Hunger Games 1. I

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _The Hunger Games._ Nor do I own the title, which belongs to the AMAZING band Thriving Ivory. If you listen to the song you might understand why I titled it what I did. (Although the song, in my opinion, has more to do with the next chapter than it does with this one, and possibly the last one. I still like the song, though, and thought it fit.)

**A/N: **You guys can thank dA for this. I had been thinking the other day about how Town Girls and Seam Boys never seem to be able to have happy endings, and then there was a comment on a dA picture that I was looking at... and this idea was spawned and was then given birth to and the result is what you are looking at now. It's edited and everything.

I've never been much of an Haymitch/Maysilee fan, though this story helped me change my mind just a little bit. Do I believe for a minute that this is canon? (After all, didn't it say something in MJ about him having a girlfriend... unless that _was_ Maysilee, ahaha...) No, but this is fanfiction, plus it'd be more interesting if it was! Tragedy is always interesting in my book.

This is going to be a three-shot, just like I said in my summary, although it could be considered just three one-shots since they are kind of connected but not really. Anyway, on with the story!

(Also, do you know how annoying it is not to know some of the main character's real names? I feel ridiculous making up names for the characters, especially for this series because they aren't exactly names like 'Bob' or 'Mary' are they? I keep hoping that Suzanne Collins will put out a character list or something of the like, but I don't see that happening any time soon...)

_Angels On the Moon_

I. Haymitch/Maysilee

Her sister laughs when she tells her. "You," she chortles, "and Haymitch Abernathy? Dear sister, it's never going to happen. Build yourself a bridge and _get over it_!" She says the last three words with a gleeful sort of viciousness. "You can believe that I'm going to tell Mother."

Maysilee should have known that this was going to happen. Her hands curl into fists and when she finally manages to make them relax, which is only after her sister leaves, she notices that had ten crescent shaped blood marks on her hands. It was amazing what sort of reaction her sister could get from her. But she didn't say anything to her sister, even though she wanted to. She never said anything to her twin, though her sister often deserved it. Instead she just bit her tongue and walked out of the room as she prayed that her sister wouldn't do exactly as she threatened.

She had hoped that sharing this secret, one that Maysilee had kept hidden in her heart for about a year now, would bring her and her sister closer together. Secrets tended to do that to people. Instead, though, it seemed to have driven another wedge between them. All that secret did was just added more ammunition to her sister's already loaded canon.

"Idiot," she whispered to herself as she walked out the door of her house which was where it seemed that it was the only place that she could breathe anymore. "I'm such an idiot."

"You've got that right."

Maysilee whirled around and ended up face to face with Haymitch. She hadn't known that he was there, otherwise she wouldn't have spoken out loud. She didn't want him thinking that she was insane or something like that. Her supposed insanity wouldn't exactly help her case.

Haymitch always walked the path that went straight past their road, which was how she had even gotten to know him in the first place. Of course she would have noticed him in school, he was good looking to the point of it being unfair and in a scruffy and rugged sort of way. Girls had often swooned and oohed and awwed over him. Maysilee had always laughed at them and promised herself that she would never turn into one of those silly girls. She often laughed at herself now. Irony wasn't always pretty.

"Well you're a jerk."

"Wow, two in a row. Who would have known that you were that smart?" Haymitch rose an eyebrow and Maysilee had to bite her lip to keep herself from smiling at him. He actually _was_ a jerk but he didn't mean anything too maliciously... she hoped. It was hard to tell with him, and most of the people from the Seam had a deep resentment towards the people from town (and with good reason too).

It _seemed _as though Haymitch didn't care about that, but it also seemed like Haymitch didn't care about much of anything, to be honest.

"Certainly not you. You're never awake in school anyway, so you wouldn't know about anyone's smarts."

"Only because school is a waste of time. What's the point of educating us when we all know where we're going to go in life? Where _they're _going to put us in life."

"_Haymitch," _Maysilee hissed, looking around and making sure that no one else was around. They were quite alone, if you ignored Maysilee's sister who was out of hearing distance inside of their house. "Don't _say _things like that. What if someone heard you?"

Haymitch shrugged, looking as though the word indifferent was coined for him specifically. He was never one to be afraid. He had no idea what exactly could be taken from him and as a result often lived on the edge of reason and carelessness.

"Well we do. We both know that I'm going to be sent to the mines as soon as I'm eighteen. And you're going to get married to whoever and then you're going to work with him in his family's store and live happily ever after. The end." He said the last bit roughly, almost as though he was angry at the fact instead of resigned. That will most likely be their future, though, and they both know it.

"I know, but still, you can't just, I mean, it isn't as though..." Maysilee sputtered, trying to figure out what to say next. She couldn't get a grip on the words that she wanted to share, but the bottom line was that she knew that talking about the Capitol was a _very bad thing_, and something to be avoided at all costs.

"You worry too much. Nothing is going to happen just because I said that one thing. It wasn't anything particularly treasonous." Haymitch looked as though he believed very much in what he said, which he did.

He then changed the subject, the topic boring him. He didn't like the way that fear shone out of Maysilee's eyes when she talked about the Capitol, because she shouldn't feel that way. She shouldn't be afraid of much of anything really, because she was just a girl, and above everything else, a girl from town who had the a few of the comforts that most of the people from District Twelve could only dream of.

Neither of them noticed the figure that was in the shadows behind the two of them that had heard every word.

**.&.**

Her mother called her into the study that night. Maysilee knew what it was about but she was still nervous. Her sister gave her a grin that was probably supposed to look encouraging in front of their father but Maysilee knew what the hidden meaning was behind the gleam of those pearly whites. _I finally got you for something. _

Maysilee's mother was the head of the family when it came right down to it. Her father liked to think that he was in charge, but they all knew who really held the power in the family. Her mother had always been the one to make most of the financial decisions, the one who handed out chores and did the books for her father's store, and the one gave out punishments. Occasionally Maysilee's father got involved (but that was when things got _very _bad and he didn't do much of anything anyway), but most of the time it was just their mother.

Maysilee knocked on the door and took a deep breath to steady her nerves before she heard her mother softly say, "Come in." With a feeling of dread she opened the door and quickly prayed to something that she wasn't sure was there or not. It was worth a shot at any rate, especially if it could protect her from the inevitable wrath of her mother.

They knew that when they were called into the study things probably were not going to turn out well for any of them.

"Sit, dear," her mother patted the seat next to her. Maysilee relaxed a fraction. Mother didn't sound angry at, which was a good thing. If this was going to be something serious, which Maysilee thought this was, Mother's voice would be clipped and her tone light but sharp.

Maysilee complied and straightened out her skirt. She knew that her mother was going to have to be the one to talk first, and that she was just going to have to wait. Sometimes this technique could be agonizing, and sometimes it was okay by her. Talking was what got her in this mess in the first place.

"Your sister told me, about you and Haymitch Abernathy."

"What did she tell you exactly?" Maysilee asked, praying that her sister hadn't lied or embellished or done anything other than tell their mother the whole truth, that her love was about as unrequited as it got and that was the end of their relationship, other than the occasional conversation.

"She told me that you have feelings for him and that she didn't know if he returned them or not."

Maysilee's whole body relaxed. So that was all? Thank goodness. Maysilee's overactive imagination had been imagining all sorts of horrible things that her sister could have said that would have made more difference than the fact that all their was between them was a one-sided crush.

"Yes, Mother, that's pretty much all that is between us." Maysilee contemplated getting up- what else would her mother want her for? their conversation was over- when her mother placed a firm hand on her thigh and Maysilee knew that she wasn't leaving anytime soon.

"But I want to know how deep your feelings for him go. This could be dangerous you know."

"It's just a crush Mother. He's very good looking." It almost pains her to say this, but it is a good excuse because most people her age can love people based on looks alone. For Maysilee this isn't just a crush, but it might as well be for all of the outcomes that are going to come out of her feelings.

Her mother made a noise that sounded like an agreement. "Yes, he is, but that doesn't make any difference. Maysilee, he's from the Seam."

