Chapter 3
Effie was awake.
He could hear her soft footfalls on the padded floor followed by the sound of the door creaking quietly as she entered the bathroom. She paused, uncertain, and then crossed the space between them to wound her arms around his stomach. He stilled for a split second before he caught himself, thinking of how foolish it was. This was Effie.
She pressed her cheeks between his shoulder blades. A quiet hum reverberated between his muscles as she spoke, "good morning."
"Morning," he mumbled a greeting and went back to brushing his teeth.
When he was done, he turned around, his arms coming up to wrap themselves around her. She leaned against him, her cold nose pressing against his neck. He could get use to this, he mused. The two presidents were dead and with Katniss' trial over and her fate sealed, no one was demanding his time or his mind. He was relieved to be left alone. The world was buzzing outside as people tried to settle and pick up the pieces of their life but in this apartment, there was only him and Effie. He could get use to this.
"You are coming, yeah?" he asked just to be certain. Haymitch tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "You are all packed for Twelve?"
"Yes, stop worrying," she grinned. "That is usually my job."
"Hmmm."
They remained locked in each other's embrace for a while with his back leaning against the sink. Her eyes inevitably fell on the numbers on his arms. It was difficult not to miss when he was half dressed. He felt her gaze and cleared his throat, reaching out to grab a shirt hanging off the side of the tub.
"Don't," she stopped him as she ran a thumb over the digits. "It is … I must admit that it is disconcerting to see the years I have left to live. Sometimes, I wonder if it is better not to know. There is some bliss to be found in being ignorant after all."
He understood it. It still sent a jolt running through him to wake up each morning now with the knowledge of Effie's remaining years. There were days he couldn't quite wrap his head around it.
"Then don't look," he said instead.
She gave him a small smile, her eyes taking on a thoughtful look.
"How is it that when I found out about you in that hospital, I had less than three days to my life and now… Now, I have fifty years to it."
Haymitch snorted. His hands came to rest on her waist. Pushing her slightly away from him so he could take a look at her, he leaned forward to kiss the corner of her mouth.
"Because you fought and you let your body heal," he answered, trailing a kiss down her neck.
He tugged her robe so it fell slightly off her shoulder and kissed the spot. He had been working on healing all her scars. The major ones, the ones she often lamented were ugly, which was on her back were gone. It was the little marks and scars that he enjoyed kissing away now.
Haymitch maneuvered them so it was her against the sink and turned her around.
"Found another," he mumbled as he trailed a finger on her shoulder blade.
"No, leave that," she shook her around and turned, looping her arms around his neck. "He pressed a knife to that spot and told me I won't ever leave the prison but I did and I'm alive, and I want to remember it."
Effie kissed the frown on his face away and he let the subject drop.
"What are you doing to do with fifty years, huh? I'm not going to be there for the remaining thirty five years of it," he chuckled into her skin. "Must be so boring."
He missed the abrupt loss of her body warmth when she pulled away, glaring at him angrily.
"Don't joke about that. I've told you repeatedly that this is not something to laugh about.
"Yeah, okay. Sorry," he muttered. "Come here."
She raised her nose at him and huffed. It made him snickered. Effie moved towards the tub to sit at the edge of it.
"You used to have more than thirty years on the clock," she pointed out. "Just because I didn't know what you mean to me at that point in time, it didn't mean I don't remember the numbers."
"War," he told her simply. "Life hazard."
"Maybe if you go easy on the alcohol... We can try that, Haymitch."
"How long will that buy me, Effs? Two years, maybe three at most?"
"That's eighteen years. That will still be something."
He looked away. Grabbing the face towel off the rack, he began patting his face with it. She was still watching him, waiting for him to say something.
"If someone's going to die, then they're going to die," he told her the same words he had told his mother before. "There's no escaping it."
Even if you did once, he added quietly but she didn't need to know that.
"I don't want to be like Annie," she admitted. "She's lost her spark, Haymitch. A part of her was lost when Finnick… I don't think I can go through what she is going through. I'm not strong enough. I - I can't do this without you."
"Stop underestimating yourself. Humans are adaptable. We learn. Annie's going to take some time but she's going to learn how to move on without Finnick. She has to for her kid. You will too when put into a corner. This soulmate business isn't a be-all and end-all, sweetheart."
