A/N: Note that Katniss expresses some uh... less than flattering thoughts about certain institutions in this chapter. I don't share those views. At all.
Later that afternoon, Katniss' sandwich sat forgotten on the counter. She'd laid it there after Haymitch dropped the biggest bombshell of this whole week on her. She stared at him, silent almost long enough to concern him, though she did manage to speak before he resorted to waving his hand in front of her face to check if she was still present.
"A mental hospital?" She finally said, her voice choked and urgent. "You've got to be wrong. Somebody made a mistake. My mother can't be in a crazy house, she's not crazy."
"I'm sorry, Katniss. I wish I could tell you more, but I just don't know anything else," Haymitch said. He forced his tone to stay uncharacteristically soft, still feeling the need to comfort her. In truth, he felt anything but soft right now. He always felt rigid with anger any time the system's lack of reasonable information harmed any of his kids, real time, right in front of him.
However, Katniss was far beyond gentle speech or kindness. Haymitch barely existed to her in that moment, as she stared blankly through him and wondered how it was her whole life could fall apart so quickly, so thoroughly. She wondered if her mom had gone willingly or been committed. She questioned how it could be possible that the vague and sad ghost of a woman she knew as her mother could be locked up with raving lunatics, violently confused people, and those screaming and wailing parodies she'd seen in horror films. She just didn't fit the bill. She didn't belong there.
"How long will she be there?" Katniss demanded, finally looking Haymitch in the eye.
He sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair. His hesitation told Katniss even before he spoke that this was it; this was where it all went to hell.
"Your caseworker's guess was anywhere from two to six months."
Katniss had to lean back against the counter in the absence of a chair to drop into. She was absolutely speechless. And now, she was more determined than ever to find her sister. What if Prim was placed elsewhere, if her own foster home was just as unwilling to take new kids as Haymitch had been to have her? Right now Katniss at least had a lead, she had a hazy idea of where Prim was in the city. But if one or both of them were moved, then she might never find her. Katniss was seeing visions of being lost in a shifting system and never seeing her sister or even her mother again. Six months was not necessarily a long time, but if this complication had happened, then what else could keep their family apart?
Haymitch could see her starting to shut down, so he stepped in front of her and rested his hands on her shoulders. It was more personal than he'd gotten with her yet, but he got the idea that they were going to have plenty of time in which to become closer.
"Stop," he said simply. "Just stop thinking about how terrible this all is for a second and listen to me. You're gonna be fine. You're going to stay here the whole time, you can still go to your own school and see your friends. And you're gonna see your mom again. You just have to give her time to get better."
Katniss shook her head. It felt like the action broke away the cobwebs inside her mind.
"What do you mean, I'm staying here?" she asked, confused. "You don't even want me here. You told Miss Cardew to take me somewhere else as soon as we showed up here."
She didn't want him to get rid of her, from a practical standpoint. But she was expecting it to happen, nonetheless.
"Well, you're only half wrong. I can't say I was expecting you, but I don't want you to get shipped off. I already asked Fulvia not to find you another placement."
Katniss felt a surge of anger and shrugged his hands off. Every bit of control she'd had over her life had been stripped from her in the last week, and he didn't even have the decency to ask if she wanted to be stuck here with him? She almost started yelling at him for it - but one thing was stopping her.
He was correct that she at least still had her normal school to go to and could see her friends. She'd already started on plans with Gale to go find Prim. She'd have to make new plans if she went somewhere else, and would have the added obstacle of not knowing her surroundings. A cautious alliance with Haymitch was probably her best bet at this point.
Of course, that didn't mean she had to like it.
"Can I go? I have a lot of homework," she said through gritted teeth.
Haymitch was a little confused by her sudden change in demeanor, but waved her off. There had to be a lot going through her head and he definitely understood a desire to be alone.
That certainly could have gone better, he thought to himself with a sigh as he watched her disappear down the hallway and into her room.
The next day passed largely uneventfully, with a lot of silence on Katniss' part. She wasn't being outright hostile to him, but she certainly didn't seem to be thrilled to be in his presence.
