Home Fanfics Go Back
Annie rushes to pick up the phone before Seamus wakes up, thinking her son deserved to sleep in after the raucous night he had running around with his friends. She runs to the kitchen in her robe and bare feet, and grabs the receiver on the second ring.
"Hey, Annie."
"Jude? What's wrong?" She doesn't know exactly how she can tell something is wrong, but she does. Jude shouldn't be calling her this early. He should be out on his boat, fishing, doing his usual Sunday half-day, or taking the day off after the party. And there's his tone, too. The same tone he used when Seamus had broken his wrist playing with Simon.
Jude pauses, and she can hear him gathering courage for what he has to say. She is desperate to know, fearful of the worst. She begins imagining scenarios, things she thinks of before bed. She had seen Seamus go to sleep, she knows he is safe. "Is it Johanna? Is she alright? Is Odessa ok?"
"Annie, Annie please, Jo is fine, or at least she should be, you should go over there after you get off the phone with me. Odessa and Simon are fine, I kissed them goodbye this morning. Listen… I'm calling because me and Royce took the boat out this morning and… there was someone floating in the shallows. We went in on the dinghy to retrieve the body, and it was your friend, Beetee I think his name was. I think he killed himself last night."
Annie lets herself slip to a sitting position, knees to her chest. She had forgotten Haymitch was staying upstairs as well, but now she sees him pad down the stairs, a concerned look on his face, as if he knows something is amiss. Or perhaps he had heard her half of the call. "There's nothing you can do?" she asks. She wants to ask if it could have been an accident, but she knows it couldn't have been. They were there, she and Jude, to say goodnight to Beetee. He was sober, and walking along a safe, even stretch of beach where the shallows were wide.
"I'm sorry, Annie. He's gone."
She nods, even though she knows Jude can't hear that. "I'll tell the others," she says, deciding having something to do is better than not. "We can figure out what to do next once you're back in."
"I'll see you in a few hours, alright?"
"Ok." She hears the phone click off, and she lets it go, hanging from the cord. She presses her forehead to her knees, unsure of what to make of this, exactly. She had done something similar, when she was young, trying to drown in the sea, right after she won her Games and was deeply unhappy. But she was found very quickly, and besides, she was from 4, she wonders if she'd really be able to let go enough to let herself drown. She looks up to see Haymitch standing before her, holes in the toes of his socks, and a little disheveled in his pajamas. His hair is mussed from sleep and she can see the gray in it, and she wonders if she simply hadn't noticed how he'd aged before this moment.
"What's wrong?" She sees his eyes dart out the window to Johanna's, and she almost smiles, despite the situation, at the way he wants so badly for them all to be alright.
She opens her mouth, but it's almost too hard to say. She understands why Jude struggled with it. She stands, and hangs up the phone, and turns to face him, speaking properly. "Beetee is dead," she says. "His body was found in the water this morning. Jude thinks he killed himself late last night."
Haymitch puts a hand over his mouth, and for a moment Annie wonders if he's going to retch, but he just takes a seat at the kitchen table, his brow furrowed. She puts a kettle on for tea. Johanna and Enobaria can wait at least a few more minutes before she ruins their day, she thinks. "He was kind to me," Haymitch says.
Annie arranges the tea bags in the mugs, and pours some milk for when Seamus wakes up. "He was a good man." She thinks of him sitting with Lila Fisk's daughter on the beach and wonders if it had brought up memories of his son. She'd heard rumors of him being forced to mentor his son while she was living in District 13. She shivers, despite the warm morning, and pours the tea. She thinks that if anything like that happened to Seamus, if the last person on earth she loved was taken from her, or killed, she would kill herself as well. What would be the point of living?
She reaches for a pack of cookies, perhaps not a healthy breakfast, but she and Haymitch both had plenty to drink last night, they could use something lighter to settle their stomachs. She thinks of her mother, who was alone during the war after her father's heart attack, who had thought Annie was killed, probably, when she was kidnapped and imprisoned in the Capitol. Had she really left for the Wilds? Or had she killed herself as well?
