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Several sunrises with no reaping had passed by the time Haymitch begins to prepare to enter the old thereafter.
His formerly brown hair has gone fully grey, his joints creak a little more than they used to, he gets tired more often and more easily, and his geese follow him around constantly.
Lenore Dove always said her geese were excellent at sensing things. Haymitch always laughed a little at that, always earning himself a playful smack and a fond smile, but now he sees what she meant.
His geese know what’s coming, just like he does.
Peeta suspects, but Katniss knows; they’ve always been too much alike for anything else.
Junior, his nickname for Peeta and Katniss’s son, has a sense of his own, as smart and emphatic as his father.
Their daughter, Little Sweetheart, because she looks so much like her mother, despite having her father’s eyes, knows it too, as whipcrack smart as his sister (Maysilee will always be his sister, unless she strips him of the title).
“I’ll look after your geese.” She tells him, joining him one afternoon as he’s feeding his geese. “They like me.” Haymitch snorts.
“They like you more than they like me, despite me raising them.” As if on cue, Snowdrop (Haymitch is not, and doubts he ever will be, creative with names. When Katniss had first been pregnant, with Little Sweetheart, he suggested the names Bread and Potato, getting a laugh from Peeta and a thrown couch pillow and a small up-quirk of her lips from Katniss.) coming up to Little Sweetheart, butting her head against her leg.
She immediately dropped to a sitting position, allowing Snowdrop to plop down in her lap. Haymitch huffed in amusement, sitting down next to her, with only a few winces for his joints.
“I’ll miss you.” Her eyes are glued on Snowdrop, but her jaw is tight.
“I ain’t gone yet.”
* * * *
He dies with little fanfare, Katniss gripping one hand, Peeta’s lying on the crook of his elbow, Little Sweetheart and Junior in almost the exact same position as their parents on his other side. Even his geese have found a way into the room.
He would put his bet on Little Sweetheart, with some help from Junior.
“I’ll say hi to Effie for ya.” He chuckles, getting a tight smile from Katniss and another tear from Peeta.
And with another breath, he’s outside his body, watching as his small family breaks down immediately, Katniss and Peeta now sobbing as they hold each other, Junior in his sister’s lap, face tucked into her shoulder as she stares at a corner, tears slipping out, and his geese clumping together, making little noises that could be argued was crying.
“Darling.” His head whips around, barely registering that he’s sixteen again (Which makes sense; his life ended when he was sixteen, Katniss and Peeta, and then Little Sweetheart and Junior, only bringing him back decades later), and he’s met with a face and smile he had carved into his mind, mourned ever since he’d lost her.
“Lenore Dove.” His voice cracks on the last syllable, and she catches him as he falls to the floor, her warm embrace the comfort he’s needed for decades. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean-I should have noticed-“
“Haymitch Abernathy, you look at me.” Her voice is steel, and when he meets her eyes, he finds steel there too. “It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault.”
“But-“
“I didn’t notice either. Does that make it my fault?”
“Of course not!” Haymitch immediately burst out. “It was because of me. Because I tried to break the arena!”
Soft hands with calluses on her fingertips from her tune box cradle his face, and he shuts up, taking her face in, her sparkling, dark brown eyes, the steel in them, and the frown pinching her lips.
He couldn’t resist raising his hand to try to smooth the frown; frowns didn’t suit Lenore Dove one bit, warmth welling up when she immediately leaned into his hand.
“Darling, I never blamed you. Because it wasn’t your fault. It was Snow’s, and whoever put those gumdrops there. It was never your fault. I’m proud of you. You kept your promise; there have been and will continue to be no more sunrises with a reaping.” And he breaks, crying and babbling into her shoulder, and she holds him through it until the tears have stopped, and his breathing has calmed from its heaving gasps.
“There are some people who’d like to see you. You ready?” And Haymitch thinks of everyone he lost, the dozens of kids he couldn’t save, his sister, his first sweetheart, Sid, Ma, and even Wyatt and Lou-Lou, and hesitates. “Not a single one of them is mad at you.”
He gathers his courage and nods, unable to resist grinning at his girl when she leans up to kiss his cheek. “I love you like all-fire.” His voice is still hoarse, but she beams all the same.
“You too.”
And then she’s leading him into the mist.
* * * *
He’s tackled upon his arrival to the old hereafter. He immediately begins to cry again, his little brother in his arms, his Ma and Pa’s arms helping them up, and then wrapping around the two of them.
Once they pull back, his Ma slaps the upside of his head.
“Ow!” It didn’t hurt much, just enough to make a point, but still.
“I washed clothes for a living, Haymitch Abernathy! You think I didn’t have Sid fill up the cistern after you left?” His Ma is angry, a scowl set on her face. “Most of the Seam came to help. You sneaking off to see your girl wasn’t why that cistern was dry.” Haymitch nodded after another moment of her glare.
“Okay.” He doesn’t quite believe it, but his Ma doesn’t blame him, something she seems determined to drill into his head, and Sid’s bright smile and tight grip told him that he didn’t blame him either. And his Pa ruffles his hair, like he used to do when Haymitch was small, a smile on his face, clearly not blaming him for his wife’s and son’s early arrival either.
“Is it my turn yet?” Haymitch breaks his gaze with his mother, looking up to see his best friend. Burdie.
“I’m-“ Burdie waved him off before he could finish his sentence.
