Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine
It is a foreign world, pt 2
AN: Thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for the beta.
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Madge takes her time walking to the row where Peeta had told her Mr. Abernathy is, examining the little shops that have cropped up in the new District Twelve, until she comes to the turn.
It's a familiar corner, the same one she went down after school when she was small to get to her Poppa's sweet shop. Despite setting in the same spot, it's very different. The paint on the storefronts are fresher, no chips or cracks visible. None of the few names on the windows are faded away or peeling off.
The place is the same, but at the same time, completely different.
She peers down the somewhat narrow lane, sees a slumped figure on a bench, snoring peacefully with his head propped back against the wall behind him.
Madge takes a few hesitant steps, gathers her courage, then lets her feet carry her the rest of the way down to where he sleeps.
She doesn't say anything, just studies him for a few seconds.
He's grayer than he had been which isn't surprising. Gale's had flecks of silver creeping into his dark hair for years now. He'd been a bit self-conscious about it, but Madge had assured him it didn't make him look old.
"It gives you a bit of distinction," she'd told him.
"Does that mean 'ancient'?" He'd grumbled, taking a pair of tweezers and trying to pick an errant hair from the middle of his head. "My mother doesn't even have this much gray, and she raised three boys."
Taking the tweezers, they needed to be hidden, Madge had kissed the tip of his nose. "It means 'handsome'. Stop pulling your hair out. At least you have some to go gray."
That had shut him up, though she still occasionally caught him running his hands over his increasingly peppery hair and grimacing.
Katniss and Peeta both had strands of gray weaving through their hair as well, another souvenir of their hard lives. Mr. Abernathy, though, has far more than any of them. He's had more hardships for far longer than them, so Madge supposes he's entitled to it.
The wrinkles on his face are relaxed, but still easily seen. His color is more sallow, his drinking is catching up with him. It was bound to at some point. Otherwise, he seems much as Madge remembers him from her childhood.
Gruff, but approachable.
Dropping onto the bench beside him, she almost laughs when he jerks awake, and makes a startled, strangled noise.
She expects him to pull his knife on her, and he does start digging at his belt to find it, but someone, Madge suspects Peeta, has taken it. A wise move.
His wild hands still after a second when he finally opens his eyes all the way and sees the person seated beside him.
He blinks, his yellowing eyes bleary in the morning sun, then squints at her, completely confused by what his eyes are showing him.
"'Tilda?"
Madge's heart stops for a beat for him, at the hopeful gleam in his groggy eyes. She gives him a sad smile. "No, Mr. Abernathy."
For a minute he stares, his drink laced mind slowly catching up with what he's seeing. He reaches out pokes her in the cheek.
"Really are here then?" He mutters, more to himself than to her, then sighs, closes his eyes in exasperation. "What the hell are you doing here, Pearl?"
Madge's eyebrows arch up. "Good to see you too, Mr. Abernathy."
His bloodshot eyes open, shoot her a glare. He holds the look for a minute, almost convincing her he's mad before his mouth twitches up, forms into a smile.
Before she knows what's happening, just like with Peeta, he's lunged forward, pulled her into a tight hug.
Unlike Peeta, Mr. Abernathy doesn't smell like vanilla. He also doesn't smell like liquor or cigar smoke, which surprises her. Those are two of his favorite things. Instead, the first thing she smells is the all too familiar, earthy scent of tomato plants, and she instantly wonders if he's taken up gardening. It's a funny image, Mr. Abernathy out in a garden, struggling with tomato cages and cursing at the birds that peck holes in his food.
Under that is the unmistakable fragrance of lilac. Madge remembers her mother always keeping them on her bedside table when they were in season and she wonders if he keeps them around his house too.
Slowly, Madge wraps her arms around him, squeezes him to her and closes her eyes.
She hadn't realized how much she missed him.
It's not having her parents back, but he's a piece of her past, something tangible, and that's more than she's had in a very long time.
Gale hadn't known her, no one had really, back in Twelve. There had been people like Peeta and Delly, that she'd known since childhood, who were friendly with her and probably considered her a friend, but they didn't know her quite as well as they thought. She'd kept herself closed off as much as everyone had closed her off. Katniss was as near to a real friend as she'd had, and that was only due to their equally solitary lives.
