Snared

A Sequel to Tangled

Gale sleeps in late that day. He doesn't mean to; he's normally an early riser, but the last few days have been pretty trying, and he went to bed far later than he meant to, so here he is, the sun long up, still in bed. As a naturally early riser, he's never had the need for an alarm clock—luckily (or, perhaps, not so luckily,) he has a live-in one.

"Daddy," he hears a whisper in his ear. "Daddy," a tug on his t-shirt. "It's time to get up now."

One arm flung over his eyes, he flings the other one across the mattress, where the sheets are cool. Empty. It's an unfamiliar sensation, and he pushes away the feeling of longing that accompanies it as he sits up, wiping his eyes with his hand.

His grey eyes, set in a paler, rosier face than his own, light up when he opens his eyes. "You're awake!" His daughter says happily, jumping a bit on her toes.

"That I am," he says affectionately. "What time is it, Minnie?"

"Ten-three-oh," she recites proudly, pointing to his digital clock. She's smart for a four-year-old, Gale thinks sleepily. Got that from her mother.

"Oh, sh—ucks," Gale stutters. "I slept in longer than I thought. Thanks for getting me up, Minnie."

She smiles again, pleased. "You're welcome, Daddy" she chirps. Then, "Can I have breakfast now?"

He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face and lets her lead him downstairs. The kitchen isn't a mess, and he feels a sense of pride as he looks at it in the morning light. He stayed up late the night before cleaning it from top to bottom. Who knew that making something as simple as pasta would have such disastrous consequences?

Eggs, bacon, and pancakes, however, he can manage just fine, and Minnie slurps happily at her orange juice and eats all her breakfast in record time. "Done!" She says, just as he sits down with his own plate. As he brings the coffee to his lips, she says, "Can we go now?"

Eyebrows raised, Gale sets his cup down. "Go where, young miss?"

"To ballet, Daddy! Did you forget?"

He nearly chokes on his coffee. Of course. Minnie's weekly ballet lessons. How could he have forgotten? It's not as though Madge was the only one who took her—Gale took her, picked her up, sometimes stuck around to watch, although he preferred not to, because the single moms liked to hit on him, wedding band be damned.

"Uhhh," he says. It is, however, the first weekend he's ever had to get her ready on his own. Madge always took care of that. He swallows. "Right. Do you know where your stuff is?"

Minnie gives him a clearly perplexed, yet unimpressed look that he's sure she learned from Rory. "I don't know," she says. "My room?"

Even though her room is perpetually messy, dolls and clothes and toy cars and trucks, animal figurines strewn everywhere, Gale always feels a sense of pride. It meant she has enough stuff to make a messy room. As a kid his room was always clean not because he was particularly hygienic but because it was bare. Spartan.

It takes a while to find all the necessary items, but in the last drawer of her dresser are a neatly folded pair of tights, a black leotard, and a pink tulle skirt, the waistband a ribbon, tying in the back like an apron. Hazel made it specially for her, Gale remembers. Minnie crawls under her bed and fishes out her little pink ballet flats and they both struggle for fifteen minutes to dress her.

Once her tights are on properly, her leotard is facing the right direction, and Gale spends longer than he should getting her bow just right, Minnie goes to her little vanity, one Vick, a natural woodworker, made for her, and then comes back with her brush.

"My hair, Daddy," she says.

Gale's breath catches.

She has Madge's hair, pale blonde curls that Madge once told him, in that lovely, bossy, know-it-all voice of hers, it would darken in time to a burnished gold, whirls of honey and wheat, just like hers did.

"What—what do I do with it?" He asks his daughter, as though he's the child and she's the parent.

"A bun, if you can," Minnie says. Then, reconsidering, "maybe you should just try a ponytail."

Very gently, having had years of practicing first on her mother, then her, Gale very carefully takes the brush and works it through Minnie's hair. Somewhere during it, Minnie begins to hum, and Gale recognizes it as the song that Madge would sing to Minnie as she, like her mother before her, would go to her daughter's bedside and play with her hair as she fell asleep.

Brushing is the easy part. Then Minnie hands him a rubber band and some pins and they look so small in his big, calloused hands that he just stares at her helplessly. She taps her little foot at him. "Go on, Daddy," she says. He's never done her hair before, and he feels a little touched that she has such faith in him, but also overwhelmingly alarmed.

So he takes a deep breath and attempts it, using her little commands as guidance, and another twenty minutes goes by; they're both nearly in hysterics by that point. "I want Mommy," Minnie wails, "where's Mommy?"

Gale sighs. "Mommy's not here, Minnie," he says, feeling close to tears himself, "I—I'll call Aunt Posy, how about that? She's good at hair."

