Prompt - Post-MJ. Effie comes down to D12. Peeta, in a rare moment of clarity about his time at the Capitol, tells Haymitch of the nights Effie's screams kept him company and vice versa.

AND

Prompt : The ask about haymitch telling katniss what happened to Effie was just a rec but since you haven't done that I wouldn't mind it being a prompt ;)

Better Halves

The boy tossed him a disapproving look at finding him drinking on the porch but sat down next to him without commenting, probably knowing it would be resented and unhelpful.

"What's up?" Haymitch asked.

As much as he enjoyed spending time with the kids, when one of them made the effort to seek him out with that purposeful look in their eyes, it usually meant they needed something from him. Advices, help with something or other, talking about whatever was burdening them… You named it. In the last year and a half, as they all finally settled in a new routine in a post-war country, Haymitch had heard it all and even things he would have gladly remained unaware about. Peeta tactfully but not so subtly asking advices about what to do with a girl had been a conversation he wasn't eager to have again. Ever.

The boy didn't speak at once but that was fine with him. They watched the sky darkening for a while as the sun set behind the hills. If it had been Katniss, he would have offered to share his booze. She would have glanced over her shoulder to make sure Peeta wasn't about to appear and she would have taken a couple of cautious sips – never enough to get her drunk, she had learned that lesson. The boy never drank though. It was difficult enough for him to separate reality from the lies the Capitol had programmed in his brain without adding to that.

"How's Effie doing?" Peeta asked after a long period of silence.

The question was quiet, purposeful, and it took him aback because that wasn't what he had been expecting. He had been waiting for half-worded complains about Katniss' closed off nature or a request to clear up something the boy couldn't decide was real or invented.

Effie wasn't something he ever discussed with the kids – or anyone for that matter. She had showed up a week earlier with a ton of luggage, looking utterly defeated, and had asked if she could stay in his guestroom. She had said it was temporary. Given the way she screamed herself awake every two nights and crawled into his bed when he wasn't quick enough to join her in her own room, he was thinking it would be a long temporary.

They had fallen back into their usual routine of bantering and fighting easily enough. They had kissed twice, each time after a particularly angry fight, but anything else had yet to happen. It was painfully clear she wasn't ready for anything else anyway. She flinched at loud noises but startled when he entered a room too silently for her to notice, sometimes he found her staring in the distance, whatever she had been doing forgotten in her shaking hands.

She had tried to get her old life back, she had told him, but the Capitol was simply too different for her to settle down. Her closest friends were either dead or had moved away in an attempt at leaving the memories behind, people in the street insulted her if not worse when she was recognized, seeing her either as the traitor escort or as a monster who had reaped kids for a living, no matter how many times she changed her phone number the medias always found it out, she received threat letters every two days and the new Peacekeepers didn't care in the slightest… And there were practical considerations too. Living in the Capitol had never been cheap but right now, it was simply too expensive for someone who was struggling to keep a job. Plutarch had offered her a position but with her post-traumatic stress and the way people reacted when faced with her, it had soon appeared it wouldn't work out. Plutarch had suggested a leave of absence, offering to keep paying her but she had quitted, unwilling to accept money she wasn't earning. And she had finally boarded a train to Twelve.

The kids didn't know any of that though. As far as they were concerned, she was on holidays. When they were around, she was as bubbly and exasperating as ever, bossing everyone around and berating them for their manners. Katniss huffed and complained but she still didn't go out of her way to avoid her, seeking her out instead. She was missing her mother even if she refused to admit it, Haymitch often mused, and Effie was the next best thing. Peeta, on the other hand, was only too happy to spend time with her, dragging her to the bakery, bringing her cake, offering to help her gardening, gifting her with portraits and paintings to lively up her room…

"Good." he lied.

It wasn't his place to tell them the truth. She wanted them to remain oblivious, she didn't want to burden them with her problems. He could understand that. Katniss and Peeta were all grown up now but he and Effie still felt responsible for them, they still felt like they should be a potential place of comfort and not the other way around. The comfort they found in the kids' presence was unvoiced and unknowingly given.

And Effie was proud too. It had taken months of wavering before admitting she couldn't manage on her own anymore and coming to him.

He wasn't the most comforting man on the planet but he made her feel safe and he understood what she was going through. He could offer support and he could offer her a safe place to piece herself back together.

"You're lying." Peeta whispered. "Real or not real?"

Haymitch licked his lips and moved as if to bring the bottle to his mouth before placing it down. The 'real or not real' game wasn't something to trifle with. It was Peeta's way of coping with the highjacking. When that card was invoked, you couldn't lie.

"She's… dealing with it." he amended.

He still didn't know what it was she was dealing with specifically though. She refused to talk about her nightmares or what had happened. She said she had talked to a therapist about it and it hadn't helped one bit, only made it worse.

Being locked up was an evident fear. She couldn't settled down in a room if the door and windows were all closed, the feeling of claustrophobia creeping up on her quickly and violently. Paradoxically, she couldn't sleep if she wasn't certain – as in triple checking – that the front and back doors were locked and there was no other way to get inside the house. Darkness was also something she didn't deal well with anymore.

