a/n; I think I have another story I'm supposed to be writing... in the meantime, here's this! Didn't mean to leave out Gale's POV as much as I did, but that's what happened. Short story?! I tried.
I realized that I got their ages wrong nearly a third of the way into this, so I was like, MAYBE NO ONE WILL NOTICE.

.::time's arrow—;

The school created a time system where different ages never converse or interact with one another. Because of that rule, there are staggered intervals for when each class lets out to go home. Rory, being five years Gale's junior, usually arrives home at least an hour before Gale gets out of class, diligently scribbling out answers onto his homework.

The first time Rory isn't home before Gale, Gale doesn't think much of it. Rory is growing, after all. Gale was slightly reckless at his age.

The second time Rory isn't home, it makes Gale uneasy. Hazelle doesn't seem too worried, and it's the only thing that keeps him in the house.

But by the third time, Gale walks around the Seam, then the Hob, then comes back around to the Seam, peeking into all the places he'd sneak over to when he was younger. He makes it down near Katniss' house when he finally sees Rory—and to his immense bafflement, Prim—sitting on a hollow, half-eaten log near the fence.

Gale pauses, then steps back into the shadows between houses, watching for a moment as Rory makes her laugh, Prim's braid falling behind her shoulders. Then too soon, Rory goes to stand while Prim follows. He walks her near her house's steps, and they say goodbye.

Prim enters her house, and Rory turns his head to watch her as she leaves.

Gale half-smiles.

Guess it runs in the family.

"Rory's been walking Prim home," Katniss tells him on a crisp, October morning. Fall's hit the District swiftly, browns and auburns and oranges collectively standing stark against the incumbent clouds.

Gale hasn't let on that he knows of Rory's distraction. He's only done the mandatory teases: What's been taking you so long to get home this past week? Got your eyes on a girl, Rory?

To which Rory flushed deeply and stuttered out the forceful negative. Gale laughed and ruffled his hair.

"I know," Gale answers, busy trying to tie a snare to a high-reaching branch. He's been taking too long of a time with it. He has to stretch his arms to finish the knot, and he can't quite connect the two ends. "I've seen them together a few times."

"Oh," she says, pressing against the tree next to him. "Why didn't you say anything?"

He shrugs, losing a grip on one end of the thread. He curses, then replies, "I didn't think it was a big deal."

"I can climb to that branch if you need help," she says, watching him struggle and going to the nearest branch of the tree, already beginning to climb.

"No, Katniss stop, I got it."

"Doesn't look like it."

"You're gonna get up there, and I'll be finished with it."

"I doubt that."

"If you'd just give me a second—"

She shimmies onto the branch, legs dangling off either side. She swipes the ends away from him, entangling them together in a rough mess. She doesn't hold much finesse in knot-making.

"I gave you enough seconds." She frowns, lopsided and off center. He never looks up to her when they talk, and she's nearly a queen with her height. "Prim didn't tell me anything about it, either. And she tells me everything."

Gale's not exactly sure what answer she wants to hear. "It's natural to keep some privacy to yourself. You don't tell her everything you do."

"She knows enough." Katniss shakes her head. "She only just turned twelve this year, and I guess I'm…" she struggles with her wording, but her posture gives it away.

They've never experienced a Reaping with another family member, and this next one holds more to dread. Worry, horrification, nausea—Gale knew he felt them all, and as hard as Katniss tries to hide it, her face betrays her each time she tries.

"That's natural, too," Gale says, stepping back to give her room to jump. "Don't let her not telling you something bother you so much."

She turns and pushes off, the crackle of leaves softening her landing. "I know, I know," she says, brushing herself off. "It's just…she's Prim."

"Yeah. And he's Rory."

"I…" she purses her lips. "Never mind."

Gale can't keep the amusement out of his voice. "Prim can make friends if she wants to. We're already like a big family, anyway. I'm kind of surprised it didn't happen sooner."

"Yeah," she says eventually. "You're right. Now let's go hunt. We lost a lot of time from your snare."

"What? No, we didn't. That only took a few extra minutes."

"Sure," she says, rolling her eyes. "Come on."

Katniss has a bad feeling the first time she sees Prim and Rory on their porch, knees touching and sitting beside each other.

It's instinctual—a sisterly flare that lights up in her stomach. She knows Prim. Prim is sweet and kind and everyone loves her. She has a larger spectrum of affection than Katniss, and being so open also meant she'd be more prone to emotion, of any kind.

Prim's never had attention from a boy before. Not so directly, or from one her age. And Katniss knew full well what could happen. Anyone with an ounce of heart could fall under Prim's completely unintentional spell, her age aside. Prim's eyes are old, besides, and Rory's grown up into a very mature teen.

But if Rory is anything like his brother… well...

She isn't sure how she feels about it. Prim brushes off Katniss' inquiries and subtle questions, with too deliberate a flair, which slowly prove Katniss' feelings to be valid.

A few years' time will tell the story. For now, Katniss will remain peering suspiciously at them, while Prim's eyes stay wide and innocent and stubbornly taciturn.

And then it happens.

…just, not in the way Katniss would have guessed.

It's about a month after Prim's first Reaping, and Katniss' nerves are the lightest they've been in a while. She's helping cook dinner (a first, if she's honest) when Prim bursts through the front door, stomping over to the dining table and taking a seat with a dramatic huff.

Katniss shares a look with her mom, then makes her way over to the seat across from Prim.

"Prim?" she asks, trying to catch her eye. "Is everything okay?"

Prim crosses her arms, staring defiantly toward the wall. It lasts for a long five seconds.

"No. Everything is not okay," she says, almost a shout, voice heated—which is…very unlike Prim. So unlike Prim, in fact, that Katniss flinches.

"What happened?"

Her anger pinches her face into a frown. She glares.

"Rory tried to kiss me."

Katniss blinks. She has to reign back her amusement quickly before Prim notices. She clears her throat.

"Oh, how...awful," she tries.

"It is awful!" Prim fumes. "He can't just...do that. It'll ruin our friendship. It'll ruin everything. I don't even like him that way."

Katniss attempts to give her a consoling look. Never had she seen Prim so tangled up about something. "Did you tell him that?"

"Yes! Well, I tried," she says, placing her cheek in her palm. It makes her left eye crinkle. "He's too persistent."

Rory, persistent? Last time Katniss checked, Rory was kind of shy, but ultimately very kind. He didn't come off as aggressive, but Katniss can't say she knows him as well as Prim.

"You mean, he won't leave it alone?"

"No. The first time I told him, he was really sad about it. But then the last few times—"

"Wait, you mean you've told him off before?" Katniss splutters.

Prim shrugs lightly. "Yeah. But he didn't try to kiss me, then."

"When?"

Prim's eyes finally find Katniss, before slowly deciding to tell her. "Right before the first Reaping. And then afterward. Then today."

Katniss' face quirks. Three times? Rory was bold, if he's already tried that many times. Or maybe his head was just a little too thick. Or...

Gale better not have had anything to do with this.

"Don't do anything, Katniss," Prim speaks up, looking imploringly at her. "I know that look. And I can handle this myself. I just needed to tell someone."

Look? Katniss had a look? She frowns. She wasn't going to do anything, exactly. Just...ask a few questions, here and there.

"Alright, Prim," she relents before reaching over and touching her arm. "But if you need anything..."

She smiles a little. "I know." She goes to stand, before she stops herself and turns back to Katniss. "Katniss...has Gale ever done anything like that?"

At this, Katniss raises an amused eyebrow. Gale and her did not travel anywhere near that hemisphere, though they were close enough to where it didn't matter.

"Never."

Prim looks thoughtful. "Do you ever think he will?"

"I hope not."

Prim keeps glancing at her for a moment, before she sees something she's satisfied with. She nods, then sighs, and heads outside to groom Lady.

