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

As Time Goes By

Gale gingerly touches his still sore nose. It's not broken, or at least the little doctor that Madge had insisted look at it had said it wasn't broken.

"But someone certainly taught you a lesson you won't forget," he'd chuckled.

Madge had kept quiet, eyes focused on the ground, and without so much as a smirk at the old man's strange sort of compliment. Gale had grumbled an 'uh-huh' and quickly left, before the old coot could begin questioning who exactly had 'taught' him this particular lesson.

"Are you sure you don't need more ice?" She asks for what feels like the millionth time as they finally reach her coffee shop.

"Yeah," Gale grunts, dropping onto the bench just outside the large picture window. He reaches up and prods his eye, which is pretty tender despite not having received the brunt of Madge's punch, and sighs.

"I really am sorry," Madge says, perching herself at the end of the bench, just out of his reach.

Gale looks over, to tell her to stop apologizing already, it's mostly just his face and pride that are wounded, but freezes before the words can snap out.

Her hands are in her lap, picking at tiny bits of fuzz on the coarse material of her skirt. It's not a particularly pretty dress, worn and drab, but clean and functional. It's certainly not the kind of dress he would've ever pegged Madge Undersee wearing. He supposes he should've though. She was always weirdly fond of her school uniforms, and they were just as pitiful, just as plain and boring as the dress she was wearing now.

It had never occurred to him then, probably never would've if she hadn't just sprung back from the dead right before his eyes, but Madge had always dressed much less like the daughter of privilege and more like wallpaper. Blending in and fading into the background, which considering who her father is, was, had been a monumental task.

One she'd taken on and conquered quite well, even if Gale hadn't noticed that was her intent.

He was noticing now, though.

Madge, with her dull dress and simple hair, her new and quiet little life, had been trying to vanish into the debris of District Twelve. Even if she denied it, she'd been letting herself be a dead girl.

She wasn't wrong, that there was no one really pining after her. His brothers, who had spent many sleepless nights in Thirteen searching through roles of names in the hopes of finding her, had long since accepted the fact that Madge was part of the ashes of their former District. Gale himself had given her up as a lost cause in half a heartbeat. No one could've survived the bombing and he had too many of the living to focus on.

Yet here she sat. Alive, if a little broken.

What did that matter though? So was Gale.

Scooting over, his hand, rough and calloused, scarred from the mines and setting snares, reaches out and takes hers. It's soft, but he can feel little catches in her skin, proof that she's had to work a little, and that causes a little flare of irritation to shoot through his chest. She's shouldn't have to work. She's the daughter of a Mayor.

Or at least she had been.

The bitter proof that not all the changes that had come from the fall of the Capitol hits him.

Madge hadn't been born for this life, and she hadn't done anything to deserve to be pushed into it. She was the collateral damage that no one had paid much attention to.

Gale remembers other government officials, some just as benevolent as Mayor Undersee, turning up dead in the months after the fall. Killed for no other reason than that they'd been plucked up, chosen because of grades and some perceived skill, and placed in positions of power.

"The only ones that won't get strung up will be the worst of the lot," Heavensbee had said when one of the magistrates from Seven, a woman, her husband, and two children, were all found bound inside their burning house.

They'd been well liked, generous even, but that connection to the Capitol that had tormented the Districts for so long had been the only sin needed to find them guilty and sign their death warrant.

Things have eased off over the past three years, most of the Mayors and magistrates, the lower level stooges, have all been shuffled to new Districts to protect them. Their skills are still needed, most of the rebels aren't exactly politically savvy or equipped to run the new government as it needs, but there are still the occasional flares, attacks on those from the old regime, whether they deserve it or not, that end in bloodshed and tears.

Just like Heavensbee predicted, most of the survivors of the small scale purges that swept through the Districts are scum, parasites that align themselves with whatever bully is the biggest in the schoolyard at the moment, but they're what's left.

Gale wonders, as he runs his thumb over Madge's knuckles, finding a miniscule scar, if there are good officials, ones like Mayor Undersee and whoever else he was friends with, who are hiding in the shadows. Settling with the dust of the Rebellion like Madge, to protect themselves and their families. They might feel entitled to life out of the spotlight after scrutiny they'd lived under.

He'd unfairly placed the blame for his hard life on her shoulders for years, made snide remarks at her expense, without ever really appreciating what kind of mental and emotional anguish growing up in a Capitol owned house could put on a person. After meeting with some of the more sympathetic officials that survived the purges and ended up with the dubious 'honor' of helping to build the new government, Gale knows now just how stressful Madge's life had to have been.

"We never knew when they'd pop in," one woman had told Gale as he'd helped her carry her few remaining belongings up to an apartment in District Three. "Our homes weren't our own."

"Mausoleums," another man, from Eleven originally, had added. "Nothing but houses for the dead."

None of them, the few good officials who had both managed to both make it out and then be caught and dragged back into service by the new government, were particularly happy to be gang pressed back into the lives they were so eager to escape. Some were even downright resentful, but something, Gale supposes an ingrained need to help people, kept them from bolting from the responsibility.

The thought of Madge, who'd only ever seemed quiet and kind, having to exist in a house like that and then having to contend with the often times cruel treatment of the citizens of the District on the outside, makes his stomach churn.

