Part 8:

It's no secret that the both of us
Are running out of time

The train pulls in at Twelve's station in the middle of the night and Effie is the only one to step out. She struggles with her luggage, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. There are no direct trains between Twelve and the Capitol and it took her almost a day and a half to make the trip, jumping from train to train and from District to District, trying to find the quickest route.

The night is freezing and dark.

She purses her lips and starts on the long twisting path to the Village, wishing someone was there to help her. There is no heavy coat of snow anymore, that's the good news. The bad is that there are patches of ice and puddles of melted snow and that she slips twice and almost breaks an ankle three times on her way to her house.

She's completely frozen by the time she reaches her street and the house is cold and uninviting. She loses no time in switching on all the lights, relieved when the darkness and the demons hiding within recede. She leaves her suitcase in the hall and hurry to the living-room. The logs of wood are humid and her fingers are stiff, the fire doesn't catch. Water must have frozen in the pipes because she can't get anything from the taps either and in the end she sits on her bed, defeated and with chattering teeth.

She wraps herself in her blankets but she keeps on shivering, unable to shake out the sharp cold in the house.

She's too tired, exhaustion makes her bones heavy. Her body doesn't seem to have registered she isn't on a train anymore because she still feels the light rocking of the car and she just wants to drink something because her mouth is parched, swallow something solid to settle her stomach, lie down and go to sleep.

There is no food in the kitchen, no water, and no warm place to sleep.

She doesn't quite know where she is going when she wanders back outside, still wrapped in her blankets but her feet carry her to Haymitch's door and she doesn't let herself hesitate when she steps inside, not really surprised to find it unlocked. Her first stop is the kitchen. The taps work here and she throws back two full glasses of water before her eyes fall on the bread abandoned on the counter. She devours half the loaf standing up at the counter and peering at the backyard.

His house is in complete disarray and the smell isn't pleasant but she wanders upstairs anyway, careful not to knock anything on the way. She hears him snoring way before she reaches his bedroom and she relaxes, knowing that snoring means he is drunk and that he probably won't wake up even if she were to start playing drums.

Haymitch is lying on his stomach, in the middle of the bed, the covers kicked around his knees. He's wearing a long sleeve shirt and plaid flannel sweatpants that she thinks she must have purchased for him long before Katniss volunteered. She slowly toes off her shoes and adds her blankets to the already respectable amount of them on the bed, tucking them back to his chin.

His eyelids lift halfway and then drop again when she climbs in with him carefully, sighing in contentment at the sudden warmth. She remembers to reach under the pillow for his knife and to place it on the nightstand before closing her eyes and finally succumbing to sleep.

She drifts awake a little later when an arm wraps around her waist and drags her closer to a warm body but when she glances over her shoulder she sees he's still asleep so she simply burrows back into him. It's toasty under the covers, almost too hot, but she savors it until sleep claims her again.

When she wakes up next she knows at once something is different. There is no arm around her waist and no warm body pressed against hers. Her eyes fly open and she props herself on her elbow, searching the room for…

"I'm here."

She looks over her shoulder and here he is – which she could have told from the dip in the mattress if she had thought for two seconds really – lying on his side over the covers, a few inches away from her. She rolls on her other side to face him, thinking this is more awkward than it should be and it is all her fault.

"So…" he hesitates. "Did you finally decide you were going to kill me and you chose heat stroke as your murder weapon? Clever. Leaves no traces."

There are sweat rings under his armpits and his forehead is clammy. She's equally drenched but she doesn't mind. It beats the cold.

"My house was freezing." she explains uncertainly. "And… I was cold. So I thought…"

She's uncertain and tentative when she would have liked to be confident and empowered. It figures, she thinks, that their reunion would take place in a bed. She never took the time to change into pajamas and she can feel her white skirt is bundled around her upper thighs and her pink blouse is wrinkled beyond repairs, her hair must be wild and the make-up is more than probably smudged. In short, she is ugly which isn't something she ever wants to be in front of him.

She bits her bottom lip and drops her eyes, feeling stupid.

He's wary when he reaches out, he cups her cheek and his thumb gently pries her lip free of her teeth. When she doesn't protest he grows bolder and lightly retraces her features, trailing his fingers from her cheekbone to her brow and down the bridge of her nose before going up again to roam down her other cheek and ending up on her mouth.

