Clouds cloak and darken the morning sky as though it's earlier than it really is. Hazelle fell asleep listening to torrents pounding on the roof and awoke several minutes after her alarm clock sounded. Now she hurries down the pathway from the house as she chews the last bit of her slice of bread smeared with goat butter.

Haymitch never gave her a set work schedule but Hazelle holds herself to one anyway, and she's a little late today. It took a few long days that first week to clear the house of its mess, and now it only takes a few hours to keep the house in order. But she'd rather start sooner than end later.

Until a few days ago, she would pause her work to discuss what the workers needed with Haymitch and how to go about it. She liked those days, drinking coffee with him and leaving the house cleaner with food for her children and a mission to help the community. Then, Haymitch began to venture down to the construction site himself to meet with the supervisors there, and he doesn't ask much of Hazelle anymore. She expected as much but still feels disappointed; it was refreshing to help in a way she normally doesn't.

Gale said it was people like Hazelle who would rebuild the district. She's sure he meant the diligent laborer type; all she was contributing then was mended clothes and one man's clean house. Now Hazelle can say a bit more than that, how she directed the new teams of workers into spare rooms throughout the Village and eased their transition to Twelve's underwhelming condition. She wishes Gale knew that.

She also wishes he'd call her back so she could straighten the situation with Rory out. Hazelle wills herself to not think about Gale until he's either right in front of her or on the phone with her. In the meantime, as excruciating as it is, there's nothing else she can do. She can't confront Greasy Sae yet for fear of making matters worse. She can't bring herself to seek out Katniss, either, which makes her heart ache just as much as it does keeping the truth from Rory, like Gale kept the truth from her.

As she enters Haymitch's house, Hazelle is greeted by sounds from the kitchen. She goes to state her arrival; it's not wise to startle him. Though he doesn't seem to mind waking to sounds of a possible intruder in his house, so long as they're in a different room.

Peaking into the kitchen, she only sees Peeta Mellark moving about, and he doesn't startle when he sees her.

"Hello, Missus Hawthorne." He crumples a cardboard box between his hands before stuffing it into the garbage bin. "Just restocking for him. He left without the food part of his rations yesterday. Lucky thing I was there getting more flour today."

She's about to ask what he means when he pointedly opens a cabinet, and then she understands: whatever new food Peeta has put in the pantry or refrigerator is offset by the new liquor bottles in the cabinet. Hazelle frowns at the sight. "Those are part of his rations?"

Peeta nods with a sad, knowing look. "I think Haymitch is the only reason alcohol's still sent here. Anyone else would have to place an order and wait forever."

She watches him bat the cabinet door shut and asks, "Is Haymitch here?"

"No, he's over at Katniss' for breakfast. I'm headed there next to scrape up what leftovers I can. Might have to fight Buttercup for them," Peeta jokes.

Hazelle cracks a smile but feels uneasy all the same. While she doesn't know what all his hijacking entails now that he's been medically cleared, she's kept Peeta at arm's length regardless, for other reasons. Still, they're neighbors now, and she's darned his socks and he's baked her family bread, and it's not as though he isn't a nice enough boy.

Before she can say something about getting to work, Peeta rubs his neck and asks, "Hey, Missus Hawthorne?"

"It's Hazelle when you're past reaping age," she tells him.

"Hazelle," he tries again. "I want to thank you for coming back and doing this again." He gestures around the house. "It must've been hard. Haymitch was pretty bad off, then."

"You forget I'm being paid for it."

"There's a hundred other things you could be doing that pay, too." He shrugs with his hands. "I just know that Haymitch is doing a lot better lately, and I'm choosing to believe it's not a coincidence that it started when you came on again. I mean, two weeks ago, I couldn't imagine him being involved in the reconstruction like he is now. That's not nothing, Hazelle."

"All I've done is clean his house, Peeta," she says, because for all he knows, that is all she's done. She's a housekeeper, not some miracle worker - or even a friend. "I'm sure you and Katniss have done more for him than that." She can tell they didn't usually restock his kitchen, given the state she found it in. But there are other ways to help, and they can say more than she can.

Peeta shifts uncomfortably, ducking his blond head. "We try to. It's always been like this between us. We're still his tributes to him. He helps us, and he doesn't really let us help him. I mean, I don't think he lets anyone in but..." Hazelle raises a brow at him, and he takes a breath. "You knew each other, didn't you?"

