WHO: Gale Hawthorne and Madge Undersee WHAT: Arrival WHEN: After she wakes up at the clinic WHERE: In front of the clinic WARNINGS: Talk of Death, Hunger Games warnings STATUS: Closed/Partially G-doc'ed, Will be completed in comments
Madge hadn’t been conscious when she’d arrived in Madison Valley. In fact, the last thing she remembered was a horrible sound, and a shaking like the end of the world. Her mind had barely had time to process the fact that Twelve was actually being attacked when everything had gone black.
And then she’d awakened here. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious. They told her that it had been nearly a week, but she could only take their word for it. That time was gone in her mind, only darkness when she tried to remember it. Her body was covered in bruises, burns, and other small injuries that smarted every time she moved. Her leg was broken. She’d been told that there were...worse injuries, but that somehow they’d been healed and she didn’t need to worry with those just now. That terrified her - that there’d been injuries so bad that they didn’t want to tell her even what they were in her ‘delicate condition.’
She didn’t feel so delicate. She felt raw, yes. But she also felt angry, furious really, that the Capitol had done what they did. That they’d killed so many innocent people for nothing. It was really the final proof of how evil they were.
Grabbing her crutches, she managed to get out of the bed and hobble out of the room she hadn’t left since she arrived. Nothing looked familiar. This definitely wasn’t District Twelve, but it couldn’t be the Capitol, either. They wouldn’t have taken her. Or if they had, they’d have made sure that they finished what they started.
There was nobody at the reception desk, so she continued to hobble on her crutches out the front door, hoping to get a look at where she was. The sight that met her caused her to stop in her tracks.
She had no idea where she was. This couldn’t possibly be Panem. She felt herself start to tremble as she looked around her, terrified and exhausted from her walk outside, and made her way to a bench that she collapsed onto, looking lost and bewildered.
***
Gale had only recently found himself back in Madison Valley. Having been in town once before, he at least knew where he was, and the basic gist of how he’d gotten here. He didn’t really understand that side of it, but he wasn’t exactly the most educated, or academic guy. He had past experience with this place, so being here wasn’t that much of a shock to him, even though it was a bit disorienting.
He’d been gone almost a year and a half. Claire was gone, and hadn’t come back. He was a bit disappointed, but he’d deal with it. Because people came and went in Madison Valley all the time, often without rhyme or reason, and there was little point getting upset about it.
He had no idea where his original map of Madison Valley was, if it even still existed. But it was something he tended to do before, when he didn’t know what else to do. He figured he’d just make a new one, and he was working on that, pencil in hand, when he saw Madge.
He very nearly kept on walking, because their history together wasn’t exactly friendly. But she looked so...lost, so downtrodden that he couldn’t in good conscious keep walking and ignore her. “Hey,” he said, stopping a few feet from her. He folded his map, stuck the paper and the pencil in his back pocket.
***
Madge looked up when he spoke, although her eyes almost shuttered when she saw him. She didn’t dislike Gale, but she knew quite well that he disliked her. He’d made that really clear. She supposed he had the right to, living the life he had while she’d lived the life that she had. It hadn’t been her fault, of course, but that didn’t mean she’d ever stop feeling guilty about it.
Still, seeing him, seeing anyone from home was...comforting in a way that she couldn’t really explain. It made her think that maybe she hadn’t lost her mind entirely, that maybe there was some explanation for this place. Gale was the only familiar thing she’d seen since she awakened, and she was glad to see him, despite the discomfort of their relationship.
“Hey,” she said softly, looking at her feet rather than at him.
***
“You look…” there were so many ways Gale could finish that statement. She looked like hell. She looked like she had been in the Games. She looked like…”Like you need a friend,” he said and was surprised by the words that tumbled out of his mouth.
He didn’t hate Madge. He honestly wasn’t sure how he felt about her. He didn’t really give it much thought, especially after everything that happened. He shifted his feet as his brain filled in the blanks, and reminded him that Madge had most likely perished when District 12 was destroyed.
