Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
Photograph
Gale never had baby pictures.
Well, not that he knows of anyways. The first picture he remembers taking was in school, for his file. A file for the Capitol to use to keep track of him and everyone else in Panem.
At least that's what Uncle Levi had said.
"They're always watching us," he'd told Gale's dad over dinner. "Keeping notes on us."
"You don't think they have something better to do, Lee?" Gale's dad asked as he'd settled Vick on his knee, offered him a tesserae roll. "Our lives are pretty boring."
Uncle Levi had torn off a piece of rabbit with his teeth, waved the bone around and shook his head.
"I promise you, we aren't boring enough."
Gale had been afraid of going into the woods for weeks after that.
The fear had passed when his dad had pointed out that both he and Levi had been going into the woods for decades.
"You just have to be careful."
"But Uncle Levi says they're watching," Gale reminded him, eyeing the fence warily.
"They might be," he answered. "But Levi comes out here too. The risk of being caught isn't half as bad as you and your brothers starving for me."
Gale's stomach rumbled its agreement and the draw of freedom, fresh air, and fun that only the woods provided, overwhelmed his fear.
He'd worn a used blue uniform shirt his dad had bought at the Hob for the first of those pointless pictures.
It had been ripped in places, so his mom had patched it up, working her hands raw to make it presentable.
"You're too handsome, don't want a shirt to mess that up," she'd told him as she rocked Rory, ever the fussy baby.
The morning of the pictures his mom had scrubbed his face, washed his hair, combed it and smashed it down, until Gale had wiggled away.
"Mom," he'd grumbled.
She'd huffed. "If you'd comb your hair when I ask you, it wouldn't be such a mess now."
He'd smashed his hair down and glared in response.
There'd been a slate gray backdrop, he remembers that. Dull and cold, they'd sat a metal stool in front of it as each class up outside the door to the room and waited their turn.
The photographer had half-heartedly snapped the photos as the teacher pulled the kids from the line and told them to 'smile big for your parents'.
Gale had shot her a filthy look for that. His parents would never be able to afford those pictures, he was hungry, his shirt was itchy, and his hair looked funny. He had no reason to smile.
The next year was the same, and the next, and the next.
Same dim backdrop, same sour expression, same damn stool, same stupid photographer...the only things that changed were his clothes and his hair. More out of necessity than because he'd wanted to.
He'd seen Madge's pictures a few times when she'd been in the paper. She'd win a spelling bee or make the honor roll with a handful of other kids from Town and her name and that stupid school photo would appear on the news page the school pinned up on the bulletin board.
Guiltily, Gale remembers having made fun of her, more than once, for both her accomplishments and her picture. His stomach rolls when he imagines all the times he probably made her cry.
She'd always been in a clean school uniform. Not used or patched, pristine, and unlike Gale, she'd smiled.
It had annoyed Gale when he'd seen her, grinning for the camera on cue, like she was happy to have her picture taken. Never, not in his wildest dreams, would he have thought she was forcing it, pretending for the unseen eyes of the Capitol.
Gale's glare had been genuine. Madge's smile had been fake.
He hadn't noticed it at the time, but looking down at the box of half destroyed photos he's just been handed, with several pictures of his wife before she'd even been his friend, half-heartedly smiling up at him, he sees it now.
There was no light in her eyes, no joy. She was terrified, playing a part for an unseen audience.
"Where'd you find these?" He finally asks, after several long moments of staring at the battered box.
Beetee pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and smiles.
"Several underground safes were uncovered recently," he explains. "Snow apparently did keep all those paper documents he made the Districts file."
Many decades worth of paperwork was excavated recently, it appeared, and Beetee had just happened to be present during some of it.
"I tried to find people I knew," he tells Gale, as he glances forlornly at the box. "Johanna, Peeta, Katniss-"
"Let me guess, no dice?"
Gale can only imagine what Snow had done with those files.
Beetee's glasses slip again as he sighs. "No, I'm afraid not. None of the Victors' files were present."
For a moment he seems on the verge of saying something, maybe mention his family, all of which had died before the Quell, but he just shakes his head.
"Neither was your family's."
Gale snorts.
He was as much on Snow's radar as any Victor by the time of the Quell. His file, along with his every member of his family's, was probably on Snow's desk as the Capitol was taken down. If he had to guess, he'd say it and all the other files were tossed in Snow's personal fireplace the second he knew he was facing the end.
