Hazelle wakes well before her children plan on her to. From her place in bed, she can hear them in the hallway, holding their breath as they creep past her bedroom door and rustle down the stairs. Soon enough, there's the clamor of cupboard doors and pans, the worst of which are echoed by shushing, until all she hears is the high sizzle of something frying.

She wants to go brush her teeth and wash her face but they'll rush if they overhear her. The smell of sausage drifts up to her, and she rolls onto her back to wait for it.

By the time they crack the door open and file into her room with a full breakfast - fried apples, eggs, and sausage with buttered toast and a mug of pale coffee - Hazelle has taken account of all the things she needs to do once she's done eating. She sits up and greets them with a sleepy smile. "Morn-"

"Happy birthday!"

She does but doesn't feel forty-one. She's never been this old before.

According to Alice, she ought to remain forty since last year didn't count. "Even just ten extra minutes to shower or sleep or something," she'd said after turning forty-six in Thirteen. "But no, just a physical exam and blood work."

Hazelle couldn't complain; it seemed like asking for too much after everything.

So here she is instead, with her children sitting atop her sleep-warmed quilt while she eats, their forearms free of ink and dawn outside her window.

She invites them to join her but none of them are hungry; it's still very early for them. Even Posy turns down a forkful of apples, wanting instead to curl up by her knee.

"It was hard without Gale," Vick says around a yawn, "but we still beat you to it."

Posy giggles, halfway under the covers. "We took your alarm clock!"

Hazelle looks to her bedside table for the alarm clock she hasn't used in weeks. "Oh, you did. Make sure you put that back, please." Then, she looks at the plate in her lap, the empty mug on a puddle of yolk. "I'll clean this up."

"No! We have to; it's your birthday."

With a soft laugh, Hazelle says, "All right, then. I'll be down in a minute."

They leave with her dishes, and she slips out of bed as Rory pulls the door shut behind him.

Patting her face dry, Hazelle looks like herself in the mirror - not older, not younger. No more than the few sparse gray hairs she went to bed with. The lines appearing more and more in her face are unchanged today. She looks about how most do at this age, only better fed.

Hard to believe she might actually have another half of her life, another forty years, ahead of her now more than ever.

She's spent much of the first half on her own in some way or another, as an only child with working parents or as a widow of four. But she carved out a life worth living in the Seam, wrung happiness from rags. The war did not destroy everything; for all she's lost, Hazelle counts her blessings for how much she has - and she has more than enough. She has everything she needs.

And yet, now, in the second half of her life, she still feels that press forward. She's trying to follow it.

She can't believe where that's carried her so far: a renewed friendship, an extensive community project, a new career, a mysterious pen pal. That she can take account of so much apart from her children honestly astounds her.

She wants to tell Gale about it when he calls for the birthday song but he sounds half asleep and can't stay on the phone for long. She thanks him for the new apron instead. There are embroidered mountains on the front pocket - the snowy, brutal ones Haymitch described to her. It reminds her of how she'll see them soon enough, along with Gale.

After that, her birthday may as well be over. Not that she expects anything else; it's silly to make a whole day of it, when there are errands and chores to attend to.

The kids make their own breakfast and, out of force of habit, Hazelle ends up washing dishes anyway while they eat. She breaks the seal on a jar of strawberry-vanilla jam for their toast that Rory scolds Vick for forgetting earlier. Posy insists she takes a bite of hers to rectify this.

Once the table is cleared and their lunches packed, they play slapjack until the kids leave for their lessons. Hazelle goes with them; what used to be a walk up the street is now a walk into Town, up to a modest schoolhouse.

Dana Renner was right: they are in a good place by fall. The newcomers have settled in as locals, stores have opened, houses in the Village have overflowed into the new ones. The train that brought a couple pharmacists and supplies for the factory has begun to leave with medicine. The disaster brigade, as it's somehow become known as, has gone through rudimentary training and, since there's been no disaster lately, is now fortifying the place against them.

When Hazelle drops her kids off at school, none of the other parents are heading back her way. She looks up and down the road for Bly Randall, who has a habit of catching up with her or, if he's coming from the other direction, forgetting something and having to turn back with her. She doesn't see him around this morning but she's thought that before and been wrong.

Just as well, walking by herself, Hazelle can breathe in the peaty October morning and not feel held up.

What's odd is, on paper, she should like Bly. He took to restoring old cast iron cookware from the wreckage this past spring. He'd told her about this when she measured him, related it to her commission. It was an impressive undertaking to be sure. But, in the few walks she's taken with him, they don't seem to have much else in common besides losing their home and coming back. They'd have about the same conversation every time if she didn't vary it herself.

