No wonder Finnick liked the water so much, Katniss thinks to herself as she watches the ocean sprawled in front of her in its azure-blue and sea-green mantle glittering with dancing sunlight. She takes note of the way it looks as though cresting waves are chasing one another, eager to overtake the one in front, either dying out before they can, or cresting in their own moment to reach her feet as sudsy-white seafoam. And it's a little blinding because of the sun, but she can't look away, and the smell of fish and hot sand and seaweed is a little overwhelming at first but not as overwhelming as the heavy feeling in her chest that Prim should be here to see this, or her father here to breathe open, salty sea air and not the poisonous fumes from mines deep underground.

Prim should be next to her, digging up little shells with holes naturally in the tops of them and stringing them on a thin rope to make into a necklace, or a crown, or finding some medical use for seaweed or something. But her absence is so heavily felt that it in itself is a presence pressing on Katniss's chest. And she feels the now-familiar tightening in her throat that signals the onset of grief—no, the continuance of grief—and almost always tears, but she swallows hard and fights it back and when she sees her hands clenched into fists around handfuls of sand, she decides it's a good time to go swimming.

So she swims for hours and loses herself in the current and has to fight it to swim back from where she drifted, and she swims until she's so exhausted all she can think about is the nap she'll take to make the time between now and supper disappear. She falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow at her mother's house, in her mother's bed, and dreams of Prim making her shell necklaces.

When her mother gently shakes her awake for dinner, she reacts by wrapping her fingers tight around her mother's wrist and yanking her down to her level; her mother's wide, sad eyes bring her out of half-consciousness and already the immense guilt is crushing her.

"I'm sorry," she says in a voice thick from sleep. "It's—"

"I know, Katniss," her mother's tone is warm but still holds a hint of fear. "You don't have to explain. Come on, it's time to eat."

Haymitch, who accompanied Katniss on the trip, is already at the table, half-empty glass of wine in his hand, though she can tell he's pacing himself out of respect for her mother. Peeta stayed behind in District 12, though it's not as though he and Katniss are anything more than friends now; she told him it's because she isn't sure who she is now and she needs to find out, while he smiled and told her to take the time she needs. But when she hears him scream from his nightmares, she goes to his house and speaks softly to him, and helps him remember that she's not shiny. And sometimes he stays with her through hers, and for all of these things she loves him. But she's not sure it can go beyond friendship anymore, at least not in her current state.

Haymitch didn't even ask if she wanted him to come along; he showed up at her house with a half-zipped bag of clothes and a bottle of white liquor while she was still packing, dropped it on the kitchen table and sat down, propping his feet up next to his bag. She scoffed, but didn't argue.

And still, no matter how much Haymitch's presence comforts her on this trip, Prim's empty spot at the table screams in her mind. And she knows her mother can feel it, too.

By the time they're done with dinner and making small talk and dessert and post-dinner drinks, which really isn't anything but Haymitch continuing his habit and Katniss finally deciding she enjoys the taste of wine more than she dislikes it, and likes the way it spreads warmth over her cheeks, blossoming out from her chest, it's dark outside but her pre-dinner nap made her feel quite awake. She says nothing more than she's going for a walk, and goes out into the breezy evening.

The stars unfold across the sky, and she likes the way they pulse just as the ocean pulses to the shoreline and back again. She finds herself on the shore again, feet wetting in the seafoam-water as the tide rises higher than earlier in the day. She's wearing a dress her mother bought for her, a long, sleeveless, drape-y sort of thing that's less like a dress and more of a wrap, with a rope around the waist to tie it together. It comes down to over her feet, and it seems keeping it dry is out of the question here. It makes her feel uncomfortable—it's too much fabric, really—but she doesn't want to hurt her mother's feelings so she keeps it on. But she would rather be in her hunting gear, without the soft leather boots so she can still feel the shift of the wet sand between her toes and the wash of the crested waves.

Then she realises she isn't alone, and wonders how she could have missed that fact before now as the scent of wine wafts by her.

"Out for a night stroll, huh?" says Haymitch, less drunk than usual, which makes for more coherency.

"Observant, huh?" she retorts before glancing at him.

He hasn't shaved in quite a few days—not that that's a new sight—and he's wearing a loose white shirt and loose cream-colored pants, which looks odd on him. Very not-Haymitch, too beach-y. But it's not bad, and he looks more comfortable than she is in the dress. Then again, he probably doesn't care much about what he wears as long as he's got some sort of alcohol running through his bloodstream and he's not having to socialise with people dressed ludicrously at the Capitol. The bright colours that inundated the Capitol stick out in her memories.

Maybe he doesn't even think about those things anymore. She knows she tries to forget.

"No need for hostility, sweetheart," he half-laughs, now beside her and keeping pace.

"I don't need to tell you it's how I am," she says, even if that makes the statement contradictory.

