Thanks to all of my reviewers and readers from the last two chapters. You rock! Sorry for the wait on this one. Things will start moving faster from here on out. I now have a tumblr for all things related to Hayniss fanfiction. It is justanotherhaynissshipper dot tumblr dot com. The story is posted on there as well. Please check it out and follow and send any questions there (or on here).
After an agonizing exam by a team of Capitol doctors, Haymitch and I were put on a train back to District 12. It's packed with other couples that look about as happy as we feel. Haymitch and his friend from 11, who I've come to know as Chaff, sit together at the bar, drinking away any negative feelings that may be left over from their brief visit. I've been advised not to drink again, as it could cause problems with the pregnancy that I'm being forced to pursue.
I was given a small device that I have to use every morning to prick my finger. As soon as I am pregnant, the device will send a message off to the Capitol. The Capitol will then send a team of doctors to the district. I'm not sure exactly what will happen after that, but I was told that I am not to miss a single finger prick. I don't plan on finding out what will happen if I do.
The device is tucked away in my pocket. The cold metal feels like it's burning through the thin material of my slacks, not letting me forget that it is there and waiting to drop the biggest bomb of my life on me someday, if I'm ever able to actually conceive. Who knows what years of drinking have done to Haymitch? Who knows what years of starving have done to me? We may be destined to fail from the start. And how fitting, a starving seam woman to die because her awful childhood prevented her from reproducing in her twisted arranged marriage. I almost wouldn't mind dying because of this. Better me than an innocent child. Better me than my own innocent child.
Soon all of the couples are heading off into their compartments. Haymitch and I are the only two who remain. We haven't said a word to one another since everything happened last night, and I think I almost prefer it that way. Haymitch is a man of few words and I don't have time for the trivialities of awkward conversation. The current silence is unnerving though. I don't want to sit here and watch him drink so I make my way to our compartment without giving him a second glance. I know we should probably make an attempt at intimacy tonight, but the smell and taste of liquor on him does not appeal to me at all. I change out of my clothes and climb into bed, only to have Haymitch walk through the door seconds later.
His behavior is sloppy and I wonder if he even knows what he's doing. He climbs next to me in the bed, fully clothed and reeking of alcohol. After last night the smell is almost unbearable and I have to hold my breath to keep from gagging.
"The Capitol killed my girlfriend."
I freeze as I wait for the rest of his words. It's a risky topic to bring up here, but I want to know what he means. I need to know what I'm getting myself into.
"After the games, they wanted to sell me to the highest bidder. When I refused, the picked my family off, one by one. I don't want that to happen to you. And I don't want it to happen to my kid."
He takes a deep breath and leans close to my ear. Something wet falls from his face onto mine and I hear a choked sob from the man, despite his obvious effort to hold back.
"I hate the fucking Capitol, ok? I really do. But I won't let them take anything else from me. I just won't."
With that, he turned over and hugged his pillow on the other side of the bed. I held my breath until I heard his breathing slow down and even out. I shook the tension out of my body and tried not to tremble as I fell into one of the worst sleeps of my life.
!
For Katniss, arriving back home was a bigger adjustment than being married. Home for Katniss now consisted of a large, dusty mansion in Victor's Village away from everyone that she loved. She was forced to spend time with Haymitch, who was drunk the majority of the time. Spending time together was mostly her sitting on a couch, Haymitch sitting in a nearby chair, knocking back swigs of bitter liquor and trying to avoid eye contact.
On their fourth day back from the Capitol, Katniss got tired of the silence.
"I'd like to visit my mother and sister today. And maybe my cousins," She offered Haymitch a sideways glance, hoping he might understand the insinuation. "I haven't been able to meet their wives yet."
Haymitch shrugged his shoulders and took a messy drink from a glass bottle. Liquid dripped off of his chin and stained his white shirt with a pale brown. "I didn't know you had any cousins, sweetheart."
Katniss swallowed deeply and tried to steady her voice. She knew they were being monitored by the Capitol. Haymitch had received a message the day before that the Capitol knew they had not consummated their relationship since that first time. He received instruction that they were to have sex again in the coming three days. Haymitch didn't tell her what would happen if they didn't. She didn't even want to know.
"Yes, I'm quite close to my cousins… Hazelle Hawthorn is my aunt. I'm close with her son, Gale. And Gerald Mellark is my uncle on my mother's side. Peeta and I are good friends… And cousins."
The words are sticky in her mouth. Lying was never her strong suit, but she hoped that it would throw the Capitol off of her scent. It wasn't as if she was planning some kind of romantic tryst with Peeta and Gale. She just wanted to know that they were okay, and warn them about the danger that her arranged marriage had put them in.
The look on Haymitch's face told her that her explanation tipped him off. Everyone in the district knew that Cappie Everdeen and Gerald Mellark were once an item. Cappie left Mellark for Weston Everdeen, a miner, and was disowned from the Merchant crowd and her parents. It was hardly believable to him that she and Peeta were cousins. If the Capitol sensed that a victor's wife was cheating on him and giving an impression of dissidence to the rest of the district, well, she wouldn't live to tell about that. That much was clear. Haymitch understood her motives and gave her a nod of approval, looking somehow more sober than he'd been seconds before.
"Be careful out there."
She promised she would and excused herself. The walk to the bakery from Victor's Village was shorter than the walk to the Seam, so she would visit Peeta before making her way over to the Seam with the letter and a bag of food. With a determination that she hadn't felt since before the marriage reaping, Katniss set out into town with three letters clenched tightly in her fist.
!