She feels Haymitch's hand at her shoulder and startles. She hadn't even heard him stand up. "Annie, come sit, I can get the tea." She wonders what she was doing that made him think he ought to step in, but she takes his advice and sits, and he pours the water, bringing the mugs and the package of cookies to the table. "I should have known," he says. "I should have talked to him, or went on that walk with him, shit."
She looks at the table, unsure of how to respond. Because maybe it's true, maybe Haymitch could have prevented this. But maybe not. She thinks of the nights she sat up with Johanna, convinced she might die from a morphling overdose, grateful that Seamus was too young to understand what was happening. She thinks of that first call she made to Johanna, when she thought she might actually lose her mind, when she wanted any connection to Finnick, and seeing Johanna on the platform brought far more comfort than it did jealousy. Perhaps it is enough to be there in the right moment, and that's enough to save someone. But they've all been apart for too long, it's too hard to know the right place and right time, they're too afraid of bumping into each others' rough edges. "I think Beetee tried to hide it," she says. "And maybe he didn't know himself, right until the end."
They finish their tea and go next door to Johanna's, Annie leaving a note for Seamus on the kitchen table in case he awoke before they returned. She knocks hard, in case they're still sleeping off their hangovers inside, but Enobaria opens the door after just a few seconds. "Good morning," she greets.
Enobaria is as proper as always, with perfect speech and posture, but somehow she seems just a bit more relaxed. Perhaps it's just the morning, or the heaviness of a hangover, but there's the tiniest droop in her shoulders, a little frizz in her hair, and she seems more human, somehow, to Annie, who's only known her as a victor in the abstract, on television, and as a cellmate in prison. "Morning, Enobaria," she says. She can tell her face is giving away the bad news by the way Enobaria's calmness seems to turn into a reticence, and she steps back to let them in. "I need to talk to you and Johanna."
The inside of Johanna's place is small, but Annie is used to that now. It's also messy, but she doesn't even notice anymore. Haymitch has never been inside, she realizes now, however, and she watches his eyes roam over the surfaces with unabashed curiosity. Johanna emerges from her room after a moment, wearing a tank top and shorts, the kind of outfit she'd never wear in front of the kids. She seems to pause once she sees that Haymitch is there and thinks about going back, but stays out in the main room, crossing her arms. "What is it?" she asks, her tone quiet, as if fearing the worst already. Annie realizes that they've been lucky in these ten years, that since the war, the only deaths they've had have been expected, or if not expected, the kinds of deaths that can happen to anyone. Tragic, but not senseless, not overly violent. The deaths in District 4 have been things like one of the elderly passing, or a miscarriage in early pregnancy. There haven't been deaths like they had in the war, they're not used to that anymore.
"Beetee died," she says. It's easier to say the second time. She explains the rest, and Johanna and Enobaria listen with blank expressions. And then Johanna opens her cabinet, takes out a bottle of amber liquor, and pours them each a shot.
Johanna shakes her head, as if trying to communicate the wrongness of the situation, but finding any words fell short. "To Beetee," she says, raising her glass.
"To Beetee," they echo.
Johanna laughs when Enobaria says she's still going to go on her run. It comes out more like a choking noise. "Seriously? You really are insane."
"It'll help me clear my head," Enobaria insists. She holds eye contact for a second too long, and Johanna thinks about the night before, about Enobaria kissing her, about her first moment of actual intimacy in what? Years? A decade? Perhaps running wasn't a bad idea, but Johanna has no stamina anymore. So she doesn't tease Enobaria anymore, she just lets her go.
Annie goes back to check on Seamus and wait for an update from Jude, and then it's just Haymitch, loitering around her kitchen, drinking too much of her amber liquor. "You have a problem," she says, watching him pour three fingers into a glass, straight, before the sun was properly even up.
