Johanna can't even rage this time. She has hope, and hope is scaring her worse than anything.
District Four will start the rebellion. We'll join them. There won't be a Quarter Quell.
It won't happen. It can't happen.
She paces the house, biting her nails, waiting for...something.
Finnick said the fighting would break out by the end of the year!
She's been watching the news obsessively all year. Of course the Capitol will try to downplay any unrest, but she wants a whiff of anything that'll tell her something is happening. Instead, she's gotten a vomit-inducing amount of Katniss Everdeen, and she resents the girl now more than ever.
Abernathy sobers up for you and started schmoozing the Gamemakers like there's no tomorrow, and Finnick disappears into the Capitol. Next thing you know, Crane's announcing a rule change. Now your little trick with the berries is going to get us all killed.
And here she'd always thought at least Blight kept it together enough to be presentable in public, while Abernathy was an embarrassment to his district. But nobody sobers up to mentor Johanna, no. Of course not.
When she can't stand it any more, she bangs her way into Blight's house, the first time she's been in there.
He's still sitting in front of the blank television, stunned, like he hasn't moved since the announcement. Johanna hasn't done anything but move.
"So that's why we woke up to so many Peacekeepers," is all he says when he finally raises his head to meet her stare.
She'd noticed it too: six Peacekeepers pacing the streets of the Village, instead of the usual two.
"It's going to be us," she says numbly, like some kind of idiot who goes around stating the obvious.
"It's going to be you, maybe," Blight corrects, sounding remarkably uninterested. At her quizzical look, he elaborates, "Getting crowned. Not me."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." It comes out less sarcastic than she intended. Right now, a vote of confidence from Blight is all she has. "Are they going to have enough tributes to pull this off?" She paces in Blight's living room while she runs through her memory. "Damn them, they are."
She glances at Blight on the couch, and his eyes meet hers, but both of them are thinking the same thing. Even if it messed up the numbers for the Capitol, neither of them is going to take themselves out of the running early. If you want us dead, you're going to have to kill us.
"You want a drink? I need a drink." Blight finally rises, like Johanna's arrival has broken his paralysis.
Johanna does, she wants it so badly that she finds herself reaching for the offered glass. She wants a drink, she wants her pills, anything. The numbness that she'd fought so hard for so long she'd welcome now. And the hell of it is, she could go back on the pills more easily than she got off them. Sleep through the Hunger Games, wake up dead.
But she stops herself even as her fingers are closing around the glass. "Can't. I have to get ready." At Blight's look, admiring, envious, and skeptical all at once, some of her fire starts to return. "You think the Careers are drinking?" she challenges him.
Finnick called her an honorary Career, and now she has to think like one, if she wants to live up to that salute. Pay attention to her diet, train every day, don't overdo it. No academy? Fine, she'll train herself.
Besides, if I start, I may not be able to stop. That's one thing the Capitol taught her about herself when they got her started on pills.
"Champagne, maybe," Blight says cynically.
"Oh, fuck them!" Johanna chokes. "They better not. They better know I'm coming for them."
"Better if they don't," Blight warns her. "You won't be underestimated this time."
Johanna takes her fire and stokes it. "Oh, yes, I will," she promises herself. Seven's tributes have a long history of going out in the bloodbath because the lumberjacks are taken seriously as opponents, but she's going to make it past the first day, and she's going out with a kill. "Excuse me, I have a busy summer ahead."
The first thing she does is head into town, to look at the selection of food on offer and see what strikes her as a Career menu. The entire way to Despard, she has a Peacekeeper escort. Making a break for it is out of the question.
They stand outside the store, waiting patiently without acknowledging her. She can tell this is how it's going to be until the Reaping.
Inside, no one meets Johanna's eyes. The shopkeeper accepts her money while staring at the countertop, and the other two customers shuffle away and become totally engrossed by the selection on the shelves, like being a victor is contagious.
She wants to shout at them not to treat her like a leper, but she's been a stranger in their midst for four years, and that's not going to change now. She finishes her transaction in the conspiracy of silence imposed on her.
On her way out the door, Johanna catches sight of her own personal Grim Reapers, and suddenly she has to say something.
In a voice that they can hear in front of and behind her, she issues her battle cry. "Four victors from Seven. Two of them me!"
