Author's Note: Good day to you! Rainful here and it sucks, but let's face that sumemer IS over, goodbye. Let's take a less happy chapter to celebrate, here you go!


"Well, it's not up for discussion, you owe us quite a lot," Coin said coldly when Effie declined her command. Haymitch sat beside her bed, holding her hand, which was handcuffed to the bed frame. Her foot was amputated, but unlike with Peeta's leg she never got a replacement. He kept his mouth shut. If Effie only knew how close she was to being just another casualty – not that he'd ever allow that to happen, though. Coin seemed so fed up, it was almost fun to see how Effie so passively said no to her.

"You do know that he raped you and almost killed you?" Coin said lowering her voice.

"That's exactly why I don't want to aid in his execution. Hasn't there been enough death in this as it is?"

"That's coming from a woman who reaped and led people to die for 5 years," Coin said with so much hate in her voice Haymitch was surprised Effie didn't tell her to mind her manners.

"There is a difference between doing everything you can for two children, that you were employed to reap and killing a man just to get revenge," Effie said, while Coin's overall grey appearance became slightly redder as they talked.

"You do this for me and I'll allow you to live with him," She pointed to Haymitch, who suddenly felt vulnerable, because he hadn't been paying very much attention to what was going on, while he was stroking her tiny hand, that almost seemed ready to slip right out of the handcuff, which had left red edges around her wrists.

"Oh shut up, Alma," Haymitch said defensively. "You don't own her,"

"Well, as a matter of fact all Capitol citizens in 13 answer directly to me,"

"I'm not a Capitol citizen anymore," Effie sounded like Coin had finally hit a soft spot. "Snow had me degraded to a district 12 citizen. He said it was good for me to familiarize with the other dirt,"

"Escorting Katniss is still your job. Even that horrendous prep team is here, so are you and so will you be at the execution of Snow,"

Haymitch gripped her fingers tightly, when he felt her drill her nails into her palms. She couldn't hurt herself in her preferred ways while handcuffed, so she'd found weird ways to induce pain. Some of them even more discreet than the unsuspicious 'bathroom breaks'. Her palm was now an infected mess of sores from her nails. Haymitch cut her nails often and the doctors and nurses tried to bandage her hands, so it would be impossible for her to do it, but nothing worked. She did it with her remaining toenails as well on the other leg, but Haymitch wouldn't let them strap her completely to the bed. The handcuffs were Coin's orders. Effie still had a flaming, defiant look in her eyes when Coin left. She'd lost.

"Trinks, there's nothing to do about it. It was Katniss' terms," Haymitch tried soothing her.

"I don't want to be a part of it,"

"I know, but…"

"I'm pregnant," Haymitch swallowed his own words and looked at her after her sudden change of tone, voice and subject. She wasn't lying.

"The doctors told me this morning," she said. "No matter what he did to me, I can't help kill the father of my child,"

"But he … He never … Intended," Haymitch stuttered and tried to keep himself from looking at her belly. Of course there was nothing there yet, she couldn't be very far in the pregnancy.

"No of course he didn't intend to get me pregnant, Haymitch,"

"Have you thought about abortion?"

"Have you thought about drinking?" she asked mockingly in return, "They say I'm too weak to abort it right now and soon I won't be able to,"

"Seriously? How far are you?"

"Seven weeks,"

"And when's the limit for abortion?"
"They say it's ten, but in the Capitol it was twelve, so I guess that's about the same,"

"I can't believe you were with him so long,"

"I didn't have much of a choice, did I?" she hissed at him. She wasn't mad at him. She rarely ever was or had been. She was mad at herself. He heard her mumble it sometimes. Why she didn't just step up and took some action against him before it got this far. The anger in her voice was quickly replaced by silent sobbing. She couldn't wipe her own tears, due to the handcuffs. It was humiliating to watch and Haymitch was fast to pull out a handkerchief for her.

"Listen, we will get through this. Say yes to Coin, ask the doctors again if you can't get it removed. Otherwise we'll just deal with it when the time comes, who knows, maybe you're a fantastic mother," he said, while he dabbed away the tears.

"I'm not a fantastic mother, Haymitch. I can't even take care of myself,"

"You did a pretty good job on me, though," he insisted "I guess I'd be drunkdead right now if it wasn't for you sneaking those pills into my diet,"

"You knew?" Effie blushed and looked down, not meeting his gaze.

"Plutarch once said you got better once I came," he recalled.

She kept quiet, still red as a tomato in her face.

"I guess you were not the only one getting better,"

"You're not sick, Haymitch, you're just… Stupid," she said and shook her head.

"Stupidity kills more people every year than the damn games, Effs. I know I was stupid, probably still am, but… I really like you," He was looking at her, but not really seeing her. Her face still burned with blushing and even more now that he was babbling all this to her.

"When you told me that, the evening before we… you know … parted, I was scared. Because the Capitol once took everything I had," Haymitch had never really talked about this with her, she'd mentioned reading his file, getting the knowledge, but they never actually discussed it. Haymitch didn't talk much about feelings.

"But I read your file too," he said and poked her shoulder, "I guess we have more in common now than before,"

She looked at him with a scared look on her face.

"What do you mean?" she asked and Haymitch had to take another one of those mental punches in the stomach. She didn't know.

"Oh God, Effie, I thought you knew,"

"They killed my family?" Effie asked coldly and for a second Haymitch was happy she was handcuffed, for she looked ready to hit him and run away. Instead she sunk deeper into the pillow. Haymitch didn't know how to reply to her. He didn't want to just say 'yes' or 'yeah' or something like that, but he wasn't elegant with words like she was.

"How much of it?" she then asked barely understandable through a beginning panic attack.

"The papers mentioned an Ilana Trinket and a Julius Trinket," Haymitch said and felt a knot tie in his throat. It was horrible to witness this. Why didn't she know? What good did it do to kill her family if they couldn't torment her with it?

Effie nodded and Haymitch once again tried her best to wipe away her tears, as she was unable.

"Mom and dad?" he asked to be sure. He didn't know any of Effie's family. She nodded again

"I'm sorry,"

"They didn't deserve that, they were so … peaceful, they only began really watching the games once I got the job as escort. They weren't … In on it,"

Haymitch couldn't really cope with it. He had just singlehandedly crushed her world by telling her that her parents were dead, by making her say she was pregnant, by almost forcing her to partake in Snow's execution.

"Let go of my hand, Haymitch," she asked. He knew the reason, but if there was a day where he wouldn't argue with her about hurting herself it was today. Recovery could wait another day. He let go and saw her nails dig deep into her palms. Her face relaxed for a moment, then became tense with crying.

"It's my fault. I messed everything up. I'm having that bastards child and my parents are dead," she was violently shaking and trying to get free from the cuffs, "and now I'm locked to my bed and I can't even do anything here right," Haymitch just shook his head at her. He knew the feeling and he knew there wasn't much to do about it.

"I'll go talk to the doctors next thing to see if there's anything we can do," Haymitch promised.

"Could you… Could you do that now? I think I want to be alone," An elegant way of telling him to get the fuck out. He knew her even in grief. He kissed her forehead and lips and stroked her hair.

"Be nice to yourself," he said, though that was a lost cause already.