Chapter 50: Haymitch Abernathy

Katniss's POV

I thought that escaping to the woods was going to clear my head, but even after spending much of my Sunday out here, I return, prowling, into the Victors' Village at sunset in more than a foul mood. Even amidst my trees and my mockingjays, I had allowed my thoughts, my thoughts on the words that had been exchanged, to fester. I do feel a pang of some regret, at the hurt that I must share. And some of my husband's anger had been brought on by an ill-timed flashback. Even so…. the things he said, giving as good as he got…. How dare he! When he knows what a taboo subject it is for me!

I don't want to hurt Peeta. I really don't, and especially not in this. When I know how much it means to him. Sadder and wiser than most women are in their mid-20s, I should have anticipated how marriage is as much about the angst as it is about the romance. I married a passionate person, and I'm pretty passionate myself. When Peeta and I fight (though we try not to), we fight hard, and we love just as hard.

I try to calm myself down just enough as I mount the steps to our home. No sense in delaying the inevitable. But then again, maybe he's down in Town at the bakery. Peeta likes to bake to cool himself off, especially after an argument. Still, I step into the house, darkened, quickly going from room to room in search of my husband.

"Peeta?"

I check the attic, where his art supplies are still stored, on a hunch. Still no luck. Even as I expected him to not sit around and wait for me to come stalking back, I frown a little in annoyance. Uhhh… where is he?

Then I remember. It's Sunday. Village Dining Night.

I didn't come up with the stupid name, nor the rule behind it. That was Haymitch's idea: that we Victors have dinner together at least once a week. The allotted evening quickly fell to Sunday, the host alternating between the drunk, Peeta and myself, and then Peeta's and my house together after we got married. This week it is…. Haymitch's turn. Thank the State. Neutral ground, even if the man can't cook worth a damn.

If I know those boys like I think I do, Peeta is probably over there helping him so we don't end up eating charred meat.

I half-stomp across the Village green to Haymitch's place and let myself in without knocking. I still carry some tension as the anger in me fights to stew just a little longer, though it's waning. Rounding in from the foyer, I take in the sight before me. Just as I suspected. Peeta is helping Haymitch lift the turkey out of the oven. Lifting his head so that his gorgeous blue eyes lock onto mine, he stills for just a moment.

"Hi," he croaks.

I keep my face set in a thin line. "Hi." Still, I stride over with purpose and give him a firm kiss in greeting. It's just a peck, and gives no indication that I'm ready to forgive him just yet. I feel my husband return the kiss a little in the second before I jerk away, though hesitantly. My emotions see-saw violently in that moment, and I suddenly want to bawl in relief like a child. After some arguments, I have let myself sink into my darkest thoughts, the greatest fear of these being that Peeta will one day leave me. He has yet to, however, keeping to his word that he always says when he holds me after a nightmare or after we make love: "Always."

From where I still rest a little in his arms, I can feel Haymitch behind me, watching us. He's in tune with both of us enough by now to know that something's up, but he doesn't comment on it. When it comes to Peeta's and my married life, the old drunk is wise enough to stay out of it and declare it's not his business.

We sit down to take our evening meal in silence, Haymitch liberally pouring the wine. When he offers some to me, I beg off. "No, thanks."

I realize my misstep too late, how it could be construed, and that Haymitch probably knows more about my little spat this morning than he's been saying. Because of course he does. Peeta probably came and ranted to him.

Haymitch is smirking at me in a teasing, sardonic way. "Something we should know about, Sweetheart?"

I frown, folding my arms petulantly. "I'm not pregnant, Haymitch."

"Really? Cause were it not for the fact that we were arguing about getting pregnant, I would have thought you already were, with how hormonal you were being," Peeta grunts bitterly from across the table.

I suck in a breath, which elicits from me a gasp of dramatic horror. Instinctively, I search my lover's face for the telltale signs. Peeta really only delivers low blows, goes for the jugular, when he is hijacked, but unfortunately, at this moment, his eyes are still their glorious blue. It cuts me to the quick, to realize how cruel he's being even hours after we were in our bedroom screaming at each other… and knowing that he is still fully in control while dishing out that cruelty. Nearly all of the things he's hurled at me when he's been under a flashback episode I have been able to easily forgive because, well, it wasn't really my Peeta who was saying them. To know that he's being this sullen deliberately, well…. It hurts. Also terribly misogynistic, to imply I've been acting shrewish and short-tempered because I'm off the rag. To be quite frank, it sounds more like something Haymitch might say.

Setting the liquor bottle down, Haymitch sighs. "This merry-go-round again?"

I shoot him a warning look. If at no other time, Haymitch had better damn well follow his own rule now and stay out of this. He may still be our mentor, but Peeta and I are grown adults who've been married for close to eight years. What happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom.

