Head Over Water
01.
Bright sunshine peeks through the translucent aquamarine curtains, bathing the entire room with a pale blue-green light. A baby in a turquoise blanket sleeps in a crib in the corner of the room. Right next to the crib is a full sized bed with light green blankets and huge white pillows. Other than those few pieces of furniture, the room is strangely empty.
Suddenly, the door swings open and a wild-eyed woman with tumbling brown locks stumbles and bursts into tears at the sight of the turquoise room.
Another woman comes in, one with nothing but fuzz for hair and stares at the sobbing woman for a few second, then at the room, and gasps silently but says nothing.
"W-why must they tease me like this, Johanna?" the sobbing woman moans.
"No one's teasing you, Annie," says the other woman quietly. "The Rebellion is over now. The room is blue because of the curtains. See?" She throws open the curtains, and pure yellow sunlight streams into the room, causing the room to lose its eerie teal glow. "Nothing else."
The sobs stop, and Annie stands up and straightens her long white nightgown. "Of course," she whispers. But still, the look does not quite leave her eyes, and she floats like a phantom around the room, touching the walls, with silent tears still sliding off her face.
"But I liked the room blue," she adds, as an afterthought, closing the curtains. As soon as the room turns blue, however, she breaks down onto the floor and begins sobbing, a blubbering heap, rocking herself back and forth.
Then comes another wail, one from the crib in the corner, and automatically Annie is on her feet and making her way towards the baby. Johanna stares at the space where a blubbering mass lay just a few seconds ago, and then at the woman, the mother, softly cradling the baby, and ponders the odd mystery called Annie Cresta Odair.
02.
She's supposed to be the one taking care of Annie, but oftentimes she feels like Annie is the one that takes care of her.
Like the nights when she wakes up screaming and drenched in wet—water—sweat, it's Annie that will wake up, pat her dry with a towel, supply a warm cup of milk (not water, never water), and sing her a lullaby.
The first night was completely embarrassing.
But the nights after that, they have become completely necessary.
03.
Of course, Annie has her moments too.
Anything triggers them. The blue room. Pictures of animals. Maybe it will be a photograph, a program on the television, or even something as innocent as a phone call from Katniss. And unlike Johanna's short fits in the middle of the night, Annie's are mostly in the daytime, and hers are long and unmanageable and take hours for her to calm down. There is only one thing that can automatically get Annie back on her feet: her son, Arron.
"Why Arron?" Johanna asks one day.
And Annie's head swivels towards her, blue-green eyes unusually wide and protuberant. Not a good sign. Johanna braces herself for Annie's explosion, but instead she just says, "Why not?"
"Oh."
Silence for a few seconds. Then:
"Why not Finnick the Second? Or Finnick Junior or something."
Annie shrugs. "My son will be second to no one."
More silence. Then, Annie whispers.
"I already think of Finnick every time I look at him."
04.
She wakes up screaming and drenched in sweat. Water sticks to her hair, droplets of water dot the back of her neck and back, and she's soaked, just wet, back in the Capitol, ready to get electrocuted…
She needs Annie. Now. She looks around the bed, the small bare room, and all she sees is little Arron in his crib in the corner—no Annie anywhere. And suddenly, she's frantic. Where could Annie have gone in the middle of the night? Then it hits her: Annie could've had a nightmare in the middle of the night and, in the confusion, stumbled outside… Possibly killed herself.
She scrambles out of the bed, out of the room, and runs, barefoot—runs, outside to where the ocean churns. At the edge of the seashore, just out of reach of the lapping waves, she freezes, because there she is—Annie. A faint speck in the distance bobbing in the water.
She's drowning.
She has to rescue her. This is what her heart is telling her, yet every single cell of her body seems to be frozen. She lifts her foot and takes a single step into the waves, the farthest she's ever gone in her life. She can do this. Like she did with Katniss that one day, when she ran through the rain. She's doing this for Annie, just like Annie always pulls herself together for Arron, she has to pull herself together for Annie.
Curse her life.
She takes the second step, and then she begins to run into the waves. Water fills every part of her vision, and it's dark and she can't see anything and feel anything except white, water, and then pain, here comes the electrocution, and it's just pain, water, she's going to drown in this water, a slow painful death—
She's on the sand, wrapped in a towel, and Annie's concerned face leans over hers.
"Why did you do it, Johanna?" she asks. "I thought you couldn't swim."