“I’m not mad at you no more. I get it.” At Haymitch’s furrowed brow, he chuckles. “We can watch over our loved ones, if we like. I mostly kept an eye on my girls, but I checked on you from time to time. It was your girl who watched over you like it was her job.” Haymitch looked back at Lenore Dove, whose face had turned bright red.
“Burdie.” She hissed, glaring at him when he only grinned. The glare softens when her eyes flick to him, with what he knows is a completely goofy and besotted grin plastered on his face.
Burdie’s hugs are as firm and warm as he remembered, and though Sid is still pressed into his side, Haymitch manages to burrow into the embrace.
“Thank you for looking after Katniss.” Haymitch doesn’t know what to say to that, and so just nods.
And then Blair’s there, hugging him, too, and Haymitch sinks into it.
He really missed his two friends.
“Okay, I’ve been patient.” A familiar voice snaps, and he thinks he might start crying again at the sight of his sister. “Now move.” She shoves her way past Blair, immediately wrapping her arms round him. “Hell of a poster you painted, Itchy Itchy Haymitchy.” He snorted, and doesn’t even mind her probably purposefully standing on his toes. “And you were absolutely the worst Victor ever.”
“Is the name-calling entirely necessary?” His heart warms at her decision that he kept up his end of the bargain, their agreement that if either of them won, they’d be the worst Victor in history.
“If you wanted a nice sister, you should have chosen Merilee.” His heart warms at her calling herself his sister; he wasn’t sure if he would still have the title after everything.
“Thanks.”
“My turn!” His first sweetheart bounded over, and when Maysilee didn’t move an inch, clambered onto his back. “Hi Hay!”
“Hi, sweetheart.” His voice is hoarse again, though that might be due to Louella’s partly choking him, which somehow still hurts, despite him being dead, and gives his Lenore Dove a smile when she gently loosens Louella’s grip.
Which is an odd thing to think about.
“Thanks for making them fight for me.” Her voice is only a whisper in his ear, but Maysilee still smirks. It had been her idea, even if it was Haymitch who carried it out.
“Haymitch!” A familiar high-pitched, sugar-sweet voice interrupts, and Effie is hugging him, the same age as when he first met her.
“Hey, Effie.” He leans a little into the hug. “Everyone says hi.” She beams at that.
Wyatt joins them, a girl he doesn’t recognise trailing behind him, after another few minutes or something like; time apparently doesn’t work as it does in the therebefore, but why would it?
“Hey, Wyatt.” He shook his hand, knowing his smile was bittersweet.
“The odds were stacked against you, and you still won.” His former district partner grins. “Would have made a fortune if I bet on you.” Haymitch snorts, his eyes involuntarily flickering towards the girl standing with Wyatt.
Her hair is dark and her skin tanned, with a purple-and-yellow flower-bead necklace around her neck. “Lou Lou?”
The girl grins, and yeah, that’s Lou Lou’s smile. “Anna Claire, actually. It’s nice to meet you properly.”
“And even better to see you properly.” He smiles, shaking her hand; he’d always wondered what she really looked like when he saw her ghost, before being twisted into Lou Lou. He’s glad that she doesn’t deal with that anymore.
“Haymitch!” An almost-familiar small form runs up, and Haymitch is immediately dropping to his knees, relieved to finally see Ampert’s face instead of the pearly white bones of his ghost, and he can see Beetee, too, hanging back with Mags and Wiress.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He begins to cry again. “I shouldn’t have left you-“ But Ampert immediately shakes his head.
“It wasn’t your fault; that was the plan, to try and take down the arena. They…” His smile turns sad. “I was gonna die anyway. That’s why the mutts were there.” Haymitch knows it’s true; it’s why Beetee was mourning him before they’d ever entered the arena, but Haymitch still feels guilty. Maybe if he’d been there, his death would have at least been quick.
His doves greeted him next, and he broke down in Wellie’s arms, apologising for not staying, for insisting on going off to fetch the stupid kindling, and for not knowing the last dart in the gun wasn’t poisoned. She only squeezed him tight. “I wouldn’t have won anyway. And I forgave you for it a long time ago.”
Then Mags is wrapping him in a tight hug, murmuring reassurances into his ear, like she did after Louella died, and Wiress’s hand is squeezing his shoulder, and he’s crying again. He gets a wave from Beetee, who waves off his apology as Burdie did.
“As I’ve said before, Haymitch, it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault.” And Haymitch remembers Beetee’s sad face at the training centre, watching his son train, his spoken acceptance that Ampert would die in the Arena, and his continued relationship, albeit through the rebels, with him, and Haymitch slowly nods, finally accepting Beetee’s words.
He meets his past tributes, Lenore Dove tightly clasping his hand to help ground him, all of them too young, some from his early mentoring days even younger than he remembered.
Somehow, none of them blame him, a few even thanking him for helping them get as far as they did.
And yeah, he already misses his small family that he’d somehow gotten after the war, but they’ll show up eventually, and everyone else is here, and none of them blame him for anything, and the apologies he’s been wanting to give since everything happened have finally lifted themselves from his heart. He feels lighter than he has ever since the Games.
He doesn’t even feel the urge for a single drop of alcohol.
And surrounded by almost everyone he’s ever loved, his girl’s hand tightly clasped in his, his brother tucked into his side, his sister leaning back against him, again on his toes, his first sweetheart on his back, and everyone else clustered around…he’s thrilled for it.