Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

Learning

Gale watched as Savanna pulled her little arrow back and took aim, let go, and sent it several yards and into the small target he'd set up for her and Glen.

"I did it, daddy!" She squealed and did a little dance, the bottom of her skirt flying wildly as she did.

She'd only just barely hit the target. Her arrow is buried in the bottommost corner, almost so shallow in the sawdust pillow supporting the target it's a wonder it doesn't fall out.

Still, she had made it. Better than the last few weeks of practice.

"Next time, keep both your eyes open," Glen offered helpfully, demonstrating with his own bow. "Maybe you'll hit a little higher."

Savanna watches her brother reverently as he lets his own arrow sail through the air, hit the center of the target with a thud. Her dance begins anew. "Yay! Good job, Glen!"

Her dark hair goes flying in all directions, falling from her loose ponytail haphazardly.

Glen grabs her by the hands and joins in on her celebration, spinning her around until her feet leave the ground. They stop when his feet tangle with each other and they both crash to the ground in a heap of giggles.

"Alright," Gale tells them, trying not to laugh at their antics, "let's eat some lunch. Your mom'll kill me if all her hard work goes to waste."

"She just made sandwiches," Glen points out. "How is that hard?"

"Fine, she'll kill me if her time was wasted, smartypants."

Glen smirks at that and runs off, to the tree where Gale had left the basket of food Madge had packed for them before their trip into the woods behind their house. Really, they're only a few miles off, neither Glen nor Savanna can make any longer a trip than that at their ages, but it's still too far to trek back for lunch.

Savanna grabs Gale by the hand and walks with him, chattering about her surely above average skill with her bow and how many 'duckies' she's going to shoot someday.

"But I don'wanna pull they feathers," she tells him with a stern look, as though he'd brought it up. "You an'Glen can do that."

When they get to the tree, Gale settling with his back against the rough bark, Savanna plops into his lap and begins picking at her sandwich.

"You wan'this, daddy?" She asks with each fleshy red tomato she pulls from her meal.

"I thought you liked tomatoes?" He frowns as he accepts the perfect slice in his hand, then another. She'd liked them just two days before.

"No, not anymore," she answers, shutting her sandwich back up with a smile before eating it.

Gale just closes his eyes. His children make no sense sometimes.

Adding Savanna's discarded tomatoes to his sandwich, Gale shuffles her in his lap a little, then begins to eat.

"Daddy," Savanna begins again, "you should teach momma how t'shoot too."

With a chuckle, Gale plucks a little sprig of grass from her hair and tosses it into the wind. "What makes you think I haven't?"

Years before, when they hadn't even started dating yet, Gale had taken Madge out to try to teach her at the very least, the basics of shooting a bow.

The new government was popular, had a lot of support, but there were still those who supported the way things had been, people who wanted the ways of the Capitol reinstated.

No matter how strong the government he'd helped build was, how much he believed in it, there was always the chance it could fall. If a regime as strong as Snow's could be toppled by rebels, the new government could be undermined, destroyed in the blink of an eye.

He'd wanted Madge to be prepared.

"Gale, honestly, I get sick just hearing about Katy-Jo Lewes talking about butchering the goats. What makes you think I could shoot and cut up some poor little creature?"

"If you're hungry enough you would," he'd answered, a little sharply.

It hadn't swayed her though, and she'd refused to even take up the bow when he'd offered it to her.

A few years later, after they'd been dating for a while, he'd tried again.

"Please, Madge, I don't want you to be helpless if something happens."

Reluctantly, she'd tried, followed his directions to the letter, practiced whenever Gale was around to supervise.

She wasn't bad, she wasn't great either. Gale was pretty sure Madge wouldn't have been able to hit a living, moving target with an arrow, but she could at least scare an intruder off long enough to make a run for it. That much he was certain of.

Occasionally he still tries to get her to come out with him, the kids, and sometimes his brothers and sister, but she normally turns him down.

"Gale, there are hunters and there are gatherers. I'm a gatherer," she explained. "And you're my hunter."

"What if I'm not here?" The fear of dying young, like his father, still haunted him. He didn't just have Madge to worry about, he had Glen and Savanna. They'd lived easy lives so far. If something happened to Gale he didn't know what would happen to them. Neither of the kids would be good enough to hunt on their own for several years, he was positive of that.

Madge just pressed a kiss to his lips, patted his stubble covered cheek. "Then I have two strapping young brothers-in-law that will swoop in and help me." She squinted up at him. "And I'll have you know that despite what you may think, I'm not helpless. I'd find a way to survive, with or without you there."

With a grin, Gale had wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, inhaling the clean scent that clung to her.

He was well aware she wasn't helpless, that she was too clever to let the fall of the government kill her. Madge would find a way to survive, even if that way didn't involve his preferred means of doing so.

"I know how to set a pretty good snare," she'd added. "Granted, I still wouldn't be able to skin the poor thing."

Gale just rolled his eyes. "It's a good thing we have such hearty children then."

"Exactly," Madge nodded.

Savanna wrinkles her nose up, reminding Gale entirely too much of her mother, before sighing and returning to her sandwich. "Okay."

Gale chuckles again, tugs at the tip of her ponytail, then presses a kiss into her dark hair. It smells like sunshine, warm and clean.

"How about I teach you some snares?"

Glen, who'd taken up a spot near the pond, at the edge of the tree's shade, perked up, quickly swallowing down his mouthful of sandwich. "I can teach her that!"

He scrambles up, tossing the last bite of his sandwich into the water near a group of ducklings before half running to where Gale and Savanna are.

"Dad, I can teach her snares. I'm good at them, remember?"

Savanna frowns, tilts her head back and peers at Gale, awaiting his answer.

Fighting off laughter, Gale nods. Glen is good at snares, had picked them up easily when Gale had taught them to him, but his enthusiasm at passing his knowledge on to his sister is a little comical.

"Why do you want to teach her?" Gale finally asks.

Glen frowns, as though it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "'Cause you showed me, and I wanna be like you."

Gale smiles, feels his face warm under the studious stares of his children.

He knows his son shouldn't want to be like him, Gale isn't a good person and he knows that, but hearing the simple praise makes him feel like he might be inching closer to redemption.

"I guess you can show her the basics," Gale finally relents, not nearly as hesitant as he pretends to be.

Glen's smile widens and he nods, reaching out and grabbing Savanna's hand and trying to pull her from Gale's lap.

"I'm not finished," Savanna tells him, pulling her hand back as she resumes eating her sandwich. Her bites are agonizingly slow.

After a thoughtful bite, her pale gray eyes turn up to Gale.

"Daddy, can I have one of your tomatoes?"

Gale tries not to groan.

His children make no sense sometimes.