Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Down the Rabbit Hole, pt 14

The sun peaked through Madge's window, waking her from her less than restful slumber. She catches the latest review of the Game on the television. It had been left on by the guests, all of whom had slept where they passed out, and it blared with the exciting development that the water near Katniss and Peeta had dried up.

So that's how they'll do it.

Her father has already seen, left for his office. The end is fast approaching and Madge knows he's still worrying over all the details of the District that could land them all in trouble.

Miss Alameda is outside already. She has something large hanging up by the shed.

At first Madge is horrified, its fleshy coloring and size make her think it's a person, but once she walks onto the porch she can finally tell what it is.

A pig of some sort.

The Victor is covered in blood. There's a bucket, with what Madge realizes must be the creatures entrails, at her feet and she's examining a saw. She sees Madge, gives her a tight smile, then proceeds with butchering.

There's a coppery scent in the air and a smell Madge can't quite place, but attributes to the butchering, floating around her as she makes her way out to the mess.

"Water dried up," Madge says as she eyes the blood pooling in the bucket of guts.

"Almost over," Miss Alameda grunts. "Few days. Maybe just hours. They'll round us up when it's close."

But close to what?

There were three possibilities.

Cato could win outright, the simplest end to a complicated game.

Then the two less simple solutions.

Katniss and Peeta could win. An unthinkable thing, two Victors, but highly unlikely. That offer would be snatched away, Miss Alameda and Madge's father are certain of that. It would prove the fallibility of the Capitol, it simply couldn't happen.

Then there was the chance either Katniss or Peeta, one or the other, could win. Somehow Madge doesn't see that ending much better than both coming home. Mr. Abernathy and his collaborators plan for this end, hope for it, but it won't be pretty. It won't be happy. They want to use the Capitol citizenry's outrage in some wild plan to free them all from the hell of their lives.

Madge still just can't see how any of the possibilities is any better than the other.

###################

It's after Cato runs into the Mutts that they call for a mandatory viewing.

It's evening when Madge reaches the square. She's managed to leave the guest behind. Miss Alameda told her to head out, not worry about it, and Madge is grateful to leave their endless chatter and tasteless clothing for a while.

She's one of the first there, along with the Mellarks.

She feels a little guilty for having left them to Miss Alameda's machinations throughout the whole ordeal, but somehow she thinks they and the Victor were better left to their own.

Emmer and Rhys nod to her, before turning back to their very pale father and still stony faced mother.

"So this is it," Gale is behind her. His eyes are up on the screen, streaming with snippets of former Victor's and the final threes' families interviews.

His jaw tightens. This is the end, for better or worse, and he knows it.

"Any news from the witch?"

Madge shakes her head.

Other than what Madge, herself, could already deduce, there was little for Miss Alameda to tell them. Gale scowls at that.

Vick, emerges from the increasing crowd, his mother, sister, and Rory making their way behind him. He sees Madge and rushes to her, throwing his arms around her waist while giving Gale a questioning look.

"You aren't being mean, are you?"

"Why do you think I'm being mean?" Gale looks a little annoyed.

"Cause you are sometimes," Vick tells him, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Gale seems so offended Madge has to turn her head to keep him from seeing her snort of laughter. He hadn't been being mean and she wants it to stay that way.

She sees the guests filtering in, easy to spot in their florescent attire and sequins, jewels, and feathers. Miss Alameda is herding them, best she can, she's back in green, to match her hair, lips, and nails.

Madge notices a group of men putting out rows of chairs, which is odd, there's never been seating provided before. Even during the 69th Games, that ended at noon, on what felt like the hottest day of the year, they hadn't given them chairs. People had passed out and one elderly man had died.

Her father arrives at her side and Gale asks, "Where'd the chairs come from?"

Madge looks to her father, but he seems just as puzzled as she is.

"Miss Alameda, I assume."

But when she comes over, after finally seating the guests, she compliments them on the arrangement.

"Pretty swank, Undersee. These chairs are straight from the artisans of Seven, and they don't even get to use them."

"You didn't provide them?" Madge's father eyes the chairs warily now.

