3

Effie watched Katniss with her hands on her hips until she was satisfied the girl had found a steady pace.

"What's even the point?" the Slayer complained for the third time, prompting Prim and Madge who were sitting on the basement's stairs – with more books for the teenager and more homework for the child – to muffle their giggles.

Effie tossed the girls a disapproving glance, pursed her lips and regarded Katniss with narrowed eyes. Had she been that difficult? She needed to send flowers to Caesar. Flowers and an apology note.

"Point is you do what we tell you to do." Haymitch grumbled from the corner of the makeshift gym where he was inspecting weapons. The weapons had clearly seen better days and could have done with some serious cleaning in her opinion.

"Find a pace and try to keep it." Effie advised, ignoring him. Katniss glared at her but kept swinging the skip rope, hopping along to an inner rhythm. "It builds endurance. And it is also good for your footwork."

The skip rope had been the part of training she had liked best when she had still been a teenager. Not extremely taxing, not particularly difficult and not as gruesome as chasing vampires in the dead of night in a dusty English cemetery.

"How's your footwork?" Haymitch challenged, standing up with two swords in hands.

Dread and distrust coiled in her stomach. "I do hope you do not expect me to brawl."

It was exactly what he was expecting though, she could see it at how serious his face had become.

"What are you gonna do if we end up cornered by the Careers?" he asked.

"Hide until Katniss dispatches them." she deadpanned.

"She can set fire to them." Katniss retorted, more prosaically.

"Well…" she winced, tilting her head to the side. "That was the fear demon increasing my powers…" She doubted she could actually immolate a vampire right then. "I can toss fireballs at them though."

She made one appear in the palm of her hand with a twist of her wrist and extinguished it right away, aware her grasp on her magic was a little shaky right then. The cloaking spell the previous night had asked a lot out of her, she was still not quite recovered from her magical exhaustion and the telepathic spell had drained her a little.

"Sure." Haymitch scowled. "And while you're tossing fireballs at the one ducking in front of you, one of them's gonna sneak behind you and dig their fangs in your pretty neck."

Katniss rolled her eyes, probably at the pretty comment.

Effie's cheeks flushed a little but she jutted her chin in the air, refusing to show she was flustered.

"Haymitch, I hate physical fighting." she hissed.

"I hate your shrill voice. I got used to it." he retorted, tossing the sword in the air in her direction.

His move was precise, it was designed to fall back hilt first, but it was still enough to make the three girls gasp in alarm.

Effie plucked it from the air easily enough, used to Watchers tossing dangerous blades at her. Caesar had not always made sure the hilt would fall first. And he had also made sure she knew how to duck knives and other sharp objects.

"Keep hopping." she instructed Katniss, making the sword twirl once in her hand to get a sense of its balance.

It was a bit too heavy for her, perhaps even an inch or two too long, and, as always, her grip was slack because her nails were digging hard into the heel of her hand. She knew already that she was bound to break a nail or two during that pointless exercise and it annoyed her.

"No magic." Haymitch warned, stepping forward.

"That's not fair." the Slayer grumbled, swinging the skip rope again. "With her magic, she'd flatten you in two seconds."

"Who said life's fair?" he scowled.

Effie discreetly tested the range of movement her outfit afforded her. It was one of Haymitch's rules that they trained in street clothes because that was how they would fight during patrol. Her pink velvet shorts were loose enough not to impede her and the white sweater was form-fitting but would not bother her. The long gold necklace though she quickly took off and tossed to Prim who caught it and slipped it over her own head with delight.

"Keeping the heels?" he mocked.

"I need them for balance." she replied and then she swung the sword because she was all for foreplay but she wanted this over sooner rather than later.

He parried without difficulties and led her on a merry chase. He was obviously holding back, testing her, tiring her…

She hated swordplay.

It didn't mean she was entirely useless at it. She had been trained by a Watcher legend after all.

"Why did it have to be swords?" she sighed after ten minutes of attacks and parries that were mostly textbook. She was wondering when he would break and finally show off like she knew he could.

"Cause of the gladiator armor thing." Haymitch shrugged. "If Gloss' still wearing that, chances are his fighting style's gonna be roman too. You're listening, sweetheart?" He chanced a glance at the girl with the skip rope and Effie seized the opportunity by feigning left to hit right, careful because they weren't using blunt blades. The steel of Haymitch's sword glided against the length of hers in an unbearable screeching noise. He continued as if nothing had happened. "That means broadswords. Spears. We're gonna need to keep range."

