Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Do you want to know who the best composer is? From way back before the Dark Days?” Dad asked, his hands hovering over the black-and-white keys.

“Yes!” 

“Bach,” said Dad. “He was a German composer– I told you about what Europe used to be, didn’t I? – and he was blind near the end of his life. By then he experienced the world through sound. His finest work, in my opinion, happened then. The ‘Art of Fugue.’ Forever unfinished. Let me show you, Madgey.”

I sat, spellbound, as Dad played some of it. To me it was the saddest thing in the world that Bach had never finished writing it.

“When you’re older you can compose an ending,” suggested Dad.

This irritated me at the time, because it would never be the same or as good as what Bach would have written. I didn’t say this, but I think Dad saw it on my face.

“Tomorrow I’ll teach you to play the part Bach wrote,” he promised. “But you’re running late for school. Mrs. Heathcoate?”

Mrs. Heathcoate was an elderly woman with gray hair who worked for us as a maid and cook, all in one. She was from the Seam, but I don’t know much else about her life. This morning she rushed forward with the brown paper bag containing my lunch. I slid off the piano bench to collect it, made a big show of smoothing my long gray skirt from the school uniform, and started on the snowy walk to school. All by myself, because I had just turned seven.

I arrived early that day, and they didn’t unlock the doors until eight o’clock sharp. So it was me with a couple of the older girls from the Seam. I stood by myself, until one of them turned her sharp gray eyes in my direction. I still have no idea what provoked it.

“You think you’re from the Capitol, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yes!” I said proudly. Daddy had told me that I was from the Capitol, just like he was.

“You know that makes you a murderer, right? One day the Capitol people are going to take you back with them, and they’ll make you eat children,” said the girl. Her eyes had a happy glint when she saw my shock. “But until they take you nobody in twelve wants anything to do with you.”

I sat down in the frozen dirt and cried, and that was when one of the other older girls appeared. Her name was Aster Boyer, and she knelt down next to me.

“You know it doesn’t matter that your dad’s from the Capitol,” she whispered. “You’re growing up here, the same as us.”

I wanted to tell her that it did matter and that I was proud of it– Dad had told me to be– but I held my tongue. She gave me a peppermint candy when I quieted down, and squeezed my hand as the teachers finally remembered to let us in. I only appreciated later that the peppermint was probably a rare luxury for her, and that she must have been an extraordinarily kind girl to give it to the mayor’s crying seven year old.

That was the only time I spoke to her, but I considered her the closest person I had to a friend. When I was seven some bright boy had made up a ‘rule’ that I wasn’t allowed to speak to or play with the other kids. I was gullible enough to take him seriously, and sat on the edge of the field at recess– making sure not to talk too much in case someone told the teachers. So sometimes I used to watch Aster. She was thirteen, but she seemed impossibly mature. She always led the older girls’ games at recess, or else would sit as part of a circle and braid the others’ hair. I admired her, even if she never knew about it.

Those memories have all blended together, but I do remember the last time I saw her.

I watched the Reaping that year with my usual sense of seven-year-old pride. This was the time of year when my father stood up on stage in front of the whole district to introduce the Hunger Games: his voice booming, but his Capitol accent slightly dulled by a decade in the districts. His importance was at its peak every July 4th.

Effie Trinket stumbled onstage. She didn’t look so outlandish to me, since I had been raised on Capitol TV programs. I fixated on her high-heeled shoes, assuming that I would one day wear something similar in the Capitol. Effie was so pretty.

“And of course, girls first!” exclaimed Effie. The Games weren’t real to me yet, so I wondered vaguely if it would be someone I knew from school. Effie reached into the glass bowl, grasped a slip of paper in her claw-like purple nails, and read out the name: Aster Boyer, thirteen years old, a girl whose chances were supposed to be low but who had taken out tesserae.

Someone screamed. It was Aster’s older sister, Willow. Willow was crying and crying, and her face was buried in Aster’s shoulder. Their mother had to pry Willow off. Then Aster made her way to the stage. She cried while she was up there, even though we all knew that crying made things worse. Her ‘weakness’ was being broadcasted all over Panem.

Aster went through the parade, skinny and naked and covered with coal dust, and then she died in the bloodbath. One of the Careers killed her with an ax. Willow skipped school for two weeks afterwards, until the peacekeepers came to her door and demanded that the truant be returned.

That night I laid awake with nightmares about the ax. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Aster looked when she was crumpled on the ground. Eventually Dad heard me crying and lured me out of bed with hot, honeyed milk. Our thing.

I was sipping that milk, and clutching my stuffed rabbit close to my chest, when I finally asked Dad about why the Hunger Games needed to happen. Mom was too vacant to talk, but Dad was warm and taught me piano and read to me and always spoke to me like an adult. He could understand why.

“Well, Madgey, I know you don’t like to watch the Hunger Games yet. But do you know about the Dark Days?”

I nodded mutely. It was one of the topics that they drilled into us every year at school, and you had to be really stupid not to know it.

“It was what the soldiers in the Dark Days wanted. They sacrificed so much for Panem, and they wanted the Districts to feel some of their sacrifice. It’s how we remember them for what they gave to us.”

“But can’t we forgive the Districts, Dad? You always tell me to forgive people.”

“We have forgiven them,” said Dad. “The Hunger Games are part of the Capitol takes care of the Districts. Tesserae keep as many people as possible fed and clothed. And when a district has a winner, the Capitol sends them all the food they can.”

“But can’t the Capitol send food anyway?” I asked. I was on the verge of crying again. 

“There isn’t enough food for everyone to eat like they do in the Capitol,” said Dad. “And it isn’t right to just give people things if they haven’t earned it first. The Hunger Games are a chance for people to earn it. But think about this– if the Hunger Games were really so bad, nobody would volunteer. Yet every single boy and girl in District 2 dreams of going to the Hunger Games. And every victor always talks about how much they love the Capitol. Things are a bit different here in twelve, but the outer districts are always a bit– backwards.”

Dad said ‘backwards’ in a lower voice, as though it were a private joke for the two of us. And up until this point it was. We understood each other. Dad was a Capitol man who had made the sacrifice of moving to District 12 for President Snow, and there wasn’t anyone else from the Capitol for him to talk to except for me. Mom had come close, he said, with her natural sophistication and her twin sister being a celebrity from the Games. But Mom had lost her head a bit and mine was still there.

He sent me back up to bed after that. I still laid awake. I knew that he was the best Dad ever, and that Dad loved me, and that Dad loved both the Hunger Games and the Capitol, and so I should love the Hunger Games and the Capitol. But for the first time that night I felt doubt. 

Chapter Text

I haven’t seen my dad yet this morning. He usually gets up early to practice his speech for the Reaping, making notes in the margins and practicing the booming voice he puts on for the address. I’m happy not to see him– we grow farther and farther apart the older I get. He notices, and I think he misses the old days when we’d play piano together before school, but he’s also married to his work. It’s the work that I’m ashamed of, especially this time of year. I hate standing in the crowd with the other Town girls while my dad speaks, offering his fresh justifications for why the Capitol deserves to tear apart this year’s children. Everyone probably assumes that I agree with him, which makes me want to melt into a puddle. 

I haven’t seen my mom either, this morning. But I can hear her. The Reaping is always disturbing to her, and on this particular morning she got up at dawn to pace the hallways. I figure that she probably knows how to calm herself down better than I do, so I’ve just been letting it happen. 

I check myself in the mirror. My hair is pulled back into a long braid, and I’m wearing my white Reaping dress. I pin my Aunt Maysilee’s mockingjay to the front. Mom gave it to me in one of her more lucid moments when I turned twelve– old enough to be eligible for the Reaping, and old enough not to lose family heirlooms.

There’s a sharp crashing sound, a yell, and the tinkling of broken glass. I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear that. It’s Mom, it must be. 

Five glasses are shattered on the floor by the time I get from the hallway to our kitchen. Mom is in her long white nightgown, and her feet are covered in cuts. She’s bleeding all over the floor, and she stands like a toddler that’s just scraped her knee for the first time– shocked, arms outstretched, waiting for somebody to scoop her up and tell her that everything is alright. That’s my role. I step forward cautiously, because it’s better not to startle her, and then I see her face. Mom’s skin is pink, and her eyes are swollen and shiny. She makes sounds, but it’s nothing that could strictly be called words. This is normal for her. 

“Hey, Mom,” I coax. “Can you put down that glass?”

She looks at me and starts shaking her head rapidly. I think I hear her say the name Maysilee.

“Shh. Deep breaths. Can you concentrate for me? Can you put down the glass?”

I creep forward, reaching for the cup in her hand and hoping she won’t throw it at me. She doesn’t, and her fingers are almost limp when I pry it from her hand. I take her arm, trying to guide her around the broken glass and towards the bathtub. I’m pretty sure that she steps on more of it as we’re walking, but I can’t help that. She’s used to listening to me when she gets like this, and so she sits obediently at the edge of the bathtub as I start to run the water.

I pull off my dress and fold it over the sink– first so that it won’t be ruined by the water, and secondly so that Mom won’t see the pin and get more upset. Then I kneel in the tub and start washing my mom’s feet. Her blood runs pink down the side, diluted by the bath. I try not to look at it too closely. Instead I focus on taking out the bits of glass that I can see, and then on bandaging her feet for her with some gauze that I found in the cabinet. Mom is pretty subdued, now. She just stares blankly at the side of the tub. 

I touch her arm again to signal that we’re going to move. It takes some effort to jolt her out of whatever haze she’s currently in. But I want to get her safely in bed. It’s not worth the effort to get her under the covers, especially on a hot day like today. Instead I focus on finding a vein for her morphling, and watch as she settles into a soft sleep. She won’t remember a thing later tonight. Sometimes I wonder what she dreams about while she’s under like that. So much of her life has passed this way, so I hope it’s something good. 

This is in some ways an improvement to our relationship. I’m old enough to understand and take care of her now. When I was younger I didn’t understand why Mom was like this. She scared me when she had her ‘fits’, and even when she was calm the prospect of her having another one was frightening. She used to be able to talk more back then, but her mind wasn’t fully right. One time when I was six Mom just started staring at the blue flame on our gas stove. She was mesmerized by it, and she said that she wanted it on us forever. We were going to press our hands into it together. I was too clueless to disobey, and it nearly happened– our maid, Mrs. Heathcoate, noticed and stopped it at the last second. Seeing the look of fear on Mrs. Heathcoate’s face only made me more scared of Mom. Later, when I was ten, Mrs. Heathcoate taught me to give her the morphling. I hated doing it, but Mrs. Heathcoate just clucked her tongue at me. I was old enough, she said, and it couldn’t be just her and Dad forever.

I shake my head. Why am I thinking about that now?

I go back to the bathroom to put my dress back on. I can’t be late to the Reaping.

There’s a knock on our back door. I instantly know who it is, because there’s only two people that come around that way: Katniss and Gale. My father, Capitol loyalist that he is, loves strawberries and hates doing without them in the district. So he discreetly encourages those willing to pick them.

I obediently swing open the door. Katniss is wearing a brown hunter’s jacket, and she has a grim expression on her face that can only be because of the Reaping this afternoon. Gale looks, if possible, even angrier behind her. In his case it’s probably the combination of the Reaping and my presence.

“Pretty dress,” says Gale.

This throws me off. With Gale you can never tell if he’s making fun of you (very likely, I’m the mayor’s daughter and despised) or if he’s being genuine (vaguely possible, because his tone of voice is friendly). 

“Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don’t I?”

“You won’t be going to the Capitol,” says Gale. “What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old.”

This stings, but Katniss jumps in before I can say anything:

“That’s not her fault.”

“No, it’s no one’s fault. Just the way it is,” says Gale coldly. I think there’s a bit of sarcasm in there. The idea that it’s  no one’s fault is certainly a lie– it’s the Capitol, and we both know it. And I am his closest proxy to the Capitol, I can concede that.

Katniss hands me the strawberries, and I quickly pass her the money so that I can escape Gale’s glare. 

“Good luck, Katniss.” 

She gives me a thin smile over her shoulder as I shut the door. I sneak a few of the strawberries before I leave, because despite our differences my Dad and I share the same taste buds. Then I start walking out the door. My heart is pounding in my chest. I’m the same age that Maysilee was, and that feels like a sign somehow. 

This is what I think about as the peacekeeper takes a bit of my blood and signs me in, and then as I hide myself in the sea of other blonde heads from Town. I tune out as Dad gives his speech with his usual pride. I’ve heard what he has to say a million times this morning, anyway, because his office isn’t soundproof. Maysilee, Maysilee, Maysilee.

Effie Trinket struts onstage, and I’m long past the days where I found her beautiful. Ghoulish is a better word– so polite, so made-up, so girly as she sends young children to their deaths.

“Happy Hunger Games!” she squeals. “And may the odds be ever in your favor! It’s truly such an honor to be with you all this July 4th. As always, ladies first!” 

She reaches into the bowl, and she’s relishing the melodrama of it, I can tell. Then she reads the name:

“Primrose Everdeen!”

My brain feels like it’s been washed with bleach. It’s almost never someone I actually know, and it’s almost never a twelve-year-old. Prim, with her two blonde braids and the back of her shirt sticking out, is an anomaly as she walks slowly towards the stage. She’s trying to delay the inevitable, and trying to look calm. The thought of volunteering flickers quickly across my mind, and then it disappears. I’m not brave enough. 

But someone else is.

“I volunteer! I VOLUNTEER!” someone is yelling. It’s Katniss, her arms waving frantically like someone might miss her. The crowd quiets– I don’t know if District 12 has ever had a volunteer. Prim’s face flickers between a moment of relief and then horror. Gale marches forward to grab Prim, and Katniss is on the stage in an instant. Her face is completely stoic. For a moment I think that she could actually win this thing, but that’s pure bullshit. District 12 never wins.

As if to prove my point, Haymitch Abernathy comes up behind Katniss and starts yelling about spunk. That’s her mentor. I hate him in this moment– she deserves someone helpful. I wish the Capitol would send her Finnick Odair or Johanna what’s-her-face to mentor her, someone who is actually sober enough to know what’s going on.

“What an exciting day!” says Effie. “But more excitement to come! It’s time to choose our boy tribute!” 

She fishes around in the bowl, grabs a likely-looking slip of paper, and then reads it out. “Peeta Mellark!”

I know Peeta, too. We were childhood friends, sitting together in our music class and then in math later on. We’ve grown apart in the last few years, but that doesn’t make this any less painful. I wanted a boy I could root against, preferably weak, so that Katniss could come home. And that’s not Peeta.

They make Katniss and Peeta shake hands, as though they aren’t in a competition to fight to the death, and my father starts reading out the Treaty of Treason. I’ve never felt so ashamed of him in my life. 

Then the tributes are being rushed away, and I follow from some distance behind. Better not to irritate the peacekeepers by getting too close, but I don’t trust myself to navigate to the right building while blinking back tears like this. I can’t cry in front of Katniss and Peeta. They’re the ones who really have something to cry about, and won’t they panic more if I’m crying? Although maybe they’re past the point where panic more is a real thing.

I decide to visit Peeta first. We’re less close, and so it will be easier to keep calm. Somehow I’m only second in line, so the wait isn’t long at all.

His eyes are slightly watery looking, but that’s the only indication of fear that I can see in him. He just seems defeated . So we skip greetings.

“You’re going to try, aren’t you?” I’m shocked that this is what comes out of my mouth, but it does. “Because you have a real shot, Peeta.” 

“No I don’t–”

“Yes, you do. You win all the school wrestling competitions. And the Careers will underestimate you, nobody expects anything from District 12. Use it to your advantage, we’re all rooting for you–”

“That’s not true, you’re all rooting for Katniss ,” says Peeta.

“Can’t we root for both of you at once?” I ask. Logically I know I can’t, but it’s what I say to him.

“Even I’m rooting for Katniss, a little bit. Did you see Prim’s face-?” he asks.

“Look, you’re one of the kindest people I know. And what you just said proves it, but– don’t give up on yourself. That’s all I have to say.”

Impulsively, I grab his hand and squeeze it. Then I walk away, unable to tell if I made things better or worse. I enter into Katniss’s line, knowing that they’ll hurry us along and I might never get my chance to say goodbye. This thought seizes me, and I stare at the ground trying to calm down again. The glint of my gold pin– not my pin, Aunt Maysilee’s– catches my eye. I should give it to Katniss. She needs something from home, and her family is probably panicking too much to bring her something. This might be the one thing I can do for her. 

I almost run forward when the surly-looking peacekeeper opens up the door for me. Katniss looks as stoic as ever, though she can’t hide her shock that I turned up. That stings a bit. But when I open my mouth the words start pouring out:

“They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena. One thing to remind you of home. Will you wear this?”

I hold out the pin to her, but she just looks confused.

“Your pin?” she says, blankly. 

“Here, I’ll put it on your dress, all right? Promise you’ll wear it into the arena, Katniss? Promise?”

I pin it to her blue dress, and she doesn’t object. I guess that’s good enough. I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek– based on her expression, I know I’ve surprised her again. 

The peacekeeper tells me to keep it moving, and I have to turn around and leave. Gale Hawthorne is waiting just outside. I can’t look at him right now, he was too on the nose when he said that he and Katniss were more likely to go to the Capitol. And he looks furious, which might partially be because I just stole some of his time with Katniss.

But I’m her friend, too. Or at least I tell myself that as I move past him. Katniss didn’t seem to think so just now. My other thought is that I need to find someplace quiet to cry. At home my tears will upset my mom and mystify my dad, and in public I’ll look like a lunatic. 

What really bothers me as I’m hurrying along is how ordinary the rest of the District seems. Those who don’t know Katniss are enjoying their day off of school and their afternoon away from the mines, gossiping with each other about District 12’s first volunteer and the odds of that Mellark boy making it to the final eight. Nobody dreams of a Victor, of course. It irritates me. Everything should be quiet, somber. The sky shouldn’t be so sunny. The world should look like it’s mourning.

But it’s not.

Chapter Text

The next few days pass by in an awful blur. Crying in the long grasses of the meadow as the train leaves. Going to school like everything’s normal, except Katniss’s spot is empty and people are giving me long glances when they think that I’m not looking. Dad doesn’t fully understand why I’m upset. Yes, my friends are going to die, but haven’t they also been honored? Mom is restless, but she normally is around the Games. What isn’t normal is that I’m restless too, and that my patience isn’t what it usually is for handling her.

The first mandatory viewing is called in the town square only a few days later. Nothing deadly yet, just the parade. My dad goes to his spot on the stage to introduce the event and to discuss the need for pageantry when honoring Panem. I wince, and try to slip unnoticed into the sea of other blonde heads from the town. But no such luck. Gale Hawthorne is sitting in the front row a little further down, and he seems to have a sixth sense for when I’m trying to avoid him. He turns and glares at me as though it’s my fault that my dad doesn’t care.

My dad shuts up, which Gale takes as his cue to stop scowling. Instead we all face the giant screen, where a tinny version of Panem’s national anthem is playing. They’re showing us the Capitol seal right now, so that we can all marvel at it. The seal is displayed so frequently that I wonder if it’s burned into the screen even when turned off. I resolve to check after the viewing. Then I shake my head. I should be worried about Katniss and Peeta, not the state of District 12’s digital monitors.

For their sakes I hope that the costumes aren’t “naked with coal dust” again this year. The best we can hope for, I decide, is that the mining costumes will be nice and loose.

Right as I think that, they start to play the really important part of all of this, which is the recap of the Reaping. Recap for the Capitol, that is. For us it's our first viewing of the tributes from the other districts. Districts 1 and 2 have their usual crop of volunteers, and I cringe at the sight of a particularly muscular tribute called Cato. Even his name sounds warlike. The middle districts have no one that I would mark as particularly fierce competition against Katniss and Peeta– although who would guess, looking at Katniss, that she is such an expert archer? That thought makes me uncomfortable. Any one of them might have some sort of secret skill, like that Johanna girl from District 7. Or not-so-secret. The boy from District 11 certainly appears threatening. He might even be more bulky than Cato, which is no small feat. Literally.

Then we get to the replay of District 12’s Reaping. We get more attention than usual this year, Katniss ensured that. They replay the footage of her frantically volunteering for her sister, and then share clips of her staring stoically at the crowd. The commentators are in love with her– not Katniss Everdeen the girl, but Katniss Everdeen the spectacle.

“The first volunteer district twelve has ever had,” says one, stating the obvious.

“And what might her motives be? There’s fame and glory, as Effie so kindly pointed out at the Reaping–”

“And twelve is a notoriously poor district, the life of a victor must hold some appeal.”

“But that requires winning, do you think she has some kind of special skill?”

“She must, to take a chance like this! But of course there’s the more romantic notion, given that the girl who was originally chosen was her sister. It could be an act of self-sacrifice-”

The two commentators laugh as though they can’t imagine such a thing. Then they move on to speculation about whether or not twelve is becoming a career district, which makes me laugh in turn. The answer is an easy no.

They only spare a few sentences for Peeta, pointing out his muscular build and comparing him to Thresh from eleven. The immediate dismissal of him makes me bristle, especially when I know that half of the attention on him is only reflected glory from Katniss.

The TV cuts to the opening of the parade. It’s all very typical at first- District 1 has gone diamond-inspired, District 4 looks like a pair of mermaids, and so on. I get a flash of black when Katniss and Peeta appear, and for a heart-dropping moment I think they’ve gone for naked with coal dust again. But no, it’s more like a pair of black leotards. That’s a slight improvement.

Then they’re lit on fire, and I gasp.

They look ethereal, bright and burning. Katniss’s gray eyes flash, almost matching the flames, and I’m wondering if I’m looking at her true self rather than just some Capitol invention. She and Peeta are holding hands, a united front, and for a moment the pair of them look almost defiant. But then, within a split second, Katniss’s face breaks into a wide smile. She’s grinning and waving, ‘catching’ kisses from the crowd, and acting completely un-Katniss like. 

“Now, look at District 12!” cries one of the commentators. And that’s it, he’s spoiled the moment. But one thing is true– nobody has ever really bothered to look at District 12 before. And if they are now, at least we’re getting sponsorships.

It’s over too quickly (when have I ever thought that about anything to do with the Hunger Games?), and then President Snow is giving his address. For one horrible moment he reminds me of my father– the speeches are so similar. I brush it off, before noticing that President Snow’s granddaughter is standing off to the side on the podium. She’s wearing a neat blue dress, and she’s blonde. Like me.

It’s so strange to have this one fortunate child standing beside the twenty-three doomed ones. I wonder if she realizes it. If she loves her grandfather or if she’s ever had a rebellious thought. Or both. 

Then the TV flickers off, and I notice with a start that I was right. The Capitol seal is burned into it. It’s displayed that much. Something about that pops the aching bubble in my chest at seeing Katniss and Peeta on screen, and I’m thinking of sneaking off to the meadow again when someone catches my eye.

Prim.

She’s underneath the bleachers that the Capitol makes us sit on. She hasn’t taken out her braids from the Reaping, and her face is in her knees. I walk over to her, and she lifts her head to see who else came down here. That’s when I notice that she’s crying harder than I’ve ever seen anyone cry. So hard that she can barely breathe, and that’s why there’s no sound.

I sit down next to her and let the hot tears fall down my face. I have no idea how long Katniss and Peeta will be alive for. That parade and a three-minute interview segment might be all I get from this point forward. And it wasn’t the real Katniss, it was giggly Capitol Katniss, and that’s not her at all. And give it a few years, I’ll start to forget what she looked like– no, not what she looked like, but how tall she was and her facial expressions and her mannerisms…

I wrap my arms around Prim, and she starts sobbing into my side. It takes a few minutes for both of us to calm down, and when we’re in the last hiccuping moments of it Prim starts to apologize for crying.

“Don’t you dare,” I whisper into her blonde hair. “You’re supposed to miss your sister. You two love each other.”