Her eyes scrunch, and she gets ready to scream but instead coughs out water, ruining the effectiveness of her anger.
"For you, you idiot! I thought you were drowning and—" More water comes out of her mouth, and she can't even be properly angry because Annie's just looking at her sorrowfully and patting her dry with a towel, and honestly how can she stay mad at Annie?
"I'm sorry, Johanna," says Annie. "I just felt like going for a late night swim."
Curse her life.
05.
A week after the almost-drowning incident, she and Annie are drifting to sleep when Annie suddenly says, "It was brave of you."
"What was?" Johanna asks, half-asleep.
"Going after me when you thought I was drowning. Even though you have those water issues."
Johanna snorts. "Well you think I was going to let you drown? Of course I went after you. Just like you always snap out of your fits for Arron. I can never quite understand how you do that."
Annie yawns. "Of course for Arron. He's who the war was for."
06.
Fifteen years later, during the summer, they have a reunion in District Four, by Annie and Johanna's house.
Peeta and Katniss come first, along with Haymitch who's potbelly seems to have gotten even bigger. Then come the others: Beetee, Enobaria, Hazelle, Mrs. Everdeen, Delly, and even Effie Trinket seems to have somehow heard and made it.
They're having a barbeque on the beach, and everyone eats and stuffs themselves and speak of old times and new times, and some of them swim and splash. Annie's off teaching Delly how to swim, and Johanna just sits on the sand, away from the water, and surveys the motley group of survivors.
They look tired and worn but not broken, and on this day, they are all laughing. There aren't too many of them gathered, but among the old are several new faces: Beetee is trailed by a young girl who seems to be around six, and Delly has two little children and seems to be pregnant with a third, and even Enobaria has a small baby boy in her arms. Johanna searches the small group for the miniature versions of Katniss and Peeta and is shocked when she realizes that there still are none.
"No way," she says, standing up and approaching Katniss, who is sitting in the sand and laughing at Delly's attempts to swim. "You and Lover Boy still haven't had at it?"
"Hello to you too, Johanna," says Katniss sarcastically. "Come sit down with me."
She sits. "So, where is Lover Boy?"
Katniss sighs and points. "Off playing with the kids and making sandcastles."
Johanna looks at Peeta and Arron, who is not a baby anymore but fifteen years old, and how they are both teaching the younger kids how to swim and how to build perfect sandcastles, and says, "Lover Boy really wants those kids, doesn't he?"
"Look, can we change the subject?" says Katniss wearily. "I don't need the get-a-kid speech from you."
"Touchy," Johanna grumbles.
"Like," Katniss plows on, desperate to get away from the subject, "you've been living with Annie for the past fifteen years. What's it like? Is it hard taking care of her?"
Johanna shrugs and ignores Katniss's questions, instead staring at the children making sandcastles together. "You know," she slowly begins, "if there's one thing I've learned from Annie, it's that we didn't win the war for us. I mean, my life is in the same sorry state it was before. We didn't do it for us. We did it for them."
Katniss turns her head towards her and stares, and then looks at the children playing and whispers, "Maybe we did."
Epilogue.
This is life.
It's been a week since the reunion, and Johanna, Annie, and Arron are all walking to the ocean. Once they get there, Johanna knows what will happen. Annie and Arron swim together, racing and challenging each other, and Annie will somehow manage to outswim Arron half the time even at her age, and Johanna will sit in the sand, always away from the water's reach.
Arron has stopped asking "Auntie Johanna" to join them long ago, but Annie never stops. And every time they come to the ocean, which is frequent, Annie will ask.
"You want me to teach you how to swim?"
And Johanna will shake her head, and Annie will shrug and go back to swimming with her son.
They've reached the ocean now, and Arron is rushing off to jump in the ocean, but Annie stays behind and walks Johanna to her normal spot in the sand.
"You want me to teach you how to swim?" she asks.
Today, after fifteen years, Johanna feels different.
"I mean, it's really easy…"
And if Katniss can conquer her fear of having babies, then surely Johanna can swim.
"Okay."
(For you, Paige! Happy birthday!
Like, where did this come from? Was trying to do Finnick/Annie but somehow Johanna wormed her way into becoming not only a, but the central character.
Thanks to Justin for beta-ing. Sorry to Justin if it seems I've disregarded so many of your comments but reaarrrgh just time, time.
Not my best, I would say, but hope you like it!)