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The chandeliers flickered like they couldn’t quite believe they were still hanging.
Like the rest of the Capitol, the light didn’t know whether to shine or hide.
Haymitch leaned against the marble column like it owed him money, arms crossed, face carved into its usual scowl. People glittered around him—half in couture, half in conscience—and he couldn't decide which group he hated more.
Plutarch was laughing somewhere. Of course he was.
And Effie was drunk.
Not "fun" drunk. Not even "flirtatious" drunk. No, tonight Effie Trinket was spinning on her heels and balancing her fourth glass of something gold, eyes glassy, lips loose. There was a crack in her composure, thin but growing.
He’d noticed it halfway through her second drink—when she laughed too hard at something Johanna said, then looked down like she'd broken a rule.
Now she was weaving through the room with a smile that didn’t match her eyes. Her dress shimmered like a promise she couldn’t keep.
“You’re lurking,” she said, sloshing her drink toward him as she stopped too close. “Why do you always lurk, Haymitch?”
“Why do you always wear shoes you can’t walk in?” he shot back, soft and automatic.
She giggled. “Because they’re beautiful. And painful. Like most of my choices.”
He blinked. That was new.
“You okay, Princess?”
“No,” she said brightly, like it was a punchline.
And then she leaned in—because of course she did, the room tilting behind her—and whispered, “You don’t love me, do you?”
He froze. “What?”
“I mean, it’s fine ,” she said, pulling back, swirling her glass with mock elegance. “You couldn’t. Not really. Not someone like me . I’m all sequins and sins, remember? I sold children to the wolves with a smile and a coordinating hat.”
“Effie.”
“It’s just—” she hiccuped, or maybe laughed, “—some nights I wish I was less... ribbon. Less wrapping and more worth unwrapping.”
Haymitch didn’t speak.
She took that as permission.
“I know what I am to you. A relic. A reminder. An echo of something you never asked for but got anyway.”
She looked up at him then. Really looked. Her mascara was perfect. Her pain was not.
“But I—I do love you,” she said, suddenly serious. “God, I do. Isn’t that awful?”
And just like that, the crowd behind them roared with laughter at something Plutarch said, and the world kept spinning.
But Haymitch didn’t.
He stood there, staring at the one woman who made the air in his lungs feel optional. Watching her heart dangle from her painted lips like it wasn’t worth keeping.
Effie blinked, then frowned like she remembered she shouldn’t have said any of that. She opened her mouth to backpedal—probably with something charming and shallow—but he caught her wrist gently before she could.
“You’re not a relic,” he said, low. “You’re not ribbon. You’re not anything I ever deserved.”
She stared at him, unsure if he was real or just another thing she’d imagine tomorrow between waves of nausea and regret.
“C’mon,” he added. “Let’s get ya some water before you confess to loving Snow next.”
She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re the only bastard I’ve ever fallen for.”
“Lucky me.”
Effie nearly tripped over a decorative column on the way out.
Haymitch caught her elbow without comment. She smelled like perfume and guilt and something citrusy that probably cost more than his house.
“Where’s your coat?” he asked, already shrugging off his.
“Forgot it,” she said, swaying. “Or lost it. Or... maybe it left me.”
He sighed. Draped the coat over her shoulders anyway. It drowned her. It looked like she was being swallowed whole by something old and soft and grumpy. Fitting.
The night air bit her cheeks, but she didn’t flinch. Just tilted her head back like she was waiting for snow.
“They’re all pretending,” she murmured.
“Who?”
“Them. Inside. Pretending like we didn’t all help build a machine that chewed up children.”
Haymitch paused. “You’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “That’s why I can say things I shouldn’t.”
He helped her down the Capitol steps slowly, like she was made of glass and poor decisions.
Halfway down, she stopped. Looked at him with wide, unsure eyes. “You’ll forget I said it, right?”
“The part about loving me?”
She winced. “That part.”
“I’ll try.”
He didn’t mean it. She knew he didn’t. That’s why she smiled like someone slipping into a bathtub with all their clothes on.
“I tried not to,” she said.
“Tried not to love me?”
“Tried not to make it your problem.”
He huffed something that might’ve been a laugh.
At the bottom of the steps, she veered toward a statue of an angel—new, overly sentimental, ugly in a way only wealth could afford.
Effie looked at it, head cocked. “She looks smug.”
“She’s stone.”
“So are you most days, but you still manage to be smug.”
Then, like a woman possessed, Effie lifted one heel-clad foot and tried to step up onto the statue’s base.
“Whoa there,” Haymitch said, grabbing her waist. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Climbing,” she said dreamily.
“Why?”
“Because I’m a Capitol girl , Haymitch. We always climb things we shouldn’t.”
He looked at her—really looked. Under the gold and gloss and ridiculousness was a person cracked open by war and trying to stitch herself shut with glitter.