"Well, maybe, I don't want to be put into a corner."
Haymitch sighed, a little frustrated that he wasn't getting through to her.
"Thirty five years is a long time. You can make a life for yourself after I'm - "
"Don't say it," Effie snapped, irked by his response.
"Don't say what? That I'll die before you because that's the truth, Effie. You need to accept it. You better accept it 'cause it's not gonna change."
"No," she denied and grabbed his arm as she jumped to her feet. "It's cruel to have two souls linked only for one to be wrenched away. It's a tragedy, Haymitch."
"We aren't promised a long life with each other, sweetheart," he shot back. "Not how it works, is it?"
"Time should be fair! Time should be given to us equally and I - "
Effie broke off mid-sentence to stare at his arm. Naturally, he followed her gaze and roughly snatched his hand away from her grip.
"For fuck's sake, Effie," he cursed loudly, "what have you done?"
"I - I don't … What happened? How did the numbers ... Haymitch?"
45 years.
He lurched forward, pulling the drawstrings of her robe free. It parted and he pushed the garment aside, angling her body so that her right rib was towards him.
His clock read twenty years.
Haymitch had just gained five years when Effie had lost hers.
Not lost. Unknowingly given.
"Oh my god," she gasped loudly, a hand rose to cover her mouth as her eyes flickered between the two life clocks.
He knew the exact, precise moment when it all fell in place for her. The understanding sent her staring at him with wide blue eyes seeking for further clarity.
"Did my years… Yours just…" she stammered uncharacteristically.
Frustrated by her inability to form a sentence, she stopped and forced herself to take deep calming breaths but her mind was working a mile a minute. Something shifted in that room; an energy that sent a dosage of excitement running through her. Her eyes were a bright blue, sparkling in the bathroom.
"Haymitch!" she trilled. "Haymitch, do you know what this means? Oh, this is marvelous! It's true. It's definitely true what they said. Time can be transferred."
They had always been a contrast against each other; her optimism against his pessimism, her hardworking ways against his indolent energy, her heart which was full of love against his shattered, broken ones, her faith against his mistrust and her excitement against his apathy.
It wasn't a surprise that he stared at her stoically when she was on the toes of her feet, smiling wide with unrestrained excitement of a new discovery.
"You have heard of the myth, haven't you? Some said that time can be transferred between two kindred souls. That was what just happened! That was very smart of me to notice, very perceptive," she beamed, clearly pleased with herself. "Why are you not the least bit pleased by – "
She stopped abruptly. The light ebbed away.
"You knew," her lips parted in a soft, disbelieving whisper. "All these while, you knew and you have never…"
Clenching his jaws, Haymitch left the bathroom without another word to her.
"How did you know?" she hurried after him, placing a hand on his arm.
"Leave it, sweetheart."
"I will not. You will answer me."
He spun around sharply and sneered at her. "I don't answer to you."
"Don't be childish, Haymitch," she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Please. Please, can we talk about this?"
"There's nothin' to talk about."
He disappeared into her bedroom and started throwing clothes into his duffel bag. Her own bag was already packed and sitting at the foot of her bed.
Effie followed. Of course, she did and sat on the bed, taking out everything he had haphazardly packed and folded them neatly.
With a sigh, he settled next to her and his hands were soon on hers. It roamed her back and slipped under her blouse. He buried his nose in her hair, kissed her jaw and her neck and distracted her with soft strokes of his finger on her stomach.
She was quite for a long while and he was deluded into thinking that it was over. He should know better when it came to her.
"You gave your time to me," she said out of the blue.
His fingers stilled. The tone of her voice made him wary. It was worded so that it sounded both like a question and a statement. He pulled his hand out from under her blouse and leaned back against the headboard. Denying it outright would make her suspicious but admitting it would open a can of worms he had no real desire to deal with at that moment.
She would want to talk about the why and he was sure that talk would involve emotions and feelings. He wanted her. That should be enough but soul mates or not, they were still two different people and she might want more from him.
Worst, he didn't want her to feel that she was indebted to him because he had definitely -
"- given it freely," she said and it startled him.
Can their bond allow them to read each other's thoughts?
