So you'll see a few movie lines and book lines in this story. I hope you enjoy. I'm not Suzanna Collins. If I was, it'd have ended differently.
-thamockingjayandpeeta
He slipped into her arms the minute Gale stopped dancing with her. Surprised gray eyes met amused gray ones, identical in every which way. He twirled her around for a few moments before speaking, and after a few minutes she relaxed.
By the end of the song she had let her guard down.
When the music slowed down, she looked like a deer caught in headlights, and Haymitch laughed at her discomfort.
His Katniss.
"Relax, Sweetheart," he told her, and she scowled at him. "Do you honestly still hate me? The boy is fine. Peeta is fine. Panem is fine."
He watched her as she glanced at him, the blond boy with the bread, her blond boy with the bread, as he danced with Annie. When she turned back to him she offered him a small smile.
"You look good sober," said Katniss, admiring him in his cream colored suit, his haircut, though grayer than she remembered. He still wore his beard, which was flecked with gray, but he had a clean edge up.
"And I thought you had a hard time recognizing me that way," Haymitch said with a grin. Katniss laughed. "You look beautiful, Sweetheart." And she did. Dressed in one of Cinna's designs she wore a silk dress that matched the color of her eyes, hugging every curve. "You finally look like the woman the Games always tried to make you out to be."
"And you finally look like the hero the Revolution made you out to be."
Haymitch laughed again. "I'm quite sorry it took me so long to get here."
They twirled together to the music for a little while longer. "You're happy," she said matter-of-factly.
"I am," responded Haymitch with a nod. "How long before you allow yourself to be truly happy?"
"I'm getting there. With his help." Again, she glanced at Peeta.
"It kind of sucks, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"Loving someone you never thought you would or could."
"You don't know the half," muttered Katniss.
Haymitch arched an eyebrow. "Don't I?"
Katniss looked over Haymitch's shoulder and then stared back at her former mentor.
"She's actually why I wanted to dance with you." Now it was Katniss' turn to arch an eyebrow. "I don't know if I ever really thanked you for granting Effie immunity."
Katniss stopped dancing and stared at Haymitch in shock.
Instead of responding she started moving again, and they fell back into the rhythm of the music.
"I guess after all this time I wanted to ask you… why. Why'd you do it?"
Katniss paused for several moments, once again glancing at Effie in her cream colored dress, the wig gone. Who would have guessed Effie Trinkett, former Capitol model and District 12 Escort, was a redhead underneath all the blonde wigs? Beautiful scarlet colored curls hung down her neck, clashing beautifully with her naturally pretty face, her cerulean eyes scintillating, even against the moon's reflection.
"I guess for the same reason we're all here, in 12, dressed like this, at you two's wedding: because I finally saw something more in her. Underneath all the makeup and the extravagant outfits and the damn wigs and the proper talk and the lectures on manners… underneath all the bullshit was another person just like the rest of us: another victim of the Capitol and its Games."
Haymitch nodded, satisfied with that answer.
"Now I get to ask you a question."
"Oh joy."
"When'd you fall for her?"
He thought about it for a minute, several different moments running through his mind: when she told them that they were a team, and gave him the gold bangle during the Quarter Quell; it could have been the countless nights they stayed up half the night watching Katniss and Peeta in the 74th Hunger Games. Maybe it was when she had walked into his house, bold as brass, the day of the Reaping for the Quarter Quell, turned on the music, and told him that she'd rather die than call his name. Or it could have been the first time he saw her without her wig and makeup. There were countless other moments. He couldn't pinpoint them all. What Haymitch did know is that at one point their clever banter and harsh insults no longer had as much heat. "Probably around the same time you fell for Peeta," he finally answered with a grin.
Katniss rolled her eyes. "Touché."
"We have, what, a little less than a year until your wedding?"
"Give or take a few weeks." Katniss rested her head on Haymitch's shoulder. "How did they do this? How'd they make us love them?"
"I have no idea, Sweetheart."
"I can't believe you married Effie today."
"Me either." She stopped dancing and looked him in the eye.
"You'll be good to her, right?"
He had a million snide remarks in response tot that question, but the fierceness in her eyes reminded him how far they had all come. "Yes."
"Good," Katniss said. "Cus Effie deserves good. You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve her."
"And you could do way worse, Sweetheart," responded Haymitch with a smile.
At that moment Effie walked up to them, Peeta next to her.