She looks away, willing him to leave so she can work. She tries to shrug indifferently. "Lots of people knew each other around here. He and Greasy Sae did."

"Only while he worked for her in the Hob." At her expression, Peeta explains, "Haymitch told me. He's been telling me more about himself, his past - but he barely mentions any friends. When he does, they're never named."

For good reason, Hazelle thinks with remorse. The memories Haymitch has left of his family were preserved in coffins whereas the memories of his friends were stained each time their paths crossed with an unease that rivaled reaping day, rather than some happy reunion. They were worse than strangers to each other.

And her children don't know his role in stories, either. She couldn't muster empathy or hatred without feeling guilt in some way, the betrayal of either blaming an old friend who was traumatized beyond her comprehension or excusing a drunkard who no longer bothered with the children of their district. So she found in silence a kind of abeyance, grieving the boy he was and not knowing the man he became.

"Were you one of them?" Peeta asks.

Hazelle nods, pressing her lips.

Understanding loosens his face a little. Now he looks away. "What happened?"

"If he hasn't told you himself," she says carefully, "it's definitely not my place to share." Honestly, she couldn't bear to relay the night of the arrests, the executions.

Nodding as if he anticipated this answer, Peeta mumbles, "I understand. Sorry." He picks up a nearby picture frame of a boy playing soccer. Hazelle knows it's Cory; Haymitch always slipped on the ball. "I can put two and two together, I know they're gone, it's just... When I keep hearing about them and seeing them like this, it's hard not to be curious." He returns the picture to its place. "I won't ask about them again."

"It's okay," says Hazelle. She moves over to the pictures, wanting another look at them. "He's told you a lot about them?" When Peeta nods, so does she. "That's good. I didn't think he could." Then again, she never thought he'd openly recognize his loved ones ever again, and here they are in their clean frames.

"Well, he must've been ready. Maybe he'll tell the rest when he's ready for that, too."

Hazelle frowns, remembering the other week, how bold she had been asking about these pictures. She'd be wise to listen to this young man; he knows Haymitch better than she does now.

Peeta crosses his arms beside her. "His past seems everywhere lately. There's, well, you and Mister Carter-"

"Mister Carter?"

"The one overseer," he says. "They know each other somehow."

Knitting her brows, Hazelle tries to place their connection. As she stares at a photo of Haymitch's mom, her solemn gray eyes staring back, she realizes. "Carter. That was his mom's maiden name. Rayan Carter." Haymitch and Nathanoll are related, then, for all that could mean to them now.

"Well, from what I saw, they're not particularly fond of each other." Peeta turns to her. "But at least he has us, right?"

"Especially you and Katniss," she says. He looks down with a bashful smile, and the reserve Hazelle feels toward him melts away as she smiles back. "It's a custom in the Seam that neighbors look out for each other, and we're all neighbors now."

"Thank you, Hazelle - really." He nods toward the front door. "I should probably go."

"See you around, Peeta."

After he leaves, she's still standing by the photos. In a minute, Hazelle will start her work day but for the moment, she looks at these paper windows into a past that took place next door to her own, except hers burned up with everything else.


The spatula smacks Haymitch's hand hard. "Hey!" He rubs his hand, looking forlornly from Sae to the plate of bacon on the counter next to her.

Sae chuckles as she continues to fry the eggs in the pan. "Serves you right. You're waiting and eating at the table like everybody else."

"Like they'd mind," he mutters but it's no use arguing with the old woman. Working for her as a kid, Haymitch knows Sae Crowley is only generous until she's not. She may have let him and Mollie wash dishes behind her stand when they were younger but they earned every coin she could spare, which wasn't many.

In a glib tone, Katniss says, "This is my house, and I declare that there shall be no stealing." She pets the ugly tomcat on her lap, and their smirks match.

"And yet poaching is allowed?" counters Haymitch, reaching for his glass on the table. He'd brought the bottle over to Katniss' but Sae insisted he use a water glass. Whatever. He sips it once.

Katniss shrugs as she scratches under Buttercup's chin. "You can have whatever you take down yourself."

"So now I need to shoot one of the Grants' piglets?" He smirks at her annoyed look and shakes his head. "Don't ever go into law, sweetheart."

Sae sighs. "I guess we should be happy you're eating. Took you longer than Katniss to realize it wasn't going to kill you."

