Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

So shines a good deed

AN: So this is a story I half started ages ago. It was going to be a 'Gale and Katniss' dads don't die' thing, and a chance to look at how their personalities would've been different if they hadn't had that trauma, as well as how Madge would've handled losing her father instead, but this first part was only ever a set up with several povs and it's as far as I got. I liked the idea though, and how it turned out, when I found it hiding on my computer. This was originally the prologue, I cleaned it up some to the the point that I'm happy with it, but it's a bit dark. Mentions of suicide, just to warn you. Sorry for the long note :(

#######

Madge tries to listen at the door when her father gets the call from the Capitol in the small hours of the morning.

He'd been leaving early and coming home late for weeks now. There is trouble in the mines, rumblings about the dangerous conditions, threats of strikes…

A small crew had come by the evening before last, waiting in the kitchen for hours for her father to come home. What they'd talked about Madge didn't know, she'd fallen asleep and missed that part. She'd been vigilant since then, trying to listen and piece together what was going on that had spurred the miners to visit her father.

"I have no control over that…"

She can't make out anymore words, just the rumble of his voice, the hurried, agitated clip of it.

Madge presses her ear harder to the door. They're talking about possible strikes, that much she can figure out. Her father has often told her that strikes are only effective if all those striking are on the same page, something exceedingly difficult in the mines. No one wants to be singled out, have the Capitol's attention focused on them. There's also always the possibility that some would work anyway, unable to function without pay. A strike could, would,result in executions.

When she hears the phone click onto the receiver she scrambles back to her room. She jumps into her bed, and dives under the covers, feigning sleep.

The door creaks open, a sliver of light stretches in and across her.

"Magdalene."

He crosses the room and she feels the bed sag as he sat at the edge.

"I heard you, Pearl?" It's not so much a question, despite the tone of his voice. He knows she heard. He pokes her in the back. "How much did you hear?"

Madge rolls onto her back and lets a faint smile flicker across her face. "Just a little."

His eyebrows arch up expectantly.

She sighs, "The miners are going to strike?"

Her father rubs his eyes, "I don't know." He lets out a long breath. "It'll be very bad if they do. Can you tell me why?"

He always does this, makes her tell him what he already knew. It annoys her just a little, but it makes her think, which she supposes is the point.

"They'll…cut our food." She sits up, thinking. "They'll send more Peacekeepers, newer ones, ones that will be meaner. Maybe make old Cray go away." He's a pathetic Head Peacekeeper anyway, she isn't sure how he hasn't gone missing already. "Executions."

"Anything else?" Her father prompts.

Madge picks at her blanket. She knows the last bit, she's positive she does, but she doesn't want to say it. Her eyes fill, burning as she tries to blink away the tears.

"We'll go away?"

She looks up at him. His mouth is turned up in a sad smile. He pulls her into a hug.

"I'm sorry, Pearl."

He holds her for a few minutes, rocking and humming an old lullaby to her while he gathers his thoughts.

"If they don't strike there'll be an accident, those mines are a death trap and the Capitol refuses to fix the issues. It's going to happen, the when and where are the only questions. Many will die." He sighs again staring off at the bookshelf on Madge's wall, scouring his brain for a solution. "If they dostrike, the entire District will suffer."

He looks down at her, a little crease forming between his eyes. "How do we keep that from happening?"

She knows he doesn't expect an answer from her this time. He's asking himself, forcing the unpleasant truth to his tongue even if he can't dislodge it from his mind yet.

Madge hugs him tighter. Her father is smart, he'll figure this out. She just knows it.

#######

"We have to make sure everyone is on board."

The group of men, from a dozen different crews, sit around the rickety, poorly lit table in the old black market building, the Hob.

Asher Hawthorne stares down at his hand, rough and worn from years of working the mines. He picks at a cut and thinks of his sons. Three boys, they'll all end up in the mines one day. Whatever the consequences, he has to do something so that his sons don't end up in the same deathtrap he's lowered into everyday.

"That's what the Mayor said," his eyes flicker up and onto the men around him. "When we went and talked to him. Said everyone has to be on board. We can't let them push us around, send us to our deaths, without putting up some kind of fight."

