Title: Finding Everything And Realizing: You Got the Fear
Pairing(s): Johanna Mason/Annie Cresta
Rating: T for now; dunno if it'll stay there. I'll let you know!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games or its sequels and I also do not the characters of The Hungers Games or any likeness to the characters. Not making any money writing this and all that jazz. The title is from the Ian Brown song F.E.A.R.
Summary: Johanna doesn't try to say anything else. She doesn't have any soothing words or comforts; she definitely doesn't have any calming caresses; all she does have is an odd unspoken pledge stemming from the dying embers of companionship with a man who fell madly in love with a nutcase.
A/N: I really don't think this will be long. Maybe 5 chapters at most because I really don't even know where I'm going with this and I'm probably just crazy writing it anyway. Also, un'beta'd: read with caution.
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No one tells her directly.
She hears, of course, that most didn't make it. It's an outcome she had expected from the beginning, just as she had expected to be one of the many who hadn't made it. She's not and it still makes her shake with anger how the Capitol took that from her too.
She deserves, if anything, an honorable death. This new Panem holds no future for her except for her minimal role in creating it. She's no Mockingjay, who she hears as soon as District 13 gets Intel on their war efforts, is actually alive and being treated in the Capitol for severe burns. She's no Peeta who screamed so clearly the name of his love even as the men in blinding white filled his blood with so much poison that even his fingers couldn't fit themselves around the sharp, thin bars of his torture cage. She's no Gale either, with his flagrant strength and unyielding will. And, she's definitely no Finnick, with his delicate words of wisdom and striking beauty. Those are the ones pegged to survive; the ones who could blaze paths through this new Panem.
Except no one tells her directly that it isn't true.
There is no knock on her door like the first time when all hope dwindled in a single second because they were all gone and for the first time in a long time, Johanna cried. She sagged against the cold white wall and cried and cried, not because of the nightmares or the endless hollowed waves, not even because of the likelihood that with the Rebels defeated so easily, she'd be captured and tortured again by the Capitol, but because not only had she pegged them to survive too, but she had been counting on it.
There is no note slipped under her door either, not like the tiny slip of paper that crawled its way beneath her door's threshold in the dead of night when normal people would be sleeping except she's not normal anymore—she hasn't been for a long time—so there was nothing stopping her from seeking out the crisp white note and squinting into the darkness to read the neatly scrawled words: 'They're alive.' No explanation, no burn after reading instruction to indicate that the information was being gifted rather than owed, no name even; just hope, which she slid right into her drawer underneath her pine bundle which, for the first time since the others had left, reminded her of home again, instead of loss.
She guesses she just assumed. She had no basis for anything but assumption and no reason to assume that 'they're' wouldn't include Finnick.
But it doesn't, and no one tells her directly; instead, she finds out by accident.
Somehow, despite the war, the head doctors have managed to get a shipment of sanitizing wipes from the Capitol. They work wonders, removing layers of grime off her skin with single swipes until she's clean of everything except the dark ink schedule etched into her forearm. And then etched again. And again. And again. Until she has a blob of dark ink seeping beneath the surface of her skin and expanding all the way to her wrist. They tell her that water is the only way but she's sure that's just another method of their therapizing so she attempts to seek out Voltz instead, knowing that if anyone can find a non-hydraulic way to remove the nuisance from her skin, it's him.
She finds his weapons lair deep underground but when she goes to push the heavy metallic doors, she hears deep voices, none of which belong to Beetee.
Bits and pieces of the conversation float through the heavy metal. She gets enough to understand the heavy resignation pushing sighed breaths into their heavy voices. Finnick. Mutt lizards. No chance.
She wants to run, to demand answers, but there is nowhere to run and around here, she's just a victor who couldn't even pass the test to fight in the Capitol, so no one feels obligated to answer her questions anyhow.
She wanders aimlessly or perhaps not so aimlessly because she comes upon Finnick's room and when she pushes open the door, she finds the only validation she needs.
It's empty.
There aren't any strewn wedding pictures or decorative bands of knots tied to bedposts or drawer knobs. There are no fish hooks hanging to curtains that once pushed aside reveal the vacuum of nothingness that is District 13.
There is nothing; nothing but her knowledge of the two reasons why rooms around here get cleared out so quickly.
Either somebody died or somebody was moved to the hospital ward.
In this case, it's both.
She doesn't know how she figures out which room she's in but as soon as she's down in the hospital ward, she pushes open the door that feels right and sure enough, she's greeted with the sight of a catatonic Annie Cresta slumped against a wall, clearly nursing another hit to her already fragile psyche.
"So, I guess it's true then?"
Annie doesn't answer; she doesn't look at her; she doesn't move.
"So it's true?" Johanna repeats louder, hovering near the doorway. She needs something concrete, something to make the harsh tightness in her chest drop into the cold pits of her stomach. "Is it true?" she asks again, voice harsh, willing Annie to at least acknowledge her. "About Finnick?"
The pain on Annie's face is enough of an answer; she withdraws into herself immediately, eyes snapping tightly closed, mouth pulling into a sharp thin line and hands snapping against her ears at the mere sound of his name; she knows Annie's logic, if she can't see it or hear it, then she can somehow erase it.
She can't and somehow, Johanna thinks Annie knows it too, because tears stream down her cheeks in steady glistening streams and she doesn't try to stop them, she doesn't try to wipe them away, she just draws her knees into her chest, presses her hands harder against her ears and rocks. Back. And Forth. Back. And Forth. Back…
And Johanna doesn't try to say anything else. She doesn't have any soothing words or comforts; she definitely doesn't have any calming caresses; all she does have is an odd unspoken pledge stemming from the dying embers of companionship with a man who fell madly in love with a nutcase.
So, she stays. She doesn't try to reach out or rationalize. She doesn't weave tales of heroism or anything of the sort. She just pulls herself to the stony, hard ground, tips her head back against the wall, closes her eyes, breathes deeply and listens. She listens to the small hiccupped breathes of the newly widowed Annie Cresta until they level into the shuddering sighs of fitful sleep.
Only when she's positive Annie's cried herself to sleep does she leave and when she's locked safely in her own room, she finally allows herself a few stinging tears of her own, drawing her own knees to her chest and rocking back. And forth. Back. And forth.
It helps. But only a little.
TBC…
Maybe; if anyone even wants me to continue. Review please!