Prompt: I've always wondered about Haymitch's relationship with his girl and if it was as perfect as he remembers it, or if he remembers her as more wonderful than she was because she was killed because of him. So I would like a one-shot where someone who knew them together (like Greasy Sae) basically tells him she wasn't perfect, the two of you weren't perfect together, and maybe they wouldn't have lived happily ever after regardless of the Capitol and that it is ok to move on (with Effie). ;-)

Sae's Wisdom

"What are you doing here, boy?"

Haymitch was startled out of his daydream and turned his grey eyes to the old woman who had come to a stop next to him. It wasn't anyone who could creep up on him but it wasn't anyone either who could call him boy.

Graesy Sae waited patiently, apparently undisturbed by the thick snowflakes that were falling all around them. He would need to hurry back to the Village before the snow storm truly started.

"You should get back home." he advised. "It's not a good weather for a stroll."

"I'm heading home." she countered. "Where are you headed?"

He looked at the tree in front of him, the tree fire and bombs hadn't managed to destroy, the tree that had resisted the rebuilding of the Seam and he shrugged. "'Not sure."

"Your girl's waiting for you at home." Sae observed, adjusting the woolen scarf Katniss had gifted her with only a few weeks earlier. "I saw her through the window when I left Katniss'."

"She's not my girl." he grumbled, tired of having to justify his relationship with his escort.

He didn't know why Effie had chosen to seek refuge in his house out of every other places in Panem. They didn't like each other on their best days and downright hated each other on their worst. Yet when she had knocked on his door, looking lost and desperate, dragging entirely too many problems behind her, he had let her in and carried her suitcase to the guestroom.

They had spent most of their time arguing ever since – the time she wasn't cowering in fear in a corner of her room anyway – but it was nice in a way, familiar. The first few weeks had been rough. She had been a ghost of her former self. It was slowly starting to get better. Sometimes he managed to coax a grin out of her or a laugh. He had been surprised to find he liked hearing her laugh. There were quite a few things he liked about her. That had come as a surprise too.

"The old graveyard's gone." Sae commented, seemingly out of the blue.

"The whole place's a graveyard." he scoffed.

They were literally walking on corpses. They had buried everyone they had found in the meadow but there were those they hadn't managed to find, those who had been torn to pieces or reduced to dust…

"It's no use living in the past, boy." the old woman insisted. "It won't bring her back."

His jaw clenched and he stared at the two initials engraved on the tree until his eyes started to burn.

"It survived." he pointed out. "Out of everything else, this survived."

Sae heaved a long sigh. "I would cut this damned tree myself if could help you move on, Haymitch. She's been gone for twenty five years."

"Twenty six." he corrected, the usual pain gripping his heart at the thought of her. Sae was probably the only one left aside for him who remembered her, the only one left who still cared that there was once a beautiful girl called Mabel with long dark hair and twinkling grey eyes who had run faster than all the boys in her class and who had always refused to play by the rules. She hadn't been the most beautiful girl in the world but, to him, she had been a marvel.

"Twenty six years grieving her is enough." Sae scolded him firmly. "This girl of yours…"

"I only have one girl and she's dead." he growled.

"Yeah, that's precisely the problem, boy." she retorted. "She's dead. It's over. And I never said anything 'cause it's none of my business, Haymitch, but you really think you would have spent your whole life with Mabel if she'd lived?"

He frowned, taken aback by a question he had never even considered. "She was perfect."

Sae made an irritated noise. "That girl was far from perfect. Nobody's perfect. She annoyed the crap out of you two days out of three. You think I don't remember you complaining to me while you ate your rat soup? Or her complaining about you? You loved her and she loved you, that's for sure but love's not everything and you were kids, both of you. Who knows what would have happened?"

"We'll never know 'cause she's dead." he spat. And it was because of him and he would never be able to forgive himself. Live with it maybe but forgive himself, never.

