CHAPTER 5: More Like You Said

Despite the promise that Madge had made to Gale, that she wouldn't act like it didn't happen, it certainly felt as if it hadn't.

Madge couldn't put her finger on what exactly had changed between them. For a short time, Gale came over after work sometimes to visit her. He would listen to Madge play the piano, or take a shower to rid himself of the coal dust that never seemed to quite come off, or even to share her bed. They didn't have sex again - that seemed to have touched on something a bit too... 'real' for either of them to handle, but they had been companions for each other.

Sometimes they ate dinner together - especially when Madge made sure to cook far too much to eat and then fuss about their ice box being too full for the leftovers. Gale was proud to bring home extra food for his family, even if he hadn't trapped and kill it himself. In a way, he had trapped something - something inside her. He had worked her insides into one of his intricate snares, which he gave a small tug, a tightness she felt every time she heard his boots trudging up to the house.

It was closer than she imagined that anyone would get to Gale, except for Katniss of course, even if their interaction was a secret. So then, what unspoken change had driven them apart? Was it the understanding of the very real danger that Katniss and Peeta were in, and the consequential realization of the selfishness of their actions after the announcement of the Quarter Quell? Or could it have been before that, perhaps stemming from Gale's anger over Madge not warning him about the changing of the guard in the Head Peacekeeper. That wouldn't have been terribly fair; she had not known until after he did.

It was more likely Gale's whipping in the square. That cold and horrific day led Madge to consider Gale's safety as a temporary and fragile balance, rather than a constant. It also led Gale to consider Katniss's romantic preference with hope, rather than futility, as it had fallen onto him after the prospect of losing him became so real to her - this preference, Madge had to work incredibly hard not to resent. Her current predicament made it hard to discern whether she would rather be in Katniss's or her own shoes.

Madge shifted her weight uncomfortably, using one arm to carefully balance her swollen belly.

Right. It would have felt as if it hadn't happened, except for that. Except for the baby. It seemed almost funny that Peeta had told the entire nation of Panem that he and Katniss were having a baby that didn't exist tonight on the television, when Madge couldn't seem to tell anyone about the very real baby that she had been carrying for months.

Maybe it would be funny, if she had been able to stop crying after Peeta's announcement, if she weren't a bulging 5 months pregnant, and if her father hadn't finally put 2 and 2 together.

She had been able to successfully mask her pregnancy until tonight, starting out in the colder months by wearing layers, and not showing much anyway. She'd gotten away with layers until it was about May, just over a month ago. Since then, she had made a point of wearing flowing dresses with an empire waist, or blouses that hung loose. Sometimes, she just carried a bag or a basket around with her all day, keeping it clutched in front of her whenever she was talking with someone. Between the new peacekeepers making life in District 12 more of a hell than it had been previously, uprisings in the Districts, and Peeta and Katniss preparing for the Quarter Quell, no one had time to worry about strange behavior from the Mayor's daughter.

She had considered trying to... rid herself of it somehow. The thought made her shudder now, but when she first realized what was happening inside her, she was so afraid. She just kept thinking, "I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready." She stood at the top of the steps for hours trying to work up the courage to throw herself down them - and never could.

Would it have been better? Would it have been better than this?

This, in itself, isn't so bad, Madge realized. Her father had been able to pull a few strings in the Capitol that Madge didn't even know that he had to get her into a Home for Unwed Mothers in District 2. Madge didn't know there was such a thing, and the implications of a Capitol sponsored place for young girls to live and have babies chilled her, despite the warmth of the night air.

Turns out District 12 had two industries - one of them was coal, and the other, Madge had realized, was making more contestants for the Games and workers for the mines. It must be the same for all of the Districts.

Madge didn't want to go, but she had been given no choice. When Peeta made the announcement tonight on the television, Madge had been unable to contain herself. The thought - even though she knew it wasn't true - of a pregnant mother in the Games was just too cruel. Her father had looked from her to the TV screen, and practically ripped her hands away from her stomach, which she had formed the terrible habit of holding protectively.

Madge would never forget the look in his eyes, fearful, angry, full of questions. Worse than his expression, Madge decided, with another shiver, was his silence. He had gone to his bedroom, and locked the door. For an hour, Madge sat in the study alone listening to the muffled conversations regarding her fate taking place on the other side of the door.

