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The Hob is smokey–was it always like this? Haymitch tries to recall back to his youth, when the warehouse was a place of fun and excitement, where he and Burdock and Blair would wile nights away, pawning this or that–a squirrel brought down by Burdock’s arrow, some trinket he or Blair had found or made–for smoked jerky, fried dough sweetened with sorghum molasses, pinky-sized vials of spices all the way from the Capitol, before settling in to watch Lenore Dove and her uncles perform. Even now, those nights seem clear as crystal in his mind, the laughter, the stomps of shoes against half-rotted floorboards as the Covey played a jig or reel meant for dancing.
He blinks, but the haze surrounding him doesn’t leave. The clarity with which he remembers convinces him–more than anything else could–of the necessity of his purpose here. He can’t remember the last time he left his house. Maybe not since his previous annual pilgrimage to the Justice Hall. It’s been many months since his birthday–the air is crisp and cool, even in the close quarters of the Hob, dotted as it is with fires, as vendors roast game and chestnuts.
Despite the chill, Haymitch’s whole body is slick with sweat. The shakes haven’t started yet, but he knows they’re on their way; it’s also the first time in months he’s been anything approaching sober, and it’s that unfortunate state that has caused him to end his self-imposed isolation. Effie usually tries to dry him out for the Games, but by the time the bell rings, he’s almost always found his way back to the bottle. Each year, he returns from the train station with two coffins and a duffel full of the finest liquor he can secure from the Capitol’s unending coffers. Typically, the supply lasts him until at least May. It’s been a bad year.
He stumbles past the spot the Covey used to use for a stage, now occupied by a sour looking woman and a collection of dented pots. She casts a suspicious glance as he passes. The look is no surprise; the whole of 12 has cause to hate him. In the thirteen years since his run in the Games, he’s lost twenty-six tributes. That's twenty-six souls, twenty-six children who will never see mountains again.
At night when even his ghosts have abandoned him, he fancies he can feel the thoughts of the entire District pounding at his doors, like the relentless raven in Lenore Dove’s poem. Except, they have a lot more to say: If only we had a real victor! A real mentor! Someone who could actually help them, find some sponsors, give them a shot! Maybe then, one of them would actually come home!
Haymitch stops at the booth of a middle-aged man. He doesn’t move from his chair at Haymitch’s approach, face tucked into his shoulder and snoring quietly, like a roosting chicken. A little boy beside him springs up.
“What’cha want?” the kid asks. He’s missing his two front teeth, causing him to lisp the words slightly.
Haymitch blinks, and sways. Hattie has been dead two years, a blessing since it means the white liquor trade no longer runs through her. His lifetime ban has been lifted, and he’s free to sample the best District 12 has to offer, instead of begging rotgut from Bascom Pie.
He puts down a handful of coins on the table, each one of them gold. “Everything you’ve got.”
The boy’s eyes go wide. He glances at the plethora of bottles that surround them. “Everything? But Mister–”
“Get someone to deliver them to my house.” Haymitch lays a couple of extra coins down for whatever lug will sacrifice his afternoon hauling the bottles.
The boy nods, already tucking the coins into the tin box beside him. Haymitch pretends not to see as he slips one or two into his own pocket, casting a furtive glance at the sleeping man beside him as he does. “Your house?” the kid asks.
Haymitch’s stomach gives a lurch as he realizes the boy doesn’t recognize him. District 12’s only victor in more than fifty years and this kid doesn’t have an idea in hell of who he is. “Victor’s Village,” he says stiffly. “You’ll know the one.”
The boy nods, eyes going even wider.
Before he leaves, Haymitch snags a bottle, leaving the cork behind at the table. He takes long swigs as he walks and feels euphoric relief as the alcohol burns down his throat. He finds a comfortable corner of the Hob, as far from the hustle and bustle as you can get in the warehouse, and collapses down. In twenty minutes, he’s downed half the bottle. He’ll go home soon, he tells himself. Just after the world has lost its bitter edge and he can stomach the journey back. He takes another drink.
