Chapter Text
In his youth, Gale was forced into waking hours before the sun touched the horizon. It was by necessity he was transformed into a morning person, no matter how much his still-growing body had ached for just a few more minutes of slumber.
Now, years later, there was no need to wake up early. His pantry was filled with food. The penthouse was always warm. And yet, every morning, his eyes opened before dawn.
Johanna, who lay naked beside him, snored lightly with her mouth slightly agape. He had known her for enough years to know she’d be up sometime in the afternoon. And of course, be long gone by the time he returns home in the evening. He nimbly gets out of his bed and brings the blanket up to her chin. She mumbles something incoherent in her sleep.
He goes about his morning routine with all the practiced discipline of a soldier. His showers are always 7 minutes, followed by two minutes of brushing his teeth. Then thirty seconds of combing his closely cropped hair.
Once he’s done grooming himself, he ventures to his sparkling clean kitchen. As the only real occupant of the penthouse (Johanna’s stays were too infrequent and short to really count), and a dutiful housekeeper that came over every day, Gale’s place hardly looked lived in. This used to bother him greatly. In fact, he used to avoid the damn place as much as he could. It was only when he realized that he would never truly have a home again that it occurred to him that the emptiness he had been running from was from within him, not the penthouse.
He starts his coffee machine, and in the meantime eats a slice of toast. Even with all the delicacies of the world at his fingertips, he found that his stomach couldn't handle anything more than the breakfast of his youth, a single slice of bread and something warm to drink. It was worth noting the bread he ate now was never stale, something that actually took him some time to get used to.
By the time he’s done with his toast, the machine gives a little beep signaling his coffee is ready. He takes it the same way every morning, black and outside on his balcony.
He takes a seat outside and takes a sip of his coffee. Its bitterness is the only familiar taste of 12.
The sun begins to reflect off of the many glass-covered skyscrapers of 2, turning the yellow flowers he planted in the flower box glow.
Every morning Gale does the same thing as he drinks his cup of coffee. He thinks of a way he can make penance today.
Actually, when he first moved in, he would sit on his balcony and cry. He would think of his Mother, and how he broke her heart by breaking her family. He would think of Posy, who thought that he had abandoned her, not knowing that if he stayed things would have been so much worse. He would think of Vick, who was torn between his two older brothers. He would think of Rory, and how he killed the girl he loved, who now forever hated him. He would think of Katniss, and how he killed her sister, the very girl his brother loved, and that he’s the reason why his best friend is broken beyond repair. Finally, he would think of his Father, and how he would probably be ashamed of the man he had become.
He only stopped this habit because he knew that really, self-destruction was gratifying. He didn’t deserve the numbness alcohol brought. He didn’t deserve to release his grief in daily tears. He didn’t deserve the easy way out by simply ending it all.
No, there was a reason he was still alive when by all accounts he should be the one that’s dead, not sweet, innocent Primrose. It was to make this cruel, twisted, dark world slightly better. No matter how much grief constricted his lungs.
He’s overly introspective this morning, however, and he isn’t able to come to a decision about what today’s act of goodness will be. Knowing he won’t sleep until he’s done something, he decides he’ll go with the flow today and take whatever opportunity he is presented with.
He steps back into his room to go into his large walk-in closet. Johanna is just as deeply asleep as when he woke up.
Despite the sheer size of the closet, there’s very few clothes actually hanging. Three of them alone are different uniforms.
He changes into his neatly pressed uniform and slips on his perfectly polished shoes. When he makes to leave, he doesn’t spare a second glance at Johanna. That was simply the nature of their relationship. Or lack-thereof.
He takes the elevator down, and just like clockwork, his first-lieutenant Salim Jazeer is waiting outside of Gale’s military issued vehicle.
Salim straightens and salutes once he sees him.
“Morning Colonel Hathorne,” he greets diligently. Gale nods in response. Though he was more than capable of driving himself to work, it was military protocol to be escorted to and from anything work-related.
Still, he opens his own door and gets in. Salim had long ago accepted that there were some things Gale refused to let him do.
Salim starts the car and they make their way. He was an elderly gentleman, and a rather good-fit as Gale’s adjutant. There wasn’t need for much words between them, something Gale appreciated.
He checks his communicuff and remembers that he’s actually interviewing someone for the open information specialist role. He continues looking through his emails and little time they’ve reached 2’s large military base.