He'd wanted to erase those he hurt. If they died, all that would be left were memories, and those fade faster than the sun. If they'd lost, Snow would've removed them from history without much effort.
It had happened before, after all.
Madge's file, along with her parents' hadn't met the same fate. She and her parents managed to stay under the radar, just like they always had.
Setting the box down, Gale picks up one of the photos.
It's a family portrait, stilted and stiff, with the Mayor sitting next to Madge's mother on a blue velvet couch Gale recognizes as having sat in their home's front room.
Perched between them, in a pale yellow dress, is Madge.
She couldn't have been more than five or six, early in her dad's tenure as mayor. Her hair is carefully pulled into pigtails and her shoes are shiny and black. A perfect child for the Capitol's puppet family.
Despite her hair being soft blonde and her blue eyes, he can image Savanna standing in her place. Small and scared, unsure what's ahead, not knowing just how cruel people are going to be to her over something outside her control.
Letting the photo drop, Gale sighs.
The Mayor had been a good man. He'd done what he could for the people of Twelve, but he'd still been a tool of the Capitol. There's been no choice but to play the part the Capitol's man, and his playing his part well had probably saved the District from worse hardships.
The family photo seems more like a group mug shot with that in mind.
Under that he sees a marriage certificate, dated only a few months before the next paper, Madge's birth certificate. Gale laughs.
Beetee chuckles, takes his glasses off and cleans them on his shirt. "Ah, yes, Mrs. Undersee narrowly avoided an unwed mother's home it seems."
Tossing the papers back in the box, Gale shakes his head.
He's glad she did. He isn't sure he'd have made it this long if he didn't have Madge.
"Thanks, Beetee." Gale shuts the lid on the box and tucks it under his arm. "Thanks."
#######
The train ride back home, back to District Two, isn't long, but it's long enough.
Gale sit in his compartment with the box.
For a while he doesn't open it again, but that doesn't last long. There's something about the old relics he can't ignore or leave closed up.
He takes out papers and photos, examines them, then pulls out his billfold.
The first picture, tucked between cards and tickets, is of his family.
It's a few years old, Savanna's hair is still long in it, and Glen hadn't broken his nose yet.
He holds it up next to the photo of Madge's family, letting her be the constant.
Glen, despite being Gale in miniature, has his mother's smile, kind and gentle. Same sweetness in his eyes, he even has his hands held the same way she does.
Looking at Savanna, Gale chuckles.
Her smile is crooked, like his, but unlike the angry sneer he'd always worn, hers is bright. She's pure joy.
For a moment he wonders, if his life had been different, if he hadn't grown up too fast, half starved, always raging at something, if his smile might have been more like Savanna's.
Putting his family's picture away, he looks at the Undersees again before digging deeper in the box.
Madge's report cards, all excellent marks, a few copies of correspondence printed off between 'Mayor Daniel Undersee' and 'Commissioner Sorghum Mills', and more photos.
Sighing, Gale flips through the pictures.
Some of them are staged, like the family photo, stiff and unnatural.
The Mayor and Madge with Victors on their Tours, posing for the cameras.
He recognizes a few.
Johanna Mason, looking younger, a little more frightened, but still angry.
Finnick, mugging brilliantly for the camera. He almost looks truly happy.
Annie, small, wide eyed, terrified.
Even Alameda turns up, looking tiny but smug, green hair in ringlets.
The rest are lost on him. Fake smiles on faces he doesn't care about and has no memory of.
Then he reaches the last photo.
Mellark is grinning, playing the part of a happy Victor in love. Katniss' expression is closer to someone about to be violently ill.
No wonder Snow hadn't bought he lies and the propos in Thirteen had been such absolute failures.
Mellark would've been a better choice. He was an actor. Like Madge.
Shaking his head, he tosses the photos back in the box. He hasn't thought about Katniss or Mellark in years.
It's unfair. They've been tossed aside by the nation they'd given their lives, their families, their sanity for, and Gale is no better.
It's self-preservation that's kept them from his mind though.
Thinking about them only amplifies his failures, highlights how little he deserves the life he's gotten.
Closing the lid, he turns to the window, let's his head rest on the glass and watches the soggy forest slip by.
He'll be home soon.
#######
"I can't believe they found these after so long," Madge mutters, picking up each paper and phone carefully, inspecting the artifacts of a life lost long ago.
"Beetee says they find new stuff every day."
Most of it useless or uninteresting, but still valuable to someone. This was just their day.
