Prompt:ok this is dark and the other readers are going to kill me, but I do not care because it will be glorious in your hands. During a bombing at 13 - or during the mess after Coin's execution - Effie is severely wounded, and Katniss tries to help her. (I just can't get rid of the image of Katniss doing CPR or trying to take care of her, crying something like "Please no Effie, not you too..." I love their relationship!) then Haymitch finds them and he is destroyed. I'll leave the decision about an happy or sad ending to you.
The Only Promise That Counts
Haymitch was jogging after Boggs in the twisting corridors and trying not to feel as out of shape as he actually was. Overhead the neon lights kept flickering. People were hurrying in different directions, trying to reach their designed compartments like the computerized warning had ordered. He and Bogs had to go against the flow, sometimes slowing down to let a big group pass by…
They were losing time and every minute they wasted was a minute Katniss was alone out there, unattended and unprotected. The state of mind she was in, there was no guarantee she had gone back to her family compartment when the message had sounded, his only hope was that she was supposed to have been with Effie when the generators had started malfunctioning and that their escort would have insisted they followed instructions.
They weren't sure if they were under attack or not yet. Thirteen's main generator had abruptly stopped working in the middle of the day without any reason that anyone could find. The backup had immediately kicked in but had short-circuited a little after. Now they were on the third backup and that one was having trouble powering all the District.
There were safe and counter safe measures to make sure something like that didn't happen. Generator in Thirteen were vital, not only for lights but so far underground, they were needed for heating and ventilation.
And the elevators. Haymitch missed the elevators. He had lost count of the number of stairs they had been forced to hurled down so far. It helped that Boggs knew all the shortcuts but…
His communicuff crackled to life. "Katniss isn't in the Everdeen's compartment. Do you have her secure?"
Haymitch cursed at Plutarch's message and looked at Boggs.
"What about Effie?" he asked. "If they were closer to her room, she might have brought her there."
"The soldiers already checked." the Head Gamemaker said. "They're not there and they're nowhere near the living area. Beetee thinks this is sabotage, Haymitch."
"They were supposed to be at the shooting studio." Haymitch told Boggs.
They didn't jog this time, they broke out into a run, shoving people out of the way. Soon, the emergency procedure had cleared the hallways and they were free to advance more quickly though. Haymitch was out of breath long before they hurried down the new flight of stairs but he didn't let that stop him.
He deeply felt the absence of his knife at his belt though.
Boggs was armed but he wasn't and if this was sabotage… The Capitol would have to know they would identify the problem and fix it quickly… Generators were too important down there. The sabotage had to be a decoy.
A decoy for…
He tapped a button on his cuff to contact Plutarch. "Plutarch, is everyone else safe? If someone sneaked in…"
"Alma and I are safe in Command." the Head Gamemaker answered. "She thinks along the same line you are. She dispatched more soldiers to the hospital to guard Peeta, Finnick and the others. The only important person unaccounted for is Katniss." There was a pause. "Well, and you."
"Flattering." he scoffed, gulping air. "But chances are Snow didn't go to all that troubles just for me." The light flickered off and remained dead. Both he and Boggs froze, waiting… "Shit." Haymitch cursed when it became clear they wouldn't come back up. "Plutarch."
"Beetee is working on it." came the tense replied through the cuff. "Find Katniss."
"Haymitch." Boggs called, the picture of calm. "Here." The soldier grabbed his wrist and pushed something in his hand. It was pitch black but it was impossible not to recognized the feel of a hilt under his palm. Standard issue military knife, not something he would have chosen, too light for him, but it would have to do. "Keep your hand on the wall, follow me down. We're about six flights from the right floor."
"I'm behind you." He nodded even though there was no way Coin's second could see.
