24

TRUST

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Evelyn had spent hours in surgery as they repaired damages to her internal organs and muscles. A corrosive toxin had entered her bloodstream and began attacking her body. It was only a miracle that she had managed to survive with small injuries to her head and chest. 

She heard the door to her too open with a rush of air. She tried to open her eyes to see who had entered but her eyelids had never felt so heavy. She couldn't even move her fingers to signal for help. She felt utterly useless. 

But she could smell Finnick. Even hundreds of miles from his home, he still smelt like salt air. Was it him who held her hand? Her wrist felt wet from tears, too. 

"You're back," Finnick cleared his throat beside her. 

The person who had just entered took a seat on the other side of her. She internally flinched from the scratching of metal as the chair was pulled back. Finnick did too, she felt his hand tighten around hers.

"What are you still doing here?" Jaime spoke. Yet his voice sounded nothing like the brother that she grew up with. He hadn't for a while. Maybe the brother she knew had burned in that house fire too. He sounded cold. He sounded like a jabberjay. 

Her monitor spiked as her heart beat picked up. But she still couldn't move. Finnick began to rub circles over her knuckles gently. "I didn't want her to be alone."

Jaime adjusted his seat noisily. "That hasn't stopped you before. You leave. That's your thing."

"Jaime-" Finnick's voice remained calm.

"Don't try. It won't work on me. You might be able to make her believe your lies. But you forget that I was there to pick up the pieces after you left. Each and every time. It was me that slept on the floor outside her bedroom door as she screamed in her sleep. It was me that wiped her tears. Me who sewed up her wounds when the nights grew longer. I held her hand as she gave birth. You weren't there. So why are you here now?"

Her heart began thrumming in her chest. Finnick's hand tightened reassuringly. 

"I wasn't there because I couldn't be there. Do you think that I chose to stay away? Evelyn and Aeliana are the best thing that has ever happened to me. They gave my life meaning. When the nights grew long for me, the thing that held me back was the hope that I could be there for my girls. I wanted to hold my daughter. I wanted to marry the love of my life. But I couldn't without painting a target on their backs-" Finnick stopped speaking but she imagined him rubbing his head in frustration. "Nothing pained me more than not being here. Nothing has hurt more than knowing that she was hurting. That I couldn't be there to hold her hand or mend her wounds."

Jaime stayed silent as Finnick spoke.

"I wanted to be there for you, too," Finnick was much quieter this time. "I remember what life used to be like. When we didn't care what happened to us or what Snow saw. You, me, Johanna and Evie. The Capitol always felt suffocating when you weren't there. I'm sorry, Jaime. I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry that you had to do it alone. But, all I am asking, is that you understand. If I had defied Snow, none of us would be here today."

Jaime cleared his throat as silence enveloped the room. Jaime was never one to be quiet. He always had something to say. But Finnick had truly silenced him with his words. 

Evelyn fought against the medication in her system. She hammered her fists against the sedatives and screamed against the drugs. She screamed and fought and cried until she felt her finger move in Finnick's hand. He felt it too, a small gasp leaving his lips.

"Evie?" he spoke through the silence. 

She did it again until her whole hand tensed in his. She did it again as Jaime took her other hand and she moved that too. She didn't stop until her eyes fluttered open and darted around the white walls. Oh how she hated those white walls.

"I'll get the nurse-" Finnick stood but she tightened her hand. She shook her head, fighting the thrumming in her skull with each movement. She gasped against the pain.

"No-" she forced out her mouth. "Not yet."

Evelyn felt the bed dip beside her as Finnick sat down. He now clutched her hand in both of his. They were so much bigger than hers. She had learned to love those callouses and scars on his palms. She learned to love all if him. And those words he had just said... they made it so easy to love him. 

"What happened?" she smiled at Finnick. She smiled because she loved him so much. She smiled despite the pain in every inch of her body because he made the pain worth it.

"They said it was poison. Snow must have found a way to get to you. He could have poisoned anything in District 12 when we went with Katniss," Jaime spoke beside her. His hand still held hers. But he didn't look at her face as she spoke. He stared at her hands.

"Poison? Snow? I don't get how-" Finnick shushed her as the monitor began to beep rapidly behind him. Evelyn took a few deep breaths as she turned to face her brother. "Peeta? Johanna? Annie? They're all okay?"

Jaime nodded, his eyes still on her hand. 

"Go to Annie," Evelyn smiled through the pain as she gripped Finnick's hands at tight as she could. She strained as she tried to comfort him, hiding the pain that washed over her body. "She needs a familiar face."

Finnick shook his head. "I'm not leaving you. Not now, not ever."

Evelyn slowly took her hand from his and pressed her palm to his cheek. "She needs you more than I do right now. Jaime is here, I'll be fine. Please, Finn. She needs to see you."

Finnick slowly nodded before pressing a kiss to her hand.

Jaime waited for the door to click shut before he stood from his seat. He stood with such force that his chair rebound into the wall behind him. Evelyn flinched as the sound reverberated through her skull. "What did you do? What did you tell Katniss?"

"What-" she tried but he wouldn't let her.

"Lucy Grey? Gaul? Plinth? What is that? A location? A name? A code?" Jaime was furious. He couldn't even stand still as he resorted to pacing the length of the hospital room. "District 13 have given us shelter, food, protection. They saved your daughter. But you keep a secret from them? From us? From me?"