"So?" Maysilee couldn't help but interrupt, but then she shut her mouth, hoping that her mother wouldn't see that single word as something that was too disrespectful.

Her mother ignored her interruption, though, so she knew that her mother's next words weren't going to involve a punishment or a decree of things that were now forbidden to her.

"Dear, nothing good ever comes from a Town Girl loving a Seam Boy."

There was a gleam that looked like regret in her mother's eye that told Maysilee not to say another word.

**.&.**

The Quarter Quell reaping was two weeks later.

There is always a feeling of fear, underlined with anger, around this time and it effects everyone. Even though Maysilee's name is only put into the reaping one time the fact that there was even the slight possibility that her name could be called frightened Maysilee.

She was sixteen, which mean two more years of nervousness about the Hunger Games, but after that she was done, finally. She couldn't wait to be rid of those feelings.

The representative from the Capitol arrives, without realizing how much the people of District Twelve resent everything that they represent, and they spend at least ten minutes saying a speech that everyone there has heard before.

Maysilee's best friend wraps her arms around her in anticipation and Maysilee can't do anything but pat her friends arm and hope for the best. Does it make her a bad person for hoping that one of the girls from the Seam, one of the ones that have put their names in more than one time to get grain for her family, gets picked instead of her?

_May the odds be ever in your favor!_

The first girl is called, a girl from the Seam that looks as though she is twelve years old and everyone gets quiet, the way that they always do when a young girl is called. Twelve years isn't much of a life.

"Maysilee Donner." Maysilee feels like her heart is going to stop beating. Her mouth gets dry and her palms start to sweat and she want to faint, but she can't because that would be a sign to the other tributes that she's a weakling, and that can't be done. Instead she untangles herself from her friend and dries her hand on her skirt as she walks up the stage, no expression on her face.

She waits for the boy tribute to be called and she prays that it isn't anyone that she knows. That would be horrible. She doesn't want familiarity in these Games. She wants terror and horror, which is something that she will be getting by the tenfold as soon as she leaves from home.

The first boy is another boy from town, but he is eighteen and Maysilee has never spoken more than two words to him in her life.

"Haymitch Abernathy." Maysilee wants to scream, but she doesn't. Of course he's called. _Of course. _For a moment Maysilee wonders if this was about their conversation a week ago, but of course it isn't. No one was around then, and anyway, it's not like either of them said something _that_ horrible.

Haymitch walks up the stage looking determined but not frightened. For a moment the two of them lock eyes, if anyone in the audience had blinked they would have missed the exchange entirely, and Maysilee knows that they have some sort of understanding.

**.&.**

The visitation had to be the worst part. All of your friends, your whole family, they were paraded in front of you just so you can get one last look at all of the things that you were going to leave forever.

Maysilee's sister had come up to her in tears and hadn't been able to say anything, the tears were coming too thickly down her face and they had stopped up her throat, making her unable to speak as well.

Her parents hadn't spoken either. Her mother had just opened her eyes and had gotten her daughter to sit next to her while her mother's arms were around her, and she softly stroked Maysilee's hair.

Maysilee's father simply sat on the other side of his oldest daughter and held her hand, while her sister just sat in the corner and continued to cry, the tears streaming down her face.

They had always been a quiet family. Between the four of them there were no useless declarations of love or fighting or any of the things that other families often did to show affection. Other than the sibling rivalry (which had more to do with Maysilee's sister and her insecurities than it did Maysilee herself) they got along quite well with almost no bumps in the road of their peaceful life together.

And now one of their numbers was leaving them for perhaps forever, which would make them even more quiet and reserved. For years after the Hunger Games they would hardly speak a word in their shared home.

When they got up to go her parents each hugged her one last time and they both left Maysilee and her sister alone. Her sister threw her arms around Maysilee and Maysilee patted her back awkwardly, unsure of what to say. The last time her sister had hugged her they had been eight years old and still innocent and still best friends. It wasn't until years later that the bitterness and resentment set in, leaving one of them angry and one of them bewildered.

"I'm sorry, for everything," her sister whispered, and Maysilee could feel the warm tears of her sister somehow make their way onto her shirt.

For a moment Maysilee wants to say that she doesn't forgive her sister, that she never could (How could she be so petty? For half of her life she has wanted her sister not to hate her and now in her last hour she can't even hug her back?), but she could never do that. Just watching her sister cry like that makes Maysilee think that maybe her sister did not hate her as much as she thought that she did.

"It's okay," Maysilee whispered back, hugging her sister back just as tightly. "I forgive you." In a sudden act of goodwill she takes the Mockingjay pin that she is wearing (the one that she got for her fourteenth birthday from her grandfather, her sister had gotten a necklace then) and puts it gently in her sister's hand. "Here. Take this, and give it to one of your children." She planned to say more to her sister but she never gets the chance because a Peacekeeper comes in and wrenches the two sisters apart for the last time.

Maysilee walks out the door to wave good-bye to her family when she sees that Haymitch's family is leaving as well although she can't see Haymitch anywhere. He's probably still in his room. As Haymitch's father passes her he gives Maysilee a look that that is loaded with understanding. Understanding of what Maysilee isn't quite sure, but she wanted to take whatever sort of reassurance that she could get.

**.&.**

"No, I don't need anything else, thank you," Maysilee said, just wanting to get out the door. Haymitch, the lucky dog, had somehow managed to leave without anyone telling him anything. But for some reason their escort had taken more of a liking to Maysilee than the other girl tribute and wanted to get as much as she could out of Maysilee.

It was almost as though all of the Capitol's residents were stupid. They must not have thought about how much the people in the districts resent the Hunger Games, how much they fear them.

Maysilee placed a palm on her forehead, when stressed she tended to get headaches, and began to walk down the hallway looking for a dark and quiet room where no one would disturb her, not even an Avox. Avox's frightened Maysilee because they show what the consequences could be for rebelling against the Capitol.

She opens a door that she realizes leads to a storage area and then decides to open another the the left of it, realizing that it, too, holds things that seem exotic to Maysilee, who is not used to all of the Capitol's rituals.

She finally manages to find a room that isn't filled with just useless _stuff _and she gets herself inside it and sighs as the throbbing in her head dulls to a faint ache. She rubs her temples and closes her eyes, one of the few things that actually work, when she realizes that she isn't alone.

Maysilee jumped at the sight of Haymitch sitting grimly only a few feet beside her. In her haste to get away from the human race she had failed to notice the only familiar aspect on the whole train.

"I'm sorry," she begins, unable to read his expression. He had hardly talked since the train had started moving and she didn't blame him. She was still in a state of shock herself, but she had been able to work through it and had been able to do something other than sit in a stony silence.

Maybe it was time to start working _with _these people rather than _against _them. After all, they held both of their futures in the palms of their hands, and they knew it.

Surprisingly when Maysilee jumped up to go hey put a hand on her shoulder and said the first word that he had said in six hours. "Stay."

Suddenly she realizes that Haymitch is standing very close to her. So close, in fact, that she can see every freckle on his dark olive skin, and every eyelash. He's close enough that she can smell him and she lifts up her head, just a bit, and that's all the invitation that he needed.

Haymitch crashed his lips against hers and at first it is all Maysilee can do not to freeze in her shock, but then she responds with just as much passion as him. Somehow her hands make their way from her sides to his silky dark hair, and his rough hand is on the back of her neck and his other arm is around her, pulling her closer to him than Maysilee ever thought that she would get.

He's surrounding her, taking up her every thought, and a small and quiet part of the back of her mind realizes that this is one of her favorite fantasies. Even so, she never would have thought that it would be like _this. _

Somehow she manages to regain her mind (maybe it's the lack of oxygen, though Maysilee isn't sure exactly) and when she pulls away she gasps, "_Why_?" Why now did he decide to kiss her like that? Why should he act like that when it was a very possible thing that either of them could be dead in two weeks?

It wasn't fair and it wasn't right. Maybe he always knew that she loved him and he felt sorry for her. Maybe he just needed to do _something _to relieve the fear that was eating him, just like it was eating her, from the inside out. Or maybe, just maybe, their feelings were mutual.

