written for luna (LesbianLuna) through the gift giving extravaganza, 2018. i hope you enjoy reading this! xx di
prompts: (characters) Johanna, Annie; (other prompts) moving on, acceptance, winter, backstory for Johanna.
thank you to the lovely dee for beta-ing this story. love you! xx
is there somewhere
word count: 1468
When Johanna steps into the lush mossy forest on the outskirts of the bustling town, she feels as if she's finally come home.
The voices in her head are calm for once. The ringing in her ears has stopped. All she can hear is the whispering of the winds through the wood and finally, she is at peace.
If she closes her eyes, she can think of happier times, of a laughing boy and a smiling woman chasing after him. She can think of a little girl trying to pick up an axe which is almost twice her size and beaming when she succeeds to move it an inch from the ground.
And then — then, the demons come.
Johanna screams at them to Stop because they are taking them away, they are going to kill them. No, please!
It's like a horrifying kaleidoscope, flashes of harsh light and pitch-black darkness as she struggles keep afloat in a sea of pain and sorrow. The peacekeepers' eyes are malevolent, monsters in their own right. She is helpless, screaming and sobbing and kicking at them to let go but there is nothing she can do about it and . . .
No. The gunshot is a sharp crack in the silence. Johanna's screams stop as soon as the sound stops reverberating in the silent forest, in her silent mind. They're gone. They're dead.
The world is spinning, a blur of emerald leaves and golden sunlight. Johanna can hear a distant ringing, like laughter in a beautiful world that she can only see, never reach. She wants to curl up, right then and there, arms wound around her knees and her tears soaking her thighs… perhaps that's not such a bad idea, after all…
"Johanna?" Annie's lilting voice cuts through the haze of pain, the one thing that drags her down to Earth. One hand is holding little Finn firmly while the other rests on her shoulder. Johanna blinks her stray tears away as she stares at the concerned expression on Annie's face. "Are you alright?"
Annie's blue eyes are shining with compassion and concern. Johanna hates to see that look directed towards her.
"M'fine," she replies, gruffly, dusting her pants and picking herself up from the damp ground. Finn looks at her curiously, his green eyes shining with the same interestshe had seen in his father's eyes, all those years ago.
Swallowing the lump that rises in her throat, Johanna raises her eyes to Annie's. "I'm going home now." She doesn't want to linger. Annie will start asking questions that she definitely doesn't want to answer and she wants to escape from her, from this world, from everything.
"But — " Johanna doesn't let Annie complete her sentence, taking quick steps to the edge of the forest, the tears stinging her eyes like poison.
She doesn't need to say anything, anymore. She can't.
She can feel Annie's eyes glued to her back as she practically runs out of the forest.
Johanna doesn't care.
She wonders if she ever will.
The vibrant green of summer morphs into the rich orange of autumn and finally settles into bleak winter. Johanna watches the snow drift by, her breath fogging up the glass window and disturbing the blunt ends of her short hair that have fallen into her eyes. Winter brings back memories — of her mother baking cookies, of her dad and brother having snowball fights and of herself, happy and content. Every time she thinks about them, she feels the bleak shades of grey and black creeping in, poisoning the memories that she buries in the recesses of her mind — treasures she keeps locked away forever.
She feels someone's eyes on her neck and sighs. Annie always lingers by the doors — not quite in the shadows, nor near Johanna. It sometimes ticks her off.
But right now, with her exhausted mind and tear-stained cheeks, Johanna says, "Why do you always hover like that?" Annie starts, a deer-in-the-headlights expression in her frightened blue eyes. Johanna had seen it less often after Finnick died — like somehow, that small childlike part of her had died with him, leaving behind a calm sorrow that she couldn't comprehend. Johanna wasn't sure that it was a good thing.
"Um — I'm not sure if you actually want me around here…" Annie's hesitation makes Johanna's guilt resurface — Annie has hung around to help her heal, and here she is, acting hostile and unwelcoming.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that… Ignore you, I mean. It's just that…" Johanna's voice trails off into nothing.
"It's alright. Finnick used to get like that sometimes, you know. He used to call it his 'episodes' — and just as he helped me through my madness, I helped him heal. Helped him forget his past and the Capitol — the Games, Snow, everything." She pauses. "If you just talk to me… I swear I'll help you through it. It's not healthy, Johanna, bottling everything up and taking it out through violence — it hurts you and everyone else."
There is silence for a while before Johanna's quiet voice cuts through the air. "My family lived at the edge of town — close to the woods. I look my mum, everyone tells me. But she and I couldn't be more different. She was sweet and compassionate, always smiling. I was a moody kid, frowning and pouting, with a witty quip for every question — I wasn't anyone's favourite." Johanna's lips twitched into a ghost of a smile.
"My brother was though. He was a happy person, running around with that charming smile of his and trying to help everybody — once he'd sliced his hand open trying to carry a sharp piece of wood when an old lumberjack couldn't lift it. He always managed to get me to talk — even when I was furious and ready to kill someone.
"He'd seen my dad getting killed by the peacekeepers — he'd broken some serious law or the other and the Peacekeeper had shot him down, right then and there. But James never really let that sorrow and darkness show. All he ever did was try to protect me and Mum and — and then I got Reaped and... then he was killed and it's all my fault." Johanna chokes on a sob, barely aware of Annie's soft hand stroking her back.
"I was on the Victory Tour when they did it, barged into our home and shot them down. Snow told me that if word of their murder got out, I'd be in big trouble. I almost let the secret get out, until I remembered that if I died, then my family's deaths would be for nothing. I needed to take Snow down, for them. If not for anything, to feed my revenge." Johanna sighs, rubbing the tears away. She feels a weight lift off her chest — it has been years since she ever thought of her mother and brother without the taste of revenge in her mouth.
"I'm sorry," Annie says. "I don't know if the pain will ever go away. I don't think it can." Her blue eyes are filled with tears — she is thinking of Finnick. "But I can promise to try and help you get better. To help you heal."
Johanna's smile seems unfamiliar on her lips as she says, "Thank you."
It is months later, when she's visiting Annie and Finn in District Four, clenching the boy's hand as he toddles through the gentle waves that she finally thinks of her mother and James.
But this time, she remembers the dampness of the air as she dragged her brother through the woods for a hike and her mother's melodious laugh at one of her antics.
She remembers. And she smiles.
Johanna can remember Annie's words which she comforted her with, aeons ago, on that dark winter day. To help you heal.
And now, as Finn presents her with a broken shell with a sweet smile and a lisp in his voice as he says, "For you, Aunt Jo," and she accepts it with a genuinely affectionate smile, she knows what Annie had meant to say.
Johanna tells her, when Annie is laying the table for dinner, chatting about the post-Capitol world. It's not exactly phrased in words, it is more of an expression that speaks of content and realisation that she's made her peace with her past. And perhaps Annie understands it, or perhaps she doesn't — it doesn't matter anyway.
Because as the summer breeze blows through the open windows and Annie laughs at her son's clumsy attempt at using her fork, Johanna realises that perhaps her home isn't in those old woods, where the ghosts of her past linger.
Perhaps it's right here, where she feels happy.
Where she's at peace.
definitely not one of my best works, but i hope you enjoyed it anyway! :)