Effie was rescued from the Capitol prison at the exact moment Haymitch vomited into a metal basin and wished for a drink. They didnât recognise her, so they scooped her unconscious body up, assuming she was a victor they didnât know well. She was entirely boneless and floppy in the soldiers arms, and he wasnât careful. As he carried her back onto the aircraft, her head smacked painfully into a doorframe, rousing her as he deposited her onto a gurney. The grey metal around her made her think she was in an interrogation room. Interrogations hurt. Nobody even bothered asking her questions anymore, they just hurt her over and over. She curled into the smallest ball she could and tucked her head into the space above her knees. She spent the flight back to 13 waiting for the pain to start. Her nose had started bleeding when her head had connected with the door, and the wet, metallic taste of blood enveloped her.
When they got there, they had to wheel her into the hospital wing. Her position had relaxed slightly, her arms looped loosely around her drawn up knees as she lay on her side. She didnât know where she was going, but she knew whatever they were doing didnât hurt right now. When the bed stopped, doctors and nurses came in to check her over, leaning down to look into her wide, unblinking eyes. She was almost entirely catatonic as far as they could tell, and nobody knew who she was.
Prim walked into the room, looking over at the poor soul on the bed. She was emaciated and dirty, cuts and bruises all over her skin. Her hair was nothing more than a dirty matted clump on her head and she was curled into a loose ball on her side. She was completely still and Prim paused for a moment to watch the gentle expansion of her back, making sure she was breathing.
âWe need to get this one down to psychâ the doctor said to Prim in an offhand manner, referencing the mental facility far underground
âIt looks like she needs usâ Prim couldnât help but say
âSheâs completely unresponsiveâ the doctor replied in a clipped tone
âHave you tried talking to her?â
âI have a medical wing full of people happy to engage with treatment, I donât have time to coddle someone into itâ
Prim walked over and rested one hand on the womanâs arm, and reached the other one to the bed control. She didnât look at her as she said she was going to raise the bed and she needed her to sit up so they could give her medical care. Effie complied with the voice that pulled a faint string in her mind. She didnât know how long she had been in that place, but her life before had a dream-like quality now, like it never happened. She had buried her name deep inside herself when time became either her screams or someone elseâs. As she sat up, she glanced at the girl with the voice and the name âPrimâ slotted into her head. Prim didnât recognise her at first, startled by the sight of fresh blood dripping out of her nose and crusting onto her chin.
âSheâs not crazy, sheâs just scaredâ Prim asserted, shocked by her own boldness.
Now the woman was sat up, Prim began to do a quick primary survey to see if there was anything critical they needed to prioritise, thankful to find nothing. It was when she picked up some wet gauze to clean her bloodied face that she recognised her. Prim looked finally into the bright blue eyes on the thin, dirty face of the woman before her and immediately knew it was Effie.
âOh my god, Effieâ she said without realising, horrified at the state she was in
âTrinket?â The guard by the door grunted in question âsheâs an escort?â He finished, taking a menacing step forward as he reached for his gun
Most people would have let the soldier take her, but Primrose Everdeen wasnât most people. Effie might have called her name that fateful reaping day, but she had also fussed over her every moment since. Effie had brought toys for her cat and ribbons for her hair. She had slipped her chocolates when nobody was looking and listened enraptured to her little girl stories and dreams. Effie had encouraged her to be a healer. She wasnât letting them anywhere near her.
âSheâs on the listâ she said lowly and sharply, spinning around to face him âif youâve got a problem take it up with the mockingjayâ she wasnât sure if Katniss actually had put Effie on the list, but she hoped it wouldnât get back to her before she could brief her.
The soldier looked at her with reproach and then left the room, presumably to search out a commander to advise. She turned back to Effie and picked her gauze back up, gently holding the bottom of her face with one hand, while she dabbed the blood off with the other. She didnât say much as she worked, but as she finished, she kept Effieâs face cupped in her hand a moment longer than she needed to
âYouâre safe here. I promise.â
The next few hours passed in a flurry of medical testing. They took X-Rays of her bones and scans of her head. She was placed on a weighing scale and measured all over and then put in another machine that decided how malnourished she was. She wondered if the scans saw the snakes that now writhed in her skull, or if the scale included the weight of her screams or not. She wondered if her own or other peoples screams were heavier. Her nose began to ache and she shivered in the thin grey hospital gown someone had manhandled her into. She felt very glad to be deposited back onto her bed and told to stay there. She hadnât spoken a single word. It was far too soon when Prim came back in, the mean doctor from earlier trailing behind her.
