"Don't you have anything to give him for this?" cried Katniss as Gale was laid down on their kitchen island.
"I'll do everything that I can, Katniss," her mother answered quietly.
Prim rushed down the stairs into the kitchen, bathrobe flapping at her sides like a startled bird. Upon seeing the situation, she quickly fell into assistant mode. Doctor Everdeen was crushing some herbs in a bowl.
"What is this, you quack?!" Katniss shouted, viewing the mix, "Don't you have any real medicine?!"
Her mother, however, had passed into her special medical zone, and did not respond.
"Get this herbal remedy crap," she seized the bowl, "Out of here!" and forcefully ejected it from the room.
Peeta placed an assuring but firm hand on her shoulder. "You're not yourself right now."
A peculiar look passed over her wild eyes. "What would you know?! You're just a giant talking loaf of bread!"
Even with the help of Haymitch, restraining Katniss and moving to her bed proved a difficult task. However, exhausted by her attempts to free herself and terrorize her mother, the fight ended soon after she had hit the sheets.
She awoke with a clear enough mind for her to be embarrassed, and was returning to the kitchen when the doorbell interrupted her. A well-bundled Madge handed Katniss a small, wrapped package.
She accepted it with raised eyebrows. "Thank's so much, aahh..."
"Katniss," Madge's eyes dropped desperately, "Do you not remem-"
Closing the door against the frigid, turbulent air, Katniss proceeded into the kitchen. Picking up their home phone, she examined Gale's peaceful, sleeping face until Peeta answered.
"Peeta, I need to talk to you and Haymitch."
She could make out a blender in the background as he said, "Alright."
The grey and white walk to the outside of town gave Katniss an opportunity to clear her head out in the cold. The paths were lined with snow drifts as tall as she was, and were mostly empty on account of mine closings. Her fiance and mentor had arrived as planned.
Facing them both squarely, she said, "I want to start an uprising, like they did in District 8."
While Peeta coughed violently into the arm of his coat, Haymitch pinched the bridge of his nose. He recovered faster, however, and addressed the would-be revolutionary.
"So, we spend all this time doing damage control so you don't start a revolt, and now you suddenly want to become Che Guevara after all? Why?"
Katniss's serious discussion-look became slightly less serious. "Well, the Capitol-"
"Oh, don't give me that 'it suddenly hits home' stuff," said Haymitch, rolling his eyes, "How did you not have that moment before? You were literally in the Hunger Games last year. The government tried to kill you-you personally."
"It's different now. A real uprising has taken place."
"And here's why you read the whole article instead of just skim the headlines, kid, because all of those people died, probably because they were trying to destroy hovercrafts with bricks and keffiyehs."
A drawn-out sigh steamed out of Katniss's nostrils into the icy air. "Fine."