. . . . . .

Day Four

. . . . . .

On the fourth day of Effie's visit, miracle of miracles, no one comes to wake him up, and he sleeps very happily until eleven-thirty, when the cackling of his geese rouses him. He'd like to ignore them and go back to bed, but they don't cackle that loudly unless there's an intruder, and he supposes he'd better go make sure there's no dangerous critters lurking around the pen. Plus, he doesn't know if he could actually sleep any longer through their racket.

There are intruders around the pen, and it's not foxes or dogs: it's Peeta and Effie, armed with paper and pencils. "Sorry to intrude on your yard," Peeta says when he sees Haymitch. "I was going to take Effie out to paint some landscapes, but she was more interested in your geese. So we started with drawing animals instead."

"You want to draw these pests?" he asks Effie, baffled; waking up to their noise has put them on his bad list for the day.

"They're adorable," she smiles at him, and he thinks, as he always does when she smiles, that she has the whitest teeth he's ever seen. It can't be natural.

"Funny," he says, "and here I thought that you were scared of them yesterday."

Her expression falters. "Well, yes. But it doesn't stop them from being adorable." But then her eyes sparkle. "Besides, if I started avoiding something just because I was afraid it might snap at me, I'd never get to spend any time with you, now would I?"

He can't help it: he smiles. And she smiles back. She really does have a striking smile.

"So is it all right we're back here?" Peeta asks.

Haymitch shrugs at him. "Fine by me. This whole place is basically communal space anyway, right?" There are no fences between the yards of the mansions; in fact, there's no way to tell where one yard ends and another begins. "But if anyone comes over here telling me to shut those birds up, I'm blaming you."

"Understood," Peeta grins.

Effie turns back to the geese and starts sketching, but Peeta has clearly already finished his sketch.

"Fine-looking goose," Haymitch says conversationally, nodding toward Peeta's sketchpad.

Peeta grins. "Never drawn a goose before."

"You should draw me a couple to hang up in my house. Then I'll be surrounded by those monsters no matter where I go."

That makes Peeta laugh. "No one made you get geese, Haymitch."

Haymitch chuckles too, and he stands in comfortable silence with Peeta until something occurs to him. "You don't paint as much the way you used to. The things from the Games."

Peeta shrugs. "I still do, sometimes; I just don't show you." A strange look crosses his face. "The first time Katniss saw them, she said she hated them. That they were good, but she hated them. For me, it's comforting to paint things that haunt me, but for her it makes things worse. Different ways of dealing with things, I guess."

Haymitch nods. "They were really good," he confirms. "If you do any new ones, you should show them to me. I'm with you—it helps." He pauses, thinking, and then he cracks a smile. "I can't believe they let you show those as your talent," he says. "I mean, isn't painting pictures of the Games kind of dark for a victor? Especially with all that blood in some of them?"

"That was exactly why we chose those paintings." Effie, apparently, has overheard their conversation. She stands from where she's been kneeling on the ground and brushes dead grass from the knees of her pants. "The Games were an essential part of a victor's public identity, so you never divorced a victor from his Games when you presented him. Letting Peeta show his paintings of the Games reminded everyone that he was a sensitive soul, so the Games were difficult for him, but that it was all worth it for Katniss." She gives Haymitch a pointed look. "You, as much as anyone, should understand the importance of a carefully crafted public image."

"Oh, I will never forget how much time we spent crafting these kids' public image. No matter how much I want to."

She rolls her eyes at him. "It worked, didn't it? We kept public opinion on Katniss and Peeta's side, didn't we? You should remind your rebel friends that they never properly thanked me for that. Even though I didn't know that what I was doing was helping them."

He reaches out and takes her free hand in both of his. "Miss Trinket," he says formally, bringing that hand up to his lips to plant a kiss on her knuckles, "thank you for your excellent PR work. The new Panem Republic is in your debt."

She laughs at him and Peeta rolls his eyes. "Are you drunk?"

Haymitch's face falls and he drops Effie's hand. "I haven't been drunk for six days. Don't remind me."

Effie shows them her goose sketch then. "It's a good start," Peeta says politely.

Haymitch scoffs. "It's terrible."

"It is, isn't it?" Effie sighs. "I don't believe the visual arts are really my forte."

The three chuckle together and then lapse into silence. Haymitch finds himself thinking of his conversation just now with Peeta, about painting the Games. "So you heard our conversation, Effie. What do you think? Is it better to face bad memories or shove them under the rug?"