The descent was endless. He lost his sense of time after only a couple of minutes, entirely focused on not tripping on a step and breaking his neck. He tried not to worry too much about Katniss. Knowing the girl like he did, she was probably hiding in a vent shaft or something. And Effie… Maybe Effie was trying to coax her out. Maybe Effie was hiding with her. Maybe…
"We're here." Boggs declared, grabbing his wrist again, guiding him along a flat expanse of floor to a door – it was jerry after so long down the stairs to be walking on flat ground again. "Follow the wall. Two left and then straight across at the intersection, one turn right after that and we're at the studio. If there is a Capitol team in there, don't take unnecessary risks. Your prime objective is to get Katniss out of there. Leave the rest to me."
"I can fight." Haymitch argued, not keen on being dismissed again. Boggs had ignored him when he had volunteered to go rescue the other victors – and that might have been the best choice because he wasn't that young anymore – but he wasn't entirely useless.
"I don't want you to fight. I want you to secure the Mockingjay and keep her safe until a protection team can take over." the soldier argued. "Command, we're about to enter the entertainment floor. Request radio silence until we can make sure it's clean."
"Copy that." Coin's voice answered through Boggs' communicuff. "We're working on bringing the power back on. Be careful and good luck."
Boggs was moving so silently Haymitch mostly only had the wall to orientate himself. The wall under one hand and the knife in the other… It was a relief when the lights started flickering on and off again. At least until he realized it blinded them and made them walking targets…
The only sounds were the recurrent pinging of the neon lights and their breathing. Sometimes, they heard the hum of the generators struggling to turn on and then roaring to their death.
Haymitch's skin was prickling with unease, something was not right. His sixth sense, the one that had kept him alive in an arena once, was screaming at him.
In the flickering of the light, he spotted shapes in the middle of what must have been the intersection Boggs had talked about but it was too quick for him to tell what it was – who it was. Boggs had seen them too, Haymitch knew because he heard him take the safety of his gun, ready to shoot the next time the lights flashed on.
The neon lights did flicker on and, of course, stayed on this time. Just because Haymitch would have loved for them to cut off and remain dark again. Just because he would have loved to unsee what was waiting for them in that corridor. Just because he knew he would have nightmares about this for the rest of his life.
There was a lot off blood. The floor was stained with it.
Katniss looked up at him, disheveled and eyes wide with panic, her hands red. "I don't think she's breathing!"
He didn't remember dropping the knife and rushing to her side but he must have.
Yeah, he must have.
Because next thing he knew, he was kneeling next to Effie's unconscious body, pushing Katniss' hands away, shrugging off his jacket and using it to apply pressure on her stomach where the most blood seemed to be leaking from, vaguely aware that Boggs was kicking a gun away from the other body in that corridor. The man, whoever he was, was very dead, that much was obvious because of the blood and the empty eyes.
"I don't know him." Boggs declared. "How's Trinket?"
Haymitch couldn't answer. He didn't want to look for a pulse. She looked terrible. Her face was pale and clammy, the blood was gushing under his hands and he pressed harder, he couldn't tell if her chest was lifting or not. He wasn't sure she was breathing.
"We were trying to go back to my compartment." Katniss stuttered. "This man jumped on us. He had a gun. He…" She swallowed hard, tears rolling down her chest. "Effie got between us. She pushed me. She…"
Stupid woman, Haymitch thought, stupid brave impossible woman.
"He was going to shoot her again." the girl continued. "I… I hit him. Then we struggled for the gun and…"
"You did a good job." Boggs commented calmly, placing a hand on her shoulder when it became clear Haymitch wouldn't say anything. The man's eyes were darting around. "We're exposed here. We need to move."
Haymitch forced his mouth to work, his throat to unlock. "She needs a medic team. She can't be moved."
"We need to secure Katniss." Boggs argued.
"I'm not leaving without Effie." Katniss snapped, shrugging his hand off to crawl closer to the escort. "Effie? Effie, wake up… Wake up…"
"Does she even have a pulse?" the soldier asked, not entirely unkind but clearly on the edge.
"Fuck off." Haymitch growled just when Katniss stuttered "I don't know. I don't know.".
Not helpful.