And Haymitch was really starting to realize that he had little in the house to interest a sixteen year old girl. Considering Katniss was an independent and headstrong kid, he doubted she could be happy there that way for too long. So, when Chaff showed up on Saturday morning with Thresh, Haymitch handed over the keys and tasked him with keeping an eye on the gym. He'd been closing too early lately, or been having delayed opens, but at least they had been on weekdays - if he closed the gym on a weekend he might have a mutiny on his hands from his clients.
"Just… make sure nobody kills each other," he'd grumbled to Chaff.
"No promises."
Katniss had woken up that morning to the sounds of Haymitch getting ready for his day, and realized when he didn't come to wake her up that she wouldn't be going to school that day. There wasn't much she could do if she couldn't talk to Gale, and she fully intended to avoid Haymitch the whole time. She waited until she heard him go downstairs before she even got out of bed, and hurried to and from the kitchen.
Holed up in her bedroom with nobody to take care of, nothing to provide, and no plans to act on, she felt a bit bereft. After fleeing from Haymitch's presence the other night, she hadn't actually done the homework she had excused herself to do. She'd been too angry. Now, there wasn't much else to do. So, when Haymitch ventured back upstairs, he found her on her bed with her books spread out all around her and a frankly obnoxious amount of food on the bedside table.
He didn't hide his amusement at this.
"You busy, sweetheart?" he asked. She shrugged without looking up. "Well… You should get up. We have some errands to run."
Katniss frowned and turned her attention away from her worksheet. "You're just gonna leave in the middle of the day?"
Haymitch shrugged. "I've got a buddy looking out for the place. You can meet him later."
He nodded to the black garbage bag on the floor beside the dresser, obviously still full and not yet unpacked. "You're gonna need more than whatever you've got in there to get through the colder months coming up, I'm sure."
Katniss frowned, realizing that errands was code for shopping. She shifted uncomfortably on the bed, and sat up more fully.
"I don't need anything," she insisted. "You don't have to spend money on me."
Haymitch would beg to differ on that one. He was responsible for her - he wasn't about to let her go without at least a coat and some warmer shoes. He rolled his eyes.
"Well, I want to. We're leaving the house in ten minutes, so get ready if you don't feel like going in your pajamas."
Which, incidentally, looked to be her school gym clothes. He added new pajamas to the list of things they needed to pick up, lest she catch her death of cold sleeping in shorts.
She shot him an irritated look as he left, and he heard her being unnecessarily loud and even slamming the door when she got up to change. Catching an attitude was at least better than sullen silence, so he counted that as a win.
"I'll be waiting in the truck for you!" he called. He couldn't help laughing at her frustrated noise, muffled by the bedroom door.
He was getting the cab warmed up by the time she stalked out. She got in and glared out the window, arms crossed over her chest.
"Lighten up, kid," Haymitch said, pulling out of the alleyway as soon as she was buckled. "You'd think I was taking you to get a root canal, not school shopping…"
"I have my own stuff, it's just at my house. I have a key, why can't we go there?" Katniss asked moodily.
Haymitch shrugged. If she actually could get in, he supposed he didn't see the harm in picking up her things - he'd just have to give them a once over to make sure they were appropriate. He doubted that, though. If she wasn't even eating, he didn't see how she could possibly have warm enough clothing, or school supplies.
"We'll swing by, and you can get your stuff, then we can fill in any gaps. Alright?"
Katniss had not at all expected him to listen to her, let alone agree.
"Oh," she said, darting a glance at him. She looked out the window again quickly, though. "Yeah. I guess."
"Teenagers," Haymitch muttered under his breath. "Then you gotta tell me where I'm going. You have your key, right? I'm not turning around if you don't, we can go after we shop if that's the case-"
"I have it!" she cut him off. "Go toward my school."
