Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Of all the coffee shops in all of the Districts in all of Panem, he walks into hers.

Madge had heard the tinkling of the little bell over the door, announcing a customer's arrival, and had turned to greet them, when she found herself seeing the now unmistakable figure of Gale Hawthorne. She'd promptly ducked behind the nearest row of the finest coffee, imported all the way from District Nine.

Of all the shit luck.

She'd known he was in the area, it had been only two days since she'd encountered him at the Independence Day celebration, but she had never, not in a million years, would have expected him to show up in her place of employment.

He was examining a bag of dark roast, his grey eyes flickering over the words on the bag, when he looked around. Madge kept her head down, trying to appear terribly interested in rearranging the display for a set of handcrafted mugs they'd just gotten in.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

His deep voice jolts her from her busy work. She grimaces and keeps her back to him.

"Hmm?"

"Can you tell me what the difference is between these two? They both say 'dark roast' but one says 'French' and one says 'Italian'…what does that even mean?"

To be honest, Madge isn't quite certain herself. She's sure the names meant something at some point in the past, but their meanings have been lost to the point she thinks perhaps the monikers are only artifacts of a bygone era. She's almost ninety percent certain they're only labeled with the names now for pricing differences.

"Oh, uh, no difference, really." She studiously straightens another mug.

"Then why name them that way?"

Madge shrugs. She can feel him puzzling over the beans behind her.

"But…" He sighs. "You know, in most Districts it's considered rude to not even look at a customer."

"Maybe I don't work here," she tells him flatly. Maybe out and out rudeness will get him to leave.

"You're fixing a display."

Did not think that through…

"Well then I'm clearly busy. Go get someone else to help you." She tells him with faux pleasantness.

His feet shuffle, then she hears him mutter something about 'wheat fed prairie bastards', before he heads to the counter where Katy-Jo Lewes is flirting with very hairy wrangler.

Madge finally takes a breath, glad to have escaped her past once more. She watches Gale discuss the nonexistent differences with Katy-Jo Lewes before purchasing the 'French Roast' and heading for the door.

Before he reaches it, the door bursts open and a gaggle of schoolchildren burst in. They always turned up at three fifty-nine every afternoon for after school treats. Normally, Madge welcomed their energy, but today they were the harbingers of her doom.

"Madgie!" Rowdy, a brown haired, brown eyed, mess of an eight year old boy shouted at her. "Did you make caramel cupcakes for me today?"

Madge feels the room stop as Gale's eyes follow Rowdy's line of vision to her. Everything, every giggle and snort, every bag swung, every chair screeched across the ground seems sluggish and distant. The color drains from her face when Gale's gaze finally reaches her.

Exit, pursued by a former acquaintance.

Madge turns to bolt to the back of the shop, but one of the little girls trips her up and she ends up splayed out on the floor between the tea infusers and the ice tea spoons. She scrambles and tries to continue her escape only to be hauled up by a pair of large hands.

"Oh, thank you," she automatically responds. Then she remembers why she tripped, why she was making an escape, and, much to her annoyance, that reason had a firm grip on her upper arm.

"Madge?"

His eyes are wide. He's seeing a ghost. Flesh and blood and bruised knees. He's seeing someone he thought was dead.

"Madg-"

She tries to pull her arm away, she isn't giving up her new existence without a fight, but his grip is too strong and he clamps down.

"Let. Me. Go!" She struggles against him.

"Stop that!" He yells, his old temper flaring up.

He pulls her back and her instincts kick in. Before she knows what she's doing she's reared back and her fist is making contact with his face. Blood erupts from his nose and he curls back, cupping his nose.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god!" She's never hit anyone in her entire life. She's never felt the need to, talking was always a much better solution.

"I am so, so, sososososososososososo sorry!" She whimpers as she looks frantically around for something to put on his nose.

"Don't apologize!" A girl with wild strawberry hair yells, "He deserved it! He didn't listen! You said let me go and he didn't!"

"Yeah!" The other children chorus.

"Hit him again!" She squeals.