"Yeah, you're right." Suddenly he stops and grabs her arm lightly, pulling her back and turning her to face the ocean which they can hear more than see even as the moonlight skirts along certain peaks. Maybe he's more inebriated than she thought.

"Look over there," he points off in the distance, to a brightly-lit something out far on the water. "That's a barge. Probably a passenger one. And look there—" he points to another, off a bit to the left of the first one, "at the smaller one."

She isn't sure what the purpose of this is, but finds it nice anyway. It's just the sort of conversational drivel to fill the gaps of silence between them, even though they both know they don't have to voice the volumes they speak silently. They proved that in the arena.

"I hope they're happier barges now," she says with an almost harsh chuckle.

"You've seen the way this place rose out of the ashes, or, y'know, some other cliché saying like that," he shakes his head, and she knows he's drunker than he first seemed. "Of course they're happier."

"Are you?" she asks with a sudden burst of desire to know more about the facts she already knows because she feels it too.

"Not really, I guess," he shrugs. "I mean, it's not like anger goes away totally, but a little with the longer it's been since we all started over. But we—" any living victor of the Games, she knows, "can never be free of it." He hiccups. "There'll always be a lot of anger here. But I guess I'm more okay with Snow dead than I would be otherwise."

"Eloquent as ever," she says, but a wiry smile twists at her lips.

It's then she realises his hand is still around her arm, and for a brief moment of memories overtaking her, she feels afraid because what if he's going to pull his sleeping-knife on her and put it against the vein in her throat? But it passes almost as quickly as it came, because it's Haymitch and he cares about her. Maybe not in the way he should, because she's sure he still probably likes Peeta more than her, but enough for it to matter.

"Afraid I might run?"

He looks down and cocks a half-grin. "Why would you? It's such a nice night."

"This dress would trip me up."

"Then you'd get sand in your mouth. Nobody likes a girl with sand in her mouth."

She laughs at the ridiculously half-drunk statement.

"I can think of plenty of people who wouldn't have minded if I choked on sand just a few months ago. And there are a few pockets of people who are still loyal to the Capitol, so I'm sure they'd like it if I lost my voice again."

"Loyal's a relative term," he snorts derisively.

"Why are you out here?" she asks somewhat suddenly, turning to face him fully.

He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "What, I can't enjoy the beach too?"

"Well, yeah," she shifts her gaze. "I mean, does it make you sad? You knew Finnick a lot longer than I did, and it makes me think of him and—and, well, everyone I lost from that because I keep thinking they should be here to enjoy it." She swallows hard. Expressing her feelings is hard, but it comes more easily with Haymitch. "But he was—you know—"

"A fellow mentor, yeah," he looks up at the sky and starts drumming a finger against her arm, "but you know, however long you've known someone doesn't have to mean they affect you less."

She's shocked at how much he must be concentrating to get all this out—not that he's not smart even when he's totally gone into utter drunkenness, but even standing in the strong ocean breeze seems to be a challenge for him now. That's probably why he's still holding onto her arm. His side of the conversation surprises her just as much as her willingness to open up about these feelings. But she knows Haymitch will understand better than anybody else, even—especially?—Gale, or Peeta, or her mother.

And maybe that's why he's sharing his half, too. Because she will understand on levels nobody else can. The way they feel things is so similar, deep in the gut and it's a shame Katniss doesn't like alcohol more or she would be downing the stuff frequently. And he's doing it not as frequently out of respect for her mother, but she wonders if it's already taking a toll on him. Has he slept worse? Better? No change at all? Does he dream about the horrors he faced and watched Peeta and Katniss face and the assassination of President Coin and the bloodbaths of Cornucopias and rescue missions and seemingly endless propos with Katniss's voiceovers and—

No. Those are Katniss's nightmares. His go further back.

Or has he even slept, knowing these things can plague him while asleep too? Sometimes more, if it's a particularly bad night. For as much as Katniss knows him, can understand him on microscopic wavelengths, she doesn't know as much as she feels like she should about him.

"You've been thinking about Prim this whole trip," he says, finally letting go of her arm. Already she misses the contact. "I've been thinking about my brother, too. He would have loved this."

She stares at him, trying to ignore the way the breeze made her skin break out in gooseflesh, as if his hand on her arm was her one source of warmth. This is the first she's ever heard him say beyond telling her of Snow's murder of them.

"How old was he?"

"Ten."

Even younger than Prim, she thinks with a small sigh.

"I dreamed Prim was making me shell necklaces," she turns her head to stare back out over the water. "It was comforting, but it made me feel worse when I woke up. And then when my mother woke me..." she trails off, the lump in her throat too thick to speak around.

She feels his arm encircle her shoulders and she moves toward him naturally and without thinking, as she had so many times during the Revolution, wrapping her arms around him, her face pressed against his shoulder.

