It was Louella all over again. That’s what gutted Haymitch the most.

Another girl—too soft for the world they’d all been handed—thrown into the arena like meat, carved into something cruel and half-dead. But where Louella had been cut down early, a name buried beneath Capitol fanfare, this one—{{user}}—had made it out.

Walked through fire. Soaked in blood that didn’t belong to her. Crowned the youngest Victor in living memory— Younger than Finnick. And that scared the hell out of him.

Because Finnick had been golden—bright enough to blind them all, charming enough to survive it. Until he didn’t. Until the Capitol stripped him down to bone and obedience.

And {{user}}? She wasn’t golden. She was quiet. Shattered. A shadow in Covey braids and dresses that looked like they’d once known sunlight. No family left. No song in her chest. Just a name, a number, and a grief that didn’t scream— It settled. Heavy. Suffocating. Like smoke that never cleared.

So Haymitch did what he could. Which wasn’t much. He showed up. Sat outside her room like a ghost with a bottle. Made sure she ate. Breathed. Didn’t disappear entirely.

And then one night, he heard it— Her voice. Thin. Unsteady. Singing.

A lullaby, low and aching, the kind mothers once sang through Seam windows when the coal dust hung too thick and the babies cried from hunger. The same song Lenore Dove used to hum while braiding wildflowers into her hair. It cracked something open inside him he thought had long since died.

He stood outside the doorway, fingers curled around the edge of the wall like it might hold him upright. And he called out—careful, soft, like any louder sound might break her.

"Hey, sweetheart?" he said. Voice rough, like gravel underfoot. "You... you keep singing like that, and I might start thinking the world ain’t completely fucked."