Effie comes to terms with the truth
She'd never been afraid of the dark, before. It had often been a welcome respite in her life of lights and color and loudly-whispered gossip, her headaches as part of her as her high heels. She'd been longing for light and sound for what felt like years. She'd tried carving the passing days in the wall, at first. She'd quickly come to accept there really was no point to it, when her eyes could barely make out the bars of her cell. Then they'd broken her fingers, and the option to carve anything anywhere had been blown away in time with her screams.
They had asked about Katniss and Peeta, at the beginning. Her victors and their rebel plan. They must be in the Arena by now, she'd told them. What could they ever do from there? Why wouldn't they let her go and watch? She'd always been great at watching. Watching, and pulling names from a bowl, and looking away from others' grief. Watching while looking away was her superpower. She'd mastered it over the years. But there had been nothing to look away from since the interviews. They hadn't even let her say goodbye. She'd tried to convince them that the kids would never take any action against the Capitol, that they knew better. She'd taught them better.
Then they'd stopped asking about Peeta at all, and fear had seized her heart. Had the Games claimed him, at last? Another name to her list. It was meant to be an honour, wasn't it? Falling in the Games. She'd always managed to convince herself it was. That the children on that train were special, part of something glorious and beautiful in its tragedy.
She thought of Peeta's easy smile, not strained like Katniss and Haymitch's. Him sneaking glances at Katniss whenever she wasn't looking, blushing at every tiny thing without her ever noticing. His hug when Effie arrived for their Victory Tour, not reluctant, like the others, but warm and honest. The way she'd notice him studying her at the beginning of every event, carefully watching who she talked to and how she behaved, and then spend the next hours flawlessly following her lead. He'd asked her for help dancing, afraid of losing his balance on his new leg, and they'd spent hours practicing. He'd tripped a lot, at first, and he'd laughed at himself every time.
He'd been angry, she could tell, as all her victors were, never knowing enough to understand how fortunate their position was. But his anger had never once overcome his kindness. Peeta Mellark, lucky for the honour of falling in the Games. She'd had an empty stomach, and had spent the hours after that particular interrogation coughing up bile, and wondering if Peeta had spent his last moments in the same position, coughing up blood.
Their focus had been laser-pointed on Katniss, from then on. It had given her strength. It meant the girl was still alive, right? Haymitch could get her out, he'd done it before. Whatever foolish, reckless thing she had done, he could spin it, pull strings, bargain and beg and lie his ass off. She'd never seen him care so desperately, not since- not since before he went into his own Arena. She hoped he wasn't drowning in grief for Peeta, the way she was. She hoped he had the strength to keep the bottles in check until Katniss was safe. She wished she could be by his side to remind him.
And then they'd started asking about Haymitch, too, and everything had stopped making sense.
She'd played all her cards. She'd been angry, and frightened, and pliant, and quiet. They left quicker, she learnt, if she said nothing, if her screams were short and empty of pleading. They must have figured out she had nothing for them, eventually, because at some point the questioning turned rutinary, the inquiries uninterested. They came in, they said their lines, Effie screamed, and then they left. She'd almost gotten used to it, and it was bad, because giving up on resisting meant more time to think.
That had been the bad part. When she'd laid her head against the bars and suddenly remembered a young Haymitch, hanging from the chandelier in his golden cage. His eyes frantic, in those first weeks after his Games, and the change in them the next time they placed him in the cage, the young boy's gaze all of a sudden dejected and hopeless and dead. The people surrounding him could have been puppets, for all he cared. He wasn't really looking at them.
But he did truly look at Effie, sometimes. Tilted his head sadly, like he was waiting for her to understand something. He'd stopped doing it over the years, and she'd been thankful for it. It had been him, who didn't understand, who didn't see the whole picture, right? Right?
For the first time in her life, Effie allowed herself to entertain the other possibility, for it to conjure a full, conscious thought. That maybe it had been the other way around. The bars against her forehead were cold. The golden bars must have been cold against his forehead, too. She tilted her head, the way he used to, just to see what it felt like. In her head, a young voice whispered I won't hurt you.
She'd only ever seen that look on him again when Katniss and Peeta came into their lives. They'd seemed to understand what he was saying, to share in on something she wasn't a part of. She'd dismissed it for ignorance. And yet, as she nursed her first real, intentional burn, she thought about Katniss, and how she'd been so young when she first learned what burns felt like, and how Effie hadn't until now. They had threatened to cut something off, and in her panic her mind had gone to Peeta and his leg. There were cuts all over her skin, and yet none so deep as the one that put that horrible scar on Haymitch's stomach.
