20 names had come and gone.
District One, Two and Four had taken up nearly half of the tribute pool, being the districts holding the most victors.
The rest were scattered through the others. Even regular victors looked weak and powerless compared to a career victor.
She feels a shift, and Katniss looks to see Prim curl down on the sofa next to her. She returns her eyes to focus on her still hands.
Prim brings an arm around Katniss and holds her, and Katniss leans into her slightly as the Capitol Seal flashes on the screen to alert the next drawing of Victors.
She stiffens and holds her breath.
President Snow reaches into the large glass bowl containing the names of every living Victor, and his lean fingers wrap around a slip of paper.
"Finnick Odair, District Four, Victor of the 65th Hunger Games." Snows malicious voice reads.
Katniss let's out a shaky breath, and Prim reaches up and rubs small circles into her back.
"It's almost over. Just three more names and-"
"It could still be us." Katniss whispers.
Prim pulls her down and Katniss' head rests on her shoulder.
Caesar Flickerman and his band of commentators are cut off with the Capitol Seal and President Snows presence on screen.
"I can't do this anymore, Prim." Katniss whispers into her shoulder.
"Johanna Mason, District Seven, Victor of the 71st Hunger Games." Echoes the television.
"I can't." Katniss says.
"Yes you can. You're so strong, Katniss. Don't let this get above you."
"It's going to be me, Prim. This is payback for everything. He's going to put me back-"
"Don't speak like that." Prim cuts off Katniss' rambling with a harsh whisper and continues to run her hand through her sisters hair.
She hears the anthem play in the background but doesn't bother to look.
"Woof, an old man from District 8, I think." Prim comments offhandedly as if the name was unimportant.
The house is silent apart from the muddled voices echoing from the television. Prim sits idly next to her now that she's returned her attention back towards the screen.
Her mother is not to be seen. She had vacated her chair a mere twenty minutes into the ordeal, the situation too much for her to bear.
"So now we take you back for the final time, to President Snow, to reveal to us the final tribute for this third Quarter Quell." Caesar Flickerman quips.
This is it, they're sending me back to my death. She repeats, almost as a mantra in her head.
The anthem plays, and Snow appears before them again. Katniss closes her eyes, wishing as though the whole trauma would wash away as a nightmare would.
"Peeta Mellark, District Twelve, One Victor of the 74th Hunger Games."
"We have to bring him home, Haymitch. He has a chance, we have to help him." Katniss pleads.
He leans back in the old, ragged rocking chair, creaking it along the exposed wooden floors where carpet once lay.
"And what do you suppose we do, sweetheart?" He says, waving his bottle of white liquor towards the window, the contents swishing loudly and spilling out. "I can't volunteer for him. You can't use your little love charade to push the people into rooting for him anymore than they already are. Call me a small thinker but I'm all out of ideas."
She curls her legs up under her on the dusty old recliner that Haymitch had in the corner of the room. She rests her face in her calloused hands.
"Where is he, anyway?" Haymitch mutters.
"Held up in his house."
He sighs, and tosses the now empty bottle over his shoulder. "Twenty three other people are going though this exact situation, Sweetheart. Most of them I've known for a long while now." He says, rubbing a hand over his face.
"So? How does that help us?" She asks. "I don't care about any of them." Katniss quips.
"I do." He snaps, anger seething in his words. "You think it's going to be easy for me to watch my friends murder each other for something that we caused? You ever stop and ask how any one else is coping with this?" He stands and leans against his windowsill, head hanging low between his shoulders. "I'd hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you're not the only one having a hard time around here."
A bird rustles in a tree outside the window, Catching Katniss' eyes.
"I never picked you to care so much about anyone," she says, her eyes following the bird, "Up until now I always figured you only cared where your next drink was coming from."
"I got you out of that arena, didn't I?"
Her eyes leave the bird.
Haymitch lets out a sour laugh, reaching for an unopened bottle of brown liquor. "Yes, the bottle is my greatest vice." he mutters, tearing the seal.
"Something you might have noticed by now sweetheart. The alcohol, morphling, drugs, pick your poison," He turns to look at her, clutching the dark bottle in his hands. "They only numb the pain. It's temporary, a surface level solution. It always finds a way to get you. The more you play this game, the worse it gets."
He turns to face the window, taking a swig of the dark liquor. "If it hasn't caught you yet, sweetheart, savour every moment until it does."
"Train him? Really? How would you train him, Katniss? What could you even teach him that would help him fare against those monsters?" Gale bites as he squats to adjust a snare.
"I don't know. Survival skills. Teach him how to hunt. I figure we could bring him out here and-"
"We?" Gale says, looking up at her. "Maybe you haven't noticed, being held up in your mansion all day, but I barely have time anymore to feed my family."
