Hi again. Just to get it out here while I sort of can. The next one will be either pretty soon or pretty late.

III.

The Question

One thing Katniss doesn't want to ask but needs to know

April passes, and most of the pain in my knee with it.

The same thing might be said for me being a pain in other regions, hopefully. Mother and Prim keep reassuring me that I don't have to do everything, and Gale insists he's fine sharing his haul from the woods until it's safe for me to go there again, but I can't shake the nagging idea that I'm not doing enough.

Easing myself back into the belief that my family can support me too, after trying to hold everything on my own shoulders for so long, comes with a lot of grumbling, but at least my body appreciates the rest. I take bad things for granted more easily than the good, I guess.

Mother likes to remind me that I'm lucky the sprain wasn't too serious, and not aggravating it by trying to walk all the way home indeed helped. I have to look away from her after that, just to make sure she wouldn't notice the heat rushing into my cheeks.

Gale is that only person I have learned to accept help from, mostly because I persuaded myself not to see things he does with and for me as help, just as a flexible way of sharing our duties, with either of us contributing more when necessary. Just something about the way he helped me last time feels like too much, and I have a hard time stopping myself from thinking about it. I hope I'll never get hurt like that again.

Unless...

No.

How stupid would I be if I hoped for Gale to have to carry me again?

.

We go to the Hawthornes' for dinner. They have come over to our place the last few times, mostly so that I'd stay put and not have to walk more than to school and back.

Cooking one big meal for more people is easier, and helps stretch our limited resources farther. We've been doing that irregularly ever since Gale and I decided to introduce each other to our relatives and include them in our cooperation, and our families have pretty much grown together like us.

However much I liked my peace and quiet, either with only Gale or only Prim, I always enjoyed us being all together as well. With Gale's siblings around, it's hard not to laugh ever so often, and when we are all crowded together, the empty places on our tables left by our fathers feel a bit less gaping.

In the short, precious moments, I can bring myself to relax and enjoy the life we still have. Even if they last only until I get hit by the next thought about how we are going to afford dinner tomorrow or the day after that, how a part of it is bought by extra slips of paper with my name and Gale's in the reaping bowls, how there's going to be one with Prim's name this year, and how I can't prevent that in any way…

Sometimes life fills me with wonder, sometimes with dread, only the fierce desire to protect the people I already have and love remains the same. And while I could imagine many changes for the better, there are aspects of our lives I'd want to remain the same… for longer than they plausibly can, probably.

.

After dinner, Gale walks us back home. We say goodnight to mother and Prim, and remain hanging around outside on our little porch, enjoying the cool night air. We are sitting close together on the steps, just as close as if we were on our rock ledge out in the woods.

I don't know where the question comes from, or maybe I do, I've been thinking about it ever since I've gotten my thoughts in a tangle about it at school. It slips past my lips, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Would you want to have your own family?"

Gale looks at me sharply, probably even more surprised with me voicing the question than I am. I'm not really comfortable talking about it, and I don't know if he would be, and if I'm not giving away too much by letting it out.

"I already have one," he says cautiously. "Maybe even two."

"You know what I mean," I snap, sharper than I'd intended, taking my own embarrassment out on him. "I mean, with the way you love the kids and you've been taking care of Posy since she was born, I kinda think you would…" I fumble on.

Gale stares at me for a long moment, eyebrows raised, until I'm almost ready to bolt inside and stop talking to him until he forgets it. "In a way… yeah," he admits at last. "Somehow. Sometime. But... you know Posy's pretty much still a baby. Thought she'd tell you she's foow and all gwown up." He laughs affectionately, but I can detect a bit of underlying tension. "Rory won't be twelve until after the reaping, thankfully. I wouldn't leave Ma alone to do everything, taking care of them is still all we can do together. And…" He falls silent for a moment, looks up somewhere between the stars, and then turns back to me. "… I know I can't protect the kids from everything, but I have to buy them a few more years." He swallows hard. "The years we didn't have."

His eyes are shadowed in the faint moonlight, but I don't have to see them to know how exactly he feels. A sudden prickly pain erupts behind mine, and I blink a few times to chase it away. When it doesn't really help, I lean forward to hide my face, my forehead resting against Gale's shoulder. I was as old as Rory is now, a bit younger than Prim is, when I had to start taking care of myself and the rest of my family. The thought is terrible. They might be catching up with me in height already, but they are just kids.

