𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋 | Hunger Games

xʟɪɪ

     PEETA MELLARK, AS IT TURNED
out, was the one person who stopped Aella from shattering entirely.

Somehow, under all the stress and fear and anxiety of Finnick fighting in the War, Aella managed to remember she had made a promise to the young man from District Twelve. It was the only thing she was capable of remembering those days.

It had only been a week since Finnick had left for the Capitol. The updates Heavensbee promised to deliver were very few and far between. The army of rebels that had reached the Nut in District Two had marched only three days ago. They had faced pushback from the Capitol before they had even had the chance to get to the borders which had halted them moving out. Finnick and his squadron—which Aella had learned consisted of some trained soldiers from District Thirteen, Katniss, Gale and Cressida and the film crew—were to stay two days behind the front lines at all times.

The squad—Heavensbee had told her—was a special sharpshooter unit formed to film propos only. He had stressed 'only' very, very, deeply but it still hadn't eased Aella's anxiety. Especially when she found out they were disarming pods for filming reasons. She'd almost lost it at that—enraged that they didn't seem to recognise the dangers of some of those pods that they would be disarming. The squad was led by Boggs she'd been told and they were under good command with a Holo devise that informed them of every pod on every street they walked down.

She still didn't like it.

They had only left the camp the day prior and were barely in the outskirts of the Capitol. Everything had been smooth sailing apparently and nothing amiss had been communicated or reported. They were all fine—he was fine.

Even so, whatever updates Heavensbee brought her didn't seem to be helping her. If anything they were making her worse with worry. She went to sleep dreaming about the simulations she'd been forced to live through in the Capitol and some of the pods they'd pitted her up against. The awakenings weren't as violent as those nightmares she had of Drew chasing her through her house or feeling like she was choking on air with that hood on her face but they were still nightmares.

The medication Dr. Vann and Dr. Steven had given her did everything but stop her nightmares. They practically turned her into a zombie—a walking, barely talking, zombie. Daniel and Clio had to remind her and bring her to her appointments, Johanna had to take her to the dining hall and reminded her to eat three times a day—she'd even had to push her into the shower the night before last.

No one could decide if it was the medication or the fact that Finnick was gone. It happened at the same time but she hadn't had another panic attack since that first night and her anxiety seemed to be settled. She was still docile as Johanna had very bluntly called her in front of her. Aella hadn't even flinched.

The only thing she remembered to do was visit Peeta. They couldn't make sense of it. That first morning after they'd discharged her from the hospital again she had silently gotten dressed, brushed her teeth, thrown her wild waves up into the worst bun Johanna had ever seen and left the apartment. Johanna had followed her—two steps behind at all times—until the route became familiar and she arrived at Peeta's hospital room. She'd been buzzed in without so much as a word to anyone and when she'd sat down at Peeta's bed the haze over her eyes had lifted and she had just cried to him.

She only seemed to be fully functional when she was with him. She worked through his memories with him, combing through what was real and what was not real and sometimes he helped her work through her own.