A/N: And now we begin Part Two! I'm so excited. Starting to write about Catching Fire is when this work went from something silly to something I was obsessed with for weeks. It's the first time we really see and interact with some of the victors who have been doing this a long time. I hope I did them all justice. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Part Two
The Quarter Quell Victor
Effie instructs a phone be installed at Haymitch's house, and she calls once a week.
At first, they talk about how the Capitol is responding to Katniss and Peeta. Haymitch would not give a shit about this, normally, and Effie seems surprised at his interest. Effie hears things others wouldn't, and she's exposed to the Capitol's propos a lot more often. She's good at seeing which way the wind is blowing, and seems to put together on her own that Katniss and Peeta are in trouble. She says nothing that could expose her thoughts, she's no fool, but Haymitch has known Effie a long time. He knows her stage voice, and how to pick up hidden messages.
Soon, there's not much to talk about. The explosive 74th Hunger Games are receding in the minds of the Capitol, and the preparations for the Victory Tour are months away.
One day he asks, "What did your parents do for work?"
She's let it slip before that she wasn't always high enough status for the Games. That means someone once did her a favor or, most unlikely for the Capitol, but still possible, she had worked for it.
"My… my parents? Well, my mother always wanted to be a stylist. I still wear some of her designs, the ones that aged well. She never made it to their design school, though.
"My father invented some new security system when I was 14, I never understood it, but it's still in use today. We rocketed up the social strata. I went to a good school, applied for the escort certification, and got in when I was 20!" She laughed, although Haymitch wasn't sure what was funny.
"My mother died not long after, but I was always glad she knew we were taken care of financially. It must have been a comfort. I hope it was."
She is quiet for a minute. Then she says, in her fake cheery voice, "What were your parents like?"
So he tells her. Why not? They were dead, he couldn't protect them anymore. Effie has seen District 12, so he isn't spilling state secrets.
He tells her about the unexpected kindnesses of his mother, who was usually worn down and irritable, but would occasionally wake him and his brother up with a cake she had been saving for, for months, or they would come home and she would have done all their chores, and encourage them to go out with friends. His father had made her so tired with his constant complaining and terrifying smoking habit.
"Haymitch," Effie interrupts him. "Is that why you hate smoking?"
He laughs. "It's hard to associate that smell with anything other than my parents fighting, I guess."
He tells her about his grandfather, who had had a stroke, and sat alone in a room upstairs for five years before he finally suffered a fatal stroke and died in that room when he was 12. He even tells her about his mother having to be carried away by Peacekeepers when he said goodbye at the Justice Building before his Games, how the last words he heard her say before boarding the train were, "I love you! I love you, baby!"
He realizes Effie is weeping.
"Sorry," he says quickly. "Sorry. I… I just started talking."
He hasn't spoken about his family in years. "Sorry, sweetheart," he says, one more time.
She cries a little more and says, "I'm glad you told me, but I should go."
They steer clear of families and the past when she calls after that. They talk about the kind of music they like, books they read (he likes mysteries, she likes self-help books). They talk about nothing and everything, and the color of the sky outside their windows.