Good thing Cashmere's in Three, is Finnick's first thought as he walks to the council chamber. This isn't officially a trial, just a debriefing, but with an armed escort all the way from the Three-Four border, it feels like one.
Finnick resists the urge to fiddle with his shirt sleeves and instead focuses on keeping his face in order.
The oak door swings open, and one of his blue-uniformed guards stands holding it while Finnick walks in. Finnick nods his thanks, wishing he recognized any of his escort, and enters the chamber. To his relief, the guards remain outside when the door closes.
As he's heading toward his seat at the table, Finnick runs smack into Brine. They exchange a complicated look. They're the last victors here, with Rudder in Three, Annie in hiding, and the rest dead. He can see that same recognition flicker in Brine's eyes.
So of course they have to rib each other.
"Lookin' good." Finnick glances approvingly up and down Brine's body, where muscle is starting to replace fat again. "War agrees with you."
"Can't say the same for you," Brine retorts, grinning back. "I didn't recognize you without the makeup."
"That's because you never came down to the docks and did an honest day's work."
Brine's face finally betrays discomfort, until Finnick takes pity on him and gives him a real smile. Brine returns it, almost involuntarily.
Then Pearleye's stern voice breaks in. "That's enough," it scolds, like they're in school or something. "Settle down. We have important business at hand."
Finnick takes his seat thinking that maybe, however the next hour plays out, he has one ally.
"All right," Pearleye opens, putting a pen to the top of her notepad, "we're all extremely busy, so I'm going to keep this short. Mags?"
"Made her own choice," Finnick answers in the same snappy tone, as soon as he's realized that's the entire question.
"Cashmere?" Pearleye asks at the same time as Foam bursts in, "It was your idea!"
Finnick looks up the table, knowing that her husband would still be alive if he hadn't lost his head over Annie. "Sending tributes to the Quarter Quell to get Katniss out alive was my idea, yes. But Mags approved it, and everyone else, including you, hashed out the details. It's a little late now for second thoughts."
"Cashmere," Pearleye repeats.
Finnick raises his eyebrows. She really is in a hurry. "Took up arms against Capitol troops in District Thirteen. Did propaganda for us. Now in District Three, with Rudder."
"Couldn't bring her home?" Brine teases.
Finnick draws a blank at first, then remembers that everyone thinks Annie's hiding in Four. It's best if Brine assumes he's trying to keep her and Cashmere from meeting. "What can I say?" he returns with a deliberately naughty look. "Rudder said he was short-handed." Finnick trusts that Rudder will tell the same story if he's questioned.
"Plutarch," Pearleye continues, writing furiously as she goes.
"Militarizing District Thirteen. He's still gathering the resources, but I don't think it'll be long before Thirteen's as hierarchical as the Capitol. That man has contacts."
"What about the Mockingjay?" former mayor Grebe demands, impatient.
"Yes, was it worth it?" Foam pleads.
Keeping his disappointment firmly to himself, Finnick answers flatly, daring anyone to challenge him, "If you ask me and Mags, yes." His feelings don't matter. What matters is Katniss rallying the districts. "When I left, they were making plans to move into the food-bearing districts and organize the rebel forces there."
"When you left? How long did it take you to get here? It's been months since the Games! And they're still just making plans?"
"I told you, Plutarch's putting together a whole army out of the population of several districts. That doesn't happen overnight."
"It did here," Brine points out.
"Two districts. And how much territory do we hold?" Finnick counters. "They're operating on a much larger scale."
"So Katniss is working for Plutarch now?" Pearleye asks.
Finnick avoids the topic of the internal conflicts in Thirteen. "She's working with him. We don't need her here. We need her there. And speaking of territory, I suggest we do something to get in contact with Seven, if we don't want to be cut off entirely from our allies in the east."
Pearleye shakes her head. "Ideally, yes, but you said Rudder told you he's understaffed. We can't even really spare the troops to hold Three, except that we need the technology so desperately. Seven is rioting but disorganized, and we don't have any contacts."
Finnick's stomach plummets. Two months, and no contacts? Johanna's still a prisoner?
"No word from your girlfriend?" Brine echoes his thoughts. "I mean the one in Seven?"
Finnick should get into the banter, but his heart's not in it, and he's home, where—he hopes—he doesn't have to fake it. He just gives Pearleye a look, asking for news, and she shakes her head sorrowfully.
"We tried, but we were only able to bargain for one prisoner to be released. Victors come with a higher price tag than Peacekeepers, even officers."
Finnick keeps his face neutral through the line about price tags, which he knows is innocent but comes like a kick to the gut. It's true, in any case.
"We settled on Peeta," Pearleye continues, "because you and Mags seemed to value his life the most. We got him back last week."
