Effie Trinket did come back, Haymitch had known she would. Escorts did not get promoted by picking twelve year olds who both died before citizens watching the Games in the Capitol even learned their names.
That year in the Capitol black and white was in fashion and it was the most bearable Effie would ever look.
He didn't speak to her until breakfast the first morning on the train. He'd been drinking the previous night in the bar car which always seemed like a second home to him on those trains, and turned around several times thinking he heard her stupidly high heels clacking into the room only to be met with silence. He couldn't quite place how he felt about that.
He'd seen her on television once the previous year during Cashmere's victory tour. He'd watched the Capitol party that was held at the end for the first time ever and he really couldn't say why he'd done it. Looking at her he saw her looking as unsteady as she had at the party he had gone to with her at the end of the games, and it was quite reassuring that she obviously hadn't become any more comfortable with the Games than she had been when he was there. That was nearly six months ago though, maybe she'd had a rapid change of mind. Maybe she just didn't want to talk to him. He hated that he cared so much and drank more than usual trying to drown the thought.
She appeared at breakfast before the tributes she had chosen that year – one fourteen year old boy, one seventeen year old girl. He was a hopeless case, it was obvious, he was more spindly than the two they had last year and clearly terrified. She however was the daughter of the blacksmith, and she had some muscle behind her. She seemed unconvinced that she could win, but Effie could talk some self-belief into her. She'd get further than last years, he was fairly certain of that.
"Good morning!" Effie greeted him perkily and he tried not to groan as her accent grated on his hangover. She looked at him with pursed lips. "If you drank less the headaches would stop." He looked her right in the eye as he poured the contents of his hip flask in a cup that was likely supposed to be used for a hot drink.
"You stopping talking would have much the same effect." he told her. If Effie actually cared she didn't say anything, just poured herself out a coffee and went over to the sofa. She didn't eat in the mornings, her favourite phrase was: 'it's far too early for breakfast'. Breakfast for her occurred when it was nearly lunchtime and she had been awake for several hours. Haymitch didn't eat because he usually woke up hungover and nauseous and if he ate too much he might soak up some of the alcohol he had spent time drinking.
"Do you have a plan this year?" she asked him from where she was reclining. He sighed. If she had wanted to talk to him she should have just sat at the damn table like any normal person would have. These little rituals that she had were ridiculous, and she would engage in them every year. He would come to realise she didn't do it to be difficult, that if just made her squirm if she didn't adhere to the ritual she had created during her first year.
"I can do something with her." he sighed eventually. "But not if she keeps believing she's as good as dead." He wished Effie would just give up on them. He couldn't tell whether she was determined to have one of the survive because she actually cared what happened to them or if she just wanted the prestige of being an escort to District 12 who had managed to pick a victor anyway. He was fairly sure it was the first because despite the make-up and the wigs and the overly complicated dresses she was the most decent person from the Capitol he had ever met – not that saying that meant much – and she did seem to care more about her tributes than her job. In fact, she loathed her job. The only reason Haymitch could think of that she might want to get promoted – which she never would – was so that she might have a better chance of seeing one of her tributes alive again by the end of the games.
"I'll talk to her." Effie promised. He could hear her trying not to sound delighted that he was helping, and he was half tempted to take the offer back and likely would have if he hadn't known it would induce a flood of tears from her and that to get her to shut up he would just promise to help again.
That evening Effie had talked to the girl for hours. They were in the train lounge along with him but he couldn't hear their conversation. Effie managed to make the terrified girl laugh, and not just on one occasion. She had sent the young girl off to bed with a hug.
"In her own words 'I bend metal with a hammer, I could easily use it as a weapon'. I think she's going to try at least." Effie seemed pleased with herself.
He wondered if she felt bad that she had already given up on the boy. He thought then that she might not be that good, she still had the Capitol mentality that some people in the games were more disposable than others, but he knew if he mentioned it with his track record for giving up on tributes before they had even been pulled from the reaping balls it would be the height of hypocrisy.
"You don't show your skills in training." Haymitch instructed her. "Surprise them in the arena when you can crack their head open with minimal effort, don't make yourself a target. Don't look weak, you need to slip through the cracks."
She followed his advice to the letter. She managed a 9 in training, which was the highest anyone from District 12 had managed in the whole time he had been mentoring them. Maybe there was something to be said for trying. He liked Effie a lot more because she didn't say 'I told you so', she only thanked him for trying this time and went to bed, apparently needing her beauty sleep before interview day. He pointed out that she wasn't the one who would be on camera but she ignored him.
She was developing a knack for ignoring him when he didn't say what she wanted him to.
Effie, Haymitch discovered that year when she was watching the interviews with him, had a remarkable knack for knowing exactly who would win every year, although she would always preface her guesses with 'if it's not one of ours then it will be…' to keep her own hopes up. The second she saw Finnick Odair in his interview, charismatic, handsome, and apparently good with a weapon if his 11 in training was anything to go by, she leant over to Haymitch and declared the winner would be him. Haymitch himself had his money on the girl from District 2 who seemed completely ruthless and scored a 12. Effie had just shaken her head. Finnick had obviously thought she was competition too because she was the first one he killed, although not before she had herself killed the boy from District 12.
Effie smoked, he drank, Effie cried a little because she would never manage to be detached enough from her tributes not to cry when they died, but neither of him remembered his name the next year.
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