Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
Ghost
Gale rolls over, blinks into the empty darkness of his family's quarters.
He hates Thirteen. He hates being underground almost constantly, the recycled air and artificial light. Gale hates that the clothes are all the same bland shade of gray as the wall. He hates the never ending schedules they have everyone on.
In fact, other than the fact that for the first time in his life his family has a consistent diet of three meals a day, there's nothing about the long lost District that he's impressed with.
His eyes scan the room, expecting to see Rory and Vick sleeping on their mattresses on the opposite wall.
They aren't there though, both mattresses are empty, blankets tossed around, but void of the occupants.
Annoyed with them, he's warned them about wandering the strange halls during their 'nocturnal quiet time', or whatever the schedulers in Thirteen have labeled sleep, Gale rolls out of bed. He rubs his palms to his eyes and pops his neck before stumbling out of the tiny room and into the living area.
The light in the kitchen is on, pale yellow spills out of the entryway and into the living room. Both boys are talking, speaking in low voices to one another as they shuffle papers.
Quietly, Gale pads across the short distance and peaks in at them.
They're at the small wooden table, sifting through a stack of papers, examining each page carefully. Gale suddenly feels a little left out. Why hadn't they woke him? He doesn't get as much time with them as he would like anymore, and he would happily join them in whatever late night or early morning project they have cooking up.
"What about 'Meg Horn'?" Vick asks.
Rory shakes his head, "No, met her."
Vick sighs, tosses his paper in the stack of what appears to be already examined pages, then picks up another. Rory's gray eyes flicker along the lines of his paper for a minute longer before he does the same.
After watching them for a few minutes, Gale finally steps out of the darkened living room and into the dully lit kitchen.
Both Rory and Vick's eyes jump up. They each grab their stack of papers and pull them towards them, as if expecting Gale to take them away and eye him warily.
"Morning, Gale!" Vick gives him a falsely cheery smile. "You're awake early."
Out of all of them, Vick is the sibling Gale knows wouldn't make it through an interrogation; he's as transparent as glass. Gale squints at him, yawns, then collapses into the little chair across from both of them.
"What're the two of you doing?" He asks as he rubs his hand over his face.
"Reading," Rory tells him simply. "Go back to bed. You have stuff to do in the morning."
Glaring at him, Gale tries to stare into his brother's head and figure out why he's so eager to rid himself of Gale all of a sudden. Normally, Rory is eager to spend time with him, eager to prove that he's a man. They haven't spent as much time together since coming to Thirteen, Gale knows that. Rory hasn't bugged him to tag along or asked annoying and personal questions since they'd left Twelve. Now that he thinks about it, Gale feels a knot settling in his stomach.
Vick's wide eyes flicker between the two before settling on Gale. "Yeah, you have a lot to do in the morning."
Now Gale knows something is up. Vick is the talker. If they'd been back in Twelve and woken like this, Vick would be all too excited to bombard Gale with the agonizing details of whatever he and Rory are doing. Instead of bubbling over with words though, he simply looks tense.
Yawning again, Gale shakes his head, "No. I'm not too busy to help you guys. What're you doing?"
Vick starts chewing his lip guiltily, but Rory simply shakes his head.
"We don't need help."
Growing more concerned about their evasiveness, Gale reaches out and tries to snatch the papers from Rory, who is closer, but his brother yanks them out of his reach and shoots him a dark look.
"I said we don't need help," he tells Gale coolly.
Before Vick can realize what's happening, Gale juts his hand over and grabs the papers from him. He makes a startle sound, keeps grasping the papers tightly, but with one good tug Gale has them pulled from his fingers.
He gives the two boys a triumphant smile before he starts looking over the papers
They're lists. Column after column of names and ages. It takes Gale a minute, he's still not entirely awake, but he finally figures out what he's looking at. The register of refugees from Twelve, he recognizes a handful of names.
