Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day One

. . . . . .

It's been exactly fifty-one weeks since the downfall of President Snow's regime when Haymitch Abernathy sees Effie Trinket again.

Normally he wouldn't have that number right at his fingertips—he only keeps track of what day it is so he knows how soon to expect the next train shipment of alcohol—but for the past few weeks Peeta has been nagging him and Katniss daily with reminders that Unity Day is coming up and that they are going to attend District 12's celebration.

None of them actually want to attend, feeling that being the face, brains and heart of the revolution is more than enough public service for one lifetime, but Peeta insists that they go. They've been formally invited and the people want to see them, and Peeta says they owe it to their district, which was all but destroyed during the rebellion for having the audacity to be the birthplace of the Mockingjay. Haymitch assumes that Peeta is giving them weeks of endless warnings so that Katniss has time to resign herself to the prospect of making a public appearance—the girl is still shell-shocked, and even before the war happened, she never liked being in front of large crowds—and so that Haymitch can't claim he forgot it was happening and drink himself into oblivion that day.

(Haymitch bickers with Peeta over the idea, as a matter of principle, but there's a lot of truth in what the boy's saying, and he knows that when the time comes, he will be cleaned up and reasonably sober at their little party.)

So Peeta's reminder this morning that the celebration is in one week is why Haymitch knows it has been exactly fifty-one weeks since Snow's surrender when he hears an unfamiliar knock at his door: crisp, firm, politely demanding entrance. With a feeling of dread in his heart—in his experience, few good things ever come from unexpected visitors—he rolls off his couch and stumbles to the door, buttoning his shirt along the way just in case.

He has to blink several times before he recognizes the woman on the other side of his front door. For the first six years he knew her, she was always dressed in the absolute peak of Capitol fashion: elaborate dresses, white face powder, colorful wigs (to his District 12 eyes, she'd looked ridiculous, although he knew that according to her peers she was stunning). Then the last time he saw her, she was gaunt and emaciated, her naturally dishwater blonde hair tangled, looking impossibly small in her hospital bed. No makeup was required that day to make her look as white as a ghost.

But today, she looks entirely different. She is dressed in what he knows from Plutarch's descriptions to be the new Capitol fashion: neutral and dark colors, clean lines, leather boots. "Based on what the rebels wore," Plutarch explained to him once, and then simply shrugged at Haymitch's baffled expression. She's bundled up warmer than is strictly necessary for late October; maybe it's colder in the Capitol right now so she assumed 12 would be cold as well. Her makeup is light, and her hair—her natural hair—is swept up in a braided updo. And for the first time, he understands what the Capitol citizens saw in her. In her own way, she is stunning.

But she's also completely unexpected and not entirely welcome. "Effie," he says flatly.

She gives him a small smile. "Haymitch." Her voice hasn't changed—still theatrical and melodious, still heavily tinged with the distinctive Capitol accent—and he can't help himself: he winces. For six long years, he only heard that voice during the darkest part of the year, when she showed up in 12 to destroy his home just a little bit more, to force him back into a life where he befriended children only to watch them die violently. It's not her fault that the Hunger Games happened, but apparently he still associates her with them. Hence the wince.

And she sees the wince, and her expression falters, but then she tightens her grip on her handbag and pastes her smile back on. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm in the neighborhood," she explains.

His response comes out more abruptly than he'd intended. "Why?"

"Peeta invited me down for your Unity Day celebration. And though the Capitol celebration does promise to be extravagant, I thought—" She hesitates, and a frown mars that perfect brow before disappearing behind her perfect smile. "I thought it might be nice to spend the holiday with friends."

Are they friends now? This is news to him. But he definitely wouldn't put it past Peeta to invite her; the boy always was a tender heart.

"And I've been in the city for months. I thought some fresh air might be healthful. Invigorating."

He nods. "You staying with Peeta?"

She nods. "His guest room."

He is out of conversation topics. "Well," he says, then pauses, looking for words, then gives up. "Welcome."

It doesn't sound particularly convincing to his ears, and from the look on her face, she agrees. "Thank you," she says quietly. "If you don't mind, I suppose I'll go unpack. I'm sure I'll see you around."

Knowing Peeta, that's probably true.

. . . . . .

"So I hear you were a real jerk to Effie," Katniss says.

Haymitch looks at her over the top of his glass of water, considers, and then nods. "Yeah, I probably was." He takes a drink. "She tell you that?"

"Not straight out," says Katniss, "but it was pretty clear, reading between the lines. Plus, you're not exactly a ray of sunshine, no matter who you're talking to."

From where they sit on Haymitch's porch, he can see a window open on the second floor of Peeta's house, in a room that isn't usually occupied; he supposes that's Effie's room. "It was just . . . unexpected." He puts on a bad approximation of the Capitol accent. "Didn't have time to compose myself properly to receive the Queen of Sheba." And then he scowls at the cup in his hands. "She always was easier to deal with when I was drunk." Unfortunately for him, he ran out of alcohol four days ago and unless he can beg, borrow or steal from someone else in 12, he'll get no more until the supply train arrives. The worst of the withdrawal symptoms are past, but the cravings are still there in full force.

Katniss sighs a bit longingly. "Yeah, that's probably true of a lot of things." Like Haymitch, she has demons she'd like to drown—maybe more than he does—and she has turned to alcohol a time or two before, but she also has his shining example in front of her to act as a warning, to remind her that if she picks up a bottle in order to live comfortably in her own head, she might never put it down again. So as much as she's tempted, these days she copes without liquid help. When she first told him that she viewed his alcoholism as a cautionary tale, he'd responded magnanimously that he was always glad to be of service.

"What about you?" he asks. "You happy to see her?"

Katniss shrugs. "I'm not thrilled—I haven't been missing her—but being mad at her, being mad at most people from the Capitol, is just . . ."

She trails off but he knows what she means. "It's like being mad at a little kid," he finishes. "Yeah, they did wrong, but they didn't really know any better." He takes a swig from his glass. "Plus if you yell at them they'll probably just burst into tears."

Katniss gives him a wry grin. "Exactly." That's one reason he enjoys these visits of hers, which have been happening with increasing frequency over the last eight months: she gets him. He sometimes thinks that if he'd ever had a daughter, she'd probably have been a lot like Katniss. So it's probably good he never reproduced.

"I kind of thought you'd be glad to see her," she says. "I thought you two were friends."

He raises an eyebrow. "Me and the princess?"

She shrugs. "They told me the only reason Coin didn't execute her was that you and Plutarch fought so hard to keep her alive."

That's true, he did. But then no feeling person could have done otherwise. His mind flashes back to that day when Paylor radioed him to say they'd found his old escort in a Capitol prison, and did he want to come down and give them a hand with her? He'd been very still for a moment, relief coursing through his veins; after all, it was definitely the rebellion's fault (his fault, really) that she'd been arrested in the first place, which was why he'd given the squadrons sent to the prisons instructions to look out for her. When he arrived at the hospital where they'd taken her, he barely recognized the waif in the pale blue hospital gown, but she recognized him—the only familiar face she'd seen in months—and she clung to him like a vine and trembled like a leaf. Clearly her captors had not been kind to her, and instantly he'd known: she was Capitol to the core, a silly image-obsessed socialite who'd been complicit in the gruesome crime against humanity that was the Hunger Games, but he couldn't leave her to her fate at Coin's hand. She'd been through enough because of her association with 12. For the sake of his own conscience, he'd fight for her.

But all of this is too much to explain to Katniss, so he says simply, "Like you said, she was never evil, just . . . Capitol. And both sides were out to get her; Snow arrested her because she happened to have been assigned to babysit the three of us, and Coin would have executed her for the same reason." He shrugs. "I felt bad for her. But I didn't expect to ever see her again. Definitely didn't expect her to tell me today that we're friends."

"Hey," Katniss reminds him with a grin, "don't forget, we're a team." She leans back in her chair. "Effie . . . Effie meant well, I think. She cared about us, the best she could. And Peeta does seem really happy to see her."

Haymitch chuckles at that. "You worried about that? Beautiful woman, sleeping in your boyfriend's house?"

As he'd expected, Katniss bristles at the use of the word 'boyfriend.' She and Peeta are definitely something to each other these days—he sees the way they look at each other, the way they touch a little more than is strictly necessary, and he knows that she let Peeta kiss her once, very briefly—but she still strenuously objects to putting a label on it. After all, putting a label on it would make it real, and making it real would just make it one more thing she's afraid to lose should their new-found peace and freedom turn out just to be a cruel ruse or a beautiful dream.

But she scoffs at the idea of being jealous. "I don't think Peeta knows how to break someone's trust, even if he wanted to."

Haymitch nods in agreement, then gives a rare compliment. "He's a good kid."

A hint of a smile crosses Katniss's face. "Yeah, he is." Then she wrinkles up her nose. "So I guess if he's trying to give Effie a chance, so will I."

She looks expectantly at Haymitch, and he marvels for a moment at what a good influence her not-quite-a-boyfriend has had on her. "Fine," he says. "We'll be nice to Effie."

. . . . . .

They get their first chance to put this into practice that very night, as Peeta has invited them both over for dinner. This isn't unusual; he has them over for dinner four or five nights a week, because neither of them can cook to save their lives and Peeta is excellent at it. Haymitch is never sure if it's because cooking is similar to baking or if the kid just has a talent for all things food-related.

But tonight is special, he sees when he shows up. Tonight Peeta has pulled out all the stops. His house, always immaculate, is decorated with fresh flowers and there's a fine white cloth on the table. And the smell from the kitchen tells Haymitch that Peeta has outdone himself today. Best of all, there is a bottle of something red and delicious-looking on the sideboard.

"Present from Effie," Peeta says when he sees Haymitch looking at it. "She brought it from the Capitol."

"That wonderful woman," Haymitch grins, picking up the bottle. "This is—"

"Cranberry juice," Effie's trilling tones come from the hallway.

"Cranberry juice?" Haymitch repeats, making a face. "Why would anyone drink cranberry juice, and why would you get my hopes up like that?"

"It is delicious," she says. "And not my fault that you immediately assume anything in a bottle is here to get you drunk."

"Would it have killed you to bring wine?"

"It might have killed you," she says. She gives him a stern, disapproving look, lips pursed, and it's almost as familiar to him as the look of fatigue that stares back at him daily from the mirror. For a moment in his mind they are back on the train, an escort and her victor, bickering yet again about his drunken escapades. In a strange way, it makes him feel nostalgic.

"Come on, you two," says Peeta firmly. "Time for dinner."

The roast venison is delicious, and Effie, holding her fork delicately in a gloved hand, declares it to be as good as any venison she's ever had at the Capitol. Peeta uses this as a segue to ask her about life in the Capitol these days.

"Oh, it has changed a great deal," Effie says seriously. "Fewer people, of course, and those of us that are left had to relocate into parts of the town unaffected by fighting. And it took months to clean up all the defenses President Snow had around the city—there were all these . . . booby traps, apparently, that would go off if people came too close—"

She cuts off as Peeta and Katniss both visibly tense; Haymitch supposes that they're remembering their terrifying incursion into the city. Perhaps Peeta is remembering when he had an episode and, in his out-of-control state, knocked Mitchell into one of the pods and killed him. But he supposes Effie doesn't know these things, as she was imprisoned at the time; at the very least, she clearly has no idea why Peeta and Katniss look so upset, and she looks pleadingly at Haymitch for help.

So he supposes he can save the conversation, if he must. "Looks like clothes have changed too. You're not as colorful as you used to be."

This is a sufficient distraction from the awkwardness. She glances down at her austere brown and gray dress and fawn gloves and smiles. "Yes, they're beautiful, don't you think? This is what everyone's wearing now. After . . . everything, everyone wants clothes that are less frivolous. More serious, out of respect for what has happened."

Haymitch fights the urge to roll his eyes. Districts are struggling to rebuild, soldiers and victors are coping with bodies that may never fully heal and minds that may never fully be at peace again, and how is the Capitol dealing with it all? By wearing more serious clothing. Good thing they didn't experience as much actual fighting as the districts did, because they would genuinely not have been able to cope, not even with the help of all the serious dresses in the word.

That's unfair of him, he knows. Many Capitol citizens suffered greatly, many died, many watched their own children get blown apart by Coin's bombs. But they didn't see nearly the same amount of destruction as the districts. And before the rebellion started, they never starved or feared the Peacekeepers; they never watched family and friends die in the Games. They never knew the horror of a reaping.

Well, this conversation is getting them nowhere. "Where are you working at now?" he asks, although he already knows the answer from his frequent phone calls with Plutarch.

Effie smiles. "I'm working for our old friend Plutarch. On one of his shows, Stories across Panem. Perhaps you've seen it?"

She looks around hopefully, but Haymitch and Katniss just look at her blankly and Peeta shrugs apologetically. All three of them agree that they're happier staying out of touch with the rest of the world, and their televisions stay off.

"That's all right," she says, sounding disappointed. "I'll have to show you an episode while I'm here; it's really wonderful. We travel around the Capitol and the districts and ask people to share stories about their lives—what their district is like, how they live now, how they lived before the rebellion. All done very tastefully, of course. We were all so isolated from each other under President Snow, and Plutarch saw this as a way to increase awareness and unity across the country."

Sounds just like Plutarch, using entertainment to make a point. Knowing him, it probably works, too. Haymitch thinks the show sounds awfully dull, but Peeta looks interested. "I'd love to see that," he says sincerely. "And I'm not surprised you ended up on TV. You were always good at it."

Unexpectedly, Effie freezes, and a look crosses her face that reminds Haymitch of the way Katniss looks when she remembers . . . anything, really. "Oh, I'm not in front of the camera," she says. "I . . . I had enough of that as an escort." There's a pause, and then she fakes a laugh and plows into a conversation with Peeta about how beautiful his house is with a great deal of forced cheerfulness that can't cover the tension in the room.

And Haymitch sits back in his chair and listens with eyebrows raised. He's learned two things tonight: one, that this is going to be an incredibly awkward week, since Effie keeps accidentally stumbling into the conversation topics they'd rather ignore and they seem to be good at doing the same thing to her; and two, Effie Trinket is not as okay as she pretends to be.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Two

. . . . . .

Peeta has decided they are going to have a picnic lunch in the forest.

"Why in the world would I want to do that?" Haymitch demands when Katniss shows up at his door to tell him. Eleven in the morning is far too early to be dealing with other people.

Katniss shrugs. "To enjoy the natural beauty of 12. Or at least that's how Peeta pitched it to Effie." She nods her head back toward Peeta's house. "He says we'll stop by here to get you. I don't think he trusts you to show up if we just plan on meeting somewhere."

"Smart kid," he's forced to admit. "Do I need to bring anything? My finest picnicking basket, perhaps?"

She rolls her eyes. "Just your charming self. Effie just wants to spend time with her team."

"You and Peeta are half of the team," he points out. "Why can't that be enough?"

She shrugs. "Maybe we need you to keep an eye on Effie so we can sneak off into the woods for some sparking."

She smirks as she turns away and hops off his porch, and he can't help yelling after her, "You know, most kids your age wouldn't mean that as a joke. You two really should sneak off and make out some time."

She ignores him and he shakes his head.

Half an hour later, their little group of four is crossing into the forest. Katniss is in the lead—she knows these woods better than anyone—and Peeta follows close behind carrying a pack on his back and a basket. Effie comes next, clad in what appears to be high-fashion coveralls and very sturdy boots; Haymitch wonders if Peeta explained to her that this is going to be a five-minute walk down a level path, not a full-day trek through the mountains. And Haymitch brings up the rear, which he doesn't much mind, because those coveralls are doing very flattering things to Effie's backside.

"This is beautiful," Effie says, looking around at the trees, resplendent in their autumnal orange and red. "How fortunate you all are, to have grown up with such easy access to such beauty."

Up ahead, he sees Katniss glance back at Peeta. "Well," Peeta says, "we weren't actually allowed out here before the rebellion."

Effie is silent a moment. "Ah," she says, "right. I forget . . . how many rules you all had to live under." She doesn't attempt any more conversation.

But once they reach the meadow that Katniss is leading them to, the tension eases. It's a gorgeous day, comfortably warm for October, with puffy clouds racing across a sapphire sky. Effie exclaims wordlessly when she sees the meadow, with the bright-colored trees standing like tongues of flame against the vivid sky. And Haymitch, looking around, has to admit that she's got a point; he doesn't often think about it, but he comes from a beautiful district.

He helps Peeta spread out the blanket and set out the packed lunch he brought while Katniss shows Effie the nearby stream. (He'd love to know what the girl is saying to her former escort—"This is where I used to illegally poach rabbits because your government was starving my people"?—but he's too lazy to walk that far.) And when they return from their walk, they dig into the spread that Peeta has produced, and between Effie's raptures about the scenery and everyone's compliments to Peeta's excellent lunch, the conversation flows freely. Well, between the three others it does, anyway. Haymitch doesn't feel the need to contribute often.

When lunch is finished, Katniss declares that she wants to show Peeta the cave that she found around here the other day. If it were anyone but Katniss, Haymitch would think that was a weak excuse to get some time alone with the boy, but knowing Katniss, there probably genuinely is an interesting cave. But Haymitch doesn't much want to move, so when Effie says she'd like to just sit here in the sunshine a while, he volunteers to stay with her. Peeta flashes him a grateful smile, and off they walk, leaving the two adults sitting together in the meadow. Haymitch takes advantage of the all the space available on the blanket now to sprawl out on his back, eyes closed, soaking in the October sun like a lizard on a rock.

"It's a lovely day," he hears Effie say, in a tone that says she doesn't really expect or even want an answer.

He cracks open one eye to look up at her and sees that she's sitting next to him, eyes closed, face turned up toward the sun, and he's reminded of what he saw yesterday: the woman's beautiful. Back in their Hunger Games days, she always looked most at home in the Capitol and completely out of place in the rustic districts. But now, without her wig and her vivid makeup, with her simple clothing and the sun shining on her face, she looks like she belongs in this meadow. Not that she ever could, really; he can't even imagine how crazy she'd go if she had to spend any extended period of time in a place like this. Come to think of it, how is she not going to be bored silly for an entire week in 12? Once again he wonders why she would decide to leave her life of parties and (relative) opulence in the Capitol just before what promises to be the biggest, most opulent party in months.

But before he can ask her about it, she opens her eyes and speaks. "Haymitch," she says, then trails off, her gaze fixed out over the meadow in the direction that Katniss and Peeta disappeared.

"Yes?" he prompts after a few moments.

"Katniss and Peeta," she says. "Are they . . ." And then there's silence again.

"House-trained?" he guesses facetiously.

She turns and gives him one of her patented oh-stop-it looks. "Together."

He shrugs—not easy to do, from his recumbent position. "Not exactly, no."

"Oh," she says. "I'd hoped . . . after all this time . . ." She hesitates. "I know their relationship was always a ruse, but they're so sweet together. I'd hoped that eventually they would realize it." She gives him a small smile. "The whole Capitol loved that romance; everyone was so disappointed to learn the truth. Well, at least, those of us who now know. Some people still believe it." Her expression turns wistful. "It was a very romantic story."

"Huh," says Haymitch. "So you guys cared about whether these two kids hooked up, but you weren't really bothered about sending them to their deaths."

Her lips tighten into a thin line. "It was more complicated than that and you know it," she says, her accent more becoming more pronounced and more clipped.

"End result was the same, though," he says lazily.

"People in the Capitol rioted before the Quarter Quell," she reminds him. "They were so upset about the baby."

"True," he concedes, closing his eyes. "But it was too little, too late."

Effie lets out an exasperated little huff and he feels movement next to him. When he opens his eyes, he sees her standing next to the blanket. "I think I will go for a walk," she informs him in clipped tones.

"Suit yourself," he says, shrugging again. "But don't go too far, princess. There could be wild animals in these woods."

She tightens her lips again, disapprovingly, but before anything else escapes her mouth, she stalks off to the edge of the trees, leaving Haymitch alone on his blanket. This probably counts as him breaking his promise to Katniss, he decides; this was probably him being a jerk to Effie again. But he has to admit, there is something very satisfying in being able to say to her all the sorts of things he wanted to say but couldn't during the six years that she was his escort.

He's not sure how long he lays there alone on the blanket—long enough to nearly doze off—before he hears voices that mean his companions are returning. Opening his eyes, he sees all three of them making their way toward him across the grass. Effie still looks a bit miffed, but Peeta and Katniss look happy and relaxed. She didn't rat him out for being a jerk, then; Peeta would look more annoyed if he knew the contents of their conversation.

They're going to pick some apples, according to Peeta; the remains of an orchard stand nearby and some of the trees still bear good fruit. Haymitch would rather stay on his comfortable blanket, and maybe Peeta can sense his hesitation, because he says with a smile, "If we get enough, I'll make a pie."

And that is more than reason enough; the kid's pie's are darn near miraculous. So he heaves himself up off the blanket and goes to help pick apples.

And it's not so bad. That is to say, he doesn't enjoy himself, but he enjoys seeing how much Peeta and Katniss are enjoying themselves. And Effie declares the whole experience to be absolutely charming, so rustic, so wholesome. But she's not entirely happy. He can tell because she doesn't make eye contact with him for the rest of the afternoon.

And he admits to himself that maybe he was a little harsh.

. . . . . .

Things come to a head that night at dinner. Haymitch, who hasn't had a drink in four days and is facing the prospect of no more drinks for a while yet, is tired and irritable and has a steadily growing headache; even Peeta's incredible pie doesn't help. And Effie's being especially obnoxious. She chatters endlessly, mostly to Peeta and Katniss, about the Capitol: how beautiful it is, how much they've cleaned it up, what excellent reconstruction work they've done to buildings that were damaged in the rebellion, how incredible the party was for the reopening of the city's main park.

"Oh, that reminds me," she says. "While I was at the opening, I met a goldsmith and we started talking jewelry, and I saw this beautiful pin he'd made and it reminded me of when we had our gold tokens. Do you remember?" And from her bag she pulls out four small lapel pins: gold discs decorated with a stylized flame. Haymitch is sitting all the way across the table from her, but he can tell that they're well-made. Probably cost a fortune. "And I thought, since I've lost my wig and I assume you might not have your tokens anymore either, we could get new ones. These."

Her eyes meet Haymitch's and he just stares at her blankly, and she seems to color a little under the lamplight. "Of course, you don't have to wear them. I just . . . thought it'd be nice to know that we all have them again."

"I think it's a great idea," says Peeta sincerely, and takes his pin from her.

Effie smiles warmly at him, and Katniss follows his lead. "That's really thoughtful of you, Effie," she says, sounding only slightly forced, and accepts the second pin from her. Together, they put their pins on their shirts, and Effie does the same. Then all three turn to look at expectantly at Haymitch.

The first set of tokens was ridiculous; a replacement set, even more so. But he knows what Peeta and Katniss will expect of him, so he forces a smile onto his face and reaches his hand out. "Thank you, Effie," he says dutifully—unconvincingly—and accepts the pin she passes to him. Then he sets it on the table.

A look of disappointment crosses over her face, but she quickly pushes it back and smiles at them all. "Now we're a team again." It looks like there's more she'd like to say, but then her face changes and she's back to describing the party where she met the goldsmith, who was there, what food was served, who was wearing what. And then, barely pausing for breath—he gets the distinct feeling that she's uncomfortable with the silences that keep falling and this is a way to fill them—she moves on to other reconstruction projects. "The Grand Avenue will reopen next month, of course, and the new renovations on the train station will be done the month after that, but unfortunately they won't be able to even begin work on the Colosseum until at least next year." She looks around at them. "No money for the reconstruction, you understand."

And Haymitch is completely done with this conversation. He's done with being at this dinner, he's done with being sober, and he's done with Effie's absolute ignorance of the world outside the Capitol, even now. "Oh, I'm sorry your city doesn't have as much money to make itself pretty anymore," he says, and he doesn't think he could possibly inject any more sarcasm into his voice. "I guess maybe the districts needed some of the country's money and resources so we didn't all starve and freeze this last year? Because our homes and our lives were destroyed by your corrupt government while you all continued to live in luxury? That's just the worst, isn't it?"

In all the time he's known her, he's never seen Effie look so surprised and so hurt; if he'd slapped her across the face, he doesn't think he could have gotten such a strong reaction. Her blue eyes fill with tears, and she blinks rapidly a few times, and now he's sighing inwardly because even he isn't so much of a jerk as to not realize that he's crossed the line.

She stands from her seat with a quiet dignity that is strangely moving. "If you'll excuse me," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, "I would like to get some air." And she slips out onto the porch.

"Haymitch!" Peeta scolds as soon as the door shuts behind Effie, and Katniss looks nearly as annoyed as he does.

"I'm going, I'm going," Haymitch grumbles, heaving himself up out of his chair. He glances down at their frowning faces as he passes. "You know you've been rude when even Katniss is shocked at you."

"Go!" she insists, and he slips out the door.

Effie's standing at the edge of the porch with her back to him, staring out into the darkness. Nights get cold here in October, and she isn't dressed for the weather; he can see her folding her arms tightly and shivering, just a little.

He doesn't know where to start, but luckily she speaks first. "Hello, Haymitch," she says, not turning to look at him.

"How did you know it was me?" he asks, impressed.

"I knew Peeta would insist."

That makes him smile.

They stand in silence for a time while Haymitch looks futilely for words, but in the end, Effie speaks first. "Do you really hate having me here that much? Do you really hate . . . me, that much?"

"I don't hate you," he says automatically. He never did, even back before the rebellion.

"But you don't like me."

There doesn't seem to be a truthful and tactful way to respond, so he goes with truthful and blunt instead. "I'm not sure why you expected anything different. For a really long time—for most of the time that I've known you—all you've been to me is the woman who appeared once a year to drag me back into hell."

He can hear her sharp intake of breath—is she offended or surprised?

"And I know it's not your fault the Hunger Games happened, and I know that even if you'd fought back you couldn't have made a difference alone, but . . . that's what I associate you with. So having you show up here unexpectedly . . . it reminded me of a lot of things I'd rather not think about."

And now she turns to him, her face lit by the warm glow coming through the windows. "Haymitch, that . . . that was not my intention." She looks genuinely concerned and apologetic. "Would you rather I left?"

He considers it. He could say yes and have her out of his hair, have her vanish and take her Capitol accent and her mindless problems and her bad memories with her. But Peeta would be disappointed, and Katniss would be disappointed, and Plutarch would be disappointed the next time they speak. And Effie would be disappointed too, he thinks; it's been obvious for the past two days how much she wants to be here, and those pins she bought were probably quite expensive and required a lot of planning on her part. And as he looks at her face, at the pin on her lapel, he realizes he can't disappoint her; he never wanted to be on her team, but he was anyway, and maybe he will be forever. Maybe the bond formed between the four of them by their connection during the Hunger Games is one of those that can't be broken, the way soldiers bond on the battlefield.

So he bites back a sigh and answers more gently than he thought he could. "No, I don't want you to leave. You came all this way for the celebration . . ." He pauses. "Why did you come all this way? I'm sure the party in the Capitol is going to be much better than ours."