"Gale, we've talked about me supporting your family before and-"
Never one to be caught out on his pride, Gale continues as if she had never began her statement.
"And now you're asking me to give up time that I don't have, to help teach things that you know perfectly well enough to show yourself?"
Katniss chewed on her lip and looked absently off through the trees.
"When did you think we would find time to do this, anyway?"
"Like today, Sundays." She mutters.
Gale lets out a sour laugh. "So you did expect me to give up my only day off from the mines to come and train your boyfriend."
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Whatever, Katniss." Gale mumbles, returning to his snares.
It gets to her. Usually his words just fly over her, like they always did when they used to banter on hunting trips. But he never calls her Katniss over his chosen pet name for her, except for when his whole mood consists of a defeated anger.
"Look, Gale, we've talked about this before."
"No, we haven't." Gale snaps. "You know why? Because I have been down, slaving away my life in those mines nearly every day for six weeks. Do you know how hard that is for me? To be in there with no sunlight, cramped and paranoid that the whole thing could come down on top of me at any moment?" He stands and turns to look at her, rising to the point where he almost towers over her. "Do you know I haven't spoken to Posy in four days? Because I'm awake to early and I come home too late, and then I have to come out here every Sunday, before the sunrise, just so I can try to put a little more food on her plate than before."
"Gale-"
"Don't you say anything about help. I don't want part in anything that those people are doing." He lets out a heavy breath, the moisture visible in the crips winter air. "I see you two on television being paraded around like puppets. I figured that it would go back to normal once you came home."
Katniss meets his eyes, keeping her face hard and hiding emotion.
"I was out here every Sunday, just waiting for you to come. I thought you would show up straight away, and we would get back to the way it used to be. But you didn't. I didn't see you for six weeks. And then you come out here this morning, and I think for a moment, maybe things will finally start to go back to normal. And the first thing you come out and ask me is to help train the baker boy?"
"He has a name, Gale." Katniss seethes.
"That doesn't matter to me. I don't have the time to help him. I don't owe him anything." He says, turning his back and walking towards a clearing in the trees.
"He saved my life." She snaps.
He stops in his path and turns around. "The only thing he's done is put you and your family in danger." He growls.
"He saved my life, Gale. And now I need to save his." She yells.
"Save him how? Teaching him how to tie a few knots in the meadow? That will surely save him from a group of vicious murderers."
"If it will help him live and come home, that's all that matters." She snaps
"He's going to die in that arena, Katniss!" He yells.
The sound of her hand slapping across his cheek echoes across the clearing.
He inhales sharply, his hand coming up to cover the area that was already turning a flame red from the bitter chill.
"You know, a long time ago you told me that you would do anything to help your family."
His face returns to its hardened state, his steely eyes meeting hers.
"Are we not family, anymore?"
"I don't know what we are anymore." He mutters.
She pursed her lips and looks to his stone figure, standing just out before a snow coated tree clump.
"I can't do this by myself. I need your help, Gale. I need you."
His body goes rigid as he turns and walks deeper into the woods.
Her knuckles rap against the thick wooden door as a warning. She knows the door will be unlocked, but she knocks anyway.
She pushes through and the winter chill follows quickly, so she closes it and leans up against the frame.
"Peeta?" She calls, walking through the open arch walkway to his sitting room. The hearth of the fireplace is coated in ash and a few burning logs slowly dying out.
"Peeta?" Her voice echoes through the house.
She walks through the hallways and to the back end of the house. Their houses are identical, so she takes to the window that she knows looks out into the yard and the garden, and she stands there and looks as the light snow begins to fall when she notices Peeta walking around to the side of the house.
She runs out the back door and follows his tracks in the snow, stopping when he sees him sanding next to a pile of logs. Dressed in a shirt and thick woollen pants only, he raises an axe above his head and brings it down with great force so that it splits a log clean in half.
"Peeta," She calls when he finishes splitting a few logs, caught up in watching the taut muscles in his arms and back move through the tight fitting shirt.
He twists his neck to look at her over his shoulder, his brow coated in sweat and his breath heavy in the crisp morning air.
"Hey." He says, turning just as quickly to continue to chop the pieces of wood.
"Aren't you cold?" Katniss asks, walking closer to watch the scene more carefully, but still staying behind him to avoid pieces of wood flying at her.
He stops again, breathing sharp and resting his forearms on the handle of the axe.
"Not really. I guess swinging the axe keeps me warm. Gets the blood running and warms you from the inside. I don't know, my Father would say things like that all the time." He breathes.
She cracks a small smile, "What are you doing, anyway?" She asks.
