prompt: effie or haymitch gets a nightmare that is so horrible that he/she wets the bed .

A Glimpse Into The Future

Finding clean sheets in the Presidential Mansion at two a.m. turned out to be more complicated than Haymitch would have thought since rebel soldiers were constantly strolling down the corridors. He had to leave his bedroom far longer than he'd have liked and was half certain another disaster would have happened by the time he came back. Everything was calm when he finally walked back in with his prize in his arms and he resisted the urge to check in the bathroom when he heard the soft splashing of water in the bathtub.

He focused on undressing the bed, crumpling the soiled sheets into a ball and tossing them in a corner of the living-room part of the suite where Effie wouldn't have to see them. Then he turned the mattress over and remade the bed.

All in all, he estimated it had been half an hour since he had been brutally woken up by her muffled humiliated sobs.

Too long for her to still be hiding in the bathroom, although he understood the feeling.

If it had been him who had lost control of his bladder, he would have been embarrassed too – and probably already hitting the bottle to hide that fact.

With a sigh, he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling so out of his depths… To be honest, he had been out of his depths ever since he had pulled Effie Trinket out of a tiny cell not fit enough for a dog. Her recovery had been quicker than Katniss' was proving to be but there were still bumps in the road and mentally she wasn't back to her old self yet – and he wasn't sure she ever would be, you didn't go through hell and came back the same.

Maybe sharing a room had been a mistake… The doctors and Plutarch had seemed to think so – too much too fast – but Coin was breathing down his neck and getting a pardon out of her for Effie's sake had been far too difficult. He didn't trust the new self-elected President any more than he trusted the rebel soldiers who would only be too happy to shoot another escort. He wanted to keep Effie as close to him as possible – and she certainly hadn't protested the plan so far, he was the only one who could calm her down when she was having a panic attack or a flashback.

Stilling himself, he grabbed a clean pair of boxers and one of his shirts – she kept stealing his clothes to sleep in and if it could help, he was more than willing to let her borrow them – and knocked on the half-open bathroom door. "Sweetheart?"

There was no answer.

He licked his lips and pushed the door open, not quite surprised to find her sitting in the bathtub, hugging her legs close to her chest. The shirt she had been wearing earlier had been tossed in the sink and thoroughly soaked. He didn't let his eyes linger on it. He placed the clean clothes on the towel rack and cautiously approached the tub.

He had seen her naked plenty of times since her rescue. She had hated the nurses and the doctors touching her but she had still needed help with clothes and getting in and out of the shower. She hadn't minded his hands on her so much and while she flinched every time his gaze cataloged her scars, she hadn't said anything about them yet. The scars, like everything that had happened to her, hadn't been discussed.

It was left to her nightmares and his too vivid imagination.

He had seen her naked plenty of times but he was still wary of triggering something all the same, of intruding, of unintentionally stealing the meager control she had over her life right then.

"Sweetheart…" he tried again.

She turned her head away from him, pressing her hollow cheek hard against her knees. "Don't."

It was a choked sob and it brought him to his knees.

He couldn't bear to see her hurt anymore. He couldn't bear it. He had barely been able to keep it together when she had been irresponsive during the first few days of her stay in the hospital. He had screamed into his pillow at night when she had started yelling in fright every time someone tried to touch her. He felt his stomach churn every time she had to go through a flashback or a panic attack. It was… It was too painful to see her like that, her flamboyant self reduced to ashes.

He kneeled next to the tub, noting without noting that she hadn't bothered filling it, the water barely reached her hips, and he grabbed her shoulder. She flinched but he wasn't surprised.

"Hey…" he said softly, awkwardly. "Hey, it's alright…"

"Don't." she repeated, her voice breaking. "I… This is…"

"Not your fault." he said firmly, gently tugging on a strand of her hair. It wasn't curly like it used to be. It hung limp and dry under his fingers. "The doctors said it could happen, remember? Your bladder…"

"Please, don't." she snapped. She knew what the doctors had said, then. Sometimes, he couldn't be sure. She tended to space out, all the more so when it was about stuff she didn't want to hear. The reality of the situation was that she had been stuck in a tiny room unable to move for weeks and that she had taken up habits during that time and that while it disgusted her to have been forced to soil herself, her body still had lost some reflexes that the bladder infection hadn't helped and she needed to work on that. The doctors had suggested diapers until she could get the problem under control and she had almost tore the man's head off. "I think I will sleep on the couch."

"Bad idea, it's velvet." he snorted before he could stop himself. Her body tensed even more and he made a face. "Okay, bad joke. You ain't sleeping on the couch, Princess. If one of us is gonna sleep on it, it's gonna be me and it will be 'cause you don't want me in your bed, not 'cause you might have… accidents."

"I wetted the bed like a frightened child!" she retorted, looking at him just long enough to toss him a glare.

He shrugged. "And I puked on myself how many times? Hell… How many times did I puke on you?"

"It's different." she argued in a small voice.

"Sure is. You didn't choose this. It ain't your fault. When I drank myself into a binge, I knew what I was doing and I didn't care." he countered.

"Haymitch's, it's humiliating." she hissed. "I cannot ask you…"

"You're not asking. I'm telling you I ain't going anywhere." he cut her off. "Look… You're embarrassed, I get that… You want to even out the playfield? You've got no idea how many times I crapped myself in Thirteen. They locked me in a room, made me quit cold turkey… I wasn't right in the head anymore. I crapped myself. I peed on myself. Puked on myself a few times too. I've been right where you are except it was a stranger helping me out and fixing me up. Let me tell you it didn't make me feel better about it at all."

He placed his hand back on her shoulder, drawing soothing patterns on her skin.

She took a few deep inspirations that seemed to rattle her whole fragile frame. She was so thin… Skin and bones and not much else. "You would not admit to even liking me before this whole thing and now you are willing to spend the whole night in my bed even though I cannot promise you won't wake up in disgusting wet sheets again?"

It wasn't really a question, more like an accusation.

He wasn't good at expressing his feelings, he had never been.

"I've missed you so much…" he whispered, leaning forward until his forehead rested a little under his hand on her shoulder. "Princess, you've got no idea… It's gonna take a lot more than that to make me leave."

"What will it take?" she challenged immediately.

He frowned but didn't move. "You want me to go?"

"No." The answer was immediate and he relaxed a little. Testing the limits, then. That was fine. He wasn't sure on what ground they stood either. They had been sex partners but never quite lovers and now they were lovers without the sex part. She breathed out slowly. "I want everything to stop. I want… I want my body to be… normal again."

"I know you hate it but you have to be patient." he reminded her. "You'll get there."

Finally, she looked at him, fresh track tears clear on her cheeks. "I am sorry."

"That's my line." He gave her a poor excuse of a smirk and leaned on the edge of the bathtub to stand up. "Come on. Let's go back to bed."

"Are you sure?" she insisted, grabbing the hand he offered and letting him wrap a towel around her.

He offered her the clean clothes, his smirk a little more genuine. "You know… It's probably good practice for later. One of us is bound to end up incontinent."

She didn't seem sure what to make of this vague reference to a future they hadn't discussed yet but, after a few seconds, she gave him a snort and that was good enough for him.

They would get through this, he vowed.

He would help her get through this.