different metadata for the same image in different galleries

If the image was added to two different galleries, both galleries share the same file object properties. In the UI, it is a little strange that the file's metadata can be edited in the context of a gallery. OK. What I need to do is have different file metadata reference the same file. That is, a unique title and description per image per gallery. Does that make sense? I wanted to check here if this is a more general issue or not on the horizon at all. I can't seem to find discussions on it, but the search terms I have been using are pretty generic.

Is there some way to do this now? I definitely don't want to copy and create new files of the same image. Does drupal have some way of creating a persistent softlink/alias that can have its own title and description. Any ideas on how to approach?

If not, I was thinking a new table might be needed:

$schema['media_gallery_item'] = array(
'fields' => array(
  'fid' => array(
    'description' => 'The file id corresponding to a media file.',
  ),
  'nid' => array(
    'description' => 'The node id of the media gallery.',
  ),
  'title' => array(),
  'description' => array(),
))

Load off of this table joining on the file_managed table??