AN: My first fic. I don't own anything and I'm open to any constructive criticism. Enjoy!

I wish they'd killed him faster, is her first thought after the elimination of District Twelve's last tribute. The cannon took its time firing, and the Careers were too tired to finish him off neatly, mercifully. The boy was fast; the chase lasted for half an hour, through two sets of commercials. He survived pretty far into the Games but there are still a dozen contenders left to compete. Even when she closes her eyes, she can see the skinny boy curled up and gasping, his blood staining the sand. It won't be engraved in her mind for long since there's always next year.

She feels guilty because she cared about the boy's longevity for the sake of someone else.

Her brother in-law swears next to her and mutters something about the dead boy's parents. The grocery will be closed for a few days unless the Peacekeepers intervene and cut their bereavement short.

She glances at the man slouching next to her. He resembles his older brother so much it scares her. They both have that Seam look with honorable Abernathy traits mixed in as well: olive skin, dark curly hair over bright gray eyes and lightly freckled faces, a scowl worthy of framing. She should have gotten used to it years ago but when they were kids, Haymitch was always bigger. Now, combining the labor in the mines and the food bought from the stipend of his brother's prize money, the younger Abernathy is almost indistinguishable from the older, which only annoys her when her husband is gone.

"Better get home." The man rises, and she doesn't bother to walk him to the door of her large house; he knows the way. It's a shame his family doesn't since they rarely visit. They hate us, she muses, apathetic after years of awkward reunions in Town.

It's his wife, really, who has an ear for gossip that goes beyond local affairs. Oh, does she love a good Capitol scandal. She even had the gall during an encounter in the bakery to gossip about what politician did this and what celebrity did that, then purposefully brought up rumors about Haymitch.

"Colleen wanted me to send her love." She doesn't ignore him but a pang in her heart decides she'll stay put on the couch for the night - or until Haymitch comes home. "She doesn't like coming here to the Victors' Village anymore," her brother in-law continues from behind her. "I guess she's finally old enough to understand why you two live here, and…" He shrugs. "It disturbs her."

Tell me about it, she wants to say, but doesn't. She's too busy thinking about his daughter, Colleen, now twelve, now reaping age. Haymitch was scared out of his wits that she'd be chosen for this year's reaping. She wasn't, of course, but there's next year and the year after that and then the year after that...

Yet, she wants a child so badly that she'll use their niece as an example to her husband. "See?" she reasoned as two kids who weren't Colleen boarded the train to the Capitol. "If Snow was out to punish you, for whatever damn reason you're worried about, she'd be on that train right now. We're safe. We're all right."

Haymitch crossed his arms, frowning. "Am I getting a kiss goodbye or not?"

Catching herself smiling at the bittersweet memory while children die on screen, she listens for her brother in-law and promptly hears the door swing shut.

With him gone, with both them and the final Twelve tribute gone, nothing can keep her from thinking about what must be happening in the Capitol at this very moment…

An Avox delivers a message from the president bearing a name and address. During an unceremonious appointment with his prep team, he cracks a stupid joke, more for himself than for them, while they primp him to pimp him. A car is summoned to the grand building where victors stay during their annual visits to the Capitol. Timorous glances are cast between the other victors standing around him, waiting for their car as well. Passing citizens assume they're going out for drinks, free from their mentoring duties.

His patrons' hands smooth his hair back, knotting their fingers in the curls at his nape - pulling on his shirt collar too lovingly toward the plush bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, wherever they want him - gnawing the line of his clean-shaven jaw, under it his neck, her favorite place to kiss.

Frantically, breathlessly, they tug off the clothes that she helped him pack.

Somehow the tangle of sweaty legs and silken sheets are not the worst to visualize. For some reason, it's the thought of his wry smile as he murmurs sweet nothings in the night over their heavy breathing that break her.

Not a thought, she screams to herself, to Panem, maybe President Snow if she's brave enough. Awareness. Crisp, heartbreaking awareness that all of that has and will or is happening right now. Those monsters are touching parts of him that are hers while he has to pretend he's been enjoying himself for the last twenty years. Wouldn't they tire of him? she often asks herself. With newer, younger victors for sale almost every year? But he has a rebellious fire people are attracted to, like bugs to a light. She muses, Stupid bugs.