As soon as she can, Katniss slips out of the house before dinner and marches over to the Hawthorne's house. Hazelle answers her knocks with a smile and an immediate invitation to dinner, but Katniss politely declines and asks for Gale.

"Hey, Catnip," he greets her, slipping outside with her. He closes the door behind him. "Is something wrong?"

"What did you tell him?" she hisses, crossing her arms.

His eyebrows shoot up. "What?"

"Rory," she prods out in a huff. "What did you tell him?"

"Tell him?" Gale looks at her confusedly. "What are you talking about?"

"Prim!" she shouts, before lowering her voice. "Prim told me Rory tried to kiss her."

Gale starts to grin before it snags. "Tried?"

"Prim said no," Katniss says, a tinge of pride coloring her tone. Not that she means it to, but she has to give Prim some kind of recognition. She didn't think Prim would stand up for herself so boldly.

Gale's amusement fades. "Really?"

"Yes." Katniss' nose twitches. "So what'd you tell him?"

"Who said I told him anything?"

Katniss aggressively stares at him.

Gale holds up on his end. And then he sighs. "I might have said a few things."

"What did you say?"

"What does that matter?"

"Because," she says, lowering her voice into a sharp whisper and leaning forward, as if Rory could hear them from inside. "He's tried three times."

Gale raises a brow. "Three?"

"Yes!"

Gale stands up a little straighter, lightly smiling. "C'mon, give the kid credit. That takes guts."

"Yeah," Katniss says sarcastically. "Or stupidity."

He glares at her. "Be nice. You don't know what crushes are like."

"Because you have so much experience with those," she scoffs.

His shoulders buckle back. "There's no point in telling you about them when you act the way you do."

Katniss blinks at him. "Crushes are pointless. Which is exactly why I don't care about them."

Gale opens his mouth, but he says nothing. Instead, he opts for looking extremely frustrated.

"So what did you tell him?"

"You want to know because you care?"

"It's Prim." Katniss' fists clench. "You know what? I take it back. It doesn't matter what you told him - just make sure you say something to make him stop. Prim isn't interested in him that way. She says it'll ruin their friendship, and I know that's incredibly important to her. I don't want either of them to lose it just because he keeps believing she'll change her mind."

A wistfulness comes over his features. "You don't know if she'll change her mind."

Katniss frowns at him, shaking her head. "If there's anything alike between me and Prim, its stubbornness. Don't keep his hopes up, alright?"

"I can't keep his hopes down."

She sighs. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah. I know."

She slants her lips as he turns away from her toward the door. "Gale?"

"What?"

"Thanks."

It is inevitable what happens next.

Prim and Rory remain friends, but they don't sit on logs or porches, their knees never bump each other, and Prim comes home alone.

Prim never complains about it, never bursts through the front door in another five minute tantrum, and she never really talks about him. Katniss doesn't think anything wrong with it—just that it's sad how their closeness from before will never be again.

Prim makes other friends, like she was always bound to do. Some are girls and some are boys, but none of the boys give her the kind of attention Rory did. Not yet—but Katniss knows they will, in time. She'll be ready when suitors come knocking at the door, her scowl defined to perfection years ago.

It's only on the day before Prim's second Reaping, their house darkened with the old, year-round tension, when there's a quick rap on their door. They're about to eat dinner, Prim seated first with her warm bowl already before her, Katniss' mom setting down the other two bowls. Katniss volunteers to answer, making her way over to the door.

She has to look down when she opens it.

"Rory?"

"Katniss," he answers in greeting. He almost hesitates under her stare. "Can I see Prim? It'll only be a minute."

She gives him a suspicious look. She nearly asks him why, when Prim comes up behind her. She looks at her sister.

"It's fine, Katniss."

Katniss glances between the two of them, before she slowly turns away to give them privacy. When she turns the corner, she pushes her back against the wall, listening silently.

"Rory..."

"Been a while, huh? Look, I just wanted to give you this, to enjoy before tomorrow."

"But—but this is..."

"Gale isn't in the drawing, anymore. He's giving the other half to Katniss tomorrow, like he always does."

"You don't have to give this to me."

"I know, but I wanted to. For good luck."

Prim is silent for a while.

"I can get you some cheese that I've got ready."

"That's okay, Prim. Save it for your family."

"Rory, wait—"

"I've got to get back. It's an important dinner, tonight."

"But—"

"Goodbye, Prim."

"...bye, Rory."

Katniss slips back into the kitchen, but it is a while before Prim makes her way back to the table. She places the chunk of bread beside her bowl, before thinking better of it and splitting it three ways.

"No, Prim," Katniss says, refusing to take the bread handed to her. "That's yours."

"She's right, darling," her mom says, looking at her thoughtfully. "He gave it to you, not us."

"But..." she starts.

"I'm getting my share tomorrow," Katniss says, adding a smile to counteract Prim's frown.

Prim looks to her mom, then back to Katniss. She finally resigns, and keeps the bread beside her bowl. She only eats it when Katniss and her mom aren't looking.

"That was nice, what you did."

Gale shrugs at her as he lays in the field. "He really liked her. Likes her. He won't ever not like her, you know."

"You're right," she says, tearing out a piece of her bread. It didn't feel right not to let Gale eat any, so she halved her half and made him promise her he'd eat it. "I think Prim misses him. How close they were before."

Gale stares up at the early morning sky. "Rory didn't know any better. Maybe I shouldn't have encouraged him, but I think he would have done the same thing no matter what I said."

Katniss eats the last of her cheese. She looks over at him.

"What did you tell him? You never told me."

Gale rolls up, resting his elbows on his knees. "I think I said something like, if he ever came to care for someone, not to give up on them. He took it too literally. He was only twelve."

"...is he okay, now? Sometimes I wonder about him. I know it's almost been a year, but..."

He laughs at her. "He's fine. They're called crushes for a reason. They suck some of the life out of you for a while, but only a while."

She tilts her head at him. "You never told me about that, either."

"About what?"

"Your experience with crushes."

He breathes out a chuckle. "That doesn't matter. What does matter is that this is your last Reaping day."

She makes a noise. "Oh, right, I'm so excited."

"Just think," he says. "After this, all we'll have to worry about is our siblings."

"It's such a relief off my chest."

"Isn't it, though?"

They both smile at each other, droll and dry, and they use up the rest of their precious moments together in the forest. When Katniss stands to leave, Gale walks with her to the thinner line of the trees.

"I'll wear your favorite dress," she tells him.

He reaches out and grabs her arm. "Hey," he says. She turns around, facing him. "Don't get picked, alright?"

She frowns, brows furrowing. "You've never said that before."

He shrugs. "It's different this year. I'm not gonna be up their with you."

"It is kind of unfortunate."

He looks like he's trying to decide what to say. Then he ends with, "I'll be watching for you."

"You won't be able to miss me."

He watches after her as she turns down her path home.

Before Katniss knows it, Prim turns fourteen. She rivals Katniss' height, just an inch or two shorter now, with her braid near mid-back and shapely curves subtly starting to define.

She's even more dedicated toward helping the sick of Twelve. Their mother's allowed her to begin taking on her own patients, more out of her insistence that she knows enough and is old enough than of her mother's suggestion. Katniss knows if her mother could, she would keep Prim a little girl forever.

Everyone seems to be growing up—not that there were ever concerns in maturity—but there are considerable facial and bodily changes everywhere Katniss looks.

