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Preparation and waiting was the hardest part. Back in the tent with Gale, the two of them packing only the necessary kit to slip away from camp, Haymitch was trying hard to keep steady. Nerves or impulsiveness wouldn’t help in this case. The right moment would come tonight. He’d learned the value of patience over the years.
But the hours seemed to be passing so fucking slowly. Packing his own backpack, putting aside some of the unnecessary things, he made sure to take all of his knives, the ammunition for his rifle, the pistol he’d kept from Homes’ things that he’d carried as their 2-i-c. It was technically his now anyway, right? Glancing over at Gale, doing the same and throwing most of the crap stuffed in his pack aside, he advised, “Take what you need to fight and to do some basic care. It ain’t gonna be heavy wilderness survival.”
Gale nodded. “Didn’t take long for the plan to come forward, huh?” he said in an undertone that wouldn’t carry through the canvas of the tent.
“I work fast,” he said with a shrug. Granted, it definitely helped when the squad commander was on their side to pretty much hand them a gift-wrapped opportunity here.
They worked in silence again for a few more minutes. Finally, moved to it because he was older and supposedly wiser, he was the first to speak. He wouldn’t regret chewing Gale out, it had needed to be said, but if they were going to be in this together as allies, far better to be the one to try to extend that hand. Besides, the boy was Katniss’ friend. He was Hazelle and Jonas’ son. He was Briar’s nephew.
With that in mind, he said, “I owe you. For coming to the Capitol. I don’t aim to forget that.”
A grunt of acknowledgment answered him, and finally a reluctant, “I suppose I owe you for getting her out of the arena twice. And for hiring Ma over the winter, and helping stop that shit Thread from flogging me to death. Call it square.”
With that he understood Gale didn’t want Haymitch owing him and he was calling the debt clear. Whether that was out of kindness or just not wanting that attachment, he nodded. They were both raised Seam. If someone called a debt paid, it was considered paid. They both understood protesting and arguing it would only give offense. “Your Ma tell you,” he ventured hesitantly, “about her sister?”
Suddenly looking at a first aid kit didn’t seem quite right for him to be bringing Briar up. He swiveled on his haunches, seeing Gale likewise had turned and was looking back at him. “She told me,” Gale replied, settling down on his sleeping bag. “Before I went to the Capitol. And my pa’s sister Lorna.”
He nodded, not sure what he could say to that, about the two aunts the boy had never known, both killed young by the Capitol: one dead in Haymitch’s old house, one hanged for poaching the autumn of the 51st Games. “They were both good sorts. Briar and Lorna.” But the stilted awkwardness was there. They were just names and maybe a faded photograph, two girls dead as teenagers years before Gale was even born.
Parts of Gale pissed him off and would probably continue to do so, but at the same time, for the sake of those he had loved, facing with the possibility of not coming back from this battle, it seemed important to try to find what connection he could. “I knew your pa. When we were boys together.” He could still remember youth, and lazy summer days out in the woods with Jonas and Burt and Briar, and the littles were tagging along sometimes too—Hazelle, Lorna, Ash. As ever it brought a wrench of grief to realize he and Hazelle were the only two left alive of that whole bunch.
“He never talked about you.” Gale said it matter-of-factly.
Considering years and years ago, probably when Gale was just a baby, Jonas Hawthorne had made it a point to tell Haymitch to his face one fine Sunday just what a worthless sellout piece of shit his old friend had become, Haymitch wasn’t surprised. That was the Hawthorne temper, which it seemed Gale had inherited in spades. Their loyalty to their own was absolute but once someone had crossed the line, they didn’t ever get a chance to cross back. That Sunday had been Jonas putting Haymitch from his mind for good. “I’m sure he didn’t. But he was a good man.”
“Didn’t stop the Capitol from sending him down to be blown to bits in the mine,” Gale said harshly, his young features twisted with anguished rage.
Haymitch almost closed his eyes against the memory of that day himself, hearing the sirens again in his mind. It had been a bad one. “Nope. It didn’t. Goodness never stopped the Capitol much from doing what it wanted. Doesn’t change that he’s much missed—by you, by your siblings, by your ma.” By me, he added silently, not sure whether saying it aloud would set Gale off, on edge as he was. This had been easier with Katniss. She’d been able to put aside her anger with him for his lies, and in her sheer longing for the beloved father she’d lost, she’d just listened to him telling her those tales in the arena. That was his debt to the boy; telling him what he could about his father, for the sake of a man he’d once loved as a brother and who was no longer there.
Looking over at Gale, thinking of his anger and grief for the mayor’s pretty daughter blown up in an instant, he said, “I suppose that’s the best measure of a person—those that miss them when they’re gone. So long as someone grieves you, that’s not a wasted life.”
If he were killed, he thought at least a few people would grieve. Johanna especially, after all they had shared and been through together. Finnick. Taffeta. Chantilly. Brutus, perhaps. Katniss and Peeta. Hazelle and Posy. Perulla and Prim. That wasn’t much for forty-one years of existence, and he’d lost more than a few in the arena, but it was something, and more than he could have claimed even a few years back. When he went through the list in his mind, he was surprised that he could number that many people who’d actually miss him.
The stories about Jonas were right there on the tip of his tongue, just bursting to get out if only he had the chance, but fact was right now he just didn’t know how to get through to Gale. With a resigned sigh, he gave it up, seeing out the tent flap that darkness had fallen and it was time for him to go. There would hopefully be another day and he could try again.
Rising to his feet, he said, “I’ll be back. Be ready.”