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The rain grew dangerously louder outside, trapping Haymitch in Peeta’s house for the time being. He sank further into the couch, fiddling with the hem of his shirt in lieu of reaching for a drink. Not that Peeta, or especially Katniss, would let him have one anyways. He was partly glad he couldn’t go home just yet, because he knew that the second he was alone with himself he would start drinking himself to death. Being around them reminded him that he had other people to live for now- alive ones anyways. In his pursuit to fulfill his promise to Lenore Dove, he hadn’t realized that promise was all he had been living for. He was trying to find a new purpose, which was proving itself quite difficult.
Katniss snapped him out of his thoughts by sitting on the floor in front of him, bringing a box with her. Peeta had gotten the fire started, taking a seat by Katniss. The two of them glanced between each other for a moment, before she turned to him hesitantly.
“What?” He raised an eyebrow.
Slowly, Katniss pulled out a large, leather bound book. Realizing what it was, Haymitch sat up, itching to leave.
“I told you guys, I’m not doing it.” The two of them had been trying to convince him to contribute to their ‘Memory Book’, dedicated to remembering the lives of people they had lost to the Capitol. Well, that was one long goddamn list. And he spent enough time talking to the ghosts in his head, he didn’t need to spend even more time writing it all down, forcing himself to relive every gruesome detail.
Peeta grabbed his knee and pushed him back down onto the couch; sometimes he forgot just how strong the boy was. “Look, we get it if you don’t want to make pages of your own, for people you’ve lost-”
“Correct.” He muttered.
“But,” Peeta pressed on anyways, “Katniss and I, we were working on pages for Wiress, for Finnick, for Mags- Haymitch, you knew them longer than we did. I know they mattered to you, and it would mean a lot to us if you’d help us with this.”
He’d always had such a way with words, Haymitch thought, grudgingly finding himself being persuaded. Still, something in him hesitated, the deeply embedded paranoia Snow had instilled in him long ago. It was dangerous to care about people, it was dangerous because anyone he cared about was a target. As if reading his thoughts, Peeta gave him a small, sad smile.
“Just think on it.” He turned back to Katniss, who was staring daggers into Haymitch, and had been for this whole conversation.
“I hated it too, at first- talking about them, about Prim, about Finnick, about everyone.” She paused, the weight of all the people she’d lost hanging in the air. “But I don’t want their memories to die with us, and it feels so much better to talk to someone. You can talk to us.”
Being cut from the same emotionally-stunted cloth as Katniss was, he had no idea quite what to say to that; he felt the need to avert his gaze from hers, face hot. There were so many people he had lost who only he had memories of, which seemed remarkably unfair. Why did the burden fall upon him, of all people, to carry on their legacies? How was he better suited to tell Lenore Dove’s story, when she was the one who could craft the most compelling tales out of nothing? What words were there to describe the horror of carrying his sweetheart’s fragile, lifeless body to Snow’s feet? What could he say that would justify his rebellion failing to spark a revolution and simultaneously getting his Ma and Sid killed?
His craving for a drink grew tenfold, and he itched to be out from under Katniss and Peeta’s discerning eyes; thanks to Peeta, now thoughts of Wiress, Finnick, and Mags were swimming through his mind. Mags and Wiress, his mentors who he’d watched die on a screen, powerless to do anything. Finnick, ripped away from this world when he had finally found happiness. They had never been particularly close, but there was a certain understanding between Victors, all being forced to send kids to their deaths year after year.
The rustling of paper brought his focus back to the book, upon which Katniss was carefully arranging pictures.
“Burdock.” He hadn’t meant to say that outloud, his voice was barely audible. She paused, turning to Haymitch in confusion.
“You knew my dad?” This caught Peeta’s attention too, and again they were both staring at him expectantly. Again with the interrogative stares.
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, we were friends in school. But can I ask how you have that picture?”
Of course he would expect her to have pictures of her father, but what he didn’t expect was how young Burdock was in the picture she was holding. There were already pictures in the book of Burdock with Katniss and Prim, with Asterid on their wedding day, but this picture had to have been from when he was a teenager. When he had been Haymitch’s best friend.
“My mom gave me these pictures,” She waved a hand dismissively towards the box, where there was presumably more, “But that’s not important. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were friends with my dad?”
“It didn’t seem important.”