"Beetee is dead, Johanna, I don't think it matters right now."
She didn't know him well, admittedly, but she was tasked with keeping him alive in the Quarter Quell. She and Blight were caught in the blood rain with him and Wiress, and Beetee was there to tell her to "keep going, stay calm," when Blight died at the forcefield. She delivered the two of them bloody and battered to Katniss and Peeta, and what did she get for it? A fucking month of torture. She feels a spasm of pain even from the memory of the electrodes on her skin, and wonders if he noticed.
"You alright?"
Of course he did. Of course he's just as perceptive as before, noticing all the things she wanted him to miss, and ignoring all the things she wished he'd take more care with. She wants to tell him that no, she's not been alright since the war, well, really since the day she was reaped, but that was a different problem. She wants to say that the only things that help are the morphling, the dark, dark bedroom she sleeps in, and Annie, sweet Annie, but she's like a wounded animal, closed off from him. She doesn't want to explain herself to the man who couldn't even take the time to visit her after they shaved her head and left her for dead. "Just hungover."
He nods, as if he doesn't quite believe her, but he doesn't press the issue. She wants him to. She doesn't want him to. "I talked to Ryder last night."
This, at least, has her curious. "Why? You didn't give him any cash, did you?"
"I don't have any to give."
She nods, a twitch of a smile at her lips. None of them have any money then. Same as it ever was.
"I wanted to see about the person you're seeing." He says it so casually, as if this is a normal thing to do.
She snatches back the bottle of alcohol and takes a sip straight from it. It hurts, too astringent, but it's warm in her chest. "What the fuck! I'm not dating Ryder!" The second she says it, she realizes her bluff, from the small satisfied smile on his face. She had told him she was seeing someone, the other day, but that was just to stop him from thinking that she didn't have her life together. And since he already knew she wasn't dating Ryder, he probably knew who he really was to her. She had forgotten how irritating Haymitch was.
"Jo, why don't you come back to 12 for a while?" he asks, out of the blue, like this was a normal question, and not asking her to travel across the country for someone she hasn't seen in ten years.
"What are you talking about?" He's making her nervous now, and she can feel her hand shaking a bit. She wants it, badly, that morphling in her bedroom, but she had promised herself she would only take it when she was in real, physical pain. She could endure this discomfort, whatever this was.
He stands up and takes her hands, and she wonders if he can feel them shaking. She wants to pull them away. "Jo, I messed up. I was sure that I was better off alone, that you were better off without me, but now that I'm here I realize that I made a mistake. Come back with me."
She considers this for about two seconds before she pulls away, shaking her head. She wonders what strange fantasy he has in his head. Are they lovers? Or is she another kid like Katniss who he needs to watch over, even though Katniss is an adult, and she's even older. "I have a life here!" she says. She picks up the bottle, not to drink, but just as a threat, to ward him off if he tries approaching her again. "I help Annie take care of Seamus, I am friends with Jude and Odessa. I have a house. I have things. Why should I give all that up because you decided I should go to District 12 with you?"
Haymitch seems to deflate, and sits back at her kitchen counter. He runs his fingers through his hair, staring down at the wood of the countertop. "You're right," he says. "Of course you're right. I'm being stupid. I just miss you, Jo."
She rolls her eyes, amazed that this was the man she once respected above everyone else. This was the man she thought was a genius, a rebel leader, someone she could completely trust. And here he was drunk at her counter, unsure of what to do with his life. "What do you want?" she asks. She isn't sure exactly what she means. What he wants for his future, perhaps. Or what he wants for their relationship. She wants to parse together why he made such an insane request of her, really.
He looks up, meeting her eyes. "I'm lonely," he says. "I don't want to decide to kill myself in the middle of the night, someday."
