Turn around, open your eyes
Can't move on, the fear is tying you down
Open your eyes
It's alright
— Silver Moonlight, Within Temptation
x X x
It's raining on the Capitol on such a dark, dark day.
They're back in the golden cage, Victors of lost wars, dead people walking in the wake of eternal nightmares of blood, fear and pleading eyes they couldn't have any mercy for.
Johanna stands in front of a window as large as the sky, watching the city lights glimmer in the blur of the rainy darkness, dry to the bone and yet drowning in every single drop the sky is crying.
"You can't glare the rain away, you know."
Finnick is sitting cross-legged on her bed, a mischievous grin painted on his lips.
Johanna wishes she could read through it. He's beyond broken. She is, too.
That is why they're here, cold smiles and nonchalant ways. Pretending.
She hears him get up, walk to her. His arms fold gently around her waist, pulling her to him. It almost feels like there's real desire behind this hug. It almost feels like love.
"You're not in this alone, Jo."
Another lie.
For her.
For himself.
There has been a time when they nearly believed it.
"Don't call me that. I hate it."
Yet she turns into Finnick's arms and rests her forehead against his. It's what they've been doing ever since they met: lean onto each other, share nightmares, hold hands to find the strength.
This is what desperation does to strong people: if you don't bend, it will shatter you.
"Come on, let's go back to bed."
He holds her all night. (Annie is away. So far away…)
She abandons herself into his embrace. (She's empty and loveless and cold. So damn cold.)
His kisses are soft, tender, caring. (She's in his arms. Someone else is in his mind.)
She welcomes him and the faint delusion of solace he brings. (She still feels like she's drowning. But can the dead drown?)
The world is crumbling down.
The Third Quarter Quell starts tomorrow.
x
The Games could take her and no one would notice, this time. There's no one left to watch and root for her. No one left to wait for her at home.
(Home? What home?)
There's no one left to care, now. The Games could take her and she wouldn't give a fuck. She has no one to go back to.
But the Third Quarter Quell lets her go. Only, the Capitol grabs her again, and, trapped in a steel cage, Johanna is sure the Capitol will always have her, that she'll never be free.
The Quell lets Finnick go, too, but he's safe, somewhere out there where a revolution is simmering among the nation. Annie has been taken from him and Johanna hears her cry every night. Annie's tears on her left, Peeta's screams on her right. There's no telling reality from nightmares anymore.
x
Everything is water and pain.
Everything pierces and burns and hurts.
There was a time, back in her first Games, when she thought she could endure anything to survive. She was wrong.
Lying on the frozen floor of her cell, she snorts behind the tears and curses herself for not having let herself perish when she could have.
She would pick death any moment, now.
x
Her body is damaged to the point she almost dares to hope it will soon be over.
Her mind is beyond repair. Her heart has long been gone, anyway.
She will throw up any solid food they try to feed to her, so they shove an IV into her arm and tie her down to her bed, drugs keeping her quiet, clouding the pictures of dying kids and crying parents haunting her within.
She dozes in and out of sleep, insane nightmares fluttering under her eyelids like blood-red butterflies with blade-sharp wings. Nobody is coming for her. Nobody ever will.
She screams, and her screams echo into Peeta's, Annie's.
Her throat burns for the tears she's refusing to release, for the nausea that never seems to relent.
She almost dares to hope it will be over soon.
She knows it won't.
x
Someone comes, eventually.
It's the Mockingjay's handsome cousin, clogged in black and gloom and spite, with a rescue squad that breaks into the building like angels on puppet strings.
Someone comes and takes the lost Victors away, but it's no salvation.
x
District 13 is a ghost awakened from a horror bed-time story. Refugees and soldiers are clammed in asphyxiating boxes, sharing fears and hopes and hopeless dreams of a freedom only more death can bring.
13's people are different. Different from the folks from the rest of the Districts. It's so blatant, it strikes Johanna through the drugs and body weariness: the expression on their faces is enough, a clear label to tell them apart.
Dull, dry loathe: 13.
Terrified, throbbing hatred: the Games districts.
Johanna is visited by empty-faced doctors, cleaned and dressed by nurses who handle her as though she might blow up under their shaky hands. Johanna wishes she could. At least she wouldn't see the pity in their eyes mixed to that fear she got so accustomed to since her Victory. She may have killed someone they knew. Even a brother or sister or cousin or child, as far as she knows. She can't really blame them for their coldness.
She's confined in a bed behind a curtain, her wild, feverish rage kept at bay by more drugs, more ties.
They came for her, but what difference does it make, in the end?
x
The Mockingjay's cousin ends up in the hospital wing, one day.
Gale Hawthrone.
She savours the unspoken name on her tongue, feeling it through her teeth. It suits him. Strong and masculine as he is.
She watches from afar as he slumps onto a bed, rips his burnt shirt off, exposing fire-devoured flesh on his left shoulder and a breath-taking set of muscles that make the young nurse blush to her toes.
The girl is blonde and green-eyed and annoyingly pretty and her hands treat Gale's wounds ever so delicately, in slow, expert motions almost verging into worship.
When Gale looks up and notices Johanna watching from afar, he has a moment of dismay.
Johanna suddenly feels naked and exposed. She cannot help thinking of the light scarf draped around her head to hide the shaven skin, the cuts and the bruises. Her face is pale and scrawny and there are dark circles around her eyes she's never had before, not even in her darkest days as a Capitol doll.