Rory's beginning to sprout like a weed. He's hit a growth spurt, and Katniss has to look up at him, too, much to her chagrin. And with this development, Gale's been taking him out to the forest when he can on those blessed Sundays, teaching him the basics of what he and Katniss do—hunting with the bow, gutting with knives, observing the best areas to set traps, and the like. This happens every other weekend, and though it encroaches on Katniss' time with Gale, she's learned how to adjust. She agreed to helping Rory bargain and haggle at the Hob, showing him what techniques worked on what customers. Admittedly, it was unsettling at first, only seeing Gale once every two weeks, or spending their time with Rory always between them, cringing at his subpar efforts with the bow. Then she made up for it by going to the Hawthorne's for dinner occasionally, if just to see Gale or deliver animal skins for his family. But now that job is evolving into Rory's, and they are starting to slowly wean off their dependency on Katniss' kills.

The first time Hazelle tells her she doesn't have to help them, anymore, Katniss is so shocked by the prospect that she comes back the next day, as if what Hazelle had told her happened in a dream. Hazelle took her offering, though she insisted, again, that she didn't have to deliver three times a week, or two times, or even once. Rory was becoming quite the hunter, and with Gale hunting on Sundays and Rory hunting during the week, Katniss didn't need to carry the burden of worry any longer.

Katniss felt like a fish out of water. "But...I...well, if you start needing any help, I'll..."

Hazelle smiled at her, and it soothed Katniss' nerves, somewhat. "You'll always be the first one we ask, Katniss."

Though Katniss heard the warmth and love from Hazelle loud and clear, she had never started to feel more useless.

Days after Katniss' denial and slight acceptance of the fact, Prim answers a knock at their door, work apron on and looking like a blond, wingless angel. She'd already helped four people that day, two with a horrid case of the flu, one with a cold, and one with a twisted ankle. Katniss' mother was there, too, of course, but mainly instructing and overseeing Prim and her duties. She'd also made soup for the patients, with Katniss' overhauls of animals that she still brought in out of habit. She'd have to cut down on that, though on the upside, the sells at the Hob were going spectacular.

"Rory?" Prim nearly squeaks as she opens the door. "What are you doing—oh, your arm."

"Yeah..." he says, and it almost sounds as if he's frustrated. "I broke it."

Prim begins to examine it, taking his arm in both her hands, before she realizes that this isn't how she normally handles things. She lets go, hurried and blushing, and ushers him inside.

He takes a seat on the patient's table that they've set up for visits. Prim takes out herbs necessary for pain, and old cloths they scrounged up to act as wrappings or tunicates. She lays out the cloth beside him, before she adds water to the herbs and spreads them across the wrap.

"What did you do?" she asks, eying the break. There's a protrusion under the skin of his left forearm. Rory grabs the fingers on his left hand with his right, and he wiggles them as if he can give them the power to do it themselves. When he tries, the movement is very slight.

He looks annoyed at the question. "Fell out of a tree."

"Rory," Prim says, his name becoming a quick reprimand. "What were you doing in a tree? Or in the forest?"

He averts his eyes. "I've been hunting these past few weeks."

Prim stops what she's doing and stares at him. "Hunting?"

"Yeah, Prim, hunting." He gestures back toward the kitchen, where Katniss walks through, listening. "Katniss has been helping me, along with Gale."

Prim turns on her heel, boring her eyes into Katniss. Katniss stops her walk toward the bedroom hallway, nearly backtracking to the kitchen.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Katniss opens and closes her mouth like a fool. She didn't mean to not tell Prim—she'd only mentioned teaching him how to bargain—but her mind was too preoccupied with hunting, and what she was going to do when both her and Gale wouldn't need to rely on each other anymore to worry about what Prim and Rory talked about in their spare time. She wasn't aware Rory hadn't told her about the new, changing situations, anyway.

But Prim's been busy, and when not busy, tired.

"I'm...I thought Rory would have told you..." she opts, finding her voice. "I didn't realize.."

"It's fine," she says, short and clipped, hands going back to work on Rory's wrap. "I should have noticed. All the food you're bringing in..."

Rory watches Prim work for a moment, before he looks down at his arm again. The awkward bulging of his bone doesn't seem to bother him.

"Sorry, Prim. We haven't talked for a while. It's just been..."

"Busy," she finishes. She steps toward him and takes his arm, opening it out straight in front of him. She begins the wrap near his elbow. She doesn't look at his face. "I know. We've all been busy this month."

He winces when she pushes down on the bone, making sure it sets right. Calmly, she says, "The pain will go away quickly. These herbs are very strong. They can't do anything about the bruising, and they can't make the healing rate any faster, but it's the best thing I have."

"Prim..." Rory says.

"Try not to be too reckless with it. Movement of the bone will off put the break, and it'll set wrong. You might not be able to use your forearm right if that happens. I know you won't really listen to me, but you've got to be—"

"Hey," Rory says, placing his other hand on top of hers, halting her work. "Slow down for a second, Prim. It's fine. I'll try my best to listen to you, since you're, what? A doctor now?"

He smiles crookedly at her, and she tries to suppress the one that's breaking onto her face.

"Not even close," she says. "But I'm trying my best."

"You must be doing pretty good," he reassures. He glances down at his wrapped arm, and he flexes his fingers. I already can't feel it."

"Told you it was strong." She turns and grabs a small jar of the herbs she used, and she steps up to him and presses it into his good arm. He takes it, fingers whispering against her arm. "Here. Reapply it to the wrap whenever you start to feel pain. Since it's so potent, use it sparingly. It should last you a while, but if you run out before its healed, just...drop by. And I want you to come back in two weeks, so I can make sure you haven't done anything else to it."

Rory's eyes light on her. "Is that the only reason you want me to come back?"

His smile is cheeky and frivolous, but Prim hesitates with her answer as she blushes as easily as a bruising peach.

"Of course," she says. "Why would I want to see you besides that?"

Though Katniss believes her words to be quite discouraging, Rory's eyes light up even more. "There you are. I was wondering when the less professional Prim would come back."

"Oh, shut up, Rory," she says, rolling her eyes.

"You know it's true. You're just so mean to people when you're not thinking about being so nice."

"You're lucky I decided to be nice to you, today. I could have turned you away, if I wanted," she says, crossing her arms at him.

"Oh, yeah, right," Rory nearly laughs.

"You'll see," she says, even as she grabs one of her old scarves from a cabinet, walking over to him to place his arm in a makeshift sling. "You better prepare yourself for your next visit, in case I decide I don't want to see you."

They both notice their proximity as Prim ties the two ends of the cloth together, hands brushing against his shoulder. But Prim, bless her, ignores it. Rory's smile fades to a frown, and he twists his eyes away from her face.

"I'll wear tanned hides," he says, after a moment. "You know, like armor."

"Good," she says before she backs away. Then she smiles at him, and he swings his arm a little, testing out the sling and the tightness of its knot.

"Am I allowed to take it out of the sling?"

"Not before your two week check up," she says adamantly, crossing her arms.

He objects, "But Prim."

"No buts. You're going to listen to me, and you're going to keep your arm elevated in that sling."

She bores her eyes into him, and Katniss can see it in the way his shoulders sag just slightly, and in the way his eyes turn down a shade. It's by this that Katniss knows he'll going to listen to her.

"We'll see what happens," he answers, but Katniss can hear how it is nothing but an attempt at resistance. And as perceptive as Prim is, she doesn't seem to catch on to Rory's lie.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," she shrugs.

"I would never."

She rolls her eyes one last time, and Rory stands. She shows him to the door.

"See you in two weeks."

"Yeah," he says, looking at her for a moment. "See you."

"I can't get used to this."

It's the following Sunday when Katniss sees Gale again. Their day, though it's been spent hunting, like it always is, has something lazy about it. They hunt, but the urgency for kills has dimmed, if only a bit. Gale's gait is less hunter and more sluggish, but he hides it well. If Katniss hadn't known him for as long as she has, she'd overlook his missteps—like the way he steps down on a dead leaf, scattering a few rabbits in the process, or how he misses the shadowing dart of ground squirrels. Katniss isn't fast enough to hit them before they find their burrows.