His unit’s office is on the second floor, suite 200, giving easy convenience to the elevator.
Walking in, he’s greeted by Jordan Gold, one of his sergeants.
“Morning, Colonel,” he mumbles with a half-hearted salute. Gold wasn’t a morning person.
“Sergeant,” Gale returns. He hangs up his coat and goes to Cara Brightley’s desk, which is closest to the door. She’s the lowest ranking in his unit as a private, and her main functionality can be surmised as his receptionist.
“Good morning Colonel sir,” she greets in her scratchy voice. Her eyes are magnified by her large glasses, and they always appear nervous. “Some forms came in for you this morning that need your signatures…”
“Thank you Private,” he gives her a small smile and some of her nervousness abates. He takes the forms from her and begins to peruse them at her desk. Sometimes she hands him in things that don’t need his review and can be signed off by Jazeer.
The door to the suite is opened again, but Gale pays no mind. He spotted several empty desks when he came in and figures its’ the rest of his unit coming in. He really needed to get stricter with them about punctuality…
“Hello, Miss. I was scheduled for an interview here today with General Hawthorne, however, I was never given a time. Could you inquire for me when that would be?”
Gale was so focused on the papers in his mind that he hadn’t even noticed the newcomer had come to stand beside him at Brightley's desk. What truly shocked him, though, was the 12 accent.
It was unmistakable, with the long syllables and “r” being dropped off at the end of words. It had been a long time since he had heard it spoken so distinctly, with the few former 12 residents Gale had met since the end of the war had gone to lengths to conform their accent to the new districts they lived in.
Glancing up from his documents, he was shocked to see a small slip of a blonde woman beside him. Sensing his gaze on her, she looked up at him, and his surprise only steepened- the last thing he expected in his office so early on a Monday was such a beautiful woman.
And then recognition hits him.
“Follow me,” is all he says to her, walking off without confirmation. He needed privacy to process this revelation, away from the prying eyes of his unit.
Once he enters his office, he leaves the door behind him open and goes to the window behind his desk, and looks out. The view wasn’t very exciting as it was just a parking lot, but he needed a moment before he could look at her again.
He makes out the sound of the door closing and her taking a seat. He knows he should speak first, this is, after all, a formal job interview, but he doesn’t know what the proper protocol is when faced with a ghost. His hands trembled as a flood of several unknown emotions swept through him, tearing down the large levees he always kept around his composure.
“Would you like me to leave?”
Her voice was soft, and he doesn’t know how he didn’t recognize it the moment he heard it; it had hardly changed from when he used to stand at her back porch with poached strawberries.
He finally turns to face her. Her face is blank, but he can tell from how her shoulders are drawn she is nervous.
Her long golden hair is pulled back in a standard military bun, and her uniform isn’t much of a step-up from the drab clothes she wore back as a teenager. Her face, while always beautiful, much to his younger self’s chagrin, had truly blossomed like a flower. Gone was any childish pudginess from her cheeks. Her delicate features appeared more aristocratic, yet her eyes held the same gentleness he always remembered from Madge.
Gale takes a seat and sighs, running a hand across his face.
“We all saw the first bomb hit the Mayor’s house,” he begins without preamble. “How…how did you survive?”
Madge nods, like she expected this question.
“Do you remember Darius, the redheaded peacekeeper?” she asks him. Gale nods. Back in the day the two of them could have been described as friends. Kind of. “He came and warned my Father of the bombs. I was sent away with him on the train out of 12 with the rest of the peacekeepers.”
“What about your Father?” Gale asks with a frown.
Madge looks down at her hands. “He stayed behind to shut off the power to the fence.”
A heavy feeling drops to the pit of his stomach. It had never occurred to him that the only reason why he and his family were able to make it out of 12 alive was because Mayor Undersee sacrificed himself.
“And your Mother?” he asks once more, afraid to hear the answer.
She looks back at him, expression tired. “She was sick my entire life. There was no way for her to survive without morphling. Besides, my Father had been branded a traitor at that point already, Cray wouldn’t have taken her even if she was able to go.”
“Then why did he take you?” as soon as the question leaves his mouth, he realizes the answer. The hatred he had for Cray had managed to simmer down to a constant acid that resided at the back of his throat, but once more it raged into a full on wildfire.
“It’s what you think, but he never got the chance to do anything to me,” Madge breaks his chain of rabid thoughts. “He was too preoccupied, and Darius was able to get me off the train at 8. I joined Paylor’s forces and well…here I am.”