He panicked for a split second as that possibility occurred to him.
"That was what you said, isn't it? I overheard it out of context when I first woke up in the hospital. I didn't know what it meant but now… "
"So what, sweetheart?" he growled.
It was as good as an admission to her. She cried out - whether in dismay or horror or the fact that she was right, he didn't know - and was on her feet in seconds.
"How long did you give me? How much time, Haymitch?"
He fixed her with a look to let her know he didn't appreciate the question.
"Enough for you to get yourself fifty more years. And sweetheart? You don't ask someone the price of the gift they gave you."
"Haymitch, how much -"
"I don't know!" he raised his voice. "I don't know, okay?"
"How could you not know?" she pressed. "Even if you had no idea of your own lifespan, you should know how much you gave me."
"It was just hours that I gave," he deflected.
"Hours accumulate to days, to weeks and to years. You don't just give someone your life and – "
"You were running out of time and it doesn't matter to me how much of my hours or days or my fucking years I had to give you, Effie. It doesn't matter."
"Why?" she stood in front of him. "Why?"
He heaved and looked away. He propped his hands on his hips, wondering if it wasn't too late to walk out of her apartment.
"Why?" she asked again, slipping her hand into his palm and held it tight.
"I couldn't let you die."
"Because I'm your soulmate?"
"Because -" he hung his head.
He had thought about it night after night. Effie was one of his oldest friend and ally. Whatever kinship there was between their souls, he would like to think that without it, he would still want her to live through the war. She didn't deserve to die, tortured at the hands of the Capitol.
"I don't know, sweetheart. I don't know how much of what I'm doing is because of the connection and how much of it is me."
"Would you have done the same for Katniss and Peeta? Would you give them the hours of your life if it meant keeping them alive?"
Would he?
"Yes."
Deep inside his heart, he knew he would. They are his responsibility. They are his, the same as Effie.
"There - you have your answer," she brushed her fingers against his cheek and he felt himself calmed instantly at her touch. "The bond…. The connection… It binds us but how you choose to act, that's you. The bond gave you a medium to transfer time to me and made it possible, that's all."
"Since when did you become so smart?"
"You gave me your time because you love me," she said and held her breath.
"That's presumptuous of you."
"Big word," she teased.
Effie crossed her arm and waited him out. It wasn't lost on him that his answer meant more to her than anything else. More than finding out he was her soulmate, probably.
"I can't lose you," he told her, resting his palm against her cheek and she leaned against it. "I can't lose you, Effie. I don't regret the time I gave to you. It was worth it. Whatever little I gave, you've reaped half a century from it."
"Forty-five years," she corrected.
"Forty-five years," he chuckled in agreement. "You should take back the five years you gave to me."
"Most certainly not, it is bad manners to take back what was given."
Effie did the math because suddenly, she was the one obsessed with their lifespan since he had accepted the fifteen, now twenty years that he had. Between them, there were sixty-five years. In the same tone that she would adopt when discussing the latest fashion in the Capitol, she told him that when divided equally, they could each have thirty-two years and six months.
"The way I see it, it's simple really," Effie said one afternoon as she curled next to him in front of the roaring fire in District Twelve. "I'll give you twelve years and six more months! We'll both have thirty two odd years to go. Same for you, same for me. Give me your arm, please."
That resulted in a huge argument that went on for days and stretched for weeks. She was adamant and he was stubbornly refusing to agree with her plans. In fact, he even kept his distance because he didn't trust her not to grab his arm and give him the years he declined to take from her.
"You ought to stop being so stubborn," she huffed.
"Maybe you should have asked my opinion on it first," he retorted. "It's a fucking stupid plan."
"No, it is not. Do you remember what you told me when we first worked together? Among the many names you called me you also accused me of being selfish. I am still selfish."
"I don't see -"
"When you … leave me," she said and he snorted because she still refused to use the word 'die', "in twenty years' time, you will leave me all alone. I will suffer without you for twenty five years, Haymitch. I have been through enough. I refused to be on my own because that's a whole new kind of suffering on its own."
"Stupid and blind," he shot back. "What are Peeta and Katniss, huh? Ghosts?"
"You know it's not the same."
