When Hazelle stirs at the sound in the hallway, she's only half-awoken. Sighing, she rolls over and is rewarded the rest of the bed. There's so much room.
While she indulges herself in this, she wishes Rohan was sleeping next to her. He would've loved the extra space. The entire night he'd stay completely still on his stomach, accustomed to sleeping in cramped conditions, though his tall frame took up much of their mattress. She misses how there was always a comfortably heavy limb draped over her, how the bed rose and sunk in sync with his breathing. She misses him.
The bedroom door creaks open, and Hazelle sits up, looking for whichever child has come. She was expecting at least one of them tonight, on their first night in the house.
Motherly concern, not alarm being her first response worries her. With Gale no longer living with them, there's a need to be fearful of intruders instead of merely her children's nightmares now. She'll need to be more mindful.
"Momma?" It's Posy.
"I'm awake," answers Hazelle, peeling off the corner of the blanket next to her. "Come here."
"I don't like my new bed," Posy explains as she crosses the room and climbs into Hazelle's bed. "I mean, I like my room but I don't like sleeping in it."
"I understand, baby. You'll get used to it over time." She proved that in District Thirteen.
Hazelle glances at her bedside alarm clock. She'll have to get up in a few hours for work but it's still dark outside. She holds Posy, who presses her face into the curve of Hazelle's neck. In less than ten minutes, her breathing levels out, and then Hazelle relaxes into sleep as well.
In the morning, she hurries to set off the alarm before it wakes Posy. As Hazelle descends the stairs, she pulls her hair back with an elastic band. She sets out breakfast for Rory to finish once everyone else is awake. He should be up soon.
When she leaves, she's met with crisp morning air and a pastel sunrise. The Village is laid out before her neatly, a light fog suspended over the lawns and the street like smoke. She looks out over the canopy of the woods at the telltale pall in the distance. Its color darker than the fog around her, Hazelle imagines the surrounding area, choked and charred and dead. The shiver surprises her - and then she realizes it shouldn't have.
Walking over to the house across from hers, Hazelle can hear a child's voice and people moving about inside. As she knocks on the front door, she grips the strap of the bag she took with her, having emptied its contents to hopefully make room for things in need of mending.
A middle-aged Seam woman she recognizes as Alice Grant answers the door. "Hazelle! It's great to see you again."
Hazelle smiles and returns her embrace. "Likewise, Alice."
She's invited inside. From what she can see, the house is sparsely furnished with their own possessions, not unlike her own. The smell of fried eggs sweeps over Hazelle like a warm breeze. She follows Alice into the kitchen, where her husband and her sons sit at the table eating breakfast.
The Grant family lived a block or so away from Hazelle and her family in the Seam. She got to know them better in District Thirteen, where their compartments were closer.
Wilbur Grant stands and shakes her hand upon seeing her. "So you did come back! We weren't sure whether you'd stay in Thirteen."
"No, I just wanted to wait a bit. The kids practically pulled me here," Hazelle answers. She declines Alice's offer of tea.
Sipping her own drink, Alice stands with her at the counter. "Our boys were worried about having no friends around," she says. "Hector came home last night saying he saw Rory so we reckoned you returned with your little herd."
Hazelle laughs, then asks Hector, their oldest, "You're working down at the construction site?"
Hector nods. "Yes, ma'am. I'm helping with the bakery. I have to head out soon."
"Once that bakery's rebuilt, the Mellark boy plans to work there right away. He's been feeding us the entire spring," Wilbur says. "He tries to do more but Hector says they don't let him," he adds with a conspiratorial chuckle.
Hazelle says, "I'll have to find him today and sign up."
Their youngest third son, who's about nine years old, speaks up. "He was here a little bit ago. You could catch him before he goes to the site."
Hazelle smiles at him. "Guess I will. Thank you, Glenn." Their breakfast prompts her to ask Alice and Wilbur, "You have hens?"