For some reason I can’t shut up, so I just keep talking to Prim as she sits there. Even though I don’t register half of what I say:

“Katniss loves you more than anything, Prim. And she’s so smart and tough and kind, at the very least she’s about to give those Careers a good run for their money and they won’t be expecting it. And she’ll give those Capitol people a hard time somehow, too. If she gets a bow and arrow while she’s in there it’s game over. Don’t worry about how the other tributes from twelve have done, because they weren’t Katniss . They didn’t hunt in the woods like she did, they hadn’t been supporting a family since they were twelve, and they didn’t have you as a reason to come home. And you’re more like her than you think you are–”

“Prim? Prim?” 

It’s Gale Hawthorne’s voice, and I tense up even though I haven’t done anything yet to make him annoyed. I see his muddy black boots directly in front of the bleachers, and then slowly lift my head so that I’m looking at his face. But he’s focused on Prim, who is untangling her arms from around me, brushing the grass off her skirt, and obediently coming to his side. She shoots me a thankful glance, and then Gale remembers that I’m here.

He looks at me with a strange, indecipherable expression on his face. Then he turns and leaves.

I stay under the bleachers, ripping up blades of grass and listening dimly as he tells Prim that her mother was looking for her. Their voices fade out of my hearing.

Chapter Text

I try to catch more glimpses of the Everdeens– I had some vague thought of checking on how they’re doing– but they’re oddly hard to find. So the next time that I see Prim is also at the next mandatory viewing. I’m making my way to my usual hiding spot among the town girls when I hear her voice calling my name.

“Madge- come sit with us!” 

She looks almost cheery when she sees me. Her golden hair is in a braided crown around her head, and she’s wearing her Reaping clothes. I think I must be gaping at her, and my feet take one step forward and another step back without my telling them to. I never used to talk to Katniss’s family before the Games, and I feel uncomfortable with inserting myself now– even despite the bleachers the other day.

“Please?” says Prim. 

That breaks whatever lingering surprise I had at being asked. I walk over to her and sit on her right. Mrs. Everdeen sits on her left. She looks a lot like Prim, and it’s obvious that she was once a very beautiful woman. Is a very beautiful woman, even if she’s older and even if she doesn’t look cared-for.  

I hear heavy footsteps coming our direction, and I glance over at the person coming to sit on my right. Gale. He looks stunned to see me, but he hides his expression quickly and says hi to Prim and Mrs. Everdeen. I try not to be too irritated by the way that he pointedly ignores me. 

Mrs. Everdeen glances up to greet Gale, and that’s when she sees me. She looks shocked.

“Hello,” she says. She’s gaping at me, her mouth slightly open. The moment is drawn out, and she must notice my discomfort because she adds:  “I’m sorry for staring. You look just like your mother and your aunt used to…”

“People always say that,” I say, faking a small smile. I don’t like this conversation at all, and I wonder why she’s bringing up my aunt.

“I used to be friends with the two of them, before I married Burdock,” says Mrs. Everdeen, answering my unspoken question. “The resemblance really is uncanny, it’s like seeing Maysilee again… Just how old are you, dear?”

“Sixteen,” I answer. 

“The same age she was,” says Mrs. Everdeen, with an oddly soft look in her eye. She glances at the projector, but they haven’t started playing the interviews yet. “Is your mother still-?”

“The same as she always is.”

“I regret that I never visited her after she got married,” says Mrs. Everdeen distantly. “I understand her a little better now, after Burdock…”

The tinny Capitol anthem starts to play, and Mrs. Everdeen goes quiet. My face feels hot and I bury my fingers in my skirt, twisting the fabric tightly. The subject of Maysilee always makes me uncomfortable. She comes up a bit in Mum’s ramblings, sometimes, but I don’t have a clear idea of her and I don’t feel like I have the right to talk about her. 

Gale is giving me a curious glance, and I purposely avoid eye contact with him. Mrs. Everdeen just revealed more of my home life than I’d like him to know– she’s really offered him ammunition, on some level. And he’ll probably take it. 

He’s still sitting with a good foot-and-a-half of distance between us. He wouldn’t want to seem too fond.

I nearly start laughing at that thought, and stifle it just in time. One of the commentators on TV has just started talking.

“And now , ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to announce that the interviews for the 74th Games will commence! But first, and this is ever so exciting, we get to take our first peek at their scores from the last day of training. You’re in for some real surprises, here–”

Gale and I suck in a breath at the same time. Then we glance at each other uncomfortably– neither of us likes being similar to the other. But we each had the same thought: Katniss might very well be the ‘real surprise’, with her archery skills. 

She is. I barely process the other tributes’ scores, but Katniss’s eleven is shocking. Nobody from the outer districts gets a score this high. Ever. I’m thrilled, and then I hear Gale mutter the words target on her back. I’m tempted to kick him for saying it where Prim can hear. But kicking him would be based on a level of familiarity that we don’t have.

Then Caesar Flickerman is on stage in a bright blue wig and garish smile. The televised crowd explodes into cheers, but those of us in District 12 don’t move a muscle. 

“-and, first up, from district one– Glimmer!”

Caesar makes a face after he says her name. I’ve always found the names from District 1 ridiculous, too, but I don’t like when Caesar mocks them. The joke is really about all the Districts.

Another ‘joke’ is when Glimmer comes out onstage dressed in a sheer golden thing that barely stretches to her thighs. She looks a bit like me. Maybe Prim and Gale have the same thought, because they both glance my way when she walks out. I wonder how Glimmer’s family feels, looking at her like this. And I wonder how Glimmer feels about it. At least on stage she looks thrilled, but she doesn’t have much of a choice about that. 

They bring out her district partner next, an overconfident boy named Marvel. I’m actually less worried about him in the arena with Katniss than I thought I would be– he isn’t nearly as smart as her, I can see that. It makes me feel optimistic for a moment, until Cato comes out. He’s just as terrifying as he was on the day of the parade. The other tributes blend together, and I can feel my own attention starting to drift. If mine is, and I actually have some stakes in this, then what about the Capitol people thousands of miles away? Their attention is also flagging, but we need them to listen to District 12.

My worries about that disappear when I see Katniss.

Her resemblance to her mother, while not obvious to me before, is suddenly very clear. Katniss is also a beautiful girl, and I’m amazed that I never saw it when I was sitting next to her at lunch all that time. 

They’ve put her in a stunning red dress that looks like it was made of woven fire, with red ribbon braided into her hair. She looks at the floor for her first few seconds onstage, and then her eyes meet the camera. They’re a piercing gray, and I don’t know how the Capitol people can stand to look at her. Katniss’s eyes seem to know everything about the world, and they are furious about it.

I’m so grateful that they didn’t try to make her sexy like Glimmer.

Caesar starts asking her questions, and at first Katniss looks stiff. She answers that her favorite thing about the Capitol is the stew, and I laugh a little at that (Gale glares at me accordingly). Then she says that she’ll try to win the Hunger Games for Prim. Prim gets teary-eyed and hides her face in her mother, who wraps an arm around her. I’m suddenly struck by how small Prim really is.

I look up and Katniss is twirling on stage. Somebody calls her “the girl on fire”, and I know that the name will stick.

Then there’s Peeta. 

He’s very much the boy that he was at school– the popular, chatty one. He makes jokes with Caesar about the Capitol showers, and when they pan to the audience I can see most of the women completely fawning over him. I’m grinning. Then Caesar asks him about the girls back home, and isn’t there somebody that Peeta is going to want to come back to?

Peeta’s hinting at a girl, and I can’t think of anyone who it might be. I’m thinking that she’s probably imaginary– an invention for Capitol entertainment. But Caesar keeps pressing, and then Peeta lets it slip:

“She came here with me.”

He brings down the house with that. The Capitol people go crazy. My first thought is no, because I can tell when he says it that it’s probably the truth. They cut to Katniss’s reaction, and she’s blushing furiously. Then they usher Peeta offstage, but I’m still shocked by the revelation. 

The screen goes dark, and we’re left to anticlimactically walk back to our houses. Everyone in twelve is whispering to each other about what Peeta just did.

The Everdeens, Gale, and I start walking in a cluster down the main road. I fall back a bit to let them have some time to themselves, and Gale does the same.

“Are you trying to have your five minutes of fame, then?” he asks sharply.

“What?” I say, stupidly.

“You never sat with the Everdeens until this Hunger Games. What, are you trying to be seen with the mourners? Remind everyone that she talked to you sometimes?”

“I was going to sit with the town girls and then Prim asked me to come over,” I hiss at him. “And believe it or not, I don’t need my ‘five minutes of fame’- being the mayor’s daughter will give you that anyway.”

“It always comes back to Daddy’s money with you,” says Gale.

“You’re usually the one to bring it up.”

Gale just looks at me, and we walk another couple of paces before he continues:

“I knew you talked to Katniss sometimes, but she never said anything about you. The last thing the Everdeens need is some- vulture following them around for attention. I just can’t figure you out–”

“And you can keep wondering,” I snap. 

“Are you in love with Peeta or something?”

I stop in my tracks.

“What? No-”

“Okay, I just thought maybe that was it,” says Gale. 

We walk in silence after that, although I’m still amazed that this is where Gale’s mind went. That unrequited love for Peeta would somehow push me to comfort Katniss’s baby sister. What? Is that how he thinks girls work? Or just me specifically? And then suddenly it clicks with me that Gale thinks I work this way because this is how Gale operates.

“Are you in love with Katniss?” I ask.

I know that I’m right when I see the look on his face. I might have slapped him. He looks completely stunned.

“That’s what I got from this conversation,” I say. Another dumb comment, but I hate the silence and I need to fill it.

He doesn’t answer. 

“So. Did Peeta’s confession bother you?” I ask.

“No,” says Gale easily. “It’s all a strategy, isn’t it? And I can’t see Catnip falling for some guy from Town. And not while she’s in the Games, she’s too smart for that. But if he wants to sacrifice himself to protect her then he can be my guest.”

“ How dare you?” 

“Well, they can’t both make it out,” snaps Gale. “And I’d rather she had someone helping her on the inside. I should have volunteered–”

His voice cracks, and all of my anger at him melts away. Gale Hawthorne is crying, and it takes a lot to make him cry. I look towards the ground and pretend not to notice when he wipes at his eyes with his sleeve. I don’t think he would want me seeing, anyway. But I can’t help saying something.

“No,  you shouldn’t have volunteered,” I say. “You’re helping her just as much as Peeta did tonight. You’re feeding her family, and you know that all Katniss cares about is Prim. And your family needs you.”

“That’s what I told myself, but I just wasn’t brave enough–”

“I think you’re probably braver than ninety-nine percent of people. I don’t even like you and I’m saying that.”

I think that was too personal, because Gale suddenly starts walking again. He straightens his facial expression almost mechanically. We’re in complete silence, and I’m not going to be the one to break it. Instead, I think. 

What must be the worst thing about the Hunger Games–  for the observers, anyway– is not being able to help. That’s probably something that Gale would agree with, if I said it to him. And I keep thinking about the interviews. Peeta did a lot tonight. People will donate money, and they’ll need that in the Games.

People will donate money.

I speak up again at the last possible moment, right as we reach the divide between the Seam and the Town.

“Gale?” I say.

He hums his acknowledgement, turning to look at me.

“Do you think we could help Katniss and Peeta? I was just thinking about sponsorships. We could take up a collection– I could get my dad to donate, and ask around town. Maybe you could ask in the Seam– we’ll get my dad to wire the money…”

“Do you really think that people in the Seam have money to donate?” 

He says it more gently than he normally would, but the underlying accusation is still there.

“I guess I don’t know, it’s up to you– but I’ll ask the Town for sure-” 

I’m rambling, and Gale is just looking at me.

“It’s a good idea. I’ll ask around in the Seam,” says Gale softly. 

Then he turns, gives me a half-wave, and vanishes down the road.

Chapter Text

Normally my Dad is the best father you could ever ask for. He was the one to originally teach me piano. It was our thing, every night before I went to bed, that he would show me a new song. He would always share bits of gossip from his work, and read me children’s books from when he was younger. Picture books for Capitol children. And he would tell me stories of our family in the Capitol– my grandmother, who had been a celebrated hostess and socialite. My grandfather, who had done some sort of engineering work. Both are dead, but if they were living they would have loved me. And I probably would have loved them.

But every summer, around the Games, my feelings shift. He never stops talking about them, and it becomes hard to reconcile his easy enjoyment of the Games with Katniss’s absence and my mother’s calls for Maysilee.

This morning, as he butters his toast, is no exception.

“What did you think of the interviews?” he asks. 

I set down my orange juice.

“I thought they went well,” I say, carefully. “I’m glad that Peeta’s getting them both sponsorships.”

“That Glimmer-girl’s dress was awful,” says Dad. “I would never catch you wearing something like that. Girls in the districts can be so loose.”

“It was a Capitol stylist that made her wear it.”

“Well, she seemed perfectly happy with it,” he answers complacently. “Mrs. Heathcoate! Could we have some more bacon, please?”

Mrs. Heathcoate is our maid and cook, all in one. She must be in her early sixties, and she lives in the Seam. I don’t know much about her life beyond that- and though I sometimes wonder what she thinks of us, I'll probably never learn that either. She simply nods at my father, smooths her apron with her hands, and walks out of the dining room to go into the kitchen. 

As she’s getting more bacon, I take the moment to ask my Dad about my plan. 

“Some friends of mine were thinking that we might take up a collection for Katniss and Peeta,” I say. “And I said that I’d ask you about wiring it to Haymitch- do you think we could, Dad?”

“Of course you can,” he says. He seems surprised that I’d ever be uncertain. “I’m happy that you’re taking an interest. If you were in the Capitol you’d be eligible to start betting by now.”

Mrs. Heathcoate comes back in, and I decline any more bacon because I want to get started on my project.

The first thing I do when I get to my room is take an old bag and dump all of my allowance money into it. I feel faintly embarrassed when I see how heavy the bag has become. I’ve always gotten an allowance– it’s an unusual thing in District 12, but apparently common in the Capitol– and there’s not much in the districts to spend it on. The end result is that I have more money than any teenage girl really should. For once I can see myself through Gale’s eyes: the expensive dresses and big house and two servants really are a bit much.

Well, he can suck it up. It’s a good thing just now.

I take the bag and head out the door, trying not to feel self-conscious about the fact that I’m the mayor’s daughter and I’m about to go begging for money. It’d be easier if Gale was with me– which is probably the first time I’ve ever thought anything like that.

I decide to start with the jewelry shop. Its two doors down and Mr. Oaker, who runs it, is relatively good natured. He’s an older man, and I think he originally lived in the Seam because his hair is salt-and-pepper and his eyes are gray. But I’ve never asked about how he came to live in town. 

As I enter the jewelry shop- dark and dusty and crowded, with expensive metals shining out from every corner– Mr. Oaker appears. 

“Looking to buy?” he croaks.

“No, sir,” I answer. “It’s just- some of my friends and I were trying to start a collection for Katniss and Peeta in the Hunger Games. Like the Capitol people do, so we could send gifts. We were wondering if you would donate?”

“Nobody does anything like that in the other years,” Mr. Oaker grunts. “Katniss– that the girl who volunteered for her sister?”

I nod emphatically. 

“She saved Prim’s life and we thought we’d pay her back,” I say.

“The Everdeen girl?” asks Mr. Oaker.

“Yes.”

“Here’s my money,” says Mr. Oaker, handing me five gold coins. “You tell that Katniss girl good luck.”

I take the coins, thank him profusely, and then hurry out. Mr. Oaker, although not fully ‘there’ mentally, proves to be a very typical donor. At least, he is the start of a trend: skeptics will donate if you bring up Katniss’s unique sacrifice. I cringe at the fact that nobody seems to want to help Peeta, but the money will benefit both of them. 

I make my way through the whole street’s worth of stores. At the tailor’s shop there are the two elderly Miss Stewards, who dote on me when they discover that Katniss is my friend and offer up what must be half of their profits from the day. There’s Mr. Fescues, who tells me that if I care so much I should pay for their gifts myself. I get nothing out of him. The grocer, Mr. Burr, is very sympathetic- his daughters used to be friends with Peeta in elementary school. He calls Peeta “that dear boy” in a way that makes me feel oddly fond of him.

It’s twilight by the time that I get to the bakery. It is open despite the Hunger Games, and it looks the same as ever. Warm light streams from the window, and there’s beautiful cakes and hearty breads displayed out front. Pretty green paint labels it Mellarks’. I’m sure that somewhere back there is kind Mr. Mellark, locking up the store for the night. Or I hope it’s Mr. Mellark, because his shrewish wife would ruin the mental image I’m painting. 

I hurry forward past the bakery. I’m not going to bother them about the collection, and I can’t help but think that they deserve a bit of privacy.

There is one last person I have to see, though: Gale.

Our meeting spot is right at the line between the Seam and Town, on the end of the road that’s nearer to the woods and fence. Gale is already there by the time I arrive. He’s staring away from me and into the trees. 

In this moment I suddenly understand why all the girls at school talk about him the way they do. He must be six feet tall, with broad shoulders and sharp gray eyes. But here, near the woods, there isn’t any of the anger that I usually associate with him. For once he doesn’t look guarded or alert. Just– almost happy. And that makes my stomach flutter in a way that I’m not used to. 

Then he turns and sees me, and some of the guardedness goes back into his expression. My face feels hot. 

“Undersee,” says Gale.

“Hi,” I say. I hold up the bag I’ve been using for the money. It’s heavy with coins now, even if half of it’s mine. “Here’s my part of it.”

“That’s a lot of money,” says Gale. For once it’s a neutral statement. “I asked around at the Hob. It’s not as much, but the people there love Katniss.”

“The Hob?” I ask.

He just looks at me and blinks. Then he tilts his head back and laughs.

“Of course you don’t know what the Hob is,” he says. 

“Well, you could tell me.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” says Gale. But he’s smiling as he says it, and for once I feel like the joke isn’t completely on me. The flutter in my stomach comes back again and I look over his shoulder at the trees, hoping he won’t see my thoughts on my face.

“I’ll take this back to my Dad, then,” I say, taking the bag from his hand and trying very carefully to make sure that our hands don’t touch. 

“Right– you do that,” says Gale. 

I start to walk away– this seems like the right moment to, anyway– and then Gale calls  out from behind me:

“Hey, Undersee?”

“Yes?” I ask, turning to glance at him.

“You’re alright,” says Gale.

I smile at him– a real smile, ear to ear– and then quickly turn to keep walking away. I’m smiling too much for the moment and he doesn’t need to see it. But I feel bizarrely happy at being termed alright by Gale Hawthorne. 

Chapter Text

School is a joke in District 12. It goes on all year round, mostly because its real purpose is to free up everyone’s parents to work ten-hour shifts each day in the mines. There is a thin veneer of educational value: they teach us a bit of math, a brief history of the Dark Days, and the most important uses of coal. There’s also a lot of emphasis on physical conditioning, which I think is mostly to build strong future miners. But during the Games they drop any pretense about learning. All academics are paused, and we are shooed into a crowded gymnasium with no air conditioning. They dim the lights, pull down the projector, and we all watch as our former classmates fight to the death in the arena.

This is the first of those long days of summer. The first day of the Hunger Games. My stomach hurts when I'm nervous, so I feel like I’m being stabbed as we walk into the gym. Then I wince at my own word choice, even in my thoughts: stabbed. It might happen, just not to me.

But this first day goes by just fine. Katniss does the smart thing and runs far from the Cornucopia, but she gets a small backpack. By nightfall she’s huddled in a tree. And most of the screentime goes to the Careers, which suits me perfectly. I don’t care about what happens to them.

I’m watching the Careers make jokes about some poor girl they’ve just killed when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I almost scream– I’ve been so invested in the projector that any reminder of the outside world is jarring. Then I almost scream again when I see the man who tapped me. His hair is a shocking synthetic blue that I’ve never seen before, and the irises of his eyes must have been dyed to match. It’s someone from the Capitol. In our school gymnasium.

“Are you Margaret Undersee?” he asks, in the Capitol accent that is so familiar to me from my father.

I nod mutely.

“And you’re friends with Katniss Everdeen?”

Another nod from me, and he claps his hands. 

“Wonderful! Gaius, come here! We finally found a third– this will have to do, we’ll just go a bit more in-depth in the interviews to fill time.”

It finally clicks with me that I’m evidently considered close enough to Katniss to be in the “friends and family” interviews. I wonder how Katniss would feel about that, given how surprised she looked when I visited her after the Reaping.

I shove that thought out of my head. Why am I so stung by that? She’s fighting for her life and all I do is debate with myself about whether or not she actually liked me.

I’m shaken out of my thoughts as the blue-haired man ushers me into a smaller room off the side from the gym. I think it’s normally a supply closet, but they’ve set up a bright green tarp and camera equipment inside of it. It’s not big enough for everyone they’re interviewing, so they tell me to go back out and stand in the hallway while they get through the first round of questioning. 

There’s a line of us in the hall. Prim is first, and she gives me a tight smile when she sees me. Next is Gale, who offers me a slight nod. I try not to feel too delighted– it’s the bare minimum of politeness, but it is also more recognition than he ever gave me before. After Gale there’s a group of Peeta’s friends, Townies who I’ve grown up with but who ignore me for the most part. I think they like ignoring me because it gives them a way to opt-out of being comparatively lucky for someone in District Twelve. If people look too closely at the Townies’ lack of tesserae, they can point at me and cry look over there! Her father’s from the Capitol! And to achieve this pointing and crying, they perform a bit of dislike. Or maybe the dislike is real, but I hope that it’s not. I don’t want to have earned it.

I realize that I’m staring at the Town kids, and I must have a funny expression on my face because Gale is eyeing me curiously. I shake myself out of it and stand with my back to the wall between Gale and the Townies. 

They call Prim in for her interview, and I wish the Town kids would shut up so that I could listen better. As it is, I try hard not to make a sound. If I’m hearing correctly, they’re asking about what Katniss is like as a sister and a bit about the Everdeens’ family history. They sound positively delighted to learn that their father died in a mining accident. A bit of tragedy! exclaims one. Another labels the cause of death perfectly rustic, and I grimace.

“Gale Hawthorne,” calls one of the Capitol people.

He turns and disappears into the room. Prim comes out in turn, and I can see her eyes welling up with tears.

“Hey,” I whisper. “You’re worth ten of those idiots.” 

Prim looks at me, gives the same flicker of a half-smile from earlier, and turns to walk down the hall back to the gymnasium. We both know that the teachers will throw a fit if she’s late back. They crack down on everything like that during the Games– some little boy spent too long in the bathroom yesterday and got yelled at for almost fifteen minutes.

A little while longer and Gale reappears. He has the same angry expression on his face that he normally gets from talking to me, and I press myself closer to the wall like that will help me to escape his notice. 

“Good luck in there,” he says darkly. 

As if on cue, one of the Capitol men calls for Margaret Undersee.  

I walk in, and they make me stand in front of the green tarp. 

“We just want a shot of you introducing yourself, to start,” says the blue haired man. I realize that he assumes I’m stupid, because he speaks very slowly and over-enunciates. “It will be a couple of takes, just so production has something to choose from. Here’s your line- I’m Margaret Undersee, and I’m the mayor’s daughter. I’ve known Katniss since I was x years old.”

I nod, and he stares at me doubtfully. 

“Does that make sense?” he asks, in the same exaggerated voice.

“It does,” I answer.

Every time I deliver that line they make me reshoot it. Try to look like you’re grieving. Let’s do another where you smile. Hands at your side. Hands at your hips.  Hands clasped in front of you. Let’s go for girlish this time. I’m getting irritated, and just when I think we’re wrapping up some genius with green hair gets an idea:

“Maybe she should say that she’s been honored to know Katniss since she was six years old.”

We redo it.

“Now for the really interesting part– the impromptu section. How did you and Katniss meet?” asks the blue-haired man from earlier.

“I don’t remember ever meeting her. We’ve been in the same classes since we started school,” I answer. 

I can tell that this is a boring response by the reporters’ facial expressions.

“Let’s try that again,” says the blue haired man.

I obediently make up an anecdote about her sitting next to me at lunch. This pleases them.

“What do you think of her budding romance with Peeta Mellark?” 