She's frustrated at him, frustrated at years of no contact, but hadn't she ignored him for ten years as well? She'd been building a life for herself here in 4, and thought he was doing the same, but Katniss and Peeta had moved away, and what did he have? Who did he have? She finds that her anger is fading to pity, really. She moves to stand beside him, pushing his hair back from his eyes with her fingers. "Don't kill yourself," she says, a command. And then she leans down and kisses him, her second kiss in 12 hours, after years of isolation.
He stands to better position their bodies together, wrapping his arms around her. She thinks that maybe it's something like kissing him ages ago, before the war, but it's hard to remember. She pulls him back to her bed, her tiny dark room with nothing much besides a mattress and dresser, and they finish the bottle of liquor and sleep together for the first time since the war.
"Maybe… you could come here," she suggests, as they lay on the mattress after. He's on his side, tracing his fingers along her ribs, her hip bones, making her shudder from the light touches. She knows the needle is in sight, but it is what it is.
"Me? Leave District 12?"
"I think Katniss can get along without you now," she says. Secretly, she thinks of Katniss's mother on the boardwalk, and wonders if Katniss would take offense to another parent figure moving to District 4. She hopes not.
"I'll think about it. I have geese you know, I'd have to find new homes for them."
She smiles a little at the thought. "Maybe you should just try it. I'm not easy to get along with. A couple weeks, or a month."
"Oh, I'm coming here? To this little shack?"
She props herself up on her elbows, wincing a bit at the change in position. "You don't have to. You could stay with-"
"Jo. I'm kidding. Bad joke, sorry." He runs his fingers through her hair, and she settles back to the bed. "Pain still bad, huh?"
She nods, turning her head away. "Every day."
Peeta goes with Katniss to the beach where Annie has organized a memorial for Beetee. It's abrupt, and Peeta feels so raw that he isn't sure he really believes what he's hearing, but when they get to the beach he sees it, a little ways away: a plain pine box sitting on a dinghy tied to the docks, a coffin.
"Jo made it," he hears Jude saying to Haymitch as they look to the boat.
He turns to Johanna, eyebrows raised in surprise. "You can make coffins?" he asks.
She shrugs, averting her eyes. "It's not hard. It's eight pieces of wood and some nails. I offered to do it so the people here didn't have to make them for their own. They already have the boards for ship building."
They don't bring the coffin close, but Annie has repurposed the tent from last night's party to shield them from the wind and light rain as it comes down. She puts the items retrieved from Beetee's body: a wallet, a pack of cigarettes, and a pocket radio, on the table inside the tent, and they gather round.
The memorial includes the remaining 6 victors, Jude and Odessa, Simon, Seamus, and a man he recognizes as Jude's fishing partner. He's surprised the children came, but he's not a parent, so he's not sure when is too early to teach about death. He'd known about it for as long as he could remember: people were always dying in mining accidents, and there were always the Games.
"Maybe we should say a few words?" Annie suggests, and they nod, but no one seems particularly enthusiastic to go first.
Finally, Enobaria steps up to the table, and puts both palms flat down against it. "They took away my house in District 2," she says, and Peeta looks at her, surprised by this opening. He truly hadn't interacted much with Enobaria, except when they were captured together in that Capitol prison, and he can't remember much of that period. He didn't hate her in the same way Katniss had, during the Quarter Quell, but she never really held any particular interest to him. Now, he pays attention. "There's no Victor's Village, there's no victors, even. The Games aren't mentioned anymore, swept under the rug."
She picks up the pocket radio and moves it around in her hand, as if she's speaking to Beetee. "But it's important that we don't forget. If we move on too quickly, we forget what happened to us as tributes and as mentors. What happened to our families to make us fall in line. What happened to end the war." She takes a deep breath, throwing her shoulders back into her usual perfect posture. "Beetee, I'm sorry you're gone, I'm sorry there's only 6 of us left. I know you were plagued by what happened long before the war. We won't forget you, or any of that."
