Note: I've changed my PenName from carrieabanner to Allium Banner. Read my profile for more details as to why. Thanks! Enjoy!

And this story goes out to Solaryllis for all the Hawthorne family "love."

Gale POV

I'm currently standing in front of Katniss' front door in the Victor's Village and strongly wishing that I wasn't so nervous, since my body likes to sweat when I'm nervous, and I don't want to repel Katniss before I even get the chance to talk to her.

I really wanted to stop by and say hi when she returned yesterday, but she was busy moving, talking to reporters, and going to her big 'Welcome Back' banquet, plus I think it was better to let her get settled in before I add more stress to her life, which I am starting to realize Madge was right about. I mean if I just lost somebody important to me and then this random person I only some-what know appeared and wanted to be friends with me, then I might get a little stressed out. I remember talking to my mom once about death and losing someone, I don't remember why we were talking about it, but just that we were, and she told me that most people who lose someone don't feel like adding someone new into their life, at least not for a while, but then I remember her also saying that during times of stress and loss that it's actually better to have friends and family around, so that's why I'm here at Katniss' front door. I know she probably won't want to be friends with me right now, but I know that I can help her feel better. What she needs right now is a friend to comfort her…or whatever I am, and it's that thought and my determination to see her that finally gets my arm to clench into a fist and bang on the Everdeens' door.

After standing there and waiting for what feels like an hour, but is actually two minutes, I decide to come back another day and start to head home, when the door opens and I come face to face with an adorable little blonde girl who reminds me of Posy, but who I recognize as Katniss' little sister. As we stare at each other, I can tell that she doesn't know what to say to this stranger at her door, so I decide to speak first.

"Ummm…Hi, I'm Gale."

"Gale?"

"Yeah, my family owns the bakery." When I say this a huge smile appears on her face and I know I've broken the ice.

"Hi Gale, my name is Prim. Do you like it there?"

"Where?"

"The bakery. I would love spending all day with beautiful cakes and cookies, although I think you should put more decorations on them, like flowers!"

"Oh, we've tried. Nobody in my family is artistic enough, but I think my little sister will grow up to be the cookie decorator when she gets older; she already likes to draw."

"How old is she?"

"Six."

"That's cute."

"How old are you?"

"I'm twelve!"

"Hey, you're only one year younger than my brother Rory, he's thirteen."

"Does he kind of look like you?"

"Yeah, a bit I suppose."

"I think I've seen him at school. Oh, I'm sorry…" she blushes and then continues, "I always get into conversations easily. It annoys my sister sometimes. So, what can I do for you?"

"Oh, ummm…Can I talk to your sister?"

"Katniss?"

"Yeah, why? Do you have another one?" Prim giggles at this.

"No, just Katniss," then her eyes turn sad and she finishes by saying, "but she hasn't been up to anything lately…Do you think you could get her to come out of her room?"

"I'm hoping so."

At this Prim's smile returns and she turns to go into her house, "I'll be right back!"

Prim doesn't close the door behind her, so I see her mom stop her as she starts to go up the stairs to Katniss' room. "Where are you going in a hurry Prim?"

"To tell Katniss she has a guest!" Mrs. Everdeen's eyes turn to see me at the door and she sighs.

"The Baker's boy, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, I'm sorry, but Katniss isn't taking any visitors at the moment."

"But mom! He thinks he can cheer her up!" Prim interjects. "Then maybe she'll come out and play!"

This doesn't seem to change Mrs. Everdeen's mind, so she maneuvers around Prim to get to the door, says good-bye to me and gently closes it.

So much for helping Katniss.

How am I supposed to cheer her up if I'm not allowed to even see her? That's when I notice the sturdy vines growing up the side of their house, but I shake my head. I'm not so desperate that I would scale their house and pop into Katniss' room. What would I even say when I get in? "Hi, I'm Gale. Please don't hurt me for breaking into your house. I really just want to help you get over your dead boyfriend." Oh yeah, that'd go over quite well. Besides, if her mom doesn't think she's up for company then it's probably best that I don't see her…well at least that's what I'm telling myself.

After about ten minutes I finally make it home, and my little brother Vick is at the front counter sitting on a stool when I enter.

"Gale. Where have you been?"

"Out."

"We've been really busy today, so mom and dad want your help in the back. Don't you always work on Sundays anyways?" I look around and notice that the lobby is empty, yeah, real busy.

"Yeah, there was just something I needed to do first. I already talked to dad about being late."

"Oh…did you visit Madge?"

"What? No. Why would you think that?"

