A/N: My loves, I know you see where this is going, but this and the next chapter will be fairly miserable with torture stuff. I think it's why Mockingjay can be such a drag as a book or a movie. As a Hayffie supporter, I really struggled over whether or not to break from book canon and rescue her just to give Haymitch any relief I could, as he has had almost nothing but unhappiness since the end of Catching Fire. I'll let you find out for yourself the rest, but I felt a quick word was in order. I hope you stay with the story, because we get a little (I mean really, really little) break soon.
As always, thank you for reading! Throw your writer a review!
Haymitch watches Peeta see Katniss. He looks at her. Katniss' face is open and alight. She really loves him.
Haymitch looks back to Peeta. Where Katniss looks as clear and bright as a flame in a lamp, Peeta's face is shuttered closed. He stands up, pushes past the doctors like they're not even there. He reaches out to her, unable to stay away from her another second. He locks his hands around Katniss' throat and slams her against the hospital room wall.
Haymitch is watching, his mouth open, his mind wiped clean. Just as he's thinking, He's killing her!, Boggs is letting fly with a mighty punch. His fist catches Peeta right in the side of his face, knocking him out cold.
The doctors grab him up, carry him to the bed, and someone is sent for restraints. Boggs is shouting orders and three medics run in with a gurney.
He looks at Plutarch. "What the hell?"
Plutarch is watching Katniss get loaded onto the gurney.
"Hijacked," he says.
They follow the medics and Katniss, but are denied entry at the door. Someone brings three chairs. Beetee has been summoned to talk about the rescue, and what might have happened to Peeta. Plutarch has only heard rumors, and doesn't want to unnecessarily raise alarm, especially now Peeta's restrained. That doesn't make Haymitch feel better.
Beetee arrives. He's still in his wheelchair. Last time they spoke, he said it might be a semi-permanent fixture, though he can walk a few steps with a cane.
"How's Katniss?" he asks, and Haymitch loves him a little, for asking that first.
"We don't know. These damn suits never say anything."
Beetee nods, looks at Plutarch.
"The other victors?"
"They seem all right. We didn't get Enobaria. Boggs seems to think her status as a victor from District Two might have meant better treatment and better quarters than the Training Center."
Beetee looks at Haymitch, but says nothing aloud.
"You heard about Peeta?" Haymitch asks. "You have some idea what might have happened?"
Beetee explains about a secretive form of torture called hijacking. He thinks of Peeta, injected with tracker jacker venom and forced to watch his Games, the scariest proposition for any victor, even without Capitol-created fear venom. Then he thinks of Katniss, her face when she saw Peeta, and how certain they both had been that nothing could corrupt Peeta's love for Katniss.
He feels sick. He always feels sick, but now he feels desperate.
"Can he ever get better?"
Beetee shakes his head. "I don't really know."
"Plutarch, was there any sign of Effie?"
Plutarch shakes his head.
Haymitch can't wrap his head around it. They did it, they rescued (most) of the victors, but he doesn't feel as happy as he thought he would. There's still so far to go, including telling Katniss what they think happened to Peeta.
And Effie still isn't here with him.
Haymitch hasn't really let himself think of Effie since arriving in Thirteen. Of course, it's been inescapable at times, the thought of her. Dreams that leave him hard and gasping, pulling the sheets off his cot bed. Dreams that leave him screaming, like he's in mortal agony, until a suit comes in and wakes him up before he can disturb the whole district. And his fears about what Snow is doing to her.
It's harder to banish thoughts of her now, after he had allowed himself to hope for her rescue. He doesn't remember consciously thinking it, but he supposes some part of his mind must have been envisioning surviving this rabbit warren hellhole with her at his side, because now those images seem to be disintegrating. Laughing at her remarks on Thirteen's sense of fashion and décor, watching her choke down a meal in the mess hall without coffee to aid her digestion. Maybe getting into a compartment next to hers, if she wanted.
Has Snow hijacked Effie? Maybe she'll hate him, too. Maybe she doesn't even need tracker jacker venom to hate him. He remembers her last words to Plutarch. "Haymitch would never leave his kids, and neither will I."
A gray jumpsuit, a dark one, not a doctor or nurse, appears, making a beeline for Plutarch. It's hard to tell with these drones, but he looks grim, like one more messenger of bad news.
"Boggs says you should know. The boy's stylist and prep team were executed on live TV tonight."
Plutarch closes his eyes. He holds up a hand, dismissing the suit, or maybe as a gesture to ward off any more information from the Capitol. It's all poisoned. Poisoned by Snow.
Eventually, they're allowed to see Katniss. She looks sick. Her eyes are bloodshot, the collar looks uncomfortable, and she's shivering. He has to watch the hope, the one sustaining hope they've had for months, that Peeta will be returned to them, drain out of her. He wishes Effie were here. She would say something terrible, and he and Katniss could exchange a glance that isn't laced with guilt, recriminations, and misery.
They keep Katniss in the hospital for a few days. It seems like she has spent more time there than anywhere else in Thirteen.
Haymitch keeps waiting for the bombs to start falling, now that Snow knows all of the victors are in the same barrel.
He can't sleep. He starts getting caught sneaking into the hospital to see Peeta.
Haymitch never lets Peeta see him, but there's an observational glass in a wall of his room – it looks like a mirror inside the room, a window on the other. Haymitch can't help thinking of all the rooms in the Training Center that had mirrors.
Somehow, Haymitch has started making some kind of deal with whatever power fuels this world. If they can make Peeta better, they can rescue Effie. All this does is make every setback with Peeta feel like another nail in Effie's coffin, but he can't shake the notion.
He keeps thinking of Peeta's stylist and prep team. Portia. Cinna had done so much to protect her. Maybe too much. She hadn't even known she might need to run.