A/N: I don't know about you, my lovely readers, but for me it was a relief to get back to present day, sad Haymitch, even though I loved writing about younger, not-yet-so-sad Haymitch. There was a point as I was writing this where I felt doomed, because it was really meant to be a 5 chapter fic, not an exploration of the entire THG universe haha.
Anyway, I would dearly love some comments, even if they're short, even if they're critical, I just want to know what you all are thinking. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're enjoying it!
**Present Day**
Haymitch eventually accepts he will not sleep tonight. He finishes his drink, fills a flask, and heads back to the Viewing Room.
It's been a long time since he's thought of his early mentoring days. He supposes the 51st Games was also the last time he was this sober.
The room is empty when he arrives, so he supposes everyone is still asleep in the arena.
He settles into his usual seat, watches the live feed, which is concentrating on the 12/4 alliance for no reason he can see. He checks his watch. Nearly 2am. Shit, they must be in a part of the arena about to be triggered.
There's nothing he can do, not without raising suspicions about how he knows so much, and they're not in a position to lose Plutarch.
Katniss is awake. She'll sound the alarm. He thinks it's poison fog. Plutarch said it's deadly, but slow moving.
He brings up Chaff. He's breathing heavily, like he can't catch his breath, and shaking so badly he has to sit. He keeps turning around, like he's hearing something behind him. He's wet, a combination of rain in the lightning section, and because he's sweating like crazy.
The Careers are sleeping, with Brutus on watch.
Haymitch watches the fog roll in, the four reacting and abandoning camp.
With one eye on them, he pulls up Beetee, who's sleeping next to Wiress and Blight, while Johanna keeps watch and tends to her ax.
His four are struggling. Peeta's prosthetic keeps getting tangled in the foliage. He watches with tears in his eyes as Mags, sweet Mags, walks into the fog so Finnick can concentrate on helping Peeta.
He remembers he's being watched, and blinks back the tears. Drinks.
Just as they're clear from the fog, they fall into the next wedge, monkey mutts.
He thinks he's about to see Peeta die, again, when Brin jumps out of nowhere and saves him.
Once the monkeys walk back into the trees, Peeta takes her to a good place as she draws her last, labored breaths.
Haymitch's heart is beating so fast. He sets his drink down.
Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick are going to rest again.
Other mentors start to trickle in as morning gets its start.
He puts in an order with the Gamemakers, for the medicine his tributes need. It will take some preparing and he wants to be notified the minute it's ready. They're all scratching and scratching and scratching, even Peeta and Katniss, scratching in their sleep.
A little while later, he gets the notification that the medicine and bread are ready. He okays the medicine, asks them to hold off on the bread, though it's vital they get it in soon.
Just as he gets a notification from the Gamemakers that the medicine is being sent, Katniss says, "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little medicine."
They all smile at that.
He waits, watches for the right moment to send the bread.
Katniss had understood the timing of his gifts so well last year, he's counting pretty heavily on her understanding this year, too.
She and Finnick pull a prank on Peeta, and he gives the order for the bread.
Plan's still on, as far as he knows, and now Finnick knows, too.
Two days from now, they should all be on a hovercraft to District 13.
Crack.
Chaff leaps to his feet and his feet slide in wet mud so he lands, slap, on his ass again. He grabs his spear and gets to his feet again.
He's in a massive storm. Gale force winds are whipping the trees and dense foliage around him into a frenzy. Sheets of rain are riding the wind, coming in sideways, and even upways if they get caught on a draft.
Chaff needs to find better shelter. He picks a direction at random and starts jogging. He's too out of breath, his stomach and intestines hurt too badly for him to flat out run. He realizes he's not too steady on his feet, either, and falls a few times.
He takes another step and he's out of the storm. The sounds of the storm continue. He turns around and sees something only a Gamemaker could create.
Like he's looking through a window, Chaff sees the storm, hears its ferocity, the rain, the wind, and a brilliant strike of huge, forked lightning. He could stick his hand into the storm, and the rest of him would still be in this still space outside it.
Bong. Bong. Bong . It sounds like the gong that announces the start of the Games after the 60 second mark. He waits for some sort of announcement after a few seconds of silence following the twelfth Bong but there's nothing. The storm fades with preternatural quickness.
