Prompt: I have a prompt please: after Seneca dies, haymitch walk in on Effie crying or something. Maybe up until then he think she can't be that sad because all capitols have fake friendships. Thank you.

Comfort In Small Touches

Haymitch heaved himself out of his dinner chair and went in search of his upset escort, not without a last vaguely annoyed glance toward Katniss while Cinna steered the kids toward the living-room. They didn't have much time before the score announcements and he didn't want to miss them, not with what the kids had just revealed about their afternoon.

He wasn't any more pleased than Effie was, truth be told.

Painting a dead kid? Swinging up a dummy with a dead Gamemaker's name on it?

How stupid were they? Did they think the targets on their backs weren't big enough? And the plan… The plan was that the victors in the rebellion alliance had to keep them alive until the very last moment and with that sort of targets on their backs…

Haymitch worried about his friends. He tried not to because his priority had to be the children but he was very aware that his closest friends would be in that arena too. All of them or close to it.

He didn't bother checking the bedrooms and headed straight up to the roof, not surprised to find the door wedged half-open with a rock. He pushed it and stepped outside in the warm summer air of the evening. Effie was leaning against the hip-low wall a few feet away with her back to the door.

"The show's about to start." he called, figuring she had had enough time to calm down and smoke the cigarette she had been dying for all day.

"I will be here." she answered without turning around. There was no movement to bring a cigarette to her lips or crush it down on the wall either.

He sighed but wandered closer. If he missed the Careers' scores, it wouldn't be important. They were bound to be the best anyway.

"Come on, sweetheart. What they did was stupid but there's nothing we can do about it now." he said, reaching for her shoulder. "We've got to play with the cards we're dealt. It's gonna be fine."

He had to believe it would be.

He heard her took a deep shaky breath and it suddenly hit him that she hadn't come up there to smoke. She had come up there to…

He frowned. "Effie."

He heard her sniff, then she wiped at her cheeks with her fingers but she didn't speak.

Not to betray the tears in her voice, he supposed.

He sighed again and tugged on her shoulder. "It's gonna be fine. Now's not the best time for a breakdown, Princess…"

She leaned her back against his chest but refused to turn around. He could see her jaw was clenched, that she was making an effort to compose herself… Funny, he had almost expected her to toss herself at his neck and make a spectacle of her sorrow. But that would have been for show and on the roof they didn't really do for show. He could count on one hand the numbers of time he had actually seen her cry – really cry. She hated crying, he knew that, and she hated crying in public even more.

And he hated seeing her cry.

It made him feel powerless in ways he couldn't bear.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, held her more tightly to him, dropped a few kisses on her shoulder and neck. "Effie, we'll get the kids back. Trust me."

It was dangerously close to admitting he had something in the work – though she already suspected, he supposed.

"It is not just that…" she breathed out after a moment, delicately wiping at her face again, mindful of her make-up. "Yes, I am upset because of what the children did but… She just… Seneca…"

Her voice broke and she took a heavy breath, dropping her head back on his shoulder. The wig cushioned it, really, but she still tilted her head toward the night sky, her eyes closed, her jaw clenched…

He felt a twist of guilt in his stomach because he was the one who had asked her to go to Crane, to bring the Head Gamemaker to him and, then, who had convinced the guy to risk it all for the star-crossed lovers business. And Haymitch suspected that, in the end, the man had only agreed to it because of Effie.

"It wasn't your fault." he told her. "And he had it coming…"

"Don't." she snapped. He felt her tense and he tightened his embrace before she could escape it. She gave up trying after a few seconds but fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, tracing clean tracks in the foundation powder. "He was my friend."

"He was a Gamemaker." he reminded her.

He was the enemy.

He didn't say it but she knew him too well. They were of one mind on so many many things that at the look she gave him, he knew she had heard what he hadn't said.

"Am I the enemy too?" she half-challenged, half-mocked.

That was a question he had been forced to answer far too many times in the last couple of weeks – and had to argue for far too passionately in his opinion.

"You're mine." he whispered against her jaw, his nose bumping against the shell of her ear. "And I won't let you end up like him."

