"I feel like the word shatter."

The last day of school flew by. Though she'd spent the whole of it looking for Gale, in the hallways, glancing into every classroom she walked past, by the final bell, Madge hadn't caught so much as a passing glance of him, which left her with the one alternative she'd been hoping to avoid. She scanned the schoolyard one last time, her eyes picking through the clumps of dark-headed students, rowdy and laughing, eager for summer. This year, Madge didn't share their excitement.

"I need you to take me to Gale," she said, giving up the search. Katniss came to a halt, thrown by the sudden declaration.

"What?" she said, certain she'd misheard.

"I want you to take me to his house," said Madge. Her voice was firm, but her eyes gave away her apprehension. Katniss' lips twisted into a pained grimace.

"That's not a good idea," she said. Gale would be furious with her for leading the mayor's daughter to his doorstep, but that wasn't her main concern. Him, she could deal with. It was the Capitol's reaction she feared most. They had strict rules against breeder couples interacting post-Procreation, especially if a pregnancy resulted.

Madge knew the risks. She didn't care. Not only was she desperate for the kind of understanding she believed only Gale could give her, but she didn't think it fair for him to be able to go on with his life, unburdened. If she had to suffer, then he ought to suffer with her. It wasn't that she blamed him for what was happening to her body. She just didn't want to go it alone. The Capitol's insistence that his role in this nightmare was over was something that Madge couldn't accept, not with a part of him growing inside of her.

"I have to talk to him," she said, half a demand, and half a plea. "I have to tell him. He should know."

He already does, thought Katniss, but she couldn't bring herself to tell Madge that. Not when she was so obviously grasping at support. "I could tell him for you," said Katniss. Madge shook her head. No, she needed to be the one to do it. She needed to see his reaction for herself, to see if he truly believed in the us he'd spoken of in his letter.

Katniss let out a sigh, but refused to break. "I can't do it," she said. "I'm sorry. Look, whatever you want to tell him, I'll pass it along, but-"

"No," said Madge, crossing her arms. "If you won't take me to him, I'll find someone who will." Her eyes swept the yard again, finding, not Gale, but the next best thing. Ignoring Katniss' protests, she gathered every ounce of courage she had, and marched in a straight, determined line after Thom.

Katniss moved to follow, to stop her, but gave up after a few steps, realizing that it was a lost cause. Once she set her mind to something, Madge Undersee became a relentless force of nature, a storm that tore down everything in her path, friends included, regardless the consequences. And there would be consequences. Of that, Katniss was certain.


Madge had never spoken a single word to Thom before today. She expected him to be more resistant, like Katniss, to refuse. "Sure, I'll show you where Gale lives," he said, before she even finished her question.

His quick acquiescence made her second guess this course of action. He seemed a little too eager to take her to Gale. As he led her into the seam, there was an unconcealed buoyancy to his step, a wide grin slapped across his face. Madge didn't trust it. What was he playing at? Why, without asking a single question, had he agreed to show her where Gale lived? She didn't know him well enough to hazard a guess.

Whatever Thom's reasons, it was too late to back out now. He rambled the whole way. Madge was too nervous to comprehend most of what he was saying, but all the same, she was grateful for his steady stream of chatter, which spared her from having to speak. She was grateful, too, that he didn't walk around eggshells with her, the way most of the seam kids did. Then again, he hung around with Delly often, so he wasn't uncomfortable, talking with a townie. Clearly, he didn't share Gale's prejudices, at least not to the same extreme.

"You alright there, Undersee?" said Thom.

She honed in at the sound of her name. No, she thought. I'm not okay. I'm crazy. This is crazy. What the hell am I doing? "Fine," she said. "I'm fine."

"Really? Because you look like you're going to barf."

True, she felt that was a definite possibility.

"First time in the seam?" asked Thom.

"No." She'd been to Katniss' house a few times and, to get to the meadow, she'd crossed the seam hundreds of times. She'd never been in this part, though. It didn't look any different. The run-down houses, and the rutted roads, and the coal-dusted children chasing after each other were all the same. Only the circumstances had changed.

