Spoilers: Major spoilers for Hunger Games
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games or Haymitch. I'm even out of clever disclaimers.
A/N: This is the last chapter of this fic. :) Thank you so much to all those who have taken the time to review, especially those who have reviewed every chapter. It's incredibly appreciated! I hope you enjoy this last part just as much.
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 72nd Hunger Games
For the 72nd Hunger Games, Haymitch gets a comedian. It seems like that, at least. The boy starts cracking jokes the minute he sets foot on the train. It drives Effie crazy, and Haymitch likes that. Besides, it's probably the kid's way of coping, and who is he to knock it? It's better than tears.
The girl, on the other hand, starts to complain about the fact that her district partner isn't taking this seriously. ("I'm gonna die soon," the boy snaps at her. "I wanna laugh while I can." The girl shuts up about it after that.)
Even during training, the kid is the class clown, armed with a cheeky retort instead of a knife, and somehow, he keeps it up in the arena too. (About the only time he stops telling jokes to the hidden cameras is when the girl's picture appears in the night sky.)
A few people must think the kid's got guts, acting like that, because Haymitch gets some sponsors who chuckle as they write their checks.
It's not enough, though (it's never enough), and a couple days later, one of the Careers finds the kid. The Career isn't armed with anything except his fists, but he knows how to use them, and he does.
"Always knew…I'd be a…big…hit," the kid quips weakly, offering one, last lop-sided smirk.
His canon sounds a few minutes later.
The 73rd Hunger Games
Haymitch prefers the angry kids…the kids who rage or glare and tell him how pathetic he is. How useless he is as a mentor. They're easier to deal with. (It's no easier to watch them die, not even after all this time, but it's not quite as much of a punch in the gut when it happens.) It's the nice kids, the friendly, genuinely good kids that make his job even harder because he knows they're doomed, but he finds himself starting to like them anyway.
Just his luck, he gets two good kids this year.
Their table manners are, according to Effie, "atrocious," but the fact that she's so irritated by it just earns them some extra points in Haymitch's book. Overall, they're quick to listen when he talks (even when he slurs his words), they thank him for his advice (useless as it's going to be), and they act like he did something real to give them a shot at winning (even though they're wrong).
When he tells them goodbye the night before the Games start, the girl gives him a little wave, and the boy gives him a small smile, and he's sure it'll be the last time he sees them.
It is. They both die in the bloodbath, just like Haymitch knew they would.
Afterwards, he heads to the nearest bar so he can drink to their memory, and then he keeps on drinking to forget them.
It doesn't work, of course. It never does.
But that doesn't stop him from trying.
The 74th Hunger Games
Stay alive. That's what Haymitch tells this year's kids when he's sober enough to manage it. Stay alive.
And then he laughs because that's the one thing his tributes never do: stay alive.
The boy doesn't like that and actually takes a swing at him, knocking the glass out of his hand. (Haymitch is almost glad - he was sure the boy was gonna be just another good kid who's doomed. But judging by the glare the boy's wearing now, he might be more.) The girl jumps in when Haymitch swings back at the boy, and that's when Haymitch has to remind himself not to hope because these kids…these kids are gonna die, of course they are. That's what his kids do.
Still, when they start bargaining with him for his help, he agrees (he would have helped them anyway, but they don't need to know that), and two things become clear pretty fast
One, the girl is a survivor. (The boy might be a survivor too, though considering the looks he's giving the girl, there's something he cares about more than his own survival). And two, this is the best chance Twelve's had in years because these kids are different.
Both of them could have a shot. An actual shot. That little voice in Haymitch's head calls him an idiot, but Haymitch figures that if he hasn't learned his lesson after twenty-four years, then he never will.
There's the rub, though. Both of the kids have a shot, but only one can walk out of the arena alive, and he has to decide which one he's going to back.
It doesn't take him long to pick the girl.
She volunteered, after all, and she already has the Capitol all abuzz because of the sheer novelty. He can use that. She obviously knows how to handle herself too, and there's an edge about her that the boy just doesn't have.
It's a quick decision, but not an easy one because any other year, with any other girl, he would have favored the boy. The kid is strong, and he seems smart. He isn't bad lookin' either, by Capitol standards, and - unlike the girl - he knows how to turn up the charm. Others have won with less.
But only one can make it out so Haymitch will sacrifice the boy (who really is just a doomed good kid after all) to save the girl because the girl might be just what Haymitch needs…what they all need.
It's not fair, and it's not right (the Games never are), and Haymitch knows he has no choice but to live with it.
The boy makes that a little easier because the first chance they have to talk alone, he tells Haymitch to concentrate on saving the girl. He's not just saying that so Haymitch will sleep better at night (not that he ever sleeps much anyway). No, he really means it.
Haymitch doesn't know what to do when he's got a martyr on his hands anymore than he knows what to do with a potential Victor, but he assures the kid that he'll have things his way.
The kid seems satisfied and even promises to help. And he does. The night of the interviews, the boy makes his tragic little love announcement perfectly, playing the audience like a fiddle, and Haymitch can't help thinking that the kid's death will be such a waste, such a terrible, horrible, pointless waste (like always), but maybe he can make sure it means something.
It's not enough, though, it's not nearly enough because even if the kid's death isn't in vain, he'll still be dead, and Haymitch is tired of bringing kids home in coffins.
So, in the end, Haymitch decides to do exactly what he did in the arena, twenty-four years ago: he keeps moving until he finds something useful, then waits to see just where the ax will swing. It's a risky move, and it could cost him both his tributes, but maybe, just maybe, it'll get them both home instead.
It does. By some miracle - and a handful of berries - it does.
His girl and his boy are weary, beaten, and traumatized - and in the boy's case, missing a few important parts - but they're still breathing. They're both still breathing.
Haymitch isn't an idiot (despite what the voice in his head may say), and he knows his kids are really in for it now. If the Capitol has made him pay and pay and pay, then the Capitol will make the Star-Crossed Lovers bleed and bleed and bleed.
But Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are both alive to bleed, and right now, that's all Haymitch really cares about.
The rest…well, the rest he'll worry about later.
Fin
A/N: Thanks again for reading! If you've enjoyed this, I hope you'll check out my other Hunger Games fics.
Take care and God bless!
Ani-maniac494 :)