Prompt : You are one of my favorite writers in this fandom. Could you write a thing where Effie and Haymitch have to deal with a woman who claims publicly to have a child with Haymitch? Like a real obsessive fan? And can you throw in some jealousy on Effie's side and some fear on Haymitch's? But it's all a lie of course and Effie helps him out of it? Thaaanks !

A Victor's Child

Haymitch's eyes were burning. He had been staring at the penthouse TV screen for entirely too long but he couldn't resolve himself to stop. His glass laid forgotten in his hand, the ice had since long melt and he was sure the watered down whiskey would be disgusting but he couldn't even bring himself to care. It was closing on three a.m. and the nightmare was on every channel, almost taking over completely this year's Hunger Games. Re-runs from various talk shows, sensational pieces about Twelve's Quarter Quell victor revealing in supposed exclusivity what he was truly like in private, interviews of women he didn't remember and who all claimed to have slept with him, more or less flattering statements about what he was like in the bedroom – and that seemed to fascinate those people…

"Haymitch, you really should go to sleep." his escort sighed.

He ignored her, watching the picture of that toddler being plastered on the screen again. The boy was cute, he could admit that. A heap of dirty blond hair, grey eyes… One year almost to the T…

The remote was snatched from his hand and the screen turned black.

"You are hurting yourself." she insisted, wrapping her dressing gown more tightly around her. She hadn't bothered with a wig and her blond hair was tumbling down on her shoulders in glorious curls that he would usually have been eager to kiss. "Tomorrow we will have the test results and we will be able to expose the lie for what it is."

He was mostly sober and it was pitch dark now that she had turned the TV off. It was the only reason he managed to voice his worst fear. "What if it's not? A lie. What if it's not?"

Calia Terpost had appeared on Caesar's talk show two days earlier, claiming that her child was Haymitch's son and that all her attempts at contacting him had fallen short. She had put the blame at Effie's door, declaring that his escort had always been jealous of their affair and that she had kept the knowledge of her pregnancy from him – which, as it turned out, had been true but Effie said she was on the dangerous list of fans, the crazy ones who would do almost anything to be noticed. He trusted Effie. She handled letters from fans as well as most of his PR, that was her job. And she had been quick in appearing on another talk show to explain that this woman had been sending explicit letters for years and had been demonstrating an obsessive behavior where he was concerned. She had suggested a paternity test, something Calia had accepted. It had made them falter for a while until Effie had declared she was probably so deluded she had convinced herself he had truly fathered her child, just like she was convinced his escort was trying to keep him under lock and key.

The boy was named Haymitch Junior. How sick was that?

"You said you didn't sleep with her." Effie frowned.

"I don't remember half the women who claimed to have slept with me on TV tonight, Effie." he snarled. "What if I was drunk?"

She pursed her lips and sat down next to him on the couch, taking the time to smooth any possible crease from her silk gown. "Would you have truly slept with a random woman a year ago?"

"I don't know." he breathed out, bringing his glass to his lips only to make a face. It was lukewarm and watered and absolutely awful. "I don't fucking know!"

The glass flew in the hair and smashed against the window. Effie didn't even flinch.

"You always use condoms." she argued. "You told me so yourself. When we started… You always remembered, Haymitch, even when we were both too drunk to see straight. It's automatic. You wouldn't forget."

"We don't use condoms half the time." he snarled.

"But we are a different story. I am on birth control and you know this." she replied calmly. "You wouldn't sleep with a stranger unprotected."

"Didn't think I was sleeping with strangers at all anymore." he scoffed. "That kid looks like me. He looks like me." He tried not to notice how pleased she looked by that first statement, there really was more urgent right now. "Condoms break. What if…"

"She is obsessed with you, obviously she found someone who looked like you." Effie waved that last point away. "Stop fretting, Haymitch. I am one hundred percents certain this boy is not your child."

"You don't know." he growled. "You're saying this but you don't know."

