Hunger Games fic: Outside the Fence (1/1, PG-13)
Title: Outside the Fence
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,690
Beta: deathmallow
Focus: Haymitch Abernathy
Characters: Haymitch Abernathy, Maysilee Donner, Hazelle Hawthorne, Chaff, Johanna Mason, Finnick Odair, Katniss Everdeen, Annie Cresta, original characters
Summary: There are times when he forgets about the games. Those are the times that he is the happiest.
Authors Note: Written for the Hunger Games Holiday Exchange 2013 for mihnn who wanted a somewhat more happy fic about Haymitch than we usually see.
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6
The air was warm and humid and the dew sparkled everywhere the rising sun touched, making it look like something out of one of old Missus Macavey’s stories, the ones with the bears and wolves that lived in houses, just like people. Haymitch reached out to touch a leaf just to watch water drip off the edge from the spot where his finger touched.
“Mitch, get your butt moving, boy.” He jumped at his pa’s voice, but he didn’t run to catch up to him. Pa always told him to never run unless something was chasing him, because if you ran, it just drew attention to you. But he did pick up his pace, moving as quickly as he could without making too much noise. That was something else his pa had taught him.
“Pa?” he whispered when he got close enough. “Why don’t Ma want us to run the trap lines? Don’t she want the fresh meat?” Haymitch loved his ma, but sometimes she didn’t make much sense to him.
Donal Abernathy looked up from the trap he’d just reset. “It’s not that she doesn’t want us running the lines, Mitchy. She doesn’t want us out here at all.” He wrapped a bit of thin rope around the neck of the sleek brown animal that had been in the trap. “Especially not today,” he muttered and Haymitch thought maybe he wasn’t supposed to hear that part.
Ignoring that last bit, at least for now, the boy protested, “But this is the best place in the whole district!” Haymitch loved the woods, the quiet there and the smell of it. He could still get a whiff of the coal dust out here, but not so strong.
His pa snorted as he tied the weasel to his belt. “I know it is, son, but us being outside the fence scares your ma.”
“Why?”
“Because the Peacekeepers don’t like it.” Donal stood and brushed the dirt off his knees and Haymitch followed his pa to the next trap in the line. It was empty, but sprung, and the strengthening sun lit a red-brown stain on the rock beneath it. His pa tsked at the sight, but didn’t say anything else, just moved on to the next trap.
“So why don’t Ma want us out here today, Pa?” Haymitch asked even as he concentrated on following exactly in Donal’s footsteps. He couldn’t always manage that, but he was getting better at it with every trip outside the fence.
His pa raised an eyebrow at him. “Heard that, did you?” Haymitch grinned and Donal rolled his eyes, then he hunkered down in front of the boy so that their eyes were on a level, gray to gray. “Haymitch, you’re still too young to really understand it yet, but today is Reaping Day. If Peacekeepers find us out here, especially today, we and your ma will be in big trouble.”
Haymitch frowned. “But the man from the Capitol always says today is a good day to be a citizen of Panem.” He talked funny, but he seemed like he was pretty smart, even if he did look like some kind of a doll the merchant kids might play with. “And what about my baby brother or sister?” His ma was getting bigger every day, it seemed. She looked to Haymitch like she was getting ready to pop.
“Enough, boy. I didn’t bring you out here to fill your head with worries. Don’t you fret about the Hunger Games or which side of the fence you’re on.” Without any warning, he scooped Haymitch up onto his shoulders and the boy felt for a few seconds like he was flying. “You just worry about being six.” His head shifted as he looked up at his son. “Deal?”
“Deal!”
15
Haymitch spotted Laurel walking with Hazelle Grady and the Donner girls, Laurel’s hair in a gleaming blue-black braid down her back. Breaking into a grin, he slapped Shay Hawthorne in the chest with the back of his hand.
“I’ll see you losers later,” he told him and broke into a run to catch up with the girls, leaving his friends in the dust.
“Hey! Where’re you going?” Jack Everdeen called after him.
Haymitch’s grin widened when he heard Shay laugh, “He’s way more interested in his girl than in the likes of you and me,” but he didn’t slow down.
Rushing in behind Laurel, Haymitch scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder as she shrieked and demanded that he put her down. If she hadn’t been laughing so hard, he would’ve done it - he’d do anything for her - but as it was, he just kept going with her bouncing along, pounding on his back. She didn’t weigh much more than the sacks of flour his ma’s friend Sae had him deliver to the bakery every Sunday evening. Not that he’d tell Laurel that. She had a wicked right hook.
When he reached his destination, he set her down gently, but he didn’t let her go. They were alone, no one else in sight, so he leaned in and kissed her. For a moment, her lips were soft and yielding as she kissed him too, but then she pulled back, pushing him away.
“I’m not that kind of a girl, Haymitch Abernathy,” she protested, sounding outraged, but the twinkle in her storm-cloud eyes let him know she wasn’t nearly as upset as she sounded.
“I know you’re not, Laur.” He pulled her in close again. “Just like I’m not that kind of boy.” He kissed her once more and this time she sank into it, wrapping her thin arms around his shoulders.
Coming up for air a few minutes later, looking into her eyes, Haymitch rested his forehead against Laurel’s. Lowering her arms, she laid her palms flat on his chest and he was sure she could feel how fast his heart was beating.
Leaning in close again, she whispered against his lips, “I’m glad you weren’t reaped, Hay.”
“Me, too, Laur. I’m glad you made it, too.” Only three more Reaping Days left for him, two for Laurel. He didn’t much care what happened to him, but if anything ever happened to Laurel, he’d die.
16
“Do you think either of us will ever see it again?”