"Never know for sure with your cooking." He accepts the reciprocating slap to his shoulder. Katniss chuckles along with him, familiar with Sae's rather inventive soups as well.

She's filling out again, her hips and waist more padded than a mere few weeks ago. Her olive skin has returned to its normal complexion from spending time in the sun again, though it's not as tanned as it could be, which is more than Haymitch can say for himself. His jaundice hasn't faded, and though he's starting to gain back some weight, he still looks drawn.

Sae scrapes at the sizzling pan. "From the looks of you, it's been Hazelle who gets the plates licked clean."

"Right, sure," Haymitch appeases, albeit sarcastically. He humored Sae and the kids by accepting the constant loaves and meaty stews that showed up in his kitchen, though much of it went to waste. He blamed their overestimation of his appetite outside of alcohol. And it's not that Hazelle's done anything different, so much as he's been needing to run on something more substantial lately.

"You do look better," Katniss offers, trying to be nonchalant. Haymitch stifles the reflexive retort in his throat with another drink. It's unnerving whenever she lets on that she cares about him. Clearing her throat, she asks, "Where's Annalise?"

Sae looks over her shoulder. "In the living room. Anna! Breakfast is ready."

The younger girl, eleven years old at most, scampers in holding a book. She offers it to her grandmother with outstretched arms, not getting too close. Haymitch notices Katniss considering her with confusion as well as pity. Her expression changes to slight alarm, and she rises from her seat, setting the cat down.

"That's mine," Katniss tells Sae, who's taken the book from Annalise but hasn't opened its pages - only Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch have done that. When Sae gives it back to her, Katniss grips it and looks over the cover, checking for damage probably.

"Oh, she didn't hurt your precious book," Haymitch says, rolling his eyes. Annalise may be simple but she's harmless enough. Haymitch saw her around the Hob sometimes whenever Sae had to look after her, huddled behind the counter fiddling with the yo-yo that Darius, one of the more tolerable Peacekeepers, had given her once. He wonders whether Annalise escaped with the toy during the firebombing, whether the gift came with lessons. She seemed to appreciate it regardless but she doesn't carry it now.

His next drink is for Darius, who intervened at Gale's flogging only to become an Avox used to threaten Katniss, then torment Peeta. It's not the first time Haymitch has wordlessly toasted him. Not much else he can do for him now.

Katniss doesn't bother glaring at him. She flips through the few finished pages briskly yet carefully, pausing on her sister's page. As always, Primrose Everdeen grins at her pet goat licking her cheek. Katniss' fingers brush the other painted cheek.

Haymitch averts his eyes, remembering his own pictures at home. He understands needing that assurance, even if it took him years to follow through on it. Painful though it is to look at the past, he's decided it's worse to never look and risk their faces becoming distorted by time. The only photograph Katniss seems to own is of her parents, and so without the book, she'd have no other remnant of her sister's appearance.

With that, Haymitch raises the glass to his lips in another private toast - this time for his mother's sentimental foresight in renting that old camera. He'd thought it wasteful, then. But that was when the world was small and he knew everything.

Sae frowns at Katniss as she scoops the eggs from the pan onto plates, her drooping eyes pinched with what he recognizes is anger. Haymitch raises a brow at her in question, and Sae shakes her head and answers, "It ain't right, what happened."

Looking up from the book that's replaced Buttercup in her lap, Katniss looks like she's about to ask what she means until she realizes on her own. She turns away to dole out a morsel for Buttercup, her face stony. Beside her, Annalise isn't at all concerned with dirty war tactics or dead civilian children as she picks off the ribbons of fat from her bacon and eats the strip of meat left.

Haymitch sighs to himself. He never should've told Sae about that. He wasn't in a particularly good - or sober - place all those months ago when he felt he had to explain why she needed to look after Katniss, and the ugly truth of Primrose's death was among the many rambled reasons. Sae pulled enough coherency from him to get his point and then some. Haymitch doubts she even needed a reason past the girl needs help and I can't help her, but that's not how he'd phrased it then - not out loud, anyway.

"I think we all understand that not everything that happens is right," he replies, his voice cloying with condescension.

Sae wields her spatula. "Don't get smart with me. There should still be consequences," she insists.

"Stop." Katniss has closed her eyes, tensed her shoulders.

Haymitch pats her forearm on the table. "It's all right, sweetheart. We're done talking about it," he adds pointedly to Sae.

