Prompt : First of all, you're in my top 2 favourite hayffie fanfiction authors! You're fics are beautifully written. I have a prompt...You mentioned Effie staying with her parents during the beginning of the rebellion in 'Run' and she ends up being taken away, so could you write about that and then they come and visit her in the hospital after they find out she survived prison, and maybe throw Haymitch in there? Please. (:

Priorities

Haymitch watched the rays of light slipping through the closed curtains, trying very hard not to let his mind wander too far. The hospital room was completely silent except for the buzzing of machines Effie wasn't hooked to anymore but that were still waiting to be removed. She shifted against him and he winced, certain that if they moved the slightest way, they would roll off the narrow bed.

He tried to close his eyes and take a nap but his body refused to shut down. It was unfortunate, ever since the Capitol had been taken and Snow arrested, sleep was a rare thing to come by even with free bottles of liquor laying around. There were Peeta and Katniss to worry about, Coin who was a real pain and then, of course, there was Effie. Effie, who was still recovering from her time in prison… Effie, who was better physically than mentally and was terrified someone would throw her back in a cell… Effie, who refused to sleep when Haymitch wasn't there to look after her…

The doctors said it was a consequence of her imprisonment. He was the first person she had asked for when she had woken up from her drug induced coma and the only one she trusted in this new world. Capitols had tortured her and rebels wanted her dead along with the other escorts and Gamemakers.

Haymitch wouldn't let that happen, of course. He didn't spend as much of his too rare free time making sure she got at least some hours of sleep to let them execute her.

He would never lose her again, he vowed, petting her blond hair absent-mindedly.

There was some noise in the corridor. Effie curled up further against him but didn't wake up; he kept combing his fingers through the strands in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

The commotion moved from the corridor to right in front of the door and Haymitch frowned, worried that Coin might have sent her lapdogs to retrieve her. He and Plutarch were fighting for Effie but the President was sometimes unpredictable – like all tyrants, his mind supplied.

He extracted himself from Effie's side as slowly and silently as he could, detaching the hand clenching his shirt finger by finger. He wouldn't let them take her. Certainly not. He was out the door in a matter of seconds, a dark scowl on his face.

There was no armed battalion outside, simply a Capitol woman apparently threatening the soldier guarding Effie's room with her purse.

The poor man – who had been chosen especially by Haymitch and Plutarch because he had been one of Bogg's men before he was Coin's – turned desperate eyes in his direction. "I'm sorry, sir, she refuses to leave."

"Leave!" the woman huffed. "I swear I have never been treated this way. Such rudeness."

Haymitch glanced at the apple green wig on her head, adorned with decorative white feathers, the short ruby red dress with puffy sleeves, the belt matching the wig and the five inches heels and winced. He had dealt with enough Capitols to know her kind: rich, older than she looked – he was sure if he cracked a match, the plastic in her body would melt and leave nothing but a stunted thing in ridiculous clothes – and, above all else, a haughty bitch who thought the world should have been waiting for her command.

"Trinket doesn't accept visits." he said.

"She will accept mine." the woman hissed. "I demand to see my daughter at once."

Daughter.

He did a double take and concluded there must have been even more plastic in her face than he first thought.

"She's sleeping." he replied.

"In the middle of the day?" she snapped.

"She's still recovering." he growled defensively. He came when he could, to find Effie more and more exhausted each time. They had tried to sedate her at night but it had only resulted in more panic attacks. Her psychologist had strongly advised against it.

"Wake her up." Mrs. Trinket requested. "I need to see her. Urgent family business."

"Yeah." he snorted. "I'm sure it's so urgent you couldn't have come sooner." Effie had been in that hospital for a week already and no one but him had ever come to see her. There were two options: either he sent the woman away and risked Effie pitching a fit about him making choices for her or he woke Effie up to ask her if she wanted to see her mother. Neither of those solutions satisfied him. "Wait here."

Even after he had shut the door in her face, he could hear her rant about proper manners and ruffians from Twelve but he didn't pay it any mind. In the end he didn't have to wake Effie up because she was already staring at him. The dark bags under her eyes seemed heavier than they had been earlier, he wondered if she had slept at all even with him there.

"Did they come to arrest me?" she whispered.

"They will arrest you over my dead body." he grumbled. "It's your mother. I can send her away."

He didn't know much about her family but he knew enough to know her relationship with her mother was strained.

"My mother?" she frowned, obviously surprised. "She is here to see me?"

"Well, I don't think she's here for me, sweetheart." he mocked gently. "She doesn't look like a fan of mine."

"She hates you." Effie confirmed, nodding wisely. "Let her in, please."

He did and also immediately went to stand at the foot of Effie's bed, ignoring her mother's glaring. The polite thing to do was probably to step out and give them some privacy but Effie didn't request it and he didn't like the idea of leaving her alone with anyone who could upset her.

"Mother." she greeted the woman politely.

He knew he had taken the right decision when she tried to sit up. "Down." He squeezed her foot over the cover lightly. "You will tear the stitches off again." It had happened twice already.

