Hunger Games 1. Chapter 1: Going Back

**Maybe it's just a short story with a few chapters to curb this appetite for a look inside Haymitch's head, maybe it'll be something longer. I don't know yet. Until about two hours ago I'd never considered writing a Hunger Games fic especially since The Walking Dead is more of my forte on this site, but I'll just see where this takes me. Haymitch is a bit of an unsung hero in my opinion and an underappreciated one too. Plus, I love Woody Harrelson. Thanks for reading and review if you like. **

"Welcome, welcome as we celebrate the 75th anniversary and third Quarter Quell of the Hunger Games." A brief pause. "As always, ladies first."

One folded slip inside the glass bowl. Just one damn name and they all had to go through this humiliating display for it. She knew it was her name on the slip; who else's name could it possibly be? Insult to injury and what a subtly induced injury it was. He did not dare to glance sideways at her, but for the first in the nine years she had been happily announcing the names of tributes, Effie Trinket faltered before speaking into the microphone.

"The female tribute for District 12: Katniss Everdeen."

Now he looked, leaning ever so slightly forward so that they could make eye contact as Katniss took her spot on Effie's left, her face passive but he knew better. She had to be boiling inside and in danger of bursting with anger at the injustice of it all. Still, she turned her head in his direction as Effie spoke out.

"Wonderful. And now for the men…"

He bit the skin inside of his jaw and gave her a brief, almost nonexistent nod. Thinking back to it, he wished that he had died the first time in the arena rather than face this decision now. Was it worth it to live in this drunken form, watching these two young people face certain death once again? Had winning really paid off if it meant his mother, his brother, his lover, and now his two surrogate children had to die? He had promised the boy that he would do everything in his power to get her out alive the first time. He made the same promise the second time except this time she pleaded the same for the boy. What would he do? What could he do? If Effie called his name, there was no stopping the boy volunteering to enter the arena with her because no matter if she was indifferent to his affections, he sincerely loved her. But what if the boy's name came out of the bowl? Could he really bring himself to volunteer in the boy's place? Which promise was more important to keep?

"The male tribute for District 12…"

_Come on, just get it over with, woman._

"…is Peeta Mellark."

His body reacted before his mind had time to process the name. His arm blocked the boy from advancing towards Effie and the words spilled out of his mouth without him being in full awareness of speaking them.

"I volunteer as tribute."

There it was: the relief, the gratitude on Katniss's face, on Effie's, on half the crowd's. If they couldn't keep both of their lover tributes, at least they could keep one. No one would care about him once he was shipped back to District 12 in a wooden coffin to be buried alongside his house in a virtually empty Victor's Village.

"You can't—" the boy tried to argue.

"Watch me."

Effie could not conceal the same relief in her voice that Katniss's voice had displayed as she spoke the closing words of the reaping.

"Very well. The tributes for District 12: Katniss Everdeen and Haymitch Abernathy."

_God, what the hell am I getting myself into?_

The salute came first from Mrs. Everdeen and the girl, then like a rippling wave, spread throughout the crowd until every man, woman, and child stood defiantly abreast to send off Katniss Everdeen, their symbol of freedom—and the town drunkard.

Two pairs of gloved hands closed around his upper arms, steering him backwards into the Justice Building.

"Hey, let go. I can walk on my own—"

"Move," snapped the Peacekeeper to his right.

"I could move just fine if you'd get your damn hands off of me!"

Not for the first time in his life his rebellious attitude and running mouth earned him a smack to the back of the head. He had suffered numerous worse knocks to the head, but most recently he had been drunk and so the effects did not set in until a day or so later when he had sobered up. Now he felt the sting in full and it stunned him to the point of making him lose his balance. The Peacekeepers dragged him on so that he was half stumbling, half being carried to the train station with Katniss in tow and Effie and the boy supposedly somewhere behind them. Up the steps they went until his hostile escort dropped him unceremoniously on the floor in the dining cart. Almost at once he was up in fury, rushing back at the guards in stark white with visors to protect their foul faces, but the boy stopped him, if only briefly. He tried to get around, clawing at the Peacekeepers and shouting obscenities but now Katniss had a hold on him too and to his surprise, Effie had taken a fistful of his shirt in her polished nails until the train took off from the station with a jolt and the four of them tumbled over one another onto the carpet.

"Gerroff," he spat, struggling to disentangle himself from the knot of limbs surrounding him.

"I don't know what you were trying to accomplish back there by fighting Peacekeepers, but it was a pretty dumb move for a mentor who's been in the system for twenty-five years," said the boy spitefully, standing up and brushing himself off with a scowl.

He scrambled to his feet, leaving the women to gather themselves up behind him as he frog-marched the boy out of the room to the cart at the back of the train. Once he was certain that they were alone he locked the door as a precaution and then rounded on the boy.

"Don't gimme that look. If I could have volunteered for her I would have but it doesn't work like that."

"So you think you'll do her better good by going into the arena with her instead of getting her sponsors?"

"You're the one with the golden tongue, kid, you can get just as many sponsors for her if not more than I ever could. I know the techniques and tactics of the other tributes and I can help her avoid them. I'll do you both more good being in the arena than on the sidelines."

"Snow won't let her live," said the boy desperately. "He'll do everything he can to make sure she dies out there. It's not just a coincidence that the card made the reaping include previous tributes and you know it. He rigged the system specifically to put her back in the arena and dispose of her."

"Which is why it'll be a smack in the face when she comes out victor again. Trust me."

"Haymitch—"

He took the boy's face in his hands. "Look at me, kid. Normally she's the one I've got to calm down, so don't go to pieces on me now. I know what I'm doing, okay? If you play your cards right and let me play mine, she'll come out of this alive."

"But you won't. I can't let you do that for us. I was prepared to die for her once before, why couldn't you let me do it again?"

"No one should have to prepare to die for someone else twice, especially not someone who has their whole life ahead of them. I've had this coming, Peeta. I can do it without regrets. You two—"

He couldn't make the words come, couldn't even vomit them out with the small bit of white liquor he had chugged that morning. Neither of the kids knew how very glad he was to have coached them, how very thankful he was for their company in his last days. He had never said anything so sentimental before and he wasn't about to start now.

He clapped Peeta on the shoulder and exited the cart, heading for his room where he knew he wouldn't be tempted to reach for a bottle. From here on out he had to keep his wits about him, but that meant facing the possibility of withdrawals which always brought nightmares. Still, they couldn't be any worse than what awaited him at the end of the train line.


	2. Chapter 2: Lives to Lose

Sleep did not come easy by any means. If anything it evaded him deliberately, forcing him out of his bedroom to seek out some form of distraction. The dining cart was always open, loaded with delicacies, rich and fattening food, and of course, liquor. He swiped a plate from the stack at the end of the self-serve table and piled it high with pastries and fruit, bypassing the liquor cart with deliberate slowness as if to make forced eye contact with the temptress.

The couch at the back of the cart was set up in front of the projector screen, a direct reflection of the day to day existence of the Capitol civilians. Eat, bet, cheer, and cry in front of the television. Live in front of it, bathroom breaks excluded. Disgusting, but Haymitch figured that the way he had kept house for the past quarter of a century was no less revolting. He found the broadcast that replayed the finer points of the day's reaping to familiarize himself with his friends-turned-opponents and his acquaintances-turned-adversaries.

Starting with District 1 and a fruit tart coated in honey, he began to take mental notes as well as written ones with his right hand as he clumsily fed himself with his left. Cashmere and Gloss, relatively new when compared to other victors, but well-known and loved by the Capitol. She was the younger of the twins, having won eleven years ago and he won the year before her. Both were lethal with knives and sought out the dominant tributes to team up with. They would be sure to want Katniss, but not him, especially since he hadn't actually used a weapon in too many years than he cared to admit or count. Perhaps, if the Capitol let him go in drunk he could breathe on the other tributes and the stench might knock them out long enough for him to finish them off.

District 2 brought him to a crispy apple that had already been cored. Brutus and Enobaria. _Damn it._ Not exactly favorable for Katniss either. They would be the ones to get rid of quickly if possible. He struck the towering hulking figure with his faithful pet sidekick who just happened to have a set of fangs. Haymitch recalled watching her win the games with those clampers and had no desire to get anywhere near them. He suspected no alliance would be formed with District 2 this year—big shock—but if he could put down Brutus, Enobaria would be easier to dispatch.

The tributes for District 3 appeared before he had completed jotting down the notes from the previous district and he had to stuff a banana cream-filled doughy pastry into his mouth while fumbling to pause the screen. He groaned as he heard the escort announce the District 3 names. Beetee and Wiress weren't exactly favorites, but among those who amicably gathered each year in the Capitol and forged what could be considered friendships, seeing them reaped meant losing two kind-hearted individuals. Both rather quiet, she even more so to the point of being anti-social, but when he did speak, you listened to every word. In the arena though, they might be some of the first to go given their age in comparison to the other tributes.

With District 4 he buried his face in his sticky, sickeningly sweet-smelling hands. Partially to see the male tribute, but mostly to see the female. Finnick Odair ranked somewhere between Cashmere and Enobaria with having the knowledge in combat and being just shy of abusing that power. Another Capitol favorite. But the woman beside him, Mags. Incapable of most speech, older than any other tribute alive and the sweetest, most caring woman Haymitch had ever had the pleasure to meet. If it came down to it, he hoped that her blood would not come from his or Katniss's doing. He couldn't live with that kind of guilt, not even for the short time that he lasted in the arena.

District 5 brought about the end of his appetite and he pushed his plate away, reaching for a glass of water to wash out the raw taste in his mouth. Shade, being the female tribute, was built similar to Katniss in her current state and even looked something like her, but with golden hair instead. Her fatal beauty turned many heads in her games but her lethality came from her acrobatics and the way in which she killed her victims, snapping necks, going for pressure points before skewering them, or delivering well-placed cuts to major arteries as she dodged around the bigger, bulkier weapons of her opponents. Cobalt, the male tribute had a stocky build through the shoulders and vivid ginger hair to match his goatee. With a sly smirk that reminded Haymitch of a wild animal about to snap its jaws down on its prey, Cobalt favored a baton which he used to bludgeon the other tributes to death. Still, even with his skittish attitude towards other districts, Cobalt turned to the bottle just as Haymitch had and the two spent many games drinking and mumbling to each other in some secluded corner.

The morphlings from District 6 posed no threat whatsoever unless their camouflage concealed them so brilliantly that the other tributes never found them. The few times Haymitch had gotten either of them to speak he discovered one: that their names were Lorn and Avis and two: their names comprised of their ten-word vocabulary. Small wonder District 6 rarely had victors with mentors who were incapacitated half the t—_Like me,_ he reprimanded himself mid-thought.

From District 7 there was Blight and Johanna Mason, both contenders with axes and both playing the weak card only to come out fighting at the end with savage brutality. But that strategy wouldn't work this time around, not now that everyone knew them to be experienced killers. Haymitch would do well to remind Katniss that she was the more deadly of the two.

District 8 brought another set of old friends to the table and another loud groan from Haymitch as he spotted Cecelia who was the only tribute to have children, all of needy age. Her motherly nature came out in the arena when she cared for her fellow district tribute who had broken his ankle after toppling off of a short outcrop in the jagged terrain. She tended to him up until a Career tribute impaled him and then she strangled the Career in distress. Woof, the male tribute, was another drinking buddy, though much more trustworthy and enthusiastic than Cobalt. Apparently the Capitol did not approve of friendships lasting more than a handful of years.

Sickle and Tilly from District 9 were a great surprise to him, especially since they had both volunteered to replace much older reaped tributes. Tilly won the year after Haymitch, but she looked much better after twenty-five years and did not show her age. Her raven hair fell down on either side of her heart-shaped face, kindly and understanding, but her eyes were large, grey and watery as if she were always on the verge of tears. Sickle reflected Brutus in muscular build and hardened expression as well as a bit of savagery but the similarities stopped there. At eighteen, he had volunteered for his then twelve-year-old reaped brother which meant that this was his second time willingly going into the games.

If District 9 had shocked him, District 10 was electrifying. Lash was only six years out of her games, specializing in creating nooses out of the loose wires around the abandoned city arena that snared nine tributes. Since then the Capitol had altered her appearance somewhat with dyed white hair and rather protruding lips. Denno was of slight build with dusty brown hair and an ever-saddened expression and Haymitch suspected that the man was not capable of smiling. He had won his games by pure chance when an explosion triggered by a District 3 tribute had accidentally killed its initiator. His hands were completely clean of blood, one of the few victors to have won without killing.

Haymitch found himself gnawing on his fingernails as the last two unknown tributes from District 11 appeared. Chaff and Seeder. Here Haymitch seized his now empty water glass and flung it at the projection screen, which caused it absolutely no harm. Seeder had come to him last year to transfer Rue's sponsored gift to Katniss and openly wept for the little girl. She won her games by poisoning the Career pack's food supply. But Chaff, admittedly Haymitch's closest friend and the only maimed tribute about to reenter the games, was already at a disadvantage. The drinking quartet was complete and it was highly unlikely that any of them would come out victorious.

Now he was watching himself on screen stepping forward to take Peeta's place. He could clearly see Katniss's face and the gratefulness she displayed as well as the hurt on Peeta's. He had to betray one of them to help them both—but even now that he had had a chance to think it through, it still made his head hurt.

Swearing at the impending events of the following day, he collapsed flat on the couch, resting his arm across his forehead. Everything conflicted now that he knew who his competitors were. His long-lasting friendship would make it difficult to spill any blood in the arena, but his current standing promise to Peeta meant that he would have to get his hands dirty. Either he let the Careers finish off his friends and possible allies so that he was left facing them alone while protecting Katniss or he used his companions to hunt the Careers down and then turned around and stabbed them in the back.

Nobility be damned, volunteering for Peeta was shaping up to be one of the stupidest decisions of his life.

**Sorry for any repetitive description if you already know the tributes from the film pretty well. If you would please disregard the appearances of the unnamed tribute from Districts 5, (partially 6), 9, and 10, I wanted to reinvent them to fit my story line. And all the description is key to what comes later, I promise! **


	3. Chapter 3: Before the Games Begin

No one expected Haymitch to actually make it to the games in Peeta's stead so a new stylist had not been ordered for him and his previous stylist was dead, so Portia agreed to stay on alongside Cinna. He had to admit this team, while making a true statement at the last games, kept to a style that did not cause one bit of embarrassment or indignation in their tributes. Katniss kept up a constant stream of comments on Cinna's work which Peeta wholly supported, but nonetheless, Haymitch was a little hesitant as to what angle the stylists would play now that the star-crossed lovers was no longer an item in the games.

His prep team, previously Peeta's as well, insisted on waxing his chest and shaving his face as well as trimming his hair which was then tied back the better to see his hardened features. He had to bite his tongue to keep from protesting at this since he preferred to use his curtains of blonde to partially conceal scowls he reserved for select individuals. Besides a bottle of liquor, his scowl was his trademark. His face had been vigorously scrubbed to cleanse it of all alcohol traces until the rawness threatened to set his skin on fire. Never had his fingernails been so clean, his teeth so white (the prep team tried to persuade him to alter them so that they met the aligned, even standards of the Capitol but he put his foot down at this), his posture so straight. Slumping over a table passed out drunk through the years had caused a permanent forward slouch in his posture which his team temporarily fixed by strapping a metal plate to his back, forcing him to keep his body in line.

Portia then concealed the plate with a metallic grey tunic that exposed his gleaming chest and stopped at his elbows. The rest of his costume was much the same, save for his shin-high boots that were coated in shimmering black polish. When she had finished with him, Portia led him to the mirror where he had to work very hard to not let his signature frown appear at the sight of him looking like a dress up doll in comparison to his old self. At least he wasn't naked.

He met Katniss in the tunnel where the other tributes were mingling, exchanging banter happily as old friends reunited. They might have been preparing to celebrate a birthday instead of lining up for slaughter. Katniss was the outlier here where her only current friend was him, Haymitch.

As he suspected, Chaff, Woof, and Cobalt had gathered near the District 11 chariot and were laughing in booming voices that carried all the way up to the District 1 chariot where the Careers had already formed up. Knowing it would be one of the last instances for the four of them to reminisce on happier times, Haymitch joined them, unable to help noticing that he was actually the best dressed and that his costume caught the eye more than theirs did combined.

Much like Rue and Thresh the previous year and the tributes the year before that all the way back to the 54th Hunger Games, Chaff's stylist had dressed him in denim blue with some silver token in the shape of a wheat stalk tucked over his left ear. Woof wore a sleek red one piece that showed off his midsection bulk in a rather unflattering way. Cobalt had an electric blue bolt to match his name spiking out across his chest, woven into the fabric of his midnight blue tunic. Obviously in an attempt to outdo Cinna's costume from last year when he set Katniss and Peeta on fire, Cobalt's stylist had tried to incorporate the district element into his costume but the whole thing clashed horribly with that ginger hair of his.

"That hair makes quite a statement," said Woof, eyeing Haymitch's costume with amusement.

"Going for a new angle with the lovers of District 12, then?" asked Cobalt mockingly. Unlike the other tributes, he has a slight accent that sounded much more sincere and genuine, natural next to the overly exaggerated flourish of the Capitol residents. Where or how he picked it up remained a mystery, but it was one of the few unnerving things about him including his hair and his smirk.

"Bit old for the Girl on Fire, aren't you?" said Chaff, punching Haymitch playfully in the shoulder.

But Haymitch felt oddly disconnected from them as he stood there, taking their good-natured insults. Might this have felt different if he had let Peeta enter into the games? His protectiveness for Katniss was starting to rise after Cobalt's statement and under different circumstances he might have had some sort of witty comeback but now he felt a burning desire to crush Cobalt's foot under his heel and maybe elbow Chaff in the stomach. _Grow up_, he wanted to shout at them. This was serious now; their friendship would last less than a week and jabs at sexual innuendo would come back to haunt them in the arena if they kept it up.

His expression must have shown, for Woof placed a precautionary hand on his shoulder and shook him out of his daze. "Hey, are you still with us, Abernathy?"

"Yeah, for now," said Haymitch, not liking the way in which Cobalt was seemingly sizing him up as if to determine how much of a threat he would be once the gong rang out and the bloodbath began. True, Haymitch had a bit more weight in his middle from his years of binging alcohol than he would like, especially now that speed and strength were key to survival, but he had Cobalt beat by almost two inches and where Cobalt was quick, Haymitch was strong.

_Stop that_, he told himself. But why? He would have to kill them sooner or later and the sooner he figured out their new weaknesses the better. The frostiness in the air between them, however, suggested that Haymitch may have found his first opponent.

"Tributes mount up," said the voice of Claudius Templesmith, echoing throughout the tunnel.

"See you all in training tomorrow," said Haymitch, stepping back and then turning on his heel.

"Get some liquor in your system by then," called Chaff in suggestion.

At the District 12 chariot Cinna was helping Katniss to step up in place and instructing her on something that involved a button. She leaned over so that Peeta could kiss her cheek as Haymitch positioned himself beside her, staring pointedly at the button in her right hand as Cinna walked away.

"What's that do?" he asked suspiciously.

"It'll make a statement to Snow," said Katniss without further explanation. When Haymitch continued to watch her she rolled her eyes and added, "It's fake, but if you think you can't handle it you're more than welcome to hold on to me for support."

"Attitude, sweetheart. I'm not anymore pleased to be here than you, but I expected a bit more appreciation after I took a bullet for that boy."

"Sorry," she said without sounding like it.

"Look, just keep a lid on it until the ride's over otherwise I might be tempted to push you off the chariot and say it was an accident," he warned as the line began to move.

In no time they had cleared the tunnel and the blinding sunlight nearly made Haymitch stagger backwards enough to topple from the chariot platform. Katniss used her free hand to catch his wrist and hold him steady long enough for him to regain his balance and find a handhold which was lucky because a moment later her magic button from the god of style ignited his shirt and pants in fiery sparks similar to volcanic extract. He gripped the side of the chariot, watching his shoulders smolder as the crowd went ballistic and chanted. The cameras had settled on them but were now honing in on Katniss which was just fine with him.

After circling the courtyard in front of President Snow's mansion they returned the tunnels and Haymitch hurried off to the elevator, leaving Katniss behind with Peeta to engage in conversation with some of the other tributes. Unfortunately the elevator was already packed with six other tributes and he had to squeeze in between Enobaria and Beetee, the latter of whom gave him a casual nod in greeting. At the back of the lift Brutus was leaning against the glass, turning his eyes on each tribute in turn, no doubt mentally picking his allies. Beside Enobaria, though, the only other tribute who Haymitch could see Brutus teaming up with was possibly Sickle who had his head down, arms folded, not watching or speaking.

The elevator stopped shortly at the second floor and Enobaria stepped off, rounding the corner without word to any of them. Brutus puffed out his chest and confronted Denno who swallowed and flattened himself against the glass and Sickle in his haste to move aside. Once the grilles had shut and they were moving upward again Sickle shoved Denno off of him.

"If you can't stand up to him now, you're going to be the first one he goes after when he steps off his pedestal," he told Denno.

"Oh, let off him," said Tilly reprovingly.

Ignoring her, Sickle jabbed his finger into Denno's chest. "You want allies and sponsors, buddy? Then stop acting like a weakling and show the people something worth investing their time into."

Beetee stepped between the two and gently pushed them apart, taking the defense on Denno's behalf. "That's enough, now. We're all friends here, aren't we? Right here, the five of us have gone through many years of mentoring, trying to keep tributes alive to preserve childhood, haven't we? That arena does not change any of that. Though I cannot speak for everyone, I am still the image of the boy I was when I first went into the games and I plan to retain that image despite what happens on opening morning. I will not begrudge any of you here, nor the Career tributes for the deeds we must do once inside. The situation is the same as the first time: we do not want to kill, but we will so that we—or someone we value even above ourselves—live."

Sickle's pale blue eyes did not look convinced, but he had always gotten on well with Beetee and did not seek out an argument now.

Beetee got off on the third floor, leaving the rest of them in pained silence until they came to another stop on the ninth where Sickle and Tilly departed. Haymitch chose his words carefully when speaking to Denno, but wanted to encourage him all the same.

"He wasn't angry at you, you know. Any anger from the tributes is only directed one way and it's not at each other. He just doesn't want you to give up before the games even begin."

"I did last time," said Denno. "Dumb luck saw me through to the end. I was the accidental victor. It's not by choice that I don't kill, Haymitch; I just can't. I don't harvest that kind of hate towards anyone or anything enough to want to kill."

"What if you saw someone you cared about slaughtered?" Haymitch posed. "You can't tell me you'd stand by and do nothing."

"I can't answer that on behalf of not having any of those individuals to speak about," said Denno and for the first time, with a coolness to his voice.

"Not even Lash?"

A set of pale pink patches appeared on Denno's cheeks. _Gotcha._

"She wasn't known to me last time. She was only three when I was reaped and I didn't mentor her until eleven years after—"

"And that's supposed to make a difference?"

"But she won't make it either, not with the Career pack that we have this year, excluding Mags."

Haymitch lowered his voice and stepped closer to Denno so that their shoulders brushed. The cameras were watching so he patted Denno's back as if comforting him while whispering, "Well, if you've given up on her and given up on yourself, what would you say to helping me get one out who can seek revenge for you?"


	4. Chapter 4: Allies and Opponents

Katniss was still not on good speaking terms with him the following morning as they arrived for training. Both were secretly against it, her because she was hesitant to take allies after the incident with Rue, and him because he was just offering himself up as bait for those who didn't already know that he was no fighter. He might be more physically fit and younger than a good portion of the tributes (nearly half, actually), but even with the strict regime of training in District 12 by demand of Katniss, he was still nowhere near as robust as Brutus, Sickle, Gloss, or Finnick.

By the time the two of them arrived at the training facility, groups had already started to form out of the ones that put in an appearance this early. The Careers from 1 and 2 claimed the fire starting station which would definitely come in handy since not one in the four of them were able to start fires the last time around. Blight and Johanna were taking turns warming up their muscles with axe throwing: he favored a double-bladed weapon where hers had one side. Chaff, Woof, and Cobalt were jokingly selecting weapons at the rack. Shade had called on one of the on duty stand-ins to battle against while dangling from ropes. Tilly and Lash were tinkering with pre-detonated explosives that beeped with every failed deactivation or attempt to plant them. But Denno had his head down as always, inconspicuously working on a snare with Mags and Cecelia.

_Spread the word._ That was the last bit of advice Haymitch had given his fellow tribute before they parted on the elevator the day before and it pleased him to see that Denno had taken it to heart.

The morphlings, Sickle, Finnick, and Seeder had not yet come down, but Haymitch didn't rule out the possibility of recruiting them—except maybe Finnick. If Mags was sold, he would be too, but once she went down out there, he might have a change of heart.

"Mingle, sweetheart," Haymitch muttered to Katniss, setting off for the very back where Beetee and Wiress were consulting the overhead projector on which plants were edible. Wiress reached for one with bright orange edges and with hardly any effort as if he expected it, Beetee grabbed her elbow and lowered it with a shake of his head, still reading the pamphlet above.

Haymitch gave Wiress a warm smile and leaned over, pretending to rummage in a box of sample plants that were less toxic when dried out. "Katniss," he said, hardly moving his lips.

Beetee pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and crushed a mixture of leaves and berries before placing them on the scanner to test for safety. He was rewarded with a pleasant _ding_ and Wiress clapped. Under cover of her applause, Beetee replied, "Yes."

To avoid suspicion Haymitch spent another half hour at the same station, trying in vain to pick out one plant from another but in the back of his mind he assured himself that Katniss could just keep him on track with those. Unhealthy mindset for someone going into the Games, automatically relying on another tribute for survival. Glancing around casually he was able to keep tabs on Katniss who was actually getting on well with Gloss at the camouflage station and Denno who had circulated to Tilly and Lash. Haymitch caught his eye and then jerked his head under the pretense of clearing his hair from his face towards Mags who had now been joined by Finnick. Denno nodded once.

_That makes six if Finnick and Cecelia are in too. Seven including me. Seven so far out of twenty-three._

Haymitch had his doubts about 1 and 2 seeing the deal through to the end, even if they did want Katniss in the beginning stages to help hunt down the other tributes. Avis and Lorn were another issue since they had as much to give as Mags physically but not so lucky as her to have a protector like Finnick. That left Sickle, Cobalt, and Shade for varying reasons, most of them relying on the fact that Haymitch didn't trust them, not this time around. Ten versus fourteen with all the brutish and savage tributes on the opposing sides.

"Haymitch, over here," called Enobaria from the knife-throwing simulation. Knowing he was in for disgrace in front of the Gamemakers, Haymitch trudged over to where she stood balancing a knife on her fingertip. "Still sleep with one of these?" she asked.

"Wouldn't you?" he shot back.

"Not if I knew I could kill anyone who snuck up on me while I was sleeping with my bare hands—or teeth." She flashed him her pearly jagged whites but he held his ground.

"I don't have much of an appetite when I wake up, though."

Enobaria blanched and then turning the knife point down, shouted, "Catch!"

Haymitch stepped back in reaction but he could not stop his hand from shooting upward to try and grab the knife. The blade hit the ground next to his foot and Enobaria nodded in a satisfied sort of way. She had him now. Not only had he failed to completely move out of the way of the knife, but he had also fumbled it. She would pass it on to Brutus and District 1 that he, Haymitch, should be an early finish.

"You take care, Haymitch," she said derisively and strode off to join her district partner.

Fuming, Haymitch swiped up the knife from where it had fallen and chucked it blindly at the wall. Cold, thick concrete could not break under the force of a thrown steel knife, but after the clang of the blade on the ground alerted the entire facility of his actions, Haymitch decided to at least go and retrieve it, knowing the Gamemakers were still watching. To his rather dazed surprise, he found a quarter inch indent in the concrete where the knife had struck but not embedded. Either he had superhuman strengths unknown or this was some top quality steel he held in his hand.

"Don't look so surprised or everyone will think you didn't plan that," said Sickle, stabbing a spear point repeatedly into the ground in a bored sort of fashion. Haymitch started to reply but Sickle followed up with a sharp, "Seriously. Everyone thinks you meant to do that so at least try to look convincing."

"And you don't think I meant to?"

"I know you didn't. You're one of those tributes that doesn't have a signature weapon or tactic. You won by using a weapon you weren't supposed to have. Now, I don't know what skills you demonstrated in your private sessions the first time around but it couldn't have been impressive because you got a six as your training score, didn't you?"

"A seven," said Haymitch defensively. "And I made controlled fireballs with oil, rags, and a makeshift catapult but I never got the chance to light a fire in the arena."

"Fireballs?" Sickle scoffed. "Of course they didn't give you the chance to try out your skill; you'd have set the entire meadow on fire."

"What did you do that earned you your eight?" asked Haymitch, now thoroughly annoyed with the superior card Sickle was playing.

