I've had this idea from the movie 'In Time' for quite a while. I think at some point, I even talked to an anon about this on my blog. A draft has been sitting on my Dropbox folder for years until I finally went back to it today and fleshed it out. For those who have not watched 'In Time', it's a movie where time has replaced money as currency. At 25, everyone will have one year left to live and they all each have their own clock ticking down to 0:00, their death. In the movie, an individual is able to transfer time to someone, their loved ones mostly, so they won't "time-out" and die.

For a long time, I found the concept interesting. However, I wanted to write something to make it a soulmate AU. So for this, you have your soulmate's clock instead of your own but you still can transfer time over to your soulmate (or steal it if your soulmate is an ass ahaha).

Also, I saw a post here on tumblr where "the only way for your scars to disappear is if when your soulmate kisses them". So I thought, why not combined the two?


Chapter 1

The clock was imprinted on his arm, slightly above his wrist which was convenient since it could easily be covered with the sleeves of his shirt. He had it for as long as he could remember; a mark that meant he had someone out there whose soul was a kin to his, someone to whom he belonged to.

It had annoyed him greatly, angered him even. "I don't belong to anyone, Mama!"

His mother had merely smiled at him and patted his shoulder, saying, "Don't you want to have someone the way your father has me?"

He had paused and tilted his head, his young mind thinking it through but he thought of the way his father came home with bottles he would hide from his mother, bottles that Haymitch help to keep hidden because his father had asked him to. He thought of the extra money his mother worked hard to earn only for his father to spend and he shook his head.

"Not really," he mumbled and to prove his point, he found himself a girl a few years later.

Maia wasn't his, which was fine, because one could still live and love without a soulmate. He knew because when Maia was whipped at the post and barely breathing, the numbers on his arm remained the same.

"You won't leave me, will you?" She asked weakly, staring at the numbers. "We're not - I'm not your..."

"Never," he promised, young and foolish, and sealed it with a kiss on one of the scars left behind from the whipping. He gritted his teeth when the scar remained red and angry. He wasn't hers either.

To begin with, nobody knew how these things really worked. Some said that the clock would show your soulmates' natural lifespan until something happened that could affect their safety. Some said that time could be transferred, and a soulmates' life could be prolonged when it was in danger of running out.

He thought mankind shouldn't be allowed to play with fate like that until it happened to his parents. His father had left for the mines as usual all those years ago when his father's clock on his mother's body changed to five hours. When he failed to come home that night, Isla Abernathy had locked herself in her room, crying. Haymitch didn't understand why she had given up that easily or why she didn't leave to look for him. He could still be alive, he thought, but she already knew that her husband was dead.

She told him that years later, and she told him that she wished she could have given him some years.

"If someone's going to die, they're going to die still," he had said in a poor attempt to soothe her.

"If I had given him at least an hour, we could have gotten him to a hospital. Maybe there would still be hope."

"Maybe," he had shrugged his shoulders.

He was 31 when he discovered it was Effie Trinket's lifespan ticking away on his arm. It left him reeling with shock and numb with dread. He had spent days afterwards avoiding her and he had spent days in front of the mirror touching the spot on his shoulder where his scar from falling off a tree had been. It wasn't there. His skin was smooth and unmarred just as it had been a day after Effie had kissed it while they were in bed.

It was her. There were no other women that he had slept with after her. It was her thumb that brushed his scar. It was her lips on his shoulder that night. It was her kiss that made the scar disappeared.

It was Effie with fifty-two years on her clock.

They had slept with each other often enough for him to know every the things that made her squirm, the spots that made her moan and he could map every inch of her skin. The familiarity he had with her body used to scare him but there was comfort in it too, a sense of finding of home.

Effie bore a clock of someone's life on her rib cage right below her right breast. He never knew if it was his time, never asked if she knew.

She may be his soul mate, but it didn't mean he was hers.

Haymitch licked her skin, a hand palming her breast as he kissed his way down her stomach to where he knew she wanted to his mouth to be. The grip on his hair tightened as she arched her back at the thrust of his tongue. She came writhing on the bed a few strokes and some long, hard sucking later.

"Haymitch," a throaty breath escaped her lips.

He raised his head, a smirk on his face.

"You okay?" he asked, watching her coming down from her high.

Wordlessly, Effie nodded, still trying to get her breathing under control. He stroked her lazily, first on her inner thigh and then the skin below her breast as he hauled himself up next to her.

His eyes fell on the clock and not for the first time, he wondered who that man with thirty more years to his life.

He didn't realise that his fingers were digging into her skin until she hissed in pain. "Sorry," he mumbled, kissing that spot to soothe the sting.

He had tried to find some scars on her body but her skin was flawless and smooth, and short of him taking a knife to leave a scar behind, he would never find out if he was hers.

He did wonder at times as they lay together if she felt something, anything for him the way being next to her made his soul thrummed in contentment and his mind to calm.

Propping herself on her side, she said out of the blue, "you are different."

