Prompt: I would love to read something set post mj of Lyssa being vaguely big-sistery towards Effie after she finds out that she's not coping well after her imprisonment? I just love your ocs

Mending Broken Homes

Moving back to her parents' house had been a mistake, Effie had known that going in, but what was the alternative?

Her apartment and her bank account had been seized by the rebels as compensation for her war crimes, all she had had left once they officially pardoned her were the clothes she had been wearing and an offer from Haymitch to go stay with him at Plutarch's and, later on, to leave with him and Katniss for Twelve.

She had rejected both offers.

She still wasn't sure she could face Haymitch.

The anger and resentment had died down a little but she had treated him in an awful manner and she wasn't sure he would still welcome her in his home now, so she had no choice but to stay.

The house was silent as a tomb. She vaguely remembered it had always been like that but, somehow, she had forgotten how suffocating it could feel. It reminded her too much of her cells, of being tossed aside, of dying alone without anyone caring enough to extend a hand. Sometimes it was too much and she was back there and nobody in the house ever noticed she had spent half an hour curled up on the floor in the living-room or in the library because nobody cared enough to check on her.

Her family was angry.

Lyssa was mourning her husband, still certain Effie could have saved him and had chosen to let him die out of spite instead. Her sister had moved back too, with her two boys, but she didn't think they had all exchanged more than a couple of words in the last few months. Her nephews had always been boisterous and active little boys – insufferable at times – but they were always somber now and the house wasn't ringing with children's laughter. They knew their mother blamed their aunt for their father's death, even though it had never been openly stated in front of them, and so they hated her too now.

Her mother never lost an occasion to berate her and was gradually losing all hopes of bringing her back to – her own vision of – reason. Effie tried but she just couldn't bother with the wigs and the make-up and the fashion… She did try but… It didn't feel the same as it used to. She wasn't the same person. And despite how many rants she had to bear through, she wandered around the house like a ghost without wig or make-up, more often than not wearing dresses that were two sizes too big for her now or the shirt she had snatched from Haymitch before he had left for Twelve – that made her mother feel enraged.

Her father was the most understanding of all. He had never been caring, not in a practical way. He had always kept himself removed from them, mainly because she and Lyssandra were Elindra's creatures. The war had changed things. Her mother acted as if nothing had changed, as if everything was normal, but the rebellion had hit her father hard. He looked his age nowadays, despite the enhancements and the corrective surgeries.

Tadius never rebuked Effie for what she chose to wear or her less than ladylike behavior – her mother could say what she wanted, Effie didn't see the point in acting all poised and proper when they were having tea in private anymore – as for guests, she avoided them. He did however insisted she needed to get out of the house now and then, that she couldn't hide in there from the rest of Panem however much she wished to.

And she wished to.

The Capitol was buzzing with people. Half of them muttered on her path that she was a traitor, the other half accused her of being a monster. She was the only escort left alive and she often wondered if it wouldn't have been more merciful to let her be executed with everyone else.

She understood her mother in a way. The world outside of the house was a different one and she wasn't sure there was a place for her there.

Still, she went out because Tadius insisted, sometimes going as far as driving her himself. She went to visit Peeta at the clinic, always acting cheerful and bubbly for his sake, a glimmer of the flamboyant Effie Trinket, a necessary act. They were talking about sending him back to Twelve and while she was happy for the boy, she also knew it would mark the end of her adventuring outside. There was no other reason for her to go out.

She had tried to find a job in the beginning when she hadn't yet sunk so low in her own dark thoughts, when she had still been determined to try and pretend that she could be Effie Trinket again, that she could be fabulous, and positive and glamorous. Jobs were scarce and nobody wanted to hire her. She could have gone to Plutarch, she figured, but she didn't want to. He would tell Haymitch and she didn't want Haymitch to know. She didn't want him to worry about her when he should have been worrying about Katniss.

She missed him.

She could have gotten in touch, of course. She could have called instead of living on the snippets of information Peeta gave her. Haymitch called the boy every two days but the conversations were short, more about their victor's progress than about how he was doing back in his personal hell.

Often, she unhook the phone and then put it down again. She did it several times in a row, trying to gather her nerves and calling herself a coward for failing to face her fears.

Today was one of those days. A bad one. Prison and its memories were ebbing at the edge of her mind, threatening to swallow her whole. It had started with a nightmare the previous night and had gone on all morning with an unpleasant prickling in her fingers, the panic attack just a breath away. She was trying to avoid any trigger but it was hard to do when the house was so silent. At least the ringing of the phone waiting for her to dial a number was a distraction.

She was sitting on the gleaming floorboard behind the couch in the parlor her mother only used when she had guests, hidden from the doorway and the corridor because she didn't want to be found. Haymitch's shirt was wrapped around her for comfort and she sometimes buried her nose in the collar and breathed in. It didn't smell like him anymore. It smelt like her own perfume and sweat because she hadn't dared washed it. She hid it at the bottom of her dresser when she wasn't wearing it. She was too afraid Elindra would have it thrown away if she placed it in the dirty laundry for the maids to find.

