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I.
The first year after the war, Haymitch spent his birthday alone. Katniss hadn’t left the bed in four days. Peeta had asked him, I volunteered for you in the reaping, real or not real? - Real. He had just thrown out the nightlock pill he’d brought back from the Capitol. That day, he regretted it.
His ghosts were unbearably angry. So, he got drunk until was vomiting before noon, passing out right after, repeating in the evening. The first thing he remembered was two days later when Katniss dumped a bucket of cold water over his head where he must’ve passed out on his porch.
She looked terrible. Her hair stuck up in knots, her clothes dirty, her face pale. But she was coming out of the woods, bow on her back, game bag on her belt.
“Peeta wants to cook tonight,” she said without preamble. “He says we should shower.”
“Just did,” he grumbled, pushing wet strands of hair out of his face.
Katniss shrugged, before she trotted over to her house. “Be there at six!” she called over her shoulder.
He was there at six-thirty. Showered.
They had stew made of hare and katniss and cheese buns and sugar glazed muffins for dessert. It was not half bad.
II.
The second year Plutarch made them come to the capitol for memorial day. He’d asked Plutarch why they didn’t make the fall of the capitol memorial day. Because summer celebrations are a lot happier, Plutarch had said cheerfully. Haymitch hated him sometimes.
Plutarch asked if they would come to the celebration, claiming the other victors had already agreed. A symbol of unity, he said.
Haymitch told him they were not his propaganda extras anymore and Plutarch replied that if they came that year, he’d arrange a formal hearing in order to lift Katniss’ confinement to Twelve. The kids had been wanting to visit Annie and Johanna in Four, so they agreed.
He wasn’t happy about it, but his birthday had been the worst day of the year for the past twenty-seven years, so he figured it wouldn’t make a difference. And he certainly wouldn’t let Katniss stand before a council alone.
Effie was there, too. She stood in the crowd on the platform when they arrived in the capitol. She had dyed her hair violet, like she had the very first time they’d met. He was surprised to find his chest aching at the sight. The past two years had been the longest they hadn’t seen each other in the last twenty-seven years and he hadn’t noticed that he’d missed her.
She said she wasn’t sure they’d want to see her, but Plutarch had insisted. Haymitch told her he wouldn’t have fought for her life if he didn’t want to see her again. The kids, luckily, were indeed happy to see her, too, giving her the opportunity to dote on them, commenting how well they looked and how they had to tell her everything about life in Twelve.
Later the same day, he knocked on her apartment door in a twelve-storey complex building. He got the address from Plutarch and he didn’t even know if this was where she’s always lived or if she moved in after the war.
She looked surprised when she opened the door and saw him, but so did he when he took in the pale blue set of t-shirts and shorts she was wearing. In twenty-five years he had never seen her wear something so understated.
“Haymitch…” she greeted. “I didn’t expect you.”
“I thought, uh… I thought maybe we should talk.” He held up the bottle of rosé wine he’d brought.
She swallowed and nodded and stepped aside to let him in. She got out two wine glasses and they sat on her couch. And so, they talked. About reaping days, about the war, about the agony of thinking the only kids they could ever save would be broken and killed in it. She couldn’t talk about the prison cell and he couldn’t talk about the first few months after his return to Twelve. She told him Plutarch insisted she talk to Dr. Aurelius, he said Peeta kept suggesting the same thing to him. She whispered that guilt and shame were eating her alive and he muttered that he knew the feeling.
Plutarch called her landline twice before she picked up and by the time Haymitch was already ten minutes late for Plutarch’s symbolic victors’ dinner with president Paylor. They sent a car to pick him up and she dug out a tie and a jacket that would make him look presentable.
“Since it’s not reaping day anymore, am I allowed to get you something for your birthday now?” she asked while she was adjusting the collar of his shirt.
He rolled his eyes. He wasn’t sure memorial day was much better than reaping day. “Only if you promise to visit Twelve sometime.”
She bit her lip and her fingers clenched around his tie for a second. It took her a moment, but finally, she nodded. “All right.”
She gave him a cupcake with a small candle on top of it and told him to make a wish. He didn’t know what he was supposed to wish for now that the one thing that had kept him alive was accomplished. Since the end of the war, he hadn’t thought about what he wanted from the freedom of the new Panem.
For a moment he thought back on Katniss standing before the council with a frown and shaking hands, on Peeta and Johanna flinching each time they passed the tribute center, on the new insecurity that haunted Effie’s every movement.
When he blew out the candle, he wished for them to be happy.
III.
He called Dr. Aurelius late in the evening. He didn’t know if the man had office hours or time slots that he was disregarding, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He didn’t know why he was calling anyway. It was stupid, really. What was some shrink going to tell him that he didn’t already know?
Before he could convince himself to hang up again, Dr. Aurelius’ voice came through the phone.
