Chapter Text
Katniss Everdeen had already seen the entire recording and replaying of Haymitch Abernathy’s pre, present, and post Hunger Games.
She watched him get reaped, watched him use his good looks, which was still astounding to her, mixed with his scruffy charm to win over the crowd during pre-game interviews.. She watched him during the actual games, his fight with those weird squirrels that didn't really pose much of a threat, considering they didn't even attack him, and when he split up with his mysterious ally. She watched him during his post-win interview and his victory ceremony and parties and the victory tour.
Yet when one day, when she's wandering through the blank, echoey hallways of District 13 and she reaches a door she has never seen before, she goes in. Maybe because it's one of the few unlocked doors in this place.
Inside, there is one large screen and a desk under it with a bunch of technological things she doubts she will ever understand, as well as a dark shelf, lined with rows and rows of tapes, each labeled in neat, precise little writing.
She walks over, her eyes roving over each one. They each have a name, except for the tenth one, at the top, which is labeled ‘10.’ She trails her finger down the rows until she comes across a familiar name around ¾ of the way down. Haymitch Abernathy is written in small lettering, causing her eyes to widen.
She looks around and creeps back over to the door, locking it securely. Just in Case , she tells herself, slinking across the room gracefully and pulling out the small black tape with her mentor's name on it, finding a box to insert it into.
She inserts the tape, turns on the television and settles down onto the floor, neck craned up towards the screen.
The scene opens at the District 12 square, though it's starkly different to now. Well, to what it used to look like, anyways. There are propaganda banners strung up on every surface, President Snow's face plastered practically everywhere.
The square is full, in the way it only is during Reaping day.
Huh. So this is just each one of the Hunger Games, she thinks, deciding she'll try to come back to watch the other ones, because, as much as it hurts her to say it, she is morbidly curious.
This time though, the scene plays differently. After the other three tributes are called, a lanky boy with dark hair and scruffy hand-me-downs, a small girl with a braided hairstyle so similar to hers, the one she had on the Reaping day of the 74th games, and a put together looking blonde girl, the nasty-looking escort calls out a completely foreign name to Katniss.
“ Woodbine Chance!” She sneers, leaving Katniss utterly confused.
It isn't until the boy runs, and his brains splatter the coal-coated square of district 12 does she truly begin to realize this is not the Capitol version of Haymitch’s Hunger Games, but simply a collage of every bit of footage recorded for the 50th year. The real deal.
A loud, harsh voice yells at everyone to get down, which they all comply with immediately, except for.. Peeta? His hair is splattered with red and he looks around, seemingly stunned when Katniss’ father punches him down.
She thinks back to Prim’s reaping day, a final visit, and cookies. That wasn't Peeta, that was the baker. But, that was Katniss’ father. It couldn't be anyone else, with her eyebrows and nose structure.
She's pulled from her heartache when an older looking woman, presumably the boy's mother, calls out, running to her son's frail, cooling body, grabbing and gripping onto his hand as Peacekeepers, who don't seem to particularly care about her having a final moment with her son try to jab her back, waving their guns threateningly. A young, pretty looking girl with a sympathetic expression and strawberry blonde hair stands next to her, pleading with the Peacekeeper who keeps trying to separate the tragic pair.
In the background, there is a hurricane of noise. The escort screeching, children crying, adults murmuring with hushed tones from the ground, the pleas and wails coming from the girl and Woodbine Chance's mother..
One of the peacekeepers goes to slam the but of his gun into the strawberry blonde’s temple when a young boy with dark curls flying wildly as he sprints across the square intercepts, jumping in front of the girl yelling “Stop!” desperately.
The boy, Katniss realizes, is Haymitch. But, that doesn't seem to be right. Katniss can't think of one person, other than her and..Peeta.. that Haymitch even knows the name of explicitly, let alone someone he cares about.
The gun slams into her mentor's forehead, sending him towards the ground, but he doesn't manage to make it before four hands are gripping his limbs, lifting him inches from the ground and dropping him hardly a few feet away, next to yet another peacekeeper.
The man looks down at Haymitch almost predatorily, a malicious, evil smirk spreading across his face as he lifts Haymitch's chin up with his boot, turning his head left and right before letting it fall limp into the ground again. “Looks like we found our replacement.” He announces, leaving a sort of horrified hush over the crowd.
The girl with the strawberry blonde hair tries to make her way to Haymitch, but she's shoved back every time she gets close. She's clearly on the brink of tears, but she holds them in defiantly, unwilling to make her sorrows public. Katniss decides she likes the girl with the strawberry blonde hair. “Don't take him! It wasn't his fault! It was mine! Punish me!” She's screaming, fighting desperately to get to the still dazed form of Haymitch, a thin, hardly noticeable cut trickling a trail of blood into his inky black curls. All she gets in return, however, is a death sentence by Drusilla and the herself being forced to watch helplessly as Haymitch is now being forced upwards, shoved towards the children's crowd as he stumbles, getting relatively back into the correct place.
A young Plutarch Heavensbee , Seriously, what the hell? Jumps in front of the girl though, saving her life by calling for a dramatic goodbye. The pure thought of recording this poor, brave, clearly distraught girl for Capitol viewers to see disgusts Katniss, but if it keeps her alive, then so be it.
