Chapter 6- Explanations
Peeta's POV
"I don't know what would make her think like this, Peeta. Believe me, it's just as a shock to you as it is to me." Rachela explains to me.
After Elena said "Daddy!", I fell straight into shock. Rachela excused us immediately, heading back out to the corridor in front of her room.
"She called me 'Daddy'. Why would she do that? I only met her once before and that was when I helped her..."
"Peeta, think about it. That may have been the only engagement you had with her, but it must have been the last engagement she had with someone. It must mean that she must remembered you, maybe just in a different context to what you actually are."
I keep repeating in my brain that someone calling me their father. It was a complete shock, yet it almost felt softening to hear someone say that and be directed at me. I've always wanted that, but it's not something that people deal with on a daily basis… having a pretty much complete stranger calling you their father. The only thing is, I cannot fathom how much this situation confuses me. I know I had saved her, helped her and made sure she was taken care of whilst in this situation, but I don't understand why she called me that. I'm sure that Dr Aurelius will think it's not safe to possibly look after a child, even though the monster has gone for the moment, hidden within my body, my soul. I can't help but feel for the little child who addressed me as their father.
"Rachela, I just… I don't know what I am supposed to do. Now, at such a time, I feel I should take responsibility for her…"
"You don't have to do anything. Just because she remembers you doesn't mean you have to do anything. I mean, it would be good for her to at least… remember someone from before her amnesia. But, I think it would be good for you to have someone around her to help her remember. She will most likely go up for adoption after this anyways…" Rachela finishes.
I stand in disbelief for a few seconds, staring up at Rachela. I don't think I could just let someone put a child who thinks of me as their parent up for adoption. I hate hearing such things fall from her mouth. Just the thought of what could happen to her, being there in an orphanage or what people could pick her up, especially here in the Capitol.
"No."
"No? What do you mean, Peeta?"
"I mean, Elena will not be going up for adoption. I will not allow it." I tell her.
"Peeta, unless you adopt her yourself, she is has no carers except for those here in the hospital and those who will take her when she is better. It's not a demand you can make, it's the law."
"I'm a Victor. I should be able to have some kind of immunity or something to do with getting whatever I want!" I proclaim.
I really do hate using my title of a Victor to get things. It seems like something I do not deserve as other deserve the same equality as everyone else. But, in circumstances such as these, I have to insist on things like this. I cannot let a small, innocent child who remembers only myself in this world at this stage, I have to help her, look after her, care for her.
Rachela looks at me with a sad look upon her face. I can't help but look up at her with sadness embedded within my features.
"Please. I will do anything. I've heard of the things which people do to the children they adopt. I've heard so much. I couldn't let her go to any place like that. I can helped her, saved her. I saw her mother dead before my eyes. I saw the sadness in her eyes as she pointed at her dead mother! Let me look af-"
"You have a condition, Peeta-"
"I know that! If I asked my psychologist it, he would say it wouldn't be safe for any of us. But, I've already proven I can be safe around the person who was supposed to be a threat to me, who I would have to kill in order to feel safe! I don't understand why I couldn't be allowed such things."
Rachela continues looking at me and I grow frustrated. I bring my hands up painfully to my head and I ball my hair in my hands. I let out a frustrated groan before rubbing my eyes, looking back up to her. She opens her mouth, beginning to say something. She must be thinking about what she could say because she closes her mouth, letting her eyes drift up to the ceiling. She blinks her eyes a few times before looking back down to me, opening her mouth and words coming out.
"It's up to Dr Aurelius. We had to contact 13 in order to get your health records to what we could give you. Dr Aurelius talked to me personally. He wanted to know everything that I knew about yours and Katniss's conditions. He was leaving 13 tomorrow morning. But, it's up to what he says. I can recommend it and get someone else to as well, but in the end it's all up to him and our recommendations could mean nothing to him, we just don't know."
I watch her, taking in everything she just said to me. Yet, all I can think about is one thing. And that one thing is all I ask,
"Can I see her again?"
