fundamentally

The initial panic of the situation has died down a bit but she's far from calm and that means she can't stop moving. Can't stop fretting and talking and trying to take control of things as best she can. She's spent most of the ride from the hospital in a tizzy about the pathetic state of medical care in the city, but from the look in John's eyes she doubts he registered any of it. Still, it's a travesty as far as she's concerned. In the Capitol they would have had him fixed up already without the slightest hint of a scar. She doesn't even want to consider all the things that could have gone wrong...

When he grabs her mid-flail she stops and sighs heavily but looks at his face with nothing but affection. "Don't be ridiculous, sweetie. Of course we can lay down. Come on, let's get you comfortable."

"Just for a bit. I'll need more medicine and a bit to eat in an hour or so," he replied, gladly making his way to the bed with her. He moved slowly, more out of fear of hurting himself than actual pain.

"I think i I just have a bit of a nap. Today wa so busy..."

Quite the understatement, which was partly his nature and partly the drugs.

The sheer ridiculousness of the statement makes her start to giggle and once she's started she finds it very hard to stop. She tries not to jostle him but it isn't easy and everything about this feels incredibly surreal.

"I'll set the alarm, don't worry," she says as she lays him gently onto the bed. "I'll take care of everything."

Once she's sure he's settled she makes a mental list of everything that needs doing -- pills are on the counter, he just went shopping a couple of days ago so there must be food, the nurse gave her everything she'll need to change his bandage -- and then moves to the dresser to set the alarm on her phone. One hour. Next she takes her wig off, teal today to go with her lavender dress, and lays it down carefully. Then she removes the light, nylon cap. While her clothes in Darrow are certainly more practical than they were in the Capitol they still aren't particularly easy or comfortable to lie down in, so she undoes the zip and removes the dress as well. In her silk slip she comes back to the bed and sits very carefully, making sure not to move him as she arranges herself. "There, is that good?"

He watches her through drowsy lids as she flits here and there. He's so sorry he's upset her this way and sighs softly.

"You're like a hummingbird," he laughs softly. "You're perfect. I like this- no wig, no dress. You're so beautiful when you show me this side of yourself."

He's not about to call it the 'real' her because this Effie is no more or less real than the spectacle. He couldn't have one part without the others and he loves her for having so many faces.

Her hand automatically goes to her hair when he mentions the wig and she realizes with a touch of shock that she doesn't feel self-conscious. Not anymore. She would never have undone herself so easily before John. Before being in this new life. She's even more surprised to realize she actually enjoys it.

Laying down next to him she moves onto her side, leaning on her arm so she can look at him. His face is pale and his eyes are glassy but it's nothing she hasn't seen before. Nothing so bad she can't handle it.

"Do you think so?" She lays a soft kiss on his temple. "I think my hair must look a fright, but then you are pretty well drugged."

John smiles softly, nothing but affection in his eyes as he reaches out to take a strand of loose blonde hair. He's careful with it, letting the silken strands caress his fingers.

"I love your hair. I knew you'd be a blonde. Well, alright, at first I thought that wig ws your hair and you'd died it like a lunatic," he said, chuckling softly. "But now...now I know. I like your wigs. Like plumage, isn't it? You're quite like a bird, I think. Something bright and beautiful from the tropics. Exotic. Yes, that's the word I want. Exotic," he babbles. He's no poet but his words are heartfelt.

His description of her makes her think of the zoo her mother would take her to when she was a little girl. The riot of colors and sounds that were animals there, so many of them all that was left of a world she'd never seen and knew next to nothing about. It makes her think of mockingjays.

"And I love the way you see me," she says softly. Kissing him again, just the light press of lips to his skin. He feels delicate to her right now. Fragile. The desire to protect him is so strong it chokes her. She loves him and he's been hurt and she's so tired of watching the people she loves being hurt without being able to stop it. Without being able to do a single thing about it except try and control the aftermath. "But you need to sleep, sweetie. I'll be right here. I promise I'm not going anywhere."

He takes her words and holds onto them, smiling softly. John holds her and settles into the pillow. His eyes slip shut and it isn't long before sleep takes him, far too weak from the events of the day to fend off the effects of the narcotics any longer.

But he doesn't sleep long before dreams take him. Take him back to the alley. Take him to how helpless he felt, how vulnerable. In his dream the man is bigger, the knife longer and far more vicious, and the wound agonizingly painful. In the dream his insides fall out and he struggles to put them back in, but long pink rope just keeps unraveling from his belly. He calls for help but there's no one, the city empty of anyone who could help.

He twitches at first, moaning in his sleep. But then the dream changes and he's screaming, flailing, sitting up while panting ans sweating. He doesn't see the room, the dream still clouding his vision.

She'd relaxed when she could feel him finally fall asleep, enough that she was almost half-way asleep herself when it started. Nothing she hadn't expected, though she had hoped the drugs might hold it off longer. Hold the nightmares off at least until he was a little bit stronger. Seems luck really isn't on his side today and she's angry all over again. Angry that she has to do this, has to watch this happen again. She thinks maybe she was a fool to ever believe being here would make any difference at. No one is ever safe, not anywhere.