"I've got the bow." Katniss commented.

"Lots of good it's gonna do against an armor." Haymitch sneered. Then he looked back at Effie, lifting his eyebrows. "You're warm enough to get serious? Cause I'm falling asleep here."

She clenched her jaw and adjusted her stance. "Do your best, darling."

His best was not on par with her best.

Because he so obviously surpassed her it wasn't even funny.

In a matter of seconds, she was outmatched and, although she stubbornly refused to surrender or admit defeat, she could see he was holding back even as he forced her to duck, roll on the floor and dance around him like a will-o-the-wisp.

"Aim higher." he snapped from time to time. "You're trying to behead me."

She wasn't trying to behead him, she was trying to keep her grip on her sword which wasn't easy because her nails impeded her.

As the fight became more urgent and desperate, sweat dripping in her eyes and making her hair stick to her cheeks, she was vaguely aware that the girls had all stopped doing whatever they were doing to watch.

"Peeta's going to be sorry he missed this." Katniss snorted, loud enough to go over the blood rushing in Effie's ears.

It couldn't go on forever though.

She was tiring and Haymitch was getting bored of the lesson.

She wasn't surprised when her sword was flung away, leaving her hand tingling from the flat hit it had just taken, and because she wasn't surprised, she just rolled with it, ducking under his armed arm and reappearing right against his chest.

The move surprised him.

She felt a little bad when she grabbed what was between his legs and squeezed just enough to make him freeze. It wasn't in her interest to damage it.

"What the fuck…" he spat.

"Drop the sword." she ordered calmly. He glared at her but there was a spark of something in his eyes… Amusement… Lust… Pride… She wasn't certain. Once the sword had hit the floor, she flashed him a bright smile. "Do you concede?"

The smirk that stretched his lips was slow and did terrible things to her lower regions.

"Do you?" he challenged and she felt the prick of something on her neck. It took her a second to realize it was the point of his knife. She squeezed him harder and he pressed just a little more, not enough to break the skin but enough to let her know he could. "You know…" he muttered in a low voice that hopefully didn't carry to the children. "I love when you do this but maybe not with an audience."

She didn't let these words affect her. "It seems we are at a standstill."

"Are we though?" He snorted,

Before she understood what had happened, he had kicked her leg, twisted her arm to the side to free himself while they both fell and she landed with a huff, her breath snuffed by his heavy weight crushing her to the floor… He had been careful to avert the knife but if he hadn't had, she would be dead.

She didn't need him to playfully bite her neck to know she had lost.

She huffed and pushed him off. He rolled to the side easily, laughing a little.

She sat up and turned to the three girls who were watching with expressions ranging from shock to embarrassment. "And that, ladies, is why you should never hesitate to knee a man when you have the opportunity." She tossed Haymitch a glare. He was still lying on his back, his breathing a little heavy but otherwise not particularly sweaty. That was more infuriating than anything else, the fact that he had hardly broken a sweat when she was drenched and disheveled. "Next time, I won't spare you."

The look he gave her was too heavy and full of unsaid things. "Never asked you to." He got back on his feet, picked up the sword and turned to his Slayer. "Ready?"

Effie went to sit on the steps under Madge and Prim, a little vexed, while Katniss took her place in the middle of the room. The girl lacked technique but she had power on her side.

If Effie had Slayer strength…

Prim slide the golden necklace back around her neck from behind and Effie startled a little, not having expected it.

"You were amazing." the girl said.

Effie politely protested for modesty sake but it went a long way in soothing her ruffled feathers.

Haymitch was almost a match for Katniss simply because he had decades of fighting under his belt but, in the end, the Slayer's power succeeded where Effie's schemes had failed and she ended up disarming him. He must have challenged her enough though because the girl looked almost happy once he called the end of the training. That, or she enjoyed the violence.

She lost her uplifted mood when came the time to go on patrol though.

"I don't like leaving her alone." Katniss stubbornly insisted, glaring at both Watchers. "Why can't one of you stay?"

Effie looked at Haymitch, willing to let him make the call. She didn't mind staying behind to keep an eye on Prim even if the girl insisted she would be fine. She could keep on researching the Reaping.

