Chapter 5: Not Anymore
Gale's work phone rings and he glances at the clock before picking up. Probably her; she always calls at this time of day.
"Hello, dear. You doing all right?"
"Yes, fine." His standard answer.
"You seemed especially testy at that meeting yesterday." His mother never misses any of his official appearances. He suspects she's probably equally aware of the unofficial coverage of his life, but thankfully limits herself to occasional reminders about being sure he's behaving in a way that 'reflects well' on the Hawthorne name and District 12.
He isn't sure how to respond to her observation—he's always testy lately—so he changes the subject. "Is anything wrong? Is Vick still sick?" Last time he'd talked to her, Vick had picked up some kind of virus. Gale blames the stale re-circulating air in 13.
"He's recovering. Gale, how long are you going to be assigned to that committee?"
"I don't know. Maybe they'll fire me."
"Gale." He hears the scolding in her tone and actually shares her annoyance with him. His pessimism really is tiresome, which is why he doesn't like inflicting it on others and rarely calls her back. "I think it would be good for us to visit," she continues. "Didn't you say civilian travel would be allowed soon?"
"Yeah," he says uneasily. Truthfully, he has mixed feelings about them visiting; even though he misses them, they also make him feel guilty because Katniss' family has been so destroyed and his survived.
"Well, try to restrain your enthusiasm, dear. We're going to visit 12 first, anyway. Probably in the next few weeks."
He sits up at his desk straighter, alarmed. "It's not cleared yet." Code for: there are still bodies scattered throughout the entire district.
"Your friend Thom said the announcement would be soon." Trust his mom to have the latest District 12 gossip, even from 13.
"You're not thinking of moving there, are you?" Obviously they won't stay in 13 forever—they're not moles—he just hadn't thought about where else they might go. He doesn't know where he'll go. Anywhere other than 12.
"Rory wants to," his mother says, "but I worry we'll never get a full night's sleep." They didn't when they first moved to 13—every single one of them suffered from nightmares of the night 12 was bombed. "Vick panics around open flames and Posy still talks about seeing that little boy under the collapsed building..." Gale cringes at the memory of Posy's hysterical shrieking. He wishes his mother didn't drag everything up from the murky depths so often.
"Well, maybe we'll like District 2," she concludes brightly.
"Don't move here for me," Gale warns. "I'm still enlisted. They could send me anywhere next."
His mother exhales one of her expertly practiced long-suffering sighs. "Gale, believe me, I'm aware. You remind me endlessly."
Rhoda starts waving at him from the doorway, reminding him it's time for the meeting to start, so he quickly gets off the phone and takes his seat in the hall. The sub-committees are reporting their progress to the full group, and Gale listens with interest as Madge's aunt describes the education committee's proposals for revising the curriculum and textbooks. He knows she's some kind of academic, and she's clearly still angry about the Capitol's methods, judging by the ferocity of her rant about the Capitol's reliance on the schools to 'indoctrinate fear and passivity into the population.' To counteract those effects, she apparently started an underground printing press.
When the meeting adjourns, Gale is surprised to see Madge's aunt approaching him. Maybe she realized that there's no need for hostility if they have to work together—they're both on the ethics and justice sub-committee, although it hasn't met yet.
"Lieutenant," she says, leveling her intense gaze at him and leaving him a little nervous, like she can see that he's just a guy from the Seam or that he pushed so many ruthless ideas on other people during the war.
"Nice speech," he says, and then before he knows what's possessed him, he's running his mouth. "Madge's dad had a stash of illegal political articles. She found them in a closet in her house and used to make me read them. She said he used to write, too."
"Cliff used to be quite the idealist," her aunt says wistfully. "I'm glad Madge found whatever she did." She stands up straighter, if that's possible. "My husband and I noticed a photograph was missing from one of the boxes. Those photos at the mansion were my mother's and I had a duplicate set. The most recent photo of Madge?"
Gale wants to disappear. Should he confess or play dumb? One glance at Madge's aunt confirms that she'd see through any lies so he confesses, despite knowing it makes him seem like a weepy, creepy stalker.
"I'm having a copy made, I was going to return it. I just… don't have anything else." What a perfect way to kick off working with her on the ethics and justice sub-committee: by stealing a family treasure.
"I understand," she says, and he's relieved not to hear any accusation in her tone. "I hadn't realized how important she was to you. If you'd like to look through the other photos or make other copies, you're more than welcome."
