(From the point of view of Haymitch Abernathy, taking place between the last chapter and the epilogue of Mockingjay)
When Hazelle Hawthorne shows up at my door hardly two months after I move back to District 12, I can't think of a reason that she would be here instead of in District 2 with her family. We were close during the months before the Quarter Quell when she had a job taking care of my house, but we have rarely talked since then. I help her inside, and listen as she recounts the past week of her life in a shaky voice. I can tell this is something she has cried endlessly over, but it seems that she has run out of tears to shed. I begin to understand why she came to me.
I've sent forty-eight kids off to almost certain death. I've watched forty-six of them die. But this is different.
Hazelle stays in District 12 for a week. I don't drink the whole time. Drinking has helped me numb pain for the past twenty years of my life, but this is a type of pain that needs to be felt so I can be there for Hazelle. She doesn't tell anyone else that she is here; I don't think she would be able to handle any old friends in her current state. I think being around me is helping her. I seem to know when to speak, when to listen, when to be around, and when to let her be alone.
After a week has passed she tells me that she desperately misses her children, and we both know that she must leave soon. It is when we are sitting on my house's porch alone on one of her last nights in my company that she brings up something I am not expecting, but I instantly know it's the thing she came here to ask.
"How do we tell Katniss?"
Her question spreads coldness through me despite the warm evening air. I don't give my answer time to hesitate. "No."
"What?"
"No. We can't tell her. You haven't been here…you wouldn't know, but she's not better yet. She's barely holding on. Even if she was fine, she wouldn't be able to take this."
"Why?"
"You know why." I can tell she does.
"She would blame herself…"
It's hard to ask, but I have to know, "Did he…?"
"…Blame her for how his life turned out? No. I don't think he ever did. And not Peeta either. He blamed himself. Endlessly. That's why he did it, you know."
"I wondered if it was."
"And he couldn't stop thinking about Prim. Ever since he moved to District 2, he did everything he could to find out if it was his fault. He couldn't stand not knowing. The truth of it meant everything to him, even though he knew it wouldn't change things with Katniss." She is talking quickly now, the words tumbling out of her mouth. This is more than she has told me about him all week. "He stopped sleeping, stopped eating, practically stopped living. I only saw him once during that time, it scared me. The life was gone from his eyes, and he walked like each step was tougher than the last. The rest I only know from the people who worked with him. He was starting to find people with answers, but then he learned that the only person who knew the only answer he cared about, who knew if it was his bomb, was gone. They had died in the war. He would never know."
I can tell it is too much for her to say all of this out loud, too much all at once. It's time for her to go, time to be alone again. She knows I understand this without her saying it so I don't try to stop her as she stands up and hurries back to the house she is staying in. I sit by myself for a while and then go back inside.
The next day, once Hazelle has left for District 2, I make some calls and find pieces of the rest of the story. Starting with the day when he was done searching for answers that didn't exist anymore. I can almost see him standing up, turning to leave his job, saying that he wouldn't be coming back. But he was in deep; his role in the war had given him a lot of power. A lot of responsibility. I can almost see his smile that didn't reach his eyes anymore as the click of an officer's gun threatened him to take another step towards the door. But to him, it wasn't a threat. It was an offer.
No, I think, Katniss Everdeen must never know that Gale Hawthorne is dead.