AN: In Mockingjay, I noticed that Haymitch didn't invite Hazelle to the Katniss-is-inspirational meeting in District 13 even though he would've known by then that they were family friends, and I wondered if maybe their own relationship was strained for some reason. Which I like to think predated his hiring her - because that's angsty and awkward. But I also want healing and a soft epilogue... so here we are.
Many thanks to Estoma and Deathmallow, who helped immensely at the start of this story as beta readers, and to Mr. MarbleSharp, my current beta!
Something of Our Own
With its darkness and accompanying nightmares, Haymitch dreads sleep.
It's the worst part of his day now that the Hunger Games are over. Any day or week or month now, the reaping day will be acknowledged but not practiced. Haymitch plans to avoid all the commemorating, if he hasn't missed the big day already. With the memories rotting inside his subconscious, recreating themselves behind his eyelids just about every night, Haymitch doesn't need to remember anything; he needs to forget.
Gone are the days when sleep was a relief or even just a basic function he didn't think twice about. Reality may be another kind of nightmare but at least he has a fighting chance with it - whereas sleep is a trap that he can't outwit, try as he might have for years. He's settled on alcohol, which only numbs him to that transition, that reluctant handover of his defenses for a few erratic hours he can only hope gets him through to daylight.
Maybe the problem is that he wakes up.
As long as Haymitch isn't aware of himself, his life, or the memories that torment him, he's content. But even in sleep, Haymitch is all too aware. The only solution may very well be death but he has two too many people under his charge for that.
Not that he hasn't considered it. But succumbing to the life he's lived means succumbing to the Capitol, and Haymitch didn't play a hand in its fall to die that generously. Instead, he drinks and bides his time as he's made to eat, bathe, and talk until he can drink some more, until he has to fall asleep.
Right now, he's very, very close to falling asleep.
But then a goose honks too close to his face, and he practically leaps over the side of the couch.
The sound familiar enough that he doesn't stab the damn thing, Haymitch screws his eyes shut and groans from the floor, which he now has no intention of leaving. "Who the hell let you in?" he asks the goose, not expecting an answer.
He gets one anyway.
"I did." Shifting a bag onto her shoulder, Hazelle Hawthorne adds, "Sorry. It ran in when I opened the door."
Haymitch sits up from the floor slowly, cautiously. He doesn't respond to her apology - frankly, he doesn't care when the geese get inside - but to her presence, here, in his house in a forsaken district that's been razed to ash and wreckage. She's here when she should be in Thirteen or anywhere else in Panem. Then again, Twelve was her home and maybe that's reason enough for her.
Still, she's in his house.
Groggily, Haymitch realizes Hazelle has come back to him specifically for work. The old canvas bag at her hip is full of cleaning implements he hasn't bothered to use in her absence. She must have left the bag in his house, maybe in the pantry with the mop and broom he'll trip over from time to time; any belongings from the Seam that she didn't take with her were surely lost in the firebombing. That sizable paycheck he'd left her the week of the reaping is long gone as well. What was supposed to be severance pay - but then he didn't die.
Hazelle looks around the room, and while there's obvious distaste in her gaze, there's also determination Haymitch recognizes. She's done this before, and she'll do it again - even though Haymitch isn't asking.
She looks better. Living in Thirteen, where the diet is strict yet consistent, for the past year has filled out her sunken cheeks. There's less air in her clothes, too. Her olive skin has paled from life underground, and it reminds him more of a collier's complexion - the one she wore during the miners' strike, years ago.
Her eyes are tired. That's nothing new, though. She's seen war, lived on its precipice. She witnessed some of the worst of it right off, people she knew choking on smoke and burning alive, her home collapsing around her.
And yet, after all of that, she's returned. Haymitch finds it kind of annoying that includes resuming her job as his housekeeper, though he's not so heartless as to stop her. It's just, hiring her had been awkward before, knowing there were things meant to be said but couldn't, not then. Working for him couldn't have been much better. He can't understand why she's chosen this again, of all things. But here she is.
They should have a conversation about the war or Katniss or the past or even just how their week is going so far.
Instead, Haymitch mutters, "Geese don't run, they waddle," before climbing back onto the couch. He realizes she intends to start cleaning right now, and so with a sigh, he slips upstairs and shuts his bedroom door behind him.
While his bed is the same and sleep is once again impervious, Haymitch feels different, unnerved.
Haymitch Abernathy looked dead when Hazelle found him sprawled out on the couch, all sallow skin and unwashed clothes hanging too loosely from his body. Nonetheless, he sounded alive, his snores practically rattling the walls of his house - as they should now but don't.
From the looks of him and his big house, Haymitch wasted no time reacquainting himself with liquor. Hazelle knew of his forced sobriety in District Thirteen from Verbena Everdeen. Rebel leader or not, Haymitch was no exception to Thirteen's rules. Fair as it was, Hazelle figured it would do him good, too. Give him the war to fixate on instead and maybe that would inspire some change in ways his previous circumstances couldn't. But evidently, just like all those other times, it didn't last for long.