Haymitch looked over at the girl sitting a couple of feet away. Her straw-colored hair had mostly escaped from her braid to hang half down her back and half over her right shoulder. She lifted her hand and let loose the small stone she held; it made a long arc, landing in the midst of a riot of butterflies - blue and orange and black and yellow stripes - and sending them fluttering madly away from the deer-like creature they’d taken down. He couldn’t see the blood from here, but he knew it was there.
“See what again?” he finally asked, turning back toward Maysilee. It was weird, but sitting here with her, listening to the insects - mutts though they were - and the rustle of the tall grass when it got caught every once in a while by a stray breeze, he could almost pretend they were back in 12, just outside the fence and looking over the Meadow. It almost felt like home.
“The Meadow,” Maysilee said, an echo of his own thoughts. “The Seam. The town square. Any of it.”
He shrugged and pulled a long stem of grass, started to put it between his teeth but then thought better of it. It was probably just as poisonous as the water in the streams or the fruit hanging on the trees. Instead he coiled it around his fingers.
“I don’t think so, May,” he said quietly. “I think this, right here, right now, is maybe the best we’re gonna get.” It was a sobering thought, and yet, for just that one moment, sitting there with Maysilee, Haymitch really didn’t mind it so much.
21
Standing at the edge of the circle of light with a bottle of white liquor in his hand, feeling like an outsider, a pariah unfit to be around good and decent people, Haymitch watched Hazelle Grady and Shay Hawthorne pull their freshly toasted bread from the fire. Gingerly, Hazelle plucked at it, laughing as she burned her fingertips, until Shay grabbed it from her and pulled it from the metal skewer without much more than a grimace. To the applause of the crowd, he bowed down low in front of his bride and when he came up, the crunchy slice of bread between his teeth, Hazelle leaned in and took a delicate bite.
She spotted Haymitch there at the edge of things and the smile froze on her pretty face for just a moment. Haymitch raised his bottle in a salute and when she nodded in acknowledgement before turning back to her new husband, Haymitch lowered it to his lips and drank. He was so used to the stuff that he didn’t even notice the burn anymore.
Someone started to clap, measuring out a cadence. Jack Everdeen struck up a tune on his fiddle, lively and sharp, and Shay pulled Hazelle into the middle of the square, twirling her around and around until they were both breathless. When their first dance as a married couple ended, they broke off and headed for new partners from among their friends and family and Haymitch was shocked when a smiling Hazelle headed straight for him; if his survival instincts hadn’t been dulled by the amount of white liquor he’d imbibed steadily since his return from the Capitol two days before, he would have run.
“Dance with me, Haymitch Abernathy.”
Backing away and shaking his head, he told her, “I don’t think so, Hazelle Hawthorne.” She kept coming until she’d backed him up against one of the supports holding up the overhang at the blacksmith’s shop.
“Come join the party, Haymitch,” she cajoled and reached up to smooth a stray lock of hair from his forehead. He forced himself not to flinch.
“I just came to pay my respects.” His fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle he still held and he wanted nothing more than to take another swig, maybe down the rest of it all at once. He caught a glimpse of the wedding celebration over Hazelle’s shoulder, Hazelle who had been Laurel’s best friend, and a wave of longing almost crushed him. He and Laurel had planned just such a celebration for when they were both safely past reaping age. Focusing on Hazelle once more, he continued, “Now that I’ve done that, I’ll be on my way.”
He slipped away from her, but he didn’t get far before her voice stopped him. “You and Shay are friends, Haymitch.”
His back to her, he replied, “Used to be.” He hadn’t been able to look any of his old friends in the eye for years, not after bringing home kid after kid after kid in coffins. Not after his ma and his little brother and Laurel, all murdered just because they were important to him. He couldn’t do anything about the dead kids - it was all but inevitable, once they were reaped - but he wasn’t going to let anyone else get close to him ever again. He wasn’t going to give Snow any more leverage over him than the bastard already had. And still he longed for another drink, but not with Hazelle right here.
“Everything okay?” Shay Hawthorne looked wary as he approached, his gaze flickering back and forth between Hazelle and Haymitch.
“I was just leaving,” Haymitch said.
“And I was just trying to talk Haymitch into joining us,” Hazelle countered. There was steel in her voice and Haymitch almost laughed when Shay responded to it.
“You used to love to dance when we were kids, Hay…” Haymitch turned around then and was surprised to see a smile on his old friend’s face. When first Hazelle and then Shay each took him by the hand and started to lead him back to the center of the square and the dancing, he had no choice but to admit defeat.
For a few hours, Haymitch Abernathy knew nothing but the here and now. For a little while, everything else faded away, all the pain and the fear and the humiliation of the past few years nothing but so much smoke and noise.
22
Everything hurt. From his pounding head to his aching feet, his body protested the things he’d done the night before. Or rather, the things that had been done to him. Haymitch eased himself down onto the couch in the victors’ lounge, but then he somehow managed to hit his knee on the edge of a coffee table and dropped the last foot or so like the anchor on one of Mags’ boats. Resting his head on the back of the couch and covering his face with his arm, he let loose a groan. More damn bruises on his knees, at least until Remake wiped them out.
At twenty-two, Haymitch Abernathy felt like an old man.
Someone kicked his foot. Letting his arm slide until his hand hit the couch cushion, Haymitch opened one eye. He closed it again when he saw who had kicked him.
Chaff laughed and kicked him again. “Get up.”
“Fuck off.”
“Don’t make me pull you off that couch.”
