16. Home

"For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home."
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

Haymitch stirred, reaching up to his face to get rid of the hair in his mouth. Cracking his eyes open, he squinted to see Effie's head pillowed on his chest with the wind from the open window blowing wisp of her hair into his face. Sighing, he gently shifted her until he could get out of bed to shut the window.

Walking back towards her, his feet caught on something and he tripped, colliding into the vanity with a loud curse.

The noise of the clattering beauty products on the floor woke Effie up.

"Haymitch?" she asked, sitting up. "What's wrong?"

"Tripped over your dress," he muttered, picking up the red dress he vaguely remembered flinging on the floor the night before in his haste to undress her.

Looking around, he began to pick up their discarded clothes – her bra near the foot of the bed, his shirt near the door, his boxers hanging off the lamp shade and her panties that had somehow ended up on the door knob.

"Put them in the laundry," she said tiredly and he smirked when she yawned, knowing very well that he was the reason she was exhausted.

Haymitch did as he was told, dropping the clothes in the laundry basket in the bathroom. Since he was there, he decided to relieve himself without even bothering to shut the door. He half expected Effie to say something – that some business was meant to be kept private – but nothing was forthcoming.

They were behaving in a more domestic fashion by the day and he truly, much to his surprise, did not mind it one bit. The woman outside in his bed was the only woman he wanted and he had her where he wanted her. They were at a good place right now – they were open and honest, and they were both willing to make it work this time around.

Last night… He smiled, tucking himself in as he flushed the toilet. Last night had been amazing. All those times he had told himself to be patient with her and all those nights he had abstain himself had been worth it. The moment he buried himself in her had been the most singularly satisfying moment in his life. The desire and need that he had kept dormant had exploded and if Effie noticed the passion, she did not address it.

"Haymitch…" he heard her call out for him. "Are you coming back to bed?"

"Yeah, in a minute."

He washed his hands, staring at his reflection on the mirror.

"You're gonna grab this life by the balls and you're gonna make it yours," he muttered. "No two ways 'bout it – you owe this to everyone who lost their lives."

"The bed's getting cold," she complained when he took a minute too long and he could imagine the pout on her lips.

The moment he slipped back under the covers, Effie wrapped herself around him.

"I hate your hair in my face," he muttered.

"It is just something you will have to deal with," she patted his chest, lifting her head up to look at him, "and quite possibly, for years to come because I do not plan on going anywhere."

Snorting, Haymitch said, "I don't plan on letting you go either, sweetheart."

"Good," she hummed, tucking her head under his chin.

Effie, as he should know, loved her routines. Before he realised it, he was taking her out somewhere a day each week, usually on a weekend where they would have more time to themselves. It was not always that he asked her out, sometimes it was her.

Their monthly trip to District Four became a part of this routine. It was something he had come to accept as being part of his life now and quite frankly, he enjoyed watching Finn grow. There was always something new that the boy picked up each time they visited.

"Do you remember when Finn was born… When we all came to visit?"

"Yeah," he nodded, settling down next to her on the sunbed after their walk by the beach.

"We were sitting on this sunbed after I had a nightmare and you took me out of the house to calm me down," she said. "I woke up in your arms the next morning. That was the first time I truly felt safe after the war."

"You woke up scared," he frowned, recalling that morning.

"I was because I did not how – we were not…" she trailed. "I was not sure where I stood in your life and where I want you to stand in mine."

"I get it," he muttered quietly, glad that that was behind them now.

When she reached for his hand, Haymitch squeezed it gently and drew her into his embrace. They watched the waves rolling into the shore until the sun set.

When the third anniversary of the fall of the Capitol rolled around, Finn together with Johanna and Annie were in Twelve, visiting. The unanimous decision was to give the ball a miss once more despite Plutarch's insistent that they should make an appearance after missing it twice before. The only victor to be present at the Capitol for the celebration was Beetee, to which Haymitch sent his deepest sympathies. Beetee attended only because he happened to be present in the City on official business with Plutarch three days before the event and was roped into staying for the celebration.

"You owe me," Beetee grumbled on the phone.

"That one's not on me," Haymitch chuckled. "Learn to schedule official business on weeks further away from the ball next time."

In Hope Village, people come and go. Each time he heard back from one of the individuals the Village had sheltered and helped, and knew that these people had managed to find employment or bought a house of their own or succeeded in paving a life for themselves, it left him feeling accomplished.

He had watched so many lives slipped through his fingers. What he was doing could by no means atone for the tributes he failed to save and he wasn't a fool to even entertain that thought but for once in his life, he just wanted to do something good and of value.