"You can take my car." she offered half-heartedly. She didn't like the idea of Katniss and Haymitch going out alone too much in case they did stumble on the Careers. Haymitch could say whatever he wanted, her magic could make the difference as weak as it currently was. It could buy them enough time to escape at the very least.

Given a choice, Haymitch would have taken his bike but since they had to drop Madge off that wasn't a possibility. And he didn't seem keen on leaving her behind either.

"The Village's cloaked…" he said slowly. "And no vampire can get to Prim as long as she stays inside anyway." He made a face. "I want Effie with us out there, sweetheart. It's the smartest choice."

She wasn't sure about that given how easily he had beaten her in the basement.

She wasn't sure why her pride stung so much. She had always known she wasn't a good fighter. Caesar had deplored it often enough – and insisted she didn't apply herself enough but she had always been unwilling to sacrifice her nails or her heels to practical considerations.

Not for the first time though, she was wondering how it would have gone down if she had been Called.

Terribly no doubt.

She was still musing about it half an hour later while they patrolled down the narrow lanes of the graveyard. Katniss was out of sight, scooting ahead with her bow, Haymitch had fallen in steps with her and their pace could only be described as a stroll – which had annoyed the Slayer and was why the girl had insisted on going ahead.

"Stop sulking." he teased. "You didn't do that bad. Average vampire or demon, you could have taken out easy."

Average.

She hated that word.

When she remained silent, he bumped her shoulder with his.

She wanted to sound cheerful, to drown him under her usual optimism, but her thoughts were too gloomy and she allowed herself to be truthful for a moment. "I would have been the shortest Slayer in history."

He didn't miss a beat. "You're really short without the heels but I'm pretty sure one of them was a dwarf. That circus girl? When was it… In the sixties? Fifties?"

She tossed him a chiding look but couldn't stop her lips from twitching. "You understand perfectly well what I mean."

He sighed and burrowed in his leather jacket, more annoyed than anything else. "You ain't a Slayer, sweetheart. Doesn't mean you're useless. You're a witch, play to your strengths."

"You spent fifteen minutes lecturing me about how my magic would not be enough to protect me." she snapped.

"Yeah, cause it's stupid to rely only on one thing." He shrugged. "I like knives better. Doesn't mean I can't use a sword or a crossbow. You don't survive by being lazy."

"Still…" she argued.

"Not being a Slayer doesn't mean you ain't special." he grumbled, keeping his gaze straight ahead. She wondered if she imagined the light splotch of colors on his cheeks. "Cause you're pretty special just on your own."

Something swell within her chest and she had the sudden realization that not only was this not casual anymore but that, on her side at least, it was getting serious. Feelings had never been supposed to be part of the equation but…

"You are fairly special too." she whispered back, a lump in her throat.

"Yeah…" he dismissed. "That's my bad boy persona. The bike does it all."

She laughed.

So, obviously, that was when the vampire jumped on them.

Haymitch had his stake out before she could summon a fireball but it didn't matter because there was the hissing sound of a flying arrow and then nothing but a cloud of dust.

"I'm not sure…" Katniss' voice called out to them from the top of a vault a few feet away, dripping with sarcasm. "But I think my Watcher told me I should focus when I'm on patrol."

"What a clever man, he is!" Haymitch shot right back, smirk still on his lips. "Did he also tell you about him playing bait?"

"When did I agree to be bait?" Effie frowned, not quite happy with that.

"Sure, you are." Katniss scoffed and disappeared in the shadows again.

All in all, it was a quiet night.

They got a few more vampires but the Careers remained invisible.

Katniss shot out of the car and across the street to check on her sister as soon as Effie had parked in her driveway. Haymitch was slower in exiting the car.

For a while they stared at the outer wall of her house through the dashboard.

"You're coming in?" he asked eventually but the question didn't sound quite… genuine.

She knew why. She didn't feel like waiting until both girls had gone to bed and even longer to make sure they were asleep, pretending to do research – actually doing research – and then sneak back out once the deed was done for another walk of shame… She could tell him to come by later and he would and he would probably be more enthusiastic about it than she currently was.

But the question seemed to hang between them…

Are we still casual?

The answer seemed so obvious that his insistence that they were was…

"Not tonight." she refused, making sure to keep her tone soft. She didn't want a confrontation right then. Truth be told she was tired and… "Have you heard from your friend?"

