No one had seen me without my wig on before. No one. I never liked to take it off. Not because I was bald or anything, but it was a reminder that I wasn't my father's child. My mother had an affair with a Victor when she was nineteen. The man who raised me never looked at me the way he did my brother, the child he knew was his. He was a brunette, naturally of course. He dyed his hair green. My mother was also a natural brunette. And it was the red headedness of my mother's young love that has given me this strawberry hair.

"Effie?" I hear his gruff voice from behind me.

I turn and gasp, struggling to find the candy floss coloured wig to cover up. I feel naked like this.

"You're... You're ginger?" says Haymitch. He didn't say it like it was a bad thing, nor like it was a good thing. He says it like it was a thing.

I can't help but blush like an embarrassed child, touching my hair self consciously. I am exposed now. Any thought of manners or decorum mean nothing.

"Yes," I mumble, glancing to him.

The Victor smirks slightly, leaning on the door frame. He's scrubbed up well. He's had a shave and combed his hair.

"It suits you," he nods.

Huh? Did he just... complement me?

"Thanks," I mumble, looking around the room awkwardly.

"Seriously though," he says. "Ditch the wig, Eff."

"You're the first one who's seen me without it," I mumble.

"Why don't you like it?"

"Because it reminds me how me father hated me."

He furrows his brow slightly. "Is your father still alive?" I shake my head. "Then by covering up, you're just letting him win."

I bite my bottom lip slightly. His words sort of made sense somewhere in my brain. And that part of my brain reacted by filling me with sadness. I know he sensed I was about to cry, because he appeared beside me and hugged me tight.

"Just because he didn't love you, doesn't mean I don't, sweetheart," he whispers in my ear.