"I swallowed poison," the bigger man responded in all seriousness though Haymitch had difficulty believing that one.

"Have you seen Katniss shoot yet?"

The question was abrupt in context of the conversation, but perhaps he could ease into the subject to find out Sickle's loyalties. A man who put himself up for slaughter twice to save family and the elderly had to have some sense of unity, of rebellion. He would want those people well cared for in light of his impending death. Right?

"Yeah, I have." He winked.

_That's eight._

Just then there came a deafening crash as Lorn accidentally bumped into Brutus and Cobalt's painting supplies, knocking the lot of it to the ground and spilling paint onto their shoes. Brutus made a menacing step towards the male morphling who slipped in his haste to retreat and cowered where he fell. The stand-by guards blew their whistles and closed in on Brutus but he never even touched Lorn. Someone so heavily influenced by medication was already thoroughly damaged and the threat of a beating was enough to make him surrender, something Brutus knew since he had been intimidating people for nearly thirty years. He stomped off to get his shoes cleaned up while Avis and Blight helped Lorn to his feet. Cobalt returned to painting his dirk to match his clothing, making him appear unarmed.

Haymitch pulled up a stool beside him but did not even bother to appear as if he had the slightest interest in camouflaging anything. His mood had gone from relieved to confrontational in less than a minute.

"You're wasting valuable time, Haymitch," said Cobalt without looking at him. "You should be sharpening up on something that might actually win you a decent score in your private session."

Haymitch knocked the dirk out of Cobalt's hand. Cobalt went into a defensive stance in anticipation of further attack. "What the hell was that for?" he growled.

"The hell do you think you're doing?" Haymitch demanded. "Teaming up with the Career pack, are you? That's a good way to turn everyone else against you."

"Maybe I have a strategy worked out, dear friend," Cobalt replied sardonically. "Perhaps it's the safe bet to side with the Careers this time around seeing as how I nearly got my skull taken off when I stayed with 6 and 7 the last time." He gestured to his forehead above his right eyebrow where the skin was pulled up, giving him an asymmetrical appearance from where the tribute girl from 4 had tried to slice off his head with a razor sharp throwing disc.

"So you've already left the drinking game, is that it? You'd drop the rest of us just like that without even having the dignity to apologize for what's to come or to say goodbye?" Betrayal had never quite stung like this. Cobalt was always the oddest of the group, but between the last Games and the present, his attitude towards previous friends, particularly Haymitch had turned hostile.

"It's going to happen anyway whether you like it or not, Haymitch. I'm prepared for my _friends_ to slip a knife between my ribs. You think Chaff and Woof are going to link arms with you and sing shanties while everyone else gets killed around them? No, they'll resort to any means of survival they can and pick off anyone who stands in their way whether they pose a threat like the Careers or not like that coward who let Brutus bully him. Even if you've reserved yourself to die, your body and mind will react against your will. You'll fight for survival and do anything necessary to come out victor. Anyone who still believes that friendship will outlast the Hunger Games will be the first to die, believe me."

_That's five strikes against us_.

"Alright, I see how it is now. Glory over humanity. Well, you have fun out there, _buddy_." He put as much contempt as he could into the last word and pushed the rest of Cobalt's painting supplies off of the table. "And one more thing: go to hell."

A water spigot hammered into the wall marked the refreshment stand and Haymitch parked himself at it, tossing a cupful of water into his face to cool the steam building up inside his head. The first betrayal of the 75th Hunger Games and they weren't yet in the arena. Fantastic.


	5. Chapter 5: No Hidden Skills

Katniss grilled him on every detail he knew of every tribute and made him test his physical limits in the next two days of training. She requested to Peeta to pass on her hopes of forming an alliance with District 3, Blight, Cecelia, Tilly, and Chaff. She had no idea whatsoever that Haymitch had all of her requests—in fact the majority of the tributes were vying to see her through to the end, or however close they got before the lights went out. Six real opponents and sixteen allies. Either this would work out as planned or blow up in their faces.

The morphlings, Seeder, Denno, Woof, and Chaff did not appear at the Training Center the next two days which meant that Haymitch had no one to vent his anger out to concerning Cobalt who, along with Shade, had started joining the Career pack in all events and at lunch. The other tributes turned a cold shoulder to District 5 but remarkably still remained friendly with the Careers to an extent.

The real challenge was not the climbing bars or the hours of scrambling over foam blocks to avoid blows from a stand-in, or making a damn fire from damp wood. No, it came on the final day of training when Haymitch face planted spectacularly on a mat after failing to dodge a swing from a metal pole in an obstacle simulation. He felt a stinging pain in his nose and his eyes brimmed with unshed tears as he cursed and held his hand up to stop the bleeding. Then he heard laughter from the other side of the facility.

There was no mistaking the owner and in two seconds flat Haymitch was striding over to where Cobalt was practicing swings with a sword on a wooden dummy. Katniss, Sickle, and Tilly had to restrain him as he fought to get at the back-stabbing bastard and only when a guard threatened to have him removed from the center did he finally walk away.

Now as he sat watching Cobalt descend deeper into the training center to face the Gamemakers for his private sessions, he wished for the coward to fail miserably at his skill and earn him a score that would make the Careers reconsider their union with him and wipe him out in the first five minutes of the Games.

_And die slow, you piece of lowly, traitorous—_

"Haymitch, I know you're angry," said Katniss, jerking him rudely from his wishful thinking.

"What?"

"About Cobalt. I know you're upset at what he's chosen to do, and even though it's given you motivation to train like I've never seen you do before, it might be a distraction once the Games start. I need you focused from here on out, okay? Odds are that the Careers will kill him or else I will just for you."

"No, you leave him to me if he's still alive after the bloodbath," Haymitch growled under his breath.

"Fine, but until then, could you wipe that rabid look off your face and pay attention?"

"I could do that."

Though she may be a pain in the ass to get along with at times, Haymitch knew he was not being fair to her in the little attention he had shown her since the reaping and the almost nonexistent advice he had given her when she didn't ask for it. Regardless of the fact that all of his actions had been centered on finding supporters for her once in the arena, his emotions were geared towards his own needs and wants. This was no longer about surviving and playing it safe under the ever watchful eye of the Capitol; this was about seeing the Girl on Fire through to the end. Any delusions of survival for himself had to be quashed immediately.

Well, that certainly made it easier to deal with going into the solitary sessions with the Gamemakers. Admittedly he had lost sleep over the prospect of performing in front of them once again and scoring lower than maybe four of the other tributes. What special skill could he show them? He thought wryly of challenging them to a drinking contest out of pure spite, but alcohol would not be provided in the arena, so there would be no such substance in training. He couldn't walk in and do nothing, but what could he possibly do that they either didn't already knew he was capable of, or that one of the previous twenty-two tributes hadn't already shown them?

They had been instructed to not speak to other districts while in the waiting room, but Chaff, who was sitting two seats down from Haymitch, leaned around Seeder and murmured, "Make it up as you go."

It wasn't much to go off of since he had planned that anyway, but the stressful anger and hate he had been feeling the past few days dissipated slightly at Chaff's risk of punishment just to comfort him.

Then, all too soon, he heard Claudius announce, "Haymitch Abernathy, District 12. Report for individual assessment."

"Good luck," said Katniss and he could see that she meant it.

The boost of confidence Chaff had given him spluttered to a halt as he stood in the center of the performance room with every eye trained on him. Plutarch Heavensbee stood up and motioned at the vast array of weapons around the room.

"Haymitch Abernathy, you have ten minutes to show us your skill."

_My skills include loud belching, colorful swearing, and unprecedented revulsion._

He recognized most of the Gamemakers, smirking in superiority as they whispered behind their hands, pointing a thumb at him or scribbling on a notepad marks that looked suspiciously like "x"s and "0"s. Already they had given him up as a bad joke, a disappointment next to the baker with the golden tongue they expected. They had hoped for Peeta who still had talents unknown and unchallenged since he hardly got to use them in the last Games. But in their eyes Haymitch was just the drunkard from District 12 who tried to earn himself a bit of glory by volunteering.

Without planning it and without fully knowing how to handle half of them, Haymitch pulled weapons off of the rack at random, lining himself up with a target and aiming, throwing, chucking them with subjugated fierceness. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he snatched up a sword and hacked at a dummy; he found a coil of wire and looped it around another dummy's arm, severing right through so that the appendage clunked to the floor. The injustice, the years spent waiting for an opportunity to spit back in the Capitol's face after they left him with nothing, it all came hurtling down on him now.

He grabbed a knife, no bigger than the one he slept with at home and with a yell that nearly broke his vocal chords, brought it slicing down across the dummy's neck. The head teetered sideways and slipped off the support. He hadn't meant to decapitate it and certainly didn't know it was possible with a knife this size, but he didn't care. He let the blade fall at his feet and bit his lip hard, waiting for steam to billow out of his already tender nose under the exertion.

"Thank you, you are dismissed," said Plutarch after a prolonged silence.

What type of score did all of that merit? Anyone could pick up a weapon and use it to some extent, but he had been so pumped with adrenaline, so oblivious to his surroundings, that he did not even stop to see if any of his throws made the target. What did it matter, though? Whatever score he received was irrelevant next to the tributes who all knew what he could do anyway.

Watching the scores that night was still painful though. Effie, Cinna, Portia, and Peeta had closed in around him and Katniss, forming a protective semi-circle on the couches. They were all sitting closer together than usual, but Haymitch was grateful for their presence. Being in the room with the Gamemakers could only be compared to facing a pack of wolves alone where there was no other human to comfort you. Here now amongst friends, he could finally breathe properly.

As a surprise to no one, Districts 1 and 2 earned 9s and 10s. Districts 3, 6, 8, and 11 as well as Mags and Denno averaged between 3 and 6. Finnick scored a 10. Lash and Tilly each earned 7s, Blight and Johanna had 8s, Sickle had a 9. Shade and Cobalt came in with matching 9s as well.

"From District 12, Haymitch Abernathy," said the violently purple-haired Caesar Flickerman. His perfect mouth of unnaturally white marble split into a wide grin. "A score of 10."

_Well, shit, if that doesn't beat all._

Effie gave an uncharacteristic whoop while Cinna and Portia drank to Haymitch's success. Peeta shared a knowing smile with him and Katniss squeezed his hand, congratulating him so that she nearly missed her score, a two-for-two matched up 11 from the previous year's score.

The score didn't matter with the tributes who had their own way of ranking their fellow competitors, but the audience would bet on the odds given by each score and sponsors rarely took interest in anyone ranking below a 9. Peeta would be able to get countless sponsors for Katniss, and if he gave them something to root for, Haymitch might come out just as lucky.

Ten. _Ten!_ Haymitch allowed himself a grin, wondering how the Careers who scraped a 9 felt now that an alcoholic had outscored them. He envisioned Cobalt's sour, disbelieving face seven floors below as the screen flashed out the scores once again.

_Choke on that, Cobalt._


	6. Chapter 6: A Word of Defiance

At least black was a flattering color. Portia had him dressed in a tailcoat with a grey undershirt made of the same material as his parade costume. His tie was a deep blood-red color that seemed to sift like the actual thing when it caught the light. If not for the fact that this was the one and only time he would wear it, he would have sincerely enjoyed donning it.

This was the last of it: the parades, the false smiles, the careful conversations. After tonight, he could act and speak as he damn well pleased as long as he kept Katniss right beside him. His agenda included seeing her through to the finish as the main priority but if he could get close enough, he wanted to finish off as many opposing tributes as he could—all six of them if he could manage it.

All he had to do now was give Caesar something to work with, maybe get in a good laugh or slam down a word that'll really get under the Capitol's skin, and then get a good night's rest. The idea was laughable: a good night's rest.

He chuckled to himself as he turned to the screen where Denno was being interviewed by Caesar. The audience knew Denno but with so many more interesting tributes, they hardly paid him much mind in the past. Now, however, Caesar was highlighting everything he could about the blood-free tribute.

"Denno, your last Games were won by you evading detection until the last moment. You emerged triumphant without ever giving anyone so much as a paper cut. How did you do it?"

With a partial shrug, Denno addressed the microphone rather than Caesar. "I ask myself that every day. I know that strategy won't work this time, but if I had shown the Gamemakers how good at hiding I was in my private session they might have given me a higher score and made me more of a target to the Careers."

It was the first time Haymitch ever recalled Denno getting some sort of favorable response from the crowd, but it didn't last long as he added in a very un-Denno-like way, "Out there, no one can hide from the Games because somehow we always end up together to form alliances or spill blood. The first time I was scared to kill; I didn't know how and was thankful that none of those children died by my hand. But now, I've known most of my fellow tributes for more years than I care to recall and we've formed a unified vision. We've made it entertaining to come back to the Games every year. I wish there was some way we could preserve that."

Caesar, like Haymitch, noted the underlying accusations at the Capitol, but he had the grace to pat Denno's back and say without too much of a pause, "We all wish we could preserve that, Denno. It has been our pleasure seeing you and the others contribute so much enthusiasm and energy into the Games. Future tributes will never know what fine mentoring they've missed out on."

_No, they won't Caesar,_ though Haymitch, silently applauding Denno's words. _They most certainly won't._

And then, he knew what he would say to make a lasting impression.

Caesar introduced him with playful repartee and the audience soaked it up after having many laughs at Haymitch's expense last year after he took a nose-dive off of the Justice Building platform. Haymitch knew where to play and where to pull out weightiness in the conversation because he had been catering to an audience for almost as long as Caesar. To win sponsors for tributes, he had to make not only himself, but the tributes look pleasing, desirable, worthy, which was what Caesar did in drawing out only a tribute's best qualities.

"So, Haymitch, you so nobly took Peeta Mellark's place in the reaping. Tell us, what was going on through your head at that moment? And what spurred that act of selfishness?"

"Well, Caesar, I can honestly say that I wasn't prepared to do any volunteering until the second after Peeta's name was called," Haymitch answered. There was truth to that statement since he only decided to make good on his promise to Katniss rather than Peeta at the last possible moment. "But I owed him that much because he and Katniss finally hired me a maid to clean my house since I'm normally out stone-cold too often to do it myself."

More laughter, a smattering of appreciative claps, even some sympathetic faces. Yes, he had the crowd right where he wanted them.

"Can you describe to us Peeta's reaction after you volunteered?" asked Caesar coyly.

Peeta sat in the front row off to the left with Cinna and Portia. Haymitch couldn't very well reveal his assent to let Katniss win or why he wanted her to win so he once again played the drunken card.

"He asked me to take care of her as well as he would and warned me not to go for the liquor the night before the Games."

Now people were sobbing at the star-crossed lovers still caring for each other by using their mentor as the seal on letters confessing love. The audience believed that Haymitch was simply trying to save just one of them by volunteering and that he had taken Peeta's place because Peeta was family. And they were absolutely right. He didn't have much, but what Haymitch did have was the victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games.

"And how do you plan on protecting Katniss when Peeta can't?"

"Well, it would help if Peeta could lend us a hand in the arena, but I think for starters I'll let her stand on my shoulders to give her better height with her bow."

Caesar turned to Katniss who stood with the other tributes on an elevated platform behind the main stage and blew her a kiss in farewell.

"But one thing's for certain, Caesar," said Haymitch, dealing the last of his cards in a very risky maneuver. "I may not be a threat in the eyes of some, but I will try my damndest to make the Games humane. Mentoring throughout the years has made it easier to say goodbye to tributes who we know won't be coming home, but for every child we have to let go, we gain a friend in the past victors who go through the same thing every year. Our grief in watching our tributes die gives us a common enemy: death. So out there, if I have to kill, I do it to spare my fellow tributes, my friends from anything worse that the Games have to offer."

Now he'd done it, deliberately called out the Capitol, Snow, and anyone who supported the system in Panem of trying to keep the districts divided by avoiding friendships. Despite their very best efforts, the victors had still formed bonds over the years to share sorrow and whispered grumblings about the system. The Capitol could send them all into the arena to murder each other, but there would be some who kept to the code of camaraderie for as long as they could.

"Yes, well all the best to you, Haymitch," said Caesar, his plastic beam faltering with a fearful glance at the cameras.

Haymitch trudged up the steps, making each footfall stand out in the veritably silent auditorium. At the top he fell into line beside Katniss who was of the same mind as him for an absolute whammer of a closing. The two of them pressed their three middle fingers on their left hands to their mouths and then raised their hands high so that the cameras would be sure to pick them up.

Only because there were no other tributes to evenly replace the two of them did Haymitch and Katniss survive the journey back to the Training Center. Effie and Peeta waited for them in the lounge, looking nervous as the sounds of Peacekeepers' artillery rang out on the city floor below.

"They'll be coming to clear out the mentors," said Peeta, hugging Katniss to him. "I'll be on top of things, winning you sponsors every chance I have. Both of you just—just take care of each other, okay? _Both_ of you." His arms shook slightly as he embraced Haymitch but the extra squeeze he gave was his way of reminding Haymitch to stick to the plan.

The last time he said goodbye to the boy he had been on the other side, heading towards the door of life and yet even from a tribute's perspective, Haymitch still feared for Peeta's safety now that he wasn't at his shoulder, encouraging the right moves and shooting down the wrong ones. It was possible that Katniss might actually be the safer of the two.

Effie was having a very noisy goodbye with Katniss, blowing away into her handkerchief as she rocked back and forth upright with Katniss in her arms who looked appallingly uncomfortable. Deciding it was time to step in and rescue her and also step away from Peeta's penetrating stare, Haymitch pulled Effie into an awkward sideways embrace and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. He motioned to Katniss to retreat to her room while Effie was distracted but Peeta seized the opportunity to give her one last kiss and whisper a final note of devotion in her ear. Meanwhile Effie rested her head on Haymitch's shoulder, still dabbing at her eyes that were a complete mess with bright pink eye liner leaking down her face to give the impression that her eyes were bleeding pink frosting. Hiccups had replaced her sobs and Haymitch didn't know what else to do but wait for it to be over. He was never a model subject at this sort of thing anyway. At times he absolutely loathed human contact.

By the time Effie composed herself enough to look up from her handkerchief, Katniss had gone and Peeta was waiting for her by the elevator.

"You should be going," said Haymitch pointedly over the sound of her hiccups and she nodded.

"Where's Katniss? Has she gone to bed already?"

"She didn't want to keep you," Haymitch invented. "And I don't want to either in case you get in trouble for being here when you should be gone already, so please, go now. And stop crying."

"You'll look after her?" Effie asked. "For as long as you can?"

"Yeah," he replied, wishing she would just get a move on already.

"I'll take care of Peeta."

Because the idea was so ludicrous of someone like Effie shielding Peeta from the Capitol, Haymitch choked to swallow the laugh that longed to escape his throat. Effie mistook the tears of pain in his eyes for emotion and threw her arms around him.

"I know, I know," she said in what she apparently thought was a comforting gesture. "It has been wonderful mentoring alongside you, Haymitch and I admire you for doing everything in your power to protect our victors. Thank you."

"Mmhmm." _Let go now. Now…nnn—ow._

A finishing kiss on his cheek was the very last he thought he could take from her but then she finally let go and scurried back to the elevator in her ridiculously high heels. Peeta held the doors open to let her through and before he could give Haymitch any sort of signal that might be caught on concealed camera, Haymitch turned heel and slammed his bedroom door shut behind him.

He ordered a bottle of liquor from the menu on the wall and set it down across from him as he knelt on the carpet in front of his bed.

Katniss. Peeta. Allies, Careers. Denno, Chaff, Cobalt.

Names shot through his brain at lightning speed and he had no desire to sleep with the energy coursing through him. After launching from the tubes, he would need to get a feel for the location in the arena, sparing maybe ten seconds, and then it would be a matter of locating Katniss. Weapons came after Katniss, allies third, and then he'd worry about the six going against them.

Twice as many tributes or twice the skill of any tribute. Either way, he was getting screwed over twice in twenty-five years.


	7. Chapter 7: Pedestal of Glory

He regretted that last shot of liquor. He regretted the six shots that came before that. After realizing how very stupid and selfish it was of him to be downing the foul substance the eve of the Games, he had smashed the bottle against the door and found a button in the shower that sprayed thick jets of water down on his head mercilessly, drenching him fully clothed in seconds and pounding on him to wash away the effects of the liquor. If he thought he could beat his addiction by pure willpower to save Katniss, he had poorly misjudged himself. Ever since the reaping he had still snuck a glass here or there but masked his breath with very strongly-scented foods and changed clothes as well as taken enough showers to make up for the weeks at a time where he went without. But this last night had pushed him too far and the bottle won, casting him into a hazy, blurred version of reality where images swam up before him and he lost most of the feeling in his neglected body from his neck down.

Despite his very best effort to remedy his splitting headache and his delayed body movements, the morning brought him enormous head pains, nausea, and chills. He spent the early hours in the restroom, hunched over the toilet trying to vomit everything up and then passed out with his cheek plastered to the seat with saliva and upchuck. An Avox shook him awake by the shoulder, helped him to his feet, and placed him under the stream of water again to wash away the regurgitated vomit and rich food that plastered the front of his shirt. When the Avox returned to dress him for the journey to the arena, Haymitch sat down in the shower, stubbornly refusing the boy's help. One too many people had seen him naked in his life and he did not want to add the Avox to his list, though depending on the layout of the arena, the audience might get more than they bargained for with him. Motioning at the clock on the wall, the Avox backed out and only then did Haymitch change into clean, dry clothes to meet Portia on the roof.

Somewhere in the back of his head he knew that he had a schedule to keep and though he tried to focus on the task at hand, his body was fighting him at every turn. Before the hovercraft appeared to transport he and Portia to the arena, she had to steady him before he toppled sideways into the force field that cast a dome over the roof.

"Oh, Haymitch, you didn't," she said fearfully, clearly appalled.

"Couldn't…help it…" said Haymitch sluggishly.

"I may be able to fix that."

"I'd love you if you could."

Portia took over steering and helped him with his mobility until the hovercraft lowered and the ladder descended to transport them on board. Once secured inside, Portia instructed Haymitch to not speak and avoid eye contact so that the Peacekeepers would not suspect him of being drunk. He hardly felt the tracker as a woman inserted it into his right forearm and stared at the spot where it had gone in for most of the ride. When they were nearing their destination Portia handed him a tiny bottle of teal liquid which he downed instantly. Within seconds his headache reduced to a very faint throb and his nausea dissipated altogether.

Of course, the nausea returned in full once he entered the Launch Room, but for entirely different reasons. Portia let him dress himself in what looked like a wetsuit for underwater excursions. Perhaps there were apparatuses for breathing under the water at the Cornucopia and anyone who couldn't get to one would die once they flooded the arena. The thought did not appeal to him in the slightest, but then again, it might be easier to have a flood take out the tributes so that he wouldn't have to face the Careers or District 5 and he wouldn't have to kill his friends.

"Not much room for carrying anything unless you find a pack at the Cornucopia," said Portia, running her fingers over the material and examining it. "Do you have a strategy?"

"Working on it," said Haymitch untruthfully. In reality he had a plan all laid out, but the execution was the hard part. The bloodbath would determine how well things worked out.

"Sixty seconds to launch," said Claudius Templesmith.

_Suck it, pal._

"Good luck out there, Haymitch."

Portia hugged him sincerely and he understood the double tap she gave his shoulder to mean more than what her eyes said.

He stepped into the tube and kept his arms closed in to his sides as the glass cylinder encased him. Mustering a half-smile that probably looked more like a grimace, Haymitch waved to Portia until she was lost from sight and he was traveling upward. He automatically clapped his eyes shut and pressed his palms over them to blot out the light he knew was likely to follow his entrance into the arena. When he could feel a very hot, sticky breeze on his skin he trusted himself to peek out from underneath his fingers. It took mere moments for his eyes to adjust and he took in the sight before him.

A vast jungle rising up and on in all directions closed in around a circular pool of water divided into sections with two tribute pedestals in each sector. The Cornucopia sat in the middle with a long stretch of water between it and the tributes. The sectors were made up of a very narrow, uneven rocky walkway equal distances from the pedestals. Everyone had an equal distance to swim…or retreat backwards into the jungle, but Haymitch knew that this was not an option for him anymore than it had been the first time. He had to get his hands on a knife and a larger weapon to foil the Careers. The mouth of the Cornucopia was too far away to make out much, but he did see several boxes and crates along with the metallic glinting of weapons.

_Katniss_.

She was not close to him, but he could see her far off to his right, in the same sector as Lorn with Enobaria on the other side. Hoping that she could swim, Haymitch took stock of his own neighbors: Beetee to his left and in the next section over, Gloss. He weighed his choices: either he could stay here after the gong and wait to be rescued by someone who knew their way around water, praying that the Careers did not make for him as he stood defenseless or else he could take his chances in the water. He did not know if he could swim or not but now did not seem like a very good time to find out.

"Let the 75th Hunger Games begin and may the odds be ever in your favor."

_Argh, go to hell, you dried up prune._

"Ten…nine…"

Beetee coughed and Haymitch gave him a hand signal that told him to back off from the bloodbath. It had been secretly discussed and agreed upon that those physically able would get in close and grab what they could, try to keep the Careers from taking any weapons. Those who could not fight were only to come to the Cornucopia after the allies had secured it.

"…five…four…"

_I'm dead._

"…two…one…"

The gong sounded and Haymitch jumped from his pedestal, waving his arms in what he believed to be the proper formation for a forward stroke until he found himself moving. The water was deadly salty on his tongue and murder on his skin, but it shocked him into alertness. After paddling for a few tense moments he brushed up alongside the walkway and heaved himself onto it, flopping onto his stomach for two precious seconds to catch his breath. From his sideways perspective he could see Cashmere and Johanna grappling between pedestals, each trying to force the other under the water. Haymitch tried to regain his feet, hesitating to go to Johanna's rescue as he glanced at the Cornucopia where Katniss was joining Tilly and Blight.

_She's made it, she's fine. Now get to Johanna—_

He waited one second too long and felt a hand close around his calf, yanking him back into the water and pushing him under. He struggled for air and formed a fist, punching his attacker in the stomach. His opponent backed off temporarily but was instantly back on him without giving him much time to catch a breath. Fingers closed around his wrist, blocking off the passage to his lungs. His ears pounded, filling with water. Then the grip slackened and released so that he was able to break the surface of the water and emerge spluttering and gasping below Sickle who squatted upon the walkway with a scythe dripping with blood in hand.

The body of Haymitch's attacker floated away with the current and Sickle grabbed him by the front of his wetsuit.

"I can help put the Careers down, but I have to be with them to do it," he said urgently. "I'll get back to you when I can, but know that I'm still on your side. Now, punch me hard and pull me into the water."

Processing this new information was more than Haymitch's poor head could take, but he understood the latter part at least. He extended his arm and popped Sickle in the jaw before unbalancing him and dragging him bodily into the water. As he climbed up once again onto the walkway he could pick out Brutus going for one of the women, though he could not identify her at this distance. It could have been Avis or Wiress.

He stumbled to his feet, teetering precariously on the patchy walkway and once he was certain that he wasn't going to topple over, started to run towards the Cornucopia where Katniss waited for him. She covered him with a blessed bow and arrow she picked up from the mouth and as Haymitch came to a halt with his hands on his knees, Lash appeared in the water. Blight pulled her out and she rushed to a rack that held an array of weapons. She did not go for anything with a blade, but chose a wooden staff with sharpened ends.

"Who've we lost so far?" she asked, guarding the left.

"I saw Seeder go down," said Blight. "Gloss got her, must have broken her neck because I didn't see blood."

"The morphlings went the opposite way," Katniss added.

Haymitch quickly scanned the mouth for a weapon to his liking and chose a knife that he could easily conceal, a slightly larger one he fitted at his waist by a belt and finally, what looked like a sword and a sickle combined with the curve starting halfway up the blade. He liked the feel of it in his hand and the balance when he swung it.

"Who else?" Katniss prompted.

"There's a body floating towards us," Lash pointed out.

Haymitch ventured close to the edge of the island to turn the body of his first attacker over. He prodded it with his—for lack of a better word—sword, and the body bobbed grotesquely on its side facing away from them for a moment before Haymitch was able to see the face, drained white after being slashed by Sickle's scythe.

Gloss. Sickle had killed a Career in the first two minutes, that had to be a record.

"One Career down," he announced, somewhat pleased.

"Where's Johanna?" asked Blight, searching the water around them expectantly.

_Oh, damn it, Johanna!_ In the heat of battle and with Gloss catching him off guard, Haymitch had completely forgotten about her until now when she was nowhere to be seen.

"Brutus has someone!" Lash shouted, using her staff to point out the giant beating away at someone on the beach. Haymitch didn't want to know who it was. None of them could save the person now anyway. Lash moved towards the water but Blight held her back with a shake of his head.

"Do we hold the Cornucopia or dump the supplies in the water and head inland?" asked Tilly.

_The plan was to hold here_.

