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“I'm grateful Haymitch puts up with me.” Katniss told Beetee and Wiress over lunch, trying to be pleasant and make small talk. “I can be a bit hardheaded at times. Don't think first.” She noted, shoving the lamb stew into her mouth.
“Like shooting an arrow at the gamemaker during your evaluatuon.” Beetee noted, seemingly amused as he smiles gently. “That was quite the show, I must say. Luckily they rewarded you.”
Katniss laughed. “Right. Haymitch was so pissed, it really scared me. I asked him what he thought they'd do with me - If they'd kill me.” She huffed, half-laughing. She hadn't been thinking when she did it, but put fear in her. “He just told me it'd be a pain to replace me at that point.” She finds it funny, one of those odd things that Haymitch says when he wants you to know how much of an idiot you are, but her neighbours at the table don't seem to agree.
Wiress suddenly sits ramrod straight, staring at her with wide eyes. Her mouth opened and closed, silently gaping like a fish while the words she wanted to say failed to materialize. Beetee, on his part, nearly choked on his food - coughing pitifully as he tried to recover. Even Mags, seated a couple of chairs down by Finnick, is leaning over the table to see what's happening.
“What?” She asks, looking around. Nearly everyone is listening in, now, though they didn’t all seem to be in on it. Not like Wiress, Beetee and Mags. “He did tell me that.”
“I'm sure he did.” Beetee mumbled, patting Wiress arm gently to try and calm her when her mouth continued to gape. “He doesn’t think before he speaks either.”
Katniss shook her head, confused. “Come on now…it's not like they actually replace tributes.” She laughed.
Only, no one is laughing with her and the realization that Haymitch hadn't been joking is slowly setting in.
“Do they?” She asks, trying to catch Peeta's gaze on the other end of the table. He is shaking his head, trying to tell her to back out while she can, but she knows it's too late.
“They do” Wiress voice is threadbare but she says it, answering the question before Beetee can stop her. The gaping fish mouth finally talks, but what she says is terrifying.
“Wire!” Beetee hiss. “Not here!” He tells her firmly, squeezing her arm tight.
For a moment, Katniss thinks she's going to counter, but finally she swallows it and simply settles back down, pulling her arm free from his grip with a huff. Katniss is about to keep pushing herself, but Peeta steps in before she can.
“What's everyone doing after lunch? Anyone want to try some camouflage?" Smooth as always, Peeta redirects the conversation, distracting everyone so they'd go ahead and forget what she had said, true or not.
Katniss' hand lands on the handle, and she is about to pull it up, but stops as she hears voices on the other side.
“Why did you tell her that?!” Beetee's voice hears hissing, clearly irate. “She doesn't know what that means! She thought you were joking!”
“Of course I was joking!” Haymitch snapped back, equally agitated. “I was there, Beetee, I think I can do what I want with that experience! If I want to joke about it, I will.”
“It's not a joke!” Beetee exclaimed. “What if Snow hears you? Don't tell me the old bastard wouldn’t do it again!”
“I think the old bastard would much rather replace you than me, seeing as he's kept me miserably alive the last twenty five long years!” He exclaimed, and the voices are getting closer to the door.
Katniss backs off, just in case, hiding behind a decorative pillar. She doesn't want to be caught dead listening to something like this, but she also wanted to hear every word spoken, knowing it would give her answers for what happened at lunch.
“Yes, well you're not the only person who lost someone, Haymitch!” Beetee exclaimed, his voice nearly hysterical. “So kindly shut your mouth next time the girl does something stupid!”
“It was all your fault to begin with!” Haymitch counters, equally losing control. “I was 16 you bastard!” A glass hits a wall and the doors open wide as Beetee comes rushing out, running straight past Katniss without even glancing in her direction.
She watches the wide open doors, hesitating. She thinks about Peeta's pleading eyes asking her to not take an off-handed comment any further. But she also knows this is her one chance for answers. If she leaves Haymitch to drink the memories away he will clamp up and refuse to ever speak of it again. But if she got to him now, before he got to the booze, there was a chance he'd tell her.
“What happened?” Katniss asked, staring at Haymitch rummaging through the bar cart. She knows he's looking for alcohol, but also knows Effie tactfully had the place emptied of that before they arrived.
“Oh, nothing, just a little.. spat.” He smiles, but it's one of his sarcastic smiles and sometimes that hurt to see.