She wanted to close her eyes and imagine his smell, she knew it so well… Whiskey, cheap soap and faint sweat… But days like today, the only smell she could remember was decay, her own body rotting in its own filth.

So she made do with the phone she wouldn't use, pretending she was brave enough to actually dial the number on the small crumpled paper Plutarch had given her weeks earlier, back when she was still acting like she could survive this. Phone lines had to be repaired, numbers had changed. This one had been unfamiliar but she now knew it by heart even though she had never pushed a key.

Her fingers were shaking and she leaned against the back of the couch more heavily, her eyes closed, breathing in and out slowly, trying to resist the pull of the horrific memories.

Theatrics, as her mother would accuse when she caught her having a panic attack or a flashback. She forgave her because she thought Elindra was unsettled, unable to deal with someone so damaged. Her mother's love was rough and carefully hidden away, she wasn't caring and she wasn't loving.

Effie had crawled to her father's study once. She had burst out in sobs, her whole body shaking, and Tadius had stood there and watched her with horror and helplessness for a good five minutes. All she had wanted was a hug but hugs weren't a spontaneous thing in her family. He had called her mother because he hadn't known what else to do, patting her shoulder and trying to murmur soothing words that weren't any consolation. Her mother had hugged her. For a minute – which must have been a record – but had quickly barked at her to get a grip because ladies didn't make spectacles of themselves.

She ran her hands on the floorboards. They were smooth under her palms, clean. Everything her cell wasn't. She tried to ground herself in the present, to remind herself she was out.

"What are you doing?"

She startled, her breathing immediately racing up and dark dots dancing in front of her eyes. She was safe, she told herself with despair, she was safe.

Lyssandra towered over her in a sparkling navy blue dress, her purple wig styled in a braided bun, her face set between loathing and anger. Her blue eyes fell on the piece of paper on the floor and then on the unhooked phone before going back to her. She wrinkled her nose in distaste when she caught sight of the shirt.

"Why don't you go to Twelve if you miss him so much?" Lyssa asked and it might have been the longest sentence her sister had addressed to her in a long while.

"I can't." She was a little out of breath, still on the edge of a panic attack. "I do not want to burden him."

"But you have no trouble burdening Mother and Father." Lyssa snorted.

It was mean and Effie flinched. She was aware money was tight – despite all of Elindra's attempts at ignoring the problem. Business had suffered and her father wasn't making as much money as he used to. They were well off and had savings, it was more than most people had, but she knew she was a dead weight since she was not working. Lyssa had her husband's money, Rufus had been one of the wealthiest man in the Capitol. Effie had nothing and did not contribute.

"I can't." she repeated. "I am not sure he would want me. And the trip…"

The trip would be a nightmare. Trains for Twelve weren't direct. It would take forever to get there and she wasn't sure she could handle herself in public for so long.

"There is only one way to find out, isn't there?" Lyssandra declared, bending down to pick up the paper and snatching the phone away before Effie could tell her to stop, that this was going too far, that it was too cruel. If Haymitch rejected her… There would be no hope left. And yet she could do nothing but stare, eyes full of tears as her sister mercilessly jabbed her finger on the keys. Lyssandra waited for the call to connect, pursing her lips at her. "Do get off the floor, would you. My sons are around and I would rather they do not pick up any of your sloppy behavior. Yes, hello? Mr Abernathy?"

Effie's mouth grew parched and she sat on her hands to stop them from shaking. Her sister's disapproval rose a notch.

"No need to be rude, sir." Lyssandra scowled. "My name is Lyssandra Flavershym. My sister may have mentioned me when she wasn't busy planning to stab us all in the back." She paused for a moment. "Yes, I am, in fact, Effie's sister. I am astounded by your powers of deduction."

"Do not be mean." Effie pleaded in a whisper, feeling like she was ten again, a child looking up at her older sister. She went ignored.

"She is alright despite her newfound passion for sitting on the floor instead on perfectly good chairs." Lyssa offered to whatever question Haymitch had asked. "Well. Alright might be a big word for what she is. She was wondering if you would host her for an indefinite amount of time." Her sister blinked, her blue eyes meeting Effie's. "No, I cannot hand her the phone because she refuses to get up from the floor and behave like an adult."

"Do not tell him that! I do not want him to worry." Effie hissed. She tried to stand up but her legs were weak and she flopped back down, blaming her treacherous pounding heart and her dizzy head.

"Apparently, she does not want you to worry." Lyssandra reported. "I would like you to worry, on the other hand. I do not think she can stay with us for much longer. We do not know how to deal with her, you see? She never leaves the house, she barely eats, she screams herself raw in the middle of the night and she walks around wearing hideous clothes."

"Do not tell him that!" she repeated.

"Ah, and she seems unable to stand up right now. Lovely." Lyssa added as an afterthought. "Come to think of it, she also has a tendency to curl up on herself in various corners of the house. She seems to think we are blind and cannot see her."

Effie didn't know who she was truly talking to. Haymitch or her?

"Well, I would but I am not sure she will be agreeable." Lyssandra replied to whatever he said. "And, truth be told, I am not sure putting her on a train for an unforeseen number of hours would be wise. She will probably start crying before she even reaches the first District. She does cry a lot nowadays. That too, she seems to think we can hear or see."

