[A/N]: This is an alternate ending to Mags' War. It presupposes you've read all 400,000 words of Mags' Weapon and Mags' War, in that order. I make no promises you will understand what's going on if you haven't.
If you've made it this far, Mags' Heir is an AU that diverges from Mags' War right before the final scene. If you've read Mags' War, I know you're thanking me for this.
When Annie gets in the car, Cashmere's eyes are wide and she's biting her lip. Annie waits, letting Cashmere get comfortable deciding how to open. The kids are in the back looking fine, so at least it's not them. Maggie knows Annie doesn't like talking in the car, but she's young. If it's important, she'll speak up.
Once Cashmere's pulled out into traffic and they're stuck behind a line of other cars, Cashmere says, staring straight ahead, "Johanna showed up."
Annie gasps, and she presses her fist to her mouth, biting back tears. Finnick's gone, then. It was kind of Johanna to come break the news in person.
It's like the end of an era.
"We went to the park this afternoon," Cashmere recounts, "and when we got home...well, as soon as we came in the door, Johanna said, 'I changed my mind. We're not letting Finnick die.' Now Finnick's sacked out on our couch, and he's so unresponsive I can't get a reaction out of him."
Annie jolts forward until the seatbelt automatically tightens around her. "Finnick's here?!" She must have heard wrong.
"Barely. You'll see."
Too distracted to remember to be tense about being in the car, Annie stares out the window at rush hour and tries to absorb this new development. Is this better or worse? What's Johanna doing? Not that Annie wants Finnick to die, but she thought there was a plan and everyone was on board with it.
"How did they even get in?" Cashmere wonders. "Not that I'd put it past Johanna to break and enter. By the time I got home, she'd already rearranged our whole living room—you'll see."
"I gave Finnick a key," Annie tells her. "Two years ago. I didn't think he'd ever use it, but it was the only thing I had to give him."
She remembers him blinking hard as he clenched his hand around it.
Annie hugs the kids automatically as soon as they get out of the car, but at the front door, she shushes them and asks them to wait a few minutes.
The first thing Annie notices when she opens the door is the sound: ragged, rasping breaths, punctuated by coughs. The second is Johanna, pacing up and down the hall. When she looks at Annie, her eyes blaze.
The third is that Annie no longer recognizes her own living room.
The fourth puts them together. The rasping is coming from near the window. The couch is near the window now.
Annie comes over to Finnick and brushes her lips against his temple. She tries not to shudder at the way the skin is drawn taut over his skull, and she puts a hand on his shoulder. Finnick doesn't react. Breathe in, breathe out.
Quickly, she takes in the scene. Maggie and Evan want attention, Johanna's here on a mission, Finnick's dying, and Cashmere's reverted to waiting for someone to tell her what to do.
"Honeybee, why don't you sit with Finnick while you watch the kids? No matter what's going to happen now, I know he treasures every minute with you. I'm going to start dinner, and Johanna and I are going to talk. Maggie, yes, I want to hear about your day, I promise. But first I have to take care of some adult business, and then you can tell me everything."
Without speaking directly to either Finnick or Johanna, Annie squeezes Finnick's thin shoulder briefly, then walks toward the kitchen, knowing Johanna will follow.
In the kitchen, she pulls down her cookbook from the shelf and flips to the soup section, looking for something she can make from the ingredients she has on hand. Okay, there's a big bag of lentils she can dig into that will be more than enough to feed everyone. Then it's just a matter of going through the fridge and spice rack and finding things to give it taste and substance.
"So you changed your mind?" Annie begins, briskly, as she pulls out an onion. A little limp, but it'll do. Garlic powder and pepper from the spice rack, but nothing too heavy for Evan's little stomach. Carrots.
"There's surgery," Johanna begins, defiant. "There's oxygen. There are options. The problem isn't that he doesn't want to live, it's that he's tired and it would take too much work to get his body back into a condition where he could enjoy life again. But he could. So I'll do it, if he's too tired."
Maggie comes running in and grabs Annie around the leg. "Mama, I-"
Gently but firmly, Annie pries her off. "If you're sick or hurt, Mummy's in the living room. Otherwise, you're going to be respectful of other people's time and you're going to give me a few minutes. You're a big girl, you know how to tell time. When the clock says six ten, then I'll hear about your day. Do you understand?"
Maggie pouts. "Yes, Mama."
"Why don't you go show Finnick your new puzzle? I don't think he's seen it."
"But I-"
"No."
With that, Annie starts chopping the onion on the cutting board, showing she means business. She looks back at Johanna and nods for her to continue.
Deflated, Maggie wanders off.
"There's no decent medical care on our side of the world, so here we are. I hope you don't mind putting him up." From someone else, that might be a friendly way of finding out if their unexpected arrival is an inconvenience. From Johanna to Annie, it's a dry You don't have a choice, but here's your chance to pick a fight if you want to.
When Annie doesn't respond, Johanna continues, "I'll solve all the medical problems, all you have to do is give him a place to sleep. I'll sleep outside if you want."
Annie ignores that little dig. "I thought he had made his decision to die on his own terms, and we were going to respect that."
"He's not making decisions any more," Johanna says dismissively. "He abdicated all that and said I could do whatever I wanted."
Annie's eyes narrow. This doesn't sound good, not at all. "Did you take his nightlock pills away from him?"
"Nope, still in his pocket. He could have interrupted this process at any time, but he let me drag him halfway around the world without a murmur. My job is to make living easier than dying."
Well, that's promising, at least. Johanna's in such a position of power over Finnick right now that taking those pills away would have been an act of abuse in Annie's eyes. Still, as sympathetic as she is to the impulse to protect Finnick, she doesn't like the attitude. "Despite the promise we all made to help make dying as easy as possible on him?"