“Here you are,” Gale echoes with a nod. “I…I thought you were dead.”
She looks surprised at this. “I wouldn’t have guessed you thought of me at all.”
He looks away from her sharply, and doesn’t know how to respond to that. While it was true that feeling responsible for not being able to save Madge was one of the many burdens his soul carried, it was low on the totem pole compared to his other sins. That didn’t mean he felt aggrieved when he saw the bomb hit her house. It didn’t mean for weeks afterwards whenever he saw a surviving townie, he felt remorse at how he had treated her when she was alive.
“I apologize, Colonel. I meant no disrespect,” Madge apologizes, reminding him once again, this is a damn job interview.
“Here is my resume,” she slides over the paper to him. “I believe I would make an excellent information specialist.”
Gale looks at her resume. She had enlisted in the army as soon as it was formalized. She was a Sergeant. She had gotten nearly a perfect score on the army aptitude exam and had an IQ of 160. Her marksmanship was above average and she received a decent physical marker score every quarter.
He looks back at her. She’s watching him expectantly. He can tell she’s ready to fight for this.
“The job is yours.”
She blinks once. Then twice.
“Aren’t you going to interview me?” she asks incredulously.
“I remember how you scoured through those newspapers before the Quell, you’ve been an information specialist since age 16. Besides, it’d be good to have someone that’s actually somewhat politically savvy on the team.”
For the first time since she was 16, Gale sees her smile.
“I won’t let you down, sir.” she promises him. “Thank you for believing in me.”
Gale suddenly feels awkward. While it was true that Private Brightley was not much younger than Madge and also called him sir, it felt strange hearing it come from her.
“Let me tell you about the unit you’ll be joining before formally introducing you,” Gale changes the subject. “First we have Salim Jazeer, my assistant and First Lieutenant. If you overhear someone call him Geezer, it’s ok to laugh, just don’t touch the peanuts in the break room. Those are his.”
Amusement and surprise glimmer in her eyes. He figures the last unit she was in was led by someone much more uptight than him.
“Then we have our two Sergeants. Well, I suppose you make it three now. The first is Jordan Gold, who you may have guessed already is from 1. I know you’ve probably heard the stereotype that people from 1 are a bit airheaded and image obsessed. It’s unfortunately all true about Sergeant Gold, but he’s a good guy and has a real knack for detail.”
“Noted,” Madge chuckles.
“Our next Sergeant is Ivy Willows from 7. Yes, she’s a grisly outdoorsman, but she sure is a master sharp shooter. Don’t mess with her. But she’s always willing to help out.”
“Wade Tide is the 2nd Lieutenant from 4. Real mellow guy, but is real good with picking apart and putting back together just about anything. Finally is Warrant Officer Danny Fields. He’s usually exhausted from taking care of his twins at home, but no matter how tired he is man can crack any code you give him.”
“Any questions about your unit members?” he asks her.
“Yes, what about the girl at the front?”
Gale shakes his head. “That’s Private Cara Brightley. She’s…more of an office administrator than anything else, really. She gets easily overwhelmed.”
“I see…” Madge says with a slight frown. “And you?
Gale raises a brow. “Me?”
“Yes,” Madge nods. “What is your management style? And your expectations of me as an information specialist?”
“I suppose I’m pretty laissez-faire. Get the work down and we won’t have an issue,” Gale responds honestly. “As for my expectations for you…”
Gale trails off as he looks at her. The former district princess, now an orphan, sat in front of him, a war veteran, asking for a job.
“You’ve always blown away every expectation everyone had of you,” Gale admits, remembering how he always assumed she would leave 12 married off to some rich capitalite. “I have no doubt you’ll do the same here.”
Madge once again looks like she can’t believe he actually means what he’s saying, but doesn’t say anything.
“I know when we were younger…you didn’t exactly like me,” Madge fidgets in her chair for the first time during the interview. “Are you sure you don’t mind me joining your unit?”
There’s so much Gale could say to that. So much he wants to. Instead he realizes what his act of kindness for today will be. He’ll make up for his old treatment towards her. For not reaching her in time the day of the bombing.
This is the army, however, and there is strictly no fraternizing. So, he stands up and offers her his hand. She also stands and hesitantly takes it. Her skin is shockingly soft for a soldier.
“I look forward to working with you, Sergeant Undersee.”