Prompt: Chaff survives, has kids. He and Haymitch get to watch the second generation playing together.
Take Me To The Lake
Haymitch's grey eyes tracked the mad dash of the small blond girl who was chasing after the curly-haired boy in the backyard. The geese gave a honk of protest when the children swerved too close to the pen but neither of them let that disturb their game.
He couldn't help but smile when he heard the familiar giggles of his daughter. Fuck but his heart swelled with love.
"You look like a proud peacock." Chaff mocked, leaning on the back porch railing next to him.
The back door had remained open and he could hear the women chatting inside. He listened at the familiar quick staccato of Effie's voice for a second, checking she was alright because it was habit, and then finally shrugged. "What's not to be proud about?"
Chaff's dark gaze followed the progress of his son as he tried to escape his own daughter – not quite as easy as it looked because the girl was fast on her feet. The man chuckled. "I know, right?"
A soft genuine smile stretched Chaff's lips. Haymitch was certain he had never seen his friend like that before. So… content. It was like a glimpse of what the man could have been if the Hunger Games hadn't wrecked his life.
"You should have one." Chaff advised.
He frowned. "What?"
He shrugged. "A kid. You and Effie, you should have one."
Cold fingers twisted his stomach. The sharp hint of fear.
"What are you talking about?" he scoffed. "We do. She's right…" But when he turned back to the yard, there was only Chaff's son playing alone, chasing butterflies or whatever it was children did all day. "Where is she?" His heart racing, he opened his mouth to call her name and realized, with a sickening feeling, that he had forgotten what it was. It was on the tip of his tongue but… His panic quickly increasing, he looked at Chaff and…
He was alone on the back porch.
He looked at the backyard but the boy had disappeared too. The grass was taller, the place looked abandoned despite the shabby pen in the corner and the honking geese in it. He whirled around and darted inside the house, giving in to that feeling of terror…
Inside, the paint was peeling, garbage bags were piled up high in corners, the occasional rat scuttled away…
"Effie!" he shouted, blood pumping with adrenaline. The house felt dark and he knew it was empty. It was… "Effie! Effie! Effie!" He called and called and called, searching every room. "Effie!"
Something sharp pricked his big toe and he looked down with a hiss, taking an instinctive deep breath. His lungs hurt as if he had been underwater the whole time. He blinked and, as his heart rate started to slow down, he realized he was sitting in bed – their bed in their bedroom in their home – he was panting, the sheets and his shirt were socked with sweat. But, most importantly, Effie was standing at the foot of the bed and she was holding one of her knitting needles like a weapon. He was ready to bet she had just stab his toe with it and he was grateful for it.
"It was a nightmare." she said quickly, keeping her voice calm and soothing. "Just a nightmare, darling. I am right here."
Still a little out of breath, he flopped down on his back, pressing his hand against his chest. "Shit."
"Are you back with me?" she asked, hesitantly coiling a hand around his ankle.
"Yeah." After a second, he nodded. "Yeah. That fucking hurt."
She squeezed his ankle and came to sit next to his hip. "Do not be a baby, I did not even draw blood." He flinched at the b word – and it wasn't the blood one. She caught it, of course, because had she ever missed anything? "Does it really hurt? I am sorry. I tried to wake up you but you were becoming so agitated… I thought it was a night terror and you were not answering to my voice… You didn't react when I tossed pillows at your head either… That usually does the trick. You were screaming my name… I was at a loss."
"That's fine. You did good." he muttered, rubbing his face with his hands.
"Are you alright?" she asked tentatively.
He dropped his hands and studied her for a moment. She must have turned on the light when he had first started thrashing because only the lamp on her side of the bed was lit. She looked tired and worried. "Should go back to bed. Sorry I woke you."
She waved a dismissive hand. "Do not be daft. I wake you up often enough."
"Still…" He made a face and swallowed, hauling himself to a sitting position once more. "Don't think I wanna go back to sleep. I'm gonna go downstairs…"
And possibly drink a whole bottle. Maybe two.
She must have known because she pursed her lips. "Why don't you go take a shower while I change the sheets, to begin with? Then, we can go downstairs and I will make us some tea. We can watch the sunrise. It has been a while since we last did that."
She made it sound as if it was a cute thing they did and not a habit they had developed when she had first moved in and nightmares had kept her up all night. Watching the sun rise over the horizon with swollen red eyes that meant a nap would be in order for that afternoon…
But he would take watching the sunrise with her every day over that cold lonely house in his dream. The thought was enough to make him shudder.