“I’m happy for her. Everybody knows that Peeta’s liked her forever, and I think that Katniss feels the same way even if she’d never admit it,” I lie.

“Really!”

The Capitol people coo over that, and they ask me a few more questions. Did Katniss and Peeta talk much in school? How do I think they’ll handle the impending tragedy when one of them dies? And of course:

“What do you think Katniss’s chances are like?” asks the blue-haired man.

I stare straight into the camera. I can feel the imaginary Capitol audience watching me.

“I think she’ll surprise you. She’s smart and she’s tough, and you shouldn’t count her out  just because she’s from District 12. If there’s anyone I know that could win the Hunger Games, it’s her.”

“That’s a wrap!” announces the blue-haired man. “You’re free to go, lovely.”

I don’t know how I feel about being called lovely by this man that I’ve never met, but I smile at him and walk out into the hall. Then I’m met with another surprise: Gale is still standing there.

“Waiting for me?” I ask, half-joking.

“No,” says Gale, looking slightly ruffled by the suggestion. “Just eavesdropping.”

“And what did you think?” 

Gale pauses, then answers: “You handled them better than I expected. I liked what you said about Katniss at the end.” 

“And how did your interview go?” 

“Badly. They said that I lacked ‘essential charisma,’” says Gale, snorting. “But at least you’re lovely.”

I know he only says it because he’s making fun of that man from the Capitol, but something jolts through me when he says it.

“I don’t think I said anything especially helpful,” I say. I’m starting to walk back to the gym, but Gale doesn’t come with.

“I’m going to stay back here and keep listening to the interviews,” says Gale.

“Won’t the teachers bother you?” 

“I don’t think there’s much Mrs. Webb can do about it,” says Gale. He makes a hand gesture which I think is meant to reference his height, and I make a face at the idea of Gale trying to intimidate our math teacher. Gale seems to decide that this warrants more explanation, because he adds: “I can’t stand sitting there and watching every second of it. They’re barely showing Catnip right now, anyway.”

“I feel the same way,” I say. It’s true. 

“You could stay out here too,” says Gale, and I can see instant regret on his face once he makes the suggestion. But the chance to stay out of the gym is too alluring to me.

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

We’re both just standing there, and the Town girl they’re interviewing– Robin something– is waffling through her interview across from us. I doubt they’ll show her on TV, for a couple of reasons: first, she’s stunningly beautiful. The fact that Peeta has gorgeous blondes waiting for him back home doesn’t gel nicely with his current romance. Secondly, she isn’t saying much of anything. The interviewers aren’t helping, because they’re asking her almost the exact same questions they asked me. So I’m bored, and when I glance to my left I can tell that Gale is, too.

“Do you want to walk?” I whisper, trying not to be caught on the Capitol microphones.

“Sure. Around the school?”

I nod, and we slip away to pace the hallways. The teachers turned the lights off when we left for the gym earlier, and it’s a bit eerie seeing all of the empty chairs and classrooms with no people in them. We’ve been walking for a good fifteen minutes when Gale speaks up.

“How did you really meet Katniss, anyway?”

“I told the truth earlier. At school,” I say.

“It just doesn’t seem like an obvious friendship,” says Gale carefully.

“She’s really quiet, and so was I when I was younger. We ended up partnering together for everything, and sitting together. Just to have someone– we were both loners.”

“I figured you could have had all the friends you wanted,” says Gale.

“Not really. The Townies don’t really like me,” I say. I’m careful to say it in an upbeat tone, because I know that Gale would hate any trace of self-pity if it came out of my mouth. And he’d be right to, if I’m being honest.

Gale has the curious look on his face again, but he doesn’t ask whatever question he’s wondering. And it’s a good thing that he doesn’t, because I probably don’t have the answers, anyway.

So we’re silent again. It’s my turn to ask a question, anyway.

“Why do you call her Catnip?” I ask.

Gale blinks. 

“Did she tell you about that?”

“No, you said it earlier.”

“It was from when I started hunting with her. She was just this really skinny kid when I saw her for the first time. I didn’t really hear her when she said her name, I knew it was Kat-something. But when we were in the woods there was a lynx that used to follow her everywhere. So: Catnip. I started calling her that when we became friends.”

We keep walking for a little while longer before I tell him that I’m going back to the gym.

“I’ll come too. We should know if she’s still alright,” says Gale. “You know– the Everdeens wanted to invite you over for the private viewings. At their house.”

“Really?” I ask, surprised.

“Prim’s been asking. I’ve been going over there to watch with them, but I think that Prim doesn’t really know what to say to me. You’re less intimidating. And her mother isn’t– helping,” says Gale.

“Did Mrs. Everdeen… shut down again?” I ask. It’s hard to find a polite way to phrase it.

Gale blinks in surprise. “Katniss told you about that?”

“Yeah. In broad strokes,” I say quickly. Katniss only told me when she found out about my mother, and I don’t want Gale asking about that.  “But is Mrs. Everdeen still there…?”

“She’s not stuck in her own head the way she used to be. But I think it takes a lot of effort for her to be present. She can’t really help Prim too, you know?” he says.

“I’ll come over to the Everdeens’ at six or so,” I say. 

Gale nods. 

We split up as we reach the gym. I sit back by the Town girls, and he vanishes into a group of future miners on the opposite side. It’s almost hard to believe that we were just talking at all.

Chapter Text

I don’t like admitting it, but I’m nervous for my first time going to the Everdeens’. Katniss never invited me to her house, and on some level I feel like I’m violating her wishes by going. Our friendship is built on the fact that both of us are private people. Even if I can’t understand the feeling of losing a father or extreme poverty, I am supposed to understand boundaries. Or I used to understand them. But beyond that, Katniss lives in the Seam. I hate sticking out, and my blonde hair and nice clothes will absolutely draw unfriendly stares. 

Then there’s the fact that Katniss’s family is going through the worst moment of their lives– suspended between grieving and waiting to watch her imminent death. Thanks to Gale’s invitation, I’ll probably witness it with them. And I won’t know what to do when it happens, or what to say to Prim in the meantime. But it feels important to get it right. Or at the very least, not to make things worse. Which I probably will.

I’ve almost talked myself out of going, and it takes some self-discipline for me to get out the door. Mom has been resting all day and Dad is so wrapped up in his work that he doesn’t notice me leave.

I leave the lane left for the mayor’s mansion and turn into Town. All of the shop windows emit a warm light. I can see blond families inside some of them– a fat rosy-cheeked woman wiping down tables, a girl distracting her father as he counts change in a register, a small boy doing his homework on a chair that’s too big for him. Maybe some of them have the TV on in the background so that they can check on Katniss and Peeta, but most won’t without a mandatory viewing. Someone’s father opens the door to call for a pack of younger kids to come in from their play– dinner is ready, he says. 

This is the roughest part of the District that I have ever been in, and it is the good side. I’ve never crossed the invisible boundary between the Town and the Seam before, and I doubt that my dad would be very happy if he knew. 

The transition to the Seam is gradual. The road gets rockier and less well-lit. The shops start to disappear, and the houses get smaller. Some of the windows have broken glass. The children are still running around, but their clothes have strange stains and don’t fit. There’s nobody calling them in for the dinner that they might not have. A group of men, still in their miners’ uniforms, are standing around and smoking. They all have a faintly grizzled look to them that isn’t shared by any of the townspeople.

I feel a bit of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. I don’t exactly know where Katniss lives, only her address. And the Seam at night isn’t a good place to be lost. Come to think of it, I’m sure that I’ve made the same right turn three times now.

“Whatcha doing here, miss?” calls one of the smokers. He’s slurring his words, and I realize that he must have been drinking. “Thought you’d try– try slumming it? Slumming it with the miners!”

I stare at him in shock. I’ve been ignored plenty, but direct rudeness is something that I’m not used to.

“Ay, Sid, I think that’s the mayor’s girl-”

The first man– ‘Sid’- tips his head back and laughs:

“What, did you get lost?” he calls. “Think I can show you the right way around– you’ve got a great mouth for–”

“What do you think you’re doing?” comes a voice. It’s harsh, but it’s not directed at this Sid. I turn around to see Gale looking at me with his usual guarded expression. I suddenly remember that he’s about half a foot taller than me.

“Walking to Katniss’s–”

“You’re going the wrong way,” says Gale more quietly. “You’re running late. Prim was worried.”

“I got lost–”

“It’s fine, I’ll take you. You weren’t that far off,” says Gale. He glares at the miners for a moment– they’d gone silent to eavesdrop– and I wonder if he heard what Sid had been saying. I can’t tell if he did. 

Regardless, Gale motions for me to turn and follow him, and I do.

“Oh, I see why she came down here!” yells one of the miners. “If you ever get sick of Hawthorne–”

“How’d you pull that one?” calls another.

Gale ignores them as we hurry along, and I stay quiet. But I know that my face is probably pink from the implication that I came down here to- do something with Gale. At least he seems unbothered, because I’d probably die of embarrassment if he cared.

“It’s here,” says Gale. We stop at another one of the small houses. It seems quieter somehow than the others, although if you asked me I wouldn’t be able to tell you what made it seem so subdued. There’s a nanny goat chewing grass in the yard, and a halfhearted attempt at a vegetable garden on the side. Gale opens the door without bothering to knock.

I school my features as soon as we enter, although I’m sure that Gale catches my initial expression and doesn’t like it. The Everdeens’ whole house is the size of two rooms of mine. The air is stale, and everything is dark and plain– no ornamentation anywhere, no waste, not even the unnecessary use of fuel to light the place. The result is that most of the light comes from the cool glow of the TV, which catches on the hair of a delicate looking girl sitting on the sofa.

“Hi, Madge,” says Prim, giving me a small smile as she looks up. I notice her mother sitting next to her, but Mrs. Everdeen doesn’t seem to register that I’m present.

“Hey,” I say. 

I end up seated next to Prim. Gale takes the armchair opposite us. I’m privately grateful that the TV is only showing Careers for the most part– it makes things easier somehow.

The hours pass by like minutes. Katniss is allied with a young girl named Rue, but she doesn’t get much screentime. Instead we focus on the Careers that the Capitol has decided are favorites to win. At one point I’m braiding Prim’s hair into two plaits down her back. Later Prim’s eyes get watery and I let her press her face in my side as I rub her back. Mrs. Everdeen doesn’t even seem to register that anything happened. Finally I look up and realize that it’s nine o’ clock, and if anything I should be getting ready for bed. 

“I should leave,” I say, standing up to go. I give Prim’s hand a squeeze goodbye.

“I’ll walk you,” says Gale, looking at me carefully. “You shouldn’t be alone in the Seam at night.”

I nod, and as soon as I shut the door to leave he makes another comment: “Sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t walk you before, I should have thought of it. It’s my fault they were bothering you earlier.”

He did hear it, then.

“It isn’t your fault. I thought everything would be fine,” I answer. Gale gives me a long look before he replies.

“I think you underestimate how much people resent your family,” he says. There’s an odd heaviness to the moment, and it’s not one I want to explore. 

“It still would have been fine if I hadn’t gotten lost,” I say, and Gale snorts.

“I will say I wasn’t expecting that. You’re supposed to be smart and good at school and everything–”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” I say, ignoring the happy bubble in my chest at the fact that he’s apparently heard about my academics.

“Yes it does– you’d expect a good student to at least be able to use street signs–”

“I was focused on landmarks–”

“Which means that you didn’t even look at the signs–” says Gale. “You were three-quarters of the way to the Slag Heap when I found you, by the way.”

‘The Slag Heap’ is a halfway-familiar phrase to me from cafeteria gossip, and my cheeks turn pink again. 

“Isn’t that where couples go when…?” I wasn’t going to finish my sentence, but Gale is just looking at me and I get the sense that he won’t fill in the blanks for me. “-When they’re in love?”

Gale starts laughing harder than I’ve ever seen him laugh. Against my will I kind of like it.

“You’re the only one who would ever say they’re in love,” says Gale. 

“Sorry,” I say reflexively.

“It’s just very Madge-ish of you,” he says. He’s still laughing a little, and then we fall silent. On my part it’s partial embarrassment. I’m also amazed that he thinks he has a clear idea of what is and isn’t Madge-ish.

 We’ve reached the gate to my house, and we’re standing beneath one of the lanterns that lights the lane. Gale speaks up again:

“I never thanked you for agreeing to coming up with the collection– or for helping the Everdeens. You’re better with Prim than I am.”

“You don’t have anything to thank me for,” I answer. Gale shrugs, unwilling to argue himself into my debt.

“I’ll wait out here tomorrow night– don’t try and walk by yourself again,” says Gale.

“I don’t want to,” I answer. We wave goodbye to each other, and I hurry up the steps to our back door.

Chapter Text

Our walks to the Everdeens' all blur together, and they each start the same way. I start in my room as the sun sets, changing into my least-conspicuous clothes. My skin feels sticky because its a boiling summer, and I brush the sweaty strands of hair back away from my face. Then I hurry outside. There’s no need to be stealthy about it, because nobody ever notices that I’m gone or that I come back increasingly late. Not that I can blame them.

Gale always stands under one of the lanterns outside, looking bored with varying degrees of patience. I smile at him, and every night we politely ask each other how our days went. The thing that changes over the next two weeks is the honesty and detail of our answers.

On the first two days we both agree that we are perfectly fine. On the third day the silence finally becomes awkward, and Gale tries to fill in the gap by telling stories about what his brothers and sister have done lately. Mostly his sister. 

“Do you have a sibling? I can’t remember,” asks Gale.

“It’s just me,” I answer. He seems to expect more, so I keep blabbing. “My mom’s unwell, they thought more children would make it worse.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fine,” I say, shrugging. “But that’s why I’m always the one answering the door.”

“There’s your Dad,” says Gale. “Or Mrs. Heathcoate.”

“You know her?” I ask, surprised.

“She lives across the street from me,” says Gale. There’s something acutely embarrassing about the fact that his neighbor is my maid.

“Does she ever talk about…?” I ask. My cheeks are probably an appalling shade of red, and there’s a million ways that I could fill in the blank of that sentence. My mom? My behavior? My dad’s comments around the house?

“Talk about, ” prompts Gale.

“Just our family,” I say. 

“No. Is there some big secret?” asks Gale. At least he’s joking. 

“No.”

If he didn’t think there was before then he certainly believes there’s one now. But he’s tactful enough to offer me an out in the conversation, and the rest of it isn’t memorable.

Two days later, in another otherwise-identical walk, the view changes because of a gaggle of Town kids lingering in the street. There’s the pretty blonde girl who talked about Peeta in her interview, and a couple of the grocer’s sons, and a few others who I don’t really know even though they’re about my age. None of them say hello, and I know they’re staring at Gale and I even if they’re too polite to yell after us. I pretend not to notice them, staring straight ahead.

“Why do you always act like that with the Townies?” asks Gale, point-blank. “You did that at the interviews, too.” 

He really doesn’t beat around the bush, and I’m still deciding how I feel about that.

“I’m not friends with them,” I say, blandly.

“Then who do you talk to?” asks Gale. 

“Katniss.”

“Just Katniss?” asks Gale, apparently mystified. I’d forgotten how popular he is at school until this conversation– always surrounded by a group of wild-looking boys, usually at the center, making them all laugh.

“Well, technically you too.”

“ That doesn’t count,” says Gale.

“What? Scared we’re friends?” I ask.

“No,” says Gale. “But why don’t you talk to them?”

“I don’t think they like me that much,” I say truthfully. “I was never popular at school, anyway. And I don’t think being ‘the mayor’s daughter’ helps.”

I think he can hear my real opinion underneath it– that they feel guilt over their own lack of tesserae and their dinners at night, and that they think distancing themselves from me also distances them from their own good luck.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” says Gale, “that you never talk to anyone at school either? Because there’s plenty of people who would interpret that as haughty.”

My face feels even hotter, and I open and shut my mouth. It had not occurred to me, in fact. 

“I don’t think you are,” says Gale, with an unsaid anymore.

I half smile.

“It’s easy for people to be intimidated by the mayor’s half-Capitol kid who always makes the honor roll and never speaks,” says Gale. “Not that I was.”

“Oh, somehow I believe you about that part,” I laugh.

“You should,” says Gale. But he’s laughing too.

There’s an anxious twist of sadness in it for me, though. Not about my own lack of popularity, but about the fact that this is Peeta’s second day laying in the mud. For all we tried to raise money for him and Katniss, Haymitch doesn’t seem to be sending Peeta anything useful. He’ll die soon, I’m sure of it.

But Gale and I, as a rule, don’t talk about Peeta. 

But soon we’re almost forced to.

We’re watching the Hunger Games in the Everdeens’ living room again. Prim is leaning into my side, the spot which has become her habitual position because she can easily bury her face in my blouse– to hide tears, or to avoid looking at the gore from the stabbings on screen. Gale keeps to his armchair, and Mrs. Everdeen remains perched on Prim’s other side. Mrs. Everdeen is usually vacant in a way that reminds me eerily of my own mother, except when Katniss appears onscreen. Then she perks up as if she’d never gone blank in the first place.

Mrs. Everdeen perks up now.

Katniss and Peeta are shown in a cave. Katniss tending to Peeta’s wounds, the two of them whispering to each other– though you can hardly hear what they’re saying over the commentators- and finally Katniss pressing a kiss onto Peeta’s lips.

The reaction inside the Everdeens’ house is instantaneous. Prim blushes heavily and glances at the carpet. Mrs. Everdeen’s mouth forms a silent O. I’m not sure what I do, except that I look at Gale.

I thought that I’d seen Gale angry before, but now I realize that I haven’t. His hair almost seems to stand on end. His jaw is tight, and his gray eyes have a crackling look like storm clouds about to produce lightning. He stands up and walks to the door without a word, sucking all the energy in the room with him. Prim looks almost scared.

“Madge, we’re going now,” he says, when he sees that I haven’t moved.

I feel a dark streak of anger at him speaking to me that way– like I’m a puppy or a little kid for him to call for and order around. But against my will, I stand up. I smooth my skirt, squeeze Prim’s hand, whisper a goodbye to the Everdeens, and walk to the door. But as soon as the door slams shut I’m as angry as he is.

“ Would it kill you,” I ask, in a tone that I’ve never used before and didn’t know that I had, “to control yourself for once?”

“Don’t talk like you know anything about it,” says Gale.

“Did you see the look on Prim’s face when you did that just now? You’re such an asshole sometimes–” I snap. But he interrupts me.

“Well, what was that? Don’t act like you know, nobody ever makes out in the Games, and you’d never expect it from Catnip–”

“I think ,” I hiss, “that it was a strategy. That’s what all the Town kids are saying too.”

“Some kiss for a strategy,” scoffs Gale.

“Maybe,” I concede. “She doesn’t owe you anything in there. If it helps her and it helps Peeta, she has a right to do it.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps scowling as we walk. The crunching noise of the gravel under his feet feels louder tonight.

“Does she even know you feel like this?” I ask, suddenly. He’s silent for another long moment before speaking:

“Everyone always assumed we’d get married. I thought– it’s supposed to go without saying–”

“If Katniss gets back you might want to check that with her,” I say. “Because if there’s anything I know about her, she’s not the kind of girl to sit around daydreaming about her wedding dress.”

“Do you?” asks Gale, in the same sharp tone.

I know that he’s trying to change topics, and I take the bait.

“Oh, I used to have a whole wedding collage,” I say airily. “My Mom orders Capitol magazines sometimes.”

His expression is so disturbed that I think I’ve actually shocked him out of his anger.

We’re silent for the rest of the route through Town, and soon we’re almost beneath the lantern that marks the place where Gale stops walking with me. He never follows me past the gate outside my house. I think he hates even the idea of my family’s manor.

“I’m sorry I spoke to you like that,” he says, almost whispering as we stop. His expression from earlier is completely gone. His eyes are almost soft, and it makes something in my stomach melt.

“You’re forgiven. Apologize to Prim tomorrow,” I order, quietly. “And Mrs. Everdeen.”

He nods.

“I will,” he says. Then he vanishes outside the reach of our lamplight, and I turn back to the manor. 

The next day he presents Prim with a bunch of bluebells from the woods when he apologizes, and I feel oddly touched even though they aren’t for me. But the conversations between Gale and I regress to where they were last week, when he filled up the time by telling me cute stories of his sister and avoiding anything serious.

This time, though, they’re funny stories about himself in the woods.

“The first thing I ever caught with a snare was myself,” he says, grinning. “I was so proud of actually managing it that I forgot to watch where I stepped.” 

He does an imitation of himself hanging by one ankle– the kind of performance he’d normally do for his real friends at school– and I’m laughing harder than I ever have.

“Gale, stop doing that– it hurts to laugh–”

“You’re that weak?” he asks, doing it again.

“I mean it– stop–” I say, between giggles.

“Not if it makes you smile like that,” he says,  and I think my heart almost stops before I remember that he can’t possibly mean anything by it. T hat helps me calm myself down and stop laughing.

“If I were your dad I would never have let you down from there,” I say.

“Funny, he made the same threat,” says Gale.

“Should have kept it,” I mutter. Then– “Is that why you like the woods so much? Because of your dad?”

“Partly, I guess. It’s just nice. No cameras, no people. It’s actually free out there. Minus the fence,” says Gale.

“Would you take me?” I whisper. 

His eyebrows are in his hair when he processes what I’ve said.

“The woods aren’t something to play with,” he says, finally. “You know the peacekeepers would kill you for that, right?”

“You go all the time,” I point out.

“Because I need food, not because I’m bored,” says Gale, rolling his eyes. 

“Right,” I agree. I’m kind of embarrassed that I asked, when Gale speaks up again:

“There’s something else I could show you,” says Gale thoughtfully. “I’ll have to think about it.”

So I’m grinning to myself for the rest of the day at home. My parents don’t notice, but Mrs. Heathcoate raises her eyebrows. Oddly enough, her confusion makes me smile even wider.

Chapter Text

Gale won’t reveal what he was thinking of, except to offer vague assurances that it will “probably happen soon.” Privately, I’m beginning to think that he regrets the invitation– but I bite my tongue when it comes to pointing out that he can probably take me wherever he wants at anytime he likes. Meanwhile, our lives continue in the way that it feels like they always have– long days at school, watching the Hunger Games. Sitting in the Everdeens’ house, watching the Hunger Games. All of it punctuated by brief walks home with Gale, during which we discuss the Hunger Games.

We’re in the “sitting in the Everdeens’ house” portion of our day when the camera cuts to Katniss. Everyone in the room perks up. What is especially unusual is the silence of the commentators in the background, and instead the booming voice of Claudius Templesmith:

“Competitors! We would like to bring to your attention an invitation to a feast, if you will. It has come to our attention that each of you has something which you desperately need. And you will find it, if you only go to the Cornucopia–”

“Don’t you dare do it,” murmurs Gale.

Gale had caught on first, before I did, that the item which District 12 desperately needs is medicine for Peeta– and he thinks there’s a chance that she won’t do it. But I can already feel that Katniss is going to, or else she’ll die trying. She has a blazing look on her face. But either nobody else notices or we’ve all decided not to acknowledge it.

Gale, Prim, and Mrs. Everdeen all visibly relax when Katniss starts whispering reassurances to Peeta. But then Peeta falls asleep, a syrup appears at the cave door, and Katniss’s real plan becomes obvious. 

Mrs. Everdeen starts crying, which is the most reaction that I’ve seen out of her yet during the Games. My brave girl, she whispers. Over and over again. Prim doesn’t even seem to know what to do, and I feel like a voyeur sitting in their living room for this. I settle for rubbing Prim’s shaking back as the camera follows Katniss’s walk out of the cave. But my hand on Prim’s spine is useless in this moment. I’m blinking back tears myself, and I don’t feel like I have a right to cry in front of the Everdeens. I suddenly feel very conscious of the fact that nobody in this living room really expects her to survive.

The camera cuts away from Katniss, and Gale slowly stands up.

“We should go,” he says, softly. “They’re winding down for the night.”

 I nod, and we both silently walk out the door. 

