A/N: Don't worry guys, this is a progression chapter. You seemed to like the dark dream in the last chapter. And I have my reasons for making Gale more sensitive than he's made to be in the original trilogy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, everything here is property of Suzanne Collins.

Please Don't Call Me or My Bluff

I wake up to feel something warm cuddled up to me, and the sunlight trickling in through window shutters. Except it's too small to be Katniss, and when I look, it's our 7-year-old daughter. I get up slowly to avoid rousing her, and I slip on a sleeveless shirt, and I go downstairs to find Catnip at the kitchen.

I wrap my arms around her from behind. "Whatcha making Catnip?"

She simply turns around and asks me, "Is Iridia sleeping?"

I lower my lips to hers, and I pull back, "Yeah, and you know when she sleeps, she doesn't wake up."

I lower my lips back to hers and her hands travel under my shirt and up my back, and the passion of the moment heats up.

Katniss retreats insisting we can't, not today. Especially with Iridia in the house, when she's at school it's fine.

We got lucky with our family, somehow we managed to get out of the Seam thanks to Prim and Catnip's mother's skills with medical apothecary substances. An apothecary owner allowed us, Prim, and Catnip's mother to have her home when she passed, since she lost her husband and children to an epidemic three years ago. Prim and Catnip's mother became much more spirited, since now we had a nice constant flow of people to help and heal, she's gained a whole new vibrancy. Eventually, Prim and her mother taught us the arts of healing, kind of a necessity, since we were working with them, and that hunting was no longer a necessity. We still did it from time to time to relive our first moments. Prim and her mother found another apothecary to live at and work, so that when we got married, we already have a place of our own. Somehow, we have come full circle from the completely impoverished Seam to the merchant sector. I will say we do look out of place, but it's our home now. We even managed to buy my family a nice home, before my brothers and Posy got old enough to find spouses of their own.

That was a better dream in my life, a dream I haven't had since all this began. A dream of a beautiful life with the beautiful woman I love, and the children that we could now never have together. I always wanted to have a family, even though Katniss never did. Then again, she never wanted to fall in love, and she did just that with me. If she changed her mind about love, she might have changed her mind about children. Nonetheless, it won't help to fantasize about a future that can never be. Katniss was already awake before me.

"Morning, Catnip."

"Morning, Gale. How you holding up."

"Far better. I think I kind of needed that emotional...I can't even find a word for it. That emotional release I guess you could say."

"Good to know." She suddenly changed the subject, "We showered a few hours ago, should we shower again?"

"Well, we got rather dirty after we showered last night," I said with a nice slur to it.

She laughed at my nice word choice. "Oh my God, Gale."

We got into the shower and came out revitalized…not just because of the shower.

Now we're eating breakfast. Effie and Haymitch still seem concerned about us.

I let them know, "We're okay guys. Thanks to you guys helping us."

Katniss inquires about why they waited to come into the room.

Haymitch answered, "Didn't know if you would appreciate us being in there. Until you wondered out loud why we didn't."

I give a slight chuckle, "Us not appreciating your presence never stopped you before."

He laughs, "Well, there's a first time for everything."

The four of us have a laugh at that as me and Katniss start eating. We're so early that we finish at 9:00. I guess that was partly because we didn't really talk so much.

Effie suddenly cries out, "Well, since we have so much time, Katniss, come come."

Katniss already knows what's in store for her,groaning in complaint, "Really Effie, haven't I already broken those things in."

"Katniss, you can barely make three steps."

"Remind me again why I need to practice."

"For your interview with Caesar tomorrow night."

"Right."

With the women off to Effie's room, Haymitch and I have a discussion of our own.

Haymitch asks me, "What did you guys not do yesterday?"

"Wait what do you mean?"

"What stations didn't you get to?"

"We focused exclusively on survival skills, and hand to hand, figured that we shouldn't even pay any mind to the weapons."

"Good. That's good." He looks down contemplatively before saying, "You should try some of the weapon stations today, but avoid the ones you guys have skill in, archery and knives."

"Are the careers gonna fall for that now? After our fiasco yesterday?"

"Probably. Odds are they'll be blinded by anger and arrogance, though they probably will be more wary than before."

"So we focus on weapons, take note of that."

We discuss a little bit more about our alliance with Rue, discussing the risks of it, until Katniss returns at 9:30 and we go down to training.

"Catnip what should we do first?"

"We should find Rue first."

I chuckle a little, "If we know her well enough, she'll find us."

She concedes. We first go over to the sword station. According to Katniss, I get the moves down and it looks as if I've been wielding it for my whole life. I highly doubt it.

When Katniss wields the sword that's half her height, she can barely lift it. When I hand her the sword that's proper for her height, she wields it gracefully.

"Well Cat, all we need are swords and we can slice down an entire army of dummies."

The look she gives me is priceless, it is screaming seriously.

We then try our hand with axe. We very quickly learn that we have absolutely no coordination with simply swinging regular axes, however, I find with practice, I in particular have some skill with throwing axes in particular. Katniss has some skill with throwing axes as well, though I can tell that neither of us have any natural aptitude with them.

