The real mocking

Chapter 11

"The pictures." I whisper.

"Just don't let them get to you." He says softer. He releases me and looks at me and smiles. "Want to go sit in the sun?"

I nod. We take drinks onto the deck. It needs scrubbing because the geese, who seem to have made themselves at home, are not particular about the glob business they are determined to decorate every surface with. I feel him watching me though he is trying not to let me know it.

"Where is our liquor?" I look at the bright sun and the heat of it feels like it could bake me.

" We have determined that we do not carve each other up as bad when we are sober."

I look at him. "So I hurt you, when I drink, is what you are saying."

He looks at me, his face carefully blank. "I am saying that we do not recall our actions when we are blacked out. You will find scars on yourself I have no explanation for. They were going to remove you from my care. We had a ugly scene, of some sort. They accused me of raping you and tried to, well it was …I agreed to anything they wanted to keep you here. You spent a week in their hospital screaming. Two more weeks calling for me. They took some of your memories to help calm you down. They promised that they were only going to remove the trauma, but it didn't work. I have not seen you a moment since that time."

"Haymitch. You didn't rape me. They didn't get that one. I remember." I say eyes wide with hope.

He can't quite hold his face still. "I am so sorry sweetheart, I was told you would never remember. Something in you knows, because once a month or so you get very angry with me. When you said that to me just now, I couldn't take it from you. Not all the way. I can lie to the others, but not you." His eyes are so full of hurt and love that I slowly get up and fold my knees up and move back on his lap.

He wraps his arms around me and whispers into my hair. "Be careful, they do monitor me. If they think I have broken the agreement, they will take you from me. All the comfort you need my love, but not in that way."

"I will just lay here and talk to you. Thank you for not breaking my heart. I didn't want to live if it wasn't true. I love you and you are the only one I remember ever being with."

His lips press against my temple. "And you are the only one that ever mattered to me sweetheart. I loved when I was young, but you are my truest dearest moment in my whole horrid life."

"I don't understand how I was still a virgin, if what you said happened during my trial." I say confused. "I really think I was a virgin, I remember it hurt a little that first time." I say softly.

He blushes. "I had you, repaired. I did it for you and Peeta, for later. Not for me. They had done such severe damage; repair was required for you to …function. After the real harm was repaired, the other small procedure ,for years, had been done; it was a popular course of action among young ladies at the capital, who wished to relive the first time. I wanted you to have it returned to you, because what they did was not your choice."

I sigh with my head on his shoulder. "Can you tell me what else is real? Did I wander? Did I speak to the dead? Did You ask me and give me a mockingjay ring? Did you and Effie fight over me? Gale, did he bring you papers once at the capital?"

"You won't remember sweetheart. I don't want to waste our few moments rehashing. Let me hold you. Let me be at peace with you and know that there is still my girl in there. I had lost all hope." He closes his eyes and nuzzles my neck.

"What happened that finally broke me?" I ask raising my head to him.

He chewed the inside of his lip then his eyes dropped from me. "I almost died on you. You warned me what your little ghosts had told you. I was too confident. It was our forth trip to the capital, when we went to the park. They killed me before your eyes and if we had not been meeting Heavensbee, I would have bled out. You went insane. There were four of them and you ripped two of them apart with the knife you removed from me. You cut them apart and set the head of one of them on top of Finnicks bronze trident. Then you simply had to be shot with a tranquilizer dart. By the time I was recovered enough to get to you, they had filed paperwork to institutionalize you. There were sympathetic people who fought for you. But the footage of you was hard to refute. Thank Gale again."

"What about my mother. Did she help?"

"Katniss she is the one who had me arrested for abusing you. She hates me and thinks I had brainwashed you long before you killed President Coin. I almost lost Peeta too and yes they accused him of being in on the abusive treatment they felt you had sustained under my care. It has been one nightmare after another." He smirks. "I told you long ago that I would only be physical with you. You have not been here, awake, even one time, not really. It has not been any kind of issue other than dissuading you from your delusions."

"If I stay?" I ask softly.

"Then perhaps we could have you declared sane and could reevaluate our position, but I will hold not hope for that. I want every moment with you until you slip again and then I will long for you as I do, and watch your face each day with hope that you will return to me, even for a moment." He studies my face with a soft smile. He tucks my hair behind my ear and draws me to him, kissing my lips with gentle adoration. My Haymitch is here.

"Snow? Was him being alive real?"

"Yes, we are still searching. Peeta had a more severe version of your own procedures done, but they were much more successful on him. He may be to blame for what happened to Annie. We will never know. But he functions well for the most part. He has seizures and he can't be the man he was, but he is not mutt either. I don't know how to explain, because the answer is complex. Do you remember the pictures of what they did to him?" he sips his tea and puts the icy glass on my forehead, cooling my face.

"I remember his eye and a halo of blood. He was dead." I close my eyes trying to remember the details.