The morning had started out pleasantly enough. Peeta and I had woken up early in bed together and quickly gotten around to making love. But before my husband had been able to cum deep inside me, I insisted that he pull out before his release. Peeta had, like a gentleman, though he hadn't been happy about it, and even less when I'd tried to explain to him gently that the contraceptive implant I'd been taking for years had expired and I was waiting for the annual renewal to arrive when the next train comes due, so until then, we have to be careful. As my Healer mother always says, it only takes one time. One moment when you and your partner are not careful.

And I can't afford to not be careful. I can't afford to be pregnant. I can't!

This had, of course, rubbed Peeta the wrong way, as he tried to talk me out of renewing the implant when it arrived. I had steadfastly refused and before we knew it, we were arguing. Yells of My Body! My Decision! had been met with tears and pleading asks about what I was so afraid of? Snow's gone! The Games are gone!

Ever since losing my daddy, I have told myself I would never have children. Not in a poor place like Twelve, where babies just meant more mouths to feed and more slips go into the bowl come Reaping time. Something to love only to become something to lose.

I had even once been firm in my vow to never marry, for what good it did my mother once she became a widow. Since then, I've gone back on my word, and thank goodness I did, to take a different sort of vow. Loving Peeta hasn't been easy, and it certainly wasn't at first, but it became something I needed and made me happy, so how could we not have Toasted the bread? Besides, life's better with company.

But I'll never give my body over to carry a precious creature that could be ripped away from me at any moment, should I get too complacent. I've seen what happiness can bring me, and it terrifies because I've seen how easily I can lose it all. The nightmares don't help in what anyone else, even the man I sleep beside, would surely diagnose as paranoia. But to my ever-protective head, it's only logical. The Games might be gone, but they could come back, unlikely as that is… and I don't want to have a child in the world and in my arms if and when they do.

Now, I look between my father figure and my husband, chin tilted defiantly and glowering fiercely. "If either of you boys has something to say, damn well say it! But I am not going to get pregnant – not now, not ever!"

Peeta's bitterness has changed into something sad, resigned, but also bewildered. "I just don't get you. Panem's been a free country for over a decade. We're as safe as can be. How could you not want to have a baby when we clearly love each other?! A child is supposed to be a husband and a wife's physical embodiment of their love – don't you want that?!"

"And why do you, Peeta?" I ask him quietly. "Why do you want to become a parent? You didn't exactly have the best example, growing up."

He stiffens a little at this, closing himself off, shutting me out. My husband doesn't like to talk about his mother – a horrid woman in her time – and his relationship with her (though she's long dead) will always be complicated. His father, however, was a wonderful man, and I know Peeta misses him deeply. As he does his two older brothers. He cried like… well, like a baby at our wedding, and though he never said so, I know it was because he was missing his family. I cried a little too, wishing that Prim had been there to see the day.

"I'm the last chance there is to continue the Mellark line, to give my dad the grandkids he never got to see."

"Oh, and you want to do it with me?" I feel unworthy of the honor. That's another aspect to this whole impasse – that even if I wanted to be a mother (which I don't), I fear I wouldn't be a good mother, just as my own mother wasn't the best towards me. Just as Mrs. Mellark, the Witch, was the worst towards her son. Peeta's child deserves someone better than me – to love and to nurse it and to teach it.

"Of course I want to have a baby with you. Who else would I do it with? What kind of question is that?" Peeta scoffs, bristling.

"A rational one," I shrug.

"Don't be cute," he snorts.

"Can I weigh in here…?" Haymitch is tentatively raising his hand.

"No, you may not," I cut across him sharply, without looking at him.

Peeta's hands slam into the varnished wood of the table as he suddenly stands quite abruptly. "I just think there's gotta be something more we can do to move on with our lives than just kiss and cuddle and fuck and work on a memory book filled with the faces of dead people! Not that those things haven't been helpful," he backtracks when he sees me lift a matronly, prissy eyebrow more cocked than a loaded gun in his direction. "I just…. it's like Annie said. After Little Finn was born. We owe it to everyone who sacrificed to do our best with these lives."

I feel the guilt churn like acid in my gut. "So you're saying it's my turn to make sacrifices? I shouldn't have to lug around a little human in my stomach for nine months because the Capitol and the people in Town and the Seam and Snow knows who else expects me to!"

"You might feel that way now," Peeta concedes. "…. But maybe in a couple of years…. You'll change your mind?" Now we've reached the cajoling phase – Peeta's puppy dog eyes and promises that he will be patient, he can wait a little while longer, if only I can promise him that we will have a baby someday.

Which is why it hurts me all the more to have to do this, to hurt him in this way. But still, though I feel how my heart howls, I stand up and make damn sure he hears me. "So help me Panem, I will never bear your child, Peeta Mellark!" My voice is like thunder, and Peeta is gawping at me. Even Haymitch looks shocked at how I can hurt someone so.

I nearly burst into tears and take it back when I see how my husband flees up the stairs into Haymitch's room in tears. I want to run after him, hold him, apologize for cutting him in this way, in a way that no tribute could accomplish with a blade.