Opening both eyes, Haymitch pointedly eyed the older man’s stump and snorted. Raising his arms, he spread them wide. “Give me your best shot,” he said with a smirk, but before he even finished the sentence, Chaff stepped closer, leaned in, and twined his good arm around Haymitch’s right. Closing his fingers around Haymitch’s wrist, he gave a mighty tug and yanked Haymitch to his feet.
“Losing a hand just gave the rest of you a fighting chance,” Chaff said with a smirk of his own. At the coffee station, barely visible past the stairs to the mentors’ control room, Brutus applauded as he waited for his coffee to brew.
Haymitch flipped him off and turned to Chaff. “What the hell?”
“Rough night, huh?” Haymitch frowned; Chaff ignored it. His arm still locked with Haymitch’s, he steered the shorter victor toward the door. “I know just what you need.” He stopped at the door and finally released Haymitch’s arm; he took a step back as Chaff opened the door.
“Where are we going?” he asked suspiciously. Chaff was a friendly guy, but he didn’t usually pay much attention to Haymitch. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.
“I figured we’d start at the Abyss and work our way up the strip.” He held the door wide and gestured with his stump for Haymitch to precede him.
“Bar hopping? It’s barely eight in the morning.”
“You got something better to do? ‘Cause last I saw, you and me were both outta the Games.” There was something in the slight narrowing of Chaff’s dark eyes and in the tone of his voice that made Haymitch step through the door. Haymitch’s tributes had both died within minutes of each other during the initial bloodbath, which is why he’d had a “date” the night before, but he’d thought Chaff’s girl - the boy had died not long after the tributes from 12 - was still in it.
With a shrug, Haymitch said, “I guess I don’t,” and stepped through the open door, Chaff following close behind.
36
The explosion rattled the windows in their frames and sent a few dirty dishes sliding from their precarious perches to shatter on the floor. With a shout, Haymitch shot up from his chair at the kitchen table, suddenly awake and ready to fight whatever the threat might be. The floor seemed almost to roll beneath his feet even as the sound, already gone, penetrated his brain.
The mines…
Grabbing his coat from its hook on his way out the door, Haymitch ran.
*
Most of the survivors made it out within a couple of hours. It took them three days to find all those who were missing, buried - alive or dead - in the collapse. It took every able-bodied man and woman in the district to sift through the wreckage, looking for any spark or breath of life. No one even looked askance at the killer-turned-town-drunk when Haymitch offered his strong hands and his strong back; they just made room for him, worked side by side with him until all those missing miners were accounted for. And if anyone noticed the tracks of his tears through the coal dust as they pulled the bodies of friend after friend from the shaft, they didn’t say anything about it, just clapped him on the shoulder in passing when it was all said and done.
Haymitch hadn’t felt so much a part of the community he’d spent the last twenty years protecting from Snow since he was sixteen and fresh home from the arena. When he fell into his bed after three days of back-breaking work, he slept through until morning. Neither murderous muttation nor dead child visited him in his dreams.
42
It was the first wedding he’d been to in years, and while it was very different in the details, it was not so different in the important things. Finnick and Annie were happy - actually happy - and Haymitch realized he’d never seen that on either of them before as he watched them dance.
Lifting his glass, he took a sip, grimacing at the flatness of water. He didn’t miss the taste of the liquor, but he did miss the familiarity of it, something Aurelius advised him to be wary of, because that missing comfort was the most dangerous thing to this new sobriety. The sound of riotous laughter brought his attention back to the dance floor where the bride had dipped the groom, both of them wearing sappy grins on their faces.
“Want to dance, old man?” He looked down at Johanna, standing beside him. Her hair was growing out and stood around her head in a dark, spiky crown. She was too thin, her complexion washed out and yellowish with dark circles under her eyes, but she was alive and there was the spark of her old self in her tone.
“Why not?” He bowed low to her and she held out her hand, letting out an exaggerated titter, and his laugh held real amusement as he led her out onto the floor. He couldn’t help but wonder just who she was mocking.
Whirling with Johanna turned into spinning with Prim Everdeen became waltzing with Annie Odair. Haymitch lost track of time. The music changed and changed again and he found himself dancing a few measures with a grinning Finnick.
“Careful, boy,” he laughed, “we don’t want to set tongues to wagging. Especially not on your wedding day.” Finnick threw his head back and laughed and Haymitch’s arms tightened around the younger man for a moment to keep them both upright when their center of balance shifted a bit too far.
“Wouldn’t be the first time, old man, for either one of us.” But then Finnick sobered as he continued, “I just wanted to thank you, Haymitch, for everything.” He didn’t expand on it, but neither did he need to. Haymitch nodded and Finnick took a step back, stopping in the midst of the other dancers to make a formal bow toward Haymitch. Then he spun on his heel and snatched Katniss from her place by the door, dragging the startled girl into the dancing.
Shaking his head, a faint smile still on his face, Haymitch started to head toward the refreshment table when he spotted old Sae Vickers off by herself, toes tapping to the music. He headed that way, weaving a path through the dancers.
When she noticed him approach, Haymitch silently offered her his arm. She looked startled for a moment, but then she smiled and it lit up her face and set her gray eyes to dancing in their own right. “Why I don’t mind if I do, sir,” she said as she took his proffered arm.
43
He didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope, but the address read Haymitch Abernathy, Victors’ Village, D12 in a neat, clear hand. There was no return address. It was bulky, but not heavy, with water spots and smudges and something had torn the lower right corner, though not enough to allow any of the contents to escape. Haymitch tore it open the rest of the way.
