Effie Trinket refused to allow herself to be called manipulative. Cunning, certainly, perhaps a little scheming, but not manipulative. It was the fault of everyone else that they hadn't caught on to her plan, not hers for masterminding it.

"It was Katniss and Peeta who decided we should go and I have already agreed to their plans, so I suggest that unless you want to spend Christmas with your geese and nobody else, you will come with us." she had said to Haymitch who had grumbled about how he liked his geese better than all of them anyway but agreed to come along eventually and she had kissed him gleefully and run across the road to 'tell Katniss and Peeta the good news'.

"It was all Haymitch's idea, and I wouldn't ask you two to come because I know you'd rather stay at home but if we all shut him down the one time he decides to leave the District we'll never get him out of it again." Effie sighed dramatically as though the whole thing was such a chore for her, and she was momentarily glad she had been an escort for so many years because the acting practice was certainly coming in handy. Katniss and Peeta agreed far easier than Haymitch had and she had gone home to 'tell Haymitch the good news' feeling very pleased with herself indeed.

"I can't believe I agreed to this." Haymitch said while they ate dinner on the train, shaking his head.

"Wait, agreed to this?" Katniss asked him with a frown. "The whole reason we're coming is because you suggested it and Effie said…" Katniss stopped speaking as realisation dawned on her. "You tricked us!" Effie sighed indignantly and brushed her hair back from her face.

"I did not trick you. I merely mislead you a little until it was too late to turn back."

"Well done, sweetheart." Haymitch sighed in defeat and she beamed. And that was how Effie ensured that her family would be spending Christmas in the Capitol.

Annie and her son met them at the train station with bright smiles – Effie had revealed her plan to her a few days ago and invited them both along and Annie had been so delighted at the prospect of seeing them all again that she hadn't complained at all about Effie 's slightly dubious methods. If only everyone could be as uncomplaining as Annie. Haymitch became visibly much happier when he saw them stood there and Effie grinned proudly to herself because as long as he was happy to see them he wouldn't complain too much about being there.

"It's so good to see you, dear!" Effie greeted her, hugging her fiercely and kissing her on the cheek, not caring that she was going to rumple her seasonally appropriate red dress. "I do hope you've settled in well." Annie had been here a day already and Effie had told her to go to her apartment and make herself at home there.

"We have, your home is so lovely, Effie!" Annie gushed as her son shouted 'Goose!' over her until Haymitch lifted him up and he quietened down.

"I barely remember what it looks like." Effie brushed off. "I've been so busy trying to make Haymitch's hovel of a house halfway bearable around all the geese and dirt that I've forgotten what decent decorating looks like!"

"I'm enjoying us living together too, my darling." Haymitch said, shaking his head at her dramatics.

"Shall we walk back or would you like to take a car?" Effie asked, ignoring her fiancé completely. "I think we should walk, all of you have seen so little of the Capitol and it really is beautiful at Christmas with all the lights and the events. Oh, we shall have to go ice-skating while we're here, it's absolutely magical, you'll all love it!" The entire walk home consisted of her making similar suggestions. Annie and Peeta hung off her every word and seemed absolutely thrilled to be there, she noticed and ignored the looks that Katniss and Haymitch occasionally shot each other which seemed to ask how she had managed to trick them all so expertly without raising any kind of red flags. Effie was slightly amazed that she had managed to pull it off, but she was entirely willing to put it down to her own intelligence and sly, careful planning than admitting it was mostly luck.

"So Effie, how is it being engaged?" Annie asked her. Effie's eyes flitted to the ring she wore very proudly, and then to Haymitch who was walking a little behind them hand in hand with Annie's son which she thought was absolutely adorable, so much so that she almost replied properly and said how much she was enjoying it, but she had picked up his ability never to be able to resist teasing him.

"Well, he still hasn't agreed to get rid of the geese so I can only speak so highly of it."

"And she's still wearing the most obnoxiously coloured dresses ever made, so I can only speak so highly of it too." Haymitch hit back at her and she held his gaze for a moment before they both burst out laughing. Annie looked to Katniss and Peeta questioningly who were sharing the same slightly exasperated look they always did when Haymitch and Effie were trying to irritate each other.

"Are they always like this?" Annie asked them. She hadn't really seen them much like this, Effie had been so busy when she was staying in District 12 and she and Haymitch had been less eager to broadcast their relationship then anyway.

"Yes, it's just their way." Peeta told her with a small sigh as Effie took Haymitch's hand, smiling.

They reached Effie's building and took the elevator up to her penthouse apartment and she realised then she hadn't changed as much as she liked to think because she was already delighting in how impressed Katniss, Peeta, and even Haymitch were by the decadence of her old home, decorated lavishly and expensively in grey, white, and purple predominantly. She showed Katniss and Peeta to the guest room that Annie hadn't taken and showed Haymitch to her room and instructed them all to unpack while she went into her kitchen to make them all some tea.

Effie felt very strange being in her old home. She had missed how pretty it was, that was true, but she already missed her garden and the fresh air of home, the forest that she and Haymitch walked through most days where he would lift her over obstacles because she still insisted on wearing her heels wherever she went and she felt odd, remembering how lonely she had been here sometimes. She had never been lonely the entire time she had lived in District 12, she had never been anything other than happy there. The Capitol was beautiful at Christmas time and she was delighted to be back visiting so she could see some of her old friends and show her family the few good things there were about the Capitol, but being back she realised that she would never want to live here again.

"I unpacked for you." Haymitch announced as he came into the kitchen. "And I put everything in your wardrobe by colour."

"You are learning!" Effie exclaimed delightedly as she took the kettle off the heat and poured the water into the teapot. The second she put it down Haymitch put her arms around her from behind and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm trying to make tea, Haymitch, please let me be a good hostess." She grinned to herself and they both knew she didn't mind at all.

"This could actually be fun." Haymitch admitted. "But I'm not ice-skating"

"Yes you are."