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June’s final days are hot, and heavy, the air thick and soupy with the sluggish heat.
Peeta had forbidden Katniss from his kitchen. She was sulking in Haymitch’s as a result. She’s fiddling with a pencil and a few scraps of paper - journaling, her new hobby - and chews on the inside of her cheek. It’s the same nervous habit Lenore Dove had.
“You’re gonna hate your birthday present.” She said simply. Haymitch raised his eyebrow at her, and poured himself another drink.
Effie arrives on the next train from the Capitol, and he’s so simultaneously happy to see her, and so horrified at this accidental harbinger of death, he vomits on her shoes. She kicked them off immediately, but smiled brightly at him anyway.
She hugs Katniss tightly, and vaguely, Haymitch remembers Effie was the one who held Katniss’s hand, and brushed loose hairs away from her forehead in her wedding dress.
Peeta finally takes himself out of solitary confinement, covered in flour and sugar. He hugs Effie too, and she complains about him dirtying her coat. It’s a deep, maroon red, and the plainest thing he’s ever seen her wear.
“Haymitch, what’s your favourite colour?” Effie asks, handing him a cup of coffee. He’s made a stupid promise to Peeta to be sober on his birthday, at least for the ridiculous party they’re planning, and he needs the practice now.
He almost answers, dove , and sees her in the corner of his eye, Lenore Dove rolling her eyes at him and smiling.
He swallows thickly, and thinks about it. He looked at Effie’s loose hair, wigs forgotten in the Capitol, a warm strawberry blonde. He thought about Katniss, in those flames. Those stupid trinkets.
“Gold, maybe. Soft gold, though.” he said, eventually. God, he hated coffee.
“Like a sunrise?” Effie offered, and it was almost enough to make him choke. He nodded silently instead, and watched Lenore Dove grimace at Effie’s accent.
“You’re allowed to be happy, y’know.” Lenore Dove said, pressing down on the piano keys. “I died twenty-six years ago, you’re not, like, betraying me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.” she shot back, quick as ever. “You are allowed to be happy. I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
Lenore Dove laughed, loud, dressed in her apple-red, blood dark dress. “No, you’re not. Not yet.”
He follows Katniss into the woods, slowly. She’s way ahead, picking off birds with her arrows. He picks them up for her, sometimes, but she’s always moving faster.
He stops and picks some katniss roots from the ground. It was a bit too early for them, really, but if he was honest, he preferred them a little green. Felt healthier, or something.
Peeta helped him fry them up, because his hands were still far too shaky. Effie ate until her plate was empty, and declared she had a new favourite food. That horrid cat of Katniss’s even waited patiently to steal leftovers.
He did drink that night, but only enough to settle his stomach and send him to sleep. He didn’t even finish the second glass.
July fourth dawned, and he felt sick.
Katniss made him eggs for breakfast, and bribed him into eating it by giving him coffee with white liquor. He got dressed shakily, and even bothered to comb his hair.
Peeta brought a picnic basket, and Katniss had a blanket bundled under her arm. It was the first time he’d seen Effie wear hiking boots.
They hiked to the lake. Katniss built a fire and Peeta unpacked their basket. Effie dipped her bare feet in the water, shriek-laughing when the minnows touched her toes.
Peeta had made him stack-cake. It was the exact, pale gold of a sunrise. They lit the candles, and they sang the birthday song for him. He wanted to cry, but rolled his eyes instead.
When Peeta cut it open, it was a dark, rich purple. Plum filling, his favourite. They ate cake, cheese buns, and leftover katniss until they felt sick. Katniss led Peeta to the lake, to try and teach him how to swim with only one leg.
Effie took out a small parcel, wrapped in shiny silvery paper that crackled when he ripped it open. It was a book, titled American Folk Songs , the cover sun bleached and faded.
“Plutarch doesn’t know I… borrowed it.” Effie said, fighting a guilty smile. “Maybe don’t mention it to him.”
“Effie Trinket, a rebel at last.” he said back, and she laughed, bawdy and real. Her lips were smudged with sunset orange, and she looked her forty-seven years for once. He liked it more than he wanted to admit.
