Disclaimer: I don't own a word of this. All of it is just borrowed and put back where I found it. No money is being made but fun is being had. That's the point, right?
Note: Hi people! So glad you liked chapter one enough to be here, ready to read chapter 2!
I just wanted to say that my head-casting is absolutely Stef Dawson for Annie. I watched an interview she did about Finnick and Annie and I just had to write this story. And no, I haven't seen Mockingjay. Yet!
Enjoy! (And leave a review to tell me if you do!)
ALWAYS BE WAITING
Chapter 2: Faith, and Trust, and Pixie Dust
Haymitch stops me as I leave the Palace of Justice, pulling me into a corner where no one can see us. "Thank you," he says, rubbing his hand over his face. "Thank you for what you said for her."
I nod once. "I might've gotten you and Johanna and Enobaria in trouble."
He shakes his head. "No, no one will pay attention to that. You're right, though, especially about me. I voted the way I did because I knew what she was going to do with that arrow. I said so already when I testified."
That makes me feel a little better. "How is Katniss?"
Eyes closed, he shakes his head. "Not good."
"Peeta?"
He looks a little better and opens his eyes. "He's doing pretty good. He'd like to see you, if you're up for it. Ask Effie, she'll take you there."
I promise to go see him because I do miss him. He'd understand what I'm doing. Maybe I'll even tell him what I'm doing. I shake my head and try to smile at him. "Thank you, Haymitch, for helping me get permission to work as a medical assistant. I know you don't understand why I want to or maybe you're not sure I can or should. But I do want to, I can, and I will. So thank you."
He nods slowly. "You're welcome, Annie. If there's anything else I can do for you, just say the word."
I like that he left it at that and I can smile a little easier. "I will. Mags and Finnick both told me that if I was ever without them, I should go to you. So I will."
I'm surprised when he gives me a sudden, slightly awkward hug but I give one right back. He goes back into the Palace of Justice then, leaving Effie to find me and walk me back to the hospital. I feel stronger for what I said in the courtroom and I want to get back to work. I'm needed there. Maybe I can do some good there, even if my reason for being there turns out to be the pipe dream everyone would say it was if I told them.
Sexta seems surprised to see me but she accepts the fact that I am there with grace and gratitude. Effie offers her help as well and she's put to work helping change the sheets from the bottom floor up. Sexta offers me to do that too but I remind her of her earlier promise that I help with bed baths for the top floor people, and she nods in agreement.
I work with her. We wash every part of battered bodies that we can without doing them further harm. There are seven that we wash and most of them don't seem to notice what we do to them. I think they'd like knowing that we're not leaving them in dirt and that we're trying to give them dignity even we see them at their weakest. "Aren't there three more?" I ask as I wring the cloths out over the sink for the seventh time.
She nods as she runs her hands under hot water and scrubs them with soap. "Ten on each floor, yes. Two of them had accidents while you were gone so they got cleaned up earlier. The last one can't be washed."
I look up from the rag, sort of at her but sort of past her. "She can't be washed at all?"
"He." Sexta shakes her head without looking at me. "No, he can't. His wounds are too bad. He's got to be in a hyperbaric chamber. If they can get the infection out of his blood, then maybe he'd be upgraded to something that we could wash. But, Annie, they don't think he'll live that long."
I see a tube shaped thing in the room across the hall. "Is that it? Is that the hyperbaric chamber?"
"Yes," she says. "You can't see much unless you're with a doctor because the treated oxygen that's pumped in makes the glass fog up."
I walk across the hall without asking if it's allowed. I want to see it, even if I can't see it. She's right, though, the glass is fogged and it's hard to see much more than the shape of a body inside of it. "What's his name?" I know Sexta followed me so I ask the question aloud. "Does he have family?"
"We don't know his name," she says quietly, standing behind me. "He didn't have anything but the remnants of a rebel uniform when he was brought in. DNA could be tested if he didn't have to be in the chamber. We tried to take him out once to get a sample but he went into cardiac arrest."
I put my hand on the glass and sigh. The poor man.
My shift for the day is over then so I collect my coat and head back out into the cold streets of the Capitol. Effie appears beside me and offers to walk me home but I know she has a meeting of some sort with Haymitch so I politely decline the offer. I'm not going home anyway. I've got two people to see and I know how to find them both. I suppose getting home from them could be tricky but I'll manage.
I've got no one left in my life now. I have to learn to manage on my own.
Pollux meets me in front of a fountain placed in the center of a roundabout. The statue in the fountain was a carved symbol of Panem but there are mockingjays painted all over it now, better late than never, I suppose. He holds out a pad of paper when I cross to stand beside him. He's written to ask me how terrible work was.
"Testifying at Katniss' trial was worse," I admit before I even realize what I'm saying. "The hospital was sad. It's a place of lost causes. They don't really expect anyone there to survive long."
He scribbles another message on the page - What do you do for them?
"The woman who trained me said the goal is to keep them free from pain, as healthy as possible, and in as much dignity as we can." I shrug and stare at the shiny purple brinks that I'm standing on. I'm talking more to an Avox than I've talked to anyone since the war ended. It's strange but it's right. "I don't know what I can do besides that. They need something. I don't know what. It's good that they're doing what they're doing but the people just lie there in silence."
Music? In the sewers, we only kept our sanity because we were allowed music. They played it on speakers a few times but mostly we just sung… hummed… made whatever noise we could without our tongues. It was good.
Music. I like the idea very much. I think the patients at the hospital would like it too. I'll talk to Sexta about it tomorrow. If she can't help me arrange it, I'll go to Effie and Plutarch. That's the easy part of my conversation with Pollux. The hard part is best just blurted out. "I didn't find anything."
