I don't own the Hunger Games.
He was the most determined boy she'd ever seen with his steel gray eyes and his relentless pace. She'd been watching him for over a day before the Careers attacked him- studying him. The curly hair, and the strong shoulders. Those penetrating gray eyes - a color that didn't match a single candy in her father's candy shop. The obstinate way he pushed forward, unyielding toward his destination. She didn't know where he thought he was headed, but she found herself curious.
When the Careers did attack she found herself weary to help. After all, every death was just another step closer she got to home. In a game with this many players every death counted. But, inevitably she couldn't just sit back and watch him die, so she'd brought the tube to her lips and blown the poison dart right into the Career.
That's how it had all started.
They stayed together after that, keeping with his direction and fighting to stay alive.
Some days they talked, and some days they didn't.
She told him about the sweet shop, her song bird, and her twin.
He told her about the Seem, and how stupid he thought everything was. His words always seemed to drip vitriol and sarcasm, but they made her smile, even when she knew she shouldn't.
He made it easier for her to fall asleep at night, lending her a security that she'd never known. She slept better, and her nightmares were always shorter when he shook her awake.
He still slept with a knife though, every night.
She stopped taking it personally after the first few days.
She just figured you had to take what you could get with Haymitch. She knew there was just no other way to win with him. What he offered was what he offered, and you either liked it, or you didn't. He was secretive, she found out, and he liked it that way.
In those last few moments, when the pink birds attacked -the same color as her father's taffy- she wondered how on in all of Panem she had fallen for him. But, somewhere in the deadly, picturesque arena she had.
She'd known it from the moment she realized she'd made it to the final eight. When she'd known that if she went home, he wouldn't.
But she still stuck with him, reluctant to leave his side.
They'd even made it to the end of the arena together; to that cliff.
She wondered, as she walked away from him, if he'd ever know that she would have stayed with him to the end, if he'd asked. That she would have turned her back to him if they'd been the final two; made it easier for him to kill her. That she wouldn't have fought back.
Perhaps he did, she thought as she stepped into that fateful clearing. She'd been so distracted that she hadn't even seen them until one chirped. But once she heard the noise she couldn't not notice that the branches were filled with those unnatural birds.
Fear had clogged her mind, and she knew -just knew- that it was the end for her.
She didn't even remember the scream she let out -the one that pierced the air so sharply that the boy at the cliff's edge had heard. All she remembered was seeing them -candy pink, like lollies and taffy- and being so frightened.
After the scream was out though, the birds had attacked, swiftly and with unnatural precision. She fought, smacking them away and throwing her arms around to protect herself.
It hadn't worked.
The second the beak pierced her throat, she'd seen him running towards her, and his expression was something that she wouldn't have been able to describe, even if she'd been able to talk.
He had stayed though, while she choked on her own blood, and that had meant everything. He had no obligations, no reason to hold her -but he had, and to the dying girl in love with him, it was enough.
And that was how it had ended.
It wasn't until he was twenty four years older, and witnessed another girl with a mockingjay pin enter the arena did he relive those few crumbled moments, when a girl with a smile as sweet as candy had choked on blood as red as peppermint stripes. It's only in those few moments, when he holds the neck of a fancy wine bottle, that he wonders if it could have been different if he'd asked her to stay, just for one final goodbye at the cliff that had saved his life. He shakes his head though, and tips back the bottle, letting another dark red liquid wash away the memories of the girl who had saved his life. At least this way, he couldn't regret not being able to return the favor. Much.