Within the next few minutes, Rachela agreed and ran through the things that would be alright to say around her and things not to bring up. With that list in my head, I can only think about looking down at her little face again and thinking that she could at some stage be mine. I know it's rushing to conclusions and everything I am thinking isn't right, but I can't help but care for the girl. Elena was who I thought of whilst I was passed out from my injuries, as well as Katniss of course. Ten minutes after our conversation, Rachela wheels me back into the room containing Elena. Elena's eyes light up as soon as I enter, those big brown eyes looking up at me with nothing but happiness towards me. Rachela leaves me in the middle of the room, walking over and picking up some of Elena's toys. Elena comes over to me, placing her hand on my knee, looking up at me with those huge big brown eyes.
"I missed you." She says.
Her voice isn't like how it was the first time I heard her speak a few days ago. It's more confident and not scared about something she has just witnessed. I say not only the one thing that you can reply with, but the thing that I want to reply with.
"I missed you too."
I didn't say that because I felt obligated, but because it was true. I did miss Elena, I did want to see her. I wanted to see if she was okay and how she was holding up with the death of her mother. But, now I am not sure what she could be thinking because of her amnesia. Elena keeps looking up with me and all of a sudden, she looks instantly sad. I don't know what I could have said to make her like this, I haven't moved or anything. Or maybe that is the problem.
"Elena? What is it?" I ask.
She looks down at her feet, a frown now appearing on her face. I look over at Rachela and I narrow my eyes at her in a questioning manner, wondering what could be running through her head. Rachela shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders, looking back down to the child in front of me. My eyes drift back down to her, her eyes getting watery. I want to reach down and pick her up, but I know that Rachela would not let me because of my growing skin.
"Elena? Please tell me what's wrong." I murmur.
Her little lips quiver and she chokes out,
"You won't pick me up. Aren't you happy to see me?"
I can't help but smile at this, I cannot do anything towards it. I look over to Rachela and I nod at her to come over and lift her up.
"Elena, I can't. I got burnt from the bombs. Remember?"
She nods her head.
"My skin is growing back and Rachela wouldn't let me move around so my skin can grow back. I would pick you up and I was happy to see you, but Rachela wouldn't let me. Do you know what I am saying?"
She nods her head and Rachela comes up behind her and she picks her up and places her softly onto my lap.
"You have to be careful, Elena. He's hurt."
"Okay." She whispers.
Elena slowly and carefully wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her face into my neck. I bring my arms up, wrapping them around her. My skin stretches as I move my arms in a way that I haven't done before the injuries occurred. I haven't ever held someone so small like this before, Prim was the smallest person I had ever hugged and that was extremely brief. There is a sense of comfort finally holding onto her. She may not even really be mine, but in this moment, it feels like she could be.
I hold onto her for minutes before she pulls back and gives me a smile, looking into my eyes like she is memorizing every speck of colour. I do the same with hers, the outer rings of her eyes are dark blue and as they get to the outer ring of the pupil, they are a very light blue. There are flecks of silver in the blue hues of her eyes. If someone saw her with me, they would probably think she was my daughter, if not than my very young sister. She leans over and presses a kiss to my fore head, giggling as she pulls back. I shouldn't be surprised that she did that, it's not like she is aware that I am not really her father. It's probably how she would have always greeted her real father. But, I don't even when she lost her father, if it was at all. I know that her mother was dead, she made that quite clear. But, there was no mention of a father that she was looking for. Maybe he was somewhere already safe or he was already dead before the bombings and had already dismissed his death, partially. I know that I will never get over my family's death, especially my father's. I have still yet been able to sit and mourn over their deaths. All that I've had time for was training to go into war, my reverse hijacking and everything relating back to getting me back to the Peeta I was before and am now.
I look over Elena's shoulder and I see that there is drawings all over the ground. Lots of them. I try and see what they are from this distance, but I cannot figure out what they are from the distance which is between myself and the drawings which are on the other side of the room.
"Elena? Have you been drawing?" I ask the little blonde girl with the most magnificent blue eyes.
She jumps off my lap, skipping down to the floor where all of her drawings are scattered.