She places the radio down and pulls out a small bottle of liquor. She uncaps it, pours a bit out into the sand, and places it on the table. Annie takes her place, and Seamus comes with her, all of his boldness from his birthday party gone, now he's back to half-hiding behind his mother. She opens the wallet and finds his ID card and pulls it out so they have a photo to look at. She also pulls out an old, well-handled photo of a boy about Simon's age, and an embroidered patch of a triangle, the point facing down, and places all of these on the table.
"Beetee," she says, looking at the photograph of the boy, "I'm sure you were an excellent father. You were forced to endure what no parent should ever have to go through." She puts her arm around Seamus, holding him close. "I am glad we were able to meet once more before the end. Thank you for remaining kind. We will send you home to rest next to your son."
Annie, also, pours a bit of the liquor out, and puts it back on the table. Beside him, Peeta can feel Katniss shifting, and he wonders if she'll say anything, or let the moment pass without her. Johanna takes Annie's place. She sighs, as if trying to decide what to say, and Annie smiles encouragingly at her. "I used to get so mad about how the Quarter Quell ended," she says, her eyes moving from Haymitch to Katniss and back to Beetee's ID. "I still am, some days, when I feel really bad. But then I think about it and I realize that without you, we all would have died in there. It would be one winner, like always, and that wasn't going to be me. I wouldn't want it to be me."
She traces the upside-down triangle with her fingers, a hint of a smile on her face. "I saved your ass in the arena, you're welcome for that. So thanks for figuring out how to blow up the whole thing." She pours a shot out and moves away from the table, going to stand beside Enobaria. Enobaria whispers something in her ear and Johanna nods, whispering back.
Haymitch takes Johanna's place and he picks up the patch, smiling as he rubs his thumb over the stitching. "Beetee, you're an idiot, keeping a rebel patch in your wallet. Even after the war - are you trying to get yourself killed?" The joke isn't funny, but Peeta knows Haymitch has known Beetee the longest, it's probably hardest for him to say anything here. "Beetee was kind to me when he didn't have to be. In fact, he probably had a reason to resent me quite a lot," he says. "I won the Games his son should have won." He pours the liquor out on the sand and takes a swig for himself, coughing a bit before continuing. "Beetee lived a full life, working for the rebels before most of you were born, before I even comprehended what a rebel was, and helping us win the war. He's enjoyed retirement, as far as I know, and now he can rest." He turns towards the coffin, sitting in the dinghy. "I'll get you home, friend."
To Peeta's surprise, Katniss does step forward, taking Haymitch's place. She looks less sure of herself than he's seen her all weekend. "I resented you for a long time," she says, looking at Beetee's ID card. "I know you designed those bombs that ended the war, the ones that killed Prim and the other children. I knew the story about your son, and I thought: how could someone do that, who knew what it's like to lose a child?"
Annie holds Seamus's hand, and the others stand a little shellshocked, as if they were not prepared for this speech. Katniss, undeterred, continues. "It's been 10 years, and I was still upset. That's why I ignored you all weekend. I thought, if I speak to him, I might let it all out, the things that have been building up all this time, even some stuff that isn't Beetee's fault. So I'm sorry. But I've spoken to people this weekend, I've done a lot of thinking, and I don't know, I guess, I was just shocked by the fact that you're not immortal, as stupid as that sounds. I know you tried to do what's right. I don't agree, still, but you did create a future where my children will not have any chance of being in the Hunger Games, so thank you for that." She tries to smile, Peeta can tell, but it falls short. She pours him a shot and turns back to rejoin him.
Of the victors, it's only Peeta who hasn't spoken, but he's still wrapping his head around Katniss's speech. "My children", she had said. His heart leaps just with the thought that she imagined them with future children. He squeezes her hand and walks over to the table, trying to collect his thoughts again.
