Pure Torture: a Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 67

Katniss

"Cause lately I've been scared of even thinking about where we are."
-Banks

The Doctors' decision on what to do with what's going on in my brain is medicine. More medicine. More pills to try to repair me. I'm doubtful about them working. I'm seemingly unfixable.

Peeta tells me that I'm not irreparable, that I'm going to be fine, that it'll all come to a happy end someday. But I don't know how well the medicine is going to work. I started taking it this morning. I'll take it for two months and then come back for another scan.

And maybe if I'm lucky, if some miracle takes place, I can get better. The venom pockets around my brain can shrink. My baby can be safer.

One pill when I wake up. One at noon. One in the afternoon. One before I go to sleep.

I'm thankful that this medicine is not like my medicine I took in 13. The headaches, the depression, the pain... None of that happens anymore with this medication. The only side effects that I've been having are chills and mild tremors, thankfully. Nothing so debilitating as before.

Peeta and I walk back into our house. My 4 month pregnant stomach bulges even more than before. The doctors told us that we could go home, thankfully, and now we can try to go through life as if it's normal... as if it will ever really be normal.

I take my heavy coat off and throw it over the back of a chair by the table.
A cold wind blows through an open window in the kitchen. I hurry over to shut it, cursing whoever left it open during November.

I take a blanket and wrap it around myself, trying to quiet my chilled bones. I wish the blanket could magically heat itself up, supplying me with the warmth I crave. My wish doesn't come true, so I end up starting a fire in the fireplace. I plop myself down in front of it, wrapped once again in my blanket.

Suddenly, a gust of chilled air rushes in when the front door flies open. Of course, it's Haymitch.
"Oh my God." I groan as the cold seems to bite my skin.
It takes me a moment to get past the fact that my warming house was disturbed with cold. I stand, letting the blanket fall off my shoulders, and go to greet him.
He seems a little angry as I greet him with a small hug.

"What's your problem?" I ask him.
"Shut up. What's yours, sweetheart?" He slurs at me angrily. Of course he's drunk.
"Great. You're drunk." I say sarcastically.
"I'm sorry? I didn't quite catch what you said, sweetheart." He says, almost a little too sweetly for his drunken state.
"I said, my problem is that I have a drunken slug who's just burst into my house and is letting all the cold air in." I snap at him. Peeta, who's downstairs now, laughs from behind me.

"Jeez." Haymitch says.
"What do you want, Haymitch?" I ask.
"My liquor's run out. I came to check out your supply. You two don't have a very good taste, though. Doubt you have anything worth my time." He says.

I can smell the alcohol on his breath.
Peeta opens a cabinet that stores only a few bottles of white liquor for this very purpose. This isn't the first time Haymitch has burst in here, drunk as a sailor, asking for alcohol.

He tosses me a bottle and I catch it. I hand it to Haymitch.
"There. Happy now?" I ask.
"Yes, thank you." He says matter-of-factly.
"You're good then? You can leave?" I ask him.
"I think I'll stay here and enjoy my liquor with my two most favorite people." He slurs.

Great.

"Perfect." I say with dread practically dripping from my words.
He stumbles over to the counter where he sets out 3 glasses.

Haymitch opens the bottle expertly and pours it in the glasses. I stand across the counter, watching in disgust.

He looks at me and slides a glass of the stuff over the counter to me.
Yet more disgusted, I stare at the glass.
"It's for drinkin', sweetheart, not for starin' at." He informs me.
"Ugh. I'm pregnant, Haymitch." I tell him.
"Whatever. You could still have some. A little bit never hurt anyone." He says. He must be really drunk.