A/N: Hello everyone! This is just something short I thought up a few days ago, nothing too major. Just mindless fun and some serious Hayffie cuteness :)

Set post-Mockingjay. Enjoy!

Haymitch hardly slept at all anymore. He would lay on his back, all night, and watch the moonlight making shadows across the ceiling. His arms would be around his girl, his Effie, her face pressed against his bare chest and her arm draped across his abdomen. He always held her there. His fingers would caress her back, tracing the thin remnants of her scars that marred her otherwise smooth, porcelain skin.

When he found her there, though, in the Capitol, in that room, he seriously considered killing someone with his bare hands for the first time in years. Never in his twelve years of knowing her... he had never seen her so fragile. She always had this air of indifference to any complaints about her, she exuded confidence, and she was always so damn bright and bubbly. Her chirpy little voice was gone now, replaced with a voice of a woman who had seen too much, been through too much.

For the first time in those many years of knowing Effie Trinket, his heart ached every time he set his eyes upon her.

He had thought of her as a friend and an ally. Because at the end of the day, even though she was the one who chose these children and brought them to their city of death (and the person that would constantly hide his stash of liquor, but that was neither here nor there), she was more broken up about their deaths than he was. Haymitch couldn't understand why she kept coming back every year. Maybe it was for him.

Now, though, with her blonde hair tickling his bare chest, her beautiful yellowy blonde hair, he felt like he was her protector rather than her lover. Only recently did she allow him to see her without a blouse on, and even that was a chore.

Every night, like clockwork, she would stir. It wasn't quite whimpers of fear, nor ear-splitting screams like they had been beforehand, but it was enough to make his throat constrict and his eyes water and for his only thoughts to be someone please make this stop, please, please, I can't have her be like this anymore, I want her back, please, shhhhh princess.

He knew it was coming soon. It had been nearly four hours since he had forced her to bed, saying that she needed sleep, that she'd feel better in the morning even if her dreams did wake her up. She nodded her head begrudgingly, swiping a little piece of blonde hair behind her ear. He would watch her wash her face, brush her teeth, brush her hair, everything taking twice as long as it shold have because she didn't want to get into bed.

Tonight, however, a noise much more terrifying came out of her mouth. It made Haymitch stiffen, it made the hairs on his arms to stand up, made gooseflesh rise on his skin.

A god awful, open-mouthed, bear-worthy snore had risen from the depths of his Effie. It practically echoed off the walls, it could have rivalled the snarl of a lion for all he could tell. It scared the living daylights out of him.

She rolled over onto her back, away from him, for the first time since he had brought her back to District 12.

Effie Trinket was finally sleeping. And if it took those horrendous snores for him to know she was alright, that she wouldn't be plagued by the memories of anything that happened to her, it was worth it.

Even the complete lack of sleep.

A/N: But seriously, I couldn't help myself...

Thank you so much for reading, and of course, reviews make my day! :)

Bailey xx