The next morning found Katniss slumped sullenly in her seat on the ride to school. Mr. Abernathy was on the driver's side, billowing smoke out the fully open window, and the heater in the truck was blowing full blast to make up for it.

Katniss had tried to hold onto her anger at him. It would be a lot easier to go through her day if she could just ignore him, easier to put her plans into action if she could just not care what he thought. After their argument in the kitchen the night before, she'd thought that would be easy enough. But, about an hour after he'd sent her to bed, he'd knocked softly at her bedroom door, and entered with a plate full of food when she hadn't answered him.

She had glared at him from her spot on the bed, not wanting to see or talk to him in the slightest. But he'd set the plate down on the little bedside table next to the lamp.

"Thought you were asleep. But... I didn't want you to wake up hungry," he explained shortly, and left the room quickly thereafter. Katniss had had to take a moment to process, to stare at the food, before she could actually sit up and reach for it.

Of course, she had realized quickly after being sent to her room that Mr. Abernathy had basically sent her to bed without supper. The implication rankled her, but she otherwise didn't think much of it. She'd eaten like a king earlier in the day, and she was very used to going to bed hungry. Knowing that he hadn't intended that particular injustice made her feel... well. She wasn't sure. She was less angry at him, anyway. She told herself while she ate that a momentary ceasefire would not interfere with her objective or make her in any way warm up to him. Not because he was necessarily a bad guy, but because she needed to focus on Prim, and on getting home, and she couldn't do that if she was allowing herself to be bought off with food.

After falling asleep full and content, though, and then waking up to the crumbs of last night's dinner in her immediate field of vision... she was finding it a little difficult.

She still wasn't speaking to him. No, she wasn't going to give in that much, he didn't need to know that his little stunt had softened her. She was still angry about being grounded, of course. She had decided that she really didn't like Mr. Abernathy thinking he could boss her around or, god forbid, punish her. As far as Katniss was concerned, she hadn't been a kid for a couple of years now, not after taking care of her mother and sister for so long, since her father had died. Any adult who was unwilling to treat her as an equal was an immediate annoyance... And Mr. Abernathy seemed determined to take care of her, as if she couldn't do it herself.

As he pulled up to the curb at the front of the school, Katniss reminded herself of his very irritating qualities, and didn't say a single word as she opened her door.

"Wait," he grunted, reaching over her and pulling the door closed again. "What are you gonna do this afternoon, girl? When school gets out?"

She rolled her eyes and tried to push the door open anyway.

"I'll come to the front! I'm not an idiot. Let me out."

"Best watch that attitude," he said, eyes narrowed as he released his grip on the door.

Katniss darted out, hearing him order her, "do not make me come looking for you today!" as the truck pulled away. She felt her face heating, and she ducked her head as she stalked toward the front doors. There were far too many students milling around on the grass outside who had heard that, and she was intent on finding herself a quiet corner to be mortified in for the remainder of the time before school started.

Of course, because she was Katniss Everdeen, and it was a Thursday, and perhaps Mercury was in retrograde, she wasn't quite so lucky.

Gale fell into step beside her, his heavy boots surprisingly quiet, and he leaned down to talk to her.

"What the hell, Katniss?" he all but demanded. "What is going on?"

She groaned and clutched her bag tighter. "Don't even ask. I don't want to talk about it."

Unlike yesterday's refusal to talk, this was less strategic hiding of information from her hotheaded friend, and more embarrassment on her part. The less she could think about the scene she'd no doubt caused here yesterday, the better. She had already given the gossip train material not five minutes ago by being dropped off in a mysterious truck and getting yelled at.

"I'm sure you don't, because you never want to talk about anything serious," he said, his tone accusatory. "And maybe I'd be okay with that, because that's how you always are... if we didn't have police crawling all over the Seam last night. I went to your apartment."

She clenched her teeth, refusing to look at him. She picked up her pace down the hallway toward the indoor gym, trying to lose him. His longer legs allowed him not only to keep up with her, but pass her and stand in front of her, blocking her way. She stopped short before she ran into the solid wall of his chest.

"Prim wasn't there, you weren't there... Your mom wasn't there. Katniss, your mother is all but rooted to the floorboards of that place! Something is wrong, why won't telling me what's happening?" he demanded. She could tell he was trying to keep his voice down, but he was angry, and taller than almost anyone else in the school, and people were noticing him. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the nearest unoccupied room, slamming the door behind them as she let him go.

"Because I knew you'd freak out!" she snapped, pacing further into the band room. "And what do you mean, my mom wasn't there?" Gale was right, of course. Her mother rarely left their apartment anymore, she hadn't worked in years. She had been positive that with her and Prim in the system, her mom would melt into her bed and try to forget they existed. It made Katniss furious when her mother disappeared into her own head like that, even if she knew she couldn't really help it. It was difficult not to be upset when the only parent you had left did their best impression of the parent who was dead.

