a/n; I've realized over the course of these several months that I am much more emotionally mature in stories than in real life. Real life hurts, and it can suck, and it can be the biggest bitch you'll ever know, but it is my own story, so I'm trying to be the best that I can be. And now, new chapter! Who would have thought? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

nine - spiraling


It's sudden, the force with which Katniss rams her way into his world again. It's reminiscent to the first time he'd ever saw her, standing before his snares with an open, wide-eyed fascination and then being stuck with her almost every day afterward.

The difference is, he's the one outside her home the next Saturday night, unable to combat the stray feelings of anxiety and obligation. He's only here because he said he would be, and entering such an intimate shell of Katniss' life makes him uneasy. Looking at the door, it seems to dare him to give a knock. In his mind's eye, he sees Katniss' smile when he answered he'd come around the week before. It must have been her plan to get him to feel this way. She is cleverer than she lets on, and he sometimes forgets that.

He balls a fist and knocks three times. For the first time, he's greeted by Katniss.

"Gale," she says, opening the door wider and leaning against the jamb. "You're here."

"Yep," he says back, crossing his arms. "This a bad time?"

"No," she answers quickly, opening the door to him. He can smell hot broth and meat, and his stomach rages beneath his skin. "We're eating dinner soon. You can join us if you want to."

He lifts a shoulder. "Sure," he says, and he follows her inside.

The houses of the Seam are cookie cutter in design with minimal structural differences. Her house is the mirror image of his, with the kitchen on the right instead of the left, the bedrooms on the other side. A small living area adjoins both. It's almost too small to be comfortable, and the dull, one-colored rooms do nothing for warmth. He can see the nuances of the family, though, like the nursing table by the opening to the kitchen and the wool blanket thinned with wear and overuse. What he notices the most is the smell—not just the wafts coming from the kitchen, but also the undercurrent of the women of the Everdeen household. He's never noticed the fragrance that Katniss gives off, never getting close enough to her to know it, but he's overwhelmed by it now. It hugs his senses, and it floods warmth into the room that the décor leaves wanting.

He trails her to the kitchen, and his mother is at the stove, asking who was at the door before turning around to see him.

"Oh, Gale," she smiles. "It's nice to see you. It's been such a long time. Did Katniss invite you to dinner?"

"Yes… she did," he says, eyes sliding over to her. "I hope that's not a problem."

"How polite you are," she says, crow's feet crinkling around her eyes. "It certainly isn't."

He catches a glance at Katniss, and she rolls her eyes at him.

"Stop trying to charm my mom," she whispers.

"Why not? She doesn't seem to mind."

She shakes her head, and they slowly move themselves to the division of the kitchen and living room. "You're never nice when you don't try."

"Then you should appreciate it when I am."

She looks unimpressed, but she leans against the wall and crosses her arms. "I didn't think you'd come here. I thought I'd have to hunt you down."

He creases his brows. "I said I would, so I did." Then he lightens his tone. "Besides, I'm here for Prim. Where is she, anyway?"

Katniss nods her head toward the southern end of the room. "Out back with Lady."

"Lady?"

"Her goat."

"Oh, right," he says, glancing behind him to the window. It doesn't contain a view for him to see Prim or Lady.

"I should get her," Katniss says, walking around him to the back door. She accidently hits his shoulder. "She can lose track of time."

Gale's eyes track Katniss' braid for a moment before he traces her path to the area behind their house. Katniss calls to Prim a few feet away, and when she turns, her face is surprised. "Gale?"

She ties Lady to her post, and she bounds over to meet them. Gale can automatically tell she's grown an inch or two taller since he last saw her. He grins. "Prim."

"What are you doing here?" Prim glances to Katniss, then back to Gale. "Are you eating with us tonight?"

"Yeah, I am."

Prim's look turns into something else, and she gives a small smile to Katniss. Katniss glares at her, and Gale can't tell what secret sister conversation they're having. Before he can act on his curiosity, it's overcome by Katniss' mom calling to them to fix their bowls.

After gathering their food, they all sit around the table, Gale sitting with Katniss to his left, Prim to his right, and their mother sitting in front of him.