He wanted to tell her about the rebellion. So badly. But it wasn't safe. Not yet. He had arranged for her to be brought to Thirteen when shit would hit the fan – hell, he had fought to have her brought to Thirteen, nobody was happy about that demand of his but he had made it a condition to his joining this rebellion. He would protect her. He wouldn't leave her behind to the wolves while they all scrammed to safety.

She shook her head, gently pushed down the arms that were around her so she could take a couple of steps from him. "Seneca was one of my best friends. Perhaps the very best."

He rolled his eyes. "You've got hundreds of friends."

"You know better." she chided.

He scowled at her tone and she stared at him for a moment, then it was as if a switch had been flicked and her face opened, her eyes brightened, a bright smile stretched her lips…

"Don't." he said immediately. He hated it when she did that in the middle of a honest conversation, put on her escort mask and swept it all under the rug. Didn't it prove his point, though? The Capitol was smoke and screens and half its citizens wore masks…

"Then do not pretend you do not know we act a certain way for reasons of our own." she snapped. "The playboy Head Gamemaker was just as much of an act as the way I behave as an escort."

The way she behaved as an escort was a core part of her personality though. Yes, she exaggerated but she was a cheerful positive person when it came down to it. And Crane…

Crane hadn't been the worst Head Gamemaker. He had been fair – or had tried to be, which wasn't always easy with Snow breathing down his neck. Haymitch had been out of that particular loop for a while but he knew he had tried to make the victors prostitution ring a little safer, that he had been willing to listen and act in consequence when victors flagged some 'privileged friends' as dangerous.

That made him decent but that didn't make him a saint.

And that didn't erased his part in all this.

Crane had sampled his share of victors over the years. He might not have been cruel but he hadn't been exactly kind either. He had acted for his own benefits, his own social climbing, like everyone else in this city and Haymitch wasn't going to mourn him.

"Look…" he said slowly. "I know you had a history with him…"

"A history?" she scoffed. "I loved him."

He had never claimed to understand the relationship between the Head Gamemaker and his escort. At times, he had been terribly jealous of it – not that he would openly admit it – but it seemed to escape proper definition.

And that word in that tone hit him like a punch in the stomach.

He felt his face close, his fists bundling, the urge to grab a flask that wasn't in his pocket but locked in the drawer of his nightstand…

"Oh, not like that. Get your head out of the gutter." she huffed. "Don't you love Chaff?"

"Not the same." he growled.

"It is the same." she hissed. "It is precisely my point!"

"Never slept with Chaff though." he shot back.

She rolled her eyes and turned her back on him again, hugging herself. "Sex and love… You, District people, always have to confuse the two."

Panem's anthem rang out over the city and there was a faraway roar of a crowd, people had gathered to watch on Capitol Square and were excited to see the results, he supposed. There was always a recap of the Reapings and the parade first but they didn't have much time left.

She must have realized it too because suddenly all traces of anger deserted her and she slouched her shoulders like she almost never did. "I am tired of all this… So tired…"

He outstretched his hand to her and she slowly took it.

"Just a few more days." he said quietly, trusting the chimes and the city noises to keep his words safe.

"And then what?" she sighed. "More death?"

Then, if they were lucky, they would all be safe and sound in Thirteen and they would focus on freeing the rest of the country.

He couldn't tell her that though so he just pressed a lingering kiss against her forehead. It tasted of powder and he wanted to say he hated the taste but he had come to associate it with her and he couldn't really say he minded anymore. "Stick with me a little longer, sweetheart. I need your head in the game."

"My head is always in the game, Haymitch, that is the problem." she lamented.

She let him guide her back inside though and he left her in front of the gilded mirror in the hall so she could fix her make-up. The children looked at him when he finally sat down. There was a question in Peeta's eyes and Katniss looked genuinely sorry but neither of them said anything when Effie finally rejoined the group, looking her usual self except for her reddish eyes.

He stretched his arm on the back of the couch when she sat next to him and when he was sure that everyone's attention was on the TV, he brushed his thumb up and down the side of her neck in what he hoped to be a soothing caress.

It was all he could give her for now.