"I need a drink," Haymitch announced to the other three.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and Peeta will send some white liquor down?" Katniss suggested with a slight smile.

"I mean water, smart ass." He retrieved the spile that she'd thankfully stowed in her suit, and headed for a suitable tree, trying to ignore the itching of his burns, and failing miserably. The water poured out into a new woven bowl that Finnick had made.

A slight sound attracted Haymitch's attention, and he caught sight of something on the periphery of his vision, though he didn't look up. The slightest thing could turn mutts fierce, he knew that, and whatever was up there was big. It put the carnivorous rodents in his Games to shame.

He stepped back from the tree slowly, intended to back up to the shoreline. Hopefully if he didn't make eye contact, it wouldn't move. If it did, Katniss and Finnick should swim for the Cornucopia. The District 4 tribute knew that was where they were to meet their other allies, and he could take over for Haymitch until Beetee arrived with a way to take down the force fields.

"Katniss..." he called softly.

"I know..." was her tense response.

So, the creatures were there too. There was a good several metres between him and his allies, and he wasn't sure he'd make it. "Katniss... you... Mags... and Finnick... need to go... swim... for the Cornucopia."

The beasts were converging, moving around him in the way that predators will encircle the prey. Single out the weakest link, the old or the sick – or in his case, both – and attack. He would try to outrun them if he could. Maybe he could even reach the water, he still had this floatation device.

A split-second before he'd made the decision to run, the beasts seemed to sense it, and one came flying at him in a flurry of claws and teeth. Haymitch impaled it on his spear, shrugging the beast off and defending himself as another one swung down from the trees. He smacked it away before it could rip a hole in his face, but he felt a blinding pain as claws made contact with his back.

"No!" Katniss shrieked, and he felt the creature thud into him lifelessly as an arrow took it in the vitals.

Haymitch was trying to press back towards the beach, but the creatures – he thought they might be monkeys – were regrouping and attacking with disturbing co-ordination. With a sinking feeling, he heard Finnick shout, "Katniss!" followed by quick footfalls.

In the din of screeching monkeys and bodies flying at him, he sensed Katniss arrive, taking down monkeys with her arrows. A moment later, Finnick had joined them, using his trident with expertise to kill the creatures.

Haymitch wanted to shout at her to run, to stop being so stupid and leave him behind, but all his energy was going into stopping himself from being mauled. He impaled beast after beast on his spear, trying to get in a lethal hit when he could, but mostly just trying to keep them away.

Without even realising it was happening, he could see they were being split up. He caught a glance at Katniss and Finnick, who were metres apart, and not behind him as before. How had that happened, were the monkeys that capable of tactical manoeuvring? With mutts, you could never be sure.

Haymitch watched in horror as Katniss fired her last arrow, taking a monkey straight in the head before it could tear Finnick's head off. Another soon arrived to cover it though, and she raised her bow as though it were a shield. It would offer no protection against those creatures.

He struggled to reach her, but the beasts were blocking his path, desperate for his blood. A woman screamed in pain.

And then, it was over. The monkeys retreated like the mist, drawn by some unheard summons. Haymitch looked to see Katniss, to make sure she wasn't too badly hurt. He quickly realised though that she wasn't the one who had screamed. It was Mags. He'd thought she'd stayed behind, out of the fight, knowing that she would be no use there. But he'd forgotten that she came into the arena with the same purpose as him – to protect the Mockingjay, whatever the cost. And she had done that far better than him, at the cost of her life.

Katniss stood there disconsolately, watching the woman who had just saved her life slipping into death. Finnick fell to his knees, taking the frail old woman into his arms tenderly. She whispered something to him. Haymitch's ears couldn't decipher it, but Finnick drank it up like a man dying of thirst. He gave her a sad smile, and she stroked his cheek, tears gathering in her eyes. When they glazed over, they knew she was gone. None of them moved.

Finnick looked up, and Haymitch expected to see an accusation there, for bringing down the muttations on them. All he saw was pure grief. As a victor, death was something they knew too well. Finnick had already been a mentor long enough to have seen his tributes die repeatedly. It never got any easier though, and he had known Mags longer than most. She was a grandmother to him, and he'd lost her to save a girl he barely knew, for a rebellion that could cost him everything.

They returned to the beach with Mags, where Finnick weaved garlands for her body. It was too reminiscent of Katniss's final moments with Rue, and the girl couldn't hide her tears. She sank her face into Haymitch's shoulder, and he held her as she sobbed silently, her shaking the only indication.

Finnick finally let Mags slip into the water and be taken by hovercraft. His mouth was moving in some private goodbye, but they couldn't hear the words.

"You okay?" Haymitch asked quietly.

She hardened herself, pulling away. "I need to go collect my arrows from the bodies. I'm all out."

"I'll go," Finnick immediately offered. He got to his feet, his face calm, but the sheen of tears on his eyes spoke volumes. They nodded, knowing he would need time alone. It didn't seem like the monkeys would return now that their bloodlust was sated, and besides, he had his trident while Katniss was weaponless right now.

