(I'm sorry, the challenge pretty much fell apart and so did my schedule, but I'll finish this sooner or later.)

II.

Frienducation

Many things Katniss doesn't know, and one important thing she does.

My little fall happened on Saturday morning. After spending most of the weekend sitting and grumbling in my bed, I almost trust myself to make it all the way to school on Monday.

Not like I could learn anything too necessary there. Most of the knowledge that has sustained me and my family for years comes from the plant book my parents have compiled together. And from experience. The Capitol is more interested in keeping us in school for the sake of controlling us and feeding us propaganda than in teaching us anything useful. Perhaps they reckon that if they keep beating their lies into our heads for long enough, we'll forget how to think and fend for ourselves.

I might be interested in learning new things, if education could take me anywhere better. Or if it amounted to more than the approved facts about the tiny sliver of a world that is our district, the labor we can provide for the Capitol, and the bombastic history of Panem that might as well be written in the blood of our ancestors. They won't admit what they have done and keep doing to us, of course, but all the injustices of the past seventy four years, and so many more before the so called Dark Days, are bleeding between the lines.

At least the basic maths, reading and writing comes useful, but the sign above the door of the toilets makes for better reading material than the Treaty of Treason we are supposed to know by heart.

As it is, I'd be better off hunting whenever possible, and stopping by at school just enough not to raise suspicion. I still go every day, though, to keep up appearances and to walk Prim there and back, just to make absolutely sure she arrives safe.

Tables have turned a bit now, with my knee still sore and unsteady. I wrap my arm around her shoulders, in my usual protective gesture, but end up leaning part of my weight on her. Prim handles it better than I feared, and does her best to stand tall. Barely twelve, she is a lot taller and stronger than I was at that age, and I consider that my greatest accomplishment so far.

"You've been walking me to school for years. Now I'll walk you," she says with a light laugh as we set out.

I squeeze her shoulder playfully. "What would I do without you, Little Duck."

The Hawthorne boys catch up with us along the way, starting later but walking faster, and Gale chuckles when he sees us hobbling together. He offers to help out and replace her, but Prim straightens under my heavy arm and indignantly refuses.

"Catnip must be proud of you," he laughs.

"She is," I reassure him with a smile.

The next time I see him, Gale grins and waves at me from the door of our tiny school cafeteria. He's two years above me and has a different schedule, but usually peeks in on his way by. I've come to anticipate that, watching the door like a hawk until I catch a glimpse of his face.

My answering smile fades when I overhear whispers from a nearby table.

"What does he see in her?" a girl whispers. Prettier, richer, better fed than me, I can see that much in her.

"Don't mind them, they are just jealous," whispers Madge.

She's sitting opposite me, with her back to the door, but by now she knows my routine well enough to know where I'd been looking. She's my classmate and my best friend apart from Gale, but doesn't know nearly as much about me as he does. Sometimes, I wonder why she prefers my company to that of her fellow town girls, and whether many of them have come to shun her because of her association with me. I'll have to ask another day, somewhere where they can't overhear us.

"Jealous of what?" I retort. "Of everything we have to do just to survive?"

She rolls her eyes. "You know well enough I didn't mean that."

"We are friends," I snap, ending the discussion before it begins. Luckily, Madge is kind enough not to pry directly, even though she probably thinks we've skirted around this conversation one time too many. I have no idea what would I say anyway – what would I admit to myself, or to someone else. So I'm left with only my own thoughts to nag me.

What does Gale see in me? And what do I see in him?

What does it matter? We are partners, we function better together, and we can take care of our families better when we cooperate. Seeing things is not the point. (However easy on the eyes Gale is, even I can admit as much.) We just find something in our companionship every day, something that keeps us going.

What do other girls see in him, without really knowing him as well as I do?

It's not hard to tell, I guess. Gale is handsome, certainly, strong, skilled, and devoted to his family. Even the town girls whisper about him like they want him. But they don't really know how he smiles at his little sister, how he frowns in concentration when setting a snare, how his eyes light up and how he seems to become even more alive when he slips beyond the fence into the woods.

They don't know how he smiles at me.

He used to hang around with other girls and other friends more, but lately we are spending most of our time outside school together, out in the woods or at the Hob or with our families. By now, I know about pretty much everything important going on in his life, and am fairly sure there's no other significant girl in it. Just me. His best friend.

But if a friend - and that's all I'll ever dare to be, I think - will no longer be enough...

Is he going to pick one of them?

Would one of the town girls who like to stare at him love him enough to do for him what my mother had done for my father? To marry him and leave what passes for a comfortable life in Twelve for the squalor of the Seam? Or would her parents handle it better and welcome him to their better life? Or will he end up with a Seam girl like me? And start his own family with the girl he chooses, the girl who chooses him?

(Haven't we done that already, in our own way?)

I've never asked him about that directly, but from seeing him with his siblings, especially with little Posy, for whom he's the only father figure she's known, it's not hard to guess he'd want that. Much later perhaps, but still.

I wouldn't, and that's where our ways might part.

Where would I be, then? I like to believe I'll take care of myself, and mother and Prim too, for as long as necessary, but with him it's just so much… easier. Better. I've gotten used to it, maybe have mellowed out a bit in the months it took us to build unconditional trust, and the years it took our friendship to deepen and to grow into what it is now.

Could he have something like that with someone else, the same trust, and the same easy companionship? Would someone else be able to make him smile the way I do?

Maybe not, but they could do other things girls whisper about in the bathrooms, sometimes with words I wouldn't repeat in front of Prim or words I couldn't even pronounce right.

Would that matter more?

Hard to tell if I'm being protective or possessive, but I insist I just want him to be happy.

But with how intertwined our lives have become, I can't bring myself to see Gale happy without me, or myself without him.

That would be... unthinkable.

I don't know where that comes from, but I imagine Gale taking some strange girl into his arms and carrying her over the threshold of his house, like men usually do with their new wives, and involuntarily clench my fist.

When I concentrate on the memory, I can almost feel his arms around me as he carried me all the way home from the woods. An oddly pleasant shiver passes through my body.

I fit there just right. That much I've learned for sure.