When her father returned, he explained that she was going to a home for unwed mothers in District 2, and that she would return when the baby was 2 years old. Until then, she would be provided a home, and a job to save up some money. He told her to pack her things.

Madge had been unsure of what to bring, most of her clothing didn't fit her anymore anyway. She packed a few of her favorite outfits, for after the baby came, and the sheet music for her piano. For good measure, she tossed in a scarf that Gale had left the night that... the night that they had done what they did that she had never gotten around to giving back to him. It was filthy, but Madge wanted a piece of him, anything, to bring along.

Then Madge had wandered into her mother's room, where her mother was predictably, miles away in a Morphling dream. She dug through her mother's closet until she found a few small boxes she remembered helping her mother label and organize years ago. One was labelled, "Madge: Baby Clothes" and another "Maternity Clothes" in her own careful handwriting. She brought these one one at a time into her room, the baby inside her kicking in protest at all of the movement this late at night.

"I hope that you're a girl," Madge admitted, "Even if you're not, you'll probably have to wear my old clothes anyway."

She loaded the clothes from the boxes into her suitcase, and ran the empty boxes back into her mother's room. She stared at her mother for a moment, the empty, decrepit shell of a once beautiful, vivacious young woman not entirely unlike herself. She wondered if her mother had been as scared to have her as Madge to have the baby that she was carrying.

She ached for her mother, for the first time in a long time. She had done well, accepting her father's vague explanations about her mother's disease, and trying her best not only to be independent and take care of herself, but her father and the household as well. Now, she needed her mother. She knew, of course, that needing something, in District 12, rarely meant that you would actually get it - even for her, the Mayor's Daughter.

"Mama," Madge's voice sounded strange saying this word, and she had found herself trying to remember the last time that she had a real conversation with her mother. Nothing came to mind.

"Mama... I'll come home soon, okay? I- I love you, Mama." She brushed back the blonde mat of hair from her mother's forehead and planted a light kiss there.

Then she had gathered up her suitcase and made her way out the door of her room and down the steps, fighting the urge to think about the weighty truth - she would not to return for over 2 years. At the door, her father gave her a great deal of money with instructions on who to pay how much to get to District 2, and a little bit extra for after the baby came. As he placed the money in her hands, he gave them a light squeeze.

That was as close to sentimental as he got about the whole thing. Without even so much as a hug, he sent her on her way.

Now Madge found herself dragging her feet, which was bad idea. She was going to be riding in a coal shipment heading to the Capitol that would make a stop in District 2, and the train would be leaving at 1 o'clock in the morning. What time was it, anyway? She had left her house around 11:30.

She glanced around the empty square for a timepiece, knowing full well that there was none, and continued her lonely trek through the streets.

They were abandoned, and no warm glowing lights came peeking through the windows to guide her through the dark streets. Thin curls of smoke still rising from a few chimneys here or there was the only sign that she was not the only person in the world who was living - person and a half perhaps.

She made her way past the peacekeeper's new implements of punishment: the stocks, the whipping post, and the gallows. The latter two cast eerie and elongated shadows in the moonlight. She stopped, and found herself starting at the whipping post where she had seen Gale flogged until the flesh of his back was in ribbons.

Of course, no one had paid attention to her in the square that day, not with Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch Abernathy swooping in to save the day, but she had been there. She had seen it, and she had felt every lash that fell upon him in her core, where the life inside her had begun to stir. That was the day that she had stopped speaking with Gale completely.

Why had she done such a thing? Had she been afraid? Had she understood that Katniss's favor would fall upon him, and couldn't stand the idea of being rejected? It seemed like it must be deeper than that. Was she afraid that her baby might be punished somehow by proxy for having a father who broke the law? It seemed it might be more selfish than that. Whatever the reason, that day had frightened her so, that between she and Gale, even when they saw each other at Katniss and Peeta's training sessions before the Quell, the bridge was burned - by no fault of his, but rather, by her own free will.