The laughter leaves her eyes instantly, replaced just for a moment by something like fear, and Haymitch is shocked by the transformation. He hasn't seen her look this haunted, this vacant, since that day in the hospital. She's been so cheerful this trip that he thought she'd mostly moved past it, but now . . .

She blinks and turns away from them. "Generally I prefer under the rug."

. . . . . .

Peeta has nothing but more art planned for the afternoon, so after lunch Haymitch goes back to his house for a nap. When he awakes and goes outside, he sees that Effie left her gloves draped over the fence of the goose pen, so with a sigh he collects them and heads over to Peeta's house.

Effie isn't there, but Peeta is. "Missed her by about ten minutes. She wanted to go look at Delly's shop, and she took Katniss with her."

"Katniss? Our Katniss? She convinced Katniss to go shopping for clothes?"

Peeta laughs. "She's a very persuasive woman." He accepts the gloves from Haymitch and sets them on a table in the hall. "Do you have a minute to sit? I've been meaning to talk to you but there's always been someone around."

Haymitch agrees and they sit at the kitchen table with drinks in front of them (Haymitch takes a moment to mourn that they're only water). "I need to tell you," Peeta begins, "that I'm sorry I didn't tell you Effie was coming."

Haymitch grimaces a little. "She's your house guest," he says. "I guess you're allowed to have whoever you want at your own house."

"Yes, but with how much I've been seeing you recently, that means she's back in your life, too. And I didn't really think—to me and Katniss, she's just the woman who rushed us around the Capitol for two years. But to you . . . I've been thinking about it, and I think mentoring might be even worse than just preparing for the games. Coming to care for these kids, kids who look to you for some kind of hope, and then watching them die."

Haymitch's grip has tightened around his glass. "Is there a point to this?" he says, and his voice is rough.

"Sorry," said Peeta. "It's just, you have more history with Effie than we do, and that history is probably all bad. And I didn't even think of that."

Haymitch nods and takes a drink of water. "Wasn't all bad," he says after a minute. "Mostly bad. But she really did try to be my friend . . . when she wasn't yelling at me for being drunk. A few times when I passed out wasted at parties and missed all the food, she'd sneak out little cakes for me in her handbag."

Peeta grins appreciatively, and Haymitch can't help smiling at the memory. "You've been taking good care of her," he observes.

"She took good care of us," Peeta shrugs. "As much as she knew how."

"You're lucky Katniss isn't the jealous type. I know a lot of women who'd be furious at their man spending a whole week entertaining another woman."

Peeta laughs at that. "Two problems with that idea: one, Effie was always more like a mother figure to us than, you know, a woman. What with all the fussing over us and bossing us around."

"She's not old enough to be your mother," Haymitch points out. "A lot better looking than most people's mothers, too."

"And two, for Katniss to be jealous, she'd have to admit that she and I are . . . anything." He sighs and examines the rim of his glass with a downcast expression.

"True," Haymitch concedes. "Anyway, it's nice of you." He pauses, then asks curiously, "Why did you decide to invite her here?"

Peeta looks surprised, like he's been caught at something. "Umm . . ." He looks like he's searching for a lie, but Haymitch hopes he knows better; he can always tell when the kid is lying. And maybe Peeta remembers that, because finally he says, looking a little embarrassed, "You can't tell her this."

"Tell who what?"

"Tell Effie. Plutarch didn't want her to know—he doesn't want her to feel like a charity project."

"Plutarch?"

Peeta nods. "He's the one who asked me to invite her. He's worried about her."

Haymitch is baffled at first, but then he realizes it makes sense. She works for him now, and he'd felt just as guilty as Haymitch when they found her in that prison. It makes sense he'd keep an eye on her. "Worried why?"

A shrug. "I think he's worried she's not coping well with they did to her in prison?" Peeta says uncertainly.

Haymitch is surprised to find himself suddenly scowling. "Did he tell you what they did to her in prison?"

Peeta shakes his head. "He only said that he thought being here would do her some good." There's a long silence while Haymitch processes this and Peeta watches him anxiously. "So," Peeta says finally, "am I forgiven?"

"What?" says Haymitch. "Oh, yeah, obviously. You know I don't have the energy to hold a grudge."

Peeta rolls his eyes at him. "Good to hear. I know Katniss is your favorite, so I have to work hard to stay in your good graces."

"What?" Haymitch blinks at him in surprise. "Katniss isn't my favorite."

Peeta scoffs. "You two are best friends. You're the ones who keep secrets and read each other's thoughts and had an entire conversation in the arena based on when you sent her soup. You're the ones who drink together."

"You could come drink with us if you wanted," Haymitch says reasonably. "Anyway, it's not like we're really drinking together, since Katniss only ever has water."

