Hello All!
So this piece has been gathering dust on my computer for years now. I've always stopped short on posting it because I wasn't sure if I wanted to something do more with it. I have finally admitted to myself that no, nothing more is going to happen. I like how short and sweet it is.
So enjoy!
Disclaimer: It's not mine.
The first time Haymitch laid his eyes on Karen Griggs, he's twenty-five. It's the 59th Hunger Games and he's just as disgusted by this one as he is by the last twenty-five he's been alive for. His kids this year were disappointing; both of them are half-starved children of coal miners. The boy is a looker, at eighteen he could possibly sell the impoverished ladies' man, he thinks. The girl is a lost cause. Sixteen and the ugliest female he had ever seen. And the Capital didn't take kindly to ugly.
He was currently sitting in the dining car watching the two of them stuff their faces with food. He knew what their thoughts were: they weren't hoping to survive the games. They were just happy that their last few days alive would be filled with all the food they could ever want.
If they continue like that they'll spend their last days with their heads in a toilet, he thought grimly, getting to his feet. He grabbed a bottle of what looked to be very strong whiskey and left the two children to their feast. He'd let them have a few more hours to themselves before he began talking strategy with them.
He was sitting in one of the vacant cars. He wasn't really sure what they were used for, if they had a purpose other than just to be there and be posh. He had the TV on, and Caesar was running through the reapings. Haymitch sipped at his drink, watching the children get called up one by one.
He stopped really paying attention after District 7. The outlying districts never won. He snorted and smiled grimly to himself. Well, they hardly ever won, he amended.
District 10 only caught his eye because he needed a refill. He opened his eyes, which he had closed because the only true way to get drunk resulted in a nice nap afterwards, and he saw the camera zoom in on a mob of girls, landing on a grim-faced red-head that was slowly weaving her way out of the crowd. Her hair was truly terrible, a mass of tight curls extending in every direction and the color of red mahogany; Haymitch knew it would get her killed in minutes. You couldn't hide hair like that.
But he had to give it to her, she was well composed. She didn't cry, she didn't shake, she didn't glare like he had. Instead she regally walked up to the reaping platform, her head held high like a queen, not blinking an eye, as if this had been her plan all along.
He instantly knew that she would be one to watch. He waited for her information. Karen Griggs, sixteen.
The boy was reaped next. Phil something or other. He cried and shook like a leaf. With regal Karen standing next to him he was easily dismissible.
As the camera was zooming out and Caesar's voice was moving on to the next district, Karen's eyes flicked to the camera. The determination he saw staring back at him from those green orbs caused Haymitch to whistle in appreciation.
Karen Griggs was definitely one to watch.
If it weren't for that god-awful hair.
The sponsors gave her a 10.
His own tributes had scored so low it wasn't even worth mentioning. The two kids didn't even seem to care, taking their scores quietly and then silently walking off to their rooms. The boy, Horace, was hopeless. He might be good-looking, but Haymitch had met pigs smarter than him; and some of those pigs had been dead. In the games, stupid didn't last long, despite sponsors. The girl, Astrid, was looking promising. Or had been until tonight and her score of 5. She was ugly, but she was clever. She still held a chance of pulling off something miraculous, but Haymitch didn't have much hope.
But Karen had scored a 10. As he looked out his window that night, sipping his scotch and trying to drink away his grief, he wondered what she had up her sleeve.
Horace was the third tribute to die. He had defied his orders and had stupidly gone into the cornucopia. Haymitch had cursed and threw his glass at the wall when it happened, but it was too late. There was another one he hadn't been able to save.
Astrid had, amazingly enough, survived the bloodbath. And better yet, she had formed an alliance with none other than Karen Griggs. How she had managed it, Haymitch didn't know. Maybe the two girls had talked during the group training, maybe they both just didn't want to be alone because the arena was a scary place. Either way, Astrid's chances of surviving had gone up exponentially when the two of them made their alliance on the third day.
Karen was a contestant to watch, as Haymitch had predicted from the beginning. On the first day she had joined in on the bloodbath, running into the cornucopia, punching anyone who tried to stop her. She skirted most of the fighting and went straight for a belt of knives that was situated closest to her platform.
There was no doubt in his mind that the gamemakers had put those knives there just for her.