Alice nods. "They were issued to us to start out. We've got a little coop out back there, courtesy of my men." She touches Wilbur's shoulder and lifts her mug toward her sons.
Hazelle looks out their kitchen window at the amateurishly made henhouse stooped right outside the house. She sees a pen next to it. "Pigs, too?"
"And two goats," adds Aiden, a friend and classmate of Vick's. "Her name is Nala and his name's Gillie."
"You'll have milk, then." Hazelle remembers Prim's goat Lady with a touch of remorse. She absently touches the bag at her hip and jolts herself back into a work mindset. "Well, it's good to see you all again. I'm going around this morning to see if people need anything mended. That something you'd be interested in?"
Wilbur and Alice share a laugh and answer emphatically that they would, what with having a house full of boys.
After agreeing to trade for some eggs and goat milk and collecting clothes from them, Hazelle walks to the door with Alice. "Well, I'm off to find any other takers before I head over to Haymitch's."
"You're his housekeeper again?" asks Alice.
Nodding, Hazelle tells her, "This is just on the side. Don't like putting all my eggs in one basket."
"Hard not to," Alice jokes, but something in her mood has dimmed. Away from the others, she crosses her arms and says, "You know, the people on television are always saying that this is the chance to start over. All we've known is mining but those mines are worthless now. We've had to adapt, and I'm glad for it. I wouldn't want to go back to how it was."
Hazelle knits her brow in wary confusion. "What-"
"You could be anything, and you're going to be his maid again, Hazelle?" She shakes her head in disappointment.
The bag of clothes nearly slips off her shoulder. Hazelle grasps it and says as evenly as she can, "I plan to do whatever I can to keep my children fed and safe. That's the Seam way, ain't it? The war hasn't changed that." Before Alice can reply, she pulls the front door open, predicts that she'll have the clothes back by Tuesday, and leaves, mindful not to slam the door shut.
She deposits the clothes in a pile at the house, reminds Vick to play with his sister, then crosses the street again to a house diagonal to hers, neighboring the Grants. Hector is already down the road when a man answers the door. He introduces himself as Nathanoll Carter. The name is familiar but Hazelle doesn't remember him from work or school.
"So what can I do for you?" Nathanoll asks, casually blocking her from entering the doorway. Smart man, obviously Seam with his bright gray eyes and dark waves. He looks to be in his late thirties.
"Anything you need darned in exchange for food or supplies," she answers.
Nathanoll scratches his chin. "We've got plenty of oil and grain, funnily enough. Having sewn clothes while we're always working would be nice. You collecting now?" She lifts her bag a little in response. "Hold on just a minute."
He returns with a larger bundle of clothes than the Grants'. Hazelle looks at it questioningly, and he explains, "Everyone who lives here works down at the site. Nearly all of our clothes need mended. This is just what I noticed from doing laundry."
Hazelle thinks of how much she can do with the old tessera staples and hides her satisfaction. Then, she remembers the time of day. "You're not there today?"
"Sick. I'm on the mend but nobody wants me passing this around, so we're giving it another day. They should be fine without me unless there's some sudden change in plans."
"Why's that?" she asks, stuffing the clothes into her bag as best she can.
"Well, I've been the overseer since we started up. I used to be a boss, and we all figured that was as much qualification as any," he says with a shrug.
"Looks like good work so far." Hazelle smiles and extends a hand to him, then thinks the better of it. She bids him good health, leaves to find Peeta if she can, and then to Haymitch's.
"So you're like the mayor now?" Peeta asks, regarding the mess of papers amid the bottles on Haymitch's desk.
"Yeah, because I'm clearly qualified." Haymitch rolls his eyes, leaning back in his chair with a bottle. "I'm just helping us become an actual district again. Think of me more as… an unofficial district intermediary for the time being."
The temporary job suited him. He suspects Plutarch wants him to fall in love with public works and commit full-time, to then transition into politics and lend that mind of his or whatever he'd said over the phone. Haymitch has no desire to lead the district, though, and doubts anybody here would want him to. Working in the background until Twelve is able to stand on its own again and then fading back into obscurity is much more appealing. He's not like Plutarch, who had a plan for after the war and saw himself in it. In a way, he's only finishing something he helped start.