“Are you all right?” he asked, still keeping his distance. He was close enough to have a casual conversation, but not so close as to be invading her personal space.
***
At first, she wanted to answer with something generic, something that would send Gale on his way, making him feel that he’d done his duty by stopping to talk with her. She wanted to tell him that she was fine, that everything was fine. But the truth was...nothing was fine. Twelve had been bombed. She’d had injuries the doctors wouldn’t even tell her about. Her body was a tableau of injuries that had been sustained in an attack that should never have happened, an attack that had likely killed everyone she knew and cared about. An attack that had maybe even killed her.
“No,” she said instead, without even really thinking about it. “I’m not okay.”
It was the truth, but she didn’t really know where to go from there. It wouldn’t be weak to simply start crying, but she didn’t feel that she could do that, even if she wanted to. It just didn’t feel that the tears were there. It was like she was numb inside, like her feelings were buried so deep that she couldn’t access them.
“Gale, what happened to Twelve?”
***
That was a loaded question. Gale sighed and shifted and ran a hand over his face. “Do you mind if I sit?” he wouldn’t be surprised if she said no. He wouldn’t be offended either. But he’d be more comfortable if he sat, even though there was nothing comfortable about what he had to tell her.
“The Capital dropped bombs. They destroyed pretty much everything.” And everyone. The devastation was catastrophic. Very little had been left standing. “There was even a chance to fight back,” he told her with a shake of his head. He wouldn’t tell her that she’d probably died; he had no actual proof. And it was a hard pill to swallow, he knew that, and then there was the question of if she died, how was she here now?
“I’m sorry,” was what he said, and maybe if she read between the lines she’d know what he meant. And that it was sincere. No one deserved to die, not like that, victims of someone else’s war.
***
Madge nodded absently, not really caring if he sat. It was a big enough bench for the two of them to sit comfortably - being from Twelve, neither of them really took much room. Even Madge hadn’t had all the food she’d ever wanted, even if she’d had enough. That was what it meant to be rich in Twelve - not that you had the luxury of everything you wanted, like in the Capitol, but simply the knowledge that you wouldn’t starve to death. And that was wrong on so many levels. She’d always thought that should be something that everyone should be able to count on. But many in Twelve never could.
Listening to his description of what had befallen their home, she paled a little. She had assumed it was something like that, but to have her worst fears confirmed wasn’t easy to hear. She didn’t dare ask after her family or her friends, because she was horrified that she already knew the answer and she didn’t want to know it for sure right now. As long as Gale didn’t say the words, she could believe that somehow they were alive. Even if her heart told her they weren’t.
Her voice, when she spoke, was raspy and weak.
“Did anyone get out?”
***
He expected that question, really, but expecting it didn’t really prepare him for it. Because the answer was hard. The people he’d known his entire life, nearly everyone he’d ever known had died in the attack. And he could only imagine how it must feel to be told you were dead back home. It wasn’t something he wanted to deal with, but he really didn’t have much choice, unless he flat out lied to her.
“Some,” he said. “Not many. Thirteen offered asylum.” Sort of. That was a whole other story. And there was no need to get into that, and lay all that information on her. Did she even know there was a District Thirteen? He sighed and leaned forward. “It’s complicated, Madge. The fact is, and what you should focus on now, is that you’re here, Madison Valley is in the United States, before Panem. And it’s a peaceful place, most of the time.”
***
Looking around her, she knew he was right. That was one of the strange things about being here, one of the reasons she had known right away that she wasn’t in Panem. It was peaceful here - in the real sense of the word. It wasn’t quiet and forboding, like it had been in Twelve. It wasn’t quiet because it was terrified and starving. It was quiet because this was true peace. Once in a while, she could even hear children laughing and playing nearby. Even that had been silenced in District Twelve.
Gale was telling her not to think of home, though. How could she do that? Everyone she loved had been there, and she was smart enough to read between the lines, to hear what he wasn’t saying. Everyone was dead. She was probably dead. How could she simply accept that and settle in here? Why had she been given this reprieve to start with?