Their allies could see them now, clearly claiming the island for themselves, but suppose they moved on into the jungle? Would those who could follow come to them or come back in to the Cornucopia to choose a weapon? They couldn't chance leaving anything for the Careers.

"Dump everything," said Haymitch. "Carry what you can on your back as far as medical kits and food, but get those weapons in the water."

"Won't the Careers just fish them out?" asked Lash, finally tearing her eyes away from Brutus who was kicking his kill back into the water.

"Depends on how deep the bottom goes," said Blight.

"That's wasting a lot of time and energy for a plan that may not work," said Katniss strategically. "I say we wait a ten more minutes for anyone who is with us to join us and then, if no one shows, we leave. We can't hold the island forever with just the five of us against the six of them."

There was too much truth to that statement to ignore it and though Haymitch hated the idea of arming the Careers, he knew that they stood a better chance in numbers. The five of them distributed weapons between them that they thought might be of use to their allies, found one backpack of food apiece and a medical kit. There was no water to be had, only empty containers. There would be no need for blankets or coats even with a likely downpour of rain. The items that they could not find a current use for but did not want to leave behind for the Careers to have an advantage over them they dropped into the water as they waited for someone, anyone to come their way.

Haymitch could only see Gloss's body and Brutus's kill. The hovercrafts would not appear to lift them out until the Cornucopia was unoccupied. Gloss's death by Sickle had been the most unexpected so far, especially with how lethal Gloss had proved to be in his first games. What had Sickle meant in being able to help with the Career situation but only by joining them? Was this a blindsided act of betrayal that Haymitch just couldn't see yet? Was Sickle really planning on killing the allies off one by one with the help of the Careers and District 5? The act wouldn't surprise Haymitch; after Cobalt, nothing would.

Cobalt. Still no sight of him or Shade and Haymitch hadn't seen Cashmere or Enobaria since he reached the island. Brutus had retreated into the trees, very close to where Haymitch had told Beetee to go. If Brutus killed Beetee, that was on him.

"We've got company," said Blight presently, pointing with his axe to two figures paddling in their direction. The straight line the two were making for them suggested that they were not the Careers who would be taking care to avoid Katniss's sights by zigzagging in the water. Upon closer inspection, Haymitch could see the one on the left making no splash at all on his left side and he smiled.

"Chaff," he told them, waving to his friend in greeting.

"And that's Denno," said Lash happily. She and Haymitch waited patiently for their friends to join them and then fished them out of the water. Lash attacked Denno with a full frontal embrace which he took in slight surprise. Haymitch thumped Chaff on the back as the latter coughed up some water.

"See anyone else out there?" asked Haymitch.

"Not a soul," answered Chaff. "We were in the same sector and headed for the trees when the gong rang before running back around this side. Enobaria and Shade were close to us so we wanted to put some distance between them and us. We saw who we think was Johanna running after someone else, but we lost sight once we reached land."

Chaff picked out a one-handed sword at random and tucked it into his belt. Denno, when he had managed to extract himself from Lash, chose a length of metallic chain links and wound them around his shoulders to make them easier for carrying. Haymitch thought they would weigh him down, but when he reached out to feel the material, found the metal to be incredibly light. It actually seemed to be a harmless weapon but when the fights broke out, the chain link could prove to be deadly.

"I think that's all we're going to get," said Katniss with a doubtful glance at Denno. Haymitch knew that this was not the party she had wanted but she would have to deal with that for the time being. Besides Denno, this was actually a very capable team. "First things first and that's finding fresh water."

"We'd best head inland then," said Blight, jumping into the water without further ado.

Looking none too enthusiastic about having to go back in after only being out a few moments, Denno sat down on the island's edge and pushed himself off to follow. Haymitch was just lowering himself in when he saw them, the three Careers and District 5 emerging from the jungle in the sector almost entirely in the other direction from where they were heading. They would claim the Cornucopia as soon as Haymitch's group left. Only one thing partially reassured him and that was the sight of Sickle standing with the opposing group.

It wasn't long until they had reached the trees and as soon as they were out of sight of the Cornucopia they heard the cannons. Six times the dreaded sound went off and it was not yet noon. One of those cannons signaled Gloss's death, but the rest were from the allies, not the Careers and that was not a positive note to head out on.


	8. Chapter 8: Denser Jungle

Hours of uphill travel had revealed no water, no tributes, no nothing. They were still hiking when the sun went down, though their gait had slowed to a trudge. Haymitch wondered how the less physical were faring in this heat and if the Careers were on their trail yet even after the pains they had gone to clearing their tracks. Only when Lash's head started to drop and she appeared to be sleepwalking did Haymitch call them to a halt to ration their food and take stock of their situation. As they unpacked dried beef and distributed it evenly, the Capitol anthem broke the jungle soundtrack and they paused to glance skyward for portraits of the fallen.

Gloss from District 1. That much was already known but Haymitch's voice caught in his throat at what followed. Wiress. Brutus must have killed her when Haymitch was too far off to tell who exactly he had managed to capture in his bear-like embrace. Wherever Beetee was, Haymitch knew he must be weeping for his district partner, his fellow victor, his friend.

Avis, the female morphling. He had not expected this, especially since her policy involved immediate retreat. Unless there was already a Career—and at this point he considered District 5 to be one with the pack—hidden in the foliage waiting to ambush her as she swam to shore, she must have left an easy trail to follow once they acquired some weapons. It must have been her cannon that they had heard about two hours into their trek through the jungle. One more cannon fired after that, which could have been any of the tributes yet to be featured in the visual obituary. But her death signified that Districts 4 and 5 were still alive, a notion filled with equal amounts joy and rage.

Johanna. Whatever sadness he had been feeling at seeing Wiress in the sky, it was nothing to the shock that registered at Johanna's picture. There had to be some mistake. She was one of the ones who had shown promise to make it through to the end. In fact, besides the Careers and Katniss, he expected Johanna to outlast the others. But the nature of these Games meant that anything could happen and the unexpected had now happened. The last female victor of District 7 was gone. Blight gave a howl of despair and swung his axe into a nearby tree, not bothering to catch the rest of the anthem. Tilly and Chaff tried to subdue him but were in no hurry to get within reach of his weapon.

Haymitch allowed himself time to watch the end and left Blight temporarily to the others. As instigator of this plan, he needed to know who he could rely on and who he now had to let go. Woof and Cecelia appeared one after the other. At the sight of Woof a pang in Haymitch's stomach made him nearly heave up all the saltwater he had swallowed in the bloodbath. It was a small thing to be glad of, but he strongly suspected that Woof had been Brutus's kill from earlier. At least Woof had not died by Cobalt's hands. Cecelia was probably the last kill of Day One, either taken out by something spawned from the sick minds of the Gamemakers or hunted down by the Careers.

Finally he saw Seeder and then the artificial sky went dark, leaving them in subdued silence at the loss of their comrades—at least until Blight struck another tree a little too close to Katniss for Haymitch's liking. Before now nothing had led any of them to believe that District 7 had strong bonds between its victors, but Blight's reaction to Johanna's death suggested that the two had shared more than just required familiarity. Haymitch could understand Blight's desolation, but at the moment when silence was key, it had to be contained. He decided it was time to intervene. He tackled Blight when the latter's back was turned mid-swing and held him down, pressing a hand over his mouth.

"Shh," he said in the kindest and yet most urgent way he could. He glanced at Denno and Tilly for assistance, as they were nearest.

Tilly knelt at Blight's head and ran her fingers through his hair, speaking softly to him as he whimpered behind Haymitch's hand. "She's okay now. Snow can't hurt her anymore." She glanced at Haymitch, both of them wondering if the hidden microphones picked up her whispered word of defiance. Blight's eyelids fluttered and began to droop and in another minute or so of Tilly's comforting gesture, he had fallen asleep in the restrained position. Haymitch removed his hand and pulled his damp hair out of his eyes.

"He'll need water when he wakes up. We all will. One of you stand watch, the rest try to get some sleep. I'm going to go scouting for water." He stood up to leave but Katniss beat him to it.

"Out of everyone here, Haymitch, you're probably least qualified to go searching for water. You wouldn't know where to look or what to look for. You take first watch and I'll go."

"Not happening in this arena, sweetheart."

"Okay, fine, I'd much rather sit here and die of dehydration anyway like I almost did the last time I was in this situation."

"You two bicker like an old married couple," said Chaff. "_I'll_ go, if it would only stop you two going at it all night. If anything happens, just holler."

"Not the wisest decision when we're trying to keep as quiet as possible," said Lash under her breath so that Chaff couldn't hear.

"You be careful," Haymitch told his friend. "I won't worry about you, but remember that everyone who wants to kill you has one more hand than you, so don't stand and fight unless you don't have a choice. Run the hell out of there if you get into trouble."

"Run, at my age?" Chaff laughed and strode off into the jungle, making no noise but leaving Haymitch feeling very uncertain. Tilly and Lash curled up back to back with their weapons close at hand while Denno settled in against a tree trunk, concealed to anyone approaching from the direction of the Cornucopia. Only Katniss seemed unwilling to go to sleep, staring skyward most likely in deep thought about Peeta and her family back home.

How wonderful must it be to know that there are people who genuinely care if you make it out alive? Wait, wonderful—he meant awful. The last time he slept underneath an artificial sky his loved ones waited and prayed for him to return. Inside of two weeks later they were gone. He never had to worry about something happening to them again and could retreat into his inebriated existence until Katniss and Peeta came along. This time only Peeta remained on the outside and the boy was smart enough to not get mixed up in the wrong sort of politics, anything that might anger Snow, should the initial plan fail. And he had no idea of what transpired around him, so the Capital would get nothing from him if they resorted to torture.

_Stop that_, he told himself firmly. No one would harm Peeta if they stuck to the rules on camera here in the arena.

For hours he ran over the plan countless times in his head, hoping he had done everything right. By the time he realized that he was supposed to have awoken Lash for second watch he could recite the entire thing in less than a minute flat. So immersed was he in his thoughts that at the sound rustling undergrowth he was far too late in drawing his sword. It was only Chaff, though, beaming as he returned drenched in sweat.

"Jumpy, aren't you?" he teased. "Get everyone up; I've found a freshwater stream, fast flowing and clear, but it's quite a walk."

Haymitch roused the others without question, purposefully leaving Blight last as he was still tentative to the latter's feelings towards them after they had ganged up to put him down. Denno and Tilly shook him awake before Haymitch could and spoke in hushed tones to him so that by the time he was fully awake he seemed to be in control of his emotions. He and Katniss made up the middle of the group as they trekked after Chaff with Lash bringing up the rear. Under cover of darkness they hiked through the dense jungle, panting with exertion. The sun was already on the rise when Chaff brought them to a halt before a wonderfully cool stream running downhill towards the beach. They all dropped to their knees, cupping the water and drinking their fill before splashing it over their overheated bodies.

Then they heard the roar. Almost as if they had planned it they drew together, facing outward in all directions.

"What in the _hell_ was that?" asked Blight.

"Maybe a mutt, definitely something Game-made," said Denno. "I don't know of any animal that can make that sound."

"It's getting louder," said Lash fearfully.

Haymitch kept his eyes on the jungle, but found Katniss's arm with his free hand. "Stay close to me," he said. Not ten seconds later it appeared, a monstrous gargantuan creature with a set of jaws the size of Haymitch's torso. It did not resemble any animal Haymitch had ever seen or heard of and he knew that none of their weapons would be able to take it down, even with combined effort. There was only one thing for it now.

"Run!" Chaff shouted.

Katniss fired off an arrow, hitting the Beast's left eye dead on, but that only enraged it. Partially blinded, it charged for them and they all took off downhill, zigzagging while trying to keep each other in sight. Every couple hundred yards Haymitch would tally them up until he noticed one was missing. He chanced a look back over his shoulder and counted again. Blight was gone. Had the Beast gotten him or had he broken off from the rest of them, deserted even? Another two hundred yards and now Lash and Denno were missing. Chaff was in the lead, surprising for a man of his build and with only one hand to guide him. Katniss and Tilly were keeping even strides with each other to Haymitch's right but quickly leaving him behind.

He tried to holler to make them slow up for him when his foot became ensnared in a mess of tree roots and he toppled head over heels, sliding down what felt like a jungle-made mud slide until he landed face down in the muck and heard the Beast tramping past him, oblivious to his presence. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, he sat up, finding that his sword was still in hand and completely covered in mud, much like the rest of him. Here and there the grey of his suit showed, but for someone or something—like the Beast—glancing casually over in his direction without lingering, he was invisible.

_Katniss_. He rose to his feet, preparing to give chase, when something grabbed his arm and he panicked. His free hand fumbled for the knife at his belt when a body materialized out of the tree beside him and two dulled green eyes stared fearfully at him.

Haymitch had seen this kind of camouflage from Peeta before, but it still stunned him to see Lorn emerge from the trunk as if he was a strip of bark. The morphling pointed uphill and shook his head. He made Haymitch kneel and started plastering on more mud and leaves to the patches of suit or skin that were not yet covered up. He used some water from a small puddle to dampen Haymitch's hair and then applied another coat of mud to it so that the blonde was completely hidden. When he had finished he pushed Haymitch against the tree and motioned that he stay silent.

What was going on? The Beast had already gone in pursuit of Katniss and the others towards the beach, so what could there possibly be to hide from—?

"Keep quiet or you'll bring it around again, you idiot!"

That was Brutus's voice, speaking to someone unseen and unknown. Lorn held his breath and Haymitch tried to slow his as the Career pack passed into sight, creeping along in the dawn light looking thoroughly battered after assumingly having escaped the Beast. Brutus was leading, Cashmere and Enobaria guarded the group's tail and the other three made up the middle. They all had acquired weapons which did not make Haymitch feel any better about his group's decision to abandon the Cornucopia.

"Wait," said Cashmere suddenly, bringing the Careers to a halt as her eyes settled on something very close to Haymitch and Lorn's hideout. If she focused hard enough she would be able to pick out human shapes in the bark and then, with only a morphling to guard his back, Haymitch would be fish bait. His eyes were squinted, barely open to disguise their telltale color, but Cashmere was getting closer and closer to discovering them and Haymitch wanted his eyes full adjusted if he had to make a run for it.

But Lorn had other ideas. He threw himself out of his hiding place, chucking a rock at Cashmere and darting up the slope but Brutus's spear pierced him through the calf so that his other one gave out and he fell, hitting the ground hard on his side with the Career pack closing in on him. Haymitch dared not move.

Enobaria planted her foot on Lorn's chest, pushing him down as Brutus twisted his spear in the morphling's leg. A gargled sound escaped Lorn's throat, but he was incapable of saying anything at the hands of his torturers. Sickle stood guard, facing away from the sight and to his credit, Haymitch saw that he had a grimace to show his displeasure with the treatment happening behind him.

"Might've gone the whole Games without ever finding him," commented Cobalt. "Once a camouflage artist gets their hands on supplies, it's all about hide-and-seek."

"Think he knows where the others are?" asked Shade.

"If he does, he's not telling—not that he can anyway," Enobaria scoffed. "He and the other haven't been able to talk for years. Kill him."

Lorn wasn't even attempting to fight back or wriggle away. Ever since submitting himself to morphling, he had been waiting for this. Cashmere gripped a dagger and took a knee near Lorn's head, pulling his head back with his hair. Haymitch clapped his eyes shut and only when he heard Brutus extracting his spear from flesh did he feel it safe to open them. A cannon sounded.

"That was the hard part," said Enobaria with a smirk. "The others should be easy to find. Come on, let's go before—"

The same roar that plagued Haymitch's group sent the Career pack running down the slope as a second Beast just as gruesome and just as large as the other tore after them. Haymitch cast a sorrowful glance at Lorn's body and then made the executive decision to follow. They had not gone far when Haymitch saw Enobaria positively screaming as the Beast chomped down not two feet from her ankles. What happened next was so quick, so smoothly planned that Haymitch almost missed it. Enobaria swept Cashmere's legs out from under her with her sword and Cashmere went down. The Beast stopped above the District 1 female and began feasting as Enobaria fled, not even bothering to look back.

Cashmere let out a sound like some tortured creature and Haymitch slowed up, flattening himself against another tree in case the Beast did not find her a sufficient enough meal. The violence happened out of his eyesight, but the blood and flesh staining the Beast's fangs was already more than he wanted to see. Moments later it darted away into the cover of denser trees and once he was sure that the Beast had gone, Haymitch crept out from his tree to where he had seen Cashmere fall. He smelled her before he saw her but when he did see her, she was convulsing from multiple wounds to her body, giant bits of skin and bone torn off and bitten away from the mauling. Most of her right arm was gone along with a fraction of her face.

Haymitch stood over her and their eyes met, though he was almost certain that she could not comprehend his presence. She was already too far gone and sure enough, the cannon signifying her death alerted the entire arena less than a minute later.

The way she had been needlessly tripped so that Enobaria could gain one step ahead and outrun the Beast made Haymitch's insides burn with fury. Yes, Cashmere had been the one to make Lorn flee their hiding place and she delivered the final blow, but she had not deserved to go like this. If Haymitch could show the other Careers that already their alliance was breaking by exposing Enobaria and thus turning them all on each other, perhaps he could give Katniss a better chance since getting back to her seemed impossible at this point.

He took hold of Cashmere's remaining arm and started dragging her towards the beach.


	9. Chapter 9: Hidden Beasts

The welcoming committee on the beach consisted of three different lethal weapons pointed at his face and vitals as he staggered into sight dragging what remained of Cashmere's body behind him. Those who were unarmed had grabbed sticks or rocks.

"Who is that?" asked Shade.

"Doesn't matter, kill him," said Sickle.

Haymitch thought they were all being pretty daft in not knowing it was him until he remembered that he was caked in mud and would look in no way recognizable to them. Clawing at his face with his fingernails, he tried to reveal his eyes and other distinguishable features but also called out to them just to avoid getting a spear in the chest.

"It's Haymitch."

It was amazing, the effect his name had on the Careers as instant debate broke out on whether or not they should keep him alive. It came as no surprise that Enobaria was looking daggers at him, especially since he still clung tightly to Cashmere's corpse. Haymitch figured he had about ten seconds tops before the interrogation began and he had to make it convincing otherwise…he didn't want to think about otherwise.

"Where's The Girl on Fire?" questioned Enobaria.

"Haven't seen her since the anthem," Haymitch invented. "We got separated and that monster that chased you lot down tried to take a bite out of my ass. I've been trying to move out of the jungle bit by bit, caked in mud and who-knows-what-else. You all ran right by me when that thing came trampling after you and I saw it take Cashmere down. One less tribute to face off against, but still, I didn't want to chance leaving her there for the hovercrafts because there might not be anything left by then."

"Very kind of you," said Sickle, sounding convincingly suspicious. "Who else was with you when you got separated?"

Deciding that lying here would get him into trouble if the Careers had seen the other tributes wandering around, Haymitch told the flat out truth, omitting nothing.

"That's an awfully big alliance you had formed there," said Brutus.

"No more than yours if you count the now extinct District 1," Haymitch shot back.

"Let him come with us," said Shade. "And if he tries to double-cross us, we're more than enough for him to handle. But he won't because he's smarter than that and he's going to be a good boy, isn't that right, Haymitch?"

Being downgraded to the age of a child was not only insulting but infuriating, especially coming from someone like Shade who was only a little older than Katniss and though the Hunger Games made child victors into early adults due to the trials and tribulations, he still very much saw her as a youth. But Shade acknowledged what no one else did and that was that Haymitch—not to sound too prideful—was indeed smart. Very smart. And had already started forming scenarios in his head, ones that might work and ones that definitely would if he could play the Careers right. It helped that he also had a man on the inside, if only he could get a message to Sickle without the Careers picking up on him.

"We should clear out so the hovercraft can pick her up," said Cobalt, motioning at Cashmere's body next to Haymitch in the sand.

"And you should get cleaned off," Brutus added. "You look like you've been rolling around in shit for three days." He led the troupe to one of the rock walkways leading to the Cornucopia since some of them had lost their weapons in the flight from the jungle. Deciding that he would wash up once they reached the island, Haymitch fell into line behind Enobaria, surprised that none of them thought to guard him in the middle since they were obviously so distrusting of him. In fact, he saw this as a downright stupid and careless move. If it had been any of them other than Sickle who sought to team up with _his_ group, he'd have the loner covered on all sides possible with drawn weapons. He could have laughed at the idiocy of this opposing group.

But instead he watched Enobaria shove Shade so that the latter toppled sideways and landed with a tremendous splash for someone of her size in the water. The sound aroused the others who lined up side by side, inquiring as to what had happened while Enobaria innocently claimed that Shade must have lost her balance. Cobalt was one of those who had lost his weapon in the jungle and so he had nothing hindering him as he knelt on the narrow walkway, leaning towards the spot where Shade had disappeared. Within seconds she surfaced and there was panic on her face.

"There's something down there, get me out!" she cried, reaching for Cobalt.

Cobalt grabbed her forearms but the wetsuit was slick against his bare skin and she slid back into the water, now kicking and waving her arms in sheer desperation, sobbing in fear.

"Coby, get me out, please!"

"I'm trying, stay still!" Cobalt shouted.

Shade's body gave a violent jerk downwards and back as if something below her had grabbed her and was attempting to drag her under. Cobalt extended his arm to its full length and grasped her fingers. He managed to pull her in closer by about half a foot when whatever lurked beneath the once-calm waters took a firmer hold on her and she became the rope in a cruel, sick game of tug of war. Her screams jostled Haymitch's brain, forcefully bringing him back into his first Games, hearing Maysilee shriek as the birds set upon her and ripped her open.

"_Someone help me, damn it!"_ he roared.

Brutus and Enobaria remained passively on the sidelines, though for entirely different reasons. He was eyeing Haymitch distrustfully and she looked like she was enjoying the show. Sickle, on the other hand, was attempting to beat whatever held Shade with his scythe, though to no avail.

"Haymitch!"

It was the sound of Cobalt calling to him, pleading that brought him slamming back into reality. He owed Cobalt nothing, especially after having the bastard slide the proverbial knife between his ribs, but Shade, so reminiscent of Katniss, had not earned his negligence.

He took a knee beside Cobalt, fingertips inches away from Cobalt and Shade's joined hands and saw the water around her start to pool out red. At that point he knew she was beyond help. Biting his lip, Haymitch seized Cobalt's wrist and started to pry his fingers out of Shade's. Both tributes of District 5 knew what he was doing, but neither could react. She was too far gone and his hands were already occupied so that there was no way to throw Haymitch off.

Turning to look at Sickle, Haymitch said levelly, "Help—me."

Together, the two of them wrenched Cobalt's hands free and Shade went under with a final gurgling scream. There was absolute silence around them in the aftermath. Flecks of watered-down blood ran down Cobalt's face which was a complete sculpted figure of shock. A cannon sounded. Then, because the Gamemakers could not settle with only a stunned reaction and because the audience would want to see what the monster below had done to her, Shade surfaced, face down. Her body was bitten in half just above the navel and blood sullied the water as it spread out in a semicircle from where her body ended.

Feeling for the second time in two days as if he was going to vomit everything he had eaten, Haymitch turned away, but it helped in the reaction time it took to grab Cobalt as he attempted to dive into the water after Shade.

"_No_!" Cobalt wailed, hands clawing at the water as Shade's body drifted out of reach. Sickle took firm hold of Cobalt's waist and pressed his weight against him to keep him down. Haymitch had his fingers on the pressure points in Cobalt's neck just in case, but he dared not try anything else for fear of bringing the water demon back up to the surface if one of them fell in.

Brutus suddenly took a fistful of Haymitch's hair and dragged him into an upright position by his neck and head so that his feet almost left the ground. Haymitch still had his weapons on hand, but he let them be as he blinked up into the giant male tribute's livid face. Why livid, though? What was Shade, a young female tribute from a non-Career district to someone like Brutus?

"Did you push her in?" he demanded, yanking so hard on Haymitch's head that several of his muddy hairs quite painfully ripped free from his scalp.

"How could I have pushed her if she was two people in front of me?" Haymitch choked, struggling to find breath.

"Are you saying Enobaria did it?" Brutus snorted, shaking Haymitch harshly but releasing his throat.

_Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying_. "No, Enobaria said she fell and that's what I saw. But I was nowhere close enough to even touch her on this walkway. Take it or leave it."

"How about I leave you floating face-down in the water like her?" Brutus forced Haymitch's head sideways to see Shade nearing the beach where the hovercraft would recover her and Cashmere whose body still lay on the sand where Haymitch had left it.

"That's your choice, but now that you're one more tribute down, you could use an extra ally and one who knows Katniss better than anyone else here. She'll be the one to kill and without me, good luck finding her, especially with all the remaining opposing tributes looking out for her."

There was too much truth in that statement for Brutus to ignore it and Haymitch knew he had won, sealed any doubts and ideas Brutus had had for killing him off. Enobaria narrowed her large golden-brown eyes and showed her teeth, making her look all the more animalistic, but the warning she gave Haymitch went unnoticed by the group's leader. Sickle still had a very firm hold on Cobalt's midsection, though now out of caution than necessity since Cobalt had gone limp with grief.

Much like Blight and Johanna, the relationship Cobalt must have had with Shade outside of the arena, back home in their own district, must have been more than Haymitch had ever suspected. How odd that brothers and sisters, such good friends, maybe even lovers in some cases, were both reaped for the Quarter Quell. If Haymitch didn't know any better, he would have said the entire thing was rigged, but that wouldn't surprise him in the least.

He pulled Cobalt to his feet and helped steady him and was met with the nasty shock of seeing blood running out of Cobalt's mouth and both of his nostrils. A cut below his left eye was already giving way to a bruise that began to form there.

"What the-?"

"Apparently desire for a blackout far outweighs the fear of pain," said Sickle quietly. It took Haymitch a moment to register what he had just said, but then he realized that Cobalt would have taken the complete exposure and helplessness of being knocked out rather than live through the waking moments of Shade's death.

Brutus made them start moving once again towards the Cornucopia, but Cobalt would not budge as Haymitch tried to get him to walk.

"You broke my hold," he said in hardly more than a whisper.

"Your Games involved giant creatures ripping tributes in half—you knew that there was no saving her at that point," said Haymitch.

"So you tried to save me instead?"

"Well, I thought about pushing you in, but that wouldn't have gotten me anywhere with the Careers, so yes, I opted to save you instead. And I know I'm going to regret it, _Coby_."

Cobalt's already pale face went stark white and under his few freckles Haymitch could see his skin actually turning green with sick fear. "Don't you dare—that's not—you can't," he spluttered.

"Whatever you two had outside of the arena doesn't mean yellow piss to me. But if you keep this up, stumbling around trying to put yourself out of it to avoid thinking about her, the rest of them will make your passing much more painful. Don't give them a weapon to use against you."

"Did you push her?" Cobalt asked, stepping in close to Haymitch so that the two were less than a foot apart. Cobalt's hands were empty and Haymitch was stronger, but he still didn't like his chances on this narrow ledge with something unknown below them against the unexpected actions of a grief-stricken man.

"Like I told Brutus, there was someone else in front of me and behind Shade."

_Pick up the hint, you clueless moron_.

"What?" said Cobalt, nonplussed.

Saying it slowly this time so that Cobalt would be sure to not miss anything, Haymitch said, "There was someone else between us."

He saw it, the registry in Cobalt's eyes, but the latter's expression hardened and with the speed that made him famous in his Games, he snatched out and grabbed Haymitch's wrist in a painful grip.

"Are you lying to me to throw me off of your scent?"

Haymitch couldn't take it. He struck Cobalt hard across the face but kept him from falling into the water. "Now you listen here, you little shit. I'm not a Career, so my goal isn't to win with glory, but I'm not above playing on my own terms. I'll kill anyone in self-defense who makes a go at me, but I won't pick off members of my own team just to better my odds. I knew Shade, considered her to be something between a friend and an acquaintance, and I would never do that to her, much less anyone else in this arena because in case you hadn't noticed, I'm one of the _good_ guys."

Cobalt rubbed his cheek where Haymitch had hit him, but said nothing. "So why _did_ you save me? No one else would have minded if I'd have gone in too."

"Because after what you said to me in training, after tossing me out like soiled rags along with everyone else who was counting on you, I wasn't about to let you off that easy. No, I want you to last out here so that when it's down to a select few of us, you'll see what the consequences are for what you've chosen."

And with that, Haymitch left Cobalt standing in confusion to join what remained of the Career pack.


	10. Chapter 10: Weeding Out a Traitor

` Even without the image of Shade's severed body and Cashmere's mangled one, night came about on a sour note for Haymitch. He had fooled Brutus, maybe even Cobalt for the moment, but Enobaria was in no way buying his ruse and she confronted him on it as soon as it was time to divide forces to look for water. Brutus went off on his own while Sickle and Cobalt took a diagonally upward route, leaving Haymitch to team up with his least favorite person in the arena. As soon as the two of them were out of sight and sound of the others Enobaria drew her sword on him but he stepped nimbly out of reach and went only for his knife, a much less threatening weapon to have in this situation and one that spoke of defense rather than threat.

