Chapter Text
We’re still in the game.
Katniss turned away at Haymitch’s parting comment, the fight gone out of her for the moment. She’d traded one game for another, that much was apparent, and after a day of prodding and coaching and strategizing, Katniss wasn’t in the mood for much else. Maybe Prim would be back from her shift in the infirmary, she mused as she made to stalk off. Hell, a visit to Prim in the infirmary surrounded by sick people would be preferable to Coin’s long, stately table of people who all wanted something out of her and had something to say about how she was going about it.
“Katniss!”
Speaking of. Katniss closed her eyes briefly and willed herself to be polite. Of all the people at that table, except maybe Gale, Effie was probably the least offensive. Katniss wasn’t exactly sure who was pulling what strings, but she was fairly confident that Effie Trinket hadn’t been any rebel in disguise. Katniss had been left in the dark, sure, but Effie had fully had the rug pulled out from under her.
“Katniss!”
A very fluffy, prissy, floral, probably lurid pink rug, that is.
Sighing, Katniss turned back around toward the stairs. Haymitch was still frozen where she’d left him, and Effie was just a bit back from where they’d been standing. She wondered how much she had heard. “Effie?”
“Katniss, do let me take your makeup off and undo your hair.” Effie’s voice carried uncomfortably around the open corridor, causing a few soldiers to glance in her direction. Apparently she hadn’t hit her humiliation quota for the day.
Haymitch rolled his eyes. “The girl’s more than capable of washing her own face, princess.”
Katniss opened her mouth to retort, unsure of what was actually going to come out. She agreed with Haymitch, but given his dressing down, was loath to side with him even over something as stupid as who got the honor of washing her face. But Effie beat her to it.
“I know that, Haymitch,” she snapped. “I’m not stupid.” She swept past him down the stairs toward Katniss.
“I never said you were!”
Effie blew him off. “Katniss,” she said a bit more gently once she was directly in front of her. “I’m not asking because you can’t do it. I’m asking you to let me do it for you.”
Well, what the hell was she supposed to say to that? Katniss wasn’t a complete bitch. She was cold and cocky and standoffish and dense and every other damn thing that Haymitch and her prep team and Plutarch and Coin and everyone else had said publicly and privately about her for the last miserable year of her life, but she wasn’t a bitch, and this was Effie. Effie was good to her. Even when Effie was at her most Capitol ignorant and privileged obnoxious, she was good to her. If Effie wanted to wash her face, then have at it, especially if it would piss off Haymitch “stop moping around” Abernathy in the process.
Katniss met Effie’s eyes. “Okay,” she offered. “I guess if you want to.”
Effie took her by the arm. “I do. Come with me please.” She led Katniss back toward the stairs and past Haymitch. “You, too,” she threw over her shoulder, almost carelessly but watching Haymitch carefully nonetheless.
Katniss was surprised to see Haymitch trudge along behind them.
“Okay, dear, this won’t take long, I promise.” Effie pointed Katniss toward a tall chair in the makeshift dressing room she’d commandeered off the staging area. Katniss settled herself a bit uneasily as Effie busied herself at a nearby sink and Haymitch leaned back against a counter, his arms crossed and his face pensive.
“It’s fine, Effie,” Katniss offered when the silence stretched out between them. She supposed it would be rude to not at least answer when Effie talked to her but she didn’t know what she was supposed to say. And clearly that was the problem, given how poorly the propo had gone.
Effie finished at the sink and approached Katniss softly, raising the washcloth to her cheek. “I’m just going to take all of this makeup off and then we’ll take your hair down. You can leave the costume here and change back into your uniform.”
Katniss nodded, letting her eyes close as Effie wiped her face gently with the damp cloth. She’d had warm water and clean clothes and enough food, and even a mother, in District Thirteen, but it wasn’t until Effie put the rag against her cheek that she realized that she hadn’t had a single moment of peace. Not in her mother’s arms after her return from Twelve, or with Prim next to her in bed, or in the airshafts and tunnels she’d hid in trying to steal just a few minutes away before reality set in. But did she even deserve peace? Not with Peeta in the Capitol when he was the one who was supposed to live.
“Really, Eff, she can brush her own hair.” Haymitch’s voice seemed very far away. “She’d probably rather just be left alone.”
Despite her earlier attempts at storming off and putting a district’s worth of distance between herself and Haymitch, at the moment, Katniss couldn’t think of anything she’d want less.
