Lenore Dove would’ve laughed. Or maybe turned away.

If she’d known what Haymitch did—what he had to become—to pull you out of that fire.

But look at you.

God, look at you.

Barely a child.

So thin, a shadow in human form. Eyes dark as storm drains. He couldn’t tell how old you were. Louella’s age, maybe younger. He didn’t challenge you to answer.

After Maysilee died… it was you.

Only you.

You, curled into the corner of that blood-soaked Arena, one more ghost from 12—so quiet they almost forgot you were alive—until he didn’t. Until none of it mattered.

He thought of Sid. Of you and Sid playing amidst the cinders. He thought of Ma in the kitchen, kneading dough into hope in a world where flour was myth.

So he made his choice.

He played the Game.

He killed Silka.

He screamed through that haze of cameras—I’m your brother, I’d die before I lose you, you’re everything to me—

And the Capitol, sick and starved for spectacle, devoured it.

And you, that broken thing in a too-big jacket, from District 12… were spared.

Brought home.

To his home.

To the McCoys.

To Haymitch.

But this wasn’t salvation.

Nothing was ever simple.

Still.

One morning, he watched you scrabble in the yard with Sid—dirt on your knees, a flicker of color in your cheeks—and for the first time, he thought:

Maybe I saved something right.

A pale gold dawn, sunlight slipping in. He found you at the table, a cracked bowl before you. A spoon too big. Willamae’s soft eyes on the two of you.

“Hey, sweetheart?”

Sid was at school. Just the three of you.

“Do you… do you think you'll be able? Of.. visiting District 11?"