Katniss is off her game, too. While she'd be easily aggravated by his mess ups, she finds herself comfortable with merely walking around the forest with him, being near him and letting his dependency rest on her like a shawl. But she's fully aware that this hunting they're doing now is a leisurely past time. Even now, they're only doing it out of rigorous habit. Soon, they might not even find a reason to do it.

"Get used to what?" he asks, looking over to her as they sit on the outlook, taking a much needed break.

"Rory...growing up," she admits. "I don't think I ever thought he'd get old enough to replace me with hunting."

Gale quirks his face at her. "Replace you? What are you talking about?"

"C'mon, Gale, you know what I'm talking about. He's going to get better and better—he's already almost good enough to support your whole family by himself, even with his broken arm." She looks at the grass, tearing off the ends. She can't dare to glance at him with what she's about to say. "And...we're getting older, too. I know you've always wanted to start a family of your own."

He stares at her for a silent moment. "Yeah...you're right."

They sit quietly while Katniss continues to pluck grass.

"Can I ask you something?" he says, and it's in the way he says it that makes her uneasy. She glances at him expectantly.

"I've been thinking. We've depended on each other for years, I've forgotten what it was like before I met you. And—" he says, turning fully to face her. "And we're good together. We've always been good together."

He seems to struggle with the decision to take her hands in his own. He compromises with placing his left on her right, effectively stopping her massacre of grass.

He swallows. "We could become a family, you and I. We could make it work together, just like we always have."

She looks into his eyes, then she glances down to their hands. She had an intuitive feeling, creeping up on her, that knew this was going to happen one day. They belong to one another, after all. They are each others.

"I can't give you what you want," she says.

He stops himself from objecting impulsively, closing his mouth and reorganizing his words. "You never know what'll happen down the road, Katniss. You might start to..."

His hesitation holds a weighty depth. She can't figure out if he was going to say, Love me, or, Want to have a family. Both of them are plausible, but the thing is that she does love him, and probably has for a while. But he wants the love that his parents had, and the love that Katniss' father and mother had, and Katniss knows that kind of artful emotion is not within her to foster.

And what's her love for him if they can't share what they both want? There will always remain a conflict, and compromises can never give way to a decadent happiness. And Gale deserves that.

She slips her hand out from under his. "You know I won't."

"You don't know if you will."

And just like that, it seems, what they've always kept perfectly in line is no longer.

Their eyes linger on each other. Gale dips his head, and he lets his lips fall and linger on her cheek instead. Katniss catches her breath.

"If your mind ever changes..."

He's being too nice to her. She isn't sure he's ever been nicer in their entire partnership. This was supposed to be a huge argument—it was supposed to blow up into something ridiculous, ending with them both stalking away from each other with fiery anger, if only to avoid the unhealthy emotions they would both be wounded by.

But it doesn't.

"I know," she answers, surprised when her voice almost cracks.

They gaze at each other for a second, and Gale is the first one to back away and stand. She follows his lead, before he says, "I'm gonna head home. Rory was able to get the items we needed the other day."

She doesn't need an excuse from him to know when he wants to be alone. The atmosphere is thick enough to be uncomfortable, but she hates that it turned out this way, and how she wants to be close and far away from him at the same time.

"Okay," she answers. "I'm going to finish up here."

"Alright," he says with a pause. Then he turns to leave.

"See you next Sunday?" she says, not able to keep the hope out.

"Rory and I," he says. "See you."

Rory perfunctorily shows up on the day Prim wrangled him to. His sling is in place, new herbs spread across his wrap, and his charmingly crooked smile securely on his lips.

Prim stands in front of him while he sits on the table. She takes the sling off him and unwraps the cloth, examining the still healing break.

"So what's the verdict, Doc? Did I pass?"

She hums a noise. "It isn't as bad as I thought it would be."

"So...still bad?"

Prim looks up at the disappointment in his voice. She looks amused. "Well, it's broken, and broken can't ever be good."

"Right."

"There doesn't seem to be any extra bruising, and the alignment is still there, so that part's good. If you keep it up, it'll heal nicely."

"That's a relief to hear. Do you know how much effort it is to deal with this thing?" he complains, holding up his arm as if she didn't realize what he was talking about.

She smiles. "I know, but just be patient and give it a few more weeks. Once the bone starts to lay out and rebuild, you'll be able to take the sling off."

"How many weeks?"

"About three or four. I'd prefer it if you waited five until doing anything overly aggressive, but—"

"Three it is, then," he interrupts cheekily. "Don't worry, I'll be extra careful."

"Rory."

"Stop being such a mom, Prim," he says, waving her off as he pushes himself to the floor. "Besides, I've got to go."

"Right now?" Prim says, quirking a brow. "I still have to make sure there aren't any extra fractures—"

"Sorry, Prim, but I'm fine," he interrupts, not quite looking at her. "I promised Madeleine I'd take her to the Hob today, and I still have to hunt later."

"Oh," says Prim. "Madeleine, your girlfriend?"

He shrugs. "Not yet, but maybe."

She clasps her hands together, letting them rest on her apron. Rory stands away from her, three feet marking the gap of air between their bodies. Any closer is forbidden and, perhaps, personally manufactured.

"Well, I'll let you go, then. Come back if you need more medicine, and try to take it easy. Remember that you're still healing."

"That won't be a problem."

It's the way he looks at her then, that tells Katniss to fear for Prim just like she fears for her when Effie flicks her nails against the Reaping jar.

"Goodbye, Prim."

Prim does not flinch, and she does not falter, and she is strong and mighty. It's because she's a healer and a fixer, and she has no time to squander on the things that are permanently damaged and ruined.

"Goodbye, Rory."

Katniss knows she'll have to be the exact same way. It isn't the first time she's looked up to her little sister.

Rory closes the door softly behind him, the creak in the usually squeaky door inaudible against the quiet of the now empty room. Prim tidies up and busies herself, and she misses the girl that smiles at Rory when he walks out the door.

Rory begins to pursue Seam girls. Gale pursues Town girls.

Their opposing attractions seem to be too much of a coincidence. If Katniss is bold enough to say, Gale holds a candle for Seam girls, and Rory's always been fonder of the fair haired. But who is Katniss to make such immediate judgments about what they are trying to do? They're testing new waters, and it is probably for the best.

Rory isn't nearly as promiscuous as Gale, but he is profoundly sensual. He loves their lips the way Gale loves their bodies, but the line differentiating them gets progressive in its cloudiness. Rory gets bolder while Gale perfects the art.

Katniss doesn't think anything of it, at first. He's Gale, and he's a man, and he's always been too handsome for his own good. The girls come and go, within a week, within a month. All of them are short-lived, and their hunting days are few and far between as time continuously slithers along. But Gale never mentions that day long passed, surrounded with something like loss with his near-proposal. Katniss follows his lead and never mentions it, either. And things between them, however unlikely and strange, remain as close to the same as it had been before.

There were never any accidental brushes of their arms or legs before, and there are no accidental brushes of their arms or legs, now. It suits Katniss perfectly. What she feared would happen to them never does.

She can't say the same for Rory and Prim. Once his arm healed, that visit to their household was his last. Prim chugs along like she had before, stitching and mending, and Rory is seen with the occasional dark-haired, silver-eyed doll holding his hand, kissing and ravishing.

Katniss predicted right about Prim's suitors. The first one to pester her is righteously deterred with Prim's sweet but commanding dictation. The second takes more force to finally leave her alone, as she continuously battles against his advances for weeks. But finally, when the third one visits her at their house, Prim's hands are covered in a man's blood, and she's nearly ripping her skin off as she tries to clean her nails inside and out. There's something about the timing of that boy, and how when he asks her if she would like to spend time together, her shoulders deflate and it seems to be the last straw. The wind is knocked out of her sails, and she looks at the boy with a type of resignation that physically hurts Katniss.

