A/N: Credit for the title goes to meet-me-at-the-cornucopia on Tumblr. Thanks so much! Sooooo much better than the ideas I came up with. :3

Haymitch Abernathy sat on the edge of the bed in his train compartment. Silently waiting for someone to come and tell him they've arrived in District 12. He was dying to see his family, his girlfriend. In the weeks since he'd been reaped for the Hunger Games, he'd figured he had a slim chance at ever seeing them again. Now he would, in a matter of only a few short minutes. It seemed almost surreal. At the same time, he was dreading seeing the families of the other three tributes. He only had a tie to one of them- Maysilee Donner. And he had held her until she died. That must stand for something, he thought, miserably.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knocking at the door. District 12's escort, telling him to get ready- they would be pulling into District 12 shortly. Haymitch gathered his thoughts and walked out of the compartment, without looking back. And good riddance. He thought. The train pulled into the station and he was pushed him out onto the platform. To his left, the mayor was standing with his family. His mother was in tears, being held back by his brother. Haymitch walked casually halfway, but broke into a run. Picking up his younger brother, holding him tight as his mother embraced the both of them.

When the day's ceremonies were finished, Haymitch and his family picked up their few possessions and left for their new home in the Victor's Village. Haymitch insisted that his brother pick any room he wanted, but in the end, neither of them wanted to give up sharing a room. They settled for moving another bed into the one they chose to share, spending the afternoon dismantling a bed from an unoccupied room and rebuilding it in the new one. Their mother moved in across the hall. When they were finished, Haymitch made a quick run to town to buy some food for dinner, saving a bigger shopping trip for another day. Shopping at the stores in town was far different from buying and trading at the Hob. There is no haggling, they give you one price and they stick by it. It still hadn't fully sunk in that he had an endless supply on money now. At home, his mother made dinner, and for the first time- nobody went to bed hungry.

In the middle of the night, the first of the nightmares came to him. The cornucopia, the fight with the careers, and the pink birds that killed Maysilee. They all came flooding back. Haymitch woke up, muffling a scream in his pillow, drenched in sweat. Across the room, his brother was still sound asleep. I need to take a shower. Haymitch got out of bed slowly, careful to not wake his brother, and into the bathroom that connected to the room. He smacked the buttons at random, not caring how they were set. He threw off his soaked shirt and shorts and stepped in the shower. The water was bitter cold, but it somehow helped numb the pain. He stood perfectly still as multiple fruity soaps assaulted every inch of his body. When the shower turned itself off, Haymitch slowly walked to the mirror. His eyes were red, he hadn't realized he had been crying. He didn't care anymore, either. His clothes had dried out while he was in the shower so he put them back on and crept out the door.

The next two weeks were a buzz of activity. Haymitch rarely saw his family, so it was no surprise that he got the tip that his family and his girlfriend might be in danger from a peacekeeper at the Hob. He ran to the house in the Victor's Village to find a car parked outside. He kicked the door down to find the president in the sitting room.

"Where are they?" Haymitch snarled. The president laughed and waltzed over to him slowly.

"Come and sit down, young man. We have some things to discuss." The president hissed, leading Haymitch to his kitchen table.

"Now, you know what you did with the force field was not allowed-"

"I thought the Hunger Games had no rules." Haymitch interjected.

"Don't disrupt me, foolish child. Now, as I was saying. Nobody has ever tried to use a force field as a weapon. If that head gamemaker had any sense, he would have had you killed right then. But, unfortunately, he didn't see it as a threat. I feel differently."

A long silence followed. Haymitch realized the president was waiting for him to say something. "Well, If I'm such a threat, why don't you just kill me now?" He asked.

"If I kill you, the people in the Districts and in the Capitol would ultimately suspect foul play. I once killed a victor, but their were conspiracy theorists. We had to have thousands more killed who suspected our cover story wasn't true. Now, since I can't have you killed, I had to settle for the next best thing- those closest to you."

Haymitch knew what was coming. His family wasn't coming home, ever again. He would live out the rest of his days alone in this big empty house. Unless he and his girlfriend married.

"My advisers thought that your mother and brother might not suffice. That the one other person you had left could give you some kind of spark. Enough of a spark to cause uprisings. Uprisings lead to rebellions. And rebellions lead to wars. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Mr. Abernathy?" The president's beady eyes gleamed with pure evil. Haymitch lunged at him. The peacekeeper the president brought with him threw Haymitch away, landing against the wall with enough force to cause him to cough up blood. The president simply laughed.