Loneliness was another evident problem. At times, she seemed to crave human contact, be it touch or conversation. She had always been chatty but now she could talk for hours on end without requiring him to listen or answer, there was a desperate edge to her voice in those moments. As if she simply couldn't bear the silence – a theory that was proven correct by her newfound habit of turning on the TV or the radio every time she settled in a room.

But the rest… The memories she was dealing with in her nightmares… He didn't know anything about.

Peeta didn't look convinced, if anything he looked guilty. "They hurt her because of me… It was my fault."

"Don't be stupid, kid." he scoffed. "If it was anyone's fault it was mine."

The boy shook his head. "They knew she didn't know anything. I remember. They thought I did, me and Johanna…"

A chill ran down his spine. There had been traces of torture on her body when they had found Effie but they had been months old. The urgent and worrying problems at the time had been her dehydration and her malnourishment not the already healed wounds, even if some had festered and had left angry-looking scars. He knew she had been hurt but he hadn't let himself think about the extents of it.

"They were butchers." Peeta spat. "Jo and I… We weren't afraid of pain. We had nothing to lose, everything to protect… But Effie…" The boy's hands were shaking and he closed them into fists. "They hurt her to make me talk, to make Jo talk."

"Jo couldn't care less about Effie." he commented quietly, his mouth suddenly dry.

"I think she cared." the boy shrugged. "I was alone but they were in the same cell for a while. They took care of each other. Then they didn't use her against me anymore, they started doing… They started…"

"Highjacking." he supplied.

"Yes." Peeta nodded, pressing a fist against his forehead and rubbing hard, as if he was trying to access memories that were locked. "They put Effie with Portia. They only let her out to prep Jo and me for interviews."

He grabbed his bottle and swallowed three long mouthfuls, trying to wash away the fury the boy's words were causing.

"She goaded them into hurting her so they wouldn't hurt me sometimes." Peeta went on with glassy eyes, unaware of his distress. "She protected me. She took care of me. My mom would never have done half of what she did for me. I remember thinking that a lot."

"Peeta…" Haymitch whispered. He wanted the boy to stop. He didn't want to know. That was the coward's way out, certainly, but he didn't want to know. If Effie wanted to tell him she would.

"I love her." the boy continued. "I love her so much… But I can still hear her screaming in pain… I've been having flashes about it ever since she arrived. The things they did to her… Katniss doesn't know if it's real or not. She can't help."

"You know it's real." he sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Stop thinking about it. It won't help her and it won't help you."

"But you will help her, right?" Peeta asked, turning his head to stare at him. "You will help. I could hear her call for you at night. Johanna always told her to shut up… But she always said you would come for us. She said it every day. Again and again. Johanna wanted to give up but Effie never let her. She kept saying 'Haymitch will think of something, you will see'." The boy frowned. "Why wasn't she rescued with us?"

"We didn't know where she was." He closed his eyes. "Plutarch tried to find out but there was no way to get the information. The rescue team went in blind when they went to get you. If she had been with you… I told Boggs to bring her back if she was with you."

"She was with Portia." Peeta said. "I think."

"Probably, yeah." That had been their theory at the time anyway. The victors had been moved to a convenient location, ready for the rebels to pick up. But they hadn't figured that before later either, once the boy had tried to strangle Katniss. Snow wanted them to have Peeta back to hurt Katniss, Jo and Annie were just decoys to make the whole thing a little less suspicious. Effie had never been part of the package. "Never figured out why they hadn't executed her with Portia and your prep team." he confessed, taking another sip of liquor.

"For you." Peeta answered as if it was obvious. "In case they needed leverage. They thought you would negotiate for her. She laughed at them when they told her." The fist was back to his head, pressing against his forehead. "Or maybe I dreamt it. I can't tell."

"It's alright." Haymitch soothed him. "Enough of those bad memories for tonight, yeah?"

"Yeah." the boy nodded slowly. "I just needed to make sure… Take care of her, right? She's… She's part of our family."

He had long stopped wondering when the team had morphed into a family.

He watched Peeta disappear around the corner of the house and slowly stood up. He froze for a second, fighting the dizzying effect of too much alcohol.

Effie was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a fashion magazine and humming quietly along to the radio. She flashed him a smile when he stepped in.

"Did you and Peeta have a good talk?" she asked. "He looked a little upset at dinner but Katniss wouldn't tell me what it was about…"

"The boy's fine." he mumbled, placing his bottle on the counter and outstretching a hand to her.

Her eyes widened in open surprise and, perhaps, delight. "Are you inviting me to dance?"

He had been planning on hugging the life out of her but dancing sounded a little more inconspicuous. He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"

She slipped her hand in his and wrapped her other arm around his neck. "That's suspiciously romantic of you."

"I can be romantic." he argued, placing his free hand at the small of her back.

"No, you can't." she laughed, resting her head on his shoulder. "Not to save your life. So what is this really about?"

