hold your mistake up {patricia/rose} {homecoming}

She didn't know how to feel anymore. The mixture of feelings in her gut brewed and boiled like some witches potion and it roiled terribly inside of her. Relief and joy were there, but they were somewhat overcast by doubt, fear, concern, and any number of negative feelings. Patricia was coming home, something she had so desperately wanted but had never let herself believe - not even until Galaxy lay well and truly dead. The problem wasn't that she didn't want to see her sister again, the problem was that she didn't know if it was her sister she was going to see. Trix was well and truly gone, that was plain, but was the Trish she knew so well before that gone too? Riped would be cruel to do that to her, to both of them.

The fabric under her hands was much nicer than anything she had ever felt before - quite a statement since they had robbed some rather high-class citizens - and she ran her fingers again and again down the soft surface. She remembered when Trish had stroked her hair like this, something she always did to calm her and beat back the sadness or fear. It had never failed before, if only because it assured her that she still had her older sister at her side. Now, though, she was still alone. Patricia wasn't here, hadn't been here for about a month, and the ache in her breastbone made her feel like someone had pounded her heart with a rock, each blow coinciding with one that landed on Trish. She gulped again as she remembered first Galaxy severing her sister's hand from her arm, then how the other girl had nearly stabbed Trish through the heart. As it was, she knew both would be horribly painful, though not lethal - not in the Capitol at least. Her sister was under some of the best medical care in all of Panem, but she had the feeling that they weren't very good at dealing with mental care. That was why she worried.

There was a small speaker set into the corner of the room, playing sound from outside, but she ignored it. She had kicked and screamed and refused when they had tried to place her in a room with a television. She didn't want any previous view of her sister, she wanted to see Trish when she was ready to see her and not force that to happen sooner. Tuning out the sound of her sister's voice, she continued to stare off into the distance. She had finally gotten some sleep this past week, and taken care of herself. Even after promising both herself and Trish that she wouldn't die from starvation or lack of sleep - not that Trish could hear, or knew what was going on - she still pushed her body as far as she could, desperate to not miss a moment of her sister's life. If they couldn't be beside each other in body, as they always had, then she had to be there in spirit. Had Trish died while she hadn't been watching... She shook her head violently. That wasn't possible, she was back and alive - she wasn't sure about how well she was though.

The sound of the large entrance doors opening came through the speaker and immediately she felt her heart begin to speed up. She knew what to expect, and yet she didn't. She knew what she wanted to see, but she also knew it wouldn't be the same in real life. Somewhere under her ribs she knew that her sister had lost more than a hand. Her ears were sensitive, but even so she didn't hear the footsteps until the door had nearly been opened and then she was on her feet, staring openly at the gap between door and door jam. There was a figure in it, someone she didn't know, and then the figure finished opening the door and revealed one she recognized with a buzz like and electrical current starting through her veins.

"Tri-" She caught herself. She had been about to call her Trix, as she had done since they had left home - or near abouts - but she remembered what she had thought. Trix was dead, and as such so was Ruze.

"Trish."

She saw her sister, the same one that had comforted her time and time again when their parents had forgotten about them, the same one who always checked under her bed and in her closet for monsters before she went to sleep. It had been years since she had been fearful of the night like that - too often she had been out at night trying to sneak money from other people - but every night since Trish had left to go into the arena she had been spooked all night through. If she tried to sleep it would be fitful and she would wake up within an hour as though someone had screamed in her ear. The fear she felt for her sister had translated into first her dreams and then her waking day so that she seemed to always see shadows out of the corner of her eyes. Now the black bags under her eyes had begun to fade with the first hours of true sleep in nearly a month, and the weary lines on her face smoothed back into the fair skin of her youth.

Now the lines completely disappeared as she finally smiled again. Right before her was her sister, speaking as though it had been minutes and not days since they had parted. "Hey kid, how's things?" If not for the horrible memories of the fear, and the continued ache of muscles held in constant tension, she could have almost believed it were true. The Peacekeepers at the door barely manage a nod - stiff as though one movement would send them shattering - before the door closed with somewhat of a larger thump than was necessary. It wasn't perfect, but at least they had been left alone. Rose's hands curled into fists as a sudden rise of emotions filled her and she fought back the tears. The fear, tiredness, sadness, joy, just the stress of the entire damn situation was clawing up her throat and stinging the backs of her eyes. Still, if her sister could be strong then so could she.

The smile is gone from Trish's face and that causes her own to waver. Was her sister not happy to see her? Had she changed so much in that month that she didn't want to be her sister anymore? Her fingernails dug into her palms and absently she wondered if she were breaking the skin but ignored it. "They've been better." Her words are choked around the crawling mass in her throat and she does her best to keep her voice steady but she is as sure that Trish notices as she is of the fact that she will have marks in her palm when she relaxes her hand - if she ever would. "I've missed you."

But that's all she can manage before she breaks and throws herself at her sister, sobbing. Her stiff hands grab to the folds of Trish's clothing as tightly as they had just been clenched a moment before and she never wants to let go because only now, now that she's actually touching her, does she believe that her sister has really come back. "Don't ever leave again! Don't ever ever leave me again!" She's crying now but she doesn't care because the tears are being wiped away by the fabric under her face and she has her sister, her best friend, her protector and caretaker and partner in crime, back again.

Her sobs are wracking and they make her thin frame convulse. Her hands tug at the fabric each time her arms shake and it's really clear to her now just how much strength and weight she had lost sitting in front of the television for three straight weeks. Even though her crying slowly subsides she keeps her face buried in her sister's chest and doesn't move. "Not ever again."

OOC- oops that tense change...