“Complicated,” she repeated. “Meaning you don’t want to tell me.” She wasn’t going to force him to, but she wanted him to know that she knew what he was doing. “Did your family get out?”
***
“That, and it’s difficult to put into words,” Gale nodded. He wasn’t going to lie to her Not outright. Lying wasn’t his thing. He lied to survive, sure But there was no need here and now, in this place. The only reason to lie to her now would be to spare her the truth, but that wasn’t his style.
“My family did get out,” he said. “As did Katniss’ mother and sister.” Of course Prim was later killed because of a bomb Gale himself had designed. But she was here, alive and well, thriving, in Madison Valley. “Look, Madge. There’s nothing we can do to change what happened in Panem. But believe me when I say Madison Valley is a second chance. It’s a whole new life waiting to be lived,”
That was the truth. Madison Valley was nothing like Panem.
***
Madge was honestly glad to hear that anybody got out. She didn’t doubt that the Capitol had intended to destroy everyone in Twelve with their bombs, and it seemed like just a tiny victory that they hadn’t been able to. She didn’t ask any more closely about her own parents because she didn’t want to know the answer. As long as she didn’t hear the words themselves, they weren’t dead quite yet. She didn’t know if she could handle that right now.
She looked a little confused at Gale’s next words. This place was obviously not Panem, but the part about it being a second chance was what caught her attention.
“We can stay?”
***
Gale nodded. The answer was a little bit tricky. And he felt like he’d already dumped a lot of information on her. She’d need time to process it all. He hated to add to it, but he didn’t see much choice.
“We stay as long as the town, the dome, or whoever is controlling things decides to send us back.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I was here for about a year and a half, and I guess I’ve been gone that long too. I just came back.” He rolled his shoulders. “No one knows who or what is controlling things,” he added quickly because he knew that was going to be the next question.
“People come and go every day. There’s no way to predict who will come, or who will go. Some people come back like me, and remember being here. Sometimes people come back and don’t remember being here.” He wondered if anyone from City Hall had visited her yet. It didn’t seem like she had any idea what was going on, so he would bet no one had talked to her yet.
***
They hadn’t. Madge had been so badly injured when she arrived here that she hadn’t even been conscious, so her first stop had been at the clinic, where she’d remained until she’d come to a comfortable state of consciousness only this afternoon. She had vague memories of people talking to her as she was in and out of delirium, but nothing concrete. Nothing she could trust.
But the more Gale spoke, the more it seemed that there really wasn’t anything about this place that could be trusted. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing permanent.
She shuddered.
“I think I must be dead back home,” she said, finally saying the words. “So I don’t think I can go back.”
That meant this place was now her home, whether she liked it or not.
***
Gale nodded. What else could he do. He didn’t want to say the words out loud. She was here, she was alive and on the mend in Madison Valley. She had a second chance, for as long as she was here. She should focus on that, and not get worked up about things back home that she couldn’t control.
He’d probably said too much. It was a lot to take in. He was only calm about it because he’d been in Madison Valley before now. He knew how it worked, more or less. It was all new to her, and so very different from life in Panem. Madison Valley probably seemed a lot like the Capitol to her after living her entire life in District Twelve.
“You’re here now. Focus on that, Madge,” Gale said softly.
***
It did seem like the Capitol, and yet it didn’t. Of course, she’d never been to the Capitol, so it wasn’t like she had any first hand knowledge of the place. The one thing she knew for certain was that it was nothing like Twelve, and there was nothing familiar about anything that she saw. Part of her wanted to scream, another part of her wanted to cry, but the biggest part of her was just annoyed and confused. And maybe even a little angry.
Why her? Why had she been brought here when so many people had died? What made her so special?
But Gale couldn’t answer any of those questions. And he probably wouldn’t, even if he could. He’d never liked her much, because she was the Mayor’s daughter, and he probably thought she’d always had everything she’d ever wanted.
She looked away from him.
“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll do that. I mean, just forget that my whole family is dead because you told me too.”
Usually, she was much kinder with her words, but too much had happened today.