"Snow hid stuff everywhere. All over the Capitol. Sometimes they demolish a place and find documents hidden in the rubble."
They've also found more than a few bodies, but he leaves that out. Little ears are listening.
"That's grandma?" Glen asks, eyeing a photo of Mrs. Undersee and Abernathy sitting at a table in what looks to be the old sweet shop. "She's pretty."
"You look like her momma," Savanna tells her, brushing some of her own hair from her eyes.
It's grown out some since she'd given herself an impromptu haircut a few months ago. It's almost past her chin.
"Yeah," Glen agrees. "You don't look much like your dad though."
He inspects one of the photos of the Mayor before setting it down and moving to the next paper.
"Look, it's your report card," he tells her as he begins to read off her grades.
Savanna frowns, stares at the box, then wrinkles her nose up and turns to Gale.
"Daddy, where's your pictures?"
Gale opens his mouth to tell her, as gently as he can manage, that what few pictures he had were destroyed years before she was even born, but Madge answers for him.
"Your dad's things we're all burned, baby. Remember? You learned about the bombing of Twelve in school for Independence Day."
Savanna's bottom lip puckers for a minute and she looks between Gale and Madge before flinging herself at Gale.
"I'm sorry, daddy. I forgot."
Gale pulls her into his lap and presses a kiss to her temple.
"It's okay, beautiful."
He's grateful she can forget. His demons aren't hers.
"Are you sad?" She asks, her dark head resting on his shoulder.
"No," he answers. It's the truth. There's nothing of his old life he'd trade what he has now for, and he certainly doesn't need ugly pictures to remind him of anything.
He made it out with his family, his mom, Posy, and his idiot brothers. Madge didn't. Pictures are all she'll ever have of her parents.
"Dad doesn't even like having his picture taken," Glen reminds her. "He always makes that face when the camera people take it, remember?"
Savanna nods, hops off Gale's lap and grins. "Yeah, like this."
Her little face pulls back in a grimace worse than the one Katniss was making in the photo now buried under the contents of the box.
"I don't do that," Gale defends himself.
Glen laughs. "No, it's more like this!"
He makes an even more pained expression.
Gale rolls his eyes.
"I don't-"
Madge cuts him off, "Gale...you do."
Huffing, Gale scoops up some of the papers from the box and begins flipping through them.
He stops when he sees his own face, smiling up at him.
Only it isn't him.
It takes a moment for him to recognize the man in the photo, he hasn't seen him in a lifetime, and it's startling to see him so suddenly.
His dad.
It's a group photo from the mines, some kind of ceremony, with the mayor and some other officials, which is why the photo was probably there in the first place.
Asher Hawthorne is at the far right, 'crew chief' embroidered on this chest, standing with several other chiefs and a few random miners beside some new mining equipment.
It's staged, clearly, if the tight smiles on most of their faces are any indication, the unnatural poses several are in, but it's real. His dad was there, alive, smiling.
With a start, Gale recognizes his Uncle Levi, looking unmistakably uncomfortable, next to his brother.
"Dad!" Glen shouts, holding up a photo. "You are in here!"
Not even setting down the photo of his dad, Gale looks at the one Glen thrusts in his face.
Sure enough, his surly expression is glaring back at him.
"The family portraits," Madge murmurs, reaching over and taking the picture, smiling fondly at the awful thing.
Gale groans, remembering Alameda having them take the stupid thing during her reign of terror during the Seventy-Fourth Games.
"And there's Uncle Rory, and Uncle Vick, and Tia Posy, and Grammy!" Savanna cheers, pointing to each person as she names them off.
While she pulls the picture closer and chatters about each person, Glen spots the picture in Gale's hand.
"Is that you too?" He asks, taking the photo and frowning at it.
Gale gently takes it back, smiles.
"No, that's my dad." He points to his dad, frozen in a smile, younger than Gale is now. "And that's my uncle, Levi."
Gale's family photo still in her hand, Savanna moves closer to Glen, stares at her grandpa and his brother.
"They're pretty," she finally announces. "Like me."
Glen rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything, just continues to rifle through the box and read Madge's report cards and the occasional correspondence from his grandpa.
Gale feels Madge scoot closer, rest her head on his shoulder.
She's still got her family portrait in her hand, staring at it for a few moments before looking up at Gale, eyes shining.
"Sometimes I think I'm forgetting what they looked like, how they sounded, the way they laughed or smiled...maybe I am." She presses her fingers to her left eye, wipes away a few escaping tears and nods to herself. "This is nice. This is good."
