My friend and I have this game where we ask each other a question and we have to answer as a character from the Hunger Games. She always answers as Katniss, unless I tell her otherwise, and I always answer as Annie unless I'm told otherwise. Well she asked me "What do you think of Haymitch, Annie?" That question got me thinking. What does she think of him?

Annie's POV

Finnick has him arm protectively over my shoulders. The 73rd Hunger Games had just begun and I was at an annual party held in the Capitol held for the victors. There is everything anyone could want but I'm not eating or drinking anything. Mags is talking to a couple of District 3 victors, Beetee and Wiress I think and Capitol citizens are throwing themselves at Finnick. I pretend to be unconcerned and excuse myself every time one comes but my heart is breaking. He ends the conversation as quickly as possible to come back to me. I excuse myself as an eccentric woman with bright blue hair streaked with pink streaks, dyed green skin and unnatural orange eyes comes to him.

I absent mindedly walk to the table where there is Haymitch. He looks at me like I'm lost but instead of the usual hatred I see in his eyes when he is talking to other victors I see sadness and pity. "You're not like the rest of us." I look at him with a strange expression. "I mean you're different. You wouldn't hurt anyone. Makes me wonder how you lived through the games."An episode threatens to take over me but I close my eyes and pretend Finnick is holding me. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"

I shake my head. "No, it's fine. People wonder how I won all the time. It was Mason's sacrifice and- and Finnick who- who…" I trail off and crumple to the floor.

I feel arms surround me. They're unsteady and swaying but it's better than nothing. I steady myself against them. He is holding me up, but only just, like he is afraid of hurting me, as if I'm a broken doll. He helps me to a chair and sits down on the other side of me. I'm sure he doesn't want to seem rude and leave me alone when there is a real possibility I could just collapse again. Instead of focusing on the negatives I decide to make conversation. "You're not as mean as everyone thinks you are."

The question seems to catch him off guard. "Well, sweetheart, it may be because you aren't like the rest of us are. Chaff and me get drunk making us seem like friends, which we are, don't get me wrong but as soon we die we're going straight to hell, just like the rest of the victors are unless they can find anything redeeming about themselves but you, you are different."

I raise my eyebrows. "How so?"

He smiles. "When I see you look at that screen I see horror in your eyes, like the rest of us but for you it's different. Not only are you reliving your games but you fear for them as well. We've all got something wrong with us but you are the only one who doesn't try to cover up."

I sigh and look at my fingers. "I wish I could cover it up."

Haymitch looks at me, pity once again in his eyes. "No, you don't trust me."

I look at him like, feeling tears sparking in my eyes; my voice is a whisper, like a breeze slowly growing into a hurricane. "No you don't! You have no idea what it is like. I can't leave my own home without someone to help me. I always have to have Finnick, or Mags or someone there so I can simply function through towm! Even when I am with them there are always people looking at me shaking their heads saying 'There goes the crazy girl,' or 'Why can't she be sane like the others?' They don't know what I've seen, what I've lived through. They don't know anything about me." My voice is soft once again. "They don't know me."

I am holding my head in my hands and letting soft sobs escape like lips. "You remind me so much of her."

I refuse to blink away the tears but my ears are wide open. "Who?"

Haymitch looks torn to pieces as he says the next words. "My girl, Verona. She was just like you. She didn't want people to view her as someone she wasn't but they did. If you caught the sun and put it somewhere on earth her hair would still out shine it and her eyes were big, beautiful blue that was the exact color of the sky just after dawn, the lightest shade of beauty. I don't know how I got a girl like that, a merchant's daughter to fall in love with a boy like me, from the Seam."

I was confused with the Seam and merchants but I didn't dare interrupt his story. "I asked her to be forever mine and asked her if after the reapings, when we were both safe, if she would be forever mine. We loved each other the same way you and Finnick love each other. I see the way you look at one another and I can almost see Verona and I in your places, looking at one another the same way. She left her rich family to come be with the poor son of a coal miner. Everyone talked about her the same way they talk about you Annie.

"Then I was reaped, I promised I would come back to be with her. I fought my hardest and come back only to find myself staring at her newly dug grave. Her family paid so much for the funeral that they couldn't afford even a small headstone. Well I bought the most beautiful one there was, a blank headstone with borders of flowers growing in a garden and in the most beautiful writing there was it said 'Verona Johnson, lovely as a flower and as kind as one too. Only when I went to offer my condolences to her family did I learn that she was pregnant with my child. I blew my money off drinks to get over the pain of the games and the pain of losing her and my unborn child."

Tears are pouring down my face and I know that maybe, just maybe, it is all right to be a broken doll because a doll, no matter what, is precious to someone. I go to Haymitch and put my arms around him in a hug, the same way I would hug my father. "Haymitch," he looks at me and starts to blink away tears.

"Verona?" I shake my head.

"No, it's me, Annie but if you start now, maybe you can redeem yourself and can go be with Verona and finally meet your child in Heaven." I place a kiss on his cheek and he places his head on my shoulder and cries. I'm sure no one has ever seen Haymitch cry and I'm sure no one else ever will but I force myself to be strong for once.

His tears stop and he looks at me with a new light in his eyes. "Thank you Annie. I knew you were different than the rest of us."

"You can be too." I pat his back just as Finnick comes over to collect me.

He taps my nose teasingly and looks at me with so much love I feel like a new person. I look over at my shoulder and smile at Haymitch before walking away with the only man I love.

Haymitch's POV

Annie turns to face me and smiles before she walks away. Finnick is treating her just like I treated Verona, named after the city where Romeo and Juliet lived. Maybe we were doomed to be like them, a doomed love. I take another look at Finnick and Annie and I swear, Finnick's golden hair turns brown and Annie's brown hair turns golden. I see Verona and I. I let out a sniffle and take a drink. The pain is too great but I'll be a better mentor to my kids next year and get one of them out. Maybe that'll be redeeming enough for me to come back to Verona and our child. I just hope that Finnick and Annie don't end doomed like me.

Okay I was about near tears when writing Haymitch's love life. Please review and tell me how I did. This being my first official Hunger Games story (one being a crossover and the other being a poem) Tell me who I should do a one-shot about next or if I should do a VeronaXHaymitch story. I have transcripts for the 51st and 70th Hunger Games written, a transcript for the 25th in progress almost done and am planning another transcript which I think will be pretty dang brilliant. I'm going to convert those to stories soon. Well just please leave a review and tell me what you think there or shoot me a pm.

-The Real Annie Cresta- -Mossshine of the Stars-