She wondered over the way her body screamed in pain, and somehow it was better than the blind, hysterical terror of not knowing what had happened to the kids. It had never been this bad. They had never belonged to her like Katniss and Peeta did. She'd never truly known them. They'd never been a team. But Haymitch had been District all along, through and through. Every child they'd put on that train had belonged to Haymitch. Had he lived with this fear, with this grief, year after year? The thought of it alone was enough to make the room spin.
And, for once, she contemplated the possibility that maybe the ignorance hadn't been theirs at all.
She'd tried pushing the thoughts aside, but over the next days, it was like a dam had burst open, the tide unstoppable. That sad, knowing look. It had been there when she came to collect him for his Victory Tour. The first time he'd looked so frighteningly out of reach. All of the bad luck in the world so unnervingly directed at him that summer; his name at the Reaping, the fire in his house, his girl's appendicitis.
Her heart was beating loud now. I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it, Katniss' voice said. An accident, and the forbidden murmurs that had reached Effie's ears, insisting that it had been anything but. Would anyone ask about Effie, on the outside? Would Prosie be told she'd had an accident, too? Would thinking anything else be forbidden?
Haymitch's name at the Reaping, the fire in his house, his girl's appendicitis. That look on his face.
Someone was breathing too loud, too fast, and it took her a moment to realise it must be herself.
They really are for the greater good, the Hunger Games, she remembered telling Haymitch over and over. He'd always reach for a bottle quick after that. That look on his face. Seneca Crane hadn't had an accident. Someone had punished him. Someone was punishing her. Someone- someone had punished Haymitch? Someone had punished Haymitch. She knew who. Of course she knew who. She was suddenly so, so cold.
His name at the Reaping, the fire in his house, his girl's appendicitis. An accident, bad luck.
His name at the Reaping, the fire in his house, his girl's appendicitis. Punishment.
Seneca Crane, an accident.
This cold dark cell, some sort of mistake.
This cold dark cell, punishment.
Katniss and Peeta, thrown into the Games again. A tragedy.
Katniss and Peeta, thrown into the Games again. Punishment.
The Hunger Games. An honour.
The Hunger Games. Punishment.
It was a glass, and it was now crashing to the floor without notice, a thousand jagged edges flying and cutting and drawing blood, irreparably. That look on his face. Just like that, she understood it. Just like that, she couldn't unlearn it. She was choking on it.
She crawled into a ball and, for the first time, her screams were hers and hers alone.
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The clarity that came after was a curse. It wouldn't go away. His name at the Reaping, the fire in his house, his girl's appendicitis. Haymitch's punishment. Had it been without reason, like hers? Had he done something to draw his wrath, like Seneca Crane had? Had Katniss and Peeta?
Oh. They kept asking about Haymitch. Had he truly done something now? Again, maybe? Had her three victors truly rebelled against the Capitol? Had they left her to suffer the consequences of their madness?
She was always so cold, but the sudden rage at the thought was boiling. Hadn't she been by their side, always? Hadn't she said they were a team? Hadn't she spent twenty-five years dragging Haymitch back to his feet, time and time again? Twenty-five years of companionship and sleepless nights and parties and trains to and from the edge of the world.
The prison bars were hard against her forehead. In her mind, they were always golden. Like Katniss' pin, and Peeta's medallion, and her wig, and Haymitch's bangle. Like his cage, hanging from the chandelier.
Twenty-five years of children that belonged to Haymitch, and got taken away from him time and time again.
Twenty-five years of waking him up to drag him back into the train on time, so he could take home their caskets.
Twenty-five years since he first shot that sad look at her. Twenty-five years of her refusing to understand what he wanted her to see.
The anger left as swiftly as it had come, and all that was left to her was the cold.
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She hoped they had done something. She hoped they had done something big and terrible and loud. Something no amount of cover-up could hide.
That was the conclusion she arrived to. She only wished she did know what it was, so she could at least feel like she was a part of it. Like she had done something, too.
She hadn't. She had watched and pulled names and read them out loud. She had wrinkled her nose at Katniss' impertinence. She had seen Peeta volunteer, and done nothing but blankly stare.
