Ted is fuming when he discovers that Paul is choosing now of all times to attend a marketing meeting, but Paul does his best to assure him that it's to help Pete. Besides, they're in the Capitol now either way, for training and interviews and all sorts, and Zoey will stay with them whilst he's gone.
He hears back from Dr Perkins and finds and date and time that works for them both, dresses up smart and shows up to the address provided.
It's an office building with a view of the city via massive screens plastered all over the internal walls. He stands, slightly lost, on a fluffy yellow rug in the middle of the room until the double doors opposite him swing open with a bang.
Striding into the room, in high combat boots paired with a glittery black dress and a pink sequin waistcoat, is Emma.
Paul's stomach flips, despite the fact that this is exactly what he'd hoped for.
"Paul Matthews?" She calls out, and he nods.
"It's good to see you." He says, allowing himself a smile.
She grins. "Likewise. You thought about my offer?"
He swallows down his anxiety. "I have a friend in need who convinced me it was worth exploring."
Her smiles fades. "I was sorry to hear about your friend's boy - Peter, is it?"
Paul nods, tensing at the mention of the kid. "I appreciate your concern." He clears his throat. "But! We're here to talk business?"
"In actual fact, something has come up and now is unfortunately not the best time for me. I can make an appointment later today though?" Emma begins to scribble something down on the clipboard she's carrying, and old fashioned accessory for somebody of her status.
"That would be fine." Paul agrees hurriedly, taking the scrap of paper she hands him and scrunching it into his pocket. "Thank you." He adds, still not 100% sure about this plan.
"No problem. I look forward to seeing you this evening." Emma gives him another smile, this one sympathetic and far more genuine, before she turns and exits the way she came in.
Paul walks all the way to the gardens of the Tribute Training Complex before he dares retrieve the paper from his pocket.
On it is an address, with '9pm' scrawled above it. Below that, is a single phrase that makes his heart nearly stop.
'I can help Peter.'
...
"I can't ever breathe with all that stuff on." Emma lifts a glittering hand to her ear; with well practiced ease despite the length of her manicured nails, she tugs out her dangling earring, then does the same on the other side whilst kicking off her high heels - she has somehow undergone a costume change since Paul last saw her early today.
She stands shorter in height but somehow still taller now, shoulders back and chin lifted. She moves with grace as she pads across the living room they've ended up in - at least Paul thinks that's where they are. It's far more extravagant than any room he's seen back home, even in the Victors' Village. District 5 is no Capitol, after all - still, he really doesn't think there's any need for a chandelier above the front door.
When he had made his way nervously to the address provided, trying not to be seen by anyone or at the very least recognised, he hadn't really imagined he'd end up at Emma's house of all places; the thought that there has been some sort of misunderstanding unnerves him, but he reminds himself to trust his instincts - the same instincts that told him he could trust this woman who offered to help him not hours before.
"Are you coming?" Emma stands now at a doorway opposite him, heels in hand and hair loose around her shoulders. Paul scurries after her, toeing his own shoes off on the way - something in him can't bear to track mud onto the cloud-like carpet.
"Do you live alone?" He creeps after her, ducking between the strings of fuchsia beads that are draped over the doorway to the bedroom.
"My sister visits time to time." She shrugs, sinking down onto a bed that is bigger than his whole home used to be, before- before he became a Victor.
"Dr Perkins." He enunciates the words in a silly tone, and he can't help the look he shoots Emma as he does either.
"Oh, I know she can be a lot sometimes," She pats the bed beside her but Paul doesn't take the invitation. "But she really does mean well. Even if she doesn't quite seem to understand how horrendous-" She cuts herself off before her face darkens too much.
"So Pete." Paul interrupts, changes the subject instinctively. "His brother Ted is worried sick, I've never seen him like this before."
"Yeah, it was sick of them to choose family members of past Victors." Emma spits, seeming to think she can mask the comment as admiration if anyone happens to be listening in.
"It's just, the kid is a nerd. I don't know what he's going to do, I really don't."
"You'd be surprised. The odds sure as hell weren't in your favour, either." Emma nearly smiles at that. Paul doesn't.
"What can we do?"
The woman, looking more in her comfort zone now than she ever has outside of these walls, grins bitterly. "Whatever we can." She shakes her head.
"I'm serious, Emma." A horrible feeling is crawling its way into his gut, that he can't push down for much longer.
"So am I."
"Why are we here?"
The whole apartment goes still. Paul focuses on the sound of his own breathing overlapping with Emma's, instead of how badly he wants to dart back out the door. He had believed that maybe she truly had wanted to help them, and its his own damn fault for trusting this Capitolite he's only just met.
"If you're going to make me sleep with you, would you please get it over with?" He wishes that had come out more blasé and less defeated.
Emma's eyes go wide and she flies up off the bed. "Shit, no!" She blurts out. "That isn't- that's-"
"It's ok, I've done this before. You don't have to pretend to feel bad; I'd prefer if you didn't pretend, actually-"
"Paul would you shut up?" Emma snaps, and he closes his mouth so quick his teeth clack together. "I didn't bring you here to... to do that. That would be... I just wouldn't, alright?"
Paul nods wordlessly, but in truth he just doesn't know what to think anymore. He thinks he likes Emma, but most of the time these days he is too afraid to even figure that much out. "So you really do want to help Pete?" He whispers.
Emma grabs a jumper, deep green and knitted from chunky yarn. "Let's talk in the other room." She suggests as she pulls it on over her low-cut dress. "I'm sorry I gave you the wrong idea." Her outfit now is the least Capitol thing Paul could imagine, and that soothes his frayed nerves slightly.
"I jumped to conclusions." He mutters, feeling his cheeks heating up.
"No, it was my fault; I didn't think." She scowls, ducks into the hallway and swings open another door for him. As he walks past her into what seems to be the kitchen, she gives him the sort of look that tries to say a hundred things at once. In the end what she settles for is: "I really do want to help Pete."
...
It takes Paul days to stop trembling after the conversation that follows. The adrenaline is never ending, or maybe he is just a coward. But it feels like his whole world has slid off of its axis. Emma had turned a speaker on, blared music obnoxiously loudly and then started to talk, and talk and talk. About how her sister and her network want to bring down President Snow; about how she wants to stop the Hunger Games.
At first Paul had tried to shush her, told her that she isn't thinking straight - he expects it might be a trap, set to catch him out as a traitor to Panem. But Emma had carried on, laying out the existing rebellion and what she thinks they can do for Pete. Before saying their goodbyes, she had told him to think about what she had said, let it sink in, and when he believed she was genuine, come back to her.
When a week passes and Paul is still alive, he begins to think maybe its all true.