Prompt : Hey, could you write something where Effie has a nightmare and accidentally hurts Haymitch when he tries to wake her up? I'd love to read something like this. *_*

One Brand New Day At A Time

Hands grabbed her, held her down.

She screamed.

Screaming was always a good reaction to have when faced with her captors, it pleased them. Letting them think they were hurting more than they were in reality was a good thing. She had no dignity left. She had lost it sometimes after the second broken rib. There was no room for dignity in hell, only pain.

She struggled. That might not have been clever but it was instinctive. She struggled and fought against the hands, clawing at invisible faces and rejoicing at the yelps of pain. She struggled and tried to hit with her hands and knees and still she screamed and her screams bounced back on the walls of her cell and…

The water was a shock.

For a second, she thought they would do with her the same as they did with Johanna and she waited with dread for the electricity to sweep through her body.

Nothing happened.

She blinked and the walls faded from grey to white. Familiar tiled walls with the occasional brown diamond pattern here and there. The tiles under her hands and legs were white too and cold to the touch. The water was freezing.

She blinked several times, trying to find her bearings and eventually found the soaked blue cotton sweatpants sticking to familiar knees. She looked up and into worried grey eyes.

"I am in Twelve and I am safe." she whispered automatically, tension slowly leaving her shoulders. "You won't let anyone hurt me. I am safe."

"Yes." he said, his voice rough as he reached for the tap to set the water on lukewarm instead. "You're back? I couldn't… You weren't waking up, sweetheart. Scared the shit out of me."

She had to blink several more times before she felt grounded enough that her breaths didn't come out in puffs anymore. She blindly felt above her head and turned the shower off, awkwardly nodding. "I apologize I…" She stopped when she finally took a good look at his face. She gasped and immediately brushed her fingers under the deep gash on his cheek. There were others scratch marks on his face, neck, chest and arms but this one was bleeding. "Did I… Oh, god… Did I…"

"My fault." he grumbled, holding her hand to his cheek and pressing a quick kiss on her wrist. "You'd think I would know not to touch someone with night terrors. It's nothing, don't worry."

But it didn't look like nothing.

"It is bleeding." she countered in a shaky voice. "I hurt you. Oh, god…"

"Effie, it's nothing." he insisted. "You think you can get up now? Not that I don't like taking showers with you but we're kind of wet and it's not that warm."

She nodded and he helped her to her feet, carefully waiting to see if her legs would hold her weight before letting go. He grabbed towels from under the sink and they quickly exchanged the wet clothes for dry ones.

She still felt a little aloof and something wasn't settling right in her stomach, like after every nightmare of that kind. There were nightmares and nightmares… The one from that night belonged to the worse category. The ones that felt so real there was no waking up.

She needed comfort and so she stole one of his long-sleeve shirts and breathed the soothing smell of him in. He wasn't oblivious to what she was doing but he didn't comment, slipping new sweatpants on in silence and tossing her worried glances.

"We should clean it up." she declared, aiming for firm but still sounding a little breathless.

"It's just a scratch." he grumbled. Yet he submitted when she sat him down on the bed and went in search of the antiseptic gel. He groaned when she applied it on the gash and protested when she decided to clean all the other scratches she had left on his body. She could see there would be some bruises too and she kissed every of those tender spots, more sorry for having hurt him than she could say. "It's fine, sweetheart." he insisted, brushing her wild blond curls behind her shoulder. The smirk was tentative but definitely teasing. "I knew you had claws. Told you."

She looked down at her manicured hands, at the white painted nails with intricate blue spirals and she had to suppress the urge to go look for scissors and cut them short.

"I do not want to hurt you. Ever." she whispered.

"I hurt you in my sleep before." he reminded her.

"It is different." she argued at once.

"Yeah? How?" he snorted bitterly.

She chanced a glance up but she didn't have a good argument to oppose to that. It was the same.

"I am sorry." she insisted in a low voice. His shirt was too big for her, the sleeves went well past her hands and she pulled on them to cover her fingers and the nails that had damaged him so.

He breathed out a deep sigh and gently gripped her chin, forcing her to look up. He watched her for a moment and then shrugged as if he was giving up on trying to tell her again it wasn't a problem. "Do you want to try and get more sleep?"

She immediately shook her head, unable to hide her shudder.

"You should go back to bed." she said, checking the clock on her nightstand. It was barely four thirty. "I will go downstairs."

He shrugged again. "I'm hungry. Let's have breakfast."

She wished breakfasts at four am because one of them couldn't sleep was a rare thing. Unfortunately, they were way too used to sharing some toasts and coffee under the pale neon lights of the kitchen, hiding from the ghosts lurking in dark corners.

She was on the porch, sipping her third cup of coffee and barely starting to feel human again when dawn broke in. Caffeine was finally kicking in and soon she would be her usual energetic self. She would go help Peeta at the bakery or she would tackle cleaning the study that Haymitch had been using as a storage room since forever, she hadn't decided yet. Anything to keep herself busy.

The sky was pink and gold and it was pretty. She loved those two colors. She used to, at least.

When strong arms wrapped around her waist, she relaxed against his chest with a secret smile she hid behind her mug. Daylight made everything easier. It was the nights that were difficult.

"It is another brand new day." she hummed.

"And we're still alive." he added quietly, as a reminder.

She didn't know who needed to hear it most but it went without question that it needed stating.

They were healing but it was a slow and delicate process.

One brand new day at a time.