The photograph of a toothlessly grinning baby greeted him, sitting in the water on a sandy gray beach, eyes the color of the sea that made up the background and a shock of hair that was neither bronze nor brown but somewhere in between. The boy’s grin, even with no teeth yet, was so like his father’s that a lump rose in Haymitch’s throat and he felt the sudden need to cough it away. He turned the photograph over: Martin Odair, 10 months.
Behind the first photo was one of mother and son, dancing on the same beach, and he wondered who had taken it. Annie was smiling, her boy’s hands in hers as she led him in toddling steps through the surf, her short hair a dark mane framing her face. Annie and Martin Odair, April 7, year 1 post Games.
There was a third photograph in the packet: a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair streaked with gold, golden skin, dark eyes. Johanna Mason sat on the beach as well, but well up the sand, away from the water. She sat with her arms around bare knees, staring out toward the sea, a white house and an awakening garden at her back. The legend on the back of the photo consisted of her name and the same date as the photograph of Annie and Martin. He stared at the image of Johanna for a fair few minutes before finally setting all three of them down on his kitchen table and turning to the brief letter.
Dear Haymitch,
As you can guess from the pictures, Martin and I are doing well. We’re not alone. Johanna came to visit a few weeks ago and she’s still here with us. She said she got bored by herself up in Seven and decided to drop in on the only family she has. She says you and “the kids” are next, but there’s no way of knowing quite when that will be. Who knows? Maybe Marty and I will come with her?
I miss you. And I miss Peeta and Katniss, too. I talk to Enobaria and Beetee sometimes, when the phones are working, but it’s not the same as seeing you all.
I hope you’re well, Haymitch. If I do decide Marty is big enough to travel when Johanna’s ready to leave us, we’ll get word to you so it won’t be too big a surprise when we wash up on your front lawn.
Annie
Haymitch laid the letter down with the photographs, ran a finger over the smooth surface of Annie’s smiling face, a moment captured in time. Three months had passed since the date on the backs of those pictures; the boy would be over a year old now, maybe walking on his own, instead of with his mother’s help. Johanna’s hair would be longer; Annie’s could’ve gone either way, since he didn’t know her reasons for cutting it short in the first place.
Family. Yes, the remaining victors, pitifully few, were a kind of family. The only family he’d had for years.
He looked around at his kitchen, at the stack of dinner dishes in the sink, waiting for Hazelle to take care of in the morning, at the vase on the windowsill with a handful of bright yellow primroses, pretty now but that would be faded and limp by the time she got here. He heard a bark of laughter - Peeta - from outside through the open window and glanced toward it, caught a glimpse of the fading sunset, a whiff of the summer breeze.
“Maybe it’s time,” he said out loud. He’d talk to Hazelle in the morning, not about chores or supplies, but about her and the kids. Pushing away from the table, he took another look at the pictures, at Johanna, at Annie. Resolute, he headed toward the door and the laughter. There were two members of his cobbled-together family right outside that door and it was about time he made some kind of effort to start that healing process Aurelius was always spouting off about.
51
“How the hell did we get here?” Haymitch asked the question aloud, but he neither expected nor needed an answer. Sipping from a tall glass of iced tea, he watched a pair of boys chasing around the yard after a flop-eared hound; the dog easily ran circles around them both and made far less noise doing it.
The woman beside him snorted as she leaned her hip against the railing, a bottle of homemade beer in her hand. “It’s hard to believe ten years ago today, we were all headed to the Capitol for the last Quarter Quell.” Katniss’ voice was a little bit husky, legacy of the burns that had healed with time but had left their scars. A screech of laughter pierced the afternoon like an arrow straight through his eardrums and Haymitch winced. Katniss laughed, the sound rusty. “It’s even harder to believe that one of those is yours.”
The boy she referred to - six-year-old brown-haired, gray-eyed Ethan - sprawled on the ground, giggling uncontrollably as the hound licked him in the face, urged on by the older boy. It was Martin Odair’s ninth birthday and part of the reason the remaining victors of Panem had chosen the former Reaping Day for this sidewise “family” reunion.
Raising one eyebrow, Haymitch turned around to face Katniss. “What about you and the boy?” he asked her and she rolled her eyes at him calling Peeta “the boy.” “You think you’ll ever have one of your own?”
She shrugged and looked away, toward the boys playing on the lawn. “Peeta wants to.”
“And what do you want?” She looked startled by the question, surprised that he even cared. He’d learned a lot of things over the years, regretted more, but one of his greatest regrets was keeping her in the dark, using her without her knowledge or consent. He’d had no choice, but it never sat well.
Katniss shifted to face more fully toward the boys, both of them wrestling now, the dog dancing around them looking for a way to join in. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the railing. “I’m not ready yet,” she said simply. Glancing back over her shoulder at him, she added, “There was a time I would’ve said I’d never have kids.” Her attention sharpened at the sound of voices from the kitchen - Annie and Peeta talking, the still slightly unhinged sound of Enobaria’s laugh. “I could never stomach the idea of a child of mine in the Games.”
“The Games are over, Katniss.”
She looked down at her feet, shifted again. “I know.” Then she stood, swallowed down the rest of her beer and tossed the empty bottle into the bucket near the door. “When my heart accepts that, then I guess I’ll be ready.” With that, she left him to join her husband and the others in the kitchen.
“Pa! Pa!” Ethan came hurtling up the steps at breakneck speed, heading straight for Haymitch. “Marty says he’ll teach me to swim! Will you take us to the lake?”
Shaking his head even as he said, “Go tell your ma where we’re off to,” Haymitch thought about all that the Hunger Games had taken from them over the years and it occurred to him that, for all the horror and pain, not everything that came with the Games had been awful. If it weren’t for the Games, none of these people he’d come to love would have ever become a part of his life.
