Disclaimer : I own nothing, blablabla

AN : Sooooo, this is a zombie AU because of reasons involving me and a current obsession for zombies, also hayffie and zombies… I am super nervous about this story, I tried to stay in character as much as possible and to find parallels with HG situations as much as I could. I hope everyone enjoys the ride… I will try to update on every Saturday.

As a side note, I should mention that I'm rating this M for ulterior chapters (and ok, I'm not sure it deserves to be rated M so I might eventually lower the rating) and that even though it will focus mainly on hayffie, there will be some side pairings involving Annie/Finnick and Peeta/Katniss. =)

As always, thanks to Akachankami who made this more English. Also, if you checked her tumblr (akachankami and tumblr as key words on google will get you straight home) you will find an amazing photoset for this very story. ;)

It's The Apocalypse, Sweetheart

1.

There was a definite upside to a zombie apocalypse : the roads were clear. Well… The roads that weren't cluttered with dead people, abandoned cars and half-eaten bodies, at least. Anyway, Haymitch could drive as fast as he wanted without any danger of hitting another car. Not that crashing his truck was out of the equation… He was drunk enough that his reflexes were starting to become sluggish but not drunk enough that his common sense forced him to stop the car and sleep it off. He couldn't afford the luxury of getting that wasted.

Downside to a zombie apocalypse? – aside for the flesh-eating hordes of zombies that wanted a nice bite of you, that was – Booze was damn hard to find.

He took a swing of the bottle of cheap whiskey he had unearthed in a Walmart somewhere in the last state he had driven across, wondering how long he could make his stock last. The back seat was full of guns, ammunitions and bottles of alcohol, the truck was full of gas cans – not the safest way to do things but Haymitch didn't particularly care. An apocalypse wasn't enough to stop the nightmares and, without alcohol to dull them, his night terrors were unbearable. He couldn't even remember the last time he managed to actually rest for a few hours instead of thrashing, turning and screaming in his sleep. He swallowed more whiskey, welcoming the familiar burn in his throat and speeded up a bit, pretending for a few second he could actually leave the past behind.

There wasn't much to see around him. The road was a typical countryside road, a straight line that seemed to go on forever, fields on either side, blue sky ahead, bright sun over his head… If it hadn't been for the dead cows on the left and the withering crops on the right, you could have thought nothing had changed.

The last mouthful of whiskey had been one too many. His sight was becoming blurry and the high speed was starting to make his stomach churn, he slowed down a bit to avoid losing control of the car and ending up hitting a rotten cow corpse. That would be hell to clean up.

He slowed down even more when twinkling spots appeared in the middle of his range of vision. That was new. Whiskey had never done that to him before. Maybe he was having a stroke. Maybe he would finally die there, on a deserted road leading to nowhere of all places. But no… Fate wasn't kind with Haymitch Abernathy and if Death was an old friend, He certainly wasn't in any hurry to reap him.

He wasn't having a stroke, there was something in the middle of the road reflecting the sun. It was blinding but small and he could perfectly see it from far away. Well… He could see the blinding thing but it wasn't until he was a few feet away that he saw what the blinding thing was or, rather, who was wearing the blinding thing. A zombie clad in a golden sequin dress – if you could call a dress something that barely covered anything – walking in the middle of the road. A shame too. Endless legs, slender neck… She probably had been beautiful. He slowed down more. Should he bypass her or run her over, he wondered? Running her over would probably damage the car but, at least, it might kill her and, as far as he was concerned, a dead zombie was a good zombie – a deader zombie anyway.

Running her over it was. But the moment he speeded up again, she turned around and looked straight at him. He crushed the brakes before he could even think twice about it, heart racing in his chest. Zombies didn't have eyes that widened in fright, they didn't have high heels dangling in their right hands, and, above all, they didn't look as alive as this woman did.

For a second, he was afraid he had reacted too slowly. The tires screeched on the asphalt, smoke raised above the car and the sickening smell of burned rubber spread all around. However, when the smoke cleared, she was still standing in the middle of the road, still blinding him with her stupid dress, and worse, she had the nerve to look angry.

Haymitch immediately got mad. "What the hell, lady!" he shouted, forgetting she probably couldn't hear him with his windows closed.

She went around the hood and pulled the passenger side door open. "You nearly ran me over!"

High-pitched voice. Never a good sign. All irritating women had an high-pitched voice.

Not to mention dark blond hair pinned high on her head in a sophisticated bun that left some strands free to curl around her face, her blue eyes sparkling in anger, the heavy make-up and the body-to-die-for the dress was so nicely revealing. Gorgeous woman with a high-pitched voice… She was obviously a pain in the ass.

Her face, for whatever reason, seemed familiar but he was positive he had never seen her in his life. He never forgot a face.