We start walking in the normal route home, and I take the moment to look at Gale’s facial expression. It isn’t one that I’ve ever seen on him before. I think there’s a little of the possessive fury from last week– what is a strategic kiss to stay alive when compared to dying for Peeta? But it’s doused in his fear for Katniss. And looking at his face– with the realization that this is something that makes Gale afraid– makes it real.

I stop in my tracks, because suddenly I can’t hold it in. Hot tears are running down my face, and so is snot. I hear the wailing sound before I realize that it’s me. Suddenly I feel rough fabric against my face, and someone is squeezing me so tightly that I almost can’t breathe. It doesn’t matter because I’m crying too hard to manage air anyway.

“Shh,” says Gale, but I can’t stop crying and hiccupping. I don’t know how long we end up standing there, except that I spring back away from him as soon as I can control myself. I realize vaguely that there’s snot on his shirt now, but it feels even ruder somehow to point it out.

“Sorry,” I say quietly. I regret it because it comes out more as a croaking noise.

“It’s fine,” mutters Gale, putting his hands in his pockets. 

We walk in silence the rest of the way home, not because it really feels awkward but because there’s nothing to say. We nod goodbye to each other when I turn at the lantern. As I walk up to my house I have a passing thought that next time we see each other Katniss will be dead. I’m sure that Gale is thinking something similar.

I stumble blindly to my bed, and fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.

***

The next morning is the same as almost every other. I mechanically put on my gray school uniform, pull my hair into a wispy ponytail, and check on my mom before I leave (she’s standing in the corner, muttering to herself, which is relatively peaceful for her). I tell my mom that I love her before I go. Then I head downstairs to the kitchen. Mrs. Heathcoate is chopping an onion while bacon sizzles on the pan behind her. She doesn’t notice me come in.

“Mrs. Heathcoate?” I ask, quietly. “Have you heard anything about the Hunger Games yet today?”

She turns to me, looking surprised.

“That Katniss girl is still alive,” she says. “Got the Mellark boy his medicine. They’re alright.”

I let out a yell of excitement against my will, and then I feel guilty because it’s probably disturbed my mother upstairs. But I grin at Mrs. Heathcoate, and she gives me a rare smile as I leave the house. It’s the same level of shock as I felt at the Reaping, only now in a good way for once.

I’m met with another surprise when I pass the gate to our house. Gale is standing underneath the lantern again, only it’s the early morning before school. His facial expression mirrors my own, with a broad smile that I’ve only seen on him a handful of times and a happy glint in his eye. 

“You heard already?” says Gale, and I nod. “I was just coming to tell you– they’re together in the cave right now–”

We’re both smiling at each other, and then he keeps talking:

“You know how I said I wouldn’t show you the woods but that there was something else we could go to? It’s happening tonight– the Seam’s holding a party to celebrate that Katniss and Peeta are still in it–”

I feel a rush of excitement, and I didn’t realize that it was even possible to feel happier. Gale sees it on my face:

“I was worried you wouldn’t want to come,” he says.

“No, I do,” I say, still smiling.

“Where something normal,” says Gale, and I look at him quizzically before he continues– “Don’t dress up. Take your blue dress or something, I’ll meet you at the lantern again tonight.”

“Okay,” I say.

We walk the rest of the way to school together, and even when Gale goes away to talk to his friends from the Seam I still feel happy. Katniss and Peeta are alive, I’m going to a real party, and I think that I have a friendship which exists even outside of the Everdeens’ living room.

Chapter Text

I’m running late to meet Gale, because Mrs. Heathcoate asks me to help her chop the vegetables for Dad’s dinner right as I was about to leave. I do it as quickly as I can, disregarding the messy work I make of the carrots, and pointedly ignoring her raised eyebrows at the blue dress I’m wearing. Then I make my excuses to leave, knowing that she’ll feel honor-bound to report me to Dad if she knows where I am really going.

By the time that I reach the lantern, I can already see that Gale is in one of his less patient moods.

“I almost thought you weren’t coming,” says Gale. 

“Sorry I’m late, I had to help with dinner,” I say quickly.

Gale seems to find it quietly bizarre that I might have a chore, but I don’t feel like acknowledging his thoughts. Instead, I ask one of the other questions on my mind:

“Where is the party, anyway?”

“Near the meadow. If we try to hold it in the Seam the peacekeepers get upset,” says Gale. “It’s not far.”

I hold in my surprise at the word peacekeepers– their presence hadn’t even occurred to me– and we walk in silence through the lane for the rest of the way there. 

The meadow is extremely crowded. There’s crowds of people with dark heads of hair and slightly ragged clothes, but the atmosphere is happier than anything I’ve ever seen in District 12. There’s a small group of people playing different instruments– I can pick out the violin by ear, but I’m too far away to see the rest. I can spot at least two bonfires with crowds of people around them, at least one bottle of white liquor being passed around, and another younger group starting to gather near the band.  

“Hey, Hawthorne!” someone yells, and Gale lifts a hand in recognition. I realize how many people there are, and how much I stick out, and I’m tempted to try and hide behind Gale. But I think we would both respect me less if I did that.

Gale seems to sense my train of thought, though, because he suddenly tells me that he’ll introduce me to some girl named Bristel. My first thought is that I think her name is weird, but even I can hear how snobby that is. So I stuff that thought down as we walk through the meadow, blades of grass brushing against my thigh. Nobody seems to notice me until we get to one of the crowds around the bonfire. Then I can feel the chill over the conversation as I walk by, and dozens of pairs of cool gray eyes glance at me. The words what’s the mayor’s daughter doing here? seem to float by me, and I can’t tell if someone actually said it out loud or if it’s just my imagination. I think someone actually asked it. 

  “Bristel, you know how I told you I’d bring–?” Gale starts.

“I thought you were joking,” says a girl sitting on the log. She’s very small and slight, but something about the way that she carries herself makes up for it. Her hair has been cut into a short spiky hairstyle, and her gray eyes have a flinty look to them. She has a bottle of clear liquid in one of her hands, but I don’t think it’s water in there.

“No, I was serious,” says Gale. He steps slightly to the side, and this feeling of being formally presented reminds me of some of my Dad’s parties for the Capitol people. Bristel just looks at me, squinting her eyes slightly.

“Hi, I’m Madge,” I say, and hold my hand up in a half-wave. 

“Somehow I knew that,” laughs Bristel. “I’m Bristel.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say reflexively, and she laughs at me again. This puts me even more on edge, because I wasn’t trying to be funny. 

Bristel gestures for Gale and I to sit down in the grass next to her, and we do– Gale on my left, Bristel on my right. Gale carries the conversation far enough for me to learn that Bristel is only a year older than me, one Reaping away from working in the mines. She’s got two older sisters, one of which is already married and who I get the impression that Bristel dislikes. She and Gale talk a bit about people I don’t know, and then Gale gets sucked into a different conversation with some of the boys– and eventually he stands up to be able to talk to them more easily, without shouting. So it’s just me and Bristel.

“So, who do you talk to at school?” I ask, trying to sound bright and conversational.

“Gale, a couple of the other girls– I don’t think you know them,” says Bristel. She has an almost feline look in her eye. “How did you end up being friends with him? The two of you aren’t dating, are you?”

“What? No,” I say. I know I’m turning pink. “I was friends with Katniss, and both of us were over at the Everdeens’ a lot after– the Reaping.”

“That makes more sense,” says Bristel, with a scrutinizing look. “He speaks pretty highly of you, you know–”

“Wait, really?”  I squeak. What makes it worse is that I can tell that Bristel is cataloguing my reactions.

“Well, he likes you more than most of the Townies,” says Bristel.

“That’s not a high bar,” I blurt out, and Bristel starts cackling.

“It really isn’t,” she says, between laughs.

“Have you seen his facial expressions with –?” I start, and Bristel pulls Gale’s exact facial expression before I can finish my sentence. It makes me laugh harder than it should.

“He’s like that with the Townie teachers, too,” says Bristel, taking a sip from her bottle. “You’re not old enough to be in classes with him – do you want a sip?”

“Sure,” I say, and I brace myself as she passes it to me. She watches me intently as I lift it to my lips, and it burns going down my throat. I try to restrain my coughing, but that makes her smile more. I pass it back to her, and an older girl comes up to tap her on the shoulder.

“Bristel, I’m taking that bottle from you,” she says sternly. 

“No you’re not!” says Bristel, laughing and fending her off with waving hands. Bristel loses the bottle, and I see the older girl walk away with it.

“Is that the older sister you mentioned?” I ask.

“No,” says Bristel, and she seems to find this question funny too. “That’s just Willow– my sister would never come to a party like this, she’s too prim–”

“Is that the married one?”

“Yeah, she barely speaks to me,” says Bristel. “Thinks I’m a delinquent, I think she’s a snob– you probably have siblings, you know how it is–”

“I don’t,” I say quickly.

“Can’t imagine a family with only one child,” says Bristel, slurring her words slightly. “You don’t see that much in the Seam. I’m never going to have children–”

“Why not?”

“Because everyone has more kids than they can afford and it looks miserable,” says Bristel bluntly. “And I don’t like small children anyway.”

“I don’t know what to say to them either,” I say.

“Oh, that’s not it, I just think they’re loud–”

We’re interrupted because we both hear Gale’s voice say the name Madge, and both of us want to stop and listen in. He’s still talking with the group of boys.

“Why’d you invite her? Isn’t it Katniss for you?” asks one of the boys, and I’m straining my ears to hear because I’ve been wondering the same thing. The words Katniss for you catch my attention, because the thought of me as any sort of Katniss equivalent in Gale’s life is just so ridiculous.

“Obviously it’s Katniss, but I just invited her because she doesn’t get out much–” I hear Gale say, and then he glances over at me like he can sense that I’m listening. He lowers his voice after that.

Because she doesn’t get out much. I know it's true, but it’s not what I was hoping he’d say. I was hoping he’d call me his friend. But I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, anyway.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I almost leap out of my skin before I realize that it’s Gale. 

“Do you want to get up and dance?” he asks. 

“I don’t know how,” I say honestly.

“You did it in school– everyone’s too drunk to be in good form anyway,” says Gale.

I stand up, smoothing my skirt as I do so– the gesture makes Bristel snort for some reason– and then we go over.

I would have said no if I’d remembered that dancing would involve touching Gale, but it’s too late to do anything but school my facial expressions. It’s something about seeing him at ease– not angry, just laughing, with a softer look in his eye than I ever normally see on him. And standing in front of him to dance makes me more aware of his height, and the broad shoulders that I normally don’t consider when we’re standing side by side.

Gale is staring at me just as much as I’m staring at him, and then suddenly he lifts his hand up to the side of my face. I can feel the rough calluses of his palm on my cheek, and his hand is unexpectedly warm. I can’t decipher the look in his eyes, and I can’t look away from them either.

Something in the moment pops, and I feel a bolt of panic before I tilt my head away so that he’s not touching my cheek anymore. I try to smile brightly at him, even though I know my face must be as red as a tomato, and his eyebrows knit together. He looks like he’s about to say something before I interrupt him.

“Do you know what dance this is meant to be?” I ask.

“Reel,” mutters Gale, and the violin starts up again before he can say anything else. He spins me around by the hand a couple of times, and then I’m passed over to the next person in line– in this case a girl I don’t know, who grins at me.

I keep dancing for ages. I love the fast pace of it, and I’m laughing so hard that my sides hurt. I don’t know where Gale goes, but I feel like a part of the dance and I don’t want to leave it. The stomping and spinning and clapping and kicking is easier than talking, by far. I don’t think that I would ever go, except that I suddenly remember that I have to go home. So in between songs I leave to go find Gale, who’s sitting with Bristel and saying something that I can’t hear.

Bristel tilts her head back and laughs– she looks beautiful when she does it– and says: “Well, I think she’s sweet-”

I only realize that the word ‘sweet’ might just have been applied to me because the conversation stops when I come over. I tell Gale that I’m going home, and he jumps up to walk me back.

“You don’t have to,” I say quickly. “I know the way, I just didn’t want you to think that I’d gone missing-”

“No, I want to go– it’ll end soon anyway–” says Gale.

The walk back is just like any of the others we’ve had, except more quiet. I think whatever happened before the dance has disappeared completely from the air, and it’s both a disappointment and a relief. But I don’t want to dissect either of those feelings.

“Goodnight,” I say, as we reach the lantern.

“Goodnight,” says Gale tiredly.

But I don’t sleep at all. I sit up late with my hand on my cheek, mentally replaying the conversation with Bristel and my experiment with liquor and the dances and everything else.

Chapter Text

Katniss and Peeta win the Hunger Games a couple of days after the party. It's all a blur- the mutts running out from the woods, the blood smeared across Cato's face at the Cornucopia, Katniss and Peeta huddled together as they whisper in each other's ears. Katniss holding the berries up to the sky for all of the Capitol to see, and there's fire flashing in her eyes when she shoves them in her mouth. It's over in a moment, and we've won the Games. 

The voice of Claudius Templesmith is drowned out by the roar of all the students in the gym, and the teachers don’t bother trying to contain us as everyone stands up and claps and cheers. They dismiss school early- there’s no controlling us at this point– and a tidal wave of teenagers floods out of the doors. I wish that somebody had brought a camera for it, because District 12 is rarely joyful. 

I’m unsure of what to do without school, and I settle for walking home. But I linger, enjoying the summer breeze and the noise of the leaves and grass rustling in the wind. I’m smiling from ear to ear, and I think my brain can’t even process what’s happening. Two victors- in one day- in District 12. It’s the impossible, all come at once. I feel as though the Capitol is about to announce the end of the Hunger Games and independence for the Districts as a treat. Maybe President Snow will kick the bucket today, too. Why shouldn’t he?

But I don’t need to imagine good things today. Katniss and Peeta are both alive, both receiving some sort of state-of-the-art treatment in the Capitol, both coming back to District 12. Prim is going to be– must already be– overjoyed. Mrs. Everdeen won’t retreat into herself the way Gale and I were always afraid she would. Gale is getting Katniss back, and maybe that will make him less angry all the time. I hope that he’ll still talk to me once she returns– actually, I think he will. And there will be a feast for everyone in the Districts, and lots of food for the rest of the year. That won’t affect me at all, but the sight of children crumpled in the snow and starving can be deferred for a winter.

There will be a party in the Seam again tonight– I can hear someone talking about it, even from where I’m standing on the gravel path– but I’m not invited. I think the Town kids are celebrating on their own too, though I can’t join in on that. So instead I walk the rest of the way home, and end up laying in the grass and braiding together the dandelions. I’m so happy that I can’t even focus.

*****

They televise Katniss and Peeta’s joint interview a few days later. I don’t watch it with the Everdeens– they don’t need me and Gale as emotional guard dogs anymore– but on my television at home. I don’t like the dress that they’ve put Katniss in, yellow and frilly with a bow in her hair. It doesn’t suit her, or the inner fire that the whole nation knows she carries. She’s half on top of Peeta in the footage, and I wonder vaguely what Gale thinks of that. I do wonder if the town kids’ theory about their relationship– that it’s a strategy on Katniss’s part– is right. Previously I had agreed, but she looks at him so lovingly on camera that I can’t tell. 

*****

They send Katniss and Peeta home the day after the interview airs. There’s a loud hush over the crowd as we wait for them to appear, and then endless screaming when we catch our first glimpse of the Victors. I can barely make them out from the platform– a blur of Katniss’s olive skin and now-iconic braid, the slope of Peeta’s shoulders and the glint of his hair in the sun. They wave at us frantically, and I’m almost blinded by the cameras flashing as they descend down the steps. The only noises on the platform are screams, clicks, and shutters. 

“Katniss, look this way!” yells one of the Capitol photographers.

She ignores him, instead running forward because she’s just spotted Prim. The two of them are hugging tightly, their limbs so tangled that you can barely tell where one sister starts and the other begins.

That moment seems to last forever, but then she turns to Gale and basically jumps into his arms. Even from my distance I can see the love in Gale’s posture— the way he holds her like she’s the most precious thing in the world— and I wonder how Katniss has apparently never noticed.

Then she’s standing back with Peeta for another round of celebratory photos, and the peacekeepers eventually force those of us in the crowd to disperse.

Chapter Text

The thrill of District 12 winning the Hunger Games eventually cools, and with it comes the realization that I haven’t seen Gale in a week and a half– not since Katniss held up the berries, and not in the week since she came home, either. I try not to feel annoyed by his sudden disappearance, especially when I haven’t been bold enough to seek him out at school. With Katniss now exempt from the mandatory attendance requirement, I sit by myself every day and try not to look too lost when the teacher wants us partnered up for activities.

But when there’s a heavy knock on our back door,  I’m thrilled to hear it. I move to answer it a little too quickly, and I can see Mrs. Heathcoate looking at me with thinly veiled suspicion before she steps back into the kitchen. I swing open the door, and there’s Gale holding the usual basket of strawberries.

“Hi,” I say. This is our first time talking ever since the party, and the memory of his hand on my face bubbles up when I look at him. But his friendly expression is the same as ever, and I doubt that he’s thinking about it.

“Hey,” says Gale. “Here’s your dad’s  strawberries– there’s probably only another basket or two left, the season’s ending.” 

“Thanks. Have you seen Katniss since-?”

“Yeah,” says Gale, looking at me oddly. He lowers his voice: “We’ve been going hunting, the same as ever. It’s weird now that she doesn’t need the food, though.”

“Is she holding up okay…?”

“She’s as alright as you could possibly expect her to be. I don’t know, she doesn’t talk to me about it. I guess that’s probably Peeta’s thing,” says Gale. He says Peeta’s name a bit darkly, and it makes me cringe. “Prim and Mrs. Everdeen are over the moon, decorating their new house.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” I answer, smiling to myself. I glance up and Gale looks amused, like he’s fighting a smile.

“You know, you could stop over and visit. They were asking about you,” says Gale.

“Were they really?” I ask. I sound a bit too pleased, and the amused look on Gale’s face is back in full force.

“Of course they were asking, you were over at their house for weeks on end. You’re a foul weather friend, you know that?”

“A what now?” I ask, and this time it’s Gale’s turn to look a bit embarrassed.

“Something my mother says,” he mutters. “Just visit the Everdeens if you want to, they’re wondering where you went– and then you can talk to Katniss yourself without getting reports from me.”

I think I must look a bit sheepish, because I hear Gale mutter the words you’re ridiculous sometimes. 

“Maybe I like getting the report, otherwise I’d ever see you,” I say. 

“Well, you’re about to see even less of me,” says Gale. I look at him quizzically, and he fills in the blanks: “I’m starting in the mines soon.”

“I forgot you were old enough,” I say blandly. I want to tell him to be careful, but that’s exactly the wrong thing to say. Gale knows the dangers of the mines better than most people, given his father.

“So did I, almost. It’s really a good thing. More money,” says Gale. “But it’s a ten hour day, six days a week.”

“Are you even going to have time to go hunting-?” 

“That’s what they leave us the seventh day for,” says Gale, and I laugh.

“Then no more strawberries,” I say.

“I’ll keep coming by,” says Gale. “But I really should go now, I promised my mom I’d help her haul the–”

There’s a loud bang! from indoors, and I turn to look before realizing that Mrs. Heathcoate probably just dropped a pot. When I turn back to look at Gale, I realize that he’s just staring at me. His eyes are a startling shade of gray, and it’s like they have hooks in them. I can’t look away. The moment seems to last forever, and I have a funny feeling in my stomach when suddenly–

“Madge,” says Gale. He’s holding out his hand, and I realize that the reason he’s still standing here is because he wants payment. I’ve forgotten to give him the coins.

I pass them over quickly, my cheeks burning, and Gale walks away quickly after he takes them. Then I move back inside, mostly wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

After he leaves, I spot Mrs. Heathcoate frantically scrubbing at a steel pan. I ask her if she needs any help, but she shoos me away. I wish that she’d wanted me to wash the dishes, firstly because it would have taken my mind away from Gale and secondly because I hate being left to drift around the house. Dad is probably at the Justice Building right now, and Mom is pacing the floors upstairs and talking to herself about Maysilee. I love her, but I don’t like being around her when she’s like this– even if I know that I shouldn’t admit it.

I end up deciding that Gale is right about the Everdeens. It’s ridiculous that I haven’t visited them on my own.

The walk down the lane is peaceful, and I almost decide not to visit the Everdeens at all. The long grasses, aster, and dandelions are swaying in the breeze; and I love the flickering greenish-silver of the rustling leaves. If it were at all socially acceptable I would lay down next to the path and go to sleep in the grass. I wonder if this is how Gale feels in the woods. Maybe I’ll ask again for him to take me, but I doubt that he’ll ever agree.

I reach Victors’ Village soon afterward. There’s an open cast iron gate that I have to go through, and I feel like a trespasser when I enter it. Most of the houses are obviously empty, and it’s easy to tell which one is Katniss’s by the goat grazing in the yard. I guess Prim was too attached to give it up. I snort, wondering how the Capitol people would react to the goat chewing up their carefully-tended gardens.

I walk up to the door and knock, not fully expecting an answer. But within moments Katniss appears, with a wary expression that she never used to direct at me.

“Hi, Madge,” she says. 

“Hi,”  I say, shrugging. “I thought I’d check on you. I miss having you at school.”

Katniss’s eyes soften, but her smile is tight. 

“You can come in. Prim’s out of the house,” says Katniss.

I follow her into the house. It’s large, and decorated in the slightly gaudy style that I’ve only ever seen in our own mansion. Katniss looks oddly small in the big arching hallways, and disoriented in a way that I’ve never seen on her before. We move into the kitchen, and she puts on a kettle for tea– nevermind that it’s the end of summer.

Katniss hands me my mug, and I sit down to sip it politely, ignoring the fact that I’m already boiling from the walk over. There’s a long silence. I feel like it should be me that fills it, given both everything that’s just happened to her and the fact that she wasn’t expecting me.

“Are you doing okay?” I ask, awkwardly. 

“It’s fine,” says Katniss. I nod, glancing at the dark circles under her eyes.

“Gale said you two were hunting again.”

“Since when do you talk to Gale?” 

“You know my family still buys strawberries even if you’re not around,” I say, smiling at her. I don’t know why I omit everything else, except that I don’t think Gale would like me telling her somehow. 

We fall back into silence, and I glance out the window at the Everdeens’ carefully manicured backyard.

“Do you want your pin back?” asks Katniss. I look at her in surprise– I haven’t thought about the pin for ages.

“You can keep it. Everyone thinks of it as ‘your thing’ anyway,” I say.

“Some of the Capitol girls started copying it,” says Katniss with a yawn.

“Do they know it’s a–?” I start to ask, but Katniss interrupts me. 

“It’s a silly fashion statement for them. They do that sort of thing with a lot of the Victors. That and cardboard cutouts,” she says dryly.

“Cardboard cutouts?”

“Life-size,” says Katniss, and I snort.

We fall into another long silence, and I’m on the way out the door when I feel Katniss’s firm grip on my arm again.

“Thank you. For everything with Prim– she told me,” she says, looking at me with intense gray eyes.

“You don’t have anything to thank me for,” I say reflexively.

I hurry out the door and take the long route through the lane, trying to delay my arrival back home. 

Chapter Text

The initial visit to Katniss makes me worried when I have time to analyze it. Most of the changes were subtle, but they were there: her olive skin unusually pale, her permanently wary expression, the way her collarbones protruded sharply and her wrists looked bonier than normal. Katniss has gotten skinnier after the Hunger Games, something which would have seemed impossible to someone who knew her before. I have a vivid mental image of  her getting thinner and thinner, until she vanishes into nothingness. 

This mental image is probably what drives me to keep bothering her after the first visit, even as I think that I’m probably intruding. Or really a combination of my worry for her and my own current friendlessness, with Gale mining all day. My strategy with Katniss ends up being to keep my visits short, to never bring up the Hunger Games, and to occasionally offer her a pastry from the baker’s as a sort of sweetener.

Either the pastries are oddly effective, or she really just needed time away from the Games, because Katniss slowly starts to return to some semblance of her old self.  Her posture straightens, her figure fills out, and her hours in the woods with Gale give her skin its usual tan back. Her personality sees a similar shift– where it was almost impossible to carry a prolonged conversation with her before, we get to a point where I at least feel like she wants me there and the two of us can talk to each other.

