Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Haymitch first saw Peeta strapped to that bed - glassy eyes, sunken features, skin that seemed to be stretched too tight - it wasn’t really his boy that he was seeing at all.

It was Lou Lou.

When Peeta wailed and thrashed, pulling against his restraints until they rubbed his skin red and raw, it wasn’t his screams that reached through the mics in the boy’s room to Haymitch’s ears. 

Those wild eyes which constantly let fall tears of rage and sadness and pure unspeakable agony were gray instead of blue. 

And when the doctors decided that the noise was enough and shot the kid through with enough morphling to knock him out, Haymitch’s fist closed over the near-tangible ghost of Lou Lou’s drug pump. 

“She's a monster! She's a mutt that the Capitol created to destroy us!”

“You’ll murder us! You’ll murder us!”

Just like whoever Lou Lou had been in her home in District 11, whoever Peeta had been before the Capitol sunk their teeth into him was long gone, buried by beating and starving and drugging. 

Haymitch saw how much the boy- his boy -was suffering. He stood and watched through the window as Peeta fought against himself, his doctors, and even those two courageous and sweet girls called Primrose Everdeen and Delly Cartwright. Girls that Peeta had once felt nothing but love and respect for. 

Haymitch wanted to be there for Peeta as well. He really, truly did. But whenever he decided it was time to ask if he could have a chat with the kid he would be overwhelmed by visions of Lou Lou writhing on the floor in front of him, clutching her bad ear and letting out heart-wrenching whimpers as the gamemakers tormented her from afar. 

Sometimes, when caught in one of his fits, Peeta would freeze and fall quiet. His gaze would drop to his lap and his screams would slowly morph into inaudible, unintelligible murmuring, the existence of which only known because of the movement of his lips.

Lou Lou prancing back and forth on stage, snake in hand…

… the crowd adored her, she hissed and bared her teeth…

… “You’ll murder us! You’ll murder us!” Her screams coming from the depths of her fractured soul…

… Caesar trying to calm her down, Lou Lou collapsing on the stage. The audience will be told that she fainted. The incident will be chalked up to her being a frightened little district piglet with fresh head trauma…

… the audience doesn’t care enough to realize that it’s not even the same girl.

No. Haymitch can’t go see Peeta. He can’t break down in front of this already unstable teenage boy, a boy he knows he has failed so many times. The doctors would be furious, and Haymitch couldn't risk ruining Peeta’s slight bit of progress. 

Haymitch just stares through the window until it’s too much for him to bear. The doctors staring at him, Peeta’s agony, the whispering of all of his ghosts. Sobriety had just made them stronger, now when he returned to his rooms, drowning in everything but the liquor he craved, Lou Lou and Louella would be waiting for him. 

Lou Lou would sing her harvest song while Louella smirked and occasionally blew a kiss out into the room

His sweetheart. His dove. 

Haymitch often found himself wondering if he was going to go just as crazy as Peeta. Perhaps he already had. He hadn’t felt all there in the head since he’d buried his flint striker in the same place Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber had buried his heart.

He knew he’d have to go see the boy eventually. Haymitch had heard the kid’s doctors discussing whether or not it would be productive to allow Finnick or Johanna some time with him. 

Finnick made sense. In all years since the victory of District four’s golden boy, he’d gotten familiar with the truth under his fellow victor’s sexy, womanizing persona. 

Finnick Odair was kind, he was gentle, he was good in a way Haymitch wasn’t. He saw the way Finnick had coached Annie through her bad days since she’d been rescued. Annie hadn’t been quite right for five years now, but something seemed to brighten in her when she was with Finnick. Maybe Peeta just needed a bit of that same kind of love. Finnick was a grounding presence, a ridiculous ray of sunshine in the hell that had become all of their lives. 

Haymitch was almost jealous. The Capitol hadn’t succeeded in robbing Finnick of his ability to express his love so openly. 

Yes. Finnick. That was who Peeta needed to see. Not Haymitch. Johanna was still a hard maybe. It was clear she’d had enough of hearing him scream. 

Haymitch buried his head in his hands. Every part of him ached. He killed the light in his room and sat on his bed, staring at his feet. 

He needed a drink. He needed his victors to be okay. He needed Peeta to stop screaming. He needed to see Snow dead.

He really really needed a drink. 

Lou Lou placed a hand on his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. She felt warm and soft, so impossibly real.  

“Murderers,”  she said softly, nodding solemnly. 

She was right, one word was all that was needed.

“That’s right, Lou Lou,” Haymitch grunted. “Murderers. Every single one of those bastards.”

The rebels, Haymitch realized, had brought a corpse back from the capitol. When he’d first seen Peeta wrap his hands around Katniss’s throat, he’d felt the same as he had standing in the library and seeing Lou Lou for the first time.

It hadn’t been Louella then, it wasn’t Peeta now. The doctors had said that there was a possibility they could help him remember all the things the Capitol had taken and twisted. It wasn’t guaranteed, but there was still some distant glimmer of hope that they had zeroed in on. 

But none of them understood that pain. They didn’t understand all the horrors that came with victory, or how it felt to find yourself personally in Snow’s sights. They had never sat across a table from the man. 

No matter how much “progress” they believed he was making, Peeta would never be the same again. Haymitch had failed both of his victors, and the loathing he felt towards himself because of it was hot, sour, and sharp. He had failed to save his boy, just like he’d failed to save both Louella and Lou Lou.

Lou Lou, still slumped against him, began to cry. It seemed that she agreed. 

- - - 

Peeta was making progress, or so Haymitch was being told. He’d observed a visit between the boy and Finnick that had gone off rather well. No one broke down crying or screaming, at the mention of Katniss, Peeta had bristled, his eyes taking on a faraway look, but that was all. Peeta was angry, but the pure terror he’d displayed during all the other visits Haymitch had stood for was nowhere to be seen. 

His visits with Prim were still difficult. He yelled at her, begged for her to kill her sister, but that girl was tough as nails. She coached Peeta through his episodes, her voice soft but firm, he tore into her with his words but she sat still and found all the flaws in his delusions, even when he refused to believe what she said. Haymitch was quickly growing to admire the younger Everdeen sister. She was all Asterid’s looks, but she had Burdie’s same air to her, he could tell hers was a good hand to hold. 

It was late at night when Plutarch finally approached Haymitch. They’d spent twenty-four years dancing around each other, holding only the briefest exchanges outside of matters related to the rebellion and the quell. Some part of Haymitch still loathed Plutarch as much as he did himself. 

Haymitch was standing at the tinted window, watching his boy sleep. Most of Peeta’s team had gone to bed, including Dr. Aurelius, who he’d come to trust most. Still, reluctant to get his own rest, he needed the reassurance that his kid was still breathing. He’d been there for Louella and for Lou Lou, he could be there for Peeta too.

Seeing his kid tied down like an animal, he wondered if Peeta was failing to tell the difference between District thirteen and the Capitol. Haymitch certainly was. 

Especially when Plutarch slid into place next to him and said, “I know what you’re thinking.” 

“Enlighten me,” Haymitch shot back. He was too exhausted to deal with Plutarch’s smugness. If he’d had a drink in his hand, he was sure he’d be taking quite a long sip right about now.

“That girl,” Haymitch wanted to wipe the other man’s stupid smirk off of his face as he spoke, nothing about this was funny, “the one from the 50th games. Our replacement for Louella Mccoy after the chariot accident. You’re thinking about how you’ve let it happen again.”

Plutarch’s words cut deep, and Haymitch felt obliged to fire back.

 “Finally fessing up, then?” he asked pointedly, “that you found some poor little girl from some other district and tortured her until she forgot her own name because you were all afraid to admit that you’d fucked up and gotten a tribute killed before the arena?”

“I had no part in that,” Plutarch responded, unphased. “I was as surprised as you were when I saw her that day. Though I’d obviously managed to put the pieces together, I wasn’t quite sure until now. You just confirmed it all for me. I knew that the real Louella was dead, but everything else I’d had to theorize about.”

“Well,” Haymitch grunted in response, “I had to hold both the real Louella and the fake one while they died.” 