Same old, same old, he tends to reply with a shrug - but that's not true. Nothing is the same. And it's like he doesn't want to recognize that whereas that's all Hazelle thinks of, all that's keeping her up at night.

Anyway, she's been parting with him well before her walkway so the kids don't get ideas. Which is, she assumes, contrary to his interest; his eyes light up whenever she mentions them. Call her paranoid after Thirteen, but Bly looks at her as if wanting something she's not willing to give. Really, he should've stayed in Thirteen; he'd have better luck there.

Once she's inside, Hazelle sets about finishing the scrap blankets. She stayed up late the other night pinning the rest of them into place, well after she sent even Rory to bed, and hasn't gotten around to sewing them together. The sewing machine will make short work of them now that she's not using it for the clothing commission, which finished up earlier this month. She's been able to stretch the scraps from donations into more blankets than they can hold, and plans to send the surplus out by the next train, before the weather gets colder. Part of her wants to keep them, just in case, but she knows they have enough to keep warm this winter whereas the other districts may not.

Halfway through, Hazelle stops to roll her neck and flex every joint in her arms, from shoulders to fingers. She's forty-one today, and she feels every year of it and then some right now, hunched over the sewing machine for hours. At least with a needle and thread she can recline and make conversation or listen to the television.

That's how she finally caught up on the show Haymitch told her about. There's a new installment of it next month, where the focus will be on the village's local election - more so how the characters go about it amid all of their interpersonal drama and such. For how much airtime it gets, she finds the show is mostly good for background noise while one of the kids naps on the couch with a fever and she's waiting on the bone broth.

Standing to stretch, she remembers how her mom used to amble around with her needlework, sick of sitting still for too long but determined to finish whatever needed mended. That was before Hazelle took on most of the housework, when her dad could only pick shale for half-wages and her mom went into the mines.

And now she can take her first ever bubble bath tonight, in a bathroom bigger than her old kitchen. She knew what it was when Tigris referenced it but wrote back that she's never had one herself. So of course the return letter was accompanied by another package, filled with flowery bath salts and liquid soap.

As excited as she is to try them, the package made Hazelle sift through all their letters to find something to send back. Otherwise, it could come across like she's angling for handouts. Finding nothing of note that Tigris might want to try, she's set aside a jar of pickled ramp and another of roasted acorns - as well as a scrap pillowcase, if only so Tigris can review her work; she's never seen it otherwise, for all they discuss it.

Hazelle hasn't taken Tigris' suggestion to attach a label to her pieces; it only would've made more work, and she doesn't care to mark them as her own yet. These are necessary things that she's making, in no short order, not merchandise. And she's had so much help, it wouldn't be true to claim it all as her own.

She reconsiders doling out some of these pinned blankets to the handful that helped with them before. But truthfully, she can get it done quicker by herself rather than waiting on others like last time. They were all hand sewn, then, and the nice thing about scrap blankets is that they don't need to look pretty, just stay intact. A few were even held together with surgical stitches.

After a small lunch that's eaten standing in the kitchen, Hazelle sits back down to knock out the rest of the blankets. The machine whirs, the bobbin drives up and down, and she moves the fabric to her will.

Before long, she's packing the blankets and the things for Tigris to be taken to the train station. She'll have the kids help bring it all there. School lets out soon. They might need to borrow a wagon from somebody.

A phone call interrupts her planning.

She hurries to the school again, leaving her packages behind. If Bly tries to intercept her, she's prepared to say, Not now! without stopping.

She weaves past children who are leaving for the day. Rory and Vick are out in the hallway with Ennis Cartwright, looking inside the classroom for the youngest ones. They're trying very hard not to laugh. Hazelle gives them a warning look as she strides past them.

Posy is the only one left sitting at her little desk, her arm twisted behind her. She's crying something to Haymitch, who's crouched beside her in his dark brigade uniform.

"You're fine, you're fine," he drawls as he pulls her sleeve up. He smears what looks like butter over her hand and wrist.

Delly comes over to Hazelle with an apologetic look. "She's been sticking her hand in her chair like that all day. I kept telling her to stop… and then this time we couldn't get it out..."

Overhearing this, Posy rises somewhat in her chair to look over Haymitch at them. "Why does the chair even have those holes? It's like my hand was made for them!" She splays her free hand at them.

Haymitch chuckles. "Evidently, they weren't or we wouldn't be here." He tests whether her greased hand can slip out now and says to Madea, who's leant against a low bookshelf by the window, "We might need the saw after all."