"I'd like that," he says quickly. She invites him over on Saturday afternoon and he eagerly agrees.
#
Gale spends Saturday morning climbing with Milo at the old quarry, and then leaves early for the 45-minute drive to the Whistlers' house since it's sunny outside and the views of the mountains from the roads are theoretically invigorating. It's something the army doctor had suggested back before Gale ditched him—acting like he cares about things he used to, even if he doesn't anymore.
He easily finds the Whistlers' modest little house in Hyland Village—Madge's aunt gave him decent directions so he wouldn't get lost—and hears a dog barking ferociously as he approaches the door. The door opens before he can knock, and a man with a light brown beard and smile wrinkles around his eyes greets Gale with a hearty handshake.
"Dusty Whistler, pleased to meet you, come in, come in. Zipper, DOWN." A boisterous blur of black and white fur is leaping onto Gale's legs, only reaching mid-thigh but not for lack of effort. Gale jumps back from the attack, but Dusty seems embarrassed rather than concerned about the dangers posed by the animal, and pulls it by the collar away from Gale with one hand while holding the door to the house open with the other.
Eyeing the dog warily in case it escapes and attacks him again, Gale enters the house and starts his usual scan of new surroundings to assess other potential threats. His assessment stalls when he spots a Madge-like person standing in the middle of the living room.
Frozen, he tries to figure out if he's hallucinating. He went through a phase when he first moved to this district of seeing her everywhere, and it's resurged lately after discovering those photographs. Maybe her aunt and uncle have a daughter Madge's age who looks like her… But this girl looks an awful lot like Madge, only with shorter hair…
In the few seconds of his bewildered staring, the Madge-like person hurls herself at him and hugs him so tightly he can barely breathe. But that could also be because he's choking from the noises gurgling through his chest out his throat—a mix of crying and laughing and gasping for air and grasping for comprehension at this impossibility. Aside from her own extreme reaction that mirrors his, holding her again is what really confirms that the Madge-like person is indeed his Madge: her familiar scent and body are the best identification he could ask for. He feels her shake as her sobbing becomes more pronounced and immediately murmurs into her hair that everything will be all right. He normally loathes platitudes, but it doesn't feel untrue: for the first time in so, so long he does believe everything will actually turn out well.
He doesn't know how long they stay glued to one another in that entryway, but eventually he can breathe somewhat normally again and Madge starts sniffling, which he knows from experience means she's done with the worst of the crying. He feels absolutely no inclination to move, though, and inhales deeply to remind himself it's really her. She burrows deeper into his chest and rearranges her arms so she's hugging him inside his jacket. He's so content he doesn't want to disrupt the moment with words to find out how she didn't actually die and where she's been for the entire war; he'd be just fine passing the rest of his days hugging her in this hallway. He runs his hands gently along her back and notices for the first time that she feels skinnier, which he hopes isn't an indicator of having endured too much hardship during the war.
A soft snorting noise and a strange tickling near his knee finally distract him from his Madge daze. Looking down, he sees the attack dog sniffing his shins interestedly.
"You're new to him," Madge explains, also peering down at the creature. "He's checking you out." The dog gets excited at hearing Madge's voice and promptly jumps onto her legs. "DOWN, Zipper! Sit!" The beast reluctantly rests his rump—just barely—on the floor, but keeps wagging his tail so energetically it's like he's being tortured into obeying. Gale realizes with horror that this dog is the Whistlers' pet.
"Madge," Dusty calls hesitantly from the end of the hallway, where he's standing on the edge of the carpet runner as though he doesn't want to intrude. "Perri has the form in the kitchen. Whenever you're ready."
Madge looks up at Gale and he's reminded of how much bluer her eyes always seemed after she'd been crying. "There's a form you need to sign," she says, pulling him by the hand down the short hallway from the front door to the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is modest—only slightly larger than his family's kitchen back in 12. Dusty and Perri are sitting at a small table with one of the boxes from the mansion, sorting its contents into piles.
"Ah, Lieutenant Hawthorne," Perri says, smiling authentically at him for the first time ever and rising to shake his hand. "I'm glad you could make it." She gestures for Madge and Gale to take two empty chairs at the table and then shifts some of the paper piles out of the way and places an official looking legal document in front of Gale. "Sorry I couldn't tell you anything more until you got here. Madge?"