He let her navigate them to her apartment complex, which was even shabbier than he had expected. It was in a grimy, seedy part of town, and he found himself standing a little closer to her than he usually would as she led him inside her building. Maybe it was ridiculous to be so protective, especially in her own neighborhood, but he couldn't help it. He got a bad vibe here, he could remember growing up in absolute bottom-of-the-barrel neighborhoods just like this when he was a kid. Where he lived now wasn't superb, but it was a little nicer simply on the merit of being in a commercial neighborhood. At least, what passed for one in their district. This place, however? These apartments looked more like little shacks stacked one on top of the other, ready to topple over at the slightest provocation.
They got to her floor and, after they left the stairwell, Haymitch could tell which door was hers even before she stopped in front of it. One of the doorways down the hall had a large padlock on the knob.
He followed her anyway. Better to let her handle it in her own time. She stood in front of her apartment, a rusting number twelve on the doorway, and looked at the lock for a long minute.
"They didn't even call me," she said finally, turning to go back down the stairs. He followed her.
"They couldn't," he said, trying to lessen the blow. "I doubt they would have any idea how to."
After all, if he as her foster parent couldn't even get more than the vaguest details of her case out of anybody, he doubted an outsider to the situation could pry a phone number from her caseworker… or even know to contact Katniss in the first place. Unless it was just as obvious to outsiders as it was to him that she was the one looking after that household.
She didn't reply to him, instead stopping on the ground level to check their mail box. A notice of eviction was in the small handful of mail that had piled up.
"I thought you were supposed to get a thirty day notice," Katniss said, her voice rough and frustrated.
"We don't know who said what to who. For all we know, your mother contacted the property manager." Although Haymitch doubted that. "Or they just locked the place up when it was obvious nobody was coming and going."
Katniss shoved the envelopes back in the box and locked it back up again. She had no desire to read any of the mail or look at the bills. They weren't her problem anymore. None of it was. This place hadn't felt like home in a long time, anyway… It was just a place she lived. Home was wherever Prim was. Katniss felt like she had failed to keep it all together, failed to give Primrose a home. If anybody deserved a good one, it was her kind, gentle, caring sister.
Katniss felt the inside of her nose stinging, her eyes welling with heat and moisture because of it, and practically ran out of the dingy lobby. Haymitch was on her heels, not wanting to lose her. He wasn't sure he didn't trust her not to run away at the first emotional upheaval.
Surprisingly, she just threw herself into the passenger seat of his truck. He got in in a less hurried manner, turning on the heater as soon as he turned the engine over.
"Sweetheart…" he started.
She shook her head. "Just go."
She didn't want to be here anymore.
Haymitch pursed his lips, looked at her, but eventually drove off. He could understand her not wanting to be around this place anymore.
Katniss' tears had been shut down easily enough. She sat in the truck and didn't even see the scenery, though her eyes were glued to the window. She made herself stop thinking about every way she'd failed or hurt her sister or her situation, instead ruminating on her plans. Thinking about how much of a relief it would be to see Prim again. She grit her teeth in an attempt to stop her lip from quivering.
Haymitch left her to her silence for a few minutes, but eventually turned on the cassette player with the last tape in it he'd been listening to. With the outside world looking bleak and cold, the inside of the truck full of comfortable warmth and good music, and Katniss trying to force herself to be calm, she eventually fell asleep. Haymitch looked over at her every so often, when they were stopped at a light. It was startling how much younger she seemed when she wasn't carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
He again cursed the system in his mind, and the city, and even her mother. This kid shouldn't have been taking care of herself, her parent, and their apartment. She should be worrying about things like boys and clothes, not worrying about him spending money on her, or being locked out of her home. It made him sick. It made him desperately want a drink. Mostly, it made him hotly angry on her behalf.
He had to drive a little ways, out of their district, until he got to the department store he usually shopped at. He parked and took the opportunity of a quiet, peaceful Katniss to sit with the window on his side rolled down and chain smoke a couple of cigarettes. After a morning like this one, he needed them.