"The saw!" squeals Posy. "Please don't cut off my hand! I won't do it again, I promise!"

"No - for the chair! We'll cut the chair if we have to. But let's keep at this some more." He runs a finger up and down the slat she's stuck in to grease this as well.

Even still, Posy starts to pull against the chair, rocking herself in it, and then shakes her trapped hand in frustration. "Ah-aah!" She hits the seatback with her free hand as her face screws up, all red and teary. "I want out! Get me out!" she sobs. "I want to go home!"

"Madea," Haymitch gets out, terse, as he's forced to stop but Hazelle is already on her way over instead. Louder, over his shoulder, "Delly? Someone!"

"I'm here." Hazelle bends and lays a hand on her daughter's shoulder, shushing her. "Posy, hold still and let him help. We're not going to leave you here."

This calms her a little. She fixes her eyes on the floor with a sniffle, still bruised from the outburst.

From the doorway, Ennis calls out, "Hey, listen to this! Listen: Least the chairs at Miss Rem's weren't booby-trapped!" He breaks off in wild giggles, pulling the other boys into it. While they amuse themselves with this, Posy breaks her focus to glance between her and Haymitch, unsure whether she's allowed to tell Ennis to shut up.

Hazelle would let her. She can't in good faith tell an orphan who's not under her roof to cut it out.

Besides a faint lift of his brow, Haymitch ignores all of them. His hands are on either side of the seatback now, trying to push enough of Posy's hand down to ease it out. Posy whimpers and bites her lip. Her palm starts to slip out, and together they pull her hand through. "There we are," he says under his breath.

Posy holds her hand and kisses it, coming away with her mouth smeared in grease. "Oh, thank you!" She moves to give Haymitch a big hug but he raises a hand between them that she uses for a buttery high-five instead.

Hazelle gathers her into her arms. "Silly girl. Better?"

Posy nods against her. Then, she catches sight of the boys looking at her again in the doorway. "Stop laughing at me!"

"We're not laughing," Vick claims, even though they might as well be.

"Posy. Boys," Hazelle says sternly enough to get them to mind for now. She takes a rag from Delly to wipe off Posy's hand. "Next time, you listen to Miss Delly, all right?" Rubbing her wrist, Posy just nods again, so downcast Hazelle pulls her hand in to kiss it.

It's Madea that steps in to look at her hand. Haymitch has left the classroom without a word, taking with him what Hazelle realizes was the smell of kerosene.

Delly flips the chair onto the table. "Well, that's a way to end the day."

Posy smiles, forgets her injury at once. "You rhymed!"

As they walk out together, Hazelle tells Madea the blankets are ready, and they plan for her to come by tomorrow before work to get them to the train in time.

"I'm glad something finally came up while I was on standby," says Madea, offhand. "The others got to burn tracker-jacker nests earlier."

Hazelle shakes her head. Madea keeps herself busier than anyone, she's found. Her initial assignment to Twelve for reconstruction turned over into assisting with the clothing commission. And now she's dividing her time as a clerk at the Justice Building and a volunteer for the disaster brigade.

While Hazelle knows better than to ask, she wonders if there's a past she's trying to outrun, outwork. Madea had a whole life she left behind - but this is also true for the district workers who have chosen to stay. Mostly, Hazelle can't get it out of her mind that she was in the Capitol when it fell.

Outside, Madea turns for the brigade station around the corner. "Better report back and see what Haymitch got up to."

As they head for the Village, Delly says, "I just love those blankets you made, by the way. They're like quilts." She hugs her arms across her middle, grabbing at the patchwork fabric of her cardigan sleeves. "And I can't get over how warm this is! You wouldn't think, looking at it. Thank you again."

Hazelle nods once, smiling graciously. This isn't the first time someone has stopped to thank her for her contributions. She's not surprised by their gratitude so much as the perceived novelty of what she's done. Some of the guild workers have told her that people don't conserve things quite like they do in Twelve; they'd see a discarded pile of tattered clothes and use it for tinder or to line their windows, not turn it into bedding or warmer clothes meant to last. Hazelle could only shrug; it's just the Seam way, and she's never been prouder of that until this commission.

"I know how much goes into shoes," Delly goes on, "and I'm sure the same goes for clothes and bedding!"

"Yeah, my sister likes to wear shoes more than making them," Ennis tells everybody with an expectant grin. "You could say I'm the opposite!" He starts to peel off his shoes and socks, hopping from one foot to the other.

Delly rolls her eyes fondly. "Ennis, it's too cold for that."

