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

Bump in the Night

Gale wakes when a tiny set of fingers pry his heavy lids open.

"You seepin', daddy?"

Well not anymore.

Wide gray eyes, like his own, but less stormy, much more calm like Madge's, stare back at him from the edge of the bed. His son's lower lip puckers out when Gale doesn't answer.

"You hurt?"

Gale shakes his head, partly to tell him no and partly to dislodge the last of sleep haze from his head. He hadn't been sleeping all that well anyways, he rarely did when Madge was gone, which wasn't often, but that seemed to make her absence that much more aching.

He pushes himself up, "What's wrong?"

Glen normally slept through the night, something had to have woken him. Maybe his mother being off, down to District Ten to visit her insane friends, had thrown off his night as much as it had Gale's own. The past two nights had felt an eternity long.

"Is you sad?" Glen climbs up on the bed, plops cross legged down next to him, sets him in his steady little gaze.

Gale shakes his head again. Why was his son waking him up in the dead of night to ask such strange questions? "Why do you think I'm sad?"

Popping up on his knees, Glen reaches one of his sweaty little hands out and rubs it across Gale's cheek. He feels something smear.

He'd been crying.

His stomach turns as he wonders how long Glen had stood there listening to him, watching him cry. Gale must've been loud, for him to have heard it all the way in the other room.

"Is it 'cause momma not here?" His nose wrinkles up, "You need her kiss you owies bedder?"

Involuntarily, Gale's hand shoots to his shoulder. He doesn't wear a shirt to sleep, it's the only time he lets his still tattered and scarred skin breathe. Glen had seen his back, but he'd never mentioned it. A little foolishly, Gale hoped the subject would never have to be broached, that his son would just assume everyone's dad had a ragged back.

"Momma say you hurt sometime, an tha' why you make sounds when you seep." Glen frowns at his stuffed toy, a yellow stripped kitten, "I gives you Woofus last night, and the other night, but you was cwyin' a'night so I wak'ed you up."

Gale remembers finding the weathered animal on his bed the past few mornings and wondering how it had gotten there. Now he knows and it makes his stomach drop.

Glen had been giving him Rufus, his favorite toy, the only thing that made him feel better when he was sick. His son, his two year old, had been trying to comfort him in the only way he could think of.

Gale feels his stomach fall a little further when he finally registers the rest of what his son has said.

This isn't an uncommon occurrence. He's heard Gale's nightmares before, but Madge had been there to kiss them away. With her off for a few days, Glen feels it's his job to battle his dad's demons.

The empty silence doesn't sit well with the toddler, who stands and flings his tiny arms around Gale's neck. After a few seconds, Glen lets him go and leans to kiss his shoulder, on the edge of one of the highest scars.

"I kiss it bedder?"

Gale doesn't trust himself to say anything, so he nods and pulls his son into a tight hug.

He wishes Madge had told him, she's protecting him, he knows that, but still…

"I'm sorry I scared you, bud."

Gale feels the ache of failure constrict his chest. He's been putting his pain on his son's shoulders and he hadn't even known it.

"I not scared, daddy," Glen squeezes tighter. "I jus' di'in't wan' you be hur'in."

Another pang hits Gale's chest, little kids shouldn't worry about their parents, for any reason. Gale had worried about his own father, day in and day out, when he went into the mines and when he ventured into the woods. He'd promised himself when, if, he had children they would never have to worry about him.

It's just one more failure in his life.

He lets Glen settle down in his lap, lean back into Gale's chest.

"You don't have to worry about me, okay?" Gale plants a kiss in his son's sweet smelling dark hair.

Glen leans back further, tilts his head so that he can see Gale, "I not worried. Momma say you fought los-o bad guys a'fore I was born and so that why you hurt." His lower lip juts out, "She say you was very bwave but los-o bad sings happen'a you and now dey hurt you when you a'seep. So she say we haffa jus' make you feel safe until you wake up."

