Title: From the Ashes

Rating: MA

Genre: Angst/Drama/Romance

Characters: Katniss/Haymitch; Katniss/Peeta

Summary: What could possibly be more dangerous for Katniss Everdeen than The Hunger Games?

Author's Note: Takes place at the end of Mockingjay when Katniss and Haymitch return to District 12. I own nothing. Please ignore any typos…my brain certainly does. Katniss' POV.

Maybe it's knowing that there are no expectations from Haymitch, or maybe it's my own desperation, but being with him is easy. I don't have to talk unless I want to, and any time I need to forget, he's right there to wipe away the memories.

It doesn't take me long to realize he's not drinking anymore, but I don't ask him about it. One thing is for certain, though. Whether drunk or sober, Haymitch can't cook to save his life. "How have you survived this long on just alcohol?" I ask as I try to make a meal out of whatever meager ingredients he has stored in the cabinets. It's definitely not much, and I make a mental note to have Greasy Sae come here to make whatever meals she's supposed to cook for me so that Haymitch eats, too.

Eat, sleep, sex. It becomes almost like a routine after a few days, but Haymitch is teaching me so much about giving and receiving pleasure that there's nothing else I want to do. I can't help but wonder, since he's been so alone for so long, where he learned everything he knows. He's already told me once before that the Capital didn't whore him out the way it did with Finnick; and I can't imagine that with as crass and drunk as he always is he would have too many willing callers. Had he and Mica done these things together? I want to ask him, but talking about Mica with him is like his bringing up Prim with me. I know it'll shut him down and I don't want do that to him…but superficial conversation is starting to wear thin.

As we lay together, sated from our latest exploit, I decide to phrase the question in a way that doesn't directly bring up Mica. "Haymitch…where did you learn all of this?"

"All of what?" His voice is tired and I can tell he's already on the verge of sleep.

"Everything you've done with me."

He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. "Finnick's wasn't the only sex slave in the Capital, sweetheart. Not hard to find some you could pay for a good time."

"You paid for sex?" I know I shouldn't be surprised, but the only time Haymitch ever went to the Capital was during the games. I feel horrified by the thought that he was wasted on alcohol and sated by sex while my predecessors in the Games were being slaughtered.

"I wasn't exactly going to get it any other way." The gruff tone tells me he's starting to get annoyed, but I'm still too quick to anger…too quick to judge everyone else around me.

"So rather than get sponsors for your Tributes, you just decided to spend your time eating, drinking, and fucking. No wonder they all died."

I know I've gone too far, even before Haymitch throws me off of him. I bounce across the bed, landing on the far edge. Haymitch is up, grabbing his robe, and is nearly out the door before I can blink. I jump as he slams the door so hard the walls shake. I sit there for a long time, knowing I should go and apologize to him, but I can't find my nerve. I hear the shattering of glass downstairs and pull myself out of the bed, grabbing his shirt and haphazardly buttoning it up as I run to the kitchen.

Haymitch is slumped on the floor, back against the wall, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. I can see the twist of his mouth and I know at once that he's crying. I stand in the doorway, frozen, gaping at him. An apology seems completely inadequate now, but I have to do something. I see the mess of broken glass and amber liquid and know that he's broken a near-full bottle of alcohol. I swallow the lump in my throat and slowly move towards him.

"Just leave me alone." He tells me in a rough, but broken voice.

"No." I say, my own shaking slightly.

"Do you know what it was like?" He says suddenly, dropping his hands away and looking me with angry, red eyes. "Can that tiny little brain of yours imagine how it felt to watch those kids die year after year? To know that nothing you could ever do would save them? To know that no matter how hard you try, no one would ever sponsor a kid from District 12?"

I sit down on my knees in front of him, but I don't answer him. I don't need to.

"You were the only one I could get sponsors for, Katniss. The only one." He drops his head in his hands again. "Do you have any idea what it was like, coming home—alone—after the Games, facing their families? They blamed me just like you do. It's as if I'm personally responsible for each of their deaths. I don't know…maybe I am…maybe I should have done like you said and told them just to kill themselves as quickly as possible."

"Stop it." I tell him, unable to cope with the guilt he's carried for so many years. I understand now why the alcohol was never enough, why he would have sought out something else to ease the pain. A tear cuts a fresh path down his cheek and I lunge at him, wrapping my arms tightly around him. "Stop it."

Haymitch clutches me against him, burying his face against my shoulder as he breaks down the same way I did with him that day on the steps of the Justice Building. All I can do is hold him, stroke his hair and rub his back, as he lets it all out. I'm so under qualified to deal with Haymitch's break down, but I know I'm all he's got. Has anyone ever been there for him? The thought nearly kills me and I hold him tighter.

I don't know how long it takes before Haymitch cries himself out, but when he finally does I can feel how bone-weary tired he is. He's leaning so heavily against me that I'm practically all that's holding him up. I have no idea how I manage to get him to his feet, but I take him to the living room and deposit him on the couch, knowing I can't support him all the way up to the bedroom. I throw a few pieces of wood into the fireplace and light a low fire, then I find a blanket, drape it over Haymitch and sit with his head in my lap. He stares blankly at the fire as I stroke his hair and I finally find my apology.

"I'm sorry." I whisper.

His eyes close for a moment before they slowly open again. "It's okay."

"It's not." I swallow the lump of guilt. "I'm a bad judge of character. I always jump to the wrong conclusions…mostly about you."

"It's nothing new, Katniss."