She scoffed at this, turning to Peeta for backup.
“Haymitch.” Peeta said his name reprimandingly, as if he were scolding a petulant child. He might as well have been.
“There’s a reason he never brought me up either, Katniss. I drove him and Asterid away when I got back.” Haymitch sighed, staring into the fire. There was no need to specify where he got back from, because the look on their faces told him they understood. “I mean, I threw a rock at her head.”
To his surprise, Katniss let out a snort at this. “Is that where she got that scar on her forehead from?”
“It scarred?” Great, one more thing to add to the list of things he felt guilty about.
“Can I ask why you threw a rock at Katniss’ mom?” Peeta added, leaning back against the bottom of an armchair, tone slightly amused.
“Because, they wouldn’t leave me alone, her and Burdie. Snow would’ve killed them.” He was distantly aware he wasn’t making much sense, but it had been a long time since these memories had existed anywhere other than his head- it was hard to articulate himself.
“Why would Snow have killed them?” She questioned. “And Burdie?”
“Snow would’ve killed them because he killed anyone who had the displeasure of being associated with me.” His words came out bitingly, and immediately he regretted it upon seeing the stung look on Katniss’ face. Reminding himself that she was just desperate to know more about her dad, as anyone in her position would be, he softened his tone. “And maybe we were better friends than I let on. We were honestly best friends- before I went to the Games, atleast.”
Katniss frowned, as if she couldn’t reckon the image of the washed-up drunk sitting in front of her with her warm-hearted father’s supposed best friend. Then something suddenly occurred to her, and she pulled a handful of photos out of the box by her side, flipping through them quickly.
“My mom, she found all these photos, and she sent me the box.” She finally stopped on one picture, turning it around. “Haymitch, is- is that you?”
The picture was of a grinning Burdock, maybe 16 years old, arm slung around a boy smiling brightly, golden hair ruffled. They were in the meadow, happy as could be. Lenore Dove would’ve been the one taking the picture, Haymitch realized- Tam Amber was the only person they knew with a camera, and she would swipe it sometimes. His throat burned suddenly, and he would’ve gotten up and ran back to his house if it weren’t for the rain pounding against the windows.
“Yeah, that’s me.” His voice came out strained after a beat of silence.
“There’s more pictures, aren’t there?” Peeta asked Katniss. “Of people we didn’t recognize.” Haymitch tried not to dwell on the implication that he was unrecognizable from the person he used to be.
“Yeah, I don’t think my mom even sorted through these, just sent them all over.”
Peeta fixed Haymitch with his gaze, which was always so kind. How he’d stayed so gentle was a mystery. “Want to look through them?”
If these really were taken by Lenore Dove, then the temptation was too great for him to resist. He nodded and slunk onto the carpet across from Katniss, taking the stack of pictures to examine them. There were a few more of him and Burdock, some with Blair too, and one of just him. He let out a small laugh at one where Blair was flashing his pocket knife at the camera.
“Blair- that’s Blair -he was real good with that knife.”
“Must be why he got along with my dad.” Katniss said, a smile playing at her lips.
However, his smile fell almost immediately, as he flipped to the last picture. He remembered this day in specific now- it was the beginning of the summer, the year he had gone to the Games, and they’d all gone down to the meadow. Blair was complaining of heat the whole way, but Lenore Dove insisted they go because she wanted to take pictures in the meadow on Tam Amber’s camera before he noticed it was missing. To remember, she had said.
And he’d replied, How could anyone ever forget you?, to which Burdock had rolled his eyes and Blair dramatically mimed gagging. But she’d smiled, that way she always had when he said something that was stupid and lovely like that.
Haymitch felt sick, staring at the picture of him and his dove, her wide eyes and warm smile fixed on the younger version of him, the version of him that thought he had all the time in the world with her. He wanted to yell at his 16 year old self to turn around, to not look at the camera, to look at her while he still could. He was sick because the image of her that haunted his dreams, blood dripping from her mouth as he fed her gumdrops, had actually grown blurry around the edges. It wasn’t until he saw her face again just now that he realized it- he had begun to forget the details of her.
His eyes stung with tears, and he dropped the photos on the carpet like they’d burned him, head snapping up to meet Katniss’ eyes. Her and Peeta were looking at him with so much concern, and he distantly wondered how he’d ended up exactly where he hadn’t wanted to be tonight, exposed and vulnerable in front of his kids.