She looks, by all means, utterly unpleasant.
And then she sees it, flashing though Gale's gray eyes like a fleeting shadow.
That look.
Pity.
She freezes to avoid cringing. A sudden wave of nausea makes her turn to the bucket beside her and before she knows there's bile coming up her throat.
She spits it out imagining it's on Gorgeous's face, because she just can't stand that look.
She coughs and coughs until her empty stomach is even emptier, then rubs the back of a hand over her lips and shuts her eyes, waiting for the ache to go away.
"Hey."
Johanna curses within herself.
So damn soft. So damn understanding, So damn patronising.
"Go fuck yourself," she spits like it's another acid lump of bile. I don't take any charity, thank you very much.
After a moment of stunned silence, she hears him chuckle.
"Well, no wonder you're always on your own."
Yeah, she thinks, a hand of thorns grabbing her heart and crushing hard. No wonder. No wonder.
"Does no one ever come to visit you?"
Finnick, when he accidentally remembers there's a world beyond Annie.
The thought of him hurts her like no weapon ever could. It's a silent bleeding in the very core of her soul, the bitter awareness that the very last person left to care the slightest for her has now drifted to better shores, basking into the arms of his retrieved beloved one.
Fuck. Fuck you all.
"Go away, Pretty boy."
Why does it sound so frail and broken? Why the fuck?
"Nice to see you, too, Sunshine."
He leaves. Johanna hears him walk away but she doesn't open her eyes and turn around until she hears the door creak closed.
The annoyingly pretty nurse is giving her that look.
"Fuck you, too."
x
It takes a while before someone figures out what's really wrong with Johanna, and, of all people, it had to be little Primrose Everdeen.
The hospital is not a proper hospital and, while people can be decently treated and healed, the medical equipment is rather basic and there's no way to run blood samples and get accurate results.
So the doctors who took care of Johanna's case had acknowledged her sickness and filed it under "post-traumatic stress disorder". Apparently, nobody told them that two and two makes four, yes, but so does three and one.
"I think you should stop taking all those sedatives," says Prim once, as she's folding clean sheets on the empty bed next to Johanna's.
"Yeah," Johanna scoffs in agreement. "Tell that to your buddies. I actually think this stuff is making me worse."
"No," Prim cuts in flatly. She's young and tiny, but way too smart for her age. "It's not that. Johanna, I think…" She trails off, turns around to face Johanna, whose dark eyes seem so huge on her gaunt face. "Have you… been with someone, recently?"
Johanna sneers.
"Been as in fucked?"
Prim is unperturbed. She just nods, cheeky little thing. What does she care about that?
"You mean in the last few days in this underground hole?"
"I mean before."
Before. Before what? Before being rescued? Before the Games?
Shreds of painful memories flash though Johanna's mind. Calloused, golden hands running down her spine, soft lips dragging across her collarbones and down her chest, then back on her mouth, a shower of breathless kisses.
The nonchalant reply she tries to blurt out is nearly believable. "I have. So what? Am I pregnant?"
She meant to start laughing at this point, but Prim's face is solemn and so terrifyingly meaningful it freezes Johanna dead in her spot. Her breath catches in her throat, choking whatever she was going to say.
Prim glances at her. Not the look, but true, genuine sympathy. "I'll make sure they stop giving you that stuff."
Then she goes back to her work.
x
Somewhere deep inside Johanna there is a terror she's never felt before. It's cold as ice and rooted so deeply she's sure she'll die if she tries to rip it away.
No. No. No. No. It can't be. It just can't.
There is no way little Primrose Everdeen can be right. Johanna's body simply cannot take that. How could it? After all she's been through, after all they did to her back in the Capitol…
It's impossible.
Curled up under the blankets, she silently weeps all night, cursing herself and Finnick's gentle touch, his stupid languid tricks to lure her into an emotional mess she never managed to disentangle herself from.
There's no way she's doing this. No fucking way.
Johanna presses both hands over her mouth to suffocate her own sobs, feeling so ashamed for this stupid girlish breakdown.
Like she gave a fuck about it.
Like she cared.
She's not doing this.
Finnick will never know.
No one will ever know.
She will forget.
She will.
She will.
x
The following day is too busy for anyone to bother check on her. There has been a huge explosion during an operation in 2 and many have come back with serious injuries. On the other hand, many haven't come back at all.
Johanna finds herself scanning every single face that is dragged into the hospital wing, feeling nothing but blank indifference, which is pretty disgusting, even for a cynical bitch like her.
The room is large and yet overcrowded with bleeding limbs and industrious nurses running everywhere to help as many as they can.
Johanna's head is dizzy and a sharp ache pulses in her temples.
"Move aside, make room, quick!"
A nurse pushes her to the left edge of the bed and a couple of soldiers approach carrying a body that they throw next to her like she weren't even there.
Johanna gasps as her eyes set on the bloody face, and it's not because of the wounds, or the strong iron smell.
It's him. The Pretty Boy. The Mockingjay's cousin.
Gale.
Damn Gale Hawthorne.
x
It takes two days for him to open his eyes again. He's the most monitored patient in the ward and when Mrs Everdeen comes to talk to Johanna she has to push her way through a small crowd of over-scrupulous nurses.
