CHAPTER 9: Coming Home

Gale. Alive. And here. It was more than Madge could have hoped or dreamed for... more than she could have ever imagined, not that she had had much of an imagination lately. Since Gale's supposed death 6 months ago, Madge had been a wreck.

The doctors at the Home had told Madge that she had something called, "postpartum depression." This condition had led her to chop off all her hair, and refuse to eat. It led her to be afraid of her own shadow, and not to recognize her own reflection.

The only thing she had not forgotten how to do was care for Maysilee. Even caring for herself had fallen by the wayside, with the slack to be picked up by her saintly roommate Caridee.

Caridee, with her warm smile and freckled face, whose fiance Gentry worked at a butcher shop in her home District, 10. Her mother and father had sent her to this home, despite Gentry's promise to marry her. Calm prayers and a faithful heart guided Caridee through her experience at this wretched place as if she were staying at some sort of resort.

Madge herself, had not faired so well.

She couldn't help but cringe as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror now. Her limp, uneven hair falling just to her shoulders, which Caridee's thin fingers worked tirelessly to untangle and curl, prominent collarbones - too prominent, covered by the sweater that Caridee had lent her, and her dull eyes brought back to life by the practically magical make up that Caridee had applied.

"He is just gonna die when he sees you, don'tcha think?" Caridee chirped optimistically.

Madge winced at her word choice. Tact wasn't her strongest suit. She spoke her mind, though, which Madge respected.

"You look..." Caridee sighed and took a moment to consider her word choice.

"Awful." Madge helped her.

She had looked awful for 6 months, why should today be any different? She wasn't even sure that she believed that Gale was coming. When she had been contacted by the Rebels or the Capitol, or whoever was tracking down family and friends of the war heroes, she had simply refused to believe that Gale was still alive, as they had assured her. How they had even gotten her name was beyond her. Madge was, in fact, quite sure that she had dreamed the whole encounter.

But still, here it was. The day that he was "coming home." Not that he would be staying here with her and Maysilee in this dump. She was certain that someone would be paying for the war hero to stay in some plush compartment somewhere.

Still, her heart was pounding so loud - pumping blood in a way that it hadn't in a long time. No matter how convinced and numb her mind was to the reality that Gale was dead, her foolish heart refused to believe it.

And Maysilee... what would he do when he saw her... his daughter. Their daughter.

"Oh now stop it!" Caridee snatched at Madge's hands as they went to her hair, pulling it across to cover her sullen face.

"Fragile!" Caridee announced suddenly.

"What?" Madge started.

"You look fragile. Like you could use a hero!" Caridee said this as if it were fantastic news. She looked so silly, red hair frazzled here and there, hands on her hips, smiling as if she were some kind of genius.

Madge found herself smiling, an expression she had reserved solely for her daughter until today.

"You sound very happy about that."

"Well, shoot... I am!" Caridee's mood would not be weighed down.

"But why?"

"Cuz, I hear your boy is war hero. He's gonna take one look at you and just wanna hold you so tight!" Caridee grinned and wrapped her arms around Madge's shoulders. Madge's smile warmed.

She took another look at herself in the mirror - her overall appearance had been considerably improved by Caridee's efforts.

Her hair, though still recovering from the hack and slash job she had done to it, had been worked into gentle waves vaguely reminiscent of her once shining curls. Her eyes didn't look as dead and sunken as they had that morning, and her weight loss was hidden well thanks to the sweater and a few pins in her dress.

She was as ready as she ever would be to face whatever showed up on her doorstep that morning.

"I'm takin' River to the market today." Caridee winked, cleaning up the few make-up brushes she had used. "So you will have the place all to yourself when your man arrives. Gentry sent me some money, so I'm gonna buy River a new teddy bear! Do you or Maysilee need anything while I'm out?"

"Uh," Madge paused, running over a mental list in her head. She had been spending money on just the essentials since Maysilee was born, trying to stretch out the last of the money her father had given her. Perhaps she would be able to get some help from Gale- but no. She shouldn't think of the situation with any expectations. That would be foolish.

"No, nothing. Thank you, Caridee. For everything." Madge squeezed Caridee's hand.

A few minutes later, Caridee had gathered up her jacket and her son River and headed out the door. Nothing left to do but wait.

