When Peeta gets home from the tour, District 12 sees the biggest Harvest Festival in my lifetime. The Capitol has paid for the food and entertainment, and attendance (while not mandatory) is "highly suggested." The camera crew is back from the Capitol, and I find myself chronically annoyed at their presence, the charge in the fence, and the insistence that I'm somewhere nearby whenever they're filming. Cressida arranges us "kids" near the base of the stage (the same one they erect for the reaping each year) and encourages us to "have fun" for the cameras.

Madge and I share a look and an eye roll. Spontaneous frivolity is not our forte.

Peeta is led onstage, looking thin and exhausted, but relieved to be home. Eventually Cressida coaxes Madge to dance with Peeta, in homage to the story his brothers had told. Then I take a turn. As we break our friendly embrace, (laughing at the fact that Nick is following Madge like a lost puppy) Gale comes alongside me.

"Dance with me?" he asks. Gale doesn't dance, but I allow him to lead me away.

As he wraps his arms around me, I have to ask. "What was that about? You're not known for your high levels of participation in Harvest Festival activities."

"You're not the only one who gets jealous, Catnip." He's very matter of fact.

"I wasn't jealous!" I squeal. He pulls me in tighter, smelling of wood smoke and the rough soap we use in the seam. "And Peeta and I have agreed to just be friends." I finish.

"Okay" he responds, swaying to the music. I'm slightly annoyed at his confidence. I've fought him every step of the way, and here he is, still assuming that I was jealous that day in the woods. It's chilly this evening, and in spite of my father's hunting jacket and the heaters brought in by the Capitol, I've been slowly getting colder as the minutes tick by. While I felt marginally warmer in Peeta's arms, Gale's make me feel even warmer, as if I were heated from the inside. I'm suddenly incredibly uncomfortable.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Prim. She's standing next to Rory, talking to a friend from town. I pull back from Gale, and point them out wordlessly. Rory has grabbed her hand and whispers something in her ear. She giggles. He hands her a chrysanthemum he stole from one of the centerpieces.

Gale laughs over my head. "Look at him go...he's got a lot of nerve." Gale continues to chuckle.

I am not so amused. "That's my baby sister he's using his nerve on over there." I fill him in on the conversation my sister and I had in our kitchen.

Gale laughs again. "Go hang out with Madge, I'll talk to him." Gale purposefully strides over to the group of 13s, picks his brother up, slings him over his shoulder, and walks him to an empty spot on the side of the stage. I can see Rory gesturing angrily in the corner as Gale continues to laugh.

The next afternoon, I sneak next door to the abandoned candy shop when I hear Madge open it up. My mother pretends not to hear, and I wonder again how much she really does know.

Before too long, Haymitch and Peeta appear, each holding a large donut from Peeta's dad (presumably their reason for being in town). "Good" Haymitch begins, "we can start."

"Gale's not here." I interject, and Madge rolls her eyes.

"They're still not together" she offers, "supposedly."

Luckily, Gale strides quietly into the room, saving me from another awkward conversation which would end with pained glances from Peeta, eye rolls from Madge, and sighs from Haymitch. I don't think Haymitch really enjoys spending all of his time with teenagers, but it's probably better than the alternative of sitting alone, drunk in his house.

Gale sits next to me without a word, making slightly aggressive eye contact with the victors. Peeta looks down. Haymitch stares back and places a device in the middle of the table. Outwardly, it looks like a small book, maybe slightly larger than my hand and bound in smooth brown leather. But when he opens it, there are a series of lights and buttons inside. Nothing is labeled, but Haymitch seems to know how to operate it. He presses a couple of buttons, then picks the device up and walks around the room. A green light shines from the corner.

"A gift from Beetee." We nod. "As long as that green light is on, there are no bugs. It can scramble phone lines temporarily, and a few other things. I'm trying to get a couple more, but it's hard to smuggle things out of 3."

Madge's eyes are wide with admiration. She loves this. Even Gale seems impressed.

He continues. "Here's what we've got. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 all have active rebellions that we know about. We can't do much without 5. They've got the hydroelectric station. The big problem is that 3, 8, and 11 are about to blow. If they blow without us, they'll be squashed and we'll have to re-build out there. So Beetee, Cecelia and Chaff are all working on building their numbers up and getting firmer plans together. Can't have people going rogue, starting impulsive, half-cocked plans." He looks directly at Gale. He's right. He's also sober, in spite of the fact that he chronically smells like liquor and unwashed sheets.

"What about 13?" Peeta mutters. His skin is sallow. He probably hasn't slept well in weeks, and has hardly eaten on the tour. His eyes are again sunken, and his hands shake a little. His hair stands up in cowlicks, and I fight the urge to comb them down the way I do Prim's.

Haymitch sighs and says sarcastically, "Peeta is somehow convinced that district 13 is still alive and well, and will save us all."

The room goes silent. We're all wondering how bad Peeta has gotten, and no one wants to find out. What is going on with him?

"But Finnick said – " Peeta shuts his mouth mid-sentence, rolls his eyes, and looks away from Haymitch. This is probably the conversation they've been having on the train all these weeks.

