Chapter 21

(Katniss)

She walked home to the Seam that night feeling jaded. Gale was chattering (which was strange for Gale) all the way to her doorstep about change and uprisings and what the future might hold. She didn't have the heart to tell him that it was all just talk.

Haymitch had been a surprisingly talented speaker. He'd roused the crowd and gotten them angry and then sad and then indignant and right back to angry again. He'd lit a spark in the Hob that night but she still maintained that it was only that – a spark. The flame they would need to spur an entire rebellion wasn't there.

Or at least not yet.

"There's talk. There's talk on the rebel airwave that uprisings are going to start happening. Any day now. They might have already gotten underway! We must be ready to fight for our freedom and bring the Capitol down!

His words had stirred something in her, but what? She was full to the brim with hope but what would she do with it? Talk. That's all there was. Talk of uprisings and change and preparations for nothing. Gale continued his excited, rambling chatter as they moved through the snowy paths towards the Seam.

"If we caught them by surprise…can you imagine Catnip? Oh…there are only so many peacekeepers. Shoot, we outnumber them in the mines fifty to one! Imagine if we all just…just…just turned on them one day! What would they do? What could they do?"

She stopped talking and glowered at him. His shoulders were shaking with an excited energy that she felt sorry to demean. "They could turn their automatic weapons on you and shoot you all with one pull of the trigger," she said quietly.

Gale's shoulders slumped down as his breathing slowed. He stared at her with hurt grey eyes. "You don't know that. If we were organized and…and could catch them unaware they might not be able to do much. Who knows though, right? I mean…don't you want this too?"

"Of course I do! But I also don't want to die. I have Prim and mom and….and I don't think Peeta can go home after this. So now I have four mouths to feed including my own. And you have your brothers and sisters. What if we both died? Both of our families would starve Gale, you know that."

"But they'll starve if we don't do anything either!" he pointed out. Katniss turned and kept walking. She didn't mean to hurt Gale's feelings and act as such a downer, but what other choice did she have? He needed to at least see reason, didn't he?

"I've taken out so many tesserae's just to keep my family's bellies full that the Capitol has me working for them in the mines til I'm sixty. Sixty," he added with a grimace. "And that's if I don't have to take out any more. Which I will, since…well, you know the fences and whatnot. So just to feed my brothers and sister is and keep them barely alive I gotta work for practically nothing til I'm sixty. If I live that long working underground."

"I know," she admitted woefully. It wasn't a fair system at all; for each tesserae taken out, it equaled a year of work for the Capitol while being paid only a fraction of what he would normally make. The Capitol took over half of what one would normally make in repayment for the food. She knew Gale had a point, but what could she do?

"Gale," she chided, shuffling her feet through the dirty snow. His thoughts were too dangerous to be spoken out loud. "Keep quiet."

"Whatever Catnip. You're in this now whether you admit it or not. I saw the look on your face when he was talking about….all of that. You got excited as I did." She listened as his mood shifted back to optimistic as hummed to himself and bounced on the balls of his feet again as they walked. He did that right before the kill when they were hunting too. He'd stay very still and then he'd bounce a few times and shoot. Then he'd hit his target. She couldn't help but wonder if he would hit this target as well.

"This was a good night. A good night," he repeated to himself as they walked.

"Nothing happened. It was all talk Gale and you know it. Nothing is going to change."

"I know it is. We'll figure something out…"

"But what if we don't?"

"But what if we do?"

Her shoulders sunk down as she realized that all of her hope was for nothing. She would get Prim through school, she would turn eighteen, and then she would take her place in the mines or wherever the Capitol placed her. She'd taken out at least fifteen tesserae's over the years, which each equaled a year of serving the Capitol as an employee. They might work her in the mines or in town or wherever they saw fit. Either way, the Capitol owned her until she was at least thirty two. She didn't have the energy to hope anymore.

She slipped silently inside the house, giving Gale a little wave as he headed back down the path towards his own house. The house was dark, save for the light of a single gas lamp in the kitchen. Peeta looked up from his book as she shrugged out of her coat.

"What are you doing up?" she laughed softly, shuffling over to the kitchen. Peeta held up one of Prim's little sixth year mystery novels and shrugged.

"Waiting for you," he said. "Prim loaned me a book to read. You wouldn't happen to have anything…"

"I have other books yes," she laughed, sitting down on the stool.

"How did it go?" he asked hopefully.

She looked away and sighed. She almost didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. It had been all about hope and empty promises of nothing concrete.

"It was fine," she lied.

Peeta's blue eyed gaze focused in on her. He shook his head slightly.

"You're lying."

"I am," she sighed. "They basically think uprisings are happening in other districts, but we have shaky communication with them. Old radios, messengers that take months to arrive…if they ever do. It's unreliable nonsense."

"But they think they're happening?"

Katniss sighed. "Just like you to only focus on the good. But yes, they do. Haymitch is convinced Two is riled up and ready to strike at any day now."

"Two…they're close to the Capitol," he whispered. "What if they…retaliate?"

"Nothing will happen Peeta. We make coal. They're not going to level our District; we make things they need."

"I suppose you're right. But they do think uprisings are happening?"

"Yes. Haymitch does anyway. He needs proof though, and that's almost impossible to get with almost no communication or way to be sure. He wants to organize a rebellion to overthrow the Peacekeepers here, but he says it needs to all be done at the same time. If all the districts were to rebel all at once…..then that way the Capitol won't have time to react."

"He's got a point. Organized chaos," he explained when she gave him an indignant look. "Well he does."

"Fine. But either way he has no proof that it's all happening. It's just hearsay and hopeful thinking."

