Mild spoilers for the movie but it's very, very small, almost not there at all. I NEEDED to write something for the bombing scene, obviously. I had several asks about that so here it goes :

A Promise To Keep

The crowd rushed in the tiny metal staircases and it was all Effie could do to follow the flow, clutching at the railing. Her eyes kept darting around in panic but it was dark, people were shouting and it was hard not to be overrun. Up and down the stairs, people were falling and either got carried away by relatives or were mercilessly stomped upon until a soldier picked them up.

Effie was careful to keep a hold on the railing, her heart hammering in her chest, tears freely rolling down her cheeks – appearances be damned, she was terrified and had a right to be. Suddenly, the lights flickered and a voice urged the crowd to go faster. She stumbled and would have gone down if a hand hadn't closed around her arm and pulled her back to her feet.

She didn't have time to thank the old man who saved her, he was already gone.

When the water started to fall on them, escaping from fire sprinkles, she thought she would never reach the bottom of those stairs. It was dark and she couldn't see the bunker they were being herded to. It looked like an endless pit that would swallow her whole and never spit her back.

She was drenched in a matter of seconds. The scarf on her head was heavy and the customized clothes on her body far too thin to be of any protection against the freezing sprays of water.

Suddenly, it was too much.

She just needed to catch her breath, she told herself. A second. That was all she needed. A mere second.

People glanced at her unmoving figure clutching the railing to not be carried away by the strength of the crowd but no one paused to ask any question.

She would wait until the stairs were clearer, she vowed, and then…

"What are you doing?" a familiar voice growled from above her. The hand that tore her away from the railing was unforgiving and she found herself in the middle of the desperate herd, barely shielded from the rest of the flock by Haymitch's body.

President Coin's recorded voice was calmly rattling out a countdown.

Two minutes to complete lockdown.

Effie wasn't sure she wanted to know what a complete lockdown was.

"Move, move, move…" Haymitch kept muttering under his breath, urging her forward, pushing his way down with his shoulder. His fingers were painfully digging into her arm but Effie didn't call him out on it. Her voice was caught somewhere in her throat and she wasn't sure she wouldn't start to cry if she tried to talk.

It was endless.

Time had stopped, she was sure.

Her whole world now revolved around darkness, the water pouring on her, Haymitch's hand around her arm, the pressing and pushing of the surrounding crowd and the regular stomping of a thousand feet on metal.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the motion shifted and they stopped going down to hurry along a tunnel. She heard Haymitch sigh in relief when they passed the heavy metal doors.

She didn't see why he was so relieved. All she could glimpse around them were hundreds and hundreds of bunk beds, so close together it wasn't even fit to be called a dormitory.

"Come on, sweetheart." Haymitch nudged her. She let him guide her to a long waiting line.

For such a big crowd it was quickly dealt with : no unnecessary talking, you gave your compartment number and they gave you an allotment of supplies. The faces were grim and Effie was shivering in her damp clothes. Haymitch didn't comment when he dropped his sweater on her shoulders and she thanked him in a whisper that probably didn't even carry to his ears. He escorted her to her appointed bunk bed.

"Don't get in trouble." he ordered before turning away.

She dropped the spare blankets she had been given and the utilitarian items to grab his arm. "Where are you going?"

There was a puzzled frown on his face. "To my bunk bed."

"Stay." she requested, pulling on his wrist until he sat down with her. "Please."

Her lips wobbled and she bit them to keep the tears at bay. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to show she was frightened. But she was… oh, how she was…

He took one good look at her and dropped his own things at the foot of her bed. "Okay."

"We should check on Katniss." she suggested as an afterthought.

"We're not in the same bunker, Princess." he shrugged. "We can't switch now."

"Oh." she breathed out. "Alright."

She would have felt better if she had been sure the girl was safe.

"You should take that off." he nodded to her headscarf. "You will catch a cold."