“You don’t have to be that anymore, you know.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You don’t have to be her. The escort. The mask. You don’t have to sparkle your way through everything.”
“And what should I be?”
He hesitated. “Effie.”
Just that. Just Effie .
She stared at him, stunned into rare silence.
Eventually, he got her back to her apartment. The elevator was slow and creaky, like it didn’t trust them either.
Inside her door, she turned to face him, framed by soft Capitol lighting and a room full of expensive ghosts.
“You’re not staying,” she said, reading him too well.
“No.”
“Because you don’t love me.”
He looked at her, tired and soft in that devastating Haymitch way.
“It’s not that I don’t,” he said quietly. “It’s that I do , and I don’t know how.”
Effie’s breath caught.
But he just reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering one second too long, then gone.
“Sleep it off, Trinket.”
And he left her there, wrapped in his coat, mouth open with words she’d never say in the daylight.
The door clicked softly shut behind him. He actually stayed outside, not wanting to go that far, just in case she needed him. Just in case.
She stood in the middle of her apartment like she didn’t recognize it. Like everything inside had been rearranged by ghosts while she was at the party.
Haymitch heard a noise and went up and into the apartment again. He watched her take a few wobbly steps toward the couch, then pause. One shoe had decided to quit. She kicked both off with something between a sigh and a moan and sat down gracelessly.
Her hands went to her head. “Why is my skull trying to escape my body?”
“Because you drank champagne like it was water and guilt,” he muttered, crossing the room.
She looked up. “You stayed. Outside, but still.”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“You never stay.” she was very confused.
“You never ask.”
That shut her up. She looked... surprised. And tired. And just this side of teary, which terrified him more than any Peacekeeper ever had.
He stepped into the kitchen—gleaming white, untouched by real living—and returned with a glass of water and some aspirin.
“Here,” he said, handing it over. “Drink. Unless you’d rather keep monologuing about your deep self-loathing and poor romantic taste.”
“You’re such a dick ,” she said, but she took the pills.
He sat on the coffee table, facing her. Not touching. Just watching.
“I meant it, you know,” she said quietly. “What I said. I do love you.”
“Princess—”
“I know you won’t say it back. That’s not why I said it.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “You’re still drunk.”
“I’m honest . Alcohol just turns down the volume on my survival instinct, you should know that, you’re a professional.”
Her head lolled against the back of the couch. She looked small now. Smaller than he liked. Like the world had whittled her down from something sharp to something soft and breakable.
She looked at him again, eyes glassy but steady.
“I always knew you’d never love me,” she whispered. “But I didn’t know it would hurt less once I stopped pretending you might.”
He exhaled slowly. "You're not easy to forget, Effie."
She gave a hollow laugh. “That your version of sweet talk?”
“It’s the truth.”
They were quiet for a beat. The city buzzed outside, but in here, it was just breathing and the low hum of old pain.
Then, like it was nothing, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
Not flirtation. Not manipulation. Just tired.
“I missed you,” she said, almost inaudible.
He didn’t say it back.
But he didn’t move, either, didn’t shrug her off.
Didn’t remind her of all the reasons they were terrible for each other, or list the scars neither of them knew how to stop picking.
Instead, he shifted just enough to rest his chin lightly against her hair. Closed his eyes. Let himself pretend, for one moment, that maybe this was allowed.
That maybe they were.
And neither of them spoke again, not until morning.
Haymitch didn’t sleep.
Effie passed out curled sideways on the couch like an exhausted cat, one hand clutching the edge of his coat like it meant something. Maybe it did.
He sat in her armchair, elbows on knees, watching the light crawl across her expensive carpet and thinking of that night .
Years ago now. During the early mentor years. One of those Games that bled him a little extra—boy and girl both dead before day five. Capitol parties thick with wine and pity and nothing to do but survive the night with something warm to hold onto.
Effie had been a blur of silk and sharp cheekbones. No wig. No falseness. Just her. Sad and sharp and clinging to him like she didn’t hate him as much as she wanted to.
It had happened in a hotel room with blackout curtains and no questions. Quiet. Desperate. Careful. One night carved out of a life built on pretending they didn’t need anyone.
And they never spoke of it again.
Not in the Capitol. Not on the trains. Not in the wreckage of everything.
She’d looked at him the next morning with painted eyes and professional smiles and the walls had gone back up like they never fell.
But he never forgot.
Effie woke slowly, face creased from the couch cushions, hair a disaster, and mouth dry enough to qualify as a desert biome.
Haymitch was in her kitchen.
Her kitchen.
Making food .
“Why are you—what are you doing?” she croaked.
“Acting like a decent person,” he said. “Just this once.”
She sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. “Ow.”
He handed her a glass of juice, freshly squeezed. She blinked at it like it might bite her.
Then she noticed: he was wearing one of her aprons.
It was pink.
