original prompt: when Effie gets jealous, Peeta tries to convince her to talk to Haymitch at a celebration for the rebellion.
Coming Home
The band was loud and obviously composed of non-professional musicians but their music was carefree and pleasant in a way no Capitol orchestra could ever hope to be. District 12 was celebrating, of course, it was. The whole country was celebrating the two years anniversary of the rebellion. Effie didn't know why she had come. The previous year she had still been half-mad with nightmares and mostly unable to recognize memory from reality so she had spent the day like she did every other : in her bed, in her tiny flat in the Capitol, waiting for the world to end. It had taken time for the flashbacks to recede, her friends had been very patient with her. Haymitch more than anyone, really. It had taken months to get the permission to take Katniss back to District 12 after Coin's murder, months he had spend almost single-handedly taking care of Katniss, Peeta and her. Effie had tried to help at first, but… it had been difficult for her to focus at the time. He had asked her to come with them when they finally left the Capitol for good but she had declined. She had been too afraid of leaving her home for a place she barely knew. Except the Capitol wasn't home anymore, not really…
Celebrating the rebellion – or freedom as most people called it – held no appeal to her. The very idea, however, had send the Capitol in turmoil. Everyone was planning parties, fireworks, all had to be pompous. She didn't like pomp much anymore, it reminded her of the Games. So she had left. On a whim. She had packed a bag and hopped on a train and half a day later, there she was, in District 12, watching, at the edge of a crowd, young people twirling and laughing in the middle of the newly-built square. The whole District was there, it seemed. She recognized some faces, she even saw Katniss sitting on a barrel, a sad look on her face as she watched the dancing.
She could have joined her and said hello. It was only reasonable. She had gone all this way to see her friends and now, her friends were there, in front of her and she couldn't even muster the strength to go and greet them.
She shouldn't have come.
And yet she couldn't leave.
Haymitch looked different. It hadn't stroked her that much right after the rebellion but now, there, he looked unfamiliar. A stranger. The thought pained her more than she would have liked. He was standing next to one of the big table with the food and drinks and he had a glass in his hand – things, unfortunately, didn't change that much – but he wasn't clutching his liquor like it was a lifeline, he didn't look ready to bolt at the smallest touch – the woman he was laughing with was touching him an awful lot and, for someone who was always claiming he hated human contact, he seemed to like it a bit too much – he looked relaxed. She had never seen him relaxed before. She had seen him drunk, speechless, angry, drugged with painkillers, worried, concerned, caring… Loving, maybe. But never relaxed. It hurt to know he wasn't as relaxed with Effie as he was with her.
The woman had long dark hair curling around her face, bright eyes, lovely hands that kept dancing in the air when she talked… She looked young and innocent. Unbroken. Whole. Her complete opposite.
"I wasn't sure it was you." She smiled at Peeta, absolutely not surprised that, of all of them, he was the one to find her. Peeta was always the most observant. "You changed, Effie."
How long had it been since she last saw him? Them? Months. A year, perhaps. There had been phone calls and lies about how well she was doing in the Capitol and how well they were doing in District 12. Truth was, without them, the Capitol was a lonely place. Truth was, Katniss would never completely heal and Peeta hadn't totally recovered.
"I grew up." She shrugged, uncaring of how improper it was. "I got old."
"Don't be ridiculous." Peeta chuckled, arms open in an invitation. "You're beautiful as always." She really wasn't, but she let him hug her despite the blatant lie. "I like you better like that. What is it you used to say… The pearl in the coal?"
She blushed at how stupid she had been back then. She did change, that much was true and she didn't actually mind Peeta's disbelieving stare. When he had last seen her, before Haymitch had taken the children back to District 12, she had still been trying to scrap the fragments of her old self. She had still been putting on the bright wigs and high heels and colorful dresses… And then, one day, after they had left, she had stepped out of her flat without her wig and without her heavy make-up and the world had not stopped turning. She had walked in the Capitol streets, head high, bared-face, feeling like a brand new person. That's when she understood. Her old self had died in the Capitol cells. She could never go back to who she had been before. She had accepted that. She had sold the wigs and the fashionable dresses and bought more practical clothes.
In the Capitol, people had scorned at the simple sunflower summer-dress she was wearing, they had laughed at the way her hair was falling around her face, they had scoffed at the comfortable shoes. Old Effie would have died of shame. New Effie didn't care. In District 12, nobody had looked at her twice.
"I didn't know you were coming." Peeta said, bending down to pick up the bag resting at her feet. "Are you looking for Haymitch? I can take your bag up to his house, if you want. I was going back to feed the cat, anyway. Katniss forgot, she always does."
"I…" She looked at Haymitch again, the way he smirked when his friend laughed at something he said… "I think I better go back home. Do you think there are still trains leaving today?"
