Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.
If the shriek hadn't woken him up, the fact that someone had literally fallen on top of him would've.
Gale fumbles around in his bed as whatever is happening continues to happen. He's half asleep and for all he knows a squirrel or a cat has fallen through the roof or something, but when he finally sits up and makes eye contact with a breathtaking blonde with eyes so wide and blue, he's instantly awake.
"I'm so sorry," the girl says. She rolls out of his bed, straightening out her shirt and looking awfully embrassed. "I–I really didn't mean to do that," she says. Gale blinks hard, scrubbing at his eyes and trying to figure out if he's dreaming or not. "I'll just be going," she says quickly.
And with a snap of her fingers, she disappears from his sight, leaving him alone in his bedroom.
Gale looks over at the clock, finding it to be nearly two in the morning, and convinces himself that he was dreaming.
It happens again.
Gale sleeps on his back, he always has. They say that it's not the best way to sleep, or whatever, but it's easiset for him. So this time when whatever is happening is happening, the girl, whoever she is, lands on his bare chest with a thud.
Gale sits up in a quick panic, hitting his forehead to the girl's forehead with a loud bang, and then they both groan. Her hands fall flat against his skin, cold fingers against his warm body. Quickly she rolls off of him, holding her hand to his forehead.
"I'm so sorry!" she gasps.
"What the fuck is going on?" he demands at the same time. He sits up straight in bed, rubbing the tender spot on his forehead, and watches as she wobbles to her feet. "How did you get into my apartment?!"
"I overshot!" Gale doesn't know what that means, and she shakes her head another time. "I'm sorry," she says another time, and with another snap of her hands, she's gone.
Gale wakes up at nearly two in the morning every night for a week. He sits up in a hurry, thinking someone must be breaking into his apartment, but his building is always still and empty.
He wants to blame it on a dream, a very vivid dream, but the small lump he received on his forehead after the last… encounter, was proof that it couldn't have been. Right?
Over beers one night he turns to Thom and asks, "Do you believe in angels?" Thom nearly throws up from laughing so hard. "I'm serious," Gale presses angrily, needing some sort of explanation for whatever it is that's been happening to him.
By the time Thom has wiped tears of mirth out of his eyes, Gale wants to throttle him. But eventually Thom straightens up. "I went to church a lot when I was a kid," Thom says. "Angels… I mean, they're supposed to be terrifying. They're not pretty blonde girls that crawl into bed with you."
But that isn't correct, because whoever the girl is she hasn't been crawling into bed. It's like she's fallen onto Gale, suspended just above him and dropped down from the ceiling.
That night Gale checks his ceiling, looking for cracks or holes or something someone could be climbing through, because his only other explanation is that he has a stalker.
After locking, deadbolting, and putting a chain lock on his door that night, Gale crawls into bed feeling fine.
But it happens again, because of course it does.
The girl, whoever she is, tries to scramble out of Gale's bed with a yelp. But as though he's been expecting this arms come together quickly, holding her in his grasp.
"Who the fuck are you?" Gale demands to the girl wriggling from his body. "How do you keeping getting inside?!"
She finally gets his arms off of her, "It's–complicated!" Only when she's sprawled across the floor, throwing herself from his bed, does she snap her fingers. And then she's gone again.
But this time Gale has proof that it's real.
In the midst of the struggle he'd accidentally grabbed onto her necklace, and because of her fighting back the chain had snapped. Once she disappears from his sight he opens his hand to find a golden pendant in his palm.
Gale waits up the next night.
He knows it's ridiculous, but frankly he's losing his mind. He's curious about the pretty girl and sort of terrified that he's going insane at the same time.
And he's glad he waits up, because when she appears it's all at once.
If he had blinked he would've missed it, but he watched her materialize in front of him, this time at the front of his bed with her arms crossed over her chest nervously. She tips her head back and studies him, and he studies her.
"Are you real?" he asks.
A tiny smile emerges on her face. "Just as real as you," she says, which doesn't help, because he starts thinking that he doesn't actually exist. "You have my necklace," she says.
Gale holds up his hand, knowing the pendant is inside. It's a golden bird that he spent all day searching for online, only to fail to figure out what kind of bird specifically.
"What's your name?" Gale asks, not wanting to her to leave just yet. He checks the clock and finds it nearly two in the morning again. For all he knows he's dreaming.
"Madge," she answers. Her arms are still crossed over her chest, but she looks more sure of herself. "And if I tell you how I'm here right now, you'll laugh at me." He arches an eyebrow and she shuffles on her feet. "So if you could just give me my necklace I can go, and hopefully never bother you again."
Gale lowers his hand. "No. Tell me."
"I teleported," she answers swiftly. Gale snorts. "I told you that you'd laugh." She lifts her hand and snaps, and quickly she disappears and rematerializes across the room. Gale twists his head so fast he's surprised his neck doesn't snap. "Can I have my necklace, now?"
"How did you–"
She snaps again, ending up closer to his bedside. "That's a question I can't answer," she says. "Because I don't know." Madge hands out her hand, expecting him to give her the necklace, but he doesn't. Instead Gale reaches up with his other hand, grabbing her wrist gently as if to confirm she's actually here. "I'm sorry for landing on you," she says hesitantly as Gale studies her hand.
