A/N: Happy Gadge Day! I'm taking advantage of Gadge Day "fic amnesty" (for WIPs that haven't been updated recently) to get this chapter out.

Chapter 16: Bridge

It felt like dating, Gale thought. Talking to Madge's uncle about the campaign reminded him of the process of getting to know someone you suspected you might be interested in, but couldn't be sure until you knew more about them. It was a cautious form of dating, though—there were no bold declarations or any hints that either side was looking for a long-term commitment. Haymitch didn't push Gale to support Mr. Undersee, and true to his word, kept the conversation focused on asking about Gale's opinion on a range of topics. Gale had never had any problem telling people what he thought; that part was easy. But he was curious, too, and ended up asking so many questions that Haymitch spent just as much time talking as Gale did.

It had turned out that everything Haymitch and Mr. Undersee told Gale during their initial meeting checked out when Gale inquired afterward with his family and friends, even the revelation about Gale's father. His mother confirmed that his father had considered running for the open state legislature position that Madge's father eventually won. Considered it for a few days, at least.

"Nobody else was interested," his mom had said when he asked her over dinner that night when he got home. "And so many in the union were pushing for him, he felt obligated to take the idea seriously. But," she added, "it wasn't realistic." She explained that the position only lasted for part of the year and paid less than his father's job in the mine. Their family was already struggling—how could they get by on less money, for a job that only lasted two years before another election?

Gale's father's friends made similar comments, and to Gale's surprise, actually had mostly complimentary things to say about Madge's father. Beyond a natural disdain for Mr. Undersee's dual sins of being wealthy and an outsider, they admitted he'd been a straight-shooter and easily the best of the mine's former owners about communicating with the workers.

It had been enough for Gale to call Haymitch and agree to stop by the Undersees' house again, on the conditions that one, he wasn't promising anything other than one more meeting and two, that they leave Madge out of it.

Gale started to have second thoughts about the Madge condition during his first trip back to formally "chat" with Haymitch about the campaign. He never saw Madge, and couldn't ask about her, not after making such a big deal to Haymitch that she stay separate from their meeting. But other than that, the meeting had gone well. It felt good to be listened to and he liked what he was hearing from Haymitch. Before he realized what had happened, he found himself agreeing to return the next day.

In the back of his mind, he recognized that he was also hoping to see Madge the next time. For as much as he agreed with drawing a line between her and his talks with Haymitch, he also realized that a part of him had hoped he'd be able to at least see her. It felt wrong to be in her house and not be able to find out what she was up to lately, or how she was feeling.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew what that meant. As he lingered in the Undersees' front foyer after that first return meeting with Haymitch, hoping Madge would turn up, he felt like he was teetering at the top of a slide and it would take very little to nudge him down.

The nudge came the next day, when he returned for his meeting with Haymitch. He spotted Madge sitting in the formal living room with her mother and a small group of women who could have been Mrs. Undersee's clones. Madge glanced over her shoulder as Gale passed through the foyer of the house, her face lighting up when she saw him. She started to rise from her seat, only to be diverted by a question from the woman sitting next to her. By that time Haymitch had intercepted Gale and was guiding him back to the study.

Gale's mood was high all through the meeting, in anticipation of the possibility of seeing Madge afterward. A little slice of his brain kept thinking about her while the rest of his attention focused on the varying conversational threads with Maysilee and a campaign staffer named Kevin who'd joined them. Gale got a charge out of fighting with Kevin—though he supposed Haymitch would call it debating rather than fighting—and liked that all three of them had satisfying answers to most of the issues he raised and didn't seem to take offense when he was blunt. Kevin and his know-it-all, prep school vibe were especially fun for Gale to shoot down.

The hour flew by, and soon he was standing in the Undersees' foyer again. Madge was right there in the living room, ostensibly reading a book by herself on the sofa now that her own event was over, though Gale noticed that she had positioned herself so she could see anyone entering or exiting through the front door.

When she spotted him, Madge bolted to her feet so quickly that her dress hitched midway up one of her thighs. Gale smiled immediately and she grinned back, smoothing her skirt and letting her book fall to the sofa.

"I was hoping I'd see you," he said, moving toward her.