Placing stray dishes in the sink, Sae grumbles aloud to herself, "Poor girl can't have any time to rest without something from the past slapping her full in the face. They should've all gone to Two with him, not-"

"Sae-"

Katniss stands up. "I said stop!" she yells, then runs out of the house. Haymitch quit trying to go after her since their time in the Presidential Mansion. She forgot her boots so she can't go very far anyway.

He glares at Sae. "Why do I get the feeling you've run your mouth about this before?"

She lifts her chin. "Because you know when you're right." As Haymitch holds his head, groaning, she explains, "Hazelle didn't even know which side was responsible, and I didn't want her treating Katniss like everything was fine and dandy when it ain't - so I told her just enough."

"And I'm sure she was so glad you took it upon yourself to imply that her son might be a war criminal." He's mostly being facetious here, as he's not quite certain who or what qualifies given the discrepancy in how the bombs were intended under design versus how they were implemented under leadership. Not like he can trust any tribunal to be impartial at this point, regardless.

"Somebody had to. Only a few of us know the truth."

"You weren't even supposed to know!" Ironically enough, Haymitch wasn't supposed to, either. Fortunately, Katniss did, and she clued him in enough to get the right president deposed, and then more came to light behind the scenes of her trial, and then Haymitch decided postwar politics just weren't for him and he exiled himself with the Mockingjay.

As if to highlight the very error that started this mess - well, in his case - Haymitch refills his glass and then just swigs from the bottle.

"That's neither here nor there. Hazelle should've known well before the rest of us, if you ask me. Maybe now she can pull his ear away from the folk who stoked him up too hot." From what Haymitch knows about Sae's late son, he assumes the sentiment is from experience. "Who I can only hope get justice one day," she adds, grimmer.

"The time for trials are over. Everyone who's left has the power to be on it, not in it," Haymitch explains dryly. He's already drank through this unpleasant realization a few times over. He might have to lend Sae a bottle to get through it, too.

She folds her bony arms, looking more disappointed now. "So nothing's changed. This country's still covered in young blood, and everyone who knows it doesn't mind as long as the blasted war ended in their favor. Even one of our own wanted to fight fire with fire - after he just learned how quickly it can catch and destroy what little we have." She shakes her head and turns back to the sink.

"Ended the war in our favor," Haymitch corrects. He can only imagine her outrage if he'd also shared Coin's plan for a final Hunger Games of Capitol children, when their blood - thirteen arenas' worth - was already spilt a month prior. "Look, you're right that what happened didn't give us as clean a start as we wished. But don't rub it in Katniss' face. And don't drag people who weren't involved into this, either." Haymitch pauses with his bottle halfway to his mouth. "In other words, don't be like me. I shouldn't have dropped that bomb on you," he catches himself with a wince, "so to speak."

Sae waves a hand. "I know what liquor looks like on someone worried about their kid."

"You know better, too. So you should probably go apologize and fix this. Say you misspoke about something that's really only hearsay to you - hearsay from a bitter drunk who didn't know what day it was, mind you. Blame it all on me if you want."

"I'm not a liar, Haymitch," she tells him, firm. "I spoke out of turn, sure, and I'll apologize for that. But if it's the truth - and you never went back on that - Hazelle had a right to know. Now she can think twice and maybe even get through to her boy."

"How altruistic of you," Haymitch remarks flatly, then sighs. "Fine, whatever. Just quit being an old gossip while you're at it. This is a sensitive matter, you know," he adds with a haughty lift of his chin that earns a low chuckle.

"Something something, not as I do," Sae recites. "But you have my word. Might have to offer some business with clothes for Hazelle to mend so she doesn't shut the door in my face outright."

"Hazelle mends?"

Sae nods. "She's gone around looking for anything to darn. Skipped me, of course."

Haymitch frowns at this bit of news; he pays Hazelle well enough, and he hopes he never gave the impression that he'd fire her. He wouldn't screw her over like that, though the irony if he did isn't lost on him.

"Well, if it gets her to listen to you, by all means." He reaches for another serving of eggs until Sae reminds him Peeta is still dropping by later, and he loses his appetite for food. So now the boy will find him drunk with cold scrambled eggs and no Katniss.

But, even though Peeta will be disappointed, he won't be surprised the girl ran off again. Relapse in any form is as common around here as rain.