Madge twists to look at Gale and he's distracted from the beginnings of irritation with her aunt for lying to him and tricking him as he takes in how Madge's formerly long, wavy hair is now barely chin length. Her face is also a little leaner—he hadn't been imagining that she's probably gone through some type of deprivation during the war. He squeezes her hand, not liking the idea of her having to go without something for the first time in her life.
"I feel stupid asking this since I know the answer," Madge says, "but formally I have to ask you to agree to a vow of confidentiality." She seems embarrassed and she's right, obviously he'll agree to whatever confidentiality is necessary.
"Of course. Are you with Covert Intelligence?" They tended to be moles in the Capitol during the war and only the highest ranking rebel leaders knew how to contact them. Several had assisted with the rescue of Peeta, Annie, and Johanna, though Gale's awareness of the agents was limited to hearing second and third hand accounts that 'intelligence indicates…'
Perri speaks up. "Before she says anything else, I need you to take the oath and formalize it by signing this document." She pulls out a complicated stamping device. "Once you've been sworn, Madge can tell you where she's been. To whatever degree she feels appropriate in light of her own mission and duties." Perri shoots one of her fierce looks at Madge, who nods solemnly.
"I know my responsibilities. I trust Gale."
"Gale, are you prepared to take the oath? You understand nothing Madge tells you can be leaked to the press? Even inadvertently in situations when your… inhibitions might be lowered?"
Gale feels his previous irritation with Madge's aunt return. "Of course," he says coldly. If her main impression of him has been coming from the tabloid programs, she probably thinks he's a total lush. He wonders what Madge thinks about all the clips…
Perri hands the form to him, and when he finishes reading it she administers the oath and has him sign. She uses the complicated stamp on it and then explains that he can be prosecuted if he violates the confidentiality clause, including execution as a traitor. From her warning, he suspects she'd be the first to turn him in.
Dusty, who's been watching the proceedings quietly, stands up. "Madge, Perri and I are going to take Zipper for a walk. You two probably have a lot of catching up to do."
"Thanks," she says, smiling sweetly as her aunt and uncle exit before turning to look at Gale again. He notices that she has a cute little spattering of freckles across her nose, which she'd started to get at home last spring after she started spending so much time gardening outside to get away from the surveillance in her house. She smiles up at him and he wonders if it's too soon to kiss her…
Of course it is. He still doesn't know how she didn't die! Or if she even wants to kiss him anymore. He could just be an old friend she wants to reconnect with. Now that 12 no longer exists, its former citizens have an automatic bond—he'd noticed it in 13, how people who didn't know or like each other back in 12 put all of that aside.
Madge stands to put on the tea kettle. Gale watches her glide through the kitchen, mesmerized at the impossibility of her turning up, whole and healthy and part of the war effort. She seems as gentle as ever, even preparing tea with as much care as she used to put into her garden back home… Well, except when she was on one of her vicious weeding streaks.
"I'm based in the Capitol right now," Madge says as she scoops tea leaves into the strainer. "I just received clearance to be able to come visit Perri and Dusty on weekends since travel is loosening up, as long as it doesn't interfere with my assignments."
"Madge," he breaks in. "What happened to you? I saw your house burning, I dug through the debris, I found Simon's body…" Gale has to close his eyes, as though that could block the memories of that night.
"You went back to find me?" she asks unsteadily, watching him from across the kitchen.
"Of course!"
"I don't know exactly what happened," she says quietly, turning back to stare at the tea cups. "My parents… didn't make it." He hears her voice catch for a moment, but then she regains her composure and describes how she and Simon were trying to get out of the district when a bomb knocked them out and that they woke up later in a safe house in District 6.
"So Simon actually was a rebel that whole time?" Gale feels his old Simon irritation surge back, skipping past the part where he's supposed to be happy that Simon survived. "He was just screwing with us?"
"No," Madge clarifies, insisting that Simon didn't know anything more about the rebellion than he'd told them. "Someone he worked with was trying to recruit my parents to the rebel network and with all that monitoring, she figured out Simon was trying to help me and realized he wasn't loyal to the Capitol, either. When the bombing started, she tried to get all of us out but my parents were already… She only got me and Simon."
Madge goes on to describe how she and Simon had to activate the fake identities Simon had made for Gale and Madge, and how they had no way to contact anyone in other districts other than through their handler, who apparently dropped in on them only sporadically and wasn't very forthcoming with information.
"She told us she got word to 13 to stop you from using those same identification papers and that I was still alive, but—"
"No one told me," Gale interrupts, so angry he has to stand up and start pacing the kitchen. "No one told me anything about you." The horror of someone withholding information so vital to him physically hurts, and makes him want to hurt whoever was responsible. He looks at Madge—she has to know that he had no idea she was alive.
