Author's note: Well, here's a chapter. Enjoy it. Because it'll be a while before I can update again. Tomorrow marks the start of a vacation and my lovely best friend is coming and I will probs not be able to write while she's here - and since this is the only fic I write as I go there probably won't be updates until the week after next week :)

It took a few drinks before her parting sentence sunk in. He drank the rest of the night to forget it, but a clear thought always cut through the haze of even experimental, expensive Capitol liquor, which made even him wary of the safety (though his own safety wasn't exactly his concern right now). The thought of her sitting there, long fingers opening the paper crane he'd made for her made him somehow uneasy. He tried to imagine what she was thinking as her eyes glanced over the three little words hidden inside it, tried to imagine what her face looked like. For some reason he thought she would have been surprised. Surprised to read the words where he admitted to feelings. He recalled saying the three words to her in irony a long time ago, but they'd changed meaning since then. She had often enough told him how she cared for him (never with the three words written in the crane, though), but he was bad at it. Admitting to loving her would mean he would have to detach himself from his past, which he was admittedly already trying to drink away, but he had some bond with it. He wouldn't forget it, no, but he would … accept it. Move on. He would love something that came from the same place as the pain and suffering he had been through. The Capitol. Effie wasn't the most extreme citizen he'd ever met, but she certainly had some fucked up priorities because she never had to suffer for a single day of her life – until she met him. He looked up at the stars, shining over him. These were the same stars that shone over district 12, but they looked less clear, less soothing through the smog of the polluted big city. He wondered where she was now. He feared someone had heard them talk, that she was already in the hands of the president's guards. Subconsciously he pinched his arm through the shirt to scare away the thoughts of her lying helpless on her back somewhere, being forced to… No.

It wasn't that he didn't know it would be that way for her if he decided to go to thirteen alone. It was just… He had – contrary to popular belief – always really wanted to see the goodness of other people. And Effie was one of theirs no matter how he twisted and turned it. She might only be half Capitol, might be in a bad light with the president, but the people… They wouldn't let them just torture her. But they already have. She's been abused and beaten several times, just because of you, nothing is sacred here. Women, children, nothing, his thoughts screamed to him. His hands clenched around the steel edge of the bench where he was sitting, but he let go as he realized this was what they wanted. They wanted him to break down and blow off everything for her, because they knew, maybe before he even knew himself, that he loved her and that he wouldn't be able to just … leave. He could. Just as he could win the Hunger Games. Just as he could allow them to drag him here on a train each year. But he would never forgive himself, just as he could never forgive himself for what he had done in the past.

"Would she get imprisoned? Effie," Haymitch simply asked into the cell phone. Plutarch's voice on the other end sounded nervous. Sure they were tracing this call.

"Mr Abernathy, I don't think you're quite sober,"

"Answer the question Heavensbee," Haymitch ordered and decided to lay down for a bit on this bench. He had no idea where he was, but a taxi could take him home.

"Yes," he heard the game maker say.

"Why not you then?" Haymitch insisted.

"I'm not like her, I've never …" Killed children. Never been the face of everything a district feared. Never had the voice of the Reaper. Never been to the districts.

"Ok," Haymitch said while his thoughts were slowly murdering his sanity. He threw the cell to the ground and watched it break into a few pieces. So Effie was in it for interrogations, probably torture and imprisonment both in thirteen and here. What little flicker of hope he'd had, left him.

When it came down to it, the decision wasn't his to take and he felt guilt at the fact that he'd allowed himself to be relieved by it, if only just a little. Maybe it was because he'd imagined it much more dramatic. But Effie was a lady and when they came for her, she followed without putting up a fight. She'd been gone a few days now and he felt more empty than he knew was possible. Like not only had the loneliness carved out his insides, but also something more – his very soul. Her father had died. Yesterday. By the unknown beast. That too had been undramatic, Haymitch never even saw the body being lifted onto the hovercraft. He spent most of his time drinking away the tears, slumped on the couch waiting for the final day to come. Of course he wasn't happy. There was nothing at all to be happy about, but he had accepted it. Effie had accepted it. She hadn't talked to him at all, but when they followed her out she had sent him a look, that made his entire body freeze and made him want to crawl into the tiniest hole in the universe to die. Now all that was left was Portia, who didn't even try to hide her hatred anymore. He'd cost her her lover; Cinna, and her close friend; Effie. Wasn't like she hadn't got reason to hate him.

