Prompt : Today's prompt was magnifique and gave me many ideas. What about Effie and Haymitch really getting caught by a fan who takes photos and Haymitch has to work his grumpy magic to destroy the camera or delete the photo to protect their "relationship", to protect Effie? Please make this work. *_*

Of Trains, Fans, and Good Excuses

Haymitch hated coming back to the Capitol. He hadn't been happy about being banished to Twelve with Katniss after the war mainly because he couldn't face what had happened there without a bottle but Twelve would forever be home and he had made his peace with that. Returning to the Capitol always left him with dread for the long train ride and worse, maybe, was the prospect of the journey back home afterward.

Effie was usually the one visiting as inconvenient as it was since, unlike him, she actually had a job. However, it occasionally happened that her traveling to the other end of the country wasn't doable for months on end and it also occasionally happened that Haymitch caved first and hopped on a train. The kids were mostly fine by now, they could stay alone in the District for a few days while he got his fix of lectures, bickering and passionate sex – and maybe of cuddles, stolen kisses and whispered confessions in the dead of night but that wasn't something he would ever admit missing.

"You are going to miss your train." Effie sighed, breaking the kiss but not stepping back from his embrace. She smoothed the lapels of his coat, running her hands up and down his chest, staring at the grey wool instead of looking at him. He knew why. She didn't want him to see the shiny tears in her eyes.

Around them, Grand Central Capitol Station was bustling with energy. People were climbing in the train behind him, paying no attention to the couple on the platform.

"Would that be a bad thing?" he scoffed.

Saying goodbye was getting harder every time. Being separated was somehow even worse. He missed her when he was all alone buried in his house in Twelve.

"Well, you are welcome to stay but we both know two more days in the city will drive you crazy." she joked weakly.

The Capitol was still very much the Capitol despite the war. It was different but not by much. And, yes, he still hated it.

"When are you coming?" he frowned, brushing strands away from her face with a smirk because he knew it would annoy her.

She batted the hand away and checked that her hair was still fashionably untidy.

"Not before a month or two." she pouted. Her fingers bundled the lapel of his coat as if by reflex, to hold him back a little. "This is getting ridiculous. We used to see each other a month and a half a year. Two at most. How do I miss you so much?"

"I don't know." he sighed but he agreed, it was getting ridiculous. He leaned in, intending to kiss her and, maybe, to finally find the courage to ask what he had been thinking about asking for a while now – why not move to Twelve? Their lips had barely brushed when he heard the noise.

It was a very familiar noise – you didn't spend years walking up and down a red carpet without getting used to that noise, you didn't spend years being hunted down the streets by paparazzi and crazy fans alike without learning to recognize it instantly – and he turned to find himself face to face with the lens of a camera.

"You're going to delete that." he growled as a warning.

A few years of discrete behavior after the war had granted them a certain anonymous status – out of sight, out of mind. There were new personalities, new famous people, new stars to follow around. Haymitch usually got a mention in the papers when he showed in the Capitol but it was soon buried over the latest scandal of a model or an actress.

"This is private." Effie cut in with a polite but stern smile, pushing a little on his chest as a warning. "I am certain you understand..."

"I'm such a huge fan!" the Capitol man beamed before she could finish.

"Are you a huge fan of me destroying your camera?" he snapped. "'Cause that's what's going to happen if you don't delete all the pictures you took."

They didn't need pictures of them plastered on tabloids. They had managed to remain more or less under the media radar until then and Haymitch would have liked to keep it that way. They didn't need a repeat of what had happened just after the surrender when the press had hounded Effie everywhere because she was the last escort still alive and they wanted to understand why. It had been ugly. He and the kids were safe in Twelve, medias were only allowed in the District on particular occasions and never in the Village.

"That's not very nice." the Capitol frowned. "I did nothing wrong."

"You took pictures of us without our consent." Effie pointed out. "I could sue you for that."

The man looked uncertain and Haymitch held out his hand. "Hand it over."

There was a whistle announcing the train was about to depart. Effie glanced from the man to him. "Go." she said. "I will handle it."

He gave the train a look but truth was, he already didn't want to go and the idea of leaving her with a guy twice her size didn't sit well with him. Of course, the fact that the man eventually complied with their wishes and deleted the pictures just as the train was leaving the station was incidental.

"Now you missed your train." she observed with a teasing smile once they were left alone. "What are you going to do I wonder?"

"Lock myself in your bedroom with you and take the next one tomorrow?" he suggested, picking up his bag and resting a hand at the small of her back to guide her away from the platform.

"It does seem like a brilliant plan." she admitted, flashing him a delighted grin at that new unexpected day they could spend together.

Of course, later that night, once they were huddled together on the couch, more busy kissing and making out than drinking the bottle of red wine they had opened, he mused that, perhaps, leaving the guy his pictures would have been better than the sudden media frenzy about them. Pictures or not, the guy had spilled everything to the press who had dug a little and had invented enough bullshit to spin a story around Haymitch and Effie that had next to nothing to do with the real one. They seemed torn between a sordid secret affair and a perfect fairy tale love story. And they were camping on her doorstep and in front of her building which meant they were trapped inside until they grew bored with them.

Haymitch estimated it would take a few days.

A few days of uninterrupted time with Effie didn't seem so bad.

It even seemed very good.