"At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven in which to bestow their hearts…"
There were moments when Madge forgot she was pregnant. Like now, playing tic-tac-toe with Katniss. They sat in the shade of the weeping willow. As a child, the willow had been Madge's fortress. She hid behind the trailing limbs. Her father cut away a section of branches to make a door for her. It was grown over now and had been for a long time, but she remembered exactly where it'd been, and still entered from the same place. Lately, she spent most of her days in the fortress of her childhood. Long summer days with nothing to do, unless Katniss or Peeta visited, and they came as often as they could. Not often enough. Peeta's mother worked him hard in the bakery. Katniss hunted as much as she could while school was out.
Madge tried to keep busy. She was teaching herself to embroider. She wasn't very good. She read, but couldn't finish any book she picked up. They all bored her halfway through. She took long walks against her mother's wishes, though her father said it was good for her. She wasn't allowed to go farther than Merchant Street. That didn't stop her from wandering to the seam boundary. She never crossed over, but she spent hours, pacing the line, thinking about Gale, who she hadn't seen or spoken to since the bonfire, two weeks ago.
For the most part, though, she laid in the shade of the willow and relived her life up to this point. She remembered things she'd thought forgotten and worked hard to forget what she didn't want to remember. Sometimes, she went beyond her own life and created pretend histories for her parents, Aunt Maysilee, and Mr. Abernathy. Mostly fiction spun from threads of truth.
It was only with Katniss and Peeta that she truly forgot about the pregnancy, but even when they were around, Gale stayed on her mind. He'd almost kissed her that night. She touched her lips whenever she thought about it. She thinking about it now.
"Your turn," said Katniss. Madge pulled her hand away from her lips. She contemplated the square of X's and O's for a moment and realized that Katniss would win no matter what, so she chose a square at random and used her pinky to draw an X in the dirt. Katniss made her victory O. They didn't start a new match. Without discussing it, they both knew they were finished playing for the day. Katniss leaned back onto her elbows, whistled a little tune for the mockingjay in the bough above, and waited for the bird's echo. Their love of music was one of the first things she and Madge had bonded over. Katniss didn't sing for many people, not since her father died, but Madge could coax a song out of her every once in awhile. Today wasn't one of those days. It was too hot, too muggy. Lethargy hung in the air, like paint drying on the wall.
Madge wiped away the tic-tac-toe board to draw pictures in the dirt. Peeta had promised to give her painting lessons soon. She didn't have much hope of being any good. She made a rough sketch of Gale's face without realizing it. Thankfully, the resemblance was nonexistent. Still, just to be safe, she smudged it out before Katniss glanced over.
By now he would've started work at the mines. She wanted to ask Katniss how he was doing, if he ever mentioned her, but then Katniss would have questions of her own and there was too much that Madge didn't want to get into. She couldn't talk about boys with Katniss, especially not when the boy was her best friend. There was Peeta, sure, but he had his own relationship problems to deal with. He hadn't said anything aloud about his feelings for Katniss, but lately, whenever the two of them crossed paths coming and going from the mayor's house, he turned awkward, tripped over his words, when he was usually so eloquent. Katniss, of course, was oblivious.
Madge held her silence. Before Procreation, maybe she'd have nudged them towards each other. They were better suited for one another than either of them realized, having never exchanged more than a few sentences. Now, however, she was too fearful of losing them, If they worked out, they might have less time to spend with her, or she'd become the odd man out. If they didn't work, they might avoid her to avoid each other. It was selfish, but she didn't care. She needed them both too much.
"Anyone home?" said Peeta, poking his head through the willow branches. As soon as he saw Katniss, a scarlet flush rose from under his wilted collar. Katniss got to her feet and stretched. They never stayed together. When one arrived, the other left. Madge thought of it as the changing of the guards, like how the Peacekeepers took turns standing in front of the Justice Building.
"I'll try to come by tomorrow," said Katniss. "Gale and I have a hunting trip planned, but we should back a little after noon."
"That's fine," said Madge. Her heart leapt at Gale's name. She hoped it didn't show on the outside. "Peeta and I have our first painting lesson in the morning, anyways."