Every summer, when he returns home to District Twelve, to her, he'll tell her it's worth it, that being bought and sold is a hell of a lot better than the alternative. The alternative: family, friends, lovers - they can all be easily killed with their beloved victor to blame. Haymitch has quite the list of loved ones the president can choose but she knows it's her at the very top of that list. She should be held responsible. She is why her husband is a Capitol whore, like the other desirable victors with leverage. Victors, she's learned over the years of loving one, are all about self-preservation. But their survival is for a reason; no one can win the Hunger Games fighting to return to nothing. So after they win, lulled into a false sense of security with food and riches, the Capitol uses the only thing that kept their sanity intact to force them to entertain the very people they have every reason to hate.

Well, Haymitch was that way, she reminds herself as she cradles a stiff pillow to her chest. Though she hasn't met many others, it's safe to assume no champion escapes the arena unscathed. But with twice as many contenders, twice the fame, twice the guilt? Her husband is a sentimental man, no matter how often he'll try to convince people otherwise. She's sure she and his family were all that kept him from putting that high banister in the entry to good use.

An emaciated girl from Eight is carried away by hovercraft over rolling sand dunes. The commercials show Capitol propaganda and Hunger Games reruns to liven up the public bloodlust.

She resists turning around to look into the foyer; she is certain a young victor will be hanging by his belt, his torso swaying. Haymitch isn't the only one with nightmares. Are they delusions if she isn't asleep? She'll have to ask Haymitch when he comes home. She could ask the hanging corpse in the other room but she would much rather wait a few days for an answer.

After a brief showing of last year's Victory Tour, the Seventy-Second Hunger Games are back on again. She nestles into the couch, her shoulder blades digging into the cushions and her thin arms hugging the pillow.

During an uneventful update of tributes stumbling over sand, drinking depleting tepid water, and slowly dying, she reaches to switch off the television but then remembers the Games are mandatory viewing. She hated that rule before and she hates it now. Her district's tributes are dead, her husband is visiting his patrons - there's nothing for her, not even the subjection that these battles represent to the districts because they failed to rebel years ago. She knows hope is lost. She knows things won't get better. Not when there are still Avoxes with messages from the president or soft, maybe rough hands belonging to strangers that roam her husband's body.

When Haymitch returns home after a victor from another district is crowned, he assures her that everything he does is worth it if it means he can keep her safe - but at a nervous distance from her. He won't touch her without shaking, and a peck on the chin can result in a screaming episode on the floor.

Like every year, he comes back to her. He'll begin to tease her. Hug her. Scratch her cheek with the ridiculous patches of stubble that, despite the facial hair treatment, grow back when he doesn't shave. Kiss her. Call her sweetheart. Things normal couples do but take for granted.

Once the Seventy-Third Hunger Games arrive, he leaves her again. All she can fathom as the train lurches out of the dingy station is, He's going to the Capitol. And she's stuck in District Twelve with the coal dust and the man who looks exactly like him.

While tributes parade around the City Circle in glitzy costumes, she sits with Haymitch's brother, envies him for his child that isn't a tribute this year, and dreads her biological clock ticking away the chance at a family.

Both contenders from Twelve die in the bloodbath. They didn't listen to their mentor about avoiding the Cornucopia - again. Her imagination gets the worst of her after her only visitor goes back to his own family and a teenage boy dangles from the banister.

A new victor wins, drunk on fame, relief, and shock, and President Snow collects exorbitant offers for said newest victor and those still desirable.

Haymitch trudges off the train platform alongside his wife, hiding everything from her behind a familiar scowl directed at the cameras. Months of tantrums follow until he comes back mentally, and then he has to depart again for the next Hunger Games.

This happens year after year and it will never stop. Not while Haymitch is feisty and charming and attractive. Not while there are Capitol patrons willing to pay for his company. Not while she's still alive to endure his pain and her guilt.

It's a haunting cycle.

Offhandedly, she wonders if she's not the only one who thinks he's really hers.