Chapter Text
There's a knock on the door, and Haymitch reluctantly pulls himself off the couch. He's got a glass of whiskey in one hand, lazily passing the time on the couch. Something or someone moves in the corner of his eyes when he approaches the door, but he ignores it. Gently, he reaches out to open the door but it swings open all of its own, carried by a gentle breeze.
“Is that supposed to mean something?” He mumbles, looking around for one of his ghostly companions to give their opinion. None are around that he can see.
“What is supposed to mean something?”
A head of blonde hair piles in the door, causing him to refocus on reality. He takes a step back, surprised and overwhelmed, but quickly realizes that she probably took the door opening for an invitation.
“Effie” He frowned, though involuntarily. It's not that he's displeased to see her, but he can't seem to get over the shock of such an unexpected surprise.
“I've been here a few days,” She explains. “And I kept thinking I'd run into you, but I never did. Then Katniss said they barely see you anymore either, that you don't like leaving the house. So I decided I'd come to you instead.” She finishes, softly walking further into the house.
Haymitch just stands and gaps at her, so confused to be around a human again for the first time in however many days. “I…I don't go out a lot. I have my geese out back but that's just about it.” He shrugs, trying to pull himself together and seem casual. Again, he feels like he sees something in the corner of his eye but when he turns the room is empty except for his unexpected guest.
Seeing him turn to look, Effie turns to. “What's wrong?” She asks. “Is there someone else in the house? I didn't mean to bother you, but the door opened by itself and you…” She trails off, waiting for him to tell her what is happening.
Haymitch shakes his head. “It's nothing.” He promises, just like he does when Katniss comes and asks him why he won't leave the house.
Now Effie is the one frowning. “Haymitch…” She steps closer, pale fingers reaching out to touch him, to feel the edges of his face like she used to a long time ago. “I know something is wrong sweetheart. Katniss told me…you're drinking too much again.”
“I really am not” He dodges her hands, shivering at the mere thought of those hands on his naked skin. “I was never going to be able to stay sober forever. That's all.” He promises, knowing he is walking a fine edge between lie and truth with that one.
He walks deeper into his house, heads for the kitchen and his half-full glass of whiskey. “If you're going to nag you might as well leave.’
“Sweetheart” Effie doesn’t move, rooted to the spot as she watches him pick up the glass and drink. It's not like she hasn't seen him do it before, but the man she sees now seems so far from the man she parted with at the end of the rebellion. Why had he reverted to this?
Haymitch pauses, only a drop of liquor touching his tongue. He had often used the term of endearment to refer to effie, but to hear her use it for him felt strange and offputting. “That's not my name” He lowers the glass, puts it back where he found it. “That's what I call you.”
“I know that. I miss that.” Effie nodded, sitting neatly on the couch. Gathering her legs and her sun dress and slotting herself perfectly into one half of the worn couch. The other seat is still open for him to join her.
When he looks over, it feels like she's part of the decorations.
“I can call you that anytime you want” He promises, hand twitching as he resists starting up with his drink again.
“Then why don't you?” Her voice is surprisingly small when she question him, and once their eyes meet she sinks further down into the couch as if ashamed. “I haven't heard from you in nearly five years, Haymitch.”
Haymitch coughs then, overtaking by the passing of time. Surely it hadn't been so long. “Sure you do. I tell the girl to say hi to you, from me, all the time.” He notes, eyes twitching as he feels something moving at the edge of his vision again. It happens often but yet it never ceases to annoy him.
“That doesn’t count. Getting Katniss to assure me you are still breathing doesn’t count!” Her voice rises in pitch, reflecting her anger as she gets up, slowly approaching him even though he's made it clear he doesn’t want her to.
Haymitch winces at the octave of her voice, and when she again tries to touch him, he is sure that he sees something big and black and terrifying coming in from the corner of the room, causing him to try and dodge two things at once - it and effie.
The effect is that his glass goes crashing to the ground and breaks. Next, he trips and falls right down into the glass while Effie watches him. To his horror, as he tries to get up without cutting his hands on all the glass now on the floor, Effie grabs onto his arm. He shivers like he has a fever, desperately trying to get up and away.
“Are you seeing things again?”
Her question is so honest and straight forward, it stops him cold. No one ever asked him that. No one knew he saw things - no one but Effie.
“What?”
“I said, are you seeing things again?" she asks again, voice loving and eyes full of concern. “Don't play dumb. Katniss may not know, but I do. You used to see things when you were younger too.”
Haymitch breath hitches. He'd forgotten about that - that night, twenty years or more ago, when he had had too little to drink for a little too long and the hallucinations had gotten out of hand. Ever since, Effie had been attentive to his moods and the effect of alcohol - or the lack thereof - on Haymitch. Luckily he had never again hallucinated in her presence, but the threat of it long loomed over both of them.
“So what if I am?” He says it quickly, not wanting to admit but knowing he couldn't pretend. “Sometimes it feels like she is here…she's aging now. It's not so bad.”
“Leonore?” She sits on his counter, her feet in their flat summer sandals dangling over the edge of the marble top. “Haymitch, it wasn't good then and it isn't good now. Does Katniss know this is what you do all day? Hallucinate company for your loneliness?"
Haymitch picks the pieces of glass up, more sloppish the more Effie bears down on him. “Of course not. Why would I tell her?” He argued. “Either way, it is fine. I see the kids, I have company over sometimes. I'm not just alone with them.”