She takes a step backward. "I told you, I wanted to celebrate with friends."

"You don't have friends in the Capitol?"

"Yes, but—" Her face falls a little. "I don't have any friends there who . . . understand. They were spared the horrors of the war—which I'm very glad of, for their sakes—but none of them can sympathize or even understand . . . things."

A shadow crosses her face, and he remembers that he never found out for certain what they did to her in prison.

"And while I appreciate their exuberance and fresh minds most of the time, I thought that this time . . . for this particular anniversary . . . I wanted . . ."

"Your team," he finishes for her, and guilt pierces through him. He's used to the old guilt—over his family, over his girlfriend, over forty-seven teenagers who died so he could live—but this new, fresh guilt, like a splash of red paint thrown across a faded painting, is particularly unpleasant. What Effie suffered because of the rebellion can't be any worse than what the districts suffered—what Katniss and Peeta suffered—but that doesn't negate the fact that she has suffered, that she was punished for her association with a rebel group that she didn't even realize she was associating with.

He scrubs his hand down his face, thinks for a while, and then looks at her. "I don't know if I know how to be okay with you, but I can try. Just . . . don't say anything crazy about the Capitol, and I'll try not to say anything rude back, and maybe . . . me and you can be friends." He smirks. "We've known each other for what, seven, eight years now? It's probably time we were friends."

A slow smile spreads across her face. "I can give that a try," she says. "I'm sorry I do keep rambling on about the Capitol. I know you don't care. It's just . . . that's my life. That's what's normal for me. If I don't talk about it, I don't know what to talk about. I don't know what you three want me to talk about."

"Talk about the weather," he suggests facetiously.

But she seems to take it seriously. "I will. And if I say anything 'crazy about the Capitol,' just . . . shake your head, or touch your nose or something."

"And if I say something rude, just smack me."

"Deal," she says, and puts her hand out for him to shake. He does.

"Now let's get back inside," he says. "It's cold, and anyway if I don't tell Peeta we made up, he might not make me dinner tomorrow."

She laughs, and together they go back inside.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Three

. . . . . .

When the knock comes at the door on the morning of the third day of Effie's visit, Haymitch is surprised to open it and see Jo, the quiet young mother from the town who he pays to come by and clean his house once a week. He squints at her sleepily. "Is it your day?"

She shakes her head. "Peeta sent for me. He said his guest wants to come see your house and that I needed to make it presentable."

Haymitch hangs his head and groans, but he steps aside and lets Jo come in. She heads straight for her broom closet and he stumbles upstairs to get ready to receive guests. A shower helps clear his head, and then he dresses, frowning at the small pile of clean clothes he has left—better tell Jo to send out his washing. He doesn't much mind wearing the same clothing a few days in a row, but he knows that the washerwoman can use the money, and since he has it to spare, he dutifully sends out his clothes to get cleaned regularly. It's the least a victor can do for his adoring district, he sometimes thinks with a bitter smile. For twenty-five years, that was one of the only ways he could think of to help 12: buy lots of food, buy lots of booze, try and get some of his winnings back out into the local economy.

Jo finishes and slips out the door, a bag of laundry slung over her shoulder, just a few minutes before the next knock comes at his door: Peeta, Katniss and Effie, of course, who looks quite beautiful in a gray dress and jacket and far too cheerful for this time of morning. "This has always been such a lovely house," she gushes, even though from the outside they all basically look the same. Then she pauses, taking him in, and he suddenly feels uncomfortable because the only clothes that Jo didn't cart off to the washerwoman's house were all more formal than he prefers—things left over from his tours of the Capitol, not things he'd normally wear here in 12—but he's stuck wearing them. "And you look so handsome," she says, and she sounds so perfectly sincere that it makes him squirm.

"Well, come in," he says, so that Katniss will stop eyeing his fine clothes and giving him approving (and facetious) nods.

This isn't the first time Effie has seen his house, of course; she stopped by a few times back before the war to get him ready for reapings and the like. But this is the first time she's seen his house clean.

And it's nothing to write home about. For starters, his house is nothing like as nice as Peeta's. The layout is the same, but Peeta, as a more recent victor, has newer furniture. More to the point, Peeta's is full of homey touches—paintings, mostly, and knickknacks of a personal nature—that make it feel much more inviting and cared for. Katniss's house, which he knows Effie has also seen on this visit, was bare for a long time—after the war ended, she carefully packed away most things that reminded her of Prim and sent most of her mother's things to her—but Peeta has been slowly filling it with his art and with things he gives her. But Haymitch has never done one thing with his house. Jo's hard work clears away all the alcohol bottles, but this strips the house of the one thing that gives it any sense of personality. When the house is clean, it is barren: no indication of who might live there.

But Effie, being Effie, focuses on the positive. "It's so tidy in here," she says, and he supposes she's remembering that the last time she set foot in this house, she nearly twisted her ankle by trying to step over and between all the discarded bottles in her impractical heels. Oh boy, that day was hilarious. "Very open and airy."

He looks around the bland living room with mock pride. "I like to think it's almost like Peeta's house, only less nice-looking."

"I know a great decorator," she says eagerly. "Young man in the capitol named Marcus. Absolute genius. Maybe he could . . ." She trails off as she sees him raise his eyebrows. "But you're not likely to hire an interior decorator to come all the way out to 12 just to make your living room look nicer," she guesses.

"Exactly," he says. But then he remembers his part of the bargain: if she stops saying crazy Capitol stuff, he'll stop being rude. So he adds, with only a hint of exaggerated politeness, "But thank you for the recommendation."

Behind Effie, Katniss and Peeta share a look.

Then, since it seems to be why Effie showed up, he shows her the rest of the house, starting with the kitchen and finishing with the second floor: his room right at the top of the stairs, because he feels a compulsive need to sleep as close as possible to the nearest exit, and then an office that is rarely used, and then a row of bedrooms that no one ever goes into except when Jo is dusting them. Then, out of things to see inside, they go out to see the enclosure where he keeps his geese.

"Oh, aren't they charming," Effie says.

Haymitch doesn't think they're charming. Haymitch thinks they're opinionated and sassy—which, coming from him, is a compliment—when he's in a good mood. When he's in a bad mood, he thinks they're obnoxious and noisy. But he nods anyway.

Effie is standing at least six feet from the fence, and her expression is cautious. "Will they . . . will they bite? Or attack? If I get closer?"

"They might."

She frowns. "I can't tell if you're just saying that to tease," she says.

In return he shrugs. "Me neither."

Behind them Peeta laughs. "All right, you two," he chuckles. "I need to get back and finish up lunch. Meet me back there at noon?"

"I'll go with you," Katniss says, and Haymitch isn't sure if it's because she wants to spend time with Peeta or because she's always disliked his geese.

"See you soon!" Effie trills, and Katniss and Peeta leave.

"So," Effie says, turning back to Haymitch, "geese."

"Geese," he agrees. He's not that keen to stand here and chat about his geese, not when just the sound of Effie's voice still stirs a vague sense of unease at the back of his mind, but he did promise to try.

"Any reason?"

"Something to do," he says honestly.

"Things are that dull here?"

He shrugs. "We don't work, although Peeta thinks we should start again. We each still have a fair bit of money left over from our winnings, and we live on that. I get bored." He glances over at the pen. "Maybe I'll become a real goose farmer when the money runs out."

She's nodding when something suddenly catches her eye and she stares. "There's smoke coming from that chimney," she says, pointing to the house next to his.

Why is that noteworthy? "Yeah."

"Someone lives there?"

"Yeah."

"But—" She looks perplexed. "But it's for victors."

He blinks at her a few times, and then he touches his nose. She stares at him for a moment, and then her eyes fill with understanding. "That was silly."

"A little," he says.

"Because District 12 only ever produced three victors."

He nods. "And because with most of the district destroyed and all these people without homes, we had to stick people somewhere."

She colors a little. "I see now that I might sometimes speak before I think."

But her contrition makes him feel like more of a jerk, because speaking without thinking is basically his greatest talent, and it's silly to let Effie beat herself up over something he does all the time. So he shakes his head. "We all do, princess." Then, not wanting to dwell on the fact that he just actually comforted Effie, of all people, he says conversationally, "These houses are where the first people who returned to 12 lived. They were the only thing standing after Snow bombed the district."

A shadow passes over her face, and she turns and looks around. "So this is it? This is the whole district?"

"We're rebuilding," he shrugs. Well, other people are rebuilding while he sits around and drinks. "But only a handful of buildings are finished. So right now, almost the whole district lives in these twelve houses." He pauses. "'Course, the whole district is only a hundred and thirty people right now."

She blinks. "A hundred and thirty people live in these twelve houses?"

"About ninety," he corrects. "Some people have moved into new houses by now. That place right there?" He motions to a mansion across the way. "Three families live there right now."

Effie looks shocked. "Three families in a single home?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, but the houses they lived in before—all four of them together could have fit on the ground floor of one of these houses. This is a step up for them."

Effie stares out at the Victors' Village, where the quiet, dignified facades conceal nearly an entire district of people. And then her gaze turns to Haymitch's own house, and in a strange moment of mental unity with her, he knows what she's going to ask before she asks it.

"So four families live in one house, and you get this house to yourself," she says. "And Peeta and Katniss as well. Doesn't that seem a poor use of space?"

A bitter half-smile twists his face. "No one's willing to live with us. Peeta and Katniss are still as likely as not to have a flashback or a nightmare and take somebody's head off."

"And you?"

"Same reason, plus no one wants to live with a filthy old drunk."

Her face softens. "You don't have to be an old drunk, you know," she says. "There are treatment centers for this kind of thing. I know the director of an excellent one in the Capitol. Best in the country."

He shrugs and gives her a fake apologetic smile. "No can do. They say the first step is you have to want to stop, and I, princess, do not want to stop."

She rolls her eyes at him. "Haymitch Abernathy, you are incorrigible."

And then she looks out again at the Victors' Village, and then turns her head in the direction of the remnants of the town. "Haymitch," she says, and her expression is slightly pained, "after lunch, I want to see the rest of the district."

. . . . . .

Peeta is concerned about the idea, of course; he wanted to keep Effie's visit pleasant and fun, and had accordingly planned to spend the afternoon teaching her how to paint. The remains of the district are, at present, distinctly not pleasant or fun. But Effie has made up her mind, and as they all learned time and again back in the Hunger Games days, she is good at getting her way. Haymitch is not sure where this is coming from—she was never that interested in District 12 when it was whole and functional—but she seems to think it's important.

So after lunch, the four of them take the path from the Victors' Village to the old heart of District 12. He knows Katniss and Peeta come down here often, but he hasn't visited for several months, preferring to send Jo or Greasy Sae when he needs something fetched from the train or the few functioning businesses in town.

It has improved since the last time he saw it. They've finally put out for good the mine fires started by the firebombing, which is an impressive feat—though they'd never had such a fire in anyone's memory, he knows from stories passed down through generations of miners that in the old days, mine fires could burn for decades. Thank goodness for modern technology. The ash and the rubble and the bones and the corpses have all been cleared away—he's heard from Katniss that they've buried everyone at the Meadow—revealing the paved roads in the center of town that are the only things, besides the Village and the train station way on the edge of town, that survived the bombing. And there are new buildings slowly growing up from the bare ground: a handful of houses, including the one that Jo and her husband and their large young family live in, with fields stretching out behind them where they plan to plant crops next year; the collection of lean-tos that currently act as the school; and in a field at the edge of the town, the beginnings of what will become the medicine factory. The announcement of that factory was the first stroke of luck they'd had in 12; the promise of jobs will bring more refugees back to their ancestral home, and maybe transplants from other places, and it will boost the economy.

Peeta is explaining all this to Effie, who is listening with interest, while beside him Katniss is grimacing a little. Haymitch supposes she's thinking about the people she knew who lived and died in each of these spots. For his part, Haymitch feels little. The relationship between a victor and his district was always a complicated one, at least among those districts that hated the Games—he knows this from his own experiences and those of his victor friends. There were always people in the district, friends and family of your companion tribute, who resented the fact that you returned and the other tribute didn't. And even for those who didn't have that hang-up, there was always a mild tension there: you were from the district, but you also had the taint of the Capitol on you, for as long as you lived; you were still a symbol of the Games, no matter how reluctantly you went to them. The victors were generally liked by their districts, certainly. But outside of family and close friends, those victors never truly belonged again. In Haymitch's case, this distance, plus the fact that his family was killed by Snow and he was terrified that anyone else he got close to would suffer the same fate, kept him from ever rejoining daily life in 12; far easier to be a hermit and a drunk. So the destruction of the district feels more like something he read about in a book or heard on the television: an undeniable tragedy, but something that happened to other people, not him.

Finally they reach the square, where only the vast expanse of paving stones indicates that this was once the bustling center of District 12. On the place where the Justice Building once stood is a hastily constructed wooden building, only one floor with two rooms, that acts as the administrative center of the district. Past that building is acres of empty ground, finally disappearing into forest. Haymitch can nearly see to the train station, as all the buildings that used to stand between it and and square are long gone, but it's just hidden behind the edge of a hill. Around the edge of the square, where the rows of shops and homes of the district's elite used to stand, are a handful of finished and half-finished buildings, which Peeta points out one by one: the homes of the district's temporary administrator, a former coal miner named Rowan, and of the stationmaster; the trading post where Katniss's old neighbor Leevy and her new husband Simon sell goods from the Capitol but also distribute the food parcels that 12 will receive from the Capitol's stores until the district gets its feet back under it; the shop where Delly Cartwright and a handful of other women make clothes and shoes. Effie, unsurprisingly, wants to check out their shop—"Imagine having something made in the actual districts! I would be all the rage back in the Capitol!"—but is distracted by Peeta pointing at the bare ground next to Delly's shop.

"I've been talking to Rowan about the possibility of opening a bakery right there."

This is the first Haymitch has heard of this idea, although from Katniss's look he can tell she's heard this plan before and approves of it. He's not sure who's going to have the money to buy bread, at least not until the factory opens, but it's still a smart move; Peeta's happiest when he's baking or painting, and opening a bakery seems like a sure way to keep the boy stable. "I think that's a great idea," he says honestly.

"It would be perfect for you," Effie says warmly.

Peeta smiles at them both. "Rowan asked if I wanted my parents' old location," he says, gesturing across the square to where that building used to stand, "but I'd rather leave that behind me."

"Your parents' old location?" Effie repeats, sounding baffled. She looks at where he's pointing, then turns around in a full circle, staring at the empty space around them. "Are we—are we in your public square?"

Haymitch supposes they never did explain to her exactly where they were, and to someone who only saw this area for a few minutes once a year, it'd be hard to identify without any of the buildings around it. "Drink it in," he says, gesturing out at the emptiness and the ramshackle new buildings.

"Yeah, this is it," Katniss says. She points at the administration building. "That's where the Justice Building used to be."

"I—I didn't realize. I didn't even recognize it." She hesitates. "When I heard 12 had been destroyed, I didn't realize . . . how thoroughly . . . when we came in on the train, I thought they'd . . ." She looks around a few more moments, and then she walks very slowly toward the administration building. Katniss and Peeta glance at each other, then follow. And Haymitch, not wanting to be left standing alone and bored in the middle of the square, comes after.

Effie moves to where the paving stones of the square stop; just past it, the foundations of the old Justice Building are just visible above the dirt. Then she pauses, then turns to face the rest of the square. The other three catch up with her then, and Haymitch finally realizes what she's doing: she is standing where the stage used to stand on reaping days, where she stood six times to draw the names of tributes.

Peeta and Katniss follow suit, standing beside her and looking out over the empty square, perhaps remembering the two times they stood on that stage as well. Whatever's going through Katniss's head, it makes her flinch and then take in a deep steadying breath. Peeta's expression is equally pained, but he reaches out and takes her hand, gripping it tightly, which seems to help them both relax a little. And then Effie, standing on Katniss's other side, takes her other hand, and Haymitch sees the girl's expression lighten, just a little. They're all three wearing their pins, he notices for the first time, and he rolls his eyes a little but he can't hide a smile.

And then curiosity overtakes him and he wonders what the three of them see standing there, what memories this spot invokes. So he joins them on their imaginary stage, and as soon as he's up there, on Effie's other side, she reaches out and grabs his hand as well. Not really what he'd intended by coming over here, and he rolls his eyes again, but he lets her keep hold of his hand.

And he sees why they all look so affected; just standing in this spot, looking out at the familiar expanse of the square, brings memories rushing back to him of twenty-five years of reapings, of fear and despair and hopelessness and resignation. It's suffocating, and without meaning to, he tightens his grip on Effie's hand.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, her gaze fixed out over the buildings that no longer exist. "Your entire district, gone—I'm so sorry."

A bitter smile twists his lips. "That's not the only terrible thing Snow ever did to us," he says. "You ought to remember; you were here for the last six."

She looks over at him then, and there are tears glittering in her eyes. "I know," she says softly. "And I'm sorry for that too."

And their little team stands, hand in hand, reliving those dark days.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Four

. . . . . .

On the fourth day of Effie's visit, miracle of miracles, no one comes to wake him up, and he sleeps very happily until eleven-thirty, when the cackling of his geese rouses him. He'd like to ignore them and go back to bed, but they don't cackle that loudly unless there's an intruder, and he supposes he'd better go make sure there's no dangerous critters lurking around the pen. Plus, he doesn't know if he could actually sleep any longer through their racket.

There are intruders around the pen, and it's not foxes or dogs: it's Peeta and Effie, armed with paper and pencils. "Sorry to intrude on your yard," Peeta says when he sees Haymitch. "I was going to take Effie out to paint some landscapes, but she was more interested in your geese. So we started with drawing animals instead."

"You want to draw these pests?" he asks Effie, baffled; waking up to their noise has put them on his bad list for the day.

"They're adorable," she smiles at him, and he thinks, as he always does when she smiles, that she has the whitest teeth he's ever seen. It can't be natural.

"Funny," he says, "and here I thought that you were scared of them yesterday."

Her expression falters. "Well, yes. But it doesn't stop them from being adorable." But then her eyes sparkle. "Besides, if I started avoiding something just because I was afraid it might snap at me, I'd never get to spend any time with you, now would I?"

He can't help it: he smiles. And she smiles back. She really does have a striking smile.

"So is it all right we're back here?" Peeta asks.

Haymitch shrugs at him. "Fine by me. This whole place is basically communal space anyway, right?" There are no fences between the yards of the mansions; in fact, there's no way to tell where one yard ends and another begins. "But if anyone comes over here telling me to shut those birds up, I'm blaming you."

"Understood," Peeta grins.

Effie turns back to the geese and starts sketching, but Peeta has clearly already finished his sketch.

"Fine-looking goose," Haymitch says conversationally, nodding toward Peeta's sketchpad.

Peeta grins. "Never drawn a goose before."

"You should draw me a couple to hang up in my house. Then I'll be surrounded by those monsters no matter where I go."

That makes Peeta laugh. "No one made you get geese, Haymitch."

Haymitch chuckles too, and he stands in comfortable silence with Peeta until something occurs to him. "You don't paint as much the way you used to. The things from the Games."

Peeta shrugs. "I still do, sometimes; I just don't show you." A strange look crosses his face. "The first time Katniss saw them, she said she hated them. That they were good, but she hated them. For me, it's comforting to paint things that haunt me, but for her it makes things worse. Different ways of dealing with things, I guess."

Haymitch nods. "They were really good," he confirms. "If you do any new ones, you should show them to me. I'm with you—it helps." He pauses, thinking, and then he cracks a smile. "I can't believe they let you show those as your talent," he says. "I mean, isn't painting pictures of the Games kind of dark for a victor? Especially with all that blood in some of them?"

"That was exactly why we chose those paintings." Effie, apparently, has overheard their conversation. She stands from where she's been kneeling on the ground and brushes dead grass from the knees of her pants. "The Games were an essential part of a victor's public identity, so you never divorced a victor from his Games when you presented him. Letting Peeta show his paintings of the Games reminded everyone that he was a sensitive soul, so the Games were difficult for him, but that it was all worth it for Katniss." She gives Haymitch a pointed look. "You, as much as anyone, should understand the importance of a carefully crafted public image."

"Oh, I will never forget how much time we spent crafting these kids' public image. No matter how much I want to."

She rolls her eyes at him. "It worked, didn't it? We kept public opinion on Katniss and Peeta's side, didn't we? You should remind your rebel friends that they never properly thanked me for that. Even though I didn't know that what I was doing was helping them."

He reaches out and takes her free hand in both of his. "Miss Trinket," he says formally, bringing that hand up to his lips to plant a kiss on her knuckles, "thank you for your excellent PR work. The new Panem Republic is in your debt."

She laughs at him and Peeta rolls his eyes. "Are you drunk?"

Haymitch's face falls and he drops Effie's hand. "I haven't been drunk for six days. Don't remind me."

Effie shows them her goose sketch then. "It's a good start," Peeta says politely.

Haymitch scoffs. "It's terrible."

"It is, isn't it?" Effie sighs. "I don't believe the visual arts are really my forte."

The three chuckle together and then lapse into silence. Haymitch finds himself thinking of his conversation just now with Peeta, about painting the Games. "So you heard our conversation, Effie. What do you think? Is it better to face bad memories or shove them under the rug?"

The laughter leaves her eyes instantly, replaced just for a moment by something like fear, and Haymitch is shocked by the transformation. He hasn't seen her look this haunted, this vacant, since that day in the hospital. She's been so cheerful this trip that he thought she'd mostly moved past it, but now . . .

She blinks and turns away from them. "Generally I prefer under the rug."

. . . . . .

Peeta has nothing but more art planned for the afternoon, so after lunch Haymitch goes back to his house for a nap. When he awakes and goes outside, he sees that Effie left her gloves draped over the fence of the goose pen, so with a sigh he collects them and heads over to Peeta's house.

Effie isn't there, but Peeta is. "Missed her by about ten minutes. She wanted to go look at Delly's shop, and she took Katniss with her."

"Katniss? Our Katniss? She convinced Katniss to go shopping for clothes?"

Peeta laughs. "She's a very persuasive woman." He accepts the gloves from Haymitch and sets them on a table in the hall. "Do you have a minute to sit? I've been meaning to talk to you but there's always been someone around."

Haymitch agrees and they sit at the kitchen table with drinks in front of them (Haymitch takes a moment to mourn that they're only water). "I need to tell you," Peeta begins, "that I'm sorry I didn't tell you Effie was coming."

Haymitch grimaces a little. "She's your house guest," he says. "I guess you're allowed to have whoever you want at your own house."

"Yes, but with how much I've been seeing you recently, that means she's back in your life, too. And I didn't really think—to me and Katniss, she's just the woman who rushed us around the Capitol for two years. But to you . . . I've been thinking about it, and I think mentoring might be even worse than just preparing for the games. Coming to care for these kids, kids who look to you for some kind of hope, and then watching them die."

Haymitch's grip has tightened around his glass. "Is there a point to this?" he says, and his voice is rough.

"Sorry," said Peeta. "It's just, you have more history with Effie than we do, and that history is probably all bad. And I didn't even think of that."

Haymitch nods and takes a drink of water. "Wasn't all bad," he says after a minute. "Mostly bad. But she really did try to be my friend . . . when she wasn't yelling at me for being drunk. A few times when I passed out wasted at parties and missed all the food, she'd sneak out little cakes for me in her handbag."

Peeta grins appreciatively, and Haymitch can't help smiling at the memory. "You've been taking good care of her," he observes.

"She took good care of us," Peeta shrugs. "As much as she knew how."

"You're lucky Katniss isn't the jealous type. I know a lot of women who'd be furious at their man spending a whole week entertaining another woman."

Peeta laughs at that. "Two problems with that idea: one, Effie was always more like a mother figure to us than, you know, a woman. What with all the fussing over us and bossing us around."

"She's not old enough to be your mother," Haymitch points out. "A lot better looking than most people's mothers, too."

"And two, for Katniss to be jealous, she'd have to admit that she and I are . . . anything." He sighs and examines the rim of his glass with a downcast expression.

"True," Haymitch concedes. "Anyway, it's nice of you." He pauses, then asks curiously, "Why did you decide to invite her here?"

Peeta looks surprised, like he's been caught at something. "Umm . . ." He looks like he's searching for a lie, but Haymitch hopes he knows better; he can always tell when the kid is lying. And maybe Peeta remembers that, because finally he says, looking a little embarrassed, "You can't tell her this."

"Tell who what?"

"Tell Effie. Plutarch didn't want her to know—he doesn't want her to feel like a charity project."

"Plutarch?"

Peeta nods. "He's the one who asked me to invite her. He's worried about her."

Haymitch is baffled at first, but then he realizes it makes sense. She works for him now, and he'd felt just as guilty as Haymitch when they found her in that prison. It makes sense he'd keep an eye on her. "Worried why?"

A shrug. "I think he's worried she's not coping well with they did to her in prison?" Peeta says uncertainly.

Haymitch is surprised to find himself suddenly scowling. "Did he tell you what they did to her in prison?"

Peeta shakes his head. "He only said that he thought being here would do her some good." There's a long silence while Haymitch processes this and Peeta watches him anxiously. "So," Peeta says finally, "am I forgiven?"

"What?" says Haymitch. "Oh, yeah, obviously. You know I don't have the energy to hold a grudge."

Peeta rolls his eyes at him. "Good to hear. I know Katniss is your favorite, so I have to work hard to stay in your good graces."

"What?" Haymitch blinks at him in surprise. "Katniss isn't my favorite."

Peeta scoffs. "You two are best friends. You're the ones who keep secrets and read each other's thoughts and had an entire conversation in the arena based on when you sent her soup. You're the ones who drink together."

"You could come drink with us if you wanted," Haymitch says reasonably. "Anyway, it's not like we're really drinking together, since Katniss only ever has water."

"That's not a really important distinction," Peeta points out.

"Look," Haymitch says, "Katniss is the one of you who's most like me. That's why we read each other's thoughts. But you're less of a pill than she is. So really it's a toss-up."

Peeta looks at him, then shakes his head and chuckles. "High praise."

"You're the one who's kept us alive and sane for the last eight months. Left to our own devices, we'd destroy ourselves. Don't think I'm not aware of that. And grateful. Even when you do wake me up at all hours to go hiking or look at my geese."

"I don't think eleven o'clock in the morning counts as 'all hours,'" Peeta says drily.

"Kid, I am saying nice things about you and you had better enjoy it while it lasts because there is a good chance this will never happen again."

"Fine," says Peeta with a grin. "You like us equally. Or maybe dislike us equally."

"And don't you forget it," says Haymitch. "Now, I don't suppose you have anything stronger than this in the house?" He picks up his glass of water and gives it a hopeful swirl. Peeta shakes his head, and Haymitch collapses on the kitchen table with a sigh.

. . . . . .