She sighed. No point in ruminating over things now... except, it didn't feel right. Everyone in District 12 knew that Katniss wasn't coming back from the Quarter Quell. Whatever meager hope they'd had for her return was lost when she and Peeta both got 12's for their training scores - an obvious ploy on the part of the Game Makers to make Katniss and Peeta into moving targets, rather than real contenders. If Gale knows that, which he must, would he do something reckless? Something that may prevent him from ever meeting his son or daughter when Madge returned and was finally ready to talk to him?

As if to affirm her thoughts, the baby inside her gave a kick. Madge looked down and affectionately ran a hand over her belly.

"Do you want to go meet daddy?"

Katniss sat on the bed of her room in the Training Center, listening to the running water that indicated that Peeta was really in her room with her, taking a shower. She was still in shock over the events of the past hour. Her dress, burning, Cinna, in danger, Peeta, sharing their private marriage with the world, her supposed pregnancy pregnancy, and perhaps the most stunning and beautiful image that was swimming through her mind - the Victors, joined by their linked hands, standing in a defiant and powerful line as the screens went out at the end of the Interview.

Then, utter chaos had broken loose.

She had stripped off her feathered, black wedding gown, and sat only in her silky white slip, which was a bit smoke damaged, and was working on removing each and every tiny pearl that had been affixed to her being - in her hair, glued on her nails, around her neck, her wrists, her ankles. Ropes of pearls keeping her Mockingjay self tied to the ground, if even for just a moment she had dared to hope that she could fly free.

This of course, was not going to happen, she knew, pulling off the 3 pearl rings that adorned her shaking fingers.

That was the damn problem, the shaking. She couldn't get her hands to stop shaking long enough to unhook the intricate clasps trapping her in her beautiful bondage.

She supposed she looked beautiful - polished, painted, and perfect, according to the standards set by the capitol. She didn't feel beautiful because of her hair, though, or her skin; she felt beautiful because of what the Victors turned Tributes did tonight, but her confidence began to deflate, as her mind began to switch gears. She couldn't forget that the Games began tomorrow, and there was nothing she could do to delay them.

With the start of the Games would come the beginning of the end for her. In a matter of a week or so, she would be dead. Was she scared, elated, emotional, numb?

She couldn't even begin to sort her feelings on everything until she escaped from these damn pearls. Moments ago, she had just been relieved to get Peeta in her room, and to close the door between them and the outside world, but now her head was spinning and her body anxious. A door couldn't stop the approaching dawn, couldn't stop the countdown until the she and Peeta found themselves fighting for their lives in the arena.

"THESE DAMN PEARLS!" she found herself shouting. "PEETA!"

Peeta was by her side in seconds, soaking wet, steaming, in fact, and completely naked. Katniss flushed, but couldn't bring herself to shy away from him. Instead, she focused all of her attention on his face. His familiar, steady, and beautiful face she had come to know and... and what? Supposedly, to love, but did she?

Katniss decided this wasn't the time for emotional existentialism. Peeta knelt in front of her so that his nakedness felt less imposing, and took one of her shaking hand in his. His touch was warm, and wet, but so familiar, so steady, even after the chaos of the evening, that Katniss clung onto it, a little too hard perhaps.

"Are you okay, Katniss?" his voice deceptively soft, masking the panic that lead him to be at her side so quickly.

"I-," Katniss fumbled. Was the heat radiating from him just the residual temperature of the water? She found it hard to look into his steady blue eyes, but rather, she found her eyes wanting to... explore him. She caught her eyes as they were rounding his muscular shoulders, and had begun to travel down his broad chest.

She realized, almost humorously, that she had never seen Peeta naked before.

She had seen him in his undershorts, but this was different, somehow. She had never felt quite so... aware of his presence. Surely it was the unsteadiness of her emotions about the Games, and nothing more that was making her feel so desperate for him. She realized how loudly she'd shrieked his name; no wonder he'd come running for her.

"I'm sorry Katniss," Peeta suddenly started, snapping her out of her own thoughts and back to where he knelt in front of her. "I didn't even- I," He began to look around for something to cover himself.

"It's okay. Now, just- help me. With my pearls, please."

"Are you sure you don't want me to get dressed first?" Peeta was blushing now too.