No one says anything, but she can feel the vibrations in the tense atmosphere. The dead one. The zombie one. And her.
Without waiting for a response, because she wasn't talking to them, Johanna heads home. But as she's putting her food away, she's got more on her mind than just her diet, or even the Quarter Quell. She's as good as promised Finnick, and by extension District Four, that she'd make herself useful here in Seven. But she was expecting a little more time and a little more communication.
All Johanna knows is that they need lumber, and so, obviously, she should keep the lumber exports up. But she doesn't know how to do that except by encouraging submission to the Capitol. Which she could do, as a victor. But this is not a happy district, and she doesn't want to discourage resistance. She thinks she was supposed to wait until the revolution started, encourage resistance, but make sure lumber went specifically to Four.
But now she doesn't know how to wait until the revolution starts, now that her days are numbered in weeks. She'll die in the arena, without any chance to fight back.
Unless Four has a plan to keep the Hunger Games from happening. She doesn't. She can't.
So she trains.
When the phone rings one evening, Johanna doesn't even jump. She just stops her pacing in confusion, wondering what on earth that sound is. When she finally traces it to her living room, she stares at the phone like she's never seen one.
She has no friends. She hasn't given her number to anyone. Maybe the Capitol, calling its victors with instructions for the Quell?
The rings keep echoing through the house, unrelenting.
Not sure what she's going to say if it is, say, the President, Johanna picks up the phone.
She's met with a light voice on the edge of laughter, so far from what she was expecting to hear that it takes her a minute to place it.
"Finnick?!" Johanna sinks into the excessively padded chair by the end table, clutching the handset in shaking hands. "How did you get my number? Even I don't know my number!"
Finnick chuckles but doesn't give away his secrets. He gets straight to business.
"I imagine you've heard the news. Just thought I'd call and give you a heads-up out of professional courtesy. Mags and I are planning to volunteer."
All right, this is code. This is code for the rebellion, and she has to be sharp enough to decipher it over a tapped line. "Okay...I'm ready," she promises him. Whatever it is you guys need, just tell me.
"You'll have to be," Finnick agrees. "A district like yours, with only two living victors, you're not going to have a say about ending up in the arena. Here in Four, maybe, we have more options, but the way we figure it, victors are going in and dying no matter what. We have no control over that part. So Mags and I will be in the arena."
"In the arena," she echoes. You mean in the front lines.
"In the arena," he repeats, placing ever so slight a stress on arena. "Certainly not what anyone was planning, but there is absolutely no way to avoid the Quarter Quell, so we make adjustments. I'll be seeing you in the arena, and I was hoping we could talk arena strategy.
"Odds are there'll be an axe in the Cornucopia," Finnick continues. "The audience has probably already forgotten you didn't use one last time. You're District Seven, you're famous now, so that's what they'll be expecting from you. And with the kind of shape most of the other tributes are in, like Mags, they'll be seeing you as one of the competitors this time around."
"In the arena," she says. Please tell me we're talking about a rebellion.
"I know you're in shock too. We all are. It'll be you and Blight, since neither of you will have a choice. Very few districts will have a choice: One, Two, and Four have made close to a clean sweep since the early years. So I'll be volunteering to go into the arena a second time."
Finnick's making it as clear as he can. He knows what she's thinking, and that's why he keeps repeating himself. District Four could start rebelling now and maybe not send tributes. But the other districts won't have a choice.
But none of this explains why Finnick is coming to kill them.
Johanna's not sure where to go with this information. Something is off, and for the life of her she can't figure out what. "Is this an invitation into the Career pack?"
"Well," Finnick says easily, "the Career pack depends on who comes from One and Two. But I definitely want you on my side."
Are we starting a rebellion in the arena? Is he saying Four's going to ally with the outlying districts?
"You know I'm with you," Johanna says, but hesitantly. She wishes she knew what was going on. Dammit, if she were in Four, she could be in on this plan. Why did she wait so long to decide that they were for real? She could have proposed a year sooner.
For the same reason that even after Finnick hangs up, Johanna sits there trying to decide if there is a rebellion. Why send tributes to the arena if you don't have to? Why postpone a rebellion that you've been planning for decades, just to throw two of your best people away?