"Uh huh. That's where the changing my mind comes in." Johanna's chin is set in intractable lines.
Annie starts the lentils boiling on the stove. She's going to set a milder version aside for Evan, and let the rest simmer longer with seasoning.
"You licensed to drive in this country?" she asks, chopping carrots. "Or are you expecting Cashmere to do that? We're kind of out in the suburbs, and we only have one driver in this household."
"Look," Johanna says condescendingly, "I used to drive logs down a river with my pole, and the injury rate on drives was—ridiculous. I've driven lumber trucks. Military jeeps. I'll figure it out. I might want to borrow the car occasionally, if it's not too much trouble."
Again, the words are right, but it's taking an effort for Annie not to match her tone of voice. Reminding herself that one of them can be an adult about this, she answers pleasantly, "It sits in the driveway most of the day, so you're welcome to. Meanwhile, we're a bit short on bedrooms, but you're welcome to sleep on whatever floor or couch space you find. There's plenty of spare bedding. You're also welcome to eat whatever we're eating, but if he has special dietary needs and you have the money to help out with that, it would be great."
"Deal. I wouldn't have brought him out to the suburbs at all, except that the exchange rate is awful, and while we have some money between the two of us, if we're paying his medical bills, it'll be easier if we're not also paying rent. And by easy I mean possible. Last time we stayed a few days in a hotel, and all we—he—got was a few examinations, no treatment."
Annie's observant enough to catch the slip. So Johanna has, or had, medical problems too. Well, not surprising. It makes Annie soften toward her a little. "You're welcome to stay," she repeats. "But you yell at my kids once, or you lay a hand on them, or scare them, and you're out. Finnick can stay."
"Fine."
In the living room, Finnick and Cashmere are sitting on the couch, her arm around his shoulders. Opposite them, Maggie is kneeling at the coffee table, where her 50-piece jigsaw puzzle is spread out, partially assembled. Cashmere's helping her with it.
Evan is sitting on the rug, playing with his stuffed tiger and alphabet blocks.
Annie joins them and hears about everyone's day. She lets Maggie come sit on her lap, and she pitches in from time to time with the jigsaw.
The lentils are simmering and softening on the stove. It would be the perfect evening, if Finnick were half as engaged as Mags was when she couldn't talk. From the occasional flicker of his eyes, Annie can tell he's watching and listening, but he's not joining in at all. The old Finnick would, at the very least, have been pointing at a puzzle piece on the coffee table and showing Maggie where he thinks it goes. And nudging Johanna to get her to say the things he can't.
Annie can see why Johanna's scared. She can also see why Finnick, if this is how he feels, would rather be dead.
For dinner, she has Johanna join her and the kids at the table so she can quiz Johanna about Finnick's diet. She suggests Cashmere stay with Finnick, and she brings them soup and rolls on a tray. Cashmere looks as frightened as Annie feels, but she flashes a grateful smile when Annie presses her hand reassuringly.
At the kitchen table, Annie and Johanna argue.
"He doesn't need more protection," Annie insists. "He needs to get the message that what he wants matters. He'll be the first to say that he's been protected."
"Yeah, but to hear him tell it, that expired when he was fourteen or something." Johanna rolls her eyes. "For years now, he's gone around insisting that if he's ever in trouble, he's to be left to his own devices because he's, and I quote, 'the protector, not the protected.'"
Annie's eyebrows fly up. Okay, that's bad. She realizes with a jolt that Johanna must know Finnick far better than she does now. "I see. Has he been getting what he wants for the last couple years, at least?"
Johanna snorts. "You mean other than the part where he's dying? If he asks for it, he gets it. But if you know him, you know that list is short."
Annie does. "What has he asked for, lately?"
"About what you'd expect. Touch. Attention. Heat. Water, if only in the bath. Since his health has seriously declined, looking out the window. Food that isn't bland, as you know."
"Did the recipes help?" Annie asks. She doesn't want to sidetrack the discussion, but she desperately needs to feel like she made some sort of difference.
Johanna shrugs. "He doesn't talk a lot about food, but when he still had the energy, he spent some time tweaking them, and then when I took over, he trained me on his tastes."
"Oh, good, he gets to have tastes. What else?"
Johanna hesitates. "I'm not sure how to describe this. Being taken care of? But in very subtle ways. He won't ask for it, but if you put a blanket around his shoulders, things like that, he looks happier."
Annie nods. That sounds familiar. If he's been letting himself accept it more often, that's something. "I think we can provide that, then."
"That's not why I brought him here," Johanna insists.
"I know. But he'll be in good hands meanwhile." Annie's still planning to prod a bit and find out if medical care is going to help or hurt, but she does think that more attention can only help.
Johanna's first breakthrough on the medical front is simply a generic checkup, with an opportunity to talk to the physician about existing health problems. Finnick doesn't say anything.
Casually, Annie observes, "If nothing else, if we find out about any nutritional deficiencies he may have, that'll give me a better idea of what to cook for him."
Finnick doesn't react, but when, right before she leaves for work the morning of the appointment, Annie asks if she should call and cancel it, he shakes his head.
The test results come back the next day with a vitamin D deficiency, and Johanna and Annie put together a shopping list.
"I don't mind driving them," Cashmere says quietly to Annie in the bathroom the next morning, helping Evan brush his teeth.
Annie shakes her head. "Johanna needs something to do."
Cashmere can understand that. So once Maggie's at school and Annie's been dropped off at work, Cashmere takes Johanna out. They stop first at a driving school and pick up some reading materials to get her started. Then, on the way to the grocery store, Johanna quizzes Cashmere on what she's doing.
