A/N: Hello everyone! I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who reviewed since I last updated, they really do mean everything to me :) I know it's been a while but I had MAJOR writers block with this chapter and I ended up rewriting it about four times because I didn't like the way it ended up. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and as I have nothing important to say, on with chapter 25! :)

I wake up early the next morning and, for the first time this week, without having the immediate urge to vomit.

I suspect that the nausea will soon catch up with me but I might as well enjoy my moments of comfort.

I look over to my right and see that Haymitch is still sleeping soundly by my side, so close to the edge of the mattress I'm afraid he might fall off. I don't try to move him though; I wouldn't want to wake him up since he gets very little sleep to begin with.

I occupy myself by brushing my hair through methodically with my fingers, flinching as I encounter a particularly large knot and working it free gently, wondering just what today will have to offer.

It is the day before the interviews and with it comes the pleasure of whipping the two tributes into shape. I can't help but grin as I remember last years coaching session and Katniss' inability to walk around in a pair of high heels and break the seemingly permanent scowl on her face to smile for a few moments.

Peeta on the other hand was an absolute dream; the boy barely needed any coaching whatsoever. Having been with Haymitch earlier on, he already had a strategy figured out so all that was left for me to do was to teach him how to sit and present himself on stage.

I can't help but feel that this year is going to be different. As Haymitch said yesterday, it doesn't really matter what they say or do in the interviews, the audience has their mind made up. I wonder what the other tributes will do. Obviously Katniss and Peeta are going to have to play up the star crossed lovers act not only for the Games but also to help cover up the speculation over their romance people have been hearing ever since her relationship with Gale Hawthorne was questioned. But the others I am not so sure on.

I wonder what it must be like to go into an arena full of people you know well enough to call friends, where everybody knows everybody, and forced to slaughter each other.

What about the siblings like Cashmere and Gloss? What would they do if they were the only ones left? Fight or refuse to play altogether like Katniss and Peeta last year.

And what about Mags and Finnick? I know for a fact that Mags was Finnick's mentor for his Hunger Games and is pretty much family to him. I doubt even Finnick who showed such skill and undefiled slaying in his last games would be able to finish her off but that isn't to say the others will feel the same. As much as I hate to admit it, she will probably be one of the first to go –picked off as an easy target by the stronger and younger competitors.

It is sad really that this has been done and that all of these people must die because the President wants one girl's head that has unintentionally instigated a rebellion by doing what any person in the right frame of mind would - and denying to play. An accident could've been arranged, Lord knows he's done it before but then I suppose that 'accident' would only add fuel to the flames and soon he would have a full scale civil war on his hands. I wish I could say he didn't have it coming.

"I'm pretty sure it's unhealthy to do that much thinking in the morning, princess."

I turn to see that Haymitch is barely awake and rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"That's exactly what I've been telling you about your drinking but you never seem to listen."

"I never listen," he grins somewhat proudly.

"You just chose to listen to what you would like to hear." I say, a smile twitching at the corners of my mouth. "And unfortunately for everyone else, that mostly happens to be your own voice."

"Umm, are you sure you're not talking about yourself, sweetheart?"

I make a sound of distaste. "Quite positive."

He rolls onto his back, looking up at the ceiling and I do the same. "What time is it?" he asks; sleep still lingering in his voice.

"I'd say around seven but don't hold me to that." I say making a rough estimate by looking at the intensity of the light coming in from a gap in the curtains.

"Shitting hell, I'm going back to sleep."

"Not just yet," I say with some urgency. "I was thinking about today – well tomorrow really." I wait for him to respond before continuing. He looks back over to me and I figure that is the best I'm getting so resume speaking anyway. "Do you really think there's a point? Coaching them, I mean. We spent enough time on that on the victory tour. I'm fairly sure they can handle themselves well enough-"

"You're forgetting District Eleven, sweetheart, the man who got the bullet through the back of his head?"

I cringe. "Yes but that was different. What can go wrong this time?"

Haymitch looks back up at the ceiling. "Fine, cancel it; I'd rather sleep than spend half the day with a bratty sociopath."