Miss Alameda, mouth turning down, shakes her head, "Not my thing, really. Do I look like I care if anyone is comfortable?"

Her demeanor would seem to say no.

One of the men, young and bronze, painfully handsome, rushes to them. "Miss Birdy Alameda?"

She gives him a narrow look, sizing him up, before nodding. He flashes her a tight smile, as though he isn't positive this will end well, and hands her something, then runs off before she can inspect her parcel.

It's a paper box, white, the top is closed. She gives it a little shake and it has a dry sort of rattle, which she seems to think is safe enough, so she opens it. Then she smiles, plucking out what appeared to Madge to be a fried looking clump.

"Calamari." She inspects it for a moment before tossing it in her mouth.

Vick, seemingly less frightened of her than he had been, stands on his toes to look into the box.

"What-amari?"

"Calamari. It's a delicacy. Very expensive. Would you like some?" She offers the box to him, then a somewhat confused looking Rory.

Gale eyes the box, "What's calamari?"

"Fried squid," she clarifies, popping another piece in her mouth. "I think that tells us who our mysterious chair benefactor is."

######################

Madge somehow ends up sitting between Gale and Vick. They're on the first row, where they can get the best view of the carnage.

It's supposed to be for family only, but Mrs. Everdeen and Prim insist she's been with them since the beginning, helping then through the ordeal, so she deserves to sit with them. Her father, wedged between Copernicus-the-birthday-boy and a peach skinned woman, smiles weakly at her.

She can see Miss Alameda down at the end of the row. Her expression is bored as she polishes off her calamari and listens to the woman on the screen, Cato's mother Madge thinks, exhaust herself praising the Capitol. For all the wonder on her face she might have been picking paint for the bathroom.

Then the action starts.

It turns Madge's stomach from the very beginning.

Vick ducks into his mother's side early on, hiding his face from the gore of the fight. Madge can see Rory try to tough it out, he makes it through most of the last battle, but doesn't last long once Cato tumbles off the Cornucopia and the Mutts begin their grisly work. Posy whimpers from Gale's lap and clings tighter to him before finally crying herself to sleep.

The hours crawl by, but Cato, in his all too effective body armor, won't, can't, die.

Madge has her hands wrapped around the bottom edge of the chair, gripping it so tight her fingers begin to tingle. She feels a gentle pressure on her left hand. Something rough and slightly damp rubs over her knuckles then down to her fingers, attempting to un-pry them from the seat.

She looks down and finds Gale's large hand resting on hers. Her fingers slowly unfurl and Gale's hand wraps itself around hers. They're both hot and clammy. He doesn't look at her, doesn't even make a move that he's even noticed what's happened. His hand may be possessed, for all she knows, acting of its own accord.

Before she can stop herself she gives his hand a squeeze, and to her shock, he squeezes back.

######################

It drags on all night. Somehow, Madge knew it would.

Despite orders not to, several people nod off. Cato's weak cries and occasional screams aren't enough to stave off the lull that comes with the dark warmth of summer nights. Madge thinks the Peacekeepers might jostle them, wake them, but they never do. A small mercy, she thinks.

At some point she dozes off, too.

She wakes when Gale moves his shoulder and whispers her name, a deep, hoarse rasp, his breath ghosting across her face.

"Undersee. Undersee. Madge, wake up."

It startles her and she blinks rapidly, trying to refocus in the dull morning light. She quickly notices she's slouched over onto Gale, practically fallen over on him, face pressed into his shoulder. There's probably an indentation on her cheek from his shirtsleeve. She shoots back in her seat and checks his sleeve, praying she hadn't drooled all over him. Which is a silly thing to worry about when her friends are still in very real dang-

Suddenly her eyes refocus on the screen, she remembers where she is and slips into a panic. What had she missed?

"I think she's going to finish him," Gale whispers.

She begins shaking, fear and adrenaline shoot through her.

Gale shifts beside her, readjusts the still sleeping Posy, then Madge feels his hand on her back, tracing gentle circles over her spine. Her breath dies in her chest and her stomach, which had seconds before been queasy, begins fluttering. She focuses her eyes on the screen and tries to ignore the warmth of his hand.