"What's that for? What does that do? Why did you wait so long to turn? The way was clear."
The constant questioning makes Cashmere feel like she must be doing something wrong, like she's about to fail out, but she reminds herself that this isn't the academy, and students are allowed to ask questions. It doesn't mean Johanna's criticizing her. Even if Johanna's smarter and knows it.
She's nervous around Johanna at the best of times, but Annie says this is important, and there isn't anything Cashmere wouldn't do for Finnick.
"I drove trucks back in Panem," Johanna tells her, "but in remote areas, and the controls here look pretty different."
Cashmere remembers driving a train, but says nothing, because the controls were almost fully automated, so it doesn't count. This car is the first machine she's ever operated with this many manual components.
In the store, Cashmere puts Evan in the shopping cart while Johanna pulls out the shopping list she and Annie put together last night.
Johanna marvels at the selection. "If I wanted anything like this back home without making it myself, I'd have to barter for someone to cook for me. Pre-cooked pasta with sauce, meat, and cheese, really?"
"Yes," Cashmere tells her, "most of the research in this country goes into making food easier."
"I don't know whether to call everyone here lazy, or efficient. Must save a lot of time." Johanna pulls a box of pancake mix off the shelf and shakes her head. "Is there anything you can't get here? I haven't seen anything like this since the Capitol."
"Annie mostly complains about bananas and cinnamon. Uh—for Finnick, would nutrition shakes be useful?" Cashmere hazards. When Johanna gives her a blank look, she explains, "We had them at the academy, and I know Two did too. I don't know if they're any good if you're sick."
"I'm not a doctor, but I suppose if we came all the way here to find the good doctors, I'll put that on my list of questions. Show me what you have here that I've never heard of, then."
When they get to the milk section, Johanna sighs. "Milk was always one of those things he would drink to stay alive, but since we're iffy on whether staying alive is still his goal, let's make this as pleasant on him as we can. I don't suppose there's vitamin D in those shakes?"
"I'm not sure," Cashmere says, feeling again like she failed a test. Then she tries, "Does he like orange juice?"
"Dunno," Johanna answers. "You try getting oranges where we were. If by some miracle any came through, we ate them, peel and all. We didn't do anything fancy with them."
Annie might know, but she's at home with the kids. Cashmere still does the shopping.
On a gamble, Johanna picks out the fortified orange juice. "If not, the kids'll drink it," Cashmere tells her. "We don't often get it, because milk is cheaper, but they love it as a treat. I always get the fortified kind for them. That's how I knew it existed."
Annie goes through the bags and helps put things away when they get home. "Oh, good, orange juice with vitamin D. He'll love that."
Johanna and Cashmere share a small, conspiratorial smile of relief.
But when Johanna's alone with Annie in the kitchen, she says in a low, stunned whisper, "He weighs less than I do."
Annie's heart surges in response to Johanna's pain, and Finnick's. At Johanna's brief gesture at her body, she takes a good look, and nods. Annie's height, but quite a bit thinner. Finnick ought to weigh fifty pounds more than Johanna.
"He's not eating?" Annie says softly. Not really a question.
"Well, he hardly has time to chew between breaths. But even when it's something he likes and can eat, he eats a bit and then says he's tired. I haven't been pushing it, because—but..."
Annie understands. How do you take care of someone who wants to be left to die in peace, even if they've said straight out they don't want to die?
"I'm not going to push him," Annie says. "But no matter what he decides in the end, I'll try to make things that aren't a chore for him meanwhile."
It's easier because Finnick's basically not a picky eater, but when Johanna says he's been tired of seafood for a while now, Annie's surprised but can't blame him. So with a large chunk of her recipes ruled out, Annie spends more time than usual flipping through her cookbooks.
The kids are pickier, especially Evan, who's only known a few months of privation and doesn't remember it. Maggie's learning too. "I don't want peaches!"
Evan joins in with the opposite cry. "I want peaches!"
It's a challenge Annie finds interesting. She likes having hobbies that are different from her day job, which is one reason she was more interested in home improvements after she switched her job from handyworker to electrician.
Johanna doesn't notice the food enough to complain. She only alternates between frantic activity, and hovering protectively by the arm of Finnick's couch.
Annie never confronts her for time alone with Finnick, just slips in sometimes when Johanna's busy elsewhere. Finnick never makes much of an effort to communicate, but somehow Annie senses that he needs occasional attention from her.
He's consistent about taking up the entire couch with his legs. Only Cashmere's allowed into his space and into his arms. Annie and Johanna perch on the arm behind him, where they can stroke his hair or put a hand on his shoulder.
He doesn't react when she joins him, one way or the other, until one day Annie drops something onto his lap. It takes him by surprise, and he opens his eyes to get a good look at it.
It's soft and brown, matted and torn. It's her old fur coat.
Finnick smiles a little, running his fingers through the fur.
"I was never able to get it back into anything like its original condition. But then, you know it was always a comfort object for me."
Finnick accepts the comfort object and tucks it up against the back of the couch, where he can rest his cheek against it. Annie puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Listen. I know you have a relationship with Johanna now, and I'm not going to interfere. If she's making the decision to live easier for you, and that's what you want, I'll help any way I can. But if she's defying your wishes and you're too tired to put up a fight, just let me know."
In answer, Finnick slides his hand into his pocket and slides it out just long enough for her to see a small bag of pills.
"She told me. But if you want to be left alone until you're ready, I'll make sure you are. Otherwise, I'm just going to carry on feeding you and making sure everyone in this house gets along."
At that, Finnick pats the back of her hand once in thanks.
Annie understands. "Yes, don't worry about keeping the peace with Johanna. I can manage that."
