CHAPTER THREE

PART ONE: THE AIR

I think about needing Katniss for days until I manage to accept that Haymitch is right. Some part of me - the old me, I call it, or the before me - needed her more than anything. The new part, the one laced with venom and nightmares, still does. At night, it's hard to fall asleep because my arms feel like they're missing holding something. In the day, I crave to bake sugar cookies and cheese buns just to see Katniss' rare smile.

But it's no use when the flashing images come. Of Katniss mutating into a dog-like mutt, or a lizard. Of being confused by shiny versions of her telling me she didn't love me, and a non-shiny version of her kissing me in the snow. Of seeing blood on my hands, washing them, and realising nothing was there.

In my weekly calls to Dr. Gregor back in the Capitol, I tell him about the things that plague me and he reminds me that being in back 12, it's going to feel worse before it gets better. The place is haunted by memories, but it's also where I was determined that I belonged. He tells me to be kind to myself. To treat myself like I would a friend, if I can. To take everything slowly.

So, I do. I bake, I try to paint. I see Haymitch every other evening or so. On the first day of spring, I visit him to see his geese.

It's a two minute walk to his, and the door is wide open when I get there. Surprisingly, his house is much cleaner than expected, and without the smell of stale liquor. It almost doesn't feel like his house.

"Haymitch? Are you home?" I call out.

Somewhere from near the back of his house, he calls back distantly in his usual gruff tone. "Over here!"

I find him in his back yard, a gruff looking place compared to what it's supposed to look like. The grass is mostly dead and tufty after the cold winter, and the trees bare with their rotting leaves still littering the bases. Haymitch himself is crouched over a crudely made hutch that's surrounded in a thin chicken wire. In his arms is a goose rapidly swinging it's wings. It almost looksl ike the thing is trying to beat him up.

"Are you okay?" I ask, concerned but also finding the whole situation undoubtably funny. Sae had told me about Haymitch's geese, but it was a whole different thing actually seeing them.

"Obviously - OW! Gerroff me -" he grumbles, ending up pushing the thing away, "obviously not."

The goose ruffles its feathers back into place before going to nip Haymitch with it's beak. He yelps and tries to jump out of the coop they're in, but the chicken wire goes too high and he ends up falling over, face first into the mud. This time, I can't help but burst out laughing.

Haymitch wipes the mud off his face with a sleeve that already looks plenty muddy to me. "Laugh away - she's egg bound! Do you know what'll happen if she doesn't get that egg out?"

"OK, OK. Sorry. Can I help at all?"

"No, leave her for now. She's already riled up. If you're still here in an hour, you can help me pick her up and give her a salt bath," he says.

"Haymitch, I only live across the road. You can call me for help whenever," I reply, but he just shrugs. He's never been one to ask for help, I think. It's actually pretty unbelievable that he's even tried to right now. I decide to stick around an hour anyway, just so I can help.

He pulls himself out of the coop properly, unsuccessfully trying to dust himself off of the dirt and grime. "We need Hazel back around here," he says lightly. "I can't seem to get the stains out of these."

The comments hits me hard for some reason. I'm not dragged under by twisted venom flashbacks, but I'm pulled away by another type of flashback. Of me, when I was starting to get better but then forced to go with Squad 451 into the Capitol. Katniss, the Leeg sisters, Finnick, Jackson, Boggs... Gale. Him promising to kill me if I went rogue. Me wanting that. Me wanting to go rouge, even, just to stop feeling the way I did...

No, I try to tell myself. These are dark thoughts, a dark place. I was there, but now I am not. Where am I? In Haymitch's back yard. It's muddy. It's a little cold, but there's the smell of spring in the air. I can see hear the honks of his geese.

"Where is Gale?" I manage to ask.

"He went off to two." Haymitch replies. "Got some fancy job in the new government."

"Did his family go with him?"

Haymitch nods tersely. I find myself being unable to blame them. After everything, you'd want to be close to your family. Then, remembering, I ask, "What about Katniss' mother?"

"She went off to four. There was some kind of hospital being opened there and they wanted her to be a part of it," he explains.

"She just left Katniss? After Prim?"

"It's difficult, Peeta..." Haymitch starts. "It was too painful for her to be back here."

I feel myself getting hot with anger. "It's difficult for Katniss, too!" I say. "She needs her mother!"

"They phone all the time. Katniss understands why her mother had to go, just as her mother understands why Katniss wanted to come back."

"But... but she's alone," I say. The anger starts to simmer, being replaced with concern for Katniss, plauging myself with images of her lying around and letting herself rot.

Haymitch lifts his eyebrows. "She doesn't have to be."

I let his words sink in, as always. I know he's right. I know I need her.

But it's terrifying, knowing you need someone so much and knowing there's a part of you, an uncontrollable part, that could destroy them in a moment.