Once they've scattered away, Mrs Everdeen looks down at Gale with such a sorrowful face Johanna fears she may start crying. Luckily, she doesn't.
"He's going to be okay" the woman sighs, more to herself than to Johanna. "A broken arm and a lot of stiches. It could have been worse."
Yes, it could have. He's patched up like an old coat: all along his right arm, across his chest, from his right shoulder to right under the left of the ribcage. His left forearm has been plastered and is now lying over his bruised abdomen.
"Prim told me about your condition," Mrs Everdeen begins, and Johanna looks away.
"Yeah. So what? As soon as someone has the time to take care of it, I'm going to end it."
"Are you?" There's no judgement in the woman's voice. Only dry sympathy.
"I'm not insane, I would never be so cruel to bring a life into this fucking sick world. I don't want it, anyway."
Mrs Everdeen nods knowingly.
"I can do it, if you want. I've done this before."
She sure has. It was the same in all Districts: what's the point in having a child if you will soon lose it to starvation or, worse, to the Hunger Games?
Johanna bites on her nails, her gaze occasionally dropping on Gale's sleeping figure. He looks peaceful. She's envious of his wounds: there is a cure for those.
"When can you do it?"
Mrs Everdeen takes a quick look around.
"When these poor souls have recovered. How far along do you think you are?"
A wave of nausea strikes Johanna, making her shiver. She doesn't need to think. She knows exactly how long.
"Six weeks." She shrugs. "Give or take a few days."
"There is time, then."
No, there isn't, and Johanna wants to scream it onto her face. She doesn't want it to start showing. She doesn't want to start feeling it. She wants it gone, before… before…
"I'll be off to see the other patients, now."
And Mrs Everdeen is gone, leaving Johanna alone with her demons.
She looks down.
The Pretty Boy's eyes are open.
x
"Who's the father?"
"Leave me alone."
"Does he know?"
"This is none of your business."
"Six weeks along… it happened there? Were you forced to…?"
"Leave me alone, damn you!"
Johanna only wants to punch Pretty Boy's face until his last bit of pretty is gone. She's trying so hard not to think and he won't shut up and mind his own business and she's literally going crazy.
He's sitting next to her on the bed. They're leaving the ward by evening: the beds are needed for the victims flooding in every day. His body is big, heavy and solid. Her body feels small and paper thin next to him. She's a leaf beside a tree.
It would almost feel comforting – safe – if he wasn't so intrusive. And it's weird, because she would have bet he was the sort of guy to stick to bare minimum platitudes in a conversation, especially with a half-stranger.
And then he says it.
"It's Finnick's, isn't it?"
"What would you know about me and Finnick?" Johanna snaps.
"I've seen the two of you together. There's an intimacy in the way you interact, a fire in the way you look at each other… I'm sorry but only a naïve-hearted girl like Annie could miss it."
"Stop it," she pleads. Pleads! When was last time she's pleaded someone?
Never. She didn't even plead for her family's life when Snow threatened to kill them if she didn't agree to stick to his plans for her.
"You should tell him."
"Stop."
Tell him. As if. For nothing in the world Johanna would ever jeopardise the last beautiful thing Finnick has in his life.
"He deserves to know."
"Stop! Stop! Stop it, damn you!" She hits him on his chest, opening healing wounds like he's opening hers.
Gale doesn't fight back. He grabs her wrists (so thin, so bony) and forces her to still.
"It's okay," he mutters. Johanna feels hot trails of tears leak down her cheeks and feels so humiliated. "It's okay," Gale repeats, this time more softly, and a moment later his arms (oh, so similar to Finnick's, and yet so different) are enveloped around her and her face is pressed into his chest and all her barriers are gone.
"It's okay," Gale says again and his breath warms her bare neck. "I'm sorry. I just thought…" He inhales sharply and she can almost sense him clench his teeth. "If it were me, I would want to know."
x
But Finnick will never know.
Soon after Johanna is dismissed from the hospital, he and Annie announce they're getting married.
Gale finds Johanna sitting in a corner as everyone celebrates, all eyes and bones and sharp glares.
"You're still in time, you know."
"No, I'm not. They're happy. They deserve to be. If it were you, would you ruin it?"
He glances to the other side of the room, where Katniss is congratulating to the soon to be Odairs and his eyes sadden. Despite Peeta's difficult situation, he still has the Girl on Fire wrapped around his little finger, and Gale doesn't stand a chance.
"No," he admits at last. "I wouldn't."
x
There's barely time for the wedding and a couple of days of calm. Then the Mockingjay takes off for a stupid mission and brings the boys to the Capitol with her. It's safe, they say.
When they come back, Finnick is not among them.
x
Primrose Everdeen has died, too, and the mourning Mockingjay blames her charming cousin: he set the attack. He sent her to die.
"I will never forgive myself," he mutters behind frustrated tears. Johanna's arms encircle his shoulder, but she fears she's too weak and too skinny for him to feel her closeness at all.
x
"Do you regret it? Not telling him, I mean."
Johanna sighs. She and Gale are sitting side by side in the dining hall, away from the crowd. She has some rice and a side of carrots in her plate but she can hardly stand the sight of it. It's not the morning sickness any longer. It's the grief, now. Grief for the loss of her dearest friend, her sort of lover. The not so sort of father of the child she's carrying.