Mr. Abernathy had known her. He'd been more fond of her than most, looked out for her, listened to her stupid problems, didn't tell her that she needed to toughen up because there were people out there with a much worse time of it than her. He was more a friend to her than most people her own age, as pathetic as that was and is, but that doesn't matter anymore. Things are different, what 'was' is in the past.
"I've missed you," she tells him, voice barely above a whisper and a little wet sounding.
"Missed you too, kid."
He holds her for a few minutes, tight in his warm hug, and Madge feels him run his hands over her hair before he pulls back.
His eyes are shining, but he doesn't let the tears fall, just blinks them back. He stares, studies her just as he had the last time he'd seen her, on the back porch of her house, the night before the last Reaping, memorizing all the features of her face as if it might be the last chance he gets.
"Look just like your mother," he finally says, giving her a pat on the cheek and dropping his hands from her face.
Madge looks away while he rubs his hands over his face, mutters something about 'crap in the air'.
When he's finished wiping his face he looks back at her, eyes still a little moist. "You shouldn't've come," he sighs and a little smile forms on his lips, "but I'm glad you did."
Madge nods, rubs her own eyes, cursing herself when her hands come away wet.
Mr. Abernathy reaches up and wipes her cheek with his thick fingers. "Don't cry, Pearl."
She doesn't mean to, but she can't stop them once they start.
Leaning forward, she wraps her arms around Mr. Abernathy and sobs on his shoulder. It's as close to home as she's felt in years.
"I'm sorry," she tells him. She doesn't mean to fall to pieces on him, it's silly and stupid and she hates herself a little bit for being so weak around him. He's had such strong people surrounding him for so long, he must think she's ridiculous. She feelsridiculous.
"Don't be sorry," he shushes her, rubbing gentle circles on her back. "I'm the one should be sorry."
That makes Madge pull back in confusion, swat at her eyes. "No-"
"Yes," he tells her firmly. "I got my family killed, then I didn't think this through. I got Danny and…your mom killed. Thought I'd got you killed too, sweetheart."
"You didn't kill anyone," she tells him, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. "The Capitol, President Snow, that's who killed all of them. Not you."
Madge pulls back and forces a watery smile for him. "And I'm not dead."
In no small part because of him,in a hundred ways and more.
His last act of kindness to her had been sending Birdy. Madge doubts the little Victor would've worked half as hard for someone else. He'd convinced her somehow that what they were doing was the best option, taking the chance with Katniss and Peeta for their incomplete plan to save the country. From what Madge had learned in Ten about the Victor she wasn't easily swayed. Mr. Abernathy must've been quite persuasive.
"Because you're smart," he tells her. "Smartest girl I ever met."
"I am smart," she tells him as she takes his hand, gives it a squeeze. "I'm smart enough to know you never meant for any of this to happen. Not the way it did."
His eyes shine, reflect the rising sun back at Madge. "I did the best I could. It was just all so…complicated."
Complicated is such a simple word for something so much more than that. He and her parents had made so many sacrifices, not just for the District, but for her. She can't repay them, any of them, for sacrificing happiness and possibilities for her, so that she could grow up without fear or being ripped from their lives.
Madge tries to blink away her tears, but only succeeds in sending them cascading down her cheeks. Annoyed with herself, she begins digging in her pockets for a tissue.
Mr. Abernathy catches her hand and puts something soft and painfully white in her palm.
"It's clean," he assures her with a small smile.
Giving him a watery smile of her own, Madge dabs her cheeks before trying to hand it back. He shakes his head.
"Keep it, least I can do."
That only makes more tears spring to Madge's eyes. She takes a shuddering breath and shakes her head. "You did so much for me. Don't you ever think you didn't."
He'd saved her. Before she'd even entered the world and after, even if he'd had to do it from a distance. He'd been her first friend, the person that knew her the best. He'd kept her from complete isolation, made her feel worthwhile, protected her from her own thoughts, and in the end, a fiery death.