It ends so abruptly Madge wonders how it hadn't happened earlier. It was so simple, so quick, how Cato died by Katniss' arrow.

People begin to stir around her.

"It's over?"

"It's over!"

"They're both alive? Two Victors?!"

The guests are blubbering again, drunk and drugged and buzzing with too much sugar. Madge looks to her father who is staring, unblinkingly, at Miss Alameda.

She's still in her chair, slouching, legs out in front and lazily crossed at the ankles. Her arms are across her chest and her bored expression is gone, replaced by one of expectancy.

Madge feels Gale's hand stop and rest at the nap of her neck.

"What?"

She shakes her head, "I don't know."

Then the announcement comes, just like she had expected. They retract the offer. There can only be one Victor. Just as there always had been.

While the people of District Twelve are mute in shock, the guest shout in outrage. They upturn their expensive seats and sling their jewelry at the screen. They've paid for this victory and they deserve it.

Madge feels tears building in her eyes.

It had been a lie, just one more glittering lie. Now Katniss was going to kill Peeta, because Peeta was dying and he's Peeta. He would die for Katniss. He was going to. One way or another.

Or he would have.

Katniss became an unknown again, she veered from what they expected from her. She offered up her life, offered to sacrifice herself alongside Peeta, to deny the Capitol theirprize. Their Victor.

It was brilliant. It was dangerous. And it worked.

As much as Cato's death drug out, Peeta and Katniss' rescue from is rushed, frantic. Peeta has lost so much blood, they must be worried.

Once they're on the hovercraft the show crosses over to Flickerman and Templesmith, both confused, blinking and unsure what they've just witnessed and announced.

Finally, Flickerman smiles dazzlingly at the screen, "Well, that was historic!"

Madge pulls her eyes from the screen to Gale. She isn't sure what she'll find.

He's hugging Posy, gently rubbing her back and murmuring soothing things into her ear. Madge catches his eye and gives him a weak smile. She's half turned, planning to go find her father and sort out her mind, when Gale catches her. He pulls her against his chest, next to Posy's dangling leg, and presses his face to her hair.

She can feel his lips moving against her forehead, though if he's speaking or simply wording some kind of silent pray she doesn't know.

Without thinking, she wraps her arms around him, pulls him closer to her. She breaths him in, detergent, earth, and a warm wind, she may never get another chance, after all. She loves him, and she hadn't even realized it.

Her heart breaks a little, because Miss Alameda was right, she can't have 'it'. She can't have him.

He belongs to Katniss, and nothing will change that.

She turns her face and catches a glimpse of her father and the Victor, seemingly cheerful, talking. Their smiles are strained, though.

"Two is twice the family, twice the emotional baggage, twice the hassle."

There are more variables now. Katniss isn't as static as they'd imagined and Peeta is clever. Those moving the pieces, playing this dangerous Game had taken a gamble, and had a move they may have hypothesized, but not really expected, played against them. What their next move was, Madge had no idea, but she can see in her mind's eye Mr. Abernathy and other darkly shrouded figures, false faces forward, plotting.

Madge closes her eyes and breathes in Gale again. A final comfort as they go forward to what she doesn't know.

#####################

The guests are gone within two days. They want, absolutely need, to get back to the Capitol. There are parties and dances to attend and they simply cannot miss them.

Madge is grateful for the return to her empty house. It seems much larger without the guests and their endless luggage, less full of life, even if that life was all madness and debauchery.

Miss Alameda stays a day longer. She comes into Madge's room the afternoon she sees off the guests.

"Catch." She tosses her little compact to Madge. It plops onto the bedspread dully.

Madge picks it up and examines it, small, and black, and uninteresting.

"I'm giving it to you."

"I don't wear makeup." Madge makes to hand it back.

Miss Alameda takes it back with a grin. "Oh, Madgie, don't you know nothing is ever what it seems in wonderland?"

She opens it and holds it out again. Where the mirror should be is a small screen. It's flat, dull, no light emits from it.

