Prompt: So I read your hc ask things and I would love to read a fic of Effie finding out that the box of jewellery was stolen (or something like that)

This refers to an headcanon games I did on tumblr a while ago where I shared some of my hc about Effie. I talked about a music box where she would keep things of sentimental value and that would have been lost in the war. =)

The Music Box

She had kept her bedroom for last, hoping against all odds it wouldn't be as bad as the rest of her apartment. Peacekeepers had ransacked it once, looters and squatters had finished the job. The whole place was trashed, the furniture upturned, most of her belongings either destroyed or gone…

The living-room had been a shock. The paintings on the walls had been shredded, her trophies smashed, her books and photo albums torn apart… Her whole life was there upside down.

She crept to the bedroom on tiptoes, feeling out of place and more than a little spooked. She was dragging along a broken piece of wood as a club. The door didn't lock and she hadn't dared explore the whole place yet.

There was no one in the bedroom though, only more destruction.

She found the empty case of the violin and sunk to her knees next to it with a crushing feeling of loss. The sob remained stuck in her throat and she picked up the case only to sigh in relief when he spotted the tail of the violin pocking out from under the bed. It was scratched and a few ropes were cut but it looked otherwise intact. She hugged it to her chest and then carefully laid it down in its case before locking it and placing it on the gutted mattress. It was the last thing she had of her grandfather and it would have killed her to have lost it.

It was a miracle it wasn't gone, she decided, wandering to her dressing. There was nothing to save in there – or next to nothing, at least. Half her wardrobe was gone – furs and expensive silk – the rest was in tatters. She grabbed a suitcase from the upper shelf and brought it back to the bedroom. She placed it open on the bed next to the violin and she carefully stepped to her upturned dressing table, avoiding broken shards of glass and other bits and pieces.

She was trying to push it aside so she could access everything stuck underneath when she heard the noise in the next room. Her eyes darted to the makeshift club she had abandoned next to the door and she knew she wouldn't have enough time to reach it, the footsteps were too close.

In a flash, she was back in her cell.

She was alone and terrified, huddled against the wall and waiting for the threatening footsteps to reach her.

"Effie."

She startled. Badly.

In retrospect she should have known. She looked at Haymitch, registering the scowl and the obvious displeasure on his face. She wondered who had sold her out: Plutarch or Fulvia? They were both staying at their house, it had been two days, and she was already sick of it.

"You know I don't like you going out on your own." he grumbled.

"And here I thought it was a free country at last." she deadpanned, hiding her shaking hands by resuming her pushing of the dressing table.

"It's dangerous." he snapped. "For you. It's still dangerous."

Because she was the pardoned escort and nobody knew what to do with that. Because Katniss had murdered Coin and now the whole system was unstable again. Because some Capitols would skin her alive for being a traitor and some District people would burn her at the stick for reaping their children.

"I wanted to see for myself." she argued. She had been told by Haymitch and Plutarch that her apartment was unsuitable to be lived in early on. "And there were things I… I was hoping to find some of my belongings."

"If you had said, I would have come with you." he sighed, nudging her hands aside and pushing the furniture away without much effort.

"You are busy enough with the trial." she replied, crouching to rummage in the mess of broken metal and wood. "I am a grown woman, Haymitch, I can do some things by myself."

She fished a pearl earring out of the mess but try as she might, she couldn't find her match. She put it in the suitcase all the same. One of her jewelry boxes, the one with her gold jewels, was broken in two, the one with her diamonds was missing and the last one, the very pretty ornate one, that only opened with a key, had been smashed.

She clenched her jaw and tried not to remember the day she and Lyssa had bought a matching pair of those particular boxes, laughing all the while because they looked a little like their mother's. They had been fifteen and twenty at that time and looking for Christmas gifts for their family. They had come back home with dozens of bags for the two of them and no gifts at all for anyone else.

The box was gone now.

So was her sister.

"They stole everything precious." Haymitch shrugged. "You won't find anything here." She ignored him and rummage in the mess with her bare hands, unearthing more and more destruction as she went, looking for something specific. She cut herself and he had to cover her hand with his so she would stop her frantic search. "Effie. There's nothing left here."

"There was a music box." she said, looking around the room in distress. "It's pink and golden. It has no real value." She pushed the gutted mattress, careful not to bump the violin and checked under the bed. She checked behind the dresser and in the walk-in closet. She checked underneath the torn fabrics and behind the drapes. She checked in the bathroom just in case. Haymitch followed her closely, watching her with a slightly worried expression. When it became obvious she would never find that box, she turned to him, her eyes bright with tears. "Why would they take it? There are no jewels in there. Only…"

She stopped and rubbed her eyes, forgetting about the make-up Fulvia had lent her and the dark ring she would left around her eyes.

Haymitch's arms wrapped around her cautiously and she leaned against him, resting her forehead under his throat.

"I'll get you another music box." he promised. "Don't get upset."

She tended to have panic attacks and flashbacks when she grew upset now. They had both learned to be wary of those.

"It is not the box, it is what is inside." she whispered. "You can't replace that."

"What was inside?" he frowned, running his fingers through her hair – she couldn't bother with wigs anymore.

"Trinkets." she sighed. "Memories. The beads necklace you gave me… Some silly things I shared with Lyssa… A few pictures… And… a ring my godfather won for me at a fair. But it has no value, it is a toy ring. It is just… The box only has mementoes in it. It has no value for anyone but me. Why would they take it? Why would they…" She buried her face in his neck and he tightened his hold on her. "All I owned is gone. They took everything, everything…" She wasn't sure she was still talking about her apartment. Her belongings weren't the only things that had disappeared. Sometimes she thought she had disappeared too. "What do I have left?"

"The kids." he answered without a moment of hesitation. "Me."

It should have been enough.

She knew it should have been.

But it wasn't really.

She remained silent and clung to him because he was the last thing she had at that moment.

And she hoped in time it could be enough.