She ducked her head, and Gale wouldn't swear to it, but he thought she might have blushed. If so, she recovered quickly. "How's it going in there?" she asked, gesturing toward the study.

"Well, they keep asking me to come back."

"And you don't mind?"

He shook his head. "Guess not."

"I heard some... heated discussions when I walked past earlier," Madge said.

He grinned again. "That Kevin guy is a tool."

Madge laughed, and Gale admitted to her that he figured Haymitch brought Kevin in to play Devil's Advocate for debating purposes, aware that Gale would instinctively dislike him. Madge agreed, and then he found himself telling about the rest of the meeting. She was like a sponge, soaking up everything he said and making only a few, usually astute, comments here and there. He liked getting her take on things, as a kind of gut-check on his own impressions. Then she filled him in about what she'd been up to—being dragged as an accessory to events with her parents, it sounded like, which she was struggling to balance with her need to practice for an upcoming piano audition at school.

"Not that I can practice here anyway," Madge said in a resigned tone. "My piano is in the room right next to the first floor conference room and one of the staffers complained about the music bleeding into calls with donors. I said they should just tell people it was hold music, but nobody went for it."

Gale chuckled and asked why the campaign hadn't moved to office space downtown, which Madge explained as skittishness. Without the party's formal support, nobody was confident enough about the campaign's budget to sign the lease.

"But publicly, they'll say it's because the owner is on vacation and they just haven't signed all the paperwork yet," she added with an exaggeratedly innocent smile. Then her smile shifted into something more genuine and she asked what he'd been doing for the past few days.

He started talking, and at some point they moved to the sofa. Gale had no idea an hour had passed until a weary-looking Mrs. Undersee turned up to summon Madge away to a dinner engagement.

"See you tomorrow?" Madge asked hopefully.

"Sure thing."

As sure as gravity, pulling him down a slide.

#

Gale arrived early for his Haymitch meeting the next day, and was able to talk to Madge both before and afterward. She had a gift for hovering nearby, which he especially appreciated when his meeting with Haymitch ended up being cut short. Kevin had made a dramatic appearance to report ominously that there was a matter of "pressing importance" requiring Haymitch's attention.

Gale learned that night on the news what that matter was: Bill Cato had held a news conference to announce his candidacy. Cato staged his announcement in the parking lot of his mining equipment sales lot, which made the whole thing look like a used car commercial featuring front-loaders and dump trucks instead of pick-ups and sedans.

If Gale thought Mr. Undersee's announcement was vague, Cato's was ten times worse. His entire platform seemed to be that he was a native son of the state and therefore knew best what the people of the state needed. Whatever that was; Cato didn't say. Gale seriously doubted the best interests of the state included doing whatever those bastards at Snow Peak Capital wanted.

He didn't need to think twice about agreeing to Haymitch's invitation to join the campaign strategy session the next day.

When he arrived, the Undersees' study looked like a war room, with Haymitch and Maysilee as generals surrounded by a dozen or so people Gale didn't recognize but who he assumed were staffers or volunteers. Someone had pinned a map of the entire state on the wall, with each voting precinct marked. Haymitch nodded a greeting at Gale, who helped himself to a glass of water and surveyed the room, which crackled with energy. Either everyone else had picked coffee over water from the beverage station, or they were an especially enthusiastic crowd.

Mr. Undersee harnessed that energy when he arrived a few minutes later. He was his usual effusive self, thanking everyone for their support and making sure they all introduced themselves to the group. Gale noticed that he was the youngest person in the room, and the least exuberant, although he had to admit that the enthusiasm from the others was starting to feel infectious.

Soon enough, Mr. Undersee turned things over to Haymitch and Maysilee, who walked through the near-term strategy: make contact with as many local party activists throughout the state as possible to lock up endorsements. Standing by the map, Haymitch started doling out precinct assignments to people based on where they had personal contacts.

He included Gale. "Hawthorne, you'll talk to your old man's people in Twelve?"

"On it," Gale returned, eyes already scanning the map for other precincts where he had friends or relatives. At a bare minimum he wanted to make sure everyone knew that Cato was being backed by Snow.

Haymitch made a note on the map and then paused, turning to squint in Gale's direction.

"How much longer you in town?"

"Saturday," Gale said tersely, aware that two days was hardly enough time to accomplish much of anything.

