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Haymitch has woken up to a pitcher of water over his head on more than one occasion, but this time feels particularly disorienting, as if the cells of his body sense his location, and remain on alert. Being ‘surprised’ in the presidential mansion has never exactly been a safe prospect. Automatically, he slashes blindly with his knife.
“Ohhh, you,” he slurs drunkenly when his blurred vision focuses on Katniss.
“Haymitch…”
“Listen to that, the mockingjay found her voice.” He laughs. “Well, Plutarch’s going to be happy.” He takes a swig from his bottle and then continues, “Why am I soaking wet?”
“I need your help,” she says flatly.
“What is it sweetheart? More boy trouble?” Slips out of his mouth before he can change course.
Deep hurt registers on the girl's face. Oh no. His job was to mentor Katniss, to guide her through these difficult times. And yet, the first thing out of his mouth when she regains her voice is a comment on how Plutarch will feel about it, and joke about her romantic entanglements. He doesn’t have a moment to delve further into what that says about him, as Katniss turns to leave.
“Ok, not funny. Not funny, come back,” he implores, but by the time he finds his legs, she has disappeared into the hallways.
He calls to Katniss in the distance but is met with echoes. Haymitch steadies himself against the wall and considers his options.
He walks further down the hallway, peeking into a closet and finding nothing. He trails his hand down the side of the wall and gently lowers himself to the ground to think. His gaze falls upon a bronze statue in an alcove that he’s never taken note of before, a wild wolf with two human babies nursing from it. Snow has such strange taste in decor, doesn’t he?
Leave it to the Capitol to hoard bizarre old world artifacts like this in some random alcove. He’s sure Plutarch could give him an hour-long lecture on the art history of it all. All Haymitch sees are two helpless kids forced to feed off a predator. A boy and a girl, handed over to the beast, year after year, destined to be destroyed.
He thinks of Katniss’s hurt face and his mind drifts to Burdock. The same expression that he would make when Haymitch threw rocks at him all those years ago. What would Burdock think of him now? Could he even imagine the turn of events? His former best friend chasing after his traumatized daughter through the halls of the presidential palace after overthrowing the government? Would he be disappointed in Haymitch that he only managed to save one of his daughters, and the other one was broken?
After some time, he collects himself. Better go tell Plutarch, he mutters to himself as he hauls his body upright and towards the grand staircase.
Plutarch’s assigned office on the first floor of the presidential palace is elegantly appointed and neatly arranged with notebooks and schematic plans. Haymitch peers through the crack in the door, observing Plutarch at his desk, scribbling notes with a furrowed brow. In the light of the desk lamp, he looks more human than ever, somehow exhausted without losing an ounce of composure. It’s not very often one gets to watch Plutarch, thinking he’s unobserved. The man’s life is seemingly a never-ending performance to one audience or another. Even to Haymitch, who knows him better than most anyone. Who over decades Haymitch has pushed away and then pulled back over and over, testing his boundaries, testing his loyalties, testing the meaning of alliance, or even friendship, or even -
“Haymitch, if that’s you, just come in.”
Shit
Haymitch pushes the door open as if he has just approached it, and puts on the most shining smile he can manage.
“I came to tell you that Katniss is talking again,” he says, wincing at his own eagerness to please. Like a school kid standing in front of the teacher’s desk.
“That’s excellent news. I knew our mockingjay would pull through.” Plutarch smiles approvingly, leaning back in his desk chair twirling his pen. “Why are you wet though?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Haymitch coughs and takes a seat opposite the desk. “There’s bad news though, I made the wrong joke and she took off. Hiding in some old closet around this place, I bet.” Best to just put the bad news out there.
Plutarch frowns and observes Haymitch before him. “I need you to get through to Katniss right now. You’re the only one who can do it. You understand each other. And besides, I’ve got my hands full with Coin at the moment,” Plutarch says before a pause and then in a lower voice, “I’ve been debating with her all day about some ideas of hers.”
“Debating, is that what they call it now?” Haymitch quips without missing a beat. Again, just blurting out the first accusation that comes to mind, he scolds himself internally.
Plutarch shoots him a warning glare, then massages the bridge of his nose with one hand and waves dismissively with the other hand.
“Let’s not make it about that, Haymitch,” says the beleaguered man.
“What’s it about then?”
“If Katniss is hiding, we’ll give her some time to rest and calm down. I’ll have the cavalry find her at dawn. I’ll need you, awake and sober, waiting for her. Get breakfast in her, make conversation, make sure her mind is working. Her prep team will be there by 8.”
Haymitch nods in agreement and says softly, “Okay.”
“I’m going to need you to trust me tomorrow, Haymitch. When the victors get pulled into a meeting with Coin, I want you to remember who, and what, the real enemy is again. And I want you to remind Katniss.”
Haymitch’s mind goes to the remaining seven victors. How shattered they all are. Not one of them will ever be whole again, not their mangled bodies nor damaged brains. Some things can not be repaired. This brood of survivors making decisions about what exactly?
“Meeting? And you’re not going to be at this meeting?” Haymitch questions.
Plutarch shakes his head. “Sometimes you have to let someone dig their own grave.”
Haymitch locks into eye contact across the desk and raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I like the talk of more graves at this point,” he says carefully.