Effie flushed crimson and forced herself up on shaky legs, grabbing the back of the couch for support.

"Tell him you are lying and I am doing fine." she demanded. "This is not a game, Lyssandra."

But her sister was frowning now. "Do not be daft. Surely you can make arrangements and entrust your Mockingjay to one of your friends." There was pause and then a scowl. "Oh, so my sister does not deserve your attention, then? It is exactly what you said! You certainly can if you want to make it happen. Perhaps she was right, perhaps you simply do not care enough." Lyssandra's eyebrows shot up and she looked at the phone in her hand with open loathing. "He hung up on me. Well, this answers that. You can stop wallowing around in his shirt, clutching that stupid piece of paper, he is not coming for you."

"Katniss…" she whispers, jumping to his defense.

"Oh, please." Lyssa scoffed. "That is just an excuse. You should know better." She patted her shoulder awkwardly on her way out of the room. "I did my best for you, little sister."

She didn't know if Lyssandra had been trying to be kind or cruel. Perhaps a little of both. Effie knew only too well how you could love and hate someone at the same time.

She slowly made her way to her room and collapsed on her bed, refusing to venture in the house for the rest of the day, even when her mother barged in her room to try and force her to go down for dinner, going as far as allowing her to sit at the dinner table in her pajamas if she so wished as long as she ate something. She truly wasn't hungry. Elindra insisted a little and then relented only to come back up after dinner with a bowl of soup she purposefully placed on her nightstand.

Her mother wasn't pleased the next day when the maid reported the soup had gone untouched and Effie had to sit through a lecture about how being too skinny wasn't appealing and how Elindra could tell her skin was barely hanging from her bones and how she needed to fill up a little. Effie found it the upmost of irony.

Still, she stuck to her room all day, locked into dark thoughts that wouldn't leave her alone.

It was late evening by the time a commotion downstairs dragged her out of her room. Her mother was shouting, she could hear her father's voice trying to temper things, her sister was ushering her boys back to the living-room…

She had the sudden image of soldiers knocking down the front door to arrest her – again – and she hurtled down the stairs, scared her family would get hurt trying to protect her. She stopped halfway down because there were no soldiers, just a very grim looking man determined to push his way inside the house.

When he caught sight of her, he stopped arguing with Elindra only to scowl. "What the fuck did you do to yourself?"

There was no stopping him then. He was in front of her in a blink, before she could feel self-conscious about the dirty shirt that belonged to him, how wild her hair must look like or even how long it had been since she had last showered.

"Haymitch…" she breathed out, tentatively reaching out.

He embraced her before she could even touch him, drawing her close to his chest, burying his nose in her neck. She hugged him back, finally relaxing for the first time in forever, feeling the urge to cry and biting down on the inside of her cheek to swallow it back.

"You look awful." he scorned, pressing a long kiss against the side of her neck. "Shit, Effie, you should have called before."

"I did not think you would come…" she whispered. "I did not think… I cannot get on a train for a whole day, Haymitch, I…"

"I have a hovercraft on stand-by." he cut her off. "Special circumstances. We're going to get the boy too, I arranged it with Plutarch. Won't take more than three hours to do the trip. Pack your stuff, I'm taking you home."

Home…

"You won't be taking her anywhere!" her mother huffed, sounding outraged. "Certainly not!"

"Leave her be, Elindra." her father sighed.

"But…" Elindra started.

"I said leave her be." Tadius cut her off harshly.

Effie didn't wait for him to change his mind, she grabbed Haymitch's hand and dragged him upstairs with her, only letting go once they were in her room. She piled everything in her suitcase without the care it deserved, too impatient to leave the Capitol behind. It was a little awkward to be there with Haymitch. They hadn't been on the best terms when he had left and she wasn't sure where they stood now. But he had come back for her and it had to count for something.

"I see you finally got your good senses back." Lyssandra commented from the threshold, her eyes darting from Haymitch to Effie. "I do not wish you ill."

Lyssa left before either of them could answer.

"Your sister's a piece of work." Haymitch declared.

"People usually like her best." she hummed, cramming her beauty products in her vanity even though she hadn't used them in ages. She would need to if she was to be around the children. They couldn't see her being withdrawn or lost. They would need stability.

"Proves my point. Always said people were idiots." he snorted.

She flashed him a small smile and grabbed a vibrant pink dress from the pile of clothes she had piled in her suitcase. She couldn't travel looking like she did at the moment.

He grabbed the hem of her shirt before she had a chance to take it off. "That's mine, sweetheart."

She pursed her lips. "It doesn't smell like you anymore."

"You're sure that's a bad thing?" he joked and when she didn't laugh, he shrugged, his face softening. "Got plenty of them at home you can steal."

"I love it when you say that." she confessed. "Home."

"It's not really home without you and the boy, you know." he mumbled, averting his eyes with obvious embarrassment. "Katniss's still not doing so great. She needs Peeta. And I…"

"I know." she whispered. "I do too."

Home wasn't a place.

It was family.

And it was time they mended their broken one.