Work Text:
A flood of gold tips over the dusty window, rousing Haymitch from his oblivion. A groan escapes his lips, hands reaching up to scrub at his bleary eyes with great effort; a morning like all rest.
Long, dark years have weighed on the man, his bones ache for the stretch of his once wild stride, light and free of the constant, dull weight that now seems to leak from his mind and trickle its way into his bones more and more with each sunrise. He hauls himself up; whenever Haymitch is out for Peeta’s idea of ‘too long’, a blink of an eye never passes before he’s met with a mop of blonde frizz, muttering and dragging the man to his ever-overflowing kitchen. The ‘sustenance’ in the form of freshly-baked bread he'd happily take. But that hovercraft of a boy? Well, let's just say it never seems too early for him, and Haymitch made a promise.
It was to be a slow morning today: no busy hustle to collect supplies from the train that whistles in each month, no family breakfast he’d accidentally agreed to whilst in that happy half-conscious state he found himself in more often than he, perhaps, should, and still, strangely, no reaping.
So, he carelessly shrugs on loose cotton shirt and a comfortable pair of dove gray slacks, then turns to the door grudgingly, but not before reaching for that warm, embroidered hunting jacket that resides on a beaten old peg beside his door; the gift from Katniss came as a winding surprise.
–
It had been an average day; the wind had slowed to a faint breeze and the mountains of rubble and scars of death were slowly being painted over and healed, but never forgotten. The sun was just flickering, almost unsure what to do with itself, as Haymitch had sat, wistful and silent, a bottle hanging untouched and loose in one hand, a bag of berries and stems clutched in the other. A collection from Katniss: “For the geese.”
Perhaps a year had floated by since he and his sweetheart had returned home in solemn silence. Peeta, of course, followed some time later, bringing a sort of spark to their new, too-quiet life. After the horrors of the war and the chaos that followed, not to mention that which preceded it, the silent evenings were something he and those kids had not grown accustomed to just yet.
And so, he sat. He had sat, on the scuffed stairs of his too-big house on his too-quiet road in the too-empty district he had once loved, feeding his geese, not quite ready to think of his love, or his ma, or Sid, or all the faces that he had tried, and failed, to scrub away with bottles for so many years. But he was ready, he had thought, to remember the promise he had kept.
“Don’t you… let it… rise…” She’d used up her final breath for that.
“Okay, okay, I promise.”
He had closed his shaky eyes and thought of the two kids that slept, finally safe, next to a crackling fire in the next house over. He thought of all those who came and went before them, who never were safe, and how, even from his half-conscious state that day, as he watched them climb the stairs of the justice building, he noticed that the girl was clad in a dress frozen in time from Asterid’s sixteenth birthday, when she had come bounding into the classroom, chattering excitedly with Merrilee and… well.
Katniss’ hair was in one dull, pinned up braid that day, a stabbing reminder of the loss of the girl he had seen, from afar, being hoisted around the hob with two frizzy braids and bright eyes to match them— the exact shade of grey that had lit his old best friend’s lightly line-etched face and the exact shade of brown that once had been braided upon his sweetheart of old’s head.
Otho’s boy he had recognised too. Not from the same mess of ashy blonde as his father that fell over his forehead, or even the identical, stocky build; it was the crinkle in his brow, the glance back to his unflinching mother. It was Wyatt Callow, twenty-four years ago, staring, unblinking, out of that train car window, calculating his odds as he flipped that old coin around his fingers, no doubt seeing his pa’s disappointed gaze in the reflection. A spitting image.
Katniss and Peeta were the ones who forced him, almost violently, to participate. In life, in love, and in finally stopping that sun from rising. All the years he spent alone, hunched over bottle, feeding Lenore Dove gumdrops in his dreams, seemed to shift; it had seemed, before, that his promise to his love was nothing but a comforting word he has uttered to cushion her fall into death, an empty reason to live, if living at the bottom of a bottle was living at all.
But then those kids were thrust upon him, Katniss, with the fire of Maysilee, who’s voice, it turns out, the Capitol never did quite steal, and Peeta, with the heart of his lost love, ever silently aching for righteousness, and suddenly his promise was a promise once more. Suddenly, he saw the glint of a pure sun, untainted with blood. Then, it was rising, and then setting, and somehow he found himself slumped in silence on that step, his birthday finally just a birthday.
“Can’t sleep?” A familiar voice had muttered, a warm weight perching on the cold step beside him.
Haymitch had just huffed, “Shouldn’t you be curled up with Peeta? You sure know how that boy loves his early rising.”
Katniss laughed, a real smile playing on her face— a rare sight, but ever more frequent, it seemed. “He’s out like a light,” she gestured to him pointedly, “and you could learn a thing or two from his habits.”