He wished the nightmare would simply disappear like most of them did. Night terrors usually left him with a vague sense of dread, fear and disgust, not… His memory of it was too clear and he hated that.
"You don't have to…" he tried and immediately shut up when she glared. Her fierceness made him chuckle albeit tiredly. "Fine. A shower and some tea sound good."
Her pursed lips stretched into a small satisfied smile. "Good."
Maybe the kids had a point and he was whipped because she certainly got him to do what she wanted more often than not since the end of the war.
He dragged his tired body to the bathroom, barely remembered to toss his sweaty pajamas in the clothes hamper instead of leaving them on the floor – he didn't want a fight so early in the day – and then shuffled into the shower stall. He turned on the water and let it flow over him. It was lukewarm at best for a few minutes before the boiler kicked in, making a damn racket throughout the house – he probably needed to have a look at it again – and the water turned hot. It was never scalding hot, not like in the Capitol, but it was good and it help relax his tense muscles.
He didn't want to mull over the contents of his dream but even though he tried to keep his mind empty, his brain didn't seem to be able to stop thinking about…
He abruptly turned the water off, toweled himself off before wrapping it around his hips and wandered back in the bedroom. The bed was made and the room was empty. He wished he didn't feel the pang of fear he did.
"Effie?" he called before he could control himself.
"In the kitchen!" replied her – mostly forced – cheerful voice. There was a pause and then. "Don't you dare come down without proper clothes on! It's freezing downstairs!"
Of course, it was freezing. It was the middle of winter and the fire must have died down. He wasn't the one who usually prattled around with too short dresses and clothes that weren't appropriate for the weather. He slipped on woolen socks, flannel sweatpants and a shirt, mumbling under his breath all the while about bossy hypocritical women.
He stopped in the living-room even though he could hear her move around the kitchen. Clearly, she had made an attempt at stroking the fire and, not unexpectedly, she had done it wrong. He wasn't sure how many more times he would have to teach her how to build a fire or how to use the fireplace. It was her third year in Twelve and she still didn't know how to do it – and she didn't care to learn because, as she had pointed out, when he wasn't around, she could always pop over at the children's and ask one of them to do it for her.
"Here you are." She smiled at him, carrying two steaming mugs. She carefully handed him one before sitting down on the couch. "Herbal tea. Spiked. A spoonful, mind. And that counts for your daily dose."
He grumbled but sat down next to her, placing down the mug on the floor because it was burning hot. She put hers on the console next to the couch.
It didn't use to be there, that console. It used to gather dust in the study he rarely used. It had become part of her great renovation project two years earlier. She had cleaned it and had forced him to sand it and then they had painted it over… He had protested all the time it had taken her to turn his tomb of a house into the home it currently was. She liked bright colors and he had made a face every time she bought or painted something in bright yellow or – for fuck's sake – pink. He had protested the fluffy curtains on the windows and the flower pots outside. He had protested when she had convinced him to buy a new couch and a new mattress. He had protested when she had sold all the junk he had gathered from his various trips to the city over the years to buy more stuff…
He had protested but she had made his house their home and now there weren't any garbage bags hidden in corners, the house smelt fresh all the time and the paint wasn't peeling off the wall.
He stared at that console with its ridiculous-shaped lamp and the pile of fashion magazines under her pink mug with a sparkly crown he had bought her for her birthday and he felt so fucking grateful that his eyes prickled. He rubbed them and pretended he was just tired.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
It was asked casually, like she would ask about the weather in the morning, easily dismissed if he wanted to. Neither of them were great talkers when it came down to nightmares. They had their own demons and they didn't like talking about them. It gave them too much power.
Still, it had become rare enough for one of them to have a nightmare lately.
He tried to remember the last time they hadn't made it through the night and he drew a blank. He had slipped into their predictable life with so much ease… He loved that it was predictable, boring even sometimes. He liked that they had routines and the domesticity… Oh, he would have thought he would hate it but it was the exact opposite. He loved the domesticity, the intimacy. He loved how easy it was despite the daily bickering and the recurrent nagging. They didn't know how to be together and not fight but it wasn't the explosive battles of their youth, it was… It was good.
And, he mused, staring at that console, maybe he had started taking it for granted.
"It was Chaff." he muttered.
She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh."