She had watched as they locked Haymitch up like a songbird for all to see, night after night after night, and she'd felt nothing but exasperation that he wouldn't drink sensibly.
They really are for the greater good, the Hunger Games.
Effie had never been a self-deprecating person, not once. A positive attitude is ninety-seven percent of the battle, she'd told Prosie.
There had been a battle, and she'd refused to take part in it, to even realise it was happening. She hadn't been blind. She'd been shutting her eyes closed tight until her face strained.
She had never wanted to be someone else. She was Effie Trinket, reliable and diplomatic and elegant, charming and polite and bubbly and positive enough to rot.
She was Effie Trinket, spineless.
For the first time in her life, she wished she was anyone else. For the first time, she wished she could have been someone brave.
Whatever Haymitch had done, she hoped it was enough to bring down every building in the Capitol. She hoped that this one collapsed and buried her and her cowardice where he and the kids would never have to witness it again. She hoped he was out there, being brave for Peeta and for Katniss and for the forty-six children he hadn't been able to save. For Maysilee and her striking, dignified, dazzling defiance. For his family and his girl. And for Effie, because she had failed to be brave at his side.
She hoped he got to tear Snow to pieces with his own hands.
She only hoped Prosie had had the foresight to run.
She hoped Haymitch remembered what she looked like well enough to save her from the fire.
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There had been a change, a while ago. No one had come to ask her anything in a long time. A faceless woman walked in one day with flashing, blinding lights, washed her, straightened what bones could be resettled, bandaged and stitched her up. Then other strangers came in with a stretcher, and she put a mask on Effie's mouth, and when she woke up next half her body was in a cast, so she guessed they must have needed to operate, to fix the rest. The woman came back to check on her, on the days after, never looking at her face for too long.
She didn't look Capitol. She didn't look like anything at all. She hadn't offered any explanations, and Effie had lost the bravery to ask a long time ago. Effie had never had the bravery to do anything.
The woman was removing the casts from her fingers the first time she spoke.
"He says you were helping, the whole time."
Effie just stared at her, unblinking.
"President Coin gave him permission to come see you today, so he'll probably be around in a few hours."
Effie was so, so tired of being a coward, so, despite the fact that she couldn't care less who walked in on her cell at that point, or who President Coin was, she mastered a thin string of shattered voice to ask, "Who?"
The woman stared at her with caution, like she was worried that Effie was particularly slow. "Haymitch Abernathy?"
Effie could only blink in response, and the woman eventually left. She hesitated by the door, turned back, and left one of her lanterns on before leaving.
Effie's eyes hurt, but she had starved for light for so long that she couldn't drag them away from its source for long. So when she heard his voice saying her name, it took her more than a few furious blinks to make up his silhouette in the darkness of the entrance.
The first thing she noticed was that Haymitch was too thin, dangerously so. There were bags under his eyes, too pronounced. He looked pale, and shaky, and drained, but he had walked in on his own two feet, no one's prisoner. No cage for him this time.
If Effie had had the strength to stand, she would have danced.
He lowered himself to sit on her cot by her side, slowly, like one might approach a wounded animal. By the way he was staring at her, he wasn't the only one that looked fragile. She could finally string a thought together. He says you were helping, the whole time. The woman had left the light behind this time. Had he protected her? Lied for her, to whoever was in charge now? To keep her alive?
"Why?", she asked hoarsely. Why do you look so worried? Why are you wasting your time saving the girl that never even tried to save you?
He furrowed his brow, ignored her question. Wouldn't meet her gaze. "Proserpina's alive", he simply offered, and Effie broke.
The sobs were loud and ugly and body-wrecking. She was glad for her hands being usable again, if only to hide behind them. Prosie was alive. Prosie was alive.
Haymitch sat by her side through it. Of course he knew exactly what to say, what she most desperately needed to hear. Life had forced him to her side for too long. Or was it something else? Did he know what it was like, the devouring sort of worry for a sibling? She knew he had had family, once, but had he been an only child? Was he someone's Prosie, once? Or worse, did he have a Prosie of his own? A little kid trapped in that fire she had happily called an accident all this time? She'd never been brave enough to ask. She doubted she ever would be. The sobs got worse.