“This is Haymitch Abernathy,” he grumbled, taking a sip from the bottle of white liquor, he’d gotten out an hour ago.
“Ah!” made Dr. Aurelius as if he’d been scheduled to call and was late a few minutes. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
He hated this already. “You think it’s normal to talk to ghosts?” It had been a terrible day. You turn a little yellowish and suddenly the kids decide it’s time to quit drinking. The fight that had followed wasn’t pretty and had been made even worse by Effie, whose visit to Twelve had turned into a more permanent stay it seemed, backing them up.
Dr. Aurelius hummed. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“What do you talk about?”
He shrugged, then realized that Aurelius couldn’t see him. “Different stuff.”
“And is this stuff you can’t talk to real people about?”
He took another sip from the bottle and leaned against the wall next to the phone. “Don’t know, maybe.”
It sounded like Dr. Aurelius was scribbling something, but his voice was levelled when he asked, “Why?”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat and breathed against the heaviness on his chest. When he didn’t answer, Aurelius continued. “Which ghost do you talk to the most?”
“My girl, Lenore Dove.”
“How did she die?”
“I killed her.”
“Ah. And what are you talking about lately?”
“You’re not even going to ask how?”
He could practically hear Aurelius smile on the other end of the line. The bastard. “I don’t need to.”
“I fed her the poison that killed her.”
There was a pause on Aurelius’ side. “You must have loved her very much,” he said softly.
He didn’t know why there were suddenly tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. He slammed the bottle down on the small table next to him and pressed his forehead against the wall. “Yeah,” he croaked. “I promised her I’d stop the Games.”
“You fulfilled that promise.”
“I wasn’t going to live after that.”
“But you do.”
He swallowed hard, but embarrassingly, his voice was still thick with tears when he spoke next. “Only because I couldn’t do that to Katniss and Peeta.” He took another big gulp to wash away the hollowness. It didn’t work. “But now they want me to quit drinking and I – I don’t think I can do that.”
“Why do they want you to stop?”
“They think it’ll kill me.”
“It could.”
“I know.”
Scribbling again. “And what does Lenore Dove say about it?”
“That I need to stay for them.”
“Good.”
That took him by surprise. “Why is that good?” he snapped.
“Haymitch,” Dr. Aurelius said earnestly. “You are a smart man. You know that whatever a ghost is telling you is merely a projection of what a part of yourself believes. So, it seems you know exactly what you want. You just need to figure out a way to do it.”
“I don’t know how,” he admitted, twirling the bottle in his hand.
“Well, maybe it’s time to talk to some real people then.”
IV.
It was his first birthday sober. Well, since he was sixteen, at least. He woke up early with the terror of Sid’s name being pulled at the reaping. Only when Effie gently ran her hand through his hair, assuring him that they were all save, did he realize it had been a dream. When his heartbeat had calmed, they fell asleep again and when Effie shrieked with horror from her own nightmares a few hours later, they finally got up.
It was election day, too. It was the first one since the war and it had been preceded by a year of campaigning that he had followed on TV and in discussions with Plutarch. It had been a nice distraction from the downsides of sobriety – mostly the remembering and the feeling. He tried to cope with it by talking to Dr. Aurelius and Effie and the kids, but sometimes he just needed a break. Books on the history of politics and picking fights with Plutarch about fudgy senate proceedings proved to be ample substitutes.
Katniss grumbled when he dragged them outside. “I don’t know these people, how am I supposed to vote for anyone?”
“You had a whole year to get to know them, sweetheart,” he replied as Peeta closed the door behind them, smiling.
“On TV.” Katniss rolled her eyes and pulled free from his grip with an exasperated huff. “Your new hobby is annoying.”
“Well, you wanted me to quit the booze, you deal with the consequences.”
Katniss turned around to Peeta and Effie who were strolling behind them. “Can we think about that again?”
Peeta grinned and shook his head. “Just remember you don’t have to clean up vomit anymore.”
Katniss pulled a face at the memory and turned back to him. “Who are you voting for then?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“I also thought I had the option to vote, not that I’d be dragged to the polls. But apparently that’s not how it works, either.”
“We fought a war for this, sweetheart, so you’re going to enjoy living in a democracy now.” Katniss opened her mouth to shoot something back, but Haymitch added, “And it’s my birthday, so I get a wish.”
“These two said you get a wish, not me,” she pointed over her shoulder at Effie and Peeta. “And you really want to spend it on this?”
But before Haymitch could elaborate, Peeta chimed in. “I’ve got cake at the bakery, you know? So, if you two could stop arguing, we can stop by on the way to the town hall.”
They could agree on that. Peeta had prepared a delicious looking cake that was topped with cream and berries and that was the perfect breakfast. As per his request they didn’t give him anything else for his birthday, but Katniss dutifully went into the voting booth once they arrived at the town hall.