Effie and Katniss return to Peeta's house just before dinner. Effie is thrilled to pieces, having ordered a warm jacket like the one Katniss uses when she hunts in the woods and a pair of boots like the miners used to wear. "My friend Vigilantia has a pair like that—Theodora Chang, very expensive—but they're machine-made in the Capitol. She will absolutely die when she sees I have a pair handmade in District 12." Haymitch rolls his eyes, and she makes a face at him. "Roll your eyes all you want, Haymitch Abernathy, but they will keep me warm in the Capitol winter. And I'm supporting local businesses. You should be thrilled."

She and Katniss are both in a convivial mood—Katniss is happy to have spent time with her friend Delly, and Effie talked her into ordering a new sweater that she'll be able to use while hunting—that lasts all through dinner. And after dinner, when Effie looks out the window and sees the sun has still not set, she suggests they go on a walk. "Everything is so much lovelier at sunset, don't you think?"

Haymitch puts up a perfunctory fight, but deep down he doesn't mind. In the last four days, he's spent more time in company than in the entire last month—usually he only sees Katniss and Peeta for dinner four or five nights a week and rarely at other times of day—and he finds he's grown strangely accustomed to it. The thought of returning alone to his dark house, especially without booze for company, is unpleasant. So he doesn't argue for long before conceding the fight and crossing to his house to get a coat and gloves.

Evening is coming quickly as they start on their walk, and the black clouds gathering in the air make it even darker and chillier. "All the outerwear I brought is finally coming in handy," Effie says, pulling her fur hat more snugly down around her ears and pulling the collar of her coat up around her chin.

Even with the cold and the storm gathering in the east, however, the sunset is spectacular, and Effie exclaims in wordless delight and stops dead in her tracks when they reach the edge of a grassy field and get a full, unobstructed view. Katniss and Peeta, a few steps ahead of them, don't notice, and they keep walking around the edge of the field. Haymitch moves to follow, but Effie catches at his sleeve.

"Oh, let them get ahead of us," she says. "I think they could use a little privacy."

Haymitch looks closer at the pair and realizes that they're holding hands. Apparently Effie is still rooting for them to get together, and since he agrees with the sentiment, he lets her hold him back.

"We don't get views like this in the Capitol," she says. "A little, over the lake, but any direction you turn there are buildings. This . . . this is stunning."

"But the price you pay is living in the middle of nowhere. I think that's a price a lot of city-dwellers would not be willing to pay in order to get nice sunsets."

"True," she concedes. "But I think I could do it. If the sunsets looked like this." She pauses. "Of course, I'd have to take trips into the Capitol every now and then, for shopping and the theater."

He snorts. "Sounds expensive. And like a lot of time on trains."

"Didn't you hear?" she says. "A group in the Capitol—I think Plutarch is investing in their company—wants to start commercial hovercraft flights. More expensive than trains, but you could get anywhere in Panem in just hours."

"Although most people in Panem won't be able to afford it."

She smiles at him. "Don't drag me down with your negativity. Things are going to get better, I can feel it. The people I talk to in my work on Stories Across Panem—they've got big plans, and now no Snow interfering with those plans. And then the Capitol isn't spending all that money on controlling the people anymore, so we can afford to improve the infrastructure out in the districts . . ."

If you'd told him before this that he'd ever hear Effie Trinket stop rambling about her clothes long enough to talk about improving the country's infrastructure, he would have laughed out loud.

She sees his dumbfounded face and blushes. "I'm friends with a lot of people in the new government," she says. "This is all they talk about at dinner parties." A sudden chilly breeze sweeps past them, causing a shiver to run through her body, and she winds her arm through his—for warmth, apparently. He finds it a little disconcerting. "Things are going to get better," she repeats.

And they stand, arm in arm, gazes fixed on the sunset, until Katniss and Peeta notice that their companions are no longer with them and retrace their steps. The sun is slipping behind the horizon at that point, and Katniss looks up at the black clouds that now cover almost the entire sky. "Better get inside," she says. "This could turn ugly soon."

Effie looks up as though seeing the clouds for the first time, and uncertainty fills her face. "Yes, we should go. It could rain any minute."

And as though to prove her right, the rain starts when they've only taken a few steps back toward the Victor's Village. It's light enough that all they do is quicken their steps a little, but Haymitch, who's still got his arm linked with Effie's, feels her whole body tense. Is she that worried about getting her clothes wet? Or is she frightened of rain?

It seems to be the latter, because when the rain suddenly deepens to a full-on downpour, Effie lets out a gasp of fright and grips Haymitch's arm so tightly that he's worried about her cutting off his circulation. He is bewildered; why is a grown woman so afraid of a storm? "You okay?" he asks, and she nearly imperceptibly shakes her head.

They're still a solid half-mile from the Village, and at the rate they're moving, they'll be soaked by the time they get there. He glances down at her shoes and is overwhelmingly grateful that boots are in style now, instead of those impractical heels she used to wear. "Come on, we should run," he says, and lets go of her arm so he can grab her hand.

Ahead of them, Peeta and Katniss, oblivious to Effie's distress, are laughing at being caught in the storm. "Let's go," Peeta calls back at them, and he and Katniss break into a run.

"Come on," he says again to Effie, and together they run as well.

They've only covered about a quarter of the distance when suddenly everything goes downhill. Effie slips in the mud, and is only spared falling in a mud puddle by her tight grip on Haymitch's hand. He skids to a stop and helps her regain her balance, and she's nearly got her feet under her when a huge bolt of lightning splits the sky. Her whole body jerks, and before his eyes have even recovered from the flash of light she is screaming. And it's the sort of scream he recognizes, because he hears it every time Katniss has a nightmare, every time Peeta has a particularly bad flashback. Come to think of it, he's heard it out of his own mouth a time or two as well.

The scream brings Katniss and Peeta to a screeching halt; Haymitch sees them glance at each other, then come running back. By this time, Effie's scream has broken down into sobbing—hysterical sobbing—and she has grabbed the front of Haymitch's coat and buried her face in it. He puts his arms around her, because it seems to be the only thing to do, and meets Katniss's questioning look in the deepening darkness.

"We need to get her inside," Katniss says unnecessarily.

"Effie," says Peeta earnestly, trying to get her to lift her face from Haymitch's chest, "can you walk? Can you come with us?"

She lifts her head just an inch or two, but before she can respond there's another flash of lightning and she's screaming again.

"All right," says Haymitch, and, struggling, lifts her up into his arms. He used to be more fit than this, but years of neglect and alcohol have destroyed what strength he had as a boy. The group struggles forward through the darkness, Katniss and Peeta on either side of him to help him avoid uneven ground, and they just manage to make it to the mouth of the Victor's Village when his strength gives out and he stumbles and nearly drops her. Peeta takes her then and runs agilely up the stairs into his house, Katniss following close after. Haymitch barely manages to stumble in after them and collapse on the sofa. He should really consider doing more physical activity, he thinks.

Katniss and Peeta are upstairs in Effie's room; he can hear their footsteps overhead and Effie's continued sobs. Doors open and close, and eventually the sobs lessen. A few minutes later, Katniss walks slowly down the stairs and collapses on the other sofa. "She's almost asleep now."

He nods slowly. "I guess now we know for sure: they definitely did something to her when she was in prison."

Katniss has been staring exhaustedly at the wall, but at this she turns and looks at him. "Haymitch," she says, "do you remember Johanna Mason?"

He blinks, and into his mind comes rushing memories of the bold young woman, turned helpless and terrified by a simulated flood. "You don't think—" But he does think. And he winces. "Effie."

His eyes fall on Peeta's phone, and he jumps up and dials Plutarch's number, ready to demand answers. But it goes to his personal assistant—no surprise, the man is often busy and away from his phone. "This is Haymitch Abernathy," he tells her. "You tell him to call me as soon as he can, at my house or at Peeta Mellark's." He pauses. "It's about Effie Trinket." Then he sinks back on the couch, and he and Katniss sit in silence, listening to the storm rage outside.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Five

. . . . . .

The sunlight streaming through the windows has been hitting Haymitch in the face for at least twenty minutes when he finally gives in and admits he's not going to be able to get back to sleep with that light in his eyes. So he rises from Peeta's sofa, feeling like he barely slept at all; that thing is comfortable for sitting, but less so for sleeping. But the storm was so bad last night, and he'd felt an unaccountable pull to stay put until they knew Effie would be all right, so he stayed. Peeta had offered him a spare bedroom, but he wanted to be by the phone in case Plutarch called back. He never did.

Katniss appears at the top of the stairs, wearing pajamas that must be Peeta's, based on how baggy they hang on her frame. "Wearing Peeta's pajamas, Miss Everdeen?" He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

She rolls her eyes at him. "I slept in the spare bedroom next to Effie's," she says. "In case she woke up."

"And?"

Katniss shakes her head. Haymitch sighs and runs a hand down his face. "I want to shower," he says. "And get the heck out of these clothes. Call me if anything changes?"

The morning is bright and clear; all signs of the storm that so terrified Effie have vanished. A shower does him a world of good; he never did quite get warm after the rain last night, and the hot water banishes the last vestiges of cold in his hands and feet. Then it's formal clothes again—he really hopes Jo returns with his clean laundry soon—and downstairs to find breakfast.

He's halfway through a chunk of bread left by Peeta when the phone rings. He stares at it a moment, then races across the room to grab it. "Hello?"

"Haymitch," comes Plutarch's booming voice. "I got your message. Is something wrong with Effie?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Haymitch says. "She had a breakdown last night. Did you know she's terrified of thunderstorms? As in, far more than is normal?"

There is silence on the other end for a long time. "Oh dear," Plutarch says finally.

"Is this about her time in prison? Is this one of the reasons you told Peeta you're worried about her?"

Plutarch sighs. "Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Look," says Haymitch, "we're trying to help. But we need to know what happened so we don't accidentally do something else that sends her catatonic."

"Yes, of course," says Plutarch. He is quiet a moment, considering. "She'd been doing very well since she left the hospital—she's one of my best employees—but I could tell she's been struggling with some things. It doesn't help that anytime someone brings up the war, most people in the Capitol get uncomfortable and clam up. They mostly support the rebellion, and they understand the reasons for the war and they see now all the terrible things Snow did, but they'd rather not think about any of the particulars—not of the war, not of Snow's crimes, not of the Hunger Games. So she's really had no listening ear except me, and I can't always be there."

"So you thought we could be listening ears," guesses Haymitch.

"Especially with the anniversary of the surrender coming up," Plutarch confirms. "To be reminded of memories of the war but surrounded by people refusing to acknowledge the suffering she went through—it was going to be lonely for her."

"The suffering. That's what I need to know about."

Plutarch gives his heaviest sigh so far. "You know she was taken by Snow's forces the night before the Quarter Quell started," he says. "She was meant to be picked up by Coin's forces, along with the stylists, but she got separated from them in all the rioting and no one could find her. Although given how Coin treated the stylists . . ."

That still disgusts Haymitch, when he thinks about it. "So the Peacekeepers got her instead," he prompts.

"As soon as the Games started, they began rounding up all the escorts, all the stylists, all the prep teams—except of course Katniss's team." He hesitates. "And then, of course, they didn't arrest Cinna; Snow wanted to make his death a special event for Katniss." His voice sounds bitter; Haymitch knows the man always respected Cinna a great deal and was very sorry to hear of his death. "Almost all of them were killed soon after the Quell; you'll remember Portia and her team's execution. But they kept Effie alive. At first they thought she had information about the rebellion—that she was maybe even part of it."

"Which is absurd, if you knew Effie back then," says Haymitch. "She loved the Capitol."

"They were taking no chances," Plutarch said. "They used their usual tactics to get information: starvation, sleep deprivation . . ."

"Electric shocks in water, like Johanna Mason?"

"Hence her fear of the storm," Plutarch confirms, sounding distant and sad. "I've never actually seen her face a thunderstorm, so it's news to me, but it makes a great deal of sense. From what she's told me, they only did it to her twice, and she never developed hydrophobia like Johanna did. But I suppose it would make sense that the combination of water and electricity, like in a storm, would be enough to trigger her."

Haymitch drags his hand down his face, feeling incredibly weary. "Anything else?"

"They realized eventually that she had no information to give them, that she wanted badly to believe in the goodness of the Capitol. So they stopped interrogating her for information. But they needed to keep her alive, and under their thumbs."

"Why?"

"According to my sources inside the Capitol, Snow wanted to keep her around in case she became useful as a public figure to put in his propaganda films. She became very popular in the Capitol after Katniss and Peeta won the Games, and Snow thought she might come in handy. That's why the generalized electrocution, instead of beatings or the like—he couldn't risk damaging her pretty face." He bites the words off, sounding disgusted, and Haymitch can't blame him. In fact he finds himself dropping into the nearest chair as he imagines Snow deciding carefully how to torture Effie in a way that wouldn't show up on camera.

"So they kept her alive but intimidated," he prompts.

"From what she's said, it's a lot of the things Snow did to his other captives. They usually didn't hurt her directly, but they made sure she could hear other people being hurt around her. Not enough to unhinge her, just enough to terrify her. Enough that she always knew that if she disobeyed, she'd be next. Sometimes they'd drag the corpses past her cell when they were done with them, just to make sure she saw them."

"And I guess it worked."

"Too well," Plutarch says. "Apparently they did try to use her to make propaganda films a number of times later in the war—for the Capitol, not the districts—and she couldn't keep it together on camera." Bitterness enters his tone. "They responded about as sympathetically as you'd expect Snow's regime to respond."

Haymitch grimaces. "That's why she's not in front of the camera on your show now," he guesses.

"It brings back too many bad memories," Plutarch confirms.

"Effie," Haymitch says quietly. "It didn't even occur to me to worry much about her. I thought that even if the Peacekeepers got her, she'd be so obviously loyal to the Capitol that they wouldn't do much to her. Or that she'd be dead right off."

"As did I," says Plutarch quietly. "I've known Effie for many years; I was friends with her father before his death. I've spent a great deal of time castigating myself for not pushing harder to find out what happened to her after the Quarter Quell."

"Which is why you've taken her under your wing now," Haymitch guesses.

"Indeed," says Plutarch. "What happened to Effie Trinket was by far not the worst thing to happen to people under Snow's rule. But she was a friend, and I should have been more careful with her. So please look after her, Haymitch."

"We will," he promises, and then he smirks a little. "You did the right thing in giving Peeta responsibility for her. He's looking after her better than anyone else could."

"I know," says Plutarch. "But I also sent her to Peeta because that puts her in closer contact with you. You two had the terrible but close bond of victor and escort for six years. There's almost no one left in her life that she's known for that long. And I'd wager the same is true for you. And you certainly have more experience dealing with traumatic memories than nearly anyone else I know."

"What a nice thing to be known for," says Haymitch flatly.

"Take care of her," Plutarch says, and ends the call.

. . . . . .

Just before lunch time, Peeta calls to say that Effie is awake and would he like to join them for lunch? Haymitch agrees, but he walks over to Peeta's house with a heavy heart. He has enough demons of his own; he's not sure he has the emotional fortitude to take on the demons of Effie Trinket, one of the many Capitol citizens who foolishly trusted a government that turned killing into a sport and made dissenters disappear. It's hard not to think that they have no one to blame but themselves.

But as much as he thinks that about the Capitol at large, he can't keep that anger up at Effie, who he knows personally—Effie who has always had a good heart buried under layers of Capitol indoctrination and Capitol fashion. Effie who loves Katniss and Peeta so dearly and did her best to get them sponsors and support in the Games. Effie who snuck him cakes after parties in the Capitol. Effie who turned to him in her time of need last night, as though trusting him to keep her safe from the outside world.

He doesn't know what to expect when he enters Peeta's house. Will Effie be bedridden and frail? Raving and crying around the house? It turns out that neither of those things are true. It turns out that when he reaches Peeta's house, Effie is dressed and coiffed for the day in a tidy blazer and a silk scarf, and only the bags under eyes hint that anything out of the ordinary has happened to her recently. When she sees him enter, she rises to speak to him, while behind her Peeta and Katniss disappear discretely into the kitchen.

"Haymitch," she says, her theatrical voice betraying nothing, "I wanted to thank you for last night. I know you carried me home safely, and I appreciate your kindness."

He squirms uncomfortably and tries to make light of it. "I didn't make it all the way," he admits. "Peeta had to carry you up the stairs. I'm an old man."

She smiles gently. "Don't say that. I remember your Games. So if you're an old man, that means I'm nearly an old woman."

He shrugs. "Sorry, princess, that's the way it is." And then his eyes catch something—a small cut across her jawline. Quite without meaning to, he reaches out and brushes his thumb across the skin next to it.

She colors. "Apparently last night I cut myself falling against the edge of the dresser. I . . . don't really remember that happening. But then I don't remember much."

He nods distractedly, because suddenly all he can think about is how soft her skin is and how blue her eyes are from up close, and words are failing him. But then a clattering dish from the kitchen snaps him back to reality, and he quickly drops his hand from her face. "Well, maybe it'll scar, and then you'll look like a victor."

She too looks slightly distracted, but at his words she smiles. "Victors don't have scars. The Capitol got rid of them."

"We did after the war," he says, and motions her into the kitchen.

Lunch is delicious and the conversation flows well—Haymitch actually makes an effort to contribute, which is odd for him—except for one thing: the three victors are carefully not mentioning Effie's meltdown last night. And Effie's noticed, too, it's clear, because when Peeta says "I thought this afternoon we could just stay in and have a rest because . . . just because," she finally snaps.

"You can say it," she says, her words becoming clipped as her irritation makes her Capitol accent more prominent. "You can come out and say, 'Effie had a breakdown.'"

"Effie had a breakdown," Haymitch parrots, and Katniss and Peeta shoot him identical glares.

"I know it happened, I was there," she points out, her expression growing more stormy and her voice growing louder with every word. "And I don't mind talking about it. I . . . I need to talk about it. That's why I'm here. Because back home, no one wants to talk about it—no one wants to talk about anything—and every time I do something slightly out of the ordinary everyone falls over themselves to pretend nothing happened, and it's making me crazy. I thought that you three, at least, would be okay with it. That you wouldn't make me feel like such a pariah for not being completely okay all the time."

It's the angriest Effie has been since arriving in 12, and Haymitch is surprised to find that he respects her more at this moment than he ever has. So after a moment of stunned silence, he says, "Well, then, you definitely had a breakdown."

Effie turns her defiant expression on him, but he sees the tiniest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Peeta apparently sees it too, because he adds, "Yes, you definitely had a breakdown."

And Katniss looks baffled—she's always been one for keeping things in until they explode from her, so Effie's need to discuss it would definitely confuse her—but she follows their lead. "With my vast experience with breakdowns, I can tell you that was definitely one."

And it's official, Effie's fighting back an embarrassed smile.

"Not the best I've seen," Haymitch is quick to point out. "But respectable. Good volume on the scream. Impressive work."

And Effie laughs and covers her face with her hands. "I'm sorry," she says timidly. "I'm being so silly." Katniss reaches out and pats her hand, looking slightly uncomfortable; physical comfort is not really her thing.

But Haymitch is finding this conversation strangely cathartic, so he continues. "I give it a six out of ten." Katniss gives an unladylike snort at that.

Peeta goes along with it. "With one being Haymitch realizing he's out of alcohol . . ."

"And ten being Peeta trying to strangle Katniss," Haymitch finishes.

Effie looks up at that, eyes wide with shock, and Haymitch wonders if he's gone too far: Peeta looks nearly as shocked as Effie, and Katniss is covering her mouth with her hand. But she's not upset, he quickly sees: she's trying to hold back laughter. Sure, it's the hysterical sort of laughter that sounds like it may turn at any moment to tears, but still, it's laughter.

"That was a definite ten," she gasps between giggles. "Although I actually killed Coin. Why isn't that ten?"

And now Haymitch is laughing; like most victors, he's a sucker for gallows humor.

Effie still looks a bit shocked, but a reluctant smile is pulling at the edges of Peeta's mouth. "Strangling is so much more personal," he says. "It really gives it that extra oomph."

And now all three of them are laughing. "So don't feel bad, Effie," Haymitch says. "A six is pretty tame by comparison."

And finally, Effie joins in their laughter.

. . . . . .

The sound of a door shutting wakes him, and he sits up, realizing that he has dozed off on Peeta's sofa; it's no more comfortable than it was last night, but he feels better than he did before his nap. Effie is sitting in the armchair, and she looks up when he stirs. "Katniss and Peeta have gone to visit Leevy," she says. "That's the girl who works at the trading post, I believe?"

Haymitch stretches his arms and yawns. "So no more sixes while I've been asleep?"

She rolls her eyes at him, but her expression says she appreciates his comfortable teasing. "I truly am sorry for my outburst today," she says. "I know you all meant well in avoiding the topic."

"We've been avoiding the topic with each other too," he admits. "Which probably explains why we all got so hysterical. Sometimes we forget that we could probably all help each other, and we tend to bottle it up instead. So that was very . . . probably very healthy."

She looks curiously at him. "You don't talk about any problems you have? I assumed you all did."

He shrugs. "I guess we do sometimes. I think Katniss and Peeta are better at communicating with each other than I am. I . . ." He hesitates. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the adult here so I shouldn't drag those two down with my troubles."

She looks at him a long time, then crosses the room and sits beside him on the sofa, taking his hand in hers. "They would be all right with it," she assures him. "Those two children adore you."

He scoffs. "Peeta, maybe. Sometimes."

"They both do," she says emphatically. "Katniss is just bad at showing it. She . . . she's still sorting through how she feels about a lot of things right now."

He looks sideways at her. "Thanks," he says. He's a little too distracted right now to say anything else, because he's feeling very conflicted: most of him wishes she'd let go of his hand and get off his sofa—he's spent years avoiding most human contact, so he instinctively rejects her presence—but another part of him finds her warmth strangely comfortable. So he does nothing to either encourage or discourage her.

But as though she read his thoughts, she does drop his hand, and instead looks down at the floor. "Did you . . . did you call Plutarch?"

He raises an eyebrow, although she's not looking at him and doesn't see it. "How did you know?"

"It's what I would have done. If I were you." She hesitates. "He . . . told you? Why I was frightened?"

"He had a guess," Haymitch admits.

She nods slowly. "It's never been quite that bad. Too much water at once, especially when I'm not somewhere I feel entirely comfortable, makes me . . . very tense, but rarely more than that. So I thought I'd mostly escaped the ill effects from that particular torture. But that was the first time I'd been out in a lightning storm. And apparently I did suffer ill effects." She sighs. "I don't much relish the thought of being afraid of storms for the rest of my life."

"Hey," he says, "at least you don't sleep with a knife under your pillow."

She gives him a half smile. "Yes, I remember you doing that before . . . before. I always had to be careful to never wake you from a bad dream."

He waves a dismissive hand. "Just stand in the doorway and throw things at me. I can only reach so far."

She chuckles a little and then falls silent. After a few moments, she admits, "I can't stand the sight or smell of blood. Even if I just cut my leg shaving. Watching myself bleed . . ." She trails off and shudders. "They used to beat people on my cell block, sometimes to death, so I could hear it. And I know it was for my benefit because when they were done they would drag the body past my cell, and if I looked away they'd stand in front of the bars until I looked at them. And sometimes there would be blood and they'd leave it puddled outside my cell for days, so I could see and smell it through the bars . . ."

She winces and seems to curl in on herself, and his hand moves without his permission to rest comfortingly on her back. "I know that seems insignificant by comparison," she says, not looking at him. "I know the things they did to the others are so much worse. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with."

Sympathy isn't really his strong suit. But his lingering guilt over getting Effie jailed and tortured is mixing up in his head with how surprisingly nice it is to feel the warmth of her next to him, and he finds himself eager to comfort her. "Hey," he says, leaning closer, "you're allowed to feel strongly about what happened. Just because worse things happened to other people doesn't mean that what happened to you wasn't bad."

"It's nothing like what happened to you," she says, finally looking at him. "Being in the arena, the Capitol killing your family . . ."

His jaw tightens. "Yeah, that was pretty awful," he says shortly.

"Haymitch, I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I'm sorry I was never sympathetic. I'm sorry I never realized how horrible mentoring the Games was for you. That I berated you for drinking instead of understanding why you might be drinking."

He winces, and then words that have been at the back of his mind ever since she arrived tumble out. "No, I'm sorry that we dragged you into this. At least Cinna knew he was joining the rebellion. We dragged you into our mess and then left you to the wolves. It's my fault, the storms and the blood—"

She turns to him, looking surprised. "Is that what you think? Haymitch, they arrested all the escorts. All the stylists. They would have gotten me either way." She gives him an unhappy smile. "In fact, you might be the reason I'm alive. Nearly everyone else was executed. They only spared me because of my connection to Katniss and the rebels."

"But if we'd had a better plan to get you evacuated—"

"If I'd stuck with the stylists like I was supposed to," she breaks in. "Plutarch told me all about that. You're not to blame, and neither is Plutarch. No one but Snow and his government is to blame. And I'm fine, see?" She lifts her face to his, to show him how fine she is, but some terrible memory must cross her mind because suddenly her brave facade crumbles and there are tears in her eyes. "I'm fine, you're fine, Katniss and Peeta are fine . . ." And that's as far as she gets before she breaks down into tears, right there on the sofa next to him. He has a moment of panic—dealing with emotional people is not his favorite pastime—but before he can decide what to do, she leans toward him and buries her face against his shoulder, and the next thing he knows he has his arms around her and she's weeping with her head on his shoulder. Some long-dormant instinct kicks in and he rubs her back gently as her tears soak his shirt.

"I'm sorry, Haymitch," she whispers. "I'm sorry about your family."

He never did properly cry over his family—too many eyes from the Capitol watching. So he accepts Effie's tears for them as his own. And he strokes Effie's hair and thinks that he's never had much practice in the role of comforter and friend—the only people who needed his comfort were the tributes, who he wouldn't let himself get too close to—but that this isn't so bad. Being there for someone who needs him . . . it'd be hard for him to explain, but the feeling it gives him puts him in mind of eating a warm, hearty meal after days of only consuming liquor. And they stay that way until they've both dozed off in the late afternoon sunlight.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Six

. . . . . .

Haymitch wakes up on his own on the sixth day of Effie's visit—and at 9:30 in the morning, which for him is hugely impressive. He doesn't let himself read much into the fact that he can't get back to sleep because there is something like adrenaline in his veins. He supposes that some might say it means that he's actually looking forward to the day, but that would be absurd. If it's anything, it's just self-preservation; he knows Peeta or Katniss will be by at some point to wake him up, and he might as well beat them to it because it's so much nicer to wake up on your own. Or maybe it's that the plan for today sounds interesting for once: Leevy's husband Simon was out hiking and apparently found the remains of an old town from back before the Dark Days, and they're all going to explore it. Haymitch has never seen a town that wasn't part of the Capitol or the districts, and the idea intrigues him. But those are absolutely the only reasons he's up and getting dressed by 10.