He raised a tentative hand, placed it on her back, as if unsure. Maybe he felt he had given her enough, that he didn't owe her any consolation. He'd certainly helped her much more than she'd ever even tried to help him. Still, it had been too long since someone offered her anything close to kindness, and Effie wasn't strong enough to deny herself his comfort. She wasn't strong at all. She collapsed into Haymitch's arms, stained his shirt with tears and relief and the guilt that came with knowing that she didn't deserve it for a moment. Haymitch's arms were around her in the blink of an eye, holding her together.
She hoped it wasn't too long before she managed to calm down. Cowardly and unsubstantial she might be, but Effie Trinket was not one to whine for long. Not when others had withstood their suffering in silence, for so, so long. With her help. Why was Haymitch being so kind?
"Why?", she asked him again, and, to her surprise, for the first time in what felt like forever there was no harshness in his eyes when he looked at her, no cold, calculated distance, no scorn, but guilt, and sorrow, and sudden, alarming tears.
"I'm so sorry, Effie. We tried to find you, to get you out. I couldn't- They wouldn't hear me. It was all so- I never wanted you to get hurt. I wish I could have stopped it. I tried, I- They agreed, to let you out. It won't be long now. I'll make sure of it, I promise. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Effie could only stare, uncomprehending. Sorry? He was sorry. He had been trying to save her. Despite everything, despite her cowardice, he didn't hate her. He had been trying to save her. Why? There was only one reason, and it was easy to see, now that she was getting used to not pushing offending thoughts back into their convenient little drawers as soon as they emerged. That Haymitch, with all his anger and his drinking and his crudeness, as bull-headed and impossible and beyond help as he might be, was and always had been ten times more decent a human being than her.
She pulled herself together. If nothing else, she owed him this. She owed him so much more.
"No, I'm sorry, Haymitch. I didn't-" He looked so caught off-guard. She had to say it. He deserved to hear it. "I've had a lot of time to think, down here. About- about everything I've failed to see over the years. Everything I've chosen not to see." Her throat was closing up. How to put it into words? How utterly, fundamentally wrong she had been about everything she thought to be true? "All those years- all those children. And you-" the sobs were here again, and he looked distraught, but she had to make him understand that she did see, now, finally, what he'd begged for her to get her head around for so long. "You were so alone, and he hurt you, and he hurt Peeta and Katniss, and he- forty-six children, Haymitch, and I didn't do anything to help, I didn't do anything at all, and you were so alone-"
"Stop- stop, Effie." If this was any other situation, she would have found it funny, how completely taken aback he looked. As it was, she could only think that it made him look so, so young. The boy she'd met before the Second Quarter Quell, finally breaking through the smoke. "You-" he looked so lost. "You didn't know. You couldn't have known."
"I could", and she knew it to be true. "Cinna knew. Portia knew." Who else? How many others had been fed the same lies she had, and seen them for what they were? "You knew, and I should have known, because I was right next to you-"
"Exactly. Listen, Effie, please." Haymitch's eyes traveled to the corner of her cell, to the ceiling, to the floor, as he tried to find the words. "I- I was alone. But I had to be alone. He- Snow", he growled, as if forcing himself to say his name out loud, to prove he wasn't afraid to anymore. Always, always braver than her. "Snow would have hurt anyone who was truly close to me. Did hurt them. The friends that remained to me, I had to push away, and it was-" his voice broke. "It was worse than anything I ever did in the Games. I had to hurt them, so they knew to stay away, so he wouldn't use them to get to me. I had to be alone, so no one else got hurt. Not back then, and not now. Being alone gave me the means to finally, truly fight back. I thought not telling you anything, keeping you in the dark and away- that it would keep you safe. But I guess Snow knew. That I wasn't completely alone, all this time. You were there. The only person watching over me. That was you." His eyes were so intense when they met hers. "You have nothing to apologize for, Effie. Not to me. I owe you so much. I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe."
Effie was sure she would run out of tears someday soon, but it didn't look like it was going to be today. She scrunched up her face, trying to keep them at bay, and wondered at how ridiculous it was, that his words were exactly the ones that she wanted to say to him. How it all came down to something so, so simple.
So she whispered back, "You have nothing to apologize for. I owe you so much. I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe."
She had never seen Haymitch properly burst into tears before. She was glad, because she wouldn't have known to hold him so tightly, before. Or him her. Like they were drifting at sea, and the other was the only thing keeping them afloat. A lifeline, people said. Effie thought about Haymitch and her, about the terrified boy bending down to pick up her colors from the floor on the night that they met, about the man that fought his way into her cell today, and about every moment in between.
A lifeline. She found it fitting.
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