Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
AN: Again, thanks to Nursekelly for all the help.
And the stars burn out, pt 10
Madge spends most of the train ride in her compartment, wrapped tightly in the blankets on her bed, much to Ms. Trinket's annoyance.
"We need to go over your speeches," she shouts at Madge through her door, not receiving a response.
It takes the better part of an hour for her to stop yelling possible opening lines through the keyhole. Mr. Abernathy actually puts a stop to it, yelling that she's giving him a headache and that she needs to just shut up already.
"I'm coming in, sweetheart," he tells Madge as he rattles the lock and pushes in.
Peeking out at him, Madge sees he has a tray of food and a cup of water with him as he gives the lump that is her blanket covered body a bemused once over.
"Eat," he simply says, depositing the tray on her bedside table before dropping onto the edge of the bed with a groan, his bones creaking as he does.
Pulling the blankets a little higher on her face, Madge just watches him for a moment longer before sighing. "You shouldn't yell at her. She's only trying to help."
Even if she's obnoxious about it.
He chuckles. "You're the one wouldn't let her in."
Fair enough.
After a few minutes he begins eating the fruit, occasionally offering her a slice of something exotic, as they sit in silence.
Finally, once the tray is half eaten, he sighs.
"She's going to write your speeches. You should follow them."
Madge nods. It makes sense. Effie Trinket is as Capitol as they come; anything she comes up with will be bland and perfectly in line with the government's ideals. As foolish as what she writes will undoubtedly be, it'll be safe.
It turns Madge's stomach to even think of what dull, vapid things Ms. Trinket is going to make her say, but if it keeps her family and friends safe, she'll gladly do it.
Popping his neck, Mr. Abernathy stands and points at the remains of the food.
"Eat, drink that water, then get some sleep," he orders her before scrubbing a hand over his face. "Tomorrow's gonna be shitty, but once you get through the first one..."
Madge imagines he wants to tell her it gets better, but can't quite make himself. It won't get better, but it'll turn into a routine, and there's a sort of comfort in that.
Nodding, Madge makes certain he sees her pick up a slice of something unfamiliar and yellow and take a bite. She wants him to go, get some rest, one of them needs to, and it certainly won't be her.
Despite lying in bed, sleep never comes.
Gale isn't there to help her keep the demons at bay, and they crawl out to torment her as the sun goes down.
She hears screams, maybe of her family, maybe of strangers, she isn't sure and it doesn't matter. Whoever they are, they're suffering because of her, she knows it.
Faces flood her mind. Some she knows, Katniss, Peeta, Delly, her parents and Gale, others she feels she should know but can't pin down. They might be the other Tributes from her Games. She's never been able to make herself memorize their faces, never had the stomach to learn all their names even though she knows she owes it to them.
They're dead and she isn't, she should at least do them the courtesy of remembering them.
She hasn't though, she can't, and that guilt only adds to the long night.
Finally, after hours of silent tears and endless waves of nausea brought on by the knowledge that she's on the razor's edge of destroying everything she knows and loves, her prep team kick the door open and begin fluttering around, oblivious to everything.
Portia comes in after they've pulled Madge from bed, polished her up, and fixed her hair into a mess of stiff curls.
Her latest dress is strapless, cinched tightly at her middle and affixed to her skin to keep it from slipping. The pink material, which reminds Madge of the cotton candy her Poppa had made in the sweet shop, it isn't her favorite color, but the color is hardly her first complaint about the dress.
"Haymitch isn't going to like it," Portia sighs, eyeing the neckline. "But it suits you. Youthful and pure."
"This is supposed to be pure?" Madge glances down, feeling extremely exposed.
A little smile twitches up on Portia's lips. "For the Capitol? Yes." She hands Madge an umbrella, pink with yellow trim, matched perfectly to the dress, explaining, "It's overcast.
After that, Madge is given a pair of silken white gloves and to finish it off Portia drapes a delicate looking necklace around her neck.
"Can't go out and have no diamonds for our Diamond Girl," she tells her.
Running her fingers over the jewels, glowing like trapped starlight against her skin, Madge shakes her head. No, they can't.
Stepping around her, Portia smiles, a bit sadly.
"You did wonderfully yesterday. You'll do wonderfully again today." She reaches out and taps Madge under the chin. "Be brave."
#######
Gale doesn't get to watch Madge's first stop on her Tour.
Instead, he's trapped in a dark, stuffy mine with his crew from the first light of day to the last and only gets to watch the review with his family.
His mom eyes him warily as he quickly eats his dinner and washes his plate before dropping down onto the threadbare couch and turning up the volume.
Templesmith and Flickerman are chatting with a couple of actors, discussing their most recent film, love lives, and several other pointless things Gale can't make himself pay attention to. He's only watching for Madge.
"Do we have to watch this again?" Rory asks, flopping down next to Gale. "They already made us sit through it during class."
Gale grinds his teeth. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because."
"That's not a very good answer." Rory pushes himself up and goes to the tv and reaches to change the channel.