That's how Prim has her first, unwanted boyfriend.

But with that boyfriend, it awakens another facet in Prim. A kind of power emerges from Prim's soul, something in control and ruling. (Katniss would never call her sister evil, or any word in relation to it). But it is a thicker, darker sweetness that happens within her. She'd been becoming that way ever since she worked her first surgery, but it has evolved much faster with her relationship.

Their first date proves it. The boy, Dean, picks her up one day in the late afternoon. His hair is a burnt blond, short, eyes the brightest green Katniss has ever seen, his face tan and his frame wiry. He seems well enough, but his cheeks remind her of a little boy, and it off-puts Katniss much more than it should. She immediately equates certain features to Gale's, and has to consciously make herself stop. This boy is only fifteen—but she argues with herself again, because when Gale was fifteen, he looked well over twenty, and he hunted, and he was much more than this boy would ever be. But that's harsh, and Katniss halts all her judgments before they get the better of her.

Prim puts her favorite tie at the end of her braid, and she tucks the duck tail in from her shirt in some of her nicest clothes. She meets Dean at the door, and they leave together.

Half-way to the Hob, Dean holds her hand.

And once they finish their meal (which Dean pays for, and he pays for everything else after, and he dotes, and he's unlike what boys have been like toward her before), Prim decides to kiss him. She kisses forcefully and hard, and it is just like anything else she does in her living room with patients. She can govern the magnitude of their pain, their relief, and she can control each step of the mending process she deems fit.

But she's yet to learn that skin is an easier medium than hearts, and leading boys along is as easy as tearing a stitch.

She uses Dean that day, partly because she regrets her decisions before, and partly because Rory is present in the Hob that day, playing with a girl with the thickest black hair and eyelashes Twelve has yet produced.

While the girl falls against his arm, Rory witnesses the entire thing.

It's not hard to question when, a few weeks after their first, perfect date, Dean is brokenly confused over why Prim tells him it's over. His questions are mean in their beseeching, asking her inquiry after inquiry until Prim doesn't have it in her to answer anymore of them. She slams the door when it's over, and she runs to her room and cries and cries, not because she's sad about it, but because she's hurt someone terribly, and she dug the hole that put the hurt there.

Prim learns the hard way how rough emotions can be, and all Katniss can do is hug her and console her, and pray that Dean's passionately surfaced pain was very unlike what she did to Gale.

She knows better than to be so naive.

How Gale finds time to pursue girls is something Katniss wonders about after a while. She doesn't dare ask him, but she's amused, or at least, makes herself amused, at the fact that it's so easy for him.

Then the day comes when Gale doesn't show up on a Sunday, and Katniss brushes it off because this was going to happen one day. But it happens again the next Sunday, and the next, and she's found herself walking over to the Hawthorne's house several times over the three weeks of his absence. She stops in front of their house, and each time she can't find it in her to knock on the door and ask for him.

Because, though they still belong to each other, they don't belong together.

She can be angry at him all she wants, and she can be hurt, too, but she's not going to force him to be with her when she knows full well he would be if he wanted to be.

He shows up on the fourth Sunday, and by that time, Katniss has found out enough about his side projects than she cares to know.

The girl's name is Claire, and she works with her father in the equipment shop in the center of town. The coal miners go there a lot to trade in supplies or have axes fixed for a better price than in the shops at the Hob. Gale probably met her there. She can see it in her mind's eye—him asking charmingly for her to sharpen is pickaxe—You mean to tell me a girl like you knows how to fix a miner's gear?

She'd quip something just as witty, go about her chore, and ask for nothing in return, just so he'd come back. It's the game people seem to play, as if they do it to tell a story about it later.

But when Gale shows up, he says nothing of it—no sorries, no excuses, no reasons why he wasn't there. Katniss doesn't mention any of it. She knows enough. She even knows what Claire looks like, from her straight brunette hair, to her bright, blue eyes, to her pale skin, to the slight smattering of rosacea always on her cheeks. She knows this is more serious than his nightly soirees and his week long playthings. He's never been absent longer than a week for someone else, and Katniss can tell that this time is different.

They end up doing what they do best. They hunt, and they hardly say a word.

Katniss starts to slowly get sick of their Sundays. They aren't what they used to be, and looking at Gale hurts her more than she ever thought it would.

So she doesn't show up, one day. She almost goes, just because it is so out of the routine. But when she starts her route to the forest, she has to double back at the urgency she feels. She locks herself in her house, and she wills herself to stay there, and to not feel bad.

She does stay, and she remains feeling bad—and she's not sure why she's so surprised when Gale doesn't show up knocking on her door and demanding where she was.

All the bad mixes itself into a recipe of horror.

"Rory Hawthorne."

Sixteen—they are sixteen. And all it takes is one slip of paper.

He walks up to the stage, and his back remains straight and tall, and his legs contain no tremor. Rory is a brave one, and he's a strong one, but his heart is large and crippling.

Katniss looks for Prim, searches and searches until she finds her blond head. She runs for her, but she's too late.

Prim screams. "Rory!" She shouts and she yells and she pushes her way through the masses of girls around her. "Rory! No, you can't take him! You can't!"

The Peacekeepers grab a hold of her before she gets too close to the stage. They manage her as if she's a wild animal.

"Let him go! Please, just..."

Katniss hurries up to them and slips her away from their grasp forcefully, baring her teeth at them, then pressing her lips on Prim's ear. "Shh, Prim, it's okay, it'll be okay, it'll be fine."

Prim squirms in her arms for a moment, then she turns and buries her face into Katniss' neck. Katniss glances up to see the look on Rory's face as he watches Prim's back shake, the terrible look of devastation creeping into his eyes, before he shelters it away as quick as it came. He is stone and steel.

And it's then. Like a bolt of lightning.

Rory has his brother in him. She isn't sure why she's never seen it before.

She pulls Prim along with her, back down the aisle and toward the crowd of families that watch on the outskirts. Her eyes search the masses, but she can't truly distinguish one face from the other—her eyes are dry and free of tears, but all she can concentrate on is Prim and how she's trying valiantly to keep it together. The tears do not help her image. The crowd keeps staring, eyes full of pity and sorrow and relief. Katniss hates them. Their families and their friends weren't picked, and nearly all of them will never know the dark hopelessness that conquers the spirit with one glance to the stage.

Effite titters on, brushing off such a spectacle, and the eyes on Prim move away.

Eventually, Hazelle comes over and wraps Prim into her. Vick and Posy hold hands beside them, Vick's face somber and shadowed, Posy's wide in childlike understanding as she stares at Rory. Their mom places a hand on Prim's shoulder, behind her. Gale appears by Katniss' side, and she nearly wraps into him, too. Instead, they share a look that contains many things.

The procession moves slowly, and sooner or later, Katniss and Prim are with the Hawthornes, waiting for their turn in the Justice Building to say a final goodbye.

When the Hawthorne's come out, it's their turn. Prim looks at Katniss and stops her.

"You go in first. I want to go in alone."

Katniss obeys without question. When she walks into the dreary room, Rory is already standing, and she trudges up to him and clasps her hands on his shoulders. She looks him in the eye and her words cut the air.

"Remember what we taught you."

"I know."

"Remember the herbs and plants I showed you. I know you probably didn't pay much attention..."

"I did."

"Find high ground and water. Don't let the other contenders intimidate you."

"I'll do my best," he says, and his dark sarcasm shines through. It gives her a little more hope.

"You will. Your family needs you. And if you don't come back for Prim, I swear I'll punch your face in so hard, you'll never breathe through your nose again."