"That's not a really important distinction," Peeta points out.

"Look," Haymitch says, "Katniss is the one of you who's most like me. That's why we read each other's thoughts. But you're less of a pill than she is. So really it's a toss-up."

Peeta looks at him, then shakes his head and chuckles. "High praise."

"You're the one who's kept us alive and sane for the last eight months. Left to our own devices, we'd destroy ourselves. Don't think I'm not aware of that. And grateful. Even when you do wake me up at all hours to go hiking or look at my geese."

"I don't think eleven o'clock in the morning counts as 'all hours,'" Peeta says drily.

"Kid, I am saying nice things about you and you had better enjoy it while it lasts because there is a good chance this will never happen again."

"Fine," says Peeta with a grin. "You like us equally. Or maybe dislike us equally."

"And don't you forget it," says Haymitch. "Now, I don't suppose you have anything stronger than this in the house?" He picks up his glass of water and gives it a hopeful swirl. Peeta shakes his head, and Haymitch collapses on the kitchen table with a sigh.

. . . . . .

Effie and Katniss return to Peeta's house just before dinner. Effie is thrilled to pieces, having ordered a warm jacket like the one Katniss uses when she hunts in the woods and a pair of boots like the miners used to wear. "My friend Vigilantia has a pair like that—Theodora Chang, very expensive—but they're machine-made in the Capitol. She will absolutely die when she sees I have a pair handmade in District 12." Haymitch rolls his eyes, and she makes a face at him. "Roll your eyes all you want, Haymitch Abernathy, but they will keep me warm in the Capitol winter. And I'm supporting local businesses. You should be thrilled."

She and Katniss are both in a convivial mood—Katniss is happy to have spent time with her friend Delly, and Effie talked her into ordering a new sweater that she'll be able to use while hunting—that lasts all through dinner. And after dinner, when Effie looks out the window and sees the sun has still not set, she suggests they go on a walk. "Everything is so much lovelier at sunset, don't you think?"

Haymitch puts up a perfunctory fight, but deep down he doesn't mind. In the last four days, he's spent more time in company than in the entire last month—usually he only sees Katniss and Peeta for dinner four or five nights a week and rarely at other times of day—and he finds he's grown strangely accustomed to it. The thought of returning alone to his dark house, especially without booze for company, is unpleasant. So he doesn't argue for long before conceding the fight and crossing to his house to get a coat and gloves.

Evening is coming quickly as they start on their walk, and the black clouds gathering in the air make it even darker and chillier. "All the outerwear I brought is finally coming in handy," Effie says, pulling her fur hat more snugly down around her ears and pulling the collar of her coat up around her chin.

Even with the cold and the storm gathering in the east, however, the sunset is spectacular, and Effie exclaims in wordless delight and stops dead in her tracks when they reach the edge of a grassy field and get a full, unobstructed view. Katniss and Peeta, a few steps ahead of them, don't notice, and they keep walking around the edge of the field. Haymitch moves to follow, but Effie catches at his sleeve.

"Oh, let them get ahead of us," she says. "I think they could use a little privacy."

Haymitch looks closer at the pair and realizes that they're holding hands. Apparently Effie is still rooting for them to get together, and since he agrees with the sentiment, he lets her hold him back.

"We don't get views like this in the Capitol," she says. "A little, over the lake, but any direction you turn there are buildings. This . . . this is stunning."

"But the price you pay is living in the middle of nowhere. I think that's a price a lot of city-dwellers would not be willing to pay in order to get nice sunsets."

"True," she concedes. "But I think I could do it. If the sunsets looked like this." She pauses. "Of course, I'd have to take trips into the Capitol every now and then, for shopping and the theater."

He snorts. "Sounds expensive. And like a lot of time on trains."

"Didn't you hear?" she says. "A group in the Capitol—I think Plutarch is investing in their company—wants to start commercial hovercraft flights. More expensive than trains, but you could get anywhere in Panem in just hours."

"Although most people in Panem won't be able to afford it."

She smiles at him. "Don't drag me down with your negativity. Things are going to get better, I can feel it. The people I talk to in my work on Stories Across Panem—they've got big plans, and now no Snow interfering with those plans. And then the Capitol isn't spending all that money on controlling the people anymore, so we can afford to improve the infrastructure out in the districts . . ."

If you'd told him before this that he'd ever hear Effie Trinket stop rambling about her clothes long enough to talk about improving the country's infrastructure, he would have laughed out loud.