There were so many things he'd done for her. There were so many things he'd sacrificed for her, things she can't even imagine doing, let alone surviving. He's so much stronger than she'd ever imagined, and she hopes that if she ever needs it, she can be just as strong. She can't get her voice to work though, to ask him about all the things that have blossomed in her mind over the years since the destruction of Twelve.
For several long moments he just stares at her. Finally, a smile cracks his face.
"You sound like your mother. She could be forceful if she wanted to be."
Madge starts to snort, the idea of her mother being anything but a shrinking violet is comical, but then she remembers her mother telling Mrs. Oberst to leave Madge be after she'd run into the house, a muddy mess after delivering morphling to a badly beaten Gale, and sitting on the couch, sipping tea after poisoning Thread. There were things about her mother she didn't know, things she may never know.
One of the thousand questions she'd had since she'd arrived in Ten all those years ago, a question that had died on her tongue the night of the last Reaping.
"Did you love her?" Madge finally asks, her voice just barely carrying on the wind.
For a minute she doesn't think he's going to answer her, or maybe that he just hadn't heard her. He just turns his face out to the little store front lined up in front of them.
"That's where your granddad's shop used to be," he finally says, pointing, unnecessarily at the vacant store across from them.
Madge almost huffs, he's avoiding answering her and it annoys her. She'd had to work up the courage for that question for years now.
He sighs. "Sometimes I wake up from a nap and expect the lights to be on, for her to bring me a tin of fudge and some tea."
Just like always, he's not answering her but he is. In his own strange way.
The air is getting warmer as the sun rises and Madge feels a bead of perspiration forming on her forehead. She wonders how long Mr. Abernathy plans on staying out and staring at the empty store, how many days he's wasted doing just that.
Carefully, Madge takes his hand in hers and holds it. She can't think of anything more comforting to do in the moment.
"If she were here," Madge finally says, "I think she'd be doing just that."
Her mother hadn't been meant for life as a politician's wife. She'd been happiest when Madge was very small, when her father had been alive and the three of them had been able to sit and make candy all day. Her headaches were best on those days, her crying fits less frequent, her mood better. Madge has no doubt that her mother would've been better off living that life than the one where she existed in a morphling stupor, fighting off demons in her head with so little success.
If there is a place beyond the world they live in, Madge hopes her mother and Mr. Abernathy get their happy ending. They deserve it.
His hand tightens around hers and he lets out a sigh, his eyes finally coming back to her. He's building himself up to something, and Madge has an inkling as to what it is by the way he chews his lip.
"Your dad-"
"Loved me," Madge cuts him off and battles back more tears. "My dad loved me more than his own life. He died so I'd have a chance to get out past the fences."
A smile forms on her lips as she remembers the riders from Ten jumping from their saddles and cutting a small opening in the western fence for the group to flee through. They'd shouted thanks at the sky for the dead Mayor of District Twelve, for her father.
They were, still are, the only people that know her father, the soft spoken little Mayor of the mining District, had kept it from complete destruction.
No matter what facts changed in the world, who was in charge of the country, where Madge lived and what she did, there was one unvarying fact: her father had loved her.
Her mother had loved her.
Mr. Abernathy still loves her, and he always had.
Even if he's annoyed with her for coming back to Twelve.
"He did," Mr. Abernathy agrees. "He loved you more than anyone I think. Did more for you than you'll ever know."
Madge doubts that. She'd spent most of her free time, what little of it there had been, finding out all there was to know about her father's side of the family. Which wasn't much, but enough to let her know that she is happy to be known as the daughter of Daniel Undersee.
"My mother killed Thread," she tells him suddenly, tightening her grip on his arm. It's the first time she's talked about what happened that night, the night Twelve was destroyed "She poisoned him for threatening me and he shot her."
Her mother had been so brave, in her own way, just like her father. No one but Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes would ever know that though. No one but Madge would really care.
Mr. Abernathy needed to know though, he cared.
His head tilts, cheek coming to a rest against Madge's hair. She hears him sniffle.
"She was quite a lady."
Madge nods. "She really was."
And just like her father, Madge hadn't appreciated how much her mother had loved her, had done for her, until it was too late.