Now, there were people who stayed in his life. Ailes and Pollux, for example, both of whom had been with Hope Village for years since it started. Just two weeks prior, they had all attended Ailes' wedding with a red-haired florist he met in one of Pollux's communication classes. She was not an Avox, just a student who had signed up for the classes only to strike a friendship with Ailes along the way.

He liked his life the way it was now. He liked coming home to Effie and waking up to her next to him. He liked the brunch they have without fail with Katniss and Peeta at the bakery every Sunday. He liked that a week before he was scheduled to visit Four, he was all Finn would talk about, boring Johanna to tears. He liked watching the kid running to them to hug him fiercely and give Effie a wet kiss on the cheek. He liked that somehow Pollux, Ailes and his wife had become family friends.

Five and a half years after the war, Haymitch woke up to a realisation. For a long time, all he did was to stare at the ceiling, an arm folded across his chest.

"I like it better when you're watching me sleep," she mumbled quietly. "You're boring a hole in the roof."

He turned to his side, facing her. Slowly, she blinked her eyes open with a lazy half smile on her lips.

"We won't need this place any longer soon," he spoke quietly.

The smile faded and a frowned replaced it.

"Are we moving?"

"Hope Village," he amended, "not this house. There aren't many avoxes there. We haven't been using the dormitories in months now. It's just the classes that are runnin', nobody we're shelterin' any longer."

"I'm sure you will arrive at your point sometime today," she stifled a yawn, pulling the covers up to her chin.

"I'm saying," he propped himself on his elbow, "that soon, there won't be anyone at Hope Village. No avoxes needing a roof over their heads, they're thinning out and they're out there doing good so … What's the point of running this place anymore?"

Effie sighed.

"You stayed because of this program," he ventured to say, watching her face carefully. "Everything comes to an end, even this with the Village. Are you… You're staying regardless?"

"I am offended that you have to ask," she huffed. "Of course I am staying. I have told you again and again, Haymitch Abernathy, I am not going anywhere. You are quite clearly stuck with me whether you like it or not."

He smirked.

His hand sneaked under the covers to the swell of her hip. He waited for her to kiss him like she always would but she merely raised an eyebrow so he conceded and leaned forward, capturing her lips in a heated kiss.

"Good that you're staying 'cause otherwise," he punctured that with a kiss to her collarbone, as he pushed the covers down, "someplace else will just bore you."

"You're not that interesting, you know?" she told him in jest.

"Wasn't what you were thinking last afternoon when we did it in the empty classroom next to Pollux's class," he murmured. "Don't tell me that didn't excite you? That I didn't keep things interestin' fucking you when there was a class going on next door…"

"Oh, do not be so smug, nobody likes a bragger."

"I know someone who does," he countered with another smirk.

She stayed his wandering hands and Haymitch looked down at her to see her gazing up at him, a serious expression on her face. She brushed his hair tenderly away from his face.

"What will you do?"

He let out a breath, knowing exactly what she was asking. He had not thought that far yet so he simply shrugged and rolled off her. Haymitch resumed his initial position, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

"Doing exactly nothing sounds good," he said. "I got you to fill my time."

"I will drive you crazy. You need something to keep your attention occupied. We cannot be in each other's space all the time, one of us is bound to snap."

"We'll make it up like we always do. Imagine all the sex we'd be doing if we argue every fucking day."

"Teach," she went on, ignoring his attempts at levity. "You will make an excellent teacher. I have seen you in front of a class, teaching and guiding. You can teach mathematics, Haymitch. You love solving. Teaching is your scene and you shine at it."

Haymitch snorted.

Effie was not subtle about it. Whenever he come down for breakfast, long after she had gone off to the medicine factory, he would find newspaper advertisements on the kitchen counter where she had deliberately left them; advertisement seeking teachers to be employed at schools or news of new schools springing up in the districts which are in need of teachers, news of programmes offering training to be an educator all of which Haymitch ignored.

In the end, it was Pollux's idea that took root in him.

"A school?" Effie frowned, interpreting his signing.

The man nodded enthusiastically, a wide grin etched on his face. She had been pushing Haymitch into teaching except none of them thought to turn what they had into a school of its own. Pollux's idea had its merit. Instead of a normal, mainstream schools catered for the children and teenagers, he suggested a vocational and technical institute; a place to give young adults and others the opportunities to gain hands on skills for various specific industries.

"I could ask funding from Mr. Heavensbee," Pollux suggested. "I had a thought to offer a course in Communications and Media. It's been what I do since I escaped the Capitol for District Thirteen."

"So it ain't for kids," Haymitch frowned. "It's geared for… employment. Get you the skills you need to work once you're done…"

Pollux nodded enthusiastically, pleased that he was grasping it.