Peeta uncrosses his legs and leans forward in his seat that he pushed up to the desk. "What are all these papers?"
"Contacts from over the years."
"Capitol sponsors?" Katniss asks from her own seat, the farthest from the desk. She's curled up, tired and proud after a long morning of hunting. Still thin from the winter, she's had to pace herself, quitting midway through her snare line when she's feeling unwell. While the heat's been no help with controlling her stamina, the warmer weather has had a regenerative effect on her spirit.
Haymitch shakes his head, sweeping an analytical look across the stacks. "No, rebels: district officials, Capitol defectors, military personnel, and the like." He's been deciphering their information in the margins since they don't need to be in code anymore.
As Haymitch takes a long pull from his bottle, the boy reads over a paper. Together, they've listed what's been built, what's being built, and what needs to be built by winter. The latter third is bitterly longer than the first two. "If you want, we could help you sort these, figure out who can do what." Peeta's expression remains earnest even after Katniss groans.
"As much as I know you both want to do that, it's not something I need help with. I just have to call, find out whether they're alive and willing to associate with the public, and beg for their help." Haymitch smirks at the girl. "Not unlike dealing with sponsors."
Peeta rises from his chair. "Well, the bread won't deliver itself. I still have a few orders left. The crew will be on break by the time I get down there."
"You've got some new business now that the Hawthornes are back, too."
"Yeah, I guess so," says Peeta, his eyes flickering toward Katniss. As he leaves, he hovers by her uncertainly for a moment but Haymitch doesn't see what, if anything, happens. He's already turned back to his work and his drink when the front door closes.
"I didn't know they came back." Katniss' voice is suddenly very frail, and Haymitch snaps his head up. She's gone pale. He curses himself for not realizing sooner.
"It's just Hazelle and the kids. He's still in Two - or at least not here with them," says Haymitch, just as he realizes he doesn't actually know that for sure. He only saw Hazelle yesterday and exchanged roughly five sentences with her, none of which pertaining to her oldest son. And now that he thinks about it, he did hear Gale's name during Plutarch's call, just not where his little memo came from. Still, Haymitch doubts he'd return to Twelve, the place of the Mockingjay's exile, even if his family did; the kid has a brain, after all.
The girl shakes her head, on the verge of tears or something worse. "That might be worse, seeing all them after-" Her hands almost hide the way her mouth contorts but Haymitch detects it nonetheless and crosses the room before she starts to cry.
Gale Hawthorne has been a sore topic left untouched the past few months. Not even Haymitch, who doesn't pry into Katniss and Peeta's lives anymore now that neither is trying to kill the other, could help but notice the shift in Katniss' behavior whenever something related to her late sister or her best friend reached their separate, broken world. After she made some headway in Prim's passage in the memory book, Katniss escaped into the forest for the entire day, and when she returned to see the reestablishment of Two's Justice Building on the news, she left again. The connection was obvious.
While he's patting her back, Haymitch can't help but chuckle humorlessly. "Was that honestly your first clue they were back? The cleaner house wasn't any indication?"
Katniss huffs a scathing laugh. "It ain't that clean - just not as foul."
"Well, she's trying."
Shaking her head, she tells him, "Kind of thought you were starting to put yourself together, working with Plutarch and all." He notices the disappointment now pinching her face instead of distress.
He keeps rubbing between her shoulders but looks away. She can smell the alcohol on his breath anyway.
It's not long before the girl pushes him away and sits up in the chair. She's eighteen years old and Haymitch can't tell whether she looks younger or older. Where her body isn't violently scarred it's baby pink, and her eyes - they're a hundred years haunted or they're sixteen, disarmed in a bloodbath. She considers the floor dejectedly. "What should I do? I can't ignore them when they'll be around now. The kids will want to see me, and Hazelle will want to catch up."
