Katniss rested her head on her hand as she kept poking her food, not paying much mind to Effie and Haymitch at this point as they went back to bickering like an old married couple. She had been in quite a good mood but then when she saw Haymitch she got nervous and the comfortable feelings turned into anxiety and doubt. She shouldn't have asked him to stay, it made everything weird between them and it clearly made him uncomfortable. The girl didn't look up until Prim had asked her a direct question. Why was everyone so interested in how she slept? She wanted to stab the table a million times but instead, didn't lash out at her sister since it wasn't her fault. And she was just asking, like any normal concerned person. "I slept well." She muttered under her breath, relieved to have some hair to hide behind as she felt her face blushing a little as she tried to push the night away from her mind. 

"Yeah I think I will practice with the sword and get a feel for the weight and maneuvering." Gale replied to Haymitch, his attention pulling from Katniss and Prim toward Katniss' old mentor. "I know you used one for a while," He looked to Peeta who gave him some tips. Peeta hadn't trained much with the sword himself so he advised Gale to do more work with the weapon so he knew how to move and use it with fluid movements. As breakfast began to wind down, everyone got ready to go. Prim and Katniss did each other's hair and Gale headed off to go brush his teeth. He was ready, even if it was now the beginning of the end, he felt ready and knew there would be others like him and Primrose who were new and uneasy. He knew Katniss could worry about returning victors, if Gale took them into consideration right now, his head might explode. He looked to Prim as the four went off to the elevator in the middle of their floor. "We should try and make some friends today, see what we can find out about the other tributes and maybe they'll have inside tips on their returning victors."

When they reached the training grounds, they were shown a massive room with all sorts of technology and weaponry. The group of forty-eight were told to not fight with one another and to take thing easy and that any outbursts would result in a lower score at the end of the seven days of training and that normally they would have four but an extra three were given to the large group of tributes. Soon they were released and allowed to do as they pleased while a group of people watched from the safety of their room which now had a force-field around it, thanks to Katniss' trick last year. Katniss quickly left her group and went over to the wooded area and began to work on some basic skills to get rid of the tension forming in her shoulders. As long as she focused on anything else except Haymitch, she would be fine and whatever feelings she had would go away. Gale decided to stick by Prim for a while but he could tell Haymitch was watching him which caused him to go over and practice with the sword for the rest of the three hours.

As he did practice, he met a boy from District 4 named Yelven who was learning to use a sword as well. The boys took turns trading hits with one another and talked about where they came from. Gale was trying to see what information he could get about Mags and Finnick but at the same time, he was still enjoying Yelven's company. The boy was 14 but seemed pretty mature for his age, he had dark black hair and green eyes. As the afternoon approached, they were told to stop for lunch and Gale helped put away their swords. "Wanna eat together?" He asked Yelven who nodded in agreement. He headed off to see if Prim wanted to join him. He would have asked Katniss too but he couldn't find her anywhere. And while that raised a red flag, he knew the Capital wouldn't let anything happen to her before the Games began. "Hey Prim!" He waved her over as it seemed she was with someone. He had kept an eye on her throughout the morning and was glad to see she was doing alright. Yelven and Gale walked over and he put his hands behind his head. "They mentioned a cafeteria around here or that we can go up to our suites, what do you want to do?"

Having spent the morning talking to Beetee and Wiress about technology, her biggest downfall, Katniss was sure that if they had to rely on allies, that they would be pretty beneficial to her. And in turn, she could protect them since they clearly weren't very skilled with weapons or physical endurance. In her mind, the trade was fair enough. Behind her, she could hear Haymitch having a laugh with some of his old friends which made her even more flustered and a bit jealous that they were getting his attention. She didn't see why he thought now was the best time to socialize, since the Ball would be a good enough time to loosen one's corset, as he'd put it. Katniss quickly left the training room when they were given the green light to do so. She needed o talk to someone because she was bound to explode if she kept everything bottled inside. She found Cinna working on some match ups for her and Prim and when she knocked, he quickly hid them since he wanted them to be a surprise. "Katniss, this is a surprise." he greeted.

"I need to talk to you. Prim and Gale wouldn't understand and I'd spend the whole time trying to convince them I'm not crazy and Peeta would look at me with those eyes of his and I'd just remember how I shouldn't have pretended to be in love with him. And I'd feel even more bad because I-I might be...in love with someone else."

"Really?" Cinna hadn't expected her to blurt out any of that. Crossing over to the other side of his work space, he closed the door and turned back to her. "Now I'm all ears."

"When I'm with him-I just...I feel happy and safe...and I wanna do whatever I can to make him feel happy and safe." Katniss began to ramble. "I don't-I've never felt this way about a person before except Prim but she's my sister and that's different. I mean, when he looks at me, I...I...I can't think about anything else and this all just hit me in the face last night because I was having a nightmare and he came in, shirtless I might add, and I asked him to stay and he did and now I don't know what to do because I feel like he'll never take me seriously." She had begun pacing back and forth now. "And we're about to go and fight for our lives and this is the last thing I want on my mind but he's there, in it, all the damn time!"

"Who?" Cinna asked.

"Haymitch!" Katniss then covered her mouth, her face turning a deep shade of red as she finally got it all off her chest.

Personally, Gale was fine with sticking around the first floor and going to the cafeteria but he wanted to see what Prim felt like doing. he wanted to make sure she was happy and focused on something else before they had to go into the Games. In his mind, being happy and focusing on the present was a better alternative than worrying about dying in two weeks. He knew he couldn't think like that though and he hoped to help Prim rid herself of those thoughts as well.