Her hand shot to the scarf by reflex. The fabric was soaked through and had fallen down the side of her head slightly. The lights were dim and no one was paying attention, it was just Haymitch, so she pulled the scarf off without further argument. Her blond damp hair fell on her shoulders, already curling in the chill air.

She was feeling strangely self-conscious.

He reached for a strand but his fingers never quite made contact.

There was a loud noise, the light flickered and then everything shook. The floor, the bed, the ceiling…

"Haymitch!" she screeched in pure terror.

She practically jumped on his lap, in her need to hold something – or in that case someone – close.

It was over as soon as it had begun but people were screaming everywhere.

"That's nothing." Haymitch whispered. "It's going to get worse."

"Nothing?" she half squealed half sobbed.

Haymitch took a deep breath, grabbed both of their blankets and manhandled her until they were mostly lying down with her almost on top of him because of the lack of space. It was very improper but the arms tightly locked around her were comforting so she didn't object out loud, simply resting her head on his shoulder.

President Coin's distorted voice finally called the complete lockdown.

And it got worse alright.

The bombs weren't the worse, Effie quickly decided. The worst was the waiting.

It was almost like a storm but not quite. There was no lightning to let you know the thunder was coming. There was no warning at all. Sometimes they held their breath for minutes and nothing happened, sometimes they barely had time to close their eyes between two bursts.

"We're going to die." she muttered again and again when someone screamed that cracks were appearing on the ceiling. "We're going to die in this stupid tomb of a District and I will never forgive you, Haymitch!"

Warm lips were pressed against her forehead, stubble rasped against her skin but it wasn't unpleasant, and the arms held her tighter.

There was no false promise about surviving this and she didn't know if she was glad about the absence of lies or if she would have welcomed them right at that very second.

The lights completely gave out after a particularly strong hit.

"Why did you bring me here?" she whispered. It was almost lost in the surrounding cries, wailings and praying. She wasn't sure he had heard her until the arms left her shaking frame.

"Sit up." he demanded.

"Haymitch, what…" she started to protest only to be interrupted by another loud explosion. She dug her fingers in his forearms in alarm, closing her eyes, not daring to take another breath for fear it would be the last.

"If I had left you behind, you would be dead or in the same state as Peeta by now." he told her firmly. "I knew Katniss would need you. And…"

She opened her eyes but it was so dark it didn't make much of a difference. The lights hadn't come back. She could barely glimpse his face in the opaque darkness.

"And?" she prompted him.

His fingers danced over her cheek, combed her hair and ended their course on her neck. She knew what was coming and she made no move to stop it – it surprised her, her own lack of resistance, but perhaps she was as helpless against him as she was with the bombs. You didn't stop something that huge with your bare hands and what Haymitch and Effie had been dancing around for years was huge.

His mouth was warm, his lips chapped, and the stubble itched just as she had known it would.

A new bomb hit and she startled badly, looking up with a gasp.

"Don't think about it." he said, coiling his hand around her neck. "Stop thinking about it."

"We could die." she hissed. "How do you want me to stop thinking about that? I am much too young to die, Haymitch. Not to mention too beautiful. Beautiful people don't die as young as me. It is a shame and a tragedy and…"

The rest of her sentence was muffled by his lips. The kiss was more urgent this time, almost frantic. He deepened it until they flopped back down on the bed and air became a secondary thought. His hand found her waist and travelled all the way up.

She couldn't tell where the shaking was coming from anymore : the bombs, him or her.

"We're not going to die." he hissed against her lips in an almost harsh whisper.

"You can't know that for sure." she argued, tangling her fingers in his hair and bringing back his mouth on her, thankful for the darkness that hid what they were doing away from prying eyes.

"I know." he objected. "I know because as soon as this is over, I'm taking you back to your compartment and I'm going to…"

"Language, Haymitch." she cut him off before he could become vulgar. She despised vulgarity. "Is that a promise?"

"Yeah." he swore between two kisses. "Yeah, it is."

"I do like you better sober." she grinned.

She hoped that was a promise he intended to keep.