"No."
Annie is nowhere to be seen. She hasn't left her room for days.
Gale pushes the plate closer to Johanna and urges her to eat something.
"Come on, try at least. You may not be hungry, but someone else needs feeding."
Johanna rolls her eyes. She has missed the day she and Gale officially became friends. Neither of them has any idea how it happened or when, but here they are, sharing meals and bitterness and discussing unspoken secrets like it's all they've been doing their whole life.
Johanna has gained some weight. The blue under her eyes has faded. The blue inside her heart feels somehow lighter.
"What's the point in feeding something that in a few days will be gone?" she argues, but still lifts a forkful of rice.
x
The point is, in fact, that nobody is gone within a few days.
When most of the hospital's patients are dismissed, Mrs Everdeen comes to Johanna. Many of the injured have died. Many others will never recover completely.
Mrs Everdeen's eyes are hollow. She looks like she's aged ten years in the last few weeks. Despite all Katniss has done to keep her safe and away from harm, her little Prim is gone.
She pulls Johanna to one side in the corridor and murmurs: "We can do it now, if you want."
Johanna has her back against the wall.
She has just voted yes for a Capitol edition of the Hunger Games and that's not the most motherly thing to do. And yet, if she had had a child after her Victory, if she had spent the years every mother in the Districts has spent dreading for her children's lives, wouldn't she still have agreed to this?
Johanna is no motherly girl. Never has been and never will be. Then why can't she bring herself to reply to Mrs Everdeen's offer?
"Johanna?"
Johanna stares at the ground. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Gale waiting for her at the end of the hallway. By his face she can tell he's figured out what she and Mrs Everdeen are talking about. A deep frown darkens his face.
Then again, when isn't his face dark, these days?
"I'm sorry," Johanna mumbles as she steps away from the woman. "I just… I have to go."
She turns her back to the woman, but Mrs Everdeen calls her back: "Johanna."
She stops but doesn't turn around.
"Please," Mrs Everdeen's tone is heart-breaking: pained and desperate and so faint. "Gale is devastated by what happen to Prim." She makes a pause, swallows hard. "He's like a son to me. Please," she says again. "Tell him it's not his fault. With time, even Katniss will understand. Tell him… no one should stop living because a beloved one died. He deserves to be happy."
When Johanna reaches Gale, he inquires about the conversation.
Mrs Everdeen's words resonate in Johanna's ears. The woman is watching from afar and sends Johanna a small, encouraging smile.
Johanna stares into the frozen gray of Gale's eyes.
"She said…" She fumbles for words, wondering if there's any chance what she's about to say won't make him feel even worse. "She loves you and doesn't want you to blame yourself. She wants you to live and find your happiness."
Gale doesn't utter a sound. He just stares back, his gaze so intense her whole body feels it. The shadow of a smile appears fleetingly on his face. Slowly, he lays his hands on her shoulders and squeezes gently. His lips are wet, so close to hers…
"Jo, I…"
What?
Her eyes are blazing. Her heart is racing. She doesn't even complain about the Jo. Truth is, it's grown on her. Maybe she has softened. Maybe it's the way Gale's voice makes it sound.
What, Hawthorne?
Gale blinks a couple of times, looking like he's just awakened from a dream.
What?
He scrutinises her, brows slightly furrowed. She can sense each of his fingertips dig into her skin and then suddenly release her.
"I think we'd better hurry."
x
"I know you don't want to talk about it, but–"
"Don't."
"You can't just pretend it's not happening!" He sounds amused. The bastard.
"Just don't, okay?"
He rolls to one side, props his head against his hand, elbow on the bed. He grins.
"But you'll have to name when it's born."
"Maybe I won't," she snaps back, quite irritated by his playful tone. "Maybe I'll drop it by someone's door and leave it to their care."
"Not a chance you would."
"And you know that how?"
"Because I know you." He meets her eyes. "I've seen you accept glasses of smuggled wine and then throw them away. I've seen you walk around with your hand over your stomach to protect it from the crowd."
Johanna is speechless. She's shocked he's noticed about the wine, but ever more shocked about the rest: how has he noticed something she wasn't aware of herself?
"I have three younger siblings, Jo," he explains softly, answering her unspoken question. "I've seen my mother do that so many times… I know you're trying to pretend you don't, but I know you care for this baby."
And how couldn't she? Getting rid of it would have felt like betraying Finnick. She's sure he would have wanted to see this baby born.
But that's not the entire truth. The other part of the truth is that she couldn't have done it without feeling a damn hypocrite, killing off an innocent life like it was nothing. She might as well have dub herself Capitol City.
But the bottom – the very bottom – of the truth is that, whether she likes it or not, she genuinely cares.
Which means Pretty Boy is right, and that is even more annoying.
"You're such a pain in the ass," she complains, rolling sideways into him.
Gale's arm warps around her, holds her close. A part of Johanna still wants to run away from this, from this dangerous closeness she's grown so used to (fond of?). She feels ensnared, but, after all, isn't this Gorgeous's special skill?
He laughs into her hair and Johanna's heart leaps.
This is something she cherishes.
This is something she would miss.
This is something she's not sure she wants.
Because, for the first time in forever, Johanna Mason has something to lose.
x
"One way or another, it will soon be over."