"Alright, Abernathy, what are you playing at?" she hissed.

"I'm playing the same game you are, Enobaria, the Hunger Games."

"Oh, are you? I find that hard to believe after your little stint on the walkway and the fact that you dragged Cashmere out of the jungle out of the goodness of your heart."

"I did what any other human would do."

The slander to her morals angered her, that much was clear, but Haymitch could only imagine how difficult a time Peeta must be having trying to find sponsors for him when he was not making his intentions apparent by going against everyone. He had supposedly abandoned Katniss and the others, exposing them to the Career group, recovered Cashmere, saved Cobalt and threatened him in one go, and now he was being confronted by Enobaria.

_Keep them guessing._

"Not any other human, Abernathy," said Enobaria, flicking her tongue out between her fangs. "Only those who are craven enough to use dead bodies as shields."

Knowing that he was pressing his luck against her, that she outmatched him, Haymitch still gave a curt reply of, "I wonder if it's considered more cowardly to use a dead body as a shield than to have been the one to slay the body while it lived to accomplish one's own ends?"

It was very lucky then, or perhaps not, that at that moment Brutus rejoined them, hauling a very haggard and bruised-looking Chaff by the scruff of his neck as a broken leg trailed uselessly behind him. Haymitch could not betray any emotion here, not now, not with Enobaria moments away from slaying him should he say one more unfavorable thing.

"Sneaky son of a bitch nearly had me, but there's only so much you can do with one hand," said Brutus to which Enobaria laughed appreciatively at Chaff's expense.

_If he had two hands your cannon would have already fired, Brutus._

Chaff made no motion to acknowledge Haymitch, for which he was grateful, but they both knew that there was only one way this would end.

"Where are the other four?" asked Enobaria. "District 10, Blight, and Katniss, where are they?"

Chaff said nothing, just as Lorn had and fearing that he would have to watch another ally die by Career hand in one day, Haymitch started downhill at an angle, heading back to their camp.

"Haymitch, where do you think you're off to? Don't you want to see this?"

_Careful now, careful._

"In all honesty, Brutus, I've personally had enough for one day, especially after that business with Cashmere and Shade. I don't quite have the stomach for this sort of thing like you two do, but I'd give him a clean death if I were you. Your sponsors may appreciate that."

His own sponsors, if they supported Chaff as well, would be withdrawing any gifts to him as he walked away from Chaff, fighting to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. Moments after he was out of sight of District 2 he heard the cannon and thanked the higher being that the Careers had heeded his advice and not played with their food before killing it. The cannon brought Haymitch to the decision that he would say a final goodbye to Chaff and not for the support of sponsors. Chaff was his last true friend, the one he had never doubted and Haymitch had let him die to save face—to save Katniss.

He doubled back, taking a rounded route so that he would not cross paths with the Careers, and waited as long as he dared before making his way back to the spot where Chaff had been slain. The hovercraft had not yet come and so Haymitch made his way over to where Chaff lay, pierced by Enobaria's sword. Of course it had been Enobaria, just to spite Haymitch. Now the Careers were two for two in killing his allies. He washed some of the mud from Chaff's face with a bit of water from a nearby puddle and covered the gaping hole in his chest with one of the giant leaves hanging from the trees overhead.

What could he say now, what could he do to let Chaff's district know that Haymitch respected and cared for their victor to the end? Nothing. He could do nothing. He grasped Chaff's clammy hand, squeezed it, and laid it across his chest to join the other.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and left without another word.

Back at camp, the others had regrouped and there was an all-knowing look in Enobaria's eyes. Cobalt was still mostly dead to the world around him as he sat hunched over with his head almost between his legs. Sickle stood watch and only briefly looked Haymitch's way when he returned. Brutus broke up a slab of some sort of hardened meat and vegetable mixture from his pack and shoved it into his mouth hungrily. Sifting though his own meager supplies, Haymitch took a small handful of dried fruit and began to nibble on bits of it.

"I thought you headed back to camp before us, yet you returned after us," said Brutus through a mouthful of the slab mixture.

"Stopped for a leak," said Haymitch dismissively.

"A long leak," said Enobaria.

"Do you want details on my bladder and bowel schedules?" he snapped back.

"No, I want you to—"

The anthem cut her off and Haymitch took the opportunity to roll over onto his side and try not to gag on his own stench since they had found no fresh water and he had been highly unwilling to bathe in the water surrounding the Cornucopia after seeing the monster below take Shade. He was still mostly covered in mud and his hair had matted together with the caked-on filth of the jungle.

The others looked skyward to watch out of habit more than necessity because they all knew who had died today. Not one cannon sounded that was not in direct relation to the Careers. Had Haymitch still been with Katniss, he would be wondering who had died and how. It was surprising how the mystery was so easily solved when one ran with the Career pack. After the sky had gone dark again, Brutus called for first watch volunteers and Haymitch put his name in immediately. As expected, Enobaria offered to stay up with him.

"Wake me up for second shift," said Sickle, stretching out for a moment before curling up with his scythe held in close like a firstborn child. Cobalt went into the fetal position on a bed of moss and stared off into space.

And so they sat, visible to each other, but still somewhat facing outward, though if any of the others approached them, Haymitch would pretend to not see them. The others. How had Chaff gotten himself captured and what made him separate from the group? Was it part of the greater plan to protect Katniss, or had he somehow realized Haymitch's intentions and tried to find him? The possibilities were endless, the questions left unanswered. He was starting to see a pattern forming here where he did not interfere in the death of his fellow tributes, but at the time, not because he was thinking of his ultimate goal. His instincts begged him to flee or to do whatever it took to stay alive when faced with a threat. Katniss had not even crossed his mind as he let Lorn, Shade, and Chaff die. It was all selfish.

_Peeta would have done something else, something that would have earned him a little grey parachute by now. But besides a bit of water at the moment, I don't _need_ anything. Maybe Peeta's having the sponsors withhold any contributions for something that he knows or suspects is coming. Maybe—_

"It's raining," said Enobaria.

Haymitch tried to look as if he had not been about to doze and cast his eyes up to the welcoming rainclouds gathering overhead. First thought told him to fashion a rain catch for the water, but as he glanced around at the supplies available to him, a drop landed on his knuckle. The skin there was one of the few bits washed clean of jungle muck due to Shade's panicked splashing in the water earlier. He raised his hand to eye level with the intention of licking the water droplet off, but even in the darkness, he sensed that something was wrong. The air did not have that sweet, damp smell, that freshness of a cleanse. A heavy, metallic smell lingered thick in the humidity. He licked the droplet off of his knuckle.

_Blood._

"Get them up," he told Enobaria. "It's blood, get them up!"

He didn't know why, especially since it would do absolutely nothing against the rain, but Haymitch drew his sword as he went to arouse the others and Enobaria matched blades with him.

"No, you blockhead, I'm trying to help. Get that sword away from my face!"

"What're you yelling at now?" asked Brutus, sitting up groggily and holding his head.

"The skies are dousing us in the blood of dead tributes to enhance our morality, _why do you think I'm yelling?_ Get your asses up and run, you idiots!"

"It's just blood; it can't hurt us," said Enobaria in a would-be calm voice but even as she said it the rain began to thicken and fall harder.

"You were saying?" Haymitch spat sideways to clean his mouth out, but more blood fell onto his exposed lips.

"Yeah, that's enough for me," said Sickle, and he took off left, hauling Cobalt to his feet to accompany him. Brutus prodded Enobaria into motion with the butt of his spear and then the two of them left Haymitch, ditching him out of complete disgust for this new horror. Wondering if Enobaria would try to inconspicuously get rid of Sickle or Cobalt when Brutus was looking the other way, Haymitch took off running. He had to expose her in the act this time because there were less and less pawns between the two of them the further into the Games they got.

The rain blinded them, coating their vision in red. Haymitch breathed through his nose, inhaling the awful scent, but he had no choice unless he wanted to swallow blood by the mouthful by keeping it open. Sickle and Brutus, despite their size, were the fastest runners and easily outstripped them so that they were lost in the scarlet darkness. Haymitch realized the danger of being unable to see Enobaria at this point and kept his sword at the ready. His ankle snagged on something slippery and he hit the jungle floor on his face, tasting the hot red liquid on the tip of his tongue. Blinking rapidly, he raised his head to find that a tree with leaves large and thick enough to blot out the downpour stood above him. Not ten feet away Enobaria was swiping her sword at Cobalt who was only barely managing to dodge with that vacant look in his eyes.

At the moment, Haymitch could not say which one he wanted to triumph over the other and so he remained still, waiting. Enobaria sliced open a cut along Cobalt's hip and he cried out but blocked what would have been the mortal blow with the baton he had picked up at the Cornucopia. She swung the hilt of her sword overhead and clubbed him across the temple so that his legs gave out on him and he fell, stunned.

"Shame your whore girlfriend didn't put up the same fight," said Enobaria and stabbed. Only, Cobalt had moved. His eyes came back to life at the insult to Shade and he struck Enobaria in the knee, caving in her kneecap so that it snapped backward and she shrieked in agony. He was on her in seconds, holding her down with one hand and yanking her head back by her hair so that the blood rain poured down relentlessly on her face.

Haymitch couldn't help himself and made a face. Waterboarding in and of itself was a horrible form of torture, but add in blood to that and it was downright sick. Even with it being Enobaria who was fully deserving of her impending fate, this was no way to die.

"Scream like she did," said Cobalt, his voice loud enough to carry to Haymitch, but oddly muted. "Call to Brutus and see if he saves you!"

Enobaria was choking, her fingers scrabbling uselessly at Cobalt's collar and her feet hammering on the ground.

"She deserved better and you didn't even give her a chance, you little bitch! See if anyone mourns for you, damn you!"

Her resistance lessened as her lungs filled with blood and she began to drown in a shower of red. This time, however, Haymitch could not tear his eyes away, though he did not hold them on her. He watched Cobalt's eyes, as electric blue as the color for which he was named and knew that something inside of his former ally had snapped.

The cannon went off and Cobalt released Enobaria whose face was grotesquely painted in mud and blood, much like Haymitch's at this point. Cobalt gathered up his baton where he had dropped it and then, as if sensing him, spun around to face Haymitch who had just regained his feet. Uncertainty lay between them. Would one attack the other or would they keep their temporary, fake alliance for the sake of weeding out who they intended?

"You saw?" Cobalt asked.

Haymitch nodded.

"You'd have done the same thing if she had killed Katniss—"

"I'm not complaining, don't defend yourself. She killed one of her own and Shade. She was a bigger threat to me than Brutus. I won't thank you for killing her, but it does make things easier for me."

Cobalt hesitated at Haymitch's reaction, which could not have been what he was expecting. "She-she killed Shade," he said. "I had to—I _had_ to."

"Let's try to find the giants," Haymitch suggested. He was willing to pretend that this had never happened providing that Cobalt dropped it right here and now.

"Yeah…right."


	11. Chapter 11: A Feast for Kings

Haymitch prided himself in being able to lie on the spot, though he had never feared for his life like he did now as he and Cobalt faced Brutus who was absolutely beside himself with rage when they emerged from the jungle without Enobaria. A series of falsehoods raced through his head, each more unlikely than the next and so with a quick prayer that Cobalt could play along, he scrunched up his face into a look of what he hoped was genuine puzzlement.

"Where are the other two?" he asked Brutus.

"I could care less what happened to Sickle. Where's Enobaria?" Brutus demanded.

"That's what I just asked you. I lost her in the rain. I lost everyone until Cobalt ran into me and knocked me over—"

"And he sliced his leg open on the rain, did he?" Brutus snarled.

"Beats me how he did that to himself."

Brutus marched up to Haymitch and then jabbed the butt of his spear into Haymitch's chest. "Do you know what I think, Abernathy? I think you're lying through your fucking teeth."

"That's a damn shame," said Haymitch, pressing his luck.

"Oy, both of you quit it. There's someone coming our way," said Cobalt, pointing out a figure walking towards them.

Haymitch could only make out a silhouette in the moonlight but he was not nearly as panicked as he ought to be since his only real enemies were already beside him on the beach. Whoever approached, he hoped he would not have to kill them, but at the same time he felt the need to protect them against the remaining two members of the Career pack. Still, he also felt severely irritated that whoever this person was, they were dumb enough to mistake three shouting men for allies in the darkness since none of them even remotely resembled Finnick, Beetee,, Blight, or Denno. As the figure drew closer, Haymitch could see that it was male and definitely not big enough to be Sickle, but when about twenty yards remained between them Brutus suddenly drew back his throwing arm, preparing to launch his weapon without a second thought. At this point in the game with half of the tributes dead including his district partner, he probably didn't care about caution anymore.

"No, wait!" Haymitch shouted.

His voice alone saved the man coming towards them. The spear missed him by about half a foot since Brutus had been startled by Haymitch's outburst and then the man had the good sense to turn tail and cut into the jungle which had stopped pouring blood rain as a gong rang out twice.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Brutus thundered.

"That could have been Sickle—"

"You know damn well it wasn't, otherwise he would have made himself known before he got within a hundred yards of us!"

"No, _that's_ Sickle," said Cobalt as someone came sprinting towards them at the edge of the jungle where the ground was a bit firmer for footsteps.

"Move your asses now, they're coming!" Sickle shouted and Haymitch turned to see what looked like six or seven tributes running at them. His first thought was to stay in place and rejoin his original group, but then he remembered that due to Enobaria's cannon, they might think he was already dead. They wouldn't be able to tell friend from foe in the darkness and all they would see was the Careers. They didn't know that Sickle was still on their side either and if they suddenly saw him, Haymitch with the Careers, they might not hesitate to act.

He ran.

_Please don't shoot me, Katniss, _he prayed as he heard an arrow land just short of his retreating heels. Sickle had the lead, sprinting left with the Cornucopia sitting out in the water to their right. Haymitch was coming up last but this didn't surprise him since he was the least fit of the four men, but it still worried him because Katniss, Finnick, Tilly, and Lash were all fast runners and they would take him down without a second thought if they caught up to him. As the seconds dragged on and the distance between him and the Careers started to widen, he knew he had to make the call to either fall back and possibly be killed or put on a burst of speed and make them alter course.

"The trees!" he shouted, hoping they could hear him. To his joy, Sickle broke left and darted back into the jungle. The four of them crashed through the foliage, not bothering to hide tracks or keep the noise down. Finally, when Haymitch could no longer hear the allies following them, he called to Sickle to stop.

Cobalt dropped down on his knees, clapping his hands over the wound on his hip, which was bleeding profusely, but the adrenaline and fear of being slaughtered by righteous tributes who felt betrayed by him had allowed him to power through the pain until now. Brutus had regained his spear and now stuck it point down in the ground, doubled over and wheezing. Haymitch clutched a painful stitch in his side, wishing desperately for water.

"Where—did—you—go?" Brutus asked Sickle between gasps.

"Scouted ahead," Sickle replied.

"You mean behind," Cobalt corrected.

"I mean ahead," said Sickle. "That's the direction I started going before the other tributes showed up. Now we should keep pressing forward the way we're going."

"That's one advanced plan, that is," said Brutus as his breath and bad temper returned. "Did you see Enobaria in the rain?"

Sickle looked around as if only just noticing that one of their number was missing and he very briefly held his eyes on Haymitch in an all-too-knowing manner. "No, but I was ahead of all of you so unless she passed me without me realizing it, she must still be back there somewhere."

"The three of you'd better pray that she is or—"

But they never heard the rest of Brutus's threat for there suddenly came a trumpet sounding overhead and the voice of Claudius Templesmith carried out to them.

"Attention tributes, seeing as how this arena is designed to keep you all within close quarters and yet you have managed to mostly evade one another in large groups, there will be a Feast held two hours after sundown tonight and for the first time in Hunger Games history, we are providing one and only one tracking device that will enable you to locate your fellow tributes. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor."

_Shit_. If there was one thing the Capitol could do to screw up his plans of protecting Katniss, it was provide the Careers with yet another advantage over the rest of them. He could not say if Katniss and the others would come to the Feast, but he knew Brutus would, which meant that he, Haymitch would have to go as well. Sickle and Cobalt would follow, but if another bloodbath ensued between the tributes in the fight for the locator, how could Haymitch keep his cover? In the unlikely event that someone else got off a lucky shot and killed Brutus, there would be nothing to worry about, but unless they came out in force, the others would stand no chance against the last Career.

Still, it was unusual for a Feast to occur so early on in the Games. But then again, these were not normal Games by any standards and exactly half of them remained to fight over the priceless gift.

Brutus stood upright having finally caught his breath and used his spear to point the way towards the beach from where they had just come. "We're heading back down there to wait. It'll be a mad dash from the jungle to get to the Cornucopia but we'll all have an equal shot. It's just a matter of who gets there first."

"Well, it won't be you," said Haymitch without thinking.

"And what exactly does that mean?" Brutus demanded.

"It means that you, being the size of a hovercraft, are going to be a lot slower than the rest of them. I'd count on Katniss, Finnick, maybe Lash getting there first because they're all relatively light and agile. There's a possibility of Tilly or Blight being right behind them, but you, Sickle, Mags, and Beetee aren't going to be winning any racing prizes, that's for sure."

"Maybe it won't come down to who the better runner is," Sickle pointed out. "They could be wading into the water as we speak to swim close and then just climb out and grab the device before the rest of us got halfway down the walkway."

"They won't be in the water," said Cobalt.

"What makes you say that?" asked Brutus.

"Oh, I wonder if my District partner getting ripped in half by that water demon has anything to do with it," Cobalt snarled.

There was a pregnant pause but Haymitch realized that Cobalt was absolutely right. The Gamemakers would have whatever creature lurked in the depths below the Cornucopia swim up and kill whoever tried to make an approach by water. It would be a race to the finish on the walkways for certain but even though he was confident that Katniss could outrun Brutus, he wasn't counting on her intelligence to rule out hiding in the water. She didn't know how Shade had died; she and the others had no idea of the dangers of swimming out to the Cornucopia.

_Please, Finnick, tell me you're with her and have the sense to not go in the water._

"Wrap that cut up and let's get moving," Sickle told Cobalt, motioning at his wounded leg.

Haymitch watched him apply some dock leaves and a vine rope to the wound to seal it off and hold it in place and privately thought that Cobalt would be at an even greater disadvantage than Brutus, but then again, Cobalt had kept up with them as they ran for their lives moments ago.

Really, it was anyone's game and that notion alone scared Haymitch far more than anything or anyone else in the arena but as the cannon suddenly sounded, he couldn't help but think, _The odds have just gone slightly out of our favor._

/

It would not be long now—the sun had gone down ages ago and all that remained was for the table bearing the locator to rise out of the island. There had been neither sign nor sound from all fronts of the jungle which was neither a good nor bad thing. Haymitch's legs were cramping something terribly and he needed to empty his bladder after swallowing quite a bit of blood in the downpour but Brutus would let none of them move. Stomach grumbling, mouth parched, and heart pounding, Haymitch sat there, hidden just inside the tree line.

Then the Cornucopia began to glow, illuminating the arena right up to the shore line so that it might have been daylight and at the mouth of the Horn was the table with a pack on it.

There were two ways to play this game: either everyone waited for someone else to move, or someone took the initiative and triggered the chain reaction of runners. Knowing how badly Brutus wanted that tracker, Haymitch expected the giant to be the first to move, but he didn't. Instead he took hold of his spear and watched two tributes sprint out of the jungle. From this distance Haymitch could see that the one furthest from them was a woman and he was willing to bet it was Katniss. The other was Blight who was quite close to their hiding place.

Brutus stood up, aiming his spear and an instantaneous thought rippled through Haymitch's head. _There can only be one winner._ Even if he saved Blight now, that only meant he would have to possibly kill him later. Better let Brutus do the dirty work. And so he kept his seat and did not move an inch as Brutus's spear took down the last District 7 tribute and the cannon sounded.

Slightly numb, Haymitch saw that the other tribute had reached the Cornucopia and snatched up the bag but she froze after Blight's cannon went off.

_No, keep moving. Get out of there!_

The ground trembled and suddenly the walkways began to sink below the surface of the water until only one remained which led straight to where Brutus stood on the beach, retrieving his spear from Blight's body. The tribute at the Horn hesitated, hopping from foot to foot in anticipation and then the jungle to Haymitch's left erupted in shouts.

They came again, weapons raised and ready to defend their ally on the island. Brutus knew he was outnumbered, but instead of retreating into the trees he went for the walkway, leaving the female tribute no place to run unless she wanted to brave the water. He saw Finnick holding back Katniss who was attempting to dive into the water and meet Brutus at the Cornucopia and then Sickle was up, running after Brutus. Third to join the party was Denno—_Denno_?

That meant…

Lash had her staff, but it would do nothing against Brutus if he got close enough. She backed up to the edge of the water, pack in one hand and staff in the other as Brutus reached the end of the walkway. Haymitch bolted out of his hiding place, disregarding Cobalt who was watching in transfixed horror and he met with Beetee and Tilly who were not even aware of him until he arrived beside them.

"Lash, get out of there!" screamed Denno, putting on an extra burst of speed. "Don't just stand there, run!"

Haymitch saw her give a sad smile to Denno and then stretching out her arm, she let the pack fall into the water. Brutus gave a howl of fury and drove his spear towards her heart. She blocked his attack, slipping underneath him and coming up on the other side. Sickle was nearly to her now but to her, he looked like another opponent. She swung her staff wide, knocking him over with a blow to the ear so that he toppled into the water dazed. Brutus seized her from behind, squishing her to him in what looked like a lover's embrace except he was squeezing her hard enough to make her scream in agony. Her feet kicked out at him, but he held firm. Then, with an awful finality, he wrenched her neck sideways, snapping the bone. Her cannon went off and then, perhaps out of a mad desire to rescue the tracker, Brutus dived into the water after it.

Denno screamed as Lash's body dropped to the ground and he prepared to go in after Brutus but then Sickle grabbed him by the ankle, having just climbed out of the water. Sickle tackled him and then held him down, though not in an unkind way and not at all like he had done to Cobalt. Denno wailed and sobbed for the entire arena to hear as Sickle knelt almost protectively over him.

Then the water began to rise.


	12. Chapter 12: Higher Stakes

Haymitch raced inward towards the water where Katniss and Finnick were still struggling and he grabbed her by the upper arm. She stopped at his touch and then threw her arms around him, gasping for breath and sobbing between them.

"You bastard, you left me, damn you!" she choked.

"That wasn't part of the plan, sweetheart, trust me," he said a bit awkwardly. "But listen to me now; if you can help it, leave Sickle to me. He's been trying to help me get rid of the Careers and I've had experience in mercy killings."

"What happened to—?"

"There's no time, the water is rising and Brutus may see me at any minute so shut up and _listen_!"

The water had nearly reached their ankles and the walkway where Denno and Sickle had stopped was already underwater. Sickle was half carrying, half dragging Denno while he still had a bit of a foothold. Meanwhile, Brutus had not yet emerged from the water so Haymitch plunged into his half-assed plan in an urgent whisper that the hidden microphones would not be able to pick up.

"I've been having better luck getting the Careers picked off without you than if I team up with you again so you just do what you have to until I find you again. Finnick, Tilly, and Denno will take care of you. Won't you?" he added to Finnick who rolled his eyes.

"What do you think I've been trying to do all this time?"

"Where's Beetee?" asked Haymitch.

"Around here somewhere," said Finnick dismissively. "But if that water's spreading upward, we'd best reach higher ground because knowing the Gamemakers, this is going to turn into a flash flood. Come on, Katniss."

"Wait, you need to make it look like you overpowered me. Cut me," said Haymitch insistently.

Katniss looked horrified but Finnick lashed out with his trident, opening a sizeable cut across Haymitch's cheek and Haymitch only had to partially act out his fall into the water as he clapped a hand to the wound. Blood started to pool into his eyes and he rolled over, tasting saltwater. As he made to stand, Sickle splashed over to him and dropped Denno between them.

"Useless," he muttered. "Boy's gone as limp as a wet noodle—"

"Denno, get up," said Haymitch, dragging him upright. "She's dead, you understand me? She's gone."

Unresponsive, Denno only stared blankly off into space until Haymitch slapped him, leaving an angry red mark on his face. "Where's Brutus?" he asked, his voice distant.

"That's a good question, but you leave him to us. You stand less of a chance against him than Lash did. You'd better make yourself scarce now and catch up to the others while you can. Shoo, go on."

"Why can't I kill him now? With the three of us against him, we could do it."

"Because we still have Cobalt to worry about and if he jumps us while we're fighting him one of us is going to get a knife in the back," said Sickle. "Call me crazy, but I'm not up for that, nor am I planning to die by that bastard's hand. I'd rather get bitten in half and have my remains plastered all over my District than to die because of Cobalt."

"Don't you kill Brutus without me," said Denno and for the first time Haymitch saw something other than fear in his face: it was beyond anger, it was irrevocable hatred and a burning desire for bloodthirsty revenge. He had seen this look in the faces of countless children whose allies were killed in previous Games. He last saw it on Cato's after Thresh killed Clove but he had expected that sort of thing from the District 2 boy. This, being Denno, was entirely new and unsettling.

"I can't promise that," said Haymitch forcibly, hoping Denno would remember their deal so that their plan wouldn't be given away on camera. He could only imagine the field day the Capitol was having with them all in the works against Brutus and Cobalt. They didn't expect Lash and Blight to be the ones to go for the tracker and they probably were thinking that he, Haymitch, would brawl with Brutus to save Blight. But he didn't, which meant that Lash got there first and threw the device away so that Brutus couldn't have it. Then Sickle, whose motives were unknown to the audience, had failed to kill Denno when everyone expected him to. Meanwhile, Haymitch had not rejoined with Katniss. Yes, everyone in the Capitol was likely going mad with uncertainty and in the midst of it all, Peeta was watching, probably cursing Haymitch for willingly leaving Katniss.

"Not without me, damn you," said Denno and he grabbed Haymitch uncomfortably close to the collar. "You promise me now."

The water sloshed around their knees and kept rising. Sickle gave Haymitch a look that said, _Improvise, we have to move!_

"Okay, okay we'll let you finish him off, but if we have the chance to maim him, we're going to do it. Now get your ass moving before he comes back, go on!"

Denno didn't look altogether reassured but he waded away and left them on the underwater beach. When he was lost to the trees, Haymitch glanced back towards the Cornucopia.

"Well, any extra supplies will be wiped out. Where the hell is he?"

"With any luck he'll drown, but I wouldn't bank on it. We'd better move or we'll be swimming in another two minutes. Come on."

Picking up their legs and splashing towards the tree line, they outran the water, but it lapped at their heels and had all but submerged the Cornucopia by the time they hit dry land. Here they searched about for Cobalt but couldn't find him which didn't sit well with them at all since he was the one person besides Brutus who they had anything to worry about.

That was something that irked Haymitch: _why_ hadn't Cobalt done anything? In the bloodbath, he only teamed up with the Careers, but hadn't been the cause of anyone's death. When Haymitch emerged from the jungle dragging Cashmere's remains, Cobalt hadn't spoken out for or against him. In the most recent battle, he had sat transfixed in the bushes, an observer to slaughter, and had done _nothing_. The only action from him was his killing of Enobaria but because, as he had told Haymitch, "She-she killed Shade. I had to—I _had_ to."

If he only killed out of revenge for his fallen friend, foster sister, lover—whatever, he now served no other purpose but as an obstacle in the path of Katniss's victory (and a very feeble obstacle if he had given up his motivation). Whatever game Cobalt was playing, the rest of them were not participants.

"Okay, I think that's far enough," said Sickle after a while. They had to be far out of reach of the water now and if the Gamemakers wanted to make the lake rise this high, Haymitch and Sickel would be able to see it from this vantage point. Sickle used his scythe to cut a torso-sized leaf off of the foliage and applied it to his skin, wiping away the remnants of the blood rain that had not washed free in the lake.

"We need to scout for water," said Haymitch, his stomach contracting at the thought. Oh, the irony of knowing that he _needed_ water, but not wanting any in an arena that had nothing but salt water to offer them.

"You need to clean yourself off first," said Sickle, cutting another leaf for Haymitch to use as a towel and handing it to him. "Seriously. The Capitol probably can't tell who you are because of all the shit plastered to you."

Haymitch gave him a sardonic smile and started to scratch at the coating of mud on his wetsuit since it had dried and gotten wet about three times over and was now thick like another layer of skin, trapping in heat and humidity. When he had cleared most of his arms and part of his left leg he suddenly voiced a thought aloud to Sickle, not because he wanted to reassure himself that the plan had not changed, but because he wanted another opinion.

"Do you think Lash knew?"

