Title: By the time the bar closes, and you feel like falling down (I'll carry you home tonight)
Fandom: Hunger Games
Rating: PG
Words: 1,894
Characters: Johanna/Gale, past Johanna/Finnick, past Gale/Katniss
Warnings: Minor spoilers of 3 books.
After the war, Johanna hears that Gale Hawthorne has moved to District 2. A few hours later, she's stepping off the train and knocking on a smooth door.
When he opens the door, she can see his eyes open in shock, taking in her hunched shoulders, limp hair, hollow cheeks and empty brown eyes, everything.
"Don't look so surprised, Soldier Hawthorne," she snaps, relishing the involuntary flinch when she uses the name they gave him (when everything else they took away). She still hacks where she can.
"Mason," he manages, still blocking the doorway.
"Are you going to let me in, Hawthorne?" She cuts out.
When he finally lets her in, she shoves past him. He doesn't offer to carry her bag (it's got her axe; she doesn't trust anyone with it; she has to have it with her allthetime) and she doesn't bother to ask him where to go (the house is too empty; with only him and the past).
It is only natural to seek comfort in one another, especially when there's so much behind them (except it's never behind; its always above them—drowning, choking them). But what they do, there's no whispered words of love, no mummers of reassurance, no wrapped arms of protection. She knows he's thinking of the girl on fire (who he thought he had forever to cherish, but forever's only a few short years), and he knows she's thinking of the boy with the sea green eyes (who's heart will forever, forever, forever remain with the poor mad girl; never her, her who is too cold, too brittle, too bitter).
The next day, there's always an avoidance of eyes, before inevitability sets in, and grey meets brown. There's always that vulnerability that breaks the other (but not one says a word, because they both know who they're thinking of).
The silence burns up, choking them on the ashes, coating them with layers of hurt (but the scars, they shine so bright). Both wish for home (but his is filled with mines waiting to be exploded; hers is full of the past where the sparkling eyes of her family follow her) and they stay, in District 2.
"I saw Annie's letter," He ventures, one night. She stiffens, because this is a subject never to be touched nevernevernever. "She says her son…he turns 1 in a few weeks, and would you like to visit them, maybe say hi?"
She sees him, the boyish smile (all for the girl with the flowing dark hair), and the sparkling green eyes that light up (only when he thinks of District 4). She can imagine his son, with the same innocent smile, the sea green eyes, and that's enough reason to stay away. (She cannot handle this; knowing that she was naïve enough to have hope.)
"Do you want to go? It'd be nice to be out, for once, to see the sea—" And that's enough to break her. "Damnit Gale! You know I won't go—" and suddenly, she's too tired, too tired of trying to mend her shattered heart, broken body. She tastes salt in her mouth, unfamiliar.
He doesn't comfort her, try to tell her that it'll be alright (time heals all wounds, but not when it has ravaged, and scattered, leaving a large, gaping hole), because damnit, he's broken just as bad as her.
He never mentions District 4 again, and she never says anything about District 12.
Sometimes, she wakes up, axe ready in her hand, imagining that they are there; the people she mercilessly killed. Some have the look of acceptance—they know they've been dead, always. But most have this look of fear—I don't want to die; I'm too young, too young. She used to think winning was a form of mercy—at least she didn't die; she could still live. But she realizes—she never died; but she doesn't live either. The next morning, he looks at her with something like sorrow, and she thinks she must have been screaming in her sleep.
She remembers the first time she tried to take a bath. She saw the water, glinting, and remembered the large water tub they floated her in, time after time; remembered the explosions of needle-like electric blue sparks, all over her; remembered that she couldn't understand how Finnick loved the water, if it did this all the time. She remembered pain. She remembered and shook so hard, she never took a bath, except for the occasional spit bath.
Once, Gale tells her that "they have to go out to meet people; it's not healthy to stay cooped up". And she feels like punching him—who is he to say what is healthy when he pines after District 12 and seeks comfort in her, but is really only seeing the Girl on Fire? She tells him that and his eyes—full of the ashes that choke them—they flash with hurt (she doesn't believe that he can feel hurt—haven't they been through it all?) But he does not say anything, except walk off. She hears the water running, hitting the bottom, punching her gut, unexpected, and she loses her breath (she remembers—everything; the drowning; the choking; the pain; everything).
Minutes later, he grabs her by her (stick-thin) wrist. He expects a fight (she did win, after all, and they punch drywalls all the time) but her eyes are empty, dead. He wonders if this is how she was, before.
