Effie had discovered that young girls who sat dejectedly in the corner of your flat weren't a great thing to have. Generally, she was great at talking to people, she thought. Well, they usually smiled a lot when she spoke, and that was a definitely good thing.

Katniss didn't seem to smile at all. Effie was becoming increasingly certain that her face was simply incapable of it.

"Hello!" she had started as she left work. Katniss had sat silently in Hela's office for most of the day as Effie ran around catering to all of her bosses most ridiculous whims. Hela took her away at one point to have a chat with her in private, leaving Effie with nothing to do for almost an hour. It was confusing to Effie how a person could chat with someone who refused to speak. Katniss was still silent now. Her greeting was simple enough to answer, Effie thought. A hello back would have been perfectly acceptable. But Katniss didn't reply.

"Er, alright. I'm Effie. You probably already know that, with Hela screaming it at me all day." She laughed a high giggle, rocking to one side in an extreme display of amusement. Hopefully that would encourage Katniss to laugh with her.

"Hello," Katniss had said.

Effie blinked into the road as she quickly hopped across it. Perhaps Katniss existed a few moments in the past, she thought, words only reaching her several seconds after they had been spoken. Something in the back of her mind murmured that this was kind of a stupid idea.

Still, she said "Hello, Katniss," with a determined joy in her voice. In the moment, Effie had liked to think that the happiness was just strained enough that Katniss would be alerted to how terribly rude she was being.

Katniss grunted.

Effie sighed dramatically. "You know, it's rude to ignore people."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Maybe you should try answering me."

Katniss stared at the floor. "Yes? What do you want to talk about?"

Effie did not miss the odd viciousness of Katniss's tone, but she chose to ignore it. "Well, how about you start by telling me about yourself, as we're going to be living together?" Gosh, that was a scary thought. Effie had lived alone for almost all of her adult life, and now she had a young girl, definitely no more than fourteen, living with her. Wow.

"I live – lived, I guess – in District Twelve. Fifteen. No job. Mother…sister. Anything else you need to know?"

"No, that's great! I've worked in District Twelve before. It was…um, dusty. Nice, I mean! But-"

"It isn't nice," Katniss muttered, somewhat bitterly, Effie thought.

"Oh." Effie bit on her lip.

Effie fell silent, and a few moments later noticed Katniss staring at her with bored, questioning look.

"I'm sorry!" she said, remembering that she was supposed to be making an effort here. "You just give off this kind of aura of misery, and I think it might be contagious. Now I feel bad, too."

"An…aura of misery?" Katniss asked, looking faintly disgusted.

Maybe that hadn't been the best thing to say. "I mean," Effie began to rectify, "It's like, I give off a really positive feeling, my friends say. See, I just make people happy when I'm around. And I think that you do the same, just you make them sad instead. That isn't a bad thing! It could be really effective if you ever wanted to give a talk on war or anything super serious like that!"

Katniss looked downright revolted at this point.

"Um…" Effie said.

Katniss speeded up a little, continuing across a road instead of turning the corner to Effie's flat. Effie had to grab her by the arm, and was quickly swatted away.

"I- uh…" Effie began again. Make conversation, just say something conversational.

Katniss was trailing a little behind now, but Effie could still see her faintly from the very corner of her eye.

Effie continued to mumble isolated syllables, searching for small talk to make. Or any kind of talk really.

Katniss continued walking hurriedly.

"Do you like spaghetti?" Effie almost shouted.

"Huh?" Katniss asked. She seemed to have lost interest in what Effie was doing.

"I…have lots and lots of spaghetti! I bought it for me and a friend, but it turned out she hates spaghetti, so now I just have spaghetti!" The word spaghetti had started to sound strange.

Katniss was looking around at her, and Effie's fists were clenched tightly in fierce hope for a positive reaction from her new…assistant, she supposed? Honestly, she had no idea on earth what she was supposed to do with this girl, as unbelievably uncooperative and unhelpful and unfriendly and rude as she was.

There were few times when Effie had been as thankful as when she saw slight excitement on Katniss's face. She almost flung an arm into the air in delight, and fought the desire to screech 'Progress!' at the sky. "I'll eat whatever you give me," Katniss said, dulling Effie's excitement only a little. It was the most positive thing she had heard Katniss say so far.