"Smile at it, check your hair."

It's a stupid thing to do, but she's had to do so many ridiculous things recently, what's one more?

As soon as she does words and images tick across the screen. It flickers for a second before turning a soft green.

"It recognizes facial movements. I can send messages, but that's too complicated for you right now." She settles next to Madge on the bed. "That pen of your father's is grossly out of date. Y'all are just lucky they warned us to keep an eye on this mess early on."

"It'll detect bugs, far more sensitive than the pen, and it has the most recent codes and frequencies. The Capitol changes them every few years so we have to update. Lucky us, District Three is particularly fond of me. This little guy ought to be good for another six to nine months. You open it, check your hair, and it'll let you know if you've got a third party listening in, goes yellow. Do something with your lips, lipstick or pucker, and it blocks them for a while, turns back to green. It goes red, they've changed the codes and there's nothing to do. Smile and it turns back to a regular mirror."

She smiles at it and it fades, the screen is suddenly a mirror.

Madge closes it and turns it in her hand.

Miss Alameda runs through a few more things and forbids Madge from telling anyone about the compact. Her father knows, of course, Miss Alameda had considered giving it to him first.

"He'd look a bit stupid with a makeup compact though, wouldn't he?"

Madge snorted.

"You aren't as completely awful as you try to pretend to be, you know?"

She smiles weakly at Madge. "Yeah…I am."

######################

Gale, Vick, and Rory come to see Miss Alameda off. Or, more likely, to make sure she leaves.

She's all red now. Her hair, nails, dress, and shoes are all ruby red. Her lips are darker, though, and Madge realizes her lips must be tattooed that awful green.

"Keep your nose clean, Dorothy."

"Why do you do that?" Rory finally asks. "Why do you call Gale 'Dorothy?'"

She smiles, as though it should be obvious.

"Dorothy. Dorothy Gale. You know, 'Wizard of Oz'?"

Judging by their faces it isn't and she sighs.

Madge gives her a bright smile, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope we never see each other again."

Because that would mean dark things were rolling their way. She was a siren before a storm, a warning. One Madge will prepare for, but never wants to deal with.

Miss Alameda give her a grim laugh, "For you sake, I hope that too."

But I wouldn't bet on it.

It's unspoken, but Madge hears it all too well.

She pulls Madge into a little hug, "Be careful, Madgie. Eyes open, pay attention."

Madge nods when they pull apart, "I will, Birdy."

There might have been tears in her heavily made up eyes, but she blinks and their gone.

She jumps up on the train, her dingy gray bag over her shoulder, and waves to the group. She points to her eyes and then to Gale.

"Remember what I said, Dorothy!"

Then she's gone.

###########################

Katniss is beautiful during her reunion with Peeta.

Madge watches Gale watching them. His eyes are hard and searching for some silent sign from Katniss, the girl he loves, that it's all a ruse.

For him it has to be.

Peeta, though, is so sincere, so blazingly in love. It breaks Madge's heart for him, because for the first time, she thinks of them in reverse. Katniss is playing the Game and Peeta is the pawn.

She plays her part well, running to him, seemingly so in love, resting her head on his shoulder.

With each touch Gale grows more and more tense. His arms, his shoulders, his jaw and cheeks all tighten and flex.

His sister is blissfully unaware, playing with her doll on the blanket they've sat out. The rest of the family knows though, they glance back at him, uneasily, before giving him his moment of what little privacy the Square will allow.

Madge's hand, sweaty and strangely cold in the balmy evening, reaches up and comes to a rest on his shoulder and gives it a light squeeze. He doesn't seem to notice at first, he's consumed with what's transpiring on the screen. She's about to give it up, decided to take her hand back, when he reaches up and covers her fingers with his, anchoring her in place.

They stay like that, his hand holding hers to him, until the two Victors are crowned and the crowd is released.

#######################

Madge's heart shatters, collapses on itself. A million irreparable pieces lodging themselves into her lungs, stealing her breath, when Katniss utters the words, says she couldn't bear the thought of being without Peeta.

It's an act, Madge knows that, but the look on Gale's face, the way the light seems to bend away from him, steal his hope, crushes her.