Madge stops his pacing by placing both her hands on his arms. "I know you didn't know. I figured it out." She gently steers him back to the table and places a cup of tea in front of him.
"When were they supposed to tell me?" He demands, not willing to calm down yet. "Who?" He fully intends to track down these people and rip their guts out.
"I don't know, it was confusing. It was around the time they made me leave District 6, which was before the Capitol bombed 13. I thought you died again." She looks at him as though she's trying to reassure herself that he's alive and sitting here in her aunt and uncle's kitchen, and Gale realizes that that probably wasn't the only time she thought he'd died...
"There was a propo of you and Katniss in 12 where it seemed like you thought I was dead because you went to our cemetery shed, but I didn't know when it had been filmed. It aired after the Capitol bombed 13 and I didn't hear until a couple of weeks later that they'd supposedly told you…"
Gale rests his head in his hands on the table and closes his eyes. "I had to turn those papers over to Command. They might have planned to use them and not told me about it… And then decided not to use them, and not told me about that either." The mission to save Peeta had temporarily involved those papers and about twenty other ever-changing elements that he filtered out of his brain in favor of focusing only on the final plan. That timing fits with what Madge is saying… He exhales slowly, this most recent betrayal by their own side triggering his memories of the other, more devastating betrayals that constantly threaten to overwhelm him (his bomb, always his bomb).
Madge slides next to him so she can perch on the edge of his chair and gently massages his neck muscles with one of her hands, which feels ridiculously good and distracts him from the knot in his ribcage. "The message could have gone through countless people and been mangled in countless ways," she says sadly. "I'm sure it was a low priority, and at least the part about the papers got through… Or someone lied. We'll never know."
She seems lost in thought, but keeps massaging his neck, which takes some of the sting out of this most recent betrayal. "Anyway, they sent me here so I could recruit Dusty and Perri. They'd been ID'd as a valuable resources for the attack on 2. Actually, I think it's why the rebels saved me from 12." She pauses and sounds a little bitter. "Had to be useful somehow, right?"
"When were you here?" He asks sharply.
"When 13 was being bombed and a little afterward. Before you and Katniss," she adds, apparently guessing what he was wondering. "Recruiting them didn't take long. I basically turned up with the plan the officers had come up with to get them out without the Capitol noticing and we all left for Rebel Base West. Well, it was more complicated than that…"
Gale opens his eyes and turns to look at her, aware that she's glossing over details she suspects might alarm him, but Madge just smiles blandly, moves her hand from his neck to his knee, pats him comfortingly, and keeps talking. "We're all fine, right? Dusty and Perri had to stay at the base, but I was assigned to a money-tracking group. A lot of Snow's people saw the rebellion coming and tried to hide assets. We would go to the districts where the fighting had ended and track down the money so they couldn't keep funding the war. I got to be pretty good at figuring out their tricks."
Gale smirks, but he's proud: she was able to put her skills for sneakiness to a good purpose. He's also relieved she stayed out of direct fighting, feeling retroactively protective of her.
"Everything's mostly sorted out now," Madge continues, moving back to her own chair and taking a sip from her mug, "except in the Capitol, so I'm based there."
Gale mulls her story for a few moments. "So is that why you haven't made contact until now? Because of being in Covert Intelligence?"
Madge twists the mug in her hands and doesn't look at him. "Sort of. We got stuck in District 7 when the war ended. I'm sure you remember how chaotic it was. Communications and travel were all screwed up, nobody knew who was in charge or what was happening… Then we heard talk of the Hunger Games starting up again using the children of those in power and it seemed like I might be vulnerable if I started using my real name again…"
Gale feels a swell of appreciation for Katniss, once again reminding him of how much everybody in the country owes her for stopping that idea cold with a well-placed arrow. Haymitch had explained during the preparations for Katniss' trial about the victors voting, and the story had confirmed his growing suspicions that the rebels had not been everything he'd assumed.
"Then, after the election we were able to get to the Capitol—"
"Who's we?"
"Simon," Madge says as though she thought that was obvious. "We had to set up a formal office for our financial tracking group, and Simon's brother was facing trial for his role in the Snow Administration so Simon needed to be there for that."
Gale's hearing an awful lot of Simon-related 'we' for his taste. "And Simon wasn't facing a trial? He worked for Snow, too."