Jo returned his clean laundry yesterday, and now he has the entirety of his wardrobe at his disposal—no more need to wear his formal clothing, especially not for hiking. Only the thing is, when he looks at the clothes just back from the washerwoman's, he notices for the first time how shabby some of them are. Have they always been like this and he just hasn't noticed? Some of them are downright embarrassing. Of course, beggars can't be choosers; no one in District 12 has particularly nice clothing right now. And he's going hiking, so more casual clothes are to be expected. Still, he finds himself choosing one of his nicest pairs of District 12 pants and one of his more relaxed-looking Capitol shirts. He just doesn't want to look like a slob, is all.

Then he eats some breakfast and feeds his geese, and then he tidies up his kitchen because Jo won't be here until tomorrow and just in case he has any visitors, he'd like the place to look presentable. And then finally it's time to go to Peeta's.

"You're up," Katniss smiles when she answers the door. "I thought I'd have to come over and drag you out of bed."

"Geese woke me up," he lies as he walks past her and into the house.

"We're in here," Peeta calls from the kitchen, and Haymitch follows his voice in to see that Effie is helping Peeta prepare their picnic lunch for the day. She's in one of her more sturdy-looking outfits, some kind of gray jumpsuit with dark boots, and just for a moment he is forcibly reminded of his Aunt Ruth, who never married and who wore an outfit just like that as she worked in the mines to support herself until she died not long before his Games. She was 12 through and through, a woman who could absolutely take care of herself, and the reminder makes him smile a little. Effie wouldn't have lasted a day in the mines, but surviving Snow's torture, refusing to take Haymitch's crap for six years . . . in some ways, the woman is a lot like Aunt Ruth.

"We'll be ready in a second," Peeta says, breaking Haymitch from his reverie. "Just finishing lunch. And Simon and Leevy should be here any minute."

"Oh." Effie blinks a few times, looking surprised. "Simon and Leevy are coming? I didn't realize—I thought they'd just told you where to go." At Peeta's nod, her expression dims. "Do you know, I've been thinking—it's been a trying few days; I think it might be best if I stay in today. Get my strength up, recuperate a little."

Peeta looks baffled and a little hurt. "But you—you've been planning on coming all morning. And if you're tired, we can bring a blanket for you to sit on once we're there."

Effie's smile is beginning to look just a bit forced. "I could rest so much better here, though. Your house is so comfortable."

Haymitch glances at Katniss, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, but she looks baffled too. "Something on your mind, Effie?" he asks.

"Not at all! I just . . . I don't know that I'm up to seeing outsiders right now."

"They're just people you're going to see at the Unity Day celebration anyway," Katniss points out.

"Ah, yes, about that," says Effie. "I'm thinking I may sit that one out as well. I can celebrate just as well here at the Victor's Village."

"That's the whole reason you came here," says Katniss, baffled.

Curiously, Haymitch peers closer at Effie, but it's Peeta, as usual, who figures out what she's feeling first. "Effie," he says gently, "no one in 12 is going to be upset with you."

Clearly the boy is correct in his assumption because Effie flinches. "It's—I just don't want to ruin the celebration with my presence. I don't want to bring up a lot of bad memories for everyone. I know I'm just . . . the woman who appeared once a year to drag everyone down again."

In her words Haymitch hears the echo of how he described her the day after she arrived, and from her downcast expression he can tell she took the words to heart. And he's not sure what to say. He wants to be supportive, but for all of Peeta's reassurances, it's entirely possible that there are people in 12 who will be unhappy to see her at the Unity Day celebration. So he responds flippantly. "They won't even know who you are without your wigs," he says. "I didn't recognize you when you first showed up this week."

She seems surprised. "Really?" Then she shakes her head. "Yes, but if they do—"

"Effie, we really want you to come," Peeta says earnestly. "You've come all this way."

Katniss's reassurance seems more dutiful than earnest, but she offers it anyway. "We'd like to have you there."

And for Haymitch, the thought of her not attending the party because she feels unwelcome makes him uncomfortable—he didn't mean to give her a self-esteem problem, after all—although when he speaks, he works hard to sound as disinterested as he usually does. "If you don't come, I'll be a third wheel to these two," he says, nodding at Peeta and Katniss, to which Peeta responds with a wry smile. "And here's the thing: you coming is perfect, because if anyone's rude to you for being an escort, the rest of us can get all offended and leave early, which is what I wanted to do anyway."

"Haymitch," Peeta says disapprovingly, but Katniss is grinning.

There's a knock on the door then. "Simon and Leevy," Peeta guesses. "Effie, will you please come?"

Effie looks at him, and then at Katniss, and then at Haymitch. "Come on, Princess," he says with a half grin.

Her serious expression finally softens into a small smile. "All right," she says.

Katniss gives her own tiny smile. "I'm glad," she says, and goes to get the door.

"But if Simon and Leevy decide they don't want me to come—"

"It'll be fine," Haymitch says, and without thinking puts his hands reassuringly on her shoulders. Her eyes get a little wider, almost imperceptibly, and he feels heat rush to his face, and at the same moment they turn away from each other. Peeta catches Haymitch's eye and gives him a smirk.

. . . . . .

If Simon and Leevy recognize Effie from her escort days, neither of them comments on it, and by the time the group has reached the edge of the woods, Effie seems to have relaxed. They've headed west past town and are entering the woods near the train station. "Explains why I never saw this place," Katniss says. "I never hunted this direction; too close to town and the Peacekeepers."

"I remember you telling me that once," says Simon. "That's why I decided to explore this area. It occurred to me that I might be the first person in a century to walk through these trees."

Simon, as it turns out, is a bit of a local history buff. Although he grew up in the Seam, his grandfather was a merchant, and before he died, he gave Simon a history he'd written of District 12. "It's the only thing I took with me when we fled," he says. "It's priceless. We had to keep it hidden for years. Grandfather spent a night in jail just for asking old timers what they remembered about the past; if the Peacekeepers knew he'd been compiling all of that info into a book, he would have been in huge trouble, for sure."

"For having a book?" Effie sounds shocked.

"For having a history book," Simon confirms. "The Capitol didn't like us talking about history, unless it was their officially sanctioned version of things. Another way to keep us down—if we'd talked to each other about our history, about the things that make us who we are, it might have encouraged us to start standing up for ourselves."

Haymitch nods, remembering. "My grandpa used to tell us stories about being a kid before the Dark Days, but when he did he'd make sure all the doors and windows were locked. Never really thought about why, until now."

"Really?" Simon looks excited. "I'll have to talk to you about what you remember. I'm going to continue my grandfather's work—write about the bombing and the war and the reconstruction now."

A few minutes later, they come out of the trees at the top a steep incline and find themselves on what appears to be a wide path, choked with tree roots and plants, curving up and around the side of a hill. "I think this used to be a road," explains Simon.

They climb the road, crunching through the gravel that covers it in some spots, up around a bend, and suddenly they're in the town—or what remains of it, anyway. The land flattens out, and dotting either side of the road are houses in varying states of decay: most are little more than concrete foundations and porch steps surrounded by bits of rotting wood, but a few were built with brick and are still recognizably houses, even with their sagging roofs and decrepit doors. It's the first time Haymitch has ever seen anything that wasn't created or controlled by the Capitol, and he's surprised at how it takes his breath away. There was a world before Panem, he thinks. It's something he's always known to be true, but it's different to actually see it for himself.

His companions seem equally surprised into silence, but Katniss finally speaks up. "Those look just like the houses in the Seam," she says.

"I know," says Simon excitedly. "Which might confirm my theory that the Capitol didn't build 12, it created it out of an existing city. Maybe it did that for all the districts." He's silent a moment, as though looking for words. "When Panem was founded, I don't think the leaders carefully planned and built it, no matter how much the Capitol pretended to be the reason the rest of us existed. I think they cobbled a country together out of what was already there."

They sit in a grassy field and eat the lunch that Peeta and Effie packed, and then they walk on, passing a few cross-streets that are similarly dotted with houses and foundations. Here and there are fallen poles that used to carry power lines, and along the side of one road is a collection of glass, plastic and metal. Leevy peers closer at it. "What do you think that used to be? A car, maybe?"

After a while, the houses turn into buildings that look a lot like the old center of 12, all built in one long row down either side of the street; businesses, Haymitch assumes. These buildings are made of brick and stone and the walls have held up much better than the wooden houses at the edge of town, although it's clear from peering in the windows that the interiors have been all but destroyed by time. Some have collapsed roofs, letting sunlight and weather in, which is apparently all the invitation that the local plants needed to start trying to take over those places. "Being reclaimed by nature," as Leevy says. One particularly nice building has metal letters bolted to the front: "BANK."

The similarities to the now-destroyed 12 are striking, and they're not lost on Peeta. Haymitch looks up at one point to see him standing in front of one particular building with a huge front window—glass long since shattered—with his shaking hands clenched into fists. Haymitch steps closer, trying to see what's set his young friend off, but before he's figured it out Katniss is there, putting one hand on Peeta's shoulder. "What is it?"

Peeta jumps a little. "Sorry," he says. "It's just . . ." He gestures through the window.

Katniss and Haymitch both look inside to see a large metal block, rusted out but recognizable as an oven, surrounded by fallen shelves and dilapidated counters, everything covered in dust and dried leaves and other unidentified debris. "This was a bakery," Katniss says gently.

"Yeah," says Peeta softly, then shakes his head. Haymitch can see tears in the boy's eyes. "It just looks so much like ours did. I was thinking . . . my family . . ."

He breaks down. Katniss unhesitatingly wraps her arms around him, and Haymitch slips away, feeling like he's just intruded on a very private moment.

On the far side of the center of town is a red brick building, with just enough scraps of peeling wood and siding remaining for them to see that it used to be trimmed in white. It's grander than anything they've seen so far, except the bank, and the front of the building has something Haymitch has never seen: a sort of tower, tapering to a point. "What do you think this was?"

To his surprise, it's Effie who answers. "It's a church," she says, looking surprised. "You didn't have these in 12?"

Most of the group stares at her blankly, but Haymitch nods in recognition. "A church," he explains to the others. "For religious . . . goings-on."

"Oh," says Leevy. "We weren't allowed religion, but some people carried on in secret. My great-uncle's wife had a . . . I don't know what it was, like a necklace with sort of 't' on it, that she always wore under her dress, and she'd touch it when she was worried. She said she was praying, like her mother taught her."

Effie looks curiously at her, but then nods in understanding. "Another way to keep control of the districts, I suppose."

"You had churches in the Capitol?" asked Peeta.

"A few; they weren't very popular," says Effie. "And they all had to be approved of by the government."

"Ah," says Haymitch. "Make sure they're only teaching the gospel of Coriolanus Snow."

"How do you know about all this?" Effie asks him, gesturing at the church.

He shrugs. "Some of the stories my grandfather told were about his great-grandfather, who was a . . . you know, the leader of one of these churches. I guess this is the kind of place he worked. I'd never seen one."

Around the ruined church is a cemetery. "I didn't get to explore this last time before it started raining," says Simon excitedly. "Think of everything we could learn in here."

He barges on in, followed by Leevy and Effie, but Katniss balks at the gate. "I've had enough of dead people," she says, and she's got that haunted expression she gets when she remembers.

Peeta peers at her face, then tentatively takes her hand as though expecting her to reject it. But instead she smiles, and he looks relieved. "We'll stay out here," he tells Haymitch.

Well, that ruins things for him; he doesn't really want to go to the cemetery either, but he's not going to stay out here while these two are having a moment. So he shrugs. "Don't go far," he says, and wanders in through the gate.

The place looks nothing like 12's cemetery, where everyone has identical plaques marking their graves. This place has everything from simple plaques to big stone and concrete things—columns and lambs and tall rectangular slabs. They're largely worn down by weather until the writing on them is illegible, but a few can still be made out, especially those that are made of metal. Simon and Leevy are gathered around a cluster of these metal markers, reading them excitedly.

"Died August 4, 1956," reads Leevy. "When was 1956?"

"Veteran of World War Two," Simon reads from another. "There was a world war? There were two world wars?" He pulls a notebook from his pocket and starts scribbling something down.

"Look at this," Leevy says excitedly, gesturing at an obelisk-shaped stone where the writing is still clear. "MacCreery. Wasn't Delly Cartwright's mother a MacCreery? Do you think there could be a connection?"

This gets Simon excited as well, and as he makes another note in his notebook, Haymitch looks around. He supposes he could look for Abernathys, but the truth is, just being in here is making him anxious; he doesn't like dead people any more than Katniss does. So he glances around and sees that Effie has found a stone bench in a corner of the graveyard and is sitting with her face turned up toward the sun. He hesitates, and then he walks over and sits next to her.

She smiles beatifically at him, and he can't help smiling back. There's not much room on this bench, but he doesn't mind being in such close contact with her, and she doesn't seem to mind either; he supposes that falling asleep all over each other on the couch yesterday has broken down any hang-ups they had about touching each other. In fact, now that he's so close to her, he finds himself wanting to touch her—deliberately, not just to squish up against her because the bench is too small. Nothing big, just a hand on her knee, maybe? It's just because they're so close that there's not room for his arms at his sides; it'd be more comfortable. But he doesn't; he's pretty sure that would be weird.

"Enjoying the sun?" he asks.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" she responds, tipping her face back up to the sky. "This whole place is lovely. Strange, of course—a little eerie—but lovely, in a way. I don't think I've ever been somewhere that's so quiet."

"You a fan of graveyards?" he asks—not skeptically, just curiously.

"Not usually," she says. "Not in the Capitol. And I suppose if I were in 12 I wouldn't like to see a cemetery. But this place is . . . it's like we're out of the world, isn't it? Like we've left Panem. And the people here, they didn't die in the war, they didn't die in the Games, they just lived their lives and then they passed away. It's the way life is meant to go. It's the way we'll all live now; we'll live out our time and then we'll go. That's beautiful in a way, isn't it?"

He's never thought about it, but . . . "I guess it is."

"Plus . . ." She looks at him, seeming a little embarrassed, and then looks away. "I like being here. It's not my fault these people died. That's comforting."

It hurts him, strangely, to hear her say that. "You think it's your fault people died in Panem?"

She sighs and begins wringing her hands, something he used to see her do when they were watching their District 12 tributes together during six years of Hunger Games. "I . . . I know you think I'm just some silly Capitol escort who adored the Hunger Games," she says. He opens his mouth to protest and she cuts him off. "And I was, for a very long time. I used to watch them as a child, and I'd see the glamorous escorts with their tributes, wearing beautiful clothing and going to banquets and preparing them to fight for the glory of Panem, and I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. And I did. For six years, I was part of the Hunger Games and I didn't think anything could make me happier." She sighs. "I believed what Snow said, that they were necessary for the peace. So even though it seemed monstrously unfair that Katniss and Peeta . . . or you . . . were going to have to go back for the Quarter Quell, I couldn't condemn the Games because Snow said they were necessary and I believed Snow." A dark expression flits over her face. "It wasn't until the system I'd dedicated my life to locked me in jail and tortured me that I realized how wrong I'd been, about so many things." She breaks off then and turns away from him, but not before he sees in her eyes the glimmer of unshed tears.

"I didn't know you felt this way," Haymitch said. "All week, you've still been so . . . enthusiastic about the Capitol."

She laughs a little. "There's a difference between the Capitol as a city and the Capitol as a corrupt government. The city is where I grew up; it's where all my friends live. And there are good people there. We were taught to believe in the government all our lives, and some people saw the system for the evil it was but most of us believed what we were taught. Why wouldn't we? It was a system where we were the elite. Why would we fight that?" He opens his mouth to respond and she cuts him off. "I know why we should have fought it. I'm just saying . . . Anyway, I was part of the Hunger Games, so in a way, those deaths . . . are on me. Some people fought the system even before the system fell apart. But I wasn't one of them. I was a willing pawn of the Capitol." She grimaces. "So yes, in some strange way, all this means being in this graveyard, away from Panem, is oddly peaceful. I feel miles away from all the mistakes I made."

Haymitch is speechless, which is strange for him. And what's stranger still is how much he wants to wrap his arms around Effie like he did yesterday, to banish the ghosts from behind her eyes. But while he's still processing this unfamiliar feeling, she looks around, then asks, "Where are Katniss and Peeta?"

"Didn't want to come in. Katniss said she's had enough of dead people. Can't say I blame her."

"You're not a fan of graveyards?" She echoes his question from earlier.

His mouth presses into a tight line. "No."

He's hoping that's the end of the conversation, but Effie's clearly seen something in his answer that she doesn't like. "Something you want to talk about?" she asks gently.

He shrugs.

"Some reason you don't like cemeteries?" she presses, but then she shakes her head with a little laugh. "I suppose that's a silly question; I suppose they remind you of . . . the death you've experienced in your life."

She seems content with her own explanation, and carries on looking up at the sky, but he stares at her a long moment, chewing anxiously on the inside of his lip, and then words burst out of him. "I used to have this dream," he says, wondering even as he speaks why he's admitting all this to Effie. "For the first few years after my Hunger Games. I was in a cemetery, and I had to bury all forty-seven of the other tributes, one by one. I had to look at each of their faces, then watch them disappear under the dirt. Almost every night for I don't know how long." She is staring at him now, and as he speaks, her surprised expression slowly morphs into a sympathetic one. He shrugs. "I finally stopped having it—I think mentoring new tributes was enough of a horror on its own that my brain didn't need to dwell on the old horrors as much. I haven't thought about that dream in twenty-some-odd years, but being here . . ."

Effie looks at him a long time, and then carefully she reaches out and takes his hand, her touch light and hesitant. Without a second thought he grips her hand back, tightly, and her posture relaxes and she carefully leans her head against his shoulder. The pressure of it is comforting, and her hand is small and smooth and warm, and as the sun shines on them and a breeze winds around them, he thinks that maybe she's right; maybe this place is rather peaceful after all. He's almost sorry when Simon tells them it's time to leave. Almost.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Seven

. . . . . .

Haymitch wakes up the next morning with a vague sense of unease. He can't quite put a finger on why—the room is dark and empty, and his sleep was blissfully dreamless—so he lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, until it finally hits him: it's raining outside. Normally he likes the sound of rain hitting the windows; in a strange way it gives him a feeling of security. But this morning, when his brain finally registers the sound of tapping on his roof, he finds himself frowning and breathing out one word: "Effie."

He dresses quickly, being sure to put on his waterproof boots, and grabs an old umbrella on the way out the door. She'll be fine, of course—from what she's said, the rain doesn't bother her when she's inside—but he'll rest a little easier when he sees that for himself.

"Haymitch," Peeta says when his old mentor appears, "I didn't know you were coming. I was thinking of having a mid-morning snack—join me for some biscuits?"

So no catastrophe here. Haymitch examines Peeta. "You here alone?"

"Katniss and Effie went right after breakfast to pick up Effie's new jacket from Delly's shop."

Haymitch's hands tighten around the damp umbrella he's holding. "So Effie's out in the rain right now?" Maybe there's a catastrophe after all.

"I know what you're thinking," Peeta says. "I pointed out the clouds when they left, but Katniss said it was only going to rain, not storm. And I trust Katniss on these sorts of things."

"And that was good enough for Effie?"

Peeta shrugs. "She said she doesn't love rain, but she can handle it as long as that's all it does. And it hadn't even started raining by the time they left." Haymitch must look unconvinced, though, because Peeta says reassuringly, "They'll be fine. If it got bad, there's places they could take shelter between here and Delly's." He glances at the clock on the mantle. "In fact, that's probably what they're doing now; they were supposed to be back twenty minutes ago."

That was the exact wrong thing to say, because now all Haymitch can think about is Effie curled up under a tree somewhere, screaming while Katniss helplessly tries to comfort her, and it's all his fault, the storms and the blood. "Maybe we should make sure they made it okay," he says, trying to keep his voice casual.

Peeta examines him a long moment. "Sure, if you think that's a good idea," he says, and there's a smile in his voice.

Haymitch doesn't care; let the boy think he's being sentimental. He told Plutarch he'd look after Effie, and anyway she was at some kind of peace yesterday and he hates the thought of that being ruined.

The two men tromp out into the rain, umbrellas held overhead. It's worsened a little since Haymitch walked over to Peeta's, but Katniss seems to be right: it's not doing anything but raining. The dirt roads of 12 are muddy and wet, and Haymitch can only imagine how upset Effie would be at having to walk through this mess. He hopes that's the only thing she's upset about.

As it turns out, Effie is in fact in Delly's shop, but she's not trapped there by her fear of the storm. In fact, she doesn't seem to have noticed the rain at all. She is deep in conversation with Rowan, the district administrator, and Haymitch can tell even from the door that she is in full-fledged social mode. Not that he means that as an insult; he's seen more than once the way that she can win people to her side when she turns on the charm. Helped him win sponsors for Katniss and Peeta a time or two, if he remembers right.

"Haymitch! Peeta!" she says, surprised, turning to look at them, while from across the store Katniss looks over from her conversation with Delly and flashes Peeta a warm smile. "What are you doing here?"

Haymitch has no idea how to answer—he hardly wants to say "To make sure you weren't catatonic" in front of her new friend—but luckily he's with Peeta and that kid's got a gift with words. "We weren't sure you'd brought umbrellas," Peeta says smoothly.

"Oh, that's thoughtful of you," says Effie warmly. "I'm sorry we're so much later than we said we'd be. I just got caught up in the conversation."

Okay, so clearly Haymitch totally overreacted. Idiot, he tells himself firmly. But then Effie gives him a look, smiling but fraught with meaning, and adds, "And I wanted to wait out the rain."

He gives her a half smile. Maybe he's not a total idiot.

"Do you two know Rowan?" Effie says, gesturing at her companion.

The man smiles at them, and Haymitch nods back without answering the question. He met Rowan when he first came back after the war, and once or twice since then, but that's it. Haymitch already knows enough people; he's not too interested in knowing more.

Peeta, however, seems to be old friends with the man and gives him a hearty handshake. Leave it to Peeta to befriend everyone in the new 12, even though he's really only been functional for the last six months. "Of course, Rowan, how are you doing?" he asks, and angles his body so there's room for Haymitch in the circle. Great, now he has to be social.

"I'm good." Rowan smiles at Haymitch as he saunters up their group. "Just getting to know your visitor, Miss Trinket. 'Course, I remember her from the Hunger Games, but I barely recognized her—she looks so much prettier than she did back then."

"Stop," Effie laughs, looking pleased, and Haymitch fights hard to keep his face neutral. Is Rowan flirting with her? The man must be fifty years old. Of course, that's only six years older than Haymitch, but still.

"And of course, always nice to see our lovely Miss Everdeen," Rowan goes on, smiling fondly over at Katniss. "Always an absolute delight. Such a sweet girl." Really? On her most cheerful days, Katniss Everdeen has a face like a stone wall—a beautiful stone wall, but a stone wall, nonetheless. Ah, yes, now Haymitch is remembering his previous interactions with Rowan: the man is effusively complimentary of everyone he meets. That's why 12 chose him as administrator; he's friends with everyone, sees the best in everyone.

Still, it's absurd for him to flirt with Effie. He's old enough to be her father.

"Rowan and I were just talking politics," Effie says. "He's telling me what it's like to run a district."

"A lot of work, I can tell you," Rowan laughs. "Believe you me, I'll be happy when proper elections get up and running next year and I can retire. Think I'll start a farm."

"Unless we elect you back into office," says Peeta cheerfully.

"Never," chuckles Rowan. "Nothing would make me happier than knowing I never had to take that hovercraft ride from here to the Capitol again. I hate those things. Always afraid we're about to fall out of the sky. That's why I like Paylor's new idea so much."

"New idea?" asks Effie.

"She wants each district to choose a representative from among their citizens," he explains. "Someone to bring their district's needs and concerns straight to the government."

"Sounds like a decent idea," says Haymitch.

Rowan looks hopeful. "Don't suppose you'd be interested?" he says, looking from Haymitch to Peeta. They both shake their heads, and he sighs. "Trouble is, everyone I've asked so far has said no. We've only got a hundred and thirty-four people here, half of whom are children, and the rest don't want the job. It'd mean travel back and forth all year, spending loads of time in the Capitol, and no one wants to do that. If they bothered to move back to 12, it's because they want to stay here. If they wanted to be in the Capitol, they moved there after the war."

"I've had enough of the Capitol for one lifetime," says Peeta. "But if I hear of anyone wanting to do some travel, I'll let you know."

From there the conversation turns to Effie's work in TV; as it turns out, Rowan is a huge fan of Stories Across Panem. "The episode about the little girl in 5 getting reunited with her parents?" Rowan puts a hand over his heart. "I don't mind telling you, I wept like a child."

"I know!" says Effie, mirroring his gesture. "It took twice as long as usual for us to put that segment together because everyone kept crying."

"Why haven't you done an episode on 12 yet?" the administrator asks.

"Well, for one thing, we've been going in numerical order," says Effie, and everyone laughs. And then she hesitates. "We've been waiting. We thought 12 needed more time than anyone else to . . . recover. And we've been waiting for a good story—something to really do your district justice."

"What about the Mockingjay?" Rowan asks, glancing back at Katniss.

"Definitely not," Peeta says. "If you tried, there's a good chance Katniss would just stab you right then and there."

"Don't be silly," says Haymitch. "Katniss prefers a bow. But yes, killing, definitely."

"I've been thinking," says Effie, "about this shop. Four women who lost everything in the war, creating this business right in the middle of the bombed-out area—you know, phoenix rising from the ashes and all that."

"I think that's a great idea," says Peeta warmly.

"I'll probably cry again," says Rowan.

"I'll have to run it by Plutarch," Effie says, but she looks pleased by their praise.

A thought occurs to Haymitch. "So to do that, you'd have to come back out here, right?" he asks.

Effie turns to look at him, and there's a look on her face that he has a hard time identifying. She looks almost . . . bashful? "Yes, the whole crew would be here for at least a few days."

"Good," he says without thinking.

Normally when Effie smiles, it fills her whole face; back in the Hunger Games times, he used to think it made her look a bit like a shark. The smile she gives him now is nothing like that; it's small and sweet and sincere and affectionate, and he's surprised by how much he likes it. "I look forward to it."

Peeta and Rowan exchange a look.

. . . . . .

They wait another twenty minutes but the rain never lets up, so finally they give up and head out. Katniss and Effie did in fact bring umbrellas, making the menfolk's excuse for coming to town null and void, but after Peeta shivers in the cold—the boy didn't think to wear a jacket—Katniss closes her umbrella and slips under his so she can take his arm. Peeta turns to look at her, and the smiles that pass between the two teens make Haymitch simultaneously roll his eyes and smile.

Back at Peeta's house they have lunch. When the meal has been cleared away, Katniss returns to her house, telling them not to expect her before dinner because her mother is calling this afternoon. Katniss doesn't have much to say to her, but the woman insists that they keep in touch, so every few months Katniss dutifully waits for her call and then takes to the woods for a few hours in order to regain her equilibrium. Peeta's concern for her is written across his face as she prepares to leave, but she just gives him a half smile and then disappears out the door.