“I saw. What aren’t you telling me?”

Haymitch sighed, wishing he could beat Plutarch’s proud nonchalance out of his body. He didn’t respond, and instead turned back towards Peeta’s sleeping form. He wondered if things had been the same for Lou Lou when the Capitol had first gotten hold of her. How long was she struggling, confused, unaware of why she was being tortured-just like Peeta, who hadn’t known about the rebellion or District 13- before she lost herself completely. 

He could feel Plutarch’s eyes boring into him, so he finally gave his answer without looking back.

“On the way to the arena, Chicory figured out that she was from Eleven.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he sneered, “she knew one of their harvest songs. And she got all obsessed with this seed-roll. Mags and Wiress had the same theory as the other tributes.”

Haymitch didn’t want to be telling Plutarch this. Those days before his games had become memories that he held very close to his chest. Mags and Wiress were dead now, Effie had only just hit the scene, Haymitch was all that was left of team Twelve from that year. Those memories were supposed to be his. He doubted that Plutarch had even cared to remember who Chicory was.  Though, at the same time, he had spent years aching to tell someone, anyone, about what had truly happened in the arena. Even Plutarch didn’t have the full story.

Plutarch pursed his lips, letting out a soft “hm.” It made Haymitch want to slap him even more.

“What?”

“Don’t get Peeta and those two girls all mixed up in your head, Haymitch. There’s hope for your victor, hope that neither Louella could have ever had.”

When he didn’t respond, Plutarch kept talking. The man didn’t know when to shut up.

“I’m surprised you haven’t visited yet. I don’t think your relation to Katniss will be much of an issue, considering the fact that his talks with Prim have been getting easier.”

“I didn’t know you cared so much.”

“I have to care. Coin wants the districts to know that he’s back on our side. Everyone with a connection saw those broadcasts. People are horrified, they think that Twelve’s precious lover boy has turned against them and the mockingjay. Even those of them who can speculate about him being tortured or held at gunpoint can’t deny what they saw. Only those of us here in Thirteen benefited from his warning about the bombs.”

“If they were really watching, they would’ve seen the capitol beat him.”

“Nonetheless, I think you should talk to him. Coin wants him for propo footage.”

This, Haymitch thought, this is my breaking point. “So you don’t care!” he snapped, “you don’t care that there’s a child, a little boy, in agony. A boy who needs time! You don’t want him to get better because you care about him, you just want to shove him on camera again!”

Plutarch just shook his head, turning on his heel, taking slow steps away.

“I think I can leave the caring to you,” he said without looking back. “Clearly, you’ve got me covered. Just don’t keep him mixed up with Louella or her double.”

At this, all his anger boiled over.

“Her name was Lou Lou!” Haymitch tried to scream at Plutarch’s back, but he was already gone. 

Not that it mattered. Her name wasn’t Lou Lou, anyway. Haymitch felt a knife twist in his gut when he finally realized the truth. The truth that in all likelihood, there was not a person alive who still knew her name except for Snow.

It was terribly unfair. The last piece of Lou Lou’s identity rested in the hands of the man who had destroyed her life.

Haymitch’s eyes scanned Peeta’s sleeping form and thanked the Heavens that his girl had always talked about that the kid was still breathing. 

He sighed. As much as he completely and utterly loathed admitting it, Plutarch was right. He owed his boy, and both of his dead sweethearts this much. 

He wouldn’t let the Capitol take Peeta’s soul from him. He would not chalk him up as a lost cause. He would finally pay the kid a visit, Haymitch decided, it was the least he could do. He was a grown man, even with the ghosts of Louella and Lou Lou dancing around him, he could still pull himself together long enough to have a conversation.

He’d see about that visit first thing in the morning.

Haymitch leaned his head on the glass, savoring his one-way view of the kid. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this. He had no doubt that the expression on his face was one of either desperation or heartbreak. That was what he was feeling, anyway. He could promise all kinds of things, but he remained wallowing in his despair. 

It hurt like nothing in the world to see another child taken this way. Sure, a bastard like Plutarch would point out that technically Lou Lou hadn’t been hijacked and that technically Louella hadn’t suffered all that much in her last moments.

Haymitch didn’t care what that Capitol pig thought, he hadn’t cared what that man thought since he’d come across little Ampert Latier’s bones in the arena. 

He cared about Peeta, though. That much would've been obvious to anyone if they’d seen the tears rolling down his cheeks. 

He cried silently, his eyes trained permanently on that sweet child laid out in such a terrible demeaning manner before him.

Haymitch was still standing there when Dr. Aurelius came in the next morning. 

- - - 

Despite all his internal bluster about stepping up for Peeta, Haymitch didn’t go in to visit him until two days later, and it was hardly at his own prompting.

After the night spent at the window, he’d avoided Peeta’s room entirely, busying himself with other matters, including sitting in his room listening to the chatter of his ghosts and wishing he was drunk.

He wanted to be drinking something strong.

That was until Johanna confronted him in the hallway outside the dining hall by shoving him aggressively into the wall. Even when suffering from malnutrition, that girl could still pack a punch.

Haymitch knew that Johanna was still technically under the care of the District thirteen doctors, and that she had been assigned Dr. Aurelius as her primary caretaker just like Peeta had. But she had also been deemed well enough to wander the district and attend meals just like any other citizen on the condition that she attend daily check-ins with her aforementioned doctor. 

The first thing she said to Haymitch after successfully getting the jump on him was: “What the FUCK is your problem, old man!?”

Tough as she was, Johanna was still reeling from the aftermath of the Capitol’s torture, and Haymitch had the advantage terms of size. He shoved her off easily and she staggered backwards. Her mouth was twisted into an amused grin but her eyes betrayed fury.

“Can I help you?” Haymitch asked as she stood in front of him, looking ready to either lunge for him again or bolt down the hallway. 

“Yeah. Yeah,” she said, wringing her hands. “Just wondering about why you haven’t gone to see your victor yet!”

Her shout rang like a bell in the empty hallway. Haymitch stared at her. He’d seen Johanna sitting with Katniss, Annie, Finnick, and Prim at meals, but he’d assumed she would have gotten sick of her fellow Capitol detainees. 

“Have you?” he said coolly. 

Her answer thoroughly shocked him.

Johanna crossed her arms and smirked. “I have, actually, yesterday. He didn’t flip out the second he saw me. But…” her smirk widened, “he did ask about you.”

There was something cold slowly hollowing out a pit in Haymitch’s stomach. He was determined not to let it show on his face.

“Did he?”

“Yeah,” Johanna nodded, “he asked if you hated him. If you were mad at him for trying to kill Katniss. I told him that you were probably just too much of a pussy to face him. Of course, that pissed him off and he started screaming about how you’d always liked Katniss better than him and how she was a mutt tricking you into feeling safe. Then they had to sedate him. Might clear some things up if you went to go see him,” she shrugged. “I’m sure you’d be allowed to.”

Somewhere along the course of the conversation, Haymitch’s head had started pounding. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Yeah. Thanks Johanna,” was all he could manage unless he wanted to start screaming out all of his despair at this girl in a public area of the district. 

“Anytime. But don’t do it for me, old man,” something in her voice grew unexpectedly soft, “do it for Peeta. He’s your mentee.” 

So, that evening, Haymitch found himself standing outside of Peeta’s room. Though for the first time he had come not just to observe. He truly meant to speak to the boy, and for the first time he had gotten far enough along in the process that he was listening to the doctor’s security brief before he went in. 

No turning back now. 

Haymitch was handed an earpiece that someone would be able to deliver instructions over if need be. At any sign of distress, Haymitch was to move away from Peeta, and wasn’t to touch him without permission. If that was permission from Peeta or from the doctors, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

The kid was strapped down. Harmless. And they were still treating him like an animal. 

No wonder Peeta was blurring all the lines between 13 and the Capitol. Haymitch himself was struggling to puzzle out where torture ended and medical treatment began.

He nodded his way through the rest of the briefing, barely listening, his ears buzzing with ghost chatter and the rushing of his own blood.

