A/N: Already running behind on the updates, but I'm having fun with this!

One lunch turns into two, one fight turns into three, and somewhere along the way, they become training partners. Soon it becomes normal to spot each other when they're lifting weights and swap tips about their opponents and walk home side by side, hurling insults all the while. Sometimes she looks at him and thinks how strange it is that they get along so well, that they're so alike despite everything.

Other people seem to notice as well. She's gotten used to the constant stares, the way people talk behind their hands whenever she and Cato go to stations together. She got a few pointed comments from the other girls in the locker room during the first couple of days, but after beating up a few and threatening the rest, they've mostly left her alone.

Today, they're at the climbing wall. They're not evenly matched everywhere, but they are here: he's stronger, but she's lighter, and it's always a toss-up as to who reaches the top first.

This time, he slaps the buzzer at the top a split second before she can do the same. Clove scowls over him as he pumps a fist in victory. "Cheater," she calls. "You can't knock me over before we've even started!"

Cato easily scales his way back down and jumps the last couple of feet, then turns to laugh up at her. "It's called 'using your resources'. Try it sometime."

She leaps down and lands on top of him, using him to cushion her fall as she drives him to the ground. "Oh, you're right, it does work!" she says.

He shoves her off his chest and hisses out a sharp curse when the movement makes a popping sound that she can hear from where she's sitting. "You're crazy."

"Probably." She runs through a quick check of her body. He'd pass out laughing if it turned out that her non-Center-sanctioned attack ended up hurting herself. Fortunately, it seems like he's the only injured one. "Do you need to go to med?"

If glares were fire, she'd be burning. "You're not that heavy. I'll be fine."

She shrugs. "If you say so. Well, since you're all right, wanna go to the ropes course?"

Cato props himself up on his elbows and grimaces, jaw set. "Let's go," he bites out through gritted teeth. "Just… help me up, okay?"

Clove grins and pushes herself to her feet, about ready to needle him for admitting weakness when a sudden pain makes her double over. Through a haze, she sees one of the trainers stalk over and hover above her. "If the two of you are quite done with being idiots, go to the med station and get checked out," he says. She could be wrong, but it looks like his lips twitch.

"Yes, sir," they both mutter, not even hesitating. When a trainer tells you to do something, you do it.

He nods once and leaves to correct another trainee's sloppy form, and she looks down at Cato. Her head hurts, but she smiles through it. "Race you there."

She beats him, although it's not much of a fair fight, given that he can barely move. Normally, injuries like theirs would be cause for dismissal from the Center, since they're expensive to treat, but they're the best in their class, so the doctors shake their heads, flood both of them with concoctions of Capitol-grade medicines, and restrict them to a few days of image training only. It's probably for the best.

"You want me to do what?" she snaps within the first thirty seconds of her session.

Sitting across from her is Enobaria, one of the most famous Victors to ever call Two home and Clove's idol since the age of five. The woman is thinner in person than she was in the arena, more brittle, but she carries herself with the kind of unconscious pride that would make Clove back down any other time. "Just smile, Clove. It isn't terribly difficult." Her teeth flash golden as she demonstrates.

Clove thinks of the way Cato's ribs had snapped beneath her weight and summons up her biggest smile. Enobaria takes one look at her and crosses something off the notepad on the table before her. "Not 'sweet', then," she mumbles to herself. She looks back up at Clove. "Do that again."

Clove bites back the instinctive "why" that rises to her lips and instead forces another smile. Enobaria scribbles something else down. "There's a start. We can work with that." She sets her pen down and leans forward. "Tell me about yourself."

Clove gapes for a split second before shaking herself free. "Why does it matter who I am? You're just going to remake me, anyway."

"It's easier for you to play an angle that suits you. I could easily tell you to play the sweet little girl, but the audience can always tell when someone isn't being genuine. You don't have to be exactly who you are on camera, but you do have to be close enough to make it convincing."