He looked at her a while, slumped against the window as she was. Cute as she may be all curled up like that, he knew that from now on, she was gonna have a lot of waking hours to dwell on her mom and the loss of a home to go back to. Considering she'd pulled a disappearing act the very first day he had her, he could guess that she could probably find a lot more annoying ways to stir up trouble. He was gonna have to find something for her to put her energy into.
Of course, his mind said boxing. It was a great sport, full of kids just like her - poor and angry, full of spit and vinegar. But she was so skinny. Bumping into the heavy bag would probably put her flat on her ass. It seemed groceries were in order after this, if he wanted to feed her up. Hopefully, he could help her get her frustration at the world out in the gym, instead of letting it fester in that sullen little head of hers. Maybe working up an appetite there would be good for her, too. Not that her appetite necessarily needed much help, the kid could pack it away.
He put out his last cigarette just before he started smoking filter, then reached over and shook her shoulder.
"Hey. Sleeping beauty. Your adoring public awaits you," he drawled. She batted his hand away and sat up, looking grumpy.
She looked around them at the parking lot, then at the store in the distance, and slumped back into her seat. "I don't want to do this right now. Or ever, actually. You don't have to buy me anything. And I don't like shopping."
"Good, we have that in common. I hope you feel as secure in the knowledge of mutual unpleasantness ahead as I do," he said, getting out of the truck. When she made no move to follow him, he went around to the passenger side. She rolled down the window, and he leaned in. "Come on, kid. It's a chore just like any other. I know you got some bad news, but that doesn't mean that everything just stops."
"I don't even want anything," she said, and he shrugged as he opened her door.
"Well I want something: for you not to freeze to death every time you leave the house. Would reflect poorly on me."
She gave him a sneer to match his own.
He all but dragged her into the store, and was glad to note that he wasn't too lost when he was in there. It soon became apparent that Katniss wasn't trying to earn any participation awards, however. She was just following him around, not looking at much and definitely not taking anything off the racks.
"Alright," he said after almost fifteen minutes of this. "Pick up the pace, or I'll start choosing things for you."
Katniss shrugged and looked mildly victorious. "Fine," she said. "Go right ahead."
Well, that wasn't the answer he was expecting. Most kids didn't want to be dressed by their forty year old guardians. Though, he supposed he should have known better to apply most kids to Katniss. She was stubborn. Annoyingly so.
He gave her a long look, then shrugged and turned toward the kid's section.
She followed after him, not paying much attention until she noticed him picking out incredibly bright colors. She wasn't a bright colors sort of girl.
"Hey, that's got cartoons on it!" Katniss said, snatching a neon tee shirt from Haymitch's hand and putting it back on the rack. "This is kids stuff!"
"To be fair, the bigger stuff will fit you," Haymitch said, taking a colorful dress from a hanger and holding it up in front of her slight frame.
Splotches of red bloomed on Katniss' face, and Haymitch had to use every bit of restraint in his body to not laugh at her when she slapped his hands away.
"You're an ass!" She snapped at him. He was pleased enough when she stomped over to a wall of clothes that was more appropriate for someone her age. She didn't seem to be bothered with checking sizes or prices as she gathered things to try on, but it was a start.
He grunted a "watch your language," in her direction, if only for the benefit of the elderly couple shopping nearby.
"Mr. Abernathy," she said through gritted teeth when he came back over to her side, "I've heard you use curse words that would curl a sailor's hair just to hear it."
"I'm not in tenth grade." He made a face. "And please. Call me Haymitch."
"Okay, Haymitch. Go someplace else," Katniss said, heading for a changing room with an armload of clothes.
He watched her go. This kid. This kid was going to be more of a challenge than he had first believed.
Along the rest of the trip, he managed to drag her through picking up several warm outfits for school, pajamas, a coat, a scarf, and some boots. She pitched a fit about the cost of the boots, but Haymitch wasn't hearing a bit of it. If her clothes were threadbare, her shoes were deplorable. Considering Haymitch wasn't exactly of a mind to care much about how worn or used his own things got, the state of hers alarming him was not something he took lightly.