The grief was so huge suddenly that it threatened to drown him. He hadn't really had time to mourn Chaff. After the Quell… He had known his friend was dead, of course, he had understood that, but there had been no time to stop and… It wasn't until the year after the war, the year Effie had spent in the city angry at him, that it had really sunk in that he couldn't call his best friend, that he would never see him again, that…
Mostly, he had made his peace with that but, sometimes, the grief just came back, powerful and overwhelming.
A hand covered his and squeezed his fingers.
"I know how much you miss him." she whispered. There was a yearning in her voice and he knew her own thoughts had turned to the friends she had lost during the war. To Crane probably, even though that name was never uttered under this roof. That was probably unfair. But she didn't talk about the Capitol much, not about her life from before at least.
"Wasn't a bad dream at first." He shrugged. "We were out back watching…" He faltered. He didn't want to tell her what they had been watching because the memory of that little girl made him feel all sort of regrets and he had never wanted kids in the first place. Effie… It had been a sacrifice on her part, a testament to how much she loved him that she had given up on the thought. She couldn't have them, that much was true, but there were ways to go around that and she could have gone and found herself any man to… "Then, he was gone. And the house… It was like before. I couldn't find you anymore."
"Good news." She flashed him a smile and leaned in to press a soft kiss against his lips. "You found me."
"And thank fuck for that…" he sighed, resting his forehead against hers. "It was just… intense, I guess."
"I bet." she snorted. "Chaff would not be thrilled about us, I suppose. Perhaps it is your subconscious having second thoughts about my living here…"
She was teasing. Mostly.
She wasn't as confident in their relationship as he'd have liked. Neither was he. She was scared he would get bored and kick her out and he was scared she would get bored and remember just how much she loved her city.
"My subconscious…" he repeated, drawing away from her to grab his mug even though it was still too hot to drink. It helped to hold something in his hand and to know that something was somehow alcoholic. Even if he was trying to cut down. Even if she was watching the amount he drank like a hawk.
My subconscious wants us to have babies, seems like.
He didn't say it.
He didn't say it because it would have been cruel.
They were too old.
She was too old to safely carry a child even without her medical condition and all the problems her stay in the Capitol prison had left her with. There was no guarantee he wasn't shooting blank either. They didn't bother with protection anymore and no accident had ever happened. Nobody would let them adopt a child and finding a surrogate…
She had made her peace with never having kids of their own and putting the topic back on the table now, because a dream-Chaff had told him they should have one… He thought about that little girl in his dream and he felt a yearning but did he really want one? Did he really want to curse a child with him for a father? Not really.
And it wasn't like they didn't have kids.
They had Katniss and Peeta. Maybe, someday, if the boy got his way and the girl let herself be convinced, they would have grandbabies…
It was enough.
They had missed their window for more but…They weren't supposed to have any future in the first place. An escort and a victor? Chaff had been right from the start, it had been tragedy in the making. And yet they had managed to build this. That life he loved so much. And it already felt like a miracle in itself. Asking for more would be greedy.
"He looked happy." he said eventually. "It was a good dream until it wasn't." He shook his head and took a sip of scalding tea that burned his tongue. "Don't know."
He had this sick feeling that this was a dream too. That he would wake up drenched in his bed with dry puke on the pillow like he had a hundred times before and that the house would be just as terribly empty as in his nightmare because she wouldn't be there, because she had never come back in the first place, because he didn't deserve her and deep down he knew that and…
"Well…" she said and she looked a little sorry for him. "How about we do something nice today? To take your mind off that dream?"
"Like what?" he mumbled. His eyes darted to the clock. It was close to four a.m. They'd probably be dead on their feet by noon.
"We could go to the lake?" she suggested. "Katniss said it had frozen over. Do you think we could skate?"
He couldn't help a smirk. Ever since he had brought her ice skating to the lake her first winter in Twelve, she was always begging him to go back – and they had been back many times. Ice skating, as it had turned out, had been a cherished hobby in her childhood.
"Is that for me or for you?" he teased.
She batted her eyelashes, a slow grin stretching her lips. "Both. Because you know how I am always freezing afterwards… You do enjoy it when you have to warm me up."
He chuckled and impulsively wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tugging her against him. She curled against his chest with the ease of habits, snuggling into the side-hug.
"Never want to live without you again." he confessed into her hair, surprising even himself. "Couldn't."
"A good thing you will never have to." she replied, pressing her mouth against his neck.
She mouthed three words he wasn't yet ready to hear out loud.
It didn't matter.
He felt them down to his heart.