"Yeah, great."
"I'm tired of fighting, Jo. Tired of seeing people die. I thought this rebellion would fix everything, but it's going to take years, if not decades, to see Panem truly reborn."
Johanna sighs.
"Thing is, Panem will be reborn. A whole new nation. But the ones who are here, today, will still be the same: scarred for life by the horrors we've seen. When the last of us dies… that's when it will truly be starting over."
They're lying on her bed, observing the concrete ceiling pretending it's the sky. He just came to say hi, and this is how they've ended up. It's been happening more and more often, lately. For absurd reasons neither of them can quite fathom, they seem to find solace in each other's loneliness.
"You're really a laugh to talk to, sometimes, you know," he teases, arms resting behind his head.
"I have a natural sunny attitude."
A moment of silence passes between them, allowing them to listen to each other's breathing.
"What are you going to do with the baby?"
Johanna closes her eyes, tries to shut the question out, but she can't.
"I don't know," she has to confess. "I have no fucking idea. I don't know what to do with myself, let alone this little thing."
Her hand rests over her belly, right on the spot where a very small but definite bump has appeared. Finnick's child is in there. In the end, she couldn't let it go. Couldn't let Finnick go.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
"I'm going to help with the rebuilding, once it's over."
Something vaguely lights up Gale's face. Hope, perhaps.
"You sound so sure we're not going to lose."
"I am."
"Well, I'm sure you're going to be the delight of the ladies of your new neighbourhood. You and your biceps at work must be quite a sight to behold."
He swats her playfully on her arm.
"No, seriously. You're going to be surrounded by women."
"I don't want to be surrounded by women."
"You switched teams overnight?"
"One would be enough."
Johanna makes a face and hopes it's dark enough for him not to see.
"Still moping for the Mockingjay? I'm sure you'll find plenty of beautiful lasses willing to help you forget of her."
To her dismay, he laughs.
"The Mockingjay has long since nested away from my thoughts, Jo."
She holds her breath.
Don't call me that, she wants to retort, but her voice seems lost. He cannot possibly…
He makes her turn to face him. He's dead serious and it's strangely beautiful to see him like this.
"What do you say, Mason?"
"About what?"
"About being that one girl."
x
Johanna has never been that one girl for any boy. Or any girl, that is.
And here comes Mr Handsome – half a wreck, half a god – and tears down years of safe seclusion in five stupid words.
He wants her to be with him. He's dug his way through her layers (years as a Victor taught her that coating herself with lies was the best way to protect herself from external harm) and even now that he's seen all of her – dirty mouth, unpleasant looks and damaged heart – he wants her.
And the mere thought of it is
fucking
terrifying.
x
There is a point, when the war is over and everyone is going back to whatever is left of their lives and homes, when Johanna thinks there may be chances – however slim, however fragile – that things will not go so badly for her, that she isn't just a replacement for Gale and he isn't just a replacement for her.
May be.
Chances.
She leans her head back to the wall, closes her eyes and swallows. Gale Hawthorne has already suffered enough for love, he deserves better than a girl rotten inside carrying another's child.
Johanna envelopes her arms around herself and lets out a feeble sigh. The odds will never be in her favour, but Gale is young and strong and handsome and he can still crawl his way out of this complicated mess of feelings they share and be free to live his life, at last.
Maybe, if she lets him go, he will find someone else. Someone worthy of him. Someone to be happy with.
Maybe Clara, the pretty nurse with golden hair and emerald eyes.
Maybe some other decent (lucky) girl.
But not me, she stubbornly says to herself. Not me, no.
I'll ruin him, too.
x
The day of his departure they meet in the main hall.
It's the end of summer. He has stuffed his few belongings into a bag he's thrown over his shoulder.
She hasn't.
"So you're leaving me." He's basically accusing her. And why does he look so hurt? It's not like they've exchanged vows or anything.
"I'm letting you go."
He scoffs.
"If this phrasing makes you feel better…"
"I'm serious, Gale."
"Yeah, me too." He seizes her by an arm, shaking her lightly. His eyes are piercing darts. "I'm not going to kneel and beg, Jo. If you don't want to come along, then fine, stay. But if you're doing this because you think I'll find somebody else, then go and pack up, because that's not happening."
She tightens her jaw and slaps him so hard his face falls to one side, then she turns her back to him, starts walking away.
"I will be waiting, Jo. However long it takes, I will be waiting for you."
x
Johanna cries herself to sleep every night. She blames it on the hormones, because that's simply the easiest thing to do.
She's settled down back in 7. Not in her old Victor house (that one has probably been taken down or occupied by someone who certainly needs it more than she does), but in a little hut with an uncomfortable bed and very few supplies.
There's a small table by the kitchen window. She sits there, morning, noon and night, and always eats alone. It's not like she's really hungry, but since she was so reckless to decide to keep this baby, she might as well feed it properly.
But she hates to eat alone, hates the familiar landscape outside suddenly looking so awkwardly unfamiliar. She feels the burden of this whole new life weight on her shoulders like a rock.
"It's okay," she mumbles to herself, and it doesn't sound half as convincing as it used to sound coming from Gale's lips. "It's okay," she insists as she gently rubs her swollen stomach. "We're better off this way."