Suddenly, she's too hot and dizzy and it's all she can do to kick the covers a little. His eyes dart down and darken and she blushes when she realizes a few buttons have popped open and her bra is visible. So are two of her scars.

He reaches for the one on her collarbone but she recoils instinctively.

"I… Sorry." she whispers.

"It's okay." he says softly, as if not to spook her and he places his hand on her shoulder instead, seeking her gaze. "Good?"

She nods and scoots closer, kicking the covers further down until her legs aren't tangled in them. He understands what she wants at once and wraps his arms around her. The embrace is as intimate as it gets, she traps his upper leg between hers, locks her arm around his torso, sneak her hand under his shirt so she can feel his warm skin under her palm and buries her face in his neck, her nose pressed against his Adam apple, his beard scratching her forehead… He draws out a breath that is all relief and satisfaction and he rests his head against hers, breathing the smell of her shampoo and her and she can't begrudge him the right because he reeks of cold sweat – which is her fault, she guesses – but it's the best thing she has smelt in a while. It's familiar and him and it drives her mad and she almost bits his Adam apple because she knows it will drive him mad and turnabout is fair play.

That's what she has been afraid of all along. She can't help herself when he is so close. Her brain turns to mush and she is controlled by her impulses and urges. It doesn't take much to nuzzle his jaw and bring their face closer, to brush her lips against his and…

"You're sure you want this?" he asks, his voice rough and low in all the right ways. She knows he feels her shiver. She can feel him starting to get aroused against her stomach. "You wanted…" He licks his lips with a pained face and she knows it must cost him to say those words. "You wanted to take this slow. Date and shit. You kiss me now… I'm not sure I have that much self-control, sweetheart. Not when you're in my bed, all tousled hair and so warm…" He shrugs a little, glancing away, obviously embarrassed. "Thought I was dreaming at first."

"I'm right here." she promises, drawing silly patterns on his back.

He is right though and she wants to take it slow, she wants… She's not sure what she wants anymore. She wants some sort of balance in her life, that's all she knows.

She thinks she wants everything but that's a scary thought.

"You didn't take anything else, right?" he asks suddenly.

The question shouldn't hurt but it does and she rests her forehead against his shoulder. "No. It was just once, I promise. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't want to relapse. I don't want to… I felt lonely. I am better here. I will be alright in a few days."

He runs his fingers in her hair in a soothing fashion that she has missed so much.

"You're not alone." he rasps out. "You're never alone. Anything you need…"

There are a lot of things to answer to that but it's heavy and she doesn't want heavy this morning. She wants light and happy and she doesn't have to force herself too much to sound cheerful.

"Well, I do need a few things as it so happens…" she grins. "Borrowing your shower for starters, and your kitchen too because mine is desperately empty. And if you could drop by my house because I have no idea how to fix the frozen water in the pipes and I couldn't light a fire for the life of me…"

"Bossy." he comments but she hears the smile in his voice.

She's happy.

The thought comes unbidden but is too powerful to be ignored.

She's safely locked in his arms, warm in his bed and she's happy.

Maybe that's what she was afraid of all the while.

"Your geese make a racket." she frowns, suddenly realizing the loud honking is coming from his backyard.

"They're hungry." he shrugs, still playing with her hair and very much busy undoing the half collapsed fancy hairdo she tied it in the previous day. He likes it loose, she knows. He loves it for some reason. "It's late."

"Late?" she repeats, peeking over his chest at the alarm clock on his other nightstand. "Oh, my! It is late!" It's almost noon and she absolutely needs to curb this tendency of hers for late nights and late mornings. The world belongs to early risers or so her father always said. "We should…"

"We should stay here and make the most of it." he finishes for her, tightening his hold.

"But the children will wonder where I am!" she protests without much conviction.

"Ten minutes." he bargains and how can she say no when his fingers are tangled in her hair? She settles against him, she closes her eyes and without meaning to, she falls asleep again.

It's early afternoon by the time she wakes up but Haymitch is still there, his arms still firmly around her. She lets out a noise that is halfway between a hum and a whine as she stretches, covering her face with her hands.