"Splitting logs. For the fire." He says, swinging the axe down again.
"Don't you have heating?" She asks, stepping to the side when a piece of wood comes sliding her way.
"Yeah, but I'd rather not use it. It's too artificial. Burning the wood feels more natural, gives better heat."
It's true, she thinks. Memories of sitting around the makeshift hearth in her old home in the Seam, and comparing them to the readily available, often heavy scented, air heating of her house in the Victors Village, it's really a second bet compared to a log fire.
"Could you not order loose cuts of wood? It's not safe to be out in weather like this for a long time dressed like that. You'll catch your death."
"I would rather split it myself," He breathes, kicking the split wood towards the pile he was starting to build. "Besides, It gives me something to do. Let's me get rid of anger and stress and all that."
She steps closer. "What are you stressed about?" She asks, but immediately scolds herself at her insensitive question when she sees his face fall. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"It's fine." He mutters. "There's no real point in avoiding it anymore, anyway."
She speaks up again a few moments later, hoping to ease some of the tension after her last comment. "Don't you bake if you feel stressed?"
He chuckles. "Usually, yes. But I kind of ran out of supplies."
She smiles.
"Anyway, Haymitch said it's always good to let out stress and anger now and then. Like how he is always smashing glass bottles against his walls."
She laughs.
"But really, if anything, I guess it's good for me too, keeps my strength up. It'll be good for the quell." He sighs.
Her heart hurts at the mention of the quell.
She reaches down and gathers a few pieces of stray wood that Peeta couldn't fit on the pile in his arms.
"What are you doing?" He asks, motioning to the split logs in her arm.
"Helping you?" She questions.
He gives her a sad smile. "I don't need any help."
"That's actually what I came here to talk about." She says, walking into his sitting room.
"About what?" He asks, tossing the loose cuts of wood into the hearth.
She sighs. "I was talking to Haymitch the other night. After the card reading. And he got drunk and I was babysitting him and he got emotional talking about the quell and how he was angry and-"
"Just tell me what it is, Katniss." He says.
"We want to help you. Haymitch and I came up with the idea of training you until the quell starts."
He closes his eyes and leans against an armrest of a nearby sofa.
"Training?" He asks.
"Survival skills, how to hunt, anything that will help you, we want."
He chews his lip. "Who's we?"
"Me, Haymitch, maybe Madge, Prim, my Mother, Gale." She says.
His eyebrows raise. "You convinced Gale?"
She shrugs. "It took a while to get through to him."
He raises to his feet and turns to face her.
"Why training?" He asks.
She gives a confused look. "What do you mean?"
"Why do you want to spend all this time training me?"
"Isn't it obvious? So you can come back to us."
He chuckles. "You really think I can come home?"
Her heart squeezes again. "Peeta, please don't do this again."
"I'm just being realistic, Katniss." He sighs.
"No, you're being stupid."
"Think about it Katniss. In the last games, I only survived because of you. Because you helped me get though."
"Then let me help you again." She says.
"It's different. I never had a chance in a normal circumstance. But with all these experienced killers? I couldn't even kill a rabbit in the games."
He sits with a pained look on his face. "Face it, it's pointless wasting all this time on training for a lost cause."
She wants to spill all her thoughts at that one moment. But they get caught in her throat. So she swallows and ignores how her stomach pains at the saddened look of his face.
"You're a stupid man, sometimes, Peeta." She whispers. "Almost as stubborn as me."
He cracks a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"The morning two days from now, we will come and wake you for training." She says, standing to walk towards the door.
"Why?" He asks, before she leaves.
"So you can come back to me." She says.
"Peeta, wake up."
Haymitch stands over the boy, looking down on him with crossed arms.
"He's not waking, let's just leave." He grumbles, turning to walk out of the bedroom.
"I'll do it." She snaps, tired of Haymitch's futile attemps of waking Peeta.
She pushed past the man and perches on the edge of his bedspread, leaning close to run her hand through his tousled hair. Her urge to lock him away and protect him from the world returns at the touch.
"Peeta, wake up." She whispers in his ear.
He stirs under her.
She shoots Haymitch a smug grin. "Figures." He says, leaning up against the door.
"Go back to sleep." Peeta mumbles, reaching up and grabbing Katniss' waist, pulling her down to lay beside him.
She gives a startled gasp as she falls and thumps on the mattress, causing Peeta to rouse from his sleep.
He stares at her with heavy eyes across the bed before he brings a confused look around.
"Am I still dreaming?" He asks, confused.
She feels the blood creep to her cheeks, so she stands and averts the question.
"Training starts today. So get dressed."
He sits up, rolling his shoulders, causing the blanket and sheets to fall off him. He turns to look out the window nearest his bedside.