Without looking at him, Sickle picked at the mud underneath his fingernails with the tip of his scythe. He kept his voice low because the Capitol might not be the only ones listening. "Do I think she knew that she was signing her own death sentence in going after the tracker? Yes, I do. I think her and Blight both knew, but that they just wanted to get there before Brutus. I can't speak for Blight, but I think Lash saw a way out for herself that also spared the rest of them having to kill her. I suppose they should thank her for that."

_And by .they I mean us_, is what he meant to say.

"Blight wanted out too," said Haymitch, remembering how Blight had gone mad with grief when Johanna's face appeared in the night sky. "I don't think he ever wanted to win. Some tributes have hope that they might survive by luck and then there are those who want to win badly enough that they fight for it with every ounce of strength they have. But then you have the in-betweeners who want to see how far they can get, but who also opt out if they get the chance. I think both of them were in the last group."

"And what group are you, Haymitch?"

_I'm in the one that makes sure Katniss is the victor._

"I'm in the group that plays for as long as I can. Honestly, I'm surprised I've made it this far, past the halfway mark."

"The audience probably shares that notion," said Sickle grimly. "Even with your 10 score, nothing about you said 'lethal' to the viewers so everyone had you marked as a casualty of day one. And here we are; going into day four with two Careers left versus everyone else—eventually, that is."

"What, you don't think Brutus would nobly sacrifice himself so that one of the lesser beings could live?" asked Haymitch without humor.

"Not when that lesser being is already dead," said a voice behind them and Haymitch cursed himself for not standing guard. Sickle dropped his leaf and stepped halfway in front of Haymitch when Cobalt appeared, limping from his hip wound and grimacing.

"And just where the hell did you go?" Sickle demanded.

"Oh, I took off as soon as the Gamemakers started to flood the walkways," said Cobalt, plopping down and prodding at the dock leaf that had turned a purplish-brown with his blood. "I needed a head start if they were going to make the water rise, which they did, so my call was a good one. Lucky I ran into the two of you again, though."

_I wouldn't call it luck,_ thought Haymitch. _ Damn shame, is what it is._

"What did you mean when you said a dead lesser being?" asked Sickle as Cobalt started to redress his wound with new supplies.

"Enobaria," said Cobalt without missing a beat. "She'll appear in the sky in a few hours, mark my words, otherwise she would have come down to the beach to meet up with us or hope to kill some of the others. We lost her in the blood rain but I never heard a cannon—"

"I did," said Sickle.

"And there was another one after we outran Katniss's passé," Haymitch recalled.

"Which had to be either Beetee or Mags because neither of them were on the beach during the Feast," said Cobalt. "So you'll see Enobaria, Blight, Lash, and either Beetee or Mags on the sky obituary, which leaves the three of us, Brutus, Katniss, Finnick, Denno, and Tilly, and then whoever survived out of the crippled and elderly."

"Don't talk about them like that," Haymitch snapped. "They were—they _are_ good people. Just because they don't sniff out blood like it's a drug doesn't mean that they're not worth giving two shits about."

"I seem to have struck a nerve," said Cobalt. "They're both going to die anyway, Haymitch and you damn well know it. Who cares if they're your friends? Of everyone who's still alive, you can bet that neither of them is going to make it to the end, not with the Girl on Fire and Brutus left—and Sickle, I suppose. But think of the chances: Brutus and Katniss are on the leader board because of sponsors and skill. Sickle and Finnick are runner-ups and not trailing far behind would be me. Then I might go as far as to say Tilly, because of her score, then you. I rank you lower than her because that 10 the Gamemakers gave you is bullshit. I've seen you out here and you've survived by being quick on your feet and quicker with running your mouth the right way. Beetee, Mags, and Denno are tied for dead last, the former for reasons I've already explained and Denno because that man doesn't have a mean bone in his body."

_If you'd have stuck around for the Feast, you wouldn't say that_.

"So now you see the odds and how they are almost entirely out of your favor, Haymitch. Ask yourself; _why am I still alive? Why have Cobalt and Sickle not killed me yet?_ As to an answer, I don't have one. Maybe I just don't feel like killing you right now, maybe I think you have a slightly better edge given my current condition. Maybe I want you to stay up and keep watch so I can get some sleep tonight or maybe I have something planned for you. Whatever the cause, just know that you shouldn't be here and that you won't be for much longer."

"There's the anthem," said Sickle and it was a lucky thing, for Haymitch was about two seconds away from throttling Cobalt for his pompous superiority and blatant acceptance of their fates.

Cobalt glanced up and a smile spread across his face, one that the audience would know meant satisfaction, but it was a good thing for him that Brutus was not here to witness it.

"And there she is," he said quietly as Enobaria's face appeared overhead.

Then, in succeeding order, came Mags, Blight, and Lash. The cannon before the Feast announcement had been hers; wonderful, caring, kind-hearted old Mags had finally seen the end after countless years of watching new tributes come and go and not being able to save but a few of them.

The anthem ended abruptly and lightning lit up the sky, branching out in all directions so that it was almost as bright as daylight. Haymitch saw Cobalt with his face turned skyward as if embracing the impending storm, saw Sickle cast a wary eye at the bolts, and knew that the time had come to make good on his promise to Peeta.


	13. Chapter 13: Like Those Who Came Before

"I want to keep moving," Haymitch told the other two.

"Why?" asked Cobalt suspiciously.

_Oh, let's see, for several reasons. I don't want Brutus to join up with us again while you're still alive. I want to see what the other jungle wedges have to offer so that maybe I have a chance of getting you killed off. I want to find Katniss. I want something else to kill Sickle for me because I think his loyalty to our cause is wavering. I want food. I want to busy my hands with something other than strangling you until I come up with a safe way to do it._

"Because we still need water," said Haymitch.

Swaying ungainly as he stood up, Cobalt started off to the left, heading further uphill and deeper into the jungle thicket. As he went, Haymitch found it odd that Cobalt didn't even attempt to guard his back, almost as if he wanted to get a knife between his shoulder blades. With his hand on his knife, Haymitch made it all of two steps towards Cobalt's retreating back when Sickle rested his own hand on Haymitch's wrist and shook his head.

_Not now,_ his eyes said, but Haymitch had finished playing the when-and-how game. Cobalt had served his purpose in killing the second most dangerous Career of the Games and now that Brutus was missing in action, the time was ripe to put him out of play. Together, Haymitch and Sickle would be more than a match for wounded, mentally deteriorating Cobalt.

Haymitch wrenched his arm free, shooting Sickle a look that said, _If you won't help me, I'll do it myself, but it's happening now whether you like it or not._

But it didn't happen right then because in their fleeting battle of wills, they had neglected to see Cobalt cross over a threshold into a new territory with a new terror to match and by walking over the boundary line, Cobalt had awoken creatures that might have otherwise remained dormant. Haymitch heard the rustling of what sounded like millions of insect-like legs crawling over the jungle floor, the low hum of thousands of bug vocals at work—only he had gravely miscalculated the mass of numbers. While there were thousands of insects seeping out of the jungle floor, they were nothing to the human-sized ones that smashed their brethren underfoot.

The swarm set upon Cobalt who ran for his life back towards Haymitch and Sickle. Haymitch sheathed his knife, whipped out his sword, and brought it slicing down through one of the man-sized beetle with razor-sharp pincers. The steel cut through the beetle's body like it was a loaf of oven hot bread and green goo leaked out onto the rocks where Haymitch stood, sending up tendrils of smoke. He didn't want to know what would happen if the beetle's blood got on his skin, but judging by the corrosive nature of the goo on the now disintegrating rocks, he could conclude for himself what would happen.

Sickle pulled him away, almost dragging him bodily and as Haymitch took off after Cobalt once again, he kept a firm hold on Sickle's arm. The insects pursued them over all terrain, gaining, gaining, closing in…

Cobalt's injury began to slow him down so that his head start eventually gave way, putting him neck and neck with Haymitch and Sickle. The humidity made it nearly impossible for Haymitch's abused lungs to suck in air. His legs wanted to give out, sweat mingled with the blood and mud he had not yet had a chance to wash away ran down into his eyes, half blinding him. At any moment he expected to feel pincers close around his ankle and drag him backwards to be the feast of endless starving bodies. He was utterly terrified that if he fell, he would bring Sickle with him and be an indirect cause of his death in the most gruesome way, but he was afraid that if he let go, Sickle would fall behind and be devoured anyway.

A wall rose before them, impossible to scale without someone standing on the other's shoulders. They had no time to think or debate, not with death seconds behind them. Sickle put on an extra burst of speed, dropping to his knees in front of the outcrop and Haymitch leapt onto his back, bracing himself against the wall with his shoulder and cupping his hands with his sword still in them as Cobalt clambered up over both of them. He placed his foot in Haymitch's hands and grabbed the vines hanging overhead, hauling himself upward with incredible strength that could only come from adrenaline and the fight-or-flight instinct.

Only then did Haymitch realize that by allowing Cobalt to go first, he had taken a gamble with both his and Sickle's lives. Cobalt wouldn't wait for them or help them to scale the wall, not after what had just happened between them. And yet Cobalt reached back for Haymitch, face flushed with the effort of pulling him up by the sleeves. Haymitch dug his heels into the soft soil, trying to help Cobalt in any way he could.

"Lean back!" he shouted and Cobalt threw himself backwards so that the momentum pulled Haymitch up and over the edge of the outcrop. No sooner had Haymitch cleared the edge that he saw Sickle fighting madly, swinging his scythe in wide arcs to ward off the insect horde. With a garbled instruction to Cobalt to hold tightly to his ankles, Haymitch hung his upper body over the wall, reaching and calling for Sickle to grab his hands.

Sickle had no opening to even turn around and acknowledge his escape as two gargantuan spiders came at him from his left and right. Haymitch hurtled his sword at the one on the right, felling it mid-leap so that it crumpled and its legs tucked in to its hideously hairy body in death. Sickle beheaded the second one and then spun around, finding the smallest foothold in the wall that allowed him to jump and grab onto Haymitch's hands by his fingertips.

"Pull!" Haymitch roared at Cobalt as he lay half suspended out over the open.

But the order came too late as some form of cross-slug-centipede creature closed a set of monstrous jaws around Sickle's foot and with a powerful sucking noise, began to swallow him. Sickle screamed, his eyes widening in shock and pain. The insect's hold on Sickle was stronger than all three men combined and Haymitch felt his hips slipping over the edge of the wall. He locked eyes with Sickle. Both of them knew what would happen next; they had seen it happen to dozens of child tributes as they realized that death was upon them. It was the look of horrified acceptance and whether it was shared with a camera or another tribute, it was a look that would never fade from the minds of those who witnessed it. For as long as Haymitch lasted in these Games, he would recall Sickle's face as the shadow of death fell upon him.

_Let go_, Sickle mouthed, tears straining from his eyes as his vocal chords ripped from screaming in agony.

"_Haymitch!_" Cobalt screeched and Haymitch tore his eyes away from Sickle's face to see another insect with a giant stinger on its forehead diving for him from a low tree branch. With men tugging at him from both ends, Haymitch could do nothing.

Sickle summoned the last of his strength to make Haymitch sway sideways and the insect's stinger passed between their arms, missing Haymitch's head and raking down Sickle's face, neck, and torso. The sweat between Haymitch's fingers told him that he had to drop Sickle now—and then the slug released him, slipping and wriggling with a knife buried in its slimy body. Not understanding, Haymitch held on to Sickle and then felt himself moving up, away from the insects. He felt two pairs of hands on his ankles and knew that he would make it, if he could only keep his grip on Sickle for a few seconds longer. When he was safely grounded, he saw Cobalt lug Sickle onto the top of the ledge with his legs last to come over.

Sickle's right foot was gone as well as his ankle and half of his calf. The bone marrow showed shockingly white in the sea of blood, muscle, tissue, and seared flesh. The laceration the stinger had left on Sickle was now oozing a silvery-blue substance and Sickle was convulsing grotesquely. Haymitch crawled to him, lifting his head and placing it in his lap. His stomach twisted at the sight of the same bright ooze seeping out of the corners of Sickle's eyes, filling the irises so that they looked like they were drowning.

"He's suffering," said Cobalt, his voice small and far away. "It's a slow-acting poison and it'll probably take hours for him to die."

Blood dribbled from Sickle's mouth and his hands clenched with nothing to ease his pain. Haymitch grasped one hand, squeezing it as hard as he could to let Sickle know he was there because by now Haymitch knew his friend could no longer see, blind to the artificial world that would be his graveyard. His chest heaved upward so that his body arched off of the ground and he sobbed out indistinguishable words.

_Die,_ thought Haymitch desperately. _Please, just die. _

"Please," he whispered. "Let him die."

Cobalt took the knife from Haymitch's belt without permission, resigned to do what Haymitch could not because of his love for these people who fought with him. The tributes were his friends to the bitter end and Haymitch could not bring himself to stain his hands with their blood, not even if it meant saving them a great deal of pain or humiliation.

Sickle gave a desperate moan and Cobalt reached out to stroke his brow, avoiding the terrible cut marring his face. "Shhh," he said soothingly as if he were lulling a child to sleep. He turned Sickle's head sideways so that his temple faced the sky. In one swift motion, he drove Haymitch's knife into Sickle's skull and before he could withdraw the bloodied blade, a cannon went off.

With no time to grieve, no time to process all that had happened in the last however-long-the-chase-had-gone-on, Cobalt set Sickle's head on the ground, pried his dead grip from Haymitch's and hauled Haymitch to his feet. It was then that Haymitch saw the tribute who had come to their aid at the eleventh hour, saving Sickle from being a feast for the insects.

Brutus.


	14. Chapter 14: The Brains of the Operation

There was no asking this time where anyone had been or why they came back. Haymitch was too confused with wrapping his head around the fact that he now owed Brutus his life and District 9 owed Brutus their tribute's body. Had Brutus not intervened exactly when he did, Haymitch would have dropped Sickle and left him to the slug and Cobalt might have dropped Haymitch. The Career whose death he had been plotting since the beginning had made himself an ally at the worst possible moment.

Then there was the awful, lingering death of Sickle replaying like a broken recorded image in Haymitch's mind. The scream as the slug began to eat him alive, the convulsion of his body, the acidic poison in his eyes, and the expression that said, _I am not ready for death, but it's come for me all the same._ Had Haymitch gotten to the wall first and took up the root position so that Sickle and Cobalt could scale the cliff before him, might it have been he, Haymitch, who the insects devoured? Would Brutus have still come back then? So many factors might have changed if Sickle had not chosen to remain at the bottom.

Cobalt had a hand on Haymitch's back, making him walk, but not with unkind force. Brutus lumbered ahead, cutting a path for them with a double-bladed axe he had acquired from somewhere since his spear had been washed away in the beach flood. They didn't have a clear destination; they were just walking to have something to do, to take their mind off of Sickle's final moments and get as far away from his death site as possible. The hovercraft had come in to claim his body long ago but Haymitch didn't watch it. Eventually Cobalt stopped guiding him and let him walk on his own and Haymitch trudged along beside him, feet dragging and arms limp at his sides unless he had to push a branch out of his way if Brutus didn't manage to hack it to shreds ahead of him.

His hand gripped a fistful of leaves to hold a branch so that Cobalt could pass when he saw the red stains on his bruised, scraped knuckles—and this was not from the blood rain.

"May I have that back?" he asked Cobalt suddenly, nodding at his knife which Cobalt had neglected to give back to him since taking it to puncture Sickle's skull.

Of course the request had to sound suspicious. Here they were in relative acceptance of one another in no mood to fight and out of the blue Haymitch asks for his knife back. What would he do with it? Why did he want it? Was Cobalt in danger if he handed it over, or would Haymitch use the blade on himself?

But Cobalt gave it to him, perhaps out of sympathy. Maybe he suspected that Haymitch _would_ try to commit suicide and that it would save them both the trouble or, on a more understanding note, maybe he respected that after losing yet another friend, Haymitch could no longer bear the Capitol's injustice. Either way, he relinquished the knife and Haymitch muttered something about needing to use the restroom in private. He hiked uphill for a good five minutes and then came to a standstill in an open space where he could clearly see the sky, still overcast, still dark.

Sickle's blood made strange patterns on his hands like spider webs with numerous unidentifiable victims caught in the webbing. Haymitch touched his fingertips to his hair, his greasy, muddy, blood-stained hair…

Feeling himself begin to hyperventilate, he hacked at the matted tangles atop his head which had layers upon layers of filth. He went at it with the fervor of a desperate man, choking on his own breath in an attempt to free the stains from his body and soul. Clumps of blonde fell to the jungle floor around his feet. Finally, when he could grab no more hair to cut through he started trying to shave his head but since he had no view of what he was doing, he felt razor thin cuts open up on his scalp as he missed his mark and went too deep with the edge of his knife.

This was how the Careers found him minutes later and Cobalt wrestled the knife away from him before he could do anymore damage.

"What the hell was that?" asked Brutus, staring at the piles of hair around Haymitch's ankles.

Haymitch had no explanation but the arrival of the two reminded him that as much as Sickle's death devastated him, as grateful as he was to Cobalt and Brutus for banding together to defy the Capitol, Katniss was still the ultimate goal and that even their temporary alliance could not save them from the fact that they still had to die. They all knew it, even if they were temporarily ignoring it, and if Haymitch continued to show weakness, they would do away with him while he wallowed in grief.

"The smell," he said with a brave stab at revulsion. "The smell was getting to me."

"Mud doesn't have much of a smell," said Brutus.

"The _blood_, you idiot; you wouldn't understand because you're bald."

"And now so are you," Cobalt pointed out.

"That is _not_ helping," Haymitch snarled.

"I'm just pointing out an additional fact to your statement."

"No one asked you to!"

"Don't make me wish I had let both of you go over the edge of the cliff now shut the hell up!" Brutus hollered, hands pressed over his ears. "You two sound like an old married couple and I'm not putting up with it; not while there's people still left to be sorted."

His statement brought their little escape from reality to a grinding halt as they remembered that they were indeed still a part of the 75th Hunger Games and that they still had to get through seven people to win—or at least, Haymitch had to make sure seven other people died besides Katniss. As if sensing what they were thinking, Brutus launched into his elaborate scheme to murder Katniss by the end of the day.

"We haven't had a plan since that damned Beast ran us down and killed Cashmere, but I've had some time to think and I figure it's time we start doing the hunting instead of letting the arena hunt us out. We got lucky with the morphling and Chaff walking right into us, luckier that the old woman died on her own, and then I got two of them last night at the Feast. The braniac and the weakling shouldn't be a problem, but it's Finnick I'm concerned about up to this point. If he's teamed up with her, he'll want her alive until the end so that he can double cross her and he's—I hate to say it—a worthy opponent. As for Tilly, well, she could go either way."

"So your plan is to walk around the jungle in circles looking for them, expecting that they won't be anticipating us finally coming to kill them?" said Cobalt skeptically and Haymitch had to admit that when phrased just so, Brutus's plan sounded stupid.

"I think the Gamemakers and the audience have had enough of the arena picking us off for the time being," said Brutus pridefully. "They saw me take down two victors; they'll want more manslaughter. And right now the bets have to be rolling as to who takes on who. The Brutus versus Finnick battle is one hundreds have been wanting to see since the reaping."

"Ah, yes, I can see the scoreboards now, matching up the top two male contenders," said Cobalt, staring off into the middle distance with overly dramatic gesturing. "And only second to them comes Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, the sweetheart of the Capitol. Trailing closely behind her is…no one. The audience is vying for three people to win and by the looks of how things keep going on _our_ end, you're not likely to be a finalist, old boy. Katniss has more people who are loyal to her and to her cause, even if two of them have zero battle experience, but take into account what we each have. We, the three of us here, have you, the heavy weight, the alpha male, and the most likely survivor, assisted by the half-cripple from District 5 who is now along solely for the ride and the town drunk from District 11, Katniss's mentor, and someone who must be throwing the audience for a loop. He may be useless in combat, but Haymitch is the brains of our operation. Now consider that Katniss is skilled in all methods of survival and is not afraid to kill any of us. She has Tilly who the Careers underestimated the first time in her own reaping and look how they ended up. Katniss has Beetee, the cleverest bastard to ever step foot in the Games, Finnick, the deadliest assassin ever to step foot in the Games, and Denno, the luckiest coward ever to step foot on the earth. Katniss has better resources, more allies, and more sponsors. You have an axe. You are not going to win."

It sounded less like a challenge to Haymitch and more like a dare. Cobalt was subtlety telling Brutus that he was better off biting the proverbial bullet now than dying in humiliation against a teenage girl with false hope that the Capitol and District 2 might band together to save one of the most brutal and savage players in the Games.

_Here it comes,_ thought Haymitch. _Blood_ _is going to be spilled in the next five seconds._ And when it did, he had two options: he could either attempt to stab Brutus (if he got the chance to snatch his knife back from Cobalt before Brutus went for the lloud-mouthed traitor) while Brutus was busy killing Cobalt, or he could run his ass out of there and go looking for Katniss.

"You're forgetting one thing, big-mouth," said Brutus, stepping close enough to Cobalt so that the latter had to crane his neck up to look the giant in the face. "President Snow wants that girl dead. The whole reason we're here, the reason your lover died, was because President Snow tore up the original card for the Quarter Quell and made a new one that was designed so that Katniss Everdeen would have to come back into the arena. He wants her dead because she gives people _hope_; she's a rallying point and without her, the stirring rebellion dies. Even if she makes it to the final two, Snow will _force_ the Gamemakers to make her lose. Even if she's standing above her opponent as that opponent lies on the ground dying, Snow will see to it that she dies. So what if the people need a victor? He'll make them believe that it's better to not have a rebellion than to have a victor for 75th Hunger Games."

Cobalt said nothing, but Haymitch realized he had underestimated Brutus. The man wasn't as stupid as Haymitch originally thought because Brutus had figured out Snow's plan, just as Haymitch had—not that it stopped Haymitch from trying to save her. And if Brutus had pieced together Snow's plan, others had as well.

"So, Sparky, I think I have a pretty good shot at winning this," Brutus finished.

Haymitch knew Cobalt no longer cared about living or dying in this arena, but he figured that his former friend did not want to go out at the hands of Brutus since Cobalt always had to have the last word. What would happen next depended on Cobalt's actions, his words.

A cannon fired.

A ripple shot across the sky as if it had fleetingly turned to liquid and Haymitch recognized it instantly. Someone had activated the force field. Someone had touched it or used it just as he had in his first Games.

"That way!" shouted Brutus and crashed off into the trees to locate the source of the ripple, which had come from uphill directly north from where they were.

Haymitch had half a mind not to follow. He wanted to take his knife back now and stab Cobalt in the head with it just as Cobalt had done to Sickle, though perhaps with less sincerity. But letting Brutus out of his sight was not fulfilling his role as Katniss's protector, so he ran after the giant. As he had quickly come to learn in this arena, running was treacherous on this terrain and ten times worse uphill. Brutus had longer legs and therefore made longer strides so that Haymitch was forced to double his efforts to climb and stagger after him. Not caring to look back and see if Cobalt was following, Haymitch pressed on, wishing for water. He was about to call Brutus to a halt for a breather when the hovercraft descended and its crane located the body below. The hovercraft was about a quarter of a mile off and Haymitch could make out its serial number, 1512.

The crane rose, hoisting up the dead tribute and as Haymitch squinted against the early morning light, he saw a hand and a leg.

"Looks like it could be male!" yelled Brutus over the sound of the hovercraft blowing wind through the treetops.

Hating himself for wishing it, Haymitch thought, _Let it be Denno._ Denno would be the hardest to kill, now that Mags was gone. He was no hero, but no coward. He was simply lost and afraid and killing him would be like killing a child. If the force field had wiped him out instead, it was a blessing, a very small blessing.

"I'm thinking the brainiac," said Brutus as Cobalt finally caught up to them, green in the face as he clutched his wound.

"Him or Denno," Haymitch agreed.

"The weakling won't be a problem, but if District 3's gone, makes it easier for us to get to Katniss. But it makes me wonder; how could the force field have gotten them?"

"They might have thrown themselves against it, just to make it quick," Cobalt suggested, wheezing.

"Beetee wouldn't have done that," said Haymitch. "Suicide isn't his style—"

"Shh!" said Brutus, flattening his hand in an _everyone stop and shut up_ gesture.

They heard it; the sound of someone running and sobbing towards them and it was female. Haymitch listened hard, heart pounding, but as the noise came closer, he knew it wasn't her. Unflattering though it may be, Katniss sounded like someone on the verge of losing their voice when she cried and the weeping he heard was distinctly clear, almost musical.

Tilly crossed in front of them, her face streaked with ash, and as she saw them, the tears running patterns in the ash down her face froze. Brutus tucked back both of his arms, preparing to launch the axe at her—and she was so close, there was no way he could miss. Haymitch watched as he did when Brutus stood up to impale Blight with his spear. All he did was watch.

_There can only be one winner,_ he reminded himself.

"Wait!' he cried, but Cobalt reacted first. He seized the bladed side sticking upward with his bare hands and pulled down, yanking and twisting the axe so that Brutus was forced to drop it.

"_Run!_" Cobalt screamed at Tilly and Brutus snarled, launching himself at Cobalt who just had time to free Haymitch's knife from his belt before the giant fell upon him. Brutus pummeled his fist into Cobalt's face, smashing in his nose so that blood began to flow from both of his nostrils. Cobalt brought his leg up to knee Brutus in the groin and Brutus howled, backing off so that Cobalt had time to plunge the knife into Brutus's thigh.

Almost as if the knife had had no effect on him, Brutus backhanded Cobalt, wrenched the knife out of his thigh, and swiped the blade across Cobalt's face, opening a cut from cheek to cheek so that it looked like Cobalt now had an extended smile. Still alive, Cobalt blindly beat his fists at Brutus's chest and then with no sympathy, no remorse on his face, Brutus positioned the blade above Cobalt's heart and slowly, painstakingly slowly, pushed it down into his chest. Centimeter by centimeter it sunk into the flesh and Cobalt's eyes widened, his mouth agape with no sound coming out. His hands had splayed out, his fingers skeletal in their positions. The knife hilt prevented the blade from going any further, but the damage was done and Brutus held it there, pressing down with all of his weight.

The cannon went off.

Pulling out the knife, Brutus wiped the startlingly dark blood off on Cobalt's wetsuit and then turned to Haymitch who had once again been petrified in absolute horror at the awful finality of Cobalt's demise. All he could think was that Brutus's name suited him well.

"I half expected you to try something while my back was turned," said Brutus casually as he stood over his kill. "Why didn't you?"

_You're the smart one. Cobalt knew it and Brutus knows it. You've survived because you know when to let things be. Now say something intelligent or he'll finish you off._

"Because that would have been stupid," said Haymitch.

Then again, perhaps Brutus's inkling of intelligence in figuring out Snow's plans was the only bit of educated guessing he had in his body, because he nodded satisfactorily and handed back Haymitch's knife.


	15. Chapter 15: Fallen

_Well, Cobalt, didn't you turn out to be a real piece of work._

The District 5 victor had to be wildest of the wild cards in these unique Games. Friend, traitor, player, martyr. What could have been going through Cobalt's mind in that moment when Tilly appeared to make him give himself away for her? The man Haymitch thought he knew turned on him before the Games even began, but never once tried to kill him _during_ the Games, not even when he could easily have dropped Haymitch along with Sickle to be devoured by the insects. Perhaps it was the friendship they once had, all those long hours of drinking away their nightmares, that Cobalt finally recalled to make him realize that he used to be a decent person. But even so, he had never been more than acquaintances with District 10. What did he owe Tilly—or was it that, since he failed to protect Shade, he tried to even out his sentence when he had to answer to the higher being by distracting Brutus?

Haymitch had no idea, no answers, and he never would because Brutus had done what Haymitch had mentally prepared himself for. Besides the Careers, Haymitch had planned on killing Cobalt himself for his treachery, but with six of them left, Haymitch hadn't killed anyone, leaving the dirty work to the Careers and the Gamemakers. Now all that technically stood between Katniss and victory was the hulking killer sleeping six feet away from Haymitch. Finnick, Denno, Beetee, and Tilly knew how to perform an act of suicide and not make it look so in order to protect the plan and whichever one of the men was dead now had no need to worry about it, but the question still remained: how to get rid of Brutus?

Haymitch had not slept since the thirty seconds or so he had fallen asleep while on watch with Enobaria on Day 2. He had not gotten a decent drink of water in almost forty-eight hours, having to sip rainwater off of leaves during the trek before Brutus decided to bed down. The last food to pass through his system was shortly before the Feast. Surprised that he wasn't hallucinating, Haymitch sat up on watch. He couldn't sleep now even if he wanted to. If he tried, he might fall into the realm of nightmares, something he had been able to avoid thus far in the Games but with his body burning through calories at an accelerated rate while suffering from alcohol withdrawal, Haymitch was in bad shape. His beer gut was gone after days of so much physical stress on his body with little nourishment to match it. If he tried sleeping regardless of nightmares, he knew he would still be kept awake, waiting for Brutus to murder him in the dark. At this point, Brutus was more than a match for him and even if Haymitch tried sneaking up on him now as he slept, Brutus would most likely hear his clumsy form coming. And what's more, Brutus _knew_ Haymitch couldn't fight him in single combat. Haymitch was weakened by his lack of nutrition, surviving on pure adrenaline, but for how much longer?