She sees the gently lapping water—she will never hear it again; the screams, before her lungs are drowned—and remembers it all (she should have known; it nevernever goes away).
He pushes her, toward the blue, blue water. "Get in, Mason," he orders roughly, because he doesn't know how else to do this. "Damnit! You have to get over it Mason!" She resists his strength. "Stop resisting. It has to be done, you know that, one way or another!" Whatever fight she had in her, it suddenly deflates.
In the silence that follows, he realizes she's shaking.
"They killed my family, 2 weeks after," she whispers. When she turns to face him, all that's left is the broken, vulnerable young girl she hid all the time, under layers and layers of brusque and bravado. He wonders when she broke.
"They dunked me, in the water, then put me—in the chair, and over and over and over…Gale—I can't—I can't—" The layers are gone now, leaving only a broken girl in its wake.
"You have to," He starts and then falters, "You—you could think of something else—like—Finn—" The way she folds into herself—he wonders if Finnick Odair left more than a wife and baby behind; if he left this mess of a heart, this broken body.
He doesn't know what to do so he holds her, while her empty eyes glaze over and she stares brokenly straight in front of her. Occasionally, her mouth forms words her lips don't speak. He wonders what nightmares she's reliving, what inferno she's burning in.
One night, when they're together (and really, it's the only time they feel remotely normal), Gale gasps, "I love you" so softly it's barely intelligible. But she catches it anyway. She should have known (and she did, she did, really) that he would always be thinking of her, District 12 (and never her, her who was all angles). But to have him say it—she wonders what's happening to her heart (it feels like it's breaking—but is that even possible, when your heart was never whole?)
Weeks later, she's fighting nausea—and doubt—and heading to the doctor's. And it can't be—it can't damnit—because there was never any love, no affection—not when he still thinks of the girl on fire, the girl whose eyes still had rays of hope shining through (and not her, whose eyes have no light in them, the only fight all physical and punches) and her…she doesn't know who to think of because she's too broken to heal, to touch.
She decides on leaving (because really that's the best option) and returning to her ghost town—where her family stare at her with haunting eyes and whisper why didn't you save me? over and over—to start over. She tries not to think of District 4, where there's Annie, and the innocent sea green eyes. She tries not to think of how damaged it will be—with a mother like that, so empty, so broken; how could it ever be whole?
He catches her in the midst, packing in her axe. She whirls around, axe a familiar weight in one hand, the other wrapped around her abdomen instinctively. She sees his eyes on the sharp axe that glinted with the tainted blood of the ghosts, and she knew he saw the crazed girl who threw the axe straight between District 12's eyes. His eyes flash down to her lower hand, which drops immediately. His eyes don't drop that questioning look though. The war taught them all never to trust anything. She knows the game is up.
So she tells him. "I went to the doctors' today." She says, before she has to clear her throat. There's this strange lump in her throat.
His eyes glance back down to her hand that's dropped uselessly against her side, then to her abdomen. His eyes flicker, for a second, towards her bag and flung-open closet and back to her eyes.
Realization flashes in his eyes.
She looks away, because she doesn't want to see the accusation in his eyes, the guilt that he could never feel the same way.
"Johanna—" Gale starts. "Don't Gale, don't damnit!" She snaps, because she can't bear any pity and those grey eyes—they cloud with something like grief. She wishes this had never happened because he will always love the girl with the deadly bow and arrow.
She shoves the axe into her bag and it thuds against the bottom, a dull, empty sound. As she moves past him, he moves to grab her arm. "Johanna," he tries again, "It's okay—" and once again, she cuts him off because it can never be okay, not when her heart's shattering. She wants to tell him about how Finnick used her—unintentional, but the deed was still done—and how she thought that maybe this was her happy ending—but she was so naïve, so young, to actually believe it. She wants to tell him that she had thought this was her happy ending. But most of all, she wants to tell him how much it hurt, when she realized that it wasn't—that she would never, never ever, have a happy ending.
"It's not, Hawthorne," she says, and yanks free of his grip.
She thinks it's the last time she's ever going to see him, so she stops in the doorway and casts a final glance at him. His eyes are full of sorrow—and she thinks maybe hers are too—and for a moment he opens his mouth, then thinks better of it and shuts it again.
She looks away and, hoisting the bag up on her shoulders, she leaves, towards District 7, back to her ghost town. He doesn't make a sound of protest as she leaves.