She waits, but he doesn't say anything about needing an ally, so she sighs and lets that go. She starts thinking about what else he might need. When she's lying in bed, when she's cooking, on her way to work, Annie's thinking about Finnick and trying to figure out what's going on in his head. And she comes up with some ideas.
Now she's kicking herself for not challenging him the last time he was here, when he was willing to talk. Though he seemed so sure that he was doing the right thing, and he asked her not to fight him, so of course she didn't. And then he left so quickly, before she had time to piece together what he might have needed to hear from her.
So she finds him again when everyone else is out, and runs her fingers through his hair while he nestles against her fur coat.
"Listen. Finnick." Annie wishes now that they had more endearments between them, but they were always navigating around his time as a commodity in the Capitol, and trying to carve out something for themselves that wasn't that. "I know I said I moved on, but you have a place in my heart, always. That doesn't change, no matter what else does."
That isn't the part he needs to hear, quite, but it's important to Annie to say it, and she's building up to the next part, the part she's rehearsed.
"You're welcome on my couch for as long as it's comfortable. If all you do is snuggle with Cashmere and eat my cooking...well, I've been enjoying cooking for you and fussing over you. You wouldn't have to be dying for it to be okay. I wouldn't mind doing it under better circumstances. I never got to before, because you were moving too fast to slow down, and I was in no condition to take care of anyone the way I wanted to."
Annie's not sure, without any feedback from him, how explicit she should be. You don't have to solve problems. Stay here where there are no problems to solve. Stop feeling guilty about resting. Stop dreading getting more energy if Johanna has her way.
But something tells her to take it slow. He can't make a leap like that. She remembers when she used to try to get him to stop ignoring his own desires during sex, and she had to start by giving him orders. Counterintuitive, but it worked. So today she's making this about what she wants.
Annie holds her breath, waiting for an answer that isn't going to come. But he's sitting very still under her hands, and Annie can hear him thinking about it. She dares one more step.
"If you ended up back on your feet, you wouldn't have to do anything you're not doing now. It's your turn to be the one taken care of. Indefinitely."
Annie cries in her bed that night. Silently, not wanting to disturb anyone else. He needs to talk to someone, but his lungs won't let him get out the words for so complex a topic as death. Johanna says he can still manage isolated words or short phrases, and does occasionally with her. The fact that he doesn't with anyone else says a lot about his mental state. Not being able to talk is making him feel worse, and the worse he feels, the less he makes the effort to engage.
There's no therapist she can send him to. All she can do is try to guess at what he needs to hear, and trust to his relationship with Johanna.
It's the middle of the night, and Johanna's sitting on the kitchen floor, wide awake. She was heating up some soup for Finnick, who naps during the day and somehow gets through each night alone and awake.
But suddenly she sank to the floor, overcome by the weight of self-doubt. Stunned, she simply sits there, a chill in the pit of her stomach telling her she's gotten everything wrong.
Since they got here, Johanna has been calling hospitals, quizzing staff, and reading up on everything she can find. She's been preparing the medical front like a campaign, planning to ease the way so that all Finnick has to do is let himself be guided through the process of recovery by someone who knows what they're doing and has the tenacity of a bulldog.
But now that she knows what she'd be getting him in for, she can see why Finnick opted out of treatment the first time around. He said something at the time about how difficult it would be, and how there was no total cure, but from a distance, it was easy to dismiss those reasons. Just needs Johanna-level determination.
This, though...this shit is hardcore. Just the prep for surgery is insane. The appointments, the tests, the other treatments that have to be tried first. Then the twelve-hour surgery, and the one-to-three week hospital stay while you gradually relearn to eat solid food, walk, and have tubes removed from your body one by one until you no longer look like a robot.
Then, oh but then, it gets serious! Breathing exercises every few minutes. No long naps on the couch during the day. Physical therapy. Appointments five days a week for months. More medications than Johanna's ever heard of anyone taking at once, even victors. A compromised immune system for the rest of your life, to keep your body from rejecting the foreign lungs.
And if all goes well, you might live a few more months, a year, three years. If you make it to five years, you're doing great. Lung transplants are not like other transplants, it turns out.
She had imagined that having her here, taking him to appointments, reminding him to take his meds, etc., would make the process easier. But now she sees in the pamphlets that the recovery from surgery is so drastically difficult that the hospital won't even give you a transplant unless you have a dedicated caretaker. What she'd been thinking of as a significant contribution on her part would be no more than the bare minimum necessary to make any progress at all.
Now what? Has she dragged him halfway around the world, in his condition and against his wishes, for nothing?
Should she go through with it to make the journey that was so hard on him worth it? Or should she swallow her pride, admit she made a mistake, and ask him if he'd rather die here or back home?
The next morning, Johanna swallows her pride enough to hand the most detailed of the pamphlets to Annie, and wait silently while Annie flips through it.
"Having second thoughts?" Annie asks, when she looks up. To her credit, she's not nasty about it the way Johanna would be.
"I knew he had good reasons for the choice he made, but I thought if he just had more support...but this is unbelievable."
To Johanna's surprise, Annie's less pessimistic. "Give him time. I know he doesn't have much time left, but give him time alone with Cashmere. In the worst case, it'll help ease him out of life. In the best case...well, I see him come to life a little more around her. She might be what he needs to tip the balance. It's not just his lungs," she adds. "He's clinically depressed. I can get you a pamphlet if you want to see the checklist."
Anyone would be. Johanna's skeptical that Cashmere can do anything about this, but she has no reason not to go along with the suggestion, so she does. She's collected all the information she needs and gotten the referrals from the first physician he saw. She doesn't press Finnick yet, though. Instead she lets him soak in as much affection and good food as he can get, while she starts attacking the financial angle.