This seems to reassure the crowds they won't get shot, because they slowly stand up, looking around and whispering urgently to those around them.
Time is running down before the square is live to the Capitol though, and Drusilla is calling for blood again unless everyone in attendance quiets down.
As the square becomes eerily silent, the booming voice counts down, and it's almost as if Katniss rewinded the recording as Wyatt Callow's name is called again, but this time, it's followed by “Haymitch Abernathy.” and then a second “Haymitch?” because Haymitch seemed resigned to shutting out the world, until he finally started walking, slowly, to the stage.
The girl has a horrified hand over her mouth, but she still has yet to shed a single tear. Drusilla says Effie Trinket's classic line, but Katniss feels different about the way she does it. It’s colder, less humorous.
The girl with the strawberry blonde hair is back, and she lowers her hand to her heart, mouthing the words, “ I love you like all-fire ” to Haymitch, who mouths back “ You too.”
So this girl, the one with the strawberry blonde hair, loves Haymitch, and he loves her back. Katniss tells herself this girl may still be alive, might be okay, somewhere.
Confetti covers the girl and she disappears as The Capitol cameras cut, yet the one recording this tape keeps rolling. When all clears, the escort is already drinking, smoking, and barefoot , yelling at the people of 12 for being ‘filthy beasts’ and to go home. They all do, and quickly so, though four small groups remain.
The first one is the girl with the strawberry blonde hair, being restrained by peacekeepers until two old and weary looking men rush over with a bribe, securing their- Daughter? Sister? Cousin? Niece?-safely. She immediately tries to run to Haymitch again, but they drag her back, ducking into a dark alleyway, and Katniss swears she can hear a distant, echoey sob.
The second consists of a little blonde girl, identical to the one who was reaped, clutching to a tall woman, and a man, who is running around, shoving money in people's faces and begging for his daughters safety.
The third one consists of a sobbing woman and a couple of men who are trading blows and yelling about odds and jinxes.
The fourth, however, is arguably the most heartbreaking. A beautiful, though clearly worn down by poverty and age, woman is clinging onto two other adults, who are still stone faced from shock. She's sobbing, swaying unsteadily and sometimes even going limp in their arms. Worse, a little boy, around nine, probably, is trying to drag her forward by the hand, yelling, calling Haymitch's name repeatedly as Haymitch himself looks about ready to jump off the stage and run to them.
Katniss waits, wondering if there will be footage of the final goodbyes, she honestly hopes not, when that horrible escort snaps that there will be no final goodbyes, as ‘Punishment.’
Katniss is sure she isn't allowed to do that, but only two of the tributes are pulled away, Haymitch and the little girl being left behind. To Katniss’ horror and disgust, the families of the tributes are told to act, to perform a show for everyone in the Capitol to see and sympathize with. The family of the little girl refuse, and Katniss feels a surge of pride, until she realizes alongside them that if they don't perform, they will never see their little girl again. They cry out to her, but it's too late and she waves, sadly and erratically, like every other goodbye she was ever supposed to say to her family in the life she will never get to live will all be bottled up and shoved into the one motion.
Haymitch's family, however, comply, despite his arguments. Katniss can't even blame them. She would've done anything to get to see Prim one last time if she was ever actually reaped.
They’re directed, molded to show different levels of despair as Plutarch Heavensbee records, instructing them over and over until they look so tired and desperate that Haymitch cuts Plutarch off mid sentence with a sharp “Stop it!”
That, mixed with Drusilla's impatience, is enough to give Plutarch the sense to let them have their moment. As soon as he tells them their time together is still limited to two minutes, they slam into each other in a hug, Haymitch only pulling away to desperately empty his pockets into their hands.
Money, peanuts.
Knife, gumdrops.
The little boy, wild, floppy hair in his eyes looks up and whispers, “For Lenore Dove?” raising the sweets. Haymitch nods, and Katniss thinks she has a pretty alright guess who Lenore Dove is.
But all too soon, their time is up and they are forced apart, Haymitch being lifted off of his feet and dragged away by the peacekeepers cruel, bloodstained hands, the little boy screaming at them to “Please not take his brother!” Haymitch is struggling valiantly against the Peacekeepers, halfway through reassuring his brother that “Everything will be-”, Okay , Katniss guesses, but of course, she knows it will not be. He stiffens up suddenly and goes limp, a cruel illustrative of what his family believes is soon to come, and quite possibly the worst final image of him, the real him, the physical him, they could have.
They carry him up the stairs, through the justice building, and into the back drive, where he stands up wobbly, blinking heavily and complying as they cuff him and throw him into a dirty, empty coal car with one window. His face pressed against the glass, lined with bars, where nothing happened. The scene cuts abruptly though, and though they are still in the same spot, hail and rain pounds of the metal car. A figure in a bright, familiar red dress is seen upon a ridge, one hand clutching a bag of sweets as she wails, the sound echoing through the empty air. Haymitch looks at a loss, completely hopeless as he begins to smash his fists into the glass of his car, until finally, with bruises on his knuckles and a single tear slipping down his cheek, does he slump down, disappearing from view.