"Because," he finally answers after a long pause, "when you don't have the rest of your life left to spend then what's the point of wasting time?" Then he kisses her again and Maysilee thinks that she knows exactly what he's talking about.

**.&.**

Every chance that they get to be alone they take it. Their love- if it could even be called love- is rushed and heavy, but it's there. They know that the end is inevitable now and the closer that they get to it they cling that much closer to the other.

They exchange loaded glances, a subtle touch here and there, and when they are alone they exchange kisses that make Maysilee's heart explode. They don't talk much other than their usual banter or short conversations because they know that promises and sweet nothings will amount to absolutely zero in the long run. Besides, it is easiest not to talk about anything important when you are being sent to the slaughterhouse.

To Maysilee it's like an angelic dream right in the middle of hell.

Sometimes doubt nags at her, telling her that he doesn't _really _love her, that he's only doing this because he's afraid and people do all sorts of crazy things when they're afraid. But she also knows that Haymitch isn't one to lie and she just takes heart in that.

They know that in these Games that it's dangerous to get attached, but honestly, they'd rather be together than apart.

**.&.**

When the Games offically start- the interviews and the training and the fattening up done, done, and done- Maysilee tries to stay as far apart from Haymitch as possible. He had asked, the night before they were sent into the arena, if she wanted to be allies, but she had refused. She could tell how much that bothered him, but she didn't care. She didn't want to see him die. Not on her watch.

Besides, Haymitch seemed to have a plan and he didn't exactly tell her what that plan was. He just seems to wander around not fighting just walking.

Maysilee, on the other hand, just wants to survive. She managed to get some food- not much, but enough until she could find some more because she did not trust anything in this beautifully vicious world with all of its grandeur and splendor that is underlined with poison, much like the Capitol- and her blow darts because she needed a weapon.

She's able to use her darts well and she manages to survive one day at a time. She wonders, briefly, how Haymitch is faring, but then she realizes that as long as he isn't dead and she's still kicking then everything is okay in her world.

One day she happens to stumble upon people attacking Haymitch and then they become allies, just like he wanted from the very beginning. He's still intent on just walking and the few times she tries to extract information from him ends in naught.

Eventually she just gives up and is content to simply be with him, until the Games progresses (Why does it seem like the days go faster when she's with him?) and once again she realizes that it's time to extract herself from him again.

She doesn't want to be the one to kill him.

But the delicious irony of the whole situation is that no sooner than a few minutes after she leaves him that she is attacked by pink birds with long beaks and a glint of death in their eyes. They pierce her neck and she can't help but scream.

She knows that she is going to die. She is going to die alone and slowly. For a moment she can't help but picture Haymitch's face in her mind.

But then she realizes that this isn't just a memory, that he really is with her, and he is grasping her hand. She can't speak but he is watching her die grimly, no emotion written on his face, but his eyes speak the words that he can't say, for every camera in the arena must be trained on them recording their every movement.

There's guilt there and the slightest hint of something that she can't read. Maysilee so desprately wants to say something, but the wound in her neck makes that impossible. Instead she just closes her eyes and drifts away, pleasantly pretending that her life isn't seeping away an inch at a time.

She doesn't know as she dies that she'll haunt him for the rest of his life. Her ghost will flitter with him everywhere he goes and he won't ever be able to forget her.

**.&.**

Haymitch had never thought of himself as weak. He had never had a reason to because every situation that he had ever been placed in had made him a stronger person. When his father died he had taken the mantle of man of the house with ease because his grief had built a wall around his heart and had made things easier to see.

But this... this is a different sort of pain, a different sort of situation. Never before had he been so... alone. The people he had at one time called friends didn't want to talk to him because they were now afraid of him and he had no one left.

If he had known that the Capitol wouldn't have been content with just taking Maysilee from him he wouldn't have dared to defy them, to make them look like they were stupid. But his arrogance had defeated him just as easily as the Capitol had.

He had heard whispers of how the other Victors dealt with it. Morphling and insanity and liquor. None of those options had ever sounded particularly enticing to him before, but now he just didn't know which one he would chose as he was now give the choice.

His mother and brother, the only family members he had in the world (their house was still standing and empty, a slap in the face for him and now he avoided the Seam entirely) gone and all because of him.

Maysilee, the one girl that he had truly loved (he never could seem to get her off his mind... every time he saw her twin sister, the spitting image of her from a distance, he'd think it was her only to have to remind himself that she was dead and that he watched her the light leave her eyes and the soul depart from her body) taken from him and all because he wasn't just _that much _faster.

Guilt plagued him and attacked him and never gave him the chance to rest. An escape, a crutch, a healing tool of the weak, they all seemed pretty good to him right now.

As he pulled the money out of his pocket and set it on the table he laughed bitterly, thinking about how pathetic he was and how he had promised himself that this would never happen to him.

"Six bottles of white liquor, please."


	2. II

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _The Hunger Games. _I do, however, own those books.

**A/N: **I already said this in the last chapter, but it is EXTREMELY annoying not knowing these people's names. Couldn't Katniss have mentioned her mother's name at the very least? Jeez.

I was just going to make it be 'she' and 'him' the whole entire time, but then I was just like 'Screw it this is stupid,' and I named them. Blech.

Mrs. Everdeen is Iris, which evidently is a wildflower that grows in the Appalachian Mountains, which is where District Twelve is located. Mr. Everdeen's name is Caivil (Which is a mining term which means 'a species of lot drawing or lottery, by which is decided the working-place of each individual'. Personally I find it fitting considering how he died.). Hearth is Peeta's daddy and his name doesn't need an explanation.

I know, they suck. But _I can't help it. _Hopefully you guys like this chapter in spite of the suckish names. There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to put in here but I couldn't because it was much too long already.

(And yes, Iris is the friend from the chapter before with Maysilee, I just hadn't picked out her name by then.)

_Angels On the Moon_

II. Mr. Everdeen/Mrs. Everdeen

She's sixteen before she finally talks to him. Of course she's seen Caivil Everdeen around school but she's never really spoken to him or even noticed him much because she's been so wrapped up in her own little world, which is full of the kids from town and her family's apothecary shop, the one in which she has just started her training a little more than a year ago even though she's known what the herbs mean for much longer than that.

The first words that they ever exchange, even though they will forever be branded into her mind, like most of her worst cases are, aren't exactly the most pleasant.

"Can you get your father?" Caivil asks her, eyes wild, face sweaty, and his breath short. It is obvious to her that he had just run all the way from wherever he came from. "Please," he speaks again, this time his panic a bit more obvious.

"I'll go get him," she says as she rushes inside. She is used to talking these distress calls for her father and can do them efficiently and quickly now.

"Father!" Iris calls as she rounds the corner into the room where he is most likely to be working. His head is bent over his desk and when he sees his only daughter rushing towards him he knows that that can mean only one thing. "Caivil Everdeen is at the door and he needs your help. I think that it's an emergency."

She expected her father to get up quickly and demand her to get his bag, the way that he would on a normal visit of this nature. She has forgotten just how many times she had thrust that worn piece of leather at her father as he rushed out the door, grabbing his hat and yet forgetting his coat, just like always.

This time, however, he continued sitting calmly at his desk and neatly shuffled the papers in front of him. "Everdeen, you said? Does he have any means in which to pay?"

Iris is dumbfounded. That is a question that her father always asked second, not first. He made a decent living with his shop and the people from town always paid him. While the people from the Seam could not do pay immediately they always did eventually and her father would normally would accept the payment late.

"Well most likely not right now, but I'm sure he will eventually. You know they always do," she said quickly, knowing that in a serious case time is often of the essence and that time wasn't to be wasted, especially if it was an accident in one of the mines.

"Everdeen," Iris didn't like the way that her father said the name, and it made her wonder why Caivil's name mattered so much. "No, I don't think that I can. Money is a little tight right now and since you don't think that the family can pay, well, I don't know. I have an important meeting with the Mayor anyway, and I have to be going."

Iris just stared at her father, absolutely bewildered and dumbstruck. In all the years that Iris has been alive she has never seen her father refuse a patient. Not once.