They've have been lucky, because their ascetic lifestyle in the mountains has allowed them to save quite a bit of money, but they're still going to need to supplement their savings.
Annie goes over her own savings and decides what she can afford to contribute. Johanna adds that number to her total and does some more math.
Then she applies for a work permit here, and starts fund-raising. Pearleye. Plutarch. Katniss. Peeta.
Yes, the first one is already sending pensions, but maybe for a war hero as visible as Finnick, there could be a little extra for wounds incurred in the war. It can't hurt to ask. And the last two...Johanna bares her teeth. It was already hard enough to arrive at a draft of Plutarch's letter that didn't begin "Remember putting nerve gas in the arena?" and she doesn't even blame him. She did it, though, wrote very professionally, and she counts that a small victory. Anything is worth not hurting Finnick's chances.
Pearleye writes back that she stepped down from her position as soon as victory was declared, but that she has forwarded the request on to the powers that be. Johanna fucking knew that, but Pearleye's the one Finnick worked under. "You must have some influence left, use it!"
Plutarch is as forthcoming as she'd hoped. Until she has a commitment from Finnick to go through with the surgery, and she hasn't even broached the idea to him, Plutarch will refrain from sending actual money, but he does write saying that he's set aside the funds.
Katniss and Peeta send what little they say they can, but..."Yeah, yeah, fucking economy in East Panem. Cry me a bloody river."
As usual, Johanna's going to get a job and make it happen herself.
Finnick doesn't resist when she takes him to a specialist to get a recommendation. No treatment yet, just a bunch of examinations. As soon as she gets him home, she puts him to bed, grateful beyond words for his silent fortitude. If he's doing this at all, he's doing it for her, though some part of her hopes that he's hoping she can make this doable. Even now, she can see him not wanting to die.
Annie brings him ice cream in bed. Johanna considers yielding her place to Cashmere, but she can't bring herself to quite yet. She lies there beside Finnick, holding him and cradling him, using her hands in his hair and down his back to thank him without words, and to make silent promises that he's not alone. If he's still Finnick somewhere in there, then that's what he needs.
The next day she lets Cashmere join him in bed, while she goes and resumes her job hunt. She knows she has useful skills that translate anywhere, and the ability to pick up new ones quickly, but it's a matter of convincing interviewers of that. She has no work history here, but then again, when she started working the log drive, she not only had no history but was fighting an uphill battle against sharply drawn gender lines. At least here she's not told to her face that she can't do the work because she's a woman.
Finally the day comes when Johanna has an announcement at dinner.
"I got offered a trial period." She's buzzing with energy even through the tiredness. "Most hiring committees were wary of relying on my experience in Panem, but I got one who was willing to take a chance on me as manager."
"That's wonderful!" Annie enthuses. "What will you be doing?"
"I'll have a team of software developers reporting to me. I'll be in charge of making sure the projects get done on time and up to standards. I mean, I don't know anything about software, but they've got people for that, and I didn't know anything about trains or electricity or plumbing either. I just asked around until I found the people who did, and I got them to agree to do what they knew how to do, and I put them in touch with whoever they needed to be in touch with, and I checked up on them regularly and held them accountable for their progress. And that was with random people I found in the community, who I had no authority over, and who I wasn't paying. If I can do that, I can do this, easy. That's what I said in all my interviews. Finally found someone who believed it."
It's heartbreaking for Annie to watch Johanna trying not to let anyone see her glance quickly to the side to her partner of several years, who was always the first to sing her praises, and not get a reaction out of him. It's up to Annie, who barely knows her, to make up the difference.
"You'll be running the company in no time," Annie predicts. "I can't believe you've only been here six months and you're probably already making more than I am."
Johanna scrunches her nose. "Not quite. They're paying me less because of my lack of formal work experience, but they said that I can expect to double it in the next couple of years if I can walk the walk that I just talked."
"'Not quite' means 'almost', right?" Annie prods. When Johanna makes a face, allowing as how it does, Annie laughs. "You're amazing. We need to celebrate this. Come on, what's your favorite food? Or I'll bake a cake, whatever you want."
"You do realize why I got this job?" Beneath Johanna's condescension, Annie reads a fear that Finnick resents her insistence on paying medical bills he specifically asked not to incur. And fear that it'll all be for nothing.
But no matter how it affects Finnick, Annie wants to cheer Johanna on for her own accomplishments.
"Exactly," Annie tells her. "We need more reasons to celebrate."
"Well, where I come from," Johanna says scornfully, "there's no fanfare every time anyone does anything. You just get on with it." Then she jerks her head up, surprise on her face. "Finnick just kicked my ankle, so I guess we're celebrating." She hastily tries to conceal the relief she gave away. "Obviously he likes your cooking."
Annie, equally relieved, gives Finnick an approving look, then smiles at Johanna. "Mags would have poked you with her cane. And Finnick knows he gets my cooking any time, no need for an excuse. This is about you getting my cooking. Now when you figure out what you want, let me know, and I'll make it happen."
She makes not only food happen, but support. Annie asks a lot of questions, after the orientation before Johanna officially starts, her first day, her first week, her first month. She learns that geneticists are tackling the problem of how to grow crops more efficiently on this small island. Part of their approach involves software that can crunch a lot of numbers about genes. Someone has to write this software. And someone has to manage the people who write the software.
That someone is Johanna. "I'm not learning about software yet, though that's in the works, and I'm learning almost nothing about genetics. But there are procedures for testing the software, and prioritization meetings, and procedures for when something goes wrong, and the boring bits like making sure everyone clocks in on time and the employees who know how to do one aspect of the programming don't all take vacation at the same time."
Annie asks at first to be supportive, but she comes to be genuinely interested. Ayre is still very new to her, and even in Three, she never worked with software. She makes comparisons to her own job, the co-workers even more than the technical aspects, because people are people.
