Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.
Madge likes to listen to the silence. She adores the fact that it's never actuallysilent. The way the wind passes through the leaves, the chirp of the mockingjays in the sky. The sound of silence is something she craves. Especially here in the meadow, away from the Quell that stole two of her friends yet again, away from the house in which silent was really only that.
But something was off today, the proud footsteps of an unfamiliar person. Her eyes leaped open and she rolled around to face the person intruding on her quiet. She sat up even more when she realized he had stopped walking, he was just standing there watching her.
"Gale," she nods at him and then returns to laying down. She tells herself to focus on the laughter of children in the background or the bees as they buzz by, but all she can hear is the pounding in her ears. "Is there something you wanted?"
"Why are you out here?" he asks, his footsteps picking up again as he moves to stand next to her, eventually lowering himself to her side. "I see you walk out here every day. Why?"
"It's quiet," she says back. "It's peaceful." There's a pause as Gale adjusts how he's sitting, leaning over on his knees. "What do you want?" she nearly snaps, annoyed at how he's breaking the peace.
"You brought me morphling," he says. She swallows and blinks her eyes open. "I just found out." Madge forces herself up on her elbows and looks toward him as he stares at the fence that hums with electricity. "Why?"
"I…" she sits up all the way now. "I don't know."
"I owe you, Undersee," he mutters. "I don't know how to repay you."
"Why do you need to repay me?" she asks irritably. "Why couldn't I just do something for a friend?"
"Because we're not friends," he hisses. "Damnit, Undersee, why do you have to make things so difficult?"
"Why can't I do something nice without people questioning it?" she shoots back. "You were in pain… you… I couldn't stand seeing you like that, I…"
"But why?" Gale asks. "Why did it bug you so much?" She licks her lips and looks down at the grass. "Couldn't just let me die, could you?" Still, she doesn't speak. She closes her eyes and searches for the silence but only hears Gale shift next to her.
"Why can't you just drop it?" she finally asks.
"Because it saved my life," he stresses. "You saved my life." She shakes her head and keeps her eyes pressed shut. "Yes, you did."
"Yet you don't consider us friends," she whispers with a strangled laugh. Gale returns the noise and she peels her eyes open. "I think me saving your life is a good basis for a friendship."
"No," he shakes his head and leans back on his hands. "Friends watch each others back, not do each other favors. They protect one another, it's not a one way street." He says it like he mocks her lack of friendships.
"That's where you're wrong," her lips curve into the smallest smile. "Friends do things without expecting anything in return." He turns his head to face her and shakes his head slowly at her. "You want to repay me? Fine, all you have to do is sit there."
"Here?" he looks down at his spot and raises an eyebrow. "Why?" Madge lies back down in the grass and closes her eyes.
"Because. Just because I like the silence doesn't mean I like listening alone." There's a pause as Gale shifts, she figures he's getting up to walk away. But when she peeks through her eyes she sees him laying next to her, staring at the clouds.
"It's not enough," he says quietly.
"It's more than enough," she tells him. Her eyes remain shut for awhile as the silence carries on. The slam of a door back in the District, the grass being trotted on by a rabbit, and now, the steady breathing of someone other than herself.