"I think it's important," Iris pressed, hoping that all of the time being wasted would harm whoever was getting hurt at Caivil's home.

Her father finally lost patience with her. "I _can't _right now, Iris. Why can't you see that? _I am busy_." Her father's tone is sharp and his voice loud. "Go tell the boy to go away and to knock out his family member with a heavy pole or something."

He finally leaves the room and goes to get his coat, the death of an innocent and unknown person seemingly not on his conscience.

For the first time ever Iris grabs her father's healing kit and intends to use it herself.

She sprints back to Caivil and grabs a few bottles of herbs that she may or may not need and put them into the bag, just in case. She meets him outside, where Caivil is still pacing and when he sees her coming back he looks up in relief.

"Is your father coming?" he asks quickly, and Iris knows that the wait must have been killing him.

"No," she answers, and she sees the emotions that flicker quickly on and off his face, many of them the same ones she felt herself when she heard her father's easy rejection of healing his family member after he heard Caivil's name. "But I am."

He just looks at her dubiously. "Are you sure that you can-"

"Yes," Iris interrupts. "He won't help you. But I will. Do you want my help or no help at all?"

Caivil looks at the determination in her eyes and he knows that there is no way that he can tell her that she can't come with him.

"Come on then, and try and keep up."

Together they race to Caivil's home, going through half of District Twelve on their way. By the time they get there they are winded and exhausted, but Iris quickly takes control of the situation, just the way her father did on the numerous emergencies that she has been to since the start of her training.

"Who's hurt?" Iris asks, and when she sees Mr. Everdeen on the bed, a bloodied rag on his leg, a pained expression on his face, and his wife right beside him she feels stupid for even asking the question and rushes over to him.

Mrs. Everdeen looks surprised to see Iris in the place of her father, but then she lets it go, knowing that she shouldn't have expected Iris's father to come anyway.

Carefully Iris removes the rag from the wound on Mr. Everdeen's leg and she can tell right away that it is very deep and will need stitches. She gets a glass vial filled with a dried herb and she peers closely at it before giving it to Mrs. Everdeen. "If you boil this and give it to him after I'm done and save the broth for a few days to give to him randomly this will relieve his pain."

She knows that sometimes people can't just sit and watch their loved ones get healed. More often than not they need to be doing _something _to feel like they are helping their injured family member. Sometimes people can't just sit and watch.

Iris assumes that Mrs. Everdeen is one of those people and her prediction is right. Relief crosses over her face to have a task to do and she sets off right away to boil the dead plant just as Iris instructed.

"What do I need to do?" Caivil is right next to her as soon as his mother leaves with her task.

"I need you to hold his leg to make sure he doesn't kick me," Iris says grimly and she manages to dig through her father's bag and find a needle with a spool of thick black thread. She has never stitched someone up before, but she has seen her father do it many times, and she sews her own clothes so she is handy with a needle and feels like she is capable of sewing Mr. Everdeen's leg shut. She's the only option that he has anyway.

To Mr. Everdeen's credit he never seems like he wants to and he doesn't attempt to kick her when the needle pierces his skin, though he does flinch the few times she has to stop and get a few pieces of shrapnel that she didn't see right away out of his leg with her tweasers. When she's done Iris gently wipes the blood from Mr. Everdeen's leg and gives him a bit of the broth that Mrs. Everdeen concocted.

When she goes to leave Caivil is looking at her with something like awe on his face. "Thank you. Seriously. I never thought that you, of all people, would help us and you did. I mean, with the history between our families and everything..." he pauses when he thinks that he says too much, and Iris doesn't try to press him for more information. It doesn't really matter to her what kind of 'history' that their families have, if they have one at all. "Well, anyway, I didn't think that you would, but dad's leg looked really bad when he came home, and you did and you were amazing back there. I don't think that I could ever do anything like that. I wish I could, though."

Iris shrugs modestly. "It's not that big of a deal really. I like helping people, and my father wouldn't do it for some reason so I was your last resort."

Caivil is still gazing at her, awestruck, but he puts a hand awkwardly behind his head and says, "Well, we'll pay you back. For everything, I promise."

"No need to pay me."

"No, believe me, we will. Thank you again. Do you need me to walk you home?"

Iris thinks briefly to herself that this is an odd request, but she declines his offer for the first, and last, time.

**.&.**

Two weeks later Caivil is back in front of her house with a box in his hand. "Here," he offers it to her, "this is payment."

"I already told you Caivil, you don't need to pay me. Here, take it, whatever it is, back." Iris tried to give it back to him, but he made it so he couldn't accept the box.

"I don't think that it'd do much good going back from where I got it from to be honest. Just open it."

Iris gave him a look, but as soon as she opened the box and saw all of the leafy greens that were inside she smiled at him, her whole face lighting up with excitement. "Where did you get all of these?" she asked, picking up one of the stems and lifting it to her nose and gave it a sniff.

"The woods," he answered, and he grinned when she gasped. It was obvious that her Town upbringing made her not bother to taking risks, which was something that Caivil did all of the time.

Ignoring the fact that he was laughing at her, she burrowed her face into the box and came out with a sprig of green and she said, "How did you find witch hazel? It shouldn't even be out of the ground right now and we are desperately needing some. Thank you."

"No, thank _you_. Dad's doing really great right now. He says that the stitches don't pull at all when he walks and he should be able to go back to the mines next week."

Iris wants to say that maybe his father should wait for a while before thinking better of it and bites her tongue. He probably can't afford to be out of commission right now and the fact that he had to stay home from work at all probably put a big strain on them.

"Good for him."

There's an awkward pause between the two of them when they finish talking about their only subjects in common. "So... do you want me to bring you more herbs. If you don't need them it's okay, but..."

Iris thinks he looks kind of cute when he's awkward, and then she gets alarmed for even thinking about Caivil like _that_. Their worlds hardly ever mix; it won't do her any good to be thinking like that.

"No, please do," she finally decides to say after she pushes alarming words out of her head, sealing her fate without even realizing it. "We could always use some more of these."

**.&.**

Stories of Iris's kindness and generosity spread throughout the Seam and more often than not they come for Iris's help rather than her father's. She's known as a good and quick healer who doesn't ask for payment, but she gets it someway somehow eventually anyway.

Her father doesn't realize how renown she is getting throughout the District. Instead he just assumes that nothing is going on. He certainly doesn't realize that _Caivil Everdeen _of all people is the reason that he is getting less business. If he knew we would probably flip a lid and so Iris just tells him that she isn't sure why people ask for her now.

Caivil is often the one that comes to her door asking for her help and he often takes her to wherever she needs to go. She finds him easy to talk to and slowly but surely her feelings of him grow.

It's nice to be able to talk to him about the things that she's never told anyone and she likes that he is honest with her as well. They feel drawn to each other for reasons that they can't even explain.

The first time that he ever sings in front of her on one of their many walks back to her father's shop is an eerie experience (as well as one that she will never forget) because as soon as the first note begins the air gets quiet quickly and it as if all of nature is waiting to listen to the rest of his song. As soon as he's done the everything is quiet before the mockingjays, a curious creature if there ever was one, all begin to sing back.

"You have a beautiful voice," she tells him as the mockingjays all agree loudly with her words.

"Thanks." Caivil seems a bit chagrined when she tells him that but pleased. "You're just beautiful."

His words bring a blush to her cheeks but the lighting is poor and he doesn't see the blood rushing to her pale cheeks. "Thanks," she says quietly, and they don't talk the rest of the way back.

**.&.**

Their first kiss is almost an accident. Almost because while their lips touched each other at the same time he meant to lean in and she didn't.

She had just meant to look inside of the box that he was giving her that was full of herbs and she was just so close... and he wanted to... so he did. There weren't any fireworks or bonfires that were lit, that would come later, but there was a spark of something there and it goes on for longer than either of them mean for it to.

"I'm sorry," he says after they pull away, both of their cheeks stained red, "I just couldn't help it."

"I think you need to go now," is all that she can think to say.

He looks as though he's going to object but then he just closes him mouth and does as she asks.