Just as he was contemplating throwing his knife at Brutus's exposed back and hoping it stuck him in the spine, he heard a soft rhythmic _beep_ing and glanced skyward, hardly daring to hope. He saw the green flash of the tiny light on the parachute and it nearly landed in his lap. Fingers fumbling with actual excitement for his gift, he screwed off the top of the pod and inside sat a hunk of dried beef, dried fruit, and a small vial with a note attached. Squinting in the darkness, Haymitch read it by moonlight: _Eat slowly, drink last. You're nearly there. Peeta._

Guilt gripped Haymitch's stomach almost so that he couldn't eat his small feast despite the pains aching in his abdomen. He remembered sending parachutes to Katniss in her first Games: medicine for her burn, soup, sleeping syrup for Peeta. Yes, he had chosen her to survive and only sent gifts to Peeta once the announcement was made that he would also be allowed a spot of victory if he could survive. He had given the boy nothing and yet, Peeta did not hold that against him now, despite his rather weak efforts to protect Katniss.

It was certainly on his mind the entire time he had been in here, _protect Katniss, save Katniss, makes sure she wins._ He had let friends and acquaintances die so that she wouldn't, but had he actually done anything to specifically tell the audience that he was protecting her? He hadn't been with her since Day 1 and then willingly split up from her when he had the chance to regroup after the Feast. Any sponsors for District 12 would be vying for Katniss, showering her with gifts to help her as the others did Haymitch's job and he sat around with the Careers, plotting their deaths but never going through with them. He hadn't earned any sponsors, but Peeta made sure this came to him now as he sat malnourished and sleep-deprived.

He had to work with his teeth at the tough texture of the dried beef for quite a while since his mouth was sore and unaccustomed to chewing, especially something so tough. Bit by bit he swallowed the meat and then turned much more enthusiastically to the fruit, but his mouth was now parched and longing for water. There was no use saving the food; he had nothing to carry it in and he needed all of it now.

_Drink last_, the note said. Whatever was in the vial, maybe it was some sort of Capitol concoction that replenished all the water his body needed, which was why Peeta told him to have it last. Popping open the vial, he took a whiff of the dark liquid and prepared to drink when his brain suddenly snapped to attention. By sending him this parachute in the dark, Peeta was ensuring that the cameras did not pick up the finer details of the package. Dried meat and fruit were not strange and neither was a note from the mentor pushing the tribute to hold on a little longer, but this small tube of liquid was nearly black in the moonlight, which meant it could be purple, blue, or even green. Green was poison. Purple and blue were the colors of nightlock.

_Drink last_.

No, not last. The _end_. Drink at the end, when all the tributes but he, Haymitch, and Katniss are dead. Drink in secrecy so that the cameras won't suspect suicide. Drink so that you don't have to stab yourself or walk into the force field. Drink as a way to kill yourself after you've completed your task and seen Katniss through to the final two. Drink because you promised. _You promised._

Damn, that boy was smart. He had mastered the art of hidden messages at a time when it was absolutely crucial that the Capitol not know about the plan to save Katniss.

But the audience would be wondering now why he wouldn't drink the contents of the vial so Haymitch inconspicuously pressed the lid back down tight with his thumb and pretended to drain the vial in one gulp, grimacing convincingly and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth for good measure. He then slipped the vial into his belt where it would not rub against anything and sit patiently to be used whenever Brutus, Beetee, Finnick, Tilly, and Denno were dead.

And with that another cannon echoed across the jungle, jolting Brutus into alertness. The last surviving Career reached for his axe but Haymitch called him off, stuffing the parachute and pod into the hollowed out log to hide them because he didn't think it would sit well with Brutus if he found out that Haymitch had gotten a parachute and not bothered to share its contents.

"It's nearly midnight," Haymitch said as Brutus sat up, rubbing at his eyes. "We'll see whose cannon that was."

He had renewed energy. He had food in his system, reassurance from Peeta, and the promise of an easy way out. True, he could do with some water and sleep, but the with the sound of the cannon, a new feeling settled over him. They were nearing the end now and he could let his friends go without remorse. He might mourn them temporarily, but didn't they all know that they had to die for Katniss to win? They were all prepared for this and so they could accept it. Once they were gone, Haymitch only had to live through a few more moments of grief before he joined them. The faces that appeared in the sky tonight told him that there was one less person he had to say goodbye to.

"There it is," said Brutus as the anthem began to play.

Beetee came first. His cannon was either the one that went off moments ago or the one from earlier when something (and that something had turned out to be some_one_) hit the force field. Incredibly smart, never bloodthirsty, but acting out of necessity, Beetee had been an unlikely candidate for the top ten, but had surprised everyone with how far he made it. A good man, a good friend. Gone.

Cobalt. This Haymitch knew but was still contemplating how he felt about it. What could he call this man now that he was dead? Was Cobalt simply pretending to betray Haymitch all along, or did he have other reasons? Had he managed to kill Brutus, would he have admitted to Haymitch that his plan had been to pick off the Careers one by one like Sickle? No one would ever know, no one would care.

Sickle. The hardest death to cope with thus far for Haymitch simply because like Maysilee, Haymitch had to stare straight into his fellow tribute's eyes as he died. Sickle sacrificed more than any of them by volunteering twice for someone else, by going last up the dirt wall, by accepting that he was born to die unjustly.

_Denno or Tilly?_ Once again, Haymitch hoped to see Denno in the sky because he wasn't entirely sure the man would be able to kill himself when the time came. Finnick, Tilly, or Katniss might have to do it for him and Haymitch certainly wasn't looking forward to it. If it was Tilly, well, Cobalt's noble actions were for naught anyway.

Katniss.

The bottom of Haymitch's stomach fell away into a void of nothingness. Nothing existed but the face in the stars and Haymitch's body below it. There had to be a mistake. Finnick was still alive and he wouldn't have let anything happen to her. This was just the Capitol trying to play a trick on the remaining tributes and the audience. Perhaps President Snow had figured out that the remaining tributes sans Brutus had planned to get Katniss out alive and that by showing her as one of the fallen, he would crush their spirits when in reality she was alive, separated from the others but alive. It had to be Denno or Tilly who was actually dead. Yes, it must be Tilly because she was also a woman and similar in build to Katniss. In the dark, the hovercraft picking up her body could be mistaken for Katniss and right now the cameras were deliberately avoiding Katniss so that the audience would believe that she was dead.

Even as he thought it, he knew how farfetched it was. Though it wasn't above the Capitol to play the audience false and crush the hopeful rebels who depended on Katniss, they would want the viewers to know immediately if the Girl on Fire had fallen. And she had, but not because Finnick had failed to protect her. That wasn't Finnick Odair's job. It was his, Haymitch Abernathy's. Haymitch had given his word to Peeta, the boy who had just sent him a gift as a form of gratitude, that he would do all in his power to allow Katniss to win and he could have done that if he had chosen to go with her instead of stay with the Careers. Sickle and Cobalt would have died in the same way, regardless of whether or not Haymitch had been with them. Haymitch abandoned her to someone else's care and paid the price for his stupidity.

Brutus gave an uncharacteristic whoop, standing up and beating his axe on the ground in some kind of twisted war chant. His way to victory was clear. He had only Finnick to contend with, which was what he wanted because Katniss had been a Capitol favorite, but now with her gone, Finnick and Brutus were evenly matched on all fronts. They each had their deadly weapons and they each could be savage in using those weapons. That meant the other three were expendable. Brutus didn't need Haymitch anymore to find Katniss.

He didn't wait. Haymitch ran. He let his scream of grief and sorrow spill out of him as he sprinted at breakneck speed through the jungle. He knew he deserved death now, that Finnick, Denno, or Tilly deserved a second victory more than he did, but his fight or flight instincts were more powerful than his conscience and he so he had fled. If nothing else, he had to at least die by some other means that Brutus. He had the vial in his belt and could take it right now, but his nerve failed him. He ran, never looking back, never stopping. It didn't matter that he was raising a din for the entire arena to hear; he had to get the poisonous pain out of him however he could.

He might have run the circumference of the arena already and not known it with how long he went, far beyond caring if Brutus had stopped chasing him—or if he had even started to begin with. With nowhere to run to, he could only keep going.


	16. Chapter 16: Dead Echoes

He stopped only when he knew he would die of thirst if he went one step further. A pool of water lay before him and he fell to his knees, preparing to down the entire body of it in one large gulp but before his lips could touch the surface a hand closed around his ankle. Panicking, he flipped onto his back, slashing with his knife in almost as drunken of a state as when Katniss had woken him the day of the Victory Tour with a splash of cold water to the head.

"No, no, easy! It's me!"

Through the sweat pouring into his eyes, Haymitch saw a female face, puffy from tears and badly scratched. It took a great deal of focusing to realize that it was not the woman he most wanted to see right now. As Tilly's face swam into view, the fight went out of Haymitch and he let the knife fall, gasping and panting for breath, for water, for release.

"I had to stop you," Tilly explained. "You'll make yourself sick or worse if you drink that water before boiling it. I have some over here, come on."

In his haste to reach the water, Haymitch had completely bypassed her little camp of a low burning fire and bed of leaves. She had fashioned herself a spear from a branch and a jagged rock. A broken open coconut served as a bowl for the water which she gave to Haymitch. He forced himself to sip slowly and allowed Tilly to explain her current situation.

"It was the five of us when we hit a patch of the jungle that came alive. The branches tried to snare us, the roots grabbed at our ankles as we ran. We were almost clear when they got Beetee. They dragged him off and I chased after him, but before I could get close I heard the force field and then the cannon. The hovercraft came to get the body and I turned back around and ran. I thought that I was running for the others, but then I saw you, Brutus, and Cobalt who told me to run."

At this, Tilly bit her lip, swallowed, and then continued. "I saw Cobalt in the sky and knew what Brutus had done, but up until then I had no idea which one of you it was. And then Katniss—"

She flung herself forward, throwing her arms around Haymitch and sobbing into his shoulder. Between her sobs she whispered, mindful of the ever-present cameras, "I'm so sorry, Haymitch. I should have stayed with her, not gone after Beetee when I knew he was lost. I could have saved her; she needed me there but instead I ran. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

Haymitch didn't want her touching him, he couldn't stand feeling her trembling figure against his, so reminiscent of Katniss during her break downs. But he didn't tell her to let go because he knew she needed him, needed to feel another human being and in truth, so did he. He let her have her cry-out but didn't encourage her touch as his arms remained still at his sides. When she finally let go and sat back on her knees, she dabbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand, looking ashamed.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't like physical contact."

"It wasn't your fault," said Haymitch quietly. "She was my responsibility, not yours. Her death is on me and no one else. Don't you apologize for that."

Giving a small hiccup, Tilly motioned at Haymitch's head. "What happened to your hair?"

"I cut it off," he replied curtly, not wanting to go into detail.

"Before or after Sickle?"

The question was so unexpected that Haymitch stumbled over his own tongue to get some sort of reply out. Of course Tilly would want to know how he died; she and Sickle were childhood friends. Haymitch considered not telling her if only to spare her the gory details, but decided against it since she had earned the right to know after staying with Katniss for so long. When he finished relating Sickle's demise, Tilly looked faintly green under her tear-flushed face but did not go into another fit of hysteric weeping.

"At least someone was with him when it happened," she said. "He had you—and Cobalt, I suppose."

"If you count Cobalt, you might as well count Brutus. Without him, all three of us might have gone over the side and then it'd be just four of you left now instead of five."

"Well, we're all human, aren't we?' said Tilly with a trace of defiance. "Even Brutus. He remembered that whatever we are at the end of the day, we were once decent people. And even if he did murder our friends, he saved a few as well. That's his way of defying the Capitol and I respect him for that."

"You might think differently if he's bearing down on you with every intention of cleaving your skull in two with his axe," said Haymitch forebodingly.

"I won't think any less of him than I would of you if it came down to just the two of us, but it won't because if Denno doesn't die first, I'm next on the disposal list," Tilly retorted. "Denno may be the least experienced, but I'm the weakest in terms of physical strength and I'm the smallest and I have _this_," she motioned at her makeshift spear, "whereas the rest of you have actual steel weapons."

"If there's one thing these Games have taught me it's that you can't count anyone out until they're dead," said Haymitch. "I would not have expected Beetee or Denno to make it as far as they did and have. I would have ruled them out the first day and placed my bets on the Careers plus Sickle and Katniss. But look at where we are now: two Careers, a District 9, a District 10, and the town drunkard from 12. I don't think even Caesar Flickerman could have bet on that. You may yet win this, Tilly."

"I don't want to."

The statement was blunt enough, but Haymitch couldn't agree more. He didn't want to either, but if he could hold on long enough to makes sure that Finnick or Denno did, at least that was some consolation. Tilly seemed to be thinking along the same lines, for she stood up and started to kick at the fire to put it out.

"We can either find Brutus and try to take him out ourselves, or find the other two and defend them until it's over. I don't know what the outcome will be between the two of them since Finnick still has family, but Denno's more innocent than any of us. Two Games in and he still hasn't killed anyone."

_If he gets a hold of Brutus, there's a very small chance that could change, though_.

/ /

Haymitch didn't know what sector they were in, but of everything, he hoped it wasn't the Beasts' because he didn't think he had enough in him to outrun the things again. What else had they encountered? Insects, blood rain, jungle that came alive. And those were only four sectors out of twelve. The Gamemakers could have come up with any number of foul things to put in this arena and with so few of them left, the audience would be waiting for them to be thrown in together and for the final bloodbath to occur. Only they would be sorely disappointed because Brutus was the only one who needed to die by violent means. The others would opt out.

"Something smells foul," said Tilly presently, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

Sniffing, Haymitch caught a whiff of what smelled like an unpleasant mixture of old blood, urine, and rotting flesh. Pungent to the point of being overwhelming the further in they walked, he had the nasty suspicion that it was either a carcass of great magnitude or some other nasty creature the Gamemakers had whipped up and was just about to suggest turning back when they heard a scream for help and what's more, he knew the owner.

It was not from Brutus, Denno, or Finnick, yet it was human. Or was it? He had seen the owner die, cut down by a well-placed spear. But how could he hear the scream now?

Tilly's hand found his and squeezed it fearfully, but this time, Haymitch squeezed back. This cruel joke being played on them was not only unfunny, but far more twisted than sending innocent people into an arena to kill one another for sport.

A body emerged from the trees, holding one hand to a gaping wound in its chest with old, dried blood congealed around the edges. The face was slightly sunken in, exposing the outlines of a skull underneath the decaying flesh. It stumbled, dead eyes glossed over still, but focused unblinkingly on Haymitch and Tilly. With its other hand it reached out to them almost pleadingly.

"Help me," said Blight.

_What the actual fuck._

"What is it?" Tilly whispered.

"It's an illusion," Haymitch told her, though he had no way of telling. Was it really just an illusion, projected by the Gamemakers' advanced technology to make it appear that their fallen fellow victor was calling for their help? Or, had the Capitol been saving this big reveal to showcase some sick form of cloning where a dead human body could be replicated, brought back to life, and made to haunt those who could not save it in original form? Or even worse, could the Capitol bring back the dead to seek vengeance upon the survivors?

"There's another one," said Tilly, pointing with her free hand and Haymitch saw Lorn, his throat cut open and sporting a matching spear wound like Blight. He only moaned at Haymitch and Tilly, stalking forward in the same manner as the other body.

Tilly took her first step backwards as the third walking corpse appeared on their left. Sickle limped towards them, both feet still intact, but incapable of using them properly as they bent at odd angles underneath him. His head gushed fresher-looking blood from Cobalt's handiwork. Haymitch expected to see what he most feared next, expected her to appear with some horrible wound and her blank eyes forever accusing him of not saving her. But she didn't come. Lash and Chaff came instead, followed shortly after by Cobalt. The bodies converged on them, closing the distance as Haymitch and Tilly stood rooted to the spot in horrified fixation.

"Tilly," called Sickle, his voice raspy and faraway. "Come back. I need you."

"Don't listen," said Haymitch, retreating a few paces but feeling Tilly resist him. "Tilly, it's not him. I saw him die; I held his hand and that-that _thing_ is not him. It'll kill you."

"I wish you had never volunteered," Tilly whispered, eyes glued to Sickle's reanimated form. "You didn't deserve this."

"You know I loved you," said Sickle.

"Tilly, come _on_," said Haymitch, tugging insistently at her arm.

"Haymitch."

Cobalt touched two fingers to the knife wound over his heart and his fingers came away sticky with red ooze. The same stuff ran down from both of his nostrils and from the grotesque cut Brutus had opened up across his face to give him that wider, permanent smile.

"You've come so far. The best of us, here at the end."

"Don't talk to me," said Haymitch fiercely.

"I should never have betrayed you, my friend. Forgive me."

"Shut up!"

"Tilly, come with me, please," said Sickle.

"Haymitch, she would have been proud of you."

"That's it. That is _it_!"

Haymitch scooped up Tilly in his arms and started picking his way back towards the direction from whence they came, but the moans and calls of the dead followed them, shockingly close for corpses that could only stagger around. Chancing a glance over his shoulder, his heart sank as he saw that they were following with the same limps and stumbles, but at the rate of a jogging person so that they were only a few yards behind.

"Haymitch, put me down," Tilly demanded.

"Nope, not after the way you went gooey-eyed over a talking carcass. I'll let you down once we reach the next sector."

"We won't if you keep carrying me because you're slowing down with the effort of lugging my ass over this terrain. I'm too heavy and you're not strong enough."

"Bullshit. Watch me."

Tilly punched him in the shoulder. It shouldn't have stung, but in his malnourished state, it did. He dropped her unceremoniously in the mud. As she scrambled to her feet, Haymitch turned around to watch their pursuers. They were about to be swamped. With as accurate of a throw as he had ever seen from someone with no experience, Haymitch saw Tilly launch her spear into Lash's body, but the weapon did nothing to slow or stop the corpse from coming at them.

"They can't die again," Tilly concluded.

"They have to. Maybe if we take off the heads—"

"I'm not hacking bodies to shreds just so that the audience can finally see me assault my friends like they had bet on," Tilly snarled. "Run, Haymitch."

Haymitch held out his hand to her but she didn't take it. Instead she hollered at Sickle, waving her arms wide to catch the cadaver's attention. "I'm here, Sickle! I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere!"

"Are you fucking mad? Get your ass back here!" Haymitch hissed at her, but she ignored him, continuing to hail Sickle down while slowly moving away from Haymitch to draw the focus away from him.

_No, not again. It's not going to happen again, damn it!_

"Hey, over here!" Haymitch shouted, jumping up and down in place to make the corpses go for him instead.

"Stop it, Haymitch!" Tilly shrieked. "Find Finnick and Denno! End this on our terms!"

"No, _you_ stop it! Run while you still have a chance!"

But she didn't want that chance. She flat-out told him that she didn't want to win. She didn't have the vial of nightlock extract either. This was her way out; she chose it and Haymitch could not take that away from her. He couldn't willingly stand back and watch her do it, though.

"I'll do it, Tilly. I can do it for you, just get out of there, please!"

Sickle was almost on her now, but instead of sprinting away, or trying to dodge, Tilly turned her back on him and faced Haymitch, smiling broadly. "This is my decision, Haymitch. It's not your fault. Don't let it haunt you."

"_Tilly!_"

Two clammy arms closed around her and Sickle's pleading suddenly turned to inhuman screeching as his fingers began to tear into Tilly's stomach. She screamed—but she didn't fight back.

"NO!"

Haymitch launched himself forward but was snared mid-jump by two sets of arms, two sets of warm, strong arms that began to drag him away from the carnage as he kicked and clawed at them. He could still hear Tilly screaming, still see her limbs in the mass of dead bodies surrounding her.

"Don't look," said Finnick, sounding queasy himself.

With no other direction to face, Haymitch clasped his eyes shut.


	17. Chapter 17: Turning Tides

They dragged him right out to the beach and further into hip-deep water where they set him down on his knees and took up defensive guard over him, though for his sake or theirs he couldn't tell. He thrust his hands into the surf, washing off at long last what he had been attempting to clean since the first day. The saltwater stung his cuts and was hell on his hastily shaved head, but it was a cleansing he had needed for so long. As he sat rubbing his hands up and down his body to scrub off the last of the muck, he became aware of Finnick and Denno watching him as if waiting for orders. After all, this all had been his plan from the beginning and now with their intended victor dead, it was time to draw straws.

"So," said Denno after a long while of relative silence apart from the jungle's soundtrack, "what do we do now?"

"If either of you can start a fire, do it. We want Brutus to know where we are, or at least, where you two are, because he doesn't know that I'm with you yet."

"Oh, don't worry about him," said Finnick dismissively. "We already know how we're going to put him down. I think Denno was talking about—after."

"That's up to you two; don't look at me," said Haymitch, cupping water in his hands to trickle over his face.

"We agreed it was up to _you_," said Denno.

"Well, tough shit. As soon as Brutus is gone, I'm done, so you'd better decide now which one of you it will be and let me know if you'll need my help doing it. It might make the audience favor the victor more too if I kill off the second runner-up. They've been wanting to see me kill someone for days, I'm sure."

"You-you mean you haven't yet?" asked Denno. "The Career pack, Cobalt, Sickle—that wasn't you?"

"No, though I can see how you would think that way. Really, Enobaria did half the work; she finished off Cashmere and Shade in less than an hour, Cobalt got her when Brutus wasn't around, giant insects got Sickle, and Brutus killed Cobalt when he tried to save Tilly. I just tagged along and got front row seats to it all. But on the other hand, I'm wondering why I kept hearing cannons from you lot. How'd you get separated from Chaff? What happened to Mags? And Katniss…" he faltered, hoping the cameras couldn't see him as well out in the surf and hoping that the water masked the redness he knew was creeping up in his eyes.

"Chaff thought you were just lost so he went looking for you and never came back," said Finnick. "Mags was bitten by a snake. But I-I don't know what happened to Katniss."

"What?"

Finnick took a very small step backwards, almost disguised by the water lapping around his calves, but Haymitch noticed and there could only be one reason for it; Finnick was afraid of how Haymitch would react.

"The jungle acted like it was alive and grabbed Beetee. Tilly went running after him and I called her back, but I didn't want to leave Katniss and Denno. When I heard the cannon, I didn't know what to think but then there was another cannon less than two minutes later and Katniss peeled off. I think she didn't want to be the one to have to kill Denno and me so she ran. I chased after her, but I lost her almost instantly and I knew if I kept going, she would think I was trying to kill her. She lit out on her own, Haymitch."

Haymitch was on his feet, having no memory of how he got there. He felt blood pounding his temples and an irrepressible rage building from his core upward. Obviously sensing danger, Finnick took another hasty step backwards.

"You mean you _left_ her?" asked Haymitch.

"No, weren't you listening? She was right there next to me and then she ran. You know how fast she is; I couldn't keep up and I lost her."

Haymitch moved forward, closing the distance between him and Finnick. "So you gave up. After a few short seconds you gave up because you thought she'd think you were trying to kill her? What kind of bullshit excuse is that?"

"Hey," Denno interjected, but Haymitch shoved him aside.

"You're the only one with family besides her, Finnick. Was it your goal to have her killed off in the final stages so that you'd be the one to go home, knowing that whoever was left would have sympathy for you because of it? You knew the rest of us had no one to go home to, so you played the ally card until it was inconvenient for you, is that it?"

"You're crazy," said Finnick. "I think that last death made you finally snap."

Haymitch threw himself at Finnick, going for his throat. Finnick used his trident as the last line of defense between himself and Haymitch, pushing at Haymitch's chest to fend him off, but despite Finnick's fit physique, his youth, and his training, Haymitch had only rage. He kicked Finnick's legs out from under him and Finnick went down, disappearing momentarily in the water and as he surfaced, Haymitch grabbed him by the collar, shaking him and screaming.

"_You were supposed to keep her alive! She needed you!"_

"That was your job, not mine!" Finnick roared, swatting at Haymitch's unguarded face with his fists. "She could have used you but you left and a hell of a lot of good it did both of you!"

"Bastard!"

Then, before he could finish the job and strangle Finnick, Haymitch felt someone lift him bodily into the air and haul him away, deeper into the water where it was more difficult to fight back. He kicked and clawed, shouting at Finnick and cursing him to the deepest pits of hell, but mid-curse he was thrown into the water and swallowed enough of the stuff to gag him. Trying to stand up, he felt someone strike him with a backhand slap across his face. Blinking rapidly to rid his eyes of the water, he saw Denno standing over him with his fist raised menacingly.

"Do I need to hit you again, or do you have it under control?" he asked in that same tone he had used when ordering Haymitch and Sickle not to kill Brutus without him. "We're not going out like this, do you hear? I won't let you turn on us just because you can't deal with your grief and take responsibility for your actions."

Haymitch found his footing, stood up, and then staggered. He looked down to see a spear point growing out of his left hip. Falling forward, he grappled for Denno's wetsuit to steady himself. Behind him, he heard Finnick shouting. He turned to see Brutus launching at Finnick with his axe raised, but Finnick met it with his trident handle. The force knocked him back down into the water, but he used the current to his advantage and swam between Brutus's legs to attack him from the back.

Denno made Haymitch bend at the waist so that he was facing the water and placed a steady hand on his back. With no warning, he yanked the spear free and Haymitch shrieked in agony as the steel left his body. Half-blinded by pain, he fell face forward into the water. Upside down, he could see intricate patterns of blood seep out of his wound and mingle with the waves. Past this, he saw more blood further away. Somehow he managed to right himself and upon finding a foothold in the sand below, stood upright. Brutus had Finnick pinned in place with his axe buried in Finnick's chest. Fighting for breath and drowning as his life ebbed away underneath the blade, Finnick stared Brutus down.

But for all of Brutus's skill, he never could have anticipated what came next. He stood over his kill in triumph when his own spear impaled him through the spine. Like a rag doll he dropped, falling sideways instead of forward onto Finnick. Denno yanked the spear out and then buried it in the back of Brutus's head. The cannon signified the last Career's demise, but Denno placed his foot on Brutus's skull to pull the spear back out again and stab its owner through the neck.

Haymitch swam to him, paddling, trying, dying. Denno would be the victor now, there was no doubting it, but Haymitch couldn't let him win in this bloodthirsty wrath. He owed his friend that much, after Denno finally overcame his cowardice. With one hand trying to staunch the blood flowing from his wound, Haymitch reached out to grab the bottom of the spear handle with the other.

"Stop," he told Denno feebly.

Denno tried to shake him off and Haymitch had to raise his voice. "Stop it! That's _enough_, damn it!"

"Let go!"

"Finnick," said Haymitch, hoping to awaken Denno's sense of camaraderie. "Is he still alive?"

Furrowing his brow as if in confusion, Denno lowered his spear and splashed over to where Finnick lay, his hands resting on the axe blade. As Denno dropped to his knees, Finnick's cannon boomed seemingly ten times louder than the other twenty-two Haymitch had heard. This one let all of Panem know that Finnick had died defending the man who had turned on him at the last moment. This cannon told the world that Haymitch Abernathy took on the role of traitor.

** So…if there's anyone out there reading this, I'd appreciate some feedback. I want to get this story finished as I've meant to for ages, but I don't even know if anyone's reading anymore. Let me know if you're there, guys.**


	18. Chapter 18: Willpower

The waves carried Haymitch the rest of the way to where Denno sat on his knees, one hand over his mouth and the other clutching Finnick's wrist. He was able to pull himself through the damp sand to Denno's side and collapse with the side of his face pressed into the satisfyingly cool texture. He would be perfectly content to just lie here until he bled out and thanks to Denno, now he could. The difficult choices had been made for them unwittingly with the help of Brutus. Haymitch didn't know what might have happened if Denno hadn't pulled him away from Finnick when he did, but by killing Finnick, Brutus eliminated the last obstacle besides himself. Denno would win for the second time with one kill under his belt, a kill that had revenge for a loved one behind it. The audience had seen Denno make his first move towards acting like a real tribute by running out onto the walkway to the Cornucopia to save Lash and if there was one thing the Capitol loved more than spilt blood, it was love.

