In the same way you don't appreciate what you have until you lose it, some things you don't realize how much you've missed until you get them back. Like falling asleep next to someone you want to be with.
I wake up as the sun sets, creating shadows in the room in impossible shapes.
"No nightmares," he tells me, pushing my hair back from my face.
"Who?" I ask. "You or me?"
"Both."
"I don't think that's ever happened before." I can feel sleep tugging at my eyelids again but resist it, because my train leaves in a couple of hours.
He takes a few strands of my hair and weaves it between his fingers absent-mindedly.
"You okay?" I ask him. His fingers are shaking slightly, but that's just from the alcohol withdrawal. Still, he seems distracted.
"I gave up on them," he says slowly, not looking at me. "The tributes."
He's not lying- I still sponsored them anonymously, as I did with Eleven, but they never lived long enough for it to be used. The tributes from 12 for the last two years may have stood a chance, if they hadn't been vastly underprepared.
"It's not your fault," I tell him, trying to keep the disdain out of my voice. Come on, Haymitch, I think, don't ruin it again so soon.
It's not true, and he knows it. "They never make it, Denna. And it's easier to watch them die if I don't care."
I shrink back from him, climb out of bed and pull on a shirt. I didn't want to get so angry with him again so quickly, but this time? He deserves it.
"You spineless bastard," I snap. "I tried to die for them, and you won't lift a finger to help them live." Unable to look at him, I cross to the window and grab hold of the sill so tightly my fingernails scratch into the wood.
"I never said I was a good person," he replies, and he's right. But that doesn't mean I should forgive him for being a bad one.
"Haymitch," I say, struggling to keep my voice level. "You're killing them. You're the reason they're dead, and you don't even care! Is that why you hide here, at the bottom of a bottle in this disgusting house? So you don't have to face their families?"
No reply. Instead, I hear the snap of a bottle seal being opened.
"You have to at least try," I say. "Like you used to. I'll help."
"No offence darling, but your help's never been of much use before."
"Too bad." My grip tightens, and the wood splinters and cracks beneath my left hand. "You're not allowed to quit this, Abernathy."
"Too late."
"No!" I yell, spinning around to face him. "You have to! Because it's my fault too, every time they die! If I hadn't won, there might've been another Twelve mentor and you wouldn't have to do this. But I didn't, and you have to go through this shit alone every damn year. Look, if- if a Twelve kid wins, you can give up, drink yourself to death without having to worry about leaving your district mentorless. You need a reason to do this that benefits you instead of them, right? You're selfish, you only ever act in your own interests. Well, there you go. Keep one of them alive, and you get to opt out."
He stares at me and I glare back at him, breathing heavily. He doesn't do anything; speak, move, nothing.
"Fine," I say, "then do it for me. Do what I couldn't- we both know you're clever enough."
"I won't do it for you," he replies. "But I'll do it with you. Not just with you giving me your money. You have to actually do something."
"A mentor needs to care about their tributes, and be smart enough to help them live," I say. "We split the duties down the middle?"
Without standing up, he holds out a hand. Slowly, I step forward and shake it.
%
I say I have to leave an hour or so before I do, then wrap my jacket tighter around me as I wander around the scrubland at the edges of Twelve, until I find what I am looking for- a fenced off area filled with greyed planks of wood sticking up out of the ground, like nails. It looks decidedly spooky in the middle of the night, and although I've never believed in ghosts I am glad of the starlight, both in the sky and on my hand, stopping the darkness from becoming absolute pitch.
I pause at each grave, lips moving as I read the name on them, and then move on. They seem to be arranged chronologically, and after a few minutes of stuttered walking I find the three I am looking for.
I recognize Haymitch's handwriting on two of them, disfigured slightly since it is carved into rather than written on the wood. I actually notice that before I do the surname Abernathy, my reading skills are so poor. Next to them, a girl's name with two dates underneath; her birth and death tell me she was just sixteen when she died. Mother, brother, girlfriend- the family he used to have.
"I'm sorry," I tell the graves. "You deserved to be so much more than collateral damage."
There are wildflowers growing around the edges of the graveyard; I grab handfuls and lay them on the grave, then notice Maysilee Donner's name nearby and get some for her as well, and then all the others that died in the Games that year. It seems like such a futile action, but I think that, if I were dead, I would want to be remembered by flowers too. Even if their petals are closed and dying in the autumnal night.
I'm working my way along the row of tributes, dropping daisies and dandelions and forget-me-nots on the still frosty grass when Haymitch finds me. "Why?" he asks, and I straighten.
"I don't know," I admit. "I started off with just… with your family."
He looks at me for a moment, expression unreadable, then shrugs and walks over to the graves I originally came here for.
"You didn't have to lie to me," he says.
"I thought you wouldn't want me to come here."
"I didn't. But I wouldn't've stopped you, either." I join him, and link my arm through his.
"Also, I kind of needed to get out of your house," I say, "it's awful. It's actually worse than you are."
He laughs softly. "Be glad we were in the bedroom I never use. Are you shivering?"
"Little bit. I'm used to the Capitol." He pulls off his worn jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. "I would have thought, you being the coal district, you burn the dead."
"We do," he explains, "and this is where we do it."
"Oh." I glance right- forward in time- and see that towards the emptier end of the graveyard, some of the grass is indeed charred.
"I haven't been here for years," he says reflectively, looking down at his brother's grave. "Couldn't face them."
I know how he feels. I deliberately went backwards in time when laying flowers on the tributes' graves, for fear of finding Jed and Cossie. "Sorry for making you come out here, then."
"It's fine. You make me do things I should but don't want to." He yawns. "I'm not drunk enough to stay, though." He pulls the bottle of single malt out of the jacket of his I am wearing, and unscrews the lid. He pauses, then pours some onto the graves before taking a swig himself and handing it to me.
I shake my head. "Want to walk me back to the station?"
"Not particularly," he says, "but I will anyway."
He gives the graves one last look before he leaves, people as ashes in the dirt, covered in flowers and still, despite our best efforts, dead and gone. I want to stay amongst the calming quiet, to lie down and sleep forever, but since that is not an option I will walk with Haymitch instead.
A/N I went back and rewrote the first couple of chapters, most significantly completely changing the beginning of chapter two, because a) I wanted to try and make Denna less Mary-Sueish and b) I love writing fight scenes so goddamn much man like you have no idea. Anyway- enjoy, and please leave a review 3