Finnick's so busy desperately trying to think of a way to get Johanna back that wouldn't be so stupid and reckless she wouldn't kill him for it afterward that at first he misses what Pearleye said. "Peeta's—here. No, you mean he's in Twe-Thirteen?"
"He's here in high security," Pearleye continues, "being examined. We suspect there's a trap, but we don't know what. For all we know, he could have a subcutaneous time bomb planted in him. But there's no way we could have ensured he was released anywhere else. Now tell me, was that the right call? We didn't have a lot to go on."
Annie's in Three, and Peeta's here. Finnick can't keep up. He shakes himself slightly. "It was the right call," he says, pushing through the feeling that he's betraying Johanna. "Katniss had every reason to believe we were out to kill her. I was trying to earn her trust by protecting Peeta. Johanna Mason was already with us."
"'With' some of us more than others, I bet," Brine quips.
"I have an idea who we could trade." Finnick shoots a glare at Brine. "She's been through twice as many arenas and doesn't need this shit."
"Enough," Pearleye snaps, "you can do this on your own time. So you think if we get him back to Thirteen," she asks Finnick, "Katniss will be more...cooperative than she was in the arena? Or is that all past us now?"
Finnick can't decide whether to be more annoyed with her for expecting Katniss to dance to their tune, or with Katniss, for shutting him out as an ally. "I think it would be the best thing for her," is all he says. "I'm happy to escort him back the way I came."
"Not yet," Pearleye says. "I need you here. I need you visible."
If Katniss's and Plutarch's reaction to his public persona is anything to go by, Finnick's forced to agree. "At least let me visit him."
"After he's been vetted."
"He just got out of captivity!" Finnick protests. "He needs to see a familiar face."
"Not if it's the last face he sees," Pearleye says with finality, and Finnick can't argue with that either. He'd better get to work rehabilitating his image at once, then. Then he'll have more freedom.
"I will need a contact in Thirteen, though. You said Plutarch is setting up an extremely hierarchical structure? Do you have recommendations on who to send?"
"Well," Finnick starts, "he is retired military. Many of the Gamemakers were; it's not an unusual career path."
"I didn't know that." Pearleye makes another note.
"Speaking of which, you'll want to call him General Heavensbee to his face."
"Are you serious?" Grebe asks. "Who does he think he is, President Snow?"
"Well, honestly, I think he's aiming to match the Capitol in legitimacy, so he kind of has to set himself up as a foil, if he wants to be taken seriously. On the subject of being taken seriously, if you want your contact to be, send someone older, no sense of humor, very by-the-book fellow."
"Lucretius, then, maybe," Grebe suggests, but Pearleye is busy giving Finnick a piercing look. "Did you leave because victors weren't getting special treatment?"
Finnick quells his surprise. If Mags groomed Pearleye as her successor, he should expect the occasional unexpected insight. He needs to keep that in mind, if he ever wants to keep any secrets from her.
"Not like here," Finnick answers, with a sidelong glance at Brine, who didn't even know a revolution was in the works, but now that it's broken out, is automatically included in the inner circle. "No, I take that back. Haymitch was getting special treatment."
Pearleye raises her eyebrows. "What in the rolling sea did you do to get yourself taken less seriously than Haymitch Abernathy?"
"Sacrificed my reputation for ten years in order to get you all the information you asked for." Finnick smiles brightly. "I hope it's been worth it."
Pearleye may not like him, but she's too blunt to be cruel for the sake of it. "It helped," she says in a clipped voice. "Well, your orders now are to report back here at five o'clock every morning for propaganda videos, and spend your days as visible as possible. Dig trenches, patrol the streets and the shipping lanes...anything and everything to show you're one of us. After I've gotten enough propaganda out of you to start with, I'll send you further afield."
He grins. "You could use some help with the speechmaking, it's true. It's not just me, I've heard people talking, and believe me, 'uninspiring' was the kindest word they used."
Pearleye shakes her head. "It's a matter of demographics, that's all. Believe me, there's a crowd that my style resonates with better than yours. Work on your image and we can start appealing to the..." She pauses. "The younger crowd."
"Wow, you're getting soft," Finnick teases.
"The hotheaded crowd," she retorts.
"Better."
"Special enough for you?"
"It's a good start," Finnick allows, not letting on how pleased he actually is with this assignment. Years ago, it had been his idea, not Mags', for him to start working every job he was qualified to do or could pick up quickly, as visibly as possible, after he came back from his Victory Tour. He never told her that it helped him with the insomnia.
After the interrogation is over, Finnick gets a briefing on what's happened in his absence. He doesn't mention that he got a rundown on the first two weeks from Rudder—nor the unexpected kindness that Rudder did him in giving him the news from Four before he started his interrogation. In his years of gathering intelligence, Finnick's learned the value of seeing the same events from two different perspectives. Who includes what details, what do they leave out, what motivations do they attribute to whom?