"But you still went to the meeting," he pointed out. Katniss watched as he shifted under the sheet that was covering him, shivering slightly. She shuffled over a few feet to add another log to the fire.

"I went to see what it was about. To see if it was even possible."

"And what do you think now?"

She sat back down on the stool and shrugged. "I mean….Haymitch had good ideas. But he has no way to know whether or not the other districts are rebelling or not. It's just what you said: it needs to be organized chaos. Otherwise the Capitol can focus on taking us down one at a time. It's a lot like back in school when a bunch of kids were misbehaving. Remember seventh year on the last day?"

Peeta chuckled. "Yeah. Mrs. Marsden's class. I'll never forget that. Everyone was so excited to be done with school. People were cheering and yelling and tossing their papers up into the air."

"Right. Remember how she didn't even know what to do? She was just all frazzled and crazy and she finally just…"

"Didn't do much of anything. She gave up because she knew it was hopeless," Peeta sighed.

"Right. Well…I think Haymitch is hopeful that the same thing will happen in the districts."

Peeta looked up at her hopefully. "Am I foolish to hope the same?"

"No," she said softly, shaking her head. "Because I feel the same way."

Her mother was putting some moisturizing balm on Peeta's stitches the next day as Katniss laced up her boots. Her eyes flicked up to meet his as he steadied himself into an upright position. Peeta was sitting up for the first time since he'd come to their house. His whipping had been just shy of a week ago and her mother said he was healing very well. He smiled shyly at her and nodded. Her lips seemed to burn suddenly as she looked away.

"So far so good," she heard her mother mutter. Peeta winced a little and she could swear she heard him grit his teeth a little as he straightened up and even popped a few bones in his back. "No leaning forward…or sideways. Just sit straight and try not to pull any of them out. I think you're about healed though."

"When can they come out?"

Katniss heard her mother snort softly. "A few days. Most of these aren't deep, so they should be able to come out by Saturday. We might leave a few in for a couple days after that, but most likely Saturday or so. You won't be running off to join any rebellions just yet."

Peeta tossed a smirky look over his shoulder. "Just asking."

Katniss watched her mother smile as the endearing baker boy playfully charmed her. When her boots were tied she jumped up and dug her gloves out of the pockets of the coat she was going to wear. She was going into town to give Madge a well overdue thank you for Peeta's medicine. She wasn't about to admit that though.

As she pulled on her scarf and coat, she tried her best to drown out the noise of Peeta's pained groans as he moved for the first time in days. With the help of her mother, he made was able to lower himself down off the table to make it to one of the chairs. He was currently sitting in her father's old dinner seat, shirtless and wearing the loose cotton slacks. Her mouth went a little dry as she shamefully dragged her eyes across the expanse of his broad, pale chest. Years of hauling heavy sacks of flour around had obviously been kind to his young body. The sound of Peeta's loud laugh broke her thoughts and made her look away in a hurry.

"Imagine the look on Prim's face when she comes home and can actually eat at her dinner table tonight," he chuckled, "instead of seeing me laying here like a dead slug."

Katniss bit back a laugh. His eyes met hers as she buttoned the buttons on her father's hunting jacket. "Where are you off to?"

Her mother gave her a pointed look from over Peeta's shoulder that clearly said 'be nice'. Katniss shrugged indignantly; no one ever asked her where she was going. Prim knew better and her mother was usually too out of it to care. She didn't particularly feel that she owed him an explanation even if he was asking out of sheer curiosity.

"Nowhere special."

She watched his Adam's apple bob slightly as he swallowed. He clearly wasn't expecting that answer.

"But somewhere?"

She shrugged again and pulled a cap Prim had knitted for her over her head. She pulled her braid out of her coat and tossed him one last look. It was late afternoon and she wanted to be home before dark, so she wasn't in the mood to stay and argue with Peeta. His concern was both heartwarming and annoying to her as she opened the door.

"Be back later," she mumbled before anyone could say anything. Shaking her head to herself, she took the back path into town with footsteps as fast as her short legs would allow. She just wanted to go to Madge's house and give her thanks and then be done with it. She would be even. Even though Madge had been her friend for years (or closest thing to a friend) she knew that the mayor's daughter wasn't expecting a formal thank you of any sort, but Katniss still wanted to do the right thing and show her gratitude to the girl that had donated the pricy gift. She'd help Gale collect enough strawberries in the spring to make them even-

She stopped suddenly, her boots sliding slightly on the ice at her quick halt.

It was impossible, she realized. There would be no more strawberries. The fences were on and were probably going to stay on. She no longer had the woods as a fallback, as a safety net. There would be no more food to hunt and trade and sell. There would be no more strawberries or squirrels or tubers or deer.

That was all gone now. The woods were as good as dead to her. A tear stung against her cheek as she stood there, frozen on the slushy path to town. It slid down off her chin and into the snow at her feet.

She couldn't help but feel like there would be no dandelions that spring.

More soon! Thank you all for being so patient with me while I battled out this awful cold. Ulgh. Your reviews were lovely to read as I was in bed this weekend hacking up a lung : )

Many of you asked about the tessare issue and I was too sick to respond this past weekend. I hope my explanation of what I think it would have been like did it justice. Without the reaping slips I think it would make sense that the Capitol would get to have a person for a year's worth of work at a greatly reduced pay in exchange for more food. In this 'universe' the men might be miners or do work like scout new routes in the mines and I picture women maybe doing something like taking food or supplies down to the mines (being 'runners') or maybe working in town cleaning the streets or scraping coal dust off of everything. What do you think?"

Up next: A visit with Madge and some news ; )

Please review!