He nods slowly in understanding and puts the pen to the paper again. We probably won't find anything, you know. I still say there's nothing wrong with looking, I still say we have to keep looking. I still say I'm not done looking.
I smile sadly at his words and nod. "I don't care if it's wrong to look or not, I'm going to keep looking." Pollux has the harder job between the two of us. I will look in hospitals for things I know I'll never find but he's volunteered to help catalog the debris that was left behind in the streets and in the sewers. He's looking for pieces, pieces of something that someone once held. Maybe both our jobs are equally as hard. I shake my head when I realize I've let my mind wander. "I'm going to see Peeta now, would you like to come with me?"
I would but I can't. I found two men who worked in the sewers with me and we're getting together for a drink to celebrate being alive.
I can sense the happiness in his words at having found his friends and I hug him. He's surprised, but he hugs me back. We promise to meet at the same place tomorrow and then we go our separate ways. The streets of the Capitol are busy at night and it's a little bit frightening to be walking alone. No one really seems to notice me. It might be partially due to Effie's coat, which is subdued as Capitol things go but very much fits in with the strange combination of soldiers, district people, and Capitol citizens in the streets. I keep my head down and hope I'm not getting lost.
I don't get lost.
I walk into the building and ask the receptionist if I can see Peeta Mellark. She seems skeptical of my chances and demands to see my identification. Even my bracelet doesn't convince her. Lucky for me, I suppose you could say, Effie planned for this possible problem and I pass the pink haired woman a phone number. "Call Plutarch Heavensbee. He'll tell you that I am Annie Cresta and that I am allowed to visit Peeta Mellark."
She's properly flustered and doesn't call Plutarch. She pushes a button on her desk instead and asks for Dr. Aurelius, which is exactly what Effie predicted someone would do. Dr. Aurelius orders her to let me come to the eighth floor immediately and asks that I stop and see him before I leave.
I think I will. I like Dr. Aurelius, despite Johanna trying very hard to convince me that I should hate him, because he makes me feel calm and he's teaching me how to cope with my new world. He's also never told me to stop hanging around with Johanna, even though he knows what she says about him, and he even told me to keep her close because friends are too easily lost.
But first, Peeta.
I don't have to ask for more helping finding his room because he's waiting outside the elevator for me - someone must have told him I was coming - and he hugs me. From the way he hugs me, I don't think he's had many visitors lately. "I hope you don't mind me just showing up," I say when he lets go of me and leads me into his room. "I saw Haymitch at Katniss' trial and asked if I could see you so I came after work."
"Of course not." He smiles, and I see that the burn scars above his eye are almost all gone. It's good that they're still treating his body while they're treating his mind. "Work? Where do you work?"
"The Lavinia Bosch Medical Ministry." I bite my lip to hide a smile when he looks startled. "It's a hospital where they're treating people who were injured in the war and the people don't really have much chance of surviving very much longer. At least that's what they tell me."
He sits on the edge of his bed and motions for me to sit on the chair in the room but I sit beside him instead-there's no reason he should feel like a patient all the time. He looks at me intently and sighs. "Why do you work there?"
I stick my hand in my pocket and start making knots with the rope I kept there. "I don't know if I can say." It's a terrible answer.
"I won't tell anyone, Annie, if it's a secret."
I know he won't tell anyone and maybe it would be right to tell someone the whole story. Maybe I'd feel just a little bit better. And if anyone will understand why I'm doing what I'm doing, it will be Peeta. He would do the same thing if he were me. "It's not really a secret," I tell him in a whisper, "it's just that I'm afraid people will call me crazy and tell me I'm only making things worse for myself."
He considers this and nods. "Do you think you're making things worse for yourself?"
"No. I'm going to help the people at the hospital the best I can, that's good for me too. And if a miracle happens and the reason I started in the first place proves true, it will be really good for me." The rope is in a horrible knot and I have to take it out so I can use two hands to undo it. "Promise not to say I'm crazy?"
He laughs once and twitches his fingers over his heart. "Promise not to say I'm crazy?"
I copy his movement and then get back to my knot. "There was no trace of Finnick found in that sewer. Nothing. Not even a piece of cloth or the prong from his trident. That's what they told me. I need proof that he's dead. I trust you and Katniss and Gale and Pollux and Cressida to tell me what happened, of course, but I need more. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand." He drums his fingers on the edge of the mattress and exhales slowly. "I didn't know they never found anything. Did they find anything of Homes and Castor?"
I shake my head. "Pollux got a job cataloging the debris that was found in the streets and the sewers. He's looking for anything that belonged to Castor for himself and anything that belonged to Finnick for me."
He gives me a long, intense look and I know it means that understands. "And you're working in hospitals to look for Finnick and Castor?"
I don't want him to tell me it's stupid, even though I know Peeta never would, so I nod without taking my eyes off the knot. I don't tell him I don't totally trust the people who told me that nothing was found, because he probably can guess that.
When Peeta speaks suddenly, he startles me a little. "I'll help you and Pollux," he declares firmly. "I have to talk to so many doctors and Plutarch and Haymitch all the time. I'll be careful who I ask but I'll tell them I'm confused about what happened in the sewer, that I need to see some proof of what happened so I can be sure of what's real and what's not."
I bump my shoulder against his. "Thank you, Peeta," I whisper. I put the unknotted rope in his hands. "Here. Do you know how to make knots? It's very soothing."
Twisting the rope through his fingers, he shakes his head. "Finnick tried to teach me when we were camped outside the city. I wasn't very good at it." He seems bothered by this.
Scooting closer, I put my hands over his. "There were too many distractions there. You'll be better here. I'll show you how to make good, relaxing knots." I think we both know I'm teaching him as much for him as I am for me. And I think we're both okay with that.
Peeta smiles as I manipulate his fingers around the rope. Maybe we'll all be okay.