One of the older men frowns. "You also said he said it would end in executions."

"They won't execute all of us," Jude Everdeen tells him firmly. "They can't. They need us."

"But they don't need our families," someone grunts. "What's to keep them from killin' them?"

"It would take away our motivation." Asher narrows his eyes at the man. If the Capitol so much as looks at his family, he'd reign down a hell they couldn't imagine.

"We have more power than we think," Jude tells them, standing and crossing his arms. "We just need to stand together."

The group rumbles and mutters, but still seems unconvinced.

#######

The night before the inevitable, Hazelle feels her husband curl into her. It's cold out, but her fourth, and she assured him, her last, pregnancy is making her uncomfortably hot, and he's leaching off her warmth.

Normally she would have pushed him off, he's making her too warm, but the heaviness of the air makes her hold him to her.

"What's going to happen tomorrow?" She asks, voice just below a whisper.

Behind her he shrugs. "We'll see."

#######

The miners don't get on the elevators that lower them, don't mine a single piece of coal that day.

Madge's father comes home suddenly, frantically heading up to his office where he begins pulling out drawers, throwing papers into his fireplace and setting them ablaze.

"Dad?"

He looks at her with dark, fearful eyes, and she knows.

He directs her to a trunk in the corner. "There's a box, green, with a little latch. Get it out."

She digs through the old trunk, through dusty papers and mementos and pictures, until she finds the box and takes it to her father.

His hands shake as he opens it.

"Magdalene," he smoothes her hair. "I love you, more than anything in the world. Remember that, okay?"

Madge nods, anxiety building in her stomach.

He takes a bottle out of the box. It's old, a paper wrapper around it. Her father opens it and pulls a pill, no bigger than a pea, and examines it sadly.

"They'll be coming for us, it may be a few days or just a few hours." He tips her chin up, "I know how we're going to keep the District from too much trouble, but it requires a little sacrifice, understand?"

She shakes her head, feels tears trickling down her cheeks. "What're you going to do, dad?"

He swallows hard. "They'll want blood. I'm the Mayor. I told the miners they had to be organized, I'm the instigator."

She stares at the pill and understands. Her father won't be there for her anymore, so he's giving her one final warning. There's no telling what will happen to her once he's gone. She'll be the child of a man who'll be convicted of treason, even if she's certain he isn't going to give them the satisfaction of executing him, and a woman in a constant haze of morphling.

There's no good end to this story.

#######

Though he warns her to stay with her mother, she'd just been given a large dose of her morphling, Madge watches as he admits his guilt, pops the tiny sphere into his mouth and bites into it, watches him drop to the floor, watches him die.

It isn't falling asleep, not by a long shot.

Madge runs to her mother, crawls into the bed beside her, clings to her and listens to the steady beat of her heart as her own races in fear.

"Mom, please…"

But she's too far into her morphling to hear.

Chin quivering, tears dripping off the edge, Madge buries her face in her mother's shoulder, and waits.

The group of Peacekeepers come in, immediately begin tossing the room, looking for evidence and names, before her father's body is even cold on the ground.

They drag Madge away from her still oblivious mother; carry her sobbing down the stairs, out and to the Justice Building. To whatever fate waits for her.

#######

With the news of the Mayor's death, his admitted treason, and the deaths of his wife and daughter, the mines quickly open again the next day. If the Capitol is willing to execute one of their own, a man tasked with enacting their laws and their will, as well as his family, who is to say they wouldn't take out the entire District, make an example of them, just like Thirteen?

"I can't believe they killed the kid too," one of the men mutters.

Asher dusts some coal from his jerky. That burned him. Not only did the Mayor take the fall for their plan, but his wife and little girl had paid for it as well.

He could still see the kid, wide eyes and shy little smile as she'd helped he and Gale at the library, let he, Jude, and a few others into the Mayor's house to wait on him, fallen asleep trying to keep them company…

He's pulled from his thoughts by the siren signaling something has gone wrong.

#######

That would've been us. Jude eyes the entrance, watching the dust and debris rise into the fading light of the day.

