thecapitol | and everything's gonna be alright

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and everything's gonna be alright

Who| Steve and Eva
What| Steve's coming to visit
Where| Eva's place!
When| Like two nights ago
Warnings/Notes| N/A

He shows up immediately, knocking on her door, concerned look on his face. "Eva," he calls. "It's Steve." This is going to be a difficult conversation, but it's one he can't just brush under a rug.

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Eva comes down the spiral staircase of her home. It's two stories, with a balcony that overlooks the skyline, and plain cylindrical pillars with ivy wrapped around them. The garden is nicely tended-to, though, barely hidden by the dark, there are holes dug into it at random, like pockmarks or craters. Eva's been taking her tensions out on the landscape.

She's torn out more of her hair. "Mr. Rogers. Come in."

"Eva," he says, and then walks in, closing the door behind him and then looking at her like she's a little crazy, calling him Mr. Rogers and with her hair looking thin. He draws his lips into a thin frown seeing her in this state, and he knows that even though he doesn't agree with what she did, she did what she thought was best and she knew that it'd cause a mess. He doesn't like what she did, not at all, but he likes her very much, so he clasps a hand on her shoulder and pulls her into a loose hug.

She hugs back. It's a miracle, to her, that any of the Tributes are still talking to her at all. She's sure the vast majority of them see her as a traitor.

Good, she thinks. It makes the disguise all the more fitting if everyone buys into it.

"I don't think I'll be seeing any of you again before the Arena. I'll send you the usual package in there."

"I didn't come to talk about the next Arena," he replies, sternly. He may be a pawn in all this but he hasn't forgotten himself. "Let's sit, please. I want to talk to you."

Eva does sit on the white couch in her living room, but only for a moment before she stands back up. "I'm making coffee," she says, ignoring Steve's statement.

"I'll have a black," he replies, because there are only so many excuses she can make before there's a lull of time they have to just talk. But he won't wheedle it out of her, not while she has coffee and pleasantries and hospitality to run off to.

He can wait it out.

She comes back with black coffee for both of them in plain white mugs. She sets each of them down on the low glass table.

"There's nothing to talk about that I'd feel safe laying on your shoulders. I'm not the only one they can detain."

"I'm already here, they already think I know what you won't tell me." So you might as well, he doesn't add, just takes a sip. "Eva, I told you, we can't do this alone."

She sits down and it's with a noticeable winces. She hasn't turned the lights on in the room, but it's clear that she's only just keeping it together now.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Steve."

"You're too smart to play dumb," he replies, trying to offer a smile but alright, it's not a smiling kind of situation. "Start at the beginning, we can go back."

She touches at the stitches in her upper lip. She's done a good job hiding the cuts with her hair and in the low light, but her face is cut up.

"It's exactly as I said on network. I met Ariadne. She expressed Rebellious thoughts. I wanted to know more because I still have that tiny scrap of hope left."

"--Are you alright?" he asks on instinct, getting close to her and ghosting his fingers on her skin, careful not to get too close to any cuts. "She-- Ariadne?"

Her head jerks back and she gently pushes his hand away. "No, interrogation. They had to make sure my story was real."

He pulls away apologetically. "They shouldn't have done this to you. Eva, why didn't you let us help?"

"With what?" Her voice takes on a hard edge. "Pull you into this web of deception and murder? Hardly. You have enough violence on your plate without my foolishness inflicting more of it."

"Because I don't want you to do this alone," he says. "Please, Eva." He knows it's her choice, ultimately, but she doesn't have to martyr herself.

"Well, we can all want what we want, but that doesn't get you anything." She shakes her head. Her mind's made up. "Drink your coffee. Please. In a few weeks this will all blow over and things will return to normal, for a given value of that."

"For what it's worth, I think you're brave." But he'd like to tell her not to do it again; maybe she can get by with a slap on the wrist but he knows they're not very lenient people.

"And for what it's worth, I think that assessment is naive." But she smiles anyway. "There's nothing brave in protecting my Tribute. It's my only duty left. I was avoiding the greater pain of watching you all be slaughtered."

"Do you think that's what they would have done?" he asks, throat suddenly drying.

"Steve, I've been here a very long time." She sips at her coffee. "What I predict from them is generally quite reliable."

"I don't understand," he replies, softly. "I just don't understand how anyone could do what they do."

She reaches forward, bridging the gap between them, leaning over the coffee table, and places a hand to his arm.

"You have to learn to understand them." Know your enemy, though she can't call them that out loud anymore. "It's the only way you'll survive."

"We'll find a way home," he replies instead. "I'll take you with me. You and your son, and we'll get out of here."

She shakes her head. "Don't taunt me with hope, Steve. I do that to myself enough already."

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and everything's gonna be alright

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