The whole thing was so unreal to him. He never thought he would be one to just clock out on everything, but somehow he couldn't handle his surroundings even when they changed from the high paced Capitol to the strict order of District 13. He had his orders though and he completed them, somewhat happy about the military discipline he was forced into. Didn't leave much room for thoughts. Everything else than the tasks at hand appeared as nothing but lucid memories. Sometimes, something would rip through them though, like a scissor through a delicate chiffon fabric. A touch, a smile, a scent. Slowly everything around him began screaming with her voice and there was nothing he could do. He seemed to have lost the ability to react properly to it, the ability to move on or at least just… reconcile with the fact that she was gone. Every time he tried dealing with it, reading her file (though it didn't say much) or looking at the old tapes from the games, his brain just stopped. He could see and feel what he was supposed to feel (fear, anger, hatred, guilt), but it never went away, it never stopped again. He could fold a thousand paper cranes to distract himself (something 13 frowned upon, wasting paper on such a thing), but it never covered up the shake of his hand, which he couldn't solely dedicate to the fact that there was no alcohol – save for medical – in district 13. He missed her. He felt guilty. More guilty than he had ever felt before in his entire life, for it was truly his fault that they were apart now. She would have been safe had he never made that advance on her all those years ago. Daring her to do it. Steadily falling more and more in love with the woman until he could suddenly realize that it was not the same without her. Sometimes he was scared he'd forget what she looked like even though her face had been often enough on TV, humiliated without her wig, make-up or even decent clothing. Saying things that not even the Capitol itself would believe she meant. Crying about how it was her fault. Screaming his name straight into the camera (he usually had to turn away during these parts, while he felt some unfamiliar hand pat him on the back with sympathy he didn't deserve). She never got a chance to say what exactly it was that she felt so guilty about. She wasn't on as frequent as Peeta. She wasn't a star-crossed lover from twelve, but she was someone who could be recognized by the giant poster behind her marking her as a traitor. Caesar spoke softly to her, asked her if she was alright and Haymitch had seen her blink away fresh tears from bruised eyes as she was forced to say the Capitol treated her nicely through cut lips. Her fault? No, this wasn't her fault. No matter what she thought was her fault, her forgiveness would be instantly granted by the things they'd done to her. By the things they still did to her.

"Haymitch," Plutarch's voice dragged him from his thoughts. He blinked a few times looking up into the tired face of the game maker.

"We need you," he continued and motioned for Haymitch to follow him. Haymitch felt his body ache when he got up, but he tried not letting it show. Without the alcohol to dull his pain, he experienced the full force of the life he had been leading up until now.

"What for?" he asked and ran a hand through his hair to disguise the sigh he had to let escape from his lips, though he looked forward to an assignment, something to occupy the otherwise empty space in his mind. Leaving less places for the sorrow to grow and drive him mad.

"It was successful," Plutarch only said "But the boy has gone mad,"

"How many did you get?"

"It was far too easy, they wanted us to have these people, Haymitch," Plutarch said as they walked together towards the busy area of the hospital. There were people everywhere but as usual in district thirteen nobody raised their voice unless it was absolutely needed so an eerie normality had embraced the place. Their actions didn't fit with the volume of the words they were speaking so it seemed as if somebody had just… turned them down. That was until several screams penetrated the tense air and everybody looked at the slabs coming in. The nurses and doctors quickly began categorizing them into groups after the severity of their injuries. Not many were at the point of dying, but he didn't get a chance to see the few who were.

"But the boy is here?" Haymitch asked and nodded towards the people being taken to isolated hospital rooms. The room was spinning for him and he couldn't recognize a single face.

"Peeta Mellark is amongst the ones already identified, I was hoping for your assistance in identifying the rest,"

"Are they all district people?" Haymitch asked and moved towards the people who were sitting in chairs or just lying resting in beds waiting for healers, though they were far from first priority.

"No. No, most of them are probably from the Capitol itself, but it's only people from the cellars," Plutarch replied.

"Alright, whatever," Haymitch said and sighed as he took a clipboard and a pen from the nearest nurse who just looked surprised at him and muttered a few words under her breath. Most of the people he saw frequently in district 13 knew not to cross his ways and apparently rumour had it that he could become violent.

"What's your name then?" he asked the nearest person and behind him he heard Plutarch sigh with relief. He'd probably never counted on Haymitch helping.

"Wes Julliard, sir," the man replied to him and as Haymitch dotted the name down on the back of the paper the nurse had been using he could hear nothing but Effie calling his own name at the reaping with that blank voice. It crept up on him, but overwhelmed him and he had to shake his head to make the thoughts clearer as he moved to the next person and so on. He knew some of the names already or had heard them before. Politicians mainly, unimportant people who had probably ended up in the cellars because they said something unwisely. Haymitch tried not to think about how many of them would be going to prison when this war was over.