Gale picks the picture of the miners back up, stares down at his dad.
At a glance he could be Rory, the way his cap is pulled and crooked. The way he slouches could be Vick. His eyes are all Posy, his smile is Savanna, wild hair is Gale and Glen.
Gale couldn't forget him if he tried, he's everywhere.
Somehow, he kind of had though.
He isn't sure if it's his dad's voice he hears in his memories, or Rory and Vick's. It could be a stranger's. A lifetime has passed since he heard it last.
When he hears his dad talking to Levi in his head, maybe it's just his own brothers filling the space.
Madge takes his hand, squeezes it.
"We aren't," she tells him, as if reading his mind.
He frowns, pretends he doesn't know what she's talking about.
"Forgetting them," she clarifies. "Sometimes Glen will say something or 'Vanna will laugh, and...the memories are there, my parents are there. Clear as day."
Nodding, Gale smiles faintly at the photo in his hand.
"Yeah...I was thinking the same thing."
"We need'a-need some frames," Glen tells them, setting down the papers in his hands. "We need to put them up. With the rest of the family."
Smile widening, Gale chuckles.
"Yeah."
#######
They invite Gale's mother and siblings over the next evening.
"He looks like you," Posy finally tells Gale, after several long moments of staring at her father's picture. "Mom always said...I didn't know how much though."
Madge watches as Gale pulls her into a hug, kisses her hair.
Posy had never seen Asher Hawthorne. He'd been dead before she'd even taken her first breath.
Swatting at her eyes, Madge turns away.
Her memories might be fading, but Posy's are nonexistent.
Beside them, on the couch, Hazelle is sitting with Vick, Rory leaning over the back, all quietly discussing their family photo, now carefully framed and held in Hazelle's hands.
"Those shirts were itchy," Rory remembers, instinctively scratching his neck.
Vick chuckles. "She threatened to cut your hair."
Hazelle just nods, touches each forgotten reflection before taking the frame from Gale's hands.
"I remember the day they too this. I was still pregnant with Vick. Levi had me patch his shirt the night before."
They're all meaningless details, unconnected really, but they mean so much. Little memories mean so much more once they're gone.
The moment was real, even if the photo was staged.
Walking to the wall, Madge smiles at the picture of her and her parents.
She can't remember the day it was taken, she'd been smaller than Savanna, but she remembers so many of the others.
Fake smiles, stiff clothes, fear.
The picture in front of her though, feels less cold.
It may be wishful thinking, but she wants to pretend their smiles were real in it, they were happy. None of the awfulness of life had truly hit them yet. They didn't know how much they were losing, moving into the mayor's house.
Glen wraps his arms around her waist, tilts his head up and smiles at her.
"I love you."
Squeezing him back, Madge smiles down.
"I love you too."
Savanna wanders over, glances back at the couch and shakes her head.
"They're crying." She looks up at the wall, at the framed portraits now hanging there. "I think they're upset abou' Tia Posy's dress. It was hideous."
Madge doesn't even stop herself from laughing. Savanna has so much of her own mother in her sometimes.
"Your dress was ugly too, momma, is that why you're crying?"
Glen sighs.
"That's not why they're cryin','Vanna."
She makes a face, clearly disbelieving.
"Well they should be. They're ugly."
"They're cryin' 'cause they miss grampa. Mom's cryin' cause she misses grandpa and grandma," Glen explains, his expression somber.
Savanna stares up at the pictures for a moment longer before nodding. "Oh."
Reaching out, she grips Madge's skirt and falls into her, an awkward face forward hug.
"I'm sorry you're sad."
She looks genuinely sorry, even if she can't quite understand why everyone is upset
Neither she nor Glen have any real concept of loss. They've never had anyone die on them. Other than the animals Gale helps them hunt, they have no experience with death.
Madge hopes they don't get that painful lesson for a very long time.
"Thank you, sweetheart."
Something thunders in the distance outside and Glen's eyes light up.
"The fireworks!"
He doesn't even have to grab Savanna, she's already racing a few steps ahead of him, out the door and into the front yard.
For a moment Madge doesn't move, just watches them vanish oh the door and down the step. Through the window she sees their faces upturn, watch in wonder as color and light erupt overhead.
She feels Gale come up behind her, wraps his arms around her and pull her close.
"Happy Independence Day," he murmurs, lips to her ear, sending a shiver up her back.