With her gone, Peeta settles onto the sofa for a nap, telling them that he didn't sleep well last night. Haymitch assumes the truth is that he'd rather sleep than stay awake and think about how much he wishes he was over there with Katniss, but either way, the two guests are left to their own devices. The rain has still not let up, so they look around the living room for a few moments, and then Effie picks up a deck of cards. "Nine Stars?"

Haymitch smirks at this; they've played several times over the course of the week, usually after dinner is finished, and she has yet to win a round. It's not her fault, they tell her; she only learned the game a few days ago, and they are all old hands at it. Cards were cheap and readily available in the old days of 12, and most houses had a deck—not much else to do in the evenings. Any true District 12-er grew up an expert at Nine Stars, even a merchant like Peeta.

Once Haymitch and Effie start playing, though, it quickly becomes clear that Effie is rapidly improving; she doesn't have the strategy down, but a large portion of the game involves bluffing, and that she excels at. Only a few rounds in, she wins for the first time.

"I see how it is," Haymitch says when she triumphantly lays her cards down on top of his. "You think you're pretty good, huh? How about we make the next round a little more interesting?"

"A wager, Mr. Abernathy?" she challenges, raising one eyebrow. "Fine. If I win the next round, you have to dance at the party tomorrow. With me."

He chuckles. Apparently she's been paying attention; he told her on her third day in 12 how much he hates dancing and how little intends to do so at the party. "Fine," he agrees; after all, that last hand was a fluke and he'll definitely win the next one. "And if I win, you can't pester me about dancing all night. Not even once."

"Deal," she says, and begins dealing the cards with an expression that says this is deadly serious business. He hides a smirk as he watches her; it never fails to amuse him how zealous she can be when she puts her mind to something. Well, now it never fails to amuse him; back in the days of the Hunger Games, it failed to amuse him quite a lot.

But all her earnestness notwithstanding, she never has a chance; he starts the round with two aces, and it would take a miracle to beat that hand. And that's a miracle she doesn't get. "Sorry, princess," he says at the end of the round, laying down his cards. "I guess I win the bet."

"Ah," she says, and her smile is good-natured, but there's something behind it, a sort of flatness. "Well, lucky you."

She seems, surprisingly, a little disappointed. Was she that eager to see him dance? Maybe she just wanted to see if he's really as bad as he claims. Whatever the reason, he finds he doesn't like seeing her smile dim. So he shrugs. "But that doesn't mean I won't dance. Just that you aren't allowed to bug me about it."

And there it is, that smile that always makes him grin in return, the one he only ever sees her direct at him, the one that looks like she's trying to purse her lips disapprovingly but she can't keep the corners from turning up in a grin. His mouth quirks into a smile in reply. And then she opens her mouth to speak.

But he never finds out what she was going to say because suddenly Peeta, sprawled on the sofa along the far wall, makes a little protesting noise in his sleep. "Noisy sleeper?" Effie guesses. But Peeta's not done; his breathing quickens until it's coming in audible gasps, and even across the room Haymitch can see the boy's brow furrow and his jaw clench. "Or something more," she guesses.

"Nightmare," Haymitch says unnecessarily. He imagines Effie has experience enough with nightmares to recognize one.

"Should we wake him?" she asks as the boy starts to toss in his sleep.

Haymitch shrugs. "It seems like it varies—sometimes waking him up helps and sometimes it makes it worse."

But the nightmare seems to be growing worse, and the worry line between Effie's brows grows deeper and deeper as Peeta's thrashing worsens. Tentatively she stands and takes a few steps toward the sofa. "Peeta?" she says softly.

It's impossible to say whether this is in response to Effie, but Peeta speaks for the first time. "Stop!" he cries to whatever specter haunts his dreams.

Effie looks helplessly back at Haymitch, but before he can decide whether they should wake the boy, Peeta sits up suddenly. "No!" he shouts as he wakes up. Or at least he mostly wakes up. His eyes are wide and staring, his expression one of terror, his hands shaking, and Haymitch knows this state all too well, having seen Peeta in it a number of times: whatever he saw in his dreams has triggered the conditioning the Capitol put him through, and in these confused moments after waking, he is back the way he was eighteen months ago, his memories and sense of reality twisted by Snow's men, no idea which way is up.

His breathing is heavy and labored and he stares unseeingly at his companions, his hands clenched tightly into fists. Haymitch doesn't want to know what will happen if he recognizes his old escort. "Effie," he calls softly, "come back here."

And Effie must see the wisdom in that idea, because she starts to back up slowly. All this does, though, is catch Peeta's attention. "Effie Trinket?" he says hoarsely. "What are you doing here?"

Effie watches him as his chest heaves in fear, and then to Haymitch's surprise, she speaks calmly. "Peeta, look around. Where are you?"

He stares at her. "What?"

"This room you're in. What is it?"

"It's . . . my living room."

"And where's your living room?"

His breathing has started to slow. "In . . . the Victor's Village. In . . . 12." He lets out a great whoosh of a sigh. "I'm not in the Capitol anymore," he says, and drops his face into his hands.

"No, you're safe here with us," she says warmly. Then she glances back and notices Haymitch watching her in surprise. "It's a technique Dr. Aurelius taught me for dealing with nightmares," she shrugs.

"Oh, my gosh," Peeta says through his hands, "sorry, you guys. I don't know how that . . ."

"It's fine," Effie is quick to reassure him.

He's silent a long moment, then peeks up at them. "Just . . . please don't tell Katniss, okay? It worries her every time, and she's got enough on her plate today."

"Promise," Effie says.

Peeta slides back down to curl up on the couch, staring miserably at some spot near Haymitch's feet, until Effie tentatively takes a seat near the head of the couch. "Don't worry," she says, and with one hand she begins to the smooth the curls off Peeta's forehead. Peeta tenses at first, and then, like snow melting, he starts to relax. "We all have our moments," she says, her voice soothing. "And anyway, that was what, a two and half at best?" A smile crosses Peeta's face, and then his eyes flutter closed and his breathing deepens—asleep or just relaxing, Haymitch doesn't know.

He watches the scene quietly. It's all a bit sentimental and sappy, but he has to admit that it seems to be what Peeta needs. After a moment, Effie, her fingers still smoothing Peeta's hair, looks back and at Haymitch. "My father used to do this when I was a child," she says softly. "To calm me after a nightmare."

Haymitch wonders what it would have been like to have someone around after his Games, to soothe him when he awoke in the dead of night from dreams of dead tributes. And then he wonders who's there for Effie now. She's never mentioned having anyone in her life, and given that she's told them every single other detail of her life in the Capitol, he thinks it's safe to assume there isn't anyone. And it makes him sorry, to imagine her waking from dreams of blood to find herself alone in a dark apartment, no one to remind her that it's not real and that she's safe. And he thinks he understands more than ever why Plutarch sent her to them. At least for this week, she's not alone.

. . . . . .

The sound of Katniss coming in the front door is what wakes Peeta up the second time; by then Haymitch and Effie have played another hour of Nine Stars and an hour and a half of a Capitol card game called Circenses, and they have spent a full two hours sitting on the other sofa and talking. It's the first time they've spent so long chatting, just the two of them, and Haymitch is surprised by how easy it is to talk to her. They reminisce about parties in the Capitol, she tells him amusing anecdotes about people she's met (she's quite funny, when she wants to be), he tells her about life in District 13, they learn they have a shared fascination with the stars, she tries to convince him to take up a hobby. He's so caught up in their conversation that he doesn't notice until Katniss returns how hungry he is.

"Any plans for dinner?" Katniss asks them as she walks in.

Peeta, who has been blearily rubbing the sleep from his eyes, jumps awake at that. "Dinner! I forgot, I'm sorry. I was going to try to make that lamb stew you loved so much at the Capitol, but that takes ages. I should have started hours ago."

"You know what?" says Katniss. "If you slept that long, you probably needed it. We'll just make sandwiches. You do make the best bread in the district, after all."

"I make the only bread in the district," says Peeta, but he's glowing at the compliment.

After a simple meal of sandwiches on the best bread in the district, Effie beams around at them in the way she does when she's very excited about something. "I had an idea for tonight, if we don't have any other plans."

"Sure," says Katniss.

"I brought some episodes of Stories Across Panem on video. I thought we could watch them so you could all see my work."

"That sounds great," says Peeta enthusiastically.

Katniss's expression is not quite as enthusiastic, but she says, sounding sincere, "It would be interesting to see what people are into in the Capitol."

"And here too," Effie reminds her. "Don't forget that your own district administrator loves the show."

"So if you've had these with you all week," Katniss asks, "why are you only pulling them out now?"

"Honestly?" says Effie, glancing at Haymitch. "I didn't think Haymitch would agree to watch them."

Haymitch grins. "And you think I will now?"

Effie gives him a long, cool, considering look, and then breaks into a confident smile. "I rather think you will. I think you and I have come to an understanding, Mr. Abernathy."

"Don't get cocky, princess," he says. "You can't tell me what to do."

She simply continues to watch him, her eyebrows slightly raised, and finally he sighs and gives in. "All right, let's go watch your show."

Effie claps her hands delightedly and darts upstairs to get the video cards. While she's gone, Katniss turns an amused look on Haymitch. "That was very accommodating of you, Mr. Abernathy. Are you turning over a new leaf? Is this a kinder, gentler Haymitch?"

"Don't get smart, kid." There's no need to tell Katniss that for the past day or two, he's found himself unusually willing to grant Effie's requests. Katniss has probably noticed it anyway. But that's nothing for him to be embarrassed about. It's not written anywhere that he has to be a jerk to everyone; he's allowed to be nice if he wants to.

Peeta has no video card player, so they all troop over to Haymitch's house—he has the latest model, courtesy of Plutarch, who's always trying to get him to watch his shows. The house has been empty for hours, and though Haymitch turns up the heat to combat the chill from the rainy weather outside, he knows it will take a while to warm the house. So he opens the trunk where Jo places his blankets. "Anyone need a blanket?"

"Oh, yes, please," says Effie, who's been putting the video card in the player, and he tosses her the one on top.

Facing the television is one long sofa, and all four of them settle down onto it to watch. As the video card starts up, Effie unfolds her blanket, and Haymitch sees that he has unthinkingly given her his favorite blanket, the heavy soft one he's had for a decade that he always sleeps with when he sleeps on this couch. It's big enough that she spreads it over the other inhabitants of the couch, and as she brings her bit of it up snugly under her chin, Haymitch is struck by the sight. Effie getting comfortable under his blanket—well, that's an avenue of thought he probably shouldn't go down.

The episode of Stories Across Panem that Effie has chosen to show them is about a young man from District 3 who lost a leg in an accident as a child and, despite working in a factory that created medical equipment, could never afford to get a prosthetic; after the war, he finally got a prosthetic leg, and then started creating low-cost prosthetics for victims of war violence all across Panem. And Haymitch has to admit, it's pretty good. He doesn't know much about making movies or television shows, but overall the whole thing is just good-looking—the shots, the music, all of it. And the story is moving and tastefully told, and by the scene at the end where a little girl from 8 gets a prosthetic leg and her mother cries because she's going to walk again . . . well, Haymitch would be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit moved. And his companions seem to agree; Effie is absolutely enthralled, despite having undoubtedly seen this many times before, and Peeta is almost as riveted—maybe he identifies, because of his own prosthetic leg—and even Katniss has a reluctant little smile on her face.

The credits roll. "It's you!" says Peeta happily as "Associate director: Effie Trinket" scrolls down the screen. "Effie, that was amazing!"

"Did you like it?" Effie asks shyly.

"I thought it was great," said Peeta.

"It really was," says Katniss. "Honestly, I thought it was going to be sappy but that was really good."

Effie turns to look at Haymitch, sitting on the other end of the couch, and he cracks a grin. "It was pretty good," he admits. "Never seen that much of District 3 before."

"It's crazy that he was working in a place that made prosthetic legs and he could never get one," says Peeta. "I always figured, since they were making things that cost a lot of money, that they were pretty well off. Apparently not."

"They were one of the first districts to join the uprising in the Dark Days," Haymitch responds, remembering some conversations he had with Beetee. He really should call that guy. "The Capitol never forgave them for it. Kept the people down, even though the district was rich."

"That was great, Effie," says Peeta. "Got any more?"

Effie looks surprised and pleased. "There are a few more episodes on this card," she says.

"I'm in," says Peeta.

"Sure, let's do it," says Katniss.

Effie looks at Haymitch. "Yeah, all right," he says, and she smiles and hits play on the remote.

This one's about a family in 6, and it's nice. The whole evening is nice. The show is good and he's warm under the blanket and Effie is sort of leaning her head on his shoulder and her arm is brushing his arm and he kind of likes it although he's pretty sure that if he lets himself think about it he'll freak out so he doesn't let himself think about it, just like he doesn't let himself loop his arm through hers as he suddenly really wants to do. It's just nice to feel that there's another human being nearby. And it's nice that this particular human being smells great and has really soft skin.

And okay, maybe by the time the last episode ends, he finds that his arm has looped through hers without his permission. But that doesn't mean anything. It was just another nice part of a very nice evening.

A very, very nice evening.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Eight

. . . . . .

The District 12 Unity Day celebration is more than simply one event; Rowan wanted to go all out, to give the residents of 12 a good time, and as such has planned a half-day of festivities: games and footraces and strength competitions in the afternoon, a big community dinner, and then dancing into the night. So Peeta hasn't planned anything for the eighth day of Effie's visit, knowing that they're going to be out so late—that and the fact that he volunteered to bring bread and cookies to the dinner, so he spends the first half of the day in the kitchen.

With nothing else to do, Katniss, Effie and Haymitch help him, or at least Effie helps him while Katniss performs whatever menial tasks Peeta can come up with to keep her occupied—the girl is useless in any baking situation—and Haymitch sits at the kitchen table and lets everyone else do the work, occasionally stealing a bit of cookie dough.

Finally, "Haymitch," Peeta says tightly, his famed patience visibly suffering, "you can't eat so much cookie dough. We need these for tonight."

When the boy has turned back to the oven, Haymitch gives Effie a sad look. She laughs and sneaks him a bit more cookie dough. Katniss sees this and rolls her eyes, and Haymitch can't help chuckling. It's been nice spending so much time with the kids this week. He'll have to think about actually making an effort to see them more in the future.

At 2:30 Haymitch returns to his house to change clothes; his have flour on them from the small amount of baking he actually helped with this morning. Effie gently suggests that if he's getting himself something warm, he should get himself one of his fancier Capitol-style jackets, since they're basically the guests of honor and should dress up. He obediently changes into something a little nicer (and less floury) and then heads back to Peeta's house. The other three have changed clothes as well at this point, and Haymitch catches his breath when he sees Effie. She's wearing her new hunting jacket from Delly's shop, as well as a scarf that Haymitch recognizes as belonging to Katniss, and she seems to have had Katniss do her hair because it's in that elaborate braided updo that Katniss popularized during her Games. The end result is that Effie has never looked more like she belongs in District 12. And with her dressed more casually than normal, and the other three dressed more fancy than normal, this is the first time since the Quarter Quell that they've all matched each other so well.

And there's one more thing making them look like a team. "You wore your pin!" Effie says, delighted, when she sees Haymitch.

Haymitch glances down at the lapel of his jacket and shrugs. "Yeah, well," he says, a little embarrassed at the sentimentality of that fact. But then he sees that the other three have their pins on as well. So at least it's not just him.

"We look like a team, don't we?" asks Effie. "Perfectly wonderful."

Haymitch smiles fondly at her exuberance, the expression quickly wiped from his face when he notices Katniss and Peeta watching him with identical expressions of amusement. Okay, so maybe lately he's been more-than-usually susceptible to getting swept up in her cheerful moods. It's not his fault. She's . . . infectious. Like a disease.

Together they walk to the Meadow, where the festivities are all being held. Haymitch knows from talking to Rowan yesterday that the group in charge of planning the celebration had a fierce debate about whether it was disrespectful to have a party over a mass grave. Eventually it was decided, though, that it was the best thing to do. The Meadow is the largest gathering place in the district, but everyone's been unwilling to use it because it is in fact a cemetery. Rowan is hoping that having the party here convinces people to use the space as a park, and also symbolically includes the deceased of 12 in celebrating the overthrow of the regime that destroyed their district.

Haymitch just tries not to think about it.

Everyone in the district has turned up, and they all seem thrilled to see the victors as they walk by; some even stop to shake their hands or say thank you for their part in overthrowing Snow. Katniss stares at these people as they walk away. "I don't understand why they don't blame us," she says lowly. "For what happened to 12. Why they don't blame me. I blame me."

"People are complicated," is all Peeta can offer. But he leans in close, brushing her shoulder with his as some sort of reassurance, and Katniss grabs his hand. "They asked us to come," he reminds her. "Don't think about anything else. Don't think about what you think you owe people or you'll never last the night here. Okay?" He reaches up with his free hand and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. She looks at him a long moment, and then she kisses him.

"All right," says Haymitch, turning to Effie, "that got personal fast. You doing all right?"

Effie looks around herself hesitantly, and Haymitch remembers how reluctant she was to attend, afraid of people hating her for being an escort. "I'm all right, I believe," she says, and then she adds, "Thank you, Haymitch." And indeed, no one seems to have made the connection that the lovely fresh-faced woman in the hunting jacket and leather boots is the same makeup- and wig-clad Capitolite who used to pop up in time for each reaping.

"Well," says Haymitch, "we should see what's going on. Shall we?"

Many people are mingling and talking, but at the back of the Meadow an area is set up for sports competitions. They've started with a weight toss competition, beginning with children under 12. Effie pulls Haymitch to a stop and exclaims for a while over the "adorable little children" trying to throw a burlap bag of tightly packed hay as far as possible.

"You should sign up for the adult division," says Katniss, appearing behind them, and Haymitch is baffled until he turns and sees that she's brought Peeta with her and is talking to him. "You were pretty good with tossing heavy things."

"Yeah?" he laughs. "Well, that was before I spent six months—" His smile falters. "That was before," he finishes awkwardly.

"You should try it," Effie insists, probably to cover the tension. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Fine," Peeta agrees with a smirk. "If Haymitch does it."

"No way," says Haymitch. "Not happening. Don't much hold with competition. Or organized events. Or physical exertion."

But Peeta does agree in the end, and ends up getting third place for the under-25s. He's winded and sweating, though, when he returns to them. "I used to be better at this," he gasps. "Too many hospital stays lately."

After an hour or two of watching footraces, the final event is a series of tug-of-wars, and Effie decides she wants to participate. She and Peeta form a team with Simon, Leevy, Jo's husband Mat, and a hefty teenager named Deke who turns out to be quite the asset. They win their match and the team is awarded with ribbons (clearly made from worn out blue jeans, but considering the fact that Panem is war-torn and District 12 is barely scraping by, Haymitch can't blame them for making do with what they have). Effie hasn't looked this proud since she was presented by Caesar Flickman as the escort of the winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games, and she runs happily over to Haymitch and asks him to pin her ribbon to her jacket. For some reason doing this sets his pulse pounding. He's been shockingly touchy with Effie this last week—they've been walking arm in arm and sitting awfully close and everything—but each of those has been easy to explain away in his own mind as harmless. But for some reason, standing face to face with her with his hands on her jacket and his knuckles brushing her exposed collarbone . . . he doesn't quite breathe properly until the ribbon is pinned on and he can turn away from her.

. . . . . .

Finally it's time for dinner, which Haymitch is thrilled about for two reasons: he's really hungry, and also he knows that they've got booze at this party and it's finally going to be served. Only a small amount, though; when the war happened, production on most everything was halted, and alcohol production has been one of the last things to get up on its feet again. "It's not a necessity," Plutarch had explained to him, to which Haymitch had indignantly replied, "Maybe not to you." So while they do have some for the celebration, it's only enough for all the gathered adults to have one glass each, and Haymitch has been carefully planning when will be the best time to drink it. Not right away, certainly, but even the possibility of having some makes the whole evening rosier.

They sit at long tables and enjoy the meal, which is mostly the food packages sent from the Capitol, augmented with Peeta's rolls. It's simple—Haymitch eats much better when Peeta cooks—but the company is good and the bonfires scattered across the Meadow cast everything in a cozy glow. Jo and Mat and their family are at the other end of their table, and Haymitch finds himself smiling as he watches their little boys happily shovel food into their mouths—little boys who will never know the fear of a Reaping or the gnawing pain of starvation. Across the way is one of the families who lives next door to Haymitch; he's never bothered to learn their names but their children love to watch his geese, and as those children see him watching them they wave enthusiastically at him. And Haymitch finds himself smiling. He hasn't felt genuinely a part of District 12 since he was 16 years old, but no matter what the intervening years have done (and they have done a lot), this is his birthplace; these are his people. And his people are finally safe, finally free. In that moment, Haymitch is very glad that Peeta talked him into attending the Unity Day celebration.

"This is an absolutely charming event," Effie says, although Haymitch notices she's poking unenthusiastically at the lackluster potatoes; apparently she's not wild about the food either. "So rustic, so inviting, so . . . so sincere."

"So you're still glad you chose this over the Capitol Unity Day party?" Peeta asks with a smile.

"Oh, absolutely," says Effie. "The Capitol event would have been glamorous, no doubt, but big and crowded and . . . and a bit impersonal, I think. Don't get me wrong, I love a big party, but there's also something to be said for a small gathering like this one. It makes me feel . . . like I'm really part of something here." And then, as though realizing the vulnerability in that statement, she looks embarrassed and looks down at her hands in her lap. Haymitch raises an eyebrow. Does she feel like she's not part of something in the Capitol? But then he remembers everything she's told them about how none of her friends in the Capitol understand or want to hear about what she went through in the war. Without thinking, he reaches out and takes her hand in his, squeezing gently, before he realizes what he's doing, at which point he drops her hand and tries to play it off like he hasn't done anything.

"Have you decided when you're going back to the Capitol?" Katniss asks. Effie told them, on her first day in 12, that she was playing her return trip by ear but that she definitely had to be back in the Capitol by early November.

"Well," says Effie thoughtfully, and Haymitch finds himself leaning in closer to be sure he hears her answer, "I still haven't made any definitely plans. There's a train tomorrow, but I was thinking that if it's all right with you, Peeta, I'd stay at least until the next train. Which is in, I believe, four days?"

"You are welcome to stay as long as you'd like," says Peeta.

"It's been nice to see you," says Katniss, and she sounds sincere.

Effie smiles at them and then turns to Haymitch. And the thing is that it doesn't make sense for her to do that; it's not up to him whether she goes or stays. But he finds himself saying, "Yeah, it'll be nice to have you around a little longer."

Effie beams.

Across the way there's a fiddler pulling his battered old instrument out of its battered old case; it's the same man who played at Annie and Finnick's wedding. Next to him, a young woman is tuning a new-looking guitar; clearly they're preparing for the dance portion of the evening. The fiddler runs up and down a scale, and then he breaks softly into a popular old District 12 tune as a warm-up.

"He played that song at the wedding," Katniss remembers.

"That was a good day," says Haymitch softly, and wave of grief sweeps over him for a moment; he normally tries not to think of . . . most things, really, but with that tune ringing in his ears he can't help but picture Finnick and Annie, radiant at their wedding. Finnick, his fellow victor and conspirator who eventually became his friend. Annie, never quite okay, now raising their child alone.

Katniss and Peeta's thoughts appear to be running down the same path, because their expressions have turned nostalgic and sad; Peeta, of course, wasn't actually at the wedding, but he was aware of what was going on then. Effie, though, clearly has no idea what wedding they're talking about, and she looks back and forth between them with polite curiosity. Haymitch doesn't volunteer any information, though. Maybe someday he'll be okay talking about it. Today is not that day.

"Remember that cake you made?" Katniss asks Peeta. "That was beautiful."

"It'd be hard to forget," says Peeta, not meeting her eyes, his voice taking on that low, mumbling quality it does when he's talking about things he doesn't like to remember. "When I think about that first little while in 13, it's mostly a blur, like . . . trying to remember a dream. A nightmare, more like. That cake is the first thing I can remember clearly." A humorless smile crosses his face. "Although I guess I'm glad. I don't want to remember almost killing you."

Effie looks at Haymitch, alarmed, but he shakes his head reassuringly. He doesn't want to interrupt their little heart-to-heart.

"Hey," says Katniss, "don't think about it, remember? Not tonight. Tonight is a party, okay?"

Peeta looks up at her, and his expression softens in a wry smile. "Deal." He jerks his head out toward the center of the Meadow, where tables and benches are being cleared for dancing. "You going to dance with me later?"

She makes a face. "You know how I feel about dancing," she says.

Perhaps emboldened by their moment of closeness just now, Peeta takes one of her hands in both of his and clasps it to his chest. "Please? For me?" he asks, deliberately absurdly earnest.

"Fine, I'll think about it," she grins, wrestling her hand away. "Just stop being . . . like that."

Peeta laughs aloud, and Haymitch rolls their eyes. On an intellectual level he's glad they're being cute together, but in a more practical sense, it's a little cheesy to have to actually watch. Effie, who has been watching this whole exchange with a warm smile, glances at Haymitch and laughs quietly at the annoyed expression on his face. Of course that makes his expression soften quickly.

It's nice, he thinks as they carry on eating, to have someone to share amused looks with when Peeta and Katniss do something . . . teenager-y. They're a cozy little trio these days, the three victors of 12, and he rather likes it; no one really understands a victor except another victor, so it's nice to have them around. For the twenty-four years between his Games and theirs, he was alone the vast majority of the time, only seeing other victors for a few weeks a year; Katniss and Peeta are the first people he's had in his life full-time since his family was killed. And yet, there is and always will be the tiniest bit of a line between him and them. It's got to do with their age—he's old enough to be their father—and it's also got to do with the fact that the two of them are slowly but inexorably moving toward becoming Katniss-and-Peeta, officially.

So it's nice to have Effie there, to exchange looks with when those two are being lovey-dovey . . . and to share some of the burdens in his head with without making him feel guilty for unloading his problems on a couple of kids. In an odd way, she fills a hole in their little group, one he didn't even know was there before: she's closer to Haymitch's age than the others, so he doesn't feel like the only grown-up in the group. She's a woman, so Katniss isn't the only girl in the group. And she's good-hearted and determinedly optimistic, so Peeta doesn't have to bear the entire burden of keeping their little group from falling into gloom and misery.

Yes, having Effie around has been an unexpected comfort, for all of them. He's glad that she's not leaving yet. In fact, he admits to himself, there's some part of him that's sorry that she has to leave at all.

. . . . . .

Rowan gives a speech after dinner, blessedly short, about unity and rising from the ashes and all that. He thanks Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch for coming tonight and for what they did for Panem, and the three of them dutifully smile back; Haymitch wonders if the other two have to remind themselves to make it look convincing, like he does. He doesn't much like making public appearances; never did. Not after age 16, anyway.