The partners switched and Haymitch finally found himself dancing with his bride. He never thought he'd marry, particularly her, but this is what you did with people you'd never deserve, even if you did live a hundred lifetimes: you gave them what they wanted to make them happy.
He stared at her as they danced, remembering a similar night like this several years ago. It was his second time at the Victory Dinner, and he'd tried damn hard to drown out every single memory of it after his talk with Plutarch.
In retrospect this might have been the moment he had fallen for her. At the very least he realized there was an attraction there. She looked stunning, even with her stupid wig and her properly prim face.
But red had been her color, and she wore it beautifully that night, in a dress that hugged her in all the right places.
Somehow they ended up dancing together. How he'd never know. It was a little hazy. But when he'd walked up to her, much like he had done with Katniss a few short moments ago, her eyes had shined bright with surprise, and the smile she gave him forced him to blink in surprise.
"I'm surprise you're still standing," she had, but with amusement, not judgment.
"I can say the same thing about you. How the hell do you walk in those things?" He glanced at the gold spikes on her feet.
"I've been walking in heels since I was nine years old, Haymitch. Not that that was that long ago."
He laughed for the first time in… well hell, a long time, and the fact that it was Effie making him laugh blindsided him.
Maybe he was drunker than he thought.
"I have news," Effie said, and the way she hesitated had him staring at her. "I was offered another District."
He stopped dancing and stared at her.
"What?"
"I know. I had that same reaction. President Snow himself called me. I was so flustered I barely even knew what to say." He didn't understand the drop in his stomach. What he did know was that he was already convincing himself that this was for the best. And then she said, "I mean how the bloody hell do you tell the President of Panem no?"
Now he stared at her as if she had three heads. "Come again?"
She frowned for a moment. "Weren't… weren't you listening?"
"For once I actually was, but I must have misheard you. Did you say you turned down your promotion?"
"Well of course I did! We have Victors, Haymitch. And you… you showed me the brilliant man I had seen fighting for his life twenty-five years ago in the Quarter Quell. I've waited twenty years to see this side of you, and I finally have. Did the Capitol honestly think I'd allow myself to be whisked off to another District? Why I'd never."
Who the hell was this woman?
"Now I do hope you'll stay on even though Katniss and Peeta are Mentors now. They're just as young as you were and let's face it… they're gonna need help. I think between the four of us we have a real chance at keeping this new tradition alive."
"So… you're staying?" Haymitch said slowly, and he couldn't for the life of him understand why he was relieved.
"Well of course I am. We're a team." She offered him a splendid smile, and it struck him for the first time how beautiful she was. She probably didn't even need all that damn cake on her face.
And then Plutarch came up to her and asked her to dance, and just like that, she was gone, and he didn't bother to ignore the ache in his heart at the loss of Effie Trinkett. He just drank until it was filled, and by the time he realized it couldn't be filled, he needed several men to help him on the train back to 12.
It hadn't been his best moment, but none of that mattered now.
She wasn't the same Effie, and he wasn't the same Haymitch.
Now he had his bride, and they were still a team, even after all this time.
"What are you smirking at, Haymitch?" she asked him.
"Do you remember the first we ever danced together?" replied Haymitch.
"What, at the Victory Dinner?"
"You do remember."
"Of course I do. How could I forget? That night all my Capitol friends kept talking about how devilishly handsome Haymitch Abernathy was." She rolled her eyes.
"You never told me that."
"Yah, well, by the end of the night you were being carried to the train, weren't you?"
Haymitch laughed. "I've definitely had better moments."
They danced in silence for a few more moments when Effie asked, "What made you think of that night?"
"You were beautiful then, but I like you better now. I like you better without the wigs and all the makeup."
"Well I like you better sober," she responded cheekily.
"I can't believe I've been sober for five years."
"I'm sure it's a lot easier without bringing children to their untimely death every year."
"Don't," he said, a little more roughly than he'd intended. She faltered in her step but he pulled her close to him, her scent of lavender and vanilla filling his nostrils. "Not tonight. I don't want to think about any Games."
"That's unfortunate," said Effie with a small smile. "I certainly had a few games up my sleeve for tonight." He arched an eyebrow and the faint blush that made their way to her cheeks was all the answer he needed.
"Well, those are okay to think about," Haymitch grinned.
"Of course they are," laughed Effie.
After all, there were much worse Games to play.