Archive of Our Own ^beta

District 12 grows slowly.

Displaced families are trickling back into its borders, a newly legal Hob reopens and houses are being rebuilt near The Seam. The elementary school will be reopening soon and they even invite him to help pull down the border fence one too-hot afternoon. The townspeople bring picnic baskets and wear their finest to the event. He knows this is a mostly a symbolic moment—they've been hunting in those woods since they came back—but he begs off. They sacked the capital months ago, ain't nothing more symbolic than that. He listens to the commotion they cause from his basement with a bottle of white liquor in hand and his eyes on the ankles passing just outside of his window.

--

He never doubted that Effie Trinket would find a new place in the world.

She's become a bit of a star in the capital since the revolution. She understands them, knows how to say what they want to hear and he sees her sometimes when he flips through the channels on his TV—they keep adding new ones. He can never remember how to find the few stations he already likes. She works as a correspondent, she's the wacky guest they bring in during their last half hour, she gets interviewed often and a common question is what it felt like to work with the resistance.

He always snorts in laughter at that—liquor going up his nose and turning his chuckles into wheezy coughs. Effie had no clue what they were doing and if she had found out, well, Haymitch isn't one hundred percent certain she wouldn't have just turned them over to Snow.

Then, one day, she comes to visit. No cameras, no entourage; he just wakes up one morning to the smell of breakfast and comes upstairs to find Peeta and Effie at the stove while Katniss broods at his table. The two of them meet eyes.

"I told them you were probably passed out and wouldn't appreciate this." Katniss and Haymitch glance at the back of Peeta's and Effie's heads. "They wouldn't listen."

Effie turns toward him and grabs a towel to wipe her hands off. "Good morning, Haymitch."

"Effie," he says gruffly and sits down a seat away from Katniss. "Why are you all in my house?"

She clears her throat and the smile she gives him is brittle: a little too bright, a little too forced. "I decided it had been much too long since I saw you all, so I just popped right over."

"She stopped by us first," Peeta fills in then stops when he realizes what he just said. He glances at Katniss from the corner of his eye but she's too busy staring at some point behind Haymitch's left ear to notice. Haymitch rolls his eyes so hard the tendons creak—everyone already knows they're playing house—but he can't stop a small grin from turning up the corners of his mouth. He's happy for them.

"We decided you weren't doing anything important—"

"You two decided," Katniss cuts in but Peeta keeps talking.

"—and I know where you keep your spare key so we came over to have breakfast."

Like we did on the train, he thinks, and Haymitch has the distinct impression that the other three people crowded into his kitchen have the exact same thought because the room quiets down. Effie laughs at nothing and turns toward them with a flourish.

"Who wants pancakes?"

--

She visits more often after that and since District 12 has no hotels, she shuttles between the occupied victors' homes. One night, there's a knock on the door and he opens it to see a woman in matching PJs with shoulder-length red hair whom he vaguely recognizes.

"Effie?"

"The one and only," she declares and shoves past him with two bags. "I caught the train out here and I'm sorry to just show up like this but I didn't want to bother them." She nods toward Katniss and Peeta's house. "I thought they might prefer some time alone…"

"Yeah," he mutters, and shuts the door.

"Should I make myself comfortable?"

"As if I could stop you," he grumbles and she laughs tightly.

"I know it's late but I woke up and I just had to get out of the city- She stops, like she's said too much, and Haymitch rubs his hand over his bleary eyes.

"It's fine, Effie. You can stay."

"Thank you," she says lowly and his eyes wander to her hair again.

"Yes," she says with some pride and a shake of her head. "This is what my hair actually looks like. I never wanted to color it so I usually wear wigs." She looks at him like she's waiting for something.

"It looks ni—"

"Thanks," she trills. "Just let me—" She points up the steps and grabs her suitcases. "I'll be right back."

Haymitch grabs an unopened bottle of liquor before making his way to the couch. She's back downstairs in record time.

"How is it over there, anyway?"

"It's nice. Quiet," she says and leans further back into the couch. "Katniss is?—well… you know, Katniss, but me and Peeta have fun. We garden, we cook, we go into town. We talk some. " She glances at the side of his face before looking away. "How was he when you got him back? I've heard some things…"

He's never told anyone this but maybe that's because no one's ever asked and he can barely see her in the darkness. Haymitch can only feel a radiant heat at his side, lulling him. "I visited Peeta every day they had him locked down in 13. I was—" He stops for a moment and shakes his head. "I didn't want him to survive it and be like me. Like Katniss. Hard inside."