"Sally Frumphtyan," He wrote down the name, not really caring about the spelling. The ladies in logistics would be looking up most of the names anyway to classify what sort of punishment or containment these 'salvaged' Capitol citizens would get. Somehow it was sick to him. They'd been victims of the rebellion as well, just… Higher class victims. His thoughts re-entered the memory of Effie getting up, straightening her pencil skirt and going with the guards who had not hesitated to just knock down the door to collect her, going with them silently in a fashion which was probably more offensive to the president than if she'd scratched their eyes out. No, at that point she was holding on to tiny shreds of dignity and showing them how a proper human reacted was worth more than anything he could accomplish in this miserable war. High class. Jotting down names of the survivors that were able to talk was easy, but when Plutarch led him on to the victims that were already declared dead the conveniences stopped. Haymitch didn't exactly welcome the idea of having to touch dead bodies, but there wasn't much else he could do – and he had already started this task, so why not see it to the end?

"Seen anyone you know Heavensbee?" Haymitch asked to break the sudden silence.

"I know a lot of those people, Haymitch, a lot of them don't like me," Plutarch admitted.

"Why not? I thought you were some sort of national hero?"

"These people have not been in that cellar for fun," Plutarch reminded him "Some Capitol people didn't exactly enjoy the Games,"

"Hard to imagine,"

"Oh, but you've only ever seen the glamorous side of it, Haymitch," he said and opened a wallet from the pants pocket of a male with slick green hair.

"Glamour," Haymitch laughed a bit, but stopped quickly as he found it too odd to laugh amongst dead people. He looked at a nametag on a coat of a young woman. The last name reminded him of something.

"Isn't Gillianis that vodka everybody's drinking in the Capitol?" he asked. Plutarch looked up and stared at the woman like he'd never seen a human being before.

"Oh God, not you …" he whispered softly and walked over to her. She'd died from a bullet wound just below her collarbone. How she'd even made it to the hovercraft was a mystery.

"Mr Gillianis is one of the rebels in the Capitol, without him we would have never been able to be here today," Plutarch explained, "This is his daughter Melody,"

Haymitch took a step back. This war, claiming these types of people, just… Casually connected to persons of interest. Melody had – according to Plutarch – never been part of her father's business, so this woman, not much younger than Effie was just caught. Caught to be used against her father, just like Peeta was caught to use against Katniss. Just like Effie had been used against him.

"Did you know her?" Haymitch asked and wrote the name Melody Gillianis with a prettier handwriting than the rest of what he'd done.

"Yeah… Yeah," Plutarch said and touched the dead girl's cheek. Haymitch kind of felt like he was intruding into a private moment so he didn't say anything when Plutarch tried to discreetly wipe away a tear.

"It hurts a bit when you see something like this," Plutarch said and put a white cloth over the body and her face after stroking the light blue hair for a bit. Haymitch couldn't help thinking about Effie after her break down at the interviews, Plutarch pulling every feeling back and only putting up an attitude of polite sadness, fake sadness, while the real feelings were probably raging within him.

"All right, I guess that's them. We have to go check the severely injured,"

"Why?"

"Because Coin is paranoid someone will infiltrate her organization from within, I don't know Haymitch, can we please just go?" Haymitch dared not even try resisting the man's orders. The pain in his eyes faded slightly as they walked back out the door to the morgue and Haymitch heard him let out a sigh of relief and saw Plutarch physically straightening his back leaving whatever history he had had with Melody behind him.

Nurses and healers were tending frantically to the severely wounded, but it wasn't all mortal damage. Mostly it was just torture, torture wasn't meant to kill people, but this kind of heavy torture could. Many of them had been whipped or shocked. Most of the women (and even some of the men) showed obvious signs of sexual abuse. Some of the victims were sweating like there was no tomorrow – Plutarch told him it was due to the after effects of some fire-pill the Capitol had developed to scorch the insides of torture victims with pain. Many tongues were found to be missing – the transitional face of becoming a lifeless servant of the Capitol, an avox. Some faces were so beaten up they were unrecognizable. Some could tell their own names through gritted teeth. Haymitch tried not to think as he wrote down the names on the list, which was by now pretty extensive. These were mostly victors. He could sometimes guess their districts from their face.

A loud scream attracted his attention and without even thinking he was at the foot of the bed furthest away from the door. He looked down at the bloody mess, where healers and nurses tried uncovering her skin, which seemed to be burning right of her body. But he could see her face in short glimpses when the people around her shifted positions. His brain could process the picture of her mouth opening and the sound of her scream. The clipboard fell to the floor and he felt what he had thought he would never feel again.

Hope.