Madge checked for about the 10th time on her daughter, who was taking a nap. Madge had tried to explain to Maysilee a few times that she had a daddy, but Maysilee was too young to understand very well what that meant. Madge hoped that Maysilee wouldn't get shy the way she did around doctors sometimes... that would be so painful for Gale.

Finally, Madge settled herself down on the couch, and waited. This was going to be a long day.

~~~
Gale had been so mixed up after things in the Capitol had ended. After the bomb that killed Prim and the assassination of President Coin, Gale had thought he'd be roped in with Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss and sent back to District 12 labelled as "Damaged Goods."

Instead, he had been transferred to District 2 to work... to live. Coincidentally, District 2 was where Madge had gone with her- their baby. He had asked some of his friends in the new Capitol government to pull a few strings for him and find out where she had been living.

It had taken them a few months to track down the records, at which point they had set up a rendezvous for him without asking his opinion on the subject first. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her, but the idea of seeing Madge, the girl with whom things had never been really clarified and his- their daughter was overwhelming. Nonetheless, they had set a date for him, and he wasn't one to question orders.

When that day finally arrived, Gale found himself at her doorstep once again.

He knocked gently, wringing his hands and waiting for some sort of indication that Madge was home. After a moment, the lock gently clicked, and a girl he barely recognized opened the door a crack.

"Gale," the girl's voice was fragile.

"Madge?"

Gale could hardly believe his eyes. The girl he had admired for her quiet strength and vivacious beauty was gone, replaced by this wisp of a girl, staring at him through troubled eyes. Gale found himself surprised at how he ached at the sight of her, and offered a hand towards her, despite himself.

She politely gave his hand a weak squeeze, and then dropped hers back to her side. The immediate silence seemed to increase the distance between them until he felt like he was back in 13, trying to remember the way she smelled. Suddenly, he did remember. Her scent - wildflowers came rushing back to him and he stepped into her, closing the space between them.

Her eyes widened, but she didn't have time to protest as he pulled her the last step between them and wrapped her in his arms. She felt thin, with bones poking out where soft curves had been before, but he didn't care. No words that either of them could find could explain what needed to be said in this moment, so he held her as tight as he dared, until he felt her arms wrap around him in turn.

He wanted to tell her of the times he thought of her, of the sleepless nights; even of the times he tried to find her when he was stationed in 2. He wanted to tell her how afraid he had been that he would never meet their child-

"Where is-" he stopped short, realizing he didn't know whether he was asking after the safety of a son or daughter, but Madge seemed to understand. She was smiling, tears in her eyes. Their embrace had brought a great deal of colour back into her cheeks, and he could swear that her hair even had a bit of its life back.

"Maysilee."

"Maysilee," Gale repeated. Her name was perfection. He began to tremble in anticipation and fear.

"She's 7 months old," Madge explained quietly as she opened the door. He walked silently into the room and stared at her. She was perfection. Her face so delicate, her little fingers curled tightly around a something strange. Her dark eyelashes rested against her round, rosy cheeks. Though Madge looked frail and gaunt, Maysilee looked healthy, round, beautiful. He looked up at Madge, a question in his eyes, "She's been sleeping for two hours, you can pick her up if you want."

Holding his little sister had not prepared him for this. As he shouldered the small weight of his tiny child, she was so warm and she let out a little yawn. A strange gasp escaped his throat when she nuzzled against him. It is the strangest, most wonderful feeling he has ever experienced. In 13, he thought of Madge frequently, worried silently. Her, he rarely thought of. He knew, of course, but trying not to think about it was much easier. He didn't know if she was a boy or a girl, if she lived or if she didn't make it. The reality of her in his arms was much heavier than her tiny body.

Gale recognized the item Maysilee was clutching. It was his scarf.

Gale looked from his daughter to the woman who had carried her, alone, and felt a wave of confused emotions - guilt, relief, loneliness... he felt completely overwhelmed, and was surprised as he drew breath to hear the shaking in his own voice. Hot tears came to his eyes, and for about the first time in his life, he thought he might faint. The temperature in the room seemed to fluctuate from comfortable to stifling.

Just as his thoughts began to swirl into a mess of light and color, Madge put a steadying hand on his. Was she still stronger than he was, even after all this time, after all she had been through? He searched her face for the answer, and found, in her forgiving, soft smile, what, perhaps, he had been looking for in 2: Peace.

"Would you and Maysilee like to come out to dinner with me?"

He never wanted to leave them again. Ever. Not even just tonight. He never wanted to be apart from his daughter and her mother ever again. He wanted to keep them safe, to never be too far away to protect them if the need arose.

Madge's smile broadened, but her response broke his heart.

"Really?" Her hopeless voice revealed that she perhaps didn't think this could be real.

He carefully shifted Maysilee in his arms so that he had a free hand, and used it to touch Madge's face, softly - in a way that he wasn't sure that he had ever touched it. He tried to manage one of the loving caresses he had seen Peeta use so many times with Katniss on television, and was surprised that the thought didn't bring him any pain.

"Madge... there is- so much has happened, and we do need to talk about that... but right now, I've- I've been in counsels, and hearings, and interviews, and all that. I've been explaining myself for months... My actions. I've been a soldier for so long, tonight I just want to be a man, and I'd like to be a man with a family."

It was the most Gale had ever wanted for someone to understand him.

Madge gave his hand a squeeze and removed it from her cheek, entwining her fingers with his.

"Alright." Her voice sounded a bit neutral, and Gale understood that she was guarding herself. It hurt, but it was understandable. All that mattered at that moment was that she would come with him.