"Yeah!"

"Hit him harder!" Another boy calls out.

"Yeah!

"Break his legs!" An elderly lady bellows from by the window.

"Yes!"

Madge looks at them wide eyed, "What is wrong with all of you? Stop that. Leave us alone."

They look disappointed that they aren't going to get more of a show but finally leave Madge to her work of helping Gale with his now gushing nose.

She snatches up a mug and sticks it to his face to catch the blood.

Katy-Jo Lewes reappears from the back, looking confused. "What in the hell is going on up here?"

"Madgie just decked a guy!" Rowdy explains.

Her eyes widen as she spots Madge, now covered in Gale's blood and holding the mug to his face.

"Ew!" She makes a disgusted face. "I hope you know that's coming out of your paycheck." She looks out at the children, "And I want all y'all to know that's how we're gonna be dealing with unruly customers from now on. I'll sic Madgie on your lil asses."

Madge takes him to the back of the shop and gathers up rags and an ice pack. She dabs the now drying blood off his upper lip and cheek, gently rubbing the side of his nose.

"Hell of a right hook you got there, Undersee."

She makes a pained face. It was a right straight, but she doesn't correct him. "Yeah, sorry."

He reaches up and stills her hands. He's watching her like she'll dissipate at any moment, which if she had her wish, she would.

"How are you here?"

She shrugs, "Horseback."

He gives her a sharp look, "That's not what I mean. How are you alive? We found your body. Your house was destroyed. I saw it."

"You found a body. My mom was the only one home, and I think the staff figured the Mayor's house would be spared, that's who the others were. Dad was electrocuted when he dismantled the override at the main electrical hub, so that the fence would be un-electrified."

He gingerly touches his nose, "And you?"

Madge wrinkles her nose. "I was rescued by riders from District Ten. They arrived just before the bombing started, tried to help me warn those in Town to get out of their cellars. Not that it did us any good."

Everyone in Town was killed, despite her best efforts.

"Why are you hiding?"

She gives him a sharp look, "I'm not."

"What do you call this?" He gestures to the room, "What do you call ignoring me? Not letting me get a good look at you? Nearly trampling a kid to get away from me?"

"Oh, come on, Gale, I can hardly be the first girl to go to such desperate measures to escape you."

She meant it as a joke, but judging by his flinch she may have went just a tad too far.

"You let everyone think you were dead."

"I didn't letthem do anything. I just didn't correct them. I'm not exactly hiding, despite what you may think. My names the same, I don't look any different, I work in the service industry-"

"Why wouldn't you want to go back with everyone?" He shouts.

"With who?" She snaps. "My many friends and admirers? I don't know if you received a head injury during the war, General, but I wasn't the most popular girl in the District. I pretty much just had my parents and they're de-" she takes a deep breath, steadying herself. "They're dead. There is no one that needs me. There's no reason for me to go back."

"My brothers and sister-"

"-are little kids. They've probably already forgotten about me. I wasn't some huge part of their life. Just some girl who brought them food and bad news."

He's on his feet, looming over her, and she thinks maybe she should grab the mug to defend herself with, when he pulls her into a hug.

She would have been less surprised if he had turned into a canary.

Gale's hand is in her hair, fingers tangling in it tightly, almost painfully, and he's pressing her into his chest as if she's the only thing holding him to the earth.

"So many people died, Madge," he murmurs into her hair.

He doesn't say it, but Madge can feel it in his heartbeat thrumming against her chest; in this crazy, messed up world, where so much is gone, so many are dead, she's alive.

Three years and she's never really appreciated that fact, that she's alive. She shouldn't be. She should be among the ash covering what's left of District Twelve, with her parents. For three long years she's existed as a shade of herself, because admitting something as wonderful as the fact that she's alive would've just opened her up to more of the misery that the living endure.

Living in the twilight between alive and dead is no longer an option now that Gale has found her.

Slowly, timidly, she wraps her arms around his waist.

"I know, Gale," she gives him a gentle squeeze. "I'm here."