That can't have been very hard for you, Clove thinks. Enobaria has every bit the air of quiet menace offscreen as she did in the arena.

"I'm waiting." Enobaria's nails tap on the table. One of the unspoken rules of the Center is that you can ask someone to explain the reasoning behind a demand, but then you have to follow through with it. Clove knows far better than to disobey.

"I…" She starts, fumbles, stops, and starts again. "I've been training at the Center since I was seven." Encouraged by Enobaria's neutral face, she continues. "I've wanted to be here for as long as I can remember. I always knew that- that I wanted to bring honor to my District, and I will, whatever it takes."

Enobaria doesn't react, except to say, "Tell me more."

So she does. She talks about the way she'd forged her mother's signature on the registration papers so that she could join on the very first day she was eligible, how she was top of her class in school before being enrolled full-time at the Center, how she stayed after training for hours on end to learn how to use her size to her advantage.

At the end of it, Enobaria leans back and sighs. "So far, you haven't told me anything that I didn't read in your file. I don't care about your history; we can easily make one up for you. Tell me about you. What's in it for you?"

I want to hurt people. The thought is so immediate, so alien, that she's stunned into silence. They'll never let her volunteer if she admits that. They already think she's unstable; she's stolen and read her file before. She remembers seeing littered among the warnings phrases like "reckless", "overly arrogant", and, in the past couple of months, "codependent". She knows they'll never let the file of their future Victor read "sadistic".

But when it comes to thinking up a lie to say in its place, her mind draws a blank, and after an increasingly long silence, Enobaria tosses her pen aside with a clatter. "I see we won't be getting anywhere useful today. Perhaps you'll be better to work with tomorrow." She gestures sharply toward the door, and Clove quickly pushes back from the table and leaves, telling herself she isn't doing anything at all like fleeing.

"How'd it go?" Cato asks, cracking a smile when she slips into his room at the med station a few minutes later.

She pushes aside the machines connected to him and plops down on the edge of his bed. "Could've gone better."

"What's your angle? I got mine on the first try. Guess I'm just naturally talented."

Clove could seize on that and lead them into yet another round of bantering instead of giving him a straight answer, but she doesn't take the bait. "I don't exactly have one yet."

His grin slips. "What do you mean, you don't have an angle yet? Didn't you have image training today?"

She shrugs. "I guess."

"Well, what happened?" His smile is gone entirely, and he leans forward as far as he can with his various restraints.

Clove chews the inside of her cheek and tastes blood. "I might've refused to cooperate," she finally says in a quiet voice.

"Clove!"

"It wasn't my fault! She asked me weird questions. Why does it even matter why I want to win the Games, anyway?"

He slumps back against the bed. "That's what tripped you up? Saying why you want to win the Games? That's not a hard question!"

"Then what did you say?"

Cato looks incredulous. "That I want to bring home a victory for Two for all that they've done for me. What else?"

She pauses. "You don't want the money or fame or anything?" She's always taken him as the kind of person to want one of those coveted houses in the Village, with all the prestige that entails. Like her father.

"Of course not! If I just wanted the money, I'd be a Peacekeeper. That's a lot safer, plus it's still respectable. But I would only be helping my family as a Peacekeeper. When I win the Games, I'll be helping everyone." He gestures to punctuate his words and then winces, dropping his arms back to his sides.

Clove makes a noncommittal noise. They didn't learn much about the other Districts in school, but she knows that theirs is one of the wealthiest. The people of Two can take care of themselves the same way they taught her to. Still, it's a better reason for wanting to volunteer than anything else she's come up with so far. "I have another image session with Enobaria tomorrow. I'm sure I can think of an answer by then."

"You'd better," Cato says, relaxing into a grin. "Or else they'd kick you out of the Center, and where would that leave me?"

"I'm sure you'd survive," she says dryly, trying to ignore the way her heart pounds at the thought of leaving the Center, the home of her worst memories and her best ones, too.

He shrugs as best he can. "Sure, but would you?"