He couldn’t find it in himself to regret that.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,690
Beta: deathmallow
Focus: Haymitch Abernathy
Characters: Haymitch Abernathy, Maysilee Donner, Hazelle Hawthorne, Chaff, Johanna Mason, Finnick Odair, Katniss Everdeen, Annie Cresta, original characters
Summary: There are times when he forgets about the games. Those are the times that he is the happiest.
Authors Note: Written for the Hunger Games Holiday Exchange 2013 for mihnn who wanted a somewhat more happy fic about Haymitch than we usually see.
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6
The air was warm and humid and the dew sparkled everywhere the rising sun touched, making it look like something out of one of old Missus Macavey’s stories, the ones with the bears and wolves that lived in houses, just like people. Haymitch reached out to touch a leaf just to watch water drip off the edge from the spot where his finger touched.
“Mitch, get your butt moving, boy.” He jumped at his pa’s voice, but he didn’t run to catch up to him. Pa always told him to never run unless something was chasing him, because if you ran, it just drew attention to you. But he did pick up his pace, moving as quickly as he could without making too much noise. That was something else his pa had taught him.
“Pa?” he whispered when he got close enough. “Why don’t Ma want us to run the trap lines? Don’t she want the fresh meat?” Haymitch loved his ma, but sometimes she didn’t make much sense to him.
Donal Abernathy looked up from the trap he’d just reset. “It’s not that she doesn’t want us running the lines, Mitchy. She doesn’t want us out here at all.” He wrapped a bit of thin rope around the neck of the sleek brown animal that had been in the trap. “Especially not today,” he muttered and Haymitch thought maybe he wasn’t supposed to hear that part.
Ignoring that last bit, at least for now, the boy protested, “But this is the best place in the whole district!” Haymitch loved the woods, the quiet there and the smell of it. He could still get a whiff of the coal dust out here, but not so strong.
His pa snorted as he tied the weasel to his belt. “I know it is, son, but us being outside the fence scares your ma.”
“Why?”
“Because the Peacekeepers don’t like it.” Donal stood and brushed the dirt off his knees and Haymitch followed his pa to the next trap in the line. It was empty, but sprung, and the strengthening sun lit a red-brown stain on the rock beneath it. His pa tsked at the sight, but didn’t say anything else, just moved on to the next trap.
“So why don’t Ma want us out here today, Pa?” Haymitch asked even as he concentrated on following exactly in Donal’s footsteps. He couldn’t always manage that, but he was getting better at it with every trip outside the fence.
His pa raised an eyebrow at him. “Heard that, did you?” Haymitch grinned and Donal rolled his eyes, then he hunkered down in front of the boy so that their eyes were on a level, gray to gray. “Haymitch, you’re still too young to really understand it yet, but today is Reaping Day. If Peacekeepers find us out here, especially today, we and your ma will be in big trouble.”
Haymitch frowned. “But the man from the Capitol always says today is a good day to be a citizen of Panem.” He talked funny, but he seemed like he was pretty smart, even if he did look like some kind of a doll the merchant kids might play with. “And what about my baby brother or sister?” His ma was getting bigger every day, it seemed. She looked to Haymitch like she was getting ready to pop.
“Enough, boy. I didn’t bring you out here to fill your head with worries. Don’t you fret about the Hunger Games or which side of the fence you’re on.” Without any warning, he scooped Haymitch up onto his shoulders and the boy felt for a few seconds like he was flying. “You just worry about being six.” His head shifted as he looked up at his son. “Deal?”
“Deal!”
15
Haymitch spotted Laurel walking with Hazelle Grady and the Donner girls, Laurel’s hair in a gleaming blue-black braid down her back. Breaking into a grin, he slapped Shay Hawthorne in the chest with the back of his hand.
“I’ll see you losers later,” he told him and broke into a run to catch up with the girls, leaving his friends in the dust.
“Hey! Where’re you going?” Jack Everdeen called after him.
Haymitch’s grin widened when he heard Shay laugh, “He’s way more interested in his girl than in the likes of you and me,” but he didn’t slow down.
Rushing in behind Laurel, Haymitch scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder as she shrieked and demanded that he put her down. If she hadn’t been laughing so hard, he would’ve done it - he’d do anything for her - but as it was, he just kept going with her bouncing along, pounding on his back. She didn’t weigh much more than the sacks of flour his ma’s friend Sae had him deliver to the bakery every Sunday evening. Not that he’d tell Laurel that. She had a wicked right hook.
When he reached his destination, he set her down gently, but he didn’t let her go. They were alone, no one else in sight, so he leaned in and kissed her. For a moment, her lips were soft and yielding as she kissed him too, but then she pulled back, pushing him away.
“I’m not that kind of a girl, Haymitch Abernathy,” she protested, sounding outraged, but the twinkle in her storm-cloud eyes let him know she wasn’t nearly as upset as she sounded.
“I know you’re not, Laur.” He pulled her in close again. “Just like I’m not that kind of boy.” He kissed her once more and this time she sank into it, wrapping her thin arms around his shoulders.
Coming up for air a few minutes later, looking into her eyes, Haymitch rested his forehead against Laurel’s. Lowering her arms, she laid her palms flat on his chest and he was sure she could feel how fast his heart was beating.
Leaning in close again, she whispered against his lips, “I’m glad you weren’t reaped, Hay.”
“Me, too, Laur. I’m glad you made it, too.” Only three more Reaping Days left for him, two for Laurel. He didn’t much care what happened to him, but if anything ever happened to Laurel, he’d die.
16
“Do you think either of us will ever see it again?”