Evelyn pushed herself up in the bed, a gasp of pain leaving her lips. Jaime continued to pace the room, his bloody fists gripping his hair in anger. 

"I keep secrets to protect everyone else. If the secrets I know ever got out-" her lip trembled at the thought of it. "The Capitol would no longer exist. The Districts? They'd be gone too. It would be a civil war with too many fatalities. There would be no one left. I keep these secrets not just to protect my family, but to protect the families that cannot defend themselves. I told Katniss because she knows what that is like. She knows that those secrets are ammo. I trusted her to use it at the right time, and I am assuming she did if you all made it back alive."

Jaime finally stopped to face his sister.

"Do you not trust me?" he asked her, gripping the metal bar at the foot of her bed.

"Of course I trust you. It's the eyes and ears around us that I don't trust."

Jaime gripped the bed tighter. His knuckles turned white. "District 13 can be trusted too. How are we supposed to lead a revolution if you keep that ammo to yourself?"

"Jaime, I am lying in a hospital bed with poison in my veins. Where is the trust in that?"

He scoffed. "President Coin said that it was poison from Snow. You know that Snow loves his poisons. You had to take antidotes every time you went to the Capitol."

"If I was poisoned in District 12 like Coin says, why is Katniss still breathing? Snow wants her head on a pike much more than mine. Why me? Why not the face of the revolution? Why not the girl on fire?"

Jaime let her speak without interrupting her. 

"If the Games have taught me anything..." Evelyn felt her voice crack. "Is that I can't trust anyone. Everyone has betrayed me in one way or another and I will never be able to trust anyone again."

"You can trust me," Jaime whispered.

Evelyn hesitated. He was her brother. Her only living brother. The man who raise her child when she couldn't. The man who raised her when she couldn't. Jaime was there as she broke down; he was there to glue the pieces back together.

"Were you even going to tell me?" Jaime hesitated with his hand on the door weakly. His head hung between his shoulders with defeat but didn't turn to face his sister. Somehow Evelyn knew what his face would say. He was disappointed. "About the ring? You think I didn't notice it back in 12? I waited-"

Evelyn fought the tear that threatened to slip past her eyelashes. "I wanted to-"

He nodded his head weakly before leaving her alone in her hospital room; tied down with tubes and wires and tears streaming down her cheeks.

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Evelyn had waited until the tears dried on her cheeks, yet Jaime never returned. Neither had Finnick. But the though that Annie had someone to hold her hand made her heart swell. 

Finally the door whooshed open and her doctor stepped in. Evelyn had learned to hate her pinched nose and grey eyes. Every visit resulted in a blood system full of sedatives and medication that made her limbs heavy. Evelyn pulled her blankets up closer and forced her body so sit up. Every organ and muscle in her body cried out in protest.

The doctor came closer, a clear syringe in one hand and a vial of sedatives in the other. 

Evelyn shook her head. "I don't need any more."

The doctor shook her head. "You experienced exposure to a highly corrosive poison which began  eroding the lining of your internal organs and targeted your nervous system. Your internal organs are wounded and your brain has sustained damage. You'll rethink the medication when you're screaming in agony every time you breath, blink and move." She measured out the dose of medication carefully as she spoke.

Evelyn felt her brows furrow. "I don't like the way that my body feels with that medication. I said no."

"Doctors orders," she simply replied and began to inject it into the IV bag hooked to Evelyn's hand.

Evelyn watched in horror and ripped the cannula out of her skin. Dr Webber scoffed. "You cannot resist the prescribed medication. I'll have to draw up another dose."

"I said-"

"The girl said no. If your superior has an issue with that, tell them to contact me," Boggs entered the room with his arms crossed over his chest. Dr Webber nodded her head and weaselled her way out of the room silently like a scorned child.

Boggs clicked the door shut behind him. "How are you holding up?"

"I have a corrosive poison working its way through my veins. Not as well as one may think," she winced through her teeth as she pushed her legs off the bed. Evelyn didn't make it far as she cradled her head in her hands in pain. 

"You're refusing the pain medication," he observed. He didn't make a move to take a seat or help her out of bed as she struggled alone to pull on her shoes. Boggs had a way of speaking that gave nothing away. But Evelyn was trained in the art of deciphering the inflexion and wording. Boggs was just like her. She could read the distrust in his words. 

Evelyn bit her lip against the ringing. "I'm refusing any unknown vaccination, medication or cure. They have already given me the antidote and the tests are showing that it is clearing. The rest of it I will fight off by myself."

"I told Katniss."

Evelyn barely wavered as she continued to tie her shoes. "And?"

"I've never seen President Snow so scared. He is always calm and collected. Every word and muscle movement is calculated; always three miles ahead. But you made him look like he was staring death in the face," Boggs shook his head in shock as he recalled the events of the streaming between Katniss and Snow. "How? How did you do that?"

"Everyone has a weakness. His hoped that everyone would forget. He wanted me to make enemies over the years, but I made friends along the way too. Those friends had memories of deleted tapes, forbidden tales and a mockingjay's song."

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guys pls don't gate jaime <3 he's actually rly sweet I swear