My family was there for me at the train station, crying what the Capitol could interpret as tears of joy, and I wanted to think of them that way as well, but I knew better. They were mourning Io still, and mourning all the things I had to do to get back to them alive. Maybe there was some joy mixed in, I didn't really know, but I shook my father's hand, shook my brother's hand, and let my mother wrap her shaking, thin arms around me, kissing my face urgently, the tears streaking down my skin from her eyes.

It didn't take long for my family to move our small number of possessions from my father's home in the Seam (which would still be ours in case something happened to me and my family needed to return to it) to my new home in the Victor's village. Salli helped us move everything, smiling sadly all the while. After Io's death and Prissy's death and watching me becoming emotional at Maysilee's death, she'd been through more than should be asked of a person, and yet she still found it in her to put on some sort of smile, if not as radiant a smile as she'd had before I was selected for the Games.

"Well, it's a very nice house, Haymitch," she said with a smile as she settled down beside me on what would be my new bed. "Very beautiful."

I grunted a sort of agreement. It was a very nice house, but it made me feel emptier, more alone. I didn't feel like I was home, I felt like I'd just been thrust into another foreign place, a new sort of arena, and told to figure out how to survive. At least I wouldn't be expected to kill the other occupants.

"Haymitch, there are things we're going to need to talk about," she said softly.

And there it was. I'd gone places, as her parents would have said. I had more than enough of an income as a victor to support my family, Salli, and any children she might figure out how to talk me into having for the rest of my life. What reason would there possibly be for my not asking her to marry me?

Maybe it was the seeing Maysilee's hollow, dead in my nightmares every night, the fact that I kept half-expecting Io to run into the room and hug me around the neck like she used to do when I picked her up and spun her around in the air.

But she was right, we couldn't avoid talking about it forever. My life had completely changed, and there would be even more changes when the Victory Tour and the next set of Games came along. They weren't changes I wanted, but that didn't mean I should ignore changes I'd long wanted, expected, and opened myself to. After all, hadn't I simply been waiting until I could support her to ask her to marry me?

"Salli, you know that if we got married, either we'd live here with my family or they'd have to move back into the Seam."

"I wouldn't mind them staying here if that's what they wanted," she said with a shrug. "It's a big house for just us, and I think it would be just us for a while, anyway. At least until Archie's old enough to get a job and help out your family. Because you know that they're not going to want to live off you if they can get by without."

She was right. In fact, the second I said we would be getting married they'd probably insist on moving back into the house in the Seam.

"I guess we should consider it," I sighed. "Give it a week, and then we'll let them know. They'll be more likely to stay with us if they feel even a little bit attached to the place and we've got to give them time for that. Besides... I've just had a lot of death for a while now and I'm not sure it would be the right time for making an announcement like that. You know?"

Salli nodded, kissing my jaw.

"I think that's a great idea."

So we waited a week, and the cameras were starting to disappear, which was nice. I was feeling less and less like I had to watch over my shoulder for someone watching me, although I had a feeling that someone was watching me anyway, like there were hidden cameras all over my house. My prison.

Salli was so excited about the prospect of getting married, though, that I kept my concerns and paranoia to myself. She didn't need more to think about than what sort of wedding dress she would want, what she wanted to eat at the celebration.

When we told my parents that we were going to get married, they automatically announced that they would move back to the Seam, give us some privacy. No matter how much Salli begged, my parents didn't change their decision. They could be very proud, very stubborn, and I had the feeling that they didn't care much for the Victor's Village, anyway. Truthfully, I didn't think much of it, either, but it was nice, living in a house that didn't have Io's old room in it. There were no memories haunting me in my new house, so I let them move out.

Salli visited them just about every day, which I suppose was what did it, in the end. Even though we were sharing a bed, even though we were going to be married, independent, as soon as I was back from the Victory Tour, Salli spent so much time with my family. She had, in fact, settled it so that while I was away on the Victory Tour, she would stay with my family in the Seam instead of in my house in the Victor's Village.

"It's closer to my parents, anyway," she pointed out. "And I'm practically a part of the family."

And it made too much sense to argue with her, so I didn't bother.

I should have argued, though, as I found out later, but I got onto the train to travel around the Districts, and to the Capitol, and then back to a massive celebration in District Twelve, at the expense of the Capitol, where Salli and I would announce our wedding day. Salli kissed me goodbye, and there was a lot of excited chatter as she did so, but I got onto the train and travelled away, Aina sitting there, shaking her head sadly.

"What?" I sighed.

"I don't know yet," she muttered, looking out the window to where Salli and my family were waving. "But I have a feeling we're going to find out sooner rather than later."

I didn't ask what she meant. I didn't want to know what she meant. I was still a bit upset with her for not finding some way to tell me about Io, some way to warn me before I made it out of the arena.

"I think I'm going to try to get a nap," I sighed. I didn't want to deal with her cryptic-ness.

I spent the time in the Districts trying not to look at the people who were at the front, the parents and family of the tributes who had died in my Games, some of whom I had killed. They didn't seem to begrudge me my victory, at least not in the outer areas, but the closer we got to the Capitol the more I felt as though I was being glared at. The Career's parents actually glared at me, and someone's father spat at my shoe, which I didn't react to because I wasn't sure what the peacekeepers would do to him if I did.