The resignation in his voice hurts me more than his sarcasm would have and I feel tears sting my own eyes. "I'm sorry." I tell him again, not knowing what else to say.

His hand finds one of mine and squeezes it gently. "It's okay."

I lace my fingers through his, holding to him tightly as I continue to stroke his hair. Eventually Haymitch drifts off, and I watch him sleep. The slight crease in his brow tells me he's dreaming, and I can only imagine what horrors I've dredged up for him. I let myself cry for Haymitch while he sleeps, pitying everything he's had to endure alone. I remember what I'd said to him before the Quarter Quell, about how life would be miserable for him whether he was in the arena or not. There had been pain in his eyes, but he'd responded with his usual sarcasm. If his life had been so wretchedly depressing, how had he not just ended it? I wonder if maybe he had tried to kill himself, but—like my own attempts—he hadn't been able to succeed because someone always stepped in. The Capital maybe? Finnick was their whore, why couldn't Haymitch be something like that.

I was the example. I hear his voice in my head. Haymitch had defied the Capital in the same way Peeta and I had with the nightlock. He had used the Games to his advantage, and they had made him pay. Through the death of his family, Mica, and his continued involvement as mentor to the other tributes. Haymitch's punishment was life.

As sleep starts to take over me, I find myself wondering if they did something to Haymitch to make him incapable of dying. My dreams are filled with images of the people I love, all on the verge of death, but unable to succumb to it. I'm forced to watch them suffer as they beg me to end their pain. Prim, Peeta, Gail, my mother. They're all there. Finnick, Cinna…Haymitch.

I awake with a start to find that the sun has come up and I'm alone on the couch.

"Haymitch?" I sit up and look around.

"Kitchen." He slurs. I sigh, realizing he's getting himself good and drunk again. I pad into the kitchen, not caring that I'm still dressed only in his shirt, and sit across from him, pulling my feet up on the edge of the chair and wrapping my arms around my legs.

"I thought you stopped drinking."

"I did." He nods. "Now I'm starting drinking."

"Why?"

He blinks slowly, his face showing annoyance. "Why? Why do we do anything we do? Why do I drink? Why did Peeta paint? Why do you come to me for sex?"

"Peeta paints because it was his talent."

"No, sweetheart; Peeta painted to try and cope."

I watch him take another swig, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand as a few drops escape his lips. "Is this because of me? Because of what I said last night?"

He slams the bottle down on the table. "I've got a newsflash for you: Not everything is about you! In case you haven't noticed, the world doesn't revolve around you—never has. Who gives a shit if you were the Mockingjay. If it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else. Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but you're not as special as you think you are."

My eyes are stinging with tears. I know he's drunk and angry and will probably apologize later, but right now it hurts because I know he's lying. At least about the part where he's not drinking because of me. "Keep telling yourself that, Haymitch. Maybe one day you'll really believe it."

I don't wait for him to say anything else as I get up and go change into my own clothes. I gather up what few things I brought here, and walk out the front door, slamming it behind me the same way he did last night.

"Stupid, arrogant, pigheaded, selfish bastard." I grumble as I cross to my house.

"I've been called worse."

The voice stops me dead in my tracks, my heart leaping into my throat. I whirl around and see Peeta a few feet behind me. Where had he come from? For a minute, I don't know whether or not I should hug him. The last I'd seen him, he was still working through figuring out which memories were real and which ones weren't, and whether or not he wanted to kill me.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, rocking up on the balls of his feet, then back on his heels. "Sorry…kidding."

I blink, still not believing he's really here, and simply stare at him.

"They deemed me fit for society." He tells me, reading my mind. "Guess they don't think I'm a danger anymore."

"Are you?" I can't help but ask.

He thinks about this for a minute. "I don't want to kill you right now. That's something, right?"

I sigh and move to hug Peeta the way I've wanted to since getting him back from Snow, like I would have the day he decided to choke the life out of me. "I missed you so much, Peeta."

"Me too…I think."

I laugh, knowing he's joking and he pulls back. "So I take it you were talking about Haymitch a minute ago?"

I can't help the noise of disgust that escapes me at the sound of Haymitch's name.

"So, nothing's changed there."

I can't tell Peeta just how much had changed, about the solace Haymitch and I had found in each other. Guilt begins to bubble in my chest as I face the fact that I single-handedly destroyed anything that might have existed between me and Haymitch. I'm a terrible person. "No…" I lie, looking past him to Haymitch's house. "Nothing's changed."

It takes a few days for me to trust Peeta again enough to be close to him the way we were before the rebellion. We sort through the remaining distorted memories he has, playing his Real/Not Real game for hours a day. I take him through the town, where people are still working to clear rubble and gather the remains of those who perished. Peeta stands for a long while in the scorched wreckage of his father's bakery as he comes to terms with everything he has lost. After a while, I move in beside him and take his hand in mine to show him that he still has me.

Haymitch hasn't surfaced since I left his house, and I assume that he's still trying to get to the bottom of every bottle he owns. We'll see him when he runs out of alcohol and needs more. I feel guilty for abandoning Haymitch, but that was the agreement wasn't it? Just until Peeta comes back? Besides, if he's so put off by me, then I doubt he even misses me. I try to tell myself that I don't miss him either.

Real or not real. I think to myself one night as I lay in Peeta's arms. You love Haymitch.

I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to even think about the answer to that question and curl up tighter against Peeta, as I force myself to fall asleep.

TBC