Minnie's tears subside.

Five minutes after Posy's arrival, Minnie's hair is done in an impeccable bun, little downy curls framing her cherub face.

As Gale tells her to go put on her sweater, he swings around to face his baby sister. "You're a lifesaver," he tells her with a sigh.

Posy's eyes track around the house—the clean kitchen (Gale's untouched breakfast still at the table;) the cozy living room, with yesterday's newspaper and Minnie's coloring books strewn on the floor (she wanted him to join her, and who was he to say no?); Madge's bulky winter coat still on the hook by the front door, Gale's hunting boots below it, lined up neatly on their designated mat.

"You're gonna have to learn how to do that on your own, you know," Posy says in response, brow arched, but her voice is kind. "I hope you took notes."

"I did," Gale says, tapping a finger to his temple. But he looked down at his hands. "My hands are too big and clumsy."

"You should take that off," Posy says, pointing to his wedding band, where several gold strands are ensnared in it.

At Gale's scowl, Posy rolls her eyes slightly. "Just for doing her hair," she says. "Obviously."

Gale sighs. "I just—I'm never going to do it as well as her, you know?"

Posy smiles at him. "I know Ma had you the entire time to help," she says, "but geez, now you can appreciate her single parent struggles a lot more, huh?"

Gale shakes his head. "You're telling me."

She nudges his shoulder. "How have you guys been holding up this week?"

Gale sighs. "Fine, I guess," he says. "It's… weird." It's definitely not the word he means to use, but Posy understands well enough, nodding.

Without saying a word, she comes with him and Minnie to ballet and scowls at all of the moms who eye him speculatively.

Gale keeps dinner simple with sandwiches this time, and Minnie's never been fussy about baths, so by nine o'clock she's in the dancing evergreen tree pajamas Johanna sent her for her birthday and tucked into bed.

It's tradition: Gale would read a story to Minnie, one arm stretched along the back of the bed, Minnie burrowed in the middle, Madge cuddled on her other side, giggling with Minnie as she played with her hair—and because the bed was small, Gale's hand would reach Madge's head and play with her hair. Then, Gale and Madge would extract themselves and Madge would sing her song, lingering and playing more with Minnie's hair while Gale would watch in the doorway, sleepy and relaxed and so happy.

It's the favorite part of his day, and Gale's hand feels bereft now as he snuggles with Minnie and reads her a story about a princess warrior who battled dragons and flew on winged horses to help save her friends from an evil sorcerer.

Taking Madge's place, Gale stays and plays with Minnie's hair, managing to extract himself as he thought she fell asleep. She whimpers, though, and he crouches by her bed and continues to run his hand through her hair. He might not be good at doing buns or braids or whatever sort of 'tail' Posy was instructing him about earlier, but he can do this, at the very least. It's a start. It's enough.

"Daddy?" Minnie whispers, her eyes still closed.

"Yes, Minnie?" He whispers back.

"I miss Mommy."

His hand pauses through her hair. "I miss her, too," Gale says soberly. "But, you know I'll always take care of you, right? I promise. I promised Mommy, too."

Minnie's eyes flutter open, just slightly. "You wanna know a secret, Daddy?" She says, squirming a bit in anticipation.

Gale tilts his head in amusement. "Sure, baby."

"Mommy made me promise to take care of you, too." Minnie nods her head decisively, in that stubborn way he knows she picked up from Madge. "And I will."

"You've been doing a great job, Minnie," he says, resuming his hair ministrations. "What would I do without my little warrior goddess?"

Minnie giggles. She loves the identity of her namesake, the Roman goddess Minerva, of her wisdom and courage.

"Minerva?" Gale had made a face when Madge told him she liked the name. "Isn't that a bit… old-fashioned?"

Madge gave him a deadpan look. "And Madge doesn't sound like the name of a spinster geriatric?" She said. "You know how important carrying the 'M' name tradition of the Donner family is to me…"

"I do," he assured her. Really, the kid was getting his last name so it's only fair if she has something of her mother's family. "But why Minerva?"

"You remember that library we found at the Capitol?" Madge asked. "In the basement of the president's mansion?"

It was a few months after the end of the War; a secret underground level filled to the brim with books that went on for miles and miles. Snow destroyed any chances for public higher education and critical thinking and controlled public basic education, but, to his credit, he hoarded all that knowledge instead of outright annihilating it. It had been a boon, and Madge, part of the newly formed education committee, nearly swooned with delight when it was found. She spent the better part of the last few years cataloguing the books, which were, luckily, already pre-arranged by subject.