A smile, sad and blunt, almost shows on his face, and she can't bear to see it. She forces him into a hug. Then she shoves him away. "You'll be fine," she says. She marches to the door a moment before the Peacekeepers stick their heads in to call her out.

"Katniss—is—"

"Yes."

Prim barrels through as soon as Katniss walks underneath the door frame. The door closes behind her, and it gives them a world all to their own.

The rest of the Hawthorne family is gone, too ready to be rid of the place, but Gale is there, waiting for her—she wills the surprise and gladness away when she sees him. They fall into step with each other, taking a seat near the entrance.

"He's going to make it."

Gale stares at the wall in front of them. "What makes you think so?"

His voice is rough in her ears. She pushes one of her fingers into his heart.

"He's like you."

Her words wake him up. He looks at her, and she thinks he might begin to love her again.

"He's supposed to be. We're brothers."

"You would do whatever it took to come back to your family." She glances to the side, looking at the door and willing the Peacekeepers to vanish. "And so will he."

They both watch as Prim is dragged out of the room. She jerks her arm away from the Peacekeeper holding her, glaring at him, and then she makes her way to where they're sitting.

"He'll think of us, yeah, and he'll want to save Vick and Posy from the Reaping bowl," Gale says into her ear. "But do you know who he'll dream about?"

The confidence in Katniss doesn't wane like she believed it would.

They watched as Rory got a nine in his combat showing, and as he stood by his fellow district member (Katniss closed her ear to the girl's name) when they brought him out in some ridiculous mining outfit, the girl's attire a dark, swirling dress that reminded Katniss of coals and earth.

But Rory did know how to play an audience—while still being true. When Caesar Flickerman asks what Rory's driving force is, he looks right into the camera and says, "I told someone I'd come back for her. So I am."

He might as well have been looking at any girl in any district, as Rory's eyes met all of Panem's through the screen. There was a collective sigh from the audience behind the camera, and Caesar smiled brightly with his bleached enamel, putting a hand over his heart.

"Is this a hinting of true love, I hear?"

At that, Rory shrugged. He glanced into the camera, then he turned his eyes to the audience behind it. "It won't be if I die."

Caesar stumbled for a moment, and there was a hush over the audience. And then he smiled and carried the conversation elsewhere, away from the words death and love.

Prim left the room after that, and she sat outside on a log, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them with her arms. She looked so much like a little girl that Katniss had to forcibly keep herself inside.

After a time, when they are watching all of the contenders flash back on screen, their names big and bold underneath their pictures, Katniss glances up at Gale. He's sitting right beside her, but he's far away. His left hand is entwined with Claire's, on the other side of him, and the trio hasn't said a word during the entire running of the Games.

Katniss has a mind to just go and sit beside Prim, and be silent next to her, instead. It would be ten times better company, and ten times less uncomfortable. But she doesn't want to leave him, even when he doesn't need her. She's always been a fool about these things. Is there a play-by-play rundown of the etiquette she's supposed to enforce toward her best friend when his brother is about to fight for his life and he's taken by someone else? Is Claire supposed to comfort him? Can she, without ruining the delicate balance between the three?

It makes her head hurt, and it makes her weary, compounded with everything else. She's never cared about other people's feelings, and she could care less about Claire's. But she's important to Gale, and what kind of friend would she be if she didn't try to make nice?

She stands once the projector shuts off. She glances down at them and their closeness.

"I'm going to bed," she says. "Can you leave?"

Claire blinks her big eyes at her blunt words. Gale glares at her, but she's used to those.

She's a bad friend. She's too busy hating everything.

"I kissed him."

They're curled up on their bed, with the moon hanging low in the black sky. Katniss glances down at Prim's blonde head. It shines white under the light of the moon coming in through their small window

"I kissed him," she says again. "Before he left, in the Justice Building. Not that I should've. I didn't know what else to do."

Katniss rubs her hand across Prim's back. She sounds regretful.

"It seems to have helped him."

"I just did it to make sure it would. I didn't...mean it."

Katniss has a hard time believing that. Yet, with all that's going on, Katniss would understand if Prim stripped the tendrils of doubt out of the truths and made them falsities. Sooner or later, however, she'd have to see them for what they were, and shed light on her denials.

"You gave him a kindness, then."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if Rory dies, he'll die believing that you might have loved him."

"But it's a lie. I don't love him."

Katniss shrugs behind her. "Then you'll have to tell him when he comes back."

Prim shifts, pushing her head deeper into her pillow. She doesn't answer, and they make their slow journey to sleep.

Katniss takes up braiding Prim's hair when they watch Rory dodge death. It gives Katniss something to concentrate on besides the commentary on Rory's terrible gash in his shoulder, or the Beast of Two as they call him, with his axe as sharp and disastrous as a boulder crashing on top of your skull. If Rory hadn't raced through the Cornucopia, he might've saved himself from the swift blade that cut through him. He did manage to scrounge up fresh water, a dagger, nuts and seeds, and a small vile of iodine. He'd made his way through the forests and rocky slopes to a lake, and he'd climbed trees to sleep in. He ripped and tied a part of his suit on his cut, impeding the continuous rush of blood. He'd made no alliances or friends, he'd set up snare traps with long weeds and vines, he didn't intentionally kill anyone yet, but he was now in the top thirteen—

Boom. It shattered through in the distance, marking twelve kids killed in the first twelve hours.

"That might be a record!" exclaims a commentator, excitedly. "This group was eager to drop like flies, weren't they?"

"Ah, yes they were, Charlotte. What silly little fools, going up against that Beast and that cute little Pepper girl. She's something with that scimitar, isn't she?"

Katniss stares at all the strands of Prim's hair. There's gold and brown and yellow, even specks of auburn in it, when the outside sun hits it just right. A dozen strands, a dozen on a dozen, multiplied by a hundred. She tried counting earlier, but the booms kept interrupting her.

All the while, Prim remains deathly still, the small movement of her shoulders rising the only indication that she's still alive.

Gale's stubborn, and keeps making his presence there, in Katniss' house, bringing his family and cramming into the living area. He brings Claire, too, as if she's family.

Maybe she's starting to become family. It makes Katniss sick. Sicker and sicker. Gale knows Katniss hates it. She knows he knows, he has to, but he gives no indication he cares, and it's a punch in the gut made only worse when Rory is chased by some disgusting Capitolite named Slippery Sid, running through thickets of bush and ragweed and ash trees. Running and running and running. Sid doesn't have an arrow, but he's got a knife, and he has it out like he's ready to throw it, but the land rises up and down with a mind of its own, making craters and tumbling lines of rock. It'll be a bad move if he throws it and misses, as he'll lose it to the widening cracks in the earth.

He never does. His foot lands in a wrong spot, and then he's up in the air, caught by one of Rory's traps he set. In the jerk of it, Sid drops his knife. And then the tree tilts, and the ground crumbles into a vast, black pit. The tree loses traction in the soft soil, and it falls, down, down, and Sid isn't slippery enough to untangle his foot before he's eaten by earth.

The cannon booms, and the earth folds back together neatly and orderly. Rory almost smiles, then grimaces, then he slides down and sits, they got his heart rate up to two hundred and four! Is that possible? I thought it would burst!

Rory curls up by the nearest tree, eyes glued to the ground like it's a monster about to strike. Then he turns to the side and retches.

Prim turned her head into Katniss for a time, but she became brave, and watched, and watched as Rory nearly fell into the earth once, and then twice, slipping on a patch of moss. Prim falls back into her, relieved, when Rory sits, and she looks close enough to retching when Rory does. Katniss rubs her back, the ten-minute tension carving a deeper, permanent place inside her muscles. The room heaves in a collective sigh.