“Do you trust me, Haymitch?”
He hates to admit it, but he does. Certainly not in keeping his tributes alive, or keeping anyone alive for that matter. That’s all secondary to Plutarch’s endgame. In terms of knowing who the real enemy is, he does trust him.
~~
Haymitch thinks back to so many discussions over the years in the Heavensbee library, when Plutarch would purchase his time to prevent the predators of the Capitol from getting their claws into him, like they had with so many other victors. Drinking whiskey and reading or playing chess in the library.
He remembers one night he was particularly inconsolable after watching a pair of his thirteen-year-olds die in the bloodbath, he had pushed Plutarch on his loyalties.
“What are you even trying to do here? What do you even want?” He had choked through the tears that he only let fall in the privacy of Heavensbee House, while in the Capitol. “Because if it’s to stop kids from dying, it’s not working, Plutarch.”
“I’ll state it clearly for you, Haymitch,” Plutarch had answered slowly, as composed as ever. “I want to end the Hunger Games because they are a scourge on humanity. To establish a republic, so that none of us have to live under that kind of oppression again.” He had paused, looking over his crystal glass at Haymitch and his bloodshot eyes. “And yes, I’d like to keep you alive, as well.”
To which Haymitch had scoffed. “Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. You must feel really guilty when you look at me. A reminder of your failures.”
“There’s a quote from one of my books: ‘Trees fall with spectacular crashes. But planting is silent and growth is invisible.’”
Haymitch had rolled his eyes.
“We are building the foundation to win this. It always seems impossible until it’s not. And you’re needed in this movement.”
~~
The harsh light of the desk lamp pulls Haymitch back to the present. He finds himself nodding in assent. Sure, he might trust Plutarch, but he’s not going to say it aloud.
Plutarch seems satisfied with that as a response. He stands from his desk and approaches Haymitch, placing a warm hand on his shoulder, “I’ve been worried about you, with this relapse, Haymitch.”
“I suppose it was inevitable once I got out of Thirteen. Let’s just hope our dear leader doesn’t try to impose prohibition on the rest of Panem.” Haymitch thought it was a lighthearted joke, but it doesn’t land.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that, Haymitch,” Plutarch replies, almost mournfully. He looks down at Haymitch in his chair, and gives his shoulder a squeeze. He looks more exhausted than ever, the dark circles under his eyes cast into relief.
“Are you going home tonight? What even happened to your mansion, anyway?” It dawns on Haymitch that in the chaos of returning to the Capitol, immediately relapsing, hovering over a burned and broken Katniss, he had not actually inquired. He’d wondered about it back in District 13, imagining Plutarch lying awake in his bunk, having nightmares about his grand library in flames. He figured that Plutarch might do fine without the rest of it. In fact, he might welcome being free of the portraits, the dining rooms and the furniture, but not the library.
“Predictably, Heavensbee House was raided and ransacked by Peacekeepers as soon as Snow realized we’d fled,” Plutarch responds with a quiet sigh, ignoring the first part of the question. “Parts of it are structurally intact, but much of it was destroyed.”
“And the books?”
“A good portion of the collection was salvaged,” Plutarch says, a hint of satisfaction returning to his eyes. “It will serve as the founding collection for the ‘public library’ project slated to begin construction once the government is stabilized. Eventually, every district will have at least one.”
Haymitch lets out a low, dry laugh. “A public library? That anyone can use? What will Plutarch have left without his books?”
“Not to get ahead of myself, Haymitch,” Plutarch says softly, “but I’d say I’m close to achieving everything I’ve set out to do.”
A stillness sets over the room. End the games. Found a republic. Keep Haymitch alive. Staring at him, Haymitch considers Plutarch’s competence at getting what he wants.
“Walk with me, Haymitch,” he says, tilting his head to the side before moving to the desk, gathering various documents into a drawer. He fiddles with a key and tests to make sure the lock is secure. “Come, now.” Plutarch then double-locks the office door, pulling it to check.
The two men walk down the hallway in silence, the light of the moon illuminating them as they pass the grand windows. A light snowfall casts shadows on their figures. Plutarch wraps an arm around the other man’s shoulders as they walk. Haymitch feels a sense of comfort under its weight and relaxes marginally.
When they reach Haymitch’s room, Plutarch surveys the state of disorder, the empty and broken bottles, the scattered clothes and general filth, and shakes his head in dismay.
“We’ll get this cleaned up for you tomorrow while you’re with Katniss.”
“Like bailing water out of a sinking ship.”
“And then we’ll work on this,” Plutarch says, lifting up a half-empty bottle of whiskey and giving it a shake. “A relapse was to be expected, but it’s just a setback. You can sober up again.”
Haymitch chews on his lip and stares down at the ornate pattern of the rug. Always accentuating the positive, even in the most hopeless of cases.
“For now, it’s important for you to rest. You’ll have a wake-up call at dawn so you’re ready for our mockingjay.”
“A big, big day, as Effie would say.” Haymitch gives a slight wry smile.
With that, Plutarch gives him one more warm squeeze with his arm before leaving.
Haymitch peers out the cracked door and watches Plutarch disappear into the shadows of the hallway, moving more quietly than any other being who dwells in the palace these days. Quieter than any mouse, or soldier, or would-be president or traumatized victor sulking in its corners.