“Hush, Haymitch.” Effie brought her other hand up to hold Katniss’s chin as she continued to wipe and dab. “Can’t you see she’s exhausted?”
Katniss would have argued back just on principle, but all she could manage was to open her eyes and even that took a herculean effort. She found Effie watching her appraisingly before she switched over to Katniss’s other cheek.
“I’m sorry about the makeup,” she murmured softly, loud enough for Haymitch to hear but very pointedly ignoring him to focus on Katniss. “It was too much, and you are just a girl. I know you don’t like being overdone.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Katniss caught Effie’s eye. “You were just trying to fix it after the other ones messed it up.”
Effie rolled her eyes. “Those cave dwellers. I don’t know what I was thinking, trusting them with your face.” She angled Katniss’s chin toward her as if to prove her point. “I don’t know what I was thinking trusting them with you, period. Any of them.”
Katniss saw Haymitch straighten up at that. She wasn’t sure what Effie was getting at but Haymitch seemed to. “Princess,” he muttered. “Watch it.”
“Regardless,” Effie continued seamlessly. “That won’t happen again, Katniss. I’m going to take care of you. No more botched makeup. You’re going to be looking and feeling like yourself. I promise.” She brushed her hand down Katniss’s cheek, and it was all Katniss could do not to let her eyes close again.
“Does that feel better now with all that off?”
Katniss nodded, her head and her tongue heavy and fuzzy enough that she couldn’t even open her mouth to give Effie a basic thanks. Effie didn’t seem to notice or mind though, and moved onto freeing Katniss’s hair from her thick braid. With her view completely unobstructed, Katniss wasn’t pleased to find that Haymitch’s glance was now fully trained on her.
She wondered if she was in for another lecture as she watched Haymitch’s eyes dart from her face and off to her side where Effie was standing. She couldn’t see Effie’s face from this angle, but if she had to guess, she figured Haymitch and Effie were up to their usual “talk without talking” game that she and Peeta had picked up on during the Victory Tour. They’d never fully gotten to the bottom of whatever nonverbal conversations seemed to be going on, only that they clearly were happening. In lighter moments, she and Peeta would wonder about them in their compartment at night, guessing and theorizing over their hidden meaning, and pointing out the clues: a raised eyebrow here, a glance there, a subtle widening of the eyes, a casual brush of the arm or a tiny smile when they didn’t think anyone was watching. She almost smiled herself then, remembering Peeta’s comment about their dysfunctional, Capitol-assigned parents, but sobered almost immediately.
“I wasn’t doing it on purpose,” Katniss burst out suddenly, surprising herself, Effie, and Haymitch all at once. But it was too late to backtrack.
Effie, who had been running her fingers through her hair to smooth out the braid, stopped suddenly to give Katniss a look of complete confusion before glancing over toward Haymitch who looked equally confused but also wary. “What weren’t you doing on purpose, Katniss,” she murmured softly.
It was the unconcerned tone of Effie’s voice paired with her fingers resuming their strokes through Katniss’s hair that forced it out of her.
“I wasn’t messing up the propo on purpose,” she said in a rush, and this time Effie and Haymitch clearly exchanged a loaded glance before both of them turned their attention back to her. “I know I was bad. I know it. But I wasn’t trying to be. I was trying to do it the way they wanted. I was.”
Katniss didn’t like the desperation that had crept into her voice but she couldn’t argue with it either. And Haymitch had said no moping, hadn’t he, and sure, maybe she’d done a fair share of moping and mourning and walking around all shellshocked and horrified. But she hadn’t botched the propo on purpose. She was no actor, anyone in Panem would know that, but she’d tried. And even if she hadn’t wanted to try, or to be another player in another game, or star in their stupid scripted propos, or become the Mockingjay, she had to. She had to. For Peeta. And for Cinna, who believed in her and his cause enough to create magic that helped her shine and rebel time and time again before he was killed for it, and for her burned district and all of the dead victors, and years and years of dead children that their society had been built upon and nearly everyone she loved had suffered and starved or died within.
She was lost in her own head for a moment, and when she resurfaced, she looked from Effie to Haymitch, searching for the blame or the exasperation or the lecture she was sure to find from one if not both. But to her surprise, none of that was there.