"Sorry, sweetheart, I thought you were a zombie." he snorted. "'Should have seen you were a clown."

Her eyes narrowed. If glares could kill…

"You, sir, are very rude." she huffed and folded her arms on her chest in what was probably supposed to be a stern attitude. He had half a mind to tell her she should think twice about doing that in that kind of dress. It made for a pretty sight but not really for the severity she was obviously aiming for.

"Sure thing." he shrugged. "That will be a nice story for the next car that you blind into crashing. That is if zombies don't get you first." Because, with that dress? She was a bloody moving target with flashing arrows pointing at her.

She clutched the passenger door handle in her hand with a frown. "There is no need for sarcasm." She threw her heels on the bench sit, climbed in the car before slamming the door shut and buckled her seatbelt. "There. You can go now." she added helpfully.

Haymitch who, he realized, was gaping, snapped his jaw shut and stared at her with his most intimidating glare. She remained absolutely oblivious.

"Which way are you going?" she asked, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully. "I think I should head for D.C. It's the sensible thing to do."

Sensible? Sensible for people with a death wish!

"Sweetheart, you go where you bloody want to go but you get out of my truck right now." he snapped.

"What do you mean?" She looked at him in obvious confusion. "Oh, do you think the tires are damaged? I know nothing about cars you should have a look yourself."

He blinked at her, wondering if she was for real. And because he was a pragmatic man he asked : "Are you for real?" She couldn't be. Surely it was a ploy. She would wait until he was out of the car before stealing it and probably running him over in a spiteful act of revenge.

"I assure you I am." She smiled. It was just as every bit blinding as her dress. "Effie Trinket in flesh and bones! I know you must be a little overwhelmed, most fans are when they meet me, but…"

"Fans?" he cut her off. He had the feeling she was the kind of girl to chatter on and on about silly things. And she didn't make any sense.

"Aren't you?" Her brow furrowed.

Haymitch turned sideways a bit, to face her properly, all the while wondering why he didn't just push her out of the car. "Can't say I am." he snorted. "You're too cheerful for my taste and you look like a clown."

"I don't look like a clown, I look like a trapeze artist. I was in the middle of a photoshoot, if you please." Her face crumpled a bit and all the cheerfulness that, he was beginning to suspect, had been faked seemed to slip away for a second. "It all happened so quickly…"

"Zombies?" His hands slowly slid to the gun he was keeping tucked in the waistband of his pants.

"We were shooting in the middle of a field and…" She swallowed with some difficulties and looked away. "I thought it was a joke at first or a candid camera for some show… They love making fun of celebrities but then… Then that guy bit Portia and…"

He didn't let himself feel sympathetic. You didn't make friends during a zombie apocalypse, it should be the first rule if someone ever did a guide on how to survive that kind of things. Awful things happened to a lot of good people every day, apocalypses had nothing to do with that. Don't make friends, period, and you would be okay, that had been Haymitch's motto ever since… "Did you get bitten? Scratched? Are you hurt anywhere?"

She shook her head and avoided his eyes, worrying her hands in her lap. "I ran." she confessed, obviously ashamed. "I ran and I didn't look back." Her jaw clenched and then she looked at him again with a smile. Fake but convincing. She was good at acting, that one. "Thank you for your concern, though."

"I'm not concerned, sweetheart, not for you anyway." He looked her over again. She didn't appear to be lying. He didn't know where she could hide a bit or a scratch, almost every inch of her creamy skin was on display. It was reddish in some spot, probably because she had been walking under the sun for some time, but he couldn't see any wound. Not on her legs, nor on her arms or shoulders. "You're sure you didn't get bitten or scratched? It's better to tell me, I can give you a clean death. A shot in the head and you're good. If you've been infected, it won't be pretty."

Her lips wobbled, he was afraid she would start crying. He didn't want to deal with a crying woman.

"I'm… I'm not, I swear!" she argued, showing her arms in proof of good faith. "They're… slow. It was easy to outrun them."

He lifted an eyebrow and nodded at the shoes serving as shield between them on the bench sit. "In those things?"

"I'm practically born in high heels." the stranger sighed, before shrugging. "They say jogging every morning can save your life, I guess they are right. I'm good at running."

Haymitch moved his hand away from the gun. She hadn't even noticed. How clueless was she? She wouldn't last a day out there. "Good for you, now get out of my car."

And there was that angry pout again. "You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "You wouldn't let me on the side of the road, it would be… barbaric! That's what it would be: barbaric. Not to mention extremely rude and the complete opposite of chivalrous behavior."

His lips twitched. "Who says I'm not all those things?"

She folded her arms again in a desperate attempt at seriousness. He got a good show of cleavage so he didn't complain.

"Nobody would be so heartless as to leave a helpless woman in the middle of nowhere." she said.