Madge glares at him with something resembling actual anger. "He spent the entire war working for the rebels!"
Gale keeps his mouth closed, aware that he's no saint either, and decides that he had best tread carefully on the Simon issue. Besides, people like Plutarch Heavensbee—formerly a Gamemaker, now Chief Blowhard—illustrate how working for the rebels could give people with Capitol ties a clean slate.
"I had to downgrade my security classification to come here this weekend," Madge says, moving on with her story but watching Gale suspiciously as though he might have another outburst of Simon hostility. "This is the first time I've seen Dusty and Perri since we were all at Rebel Base West together. I don't know them very well, although they've been very welcoming."
She sounds sad, but then she looks up and smiles shyly. "Perri told me over the phone about talking to you at my grandma's house. She wasn't sure what to make of you."
"I don't think she likes me," Gale observes sullenly.
Madge grins. "She'll come around. You did steal from her."
Gale thanks his genetics for not being predisposed to blushing, but he does focus on the table to avoid eye contact with Madge. So Perri told her he took the photograph. "I borrowed," he corrects, although technically he hasn't returned it yet. But he's glad to have heard Madge's reference to the future—Perri coming around implies that he'll be seeing Madge again.
Madge lets him off the hook and stands up. "Do you want to see the house?" She leads him through the tiny living room and dining room, sparsely decorated with pictures of family members—the Undersees and people who must be related to Dusty. The house has a cozy feeling, and makes him miss his family even more acutely. But he spends most of his energy studying Madge, trying to memorize everything about her in case he's imagining all this. She looks older than in the photo he still hasn't returned, which makes sense… She's coming up on 19 now, and has lived through losing her parents, her district, and who knows what during the war, since she was clearly editing her account.
As she's showing him the garage where Dusty works on side projects, Gale hears the telltale frantic paw scramblings of Zipper in the front entryway, followed seconds later by the dog bounding into the garage and reuniting with Madge as though it's been decades since their separation instead of an hour. Gale can relate to the sentiment.
#
Dusty and Perri invite Gale to stay for dinner, and he finds it's refreshing to spend time with people other than soldiers and politicians. Normally he dreads answering questions about the war or Katniss, but he doesn't mind when Madge or her aunt and uncle ask. They're mostly curious for him to fill in the details around what they've learned from the propos, his testimony at Katniss' trial, and whatever he's said publicly since the war ended.
He likes hearing about their lives, too. Dusty doesn't seem to be naturally very talkative, which Gale appreciates, but once he warms up the stories start pouring out, and the details of designing the roads, bridges, and even sewers of District 2 become entertaining. Gale tells them about his family and how he doesn't think his mom is going to last in 13 much longer.
"Is she going back to 12?" Madge asks, disbelief in her voice.
"Maybe." And Gale's going to need to talk to her about that particular topic again; how can they move somewhere he'll never visit? He looks up at Madge in alarm. "Are you?"
"It hadn't occurred to me." She sounds mystified at the idea. "I'm still officially dead, so I can't do much of anything permanent. And I'm in the middle of something at work…" Clamping her mouth shut quickly and glancing briefly at Perri, she adds, "I can't believe Katniss went back."
Gale grimaces. "She didn't have much of a choice."
"I followed the trial closely," Perri says, setting her knife down to gaze at Gale. "There was no doubt in my mind she was a very disturbed girl. What that child went through…"
Staring at his potato, Gale thinks not for the first time about how he triggered the final breaking point in Katniss' coping abilities. With time and medication and enough supply closets to hide in, he's sure she could have found the will to keep living after the war. But losing Prim pushed her into a despair spiral that he can only hope time and Peeta Mellark will be able to counteract.
"How's Peeta?" Madge asks. "I heard he moved home, too."
Gale's grateful she changed the subject, although Peeta's not much of an improvement. "Getting better," he says vaguely, unsure if they know about the hijacking or not. The leaders in 13 tried to keep it under wraps. "I don't talk to them, but Greasy Sae—did you know her? She traded at the Hob—says they're doing all right. You should talk to them, Madge," he urges. Hearing she's back from the dead could only help. "If they sign a confidentiality agreement like I did, can you tell them?"
"They won't need to sign anything if I don't tell them I'm with Covert Intelligence," Madge explains. "Only you three know that. I have a cover story about working in the Department of Economic Analysis. It sounds so boring nobody ever asks for more details."