There's a silence after that, like Effie is trying to figure out what else she can say to convince him that he is, in fact, miserable after all. He, however, is happy that she is finally quiet and finishes cleaning.
When he throws the glass away, his hands sting, and he looks with displeasure at the thousand tiny cuts that coat his fingers. They hurt but he's so numb from drinking and general dissociation that the look of it - tiny red lines marking his cracking, dry skin - bothers him more than the discomfort of it.
"Let's fix those.” Effie is off the counter, holding his wrist in a tight grip as she leads him to the bathroom. “You should've been more careful.”
“I tried” He defends himself meekly. “You're lucky I didn't cut myself when I fell the first time.” He sighed, watching her take out plasters and a disinfectant spray that Katniss placed there a long time ago. At one point he'd asked her why she bothered with nano sprays and didn’t just give him old fashioned rubbing alcohol. She'd given him a strange look and left before he could force her to explain.
“Luck has nothing to do with it. You need to be more careful. Your hands look awful.” She sighed, disappointed as she finished wrapping up his fingers and inspecting his leathery palms.
Haymitch doesn’t have an answer for that, so he pulls away his hand, heading back towards the kitchen to get a new glass. Though he'd secretly hoped she'd give up, Effie follows him like a duckling, jumping back up on the counter.
“You know I'm not going away, right? You're not hallucinating me.” She tells him when he tries to fill his glass in peace.
“Obviously not.” He says. “But you should go back to Katniss and Peeta. They're probably looking for you by now.” He drinks it all down like a shot, shivering at the burning feeling down his throat.
Effie winces. “You can't continue like this. You can't just ignore the fact that you're hallucinating.” She tells him bluntly, frustrated that her presence there seemed to have little or no impact on him at all. It was not the man she knew so well, and she worried he was worse off than anyone had understood.
Haymitch sighed, frustrated and anxious by her insistence to discuss things he'd rather let lie. “I am no worse off than I've been the last twenty-five years, Effie. Yes, I see people, but I have made peace with it. Truly.” He tells her firmly but kindly, unable to bring himself to be aggressive towards Effie. It's true, anyway, or almost so. He hasn't quite made peace with Chaff, but luckily the man's appearances are few and far between and so it doesn't bother him much. “I am happy with myself, Effie. With my life. Why can't you be?”
He gently takes her by the arm, starting to show her to the door. Though he loves her, right now he only wants for her to leave.
“Haymitch, wait!” Before he can close the door, she begs for him to wait one more moment. And out of courtesy, he does wait.
“Yes?”
“Do you even know what day it is?” She asks. “Do you know that Katniss is due any day now, and that she is making herself sick wondering why you don't come to see her anymore?” She asks him, even though she knows more than well what the answer will be. “She needs her father back, Haymitch. I need you back.”
Not daring to hesitate, he slams the door shut on her big blue eyes and trudges off to find more booze.
“You shouldn't have done that.”
When he reached the kitchen, Chaff was there. The man is looking at him crossly, unhappily observing his actions.
“I do whatever I want. I told her, and you, I'm happy like this.”
“You're a liar.” Chaff said. “I told you, didn’t I? Before I went into the arena. I wanted you to have a happy life for both of us. But you're wasting it.” He crosses his arms, his stump on the left arm on display proudly.
Haymitch shakes his head and does some dishes that have been piling up. “I told Effie and I tell you. I am at peace.”
He argues with Chaff for about twenty minutes more, walking around trying to escape but having the ghostly apparition follow him regardless. Finally, they are both interrupted by the ringing of the phone.
“Hello?” He answers hesitatently, rarely having anyone call him anymore even though it had been repaired.
“It's me.” Effie's sweet voice comes drifting back even though he doesn’t want it to. “I wondered if it was working. Why you wouldn’t call me if it did.”
Haymitch pinches the bridge of his nose. Chaff has left him at last but he still can't forget the last twenty minutes of fighting him. “Because you don't need me and anyway, you clearly don't like me the way I am.”
There's a pause, and he nearly hangs up the receiver before she speaks.
“This isn't the way you are, Haymitch. It never was. It's what you made yourself.” Her voice cracks, and he almost thinks she is crying. “If this is really you then who did I see in 13? You worked so hard to heal..to change. Why go back?”
Haymitch doesn’t have an answer to that, because he knows she is right. Why go back to this misery when he could have everything Snow denied him? Was he still so scared of someone taking it away, he couldn't allow himself to even enjoy the possibility.
“Because I didn't like it in 13. I was completely miserable.” He argued. “How was Katniss today?" He changes subjects, hoping Effie would follow.
Effie sighed audibly. “She is well, but said she wished you'd come see her. She really is ready to burst and she'd want you there when the baby comes” Effie obliged, though she can not help but guilt him. She tried everything, hoping it would pull him out of his own head.
Haymitch hangs up. He doesn’t wait, just slams down the receiver, not wanting to hear another word. Not wanting to think that he was letting down Katniss, of all people.
He stands there, watching Lucy and Chaff both starring him down to see what he would do. He wants to ask them for advice, but is afraid they will say something he doesn’t want to hear.
So he takes a breath, and speaks out loud.
“I need to go see Katniss.” It's a comfort to hear himself say it, even though his voice sounds so strange.