Prompt: I was wondering if make this prompt into a story: Effie gets stung by tracker Jackers. Thanks!

The Squirrel & The Bees

"Be careful, squirrel!" Haymitch admonished, watching the eight year-old climb the old dead tree in the kids' backyard. Although he figured, the kids weren't kids anymore. Not when they had two children of their own.

Willow, true daughter of Katniss Everdeen as she was, barely flashed him a look of annoyance and disdain before keeping on climbing the stump, as if to say that this old tree didn't present a great challenge at all.

And since he knew she climbed much higher and much steeper in the woods with her mother, he figured it didn't. Still, he didn't relish explaining to Katniss or Peeta – or Effie – why the young girl had broken a limb while she was under his sole supervision. It didn't matter that they were all inside with Rye, he was alone out there with her and that meant he was responsible for her in his book.

"Grandpa, come see!" Willow demanded suddenly. She stopped her ascension and peered at something stuck between two dead branches with a wary frown. "These bees look weird."

"Bees?" he repeated, his stomach churning. The Mayor had issued a warning earlier that week about a new nest of Tracker Jackers having been discovered in the woods. He had requested that everyone in the District remained vigilant in the improbable case that some of them had settled elsewhere. He wasn't sure if the hive Willow had stumbled upon was full of normal bees or wasps or Tracker Jackers but he wasn't risking it either way. "Come back down."

The order was abrupt and far sharper than he ever talked to her. She startled and almost lost her footing but recovered herself and remained very still.

"What if they attack me?" she asked, a tinge of fear in her voice.

"Be slow, sweetheart." he coaxed. He crossed the distance between the porch and the tree in slow measured strides himself. He was contemplating calling for help when the children's back door opened and Effie came out, her arms full of coats and scarves.

"You two are going to catch your death!" she exclaimed in her usual cheerful tone. "Truly, Haymitch, you should… Willow Mellark, what did I say about climbing trees?!"

Effie's shriek alarmed the girl who definitely lost her grip this time around. Haymitch rushed ahead without thinking, barely noticing his wife tossing the clothes in her arms aside to do the same. He managed to grab Willow and run away from the sudden cloud of angry buzzing bees – no, not bees, they were too big, either they were wasps or…

Willow let out a deafening frightened scream right in his ear, prompting her parents to run out of the house…

"Back inside!" he ordered, his grey eyes riveted on Peeta. Who knew what another dose of Tracker Jacker venom would do to the boy? "Back!"

Katniss reacted quickly. She pushed her husband inside the kitchen with a command to grab Rye and make sure no bees had gotten to him and immediately met Haymitch at the bottom of the steps leading up the porch, snatching her daughter from his arms.

It was only once Willow was relatively safe that it occurred to him Effie was still screaming. He turned around to see her whirl around in the backyard, waving her arms in the air. It almost looked like a weird dance.

"Haymitch, wait!" Katniss warned.

He didn't listen. Of course, he didn't listen. He ran to where she was hopelessly battling the swarm, grabbed her around the waist and dragged her back toward the house, barely noticing the sharp bites on his neck and arms.

It was only once they were in the kitchen and Katniss had started piling clothes at the bottom of the door so no insect could slip through that he started feeling odd. He was warm. Very warm. And the walls seemed to spin around him like they used to when he went on a particularly long binge. It had been a long time since he had drunk anything though. Since before Willow had been born.

Effie collapsed as soon as he let go of her and curled up against the kitchen counter, whining and shouting in turns. Willow was now crying in distress and didn't stop, not even when Katniss picked her up and tried to shush her.

Haymitch's head was still spinning when he heavily sat down on a chair and he couldn't have sworn Peeta didn't have two horns on his head when he came back in the kitchen with the little boy in his arms. Was it a boy? It almost looked like a bird. One of those pink birds that had slit Maysilee's throat so long ago.

"Call that number the Mayor gave." Katniss ordered, handing him Willow on top of Rye. "And make sure they send a doctor too."

Next thing Haymitch knew, Katniss was right next to him forcing his head back and pressing something wet and completely disgusting against his neck.

"What…" he mumbled.

"You were lucky. I don't think you got stung that much." she said. "Effie's in bad shape."

He didn't feel lucky. He felt sick. Feverish.

"Effie…" he whispered.

She was still curled up, screaming every time someone tried to get too close… Hallucinating, his mind supplied, but his brain wasn't in any shape of form to do anything about that. When Peeta hauled him up and dragged him to the couch in the living-room, he didn't protest.

It was at least two hours before he felt like himself again. He was vaguely aware of being examined by a doctor, of a lot of people in strange orange suits coming and going – probably to capture or kill the modified bees – of being injected with something… He thrashed against the syringe, protested the strangers grabbing him…

He thought Katniss told him to stop being a baby.

Then he was asleep.

When he woke up, his head hurt, his throat felt swollen and his eyes were stuck shut. His eyelids fluttered open and closed a few times, he licked his lips to get rid of the strange taste in his mouth and ended up slapping himself in the head when he tried to rub his face.

When his sight finally cleared, he found a pair of anxious grey eyes staring down at him.

"Hey, squirrel…" he muttered.