"Home?" Peeta frowned. "You just got here…"
It was a mistake. Coming to District 12 was a huge mistake. What was she thinking? That he was waiting for her? That he had been waiting for her all this time? A few stolen kisses here and there scattered along the years didn't mean anything…
The crowd was too dense, the music too loud… She felt dizzy and stupid.
"I shouldn't have come." She took her bag from Peeta's hands and dashed away from the square, the hem of her dress twirling around her knees with each brisk step she took.
"Effie, wait!" Peeta called after her, hurrying along the narrow street she had chosen. "Effie, stop." He caught her arm and forced her to stay put. "Breathe." She obeyed, unaware she had been holding her breath all this time. Horrified, she felt tears burning her eyes. "What's wrong?" Peeta looked concerned and she hated herself for putting him through that, he had enough on his plate with Katniss and his own troubles as it was. "Do you need to lie down? I can take you home, if you want."
"I don't know where home is anymore." she confessed, compulsively clutching her bag. "I thought… But I was wrong. I should go back."
"Okay." Peeta said, accepting without judging as he always did. "Just let me get Haymitch, alright? If he finds out you were here and I didn't tell him, he will kill me. He misses you, you know?"
"I really doubt that." She lowered her eyes and clenched her jaw, unwilling to break down in the middle of the street. "He has new friends now. He doesn't need me."
"You are very wrong." Peeta sighed. "You call him every Sunday, don't you ? I know because he broods for two days before and he pines for two days afterwards. He drinks in between. He's drinking less nowadays, I will give you that… But… he's better when you call."
She fidgeted a little, ill-at-ease. "I didn't warn him I was coming. It's bad manners."
"He won't care." Peeta snorted in amusement. "When has Haymitch ever cared about those things? Go talk to him. Please. I think you need it as much as he does." He slowly reached for her bag and, for some reason, she let him. "I will take that to the house."
"Peeta…" She stopped. How do you ask that kind of questions without sounding like you are snooping? "There was a woman with him…"
His wince was enough of an answer. "Alix, probably. She's sweet on him." She could feel herself becoming more and more detached from the present. She didn't like the feeling. It reminded her of the weeks spent in bed when she didn't have enough will to get up and try to learn how to live again. "Effie, no. It's not like that. Not for him anyway." Peeta seemed desperate to convince her.
"She looks lovely." She crossed her arms, shivering a little. The light wind played with her dress and with her hair. She should have brought a jacket.
"You look lovelier." Peeta sighed. "I won't lie, he likes her but not like that. Not as much as you."
"I'm broken." She whispered. "He deserves more."
"He deserves you." The boy… Man, now, she supposed, rubbed his eyes. "He fought for you, Effie. They would have put you on trial, he fought for you. When you didn't come back with us… He misses you. I swear it's the honest truth. Go to him."
He left in the direction of the victors village, her bag thrown over his shoulder, without giving her the possibility to reply. Bad manners, she thought, but she wandered back to the square nevertheless. Nothing had changed in the few minutes they had been talking. Katniss was still perched on her barrel, their eyes met and the girl smiled at her, looking both pleasantly surprised and delighted to see her, and nodded to where Haymitch was with a wink.
The woman, Alix, was still there and, as Effie came closer, she couldn't help but notice the stranger really was good-looking. Not as young as she had thought but beautiful in a way that didn't need wigs or make-up to shine. She envied her natural beauty. She would bet nobody ever told her she looked plain without artifices.
She was oddly nervous, she stopped walking before she even reached them. It wasn't a good idea. Peeta must have been wrong. Haymitch was chuckling at whatever the woman was saying, twirling the dark liquid in his glass… She was looking at the glass, yet, she felt the very moment his eyes fell on her. She had always felt it. Since the very first time they met. It was a burning sensation, as if someone had suddenly aimed a spotlight at her, as if she was the only thing left existing in the whole world.
"Effie." The music carried half her name away but she heard enough to know he was smiling. She didn't dare look up, she was staring at the glass. The glass was safe. But the glass was soon carelessly discarded on the table and the hand that held it came closer and closer until it brushed her cheek softly, warily. "Hello, sweetheart."
Who reached for whom first? She couldn't say. All she knew is that, in the spur of a few seconds, she was caught in his embrace and she never wanted to let go. He didn't hold her as if she was fragile or precious, he held her like he had hold his liquor all those years: for dear life. And she held him exactly the same way. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against the side of his neck, breathing in the familiar smell of faint alcohol and Haymitch. She felt something easing inside of her, her constant anxiety washed away by his touch.
"You didn't say you were coming." he mumbled against her shoulder.
