Haymitch excuses himself from the Viewing Room after checking that Chaff is on his way to the rest, and that Katniss and Peeta are still with the group. He claps the other mentors on the back, says he's going to take a nap. He heard Head Gamemaker is doing something big this afternoon, and he wants to be sort of sober.
He heads to the rooftop garden. Plutarch is there, alone. Moment of truth: is Plutarch about to send Haymitch to some underground Capitol torture chamber? A place where they experiment on humans and animals so their mutts have human reasoning, abilities, or to refine Capitol-brewed poisons and medicines on political prisoners?
A hovercraft appears, and they climb on board, the ladder freezing them in place until they're inside.
Haymitch looks quickly around.
All strange faces.
He turns to Plutarch.
"Where's Effie?"
Plutarch takes a deep breath.
"I went to get her myself. She wouldn't leave."
"What?"
He runs to the ladder controls, presses icons on the control screen to get it lowered, but it just won't lower.
They're already far away from the Training Center.
"Turn around!" he shouts, swinging around on the spot himself to face Plutarch. "Turn this damn thing around!"
"I can't, Haymitch. You know that. My contact in the Training Center control room could only guarantee me five minutes. Anyone not on board at 2300 hours is staying in the Capitol. I went to get her myself, but she said Haymitch would never leave his kids, and she wouldn't, either. I'm sorry."
Knowing it will do nothing, that they have only an hour to get to the arena and rescue the victors, he leans up against the hatch door. There's a tiny window with very thick glass, where he can watch the Capitol skyline recede, and eventually, the mountains swarm up to block even its blue smudge on the horizon.
Haymitch releases the breath he was holding. There's a buzzing in his ears. He feels like he's going to fly apart, burst into tiny pieces and ping around the bottom of the hovercraft forever. He turns to face Plutarch again.
"What's the plan?"
The sooner they rescue the victors in the arena, the sooner they can rescue Effie.
Plutarch makes a follow-me gesture, so Haymitch does, trying and failing to push down all of his terror and rage that Effie isn't with them on this hovercraft.
Effie, who knew about an escape attempt, but not the rebellion. She's smart. He knows she will survive. She has a tight shield around her, and Snow might break it in time, but he would be highly frustrated and irritated with her for a long while yet. Still, if he was flying this thing, he would turn around and rescue her, five minutes be damned.
It was the reason she gave that was gnawing at him.
She was right, and she would learn soon: He would never leave his kids, but he would leave her.
Plutarch has taken him to a command center, complete with a holo of the clockwork arena. They're pulling up tributes by trackers in their arms.
One 12 is moving, the other is perfectly still. There are no stats. This number 12 turns red, and he turns his eyes on Plutarch, who hurriedly explains.
"They knew we had to get the tracker out of Katniss. One of them has succeeded."
He points to 12 and 2, and how 2 has also gone red.
"That was a kill."
Haymitch supposes he knows this from the minute icons giving health and vital stats to the Gamemakers, hovering above and around the numbers. The man must have eyes like a hawk.
The floor suddenly lurches three feet to the left, and Haymitch flies momentarily, before landing painfully on his hands and knees.
"What the…"
"Oh, my god, we've been hit!" says Plutarch.
Someone else says, "We've got eyes on Finnick Odair."
"Bring him in, bring him in!"
"Who do we pick up next? They have missiles, we need to decide now!"
The floor lurches again, but Haymitch never bothered getting up the first time. Maybe they'll all die right here, right now, and that's fine.
"Beetee! Get him! And look, there's Katniss, right next to him. Get them both, and let's go!"
Haymitch struggles to his feet. The hovercraft feels as stationary as it did before, and he runs at Plutarch, grabs his shirt front and screams, "We need to get Peeta!"
Plutarch looks stricken. His face is white.
"We can't."
Haymitch sinks into a chair, and doesn't move.
People move around him, shouting about damage to the craft, orders from someone named Boggs, and Plutarch asks questions that get no answers.
Someone Haymitch doesn't recognize, wearing a gray jumpsuit, comes into the control room and says, "They're here." She looks from Haymitch to Plutarch, and back to Haymitch. "You're Haymitch Abernathy?"
"Can I see them?"
"Follow me."
They walk down a short corridor to the med ward.
"In here."
She stands aside, guarding the door, but from what?
He walks inside, runs the short distance to Katniss. She's hooked up to a few machines, minor scrapes and bruises, and a bandage on one arm. Must be where the tracker was removed. She seems okay. He doesn't know how to read the stats on the med screen anymore than the ones on the Games holo, but he thinks he sees a heartbeat, and it looks regular. He touches her face. Warm, but not hot. She's okay.
Beetee is on a hospital bed right next to hers. He's also plugged into various wires and machines. As he's trying to take in what's been done to him, he hears a faint voice croak, "Hay…mitch?"
Haymitch whirls around. Finnick is lying in the bed behind him.
"Where…are we?"
"Hovercraft. Bound for 13."
"Annie?"
Haymitch hangs his head. "I don't know."
A tear forms and falls down his cheek, onto the bed.
"We just take it one hour at a time. Survive. Till we can't."
Finnick nods. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. "Help me up."
Haymitch hesitates, wondering if a doctor should check him out first, but he doesn't appear hurt. He pulls a wire off his head, a cannula, he remembers, the memory, that terrible time. No. He never thinks about that. He unhooks the needle inserted into a plug taped to Finnick's hand. Finnick sits up not long after. There must have been a mild sedative, but it wears off quickly, and Finnick is standing.
"How are they?" he asks, nodding at Beetee and Katniss.