The names aren't in alphabetical order, not grouped by family, or age, or even by gender, but in some order that only makes sense to whoever made the roster in the first place. By each name is a tick mark, some are stared and others have the star crossed out.
"Where did you two get this?" Gale didn't even have a list of the few survivors.
"Stole it," Rory tells him without batting an eye. "They had it out when we walked to 'class' so I made a distraction and Vick took it."
Gale almost makes the mistake of asking what Rory did to distract one of the stone faced men that watches over the children to make sure they get to their destination, but he thinks better of it. He'd heard his mother talking to his younger brother about a detention, so it was obviously more than just tripping someone.
"Why? What do you need it for?" They're whole family is in the little compartment they're huddled in now. The Everdeens and Thom and Bristol are all nearby. Most of their friends had made it out and were living along the same miserable corridor.
"We're looking for someone, obviously," Rory tells him as he rolls his eyes. "We can't do it during the day because they don't give us any free time because we're kids."
Rory's annoyance at his now nonexistent free time is something Gale can commiserate with. Everything in Thirteen is too rigid, and for Rory and Vick, who'd always had an abundance of empty hours to fill, it must be just as suffocating as not being allowed outdoors is to Gale.
"Who are you looking for?" Gale can't even imagine.
Rory and Vick exchange a look, silently communicating and deciding if they should let Gale in on their apparent secret. It stings a little. Gale's had to play at being their father for too long, he hasn't gotten to be just their brother and share in their silly little secrets. Vick and Rory are brothers and friends, Gale is their brother and parent, and that isn't nearly as fun.
For a minute he doesn't think they're going to tell him, Rory is clenching his jaw and making a small shake of his head, but Vick is too anxious, too easily intimidated, and he finally stops chewing his lip and sighs.
"We're looking for Madge."
It takes Gale a few seconds to process what he's said. He stares and blinks at his youngest brother slowly letting his words form a coherent thought.
Finally a scowl forms on his face, "She's dead."
Madge Undersee is dust and dirty and bone fragments. She's dead and there's no reason to look for a dead girl on a roster of the living.
Rory narrows his eyes, "She might not be."
"She is," Gale tells him shortly. She's dead and Rory and Vick are only hurting themselves pretending she isn't.
"But Gale," Vick begins, "she warned us. She knew what was coming. I bet that Capitol lady told her what to do. She probably saved her."
Gale groans, drops his head to the table. Birdy Alameda is just as dead as Madge. Beetee and Finnick had discussed her distress signal, her 'swan song' as they put it. She was blinked out in retaliation for all the trouble the Victors had causing the Capitol. She couldn't save herself and she certainly couldn't save Madge.
"Madge is dead," Gale snaps. They'd gone to her house, the still smoldering ruins of the Mayor's home, and found five bodies. Madge, the Mayor, his loopy wife, that horrible housekeeper, and another worker, all dead. "The sooner you accept that the better off you'll be."
A fantasy about dead girls coming back to life isn't going to help either one of them.
"But-" Vick starts, but Gale cuts him off.
"Haymitch even knows they're dead. He was their friend and he's accepted they're gone." Gale can't believe what he's about to say. "You should follow his example and accept reality."
"Give me a bottle and I'll get right to it," Rory says nastily. He glares at Gale. "Just give us the papers. We aren't hurting you by looking."
Gale grinds his teeth. "There is no 'Madge Undersee' in Thirteen. I looked."
It hadn't been one of the first things he'd done, but he had done it. Despite not seeing her in the woods, not hearing a word about her from any of the handful of Town people that managed to survive, he'd still thought maybe, somehow, she'd survived. Just like Vick said, she'd clearly known what was coming, she'd warned them after all, surely she'd have been able to escape herself.
There was no 'Madge' listed, no 'Undersee' among the survivors. Madge had become a true girl on fire.
"She's probably using a fake name," Vick tells him. "Since her dad i-was the mayor. This place might not be so nice to her, you know. So she probably gave them a fake name so she won't get questioned and stuff. I mean, look at what happened to Katniss' prep team."