Haymitch looked over at the girl sitting a couple of feet away. Her straw-colored hair had mostly escaped from her braid to hang half down her back and half over her right shoulder. She lifted her hand and let loose the small stone she held; it made a long arc, landing in the midst of a riot of butterflies - blue and orange and black and yellow stripes - and sending them fluttering madly away from the deer-like creature they’d taken down. He couldn’t see the blood from here, but he knew it was there.
“See what again?” he finally asked, turning back toward Maysilee. It was weird, but sitting here with her, listening to the insects - mutts though they were - and the rustle of the tall grass when it got caught every once in a while by a stray breeze, he could almost pretend they were back in 12, just outside the fence and looking over the Meadow. It almost felt like home.
“The Meadow,” Maysilee said, an echo of his own thoughts. “The Seam. The town square. Any of it.”
He shrugged and pulled a long stem of grass, started to put it between his teeth but then thought better of it. It was probably just as poisonous as the water in the streams or the fruit hanging on the trees. Instead he coiled it around his fingers.
“I don’t think so, May,” he said quietly. “I think this, right here, right now, is maybe the best we’re gonna get.” It was a sobering thought, and yet, for just that one moment, sitting there with Maysilee, Haymitch really didn’t mind it so much.
21
Standing at the edge of the circle of light with a bottle of white liquor in his hand, feeling like an outsider, a pariah unfit to be around good and decent people, Haymitch watched Hazelle Grady and Shay Hawthorne pull their freshly toasted bread from the fire. Gingerly, Hazelle plucked at it, laughing as she burned her fingertips, until Shay grabbed it from her and pulled it from the metal skewer without much more than a grimace. To the applause of the crowd, he bowed down low in front of his bride and when he came up, the crunchy slice of bread between his teeth, Hazelle leaned in and took a delicate bite.
She spotted Haymitch there at the edge of things and the smile froze on her pretty face for just a moment. Haymitch raised his bottle in a salute and when she nodded in acknowledgement before turning back to her new husband, Haymitch lowered it to his lips and drank. He was so used to the stuff that he didn’t even notice the burn anymore.
Someone started to clap, measuring out a cadence. Jack Everdeen struck up a tune on his fiddle, lively and sharp, and Shay pulled Hazelle into the middle of the square, twirling her around and around until they were both breathless. When their first dance as a married couple ended, they broke off and headed for new partners from among their friends and family and Haymitch was shocked when a smiling Hazelle headed straight for him; if his survival instincts hadn’t been dulled by the amount of white liquor he’d imbibed steadily since his return from the Capitol two days before, he would have run.
“Dance with me, Haymitch Abernathy.”
Backing away and shaking his head, he told her, “I don’t think so, Hazelle Hawthorne.” She kept coming until she’d backed him up against one of the supports holding up the overhang at the blacksmith’s shop.
“Come join the party, Haymitch,” she cajoled and reached up to smooth a stray lock of hair from his forehead. He forced himself not to flinch.
“I just came to pay my respects.” His fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle he still held and he wanted nothing more than to take another swig, maybe down the rest of it all at once. He caught a glimpse of the wedding celebration over Hazelle’s shoulder, Hazelle who had been Laurel’s best friend, and a wave of longing almost crushed him. He and Laurel had planned just such a celebration for when they were both safely past reaping age. Focusing on Hazelle once more, he continued, “Now that I’ve done that, I’ll be on my way.”
He slipped away from her, but he didn’t get far before her voice stopped him. “You and Shay are friends, Haymitch.”
His back to her, he replied, “Used to be.” He hadn’t been able to look any of his old friends in the eye for years, not after bringing home kid after kid after kid in coffins. Not after his ma and his little brother and Laurel, all murdered just because they were important to him. He couldn’t do anything about the dead kids - it was all but inevitable, once they were reaped - but he wasn’t going to let anyone else get close to him ever again. He wasn’t going to give Snow any more leverage over him than the bastard already had. And still he longed for another drink, but not with Hazelle right here.
“Everything okay?” Shay Hawthorne looked wary as he approached, his gaze flickering back and forth between Hazelle and Haymitch.
“I was just leaving,” Haymitch said.
“And I was just trying to talk Haymitch into joining us,” Hazelle countered. There was steel in her voice and Haymitch almost laughed when Shay responded to it.
“You used to love to dance when we were kids, Hay…” Haymitch turned around then and was surprised to see a smile on his old friend’s face. When first Hazelle and then Shay each took him by the hand and started to lead him back to the center of the square and the dancing, he had no choice but to admit defeat.
For a few hours, Haymitch Abernathy knew nothing but the here and now. For a little while, everything else faded away, all the pain and the fear and the humiliation of the past few years nothing but so much smoke and noise.
22
Everything hurt. From his pounding head to his aching feet, his body protested the things he’d done the night before. Or rather, the things that had been done to him. Haymitch eased himself down onto the couch in the victors’ lounge, but then he somehow managed to hit his knee on the edge of a coffee table and dropped the last foot or so like the anchor on one of Mags’ boats. Resting his head on the back of the couch and covering his face with his arm, he let loose a groan. More damn bruises on his knees, at least until Remake wiped them out.
At twenty-two, Haymitch Abernathy felt like an old man.
Someone kicked his foot. Letting his arm slide until his hand hit the couch cushion, Haymitch opened one eye. He closed it again when he saw who had kicked him.
Chaff laughed and kicked him again. “Get up.”
“Fuck off.”
“Don’t make me pull you off that couch.”