Hot tears start to slip out the corners of her eyes again, splattering down on her lap and Mr. Abernathy's sleeve. He doesn't seem to mind though, just murmurs comforting nonsense into her hair.
All the things she's been holding in spill out in a snot filled blubbering mess. Her father dying to take down the fence, her mother slowly bleeding to death in her favorite chair with Mrs. Oberst and her granddaughter by her side, the horrible heat, how she'd almost given up after seeing her house incinerated by the Capitol's bombs…
Despite the increasing franticness of her tale, the breaks in her voice and the disgusting snot she keeps having to rub off her face with his handkerchief, Mr. Abernathy holds her and keeps telling her to talk. Right up until her tongue can't form words anymore.
After she's finished, cried herself dry, he wraps his arm around her and hums her a song. It's familiar, she thinks she remembers it as one her mother used to listen to, but she can't remember. Just one more of her quickly fading memories of her life.
"Thank you," she finally manages. "For…"
Her words turn to dust in her throat, just as they always seem to do.
She needs to thank him for letting her live, for being brave for her sake; she doesn't want to fail to appreciate him like she had with her mother and father. The words won't come though. Saying them makes the meeting feel too final, the last of her unfinished business from her old life, and she can't get herself to untangle it from her soul.
He doesn't prompt her, just runs his hand over her hair, smoothing out a few knots from the wind.
Her wet eyes turn up to him, search his yellowing ones, trying to get the words to dislodge from her throat for him.
It takes him a second, but he seems to sense what she wants to say. A small smile forms on his parched lips and his eyes shine a little more than they had. He understands, even if she can't say what she so desperately wants to.
In an instant he lurches forward and presses a scratchy kiss to her forehead, just as he always had when she'd been a child. A little sigh ghosts through her hair. "I know, Pearl."
Despite thinking she'd cried dry, more tears come pouring out for her family and all they'd lost, all the lives they could've lived but didn't, and couldn't, because of the Capitol.
They sit on the bench for what feels like several hours. Mr. Abernathy wraps his arm around her shoulder and Madge rests her head against his chest, pretending she's very small again and waiting on her father to get off work or for her Poppa to come out looking for her playing with her little ball in the street.
It isn't until she hears her name, someone calling for her from down at the end of the block, that she realizes the sun has reached the crest of the sky.
Sitting up from her slumped position next to Mr. Abernathy, she blinks around blearily.
Coming down from the Square is Gale, a puzzled expression on his face.
"What's the cousin doing here?" Mr. Abernathy asks the moment his eyes spot Gale.
"Please stop calling him that," Madge groans as she sits up the rest of the way and pops a crick that has formed in her neck.
Jogging a bit, Gale comes to a stop a few steps away from them, eyes fixing on Mr. Abernathy. Neither man says anything, just glares at the other until Madge coughs.
"Everything okay?" Gale finally asks.
"What's it to you?" Mr. Abernathy snaps back. He cuts his eyes to Madge. "Please tell me you didn't come with this nitwit."
Gale makes a low noise, something like a growl, before focusing his glare on Madge. "What are you doing with him? I was worried."
Before Madge can answer, apologize for making him worry over her, she'd been gone far longer than she intended, Mr. Abernathy cuts in again.
"She's talking with me, not that that's any of your business." He waves his hands at Gale, gesturing for him to go away. "Go darken someone else's bench, boy."
With no acknowledgement, Gale keeps his gaze on Madge, awaiting her answer.
Taking Mr. Abernathy's hand, Madge gives him a small smile, asking him to behave, just this once, for her. His mouth, ready with what she's sure is another insult, snaps shut and he huffs, but doesn't say anything else.
Madge turns back to Gale.
"I'm sorry," she starts. "Time just got away from me."
He relaxes a little, lets out a long sigh and eyes Mr. Abernathy with all the dislike he has in his being.
"Mr. Abernathy and I were reminiscing," she adds, explaining the presence of the man Gale clearly holds no love for.
Getting up, Madge turns to Mr. Abernathy. "Give us a minute."
He starts to protest, but halts when she gives him a reassuring grin.
"Fine," he grumbles.