"It's not even sun up yet. I don't wake this early for the bakery." He groans.
"We can't waste the light. Better to be there when it starts rather than waste it." Haymitch says.
"You couldn't have let me sleep for another hour at the least?"
"Get dressed, we're waiting downstairs." Haymitch turns and goes to leave the room. "Live for the daylight, boy. You can sleep when you're dead."
"Won't be long now." Peeta mumbles.
Katniss, ears alert as ever, picks up on the snide comment and shoots him a scowl.
"Sorry." He says sheepishly as she walks out of the room.
She is met with the aroma of hot grain cooking on the stove when she enters the kitchen.
Gale sits at the table, leaning over a bowl.
"Ready?" She asks.
He mumbles in response.
Haymitch leans against as cabinet, sipping from a tea cup that he blatantly poured liquor from a flask into before, when Peeta walks down the stairs, dressed.
"Right, he's here, where's everyone else." Haymitch mumbles, reaching to grab a pen from his ear under his beanie.
"Taking notes?" Katniss asks.
"Let me handle everything."
Peeta slouches against table and grabs a bowl of hot grain for his own.
"OK, let's make sure everyone's here." Haymitch says, scrawling over a blank sheet of drawing paper. "Sweetheart?"
"Present." She mumbles.
"Boy?"
Peeta raises his arm, mouth too full of food to call.
"Other boy?"
Gale gives Haymitch a deadly stare. Haymitch laughs.
"Blondie?" He calls.
"Here!" Says Prim, rushing in from the other room.
"Other blondie?"
"Here." Madge says, walking into the room behind Prim.
"And finally, lucky me." Haymitch grovels.
"Why is Madge here." Gale says.
"She has knowledge and books that will help with training." Haymitch replies.
Gale stays silent again.
"Alright, everyone's here. Everyone move into the other room." Haymitch says, pushing through the arch walkway.
They all move and take a seat in front of the television screen, switched on and pulled to the centre of the room.
"Let's get straight to it, shall we?" Haymitch offers. He clicks a button in his hand and the screen flashes to life with a photo of one of the Career Victors, Brutus.
"Almost half of this years' tribute pool is made up of Career Victors" he says, clicking to the next photo, one of the older Tributes from District 4.
"All of them highly skilled. Trained to their peaks. Aggressive. And angry." He clicks to a Woman named Enobaria, one of the strongest and favourites to win amongst the Capitol crowds.
"They often go unmatched for speed, strength, and agility amongst the rest, so don't count out working in muscle and reflex exercises while we train." He clicks through a few more suspect tributes. "Blondie, write that down?" He asks, shooting a look at Prim.
"Already got it." She waves off.
Haymitch nods and turns back to the screen. "But there is one key thing they lack." He clicks to a video of a career pack from an old games, struggling to keep pace during running, constantly stopping for water and air.
"Stamina." He says.
"What's that, exactly?" Prim asks.
"To be able to keep at something for a long period of time without tiring." Madge offers.
"Exactly." Haymitch points. "These careers are trained to go and do their job quick, not over long periods of time. Do you ever see them run? No, they always walk to save their strength. They can't last a run for a half hour before fainting." He says.
"So what does that mean for me?" Peeta asks.
Haymitch glares. "It means, the first order of agenda is stamina."
Peeta stares blankly at the screen.
"Gale." Haymitch nods.
"Let's go." He says, motioning at Katniss before heading toward the door.
She stands and motions for Peeta to follow.
"What are we doing?" He asks.
"Running." Katniss says, making her way out the front door.
When the three have left the room, Haymitch walks to where Prim and Madge are seated.
"OK, we need to look at these books, see what we can find. Anything on foods, plants, health, strength and fitness we can use." He says.
Madge nods and reaches for one of the books on top of the pile, handing one to each Haymitch and Prim.
"So, how long do they run for? I want to keep them on a schedule."
Haymitch stares out the window. "See how long they last today. Then tomorrow, add an extra quarter hour into the total time."
"And the same thing the days after?" She says, writing on her note sheets.
"Perfect." He says.
"You know, you're pretty good at this mentoring thing when you're not drunk." Prim says, not taking her eyes off her page as she writes. Madge laughs from the opposite end of the table.
"And you're pretty wise for a twelve year old." He quips.
She smiles at him.
"Anything important you see in the books, take notes. If I'm being forced to do this want to do this seriously." He grumbles.
"And when do you think Peeta will stop relenting and take this seriously?" Madge asks, her pencils gliding across her note page.
He takes a sip from his flask and grabs a book, settling down in a chair to read. "As soon as he realises that poor sweetheart is counting on him coming back alive with his life and her own life."