"Impossible," he murmurs under his breath.
"My best friend's apartment is the building next door," she says. "And sometimes I overshoot. Your apartment is in the exact wrong space for me."
"Impossible," Gale says again. He looks up at her, the light freckles over her nose and the long curl of her golden eyelashes. "This is impossible."
"Just give me my necklace and I'm off," she says. "And probably will never be back."
"And you just–you just–" Gale snaps with his freehand and Madge winces as though she's about the move, but thankfully they stay where they are. "Incredible."
"I don't.. actually have to…" she gestures to her hand, meaning the snapping. Gale's finally released her wrist. "But it helps me focus if I do." She looks at his hand holding the necklace. "Listen, I really gotta go, so can I just–" Gale holds up the necklace to her and she smiles. "Thank you," she whispers.
Once the necklace is in her hand, she snaps, and then she's gone again.
He spends the next day on the internet again, searching for strange and mysterious stories like the Madge girl. He also searches for her, coming up with nothing.
And she doesn't overshoot again, not for a long time, which leads Gale to believe that maybe he was dreaming.
But after a month or so passes he wakes up to a gentle knock on his door. Confused, alarmed, he sits up to find Madge peering into his bedroom.
"I thought it would be safer if I came outside of the bedroom this time," she says nervously. Gale reaches for the lamp on his bedside table and filling the room with yellow light. "I need a place to stay for a bit," she tells him. "Can I…"
Madge trails off, and Gale nearly leaps out of bed at the sight of her. She's covered in blood. "What the hell happened to you?" he demands, as though they're best friends, as though he deserves this information. "Are you off playing hero, or something?"
"Something," she mutters. He drags her to the bathroom where he forces her to sit before wiping the blood away. All of it seems to be residue from someone else, she doesn't have and scrapes herself. "I mean, if I've got this ability I might as well use it."
"So what happened?" Gale asks again, later, once the room is quiet again.
"There was a bank robbery," Madge tells him. She would teleport in, grab someone, and teleport out before anyone noticed. She likes to stay invisible, she doesn't want people to know she's there. But soon the robbers picked up that they were getting out somehow and started firing randomly. "I think I ended up getting more people killed than I did by saving them," she says to him. Her voice is empty. "I just wanted to help."
Gale makes her a cup of tea and turns on the television, finding a new report about the robbery. There are eyewitnesses talking about the girl who transported them out, and Gale feels relief. Mostly just because he knows he's not insane. Overall there were only three deaths, and they caught the robbers.
"Why didn't you teleport the bad guys?" Gale asks later. "Into the back of a cop car, or something?"
"That's really precise," she tells him. "My powers aren't that refined yet. I've been practicing and getting better, though."
He lets her sleep, watching over her as though that's protection enough. But Gale isn't a superhero, and he doesn't know anything about heroes in general, and mostly he's just worried about the strange girl who accidentally teleported into bed with him one night.
She starts coming to him whenever things get to hard for her to handle. "My friends don't always understand," she says. "I try and save people from things–fires, stolen cars, whatever–I'm just not fast enough sometimes, or well tuned. And then people end up dead, or hurt, and that's on me."
And Gale doesn't ask too many questions, not after the first time, so she likes to be there. He doesn't mind.
It becomes practically routine. And before he knows it Madge has become an integral part of his life.
"I mean, I don't know," Gale says one night over pizza and beers, "you could've done some really shitty things with this power you have. And instead you help people. It's–that's incredible."
"Well I try to help," she mutters.
"That's what matters."
And one night, she tells him about her necklace. "It was my mother's," she says. "Her parents worked for this group of scientists that were trying to genetically modify animals, and they ended up creating the Mockingjay. It wasn't supposed to exist. But it sang the most beautiful songs…" she trails off with a rueful smile. "I like to think of myself the same way."
It isn't until the night Madge arrives soaking wet does Gale realize how much he really worries about her. "A bridge collapsed," she tells him as he rifles through his closet, trying to find something warm for her to change into. "And I–I'd never done it before, but I kept t-teleporting to the water to fish people out, and–it–it was really hard, and c-cold, but–"
"It's fine," he tells her, finally finding something. "Just change. I'll order some food."
So she changes, and he orders the food, pacing his living room while she tries off. And when she emerges he wraps her in his arms. "You have to be more careful," he nearly orders. Because he can't imagine a life without her now.
In the end, there are no super villains or evil monsters that wreck havoc on the city. And they're not really sure there are others like Madge out there. Gifted, with abilities or magic orsomething. But she does small good deeds for people when she can. She gets people out of burning buildings, but she also helps people to the hospital faster, and stops them from getting their bags stolen.
And when all is said and done she teleports back to Gale's apartment, straight into his bed, curling up beside him. "I'm so sorry," she murmurs as he wraps his arms around her. "I didn't mean to be so late."
He presses a kiss to her forehead. "As long as you're safe," he murmurs back.