They set up camp on the beach to wait out the remainder of the night, and by the time Finnick had returned, his face blotchy and tear-stained, Katniss had fallen into a fitful sleep. Haymitch tried to hold her arms to stop her scratching her scabs so much, but it just made her thrashing worse so he let go. He wondered if she was dreaming of the attack they'd just suffered, or her last Games, or some horror her mind had thought up on its own.

Instead, he settled himself next to her, and let her head rest against his knee as he smoothed her hair soothingly. He wasn't sure why, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. It didn't stop the scratching, but it seemed to reach her subconscious, and she stopped jerking fitfully.

Haymitch smiled in satisfaction, and continued to smooth her hair. It was gratifying to offer this meagre help, knowing that so far he'd had to rely on two other people – one of whom had died in the process – to keep Katniss alive. In fact, in the last fight, she'd almost gotten herself killed coming back to help him. He'd thought that with Peeta out of the way, she might be less inclined to martyrdom, but apparently not. He should have known – how many people offered to take their family's place as a tribute?

It would only be worse after the 74th Games. It had been the same for him. That need to save lives instead of take them. Especially after his family were murdered, he needed to do something. He'd desperately tried to keep his tributes alive, year after year. But what was he supposed to do with frightened, starved kids, who had only a few days to learn how to use a weapon, no skills and not even any decent stylist to make them more appealing to sponsors. He hadn't even had Effie then. Every one of those tributes had died. Some straight away, heading into the Cornucopia bloodbath when he told them to stay away. Some did stay away, but without survival skills, they died of hunger, of thirst. Most of them didn't even have enough sponsorship to send them a loaf of bread on the first day.

He'd already started to drink by that point. The only other mentor of District 12 was years' deep in the bottle, and when piles of dead tributes were added to his nightmares, Haymitch soon followed. The two of them drank themselves into a stupor, him increasingly snappish and abrasive, her dead-eyed and distant. They reached an unspoken agreement to stop trying. He supposed he'd traded in a little of his humanity with that decision.

Haymitch frowned at the sleeping girl, still smoothing her ruined hair back from her skin. Why would you want to save me?

Apart from the scratching, Katniss almost looked to be sleeping peacefully now.

The second parachute fell silently to his feet, and Haymitch scooped it up. Inside was a large tube of some kind of cream. He sniffed at it and squeezed a bit onto his hand. It must be useful for something, and since Peeta was the main provider of gifts, it would be something that he thought Katniss would need.

Since he couldn't give her an antidote for bad dreams, Haymitch had a sneaking suspicion what it was. He rubbed some paste onto his burn scars, and was rewarded when they cooled and the itching stopped. He quickly woke the others so that the three of them could finally get some relief.

As dawn began to break, the first piece of bread came, a fishy loaf. Haymitch eyed it. Count. Count the bread. Well there was only one here, did that mean that there was only one day left to wait? He would only find out when they received more to confirm a pattern. Until then, they had allies to meet up with.

...

The others arrived ahead of schedule, tumbling onto the beach not far from where they were. Covered in some red mess – which looked disturbingly like blood – it was hard to tell who they were. When Haymitch drew closer though, he could make out Johanna's infuriated shouting, and guessed the person ambling around was Wiress.

"Johanna!" Finnick called, running over to meet her.

The girl looked unbelievably relieved to see them, but couldn't hold her temper with Wiress, who was bumping into her saying 'tick-tock'. Johanna shoved her away, and Katniss snapped "You leave her alone!"

Johanna looked at her disbelievingly for a moment, before smacking Katniss hard across the face, smearing her with blood. Finnick dragged her towards the sea to wash her off as Johanna shouted "I got them out of there for you! For you!"

Katniss frowned. "What does she mean?"

"You wanted Nuts and Volts as allies, sweetheart, and Finnick wouldn't join us without Johanna, so I told her she had to fetch them to us," Haymitch lied through his teeth.

"More secret plans, Haymitch?" she asked in annoyance.

Just you wait, sweetheart, I've saved the best 'til last. That was starting to bother him. He wasn't sure how pleased she would be when she found out the truth behind all this. It was for her own good... but he wasn't entirely sure sometimes whether he was doing this because he wanted to see the rebellion spark, or because he wanted to stop the Capitol taking the last two people he cared about. The rebellion, he told himself sternly. That was most important.

Katniss took Wiress down to the water to wash her off as the woman mumbled 'tick tock' at her.

Haymitch looked from Wiress to Beetee, who was lying prone on the sand. One of his techs was out of her mind, the other seemed at death's door. Just perfect. How did he kill the force field without someone who understood electrical currents, wiring and circuits?

He went to Beetee to give him what help he could, washing and binding the wound on his back under Katniss' instruction. He looked at least a little more hale once he was no longer covered in blood. There was something clutched in Beetee's hand, delicate gold wire, wrapped around a spool.

Haymitch hid a grin. Whatever Beetee had in mind to take down the arena, this wire was key. He supposed the rebel insider must have planted it among the weapons, knowing that they would need to shut down the force field to leave. That meant it had to be one of the gamemakers. Definitely a risky but valuable position for a rebel.

Now they had the main body of the team together. They just needed Beetee to convalesce enough to do his part so that Katniss could be taken to safety, and the rebellion could truly begin.