Both he and Effie pretended not to hear Mrs. Trinket's murmurs about dogs giving out orders to their rightful masters.

"That's not very polite, Haymitch." Effie hissed.

"It's your mother. She won't mind." he replied firmly.

If Effie's pointed look was to be believed, it was precisely because it was her mother that she would mind but the woman waved it off.

"Oh, by all means, don't get up, Euphemia." Mrs. Trinket said, bending down enough to peck her daughter's cheek – or rather the air next to her cheek. "You look awful. The state of your hair… Where is your wig? And you need some make-up. I will send you some as soon as I'm back home… What were they thinking leaving you like that?"

"That we were at war probably." Haymitch muttered. It earned him a dark look from both women.

Mrs. Trinket clicked her fingers. "Chair."

It took him several seconds to realize she was talking to him. He lifted his eyebrows and nodded to the corner where the chair was – he never used it, he always sat on the bed. "Over there, sweetheart, try not to break a nail."

"Haymitch!" Effie snapped.

Mrs. Trinket narrowed her eyes but grabbed the chair herself, all the while mumbling under her breath about drunk savages from Twelve. She settled down next to the bed and cleared her throat pointedly. Haymitch didn't take the hint and remained where he was.

"How are you, Mother?" Effie asked. She was using the polite mask of the escort – or trying to, at least, Haymitch could still hear the exhaustion underneath.

"Very, very poorly." Mrs. Trinket clucked her tongue distressingly. Haymitch was almost tempted to take back everything he had ever said about Effie's theatrics. Her mother was worse. "That's what brings me here, actually. Your sister is in dire need of help, Euphemia darling."

Effie's chuckles were more bitter than amused. "And here I thought you might have been concerned about me…"

"Don't be daft, of course I was concerned about you." the woman chided her, patting her hand patronizingly. "But I simply knew you would be alright. You always had a gift for finding useful friends. I knew you would fall back on your feet either way. I told your father as much." She made it sound as if it was a joke, she even let out a short shrill laugh. Haymitch wanted nothing more than to throttle her until she realized how serious the situation was and how far from alright Effie actually was. "Lyssa, now… She's in a bit of a predicament, you see."

Effie's face betrayed nothing but he saw the flicker of worry in her eyes. "Is she alright? Was she hurt in the bombings?"

"No, no! Nothing of that sort." Mrs. Trinket was quick to reassure her. "None of us were in the Capitol when those bombs started pouring. Your father and I took Lyssa and the children to the country house."

"Country house?" Haymitch interrupted. Since when did the Capitol have anything remotely resembling country?

"My parents have an estate on the outskirts of the Capitol." Effie explained. "All rich families do. It's fashionable to spend part of the summer there."

He rolled his eyes and, for once, she didn't remind him that it was rude.

"Yes, yes…" Mrs. Trinket waved her hand. "You should see the town house, Euphemia… Ruined. Completely ruined. We would be quite homeless if we didn't have the estate."

"A tragedy." Haymitch joked, sitting down at the foot of the bed because he was tired of standing. He placed a hand on Effie's leg over the sheet, sensing she would need support before long.

"Quite." the woman sighed, not noticing his sarcasm.

"What happened to Lyssa, then?" Effie insisted, shooting Haymitch a warning glance.

"Oh, the most dreadful thing, darling…" Mrs. Trinket took out a handkerchief from her purse and started dabbing at her eyes even though she didn't appear to be crying. "Rufus was arrested."

Effie didn't seem surprised by the news.

"Rufus is my sister's husband." she summed up for Haymitch's sake. "He also used to work as a Gamemaker before he dabbled in politics. He wasn't very skilled at either but he is very rich so everyone was happy to overlook his flaws."

"Euphemia." Mrs. Trinket shrieked, obviously appalled by such blatant rudeness.

Haymitch couldn't help but smirk. "You don't like him much, do you, Princess?"

"Euphemia was always a tad jealous of her sister, if you must know." the woman snapped. "Lyssa secured a wonderful match and…"

"And I was only District Twelve's escort, the laughing stock of all Panem…" Effie cut her off, pretending not to see how offended her mother was at being interrupted. "Although to be honest, I have never been jealous of my sister's husband. I can't respect a man who grope his wife's sister at every Sundays brunch."

Her mother was so shocked that her mouth shaped a silent outraged "oh!".

"Did you break his hand?" Haymitch teased. He had tried his luck often enough in the past to know that when she didn't want hands to wander, she could be quite dissuasive. He could remember an occasion when she had very simply and very calmly threatened to castrate him.

"I might have stomped on his foot…" Effie grinned. It was light and amused and, for the first time since she had been rescued, he saw the woman he knew and not the shell of who she used to be. "As a matter of fact, you do know him… You threw up on him once at a party."

"I threw up on a lot of stupid men…" he shrugged, rubbing her leg absent-mindedly.

"Oh, you must remember him!" she insisted. "It was the year when…"

"I hate to interrupt such… fond recollections." Mrs. Trinket declared. "But, Euphemia, I do hope you will be able to help us, regardless of your… doubtful affection for Rufus. Act for you sister if nothing else."

