Heart of Gold • Finnick Odair

-49-

FINNICK POV

Just a few minutes later, Katniss' sister and mother come into the room. I'm relieved it's them as I know it'll reassure Rosalie that it's people we're aware of.

"Hello dear, I'm Mrs Everdeen and this is my daughter," the older woman holding the clipboard smiles gently.

"You're the famous Prim? Katniss' sister?" Rosalie asks the girl in a quiet voice.

"Yes. I apologise it took so long, we've just come back from Katniss' room," the blonde girl apologised with one of the kindest smiles i've ever seen.

"Katniss' room? What happened?"

The two women exchange looks with me as if wondering whether to tell her or not but Rosalie seems to figure it out before we can decide.

"It was Peeta wasn't it? He lost it..."

"Yes, but lots of people are investigating what to do to help him and Katniss is already on the road to recovery. She's sleeping now but she'll be okay, just a sore throat." Prim reads something off the chart that her mother has attached to the end of the bed. "So we know about your bruising, which I can give you a cream for that you apply every night, is there anything else we should be aware of?"

"Injuries? No," she shakes her head.

"Alright, good. Then all we need to do is a couple of routine things, it won't take long. Is that alright?"

She looks at me and I squeeze her hand in reassurance. She nods eventually.

Mrs Everdeen leaves to get the cream whilst Prim does the small tests and checkups varying from blood tests to weighing her weak body. About twenty minutes later, everything is done. I help Rosalie change into a jumpsuit, my eyes lingered on her body when I saw how there really wasn't a part of her body that wasn't bruised in some way. What worried me most was the bruises on her wrist from obviously being held down.

There's a knock on the door and shortly after I call them in, Boggs comes inside. "Hello Finnick, you must be Rosalie. I've heard a lot about you from this guy," he shoved me on the shoulder and I just smile at him.

"Yeah, hi," Rosalie manages a smile though her exhaustion is shown in her eyes.

"I'm Colonel Boggs, head of security here. And stupidly friends with this fool." He made Rosalie smile with this, which I appreciate. It'd be nice for her to have someone else she trusts here. "I talked with Coin. Usually a patient would have to stay in their medical room a while after arriving, but I knew loverboy over her wouldn't let you out of his site as soon as you arrived. So I managed to get her to agree that you can go straight to Finnick's compartment next to Annie's."

I wonder what kind of strings he must've pulled for that, usually Coin allows only family or married couples to live together. Boggs smirks at me knowingly, I had mentioned proposing to her maybe once or twice or a hundred times with him.

"If that's alright with you," Boggs looks at Rosalie now for confirmation.

She nods, "thank you Boggs."

"I'll leave you to it, it was nice meeting you."

He leaves the room and we do the same shortly after, I make sure to grab the cream on our way out.

A while later we're in our room, having got my schedule free for the day, when Boggs comes asking for Rosalie, so I obviously tag along too, much to Boggs' amusement.

Rosalie won't have a schedule for a while both to 'physical and mental healing' or so Coin likes to call it. She does have to go to therapy daily but I worked it out with the therapist, Maria, so that she has her appointments when i'm doing my work in the kitchen. Maria only agreed because she knows me from the sessions I had with her upon arrival. She called me challenging, I take that title proudly.

"What's your first name?" Rosalie asks Boggs. "I assume Boggs isn't your first name anyway."

Boggs smiles gently at the girl, "Joseph. But don't tell anyone that, it'll be out secret, eh? And Finnick's too I suppose," he says, acknowledging my presence. I'm still stunned he told her his name. He didn't tell me his name. Rude.

"You suit Joseph."

"Do you know what this is about?" I ask him, referring to why he had collected us.

"Something about Katniss and Peeta, I told them that if you want to leave at any point you are allowed to and they can't stop you." Rosalie smiles and I nod in appreciation.

When we get to the room, we find it's Katniss' hospital room and we're not the only ones there. There's also Prim (who gives Rose a warm smile), Beetee and Plutarch (who give Rosalie a nod of acknowledgment) and finally Haymitch (who surprisingly gives the girl a hug— though maybe it's not a surprise as the two were close through their mutual friend of Chaff). That reminds me that I haven't even had the chance to even comfort her properly about Chaff, or any of it really. We haven't had much a chance to talk at all with everything going on.

"Peeta has been through a process called hijacking," Plutarch says. "We don't know how long the Capitol's been doing this to-"

"It started a week after he arrived. Then it happened daily, unless he was unconscious all day, the doses gradually increased," Rosalie cuts him off.

Plutarch nods, jotting down he note on his paper.

Beetee starts talking next, "It's fear conditioning. Enhanced with tracker jacker venom. You were stung your first games, remember?"

Katniss blinks once, I suppose that means 'yes' because it doesn't really seem like something you'd forget.

Beetee continues, "the venom puts the subject in a dissociative state. And they torture him."

Rosalie stands up and walks out the room, everyone turns to watch her leave except myself as I immediately go to follow but Plutarch stops me, "Finnick, Coin wanted to see you alone."

I turn to argue but stop myself, that's not a good idea.

Boggs tells me he will stay with Rosalie and I nod, following him out the room.

I walk up to Rosalie who just sat on a chair outside. I kneel down to her level as she apologised, "sorry, I, I couldn't."

"Hey, that's okay," I lift her head with my chin to look at me. "Nobody expects you to be okay with any of this, you just got here. Be patient with yourself okay? I have to go talk with Coin," worry clouds her eyes all of a sudden. She doesn't really trust Coin, and for good reason too, I don't particularly trust her either. I feel the need to reassure her though, "it's alright, i'm just asking a favour. You and me, to go outside, get some fresh hair. It's safe and Katniss said it's really pretty." It's not a lie, I did want to ask this of Coin. I take her hands in mine, rubbing her fingers as they're once of the only non-bruised parts of her body. "Boggs will stay with you, okay? He'll keep you safe." I hate the fact that I have to constantly assure her she is safe, she shouldn't have to ever feel frightened. Ever.