"Yes! They have given me lots of paper and different colours!" She screeches, turning around and picking up a container of the rainbow in different kinds of colouring tools. Pencils, markers, crayons, even some pastels. I'm jealous, I haven't been able to draw anything for months. Aside from when I was given a lead pencil and told to start drawing what I could see in my head, that's the only amount of time I have had to draw something in the past almost six months.
Drawing or painting as always been a release for me. So, it- theoretically- should have been some kind of release from the things which I was seeing in my head constantly, but they wouldn't allow me to have any time to draw anything else. They only wanted to see how I saw Katniss after the things that they did to me in the Capitol. As much as it pained me somewhere deep inside, I drew her as the 'mutt' that I believed she was. I could never see what they thought about the drawing. They just kept asking me the same things I've already answered a hundred times. Every time they pushed me too hard, I feel into an episode and they knocked me out before I could try and come out of it on my own. I know that the people in Thirteen were supposed to be helping me, but it almost seemed that they only tried to help me get through my episodes or my flashbacks, they would just use morphing. I accomplished more on my own when here in the Capitol than I did in the Capitol. Here in the Capitol, I had the time to myself to actually think about everything. In Thirteen, I was constantly being used as a test subject for everyone to try out things on me, trying to find something that worked to help tame that demon inside. I was constantly talked to in Thirteen, having no time to myself. I didn't even have nights, they knocked me out so I couldn't try and escape. Because apparently trying to break out of there was something I could have done, but believe me, I had thought about it once or twice.
I look over my shoulder, stopping any more thoughts I could have about my time in Thirteen or even further back, my time in the Capitol. I make eye contact with Rachela, before cocking my head in the direction of the proud little girl in the corner, admiring her work. She shakes her head, bringing herself from her train of thought also before coming and pushing me closer to Elena. When I am just about on top of her work, Rachela stops me and walks back over to her previous position, taking watch for other doctors. Now, I take the time to admire her work. There are some drawings you may expect from a young girl, rainbow ponies, purple flowers, green skies and orange grass with blue trees, just random assortments. They all make me smile. Then there are the other ones, ones which seem to be memories. I can't make much out of the pictures, aside from one seeming to be of her mother. I only saw her once, when Elena was crying over her body, body coated with blood and the life gone from her eyes. The woman in her picture has yellow hair, curled atop of her head, just like Elena's. Big brown eyes and a small frail body. Just from Elena's drawing, you can see the commonalities of Elena and her mother.
Then there is one picture, it seems of me. Probably because of her amnesia and her last thoughts being of me because I helped her. But, I can see her having much pride in that one. She holds it right underneath my nose, a huge smile upon her face. I congratulate her on it and then she packs them all up. I look back to Rachela, seeing her look over at me.
"How much longer can we be here for?" I ask.
She sighs heavily, looking outside the windows again. She then turns after a few moments, a sad expression spread across her face.
"It's probably best to head back now, before someone realises that you are gone."
I look back to Elena and watch her smile drop. I beacon her to come to me and she does, Rachela places her back onto my lap.
"Elena, I will come back. I promise. Next time when I come over, it'll be for longer." I explain to her.
In the corner of my eye, I can see Rachela shake her head and turn away, but I keep my eyes trained on Elena. Elena nods her head, I see the spark leaving her eye. I lift her head which falls to look down at her fingers, she has the softest skin. The only soft skin I will be in the presence of for a very long time. Considering that my skin is now covered with scars and skin grafts. My skin along with Katniss' is never going to be the same. It's something that I am never going to be able to live out. The same with the scars with cover my body from the torture that I have endured from my time in the Capitol.
She leans over and hugs me very softly. But, it's enough to make me need to get better quicker to help her get a home where she is going to be happy. Rachela then takes her off of me, leaving her on the floor. As Rachela wheels me out of the small room, taking me back into the direction of where we came. As we I am wheeled past the room, I see her small little face. I see hope blooming in her eyes. That little face gives me hope. And I cannot let her down. Neither her nor Katniss. They are the people that they are going to get me back on my feet. That's it. That's what I have to do.