She ignores the tear falling into her lap.
x
Turns out Johanna was right. Turns out after-war Panem pullulates with girls longing to be friends (and possibly more) with the Mockingjay's hot cousin.
Gale is astounded by the number of flirtatious smiles and lascivious looks he receives every day. Some of these girls are actually really nice and good looking, but he always finds himself thoroughly uninterested.
Whenever he closes his eyes he sees the sharp lines and darks shades of Johanna Mason.
He misses her raw fierceness, the rough touch of blue she carries like a halo, her blunt words and mischievous looks. He misses the feeling of her body under his hands, her hands over his heart.
x
Once he's having lunch under a tree, his hands dirty and scraped for all the lifting and hammering. Jenny comes to join him out of the blue. She's the sister of one of his youngest co-workers. She often seeks for his attention and he usually indulges her as politely as he can.
"You always look so far away."
He's sure he does.
He is so far away. He just doesn't know where. Wherever Johanna and her unborn child are, which could be anywhere, as far as he knows. He hasn't heard from or of her since they parted ways. It's been months. Thirteen weeks, to be precise. Not that he's counting.
She must be quite big by now.
"Did you leave someone behind?"
Nasty, nasty question. It almost doesn't deserve an answer, cruel as it is.
"No." He shakes his head, fakes a nonchalant smile. "I'm the one who was left behind."
"Was it the Girl on Fire?"
This time Gale's smile is real.
"You could definitely say she had enough fire in her to burn down the whole country. But you mean Katniss Everdeen, and it wasn't her."
Jenny looks sad. It may be because he's basically just admitted he has another girl in his mind. It may be because she feels sorry for him.
"What happened?"
Gale takes a sip of his beer.
What happened.
Shit happened.
"She didn't think I could love her."
"And could you?"
Gale casts her a lopsided glance. He would have never thought he would feel this emptiness for someone who wasn't Katniss. And now Katniss is a distant memory, and he even doubts he's ever truly been in love with her. Every fibre of his being is screaming for Johanna's loud absence.
"I did." And why does he feel this urge to punch the tree behind him, now? "I do."
Goddammit, I do.
x
Everyone in 2 calls him "the loner" and he's perfectly okay with that.
The other young men are polite to him, but it never goes beyond those simple acts of basic civility. He rubs them the wrong way, he guesses.
Figures.
It's you and your damn pretty face and damn pretty arms and damn pretty ass and damn pretty everything. He hears Johanna's voice jabber in his head and it's warming and painful at the same time.
x
He meets Annie once. Finnick's Annie. She sports an unmistakable baby bump and a serene face Gale can hardly comprehend. She's glowing.
Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, Gale wonders if Johanna looks like this now.
"I'm here to meet relatives of Mother's. They're thinking of moving to 4 with us," she explains with the brightest smile. Sweet, little Annie. She looks so peaceful, so happy she didn't lose all of Finnick.
"And how are you, Gale? You look so much at ease, here, in the middle of all this industry."
He tries his best to return her niceness.
"I'm… trying to move on. There's a lot to do here, little time to think. It does me good."
"Have you heard anything from Katniss and Peeta?"
"Not really, no."
"And Johanna? I know she's back in 7, now."
Gale's heart cringes.
"So I've heard."
Annie shakes her head.
"I hoped she would find someone to be with, eventually. Anyone. She's always been such a lonely girl. Finnick used to say that whoever would love her would have his unconditional esteem. He loved her, you know. Loved her so much, though I don't think he's ever told her." Annie smiles. "If it hadn't been me, I'm sure it would have been her."
It's needles and pins in his ears. The ghost of Finnick still lingers, a pitiful snicker on his lips.
Poor Gale. Poor, poor fellow. Haunted by a dead man's shadow.
"They would have made quite an intimidating pair," he jokes, hoping Annie won't see the misery beneath it.
"I really thought it would be you, you know" Annie says out of the blue. "You would have been good for each other."
We were, Gale thinks, and immediately regrets it.
"Annie," he calls when she's about to leave. "Why did Finnick use to say he would unconditionally esteem whoever would love Johanna?"
Annie tilts her head to one side with a wistful expression.
"Because only the worthiest heart could learn to love his spiky Johanna."
x
Gale sits on his bed staring at his own empty hands in the darkness. He flexes his fingers, idly tests the void between them. Shards of Johanna push through his chest, cutting into his soul.
The nostalgia locked inside him rattles within its cage.
"Only the worthiest."
As if.
He clenches his fists, digs the bottom his palms into his eyes. He feels like he's trying to breathe underwater.
He drags himself to the window, slams it open onto the cool night wind, gasping for air.
Air.
Air.
But all he needs is her.
x
There's nothing ladylike in Johanna's calloused hands and dirty nails, but a guy at the train station insists on giving way to her. It's her belly, she reckons.
She refuses the accept the man's help with the luggage, though. She's been chopping wood and planting nails for the past few weeks, making chairs and tables to keep herself occupied, so she can handle a damn bag, thank you very much.
"Are you headed far away, dear?" asks a curious old lady as she occupies the seat in front of Johanna.
"Yes," Johanna replies, more curtly than she intended, so she adds more softly: "I'm going to visit a friend."
The lady eyes Johanna's rounded middle.
"On your own, with that little one in there? It's not safe!"
