Coin's plan had not extended past the final Hunger Games, ergo no Victory Tour. She'd already successfully proven her point.
Maisie spent three days in the hospital- she was in shock, swinging from states of catatonia to frightening panic attacks. Her first day was the hardest- the adjustment to a real, safe (though this was quite the ambiguous word) world after she'd just survived hell was confusing and painful. The calming effects of morphling helped keep her panic attacks under control, and the doctors declared on the third day that they saw no reason to keep her there, although that was just medical speak for 'leave, there's nothing more we want to do to help you'. As soon as Effie was released from Coin's custody (having been forced to watch the entirety of the Games), she spent every waking moment at Maisie's bedside, whispering prayers in her ear while she was asleep, talking to her when she was blank and listless, and trying to calm her when she was anxious and would start shaking.
Effie felt so broken. She'd failed as a mother. She thought that she'd been smart, that she had done a good job of keeping her daughter safe. She knew that something odd was going on during the preparations for the Quarter Quell, and a few days before the Games had started made arrangements for Maisie to stay at Effie's aunt's house, citing that she'd be too busy with the Games to come home, that she'd be safer with Aunt Callista watching over her. Effie thought that this was a failsafe plan: her daughter's existence wasn't too highly publicized, and no matter what went down with her, the Capitol's focus wouldn't be on some little girl living on the outskirts of the city, anyway. Callista had been an important member of some important industry in her day; her old money and notoriety would only help to keep Maisie safe if something ended up happening to her mother.
Something happened, indeed. Just hours after the explosive finale to the Games, Effie had been brushing her teeth in the bathroom when her door was kicked down, and she had been subsequently knocked unconscious. She didn't know how long she'd been out for, but she woke up in a jail cell - the dank cold, the unforgiving darkness, the stench of torture (and it had a smell) swirled around her for what could only have been months. She was paid regular visits by large military officials with steely eyes, hard mouths, and cruel hearts. They would question her, she would have no answers to give, and they would hurt her in such gruesome ways, usually by whipping, occasionally slaps, and in one particularly painful visit that resulted in a broken leg that had never properly healed, thus the reason for the cane she now heavily relied on. She'd blacked out a lot during her torture, and in her most vulnerable moments after she would often fear for her memory. It oftentimes seemed like there were other things that had happened in there, coming back in the form of violent hallucinations, with large men overpowering her, touching her, hurting her. She'd wake up from these reveries in a cold sweat, shaking and panting and hurting all over. She was scared that soon, she wouldn't be able to decipher the line between reality and imagined horrors, that her nightmares were a new method of torture designed by her government, to affect her long after their demise. It's scary to not be able to trust your mind.
She didn't know how Coin had come to learn of Maisie's existence. Upon her rescue from prison and subsequent recovery in 13, Effie had no contact with her daughter, knowing that it wouldn't be safe to talk to her until everything had been sorted out with the Rebels and Snow and everything else she hadn't even realized was happening, until it was. Effie had kept her head down, done what was always expected of her, and even managed to endure the pain of walking without her cane (Coin insinuated Effie was only using it for sympathy) to escort Katniss to her trial. When it came time for the Reaping of Capitol children, Effie was so sick, so upset over the entire idea, but there was nothing more she could do than what she did every year: pull some names out of a bowl. How Coin could have such vengeance and anger in her heart that she would deign to continue it on with more children, Effie would never know, but there was nothing more she could do. She supposed she couldn't rightly be angry over this, after all, her government had been doing it for decades, but wasn't the inherent cruelty that was the murder of children by children exactly what the Rebels had been looking to overthrow? It wasn't their sole purpose, obviously, but the Games had been a catalyst.
Maisie would be discharged in a few hours. Effie looked down at her sleeping daughter, holding one of her hands with both of hers, rubbing it, trying to keep her constant tears at bay. How would she piece herself back together? Would she still be the same bubbly, bright little girl inside? Would she grow up to resent everyone and everything around her? How could Effie piece her back together?
The train ride to the Capitol was torturous. Normally, one on a train to the Capitol from a District was not there by choice- they would spend every minute stretching the seconds into an eternity, wishing time would stop so they would never have to get off this train. No happy memories were made on them. It would take some getting used to before anyone felt anything other than discomfort riding on one, but for a person eager to reach a destination, their perspective could be easily shifted.
He didn't know what his plan was going to be once he got there- vague thought-lets swirled through his mind, ambiguous in commencement, execution and conclusion. A mind muddled with just enough liquor kept anxieties at bay, and the only that mattered was getting to the Capitol in time to see her. He had to know, had to be sure- it'd been a month since the conclusion of those Games, and every night he'd wake up thinking of a small girl with Seam grey eyes and dirty blond hair, a slight nose and an aura of innocence that was ripped away all too soon.
All because he had said yes to a vote.
Once his train of thought led back around to that nugget of guilt, he would take another giant swig. Bury the thoughts with incoherence so they won't destroy you.
He'd been in the Capitol two days, and hadn't mustered up the courage to find Effie and her daughter. It wouldn't have been hard, it was the doing it that was his stumbling block. Instead, he found himself at various bars, undoing all the progress he promised himself he would make. He wasn't giving himself time to cope with his feelings, to sort through them, to really analyze them. And when did he ever do that? Why was this situation so much more pressing than all of the other painful things he's had to repress and drink away over the years?
This could be his daughter.
Children were a scary thought. This was completely new territory and ground. What the fuck was he even doing here?
He also was the reason that he'd destroyed her life.
A.N. Sorry this chapter's kinda short + uneventful. I had to plan out where I really wanted this story to go, since I was just planning on having it as a one-shot. I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to go, so yeah :) Thanks for suggesting I expand on it. Hopefully my next chapter will be more intriguing.