"I probably deserved it," he tells her, forcing a crooked smile onto his face and making his cheek throb a little more.

Madge gives his hand a squeeze and gives him a tight little smile. "Probably."

For a minute he just stares at her, considering the miracle of her sitting just an arm's length from him, able to 'almost' break his nose with one swing of her arm.

She's a piece of home. Not one he ever thought he'd miss or need, but she is. He'd missed her, and he hadn't even known it.

"I'm glad you're alive, Madge," he finally says.

Her cheeks seem to burn a little pinker, though that may just a flush the humidity, and she shrugs. "Sure."

Gale flops back on the bench, stares at the back of her head, glowing golden from the setting sun, and chuckles.

"You know who'll be really happy to hear you're alive?"

Madge turns, nose wrinkled and squinting at him. "Who?"

"Vick," he answers simply. "He and Rory were convinced you were too smart to get killed, especially after you warned all of us."

They'd been right. Gale's pretty sure when he tells them Madge is alive and well they'll never let him live it down, that they were right and he was so very, very wrong.

"I wasn't 'too smart'," Madge tells him sadly. "I just managed to be friends with the right people."

She seems to think that makes her being alive less important, less impressive, but to Gale it isn't.

He's a General, in no small part because of who is friend is, was, and no one seems to think that makes his life, all his accomplishments and failures, any less for it. Why should how Madge survived matter? Whether because of her brains or her connections, alive is alive, and that's all that matters to Gale.

Besides, knowing how to make people like you is a kind of 'smart', and not one Gale is particularly well versed in.

If Madge is alive because of her friends, then he sees that as an infinitely more impressive feat. While he'd never been quite as socially put off as Katniss, Gale's friends were drawn to him because he had confidence and power and was, he'll admit it, more than a little good looking. Even now, people respect him, some are even a little afraid of him, but all of that stems from his skills, his know how, his initiative.

All the people he's ever considered as Madge's friends had been drawn to her, not for what she had or what she could give them, but because of some inherent goodness in her.

A goodness Gale knows he lacks himself, now more than ever.

Gale is alive because he's good at surviving, and Madge is alive simply because she's good.

"I'm glad you did," Gale tells her.

She turns on her seat, gives him a small look. "You really think he'll be happy I'm alive?"

Gale's boom of laughter causes pain to shoot through his face.

"Are you kidding?" He asks, gently touching his nose to see if he's made it bleed again. "He and Rory might wet themselves, they'll be so happy. They got up early, when we were in Thirteen, spent hours trying to find your 'secret identity' on the rosters of survivors."

Her cheeks definitely blossom with a soft pink and she presses the backs of her hands to them.

"They'll want to see you," he adds, hoping she can sense how important having her back, another survivor, a sign of hope, is going to be to his family.

He'd cost them Katniss and Prim, hadn't been able to save them from himself, and giving Madge back to them won't change that, but it will make him feel less like a failure. He hadn't saved her, but unlike Prim and Katniss, Madge hadn't needed saving, she'd saved herself.

For a second she's quiet, starts picking at her skirt again.

"They'll come down here?" Her eyes focus on her fingertips. "They'll come all this way to see me?"

"Of course." Hearing about her won't be enough, talking to her on that stupid phone won't be enough. "When I come back-"

"You're coming back?" Her nose wrinkles and her head tilts.

They stare at each other for a minute, and it hits Gale that she doesn't think he'd be coming back for her. They hadn't been friends in Twelve, more survivors bound by a tragedy, and she probably doesn't realize how much he needs her. His mind had started formulating all the ways he could detour through Ten, through her little town, during his travels when she'd dragged him from the coffee shop and down to the doctor.

He doesn't know how to tell her that, though, and he doesn't want to scare her. She's still too easily spooked, and he doesn't want to lose her.

Instead of telling her all that, breaking down on her shoulder and pouring his heart out-that he needs her, someone who knows just how bad he can be-Gale gives her a sharp nod. "Yeah, I mean, I can't let my mother come down here all by herself. What if you get violent again?"

Madge snorts. "I would never hit your family."

Gale arches his eyebrows. "You won't make an exception for Rory? It might do him some good to get his nose busted."

She shakes her head. "I feel bad enough having hit you, and you admit you might deserve it. I couldn't live with myself if I hit one of your brothers."

"It's just Rory, he probably deserves it too." Scratch that. Rory definitely deserves it, for any number of things. "Just give him a black eye."

Madge frowns, is quiet for a minute while she picks at her nails. "They won't hate me? For…you know?"

"Hiding?" Gale offers.

She nods.

He had. He'd been furious with her for letting him and everyone else think she was dead, but that was only a fleeting feeling, quickly replaced by relief. She'd been protecting herself, something he can sympathize with. Gale can't fault her for self-preservation.

She's alive and no matter how long it had taken her to turn up again, that's all that matters.

"They'll forgive you," he tells her, taking her hand in his again, enjoying the heat and weight and life in it.

When she smiles, Gale can't help but smile back, despite the pain it causes in his face.

He'd definitely learned a painful lesson, getting his nose nearly broken by her. Madge Undersee, no matter how she dressed or how quiet she is, isn't a person he should've ever forgotten.

And he doesn't plan on making that mistake ever again.