Hello, everyone! This is the last chapter before Part Two. Let me know what you think.

Rekindling

Chapter Five

Since Peeta and I needed to talk about what was going on, we called Greasy Sae over to watch the kids for us. She was so old that I'm sure people would believe she was older than District 12 itself, but she raised enough kids and grandkids to know what she was doing with ours. For lunch she made the kids some kind of beefy stew, and by the time Peeta and I were ready to come up with our plan, they were knocked out on the couch as Greasy Sae began knitting what looked like the start of a scarf.

Peeta and I were sitting in the office since it seemed like a good place to come up with a game plan. I didn't like the room necessarily, since it still reminded me of President Snow's visit after the first Games, but dealt with it.

We had just went over everything we knew about what was going on in the outside world, jotting down on paper what Gale had told us so far. Peeta was sitting in the office chair that was just behind the desk and I sat on the opposite side, leaning against the desk to see what he wrote on paper.

"Now we just have to figure out what to do next, if anything," I said to Peeta once we were out of things to put down on paper.

"We have to do something, there's really no choice," Peeta said. "We're just finishing what we started so that Rye and Rosemarie won't ever have to."

"I thought this was over," I confessed to Peeta.

"I know. Me too."

We stared down at the paper for a little bit, just listening to the rain that hadn't let up since the morning. Peeta kept uncapping and capping the pen in his hand, which created a constant snapping rhythm.

"I guess we should figure out when we're going after them, right?" I asked Peeta, wanting to start from the smallest detail and work our way to the complicated stuff.

He nodded, his nervous habit with the pen cap stopping.

"Tonight's going to have to be when we go," Peeta said. "I mean, tomorrow we could wake up with the house surrounded for all we know."

"But you haven't slept. You look exhausted."

"It wouldn't be the first time I went off to fight with no sleep," Peeta said back, remembering the nights we stayed up before our Games.

"Okay, but we have nothing to take with us out there, no safe place to take the kids…"

"I honestly think we have to get Haymitch involved, Katniss. He's always been around when we went off to do these things," he said. "I don't even know where to begin without him."

"I know," I said with a nod, agreeing with him that Haymitch could probably help us out a lot. "I hate to burden him with this, though."

"Well, I'm being selfish," Peeta said, shrugging. "I don't care about burdening him."

"We should go over there now, if tonight's when we're leaving," I said.

Peeta nodded and hooked the pen he had been holding onto the edge of the legal pad he had been writing on. After a quick explanation to Greasy Sae about having to leave, we were at Haymitch's front door. The typical stench that wafted out of Haymitch's house greeted us when he opened the door, and when he saw the two of us standing on his porch he instantly started to protest.

"I'm not involved," he said, shaking his head. "Don't know a thing. Don't want to know a thing. Don't need to know a thing."

"Haymitch, you're our only hope," I said,

"Now, don't you go saying stuff like that, sweetheart," he said, clearly taken aback by my desperate attempt to get his help.

"We know you don't want to know anything, and we promise not to give you the details, but we need your help anyway," Peeta explained.

"I'm no good at this stuff anymore, kids," Haymitch replied. "It's been too long."

"Protective instincts never go away, Haymitch," I told him. "You know that."

Haymitch looked at me, stared me right in the eyes. I could tell he was wishing I would take that as a no, but Peeta and I remained on the front porch anyway. He opened the front door wider and gestured for us to come in. Haymitch's terrible upkeep of his house was no surprise to either Peeta or me, but the TV that was broadcasting the latest news about the world did. Haymitch didn't watch TV anymore and I thought he had thrown all of his TVs out in the trash a few years ago. This TV looked new.

"Is whatever you're about to get involved in dangerous?" Haymitch asked once we were in the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of dark liquor and took a long chug.

"Yes," Peeta said.

"And when is this going to go down?"

"Tonight," I said.

Haymitch looked at the two of us over the rim of his glass and shook his head. It was obvious that he thought we were both getting crazier with age. He refilled his glass and then started to make his way out of the kitchen. We followed him without saying anything and glanced at each other when he opened his basement door, flicked the light on and sloppily made his way down the stairs.

Peeta and I stood at the bottom of the stairs as Haymitch went toward a hanging string that was coming from the ceiling. When he pulled it, the rest of the lights in the basement turned on, one light at a time until the very last one at the furthest spot in the basement was lit. The grey walls and stainless steel and metal equipment knocked the air right out of me as I took it all in. The cement floor underneath me was the same color of the walls, making me feel incapable of getting away from the memory triggering surroundings.

"Haymitch…" I started, looking around the basement.

Since I still couldn't comprehend why I was looking at an almost exact replica of the Games training center, I couldn't finish my sentence. Peeta shifted uncomfortably next to me, and when Haymitch told us to follow him, I linked my arm around Peeta's for support.

