself, written in youthful bubbly handwriting, all addressed to some Undersees who must have been her grandparents. He's able to piece together that her grandfather was the magistrate of Hyland Village, that the quarry closed after he died, and that her grandmother died some time after that.
There are also pictures of Madge's father growing up, including newspaper clippings about his career during his years before becoming the mayor of 12. The best thing in the box by far, though, is the most recent photograph of Madge, probably taken within the past couple of years. She looks close to how he remembers her…
"What are you doing?"
Gale startles and looks up. One of the new sub-committee members is walking down the stairs from the second floor while carrying a box, and she looks angry… She's tall and angular, with sharp features and light brown hair and he vaguely remembers she's some type of scholar. The way she's looking at him makes him think of the school principal in 12, who always made him feel like he was doing something wrong (admittedly, he usually was).
He stands up. "These boxes were just sitting here."
The woman glares at him, and it dawns on him that she'd been referred to in the meeting as Committee Member Whistler…
"Is this your house?" He blurts the question before he has time to wring the eagerness from his tone. He sounds the way Vick used to when someone even would mention the idea of a game of cinder ball.
"No. I've been informed on multiple occasions that this house belongs to the New Republic now."
So she's the one the house was seized from by the new government. He's not getting into that touchy issue with her. He gestures to the boxes. "I found some photos of people I knew… Do you know where I could find the Undersees' relatives? I take it they owned the house before you did."
"In a sense, I suppose they did," she says in a clipped tone. "Unfortunately, there are no more Undersees. The Capitol made sure of that."
His eyes drift back to the box he was just rifling through, with the family portrait of Madge and her parents on the top of the stack. "I knew them… In 12."
Mrs. Whistler raises her eyebrows. "Didn't everyone know them? They were the first family of the district."
"You knew them, too?" The woman nods, so Gale continues, unwilling to give up just yet. "I was friends with Madge." Friend doesn't feel like the right word for what Madge was, but it's good enough in light of this woman's hostility.
"She didn't survive? Her parents?" The woman's voice sounds slightly softer, with a hint of vulnerability.
"No." He shakes his head, fighting off the memories of the charred remains of her house, and digging through the debris in her yard while the district burned and people screamed… "How did you know them?"
"You could say we went way back…" The woman sounds nostalgic, but then she snaps out of it and sets down the box she'd been carrying.
Gale waits a few moments for her to continue, but when all she does is sort through the box, he starts to get annoyed. "Yeah, well you could be more cryptic, but you'd have to really put the effort in." He realizes too late it was the kind of sarcastic comment he should have kept to himself.
Mrs. Whistler smiles faintly, though, as though she's entertained. "Just like on TV…"
He knows what she's referring to and smoothly ignores her. The ruder he is to the reporters, the more they adore him. It's convenient to not have to fake liking them, but he wishes his rudeness would be rewarded with not having to do the press conferences instead.
"I'm Cliff's sister," she says, standing up to face him. "Mayor Undersee, I guess you would have known him as."
"Madge's aunt?" He'd thought all the Undersees were long gone and here he is staring at one. With a different last name, which makes sense and he doesn't know why he didn't think of it. This is better than he hoped…
Mrs. Whistler nods solemnly and squints at Gale as though reassessing him. Gale assesses her right back and decides she doesn't look anything like Madge. He can see some resemblance to her father, now that he knows to look, but Madge definitely looked more like her mother than her father. Still, this woman is a relative and surely she'll be interested in talking about Madge.
"Madge and I were… close."
He isn't quite sure what he wants to ask—'do you want to talk about her?' or 'do you have any memories you can share?'—it all sounds unbelievably stupid and he can't make the words come out. Plus this woman doesn't seem the least interested in discussing her family tragedy with some jerk who's on TV all the time. Especially the longer he lets this awkward silence grow while he thinks about what to say and while she radiates her disinterest in him.
She finally turns back to the box, pointedly ignoring Gale, and he thinks that at least that's familiar; she's making him feel as welcome as Madge's parents used to. Maybe she doesn't want to be reminded of her family being incinerated. And she probably barely even knew Madge… He knows Madge hadn't seen her relatives since she was a little kid.
He glances at the box of photos longingly: they're all that's left of Madge and he doesn't want to leave without memorizing each one… But he'd been holding the most important one—the most recent one—when the aunt arrived and had slipped it into his pocket. He'll just anonymously mail it back after he's made a copy, explaining that it was found in the mansion and must have fallen out of the box.
"Nice meeting you," he mumbles before retreating.
A/N: Sorry, more emo Gale. He's trying to deal with things in his own way and not exactly succeeding. Title of this chapter comes from Neko Case's song "Magpie to the Morning." Thanks everyone for reading along and reviewing!