She sees his dumbfounded face and blushes. "I'm friends with a lot of people in the new government," she says. "This is all they talk about at dinner parties." A sudden chilly breeze sweeps past them, causing a shiver to run through her body, and she winds her arm through his—for warmth, apparently. He finds it a little disconcerting. "Things are going to get better," she repeats.

And they stand, arm in arm, gazes fixed on the sunset, until Katniss and Peeta notice that their companions are no longer with them and retrace their steps. The sun is slipping behind the horizon at that point, and Katniss looks up at the black clouds that now cover almost the entire sky. "Better get inside," she says. "This could turn ugly soon."

Effie looks up as though seeing the clouds for the first time, and uncertainty fills her face. "Yes, we should go. It could rain any minute."

And as though to prove her right, the rain starts when they've only taken a few steps back toward the Victor's Village. It's light enough that all they do is quicken their steps a little, but Haymitch, who's still got his arm linked with Effie's, feels her whole body tense. Is she that worried about getting her clothes wet? Or is she frightened of rain?

It seems to be the latter, because when the rain suddenly deepens to a full-on downpour, Effie lets out a gasp of fright and grips Haymitch's arm so tightly that he's worried about her cutting off his circulation. He is bewildered; why is a grown woman so afraid of a storm? "You okay?" he asks, and she nearly imperceptibly shakes her head.

They're still a solid half-mile from the Village, and at the rate they're moving, they'll be soaked by the time they get there. He glances down at her shoes and is overwhelmingly grateful that boots are in style now, instead of those impractical heels she used to wear. "Come on, we should run," he says, and lets go of her arm so he can grab her hand.

Ahead of them, Peeta and Katniss, oblivious to Effie's distress, are laughing at being caught in the storm. "Let's go," Peeta calls back at them, and he and Katniss break into a run.

"Come on," he says again to Effie, and together they run as well.

They've only covered about a quarter of the distance when suddenly everything goes downhill. Effie slips in the mud, and is only spared falling in a mud puddle by her tight grip on Haymitch's hand. He skids to a stop and helps her regain her balance, and she's nearly got her feet under her when a huge bolt of lightning splits the sky. Her whole body jerks, and before his eyes have even recovered from the flash of light she is screaming. And it's the sort of scream he recognizes, because he hears it every time Katniss has a nightmare, every time Peeta has a particularly bad flashback. Come to think of it, he's heard it out of his own mouth a time or two as well.

The scream brings Katniss and Peeta to a screeching halt; Haymitch sees them glance at each other, then come running back. By this time, Effie's scream has broken down into sobbing—hysterical sobbing—and she has grabbed the front of Haymitch's coat and buried her face in it. He puts his arms around her, because it seems to be the only thing to do, and meets Katniss's questioning look in the deepening darkness.

"We need to get her inside," Katniss says unnecessarily.

"Effie," says Peeta earnestly, trying to get her to lift her face from Haymitch's chest, "can you walk? Can you come with us?"

She lifts her head just an inch or two, but before she can respond there's another flash of lightning and she's screaming again.

"All right," says Haymitch, and, struggling, lifts her up into his arms. He used to be more fit than this, but years of neglect and alcohol have destroyed what strength he had as a boy. The group struggles forward through the darkness, Katniss and Peeta on either side of him to help him avoid uneven ground, and they just manage to make it to the mouth of the Victor's Village when his strength gives out and he stumbles and nearly drops her. Peeta takes her then and runs agilely up the stairs into his house, Katniss following close after. Haymitch barely manages to stumble in after them and collapse on the sofa. He should really consider doing more physical activity, he thinks.

Katniss and Peeta are upstairs in Effie's room; he can hear their footsteps overhead and Effie's continued sobs. Doors open and close, and eventually the sobs lessen. A few minutes later, Katniss walks slowly down the stairs and collapses on the other sofa. "She's almost asleep now."

He nods slowly. "I guess now we know for sure: they definitely did something to her when she was in prison."

Katniss has been staring exhaustedly at the wall, but at this she turns and looks at him. "Haymitch," she says, "do you remember Johanna Mason?"

He blinks, and into his mind comes rushing memories of the bold young woman, turned helpless and terrified by a simulated flood. "You don't think—" But he does think. And he winces. "Effie."

His eyes fall on Peeta's phone, and he jumps up and dials Plutarch's number, ready to demand answers. But it goes to his personal assistant—no surprise, the man is often busy and away from his phone. "This is Haymitch Abernathy," he tells her. "You tell him to call me as soon as he can, at my house or at Peeta Mellark's." He pauses. "It's about Effie Trinket." Then he sinks back on the couch, and he and Katniss sit in silence, listening to the storm rage outside.

. . . . . .