*2 months later*

Cato's POV:

So, two months passed, they were pretty uneventful. Brooke got her stitches off, that's about it. The tour is coming up soon, and I kinda wanna go get a few things from my district. Like, from my house.

Which, my family is living in.

I am required to have a house in two, so, since I'm not using it, my family does. I feel like I need clothes. For two months I've been living on the two outfits I brought and whatever scraps I find at the Hob or whatever she calls it.

Which isn't much, to say the least.

I walk into the kitchen, to see Brooke failing to attempt to cook breakfast. Neither of us can cook, so I just watch her with an amused grin on my turns and faces me.

"You try this!" she says, exhasperated.

After an hour of wrestling with a pan and an egg, she manages to cook it.

"That's one egg, now make like, three more." I say.

She glares at me, and says,"You come help me."

I walk over by the stove, and crack an egg on the side of the bowl.

But, apparently, I underestimated my own strength. Because the contents of the egg, go flying, but they completely miss me, and full on hit Brooke.

I bust out laughing.

She stares daggers at me. Although, it isn't very threatening, because she's got egg all over her. In her hair, on her face, all over her shirt, everywhere.

"I'm gonna go change. You can cook breakfast." she says, wiping the egg of her face."Maybe I'll take a shower." she mutters.

I struggle with the eggs, but I manage to make three more.(Did you know that all I had to do was put all three in one pan?)

When she comes down and sees the eggs, she scowls. Ha! I bet she thought that I couldn't do it!

She ties her waist lenght wavy brown hair into a ponytail and, sits down next to me. She grabs a fork and eats her half of the eggs.

I figure this is as good a time as any to see if she wants to go to two with me.

Here it goes.

"Heybrookeithinkweshouldgototwobecauseihavetogetaf ewthings."

"What?" she says laughing. Her green eyes shine with amusement.

"I said, I think we should go to two because I need to get a few things."

All traces of amusement left her face.

"Okay." she says simply. She puts her fork down. "I'll go get ready."

*1 hour later*

Luckily, there is a train leaving less than ten minutes from now.

Brooke hasn't looked at me since I told her I wanted to go. She's standing about a few yards from the track, whereas I'm sitting on a beat down bench leaning against the wall.

Let me rephrase that. I don't want to go, not at all. I have to go.

I walk over to her.

"Look, I kinda get hat you're mad-"

She cuts me off," I'm not mad."

"Then why haven't you said a word to me-"

"Because I'm nervous. Your district will probably hate me too."

"Nah, they'll respect you, at least."

"I hope so."

Just then, the train pulls into the station, and we get on.

The train ride is about, eh, eight hours, so Brooke falls asleep.

I watch her. Her head is rested on my shoulder, and she's snoring very softly. I watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest. I can't believe I ever thought of hurting someone so fragile. But there's another side to her too. She's like a million different people. And, that's when I realize it...

I'm falling for Brooke.

Brooke's POV:

For the first time since I got out of the arena, I have a peaceful, nightmareless sleep. I wonder why.

I find out when I wake up and see my head on Cato's shoulder. He's humming to himself, softly though, so I'm fairly sure that I'm the only one who hears it.

He sees me.

"Hey."

"Hey." I respond.

Just then, the train stops. Ride over.

"How long was I out?" I ask.

"Eh, only about an hour, maybe an hour and a half." he responds.

"Oh. Okay." she says,"by the way, where are we gonna go?"

"To my house in Victor's Village. My parents live there, but it's huge, so, yeah."

We walk from the train station to his house.

He turns to me,"Look, before we get in there, you should know, my parents like to take advantage of people, they're just like that, so, just be careful."

"Okay."

Although, even though he said that, nothng can prepare me for the chaos I'm about to see inside.

As soon as I walk in, the lady who I assume is Cato's mom is yelling at his little sister, Grace, and I see his dad hit Jason across the face.

"HEY!" Cato yells, angrily.

His mom and dad look at him.

"Who are you to barge into our house and yell at us for what we do to our children?"his mother screeches.

"It's my house and that's are my brother and sister!" he yells,.

"And, this is Brooke." he adds, more calm and controlled.

I wave awkwardly.

"What are you here for?" his dad snarls.

"I just came to get some things."

I see Grace run over to him. She wraps her skinny arms around him.

"Please stay." she begs. Cato looks at me pleadingly. I shrug.

"A week." he says authoritively, but he can't keep a straight face, because as soon as her face breaks out in a grin, so does his.

His mother scowls. "All the rooms are taken. You and that can have the couch."

That. Wow. I guess his mother likes me.

Note the sarcasm.

Cato and I walk over to the couch.

"Sorry." he mutters.

"Don't bother. I would've done the same thing." I say.

His little sister comes in.

She looks at me and him.

"Cam you two sleep in my room?"

"Yeah." we both respond.

We follow her to her room. It's pretty small, so that makes me wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Hall use the other rooms for.

"How old are you sweetie?" I ask her.