"We're switching." he declared, grabbing Katniss's wrist and forcing it back to Effie's wound. "Press hard, kid." Once he was sure the blood loss was as contained as could be, he moved closer to her head, searched her neck. His fingers were shaking so much, he felt so nauseous… He shook his head, looking up at Boggs. "I can't… I can't find it."
Boggs was still watching the perimeter and made a face, crouching but without breaking up his surveillance, blindly probing at Effie's neck. "It's here but it's shallow." Both Haymitch and Katniss breathed out a sigh of relief. Boggs touched his communicuff. "Command, we have the package. Possible rats invasion on our hands. We need urgent medical attention."
"Is the Mockingjay injured?" Coin immediately asked.
"Negative." Boggs answered. "But the escort is down. Repeat, we need urgent medical attention."
"We're on lockdown until security teams have swept every floor. No transit from medical." Coin replied. "Secure the Mockingjay and wait for the clear out."
"Send me a fucking doctor." Haymitch spat in his own communicuff. "Effie's hurt bad."
"Haymitch, we can't compromise the District's whole security for…" Plutarch started arguing.
"Katniss ain't going anywhere until Effie's safe." he cut him off. "You want your Mockingjay secured, send a fucking medical team."
He searched Katniss' eyes even as he said it but she nodded, her mouth pursed in a tight line that was more bravado than anything else. Silent tears were still rolling down her face.
Haymitch cupped Effie's cheek, brushed the blond hair that had escaped the headscarf back and then slipped the piece of fabric loose and handed it to Katniss. His jacket was already soaked. How much blood had she lost? How long had his girls been in that hallway, one of them bleeding out?
"Copy that." Coin finally answered after far too long. "We will have words when you are back in Command, soldier Abernathy."
"Fuck you." Haymitch grumbled to himself, careful not to speak into his communicuff.
The wait for a rescue team was maybe even more endless than the climbing down of the stairs in the dark had been earlier. Boggs was tense, ready to shoot at the slightest sign of danger. Katniss' arms were trembling and Haymitch relayed her from time to time, keeping pressure on the wound, keeping Effie alive…
Her eyelids flickered at some point and a moan passed her lips.
"Sweetheart." he immediately called. "Sweetheart, you hold on, you hear me? You hear me?"
She didn't seem to be hearing him. He wanted to cradle her head in his hands, brush kisses on her lips until she listened, but his hands were on her stomach and it was Katniss who crawled closer to her face, lovingly brushed her blond hair back, leaving smears of blood on her cheeks and forehead…
"Effie, you can't go." the girl pleaded. "You have to fight. You have to fight. You can't leave me. You can't go."
Effie's eyes, behind her half-opened eyelids, looked glassy.
"Effie…" he begged. "Effie, don't fucking die on me." There were other words he wanted to say. Words that wouldn't leave his throat. Words that had been used as goodbye once when he was sixteen and that he was too scared to utter again. "Princess, please, open your eyes. Please."
The echoed of footsteps came from the right and Boggs immediately turned his gun in that direction only to relax when he spotted the squad of soldiers escorting the medic team. Haymitch and Katniss were pushed away from her by the doctors. It felt natural to cling to each other while they worked on her.
When Boggs tried to gently haul Katniss to her feet, she clung to Haymitch harder.
"She's in good hands now." the soldier insisted. "We need to get you somewhere safe."
Impatience was starting to make his tone rough. Katniss shook her head. "I'm staying with her."
"They're going to take her to the hospital." Boggs argued. "We need to get you somewhere safe."
"That's where the other victors are." Haymitch snapped. "Must be very secure. Right?" Boggs wasn't pleased with either of them, he could see. "She's part of our team. You'd leave one of your teammates bleeding out just to get yourself safe?" he challenged.
Somehow, he didn't think so.
And Boggs' scowl faded into something that was less irritated and more sympathetic. "This is a bad wound, Haymitch."