He flipped through the book, that night. He remembered Burdock singing an old song, that his mother was named for. Barbara Allen. It seemed awfully morbid, but, all the Covey’s name songs were.
Effie went home at the end of the week. It was a relief, because he could drink again, but it was a lot quieter.
Katniss brought him geese, and he told her about Lenore Dove. And about Louella.
“I think that’s good, that I’ve got her nickname.” Katniss said, running her nail over the goose eggs’ smooth shell. It was dove white. “Moving on, right?”
“I don’t know if I can ever move on fully.” he confessed. “Not from any of them.”
“Me either. But I think I could…” she pressed her lips together, and sighed heavily. “I think I could learn to make room for more people.”
“Journaling has made you a poet, eh?”
She socked him in the arm, and he was the first face his geese saw when they hatched.
Hazelle started showing up at his house, once a week, a five year old Posey on her hip.
“I’m cleaning. Don’t need to pay me, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t try to make more mess.”
Haymitch let her in, and sat on the floor with Posey. He read to her from the American Folk Songs book, the ballad of Maud Clare, as she explored his living room.
Harvest came around, and Hazelle and her gaggle of small children joined them for their meal. Haymitch didn’t mind - he liked hearing about Vick’s school projects, about Rory winning a foot race in the Harvest games in the town square, and how Posey loved the little pink cookies Peeta had made.
It made him remember that they could be normal kids now. They would never have to stand in the sunlight of that awful reaping.
Katniss caught them a fat, waddling turkey, and Haymitch helped cook the damn thing, even though he felt so ill during it he wanted to vomit over the bird.
Effie called him on Peeta’s phone, to wish him a happy Harvest. He asked what she was doing, and she said something about a job sorting through raw Hunger Games footage, to collect evidence of the rebellion going back to his games. He wished her luck. She saw just as many dead kids as he did.
He got bad again in the winter. He drank to keep himself warm from the frost and snow, and didn't light the fire. Katniss walloped him over the head for it, and he was force-fed cheese buns, but it felt less like spiralling, and more like falling back into old habits. That had to mean something.
Asterid visited. Katniss ran away for two days after she left. Haymitch understood what parents felt during the Reaping. He sobbed quietly when she returned, covered in pine needles and desperately wanting cheese buns. He'd hugged her so tight he felt bones in her back pop, and then he held on a little tighter. His kid was not disappearing like that without warning ever again.
He sobered up in time for his next birthday. Effie arrived two weeks earlier than last year, and Peeta challenged himself to make an even taller cake. Annie and Johanna were going to visit too, and he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t looking forward to it.
Effie kissed both his cheeks when she arrived, and for once, he returned it.
Katniss took him to the lake to swim. It was pleasant enough, but he never wanted to try and do Katniss’s braid in her wet hair ever again. It was a nightmare. But the roast duck she caught was a welcome reward.
“This is Finnegan.” Annie said quietly, holding up the gurgling baby to him. He was just over a year old, now, but he was Finnick’s spitting image. He stroked Finnegan’s hair with his fingers, and smiled.
“Look at how he’s kicking, he’ll be a strong swimmer.” he offered.
“He already is, for a one year old.” Annie smiled down at her son. “Would you like to hold him?”
“Ah, no.” he shook his head. “Shaky hands.”
He held his hand out to Finnegan, who held his finger tightly. It made something in his chest shake. Annie offered Finnegan to Effie, next, who squealed in delight and happily took him.
Lenore Dove smiled in the back of his mind.
Johanna and Katniss bickered constantly, more than her and Peeta. They were tempted into foot races by Rory, who was now set on becoming a sports teacher, and got laughably competitive about it. The cake this year was bigger, still sunrise gold, still full of plum flavouring, but it had more people to feed.
Posey tried to feed Finnegan some cake, but the two of them ended up with purple jelly smeared over their faces. Katniss taught Effie how to weave a daisy chain, and Annie watched the process carefully as Johanna held Finnegan, and tried not to laugh at Posey’s messy face.
Effie gave him another book, that year, in the sunset drenched kitchen of Katniss’s house, orange staining the walls.
“ Pride and Prejudice ,” Haymitch read aloud. “It’s fictional, this time.”