In Karen's hands, the knives were deadly.
Once she had her weapons and a backpack to go with it, she had fled for the evergreen forest surrounding the clearing. One of the careers, a boy from District 2, had tried to stop her. Karen had dispatched him in seconds, kicking him in the knee, breaking his knee cap, and slitting a major artery in his throat with a flick of her hand, and then she was off running again.
That's how she killed all those she crossed paths with. Quick, powerful blows to the opponent's vulnerable areas and then a flash of her knives left the victim bleeding out on the ground. If there were multiple enemies, she would send her knives flying through the air with deadly precision. The Capital went bonkers over her, reporters revealing that she was the daughter of a butcher and a healer, no doubt the reason for her knife skills and her eerie knowledge of the human body.
No one stood a chance with her. They all died in seconds. All of them but Astrid, who Karen took under her wing and protected, a kindness that Haymitch was thankful for. She was good to Astrid.
But Karen could not protect Astrid when the District 12 girl wondered off one night when only four tributes remained. No doubt Astrid knew she would not win and didn't want to leave Karen with the difficult choice of having to kill her newfound friend.
Karen heard the shouts anyway and came running.
In the end, all four tributes were together. The girl from District 2 had gone after Astrid and gutted her with a spear. Karen killed her, only to be attacked from behind by the boy from District 1 as she tried to help Astrid. Karen killed him as well, but she sustained injuries.
Only Astrid and Karen remained, both of them dying from their wounds.
Karen tried to save Astrid, stopping her bleeding, cursing the Capital the entire time, refusing to allow her friend to die.
In the end Astrid was too far gone to save.
Karen had won. But at a cost.
When Haymitch saw her a year later, a whole new batch of tributes having newly been reaped, the regal sixteen-year-old girl he had met the year before was gone. In her place was an angry, grief-ridden woman of seventeen. There were whispers amongst the mentors, whispers that her defiance had cost her the lives of her family and friends; that she had fought against the restraints the Capital tried to put on her and paid the price.
Haymitch knew her pain. He knew the loss that came with winning and defiance.
When the mentors first got together to discuss the game, he went straight for her.
"Haymitch!" a voice called to him.
A cocky smile graced his face and he turned around only to be greeted with a mass of red curls and a grinning green eyes.
"Karen," he greeted, hugging the woman he had grown so close to over the years
"No!" Haymitch cried, as he watched the review of the reapings. He slammed his fist into the table, curling around the table top. "NO!"
"You love her, don't you?" a quiet voice asked.
Haymitch clenched his fists. "What the hell do you know of love?" he shot back.
Katniss didn't answer him, her eyes taking in the footage of Karen being reaped for the Quarter Quell. Just like her first reaping, she didn't cry or act shocked. Karen took this news calmly, walking to the platform as the two other female victors broke down into relieved tears. She was a queen among peasants.
"I know enough to know that you love her," Katniss told him, before quietly slipping out of the car, leaving him to his grief and his drink.
Haymitch trembled as he held her. He could have handled anything, as long as it wasn't her.
"I'll be fine, 'Mitch," Karen told him, rubbing her hands soothingly up and down his back. "I know what I'm doing. We have a plan."
"The plan is to make sure that my tributes make it out alive," he rasped, tears choking him. "They say nothing about you."
Karen smiled up at him gently. "Trust in the plan. Trust in us. We know what we're doing."
Haymitch just clinched his jaw and pulled her tighter against him.
Trust in the plan, she had said. Trust in her, she had said. Trust in the rebellion, she had said.
He had trusted and she was now in the hands of the Capital. He yelled and raged and destroyed everything he could get his hands on.
He had failed her.
I'm mean, aren't I?
I know. But this was something that popped into my head one night years ago and I just loved it. It's tragic and beautiful and I don't think it was ever meant to be more than some one-shots of Haymitch's relationship with Karen over the years. So nothing more is coming after this.
The ending is ambiguous. Think what you want to think. If you want to know how I believe it ends, ask me. Otherwise, make it what you want to happen ;)
Please leave reviews! I'd love to hear some feedback. The Hunger Games usually isn't my cup of tea for fanfiction, but I've always liked Haymitch.
x Cheerfully Blue