"You just didn't have a knife," he says softly, and she laughs but it comes out as a choked sob and she feels the betrayal of hot tears as they course down her cheeks.

"I come to visit my mother all the way out in District Four and this is how I treat her, like she's a threat," she mumbles against his shirt, breathing in the scent of his shirt, of his skin, of the wine still on his breath all mingled with the salty smell of the ocean.

"What's not normal for anyone who wasn't in the Games is so normal for us it doesn't need explaining," he says, pushing his hand through her hair before lifting her chin and stepping back to look in her face. "Your mother understands, even if it's hard on her. Don't feel bad for something you can't control."

"That's easy for you to say," she snaps, unsure of where the sudden anger comes from—maybe her emotions are just too strong for her to get a hold on them. "You drown all your guilt in alcohol."

"Tch." He lets his hand drop back to his side. "Sweetheart, I'm not the one you need to be mad at."

She swallows hard.

"I know. I don't know why I feel like this. Like I can't figure out just what to feel, like there's a storm of all these different emotions rolling around in my chest and I just can't decide on one. And more than anything I'm just so tired of feeling this way."

"That's what I drown in alcohol," he says with a harsh laugh. "That, and the memory of how close you were to throwing that knife right through my hand that time."

She blushes at the memory of all her anger toward the drunken mentor she hardly knew then.

"I'm still not sorry for that."

"You shouldn't be, it impressed me."

"Oh, yes, and we all know I live to impress Haymitch Abernathy," she says with a laugh, but wonders how much of that was said in jest. For a time, she did, to get sponsors—but she fought for Prim.

"That's your first mistake."

Then she looks up at his face, really looks him, and sees in his grey Seam eyes—just like hers—a range of emotions she can't begin to describe. His lack of severe intoxication has brought these to the surface where she can see them, but she can't decode them. And his lips are parted in a question she didn't really register, but when he notices she's staring at them, he asks what she's doing, and she isn't sure but before she can change her mind she tilts her head up to taste them with hers because after all, she doesn't mind wine now.

And his hands press against her back as he barely moves to slide his lips against hers, and she doesn't know if his eyes are asking questions because she's closed hers and she doesn't want to know, because everything in this feels so much better than when she did this with Peeta because that warm feeling in her gut is blossoming out more quickly than ever and she only vaguely registers opening her mouth to him because it seems like the natural thing to do. And it seems as though the only person she wants to comfort her is Haymitch again. It has always been Haymitch, she realises. But then something's changed and he drops his arms but then pushes her back, and he's holding a hand up to his head, and she wonders if he's still a little drunk.

"This isn't what you want," he says slowly, as if stringing together sentences is still hard.

"How can you say that?" her hands clench into fists at her side. "If I didn't want it—you—I wouldn't have done it."

"I'm not good for you," he shakes his head. "Your mother—"

"Has no say in my life. How can she, when she's all the way out here? She hasn't since my father died, anyway." She chokes back more tears. "And what do you mean, you're not good for me? Peeta was too good for me—you said it yourself. None of us deserve him, you said it yourself!"

"Somebody who drowns a bunch of shitty feelings in alcohol doesn't deserve you, sweetheart."

"Don't say that," she steps closer again. "All I've done for the past year is sleep away everything, and not even good sleep. I can't get away from anything in my sleep unless someone's there, and it used to be Peeta, but it took me this long to realise that I want it to be you."

She says all of this in a rush, and she hadn't even consciously realised she wanted it to be Haymitch until she said it, and that's why she went to him all those times, like on the train or in District 13 or the President's mansion in the Capitol; that's why even though he didn't see her much in District 12 after they returned, his nearness comforted her, because he knew her more than most—even Peeta—and he didn't judge her for it. With Peeta, she's constantly afraid of his judgement, because he is so good. But Haymitch doesn't judge, doesn't care enough to and even if he did, he knows her because he knows himself.

"I don't know how you made it alone for all these years before Peeta and I were reaped," she says, grabbing him by the shoulders, "but I don't want that for you anymore. And I'm afraid we might drift away after years have gone by."

Then she grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him into a kiss again, this time harder and more demanding, and this time he matches her passion and ferocity with this own, sucking her bottom lip between his teeth and tugging, his hands pressing so hard into her hips she thinks he might bruise her, but it makes her feel alive more than anything in the past few months—the past year, really—has, and she can't stand the thought of losing that feeling again. And she thinks he can feel her desperation because the way he moves against her seems to say I'm not going anywhere, girl on fire.

She decides it's okay to lose herself in the current this time. And maybe, she thinks, maybe dreams of Prim won't leave her feeling as empty when she wakes up, if she has Haymitch by her side.

-o-

(A/N: Good god Katniss is a hard character to write. This gave me quite a challenge, and I'm not completely happy with it, but it's something and I want to contribute to this ship as much as I can!)