It could work, Haymitch deduced as he thought it through. They have students in that Village. Not just avoxes but others from this district who came because they found that the classes Haymitch and the others offered for the avoxes were useful in getting them a job in this post-war world. He had Effie conduct a class on the filing and management system they had in the factory and which was now employed across all the factories in Panem. He had someone from the factory came over to give lectures on work health safety while teaching the way factory machineries work.

What they had been doing wouldn't be that much a different than what Pollux was suggesting. It would be just on a bigger scale, an evolution of what they had now.

If nobody in Twelve wanted to only be good at mining coals all their lives, then he supposed, nobody in the other districts would want to only specialise in their district's industry.

"He might be on to something," Effie piped in, thinking he needed convincing when he was quiet for too long.

Turning towards her, he asked, "You think it'd work?"

"I do believe so. Tourism, as you know, is a growing industry in several districts especially Four now that there are freedom to move between districts and the City. The tourism and service industry would need people trained in that area, yes?"

"Yeah…"

"Say, if you are the owner of a resort in Four, wouldn't you rather employ someone who has that set of skills to provide such customer service? Wouldn't you want to hire a manager who understands the way hotels and resorts function? What if we are able to produce such people through this school, Haymitch? We can offer a course in Hospitality… Hospitality and Tourism Management," her eyes gleamed as the idea began to take shape, "or Retail Management. You get the idea, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, tapping the pen incessantly against the edge of the table. "A practice-based learning… a more applied, practical learning than a conventional school…. Could work," Haymitch shrugged.

Pollux beamed and Effie threw him a dazzling smile.

XXx

"You ever thought 'bout how different your life is now? How you get from one point to another?

They stood in front of the much larger building, now four stories high with an east wing attached. His name was on the front gate, something he opposed to but the kids, Effie and even the avoxes he had helped voted for it. Haymitch, unwittingly, sat as the dean in that institution but he could never be relied on to remain still in an office. This meant that the staffs were used to having him take over some classes in which his expertise could be of used and it was during one of these classes that he found Effie sitting right at the back of the class, watching him.

He liked to think that somehow along the way, he had made Effie proud of the person he became and if his mother could see him now, that she would be proud of him too. It was a thought that made him sleep better at night when the days were rough.

"Yes," she looped her arm around his waist and leaned into him. "It is only natural, I supposed."

"What do you think of it?"

"I think," Effie said slowly, "I think after all these years, I am truly home."

A group of students chatted loudly as they walked past the couple standing under the shade of the oak tree and into the building. Haymitch paid them no mind, his attention suddenly focused solely on the woman next to him.

"I left the Capitol looking for a place I would be accepted and belonged. I found it with you. It was always with you. I shouldn't have had to look for it."

He swallowed the lump in his throat and pressed a kiss to her hair.

"I have not heard you talk about moving to Four or to Seven, not once have you brought it up. It has been years since you told me of your plans to move somewhere else."

And she was right, he realised. He had not once entertained the thought of finding a quiet place in Four or Seven. It had not crossed his mind to take her with him somewhere far away where nobody could find them.

"It ain't something I want anymore," he mumbled.

She smiled up at him. "I supposed, we both learnt something, didn't we?"

"What's that?"

Her eyes sparkled, as if she held all the world's secret and couldn't wait to share it with him.

"Home is not a place," she said. "It's a person. For me, that person is you and the children next door."

It was illogical a notion but right at that moment it surely felt as if his chest was expanding, and it might explode by the sheer emotions he felt for her. He couldn't put it into words. Nothing he said could ever justify what he felt for her. He felt a million things and one, all at the same time and the very thought that one woman could do this to him…

He tugged her close and held her tight.

"We're finally home," he kissed her forehead.

And wasn't that apt, he mused.

Since he was sixteen, Victor's Village had always just been a place for him – a house without a soul. It was some place he returned to after the annual Games ended and a place he whittled away until it was time for the next reaping.

It was exceptionally different now. This world in which he thought he would never survive to see was his. He had lived through the worse of it all. He outlived his family and friends who died to give them this peace and it was his duty – their duty – to keep on living.

As long as he held on to that little bit of hope that life would find its way in the end and with Effie next to him, he could see through the remaining years he has with a sense of contentment.

Fin.

And... THAT'S IT! I have had such a fun time writing all sixteen chapters of this story and writing their journey to find some hope and peace for themselves. I hope you had just as much fun reading it. Please leave a review and let me know what you think of the final chapter (or the story) and if you excepted that ending for Haymitch :)

See you if and when I have a new hayffie story for you guys!