The whole process feels a bit like taming a feral cat.

One day we’ve decided to take a long walk down the lane from my house when she suddenly speaks up:

“What do you think is going on with Peeta and I?”

I look at her, slightly bewildered by the thought that I would have any idea.

“I don’t talk to Peeta, so I only know what you’ve told me,” I say. Which admittedly isn’t anything. Katniss is silent for a moment, but I’m suddenly curious. “What do you think is going on with you and Peeta?”

She seems to take this as permission, because she blurts out:

“I was acting. In the Hunger Games. I’m not in love with Peeta.”

“A lot of people thought that,” I say cautiously, monitoring her facial expression. “In Town, when Peeta confessed during the interviews. It died down over the course of the Games, nobody suspects anything now.”

“They thought I was acting?” 

“No, mostly just when Peeta confessed originally. They thought he prepped it with Haymitch,” I say.

“Well, he did– but not like that. Madge, you’re not understanding. I was acting, Peeta wasn’t,” says Katniss.

“Oh,” I say, stupidly. “Does Peeta know?”

She nods, looking more upset than I ever would have expected from her. Granted, she’s not teary-eyed or anything, but I never thought of Katniss Everdeen as someone who would care about boys. 

“What about Gale?” I ask, trying to restrain my curiosity.

“We haven’t talked about it. He can probably sense it, he’s not an idiot,” says Katniss.

I have my doubts about this, but I keep them quiet. Katniss seems to have a need to fill the silence:

“They’re going to make us start acting again on the Victory Tour, and I don’t want to–”

If it was Prim I’d squeeze her hand, but Katniss never liked being touched. 

“It’s going downhill from here,” I say quietly. “Once you get through the Tour, the Hunger Games is never going to be directly about you again. I mean, you’ll have to mentor, but they won’t be shoving cameras in your faces in the same way.”

“But I can never not be with Peeta,” says Katniss, “or there will be a big – and I don’t want to mentor, I don’t want to be with all the dying kids– and their families will hold me responsible—”

“If you had died, would you think it was Haymitch’s fault? When every other tribute except you and Peeta died, did you ever blame Haymitch?”

“No,” Katniss mutters. 

That’s the last we say about it, and eventually we move into Town and turn back. Katniss occasionally brings up the Hunger Games after that, but I don’t think she’s really one for talking about her feelings. To be honest, I don’t know how to talk about her feelings either. Her problems are too real, and her anger is too justified. I don’t know how to help. So we stick with lighter subjects, of which Gale is occasionally one. But I try to act as casually as I can when he is brought up. 

Gale  told me last time I saw him that strawberry season was completely over, and because of that I’m not really expecting him this morning. It’s true that he’d made a one-off comment about how he’d ‘keep coming by’, but I figure that there's a good chance that he’s probably forgotten it in the time since. So I end up hovering by the back door on Sunday, even though I know how pathetic that is.

I hear a sharp knock, though, and that makes it worth it.

Chapter Text

What’s surprising to me about Gale’s visits is that we never seem to run out of things to talk about. You could say that it’s only because I see him once a week– I’ve said so to myself, as well– but nevertheless it’s true. And somewhere along the way the average length of our conversations shifts from ten minutes to twenty, and then to forty minutes or an hour and a half. I feel like I’m monopolizing his only free day, but I’d never point it out because I like it so much. 

My first thought when Gale comes by today is that he looks angry. We both step outside into the fresh air and take our usual positions around the stairs, but his expression doesn’t change.

“Did something happen?” I ask. 

“Rory was talking about taking tesserae, and I’m trying not to yell at him too much,” says Gale bitterly, kicking a pebble. 

“Why now–?”

“Because he’s old enough. He’s thirteen. I think he said something about it last year and Mom made him shut up,” says Gale.

“But isn’t now a better time for your family?” I ask.

“It is, with me working and Katniss giving her game to us. But there’s never a lot– and he thinks he’ll fix it by giving the Capitol a bunch of little slips–”

“At least he’s not actually going to,” I say softly. “You and your mom would never let him.”

“I know that, but can’t he see what an insult that is? We’ve been taking care of him just fine, and now he puts on this show like we’ll all starve if he doesn’t man up. And he suggests it right after we all watched Katniss nearly get killed maybe sixteen times–”

“I don’t think he means it as an insult to you,” I say delicately. “Maybe he’s trying to be like you? Like he watched you take over all of the trapping and hunting when you were younger, and he saw you put in your forty slips of paper for the family, and then you threw yourself into the mines as soon as possible for them, and he watched it and he admired it. So now he’s trying to do the same thing.” 

Gale is silent, which I don’t know how to interpret.

“But I don’t know him,” I say.

“Could be. It’s Rory. What goes on in there is anyone’s guess,” says Gale, tapping his temple. I laugh, mostly because I’ve listened to enough Rory-related stories to know exactly what he means.

I suspect that Gale’s brothers would be deeply offended if they ever overheard his impersonations of them, but I can’t bring myself to care- mostly because I think that they’re so funny. We talk about them a lot, and next week they come up again:

“Vick’s got a girlfriend,” says Gale, with a gleeful look in his eye. 

“Isn’t he eight?” I ask.

“You would be correct,” says Gale, nodding sagely. “But there’s a young Miss Burr in his class who seems to have no such reservations–”

“The grocer’s daughter?” I ask, interested despite myself.

“The one and only,” laughs Gale. “We only found out about it because he was begging mom for money to go and buy her candy from your family’s old shop.”

“And what did your mom say?”

“A very firm no,” says Gale. “But I’d just gotten paid, so–”

“Of course you did,” I laugh.

“I’m his brother, it’s my job,” says Gale, with a broad smile that makes my heart leap.

I don’t usually consider it, but we spend a lot of time talking about our families. Mostly Gale’s, because I tend to withhold information about mine– or I try to, anyway. But somehow the subject comes up. It only happens because Gale was describing his own mother to me. I get the impression that the two of them are close, and I feel like I know her without having met her. She sounds so warm with her sons, with a steel backbone underneath it all.

“I wish my mother was like that,” I mutter. 

“Why’s that?” asks Gale. He turns to look at me, and I can see the curiosity on his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your mom.”

“You have— sometimes the Capitol people drag her out for official functions,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “She’s just– not well mentally. She had a twin sister when she was younger named Maysilee, and Maysilee got Reaped when she was my age. It was Haymitch’s Hunger Games, and Mom watched it happen. The Capitol doctors think that might have started to mess up her mind a bit.”

I can’t read Gale’s facial expression, because it’s one I’ve never seen on him before. I think it might be pity, which is strange coming from anyone– especially him. I keep a neutral tone.

“She got pregnant with me pretty quickly after she married my Dad, and then everyone thinks that the pregnancy and the birth was so traumatic for her that she kind of– if you meet her, it’s like she’s slipped out of her own brain. She just walks and mutters and throws things and cries,” I say bluntly.

“But she married your Dad– isn’t he from the Capitol? And her own sister–” begins Gale. 

For a split second I kind of hate him for bringing it up. I’ve thought the same thing frequently enough.

“Well, it’s not like I can ask her why she did that,” I say coldly.

Gale winces, seeming to realize his mistake. The anger I felt a moment ago vanishes.

“It’s fine, I’ve just always wondered the same thing,” I say, and Gale seems to relax.

“I wonder if you’re more like her,” he says. “You just never remind me of the mayor– you don’t look like him, really–”

“I always thought I took after him,” I say, thinking about both my appearance and the piano. Gale looks surprised by this.

“I mean, I’ve never met your Dad– but on stage he always seems so…”

Gale doesn’t fill in the blank, which makes me suspect that the missing word is something like pompous. Or maybe unfeeling. 

“I think you just don’t want to admit that I might be like someone from the Capitol,” I say. Gale sort of hums in a way that I think might be a concession, but then he disagrees:

“No, Mrs. Everdeen always says that you remind her of your mom.” 

The fact that Mrs. Everdeen and Gale have apparently talked about me is somewhat intriguing, and I file this information away for later.

On a different day, the subject of the mines comes up. Gale’s overseer– an aging Mr. Alcorn– is out for a week for some mysterious health problem, and Gale’s attitude about it is mostly to say good riddance.  

“You don’t like him?” I ask. 

“Why are you so surprised?” asks Gale, looking amused.

“Isn’t he from the Seam?” I ask. This is the usual predictor of Gale’s opinion on somebody: if they’re from the Seam, all flaws may be forgiven. 

“What’s that got to do with anything?” asks Gale, and this is such a turn from his usual beliefs that I stare at him with incredulity. He seems to realize that more explanation is needed, because he continues: “All the Capitol had to do was bribe him with better pay and a cushy chair, and now he’s the one organizing all of it– calculating the wages so that we don’t get paid anything, letting the mines be as dangerous as possible just to save money, sucking up to the stupid Capitol inspectors, and always agreeing to give them more and more of the profit– he’s almost as bad as the m–”

I have a sinking feeling that he was about to say the mayor and caught himself. But I ignore that.

“If it wasn’t Alcorn then somebody else would do it,” I say mildly.

“He should have refused on principle,” says Gale. “They offered the position to my dad once, right before Vick was born, and he refused.”

“But doesn’t Alcorn have five daughters? They go to school with me,” I offer. “I might’ve done the same thing for better pay, too, if I had a big family like that.”

“My dad had kids too,” says Gale, in a strange tone of voice. 

“You’ve got a point,” I say quietly. My face feels warm, and I’m a bit embarrassed for a reason that I can’t express. It occurs to me that if Gale’s father had taken the job, he would have been holed up in a cozy office somewhere during the explosion that killed him.

“I don’t think you would actually have done it either, if you were Alcorn and they’d offered you the job,” says Gale suddenly. “Not really.” 

There’s a sudden intensity in the way he’s looking at me, and I stare at the border where my skirt meets my knees. I have a light, fluttery, liquid feeling in my stomach. Then I realize that Gale probably wants a response, so I just shrug. He seems to take this as permission to monologue:

“I know the Capitol wants us to hate him anyway, that’s part of the point– focus our anger on the fact that some moron from the Seam actually made something out of himself by leeching off the rest of us. So maybe I should agree with you. But then again, Alcorn will probably be a collaborator if the rebellion ever actually happens in District 12–”

“Gale,” I say quietly, “my dad’s going to get home soon.” 

And with that being the case, maybe he shouldn’t talk so loudly about rebellion in what is essentially the mayor’s backyard.

“Oh,” says Gale. He gets up and makes some comment about having to go home anyway, and I watch him walk away. When he gets to the lantern– our old meeting-spot– he turns and waves at me. I wave back, and I can see him smile before he turns back again to keep walking. He looks perfect, the sun catching on his hair. I shake myself after having this thought, and go back inside the house.

Our talk the next Sunday is much shorter, because Gale announces after about twenty minutes that he promised his siblings to play in the meadow with them. He looks slightly sheepish, and then he asks:

“Do you want to come with?” 

“Sure,” I say impulsively. 

Gale looks surprised that I actually agreed, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, we make the short walk to the meadow in relatively cheerful silence. I can see the three younger Hawthornes playing in the distance already– two boys, of which I guess the taller one must be Rory, and a little girl who can only be about four or five. They all come running over when they spot us.

“This is Madge, I brought her with,” says Gale quickly.

The younger boy– Vick– has such a skeptical expression that I almost laugh. “Isn’t that the mayor’s–?” he starts to ask. Something passes between him and Gale, and Vick doesn’t finish his sentence.

We end up playing a big game of tag in the field, and I have more fun than I think I ever have– at least recently. For some reason Rory insists on playing without our shoes, which are thrown into a big pile at the side of the meadow. We must spend ages running around, the grass stinging my legs. Vick is ‘it’, but all of us are too quick for him. At last he gives up and tags Posy, who is shrieking and running in zig-zags as she flees. But her legs are too short to actually manage it, and she has a similarly hard time trying to catch any of us. I end up just letting her tag me, and then I race after Gale. Vick and Rory are cheering for me and laughing hysterically, which gives me the impression that Gale is enough of an authority figure in their house to make rooting against  him in tag feel like a rebellion. I play into it on purpose, dragging out the chase. There’s an electric shock when I actually manage to tap Gale’s shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to notice it.

The game of tag eventually ends with me, Posy, Vick, and Rory laying in the grass. Gale looks down at us and makes some comment about us all being weak, which causes Rory and Vick to argue about which one is faster. 

“You could race and test it,” says Gale, with an expression on his face indicating that he knows exactly what he’s just provoked. Rory and Vick jump at the opportunity, lining up on one end of the meadow. Rory tells me and Gale very firmly that we should stand on the other end with our arms out to mark the finish line, and we obey. Posy wraps her arms around Gale’s leg as he gives the countdown for them to start running. 

Rory wins, predictably. Vick is a sore loser and says that he allowed Rory to win.

“ Right ,” says Gale, messing up Vick’s hair. Seeing the two of them together makes my heart expand somehow. 

“Can we play trees?” asks Posy. 

“Nobody wants to be a tree with you, Posy–” says Rory, sounding annoyed.

“I’ll be a tree,” I say quickly. 

‘Playing trees’ turns out to involve a lot of standing on one leg with our branches (arms)  in different positions, and I end up narrating a story about a family of squirrels that lives in my hair. This, for some reason, enchants Posy. Gale has started playing a different game with the other boys, but he occasionally glances over with a bewildered expression on his face.

 This is also what I’m doing when Mrs. Hawthorne appears. 

“I was wondering where my children went,” she announces, glancing at me curiously. She looks remarkably like Gale. Her gray eyes are softer than his, though, with a glimmer of humor. “Dinner’s ready.”

Vick, Rory, and Posy are all summoned instantly to her side with those words. Gale smiles at me and waves goodbye as they walk away, and Mrs. Hawthorne gives me a sort of half nod.

Nevermind that the only words she’s ever heard me say are then Mr. Squirrel said…

After that day in the meadow, Gale and I start to frequently leave the gate where we normally talk, which turns into longer walks down the lane or on the road near the woods. I think Gale likes it more because there isn’t the constant threat of my father, mayor and resident Capitol bogeyman, appearing from the house. 

Today we’re just walking along the lane. All of the leaves are starting to turn vibrant shades of red and orange, and a few crackle beneath my feet. Gale is walking silently beside me, lost in his own thoughts. I’m thinking that the last month or two of my life since Katniss came home must be nearly perfect. I have tea at Katniss’s house every other day or so, and it’s finally becoming appropriate for the weather. I see Gale as often as I can, and there’s none of the dislike that was always under the surface before the Hunger Games. For the first time in my life I feel like I really have friends. Even being alone at school is more tolerable when you know that there are other people like you outside of it.

“What are you smiling about?” asks Gale.

“Nothing,” I lie.

But that makes me smile more.

Chapter Text

It might have been a perfect two months, except for today. 

It starts before dawn, at five a.m., to be exact. I wake up with a jolt because Mom is screaming from the other room. Dad could sleep through anything– and he hasn’t shared a bedroom with Mom since she lost her mind, anyway– so it’s just me to help her.

“THE BIRDS! THE BIRDS! IT’S ALWAYS THE BIRDS!” shrieks Mom, and I hear her scramble down the stairs. The loud thumps of her footsteps aren’t even separate, it sounds more like she’s falling. That thought sends a bolt of terror down my spine– what if she hurts herself? – and I run out of my bedroom. 

I find Mom standing at the bottom of the staircase with a fierce expression on her face. There’s a high-heeled shoe in her hand and she brandishes it in front of her. Where the hell did she get that from?

“THE BIRDS! GET AWAY FROM HER!” screams Mom, pointing at something over my shoulder. She looks horrified, and it’s so real to her that I even glance over to check if there’s something there. When I glance back at Mom I can see the heel flying through the air in my direction, and I duck just in time. It lands with a loud thud behind me on the carpet.

I run towards her before she can grab another weapon, wrapping my arms around her and tucking my chin over her shoulder. I can smell the dampness in her hair. She’s trying to flail and punch me and free herself, but my mother is not very strong.

“Shh, it’s okay, Mama,” I whisper in her ear.  “It’s okay. There’s nothing here. There’s no–”

I don’t want to say the word ‘birds’ and set her off again. So I settle for repeating it’s okay, Mom over and over again. Mom likes repetition, and she likes my voice. I keep holding her like this until I can feel both of our heart rates settle, and she almost melts into my arms. At least another twenty minutes passes before she’s willing to follow me up the stairs, and then to allow me to inject her with morphling.

I creep back downstairs after she’s asleep, passing my Dad’s ornate bedroom door on the way back down. Is he really such a heavy sleeper? Or does he hear everything, and let me deal with it? I don’t think I’ll ever know the answer. But just now I feel like screaming at him, regardless. Why don’t you take care of your wife? I want to yell. Why don’t you ever wake up? I try to force myself to dismiss the anger– I can manage that, usually– but this morning it keeps boiling in my gut all the same. I’m grateful that he won’t appear downstairs for another two hours– I think I’d explode at him if he did. 

I need to calm down, so I start a kettle boiling for tea and stare idly out the window. The sun is just starting to come up, framing the neat hedges and cast iron gate in a pretty shade of pink. It would be so much prettier if we had a flower garden. Maybe I’ll plant one next spring. I might not be allowed to, though, because the Capitol people could object to it and they technically own the house. This thought irritates me even more.

The kettle starts whistling, and I move to get out the tea bags and sugar. My thoughts drift back to the Hawthornes. Their house, with its tiny rooms and five occupants, must be much busier than this. It’s Monday, so Gale is almost certainly getting ready for the mines right now– I can just picture him shaving and pulling on the ugly gray clothes that they’re all forced to wear. Mrs. Hawthorne might be getting up right now. Maybe she’s making oatmeal or something for the younger kids. Vick, Rory, and Posy are almost certainly still sleeping.

This mental image relaxes me, and it’s what I dwell on when I start sipping my mug of tea. That’s when Mrs. Heathcoate comes in the door– it must be later than I thought.

“You’re awake,” she says, looking at me in surprise. “Your mother?”

I nod.

“She was throwing things–I sedated her,” I say. 

“I’m sorry, dear,” says Mrs. Heathcoate. 

 I feel an unusual burst of affection for her– this is as soft as she ever gets– and I stand up to help her make our breakfast. She sets me to making the fried tomatoes for our toast, and I can feel myself relax a little more as I chop them. I really like cooking, if I’m being honest– it’s nice to have something to do with my hands, and then to see the instant result. 

Unfortunately, chopping tomatoes is the highlight of my day.

I go to school, and sit alone at lunch as usual. Some idiot tries to sit at the same table as me, and her friend pulls her back with the explanation that Madge Undersee is a bit weird. They hurry away before I can say anything rude in reply. After lunch we receive a lecture about the folly of the rebels for our history class, and midway through it I get a pounding headache. I must drink about a gallon of water to try and banish it, but that only makes things worse. 

I walk home still feeling like somebody is stabbing me in the forehead. Dinner is already on the table when I arrive. There’s a spicy cabbage soup and fresh bread, and my headache finally starts to go away when I begin eating it. At least until my dad starts talking:

“Madgey, there’s something you’ll be excited about,” he says. I force a smile as I look up at him, but privately I don’t like that he still talks to me like I’m seven– always Madgey, always the same exaggerated tone.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Some of the Capitol journalists are staying with us for Katniss and Peeta’s Victory Tour– twice as many as usual, given the number of victors– their prep teams, too. I thought you’d be happy, I know you love entertaining guests. And it might be nice to have someone from the city to talk to, I don’t like having you around these rough people all the time. Something better for my little girl,” says Dad brightly.

A streak of fury rips through me at those words. I love entertaining guests? Since when? Dad always does this, always makes up passions for me that he wants me to have, expects me to act like his inventions are real— and then there’s the phrase rough people. Said baldly in front of Mrs. Heathcoate, doesn’t he realize that she has ears? Are the Capitol people really so much more civilized? They all look like freaks, with their seven layers of plastic surgery and nonstop chatter. Then of course my little girl at the end of it, because I don’t think I’ve ever aged past seven in his brain. Not unless he needs me to act like an adult, not unless he needs me to take care of his wife–

“Right,” I say, without the appropriate smile, and I think some of my thoughts leak through.

“Watch your tone,” says Dad, his jaw tightening. 

Mrs. Heathcoate clears away the plates as though she hasn’t heard a word of what we’re saying. I excuse myself quietly and slip outside. I can feel my headache coming back with a vengeance, pounding away with double intensity to make up for the few moments when it was gone. I replay some of what Dad said in my brain. I love to entertain. Can’t he see that it’s work? It’s work getting along with him, too, even if he’ll never notice. Oddly enough, I don’t think I’d mind half as much if anyone would just acknowledge how much effort it takes to be cheerful and nice– not that I succeed much, apparently. I think about the girls from earlier. Madge Undersee is a bit weird. Is that what everyone secretly thinks?

I don’t know how long I walk outside for. I end up pacing and pacing the lane that’s normally for me and Gale. But eventually the walk starts to do its job, and I can feel the anger in my gut uncoil. Even the headache eases up to a low buzzing. I watch a pair of robins sing in an oak tree and feel vaguely envious of them. At least they’ll never have to worry about Capitol visitors to their nests. But maybe their fathers are still irritating. The thought amuses me.

I’m just starting to  halfheartedly talk myself into having a better attitude– reminding myself that the Capitol guests would have appeared regardless of whether or not my dad phrased things nicely, and that having twice as many of them is a small price to pay for getting both Katniss and Peeta back– when Gale appears.

“Madge?” he asks, looking unreasonably shocked to see me. 

I smile, and I think that the last vestiges of my anger actually disappear when I see him. It’s a treat to see him on a Monday, when normally it’d be another five days until we could talk. The mines must have closed early for some reason–

“Madge?” repeats Gale, walking towards me quickly. “Can I do something?” 

I look up at him and nod, not really sure of what’s coming. His whole facial expression reminds me of the day when we first saw Katniss and Peeta kiss on TV– a storm of emotions flickering across his face, with fury being the one to land on top. There’s a slightly wild look in his eye as he comes in closer. 

He grabs one of my hands in both of his, and I’m struck by how rough and callused and warm they are. His thumb shifts back and forth across the back of my hand, and it’s lighter than a feather– a softer touch than I ever imagined could have come from somebody like Gale. Suddenly he lifts my hand to his lips and starts pressing a flurry of kisses to my knuckles. He’s looking at me for a reaction– his eyes are the most startling shade of gray that I’ve ever seen– but I don’t have one to give. I’m a deer in the headlights. It’s only when he moves to kiss the bone of my wrist– still staring into my eyes– that I’m shocked out of being frozen.

“What are you doing?”  

It comes out harshly, and Gale drops my hand like I’ve just burned him.

“Katniss– kissed her earlier and she just–” he mutters. There’s something familiar on his breath, and then I realize what it is. White liquor, like at the Seam party.

“Are you drunk?”

“She didn’t feel the same–” Gale starts, ignoring my question. “But you’re so nice and–”

“Well, I’m not your Katniss backup,” I hiss at him, and he flinches. “Just go away if you’re going to act like this.” 

He looks at me with wide eyes. 

“Just go if it’s about Katniss,” I repeat, more quietly. 

Secretly I wish that he would stay, and then explain or apologize or something. But he listens to me and disappears. I would wonder if I’ve just hallucinated the whole thing, but the skin on my hand is still burning where he touched me. Gale’s never like that with me. What the hell?

The stabbing pain in my forehead reaches a crescendo. 

Chapter Text

I stumble back into the house and into my bed, going under the covers and burying my face beneath a pillow as though that will smother my feelings. My head is spinning. What was that? Does Gale actually think of me that way? Of course not, he basically said so himself. It’s about Katniss. Does that mean that our friendship is over? I’m not sure. 

