Effie stares out at the nearly naked trees from the sofa in the living room, thinking about the man clattering about towards the back of the house. She remembers the first time they met. It was a day before her first reaping and she thought it would be best if she introduced herself to him beforehand. She arrived at his door, fidgeting in her flamboyant dress, wondering if the rumours and stories about him were true. After he opened the door, the pungent smell of alcohol and vomit hitting her like a brick, and called her something that sounded very much like 'Capitol whore' and then proceeded to throw up at her feet, she decided they were true.
She remembers the first time she thought he was going to die. She found him sprawled out on the floor of the penthouse surrounded by empty bottles with a small pool of vomit near him. After he didn't respond to her yelling or her shaking, in a fit of panic she dragged him to the shower and rained ice cold water down on him. It was only after a few minutes under the freezing cold spray that he spluttered awake, shouting about how she was going to make him catch pneumonia. He was extra snappy at her for days after that, but she would gladly take a grumbly, noisy Haymitch to no Haymitch at all.
She remembers the first time she heard him truly laugh. It was at a party during the Games and she was chatting up a rather wealthy looking man at the bar, hoping to get some support for their tributes, when she heard him. She immediately turned towards the sound, surprised when she saw Haymitch practically shaking with laughter with Chaff. It made the corners of her lips turn up and made the conversation with the man slightly more bearable but she wondered why she couldn't make him laugh like that. Then she wondered why she even cared.
She remembers the first time she came back from a private sponsor meeting with smudged makeup and bruises down her neck. The moment he laid eyes on her, he flew into a rage, sweeping his arm across the dining table, smashing the plates and glasses, yelling obscenities and cursing everything. He shouted all sorts of profanities at her before gripping her arms tightly and making her promise to never go for private meetings again. It shocked her how bothered he was by it.
A shiver brings Effie out of her thoughts and she realises how cold the room feels. Curled up and comfortable on the sofa, she's unwilling to walk all the way up to her room to get something warm. With a sigh she resigns herself to the chill before her eyes fall on Haymitch's sweater discarded on the cushions at the other end of the sofa. Without really thinking, she reaches for it and pulls it on, relishing the softness and warmth of the material as she inhales his scent and stretches her legs out across the sofa, allowing her thoughts to drift.
Haymitch stares absentmindedly at his geese, his thoughts on the woman sitting in his living room. He remembers the first time he saw her cry. He was stumbling through the train in the dead of night in search of more alcohol and he found her sobbing in the dining area. She was so wrapped up in her pain that she didn't even notice him enter the room. He didn't know what to do, so he just slipped away before she realised. He never found out why she was crying that night.
He remembers the first time she held his hand. They were standing around in the viewing room and one of their tributes was in an intense situation. Her blue eyes were wide and focused on the screens in front of them and she was practically biting the horrible lilac lipstick off her bottom lip. When a mutt jumped out from nowhere she gasped in surprised and her hand shot out instinctively for his. Their fingers were intertwined and she was gripping his hand so tightly he wasn't sure if he would be able to wrestle it back, but when he saw tears fill her eyes he squeezed her hand just as hard.
He remembers the first time he saw her drunk. Both their tributes were dead and Effie's Escort friends, if you could really call them that, were giving her a difficult time. He walked into the living room of the penthouse and she was sitting right in front of the window overlooking The Capitol and there was a very empty bottle of wine next to her. When he approached her she started yelling and crying and swatting the air around her, as if trying to keep him away. Then she scrambled to the bathroom and emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet while he rubbed circles into her back. He wondered what she would think of the role reversal but what he really wanted to know was how her makeup managed to stay perfect through the whole ordeal.
He remembers the first time he saw her kiss someone. She told him exactly what she was planning to do, saying how there were rumours that Seneca Crane would be the next Head Gamemaker, before going of to flirt with the man. For a brief moment, he marvelled at the fact that it took him that long to see her kiss anyone, given the years they worked together, before anger overtook him. He wanted to look away but he couldn't. He couldn't. It wasn't quite a peck on the lips but it wasn't quite a chaste kiss either but all he could think of was how much he wanted to beat Crane until he was unrecognisable.
The angry squawking of his geese brings him back to the present and he realises he's just standing in the cold with just a thin shirt on with a bag of stale bread crumbs in his hand. He tosses a few handfuls into the pen before making his way up the back steps, wondering where his sweater disappeared to. He chucks the bag onto the kitchen counter before making his way to the living room. He's just about to call out for Effie but her name dies on his lips when he sees her curled up on the sofa, sleeping soundly, in his sweater. That makes him happier than he thinks it should.