"Don't you dare," Gale growls, narrowing his eyes.
Rory grins. "Give me a reason."
Before Gale can tell him that if he changes that channel he's going to kiss the floor, and that should be all the reason he needs, Vick scrambles onto the couch.
"Because he needs to see that dress," he tells Rory. Turning to Gale, Vick grins. "It didn't have any sleeves, just wrapped around her top and it was low."
He gestures to his own chest, making a motion to show just how low the dress was and just why he's suddenly so fond of women's fashion.
Stomach making a sickened roll, Gale tries not to imagine what purpose a dress like that can serve other than to display goods soon to be available.
"It wasn't that low," he hears his mom say from the table where she's trying to clean the dinner off Posy's face.
"It was pretty and pink," Posy yells as she wiggles away from their mom. "She looked like a cupcake."
Gale gives her a grim smile. A cupcake is better than whatever the hell Vick and Rory think she looked like.
Jumping down from her seat, Posy runs over and crawls into his lap while Rory finally drops down cross-legged in front of the tv.
Several more minutes pass by, more mindless drivel, before they finally get to the recap of the first day of the Tour.
They start with Effie Trinket, smiling and waving to the crowd of grim faced District Eleven residents. Gale didn't think her outfits could get much worse, but he was wrong. He has to close his eyes for a few seconds to try to purge the image from his mind.
Haymitch comes out next, looking uncomfortable in his dress clothes as he tries to blend into the group of people at the back of the stage. They must be Eleven's mayor and his wife, their kids, but they get no introduction. They're only there to take up space, pad the illusion.
Finally, Madge steps out.
Just like his brothers had said, her dress is revealing, but it's also simple. It suits her more than the outfit she'd worn leaving Twelve.
She's carrying an umbrella. The rain must've followed her to Eleven.
Stopping before she reaches the lectern, she smiles brightly, waving at the crowd.
It's a fake smile, doesn't reach her eyes, Gale can see that even with the shitty quality of his family's television, but she doesn't let it slip. Lives depend on her smile, maybe his own.
Stepping up, onto the little podium they'd placed out for her, Madge continues to beam at the gloomy crowd as she speaks.
It's a canned speech, vile and simple, clearly written by someone not only in love with Panem and Snow and all the bullshit they represent, but also not nearly as smart as Madge. The wording is awkward and stilted, something Madge never is, even on her worst days when she's in a panic.
If Madge had written it, the words would've flowed, been graceful. She'd have worked in little barbs, so subtle no one would've ever picked up on them. He's seen her mince people with her words for years, quietly, unnoticed, and she would've done it again if she'd spoken on her own. She's too smart to do that though, knows better than to let her disdain shine through.
As she finishes up and Templesmith and Flickerman bubble and laugh, lavish Madge and her speech with praise. That tells Gale more than the actual speech ever could.
She'd let someone else write for her. It's brilliant actually. The Capitol would be placated and hopefully think she was falling in line, while keeping her mind, her most valuable weapon, hidden from them. They'd miss just how smart she really is under the layers of dull words and praise she's churning out.
While, he'd hoped for more than to see the hollowed out shell that is Madge, seeing her at all is a relief. Seeing that she's fighting, even if it's in a way that Gale never could, eases the ache in his chest a little.
"How do you suppose she keeps her boobs up in that?" Rory asks, pulling Gale back into the moment.
Closing his eyes, Gale crosses his arms over his chest and slumps further down, blocking his view of the tv with Posy's little body.
"Can she even wear a bra?" Vick wonders aloud, leaning off the couch and squinting at the screen.
Their mom makes a frustrated noise from the kitchen. "Boys! That's not appropriate!"
"Yeah," Posy adds. "You not supposed to talk about girls underwears."
"But how-"
"Vick," Gale cuts him off, "drop it."
Before Vick can start up again, the power cuts out, blinking Madge and her amazing gravity defying pink dress out as they're plunged into darkness.
Their mother sighs. "Good, time for bed."
Half an hour later, while Gale is getting comfortable in his too small bed, Vick sighs loudly over Rory's snoring.
"She didn't sound like herself," he says softly.
The sheets ruffle as he sits up, and Gale can feel him looking across the beds at him.
"Did she sound like herself to you?"
Gale shrugs. "How should I know?"
As far as Vick knows, Gale is nothing to Madge. Barely an acquaintance.
For that matter, how should Vick know? He's never even met Madge.
"She didn't," Vick finally decides, sighing again. "I hope she's okay."
Rolling on his side, Gale closes his eyes. He hopes she's okay too, at least as much as she can be.
#######
Eleven was gray.
Madge supposes during the summer it would be green, orchards full of fruits and fields of vegetables, but in the dead of winter it's nothing but bare trees and empty fields. She focused on that as she gave Ms. Trinket's speech, barren landscape stretching out around her.
She smiled and laughed, added all the right inflections, but didn't hear a word she said, didn't remember so much as a syllable. It was all noise with no substance, just as it was intended.
