He always wanted a family.
...There near the meadow was a house, an extremely small, old and ugly house, but it was full of laughter. Two kids. They were playing in front of the house. Their sparkling eyes shone brighter than the the sun. And their mother's smile, so warm and full of love, that even angels were jealous of.
And when they looked up at him, he could feel a leap in his heart. His home sweet home. His family...
He took a large sip from the bottle. His hands were shaking violently. The bottle flew to the wall and broke into pieces. That was his last one. Broken pieces were everywhere, covered every inch of the luxurious wooden floor, along with trash. A simple description of his life.
He had lost count of how many bottles he had per day, it didn't matter anyway. He remember vaguely that someone had said alcohol could drown your sorrow. Then it must have been someone in the Capitol, a big liar. It only multiplied his. It was the fuel for his pain and anger. It kept him living long enough to be tortured and drowned in his own misery.
His head dropped on the table, but he could no longer feel anything. Could have been a walking dead by then, he mused. He wanted more alcohol. He needed more. Enough to bury himself in the sea of hallucination and to burn down this house. No, it'd better be the whole victor village. Yes he would burn it down to ashes. And then to the goverment. He would, he would,...
A freezing cold washed over him and immediately he saw his dagger swinging, stabbing into thin air. He blinked. There she was, his little rebellious bird, standing near the door and ready to flee from him. Her cautious eyes made him want to laugh. Oh poor baby girl, still so young and so innocent to understand the world properly, still believe in every liar the snake said. So ignorant! She thought it was only a Game, only one and now she was free from it! Oh how wrong she was... Poor the little girl!
"Haymitch!"
He wiped away the water on his face and looked at her, only to realize it was not the little bird there anymore. He blinked, a knot tightened in his throat. He knew that face, he knew it so well, it was still haunting him every moment he breathed. His little girl, his baby girl... She looked at him with her big innocent grey eyes. He reached for her. Her mouth was forming a word, a word he could never hear her call again.
A stabbing pain in his heart, and his vision blurred away. No! He had to touch her, had to know that she was real. His baby little girl. His whole world. But his legs simply gave up under his weight, and then his eyelids. Someone called him from afar...
"Haymitch! Haymitch!"
Her body was taken straight to the emergency room. He saw her little sister crying, begging to follow, refusing to leave her sister's side. The boy - Gale, he thought - haf to take her away, still crying. Her cry left him vulnerable in the waiting room, along with her mother. He could feel her silent accusing glare bore hole in his head. It was his fault. He had promised, not to her, but to every soul, that he would protect them, he would do anything to bring the girl back, alive and healthy, not a limp body with almost no sign of living.
And he had swore, he had promised to himself, that he would not let another little girl die under his protection. He had failed it once, and then, again. His mind couldn't stop but wonder, what if it was not the rebellious little bird Katniss Everdeen, but his girl, his daughter, lying hopelessly in that room, and it was him who sitting over there praying for her life? His girl, the girl on fire... two images melted into once. His hand were shaking again. He took a deep breath, tried to calm down. Impossible. What if it was not Katniss who had been reaped, but his girl?
He shook his head hard, tried to drop the image out of his head. This was not the world he wanted for her. Then should he feel lucky that she was long gone? NO! Would he want to have his daughter back even if it meant she could be the girl in the emergency room? Would he bring her back if it was the price - a broken and damaged family? Would he?
A small sob coming from the mother cut his thought. It was her daughter who was lying in the emergency room, not his. He should have felt relief,or guilty, or anger when thought of that. After all, their bond was close enough. But instead, he found himself envious of the miserable mother in front of him.
Because no matter how hurt she was, no matter what hell she had been through, at the very least, she still had a family that she loved. Something of her own, to take care, to worry, to protect, to fight for, even though it was not perfect and pretty. Because she had something that he had losen long ago.
He closed his eyes. He would pretend - no one ever knew anyway - for a moment, that this was his family, that she was not Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, the spirit of the rebellion, but only his girl, his long lost daughter.
He watched her struggling against her own sanity through a glass. He watched, as the heroine of the country kicking, screaming and crying in a closed guarded cell. His fingers were itching to free her away. She was a young bird, a wild spirit, she shoudn't be kept in a cell deep in the ground, especially after everything that they had put her through. It was so unfair, but the world was so. Snow, Coin or anyone else, it was still the same.
He should have turned away, he knew, her court was about to start. If he ever hope to take her out of here, he had to be up there and defend for her. But his legs didn't move. He couldn't tear his eyes of her small, damaged body. She was shaking, probably crying, again.
Before he realized, his hand had already reached for the earpiece that connect to the room.
"Prim, oh Prim" - A knot tightened in his throat - "Prim please I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Prim. I'm so sorry..."
He turned away, unable to keep watching her suffer. He reached for the switch to turn off the sound...
"Dad?"