“I’ve been told it’s very good. Very illegal, a few years ago.”
“Effie, did you steal this one too?” he asked, cocking his head at her.
“ Maaaaaybe ,” she drew the word out, smiling playfully.
It was a love story.
He broke his ankle saying goodbye to Effie (and Annie, and Johanna, and Finnegan, too). He twisted the damn thing in the gap between the train and the platform, and yanked it too hard. He was laying on his couch, as Katniss read bird facts from a book compiled in Ten. Peeta had painted it for her, as a gift to ask to officially be boyfriend-girlfriend. Finally.
“Huh.” She said, turning a page. “Geese tend to mate for life, but if one’s mate dies, it will find a new one.”
“Really?” Haymitch asked, and tried to swallow any treacherous hope bubbling up in his voice.
“Yeah,” Katniss flicked another page. “Oh, shit, owls don’t have eyeballs.”
“I think you’re getting there.” Lenore Dove was sixteen again, in her overalls with ribboned cuffs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m in your damn head, Hay. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t.”
She sighed. “Take it this way. You ain’t gonna find another girl that likes colour that much that ain’t Covey.”
“She’s not you, though.”
“And Katniss ain’t Louella. What did she say - you don’t move on, you make more room for new people? That.”
“Lenore Dove…”
“Ghosts ain’t goin’ anywhere. But you ain’t with them yet.”
Posey doodled on his bandages with Peeta’s wax pencils, melted with tallow and coloured with wildflowers.
“What’cha drawing there?” he asked.
“Flowers. Ones you can eat.” Posey answered. She had turned six in the fall, and was going to school now, and was evidently learning whatever skills she'd need to work in that medicine factory one day. He kind of missed her on Fridays. She was a good little noisemaker to make his house feel a bit fuller.
But, she was also in the habit of chasing his geese. Hm.
Effie kept visiting. His forty-fourth birthday was the one where she finally, shyly, asked if Peeta would hate if she took up his guest room indefinitely. He hugged her so tight she squeaked.
Katniss accidentally left her journal open on the table, and Haymitch scanned it, morbidly curious. She had written one line for that day, in big, bold letters. Effie’s staying. It’ll be like having a mother again.
Haymitch was getting a little collection of books now, to the point where Vick often came over just to borrow some. He felt like a librarian.
Lenore Dove still lived with him, still in every corner and shadow and reflection, but she was always far away. He’d see her again. He knew it - and he knew this was her way of giving him permission.
His forty-fifth birthday, he kissed Effie under an oak tree shedding pollen, which made her sneeze uncontrollably after. She didn’t let go of his hand, though, as he laughed at her.
They fell into a sort of easy, loving retirement. They never got married. Quickly felt too old and tired to fool around like they were teenagers, and soon enough, Haymitch’s flock of geese grew, and Katniss’s belly grew with it.
Effie had braided Katniss’s hair for her and Peeta’s wedding, after baby Willow was born. Haymitch made the bread for their toasting. It was terrible, and gritty, and half-raw, but Peeta insisted it was perfect.
Willow was, in his opinion, the sweetest baby ever born. Even more so than Finnegan, who was tall for a ten-year-old, and constantly wanting to hold her whenever he came to visit.
Buttercup died, and Katniss wailed so loudly she lost her voice. Haymitch had to lean on a cane, now, in his mid-fifties, but he held her shoulder tightly as she said goodbye to the last of her sister.
Baby Fletcher came next, and he chased Haymitch’s geese even more than Posey did. Effie would scold him as she braided daisies and primroses into Willow’s long, dark hair, her own hands getting stiff with age. She still painted makeup on her face, but Haymitch liked it. Still Effie, even with wrinkles and greying hair.
His sixtieth birthday. Golden cake with plum filling, again, as was tradition. Finnegan handed him a necklace of tinkling shells as a present, all dove white.
He was looking forward to seeing Lenore Dove again. And he was so excited to tell her about the family he was waiting on joining them. She'd love Katniss, and Effie's bizarre love of neon colours. She'd love Peeta's apple tarts, and she'd love Willow's singing.
He never did get sober. He never did stop having night terrors, he never got 'better'. But he died happy. And that was good enough for him.