"I'm eight." she says.

Oh. That's pretty sad. She's eight and she is already getting yelled at by her parents, she's training for the games. She's like a mini-me!

"She's just like you." Cato states, it's like he's reading my thoughts.

I nod.

We go to her bed. Cato goes to the bathroom to get into his pajamas. Grace looks at me for a while. It's like she's judging me. I must have passed the test, because she flings herself into my arms and cries. I start singing to her:

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Here it's safe, here it's warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm

At this point, she's already asleep, so I lay her in the middle of her bed. Cato comes in, so I go to the bathroom and change into my pajamas. When I get back, Cato is staring at me.

"You got her to sleep?"

"Yeah." I answer.

He looks at me,"She must've trusted you."

"Yeah," I repeat.

With that, we both lay down on either side of her, and go to sleep.


Cato's POV:

When we wake up in the morning, I see Grace is still asleep, and she's curled herself into me. I look for Brooke, and she's on the other side of Grace.

Jason comes in.

"Mom and Dad said that you and the girl need to take us to train," he says,"and stay there." I laugh, I bet they did say to stay there.

"You and Grace?" I ask.

"Yeah."

I wake up Brooke. "What. Are. We. Doing. That. Is. So. Important?" she asks angrily.

"We have to take Jason and Grace to training, and stay there."

"Whatever." she says. She gets up and trudges over to the bathroom.

*Twenty minutes later*

Brooke's POV:

When we get to the training center, I have no idea what to do. I just do what Cato does. They all change into a strechy jumpsuit similar to the ones that we wore at the training center. We all change into them quickly, which is kinda awkward, and go to the training area.

"You should shoot, or throw knives or spears or something." Cato says.

"Why?"

"Because, they need to respect you. So they learn not to take advantage of you."

"Um...okay, I'll go get a bow?" Cato shakes his head.

"Spear?" No again.

"Knives?" No again!

"Then what am I supposed to go?" I ask, growing agitated.

He points to a complicated maze hanging from the roof. It's got a net about thirty feet under it, which is still about a hundred feet off of the ground, and it's got these long poles leading up to it. It's got these, well, bars hanging from the roof, and tubes going around. Not to mention it moves.

"No. Absolutely no way am I going up there."

"C'mon Brooke, it won't be that bad. It only ever killed like five or six people." he says. That only makes me not want to do it more.

"How many people are stupid enough to do it?"

"At least a hundred a day."

"And you expect me to do that?" I ask.

"No, I'm making you do that." he says, and then he yells,"We've got someone over here who wants to do the sky-maze!"

Before I know what's happening, I am whisked away to a ladder leading up to the first bar. An old man, okay, he's not that old, like thirty five, tells me,"You can do anything possible to get to the end of the maze. You are being timed, so do it fast, if you fall, the net should catch you. Good luck."

"Should, wait, what-" I am nudged onto the ladder and start to climb up. This can't be safe.

Once I get up, I can feel the weight of everybody's eyes. I latch onto the first, and already I can feel my hands slipping. I swing over to the next bar, then the next. Once I get to the first turn, I sneak a glance at the timer, wrong move. One of my hands slips off and the other one is starting to. I use the hand that slipped off to grab the next bar.

You can do anything possible to get to the end of the maze. Isn't that what that guy said?

I swing my legs up and over the next bar. The bars are long, so I am able to stand completely straight up. The bars are thin, so it's hard to keep my balance, but once I get the hang of it, I can go from bar to bar pretty easily. I fall, right towards the end, but i catch myself. My wrist hits the bar awkrardly, and it starts to swell. It doesn't matter though, I don't need my arms for this.

Let it be known that Brooke Hays has much more balance than she has upper body strength.

Cato's POV:

The whole 'standing up on the bars' thing was clever. Only two people have ever finished the maze, and that was after years of practice. And they had their ways of cheating too. One actually jumped on the net. That was probably hard. And the other did it so long ago, nobody remembers how it happened anymore.

Just as Brooke finishes the maze, everyone grudgingly claps. That's my girl.

She comes over to stand next to me.

"Good job." I say, smiling.

"Thanks," she answers playfully.

I look at her arm, it looks swollen.

"Is this from when you fell?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine." She answers again.

Once everyone goes back to the usual routine, we split up to different stations. I go to the hand to hand station to help the others train, as a normal district two victor would, and I think she went to throw knives. I dunno.

The kids who are here are the twelve year olds right now, so I basically just show them what to do.

About two hours later, Grace and Jason say that they are about ready to go. I go to get Brooke.

"Hey, you about ready to go?" I ask her.

"Uh huh." she grunts.

We all go change back into our regular clothes and leave.

When we get back to the house, Grace and Jason go to their rooms. My parents are watching TV in the living room, so Brooke and I go up to Grace's room again.

She sits down on the bed and I sit next to her. Grace is already asleep. Brooke takes off her jacket and lowers down into a laying position. I look at her wrist, which has now turned purple by the way.