"I get eyerolls sometimes, but my co-workers have been surprisingly understanding. It's not like back home, where I got 'mad girl' comments all the time."
"No, it's not much like home," Johanna agrees. "When the developers on my team resent me, it's for the same reason they resent the male bosses: if you don't write code, you're not one of them. Some of them don't understand why us managers get paid more if they're the smart ones.
"Okay, sure, I don't understand what you do. But you're not very organized, and you have no handle on the bigger picture. Something catches your interest and you put your nose to the ground like a dog on a trail and ignore everything that'll actually get the product shipped on time. And you won't let go of your work until it's perfect, but nothing's ever perfect. So I have to declare a project finished and pry it from the cold, dead hands of the developers. And that takes a lot of judgment calls."
Annie nods. That all sounds very important. "Mags wanted me to do something like that for the rebellion. Management, as a civilian if I wasn't comfortable with military. But leaving aside the fact that when the time came, I still couldn't leave the house...I'm just better with my hands. I like people, probably more than you do-" Johanna snorts. "-But when I'm working, I just want to focus on what's in my hands. I have to watch out, because I get snappish if I'm interrupted while I'm concentrating, even by someone I like who's being perfectly reasonable. Cashmere can tell you all about that," she says with a wink and a smile at the door.
Cashmere's coming in from putting the kids to bed. "Maggie read me a story tonight," she announces.
"Wow, good for her," Annie cheers. Even more than Maggie, though, she's cheering for Cashmere. Getting to put the kids to bed each night may be the single most healing part of her life, and Annie's so glad for her.
Cashmere smiles warmly at her. "And yes, I remember, but you told me not to take it personally. I try not to interrupt you, now that I know."
"And I try to remember that I'm just grouchy because I was concentrating, not because you did anything wrong, and I try to take a deep breath and not take it out on you." Annie had to learn quickly, because it kills her inside a little every Cashmere shrinks in on herself and starts apologizing for she doesn't know what.
"You don't any more," Cashmere assures her, mostly truthfully. She looks around the room, deciding where she's going to sit, and chooses to come sit at Annie's feet. They've put in a couple more chairs since Finnick arrived and monopolized the couch, but Cashmere's angling her head like she wants her hair played with.
Annie unbraids and rebraids her hair while they talk. "Didn't Nessa do something with crops and genetics?" Cashmere asks.
"Oh, that's right," Annie says. She stares at the floor while she tries to think. Nessa didn't talk much about work, not like Raych. "I don't think it was genetics. I think she was working on environmental conditions, like soil, for making them grow better. Anyway, we should invite her over." She explains to Johanna, "She and her wife were the ones who took us in when we first arrived."
Johanna makes a face and directs a pointed glance over at the couch. There's a reason Annie and Cashmere have stopped entertaining at home.
"Well, we'll see," Annie says. He seems to be sleeping, sitting up the way he mostly does, but with his breathing, it's hard to tell.
The one good thing is that, as far as Annie can tell, she gradually ceases being Finnick's substitute for Johanna in showing interest in her job. She and Johanna start to have a relationship of their own, even if it's just commiserating about bad days on the job and congratulating each other on good ones. Johanna stops looking for a reaction from Finnick when she brings home news, but at least she seems eager to share her daily updates when she and Annie get home.
"I got an ergonomic chair!"
Annie smiles at Johanna's enthusiastic announcement. Coming in from the car, she's carrying Evan, who missed her and wants cuddle time, and Maggie's running ahead because she was in the middle of something that she had to interrupt to go pick up Mama. Logistics are still complicated: Johanna's driving to and from work because she needs the practice, but there's only the one car, and Cashmere needs it during the day for errands, picking up any sick children, and Finnick's appointments.
So Cashmere still has to gather up the kids, drive to Johanna's office, get out of the driver's seat, and let Johanna drive to the pickup spot where Annie's waiting, then take them home. It's enough to make Annie start wondering if they should move into town, but she really, really doesn't want to, and it would be expensive. So would buying a second car. Better just to play musical chairs.
Cashmere unlocks the door, while Maggie bursts into the house and runs to her room, and Annie turns to Johanna. "Thanks for the ride. What's an ergonomic chair? Gently!" she says to Evan, who's pulling on her hair, and she loosens his little fist.
"Just a sec," Johanna answers. She pokes her head into the living room while Annie carries Evan into the kitchen. He seems to be coming out of the phase in which he was so excited that he could walk that he refused to be picked up, ever. Now he alternates between that and wanting attention more than he wants to be independent every minute of the day.
"Asleep," Johanna reports, returning. Annie's trying to shut her ears to the sound of rasping, and she clutches Evan to her chest, determined not to imagine what it would be like for every breath to be that painful. A lack of imagination has never been one of her shortcomings.
Evan squirms his protest. "Mama!"
"Sorry, baby," Annie says quickly, and sinks into a chair where he can sit on her lap. "Did you have a good day?"
"Me and Mummy sung songs. And Maggie was a bad girl!" he informs her with unbecoming delight.
"Oh, really? You know, it's not nice to sound so happy about that."
Evan screws up his face in a comic attempt to look sad, and Annie laughs. Well, he's only three.
Once he gets all the one-on-one he wanted from her, Evan pulls off her lap with his usual attention span and runs off to more exciting activities.
Annie looks up at Johanna, who's pulled up a chair across from her, and she laughs. "Kids."
