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The reaping is two days away.
District 12 is already mourning like it's lost something.
The square is being swept and painted, banners hung like a child’s cruel joke. You hate the silence more than the noise — that suffocating hush that’s fallen over the Seam and swallowed everything golden about summer. Kids aren’t in the streets. Doors are locked earlier than usual. Mothers are keeping their children close, as if any of it matters.
And you—
You’re pretending not to stare at Haymitch Abernathy like you already know he’s going to be taken.
He’s sitting by the fence with his back to it, arms slung lazily over his knees like he doesn’t feel the noose tightening. His blond hair glows in the low light, and a blade of grass dangles from his lips. Smug. Careless. He looks like a boy playing at war.
But you know better.
You walk up without a word, sit next to him, and fold your legs underneath you. The hum of the fence is off, which means it’s safe. Safe to sit here, to pretend. The woods are doused in gold. Crickets sing.
“Sun looks good on you,” he says without looking at you.
“You always say that when you want me to forgive you for something.”
He grins. “Do I need forgiving?”
You pick at a blade of grass, rolling it between your fingers. “Only if you’re planning on leaving.”
He’s quiet for a long time.
You know the odds. Everyone does. There’ll be four tributes per district this year — double the death, double the pain. Haymitch is seventeen. He’s strong. Clever. Already a favorite with the girls and a thorn in the Peacekeepers’ side. That makes him a target. Or maybe just… visible. And visibility kills.
He finally speaks. “I was thinkin’… if it’s me… don’t come to the train.”
You bristle. “That’s not your call.”
“It is if I don’t want to see you cry.”
“You don’t want to see me cry?” Your voice comes out smaller than you’d like. “Too late.”
His head turns then, and he sees it — the sheen in your eyes, the way your jaw clenches like you’re holding back a scream. His smugness drops away like a curtain. There’s just Haymitch now. Raw, real.
“You shouldn’t care this much about me,” he mutters, thumb brushing your knuckle. “I’m nothin’ but trouble.”
“I know,” you say. “That’s why I care.”
He lets out a shaky breath that’s not quite a laugh. “What happens if I go in?”
“If you come back, I’ll marry you.”
He blinks.
“You win,” you say, voice strong now, “and I’ll make you pancakes every Sunday for the rest of your life. I’ll braid your hair when you’re sick. I’ll kiss your scars, all of them. Even the ones I can’t see.”
“That’s an awful lot to promise someone who might not come back.”
You swallow. “Then you better come back.”
Haymitch leans in, rests his forehead against yours. He’s warm. Smells like pine and sweat and something boyish, wild, unruined.
He kisses you, slow and aching. It’s the kind of kiss you give when you’re trying to memorize someone. He tastes like defiance and fear and the end of something good.
When he pulls away, his eyes are glassy.
You’ve never seen him like this — not in the dim corners of the Hob, not under the stars in the meadow, not even on the nights he showed you how sharp his loneliness could be. He blinks once, slowly, like it hurts to come back to the world after kissing you.
“I don’t know how to keep you safe from this,” he says, voice cracked at the edges. “I’ve been running my mouth my whole life, but I don’t have the words for this.”
“You don’t have to protect me from it,” you murmur. “Just let me stay with you in it.”
His jaw twitches. He looks away, toward the fence, toward the woods he’s always talked about escaping to. His throat works around something unspoken, and you see the moment the weight settles — not fear for himself, but for you. For what you’ll carry if he’s gone.
“You’ll remember me?” he says quietly. “Even if they turn me into a monster?”
You don’t hesitate. “I’ll remember who you are. Even if they cut you to pieces and sew you back all wrong — I’ll still know the boy who steals bread just to share it. The one who learned my laugh before my last name.”
His face twists like he wants to believe you but doesn’t know how.
So you cup his cheek, thumb brushing the freckled skin beneath his eye. “Haymitch,” you say, soft and certain, “you’ll come back. And if you don’t… I’ll carry the part of you they couldn’t touch.”
For a moment, he just breathes. Then he leans forward, pressing his forehead to yours again — not with fire this time, but with something quieter. Grieving. Reverent.
“Don’t let them kill the part of you that loves,” he whispers. “Even if they kill me.”
“They won’t,” you promise. “They’re not that powerful.”
He watches you for a long, still moment. Like he’s memorizing you — not your face, but the shape of your defiance. The way you say “they” like they’re something you could one day bury.
Then his lips twitch, just barely. “You always talk like you’ve got a weapon in your chest.”
You nod. “I do. It’s you.”
Haymitch’s smile falters. His breath catches in a way that’s not quite a gasp, not quite a sob. He sits back, elbows on his knees, and stares down at his hands like they’re holding ghosts. Maybe they are.
“You’re too good,” he says bitterly. “Too good to be stuck here. With me. With this whole cursed district.”
“I don’t want good,” you say. “I want real. And I’ve never known anything more real than you.”
He swallows hard. The wind rustles through the grass, the only sound between you for a long, aching stretch. Then, quietly:
“I’m scared.”
It breaks something in you. Not because he said it, but because he’s never said it before. Because he’s always worn his fear like armor — twisted into sarcasm, thrown as barbed wire — and now it’s just here, bare in his lap like something wounded.
You slide closer, curling your fingers into his.
“I’m scared too,” you admit. “But fear’s not the end of the story.”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s just the part where everything starts to fall apart.”
You press his knuckles to your lips, kiss the scraped skin gently. “Then let it fall. And we’ll build something after.”
His brow furrows. “What if there’s no after?”
“There is.” You say it like a vow. “Even if it’s just me, keeping the pieces of you alive. There will be something.”
He closes his eyes.
You think he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t. He just nods, once. Tight. Like that’s all he can manage. And then, in a voice so quiet it barely touches the air:
“Don’t forget me.”
“I couldn’t if I tried.”
Haymitch lets out a breath — broken, grateful, stunned.
Then he leans forward again, resting his forehead against yours like it’s the only place he knows how to find peace.
And in that moment, before the world reaps him, before blood and cameras and Capitol lies, there’s just the two of you. Breathing. Trembling. Alive.