Author's Note: Next chapter is the last one! The last few chapters were kinda hard to write, because I don't have one idea about how it all ends. But I guess you'll see tomorrow, when I upload :)
K8 G.H. Ducey: I'm sorry you don't like the plot turn, but I also want to thank you for the honest critique, it shouldn't be so taboo to say 'bad' things in here :)
This story may be seen as triggering to people dealing or having dealt with self injury, suicide or depression. Rated M for descriptive violence and very dark themes.
He never had to talk about the abortion with the doctors. She handled it in a gruesome way, which he luckily wasn't there to witness. One day the nurse took off her handcuffs, so she was free to wash herself. It was a new nurse, who didn't seem to have understood that Effie was a 24-hour watch patient, even during washing. It'd taken her a few tries of ramming her lower body into the sink, but she'd started bleeding and unintentionally broken one of her lower ribs. After the miscarriage she'd gone into a coma for a while. Haymitch feared that she would actually die, but she didn't. She woke up after about 4 days, still on the edge of her grave, but alive, which was more than he dared hope for.
"Did I mess up again?" was her first words to him.
"Coin is dead," was her first reply to her. She closed her eyes again and was out for another day. At least she got off easy on the escorting job.
"She has to go back for a while, probably a few months, maybe a year," he was informed by a doctor. 'Back' described the Capitol. They had better doctors and access to better medicine for her.
"She will be safe. She's protected under the Mockingjay Treaty – so are you, if you decide to visit her," some other person informed him.
"Plutarch will make sure she's safe," finally a voice he knew – Beetee. All other people had left the room – well, except for Effie of course. She was awake and listening, for her hand sometimes squeezed his just a tiny bit.
"I'm going back to 12," Haymitch said without even thinking about it.
"I know," Beetee said.
"She'll be alright," Haymitch told himself. It was hard to believe anything, though.
"Geese," she said with a voice so tiny he had to lean in to hear her repeat the word: "Geese,"
"Geese?" he asked and looked at her. It obviously took her a lot of effort to talk, so it had to be important.
"I like geese," she said to him, like it mattered more than anything in the world. Haymitch stroked her cheek and shook his head. She was like a child again. Beetee smiled at her.
"She's strong, she lived through worse than this," Beetee said and patted Haymitch on the back before he left him alone.
"Geese?" he echoed back at her once again and let out a sigh. He couldn't help but picture Effie Trinket with geese – or any other farm animal – helpless and confused as to what she was doing. She'd had a cat once. She'd told him about how she got a kitty from a friend as a present and she hated the little creature so much, but she was too polite to ever get rid of it. Luckily for her it ran away. Nah, the geese was probably just some sort of wonky nightmare.
"The geese in the park cover up my thoughts sometimes when I'm alone," she said dreamily. Haymitch tried asking her some more questions now that she seemed to be so good at talking, but she never replied to anything. The geese in the park. He knew which park. They'd walked there together and sometimes attended banquets there at night during the games. He didn't remember there being precisely geese, but as he thought about it he seemed to remember there being that annoying sound of birds always pecking at each other. They cover up my thoughts when I'm alone. Her face looked angelic in the dim light, white and fair. The thoughts underneath the blonde hair were far more dark than what she seemed to be able to think.
The day she left he cried a lot. He decided to stay to say goodbye to her, even though Katniss and Peeta had gone back to 12 long ago. She was disorientated and confused as to why she was being moved.
"You should go with her," Plutarch said to him, while they watched the nurses put her in a wheelchair. She still hadn't gotten a replacement for her foot, so she couldn't even try walking.
"I can't," Haymitch simply replied. It would be too painful to go back and she needed rest. She needed time to think about everything. Her going back probably meant she would never return, he knew that. The Capitol had always been her home and Effie didn't cope well with change. He doubted she would just leave everything behind and travel to twelve, even though she was officially no longer a part of the Capitol.
"I know that, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't," Plutarch pointed out and lifted the bag containing her few belongings over his shoulder. He was escorting her all the way to the institution she had been admitted to for at least the next 3 months. Haymitch was glad. Effie seemed to like Plutarch. The creaking sound of the wheelchair made him look down at her, barely able to contain his tears, which had been flowing freely most of the day. The nurse behind the wheelchair smiled at him with one of those pleasant hospital smiles, that mean nothing, because it's the same face they put on when they inform people that their loved ones are dead.
"Be safe," Effie's tiny voice said and he crouched down to get her in eye level. A sad time wave came over him. Here she was telling him to be safe and he couldn't even figure out anything soothing to tell her.
"Stay alive," The words came out of his mouth unexpected. It was the same advice he'd given the tributes year after year, but he'd rarely meant them in anything but a mocking way. Now they were filled with such emotion he couldn't even recognize himself. The room grew silent, waiting for either her response or him saying something else. Effie closed her eyes and nodded so lightly, Haymitch doubted anybody but him saw it. She was shaking slightly, her fingers almost vibrating on the armrests of the wheelchair. He kissed her. She cried, but never begged him to go with her, though he could feel she was scared to go back. Mockingjay Treaty or not, she was still a traitor to many from the Capitol after her degradation was announced along with other Capitol rebels. And even when the Capitol was now a free place, where everybody could go if they had the money or the need, the people living there now wouldn't change. I thought everything would change when we won, she'd once said to him, explaining her suicide attempt. Nothing changed. It only hit him now, as he was saying goodbye to her, sending her back to the place where she came from.
"You're going to be alright!" Haymitch assured her and gently caressed her cheek, while blinking madly to keep his own tears from falling too uncontrolled.
Peeta had been sitting there for a long time, trying to get Haymitch to talk. Haymitch wanted to talk to them, but the excitement mixed with a big chunk of fear kept his tongue tied.
"So when is she…?" Katniss asked putting down a bottle of wine, which Haymitch quickly ingested half of. It calmed him down a bit.
"Three days, I talked to her last night," Haymitch could hear the geese honking from their stable across the road. They were all that had kept him together while all contact to Effie was through either Plutarch or her doctor and the occasional rare call from herself, when she was allowed. To cover up my thoughts, while I'm alone, he thought. It worked. Well, alongside a lot of alcohol. When the memories became too much he'd go out in the yard where he kept the horrible birds with a bottle of liquor and drink until all he heard was the honking.
"I'm not even going to ask you if you're mentally ready, but are you physically ready?" Peeta asked and pointed out the window towards his house. He was right. Effie had higher expectations than the usual district 12 people and the fact that she had actually agreed (and was allowed) to live with him here, could make him scrub any floor.
"I'm cleaning tomorrow," Haymitch said and nodded as thanks for the reminder.
"You want us to make you dinner for when she comes? Can she cook?" Peeta said further.
"I doubt Effie Trinket can cook, Peeta," Haymitch with a hollow laugh, "I doubt she ever had a reason to,"
"That's true, I'll make you something, we'd like to meet her as well," Peeta concluded.
"I never believed it was true, Haymitch," Katniss said and let out a sigh, placing a hand on her pregnant belly.
"Me neither, sweetheart," Haymitch said and ran a hand through his hair.
But it was true. And closer than it had ever been.