Rory makes her confidence rise every time he does something stupid like that and survives. Katniss glances to Gale, and as if he can feel her gaze, he glances back to her. He looks like she must feel, but it's comforting. She manages a small smile.

For the first time in a long while, he smiles back.

They see it before it happens. The last three contestants consist of the Beast, Pepper, and Rory.

The Beast is tall on-screen, hair shaggy and coming down to his shoulders in a mop of sweat, naturally sandy in color, but now a ruddy, dun shade with the old, dried blood mixed in. His thighs resemble aged tree trunks, muscle amassed like bricks, corded with numerous veins wrapping around his calves to his shoulder. There is not an ounce of fat on him, nothing to cushion the blows that he befalls to the half-dozen contestants he's chopped in two. He doesn't smile, and he doesn't seem to like talking with his voice. He uses his eyes, so blue they're almost purple, to convey what he wants—they're so hollow and shallow that it's easy to read him. His actions speak enough.

Pepper is his opposite. She's from One, her hair the darkest shade of autumn auburn. She has them in braids, eyes slanted and sharp. She's got freckles that pop out in the sun, and she runs swiftly, reminding Katniss of a snake with the way she slides through the grasses and hills. She is quick where the Beast is slow and ponderous, swinging her scimitars three times as fast as the Beast can swing his axe once. She feints and zips around like a bee, and she cackles when she finds something amusing. She buzzes around the Beast for fun, cackling and cartwheeling around him just to watch him struggle to catch her.

"C'mon you gigantic oaf. Is that all you can do with your big, bad axe?" She puts a hand on her hip, mocking him with her facial expressions as much as she does with sounds. Katniss had believed them friends before so many died. "How embarrassing. I guess I should just kill you now, and deal with that other kid—"

"Pepper!"

She turns around, eyes finding Rory who is at least fifteen yards away from her. He's holding a bow, with the arrow cocked back. She laughs.

"You expect me to believe you can kill someone? You haven't killed anyone in this whole thing by yourself." Rory holds his stance. She cackles. "What a little bitch. He can't even do it now. Where'd your balls go, Hawthorne? Did they disappear into that cunt you're growing?"

Rory's eyes flicker behind her while she cackles on.

"Beast," she says. "Why don't we—"

She turns into the Beast's axe, him cutting horizontal while she twirls. Her head flies twenty feet into the grasses of the field. Her braids unravel like ribbons by the force, the stream of blood following after them. In the silence she leaves, the Beast breathes in satisfaction.

Then he looks at Rory, and it is just them. The trees surround them on the left and the right, leaving an open meadow spanning the two square miles that the Capitol landscape artists left them.

Rory's conjured up five arrows for his last stand. He's not an expert with the bow, and Katniss would never give him any accolades for his style with it. But right now, there is an eerie calm that surrounds him as he holds it, determination layered in his back. Beast hefts up the axe on his shoulder and starts his lumbering walk through the middle of the field. The grass bends underfoot, leaving behind the trail he makes.

Rory waits for him. The first arrow he releases is premature. The Beast is far away enough to cock his head in a dodge. The second, he catches. The third hits him in the knee, the fresh crack of the cap thundering across the open space. The Beast stops his walk, not ten feet away. The fourth arrow hesitates as it forces its way into the Beast's throwing shoulder, the thick muscle penetrated deep enough to damage him. And when Rory knocks back his last arrow, the Beast raises his axe and releases it forward. It somersaults through the air. It all happens in a second.

They fall.

Haymitch stumbles onto the stage, as drunk as he's ever been. His arm is wrapped around Rory's right shoulder, gingerly resting on his left. Rory looks to be bearing most of the drunk's weight, somewhat struggling with his left arm in a sling - and the sling is strangely familiar. Its colors are dulled, and the fabric is thinned with threads hanging off the seams. It takes Katniss several moments to realize it's Prim's old scarf.

Effie's there, and she announces Twelve's first winner in years, with as much flourish as she can. She kisses Rory's cheek while District Twelve claps for him, most still in wonder, others staring at his arm in disbelief.

Gale's face reveals a soft smile as he looks up to his brother. The rest of the Hawthornes are bound tightly with the Everdeens, and Claire is, for once, with her real family. Katniss has her hands on Prim's shoulders, who's just an inch shorter now, and she gives them a squeeze before letting go.

Soon, Rory descends the steps, and the crowd begins to disperse. He makes his way over to them, quickly enveloped by Hazelle. He stumbles a bit when Posy and Vick pounce on him, and his face changes when Gale hugs him.

"You did good," Gale tells him, ruffling his hair. "Better than I could have done."

Rory gestures with his left arm. It was nearly severed by the Beast's ax, cutting through his shoulder almost to his armpit. Yet somehow, it holds together with Capitol magic. "At least you would have gotten out of the way."

"It doesn't matter," Katniss says, coming up to him. He seems older the closer she gets to him. "You came back in one piece."

"Barely," he says. His eyes fall on Prim. She fidgets, stopping when she finally notices what's on his arm.

The rest get the hint and step away from them. Katniss stays close enough to hear.

He doesn't go up to hug her. "I know what you did," he tells her.

She gapes. "What?"

"Your kiss," he says. "It was all I thought about for days. And in the arena, I swear I saw your face in the trees. But it only seemed to matter there. I thought, well, what happens when I get out of here? When I was alive, would you still kiss me? Or was it only because I was a friend sent to die? So I know," he says, palming her cheek. "You didn't care while I was here, and you knew my feelings. I had hoped, but I figured, what better incentive to come back besides family?"

Prim's face is a mixture of all kinds of things. "I didn't mean...I just...I'm sorry."

"Don't cry, Prim. It's okay. I get it."

"Rory."

"Just say the word, and I'll never bother you about this again, okay? We can forget, and we'll never talk about it."

"I can't forget."

"It'll fade, then."

"You kept the...the..." Prim cracks. "You're so stupid."

She pulls him down by his neck and kisses him. Rory reacts immediately, and moves his hand to the back of her head. He keeps her right where she is.

Katniss smiles, and she looks to Gale.

"That was a long time in coming, wasn't it?" he says.

"Years," she agrees. "She kissed him in the Justice Building, you know."

"I had a feeling." He looks over to her, and his face changes. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?" she says, still smiling.

"I've...been thinking a long time about this, and I'm..." he hesitates for a moment. "I'm going to ask for Claire's hand today."

Katniss' smile drops. "Hand? As in, marriage?"

"I asked her dad, and he gave me permission. He even made this for me. Or, for us," he says, pulling out the silver band from his pocket. Katniss stares at it.

"Wow," she says.

"I just...I wanted to tell you."

Katniss nods, and she keeps nodding, and she can't stop.

"I'm glad. That you wanted to tell me."

"You're my best friend, you know."

She looks away from his face to the ring, but it doesn't help. "You're going to be happy."

"I think we will be."

"You'll have a family."

"Yeah, we will."

A silence befalls them.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she says. "Go get her."

He stares at her, and she turns herself to steel so he won't see.

"You have to know that I...this isn't because I..."

She nods and nods and nods like she knows what he's trying to say.

"You need to go ask her."

He steps forward and kisses her on the forehead. Then he turns his heel, and he is gone.

They set a date for the next month.

Marriages aren't grand here in Twelve, but they're grand enough with the toasting and the fire, and the tight-fisted lessening their hold for the newlyweds, some even coming and bearing housewarming gifts.

Katniss has too much time for herself. She dwells on what their wedding will be like, how pretty Claire will be, how handsome Gale will be, how they'll be so perfect for each other, and how their eyes will light as they toss the bread into the flames.

Maybe a marriage wouldn't be so bad, she'll think on some days. It's just a symbol for others to watch. It only has meaning if you give it meaning. She has a mind to think that her and Gale have been married for so long, sharing meals and stories and opinions, splitting a piece of bread themselves once a year for six years. All that was missing was a fire.