Gale pulls him into another hug. He's positive his son's good nature is all a credit to Madge.

"I sorry I wak'ed you up, but I not know wha' else'a do," Glen puts his hands up, his nose wrinkles and his mouth turns down.

With a sigh, Gale smoothes the back of Glen's hair, "You don't have to be sorry, alright?"

Glen looks unconvinced, "But I not make you feel safe."

Giving him another kiss on the top of his head, Gale smiles, "Yeah, you did."

###############################

When Madge got home, looking exhausted, but cheerful, Gale kissed her breathless the moment she stepped off the hovercraft.

"You missed me, huh?" She giggled as he buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of wind from it.

Glen huffed from his place on Gale's hip, "I miss you too, momma!"

She pulled him from Gale, covered his face in kisses until he told her 'No more, momma!' and gave her one tiny peck on the cheek.

It isn't until she's ready for bed, in one of Gale's favorite old gowns, faded and thin and soft, that he asks her about what Glen had told him.

Madge worries her lip between her teeth, fiddles with a loose strand of her hair. Her wide calm eyes flicker with anxiety, "Don't be mad."

He can't keep himself from scowling.

"I'm not mad." The only thing he feels is disappointment in himself. He's failed her and their son by keeping them up at night with his nightmares and demons. His hands rub over his eyes, press into them until he sees stars, then he runs them through his hair, standing it on end. "I'm just…sorry." He sighs, "I'm sorry I'm still having stupid nightmares and-"

Madge cuts him off with the palm of her cool hand.

"Gale, your nightmares aren't stupid. You went through a lot, you suffered a lot-"

He pulls her hand down, "So did you."

And she doesn't wake up the house with her crying.

When she shakes her head Gale catches a whiff of her shampoo, "I grew up in a warm house with food. I spent the war with Katy-Jo Lewes delivering weapons across the plains. I hardly call that suffering."

Madge had suffered though, and Gale knew it.

Maybe not in the same way, maybe not physically, with the scars to show for it, but despite what she said, he knew her life had been anything but easy.

Before he can say anything about that, though, his mouth voices his worst fear, the worry that's been eating him since the night Glen had woke him.

"I scare Glen."

Madge is quiet for a second, her lips are pressed into a thin line.

"No, Gale, you don't."

He starts to protest, but she cuts him off with a look, "He isn't scared. He understands…in his own way."

"He shouldn't have to."

Madge takes his hand and pulls him to the bed. When he's sitting, she begins picking at a loose thread on her gown.

"My mother use to have nightmares too, sometimes. About the Games, her sister." Her eyebrows come together in thought, "When Mr. Abernathy would come over, pass out, I would hear him having them too." A sad little smile flickers on her lips, "Gale, kids create their own normal. Daddy has nightmares because of bad people, momma can't leave dishes in the sink because of her old housekeeper, those are Glen's normal. He doesn't really understand the 'why', he's just too young for it. The words have no real meaning to him. Someday, though, they will. He'll know that some families are different than his, and that's okay. He'll be okay."

Gale studies her for a minute. Watches her clear eyes shimmer and her lips press and part from each other in anticipation.

Her mother had been a mess and her father had been running a District, keeping it as ignored as possible, they'd had precious little time to devote to her. She'd grown up with minimal attention, practically raised herself it seemed to him, but she was fine.

Madge is okay, despite her emotionally exhausting childhood, and Glen is Madge's son too.

He'd be okay.

Gale reaches up, pushes a few loose strands from the side of her face before cupping her cheek. He leans in, begins kissing her, letting one of his hands run up her thighs while the other begins guiding her back.

"I'll take this as a 'thank you' and an 'I missed you'," she murmurs against the side of his face.

"Definitely." On both accounts.

He stops abruptly, though, when he hears little feet slapping against the wood floors, down the hall, and into their room.

"I seep with you a'night."

Gale stifles a groan. He sees a visit to Grammy in his son's future.