Then the fiddler and guitarist take their places on the makeshift stage. Before the dancing starts they perform a slow, lovely District 12 song that Haymitch hasn't heard in years, the girl singing and strumming, the old man weaving clear, sweet harmonies through her words like a stream winding through a forest. It's almost hypnotic, and Haymitch is taken back to the last District 12 dance he attended, when he was 15 years old. He asked Lina from next door if he could walk her to the Meadow, and they danced together all night, and on the walk home he kissed her for the first time. He'd thought then that he might marry Lina, but President Snow took that decision out of his hands a year later when he had her killed, along with Haymitch's family.

Some of what he's thinking must show on his face, because he feels a delicate touch on his wrist and looks up to see Effie looking very concerned. He shakes his head, both to assure her that nothing's wrong and to shake those thoughts out of his head. It's been nearly three decades, and he's over the grief, or at least he's as over it as he's ever going to be in this lifetime. But he does grasp the hand Effie has on his; it gives him the strange sensation of anchoring his footing more firmly to the ground.

The song ends and is met with a roar of applause, although not from Haymitch; clapping would require letting go of Effie's hand, which he's not interested in doing just yet. Effie simply calls out "Bravo!" which makes Haymitch laugh because it's probably the first time that the old man and his fiddle have ever been bravo-ed at. And now people are clearing tables from the center of the Meadow and choosing dance partners, and Haymitch finds his heart rate subtly accelerating. Because the thing is, he told Effie earlier in the week that he had no intention of dancing, which was reasonable because he doesn't like dancing. But as the week's gone on, he's started to question just how willing or unwilling he is to participate, because the thought of being so near her, touching her hands, touching her waist when the steps call for it . . . . it's just no longer the worst thing he can imagine, is all he's saying. So he's not entirely sure what he'll say if she brings up dancing.

Across the table, Peeta is trying to talk Katniss into dancing with him. "You said you would," he reminds her, his hand in hers.

"I said I'd think about it."

"It could be fun," he cajoles, but Katniss isn't smiling back at him.

"The last time I danced was with Prim," she says, stubbornly, defiantly, the way she does when she's trying to avoid talking about things that make her feel vulnerable.

Peeta's expression is sympathetic, but his hand doesn't move. "I know," he says softly. "But Prim wouldn't want you to be unhappy forever."

She looks at him a long moment, and then her face softens, and then she covers that moment of softness by rolling her eyes, and then she stands up. "Fine," she says. She looks over at Effie. "You guys coming?"

Haymitch hesitates, but Effie laughs. "I need to watch a few first," she says. "I don't know the dances you do here." So he's spared making a decision just yet.

The dancers start with the easiest dance, everyone joining hands in a circle, while the musicians play Cuckoo's Egg. Haymitch and Effie watch in silence, along with the few other scattered people not dancing. The sun is nearly set and the Meadow is mostly in shadow, but where Haymitch and Effie sit is still in a patch of sunlight. It bathes Effie in a golden glow, and Haymitch has the sudden thought that she's the most beautiful woman he's ever known, and he wonders how it is that someone hasn't already snatched her up and married her. The men in the Capitol must be idiots.

She glances over then and sees him looking at her, but when he quickly turns away with a muttered apology she just laughs. "You know," she says after a moment, "I've been meaning to thank you."

"What for?"

"Putting up with me this week. I know when I showed up I was the last person you wanted to see, but you've been very kind . . . you know, after our rocky start."

Was it really only six days ago that he made her cry in Peeta's kitchen? It feels like forever. It feels like he's lived a lifetime since that day. "Yeah, I was kind of a jerk to you, princess," he says. "Sorry about that, by the way."

"Haymitch Abernathy saying sorry without being prompted?" She feigns shock. "I wish I'd known how to make you be this polite when I was your escort."

He chuckles. "Yeah, I don't really envy you having to deal with me back then. I mean, I'm not sorry that I wasn't more cooperative with the whole Hunger Games thing . . ." His expression darkens, but then he shakes his head. "But you were just a cog in the machine. I blamed you for a lot of things, but you really weren't responsible for much . . . beyond lecturing me about table manners."

Effie smiles a little but her face is still sad. "I do regret it now, being such a willing pawn. But at the time . . ."

They've already hashed this out and made their peace; he doesn't want to do it again. So he grins wryly at her. "I'm sorry I was such a miserable old drunk," he says. "You were probably pretty disappointed when you got assigned to babysit me."

She hesitates, and in the low light he can see a look of embarrassment cross her face. "Actually . . ."

"Whoa, actually what?" he demands.

"Actually, I was . . . excited." She gives him a funny little smile, like she knows how ridiculous that sounds.

"Excited?"

"Yours is the first Hunger Games I remember seeing, the first one my father let me watch. I was only six years old, but I remember it so vividly, and I was rooting for you from the moment you teamed up with that girl from your district. When you won . . . after that, I always thought of you as my victor. Of course after that other victors came along, and by the time I was a teenager you were already drinking like a fish, but still, when I was assigned to escort my victor . . ."

"Wow," he says. He knows he had fans in the Capitol, but he never realized Effie was one of them.

"Of course, it didn't keep me from trying to get promoted to a better district; I had my career to think of. But . . ."

"But you were my biggest fan," he chuckles.

Her laughter is like a bell ringing. "Actually, I have to admit something: I had such a crush on you when I was a little girl." Her smile grows more bashful. "Actually, I had a bit of a crush on you when I was an escort, as well. You know, when you weren't vomiting on the floor."

Words leave him. He never even suspected—she was always so annoyed with him—

In that moment of silence, Darling Molly ends and the dancers applaud. Rowan materializes next to the table and beams down at them both. "Why aren't you two dancing?" he asks.

It is the most unwelcome intrusion that Haymitch has experienced in a long time, and from the look in Effie's eyes, it's a safe bet that she feels about the same way. But she doesn't forget her manners. "I'm trying to watch and learn the steps," she tells Rowan with a smile.

"Can't learn a dance just by watching," Rowan says cheerfully. "Got to get out there. Dance the next one with me?" He extends a hand to her, then glances back at Haymitch. "You don't mind if I steal your conversation partner away for the next dance, do you?"

Haymitch hesitates. "No, of course not," he says. "She's all yours." But he keeps his eyes fixed on her as she gives him a half-smile, then stands from the bench and allows herself to be led to the dance area.

The musicians strike up Bonypart's Retreat, and Haymitch watches Effie laughing and smiling at Rowan as she attempts to follow the steps he's doing, and then he stands up from the bench. He thinks it's about time for that drink.

. . . . . .

The woman in charge of handing out the booze gives him his glass with a stern reminder. "Only one tonight, remember."

"I got it," he says, and, cradling the glass like something precious, he finds his way to the nearest bench and sits down. The first sip is heaven; his body's been craving this for what feels like forever. It burns in all the best ways going down his throat, and he tells himself he's going to take the glass slowly but before he knows it he's downed the entire thing, and then he leans back with a contented sigh. The past week he's done a decent job of ignoring how much he hates being sober, he thinks, so he's earned this. After a lifetime of drinking, a single drink doesn't affect him too much, but it does give him a mild buzz, a fuzziness at the very edges of his mind, a looseness to his whole body. Oh, he's missed this.

And in this pleasantly relaxed state, he sits back and watches Effie dance. She's not great at it—the boots she's wearing make it hard to be graceful—but she keeps up with Rowan and she's obviously having the time of her life. Rowan, he thinks with a sense of irritation. Couldn't he see that Haymitch and Effie were having a serious conversation? And while he doesn't dislike Rowan normally, he finds himself disliking the man more and more as Effie keeps smiling at him with her insanely white teeth.

Finally, as the song draws to a close, he can't stand it anymore, and before he can think too much about what he's doing, he stands and strides over to the dance floor. "May I, Miss Trinket?" he says, all over-exaggerated politeness. She laughs and takes his hand, and Rowan beams at them both.

And for the first time in nearly thirty years, Haymitch prepares to dance. He's worried he won't remember the steps; he still knows all the music because he loved listening to the old timers play when he was young, but he was never much of a dancer. And not only has he not danced, he hasn't even attended a District 12 dance since before his Games (unless you count Annie and Finnick's wedding). But it's worth it to have Effie away from Rowan.

And he lucks out, because when the old man on the fiddle calls out the next dance, it's the Oak Pick Waltz. Haymitch doesn't dance much, but if there's anything he knows, it's the waltz; he had to do it enough at Hunger Games social events for the last twenty-five years.

"Just a waltz?" Effie asks. "I think I can handle that." And she steps toward him.

And now he's thinking that maybe this wasn't a good idea, because there's something about the waltz position that makes his heart pound. He's been closer than this to Effie before, but they've never been so . . . face-to-face. He's never put his hand on her waist like this. It's not that he doesn't like it; it's that he likes it a lot. And that terrifies him.

It's fully dark now; the bonfires around the edge of the dancing area illuminate the darkness, casting everything in an orange glow. The music starts, sweet and sad, and everyone begins to dance. Haymitch is more graceless than usual on the dance floor, but Effie makes him look better than he ever could on his own; she was right when she said she could waltz. The first little while is rough; he's so focused on not making an idiot of himself (and on how much he enjoys having his hand on the curve of her waist) that he's tense and silent. But as the song goes on he becomes more confident in the steps, and suddenly the dance becomes enjoyable: beautiful music, beautiful partner . . . he understands why people might like dancing. Still, he finds himself looking down at his feet; it's easier that way because then he's sure he's not stepping on her toes, and also looking her in the eye when she's so close to him makes him rather anxious, the few times he tries it.

"You know," Effie says, "you're a very lovely dancer. After all your griping, I thought you'd be terrible."

"I am terrible," he says without looking up. "I'm only doing this well because I'm following you."

She laughs, then falls silent a moment. "This has been a wonderful trip," she says. "I don't want it to end." She hesitates. "And it's partly because how much I've come to like 12, and a lot because I've gotten to see Katniss and Peeta, but . . . it's mostly been because of you."

Haymitch doesn't respond. And then he looks up slowly and meets her eyes. Somewhere along the way they stopped dancing—he can't remember that happening—and they're standing at the edge of the dance floor, in a patch where the firelight doesn't quite reach, although he can see enough of her face to know that she's giving him a look that he hasn't seen a woman give him in a long time. He stares at her for a long few moments. And then, without thinking, without meaning to, but with a sense that this is something he can't fight any longer, he leans down and kisses her.

For ten glorious seconds, it is perfect. Effie doesn't seem surprised by the kiss at all, and immediately and unhesitatingly she winds her arms around his neck and kisses him back. And Haymitch, trying hard to remember how this whole kissing thing is supposed to work, is surprised to realize that while the thought of kissing her didn't occur to his conscious mind until just now, some part of him has been expecting this just as much as Effie seems to have been.

But it doesn't last. Once that first rush of surprise has passed, one insidious thought creeps into his head: the mouth he's currently kissing has also been used to call out doom for the children of 12.

Primrose Everdeen.

Peeta Mellark.

Katniss Everdeen.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

He breaks the kiss off abruptly, his heart suddenly pounding. Effie still has her eyes closed and doesn't seem to have noticed his distress, because she keeps her hands looped around his neck—hands that delicately chose slips of paper that determined who would die.

Ash Monroe.

Chicory Ryman.

Bo Eldridge.

Six years. Ten tributes. Two survivors.

He takes a step back; Effie's arms fall from his shoulders and she opens her eyes. "Are you . . . all right?" She's still smiling from the kiss, and he's suddenly shaking, as though he's very cold.

"I just . . . need a drink," he says.

She smiles understandingly, which she might not do if she had any idea what's going through his mind. "All right."

He turns and all but runs from her.

. . . . . .

It's easy to find his first unsanctioned drink; there's been a changing of the guard at the booze table, so he simply sidles up to the old man there. "We get one of these, right?"

"Yep," says the old man, simply and trustingly, and Haymitch smiles and walks away with a glass, which he downs fast.

His next drink comes from Jo, who he sees sitting standing near one of the fires, scowling at the glass in her hand. "Mat grabbed it for me," she explains when she sees Haymitch looking curiously at her. "I don't really want it, though."

"I'll take it off your hands," Haymitch offers.

And Jo, either not seeing any problem with that or not wanting to offend her boss, hands it over.

This is all the prompting Haymitch needs, and over the next ten minutes he pulls the same trick on two other people. Then he notices the table momentarily unguarded, and he strolls casually by, grabbing a drink in each hand before disappearing into the shadows to down them. (By somewhere around the fifth drink, he can tell that he's had enough; even his rather hardened system is struggling with so much alcohol in so little time. But he keeps going. He can't help it. It's been this way for a long time: once he starts, it's all but impossible to stop.)

And he doesn't want to stop. He wants the alcohol to cloud his brain, to make him stop thinking. Over the years he's grown very good at dealing with the dead who haunt him, with 47 Quarter Quell tributes and with the 46 tributes he mentored, with friends killed in the most recent Quarter Quell and the ensuing war, with his family, with Lina: he compartmentalizes. He tucks them away and refuses to think of them, and if ever they escape from their tidy little box, well, that's what the alcohol is for. (Well, that plus the fact that he's addicted to the stuff now.) And kissing Effie has blown that box wide open. He has a flashback to that old dream he used to have, the one where he has to bury the other 47 tributes, only now he imagines doing it with Effie standing primly by his side while the corpses look accusingly at him with dead eyes.

Effie chose to become part of the Hunger Games. She stood by and did nothing while the eight tributes they had together before Katniss and Peeta died in fear and agony. The system she chose to endorse destroyed everyone he ever came in contact with.

But Effie's sorry. Effie was told her whole life that the Hunger Games were normal and good and even necessary, and she sees now how wrong that was and she's sorry.

Is that enough?

He walks these circles in his brain for he doesn't know how long, or at least he walks them as well as he can in his inebriated state. At some point he finds himself collapsed on a bench, too drunk and lazy to sit up straight, when he hears someone calling his name. It's her, of course, and he hates the impulse he has to stand up and kiss her again. May the odds be ever in your favor.

She's standing over him, and he can see the disappointment in her face as she sees how drunk he is. "You weren't kidding when you said you were going to get yourself a drink," she says. "How many have you had?"

"Not enough." He leans back against the table and tips his head back so he's staring at the starry sky. He can't look at her. Not when he's not sure whether he wants to kiss her or kill her.

She hesitates. "Haymitch," she says gently, "can we talk about what happened back there?"

"Nope." He draws the word out and makes a popping sound on the 'p.'

She still thinks he's joking around, apparently, because she gives a little laugh. "We can't pretend it didn't happen. You . . . kissed me. And I was rather glad, because it saved me the trouble of kissing you first." She hesitates. "I'm saying that I like you, Haymitch. I like you a great deal. And based on that kiss—"

"It was a mistake."

He almost sits up and looks around to see who said that, because he certainly didn't intend to. But no, it was definitely him—it just popped out of him without his meaning it to. The truth is that he doesn't know if the kiss was a mistake. Or rather, it probably was a mistake, but it doesn't follow that it's a mistake that he's sorry he made. But his mouth is moving without his permission.

He finally sits up and looking her in the face just in time to see her expression fall. And he hates the way it makes his chest clench to see her suddenly look so hurt.

"What?" she says softly.

He takes a moment to think about what to say, and in that moment, his mouth moves again without his meaning it to. "It was a mistake to kiss you, and it won't happen again." How are these words just pouring out of him? He supposes it's just the alcohol—isn't it?

In vino veritas, Plutarch likes to say with a smile. In wine there is truth, apparently, in some dead language. Maybe the alcohol is revealing how he really feels. Maybe deep down he can't or won't forgive Effie. Maybe that moment when he first kissed her, when it occurred to him that he wouldn't mind doing this again, and again, for the rest of his life—maybe that was an impossible lie he was telling himself. Unbidden there comes into his mind again that image of Effie looking on, uncaring and unconcerned, as he buries the other tributes. It steals his breath, makes him slightly ill. Maybe kissing her, maybe even befriending her, is a betrayal of his dead—of 93 tributes, of Finnick and Chaff, of Lina, of his brother and his mother. Maybe it's a betrayal of himself, of a personal promise he made after his Games that he would never willingly be part of their system and he would never forgive.

All of this is swirling in his head, the guilt and the dead eyes and the alcohol, and he can't think—he can't think—

It doesn't help that Effie keeps talking. "But . . . all week you've been so . . ." Her voice is hesitant, her expression pained and confused. "I'm not trying to twist your arm or anything, but you've certainly acted like you're . . . interested."

And that's it. That's the thing that breaks the dam and lets all the darkness swirling in his mind pour out. "Interested? In you? In an escort?" He doesn't recognize his own voice; he feels like he's standing to the side and listening to someone else shout at Effie—someone he can't stop. "You know better than anyone what a nightmare the Hunger Games were for me—you were there, you saw it. Why would I be interested in someone who basically was the Hunger Games?"

He's done it: he's made her teary-eyed. "We've talked about this," she said. "You know how much I regret everything that happened. You know I . . . I didn't understand back then."

"Regret doesn't fix it." Words are pouring out of him, words he didn't even know he had in him—born of some unholy union of too much booze and a lifetime of dark thoughts only just held at bay. "Regret doesn't bring all those people back to life." He glances at her jacket. "And dressing up like Katniss doesn't make you one of us. It doesn't clean the Capitol off of you, okay? It just makes you look ridiculous."

The tear tracks on her face gleam orange in the firelight. "Then what am I supposed to do, Haymitch? How would you have me atone for my sins, since apparently nothing I've done is good enough for you?" She sounds angry.

Tipping his head back again to look at the stars, he shrugs. "Nothing. Some things can't be fixed. Like us. Like me. All we can do is wait to die and hope the next generation gets things right."

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Effie standing very still. She stares at him a long time, tears dripping from her chin. And then she makes a strange sound, a sort of gasping sob, and she turns and runs into the darkness, away from the Meadow.

That sound, that sob, jars Haymitch from the haze he's been in, pulls him back into his own body. He lifts his head and watches her go, suddenly feeling strangely like he'd like to cry himself; there's a twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he thinks he'll have to either cry or vomit it out. It's true, what he said to Effie; it has to be true. He can't move past his past; he'll live with this pain and this isolation forever and someday he'll die of it. He can't imagine a future that doesn't turn out this way. And yet a part of him—a big part of him—is suddenly yelling at him, cutting through the drunken haze over his mind to tell him to go after her, telling him that no matter how screwed up this all is, he can't leave things like this. It's reminding him that an hour ago, he didn't want her to leave 12. It's pointing out that he wanted to kiss her then, and truth be told, he wants to kiss her still.

And the yelling grows so loud that he actually gets to his feet. He hesitates, looking back at the dancing crowd warmly lit by firelight, and then looks out at the cold darkness Effie's disappeared into. He has an internal struggle that seems to last ages, though it's really less than a minute. And then he starts down the path toward the Victors' Village.

He can't move quickly; it's quite dark, now that he's away from the party, and the light from the moon helps only a little. Plus, of course, he's still drunk off his head and it's quite hard to keep his balance.

Finally, after what feels like days, he reaches the Victors' Village and finds himself standing helplessly on the path between his house and Peeta's. If Effie were anywhere in sight, if he could even see a light on, he would knock. He would talk to her, though he has no idea what he'd say; he's not even sure whether it'd be an apology. But the house is completely dark; not even her bedroom window is lit.

He stands, staring at the dark house, for a long time. Then he stumbles to his own house, collapses face-first on his sofa, and sleeps.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Nine

. . . . . .

Haymitch sleeps deep and dreamless all night and into the next day, not stirring until someone pounds on his door at eleven o'clock. He comes back into something like wakefulness with a terrible feeling of unease, as if something dreadful has happened that he cannot quite remember. That, plus his raging headache and the fact that his limbs feel like they're filled with sand, makes him inclined to bury his face deeper into the sofa and keep sleeping. But the insistent knocking on his door carries on for nearly five minutes, and finally he gives in and acknowledges that he's not going to get any more sleep until that knocking stops, so he forces himself off the sofa and stumbles to the door.

It's Peeta, and Haymitch hasn't seen the boy this angry in a long time. "What did you do?" he demands without preamble.

Haymitch shields his eyes from the bright sun. "What do you mean?"

"What did you do?" Peeta repeats. "To Effie."

Effie.

The memories of last night hit him like a train. Last night. Effie. The dance. The kiss. The alcohol. The fight. He'd told her she looked ridiculous, that she'd never get the Capitol taint off her. He'd told her that there was nothing she could do to make up for what she'd done. She'd run away. He'd regretted it.

He needs to talk to her. But what would he say? What could he say? He still not sure how much of it he meant.

"I know it was something," Peeta insists.

Haymitch shifts uncomfortably. "She didn't tell you?"

Peeta shakes his head. "I woke up this morning and she had her bags packed, but all she'd say is it's time to go home. But she told us last night she was staying for a few more days, and you're the last one who talked to her before she changed her mind. So I know it was something you did."

Haymitch hesitates, regret and indecision twisting at his insides. "I should . . . talk to her."

"Good luck," says Peeta, turning and gesturing toward the west. "Because she just caught the train out of town."

Haymitch stands very still. Then he shuts the door in Peeta's face, walks back to the sofa, and goes back to sleep.

. . . . . .

Day Ten

. . . . . .

On the morning of the next day he finally forces himself off the sofa. He's no longer hungover, but he still feels miserable, inside and out, and part of him would like to stay on that sofa forever. But he's ravenously hungry, and that's what finally gets him standing upright.

There's not much in the kitchen; he's eaten every meal at Peeta's for the past week and a half, so he hasn't bothered to keep anything in the house (or rather, since he doesn't obtain his own food, he's told Jo not to buy him any produce and Katniss hasn't brought him any game). But there's the remnants of some food parcels from the Capitol, so he opens a can of beans and eats them cold. The inside of his mouth tastes disgusting, and that flavor mixed with cold beans is just about the worst thing he's tasted in a wile, but he's hungry enough that he deals with it.

When he pours himself some water, the glass reminds him of the glasses of alcohol at the party, and he has a strange sensation as he looks at it. Part of him suddenly craves a drink—he often does; danger of being an alcoholic—but part of him, remembering what happened the last time he drank, is suddenly repelled by the thought of it. But no matter how he feels about drinking right now, there's no real risk of him doing it; there's nothing in the house, and even if there were any to be had elsewhere in the district, he is in no mood to go outside (possibly ever again).

The sunlight pouring through the windows is mildly warm, and he sits contentedly at his table for nearly an hour, clearing his mind, not letting himself think of anything. Maybe he can decide to never get up from this table. Maybe he can stay in this room, eating cold beans, for the rest of his life.

Around noon there's a knocking on his door. "Haymitch?" It's Katniss.

He doesn't respond.

"Open the door, Haymitch. Come on, we're worried about you."

If he's quiet long enough, she'll have to go away.

This carries on for a minute or two, and finally he hears her give an exasperated sigh. "Just do something so I know you're not dead. Please?"

He hesitates, and then he reaches out and raps his knuckles on the wooden table.

"All right," she says, "I guess that'll have to do."

She must leave after that, because he doesn't hear from her again. Part of him wishes he'd let her in.

. . . . . .

Day Twelve

. . . . . .

By the fourth day after the party, it feels like Effie's visit never happened. Her being there brought them all together, her and him and the kids, but now he hasn't seen them in days—not since Katniss's visit, and he didn't actually see her then. He's gone back to his usual routine: sleeping, lounging, trying not to think—he even pops outside to feed his geese once, though he waits until no one else is in sight. No drinking, though, and he's still not sure of his reasons for refusing to walk to the trading post and see if they have any alcohol for sale. He makes up for the lack of alcohol with his second favorite way to disconnect from the real world: more sleep.

He doesn't realize what a mess he is until Jo shows up for her weekly cleaning. The place is no worse than it has been for the last six months, but still it makes the normally stoic woman purse her lips disapprovingly. "Is that the same clothing you wore to the party?" she demands.

He looks down at him. "I guess so."

Then she glances at the kitchen, which is littered with half-eaten cans of beans and potatoes and stew. "How long have you been sitting in your kitchen, eating food straight from the can?

He starts to count on his fingers, but then he realizes what he's doing and shakes his head, annoyed. "I don't pay you to babysit me," he says. "Just to clean."

"What happened?" she says. "The past few times I've seen you, you've been . . . clean. Happy. Active. What happened?"

Effie happened. The thought comes to his mind, unbidden, and he covers his sudden discomfort by scowling at her. "What happened to my shy little housekeeper? I like you better quiet."

She draws back a little, surprised at the words or the harsh tone, but then she appears to come to a decision and folds her arms. "Mr. Abernathy, I know I just clean for you, but I worry about you, too. I was glad that you seemed so much better off last week. But now this—" she gestures at the pile of cans— "this not healthy."

He shrugs. "Welcome to my life."

And who would have known that little Jo has a backbone? "Fine," she says firmly. "If all you'll let me do is clean, then I'm cleaning you. Go upstairs and take off those clothes; they are filthy and I need to get them to the laundry and see if we can salvage your best jacket. And then you're going to shower. You smell like a mulch pile."

He stares at her a long time, and then he discreetly sniffs himself. She's right, he does smell like a mulch pile. "Fine," he grumbles, and he turns and stumbles up the stairs for the first time since the day of the party. In his room he strips off his clothes and notices for the first time how itchy they've become. "Clothes are on my floor!" he yells down at Jo, and clomps to the bathroom for a shower.

Goodness gracious, he loves hot showers. Why has he been putting this off so long?

A long time later, he steps out of his bedroom, thoroughly washed and dressed in clean clothes, and finds Jo dusting one of the spare rooms upstairs. She tenses when he walks in, and he can guess why. "I was a jerk earlier," he says by way of apology.

She looks surprised. "No, I was too pushy."

But he shakes his head. "I probably needed that."

They fall back into silence, Haymitch leaning against an empty dresser, Jo dusting the window sill. After a long time, she asks, not looking up, "Do you want to talk about . . . anything?"

And the thing is, weirdly, he does. He wants an outsider's opinion, and here's an outsider, offering to opine. So he hesitates, and then he asks, "You think you can ever forgive the Capitol?"

Her expression grows thoughtful, although her dusting doesn't flag. "Depends on what you mean by the Capitol," she says. "You mean President Snow? The people around him? No, I don't know if I ever will. But if you mean the city itself, all the people who live there? I used to hate them. But then, after the war I realized . . . the Hunger Games were designed to control them just as much as us."

Haymitch has never thought about it that way before.

"Of course, they lucked out—they got the carrot and we got the stick—but the point is . . ." She shrugs. "I'm not mad at them."

"Okay," says Haymitch, "but what about somewhere in between? What about someone who wasn't part of Snow's government but was still part of it all? Like a stylist, or . . ."

"Or an escort?" Jo says, and looks at him with a knowing smile.

So much for trying to be subtle. "Yeah, like an escort," he grumbles.