They showed the faces of the two fallen Tributes on enormous screens, their families standing as bleak reminders under them, as she spoke. It was a slap in their faces, and Madge wished more than anything at that moment that they didn't have to be there. They'd suffered enough, at least in her mind.
The words were like sand in her mouth, awful and grating. She was pouring salt on the wounds of people forced to watch her, but there was no choice. The lives of her parents, Gale and Peeta, all depended on her dedication to the illusion, hurt feelings didn't measure much against the threat of death though.
Only seconds after the last empty word passed her lips, with her soul feeling tarnished and leaden, she'd been ushered off the stage and into the frigid halls of District Eleven's Justice Building, Mr. Abernathy at her elbow.
"Did great, Pearl," he'd whispered as he guided her through the halls that twisted and turned.
She didn't ask him how he knew where he was going. Some things are best left unknown.
The next few hours had passed slowly.
There was a tour of a winter barren orchard, then a processing center where they canned fruit and vegetables, and then a walkthrough of a winery.
"Some of the best wine comes from the grapes processed here," the mayor told her.
Smile still tacked to her lips, Madge nodded, remembering with sickening clarity her private session with the Gamemakers. They'll expect her to be a wine connoisseur no doubt, and she hadn't bothered to refresh her memory on the subject. Another failure waiting to happen.
Finally, when the sun hung low in the gray cloud sky and the air had turned several degrees cooler, causing Portia to bring out Madge's matching coat, they'd gone back to the mayor's home.
After a dinner that could've fed a hundred people, but ended up half going to waste, Madge spotted a piano tucked into a dusty corner. She'd offered to play, just as she'd been told to do, and the mayor accepted. Then she'd asked for accompaniment mentioning the first name on Miss Alameda's list.
The mayor had looked momentarily confused, glancing at his wife as if she knew something he didn't, before nodding. "Of course."
Madge had tried to at least learn the names of her fellow Victors before her Tour. It was strategic. They weren't the enemy, but they could so easily be, and with the choice still in front of her, they probably will be.
She'd seen Chaff, Seeder, and Snaps, but not the woman that was supposed to sing while she played.
Finally, the Victor, Bur, an elderly woman, missing a few teeth and her dark skin hanging loosely on her bones, had stood. She'd looked close to tears as a beast of a man helped her out of her chair and to the piano.
"No one has asked me to sing in years," she whispered, her voice harsh and weathered but still unmistakably warm.
Smiling, Madge nodded, uncertain if she'd done the woman a kindness or dredged up painful memories.
"Do you mind if I pick the song?" Bur, asked her eyes crinkling up at the edges.
Still keeping the false smile in place, Madge nodded. "Sure."
With a gummy grin, Bur reached into her ancient looking purse and plucked the sheets of faded, unused music from the depths.
For a moment Madge wondered why the old woman would carry them with her before she realized it probably wasn't an accident. Just like everything else, this was orchestrated. All part of the game.
Staring at the notes, Madge built the song in her head, preparing her fingers to play before she gave Bur a little nod. "Okay."
Bur's voice quivered a little at the beginning, almost broke, but after the first few lines she found her footing as she closed her eyes and sang.
It was even, haunting, perfect for the strange mix of uneasy people gathered in the mayor's home.
Madge didn't look around, only focused on the off-key tones as they float from the piano. This was going to be part of her character, her piece in the game that was going to be her life, and she needed to learn it well.
When it finally came to an end, the last ghost of the notes fading into the air around them, Madge felt Bur's rough hand on her shoulder.
Looking over, she'd found the old woman smiling, content.
"Thanks," she whispered. "I've still got a little music left in me, huh?"
Unsure how to respond, Madge had simply nodded.
They'd been dismissed shortly after that, Madge and her retinue escorted back to the train for another night of travel.
"You were perfect," Mr. Abernathy tells her as he brings her an extra blanket, after she's changed into a warm nightgown Portia had set out for her.
Madge only stares at the floor, her extra blanket clutched to her chest.
"I was awful."
"Awful's part of the game, kiddo."
She nods.
The bed sags next to her and she hears him sigh.
"You'll get used to it," he tells her. "It's not you. It's a part you gotta play."
"You didn't."
He chuckles darkly. "Yeah, and look how that ended."
Stomach clenching up, Madge feels her eyes sting.
Look how that ended.
He's her warning. Mess up, don't play, and this is your future.
She imagines burying her parents in the cold, hard earth next to her Poppa, standing under a hateful gray sky with no one to mourn with her. Her mind conjures up Gale's siblings, thin and sick, dying, all because she'd been selfish, all because she'd put her injured mind above their survival, because she'd gotten Gale killed.
It's a risk she can't take.
Playing isn't optional, not when there's so much at stake.
Leaning over, she rests her head against Mr. Abernathy's shoulder.
"I hope I can keep it up."
He shifts, puts an arm around her shoulder.
"You can, sweetheart. You will."