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They are beating Peeta up. They will attack 13. They will not kill Peeta. Snow needs him to use against Katniss.
They will bomb 13.
For once Coin listens to him. She orders a Level Five security drill and the sirens that start wailing above their heads are unbearable. They drill into Haymitch’s head so much that his ears are ringing painfully. He sees Boggs guide Katniss and Finnick out of Command. Good.
Plutarch taps his shoulder and they leave Command together. He looks around and he can immediately tell District 13 citizens from the refugees of 12. Even though there have been drills since they arrived here – he can only remember one of them, the first one is lost to the withdrawal – he can still see the difference. The people of 13 aren’t flinching at the sirens, they aren’t looking around looking for loved ones, they aren’t nervous or quickening their steps.
He recognizes the people from 12. They are trying to fit in, trying to stay calm, but their children, the few that are left, are crying and he can see heads turn in confusion and fear. He sees Hazelle, Posy on her arm, Rory next to her. Hazelle looks ahead, determined, but she is holding Rory’s hand like he is a little child and not almost ready for military training by District 13 standards. He makes a mental note that Vick is missing.
He follows Plutarch onto the stairs, but he is only taking two flights downwards, then breaks out of the flow of the people pouring down to the bunker. If Plutarch tries to stop him, he doesn’t hear it over the deafening sound of the sirens. He is walking straight towards Effie’s living quarters.
He pushes the doors open. She stands, her back pressed against a wall, hands in fists at her sides, staring at the ceiling of her quarters with big eyes, as if she is trying to figure out whether the sirens are really there or not.
He doesn’t even try to talk to her. It is too loud and everything in her posture tells him that her body is in a state of panic. He steps in front of her, gently puts two fingers on her chin and tilts her head so that she is looking into his eyes. When he sees the flicker of recognition on her face, he takes her arm and leads her out of the quarters towards the stairway. At some point on the way, her hand slips into his and she squeezes his hand so tightly it almost hurts.
As they enter the stairway, there is still a seemingly endless stream of people that are marching downwards. They step onto the stairs, when he notices Vick Hawthorne standing in the opposite hallway. The boy is staring at the flood of people with wide eyes as others push past him. He steps toward him, Effie clinging to his hand, as Delly and Benjy Cartwright appear behind Vick. Delly puts her free hand – her brother is hanging on to the other - on Vicks shoulder and the boy startles.
Haymitch reaches them and they recognize him. He gently pulls the kids onto the stairway in front of him and Effie and in a row, they make their way down the stairs until they arrive at an enormous cavern.
He has to pull Effies arm under the scanner that the soldiers who stand guard point them to while the kids obey almost stoically. When they file into the cavern with a wave of other people, Delly politely excuses herself and Benjy, to go looking for their assigned space.
“You okay, kid?” he asks Vick and the boy nods slowly. “Yeah.”
“Your family should be here, already. I saw them earlier. What’s your compartment number?”
He helps the boy find his assigned space, where Hazelle is sitting on a bunk carved into a wall with Posy on her lap.
“Mom!” Vick throws himself at his mother and Hazelle hugs him tightly.
Finally he turns to Effie who, like a ghost, has followed him everywhere, holding onto his hand like an anchor.
“Let’s find your space, shall we, princess?” he says.
She takes a shaky breath. “What is happening?” she asks. She looks around like a caged animal, ready to bolt at any sudden movement.
“It’s a drill.”
She meets his eyes. “Don’t lie to me, Haymitch.”
He sighs and as he does his chest hurts as he remembers the sight of Peeta and the blood splattering. “They are going to attack us. Peeta warned us.”
“The capitol?”
He has to bite back a sarcastic retort, because she still has trouble adjusting to life in 13, to the war, to the fact that her home is now her enemy. Like Katniss she still hasn’t fully forgiven him for dragging her here without her knowing. He deserves it, he supposes.
“Yes,” he says simply. “Come now.”
He finds her number and gets to the small cubicle drawn on the stone floor that is designated her space. She is sharing it with Fulvia Cardew who doesn’t seem to be there, yet. They get her supplies and set up the space, which essentially consists of her bunk bed and storage.
Afterwards she seems a lot calmer, as if the orderly morions have given her a sense of security and he feels like he can afford to leave her alone.
He moves on to set up his own space that he is sharing with Plutarch, who is busy swarming around Coin, of course. He doesn’t complain. He sits down on the lower bunk, arms on his knees, staring at the stone ground of the cavern.
His chest feels awfully tight, his throat seems to close in on the flow of oxygen to and from his lungs. When the first bomb hits and the cavern shakes, something unfurls inside him in the worst way. His head is flooded with images of the boy, pale and sunken, eyes mad with something terrible. He remembers the cruel things Katniss snarled at him on the hovercraft, the unjustified cruel things he yelled back at her. They are the first people in 25 years that he considers family and he failed them. Badly. Unforgivably. He lied to them and deceived them and put them in danger - keeps putting them in danger.
During the first few weeks in 13, when they put him through cold turkey mostly in isolation, he wished he had died in the arena all those years ago. He should’ve died and Maysilee should’ve won. Or Wellie. Or Ampert.