"It's twelve years of your life that you want to give me to me, Effie. That's a hell of a long time and a lot of years to cut from yours. You don't just offer something like that to anyone."
"You're not just anyone," she told him, "and you know that. You are mine and I am yours. We belonged together. I want a life together with you."
"Are you proposing?" he raised an eyebrow. "Should I get the bread so we can toast it? I mean, we've already got a fire going so…"
She threw an empty plate of sandwiches at his head and he ducked just in time, chuckling in amusement.
"This is hardly the time to joke!"
"I'm not joking," he shrugged. "Giving me your time – your years – is more serious than if you were to ask me to marry you. You realize that, yeah?"
"You're supposed to ask me to marry you, you great oaf, not the other way round."
"I didn't know you were traditional," he rolled his eyes.
"Haymitch! Kindly stop derailing the topic of conversation," she huffed. "I am trying to have a dialogue here with you."
"We're talkin' more than a decade here, sweetheart."
"I know. I know how much I'm giving. I just - You don't want to spend it with me," she grimaced as the thought took form in her mind. "Is that it?"
"You're shittin' me right? I asked you to come with me to Twelve. You've been here for months now and I still haven't chased you out. You're gonna still be here twenty years from now, yeah?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation.
"How can that possibly make you think that I don't want to spend what remains of my life with you? You think I don't want you? Are you stupid?"
"Why can't we talk without you insulting me?" she frowned. "So if you do want me, then what's wrong with spending more of it together with me?"
"Effie – "
"Haymitch, please, the years mean nothing to me if it's not with you. I don't need those years if I can't share my life with you."
"I don't want to live on borrowed time, sweetheart. If my time is up, it's up."
"It's not borrowed if it's our time. What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine."
She wore him down as she often did. When he finally concurred and as she kissed his lips, whispering to him that she loved him, she touched his arm and gave him the years and the months that would ensure they face through life together.
Haymitch Abernathy would never have the opportunity or the time to meet Rye Mellark had it not been for the years that belonged to Effie. He would have passed on two months before Rye's birth and four months before Willow's fifth birthday. Haymitch held the boy in his arms and in his ear, he told him, "I'll live long enough for your twelfth birthday, kid."
From the twelve years and six months that Effie gave him, he managed to witness a great many things. Katniss and Peeta became wonderful parents who loved each other despite not being each other's soul mates. He attended Finn's wedding and held Annie in his arms as she wept at her son's wedding. Johanna, whenever she had a chance, was often a guest of Effie's at his house. He saw her healed just as he did with Effie.
Twelve years was more than enough time for him to love Willow and Rye like his own, for him to teach them everything that he could and for him to answer questions they had about the Games. When Willow turned sixteen, and with one year left on his clock, he witnessed Willow meeting her own soulmate, a boy from the district who had kissed the burn scar on her knuckle by accident when he asked her out to a school dance.
Most importantly and one that that meant everything to him, he had twelve extra years to wake up each morning with Effie Trinket next to him, to watch her grow old with him and to build a life he never thought he could have together with someone who was meant for him.
Time, he learnt, was invaluable and priceless. He would trade everything if he could have fifty more years in which he could share with Effie but he had seventy five years to him and it was enough, and Effie's years were enough for her. He would have missed out on a lot of experiences if it wasn't for her.
Living on borrowed time, something Effie still clicked her tongue in disapproval when he brought it up, was still living.
Having already said their goodbyes to their families, and wanting some private time together, Haymitch let out his last breath with half an hour left to go on Effie's clock. She climbed into bed and stretched out next to him, waiting for her time to run out.
That's the end of this soulmate au! Thank you so much for reading this, leaving reviews on here and likes on tumblr. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I did writing it :) I have another idea for a soulmate au involving the Red String of Fate so I might one day get around to writing it.
I also have another plot which was inspired by the concept in the movie 'In Time' involving the tributes in the arena. Aside from normal sponsor gifts, they can also be given time and if the Gamemakers feel that the Games are getting too boring, take away time from them to make things interesting. There is a twist of course. (Also Greenwich timezone reminds me too much of the Capitol). I have all these ideas but atm it's not very well thought out so that was why I decided to write the soulmate AU first!
Anyway, please leave a review and let me know what you think of the story. Let me know!