Disclaimer: All stories are usually individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other but this one has previous ones. 19 and 23!
Stay home, they said. Stay home and wait. Stay home and wait for your loved ones to return, or not return. Stay home and stare at the window as the soot wraps around the houses. Stay home and force tears to stay pent up. Stay home and pray. Stay home.
And Madge did, she didn't have a choice. She had been with Katniss when the mines collapsed, all the way across town. They could still hear it though, the sounds that rocked the earth, the screaming that pierced their ears. The two friends pounded down the streets, into the Seam, cringing at the coal dust that engulfed them.
And then they waited outside the mines as they heaved people up. "Gale?" Madge scanned everyone that came up, everyone around. "Has anyone seen Gale?" She pulled shoulders and grabbed faces and tugged on shirts, but none belonged to her husband.
"Mrs. Hawthorne, you've got to go home," a man said to her. Everyone knew she was Gale's wife, her blonde hair sticking out among the crowd.
"Don't you dare," she hissed at Thom, "treat me like I'm just another wife in the crowd." Thom and Gale were best friends, meaning Thom and Madge had plenty of time to get to know each other. "He's my husband and he's your best friend!" she jabbed her finger as his chest as Katniss pulled her backwards.
"Stay home," he said weakly. "Katniss, make sure she stays home. You'll be first to know anything, I swear." The way his voice broke told Madge that they hadn't found Gale yet.
"He's my husband!" Madge screamed again, trying to get her friends arms off of her, but she was too weak. "He's my…" she trailed off, sobs wracking her body.
And that's where she was now, sitting at home in Gale's favorite chair as the screams of agony echoed from down the street. Or pacing the kitchen as men grunting to get debris off the fallen carried through the cracks in the house. Or scrubbing dishes as the cries of those who had lost their family members echoes in the emptiness.
"He's going to be okay," Katniss reassured her, but Madge shook her head. She was numb, no matter what she did to get her mind off of it she'd feel tears dripping down her cheeks. "Madge, you have to stay strong for him." But she continued to shake her head. Eventually she gave up trying to keep her mind off of the subject at hand and collapsed over on herself, weeping into her hands.
Katniss uncomfortably wrapped her arm around her friend. She had been through this once when her father died, but Gale? Not only was Gale Katniss's best friend, but she had never seen anyone care so much about him other than Madge. It would break her if he didn't come home, it would break a lot of people.
Hours into the night after Katniss had dozed off on the couch when she thought Madge was sleeping, a knock echoed on the door. This was it, Madge thought to herself. They've come to tell her that they found his body. That they did everything they could. Again, the knock persisted, and Madge slowly made her way to the door. Maybe if she didn't open it then she wouldn't have to find out the truth, that the only person she had left to love was dead.
She wasn't a coward though, she knew Gale would want her to own up. Slowly, she unlatched the door and pushed it open. Against the doorframe leaned a tattered man with his head down, his helmet loosely in his hand. He looked up as the light from her house poured into the street.
"Gale?" she choked out, his eyes meeting hers. A pool of gray meeting her blue, a scar about a centimeter down his left cheek, and that same tiny smile he always gave her when he couldn't think of anything to say. "G-Gale…" she lurched forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "Oh my God," she sobbed into his chest and he dropped his helmet, letting it collide with the ground.
"Hey," he said weakly. "You had the door locked." A strangled laugh escaped her throat as she pressed him closer. "Don't squeeze so tight, I think I have a broken rib." She pulled away and grabbed his face, pulling his lips crashing against hers. His hands wrapped around her waist as she frantically kissed him. "It's okay," he said when she was finished. "I'm right here." He cupped her face and pressed his forehead against hers. "I'm right here."
"I thought you were," she let her chin quiver as he wiped under her eyes.
"Don't say dead," he replied quietly, pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. Again, his lips were on hers, warm and comforting. His hands kept her close as they stumbled backwards into the house, slamming the door and not caring if it woke Katniss on the couch. "I love you," he whimpered against her. "No way in hell I was letting them take me from you."