Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.
**BUT this is a continuation of Chatper 188**

Gale never expected Madge Undersee to become a constant in his life, but now that she is he can't imagine anything else.

Since the night she gave him the sleeping pill there's been a shift between them, and he isn't entirely sure how to explain it. She smiles more, and he smiles back. She makes the kids laugh, and sometimes he laughs too. And when the darkness starts pulling him back in, whether it be late at night just before bed with Madge still over because they were playing cards, or in the middle of the hallway when someone drops something and the loudest bang startles him back to a gunfight at the Capitol, she always brings him back.

It's in the little moments Gale realizes how vital Madge is to him. How just the feel of her hand on him can steady his racing heartbeat, how she knows what to say with just one look at him. Madge Undersee is a godsend because though she'll never understand what it was like to fight at the Captiol, she understands him.

But Gale just received his clearance to go to District 2, and that isn't a journey he expects Madge to take with him.

He wants to tell her right away. Gale's been given a job on a District 2 with the military where he himself doesn't have to go into the field, not right away, but is able to train new recruits on how to handle guns and other strategic thought. Along with that they've given him an apartment. It's small, has one bedroom and one bathroom, but it has a balcony that allows him to step outside and breathe real air.

And he's excited, really. Getting out of District 13 is going to help him immensley, with the stress and the sleeping and the overall anxiety of constantly being underground. District 2 might have memories of The Nut, but it's far from Districts 12 and 13 and it's where they wanted him. It'll be a fresh start and that's what he wants.

Mostly.

That night as he's walking Madge back to her compartment (it used to be Haymitch's but he's finally made the move back to District 12, so now she lives alone), Gale remembers that with a fresh start comes the struggle of meeting new people. And looking to Madge by his side makes him not want to do that more than anything.

"Have you thought about leaving 13?" he asks. The question must startle her because she leaps a little. They've gotten good at being quiet around one another unless necessary. It's an easy friendship. "Sorry," Gale murmurs.

"It's okay. Um," Madge's eyebrows collide as she thinks. "I don't… I don't know." Her shoulders lift slightly and Gale slows his pace a little, knowing the walk back to her place isn't very long. "I always thought I'd head back to 12 but I don't…" she trailed off, shaking her head. "I don't think I can. Not yet, anyway. You know?" She laughs to herself a little. "Of course you know," she answers her own question. "You don't plan on heading back anytime soon."

"Not yet," he echoes what she'd said.

"How's your transfer to 2 coming along, anyway?" she asks. "Have you heard anything? I feel like it should have processed by now."

"Still waiting," he lies, immediatley hating himself as his words hang in the air. He knows he should be honest with her, tell her he's free to leave any day he wants, but something's holding him back. Something's keeping him from making that move. "You could go somewhere else," Gale tells her. "Anywhere but here."

"I guess." They reach her compartment and he slows to a stop. "I just don't know where I'd go. There's nothing out there for me."

"There's nothing in here for you either," Gale murmurs. Again she shrugs, and Gale wonder what it would feel like to not know where to belong. It's hard enough for him but at least he still has his family, and they'll always be home for him. Slowly they stop outside her door. "You should think about it," Gale says. "Leaving. Before you get stuck."

Madge is staring at his shoulder, unable to lift her eyes to meet his. She shrugs another time, unsure of what to say. The whole time they're together her energy is directed at making himfeel whole, complete. It's a different feeling when he voices his concerns about her.

"Want to come in?" she asks as she finally lifts her eyes. "Just for a bit." He hesitates. Not because he doesn't want too, but because he's scared of what could happen. Madge is important to him, somehow. She's helped him find a therapist that he trusts and can talk to openly and freely about his experiences. She comforts him with gentle touches and knowing smiles. She's warm in a place that is cold, so fucking cold all the time. Her face falls as he waits. "It's okay," she tells him gently. "You don't have to."

But really, he wants to.

"Maybe next time," he murmurs. She goes inside without another word.

Gale's therapist is a District 13 native. Gale had been hesitant to the concept of therapy, constantly echoing his mantra of I'm not broken, I'm not broken, I'm not broken, before Madge told him you don't need to be broken to take care of yourself. She convinced Gale that going to a therapist was like getting a good night of sleep, or remembering to eat food. Vital to surviving. Especially after a tragedy.

"I've already made arrangements to have your file sent out," his therapist, Jett, is telling him. "There's a place right up the road from your apartment. Very trusted. And you have my phone number if you have an emergency." Gale nods his head, keeping his eyes on the carpet. "Is there a reason you're still in 13, Gale?" Gale takes a deep breath, lifting his shoulders. "None of that," the doctor says. "We've talked about this."