 It’s the thought of our friendship ending that actually makes me cry. Katniss was the first friend I ever had, sure, but Gale is the closest one I’ve ever had. I can’t talk to Katniss in the same way– she’s reserved at the best of times, and still putting herself back together from the Games. I’ve been so happy for the last two months, not just because Katniss and Peeta both survived, but because I’m finally close with someone my own age. There are hot tears dripping down my cheeks now. Why didn’t I have a real friend sooner? Why did Gale have to mess it up so badly? He knows more about me than anyone else probably does. He was the one to invite me to the party, and to the Everdeens’, and to the meadow. And there’s no effort required to talk to Gale– none of the careful calibration that my Dad always wants, or that everyone else’s feelings seem to demand. In fact, Gale would probably like me less if I was constantly trying to please him. That’s really what I like about him. His honesty, his bluntness, his perspective on things– always different than my own, but interesting to think about. And he’s kind, even if he buries it a bit. That’s what his care for his siblings is, and his protectiveness over the Everdeens. There’s a small group of people that Gale really cares about, and you have to earn your way into it. But that almost makes it more special. And I thought I was included in that group, but I guess not. Or am I wrong?

I think back to that day at the Seam party, when Gale had put his hand on my face. He wasn’t drunk then, I don’t think. Did he mean something by that? Or not? I didn’t interpret it romantically at the time, but maybe… I guess it’s possible that Gale might like me a little bit, but what’s certain is that he’s definitely in love with Katniss. He’s confirmed that part. So what’s the right thing to do? 

Part of me wishes that I’d just let him kiss me. I feel like I can finally admit to myself what I’ve been trying to ignore for ages– that I felt like my whole body was on fire when he touched my cheek that night at the Seam party, that I felt the same way just now in the lane, that Gale is startlingly good-looking and that it takes effort not to stare. I did want him to notice me. But I would never have done anything about it, not even admitted it to myself, because I value our friendship. Which Gale clearly doesn’t. I think. 

Now I’m almost grateful that I had such an awful day before the kiss, because otherwise I don’t think I would have been irritated enough to tell him to go away. I might have just let him do whatever he wanted. The idea gives me a sudden mental image of myself as a mangy dog, lurking around and eating Katniss’s leftovers. Yes, I did the right thing by telling him to go. The real question is what I should do now, if I want to keep being friends with him.

I suddenly wish that I had a real mother to ask about it. I’ve never really wanted guidance, as stupid as that is to say, but now I do and I can’t get it. Somehow this thought sets my mind in a whole other direction. I want a mom whose blouse I could bury my face into the way Prim does with hers. She would actually like me, and she would never treat me like a pet, and she would tell me that I’m pretty the way Mrs. Everdeen does with Katniss, and she would have braided my hair every day before school when I was younger, and kissed me every night before I fell asleep. I would look like her, instead of taking after Dad. And she would know what to do with Gale. She wouldn’t care that he was from the Seam, but she would care that I’m lonely and that I don’t have anyone else besides Katniss and that nobody likes me as much as they like her anyway. Gale doesn’t, Prim doesn’t— of course not, they’re real sisters— and there isn’t even anybody else who I talk to enough to make the list.

Eventually I cry it out, and the pain of my headache ebbs as I drift off to sleep.

***

I decide to visit Katniss on the way home from school. Privately, I’m hoping to find out what happened with her and Gale, and I spend the entire walk to Victor’s Village trying to think of ways to bring it up. I could truthfully tell her about what happened yesterday. But that feels mean somehow, and I know that I won’t do it. I don’t need to damage whatever his chances are with Katniss just because I’m– something– at him. So my other option with Katniss would be to mention Peeta, who tends to lead naturally to Gale as a conversation topic these days.  

I knock on the door, and Katniss answers. She doesn’t look any different, in her loose green shirt and pale pants. She just smiles and invites me in for the tea she likes so much. It’s only when I enter the house that I realize how nice that sounds. An icy wind had been nipping at my face the whole way over.

“Are you feeling alright?” asks Katniss suddenly, glancing over at me as she dumps sugar into her mug.

“Fine, just cold,” I say. Now is the time to bring up Gale, but there’s a lump in my throat when I think about asking. Any subtle maneuver to work him into the conversation now seems glaringly obvious. I could be direct– so, Katniss. Thoughts on Gale’s eyes. Yay or nay? – but I think I’d die of shame. 

Katniss’s face looks as impassive as ever. She doesn’t speak, and I’m too distracted for my usual role of coaxing her into a conversation. So I’m grateful when Prim bursts in, her two blonde braids shining.

“Hi, Madge,” she says cheerfully. She starts grabbing cheesy buns off of the kitchen counter– recognizable from the Mellark family bakery– and offers me one. I accept and busy myself with eating it.

“Katniss, do you know where Mom went?” asks Prim. 

“She’s with a patient in the Seam– I think one of the Whit kids needed stitches,” says Katniss.

“I’ll see if she’ll let me help,” says Prim, walking out the door again.

 I stand up, too.

“I should get going,” I say.  

Katniss gives me an odd look, but she doesn’t say anything as I hurry out into the chilly air. I spend the entire walk home irritated with myself for not saying anything. Worse, I’m halfway through the walk when I suddenly hear familiar voices:

“I’m faster than you!” 

“No, you’re not– you asshole, get back here!”

“Mom will kill you if she hears you saying that–”

It’s the Hawthorne kids. I didn’t even realize that I was near the meadow. Of course, they must play here all the time. I’m too nervous to glance over and see if Gale is with them. I need to talk to him, but not in front of his brothers, and I don’t want to see him in the meantime.

I double back as quickly as I can, taking the long route through Town. My fingers are stiff by the time I get home.

****

School is lonelier than ever. I sit alone at lunch every day, and it feels more acute when there’s nothing later to look forward to. Instead I end up people-watching for the whole break. There’s the gaggle of poorly-behaved boys that Gale used to sit with, looking somewhat lost without their leader (I sympathize with them, for once). Sitting across from them are Bristel and some of the girls from the Seam, none of whom have ever acknowledged me since the party. There’s something about them– brash, funny, confident, and clever– that I can’t emulate, and that makes me nervous to approach them. Then there’s the Town girls, who I’ve never exactly meshed with. For the most part they don’t bother with school (although the Capitol education is so useless, and caste so pre-determined in 12, that almost no one does). They always seemed so focused on fashion, and boys, and walking together in loud, large herds. So I think that in the back of my mind I had always put them in a separate mental category: to be envied and avoided.

So I sit, sipping cabbage soup from my thermos  and trying not to look too desperate. 

When the school week ends, I eagerly await Sunday. Some part of me expects Gale to stop by, ready with apologies for treating me as Katniss’s subpar replacement. So I hover by the door all morning, occasionally walking to the window to check if Gale is coming. I’m alternating between suspense and boredom, until by eleven thirty I realize that he hasn’t bothered. The only thing that waiting has achieved is the waste of a morning. 

And by eleven thirty on Monday, I'm back in the cafeteria and just as silent as I was before. That's what happens every day. I'm not sure what ends up being different about lunch on Wednesday, but a thought hits me like a slap in the face. 

 I was thinking about Gale, and also about how I need to get a grip and stop thinking about Gale so much, when one of our old conversations jumped out at me. It was one of our walks from the Everdeens’ house, and he’d asked me why I wasn’t friends with the Town girls.

Has it ever occurred to you that you never talk to anyone at school, either? Because there’s plenty of people who would interpret that as haughty.

I think he’d mostly said that to see if he could offend me, or at least to test the waters a bit. But he was, in his own irritating way, a bit correct. I feel annoyed at the Town girls for never speaking to me, but I don’t talk to them. I think about how Bristel never acknowledged me after the party, but I never acknowledged her. I’ve always thought of myself as reserved– which would be my Dad’s typically delicate way of putting it– but maybe Gale was right and there were other words that could apply. Like his haughty. But I’m not– am I? No, I don’t think I am. I never thought of myself as better, I just thought of myself as separate. But what I liked about Gale and Katniss was that they treated me like I was the same. 

Why on earth am I so passive? It only bothers me because of my friendships with Gale and Katniss— neither of them are sit-around-and-wait type people, and I always admired that. But I guess now is as good a time to stop as any.

****

Mom has another fit on Saturday. It’s a combination of things. Saturday is one of the occassions– once a week– when I have to wrestle her into the shower. This always bothers her, not that I can blame her. I always hate it when I have to force her in there, and then I have to try and talk her into sitting still while I wash her hair or dab a damp cloth on her armpits. It feels like a violation, which is the real reason it only happens on Saturdays. But Mom will never do it herself, and the most patient person in the family. Better I do it than Mrs. Heathcoate, and I doubt Dad would even think of it.

Dad doesn’t think of anything, which brings me to the second reason that Mom is so upset. He loves Capitol television shows, and he never turns it off. Every Saturday they play Hunger Games reruns, and on this particular Saturday Mom wanders into the living room and sees it. It’s Katniss’s games– not Maysilee, thankfully– but any sight of an arena is enough to set her off. She runs from the TV, screaming, and shrieking even more when she sees me running afterward. 

Mom runs into her room, where the bed is in the very center of one of the walls. She stands in the gap between the bed and the window, and I stand on the other side between the bed and the door. We’re both staring at each other. I don’t want to come any closer. At best, Mom will get scared and yell. If she thinks that I’m trying to kill her, or that I’m one of the Careers from the TV, I’m not sure what she might do. But I don’t want to know.

Suddenly Mom lunges forward and pushes the bed at me with more strength than I thought she even had. The bed frame hits my shins, and the pain is awful. I yelp and jump up, which makes Mom start laughing hysterically. 

“Maysilee,” she says, in a somewhat distorted voice. She’s still wheezing, cackling so hard that she starts slapping her thigh.

I move over, limping slightly, to coax her into the bed. She only fights me a little, which I think is because she’s so amused– and also because she might think that she’s talking to Maysilee right now. That’s happened before. I give her the injection easily— 800th time’s the charm, right? – and that’s when my foot hits something hard and I almost trip. 

There was a box under the bed.

I glance at Mom, who is now leaning back on the bed with closed eyes and a serene expression. Then I look back at the box. It’s one of the shoeboxes from the cobbler in Town. I don’t know why I decide to open it, except that I’m curious about anything to do with my mom’s old life.

There’s no shoes inside. There is a pile of books, some with elaborate covers or expensive–looking binding. All of the pages are slightly yellowed, and I’m almost scared to touch them. So I don’t. Instead, I focus in on the only book without a title. It is the thinnest book, with a red plastic cover. 

I flip it open. There’s faded writing in pencil, and I don’t recognize the elegant cursive. One thing does jump out at me, though: this book belongs to Merrilee Donner.

I gasp and glance over at Mom again. She’s still sound asleep. Even if she was awake and lucid, she probably wouldn’t be able to recognize this book or read anything in it. I wonder what she put in it, and I start flipping through the pages. Every single one is filled completely with the same tiny, cursive writing. Sometimes it’s in pencil, sometimes in pen. The dates vary wildly, and I start doing the math in my head. Mom started keeping this diary when she was two years younger than me. The last entry is dated two weeks after she married Dad. Pages and pages and pages, with more loose papers jammed into the side. A gold mine.

I grab the entire shoebox and hurry it into my room with the vague sense that I’m doing something illegal. 

Chapter Text

My impulse is to start reading the diary immediately. I don’t get the chance because Dad gets home from work. He has a heavy gait, and I can hear him stomping through the house to find me. I shove the shoebox under my bed so that I won’t have to answer questions about it, and Dad swings my door open without bothering to knock. 

“Madgey-roo!” he calls, his voice booming. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just sitting here,” I lie, trying to hide my irritation at being called Madgey-roo. “How’s work?”

“Fine. Katniss and Peeta are really creating a mess for District 12– whole media circus for their Victory Tour, twice the number of people to accommodate, and President Snow is coming to visit overnight. Highly unusual. Well, it’s a life lesson for you, Madge. Sometimes things will happen that you don’t want to have happen.”

He looks at me significantly, and I try to stifle my anger at the fact that he views Katniss and Peeta’s survival as something unfortunate. I manage this by fixating on the details of his suit. I’m eye-level with the place where his shirt buttons strain against his stomach.

“Where’s your mother?” asks Dad, when I don’t respond.

“In her room. She’s on morphling.”

He nods vigorously, and then just looks at me for a moment. I can tell that he’s waiting for more affection, questions, or something, but I don’t feel like offering them. So he just turns and leaves, without closing the door again on his way out. 

I get up to shut it, and I can smell Dad in the spot where he was standing: his always-slightly-sour breath and the way that it’s masked slightly by a sweet mouthwash. I hate that smell, and I hate that it lingers after he’s gone. I feel like he’s just polluted my room. I don’t want to open the diary in here anymore– it's too sacred. I think I’ll take it outside. 

I grab the diary, and I go out through the back door so that I don’t have to pass through the kitchen. Dad is slamming the cabinets open and shut in there, making himself a sandwich or something. Why does he always have to be so loud about it?

What I dislike about my dad is this: the confusion over what I’m meant to be feeling. I don’t think that physical disgust is meant to be my reaction to my father. I should love him, and maybe I do. Truthfully, I can’t tell. Strong dislike is my real emotion. And I can’t even parse out whether or not it’s deserved. I can think of my list of grievances, sure: he’s pro-Capitol, he’s horrible with taking care of Mom, and he’s patronizing. But you’re supposed to love your parents, and I know that I’m overreacting to his breath and his noisiness and everything else. 

I look down at the diary. Why did you marry him, Merrilee Donner?

I settle underneath one of the oak trees in the lane where Gale and I used to walk. It’s private, and I think that we were probably among the only people to actually use it. I open the diary, and the first entry greets me:

Dear Diary,

Maysilee and I just turned fifteen, and we had a big party in the shop after closing. Asterid, Lorna, R.B., Anisa, etc. Rye Mellark came by, but I think that was more for Asterid than anyone else (!). Truthfully I wish we’d invited less people. Mom took me aside after everyone left and gave me this notebook as my gift from her and Dad. So I’m laying in bed right now, eating a slice of cake and starting this diary. Glad Maysilee is out– she would hate me getting crumbs on the bed. It’s not on her side, anyway. And I clean up.

I should explain who Maysilee is, and Mom and Dad etc. For the uninitiated–

I feel a sense of wonder reading these words– this is the most lucid communication that I’ve ever seen from her. I read the rest of her explanations, about her family owning the sweet shop and how Maysilee is her twin. Then I check the date on the diary entry. July 12th. My mom’s birthday. It’s never been a celebrated thing in our house, and I’d never known the date for it before. I decide that I will do something for my mother next time July rolls around, even if nobody else knows about it.

The diary is something to be savored, and so I only make it through the first thirty-five pages or so before it gets dark. It’s repetitive. She goes to school, where she mostly talks to Maysilee and Asterid soon-to-be Everdeen. She works at the sweet shop afterwards. Most of what she writes beyond that is about the boys who flirted with Asterid and Maysilee, and which ones she thinks they liked the best. It would be boring if Mom didn’t make fun of all of them. I’m surprised by how funny she is. I’d never imagined her as witty, not when she usually can’t talk, but my mother’s unimpressed assessments of the Town boys make me giggle.

There’s no boys for my mother, though. She never addresses this fact directly, except for a throwaway line about being the uglier twin ( and neither of us hold a candle to Asterid, anyway, she adds).

The only other interesting thing in these first entries are the sketches. They’re mostly of her classmates, helpfully labelled with their names beneath each drawing. There’s a few plants and rocks, as well as one larger illustration of the sweet shop. The words business was slow today are printed beneath it. The drawings are surprisingly good.

The sun is starting to set, though, and I have to pack up the diary and move indoors. I know that I’ll read it a little bit at a time.

****

Our school’s teacher for history and the sciences is an older woman named Mrs. Hammond. She’s short but tough-looking, with doughy arms and a jutting chin. Her glossy white hair is so thick and immaculately curled that I would think it was a wig, but in District 12 it’s safe to assume that everybody’s hair is real. Especially Mrs. Hammond’s, because she’s one of the few teachers to be from the Seam.

“Now– as of every year– you are required to learn about the many uses of coal,” says Mrs. Hammond one afternoon. “This term the format will be presentations, which will be carried out in pairs. I will assign you a use of coal, you may pick your partners– now.”

Everyone scrambles to claim their best friend, and almost against my will I make panicked eye contact with Mrs. Hammond. She squints at me, and then seems to sense my problem:

“Undersee! Burr!” she barks. “Partners.”

I glance over at Robin Burr, and I’m torn between relief at having a partner and uneasiness about this whole arrangement. She’s one of the most popular girls from Town, the grocer’s daughter, and one of Peeta’s oldest friends. She’s very tall, with curling blonde hair and a willowy frame. I suspect that this is why the boy she was about to partner with looks so disappointed as she makes her way over to me.

“Hi, Madge,” says Robin, with a warm smile.

“Hi,” I say. 

We start laying out plans for the presentation– I’ll do research on our assigned topic of coal in the chemical industry, she’ll do the actual writing and artwork. As we settle into our roles, a voice chimes in my head: You said you’d be less quiet. Now would be a great time to prove that.

“Are you doing anything after school?” I ask. I sound stiff and wooden to my own ears, but Robin doesn’t seem to notice.

“A date with my boyfriend,” she hums, not looking up from her paragraph on Panem’s chemical factories. “Picnic in the meadow– if there’s nobody else there, I guess. What about you?”

I fight the urge to lie so that I sound like I have a life.

“Just reading.”

There, I tell myself. Progress. That’s small talk.

****

I continue the process of getting to know my mother, piece by piece. 

The pacing of her life is steady– boys, Asterid, and Maysilee cover the pages; along with occasional caricatures of a strict teacher who must have retired long before I started school. At first it’s jarring to read the entries, if only because her life feels so much lighter than mine. Mom had enough friends, two stable parents, enough money but not so much that it set her apart from anyone. I should be happy for her, especially given how everything turned out. But I think I’d imagined her as simply a transplanted version of me, which she isn’t. That’s the real disappointment– or I guess surprise would be a better word.

Despite this, I’m relieved to find that I like my mother. I enjoy the girl that she used to be: sharp, funny, ironic, and a little bit vain. Eating cake in bed, fixating on what makeup could make her nose look right, and drawing portraits. I can’t picture this girl as an adult woman, but I know that the older version of her is only fifty short pages away.

She comes up sooner than I expect.

July 4th–

Maysilee was Reaped.

There are no other entries for those games. Mom skips a bunch of pages in her diary after that entry, like she’s trying to put mental distance between herself and the event. The stark blue lines of notebook paper say more than words could have, anyway. She picks up the pen again in August:

Think I should force myself to write this down, since Mays. had to live it. Haymitch is the Victor of the 75th Hunger Games. Not a word t o our family after he won. Can’t hate him for it, he’s drinking himself to death at this very moment. 

Mays. was Reaped. I had the opportunity to Volunteer and didn’t. I was not brave enough. Wonder if she would have volunteered for me— did she resent me for not doing it? Should have. Allied with Haymitch for most of the Games. They split. Skewered.

Truthfully, I’ve never known about how Maysilee died. The word skewered makes me wince. I think it implies that she was stabbed by another tribute, and for the first time I wonder in detail about what really happened.

I read these sentences again. Mom, like me, was not brave enough to volunteer. 

Later in the same month:

Had a dream in the middle of the cafeteria earlier– I was awake for it, but couldn’t see anything in front of me. All of the birds were coming towards me and ripping me to pieces. I started screaming, Asterid walked me out into the hall with her. Glad it’s over. 

I think this is the start of her mental break. Mom assigns far less significance to it– she never brings it up again. But I guess she didn’t know what was coming. And why should she, when she doesn’t have another episode recorded in her diary for such a long time afterward?

*****

I start to really like Robin, even if I think that we’re each closer to being curiosities to the other than anything else. Her daily life– outings with her boyfriend, parties on the weekends, sneaking into the empty houses in Victor’s Village, working in the grocery after school, all of it done with a seemingly endless well of cheerfulness– is very different from my own. I think that my life seems impossibly quiet to her, at least based on the glances she gives me when I tell her about it.

“Do you want to eat with us?” asks Robin one day, as we rush to lunch at the end of class. “I always see you sitting by yourself.”

“I’ll eat with you,” I say. I can’t keep the surprised tone out of my voice. Even I know that I’m a bit too flattered that she liked me enough to ask me to eat with her, but I can’t help that. She leads me over to the other Town girls, who look just as surprised to see me as I feel. Robin’s introduction carries me through it, and they’re all too nice to complain about it. 

One of them, a shorter girl with a spray of freckles across her cheeks and an explosion of curly blonde hair around her head, grabs my arm as we walk through the hallway. I think her name is Delly Cartwright. I decide that I like her as she starts good-naturedly talking my ear off:

“-and Robin’s dating one of the Evans boys, we all thought she would end up with Peeta Mellark– but I didn’t, since I knew about Katniss– still, I’m glad that Robin isn’t upset. Have you seen Peeta since he came back? No? Oh, fair enough, he’s been kind of quiet now. I feel sorry for him. Anyway, Robin’s moved on–”

How can one person talk this much? I wonder. But then I decide that my judgment is probably a bit skewed, since I suffer from talking too little. Maybe me and Delly Cartwright were destined to be friends. She can talk and I can listen. 

I turn away slightly so that Delly won’t see me smiling to myself, and when I turn I see Bristel catch my eye. She raises her eyebrows at me, and I know that I’m being judged for some offense that I don’t even know about. But I don’t feel like reading into it.

“Hi!” I say, waving and smiling at her.

Bristel looks disproportionately surprised. I laugh at her reaction, and then I turn back to Delly. 

I like these girls.

***

That night, I find out the answer to one of my biggest questions– why did my mom ever like my dad?

He did not, I discover, originally come to District 12 as the mayor. Instead, he was the Capitol intern in the Justice building. I think the first sign of trouble is when my mother describes him with uncharacteristic softness.

The new intern at the Justice Building came by our shop today, it was something about buying mints to refill the bowl on the secretary’s desk. Not sure why he felt the need to explain this. He’s soft and shy– almost cute. His accent is very soft.

‘Soft and shy’ is a bewildering way to describe him, at least to my ears. The version I know glows with self-importance before the Reaping, practicing the right voice for hours on end. But maybe it stems from insecurity. At the very least, the use of the words ‘soft and shy’ feels like the first sign of trouble. Mom usually makes fun of boys. Dad should have at least been called wimpy-looking, or something. Maybe she already liked him.

Asterid’s leaving school to get married. Toasting was in the Seam– I was the only Town girl there. Her new house is the size of a box. She could have done better, and I told her so. She just looked at me and said that I’ve been different since the Reaping. Of course I have. I wish I hadn’t said that to her, but I barely see her often enough to apologize. Our whole group has just vanished. Lorna, R.B., etc distanced themselves after Maysilee died. Mellark gave up on Asterid, obviously, and he works at the bakery for real now anyway. It’s just me. 

There’s an inky scribble after the it’s just me. 

Dad is the first boy to ever pay my mother any kind of romantic attention, which I think must explain some of her reaction to it. She spends a whole page dwelling on it when he tells her that her hair looks pretty. He comes by the shop, and it feels like my mother makes a note of it every time he does. The other common subject is her own loneliness after Asterid got married. Did that soften her to the idea of my dad as a boyfriend?

She glued a photo of him to one of the pages in her notebook. I have no idea where she even got a camera from, but in the photograph I think that I can almost see him through my mom’s eyes. He was tall and built like a beanpole, with his hands tucked into the starched white pockets of his shirt. His head points slightly down, and his cornflower blue eyes– the same shade as my own– look up at the camera, presumably at my mother. He has a small grin on his face, and he almost looks bashful. There’s a couple of freckles dotting his skin. I know that his stomach will expand and that his hair will thin until he’s almost bald, but my mother had no such images in her head. I can almost see him through her eyes: almost cute.

My mom writes another page about his love of music, and how  he knows so much about Panem before the Dark Days, and how he gives her all of these books to read. That explains their presence in the shoebox. Jane Eyre. The Call of the Wild. A few more. My mom spends all of her time reading them. She refers to Dad as cultured in her diary. 