**.&.**

She doesn't see him for weeks. He no longer comes and takes her to the places that she is needed to heal. Instead he sends one of his neighbors, an eight year old boy who often picks his nose when he thinks that she isn't looking.

Even though she is the one that sent him away she still misses him. His absence, which had been almost nonexistent before when he wasn't out in the woods hunting and getting her herbs for her and she wasn't busy healing. She spends more time with Maysilee, who often comes now to avoid her spiteful sister, but being with Maysilee isn't the same thing as being with Caivil.

He makes no effort to see her either, though, so Iris doesn't feel quite as bad. Maybe it really _had _been an accident and he hadn't really meant it. But then why would he have said that he wanted to?

Iris's head swirled with questions that remained unanswered and as far as she can tell they're going to stay that way forever. She has no desire to make the first move, but she knows that she is going to have to since she is the one that pushed him away.

She is saved from making that decision, though, when she and Maysilee are walking from the baker's through the town square when they see a whipping happening. Whippings are common in District Twelve and Iris have seen their fair share of them. It's always worse in the summer, though, because when she goes to heal them there isn't any snow so it takes longer for the wounds to heal.

"Who could it possibly be?" Maysilee whispers to Iris, but Iris honestly has no idea and the two of them go to get a closer look. They both want to look away, but they can't because the sight in front of them is just so horrific. Iris at least has the excuse that she needs to see who it is so that she knows what house to go to so that she can heal their wounds.

When they get close enough to see exactly who it is Iris's heart stops. It's Caivil. Of course it is. He has a squirrel pinned above his head so that the whole world could see the nature of his crime, and she can see a slightly crushed box that the Peacekeeper who is giving him lashes probably overlooked at his feet.

It looks extraordinarily like the box that he always brought her herbs in. The thought of him getting whipped for something as small as a squirrel and something like getting her herbs even though they weren't speaking makes Iris's throat close up.

She wants to go and stop the whipping, but before she can even take a step Maysilee seems to read her mind and she grabs Iris's arm to stop her from getting in the way. "Don't even think about it," she says sharply. "You'll just end up getting hurt in the process, or you might get him in even worse trouble and you will have to be in his position. I know how you feel about him, but really, don't do it."

Iris can't believe that Maysilee knows and at Iris's incredulous expression Maysilee almost smiles, but she isn't callous enough for that right now. "If you want to help him go home and get him what he needs."

Iris knows that Maysilee is right and she starts sprinting back to her father's shop, where her father is sitting at the main desk, looking at Iris with an bemused expression she he notices her sweaty and red face.

When she gets out his healing kit from under the table he asks her, "What exactly do you think that you're doing?"

"Caivil Everdeen is getting whipped right now and I need some medicine for him for when he gets done. I know how to heal him, I'll do everything that you taught me, it's just that I have to go _now_."

In sheer desperation Iris grabs a clear bottle of morphling, the last bit that they have left and the most expensive thing in the store and throws it in the bag as well.

Her father's face changes whenever she says Caivil's name. "No, you can't help him. He won't be able to pay up front and funds are low and-" her father seems like he is going to go on but Iris won't listen to him for another minute.

"_Why is it _that every time Caivil Everdeen needs help you refuse to help him? You make up excuse and excuse about not being able to help him and our funds being low, which by the way, they aren't because I did the books just yesterday and we are doing fine thank you very much. Anyone else, it seems like, anyone else in the world and you would be trying to help them at the drop of an hat. But not him? _Why_?"

Iris looks positively insane as she says this. Her eyes and hair are wild and she continues packing up the bag with all of the correct vials and potions that they could possibly need and then some. She says her whole speech very fast and every word that she throws at her father feels like a bullet.

"You wouldn't understand and I can't tell you about it anyway," he answers angrily, finally, and then he puts a hand on her arm. "I can't allow for you to help him, not now and not ever. I'm sorry."

"Father, right now I really don't care about the things that I can't know about. I _do _know, though, that I need to help him. You always said that if we were able to that we needed to help everyone that needed to be help because we're all human and we all have a common enemy, didn't you? _You_ always were the one that told me that we were District Twelve's only hope because no one could afford the doctor that the Capitol provided us with. Or was that all just a lie?"

Iris ripped her arm from her father's grip and she set off at a run to Caivil's home praying that she would be there soon enough to spare him some pain while her father looks after her and shakes his head.

Iris gets to his home as soon as she is able and she can hear his mother sobbing. For a moment she is seized by panic, but she pushes through the wave of that emotion and she practically knocks down the door trying to get into their home.

Caivil is set down on the table of their sparsely furnished home, his back a bloody and mangled mess. When Mrs. Everdeen sees Iris she begins to sob harder and has to be led away by her husband.

Iris begins to pull herself into her healer mode and she stops seeing the moaning boy in front of her as Caivil and starts seeing him as she would any other patient. It is easier that way because if she let her feelings for him get in the way she would never be able to help him. No amount of stitches would help the torn up mess on his back, not when the muscles are ripped to shreds like that.

She gives Caivil the morphling first and she listens as his involuntary moans finally die down into silence before she beings working again. She wants to spare him as much pain as possible. She then starts mopping up the blood so that she can see what is left of his back, which wasn't much because he had been caught once before.

Iris sets herself to work and eventually she realizes that she is crying when one of her tears make its way down her face and onto his back which can't be healthy for the fresh wounds there.

When she is finished and has done everything that she can she calls his parents back in and tells them that she is going to stay the night to observe him just in case even though this isn't exactly necessary. Iris doesn't bother sending word to her father, let him think what he may, because she is still angry with him.

In the gray part of early morning Caivil gains his consciousness back again and he looks up at her through glazed and slightly unfocused eyes before he realizes who exactly she is, and then full alertness comes back into his face.

"Hey," he manages to croak out, before Iris hushes him.

"Don't talk," she orders and she sees that a corner of his mouth lifts up. The morphling is still obviously doing its job, at least halfway.

"Thank you," he attempts again before Iris glares at him. She just wants him to get better and if it means making him heal faster then by gosh he isn't going to talk anymore!

In response she gently grabs one of his hands and brought it to her face. "I missed you," she said and she watches him smile through his discomfort.

"I missed you too," he says before falling gently to sleep again with her hand in his right before the pain sets in.

**.&.**

After that the two of them realize that there is more than friendship between them, far more than friendship. Somehow in the time between healing his father and healing him they have fallen in love.

Her father wouldn't have been happy if he had known. As soon as she got home the next morning he had told her that he didn't want her to, "associate with that Everdeen boy ever again," for reasons that were unknown to Iris. Maybe if her mother had been alive (Iris's mother had died when she was three years old of a terrible bout of influenza, which was made her father want to begin healing people in the first place) she could have calmed him down and made him see reason, but since Iris was all alone she had no way to make him see Caivil as anything other than just a 'dirty' boy from the Seam.

So it has to be very secretive and Iris has to admit that there is something alluring about having a romance that no one can know about. The secret glances the late night kisses, all very sexy. Sometimes it would have been (very, very convenient) for them to be able to be out in the open with it, like some of the other kids relationships were, but both of them knew that if word ever got out that they'd both be in trouble and in more ways than one.

He's there with her through everything. He holds her as she cries after losing her first patient (a little baby with great big grey eyes who had somehow fallen on a nail and his parent's hadn't called Iris until it was too late and she was too far along for her to save). He holds her when Maysilee gets called to go to the Quarter Quell (he even watches it with her, and he holds her again when she starts crying because those birds got Maysilee in the neck) and he's always there. Always.

It's comforting to have him around and she knows that she won't love anyone else, ever. Sometimes (and she imagines that she is just making this stuff up) when she's with him she feels like she can breathe easier and her heart beats faster and he makes her feel like that because he's _amazing. _

He's kind and caring and loyal and brave and funny and everything that she ever wanted her future husband to be. And when he sings to her it's one of the most wonderful things that anyone has ever done for her. The only thing wrong with him (at least in her father's eyes) is is name and that he's going to be a coal miner.

Iris has always known that coal mining is a dangerous profession (how many times had she heard the alarms go off and seen the women from the Seam sobbing at the sight of mines) but she had never realized how much so until Caivil has to work there.