"He was an amazing person Katniss. Even death did not stop him from loving you. It was that deep and that true. There were patches of him left, like wildflower seeds in a mind that had been plowed under. They have grown back. There is a lot of Peeta there, not all of him. But each season, he returns, more gentle, more like who he was. Don't be afraid of him." He says and shakes his head, "And don't be unkind to him."

"Haymitch what is going to happen to us?" I feel like there is something he's not telling me that is going to be really bad.

"We will live each day until goodbye." He whispers closing his eyes and taking a deep breath enjoying the sun.

The sun marches to the roofline of the house then slithers behind. The weather was warm in the full sun but I shiver in the shade, unable to regulate my body temperature since I have been burned. I don't ask to go inside though; I don't want to break the contact with him.

"Katniss, If something were to happen to me, what would you want. I mean would you prefer to go to your mother? I can't think of one of those institutions, but I don't know what else to do to provide somewhere to stay for you. They can't just leave you and Peeta alone. I need to know your instructions." He says growing tense as he speaks.

"What is going to happen to you?" I know I am scowling at him but I raise my head to look at him.

He grins. "I have missed that face, sweetheart." He chuckles and pulls me back to his chest.

I finger his bandages and realize what he means. "You are afraid what Sae said is going to happen. That me, in the painting, will run through the woods with your head as a prize or something. She really did serve us people didn't she?"

His stomach rolls in silent mirth. "A time or two she did. Her peacekeeper porridge was quite in demand at one time, long before you were born. Back in the bad old days when I was a new victor, we sometimes needed to dispose of a body quickly. She never could stand to waste an ounce of meat."

"Delightful. But if I murder you, they can just string me up. Those are my instructions."

"As always, your plans suck my sweet little bucket of sunshine." He shakes his head. "Good to know I can always count on that." He is being playful and despite the subject I smile at him.

"So now that we don't drink and we can't …what do we do? Can we hunt?" I ask.

"Yes, stay with me until tomorrow and I will take you hunting,"

"Sounds like a bribe."

"It absolutely is. Do you think it will work?" He leans up and I have to get off his lap. We head back into the kitchen.

Peeta is there, stirring his proof into dough. "Do you want cheese buns or something different?" He asks but doesn't turn around. "We have plenty of stew, I was thinking maybe an herb loaf."

"Surprise me." I say quietly.

"Would you like to speak to Gale?" Haymitch asks. "I can call him. It would do him well to hear from you."

I look at him for a moment, and then nod. Haymitch picks up the phone and dials a set of numbers from memory, gives his name several times and I hear a female voice say "Congressmen Hawthorne's office how may we help you."

"Jensen you lovely creature, It's Abernathy, I need to speak to him at once please." His voice is both measured and commanding. The female voice replies with fondness and clicks are heard.

"If this is horrible news Haymitch, I would rather you just spit it out, I am in session." I hear the voice say in a distracted tired tone.

"Not bad news for once. Have a moment to speak to a mutual friend?"

"Haymitch? Are you kidding?"

He hands the phone to me. I feel like I should run but I shakily say "Gale? Are you there?"

"Catnip? Is it you?" I hear his own voice crack and it sounds like he can't breath.

"It's me. Sorry I have been gone. I am going hunting tomorrow. I wish you were here to go." I say trying to be cheerful but probably not making it work very well.

"Me too. Stick around maybe I will surprise you. Thank you for calling me. You don't know what…how bad I needed to hear your voice."

"yeah I do. Thank you for helping Haymitch, you know, keep me"

"Just sorry it all happened. She wasn't trying to hurt you. You know about Herb Mellark don't you?"

"Peetas father died. His whole family did Gale."

"No some headed north. They had been surviving up there, built a whole life up there on the islands. They built a colony, joined up with others and he was up there with one of Peetas brothers. The youngest I think. His wife and the other two boys died on the trip, but I have a whole list of people who we know who didn't ever even know we won. They were still hiding out up there thinking the Capitol was still in power."

Peeta's brother and Dad. "Peeta's dad is alive?" I say and Peeta turns to me eyes wide. "here tell him. I love you Gale!" I say exuberant at this news. I hand the phone to Peeta, too excited to even wait for a response.

"Hello?" Peeta says. He falls into a chair with a heavy grunt.

"Haymitch, it's like a miracle." I whisper my fingers held to my lips in awe.

sorry about long update - couldn't do it due to the tornados - they are kinda eating us alive - my updates may be spotty til our towers are restored - we are on temp towers for relay to servers -they get clogged.

Ok now you know she is crazy - yes eventually you will know what has hppened and what is just her delusion. Recap - yes she was mistreated in prison - yes she and haymitch were involved when he believed she was getting better - Yes while under her mothers care they gave her and Peeta chemical lombadumy (cant spell it) but it just messed her up more - for Peeta who was geneticly altered and reborn - it calmed him. Haymitch has his hands full - he is hiding troubles of his own - as he always did. Gale has never quite abandoned her - he has always stepped in to help when he can - yes he still loves her -but he can't see empty or violent Katniss -breaks his heart.