Depressed: A Hunger Games Story

Chapter Nine: Haymitch's Perspective

The next few days went by far too quickly. Haymitch had been constantly back and forth between Peeta and Katniss, working with them separately, formulating a plan for District 3 so neither of them had to so much as hear the other speaking. Honestly, now, after two days, he was starting to run out of patience with them. Yes, he knew Katniss was seriously struggling, and yes, he knew Peeta was running himself into the ground with worry, but Haymitch was not a sympathetic person, and having to constantly carry messages between the two of them was getting annoying. A phone call from Effie saying she'd be on the train that they were taking didn't exactly help his mood either, because Effie was great and everything, but her being on the train just meant there'd be another person worrying like hell.

Katniss wasn't getting much better either. She barely went two hours without a random panic attack – and while he was happy enough sitting by her to help her get through them, the randomness could sometimes be very inconvenient, though he was thankful that he didn't constantly have to be by her side now she could be around her mother again. But the panic attacks didn't seem to be getting any less frequent, and on the night before they were to take the train, she turned up at his house asking for a drink. Haymitch allowed her a little, but it just led to her having another panic attack so he made her stop. She started rambling about hurting herself again, and Haymitch decided just to take her back to her mother, who gave her some more sleep syrup. She couldn't sleep without it.

It was totally understandable that she was worse the night before the train, because she knew she'd be in close proximity to Peeta. Even though they were neighbours. But still, Haymitch suspected that the store of sleep syrup that Mrs Everdeen was giving him for Katniss would be used up by the end of the few days in District 3. Possibly before.

For Peeta, it was a similar story, except without the panic attacks. He just constantly seemed to be pulling his hair out in such quantities Haymitch was surprised he actually had any left. Multiple times Haymitch had had to physically stop him from biting off his fingernails because they'd start bleeding since he'd bitten them so short. Other than that, things were going just fantastic.

Note the sarcasm.

Thankfully, Step One of the plan, getting to the train station without Katniss or Peeta meeting at any point went perfectly, though honestly there wasn't much way for it to fail, unless Effie had demanded a group hug, but instead, when Haymitch and Katniss stepped onto the train, she greeted them in a very subdued way that was very un-Effie-like. Haymitch had escorted Katniss from her house (still quite numb from waking up from the sleep syrup, which helped) and got there just before the train left, jumped on and the train started moving almost immediately after. Peeta had left about ten minutes before them.

Katniss had followed Haymitch into the living room compartment, where Effie had been. At first Katniss had lingered in the doorway before forcing herself into the room, and after only about a minute, Effie couldn't help it and hugged her. Personally, Haymitch wouldn't have recommended it, but thankfully Katniss didn't seem to mind and tolerated the hug. In order not to make her uncomfortable, Effie kept her distance and managed to hold back her tears – honestly, she was a drama queen, that lady – and tried to keep up a casual conversation which Haymitch only participated in because it might help get Katniss out her shell a bit, but if they were helping, he wasn't sure, because Katniss kept so still, her face buried in her hands from where she was curled up on the sofa, that she could've been asleep for all they knew. Or dead. Hopefully not, because that would've been difficult to explain to her mother.

About an hour into the train journey, even though Haymitch still wasn't sure if she was asleep or awake, he decided to leave and see how Peeta was doing. Technically, he was under orders not to leave Katniss's side (orders from her mother, which felt weird) but she seemed to be faring fine (if you could call this fine) in Effie's company. So he left the compartment and went to find Peeta, who was apparently hiding out in some of the private quarters that he'd claimed.