"They seem okay. Beetee looks like he's bleeding."
At that moment, three medics rush in, clothed in lighter gray jumpsuits, with white arm badges that have the letter "M" in red. They surround Beetee.
A doctor walks in.
"What are you doing in here?" he asks Haymitch.
"I was wondering the same thing," he says, and he walks past the doctor and out of the med ward. Finnick follows him, but stops at the doctor's side.
"If anything happens to Katniss or Beetee, just remember," he turns his face toward the doctor, smiles his arrogant, aren't-I-handsome smile, "I know 30 ways to kill you."
He doesn't wait for a reply, he just joins Haymitch in the hall. He claps Finnick on the back and says, "Let's get some clothes on you."
They re-enter the control room. Several more gray jumpsuits have arrived, and they're all pressing buttons and looking at personal screens.
Plutarch puts his hand on Finnick's shoulder and says, "I'm sorry. I just got word. Snow has Annie."
Finnick falls to his knees and covers his face with his hands.
One of the jumpsuits returns with a sweater and trousers. Haymitch takes them.
"And Peeta? Johanna? Chaff?"
Plutarch takes a deep breath.
"I'm so sorry. Chaff is dead."
Haymitch turns away. He's facing the wall, and he puts Finnick's clothes on a shelf in front of him.
"Peeta and Johanna were picked up by Capitol hovercraft. We barely got out of there. I don't know about Enobaria, but she's not here so…"
Haymitch is falling. He puts a hand out and catches himself on the wall in front of him.
Finnick grabs the clothes and leaves the room.
"I need to sit. And I need a drink."
He walks over to a chair, and sits. Someone brings him a glass of whiskey.
"What's the plan?"
"This hovercraft is en route to District 13," answers one of the jumpsuits. "That's all you're cleared to know."
Plutarch looks at Haymitch, spreads his hands to either side. "What can we do?" the gesture says. He's smiling, the rat bastard. While Peeta, and Effie, and Johanna, and probably Enobaria are being tortured for information they don't have, and killed. And Chaff is…
Finnick comes back in.
"So, when do we rescue them?"
The jumpsuits look at each other.
Plutarch says, "Please, can I speak to my team? Is that all right? Can I have the room?"
The jumpsuits look displeased, but they leave their stations, and now it's just the three of them.
"I wish I could tell you both that we'll turn this hovercraft around and rescue the victors." Plutarch passes a hand across his brow. "I'm not in charge, anymore. I'm not even totally sure what role, if any, I'll have in a place like 13."
The door slides open. There's Katniss, looking bewildered, half-crazy, in her hospital gown.
He recognizes that face, and looks at her hand, wrapped around something. He grabs her, pins her to the wall to stop her from attacking – him? Plutarch? Finnick? Whatever pain she thinks she's in now is about to get 1,000 times worse. He grabs her wrist to look at what she's holding and laughs when he sees what it is.
"So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans." She still looks confused. "Drop it," he says, squeezing her wrist hard until her fingers release the empty syringe.
Once she's seated, Plutarch hands her some food. Finnick is sitting next to her, tears in his eyes. His bottom lip is quivering. Everything he's been through, and now he's lost Annie, too. It's unbearable. Haymitch looks away.
After a minute, he sits in front of Katniss, willing himself not to look at Finnick at all.
"Katniss, I'm going to explain what happened. I don't want you to ask any questions until I'm through. Do you understand?"
She nods. Haymitch can feel something lurking behind him. He knows what it is, and attempts to ignore it as he tells her about the victors' plot, Plutarch's plan, and the existence of 13, the people saving them now.
The thing that was lurking creeps into his guts while he talks, starts traveling upward, a feeling like shaking, a feeling like fear.
They talk about the victors' plan, she seems most confused about that. All the while, the lurking thing, the thing ripping him apart inside, simply rises, gaining strength and scope as it goes.
She looks at him as though seeing him for the first time. Then he watches as the truth settles on her.
"Peeta," she says.
"The others kept Peeta alive because if he died, we knew there'd be no keeping you in an alliance." There, now at least she won't take her anger out on Finnick, who looks as white as a sheet. "And we couldn't risk leaving you unprotected."
Peeta, at his dining room table.
"We're getting Katniss out. Say it."
Then he sees the change in Katniss's eyes. From grief to rage.
"Where is Peeta?"
"He was picked up by the Capitol, along with Johanna and Enobaria."
He can't look at her. He's falling into himself. Soon, he'll be nothing but a black hole, destroying everything around him, just as he has been doing since was 16, and waited for the forcefield to do its work.
Then Katniss does something that brings him back to his body and the present very effectively.
Her fingernails claw through his skin, ripping the flesh of his face.
"You lying piece of shit! You're worthless! You drink and you lie and you let them kill Peeta!"
"You were supposed to stay with him! Protect him! You knew he couldn't protect himself, and you let him out of your sight!"
He won't hit her, but he keeps screaming at her, all of his fear, all of his loathing for himself, pouring out on her, and she does the same to him.
Finnick grabs Katniss's arms from behind, dragging her away. Two jumpsuits materialize and help him drag her back to the med ward.
A/N: And with that we end part two. I want to take a second to point out that this is mostly book canon-compliant. You all have no idea how much I wanted Effie in Thirteen with Haymitch, but Effie's absence from District 13 did give Haymitch a chance to wrestle with some of his demons. I don't think he would have, if he felt like he had to take care of Effie. If you're a Hayffie fan, don't worry! There will be a reunion!
Let me know what you thought of Parts One and Two in the reviews!