Jo turns back to her dusting. "That one's harder. Those people didn't just sit there and get force-fed the Hunger Games, they loved it. They sought it out. I don't think anyone could blame you if you decided that's something you can't forgive." She hesitates. "But if you can forgive the average people in the Capitol, because Snow manipulated them into thinking the Hunger Games was a good idea, is it that big a leap to forgive the people who got manipulated like that and then just took their love for the Games a little bit farther?"

And then her hand grows still, and she takes a breath, as though she's working her way up to saying something to him. Then she turns. "You smiled when she was around. You didn't smile before."

He sighs. "I know," he says. And they both fall silent.

. . . . . .

Jo heats up some stew for him before she leaves, and he picks at it but has no appetite. He's been spoiled by eating at Peeta's; even if there were only canned stew to eat there, the boy would know what herbs and spices to add to make it bearable, and he'd have delicious rolls to eat on the side. And then Haymitch could eat with someone other than the geese and the ghosts in his head for company. Peeta would carry the conversation, and Katniss would fight her natural reticence and talk back to him because she might not realize it yet but she loves that boy. And they'd both try to pull Haymitch into the conversation and if he was feeling willing he'd let them do it . . . He sighs. He does miss those kids.

Eventually he gives up on the stew and feeds the geese. The family from next door is walking by as he leaves the house, and the children watch the geese with delight in their eyes, and the parents smile at Haymitch. To his surprise, he smiles back.

It's one-thirty when he gets back inside, according to the clock in the kitchen, and he heaves a sigh as he sees it. He used to be good at doing nothing, at wiling away the hours and the days and the months, content to waste time until he's allowed to die. But after the last week, where something was always happening, he's lost the knack. He can't even think of what he used to do to waste the day. He wanders back into the living room, wondering if he's tired enough to take a nap (definitely not, he's done nothing but sleep lately), and that's when he notices something sitting on top of his video card player. It's a video card, and written across the top in careful, loopy writing is "Stories Across Panem." It's Effie's; she must have left it here when they watched it the other night. He stares at it a long time, and then he puts it in the player and turns the TV on.

They watched the first four episodes already, so he navigates to the fifth one and hits play. It turns out to be the one that Effie and Rowan were talking about in town that one day, the one about the little girl in 5 who went blind. And it's good. It's so, so good. He's not a man who cries much, but if he were, he thinks he might cry over this, which is a big deal for him. It's done with such sensitivity, such compassion for this little girl, that he feels certain that the crew who put this together felt the same way he does. And then he remembers Effie saying that it took them twice as long to put together because everyone was crying. Effie, who he accused of being part of his nightmare, who he said could never atone for what she'd done, crying over a little girl from the districts.

He finishes the other three episodes on the video card, and then he lies back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling for a long time. And then he gets up, leaves his house, and walks across the way to Peeta's.

Katniss answers his knock. "So you're not dead," she says, and her sarcasm can't hide the truth he reads in her eyes: she's glad to see him.

His answering smile is small and not entirely happy, but it's a smile. "Not yet."

"Haymitch?" Peeta comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. Haymitch can read his expression like a book—occupational hazard of being a mentor—and he can see Peeta's still not happy with him. But after a long moment, his expression softens. "Good to see you."

It occurs to Haymitch now that he has no reason to be over here—no invitation, no planned activity, just a sudden need to be with other people. To be with these two people, to be precise. So he asks awkwardly, "What are you two up to?"

"Baking," says Peeta. "I had some leftover chocolate after cooking for Unity Day, and there's a little girl across the way having a birthday. So we thought . . ."

"You thought," says Katniss. "I'm happy to help, but we all know you're the nice one here."

Peeta smiles at her.

Katniss eyes Haymitch. "You . . . want to give us a hand?"

He sighs. "You're being very polite."

She shrugs. "I know what it's like to not want to talk about things."

He hesitates. "Yeah, I'll help."

And so he does, as much as he ever helps in the kitchen. He watches while Peeta bakes and Katniss follows his instructions, and they very carefully only make small talk about the weather and how the cookies are turning out. When they've cooled a little, Peeta wraps the cookies up in a napkin and he and Katniss walk them over the neighbor's house. Haymitch elects to stay behind, but as soon as he's alone he regrets it because now that no one's distracting him, he can't think of anything except for how much this house makes him think of Effie. That's the apron she wore when they cooked. That's the counter she always left her gloves on. That's the chair she always took at the table. There's that unpleasant twisting in his stomach again, the one he's felt on and off ever since he found out she left. With a groan, he collapses on Peeta's sofa and throws his arm over his eyes, blocking out the world.

That's how Katniss and Peeta find him when they return fifteen minutes later. "Sorry we were so long," says Peeta. "They wanted us to come in and . . . are you all right?"

Haymitch says nothing.

"All right, stay on the sofa," says Katniss affably. "Are you staying for dinner? Because we'll need more—"

"I kissed her," says Haymitch from under the arm on his face.

"Oh," says Peeta, sounding surprised.

"I'm a little surprised too," says Haymitch. Both that he kissed her and that he's volunteering that information now—but sometimes you just need to talk about things.

"Oh, I'm not surprised you kissed her," Peeta corrects him. "I'm just surprised you're telling us."

"You're not surprised I kissed her?"

"Haymitch, are you kidding?" That's Katniss talking now. "You two were all over each other all week—holding hands, cuddling . . . we found you two curled up together sleeping on the sofa one day. It was . . ." She pauses. "Disgusting," she finishes, at the same time that Peeta reluctantly says, "Kind of adorable."

Haymitch lowers his arm from his eyes and stares at them. "Seriously?"

"Kind of adorable," Peeta confirms.

Katniss snorts. "I was surprised it took you that long to kiss her. I was expecting a special announcement from you two from about the third day she was here."

He has a vague memory of Effie saying something the night of the party, about how the way he'd been acting made her think he was interested. Apparently she wasn't the only one thinking that. He puts his hands on his face and groans. "I wasn't interested in her." Was he?

"Really?" Peeta sounds skeptical. "You sure acted like it."

And Peeta's right. He did act like it. He did hold her hand a lot. He did get sort of deliciously short of breath when she was near. He did find excuses to touch her and . . . and . . . he groans again.

"So you kissed her," Katniss says. "And then she left the next morning. That must have been a pretty crappy kiss."

"You're hilarious, kid."

"So what did you do?" she presses.

And he really doesn't want to talk about this . . . except that on some level he really does want to talk about this. "I yelled at her," he admits.

"You yelled at her at the beginning of her visit," Peeta points out. "She didn't leave then."

"Well, I might have . . . gotten pretty drunk, and I might have . . . told her she can never make up for her part in the Hunger Games and that I don't want to have anything to do with her."

"Haymitch!" Katniss sounds shocked. "I mean, I've thought that a couple times but I'd never say it to her face. What happened to 'they didn't know any better' and 'Effie always meant well'? Isn't that what we decided?"

"Did I mention I was pretty drunk?" He drags his hands down his face. "I know, I remember that conversation, Katniss, and I meant it when I said it, and I was fine being her friend, but kissing her . . . I was less fine with."

"Well, I'm glad," says Peeta, and his voice is so tight that Haymitch involuntarily lowers his hands and looks over at the boy. He looks as furious as he did when he announced that Effie had left. "I mean, I'm angry you made her so unhappy but it's better that she knows how you really feel about her so she doesn't waste any more time on you." He looks at Katniss. "I'm going to go start dinner," which Haymitch interprets to mean, I'm too angry to continue this conversation. And he leaves the room.

Katniss and Haymitch sit in silence a long time, listening to Peeta bang pots around in the kitchen. "He's pretty mad," says Haymitch eventually, still sprawled out on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

"He likes Effie a lot," she responds quietly. "He told me a few days ago that he sympathizes with her now because the government told her what to believe until she willingly became their tool, which is basically exactly what happened to him."

"He was tortured, though," Haymitch points out. "She was just . . . indoctrinated."

Katniss shrugs. "You know Peeta. His first instinct is always to care for people."

"Whereas me and you, our first instinct is to mistrust them."

Katniss smiles wryly at that. "And in your case, to get drunk and blow up at them."

Haymitch is silent a while. "I didn't . . . necessarily mean what I said to her," he says.

"She seemed to think you did."

"Oh, I'm sure I was convincing at the time. I was just . . . I panicked. And I was drunk, so I panicked a lot."

"So maybe you don't hate her?"

He sighs. "I definitely don't hate her. But she's . . . do you know how many people I've known personally who've died in the Hunger Games?"

Katniss is silent a long time. "When Prim died, I was mad at everyone," she says finally. "I was mad at Snow and Coin most of all, but I was mad at Gale because he might have helped develop those bombs and I was mad at my mom for not keeping Prim out of the fighting and I was mad at myself for not protecting her and I was mad at Effie for drawing her name in the first place. If she hadn't, I wouldn't have volunteered and none of this would have happened, and Prim would still be alive."

"And?"

"And I'm still mad. Maybe I always will be. But what happened wasn't one person's fault. My mom didn't know Prim would die. Gale didn't know his bombs might be used on her. Most things don't have just one cause—it's a million different things that add up to make something happen a certain way. I can say that on principle, Effie should have refused to be part of the Hunger Games, but I can't say that it's completely her fault that Prim or anyone else is dead."

"Your point?"

"Even during the Games, none of us hated Effie. We might have gotten annoyed at her, but we didn't hate her. Because I think we all knew that in the grand scheme of the Hunger Games, she was just . . . a . . ."

"A cog in the machine," Haymitch finishes.

"Exactly. And also because she was doing the best she could with the information she had, and because she meant well."

"So you think I shouldn't have been so hard on her."

She shrugs. "It's up to you to decide how to respond. You have more history with her than we do. But here's what I do think: I think you think it's somehow immoral of you to get close to her, because you two used to be on different sides of the fight. But wasn't that the point of the war? That we're all on the same side now?"

He is silent.

"And here's the other thing I think," she says. "You obviously have feelings for her."

He blinks. "How do you figure?"

"If you really felt like she was a terrible person, you wouldn't feel so conflicted about her. But here you are, moping around, kicking yourself over what happened; I've never seen you regret anything until today. I think that you think you should hate her, which is giving you grief because you know deep down that you're in love with her."

And there was never any chance that he was going to react to that in any way except defensively. "Oh, suddenly Miss Everdeen, with the fake marriage and the fake pregnancy, is some kind of love expert?"

She snorts at that. "If you want to keep hating her and being miserable, fine; it's no skin off my nose. But do it somewhere else. You're kind of dragging down the mood here."

"Ah, there's the Katniss we know and love."

"But if you want to stop being an idiot . . . then stop. And also, learn how to control your drinking so you don't ruin things with her again. And so that Peeta and I don't have to babysit you anymore."

There are a lot of things in that statement that Haymitch is afraid to tackle, so instead he rolls his eyes. "If we're lecturing each other about relationships, am I allowed to tell you to just admit to Peeta that you're crazy about him?"

And to his surprise, Katniss looks flustered.

"Whoa," says Haymitch, finally sitting up. "You already did?"

"That's none of your business," she says firmly, but then a little smile plays over her lips. "So I'll just say, he and I are doing fine."

"Finally," says Haymitch. "You two were killing me."

Just then Peeta pops his head in the room. His expression is still stern, but his anger has lessened. "Are you staying for dinner?" he asks Haymitch.

Haymitch looks at him, and then he looks at Katniss. "Yeah, I am."

. . . . . .

Day Sixteen

. . . . . .

Now that he knows to look for it, Haymitch can definitely tell that things have changed between Katniss and Peeta. Peeta no longer looks, when he tries to hold Katniss's hand, like he's afraid she'll run away. Katniss gives him little half smiles when he's not looking, and she touches him often, not just when one of them is having a flashback. And Haymitch, though he'd never admit this out loud, thinks it's adorable: his kids have found happiness. He still thinks now what he thought the day that Peeta told him of his feelings, back before the 74th Hunger Games: that those two are strangely perfect for each other.

He's had time to observe them so much because he's spent a lot of the last few days at Peeta's house. They've settled into a comfortable routine there: eating, reading, walking, talking. Peeta cooks each meal; Katniss and Haymitch do the dishes. In the evening they play cards or they settle into various chairs to read or chat or daydream (or cuddle, in Peeta and Katniss's case). They keep their conversations light, although every now and then they find themselves straying into the gallows humor common to all victors, and Haymitch is surprised at how he's missed that camaraderie. Katniss and Peeta both seem to have forgiven him for the mess he made with Effie, or at least they never talk about her anymore. Sometimes he wishes they would. Sometimes he wishes they would force him to confront the feelings of shame and anger and longing that are his constant companions these days. But, probably in an attempt to be kind, they never do.

Yesterday they introduced Haymitch to something beautiful: a book they've been creating, where they record their memories of those killed by Snow's regime. With their permission, Haymitch leafed through it, stopping when he reached Chaff's page. He read it slowly, looked at the incredible sketch by Peeta, and then was shocked to find tears welling up in his eyes. He contributed several new memories for Chaff, and then he helped them create three new pages: his mother, his brother, and Lina. As he was recounting the story of the time his mother sold her only shoes to feed her family, he stopped, unable to fight the tears any longer, and when he looked up he was surprised to see that Katniss and Peeta were crying too. And he thought to himself, when did he start loving these two kids this much?

Today they're not working on the book. In the future he'll help them create pages for the forty-six tributes he mentored, but not just yet; he needs to prepare himself for that. So instead he's sitting on Peeta's porch, watching Katniss pluck the grouse she got this morning. Peeta is in town, placing an order at Leevy's shop for more paints; if he were here, he'd likely be talking—that's just how he is—but Haymitch and Katniss are as happy to sit in silence together as anything. So he's leaning against the railing, half watching Katniss and half daydreaming, when someone approaches the house.

It's Rowan, and he's got a bottle of liquor in his hands.

Haymitch finds himself perking up at the sight, sitting up straight before he's realized that he moved. Katniss sits up straighter too, and then she casts a worried look back at Haymitch, one he barely notices.

"Haymitch!" Rowan beams. "Just the man I wanted to see. I was given this as a gift from a friend, but you know I don't drink much. So then I remembered how disappointed you were at how dry our party was, and I thought I'd come give it to you, as a thank you for attending that night."

That night. The kiss. Effie crying as she ran into the darkness—so upset that she hasn't contacted any of them in a week. As he stares at the bottle, something happens that's never happened to him before: his brain tells him No, you don't want to drink that, have you seen what a mess you become when you drink? But as incredible as that is, it doesn't stop his hand from lifting of its own accord, reaching out to accept the precious bottle. Rowan, smiling, steps forward to hand it to him.

"No!" Katniss's interjection is so sudden and forceful that Haymitch jumps a little. "Sorry, I mean, Rowan, that's really thoughtful of you, but we have to decline. Don't we, Haymitch?"

"Do we?" Haymitch demands.

"Yes." Katniss drops the grouse and stands, leading Rowan away to murmur something quietly in his ear.

Rowan listens, then nods, and then smiles at Haymitch. "Sorry!" he says. "Can't argue with the Mockingjay." And he leaves the way he came, striding merrily along the road back toward town.

"What was that?" Haymitch erupts.

"That was me trying to help you," Katniss says sharply. "So you're welcome."

"Since when do you get to decide whether I drink?"

"Since the day I volunteered for the Hunger Games. Were you really going to take it? After what happened last time you got drunk?"

Honestly, he's still not sure. He hesitates, and in that silence, Katniss sits back down on the step and continues plucking the grouse.

"So, what? You're going to police my drinking forever? If I want a drink, it's not hard to find one."

"I know," she bites out, not looking at him. Then her hands slow, the half-featherless grouse seemingly forgotten, and she sits in silence a long moment. When she turns to him, her expression has changed. "This has been a good few weeks," she says. "Except for Effie running off. But this has been good, right?"

He examines her suspiciously, not sure where this is going. "Yeah, it has."

"It's probably the happiest I've been since . . . before the war, at least."

"I'm glad. Is there a point to this?"

"The point is, why would you want to ruin it?" She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. He knows this move of hers; she's working herself up to doing something that makes her feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. "It's been good for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that you've been here." She pauses, and her eyes soften. "You're pretty much the closest thing to family I have. You are definitely the closest thing to family that Peeta has. We want you around. But Haymitch, you are not here for us when you're drunk."

He shifts uncomfortably. "What? I'm still here."

"Really?" Katniss eyes him skeptically. "How about in the spring, when I was shipped back to 12 as a headcase and a murderer, and I'd lost everything in the world, and you were supposed to look after me. Where were you then?"

He hesitates.

"Passed out on your sofa," she finishes. "How about when you were supposed to mentor us through our Games? Drunk and puking all over the floor. You only started paying any attention to us when it turned out that I was a decent shot and Peeta was in love with me." She hesitates. "I know you're dealing with your own problems, but . . . you matter to us. We worry about you. We want you around, not drunk in a gutter or dead of liver failure."

"Probably too late to do anything about the liver failure," Haymitch says quietly, looking down at his knees because he suddenly can't make eye contact with her.

"And why would you want to drink anyway? The last time you got drunk you chased away the only woman who's meant anything to you in 30 years."

"Thanks for the reminder," he grumbles.

She hesitates, then takes a deep breath and turns to face him fully. He finally looks up and sees warmth and affection in her eyes (of course, on Katniss, "warmth and affection" looks a lot like "disregard and boredom"; it takes a trained eye to see the difference). "We can't make you stop; we're not even real family. But . . . what I'm saying is, you're right, I can't follow you around and make sure you stay sober." She looks him right in the eye. "All I can do is ask you to stop drinking."

Haymitch stares at her a long time, at the brave tribute who volunteered to save her sister, who was willing to die to save Peeta, who hanged Seneca Crane in effigy to defy the Gamemakers, who sparked a rebellion. He looks at the girl who could read his mind because she thought just like him, who hugged him first, of all people, after winning her Games, who looked to him to coach her through being the Mockingjay, who cried in his arms when Snow dropped roses over the bombed-out surface of 13. Then he remembers a hundred times she had to rouse him when he was passed out on his couch, surrounded by empty bottles. He remembers when she came to him for help in Snow's mansion and he drunkenly made a stupid joke about boy troubles and she left and never tried to confide in him again. He remembers moments during those first few months after they returned from the Capitol when he was clear-minded enough to think that he probably ought to go make sure Katniss hadn't harmed herself or gone completely over the edge, but he was too hungover to walk that far.

She's right: when he's drunk, he's not here for them.

He scoots over on the steps until he's next to Katniss, who looks curiously up at him. And then he hugs her.

. . . . . .

Chapter Text

. . . . . .

Day Nineteen

. . . . . .

Considering how much Panem has gone through in the last year or two, Haymitch is surprised at how little the Capitol skyline has changed. He watches it grow larger out the train window, all lit up against the night sky, and it brings an unpleasant twinge to his stomach. For far too long a time, nothing good ever came of seeing the Capitol appear on the horizon.

But this is important—important enough to bring him out of his self-imposed exile in 12. Important enough to bring him back to a city he never wanted to see again. There's something that must be done.

The train station is less crowded than he remembers, and there are fewer taxis on the streets, but he manages to catch one. The car drops him off in front of a sleek apartment building, and he pays the driver and slides out with his bag before he can talk himself out of it. Still, he stands on the sidewalk for several minutes, steeling himself to go inside. But he's come this far; it's a waste of a long train ride if he doesn't go through with it. And besides, he tells himself again, this is important.

Inside, he takes the elevator to the penthouse suite on the 15th floor and knocks on the door.

The door opens, and he's greeted with a surprised but pleased "Haymitch."

Haymitch smiles. "Hey, Plutarch."

. . . . . .

Day Twenty

. . . . . .

Haymitch hates the building as soon as he sees it. It's nothing to do with the building itself, just what he knows goes on inside it. But Plutarch is smiling encouragingly beside him so he tries not to look too displeased.

It's an old converted mansion at the edge of the city, built in a style Haymitch hasn't seen much. Most of the buildings in the Capitol are either marble arches and columns or sleek glass and steel, but this one is old-fashioned red brick, with white shutters and trim and a slate-gray roof. Inside they're greeted by a smiling woman with perfectly coiffed hair who shows them to Haymitch's room and leaves them to say their goodbyes.

"I'm proud of you," says Plutarch.

"I'm regretting this already," says Haymitch.

Plutarch, sympathetic friend that he is, just laughs.

An hour later, Plutarch is gone and Haymitch is sitting in a comfortable office in a comfortable chair, facing a comfortable-looking middle-aged man with a fringe of black hair around his bald head. "I sort of expected this place to be a little . . . slicker," Haymitch says conversationally. "Since you're the most famous one in the Capitol and all that."

Dr. Galen smiles. "Not quite the Tribute Center or the presidential mansion, is it, Mr. Abernathy? You can't beat the location, though. I find that many of our clients find it useful to be out of the heart of the city—away from old temptations, if you will."

"Well, this is about as far from my old temptations as you can get."

There's a rustling of paper as Dr. Galen consults a file in front of him—old-fashioned guy, apparently, to go with paper instead of digital. "Now, my friend Mr. Heavensbee tells me you approached him about checking into our facility. I find that very encouraging; we always see better results with clients who seek counseling willingly, instead of being pressured by family and friends. What made you choose this particular facility?"

Effie's face swims in front of his eyes; that's been happening a lot lately. "I heard good things from a friend."

"And what made you decide to seek rehabilitation for your alcohol abuse?"

Haymitch shifts uncomfortably in his chair. The doc has a way about him that makes it easy to talk openly, but still, this isn't really his style; his conversations with Effie and the kids over the last few weeks were the most he'd talked about his feelings . . . ever. He's not good at it and he's not comfortable with it. But he's here and he's going to try to see this through, so he answers. "There's these two kids—well, they're basically grown up now. But they're . . . family. Or at least the closest to family I've got. I should be there for them, but I'm not when I'm plastered." He hesitates. "And there's a woman. The last time I got really drunk, I . . . hurt her. Not physically," he adds quickly. "But I said a lot of things she might never forgive me for."

Oh, he hates this sharing stuff already. But when he looks up at Dr. Galen, the man is smiling at him. "Mr. Abernathy," he says, "I think this is going to go very well."

. . . . . .

Day Twenty-six

. . . . . .

Haymitch very quickly starts to wonder if he's made a terrible mistake, coming here.

Part of the problem is that he's so bored, which comes from the unique client status he has at the facility. Dr. Galen accepts clients (a word that they use rather than "patient," because the doctors claim it's more empowering) on both an in-patient and an out-patient basis. When Plutarch contacted him at Haymitch's request, the good doctor explained that he tended not to admit people into his residential program unless they had tried and failed the live-at-home daily counseling option. Haymitch doesn't mind not being in the residential program—he's walked by their group sessions a time or two, and he's very glad not to have to sit around with a bunch of wealthy middle-aged alcoholics and talk about his feelings—but the daily counseling program was a problematic option because he doesn't have a home in the Capitol to live at and he refuses to inconvenience Plutarch by living with him for a month. So they reached an arrangement: Haymitch is not technically part of the residential program, but he's paying to live in the facility, and he still has access to their game room and their gym and their home theater room. But he doesn't really use any of them, and he doesn't talk to any of the residential clients during mealtimes, and he only spends an hour or two a day in counseling. So he's bored a lot, and has a lot of time to think about how much he'd like a drink and how much he'd like to be back home in 12.

Often patients go through an intense detox period, Dr. Galen told him on the first day, where they're given medication to help wean them off alcohol, but since Haymitch hasn't had a drink since the party (which now feels like it happened a lifetime ago), he only receives mild drugs to help with lingering withdrawal symptoms. They definitely help with his body's cravings, but they don't do anything to still his mind and help him cope with his demons, which is what he really wants to drink for. That's where Dr. Galen's sessions come in. So far they haven't talked about any of the heavy stuff Haymitch was expecting—just things like methods for coping with nightmares and flashbacks—but he suspects that the doctor is working up to asking him the hard-hitting questions.

He doesn't mind these sessions; he likes Dr. Galen, which is more than he can say about the residential clients. So far they've mostly sensed that he wants to be left alone and have done so, but tonight there's a small group of people eying him from across the dining room. He does his best to look unapproachable, but they're apparently very brave or very stupid and they cross the room to stand next to him. "Do you mind if we sit here?" one of them asks brightly. She's a middle-aged woman with dark hair pulled up into a braided updo; the style reminds him of Effie and he has to look away.

"Well—"

"Good." She smiles and sits next to him, and the others follow suit. "I'm Hortense, by the way." He has no intention of introducing himself, but it turns out he's never even given the option. "And I know you, of course. Haymitch Abernathy. You won the Quarter Quell when I was 19."

"Mmm hmm." He doesn't really want to talk to these people, but he also doesn't want to be overtly rude, so he just ignores them and focuses on his potatoes.

But Hortense doesn't notice his lack of enthusiasm. "I knew this was a classy place, but I didn't know we'd be rubbing elbows with actual celebrities. This is very exciting."

"Mmm hmm."

"Of course, your company excluded, I haven't exactly loved it here. I suppose it's necessary, though. I crashed my car into the lake last month. Had to be pulled out by a passerby—girl from District 4 who swam like a fish, fortunately for me. Oh dear, it was a bit of a pickle. Got fired from my job, although really it's my boss's fault I started drinking in the first place—so much pressure to bring our sales numbers up, you know."

"I do sympathize," says one of the men. His hair is plain dirt brown, but Haymitch is willing to bet it used to be dyed orange, to match the pattern of tattooed dots radiating out from his temple. The fashions for hair and clothes have changed since the war, but tattoos and surgical alterations are harder to cast aside, clearly. He has a moment's useless thought that Effie's lucky she never did any—but best not to think of that just now. The man addresses himself to Haymitch. "I haven't seen you in any of our group sessions, so I don't feel bad boring you with a story you've already heard. My wife had an affair—with our son's teacher, of all people. So humiliating; all our friends knew. So we split up and I started . . . you know . . ." He pantomimes drinking. "But you know how that goes."

And Haymitch has had more than enough of this conversation. "Well, I started drinking to help me cope with the fact that President Snow murdered my family," he says sharply. "And then I realized that if I always showed up to TV appearances drunk and vomiting, no one would ever try to buy my company and Snow would stop trying to coerce me into a life of high-class prostitution."

There is silence, and one of the women shifts uncomfortably and won't meet his eyes. In that silence, he stands from the table and walks out of the room. His hands are clenched into fists, but once he's out in the hall, he finds himself smiling. The looks on their faces were priceless. And he has a feeling that's the last time anyone will bother him at dinner.

. . . . . .

Day Twenty-nine

. . . . . .

He was wrong: his outburst at dinner just made him more popular, and he's taken to eating as quickly as possible so he can get away from Hortense and her friends. To get away from everyone.

It's been weird, really, being a famous rebel at a Capitol rehab center. Effie was right (of course Effie was right; she's always had surprisingly keen instincts) when she told him that a lot of people in the Capitol ended up sympathetic and understanding toward the rebellion, at least after it was all over and they finally understood just how awful things were for the districts, but they all try to avoid talking about it. So everyone knows him and tries at one time or other to talk to him, but most people won't talk about why they know him or what he's been up to recently. And there are a few patients who seem to resent the rebellion, since it mostly made them all a lot poorer (as in they can now only afford one car instead of three); these people won't talk to him or make eye contact with him, which he doesn't mind a bit. He doesn't want to talk to them anyway.