I've killed three kids with an axe and one with my bare hands, and all of them were much bigger than me, Johanna thinks bitterly, but hides it behind a polite smile.
She's never been scared of being on her own, especially after her whole family was murdered. Not having anyone means you can't lose anyone.
And yet recently she has realised you can lose someone even if you've never had them, and this is even worse. Because it leaves too many words unspoken, too many feelings undisclosed. They end up rotting within you if you don't let them out.
"We'll be alright," Johanna says, and she only hopes it's not too late for it to be true.
x
He hates going to town. There are families everywhere – bruised, crippled, broken by the war, but families nonetheless – and he hates seeing families. It reminds him of the one he's left in 12 and the one he's left in his withered dreams.
He walks alone in the crowded street (stares down at the pavement not to see) and it never seems quite right. Nothing ever seems quite right. When he's eating and there's no one telling him the mashed potatoes suck. When he's lying in bed at night and there's no comfort coming from warm skin against his own. When he gets back home and wishes there were someone to come home to, talk to, sleep with, wake up for.
With time, he has almost unconsciously taken up a habit: he goes to the station, observes people come and go, welcome hugs and goodbye kisses, and wonders if his waiting is a lost cause, if he shouldn't let go and forget.
"Only the worthiest."
Maybe I should, he muses as he watches the umpteenth train enter the station with a shrill hiss.
Maybe tomorrow.
x
It's nothing like 7.
The air in 2 smells like dust and smoke and everything appears to be more chaotic.
Johanna gets off the train with a moderate effort, after too many hours of travel and too many questions from the old lady.
"No, I haven't thought of any names yet."
"Boy or girl, what does it matter? I'm just glad I won't have to count the days for eighteen years, praying the Reaping will spare him or her."
"No, I'm not going to the baby's father."
"Well, he's dead. War thing, you know."
She's tired to the bone. Her back hurts like hell, her ankles are sore and the chitchat droning all around her is definitely too loud. Besides, it's almost evening and she doesn't even know where to go.
"Miss?" Johanna turns around and spots a young man in uniform approaching her. "Do you need help?"
That's it, the lifetime question.
"I… uh…" No, thanks. I can make it alone.
She's always made it alone. Always on her own. Always.
Always.
But just because she can, doesn't mean she has to make it alone.
And that's the point. That's why she came all the way from 7 on a sudden whim.
"I'm actually–" she begins, but then freezes.
A pair of broad shoulders. Tall, strong frame. Big hands clenched in fists.
That's what sells him.
Hands clenched in fists. So passive aggressive. So Gale.
"Gale," she breathes and rushes past the officer before she can even realise what she's doing.
"Gale!"
He looks up from the ground, stops dead in his tracks. Johanna can tell he's been working hard because he looks exhausted and more sombre than ever.
He has a bag on his shoulder, just like the day she watched him leave. Just like then. His face bears the signs of so many mixed feelings Johanna can't possibly tell whether he's glad to see her or not.
"Jo?"
x
She's here.
She's here.
She's here, in 2, and he has a damn ticket to 7 in his hand and the parody of some luggage on his back.
He feels himself burst with joy, but also fear, because she's here, and that's amazing, but what if she came just to leave again?
Gale doesn't move. He gapes transfixed at her figure and the blood in his veins freezes and boils at the same time.
She's put on a few pounds and looks better now. Her shorts bare long, fit legs, meaning she hasn't just been sitting around all this time. Her features are softer, her face fuller, and her belly has grown so much it strikes him.
"Jo," he whispers as she slowly walks towards him, her eyes so dark and intense he feels intoxicated.
He hair has grown back. It tickles her neck, now, and she's tied some of it back.
She's beautiful.
Her eyes are on fire. He can see them burn as she stares into him, cheeks flushed, breath frantic. A sparkle of hope lights within him.
When Johanna comes to face him, he paralyses for a moment, and can sense her gaze all over himself. What he feels next is a crisp slap across his face.
"Ouch!" Shocked, he takes a hand to his burning cheek, frowning. "What was that for?"
Johanna is breathing hard.
"I don't know. Shut up."
And then she's in his arms, and she's kissing him, and he's kissing her, and holding her so tight he's afraid he may hurt her, and it feels so good and right it almost makes him cry.
Johanna's lips are soft and violent. Her fingers tangle in his hair and pull, push, squeeze. Gale's hands roam all over her body, hungry for contact, to make sure she's actually here and it's not just another dream ending too soon. But she's definitely here, because her remarkably swollen stomach presses against his abs, and it's weird, but also strangely nice.
They break apart only when they remember they need to breathe, but maybe they don't, really. They need to look at each other, though, to take in every inch and every hue, because this is the moment, and they both know.
"Why did you come here?" he asks, a shamelessly smug grin tugging at his lips as his hands raise to cup her face.
Johanna smirks, takes possession of his hips, pulls him closer.
"Why were you leaving?"
Touché.
"I said I would wait for you, no matter how long. But waiting was driving me crazy."
He wants to kiss her again, but he can't. There are words to say, feelings to confess. They've been buried for too long.
"Jo, I need to tell you…"
"No," She presses her fingers over his mouth. "Not now. I'm starving, for fuck's sake."
He nods. He knows that, somewhere, Finnick's ghost is winking at him.
"Want to go home?"
Johanna rises on her tiptoes and brushes a feather kiss – so un-her – on his mouth.