He's a year older than her so he leaves school sooner than she does and when he does they can't be together as often, but they want to make it work so they do. But she's always worried about him now. She's never paid much attention to the horror stories that the kids from the Seam tell about the mines, but now each and every one of them come back into her mind and stand out like ink would against a white landscape.

He just laughs at her fear (his confidence, while endearing, will get him in trouble one day she just knows it) and tells her that accidents happen in the mines and the odds of one happening to him are one in a million at least.

Of course, Iris has always known that the odds were never in her favor.

**.&.**

"There, all done," she pays, patting Hearth Mellark on the leg. "Just put this paste on it for a couple of days and it should heal up in about two weeks. Shouldn't you be able to do this yourself? I'm sure you and your brothers get burned all the time, am I right?"

"Well we, would, but um, we need your..." Iris can tell that she's making Hearth uncomfortable and she laughs.

"It's okay, I was joking. If you need my help again don't hesitate to come over here and let me take a look at it. That was a pretty deep burn."

Hearth nods with a red face and walks out of the shop. Iris's father is behind her and has seen the whole thing. "I think he likes you, Iris. He's a nice boy, and he comes from a good family. Maybe you should think about him for later, Iris."

Iris shrugged, past caring about what Hearth Mellark or what he thought of her. Maybe at one point it would have made a difference, but not with Caivil firmly in the picture. With all of her work done, and the fact that it is a Sunday and Caivil said that he wanted to spend time with her instead.

"Can I go for a walk? I've finished everything you asked me to do."

"Hmm?" replies her father, still lost in thought, possibly about the idea of Hearth Mellark and herself, which is just plain ridiculous. "Of course you can dear. Be back before dark, though, please."

"I will be," Iris promises as she takes off her apron, knowing that she can always just sneak out again if she needs to spend more time with Caivil.

He's outside, waiting for her just like always. As soon as he sees her he quickly pulls her out of viewing point of the window and gives her a long and lingering kiss. She kisses him back, just like always, but she's still a bit confused about why he seems more eager than usual all of a sudden.

"What's up with you?" Iris asks, as she untangles herself from him.

"Nothing," he tells her, but he frowns when he says it so she knows that something's wrong and he just won't tell her what it is.

"Are you positive about that?"

"No."

"Then what's wrong?" Iris is frustrated with this game. If something is wrong he should just tell her not be running in circles about the issue. Iris has never been one to beat around the bush and she doesn't tolerate it very well from other people either.

He sees this and he knows that there is no way that he can get out of answering her truthfully now. "It's just that I heard you and your father talking about Hearth Mellark and I was just thinking that if you were with him you wouldn't be having to hide things or lie to your father. And you'd get to live in town and be comfortable the rest of your life."

"Oh honestly," Iris huffs, a bit frustrated now. "Why is everyone implying things about Hearth Mellark and me? Yes, he's a nice guy, but he isn't you and unless he suddenly turned into another version of you I don't give two licks about him."

"Your father likes him and he absolutely hates me."

"First off, my father doesn't hate you," she says and she ignores him when he mutters something intelligible in protest, "and second of all if my father likes Hearth so much maybe _he _should go be with Hearth instead of me." Iris places one of her hands on Caivil's cheek and he covers that hand with one of his own. "I only want you and I don't care about anyone or anything else. You shouldn't either."

**.&.**

She's eighteen and only three weeks out of school when he asks her to marry him. Girls in District Twelve often get married early, it's true, but he asked her so soon because, really, they didn't have much time to waste.

He went to great pains to make everything perfect for the two of them and she can tell by how nervous he is as he gets everything together that this isn't a normal sort of date.

He takes her out to the woods and they had a picnic on which they ate on the blanket that normally lays on his bed. He brings one of his mother's baskets to put the food in and after they finish eating he surprises her by grabbing her hand suddenly and looking deep into her eyes.

"Look," he says seriously, "I know that this is going to be a really big change for you, but it's going to be a big one for me too. But I want to give this, I want to give _us _a chance. I will love you every single day for the rest of my life, and I hope that you'll love me the same way. I guess what I'm trying to say is, Iris, will you marry me?"

"Yes, of course!" Iris exclaims as soon as he's finished and she goes and hugs him excitedly and in such a way that they both fall over. And then they're both happy and content and they feel like nothing can ever go wrong in their life again.

**.&.**

They went straight away and told Caivil's parents about their impending marriage and his parents are absolutely thrilled, though a bit surprised. They had known that Caivil had been seeing someone, of course, but they hadn't known that it had been a girl from town, and they hadn't even dared to think it was Iris.

Caivil's mother, in particular, is ecstatic. She had always like Iris and had respected her since the first time that she came and healed Mr. Everdeen.

Telling her father went about as well as they both expected. Iris had known that he was going to get upset, he had no idea about how she felt about Caivil and she already knew that for some reason her father didn't like him, but she hadn't thought that he would get so _angry. _

"I absolutely forbid you to marry him. You can't be associated with filth like _him_." Iris doesn't understand why her father, the kind man that had raised and loved her on all his own, is acting like this. "Go to your room, and we are going to talk about this later."

"No, I won't go. Caivil and I are going to get married and I don't care what you say. I _love _him and don't you dare call him filth. He isn't. Maybe you are if you can't understand that he makes me happy."

"How can you be happy with an _Everdeen_?" Her father practically spits Caivil's last name as though it is a nasty taste that he's trying to get out of his mouth.

"What is wrong with him being an Everdeen? Why do you hate him so much? Anyone else and you would have been absolutely fine with this."

"He's saying this because of what happened with my mother," Caivil interjects, speaking for the first time since they had announced their impending marriage. "He was in love with her and-"

"And she was in love with me!" Iris's father interjects. " I could have given her anything that she would have ever wanted, but your father stole her away from me like a good for nothing coal miner. Like a good for nothing _Everdeen_."

"Maybe she was in love with you," Caivil said calmly, as though the man standing in front of him wasn't insulting his entire family and way of life, "but she loved my father more. And now you're so bitter that you won't let anyone in my family be happy because of it. You won't even heal us or help us in any way. Now you're stopping your own daughter's happiness because of your selfishness."

"Don't you call me selfish, boy, you don't understand anything."

"I know what my parents told me about this and about you and honestly I think that they're right. I understand plenty. I know what it feels like to love someone but you've turned your love for my mother into something ugly."

"You Everdeen's always steal everything that is important away from me. Iris, come with me."

"I can't," Iris said, and all of a sudden she understood everything. Why her father wouldn't help Caivil when he first came to their shop, why Mrs. Everdeen had been so surprised when she had come to help Mr. Everdeen that first time, why her father had acted so horribly when it came to Caivil. "I love him. Don't you understand that? You know what it's like to love someone. I can't live without him"

Standing in between the two men that Iris loved the most in the world she burst into tears because she wanted to be with both of them, but her love for Caivil Everdeen won.

"You mark my words Iris, he will bring you nothing but trouble and grief. Don't you ever come back here. You walk away from me and I never want to see your face again. You won't be my daughter anymore."

"I'm sorry and I love you but I have to go now." Grasping Caivil's hand she turned to go and she heard her father call something out at her back.

"You'll come crawling back to me when he's gone and I won't help you. Don't expect anything from me ever again."

When they got far enough away Iris started to sob, but then she managed to calm herself down and said, "I'm sorry, it's just the shock and everything. We knew this wasn't going to be easy." She takes several more deep breaths to calm herself, but then resolves to harden her heart against her father just as surely as he is hardening his against her. "Let's just go to the Justice Building."

He looks at her, concerned, before he nods and they walk to the Justice Building to get their appropriate papers and to have the formal wedding ceremony before they get to their home.

It's nothing special. They both sign their names in the appropriate places and they dot their i's and cross their t's and when everything is said and done they go to the bakery and get themselves a loaf of bread to do their toasting with, the last loaf of bread that they will probably ever buy.

Hearth Mellark is working the counter when they come up to the front window hand in hand both looking happy. "One loaf of white, please," Iris says, practically sparkling even though she's had one of the most bittersweet days of her whole life.