Effie knows better than to try and hold him down, she'd learned that lesson quite forcefully during her first year as an Escort, but she can't let him open the stitches so she does the next best thing. Laying her hand on his chest over his heart, not so hard that he feels trapped, just enough that he can feel her presence there, hopefully helping to ground him. And she says his name firmly and calmly.

"John. John you're in your bed. I'm right here. It's ok, John. You're alright now. Shhhh. Can you feel my hand? Take my hand, sweetie. It's alright now."

He's gasping but he hears and clutches her hand, pressing it hard to his chest. Sense comes back to him and he looks to her, his eyes wild and wide.

"I'm so terribly sorry," he says weakly. "Did I scare you? Oh, dear..."

And then without thinking his hand slides away from hers to touch his bandage and then the rest of his stomach to see if he's alright.

"You didn't scare me, John. Shhh. Shhh, lay back. Let me."

She strokes his hair off his forehead and grabs his hand again. He's shaking and she doesn't need him hurting himself accidentally. It's more important for him to calm down first. She can deal with any bleeding once she gets him to relax. It's odd how easily this all comes back to her, how she barely even needs to think to know what steps she should take. So much practice. Too much.

"Breathe, sweetie. Just breathe." Her voice is soothing and she makes her touch as gentle as possible. "Close your eyes for a minute, ok? I'll take care of you. I'm right here and I'll take care of you."

Her voice is soothing in a way nothing in his life has ever been. He listens and obeys, laying back and closing his eyes. Her touch is soothing and her voice is like a balm.

"I had the most terrible dream," he admits. "It was terrible. I...I don't want to die, Effie. Today was so frightening. I've never experienced anything like it..."

She doesn't stop stroking his hair but it takes a moment before she can speak. A surge of emotion choking her. It's always the same fears, just variations on a theme really. Fear of dying, fear of what they've had to do to stay alive, fear of what they were capable of. She understands fear. Not the immediacy of a knife blade or an arrow piercing her skin, but she knows blood and she knows suffering and it's all the same in the end. She just hadn't expected to find it here. She hadn't expected to hear those words coming from his lips.

"You're alive, John. You're alive and you're safe here with me. And I'm going to keep you safe now, alright?" She kisses the hand she's holding and then kisses his forehead before letting him go so she can lift his shirt and check the damage. She can see blood through the bandage but it still looks contained which is a relief. She doesn't think he's reopened the wound. "I'm going to change the dressing and get you a pill for the pain. I'm not going to leave the room. Will you be ok for a minute, sweetie? Just a minute, I promise."

"Of course. Of course," he assures her, but the moment she's off the bed he's propping himself up so he can see her. She's such a vision in her slip, her hair hanging down, uncoiffed and natural. He would never think by looking that she has such strength but she is the strongest person he's ever met.

"You're so good to me," he said, moving a little and then hissing as his wound throbs and stings. He thinks that it may hurt worse now than it had in the alley.

"Do you know that literally nothing like this has ever happened to me? My life has been wholly unremarkable. And I like it that way. I'd go so far to say you, you, are the most exciting thing to happen to me, Effie. Well you and now this."

"Don't move, John," she says when she hears him hiss. Heading straight to the bathroom and grabbing a washcloth from the shower. She wets it with cold water, rings it out, then fills a glass before heading back into the bedroom and grabbing two pills from the bottle on the dresser.

She hands him the pills and then the glass of water, waits for him to swallow before putting the glass on the nightstand and climbing back into bed next to him. With the cool washcloth she cleans his forehead, his neck, his chest. That always seemed to help Haymitch leave the nightmares behind, she hopes it will do the same for John.

"This isn't the kind of excitement I want for you, sweetie. I prefer it when I'm what's most remarkable." She means the words to lighten the mood but it's certainly not her best effort. Not when everything is so close to the surface.

He manages a small laugh at that. The pills hit his stomach and do nothing initially, but that gives him time to look at her. To reach out to touch her.

"You're quite good at this. It's as if you've done it before," he says, a lucid moment before the medication kicks in making him observant. "Because of the games, hmm?"

The question is too unexpected for her to hide her reaction, not when he's watching her face. Not when everything is right there so close to the surface. The shock in her eyes is too immediate. She wants to look away from him, maybe get up from the bed and put some distance between them, but she can't. He needs her there and he already knows what she was. What she is. There'd be no point to it.

So she stays there and she concentrates on his bandages. Carefully undoing the wrapping and breathing a sigh of relief when she sees the row of neat stitches still intact. As primitive as the medical care here is at least the doctors were able to do this much right.

"Yes," she says finally. Cleaning what she can as gingerly as she can before putting the new bandage on. "The games...the medical care in the Capitol was exceptional. Never so much as a scar. But they could always remember."