Peeta silently gathered the pictures, pausing on the one that had given Haymitch so much trouble. Katniss looked at it over his shoulder, both of their eyes getting sad, unbearably pitiful.
A moment of heavy silence passed before Peeta asked the question Haymitch knew was coming. “Who is she?”
A bitter laugh escaped Haymitch’s mouth. “Just another one of the people who had the displeasure of knowing me and dying for their efforts.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, knowing deep down what a horrible way that was to describe his dove. She had been so much more than just her death, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about her life without his heart aching.
Katniss fixed him with one of her unreadable expressions, somewhere between confused, annoyed, and pitiful . “Can I ask, Haymitch-”
“No.”
She persevered despite his attitude. “Why did Snow punish you so severely for using the arena forcefield to win? I mean, our berry thing was arguably worse, and he didn’t-” She paused, clearly having realized how indelicate she was being.
“Murder everyone you’ve ever loved?” Peeta winced at his blunt choice of words, whereas Katniss just nodded shamefully and averted her gaze.
“I know you watched that tape of my games, sweetheart, but it left out some important details.”
“Like what?” Katniss asked, while Peeta mumbled something about her needing to be more sensitive.
Sighing deeply, he ran a hand over his face; so they were talking about this. “Well, first of all, I wasn’t even reaped. This kid, Woodbine Chance, was, and he tried to run. Peacekeepers shot him, his mom got hysterical when they tried to take away his body. My-my girl-” He gestured vaguely towards the picture of him and Lenore Dove still clutched in Peeta’s hands, trying to ignore the way his throat burned at even the slightest mention of her. “-she tried to intervene, so then I tried to intervene, and they decided to just take me instead.”
“What?” Katniss spluttered, closing the book and pushing it aside to lean closer to him, as if that could somehow emphasize her point even further. “But we saw you getting reaped on the tape, right Peeta? We saw it!”
“They just had us all get back into position and recorded it again. And I had to act all surprised when they called my name.” Haymitch shrugged.
“That is horrible.” Peeta said.
Haymitch resisted the urge to say obviously (pretty much everything the Capitol did was horrible), but his face was probably conveying the sentiment well enough. It was strange though, he did feel a weight begin to lift off his shoulders as he talked- so he decided to keep going. “Well, it’s true Snow was punishing me for the trick with the arena, letting the axe rebound and kill Silka.” He paused, sighing. “But I also tried to blow up the arena, so there’s that.”
Peeta and Katniss stared at him with twin looks of disbelief plastered on their faces.
“Care to expand, maybe?” Katniss said incredulously.
“Beetee and Plutarch had this whole plot-“
“Beetee and Plutarch?”
“Believe it or not sweetheart, you weren’t the first person Plutarch had tried to make his ‘Mockingjay’.” Haymitch shook his head with a dry laugh. “I doubt I was either.”
“Why haven’t you ever brought this all up before?”
“Because clearly, I failed!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from seeping into his tone.
Peeta stuck his hand in between the two of them, placatingly. “Katniss, just let him talk.”
“Thank you, Peeta.” He gave Katniss a pointed look with this, and she just rolled her eyes in response and gestured for him to go on.
“Ampert, Beetee’s son, was in the games and he was forced to be his mentor, punishment for- fuck, I can’t even remember. But Beetee had this plan to find the water source and flood the controls, shutting down the arena. So we managed to smuggle in explosives, find the water source, and we did it. But the arena didn’t shut down permanently, just- glitched, I guess. The Games went on, and they sent these squirrel mutts after Ampert.”
He paused, the only sounds in the room being the crackling of the fire and the downpour of rain outside the windows.
“The mutts left nothing but his bones.” A sharp intake of breath came from Katniss, the slightest reaction.
“I wish I could say I was surprised.” Peeta muttered sadly.
Haymitch silently thought that was the sentiment that ruled his life for 25 years after his games. Snow had managed to do exactly what he set out to do- wear him down until apathy overtook hope. It slowly started to become all anyone knew him for, the bitter old drunk who was willing to succumb his morals to everything the Capitol stood for, obediently going on Victory tours and sending kids off to their deaths every year. At least, until Katniss and Peeta had come into his life and given him hope again. The rest of Panem followed suit, seeing the possibility for change within the ‘Mockingjay’, but it was who Katniss actually was at her core that had given him the strength to resist, to fight, to change. In many ways, she was just like him, stubborn and passionate, but she had more resilience than he ever did. It was slow moving progress, learning how to start living again instead of just surviving- but at least they were all doing it together.