They would have wept over Cobalt avenging Shade by drowning Enobaria. They would have wept to see Denno running to rescue Lash and failing, but ruthlessly stabbing her killer as a form of closure. They would have gone into hysterics when Sickle's corpse confessed love for Tilly because everyone knew the Gamemakers were manipulating the corpses to target Haymitch and Tilly's weak spots. No one would ever know if Sickle really had cared for Tilly in a way more complex than friendship, though. The viewers might have even been surprised to find out that Brutus harbored feelings for his district partner since the Careers normally joked around with each other and then slit the other's throat in their sleep. But what was their reaction when the cameras showed Haymitch realizing that his district partner, his friend, had fallen? What would they make of his and Katniss's relationship?

It couldn't matter much now. He would never have to answer questions pertaining to it either. He would die here and Denno would be the one to face Panem once again. In a way, Denno was the unlucky one because he had just survived his second arena and would now be thrown back into the viper's pit to pretend to love the audience and then go home with a whole new handful of nightmares to cope with. In that sense, Haymitch felt ever so slightly ashamed of his own death wish if it meant leaving Denno to try and survive with the horrors planted in his mind. Sending Denno off with his last memory of the arena consisting of Haymitch barely floating in small breakers of his own blood was not a good omen, but there was nothing to be done about that.

Or was there? Denno could make the going less painful if he just stuck Haymitch through the throat or the eye with the spear. But then again, killing Brutus was a one-time event and Denno was not likely to do it again, especially to a friend. No, Haymitch would have to do this himself. He could still feel the nightlock vial pressed against his midsection, only there would be some difficulty in getting it out and swallowing the lot without the cameras seeing.

"Denno," said Haymitch softly. "Help me."

Jerked from a daze, Denno leaned over Haymitch, pressing his hands to the wound entry as Haymitch held the exit hole. Beckoning with his finger for Denno to lean closer, Haymitch whispered, "Peeta sent me poison. It's in my belt but I need help reaching it so that the cameras can't see what I'm doing. Just cover me as best you can until I swallow it and after the cannon goes off, get rid of the vial."

He had not even begun to move his hand towards his belt when Denno lugged him into an upright position that greatly upset his wounds. With a sharp exhale, he arched his back and Denno caught him before he hit the sand again.

"What are you doing?" he asked Haymitch in an undertone.

"I just told you and now it's going to be even more difficult since you made me sit up, you blockhead."

"No, you can't," said Denno resolutely. "You've escaped these past twenty-five years by drinking, Haymitch. You can cope with what we've been through because even if you didn't slaughter anyone this time around, you're still a fighter. It wasn't by luck that you survived like how I did in my first Games. You made it to the end; you can make it past today—you _have_ to make it past today. I can't go back out there like you could. I told you from the beginning that there was no point in trying to win this time around, but you gave me a reason to keep fighting. That reason died, so it's only fitting that the next best thing take its place."

"You make me out to sound like a symbol of hope and rebellion, which I'm _not_," said Haymitch, now starting to feel annoyed that Denno was delaying this painful death. "The rebellion died with her, do you understand? If I made it home, it wouldn't mean a damn thing. I'm not a symbol of anything except expert drunkenness."

"So it was all for nothing? All of _this_ was for nothing?"

Haymitch's silence confirmed Denno's fear and with a wild howl of a wounded dog, he snatched the knife out of Haymitch's belt, turning the blade on himself. Only by reflex did Haymitch catch him, tugging away from Denno with all of his strength.

"Don't you do it, you bastard," Haymitch growled through clenched teeth. "I won't let you."

"You can't decide for me," Denno replied, his face under enormous strain to pull in the opposite direction, towards his own heart. "You don't get to decide my fate, not while I'm still breathing."

The furious battle of tug-of-war would only go on for as long as their strength held out and right now Denno was the stronger of the two not only because he was better fit going into the Games than beer-gutted Haymitch, but he had maintained that fitness throughout whereas Haymitch had been wasting away the past few days. Add in the fact that Haymitch had a gaping hole running through his hip and it was a wonder that Denno had not yet succeeded in stabbing himself. The odds were completely against Haymitch, but this time not for death. This time it meant that he would be the one to have to walk back into the spotlight and live with more guilt, nightmares, and pain than he could bear.

No, he couldn't live through that, not again. Denno was being self-centered; Haymitch needed this more than any of them had, even the morphlings. He had to take the knife back, he _had_ to win this fight.

"Let—go," he whispered at Denno, feeling blood now trickling down his from his nostrils with exertion. "Fucking _let go_, you stupid, selfish son of a bitch!"

"You have to live for all of us, Haymitch. United, we were a force to be reckoned with."

Haymitch put the rest of his energy into giving a tremendous yank, but Denno kneed him hard in the groin and reacting out of pain, knowing what it would cost and being unable to stop it, Haymitch recoiled. He had been resisting Denno's pull with such force that the blade drove through Denno's skin right up to the hilt as Haymitch released it and Denno's strength won. Gasping just loud enough so that only Haymitch could hear, Denno keeled forward, head coming to a rest on Haymitch's shoulder. A shudder ran through Denno's body and the humidity of this damned jungle could not disguise the clammy coldness that had crept over his skin.

"NO!" Haymitch thundered, reaching to remove the knife and apply pressure to Denno's wound, but with how deep he knew the blade had gone and the location where it had gone in confirmed the fact that Denno would not come back from this. Tears burned and brimmed in Haymitch's eyes and he pounded his fists on the sand, sending up particles in all directions as he screamed at Denno who had now fallen sideways and lay twitching on the ground beside him.

"No, you idiot! Damn you, you fucking bastard! Damn you!"

Haymitch lifted Denno's head as he had done with Sickle and rested it upon his lap, only this time he went into a rocking motion, cradling Denno and sending tears splashing down onto his friend's face. Like a mother nursing an ill child to sleep, Haymitch held Denno, rocking to the rhythm of the waves until the last cannon signified the final fallen victor.

He heard the hovercraft descending upon him, but didn't look up or even move. He held tightly to Denno, determined to stay with him until they nailed him inside his coffin. It might have been an hour that passed, maybe a few seconds, perhaps days, but Haymitch felt a hand close around his wetsuit and instantly he froze as the hovercraft raised him and Denno up into its belly to be prepared for celebration and burial respectively. Once inside, Haymitch unfroze and flung himself over Denno as if to protect his body from further harm but Capitol doctors attempted to pry him away so that they could set to work on tending to Haymitch's mortal wound. It would not do to have the victor die shortly after winning.

When one man managed to wrench Haymitch's hand free from Denno's wrist, Haymitch punched him in the mouth, knocking out a few intricately painted teeth in the process. He withdrew the knife from Denno's heart and swiped out in a wide arc with it to fend off the doctors. Damn them all, the people who only cared about patching Haymitch up so as to save their own skins. They could all die horrible deaths worthy of the Hunger Games; then a small amount of satisfaction might be had.

The cameras on Haymitch right now would be displaying a victor who had gone completely off the deep end, but what did he care? He never wanted to survive this and he would not play by their rules anymore. Snow could have him executed in a staged accident on his way home to District 12 as far as Haymitch was concerned. There was no way they could hurt him now and his actions could harm no one else. So he fought them, the doctors who sought to take Denno away, and managed to slice through several of their pure white uniforms so that blood splattered the pristine floor and walls.

After watching him mentally deteriorate on camera, it was probably Snow's decision to send a few Peacekeepers along on the hovercraft. They pushed through the doctors with their batons poised for action.

"Come on and have a go, you fucking cowards!" Haymitch spat, raising his knife. "Come on!"

One of the Peacekeepers tried reasoning with him. "You're unstable right now, which is understandable. We promise we won't hurt him, but you have to let him go now or things will get ugly."

"You promise not to _hurt_ him? He's dead, you moron! Your people killed him because this is what you do for entertainment! You think it's amusing to watch people kill each other, watch _children _kill each other! Let's start a new tradition and have your children fight to the death, huh? You pampered, useless, brainless fools wouldn't last two hours outside of these walls! You take everything from the survivors and leave them as empty shells and you don't think twice about it! Well, you won't have me or him!"

The Peacekeeper who spoke raised a gun and shot Haymitch in the shoulder blade. Haymitch just had time to register the fluffy pink end of the dart before his world tilted sideways by no doing of the hovercraft. His eyes slid in and out of focus and he could not keep his feet. He went down onto one knee, still clasping Denno's hand in his free one. Darkness fell and engulfed him in its cold embrace before he even had a chance to hit the floor.


	19. Chapter 19: Compliance

They couldn't keep him alive by force-feeding him his nutrition. What if he suddenly decided that he wasn't going to take the injustice of it anymore and simply gave up? Would his body still support him if his will no longer devoted itself to sustaining him? The tubes and needles connected to his body couldn't outmatch the human capacity for stubbornness. Incidentally, what exactly were the tubes doing besides feeding him food and water? They certainly weren't pumping morphling into him because he could still feel and see every cut, every bruise from his time in the arena. In fact, if he didn't know any better, he would say that none of his wounds had been tended to beyond preventing them from being the cause of him dying.

His head stung from his abysmal close-shaving and his souvenir from Brutus had been almost clumsily sewn up just so that he wouldn't bleed out, but by no means was he as clean and new as a baby fresh from the womb. This was against tradition; every victor was genetically changed to look appealing and healthy to the audience for the closing ceremonies. So what the hell happened here?

He tugged at the straps binding him to his bed and instantly felt a few stitches open up, staining the plain grey gown someone had dressed him in. The sliding doors to his left opened and an Avox walked in bearing a white envelope on a small silver platter. The boy held the plate out for Haymitch's bound hand to grab, but Haymitch couldn't shake the damned thing open, so the Avox had to indulge him. As the boy held the message up to Haymitch's face, an instant whiff of blood and roses hit him and he gagged before peering at the paper through bleary eyes.

_Mr. Abernathy,_

_ Congratulations on your second victory. I hope this message finds you well, and I am sure you will be up to performing for tonight's ceremonies. However, I feel inclined to remind you that there are still Games to be played and that you must be able to meet the standards set before you. Regardless of your feelings, your actions must meet the status quo tonight, as I would hate for something to happen to Mr. Mellark, should you choose to be uncooperative. There are always eyes on you.  
Wishing you a pleasant day,_

A large "S" written with a flourish in blood-red ink ended the message and Haymitch bawled his fist.

Snow had to know that he was not receiving proper victor treatment, but he chose to write this message as a slap in the face to Haymitch. Yet, there was also a warning in the message: Haymitch had to guard his tongue tonight, or risk Peeta's life because no doubt his actions on the hovercraft with the Peacekeepers had been seen by Snow. Any more acts of rebellion would only feed what Katniss had started and unsettle the audience. Tonight was about the viewers and not the victor and only afterwards could Haymitch return to his drunken state of being.

So be it.

"Okay, I get it," he said loudly for the doctors behind the two-way mirror to hear him. "Let me out."

Four Peacekeepers marched in, one of them carrying a bag of clothes for Haymitch to change into. Placing it on the bed at Haymitch's feet, the Peacekeeper spoke, and Haymitch recognized the voice as the one who had attempted to reason with him on the hovercraft.

"We are about to unstrap you, Mr. Abernathy. If you raise your voice to us, you will be sedated. If you attempt to run, you will be sedated. If you resist or attack, you will be shot. Do you understand?"

"Got it," said Haymitch curtly, deciding that this man's sadistic mannerisms had earned him the title of Snow Number Two.

The Peackeepers released him and stood by, their blank masks turned on Haymitch.

"Well, you'd all better look the other way because my days of letting people see me stark naked are over."

As one, the Peacekeepers did an about face, granting him a small amount of privacy as he wriggled out of his gown, feeling every bruise and cut almost as if they were fresh on his body. He found a pair of underwear buried at the bottom of the bag underneath a simple pair of tan pants, soft, heelless shoes, and a white tunic. Clumsily dressing himself while still splayed out horizontally on the bed, Haymitch finally managed to do up the button on his pants and then stood up. The Peacekeepers formed the corners of a square around him and marched him out the door towards the elevator at the far end of the corridor.

Once inside, Snow Number Two entered a code into the digit panel and Haymitch felt them descending deeper under the Tribute Center instead of upwards towards the twelfth floor.

"Now what?" he asked irritably, though with some trepidation.

"You'll see," said Snow Number Two.

The hospital was already underneath the Training Center which was the first underground level of the building, so how deeper were they actually going? He had little time to think any more on the subject, for they came to a jerky halt and the two Peacekeepers ahead of him stepped out, leading him down a tunnel that looked like it could have housed hovercrafts with a wide wing length and an arched ceiling. They marched towards a small station where several white crates sat side by side—no wait, not crates. _Coffins_.

"No," said Haymitch suddenly, digging his heels into the floor, but the shoes offered little resistance and the Peacekeepers pushing him forward were much stronger than he.

"You agreed," Snow Number Two reminded him and reached back to drag Haymitch by the arm to where the coffins stood with even numbers on the left and odd on the right. Not all of them were open casket since some of the victors had met horrible deaths that left them in pieces. If this was the case, their training score photo had been set up on a small projector above their coffin.

This was the absolute lowest Snow could go. No other victors ever had to walk past their fellow tributes' bodies after the Games because no other victors had ever had such respect and love for their fellow tributes before. Haymitch was friends with most of them, acquaintances with all, and even those who he had marked as early enemies were only temporary ones, not spawn of the Capitol who worked for Snow. Even the Careers were just players in Snow's Games and none of them had a personal vendetta against him.

"Okay, I've seen," said Haymitch, but Snow Number Two wouldn't let him turn around.

"You are instructed to walk past each one as a sign of respect."

_Respect? What bullshit._

He knew, though, that if he refused, Peeta's life was on the line. Snow had not dodged around the corner when stating that Haymitch's closest and only remaining friend would pay for his crimes if Haymitch didn't make the dreaded walk between the coffins.

Cashmere's picture replaced the mauled corpse that he had dragged from the jungle. Beside her Gloss's once handsome face was now sunken in and slightly green since he was one of the very first kills. Beetee and Wiress were both already nailed in, though Haymitch couldn't imagine why she was, since she was one of the Career kills. Obviously, Beetee had been completely torched by the electric force field and his remains had to have been charred. Shade was half-nailed into her coffin with her lower half concealed from where the water mutt had ripped her in two. She looked completely drained of blood, which was a fair statement since she had probably lost the most. Cobalt's burial shirt had blood seeping through it near the chest area where Brutus had stuck him and his face had been almost clumsily stitched back together so that the awful cut Brutus opened up across his mouth looked less like an extension of his lips and more as if he was pursing his cheeks. His nose stuck sideways, still broken, making his face look like some grotesque drawing. Both Blight and Johanna had died with a pained expression on their faces, brows furrowed so that they looked like they were scowling instead of sleeping peacefully.

Tilly's arms, neck, and face had gouges and bruises on them where the animated corpses had grabbed her and torn into her, yet whoever was in charge of overseeing the burial rights decided that she was presentable enough to not be sealed into her coffin already. Sickle's eyelids were puffy with the poison that had swelled up in his eyes just before his death and small silvery-blue veins grew from them as the poison spread throughout his body. Lastly on the odd side were Seeder and Chaff, equal in all manners of death except for their hands crossed over their chests because Chaff's stump had to be clipped in place to keep it from moving around during his transportation back to Eleven.

Haymitch doubled back to start at the victors of Two, deliberately leaving the last in hopes that the coffin would somehow disappear. Enobaria's already tanned skin took on a blushed color and she looked slightly swollen in areas from being drowned in blood, though Haymitch figured that her body had been given treatment to make her look even worse in the aftermath just to upset him. He already knew that Brutus would be sealed into his coffin because Denno had left most of his head unrecognizable (and privately he thought that Denno might have also taken into account that District Two would be out for his blood after his brutal killing of their tribute, which was why he took his own life), but still, the enormous coffin was almost surreal, making every last moment in the arena live on in his mind. Poor Mags had been bitten by a poisonous snake, but unlike Sickle, Mag's veins only bulged with the poison instead of changing color to match the mutt insects' venom. Finnick could have been playing dead with how fresh he looked. Avis and Lorn both had slit throats that were dressed up and covered, but since they were already wasted away when they had died, they had barely enough flesh on them to avoid looking like complete skeletons.

However Cecelia had died, it was quick and clean, for she did not look as waxen as Gloss while Woof had a high collar protecting his throat to hide the cut that had opened it. Lash's snapped neck sat in a brace to keep in from rolling around during transport and beside her, Denno's constantly anxious face was finally at peace. Haymitch figured the Peacekeepers would have something to say about him touching the dead, but he didn't care as he reached into the coffin and grasped Denno's wrist.

Lastly, in a closed coffin, sat Katniss with her rebellious expression forever preserved in her training score picture. Haymitch refused to allow himself to think of what had happened to her that would call for her to be concealed from sight. Resting his hand on top of the plain wooden lid, he whispered, "I'll be home soon."

"If you've finished," said Snow Number Two.

Shaking with fury, Haymitch stomped back up the aisle to confront the masked mercenaries. "_If I've finished?_ That sounds like I requested to come down here and see all of these people again, you idiot."

"We'll escort you back to your quarters now," said Snow Number Two, unphased.

Back in the elevator, Haymitch wanted nothing more than to seize one of the Peacekeepers' weapons and cut each of them down, leaving their bodies to rot in the lift until the next Games, but now that he was so close to getting out of the Capitol, so close to being able to curse and rage by tearing his room apart, he knew he had to restrain himself. As the doors opened for him to step off of the elevator, he turned back around to the Peacekeepers and just as the grilles were about to slide shut, said with as much venom as he could put into his voice, "Fuck you."


	20. Chapter 20: The Undeserving

Portia was waiting for him in his room along with his prep team. She didn't hug him, for which he was grateful, but her eyes told him how very sorry she was, how she could never put into words the grief she felt for him. The prep team didn't have much to work with, though Haymitch thought they looked rather relieved. His hair would have been disastrous to comb through, had he kept it, but now his shaved head offered them nothing. The same brace he wore for the interview and the tribute parade was placed on his back, but his clothes had to be taken in around the waist since he had completely lost the weight around it. The scraggly beard that had grown out since Day 1 was shaved to resemble the blonde stubble he had before. His fingernails were filed, his body coated in powder to hide the scars that the doctors did not see fit to heal. Over and over Haymitch wondered why he was left with visible cuts and wounds where all other victors had top-of-the-line healing cream applied to them so that they looked like an entirely new person. Portia said that the bags under his eyes needed to be perked up so he was stuck with a needle under each eye to give the skin a healthier appearance.

His ceremonial suit was ash grey, the material looking like it was sifting and scattering in the wind. Another order from Snow, he supposed. Before, he and Katniss were fiery, flaming, and unstoppable, but with her death and Haymitch's victory, that fire had died out and all that remained was ash. So subtle.

"That's you finished," said Portia after a surprisingly short time, stepping back to look at him and shooing away the prep team.

"Where's Peeta?" asked Haymitch. He should have met him out in the living area at the very least, but not Peeta, Effie, or Cinna had been there to greet him.

"He won't be seeing you until after the ceremony and interview," said Portia. "Effie and Cinna too. They'll all be at the ceremony, of course, but Cinna's had to console with Peeta and Effie's been, er, a bit weepy lately."

Haymitch scowled. Here he was, having to walk past bodies of his fallen comrades and Effie didn't even have the decency to come out and see him because she was _a bit weepy. _What utter bullshit. It was a mark of just how soft and cowardly these Capitol people were and Haymitch felt an unexplainable hatred for Effie, despite the tears she wept for Katniss. She was still spawn of the very place Haymitch hated and no matter how much she had grown to care for a select few individuals in District 12, she would never be one of them.

"Are you ready?" asked Portia when Haymitch made no response.

"No," Haymitch grunted.

"Neither are we, but just remember, this time tomorrow night you'll be halfway home."

"Goody," said Haymitch, staring at his reflection. The first time coming out of the Games, he was not emaciated, but still a bit thinner than when he had started. If anything had changed about him, it was the color of his face. Now, however, he looked like one of the corpses that had murdered Tilly. His cheeks were unfilled, his eyes sunken despite the injection to puff the skin around them up again. His eyes were almost grey now, so vacant and dead-looking that Haymitch thought it a marvel that he could see at all. His shaved head made him seem smaller, more vulnerable, and quite suddenly he wished that he hadn't shaved off that mat of blonde.

"What do you think?"

Portia might have been asking whether or not Haymitch found his suit attractive, but he knew what she meant.

"If I didn't feel my heart actually beating against my chest, I would have thought I was dead," said Haymitch miserably.

"Which you shouldn't, because they were supposed to make you presentable for the cameras, but they didn't. I'll be reporting them—"

"Snow gave the order for me to be able to stand up and walk, but not to fully heal me," said Haymitch. It was an educated guess, but his guess had to be pinpoint accuracy because why else did he look like he belonged in a coffin with his fellow victors? "Every scratch and bruise I got in the arena is still here, but the pain is numb. That spear thrust should have been completely taken care of, but it's only in bandages. I should have been pumped so full of rejuvenating liquids that I looked like porcelain, but instead—this."

"But why?"

"I don't know yet, but I think I'll be informed later. For now, let's just go. I don't want to be in this get up any longer than I have to."

Portia made a final adjustment by centering Haymitch's dark grey tie. "I like the shaved head," she said kindly. "You can't hide your face behind it and it's a nice face."

/ /

Caesar Flickerman's booming voice sounded so foreign to Haymitch who was used to cannons, screams, and the nocturnal sounds of insects that he had to clap his hands over his ears as Caesar welcomed the audience to the crowing of the victor of the 75th Annual Hunger Games and Third Quarter Quell. There was subdued applause and a couple of boos from the crowd, but Haymitch found he didn't care.

"Now, now, there's no call for that," said Caesar in his falsely upbeat tone. "Don't judge our victor before he's had his say. After all, the cameras can only show us so much and we have no idea what went on in his head."

The crowd muttered and Caesar ran with the introduction. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the preparation team for District 12!"

Haymitch kept his eyes down, staring at the silver wrist band Portia had added last minute when she saw his twitchy hands so that he had something to fiddle with if he got stuck answering questions. There was much more enthusiastic applause for the prep teams whose work on Haymitch had made him into one of the best looking victors despite the long-term effects of alcohol. More clapping for Effie and Haymitch's gut rippled in anger again as he listened to her accept her standing ovation while Katniss lay far beneath them in a closed coffin.

_I can't do this. No one wants me up there and I can't tell them why or how things turned out the way they did. There's no point._

Portia went next, touching her hand to her stomach as a reminder to Haymitch to keep himself standing upright. Peeta stepped on stage, the crowd actually went wild, sobbing for him, the sole survivor of the star-crossed lovers. There were declarations of love from women who now saw a highly available bachelor and hoots from men who pretended to understand Peeta's pain.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the winner of the 75th Annual Hunger Games, a two-time victor of the Second and Third Quarter Quells, Haymitch Abernathy!"

The platform was rising and Haymitch clasped his eyes shut, digging his fingernails into his palm to keep from losing his head completely and run screaming back to the elevator. He felt brightness on the back of his neck as several lights hit him from behind to give him a silhouette and he smelled fake fog billowing in at his feet to give him a dark, foreboding presence. He was met with utter silence from the audience.

"Come, come, now, is that any way to treat a victor?" Caesar reprimanded, but Haymitch, goaded into speech by his irrevocable hatred of these people who forced him into this arena to die and now had the gall to reject him, stepped off of his platform and put his hand on Caesar's wrist.

The microphone clipped to the collar of his suit went live and he said in as level of a tone as he could manage, "I'd treat me that same way, if I was out there, Caesar."

Apparently the audience had not expected him to have a rebuttal, expected him to hide in shame because how _dare_ he survive when Katniss didn't? But Haymitch was going to make them remember his interview because he had no intention of playing with them. He would follow Snow's instructions, but he would give these brainless fools a good telling off.

"Haymitch, I must admit I am absolutely shocked that you are here," said Caesar. "I mean, we'll get to the votes and the betting in a moment, but I don't think any of us could have predicted your final moments in the arena, especially when we saw how Katniss's death affected you. What do you have to say about that?"

"I would agree with you. I was shocked myself when the gong told me that I'd won again, especially because I knew I didn't deserve it and didn't want it."

"And how has this second victory been treating you?"

"See for yourself."

At his cue, the background lights went out and a spotlight shone down on him. The crowd gasped and a few women screamed. Caesar, however, immediately put his hand on Haymitch's back as if to steady him and guided him to the interview seat. As Haymitch eased down into his seat, he glimpsed himself on the screen, a gaunt, dying person who looked like he was suffering from some terrible disease. The host of coddled Capitol individuals continued to shout out in horror and a ripe stench hit Haymitch's nostrils, telling him that a few had thrown up. What was wrong with these people? They saw blood, guts, and starvation on their screens as they sat eating some extravagant dinner, yet they couldn't stomach the sight of a withered body?

_God, I hate you all._

"Settle down, now," said Caesar and Haymitch allowed himself to look up at the host who, despite being a pawn of the Capitol, showed genuine concern for Haymitch's current condition. "Haymitch, what _happened _to you?"

"This is what tributes look like when they come out of the arena," said Haymitch and the crowd went silent again. "Some make it out with flying colors, proud to have won. But most of us are damaged beyond repair and we need several days to recuperate because we've been starving, pushing our bodies to the absolute physical limit, and wondering _what happens next?_ This is what happens next. This is how a real body looks when you take everything away from it."

"Well, I believe it would help to tell your story by viewing it from beginning to end," said Caesar and the stage lights dimmed slightly to soften Haymitch's face as if that would help lessen its impact on the crowd. Last year's love angle would not work at all this time around and Haymitch feared that Snow had told the filmmakers to throw random clips in that put Haymitch in every bit as negative of a light as it could.

The viewing began with Haymitch rising out of the ocean, looking around desperately to locate Katniss as he stood blinking in the direct sunlight. Haymitch watched himself unknowingly battle Gloss and then throw Sickle bodily into the water as he ran to the Cornucopia and immediately took up a stance beside Katniss. One by one deaths flashed onscreen and Haymitch saw his own reaction to each one replayed. He was the very definition of a statue: completely still, unmoving, blank. In a way, seeing his friends dead in the tunnel had prepared him for this film.

When one of the Beasts separated Haymitch's party, the screen split into two: one side showing Lorn coating Haymitch in mud and the other showing Katniss calling Haymitch's name as she and the rest of her protective allies marched through the jungle. From Cashmere's death to Lash's, the cameras would show each individual death, then Haymitch's reaction and linger on his interaction with the tributes who remained, staying close to his face so that his every emotion was visible. Alternating between deaths was Katniss constantly arguing with her allies as she stubbornly insisted on finding Haymitch. During this time Finnick and Mags joined Katniss's team and then Mags was bitten by a snake on the shoulder blade.

When Haymitch ran splashing out to Katniss and she threw her arms around him, the audience began to weep and when Haymitch instructed her to run on without him, there were several hisses, though not as many as when Haymitch's name had first been announced.

Haymitch saw Sickle screaming as he was eaten alive, saw Brutus step in at the last moment to drag all three of them to safety, saw what must have been Beetee's leg hit the force field, saw Cobalt gape as the knife entered his body. Then, on the darkest night of the Games, it was difficult to make out, but Haymitch heard a strange howling, an ear-shattering scream, and then saw Katniss being lifted into the air by hovercraft, though he only knew it was her because there were only two women left in the arena and Tilly had not died in such a manner. Whoever was responsible for setting up cameras in that particular sector was surely executed since the audience could not see exactly how their darling had died.

The corpses came for Tilly, and Finnick and Denno deposited Haymitch in the shallow water. Then Haymitch attacked Finnick and there were boos to be heard yet again. Brutus's spear impaled Haymitch and then Denno yanked it out, stabbing Brutus with it just after the District 2 victor planted his axe in Finnick.

Haymitch clasped his hands together, covering his nose and mouth as Denno's final moments played on screen. The last shot was of Haymitch cursing Denno to oblivion for his selfishness and then the screen went black.

"Well," said Caesar, turning in his seat to address Haymitch, "an interesting story to tell indeed. We all know how you twenty-four victors considered yourselves friends, but you seemed to have taken the meaning to heart. Dragging Cashmere out of the jungle, making Cobalt let go of Shade when you knew she was lost, going back to Chaff after District 2 had killed him and saying goodbye, refusing to let go of Sickle, carrying Tilly as far as you could, and cradling Denno—you took on a motherly, or should I say, fatherly role out there. Yet, you claim you were trying to protect Katniss the whole time. You went to such lengths for the other victors, but not her. What's your reasoning?"

"I owed Katniss for keeping me supplied with alcohol during a shortage in District 12," said Haymitch, knowing the night would be over as soon as he could speak his piece. "Without it, I get vivid nightmares and suffer from withdrawal, so I was in her debt. I knew I wasn't going to make it to the end of the Games, so I thought I might as well try to get her there. To those victors who I knew wouldn't survive, I asked if they would help me see Katniss through in case I couldn't."

"But it didn't happen like that."

"No, I lost her. Everything started to go downhill from there."