I tut and hit him in the arm. "Don't talk about Katniss that way! She isn't a 'bratty sociopath'. She just takes a little getting to know before you can learn to like her. She's opinionated and petulant maybe, but not bratty. Honestly."

"Opinionated, petulant. Whatever, princess. She still drives me up the damn wall."

I smile and rise out of bed. I walk over to the pine desk in the corner of the room and take a piece of lined paper from a tray and a pen, scrawling down a quick note to Katniss and Peeta.

Dear Katniss and Peeta,

Given your recent tour, both Haymitch and I have both agreed that you can handle yourselves adequately in public. Today's coaching sessions have been cancelled.

Effie

"I'll be back in a minute," I say to Haymitch making my way out of the bedroom.

I look up and down the corridor before stepping out of the door, just in case. Seeing no one, I head towards the living room where I know for a fact Avox's will have been milling about for hours now.

I hand the folded paper to one of the red-headed girls with instructions to give it to both Peeta and Katniss when they wake up. I thank her and she nods her head curtly.

On the way back to the room I pick up the file containing information about sponsors and all of the available gifts for this year's tributes from my own bedroom figuring that I might as well do something productive with my free day.

Haymitch evidently has different ideas as, literally the moment I touch the mattress, the file has been tossed across the room most of the paper having fallen lose.

"Was that really necessary?" I ask.

"Yes. No work in bed, that's the rules."

"Since when were there rules?"

"Since now."

I huff looking across the room at the scattered papers and upon feeling no great desire to go and collect them; I relent and pull the covers back around me. "So what do you propose we do all day then?"

"Well this is pretty good."

I roll my eyes and prop myself up on one elbow. "We can't stay in bed all day, Haymitch."

He shrugs. "Why not?"

"Because that would be lazy." I point out matter of factly and he laughs.

"Fine then, give me one good suggestion of something to do instead and we'll do it."

"We have work to do-"

"Eff's, I said one good suggestion. Got anything else?" he raises an eyebrow.

I try to think of something less idle to do but struggle profusely and, as much as I hate to admit defeat, have to shake my head.

He grins smugly. "Well I guess we're going to have to do it my way then."

He takes this as an opportunity to snake an arm round my waist and press his lips to mine.

Sometimes I wish I had more self-control in situations like this but when someone kisses you this passionately for this amount of time, it's hard not to get completely lost in the moment. If oxygen was not a necessity I would happily keep kissing him forever but unfortunately it is and we both have to come up for air.

"You know I don't appreciate you distracting me like this." I attempt to sound stubborn but my flushed cheeks and ragged breathing must give me away.

"Are you sure? You have a funny way of showing it." He says his voice husky from his endeavours.

"Seriously," I say trying to disguise a smile. "We need to do work. We are dreadfully behind schedule and there is an enormous list of potential sponsors that we have to look into."

He pulls a face of discontentment as I begin to roll out of bed but I don't make it all the way before his hands have found my waist. He pulls me back into him and I start to laugh.

"Haymitch, you're far too easy to wind up." I say, repeating his words to me yesterday.

He tries to look serious when he shakes his head but can't keep the smile from his lips.

We both lie there for a while in silence, my head atop his chest, drinking in the peace.

"You know what?" I say. "I think I could live with this all day."

"Good because you're not going anywhere." He whispers in my ear dropping kisses down from my ear to my shoulder.

I manoeuvre myself so that I have one leg either side of his hips letting our lips meet once again. "Why don't you let people see you like this?"

He looks bewildered for a moment. "Would you rather more people saw me like this?" He gestures to himself and my position on top of him.

"No!" I answer a little too quickly. He smirks. "I-I mean…What I meant was, why don't you let people see this side of you. Emotionally speaking…" I trail off as I begin to fumble with my words.

He chuckles and reaches up to brush one of my curls behind my ear. "Because I don't want people to think I'm something I'm not."

I frown and run my hands across his chest and down across his stomach, across his scar. "But you are good, even if it has taken you however many years to show it."

He shakes his head. "I'm a killer," he says as if the words have a sour taste on his tongue.

"You did what you had to do to get home," I say truthfully. "There's no shame in that-"

"You don't understand." He says dismissively.

