It's been a while...a very very long while Dx This chapter is more filler than anything else and doesn't exactly have a direction. Actually, I don't have much of a direction for the entire story at the moment, which is why I haven't been updating. I don't really know what to say except that I DO want to write more for the story but can't tell you when it'll happen.

I'll try to update every month, but can't make any promises. DDD: One thing I'd really, REALLY appreciate would be if you guys had any ideas and wanted to share them with me! It might help with the lack of inspiration that I'm struggling with! I'd love any feedback, messages, or PMs that I get regarding the future of this story! ^_^'

Okie, so here's a ridiculously short chapter that has no purpose~

Chapter Eight

The next morning, my eyelids flutter open and for a moment, I'm back in my little apartment in the Capitol. I glance to my right, half expecting to see a blur of red poppies outside my window, but instead I am met with something better.

Haymitch is sleeping, curled up around me in a way that the nurses probably aren't appreciating. They strut about Katniss and Beetee, giving me a clear berth as though to say they want little to do with me. I'm not insulted, but rather pleased. It means that Haymitch won't be forced to go.

I'm still weak, but somehow I manage to catch the strands of his hair and tumble my fingers through them. His arm has somehow found its way across my waist, and though I like him this close to me, the weight of it is hurting me. So I gently ease myself away from him a bit and continue to tug my fingers through his hair.

The conversation from the night before was still dawdling in my head, and as I stared up at the ceiling I begin to remember it. He told me of District 12 and why he is here, in what I now know to be District 13. Upon hearing this news, I hadn't been as surprised as Haymitch expected me to be. The lack of morphling from my system this past week has given me some strange sort of sight. Everything is clearer. Before, I had been watching the world through a blurry window, but now I am outside of it.

Haymitch shifts beside me, eyes fluttering open before he groans, throws his arm back over me, and closes his eyes again. I can't help the little gasp of pain as he pulls me closer, and he hears it before I can take it back.

"Elaine?" he's hovering above me before I can blink and I'm quickly trying to recompose my face. But it's too late. I know because the look in his eye is flared with a determination that knows no bounds.

"'M fine, Haymitch," I manage to mumble. Because I am. Better than fine, actually. I'm ten times better than I'd been yesterday, because of him.

He studies my expression a moment longer before nods and retreats. This time, he scuffles off the bed so as to give me more room and pulls up a chair. My hand reaches for his and he grips it firmly, grounding me.

I have so many questions to ask him. They are shifting through my head, cracking and pounding into what will probably become a headache. I sink back into the bed and try to make sense of my thoughts, but they are suddenly even more jumbled than they'd been before. It is the morphling?

It is. I know it is. I can feel the IV poking into the crease of my elbow and feeding me the poison. My eyes slid open and I reach for it, intent on pulling it out. Haymitch catches my other hand before I can.

"Don't," he tells me quietly. He scoots forward and holds both my hands with his, clasping them in a security that astounds me. "It'll help the pain."

I want to tell him that I can deal with the pain. I can deal with this pain a thousand times over, just don't subject me to the blurriness. Don't make me forget. But as soon as I look into his brilliant eyes, I'm lost. Lost in a blurriness that has nothing to do with the morphling.

A tender craving hits me hard. My eyes steal over his face and land on his mouth before darting back up to his eyes. If he knows the direction of my thoughts, he doesn't say anything about it. So I make up for the silence and whisper, "Kiss me, Haymitch." Kiss me, because the pain will stop if you do. Because the world will only get clearer.

He does. He leans forward immediately, as though he'd been waiting for me to ask, and presses his mouth gingerly to mine. For a moment, it is enough. But then the craving pulls harder and I'm tugging him closer, hands tangling into his hair and mouth moving deeper, with a passion that I thought I'd forgotten.

We are interrupted by a couple of nurses who tut at us as they pass, giving us slightly annoyed looks as they hurry to treat the others. Haymitch just grins crookedly at me and sinks back into his chair, hand clasping with mine again. And all I can think about is the look he is giving me, and has given me plenty of times in the past. His eyes turn dark, brooding into mine with promises that make my heart splutter in my chest. Promises that will have to be left unanswered for the time being. So I merely sigh and close my eyes, suddenly overcome by yet another emotion as it strains through my body. It is exhaustion, plain and powerful.

I grip Haymitch's hands harder and want to tell him to stay with me. That if I wake up to find him gone, I am afraid I'll forget again. But he reassures me without even saying a word, and takes my hands farther into his as he presses a gentle kiss against the knuckles.

"Sleep now," he whispers, his voice a cadence of admiration, and I do.

The world tilts sometimes. It moves without my permission, shifts without my notice. But when I do notice the change, I often do not care. Because the morphling would mix care with numbness, love with numbness, discomfort with numbness.

The world still tilts. It still moves and shifts and changes. But it comes with consequences that I still do not fully grasp, and it rather feels as though there is a constant film over my eyes, shading my vision from the outside world.

When the world tilts, it gives me headaches. Sometimes, I ache for hours. Sometimes, I beg for the morphling. But the nurses refuse to give it to me, only in very small doses to help me overcome the strong addiction I've worked up over the years. I'm told that that's why I'm still here, in the hospital, even though my wounds have mostly healed.

I find myself longing for poppies, for their familiarity, their safety. The redness of them, the softness of their petals, the strength they represent. So when the world starts to tilt and begins to throw me off balance, I try to focus on them. I try to imagine that I'm back in my apartment, leaning out of the window to water them. But in my vision, unlike every other, I am not alone.

Haymitch makes the world stop tilting. His hands force the contours of my sight to be grounded, huddled against the earth, conscious. Haymitch, when he is there, stops the clarity from disappearing. But he is not always there.

I know the nurses think me mad. I think myself mad, often. Because the things I say when I want the morphling frightens me. The cajoling that fills my desperate voice, the threats, the reasons why I need to forget, it makes me afraid.

But when the world tilts, I do not care. And when the world moves and shifts and changes, what I want most of all is not Haymitch, not freedom, but rather the blissful, muddy world that has been mine for over six years.

Told ya it was short :3 I'll love you all forever if you let me know if this story is good enough to continue~