Katniss glanced at Peeta. The red crept higher up his neck and into his cheeks. "You paint?" she said, speaking directly to him for once.
"Some," said Peeta, sounding choked. He cleared his throat. "I'm not very good."
"Don't listen to him," said Madge. "He's great. I'll show you the ones he's given me."
Peeta looked horrified. Katniss just shrugged. "Alright," she said. "See you tomorrow."
As soon as the garden gate screeched open, and then banged shut, Peeta rounded on Madge. "Don't you dare show her my paintings," he said. Madge ignored him. She touched her lips again.
Every day, when Gale descended into the mines, he left himself above ground. He became something not quite human. Down in the depths of the earth, the existence of the sun was unfathomable. He feared it wouldn't be there when he surfaced, the infinite darkness would follow him one day, and he'd never see the light of day again. He thought he heard the ground moaning, threatening to collapse. The dull thud of axe against coal filled his head. No one spoke. They worked in dreary silence. Human voices, human beings, didn't belong in the narrow spaces underground.
Sometimes he felt the walls close in around him. He thought of his father, buried alive down here, and began to suffocate. He'd always know that his father died horribly, but now he knew it must've been worse than even his worst nightmares. In those times, when the air became thin, and he couldn't breathe, he had to think of Madge, close his eyes for a moment, let the memory of her golden hair light up the darkness. In the mines, the thought of her didn't torture. The thought of her was the only thing that kept him from losing his mind.
At the end of his first week, as he limped off of the lift with the others in his crew, and stepped outside to find the sun had already set, just the thought of her wasn't enough. He needed to see her, the next best thing to the sun. He needed proof of light. He didn't think. He was like an infant, unable to rationalize, acting out of necessity.
Every time Madge fell asleep, she was soon woken by the need to pee. She emptied her bladder for the hundredth time and then stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She raised her shirt, glared at her flat stomach, and poked it hard. "I hate you," she said to the beast in her belly, no bigger than her thumb, but already making its presence known. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," she said, poking the thing with every word, wanting to annoy it as much as it annoyed her. She knew the fetus couldn't hear or feel.
She let her shirt drop and shuffled back to her room. There was no point in trying to sleep. She was tired of drifting off, waking up, drifting off, waking up. It was more exhausting than just staying awake. She went to the window. A half moon peeked out from behind blackish-violet clouds. Tomorrow, when Peeta came over for her first painting lesson, she decided this is what she'd paint. After a few minutes, though, she grew bored of the moon. Her gaze wandered down to the garden. She hadn't expected to find anyone looking back at her, but there they were, a dark figure, standing perfectly still, staring straight at her window as if they could see her, though she didn't know how they could. No lights were on her room.
For a moment, she thought the figure was a ghost. Then they lifted their arm to rub the back of their neck. Madge recognized the gesture. Her pulse quickened. She found herself in the kitchen with no clear understanding of how she'd gotten there. It was like being in a dream, moving from one place to another in a disjointed flash. She threw open the backdoor and nearly screamed when she saw Gale. He was black from head to foot, a creature from nightmares.
"It's just me," he said quickly, having seen the panic flit across her face. The sound of his voice soothed her momentary fear. Yes, it was him, not a ghost, not a monster, just him. She realized he must've come straight from the mines. How long had he been standing out here? The longer she looked at him, the clearer it became that something was wrong. His hands shook. When he spoke again, there was something off in his voice.
"I know I shouldn't be here, but-"
Madge shook her head to silence him. She glanced back at the house, to make sure all of the windows were still dark, and then gestured for him to follow her to the shelter of the weeping willow. As soon as they were hidden from view, she turned to him, looked past the coal dust masking his face. A crease of worry formed between her brows. Everything she'd wanted to tell him over the past two weeks fled from her thoughts. "Are you okay?" she said. She didn't really need to ask. He obviously wasn't. He didn't answer and when she reached out to him, he stepped back.
Gale was determined not to touch her this time. He'd learned his lesson in the coal shed.