Still, when Hazelle had learned about Haymitch's secret involvement in the rebellion after being evacuated to Thirteen, through all the shock and horror, she was glad he was still up to something. He hid it well; all that time in his house, where he must've been planning, with her none the wiser. It's disappointing to remember that and then stand over him as he lives in the dregs of a bottle. It's also heartbreaking, having known and loved him - the younger him, who was always up to something.
But it would've been dangerous to try to do anything about it... until now.
After Gale's flogging scared off her laundry clientele, she'd been reluctant to go to Haymitch for a job. But Hazelle decided that the tension and the uncertain stakes could be endured for the sake of her family. And it helped that the suggestion came from Katniss, not her.
He could have denied the offer, too, and he didn't. So now Hazelle is here to pay back what she owes, and she can finally do it right.
First things first, she shoos out the goose that had run - or rather, waddled in. When it honked in Haymitch's face and he sprung, gasping, from the couch, his knife had skid across the floor. Hazelle noticed he forgot to take it with him upstairs after he more or less let her resume the job.
Today, like her first day almost a year and a half ago, is the worst part. Once she disposes of the filth that's accumulated since the last time she was here, all she has to do is maintain. It's a lot of house to maintain, enough for three in Town or nine in the Seam.
Besides the goose feathers and droppings, there aren't many surprises cleaning his house a second time. Bottles - some broken, some half-full, many empty - litter just about every surface. There aren't as many considering he'd been gone last summer and autumn. Hazelle clears out all the trash in the living room and moves onto the kitchen before noon.
At noon, Hazelle leaves for lunch as well as to check on the kids, then returns. She doesn't like cleaning but finds she can lose herself in the work, focusing on dishes and laundry rather than fretting over things that won't pay her. And she wants to get this worst part over with as soon as possible.
She doesn't notice the new additions to the house until she's spraying disinfectant everywhere, the clutter she removed leaving another mess behind. The dozen or so picture frames decoratively scattered around the house don't need polishing or dusting or any cleaning at all. Stranger still, Hazelle realizes that Katniss and Peeta are not in them. These are photos of weddings and miners and school events - of family, his actual kin. Among them is a plaque she recognizes as the Medal of Valor.
A year ago, these things would have been dangerous - or at least, Hazelle assumes they were because Haymitch hid them for so long. They definitely weren't here in the months prior to the Third Quarter Quell. Maybe he just didn't want to see them. Hazelle wonders what has changed since then. It gives her some hope, that he can stand to be around things from his past.
Avoiding the pictures, Hazelle runs her fingers along the edge of the Medal of Valor. They all look the same, fake gold with meaningless engraved sentences, mounted on average wood. Some, like Hazelle and evidently the Abernathy family, couldn't bring themselves to break it off and burn it. Hazelle figured temporary warmth wasn't worth the loss of a commemoration for her late husband, however insincere it was. It ended up burning anyway.
After Rohan died, Gale grasped their own plaque like he knew by accepting it he was taking on half the responsibility of providing for his family. Hazelle caught him sneaking out the next morning with a kitchen knife and a few strands of shoelaces tied together. After many promises to Hazelle, Gale crossed the fence into the woods and returned with a rabbit.
Around the time Haymitch accepted this plaque, he and his family were moving into his uncle Sear's house, next door to Hazelle's childhood home.
A stair creaks in the entry. Haymitch rounds the end of the banister and stops, staring at Hazelle staring at the Medal of Valor as if she's encroached on something deeply personal of his. Well, maybe she has - but he's the one that openly displayed them.
She crosses her arms and looks at him questioningly.
"My knife," is all he says.
Reaching into her bag to retrieve it, Hazelle sees his eyes flash with accusation and explains, "Didn't want to leave it lying around. I was going to put it on the table before I left." She also didn't want him tearing up the house she's still cleaning to search for it.
She hands it to him, and he grasps the hilt, mindful of her fingers. He nods a little in thanks. Then, he's gone.
Or he would be, except he stops halfway up the stairs to ask, his voice wary yet curious, "Why are you... doing this?"
There are two answers to this question. Hazelle's here to clean his house for money so she can support her family as they restart their life in Twelve, and she's also here to finally address what's broken between her and him because she can now.
But that's a lot for her first day back so Hazelle says, "The kids wanted to come back, and I knew where to find work. Had to wait for some reconstruction first." Her tone is light, almost friendly, but from the way he frowns Haymitch doesn't receive it as such.
"You could've helped."
Looking around indignantly, because who is he to criticize her with his current living condition, Hazelle says, "I needed to be with my family, keep them safe. Have you done anything?"
Haymitch shrugs. "Kept two kids alive even though that was the last thing they wanted to be some days. So almost the same as you, but not quite." With a wry yet empty smile, he disappears upstairs, leaving her in the entry alone with her mouth agape.
Hearing his bedroom door close, Hazelle presses her lips with a small, resolute sigh. One good thing about her plan is that she can give up on trying to make amends with him and just work for him - or even go somewhere else. But that's her last resort; she wants to give this her best shot. And then from there it's up to Haymitch.
So Hazelle has no idea how any of this will go.
Well, regardless, she has a lot of work to do.