They’ve only been dating for a little over three months when this entry appears:

Pregnant. Going to marry him. I’m going to catch hell for it from the rest of the District, but trying to do the right thing for Baby. Don’t know what to do– we’ve never even talked about anything personal before. Doubt he even knows about Maysilee. If he doesn’t become mayor then I don’t know what will happen– do I move back to the Capitol with him? I’ll be miserable. Is that allowed? He checked at the Hall of Justice yesterday and they haven’t even bothered to make marriage between citizens of the Capitol and the District illegal- think everybody assumed it would never happen. He says that the marriage license will probably go through because I’m pregnant. He’s acting differently– colder but trying not to be. I think he likes me less now that this is forever, but he’s trying to fight the impulse. Said yesterday that he did not expect to be a father at twenty— did I expect it??? 

A few pages later–

I told my mother earlier and she grabbed my wrist and yelled at me. She said that she can’t believe it’s someone from the Capitol and asked me if I hated Maysilee. The only reason she didn’t slap me is because I’m pregnant. H. is officially next in line to be mayor in the fall. He got the job because I’m pregnant and it was too much of an administrative hassle to figure out what to do with us otherwise. 

Two months later, the second to last entry:

Baby was born. Love her already. 7 pounds, a little bit of blonde hair. I think she resembles her father, but he disagrees. Still working out a name. Mom came around to see her– feeling softer towards both of us now– and said that Baby is much quieter than I was when I was born. Most beautiful girl in the world!! May she never act the way I do.

And then the last entry:

Think I’m hallucinating. Scared to be around Madge in case I hurt her, I told Mrs. Heathcoate so. Told the husband but he thinks I’m lying for attention. Can’t stand it when somebody takes Madge away from me, either– he took her to the meadow to play earlier and I was screaming my head off. Convinced Madge was going to die on the way over. Almost hoping that I have a fit in front of him so that he’ll see I’m telling the truth. 

Madge is starting to crawl!

I start crying when I finish the book. I’m so, so, sorry, Mom. Her diary stops there, but I know what her life was like afterwards. It requires no further explanation. I cry until I feel hollow inside, both out of pity for Mom and from the realization that these are the last new words I’ll ever get from her. I don’t know what I was expecting from her and Dad, but this wasn’t it. And she loved me.

When I’m done crying, I crawl out of bed as silently as I can and walk into Mom’s room. She’s awake and staring placidly at the wall. She lets me curl into the bed close to her, on top of the blankets. My face is touching her stomach, and I can feel the scratchy comforter against my nose. I glance up at her, and I realize that she’s watching me with soft blue eyes.

At first I wonder if she moved the bed and showed me the shoebox on purpose, or if she sensed that I needed to read it somehow. She can barely remember any name but Maysilee’s, so I doubt it. The idea is ridiculous.

She’s still watching me with the soft expression on her face, and then slowly moves an arm so that it’s resting on my waist. I shut my eyes, feeling the gentle weight of it on my side.

Maybe I’m deluded, but I think that she loves me.

Chapter Text

Before I know it, my house is flooded with Capitol people. There’s six makeup artists, each of whom have a different signature color and an outlandish name. Trailing them are the camera crews, a quieter group who I like slightly better. Then there’s the two official stylists– Cinna and Portia– and, of course, Effie Trinket. I end up in the slightly mortifying position of having to share a bedroom with Effie, simply because there aren’t enough rooms in the house to accommodate everyone.

“I can take the cot on the floor,” I mumble, when we realize the problem.

“Thank you, dear!” says Effie, beaming at me. 

Somehow I end up helping her unpack, too. This mostly involves unwrapping a vast array of beauty products that end up taking over my room, as well as a collection of blonde wigs that she keeps on a bunch of plastic heads designed especially for the purpose. They kind of creep me out.

“You simply can’t store them any other way,” says Effie, with a sigh. “You have such a lovely shade of hair, my dear, I wonder if I have anything to match it…”

I balk at both of the possibilities before me– either that Effie is going to copy my hair on the Victory Tour, or that she wants me to wear one of her wigs. Thankfully, she’s interrupted before I can find out which one it was. Portia wants to run something by her for Peeta’s clothing.

Truthfully, I really like Portia. If I can forget what she does for a living, then I think she’s wonderful. She and Effie are the only Capitol people who actually try to speak to me, but Portia is a bit more grounded. She lets me look through the sketchbook that she and Cinna share– art of different, girlish dresses for Katniss; drawings of casual clothes that will suit Peeta best in interviews; a brainstormed list of ways to make them complement each other visually.

“I like this one,” I say, pointing out a drawing of a dress for Katniss. It’s similar to the ‘girl on fire’ dress that was so popular in the first Games, but a bit softer. Girl on flame, maybe.

“That’s my favorite, too,” comes a voice. Katniss’s stylist, Cinna, just walked through the door. He’s a very good-looking man, with broad shoulders, dark hair, and soft hazel eyes framed by a gold eyeliner. I can feel my face heat up when I talk to him.

“What made you light Katniss and Peeta on fire for the first games?” I ask. The question sounds stupid, and I cringe at the tone in my voice.

Cinna’s silent for a moment, and I think he’s going to give me a real answer.

“We were going to do that no matter who the tributes from twelve were– although Katniss, especially, wore it well. There’s a reason we moved away from fire for Peeta. But we wanted to remind the Capitol of what they use coal and the Districts for–”

Something strange passes between him and Portia, and he goes silent abruptly. I make my excuses and leave, feeling a bit too aware of how I look as I walk out the door.

Get a grip, I tell myself. He’s probably ten years older than me, anyway.

An unwelcome mental image of Gale in gold eyeliner flits through my imagination, and I snort. There’s just something so wrong about it.

I wish that Gale and I were still friends. I’ve accepted that he won’t come to my door anymore, and I don’t even know his address to track him down without Katniss’s help. I’m not sure that I’d be bold enough to attempt something like that, anyway. But I would have liked his opinions on the Capitol people in our house, and his mockery of Effie Trinket’s wigs, and maybe to watch the Victory Tour with him. 

Get. A. Grip, I tell myself again. I’ve done a semi-successful job of banishing Gale from my thoughts since The Kiss, as I’ve taken to calling it in my head. Although semi-successful might be a bit generous. Maybe he’ll take the Victory Tour as an opportunity, and wait at the lantern again so that we can watch with the Everdeens.

I shake my head vigorously, and I see Effie giving me a concerned look from the couch.

“Is something wrong, dear?” she asks, pausing in her application of a garish mauve lipstick.

“Never better,” I reply, and my voice sounds fake-cheery even to my own ears.

We all have dinner an hour later, packed around the dining room table– minus my mother, but I think the Capitol people must have been warned beforehand not to comment on her absence. Or maybe they’re more tactful in general than I give them credit for. I’m cutting my turkey when Dad makes his announcement:

“President Snow isn’t staying here overnight after all– he just wanted an audience with our newest Victors. But he sends his greetings to all of you.”

Is it just me, or does everyone at the table relax at once?

Two days later, I’m the one to relax. All of the Capitol people have left to go torture District 11, and the only thing that I have to do is watch the televised broadcasts and go to school. Effie Trinket left one of her wigs in my room by mistake, or at least I think it was a mistake. It’d be hard to forget it, from its very prominent position on my desk. Maybe she meant it as a gift for me. But that’s a horrifying thought.

For some reason, the District 11 broadcast isn’t displayed in the other Districts. Dad tells me that it’s just a technical issue that will be resolved by District 10, and I don’t question it. Instead, I focus on the other new fixture of my life: the Town girls.

I like the role that I’ve settled into within their group. They don’t try to force me to join in on everything, but Robin always asks me for help with her math homework and Delly has informed me about the secret lives of everyone in District 12. She’s also told me that I’m an especially good audience, mostly because I don’t know any of the gossip to start with. She can get a shocked reaction from me with very little. Delly, like me, has also been a frequent viewer of the Victory Tour broadcasts. Although for her it’s more out of loyalty to Peeta. 

On the last day of the Victory Tour, Katniss and Peeta are set to give an interview with Caesar Flickerman in front of all of Panem. The two of them come out from behind the purple velvet curtains, Katniss almost clinging to Peeta, and the crowd roars with whistling and applause. My thoughts drift to Gale again, and how he’s taking this.

“My, my, my!” calls Caesar. He has to repeat himself again in order to be heard over the crowd. “My, my, my!”

“Great to see you, too, Caesar,” says Peeta, with a wide grin.

Caesar gives them a couple of soft ball questions– I notice that Katniss still talks very little– and then he asks them what he’s apparently been leading up to this whole time: “Where do you two see your future going?”

“Well, I know that I’ve got a clear idea,” says Peeta smoothly. He gives Katniss a meaningful glance, and slowly– because of his prosthetic– starts sinking down on one knee. This isn’t a tradition in District 12, and I only realize what’s about to happen because of the reaction of the crowd. Peeta pulls out a small red box from his pocket, and cracks it open to reveal a simple silver ring with a single amethyst in the center. Katniss clamps her hands over her mouth.

“Katniss,” says Peeta, looking up at her with a soulful expression on his face. The crowd draws into a hushed silence. “I think that I’ve loved you in one way or another for almost my whole life, and I was wondering if you’d do me the honor of promising to love me for the rest of yours–”

“Of course,” says Katniss, and Peeta stands up as quickly as his prosthetic will allow. The two of them kiss for what feels like an hour, and the crowd goes wild. Shots of the Capitol’s reactions are cut in between clips of the kiss, because this is just as much proof of a romance between the Victors and the Capitol as it is proof of a romance between Katniss and Peeta. 

“Give it up for the lovely couple!” yells Caesar, like anyone needed encouragement.

I turn off the TV, feeling oddly hollow. And then I wonder if Gale was watching just now.

Chapter Text

Everyone’s life but mine changes when Romulus Thread arrives in District 12.

I don’t notice anything unusual when I first see him. He’s tall and lean, with bristly black hair. His face is long and angular and tanned, with a rough look to his skin like he scrubbed too hard one morning and accidentally took off the smooth upper layer. But he’s perfectly clean-shaven, all of the Peacekeepers are. He wouldn’t be out of place in the Seam, except when you look in his eyes. They’re the wrong color– black– and beady. They remind me of the illustrations of sharks that they show us in our textbooks. And he has too much confidence to be from the Seam, as illustrated by the way that he speaks to my father:

“You’ll have to tighten up regulations around here,” he says, in an oily voice. He dropped by our house over dinner to ‘greet’ us when he first got here.  “I want a curfew instated– six o’ clock– at the very least. And I’ve heard rumors of some hunting behind the fence?”

My heart drops in my chest– Gale.

“Only a few stragglers, but we mean to crack down–” says my Dad, with a fake laugh. 

“You’ve been meaning to for some time. Now you will, ” says Thread easily.

I watch incredulously. Thread– born in District 2, like all the peacekeepers are– ordering around my Capitolite father. Dad would normally be outraged, but he just accepts it with an uneasy look on his face.

As soon as Thread leaves, Dad paces the house with an expression like a kicked puppy. He– correctly, I think– assumes that Thread’s presence here is because he’s displeased the Capitol. But he can’t think of what he could have done wrong, and so he walks around whispering to himself. 

“Kept everything the same– perfectly loyal– embrace the curfew!” he mutters.

He looks like a toddler who’s just been yelled at by their favorite parent for something that they didn’t do. I’m mystified by Thread’s presence, too, if only because I know that Dad is probably the perfect specimen of a loyal Capitol citizen. I’m pretty sure that he even keeps a mini portrait of President Snow in his room.

I observe all of this with vague curiosity. A hush has come over the entire District since Thread arrived. The Town girls that I talk to have decided to curtail their after-school activities in order to respect the curfew, but that doesn’t affect me at all since I never joined them in the first place. I’m actually beginning to think that all of this was overblown, until I come downstairs on the day of the blizzard.

The only notable thing is that Mrs. Heathcoate hasn’t arrived yet. The whole kitchen has an eerie, muffled quality to it. You can’t see anything out the windows, because the snow is higher than I’ve ever seen it and piling up against the glass. There’s barely even any natural light or sound that makes it through the snow and clouds, just the dull glow and slight buzz from the Capitol appliances.

It isn’t like Mrs. Heathcoate not to come– even I know that her family really needs the money– but looking outside, I shrug to myself. I probably wouldn’t want to walk through this weather, either.

So I drag our big orange pot to the stove and start thinking about an onion soup for dinner. It would make Mrs. Heathcoate proud– she was the one who taught me the recipe– and it will be cozy for a day like today. We still have some bread from the bakery, I’ll toast that as a nice side. And I can melt some cheese over it. Dad likes that, too, and maybe he’ll stop ruminating if I make the soup.

I’ve only just gotten started with caramelizing the onions when I hear a loud bang! from the front door. It’s Mrs. Heathcoate, wrapped in about three different dresses and shawls, with a mittened hand covering her mouth.

“Mrs. Heathcoate?” I call.

“Sorry I’m late, it’s just awful out there– and I stopped to watch in the square, everyone did–”

I look up at her. Her eyes are startlingly glassy, and she keeps moving her hand up to her mouth and down again.

“Watch what?” I ask, with a sinking feeling that I already know.

“They butchered him– wouldn’t have watched, but it’s my neighbor— got caught outside of the fence and there was a big whipping– just like it used to be, back then—” says Mrs. Heathcoate, her voice shaking.

“Gale? Gale Hawthorne?” I ask her. I think my heart has moved to between my ears, I can hear my blood pumping.

“Yeah, he tried to sell a wild turkey to the peacekeepers and didn’t realize they’d made a switch. The whipping’s done now, they’ll have taken him over to the Everdeens’- that’s what they always did in the old days– but he’ll have scars for the rest of his life. Poor boy, it didn’t even look like he had much skin left–”

I fight the urge to throw up at this description, but my voice keeps going without any thought on my part:

“Does he need anything? Do the Everdeens even have the right stuff for that?”

“Not the fancy Capitol kind, but he’ll live–” starts Mrs. Heathcoate.

I run upstairs without a second thought, ignoring how my loud footsteps are probably going to disturb Mom. I swing open the white closet door where we hide the morphling, and take out two vials. I have no idea how much is right for something like this, but Mrs. Everdeen might know. Then I bolt back down to the kitchen, and a flicker of something passes over Mrs. Heathcoate’s face when she sees what I’m doing.

“Dear, it’s after curfew– that’s why the peacekeepers dispersed everyone watching–”

“Nobody ever patrols the lane, especially not Victor’s Village,” I tell her, pulling on my boots. “If they can even see me in this weather–”

“You won’t get off easy just because you’re the mayor’s girl, and you will get your father in a lot of trouble.”

“I won’t even be gone for fifteen minutes,” I tell her, lacing up my other boot.

Mrs. Heathcoate suddenly grabs my shoulders and wraps me in two of the shawls that she came in with. Then she pulls out the third, and as she puts it around my shoulders she folds the morphling neatly into it so that it’s hidden. She takes the wool hat off her head, yanks it roughly over my ears, and kisses my forehead.

“I didn’t see you– be quick,” she says. 

Then I’m running out the door.

There’s so much snow that the lane is unrecognizable, and the air is so cold that it burns my windpipe. I’m convinced that I nearly take a wrong turn to the Everdeens’, but I catch myself just in time. I can see the warm glow in the Everdeens’ windows in the distance, and I race through the final stretch of the trip in order to start pounding on their door.

Nobody answers, and it suddenly occurs to me that they must assume that I’m a peacekeeper. Especially past curfew.

“Katniss, it’s just me!” I call. But I doubt she can hear me through the blizzard. I settle for ringing the doorbell about twenty times in a row.

Another long moment passes, and then the door comes open. It’s Mrs. Everdeen, flanked by Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch Abernathy. They all have matching guarded expressions on their faces, and then varying shades of relief and annoyance when they see that it’s just me. I take the vials out of my shawl and hold it out in front of me, but nobody seems to understand.

“Use these for your friend,” I say to Katniss, suddenly. “They’re my mother’s. She said I could take them. Use them, please.”

It’s a lie, but the idea of Mrs. Everdeen thinking of me as a thief bothers me for some reason. Maybe just because I know that they were friends when they were girls.

Katniss takes the morphling, and everyone is staring at me with such bewildered expressions that I suddenly feel way too aware of myself. I turn and run back into the blizzard without saying goodbye, and then slow down as soon as I’m out of Victor’s Village– truthfully, I’m not athletic enough for the sprint. I wonder if every emotion or thought that I’ve ever had about Gale has just shone across my face. Katniss, I think, wouldn’t have noticed. But Peeta and Mrs. Everdeen are both a bit cannier, and maybe they would… at least, I think, I used restraint and called Gale your friend. Which is all he is to me now, truthfully.

I nearly slip on a rough patch of ice in the lane before catching myself on a low-hanging branch, and the action jolts my thoughts into another direction. Is it my fault that Gale tried to sell turkey to those peacekeepers? I knew all about Romulus Thread, and it didn’t even occur to me to try to warn him. 

But I dismiss this thought as quickly as it comes. I haven’t spoken to Gale in over two months, and plenty of people didn’t warn him about Thread. My guilt is ridiculous.

What does stay with me is a warm sense of pride. I’ve finally done the Gale-ish, the Katniss-esque thing. They’re both brave people, and maybe I’m not as brave as them, but I brought Gale the morphling. That’s something.

I knock on the back door to our house, and Mrs. Heathcoate opens it almost before my knuckle makes contact with the wood. She looks deeply relieved, and starts pulling the hat and shawls off of me almost in one motion. It reminds me of when I was a little kid and she would be the one to bundle me up to play outside.

“I can do it myself,” I mutter, a bit embarrassed. But Mrs. Heathcoate just shakes her head.

“You’re a good girl,” she says, almost to herself. “More of a spine than I expected.”

It feels like high praise.

Chapter Text

As soon as my head hits the pillow to go to sleep, I find myself walking through the Everdeens’ front door again.

Prim, Katniss, Mrs. Everdeen, and the rest of them all dissolve when I do so. But I hardly notice, and I don’t need them to tell me where Gale is anyway. In my dream I have some sort of internal compass that tells me exactly where he’ll be– spread out across the dining room table where Katniss and I normally have tea.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the bloody smears that would be across Gale’s back, but I force myself to focus on his face. His eyes are closed, and his thick brows are still furrowed like he’s angry about something. There’s a crease between them, and my fingers reach out to smooth it before I can think about the action. He looks so peaceful in his sleep. This is the version of Gale that I like the most– calm, or maybe even happy. He looks beautiful. Are you allowed to say that about a boy?  It doesn’t matter, because Gale is. There’s no arguing about it. I lean down to his ear to tell him so, and just as I start to— my upper lip brushing against his skin– something grabs my ankle sharply and I’m pulled out of the room.

I’m in the forest now, or what I imagine the forest looks like. It’s kind of hard to tell, because I’m dangling upside down by one of my feet. There’s a cord or something around my ankle. I give up on trying to look at it, instead looking around me at the vibrant green grass and thick trunks of trees. I’m on top of a hill or something.

Someone else is climbing up it. First I can see his short black hair, then tan skin, and then a pair of gray eyes– they’re laughing at me. Gale has a wide smile on his face when he sees the snare that I stepped into. 

“Didn’t I tell you to be more careful?” he asks.

I’m not sure what I reply, because Gale steps forward to untie me from the branch and I fall into a heap on the ground. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. I’m just laying in the grass, looking at Gale. He’s standing above me– still smiling, because I like that expression on him– and then suddenly he’s getting down to my level on the grass, half on top of me. I love the weight of him on my legs and torso. 

“You know that I love you, right?” I ask, suddenly. As soon as I say it I know that it’s true. “And you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and you mean so much to me–”

I’m crying a little bit as I say it, even in the dream, and Gale laughs at me again.

“You’ve told me,” he says, almost lunging forward to kiss the tears off of my cheeks. “Multiple times. But maybe you should talk a little less–”

I shut my eyes then, angling my head instinctively so that he can press a rough kiss to my jaw. His lips are chapped. Then he leans in to whisper in my ear, and I almost shiver when I feel his breath on my skin:

“ I knew since I heard about the morphling.”

Everything dissolves again, but I only see flashes of everything else. Katniss’s face. The old photograph of my Dad. Random rooms in our house. The shoebox. Mrs. Heathcoate. More Katniss.

And then I wake up, and I look blearily around my room. For real this time.

What the hell? 

Chapter Text

I dwell on the dream longer than I mean to. What disturbs me most is just how much I liked it, even if I think that I can never look Gale in the eye again. The mental image of him kissing me like that is too strong, and I’m worried that it would show somehow on my face. Is it a disrespectful thing to imagine it? No, I don’t think so. Has Gale ever thought about-? 

Unknowable, and unthinkable. 

What disturbs me most about the dream is that the word ‘love’ appeared in it. Do I love Gale? I can’t tell. I can’t even tell for sure if I even love my dad, though, so maybe I’m just messed up that way. I can truthfully say that I care about him as much as I’ve ever cared about anybody, but the label of love is definitely a strong word– and not one that I really want to apply, given its obvious lack of reciprocation. And the fact that we haven’t talked in two months.

At least my worries about him somehow sensing my less-than-pure thoughts are unfounded, then. He’s not around me enough to ever pick up on it.

Do I want Gale to love me?

The answer is an easy ‘yes’, although I’m self-aware enough to know that the sentence would hold true with almost anyone’s name filled in. But the idea of Gale in particular is appealing… If the Gale in my dream actually existed, the one who would kiss me and talk to me like he did when we were friends, and who loved me as Madge rather than as a Katniss substitute, and who would maintain that love no matter what stupid thing came out of my mouth.

But that isn’t Gale, I remind myself fiercely. And imagining a sappy version of him isn’t helping anything. I have better things to do.

Admittedly, I’m struggling to remember what those ‘better things’ are. 

The next few weeks pass by quickly. Some of the Capitol people stay with us for a few days to have Katniss model different wedding dresses (apparently there’s going to be a vote in the Capitol on which one she should wear). I know that something’s going on, because Katniss is in no sense of the word acting the part of blushing bride, but the one time I started to ask about it she gave me the sharpest glare I’ve ever seen from her. No sign of Gale, although I’m always nervous about bumping into him when I’m over at Katniss’s.

My friendships with the Town girls haven’t changed much. I think of them as shallow friendships in my head. They exist, and I’m happy to have them, but I don’t know anything about their deeper emotions and they don’t know anything about mine. It’s nothing like my friendship with— well, my friendships with other people. Although even Katniss, to me, is on the borderline with how much we’ve opened up to each other. But the process of deepening a friendship is a mystery to me, and I don’t see it happening.

There’s nothing really worth mentioning, until Dad looks unusually excited at dinner one night. I know that something’s going on, because his mood from Thread’s arrival had stayed relatively stable for the last few weeks.

“Madgey, you’ll be excited for this,” he says brightly. “The Quarter Quell is coming up soon, and Snow decided to announce the Games early.”

I look up, bewildered. Quell?  It hadn’t even occurred to me that this wouldn’t be a normal Hunger Games, only that it would be Katniss’s first time mentoring. The thought of a Quell makes me shudder. Maysilee died in the last one, and somehow that makes me think that I’ll be Reaped in this one– even if the logic of that is flimsy. But more realistically, if Mom even hears the word ‘Quell’ she’ll probably be upset for days, and the odds of her hearing it right now are very high.

“Are you in there?” asks Dad, tapping his temple.

“Yeah– when’s it going to be announced?” I ask, nodding and smiling.

“Next Tuesday on TV. I expect your friends are going to be very excited about it, with their first time mentoring,” says Dad.

I make myself smile even wider and nod even more vigorously. Then I take my empty plate to the sink, and start on my way to my room. I stop when I hear my name from the kitchen:

“You know, sometimes I wonder if Madge is mentally all there,” says Dad airily to Mrs. Heathcoate. I don’t hear her reply, which I’m sure is civil and polite. I only hear my blood rushing to my ears as I storm upstairs.

Calm down, I tell myself. I feel like throwing something. You know you’re fine. 

But for Dad to call me stupid–! 

