Dist. 13.

He found her furiously attacking her own bunker, after her run in with Alma Coin.

When he asked what she thought she was doing she replied, angrily, that she was finished and she was leaving.

"Leaving where exactly, princess? You got no where else to go!"

That's when she flung her alarm clock at him but he blocked it with his arm.

"You!" She screamed "you brought me here! You made me come here! To this…this war! I don't want to be here!"

"Non of us want to be here!" He tried to soothe, but she was having non of it.

"She's just like him you know! 'President Coin'" Effie slumped into her bunker bed and held her pillow close. Haymitch wasn't to know what had surpassed between the two women today, but he could tell it wasn't pleasantries. "we free ourselves from one murderer and then we follow another…" She whispered, Haymitch had to sit beside her to listen. She was calmer now. Saddened by her situation and her impossibility to change it, she rested her head against his shoulder and asked him why he did it. Why he made her come with him.

"I did it to save your life, sweetheart. You could be a little more grateful"

That struck a nerve.

"Grateful? Grateful!" She hissed, standing so that she hovered over him. "For a life in yet another prison, with a leader hell, bent for revenge to murder my people? My family? My friends? Me!"

He dipped his head and his silence made her angrier.

"You didn't do this to save me Haymitch! I'm no safer here than I was back there. Tell me the truth, tell me why I'm here, then I might consider forgiving you!"

She saw him grip the sheets of her bed. Now she had struck a nerve. He looked up at her slowly as she refused to back down. Her pale lips pulled into a thin line as she folder he arms across her grey jumpsuit.

"Alright…" He said, standing to face her straight on an capturing her waist in his hands. "The truth?"

She watched him with wide eyes and a nervous beating heart. He was holding her so dangerously close she could almost taste him.

"I did if for me. Ok. I brought you here because I can not do this without you"

By the way he said 'this' she knew he meant everything. The fight, the sobriety, watching Katniss. She had been his rock for more years than he could count, how foolish she was to think that she could just walk away and leave him alone like that. Make him let her go.

"You need me?" She breathed. His hair was tickling her cheek as he pulled them closer together.

"Effie I- …I love you"

And that was all that she needed to hear to close the gap between them, finally. Pushing up on her tip toes she captured his lips against hers and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him into her hungry, needy kiss. He held her so tight she could barely breathe but it made her realise she was still alive. She was here for a reason and so was he.

And that reason was, each other.