âSheâs got several healed fractures and her left arm has an active break in both the ulna and the radiusâ Prim began, shocking Effie. Her arm didnât hurt that much at all, how could it be broken?
âShe has a mild case of pneumonia from the cold, but her white count is very elevated so thatâs probably not the only infection she hasâ Effie thought of the coughs she heard from other cells. They were so loud and hacking that she sometimes prayed they would die quickly.
âThereâs evidence of several previous concussions, but the MRI showed no long term damageâ she remembered the sound of her head bouncing off the floor of her cell as they threw her prone body back in after interrogations
âSheâs also extremely malnourished and dehydrated andâŠâ Prim paused slightly âwe think she might have fleas or lice maybeâ Effie closes her eyes with shame.
âWhatâs your course of treatment?â The doctor asked Prim
âWell we need to get her clean, and then we need to get her on fluids with electrolytes and broad spectrum antibiotics. Then she needs a cast on her arm and a standard refeeding rationâ
âAnd shave that headâ the doctor added, gesturing towards Effie âitâs a lice haven in thereâ
Effie had swallowed her words long ago. She had bitten them, chewed them and dragged them down her own throat like broken glass. She would scream like everyone else, she would scream up her ruined throat with every crack of searing pain that sizzled on her skin, but she did not talk. The first guard that had stalked up to her in her cell, that she had been stupid enough to try and convince to let her go, that covered her mouth as he did unspeakable things to her, he had been the last person to hear a word from her mouth. But this doctor, who listened without compassion to the list of ways her body failed, and then thought it ok to shave her head, made her brave. The words had tripped out of her mouth without her even realising. She heard them like they had come from someone else
âPlease donât take my hairâ she startled at the sound of her own voice âI just need a comb and conditioner, I can fix itâ it was like the words were a river, bubbling up inside her and flowing out without her permission âjust please donât shave my headâ
She saw the doctor look at her reproachfully, a battered women with matchstick arms, one of which was broken apparently, who had only managed one stuttering sentence since sheâd been here. It wasnât looking good.
âIâll do itâ Prim said quietly, as the woman drew breath to say no âshe needs a bath anyway, I might as well try. If I canât Iâll shave it myself, I promiseâ she finished, her voice taking on a pleading tone.
âFineâ the doctor said with exasperation âitâs not like we have an entire wing of patients needing treatmentâ she muttered as she left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Prim went into the small ensuite and ran the bath as hot as she could, pouring copious amounts of carbolic soap into the water until it turned cloudy pink. Once the bath was full she went back to the main room, expecting Effie to need help. She was shocked to find her perched on the edge of the bed already, waiting for her to return. When she got close enough, Effie reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly as she gave her a grateful look. Prim squeezed her hand back and then let go as Effie got down and began to hobble towards the door. As they stood next to the bath, Effie shakily untied her gown and dropped it. The person who had manhandled her into it had given her a soft pair of boy shorts and a sports bra first, which she now found herself thankful for. When the gown dropped away from her, Prim had to stop herself gasping. She could see every single one of Effieâs vertebrae stacked one on top of the other like marbles. Even through the dirt, her bruises were dark.
âYou can keep your underwear on if you likeâ she said gently, noticing Effie was stock still and shaking a little âyouâll get clean either wayâ
Effie didnât say anything, but climbed into the gently steaming water, the heat leeching deep into her soul. God it had been so long since sheâd been warm. Prim sluiced water over her head using a plastic cup and then handed her a sponge
âWhile I tackle your hair, why donât you start cleaning the dirt off. The soap is antiseptic so all your cuts will get cleanâ
She began to lather conditioner into the mess as best she could and then started to prise it apart with a wide toothed comb, careful not to pull too hard.
âI didnât realise you had so much hair under those wigs all these yearsâ she said she she began to tease some of the length out. Effie had finished washing herself a long time ago by this point and her skin was lightly pink from scrubbing.
