What was so terrifying about water?
That was what Gale had asked her, Johanna, once at breakfast, a few days after she had failed her "fear test" and rendered herself unable to fight with the rebels.
She had been just about to raise a spoon full of grainy oatmeal to her lips when he asked her, casually, "What's so terrifying about water?" She stopped and stared at him for a minute before meaningfully placing down her spoon with extra care. Before she had even turned to her left to face him, he knew he should not have asked.
She replied with a deliberately slow, moderated tone. "What?"
He was backtracking now, trying to recover the situation. "I just meant…you're from District Seven. Lumber is your specialty, right? If it were me, I'd have some subconscious fear of, I don't know, trees falling. On top of me." Johanna continued to stare. Gale threw his hands up in mock surrender. "Just sayin'. Don't be offended or anything." Surprisingly, he looked up to see her shaking in suppressed laughter with the beginning of a smile on her lips. "You think I would be afraid of a tree falling on me?" She let out two hearty laughs and went back to her oatmeal, apparently amused.
Gale let out his own airy chuckle, glad he had averted Johanna's wrath for the time being. "What? I thought it was a legitimate fear for someone of your District."
"Maybe for a toddler," Johanna replied, "but not for anyone with any experience. I learned the way trees would fall by the time I was four. It's just a trick of the trade, something everyone learns," she paused for a moment, thoughtful, "At least it is from where I'm from," she concluded a bit sadly.
Understanding flashed across Gale's face before he composed his features. "I guess you're right. Everyone from my district knew about the canary trick, even if you weren't a miner." There was a pause as the knowledge that Gale Hawthorne recalled the Quarter Quell (just as vividly as she did) sank in. He watched it. Of course he watched it. Because of Katniss. Gale interrupted her thoughts. "Does talking about home…help?"
Johanna nodded. "Sometimes. It reminds me that I still have good memories left, beneath all of the horrible ones."
Gale felt a pang of guilt. "I didn't mean it in a bad way- about the water." She eyed him, suspicious. "Just trying to see, you know, from your perspective." At this, she gave a loud snort. "Why? Of what interest am I to you?"
His eyes looked down at a spot on the table, unfocused. "In war, it's important to know your enemy, but it is also important to know the mind of your friends." Friends? Are Gale Hawthorne and I friends?
He continued, "Watching the Quell, I thought I knew you. Knew how you thought, acted," He smirked slightly, "Saw you chuck an axe like it was nothing. So fear of water just didn't match up with this image I had of you."
He looked over and saw Johanna gazing unfocused at a spot in front of her bowl, too. She blinked twice before she started, "Water was how they tortured me in the capitol. They'd soak me and send a current through it. Hurt like a bitch. Felt it all the way to my bones, too."
Gale made between a 'Hmm' and a grunt to verify her tale. She wondered briefly whether he had ever gotten shocked somehow in District Twelve before dismissing the thought.
"I have this nightmare every night- never anything different," she continued, "of me swimming down to the bottom of this huge fish tank, bigger than an aquarium, and there's something I want at the bottom and I don't have to come up for air but I can still never get to it. Because there are thousands of electric eels in the tank and if I touch one, I die." Gale looked up at her, sympathy reflected in his eyes, but she started down at the table, determined to finish. "I have this feeling of dread the whole time, just anticipating dying because I know that I never make it. But I see myself in third person, swimming down deeper and deeper and it just gets worse and worse, with these eels swimming around me. The deeper I go, the bigger they get until I'm so deep down that these eels are a hundred times my size, like 300 feet long, swimming all around me until I…" Finally, she paused to swallow the lump in her throat. "I just die, or I wake up. Hyperventilating usually," her laugh was shaky now, "it's just…awful. I can't escape it."
"You should try sleeping outside," Gale suddenly spoke, "where there are no walls to contain you. I bet your room feels like that tank when you wake up." Johanna nodded. How does he know that?
"This is Thirteen, Gale. We're not allowed outside."
"So sneak out. I'll help you." He seemed to consider something. "We're going tonight."
"We'll get caught."
"Maybe not. I'll sleep outside too. If you don't have the nightmare tonight, then we'll tell Coin tomorrow. Maybe you could be a soldier. Eventually. If it helped you."
"Don't you have to leave soon? On your important propo mission?"
"I'm not leaving tonight."
"And what if sleeping outside doesn't help, huh? What then?" Through the brutality in her voice he heard an echo of fear. Yes, what if, Gale?
"Think of something else then. But we're sneaking out. Tonight." Gale said determinedly as he picked up his dishes and walked to the depositing station.
Johanna sighed. She had never given much thought to Gale Hawthorne in the past. She was mostly sure that their little 'experiment' wouldn't work.
But she wouldn't mind trying. And she certainly wouldn't mind trying with him.
So this was sort of thrown together. Tell me what you thought please.