Haymitch looked across the room to Maysilee, who nodded in acknowledgement and turned to her computer. Haymitch shifted his attention back to the map and continued handing out assignments, but Gale kept his eyes on Madge's aunt.

Everyone knew she was the keeper of the campaign's budget—was she checking to see if they could hire him? He knew they thought he was useful; he'd seen Haymitch and Maysilee exchanging impressed looks with one another when he made points or asked questions over the last few days. And, more cynically, he knew they needed him to help boost Madge's father's appeal in the mining towns.

Suddenly, the possibility of staying seemed real. Gale let himself imagine not having to pack up all his clothes, climb back into his truck, and make that long, cold, lonely drive across the country to his cramped room and thin mattress in North Dakota. He could make sure Rory didn't teeter over the edge into assholery, help Ma with… everything, and do what he could to keep Snow from wrecking the state.

Two weeks ago he'd never in a million years have considered a job on a campaign, let alone for Undersee, but he'd been spending hours each night pouring over old news coverage, and the more he read the more he thought Madge's dad might actually be a decent governor. If he could fix the stupid claims system, and save other families from having to fight the way the Hawthornes had—that would be enough. But Madge's dad had ideas about the future, too, and thinking about them made Gale feel like maybe there actually was a way to make things better.

He kept one eye on Haymitch and the map, and one eye on Maysilee at her laptop. When she looked up a few minutes later and gestured for him to follow her into the hallway, he was ready.

#

Every time Madge heard the study door open and footsteps treading down the hallway to the front door, she looked up from her laptop to check if it was Gale. She'd initially thought it was terrible that the campaign was going to be temporarily based in her father's study—the house was a zoo and everyone in her family was always rushing off to appointments, holding meetings in the various function rooms on the first floor, or wandering the hallways on their phones—but getting to visit with Gale had more than made up for the inconveniences.

Finally he appeared, his face locked in a frown. He stopped when he saw her and glanced back toward the study before turning to watch Madge approach him.

"They offered me a job."

Madge felt a bubble of happiness begin to expand in her chest. "Really? You're staying?"

"No," he said, shaking his head as though he wasn't quite sure what he was saying. "I didn't take it."

A stab of panic pierced Madge. "Because of... Why?"

"I make more in North Dakota. A lot more. Nowhere near what the campaign could pay." He frowned down the hallway again and then turned back to Madge. "Did you know your aunt and uncle aren't getting paid? And that Kevin might as well not be?"

She did know that. "Haymitch and Maysilee are 'volunteering' and doing something with their taxes," Madge waved her hand vaguely in the air. "And Kevin..." Probably had a trust fund and was more focused on building his resume and making connections. "Isn't in this for the money."

Gale exhaled angrily. "I figured." He looked down at his feet for a few moments. Madge braced herself for an angry rant, but all he said when he looked up was, "Guess I'm leaving again, then. I can't walk away from what I'm making out there, even if I'd rather stay here for... a lot of reasons." He didn't take his eyes off hers, which meant Madge couldn't help herself from jumping to the conclusion that maybe, just a tiny part of him, had possibly considered her as one of those reasons.

"Our loss," she said sadly. Hers especially, she thought. "When are you leaving?"

When he said Saturday, she felt like the floor had been pulled out from under her feet. Obviously she knew he was only visiting during the holidays; this shouldn't have been a surprise. But standing close enough to smell the faint traces of his aftershave, it suddenly felt like she was losing something.

"Gale," she said quickly before she could second-guess herself. "Do you think you could give me a ride back to campus on your way to North Dakota? Everyone here is too busy to take me, and my car is just sitting in the repair shop there. It's no big deal if you can't, I know you have a long drive ahead of you, I'll figure something else out, maybe rent a car. I just thought since it was on your way, if you didn't mind—"

"I don't mind," he broke in. "Let's do it."

When he grinned at her, Madge felt like she'd managed to grab the end of the string on a balloon rising up to the sky.