"You will learn, young man. One day, you will learn. I believe I will be seeing you again on your Victory tour. Maybe by then you will have learned some table manners." The president left the house, slamming the door, and speeding off in his car. Haymitch sat against the wall for a while longer, still coughing up large amounts of blood, unable to breath properly. His family and his girlfriend were dead. Killed because the president thought that he would start an uprising. Haymitch had never thought about that. He used to force field for the sole reason of survival. Eventually, he staggered to the phone. Calling the apothecary in town. He came to the door mere minutes later, with his daughter. A girl Haymitch recognized as being a friend of Maysilee. She was solemn as she cleaned the blood from his face. The doctor looked him over, deeming him fine. As he left, his daughter quickly looked back at Haymitch before she followed him.

"Thank you for taking care of Maysilee." She whispered.

The weeks leading up to the victory tour were long and lonely. Haymitch often spent his days wandering aimlessly though the Hob. The woman running a soup stand took pity on him, giving him lunch every afternoon. Haymitch insisted on paying her, refusing to take no for an answer. He was inundated with money anyway. The only real happiness he had anymore was parcel day. Once a month, he spent the entire day roaming town watching the children, none of which had ever had enough to eat, like himself, finally not go hungry for at least a night. One particularly memorable parcel day, a little girl- no older than 4, came running up to him to hug his leg. Her older brother, who had to have been 12, came running to fetch her, but Haymitch picked the child up and returned her hug, before handing her off to her brother. That day was when Haymitch realized how brutal is was that even the youngest children know him because he won the Hunger Games. That was the day he vowed to fight to end the Capitol's reign. If the president thought he could start uprisings, then he certainly could. Just wait for the right time. Wait until you bring someone else out of the arena. Only then. Haymitch promised himself.

The victory tour was hell. Haymitch knew the president was watching his every move. While in District 11, he wandered as far as the dome to the Justice Building. The room looked like it hadn't been touched in years, possible decades. It didn't seem to be monitored, so he took his one chance to lash out. Against the president, the games, the Capitol in general. The Hunger Games never really end. Even though he won, he would be forced to watch the others from District 12 die if he couldn't save them. In many ways, mentoring sounds worse then being in the games themselves. Unable to help your tributes unless the sponsors give you the opportunity. Their lives aren't in the hands of their mentor, they're at the complete mercy of the sponsors. Why didn't I just let her kill me? Haymitch thought bitterly through the dinner. If I knew that the people I loved would be killed because of something I did, I would have let her kill me. Every district was worse than the one before it, every celebration less bearable. The celebration at the Capitol was the worst. During the interview, it took all Haymitch's willpower to not tell the entire nation about his conversation with the president. The citizens had been told that his family died in a freak tracker jacker accident. Haymitch knew that there were people that didn't believe it, but didn't say anything. When the subject was brought up, he wanted to cry again. But refused to give the president that satisfaction. He acted like it was expected, that this happens often in the district, when in reality, tracker jacker deaths are uncommon. Starvation. If they wanted a believable story, they would have said starvation. The president came onto the stage to offer his condolences for the cameras, but his eyes said different. If you say anything, we will make your life a living hell. If you think your life is hell now, just you wait until you see what happens if a single soul finds out about our little conversation.

During dinner that night, Haymitch barely ate. He forced himself to eat some soup, but nothing else. A blue haired capitol woman offered him a drink, which he accepted. It burned his throat, but somehow felt good. He spent the rest of the night going to the table every time the slight buzz he caught started to wear off. The train ride back to District 12 was awful, his head was pounding and he was constantly throwing up, yet Haymitch had no recollection of the night before. It was probably for the better. He made a mental note to try it again, to see if the alcohol had the same effect. Though the nausea never fully left through the celebrations at home, he felt better than he had earlier in the morning. He limited himself to one drink at dinner, and when the celebrations were complete, accepted a ride home. The house seemed even emptier than it had before he left, but somehow offered comfort. After a week or so, the cameras died down once more and Haymitch found the opportunity to visit the Hob again. The soup lady gave him lunch as usual, but instead of going straight home when he finished, he stopped by the liquor stall. The woman running the stall seemed puzzled, but sold him a bottle. Haymitch noticed almost immediately that this was stronger than what he had at the Capitol. It took all night, but eventually he finished off the bottle and slept through the night for the first time since returning home after the games.

A/N: So what do you think? It's a far cry from the my typical comedic style, but I'm actually enjoying it. Since these chapters are going to be longer, and it's an 8 part series, I won't update this one as often as the others. I'm open to ideas for later chapters too, because I'm still not sure where to end it. Either at the reaping for the 74th games or the end of Mockingjay...