"Spawn," Johanna says agreeably, making Annie laugh. "An ergonomic chair, since you ask, is one that doesn't aggravate my back. I didn't know they existed, and I wouldn't have asked if I did. Asking for accommodations was a death sentence where I come from. But someone from the company came to visit the office today and went around asking everyone about their workstations. They have some idea that you're more productive if you're comfortable. So I ended up getting to pick out a better chair, and they're paying for it. Even though I'm still on a trial period."
"Strange new world," Annie agrees. "I got an accommodation of my own: while the company I work for will call most of us at home in case of a client with an emergency, I'm not on the on-call rotation list. I just can't. I can go out if I have a routine, but I can't hop in the car on no notice and head out. So I make less money than if I did off-hours work, but I consider that a good trade-off." She hesitates. "How is your back, if you don't mind my asking?"
Johanna gives a noncommittal grunt. "About as good as it's going to get, I guess. Of all the substances I've ever tried, the best trade-off so far is one that knocks me out at night, but doesn't leave me too groggy next morning. The pain ramps up throughout the day, but nothing I can't power through." She shrugs. "The doctors here want to micromanage my life in exchange for painkillers, but if I'm stuck visiting sawbones all the time anyway, might as well humor them and get a pill out of it. Even if their much vaunted 'superior medical system' can't come up with any improvements on this same painkiller I had in Panem. Let's hope they're better with lungs than pain, yeah?"
Annie's making a sympathetic face when Cashmere comes in, sees that they're talking, and looks around. "Do you need any help with dinner?"
"No, just resting a few minutes before I start," Annie tells her. "I've been on my feet all day." Then, looking at her wife more closely, she guesses that she wants to talk. "Well, since you're up, do you mind peeking in the slow cooker and telling me if it looks done?"
While Cashmere's leaning over the counter, Annie shoots a meaningful look at Johanna.
Johanna jumps to her feet. "I'm going to go...check on Finnick."
Then Annie walks over to the counter and puts her hand on Cashmere's arm. "Everything okay?"
"Maggie threw a tantrum earlier," Cashmere says softly, so that they can't be overheard from the living room. "She didn't want to come with me to pick you up."
"You mean you interrupted her in the middle of something and she yelled at you?" Annie says with exaggerated shock. "I don't know where she could have learned that."
Cashmere laughs a little. "But you don't yell, you just get impatient. And hardly ever." Then she grows serious again. "I didn't know what to do," she says, her head lowered. "I can't discipline children, I never know what to do, and even when you tell me what's appropriate, I can't do it without reliving every time I was made to feel like I was letting everyone down. And then I feel worse because I know that children do need discipline sometimes, and I'm not doing my part-"
Annie shakes her arm gently. "No, Cashmere! We've been over this. I'll handle the discipline. I don't like it either, but I can do it without having flashbacks. And what do you mean, not doing your part? You're the one who stays home with them, you're the one who gets up with them in the middle of the night so I can go to work rested, you're the one who drives them everywhere...Discipline is my part, just like cooking. Just tell me what she did and I'll decide what's appropriate. Did she hit you?"
"No, but she ran away, and I had to grab her and haul her to the car."
"All right," Annie says, "then I'll talk to her, and if she understands what she did wrong, then we'll leave it at that. If not, I'll decide."
Over dinner, Johanna is still raving about the wonders of ergonomics. "They just went around the room asking everyone what would suit them best! Two people even have standing desks. I couldn't, I need my back support, but if that's what floats your boat, that's what they get you."
"It's sure not Panem," Annie says.
"Hey, where's the other little fish spawn?" Johanna asks, finally noticing Maggie's absence at the table. "Is she being punished?"
Annie's temper flares. She raises her chin to look Johanna in the eye, and her hand actually tightens involuntarily around her knife. "Do you honestly think I would punish a child by depriving her of food?"
Johanna just shrugs. "Gran did. Forgot you guys were soft in Four."
"I spent my whole childhood afraid my family would stop thinking it was worth feeding me!" Annie has to count ten breaths before she can continue calmly. "You know who I want to punish with food deprivation? President Snow."
"Bastard's dead," Johanna informs her.
"It made the news here," Annie snaps back. "But just so we're clear, I will let Maggie go hungry over my dead body."
Johanna's unabashed. "Okay, so where is she?"
Annie glares a bit longer, then she lets herself cool down. "She's in her room working on a big secret project that we're not allowed to see until it's done. I told her that because I inconvenienced her earlier, I would make it up to her by letting her decide when she's ready to come to dinner. She's five. I imagine she'll be along soon."
Sure enough, only a couple minutes later, the sound of running feet can be heard in the hall. "I'm hungry!"
Told you, Annie mouths, and Cashmere turns her head to hide a smile.
"Mummy, Mama, look!" Maggie comes in brandishing a piece of paper and makes everyone look.
It's a credible drawing of a tower in colored pencils. "I made it with my sticky blocks," Maggie explains. "Then I drew what I made. You have to come see the real thing!"
"That's amazing," Cashmere tells her, craning her neck to inspect the paper on the table.
"Yes, and we'll come see what you built right after dinner," Annie promises.
"That's actually pretty decent," Johanna says. "For a five-year-old? That almost looks three-dimensional."
"She's showing talent," Cashmere says, "so they're teaching and encouraging her in art class. It's a good school."
"Architect in the making." Johanna looks approving.
"She can design our next house," Annie jokes, "and I can build and wire it. Evan, your job is to become a plumber, and then we're all set."
Evan looks up at his name, but the joke has gone over his head, so Annie just ruffles his hair while she serves Maggie.
After dinner, Maggie's rushing them all to go to her room to see her tower, when Annie signals Cashmere with her eyes to wait. "Maggie, what did we decide before dinner? What did you promise?"
"Oh, right." Reining in her impatience, Maggie turns to face Cashmere and clasps her hands behind her back. "I apologize for the in-con-ven-ience I caused you. Can I help you with something?"