"Like I said, I don't want to know a thing," Haymitch said as he led us to a rack of different weapons. "But take what you want."

"Why do you have this here?" I finally asked Haymitch.

Haymitch looked over at me, but didn't answer, instead just leaned up against the basement wall, waiting for us to do something. I knew that Haymitch wasn't someone who trusted anyone easily, but that hardly explained the obstacle course in his basement. If he really thought that we'd never actually be safe, even with the new government in place, he would have had Peeta and I training here everyday, but he hadn't.

"Katniss, I uh, I gotta go," Peeta said to me, releasing his arm from my grip and backing away.

His eyes were squinted in that look of confusion, which he always got when he wasn't sure what his reality was, so I let him back away. Before he turned for the basement stairs, I saw him gripping at his forehead, mumbling to himself something I could only guess was about me. Haymitch bit at his fingernails until he heard Peeta leave the house through the front door upstairs.

"You better get going," he said, gesturing toward the rack.

He grabbed two backpacks from the wall a few feet away and set them by my feet while I tried to focus on the wall of weapons I could use to potentially kill again.

"I guess I should take the bow and arrows," I said out loud, stepping forward and removing them from their hooks on the wall.

"That would be the best for you," Haymitch said.

Even though he didn't want to know anything, I could tell he was already going into mentor mode. He eyed a club on the rack, which I took as a hint to take it, so I did. Along with that, I took a few knives, and night goggles, since we'd be going out once it got dark. After taking the few weapons, I turned and stared at the rest of the basement, feeling chills race across my skin once I saw the cardboard cutouts shaped as people with targets right over their hearts.

"I just don't understand this, Haymitch," I said to him again, wanting an explanation.

"We can't trust anyone, Katniss," Haymitch said simply. "Except maybe each other."

I took that as a confirmation of what I had been thinking about Haymitch still not believing he was safe under the new government. I knew what it was like to worry everyday about dangers, but Haymitch was in such a different state of mind. He was literally driving himself crazy conjuring up all the possible scenarios where someone could go after him again.

When we made our way back upstairs, Haymitch didn't offer to carry anything I had taken from the basement. I was almost crushed under the weight of the backpacks and weapons, but I guessed he wanted me to get used to it.

"What are your plans for the kids tonight?" Haymitch asked, avoiding my eye contact as I stood on his front porch.

I could tell he didn't want to come across as concerned, but even as he tried to hide his face in his glass of alcohol, I saw the slightest bit of worry.

"We don't know yet," I answered. "Maybe Greasy Sae can take them."

"No," Haymitch said with a shake of his head. "They'll know to go to her house first."

"They?" I asked, my eyes widening in hopes that he knew what was going on.

Haymitch waved me off, shaking his head.

"Whoever you and Peeta are afraid of, they'll know who's been coming in and out of your house," Haymitch said.

"Do you know…"

"I don't want to know!" Haymitch said quickly. "That's just one of my scenarios."

"Would you watch them?" I asked him, thinking that maybe keeping the kids home would be a good thing so that they wouldn't have anything to be worried about.

Haymitch hesitated, looking down at the last sip of liquor that swirled around in his glass. Maybe it was stupid of me to trust someone who was normally drunk to take care of my kids, but with the night coming, there weren't a lot of people to ask.

"Let me know when you're leaving," Haymitch said, his way of agreeing.

I nodded, thanked him, and turned to go back home. Greasy Sae was still on the couch knitting when I went inside and I was glad that the kids were sleeping so that they wouldn't sense something was going on. I set everything we got from Haymitch in our bedroom so that it wasn't out in the open, and stepped back out into the hallway. Greasy Sae had only raised her eyebrows when she saw the supplies I was carrying. She, like Haymitch, wouldn't want to know. Peeta whispered my name after he poked his head out of the office and I made my way to him.

"Gale's sending the information," Peeta said, shutting the office door behind me once I was in the room.

My heartbeat quickened at the sound of the papers being printed out across the room. In a matter of seconds, we'd see the names and faces of the people who wanted us dead. I could hear Peeta's quickened breathing next to me, and I'm sure I sounded the same, because whatever it was that we were about to start, would begin the second we saw those papers.

At first, when the papers spewed out of the fax machine, picture side up, I didn't believe what I saw. Effie had gotten everything wrong with the list of people after us and Gale had foolishly believed her. There was just no way that the person I saw in the first picture on the first page wanted me and Peeta dead. Peeta seemed surprised too, because he took the paper from my hand after I took the stack from the printer and pulled it up closer to his face.

The face staring up at us from the paper in his hand was Caesar Flickerman's.

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unknownbyhim22