"Maybe they don't know."
"But I do." She brushes some stray hairs off her forehead and exhales. "Well?"
"I don't know what to tell you, sweetheart. I'm in the same boat as you on dealing with that kind of shit." Honestly, his metaphorical boat has long ago tipped over, and he's drowned in liquor since. Considering they're both thinking of Hazelle, in a way, he's even more useless.
The scowl returns to Katniss' face though her eyes are still wet and red. "Somehow I knew you'd say that. I'm going to feed Buttercup." It's enough of a goodbye, and she leaves.
Without any more distractions, Haymitch returns to his desk. He takes a steady drink, skims the list again. They need telephones down the road. Racking his brain for names, only one fits the job - sort of. He dials the number without a reference.
Beetee picks up on the third call. "Yes? Who is this?" the familiar, short-accented voice asks on the other end of the line.
"Easy, just Haymitch."
"Oh. I should have recognized the area code."
Haymitch opts for a considerate approach. "You must have a lot going on right now, I'm sure. How have you been?"
"I'm well enough," says Beetee. "Busy, but I quite enjoy what I'm working on now." Haymitch can only imagine how deep that sentiment goes. He pictures him and Gale bent over blueprints that would end the war. He remembers the live coverage of the parachute bombs and wonders - not for the first time - whether Plutarch gave input there and how much.
There's a pause where he pushes these thoughts away, and maybe Beetee is, too.
"May I ask why you're calling? It's not my birthday."
"We need telephones here in Twelve. The construction site's down the road and only the Village and the train station have telecommunication."
"Haymitch, I'm an inventor, not an electrician."
Taking a page out of Plutarch's book of flattery, Haymitch retorts, "Well, if you can loop the bug system and break into Capitol broadcasts, I'm sure telephones shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Besides, I just figured you knew more people suited for the job than I would. Our old district electrician was incinerated, and any apprentice of hers was, too."
"Fine, fine," Beetee sighs. "I don't appreciate the graphic imagery, you know. I'll give you the mayor's phone number so you can ask about getting a group of tradespeople. You need more than telephones, right?"
"Yes. We sort of need anything available." Scanning the list, Haymitch notes that they have electricity, albeit not entirely reliable, though District Five is working on that. They also have plumbing but a competent plumber wouldn't be unwelcome. While Peeta and Katniss had filled him in on almost everything else on the list, Haymitch was at least aware of those.
"Your train station," asks Beetee, "it's been restored already?" When Haymitch confirms this, Beetee muses aloud that the railroader guild has been very efficient. They were tasked with repairing the railroads across Panem so supplies and workers can be transported without hovercraft, whose limited space yet high-speed travel are used for emergency shipments.
Haymitch replies that Twelve received some of those shipments in early spring, with equipment to clean up and to begin building. "What they forgot to send were skilled workers," he says.
"District Three has been functioning well with all of the guilds. It's even created volunteer opportunities for the other districts. I'm shocked there's no one in Twelve yet."
"Plutarch just ordered some, or however it works. But as of now, what workers we have – amateur former miners, mind you - need to be able to communicate on a moment's notice."
"I understand. Talk with the mayor about that." Beetee recites the phone number as Haymitch jots it down in the margin of his list.
"Thanks, Volts."
"Good luck," he replies, adding in a stilted, teasing manner, "Hayseed."
Haymitch chuckles. "I'm hanging up now." He does just that, and before he calls the mayor, he realizes how far he is into the bottle. He'll have to monitor himself so the next few conversations today are not only coherent, but discerning. There's enough in his system that he can last until late afternoon, maybe early evening - plenty of time to start establishing reconnections. He has the rest of the night to drink, anyway.
Setting the bottle on the floor beside his desk, Haymtich tells himself this temporary job is just like the geese, something to do when he's not drinking - except he's not short on any liquor right now, and getting the district back on track is a bit more important than feeding geese.
The rest of the night, he reassures himself with a deep breath.