So young, so precious. I can hardly believe I was ever that young myself.

Aren't Gale and I supposed to be kids too? We can still be reaped like kids, but we've been doing our best to take care of our siblings like adults for years.

I'm sitting still and should be at peace now, but everything suddenly seems to be happening too fast, the world spinning out of control. I'd feel nowhere near ready to add new people both to my heart and to my worries, not now, not in two years if I survive all reapings the generous Capitol has in store for me. Would Gale be, after getting through his last one?

Gale wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer . Instinctively, I cling to him, and it makes me feel somehow steadier. At least we are in it together for now. I squeeze my eyes shut, but a few tears escape, soaking into the sleeve of Gale's shirt.

He cups my face in his free hand, brushing his thumb over my cheeks. "I know how wonderful it is, Catnip" he says, very softly. "Every smile, every moment. But I also how painful and hard and dangerous. You know it just as well, if not better. We were lucky Ma was so strong and healthy after she had Posy, otherwise I have no idea how we would have survived. But we did, and still have our hands full doing that, right?"

"Yeah," I choke out, fighting to make my breathing even again.

"I mean, Posy was born when I was barely fourteen. You think I'd have wanted my own kid that soon?"

I shake my head and snort quietly. The idea is pretty ridiculous. Even though… things like that do happen, to a classmate or two every year. I wonder if they choose to or just don't know how to prevent it. I'm not sure I would either, so I'd better avoid any chance of making such a mistake.

"And you've been taking care of Prim since you were eleven," continues Gale. "And your mom too. At least I never really had to do that. We are doing what needs to be done, but we are doing our best, aren't we?"

"We are." At least that much I can honestly say.

"And we'll have to keep at it for several more years. And then… we'll see. I would never ask you to go through with that, not in a world where you have to choose between paying a doctor and starving. And where we'd have to watch our kids stand on the square every year, if nothing worse. That will be bad enough with Prim and Rory, and then Vick and Posy. Unless you…"

I lift my head sharply and cut across him. "Me? Our kids? What?"

"I mean any girl," he says quickly. "I might want it, but not while we live here like this."

I recall his frequent rants against the Capitol, and I'm less inclined to believe he'd want to bring a new child into the world under a regime he hates so much. "Do you still think it would ever change?"

Gale takes a deep breath and shrugs. He knows best he shouldn't start ranting here. "Maybe I'm stupid for hoping, but I still do. There's only as much as people can take. Something has to give, sooner or later." He turns to me with a wry smile. "We are still young, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but young people fall in love all the time, and then do... all kinds of things. What if you fall in love?" Another weird question.

"That's not all that there is to falling in love, Catnip. You can love someone without wanting to marry them at once. Or to make new people with them, you know."

"Oh. Okay." I feel my face getting hot and I'm more intensely aware of how close we are, again. Was he really thinking about having a family with me? And not in the way we already do?

I can't decide if the thought is scarier than the thought of him joining his life with someone else.

"You don't want to marry Prim, do you?" Gale says with a laugh and nudges my ribs with his free hand.

I return the nudge, much harder. "No! You know very well I'm not talking about... that kind of love."

One of his arms is still around me, and the warmth it gives me is different, so different from Prim's hugs or phantom memories of father's embraces. Something about it makes me want to pull closer and feel more, of things I can't even describe. And Gale is just my friend, isn't he? The urge is subtle now, just a pleasant but slightly disconcerting background hum. I can shake it off and ignore it most of the time. But if I couldn't, or if he couldn't with someone else, where would it lead?

The silence stretches again, this time too awkward. I regret having brought it up in the first place. I don't want anything new and awkward to endanger what we have now.

Gale doesn't either, I guess, because he shakes his head and flashes me a grin, familiar and friendly, and tries to ruffle my braided hair.

"Sorry, Catnip, I'm not going to run off and get married. You'll have to put up with me for a bit longer."

I burst out laughing, quietly in case mom and Prim are already trying to sleep, but heartily enough for my tension to dissipate. "I think I can live with that," I say at last.

"You think?"

I roll my eyes and smack his arm. "I know."

He catches my hands in his, probably so that I won't smack him again, and squeezes them lightly. "Me too, you know."

Returning the pressure, I nod and then let my head rest on his shoulder again.

Good.