"Congratulations," Hearth tells the both of them. He's used to selling toasting bread to the people that need it and he can always tell when two people are freshly married. When he hands Iris the loaf, freshly wrapped in brown wax paper there's a sadness in his eyes that Iris had never noticed before. Maybe he really had loved her after all.

"Thank you," Caivil answers for the both of them, gripping Iris's hand tighter because _he _knows _and if it was the other way around he'd want it to be the same way. _

Hearth nods one more time and they turn to go and Iris is now turning her back on her old way of life and walking straight into their new one.

**.&.**

After the toasting comes the marriage and at first there's a lot to get used to. Iris now has less money than she's used to having but she still has enough food and shelter warmth and that's all that she needs. Plus she also has the added bonus of Caivil, and that's more than enough for her.

They have a wonderful life together and two beautiful little girls who just light up their world.

Their oldest, Katniss, is the exact replica of her father except for her smile, which Caivil claims is just like Iris's even though Iris isn't so sure. Katniss has the dark Seam coloring and she adores her daddy with just as much enthusiasm as Iris once loved her own father. She's lovely and willful and Iris often teases her husband about the fact that when Katniss grows into a teenager he's going to have hell to pay.

Their baby, Primrose, is her mother all over again. She's more quiet and thoughtful than Katniss and she has a kinder heart and she is supremely attached to her mother even though she loves her father as well. Iris sees Primrose as more like herself and they have a happy family.

The never meet their maternal grandfather and their paternal grandparents die shortly before they were born. Iris was scared about having children, she didn't know much about mothering because her own mother had died when she was small, but she manages not to screw up too badly and compared to most their life is perfect.

Iris has never been happier. She builds her life around her beautiful children and her husband especially, because he is her rock and what feels like the only thing that really matters in the world now.

Until he isn't anymore.

**.&.**

___...dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead..._

_The world swirls around her head until she thinks that she's going to implode. Caivil can't be dead, but he is and she knows it, she heard the foreman's announcement and she heard the alarms that go on and on and on, horror to ever single coal miner's wife._

_He's trapped under the cold and unforgiving earth and she wonders if he thought of her while he was dying. _

___...dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead..._

_The word rings in her ears and she falls in on herself, falling into her bed and going to sleep where he will still be alive and she never wants to get up ever again. _

_There is nothing worth being alive for when he is dead. _


	3. III

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing except the plot... I don't even own the title!

**A/N: **And now here we are at the very end of _Angels On the Moon. _It's my first ever completed multi-chapter story and I'm actually kind of proud of it. This chapter, in my opinion, is the saddest.

I decided to make this canon number one because I felt like it would be more tragic that way, and number two because I didn't want to make this story an AU one. (Although I feel like there is a two percent chance that Madge could have lived, like any other good Madge/Gale shipper, of course.)

I'm sorry this took so long, but really... I think that I just wanted to drag this out! How sad is that?

_Angels On the Moon_

III. Madge/Gale

It isn't so much falling in love as it is being pushed into it. At least this is what it feels like to Madge when she thinks about it later.

In fact that's how the whole thing starts, a push.

Madge, being a loner at heart, had been playing by herself one day at recess during their primary classes when all of a sudden three boy came over to her and surrounded her. They were obviously boys from the Seam, although when asked later to reveal who they were exactly Madge had no idea who their names were, with their dark, mussed hair and wrinkled shirts, a world away from Madge's perfectly pressed skirt and neatly plaited hair.

They had began taunting her, calling her a 'townie' and telling her that she was ugly and stupid and all sorts of things that Madge had never heard herself referred as. To a five year old hurtful words can seem like the end of the world, especially when you have never heard yourself being called those things. Tears quickly filled her eyes and one made its wet path down her red cheek.

One of them pushes her down and they all laugh. That's when _he _comes, her savior, her hero, and he asked them, "What are you all doing."

Immediately they clam up and the bravest among them, the one that had pushed her down, finally decides to say, "Nothin'."

That was when it struck her how handsome he was. He had been seven at the time and even then his gray eyes were large and expressive, his hair, so like her tormenters in its color and even texture, but his was neatly combed and it was obvious that his clothes were worn but clean and well taken care of.

That moment was when she had fallen just the slightest bit in love with him. A fraction of her heart, small enough so that she didn't notice that it was gone until it was far too late, had gone and he had taken it with him.

"It didn't look like nothing to _me_," Gale had sneered. "In fact it looked like you were making fun of a _girl_. You're all stupid if the only people that you can pick on are _girls_. I bet if I wrestled all three of you at once I'd win."

"Nu-_UH,_" the group of boys had protested, all at the same time like a trio of persecutors.

"I bet so. Meet me today at the back of the school over by the big oak tree. Then we'll really see who's tougher."

The boys all run to go tell their friends about the fight, the one where they're going to win, and they forget all about poor Madge who is still laying on the ground trying not to draw attention to herself.

Gale doesn't even bother to help her up, he's just not that sort of boy, but he does spare her a last look. He looks like he's going to tell her something, but she's a _girl _and if he talked to her he'd definitely get made fun of for being a sissy so he doesn't say anything at all.

**.&.**

Madge is pretty sure that he doesn't even remember that scene years later, but Madge can't ever forget it. In the years after that he always does _something, _it usually doesn't have a thing to do with her but that's okay,that causes her to give him pieces of her heart and he doesn't know it.

Sometimes Madge laughs at herself, surely it's pathetic and kind of sad for someone to be stuck on a boy for years and not be able to bring herself to talk to him, but he can't help it. Once she gets older she tries and tries to make herself build a bridge and _get over it_, but she never can.

When he and Katniss become friends (or, if the rumors are true, more than friends) she has to admit that it hurts, because she can see his eyes searching for hers during school the exact same way that hers look for his, but she chooses just to punish herself anyway.

**.&.**

The funny thing is, he seems to believe that she actually likes strawberries. In fact, she loathes those red fruits who are a member of the rose family. (Madge had done plenty of research about those seedy berries in the few books that they had at home when Gale started bringing them around, so she knew what she was talking about.)

Her mother wasn't fond of them and her father would eat a few and then be done with them, he couldn't eat too many at once. In fact, the only reason that her father spent money on such an extravagance was because Madge asked him to. She asked for so little, and in fact eating strawberries seemed to make her happy, so he bought them.

He had no idea that the only reason that she enjoyed them was because of the boy who sold them, the boy that Madge had loved since the beginning of forever. Her parents both thought that she loved them and every single week Madge had to smile and eat them hurriedly in front of her parents so they'd continue buying more.

Madge had a system for eating strawberries, especially the big ones. The first bite she saw the way that Gale looked at Katniss, a bitter reminder of how she was things that Madge never could, or would, be. She'd fight a grimace and instead chatter happily to her parents, making sure that they saw her eating them.

The second bite was the occasional grunt that she could get from Gale whenever she tried very hard to have a conversation with him, so hard in fact that she would talk overly much, even though Madge had never been one for a dragged out and forced conversation. She would have loved to have him talk to her back, or to even smile at her once, but he never did. Even those sounds from the back of his throat had been a victory to her, a victory in a war that Gale did not even know existed.

And the third bite reminds her of his face that day that he saved her. And that one last bite is the reason that she even buys them to begin with. It's like a bait and he's the hook. She's powerless against the fisherman called fate.

**.&.**

Madge had never seen a whipping before, but she knew that certainly not all of them had to be this painful to watch. Of course the moaning would always be hard to listen to, and the insane glint in the punisher's eye would never be exciting to look at, but she knew that not all of them would make her react the same way.

She wanted to throw up. The only thing that Gale had done was kill one turkey, _one_, for his family so that they could actually eat something for dinner that night and go to sleep with a full stomach, unlike the other children in the Seam who died of starvation by the tenfold, and here they were acting as if he had just killed a person, or worse.

Each strike of the whip hitting his skin felt like one was hitting her as well. It was an exquisite pain, one that Madge had never felt before, and she had no idea what to do with this sensation. She had never felt it before because had never seen someone that she loved get injured before other than the occasional burn.