He turns around and keeps jogging. He's awake now. He might as well look for Katniss and Peeta.
He walks and jogs and rests, occasionally spearing a tree for water. His belly is too torn up to attempt eating.
Just as he's about to make camp for the night again (he's fallen three more times, and is afraid of passing out and not waking up), he hears a rustle in the trees near him.
He readies his spear, cursing his missing hand. He hadn't realized, until he was in the Training Center, how much it affected his balance with a spear.
Coil's long face appears, her dark eyes shining in the little moonlight reaching them through the trees.
"Chaff?"
With a sob, she throws herself at him. He puts both of his arms around her, swinging his spear upright so it's still in his hand, but not about to stab her.
He smells her fear in her sweat, and thinks he must smell about the same. It's so good to be close to someone again, he doesn't care.
After a few minutes, they release each other.
"Are you alone?" he asks.
She nods.
"I'm sorry about Seeder," she says, looking up at him with the moonlight reflecting on her eyes, magnified by tears.
He puts his stump on her arm and says, "I'm sorry about Anode."
She nods again, and looks down at her feet.
"Of all the ways I thought the Capitol could humiliate and torture us, I never thought of this."
He laughs. She looks up at him and gives him a grudging half smile.
"Did you make camp?" he asks, pointing with his arm in the direction she had appeared from.
"Of a sort. I didn't make it to the Cornucopia. I don't have any supplies or weapons."
He follows her through the trees, and tells her there were no supplies in the Cornucopia, just weapons.
She has set up a sort of blind. It's not very good, even in the dark, but considering she did it with nothing but her two bare hands, he's impressed.
She tells him she's been searching for water, and he stabs a tree for her. She cries again as she drinks from the tree.
"You get some sleep," Chaff says, settling down behind the blind with her. There's just enough gaps in the branches he can see anyone coming. They'll see him too, if they get too close, but there's no help for it.
She lays down with her head in his lap. He can't let go of his spear, so he tells her a story, quiet as he can be, about growing up in 11. He hears her breath become deeper, more even and trails off.
They switch off a few hours before dawn. Chaff can't sleep. His breathing isn't easy, a massive headache has come to stay, but it's nice to lie down with his eyes closed, his head on Coil's thin legs. She plays with his hair till the sun comes up.
"We need to find Katniss and Peeta," he says, after stabbing another water tree. Coil drinks her fill and moves away, so Chaff can kneel before the tree and drink the water that is slowly bubbling out.
"I can't," she says.
Chaff keeps drinking. He rises to his feet slowly, and puts his stump on her arm again.
"Come on. I'll be with you this time. We can even go to the Cornucopia, find you a weapon, too."
She shakes her head. Her eyes are filling with tears again, and she closes them.
Chaff lowers his arm.
"I don't want to be alone," he says.
She opens her eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'm just…I'm too scared."
He closes his eyes and sighs. When he opens them, he sees her looking so miserable.
"Hey. We'll meet again, huh?"
She attempts a smile. Her lip is trembling and it's slightly ghastly, but he takes comfort from it anyway.
He leans down and kisses her on the forehead. She looks surprised, but pleased, and stands up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.
"See you soon," she says.
They look at each other, drink in the sight of a friendly face.
Then Chaff heads back the way he came, toward the storm, and she crawls behind her blind.
After about half an hour, he thinks he's about where he woke up the night before, he's found a ragged hole in a tree from his spear, when he hears a scream from behind him. Too far away, but he runs toward the sound anyway. He hears a titanic rushing sound as he runs and isn't able to place it. He steps in a puddle of water, lapping forward, the puddle growing bigger and bigger, so it's rising to his knees.
He doesn't know what it means, but all of his instincts are screaming at him to leave, so he does, and runs back the way he was going.
Chaff thinks that must have been Coil screaming. Poor, scared Coil. Too afraid to move, and that's what got her in the end.
His withdrawal symptoms worsen. Sometimes the shakes are so bad, he just has to lie down where he is at, heart pounding with fear and adrenaline, breaths coming too sharp and fast for oxygen to reach his brain. He's sick into the foliage, expelling water. He's sort of glad he has no appetite for food.
He has to sleep, too. He starts getting confused, not sure what he's doing. Peeta. He needs to find Peeta.