Gale's a master at deflecting his problems. Jett never lets it slide. He told Gale that wasn't the point of therapy, to pretend like things were okay. The point was to talk about the anger, the pain, to understand it. That was how Jett got Gale screaming, pacing around the office with his chest heaving and tears stinging his eyes. By addressing the issue, not deflecting it. Gale's gotten better at not avoiding his thoughts, but sometimes he still reverts to deflecting.

"I feel like…" Gale starts, but then stops and shakes his head. "I don't know if I'm ready."

"Just last week you said you were," Jett reminds him. "What changed?"

"It became real, I guess." For so long District 2 had felt like a dream, almost. A near-happy ending to the war. But now that it's here, now that the option to leave is open to him… "I'm scared it won't be what I need it to be."

"And what do you need it to be?"

"Better," Gale mutters. Jett stares at Gale, waiting for him to continue. "Better than here."

"You know," Jett leans backwards in his chair, "it's not going to be better unless you actually go there, right?"

Gale lets out a short laugh. "Yeah, I know. Still, there's something." Gale rubs at his nose and shakes his head. "I–I don't know. Maybe it's something about being on my own."

"But you told me that was what you wanted," Jett says. "To be on your own. Get away from everyone. That they–"

"That they remind me of what I've done, yeah," Gale echoes his words from an earlier session as he rolls his eyes. "I know what I said. But not everyone reminds me of that." Jett arches an eyebrow and Gale sinks backwards in his seat.

"Oh? And who's this person?"

Gale lifts his eyes to his doctor's before looking back at the ground. Stop deflecting, he thinks, but he hears it in her voice. "Her name's Madge," Gale murmurs.

After a moment of silence, clearly Gale not wanting to carry on the conversation, Jett leans forward. "You've mentioned her before. Always positively." Gale remains neutral. "Why is she different?"

"She just is," Gale says with a sigh. "I don't–it doesn't make sense to me, she just is."

Again Jett waits for Gale to say something else, but when it becomes clear he won't Jett prompts him. "Tell me about her?"

It takes a minute but soon Gale's talking. It's hard to look at his therapist when he speaks so intimately about himself so his eyes are on the ground, but Gale starts talking until he can't anymore. He starts with District 12, about how she was the mayor's daughter, about how unfair it was that she was wealthy and well fed and well tended to all for being born into it. He talks about the berries he sold her family, mostly strawberries though, and Gale says something about how he thinks they're Madge's favorites. He talks about Madge's overwhelming kindness, even after Gale has always been rude and short with her. Madge's positivey, her sincerity, her genuine care for him despite the fact that they'd been nearly strangers before being in District 13 together.

"She was the one that helped me sign up for one of these sessions," Gale goes on. "Just through everything, I don't know why, but she–she's helped me through so much."

Jett is quiet, waiting to see if Gale has anything else to say, but nothing comes out. "I think sometimes the idea of leaving behind people we care about can be tricky. Especially people who've helped us when we may not have been able to do the same for them." Gale sighs, rubbing at his eyes. "It sort of feels like we owe them something. And Gale, from what I know about you, you're the kind of person that needs to repay people for what they've done for you."

"No, but she's more than that," he stops him. Jett's spot on, Gale has always been that person. But this is more than that. "I mean you're right, I wish there was something I could do for her, but regardless Madge is… she's just different."

Jett shifts in his seat. "It's always weird when someone treats us better than we think we deserve to be treated. Especially someone we weren't necessarily friendly with beforehand starts acting different." Gale sighs, once again rubbing at his eyes. "Why do you think she's acting different toward you? Because I have a thought."

"I don't…" Gale takes a deep breath. "Her parents are gone. Katniss, Peeta, she was close with both of them and now they're gone too. Haymitch is gone. Delly… my family's most of her ties back to District 12."

"Then why is she not closer with your mother, than you? From what you've told me they have a strong relationship." Gale wrinkles his nose, shifting his gaze from one of the colored patterns on the floor to another. "And from what you've told me, she's gone out of her way to assist you."

"That's just how she is," Gale mutters.

"Is it?" Jett asks. "You believe she would do the same for everyone?" Gale starts mentally deflecting. She can't. She can't. I know what he's implying, but she can't. "Must have a big heart," Jett says.

Gale doesn't say anything else.

That night Madge is over again. She spends a lot of time at the Hawthorne's now that Haymitch has gone, that most people from District 12 have started moving back. And the kids love her, so it's never been a problem.