"I think we, as an audience, first noted that when you sliced off all of your hair."

"It _did_ stink, but you just can't walk around like that, with blood and muck all over you. I panicked and hacked it all off."

"And once you found out Katniss was dead, you ran from Brutus."

"I was only useful to him in finding Katniss because he thought she would come to me. When she died, I became expendable."

"And the last ten minutes of the Games, when Finnick told you he lost her, you turned on him."

"I'm not proud of it., but it was an act of lunacy. And I never got the chance to apologize to Finnick because of it."

"And Denno?"

"Well, as you saw from the footage, I was run through with Brutus's spear and thought to myself that this was the final moment. I knew Denno would win because I had been wounded too severely. But Denno surprised me and I tried to stop him; I fought him with every ounce of strength I possessed, but in the end, it wasn't enough because all it took was one second of me letting my guard down. He used my own force against me and when his cannon sounded, I had a complete breakdown. They didn't show you what happened in the hovercraft, but I held on to Denno for as long as I could and begged the doctors to not heal me, to not give me the nutrition I needed to survive."

The audience shifted restlessly and Haymitch trained his eyes on them. "I'm not stupid. I know none of you wanted me as victor and believe me, I didn't plan on it, but when I found out I was, that there was no way of bringing Denno back, I gave up. I knew I didn't deserve to win, so why did I deserve to be healed? See, I asked them to kill me, but they took pity on me, saying it wasn't my fault that Denno committed suicide. Still, my body hasn't responded to their procedures and that's why I look the way I do. This is me punishing myself for letting Denno do what he did. But you—" Haymitch stood up, glaring at the meaningless faces out in the crowd, "—you act as if I had planned this. You sit there hissing and booing at _me_ because of something I couldn't prevent. Are you all blind? Did you not watch me for the second time tell Denno that I was ready to die? Did you not hear me tell Finnick and Denno to choose who would live because I'd already decided to slit my own throat? You _know_ I never wanted this, tried my damn hardest not to let it happen, but when it did, you act like I intended for it to happen that way."

Shame. He saw shame out there and was filled with contempt for them. Caesar did not restrain him, but maybe that was because he was being fed words from Snow who wanted Haymitch to cause his own destruction in front of all of Panem.

"I gave everything for these Games, twice. But since I went half-mad with rage just like dozens of other tributes have in the past, just because that rage controlled me to throw a few punches Finnick's way, just because I was too weak to prevent Denno from stabbing himself in the stomach with my knife, you have the audacity to sit there and spit at me. I bled for your entertainment. I went insane for your pleasure. I'm now dying for it and you ungrateful bastards think you have the right to scorn me."

Haymitch felt his legs about to give out, but Caesar was there, draping Haymitch's arm around his shoulders.

"I'm not supposed to be here, but if I was a viewer instead of a participator, I would at least have the decency to honor the person who won, no matter what the circumstances."

The anthem blared across the loudspeakers and Caesar guided him to center stage where President Snow came forth from behind the curtains. A boy carried the golden laurelled crown and Snow lifted it high into the air so that the cameras could zoom in on it.

"Congratulations on your victory, Mr. Abernathy."

Snow placed the crown on his head, cruel, cold gold that stung against the still healing cuts on his closely shaved skin. He shivered slightly and then Snow stepped back, waiting for him to say something, perhaps give a "thank you" as he had during his first victory. Only he couldn't. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Snow grinned at him in what might have been an understanding expression if not for the fierceness in his eyes, the chill keeping out all human emotion. The president clapped his shoulder, but held on, squeezing slightly to let Haymitch know that they were still live, still in front of hundreds of cameras.

"I…"

Haymitch faltered again and chanced a look up at the screen. He saw himself pale, thin, and frightened. The teenager who stood before Snow the first time had more courage and rebellious nature than the man who stood here now. The Games had reduced him to a child, afraid of everything and everyone. Broken—just like so many tributes whose minds never left the arena.

The dreaded lump formed in Haymitch's throat and he felt a tear fall from his left eye. Then another from his right.

"You're overcome with emotion, it's quite understandable," said Snow genially, and put his arms around Haymitch, shifting his shoulder upward to hide Haymitch's face from view. He didn't need to continue embarrassing the man who survived the deadliest Games ever—Haymitch had already been disgraced in front of the entire nation and they all knew how shattered he was. This act of kindness from Snow in concealing Haymitch's tears was not out of the goodness of Snow's heart; the president knew by watching the Games that Haymitch did not like to be touched but here in front of the cameras, Haymitch would have to endure the chilling embrace of his last enemy, his only enemy.

"Get it under control before I let you go, Mr. Abernathy," Snow whispered in his ear. "The audience won't appreciate a sobbing victor at the crowning ceremony and they already loathe you. Don't give them another weapon."

Haymitch had half a mind to tell Snow to fuck off and then shove him away but instead he took a great shuddering breath and reached his hand up between himself and Snow to wipe away the tears. When he was sure that no more would fall, he cleared his throat and Snow once again backed away, still smirking.

"Now there's the victor of your youth."


	21. Chapter 21: Open Defiance

Peeta met him before Haymitch was completely through the door to Level 12. He held Haymitch in a long embrace—much too long—but Haymitch accepted it because he knew that rebellious words putting the people of the Capitol to shame was something Katniss had always wanted to do.

"I'm sorry," said Peeta.

"What the hell do you have to be sorry about?" asked Haymitch in bewilderment.

"I put too much pressure on you. I could see it in your face from the moment you came out of the launch room that you were thinking about her, about trying to get her out. It started to eat away at you. I had to watch you start to die a very slow death as you went through the Games and all because I asked you to save her. If I had known what it would cost, I never would have—"

"I was the one who volunteered for you, kid," said Haymitch, fumbling with his tie to try and get it off, but only succeeding in getting it tangled. The constriction around his throat started a panicked breathing deep in his lungs.

"Haymitch?" said Cinna over Peeta's shoulder, watching him.

"Get it off," said Haymitch, tearing at the tie with his pristine fingernails. "Get—this—fucking—thing—_off_!"

Peeta slapped Haymitch's hands away from the tie and had it off in seconds. "You're okay, calm down."

"It's alright, Haymitch, you're safe," said Effie.

_Safe_?

Haymitch started to laugh. It sounded like nothing that had ever come out of him before and it burned his throat. He couldn't stop though, and he felt disgusted for doing it. As he went on and on, Peeta, Effie, and Cinna looked to Portia for an explanation.

"His mental state is decaying," said Portia.

"It's my fault," said Peeta.

That shut Haymitch up. He grabbed Peeta by the front of his shirt, but didn't have the strength to lift him off of the floor. "Don't you say that. I can't stand listening to you take the blame for this! Why aren't you shouting at me right now? I let her die; you loved that girl more than anything and I let her die so why are you so damn calm?"

"That's enough, Haymitch," said Cinna, breaking Haymitch's hold. "We'll have time to grieve for Katniss, but right now you're our main priority. You're going to kill yourself if you don't get a hold on your anger, start sleeping, and eat a decent meal."

"Oh, that's not going to happen, Mr. Stylist," said Haymitch coldly. "You heard my interview. I chose to do this to myself and you aren't going to be the one to stop me."

"_He _did this to you, Haymitch," said Peeta. "Since when has the Capitol ever given in to a tribute's begging and pleading? If you asked them to take you off medication, they wouldn't do it unless authorized and only one person can do that. He wanted to make you look like the least desirable thing ever to walk the earth and he did. But now that he's had his fun, you have to come back to us. You can't give up, not when we need you."

"Need me? _Need me? _What the hell for? I proved in the Games how useless I am, didn't I? What good am I going to be back in 12? Answer me that, Golden Boy."

"Not another word, Haymitch," said Effie authoritatively.

"Get out!" Haymitch roared. "All of you get out!"

Cinna had to steer Peeta away and Portia wiped tears from her eyes as she followed, but since Effie was in her ridiculously high heels, she was straggling.

"Not you," Haymitch snarled at her. "I want to talk with you."

Terror claimed her face as she sank down onto the couch, hands clasped at her knees. Haymitch towered over her, glaring down with nothing but hate.

"And how do you feel, Ms. Trinket, now that you have had your district win two years in a row?"

"I don't think that question is relevant, Haymitch," she said shrilly. "I think it goes without saying that I wish I could have been in the Games with you. I wish I could have been there for Katniss."

"I was there," said Haymitch, his anger dissipating in a matter of seconds. He was desperate for someone to understand his way of thinking, to understand how he thought he could save Katniss. He collapsed on the couch beside her, his face buried in his hands. "I could have gone with her, but I thought she stood a better chance if there was someone to help Sickle kill the Careers. I thought I could kill Brutus and Cobalt and they died anyway, just like her because I wasn't with her. What did I do wrong? Effie, what did I _do_?"

Effie started to pull him towards her in an embrace, but he shoved her away.

"No! Don't touch me, damn it! She's dead, they're all dead and I never did a fucking thing to help any of them!"

"You will stop that right now, do you hear me?"

She was stronger than she looked and as she once again pulled Haymitch into a protective circle with her arms, he had to fight harder to get away. Then her hand rested against the side of his head, her fingers just behind his ear and a shiver ran through him. He froze, remembering how his murdered mother used to brush her own fingers along the skin here, knowing it calmed her rebellious, headstrong son. Effie could not have known that this was why Haymitch suddenly stopped resisting, so she took his stillness for surrender and rested his head against her shoulder.

"It isn't fair, is it?" Effie whispered, holding him as if she was his mother and he had come to her after a nightmare. "No one who went in deserved this. But you are the last, Haymitch, and no matter what you feel, you have to remember that there are still people who care about you and who would be very upset if you chose to spend the rest of your days being just a shadow of what you were."

To hear such words coming from Effie, Haymitch felt that his anger towards her had been sorely misplaced. He said nothing in response, but let her continue to speak, her words slurring into what sounded like a low humming until sleep found him at last.

/ /

"Wake up, wake up _now_!" hissed Peeta.

"Wha-?"

Haymitch rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, sitting up from the couch where Effie had left him with his head propped up on a pillow and a blanket draped over him. Still in his interview outfit, he saw Cinna, Portia, and Effie rushing to stand to attention in front of the door.

"Wasgoinon?" he asked groggily.

"President Snow's about to come in," said Peeta. "Unless it's a 'thank you' or a 'hello', don't say anything, please."

An Avox opened the door and in strode the president himself, dressed in garb of black and red with one shoulder covered by a cape and the other sporting a series of medals. He nodded in acknowledgement to Cinna, Portia, and Effie, but reserved his greetings for Haymitch and Peeta. He clasped Peeta's hands in his powdered liver spotted ones and said with false sympathy, "I'm extremely sorry for your loss, my boy."

Then, he turned his attention to Haymitch who had a sudden urge to grab the nearest item—which happened to be a vase full of flowers—to defend himself. Snow put out his hand to shake Haymitch's, but when Haymitch hesitated, Snow met his eyes with a wink.

"I would like to speak to Mr. Abernathy in private, please," said Snow, dismissing the others.

When they had left somewhat reluctantly, Snow made himself comfortable on the couch that Haymitch had just vacated and motioned that Haymitch should do the same. Haymitch sat down as far away from Snow has he could, messing with the bracelet that he had not yet removed from the previous night.

"Well, now, I suppose you know why I'm here?"

"Not really," said Haymitch, though this was only partially true. He knew that Snow had more to say to him that he didn't want to put into writing, but Haymitch's antics during the interview were most certainly about to come right back and nip him in the rear end.

"I wish to discuss your tirades: the one on the hovercraft and on stage. While you may feel that you can now speak freely about the system, you would be sorely mistaken. Making you a double victor does not grant you immunity."

"You don't say? Funny, after surviving the Games the first time and being told I had to go back in, I sort of already knew that."

"You are intelligent, Mr. Abernathy, but not exactly wise. If you continue to use sarcasm and expletives, you will find yourself walking around without a tongue."

"And that's supposed to intimidate me?"

"While you are still breathing, yes. You should be mindful of the many ways in which you could make an untimely exit from this world."

"I should have made that untimely exit during the last Games, but it didn't work out that way, did it? No one was voting for me from the start and the only sponsor gift I got probably came from Peeta's own pocket."

"The votes favored the Careers, Finnick, Katniss, and Sickle to begin, true. As the Careers started to go down, bets changed. You ranked somewhere between Denno and Chaff at the start. When you dragged out Cashmere's body and lied for Enobaria, the people didn't know what to think of you, especially since you clearly saw our fanged friend finish off both of her female competitors. You then proceeded to rescue Cobalt from going under with Shade and lied for _him_ when he killed Enobaria in that particularly unique fashion."

"That's one way of describing it," said Haymitch waspishly.

"No one knew whose side you were on and you kept them all guessing, so your name slowly climbed the leader board. However, bets flew like mad when you entered the insect sector of the arena. The people believed Sickle would be the survivor and many lost a great deal of money after the outcome. In the final six, after Beetee and Cobalt went out, your name was third for the win, behind Finnick and Brutus respectively. However, after you attacked Finnick, you sank to the bottom, below even Denno because to the audience you were just another tribute who had gone mad, like Annie Cresta and Onyx Woodley. Turning on your fellow tribute earned you no sympathy amongst the viewers."

"And we all know what a tragedy that is."

"But then, the unexpected. Brutus killed Finnick. Denno killed Brutus—with your help in providing the spear, of course. And then the people began to cheer for Denno for the first time in his sad victor history. As a boy, he had perhaps a total of ten votes out of thousands that he would make it into the top twelve at the very least. No one won much with his victory and no one respected or appreciated him. District 10 has not had a victor since Denno. So when he was reaped once again with none of his older fellow victors to volunteer for him, audiences thought that surely, he would be weeded out early this time. But no, he survived until the end."

"Almost."

"People were calling for your blood, not because you had helped kill Brutus, but because you had taken on Denno's role by simply getting lucky and watching everyone die around you. And you had allowed the Capitol's darling to be slaughtered by mutts. So when Denno sat you upright and told you that he wanted you to claim victory and you refused, you instantly became the most hated man in Panem. You resisted, you fought with him, but he managed to use your force to kill himself. And then you lay cradling his body in the surf. Cameras showed you refusing to let go even after the hovercraft collected you, but they cut off just before you threw the first punch at the Capitol's doctors. In the end, everyone was stunned; no one had any idea what to do with you, you the victor no one wanted. You are not loved by the people, Haymitch. They despise you for winning. Yet they are intrigued by you and they want to know more. Many would pay to know what was going through your mind in the arena. Of all the faces to light up our screens, yours was the one with the darkest secrets. You are a mystery to the people, and there is desire for that mystery with a price many would be willing to pay."

"No," said Haymitch, finding his voice through the tears that threatened to well up again. "I'm not censoring myself just because you're the fucking president. You took away everything because I used a weapon I wasn't supposed to have and made the Gamemakers look like fools. I paid that price with grief, misery, depression, and consumption. The last twenty-five years of my life I've wasted away in my house, half-drunk, delirious, and constantly in pain with the nightmares of my hellish experiences. Then you send me back into the Games, make me watch my friends die, make me watch the one girl I managed to mentor to victory appear in the sky. I played the Games your way this time, though. I never broke a rule, I didn't want to win, but it happened anyway. The people hate me, I couldn't give a flying shit what they think. But you want to use me and sell my body so that people will know what went on in my head? That's all I have left and you can't have it. Not you, not anyone. Kill me, I don't care! I'll welcome it! Want to kill someone I love? There's no one left!"

"Not even Peeta Mellark?"

_You survived because you're smart. Careful now, careful. _"I volunteered for him at Katniss's request. She asked me to and I obliged because I cared about her. After how badly that boy did in the first Games, I wasn't about to let him go back in with her, not when I stood a better chance of getting her out. I did it for her, not him."

"How long have you harvested this rage, Mr. Abernathy?"

"What kind of fucking question is that?"

"A simple one."

"Well, I don't have an answer. I'm telling you what I think right now, in this moment. I'm not a physical fighter as you damn well know, but I am smart enough to know when I'm being used and it's not going to happen this time. You can't have me."

Snow smiled and Haymitch hated him for it. "That, Mr. Abernathy, is the man I had hoped to see in the arena. If that man had been present instead, you might have been in a better place by now. But as you will, you'll be on your way home after your final interview in one hour's time."

Unconvinced that he had won the argument, that he was escaping with his life after foul-mouthing and openly rebelling against the president, Haymitch moved in front of the door.

"If you're bullshitting me now just to make everything blow up in my face later, I'd rather have it out now. Like you said, I'm the victor no one wants, so who would miss me? You could say that I committed suicide right after my victory and everyone will remember the 75th Hunger Games as the year of the unexpected. No harm to the system, no harm to Panem."

"Rest assured, Mr. Abernathy, that until your Victory Tour six months from now, you will not be seeing me. I don't want you dead, but I do want you in your place, which is on the outskirts of Panem, far away from the system, in a dying district. There the people of the Captiol will forget you as you fade away from history, known only as a fluke, a drunkard, and a mentally unstable man. You might have fueled some of Katniss Everdeen's fire, might have sparked the rebellion, but her death devastated you beyond recall. I see you as you are now, a broken man—and so you shall remain until you die, whenever that is. I know, you know, and the entire nation knows that Haymitch Abernathy does not live, but only exists. Correct?"

"Yeah."


	22. Chapter 22: Feeding the Spark

Portia worked wonders on him in getting him camera ready with less than an hour before he went live for his final interview. She stuffed a large piece of rich, velvety cake into his mouth and pressed a glass on him that would fill him up enough to last several hours as she applied more powder to his under eyelids and stripped him of his wrinkled suit. In its place she had him dress in a blood-red tuxedo with a coal-black vest, mid-tone grey undershirt, shimmering black pants, and boots to match. In the mirror, Haymitch had to do a double take to make sure the person looking back at him was actually him. From less than twenty-four hours ago, Portia had changed him with the clothes alone to make him look like embers fighting against ash to become a fire once again. The colors, acting with the powder, made Haymitch's face look fuller again and almost rosy. All that remained of the man from the night before were the unforgiving eyes.

"You gave them everything last night, so don't feel that you have to match that tonight," said Portia, using a small duster to brush away any particles that may have landed on Haymitch's shoulders. "Just get through it quickly and then you can leave."

"I don't know what I'll say, but if it comes back to you and Cinna and Effie, just know that you've been…you've…" He couldn't form words to show his appreciation for Portia, but she understood all the same by the quick peck on his cheek she gave him.

"You are an individual, Haymitch, not and never a piece in their Games. It was my privilege being your stylist."

Someone knocked on the door. "Is he ready?" rang Effie's voice.

"Are you?" asked Portia.

"This time, yeah."

Caesar Flickerman rose to greet him with an extended hand before the cameras started rolling and glanced around somewhat anxiously as if checking for hidden cameras or microphones.

"You've made quite an uproar since last night, Haymitch. Now, I can't tell you what to say or not say once we air, but—"

"Your job isn't at stake here, Caesar," said Haymitch shortly. "And neither is your life. Everyone in Panem knows that what comes out of my mouth came from my head first, not someone else's. I've spoken to the people and said all I needed to, so everything that happens here will be strictly between the two of us. You ask the questions and I'll answer them directly. Sound good?"

"You mustn't think I'm scolding you! No, no, on the contrary, Haymitch, I've never seen such, well, resilience. You look positively glowing as opposed to last night, but I think your stylist is to thank for that. As for you personally, I see a man who has suffered through absolutely everything the Capitol has thrown at you and emerged, perhaps broken in places, but still you. Regardless of whether or not anyone wanted you as the victor, you've made yourself unforgettable now."

"Caesar…"

"What?"

"You said, 'everything the Capitol has thrown at you'. Normally I would hear you say 'we', or has something changed in _you_ since last night?"

Caesar paled under his overly tanned skin but he was an expert in his field, quick to recover and quicker to conceal his mistake. Though until now, Haymitch had never known him to make such a telltale mistake.

"Rolling in two," said the cameraman.

Haymitch perched on the edge of the couch, hunched over thanks to Portia who had left out his back brace so that he could be himself and not have to put on a false act for anyone. The cameraman pointed to Caesar and the dazzling white smile claimed the host's face without missing a beat as he welcome Panem and did a brief summary of the previous night's events. While he talked, Haymitch remembered his agreement to come across as mentally disturbed because Snow obviously didn't buy his claim that Peeta meant nothing to him. Haymitch had to convince the audience that he had acted last night out of insanity and that he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. Just as Katniss had tried to convince Snow that she was madly in love with Peeta, now Haymitch had a role to play for the cameras.

It didn't sit well with him at all. Haymitch hated not having the last say in anything and was determined to leave the Capitol with the people still afraid to even look at him. They had never before been put to such shame and Haymitch intended for it to stick with them at least until next year's Games.

"So, Haymitch, you gave everyone quite the scare last night when you had your fill of things to say. I don't think we've ever heard a victor talk about the aftermath of the Games in the same way you have. What was going through your head when you decided to speak out?"

"Nothing but rage, Caesar. I was—I am—angry. You thought Johanna was a bit wild in her pre-Games interview, but my anger went far beyond that. I suppose I'm compensating for all of my fallen friends who can't voice their opinions after having to kill each other. See, I don't care that it made me look weak to other victors and makes me unappealing to the audience; I'm glad that the only death that came by my hand was accidental because I would have killed myself instead of holding Denno in those last few seconds before the hovercrafts came. I couldn't live with myself knowing that I had to shed their blood and I like to think that if any of them, even Brutus and Enobaria, had survived instead of me, they would have done the same."

"I have to say, you did show incredible support to your team—on both sides, I might add."

"I was trying to avoid mass bloodshed. I knew the Careers would be doing the killing, but I'm actually sort of thankful to Brutus for doing most of those killings because it meant that I didn't have to and that only one person was doing the evil deed. He was always a brute, but he proved to be more than just a mindless killing machine when he came back for Sickle, Cobalt, and me. I don't know what was going through his head to make him do it, especially since he killed Cobalt less than six hours later, but he saved us right then and there, which is sort of unheard of from Districts 1 and 2, sometimes 4. They never look out for anyone outside of their own districts, so for Brutus to break that tradition, I think he may have set things in motion for more interesting Games in the future."

"You talk about breaking tradition; why do you think Cobalt, a good friend of yours, played the Games the way he did?"

_Wouldn't we all like to know, Caesar?_ "I can't say for sure, but I think it was largely due to the fact that he was copying my plan to get Katniss out. He wanted Shade to win, so when she was one of the first to go after the initial bloodbath, his plan collapsed on him. Who should he team up with now? Who could he trust? Who would trust him? He'd already made himself an enemy in training to the rest of us besides 1 and 2, so he knew none of us would take him back. So we butted heads for a few days and I came close to sticking him with my knife several times, but I'm glad I didn't because otherwise I would have always thought him to be a traitor. Instead, I saw him give himself up for Tilly and I suppose I can almost forgive him for that."

"Your reactions to the other victors' deaths were well concealed for the most part, except for Sickle, Katniss, and Denno. I understand Katniss, but why the visible grief for the other two?"

"It goes without saying, we were friends, Caesar. Denno was probably the purest individual to ever go into the Games, but he never killed because he knew that by doing nothing, he wasn't hurting anyone in or outside of the arena. The second time around, though, he had Lash with him and he loved her, so when Brutus snapped her neck, he changed. As for Sickle, he volunteered to go in twice for younger or less-able-bodied people and I don't think he expected to survive either time. These selfless acts are moving, even to people who didn't know them well, but for someone like me who _did_ know them, well, it was emotionally scarring."

"What will you do now that you've survived?"

"Honestly, I can't answer that. Since I never intended to survive, I'll have to come up with some sort of plan to accommodate myself. I could go back to drinking and grow out my beer gut again, but I think the alcohol has kept me in the dark for too long. I don't want to drown out the memories anymore. Even if it means I'll have nightmares until the day I die, I want to remember what happened in this particular year."

"Do you have any final words to say to the people before we let you go until the Victory Tour?"

Haymitch locked his eyes on the camera. "I want you, Panem, to remember my face. I want you to see this face in your nightmares when you realize that nothing goes unpunished. My face will be the one you see when the cold sweat grips you and you scream in the night as you're pursued by shapeless demons. And when you wake, knowing it was all a dream and that you're safe in your cozy, silk-draped beds in your lavishly decorated houses, I want you to remember that my face survived your Games twice and would have no problem at all slitting any of your throats. You, who sentenced him to die. You, who don't blink twice as you see children with their ribs showing being carted off to die in the arena. You, who would raise your children to think that killing is acceptable, as long as it doesn't affect _you_. Well, it _does_ affect you because Katniss Everdeen sparked the beginning of a hatred that is seventy-five years strong and I'm here to feed the spark. Don't fall under the delusion that you're safe because no one is, not in this world. We are all players in a much larger, grander set of Games and you might find out very soon how well you would fare if the country became the largest arena to date."

The light behind the camera went dark before Caesar could close the interview out. Haymitch stood up and gave a mock bow to Caesar. "I know I said I'd stick to direct answers. I lied."

/ /

He was at the train station and still alive, which surprised him beyond belief. He expected Snow to send Peacekeepers by the swarms to prevent him from leaving the Tribute Center, but they never came, which led to the suspicion that Snow might be planning to pitch Haymitch's train off the tracks halfway home. It was, however, a battle to get out of the car and onto the train since the station was packed with women vying for Haymitch's attention, just as Snow had predicted. Haymitch shoved through them and snarled at a woman who managed to hold onto him for more than two seconds. He didn't see Cinna or Portia as he left and prayed that they had made it out in time, that they were hiding somewhere in the city. Once on the train, Effie and Peeta switched on the television to see if Haymitch's interview had made any sort of impact among the people, but all seemed quiet and normal on the set, so they turned it off as the train pulled out of the station.

Haymitch ordered a bucket of ice and sat crunching away at the cubes for at least three hours until, without warning, Effie swooped down and kissed him, causing him to send his bucket flying across the room.

"Effie, what the hell?"

"You showed them that they can't get away with this, Haymitch," she wailed. "You carried on Katniss's rebellion."

"No, I didn't. I only said that because I wanted to go out on a strong note. Does this look like the face of the rebellion?" Haymitch gestured to his waxy complexion.

"It does now," said a voice and Haymitch dove for the table where the silverware sat as two Peacekeepers appeared in the doorway, one of them most assuredly Snow Number Two by the sound of his voice. "Drop the knife." Haymitch let the butter knife fall to the floor. "Mr. Abernathy, follow us, please."

"No, you can't!" shouted Effie and Peeta moved to try and block Haymitch, but he instructed Effie to shut up and pushed Peeta aside, striding forward with as much dignity as he could muster. The train had come to a stop in a patch of trees and the Peacekeepers escorted him off, leading him further away from the train until they were well out of sight. Snow Number Two nudged Haymitch forward a few more steps and pulled out his gun.

"You make sure you tell Snow that he can go to hell," said Haymitch, bracing himself for a bullet in the brain. He had been delusional himself to think that Snow would let his words go unpunished. "And—fuck both of you."

Snow Number Two removed his helmet and Haymitch saw a man with golden hair going white, a rather hooked nose, and eyes that would have been emotionless if not for the fact that they were a brilliant shade of lavender. "Your yapping trap is going to get you killed one of these days, Mr. Abernathy," said Snow Number Two. "I will tell you right now and just once to keep it shut while I am talking because we don't have time for interruptions. My name is Praxis Septum and I have had to pull many strings to get you safely out of the Capitol after your stints. This plan has been in motion for months, years even, but we never knew who our final player would be. You will not be going home to District 12. Instead, you will come with me now after I've fired a shot, leading your companions to think you are dead. The less they know, the better and it would be far too difficult and troublesome for them to try and locate your body. I have assurances that you will lend your voice and your face to our cause."

"Who's assurances? What cause? Just what the hell is going on?"

"You said yourself that you've fed the spark that Katniss Everdeen started, correct? Or did you not intend to follow up with that?"

"I can't follow up with that," said Haymitch with an obvious motion at himself. "Look at me. The only reason I'm not dead is because people keep force-feeding me. It's not like I have any sort of will to live. I don't care what happens at this point."

"You should, because you could put Snow in his place, which is in the ground," said Praxis.

"And how would I do that?"

"Lead the rebellion, Mr. Abernathy. Or at least, assist in it."

"Assist who or what?"

"Me," said the second Peacekeeper and as the helmet came off, a braid fell from within, woven down the side of the young woman's face. And there, pinned at the neck where the helmet obscured it, was a golden mockingjay pin.

**Well, that's it for now, I suppose. It took a long time to get this story off the ground and even longer to finish it once I started, but it's an okay piece, I think. As for a sequel, well let's see how it comes along. But to those of you who have read this one, thank you. I always make a point of thanking my readers because without them, stories cannot flourish. Please, let me know what you think.**

**Link to the sequel: **** s/11021612/1/Wander**


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