Thank you to Sparky She-Demon, Ro-Lee, Randommmfanatic, and my guest reviewer. Sorry for not responding to anyone's reviews this time-not in the best place right now.
Pride
For once, Haymitch is stone cold sober. He has that much respect for her at least. And if either of them deserved to be drunk right now, it ought to be her. Maysilee plays with a loose thread on her nightgown, studiously ignoring Haymitch's shirtless state. They're perched on opposite ends of her bed, which she thought enormous when she first laid eyes on it, but now the distance doesn't seem anywhere large enough.
Maysilee thought they would have more time. She thought Snow's loaded comment meant he wanted her and Haymitch to continue working on their relationship, and if it got to the point of sex, great, and don't worry about contraceptives.
Not even a week after they returned from the Games, a baby rattle arrived in the mail.
Neither she nor Haymitch was happy about Snow's obvious message, but even though they were in agreement, that didn't stop them from fighting about it.
Finally, one of them—Maysilee isn't even sure which one—shouted, "It's just sex! Let's just get it over with."
And now here they are.
Maysilee clears her throat, a little longer than necessary. "You've...done this before, right?"
He nods jerkily.
"With Larkspur?"
"Yeah. And. Uh. Two others."
Her hands nervously twirl around her hair. "Okay. That's...good?" Maysilee had never even kissed anyone before Haymitch in the arena. She figures it's just as well at least one of them has some experience, lest it be even more uncomfortable than it already is.
"If you say so," he mutters.
Maysilee clasps her hands. "Well, we should probably just...get on with it. The sooner we start, the sooner we're done."
"Fuck it." Haymitch surges over the bed, grabs her shoulders, and kisses her hard.
She stills with shock, even as heat kindles inside her. Then forcefully—reluctantly—she pushes Haymitch away. "What are you doing? We're just—we're just doing it, nothing unnecessary—"
"Sweetheart, if we're going to have sex, it sure as hell isn't going to be clinical. If you can't accept that, I'm getting out of here. So what's it gonna be?"
Maysilee thinks about it for all of five seconds. Then she clasps her hands behind Haymitch's neck and pulls him in.
The next few months are surprisingly idyllic. Haymitch seems to have something against having sex inebriated, so he's drinking more in moderation. And the sex is...good. Very good. It doesn't take long for their friends to realize what's changed between them, and they become the butt of many jokes and teasing insinuations. In the fall, Maysilee discovers she's pregnant.
In the fall, Haymitch swiftly returns to his former habits.
Soon all of District 12 seems to know that Maysilee is expecting, and they seem to know that the second she was, Haymitch resumed drinking himself to death. The pitying looks grow the more her belly protrudes, and the more she increases, the more Haymitch drowns himself in his bottles, as if he won't be able to see her rapidly changing size that way. Her parents have never been that fond of Haymitch; now they positively dislike him, as he does nothing to help her during her pregnancy.
"And all that alcohol around your house?" her mother exclaims. "I know you aren't drinking it, but still. He should know better. He should do better."
But Maysilee endures, as she always does. She ignores the looks of pity, she ignores Haymitch's descent into self-destruction, she ignores her parents' complaints. Instead, she focuses on books about childcare and looks up healthy recipes and goes shopping with Rose and Marj for baby furniture and clothes. They try to make everything as gender neutral as possible before they found out whether it's a boy or a girl.
It turns out it's both. She's having twins. And that revelation is what finally makes her crack, what finally breaks the dam holding back her emotions, what causes her to choke out horrible, ugly sobs as Rose and Marj try to comfort her.
She's on the cusp of eighteen, she's taking care of an alcoholic, she's playing one of the main roles in the world's biggest joke of a romance, she's going to be a mother, she's going to be having not one but two babies—two, that means twice of everything, twice the tears and feedings and diapers, twice the stress—and for all that she lives with Haymitch, she's alone.
Sometimes, she still finds herself wishing she'd died in the arena.
Maysilee cries herself to sleep that night. It's a good, deep sleep, and she thinks that must be the reason she wakes up feeling refreshed and clear-minded. She opens the window in her room and lets the morning sun warm her face. No, there's no point wishing she were dead, that something else happened to change the past. The facts stand:
She is Maysilee Donner.
She is a Victor.
She survived the Capitol.
She is going to be a mother.
That last fact sinks in, and all of her plans and priorities shift to revolve around it. In a few months, two helpless infants are going to enter the world, and she is going to be responsible for them. She'll have her friends and family as support, but ultimately it will be up to her and her alone to care for them. From now on, her children come first, before anything else.
Before anyone else.
One day when Haymitch is out, Maysilee meets with Rose, Marj, Jon, and Dell. They gravely listen to her intentions, they argue, they debate, and finally they agree with her. They'll help her with her plan, but—Jon and Dell insist—she has to give Haymitch one last chance.
"Don't you think," she asks Haymitch one evening, "you could try to stop drinking so much? If not for me, then for the children."
His response is an unintelligible mumble and another swig from his bottle.
Jon and Dell are resigned.
Haymitch is at the Hob when Maysilee goes into labor. Rose asks her if she wants Jon to get him. Maysilee declines. The labor isn't as long as she feared it would be, especially considering she's giving birth to not one but two. By sundown, she's holding her son and daughter in her arms.
A song comes to her mind, an old one that she discovered in a forgotten library book. Even your light dies when it rains, and ash is all that still remains. It's a love song, and a very sad one at that, but it's not like real life has happy endings either. "Ash and Rain," she whispers to her children. And then, because she can't bear to completely plagiarize their names, she amends, "Ashton and Lorraine."
Her parents have come and gone to see their new grandchildren. Rain and Marj are sitting inside with her when Haymitch finally comes stumbling back. Jon and Dell are on the porch waiting for him, and the girls can hear their conversation.
Haymitch wants to come in.
Jon and Dell refuse.
Haymitch wants to see his children.
Jon and Dell refuse.
Haymitch curses them and tries to barrel past them. Jon and Dell easily block him, drunk and swaying as he is, and as they're dragging him away—Jon has offered to keep him in his home in the Seam for as long as need be—Haymitch shouts for her. "Maysilee!"
She shudders, and Ash whines as he's jostled.
"Maysilee, please! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
She thinks back to the arena, when candy-pink birds attacked her and she screamed, screamed, screamed for Haymitch. He saved her. But she can't save him this time. She can't save him anymore. Not until he gets better—if he gets better—and proves that he deserves to be in their children's lives.
Maysilee gently rocks Ash and hums soothingly, while on the inside she's shattering into a million pieces.
Worry not, there is an epilogue coming!