"I think I was more tired than I thought." she apologizes.

"'T's okay." he slurs and she thinks maybe she's not the only who fell back asleep.

Just watching him makes her smile and she presses a kiss on his cheek before she can think twice about it only to make a face. "You need to shave." It's such a recurring argument he simply rolls his eyes, a smirk tugging at his lips. Her blue eyes linger on them and then she pushes herself up, intending to get out of bed. His arms immediately tighten around her waist, holding her back. She frowns. "I really want a shower, Haymitch." She wrinkles her nose at her own smell. "I need it badly."

"What happens after?" he asks, tensed and a little dreadful.

She wants to play dumb but he knows her too well and she owes him better than that. She licks her lips and entwines their fingers together. "We… try? Properly, this time. It can't be just… It can't be just about sex or…"

"Will you stop with that?" he snaps. "If I just wanted sex I would find someone else. Really, sweetheart, you're too much of a pain in the ass to bother if all I wanted to do was get laid."

"I know." she admits. "I just… I need to build the trust back. I need… I need to be certain you won't leave me again. I need to be certain you do love me."

He sighs and flops on his back, releasing his hold on her waist. "I'm back to picking up flowers, right? You know people laugh at me? Caesar didn't help. Thanks for that, by the way."

"You don't have to give me flowers." she grants, smiling a little at the unhappy pout on his lips. "We will just… We will take it slowly if that's alright with you. We can… We can do some things together, have dinners and watch TV and do things other couples do? I am not deluding myself in thinking we will ever be normal but… We can't be like we were. We were destroying each other, Haymitch, it was… It was too much."

She waits for him to argue but he just brushes her hair away from her face. "Can we sleep together?"

She looks down at their entwined hands, her heart racing in her chest. Does she want to sleep with him? Yes. A thousand times yes. But she's not sure she is ready yet. Her body is different, scarred and injured in some places, less pliant, less attractive…

"I mean sleep, sweetheart." he clarifies, his free hand briefly coiling around her nape.

"Oh." She blushes, embarrassed that her mind went straight to the gutter. "I suppose so. Sometimes."

"Okay, then." he shrugs. "We try."

He doesn't say what they are both thinking : it better works this time because a relationship can only linger in limbo for so long. They're running out of time.

She escapes to his bathroom and the shower, shuddering at the state she finds it in. She spends fifteen minutes cleaning before she finally takes her shower and the hot spray of water is so good she lingers longer than she meant. He's gone when she steps back in the bedroom, clad in a white towel. She rummages in the drawers until she finds a flannel shirt, it falls to her mid-thighs and she leaves the first two buttons open, rolling up the sleeves to her elbows, before borrowing brown woolen socks and sauntering down to the kitchen.

She doesn't expect the children to be here, sitting at the table with Haymitch. Everyone freezes except Haymitch who goes on drinking from his steaming cup of coffee.

"This is very much not what it looks like." she squeaks, embarrassed beyond words.

"This is very much not our business." Katniss replies with an absolutely disgusted face.

"Don't get your panties into a twist, Princess…" Haymitch drawls before wriggling his eyebrows. "If you're even wearing any…" Both of the children make agonizing sounds. "I told them you got back late and your house was freezing so you crashed in my guestroom."

It is not surprising the children don't believe a word of this.

"You should have come to our house, Effie." Peeta has the nerves to tease.

"I didn't want to wake you and Haymitch is the only person I know who never locks his door." she retorts.

"So you're good with seeing his face again?" Katniss confronts, always so blunt.

"Why, dear, I don't know what you mean." she hums and they all leave it at that.

It turns out frozen water in the pipes isn't the problem, Peeta simply turned the water off when she left exactly to prevent such a thing.

As for the fireplace, Haymitch always manages to light it up even when she fails and is never short of taunts to tease her about it.

A new routine falls into place, a routine she loves dearly. She works at the shop with Selina, they decide to expend the shop and rent a nearby building as a workshop, they hire several seamstress and before she understands what happened, Effie is at the head of a factory.

She does prêt-à-porter and not haute-couture but she thinks she likes it better this way. Fashion, she tells Haymitch and the children very seriously over dinner, should be accessible to everybody for an affordable price. The more hers and Selina's business develop, the more popular they are in the District: the factory brings more job opportunities and they're well liked because they're generous and nice with their staff. She doesn't know if people forget she used to be an escort but in any case they learn to put it aside.