Opening both eyes, Haymitch pointedly eyed the older man’s stump and snorted. Raising his arms, he spread them wide. “Give me your best shot,” he said with a smirk, but before he even finished the sentence, Chaff stepped closer, leaned in, and twined his good arm around Haymitch’s right. Closing his fingers around Haymitch’s wrist, he gave a mighty tug and yanked Haymitch to his feet.
“Losing a hand just gave the rest of you a fighting chance,” Chaff said with a smirk of his own. At the coffee station, barely visible past the stairs to the mentors’ control room, Brutus applauded as he waited for his coffee to brew.
Haymitch flipped him off and turned to Chaff. “What the hell?”
“Rough night, huh?” Haymitch frowned; Chaff ignored it. His arm still locked with Haymitch’s, he steered the shorter victor toward the door. “I know just what you need.” He stopped at the door and finally released Haymitch’s arm; he took a step back as Chaff opened the door.
“Where are we going?” he asked suspiciously. Chaff was a friendly guy, but he didn’t usually pay much attention to Haymitch. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.
“I figured we’d start at the Abyss and work our way up the strip.” He held the door wide and gestured with his stump for Haymitch to precede him.
“Bar hopping? It’s barely eight in the morning.”
“You got something better to do? ‘Cause last I saw, you and me were both outta the Games.” There was something in the slight narrowing of Chaff’s dark eyes and in the tone of his voice that made Haymitch step through the door. Haymitch’s tributes had both died within minutes of each other during the initial bloodbath, which is why he’d had a “date” the night before, but he’d thought Chaff’s girl - the boy had died not long after the tributes from 12 - was still in it.
With a shrug, Haymitch said, “I guess I don’t,” and stepped through the open door, Chaff following close behind.
36
The explosion rattled the windows in their frames and sent a few dirty dishes sliding from their precarious perches to shatter on the floor. With a shout, Haymitch shot up from his chair at the kitchen table, suddenly awake and ready to fight whatever the threat might be. The floor seemed almost to roll beneath his feet even as the sound, already gone, penetrated his brain.
The mines…
Grabbing his coat from its hook on his way out the door, Haymitch ran.
*
Most of the survivors made it out within a couple of hours. It took them three days to find all those who were missing, buried - alive or dead - in the collapse. It took every able-bodied man and woman in the district to sift through the wreckage, looking for any spark or breath of life. No one even looked askance at the killer-turned-town-drunk when Haymitch offered his strong hands and his strong back; they just made room for him, worked side by side with him until all those missing miners were accounted for. And if anyone noticed the tracks of his tears through the coal dust as they pulled the bodies of friend after friend from the shaft, they didn’t say anything about it, just clapped him on the shoulder in passing when it was all said and done.
Haymitch hadn’t felt so much a part of the community he’d spent the last twenty years protecting from Snow since he was sixteen and fresh home from the arena. When he fell into his bed after three days of back-breaking work, he slept through until morning. Neither murderous muttation nor dead child visited him in his dreams.
42
It was the first wedding he’d been to in years, and while it was very different in the details, it was not so different in the important things. Finnick and Annie were happy - actually happy - and Haymitch realized he’d never seen that on either of them before as he watched them dance.
Lifting his glass, he took a sip, grimacing at the flatness of water. He didn’t miss the taste of the liquor, but he did miss the familiarity of it, something Aurelius advised him to be wary of, because that missing comfort was the most dangerous thing to this new sobriety. The sound of riotous laughter brought his attention back to the dance floor where the bride had dipped the groom, both of them wearing sappy grins on their faces.
“Want to dance, old man?” He looked down at Johanna, standing beside him. Her hair was growing out and stood around her head in a dark, spiky crown. She was too thin, her complexion washed out and yellowish with dark circles under her eyes, but she was alive and there was the spark of her old self in her tone.
“Why not?” He bowed low to her and she held out her hand, letting out an exaggerated titter, and his laugh held real amusement as he led her out onto the floor. He couldn’t help but wonder just who she was mocking.
Whirling with Johanna turned into spinning with Prim Everdeen became waltzing with Annie Odair. Haymitch lost track of time. The music changed and changed again and he found himself dancing a few measures with a grinning Finnick.
“Careful, boy,” he laughed, “we don’t want to set tongues to wagging. Especially not on your wedding day.” Finnick threw his head back and laughed and Haymitch’s arms tightened around the younger man for a moment to keep them both upright when their center of balance shifted a bit too far.
“Wouldn’t be the first time, old man, for either one of us.” But then Finnick sobered as he continued, “I just wanted to thank you, Haymitch, for everything.” He didn’t expand on it, but neither did he need to. Haymitch nodded and Finnick took a step back, stopping in the midst of the other dancers to make a formal bow toward Haymitch. Then he spun on his heel and snatched Katniss from her place by the door, dragging the startled girl into the dancing.
Shaking his head, a faint smile still on his face, Haymitch started to head toward the refreshment table when he spotted old Sae Vickers off by herself, toes tapping to the music. He headed that way, weaving a path through the dancers.
When she noticed him approach, Haymitch silently offered her his arm. She looked startled for a moment, but then she smiled and it lit up her face and set her gray eyes to dancing in their own right. “Why I don’t mind if I do, sir,” she said as she took his proffered arm.
43
He didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope, but the address read Haymitch Abernathy, Victors’ Village, D12 in a neat, clear hand. There was no return address. It was bulky, but not heavy, with water spots and smudges and something had torn the lower right corner, though not enough to allow any of the contents to escape. Haymitch tore it open the rest of the way.
The photograph of a toothlessly grinning baby greeted him, sitting in the water on a sandy gray beach, eyes the color of the sea that made up the background and a shock of hair that was neither bronze nor brown but somewhere in between. The boy’s grin, even with no teeth yet, was so like his father’s that a lump rose in Haymitch’s throat and he felt the sudden need to cough it away. He turned the photograph over: Martin Odair, 10 months.