***

I almost never turn on the TV, but I do it on Tuesday and switch it to the Capitol news channel. The reporter is surprisingly drab for a Capitol citizen, I wonder why they keep him around. A dark, pinstriped suit; gray, wrinkled face; not a lot of hair. He looks like he’s not fully solid, or maybe like he would blow away in a slight breeze.

“And now,” he wheezes, “we tune in to the reading of the card.”

The camera pans away from the reporter, and it turns to a video of President Snow walking onstage. A little boy hurries behind him. I wonder where they get the children for these types of ceremonies– is it one of Snow’s grandkids? Maybe the child of one of his cronies, plucked from the masses as a special honor to the family. I have no idea. 

President Snow starts his speech with the history of the Dark Days. It’s a boring hybrid of what everyone learns in school mixed with my father’s interpretation on Reaping days. You’d think the president would add some sort of unique flair, but no.

Then he starts going over previous Quells. The first one had a vote in each District to pick the victims. I wonder if I would have been chosen if I had been in the pool. Surely sending the mayor’s half-Capitol daughter would have been almost cathartic for some people. I can’t imagine being in the families of those Tributes, though. How could you ever look your neighbors in the eye again? How close was the margin for those votes?

Snow reviews the 50th Hunger Games, where my aunt died and Haymitch won. Is it just me, or does Snow look faintly disgusted when he recounts that the victor was from District 12? 

“And now we honor our third Quarter Quell,” says Snow. He pulls out a small slip of paper. “On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the Rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be Reaped from the existing pool of Victors.”

Katniss.

I turn the TV off.

Chapter Text

I don’t see Katniss’s initial reaction, being slightly too tangled in school and curfew to make time for her. I’d feel more guilty, except that if I were her I would want Peeta and Haymitch at first anyway. The Victors are the only ones who can really understand each other sometimes– that’s the impression I’ve gotten from Katniss, at least. But I don’t want her to think that I’m avoiding her because of the Quell, and so the first thing that I do on Saturday morning is to walk over to Katniss’s.

Thoughts of Gale’s whipping float through my mind when I ring the doorbell, but they vanish as quickly as they come when Prim answers the door. She’s a little taller than she used to be, and the expression in her eyes is much older.

“Looking for Katniss?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I nod. “I haven’t seen her since– the announcement.”

“She’s in the woods checking the snares. But you can come in and wait for her, she shouldn’t be long,” says Prim. She leads me, very formally, into the kitchen– no matter that I’ve been over to their house more times than I can count. Then she starts making tea.

“Are you holding up okay?” I ask. 

Obviously she’s not, and Prim and I haven’t spoken as much since the last Games. She glances back at me.

“It’s awful, but I’m trying not to think about it too much. Nobody thought Katniss and Peeta would both win the first time. I can’t tell what will happen,” says Prim, with a kind of forced lightness. She passes me my mug, piping hot. “I’ll drive myself insane if I think about it.”

“That’s a good way to do it,” I say, but it’s so quiet that I’m not sure she even hears me. What I’m really thinking is that this is not the young girl who needed to bury her face in someone else because she couldn’t watch the games. Prim’s grown up, maybe too quickly. If I was anything at thirteen, I definitely wasn’t stoic.

Prim seems to decide that it’s her role to fill the silence:

“I can’t tell if it’s a good thing that we know ahead of time now. It’s better than having five minutes before they drag her off, but…” she’s silent again, glances out the window, and changes the topic. “I don’t know. I miss the way she used to be before the Games. But that’s not fair.”

“I think it’s natural,” I say, looking out in the same direction she is. “You two used to have everything in common, but I don’t think anyone understands the Games unless they’ve been in a tribute.”

“Yeah,” says Prim quietly, almost humming the word. 

I’m looking at our thin reflections in the glass. A pair of pale faces, matching blonde braids, thin lips, and wide blue eyes. We look more like sisters than she and Katniss do, although of course we’re nowhere near that close. I don’t know what Prim is thinking about while she’s facing the window, except that she suddenly turns and looks at me again.

“I wouldn’t mind you coming and watching with us again,” says Prim. “ Gale’s coming too.”

The way she says his name with such a significant expression on her face has me on pins and needles. Was I really that obvious with the morphling? Did I imagine her tone just now?

I realize that I’ve been silent for a moment too long.

“Did he heal well? From the whipping?” I ask. My voice feels oddly high-pitched.

“He’s fine,” says Prim. “He’s working in the mines again, anyway. The scarring was pretty thick, but I don’t think it hurts him–”

The door opens suddenly, and it startles both of us. It’s Katniss, her face partially covered in a thick scarf that’s caked in snow. She’s wearing her old hunting jacket and gloves.

“Hi,” she says. She notices me and smiles. “Madge.”

For a few minutes she’s just taking off her layers, and then sits down across from me. Prim has disappeared somewhere in the house. 

“You saw the Quell, didn’t you?” says Katniss. 

“It was on my dad’s TV,” I say. “I’m so sorry–”

“It’s going to be better this time,” says Katniss, with a different gleam in her eye than I’ve ever seen from her before. “We’re going to act like Careers, we all agreed on it.”

“And what does that involve?” I ask, picturing an alliance between Districts 12, 11, and 10– or whatever would be the equivalent, I guess.

“We’re going to train,” says Katniss. “I’m going to try and teach Peeta archery, Prim is showing us some first aid, Gale’s going to pitch in for snares. Haymitch is worried about thinking up a strategy for public opinion, but we did fine on that last year without worrying about it for months–”

“You’re probably ahead of most Victors,” I say, nodding. “Everybody still remembers it because it was only last year– and the whole love story, obviously. All the Capitol polls have you and Peeta ahead. Peeta slightly lower, because he has fewer survival skills and they think that he’ll try to die for you–”

I realize how tactless this is right as it comes out my mouth, and Katniss flinches.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have–”

“Don’t say that,” she hisses, glaring at me.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I should never have– and it’s not true, anyway. They don’t know anything. But I should have known not to say that.”

“It’s fine,” says Katniss, but I know that I’ve upset her.

The conversation continues for another twenty minutes, focused on lighter topics and both of us being as obnoxiously polite to each other as possible. I’m so ashamed of myself for letting those words slip that I’m distracted when we talk about everything else, and I feel like I’ve ruined the whole morning. My face is hot, and when I make up an excuse to leave Katniss just looks at me coolly from her chair.

Right as my hand touches the door knob, Katniss speaks up again:

“Look, Madge. Could you bring over those Capitol magazines sometime? It might be helpful.”

She says it softly, and I know that this is much closer to being her real forgiveness than the words it’s fine were earlier.

“Yeah– I get them on Sunday mornings. I’ll bring them over when they come,” I tell her. 

We give each other small smiles, and then I’m out the door.

Chapter Text

Stupidly, I don’t even consider Gale when I drop off the magazines at Katniss’s house next Sunday. I’ve piled a glossy stack of them in one hand– one labelled The Capitol Chronicle, another advertising An Exclusive Interview with Finnick Odair!– and knock on the Everdeens’ front door with all the confidence in the world. 

“Madge?” says Prim, when she answers the door. “Everyone’s in the kitchen.”

I walk in. Katniss is leaning over the dining room table, with a look of concentration at different types of plants dispersed over it. Her long, dark braid has been tossed over one shoulder. Peeta is standing up straight next to her, looking more at Katniss than at the plants. Then there’s Mrs. Everdeen, more mentally awake than I’ve ever seen from her before, talking eagerly about whatever it is they’re looking at. None of them notice that I’m there.

Then somebody steps forward, halfway into my line of sight. Part of a broad shoulder, a sliver of bristly black hair, a sleeve rolled up over the elbow like always– Gale? I hear a loud, deep laugh, and it’s definitely Gale. I’m hit with the bizarre urge to start giggling, and also to run out of the building while I cackle. The mental image makes it even funnier, and I hear myself make a weird noise when I inhale. Gale hears it and turns around, and his facial expression is similar to what you might expect if a dart hit him between the eyes. 

I’m smiling uncontrollably at him even though I’m not happy at all, and my face feels the hottest it’s ever been. I realize that I’m wearing one of my mom’s old dresses from when she was younger, a frilly dark green one that’s totally inappropriate for a casual visit to a friend’s house, and I’m suddenly terrified that Gale thinks that I dressed up just in case I saw him. I purse my lips, mostly to prevent myself from yelling that no! the dress isn’t about you! – except there’s a dim voice in the back of my head telling me that doing so would make things worse. Gale is still staring at me– the words light gray eyes flit through my mind– and then Katniss finally spots me.

“Hey,  Madge,” she says, smiling. Peeta looks up, too, his eyes always following her.

“Hi,” I say. I smile at her, and I’m sure it looks unnatural.

“You brought the magazines?” she asks.

“Yeah, here they are,” I say, putting the whole stack of them on the counter. “I should go, I promised my Dad that we’d eat lunch together–”

Gale steps forward, looking like he wants to say something to me. Then he seems to think better of it, and he somehow seems to wipe all emotion from his face. I awkwardly wave before I turn to their back door. I feel way too aware of how I look when I leave, and whether or not I’m walking gracefully, and also of the fact that my lie about Dad wanting to eat lunch together is obvious to anyone who knows me at all.

They’re not thinking about it, I tell myself sternly. They’re worried about the Hunger Games, not whether I’m avoiding them. They aren’t over-analyzing my words. Whatever passed between Gale and I just now wasn’t noticed by anyone but the two of us, why would this be? And it’s a good thing that I saw him, because we need to learn how to be in the same room again if we’re both going to be Katniss’s friend.

I actually do start laughing when I walk through the lane to my house. What was that? I’m still cackling when I actually go back indoors, and Mrs. Heathcoate gives me a glance like she’s questioning my sanity.

*****

Things improve slightly when we’re both expecting to see each other. I bring another set of magazines– this time after highlighting key phrases and adding glossy pink tabs to important articles about the Games. I give Gale a polite, controlled nod when I see him. He gives me the same nod back, looking slightly mystified.

“Uh, Madge?” says Katniss, looking up from where she was flipping through a magazine. “What’s the highlighting supposed to mean?”

Gale is looking at me, too, and I can almost hear the echoing question from him. What about the highlighting, Madge?

“You and Peeta said that you were working on narrative, right? It was just stuff that I thought might be relevant for that, if you want to build off of how they already talk about you. For Peeta, it seems like they mostly care about his love for Katniss– they never talk about him as an individual, they play up the romance. Katniss they care about outside of Peeta. They don’t talk as much about whether or not she reciprocates, it’s more about how much she cares about other people. Like Rue and Prim and everybody. They want her to be worthy of Peeta, whatever that looks like to them. But I guess you guys already understand the Capitol, given… last Games,” I finish lamely. 

I’m getting funny looks.

“So the highlighting might not be necessary, I was just bored,” I say.

“I think it’s smart,” says Gale. 

He’s staring at me, trying to get me to make eye contact with him. I look at Katniss instead, who is glancing at Gale with incredulity. I guess it’s jarring for her to hear him say something nice about me.

“Thanks,” I say, realizing a response is called for. 

“You know you can stay, right?” says Prim. “We were trying to learn how to do stitches, the leather’s supposed to be human skin. You know how to sew, right, Madge?”

“A little,” I say honestly. Mrs. Heathcoate taught me at one point.

“You might have more luck demonstrating than we have,” says Mrs. Everdeen. 

I end up standing in front of everyone, making purposefully slow work with the needle so that Katniss can see what I’m doing. Mrs. Everdeen is narrating something about sterilization. I can’t stop thinking about how Gale is staring at me– that’s not exactly fair of me to say, everyone’s staring, it’s a demonstration. But when I glance up, he’s looking at my face, not my hands. He’s visibly surprised that I looked up at him, and I stare at the leather with double intensity to make up for my mistake. 

“That’s really very good,” says Mrs. Everdeen as she looks at my stitches. She sounds surprised.

“Thanks,” I say again. 

I purposefully slip into the background during the rest of the Everdeens’ “lesson”, although I do listen carefully. It’s interesting stuff, about stopping bleeding and recovering from heat stroke and any other scenario that they could possibly think of. Katniss brings up blood poisoning with a glance toward Peeta, who cringes slightly. But both of them are listening intently. Gale, meanwhile, is mostly just staring at me. If it was possible for a stare to be a physical presence in the room, his would be.

The ‘lesson’ ends, and all of us who don’t live in the Everdeens’ house start moving out the door. Peeta leaves first, and I try to hurry out to the lane before Gale. I only make it a few feet past the Everdeens’ door step when I hear a voice.

“Look, Undersee—” 

I glance back at him, and Katniss appears from the door to stand next to Gale. She looks furious, even as she tries to wave goodbye to me cheerfully. I obediently start walking away, but I can still hear the start of their conversation:

“Can’t you be nice to her?” hisses Katniss fiercely.

“I was being nice–”

“It’s bad enough that you were glaring at her the whole time–” 

“I wasn’t glaring–”

“What do you call scowling in her direction?” asks Katniss.

I’m too far away to hear what Gale calls it, but I’ve never in my life been so annoyed by Katniss trying to defend me. And I spend the rest of the day trying to imagine what look, Undersee was leading to.

Chapter Text

“Haven’t you had a real birthday party before?” asks Robin, looking at me with wide blue eyes. 

“No,” I answer. 

“We’ll do something for it,” says Delly excitedly. “Obviously not as big as your eighteenth, but we’ll do something– oh, but Thread is still keeping the curfew– nevermind, something at lunch, probably–”

I smile at her. I hadn’t been expecting them to do anything, but the fact that they seem to take it for granted that we would celebrate it makes me happy. If anything they’re been almost offended that I hadn’t brought it up before, and have left them with only a day to plan. 

“Maybe don’t tell her what we’re going to do, I want to keep the surprise,” says Robin.

“Sorry!” squeaks Delly, who goes instantly quiet.

The silence lasts for a long time. It’s Sunday, and Robin had the bright idea of a picnic in the meadow in the morning in order to get around the curfew. I contributed sandwiches, and Robin had managed to get some slightly-stale cookies from one of the older Mellark brothers. Rye, or something like that. He’s good-looking and has a soft spot for Robin, which she uses mercilessly. I have no clue what her real feelings are in his direction, because Delly and I spent at least half an hour earlier trying to tease it out of her with no results.

Eventually it reaches twelve-thirty in the afternoon, and I know that I need to go home  soon and pick up the magazines for Katniss and Peeta– although I’m really thinking more about Gale. Why did Katniss have to pick that moment for a new anti-bullying intervention? Granted, it probably looked like Gale was about to say something awful, but I doubt he really would.

Then again, she doesn’t know anything about our old friendship. I guess Gale hasn’t told her, which I can’t get mad at him about because I haven’t said anything either. But why did it feel like such a secret? On Gale’s end, he’s basically in love with Katniss, and having a new female friend that he visits on his free day probably didn’t look the way he wanted it to. And then there’s the fact that I kept it a secret. Although that was more because I liked Gale so much, and I thought of him as Katniss’s…

“Madge? Are you still there?” asks Robin, waving her hand in front of my face.

I flinch, and she laughs.

“I’m here,” I say, and Robin laughs harder. “I should probably leave, though, I promised Katniss I’d come over–”

“Are the two of you that close?” asks Robin, looking at me seriously.

“Not as much as I am with you,” I say. I can sense her next question, and I want to head it off. “She’s still the same as she was before the Games.”

I don’t want Robin or Delly to bring up the Quell, because I don’t think that I can tell them that the Victors are training. You’re not technically supposed to, and the Capitol keeps cameras everywhere. Although I guess they probably already know.

That answer ends up being good enough for Robin and Delly, and they let me go home. I barely get inside to pick up the magazines when Mrs. Heathcoate starts pushing me back out the door, and from the strong smell of lemon in the kitchen I know that she’s baking a cake. It’s not a surprise– she does that every year. Dad will probably take the night off of work. When I was younger we’d play board games together on my birthday, but now it’s mostly an excuse for him to lay on the couch and watch TV. That’s fine by me, and I like the cake.

By some miracle, I get to the Everdeens’ kitchen before Gale does. Peeta is already there, and he gives me a small smile.

“How’s your day–?” I start to ask, when the door shuts and Gale walks in. It startles me out of talking to Peeta, although he doesn’t seem to notice. 

Gale always gives off the impression of not really fitting into the Everdeens’ kitchen. The entry was made for someone shorter, and something about his confidence and the way he walks (slightly on his toes, like a hunter) is always out of place. He slides a clumsily-wrapped package onto Katniss’s kitchen counter, studiously avoids looking at me, asks Katniss about where a wire might be, and leaves the room.

I’m confused about the wire until Peeta says something about how they’re learning snares today– which, of course, implies that either Katniss or Gale is teaching the ‘lesson.’ 

“I don’t know how I’ll do with that,” I say. I’ve never been mechanically minded, and I don’t expect that to change now. But I also don’t want to embarrass myself in front of either Katniss or Gale.

“Me neither,” says Peeta uncomfortably. He awkwardly shifts his weight back and forth, and I’m reminded of the amputation. I try to avert my eyes away from his false leg, not wanting my thoughts to show too visibly. I feel a stab of sympathy for Peeta– already at a disadvantage with a missing limb, still with none of Katniss’s existing skills, left wondering whether the Katniss in question actually loves him or not, and with Gale probably hanging around too much for his liking. I don’t think I could ever manage to be as nice as he is under the circumstances.

Gale and Katniss return, talking quietly to each other, and it’s like all the air is sucked out of the room again. 

“We thought we’d try snares today,” says Gale with a smile. I think he must genuinely love making them. “First some simpler ones for smaller prey animals– which Katniss will already be familiar with– and then I had some ideas for adapted versions that you could use for the Games specifically…”

He leads everyone outside, and I’m thinking of escaping– there’s no reason for me to learn snares, after all– but I think that Gale senses my train of thought.

“Katniss and Madge should practice together, and then Haymitch and Peeta,” he says quickly. “You’ll probably learn better in pairs. Here, I’ll do a demonstration.”

I don’t end up being as bad at snares as I thought I would be, although I’m nowhere near Katniss’s level. Gale comes around to make corrections and tells me that it’s good for my first try, but I think he’s just being kind– a fact which my red face isn’t reflecting.

It goes by quicker than I expected. Katniss is as good as Gale at the more basic ones, although I think he’s probably more creative about new ideas for the traps. He brought a bunch of drawings of his snares for the Hunger Games, and he hands them to Katniss before ending the lesson. Katniss and Peeta are making their way back to the Everdeens’ kitchen as a pair, and Gale is following them from a distance. 

I wish that he had stayed back to talk to me, but I guess he gave up after last week. I try not to feel too disappointed as I walk back into the lane. It’s a nice day. The trees are starting to have small green buds, and I love the smell of the rain in the air even if it means that the lane is muddy. It’s become one of my favorite spots, even without Gale in it.

“Madge! Are you still there?” 

I freeze, because it’s Gale’s voice.

“I’m here,” I say, in a high-pitched voice.

“I was worried you’d already gone back,” says Gale. I turn to face him. He’s holding the badly-wrapped package from earlier, and staring at me like I’m a deer or something that he’s trying not to startle. He looks so much more natural here in the lane than he does in the Everdeens’ kitchen. I realize that he’s waiting for me to say something, but there’s nothing that comes to me immediately, and we’re stuck looking at each other— which makes me realize that I think that I’d gotten too used to looking at Gale before, because it’s impossible to look away from his eyes and I’d never had that problem so consistently when we were friends.

Gale seems to realize that I’m not going to say anything, because he says:

“It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?” 

I nod mutely. I’m surprised that he remembered that it was March 3rd, because I don’t think I mentioned it to him and even Katniss forgot this year. 

“I got you something,” says Gale, shoving the package in my direction. He’s still staring at me with the same intent look on his face. I take the package– Gale was definitely the one to wrap it– and then I start unpeeling the brown paper. I’m surprised when my hand brushes something soft. The ripped paper reveals a sliver of knitted cloth, made from deep navy blue yarn. When I peel it back further I’m surprised to find a brooch pinned to it. It’s obviously old– circular white enamel, with a faded pink rose and two leaves painted on it. 

“I saw it in the Hob and it reminded me of you– you always wear blue a lot–”

“I love it,” I say quickly, and I think the warmth in my voice surprises him.

“It’s just a shawl. I only got it for a couple of rabbits–”

“No– I mean thanks, it means a lot,” I say. He just looks at me, and suddenly I realize how close together we’re standing. I think he takes my reaction as encouragement, because he keeps talking.

“Look, I’m sorry for what I did last time. I promise I’ll never bring something like that up again. But can’t we be friends? I miss having someone to talk to, and I know I shouldn’t have kissed you like that,” he says. 

“I wasn’t upset because you kissed me,” I say. I’m surprised even as the words come out of my mouth. “I just hated the idea that I was your stand-in for Katniss–”

“What do you mean by that?” asks Gale, squinting at me like he’s seeing something he wasn’t expecting.

I answer by leaning forward to kiss him.

Chapter Text

I can’t describe it in detail or say how long it lasts. His hands are in my hair, pulling me closer; our lips touch for what might have been three hours or half a second; I have just a moment to recognize that he hasn’t shaved today from the feeling on my face; and then he’s moving away. He looks completely blindsided. I haven’t fully processed what I’ve done, except to smile at him from ear to ear.

“Do I have to apologize for kissing you, now?” I ask. “At least we’d be on even footing.” 

Gale looks baffled, starts to speak, and stops. Every nerve in my body is tingling with anticipation of what he’ll say. 

“If you want to forget it, that’s fine,” I say, in a lower voice. “You didn’t give me any real reason to think that– that you thought of me that way. I knew you were drunk last time. And I’m fine being friends. I missed you, too.”

“And you think of me as a friend?” asks Gale, in a different tone of voice.

Just go for it you have nothing to lose at this point–

“No. But I didn’t say anything because I knew that you cared so much about Katniss,” I answer. 

The name ‘Katniss’ seems to pull him out of wherever he is in his head.

“About Katniss–” says Gale, and I can tell that he’s picking his words carefully– “I think I’ve gotten over it. She’s engaged. I had no chance, not since she was Reaped, anyway. And she didn’t— want the same things I want. And I can’t talk to her the same way I can with you. She’s just not…”

There’s a long silence, and I don’t think that I’m ever going to learn about what Katniss isn’t .

“Even if you don’t think of Katniss that way anymore,” I start, “that doesn’t answer– what do you think of me ?”

“I think you’re beautiful,” says Gale quickly. I must look too amazed, because he laughs. “Madge, it’s not like the alcohol put any thoughts into my head that weren’t already there.”

There’s a long silence where we’re both just looking at each other and fighting our smiles, before I realize that I should probably talk.

“That’s a relief,” I say.

Suddenly we’re both laughing hysterically. All the tension in the air evaporates, and I’m half doubled over. It gets worse, because every time I glance up Gale is there and laughing harder than I am, which sends me right back into it. By the time that I’ve almost dropped the shawl from earlier, we’ve both come back down to earth.

“I’ll start bothering you again on Saturdays, then,” says Gale, grinning at me.

“You were never bothering me,” I answer.  Then: “why didn’t you come and say something before?”

“Wasn’t brave enough,” says Gale sheepishly. “And I never thought you would be the direct one– and I still thought I was in love with Katniss, and you’re nothing like her.”

I wince at that.

“It’s allowed to be a good thing,” says Gale quickly. “Don’t think you have to be like Katniss.”

“I couldn’t be if I tried,” I joke. “But what made you–?”

“Katniss and I don’t laugh like that, is maybe the easiest way to put it,” says Gale. I’m at least halfway sure that he mutters the words that’s a relief under his breath, and I can feel my face turning pink again.

We talk for a little longer in the lane. It’s too much to directly catch up on the last few months right now– I can’t even remember all of the things that I wanted to tell him– and it’s getting dark outside, anyway. We agree not to say anything to Katniss, who at the very least will have a mixed reaction and  needs to focus on the Quell anyway. Eventually Gale walks me back to the lantern where we used to meet, and I wave goodbye with a wide smile on my face as I go back inside.