Seeing the glass door that lead to her home, Effie sighed with relief, forgetting for a moment that Katniss wasn't going to disappear once she entered her flat.

Effie had been sat awkwardly on the edge of her leather sofa for an half an hour since they had got here, with Katniss perched on the edge of some ancient wooden seat Effie had forgotten was in the room. The situation was so uncomfortable that Effie didn't even care that she hadn't had time to tidy up. She doubted it even mattered to Katniss, as she was dressed so scruffily.

"So," Effie started, for what must have been the fiftieth time. Katniss didn't show any sign that she had heard her. "I'm going to cook that spaghetti," Effie said with determination. "Is that okay?"

"Yes," Katniss said, not looking away from the patch of carpet that she was so focussed upon.

Effie fussed around the kitchen for quite some time, taking longer than was necessary just to see if Katniss would speak up. She didn't, but Effie still considered it worth the effort.

Finally, Effie presented her with the plate, after dragging her over to the dinner table. Though not literally, because that wouldn't have been very nice. And she was probably filthy. As soon as they had finished eating, Effie was going to force her into the shower.

Katniss immediately began shoving the food into her mouth, and Effie stared in kind of horror that she usually reserved for dogs and monkeys and other such vile beasts. Coughing loudly to catch Katniss's attention, and being completely ignored, Effie was half tempted to drag the plate away from her and insist that she eat like a human being. Effie had not yet touched her own plate of sauce coated spaghetti, red lumps that looked suddenly less like part of an appealing meal and more like strange ooze from some kind of alien who ate sweaty, seven-eyed magic slugs and did weird dances. Ew.

Katniss slurped up the last bits of her alien sludge covered slime-string, and Effie found herself quite scared that Katniss would begin licking at the plate like a puppy-monster. Instead though, she relieves a long glare from Katniss, before the girls eyes fell to the table and she began play idly with a misused fork.

"Katniss, would you like to talk to me now?" Effie asked with strained politeness and a sweet, if forced and quite desperate, smile.

"No," Katniss said flatly. "But I wouldn't mind more spaghetti." She asked the question quite rudely, Effie thought, seemingly knowing how much it would annoy her.

"No!" Effie said quickly. "I mean, I don't… Uh…Did Hela feed you?"

"No. I mean, I was only with her a few hours, before you came." Katniss answered.

"Okay. I guess you just really like spaghetti then, huh?"

"I was just hungry." Her voice was toneless, entirely uninterested.

"Oh. You can have some more if you want. I mean, that's fine."

Katniss shook her head. "Do you know why I'm here?" she finally asked, after a long, deeply uncomfortable pause.

"Well, you're supposed to be my assistant, apparently. Though I don't know why I need one, that's basically what I do myself for a lot of the time. Like, you're the assistant's assistant, you assist the assisting while I assist." Effie giggled, but Katniss continued to gaze at her blankly in stony silence.

"No, I was brought here for a reason. Kids don't just get dragged up to the Capitol to help giggling women."

"Hey! That's not nice. I don't know what's going here either, it's just as weird for me as it is for you!"

"Mm hm." Katniss pushed herself away from the table. "Where am I sleeping?" she asked.

"I don't know. I guess you can have the sofa for tonight." It was way too early to be going to bed in Effie's opinion. "You're sleeping already?"

"I might need it," Katniss told her seriously.

"Alright." Effie thought that she might be getting the hang of this: don't ask unnecessary questions and do the bare minimum until you figure out what you're meant to be doing. She didn't really like that though, naturally curious as she was, and decided right then that it was going to be a rule she broke quickly. "Do you mind if I go out?"

"Not really."

"Okay!" Effie said brightly. "I'm just going to go and spend some time with Salla."

"Okay." Katniss said, climbing onto the sofa.

Effie chucked a blanket over to her, and Katniss allowed to fall across her stomach. She was still then, letting the cloth lay there in a heap.

"Bye bye!" Effie said, giving a small wave.

Katniss, predictably, ignored her completely.

Oh dear, Effie thought with a sigh as she closed the door behind her back. This really wasn't going to be very much fun.

Author's Note: Sorry, this was kind of a pointless chapter.

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