#

The drive back to campus was a vast improvement over the ride home, Gale thought as he glanced over at Madge in the passenger seat. She had a relaxed smile on her face as she watched the forest whiz past out the window. When he'd picked her up earlier that morning, he'd been pleased to find that she was armed with coffee, fresh pastries, and a set of free-standing speakers that didn't need to plug into his truck's broken stereo. Her playlist was actually pretty good, providing a decent distraction from the ache of missing his home and his family. Posy's birthday was just a few weeks away and they'd celebrated early, but it wasn't the same. Having Madge's company on the first part of his long drive, and especially the little thrill he felt when she smiled at him, was helping him not dwell on how unhappy he was to be leaving again.

After a couple of hours, the overcast sky started to brighten from navy to pale gray and Gale pulled off the highway into the visitor center for a large bridge spanning a deep river valley. The visitor center was closed, but the bathrooms were open. And more importantly, the bridge was one of Gale's favorite places in the state.

"Do we have time to go to the view point?" Madge asked as she let herself out of her door. She sounded like a little kid, eager and hopeful at the same time.

"I was counting on it," Gale said.

They met up again on the viewing platform, which usually afforded a view of the entire bridge and river gorge below. Today, though, the bridge's far side wasn't visible, disappearing mid-span into a thick fog bank. Gale and Madge were the only people on the large platform, a sharp contrast to how crowded it was during the summer months when Gale and his family used to visit.

"It looks like it's leading to another world," Madge said softly, her eyes on the vanishing bridge. "Like you could walk across it and come out of the mist on the other end into an alternate reality."

"I know what you mean." Gale leaned his elbows against the railing and gazed at the bridge. The ache in his chest ballooned and felt like it was being filled with the silence on the platform. Instead of dangling his brothers over the railing until their mother yelled at them, he was driving thousands of miles away. Again.

"I'd want to end up in a world where I could stay here," he said quietly. "Where I wouldn't feel like I was abandoning my family." He glanced over at Madge, who was watching him with a sympathetic expression. "I keep wondering if I made the right decision, turning your uncle down. I know better than anyone how bad those assholes at Snow are."

Madge was silent for a few moments. "For what it's worth," she finally said, "I thought it seemed like an easy choice. You're trying to put yourself through college, which you know will be good for you and your family. And who knows how things will go with the campaign? It's still so early."

It felt like the right choice to Gale, too, though not without some second thoughts. Still, he liked hearing Madge's agreement.

Madge shivered and scrunched her shoulders up so her scarf covered more of her neck. "I'd want to walk over the bridge into a warmer universe. Maybe to a sunny beach. The Caribbean. How does that sound?"

"Mmmmm," he agreed, closing his eyes so he could better picture Madge in a bikini instead of twenty layers of winter clothes. Her yellow hair would probably look nice against the white sand of a tropical beach, like on the travel commercials he'd seen for vacations he could never take or afford. She'd sunbathe, and he'd convince her to go skinny-dipping with him in the ocean...

He opened his eyes again. He was just torturing himself. He still had to get through however many more months of winter in North Dakota, with no Madge or any other girls, and without much more to look forward to than the balance in his bank account growing slowly larger.

They lingered on the viewing platform until the cold started to seep through their jackets and then, wordlessly, both turned and walked back to the truck.

#

In what seemed like no time at all, the forested landscape gave way to city and Madge was directing Gale to the garage where her car was. He stuck around to fill his gas tank while she dealt with the bill, and gave in immediately when she returned and demanded that she be allowed to treat him to a late breakfast. He was hungry and felt like hanging out with Madge for a little while longer.

She took him to a diner down the street, an unpretentious place with generous portions. Madge entertained him with stories of her ex-boyfriend the dirtbag musician, and the gigs she'd followed his band to in the nearby area. She was more animated than she usually was at home, and he realized it was because she felt more comfortable here, out of the shadow of her parents and away from the obligations of the campaign. She had the freedom to screw off, following her jackass ex-boyfriend around, sneaking into clubs, and just generally letting loose.

He liked seeing this side of her. For his part, it was liberating to be able to talk to her just as a girl he was interested in getting to know, away from the campaign and all of the emotional baggage she couldn't avoid at home.

They lingered at the diner until the waitress gave them a dirty look for occupying one of her tables for so long. Madge offered to show him around the university campus and the next thing he knew they were walking across the quad.