When we reached the Capitol, my world fell apart. Aina sat down beside me on the train and frowned. I knew she had something to tell me, but I also got the feeling that I didn't want to hear it.

"Haymitch," she said softly, "I'm so sorry."

That was all she had to say and I already hated her for whatever it was she was having to tell me, even though for all her apologizes and bearing of bad news I knew it wasn't at all her fault. I hated her because she was easier to hate than the abstract of the government or the Capitol, who were really to blame for all the things that had happened.

She told me how my family's house in the Seam had burned down, that everyone inside was dead.

Who was inside, I'd asked.

Everyone, she'd told me. My brother, my parents... Salli.

I was alone. Everyone I'd ever loved was really and truly gone. All I had left in the world was Aina, and I hated her. Maybe I shouldn't have hated her, but it felt better to do so. Perhaps I would be able to get over the hatred later, but not before the Victory Tour was over, at the very least.

Until then, I just nodded, letting her know that I understood, but I wasn't ready to talk yet. Then I got up, went to my room, and started smashing everything I could, desperately trying to lift the sick feeling in my stomach, the heavy feeling in my chest.

I wouldn't be marrying Salli because Salli was dead. My family was dead. Nothing mattered anymore. The Capitol had killed them. I wanted to die. I didn't want to go back to District Twelve knowing I would be alone.

But that was the point. I had paid, I realized, for showing up the Capitol, for outstaging and outsmarting the Gamemakers. The fact that I won wasn't the problem, it was that I used an unintended part of the arena to do it, to survive, to kill Betony from District One. That wasn't okay, so they killed them, they killed them all. Maybe they'd killed Io, although even in my fury I couldn't quite see the point of that. It didn't seem like something they would have done.

They killed Salli. They took Salli from me, the last person I truly felt I could trust and confide in. And there was this pain in my chest and these tears in my eyes and I didn't know what to do, how to make it stop. Nothing could bring them back, certainly.

The alcohol made it stop. I barely ate a bite of food at the banquet at the Capitol. I hardly talked to a soul. But once I found the alcohol, once I reveled in its numbing powers, I felt I'd found a friend, one last friend for the rest of my miserable existence.

Nobody bothered me after that, or if they did, I didn't remember it much later. I probably had to talk with some people... my stylist and prep team, Aina certainly said something to me... But what did it matter? Nothing really mattered. The boozed tasted nice and felt warm as it made its way to my belly, and that warmth was a nice contrast to the cold I felt whenever I got just sober enough to remember why I was drinking in the first place, why I'd started to actively seek the numbness of drunkenness.

And if they knew, if they understood, if they'd lived what I'd lived, they'd be drinking too, all of them.

Who were they? Who was them? I wasn't sure anymore. Someone or something to do with the Capitol, though, I knew that. I couldn't get on the train fast enough that would be taking me all the way back to District Twelve for one final feast before I could wallow in my Victor's home until summer came, six months of virtual solitude and despair. Maybe, just maybe, I'd even be able to drink myself to death before that day came so I wouldn't have to deal with the Capitol ever again.

My home didn't feel like home when I got there, though, and it wasn't the ever-present haze I'd begun surrounding myself with.

The train station, that was where I'd last said my goodbyes to them all, to Salli. I was going to marry her, and she was dead and I would never marry her or hold her or even see her beautiful face again. And the town, where they'd set up the feast in the square, in front of the Justice Building, that was my sister's favorite place to go on any day but a reaping, but especially during holidays when everything was festive.

She would have loved the feast, had she been alive.

The foods, they were good. My mother would have loved the opportunity not to cook, to simply enjoy the feast with us, to be thankful that her son had made it home alive. But she couldn't. Because she wasn't alive anymore. She was gone. Dead. They'd killed her and taken that moment from her, that opportunity. And so the food tasted like ash in my mouth and the drink little better.

And the house that my brother had been so fond of, that Salli and I were going to make our home, that my father had admired the craftsmanship of... it felt like a cage, a prison. Maybe it was. It was difficult to tell reality from the phantoms of my imagination anymore.

And I lifted the bottle to my lips after the cameras had gone, although I hadn't waited for them to leave. What did I care if they knew about my drinking? It was their faults, all their faults for what they'd done to me, what they'd taken from me. It wasn't enough to have the last vestiges of my childhood ripped from me, or to lose my sister. I had to lose everything before they were satisfied.

I hoped they were satisfied. I hoped that I would find out who to blame for what had happened to me, for what had been done to me, because once I did, once I found the other people they had wronged (their one flaw, I could see through the haze of booze, in putting victors together every year to socialize during the Games), I would build and army. I would have my revenge. I would end the Hunger Games if it was the last thing I did.

A/N: This is, I suppose, an epilogue of sorts. If you're still interested in reading some of my Hunger Games works, check out Finnick's Story, Scarlett's Story, and Luke's Story (which is the one I'm writing now). The next Haymitch POV story I'm going to put up will be called The 74th Games: Renewing the Story. It will be several weeks probably before I even start writing that, and there WILL be spoilers about future stories for the other section of the series, so if you don't want spoilers, I'd wait until I get to at least The 74th Games: Willow's Story in the other series. If you're not reading the other series or don't care about spoilers, then keep an eye out! :D I also have a multitude of Harry Potter stories, a Sherlock story, and an A Song of Ice and Fire story for you to check out while waiting! Thanks for reading this story and making it what it is! May the odds be ever in your favor!

-J