And it should’ve been him in the arena now so that Snow could’ve given him the brutal death he promised him. Not Peeta. He still would’ve lent a hand in the rebellion that way, so Lenore Dove could not have been angry.
But instead he is sitting through an air raid in District 13, unable to protect or help any of the people he cares about. He was never good at that.
He wishes for a drink so badly, he’d give anything for it.
His breathing is coming in shallow gasps as his body is frantically trying to get air into his lungs. His head is dizzy and his fingertips are tingling and he can feel cold sweat pooling on his forehead.
“Haymitch?” It is not Plutarch’s voice, the only other person that should be in the same space. It is Effie’s. Her voice is barely above a whisper, shaking with fear.
He forces himself to look up. It is only then that he notices his vision is slightly blurred. He quickly drags a hand across his face, so that she doesn’t see it. He realizes she is shaking again.
He holds out his hand. He knows how to comfort her, right now it feels like the only thing he knows how to do. He has done it so much in the past 25 years, it is more muscle memory than conscious thought. She takes his hand and he pulls her down next to him. He scoots back on the bunk until his back hits the wall and she curls into his side, her fingers tightly fisting in his shirt, her head coming to rest on his chest. He wraps his arms around her shoulders as if he could protect her.
She is still shaking, but at least her breathing is even and so, he simply breathes with her, slowly calming his own nervous system.
Coin informs them that the missile was non-nuclear but they expect more. Citizens are supposed to stay in their allotted areas.
Afterwards they are given clearance to use the bathroom and brush teeth, no showering that day.
A soldier looks sceptically at Effie as they make their ways to the bathrooms. “It is not her time slot.” he remarks.
“Do I look like I care?” Haymitch barks back. It is unnecessarily harsh, but he has no tolerance for 13’s order obsession that night. Luckily the young soldier lets it slide.
When they get back to his space, Plutarch is there. Haymitch wants to strangle him because he still has an air of triumph about him, probably because of the successful Airtime Assault. Great success, he thinks bitterly.
“Hi Effie. You know, Haymitch, Thirteen doesn’t like the disruption of their organization,” Plutarch says.
“Whatever,” he mutters as he flops down on his bed.
Plutarch smiles. “They are not trying to destroy us. They are lashing out, which means they’re losing control- that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah? And what about the people they’ll take it out on that don’t have a bomb shelter for protection?”
Effie sits down next to him, unusually quiet. It’s still a lot to process for her. She wasn’t prepared for war and she wasn’t made for it either.
“They won’t kill them, Haymitch. We both know it. They need them to get to you and to Katniss and Finnick.”
“Well, it’s working,” he replies. He meets Plutarch’s eyes.
“You can’t let it. Katniss and Finnick they need a steadying force.”
“You have no idea what these kids need.”
“But you do.” Plutarch’s smile even widens.
He nods slowly. “I hate you, Plutarch, you know that?”
Plutarch shrugs, unbothered. “I’ll see that I can get clearance for the bathroom, now.”
For a moment he and Effie sit in silence after Plutarch has left.
“Can I stay with you?” Effie asks after a while.
“Sure,” he says. “Won’t sleep anyway.”
He lies down on his bed and she settles against his side again.
They lie together as Plutarch returns and takes the upper bunk and then the lights turn off, only leaving small security lights on in every area.
It is quiet, but not silent. He can hear people whispering to each other, children are whimpering every now and then, nobody really seems to be asleep. They’re all waiting for another bomb to drop.
He feels Effie breathing against his neck and her warm body pressed against his is so familiar that, for the first time, he can really appreciate her presence in 13.
“I’m not mad at you, you know?” she finally whispers.
“Yeah? Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m not. I’m just mad at… everything. Mostly at myself, I think.”
He huffs. “I know the feeling.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I didn’t. I said you’d be safer in the Capitol. But someone thought it’d be good for Katniss to have another familiar face here. And for me, I guess.” He says the last part a little louder, directed at Plutarch who pretends to be sleeping above them. Haymitch is still mad at him for having made that decision without him. But when he sees Finnick and Katniss und what is happening to Peeta and Annie and Johanna, no doubt, he has to admit that Plutarch was probably right. It infuriates him even more.
“How did they know I would come?”
“Don’t know. Why did you?”
There is a long silence, then she whispers, “Because we’re a team.”
He lets his hand come up to stroke through her hair. “We are, huh?”
He hears Plutarch groan quietly with something that sounds suspiciously like exasperation. If the bunks weren’t hewn into the stone itself, he’d have kicked his mattress.
“You know,” she says. “In 25 years I would never have thought we’d be together in a bomb shelter, one day.”
He chuckles. “Neither have I. Bet now you regret you helped Prosie back then, right?”
She pushes herself away from him just a bit. Only so much that she can look into his eyes in the sparse light. “No. I have never regretted it. Not one day. And not today.”
He curls the hand that is still in her hair around her nape and pulls her into a kiss. He doesn’t know how else he is supposed to tell her how grateful he is that she cares so much despite everything, that she has stood by him all those years, that she became his ally and his friend and that she still is with him now.