With ribbons .
Her heart nearly gave out.
“You’re a jerk and you’re not funny,” she whispered.
“Don’t flirt with me until you’ve had toast,” he replied, flipping eggs with terrifying domestic precision.
She sipped the juice. “This is fresh.”
“Congratulations, you’re not concussed.”
Effie fell quiet. Her cheeks were flushing. Haymitch noticed, of course. He noticed everything about her when she didn’t want him to.
They ate in her sunny dining nook—him grumbling about modern chairs, her moving scrambled eggs around her plate like it might deflect the weight of memory.
She wasn’t wearing makeup.
Her face was bare and human and painfully beautiful.
He cleared his throat. “About last night.”
She froze.
“No,” she said immediately. “No, let’s not. Please.”
“Effie.”
“I was drunk.”
“You said you loved me.”
She covered her face with both hands and groaned. “Please tell me I didn’t climb a statue.”
“You tried. I stopped you. You also accused an angel of being smug.”
A small sound—half laugh, half death rattle—escaped her.
He waited.
She dropped her hands. Looked at him. Vulnerable in that way that made him want to tear the world apart for her.
“I didn’t mean to say it.”
“I believe you.”
“But it’s true,” she added, voice barely audible.
“I know.”
Silence.
Then, quietly, almost like he didn’t mean for it to come out:
“Once wasn’t enough, you know.”
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
He met her eyes. “That night. Years ago.”
She went very still.
“We never talked about it,” he said. “I thought maybe you forgot.”
“I didn’t.”
“Me neither.”
He set his fork down. Leaned back.
“I just thought—if we only did it once, I could pretend I imagined it. That I didn’t want to do it again. That I don’t still.”
Effie was pink to the tips of her ears now. She stared at her plate. Looked nineteen years old and heartbreakingly brave.
“I didn’t think you wanted me like that.”
“I didn’t think I was allowed.”
Another silence. Heavy, but not crushing.
Finally, she reached out, fingers brushing the edge of his plate. Not a handhold. Just a signal. A question.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered.
“Neither do I,” he said. “But I’m here. And I remember everything.”
Her lip trembled. Just once.
“Okay.”
And he smiled—soft and crooked and so damn him .
“Good. Now eat your eggs before I write you a poem.”
She snorted. “Gods forbid.”
Effie managed three whole bites before the silence stretched tight again. She was upright, barely. Dignity duct-taped together with mascara residue and toast crumbs.
Haymitch watched her from across the table, arms crossed, jaw tight like he was holding something in his mouth he couldn’t quite swallow.
“Can I ask you something?” he said finally.
Her fork paused. “That depends.”
“It’s not a trap.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I mean,” he said, exhaling sharply, “I want to know. But if you don’t wanna answer, I won’t push.”
She looked at him for a long second, all wide eyes and last night’s leftover vulnerability.
“Okay,” she said.
He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.
“When did it change for you?”
Her throat worked. “What?”
“Me. Us. When did this,” he gestured vaguely, like the air between them could explain it better than his mouth ever could, “turn into love?”
Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She closed them again. Looked away. Looked wrecked .
“Effie?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It wasn’t a switch. It wasn’t like... one day I didn’t and the next day I did. It just—built. Like dust in corners.”
“Dust.”
“You know what I mean.”
He did. Damn it, he did.
She sighed. “Maybe it was after the first five years, at your 24th birthday reaping. You were drunk and awful and kept calling me ‘Miss Nightmare in Pastels.’ But then you were kind to the kids. Not good at it. But kind . You stayed up with the boy when he cried. I don’t think anyone saw that but me.”
She fiddled with the rim of her plate.
“Maybe it was the train rides. Or the Games where you didn’t drink. Or the Games where you did. Or that one night—”
“Effie.”
She looked up.
“I remember that night too.”
She swallowed hard. “Then maybe it was after that. After that we didn't talk about it. After I realized I didn’t regret it. Even though I should have. Even though you did .”
“I didn’t,” he said. Quiet but sure.
Her breath hitched.
“I thought I was just another Capitol girl to you, another freak, as you so like to call us, and you’re not wrong, by the way” she said.
“You weren’t.”
She looked at him. Really looked.
And then, so softly it nearly broke:
“I think I started loving you the moment you stopped being something I could predict.”
Haymitch let that settle in his chest like something sacred.
“You know,” he said after a beat, “you’re allowed to say stuff like that when you’re sober?”
“I’m regretting every molecule of last night.”
“I’m not.” he smirked.
Her cheeks flamed.
“I’m just saying,” he continued, reaching for his own juice like it might keep his hands busy enough not to reach for her, “if you feel that way when you’re drunk and when you’re hungover, there’s a good chance you feel it all the time.”
She didn’t answer.
But this time, when their eyes met, she didn’t look away.