~~~

From the moment Gale thrust into her that night, until the moment they climaxed together, a tangled mess of curling toes and clenched fingers, it was as if Madge was coming back to life. She was more present, and more aware than she had been in months. She found herself breathing in Gale's scent, running her hands through his short cropped hair, tasting him, hearing his voice - feeling it, and all the while with her eyes, taking in every bit of him, memorizing his new scars, remembering his skin, his body.

It had started out at dinner. Madge had been so nervous, but she found herself unable to stop talking, once she started. Talking of Maysilee's birth, and Caridee, and watching the rebellion on TV. Of catching glimpses of a man she swore looked like Gale at the market in District 2. She talked over her devastation at the bombing of District 12, her belief that Gale survived, and even her deep depression at the announcement of his death. She talked more than she had ever talked to anyone about anything, until her voice was raw and sore, and all the while, feelings, real, immediate feelings rushing over her.

One minute, she was laughing about Maysilee's first word, which was, "piano," but she usually pronounced as "Pan-an-o" and the next, she was crying, thinking of the last moments of her home District, and the next she was filled with rage at the Capitol's Homes for Unwed Mothers. She thought Gale would be embarrassed to be seen with her, but instead, he listened, and watched her, intently, and never during their meal did he let go of his- their daughter, even when she puked on him. It occurred to her at some point during the night that she had never seen him so happy - and at the end of her emotional purge, neither had she.

When they returned to his beautiful home in 2, they had out Maysilee down in the new crib that had been delivered and assembled over the course of the afternoon. They had sat up and made small talk, emotionally exhausted from the conversation at dinner. Madge realized that Gale hadn't spoken of his trials and tribulations since they parted ways, but she was unsure of how to ask about it - she was sure it would involved tales of death, and of Katniss - two forces which seemed to go hand in hand, and she didn't have the emotional fortitude to tackle either at the moment.

So she decided to give Gale a place to bury his thoughts - between her thighs seemed like the best solution at the time, perhaps because they had both had a few glasses of wine and were emotionally naked anyway.

Though she had been nervous to let his see her body - not because of the baby, of course, the Capitol had cleaned up that whole mess nicely, knowing that single mothers would be more likely to produce more children for the Games if they were seemed more well-put together, physically, at least, but because of the depression. Her thinness, her paleness, and the few scars she had from half-hearted attempts to bring the feeling back into her life with a razor blade.

Gale, instead had insisted they keep the light on for the whole ordeal, and kissed every scar and bone that he could find to kiss. His body had changed too, he was thinner, covered with new scars, but less so than his emotional scars, which his face could not hide, even as peaceful as he looked as he slide himself in between her legs.

Afterwards, they lay in each others arms. They had turned the lights out so that they could sleep, but instead, after about an hour of silence, Gale started crying. Madge knew what was wrong, and what was right, and that no words would change either of these.

"It will be alright. I've got you now," was all she could say. She whispered it into his hair, softly, over and over again, kissing him on the head, the hands, the shoulders, pretty much wherever she could reach without disturbing him too much. Eventually, he fell into a restless sleep, and she held him tight.

She knew, at that moment, that she would stay with him... Always.