Katniss found herself wanting him to stay; to be close to her right now. The jumble of feelings had settled in her stomach. They were still fighting it out to see which would overcome, and if it was fear, if it was self-pity, or sadness she knew that she was going to lose it.

"Are you clean?" She asked, remembering that he was in the middle of a shower when she called for him.

"Enough," Peeta nodded his affirmation.

"Then, help me with my pearls." Katniss extended her ankle towards his kneeling form, and the pearly anklet shifted slightly. Her eyes didn't leave his. She wanted him to know that she was serious, that she meant it, this, whatever was about to happened between them. He still looked unsure.

Peeta could hold her.

"Peeta," Katniss tried to soften her voice, to find the special tone that Peeta used for her name in her own register. "My... friend..." That sounded wrong.

She set her foot down on Peeta's thigh. High. The contact sent a strange tickle up her leg. Electricity. Connection. What was she trying to do?

He could steady her.

"My ally." The words dripped from her tongue thickly, sweetly, like syrup. They sounded weak. She set her other foot on his other thigh and scooted forward on the bed.

Peeta looked wary, but let her continue. She wanted to be close him, needed to close the distance between them, until what?

Peeta could fend off her oncoming nightmares.

"Until nothing," she thought. "Nothing." She just wanted him to bewith her, present, and close, as he had been so often at night.

He could block the past.

She'd wanted this, since the training scores, since he painted that picture of Rue in his private session. She'd wanted him to be close to her again. Hadn't she gotten him, last night, and the night before? Hadn't she spend the entire day with him yesterday?

She wanted more. She wanted a lifetime that she would never have... that they would never have, baking bread for Haymitch, and painting in her father's game book. She wanted sunny afternoons spent like the one the day before, sunning and playing, revelling in each other's company. She wanted more sunsets, more dinners with her mother and Prim. She wanted to hear Madge play the piano again.

In this moment, in Peeta, she wanted all of those things. She wanted him to give to her a life that she would never have - and she knew that if she let him, he would; but this too would pass. This doubt. This fear. She just needed to be closer.

"My husband." The word came out before she could even think to stop herself. She had no time to consider how it would affect Peeta, as she slid down the bed and shifted her legs so that her thighs fell to either side of his, and her undergarments made silky contact with his nakedness.

Katniss wrapped her arms around Peeta's neck and stared into his eyes, trying to read how this last title has struck him. His gaze led Katniss to realize that maybe he was no more sure of what she was doing than she was.

Without a word, his hands moved to her hair and start untangling the strands of pearls from her tresses. He had already worked the anklet free of her leg, and it sat next to their entangled form on the ground.

Katniss's body began to ache. She wanted his steadiness, his warmth, his protection from these thoughts, this pain.

This wasn't close enough. It was the only explanation for what she was feeling, this electrical current humming through her body with growing intensity. She needed to feel him, feel his heart and hers, beating together. His steadiness could become hers if she could just get close enough to him. Decisively, she whipped her slip off over her head and pressed her bare body against his - hoping that he saw nothing as she did so.

The feeling of sis skin against hers was like the feeling of taking the first step out of the claustrophobic coal mines. Like suddenly she had remembered how to breathe. She inhaled deeply, and let out a shaky breath. She felt the strings of pearls in her hair begin to slide down her back along with tumble of hair.

Peeta had managed to remove most of her pearl adornments, just the necklace and the bracelet remained. His eyes caught hers as his hands dropped from her hair to her neck to work at the clasp holding the necklace in place. As his hands brushed her neck, a sharp shock flew down her spine, deep into a place that she could only think to describe as the base of her being. She arched her back into him, and let out a small moan.

Closer. She wanted him closer.

Peeta's hardness suddenly bulged against Katniss's underwear, which was silky-soft as her slip had been, and just as much of a barrier between her and what she wanted from Peeta. Their eyes locked, and Katniss became aware of just how close she wanted to be to Peeta Mellark, to her husband. She closed the distance between their lips, and kissed him.

She wanted to be so close to him that he was inside her.

Madge tapped softly at the door to Gale's home. It was on the outskirts of District 12, not too far from the train station. She'd picked up her pace from the square to ensure that she could stop herself with concern about the time.

She wouldn't be long anyway, there wasn't really much to say, when it came down to it.