The broth is thin and hot and hearty, thick pieces of wild turkey dotting the surface. Gale tries to savor it as he battles his impulse to devour it.

"It's delicious," he compliments, spooning in another mouthful.

"Thank you," Miss Everdeen says graciously, and he sees just enough pride in her posture that he can equate it with Katniss. It is nowhere to the capacity that Katniss' is, so it gets him to wonder when she became so prideful, so naturally.

He sneaks a glance to her, and she gives him the same look she gave him earlier. It's dry and amusing, and he smiles at her. She turns away from him.

"How are the mines, Gale?" Prim asks him. "Are they as awful as everyone says they are?"

Surprisingly, Gale's not sure how to answer. "Ah," he says. "They aren't too bad once you get used to them." He shrugs. "Work's work. I have to do what I can, even if I don't always like it."

It's silent for a few moments after, and when Gale looks up, Miss Everdeen seems pale. Gale almost asks, but Katniss quiets him when she places her palm on his forearm. He furrows his eyebrows, and she shakes her head.

"How's school, Prim?" Katniss says, diverging the topic. She leaves her hand on his arm for a few lingering seconds before lifting it away. Not that Gale minds, but her presence still has the uncanny effect of creating a hypersensitive awareness within him. He forgoes rubbing at the warm spot she left.

"Boring," Prim says, her happy tone mismatched with her answer. "We never learn anything. It's always the same."

"Doesn't sound like anything has changed," Katniss says.

"Too bad," Gale says. "That place could use a new thing or two."

"Like a few new teachers," Katniss interjects, her tone sour. "Especially Mrs. Jones."

"Mrs. Jones?" Gale asks incredibly. "Really? I liked her."

"She hated me," Katniss says, voice raised. "For no reason."

"That's because you have to get on her good side," Gale grins knowingly.

"I didn't care about getting on anyone's good side," Katniss scoffs. "And all you had to do was smile at the teachers and they thought you could do no wrong—or so I heard."

"It's all about timing."

"It must be an art," she says sarcastically.

Amused, he puts his shoulders back. He looks into her eyes and smiles crookedly. "It is."

Katniss breaks the eye contact, and if she's unsettled, she hides it well. Her demeanor is too stiff for him to come to a conclusion.

The conversation lulls, and after a few minutes, Miss Everdeen falls out of whatever spell she seemed to revert into from before. "Do you have a girlfriend, Gale?" she asks.

He places his spoon slowly into his bowl, nearly finished. "No, I don't."

"A good-looking young man like you?"

It seems he's not the only one who knows how to do the charming. He smiles a little bit. "There's no girl, right now."

"That's okay," Prim says, elbowing him. "Katniss and I don't have a boyfriends either."

Gale lifts a brow. "You don't have a boy, Prim?"

She blushes. "No."

"That doesn't sound right…" he says, rubbing his chin with contemplative exaggeration. "There must be someone."

Prim shakes her head. "I made a promise with Katniss. I said I'd only start paying attention to boys if she did."

Gale can't help cracking up. He laughs. "Sorry, Prim, but you might be doomed with that promise."

She gives him a sly look. "I don't think so."

Gale sobers up after a few moments, trying to decipher Prim's look. It's very vague. He glances to Katniss. "Well, Katniss was involved with the Peeta boy."

Katniss makes a face at him. "I was never involved."

Gale gives her a disbelieving look. "That's not necessarily true."

"No, that doesn't count," Prim says. "She never liked him."

Gale frowns. "Yes, she did."

"Not in that way," Prim huffs.

"Yeah, Gale," Katniss says, and now she sounds amused. "Not in that way."

He gets an urge to flick her forehead. He somehow holds back. "Whatever."

"I didn't."

"Okay."

"She didn't," Prim says, sticking her chin out. "She liked someone else, I think."

Katniss turns white, then she becomes infuriated. He can almost hear her teeth grinding under the power of her clenched jaw.

Gale chokes out another laugh. "Who? Darius?"

Prim just looks at him, smiling with a kind of innocent connivance. It is such a strange juxtaposition of two contradictory looks, Gale has to make sure he interprets it right. He concludes angelic Prim has got a little devil in her.