Soon enough, he was standing in front of Peeta’s door. The only thing between them now was Haymitch’s say-so. 

He took a deep breath, swallowed, and steeled himself. He had dodged his responsibilities long enough. Even if his official mentor duties were never supposed to extend this far, he felt too protective of both of the kids to not do his best for them. Even though, being who he was, his best was hardly spectacular. 

“Okay,” Haymitch nodded, feeling Dr. Aurelias’ eyes on him, “send me in there.”

A loud, harsh, mechanical buzzer sounded, the door swung open, Haymitch cast his eyes to the floor. He’d been avoiding looking through the window since he’d arrived earlier that day, not wanting Peeta to somehow sense that he was waiting to come in in case he ended up chickening out. 

He kept his eyes on the floor until he heard the door shut behind him. He and Peeta were not as alone as they could be, considering that the room was still mic’d, under video surveillance, and had a team of people observing it through the window. 

Haymitch felt his anxiety settle in his stomach, and he glanced up.

Peeta was staring back at him. Not Lou Lou. Peeta, he reminded himself. Those blue eyes were bleeding into gray. He could not treat this boy like a ghost from his past. This horror was from his present.

“Hey,” Haymitch managed to croak out, his voice suddenly failing him as his eyes swept over the kid waiting only a few feet away. 

All things considered, Peeta looked… better. The bruises on his face and collarbone that Haymitch had gotten all too good a look at when he’d knocked him out on the first day had started to fade. There was a little bit of color in cheeks, he no longer looked completely like the specter of death. Someone had been kind enough to comb his hair for him, and he’d obviously managed to put on a little weight, though he was still horribly emaciated. During the first few days, Peeta had struggled to keep down any food they’d given him, and had lashed out at his doctors more than once, leaving one with a nasty bite on the wrist. They’d had him on a feeding tube, Dr. Aurelius informed him, until just yesterday, when they’d decided to give him another chance to eat on his own. When Haymitch had asked, he’d been informed that he’d thrown up one meal and refused another, and that they’d be considering the options later. Still, clearly he was eating more than he had in the capitol, which was equal parts comforting and disturbing considering how little he was having now. 

Haymitch felt sickeningly amused when it occurred to him that Peeta looked just like himself after a bender. Chapped lips, dark circles, it was like looking in a mirror. He knew he couldn’t shit on the kid’s appearance. With the recent lack of sunlight, any and everyone in Thirteen had looked better. 

“Hey,” Peeta replied. Haymitch cringed, the screaming had left his voice painfully hoarse.

He wanted to respond, but the kid followed with: “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me. You always liked her better anyway.”

There was no anger in his voice, just bitter acceptance. He’d already decided that he was nothing to Haymitch, and it made the latter feel terribly guilty. Even before he’d been hijacked, he knew that he was giving Peeta that impression. Katniss was the one everyone back in Twelve had praised. She was the face of the rebellion, however much she hated the responsibility. Peeta, especially in his current state, was disposable, to people like Coin and Plutarch at least. If he was too damaged to film the propos, Haymitch wondered if they’d continue to be so diligent with his treatment, or if he’d be given up on.

No. Haymitch shook his head, clearing out the thoughts. Neither he nor Katniss would ever allow for Peeta to be left behind, even if they were both reluctant to see him. Not again. Never again.

Lou Lou had perched herself on Peeta’s bed, nodding in agreement. Haymitch ignored her.

“I know you’re not going to believe me,” he said finally, “but it’s not true. I care about you too, kid. Okay?” He was surprised by the passion in his voice. “I just didn’t know if you’d want to see me.” It was only partially true. He didn’t need to bother Peeta with the real story of why he’d stalled for so long.

“You left me behind,” Peeta said, “in the arena. You got her out, but not me. Because she told you to. She told you to leave me behind because she wants me dead.”

“No. No, Peeta.” Haymitch took a careful step forward, and when the boy didn’t react, he took another. “I wanted to get you all out. You, Annie, Johanna, even Enobaria if that makes you feel better. Katniss was furious when she found out that you’d gotten left behind. She attacked me with a syringe. Can you believe that?”

He’d been told to be careful when mentioning Katniss, but Peeta had brought her up first and remained relatively calm. Peeta frowned.

“Why would she do that? She’s on your side.” There was confusion mixed into the venom in his voice. He was genuinely trying to put the puzzle together, trying to figure out why all the memories and stories didn’t add up. 

“Because she cared about you,” he responded. “She knew bad things would happen if you were taken to the Capitol. She wanted us to turn back.”

“So she could kill me herself?” 

Complete bewilderment this time.

“No. So she could get you somewhere safe.”

Peeta’s eyes dropped to his lap, his face blank. He didn’t respond, so Haymitch decided to push his luck.

“You’re right, though. I should’ve come to see you earlier. I was a coward.”

This seemed to get the kid’s attention, he looked up and narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah. You were.”

“Sounding like yourself now, almost,” Haymitch let out a dry chuckle. “I care about you just as much as I do the girl, kid. But I promise, it’s not because I hate you, or because I’m angry. It’s just… it hurts for me to see you like this. Because I see myself. Or I see…”

He trailed off, realizing that his words had just started tumbling out of him. He’d said more than he wanted to say to anyone, especially someone so vulnerable. 

He still couldn’t read Peeta’s expression, but his tone was clear as daylight when he spoke again. 

“I can’t believe you think that you’re the one in pain right now.”

Well. I can’t argue with that. Maybe I am being a little selfish.

As those thoughts filed through Haymitch’s mind, he noticed that Lou Lou had gone from Peeta’s bedside. Maybe because she had never been this stable, never able to carry a conversation this way. This was new and unsettling territory. For all of them. 

“You’re right, kid.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have no idea what this feels like for you. I have no idea how much it hurts. But don’t act like I haven’t… like I haven’t this… before…”

He trailed off when he saw the way Peeta was staring at him.

“Forget it,” Haymitch said. “It isn’t about me right now.”

Peeta didn’t push further into the details of what Haymitch had seen before, and for that the older man was relieved. He didn’t think he could talk about Lou Lou right now. If he did, he might start seeing her once again, and that might push him over the edge. 

“No. It’s not,” Peeta replied simply. “Save your sob story for some other time.”

“Will do, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

Haymitch quickly strode across the gap between him and Peeta, perching himself ungracefully on the edge of the hospital bed. The boy just stared at him. I’m not a kid. He wished he hadn’t heard it. Most seventeen year olds were quick to deny their youth, but Peeta was not doing it out of stubbornness. He seemed to believe that, despite his age, he no longer qualified as a kid. He had been through more than any child -any person- should have.

“You are a kid,” Haymitch affirmed. “I’m forty, or forty-one, either of those. Can’t remember right now. You’ll always be a kid to me.” Every kid he mentored would always be a kid to him, none except for the two he had now had never gotten a chance to be anything else.

“I don’t feel like a kid,” Peeta shot back.

“Tough. No one does, after the games. But you’ve still got a ways to go before you grow up completely.”

The boy just shook his head. “I don’t understand how you can care about me and still side with Katniss. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because,” Haymitch reached out, placing a hand on Peeta’s good leg, “she cares about you. And everyone here wants to make it so you believe that again.”

“I don’t trust you. Or anyone here.”

“Generally I’d consider that good advice, but not after all the time the Capitol has spend fucking around in your head.”

Peeta seemed completely oblivious to his mentor’s touch. “Yeah, thanks,” he answered sarcastically. “I’ll just decide to place all my faith in the people who didn’t drug me, tie me up, and watch me all the time. Oh, wait.” 

Against his better judgment, Haymitch couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved by the sass. The Peeta he knew could hold his own in an argument. His kid was still in there somewhere. 

“Can’t argue with that,” he replied. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. The boy just scoffed, his eyes drifting down to where Haymitch had rested his hand on his shin.

Haymitch followed Peeta’s gaze, and then allowed his eyes to drift. He felt his stomach sink when he spotted Peeta’s other leg. Or what was left of it. 