âMost people donâtâ she replied quietly, still getting used to to the sound she made when she talked. She thought her voice might be hoarse from lack of use, but it sounded just the same as before. With every pull of the comb she was quietly excavating herself from the place sheâd been buried.
âWhen I was small, I had little golden ringletsâ she said, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on top of them. Prim shifted forwards slightly to compensate for this and stayed silent, allowing her to continue âI loved them so much, I used to sit for hours and comb through them in the mirror, watching them shine. When I was⊠I donât know- maybe 5? My mother took me with her to the wig shop, I was so excited because she would usually shoo me away. When we got there, she held me down as the shop assistant shaved all my beautiful golden ringlets off. I screamed and screamed, thinking it was the worst thing that could ever happenâ she paused briefly, the enormity of the awfulness that had befallen her swelling up in the room âand then, when it was over, I was given a wig that was just like my own hair. I cried and asked my mother why I had to wear a wig and she told me the wig was shiner, bouncier, better than my own hair. From then on my hair was shaved by my mother once a fortnight until I moved out. When I went, I didnât mean to let it grow, but I was so busy that it kind of got away from me. One morning, I stood at the bathroom mirror with a razor, ready to do it, and I remembered those little golden ringlets on the floor of the wig shop. I couldnât do it after that. I pinned it under my wig cap, and then when it got even longer I learned to braid and would wind them around and around to keep them out of sightâ she finished.
Prim had managed to pull out the entire mess in the back of her hair and combed the lice out in the time Effie had been speaking. Her heart felt squeezed inside her chest as she listened to her, so desperately wanting to keep her hair and always having to hide it. No wonder it was the threat of a razor that made her talk
âWeâre not supposed to do thisâ Prim said âbut letâs put some more hot water in and wash your hair properly. I can do your back tooâ
She lathered a lot of shampoo into Effieâs hair and massaged it around on her scalp. It had been so long since someone had touched her like this. So delicately and kindly, like she was worthy of care. As Prim worked to eradicate all the dirt from her scalp, Effie wept silently. She didnât know what she wept for, but tears didnât stop tracking down her face until Prim had washed the shampoo out, done a second round, combed through conditioner and scrubbed the dirt off her back.
As she stood and removed herself from the bath, Prim went and fetched some soft, grey cotton pyjamas for her. After Effie had dried herself and dressed in her pyjamas, a man came and set a firm cast around the arm that was broken. In the other hand a canula was fitted and several bags hung- she assumed the fluids, electrolytes and antibiotics that were mentioned earlier. She battled her way through a disgusting trayful of mashed turnips so her body wouldnât reject the food and then slept for a long, long time.
She came in and out of consciousness for a while, only rousing to use the toilet or eat her rations. The doctors became worried about her. She barely touched her paltry refeeding rations, and her appetite didnât seem to be returning at all. When she was upped to a larger meal plan, she she would only eat half and then go straight back to sleep. On the eighth day, she woke and felt a small stirring of energy inside herself, so tiny she almost missed it, but there all the same. She stepped shakily out of bed and went into the bathroom. After sheâd done her business, she turned to look at herself in the mirror. She had large hollows in her cheeks, and her eyes were still slightly sunken, but she didnât actually look too bad. She showered herself and washed her face and then changed into the day clothes that had been sitting on her bedside table for a week. Her hair had dried into thick, glossy waves the colour of milk chocolate, but sheâd never had it cut or styled, so it hung heavily around her face. She braided the two front sections and then pulled them away from her face and went to sit on her bead. When the nurse arrived with her very small portion of porridge, she quietly asked if she could have some more. As the nurse left to fulfil the request, she sighed deeply with relief.
It was a month later when Haymitch eventually surfaced from rehabilitation. She wasnât fully weight restored, and her arm still had a cast, but the antibiotics had treated her infections well, and only the worst of the scrapes and bruises were still visible- tiny patches of ghostly yellow almost faded to nothing. She saw him first, but then again her hair made her look quite different, so she could forgive him looking straight past her. She had convinced the hairdresser in thirteen to cut thick, heavy bangs straight across her forehead, and her hair had ended up falling all the way to the bottom of her ribs in the end. It was her most defining feature by far, and heâd never seen it before. She called his name and saw the recognition dawn on his face after a second.
âNice do, princessâ he had mumbled gruffly, clearly trying his best to keep the upper hand
âThank you, Haymitchâ she replied with a clipped tone.