"Oh my," is all Hazelle can say, walking on with Posy while the others slow for him. She should be glad there's more kids Rory's age around now, and she is, but she's also well aware that friends tend to hold more sway than her at this age, and she'd rather he not be swayed Ennis' way.

When they get home, Hazelle catches up on laundry. She uses a pan she's lightly heated to iron all the pants - an old standby, but now something she can't do without thinking of Bly. She leaves a pile of folded clothes on each kitchen chair for the kids to take to their rooms. Rory takes her pile as well without asking, which makes her smile.

Haymitch drops by before dinner - for him, after work. "Hey. Posy doing all right?"

"Right as rain. Here, I'll call her," she says, starting to turn but he waves her off.

"No, no. She's had a long day." He follows her eyes to the spot in his hair that looks as though he wet it. "I-" He ghosts his hand that's now free of grease over the spot, sheepish. "You get it."

Hazelle raises a brow, fighting a smile. "By the way, do I owe the brigade butter?"

"No," he says through a breathless laugh. "On the house." He shakes his head with a knowing sigh. "I knew as soon as I saw those chairs that that would happen at some point."

"I'm sure it won't be the last." She nods over her shoulder. "Well, I'm just reheating soup for dinner. There's plenty, if you want to join. Or cider?"

He smiles at her, then, like she's said something more than she has. "Another time. Geese are waiting on me. Long day myself."

That means she should say goodbye and yet it also prompts her. "I heard you burned tracker-jacker nests?"

His eyes widen, bewildered at this as well. "Yeah. Couldn't wait until winter anymore, what with Nadine."

Hazelle nods. Nadine just had a close encounter, almost mistaking one for a beehive. Thank goodness she'd stepped on a dead one before she got too close. She said she'd heard buzzing so the coming cold hadn't taken care of them yet, leaving only a dormant queen to be dealt with.

"There'll be honey on your doorstep any day now." Nadine gave her a sizable jar when she left with the Crowley family last month - a repayment that Hazelle knew not to refuse.

"And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about: getting honey from orphans. Though I'd rather that than finding her stung to death."

Again, Hazelle should really let him go home. But she's starting to realize something. "You up and left earlier. Was it Posy?"

His eyes train on her for a moment, then fall away. "Didn't think a simple call like that would do me in." He shakes his head at himself. "It was going fine. Only, when she got upset… I heard kids sound just like that, saying those same things."

"I know. I heard them, too." For years, Hazelle watched how children hid in the Cornucopia during the blood bath like her children chose adorably bad spots in hide-and-seek, how they wrestled over a knife like they wrestled over nothing, how they cried in hunger... Whereas the Games remind Hazelle of her children, children remind Haymitch of the Games. Her experience was the intended one, the one to wield control, but the inverse strikes her as worse.

"I don't know how you stand it," he tells her, earnest, like it hurts to say. "Having kids."

"It's all I've known," she admits with a twitch of a shrug. He can barely nod to this. She can tell he's searching for an out. Regretting that she brought it up in the first place, she gives him one. "Could do without the immature-boy humor, though."

Haymitch breaks into a belly laugh that's part relief, part petty glee. "Oh, man, I wish you could've seen how annoyed you looked."

"Oh, I didn't need to see it; I felt it plenty." She covers her eyes and rubs them. "He's not a bad kid, he's just-"

"I'm sure but-" He pulls his face into a derisive side-eye.

"And you can't say anything when-"

"Believe me, I know." He chuckles through his teeth. "You do not suffer fools, Hazelle. Which, speaking of, maybe - here." With no further preamble, he dips a hand into his pocket and holds out brown paper packets to her.

She takes them, fans them in her hands: rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender.

"Two for one;" he explains, "they're useful, and they flower."

She's not surprised by the warmth that sweeps through her, troublesome though it is. Her fingers smooth over the packets of seeds, as if to iron out creases that aren't there. "Is this your way of telling me I need to season my cooking more?"

"They're not spices," he evades. At her look, he relents. "No. Just thought you'd like them, that's all - as a birthday gift."

The next garden, she's mentioned. But she can't believe he'd remember this, of all things. "How'd you-"

"Posy told us as soon as we got there today. Rather, that she was ruining it. So-" He gestures to what's in her hands. "A little last minute but whatever. I'm out of the habit."

He should know birthday gifts - gifts of any kind - are something done among family. But, well, she should know that doesn't amount to much for him.

"These are expensive right now," Hazelle remarks, not looking up from the seed packets.

"Nah, they were a steal."

"What did you pay?" she presses, and when he tells her, "How much?" He repeats himself and she didn't mishear him the first time. "They stole from you, more like."