"Wanna bet?" he snorted. She was kind of amusing though. Irritating too, of course, but she would be good company for a while. Haymitch hated people but his last contact with a human being dated back to… What ? Five months before zombies even broke down his back door?

Maybe he could give her a lift for a few hours and make fun of her while he was at it. Stupid people were always entertaining.

"I can pay you." she said, obviously resolute to convince him.

"Yeah? With that?" Although, given her dress, a few ideas came to mind… He shook that train of thoughts away. He wasn't that despicable yet.

"Money, of course. Name your price." She was so dismissive, he decided she was probably one of those girls with a wealthy father.

"Money isn't worth anything anymore." He rolled his eyes.

"I am not talking about a few notes, I can pay you a fortune." Her smile was smug and assured. "You really don't know who I am, do you?" She sounded almost sorry for him.

"Look, Princess…" He hated people who thought everything revolved around them.

"Effie." She gritted her teeth. "Not sweetheart, not Princess. Effie."

"You're fucking annoying, Princess." he chuckled. "I don't care who you are, you…" And that was when it clicked in, why her face felt so familiar. He had seen it on countless posters and adverts, her face had been plastered all around a locker room once upon a time. "You're Miss America."

She blushed and cleared her throat. "Runner-up for Miss America, actually. A few years back now."

"No." He didn't know who the current Miss America was and he certainly didn't know who Miss America had been a few years earlier, that wasn't it… He was sure he had seen her face on posters for President Snow's administration, back when he still worked for the agency. She had been one of the numerous famous people Snow had paraded around to make his term glamorous just after he had declared martial law in a feeble and obvious attempt at staying in charge. Well… Couldn't be that feeble because nobody but a selected few, who had quickly disappeared or died in curious accidents, had protested. No foreign country had tried to act either, nobody would dare rise against someone as powerful as Snow. "You're Miss Patriot." The name came back because it had been a running joke between the agents. Miss Patriot… She was a part of that travesty of democracy they had been living in all those years.

He hoped a zombie had taken a big juicy bite out of Snow's neck.

He hated the guy, he hated the government and he wanted nothing to do with someone who had dabbled in that.

"Get out of the car." He was serious now.

"Please don't tell me you're one of those would-be rebels…" she sighed.

"Would-be rebels?" he repeated. He opened his mouth to explain exactly how good it was for the country that some people still had the common sense to react against tyranny but then he closed it and decided it wasn't worth it. "Get out. I'm not helping Snow's supporters."

She just crossed her legs patiently. "You know, the President is a charming man."

If she wanted to impress him with her connections, it wasn't working. "He's a snake." he argued. "He's cruel and he will smile at you while he stabs you in the back."

"If you knew him personally…" Her patronizing tone was enough to make him slam angrily on the wheel. She fell silent immediately and watched him warily. Good.

"I know him." He met her blue eyes, challenging her to try to argue some more about that. He knew everything there was to know about Snow. He had been in his office when Snow had given the order to have his family killed. He felt blindly over the bench seat for one of the bottles in the back seat, he found the butt of a few guns before his fingers finally coiled around the neck of a vodka bottle. Vodka wouldn't sit well with the whiskey he had drank earlier but he still uncapped it and took a long burning swallow.

"You know the President, right." she chuckled, a bit hysterical. "Of course you do."

"You don't believe me." he observed, forcing himself to calm down. The vodka helped dulling the over-present pain.

"You're a guy in the middle of nowhere, in an old truck that reeks of alcohol, is littered with bottles of liquor and is full of guns; given the smell you haven't seen a shower in days, and, no offense, but you appear to be crazy." she replied, very honestly. "So, no, I don't believe you when you say you've met the President of the United-States, you will have to forgive me I'm afraid. And while we are on the subject of apologies, believe me, I deeply, deeply regret it, albeit for my sake rather than yours, but I am not getting out of your car so could you please start driving so we can part ways as soon as possible?"

That made him laugh. He blamed it on the vodka. "Sweetheart, do you really think I couldn't kick your ass out of my truck if I wanted to?"

"Effie. And no, I don't think you couldn't." she shrugged. "I just don't think you would."

"And why is that?" he asked, curious now.

"Because I've been sitting here for half an hour and you still haven't done anything about it." She forced a smile on her lips. "So you can pretend to be a heartless man who really wouldn't help me all you want but, please, do it while driving. I am not getting out and you are not throwing me out either."

He stared at her for a few seconds, debating between actually kicking her ass out of his truck and doing what he knew he would have done anyway and start driving. In the end, he shook his head at her and turned the engine on.

"I will drive you to the next town. Nothing more." he warned her. "Whatever we find there, that's the end of the line as far as I'm concerned."

