Spoilers: Major spoilers for Hunger Games

Disclaimer: It's still not mine. I can only claim the original characters. :)

A/N: As always, I thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.

Spectator

The 68th Hunger Games

The kids from Twelve don't get offers for an alliance very often. Mostly, it's because everybody knows that Twelve's kids are doomed from the start, and who would want to ally with that?

This year, though, Haymitch's boy is eighteen, and he actually has some muscle on him. His girl is fifteen, and she's picked up a lot during training. That must have been enough for the tributes from Ten because they want to team up. Haymitch immediately tells his kids to say yes, and not just because of the novelty. Ten's girl apparently had the job of slaughtering cows back home, so she's pretty good with a knife, and Ten's boy is a decent size, not very tall, but bulky for someone who isn't a Career.

Together, the four of them might actually have a shot at surviving in the arena, at least until the numbers start to dwindle. (A little voice reminds Haymitch what happened last time he thought his kids had a chance, but he tells it to shut up.)

Things are good for the first three days. They even have enough sponsors for Haymitch to send in a few supplies.

First on the list is a heavy blanket because the Gamemakers decided to go with an arctic theme for the 68th Games, and the arena is all tundra, without a tree in sight. (Haymitch wishes he could send them some firewood and matches instead, but that's one of this year's premium sponsor gifts, and the price just keeps going up and up. His kids and Ten's are doing well, but not that well.)

That's the thing, though. By day six, the kids aren't doing well at all. The Gamemakers have dropped the temp in the arena every single night, and he's pretty sure that all the kids are suffering from hypothermia.

In the end, it's the blanket that sets it off.

Ten's tributes decide that they shouldn't have to share it with Twelve. (Actually, they're probably better off sharing it, since it means more body heat for everybody, but hypothermia can mess with your head and so can the arena.)

Ten's girl winds up slitting his boy's throat, and Ten's boy bashes his girl's head in with a rock.

Later that night, Ten's tributes both freeze to death, still wrapped in the blanket they killed his kids to get, and Haymitch feels dead inside too, just in a different way.

The 69th Hunger Games

For the 69th Hunger Games, the arena is a garden on steroids. The Gamemakers proudly announce that President Snow even had some input in its design, being an avid lover of flora himself. It's full of giant, colorful flowers, massive insects, and huge green plants (most of which are poisonous, and Haymitch is pretty sure that was Snow's major contribution).

Haymitch spends the better part of two days staring at the screens in his mentoring suite, watching his tributes and trying not to have flashbacks of his own arena. (It's not exactly the same, but it's close enough, and he wonders if that was Snow's other contribution.)

Then, on day three, his boy falls prey to a swarm of mutt locusts, and his girl gets stuck in a plant the commentators call "a Venus flytrap," except it's enormous and it's not trapping flies, it's trapping tributes.

The commentators helpfully explain that this genetically engineered flytrap kills much more quickly than the smaller, natural variety, but if that was "quick," then Haymitch doesn't want to know what they'd consider "slow."

The 70th Hunger Games

This year, they drown. They all drown.

The kids in water and Haymitch in his drink.

It's not fair (it never is) because, at first, his kids are scraping by. Sure, his girl, a pretty blonde from Town, hasn't eaten much besides leaves and roots since the Games started, and his boy, a thirteen-year-old kid from the Seam, has a broken arm from a fall. But eight days in, they are still alive, and that has to be some kind of record.

Then the earthquake happens.

It could be the Gamemakers' way of shaking things up - literally - because the 70th Games have been pretty tame so far, with only a handful or tributes killed in the bloodbath, and the audience is probably bored.

But Haymitch has seen the recap of the Reaping in Four, and he didn't miss the way that Finnick went stark white when Annie Cresta's name was called. He hasn't missed the way Finnick has been in and out of Game Headquarters since then, either.

So, when the dam breaks, Haymitch knows it's no coincidence because Annie Cresta is the only tribute left in the arena who can swim well enough to make it.

She makes it, alright.

At least…she's still breathing. Her ear-piercing screams as they pull her into the hovercraft don't bode well for her continued mental health.

But, sane or not, she's made it out - Finnick got her out, and he killed both of Haymitch's kids in the process.

Haymitch wants to hate him for it.

There's just one problem with that.

Finnick might have rigged the Game in his favor, but Haymitch has been around long enough to know how to play the system too. He could have done something. For once, he'd had the time. But he'd done nothing. Nothing that really mattered, anyway.

No, Haymitch thinks as he stares into an empty glass, he doesn't hate Finnick.

He hates himself instead.

The 71st Hunger Games

Haymitch didn't see Johanna Mason coming, but then again, nobody saw Johanna Mason coming. He's got to hand it to her - that was some strategy. The weak, blubbering girl who'd sobbed her way through her whole interview with Caesar had suddenly turned into a vicious killer.

And she is a killer, that's for sure (they all are) but she's not quite as vicious as she pretends to be…not quite a grinning lunatic with an ax, even if that's what she wants the Capitol to think.

It's the little things that give her away: the flat look in her eyes and the stiff line of her shoulders when she waves to the enthusiastic crowd at her Victory Party.

Still, Haymitch knows she would have gone through his kids like a hot knife through butter. A frail thirteen-year-old boy and a tiny fourteen-year-old girl from the Seam would have been easy prey. She didn't get that chance, though. Both his kids died in the bloodbath when Johanna Mason was still the sobbing girl from Seven.

That's why, when Johanna walks up to him with a sneer saying, "So, you're Twelve's drunk," he can raise his whisky-filled glass to her and slur, "Glad to meet you," and really mean it too.

TBC

A/N: Again, the next part should be up again soon, Lord willing.

Thanks for reading, and take care and God bless!

Ani-maniac494 :)