She was a lost cause, was what the soldier didn't say. Katniss flinched in his arms and Haymitch tightened his hold on her, turning his eyes away from the man to watch the doctors work. They had opened her shirt, leaving her in nothing but that grayish bra she hated so much. He hated the thought of her so exposed, knew she would object to being seen in public like that… They were filling the gaping wound with gauze and cotton balls or whatever it was. They put a drip in her arm, hauled her up on a stretcher…
Haymitch and Katniss got to their feet, ready to follow…
They piled up in one of the elevators. He wanted to ask if it was really safe to use them now or if there was a chance they would remain stuck in it with Effie dying...
"What's her blood type?" one of the medics asked, directing his question to Haymitch and Katniss. "She needs an emergency transfusion and our blood bank has a limited stock. Does anyone knows her blood type?"
Katniss shrugged in ignorance and looked up at him.
He should have known. He had known her for thirteen years. He fucking should have known her blood type. He was sure she knew his.
They were already rolling down a corridor by the time Haymitch stopped beating himself up about that and actually realized they didn't need her blood type.
"I'm O negative. She can have mine." he called out. "She can… Just take mine."
"No alcohol, no drugs, no disease?" the same doctor shot back, probably knowing who he was.
He shook his head. "I'm sober and I haven't been taking the prescription." He hated those pills. They made him slow in the brain – without mentioning the fact they made it nearly impossible for him to have a decent chance at keeping it up. "I'm good to donate. I think I'm good."
He wanted to stay with her but they ushered her to surgery as soon as they reached the hospital. He and Katniss were led to a private room where a nurse immediately had him lying down and asking the very same questions the doctor had already asked plus a few more before drawing blood from his arm. Katniss collapsed in a chair and hid her face in her hands while Boggs took a silent vigil at the door despite the squad of soldiers that had taken position in front of the room in the hospital corridor.
They gave him some orange juice and crackers once they were done taking his blood.
"You can have more." he insisted. "Whatever she needs. You can have more."
The nurse had a kind smile and she squeezed his wrist in a comforting gesture. "We already have some in our blood bank. It should be enough. We have a few donors on the medical staff too and if the lockdown ends soon we can contact people in our files with the right blood types. She's in good hands, don't worry."
Not worrying wasn't possible.
Minutes stretched into hours. Boggs left to check on the others 'probable targets' at some point and Haymitch wasn't sorry to be left alone with Katniss.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Told you." she mumbled, sounding exhausted.
"Tell me again. With details." he insisted.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "We were in the studio to take pictures or whatever… I was getting out of the Mockingjay costume when the lights started flickering. Effie said it was nothing to worry about but she didn't look happy. She said we should try to find you." She would. That was what he had told her to do if something ever happened. Find him because he would probably be at the most secure point in the District, right with Coin. "Then there was the alarm and they said everyone had to go back to their compartment. Effie said she wanted to make sure I got home safe." Katniss stopped and snorted bitterly. "I thought she was being stupid… I thought… I thought if anything happened she wouldn't be much use."
He swallowed hard. "Yeah, well… She did get herself shot."
"There weren't many people on the floor. We got turned around because the elevators weren't working and we didn't know where the stairs were." Katniss explained. "Then that man was right there and he had a gun pointed right at me…" The girl stared at him with pleading eyes. "She didn't even hesitate. I didn't have time to move or react or… She got between us, tried to grab the gun… She told me to run… Then the gunshot… She fell on her knees and he was going to shoot her in the head. I knew he was… And then it would have been me… So…"
"You took him down." he finished for her.
"I don't even know how I did it." she admitted. "We fought for the gun, I heard the gunshot…"
"Never underestimate a victor…" Haymitch muttered and then closed his eyes.
He could picture it perfectly. Effie saving their victor's life…
Stupid woman. Stupid woman who had had zero chances of taking down a trained killer. She had wanted to buy Katniss time. Simple as that. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
"You think she's going to die?" Katniss asked in a small voice.