“Your turn, princess,” he told Effie, who had been waiting outside in the sun. She smiled and smoothed down a crinkle in his shirt. “I can’t,” she said.
He frowned. “What? Why?”
“Because officially I still live in the capitol. I’m registered there, so I’d have to vote there, too.”
It was silly, really. Effie had been living in Twelve for almost two years now. “Well, do you plan on going back there?” He’d just assumed Effie would stay in Twelve for… ever? At least for all the future he was slowly starting to think about. But he’d never actually asked her.
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
A warm feeling spread in his chest that was still a little new, still a little frightening, but he couldn’t help but smile anyway. He took her hand and pulled her a little closer. “Good. We should get you registered here, then.”
She laced her fingers with his and smiled back at him, brightly. “I would like that.”
V.
Peeta had claimed the upside of his birthday being on memorial day was that there was always a party going on somewhere. He didn’t know if he’d call that an upside, but at least he wouldn’t be dragged to Plutarch’s five-year-anniversary of the end of the war party. If anything, they’d go to the town square in Twelve in the afternoon where people had strung up lanterns and Greasy Sae and Peeta were providing stew and bread rolls and where a few people with fiddles and guitars were going to play.
He woke up early that year, though not from nightmares. Maybe it wasn’t so pointless talking to Dr. Aurelius once a week. It almost seemed like his mind was finally catching up with the peace and safety of the past five years. When he’d helped Effie hang new curtains in her house (Peeta’s old one, since he’d finally officially moved in with Katniss) the other night, telling her about a poem he’d read in one of the new books at the library, she’d told him that he reminded her of the boy she’d met before his Games. He didn’t know what to say to that, because he didn’t remember that boy very well.
But he remembered how much he enjoyed spending time with his family, how much he liked sweets when the flavor didn’t match the color and he was surprised for a second. He remembered how much he loved being in love.
It was the first year that he watched the sunrise. Not on reaping day. On memorial day. On his birthday. He sat on his porch, a cup of coffee in his hand and watched the geese pick at some corn in his backyard, while the sky turned pink and orange and the lightest shade of blue.
“It’s time, you know?”
He turned his head and saw Lenore Dove sitting beside him. She was smiling at him with small wrinkles around her eyes as if she’d spent a lifetime laughing.
“Time for what?” he asked.
She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “To say goodbye.”
He swallowed, but he didn’t object. Dr. Aurelius had told him something like this could happen. That it was a good sign, healthy. Still, he had to swallow around the heaviness that clogged his throat. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The woods maybe or somewhere else. I’ll figure something out.”
He nodded. “I know you will.”
“I love you like all-fire, Haymitch.”
His eyes were burning, yet he had to smile. It really was time. “I love you like all-fire, too.”
The next moment, he was alone on his porch.
At least until a set of arms wrapped around his neck from behind him. “I hope she remembered to say happy birthday,” Effie murmured near his ear, pressing a kiss to his temple.
He took her hands and turned to look at her. “She was just here to say goodbye.”
Effie raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh?” Her fingers drew circles on the back of his hand. “How are you feeling about that?”
“Fine, I think,” he said. And he was glad to find it was true. There was a lightness on his chest that was entirely new.
“Good,” she breathed, and he pulled her a little closer. He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and his thumb stroked along her cheekbone. “I love you. You know that, right?”
The smile she gave him was brighter than the morning sun. “I know,” she whispered. “And I love you.”
He leaned in to kiss her, sweet and soft and smiling against her lips.
+ I.
Since he was seventeen, he had gotten forty-eight children on his birthday. Only two of them were still alive. He hadn’t gotten any big presents for the past fifteen years now and he considered it the greatest gift he’d ever gotten.
On his fifty-seventh birthday, there was a knocking on his front door. It was unusual because the only people that would show up at his house that early usually didn’t knock. When he opened the door, it was Peeta standing on his porch. His hair was sticking up messily and there were faint dark circles under his eyes, but he was beaming at him.
In his arms there was a small bundle of clothes and in it – a baby. A tiny thing with a scrunched-up face and rosy skin and a bunch of dark hair on its head.
He blinked. Peeta grinned.
“Happy Birthday, Haymitch! Meet your granddaughter.”
His mouth fell open. Just yesterday they’d said she wasn’t due for another two weeks. “She’s early,” he mumbled.
Peeta shrugged. “Well, apparently she thought it was time. Do you want to hold her?”
He nodded; he didn’t know what else to do. Peeta carefully placed the baby in his arms and when he looked at her little face, his heart expanded with warmth and joy so suddenly he couldn’t help the tears that were falling down his cheeks. “You’ve got a bad choice of a birthday, little one,” he told her. “But it’s okay. We’ll make it nice for you.”