"Brooke, your wrist looks bad, someone should look at it." I say urgently.

"Who's gonna look at it?"

"We could take you to the hospital," I say.

"How's that gonna look. 'Co-Victor takes other Co-Victor to The hospital with injured wrist. Is Foul Play involved?' How would that look for you Cato? Let's just cover it up for now, and we'll have someone look at it when we get back."

"Whatever you want. Just... I hope you be careful." I say.


Brooke's POV:

Otherwise training, district two is weird.

Not like in a bad way, I mean, it's so fancy. It's practically a smaller version of the capitol. But the people aren't as ugly. There's nice restaraunts on every corner. They are big and crowded. I can't help but hate everyone in them. People in my district are drowning in poverty. They can't afford food, clothes, people are rotting in mines just to get a few bucks.

Not enough to raise a family, to say the least.

I was forced to hunt at age eight just to live. And these people are getting everything they need handed to them on a platter.

We're walking down a street, Cato and I, and Cato nudges me,"Hey, you okay?"

"Huh, oh... yeah. I'm fine." I answer.

"I know you're lying. Just tell me. Wait, is it your wrist? We can take you to get it looked at, I'm sure we'll-"

"No, it's not my wrist, you just don't need to know. It's not important." I say. Wow. That came out bad.

"It is, I know it."

"You obviously don't know what's wrong." I snap.

"Look it's not any of my buisness, I just want to help you." he says.

"I'd tell you, but you wouldn't understand." I reply.

"Fine. Let's just go back, or, wait. I promised my parents that we'd have dinner with them. It's all for their publicity." he says, kinda bitterly I might add.

"Okay." I say indifferently.

It's about an hour before the "dinner" we're supposed to have with Cato's family. I'm in Grace's room braiding her hair.

"I want it in a side fish-tail," she says.

I braid her long dirty blonde hair into the a fish-tail. Looping each strand of hair over the other to avoid thinking about tonight.

"Thanks," she says when I'm done.

"No problem. Your hair is cute like that." I say. She nods, and walks over to her closet. She pulls out a red dress. It's adorable! The dress has a bright red flowy skirt, and it has a sweatheart neckline with straps. The border of the neckline has red rinestones.

She glances at me. By the looks of it, she doesn't trust me. Then I realize...

"Oh! I won't look!" I say, laughing. She stares at me, like it isn't funny.

She changes, and then she asks me to zip it up. I oblidge.

Cato walks in a minute later. He looks nice. He has a nice black suit on and a white shirt with a black and grey tie.

"You look nice." I comment.

"Thanks, I would say the same, but you're not dressed, wait, that came out wrong, I mean, you have clothes on, but..."

"I know what you mean," I say while smiling. Then my smile falters,"Cato, I have nothing to wear." I say. Wow, that is the girliest thing I've ever said.

He laughs. "I think I have something."

He pulls out a dress bag. He hands it to me. I pull the dress out of the bag and look at it. It's amazing! Cato couldn't have picked a better dress (if he even picked it). It is a full length dress. It goes down to my toes when I put it on. It is a light grey color. It is a flowy dress and has a sweetheart neckline. It is so soft I could sleep in it. Not that I would, but... y'know.

I go into the bathroom and get a hair straightener out. They have such nice things here! Once my hair is completely straight, I comb my bangs onto the front of my forehead and walk out.

"You look good!" Cato says.

"Thanks." I blush.

We walk down stairs, with Grace following behind, and when we get down, I can tell we're all surprised. Cato's brother is here. His older one. Jared.

"Hey bro." Jared says. Cato waves, but it looks like he's recovered from his shock.

"Hi."

His mother claps,"Okay, time to go. Everybody get into the car."

Car?!

Once we all get in to it, we go to a fancy restaraunt. We get a table and sit down.

"Drinks?" asks a perky waitress.

"Tea, sweet."

"Fizz."

"Unsweet tea."

"Sweet tea."

"Soda."

"Wine."

"Water." I say last.

Once they bring the drinks, I take small sips of water so I don't look impolite.

We all order some kind of chicken to share thing. There are cameras outside the restaraunt, filming everything. I can hear Cato's parents talking.

"What's wrong with her? She comes here, expecting everything from us?" his dad mumbles.

"I know. It's because she's poor. That ratty district of hers."

"It's not ratty." I speak up. Everyone at the table looks at me.

"You can say anything you want about my district, but I'm here. I won the games, I lived. Can you say the same?" I ask angrily, my voice rising a bit more at every word.

"Don'y come to our house and talk to us like that. You are just some stupid poor girl." says his dad.

"No, it's not your house. And I'm not that poor anymore. And even when I was, I had a better head on my shoulder than yours."

"So what! All we care about is looking good! We never cared about-"

Then it's gonna make you look really bad when I run out!" I say.

"And go back to your crappy district?" his mom yells.

"Yeah." I say, and storm out.

I go to the train station and get on a train back to twelve, dreading the moment when I'll have to leave again.