As soon as Katniss had come into the scene, brave Katniss who was the only one that had the guts to get over to him and get in between Gale and the piece of leather that was shredding his back. _Madge _should have been the one to do that, but she was never has brave as Katniss.

Maybe if Madge was more like Katniss, maybe if she was as brave and as beautiful as the Victor that seemed to have stole his heart that way that Madge never could, Gale would love her. But Madge would never ever be like Katniss, and she knew it.

But Madge was determined to help him, just like Katniss did. She just had no idea how. Her mind whirled with all sorts of scenarios that included Madge doing something brave to help him, but they all ended up not being rational or just not being possible.

Then an idea struck her. And that was all it took.

As sad as it was, Madge Undersee was willing to do anything to help Gale Hawthorne.

**.&.**

Madge took off her shoes when she came up to the door of her house. With any luck her mother would be sleeping right now, the medicine that she so dearly cherished tended to do that to people, and she wouldn't see Madge's treachery.

If her mother ever found out Madge would probably be forbidden to see the light of day ever again. The medicine meant more to Madge's mother than Madge did, and probably more than her husband as well. Sometimes Madge felt as though the medicine, that dangerous liquid in a small vial that looked so unassuming, was the only thing that connected her mother to the world.

Her mother practically swam in the stuff, she drowned herself in it trying to get away from a world that had taken away her sister, a sister that she had thought that she had hated but realized far too late that she loved instead.

Personally Madge hated the medication and wished that she could just smash all the bottles, no matter how expensive they were. Maybe then her mother would love and appreciate her, the way that other mothers seemed to do to their daughters. Maybe if her mother had less of it she would have to come back down to earth.

With this thought in her mind Madge shoved three glass vials in a box and then into her bag, grabbed her coat and scarf, simultaneously trying to put them on and get out the door, and ran like hell towards Victor's Village.

**.&.**

The wind was bitterly fierce as Madge walked back to her house, no longer having any reason to run. She considered it to be her punishment for doing something that in her house, if her parents ever caught wind of her crime that is, would result in a far more severe punishment.

Madge stuck her numb hands into her pocket, and she realized that that had not helped one bit. She opened the door quietly and unwrapped herself. She placed her wet things on the floor in closet, feeling guilty about the mess that Rose would find them in tomorrow, and shut the door.

She hadn't even noticed when she saw her mother on the other side.

For once her mother's curled hair was not perfectly done and clipped like it normally was. It was wild and stood up from odd angles all over her head. Her light blue eyes, not the eyes that Madge had inherited, were wide and full of pain.

Madge jumped when she saw her mother, but her mother didn't speak. _She knows, _Madge thought desperately and for several heartbeats neither of them spoke. They just continued looking at each other, mother against daughter, both of them hurling accusations at each other with their silence and the look in their eyes.

Then, finally, her mother opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "You're her made over again," she said finally, and Madge felt so confused at the pain that became even more evident in her mother's eyes as she said this.

"What?" Madge couldn't help but ask. She had been expect her mother to tell her something about stealing her medicine, about how horrible of a daughter she was and didn't Madge _know _how much she need that clear liquid, or about how why didn't Madge _understand _and how could she do that to her own mother.

"My sister, Maysilee," her mother answered, and Madge sucked in a breath in between her teeth because no one _ever _talked about her mother's sister who had died in the Hunger Games. Madge was lucky to even know her name. "You look just like her, you know. And you have so many of her little habits and quirks too. It's amazing, the way you seem to channel her even though you never knew her. And now I really know for sure, you _are _just like her. She would have done the exact same thing for the Seam boy she loved too."

"Mother, how did you...?" Madge started, but she couldn't bring herself to finish the question. This was her mother, and most mothers knew that sort of thing about their daughters. Just not Madge's mother.

"How did I know?" Her mother smiled softly. "I've seen the way that you looked at him. And I saw the expression on your face today when he was getting whipped on the square. I needed to go to the apothecary," she added at Madge's confused expression. "And then you left the door open when you ran outside, you know, and I saw the missing bottles."

"I'm sorry," was the only thing that Madge could think to say, and she was sorry for more than just the bottles that she had stolen. She was also sorry for being the sister that her mother wanted most in the world to forget. Maybe that was the reason that she could barely stand to look at Madge, the pain was just so much.

"It just seemed like something that she would have done, that for a moment I felt stunned. I know she would have done it for Haymitch in a heartbeat." Her mother tightened her lips at that, seemingly saying too much.

"_Haymitch_? Haymitch _Abernathy_?" Madge couldn't help but asking, repeating the victor's name over and over again in her head. She couldn't imagine why anyone, even in her own family, would ever love him of all people. Maybe he had been different when he was a boy, but still.

Her mother laughed at her incredulous expression. "Yes, she loved him very much, and I never knew how he felt about her." But then memories that Madge had no knowledge of swam over her mother's eyes and stayed there, drowning them in only more anguish.

"I have to go, but I want you to know that I don't blame you for stealing them," her mother called as she walked off, right before she began to sob.

**.&.**

Madge had never much thought of how the world was going to end, but she knew that now there was no escaping the fact that there wasn't going to be the world of District Twelve anymore.

She could hear the people screaming outside, she felt the floor rumbling beneath her feet, but she still did not start to panic. Her heart beating furiously in her chest she gave the whole world an expression of serenity.

She knew that she was going to die.

This fact was so painfully obvious that it slapped her straight in the face, but she did not want to let it bother her. Madge joined her parents on the couch, and she gripped her mother's hand tightly with her own. Her mother was not crying either, showing a surprising amount of strength as she stared death straight in the face.

Her father suddenly engulfed the two people that he loved most in the world into his arms and for a moment Madge couldn't breathe, but then he let her go. There were no words for this, and Madge had no urge to fill up the silence. Rose and Nettie, their only two and most trusted servants, stayed with them behind the couch silently clutching each other, tears streaming down their faces.

It was a peaceful way to die, Madge thought, if you just tuned out the terrified screams from outside.

There was a pounding at the door and everyone in the white house looked at each other in confusion when it stopped until the banging started up again. Madge silently got up and opened the door, wondering who in the world would think that it would be a good time to call.

The person standing at the door was Gale. Madge's heart made its way up from her chest to her throat, the way that it always did when she saw him. His dark eyes were flashing, and his face was unreadable. He was completely _covered _in soot and Madge had no inkling about what he could possibly doing at her house right at that very moment. Didn't he have a family to attend to?

"Well, are you coming or not?" he asked furiously, holding out his hand. It was extremely clear, at least to Madge, that he had not want to come and save her. Someone, most likely his mother, who knew about the medicine that she had give Gale, had made him come and get her, and it was not a good feeling.

Her eyes teared up as she thought about how much it would have meant to her if he had come because he had _wanted _to and not because he had to. His hand was still extended and she could tell that he was growing impatient as the whole world shook beneath them.

Thoughtlessly, completely and totally without restraint, Madge lunged herself at him and kissed his mouth. It was her first kiss, and while it had been practically taken by force it still felt just as good as she imagined it would if it happened with Gale Hawthorne.

He stared at her bewildered as she closed the door without another word.

And then Madge walked back to her family and waited to die, feeling totally and utterly complete for the first time in her life.

**.&.**

Sometimes Madge Undersee still crosses his mind. He remembers random things about her sometimes, especially that bitter feeling that she often produced. She was the mayor's daughter, and therefore one of the wealthiest people in their entire District, so of course he was bitter about the fact that she essentially had everything while he had nothing.

She had short dark blonde hair and dark blue eyes, he remembers that vividly. He had saved her from some bullies when they were kids because he had never been one to sit there and watch when someone got treated unfairly (this, of course, was before he was bitter). He sold her strawberries. And she had kissed him on that nightmare-ish day when his whole world ended. After the war he had wondered about that- had she really been that desperate?- when he knew that Katniss had been lost forever. He can never find an answer, though, and so he stopped trying to find one.

She most likely never knew his whole name anyway. After all, he was just the boy with the strawberries.


End file.