She wanted him to know. She wished that she had wanted this earlier, but also accepted that she simply hadn't.

She tapped again, a bit louder, but she dared not to knock again, for fear of waking Gale's younger siblings. Just as she was about to go, the door slowly creaked open, and a woman who could only be Gale's mother peeked out. She looked confused, and so very tired.

"I'm sorry." Madge immediately realized that midnight was not the time to go knocking around District 12 looking for a friend. "I didn't mean to wake you, I'm-"

"Oh no, I wasn't asleep," the woman smiled. "I'm Hazelle, and you must be Madge."

How did Hazelle know who she was?

"Katniss's friend, right? You gave her the pin."

Of course.

"Yes, I ah-" Madge hadn't counted on Gale's mother answering the door. She found herself tongue tied. Hazelle's eyes fell on Madge's bulging stomach.

"Oh, my." His mother couldn't hide her concern, but tried to pass it off as excitement. "Congratulations."

"Thanks." Madge nodded. She was trying to think of an excuse to dismiss herself, rather than asking for Gale and bringing an onslaught of questions she couldn't answer, when he appeared behind his mother, at the door.

He was taller than she was, and he had a much harder face, but seeing them stand by each other like this was uncanny.

Madge tried to think of something to say, but she was all out of words for Gale, still, even after all this time. She just looked at him, studying him, perpetually dirty with coal dust, grey eyes piercing even in this dim light, and his face permanently set in a scowl.

"Gale, you didn't tell me that Madge was friend of yours." Hazelle seemed to sense the tension between them.

"He watched the Games at my house, with Prim, and Mrs. Everdeen." Madge jumped at the opportunity to provide an explanation about why she was here - even if it was a weak one. She felt nervous, and her hands instinctively wrapped around her belly. She dropped them to her sides immediately, but it was too late.

Gale had seen the movement, and his eyes widened in recognition.

Shit. This was not how she had intended to let him know.

His eyes dropped to her suitcase, which sat on the step beside her, and asked, "Going somewhere?"

"Yeah," Madge squirmed under his gaze. "I was hoping you might... walk me to the train station... for old time's sake." She tried to make it sound feasible to Hazelle that Gale was just a friend of hers. She didn't want to get him in trouble with him family, who she knew that he adored. "I would ask Katniss but, she-"

"Not here, I know." Gale couldn't stop staring at her. His eyes bore into her, as if trying to see, to sense the baby inside her. Hisbaby inside her. He understood, she had no doubt about that.

"I can walk you." He said after a moment, shaking his head to break his own concentration. Her turned to Hazelle, "Mom, I'll be back."

Hazelle looked concerned. "Alright." She hugged Gale tightly, and disappeared back into the small house.

Gale didn't look at her for a moment, as if determined not to become entranced again.

"I'm sorry," were the first words that came out of Madge's mouth. The sounded stupid, inadequate, childish. Madge was afraid Gale might be angry, but instead, he sighed, and after taking a moment to stare at the night sky, turned to face her.

"Me too."

Katniss's lips found Peeta's over and over and over again. Drinking him into her, tasting him, smelling him. She wanted all of him. Her body ached to be closer to his.

How, how could she get closer?

"Peeta... Peeta." she moaned between kisses.

Peeta's hands were everywhere, in her hair, her back, her arms, her face. He returned her kisses in earnest, and gulped huge gasps of air as she said his name.

"Kat-" he began, but she cut him off. No. No thinking. No talking. "Just be close to me, Peeta," she thought. "Closer than you are now, closer than you've ever been."

"Peeta..." she moaned again. Her body felt like it was going to turn inside out. She had grown hollow, and needed Peeta to become whole again, to get a handle on her rushing pulse, thoughts, feelings...

"Katniss" he got out, but it didn't sound like a moan. It sounded like the beginning of a conversation.

Even as she kissed his neck, his shoulders, his chest, Katniss could feel Peeta's hands collecting her, stopping her.

"No," she thought. "No." She could feel the hollow inside her settling in. The distance between herself and Peeta growing, even though they remained in the exact same position. "No no no no no."

Hot, wet tears came flooding to Katniss's eyes.