"So you wouldn't tell them the whole story," Gale says bluntly. "You'd lie."
Madge looks down at her plate and pushes some of her food around with her fork. "I'd be vague. I was unconscious during the rescue. And Katniss and Peeta were so important, and there was so much chaos and no communications during and after the war, I couldn't make contact until now."
It sounds like what she'd told him, which could mean it's true or that it's the same story she's telling everyone. But he did sign that confidentiality form and takes that as a sign that she considers him in a different category than other people. He glances at Perri and remembers how convincingly she'd lied about not knowing Madge was alive; apparently ease with deception is an Undersee family trait he's going to have to keep an eye on.
"Gale," Dusty says, apparently sensing the mood of the table taking a downturn, "Madge told us you like the outdoors. Have you been to the recreational area in the northwest quadrant? There aren't any marked trails, but from what Madge says, you probably don't need trails."
"I haven't been out there yet," Gale admits, pleased to hear Madge has been talking about him in ways that hopefully counteract his public image.
"Maybe we could go together," Madge says. "There's a chance I'll be back next weekend. I can't control my schedule, but right now it's clear." She smiles at him in that eager way that used to mean she figured out something devious she wanted to share with him, and now apparently means that she's looking forward to spending more time with him. Just because. He loves that smile and feels an unfamiliar sensation in his cheek muscles as he realizes he's smiling, too.
"Make sure you take Zipper if you go," Perri advises. "He needs the exercise." Zipper hears his name and immediately skids over to Perri's feet and wags his tail expectantly. Gale can't tell if the dog is more excited about the prospect of food or someone playing with him. What a freak—obviously food should win out.
They spend the rest of dinner talking about the forested areas in between District 2's villages. Dusty is also a native of 2, although from a different village than Madge's family, so he and Perri know all the best areas to explore and describe some of the nearby lakes, and Gale realizes he's starting to look forward to doing something outside other than rock climbing.
After dinner, Dusty and Perri start yawning, which he takes as a sign that he should head home. It's hard to think of ending this wonderful day, though, and Madge seems similarly reluctant to let him go. She suggests they take Zipper on a walk and soon they're trailing the boisterous furball down the darkened street, watching him zigzag and sniff every possible flower and bush they pass, his flopped-over triangle ears occasionally perking up at the sound of Madge's voice. Gale can't get enough of her voice, either, and listens happily to her describe what the ocean sounds like in District 4. He remembers similar speeches from Annie and Finnick and feels a flicker of interest in visiting during the upcoming information gathering sessions the Reconstruction Committee members will be conducting in the districts. If he volunteers for some of the other districts maybe he can avoid going to 12…
"Gale?" He realizes he'd gotten lost in his thoughts and missed what Madge was saying. "We should turn around now. We're at the edge of the village. Look, you can see where the fence used to be."
The fence around District 2 had been one of the longest, and Gale squints into the distance where the old support posts are visible. "You know, they're revising the political boundaries as part of the restructuring. Giving away the land outside the districts to citizens."
"How are they doing it?"
"That hasn't been worked out yet," Gale says wearily, aware that he's facing weeks worth of debates on that very topic. He'd be happy to forget about his job on this amazing day, but Madge seems interested and keeps asking him questions, so he lets himself vent about some of the more frustrating people he works with. If she's in Covert Intelligence, she's obviously not going to go running off to the media and leave him waking up some morning to the headline: Hawthorne Hates His Job. Not that that would be much of a scoop.
When they get back to the Whistlers' house, they stop in front of Gale's car and he suspects Madge is trying to postpone his departure just as much as he is. She's twisting Zipper's leash around her hand nervously as she rambles about something; he's not listening because he's strategizing how he could kiss her. But before he can find the right moment to sweep her off her feet, Zipper beats him to it. Literally: the horrible animal bolts toward a row of bushes while Madge is still tangled up in the leash, causing her to fall onto the Whistlers' grassy lawn with a loud "oomph."
Gale crouches to extract her from the leash and then yanks the stupid dog back toward them. Zipper promptly forgets about whatever he was chasing and bounds back to where Madge is crumpled on the lawn. She pushes herself up into a sitting position and winces slightly as she puts her weight on the hand that was holding the leash.
"OK?" He asks softly.
She nods and he pulls her hand into the beam from the streetlight. A mean-looking burn mars her otherwise soft palm, but no skin has been broken. He's still pissed at the damn dog for doing this to her, though, and scowls at the little doofus.