He also ignores the obvious connotations of her gaze. He brushes it off by smirking.

"I didn't like anyone," Katniss says, suffusing her words with an edge. "Prim just wishes I did so she could talk to boys."

Prim flares up. "No, I didn't. You were being selfish."

Katniss eyes cut. "I was not being selfish."

Gale sits back, out of their verbal line of fire. He glances at both of them, back and forth, and both of their faces are tinged with pink. He bites back the urge to laugh, humor filling his face.

"Okay, girls, that's enough," Miss Everdeen says, slipping into their quasi-battle. It leaves a hushed, charged silence. She catches Gale's eye. "It usually isn't like this."

It sounds like an apology. Gale shakes his head. "I don't mind." Girls fighting was much more entertaining than teenaged boys fighting any day of the week. "I thought she only argued with me."

"She'll argue with anyone," Prim mumbles.

Katniss is agitated, but she determinedly says nothing.

"I can believe that," Gale says, and Katniss shoves his arm. Delight bubbles in his stomach. "You know it's true."

"Don't choose sides."

"I'm not. I'm on my own side."

She rolls her eyes, but she's on the verge of smiling. "Whatever."

"I have to be. You can get scary when you want," he says, half-serious and half-teasing. More like three-quarters teasing.

"Shut up," she says, though she seems to be getting self-conscious under the eyes of her mother, because she glances in her direction. Miss Everdeen looks away, a small smile on her face, and she says, "I think Gale's onto something, Katniss."

Katniss throws up her hands. "Did you all plan on ganging up on me tonight?"

"Why would you think that?" Gale says.

"Yeah, Katniss," Prim chirps. "Why would you think that?"

Ah, Prim, Gale thinks. She's got a knack for being his side support.

Katniss glares at both of them. "Uh-huh." Then she stands and grabs her empty bowl. "Well, I'm really enjoying this dinner talk, but it's my turn to clean up the dishes."

She reaches for her mother's, then she twists to grab Gale's, but he stops her. "I'll help," he says. He earns a suspicious look.

"If you want," she concedes after a moment, and he tops his empty bowl with Prim's and follows her short path to the kitchen sink. Miss Everdeen gives him a gracious glance before her and Prim head out of the kitchen.

"I think I got your mom to like me," he says lightly, coming up beside her. He places the dishes on the counter.

"She's easy to please," she says back, dipping an old cloth into the water bucket to her right. She grabs for the deteriorating bar of soap and begins lathering. "You milked it with all your manners."

He chuckles, reaching behind her for another cloth. "I'm a guest in your house. I figured I should brush up on being polite." He accidentally slides his arm against her back—and he realizes he's subconsciously keeping tabs on their proximity. He should probably stop.

"How thoughtful."

"You know," he begins, busying himself with the two bowls. "How come you're being so…" He searches for the right word. He can't seem to find one that doesn't sound back-handedly insulting. "Hospitable? I mean, inviting me here, sharing dinner…"

She shrugs, her head ducked and her eyes concentrated toward the sink. "Like I said last week, we haven't seen each other in a while, and Prim hasn't seen you either."

It doesn't sound like a fully finished answer, though he's not sure what it's missing. Maybe he's still skeptical of her motives for bringing him here. Besides the looks Prim and Miss Everdeen gave him (he knows full well that bringing a boy to dinner, under normal, social terms and with every other girl that isn't Katniss, means interest in courting and furthering relationships), he can't tie together why Katniss would allow him to be so close. Besides what seems like her own form of apologizing, he's not sure what else this constitutes. There never are obvious reasons with Katniss—he can't imagine her ever having any deeper affections for him, not after he acknowledged how much he had begun to desire it during the past few years.

He'll admit that, now—all of his conglomeration of feelings made his thoughts muddled, confused, and tormented, and it was not an enjoyable experience. So he stopped it. And he hid in his mines.

Then he saw her again, and he didn't feel muddled or confused or tormented at all. Just…surprised and edgy. Perhaps now, he thinks, she might finally want to be friends—though, that is certainly a strange concept. When has Katniss ever voluntarily wanted a friend of her own?

