Together Again.
Haymitch's POV
The boy with the Bread and the Girl on Fire. Everyone would know their story forever. Nobody thought this was how it would end.
I have to admit, I wasn't completely surprised when she shot President Coin. It had been no secret to me that she had ordered the drop of the parachutes that ended Prim Everdeen's life.
But what came next, well I never saw it coming. I knew that each of the squad had a nightlock pill, and that gale had given Peeta one before the mission ended.
I probably should have done something. But I couldn't I was just frozen.
I watched as she reached down to tear the pocket where the nightlock was. The boy placing hand over it. I was close enough to hear their exchange, even with the surrounding chaos.
"Let go!" she said.
"I can't" he said, and somehow I knew, that through everything this boy was going to okay.
I thought.
What happened next shocked me to no end, but looking back I knew that it was their fate.
Katniss leaning forward and placing her hand on the spot where Peeta's own nightlock was safely stored away. He looked at her questioningly, surely she couldn't having been thinking of-
"I want to be free" she almost whimpered, and at that moment I knew the Mockingjay was gone, those years of fighting for her family's survival, and then her own, of having to watch countless people die and be tortured for her actions had finally broken her. I think she was actually broken a long time ago.
Peeta smiled, a real smile, his first since being held in the Capitol, and slowly pulled out the violet pill as let go of her sleeve and she pulled out her own.
"Together?" he asked a smile playing on his lips.
"Together" with a smile on her own.
"On the count of three?" she asked.
He nodded and stroked her hair, so reminiscent of the time in the Arena in this exact same position.
"One-"
"Two"
"Three!" they said, almost with relief and swallowed the pills, hands clutched together.
I don't think they noticed in their final moments, every person, every camera turned their way. They didn't hear the shock ripple through the crowd as people backed away from the spot where the two had fallen, hands together smiles on their lips, finally free.
I never get nightmares anymore, which sounds preposterous but it's true. Instead sleep gives Katniss and Peeta smiling and dancing and laughing. It gives them being kids again. It gives me my girl smiling, telling me how proud my mother is, how proud she is. And it gives me dreams which I never thought were possible. It gives the little girl in Katniss' first arena, swinging from trees. It gives me Maysilees' loyalty, following me through the maze to the edge of the arena. it gives me Cinna and Katniss twirling and happy. Sleep used to be my prison, although everything except those two was my prison.
But as they saved me in life, they saved me in my dreams.
The boy with the bread. The girl on fire. And me.
And forever after, we were free.