He’d seen the kid without his prosthetic before, though that had been when he’d dropped by the hospital after the 74th hunger games had ended. It had still been simply a freshly-closed wound then, and Peeta had been a mess of tubes and monitors (far more than were stuck in him now, as he needed only fluids and morphling) and his stump had been a disquieting sight to behold. 

He’d heard Peeta mention it to Prim at one point while Haymitch had been watching. He’d started crying, talking about how the Capitol had done the same thing to him, left him without a prosthetic so that even if Johanna and Annie somehow made a run for it, he’d have to be left behind if they wanted to make it out. It was just for cruelty’s sake. No one actually expected an escape to take place, the Capitol had just wanted to mock Peeta with what had happened to him. Make him feel useless and inferior. He blamed himself for the wound the Capitol had caused.

It made Haymirch’s stomach churn. No child should have ever been forced to endure something so violating. 

Somehow, though, this was worse than it had been after the games. Though maybe that was just because of the circumstances. After the games, at least, all the medical unpleasantness was done to help. In the Capitol, this time, anything they did to one of the parts of himself that Peeta was most sensitive about had been done to hurt. His left pant leg had been cut to fit him for comfort, and what Haymitch could see of his leg was horribly swollen and looked somewhat inflamed. 

“They’re working on it!” Peeta snapped, but when Haymitch looked up at his face, he seemed more embarrassed than angry. He moved his hand away from his mentee. 

“That’s on me, boy. I shouldn’t be in your business. Are they gonna get you a new leg?”

“Haven’t asked. I don’t know. I don’t think they want me moving around all that much yet.”

As much as he hated it, Haymitch understood that much. He barked out a bitter laugh. 

“Still, I don’t think it’s fair for them to keep something like that from you, not that a lot of things are fair for you right now.”

“No,” Peeta shook his head in agreement, “they aren’t fair. It’s not fair that everyone always chooses her over me. Prim and Delly are always talking about how I made her feel…”

There was anger bubbling below the surface of his words. Haymitch stood up and took a few steps backwards. Those blue eyes had something deadly in them. No. Not blue. Gray. No. They were blue. He shook his head, thinking he’d seen Lou Lou in Peeta’s place once again. 

“What about how I feel!? What about me?! Why am I less important even when I’m like this, than some monster? She wants to kill me! She’s going to kill me and you’ll all be complicit! You lied to me, Haymitch! You don’t care, you won’t care when she kills me!”

Peeta was yelling now. The fury building below his words had boiled over. He tugged against his restraints, his expression conveying both rage and desperation. He wasn’t just angry, he was terrified. The part of him that truly believed that everyone he had once trusted was conspiring against him, plotting his death, was winning over whatever was left of him that had once loved Katniss and Prim and all the others. 

There was a buzzing sound in Haymitch’s ear, then a voice through his earpiece. “Haymitch. You should probably step out now.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Peeta was still screaming, trying to break free of his bindings, when Haymitch pulled open the heavy door and let it fall shut behind him. Lou Lou and Louella followed him out. 

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding the second it had closed, then turned to face Dr. Aurelius. He expected the man to look angry, but instead he just looked relieved. 

“What?” Haymitch asked, he could still hear Peeta’s shouting.

“That-” Dr. Aurelius checked his watch for some kind of confirmation before looking back up, “- was the longest he’s been able to speak to anyone not on the medical staff without having that kind of breakdown. Considering also the fact that you also managed to speak about Katniss Everdeen and the hunger games without immediately triggering him, I’d say that this is progress. Enormous progress. Perhaps you’ll be able to give him the pushes he needs, when he needs them.”

Haymitch shook his head. He knew, logically, that the doctor was right. But he wasn’t sure how many times he could stomach another visit like this before he himself broke down in front of this same audience. Peeta was still screaming, he jerked his head in the direction of the window.

“Are you going to shut him up?” He asked. In his head, he could hear Lou Lou. 

“You’ll murder us! You’ll murder us!”

Dr. Aurelius merely shook his head in response. “We don’t think it would be wise to risk him becoming dependent on morphling in his current state. If he grows to be unable to calm himself down without drugging we’d be in for a whole host of new problems.” 

“So you’re just going to let him scream?” Something about that sparked Haymitch’s own fury. He hated to see his boy left so helpless, so exposed, humiliated in front of a new group of strangers like he had been so many times in his life. Haymitch knew the feeling. He had never quite been able to shake the feeling of eyes on him after coming out of the arena. He knew that his house was likely bugged, and the mandatory television appearances during the annual slaughter of his tributes only exacerbated his paranoia. The walls in the Capitol had eyes, ears, and incessantly wagging tongues. Peeta knew that too, and they both knew that 

District 13 had turned out to be much the same.                 

“No,” Dr. Aurelius said. “He does need to learn how to calm himself down after an episode, but I don’t think we need to push that quite yet. You’ve seen how quickly his talks with others tire him out. You may have just about guaranteed a good night’s sleep for him.” He nodded to the window, where Peeta was already beginning to still. He was tugging weakly at the restraints, but it was clear that the fight had left him as quickly as it had come.

Peeta stared at the window. Tears were welling up in his eyes now as he just lay there helplessly. Haymitch could see his eyes drooping slightly, but his expression was strained and pleading. He clearly knew that his mentor was still lingering outside. 

Haymitch hung his head, ashamed. The kid was right, Haymitch had abandoned him. He had been failing Peeta since they’d met nearly two years ago. The least he could do was try and start standing up for him now. 

“Can you at least do something about his leg? I don’t think you should all be leaving him so helpless like this? It’s fucking sick,” Haymitch though his own anger might suddenly burst out of him, “You’re already keeping him tied up, watching him like an animal. No better than the Capitol, any of you!”

When he realized he was yelling he mumbled a quick “sorry.” It was in no way a fair comparison. He knew that they were trying to help, but when he thought about the humiliation ritual that was Peeta’s treatment he felt himself ready to explode all over again. 

Lou Lou and Louella weren’t the only ones called to mind when he saw the boy like that. Haymitch shuddered at the memory of waking up naked and alone, watching all those poor little bunnies die, as he was whisked away from the arena. He doubted any of these doctors understood that special kind of helplessness. 

Dr. Aurelius stayed miraculously calm, his tone and expression betraying no anger at all. 

“It wouldn’t be worth it to fit him for a new prosthetic now. His stump is still incredibly swollen, and combined with the weight he lost while in the Capitol it would just need to be refitted in a few weeks time. I promise, no one is withholding anything out of any kind of malice. We’re waiting for him to stabilize more so that the fitting process doesn’t have to be redone more times than is strictly necessary. The process can feel incredibly violating, he just isn't ready.”            

Haymitch couldn’t lie. He felt more than a little bit stupid. He’d seen the swelling for himself, it was ugly, brutal, as the rest of Peeta’s recovery would be. 

“... Right,” he grumbled, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly. He spared a glance back at Peeta, the boy was out cold. Though even in sleep, he didn’t seem free. His face was contorted into an expression of pure terror. Maybe the kid was right, in a way. No one here seemed to care too much about him now that Katniss wasn’t in any immediate danger. Anyone with a heart (not Haymitch, he had done his best to suppress that part of himself) would want to rush into the room and just hold the boy gently once they saw how scared he looked. 

Peeta was alone. Drowning in his own head.

Haymitch couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. Lou Lou pressed her hand to Peeta’s window.

“Hello, Haymitch. My name is Louella Mccoy, I’m from District 12.”    

“She wants to kill me! She’s going to kill me and you’ll all be complicit! You lied to me, Haymitch! You don’t care, you won’t care when she kills me!”

His little doves, drowning in lies. Screaming, choking, true selves killed in a drug-fueled frenzy.

Haymitch nodded to Dr. Aurelius before slinking away down the hallway, dragging his shame behind him.

- - - 

When Haymitch opened the door to his room and saw that Plutarch had made himself at home, sitting on Haymitch’s bed, he hoped desperately for a moment that this was just just another hallucination. Why he’d be seeing Plutarch, he didn’t know. He just knew that he didn’t want to deal with the real thing. 