Madge couldn't stand it. She had expected him to yell, to get angry. To ask her why she had kept his own child from him, until it was too late.

Instead, he had kept silent, walking alongside her with carrying her suitcase as she had explained the facility in District 2 where she was going.

Madge's chest began to grow tight, and her knees began to feel weak. She came to halt as she and Gale reached the platform, tears sneaking into formation in the corners of her eyes.

Katniss Everdeen was in a position she had never imagined she might be in ever in her whole life. There had been a lot of those since the Games started, but this one felt... pathetic, absurd, somehow. She sat, straddling her husband, nearly naked, with her face buried in her hands, sobbing. She felt ridiculous, and ashamed. What was she crying for?

Peeta gently used his hands to pulls Katniss's from her eyes, which she was trying to hide. Tears cut streaky paths down her cheeks in her make-up. He kissed each of her cheeks, and looked into her eyes.

"Katniss... You're my wife. I love you." He began, steadily, pulling her along with his words. "That is why I would never do this to you. What I said tonight, that could have been real if... things had happened differently between us."

Katniss looked into Peeta's blue eyes, and know that he was telling her the absolute truth. She couldn't tell him that getting knocked up didn't matter to her, that she was going to die in a matter of days anyway. So she just nodded.

"I wish... things had been more like you said," Katniss admitted, after a moment.

Gale set the suitcase down and wrapped his arms around Madge.

In this moment, she realized how very much that she had missed him. His warmth, his smell, his arms, the feeling of being pressed against him. He stroked her hair with his careful hands.

For what must have been 15 minutes, they stood like this. Perhaps they both understood that this wasn't a time for words, that time had gone and passed a long time ago. It was far too late for mere words to improve the situation.

They simply leaned into one another, finding the support they had forgotten to miss. Madge held on so long, that a part of her began to believe that she might never have to let go.

Which is why, when the wind from the train blowing her hair, rather than the sound alerted her to its presence, she jumped.

Gale seemed to have come back to reality too. He stepped back, squeezed her hands, and looked at her.

"What happens when you come back?" He asked her.

"I don't know." Madge admitted.

They started at each other for a long time, as if trying to memorize the other's faces. Madge realized she felt like this was the last time she would ever see Gale, but that didn't make any sense.

The conductor came to her, asking for the money and her bag. She paid him, and handed him her suitcase. He informed her the the train would be loaded and leaving the station in 2 minutes. 2 minutes to say goodbye, suddenly didn't seem like enough time.

Madge looked back at Gale - tragic, damaged, cruel, and beautiful Gale.

"I wish it had been more like Peeta said," she admitted. "For us."

"What do you mean?" Peeta asked, holding Katniss's face in his hands gently, knowing somehow that keeping her gaze meant keeping her sanity.

"I wish we'd been happy." Katniss admitted. Then, "I wish we'd had sex."

"Why?" Peeta could't help but smile.

"Because I never have, and now I never will."

The smile dropped from Peeta's face.

"Yes you will, Katniss."

"No," Katniss mused, self-pity draining from her voice. "If you die, who'm I gonna do it with?"

Katniss held her breath, and prayed that Peeta wouldn't try to answer. He refrained.

When she spoke again, her words came sharp and heavy.

"I'm not ready, Peeta."

"For what?" he asked, smoothing her hair back soothingly.

"To kill again. To watch you die. To die myself." There was no self-pity left in her voice, only anguish. "I'm not ready."

"What do you mean?" Gale asked, looking perplexed, and a little tired. This was not the time to be indirect. Madge began to walk towards the front of the train where she is to board. "What do you mean, Madge?" he repeated.

She turned to face him. "I wish we'd been happy." She smiled, sadly, then admitted, "I wish that we could have been married."

"You should have told me." Gale snapped, and for the first time all night, there was a hardness in his voice.

"You never would have chosen me." Madge said, the sadness draining from her voice. "Not after she chose you."

Gale could say nothing.

"I'm not ready, Gale" Madge said, stepping onto the train.

"For what?" Gale asked.

"To leave. To have a baby." There was only heartbreak in her voice when she repeated, helplessly, "I'm not ready." She shut the door to the train car, and leaving Gale alone to watch the train pull away.