Author's Note: I would like to thank all of the lovely people interested in my first real fic. It's been really fun to write and discover my method of writing fiction. Lots of love to reviewers to Apple, RigbyJuneLennon, BlackMoonQueen, reader93, sparrowismyhummingbird, and Biancaniece. Okay, enjoy!
Katniss POV
Prim. Peeta's hands, bleeding. President Snow's atrocious breath. The eyes of the muttations. Peeta's eyes. Haymitch's eyes.
No more alcohol for me.
Haymitch is too heavy and fading fast, but his door is unlocked. There are no formalities. I let myself in and shoulder him once more before shoving him onto the worn and moth eaten couch.
Tears form, held at bay only by the familiar pain of teeth drawing blood from the tongue.
Haymitch.
The odious stench of his house is no longer the odd yet inviting, fragrant promise of pancakes and smiles and talks. Instead, coupled with tonight's events and Peeta's booze, I want only to vomit and die.
Luckily—and not surprisingly—the only injuries that Haymitch sustained are minor: a cut on the knuckle of his ring finger and a runny nose seem to be about the only pressing issues at the moment, and hardly rival anything that Peeta has undoubtedly suffered.
Peeta. Suffering. Again. Because of me.
Haymitch is fast asleep, and for the first time in months I feel like I want to cry… but I can't.
I was doing all right, thanks, with trips to the downtown of what was once the Seam. My home was burnt to the ground and had risen from the ashes as an industrial wonderland. The place had remained stark, but in a lovely, comforting, understated minimalist fashion—clearly a generous Capitol architect's representation of the old District 12. The same went for me at the fall of the Capitol. I was still broken, hopeless, rundown old Katniss Everdeen, but now I was the Mockingjay. I was the same at the end of the day, but I was built stronger, smarter, shinier, more resistant, and more resilient. I wasn't afraid of anything because the worst had already come. Yet like the flowers that curiously bloomed from the sterile, white window boxes placed in the window of every downtown shop, there was a spot of color, a spot of spontaneity, a spot of brightness in the boring, neutral landscape of my life. Enter Haymitch.
Yes. Drunken, cantankerous, belligerent, acidic Haymitch showed up and listened. Sobs melted into laughter, and the worst resignation and despair simply became acceptance and calm.
Everything felt real.
But, of course – and oh, do I know this best! – nothing can last forever.
So here we are: blurry and tired and whole-heartedly hated and utterly alone, and yet the tears don't come. I'm not surprised. I find it likely that after the horror of the Games and the Capitol and the destruction of everything that I've ever known, I am probably incapable of producing tears. I've cried them all out. So I sit.
I sit, like my mother used to, staring at nothing in particular, relishing the emptiness, until the knock on the door. There's no question. I open the door, and the first things that I see are hands. Bloodied, glass-coated, sun-kissed fingers that run into delicately dough-kneading palms and then chiseled forearms and next a good but slightly demented head on the shoulders.
A fellow Tribute. A friend. A lover. An enemy.
There is no hate. There is no joy. There is no elation, and there is no anger; there is only the familiar numbness as I sigh and step aside, letting Peeta into Haymitch's house. Logic would warn against this, but logic has abandoned the sphere of my existence. Silently, I move to the cabinet with the first aid supplies. If anything, I owe him this. I had caused the problem, and now I was going to amend it.