It had been their shaft, their stretch of the mines, before the strike. When they'd come back, though, every assignment had been changed. Crews were shifted, moved around, known friends separated, the strike had spurred a paranoia that was sought to be cured by keeping possible troublemakers away from each other.

Ten men had been killed. Ten families had been destroyed. Not either of theirs though. Not today anyway.

He can't help but wonder, though, if next time it might be them.

#######

Madge doesn't know how long they keep her in the holding cell. There are no windows, no light, no heat…

They bring her a filthy glass of water morning, noon, and night, as well as a ration of bread. No one speaks to her, not so much as a grunt of acknowledgment.

When they finally pull her out, dust her off, and shove her into a brightly lit room, she's grimy and greasy, smells awful, she's certain of it.

"Hello, my dear."

Madge squints into the light and sees a man. He's in a Peacekeeper uniform, tall and pale headed, with cold eyes. His chilly smile is fixed on her.

"Magdalene Undersee, is that right?"

She nods.

He shuffles some papers in front of him. "Tell me, Miss Undersee, what your father told you about the strikes."

Her mind shifts quickly. He's trying to undo her father's work, his death might've saved a lot of miners, and if she says the wrong thing she might undo it all. She won't let him down.

She tries to swallow, her mouth is so dry though…

"He didn't tell me anything, sir." She shakes her head. If she had tears she'd cry. "He didn't trust anyone."

The new Peacekeeper narrows his eyes on her. "No one? None of the miners?"

Madge pretends to wrack her brain. She thinks of every horrible thing anyone had ever said near her, to her, about anything. "Miners? No, they're just stupid grunts. He wouldn't have trusted them with something like the strike. They just-they just couldn't do it. They can't organize their sock drawers."

Her heart pounds. She prays she's telling him what he needs to know, that her woven fib is elastic enough to withstand all the stretching he'll put it through, but strong enough to maintain itself.

He writes something down, cool smile still tacked on his lips. His hand lifts in a dismissive manner.

"Take her out." He shakes his head, doesn't even look at her. "Useless brat."

She starts back the way she came, but one of the men pulls her the other direction.

"Oh no you don't, girl. We're through babysitting you."

#######

She'd been in the cell for a month, an entire month, when they toss her out at the community home.

It's a dark, damp looking, two story building made of crumbling bricks and basic forms. The inside is poorly lit, candles take the place of the infrequent electric lighting. There are scorch marks on the walls and tables where careless attendants had let them burn down or fall over, catching whatever was near on fire.

Her dress, the same dress she'd worn for a month, is taken from her when one of the old ladies forces her into the showers. Ice water blasts down at her as she rubs as much of the grim from her skin as she can. They give her a threadbare shirt and pants that are at least a size too big and do nothing to stave off the cold that permeates the drafty old building. She can already imagine how stiflingly hot it will be come summer.

The first meal she's given is stolen by a boy much taller than her.

"No more warm dinners with mommy and daddy, huh, princess?"

He has his friends hold her down while he smeared the remains of the mush down her shirt.

They threaten to do much worse, but one of the old ladies comes around and scares them off.

After that she tries to stay with groups, but none of them want her near.

"Go away," one of the girls, a little older than her, growls. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

In the first few days she's pushed down the stairs, locked in a trunk, has icy water dumped on her head, kicked out of her bunk, and has her blanket snatched away during the first freezing night.

After the first week she finds a small nook under the back porch steps where she can hid until bed. It's while she's there, huddling for warmth, that she hears a very loud, familiar voice.

"Listen, I got all the papers right here, lady. Just point me to the kid."

She peers out between the steps, squints to be sure who it is.

Mr. Abernathy is having a very noisy conversation with one of the old ladies in charge of the home. He's waving papers in her face, gesturing to the upper stories. He makes a wide swipe toward the house and says something very unflattering about the lady's dress before Madge has even crawled out to see why he's visiting.

"Mr. Abernathy?"

He turns, grinning, but his happy expression falters when he settles his eyes on her.

"What've they done to you, Pearl?"

