Author's Note: Another slightly shorter chapter, and our next canon victor. This wasn't the easiest to write so let me know what you think. Next week sees some longer chapters and two of the more influential victors over the years.
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The Twenty-Seventh Annual Hunger Games: Claudia Chevy, District Six
They would give her morphling in the hospital. It took away the pain, so Claudia liked it. Max however, noticed that the dosage was high for someone of her stature, probably too high. So, he treated the doctors' claims about it being necessary pain relief with suspicion.
The 'kind' nurse gave Claudia more morphling for her to take before her final interview and meeting with the President. Claudia knew it would ease the pain of seeing the boys she watched die, so she took it. Max knew this nurse was not being kind. He figured that for some reason, the Capitol were trying to get his victor addicted. To make both of District Six's victors dependent on something they would either need the Capitol for or have to take risks to obtain.
When he collected his medication, along with his surplus for bringing back a victor, he found a supply of morphling for Claudia, with the doctor claiming that her pain levels were still too high to be managed by simple painkillers. Max knew that this was not true. His girl had hidden for most of the Games until she was drawn out for the finale and won because she deteriorated more slowly than her opponents. Many victors had won with much more severe injuries and did not leave the Capitol with a large supply of the drug. Max was forced to pick up the supply. But for Claudia, it stopped her hurting, so she liked it.
It was no surprise, that Claudia quickly became dependent. She was using almost every day by the time of her Victory Tour and Max was powerless to stop it. Many of the other victors noticed and expressed their concern. Max took in each of their suggestions to try once they returned to Six. But for Claudia, none of them would work as well as the morphling.
The Capitol boosted her supply when they left after the final party of the Tour which Max knew she did not need for physical pain management. He also knew that when this supply ran out and the Capitol did not keep up with her demand, Claudia would become vulnerable to the increasingly powerful dealers in Six.
Their home was an ideal place for the growth of morphling dealers. Manufacturing, mining, and factory accidents left many people dealing with injury, recovery, and constant pain so they had a readily accessible market. For one of the dealers, they would be about to get their most lucrative client in the form of Claudia Chevy, their newest victor.
After Six returned from the Twenty-Eighth without a new victor, Max was proven right. There was no supply of morphling for Claudia alongside his medications and now his girl, newly traumatised from mentoring needed her fix to stop her pain. He had tried to quietly survey the dealers and hoped to point her in the direction of the 'safest' option, if there was such a thing but Claudia, in desperation, had run to the first dealer she could find.
She was always worse after returning from the Capitol and Max could hardly blame her. He was often bedbound so Claudia would spend days in a morphling-induced trance with nobody to check on her. When he was well, Max was doing all he could to try to reduce Claudia's dependency.
After months of trying different tactics, with no success, the only thing that seemed to work as a distraction and as a way of easing Claudia's pain was painting. Her works were brightly coloured, full of nature and life or sometimes abstract patterns stretching across the canvas in a myriad of colours. Never the dull grey that had descended over Six and never her own or Max's arenas. He realised that Claudia was often attuned to his own feelings, that they shared an understanding. They never mentioned the Capitol unless it was absolutely necessary and Claudia knew that the approach of Games season led to Max becoming ill, so she tried to help him, as she knew he had always tried to help her.
She did try her best and there were periods where life was good. In the autumn when the Games had passed and the next one seemed far away, Claudia was able to draw herself away from the initial pain after the loss of their tributes and manage whilst using less of the morphling. She would come out of her post-Games stupor to draw and paint. When Max's migraines had eased and his chest did not hurt, he would join her and watch her paint, or they would stay outside on the sunnier days and Max would tend to the garden in the centre of the village.
They fell into a rhythm. They would struggle through the Games. Max would return unwell, and Claudia would be reliant on the morphling to ease her guilt and to try to help her forget. But as she realised the Games were another year away, she would improve and spend much of her time painting. They would share meals and evenings together. When Max was unwell, Claudia would help look after him. Then the Victory Tour would approach, and Claudia would hurry back to her dealer, Max's anxiety would increase and his asthma symptoms with it. Once it was over, they would improve and enjoy the spring until the Games themselves began to approach again and Max would find his days filled with anxiety and Claudia's with morphling.
It was a strange existence, stuck in the same cycle of ill health and morphling then painting and gardening and back again. Claudia and Max lived in this way for ten years until another victor, already familiar with Claudia's poison joined them and became both her saviour and her destruction.