"Ah, I get it," said Thom. "Gale's a surly bastard, no denying that, but you don't need to be afraid of him."

"I'm not," she lied. Thom laughed.

"Yeah, you are," he said. "I don't blame you, either. He sure has given you hell, but that's only because…" He stopped, speaking and walking.

"Because what?" said Madge, curious. Katniss hardly ever talked to her about Gale. Thom, however, was hardly tight-lipped. He had a reputation for being something of a blabber mouth. It got him into a lot of fights at school. For once, though, he managed to reign himself in.

"You should ask him," he said. Then he pointed to a little house at the end of the dirt road they were on. "We're here."

Madge stared at the house, not moving any closer. So this was where Gale lived, where he slept, and ate, and hid from her. She felt that just looking at the house was an invasion of his privacy. Katniss had been right. This was a terrible idea. It was dangerous. More than that, it was stupid, pathetic. What did she really expect to happen? That Gale would open his door, and his arms, to her? Ridiculous. If he'd wanted to talk to her, well, he knew where to find her.

"Go on," said Thom, giving her a gentle nudge forward. "He won't bite. I don't think."

For a moment, she took in this boy she'd never spoken to, and hardly thought about, until today, this boy who'd helped her with no questions asked. There was something reassuring in the contradiction between his juvenile grin and the hard, stubbled planes of his face. She almost asked him to come with her, but he'd brought her far enough. Besides, whichever way this conversation with Gale went, she didn't want Thom spreading it around the district.

"Thank you," she said.

"No problem," said Thom, and she believed that he meant it. "Good luck, Undersee, and remember, Gale's really a big softie under all that scowling."

That part, Madge didn't quite believe. Still, she was here. Might as well go ahead with it, she thought, taking the first step in the right, or possibly the wrong, direction. Only one way to find out which.


That morning, Gale made it halfway to school, before turning around. What point was there, going on his last day? He would have stopped going years ago, were it not for the Capitol, and for Madge. Before his father died, before he started selling strawberries at her backdoor, school had been the only place where their separate worlds met. From the first time he laid eyes on her, stuck in the mud, bawling over her ruined shoes, he'd sought her out every day after, to pull her ponytail, call her names, trip her, tease her, touch her however he could, be near her. So what was the point, going on his last day, when he couldn't do any of those things? He couldn't even bear to observe her from afar anymore, not knowing that she was...that she was…

Instead, he prowled the seam, hunting for his next distraction, even though there was really no point to that, either. I hate milk, Madge had told him, in that windowless room, And I prefer going barefoot to wearing shoes. He took off his own shoes, let the sun-baked earth blister the soles of his feet, a self-imposed punishment. He deserved so much worse, for all the times he'd hurt her, for abandoning her now. All he wanted was to run to her, hold her again, promise to do and be whatever she needed him to do or be.

But he was a coward. The Capitol didn't scare him, neither did the mines, not anymore. It was Madge Undersee who filled him with fright, the way she'd looked at him on Independence Day, as if she were drowning, and only he could save her. Except he couldn't. It was too late. She was...she was…

"Why aren't you wearing your shoes, dumbass?"

Gale looked up from his feet at the young woman sitting on her front stoop, shelling peas into a tin bucket. Blonde hair frizzed around her olive face. More yellow than white, like Madge's hair, but close enough, as close as he'd get in the seam.

"I prefer going barefoot," he said, flashing the woman his best grin.


Madge strode up to the Hawthorne's door and knocked without hesitation. If she paused even a moment, then she'd give up, go home, and spend the rest of her life wondering who Gale Hawthorne really was. She held her breath, waiting, ears perked for the sound of footsteps. She didn't hear any, but it wasn't long before the door swung open with a rusty creak. A gangly, dark-haired boy stood before her. One of Gale's brothers. Vick? No, that was the younger one, and this boy must be at least fifteen.

"Yeah?" the boy said, just as she remembered his name, Rory. He looked so much like Gale. It was more than their shared features. They stood the same way, somehow guarded and loose at the same time, inconsistent within themselves.

"You gone mute or something?" said Rory, an edge of impatience to his tone.