“Honey,” Effie said instead. “No one thinks that.” She seemed to think for a moment about who actually was involved and corrected herself. “Haymitch and I don’t think that. We know you were trying. It’s not your fault that you weren’t suited for what they wanted you to do.” She brushed Katniss’s hair behind her ear as she smoothed her cheek. It was so gentle and tender and motherly that it nearly brought tears to Katniss’s eyes.
“I wasn’t trying to mess it up,” Katniss repeated, still desperate to make herself heard. “I need to be who they need me to. If I’m not they won’t save Peeta.” And at that her voice did finally crack and there was a sudden rush of moisture on her cheeks, but Effie’s arms were around her, holding Katniss against her, and her forehead was tucked under Effie’s chin and Effie was rocking her ever so gently and smoothing her hair. She had a feeling that another one of those wordless conversations was going on over her head but she found that she didn’t care. Effie’s arms grounded her to where she was and who she was, and it was because of that that Katniss could actually let it all go. She screwed her eyes shut in an effort to keep the dam from bursting. Katniss was pretty sure that once it did, it would never ever stop.
“Come here,” she heard Effie say as if from a great distance, and she was confused for a moment because she was right here, wasn’t she, because Effie was holding her. Except that Effie was loosening her arms, and Katniss didn’t want that, but before she could form any sort of protest, another set of arms enveloped them both.
Haymitch.
He didn’t say anything, at least not to her, although she could have sworn she heard him mutter a “You, too, princess” which she didn’t really understand, and a “Definitely better without all that stuff on you”, which she did not want to understand. But Haymitch and Effie stayed there for what seemed like an awfully long time with their arms around her, and even though she never really did get around to fully falling apart, she started to feel a little bit like she was coming back together. Gradually their grip loosened.
Katniss opened her eyes and straightened her head enough to be able to look Effie in the eye. She was having a bit of trouble looking directly at Haymitch, who seemed to equally be dodging her glance, but Effie was looking between the both of them rather fondly.
“You both are so alike.” she commented. She continued stroking her hand through Katniss’s hair, and Katniss couldn’t help leaning into her touch. “The two of you, burying your feelings so deep no one can get to them.”
Haymitch was still uncomfortably close, but Katniss chanced a look up at his face. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem the least bit annoyed or put off or freaked out by her little breakdown or the comfort Effie had forced him into it. Come to think of it, he didn’t seem to look quite so forced into it at all, with his one arm still around Effie’s waist and his other hand sort of hovering by Katniss’s shoulder, almost as if he wanted to touch her again but was scared of setting her off. And even stranger still, he was looking down at Effie with something like amusement, that she seemed to be reading into and feeding right back to him without saying a word. It struck Katniss then how sober he was, how clear his eyes were, how with it he seemed, even with everything around them being grey and dull and dreary.
“You did,” Katniss said without really thinking, since the last thing she really wanted to do was discuss said buried feelings. “You got to them, Effie.” Her unspoken thanks hung in the air.
Haymitch squeezed Effie’s waist. “That’s what she’s here for, sweetheart.” Katniss saw a split second flash of something complicated on Effie’s face before she schooled her features again. Maybe it was the three of them that were alike rather than just two, although the thought of three was enough for Katniss’s ever present ache to resurge with a vengeance. It should be four. There should always be four.
Katniss shook herself back to the present. The trip to Eight loomed large, the next step of many to bring their fourth back to them. “Will you be here in the morning when we’re going to Eight?”
Effie smiled at her fully, and Katniss realized it was probably the first smile that she’d ever seen from Effie that hadn’t been hidden behind colorful makeup or elaborate fashion or even behind careful, calculated Capitol politics. It was beautiful, the Effie Katniss knew and a Effie Katniss had never met all rolled into one, and Katniss wondered what else there was to Effie now that Thirteen had stripped her, and all of them, down to their barest selves.
“Of course,” Effie assured her. “I’ll be here to get you ready, and we’ll both be here when you get back. For your hair and makeup, of course.”
“Of course, for hair and makeup,” Katniss agreed. It was more than that, and she knew it. She gave herself another moment just as Katniss and not the Mockingjay to wrap her arms back around Effie’s waist and tuck her head against her chest. “Thank you, Effie.”
“You’re welcome, honey.” Effie kissed the top of her head, just as Katniss felt a rough hand against her cheek. She forced herself to look Haymitch in the eyes.
“We’ll get him back, sweetheart.” He patted her cheek clumsily. “We’re still in the game.”
Katniss took a breath. “It’ll be nice to be four again.”
She wished with all she had that it would come to be.