Instead of saying any of that, Haymitch settled upon, “Me too.”
He paused a moment, just staring into the fire, the repetitive nature of the swirling flames soothing his racing thoughts. Louella, Ampert, Lou Lou, Maysilee, Ma, Sid, Lenore Dove, again and again their names ran through his mind. “Well, eventually I teamed up with the other girl from 12.”
“Maysilee Donner.” Katniss supplied, sitting up straighter. “Madge’s aunt- my mom was friends with her, said she owned a sweet shop? She was hugging Maysilee and her sister in the tape of your reaping.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” It took him aback a little that Asterid had mentioned that to Katniss. Not that he knew much about her these days, but she didn’t really seem like the type to be drudging up all these memories. “We all thought the three of them were so stuck-up back in the day, especially Maysilee.” He smiled and shook his head at the memory. “But nobody was allowed to say a word about your mom, because then Burdie would have their head.”
Katniss smiled at that, fiddling with the edge of the book. “Burdie. I can’t believe you really called him that.”
“I was wrong about Maysilee though, she was never stuck-up. Just never let the Capitol take away her dignity.” Even though it did hurt to talk, it was evident how much it meant to Katniss to hear these bits and pieces about her dad. And maybe he owed it to her, to all of the people he had lost, to try to preserve their memories in some way. “Your dad was a really good man- not that you need me to tell you that, but y’know.”
Katniss’ smile grew at that, but the expression on her face remained tinged with a sadness no one her age should have to know. He averted his gaze to the carpet awkwardly, not used to so much vulnerability, but then his eyes found the picture Peeta was still clutching in his hand. He gestured for Peeta to give him the picture, and as he did so, Haymitch could sense Peeta knew the enormity of the action.
He looked at Lenore Dove, and the words just started pouring out. “Burdock introduced me to her, when we were ten, because they were distant cousins on his ma’s side. I- I really loved her, but I really don’t like talking about her either, which sounds terrible of me. I don’t know, maybe it is terrible of me, but it’s just so fucking hard. But I’ve only now realized that I’m maybe the only one in all of Panem who remembers her, besides Clerk Carmine, so I can’t just let her die with me- like you said Katniss. So now I’m telling you two, which I don’t know what that’s really supposed to do anyways. It’s not like Snow didn’t still kill her- or rather, have me do it for him. Which is infinitely worse.”
He felt himself choking up by that point, and he looked up in slight surprise at the sight that met him. Katniss and Peeta were both staring at him wide-eyed and teary, seemingly speechless from his tangent.
Haymitch took a deep breath and pushed on. “What I was trying to say about your dad, Katniss, is that even after the games, when I was being horrible to him and your mom, he took me to see Lenore Dove’s grave despite it. And I still regret not telling him how much I appreciated that when I had the chance.”
Within seconds, Katniss had her arms wrapped around him, a display of affection that was uncommon for either of them. “You didn’t have to tell him, Haymitch. He knew.”
He had to admit, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest by talking about Lenore Dove, about Maysilee, about Burdock. He hadn’t realized how exhausting it was to carry so much grief and anger around all the time, even if self-medicating with liquor helped numb the pain. So, he kept talking. He told them about Louella and Lou Lou, about Maysilee and her posters and Lenore Dove and her singing and flock of geese, and Sid with his never ending optimism. He spoke of how Mags and Wiress had been his mentors, and the unlikely alliance he had forged with Finnick over years of sending kids to their deaths together. It was nicer than he would admit not having to shoulder the burden of his past alone anymore.
The next day, he woke up quite late to a basket on his nightstand, filled with oversized eggs and a simple note.
“Geese eggs, for you. Raided a couple nests so they can breed. Now you have something to do with yourself.”
- Katniss
He barked out a laugh at her bluntness- it was like looking in a mirror. He had to admit though, this didn’t seem like such a terrible place to start in his search for a new purpose. Lenore Dove would be proud of him, he thought.