A loud screaming is what jolted Haymitch awake that night. He could tell by the tone that it wasn't his own broken screams from his nightmares that had awoken him, and for the first time in a long time he couldn't hear screams from Peeta's house next door, meaning he had slept at Katniss' that night for the first time since they got home. Haymitch smiled slightly at that thought, they were finally moving along with their lives and finding their way again.

It wasn't until another high pitched, ear splitting scream rang out through the house that Haymitch remembered exactly why he was awake. It took him a few moments to remember that Effie Trinket was sleeping in his guest bedroom. Sighing he climbed out of bed as quickly as his sleep deprived state would let him and made his way across the hall. He thought about knocking before shaking his head, she was clearly still asleep since she was still screaming.

Opening the door he walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, noticing that she was currently trying to scratch at her arms in her sleep, her face filled with fear and her voice becoming raspy from the screaming she was still encountering. After taking a hold of both her shoulders, Haymitch shook her forcefully to try wake her up. "Effie!" he said softly but forcefully in order to get through her mind that it wasn't real. After a few more tries of shaking and shouting, his voice getting steadily louder as she become more unresponsive Effie finally awoke from her nightmare, trembling from head to foot, tear tracks quickly making their way down her cheeks. Though, it seemed, she still didn't understand what was going on.

"P-Please, d-don't hurt me a-again," she sobbed brokenly. Haymitch couldn't help but feel his heart break from the woman he once despised. As much as he hated the Capitol he didn't believe anyone should have nightmares the way he has done for the past 24 years.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Effie," he said softly, pulling her hands away from her arms as she continued in her habit of trying to scratch them. It was then he noticed that he fingernails were only half there, a sight that disturbed him somewhat. He ran the pad of his thumb over her half nail and looked at her in question. She just shook her head and continued in her sobbing, pulling her hands away from him and hiding them under the sheets twisted up around her waist. "It's not real, Effie. Whatever you were dreaming about, it's not real. You're safe here."

"I thought I was safe in the Capitol too," she whispered, almost inaudibly. Haymitch looked at her questioningly wondering what on earth had happened to the poor woman. He then remembered the episode yesterday where she had completely zoned out and curled in on herself.

"Princess, what happened to you?"

Effie just shook her head once again. "I c-can't, Haymitch."

A new round of sobbing broke through as Haymitch sighed and moved further back onto the bed before picking Effie up into his arms and placing her on his lap, his arms wrapping around the broken sobbing mess. He had done this so many times with Katniss he was used to the comforting gesture by now, even running a hand through her soft blonde curls in order to calm her down. Effie, however, was not used to such a gesture and froze in his arms. It wasn't until he starting whispering in her ear that he wasn't going to hurt her did she eventually relax and allow herself to be comforted by a man who once disgusted her. It was amazing how pain had brought the two together.

The two of them sat that way for hours, finding comfort in the other, until the sun rose and the light peeked through the curtains of Effie's window. "Cmon, Princess. Time for breakfast," Haymitch eventually said in his usual rough teasing tones, attempting to bring some normalcy back to the situation they had found themselves in. Effie smiled appreciatively.

"I'll just get dressed..."

"Nope, you'll come downstairs and help me. It would be rather bad manners to let your host cook and clean up all by himself wouldn't it?" Haymitch said with a teasing grin.

"Actually," Effie said with a grin, "it would be rather bad manners of the host to ask such a thing of his guest."

"Good thing I don't care for manners then," he growled before pulling her from the bedroom before she could protest any more. Effie huffed at his manhandling and lack of manners but Haymitch ignored it, as he always hand and gave her a smirk instead, amusement dancing in his steel grey Seam eyes.

Upon entering the kitchen Haymitch immediately put some tea on to boil on the stove whilst instructing Effie to put some grains and goat milk onto the boil too. She did so without complaint as Haymitch then began cutting up various fruits. Once everything was ready and dished up the two sat at the table to eat.

"So are you going to tell me why you came here?" he asked suddenly. Effie looked down at her plate in silence. "You're going to have to talk about it sometime," he added gently.

"I don't know, Haymitch, I don't really have any friends outside of the Capitol and I couldn't stay there anymore..." Her eyes got a far off look in the again causing Haymitch to snap his fingers in front of her face.

"Stay with me, Princess. Why didn't you want to stay in the Capitol?"

Effie stared at Haymitch in a calculating way for a moment. She knew that he was usually drunk because of the games and the horrors in which he wanted to forget about the arena she also knew he had taken a large hand in the rebellion. He was not a stranger to death, destruction or torture. After all, she had heard him late at night in the Capitol when she first became an escort that he had nightmares too. That was when he drank the most, just before bed, in hopes that he wouldn't have nightmares. Sometimes it worked, she thinks. Taking a deep breath Effie looked down at the tables, twisting her hands together in her nervous habit again.

"There were too many... memories there. Bad memories."

"Like what, Sweetheart?" Effie noticed the tone of his voice had changed. The nickname, for the first time since she met him, was not a term of condescension but of endearment and his voice had lost the teasing, gruff tone he had used earlier. He sounded like he actually cared. Once glance at him face showed he was genuinely interested.

"Do you remember, during the Quarter Quell when Peeta and Johanna and the girl from district 4 were taken prisoner?" Haymitch nodded slowly, having a bad feeling about what she was going to tell him. "They took me too, Haymitch. Only your soldiers didn't rescue me..." instantly Haymitch felt the pressure of guilt wrap around his heart as he took in the woman sat in front of him. Suddenly it all made sense. Her crying, the zoning out, the nightmares, the screaming, the stiffness towards him when he tried to comfort her. She had been driven to the brink of insanity, much like Annie Cresta had during her games. "I was there until the end of the war... The doctor said I was lucky to be alive..."

"Effie... I'm so sorry, if I had known... I assumed they would leave you alone since you were a Capitol citizen... you hadn't even done anything wrong." Haymitch couldn't stop the guilt crushing him further, weighing him down. "I should have known since you were so close to us..."

Effie shook her head. "Haymitch, please, don't. It's over and I'm here... I have to be thankful that they didn't take much else from me. I could have been turned into an Avox or they could have cut off limbs. I have to be thankful that they didn't go that far, although usually they would have... I think by the end of it, they knew I didn't have any information, they just enjoyed seeing me in pain..." She took a deep breath before continuing, trying to stop her voice from breaking. "I just can't stay there after what they did to me."

Haymitch nodded understanding now. "It's okay, Effie. You don't have to tell me anything until you're ready." She nodded before standing up and leaving the table, not wanting Haymitch to see her cry for the second time that day.

AN:

So much love on the faves/alerts front but barely any reviews D:

please tell me what you liked/didn't like :)

sorry for any tense confusion, i'm rather bad at sticking to one tense haha - im working on it though, promise :)