“A spat where you throw things at the wall?” Katniss question, stepping down into the living room to meet him. “Is this about what I said at lunch?”
Haymitch froze, almost as though he had expected her to not bring it up. “Oh, yeah, brilliant sweetheart. Telling them everything I told you to make you win. Can't go wrong, can it?”
“I thought you were joking!” Katniss exclaimed. “I didn't think they actually did that.”
The older man sighs, settling on a glass of soda water that he pours with shaking hands. “There's a lot you don't know sweetheart.”
Katniss bites her lip. She feels angry, wanting to defend what she did, but even she isn’t stupid enough to push it with him. “Then tell me! What happened?”
Haymitch put the glass away, looking around him. “Not here. Up there.” He pointed to the stairs up to the roof, leading her to them and motioning for her to ascend.
Looking at him quizzically, she obliges and climbs the steep steps until both exit onto the roof. It's a tin roof with no design elements to it, but the view out over the capitol skyscrapers is nothing short of stunning.
“Wow” Katniss whispers, momentarily distracted before Haymitch pulls her down to the floor.
His bones crack when he sits down beside her, trying to be graceful but failing miserably. Still, he positioned himself and turned his gaze to stare out over the capitol.
“Her name was Louelle McCoy. She was the second female tribute from District 12 my year in the games.” He explained quietly.
Katniss turns to look at him. She recognizes the name a little, and knows that there is a family by that name in the seam. “Her and Maysilee, then?” She asks.
“Yes. I knew her from school. Not too close, not like Maysilee, but…close enough.” He sighed. “It was an accident, during the tribute parade…our cart was overturned. Cracked her skull like a bowl of eggs." He shuddered, his gaze suddenly oh so far away. “She didn’t stand a chance.”
Katniss puts a hand on his shoulder, offering silent comfort. “I'm sorry. That must've been awful.” She said honestly, not wanting to imagine what she would've done in that situation.
“It wasn't on purpose." Haymitch says, trying to convince himself of that. “But the way they rectified it…” He shudders again, his whole body jerking as a physical reminder of the trauma.
“They replaced her.” Katniss said, reciting his exact words. “What did you mean with ‘replace her’? Surely you can't just replace a person.”
Haymitch nearly laughs, and the sound is so unnatural it makes Katniss flinch. It doesn't sound human. “Oh you have no idea.” He tells her, and something in the way he says it doesn't seem human.
“Haymitch…?” Her voice waver, for the first ever truly frightened by the man before her.
Haymitch shakes his head. “We called her Lou-lou. We couldn't…couldn't stand to actually call her Louella, when we knew that she wasn’t.” He explained quietly. “We figured out she was from District 11…but that's all we knew. She looked similar, sure…a little surgery and as long as you didn't know her well or get too close, no one could tell.”
“But you did” Katniss said. “You knew her frol home. Surely they didn’t think they could fool you.” She noted quietly.
Haymitch shook his head. “That wasn’t the point. We didn’t want to be murdered at point blank range, now did we? We were never going to say anything.” He noted. “We couldn't, Wiress and Mags made it clear.” He sighed.
Katniss frowned. “What does…Wiress tried to tell me, at lunch. But Beetee wouldn’t let her.” She said, suddenly realizing why the two women had been so disturbed by her comment. They knew - they had been there, with District 12, 25 years ago when that changeling walked into the room and pretended to be a girl already dead.
Haymitch exhaled. “I know. He came to yell at me after. For telling you.” He said. “He has a point though…I wouldn’t go speaking about it too loudly. Snow probably doesn't want to hear us talking about it.”
Katniss bit her lip, turning to look out at the capitol skyline. “You did, though. Not just now, but last year. You joked about it. I thought you were just joking.”
“That's the point.” Haymitch nodded. “What's the point, if I can't say something? But if I'm honest, they will kill me.” He hung his head, giving to all the world the appearance of a man utterly exhausted. “But if I joke they won't care. I'm a drunk, I'm rude…if I joke noone will believe me. If they hurt me for that then they are the ones making it real. They can listen to me talk all day and not be able to fucking touch me if I don't mean it.” He bares his teeth, anger seeping through the broken down exhaustion.
Katniss leans her head on the wall, turning her eyes up towards the rising sun. “So that's how you survive.”
Haymitch sighed.
“Yes. This is how you survive.”