"It's not his fault," Madge says. "We just need to train him. He's still sort of a puppy. They found him in the abandoned quarry…"
Gale refuses to feel sympathy for a dog. He used to eat dogs. Wild dogs. And while Zipper isn't wild in the wilderness sense, he's wild in the 'someone needs to restrain this beast' sense. But Gale isn't about to start squabbling with Madge about the dog when she's injured. "First aid kit?"
"I think there's one in the kitchen." They walk back into the house, Zipper trailing them happily, and once inside Madge releases him. He follows them into the kitchen, noisily laps up some water from his bowl, and then disappears.
Good riddance, Gale thinks while he searches for the first aid kit and Madge runs her hand under cold water and pats it dry on a towel. Gale wordlessly pulls her hand closer and gently rubs burn cream into the reddened skin and quickly secures the bandage over her palm. Rope burns were common in the mines, though bandaging other miners was a lot less interesting than helping Madge.
"It'll hurt for a few days, but it's not too bad," he says, trying to keep his voice down since Dusty and Perri are probably sleeping.
"Thanks," she whispers, holding up her other hand to compare the two side by side. "Luckily I'm mostly using computers at work."
Thank goodness she doesn't seem to have suffered any serious injuries during the war. Although, he doesn't know anyone who made it out of 12 that night without at least minor burns or smoke inhalation, which reminds him that whatever Madge endured that night or during the war is his fault—if he'd gotten her out with his family, she'd have been safe in 13 this whole time like them.
"Madge, I shouldn't have let you run off to check on the electricity back home. I'm so sorry—"
She cuts him off by placing a finger against his lips. "No. Don't ever think that." She slowly lowers her hand, tracing it down his chin and pausing at his neck. Stepping even closer, she looks up at him and he feels her gently using both hands to pull up on the leather cord dangling around his neck. She doesn't break eye contact to look at the charm she's exposing and he realizes she must know what it is… Seconds later she's clutching the key, the small, useless little key to the cemetery shed where they used to meet in District 12.
"I saw it," she whispers, close enough now that he can feel her entire body aligned against his. "In the propo when you went to our shed. You turned our key into a keepsake."
He feels as exposed as an open wound, but in a good way like the wound is finally being treated. He can't remember what he said in that propo, but the most memorable thing was probably the fact that he went to the shed at all, which was their place: a safe haven within District 12 where the two of them were rebel plotters, not mayor's daughter and miner.
"It was all I had," he says slowly.
She doesn't need to say "not anymore" because they're both thinking it, and when she puts the slightest amount of pressure on the key necklace to pull him closer, he kisses her before she'd have been able to get the words out anyway. He isn't used to being flooded by good memories, but that's exactly what happens as he starts to recall in detail how she always made him feel.
When Madge pulls her head back a few inches, he opens his eyes and sees her looking at him with that same smile he's seen so many times in his memories. And that's when it hits him that this is now, not the past, and she's here with him in this kitchen smiling at him like that… She nestles against his chest and lets him tug her tightly into the protective cocoon of his arms, a cocoon he never should have let her leave.
As he holds her, he thinks about how acutely he doesn't want to go back to his too-large, too-ugly, too-lonely apartment and even lonelier bed. So when Madge tentatively starts to kiss him again, he doesn't hold back—she was dead and now she isn't and losing himself in her is all he wants from life in this moment. She responds with some kind of wonderful noise that makes him hate with new intensity all the unnecessary layers separating them and he tries to use his few functioning brain cells to calculate if they'd have to stop kissing to get to his car and then to his apartment…
That's all he thinks about, that is, until he becomes aware of the criminally annoying sound a throat being cleared behind him in that 'I'm consciously interrupting' way.
Madge pulls away first and immediately turns red. Gale swivels and confirms his suspicion: Perri is watching them with a disapproving expression, standing with her arms crossed in the doorway to the kitchen. He hears the soft jingling of dog tags and sees that Zipper has joined her, looking like he's ready for whatever new game the humans are playing in the middle of the night.
"Gale was leaving," Madge says weakly, "but I got hurt and he was helping…" She holds up her bandaged hand as evidence.
"Yes, Gale is quite… helpful," Perri says.
Gale turns back to the counter and starts putting the contents of the first aid kit back into the container. Nothing he could say would make this situation less awkward so why bother?
He hears Perri start to talk. "We have an early morning tomorrow, Madge, if you want to see the house before you catch the train back."
"Right. I do." She pauses and then asks, "Can Gale come, too?"