She's careful about not letting her job rule her life again. She tries to keep regular hours and she doesn't let success run to her head when the press gets interested once more after they start exporting to Six and Seven.

By summer, the Effie Trinket brand is available in all Districts and it's a tremendous hit. Caesar asks her about another interview but she shoots him down. She's happy in Twelve.

She and Haymitch take it slow, so slow it could be called a snail pace – which is a little ironical because they spend most of their time together. Sometimes he surprises her with lunch at work, always grumbling about it as if it's a huge inconvenience because he's a little too aware her seamstresses and Selina think he is adorable – and he does not like being called adorable. With springs, wild flowers start making their apparition in vases around her house again. She smiles and thanks him with a kiss on the cheek every time he brings her back some. She makes him the promised complete wardrobe and he complains a little about some of the pieces but she knows he likes everything and that's the main point.

They generally spend their evenings together. He does his puzzles or read a book while she sketches new clothes or watches a movie. They usually end up curled up on the couch. They fight but that's expected, they bicker and banter and make the children uncomfortable with their innuendos and they laugh about it afterwards. Sometimes – most times – they go to sleep in the same bed. They have yet to do more than cuddle or kiss on the cheek but they're not in a hurry, they're taking their time rediscovering each other, learning to be together in other ways than just the physical aspect of things.

He drinks less.

She smiles more.

The day she and Selina finalize the deal with Nine – the last District they didn't yet have a foot in – he takes her out to Sae's restaurant to celebrate. He doesn't say if it's a date and she doesn't ask. She puts on the pink dress she has created out of the silk he gifted her with a year earlier, she does her hair and carefully applies her make-up and decides she will kiss him tonight. She will let him do everything else he wants to do too. She has been back in Twelve for three months and she isn't scared anymore.

She found her place.

He picks her up at her door and he's so awkward in the suit she has made for him – no tie but a waistcoat – for special occasions that she can't help but giggle before they're even at the end of the street. The children often insist they're completely ridiculous. She tends to agree.

Sae insists on putting a candle on their table when they arrive and Effie laughs again at his horrified face. He scratches his stubble – the beard had to go and she made a stand on that front early on – and mumbles something about how she can have her candles if she wants them, even if they're too old for dinner at candlelight.

"No one is ever too old for romance, Haymitch." she grins.

She orders red wine as a compromise even if she prefers white.

He's all charm that night. Smirks and gibes that she matches with her own. Their flirting is a familiar dance she's only too happy to revisit. At some point, over the chocolate cake they share for dessert, she starts playing with his fingers over the table and, after a few seconds, he turns his palm and entwines them.

All she can think is that they are holding hands on the table for everyone to see.

They have never done that before.

When she looks around though, she quickly concludes no one is paying attention for the good reason that no one cares. They're not the mentor and the escort anymore. Here they are only Effie and Haymitch, the owner of the factory and the guy who sometimes sells geese eggs when he doesn't forget. People know them not the public personas they used to pull, and it's better, it's perfect. Nobody cares what they do. Holding hands won't get them killed.

Haymitch doesn't look around once.

He stares at her.

He stares at her with this dark spark in his eyes that speak of lust and desire and that lights a familiar answering fire in her belly.

He doesn't let go of her hand when they leave the restaurant. They take the long way around, and stroll along the meadow. Three years after the war, the grass is green and there are a lot of wild flowers, there is no trace of the mass graves underneath.

Life has a way of always prevailing.

She used to be one of the mass graves, she thinks, and now she is like the meadow.

She squeezes Haymitch's hand. "I love you." She hasn't said it since the day she left the Capitol for the second – and hopefully last – time. They have never discussed it. "And you love me."

She says it firmly, without the slightest trace of hesitation. He won't ever utter the words, she knows – the words belong to his past, to his family and his girl, it's the last thing he told them and she can understand why he physically can't say them again because she's still terrified of the dark, she's still terrified of a lot of things that would seem harmless to anyone else – but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel them, that doesn't mean she can't utter them for him.

