Heart of Gold • Finnick Odair

-48-

FINNICK POV

Me and Katniss just sit on the lifted bed encased in each other's company as we wait for news, Haymitch said he'd let us know when they hear anything.

Katniss just sits still as a statue except for occasionally rubbing her hands whilst my fingers never stop moving as they tie and undue and retie different knots into the length of rope in my grasp. I cling to it like it's life these days. 

The door opens.

"They're back," Haymitch pokes his head round the door and we are instantly on our feet. I shove the rope in my pocket as we run to the medical area.

We see Johanna first, neither of the others in sight yet.

Johanna is refusing medication and ripping things off her arms when we get to her. Katniss just says her name in shock but I wrap my arm round the girl, despite my own shock, to pull her into a much needed hug. She pats my arm once, which is as much affection as you usually get from Johanna, before I let go.

"Rose?" my voice breaks from worry and nerves as I ask.

Johanna points to another bed, one that has a curtain round it.

"Rosalie?" I call her name as I run in that direction.

"Finnick?" her voice is small and quiet and broken but I hear it. I would hear it in any crowd.

She pulls away the curtain and my breath is taken away when I see her battered and bruised figure but I don't stop, nothing could stop me getting to her now. Nothing.

And then she's in my arms.

She's in my arms and everything feels right again.

I gently lift her off the ground and spin her once or twice with my arms wrapped firmly around her, now significantly smaller, waist. I feel her head nest into my shoulder as her arms wrap round my neck, her fingers gripping the collar of my shirt for assurance that this is real, her tears wetting my shoulder, but I don't care. As long as she's here, with me, i'll do whatever she wants or needs me to do.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's alright, you're safe. You're safe now, i've got you. I'm never letting you go again," I whisper into her ear. I hear her mutter a quiet 'good' at my last statement which makes me smile through my own tears. "I love you, more than you'll ever know."

"I love you more than I ever thought possible," I hear her whisper and my grip on her waist tightens slightly. I'm careful to be gentle. I don't know exactly where she's bruised but my guess would be that there aren't many places she isn't stained blue and purple.

I see the doctors and nurses waiting, needing to check her over, but I can't seem to let her go. And i'm okay with that.

My friend, Boggs, is over at the wall near where Katniss is talking to Gale and he sends me a sincere smile as I mouth a 'thank you.'

I gently place her onto the floor, my arms still round her waist but a little more relaxed. Her arms stay round my neck, unmoving, as she says "don't go."

"Never again," I kiss the top of her head. "Let me see you."

Her arms mover from my neck and I now get a good close up look at her. She looks like she needs to sleep for a week to recover even a bit and there's a bruise on the right side under her eye as well as a new cut on her forehead. She's still breathtakingly gorgeous in my eyes.

She rests her head against my chest in attempts to hide her face but I lift her head with my fingers under her chin so she has to look at me. Before she can say anything, my lips are on hers. It's a gentle but longing kiss of missing each other but me not wanting to hurt her.

"Look, the doctors need to do a check up," I start to tell her cautiously until I feel her body tense up. "Hey look at me," I lift her chin again, my left hand cupping her right cheek and stroking the bruise as lightly as humanly possible. "You don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with, okay? If it gets too much, I'll tell them to stop, yeah? I'll be with you the entire time."

Rosalie looks me in the eyes, letting herself get lost in them for a moment before slowly nodding.

I wrap my arm round her shoulder and she cuddles into my side as we walk over to the nurses. The doctor leads us away to a room rather than out in the open, they'd managed to attend to all and any immediate injuries whilst she was unconscious from the gas.

As we walk, I see Katniss being carried out of Peeta's room on a stretcher. I block the view from Rose's body, she doesn't need the extra stress for the time being.

She tugs at my arm so I lean my ear down more to her level. Her voice is shaky when she speaks, "is there a, uh, a girl doctor?"

My heart catches in my throat. I know more than most what that means. Why else would she have a problem with a male doctor, who has been nothing but nice to her so far? There's one immediate thought: what happened to her in the Capitol? My immediate answer is that she had to... revisit prostitution days. The thought alone makes me nauseous.

My lips part in shock, eyebrows crease in concern, and jaw locks with anger but I speak calmly for her sake seeing as she's been abused in the Capitol and would probably be startled if I yelled. "Yeah, of course, i'll handle it. Don't worry, love."

We arrive at her private room and the doctor opens the door for us. I tell Rosalie to go in which she does whilst I stop back with the doctor. He completely understood and sympathetically said he'd send someone over. In the meantime, a female nurse is summoned. She asks Rose to lie on the bed and wait for the doctor to come, she's practically shaking in my arms which chips away at my heart. She doesn't lie down and instead decides to sit upright on the bed but the nurse deems it good enough. I pull a chair beside her bed and hold her hand in mine, gently stroking my thumb over her knuckles as I make a silent promise to myself to never allow anything so bad to happen to her ever again.