Self-consciously she runs her hand through her tangled hair. It's matted on one side and one of the girls had cut off a hank while Madge was attempting to comb it out. She'd cleaned it as best she could, but the water was so cold and smelled so oddly it just never seemed to do the job right. The detergent they used in the laundry has given her a pale rash, or maybe it was from the cold, she isn't sure.

She's seen better days, she's well aware of that.

Madge hasn't even formed the full thought to tell him everything when he grabs her hand and begans pulling her with him. He turns with a final glare at the woman, "I'm taking the kid with me. If you think you can stop me, go ahead and try."

They're half-way down the entry when Mr. Abernathy grunts at her.

"Pick up your feet, sweetheart. Unless you want to stay in this hellhole."

She begins trotting beside him, he still has her hand firmly in his grasp. She'd follow no matter what. He had been friends with her parents. Wherever he's taking her has to be better than the community home. Still, she'd curious.

"Where are we going?" She asks, just above a whisper. Her voice is out of use.

He cuts his eyes at her. "My place."

She stops. "The Victor's Village? Why?"

He drops her hand, reaches up and takes her by the shoulder. "You're going to live with me, okay?"

When that doesn't get her moving again he sighs, rubs a hand over his bloodshot eyes.

"Look, I had papers made up giving me guardianship of you. I'm not going to let you rot in that place. Your father wouldn't want it."

His fingers reach up and pull a cobweb from her hair; it had probably gotten stuck there from the stairs.

"You don't belong there, sweetheart."

Madge is fairly certain no one belongs there, but she nods anyway.

After a few seconds, when he's sure she's convinced, he straightens up and frowns down at her. He takes off his coat and gently throws it around her shoulders, muttering unpleasantly about the state of her clothes.

When she's tightly bundled in his cologne and liquor soaked coat, he offers her his hand. "Lets get you home, Pearl."

#######

Mr. Abernathy's house is filthy. Littered with discarded bottles and other trash, she's barely able to make it to the stairs as she follows him to where her room will be.

"Bit of a mess," he admits. "I'll, uh, pick it up. Make it easier on you."

She nods. At least it's better than the community home.

He opens the last door on the second floor. The room has large windows on the two outside walls, a heavy wooden dresser, a wrought iron bed, a rocking chair…it's bigger than her old room…

"You can paint, if you want, buy new furniture, I just drug some stuff in here."

"It's great," she forces a smile.

"I tried to get your old stuff, when they auctioned it off, but they took most of it out of the District." He looks over the bed with a frown.

Madge is glad he hadn't gotten her old things, she doesn't think she could do with the reminders.

"Mr. Abernathy," she bites her lip, "what…what happened with my parents'…"

She can't bring herself to say 'bodies', which is stupid, she'd watched her father die and she's certain they killed her mother.

"I-no one has said, and I-I just…" hadn't had the strength to ask.

His eyes darken, "I don't know about Dan-your dad. They got your mom up at the hospital. I'm working on getting her out."

Her chin quivers and she blinks back tears. "Oh."

She isn't sure if death might've been a kinder fate for her already world weary mother, but the odds just never have been in her favor.

Mr. Abernathy had heard she was alive, had been dumped at the community home, from an overheard conversation a group of boys from the home were having at the Hob. Both had probably been there buying liquor.

"Everyone thought you were dead too," he tells her, his bloodshot eyes watching her sadly.

She thinks of her father, sacrificing his life for his District, even though she doubts anyone in it will ever know how brave he'd been, and feels a twinge of envy.

Madge wishes, not for the first time since everything had gone so horribly wrong, that she was with him.

She swallows down bile at her own selfishness and sets her eyes on the mug of tea Mr. Abernathy had made her, unable to look him in the eye. He's a Victor. He'd survived a Hunger Games Quarter Quell, he would think she was pathetic for such a thought, even if it would've saved him from having to take care of her.

"I'm sorry." She crosses her arms over his sticky table and buries her face in them.

A hand comes to rest on her head, strokes her hair soothingly. "You don't need to be sorry, Pearl."

Her mind tells her otherwise.

She wonders, as the tears start rolling down her cheeks and Mr. Abernathy pulls her into a tight hug, if there could be any good outcome to this story or if the odds were just never in any of their favor?