"Here and there are worms, evidence of the fertility of the soul, caught by the sun, half dead; flexible and pink, like lips."
In the Dark Days, Panem wavered on the cusp of self-destruction, after District 13 launched nuclear warfare. They didn't just overthrow the Old Capitol, they blew it off the map, nearly exterminated an entire race of people, all in the name of justice, of equality. Of course, in school, all children were taught that the Old Capitol was corrupt, oppressive, and cruel. The people who lived there had deserved their fate.
The day after Madge learned she was pregnant, marked the 75th anniversary of Panem's liberation from its tyrannical overlords. Under President Coin's command, all citizens were gathered in the Square. Madge searched the crowd for Gale, but couldn't find him among the rows of dark heads and stern faces. Everyone, even the children, stood at military attention, as the Mayor recited the Treaty of Independence. "From this day forth, the thirteen districts of Panem will rule themselves in equal coalition."
Except there was no equal coalition. District 13 quickly became the New Capitol. Toxic waste was all that remained of the old one. Twelve was lucky. Far from the epicenter of the blast, they were spared the near total environmental collapse suffered by the Old Capitol's border districts. As it was written in the Treaty of Independence, though, "when one district falls, the country falls." Most of Panem had been starving before the Rebellion. Afterwards, without grain from the withered, radioactive fields of District 9, everyone starved. District 13, of course, had decades worth of food stores, and with food, came power. They had nukes at the tips of their fingers. There was power in that, too.
"The fruit of our combined labor," read Mayor Undersee, "will be divided fairly."
Madge shuddered in the heat. She pressed her hands to her stomach, touching Gale's letter, our combined labor. Seventy-five years ago, when District 13 initiated nuclear warfare, they must've known there would be consequences. They retreated to their underground bunkers, they had enough food and water to outlast the worst of what they'd unleashed, they knew what they were doing. But had they foreseen the infertility of more than just the land, but the people too, the grotesque birth defects, and gruelling miscarriages? Did they even care?
Madge had asked herself these questions before, though she wasn't supposed to question the New Capitol at all, out loud or in her head. She couldn't help it. "Great sacrifices were made," her father read, "for a new Panem to rise from the ashes of the Dark Days."
But seventy-five years later, their days were still dark. Madge didn't know if they were darker than before, as she hadn't been alive then, and little records existed of the time. District 13 said so; she didn't always trust what District 13 had to say, even less so these days. All her life, she'd been told it was her duty to breed, if she was able, for the sake of the nation. But why was her duty to suffer? I didn't break the world. I didn't poison the crops, the water, the women. District 13 was responsible for all that, but of course, the New Capitol was exempt from Procreation.
Madge finally found Gale in the crowd. He was staring at her. Their eyes locked and, suddenly, she was in a windowless room, she didn't want to leave. She wanted to yell at him, pick a fight right there, in front of everyone, like the old times. She wanted to go back to that, hating him, not knowing him, not caring to. Then he looked away, stepped back into the crowd, melted away in the shimmery noon light.
Did District 13 care, when they nuked a hole in the heart of Panem? Madge knew the answer, had known in the depths of her heart since she walked out of that windowless room on her first night of Procreation. District 13 didn't give a damn about them. District 13 cared only for itself. District 13, the New Capitol, was just another tyrant.
Gale waited for Katniss at their usual meeting spot. It was time to pick the strawberries. He didn't look forward to the steep hike down into the valley, where the best patches of wild berries grew. Only the best for the Mayor and his daughter. Did Madge even like strawberries? She never taste tested them at the back door. In fact, he couldn't remember ever seeing her eat one, but that didn't mean anything. There were, undoubtedly, a lot of things she did, that he didn't know about. It didn't matter if she ate the strawberries or not, as long as she paid. Still, his heart raced at the thought of her lips touching something that he had also touched.
"Happy Independence Day," said Katniss, slinking up behind him. There was bitterness in her tone, a sarcasm that scratched at his ears. Gale stood.
"We should get a move on," he said. They had a long and toilsome walk ahead of them.
Madge loved the Mellark's bakery, the smell of yeast and sugar, the windows, always open. She stood at the island counter, directly under the ceiling fan, that stirred the sluggish heat from the ovens. She was up to her elbows in flour, rolling out a ten pound ball of dough. It wasn't an easy task. Her arms cramped, but she kept pushing.
"Want to take a break?" said Peeta.
"Your mom will be home soon," she said, throwing the full weight of her upper half into the dough. Mrs. Mellark didn't take kindly to outsiders in her kitchen. She barely tolerated her own husband and sons, out of necessity. If she caught Madge here, Peeta would be in for a beating. Mr. Mellark or Rye always warned them when she was coming, but Madge didn't want to waste her time here. She hadn't come to talk. She needed to work, to use her hands, to flatten something.
Peeta stood across the counter from her. The dough was too flat now to do anything with. After she left, he'd have to ball it back up, roll it out again, and hope his mother didn't notice, though she probably would. She tasted every mistake. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
"About what?" said Madge.
"Yesterday," said Peeta. She hadn't told him the outcome of her test results. She hadn't spoken about it with anyone, not even her parents, the only people outside of the Capitol who knew. If she talked about it, then it would become too real, and she wasn't ready for reality yet.
Bad haul this year. There were barely enough strawberries to fill half a pail. Some other desperate animal had gotten to them first.
