Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.
A/N: There are a lot of piano songs in this! They're all at the bottom - Youtube songs. Gale's song at the end is Ludovico Einaudi - Oltremare.
Every person Madge had ever met had a piano song attached to them. She was particular to modern pieces, amazed at what composers in current days could come up with compared to the classics, but that played no favor on what song went to which person.
Her mother was 'River Flows in You' by Yiruma, one of Madge's personal favorites. It was soft and sweet, delicate like her fragile mother, and reminded her of a misty morning.
Katniss was 'A Path to Solitude', a piece that made Madge think of a walk through the woods on an autumn day.
Her father was 'Moonlight Sonata'. Peeta was the theme from Pixar's Up. Her math teacher was 'Rue de Cascades'. Uncle Haymitch was 'Clair de lune'. She didn't know how they came to her head, or how they fit, but no matter who the person was she had a song for them.
Well, except for him, of course.
Gale Hawthorne was a blank slate. She could play a thousand songs and none of them fit and it drove her absolutely up the wall. Most people, whether she knew them well or not, she could at least conjure up a little jingle for them. A few notes here and there. But nothing fit Gale.
It didn't help that during her free period, when she had the music room all to herself, she would find him in the back of the room working on homework. He didn't even pay any attention to her as she played, she assumed he just liked to sit in a quiet space considering they were hard to find in high school. She didn't mind. Really. He never said anything. But it would be much less unsettling if she could pin a piece to him.
One afternoon she was working through Debussy's 'Arabesque #1' when Gale stormed in a few minutes later than usual and flung himself down on a chair. He dropped his head into his hands with a sigh and Madge's fingers paused over the keys. She looked over her shoulder at him but he just sat, his head in his hands, breathing slowly.
She and Gale were friends by association. They both sat at the same lunch table, thanks to Katniss, and had a few classes together, but it's not like they would text each other asking to hang out. Maybe if he forgot what the assignment was for biology but that hardly counted as communication.
"Gale?" she asked. With another sigh, this one much more frustrated, he lifted his head. "Are you okay?"
"Do I look okay?" he muttered. She frowned and looked away. "I—sorry," he called. "I'm fine. Didn't do so well on a test." She dipped her head slightly and placed her hands over the keyboard, ready to play again, when she heard him lift from his seat.
She glanced over her shoulder again and found him striding toward her. "Can I help you?" she asked, watching as he lowered himself into a seat just off to the side.
"What were you playing?" he asked. "When I came in?"
Madge lifted her eyes to the sheet music. "Arabesque number one," she said. He frowned. "It's kind of old." Gale nodded, moving his eyes to the keyboard. Madge hesitated, "Do you want me to play it?"
"It was nice," he murmured.
Not wanting the awkward conversation her fingers picked up at the beginning, tapping out a tune that formed constellations in her veins. She always liked Debussy. She blew a strand of hair from her face and her eyes synced with her hands. The piece was nearly flawless, except for a few minutes in when her hand slipped. She let out a huff of air and the strand of hair that was in front of her face goes flying.
"What?" Gale asked. Madge startled, forgetting that he was there and had moved so close.
"I messed up."
"Didn't sound like it."
Madge frowned, "I played this," she said, tapping the incorrect tune, "when it should have been this." She fixed the notes but it still felt off balanced, not being played with the rest of the piece.
"Not much of a difference," Gale muttered.
Madge lifted her eyes to him, away from the black and white of piano keys and sheet music, and saw him watching her with his steel gray eyes. She fidgeted on her bench.
"You're in here every day," she said. Gale cocked an eyebrow, his trademark scowl slowly slipping from his face. "Why?"
"It's easier to do homework here," Gale answered easily. He licked his lips and shrugged his shoulders. "The music is nice. I don't have much time after school with practice then work. Got to get it done some time. Preferably free period." Madge dipped her head and looked back toward the piano. "Do you know anything other than classics?" he asked.
"Of course I do," Madge said.
"Like what?" Madge thought for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip, before she dove into a song. Madge liked to play classics according to the sheet music but one of her favorite things to do was take a song and play it by ear. She was only a few notes in when Gale started to chuckle, so deep that she felt it in her bones. "Is that from Frozen?"
Madge nodded, continuing the tune. If she were singing along she'd be right at let it go, let it go…
"Surprised you know it," she said.
"You're playing by ear," he noted. She nodded. "I took my sister to see it." She nodded again. "It was good." Madge laughed and Gale lifted himself from the seat, walking even closer. Her fingers paused. "No, keep going. I like watching you play."
The announcement startled her. She could've guessed he liked listening to her play. Everyone did. She was good. But watching her? Had he always done that? She does recall looking over her shoulder every now and again and just barely catching Gale look away. Maybe he always watched her as she played, her fingers gliding across the keys.
She still had yet to resume playing. "Anything not Disney?" Gale asked, filling in the silence.
"Yeah," she forced out. Madge cleared her throat and focused back on the keys, trying to figure out something he'd like to hear. Suddenly it hit her, a song that was often on the radio but not necessarily something he would hate. Gale laughed when he figured out she was playing 'Radioactive' by Imagine Dragons. She got all the way through the song before he said anything.