They stared at each other for a second and then broke into laughter. He reached down to hug her and she led him over to the table Katniss, Finnick, Annie and Prim were sat at. She laughed with them as she ate, and finally felt like it might turn out ok after all.
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the hunger games is having a resurgence and iâm back on my bullshit so i thought i would post what i always imagined the rest of effieâs life looked like
she stays in the capitol to begin with. katniss was shocked when she saw them kiss, but was hastily shut up by haymitch when she teased him and they never really spoke about effie much after that. effie called haymitch once a week, filling him in on the rebuilding efforts, her rapidly blooming social life, new fashion trends, inter-district moving and the latest in geese rearing tips(iâm a goose apologist here he keeps geese ok). he can tell something is off but he doesnât realise how much of it is outright lies
effie wakes in the mornings screaming, the pain of whatever torture she was reliving rapidly dissolving as her bedroom sharpened into focus. She rarely leaves her apartment. she watches them rebuild from her window, her heart racing when unexpected bangs and crashes come from construction sites. she gets up later and later each day, sometimes not bothering to get out of bed at all. when she canât face the nightmares, she goes to the roof of her building and screams off the edge until her voice is hoarse. she tells haymitch that sheâs been out partying when she calls. her neighbourhood gets a reputation for being haunted, people say you can still hear the rebels screaming at night. her old friends are mostly dead and the ones that arenât canât face the memory of her as much as she canât face the memory of them. they do try for a while, pretending that everything is fine for as long as they can ignore the frenzied fear right under the surface. the cocoon her life has become feels suffocating but ultimately comforting. she tells herself sheâs fine, that this is fine. she doesnât know why she lies to him when she calls.
she lasts a year. one afternoon, sheâs on the phone with haymitch and heâs telling her about katniss and peeta. theyâve just gotten engaged for real and heâs chattering on about them in the way he does when he lets his guard down. his voice is so comforting and so nice and so homely that her heart clenches and her hand grips the phone so tightly the plastic nearly buckles in her grip. she closes her eyes so the only thing entering her brain is his voice. when they get off the phone she throws her favourite things into a suitcase, showers and gets dressed in actual clothes for the first time all week and walks to the train station before she can think about it too hard. the days she spends on the train pass quickly and she steps onto the platform at 12 in the middle of a deluge. she trudges over to victors village, her suitcase clattering over muddy paving stones. she steps into the square of victors village in the pouring rain, looking sullen, tired and thinner than when anyone last saw her. sheâs filled with sudden unease, and stands still, not sure she has the nerve to go and bash on his door. she feels much too old for this, much to old to run away from her life without telling anyone, for a man who didnât even invite her. sheâs freezing. peeta notices her and goes to invite her in, but katniss stops him, seeing haymitch has set out to meet her in the square. as he gets closer he notices she looks like shit. sheâs not dressed for the rain and her clothes cling to her depressingly, her hair is plastered to her face and she looks about as tired as he feels. sheâs stood with her arms crossed tightly, looking like she might cry. he wraps his arms around her cold, sodden frame and it takes her a second, but she wriggles her arms out from between them and wraps her arms around his neck, stepping closer. they might be too old for this, but she canât deny this is better than whatever she was doing before. he doesnât kiss her there; it still feels too alien to not hide.
the next morning, effie pulls one of haymitchâs porch chairs to the edge of the veranda and basks in the rising sun, allowing it to warm her all the way through. he comes out with coffee an hour or so later, remembering she missed it in 13. peeta comes over to say hello and effie finally feels her heart slow down.
she gets used to the rhythms of 12. she did worry that too much time had passed for them, but they fall back together as theyâre meant to. they bicker and debate through barely suppressed smiles and finally offer the overt support the other has always needed. when haymitch gets up to feed the geese at first light, he leaves her in bed alone and she rolls into the warm spot he leaves. he makes her coffee when heâs done and says itâs because heâd never hear the end of it if he didnât. in reality he just canât imagine not getting to see her lift her bleary head off the pillow, her blonde hair mused and her eyes flickering open. her hair is one of the things he loves the most. he teases her about her âlotions and potionsâ but he spends hours running his hands through her hay-coloured waves. she lets it grow down to her shoulders for the first time since her baby hair was chopped off for wigs. she starts growing produce in the back garden. the first time katniss sees her, hair tied back with a patterned scarf, wearing dungarees and chunky boots, she laughs out loud so hard that effieâs in a huff with her for a whole week. she offers an apology only because her wedding simply will not happen without effie planning it.