"Guess we'll have to try somewhere else," said Gale, trudging side by side with Katniss through the underbrush. He was winded from the hike out of the valley, but he needed to talk. The woods weren't distraction enough. Sunlight falling through the treetops reminded him of Madge's hair, a sparrow tilted its head the way she did, the gentle breeze was the touch of her hand at the back of his neck.
"I was thinking about bringing Madge," said Katniss. Gale stopped walking. So much for distraction. It never worked.
"Oh," he said, coming up blank for a response.
"You'll probably be too tired to come out next Sunday, anyway," said Katniss. She looked at him straight, unflinching. For almost a month, she'd let him mope, and divert, and shut-down. She'd gone along with him, pretending that he wasn't going to the mines in less than a week. But it was time to address the elephant in the woods. "I think it'd be a good idea to bring Rory with us, too, after you adjust to your new schedule," she said.
"Are you trying to replace me, Catnip?" said Gale, only half teasing.
"Don't be like that," she said, one hand on her hip, and the other clutching the strap of her bag. "I'm trying to be practical. Rory should learn." She paused, took a breath, and finally said the words she'd been avoiding. "I'll need a little help, when you're in the mines."
"I'm still going to hunt," he said. "It's not like I'm going anywhere far away."
"Far enough," said Katniss. Gale didn't need to be told what she was thinking about right then. Their fathers had died in those mines and nothing separated as completely as death.
"Alright, I'll talk to Rory," he said. It was time the boy started pulling some of his own weight, anyways, and, loathe as he was to admit it, Katniss had a point. If anything did happen to him in the mines, then Rory would need to know how to provide for the family. Oddly enough, Gale hadn't given much thought to the mines. For as long as he could remember, he'd dreaded this moment, but now, he felt a bittersweet relief. There'd be no more accidentally bumping into Madge at school, no more watching her from afar, without her knowing. Completely out of sight, completely out of mind, or so he hoped.
For now, though, she kept racing across his thoughts as he and Katniss continued on through the woods. The cornflowers were the same color as her eyes. The bird chatter above reminding of her nervous babbling. The question he'd silently asked himself a million times over flew from his mouth before he could catch it, "How's Undersee doing?"
Katniss cast him a curious, sideways glance. He'd never asked her about Madge before. Since Procreation Week, he didn't talk about her at all, not even to rant. "I guess she's as good as can be expected. Her test was yesterday."
Gale's heart leapt to his throat, choking him. "And?" he said, trying to sound casual, as if he didn't care one way or the other about the results. His part was finished with. He wasn't supposed to care what happened next, but their last night together plagued him. I don't want to have a baby, she'd said. That trembling confession still hung over him, a heavy shadow.
"I don't know," said Katniss. "She hasn't told me anything yet."
"But you've talked since?"
"Yeah."
"You didn't ask?"
"No," said Katniss. "I'm not going to, either. She'll tell me when she wants to."
It took every ounce of Gale's control to keep walking, to hold up a face of indifference, when on the inside, he was crushed under the weight of knowing. If the results had come back negative, then Madge wouldn't have wasted a single second to share the good news with Katniss. Her silence could only have one meaning, a horrible and nightmarish meaning.
Katniss stopped walking again. Apparently, his expression wasn't as indifferent as he strived for. She knew as well as him what Madge's silence meant. "There's nothing you can do," she said, stern, but not entirely without sympathy. "So don't go making any problems, for both of your sakes." Her eyes softened and she added, "It's not your fault, Gale, so don't go blaming yourself, either."
"Why would I do any of that?" he said. "She's not my problem anymore."
Katniss pursed her lips. She wasn't entirely satisfied. His response was too stiff and she knew him too well. Even though he hated Madge, that wouldn't stop him from trying to save her. He couldn't help himself. The very core of his nature was to come to the rescue to anyone who needed it, regardless of who they were. It was a trait she respected, and one that often left her exasperated as well. She let it go for now, but she meant to keep a close eye on him in the months to come.
"Are you going to tell me or not?" said Peeta, refusing to let the subject drop.
"Or not," muttered Madge, pushing on the flattened dough even harder. Peeta reached across the counter and put his hands over hers, to still them.
"You're pregnant, aren't you?" he said. Really, he'd known the moment she walked into the bakery, had seen it written all over her face, which he knew better than his own. When she looked at him now, he caught the same traces of dread and misery that he'd picked up on earlier, only now they were overshadowed by fury, instead of forced determination.
"Why'd you have to say it?" she said, snatching her hands away from him. Those two words, you're pregnant, having come from his mouth, rather than from behind the mask of a Capitol medic, a stranger, became real. They dropped into her stomach like two stones. "If you already knew, why couldn't you just keep your big mouth shut?"
"Madge, I-"
"No," she snapped, taking a step back, holding out the rolling pin like a knife to keep him from coming any closer. "No, don't say anything else."
"But-"
"No!" She flung the rolling pin at his head and, not waiting to see if she hit her mark, because it didn't matter, she fled.
But it was too late. There was no outrunning the truth. No matter how far she went, she'd still be carrying those awful two words, those two words that had taken root, and were now growing, deep in her womb.
AN: Surprise! District 13 are the bad guys, which really isn't much of a surprise. I hope this explanation of how my twisted, little version of Panem came to be makes enough sense. The whole forced breeding thing just felt like more of something 13 would do and, quite frankly, I LOVE President Coin as the villain. And Peeta...poor Peeta, just can't seem to do anything right. There will probably be a scene between him and Katniss next chapter. I've got some side plans for everyone's favorite star-crossed lovers of District 12 ;)
As always, thank you for reading. I was blown away by your responses to the first chapter 3 3
