Depressed: A Hunger Games Story

Chapter Eleven: Multiple Perspectives

~ Effie's Perspective ~

Poor Peeta. Anyone could tell he was heartbroken and upset, even if he was trying to cover it up. Effie hated to see him looking so upset, sitting next to her, staring into space, deep in his daydreams, in Beetee and Gale's (who were speaking) vague direction from the end of the room. He kept stealing not-so subtle glances at Katniss, so Effie suspected his feelings were to do with her. She hadn't been told specifically. But being an observant person, it wasn't too hard to figure out. The poor guy was so distracted that he wasn't paying attention when anybody spoke to him, and it was up to Effie to convince people he was OK, even though both she and they knew he clearly wasn't.

And poor, poor Katniss. She hadn't deserved her first Games. Never mind the second Games. And certainly not the pressures of being the face of a rebellion. While in 13, Effie had tried to do as much as she could to alleviate the pressure, but it seemed her efforts must have been futile. It was upsetting, but she hoped she'd done an alright job of trying to get through to her without harming her any further when she'd tried to have conversations with her, even if Katniss had been uncooperative. Maybe she'd at least offered a little support, and let her know she wasn't alone. In any case, it was a good thing Haymitch knew what he was doing about looking after her, because Effie, for one, didn't appear to have a clue.

At first, Effie had believed their love story, while they were in the arena together. Soon after, when they were out, she hadn't. It made no sense at the time. But now... now any doubt she'd ever had had been eradicated. Peeta's heartbreak especially proved this. There was nothing more she wanted to do than help them, but Haymitch had told her to try and stay out of it.

It was annoying, but she supposed he was right. Effie didn't want to run the risk of making things worse, and Haymitch was way more than capable of helping Katniss. She'd never have said that back when they first met, because their first impressions of each other hadn't been the greatest. But now, after getting to know him, she realised the truth of it. Haymitch, Peeta, Katniss... she'd grown to love them all so much.

Effie snapped back to attention. To the meeting. It was mostly to make things official, with signatures and things. Peeta had signed with just his initials, but Effie used her cursive font to take a whole minute printing out her entire name, along with the little swirls she put with it. She passed it on, noticing when it got round to Haymitch, he refused to sign, as did Katniss. Well, Katniss just sat there, staring at her shoes. Haymitch just handed it straight back to Gale. Made sense they weren't signing, since neither had wanted this to even happen, she supposed. It wasn't like they needed any more signatures, anyway.

Time flew by, and before long, Johanna was suiting up to go to retrieve Finnick from the past. On went the gear. On went the weird machine thing. In she went. Effie didn't even have time to check her nails before she was back again. And it was clear she'd been successful.

~ Katniss's Perspective ~

Katniss lay in her hotel bed in The Beetee HQ, staring at the ceiling for hours. She'd actually instructed Haymitch not to give her any more sleep syrup, even though her mother had left him with some. Who knew if she'd ever wake up again? No, best to just try to sleep naturally.

Only problem... it had been a very long time since she'd slept without sleep syrup. Or under the influence of drugs. Or without alcohol in her system. Could it have been since her first Games? Probably. It was a long time since she'd had a good night's sleep, anyway. A very, very long time.

But she wasn't after a good night's sleep. Just a bit of sleep. That'd be a lot of progress in itself.

However, it was already about half past four in the morning, and Katniss still hadn't even let her eyes close. Instead, the events of the day continued to play in her mind. Repeatedly. Over and over and over. The images didn't leave her, no matter what.