Still gazing after the spot where my sweet love has fled, I am startled when I feel Haymitch grab me by the arm and tug me out the door. He doesn't grip me tight enough to hurt, but I can still feel the stiffness in his muscles to know that he's enraged. I don't think I can feel much worse in the knowledge that my father figure is throwing me out of his house for my display of shameful behavior, even if my opinion I will make no apologies for.

I'm frog-marched out the door, down off the porch and Haymitch suddenly lets go when we're only to the Village green, halfway across the street. The Victors' Village is dark now, the small, black streetlamps lit down both sides along the rows of mansions, six abreast.

"What the hell, Haymitch….?" I ask.

"That's it. I know you're gonna say it isn't my business what heehawing you and the Boy get to doing in the bedroom, and I get that. Just as I get it isn't my business whether or not you get knocked up. But goddamnit, Sweetheart, you gotta understand that this isn't just about you!"

I sigh. "I know. It's about Peeta, and I'm a heartless bitch for denying him."

"Oh, no! I'm not talking about just Peeta. Did it ever occur to you that your decision about what and what not to do with your body might affect me as well?"

I stare at him, agog. "How in any way does my choice about whether or not to get pregnant in any way relate to you?"

In classic Haymitch fashion, he sidesteps the question, at first. "You know something, Katniss? You're being selfish!"

I gape at him. "I'm being selfish?" I gasp. "You're the one inserting yourself where it's clearly not your business! I know you might have your opinions about my love life, my sex life, Haymitch, but I didn't think you would ever not be smart enough to keep them to yourself! Why now? Why the sudden change? Or do you just think my dropping a baby is what is expected of me?" Even a decade after the war, Twelve can be conservative, traditional, in what it expects from its women. At a certain age, a woman is expected to get married, and then after taking a husband, bring a baby into the world and then fulfill her destiny keeping a home. I've never been about that, and in our married life, Peeta and I have been quite equitable in sharing the duties of running the household. That Haymitch is now placing every sexist expectation on me when he's not my father, when it isn't his business….

"Because if you're the one chance Peeta has of becoming a father, then you're the one chance I have of being a grandfather!" Haymitch suddenly blasts out in a roar.

The Village green is deathly quiet, and my eyes expand so that they shimmer in the moonlight. I almost want to cry that I didn't realize it, though why should I have? Haymitch has always had a unique way of showing affection, though I know he loves us. But he himself never married, all jokes about him and Effie Trinket getting hitched aside. And he certainly never had a kid, at least that I know of.

My jaw is unhinged and struggling to work as I try to splutter out a response. "I… I didn't think that would matter so much to you." And I'm stunned when I realize that Haymitch is actually crying.

"Yeah? Well, it does." He wipes his nose noisily on his sleeve. He fiddles with the untucked hem of his shirt. "My girl and I always talked about having kids – a yard full of them. Growing old together with grandbabies playing at our feet. The Capitol took that all away from me two weeks after I came home a Victor."

I stare at him sympathetically, now wanting to cry too. I've heard the story before, about how, as punishment for his trick with the force field, Snow had Haymitch's mother, girlfriend and little brother all killed. It probably explains in large part why the man turned to drinking. But never before has Haymitch delved into much detail about his past beyond that.

Slowly, I take Haymitch's hand. "What…. what was your girlfriend's name?" I ask. I don't think he's ever mentioned it.

Looking down at his feet, Haymitch sniffles. "Her name was Sierra." And pulling something from his pocket, he clicks it open, holding it so that it catches the light.

It's a locket – rounder than the one Peeta gave me in the clock arena, yet more compact. This pendant is probably about the same size as his trusty flask. The girl who stares back at me is quite a striking young thing – long flowing brown hair, sparkling blue eyes. A smile that's a little more bucktoothed than most, but still cute.

"Isn't she lovely?" Haymitch murmurs, gazing down at this young woman who's been dead for thirty-five years with as much love as he probably had when he first laid eyes on her.

If it were possibly to feel any worse about the things I've said, I do now. Not only has Peeta yearned for an addition to our little family, Haymitch has to. "How…. how many kids did she want to have?"

Haymitch chuckles. "I think she had to stop herself at around five or six. You know us Seam folk – we reproduce like rabbits!"

I stare down at the picture of Sierra again, biting my lip. Wondering what she would think about the chance to become a grandmother, if only honorarily. Then I peer back at Haymitch.

Maybe…. maybe I have been a little selfish. Allowed fear to rule me too much. I suddenly step forward and wrap Haymitch into a hug. He hugs back after a moment.

"Would it make you and Peeta feel better if I said I…. I will think about it? Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but in… in a couple of years? When I'm…. when I'm ready."

Patting my head, Haymitch actually beams. "Well, that's a start."

"And it's certainly a step up from never." We turn at the sound of Peeta's weary voice coming from the porch. Whimpering, I fly to him and kiss him deeply, my tears dripping onto his face.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you!"

My husband smiles sadly. "Me too, sweetheart."

"Forgive me?"

When he kisses me, I melt into it. "There's nothing to forgive," he whispers. "And I shall wait until you are ready. But when you are, let me know."

I smirk. "You'll be the first." And we embrace again.