His head is buried in his hands, the bottle, now empty, abandoned by his side, when he feels a pair of eyes watching him. Years ago, this would have triggered a shot of adrenaline to run through him, and he would have come out swinging. But, the years and drink have dulled his reactions so instead he just blinks himself awake.
Two green eyes peer at him, framed by a pair of long, dark braids.
“Sweetheart?” Haymitch asks before he can stop himself. It’s rare that his ghosts follow him out into the world, but how else to explain this apparition crouched before him, frowning in a red pinafore?
“My mama says that stuff’s poison,” the girl says matter-of-factly, looking at the bottle at his side, and, God help him, even her cadence matches Louella’s. The way she used to toddle after him, hands on her hips, when he did something she didn’t like.
Haymitch tries to sit up, but the world is spinning around him. “Your Mama’s a smart lady,” he manages.
She nods, approving the compliment. “You smell bad.”
Haymitch laughs out loud. “Bet I do.” His ghosts are usually incorporeal things; they melt in and out of rooms with a breezy ease, and vanish the second he tries to touch them. In this sense, the little girl is an aberration: so real and solid before him.
He tries to reconcile her with the girl that stiffened in his arms, head gashed open–or the other one, who died gasping for air. All three images blur together in his mind, and he has to blink, shake his head, to untangle them. He keeps expecting the dream to turn, for her to seize up, to contort, and die in pain, just like they did.
She reaches out and swipes at a spot of drool that has collected on his chin.
Without thinking, he catches her little hand in his own, and she cocks her head slightly, blinking those big eyes up at him. He thinks about everything he never got to tell Louella–how brave she was, how much he misses her, how her friendship was the last thing that made him feel like a half-way decent person.
“So, are you going to be my ally or what, Sweetheart?”
“I’ll be your ally,” she had said, with a little smile on her face–her first since the reaping. “You and me, we can trust each other.”
“Sweetheart,” Haymitch says again, squeezing the girl’s hand in his. “I’m so sorry–” but he’s cut off by a shout from above them.
“Katniss!”
He looks up, and at the appearance of his old friend, the truth overtakes him like a cold, hard rain. This little girl is not Louella. Louella is still dead, resting in her grave on the hillside, and who the hell knows where poor Lou Lou ended up.
“Papa!” the little girl– Katniss –cries in protest as her father scoops her up. For an absurd moment, Haymitch hangs onto her hand before it slips, inevitably, from his grasp.
“What did I tell you about talking to strangers?” Burdock asks, settling his daughter on his shoulders, and fuck if that doesn’t hurt. Haymitch can feel Burdock’s pitying eyes on him, and it feels worse than getting kicked in the gut. Worse than Silka’s ax sliding through his flesh.
“Not to bother them,” the little girl dutifully responds.
“Right. You never know who might hurt you.”
That, Haymitch knows, is for his own benefit–for Asterid’s broken skin, the rock that Burdock can’t forgive.
The little girl watches him over her father’s shoulder, as the two of them walk away. Her green eyes lock onto his like a laser beam, until she and Burdock disappear into the hub-bub.
“Bye Sweetheart,” Haymitch mutters to the ground.
***
It’s eleven years before he sees his best friend’s daughter again, on the morning of his 40th birthday. It’s hot, and the air is heavy with humidity. Haymitch, like always, is half-drunk when he takes his place on the stage beside Effie. He successfully tunes out the majority of the proceedings.
It’s not until he hears a voice, say those fateful words that he looks up.
Oh, Sweetheart– he thinks, seeing her standing there, between peacekeepers and stage. He thinks of Louella and Lou Lou and Ampert and Maysilee and Wellie and Sid and Ma and Lenore Dove, and everyone else lost inside the arena and out. Somewhere, he can muster up surprise that a heart like his still has it within itself to break. –Not again.