Feeling Something Real

"…So, let's all be quiet for a minute. I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a hallway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment where she made you feel something real."

I watch Katniss as everyone remains quiet for a long moment, and I notice a look come over her face. She is certain no one will have anything to say, and I long to start the discussion, but I know that the incident that I want to mention can never be mentioned in polite company.

It had happened when she came over to my house after finding out that the Third Quelling would reap from the existing pool of Victors.

She made me promise her to save Peeta…and then she had eventually stripped down to her underclothes and then proceeded to fall asleep on my couch.

She had trusted me.

And in that moment, I had felt something.

Alive.

As though I were breathing for the first time.

Never before had a woman, or anyone for that matter, shown such trust in me. I had been drunk and she had been fully aware of it…but she had taken off her clothes in front of me and fully trusted me to not be the kind of man that would take shameless advantage of the fact that she, too, was drunk.

In that moment, I had made myself a promise.

A promise that meant that I would put myself in harm's way for her. Something that I had never thought that I would ever do for anyone.

If Peeta's name was called, I would volunteer, just as she asked. If my name was called…I would try to keep Peeta from volunteering. I would do everything in my power to make sure that I was the one in the arena beside her, keeping her alive, because I knew that even if she gave up on her will to live, I could still force her to live. Nightmares already plagued me from the people that I had killed, what was a few more on my conscience?

And then she had rolled over on the couch, her undershirt riding up on her stomach, exposing scarred skin, and she had said, "Haymitch…"

I, of course, had thought that she was awake, but then realized after a long moment that she was not and had said my name in her sleep.

The way that she had said it though, in such a breathless way, still leaves me wondering what she had been dreaming that night. I still wonder if my name had been said in a longing way, if that was how it would sound falling from her lips if she had woken up in my bed.

And then I had realized what I was imagining with her.

A life.

I look at her now and wonder if she has any idea of the way that she affects the people around her. She is exquisitely and so blissfully blind to her effect, and, to me, that makes her all the more desirable. But she can never know.

She is the Mockingjay, and I am merely the old, ghost of a Victor from District 12.

She is the Girl on Fire and I am the pale shadow of a dim, bitter and faded memory.

I can long for her from afar, but in the end I will give her up to whatever she wants the most. Whoever she wants the most. Whether it's the Victor with the heart of pure gold, the bread boy, Peeta Mellark, or whether it's the tall, dark, and handsome, courageous Gale Hawthorne. Either way, she will make her choice, and I know that I am not one of them.

For the first time in years I am sober…and she is the only thing that feels real to me. My reality has been the bottle in my hand for years, and that is what it is like being around her.

Being around her is like being drunk: the edges of reality are slightly blurred when she stands too close, and when she says my name it settles into my skin like fresh, white liquor, making my nerves sing.

That's why I can't be around her.

I love her entirely, but I am not allowed to. I need her completely, absolutely, but I am not supposed to.

People finally start talking around the table, and I let out a sigh of relief, making note of all of the times that she has managed to make an influence on someone simply by being who she is; nothing more, nothing less, and I am not surprised.

She makes people feel something real.

THE END