Rory snorts, "Yeah, and they're about as dangerous as limp noodles. Madge is smart. She could be dangerous. They'd have her down for interrogation in a heartbeat."
Much as Gale would like to say they're wrong, his brothers aren't too far off the mark. Thirteen probably would see the Mayor's daughter, quiet little Madge, as a threat. She was too clever for them, and Gale doubts they would've simply let her dwell among the general population.
Vick nods, "Yeah. So we think she's using a fake name. Staying out of the way. We're checking the roster for girls in her age range and then we're going to check them out. Since we can only do it during certain times of the day it's taking us a while."
They're setting themselves up for disappointment, Gale knows that, and he can't stand to watch it.
He runs his hand over his face and mumbles to himself about them making this harder on everyone.
Standing, he reaches across the table, tries to grab Rory's papers, but he jerks them further away.
"Give them to me, Rory. You aren't going to find her and you need to accept that."
"Like you accepted that Katniss wasn't coming home during the first Games?" Rory snaps. His glare narrows. "You didn't accept the inevitable and we aren't going to just accept that Madge is dead. She could still be alive."
"Her house is flattened," Gale snarls. "They found what was left of her. Barely enough to bury, Rory. She's dead. Give me those papers and maybe I can talk them out of giving you more detention."
Rory stands. Gale is struck by how tall his brother has gotten since their arrival in Thirteen. He's still a little shorter than Gale had been at his age, but with Thirteen's steady meals and the lack of impending doom on their shoulders, he might out shoot him. At the moment he's able to easily look Gale in the eyes, shoot him the filthiest look he's able to muster.
"We aren't hurting you. If we want to find her then just let us. You go play with your new toys and your new friend and plot until you're blue in the face and leave us be." His look hardens a little more. "We care what happened to her. She's our friend. Our actual friend. Not like you and Katniss. We aren't trying to get in her pants; we just want her to be safe and happy wherever she is."
The accusation that he isn't really Katniss' friend, that he isn't concerned for her safety and happiness, stings. If Rory had hit him it would've hurt less.
Gale slams his hands on little wooden table and Vick jumps at the smacking noise.
"I am Katniss' friend. Keeping her safe it what I've been doing, and I want her to be happy."
Rory snorts, a sharp, harsh sounding thing.
"No. You want her to be happy with you. Peeta Mellark was a nice guy before the Capitol messed up his head. She could've been happy with him, but you wouldn't let her go. She might've been safe, we might've all been safe, if you'd have just used the right head for your thinking." His head shakes and his voice is cracking, fluctuating between his little boy voice and the deeper tone that will dominate someday. "You were selfish, Gale. You were selfish and stupid and if Madge is dead, then it's your fault."
He tosses his papers onto the table, several scatter, fall to the floor gently.
With one last dark look, Rory stomps out, leaving a bewildered looking Gale and a frightened looking Vick in his wake.
Gale stares at the doorway for several seconds, half expecting Rory to pop back in and laugh, tell Gale he's only joking and begin telling him about a girl he's been eyeing in class. Rory doesn't though, the doorway stays empty and the quiet settles heavily over the room.
Turning back to the table, Gale finds Vick crouched down, picking up the fallen papers and re-stacking them.
Dropping down, Gale picks up the few nearest him and hands them to Vick who whispers a barely audible 'thank you'.
When they finish, Vick folds the papers over and offers them to Gale. "Here."
Gale shakes his head, "No, keep it."
He can't steal their hope, even if it's futile and potentially harmful to their happiness.
Straightening back up, Gale flops down into the chair again, it groans under his weight. His eyes, tired and red rimmed at this point, slowly settle on Vick.
He's taller too, almost Rory's size, but thinner, a skinny spring shoot that hasn't quite added its girth yet. Gale is positive Vick will be taller than both he and Rory, and it almost makes him laugh to think about it. Only a small, weary smile finds its way onto his face though, as he watches Vick shuffle uncomfortably on his feet.