They don't move, just watch Glen and Savanna playing under the fireworks, cheering with each explosion.
Vick comes up, places the photo with his dad and uncle on the wall, then the family portrait next to it, before smiling.
"We're going on the porch," he tells them, slouching down, shrugging.
He isn't a fan of the display, but then, none of them are.
Before the kids were born they'd avoided the yearly celebrations if they could. Occasionally Gale would have to make an appearance for official purposes, and Madge had accompanied him, but his family stayed in.
Posy has always gone to bed early, the noise and the light to reminiscent of the firebombing in a Twelve for her. She'd have nightmares for weeks afterward.
Hazelle stayed in, patching and cleaning, turning up the radio Gale had bought her to drown out the booming.
Rory and Vick often vanished deep into the woods of Two. They've never talked about what they spent their time doing, and Madge never asked.
They all had their rituals they kept to.
Until Glen was born.
Once he was old enough to tottle out, see the vivid explosions in the sky, hear the excitement swelling around him, he'd loved it.
There was no memory of death, nightmare images, homes burning to dust, in his mind.
Independence Day is simply fun for him. Its parties and food, glorified television specials, and fireworks.
His delight had slowly pulled his family out of the shadows of the celebrations. They'd never love it like he did, there was too much tied to it, but his simple childish joy was enough to wash some of the horror from it.
It was enough to see him happy. Their suffering had accomplished something.
When Savanna was born her brother had passed his love on.
Neither one of them feared the fire. It only held life for them, not the destruction it did for their parents.
Tugging Gale along, Madge steers him to the porch and onto the swing.
They watch Glen and Savanna cheering on the fireworks, doing cartwheels and somersaults under the night sky.
Closing her eyes, Madge remembers playing in her own front yard, being harassed, tears and fear.
She thinks of the pictures now hanging on her living room wall. Her a parents, Gale's dad, all dead too early, only living on in memories and stilted photos.
It's unfair, but it's in the past.
Opening her eyes, she smiles as Savanna grabs Glen's hands and makes him swing her around.
No.
Pictures and memories aren't all that's left of them, she thinks.
They're still with them, in actions and looks, smiles, jokes…
She hears Savanna laugh, remembers her silly smile in her first school photo.
She'd been happy, a little hammy, unafraid in that frozen moment.
There was no reflection of the faded little school photos Madge and Gale had taken, with their gray backdrop, dim lighting, and forced, very fake smiles. Savanna and Glen only ever look delighted in their photos.
Fake as they were, Madge thinks those old school photos showed reality a little more clearly than intended. Every bit of fear and worry showed through the set up.
Just like it's absent from all the ones her children have taken so far.
Smiling, she remembers the book sitting under the coffee table inside.
It's filled with pictures, as unstaged as they get.
Birthday parties, celebrations, lazy unimportant days...taken for reasons and no reason at all. Even as a child of privilege Madge hadn't had that luxury often. Her only 'candid' pictures were still few and far between, still taken by Capitol cameras for a reason.
It's nice that when they're older, Glen and Savanna will have little printed memories of their childhoods to brighten their memories when they begin to age and yellow at the edges. Not just of the big moments, but of the small ones too.
"I'm glad the kids like the fireworks," Gale murmurs in her ear, pulling her back to the moment, the laughter and cheering. "It makes-I mean-maybe it makes everything we've gone through worth it."
She nods.
Their children aren't afraid. Not of fire or people or life.
Even without photos, their childhood memories will be happy.
Fireworks will only ever be fireworks. They won't stir up nightmares with each explosion for them, like they do with the rest of the family.
Maybe someday, Madge will only hear laughter, not screams, when she hears the Independence Day celebrations.
Maybe her babies' joy will scrub out the sadness.
If it doesn't though, the simple fact that her demons, Gale's demons, won't follow them will be enough.
That will be worth it.
#######
AN: This is probably the last addition this collection will get. I've been trying to come up with a final chapter for a while, but it's been a long road. This just feels like the coda to all of this. Everything ends, right? Thanks to everyone who has been suffering through all this mess with me, thanks to everyone who encouraged me and reviewed, and thanks for the kindness. I hope you enjoyed at least parts of this journey and maybe had a few laughs, because I suffer from the delusion that I'm funny and imagining I've made some random stranger thousands of miles away giggle is sometimes the highlight of my day. Someday I might put up final installments of the hs and college au stories, but that'll be a long time coming. Anyways, thanks for reading y'all.