Her meeting with Peeta was tense. His wife was more than sweet and welcoming to Katniss, but something just didn't feel right. After a few minutes of small talk, Delly excused herself to the kitchen, clearly leaving to give Katniss and Peeta a chance to talk in private.
"I'm sorry you were paired with him," Peeta whispered, looking down at the ground with a shamed face.
"There was nothing you could have done. And Haymitch isn't so bad. He could be worse."
Silence hung between them. She knew what Peeta wanted to say to her. He still loved her. He hated seeing her with another man. He wanted everything to go back to normal. To how it was before the marriage reaping. It's how she felt too, but she'd never say it. To drag those words into the open would be to admit how much she really cared for him. There wasn't a time or place for those kinds of feeling anymore. To love another man was to defy the Capitol. It would put them all into unnecessary danger, and she just wasn't willing to do that.
"I took some photos of my new home. I brought them to you. Look at them after I leave," she handed Peeta the envelope and hoped that he would understand where she was coming from. The letter went into full detail about her situation. She instructed in the letter that he burn it after reading. She couldn't risk someone else seeing it.
After a few more minutes of talk, Delly came back into the room with a tray of tea and cookies. Katniss helped herself to several of the cookies and chatted amiably with the other female. She didn't mind Delly too much. The blonde woman was a good fit for Peeta, and that was all Katniss cared about.
Shortly after she finished her cookies and tea, Katniss excused herself from their home. She needed to get away from Peeta and his new life. Dwelling on the past wouldn't fix the present, and she had other deliveries to make.
!
Five days after her visits with Peeta, Gale and her family, Katniss was once again awoken by the incessant beeping of the Capitol pregnancy detector at 6am. It was becoming a force of habit to wake up, prick her finger and fall back into a fitful sleep, usually alone. Haymitch would sometimes come into the bed with her; sometimes they would have sex, most of the time they would just sleep. Their activities never consisted of actually speaking to one another on a casual basis. They weren't friends, they weren't in love, and they weren't acquaintances. They were prisoners together. Lovers and prisoners who shared the same bars and the same bed.
She popped her head up from under the large comforter and felt the weight of her spouse on the other half of the bed. Haymitch hadn't had as much to drink the night before, which resulted in him tossing and turning in the bed, half-drunk with fear and trapped in his nightmares. Katniss awoke him at 2am to remove him from the terrors, but he didn't want her pity and turned away to fall back into sleep. At 3am, they both woke up and found themselves wrapped up in each other's arms.
Sex was becoming an activity that Katniss enjoyed. The initial pain and embarrassment was gone, leaving behind the lust that she'd denied herself for years, ever since her lone tryst with Peeta. Also, it was Capitol-ordered, which just gave Katniss all the more motivation to continue her romantic encounters with Haymitch. It was enjoyable and it would ensure that her family was safe. That was all of the reassurance she needed to let herself be immersed in Haymitch.
And as much as he hated to admit it, Haymitch enjoyed their encounters just as much, if not more, than Katniss. It had been years since he'd properly been with a woman. She was young, beautiful, fit and inexperienced, all traits that would turn any man on. After he got over the initial guilt and nausea from sleeping with a woman who did not truly want to be with him, he was able to ravish her to the true extent of his desire. Once Katniss slept with him sober and still achieved orgasm, he knew this arrangement was something that she was genuinely enjoying.
Despite their hot and heavy sex, there was no intimacy in their relationship. They just weren't intimate people and they didn't have many positive feelings about one another that didn't revolve around carnal pleasure. So when Katniss was awoken on their 9th day home by the beeping of the Capitol machine, Haymitch cursed at the thing and instructed her to "fucking prick your damn finger so I can go back to sleep, dammit."
She rolled her eyes at his harshness, took a moment to rub the sleep from her tired grey orbs and grabbed the Capitol-made chunk of plastic before it woke up the other non-existent residents of the Victor's Village. Clumsily, she smashed the needle-clad end onto the index finger of her left hand before setting it back on the bedside table and laying her head back on her pillow.
Before she could even fall back into her dream state, the Capitol anthem began to play from the machine. Both her and Haymitch shot up from the bed and stared at the contraption. Katniss' heart began to thump loudly and she whispered a silent prayer that the anthem was not an indication of some sort.
Suddenly, a monotone voice boomed from machine and a projection appeared on the wall next to the bedside table, "Your blood test has indicated that fertilization has taken place." On the projection screen appears the words, "You are 10 days pregnant with a single child. Mother is Katniss Everdeen; Father is Haymitch Abernathy. Trained medical staff from the Capitol will arrive in 8 to 10 hours."
She read the words several times before they truly sunk in. They'd done it. She was pregnant, just as Snow demanded. She just didn't think it would happen so fast. She wasn't ready. Her head swam with the panic of impending motherhood and she was sure she would die if she didn't get out of the house at that moment. Katniss shot up from the bed and sprinted down the stairs. Before she could make it, naked, out the front door, she was being grabbed from behind by Haymitch. She struggled against him for a moment before collapsing against him in a fit of sobs.
"I can't-I can't, I just can't," she choked, wanting to disappear, wanting to die, wanting to escape from the cruel life that had been forced upon her the second she was drawn to be Haymitch Abernathy's wife.
"I'm so, so sorry sweetheart. I'm so sorry," he whispered to her, uncharacteristically gentle in his words and his tone.
She didn't know how long they stood there until an overwhelming exhaustion invaded her entire body. The sobbing and tension and horror were a combination that left her feeling mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. Silently, she pulled away from her husband, grabbed his hand and led him up to their bed, where they both fell into a dreamless sleep, hoping to wake up and have the new development be just a horrible nightmare.
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