"Rory says you like her. He told me that you visited her yesterday to tell her you want to marry her." Oh the imagination of a ten year old. I'm starting to think that he got this information from Posy, not Rory…although giving Vick possibly embarrassing false information about me is definitely something Rory would do. Good thing it's not embarrassing though because I don't like Madge. Ha, take that Rory.

When I break from my mental thoughts I notice that Vick is staring at me like I grew antennae. "What?"

"Why are you standing there? Mom and Dad need you in the kitchen."

"Oh, yeah, going." Why does Vick always have to question me? Maybe because he's the smart one, even though I'm older; sometimes it gets old being set straight all the time by a kid eight years younger than me.

When I enter through the door into the back kitchen I almost trip and fall on the flour covered floor. What happened in here?

"Ummm…Vick said you needed my help?"

"Oh, Gale honey, good thing you're here," says my mom, "Ebbin Frostling and Gina Goldstring are getting married tomorrow and we still need to bake their cake, frost it, make four dozen cookies, frost them, and then make four loaves of bread for their guests and then a loaf of special toasting bread. Can you please start on the toasting bread?" Ah, so that's how we're busy. My family loves weddings, not because we're ever invited to any, but because they're good business for us. We're raking in the dough with this Frostling wedding…quite literally.

"Sure. Hey, where's Rory and Posy?" I start to gather the ingredients for our special recipe toasting bread, while I wait for my mom to reply, except she's concentrating on frosting the cake, so my dad answers for her.

"Rory just went to go buy some flowers from the Flower Shop for the cake and will be back soon, and we got Mrs. Erwin to allow Posy to play with her daughter Valley for the day so that we can concentrate on all this food we need to make."

The Erwins own the hardware and construction store, and since all Mrs. Erwin can do while her boys and husband go do construction jobs around Town is watch over the store, we're able to get her to watch Posy a lot for us when the bakery gets really busy. It helps that she has a daughter only two years older than Posy, and that almost nobody can resist Posy's cuteness. I learned that the hard way.

"Hey big bro! Finally decided to stop kissing Madge and come join us?" Uh, and Rory wonders why I cheer when he's gone. I turn to my parents to see if they'll back me up on this, but my mom's pretending to be concentrating very hard on the cookie she's decorating and I can tell my dad's trying really hard to hold in a laugh. Great; looks like I'm on my own to deal with the little pain in my rear end. There's one thing for certain I will not do though, and that's give him any kind of satisfaction, so I decide to hit him where it hurts.

"At least I've kissed a girl."

I look up from my dough to see his reaction and I can tell he's struggling to glare at me and think of a good comeback at the same time.

Then he gets one and I'm slightly afraid because he's got a determined look on his face. "Well at least I'm not the one getting yelled at by the Mayor's daughter and left alone on her door step!"

That got me. Dang. How did he know about that? "What? Are you my stalker now?"

"Nah, I just saw Madge at the flower shop and all I had to do was ask her how your conversation with her on Thursday went and she spilled everything. Wow, you really pissed her off."

"Rory!"

"Sorry, mom…I meant 'made her very angry.'"

"What did you do to make her so mad, Gale?" Why does my dad always assume it's my fault?

"What makes you think it was me and not Madge?"

"Because all my sons will always be gentlemen, so I don't care who started the mess, you're the one to blame and the one who will fix it because I taught you to treat women correctly. That goes for all my boys." He gives Rory the 'that means you too' look.

"What about Posy?" Rory questions because he's obviously too dumb to figure it out on his own.

"Well, I don't want to think about her and boys yet, but I do know that if she ever comes home crying I'm blaming the boy, and Hazelle honey, you should probably restrain me because I can't say what I might do to any boy that hurts my little girl."

Great, so Posy gets protected and we get blamed? No wonder mom always calls dad romantic; it's because he's whipped by every female on this planet.

At this point I turn back to my bread, maybe if I act like I'm really interested in making my bread they'll drop this whole conversation because I, personally, have had enough 'Gale teasing time' for one day.

That's when, just as Rory is about to open his big mouth again, I hear the best sound ever, the bell ringing from the front door to signal that we have a customer. "Vick might need some help up front. I'll go help him and come back. I'm done with the bread anyways. Will you stick it in the oven Rory?" I shove the tray of dough in his hands, grab a cloth to dry my hands on and start heading towards the door that leads to the front, "Thanks bro."

When I enter the lobby I automatically start my usual great of "Hi, how are you? What can we get you today?" before I notice that there's laughing going on. I turn to Vick and notice him smiling wide, like he just did some amazing thing and he's proud of himself for it, then I turn to see who our laughing visitor is and immediately freeze. At first my mind thinks Madge, and "Oh crap, I just walked into a huge trap," but then I notice that the girl is much shorter than Madge, since her head barely comes to above the table.