****
She was putting her shoes on by the door, shoulders taut, jaw clenched. He could tell she was trying to escape before the silence between them turned into a second confession. She couldn’t do that again. Not sober. Not knowing he was watching her like she was a ticking bomb wrapped in chiffon.
“You should leave,” she said, already reaching for the handle.
“Princess—”
“It’s fine, Haymitch. You don’t need to feel sorry for me, alright?”
His spine straightened. “I don’t.”
She scoffed. “Oh, don’t lie. You were very sweet this morning. Breakfast, blankets, that tender little furrow in your brow—save it. I’m not your charity case.”
He stepped toward her. “Is that what you think this is?”
“I don’t want your pity. I don’t need your guilt. I’m embarrassed enough without you trying to make me feel better like I’m some sad Capitol relic you dragged out of the trash—”
“Would you stop —”
“—just because I said too much and drank too much and—”
“Effie, shut up! ”
She froze, hand still on the doorknob.
Haymitch exhaled like the words had cost him ribs.
“I don’t pity you,” he said. “I care about you. I love you.”
Silence. A silence that cracked and rang and held.
Effie turned slowly.
He looked like he hated every word coming out of his mouth. Like honesty was a war wound. But he didn’t stop.
“You think I’d do all that because I feel sorry for you? You think I’d sit up all night while you cried in your sleep, or make goddamn toast , because I pity you? Effie, I’ve been in love with you longer than I’ve had the guts to admit.”
Her mouth parted. No sound.
“I didn’t want to,” he said, voice raw now, like a scraped knee. “I didn’t plan it. Hell, I tried everything not to. I drank. I fought with you. I avoided every damn feeling I had because I figured it’d ruin you.”
“Why would it ruin me?” she whispered.
“Because I’m not him ,” he said. “I’m not that guy who helped with your make up box anymore, the one you saw as an ally, the one you took care of for years without asking nothing in return like most Capitol people do. I’m not kind. I’m not gentle. I’m not safe. You loved me anyway. Despite it.”
She blinked fast. Her hands trembled at her sides.
“You remember that night years ago?” he asked. “I thought it was a one-time thing. I wanted it to be. But the next day, when you pretended it didn’t matter—I couldn’t stop wanting it again. Not the sex. You. ”
She looked like she might collapse from the sheer weight of it.
He stepped closer. “You want to be embarrassed, fine. Be embarrassed. But don’t you dare think I did any of this because I pity you.”
“You love me,” she said, like it was brand new, like the words were rare flowers blooming on her tongue.
He nodded.
“God, you’re an idiot,” she breathed, tears suddenly blurring her lashes.
He snorted. “Yeah, well. You fell for one.”
She stepped into him. Not a kiss. Just the press of her forehead against his chest, both of them standing still like something holy just cracked open.
His hand came up slow. Settled at the back of her neck.
They stood like that. Quiet. Shaking. Home.
Her breath was hot against his chest, shaky like she didn’t know if she was still standing or if he was holding her up.
Haymitch's hand was still at the nape of her neck, thumb brushing the edge of her hairline. Not to comfort. Not to coax. Just to feel her there—solid and close and his , in the ways that mattered.
She pulled back slowly. Looked up at him with eyes glassy and unsure and brave , gods, brave , even when her bottom lip quivered.
“I’ve wanted this,” she whispered, voice threadbare, “for so long I forgot what it was like to want anything else.”
“Effie,” he said, her name landing somewhere between warning and prayer.
And then— finally —she rose up on her toes and kissed him.
Not shy. Not hesitant. But slow .
Mouths meeting like they were remembering each other. Like that long-ago night had never really ended, just gotten buried under years of avoidance and aching. Her lips were soft, open, tasting of heartbreak and cinnamon toast and the apology neither of them had said but both of them meant.
He answered her with the kind of quiet desperation he’d spent a decade drowning. One hand slid down to her waist, anchoring her to him, while the other cupped her cheek, holding her like she might disappear mid-breath.
She gasped softly into his mouth when his thumb swept across her cheekbone—startled by the gentleness of it, maybe. Or the certainty . She pressed closer, arms circling his neck, fingers knotting in the hair at his nape like she needed him, and maybe she did.
Maybe she always had.
Their mouths moved together, slow and deep, like a conversation they’d never been brave enough to have. Like confession and absolution and home , all tangled up in heat.
When they finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, breathing hard, Effie laughed softly—a choked, watery thing.
“Well,” she murmured, “that was absolutely not a pity kiss.”
Haymitch huffed a laugh against her mouth. “No. That was a ten-years-too-late kiss.”
She looked up at him, pupils blown wide, and smiled.
Not her Capitol smile. Not the bright, brittle one.
The real one. The one he’d wanted to kiss since he first saw her wipe her lipstick off and cry quietly in the corner of a train.
“Let’s not wait another ten,” she said.
He kissed her again.