So he can't help thinking it's a bad idea when Dr. Galen suggests they walk outside for their session today; what if he runs into someone who either loves or hates him? His bedroom window looks over the extensive grounds and gardens behind the house, and he sees how often the winding paths there are occupied by other clients. But the doc seems so excited about the prospect, and Haymitch supposes it could be nice to get some fresh air, so he bundles up and they head outside.

The plants are mostly all dead or dying, and the air is quite brisk, but it's still pleasant to be outside. Dr. Galen makes casual small talk for a few minutes, and he carefully steers them away from other groups of people out in the garden, so it's not as bad as Haymitch feared . . . until Hortense intercepts them.

"Sorry," Dr. Galen smiles at her, "but this is a private—"

"I just have to say something to Haymitch," she says determinedly.

Dr. Galen seems to consider, then relent. "Would that be all right, Haymitch?" he asks. "Since we've been talking about good communication skills?"

Haymitch rolls his eyes, but Dr. Galen catches his eye and meaningfully taps his shirt pocket. That's one of his little tricks; he had Katniss and Peeta write Haymitch a letter, and Haymitch is meant to keep that letter in his pocket at all times, to remind him why he's doing this. It's painfully sappy, but it has the desired effect: he imagines Peeta telling him to give the woman a chance to speak, and he smiles and sighs at the same time and says, "Yes, Hortense?"

She takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry the people in the Capitol made you drink. And I'm sorry about your family."

He stares at her a long time, and then a smile ghosts over his face. "Thank you, Hortense." And she beams and walks away.

Dr. Galen chuckles once she's out of earshot. "Bit of a celebrity crush there?"

He shrugs. "Apparently."

Dr. Galen is silent a long moment. "You know," he says finally, "I've been meaning to ask you about your family. Is that something you'd be willing to talk about today?"

A month ago, a request that like would have been met with a knee-jerk refusal, but adding to Katniss and Peeta's book a few weeks ago weakened the wall he usually builds around the memories of his mother and brother. So he thinks for a moment, and then he sighs. "Yeah, we can do that."

Dr. Galen smiles. "I'm glad."

. . . . . .

Day Thirty-eight

. . . . . .

"I saw you eating dinner last night with your biggest fan," Dr. Galen says with a laugh.

"That woman," Haymitch sighs. "She's dragged her friends over to sit by me every night this week. Can't you tell her that's harassment? Or just help her see that old Orange Spots is obviously crazy about her so she'll stop wasting her time on me?"

"His name is Cassian," Dr. Galen says mildly. "It'd be polite to remember his name. He's very fond of you too, you know."

"Oh, I know," says Haymitch. "I'm the most popular alcoholic here."

Dr. Galen gives him a gently disapproving look; he doesn't like the clients to call themselves alcoholics. After two and a half weeks of daily counseling sessions, Haymitch has heard all of his little sayings and platitudes a dozen times: "This is a struggle you have; it's not who you are." "Anyone can change if they have the will to do so." "Just because someone dyed their skin green doesn't make them creepy, Haymitch."

Actually, it hasn't been a terrible two and a half weeks, not like he expected it to be. For all he complains, he tolerates the clients who sit by him at dinner fairly well. He's come to enjoy the time he spends walking outside and thinking and watching Plutarch's programming in the theater room (but not Stories Across Panem—never Stories Across Panem). They've taken him off all meds, but in the past week he hasn't had a single craving for alcohol that he couldn't deal with calmly and easily. And he's actually enjoyed his counseling sessions. Since that day they finally talked about his family, they've delved into more serious things, things he's rarely or never discussed out loud—his Games, watching Maysilee die, the disgust he felt when he realized what being a victor usually entailed, when he started drinking, when he realized he couldn't stop drinking, the difficulty of mentoring and watching children who depended on him die, losing so many friends in the rebellion. And to his surprise, it's good to talk about them. He's kept them inside for thirty years because talking was a good way to get yourself or others in trouble, but it feels great to get them off his chest—like he's suddenly lighter and younger.

But there's one thing they've never talked about.

Dr. Galen taps his pencil on his desk; he does this when he's working up to a big question. "Speaking of women," he says, and Haymitch tenses, "we've never discussed the woman you mentioned when you joined us here."

Haymitch's mouth tightens into a thin line. "No, we haven't."

"We don't have to talk about all of it just yet," Dr. Galen assures him. "But could you tell me how you two met?"

Haymitch is taken back nearly ten years, to a party at the Capitol after the Hunger Games, when 12's old escort introduced to him a young woman in the most absurd sky blue wig and told him she'd be taking over next year. Effie had been so excited, so eager, and she'd clasped his hand in both of hers and told him in the heaviest Capitol accent he'd ever heard that she was absolutely certain that thy were going to be the very best of friends. He'd dismissed her at the time as insincere, but remembering what she said to him at the Unity Day celebration, about how excited she'd been to be assigned to work with a victor she'd had such a crush on, he supposes that she probably meant what she'd said.

The doctor is still waiting for an answer, so Haymitch says simply, "She worked for the Hunger Games."

Dr. Galen seems intrigued by that, but Haymitch can't explain exactly what part she played in the Games because then it'd be clear who she is, and even though he's been assured that everything said in these sessions is private, he can't bear the thought of being that open and vulnerable. So, desperate to change the subject of who she is, he finds himself jumping forward in the story, to the day she appeared on his doorstep. The doctor listens intently, nodding often, as Haymitch talks about how they slowly became friends, and then confidantes of a sort, and how many times they comforted each other over the course of the week. He talks about how good it had been to have someone there he could share with without burdening the kids. And then he talks about how he'd panicked at the party, how kissing her had felt like a betrayal of everyone hurt by the Hunger Games, how he'd gotten falling-down drunk and berated her and made her cry, how she left without saying goodbye, how they haven't talked since. When he finishes his story he realizes that he has talked without stopping for twenty whole minutes. But he supposes he's not surprised he had so much to say on the subject; after all, he's thought of little else since he arrived in the Capitol.

Dr. Galen listens to it all with that face he usually makes during sessions, the don't-worry-I'm-not-judging-you face, and then he thinks for a moment. "And how do you feel about her now? Are you still angry with her?"

Haymitch gives a humorless laugh and looks down at his knees. "No." The truth is, the anger and disgust he felt that night have long vanished; he can't even find the place in his mind where they used to live.

"Do you . . . still have romantic feelings for her?"

When Katniss suggested he had romantic feelings for Effie, he instinctively recoiled. But now, one month sober, with lots of time for introspection, here among all these Capitolites who he's realized are really not terrible folks, he doesn't even fight it. He just drops his head into his hands and sighs. "It was messed up, what she did in the Hunger Games. But everything's messed up these days. Why shouldn't I fall for someone who's messed up too?"

Dr. Galen taps his pencil on his desk a moment, then opens a drawer. "Here," he says, and pushes a pad of paper and pen toward Haymitch. "This is something I haven't had you do yet, but an important part of the recovery process can be making amends with people you've hurt. I want you to write a letter to this woman, and we'll send it out."

Haymitch stares at the paper a long time. He doesn't want to write her; the things he needs to say to her are the sorts of things that should be said to her face. But also, at present he has no plans of seeing her face-to-face any time soon. Plutarch asked him, when he arrived in the Capitol, if he wanted to visit Effie, and he'd emphatically said no; surely she doesn't want to see him, and he doesn't want to force her into a situation where she's uncomfortable. (Also, he doesn't want to look in her eyes and see the fondness that was once there turned into hatred. Because surely she hates him now.) So if he's not going to tell her these things in person, maybe he owes it to her to write this letter.

So he takes the pad of paper, and he stares at it for the rest of the session, unsure of what to write. Finally, with time nearly up, Dr. Galen asks gently, "Would you like to take this back to your room to finish it?"

But Haymitch shakes his head. There's only one thing he can think to say, and it's doesn't feel like enough but it's something so he scribbles down the following:

Effie,

I'm sorry. You don't know how sorry I am.

Haymitch

Then he takes the envelope Dr. Galen hands him, stuffs the letter inside, and seals it. Across the front he scrawls Effie Trinket. There, now the doctor knows. But Dr. Galen doesn't react to the name on the envelope; maybe he'd expected it to be her. After all, during the Hunger Games, the beautiful and long-suffering escort and her drunk and disorderly victor were popular fixtures in the media.

"Plutarch gave me her address when you arrived," says the doctor. "He thought you might eventually want to write her such a letter. I'll get this addressed and sent out today."

And Haymitch is surprised at how pleased he feels to know that something he wrote is going to be close to Effie.

. . . . . .

Day Forty-one

. . . . . .

There's a letter waiting for Haymitch at the front desk. Surprised, he picks it up and turns it over. It's the letter he sent to Effie, returned, and scrawled above the address in a hand he doesn't recognize are the words "No longer at this address." He looks at it a long time, and then he scowls and shoves it into his pocket.

. . . . . .

Day Fifty

. . . . . .

Haymitch's month with Dr. Galen is up before he knows it—and yet, at the same time, he sometimes feels like he's been here forever, like he can't remember a time before he came to the Capitol. He's glad to be going home, back to his own bed, back to Katniss and Peeta, and yet some part of him is a little sorry to be going. Things are simpler here; choices are easy, and the real world is kept at bay.

"You'll remember to be home when I call," says Dr. Galen at their last session—half question, half command.

"Thursdays at 3," Haymitch agrees. That's part of the program: after the initial month of intensive counseling is over, the clients continue meeting with him weekly—usually at his office here, but in Haymitch's case, over the phone. He's not sure how well that will work, as he hates talking on the phone, but it's part of the program and he's seeing it through, for Katniss and Peeta.

Dr. Galen sits back and looks at him in that pleased, affectionate way he has. "I'm proud of you," he says. "You've made huge strides. Do you think you're going to be able to stay sober?"

And who can say? Back in 12 with all his ghosts, with alcohol readily available again . . . but on the other hand, with Peeta and Katniss close by, encouraging him to stay sober . . . "I'm going to try," Haymitch says, and means it.

Dr. Galen smiles. "And have you . . . gotten a response to your letter?"

Haymitch's expression falls a little. "Not yet," he lies. He hasn't told Dr. Galen that the letter bounced back, though he's not entirely sure why he's being so secretive. He supposes he's embarrassed, in a way, although it's ridiculous because it's not like Effie sent the letter back unopened. She simply moved. But still, somehow it feels like rejection, like it's a sign that she would have rejected the letter if she'd received it. So he's said nothing and he hasn't tried again.

"Give it time," says Dr. Galen. "And no matter what happens, remember that you've done something incredible. And I know that Katniss and Peeta are proud and grateful for what you've done."

Katniss and Peeta . . . suddenly Haymitch is very eager to get out of here and back to 12, so he reaches out and shakes Dr. Galen's hand. "Thank you for everything."

On his way back to his room, he passes the dining room, where Hortense and Cassian are having a late lunch. They don't notice him as he walks past, and he smiles triumphantly . . . and then he hesitates, and then he stops and thinks, and then reluctantly he turns back to the dining room. "Just came to say goodbye," he tells them. "I'm leaving today."

They look up at him, surprised, and then Hortense is hurrying across the room to envelop him in a hug. Ugh. If he'd known this would be her response, he wouldn't have said goodbye. But still, he feels like he's done the right thing. "You're a good man, Haymitch Abernathy," Hortense says. "I wish you all the luck in the world."

Cassian looks ever so slightly jealous, so Haymitch extracts himself from the hug quickly. "Thank you," he says. "And I hope you two . . . you know." And he winks at them, while Cassian looks embarrassed and Hortense looks confused, and then he makes his escape.

His things are already packed, so he grabs his bag and goes down to the lobby. Plutarch's assistant is there, a neatly attired young woman who always looks like she's thinking about a million other things when she talks to you, and she nods at Haymitch and leads him out to her car. Plutarch told Haymitch a few days ago that he would be unable to pick him up, as government business had him out in District 9 for a while, and Haymitch has decided that he's glad of it. He spent the week after getting Effie's letter back wondering if he should ask Plutarch where she'd moved to—surely the man would know, given their close friendship—but now the decision is taken out of his hands. The assistant probably doesn't know where she is, and even if she did, Haymitch doesn't want to ask this bored-looking kid anything.

So instead he leaves the Capitol without seeing her. He'll go back to 12, spend some time acclimating to life there without alcohol, enjoy his time with Katniss and Peeta, and when Plutarch gets back from 9, maybe he'll call him. Maybe he'll ask where Effie is, and maybe he'll write her a letter or call her or even visit, someday. Because he owes her an apology. He doesn't dare think of anything beyond that, because why get his hopes up? She might have wanted to kiss him that night, but he can't imagine she feels the same way now, and it's best to accept that any chance he had with her is gone. And really, this is the only way things could have gone. He's not the relationship type, or at least he hasn't been since his Games, and any thoughts he might have had over the last two months that he might be willing to try to be the relationship type, for Effie, are thoroughly ridiculous. The best he can hope for—and he reminds himself that even this might be a stretch—is that she forgives him.

So he refuses to look back as the Capitol disappears behind the train. He only lets himself look forward, to 12 and to the kids.

When dinner is served he doesn't find it difficult to decline the offered wine. One day of the new, sober Haymitch down, ten thousand to go.

. . . . . .

Day Fifty-one

. . . . . .

The train pulls into the District 12 station just after lunch; Haymitch is the only person who gets off. No one's there to meet him; he didn't tell Katniss and Peeta that he's getting back today, because he wants to surprise them. As far as they know, he's in the Capitol for a few more weeks. He shoulders his bag and stands looking at the two roads that lead away from the station: the smooth, wide one that leads into the heart of town, and the smaller, damaged one that takes the long way back to the Victors' Village. For speed's sake he ought to take the one through town, but he doesn't want to see anyone just yet, so he trudges off down the road to the Village.

It's a cold day—not as cold as the Capitol was yesterday, but still, it's early December and he really should have worn his coat. But he doesn't mind the cold; it's familiar District 12 cold, and even the chilly breeze just . . . smells right.

He finds himself smiling as he comes in sight of the Village. Suddenly excited to see Katniss and Peeta, he doesn't even stop at his house, instead dropping his bag on Peeta's porch as he knocks on the door. Peeta opens it, and his polite expression quickly turns into surprise that quickly turns into a smile. "Welcome back," he grins, and hugs him. He and Peeta don't hug often, and he feels a little awkward as he pats the kid's back, but he can't deny that it's nice to feel welcome.

"Haymitch!" comes Katniss's voice from inside, and as Peeta moves away she slips into his place and hugs him (much more briefly than Peeta did; girl's not much of a hugger either). "How did it go? Are you sober now?"

Haymitch laughs. "You don't beat around the bush, do you? Yeah, I'm sober. And I'm going to try to keep it that way."

"Good," says Peeta. "Come eat."

They lead him into the house, Katniss carrying his bag, and sit around watching him as he eats their lunch leftovers. Something odd is happening; they're both watching him a little too closely and a little too eagerly to just be excited to have him back in 12.

Finally he puts down his spoon. "You two going to tell me why you're both looking at me like that?"

Peeta laughs, and Katniss's expression warms into a smile. "Are you done eating?" Peeta asks.

Haymitch nods.

"Good," says Peeta. "We've got something to show you in town."

He's intrigued but, being him, doesn't want to admit it, so he feigns casualness as he takes his dishes to the sink and then pulls his coat from his bag. Peeta and Katniss are pulling on their own coats, and they keep shooting looks at each other, and the curiosity is just killing him. But they refuse to say a word about it all the way to the town square; instead Peeta tells him all about life in 12 for the past month: that Leevy's having a baby and that some couple or other is engaged and that Katniss brought down a huge buck last week. All the while Haymitch looks around, trying to catch sight of whatever it is they want him to see—a new building, maybe? A giant statue of Plutarch Heavensbee?

But he sees nothing different at all, not at the edge of town, not in the town square, and not in the administrative building, which they drag him into with no explanation. It's warm in there, but low-ceilinged and a bit rough-hewn, and he looks around himself, at the chairs and the empty front desk and then at Katniss and Peeta waiting just behind him, still unable to see what it is they were so excited to show him.

Just then the door to the other room in the building opens and Rowan steps out, only to stop dead in the doorway. A warm smile brightens his face when he sees Haymitch there, and without a word he slips back into the other room. "There's someone to see you," they hear him say to someone inside, and a moment later, into the room steps Effie Trinket.

She's dressed in her District 12 best, with her hair up in one of those complicated braids she's apparently grown so fond of, and her face is the very picture of surprise when she sees Haymitch. Behind her Rowan discreetly closes the door to the other room, and at the same moment Peeta says "We should let you two talk" as he and Katniss slip outside. The door closes and he and Effie are left alone.

Her surprised expression morphs into a polite smile. "Hello, Haymitch," she says in her thick Capitol accent. "Lovely to see you again."

He's not nearly so eloquent. "What are you doing here?" he demands, and then winces as soon as it's out of his mouth because he didn't mean to sound so harsh.

She doesn't seem offended, though. "I work here," she smiles.

He blinks in surprise. "You mean, here? In this building?"

"Mostly." She looks around herself. "It's a bit dingy, I know, but I have big plans to brighten the place up a bit." She turns and gestures to the other room—her office, maybe? "I'm the new district representative for 12."

Haymitch is still struggling to wrap his head around this. "That's that thing Rowan was telling us about."

"Yes, he couldn't find anyone in 12 who'd take the job, so he asked me at the party, and I—" Here she looks flustered— "well, you'll remember that I left town after that, but a few weeks later I decided to accept the job. I've been living in 12 for . . . nearly three weeks now, I suppose. Staying in Peeta's guest bedroom at the moment."

Effie. Living in 12. That is . . . not the worst idea in the world. In fact it's not a bad idea at all. Still . . . "Why?" he finds himself asking, not sure which part he's asking why about.

She apparently chooses to take it to mean "Why take the job?" because she answers, "It's a wonderful opportunity for me. I'd been wanting a change of scenery, and this way I spend one week a month in the Capitol, and I can see my friends and shop and go to the theater, but the rest of the time I can be here, with the beautiful landscape and with Katniss and Peeta."

She's speaking smoothly and calmly, as though completely unaffected by the same sorts of emotions that are currently threatening to choke Haymitch, and he finds himself feeling surprisingly hurt. He's thought of nothing but their fight since it happened, so while he's certainly not saying he wants her to be unhappy, he definitely would have thought this conversation wouldn't go so easily. Maybe she's not bothered by what happened that night at all. Maybe he's been beating himself up for a month and a half and wondering what could have happened if he'd just kept kissing her, while she genuinely doesn't care about him or anything that happened that night. Maybe she kissed him not out of genuine feeling for him, but out of boredom, on a whim, because he happened to be her dance partner. The possibility feels like a lead weight in his stomach, and he realizes that as much as he knows he screwed everything up, some deep, secret part of him was hoping that the next time he saw Effie, he'd apologize profusely and she'd just fall into his arms. But now that's looking less likely by the second.

"And I find I'm very interested in government—in good government. And," and here she smiles, "not to brag, but I do have something of a knack for dealing with people. Government service might be my true calling after all." And then she hesitates. "And I thought, taking this position, in 12, might be a good way to try to make up for . . ."

"No," he says harshly, before he's even realized he's going to speak. Then he winces at her surprised expression. "I mean, if this is what you want to do, that's great. But don't feel like you owe us anything because of what I said. You should ignore everything that I said."

Her face softens into a smile. "I usually do," she jokes gently. "But don't worry. I'm doing this for me. I mean, I'm doing this for 12. But I'm doing it because it's what feels right to me."

Haymitch doesn't know what to do. If she'd seemed at all upset at him, he would have apologized—he would have fallen on his knees and grovelled. But this politeness he doesn't know what to do with.

Then a shadow crosses Effie's face, and for the first time she looks uncertain. "Haymitch, about what happened at the party—

There it is; looks like she's finally acknowledging that he was horrible that night. "I'm sorry," he bursts out fervently. "I'm so, so sorry. I was awful, everything I said about you."

"Oh," she says, sounding surprised at his outburst. "I—thank you for saying that, Haymitch." She smiles. "You were a bit awful, yes; you often are when you're drunk. Although Katniss and Peeta tell me you've been with Dr. Galen. Haymitch Abernathy in rehab! Never thought I'd live to see the day."

Haymitch smiles a little. "Me neither. But, uh, Katniss and Peeta convinced me. Reminded me . . . that we're a family, and that I should be there for them."

She gives him a small smile. "I'm very proud of you, Haymitch. And I know you can stay sober, if you put your mind to it."

"I'm going to try," he says. "So . . . no more me getting drunk and yelling at you." Good grief, he wonders, has he always been this awkward around her? He clears his throat. "I can be less of a jerk, I really can."

She laughs at that. "Oh, I know. I was your escort for years, remember? I know exactly what you're like when you're drunk and when you're sober. I wouldn't have dared come back to 12 if I hadn't known . . . that you're not always like that."

So maybe getting her forgiveness is not as impossible a quest as he'd thought. "Doesn't excuse the way I acted, though."

"No, it doesn't."

"So . . . I'm sorry. That's all I can say. I'm sorry and I was a jerk and the things I said about you weren't true."

Her whole expression warms. "I forgive you, Haymitch." She reaches a hand out to him. He's about to take it—never been so ready to do anything in his whole life—when she speaks again. "So can we be . . . friends again?"

And he freezes. He's told himself time and again that if he could just get her forgiveness, he'd be satisfied. But now that he has it, and apparently her friendship too, it feels . . . just a bit hollow. Slowly, uncertainly, he reaches out and takes her hand.

She smiles warmly at him and squeezes his hand, but then her face grows serious again. "What I was trying to say earlier, about what happened at the party . . . I'm sorry too. For assuming so much. I assure you, you don't have to worry about anything of the sort happening again. I am more than happy to . . . be your friend."

Wait, what is she saying? He has to try a few times to get his voice to work again. "What do you mean?"

Her whole face flushes, and he finds it incredibly endearing. "I mean, while we were dancing. I . . . threw myself at you, a bit, and if we're going to neighbors and friends I don't want that making things uncomfortable between us. So I wanted to let you know, it won't happen again. We can just be friends."

He stares at her for what feels like ages, his mind running through all the possible meanings of what she's just said. Does she mean, if she thought Haymitch was open to it, she'd—could he really still have—

His mouth opens of its own accord and he finds himself saying abruptly, "I'm in love with you."

She blinks a few times, and then repeats politely, as though she maybe just misheard, "You what?"

Okay, the rush of courage is gone and he's now very uncomfortable. But he knows he'll regret it for the rest of his life if he doesn't at least try, right now. "I'm in love with you," he repeats. "I panicked that night. I've got a lot of baggage; we both do. So I panicked and I got drunk and I said things I really regret now, and I was sorry as soon as you were gone."

The shocked look on her face is ever so slowly warming to the loveliest smile he's ever seen.

"And I wanted to tell you, but I didn't think you'd ever talk to me again. So if you really just want to be friends, I can try to be okay with that, but I am in love with you—"

He abruptly runs out of steam and falls silent. But he appears to have said enough for Effie, who is giving him a blinding smile and he thinks there might be tears in her eyes. "Haymitch," she says softly, "I am in love with you too."

That's enough for him. He steps forward and kisses her. She throws her arms around him and most enthusiastically kisses him back.

. . . . . .

What feels like days later, Effie tugs Haymitch into the next room so she can ask Rowan about taking the rest of the day off. Rowan gives them an energetic yes, beaming down at their joined hands, and it occurs to Haymitch that Rowan's been rooting for this to happen; it makes him a bit embarrassed to remember that he used to be jealous of the man's attentions to Effie.

Effie gathers her things and puts on her jacket, and they walk outside into the town square to see Peeta and Katniss talking to Delly and Leevy. Peeta and Katniss notice their joined hands first—no surprise there, they knew to be looking for it—and Peeta grins so wide it almost splits his face, while Katniss huffs, "Took you two long enough." But she can't hide her pleased expression.

Delly and Leevy seem to notice what they're looking at then, because Delly claps her hands delightedly."Are you two together now?" she asks. "That is the sweetest thing I've ever seen."

Leevy, in the meantime, is nonplussed. "I kind of thought you already were together," she says. "Given the way you were sort of all over each other on that hike." Effie and Haymitch both blush.

"We're going to go take a walk," Haymitch tells Peeta and Katniss.

"Good," smiles Peeta. "You probably have a lot to talk about. See you back at home?"

They all wave goodbye to each other, and Haymitch tugs at Effie's hand, leading her out of the square, out of town, and into the fields and forests surrounding District 12. It's early December and most of the plants are dead or dying, but there's a strange beauty in the muted colors and the severity of the dark pines. Still, it's not exactly the most romantic setting, and he looks around ruefully. "It would have been nice if it were prettier out here."

But Effie just smiles at him and releases his hand in order to wind her arm though his. "I think it's beautiful," she says. And then she pauses, then says carefully, every word fraught with meaning, "I think I could happily spend the rest of my life is District 12."

He swallows hard, but finds himself smiling. And arm in arm, they walk into the afternoon sunlight. They talk about everything—about Haymitch's counseling, about Effie's decision to move to 12, about how delighted Plutarch was that she'd found a job she was passionate about and how she'd forbidden him from telling Haymitch about it. "Peeta had already called me to tell me you were with Dr. Galen, and that's when everything fell into place. You were trying to get your life in order and it was time for me to do the same, and I'd felt for a long time that the right thing to do was to get out of the Capitol for a while. That's why I came down to visit you three, after all. But I wanted to get settled and established before you came back—before you even knew. I wanted it to be clear that I made this decision because it was a good idea, not because I was . . . chasing you or something."

"I wouldn't have minded if you'd been chasing me."

"Yes, well, I know that now," she smiles. "But I wasn't, and even if I were . . . Katniss told me what you said to her, that you were okay with being my friend but less okay with kissing me. So I knew that if I moved here, I'd have to make sure you knew I was only trying to be your friend."

"I was an idiot when I said that," he says. "I am totally okay with kissing you."

She gives him that smile he loves, the small, sweet, sincere, affectionate one. "Good, because I'm okay with kissing you."

"Glad we're on the same page here," he says, and leans down to prove just how okay with it he is.

. . . . . .

It's only later, when they've returned to Peeta's house and sat down to eat the incredible supper that that Katniss and Peeta have made, that it occurs to Haymitch exactly what Peeta said to them: "See you at home," he'd said, not "See you at my house." And he thinks it makes perfect sense. Because as he sits in that familiar kitchen and looks at the people around that familiar table—Katniss and Peeta smiling at each other, Effie with her hand in Haymitch's—he knows that this is the first time in a long time that he's felt at home.

. . . . . .

fin