“Oh, fuck off…” Haymitch muttered under his breath. He was sure that Plutarch had come to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. Namely, into the details of his visit with Peeta.

 “If you actually cared that much about what went down with the boy, you could’ve come and watched,” he said, trying his best to wipe the smug look off of the other man’s face. Plutarch just kept grinning. It seemed his face was stuck like that. 

“I wanted to give you your privacy. Besides, I had other matters to attend to,” Plutarch replied.

“If you cared about my privacy you wouldn’t be here in my room!” 

“Well…” Plutarch looked almost…bashful? Now Haymitch was sure that he wasn’t real. “That’s probably true, but I did want to speak with you,” 

“Can you make it quick?” Peeta hadn’t been the only one tired out by their earlier conversation. If Haymitch couldn’t drink, he’d do the next best thing. Sleep.

He wished desperately that he could hit Plutarch. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to hold off for as long as he had. 24 years could take a toll on a man.

Plutarch pushed himself off of the bed with a grunt. Haymitch took this as a cue to throw himself down on the bed. Lying back, he crossed his arms and glared out at the room.

“We talked about how Coin wants Peeta for propos. She wants more than just his face,” Plutarch said, “she wants to see him in action. Fighting, training, something like that. But specifically, she wants him to appear alongside Katniss. For better or worse, she’s going to beat their love story into the ground.”

Haymitch just gaped at him. Plutarch was slowly drifting towards the door, looking ready to bolt at any sudden movements.

“You can’t do that,” Haymitch said, flabbergasted. “You can’t do that. It’s not safe for her. Or for him. You’re going to ruin all his progress. And if something happens to Katniss, you will lose both parts of your love story.”

He let the last part hang in the air. It was likely that Peeta would be shot if he succeeded in killing Katniss. If he wasn’t… well… Haymitch knew that boy was more than willing to kill himself for her. 

They kept him bound for a reason. The first time they’d tried untying him to eat, Peeta had thrown himself off of the bed and shoved himself into the corner of the room. Haymitch had been watching, helpless as the kid sobbed, slamming his head into the wall as though he were trying to force all the Capitol demons out, his nails tearing into his wrists and arms with enough ferocity to draw blood. 

The doctors were more careful after that. Peeta was given small amounts of sedative before meals now.

“You can’t do that,” Haymitch repeated, his shock fading into anger. “He hasn’t even spoken to her since he tried to kill her.”

Plutarch put a hand on the door. “Well, Coin wants you to rectify that. Peeta’s doctors are going to try a few things. If he’s deemed stable enough, it’ll be up to you to convince Katniss to go see him. He’ll be bound and medicated, he won’t be able to hurt her.”

Haymitch shook his head. “She won’t want to do that.”

Plutarch shrugged. “She doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. We’re at war, old friend. No one has a choice right now. Especially our mockingjay.”

And once again, he was gone.

Haymitch closed his eyes and imagined throwing something after him.

Peeta. Vulnerable, unstable, forced to perform. One of the two tributes that he hadn’t failed in the arena. No, he failed outside of it this time. 

He remembered Lou Lou in the library, on the interview stage, on the podium in the arena, choking to death in the flowers, dead in his arms. 

He remembered Maysilee and her apprehension about being near Lou Lou.

Katniss didn’t want to see Peeta. She didn’t want to see a familiar face and know that it was no longer him. 

History repeating itself. Again and again and again. 

Peeta sobbing and trying to break free of his restraints. Lou Lou tugging at her ear, whimpering, forbidden to scream  

It was agony. 

They were all there. In the room. Watching Haymitch.

Lou Lou, Louella, Maysile, Wyatt. 

Woodbine, Ampert, Wellie, Kerna.

Silka, Maritte, Panache.

Lenore Dove. Ma and Sid.

Fifty-two ghosts in his room. Reprimanding him, judging his failure. 

It was so loud. So overwhelming. Everything was far too much. 

Haymitch didn’t even realize that he was screaming.

Chapter Text

Haymitch had never bothered to picture what life might look like for him once the rebellion was over. 

They’d won, but not without paying a price far too great for words. 

Almost every single victor was dead. The survivors of the purge were scattered across New Panem. 

Enobaria, Beetee, Annie, Johanna, Haymitch, Peeta, Katniss. 

All alive, most probably wishing that they weren’t. 

The first few months had been the hardest. After watching Katniss kill Coin and stopping her suicide attempt, Peeta had begun to spiral again. He was confined to a hospital room in the Capitol with a whole new load of confusing memoires to sort through. Katniss, on the other hand, was locked in the tribute center, addicted to the morph tabs she was trying to kill herself with. 

When Haymitch visited him, Peeta was full of questions regarding what had happened to her. He didn’t have the heart to tell the boy anything other than “she’s awaiting trial for killing Coin,” or “she’s being held in the tribute center.”

As the heroes of the revolution wasted away, Haymitch felt just as helpless as he had during those twenty-four years of sending children to their deaths in the games. 

Katniss was the first to go home, “exiled” to the place where she’d spent her whole life. Her travel between the districts was restricted but it was clear to everyone who knew that she really didn’t care.

Haymitch went home with her, doing the bare minimum of making sure she didn’t kill herself. He took her morph tabs, with her putting up shockingly little fight when he did, and checked in occasionally as she slept to make sure that she was still breathing.

Katniss didn’t leave her room the whole trip home. Haymitch only did so to look in on her or get something else to drink.

He tried his best to drown the guilt he felt about leaving Peeta behind, he knew that the boy wasn’t ready yet. Neither of his victors were.

When he’d gone to tell the kid that he was taking Katniss home, Peeta had still been more-or-less confined to a hospital bed and still under constant supervision and in constant therapy. 

At least he’d looked better. He’d been in regular civilian clothes (a t-shirt and sweatpants) instead of the humiliating hospital gowns, he’d been allowed to walk Haymitch to the exit of the ward. 

It was a good show, at the very least, but the doctors had informed him that Peeta had been set back quite a bit in his recovery after Prim’s death and the assassinations. Katniss, who in Peeta’s mind still bore some semblance of a Capital mutt, had killed the leader of the rebellion. That was hardly easy for his broken-down mind to grapple with. 

Still, as the two had shaken hands in farewell, Peeta had looked at Haymitch with those tragically empty blue eyes -Blue. Light blue. Blue fading into Lou Lou’s gray- and asked him to please take care of Katniss, no matter what happened to him. 

Haymitch had just laughed awkwardly. “Wow, kid. This is sounding a bit like a final goodbye. Should I be telling on you to that shrink?”

Peeta just shrugged, looking sheepishly down at his feet, shuffling them awkwardly. “Sometimes…” he pursed his lips, “sometimes it feels like I’m not going to get better. Like I’m going to waste away in here. Maybe it’s true. It might never be safe for me to be out in the world again. They’ve never fixed anyone like me before.”

There was such quiet loathing in his words. The war was over. The children of Panem were safe. All but the ones who had fought the hardest. Still not quite eighteen and Peeta had suffered so much for these people. And now he was being left behind for what was hardly the first time, stuck in the same place where he’d been damaged (he seemed to think) beyond repair.

Haymitch went against his better judgment and grabbed Peeta’s shoulders. The boy startled, but fell still, blinking at him. Blue. Light Blue. Gray.

“You don’t say that, kid,” he insisted, with more passion in his voice than he intended. “You’ll be back in Twelve soon. Okay? I won’t have any of this moping that you’re doing.” He waved his hand in front of Peeta’s pouting face for effect before scrambling to recover his reputation. 

“Okay. Okay! That’s enough of this mushy stuff. I’ll see you on the flipside, boy. And when I do…” he sighed, “I’ve got a story for you. Because you aren’t the first kid I’ve seen the Capitol fuck around with like this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a train to catch.”

Haymitch was gone before Peeta could ask what he meant. He wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Lou Lou yet, but he was sure as anything was going to try to be by the time both of his doves had returned to their nests. 

And so he did his best for Katniss on the train, and as they made their way back to Victor’s Village. The rebuilding was already progressing around them, and anyone who stared was met with Haymitch’s best glare.

