Onwards to the final!
Epilogue - There, and Back Again.
They left as suddenly as they came.
Haymitch had no way to explain that 'phenomenon' either.
He had a feeling that it would happen the night before so after he had written the very last sentence to the Hunger Games, he said his goodbyes to Effie, the only self-aware individual among them, and she said hers.
He kissed her and made love to her. He held her as she fell asleep while trying to keep his own eyes open so he could watch her for as long as he could but that was a battle he lost eventually. Haymitch fell asleep with his nose buried in her hair and an arm slung across her torso.
When he woke up to find the house harrowingly empty, an indescribable feeling of loss consumed him. He fled to the kitchen for a bottle, his trusted crutch all those years. It was only much later that he ventured out to scour the village and saw exactly what he expected.
Katniss and Peeta were nowhere to be seen. He grasped the edge of the fountain, feeling his knees going weak. He couldn't will himself to make the walk to town because if Katniss and Peeta were not here then Finnick and Annie would be gone just as well.
It took him a full week before he mustered enough energy to leave the house and made the drive to meet his editor. He wondered then if the week spent wallowing in abject grief was evident on his expression. Trying to explain the reason behind it would be a hell of a story in itself.
"Took you long enough," Chaff remarked, his gaze drifting to the brown folder Haymitch was clutching in his hand.
Grunting under his breath, Haymitch dropped the manuscript of his desk.
"To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting the sequel from you – thought you buried that idea altogether."
"Yeah, well…" Haymitch rubbed the back of his neck. "Have a read, you might like it."
For a long second there, Chaff studied him and Haymitch shifted under his gaze. "You okay, buddy?"
"Yeah," he gave a simple nod and left the office before there could be any further questions.
Chaff called three days later with a booming laugh reverberating through the phone receiver.
"I'm in it," he chortled. "What? Is that your way to compensate for makin' me wait too long?"
"Maybe," Haymitch smirked.
"I like where you're going with this," Chaff commented. "Hell, I even like my character. I'm assuming I got into all sort of trouble with this Cloyd guy, yeah? Twelve's mentor…"
That earned a chuckle from Haymitch because while that backstory did not make it to the main plot, he certainly envisioned it so when he wrote it.
"That could have been you, man," Chaff mentioned off-hand.
For a few weeks after dropping off the manuscript, Haymitch tried to get used once more to the oppressing sense of loneliness. With no novel to write and no one to distract him, it was inevitable that he picked up drinking again.
When Chaff called with an update that his manuscript was being sent for peer review and that he was interested in drafting a contract for the continuation of the series, Haymitch hung up the phone. He was not in the best of mood to be pressurised into writing something again so soon and with a deadline dangling in front of him to boot.
Ever since he left Chaff's office, something his friend said had been nagging at the back of his mind. It felt important except that Haymitch couldn't understand the significance of it or how it could help him at all.
At his wits' end, he decided to call Chaff and only then did it occur to him that the phone calls had stopped coming. Chaff had been ringing every once a week hoping to convince him into signing a contract but the fact that it had stopped for a while now seemed odd to him.
"Put me to Chaff," he said once someone answered his call on the third ring.
"I beg your – Mr. Abernathy?"
"Yeah, Julia, it's me," he affirmed. "Is Chaff there?"
"Chaff?" the receptionist repeated which only drew an irritable sigh from Haymitch. "You are being funny, aren't you?"
"What? I'm not. He went out for a drink or something?"
"Mr. Abernathy," Julia said impatiently, "I really am quite busy. Your manuscript is still being reviewed and I will definitely give you an update when there is one to give."
"Listen," Haymitch raised his voice a little. "Get me Chaff now."
"Why do you keep asking for Chaff? The only other person I know with that name is that character in your book. Stop messing around, Mr. Abernathy."
For a long time after Julia had hung up, Haymitch was still staring at the phone receiver, his ears buzzing from the conversation he just had.
That could have been you, man.
The only other person… character in your book…
Could have been you, man… Could have been you…
"Oh, shit," his head snapped back as the realisation dawned on him.
Haymitch scrambled up the stairs to his study.
He stared at the extra copy of his novel and then to his typewriter, tilting his head contemplatively.
The truth was plain and simple. Chaff was gone, and he had a terrible suspicion of what just happened.
His oldest friend was nowhere to be found.
Which meant that Haymitch had no one left and nothing to lose.
Effie was in that world he created along with Katniss and Peeta. All the people he cared and had grown to care were not around leaving this an empty and desolate place for him. He knew he couldn't return to the life before them. He had tried for weeks and struggled.
There was a way for him to change this. He could change his own fate and his own story.