His brothers and sister are with his mother, all sitting with the Everdeens on a little blanket nearest the screen, while Gale and Madge are sitting back against one the building along the outskirts of the Square. So Madge takes a chance again.

She reaches out, trying to ignore that her hand was slippery with more sweat than she knew she was capable of producing, and takes his hand like he had the last night of the Game. She runs her fingers over his knuckles and gently tries to pry his clenched fingers from his palms.

He lets out a ragged sigh.

His hand turns and his fingers curl around hers.

"I'll walk you home."

He's silent after that, nothing more than flesh over stone, still playing Katniss and Peeta's reunion, their interview, on an endless reel inside his head. Madge wishes he wouldn't.

"She's getting better," Madge finally manages to choke out when they reach her garden gate.

Gale doesn't seem to understand, only frowns at her.

"At p-playing the Game." The words catch in her throat. As if they never should have been there in the first place.

He's as unreadable as he had been, studying her with his moon gray eyes. A smile finally flickers across his face.

"Yeah."

The sun is setting, sinking ever lower in the sky, painting the horizon behind him. She can't help but stare.

Madge doesn't deserve him, she knows that. She's nothing but a spoiled child, the daughter of privilege. She's never wanted for anything, not really. She's never hungered, not once in her sixteen years, but in the moment she feels starved.

Gale deserved Katniss, deserved whatever happiness he could have. They were one and the same, brilliantly burning flames in their dull world. They'd saved each other. Katniss was a spark, possibly starting something huge, and what had Madge done? Played hostess in a tea party of the mad.

She was a pale substitute. Not even a candle to Katniss' inferno.

But, God, how she wished she were.

Gale's finger swiped across her cheek, just below her eye, a puzzled expression on his face. "You're crying."

"Sorry." She wipes her face, smears the tears messily across it.

There's concern there, written plain as the stars in the sky, on his face, in his eyes.

If she were like them, Katniss and Gale, she would grab him by the collar of his shirt, pull him to her, kiss him.

She isn't though. She's a thinker, one of the unnoticed and easily forgotten, not the bundle of impulses firing in her stomach, urging her to press her lips to his. Just once.

A pained smile forces its way onto up her lips as she begins to excuse herself, then he grabs her hand and pulls her to him.

She freezes against his chest. One of his hands weaves into her hair the other settles low on her back, pressing her to his body. Awkwardly, she reaches around him, clings to him.

He sighs, "Thank you."

It feels less like a thank you, though, and more like a goodbye.

#########################

He doesn't come the next few days when his brothers do, doesn't make an attempt to contact her about Katniss' return to the District.

Madge stands on the platform, on the day of the Victors' return, with her increasingly absent father, and smiles as brightly as she can for the cameras when the reporters, less gaudy than Vivette and Gordon, ask them how excited they are for the District. Two Victors. The Parcels they will receive.

She keeps the smile fixed on her face as she glances out at the crowd.

Vick is watching her, a concerned little frown on his face. Rory is bouncing on his toes, holding an equally rambunctious Posy's hand, excited for the train, for the supposed end to the madness of the past few weeks. Gale has Prim hoisted on his shoulders. He doesn't even spare Madge a passing glance.

Katniss isn't back, hasn't emerged from the just arrived train that's slowing at the station, but her presence had never really left the District.

Gale, his family, are all slipping away from her. They belong to Katniss. Madge had no right to them.

Gale would never be hers, it was a foolish notion to entertain, that he ever could be. He was Katniss', anything else was unfathomable.

Smile brighter, Pearl, the cameras are watching. She can see her father's eyes tell her.

Madge turns her back to the crowd, readies herself to greet the returning Victors. She's going to be a good friend, to both of them.

For now, though, she has to focus. She's the Mayor's daughter, she has a part to play, but this is foreign ground, an unknown path. She's leaving her safe zone, possibly forever.

She's in a dangerous new world.

And somehow she knows it's only going to get more dangerous.

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A/N: That's it. This story is done. I'm slowly working on the second book, if anyone cares.