one day, she gets up as soon as she hears haymitch go out the back door in the morning. she dresses in a baggy t-shirt and bright dungarees (she tries her best not to link the bright dungarees that being her so much joy to grey jumpsuits) and makes coffee for them both. he startles when he finds her at the kitchen table, but she just asks him if he knew she had a degree from capitol university. he didnât. she tells him she wants to teach children in the school house and expects him to laugh. he does a little bit, but then tells he sheâll be fantastic and admired her as she marched out the door to go and talk to the head teacher. they start her out easy, but the children adore her funny accent, soft hair and bright clothes. she adores them all right back. effie has a gaggle of small children running around her for all of the wedding and katniss looks over her the entire day, smiling at her and haymitch playing with them all. peeta had been slowly beginning to raise the idea of a family, but katniss had been shutting it down forcibly every time. she walks over to peeta at the reception and draws his attention to the large game of tag effie was participating in. as haymitch starts hefting kids over his shoulder shouting âthe monsterâs comingâ katniss tells him she wants their first daughter to be called primrose, not prim- never prim, but primrose. theyâll be great surrogate grandparents, she tells him.
effie adores little Finnick from the moment heâs born. haymitch also adores the baby, but is much less willing to show it. katniss pretends to not notice he still shakes sometimes and he pretends he doesnât only hold him when heâs sat down. a few years later, finnick is joined by primrose who is just as beautiful as her namesake. as soon as finnick is old enough to go to school, effie insists on teaching his class every year. once primrose is old enough she trades off each year, trying (and failing) to pretend theyâre not her favourite. finnick trains as a carpenter and every time effie so much as mentions something that needs fixing in the house finnick is there with a toolbox and his fatherâs smile. primrose grows up in awe of her big brother, the boy who calls her pipsqueak, shared every glass of orange juice heâs ever drunk with her and copies her maths homework every days she can remember. when he starts his own business, she starts to keep his accounts. itâs the summer she turns 15. she carries on absorbing knowledge like a sponge, retaining every fact, theorem and topic effie gifts her with. effie is the first person she tells when she applies for a scholarship at capitol university. her mother is the first person she tells when she gets it. katniss cries soft, bittersweet tears when primrose tells her sheâs going to study medicine at the big university in the capitol. effie hugs her so hard on the platform as she gets the train that she thinks she might snap. katniss is so happy that her children are no longer the children of the last victors. they are the carpenter and the doctor. they have never once chopped their dreams off at the knees just in case they get reaped. katniss and peeta cry at her loss, sure she will only return to visit. finnick and effie do not cry, they know sheâs coming back. she comes back with a woman in tow, but she comes back none the less. effie plans her marriage to the woman they come to know as Evie. finnick gets married just a year after they do, and he and his wife have so many children, haymitch jokes they should start a football team.
effie and haymitch donât get anywhere near as long as they deserve, but they do get 25 good years. haymitch is older than she is, and his body has been through a lot. when she pleads with him to go to the capitol for treatment, he begs her to understand why he can never go back there, and she finds she does. he passes in his own bed, with his wife laying next to him, stroking his hair with quiet reverence. the last thing he hears is her whispering quietly that she loves him more than anything. that she would go through all of it again for just one more day.
when haymitch is gone, effie retires from the school house and spends as much time as she can with katniss, peeta, finnick, primrose and their various broods. she fully expects to die of a broken heart, she considers it only right. she thinks often of the tired, scared woman who stood in the rain waiting for him. she does not die of a broken heart, much to her annoyance. she doesnât even grow much weaker with age. she keeps the geese until the last one dies and never stops growing food in her garden. one hot day in summer, the whole family go down to the meadow to bask in the heat and watch the children play. âthis is the life a victor deservesâ she tells katniss as they watch finnick and primrose play with the children. she lays down in the sun to have a nap, resting her head on katnissâs lap. she hears the children screech with laughter, she feels the warm sun on her skin and she passes quickly, her last breathe quiet and unnoticed. haymitch is waiting for her when she gets there.
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