Gale stared at her. "How would you not know your mom isn't there? It didn't look like anyone had been there for a while. Everything was dark."

"Because I'm not living there right now," Katniss bit out. "I got caught stealing from the diner the other day, okay? I was hungry and I wasn't getting enough tips to feed us. My rat of a manager saw me and called the cops."

Gale looked torn between sitting down in shock or yelling at her. She was glad when he found a chair to slump into. She'd had enough of being yelled at for one week.

"They didn't bring me right to the station... it being my first offense and all," Katniss said, wandering over and sitting next to him. "They brought me home, like, to make sure my parents yelled at me. But Mom, of course, didn't seem to care much. When does she ever? And apparently being half comatose when cops show up at the door with your kid is kind of weird, because next thing I knew they were asking to take a look around. They were scaring Prim," she said, heat and fury rising in her throat. She swallowed it down when Gale rested a hand on her shoulder. "Anyway, it didn't take long for them to realize that Mom was definitely not the person running the house. There was no food there. None at all."

"Katniss," he said, shaking his head. He knew how that was. He was in a pretty similar position to Katniss, although his mom did take care of them. It was just more than she could handle with three little kids as well as a teenage boy to feed.

"Yeah. I was taking that money for a reason. But... I dunno. I guess they called Miss Cardew then, I was kind of busy talking to Prim to keep her calm."

"Miss Cardew?" he asked.

"Our social worker," she said bitterly. "Pleasant woman, really. Very uptown," she said, with a put-on sniff of aristocratic disdain. "And apparently very busy. She stuck me with Mr. Abernathy and I don't actually know exactly where Prim is. In the Capitol district somewhere."

She felt Gale's hand tense on her shoulder, and didn't have to wait long at all for the explosion she knew was coming.

"What?" he demanded furiously, and was up from his chair in an instant. "They split you up? They can't do that! Prim needs you!"

He started pacing, agitated almost out of his skin. "Someone finally notices enough to care about how bad your living situation is, and what do they do? Decide to ruin what little stability you two have with each other? That's bullshit, complete... I hate this city sometimes," he said, turning to face her again.

"You always hate this city," she grunted.

"And you don't?" he asked, one dark eyebrow raised.

She threw her hands up. "Of course I do. I hate living here and I hate that the system is so against my family that we can barely eat! But yelling about it doesn't solve anything."

"And I guess you have a plan?"

"Sarcasm not appreciated," she made sure to tell him, scowling. "Yes, actually, I do have a plan. Maybe not for the whole city, but for me and Prim."

Gale sat down again, still out of sorts but calmer than he had been before.

"Well... Let's hear it, then."

Katniss rummaged in her bag, producing the map she'd taken from the library before the rest of the day had blown up yesterday. She pointed to the two circles she'd drawn around neighborhoods on the map.

"I think one of those places is where we ended up the other night when we dropped Prim off. I want to find the schools there and check out the sixth grade classes."

Gale pursed his lips as he looked over the map, tracing the north side neighborhoods down to their own lowly district.

"Those are on opposite sides of the West River."

"Yeah. I know we crossed one bridge, but I don't remember if we crossed two," she explained.

Panem City had sprung up around a delta where two rivers joined, and most maps could be simplified into a Y shape because of it. The Capitol District straddled the upper end of the west river, while District Twelve was on the far south-eastern side of the city. Katniss couldn't rule out one side of the West River or the other, although she was certain they'd crossed the East River. She thought she could recognize where she was if she could go back, however.

"That could take two hours on the bus," Gale pointed out.

"Or, I could get my eighteen year old best friend to drive me," Katniss said, feeling nervous for the first time that morning.

Gale frowned. He did have a license, because he drove pizza delivery on the weekends when he could be up late. But there was one problem.

"You know I don't have my own car, Catnip."

"Mr. Abernathy has a car, though."

He shared a look with her.

"If you stole his car, it would be joyriding. You'd get yelled at. If I stole his car, I could get arrested."

It wasn't an outright no, and Katniss latched onto that.

"No, Gale, he's not like that. He's… well, he's not a softy. But he has a soft spot for kids. Why else would he be a foster parent?"

"Money?" Gale said obviously.

Katniss shrugged. "I dunno. He doesn't live like a king but I really don't think that's why."

She didn't find it necessary to mention that he hadn't had a placement in probably more than a decade, and couldn't be milking the system for stipends.

"Just… think about it, Gale. Please. I'm going to find her one way or another, but it would be a lot easier with your help. With a friend along."

It was more earnestness than Katniss almost ever displayed, and Gale knew before she even stopped speaking that he'd been suckered.

"I'll think about it," he grumbled, already knowing his answer would be yes.

Katniss hugged him in thanks, and Gale was more than happy to hold her tightly. He figured she could use the comfort, even if she would never say so.