I move so that I am now sat down next to him rather than on top of him and take one of his hands in my own, lacing our fingers together. "Then help me to."

As I settle into his side, I am not sure whether he will open up to me or not but to my surprise he begins to talk.

"Do you remember how I won?"

It barely takes me a moment to; it's pretty hard to forget. "Yes, the girl from One threw an axe and it hit the force field at the edge of the arena, rebounded and ended up killing her. It was rather ingenious of you to use it to your own advantage; people were talking about it for weeks afterwards."

"I thought that too. Really it was my only chance of winning but it was a mistake, it seems the Capitol do not like people using their own tools against them. "

"How was it a mistake?"

He takes a moment, probably to try and figure out how to put his answer into words. "I got the only people in the world that mattered to me killed."

He doesn't sugar-coat it and it takes a few seconds for his words to sink in.

"Three lives for three crimes," he grimaces. "Crimes I didn't know I committed until it was too late."

I feel his chest rise as he inhales deeply.

"It was two weeks I think, two weeks after I had got home. I was out and when I got back to the house there they were, my brother, mother and my girl Valerie with a few uninvited guests. Snow and five peacekeepers, three with guns and two without. He had greeted me as though he was there for nothing more than a polite chat and a cup of tea but he soon got to the point. He took my unruliness as an active act of rebellion which is punishable by death but he wasn't there to kill me. He wanted me to truly pay for my actions, to put me in my place and he did."

He trails off. I look up to see his face, a knot of pent up anger and overwhelming sadness.

"Haymitch," I say reaching out for his cheek tentatively, my own voice wavering. "You don't have to carry on."

His eyes remain vacant and I begin to wonder if he has heard me at all.

"It was my mother first. She was for disobedience. Then my brother. They picked him up by the collar of his shirt and put a bullet through the back of his head for my defiance against the Capitol. He didn't even have the chance to cry."

The memory obviously becomes painful as he clutches my hand tighter than he ever has before. It hurts but I don't pull away.

"And Valerie, she was the last and Snow made sure to prolong her death. Shot through the heart. It left her enough time to feel the pain but nothing else. They didn't even let me get to them, they had me by the upper arm and I thought 'good, maybe they'll kill me too' but no. They drugged me and when I next woke up, they were gone and so was the blood. I thought it might just have been a dream but-"

His voice finally gives in and I watch in complete shock as a single tear rolls down from the corner of his eye.

At first I am not entirely sure what to do since it is always me that's in tears but I decide to do what he usually does in hope that it will work.

I sit up and pull him into me. At first he doesn't cooperate and I have to sort of drag him from a lying position but eventually he complies and allows me to hold him.

"Goddammit Haymitch," I say in a hushed voice. "Why have you never told me this?"

"I just did." He says bitterly, his voice muffled by my shoulder, and if it weren't for the situation I might roll my eyes.

Quite selfishly, I feel as if my heart has broken. Broken by a man I thought I knew when really I knew nothing about him at all. All along I thought it was the Games that did this to him and, although it certainly will have contributed, having those he loved slaughtered before his eyes must have been his undoing.

I try to put myself in his shoes if for a minute but I can't and I never will be able to, like so many other people. Katniss, Peeta, Mrs Everdeen. I begin to mentally list the interminable number of people I will never properly understand. I will never know their deepest sadness or upmost delirium. The people I have led my life so far away from and yet I see them every year. The children with hollow cheeks, wrists I could wrap my thumb and forefinger around and dirt on their faces. I suppose Haymitch was right when he said a while back that I do see, but I don't really see.

I've always believed that ignorance is bliss, that living is easy when you have your eyes closed, and in some ways it is but what you chose to ignore is still real anyway, so if you are not aware of it, it can hurt you.

We don't speak about his family again.

A/N: Okayy, well for once I actually feel positive about a chapter haha. I didn't originally intend for it to be this dark, it just kind of happened so sorry about that *nervous laugh*. The 'living is easy when you have your eyes closed' line actually came from John Lennon so I will admit to stealing it but it seemed too perfect not to use so I used it :) Anywhooooo, please do leave a review on your way out m'dears as I am eager to know what you thought and I will see you for chapter 26 :)

Love you all ~H x