That very night, he painstakingly edited Cloyd out of the narrative.
Life was about taking risk except it would only be a risk if he actually had something to lose. With a frightening determination, his fingers flew across the keyboards, typing his name into the tale.
Haymitch Abernathy, the only surviving mentor of District Twelve.
XxX
When day light broke and fell across his face, he blinked awake. Stretching to loosen the crick that had developed overnight on his neck, he took in his surroundings. He had fallen asleep on his desk and he was sorely regretting it.
Haymitch glanced around, a crease between his brows. He was quite certain that he had fallen asleep on the desk in his study, not the kitchen where he woke up but he could be wrong. If the bottle on the table was anything to go by, he had been drinking.
It seemed that nothing had changed, he thought with disappointment. He was still in his house wearing the clothes he wore yesterday.
Haymitch sighed.
Perhaps it had not worked.
Stepping out of the house, Haymitch grabbed the bucket and his eyes went wild, darting here and there, looking for his geese that were clearly missing.
"Of course," he gasped. "I don't have any fucking geese. Cloyd didn't have any damn geese."
He could almost shout in jubilant if he was the sort but he didn't. Haymitch rounded the house and skidded to a stop when he saw a woman clad in dark purple blouse and matching skirt with a pastel purple wig tottering on her heels. She was making her way over.
"Effie," he whispered once he recognised who she was.
She walked closer and then shot him a startled look.
"Oh," she blinked and then she smiled that wonderful smile which convinced him he had made the right decision. "I was not expecting you to be up already. What a pleasant surprise!"
"Yeah," was all he could say because he was still staring at her.
"Will it be foolish of me to hope that you will be up and ready for the Reaping as well next year or is this a one-time miracle that I should be thankful to have?"
Her tone was teasing as she tugged on the collar of shirt before smoothing the creases. When she realised it was futile, she dropped her hands to her sides with a small pout.
"Effie..."
Her gaze flew to his face.
"Well, well," she beamed. "You finally did learn my name."
Haymitch blinked. She was acting as she didn't really know him and perhaps she didn't. He paused to internalise this and played the entire conversation back in his head.
The dialogues they just exchanged were never in the book but the book was written in Katniss' point of view which meant that this conversation was entirely possible.
"What – which reaping is this?"
She shook her head at the oddity of his question and promptly turned on her heels. Haymitch followed since there was nothing else to do but that. Just before they reached the Justice Building, he stopped.
"We're going for the Hunger Games reaping, yeah?"
"Yes," she answered in a clipped tone, as if the Reaping was the last place she wanted to be. The change in demeanour was not lost on him. "What else could there be?"
Grabbing her arm, he spun her towards him.
"Sweetheart, it's me."
In that moment, Haymitch struggled to keep control of himself instead of crushing her into a hug or a kiss. He missed her. He missed her and it was very apparent to him that she had no memories of what they used to share but he needed to try in case there was a memory that needed to be jogged.
"Yes, Haymitch, I am quite aware of who you are." She looked at him a little oddly and he let out a frustrated breath. "Do take your seat. It is time."
He tuned out everything else. He already knew it. He wrote it all; the Capitol propaganda, the tired, terrified faces of children standing in the square, the unbearable heat in Twelve and to the parents fidgeting with restless, anxious energy at the back. This was a dystopian, terrible world and he had written himself into it. One day he might regret it but right now, he couldn't take his eyes away from Effie Trinket, and she was all that mattered.
Without thinking of it, he stood up and enveloped her in a hug. She was stiff in his arms, nothing at all like how his Effie would have reacted and he knew right then that he couldn't just pick up where they left off.
When he released her, Effie patted and righted her wig, and if the look she sent his way was anything to go by, she was furious.
They would get where they were, he promised. She wasn't the Effie that he knew, not yet, but there were layers to her that needed to peel away to get to the person she was hiding underneath. She was not a puppet, he knew that, but right now, she was here and so was he.
They were existing in the same world again, together.
This might be her world and his alternate universe but he remembered telling her about alternate universes once. No matter how the world was carved, the fate of the characters was bound to follow the same path and their path had just crossed again.
He knew how this story would end the moment Effie called out Primrose' name. While he might not have written the sequel to the Hunger Games, he had a vague idea the direction they were all heading sooner or later. He could have had an easy, boring life as a writer but here, he would have a family; a dysfunctional, adopted family but still one nonetheless.
Right now, he was about to meet Katniss and Peeta.
Yep, I am perfectly aware this story is insane. It's over now but I still had fun writing it. As usual, please drop a review to share your thoughts. Were you guys expecting him to write himself in ?