The warlock who had helped him and Maysilee to banish Snow to a hell dimension was famous in some circles and she was eager to have a chat with him. She wanted him to tell her Haymitch was wrong or that the whole powerful magic thing had been a fluke, that she was simply… Well… Average. When it came to magic, she didn't mind that term.

Ambitious as she was, she could recognize there were fields were it was safer not to excel.

"Not yet." He sighed and silence fell back inside the car. It was several minutes before he broke it. "It was weird having Madge here. Too much like…"

Too much like seeing Maysilee's ghost.

She reached for his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back and then reached for the flask in his inner pocket. He took two sips and then offered it to her. She declined with a brief shake of her head.

"If President Coin reassigns me I will have no choice but to leave." she declared.

"You always have a choice." he countered. "You could stay."

She consciously ignored the fact he had spent the last week trying to convince her she would be safer back in England.

"And what?" she scoffed. "Give up my career as a Watcher? What would I do? Teach Arts?"

"Freelance demon hunter ain't so bad." He shrugged. "Won't get rich but… Plenty of Potentials end up that way."

"In case you have not noticed, I am not the kind of person who enjoys backpacking alone all over the country." she snapped. She didn't mind being sent on assignments all over the world but she preferred to travel in style and to stay in five stars hotels.

"Didn't say you'd have to do it alone…" he remarked and then made a face. "Besides… It doesn't have to be backpacking. Chaff and I have been talking about opening a business before I got called back in to play Watcher. Something more local, we're getting too old to go adventuring around the world. The Seam ain't the only Hellmouth, you know. Plenty of jobs for people who are in our line of work."

"I have no particular desire to live in Cleveland." she retorted.

Nobody wanted to go to that Hellmouth, not because it was the worst but because it was Cleveland.

"How about Paris?" he challenged. "'Cause Chaff's mainly Europe based these days so…"

Paris.

She loved Paris.

Paris made her dream like nothing else. In another life…

"Are you offering me a job once…" Her sentence trailed off. The only way this could happen was if their Slayer died and while it seemed inevitable in the long run, she wasn't ready to entertain the thought.

"I'm just saying the Council ain't your only option." he said flatly. "Wouldn't be prestigious but it'd still be saving lives. And you get to keep your conscience clean on top of it."

Her heart was beating fast in her chest as she imagined her mother's reaction if she told her she was leaving the Council of Watchers to settle down at a demon hunting agency. More importantly, she imagined Caesar's disappointed face and she wasn't certain she had it in her to disappoint her former Watcher once more. He didn't have children to take up the Watcher mantle after him, she was responsible for his legacy, the same way Haymitch was spiritually Mags' heir. It was important in Watchers circles. She had been taught since the start it was important.

"Just food for thought." he concluded, putting a final end to that discussion. "Night, Princess."

"Goodnight." she whispered, leaning in to kiss him without thinking.

He kissed back. A chaste peck.

That too didn't seem very casual.

She let herself in her house that felt too big, too dark and too empty. It wasn't as welcoming as she would have liked but she compensated by pouring herself a glass of wine, kicking off the heels that were now killing her and gracelessly flopping down on the couch since no one was there to see her do it. With a sigh, she dragged a book closer and started looking for any sign of anything called the Reaping again, pretty sure Haymitch was doing the same on the other side of the street.

Her glass was long empty and she was trying not to doze off because she really needed a shower when frantic hammering echoed at her door.

She startled awake, her eyes passing over the mess of open magic books scattered over the coffee table and half the floor, the IPad that had long gone dormant, the full ashtray, the half-empty packet of cigarettes, and then darted to the clock. It was well past one in the morning.

Her first thought was that Haymitch had an itch to scratch.

Her second was that Haymitch wouldn't have kept hammering like that except in case of emergency and sex wasn't an emergency.

She stood up, a little nervous, and made her way to the front door, checking she still had a stake wedged at the back of her shorts. She also made sure her right hand was free in case she needed to summon something fast.

The hammering stopped immediately once she opened the door but only because the person responsible for it fell into her arms.

She stumbled back, surprised by the unexpected weight but quickly grabbed the boy who was clinging to her and sobbing his heart out.

"I did something bad." Peeta repeated over and over again. "I think I killed her. I did something bad."

The chill that ran down her spine had nothing to do with cold.

The plot thickens... Who did Peeta kill? What has he done? Will hayffie hightail to Paris with their kids in toe to escape justice? XD Let me know your thoughts!