He'd visited with the track team in senior year, but it was an athletic-focused tour. If he was going to enroll on his own dime, he'd just be a regular student and figured he should take another look. Two weeks ago, when he'd been on campus trying to give Katniss a ride home, he'd spent his whole visit in the financial aid office, trying to have the workers explain his options. (Not many.) Now, Madge showed him the dorms where first year students typically lived, the music conservatory where she spent most of her time, and the student center where she did a lot of her studying.

They also stopped by the campus bookstore, which was open with limited hours during the break. Madge disappeared to buy her books for the next semester while Gale wandered up and down the aisles, imagining being in classes with the titles he saw. Intro to Business. Physics. Ecology.

His throat hurt. This was where he wanted to be. This was where he should be. He and Madge had driven across that haunting bridge and this was his alternate reality: a place where he could be closer to his family and at the same time go to school. A place where he could ignore the fact that the angle of the weak, late afternoon sunlight was telling him that he was hours and hours behind schedule for his drive to North Dakota. He couldn't bring himself to regret a single second of the delay, though. As soon as he got back into his truck by himself, he'd be back in his own universe and his own life.

He browsed the shelves a little longer and eventually found Madge near the cash registers. She was standing by a panel of bulletin boards, one of her shoulders slanted downward under the weight of a huge canvas shopping bag bulging with textbooks.

"So much for taking a light load so you can help with the campaign," he said as he pulled the bag off her shoulder so he could carry it.

Madge had been frowning at something on the bulletin board but snapped her head in his direction. "I can carry it," she protested, reaching for the bag.

He waved away her arms. "I've got it."

"It's really heavy, I'm taking a bunch of new classes this semester…" She trailed off, her attention still snagged on the bulletin board. Gale followed her gaze to a handmade flyer.

"What's that?"

"Nothing," Madge said quickly. Too quickly.

"The Hatch Creek Players," he read aloud, watching Madge for a reaction. She flinched—just barely—on hearing the band's name.

"Let's go," she said firmly, turning to walk toward the bookstore's door.

Gale stepped closer to the flyer to read it more carefully.

"Is that your ex's band?"

Madge was waiting with one hand on the door, ready to push it open. She gave a barely visible nod. "I haven't been keeping up with them since... last semester. I used to know everything—where they were playing, which songs they were working on… Just surprised, I guess. Whatever. Are you ready to go?"

"They're playing tonight," he pushed. "You going?"

Madge hesitated, and then set her jaw. "No."

Then she pushed the door open, letting a blast of cold air into the building as they exited. She clearly thought she'd closed the topic, but Gale could tell she was still bothered. For one thing, she was no longer spouting off tour guide trivia about the buildings they were passing. He could also see faint worry lines in her forehead, and she was walking faster than she had all day.

She was so distracted that she nearly crossed the street in front of a FedEx truck.

"Watch it," Gale warned, tugging her back to the curb.

Madge's eyes widened as the truck lumbered past. "Thanks."

"You're upset," he said. "About your ex?"

He could see Madge debating whether she wanted to talk about this or not. He could also see the exact moment when she decided she was going to: she had that look she got when she was about to burst.

"I need to go to the show, but I don't want him to know I'm there," she blurted.

"Need to go?"

Madge nodded miserably. She looked embarrassed as she admitted, "He wrote some songs about me, when we were together. I haven't talked to him since we broke up and he probably... wasn't happy about that." Gale thought back to all those missed phone calls on her phone during their drive home before Christmas. "I know he planned to write over the break and will probably test out new stuff tonight. I need to know if he wrote any... not-so-nice songs about me."

Gale felt himself making a face. "Do you really want to know?" The possibility sounded supremely unappealing to him.

"I need to," Madge insisted. "It's going to bother me if I don't know. And I don't want to be surprised later." She looked ill as she added, "Especially by a reporter."

"So, what, you're going to go and wear a disguise or something?"

"Well, something," she said as she resumed walking again, crossing the street more carefully this time. Gale followed, listening as she explained how she could lay low at the show to avoid being seen, what she was going to tell her parents about why she couldn't come home tonight, and how she hoped this was all for nothing but needed to know for sure.

He realized she'd been strategizing since they'd left the bookstore.

"How much of this is you worrying about being surprised?" he asked when they reached the parking lot where their cars were. "And how much is you looking for some kind of closure?"

