Cato and Katniss both finished their day, and now had thirty minutes of downtime before lights out. So far, not all the awkwardness had dissipated.

Cato waited eight minutes, and when Katniss did not say anything he decided to be blunt about it. His voice had the same levelheadedness he is able to maintain in most circumstances, he did not sound hurt or emotional at all. In his mind, he simply knew that they would need to talk to each other if they were to have any chance of getting out of this alive.

"Arn't you going to say anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you haven't said a word to me all day. I'm sorry if I was painful of unpleasant, but it isn't exactly fair to treat me like I forced myself on you."

"You didn't hurt me, and it wasn't that bad."

"Then why won't you talk?"

"I'm talking to you right now. What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, I suppose I'd like to know more about you. We're going to be spending a lot of time together and we know almost nothing about each other." Well, they did find out something about each other last night.

"What do you want to know?"

Cato thought of a starting point before finically asking a common one, "For starters, do you have any family?"

This was not something Katniss liked to talk about, but she knew she would have to sooner or later. "Yes, I have my sister and my mother. My father ... died when I was a child."

Cato's only knowledge of losing a family member is when his grandmother passed; he was very young when it happened. He did not say anything conforting, but sat down next to her on the bed.

Cato's voice did not have even a little pity in it, and Katniss was thankful because pity was the one thing she did not want. "Want to talk about it?"

"No, not really." Then to change the subject, "Do you have any family?"

"Yes. My parents and grandfather, and my cousin and his mother."

"Are they nice?"

"I don't see my aunt often, but by cousin and grandpa are kind to me."

"Would about your parents?"

This question caught Cato completely off guard, because it had never occurred to him to consider this. "What do you mean?"

"Are your parents nice to you?"

Cato asked himself this question, and paused for a moment to answer it. His mother and father certainly fed him and clothed him well, they made sure he had a good education, and taught him how to be a man as well as what it was to be a warrior. On the other hand, Cato's parents were not exactly warm or emotionally close. Granted, they never abused him in any physical way; they avoided beating him out of fear that doing so would make him weak willed or timid. Cato knew that he respected his patents, but he can not easily recall them showing affection.

As a result of his mixed feelings, this was the only answer Cato could say. "Maybe, I dunno. Do you get along with your mother and sister well enough?"

Now it was Katniss's turn to consider a question carefully. She loved her sister Prim dearly, and she loved her mother. But Katniss was not exactly pleased that her mother sunk into a clinical depression immediately after her father died, and stayed in that state of mind for years afterwards. That is not something easily forgettable.

"Yes, I guess so."

The lights shut off, signaling that it was time for them to sleep. They both climbed into the bed with their clothes on and went to sleep.

"Goodnight."

"We can continue where we left of tomorrow, right?"

"Sure."

Despite witnessing someone loose a finger, neither one of them was plagued by nightmares that night.