The only thing that makes sense is that the rebellion is an illusion, and Panem's youngest victor wants to be its only twice-crowned victor. That would mean Mags just wants to keep Annie safe, which is believable enough.
Either way, Johanna's going back.
So she trains. The Peacekeepers continue their silent vigil, without interfering, as she sprints through the Village or finds trees to chop. They don't even say anything when one of her trees lands on an empty house, wrecking the roof. They want a show? She'll give them a show.
Strength, speed, agility, axe-hurling and spear-throwing. She could be better, but she's not going down easy.
Planning to take out these Careers? Her dad's query is mild.
At least one!
Johanna's heart is racing and her breaths coming in gasps. It's easy to attribute this to exertion, as she swings her axe hard and fast at the line she's marked out on the tree.
Are you coming to kill me, Finnick? Is that what this is all about?
She's found her rage again.
The moment she sets foot in the new Hunger Games facilities, Johanna doesn't hesitate. She doesn't even waste time begrudging the fake affair. Before they can even get started with training, she's already grabbed Finnick's hand and dragged him up onto the roof. Let everyone think it's a final goodbye before they have to get psyched up to kill each other.
This is serious business, this is life or death, so she makes Finnick sit down cross-legged on the ground while she climbs onto his lap and puts her lips right next to his ear. He drapes her long hair over her shoulder. It looks like he's kissing her hair, but when she realizes it's blocking any hidden cameras from reading his lips, it makes her glad she decided to hold off cutting it until after her final interview.
Johanna seizes both of Finnick's shoulders in a death grip and hisses, "Is this a real alliance or an arena alliance? Because I can do either, you know," she warns in a snarl. "And I will kill you, Odair. I will kill you."
Finnick gives her a tender, exasperated look that had better be for the cameras. "Johanna, what makes you think I want you dead? There's a real alliance this year, and we need you."
Johanna narrows her eyes. "How do I know it's for real?"
"Because I don't need to be here. Four didn't have to send tributes, but we couldn't do anything about the rest of you. So Mags and I are here to try to get as many of us out alive as possible."
Barely appeased, Johanna demands, "All right, who's 'we'? And what's the plan?"
Slowly, her suspicions subside as Finnick rattles off a list of names that she commits to memory. None of the other Careers are in on it, but the head Gamemaker is, which is the only part that gives her hope. "He's leading this operation. Four has no power here, but what Mags has been doing there for years, he's been doing here. We've joined forces, and there's going to be a rescue if we can hold out that long."
"Okay." Johanna takes the first deep breath she's taken since the announcement. Not as good as what she'd hoped for from Four; better than what she'd feared. "What's the plan?"
"Well, here's the part you're not going to like."
Johanna's eyebrows fly up. "Oh, right, I was so thrilled by the whole Quarter Quell that I knew there had to be a catch somewhere."
Finnick is dead serious. "Katniss is the plan. She needs to be alive when the rescue comes."
"Katniss is the reason we're here!" Johanna spits. "Everyone knows it."
"I know. They're scared of her. And they should be. She has unlimited propaganda value for us. They want her dead, and we have to keep them from getting what they want, don't we?"
Johanna growls. "I suppose."
"We need her to rally the districts after the Games. What we have now is sporadic rioting combined with a lot of people holding back because they don't want a repeat of last time. Four can't fight this war alone, and we wouldn't be fighting it this year at all if not for Katniss."
"Of course. You wouldn't have stuck your neck out like this for just anyone."
Finnick has the decency to look regretful, but then he winks. "Well, if Mags and I weren't here, I assume you'd just win, without my help. Which is why I need you. Don't kill Katniss."
Johanna works her lip between her teeth, annoyed at herself. Still a sucker for being taken seriously.
"Fine," she concedes. "Or anyone in the alliance, I suppose. Wait, you didn't list her name earlier," she accuses.
Finnick wrinkles his nose. "Yeah, that's the other catch. So far we haven't been able to get through to her. She's new, she doesn't know any of us, she doesn't trust us...She might listen to Haymitch, but he doesn't think it's safe to tell her, I do but she won't listen to me...the upshot is that we might have to work around her."
"Oh, fabulous. This was sounding too easy."