His hand stopped.
"Dad?" - She called, caused his heart a bitter pain - "Dad? I'm sorry dad. I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry..."
Before he knew it, he had kicked down the two guards at her cell. The door was swung open, caused her to jump up and scream. He ran up, wrapped his arms around the vulnerable little girl, rocking her slightly like he had done to his daughter.
"Shhh, my sweet baby girl, shhh, it's gonna be alright. Shhh don't cry little girl, you don't have to be afraid anymore. I'm here for you. Shhh..."
"Dad?"
Could such a single word break an already broken man?
"Dad?"
"Yes I'm here sweetie. Don't cry anymore. I am here for you."
"Prim?"
"She is here, she is with me. She is safe, sweetie. She is safe now. You don't have to worry anymore. She says hi to you."
"Prim? Dad?"
"We're here sweetie. Everything's alright."
"I'm scared."
He had to bite down his lips to keep his own cry. Why did the world have to be so cruel?
And he started to sing. A very old lullaby that he had thought he forgot, but somehow it had come back to him. It was a lullaby for children at night when they had nightmare.
He hadn't sung for a very, very long time, and his voice, even in its best state, has never been considered good. But it still did it job, she stopped shaking, but tears still fill her eyes.
He was not her father, and she was not his daughter. They knew. But for now, for the two lost and broken souls, they would pretend like a family, a father and a daughter, to cry together for everything was taken away from them.
She refused to see him. In fact, she refused to see anybody.
She simple gave up living, for the pain in her heart was too big to heal, and too fresh to forget.
And he had once thought he was the most broken man alive.
Then he came back - Backer Boy, Lover Boy, whatever he was once called. Like them, the young boy was not who he used to be anymore. He was used, broken down, and thrown away as well. He was just as damaged as any of them - living proof of a bloody time in mankind's history.
But at least she still opened up to him. At least together they could heal. He was too old to think of that. All the wounds, all the injuries, they all had been scars on him.
A pang of hurt came to him, as he watched them together. He felt so much like a father realizing it was time to give his daughter away that he had to remind himself she was not his daughter, not his little girl, not his sweeties. He only had a stolen moment, and it was time to give it back.
The stabbing pain arised in his heart, and his legs, once again, gave up under his weight.
Years of torturing himself - both mentally and physically - had destroyed him. Lying in a large cold bed, he could watch his life running like a TV show. Sometimes they were real, like the time he saw himself being reaped again, or the time he came back in realized where his old house was then only ashes. Other time, he saw his daughter - or Katniss, he couldn't tell the difference - playing in the garden sing "The Hanging Tree". Rarely he caught glimpse of Prim outside the window, smiling at him then turning into a burning torch... He saw so many things, and coudn't say what was real, what was not.
But he mostly found himself holding his daughter - a very similar small version of Katniss - singing the lullaby. It was either him or her singing. When he sang she would looked up at him with her big grey eyes, and when he finished, she would say "Sing more, Daddy! Sing more!". His heart would leap up with joy, hearing her call him "Daddy!", and he would keep singing until she fell asleep. Moments like those always gave him a piece of peace, something he finally had after everything he had suffered.
Peeta's voice could be heard from downstair, he was still talking to the doctor. Despite their great effort, Haymitch's state only got worse after the heart attack. The doctor did not have much hope in his case.
As quiet as Buttercup, Katniss sneaked in the patient room. Haymitch was sound asleep, he looked so much peaceful. She and Peeta had moved into his house after his accident to take care of him. They knew he didn't like other to watch over him like babysitter. But he had to accept now, it wasn't like he could object anyway. She sat down next to him, trying not to touch any equipments. Not long after that, Peeta came in as well. They sat in silence watching their old friend sleeping, like they had done so many times before.
"What are you thinking?" - Peeta spoke up, stroking her hair.
"Wondering what he was dreaming of?" - Katniss said, meeting his blue eyes. - "I hope he could at least wake up once for a few minutes so that I can thank him."
"For?"
"For us." - She said, taking Peeta's hand in hers - "For everything. He had given up so much for the better world, and now they give him nothing. He lost everything for them and they can't give him the least credit for that. If we hadn't moved in, none would have, and he would have died alone. It's so unfair, Peeta. He had lost even his family, everyone he loves."
They fell into silence, kept holding hand.
"You're wrong, Katniss." - Once again Peeta broke the silence. His eyes were filled with tears, but he was smiling. - "He has us. We are the pain in his ass. We're stuck together. We are the two long lost child of his. Us three make a perfect family of broken pieces."
A sad smile formed on her lips before she leaned in and kissed him slightly. A family for lost broken souls.
It's almost midnight by now, and I still have a lot of homework to do, but I have to pull this out of my head first. So, what do you think? I tried to write a brighter version of this but it just simply doesn't work. Read and review please. :)