"I know you think we're being stupid," Vick says, eyes fixed on the floor. "We probably are. You saw Madge's house and…but it doesn't hurt for us to look, does it?"
Gale stares at Vick. He seems so small and Gale feels like a bully for having snapped at him and Rory. They weren't hurting anyone. Maybe they just needed to prove to themselves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Madge isn't coming back. It might be cathartic for them, like going into the woods has always been for Gale. Looking for someone who just isn't there, settling the matter firmly in their minds, might be the only way to fill that hole left empty by the absence.
"No, Vick, it doesn't hurt," Gale finally tells him.
Vick nods, tucks the papers under his arm before heading to the doorway and back to bed. He stops when his foot meets the scuffed threshold.
"I don't think you're selfish," he whispers.
Gale turns in the chair, eyes his brother sadly.
Vick takes a step toward him. "I think you're stressed. A lot of bad things have happened, and I think you do the best you can. I know that isn't easy."
Gale swats at his eyes. Long days and too much dark thinking have finally caught up with him after Rory's accusations.
Suddenly, Vick's too thin arms wrap around his neck. "I love you, Gale. Even if Madge is dead, it isn't your fault. Rory's just…upset. They treat us like we can't handle taking care of ourselves when we've been doing it for years. He just wants to do something they aren't scheduling for us. Madge never treated us like stupid kids and we just miss her."
A few tears finally escape Gale's eyes, trickle down his face and onto Vick's shirt. He nods into his brother's shoulder and sniffles back a few more tears.
When Vick lets go, Gale rubs his palms to his eyes until he sees stars and the moisture is gone. He pulls his hands away and nods at Vick.
"I understand."
He and Rory are a little too much alike. They need their freedom and not to be told when and where and what to do. They need air and sunlight, two things District Thirteen is desperately lacking. The dark, colorless world is smothering them both out, shortening their tempers and turning them against each other.
They're safe in Thirteen, they're alive, but they're not really living.
Vick nods, turns to leave, but Gale stops him.
"I care what happened to Madge too," he tells him. It's true. He never thought it would be, that he would care what happened to the Mayor's spoiled little daughter, but he does. He might not have spared her much thought since they came to Thirteen, but not because he doesn't care.
It's that he can't do anything for her. She's dead, and as terrible as that is, he can't change it. Gale has to focus on the living, that's how it's always been. If thinking about her would bring her back to life he would do it in a heartbeat. Madge Undersee wasn't a bad person, in fact, she was a very good one. She'd probably died because she'd gone back to the Town to try and save her mad mother and who knows who else, and if that wasn't the mark of a good person Gale isn't sure what is.
"I have to focus on saving us, Vick. She died trying to save people, and I have to honor that sacrifice by finishing her work. I have to help this country. It's what she would've wanted."
Vick stares for a minute, then a slow smile forms on his face and he nods. "'Night, Gale."
He sets the papers on the table, across from Gale.
"'Night, Vick."
Gale watches his brother disappear into the dark living room before turning back to the table. He runs his finger over a ridge in the wood before sighing. His eyes slowly wander over to the stack of papers Vick had left and he reaches across the table and pulls them to him.
Slowly, he begins flipping through the pages, eyes scanning over each name, hoping to see one that jumps out at him as blatantly false. He picks up the pencil Rory had dropped and begins making tick marks, staring girls that might possibly be Madge Undersee in disguise.
Gale mentally adds 'lack of time with my brothers' to the list of things he hates about Thirteen as he makes his way through the list.
It isn't part of his daily schedule, looking for a ghost among the living, but Gale suddenly feels like it should be. It's a stolen chunk of time, one that will hopefully let Rory and Vick know that even if he isn't around as much anymore and even if he thinks what they're doing is only going to heap sadness onto them, he's still there for them.