"Gale," she said, the worry crease deepening. He didn't feel worthy of her concern, but he craved it all the same.
"I can't go back," he said suddenly.
"Back where?" she said.
"The mines. I can't do it, Madge. You don't know how horrible it is. So dark, and so cold, and cramped. I can't breathe when I'm down there. I'd rather die than-"
Madge felt another quake of panic at the smallest mention of him dying. "Shut up," she said. "I don't want to hear that."
"It's true, though," said Gale. He slumped against the tree trunk. He slid down to the ground, unable to hold himself up anymore. His whole body ached more than he thought possible. "I keep thinking about my dad," he said. "And how awful it must have been for him. I thought I knew, but I didn't. The weight of all that dirt burying him alive. You can feel how heavy it is when you're down there." Just thinking about it, he struggled for air. He buried his coal black face in his coal black hands.
Madge didn't know what to say. She was in shock, hearing him talk about his father. What was there to say? She couldn't relate, had never been much good at providing solace, and it made her uncomfortable to see him this way. In her mind, even before Procreation, Gale Hawthorne was unshakable, a solid foundation, and here he was crumbling at her feet. She wanted to run away, leave him, but then she remembered how he'd held her on their last night in that awful, white room. He hadn't run. He'd probably wanted to.
Madge sat beside him. She didn't try to touch him again. "I can't imagine how bad it is," she said, starting out slow, grasping.
"I wouldn't want you to," said Gale, his voice muffled in his hands. A minute of silence passed and Madge still didn't know what to do.
"What do you need from me?" she said. Gale surfaced to look at her.
"Nothing," he said. "Just be here."
"Okay," said Madge. "I'm here."
Madge waited for Gale's hands to stop shaking, before she spoke again. "Why did you come here?" she said. "Why not go to Katniss?" It would've made more sense. Katniss was his friend. And I'm his...Well, she didn't know what she was to him. Not the girl he was supposed to go running to when he was upset. Besides, Katniss could relate. She'd lost her father in the mines, too.
Reading the direction of her thoughts, Gale said, "We don't talk about that with each other." Not in words, at least. Katniss didn't want to be reminded and he didn't want to cause her pain by bringing up the past now. He could have gone to her, and she would've listened, done her best to bring him around, even if it hurt her, but it hadn't crossed his mind to seek her out instead of Madge. He tipped back his head against the tree trunk, stared up at the curved top branches of the willow, while he considered how much to tell her, how much not to.
"And I feel safe with you," he finally said.
Madge laughed. "Sorry," she said, immediately guilty. "But that's the silliest thing I've ever heard."
"It's true," said Gale.
"Yeah, because I'm so strong."
"You are."
Blushing, Madge looked away. A loose curl blew across her cheek. His hand itched to tuck it behind her ear, so he trapped both hands between his legs. "You've always put up with all the shit I've given you over the years," he said. And she'd been incredibly brave throughout Procreation Week. He didn't mention that part, though.
Madge pushed her own hair behind her ear. The cicadas had stopped chirping, giving way to the birds, which meant sunrise was only a couple hours away. It was time for him to go. They both knew it. Unwillingly, Gale got to his feet. Madge followed his lead. They stood a minute longer, neither of them looking at each other.
"You probably shouldn't come back here," said Madge. "It's not that I don't want you to, but-"
"I know, Undersee."
Still, neither of them moved. Keeping a safe distance wasn't working out for either of them. Maybe, thought Madge, maybe if we clear the air, we can put this behind us. They'd left too much unfinished that last day in the Justice Building. "We need to talk," she said. "About...about…"
"I know," he said again. "Not here." Not in the mayor's backyard, with her parents sleeping nearby, where anyone might overhear them. "I'll think of a place, alright?"
Madge braved meeting his eyes, steady again, how they were supposed to be, and she nodded. Gale moved around her, was about to duck out from under the willow, but paused, glanced back over his shoulder to soak in the sun just a little longer, before stepping into the dark. Being with her was dangerous. Being with her was the only place he felt safe anymore.
AN: I really like this chapter. Hope you do, too :)