"But you're not." She whacked him behind the head despite the fact that she had to go on tiptoe to do it. "Don't be an idiot, boy. Ghosts don't warm you up during cold nights and there's a woman who's asking for nothing else but to warm you up right there in front of your nose. She loves you, that girl, I can tell. She needs you too. And maybe, just maybe, if you stop deluding yourself into thinking Mabel was your only shot at being happy, you will figure out you need her too."

"I've never needed Effie Trinket and I never will." he scoffed. "She's a pain in the ass."

"Funny, that's what you used to say about Mabel too." Sae chuckled but her amusement was short lived. "There's no shame in moving on, Haymitch."

"I killed her." he countered darkly. "You want me to forget her now? Kill her twice?"

The old woman rolled her eyes. "You don't have to forget her. You have to let her go. You wasted enough of your life away. You know like I do she would have kicked your butt a long time ago."

"Probably." he admitted. She hadn't been there to do it though. Effie had tried to kick some sense into him – both literally and metaphorically – but he had never been able to accept it. There had never been a point while Snow was still in power and the Games still a thing. Now though…

"You should go back before the storm truly hits." Sae suggested, lifting her face to the sky. "It's going to be a cold night."

He made sure she reached her house before trekking back to the Village. The blizzard started while he was on the slope and it was a short miracle that he managed to get back to his house at all. He struggled to close the door behind him and got rid of his snow covered beanie, scarf and coat.

"You're back!" Effie exclaimed, appearing in the doorframe wearing one of her silly too thin dress under two of his flannel shirts. "I was worried! And cold. I borrowed some clothes. Oh, and I started a fire! All of my own!"

Given her previous attempts at managing the fireplace, he lifted his eyebrows, a smirk on his lips.

"And the house's still standing?" he taunted. "Good job."

"How droll." she deadpanned, wrinkling her nose in annoyance. "Where were you?"

"Walking." he answered and left it at that. "The kids are home?"

It would be just like the girl to get herself stranded in the woods in a snow storm…

"Yes." she told him. "They made me swear to call them once you were back. I should do just that right now. Katniss said the storm would be bad. I have never been in a snow storm before."

He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He could never tell with her. She was weird like that : excited over the smallest thing.

"It's going to be bad alright." he nodded his agreement and went to check on the fire she claimed to have built while she phoned the kids. It could have been worse, she had done a half decent job for a Capitol who barely knew how to scratch a match.

The storm did get bad.

The electricity gave in at some point and they both lingered by the fire instead of wandering upstairs. The rest of the house was dark and uninviting, the light from the fire was soft and wrapped everything in a warm glow. It made her eyes look brighter. He missed how bright and innocent they used to be, ever since the war they were glassy or clouded entirely too often.

"You're cold." he remarked after her third shiver. She was shivering with her whole body, it was almost funny.

"Always so observant." she muttered, not without a high dose of irony.

She was sitting next to the fire, on the rug, and wrapped in a woolen blanket she had found in a wardrobe somewhere. With a sigh, he heaved himself from the couch and down with her.

"What are you doing?" she squealed when he rearranged the blanket so it would cover them both.

"I've been told you could warm me up at night." he snorted in her ear, wrapping his arms around her shaking frame. She was tensed for several seconds but her body slowly relaxed into him until she was completely leaning against his chest. She turned her head at some point, rested her forehead against his cheek, apparently not minding the stubble so much. The tip of her nose was pressed against his chin and it was cold. He held her tighter and got lost in his contemplation of the flames, listening to the wind roaring outside.

"Haymitch?" she whispered. Her voice sounded drowsy, as if she was drifting off.

He didn't quite answer, he let out an inquisitive growl that made her burrow further against his chest in an almost instinctive move.

"I wouldn't mind warming you up at night sometimes." she confessed, closing her eyes and finally succumbing to sleep.

He sighed and pressed a tentative kiss on the top of her head.

Maybe he did need her after all.

Maybe she could help him heal.