"Keep it up, and I'm gonna get you some Reeboks too," Haymitch threatened after the umpteenth complaint about his spending too much on her.
She settled into a moody silence, trailing after him as he took her through the checkout.
The sales clerk there smiled brightly at them.
"How nice of your dad to take you shopping for the new fall trends," she said, her voice chipper.
Katniss gaped at the woman. How incredibly presumptuous... who could think Haymitch was her dad? She turned sharply to look at him, but he just dumped all their purchases on the counter.
"Some people don't seem to appreciate the gesture," Haymitch said, and Katniss couldn't believe her ears. He wasn't protesting the title, he was standing there chatting with the clerk and scolding Katniss while doing it!
"I'm going to wait in the truck!" she announced heatedly.
As she strode off, the sales girl looked between Haymitch and Katniss.
"It's about time for an attitude adjustment," Haymitch said shortly, and the clerk nodded. She had little else to comment on as she finished bagging his purchases.
He was not met with quite so much silence when he followed in Katniss' footsteps.
"What was that?" she demanded, as he slung the shopping into the bed of the truck.
"What was what?" he asked in forced obliviousness.
"That lady… She called you… Well, you know what she called you," Katniss said, ducking into the passenger side of the truck before he could say anything.
"That mistake is going to happen," he said when he was finally settled into the driver's side. "You can correct them if you want to, sweetheart, but I always think it's best not to out my kids as foster kids unless they tell me they want me to. People like to comment on families."
Katniss wouldn't look at him, and Haymitch was feeling a sudden urge to march right back into that store and give that sales clerk a piece of his mind. Their outing thus far hadn't exactly been fun, but he'd felt like they were getting somewhere with each other. Now, it would seem Katniss' flighty nature was rearing its head again.
He supposed he'd have to learn to be okay with that. If she was flighty, then she was flighty. They could deal with these sorts of problems as they came along.
To save himself an uncomfortably silent drive, he turned the music back on and left Katniss to her worrying.
A while after they had returned home, Katniss was alone in her room. Thankfully, she was far away from Haymitch, who was downstairs minding his gym. It was a little weird to know that at any point during the day, there was a group of sweaty boxers hanging out and beating each other up directly below her room, but that wasn't the weirdest thing about being here.
She kept getting distracted while she folded and put away not only the things Haymitch had bought her, but her clothes from home. Every time her hand brushed over the difference between the pilled, over-worn fabric of what little she'd brought here and the softer, well made items she'd protested acquiring in the first place, Haymitch's words rang in her head.
People like commenting on families, he had told her. Families? Is that what Haymitch thought of her, that she was family?
She was a ward of the state. They were stuck with each other. They were business partners of a sort, considering the stipend he got from the state to house her. At best, they were allies - united for a common cause, destined to part ways in the end. As far as she knew, he wanted her to go home just as much as she wanted to get back. But what if that wasn't true? What did Haymitch want for her?
She fell back on her bed, feeling annoyed with herself. She was being stupid, she knew she was. She shouldn't be concerning herself with anything Haymitch thought about her. He wasn't the important part of this equation, he was incidental. Nice, in his own strange, surly way, but not important. Prim is important, she reminded herself. Nobody else.
Being harsh was necessary.
She didn't know how long she laid there, but after a long while, she heard movement in the apartment. Haymitch eventually came to stand somewhere near her doorway, but her back was turned to it. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was there - he wasn't exactly quiet.
"You could take a picture. It would last longer," she suggested, still not turning over.
"I thought you were asleep," Haymitch said, and she lifted her head enough to look over her shoulder.
"And why would you want to watch me sleep?"
"Was debating on whether to wake you up with a loud noise or a lot of cold water," he said gruffly. "It's the middle of the day. Although you seem to like shutting yourself in here at all times of the day, so that's probably moot. What do you do?"
Katniss shrugged. She was not about to participate in bonding. Whether Haymitch was just annoyed that she seemed to be a layabout or whether he actually cared about what she liked to do with her spare time, it didn't really matter. It was too close, too personal, and she wasn't going to allow it.
