prompt: If you could make it work with his character at all, could you fuck me up and write something post mj about haymitch being completely heartbroken over losing Effie
It's chapter 600! And since it's crazy, let's have something equally crazy to go with :p
Heart Beats Still
Medics were running around in the corridors, their resources stretched thin, and Haymitch was vaguely aware of orders being shouted left and right, of statics coming on and off the radios, of celebratory smiles that clashed with grim looks as if people couldn't decide what they were feeling.
Haymitch hadn't smiled at all since news of Snow's surrender had arrived.
His ears were still ringing from the bombing of the City Circle. He had been too far to do anything but too close not to see. Even if hadn't been in Command… It had been broadcasted live on every screen still working in Panem. The children…
He kept on walking, following the dark bulletproof jacket of the soldiers in front of him. Plutarch was talking, going on and on about the assets the soldiers had found in the recess of the prison. Agents of his or influent contacts that might help the rebels secure power more quickly. He wasn't sure. He didn't care. He wasn't hearing a word of what the Head Gamemaker had to say. He hadn't been hearing a word since he had realized who had really dropped the bombs on the kids.
His heart was still beating at an erratic pace. It had started racing when he had spotted Katniss heading straight for her sister and it had never stopped. Not when they had gotten confirmation that Prim was dead. Not when they had gotten confirmation Katniss was still alive – badly injured, yes, but alive.
Assurances that she would be given the best medical care had fallen on deaf ears, promises to locate Peeta as a priority hadn't registered… Plutarch had dragged him away from Coin before he could do something stupid like strangle her.
He didn't care about Plutarch's agents.
He had only tagged along when he had caught her name being off-handedly tossed around as they had changed her status from missing to found. Found was good. Found was better than what he had dreaded. Found might give his day a fucking silver lining.
He didn't register when the soldier suddenly stopped and he almost collided with him. The young man shot him a pitying look and waved at an open door.
He hadn't really realized what his surroundings looked like, too numb and tired to pay attention. But then…
The cell was small.
Too small for an adult to stand in. Too narrow for someone to stretch both arms at once.
The smell was… The smell was awful, not unlike the stench in his kitchen when he went on a binge and forgot the meat on the stove.
Rot.
Death.
Decay.
He was familiar with it.
He faltered on the threshold, not bothered by the smell but suddenly terrified of what he would find inside. Plutarch placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder but he shrugged it off. He didn't want anything to do with the Gamemaker. He didn't want anything to do with people who killed kids as if they were simply pawns on the chessboard. Why did the Capitol always had to go for the kids? Even their own…
There was a medic kneeling inside the cell and, at first, it was all he saw. The uniform identifying the medical team – and he tried not to think about Prim, he tried not to think about Aster Everdeen when he had told her that… – was blocking his view. It took him a second to realize the man wasn't doing anything, he was simply kneeling there…
Then he glimpsed her skin and he roughly pushed the guy aside, ignoring his startled protests.
He almost had to crawl on all four to get in there but he didn't care. There she was, at last. Effie Trinket. Or what was left of her.
He barely recognized her.
She was naked, like all other prisoners it seemed, and her skin was filthy. Her hair was wild and tangled, so dirty it looked almost brown. Her body was broken. Oozing cuts and bruises… Barely more than bones… She didn't look like herself.
But the important thing was that she was breathing.
A cruel gurgle every time she inhaled followed by a horrible wheezing sound with every breath she exhaled.
The state of her abdomen… He didn't need a medical degree to guess at what was wrong. Her ribcage was black and blue, ribs clearly broken… Punctured lungs…
He reached out for her but dropped his hand before making contact.
"Why aren't you doing anything?" he snarled, glaring at the medic. "Call for an evacuation team. Get her back to the Mansion." The medic looked up at the soldier but Haymitch snatched a handful of his shirt, narrowing his eyes. "You don't answer to him. You answer to me."
"Sir." the medic winced. "We can't… We're short of supplies and our orders…"
"Fuck your orders." he growled. "I'm the one in charge here. Get me a doctor. Get me what she needs."
The man coiled his hand around Haymitch's wrist, probably trying to get him to let go or, maybe, trying to soften the blow.
"I'm sorry… It's…" the guy shook his head. "Her injuries are too extensive. We don't have the resources for that right now."
"We're in the fucking Capitol." he spat, his voice shifting from angry to desperate. He knew what the situation was. He had been standing right there when it had been decided that a strict triage would have to be applied in the first few hours. They couldn't afford to waste time and supplies on hopeless cases. It was war. War had its cost. He had been right there and he had agreed. They had all agreed.
"We don't control hospitals yet." the soldier said. "We have a limited number of doctors and…"
"Get her to the Presidential Mansion." Plutarch cut in, as white as if he had seen a ghost. "She has special VIP status."
The medic squeezed Haymitch's wrist, bringing his attention back to him.
"She won't make it to the Mansion." the man said slowly. "I am very sorry, sir, even if we ordered an evacuation vehicle… I doubt she would still be with us by the time it arrived. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible. She… She doesn't have long."
"No." Haymitch said, point blank. "There must be something… There's…"
"I'm very sorry." the medic repeated.
He wondered what having a heart attack felt like. It was like all the putrid air had been sucked out of the tiny room. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears…
He let go of the medic's uniform and turned back to Effie. Her chest lifted with small painful looking jolts and then deflated quickly.
He softly brushed her hair away from her face, letting his fingers trail on her jutting cheekbone…
"I have her a sedative." the medic said quietly. "She's not in pain."
She didn't look not in pain.
He swallowed hard. "Is she gonna wake up?"
He didn't really need an answer to that question, he would have figured it out even if the medic hadn't shaken his head.
Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor instead of just crouching there. It was wet under his ass and his pants stuck to his skin. He didn't really care what he was sitting in.
He tried to be careful as he cradled her against his chest, half laid her across his lap, but the gurgle worsened for a second before easing a little when he propped her head against his shoulder. She was cold to the touch. He had expected her to be burning up, it was obvious most of her wounds were infected. Maybe she had moved past the fever.
He hated that she was cold.
She hated being cold.
"Haymitch…" Plutarch hesitated. "Do you need…"
"Privacy." he muttered.
The soldier and the medic left almost immediately but Plutarch lingered a moment in front of the door before wandering away, probably in search of his precious assets.
Silence was all-encompassing in that cell. Only the gurgling and wheezing marked the passing of time and Haymitch dreaded the moment it would stop.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair at all.
"Not how it was supposed to go…" he mumbled, burying his nose in her hair. It didn't smell like her. She didn't smell like herself. She smelt like death. "Not how…"
He had been preparing himself for the worst for months but he had never stopped hoping, he realized. What was Effie Trinket if not the embodiment of hope? Giving up would have been the ultimate betrayal and…
And he had hoped.
Stupid him.
He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that he had gotten there in the nick of time. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that he would be there to hold her as she died when she was already beyond his reach.
It wasn't how it was supposed to go, was it? Not how the stories went… If he couldn't save her… At least, he was entitled to a last tearful goodbye, wasn't he? But stories were stories and her eyes remained closed.
He couldn't imagine it. Not hearing the irritating sound of her voice… Not meeting her twinkling gaze over a crowded room… Not staring at that secret smile that always hung at the corner of her mouth when they…
"I'm sorry." he whispered, his voice breaking.
Regret tasted like rot.
He should have come through for her. He should have made her safety his prime concern and not trust Plutarch's reassurances. He should have…
He should have let her say them, those words she had mouthed against his skin late at night and that he had always pretended not to understand. He would never know how it would sound now. He would never know how they would make him feel. He would never know if…
He had developed a plan in the last few months, buried alive in that District. It was a shitty plan but it was a plan nonetheless. He would find her and they would… They would try something. And they would be good together, really good.
He had let his mind wander late at night when the thirst had made it impossible for him to sleep. He had let his mind wander and he had liked what it had come up with. A future. Not a perfect one but something that could make both of them happy.
Kisses in the morning, geese in the backyard, flowers in the garden, laughter and banter at every hour of the day… The kids next door, safe and relatively content… A life of bickering and make-up sex…
It was a good life he had imagined for the two of them. She would have liked it, he thought. They would have liked it.
"I love you."
It seemed safe enough to let those words past his lips now.
The death sentence.
Love someone and they died.
He had let himself love her and now…
"I love you." he repeated softly, like a secret in her ear.
He hadn't said those words in twenty-five years and he would never utter them again.
I love you went hand in hand with farewells for him.
The gurgling grew worse and he shut his eyes tight. He was suddenly overwhelmed with the memories of holding Maysilee as she faded away. He had felt it then, the shadow, time hanging in suspension between one breath and the next… He had felt its teeth digging in his neck when he had run for the cliff, run for his life… He had no name for it. It didn't need names. It was bigger than that.
"It's okay, sweetheart…" he kept cajoling, for his sake more than hers. "You go to sleep now. I love you. I'll take care of the kids. You go. I love you." He kept his eyes closed and purposefully didn't listen to the sudden terrifying silence. "I love you. I love you, Effie. I…"
His attempts at covering the silence, at living in denial just a second longer ended in a sob. He swallowed it back. He swallowed it all back. The lump in his throat, the sobs… His grip tightened on her, fingers digging in her flesh… His jaw clenched as he bumped his nose against her temple, her cheek… Some tears dropped on her face, leaving clean traces on her dirty skin…
He couldn't breathe.
For a second, he thought that it would be it.
Her death broke his heart and now it laid still in his chest, refusing to beat to match her own. And it was just as well. For a second, he welcomed it. He had lived too long and he had lost too much.
But a broken heart didn't kill you.
He had learned that decades ago.
He couldn't lose it. Not now and not here.
Later.
Once he was sure the kids didn't need him. Once he had found someone who could make her look like she used to, like she would have liked to look. Once she had been laid to rest properly. Once he was sure he could let go without anyone suffering from his absence because there would be no climbing back from that hole. He would give in, then. In a bottle of whiskey. In anything he could find that would numb the pain just enough that he could maybe hope to face it.
There would be no facing it, he already knew.
The terrifying truth was that he didn't know how to live in a world where she didn't.
The terrifying truth was that, the moment he left this cell, he would be a dead man walking and there would be no more Effie Trinket to convince him to keep hanging tight to the edge.
He shed his jacket and wrapped it around her the best he could, giving her back a dignity in death that the Capitol had stolen from her long before they had tossed her in a cell. She was so light when he lifted her up, so tiny in his arms…
People stared as he walked to the exit.
At him.
At the dead woman he was holding close to his chest.
A part of him, the part that didn't seem to be able to stop thinking, in total contrast with the part of him who could barely do more than put a foot in front of the other, briefly wondered what History would make of them. Nothing, probably. They would be a footnote in history books. The Mockingjay's mentor and the escort. Nobody would know what they had been through, who they had been, who they had loved…
There was no one left alive who knew, he realized.
Chaff, Finnick…
The secret of their affair would die with him.
It was all such a waste…
They should have run when they could. He wished they had run. Leave everything behind, be the selfish rats most people accused them of being…
He didn't know how to live without her.
He didn't know why he was still breathing when his heart was dead in his arms.