"Yeah…" he trails after a few contemplative moments. "Prim seems to be doing well."

"She is," Katniss says. "She really likes working with mom. She gets better and better at nursing people every day."

"Do you ever do that?" he asks. "Nursing, I mean."

"No," she answers quickly. "I don't think I could. I'm not good with that stuff."

"Stuff? You mean broken bones and cuts?"

"Mostly…blood and guts, stitching people up. Dealing with people hurting. I don't know. I'm not good with people."

"You're not?"

She scowls and splashes water at him. He doesn't evade any of the droplets, and they end up staining his shirt with dark, wet polka dots. He bumps her with his hip.

"You're lucky that's just water."

"What would you do if it wasn't?"

"Something awful."

"Like what? Kill me with your manners?"

"I might smile at you, too."

"No, stop, I don't think I could take it."

He grins, and she cringes. "My eyes are burning."

"Need some water?" he says, reaching across toward the bucket. She realizes what he's doing, and she squeaks.

"No, no, don't you dare splash me with—"

She grips his arms while he tries to force his way to the bucket, and it would be like wrestling if they weren't both fighting down laughter.

"No!" she laughs. "Gale, you can't do this."

"I have to," he says. "Your eyes are still burning."

"I take it back, I take it back!"

They struggle with each other until her forehead hits his chest, and he quits his battle to the water bucket. Instead, he backs up enough to get good distance between them. She stumbles a step at the loss of his support, but she steps backwards, too. She looks at him questioningly, as if confused by what happened. He gives her a small smile, saying, "I guess I'll let you take it back. Since I'm so polite."

She smiles back, but it falters. He can't tell what she's thinking as she turns back to the sink and sets the dishes to dry.

"You don't…have to do that, you know," she says.

He quirks his face at her. "Do what?"

"Be nice." She avoids looking at him. "You don't have to feel obligated just because I invited you to dinner."

"I don't feel obligated," he says. "This was fun."

It slips off his tongue, but he's not minding as much as he might have the week before. The surprise on her face is worth it, too.

"Oh," she says. She fidgets.

Gale smiles a little, then saves her as he says, "I should probably go. It's almost nine, and I need to get up early and hunt."

She nods. "Okay. I'll walk you out."

They walk into the living room and toward the door. Before Gale gets half-way across the room, Prim bounds over from her room and tells him goodbye.

"You should come more often," she whispers to him, glancing toward Katniss' direction. "She was hoping you'd show."

Gale raises a brow, leaning toward her and out of Katniss' earshot. "She said you were the one who was excited."

"I think you know better, Gale," she says, slyly. "But I'm happy you came, too." Then she hugs him lightly and walks back to her room. Gale looks after her before turning back to the front door.

He steps outside, jamming his hands into his pockets, and Katniss leans against the door, eyes slanted in thought.

"Prim would kill me if I told you this…" she begins, crossing her arms. "But I think you should know."

"I won't tell on you if that's what you're worried about," he chuckles, though he feels lightened at the prospect of her telling him a secret. Then he internally scoffs. How old is he? Twelve?

"I'm not worried," she says. "Prim's mad at me because she likes Rory."

Gale laughs harder. "Rory?"

"Sh," she hisses, but she's amused. "Not so loud. And she takes those stupid challenges seriously, so she's been admiring him for months."

"Huh," Gale says. "I can drop some hints to him."

"You don't have to. I feel bad enough about Prim, so I was going to break her out of it tomorrow."

Gale shrugs, not thinking too much of it. "Rory's got a thick skull, anyway. Prim could kiss him, and he wouldn't realize anything was different."

Katniss smiles a little. "That's fine."

Gale takes two steps backwards. "Alright, then. I'll see you later."

"When are you hunting tomorrow?" she says, stopping him.

"Around six. I'm too used to the schedule."

"Okay. I'll meet you at the rock."

He scowls with thought. Katniss must take it the wrong way, because her face begins to sour.

"Or, if you're still—"

"No," he interrupts, softening his face. "I'll meet you there."

Her face recovers into its normal shine, and he leaves her, allowing himself to look forward to the morning.