"She's sixteen and she's a pain in the neck," Haymitch scoffed, searching shortly for his flask in his jacket pocket and knocking back a few harsh swallows of the liquor. He would say the girl was driving him to drink, but it didn't take him much to get on that particular train. "You know she disappeared on me yesterday? I went to pick her up and she was just gone. Poof. Vanished. I had half the school staff looking for her, and we eventually had to call the police. Cops! When was the last time I had to call a cop?"

"And they just dumped her on you," Chaff asked with a raised eyebrow. He and Haymitch were two of the only three people currently in the gym, chatting while they watched Chaff's young heavyweight training on the heavy bag. The kid he was mentoring, Thresh, was fairly content to warm up and not talk to anybody.

Haymitch shrugged. "Sort of. Apparently we're overcrowded on foster kids, it was go with me or go to juvie. Whole thing is… dubiously legal. I'm fairly sure my license is several years out of date."

"A decade, maybe?" Chaff scoffed.

"Something like," Haymitch agreed darkly. "Gonna have to fix that."

He took another long drink before capping the flask and tucking it back away. The mild dullness around the corners of his being was welcomed.

Katniss. Now, she was an enigma if he ever saw one. Obviously neglected to the point of hunger, and yet she only seemed to have a half-formed sense of self-preservation. He expected a kid to be devastated that their family had hit rock bottom hard enough for them to be taken from their parents, at least when they were around Katniss' age. He did not expect kids to seem merely annoyed that their lives had been interrupted. He and the girl were in agreement on that one.

Honestly, she seemed to be more upset when he was nice to her. He couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Rather than dwell on it, Haymitch grumbled, "imagine there being so damn many kids with unfit families that the system is crowded to the gills. What the hell kind of city is this? Most of these people just can't feed their damn kids. You know why they can't feed their damn kids? Because the system keeps most folks so destitute…"

Chaff listened patiently while Haymitch continued to rant. On the one hand, it was all commentary he'd heard before, all the same upsets and injustices that used to infuriate his closest friend and send him on the same kinds of raving spells when they had met overseas. Haymitch, like himself, had been an unwilling participant in an unpopular war.

But over the last several years, since tragedies had pummeled Haymitch like he was an outclassed amateur in a professional ring, Haymitch had been quieter in his disdain. He was more inclined to turn that anger at the world inward, since turning it out hadn't gotten him very far. He had to admit, even if the situation wasn't great, it was nice to see some fire back in him.

"Why's she in care, anyway?" Chaff asked, redirecting the conversation a bit.

Haymitch got a little quieter, and shrugged.

"I don't know much. Her mom ain't too right in the head. The way the kid eats, I'd say mom wasn't feeding her. Her caseworker gave me a ring yesterday to tell me she was in some mental institution."

Chaff whistled lowly. "Sounds like a mess. You don't know anything else?"

Haymitch groaned and pressed his palm to his forehead. "I'm surprised I even know this much. The most infuriating part of this godforsaken system is that nobody tells you anything. Hell, I'm assuming that this is Katniss' first placement and I don't actually know that. But… This hospital thing, it has me worried. I thought they'd find some way to get her mother some aid, some food in the cupboards, and she would be gone in a couple of weeks. Now, with all yesterday's drama, I haven't even had the opportunity to tell the kid she's gonna be here a while."

"How long is a while?" Chaff asked.

"Her mom could be AWOL up to six months. In the meantime, I'm positive they're gonna lose whatever apartment they're living in. She's gonna be released with nowhere to go, and who knows what happens then. Maybe another month for her to get on her feet alone before they check the place out to see if Katniss would actually be able to live there."

Haymitch had been chewing over all this for the last twenty-four hours, realizing the scope of the responsibility he'd taken on and the magnitude of the overhaul on Katniss' life.

"Wow."

Chaff was unsure how Haymitch would handle having a dependent, especially for such a long time. He could pull it together for a couple of weeks to take care of a short placement, he was sure enough of that. But he'd spent a lot of years in a basically solitary routine, and a lot of years self destructing.

Not that Chaff was a stranger to that. There was something to be said for the closest person in his life being an old combat buddy.

"Is she gonna stay with you the whole time?"

Haymitch nodded. "That's what I'm hoping for. No reason to bump her around to a bunch of different places in such a short amount of time. She's sixteen, she should be focusing on school, not worrying about the other little inmates stealing her stuff, or moving house every couple of months because nobody wants to take teenagers in."

Chaff nodded, and looked away to hide a smile. Maybe he was worrying too much. Hell, maybe this would be good for Haymitch. He'd always done better with other people around to bring him out of his head.

"Well, if you two ever need anything, you know you can give me a call."

"Yeah, yeah," Haymitch grumbled, showing his appreciation of the sentiment by wandering away from the conversation altogether. "Give that kid a break before he wrecks my heavy bag."

Chaff laughed, clapped Haymitch's shoulder as he retreated, and headed for Thresh to start the day's training.