"Prim? What are you doing here?" I say in a little harsher tone than I intended because I'm in such shock at seeing Katniss' sister here.

"Oh, I'm sorry; should I not have come to visit here?" She starts to look sad, like she's hurt that she offended us, which she didn't, in fact, I'm thinking she's my savior right now, especially if I introduce her to Rory.

"No! Of course not, sorry it sounded like that at first. I'm just a little surprised to see you here."

"Well…" this is when she starts leaning back and forth on the balls of her feet with her hands behind her back, "I usually spend my Sundays with Katniss, but she is so hurt right now. I really hope she starts feeling better soon. I don't like seeing her like this. Anyways, she doesn't want to see anybody, not even me, so I was wondering if I could spend the evening here, or are you busy?"

"We are, but we can always use an extra set of hands, and I can introduce you to Rory. He's in the back." Finally, I might get some work done now that Rory will be concentrating on Prim instead of me. Just hopefully he won't do anything stupid that might make her hate our family because that would really hurt my chances with Katniss.

"I can come into the back and help bake?"

"If you want to; Madge Undersee does it every so often. I don't want you to feel like we're taking your labor for free though," because that's exactly what we're doing, "I'm sure my dad could give you some cookies when you leave though."

"Oh that's fine. I've always wanted to see the bakery kitchen! Are you making any cakes today?"

"Actually, yes, for a wedding."

"I like drawing sometimes…perhaps I could help with decorating it?"

"It's kind of an important job, and you can't get rid of mess ups easily, but I'm sure my mom would let you help her. Follow me to the back." We start walking to the kitchen when I remember Vick. "Oh, Vick, you ok up here by yourself?"

"Yes. I think I might go grab my math homework soon and start on it." If we weren't all doomed to work in the bakery when we're older, I'm sure that boy would go places just from his dedication to learning. I, on the other hand, have never done a day of homework in my life. My future job's set for me, so why should I spend my time learning stuff that won't help me with it, except for maybe teaching me fractions so I can measure ingredients correctly.

In the kitchen everybody's busy again, each person doing their own job.

"Hey everyone, I want you to meet Prim Everdeen."

"My full name is Primrose."

"Nice to meet you darling," says my mom in her sweet voice, which I think starts to make Prim feel more comfortable, "and this is my husband Pheelo, and this is one of our other sons, Rory. I think you might be around the same age. How old are you Prim?"

"Twelve. Rory is one year older than me." Once she says this it's no surprise that Rory isn't as interested in kneading his bread as he was a second ago.

"How'd you know that?" Rory asks her, I bet he's hoping she's his stalker or something. He gets a kick out of obsessed girls like that; strange boy.

"Gale told me."

"You talk to Gale?" The look he gives me is either saying 'Why didn't you tell me you knew Primrose Everdeen?' or 'What are you doing spending your time with kids my age?'

"Yes, my real location this morning was at the Everdeen house, not Madge's, and I've got proof now so take that!"

Prim looks at me like she's waiting for me to explain, and then asks, "Why is it a bad thing that you were at Madge's house?"

"I wasn't." I don't want to loose my temper at this girl, but if she keeps pushing me like this I may not be able to hold it in.

"I know because you were at mine, so why is the question bothering you then?"

"Because Gale likes Madge."

"I do not Rory!"

"Now, Gale, there's no reason to get angry." What does my mom know about getting angry? She never gets angry, so I have to have double the anger to fulfill the necessary anger level in this house.

"Uh! Well, Prim came to help in the bakery, so now you'll still have eight arms. I'm leaving." Before they even have the chance to stop me or even just say, "ok," I'm storming out the front lobby door.

So what if I have feelings for Madge? It's none of my family's business. Wait. I don't have feelings for Madge, so it can't be anybody's business. I like Katniss. She is the one I'm chasing after right now, so what if Madge is my friend and I eat lunch with her sometimes? That doesn't mean I have to go out with her. So what if she's nice, doesn't talk to me differently just because I'm popular, can set me straight when I'm being stupid, and is really beautiful? That doesn't mean I like her…does it?

Haha. I got the idea to end in a stream of Gale thought and just had to do it. There was no Madge in this chapter, at least not physically but she was mentioned a lot, because I wanted to show more of how the Hawthornes live their lives in the bakery.

Also I'm sorry it took long to write this. I started writing it pretty soon after chapter 1, but it just took me forever. I love writing this story, but it's hard for me sometimes.

But…please review and tell me what you thought!