"Never underestimate an escort either." he answered. "Besides, Effie Trinket is too fucking stubborn to die like that."
At least he hoped so. He hoped so because it hadn't looked good.
He toyed with the golden bangle around his wrist, held it tight enough that his knuckles turned white. Katniss' eyes tracked the movement.
"I didn't think she would do something that." she confessed. "I didn't think she cared that much about the rebellion."
"Sweetheart, she doesn't give a shit about the rebellion." he snorted. "She cares about you. She cares about us." He licked his lips. "She loves you." She loves us, he didn't dare say out loud just in case. Those words were cursed.
"Is it very bad that I didn't know I liked her so much until she started bleeding out on me?" she whispered.
He chuckled and it was all bitter and a bit hysterical. "I know the feeling."
"So you just realized too?" she asked, eyeing his fingers with suspicion.
He was still holding tight to the bangle.
"Oh, I've known a while…" he admitted in what he had wanted to be a detached voice but only ended up sounding strangled. "Haven't told her yet though. Not in so many words."
It had taken the Victory Tour from hell and the very real possibility that she was going to be swept up in the poisonous berries disaster like Crane had been for him to realize it wasn't just that he didn't want her to get hurt because of him, it was that he couldn't bear to lose her. He had known for a while it was more than a silly crush and an addiction to her body but he had been very good at avoiding the truth. With the Tour… It hadn't been as easy to ignore then.
He couldn't bear to lose her.
The lockdown was lifted an hour after that little confession. He harassed the medical staff but there was still no news. She was still in surgery and that was all they could tell him. He and Katniss ended up waiting with Finnick and Annie in Johanna's hospital room.
"She's gonna die." Jo professed at some point, almost gleefully. "You don't stay that long on the slab and come out of it breathing."
Haymitch stormed out before he could do something stupid like suffocate her with a pillow.
His communicuff kept beeping, reminding him he was needed in Command. He ignored it and nobody tried to contact him through it. Still, he wasn't entirely surprised when Plutarch tracked him down at some point. He was lying on one of the free beds in one of the big triage areas, in direct view of the nurses office so they could find him easily.
"No update?" the Head Gamemaker asked him before he was even in proper conversation range. Haymitch shook his head. He had stopped talking hours ago. He didn't trust his voice anymore. Plutarch patted his shoulder. "I am certain she will pull through. They have very competent doctors in this District."
He hadn't met any competent doctor when he had been locked in a cell to ride off the withdrawals, he wanted to shot back. But he swallowed the words down. He swallowed everything down.
He had never been good at hoping. That was her area of expertise. He had never been good at hoping and the little hope he had left was quickly vanishing with each new minute ticking by on the clock on the wall.
It had been nearly six hours by his count when the doctor from earlier finally approached him, still in surgery scrubs. Haymitch immediately sat up, his fingers clenching the edge of the mattress…
"She's alive." the doctor said without preamble.
Haymitch let out a long breath of relief and buried his face in his hands. His body had been so coiled, he hadn't realized how much until all his muscles relaxed. His stomach stopped hurting so much, his heart stopped hammering so hard… He felt like crying. He rubbed his eyes, worked hard to swallow the lump in his throat, to compose himself…
"She's okay?" he insisted when he was sure he could talk again without making a fool of himself.
"It was touch and go for a long time." the doctor explained. "She lost a lot of blood. She was lucky because no major organs were hit but the bullet didn't go all the way through and it took some time to locate it."
"But she's gonna recover, yeah?" he insisted. "She's out of the woods?"
"Her body is still very weak." the man tempered. "And nothing is certain for now. But she's a fighter."
"Yeah." He nodded. "Yeah, she is. Can I… Can I see her?"
"In a little while. They're making her comfortable for now." the doctor tempered. "Maybe you could give the news to your friends. And take a shower. Get a change of clothes. We want the environment around her to remain as sterile as can be, alright?"