He shrugs coolly. "Not really your concern since it's a gift." He holds out an indifferent hand. "Unless you're declining?"

Hazelle could roll her eyes at this bluff. But then she remembers herself. She takes his hand instead, squeezing it once - only once - and lets go. "Thank you."

"There we go. Took you long enough." Looking far too pleased with himself, Haymitch turns to leave. "All right, for real this time, the geese are going to stage a mutiny if-" He's practically walking backward off the porch.

"Go on, then," she calls back, waving him off like a stray raccoon but she's smiling. Then she closes the door, checks what she feels against several harsh realities, and heads for the pantry.

It's not until after bedtime, as she stoppers the drain and draws a bath, that Hazelle recalls Katniss assuring her Haymitch wasn't so bad, just keep your distance, before she'd made him hire her. She could stand to hear that again now.

The old way - his numb and drunken glare, the mess of his house - seems to shrink in her mind as the new reality of him settles in its place. But that doesn't mean it's gone. She wants it to be, and so it's the least she can do to not interfere.

Because, even though Alice was concerned he'd take advantage of her, Hazelle fears the inverse even more. To come to him to heal a broken friendship, only to shove other intentions into it when all he needs right now is a friend, would be nothing short of betrayal. It's too much, too soon, and she ought not lose her head. There's such thing as too forward.

That's all she ever wanted anyway, for them to be friends again.

She pours the bath salts and liquid soap under the fountain and watches as foamy bubbles erupt from it. She takes up a handful, studies its iridescence under the bathroom lights. It's a lot of product for one bath - a real luxury, she marvels as she steps out of her clothes and into the bubbles.

Easing herself down, the sigh comes on its own as hot, softened water encases her, soothing her aches and sores. She levels her arms to the water line until they break the surface and chill. She moves the foam into a mountain range and thinks how much Posy would love this. Good thing she's saved enough to share another time.

Stray hairs that escaped her bun stick to the nape of her neck with flowery steam or sweat or both. She's spent long hours with steam and lye vapors. This is nothing like that, nothing like the fiscal baths she's used to.

Alone like this, Hazelle sits with her thoughts. She gives herself the benefit of the doubt.

It's just something that's been on her mind more, and so it's no wonder he's drawn into it on occasion. That doesn't mean she has to keep him there. She'll escort him out like swatting a bee back through an open window.

The window stays open.

Questions keep sprouting in her mind unbidden, like How do you date after a war? How do you kiss someone for the first time when you're not young and clumsy? How do you let someone into the part of you that held children from another man?

Hazelle knows others have figured that out before. She knows it's possible. She doesn't know where to fit herself into it, where to start.

If anything, Hazelle knows she's not going to start with Bly Randall. She's had to tell Alice more than once now that she's not in a rush to settle down with the first man who shows interest. She can afford to take her time, to not find anyone at all if that's how it works out. She has everything she needs.

Hazelle lies back, rests her neck on the cool lip of the tub. Maybe she'll sleep through the night tonight. Maybe Tigris has given her the cure. Maybe she'll bathe in dried lavender one day next year.

In a roundabout way, he gave her flowers for her birthday.

She covers her face with wet hands. She can't believe herself. She knows better.

Evidently, Haymitch is more of a tracker-jacker than a bee in her mind. He'd laugh at her if he knew that. But what kind of laugh? she wonders for a split second before resolving not to try to answer.

Like most things, Hazelle will sort this out on her own, quietly; it'll pass with him none the wiser.

There are still other good men, who don't struggle with the mundane, who can tolerate children crying, who aren't held to the feeding schedule of wild geese they've entrapped, who she's never hurt for years on end by omission while they were at their lowest.

But - and maybe it's a little selfish, a little vain - she likes having his full attention more than she probably lets on. Someone so imposing, who frowns at stubborn stitches like studying pieces on a war room map, trusts her enough to show the parts of him that are softer and wants to hear what she has to say.

The boy she knew would never admit to that. What was once snarky bravado that tricked even her in their youth, has tempered into something formidable that wasn't foolhardy, but guarded and competent, that she has to admire. Somehow there's no pretense anymore, that he cannot be wry and tender all at once.

He's surprised her so much, taking her feeble offer and running with it, refusing her guilt and becoming a worthwhile friend. She feels outwitted, outpaced in some way.

It doesn't help that he looks his age, too - only better fed.

Hazelle scolds herself, thinks of self-remedies. She pictures him drinking from her like a bottle.

But it's not a liquor bottle - it's the canteen from the night of the house fire.

The water spills down his throat and she sinks under the hot water before her face has a chance to flush on its own. Her knees chill above the water.