Madge flashed him an irritated look and opened her mouth to respond, but then shut it again. "I don't know," she admitted testily. "But. I don't think I'd care if I could be sure I didn't have to worry about him embarrassing me. I could just be done."

Gale didn't press the point, though he could tell she was still thinking about it because she went quiet again as they walked the remaining distance to their cars. She'd also stopped speedwalking.

He felt himself moving slowly, too. He helped deposit Madge's massive bag of textbooks into the trunk of her car, taking care to arrange the books so they wouldn't topple over. He was aware he was stalling; his truck was going to be cold, empty, and boring without her.

"Thanks," she murmured. Then she looked up guiltily. "How far behind schedule are you?"

"Supposed to be in Wisconsin tonight."

"Sorry," she winced.

"I'm not."

He was glad to get a smile out of her for that, a real one. He needed to stockpile memories of her smiles. Too frequently they were hesitant or fake, but every once in a while he could catch an unguarded one, and it made him feel special in the same way that her yelling at him used to.

Madge seemed to be doing the same thing he was, watching him like she was trying to soak up as much of him as she could. The tension had left her face again, leaving her features hopeful.

"You can keep the speakers," she offered. "So you have something to listen to on the drive."

"I'll borrow them," he corrected.

"Right," she said. "You can just give them back when you come home. This fall? To come to school with us?"

He wished he could say yes. All he could bring himself to do was shrug; he didn't want to get even his own hopes up. In all likelihood, he'd be knee-deep in oil and muck while Madge was swanning around with her next boyfriend, who hopefully wouldn't be as much of a jackass as this musician punk she was so worked up about. Gale was pretty sure he'd still hate the next guy, though.

"I should get going," he said reluctantly.

"Are you going to be all right, driving?"

"I'll just pull over if I need a nap. I've done it before. What about you? You feeling all right about the show?"

"I'll be fine," she said. "I'll stay with a friend tonight, deal with the... situation, if there's anything to deal with, and go home tomorrow."

He thought she was probably right about being fine; for as bothered as she'd initially been about her ex-boyfriend's show, she had a plan and on the whole seemed a lot less agitated than she'd been at home about nearly everything involving her parents or the campaign.

"Oh!" Madge said. "I got you something." She reached into her pocket and pulled out bright blue and yellow fabric. The next thing Gale realized, she was reaching up and putting a winter hat on his head. She must have bought it at the campus bookstore.

"There," she said, adjusting it on his head. "A going away present. For your school spirit and to keep you warm in that truck. And these." She held up a pair of gloves, one in each hand, and pushed them into his coat pockets. His hands were already in the pockets so for a few seconds their hands touched. He might have imagined it, but he thought she let her hands linger for just longer than she needed to. In the space of those few seconds, he felt how soft and warm her skin was and had to stop himself from clasping her fingers to keep her from moving away.

"Thanks." He tugged the hat tighter onto his head and then pulled the gloves on for something to do. Still, he couldn't make himself move towards his truck, even though he needed to hit the road. Now. He didn't need to start growing roots in this parking lot, he needed to put some serious miles on his odometer.

But he noticed Madge was just as anchored to where she stood.

He gave up.

"You know," he said as he adjusted one of his new gloves. "If you want some moral support, I could stick around a little longer and go with you to the show tonight."

Madge seemed so surprised it took her a few moments to find any words. "What about Wisconsin?"

"It'll still be there."

He got it again: her real smile. It started small but grew into full-blown beaming within seconds, and he knew wouldn't have to leave their alternate reality just yet.

A/N 2: So I'm not crazy about how this chapter turned out, but wanted to get it posted for Gadge Day. In addition to featuring an actual and (bonus: heavy-handed!) symbolic bridge, this was also a bridge chapter linking different arcs of the story. Trying to wrangle all this stuff while keeping the story moving ahead was part of what took me so long to update. (Well, that and having very little free time these days.) Thanks to anyone still reading this, and to all the new readers who have been leaving encouraging reviews. And HAPPY GADGE DAY, EVERYONE! (For those who don't know, Gadge Day is a celebration of Gadge on tumblr, in honor of Medea Smyke posting the very first Gadge fic six (!) years ago.)