He doesn't say it, but he's worried about her as well. Effie reminds him of Peeta in some ways. They both have a softness at their core, a gentility that at once annoys and attracts people like him and Katniss. Children from The Seam had to have that particular trait beaten out of them at an early age; there was no space in one-room houses with starving children and work-weary parents for such tender emotions to flourish. He doesn't want it taken from the people who were fortunate enough to hold onto it.

"Don't worry about him," she says confidently. "His family's gone, but he's got Katniss to focus on. He's not alone." Not like we were, like we still are. It isn't said, but he hears it nonetheless.

"All the girls loved you back then, you know," she goes on casually, like she's reading his mind. "Your eyes—" Effie stops short and doesn't continue the thought. She nods her head and yawns. "I'm going to go bed, all right? Good night."

He listens to her walk up the stairs and never takes his eyes away from the television.

--

Afterwards, she stays with him every time she visits and he begins to see behind the mask she wears. Effie's quieter, more thoughtful, less bubbly than she used to be. She never talks about what they did to her and, to be honest, Haymitch is happy about that. He doesn't want to know.

He opens the fridge one afternoon to find it stocked with more than white liquor. By spring, there are daisies and mums growing next to his back porch. She comes back to District 12—after having a meeting about a possible book deal—and the next day, he pulls out one of his drawers to find it filled with the frilly, satiny things she prefers. Effie doesn't ask his permission for any of this, but he doesn't tell her to stop either.

Two days later—they're sitting on the couch downstairs and haven't said a word to another in the last hour—she makes the first move.

She slides across the couch and into his lap, takes his face in her hands, slants her mouth across his and he doesn't push her away. Doesn't ask if she's sure or anything ridiculous like that because they're too old to play that game.

He's almost nervous when she leads him upstairs. Haymitch hasn't been with anyone he didn't snag because of his victor status since he was sixteen. Since coming home, since Maysilee and his brother and his mother and his girl all died, were murdered. He hasn't been with anyone at all since the Quarter Quell and he's worried he may have forgotten what to do. He worries in vain. It's easy, as easy as it's always been to pull down a zipper, release a button, touch the right places just so. Haymitch learned all of this a long time ago and it's one of the few things the games and the liquor and the revolution haven't taken from him.

When he wakes up the next day, eyes bleary, the curtains are open and she's already awake.

"I've got to go back to the city," Effie says, stretching her arms over her head. "I'll make pancakes first."

They never make it official. Never announce that they're now dating or going steady or whatever this is because they aren't. They don't ask each other's opinion, they don't say I love you. They don't even particularly like one another. The two of them just… stay. They're a warm body. Someone to hold who doesn't ask questions and doesn't need more. Someone to be lonely with.

Peeta and Katniss look at them with knowing glances but keep their mouths shut and if anyone else notices, they don't say anything either. They know better.

--

She came for a quick visit and she's sitting in front of the mirror he hung for her. Haymitch stares at the naked line of her back. With all the potions, lotions and machinery the Capitol has to offer, Effie's given herself the body of a much younger woman: smooth and blemish free. Tight, clear skin stretched to its limit over jutting bones that haven't receded any since they freed her from captivity. He wonders if she'll ever let herself get softer. If she'll ever show him what she really looks like.

"I'll be gone for a week or so," she says, pulling him from his thoughts. She purses her lips and swipes something red and shimmery onto them as she narrows her eyes, having thought better of it. "Unless I get a good offer for something else, of course."

"Of course," he replies and smiles a little. It's good to see that old pull-no-punches, completely oblivious Effie is still inside her.

She still clutches at him in her sleep, though. Still wakes up on strangled gasps and half-remembered memories. Haymitch knows because he does too. She'll never be the carefree woman he worked with for years again, not really. She's just beginning to learn that the fear she feels, the knot in the pit of her stomach and the cold sweats, will never go away. Not when it comes to the two of them.

--

He sees her face on the TV two days later and stops for a second. She's grinning at something the host is saying, touching his shoulder and looking into the camera with adoring eyes. I'm one of you, her gaze says. I understand. But she's not like them, not anymore. There's an awareness in her eyes, a shadow of something unseen, something the people of the Capitol would never understand. He does, though.

Haymitch watches her for a second longer, then changes the channel.