It is a week before Christmas and we have nowhere else to go.
I think about the ocean frequently, a different ocean than the one which holds me at night in his arms like waves, breath like sea-foam, the tide coming in and echoing words that we always told ourselves we would never use again.
I think about a different ocean than that; I think about the one my mother watches breathe on cold fall nights, the one that reminded her of better times, better things, the one shaped like my little sister that does not replace her, but rather gives her memory a companion.
It is a week before Christmas and I stare at my ocean and think of my mother's, slip further into his watery depths and deposit breath bubbles into his chest.
"Should we visit her? It's been four Christmases since the end of the war, after all, and we've never gone over there for one. She won't say it in her letters, but I think she wants us to." He sighs, plants a kiss on my forehead. Slowly kisses his way down my face to my lips, holds my chin in his hand, covers my mouth with his own and lets us share oxygen for a moment before he answers.
"If that's what you want, sweetheart."
I kiss him again, wrap my hands around his neck. "Is that what you want?" I ask.
"I want whatever will make you happy," he replies, and I smile into him.
We are one conjoined unit under the covers, December chill whistling out the bedroom window. I am cold and he is warmth and it has been this way for a very long time. "You make me happy, Haymitch," I whisper to him, and he pulls me closer, cuts notches in himself so that we fit like puzzle pieces.
"Let's go," he says, and rolls on top of me, holds my face in his large, calloused hands, kisses my jawline until I laugh, his stubble tickling my neck but I never ask him to shave.
When we finally get up, I call my mother and tell her the plan while he showers. We each pack our own bags but he does not pack anything from the kitchen. I imagine at this point, a bottle feels foreign in his hands when he could be holding me instead.
.
The train ride to District 4 is uneventful.
I sleep on Haymitch's lap for a couple hours, we play cards, he reads. I whittle at a stick with my knife until he takes a better one out of his pocket and smirks at me, grabs my stick and starts carving words into its side.
"Are you and my mother on good terms?" I ask, and he breathes heavily but does not look up from his carving.
I try to peer over his shoulder but he won't let me see it yet. Bastard. "I hope so, sweetheart."
"Is it because of me?"
He finishes with the stick, observes it while he chews my question around in his mouth. "If anything, I think it's about Maysilee." He doesn't speak much to me about his games, but I know enough to put the pieces together. For a victor, every conflict, in the end, always ties back to the Games.
He smiles at me and says, "Don't worry, darling," before handing the tiny stick back to me. A tiny "H+K" is carved inside a heart like my stick is a park tree, and I pull his toboggan over his eyes and laugh, kiss him while he cannot see me smile against his lips. He tastes like coffee and pine, so I smile until he can feel it, does not need his eyes.
.
When we first enter the house, I am assaulted by a giant golden retriever, who dances around me and licks my knees and wags its tail as if to greet me with an enthusiastic "Hello!" again and again.
Haymitch laughs and drops his bag, gets down on one knee and coos at the animal. He looks up at me with bright eyes and I cannot help but put a hand behind the dog's ears and scratch. "I was going to tell you about her, but I figured…well, I figured you would be too put off to come." My mother stands in the doorway and smiles at the three of us, looking more alive than I have seen her since my father died. "Her name is Rosie."
I still at the name. The last thing anyone needs is another reminder of the things we lost in the war, who we came back without, everyone who suffered—Haymitch places a hand on mine when I stop petting the dog, concern filling his features. I calm. And looking at my mother's smile, the way this dog falls at her feet, I realize everyone copes in different ways. The ocean does not serve as a companion to my mother's memory of Prim, but Rosie does. My anger subsides.
"No, Mom, she…she's perfect." And she is. Haymitch squeezes my hand as we both stand, and any chill in the air has long since passed.
I look at Rosie again and realize my mother's dog is undoubtedly beautiful, and exactly, I think, what she has needed.
Haymitch grabs both of our bags and my mother asks us if one bed is okay. I tell her yes and she smiles, leads us to a room down the hall from the kitchen. Haymitch offers to help with dinner and I unpack, calmed by the sound of Rosie scurrying around in the den, my mother chatting in the kitchen, the tea kettle whistling on the stove. Life in so many forms, dark crevices filled with the sound of breathing.
I take the presents we brought and carry them to the den, add to the two already under the tree. Five boxes, three people, one dog, and an entire shoreline of sand and ocean make a home I expected to be empty feel rather full.
From in the kitchen, I hear my mother chopping vegetables in the kitchen, Haymitch spinning lettuce. I strain to hear him ask her something, but I cannot make it out.
She responds, "Will you actually take care of her?" but her words hold more venom than her voice.
He does not miss what she is saying, though. When the knife stills its cutting, I hear him whisper: "I took as good of care of her as I possibly could have, Gliese. I did love her, you know. Your fellow tribute becomes your brother or sister in the arena, and she was mine."
"I know." My mother breathes long and slow. "And you love her, too?" I can feel her eyes on me through the kitchen wall.
He doesn't miss a beat. "In a different way, I do." He pauses. My heart thumps wildly. "In this way."
The chopping resumes.
.
It is Christmas day and we have nowhere else to go, so the three of us crack the windows and sit by the fireplace and listen to the waves crash against wood chips crackling and tear brown paper and string bows off of boxes.
Haymitch opens a book from my mother and a new frying pan from me. "Is this your way of saying you like it when I make you eggs in the morning?" he purrs, and I hit him with a throw pillow. Rosie barks happily and my mother scratches her belly.
My mother gives me a new set of arrows, and Haymitch gives me a quilt. "Is this your way of saying I steal all the covers?" I retort, but I am surrounded by too much warmth to have any chill in my voice. My mother laughs and looks down in a way that reminds me of the days when she would still talk to my father around the house even though no one else could see him.
I nudge her with my knee. "Open yours," I say, and she does. She unwraps the box, opens it to find a sunhat that Haymitch and I had seen at the Hob and knew we had to get. It is yellow and matches the color of her hair, tied in the middle with a brown bow.
She looks at it for a long time. "It's gorgeous," she hums, and turns it around in her fingers. Haymitch grabs my hand and I lean into him, use my other hand to pet Rosie absent-mindedly. My mother looks up at us. "Thank you," she says, "for everything."
We both smile back at her. Haymitch speaks first. "Anytime, Mrs. Everdeen."
.
When we get home, Haymitch drops our bags on the front porch, wraps an arm around my waist and kisses me, hoists me up in his arms and carries me through the doorway. I thrash and squirm and laugh and he lays me down on the couch, kneels in front of me and presses our foreheads together.
"Marry me, Katniss Everdeen," he says, and I feel my heart stop, breath hitched. "Marry me."
He takes the last paper-wrapped box out of his pocket, too small even to have a bow. I do not wait to open it before I breathe, "Yes," into his mouth and he crawls on top of me, splattering me with salt water and the sound of waves. Sand under my fingernails, wind in my hair, seashells covering each of my eyes. I feel him smile on my mouth anyway; I do not need to see.