"Here's what we need" continues Haymitch, "We need more people. People you can trust, people who will be ready when it's time. People who can spread word quickly at the right time and rally people together. It will probably be a few years until any of this happens, so they will have to be people with patience. Katniss, can you get some of the seam kids? Teenagers? Madge, I need you to grab the town kids, and keep looking at your dad's intelligence. Gale, we need you to subtly round up some miners. Not just from your crew. We don't want a repeat..."

He trails off, seeing Gale flex his jaw.

"I've talked to Peeta's dad and Hazelle, and they are going to round up some other adults..." Both Peeta and Gale look surprised at this. "We'll meet back here again the day after the Quarter Quell announcement. Each of you bring a couple more people. Not everyone, just a few. We need a few people to know what's happening, but no one can have the full plan. That way if there's a weak link in the chain, the whole thing doesn't fall down."

"The Quarter Quell announcement..." Like the rest of us, Gale had forgotten that this year was the 75th Hunger Games. "What will it be? Are we at risk?" The question is less assured than I'm used to hearing from Gale. "Katniss has 2 more reapings, we have siblings..." Peeta turns pale, certainly thinking of the prospect of having to mentor me or Madge.

"It will be exactly what's most convenient to Snow." Haymitch's voice is bitter. "Just act like you normally do. The Capitol has written us off, which is actually a really good thing. They don't think we're a threat, and we need to keep up that image. The girls should keep visiting Peeta, spending some time in his house so the spies can hear them talking about non-rebellious things. Just keep living your life. I don't think anyone is looking at district 12."

Gale looks surprised again at the news that we're visiting Peeta. He asks me a question with his eyes. I shrug. It's not really his business...I have to fill the hours between school with something now that he's down in the mines. We adjourn, Gale leaving first, followed by the victors, then Madge and I. She locks the doors behind her.

When we go hunting the next Sunday, Gale brings up the topic of Peeta. I haven't purposefully kept from him that Peeta and I have become such good friends, but I also haven't freely offered that information. I realize that, in Gale's eyes, this probably looks like a betrayal. Or like I'm hiding something. Especially after his implication the other night that he's jealous. If nothing else, Gale is straightforward to a fault, and appreciates that quality in others.

"How often are you over there, Catnip?" He brings it up lightly, but I know what he's wondering underneath.

"A few days a week. Sometimes Madge and I visit him after school, sometimes I go on my own."

"So what do you do over there?" He's suspicious, and probably thinking of all the long hours we've spent together in the woods. Nothing's happened out here, unless you count the time he had to carry me home.

Hopefully he believes me that nothing happens over at Peeta's, either. "We mostly talk. Madge and Delly and I do homework and Peeta's good at Math. He shows me some of his paintings or bakes for us. He's lonely up there, Gale."

"He has a thing for you. And I can't compete with your tendency to save every little lost duck." I imagine the spring I was 13, and I found an abandoned duck's nest. The mother had been killed by some sort of wild animal, and six tiny chicks had been left alone to die. I'd spend weeks bringing them ground up fish and worms every afternoon, much to Gale's chagrin. He'd accused me of squandering our hunting time on baby ducks which would surely be eaten by a nearby fox anyway. I'd argued back that it wasn't their fault their mother was dead, and I wanted to care for them. It was the first argument we'd had, and the first time we really got a feel for what would happen when we went head-to-head. It was like running into a brick wall. For a year, I'd refused to even shoot any ducks, and he'd teased me about it mercilessly.

I shake off the memory. "He's not a lost duck, Gale. He's a friend. Nothing but a friend. Why are you so jealous anyway?"

He leans forward, his eyes on my lips, and I know what's coming. Panic rising in my chest, I roughly push him away. "I thought I made myself clear, Hawthorne."

He's hurt (and probably slightly angry), but gathers his bow and gets back to hunting. "Fine, Catnip. I can take a hint." We don't speak much the rest of the day.

The winter is a cold one, probably one of the coldest I can remember. My visits to Peeta dwindle, the long walk complicated by the bitter cold which even freezes the little hairs inside my nose and numbs my toes despite two pairs of socks. On our last visit before I give up entirely, I try to get him to talk about his time on the tour, or what he did in the Capitol when I caught a news clip of him "out on the town" with a pretty red-haired Capitol woman. He refuses to speak of it, and begins shaking again. I choose to leave that topic alone.

My hunting trips also dwindle, until all we can manage is a couple hours on Sundays. The game isn't out, and Gale is frustrated. Luckily, this winter we have Parcel Days so no one is starving. Buttercup has come inside to be a nuisance, and Lady curls up on the side of the pen closest to the Mellark's pigs. Prim's small collection of chickens join her, and we have to break the ice on their water dish each morning.

Finally, there's a blizzard that lasts for days, sealing us all in our own houses. Me and Madge in town, Peeta in the Victor's Village, and Gale in the seam. The mines close off and on. School is cancelled half the time (not that the seam kids can get through the mounds of snow). I spend my time drying herbs for my mother, sorting medicines and spending time with Prim.

She has grand plans to begin growing some of the herbs we use in the shop, and she's combing through Capitol catalogues to pick seeds for the spring. When she brings up the topic of boys, Prim insists that she and Rory are just friends and rolls her eyes when I remind her that they are children. In return, she teases, insisting that Gale and I are more. I don't even bother repeating my speech about marriage and babies, I simply roll my eyes and change the subject, all too aware of the blush on my cheeks.