“‘S’pose,” Haymitch grudgingly agreed. “Not too keen on the knocking at my door at six in the morning, though. I’m old, need my rest.”
Then, that solemn and serious look seemed to creep slowly onto her face, the one he’d seen far more often than he would like, the one he’d seen less and less recently.
“You know, I don’t think he ever had someone proper to look out for him, before,” she whispered after a long moment, interlocking her fingers and creasing her brow. “Back in school, I’d see him with the younger, boney kids after class, slipping them pastries and jams and such. Bet he got a boat load of grief back home for that. But…” she paused for a moment in thought. “I think, maybe he’s always just wanted to look after people, the way nobody ever looked after him.”
Haymitch considered that, nodding silently at the girl’s words. He gazed out over the rows of towering houses and piles of rubble, not smoking with ash any longer. He thought of Burdock, showing up at his door day after day before he’d succeeded in driving him away, dressing him, force feeding him, singing to him. He thought of Lenore Dove and her cluster of geese, her raising them, feeding them, humming tunes when they’d honk for attention. He thought of Wyatt in his last moments, a shield for a doomed little girl.
“‘Spose I don’t mind the fresh bread,” he settled on.
That smile he looked for so often materialised on Katniss’ face as she tipped her head in gratitude at the unspoken promise. She had moved to stand, starting towards her own door, when she whipped around with an uncharacteristic bounce in her demeanor.
“Oh! I have something for you,” she said, reaching into the satchel strapped to her side that Haymitch, too deep in thought, hadn't even noticed. “Whole reason I came out here in the first place. Here,” she huffed, pushing a bundle of brown leather into his lap.
Haymitch raised his eyebrows, “For me? Not more geese eggs is it? Think I’ve got enough parental responsibilities for the decade.”
“No geese eggs,” she replied.
As he unfolded the leather, a strong, familiar scent stole his breath. He felt sick.
“What is this, Sweetheart?”
“One of my dad’s old jackets. Like mine. Found it in an old cabin down by the lake,” she sniffed, rubbing her nose in the cold. “Never even knew he had two.”
But that scent wasn’t old Burdie; that hint of cinnamon and tall grass? That was all Lenore Dove.
“This isn’t Burdock’s,” he just managed to whisper.
Katniss’ eyes had snapped up, alight with confusion. “It’s not?” she questioned.
Haymitch shook his head, recalling the summer turned forteen. Burdock had come bounding down towards the meadow where he and his love lay, Lenore Dove reading Haymitch’s latest birthday gift to her out loud.
“Hey, Hay! Cuz!” He called, stumbling to a stop, dropping a parcel on Lenore Dove’s now-furious head. “Got you a present!”
“Really, Burdock? Couldn’t have waited five minutes?” Lenore Dove sighed, wiping the pine needles and dirt from her freshly washed patchwork overalls.
“No! Honest! Just open it, Cuz! You’ll be singing my praises!” he buzzed, gesturing wildly with his hands.
And so she did, and Haymitch had watched, smiling softly, as her and Burdock danced around the lake, showing off their new matching jackets to the birds, Lenore Dove’s suggestion, of course. And she really had sung his praises, with a childish song sung by an angel’s voice.
Lenore Dove had eventually lost the thing some time between then and her sixteenth birthday, she must’ve wore it on one too many adventures in the woods. But she had never quieted about the thing; the girl had hand-embroidered two geese and a little gosling to match each one into one of the sleeves, coining them her and Haymitch’s family with a sweet grin on her face.
“That one’s me, See?” She had said when he asked, pointing to the dove-coloured goose. “And that one’s you, all scruffy and charming,” she continued as she gestured to the rather haggard one with brown and black feathers. Then, she shuffled over to nudge his shoulder with hers and said, “And the goslings, our family.”
“Our family?” He had gently questioned.
She just nodded passionately, a smile playing on her lips as she replied, “They’ll have Covey names. My voice. Your heart. I’ll teach them to sing and you’ll teach them to fight, like all-fire. Until they don’t have to. Which they won’t, eventually. I know that in my heart.”
He’d just grinned and she had giggled. They were hardly fifteen at the time, but it didn’t seem like a fantasy, it seemed like the future, sure as the sun would rise.
Now, that very same jacket, laden with memory and love, sporting that lost dream of their goose family, rested in his hands.
He forced it out. “No, not your dad’s. A gift from him. To my girl.”
“Oh,” Katniss whispered after a long moment. “I didn’t know—”
“How would you, Sweetheart?” Haymitch cut her off, a sad smile in his voice. “They were distant cousins, if the rumours were true, her and your dad. That’s how I met her.”