"I used to work," she said, finally laying her head back on the pillow. He didn't deserve her past, her stories of Gale and fishing and being hungry, but together. He didn't deserve the future she was determining for herself, either, finding Prim and then… Then what? Running away, maybe? She hadn't quite decided what to do once she was reunited with her sister yet. But even if her plan only went as far ahead as the very first goal she needed to accomplish, it was still better than no plan at all.
He made a noise that Katniss didn't interpret as a pleased one, but he did leave her room, so she counted it as a victory. Maybe while she was here, she could catch up on sleep anyway.
Not quite. Almost as soon as she shut her eyes, she felt a soft, abrupt weight settling over her body. She batted the shorts off of her and shot up on the bed. More specifically, it was boxing shorts and a sport top. Haymitch had oh-so-kindly dropped them on her.
"You don't need to be in here all damn day," he said, and she glared up at him. He matched it without missing a beat. "Put those on and come downstairs. Don't bother with shoes."
"It's cold!" Katniss argued.
"You'll keep warm enough."
"What if I don't want to box?" Katniss said, looking down at the clothes with distaste. They had seen better days. She took a cautious sniff, and was at least glad to find that they smelled sort of stale and disused, but clean. Haymitch scoffed. "What! How am I supposed to know who wore these last?"
"Don't worry about it," Haymitch grunted. This didn't necessarily stop Katniss from her worrying, however. "They're clean, you're coming downstairs in them. End of story."
Katniss swore at his retreating figure, feeling rankled when she heard him laugh in response.
What is that man's obsession with dressing me up? She wondered. Shortly, she considered just throwing them on the floor, rolling over, and actually going to sleep. However, what little image she'd formed in her mind of a kind version of Haymitch was rapidly disappearing. The last thing she wanted was for him to come up here and actually throw water on her.
She tugged the shorts on, got into the sport top, and pinned her braid up on her head. She had no idea who, if anybody, she would be fighting against, but she wouldn't put it past Haymitch to tug on her hair if it was swinging free.
She felt a little odd descending the stairs barefoot, and soon she was shivering in the gym. A heavy coil of nervous discomfort settled low in her tummy, as she looked around at Haymitch's clients. This place was a lot more lively in the daytime on a weekend. Then again, it might be this lively all the time… She just never bothered to come in here during open hours on the rare times she was around for them.
Now? Electric light bathed every square inch of main gym space, from the bags, to the open floor space, to the ring itself where one set of opponents was currently sparring. There were people all over the place. It was almost as bad as gym class. She'd never been a big fan of that, either.
"And there's sleeping beauty herself," Haymitch said, startling her as he walked up beside her.
"You didn't say I was gonna be working out in a building full of old guys," Katniss fired back.
"Excuse me for not running the most popular establishment for young people on the block," Haymitch said with heavy sarcasm. "Now shut your yap for ten minutes."
Katniss clenched her teeth, halting the comment that wanted to slip out from getting her in hot water.
She followed him to a bit of open space, navigating around people doing floor exercises. He handed her a jump rope.
She took it, but looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
"What? Never seen one of those before? I know you're allergic to fun, after all." Haymitch took the plastic handles at the ends and placed them firmly in each of Katniss' hands, curling her fingers around them. "It's good cardio. Get jumping."
He went to walk away, but Katniss was confused.
"Wait! When do I get to punch people?"
"I thought you didn't want to box," Haymitch said, then continued on his way.
Katniss narrowed her eyes, said a few choice words, but eventually started jumping rope.
She wasn't happy about it, though.
"I'm not having any fun!" she announced the next time Haymitch walked nearby.
"Good!" he called. "Wouldn't want you to have an allergic reaction!"
Naturally, the rest of that day's workout was fueled by spite.
By the time dinner rolled around, Katniss was almost falling face-first into her mashed potatoes. She was able to climb into bed and fall asleep almost immediately, her worn body and full belly seeming much easier to listen to than the anxieties of the day.