John knows who she's talking about. He knows without asking. Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch. The only survivors. All the rest of them that she escorted died, he knows that much of her life in Panem, though she doesn't always tell him everything. He knows that and he accepts it. What she does say is sometimes terrible and horrifying.

He takes a guess that she's not talking of the children, though he's sure she's nursed their fears as well.

"Haymitch?" he asks. "Tell me, Effie. Tell me about it."

Because whatever nightmares the old drunk had were likely ten hundred thousand times worse than his tonight.

She shouldn't be surprised that John knows, she's told him so much already. Too much, maybe. But she loves him and she's only ever loved a handful of other people and John deserves to know about them. They deserve to be known. What they've been through should be remembered, even if it's only in the dark.

"He was sixteen during his games, did I tell you that? I can't remember." She keeps her hands busy with cleaning and bandaging while she talks. It always helps when she can distract herself with something useful. "He was so handsome. I was...I must have been twelve at the time and I remember watching him on television. Strong and brave and it was a quarter quell that year. Twice as many tributes. No one believed he could win, not coming from District 12, not when there were so many tributes, but I did. I wanted him to win. I had such a crush."

She can't help but smile as she finishes taping the clean bandage and lowers his shirt back down. It's small but it's real. The need to keep doing something is still so intense so she starts organizing all the supplies back in their box, avoiding John's eyes. "I'd never met him in person before I was assigned to District 12, though. If I hadn't known who he was I don't know that I would have recognized him."

The pills are starting to kick in, he can feel the warmth and the dizzy, airy sensation. But he forces himself to pay attention.

"Twice as many tributes means he had to kill twice as many people," he says. That's what he takes away. And he's sure Haymitch didn't kill them all...they all killed one another, after all, but so many. So many children. So much death.

Effie shuts the box of medical supplies and places it on the nightstand next to the half-empty glass of water and the discarded washcloth. She needs a second before she can continue if she means to keep her voice steady and she needs to keep her voice steady. John needs her strong right now. Needs her calm.

"Yes. It was..." She can't even begin to find a word adequate so she stops trying. "He won but he was hurt. Badly. I didn't know that at the time, I was just a child and that isn't something the game makers would have wanted the audience to see. They'd fixed him up as good as new for the crowning ceremony. But he always remembered it. When he would wake up in the middle of the night I could see how he'd move as though the wound was still there. None of them ever forget, you see?"

She puts a hand over his heart, strokes his chest. Tries to smile for him. "I could never take the nightmares away, but I could be there when he woke. He needed someone to be there and he...he had no one else."

"And you loved him. You love him," he says softly, all the edges of the world dulled. All the harsh truths a little easier to handle. He's not jealous- how could he be jealous? That's not how they operate. No, he loved his boyfriend and his girlfriend and still loved them today, but now he loved Effie and she loved him. That doesn't negate what she had with Haymitch.

"For what it's worth- I'm sorry. I'm sorry you know what to do because that means your life has been hard. It's been hard, Effie, and my only wish for you is happiness. Real happiness..."

The threat of tears is immediate and overwhelming and her eyes burn with it because she doesn't deserve that. She knows she doesn't. She doesn't deserve his sympathy, not in this. Never for this.

"Please don't be sorry, John. Please don't." She surprised at how clear her voice is given what she's feeling. "I was part of the games. I helped to make them happen, I gave him those nightmares. Whatever I did for Haymitch -- or Peeta or Katniss, or any of them -- it could never have made up for that. But yes, I loved him. Maybe I still do. I don't know if I understood what that meant before, but I think what I feel for him is love."

She leans down and kisses John softly on the lips, seeing the dazed, drugged look in his eyes and knowing he won't be awake for much longer. "I don't think I have ever been a good person, John. But I think I've always tried to make things better. As much as I could. And that's what I can do for you now. I'll try and make this better."

What she says breaks over him and makes his eyes sting and throat close up a bit. He kisses her softly, but finds his hands reaching for her. Pulling her close. It's not sex, it's contact. It's the sensual act of touching her, holding her.

"You make everything better," he assures her. "I was so afraid of everything before I met you, Effie. And I still...I can still barely make a choice. But you make me strong and you make me brave and I love you ever so much," he mumbles against her mouth, the words slow enough to make it obvious that the drugs have taken full effect.

She strokes his cheek and lets the tears fall because it's ok now and she doesn't think he'll remember. Not anymore. It's fine to cry now and to be afraid for him and to let herself feel. She's got him and he's alive and it's all going to be ok.

"I love you too, John. And I've got you now. You were so brave and you were strong and now I've got you." She curls herself around him as much as she can without touching his right side. Makes sure he's comfortable before laying her head down beside his. "Just sleep so it won't hurt anymore. I'll be right here."

"That's a rather good idea," he says, eyes already closed. He holds her in return, as best as he can, and the drugs and the exhuastion allow sleep to claim him. It's a dead sleep, a blind sleep. No dreams, no fears. He sleeps in the comfort of the curve of her breast and the smell of her hair, assured that tomorrow will be a better day.

Effie

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