House Making

It had been two days since we had left the machinery the Gamemakers had used to control the cynical games. The group had gotten lucky and I had been able to keep us reasonably well fed. The traveling was starting to wear on everyone though and being in a traveling small group was starting to irritate some people, like Cato.

We had been hiking in the woods for two days and when the trees broke everyone screamed in joy. We plopped ourselves down on the rocky terrain and just laid back for a while. It was Rue who finally spoke "so where are we actually going to stay?"

All of us the dubbed 'grown up's groaned in unison. We had no plan whatsoever. We sighed and continued to look up "Katniss?" Rue tried again.

"Ya Katniss?" everyone jumped in clutching the opportunity to put responsibility onto someone else's shoulders.

I sighed "we could build houses," I tried.

"That's not a bad idea," Cato said looking over at me.

"Really?" I asked somewhat confused.

"Ya we can build there here, think about it, we have a rock hill on one side and a forest on the other, we're protected."

"Ok, let's get started," Peeta said springing up.

The next few hours were spent cutting trees down and carving spaces and arranging logs and getting large leaves. Somehow at the end of the day four houses were built. Unfortunately there was no sunlight left to furnish or decorate or anything similar. So instead they all stayed in Peeta, Rue, and my house. They all had sleeping bags and huddled close together to ensure nothing could sneak up on them.

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The next day brought new chores and duties. Peeta and Thresh were working on cutting more wood for some fires. Cato and I were roaming in the woods trying to find some more meat.

"Why do they always send us to hunt?" Cato asked.

"Because we're best at it," I said squatting down to look at some tracks they were following. "What did they send Clove to do?"

"Why should I care?" Cato snapped looking away from me with his sword viciously in hand.

I rose my eyebrows and examined him curiously, I smiled softly to myself. "Just because you're her district partner is all."

"Oh well if that's all then she, little one, and Eight went beyond the rocks to see if there was any stones to line the fireplace with so we don't burn the houses down when we have fires."

"I see, that's smart," I said grabbing an arrow from it's sheath and loading my bow. "It's a deer, it's close," I whispered.

"Let's go," Cato said motioning me forward.

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"Cato!" Clove exclaimed jumping to her feet once he was in sight.

"Hey," Cato nodded towards her.

"Where's Katniss?" Peeta asked walking away from the side of his house.

"I'm back here!" I grunted holding the large deer on my back without aid from Cato.

"Why aren't you helping her?" Peeta asked rushing to my aid.

"It's bloody," Cato said as if that were obvious.

"You train to kill people in the games!" Peeta said lifting half of the deer off my shoulders.

"Thank you," I said shrugging my shoulders a bit. "At least we'll have food for awhile," I said tossing the deer from Peeta and my back onto a make shift table for cutting up kills.

"You aren't going to do that here are you?" Cato asked eyeing the deer suspiciously.

"If you don't like it go do something else."

"I plan on it," Cato said going into the house he was assigned with Clove.

"Guess what Cato," Clove said excitedly bounding after him.

"Hn?" he asked seeming disinterested.

"A few of us thought we saw some ruins that might be District 13, it was pretty far away, maybe a two day hike. But it could have some really helpful stuff in it," she smiled pulling herself up onto the wooden counter top.

"That could be useful," Cato agreed. "Maybe you and I could head back to the control room from the game and see if they have things like a refrigerator," he paused .

"I'd go with you," she smiled happily at him.

"Wanna sneak out now?" he smirked triumphantly. She tilted her head thinking.

"Shouldn't we at least tell someone so that they don't worry?"

Cato rolled his eyes "fine, but we're telling not asking."

"I agree, we're grown up, we can handle ourselves." Cato grabbed Clove off of the wooden counter top and helped her down. They walked towards the back of Katniss and Peeta's house.

"Cato if that's you I have animal insides showing," Katniss called.

"You go Clove," Cato said leaning on the side of the building.

"Hey guys Cato and I were going to go into the mechanic section where the Gamemakers had the controls. See if there are any appliances we can use in the houses," Clove said grabbing her knife belt.

"Be careful," Katniss smiled softly.

"We will be," Clove said hugging Katniss before returning to Cato.

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AN: Sorry you had to wait so long for a filler chapter. I figured you'd rather have an update than a longer chapter so I'm going to try and update again, with a non filler chapter, sometime tomorrow. Please review