"Johanna's back in the hospital."
My brow furrows, concerned. I'd thought she'd passed her exam, had been assigned to another squad.
"Is she hurt? What happened?" A thousand scenarios run through my head. My voice crackles, sounds oddly desperate. Finnick looks at my through the corner of his eye, eyebrow raised in confusion.
"It was while she was on the Block. They try to ferret out a soldiers' potential weakness. So they flooded the street." Haymitch explains to me like it's obvious, but it doesn't help me. She can swim, I've seen her swim before, in the games. Not like Finnick, no one swims like Finnick, but she was a fair swimmer.
"So?" I question.
Haymitch rolls his eyes. "That's how they tortured her in the Capitol, soaked her then used electric shocks." My heart sinks. I should've known, should've seen. Her reaction to the rain, using a cloth to bathe… it was obvious. But I never asked, too consumed in my own problems. "In the Block she had some kind of flashback. Panicked, didn't know where she was. She's back under sedation." I'd thought her misery was because of the morphling withdrawals. I stand frozen, unable to respond. Finnick mirrors me, still as a statue.

"You two should go and see her, you're as close to friends as she's got." Haymitch's eyes flit between us. His words make it worse. I don't know what kind of relationship Johanna and Finnick have, but I realise that I know barely anything about her. I know she's alone, no family or friends. Not even a trinket to sit next to her regulation clothes in her anonymous drawer.
"I better go and tell Plutarch. He won't be happy." Haymitch continues. "He wants as many victors as possible for the cameras to follow in the Capitol. Thinks it makes for better television."
"Are you and Beetee going?" He knows I'm trying to prolong our conversation, and I see confusion flash across his face before he answers me.
"As many young and attractive victors as possible," He corrects himself. "So no, we'll be here." He takes off before I can ask him anything else, and Finnick follows him out.

I stand in the same spot, contemplating. I feel awful, Johanna must know everything about me and I didn't even ask her what had happened in the Capitol. The guilt weighs heavily against me, causing a lump to grow in my throat.
I paw through my memory, trying to find something, anything, I know about Johanna, something that can help her. Something clicks in the back of my mind and I begin to pace, waiting for Boggs to appear.
He comes out of Command a few minutes later. He's my commander now, so I suppose he's the person I'd ask for favours. I explain what I want to do and he writes me a note, excusing me from Reflection.

I head up to our compartment, thinking to use the parachute but it's too full of ugly memories. Instead I cross over the hall and take a bandage from the box of things rescued from twelve. It's strong, sturdy, perfect for what I'm going to use it for.
I'm stripping pine needles from a branch, unsure of exactly why my hands are shaking, when a conversation Finnick and I had crashed through the fog in my mind, causing me to pull up short.

"Did you love Annie right away, Finnick" I ask. "No." A long time passes before he adds. "She crept up on me."

I back up, hitting another tree and sliding down. The ground is damp but I pay it no mind, slumping against the tree trunk.
She snuck up on me.
The guilt, the awful feeling in my gut like I've swallowed a lump a lead, I didn't even realise. It's so obvious now.

She's been there, through the nightmares, comforting me. The first time I woke, after we'd moved in together, she'd hovered, unsure. Gentle hands brushed against my arm, hushed voice telling me I was safe.
Last night, when I'd woken, she hadn't hesitated, slipping into bed next to me, thin arm wrapping softly around my waist. She'd murmured about nothing until my heart rate slowed, kept me close while until I fell back to sleep, comforted by the steady rise and fall of her chest.
It took me a while to realise that it was helping her as much as it helped me, that she had her own demons waiting in the night. I didn't miss the way her body trembled beside me, shaking off the vestiges of her own dreams.
She was back in her own bed in the morning, as usual, and we never spoke of it. We never do.
The attitude, the ferocity, it all dropped then, in the dark of our bedroom. It was back when we woke, of course, and I was back to being brainless.
It's not just during the night that she's been there. When we're together, I don't think about Gale, or Peeta, or even the impending call to arms.
Not that I'm thinking about Johanna, it's more like it's just quiet, peaceful. She's like a calm point in a storm, anchoring me, keeping me sane.
I wonder if she knows, if she ever thought it when she slid her arms around me, keeping the night out. I suddenly find myself wondering more about her. What her favourite colour is, what she was like as a child, if she's ever been in love.

I stand up, brushing myself off and wrapping the pine needles tightly in the bandages, securing them with a vine from a nearby plant. I sniff the bundle, smiling when the smell of the pine needle seeps through.

My feet drag when I reach the outside of the hospital. I'm suddenly nervous as I stop outside her door. I'm not quite sure because it's not as if she knows about my recent epiphany. I watch her through the door as she struggles to stay awake. She looks so small, eyes wide as she fights the sedation. Nothing like the Johanna I met in the elevator, something that feels like a distant memory now. I know she's fighting sleep because she's scared of what it will bring.
I cross over to her bed and unsure of what to say, hold out the bundle.
"What's that?" Her voice is hoarse. She's been screaming.
"I made it for you." I explain as she takes it, her hands trembling. "Something to put in your drawer." She turns it over in her hands, viewing it. "Smell it."
She lifts it cautiously to her nose, takes a tentative sniff. "It smells like home." Tears flood her eyes.
"That's what I was hoping, you being from Seven and all." I smile softly. "Remember when we met? You were a tree. Well, briefly."
She grins lopsidedly, looking more like her old self for a moment before her face contorts. She grabs my wrist. "Don't go."
"I have to, I have to get Snow." I frown, resist the urge to tell her I'll stay. "Don't worry."
"You have to stay safe." Her grip tightens. "And kill the bastard." She grins in an unsettling manor. "You have to kill him, Katniss."
"I will."
"Swear it." She sounds desperate. "On something you care about."
"I swear. On my life." She doesn't let go.
"On your family's life."
"On my family's life." Her grip tightens but she doesn't let go. "Why'd you think I'm going, brainless?"
She smiles a little. "I just needed to hear it, you're all I've got." She mumbles the last part but I hear it anyway. My chest tighten. I move to leave, to let her sleep, but she pulls me back, still holding my wrist. "Stay?" Tears pool in her eyes again. "Please?"
I move to take a seat in the chair next to her bed but she stops me, shuffling over and motioning to the space she leaves in the bed. I climb up, settling down next to her as she curls up into my side. She presses the pine bundle to her nose and closes her eyes.
"Always."

YO YO YO
Hello! These are gonna be little snippets of a stupid headcanon and they're not gonna be put up in any order what-so-ever and they'll only go up when I've got time to write them so if I disappoint you I am sorry.
I have been a big Joniss shipper since I read Catching Fire forever ago but I've been too lazy to ever write anything.
I hope you enjoyed this though, dear reader! And if you did enjoy it, a review or a favourite/follow would be greatly appreciated.

PS! The title of this story is from the song M4 Part II by Faunts and you should listen to that.