"Look, I can't tell you what to fight for or what price to set on your life. But I can tell you that Mags and I wouldn't be here if we didn't think Katniss coming out alive was more important than us coming out alive. I'll try to have your back as much as possible, Johanna, but that may not be much."
Johanna swallows while she tries to accept the realities. Nothing's going according to plan, and she might still die in there. But if there is a rescue, and it turns out Finnick really didn't have to come, she's never going to doubt him again. "This is a battle, then."
"That's how Mags and I are seeing it," Finnick confirms. "If we die, we die in the war Mags has been planning her whole life."
A minute ago, Johanna was trying to think like a Career. Now she has to think like a soldier and a Career. She can't let anyone see how scared she is, not after she made such a big deal about last time being an act.
(It was partly an act.)
Better to have a task, something to focus on.
"I've got your back," Johanna finally promises. "I won't let Katniss kill you."
Finnick grins his relief. "That's my honorary Career. Meanwhile, we're going to try to loop in a few of the others in the next couple days," he concludes. "We won't be able to say anything about a rebellion, but I'm hoping I can get a few more tributes and mentors to understand that Katniss and Peeta need to stay alive as long as possible. Let them fill in the blanks however they want."
"I'll see what I can do to get Blight on board. Is there anything else I should know about the plan itself?"
Finnick thinks, then shakes his head. "Not much. We'll all need to cut out our trackers right before the rescue, but at the last possible moment, if we're still capable of it. I'll let you know before we go into the arena if the Twelve tributes are in on the plan. If not, one of us will need to cut out their trackers. Other than that, there are a lot of parts I don't know. Everyone has their job, and the less each of us knows about the different components, the easier it'll be to keep the whole plan a secret."
Johanna tries to accept that too. Her life is in the hands of some Gamemaker. But then, in what scenario isn't it? It scares her to have her hands tied in the arena, when Katniss or even Finnick could turn on her and kill her when she least expects it. But it gives her hope at the same time. Hope that, as always, comes down to whether Finnick can be trusted.
"You know, if you were trying to neutralize me and play to win, this is how you'd do it," she points out.
He sucks in a breath through his teeth and looks annoyed. "Or you could just kill me," he suggests, too casually. "Just get Katniss out if you do, okay?"
Johanna looks down at the rooftop, half-ashamed, half-defensive, entirely pissed at being manipulated. "The other Careers aren't off limits, right?"
"Knock yourself out, as long as I don't update you with any more names."
All right. This way, she can hedge her bets. Focus on killing some other credible competitors. It'll double as keeping Katniss safe if that's for real. And then, if it doesn't look like a rescue is coming, take out Katniss, and Finnick if she has to. No different than any other arena alliance.
"I should have married Rudder," she mutters.
"I wish," Finnick says ruefully. He's still, waiting for her to work through this. She can feel his heartbeat where his chest is pressed against hers. Enviably steady, neither fast nor slow. She's sure he can feel hers, jackhammering in her chest.
"All right. I'm with you."
Just in case the cameras are watching, just in case this is her last chance to have someone believe in her before she dies, Johanna tightens her arms around Finnick, feels him clutch her convulsively for a split second, and then she pulls away.
All the way down to remake, she walks ahead and doesn't once look back.
The next morning, Johanna confronts Blight in his room. He's sitting bleary-eyed on the edge of his bed, looking as dazed as she feels, but with alcohol as his crutch instead of anger.
Johanna stands facing him with her hands on her hips. "I mean to be the one walking out, but if I'm not, it might as well be someone from home. You want a shot at all, you shut up and listen to me." Then she outlines his orders.
"If we manage to hook up, keep your head down and follow me. I won't kill you unless we're the last two standing. I'm working on getting us alliances with the outlier districts. Right now, that means Twelve. Don't kill them. Katniss and I are practically a Career pack. I'll let you know if I can add any other districts to the list. Oh, and don't kill Mags. She's dead meat anyway, and she can play the pity card with the audience. The last thing you need is to give the Gamemakers a reason to take you out."
"Yeah?" Blight looks unimpressed. "What're you gonna do if Odair comes along, hotshot?"
Johanna rolls her eyes. "Pretty boy? Maybe I'll distract him with sex." Her voice drips with scorn. If she actually thought Blight was a threat, she'd warn him off Finnick too, but she's trying not to give away more than necessary.
