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It's the Victory Party, and Johanna has finished her stupid 'Mentor Commentator' duties, which means she's free to swallow the half-pill she's been pocketing for the better part of the evening. The trank slides down easily with a sip of champagne, and within minutes she can feel the familiar lurch in her gut, and the colors seem to slide down the walls a bit. Everything is calmer, now. Nothing really seems to matter — not the fact that Autumn was murdered, or Fount, or the fact that she has to go home and see their parents.
But then she sees the blonde woman and she almost chokes as she forgets how to swallow properly. She doesn't expect her here, of all places, in among the rottenest of Capitol pigs. She wants to stand up and go to her, to talk to her now that Cashmere isn't supervising her, but the trank is strong and her legs feel like jelly. She watches as the woman sips champagne and talks with fucking Marcella Cork, and she tries to glare hard enough to get her attention.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?" Haymitch sits down at the table across from her, his usual white liquor in hand, his expression somber as always at the Victory Party.
She bites her lip and misses, the pill making her clumsy, and catches her cheek instead. The effect is the same, and she calms down a little. "That woman over there, she's from another country."
Haymitch takes his time sipping his liquor and looking her over. She's sure he's trying to guess what she took, but it doesn't matter. That's not important right now. Finally, he glances to where she had nodded, and sees the blonde woman. He turns back to her, something resembling disappointment on his face. He shrugs. "I wouldn't get my hopes up. No one from any other country has ever helped us before, and they're not going to start now."
She knows this, of course she knows this. No one saved her in the arena, she had to cross the finish line on her own, despite her body asking her to please stop, enough already. It is the same for him, for Cashmere, for all of the victors. But someone is right there. Someone has come to Panem from outside, and she thinks just once, what if someone did help? "I just thought if I could talk to her-"
"What? She would tell the world how shitty things are in Panem, and that would be it. No one is ever coming back. We have to do this ourselves, Jo, we can't wait for anyone."
She wonders if this has happened before, if he's seen other foreigners come and go. She knows he's faced more disappointments than she can imagine, but his dismissal still stings. Maybe it's the pill making her emotional, but she finishes her glass of champagne and turns away, watching the woman who is now talking to Licinius Crowley.
"Hey, Jo, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He pushes his glass away, the sign that she knows means he thinks he's had too much to drink. If she took the trank to cope with her dead tributes, he's resumed the binge he is on for 11 and a half months a year.
"Cash says there's no chance for us on our own. So what's the point?"
He stands, and it's enough to grab her attention and that of a couple people around them. He disguises this by grabbing more champagne off of a passing tray and setting it on the table between them. Then he leans close. "Why the fuck are you taking any stock in what Cashmere thinks?"
She shrugs. There's no way to explain to Haymitch how a few nights ago she fell asleep with Cashmere, how Cashmere vacillates between being loyalist scum and making complete logical sense. She shakes her head, and it's dizzying. "Never mind. What did you want, anyways?"
He sits back down, but slides the chair closer. "Plutarch wants to start something next year."