"You're really good." Another startling announcement. It left the air in the room heavy. Her fingers wouldn't move.
Needing a new plan she asked, "What's your favorite song?"
Gale sucked his teeth. "Think you can play it?"
"If I know it," she nodded. It might also help her match some sort of tune to him.
Gale leaned onto the piano and stared down at the keys. "What's yours?" he asked.
"Favorite piano song or favorite song song?"
"Either or." Madge bit down on her bottom lip again and lifted her shoulders. She placed songs with other people, never really picked one out for herself. She loved to play the piano. Just the music, any music that was leaking from her fingertips, was her favorite at the time. "I'm on a Mumford kick," Gale finally said.
She lifted an eyebrow. "Mumford and Sons?" He nodded, and she went to work.
Weep for yourself my man, you're not as brave as you were at the start.
Gale stared, amazed, and eventually sunk onto the bench beside her. He watched her fingers methodically moving across the keys as she played the song out in her own head, echoing it beautifully in a way he had never imagined. Her fingers danced quickly, perfectly, and mimicked Little Lion Man without fault. At one part she scrunched her nose and he immediately knew that she messed up, but he hadn't heard it.
It was incredible, hearing her play like she did, feeling the music seep through him from sitting so close. Having sat so far away every time he came in here he could hear the music but he couldn't feel it, for Christ's sake.
Eventually the song dwindled to a close. Her fingers hovered over the keys but she didn't play.
"Well?"
"Shit, Undersee," he chuckled as she blushed prettily. "That was great."
"Mm," she agreed halfheartedly. Everyone's their own worst critic. He nudged her, wanting more, and she shrugged. "It still wasn't right."
"Right for what?"
"You," Madge frowned. She turned to him embarrassedly and quickly explained how her brain worked. Not in memories, or in words really, but rather in piano music. "I can come up with something for everyone," she told him. "Just not you."
He cocked an eyebrow and felt a weight in his chest that wasn't there before. A slight uneasiness that Madge Undersee thought about him frequently enough to know she couldn't figure out a song for him.
Gale didn't know how to respond. He sat still beside her. Their thighs were touching. Free period would be over soon and they would go back to their lives pretending that this little piano session had never occurred. She tilted her head, her blonde hair spilling everywhere, and studied him much like he had studied her over the course of the year. Their eyes met, hers a deep startling blue that he had never seen up close before. She bit down on her bottom lip and studied his features. His sharp jawline, his chapped lips, his silver eyes. It hit her all at once.
"I've got it," she whispered. Madge reached in her bag and pulled out a thick book filled with music, flipping through it until she found the piece she was looking for.
The weight in his chest felt heavier as she turned back to the keys. He was terrified, suddenly, that the piece Madge linked with him wouldn't be what he expected it to be. But what did he expect? Surely she thought of him as someone loud, someone who didn't care much about anything. He hadn't showed her a different side of him. But when she played…
How had she not seen it before? It rolled over the two of them like tidal waves, amazing the both of them at once. Gale soaked up the music as though he was on the beach, felt the air shifted around them. She had never seen the side of Gale that she was playing, she had never known him as this sort of song. But it was perfect. And it was Gale.
She played with such confidence, such ease, that the weight in his chest dissipated and dissolved into nothing. How could she possibly know him so well? They hardly talked. Hardly spoke at all about anything. And yet here she was…
Finally the song came to an end and she left her fingers hovering on the keyboard. She blinked a few times. Both of them were scared to move. She opened up a piece of her when she played that song for him, his song, and they both felt it humming between them.
"How…" she cleared her throat and looked back toward him. "How did you like it?"
He blinked, too. "How did you know?" he asked softly. Their eyes met again, neither of them dared to move. How could a piano song be so intimate? How could it make him crave every bit of Madge Undersee all at once? To know the inner workings of her brain, to know how she unraveled him so perfectly.
The bell rang suddenly and broke the tension. Gale eased from the piano bench at once and Madge pushed her sheet music together. He strode back to his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, knowing he should've at least tried to get some homework done.
Madge called after him as he left. He turned, lifted an eyebrow, and smiled when he saw her acting nervous.
"Are you coming back tomorrow?" she asked.
His smile widened. "I come every day," Gale said. Finally she smiled too, and then he slipped out of the music room.
Madge waited until he left to let out the breath of air she had been holding in. She never expected learning Gale's song would render her so unbalanced. It was a feeling she liked. It was a feeling she wanted more of.
In order of mentioned/played:
Mother's song: /watch?v=F-4wUfZD6oc
Katniss's song: /watch?v=FIgJIYIoLiE
Father's song: /watch?v=4Tr0otuiQuU
Peeta's song: /watch?v=fnyEi4qeuAk
Teacher's song: /watch?v=BFHkSz4J-gI
Haymitch's song: /watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY
Debussy: /watch?v=A6s49OKp6aE
Let it Go: /watch?v=q0yVJUuSZ10
Radioactive: /watch?v=ofoVDaAYars
Mumford and Sons: /watch?v=HsDAvPPpuXA
Gale's song: /watch?v=R8MzHqkNBwo