Blight answers with a straight face, "That might work."
"Look, I'm trying to keep you alive, asshole." I guess it was too much to ask for you to appreciate that someone has a plan.
"Dunno why. You're the only one in Seven with a chance at walking out."
Johanna looks levelly at him. "Well, someone in this district's got to mentor. Enjoy your last taste of booze. I'll be in the training center."
Johanna meets Mags and Finnick for lunch. They've got a revolution to organize.
"Good news and bad news," she tells them. "She wants nothing to do with either me, or you." She points to Finnick. "The good news is, she seems to like you." Mags.
Finnick just looks at his mentor and laughs. "Trust Mags to pull an alliance off that no one else can. It makes no difference, then. Mags and I are a package deal."
"That's why I said it was good news," Johanna says. "Watch your back, though. Abernathy says she sees you as the biggest threat in the arena, bar none."
She had to get this information by pretending to flirt with Abernathy, who at least made up for it by keeping it lively and meeting her barb for barb. Not too shabby, for a drunk. Trading quips may not have been boring, but she does wonder how plausible it was. Then she remembers Finnick's reputation. Older women: experience, not looks.
Fine, she'll be the go-between. With Katniss refusing to take any of Finnick's hints, it's less suspicious for Johanna to meet with Abernathy and Finnick than for them to meet directly.
"As well she should!" Finnick smirks. "She's just not taken with my charm, is the only problem."
"Tell her to join the club," Johanna mutters. "Is there—what? What do you want?" She looks at Mags, who's prodding Finnick and preparing to sign something.
Finnick immediately turns and gives her his full attention. He's still her best interpreter, though Johanna's learning.
Mags draws a square around her face, then mimes pointing at the table and handling invisible objects, pinching her fingers together, turning her hand this way and that, moving objects around on the table. When Finnick still hesitates, she draws another square, around his face this time, and it clicks.
"You want printed out pictures of all the tributes so you can bring them up in the conversation?"
Mags nods, and Finnick is on it.
"Johanna, get us some printouts with head shots? Not a screen—she wants to be able to manipulate the pictures to get her points across better."
Johanna wants to tell him to get the printouts himself, but Mags is nicer about it. She says please and thank you with her hands and her smile.
Johanna scowls, but it's Mags. She does wonder what they're so eager to talk about behind her back, but she goes. Maybe it's just Finnick mother-henning and refusing to leave Mags.
Either way, she has bigger problems. Once she's back, Johanna starts grumbling, "Where does she get off, being so difficult? 'I won't cooperate unless protecting Peeta is everyone's top priority,'" she mocks. "'I won't team up with anyone who has a hope of protecting Peeta.'"
"The rest of us have something to lose too, you know," Finnick agrees, letting Johanna see a hint of resentment for the first time since they showed up in the Capitol. She doesn't understand why he's not more resentful. You don't see him or Mags refusing to support the revolution unless they get what they want. "I tried," he sighs. "Tried telling her I collected secrets, hoping she might be interested in mine. No dice. Tried hinting that we know about her engagement and she has a built-in support circle, because we know what it's like to be under the presidential microscope. Nothing."
Johanna just curls her lip. Katniss made her bed, she can lie in it. Johanna at least had the sense to pick up on Finnick's hints at her Victory Ball, even when all she saw was a glittering heartthrob.
Mags, meanwhile, starts taking them methodically through the tributes.
Gloss. "Don't trust him," Finnick says, and Johanna and Mags nod.
Cashmere. "Not with us."
Johanna glances at him sharply. "But you wanted her to be?"
Finnick shrugs. "If she wanted to, she has the same reasons to join us as anyone here. But she's with them, so that's all there is to it."
Johanna looks up, surprised, and sees what she thinks is a slight look of disapproval from Mags. But Mags moves on.
Brutus. Finnick laughs. "Yeah. I'm watching my back. We may get lucky if he's in too much of a hurry to come after me and doesn't wait until he's got the rest of his pack, but he may be cautious enough to-"
Enobaria. Mags has moved her picture so that it overlaps Brutus'. Finnick tries to read some meaning into that. "Are you saying she's the bigger threat? Or that even if he's not smart enough on his own to hold off, she may talk him into it? Both. All right, well, we're all agreed to watch our backs around all four of them."