Behind the first photo was one of mother and son, dancing on the same beach, and he wondered who had taken it. Annie was smiling, her boy’s hands in hers as she led him in toddling steps through the surf, her short hair a dark mane framing her face. Annie and Martin Odair, April 7, year 1 post Games.
There was a third photograph in the packet: a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair streaked with gold, golden skin, dark eyes. Johanna Mason sat on the beach as well, but well up the sand, away from the water. She sat with her arms around bare knees, staring out toward the sea, a white house and an awakening garden at her back. The legend on the back of the photo consisted of her name and the same date as the photograph of Annie and Martin. He stared at the image of Johanna for a fair few minutes before finally setting all three of them down on his kitchen table and turning to the brief letter.
Dear Haymitch,
As you can guess from the pictures, Martin and I are doing well. We’re not alone. Johanna came to visit a few weeks ago and she’s still here with us. She said she got bored by herself up in Seven and decided to drop in on the only family she has. She says you and “the kids” are next, but there’s no way of knowing quite when that will be. Who knows? Maybe Marty and I will come with her?
I miss you. And I miss Peeta and Katniss, too. I talk to Enobaria and Beetee sometimes, when the phones are working, but it’s not the same as seeing you all.
I hope you’re well, Haymitch. If I do decide Marty is big enough to travel when Johanna’s ready to leave us, we’ll get word to you so it won’t be too big a surprise when we wash up on your front lawn.
Annie
Haymitch laid the letter down with the photographs, ran a finger over the smooth surface of Annie’s smiling face, a moment captured in time. Three months had passed since the date on the backs of those pictures; the boy would be over a year old now, maybe walking on his own, instead of with his mother’s help. Johanna’s hair would be longer; Annie’s could’ve gone either way, since he didn’t know her reasons for cutting it short in the first place.
Family. Yes, the remaining victors, pitifully few, were a kind of family. The only family he’d had for years.
He looked around at his kitchen, at the stack of dinner dishes in the sink, waiting for Hazelle to take care of in the morning, at the vase on the windowsill with a handful of bright yellow primroses, pretty now but that would be faded and limp by the time she got here. He heard a bark of laughter - Peeta - from outside through the open window and glanced toward it, caught a glimpse of the fading sunset, a whiff of the summer breeze.
“Maybe it’s time,” he said out loud. He’d talk to Hazelle in the morning, not about chores or supplies, but about her and the kids. Pushing away from the table, he took another look at the pictures, at Johanna, at Annie. Resolute, he headed toward the door and the laughter. There were two members of his cobbled-together family right outside that door and it was about time he made some kind of effort to start that healing process Aurelius was always spouting off about.
51
“How the hell did we get here?” Haymitch asked the question aloud, but he neither expected nor needed an answer. Sipping from a tall glass of iced tea, he watched a pair of boys chasing around the yard after a flop-eared hound; the dog easily ran circles around them both and made far less noise doing it.
The woman beside him snorted as she leaned her hip against the railing, a bottle of homemade beer in her hand. “It’s hard to believe ten years ago today, we were all headed to the Capitol for the last Quarter Quell.” Katniss’ voice was a little bit husky, legacy of the burns that had healed with time but had left their scars. A screech of laughter pierced the afternoon like an arrow straight through his eardrums and Haymitch winced. Katniss laughed, the sound rusty. “It’s even harder to believe that one of those is yours.”
The boy she referred to - six-year-old brown-haired, gray-eyed Ethan - sprawled on the ground, giggling uncontrollably as the hound licked him in the face, urged on by the older boy. It was Martin Odair’s ninth birthday and part of the reason the remaining victors of Panem had chosen the former Reaping Day for this sidewise “family” reunion.
Raising one eyebrow, Haymitch turned around to face Katniss. “What about you and the boy?” he asked her and she rolled her eyes at him calling Peeta “the boy.” “You think you’ll ever have one of your own?”
She shrugged and looked away, toward the boys playing on the lawn. “Peeta wants to.”
“And what do you want?” She looked startled by the question, surprised that he even cared. He’d learned a lot of things over the years, regretted more, but one of his greatest regrets was keeping her in the dark, using her without her knowledge or consent. He’d had no choice, but it never sat well.
Katniss shifted to face more fully toward the boys, both of them wrestling now, the dog dancing around them looking for a way to join in. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the railing. “I’m not ready yet,” she said simply. Glancing back over her shoulder at him, she added, “There was a time I would’ve said I’d never have kids.” Her attention sharpened at the sound of voices from the kitchen - Annie and Peeta talking, the still slightly unhinged sound of Enobaria’s laugh. “I could never stomach the idea of a child of mine in the Games.”
“The Games are over, Katniss.”
She looked down at her feet, shifted again. “I know.” Then she stood, swallowed down the rest of her beer and tossed the empty bottle into the bucket near the door. “When my heart accepts that, then I guess I’ll be ready.” With that, she left him to join her husband and the others in the kitchen.
“Pa! Pa!” Ethan came hurtling up the steps at breakneck speed, heading straight for Haymitch. “Marty says he’ll teach me to swim! Will you take us to the lake?”
Shaking his head even as he said, “Go tell your ma where we’re off to,” Haymitch thought about all that the Hunger Games had taken from them over the years and it occurred to him that, for all the horror and pain, not everything that came with the Games had been awful. If it weren’t for the Games, none of these people he’d come to love would have ever become a part of his life.
He couldn’t find it in himself to regret that.