"Gale's seen the house already," Perri says, and he realizes they must be talking about Madge's grandparents' mansion. Site of Gale making a fool out of himself in front of Madge's aunt for the first time and then committing the petty theft that triggered Perri to tell Madge about him. Moral of the story being that crime pays? It did in 12. Perri adds, "But yes, of course he's welcome."
He finishes putting the first aid kit back together and hands it to Madge, feeling decidedly unwelcome, but it's up to her.
"Want to come with us to visit my grandparents' house?"
"Sure." He looks over at Perri. "I'll try not to steal anything this time."
Her stony expression conveys how unimpressed she is with his joke. "We'll meet you there at 9 a.m."
"Great." Madge beams and then tells Perri she's going to walk Gale to his car and will be back in a minute. He takes that to mean there will be no encore of the kitchen activities and walks quietly outside with Madge. The wrongness of having to leave her after getting her back again weighs on him, but she distracts him with a kiss and before he realizes what's happened, she's maneuvered him into his car by himself.
"See you tomorrow, Gale," she says before walking back to her aunt and uncle's house. He's left in awe that he will actually see her again, and not in the form of a dream or a hallucination.
#
He drives home in a daze of disbelief and happiness, and when he walks into his apartment, he picks up the phone to call his mom before he remembers it's the dead middle of the night in District 13, as opposed to just very late in District 2. The phone in 13 is in a public corridor anyway.
So he sits down at his kitchen table and thinks about Madge, too worked up to go to sleep. She's alive. Healthy. And appears to feel about him the way he feels about her. He can't wait to see her again. There's tomorrow, when he's being included in a family excursion, and then the following weekend when they can explore the recreation area together. He's so elated, he doesn't even think he'll be anything more than mildly irritated if the stupid dog comes along.
He wonders if Madge has proper hiking gear. Probably not, judging by the stylish clothes and flimsy shoes she was wearing. He pulls out one of his many gear catalogs—Milo's been trying to outfit him—and flips to the hiking section to pick out the items Madge will need. He starts filling out an order form—he'll just need her to tell him her shoe and clothing sizes tomorrow—and as long as he gets the order to the store on Monday, she should have all the gear by Friday.
He tallies up the total cost on the order form and blinks in confusion. The number can't be right. He has all the same gear and hadn't noticed it costing that much… The number is much more than what he made as a miner over an entire year. For some boots, a pack, and a few other accessories? He checks his math and confirms that the number is correct.
Disgusting. He shoves the catalogs and order form off the table so forcefully they fly into the wall with a loud slap. How much money has he spent since moving to this district? He looks around his crappy apartment, the rent of which is paid for by his army housing allowance. The furniture and kitchen things were here when he moved in. He usually wears his dress uniform to Committee meetings—they're big on formality—and has only bought a few civilian clothes. So, his clothes and his climbing and hiking gear are what he's spent money on in the past two months and it's far beyond what his family of five used to live on in 12. He just hadn't realized it because he bought it all piecemeal and because he wires a percentage from each paycheck to his mother...
He puts his head in his hands, confused at this knowledge. He knows he's a terrible, sorry excuse for a person—and yet here he is with a job requiring him to sit around all day like a Capitol fat cat, and pays him enough to squander obscene amounts of money on activities he does purely to distract himself from his own awfulness. Without even realizing it! He not only thinks like a Gamemaker, he's become a Capitol dirt bag himself. He consciously devised battle strategies that would kill civilians, he's the reason Katniss doesn't have a sister anymore—and now he gets Madge, too?
It's impossible. There is not a cell in his body that deserves the riches being showered on him. He especially doesn't deserve Madge, doesn't in any way deserve to feel as good as she makes him feel. Nausea rolls over him as he thinks about how horrified Madge would be if she truly understood how poisonous he is, and how she'd been ignorantly kissing such rottenness. Katniss had the right idea in wanting absolutely nothing to do with him.
A/N: This chapter was longer than usual because I was merging the timelines. It probably seems like a big time jump for Madge, but most of this story happens after the war so I didn't want to focus too much on during-the-war. We'll still learn more about what Madge was doing—she was just being a Secretive Squirrel here. Also, FYI the propo of Gale and Katniss in District 12 is in the last chapter of "Rebel Like You."
Thanks everyone for reading! And frosted Peeta cookies for Medea Smyke, EStrunk, and Miss Scarlett 05 for fielding my questions so thoughtfully. :)