"How do you suggest I help, Mother?" Effie asked. "I would be glad to talk to Lyssa, of course, but…"

"No need to play coy with me, darling." the woman scolded her gently. "You have connections. Your… boyfriend is a key member of the rebellion isn't he?"

It took everything Haymitch had not to start laughing. "I'm too old to be anyone's boyfriend. I'm her lover. Sometimes."

"Please, excuse him. Haymitch thinks he has a sense of humor when it is notorious he doesn't." Effie's foot hit him – not so gently – in the back. "But more to the point, I don't have connections, I have friends and there isn't any guarantee of my own survival despite their influence, so…"

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Trinket gasped but there was real worry on her face this time. "You can't mean they intend to arrest you too? We saw the trials on TV. There is no justice there. The people they brought up in front of their court are judged guilty even before they are allowed to defend themselves. That's why we are worried for Rufus."

Effie's blue eyes wandered from Haymitch to the supposedly broken TV in the corner of the room with enough suspicion that he winced. He had, perhaps, ordered the TV to be unplugged so she wouldn't see her friends be sentenced to death. Perhaps.

"I am already under arrest, Mother." Effie replied quietly.

"For now." he grumbled. "They won't do anything to you. I told you I'm working on it."

For the first time, when Mrs. Trinket looked at him there was something else than contempt in her eyes. "You can't let them hurt my little girl. Peacekeepers arrested her very publicly. Everyone saw it, we couldn't show ourselves in society for weeks!"

"I apologize if my being tortured was an inconvenience to your social life." Effie snorted.

He squeezed her leg again, softly.

"Don't be preposterous, Euphemia." the woman was studying her more closely, no doubt trying to see the wounds that the hospital gown was so useful at hiding. Haymitch mapped them all in his head. A large gush on her right shoulder, torn skin on her lower back from when the rebel squad had taken the detainment facility, an ugly looking burn on her thigh and a myriad of smaller scratches on her back that would probably still leave scars. "You were arrested by Peacekeepers, you were the Mockingjay's escort and your sister all but confessed that you had admitted sleeping with him." She nodded to Haymitch. "We were all afraid we would see you being executed on live television like they did to that poor girl. Your friend? The stylist? We even had her for brunch once…"

"Portia." Effie supplied in a pained whisper.

"Yes, her." Mrs. Trinket nodded. "You were part of that rebellion, weren't you? I am not saying I approve but my approval had never stopped you from doing anything. Now, darling, you must see we aren't angry with you at all. We are quite relieved you're alive, rebel or not. There is no need for elaborated schemes."

"Me, a rebel?" Effie smiled but it was small. "It's quite a stretch."

"Not so much, sweetheart." Haymitch objected quietly.

"Maybe." she granted with a tired and inelegant shrug that made her mother cringe. "Nevertheless, there is no grand scheme, Mother. I was never a rebel. All that stands between me and my eventual execution is Haymitch."

"And Plutarch. And Katniss as soon as she will wake up." Haymitch nudged her leg. "Don't be pessimistic. I'm the pessimistic one. Be cheerful."

"You hate it when I am cheerful." she reminded him.

"Yeah, well, now I miss it." he retorted. "You're even more annoying like this."

"And you're not?" she shot back. She would probably have said more if her mother hadn't cleared her throat, reminding them once again that they weren't alone.

"Are you telling me you aren't safe, Euphemia?" the woman asked.

"She is safe." Haymitch swore. "I will make sure she is if it's the last thing I do."

"I see." Mrs. Trinket nodded. Her gaze trailed up and down his body, he had the uncomfortable impression of being seized up. Then there was a bright smile on her lips and it was like someone had popped a bubble, she was back to being the epitome of a proper Capitol woman. "Well, well… I suppose I have imposed on you enough, darling. Do try to see what you can do for Rufus. I will send you some proper outfits. You look too dreadful, it's a shame." She bustled up and pecked the air next to Effie's cheek again. Haymitch thought she would leave it at that but then, just before she turned away, she tucked a strand of blond hair behind Effie's ear. "Bye, bye!"

Haymitch watched the door close behind her with something akin to relief.

"Your mother is a piece of work." he said before checking his watch. "I can stay for another half hour but I have to go see Peeta next. You should try to sleep some more."

"Why did you tell her you were my lover?" She shook her head, clearly thinking him beyond help.

"I'm certainly not your boyfriend." He rolled his eyes. "We're not teenagers."

"You could have said friends." she commented, turning on her good side, almost at the edge of the bed to leave some space for him to lay back down. He did but not without a heavy sigh. She snuggled against him again, leaving next to no space between them.

They were so close, leaning a bit further was almost no effort at all. The kiss started chaste enough but quickly evolved into something more heated.

"Friends don't do that." he mumbled against her lips.

She hummed but didn't discuss the point further.

He didn't offer to see what he could do for her brother in-law and she didn't ask him to. He wasn't quite sure where her mother's priorities were but his were straight.

Effie came first.