Grabbing Gale's hand, Madge pulls him with her, to a little nook between the buildings and out of Mr. Abernathy's earshot.
The instant they're out of Mr. Abernathy's line of sight, Gale pulls Madge into a tight hug, pressing a kiss to her neck and breathing in her hair. "You scared me." He pulls back and gives her a stern glare. "Gave me a few more gray hairs."
Madge tries not to laugh at that, but a little snort still escapes.
"I'm sorry, Gale," she tells him when his expression goes even more soured. "I just-Mr. Abernathy is important to me. He's known me since I was a baby. He's known me my whole life. Out of all the people in the District, not counting my parents, he's the only person I always knew cared about me and what happened to me, loved me."
Gale's expression softens, his eyes fall, settle on some point on the ground past Madge's shoulder.
She's instantly aware she's upset him. He knows he was less than kind to her when they'd been in Twelve, bordering on cruel, but she tries not to bring it up. The past is in the past and drudging it up doesn't do anyone any good.
His hands come up, cup her face before he lets his forehead come to rest against hers.
"I know," he finally sighs, his cool, minty breath grazing over her nose. "I'm sorry. I just had, you know, bad dreams, and then you didn't come back-I thought…"
Madge cuts him off with her lips, pressing a kiss quickly to his lips to silence him.
"I'm not going anywhere, Gale," she tells him when she breaks away, a little breathless. She sniffles, fighting off more silly tears, and runs her hands through his hair. "There's so much I need to tell you though, really hard things. I need-I want to tell you, I can tell you now."
She couldn't before, and she hadn't been sure why.
Now she knows.
Gale would care that she was upset, he would hold her and sooth her, run his fingers through her hair while she cried about all horrible things that had happened the night of the bombing, but Gale wouldn't understand. Not like Mr. Abernathy had.
Gale hadn't known her parents. He hadn't cared about Madge then, even if he did now. Telling him about that night wouldn't have been the same as telling Mr. Abernathy, he had a connection to the people in her story, her mother and father, to her.
She'd needed to start by telling Mr. Abernathy because he was a tether to her past, the last tie to her childhood, the only person that could truly miss her parents with her.
Mouth turning down, Gale makes an agitated noise. "It had to be Haymitch, didn't it?"
Madge nods and takes his hand.
Mr. Abernathy has gotten up from the bench when they emerge from the crevice, his eyes still trained on Gale. He makes a huffing noise.
"Didn't I warn you he's no good for you, Pearl?"
With a nod, Madge gives Gale's hand a squeeze.
"Yeah," she takes a breath. "Things have changed. Gale's changed."
With a skeptical snort, Mr. Abernathy gives Gale a dark look. "You hurt her and I'll skin you and use your scrotum as a coin purse, understand boy?"
Gale's hand tightens around Madge's, but he doesn't respond to the goading, just gives a short nod of acknowledgement.
They hold each other's glare for a few seconds longer before Gale cuts his eyes over to Madge. "We need to go. Our train will be leaving soon."
Out the corner of her eye, Madge sees Mr. Abernathy's expression shift, fall into disappointment and her heart falls for him.
Dropping Gale's hand, Madge throws her arms around Mr. Abernathy's neck, letting a few last tears escape her eyes. "Thank you for always looking out for me."
She falls back on her heels. "Write me back, okay? Maybe you can come visit me."
Despite Gale's small groan, or maybe because of it, Mr. Abernathy smiles and gives her a wink. "I'll consider it."
Throwing her arms around his neck again, Madge presses a kiss to his scratchy cheek.
"I love you."
His arms tighten around her, as if trying to meld her to him. Madge feels her shoulder growing damp.
"I love you too, kiddo."
With one last squeeze, he lets her go, begins rubbing his eyes and grumbling about 'allergies' again.
Madge takes his hand and gives it a squeeze. "See you later."
His mouth twitches up. "Yeah."
It may not be true, but Madge can't bear another goodbye, and there's no guarantee that she won't see him again. She hopes she does.
Stealthily, Gale slips his hand into hers and tugs her down the cobbled road. Away from her past, which is so familiar but different, and into the future with him.
Their future.