"Apology accepted," Cashmere says with equal seriousness. "Do you want to help me clear the table and do the dishes now?"
Maggie sighs, seeing the great unveiling of her architectural wonder slip further away, but she accepts her fate. "Yes, Mummy."
"I could have yelled at her," Annie says quietly to Johanna, "but I always try talking to her first, and punishing her only if that doesn't work. So I told her, yes, if I didn't have an anxiety disorder, she wouldn't have to come pick me up every day. But if she's ever sick at school, she knows we're going to drop everything to come get her. So we agreed that I would make it up to her if she would make it up to Cashmere. I told her that we're family and we help each other out. Seems to have worked."
Glancing over at the table, she sees Maggie carefully balancing the plates she's carrying, and Cashmere sliding a chair into place so that the girl can reach the sink.
"Hmph," Johanna says. "I would have gotten a tougher lecture from Gran about being too old for that kind of behavior, but then again, I can't say her taming methods exactly worked."
Annie laughs. "Bear-taming is hard. But seriously, it's been good having you around. Good having a second driver, a pair of hands, everything."
"And I haven't eaten the fish spawn." Johanna sticks out her tongue. "Even though bears normally eat fish."
"Well, we're all still scared of you. But I want you to know you're welcome here."
Johanna nods briskly. "I'm going to go keep an eye on him. As soon as he wakes up, I'm pouncing on him and making him eat something."
"He's still not..."
Johanna makes a face. "Not enough. Not unless Cashmere knows something I don't know."
Annie shrugs. "You'd have to ask her. She spends the most time with him."
Only once Johanna has disappeared into the living room does Annie turn to the door she went through with narrowed eyes. Did she run away the moment I started appreciating her?
The first time Finnick held Cashmere after returning a wreck to her house, she was anxious about him, focused on the kids, and so very much the opposite of relaxed that the experience was nothing like what he missed. It just reinforced what he already knew, that he's falling apart, and nothing's enjoyable any more. Johanna's on a wild goose chase if she thinks she can get him back on his feet.
But with the passing of time, he and Cashmere have managed—almost—to recapture the state they used to fall into effortlessly, of being so wrapped up in each other that the rest of the world fades away. He can feel her pressing close, abandoning herself to the sensations of being enveloped by a body that knows hers, and he can feel himself doing the same.
The only barrier they run up against is that he's dying, and she's grieving, and they can't give each other the verbal comfort they used to. He'd always thought words were superfluous between them and they could communicate with their bodies, but now that words have been taken away, Finnick is realizing how much he took them for granted.
She won't talk because she doesn't know what he wants to hear or how he's reacting to what she's saying. And he won't talk because it's too tiring. A few words to her he might be able to physically manage, but then he's afraid he'll get pressured into communicating more with everyone, and get pushed to his limits again. It's much easier just to set expectations low while he prepares for a very long sleep.
It starts to become tantalizing, though. Holding her and almost being able to achieve joy again. Several times Finnick finds himself opening his mouth, preparing to murmur the litany of endearments that he knows would close the gap for both of them. It's all they need. They never asked much of each other.
Then he remembers, and he closes his mouth.
Finnick's been trying not to actively miss what he can't have, because missing life leads toward resentment and away from resignation. But in no universe will he ever push Cashmere away when she comes to him. He welcomes her with open arms every time, and he presses his cheek to her hair.
"Sweetheart," he breathes once. Fuck it. She won't tell. He'll never have to say anything again if he doesn't feel like it. She's the most undemanding person he's ever met. It takes so little to make her happy. Even now, he can feel her taking a deep, surprised breath and nestling closer to savor the moment.
She deserves so much better than this. And he deserves better than to have to sit here and miss her as much as she misses him. Annie says he can have this forever if he wants: good food and time with Cashmere. Johanna might be disappointed to lose her problem-solving partner, but won't she lose him just as much if he's dead? Maybe she can accept it if he just wants to stay here, where he can find rest and some simple comforts after a meteoric life.
He asks, once, just to confirm, when he and Annie are alone in the house. "I can stay?" he whispers. They're the first words he's spoken to her since arriving. It hurts, because he wants to say so many more.
"You can stay," Annie says. The touch of her hand between his shoulder blades is gentle. "Dying or not. No conditions."
Annie may tell polite lies to strangers and acquaintances, but between him and her there's always been an honesty that's sometimes painful but always reassuring. If she says she's happy to have him here indefinitely to feed and fuss over, then she means it.
So he doesn't ask Johanna how her medical research is going, but when she starts taking him to appointment after appointment, he goes. If he decides against treatment, no one will force him, not even Johanna. And if he decides it's worth it to buy more time with Cashmere, then it won't hurt to have endured test after test. Then if it stops being worth it, he'll still have his pills.
One day, he ends up in an education session on lung transplants. Johanna's tense beside him, because this is the place that really lays out how incredibly difficult the recovery process is, how strict your regimen is for the rest of your life, and how short the rest of your life may be regardless. There's no way to take this one day at a time, the way he's been doing. Either he commits to going through with the procedure, or he doesn't.
When the time comes, with the memory of Annie's reassurance, the promise of joy with Cashmere, and the protection of Johanna beside him, Finnick signs the paperwork. Paper after paper, acknowledging the risks, committing to the recovery process, and agreeing that he's making an informed decision.
He can see Johanna trembling in the car on the way back, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. She doesn't say anything, not wanting to push her luck, afraid of finding out that he doesn't really want to do this, and riddled with doubts. Knowing all this without a word, Finnick pulls her into his arms when they get home. "It's okay," he murmurs. "It's all right."
He still talks to her, sometimes.
[A/N]: See, I do love Finnick!