He pressed a quick kiss on the side of her neck. "I'm just happy you're here, Princess, that's it."

She rewarded him with a proper kiss that she deepened for long enough that he completely forgot they were supposed to sway in time with the music.

"I feel better here." she confessed. "I feel better with you."

"Good." he approved. "'Cause you're never leaving my sight again. I'm never letting anyone hurt you again."

He blamed the liquor for his mouth running off. She froze and stepped back, hugging herself with an upset look. "Did Peeta talk to you about… Did he tell you…"

He wasn't in a habit of lying to her. Rebellion aside, he had always been blunt to the point of cruelty with her. This time though, he thought a little white lie wouldn't hurt.

"He just wanted sex advices." he shrugged, putting her off her misery. Then he made a face and a big show of acting disgusted. "Can you believe that? Advices. From me. The idea of him and Katniss doing the dirty…" He shook his head and suddenly he didn't have to pretend being disgusted so much. "They're like my kids. I don't want to know what they're doing in their bedroom."

Her mouth twitched with amusement and she relaxed. "Why the bedroom, Haymitch? How utterly unimaginative. You used to be less conservative…"

They fell back on their usual banter and flirting and, for now, he chose to forget what the boy had confided in him. For one, she didn't want him to know. For another, he carried enough guilt. He wasn't sure he was ready to know everything. He wanted to be there for her but on her own terms. If she was never ready to tell him… So be it. He was utterly convinced that either way, it didn't concerned the kids.

He enjoyed two whole days of peace on the subject. Effie pretended to be perfectly fine in front of the children and clung to him at night. Routine as he had started to call it. It was a status quo.

Katniss had never been good with status quos.

He wasn't extremely surprised when she fell in step with him on his way back from the new Hob one day.

"What's up with Effie?" she asked, always so blunt.

"Nothing." he grumbled. "She's fine. Don't go pestering her with questions."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't. Give me some credit." She stayed silent for exactly five seconds, Haymitch knew because he counted. "Peeta is saying weird things like she was in prison with him, Jo and Annie."

"How is that weird?" he snorted. "You know where she was."

However, it soon occurred to him that maybe she hadn't.

"Plutarch said her whereabouts were unknown." Katniss snapped, preventing him from keeping on walking by grabbing his arm. "She wasn't rescued with the others. You never said anything happened to her. She was fine when I saw her. I figured they had just kept her locked somewhere."

He found he couldn't hold her inquisitive gaze. A soft wind blew the dust of the path all around them and Haymitch ran a hand in his hair, uncertain of what he was willing to reveal and what Effie would want hidden.

"She was fine because we patched her up." he finally admitted. "You were out of it for weeks after the surrender. By the time Snow's execution rolled around, she was strong enough to play escort one last time. It was Coin's idea and I was against it, if you want to know the whole story, but that was the price to keep her out of the trials."

"They wouldn't have executed my escort." she argued.

"I'm not so sure." he snorted bitterly. "Coin was bloodthirsty. And there was always the risk she would be sentenced to prison. I had to bargain hard to keep her out of that bitch's clutches."

She would have killed herself if they had sent her back to a cell. She hadn't needed to say it for him to understand it loud and clear. Everyone had a breaking point and she had been very close to it at the time.

Katniss looked grim but not surprised. She toyed with the strap of her game bag nervously. "Peeta has nightmares. Every night since she arrived he wakes up and he asks if things are true and… Do you know what they did to her?"

He shook his head. "No. And I don't want to. She wouldn't want you to know either, don't let her know you do."

"I don't for sure…" she winced. "He can't tell what is real and what comes from the nightmares… But what he told me…"

"Don't, Katniss." he cut her off. "I don't want to hear it. Only thinking about it…" He licked his lips and started walking again. She caught up easily. She was waiting for him to finish his thought. "It makes me want to hunt them down and kill them, okay?" he confessed in a growl. There was a dark part in him, a dangerous pit of madness. It would be only too easy to fall into it, to forget killing shouldn't be as easy as it had come to him in his arena. "I hate that she's still hurting and I can't do anything about it. But you know what really helps her? Thinking you don't know anything about it, pretending everything's fine for your sake and the boy's so that's what we're all going to do, you hear me? You forget everything and you act as if nothing had happened."

She gave him a brief nod and they walked in silence for a while.

It was only when they were on the slope leading to the Village that she spoke again.

"I would help you, you know." she said in an icy voice. "Kill them. They didn't only hurt Effie, they hurt Peeta too. I don't think I would even hesitate if I had them in front of me. They touched our family. I have too few of that left to forgive."

"The war is over, sweetheart." he reminded her. "We don't kill anymore."

She searched his eyes for a second and then looked away almost disappointed by the determination she found there.

"They wouldn't even consider it." she remarked. "Peeta and Effie, I mean."

"Yeah, well…" he scoffed. "They're probably our better halves and all that shit. 'Keep us from going too dark."

"We could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve them?" she smirked.

Trust her to remember something he had tossed when he was wasted and completely rabid at the thought of going back to the arena.

"Something like that, sweetheart." he chuckled.