"I lost my mind once," he says. "In that prison, they poisoned me. And they did awful things to Jo, and Enobaria, and Annie as well." He meets their eyes as he says this, apologizing silently for bringing up such a sensitive topic. He sees Johanna slip her hand into Enobaria's, and Annie rest her hand's on Seamus's shoulders. "I learned later that the way we were rescued was that Beetee was able to take over the airwaves, and Finnick broadcast Capitol secrets to keep everyone hooked while the soldiers came to get us out. It's thanks to two people who are no longer with us that we were saved. And I am grateful every day, and I will be until I die, that I got out, that I am in my right mind, and the rescue mission worked. So although I wasn't particularly close to Beetee, I'll never forget that." He pours the end of the liquor out in one long pour. "Rest well, Beetee."
Soon enough it's time to go, and they gather their things, as well as plenty of extras like salt and canned fish that Odessa insists they take with them. They say goodbye in the garden of the former Victor's Village, in a light drizzle of rain. Jude and Odessa say goodbye first, rushing off to work and to get Simon to school.
"Bye, Peeta," Johanna says, hugging him and then punching him lightly on the arm. "Next time you and Katniss can go cliff jumping with Enobaria and I." She turns to Katniss who looks overwhelmed at this suggestion. "Don't make that face. If you can shoot the way you can with a bow and arrow, you can jump off a tall rock." She leans closer, giving Katniss a hug that Katniss looks hilariously overwhelmed about. "Bye, Katniss."
Annie rushes up next, hair clipped up in a messy bun, her boots muddy from running up and down to the beach. "Goodbye! We will miss you! Maybe we can come see you next on Seamus's school break!" Peeta doesn't miss the way the boy's face lights up with the idea of a trip, and he can't help but smile.
"Sure. We have the space, and there's some fun stuff in District 12," he says.
"Don't let them fool you," Haymitch says, "It's all covered in coal dust." He turns to Annie. "The body is loaded on the train, we're good to go."
She nods, a little solemn. "Alright, let's get you ready to board."
Peeta watches Johanna punch Haymitch as they walk up to the platform. "Oh, come with you to 12? The place covered in coal dust? Come on…"
He laughs, playfully shoving her, and Peeta wonders if she was serious, if Haymitch had invited her back. There would be plenty of time to ask about this on the ride home, he supposes.
Enobaria is already on the platform, waiting for the District 2 train going in the opposite direction. "Thank you for the invitation, Annie, I had a great time."
"Thank you for coming," Annie says, as gracious as ever. "And for the wine! You're always invited back when you're bringing that."
Enobaria smiles, a little amused.
"Heard you went cliff jumping," Peeta says, mostly because he's about to leave, so it's easier to be bold now. Both Haymitch and Enobaria look at him.
She blushes, but doesn't deny it. "I was invited to try it, so I did," she says. "I don't know if it's worth all the fuss."
"You loved it," Johanna says, rolling her eyes. "Don't lie."
"Says the girl who can't swim!"
Peeta raises his eyebrows and says goodbye to Enobaria before their argument escalates. On the train, he and Katniss take their seats as the others continue to chat until the final boarding call. Truthfully, it's nice to have a moment alone, before Haymitch is back. They haven't had time alone in days. "Did you mean what you said?" he asks, "About the kids?"
Katniss is pretty, sitting leaning against the window, the morning light catching her hair and her features. She nods. "Yeah. When I saw my mom I thought… who is this? I don't even know her anymore. And then I realized. I'm not my mom. I'm not even the same me I was ten years ago. I want this, you want this, we can do this. Just slowly, gently, carefully."
He nods. "Yeah, we can. I don't know if we'll be perfect parents like Annie, but-"
"Definitely not," Katniss says, a hint of a smile on her face. "Unless that Primrose gene comes through. My kids probably are gonna be little menaces. But it is what it is. They have plenty of space to roam out where we live."
Peeta smiles, imagining this. It's nice to think of the future, finally. It's nice to imagine coming back here, enjoying another vacation. Of having friends he wants to spend time with, or having them over to see him and Katniss. Haymitch boards, finally, and they settle into their compartment, starting the long journey back to District 3, with a lot to think about.