He stops walking without warnings and it's their linked fingers that hold her back. She lifts an inquisitive eyebrow but he doesn't answer that, he brushes the back of his free hand against her cheek before turning it to cup her face.

"Finally caught up, haven't you?" he taunts, with some fondness. "No wonder you're the brains in this relationship…"

She laughs despite herself and whacks his chest. "Awful. Your manners are helpless." She leans into his palm all the same, pressing her lips against the inside of his wrist. "You don't make a lady wait, Haymitch, it's rude." she whispers, looking at him from under her eyelashes.

"Ah." he snorts. "Can't have that."

He leans in and she closes her eyes when their lips brush together. On several levels, it feels like a first kiss, on others, it's like they never stopped doing this. It's innocent enough at first but it picks up quickly, just like she always knew it would. Soon, his fingers are tangled in her hair and the kiss turns hungry, impatient.

She breaks it out of sheer will.

"Let's go home." she murmurs against his mouth. "Take me to bed."

The words make him quiver in anticipation and she doesn't think they've ever made it so quickly from the meadow to the Village. They're kissing again way before they crash against her front door and she hopes none of their neighbors saw that.

They stumble and trip throughout the house to her bedroom and that's an even more familiar dance, something she craves and dreads all at once. When she's not clad in pretty pink silk anymore and her damaged body is exposed to his gaze, she flinches, waiting for a judgment that she knows, rationally, he won't give if only because he is not the sort of men who cares about scars and loss of weight – but he is a man still and attraction is everything and she doesn't think she could bear it if he doesn't desire her like he used to anymore.

She worries over nothing, of course.

He kisses and licks and cherishes every of her scars, down to the tiniest one on her ankle. She's in tears halfway through but he kisses those away too. He doesn't suggest they stop but she doesn't want to anyway, her only request is that they go slow because it has been three years now and months of torture in between.

She realizes when he gently nudges her legs open that, maybe, a part of her has also been scared of this. Not just the whole problem of Haymitch, but the act itself. Maybe she has been scared it wouldn't be good anymore, not with her body patched together like a broken doll. She trusts Haymitch now, trusts him completely, but she's still apprehensive and he has to tell her twice to relax. When it doesn't work, he simply slides down the bed and distracts her with burning kisses on her inner thighs.

Again, she's wrong to be scared.

It's good, more than good, and by the time he manages to make her wriggle and scream with his mouth, she's completely relaxed and ready for him. More than that, she's eager.

Later, when she collapses on his chest, too exhausted to move despite their sweaty skins and the fact that she's probably crushing him, she presses a kiss against his heart.

"Promise me something." she requests.

"I'm not good at promises." he reminds her, tangling his fingers in her hair.

"Promise me anyway." she insists, propping her chin on his chest. "Promise me and then I will do the same."

He lifts his eyebrows and chuckles. She feels their low rumble under her breasts where it echoes in his chest. "You want to exchange oaths, sweetheart? Where are the rings?"

She rolls her eyes and doesn't comment because in her opinion, they are past rings and oaths and bread toasted in the fireplace.

"We should promise to each other to always fight for the other and to never let our time run out." she declares. "Never. No matter what happens, no matter the situation… We will never give up on each other, we will never leave the other behind."

"In sickness and in health? Rich or poor? Now and until death do us apart?" he teases with a smirk.

"I am serious, Haymitch." she hisses, scratching his side with her nails in a way that is less playful than demanding.

"Me too." he replies.

And he is.

It's on his face, in his voice, in the way he gently brushes the hair away from her face.

"Alright." she breathes out. She doesn't know where the lump in her throat comes from but it's here and it's not going away. "I promise. Do you?"

"I promise." he repeats.

There is a moment of silence that is less solemn than slightly shocked.

"You should kiss the bride." she prompts after a few seconds.

"You're no bride." he scoffs but pulls her up all the same to kiss her before rolling them over so he's the one on top. She squeals, surprised by the move but soon starts laughing only for it to be muffled by his lips again.

"I'm so happy I could burst." she whispers.

"Good." he says, dropping a soft kiss on her chin. "Stay that way."

"As long as you stay with me." she grins. "We are never separating again."

That's an oath they keep to their last breath.

THE END

And Merry Christmas!

Thank you for reading!