Willow's frightened face morphed into something a little more joyful and she climbed down from her perch on the back of the couch to scramble off altogether, briefly crushing him under her small weight in the process. She grabbed a tall glass of something yellowish on the coffee table.

"Mom said you have to drink this as soon as you wake up." the girl dutifully relied.

Haymitch slowly sat up, still feeling like an elephant had sat on his head, and sniffed the content of the glass she handed over. It smelt faintly fruity but like some cough meds sometimes did and he doubted there was any actual fruit in there.

"Where are your mom and dad?" he asked, making a face. He pinched his nose and swallowed the whole thing in one go, deciding the chances his granddaughter would want to poison him were small.

"Upstairs with Grandma." she whispered, hugging herself. Her eyes filled with tears. "Daddy says she's having a nightmare and she can't wake up for now but she's going to be okay. Daddy pinky swore."

His blood ran cold when he finally remembered what had happened. The tracker jackers… Effie…

He was off the couch and up the stairs before he could even truly register it. It didn't do any good to his headache or the general aching of his body but he didn't care about his own discomfort. How long had he been out? How long had Effie been suffering on her own?

He followed the whimpers and pained moans to the children's room and stumbled against the door that easily gave in under his weight. Effie was lying on the kid's bed, struggling against Peeta's arms, completely deaf to the boy's gentle calming whispers, while Katniss tried and failed to wipe her brow with a cold compress…

Katniss' gaze immediately darted up to him, assessing. "You're feeling better?"

"I'm feeling like shit." he spat, staggering straight to the bed and crawling up to the headboard. Peeta handed Effie over to him. She fought his embrace too but her attempts were weak at best. "Why ain't she okay yet?"

She was burning up.

"She got more venom in her system." Peeta explained in a low voice. "The trackers got her legs bad. And she's smaller than you."

There were indeed a lot of sting marks on her thighs and calves. Her dress was riding high and Haymitch absent-mindedly tugged on it, knowing she wouldn't like being so indecent in front of their kids.

"The doctor gave her a shot to prevent complications." Katniss added, nodding at his arm. "You got one too. He said she should be okay. The fever isn't unexpected. We need to call if it hasn't broken by tonight but he said she should be alright. Did you drink the medicine? It's supposed to help with the aftershock or whatever."

"Yeah, yeah…" he confirmed, distracted by Effie's sobbing. Had she finally realized he was there? She had stopped fighting him and was burrowing against his chest instead, seeking him out. "It's alright, sweetheart… I'm right here… You're alright… I've got you…"

He petted her hair until she seemed to fall asleep, a bit embarrassed because the children kept staring. It felt like forever before Peeta finally dragged Katniss out of the room so they could go reassure Willow and check on Rye.

Haymitch shifted until he found a more comfortable position, eventually drifting off a little. He didn't let himself fall asleep though… Not with Effie hurt next to him…

One of the kids came up to check on them from time to time… Willow's head poked into the room more times than he could count and it made him smirk because she got caught and called back down by Katniss every time. It was sweet how determined the girl was to take care of them.

Effie only woke up late in the evening and she immediately groaned and buried her face in his chest.

"Too much light…" she complained.

"There's only one lamp, sweetheart." he objected softly. It wasn't that bright in the kids' bedroom, not with the night having already fallen.

There was a long moment of silence that he spent combing her hair with his fingers and then she gripped his shirt a little harder. "When are we?"

It had been years since she had needed to ask that. More than a decade. And it broke his heart. He had been pretty sure what she would hallucinate about but…

He gave the same answer he hadn't had to give in so long. "We're in Twelve. Safe. Together. The kids are fine. Their kids are fine. It's all good, Princess."

Her body lost some of it tension. "Everything hurts."

"I know." He sighed. "There was a tracker jackers nest… You got badly stung. Here… You're supposed to drink this. Tastes like shit, let me tell you…"

"Language." she muttered, taking the glass he handed her. She wrinkled her nose and then swallowed it down. She shuddered when she handed the empty glass back to him and he was a little scared she was going to throw up on him. "I'm tired."

"Yeah… Me too." He still felt exhausted even though he had spent the better part of the afternoon lounging on the bed. He brushed her hair back. It was several shades lighter than it used to be, no longer her natural strawberry blond because of the dye she now used to cover her white hair… "You think you can walk home or you want me to tell the kids we're stealing their bedroom for the night?"

She pursed her lips. "We should not steal their bed. How rude." And yet she lied back down, settling against his side like she usually did for the night. "Perhaps if I just rest for a few minutes…"

"Right." He smirked. He doubted she would rouse again. "Princess?"

"Yes?" she hummed, already half asleep.

"I love you." He rushed the words out, like always when he managed to utter them at all. They were rare those words coming from him and she never took them for granted… The sight of her trapped in that swarm of bees… The sight of her in pain…

"I will be fine, darling." she replied, not quite as oblivious as he would have liked. "I am just… I am tired. I will be fine tomorrow."

He dearly hoped so. Because they weren't young anymore. They really weren't. She might have five years less than he did but that still made her fifty-eight and while it wasn't that old all things considered, for someone like him who came from a District where you were lucky to even reach fifty, it was already something.

He wanted to grow old with her.

He couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to her.