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By the time they rescue Effie from where she’s being held in the Capitol, it’s almost too late. For a while it seems like it is too late. She lies unmoving where they put her, on a cushy bed in something between a hospital room and a cell in the rebels’ makeshift headquarters in the Capitol. She’s no longer just Capitol thin, but gaunt, starved, her perfect skin scarred, her hair matted, and her eyes hollow.
It’s those hollow eyes that hold Haymitch even as they stare past him, like he might as well not be there at all.
“So much for Katniss’s publicity team,” Plutarch says, not without sympathy. “Coin isn’t going to be pleased.”
“Screw what Coin wants,” Haymitch mutters reflexively.
“If she can’t be useful to the cause, it’ll be that much harder to convince Coin that she’s not a threat.”
Haymitch doesn’t say anything. He just pushes past Plutarch to go to Effie’s bedside. Up close, she looks even worse. He can see the marks left from every time they tased her, or lashed her, or tied her up so tight it broke the skin. His stomach churns.
“We can’t leave her like this.” Haymitch is surprised to hear the words coming out of his own mouth.
“With all of our own casualties, not much can be spared,” Plutarch says, “but I’ll see what I can do.”
Haymitch still glares at him as Plutarch leaves the room.
Then all of his attention turns back to Effie, staring at her as though somehow if he stares long enough, the world might start making sense again. Eventually, with a shaking hand, he reaches out to brush some of her tangled, matted hair away from her eyes, but it only makes everything feel even more upside down.
But he doesn’t stop. He pulls his coarse fingers through her dirty hair until it’s lying out on the pillow in rough strands. He only leaves her side to find a washcloth and soak it in water, and then he’s back, gingerly dabbing off her brow and soft cheeks and down her slender neck. He rinses out the cloth before starting on her delicate hands that have never worked a day in her life—not that he’s any better—and then up her bruised and scabbed arms. He even tries to bring her hair back to some fraction of its former luster, though it’s got nothing on the wig she usually wore.
She doesn’t acknowledge his presence or even look at him, but it’s pretty much what he expects. After his Hunger Games, when he learned his whole family was killed for his little stunt with the barrier, he didn’t look at anyone, only screamed and fought with every breath, hoping one of them would just get fed up and kill him too. Even after all these years, he’s not much better.
Eventually, someone comes in with some salve—it’s not much, but he appreciates how much the small gesture could cost Plutarch. Haymitch rubs it over Effie’s mottled skin, now angry red where he agitated her open wounds, and ashy everywhere else. It’s less than she deserves, but it’s the best he has to give her.
Haymitch blinks into awareness under the bright lights of a bedroom that smells like his own, and he struggles against the disorientation of waking up in a different place than where he fell asleep. His heart almost drops out of his chest as he remembers where he was and why.
He grabs the bottle next to his bed by the neck and goes straight back to the room where they’re keeping Effie. Nothing has changed since he nodded off at her bedside. She lies on the bed, unmoving, apparently oblivious to anything around her. She’s not like the rest of them; she wasn’t meant for a cruel world like this one. To Haymitch’s surprise, she stirs a little as he approaches, though her eyes are still vacant.
He takes a swig straight from the bottle and then offers it to her. “You need it more than I do.” The words come out hoarse.
Her hand closes around the neck of the bottle, but it must be more reflex than intent because as soon as Haymitch lets go, it slips from her grasp and falls to the ground, and the bottle shatters with a tremendous crash, sending shards of glass and droplets of alcohol everywhere.
Haymitch curses, but before he has the chance to think about cleaning it up, Effie bolts up, startled by the noise. Suddenly, her eyes are frantic, wide with fear instead of oblivion, and she begins to scream. It’s a terrible, rending sound, like it’s being ripped from her throat with searing pain.
When Haymitch was in her place, all he wanted was to be alone, but now he can’t bear the thought of leaving her to face the brutal reality on her own, not after everything they’ve been through together. Instead, he does the only thing he can think of and awkwardly clambers up on the bed and puts an uncertain arm around her, expecting her to lash out blindly at the touch.
Instead, she freezes for an instant, and then she collapses into gasping sobs and all he can do is hold on, because he definitely can’t let go of her like this.
The first time Effie smiles at Haymitch after everything, it cuts him even worse than her dead eyes or wrenching tears. Over the years of their strange partnership, he’s learned that her oppressive cheer was her way of handling everything, not so different from his drink, but this is much, much worse. Her smile looks like poorly molded plastic, cracked and fragile in a way it never was before.
“What happened to resting? Or is your plan to make sure you don’t recover until this whole mess is over?” Haymitch drawls as he sidles over to her bedside. It’s not a bad strategy now that he thinks of it, though she’s cleaned up far too well for that to be her goal.
At his words, her smile falters, just barely, but to Haymitch it looks like a desperate plea. “It’s not hard to guess what will be done with someone like me if I don’t make myself useful,” she says crisply, with only the slightest waver.
Haymitch scoffs. “The Capitol made it clear what side you’re on.”
“What about the other prep teams? From what I’ve heard, the rebels haven’t exactly been lenient to anyone who participated in putting on the Hunger Games.”
“No,” Haymitch admits, “but-”
“And I’m not a rebel,” Effie adds, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Of course the Games were wrong, but everything I’ve seen of this rebellion has been far worse.” She takes a deep breath and steadies herself. “But talk like that is exactly the sort of thing that will get someone killed. What’s done is done, there’s no use in fussing about it, and there’s no need to worry about me stepping out of line; if there’s anything I know, it’s to do as I’m told.”
Haymitch realizes with a start what his grimace must look like to her and quickly turns it into a dry, crooked smile. “Don’t worry, there’s no need to put on a show for me, sweetheart.”
A bit of the tension he didn’t even notice in her perfect poise falls away and her forced smile fades into something less cheerful, but more natural. “I’m sorry. After everything that they did to me, and everything I saw in District 12, I think I understand what made you feel you needed a rebellion, but it’s hard to imagine anything better will come out of this terrible bloodshed.”
He sighs. “I assumed there was no way to go but up, but now, well, I guess we’ll find out if things are any better under Coin than they were under Snow.”
A frown flickers across Effie’s face, but it’s enough to make it perfectly clear what she thinks of Coin.
Haymitch isn’t sure what compels him to say it—maybe it’s a backwards kind of consolation—but the words come out of their own accord, “If you haven’t had more than enough of me for a lifetime, it’s partially my fault you don’t have a home anymore, and, well, I never had much of a home either, but you’re welcome to come back with me when all the pomp and circumstance is over.”
She looks at him and he’s about to take it all back, when she puts a delicate hand on his arm. “Thank you, Haymitch, that’s very generous of you.” She falters a little. “If you’re serious, I think I might like that, as long as they let me leave the Capitol, that is.”
“No one’s keeping you prisoner again,” Haymitch grumbles, “not if I have anything to say about it.”
Then he freezes as Effie responds with a quick peck on his cheek.