It was then that Haymitch realized his hands and his shirt were still covered in blood. He nodded his understanding and then shook the man's hand, blood or not, just because he had saved Effie and that meant Haymitch owed him more than he could ever repay.
It was almost a whole hour before he was allowed in her room. There were a lot of machines, she had a tube in her mouth and she looked so small, so pale in those white sheets. He sat next to her bed and held her hand between his.
He didn't say anything.
He wanted to. Hell, he wanted to tell her she was the love of his life, that she was the only one he had ever loved that much, that the thought of losing her terrified him, that he would do anything to keep her safe and happy, that he wanted everything with her, that he wanted the proverbial house with its white picket fence and the dog that came with it, that he wanted to grown old with her, that he would toast bread with her if that what she wanted, that he wanted to fight with her until the very end of his life, that he could watch her smile and laugh forever, that…
He didn't know how to actually say any of it.
People came and went over the next few days. Katniss, Finnick, Plutarch… He didn't move from her side.
She didn't wake up. The medical staff insisted it wasn't alarming, that it was her body's way of recovering…
He didn't move from her side. He had a permanent bad crick in the neck from sleeping sitting up on that chair. One morning, he opened his eyes from a short nap to find her suffocating. Or, at least, that was what it looked like. He shot out of his chair, meeting her pained blue eyes and shouted for help…
It turned out when you woke up with a tube in your mouth breathing for you, your first reflex was to gag and cough it out.
"Don't fight it." Haymitch kept on saying once he had caught up to what was going on. "You're fine, you're okay. Don't fight it." Her fingers flexed and he held her hand harder. "I'm right here. I've got you, Princess. Fuck, but I've missed you. That's just like you. You had to make yourself interesting, yeah? Had to get yourself shot."
Her gaze was confused but she calmed down long enough to listen to instructions when they took the tube out. She immediately opened her mouth but he brushed his fingers against it.
"Don't try to talk." he advised. "Your throat's gonna be sore." But she insisted, tried to form a word. "Katniss is fine." He thought that was what she wanted to know at least and since she settled down, it must have been. "She's fine."
She fell back asleep.
She did that for a while. Wake up just long enough to assert he was still there and then go back to sleep…
"Haymitch." she croaked out one day and he had to bundle the hand that wasn't holding hers into a fist to keep his composure.
"Don't ever put me through that again." he ordered. "Ever. Thought you were gonna die right in front of me. Thought…" He shook his head. "You don't ever die on me. I'm the one who goes first." She frowned and he waved any objection she could have away. "I don't fucking care. I'm dying first. I ain't ever going through that again."
When Katniss finally managed to visit her while she was conscious, it was an emotional mess. Lots of hugging and crying – mostly on Effie's part though the girl's eyes did look a little shiny.
"Tell Haymitch to go take a shower…" Effie whispered, her words slow and low because her throat was still sore. "Even disinfectant is not enough to cover the smell."
Haymitch spared her a glare. She had been trying to get him out so he could get some proper sleep for hours but he refused to move.
Katniss sadly looked in agreement with their escort. "You stink."
"Thanks, sweetheart." he snorted. "You're a real charmer."
"I'll stay with her until you come back." the girl offered.
That was a compromise he could live with.
"Katniss is acting different." Effie told him once he had come back, freshly showered and shaved – just because he knew it would earn him a smile.
"She had an epiphany." he replied, settling back on his uncomfortable chair. He grabbed her hand back too. "She realized she loves you and doesn't want to spend the rest of her life without you. Well, maybe she knew it before but… She wasn't ready to accept it. And now it sank in."
She watched him with too knowing eyes, her pale lips stretched into a smile. "Is that so? She realized all that?"
He drew random symbols on the back of her hand.
"I never want to lose you." he admitted slowly, staring at the white sheet rather than at her. "Never make me lose you."
It wasn't something they could really promise, of course, but when he finally gathered his courage and looked up at her she was watching him with tenderness and… Yeah. Love.
It was a promise in itself, wasn't it? Love.
Maybe the only one that counted.