Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

Soft

AN: For the gadge monthly prompt on tumblr of 'labels'.

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Gale kicks his locker closed, earning him a glare from the custodian. He doesn't care though. It isn't fair he got the lower one anyway. Chenille is shorter, she should've had to take it.

Turning his back on the man, Gale picks up his battered bag and heads down the hall.

He'd gotten detention, for not doing a stupid, pointless assignment, and now he had missed several hours of a pleasant winter afternoon in the woods. It was insult upon injury. Detention, a fail on his joke of a report card, and a lost hunt with his dad on a rare afternoon off. Pathetic.

Through the doors just ahead he can see it's already getting dark, two hours of banging chalk dust from his teacher's filthy erasers and now he's going to have to get home in the cold dark.

Pushing the doors open, Gale pulls his thin coat close around him and squints into the dimming sun and sighs.

He's barely down the steps when he sees something small and brown trundling along out the corner of his eye. Turning, he sees its a girl, younger than him by the size of her, head down, and clutching several books to her chest.

It takes a second before it registers just who it is.

Madge. Madge Undersee. The mayor's daughter.

Gale had met her in the library only a few days before, when she'd shown him and his dad where to find their book. Not that he hadn't known who she was before, he'd just never paid her much attention. She was beyond his friendship and his concern.

"Pretty girl, huh?" His dad had teased once they had walked her home.

Gale had just shrugged.

"You still pretending not to notice those things?" He asked, giving Gale a little nudge with his shoulder.

Gale was, at least around his dad. He teased Gale enough without any acknowledgment of the opposite sex.

"She's soft," Gale muttered, meaning it as a slight. It was a bit of a cruel label to pin on her, but a fitting one. She wasn't tough enough to even develop a crush on so noticing how pretty she was or wasn't didn't make a difference.

"I don't think so," his dad said with a smile. "People have strengths in different ways. You don't know her enough to know how strong she might be."

Gale had busied himself with the book after that. He hadn't wanted to think about pretty Madge Undersee or what she was like to get to know. It was better for him for her to be simply 'soft' and forgotten about.

That thought, that she's soft and shouldn't be wandering home in the dark, sticks in Gale's head as he watches her walk across the deserted courtyard separating the lower elementary she'd just left and the upper level school Gale had bound out of.

She'd probably stayed late to help in the library. She did that occasionally. Not that he paid attention to that kind of thing. The time had undoubtedly gotten away from her and when she'd noticed how late it was she'd left and the old volunteer in the library hadn't even offered to call someone to pick her up. Didn't they know how dangerous that could be? Not just because she's a little girl, but also the mayor's kid.

Scampering along, Madge stops and glances back at him. She eyes him for a moment, clutching her book to her chest a little tighter, then smiles weakly before taking off, her pace doubled.

He doesn't want to walk her home, and clearly she doesn't want his company, but Gale hears his dad's voice gently nudging him to keep an eye on her. Reluctantly, he follows her at a reasonable distance as a slow snow starts to come down.

Great. Now he gets to walk home in the cold and the dark and in snow. Just wonderful.

To her credit, Madge seems wholly aware of her surroundings. She takes the well lit paths instead of more convenient short-cuts, doesn't stop when a couple of older boys, high schoolers, goad her and yell obscene things at her back (and Gale shoots them a filthy look when he passes by for good measure), and she glances behind her every few blocks, aware of her follower. She never tries to lose him though, and he can only assume it's because she remembers him from the library and doesn't think he means her any harm. Or she's simply wary of any confrontation, he isn't sure.

Fat snowflakes are sticking to the ends of her hair, the long strands that are hanging out from under her woolly cap. It reminds Gale of the white candy coating her Granddad had sometimes coated strawberries with, before he died of course.

It only reinforces that she's soft in his mind. She's a candy-coated girl from Town, all fluff and frills, but out of reach. An expensive treat that'll be gone or wasted in the blink of an eye.

After a good ten minutes, guaranteeing Gale's dinner will be stone cold when he gets home, they finally reach the mayor's house.

Madge runs through the fence, letting the gate clatter shut behind her as she runs up the steps and to the back porch. With her hand on the screen, she turns and looks back at Gale.

They hold each other's stare for several seconds, and Gale can feel the snow starting to come down a little harder as he squints up at her. There are probably snowflakes on her eyelashes, a delicate dusting that makes Gale's stomach do an odd little flip-flop.

Finally, hesitantly, she raises her hand, gives him a little wave goodbye.

He doesn't wave back. It's too much of an acknowledgment that he's gone out of his way to make sure she got home safely, but he does jerk his head, just enough for her to see.

You're welcome.

Her cheeks, even from a distance, brighten and Gale's stomach lurches again. Probably hunger, he thinks.

Turning with a jerk, he's cold and stiff, Gale stomps off.

After he's out of the view of Madge's back porch, he starts to jog, causing snow that's accumulated in his hair while standing to bounce off. It melts, cold and wet down his neck. A sugar coating of his very own

Shivering, he smiles at the thought.

Maybe he's a little soft too.