The weeks passed and the two settled into a routine. Haymitch fell back on the bottle, each morning he’d go over and bang on the door with a: “Sweetheart! You’d better still be alive in there!”

After the first week, she'd started going out to hunt. Katniss would take her bow but often return empty-handed. It was the motion that mattered most. He’d sit on his porch and wave to her as she returned, waving and wishing he was a good enough man to give her the care she actually needed. 

He understood why Asterid would need to be as far from the place her dead daughter had once been as possible, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth when he thought about the living daughter who couldn’t leave. 

Asterid could run as far as she liked from the memory of Prim. Katniss would be forced to drown in it. 

When, after three months of watching his sweetheart slowly get “better,” Haymitch finally got the call that Peeta was coming home, he forced himself to sober up and waited that day at the train station for him.

As they were walking back through the district, Peeta broke their awkward silence by saying, “you were right, I did make it back.”

Haymitch gave a dry chuckle. “Told you. Besides, you’re always clawing your way back to that girl.”

Peeta shrugged, but there was something sad in his eyes. “I don’t know if Katniss wants to be around me anymore. And that’s fine,” he kicked at a rock lying in his path, “Dr. Aurelius loved to talk about that.” He rolled his eyes before continuing. “About how I’d be okay, even if she didn’t want to be around me.”

Haymitch barked out a laugh. “Trust me, kid, she’ll have some warming up to do. But you two will figure things out.”

Peeta just shrugged in response. 

- - - 

It took some time, but the kids did grow back together. They’d take walks together in the mornings, Haymitch content with watching them as he drank on the porch. He knew they were both unsatisfied with his constant state of inebriation, but some habits were too hard to break.

When July 4th rolled around, Haymitch made his way out to the covey cemetery and sat with Lenore Dove. They watched the sunrise together, it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

The trees glowed an ethereal green. Somewhere, a mockingjay sang. A precious four notes, a song of rebellion that Lenore Dove would’ve loved. Her ghost sat next to him. Even in death, she’d aged alongside him, but she was still as rare and radiant as ever.  

- - - 

It was raining out, and Haymitch found himself on his couch, nursing a bottle, when he heard a knock at his door. He automatically knew it was Peeta, as Katniss rarely (if ever) bothered to give a warning before she barged inside. 

“Come in! It’s unlocked!” He shouted, tucking his bottle into the inside of his coat. His head was pounding and the last thing he needed was a scolding. Not that Peeta was ever particularly harsh with his admonishments. 

Upon hearing the familiar sound of heavy, tentative footsteps, Haymitch’s suspicions were confirmed. Peeta was no hunter, and was infamous in their messed-up trio for scaring off animals during walks in the forest. He was teased for it frequently, but took it all in good spirits.

Haymitch couldn’t keep himself from laughing at the sight of the soaking wet boy in his living room as soon as he entered his line of sight. Peeta’s blonde curls were plastered to his forehead. The walk between their houses could hardly be counted as such, but his clothes were still soaked through.

“Wow, kid,” he chuckled, “it must be really coming down out there. Your girl kick you out?”

Peeta shook his head. “She wants to talk to you. She has questions, Haymitch.”

Haymitch groaned. This argument between him and Katniss, with poor Peeta playing messenger, had been playing out across four days now. 

It had started with the kid’s memory book, which had been left on the table when Haymitch had come over the other night for dinner. It had been opened to a page titled “Cinna” with a photo of the man himself and several newspaper and magazine clippings displaying Katniss and Peeta in their flaming parade outfits glued in. There were snatches of writing in both Katniss and Peeta’s handwriting, and a sketch of Katniss in her mockingjay dress from the quell. This was no doubt the boy’s handiwork. On the page, Katniss looked radiant, drawn by a loving hand. 

When he’d asked about the book, they’d explained it all to him. Their plan to memorialize all their fallen comrades. Family, friends, tributes, victors, soldiers. All of them were given their place. 

Haymitch hated it, and he’d said so. He’d spent years trying to get the dead to leave him alone. Why would anyone want to cling to them like this?

 If you let the dead rest, they might one day let you rest as well.

 And when this exercise turned out to be the brainchild of Katniss and the esteemed Dr. Aurelius? Well, he hated it even more. 

What did that man know about suffering? What did he know of the games?

He’d voiced this, and Katniss had argued back. Peeta had tried his best to subdue them both. 

At some point, while shouting back at the girl, Haymitch let Blair and Burdock’s name slip from his mouth. Katniss had frozen, all her fight gone. The rage in her eyes quickly vanished, and instead she started to burn with curiosity.

“You knew my dad?” she asked, her voice shocked and hollow. 

Haymitch didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. Because he knew that if he stared to talk about Burdock, he’d end up talking about Asterid, and where she got her scar, and why he had to push her away. And talking about that would lead to talking about Lenore Dove and Maysilee and Wyatt and Louella  and Lou Lou and every other person he’d lost. 

He wasn’t ready to have that conversation. All three of them had wounds still raw from the war. Maybe Peeta couldn’t handle the story of the little girl who’d been stripped of her autonomy and dignity in the same way he had. Maybe Katniss would break down if she knew that her father might’ve been killed because Haymitch loved him. 

No. The kids could handle it. They were getting better, growing stronger, learning to live with their grief.

It was Haymitch that was too weak, he couldn’t do it all again. 

So he had stormed out, and left Katniss and Peeta to puzzle over his words.

After that, Katniss had spent the following three pelting him with questions about how he knew her father. Haymitch knew he’d have to relent at some point, but he was going to put up a fight. 

So, if Katniss had sent Peeta out in this storm, she had decided that it was time to try again to get some answers. 

Peeta looked, Haymitch thought, like a small dog who’d just been dragged off the street. Dripping on his carpet, staring at him with those ridiculous sad eyes. 

“Okay,” Haymitch said, forcing himself to his feet, pulling his bottle out from inside his coat and taking a sip. “Let’s go see your girl. I owe her an explanation. Or several.” 

As he and Peeta trudged through the rain, Haymitch found himself wondering if this was really such a good idea. That was, until, the boy asked him: “Does any of this have to do with that story you promised me? In the Capitol?”

Peeta looked almost nervous. Haymitch flung an arm around the kid’s shoulder. 

He’d been getting better, but the boy was still so fragile. Sometimes, during their obligatory meals together, Peeta would get a distant look in his eye, as though he wasn’t fully present. It had taken him weeks to feel safe enough to move from his house into Katniss’s. Sometimes, the three of them would walk through town (these walks were mandatory, for the girl’s head and the boy’s new leg) and Haymitch would see Peeta flinch at the sound of raised voices or construction floating in the air around them. 

“It’s a bit of a tough one, kid,” he said as Peeta half dragged him to the doorway of the girl’s house, “when I saw you in the hospital, in Thirteen, that wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Capitol fuck around with someone’s head like that.” 

The and I don’t know if you’re ready to hear about it was implied.

“That’s okay,” Peeta said, “I know you have a lot of stories. You can save that one for last and just… see where you are.”

He pushed open the door to find Katniss standing in the center of her living room, having a staredown with Buttercup who was stretched out on the couch.

Haymitch had to laugh at the sight before him, and he spotted Peeta managing a small smile.

Haymitch stepped forward, kicking off his muddy boots and placing himself between Katniss and Buttercup.

“Oh, come on,” he scoffed, “you’re letting the cat boss you around?”

Katniss glared at him, and then at Buttercup again. “He hates me,” she grumbled, “tried to bite me as soon as Peeta left.”

At this, Peeta cracked a full grin and walked over to the couch, scooping Buttercup up into his arms and gently depositing him on the floor. The cat hissed at Katniss before slowly stalking away.

She hissed back, crossed her arms, and sat down on the couch, still fuming in Buttercup’s general direction. 

Haymitch shook his head, “whatever did you do to that poor animal, sweetheart?” 

“Nothing! He just hates me!” she snapped, pouting. 

“He’s fine with Peeta,” he replied, throwing himself onto the couch next to Katniss.