Gale returns from putting Posy to bed to find Madge has moved from her spot on the couch where she'd just read Posy a bedtime story. She's at the table now, staring down at a manilla folder, and his heart sinks into his stomach. The world gets dizzy for Gale quickly, and when she looks up at him with questioning blue eyes it's even harder for him to breathe.

"You told me you were still waiting for your papers to be processed," Madge says. Gale licks his lips and grasps for something to say but everything is spinning, spinning. Quickly Madge reaches out, leaning over the table to grab his hand. "Hey," she pulls him toward her. "I'm not mad. Breathe." He takes a deep breath and squeezes her hand back before dragging the other through his hair. "I'm not mad," Madge says again.

It takes another second of deep breathing before he can open his eyes again. Slowly he moves to take the seat across from her. Even when he opens his eyes he can't look at her, though he knows she's looking at him.

"I wanted to tell you," Gale murmurs. "I didn't know how."

Her hand is still in his and he focuses on the warmth of her fingers. She starts rubbing her thumb over his knuckles and slowly he looks up to her.

"I think it's great," she says quietly. "This is what you wanted." Gale forces himself to nod, because as far as Madge knows she's right. This is what he wanted. To get out of District 13. To leave it all behind. "When do you leave?" Madge asks.

"I'm not sure yet."

With her freehand she closes the folder, directing all of her attention to him and not the papers. "Well I think it's great," she repeats. "It's something you wanted to do. It'll help you start over."

"Yeah," he murmurs. That's the plan. He pulls his hand away from hers and her smile starts to slip. "Yeah, you're right."

"What's stopping you from leaving?" she asks.

Gale's eyes finally find hers and she pauses. He studies her face, the curl of her eyelashes and pink of her lips. Watches as her cheeks turn red. The nervousness as she blinks, waiting for him to answer.

But he doesn't. Instead he says, "Let me walk you home."

He wants to ask her if she's thought about leaving District 13 since they last talked about it, but the words keep getting scrambled in his head and never make it up his throat. Every time he opens his mouth Gale feels like he's going to say the wrong thing, that something horrible will happen if he speaks, so their walk back to her compartment is mostly in silence.

Halfway there he glances at her from the corner of his eye, her arms tightly crossed over her chest as though she's cold – which she might be, it's drafty – but she looks a little upset too.

So he reaches out and stops her. Because He can't keep deflecting, he has to say what's on his mind.

"I think you should come to District 2," Gale says. She looks up at him and her eyes widen ever so slightly. "With me," he adds. "I think you should come to District 2 with me."

Her blush from earlier returns and she blinks a few times as she processes what he's said. "What?"

Anixety begins to pool in the pit of his stomach. Gale looks elsewhere to keep himself from shutting down. He remembers when he used to be brave and focuses on that feeling. "I want you to come to District 2 with me," Gale says this time. It's not what he thinks she should do, it's what he wants her to do.

"What would I–" Madge shakes her head as a smile forms on her face. "What would I do in District 2?"

"Anything you wanted," he murmurs. She takes a step toward him and he exhales in relief.

She licks her lips. "But with you?" she asks. And Gale nods, because that's what he wants. He can't imagine a life without Madge now, without her anchoring him back to reality and helping him fight his demons. He doesn't want to imagine a world like that. And he's not sure he can go without her.

Gale's known it this whole time, that she was his reluctance for leaving. But finally admitting it is almost freeing. And her apparent agreement makes him feel like he can breathe again.

She strides toward him then and presses herself on her toes. Gale doesn't know why he's so shocked when she kisses him. He should've expected it. It's what he and Jett had more-or-less talked about, anyway. Yet still, he wasn't. Gale didn't expect this at all. Her mouth is warm, just like the rest of her entire being, and her hands on his cheeks are soft. But Gale pulls away after just a moment, his hand firm on her shoulder.

"Madge," he rasps. And then he shakes his head. Because even though he should have known the implications of his request, it wasn't where his mind was. Not completely. And when she realizes this Madge takes a step away from him, her face falling. "Madge," he says again.

"Oh God," she reaches up and wipes at her mouth. "I'm–I'm so sorry." Gale's still shaking his head, this time not wanting her to feel like this, but she's staring at the ground. "I–I didn't–I thought you meant," Madge presses her hand to her mouth and Gale watches her eyes rapidly filling with tears. "I'm sorry," she says again. "I–of course–you still–" she takes a broken breath. "Katniss."

Katniss.

Hearing her name makes his heart break. Not only because of how they had ended things, but because of how sad it sounds coming from Madge's mouth. Before Gale can say anything else Madge is gone, her footsteps soft against the tiled floor, and then he is alone again.