"Thank you." she breathed out in relief.

"Don't thank me yet." he shrugged, taking a swing of vodka. She eyed the bottle with some wariness but if she wanted to argue that drinking and driving was dangerous, she was clever enough to hold her tongue. "The next town is probably full of flesh-eating monsters. Last one I saw was."

She didn't answer. She looked through the window silently for a while and Haymitch started to relax. Maybe she wasn't as chatty as he had feared she would be. He could bear human company for a few hours. It wasn't worse than the dead animals on the side of the road anyway.

"Are they really zombies?" she asked, after almost fifteen minutes of silence. It was soft and uncertain.

"Where have you been those last few months?" he snorted. "They popped all over the country." Although to be fair, medias had made sure to rationalize the event and reassure the population that everything was under control. Except it really wasn't.

"They said it was a virus." the woman – Effie – argued. "They said it was safely contained… They said it wouldn't spread."

"It probably was a virus." Haymitch shrugged. "Or a bacterial attack. Maybe it was the rebels, maybe it was Snow's idea of a preventive strike and it got out of hands… Who knows and who cares? It's the apocalypse, sweetheart, store the booze, grab a gun and try to enjoy the ride because it's probably going to be short…"

She nudged an empty bottle with her bare foot. "My friends… My stylist, the photographer… They're probably dead, aren't they?"

He glanced at her. She looked miserable. "Sorry, sweetheart." he offered.

"I should have stayed and helped…" she sighed, tugging on the sun visor in front of her to check her reflection in the small mirror. She wiped the smudged make-up under her eyes and wiped most of the powder covering her face away.

"You would either be dead or flesh-hungry dead." He speeded up a bit which made her look at the empty bottles all around in obvious distress, she checked that her seatbelt was working. He speeded up a bit more and she glared at him. "Afraid of speed?" he mocked. "Let me guess… You're one of those girls who always drives ten miles under the limit." She rolled her eyes but began pulling pins out of the tangle of hair piled on her head and he slowed down because it was distracting to see strand after strand escaping the bun and falling on her shoulders. "You said you wanted to go to D.C.?"

"Yes?" She didn't look like she knew what she wanted to do. It was sad, Haymitch thought, because that girl wouldn't last long out there. She obviously wasn't cut out for that kind of situation. "My parents live in D.C. I should try to find them."

"Are they old?" He shouldn't ask and he shouldn't care… He cursed himself for stopping the car in the first place. He should have driven around her and continued on his merry way. "Your parents?"

"In their late fifties, why?" she frowned. It probably was an odd question to ask someone you just met.

He ignored her. "One of them is in the military? Working for the government, that sort of things?"

"No." she replied and he carefully kept his eyes on the road. Her parents were dead, then. Too old and not well enough connected. "If this is about your rebelling tendencies again…"

"Washington is a huge city, sweetheart." he interrupted her.

"My name is Effie and thank you I am well-learned in geography." she huffed, tousling the curls that were now freely falling on her shoulders.

He showed his irritation by speeding up again. Perhaps he should let her go and not tell her. That would teach her…

"The virus spreads faster in big cities." he said anyway. "They evacuate a few people and place them in quarantine but at some point they block all the roads to the city. Nobody in or out. That's what they did on the west coast."

"That's impossible." she gasped. "They would have talked about it on T.V. I saw the news only yesterday morning and…"

"Did they talk about zombies at all in the news?" he snorted. "They're trying to keep a hold on the whole thing, Princess. And they're failing. The whole country is infected." He switched the radio on. There was a screeching noise, he played around with the buttons a bit and a guy started talking quickly about how Sacramento was almost destroyed. He switched it off. "You want news, independent radios are the way to go."

"My parents aren't dead." she snapped coldly. "Don't think I don't know what you're implying. I am not as stupid as you think. They aren't dead." She turned her head away to stare stubbornly at the landscape flashing by.

"Whatever, sweetheart." He rolled his eyes. That was what you got for trying to help. He drank some vodka and decided to ignore her until he could finally drop her somewhere without any guilty thought. It was hard to say who was ignoring who, though, because she seemed damn set on pretending he didn't exist.

"Los Angeles?" she asked, after nearly a full hour of silence.

He almost didn't answer her. "It's District One." Some people had organized themselves by radio, they tried to warn people about where to go and not to go, even though it seemed as if there was nowhere left. They had divided the country in zones or districts. "Done for."

Her shoulders sagged and she completely turned her back on him then, curling on the seat. Her despair was so crushing he couldn't help but feel a tinge of compassion for her. He extinguished that quickly. Tough world, they were living in. She wouldn't make it. No sense in feeling bad for her. He was just getting soppy because she was pretty and difficult, two things he had a soft spot for. The sooner he got rid of her, the better.

That road seemed endless.