"Well, there are clues, aren't there?" she huffed. "She claims to have met you at a party and that you escaped together, that is already highly unlikely. She's on my list of persona non grata, she wouldn't have been admitted at a Games sponsored party and I certainly wouldn't have let you leave with a random woman at a party either. How often do you go to parties without me?"

"It happens." he grumbled.

"Not really." she insisted.

She had a point. He went to bars and clubs with Chaff and a few other victors, he sometimes went on other floors when they were having a friendly gathering but parties were Effie's field and, as such, he never went without her. And they had been going and leaving together for a few years now.

"I can't remember." he admitted, dropping his head against the back of the couch and closing his eyes. He pressed the heels of his shaky hands against his eyelids. "Fuck, sweetheart, what if it's my kid?"

"Well, I will be very mad." she snorted. "If any Capitol woman earned the right to carry the baby of the Quell's victor, it is me. Imagine the glory that would go with it. Why, I would be famous until my last breath."

He dropped his hands and let his head roll on the side to peer at her in the dark. He could barely glimpse the cheeky grin on her lips but it was enough to make him relax.

"You would murder me over the stretch marks." he snorted. "Never mind having to push that out of your…"

"Language." she cut him off.

"Haven't said anything yet." he smirked.

"You were going to." she retorted.

He brushed his fingers against her cheek, letting them trail down the side of her neck before coiling them around her nape. She gently wrapped her hands around his wrist, holding him in place. He dropped his head back again.

"If that kid's mine, he's as good as dead." he mumbled.

He didn't even want to start thinking about it. A possible pressure point, a single ticket for a trip to the arena in a few years – Capitol mother or not, he was certain Snow would find a loophole around that – a Damocles sword permanently hanging over his head… And never mind the rest. Calia obviously expected something out of him and if that kid was his… His mother had raised him a certain way, never mind what Effie had to say about it, he could act properly about some things. If he had knocked up that woman… There was only one thing to do. For the kid if nothing else.

"He's not." Effie promised.

"If he is, I'll have to marry her." he declared, his stomach churning at the very thought.

"Over my dead body." she growled. "Or hers, rather."

He didn't offer any answer, he simply squeezed her neck, not to hurt but to comfort. He was glad for the lack of light when she snuggled against his side, resting her head on his shoulder, curling up with her knees against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and pretended it was completely natural even though they rarely cuddled. He needed the company right now, even liquor wouldn't have cut it.

They remained like that for the rest of the night, sometimes dozing off but mostly waiting for the phone to ring. They watched the sunrise from the couch. It wasn't as beautiful as it was in Twelve but he couldn't help but feel like it was his last so he tried to enjoy it all the same.

When the phone rang, she startled. They exchanged a glance and then she stood up, picked up the phone and answered it. "Effie Trinket speaking. Good morning, Doctor Clarkson. Very well, thank you. You do? Fantastic. Yes. Yes. So it is. Thank you again." She hung up and turned to him, her features schooled in a blank mask. He could have sworn he was ready to throw up. "Congratulations, Haymitch." she said flatly and he let out a groan because he had known disaster was impending. Now his life would go from catastrophic to impossible and… "You are still childless."

She added that last part with a huge grin and he blinked.

"What?" he asked.

"He's not yours." she clarified. "The tests don't lie."

He was on her before he even had time to think, the relief and euphoria too overwhelming for him to do anything but kiss her senseless. He pinned her against the wall, pushing that dressing gown off her shoulders and letting his hands wander all over her in the same breath.

"So we are celebrating the fact that you managed not to impregnate a woman by having sex." she teased. "I have condoms in my drawer, if you'd like."

She was on the pill, he knew that for certain because when he got up early enough, he saw her swallowing it at the same time as her orange juice, but at that moment he would take all the protections he could get so he nodded.

"First, sex." he said. "Then you're getting me an interview with Caesar before she gets that kid killed by claiming it's mine. And then I'm having a vasectomy."

"All in a hard day's work." she chuckled.

"Hard's a good choice of words." he smirked.

It made her shake her head in exasperated fondness.