"No, I...I'm…" Madge took a deep breath to steady herself, and then tried again. "Is Gale home?"

Rory rolled his eyes. "He's out."

"Do you know where?"

"Probably the slag heap," he said, shrugging. Madge's gut gave a sharp twist. "Guess you can wait here," Rory went on, oblivious to the shell-shocked look splashed across her face. "But it might be awhile."

Madge had already backed off of the stoop before he finished speaking. She stared at the boy a moment longer, his words clanging between her ears. "No," she said. I'll just...I'll just go." I never should have come, she thought.

"Want me to tell him you dropped by?" said Rory.

"No," she said again, shaking her head. "No, please don't." Then she turned her back on the boy and ran, kicking up a cloud of coal dust under her heels.


Gale and the woman with yellow hair didn't go to the slag heap. They fucked on her kitchen floor. She seemed content to do most of the work, he was content to let her, and to ignore the cheap silver wedding band on her ring finger. He'd never messed around with a married a woman before. He used to have morals. Apparently not anymore.

When it was all over, she kissed his cheek, and said, "Come by and see me again."

"Sure," he said, knowing that he wouldn't. He tied his shoes together by their laces, slung them across his shoulders, and, still barefoot, set off for home. All week, his mother had been scraping together enough food to whip up a poor man's feast for tonight, to celebrate his last day of school. He wasn't exactly looking forward to the dinner, but, for his mother's sake, he was determined to act happy. As he walked, he practiced smiling, trying to get it just right. He wanted to avoid his mother's questions and concern tonight, but fooling her wasn't easy.

Gale rounded a bend in the dirt road and stopped dead in his tracks, his practice smile blown away at finding himself face to face with the mayor's daughter. He blinked a few times, wondering if he'd lost his mind, certain that she was a heat mirage, only she didn't shimmer around the edges. She was solid, frozen in place. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her, just to make sure.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Less than three feet separated them, but they might as well have been standing on opposite shores of uncrossable ocean. Gale wasn't sure what to do. Pass around her? Pretend he didn't see her? Too late for that. They were staring right at each other. Before he made up his mind, she spoke, each word a chip of ice, "Your buttons are crooked."

Gale glanced down at his shirt. Sure enough, the bottom two buttons were undone. His face burned red under his tousled hair. The way she was looking at him, like she knew where he'd just been, what he'd been doing, made him feel like a guilty child, caught fibbing, though he hadn't said a word. He didn't bother to fix his buttons. After all, it shouldn't matter if she knew where he'd been, what he'd been doing. We're not together, he reminded himself. It's not like he owed her his fidelity. That didn't stop him from feeling he'd betrayed her.

After another minute, he worked up the courage the speak. "What are you doing here?" She wasn't supposed to be here, in his world. Madge curled her arms around her stomach.

"I'm pregnant," she blurted. It was the first time she'd said those words herself and the first time Gale heard them aloud. Until now, he'd been able to cling to the slightest thread of denial. The thread snapped. He looked to her hands, pressed against her flat stomach, and the ground tilted under his barefeet.

"I just thought you might want to know," she added.

Gale met her eyes, those heartbreakingly blue eyes, and felt he was falling in the wrong direction, upwards, into the sky. He wanted to grab hold of her, use her as an anchor, or at least take her falling with him. But he remembered Katniss' warning, and the mayor's cool threats. Stay away from her. Stay away.

"I don't care," he forced himself to say, the words like shards of glass, cutting him open, raw and bloody, on the inside.

Then, not wanting to see her reaction, afraid if he did, there'd be no stopping himself from taking back the words before they embedded themselves too deeply, he darted around her, left her standing in the middle of the road, and didn't dare look back. If he had, then he'd have seen Madge fall to her knees, and he'd have gone back to her, like on their last night together. Only this time, he would not have let her go.


Estrunk: Yes, there will probably be a pinch of Everlark :)

SJJ: Thanks for your reviews. Go figure, you were right. Not a peaceful confrontation at all...but we're getting there.

Hawtsee: I'm so sorry to do this to you! Hang in there. Give it a few more chapters, and I'll try to give you what you need, I promise.