"You silly boy," she chuckles, nudging the tip of his nose with her own. "I am home."
x
She eats too much for a single person, even a pregnant woman (he's seen his mother three times, he knows better), but he's all willing to watch her empty plate after plate of stew, even after he's finished his part.
The sight of her delights him. She's healthier than he's ever seen her and doesn't look as poisonous as she used to.
"You look good."
Johanna licks a couple of fingers, takes a sip of water.
"You've grown a scruff." Her tone is not innocent as Gale's, but openly appreciative. "Didn't think you could get any hotter, Pretty Boy, but turns out I was quite wrong. How do you keep women at bay?"
"I tell them the one thing no woman wants to hear from a man."
She raises a brow. He leans back on his chair.
"I'm in love with someone else."
He blurts it out like it's nothing, but it's a bullet off his chest. Straight into Johanna's heart.
"What did you just say?"
"I don't care if it makes you run away again. Well, I do, but I couldn't hold it back anymore."
"I didn't run away," she retorts stiffly.
"But you didn't follow me when I asked you to."
She jolts up, slams the glass onto the table. A long crack opens in its thin surface.
"What did you expect, exactly? I was physically and mentally devastated, trying to deal with the sickest joke life has ever played on me!" She places both hands over her belly, leans forward with a strained expression. "Finnick was dead, you were pining after Katniss the Great and what was I supposed to do? Tell me, Gale: what was I supposed to do?"
He sees a couple of tears roll down her paled face. His heart breaks.
"I was weak and damaged and terrible-looking, and you were strong and brave and disgustingly handsome. How could it have worked?"
"You were a hero, to me!" he hisses. "You, and Peeta, and Annie… you were the strongest and bravest! I didn't care of how you looked! I was smitten with you because it was you! All of you, you idiot!"
Johanna's eyes shimmer in the dim light of Gale's kitchen. Her lips are trembling, but something like a smile surfaces over them.
"Did you just say smitten?"
He tries to stifle a coy grin.
"No, I didn't."
Johanna places her hands on the small table and bends over.
"Yes, you did," she teases.
He covers her hands with his own, leans forward with her. "No, I didn't."
"You did," she mutters as their lips skim. Electricity fills up the air. "Say it again."
"I'm smitten with you, Johanna Mason." Gale feels happy just by saying that, by seeing Johanna's face brighten up with his own.
"You pathetic softie."
They kiss like they're fighting.
The fight like they're making love.
x
"We have to think about names."
"I don't care about names."
"I do. I like River."
"Boy or girl?"
"Both."
They do not have much time left to decide. It's a matter of days before the baby is born and they just can't argue over names in front of the whole hospital.
"I would have liked Finnick, for a boy," she sighs. She knows Gale won't be hurt by this suggestion, because he understands how important Finnick was to her, just like she understands (but doesn't quite comprehend) how Katniss is important to him. "But Annie might want to use it and I have no right to take this name from their child."
Even after a few months, Johanna still attracts a lot of curiosity: there aren't many women working in the building yard, and none else of them is pregnant. But they should have known better: the fierce former Victor from District 7 couldn't have been any less than that, working nine hours a day, five days a week, harder than most of her co-workers, even at nine months along.
"It could be a girl," Gale offers, handing her an apple. Jenny is peeking at them from afar. He read her face as an open book they day he introduced Johanna to her: "So this is her."
"If it's a girl," he continues. "What about Fiona?"
"Fiona." Johanna props back against the tree they're sitting under and savours the sound of the name. "It's nice. Fiona Hawthorne."
Gale catches her casting him an unsure glance. He doesn't care of biology: this is their child and it's taking his name. His heart swells with pride just by thinking about it.
He joins her side, leans his chin over her head. Their hands find each other at once and entangle together.
"Well, Fiona or River Hawthorne," he says running his free hand over Johanna's belly. "This is a nice time to come to the world. It's all still wrecked and dusty, be we're working hard to make it better for you and we promise it will be beautiful."
It's a blessing to know that this child will never have memories of the time when the Hunger Games were the worst nightmare of the country and kids went off to kill each other for the Capitol's entertainment. The new generation's children will hear stories and read memoirs, but they will never know that terror. And Gale and Johanna's child will know his or her parents (all three of them) were there to fight the war that brought the peace.
Peace.
There it is, finally. Under a tree in a spring day, eating apples in the afternoon sun, limbs sore for the exertion, hearts warm and fulfilled.
Peace.
There was a time when Gale thought he would never see it, feel it.
He and Johanna fought a war with guns and fire, but the end of it didn't bring any peace to either of them.
There was another war to fight, against old scars they'd thought indelible. A war against fear, rejection, self-loathing, broken hearts, cynical minds.
But here they are, at last, basking into each other's arms as if it cost them nothing, all past grief and troubles almost forgotten. They believed that when they would finally find each other, it would be over. But they were wrong.
It's not over.
It has just begun.
A/N: So, I haven't written anything for ages, let alone in English (I'm a native Italian speaker, so I apologise in advance if any mistake escaped my proof-reading... feel free to point them out!), but after seeing Mockingjay my Gale/Johanna feels have been haunting me and this is the result. I hope you liked it, I'm a little out of shape. ^^ Comments are food for the writer's soul and are most welcome. Thank you for reading!