“Everyone’s fine with Peeta,” she huffed, shifting in her seat,“he’s infuriatingly likeable.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Haymitch said, throwing a glance at their subject of conversation, who was still hovering awkwardly in front of the now-closed door. 

Peeta shrugged, clearly trying to look unaffected, but the corner of his mouth quirked slightly upwards. Even if he said it like a joke, Haymitch meant it.

“I just know how to handle him,” Peeta said, “he’s a lot like Katniss. Probably why they clash so hard.” He flinched, then, when he caught Katniss glaring at him. “What?”

“Don’t compare me to him!” she protested. “Peeta!”

“Okay, okay,” Peeta said, “I’m sorry. He’s just really not so bad once you get to know him.”

“That’s how I felt about you,” she grumbled.

“And I appreciate it.”

There was something strangely relieving about seeing the kids bicker like this. A sign that things were getting better for all of them. 

“You had some questions for me,” Haymitch nodded at Katniss. “I can try and answer now. But I have some things both of you should hear.” He gestured in Peeta’s direction, “go dry off.” 

Once he heard the boy’s footsteps receding up the stairs, he turned to Katniss.

 “How’s he doing, by the way?”

She shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Sometimes, though… it’s hard to remember that it’s still him. Sometimes, he says..” she swallowed, “that whoever I’m expecting him to be died during the quell. I know it’s not true, but he doesn’t.”

“And what about you?”

“It’s better having you two around,,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around her middle like she was trying to hide in herself. “Less time to think about…” Prim.

Haymitch sighed. “I had a little brother. Snow killed him the same day I came home from the Capitol after the games. Him, and my Ma.”

It was surprisingly easy to say. Maybe because Katniss knew the pain of losing a sibling, of watching them die. She knew that no apologies or condolences would mean anything at all, so she wasn’t going to bother with giving them.

Katniss just stared at him, so he risked continuing. 

“Asterid and Burdock did their best to take care of me after it happened."  

She kept staring, but she blanched when the words sank in. Haymitch tasted something bitter, he had never spoken to anyone (except for Effie, in small doses) about his life outside mentoring. 

“My parents? You were friends with them?”

“Yeah,” he closed his eyes, shutting away the stricken look on the girl’s face, “Burdie and I were best friends. I used to tease him about his crush on your mom.” 

It felt good to say. Katniss deserved the truth, and Haymitch knew that he had been carrying these stories for far too long. 

“He was a good guy. You’re a lot like him, you know. He sang at my family’s funeral.”

Unrelated anecdotes just tumbled from Haymitch’s lips, but he forced himself to stop when he heard Peeta’s approaching footsteps. 

“Sorry,” he said, stopping in front of the couch. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” Haymitch grunted, “let’s go see that book of yours then, shall we?”

The three of them settled around the table, the book spread out in front of them. As Katniss flipped through to find her father’s page. When she did, it all came spilling out. Maysilee, Wyatt, Woodbine, Ampert, all of them. 

Haymitch didn’t talk about the games, not really. He talked about the people that had been lost. 

Wellie and her tearful determination. Silka, still human, despite all the blood on her hands, eating chocolate under the tree. Ringina teaching him how to throw knives. 

He spared a glance at Peeta; he and Katniss had rested their hands on the table and were holding onto each other tightly.

“Okay,” Haymitch sighed, “if anything about this gets too much, you tell me to stop. Okay?”

“Okay, fine,” Katniss said impatiently, “although I don’t think there could really be much worse than what you already told us.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh, I wish.. Just…” Haymitch swallowed, steeling himself, “the hospital in Thirteen wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen Snow mess with someone’s mind the way he did with Peeta here. It wasn’t hijacking in the strictest sense, but it was the same principle.”

“What are you talking about?” Katniss asked, glancing nervously between him and Peeta, “what does that have to do with your games?”

“I’ll get to that. Peeta, are you with me?” The boy had a distant look in his eyes, the same one Lou Lou got as she mindlessly repeated the orders fed to her by the gamemakers, 

“I’m fine,” Peeta said, nodding. “What happened?”

“Alright… So, the girl I mentioned, Louella Mccoy…” he began, needed a minute to steady himself before continuing. “Louella never made it to the arena. There was a freak accident during the tribute parade, she was bucked out of our chariot, dead on impact,” he said quickly, not wanting to dwell too long on the unpleasantness lest he be the first one of the group to break down, “Snow killed the parade master, cut the footage, covered it all up. The crowd was all either too drunk to remember, paid off later, or just told she recovered.”

Katniss frowned. “Why would they need to be told-”

Haymitch cut her off, knowing the speculation was pointless. He needed to get it out now before he shut down again. The same horror he’d felt staring at Lou Lou that day at the Heavensbee manor was now gnawing at him once again. 

“You’ve seen how much of a big deal a quell is in the Capitol,” he said, voice strained, “forty-eight scared teenagers instead of the usual twenty-four. Something was always bound to go wrong. But they didn’t expect it to go like that. Now, obviously Snow couldn’t let something this big be ruined by losing a kid before she even made it to the arena, so he…”

Peeta and Lou Lou. Interchangeable. 

“...he found a replacement, another little girl who looked just like her. We figured out later that she was really from Eleven, but even she didn’t really know that. We called her Lou Lou, they’d… they took her from her district, tortured her, pumped her full of drugs, made her think she was Louella, taught her how to be Louella. They stuck this thing in her ear, they’d blast noise into it if she disobeyed. It was so loud it made her bleed. Then they told everyone she was Louella, just brain damaged Louella, and stuck her in the arena.”

When he was done talking, Haymitch had to take a minute to catch his breath. It seemed that his lungs had stopped working as soon as he’d decided it was time to bring her up. 

Peeta was the first to respond, and Haymitch watched as Katniss clutched his hand a little tighter.

“Is that the real reason it took you so long to come visit me in Thirteen?”

“Smart boy,” the older man nodded in response. 

“In the arena,” Peeta said, his voice pained and desperate, letting Haymitch know that he was going to need to answer whatever question came his way, “how did she die?”

Lou Lou’s drug pump in his fist, her tiny body writhing beneath him as she gasped and cried for air that wouldn’t come.

“She got into some poison flowers,” Haymitch said, his voice just as rough, “she was suffocating, but the drugs the gamemakers gave her went in through this pump on her chest. I grabbed it and gave her a lethal dose, made it so she wouldn’t suffer.”

“Okay,” the boy blinked, trembling slightly. He looked as though he were somewhere else, he’d let go of Katniss’s hands and was scratching lightly at the faint scars on his wrists left over from the months he’d spent restrained at the orders of one president or another.

Katniss, who had been silent the whole time, carefully took his hands in her own to stop his scratching before saying something that Haymitch couldn’t hear over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. 

Even if it had been simply the lesser of two evils, he still hated that he’d killed Lou Lou. Pumped her full of drugs until she fell silent one last time, just like the gamemakers had. Carried her body away from the flowerbed in a crude imitation of his stunt with the real Louella at the parade.

Who will sing your songs now?

Peeta stood up, his chair scraping against the floor, bringing Haymitch back to reality.

“I’m sorry,” the kid said, his eyes alight with terror and grief, “I need to step outside, I’m sorry.”

“Take your time,” Haymitch managed, “we’ll wait.”

Once Peeta was gone, he turned to Katniss.

“Got any booze?”

“No.” 

She had a hard, angry look in her eyes. 

“Thought as much. Even though this is one hell if a conversation to get through without it.”

“Well, you’ll have to do it again,” she said, “he’ll want to draw them.”

“Sorry?”

“He’ll want to draw them,” she repeated, “Peeta. It helps him, I think. It’s something he can control, something familiar. Painting, baking, he still paints his nightmares, and some of what happened to him in the Capitol.”

She seemed to collapse in on herself in that moment, so small and vulnerable. Haymitch had to remember that she was still so young.

“I hate his paintings, in the same way you hate the book, I think. I’m so glad it helps him, I think because he needs to hold onto his memories, even the bad ones, because they’re real.”