Pearleye, for instance, avoids giving a blow-by-blow account of the Reaping Day Battle, which she had to escape as early as possible to begin the district takeover. Instead, she gives a broader, Four-wide perspective. Who's growing what food, how the shelters are distributed, how they've positioned the antiaircraft defenses to try to protect a dense population in a thin strip of land, which is every bit as hard as it sounds.
Finnick questions the others closely on the food-growing situation. It's better than nothing, but he's still left shaking his head at the end. "I still say we need to bring food down through Seven."
"We'll eventually have to do something," Pearleye says, "but we're too overwhelmed now. We still have a window of time before we have to ward off a famine. I'm going to send someone, maybe Lucretius, maybe Arthur, to District Thirteen, and we'll work out logistics. In the meantime, we all have far too much work to be doing, and the council is dismissed. Finnick, stop by my office with me now. I have something I was asked to pass on to you."
Taken by surprise just as he's getting to his feet, Finnick wonders what to do. He was hoping to slip out without anyone remembering about the armed escort, and now he has to wonder if she's pulling a Plutarch on him.
But no, she has all these plans to keep him busy.
Under supervision, maybe, he thinks cynically. Since when does Pearleye trust him?
What choice does he have, though? Rudder's not here, and Finnick's sure Brine would love to see him kept on a tight leash.
Tense, furious, giving in to the temptation to wonder if Peeta was really worth losing Mags, Finnick yields to the inevitable and follows Pearleye out the door. She's not going to have him killed, and there's nothing he can't talk his way out of, given enough time.
He goes on the offensive as soon as they cross the threshold. "What the hell was that?" he mutters with a nod at the guards standing on the other side. "You know I'm loyal," he seethes, "you know how I spent the last ten years-"
Pearleye looks around. "What is this?"
Cliff stands straight. "You gave us orders to see that Finnick Odair came to headquarters as soon as he was spotted."
"Armed and breathing down my neck the whole way?" Finnick demands. "Too short-handed to do anything with Seven and yet you can spare three soldiers to follow me around?"
"No," Pearleye says, bemused. "I left the border troops with a standing order to see that you came straight here, but the wording must have been more open to interpretation than I realized. You're dismissed," she tells them briskly. "Get back to work."
They snap salutes. "Yes, ma'am."
"We need to figure out whether they're supposed to salute civilians or not," she murmurs to herself as she and Finnick continue down the hall. "The line gets a little blurry." Then she speaks up. "You have to realize your reputation-"
"Oh, I know," Finnick grits through his teeth. "I know my fucking reputation. I've done nothing but work at it since day one." Sometimes he feels like he's running in place. Then he relents, because Pearleye didn't order a guard on him after all. "I was going to ask what was so wrong with my reputation that you thought three was enough," he jokes.
Pearleye snorts and refuses to humor him with a reply. "While we're on the subject of orders, do you need more to go on, or did I give you enough in the meeting?"
"Pitching in everywhere, staying visible? It's what I've been doing all along, so unless you think I did a bad enough job that I need to be micromanaged, that's enough."
Pearleye makes a noncommittal sound, but she concedes, "You're lucky that's what Mags said."
Finnick sucks in a deep breath, pushing back a wave of love, pain, and need. "What did she say?" he asks, trying not to let any of it show.
It takes Pearleye a couple minutes to balance openness against the risk of an ego trip. "That I'd get the biggest payoff out of you if I told you what I needed, and gave you leeway in deciding how to go about it."
It is ridiculous to want to cry with relief at Mags interceding for him from beyond the grave, and beyond ridiculous when the entire problem is not being taken seriously. Finnick gets his mask in place as they approach Pearleye's office.
She swipes her hand over the scanner by the door, and it opens. "Come on in." Crossing the floor to her desk, Pearleye unlocks one of her drawers, digs around in it, and hands him an envelope. "This is yours."
Finnick finds himself hoping it's a last message from Mags, even as he tells himself he knows better. She couldn't write, you know that.
Well, maybe she wrote it before the stroke, the voice of hope argues.
It may be unreasonable to feel cheated when his name is printed carefully on the front of the envelope in a handwriting he doesn't recognize, but it's still with involuntary disappointment that he begins reading the message on the slip inside.
Your father and I saw you on TV, in the broadcast from 13. We're not sure how to take it, but if this is how you're making up for your behavior, we want to let you know we'll accept an apology and we'll be glad to let the past remain past.
Your cautiously optimistic Mother.
The note ends with instructions on how to reach them in the wartime upheaval.
Finnick laughs brittlely. It almost doesn't hurt.
Oh, you'll accept an apology. Why couldn't this have been from Mags?
He drops the letter in Pearleye's shredder on the way out.