Haymitch snorted. "Different how? Tonight wasn't good for you or somethin'?"

"You know it was. We've always been good in bed together. The things we do…" she trailed off to run a finger down his chest. "It's just… I can't place my finger on it but you are distant, Haymitch. Is there something – "

"We've been over this, Effs," he pinched the bridge of his nose.

With a sigh, she laid her head back on the pillow. "What is going to happen at midnight? Why won't you tell me?"

"Again," he let out a breath in annoyance, "we've been over this. Just do what I ask you to do. Don't ask questions. I'll explain everythin' later. Didn't I say that already? I know I'm askin' for a lot of trust here but -"

Effie shook her head. "You misunderstand. I trust you. Of course, I do. I know you won't let anythin' happen to me."

"Yeah," he nodded. "I won't. Just hold it together for a little while. I'll answer everything then."

He never did get to explain himself because when the arena exploded and they landed in District Thirteen, Effie was not there.

Cressida and her team jumped out of the second hovercraft and Haymitch waited for Effie to come forward. He stilled when he realised she was not onboard.

"Where is she?"

"She never made it to the rendezvous point," Cressida informed him. "We waited for five minutes and we had to leave."

He wasted no time in rolling up his sleeves. His heart plummeted.

That morning, Effie Trinket had on her 40 years, 2 months, 7 days and 5 hours. What he saw on his arm was 1 year and 3 hours exactly. She had just lost thirty-nine years of her life.

"We need to send someone back," Haymitch insisted as he caught on to Plutarch, hurrying alongside that man. "They've got Effie. She would have made it to the rendezvous point otherwise. She knew how important it was for her to get there. She's in danger. Are you hearin' me, Plutarch?"

"Peeta and Johanna are in danger too," Plutarch pointed out. "So is Annie if they really want to use her for Finnick. We can't risk it, Haymitch. It needs to be planned out with careful details."

Haymitch watched, helpless, as the numbers kept decreasing. He could do nothing except to check his arm each morning to see her life slipped away from her.

"I can give it to her," he said, running a hand over his face.

"Only to prolong her suffering?" Finnick asked. "Maybe it's better if – "

"No," he snapped. "You go on wishing that Annie die in that prison, Finnick, but I ain't going to think that way. As long as there's still a way to get them out of there, I ain't giving up. I just need… I just need more time. I need her to have more time until we can get them here."

"You don't know how many years you have on you," Finnick countered. "It's a big risk giving her your time without knowing how much you can give. What if your clock runs out?"

"It doesn't matter," Beetee interrupted their argument. "You can't give your time to her. It's physically impossible. To do a transfer, you would need her hand in yours. That's how it works."

"They're doing things to her – torturing her," Haymitch collapsed on the chair, the exhaustion eating him to the bones. "Why would time run out so quickly for her? 44 weeks left and we're not even – "

"That's 11 months, Haymitch. We don't need 44 weeks," Plutarch said. "We can get her out sooner. Be patient."

"It's 44 weeks today, 30 maybe by tomorrow. The fucking clock ain't a constant thing, is it?" Haymitch snarled.

Within the next few days, the clock on Effie's life dropped to ten weeks. With Peeta's deteriorating condition, Katniss' role as the Mockingjay and his own worry for Effie's life, Haymitch's anxiety increased. He bitterly joked with Finnick one day of the direct correlation between Effie's life and his stress level.

Haymitch tried hard not to think of what Effie was going through. He forced himself not to picture the torture she was undoubtedly enduring but it only lasted for so long because when the lights went out and his sober mind had nothing to dull the thoughts, he laid in bed thinking about her, desperately wishing there was a way for him to give some of his years to her. If all he had left was five years, he would give everything to her.

In retrospect, he thought, Katniss' breakdown came at a very appropriate time. The rescue was sanctioned as soon as Beetee's plans were finalised.

12 hours, he checked his arm. She was getting worse. Hold on for 12 hours, sweetheart.

They wheeled her in battered and bruised, and unconscious. Her hand hung limply off the side of the gurney and he stopped the soldier.

9 hours.

"We need to get her to the hospital," the soldier argued.

"I know. Just give me a second."

He touched her arm and gripped it tight.

"Not too many, Haymitch," Beetee advised. "Just enough for them to examined and treat her for now. We need to keep you safe. Give her in hours."

He gave her twenty-four. The numbers on his arm increased.

The soldier's eyes widened as did the nurse standing by.

"We'll keep her alive," the nurse promised. "We'll try our best."

"Thank you," Haymitch nodded and when he turned, he saw Finnick giving Annie the months she had lost in prison. "Are you her soulmate?"

"Yes," Finnick nodded. "She wouldn't take it but I convinced her to."

"How many more years do you have then?"

Finnick gave him a wry smile. "Lesser than it was yesterday."

Haymitch didn't push for answers that the boy didn't want to give him.


Like it? Hate it? :/

This will be a short fic probably 3 chapters at most.