She imagines replacing Claire, sometimes, playing out the scenes of a union and what it might be like. She could share a kiss with him. She could share touches and sidelong glances. She could share what they've always shared, and it suddenly doesn't sound nightmarish or horrific or repulsive, as it did years ago. Even weeks ago.

She'll watch the interaction Prim and Rory have, during the days between her thoughts. They look so happy and content. Rory's gregariousness and Prim's steadfastness make for a balanced harmony, and she wonders what her and Gale looked like walking around together, at their age.

What she fears the most, she's come to realize, is that it won't be the same. Kind of like it's been these past months. They will never go back to how free they were in the forest, climbing trees and chasing game. There was nothing they couldn't do in that world. Now, she can't remember the last thing they truly shared between themselves. As old as they are now, it's childish of her to daydream of both past and future, imagining what would have happened if she accepted his offer that day in the forest. It would have kept him beside her. Now there is no obligation. He's older and she's older, and they've never been young. She feels orphaned, anyway. What will life be like without him? Will it be as empty as these past days, with him tethered to Claire and no one else?

Perhaps it's too late. She finds herself outside the Hawthorne's new house regardless of her inner objections. Why are you here? her thoughts trample on repeat. What do you think you can do, with the marriage two days away?

Rory answers the door, and he grins when he sees her. His arm is still in a sling, but he doesn't to mind as much as he did those few years ago. "Katniss. Prim said she invited you. You're just in time. We started dinner not five minutes ago."

Her stomach lurches wretchedly at the thought of food. "Actually, I wanted to talk to Gale." She pauses. "This is a bad time. I'll come back later."

She's almost able to flee, but Rory stops her before she gets too far.

"You know Gale doesn't care," he says, placing a hand on her shoulder like he can't trust that she'll stay. "Give me a second to get him."

"No, this was a bad idea," she tells him. Bad, bad idea. "Enjoy your dinner."

"I know what it's like," he says, speaking up once she steps off their porch. "Well, not exactly this way, but I know."

She turns around and looks up at him. "I appreciate it, but you don't have to console me, Rory."

He shrugs. "Prim was going to talk to you about this tomorrow. Since you're here, I can give the abridged version."

She sighs. Prim had been giving her questionable looks, of late. She'd tell her sweet things, too, but Katniss imagined she was being so optimistic about Gale's wedding because she was still utterly content with Rory. "I'll be fine, Rory."

"We all wanted it to be you and Gale. It took a while for my mom to get on board with Claire. She's nice enough, but she isn't you. Did he never ask?"

She feels a slight tremble in her feet. "Once."

Rory looks astonished. "Once? That's it?"

"He respected what I wanted."

"That doesn't sound like him."

She almost smiles. "We've known each other a long time."

"Stay here," he commands, mind made up. "He'll want to see you."

He leaves before she can answer. The trail home beckons her to follow it, but she finds herself sitting on the top step of the porch. She hears the door open moments later, and he takes a seat beside her. His knee knocks against her own.

"Catnip," he says.

"Sorry I interrupted dinner."

He leans back on his palms, shaking his head. "I'm glad you're here."

Her tongue feels fat and clumsy in her mouth, and her hands grab at a loose thread at the bottom of her shirt. "Are you excited for the wedding ceremony?"

He eyes her. "I don't know."

"Is Claire?"

"She's more animated than I am. It's easier for her to feel things. To smile. She's lively."

"Do you love her?" She asks, surprising herself. If Gale's surprised he doesn't show it. Instead, he only looks over her.

"Why is it that you stopped by? It wasn't to play twenty questions."

"Maybe it was."

"You're a terrible liar."

His demeanor makes her bristle, as simple as flint and rock. She's suddenly very angry.

"Why didn't you keep asking me?"

"Asking you what?"

"To be your family."

He stares at her and gazes at her. It's almost stony, but she realizes it's because he's hiding away from her. He leans forward.

"Because thinking about you trapped in something you hated made me sick. Thinking that I'd be the reason made it worse. Can you imagine? We'd begin to despise each other, wouldn't we?" he looks away. "I didn't want us to come to that."

"I couldn't hate you."

He softens. "You don't know that, Catnip."

"You don't know, either."

"Too late now, isn't it?"

Their knees bump again. The contact lingers. She reaches and traps his face in her hands, and she presses her lips against his, soft and close-lipped. His lips are chapped and worn, and he moves slowly along with her, following her lead.

"I had to know," she says, settling away from him. "I had to kiss you, just once."

"Just once?"

"I have to go," she says, beginning to panic, but it takes her a long time to get up. He grasps her forearm.

"If I didn't ask you to marry me, would you still be mine?"

"Gale, Claire loves - "

"I've known her six months," he says. "I've known you seven years."

They stare at each other. This is the reason she came here in the first place. "I'd still be yours," she whispers.

He wraps her into him, and she claws at his shoulders.

"I've missed you," he says.

Her mouth goes dry at his words. "Is...Claire..."

"I broke it off a week ago."

She breaks away from him, jolting. "What?"

He eyes her cautiously, though his arms are still around her loosely as he shifts his weight. "I wanted to be...I wanted it to be something that it wasn't, so badly," he says. "Forcing it to be that made it all worse."

She stares, then her face twists into an ugly, lopsided grimace. She hits him hard in the shoulder twice before he catches her hand. She nearly starts with her left, but it finds the juncture of his shoulder and his neck, and her fingers feel the beating of his heart underneath his skin.

"You didn't tell me that. I thought you really loved her. After everything..."

"I wanted to," he answers, then shrugs. "I wanted a lot of things that she couldn't give me. And with you living here. Well, it wouldn't be easy seeing you passing by every day, knowing you were so close. Maybe if I lived far away from here, Claire and I would work like it should've."

Her stomach twists and blisters and claws at his words. "You're supposed to have a family, Gale."

He doesn't take long to answer her, and she suddenly suspects him of having thought about this for a good length of time.

"I already have one," he says as he gazes at her, brushing her cheek with his fingertips.

She bites her lip to keep the tears at bay. She thinks back on the month just passed, the tumultuous feelings she had and is still having. They tangled her up into a wretched mess, but it awakened a clarity in her, of herself, that she's never quite grasped a hold of before. She believed she was aware of everything there was to know years ago, yet she unconsciously shoved all the difficulties away with such force that she crippled her ability to see without bending the truth. Denial, she thinks, as her mind replays Prim kissing Rory after the Games, for all to see, fighting her tears, and then later, when she gently took his arm and told him she'd try to heal the scar tissue the best she could.

Perhaps her and Prim aren't so different.

Gale's palm is warm, and the warmth expands to her neck. This, her mind speaks. This is what I want.

She kisses him, mouth bereft of experience or knowledge, but it opens under the insistence of his, his tongue brushing hers and touching her teeth while she finds blind courage with the feeling, exploring his own.

They break off after a while, managing to stay near the vicinity of the stairs on the porch. When she catches most of her breath, she says, "I really didn't like her."

"I would never have guessed." His voice is tinged with sarcasm, but then he says,"Sorry I didn't tell you sooner, about the wedding."

"Why didn't you?"

"I guess..." He starts. He doesn't struggle with his words. "I needed to know what you felt, so I could know if you would ever come to me by yourself." He grins. "Not that I wouldn't have been dogging your heels afterward, but..."

"I should be so angry at you right now," she says in answer. Then she turns and kisses him again. She'll kiss him tomorrow, too, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Maybe in the future, she'll even ask him to marry her, and they'll share bread in the woods and toss the rest into a hearth inside a home by themselves, blazing with a crackling fire that consumes them.

It doesn't sound so bad, when she truly thinks about it. It doesn't sound bad at all.