"I didn't know I was." she replied, leaning back just enough to see him properly. She retraced his features with the tip of her fingers, taking in the new wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. "And then I was in the train. So, surprise… I guess?" It ended up more like a question than as an exclamation and she stared at him, waiting for him to say something or to let her go maybe. She never wanted him to let her go but she couldn't actually say that out loud, could she?
He was looking at her as if he could tell everything she never said on the phone those last few months. She dropped her fake cheerful smile and leaned her head against his shoulder again.
"Where's your stuff?" His thumb was drawing complicated patterns on her shoulder blade. "I bet you brought a ton of luggage. You never knew how to travel lightly."
"That's perfectly untrue and you know it." Well… It was true, but she wasn't about to admit that. "Peeta took my bag to your house. Or to Katniss' and his, I'm not sure. I don't want to impose on anyone…" But she would bet her bag was waiting for her in Haymitch's hallway.
"You can stay at mine." His embrace tightened a little. "There's no need to ask." There was every need to ask, it was only proper behavior, but Peeta was right. Haymitch never cared much for those things and she didn't either those days. "Let's go somewhere else, somewhere quiet." Haymitch suggested. "I can barely hear you over all that noise."
He stepped away from her and she shivered, feeling very cold all of sudden. She watched as he made his excuse to the woman who nodded in understanding but looked slightly dejected before turning to her again, his trademark smirk on his lips. God, she had missed that smirk…
He grabbed her hand to guide her through the crowd but he didn't let go and she didn't either. They kept walking through the empty streets of the new District 12 in silence until they reached the meadow Katniss had so often mentioned. There were benches here and there, they sat on the closest one, their back to the civilization, their eyes on the woods stretching in the sunset. Night was falling. She wondered if Old Effie would have found that romantic.
"Who was she, then?" she asked, at some point, because Peeta's explanations weren't enough. "Your friend?"
"Just a friend." He sounded a little defensive.
"Won't she mind if I stay at your house?" It was probably mean to press the point. He had a right to do what he wanted and she had no right to question him like that.
"I can't say I care if she does." Haymitch wasn't looking at her. "You didn't come home with me, sweetheart. I asked you and you chose to stay there. You can't blame me if…"
"I don't blame you." she cut in.
"Good. Okay. If you say so." He sighed and slumped a little on the bench.
"I don't." She squeezed his hand. "You like her, though, I can tell. I don't like that you like her."
An odd sort of silence settled in, there was an expecting quality to it, as if it were pregnant with possibilities.
"I like her." he admitted at last. "But I love you."
She closed her eyes, as the words fluttered on her heart, mending what had been broken by the Capitol tortures.
"How are you, Princess?" His voice was soft, as it had been when he visited her in the hospital wing in 13.
She considered lying – It was something she had always been good at, not with him though, never with him – but it seemed too much of an effort. "Bad."
"Hence the absence of wigs and parrot clothes?" She had missed his teasing. It always infuriated her in the long run, but she had missed the teasing. Phone calls weren't the same.
"Those things don't define me anymore." she stated.
"They never did." Haymitch shrugged, releasing her hand to wrap his arm around her shoulders. She was glad for the extra warmth. "You were never like all those stupid cows. Not to me anyway."
"Good." She burrowed a little in his side. "Because I don't plan on wearing them again and I look hideous without them so you're warned. You only get ugly me, not fashionable me."
His other hand found her chin and tilted it up so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes.
"You couldn't be ugly if you tried, Trinket. And God knows you tried." he growled. "I don't know who put such ideas into your head but I wouldn't mind teaching them a thing or two."
"I'm not… I'm not beautiful like your friend. I will never be again like I was before." She caught his wrist to make him let go of her chin but he held on, curling his hand at the back of her neck… "I have scars all over my body."
"Yes, I have them too, remember?" There, was the familiar bitterness. "It means we're survivors, you and I. You shouldn't be ashamed of them. Never."
She bit her lips. He should know what he was getting into. "I'm broken."
"And I'm an alcoholic who raises geese. And Katniss is half-mad with grief and Peeta is schizophrenic most days than not." He shrugged. "There's no changing that now. All we have is each other. We're family now. For better or for worse."
She searched his eyes and she found nothing but acceptance there. None of the false sympathy her friends of the Capitol always insisted on pouring on her.
He didn't even blink when she leaned in, brushing his lips with her own. "I should have come home to you sooner." It was barely a whisper but it was enough for him to deepen the kiss. Something warm coiled in her belly and she clutched at his shirt. His hand brushed against her throat and traveled down, pausing on her waist and then on her thigh.
"Does it mean you're staying, then?" he asked, between two kisses.
"Yes." she hissed when he nibbled at the soft skin behind her jaw. "I'm staying."
He didn't ask if she meant forever and she didn't say she would never leave him again. He didn't need to and she didn't have to. They both knew.