She stood alone on the doorstep, taking a deep, calming breath to sooth her nerves before she rang the doorbell. Effie waited patiently for Twelve's lone surviving victor to come to the door, but no one answered. She rang the doorbell again, and though she could hear the chime, the house remained still. Effie waved to the Peacekeeper that was accompanying her on her visit to the Victors' Village who had stayed at the end of the walkway. "He must not be home," she explained. "Do you have any idea where he could be?"

"I haven't seen him around before, ma'am. He's probably in there, maybe just sleeping." The young Peacekeeper replied. "Can your business wait for an hour or two? He'll probably be up by then."

Effie glanced at her bright pink wristwatch before answering, "No, we're behind schedule as is. There's no time to lose. I can't be late for my first Reaping!"

"I'll go around to the back and knock then." The Peacekeeper, a gangly redheaded boy who couldn't be much older than Reaping age, scurried to the back of the house. She heard a snort. "Umm, ma'am, I think you'll want to see this for yourself."

Effie struggled to walk in the patchy grass in her high heels, but she gingerly made her way into Haymitch Abernathy's backyard. There, she was confronted with the sight of an overweight, unkempt man a few years older than her sleeping soundly on a picnic table, a bottle of liquor clutched tightly in his right hand. She took a few steps away from the man, not sure whether she was retreating more from the sight or the stench.

The Peacekeeper, Darius, laughed. "I'd like you to meet Haymitch Abernathy, District Twelve's only surviving victor."

Effie could barely contain her disappointment. This was the man who was supposed to help her bring back victors? A drunk that couldn't even make it inside before he passed out? Fantastic. How would she ever get out of this pit of a district?

Darius circled the sleeping victor, slipping something out of Haymitch's pocket before grabbing a stick and poking him with it. Haymitch immediately sprang up, lurching towards Darius as though attacking with the Peacekeeper with an invisible knife before falling flat on his face. "What do you think you're doing here?" he growled from his spot on the ground.

"Somebody wanted to meet you." Darius gestured towards Effie, who was now even more horrified at the prospect of working with this man.

She did her best to hide her doubts. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Abernathy, I'm Effie Trinket. I'm the new escort for District Twelve." She offered her hand for him to shake.

Haymitch grabbed her hand and used it to help pull himself back up onto his feet. "Oh, great, you'll be the one who helps kill my kids this year."

She gasped, scandalized. That was not the response she'd been expecting. "Mr. Abernathy! I will do nothing of the sort!" She paused, waiting for an apology, but none was forthcoming. "My job is to help your tributes live. Since you and I are a team now, we need to work together to give Twelve its best chance of a victor."

"Call it what you want, sweetheart, but they're still going to die, and you're still going to be the one that put them in the Arena in the first place." Haymitch glanced into his bottle, then disappointed tossed it at a bush when he noticed it was empty. Effie was too shocked to call him out on his lack of manners. "You got anything else?"

Effie would not allow this man to dismiss her so easily. "The Reaping is in just over an hour. Since you seem to have no interest in having an actual discussion with me, I suggest you use your time wisely and take a bath." With that, she span on her heel and wobbled as confidently as possible back to the main street.

"Sorry, sweetheart, but there'll be plenty of time to be clean during the Games. I think I'm going to take all my chances to be dirty while I still can," Haymitch called after her. Effie huffed about manners under her breath as the Peacekeeper escorted her back to the Justice Building.

Effie sat in the Justice Building, eagerly awaiting the beginning of the Reaping. She pulled out her compact mirror for the dozenth time, checking to make sure her teal wig was perfectly placed and her false eyelashes were still curled. After all, she was going to be televised for all of Panem to see; she had to look her best. Finally satisfied with her appearance, she put her mirror away.

With no distractions, her mind returned to Haymitch's words. Did he really think that she was going to help murder these children? After all, she was only the Capitol's envoy to the district. If she refused someone else would come to choose a slip from the Reaping Ball. It wasn't as though Effie was going to pull a gun on the tributes. All she would do was pick a piece of paper and then help the chosen boy and girl as much as she could. Nothing she could do would change the fact that two children from District Twelve would go into the Arena in a few days' time. Effie had no power to actually stop the Games from occurring; only President Snow had that kind of authority.

Finally, District Twelve's mayor came and nodded to her. It was time to go on. Effie smiled and readjusted her wig one last time before stepping onto the makeshift stage. She felt a rush of butterflies in her stomach as she waved to the crowd and began the speech. Looking over the children waiting to see whether or not they would be Reaped made Effie feel sick to her stomach. Luckily, she had practiced this speech so many times that she could probably recite it in her sleep, and she was able to finish her address without any noticeable pauses. She had been warned that the president's consequences for being anything less than enthusiastic during the Reaping could be … severe, at the very least.

"Ladies first!" Effie walked over to the girls' Reaping Ball with her sweetest smile pasted onto her face. She looked into the ball for a long moment, fighting the urge to vomit when she remembered the little twelve year olds in the audience. Effie quickly grabbed the topmost slip of paper, not reading it until she was back at the microphone. She unfolded the paper and read the name. "Laurel Hartskin!" she announced in the most excited tone she could muster.

A tall, dark-haired girl so slender that Effie could make out the individual bones in her arms and legs came out from the middle of the crowd. Effie could feel her hand trembling as she looked upon the face of her first victim. Haymitch was right. This girl was going to die, and no matter which tribute did the actual killing, Effie was her murderer.

Effie smiled at the girl beamingly. "Wonderful! Now for the boys!"

A/N: Thanks for reading – I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! This will be a four chapter story, and will involve four different Capitol citizens in the '3 Times X, and One Time They Didn't' format. In this case, an alternate title could be "Three Times the Capitol Citizens Obeyed, and One Time One Didn't." I expect to have the others up sometime soon. If you have a minute, reviews are much appreciated. Until next time,

~finnicko-loves-anniec