"There were books there on Ancient Roman mythology," she said, and Gale remembered, because he had looked at a few of the books on Ancient Greek and Roman history. "Minerva is the equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena. She's the goddess of wisdom and courage, along with poetry, justice, medicine, strength, and the arts. I think she's the embodiment of everything—of the kind of people we want our children to be and of the kind of world we want our children to grow up in."

It was hard to argue against that.

"We'll call her Mina for short," Madge suggested.

"Or Minnie," Gale said, thinking of a mini-Madge.

"Or Minnie," Madge agreed with a smile. "Minnie when she's a younger, Mina when she's older—"

"And Minerva when she's in trouble," Gale finished.

Madge beamed and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Exactly," she said.

"I'll tell you the stories of all her adventures someday," Gale promises, leaning to kiss her cheek.

"Promise?" Minnie asks, squirming under her blankets, but her eyes are drooping.

"Promise," Gale says, as she eventually stills and her breathing evens out.

Downstairs, he can hear the front door open and he freezes for a moment before exhaling. Posy had forgotten her coat earlier and had called him around dinnertime, saying that she might, if she had time, come by and grab it.

Gale creeps out of Minnie's room, stepping over her toys, and closes the door silently.

He turns to go downstairs and greet his sister when he stills. He feels like the air got knocked out of him. "Am I seeing things?" He asks.

Halfway up the stairs, slim hand on the railing, wedding band gleaming in the moonlight, is Madge.

"Hello, you," she murmurs, her blue eyes sparkling as she takes him in. "Aren't you going to give me a kiss hello?"

He comes down and she comes up and they meet halfway on the stairs, but the height difference is all wrong, so Madge slips by him with a mischievous smile and he whirls around—she is now a step above him, at perfect height. "Am I seeing things?" he rubs his eyes. "Am I dreaming?"

She clucks sympathetically at him. "That bad of a day, huh?" She cards her fingers through his hair, and, at her touch, he sighs and leans into her. He wraps his arms around her waist and nuzzles into the juncture of her shoulder and neck. "Is our little warrior raising Tartarus?"

This nerd, he thinks fondly. "She's been a true little goddess," he says, "I'm just exhausted." He looks up at her. "Not that I'm complaining," he says, tightening his arms, "but what are you doing here?"

Madge laughs. "I missed you two too much. I couldn't stay away."

Gale pulls back with a frown. "I missed you, too," he says slowly, "but are you sure you're allowed to come back home?"

Madge rolls her eyes. "Please," she says, "I love the people I work with dearly, but they would be lost without me. Missing the closing banquet of an already tedious, over drawn, overwrought, week long conference about the state of Panem's public education in order to get an earlier train home isn't going to make or break my career. As we both know, these nation wide meetings will only get more frequent as we expand the system. It's not as though this was the end-all, be-all." Neither of them had been happy with that development—Madge would be traveling a lot more for her job, and Gale would have to function as a single parent several weeks out of the year. But, sacrifices had to be made, and it wouldn't be forever. "They need me too much, and if they're miffed, frankly, they can get over themselves." God, he loves it when she's sassy. But then, she sighs and looks towards Minnie's door. "I just wish I could've come home sooner and said good night."

"Mmm, well, she'll have a good surprise tomorrow morning," Gale says with a grin, going back to nuzzling her neck. "While I can enjoy this much-earned, lovely surprise tonight."

Madge, pulls back, gives him an appraising, appreciative look. "I think we've both earned it," she says, "but I like what you're saying, Mr. Hawthorne."

"I whole-heartedly agree, Mrs. Hawthorne," he leans and kisses her, finally, deeply, and a thrill goes through both of them. It still feels like the first time, in that tiny cramped apartment in District 13, and Gale cups the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair.

Later, under their covers, wrapped in each other, boneless and happy, Gale feels something almost like a phantom touch on his hand. He brings his left hand in front of his face. Faintly, in the moonlight, he sees that two hairs are tucked into his wedding band—one a dark gold, and the other light and fair; strands from both his girls, hair as tangled in his ring as he is with them. He's wrapped around their fingers, snared by both of them, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Notes: Come on, as if I would have the nerve to write something angsty and ruining Jenn's birthday!

I never planned on writing a Tangled sequel, but when GadgeFicRecs came to me and said that everyone was doing something special for Jenn's Golden Birthday, I thought there was nothing more fitting than to go back to the first Gadge fic I ever wrote and continue it for her birthday.

So Jenn aka jennycaakes, this is for you. Thank you for being a fierce pro-Gale Hawthorne advocate; for keeping the (sorely underused) spirit of Madge Undersee alive in your head canons, drabbles, & long, lovely fics; and, of course, for helping to build, expand, and continue the Gadge fandom. ~You da, you da best, Jenn. Happy Birthday :)