Katniss stopped there, watching, expecting a response. Haymitch just pulled the bottle out from where he’d tucked it back inside his coat and finished off what was left as the girl rolled her eyes.

“You’re starting to sound like your shrink,” he said, feeling more than satisfied as Katniss let out a small chuckle. 

“But sure,” he continued, “I’ll see how good the shots are in the old footage, do what I can to describe Lou Lou and all the others to Peeta if that’s what he needs.”

He didn’t want to go digging through the footage of his games. All of that stuff had been classified temporarily while Paylor and her team worked to find a way to present the horrors of the games as what they were: horrors. It would be educational, honest. However, Haymitch wasn’t sure that undoctored footage of his games even still existed. 

The remaining victors still had access to the videos, in case something about it helped them cope. 

She nodded. “Thank you, Haymitch.”

“Don’t mention it, I’m doing it for Lou Lou too. She deserves to be remembered,” he said, meaning every word of it. 

Internally, though, he cringed. This pathetic half-sobriety wasn’t enough. The memories all stung like new, and now he was talking about them.

As if driving in the final nail in his coffin, he was forced to tuck the now-empty bottle away yet again as he heard the door open and Peeta’s footsteps approach through the hall, losing the nullifying feeling of it in his hand.

“Hey, kid,” he said, nodding in the boy’s direction as he settled back into his seat next to Katniss, still looking somewhat like his mind wasn’t in the same place as his body. 

“Sorry,” Peeta said. He opened his mouth to speak again but stopped when Katniss shot him a look

“Sorry,” he said again, before wincing as the girl rolled her eyes. 

Haymitch looked between the two of them, confused. 

“Dr. Aurelius keeps telling me not to apologize for taking care of myself,” Peeta said sheepishly. 

“Of course,” Katniss added, “if you point that out, he apologizes again.”

Peeta gave her an amused look, and Haymitch felt someone relieved.

“I just needed to think,” he said, “about everything you told me. Because I know what she must have felt; what she was thinking, if she could still think anything. Sometimes it just hurts and that’s all there is. That’s the whole ‘mutt’ part, you know? Like you’re some rabid animal. You can’t think… you’re just so…so… scared and angry.” 

Haymitch didn’t know. He could relate to a lot of things about this boy, the deaths of his family, the weight of being a victor, of killing your fellow children, but this was something he would never be able to understand. 

It must be so horribly lonely. 

Katniss bristled. Peeta sounded angry alright, but not at her this time. Rather at what had been done to him, at the world.

“Lou Lou, did you… take care of her?” His voice was small, he was hugging himself, his eyes sad and pleading.

“Yeah,” Haymitch said. “Yeah, kid. We did our best.” He did, he had. “She was one of us, you know? Had this huge alliance, called ourselves the newcomers, Lou Lou was part of that even if she didn’t know it.”

“Thank you,” the boy said, relaxing slightly, “it was really all you could’ve done. I’d… I’d like to try and draw her, if that’s alright? Her and Louella, and everyone from Twelve that died that year.”

Haymitch smiled sadly. “There’s no one on earth I’d trust more than you to honor them, kid.”

“I’d like to do it now,” he clarified, a sense of urgency in his voice. “If it’s not…” he glanced anxiously between his mentor and his girl, “if it’s not too late for that.”

“No,” Katniss finally spoke up, “no it’s not. Do you have your sketchbook?“

- - - 

Peeta did indeed have his sketchbook; it had been left on a side table in the living room. 

The three of them drifted into the living room. Haymitch stretched out on the couch as Peeta sat on the floor, learning against it. Katniss curled up on the floor next to him, her head resting in his lap.

Rain lashed the windows, thunder sounded and a collective jolt of terror ran through the room. All three of them heard cannon-fire. 

Haymitch waited a moment, before getting the OK from Peeta and doing his best to describe what Lou Lou had looked like. The kid apologized before he started, as the lights were down low in the room and he was liable to make mistakes. His concerns were quickly dismissed.

After a few minutes, Buttercup stalked into the room and made himself at home on Peeta’s outstretched legs. Katniss groaned.

As he slowly rattled off his instructions, the older man closed his eyes to try and get a clear picture of the girl in his mind. 

She was a little blurred at the edges, but that was alright. She’d been that way in real life too, shifting between timid little tribute girl and the rebellious young woman raining hell down upon the gamemakers at her interview in front of all of Panem. 

At some point, in the near-silence, Haymitch thought he heard someone sniffling. 

He opened his eyes to see Peeta crying, his tears falling and spreading dark splotches on Lou Lou’s face. 

“Sorry,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, “I want to do them all justice, but I can’t stop thinking about how alone she must have been.”

He closed his sketchbook and set it aside. Buttercup crawled into his lap, Katniss reached up to wipe away a stray tear. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Do you need to stop?”

He nodded, shutting his sketchbook and reaching out to scratch Buttercup on the chin. The sound of purring mixed with the rain.

“I’m sorry, Haymitch,” he said again, “I’ll try again tomorrow. Tonight has just been… a lot.” 

“I understand, you pick it up again whenever you’re ready,” he pushed himself up and ruffled Peeta’s hair. 

Katniss rolled over onto her side before hoisting herself up to sitting, stretching with a yawn. She slumped against Peeta, and he wrapped an arm around her.

“Still with me?” she asked. 

“Still with you.”

“Nice to see that you two are getting all lovey-dovey again,” Haymitch interjected. “I can see myself out now.”

The girl jumped to her feet, startling Buttercup, and walked over to the window. “Not in this storm, you should take the guest room.”

There was a note of nervousness in her voice, and Haymitch could tell that there were multiple meanings to her request. 

She didn’t want him going out in the storm, and she didn’t want to be alone in the house with Peeta he was lapsing in and out of presence. It wasn’t just because she was afraid of getting hurt, Haymitch knew, but because sometimes when her boy broke down, she needed an extra set of hands to help put him back together.

“You should stay,” Peeta said. It seemed that he agreed.  “And thank you for telling me, us, about Lou Lou and all the others.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Katniss walked back to the couch, helping Peeta to his feet. He smiled at her, and the simple gesture made Haymitch ache for Lenore Dove. The gentleness between them was something he would never know again. Not in that way, at least. 

The girl showed him to the one unused room in the house, warning him that he might have to make up the bed himself. Neither Asterid nor Prim’s rooms had been touched by anyone since the end of the war and he meant to respect that. 

After bidding the kids goodnight, expressing a final wish for a drink, and shutting the door to his room, Haymitch faintly heard Peeta asking Katniss if she’d prefer if he slept downstairs tonight, but she insisted that she still felt safe having him around. 

Their footsteps receded down the hall and the only sound left was the screaming rain and Haymitch’s own breathing. 

Peeta was doing better now, anyone who had seen him in Thirteen could tell.

Could Lou Lou have ever healed like this? Gluing the fragments of her identity back together?

Haymitch would never know. He’d never know if any of them could have handled what came with being a victor, what came with bearing witness to a war.

Maysilee would’ve been a good mentor, he thought, Wyatt too, if he’d learned to be a bit more sensitive. 

Ampert could’ve met his sister. Wellie could’ve coached a few more frightened kids from Six to victory, or at least made them feel less alone. 

He would never know.

Haymitch could not change the past, but he could give the wounded children a few rooms down the future they deserved. He could tell the stories of the dead, make sure that they were never forgotten, that those who had killed them paid for what they had done. 

He could fantasize about a world where he had died in the arena, where another had emerged victorious, or he could make a life out of what existed now.

Live for the sake of those who could not. 

The dead would be memorialized by Peeta in his art, made with nothing but love and regret. Katniss pasted in pictures or items that reminded her of the person who was lost.

Haymitch shut off the lights and settled onto the bed, a wave of exhaustion crashing over him.

Maybe the memory book wasn’t such a terrible idea after all. 

That night, when he fell asleep, Haymitch met with his dead in the meadow. It was night there, too. He lay in Lenore Dove’s arms, listening to Sid’s chatter under the stars. 

Lou Lou and Louella smiled at him from where they sat not far away. 

His ma ran a hand through his hair. He was home.