The last weapon we try is the spear. It is clear from the get go that neither of us have any aptitude for it, not even in melee combat. I never notice them, but I think we've done our job in making the careers think we're weak fighters.

We choose to go back to practicing survival skills, though we've already mastered them. More or less, we simply do it to pass time, since we want to follow Haymitch's advice of hiding our strengths. We end up at the fire starting, where we start and extinguish one fire after another. It's when we're here that Rue comes up to us. She asks us to follow her, saying that she wanted us to she what she has going for her. She showed us how she can swiftly move between the trees, to the point where she looks almost like a bird flying between the branches. That's perfect for her. The careers are typically too heavy to climb up trees, and they are also definitely not nimble enough to keep up with her since she's so small. She also showed us how she's a pretty good shot with a slingshot, though I have no idea how useful that could be in the arena. But I guess that everything could have a benefit.

We end up spending lunch simply passing time talking about our homes.

Rue mentions, "Back home, I'm the only one who can reach the highest branches."

"Even Catnip can't reach the highest branches."

She looks at me confused, and I realize that I called Katniss by my personal nickname for her.

"When I met her, and I asked for her name. She whispered so lowly that I didn't fully hear her. I thought she said Catnip and I pitied her for a bit."

The next thing I feel is Katniss slapping me across the back of my head.

Rue laughs and I exaggeratingly yell, "Hey!"

We spend the rest of lunch simply making upbeat conversations, trying to make light of where we are.

Rue followed us to our next stations, and stuck with me when Katniss split off to archery. I decide to try my hand at throwing knives. Haymitch told us to display our strengths, so we won't, we'll pretend that we suck at them.

First I start out with a still target, getting a feel for the different weight of the knives, and get used to the feel of throwing again. I don't aim for the heart, instead I aim to a spot I chose away from it. Eventually, I get a hang for the knives, but I still maintain the façade that I'm mediocre with them.

Rue sees through the façade, and with a smile says, "You are horrible with those."

I glance at her and return her little smile. "You wanna try?"

She decides to give it a shot, but she's not good at it. At all. That and she's dramatically shorter than the dummy targets, meaning she has to aim upwards anyway.

After she finishes, I go again. I keep going until I hear Rue quietly call for me.

"What?"

She points somewhere, "Over there."

I follow her finger, to the archery station. I see someone over there, a guy who looks like he's wielding the bow. Except he's not, I can see that he's wrapped himself around someone else. I swear it looks like Marvel, and I know that Katniss went there, but did she leave? I look to Rue wondering what she saw exactly. "Is that...is he wrapped around Katniss?"

She nods, "It looks like the boy from 1, he's all on her."

I see nothing but red. He better be ready to lose his hands and his eyes. I start charging over to the archery station with Rue following me.

"Where do you think you're going loverboy?"

It's Cato, coming at me with a vengeful look on his face.

"Rue, get back."

"Thought it was funny making fun of us yesterday, bitch?!"

And then he throws a punch, one that I easily block away from me. Before he has a chance to throw another, I knee him in his ribcage, and then I give him a right hook, causing him to stumble away from me. The fury in his eyes is intense, and he tries at me again with an alpha male's bloodlust. He tries to punch me again, and I use my technique I got from hand to hand training to twist myself behind him. I hold his hands in mine, bringing both my arms to his head, and then bend forward, sending him flying over my shoulder, right onto his chest. He gets up and tries to charge at me again, to which I simply arrange myself to his side, grabbing hold of him again, flipping him onto his back, knocking the breath out of him.

"Yeah Cato. It was funny." This must have happened very quickly, or the peacekeepers aren't doing their job, because no one came to stop us. I turn to go to Katniss, but as it turns out, she handled herself well. All I see is Marvel on his back with Katniss pinning him down with her foot on his neck. She is an amazing girl. When she looks up at me, she flashes me a nice smirk. Did she notice Cato on the floor behind me? Suddenly, I remember Rue was nearby for this, I turn and I don't find her anywhere. Good. She probably left to find Thresh.

Finally, I hear the peacekeepers scurrying to stop the violence that already ended. They take me by the arm and take me away. I saw them do the same with Katniss. I admit it's satisfying to turn back and see Cato still writhing on the ground trying to catch his breath. I wonder how the career girls reacted to this.

The peacekeepers bring us to the elevators, and tell us not to return for the day. The moment the elevator doors close, me and Katniss look at one another, still exhilarated from the prior events, and we throw ourselves onto one another. The feeling is like 2 cyclones coming together, coalescing into a storm of cosmic proportions. We, or at least I, get enough concentration to focus on the elevator doors when they open. It looks like it's empty, good for us.

I carry Katniss to the closest room, hers, and throw her down on the bed, where we're transported to our own world for the time. At least until someone walks in on us when they find out about the incident.

Song credit: Bitch Better Have My Money by Rihanna