Effie shows up at his door two months after the rebellion with a bag over her shoulder and a tremor in her fingers. She wears a floral dress and a sunhat – her hair barely peaks out from underneath it; she has her imprisonment to thank for that – and he'll be damned if she's not the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Haymitch stands there for a moment while a grin breaks out on his face. Effie smiles back at him, small, timid, but genuine. He leans in, hesitates, and then brings his lips to hers. It's chaste, and he's barely had time to pull away before she laces her fingers in his hair and brings him back to her, breathing finally into his mouth.

For both of them, it feels like coming home.

Effie throws away his empty liquor bottles and dusts his cabinets. She opens the windows to let the fresh summer breeze blow through, and swears under her breath when a bee flies in and stings her. He pulls the stinger out for her and kisses it better.

Haymitch drinks less and smiles more. He brings home the geese one day, and while her initial reaction is "No, no, absolutely not!" he catches her crouching down to talk to one the next week.

They both have nightmares, but they also have each other. He holds her close to him at night, and she threads their fingers together over her stomach.

He flings his knife into the woods after he nicks her arm coming out of a nightmare – the wound barely bleeds and heals up before a week passes – because god damn it if there's one person who doesn't deserve to be hurt anymore it's Effie.

One morning he wakes up to see her studying the scars that adorn her body with a tear rolling down her cheek.

"They're so ugly, Haymitch." She explains when notices him watching.

"No they're not, Princess," he answers, cupping her cheek, "They're part of you. They're proof that you fought. Proof that you lived."

They spend the day in bed because he insists on kissing each and every one of them.

She visits Peeta sometimes. When Haymitch wonders about their newfound friendship, she explains to him that they were held in the same cell block together. Tells him about how they would tell each other stories to keep themselves alive. "He would invent weather reports for me," she remembers, almost smiling, "Once he told me: 'The sky is blue today, Effie, and there are huge clouds, they're fluffy like sheep. The sun looks like the center of a dippy egg. And children are outside, playing soccer and laughing, and no one is hungry, and no one is sad.' He might be the only reason I didn't give up."

Gradually, their old, familiar banter comes back to them, only now it typically ends with a kiss and a smile instead of a huff and a turn away. Effie and Haymitch are now EffieandHaymitch, and sometimes they both lay awake at night wondering what they ever did to be worthy of this.

One morning when she hands him his cup of coffee, instead of replying with his usual "Thanks, doll," he says "I love you." She sucks in a breath and stares at him, hands fluttering by her sides. "What?" he asks, "It's only the truth. Besides, you must have known by now." She hugs him, presses her face against his neck and smiles.

"I love you, too."

A huge thank you to Kate, for beta reading this for me. I may write more for this fic in the future, but I go back to school tomorrow and I have a research paper to write, so it might be a while before that happens. The title of this fic is from the song of the same name by the band Stars, and I borrowed the idea of Peeta describing the weather to Effie during their imprisonment from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Thanks for reading!