It had been strange, speaking their names, telling their stories out loud. The memorial book had been one thing, but this was different. This didn’t hurt. This was Burdie’s little girl, here and, finally, safe. He’d looked out for her, the way Burdock never got to, the way he promised himself he would the moment she climbed the stairs of the justice building. He saw so much of them in her, things he knew she didn’t see herself; she was strong like her father, quietly thoughtful like Lenore Dove; she was like them, like him, but luckier.
“Well, I think I would’ve liked her,” Katniss smiled sadly.
“Me, too,” Haymitch had agreed, because she would have. And his girl would’ve loved her back. Like all-fire.
She nodded, giving him a half smile flooded with sympathy.
“It’s for you. Keep it,” she ordered, finally turning back towards her and Peeta’s house, clearly overwhelmed; the girl was never much of a talker, but she could be uncommonly kind when she wanted to be.
It took him until Katniss was gone, the street lights flickering out, when he found himself sitting by a soft, sunset orange fire, fingers tracing the careful stitching, to mutter, “Thank you, Sweetheart.”
–
Haymitch shrugs on the jacket, overcome with memory. As he slips through the door, his hands automatically reach for a bottle laying, discarded, on an old, dented table. Three years of reaping-free sunrises, but old habits sure do die hard.
The trek to the meadow is far too long and far too quiet. The winding paths of District 12 have long been clear of rubble, but with that, comes space. Too much of it. Only eight hundred people left this place alive, many of those, even if they survived the war, never did come back home. Sure, there are new arrivals every day, but those have slowed in the last year and when they do come nowadays, they’re almost never familiar faces. Understandable, Haymitch thinks. If it weren’t for Katniss and Peeta and all those he loved that lay buried in this soil, he would’ve fled too. Long ago.
As he walks, he remembers. He always does, these days; there, to his left, is the scrubbed-clean wall that once sported a passionate splattering of sunset orange paint, erased along with the girl that painted it. There, to his right, is the path that leads down into the Seam, where the ash of his true home still lingers in the air. And there, just up ahead, is the scar of the old District boundary: ugly, deep cuts in the hard earth where the fence between him and the Meadow once stood. Burdock might’ve been sad to see it go, ever gloating about discovering that weak point they had utilised far too often, but its absence means freedom, and Haymitch can live with that.
The Meadow is in view now, but Haymitch stops at the sound of soft voices. He knew his kids were fond of this spot, its sweet air a welcome relief from the bitterness of District 12, its lavish view of the world beyond: a paradise that had survived the games, the bombings, and the silence that came after. Here the Meadow had stood, unharmed, for generations.
Haymitch edges his way towards the couple that lounge in the shade of a willow tree, backs against a big rock, sharing bread with soft words, the bottle long fallen from his right hand.
He aches, watching them. He aches for the boy that held his girl on the morning of the fiftieth Hunger Games, and on a million gentle mornings prior. He aches for the father that hoisted his chirping daughter around the Hob whilst Haymitch sat, cracked open, hunched over a bottle on the sidelines. He aches for the sweetheart Louella, who would never again chase him through this Meadow.
That which accompanies the pangs in his chest is unnameable. It is curated from the light expression on Katniss’ face, the one that was so very hard to come by not so long ago. It is curated from the ruffle of Peeta’s hair, ashy blonde and bright in this moment, not matted and spotty like it had been during the worst of it. It is curated from the way the two share tender touches, gentle smiles and loving glances, living out their days lazily in this Meadow, safe and sound: all of Lenore Dove’s wishes seem to live inside them, proof of his hard-fought promise.
“Haymitch,” greets Katniss as he approaches them, sparing an amused glance to the boy slumped next to her, buttering bread. “Up early for a change?”
“Yeah, well. Didn’t want to miss the sunrise now did I, sweetheart?” he replies, a rare smile playing on his line-etched face.
“Well,” Katniss starts, humour in her voice. “Actually—”
“You’re just in time!” Peeta cuts in, jumping forward with a familiar smile, sticking a hand stacked with rolls and jam out in offering.
Haymitch quirks his brow in amusement, craning his neck towards the waking sky. The sunrise has passed, really, a soft azure painting its canvas, barely a hint of amber littering the sky, but he smiles at the boy’s nature: rare indeed.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Haymitch replies, accepting Peeta’s gift and settling on the blanket beside the couple. “This is the part I came for, anyway,” he sighs, a warm, sunny feeling flooding through his aching bones as he breathes into the fresh Meadow air.
This is where he felt his love’s final breath, where he heard the plea that came with it. So, he just stares at the last hint of another untainted sunrise, and breathes for the two of them.