"I'm bringing down a Career," Johanna says, low and menacing, a promise more to herself and the dead than to anyone here.
Mags taps Katniss's picture. Finnick laughs again. "Her too. I'll keep the Career pack from killing Katniss, and Katniss from killing me."
Then Mags mimes shooting. Finnick's getting impatient.
"Yes, I know she's no Sheer. I'm not underestimating her. You think I would have tried that stunt on a proficient archer? Sheer was only comfortable with a sword. Can we move on?"
When Mags turns to Beetee's picture, she taps it with her finger. She and Beetee go way back.
Johanna nods and informs them with a certain sardonic relish, "Yup, the other two Katniss wants in her alliance are Nuts and Volts."
Finnick puts his chin on his hands and thinks this one through. "Beetee's solid, and Wiress is brilliant. And they work well together, so, I'd say a good choice overall. But you know what this means, Johanna?"
"Katniss is picking allies she thinks she can babysit and then take out if it gets to the endgame and they haven't been offed yet?"
Finnick shakes his head. "Yes, but not that. I'll be staying with Mags, and joining up with Katniss as soon as I can. If I can't get to her in the bloodbath, though, you and I'll both have to do our best to meet up with her."
Johanna interrupts impatiently, "We've been over all this."
"I'm not finished. If she doesn't end up with Beetee and Wiress, and neither do I, they're going to need a warrior to protect them."
"Oh no." Johanna grinds her teeth. "Oh, hell no. If she wants them as allies, she can take care of them herself. She's a warrior!"
"She's to be protected at all costs," Finnick reminds her, but it's Mags who has the final say. She pushes the pictures of Beetee and Wiress in front of Johanna.
Johanna fumes through her nose, but Mags' hands are still moving, nimble as ever. She slides Katniss's picture in front of Finnick, then Peeta's. Finnick's just started nodding, when Mags' own picture comes out of the District Four pair and lands in front of him, face down. Mags taps the blank white back of her picture, and gestures toward Katniss and Peeta's faces.
This is one sign that doesn't need interpreting. "No, it's not going to come to that," Finnick insists, a little too loudly. "I can protect all three of you."
Mags' fingers are still arguing with him, but Finnick won't back down.
"Were you even watching my Games? I can do anything. I'm amazing. I'm the best there is."
"Given that," Johanna begins, interrupting the debate. "Given that you're the best, would you consider switching guard duty with me? There are two of them I'm guarding, and they're both bigger than I am. I can kill them, no problem, but protecting is harder. I honestly think I'd have a better shot at keeping Mags alive. She's more my size, and less of a liability." Johanna's five foot four, and Mags is a good four inches shorter and quite a few pounds lighter. If Johanna needs to carry Mags out of danger quickly, she's pretty sure she can, whereas she doesn't have a prayer of doing more than dragging Beetee.
She sees the panic set in on Finnick's the moment he realizes that what she's saying makes sense. His mouth opens and closes while he visibly tries to come up with something other than No. No. Absolutely not.
"You're just trying to get out of babysitting Nuts and Volts," he finally accuses her, in an obvious move to stall for time.
She doesn't deny it, just smirks. "Yeah, and so are you, but at least I can come up with a reason."
Finnick flounders more, his face turning hot. He looks to Mags for rescue, then looks suddenly terrified that the mastermind of Four thinks it's a brilliant plan. But she's got a faint smile on her face and a look of uttermost tenderness, and she puts her hand on his on the table.
Johanna rolls her eyes to cover her envy at having a mentor like Mags, but Finnick suddenly exhales at Mags' touch like it's released him. "Package deal," he says conclusively. "That's my reason."
Johanna's put out, but smiling a little too. She didn't really think she had a chance of splitting them up. "Fine."
"If Mags and I don't end up with Katniss after the bloodbath," Finnick promises Johanna, "I'll do what I can to get Beetee and Wiress while we're looking for her. And if I do end up with Katniss and Peeta, and you with Nuts and Volts, I'll do what I can to find you and take over babysitting."
"I'll do what I have to do." Johanna sighs. "Can I give Katniss a hard time about it afterwards, though?"
"Depending on how the Hunger Games play out," Finnick tells her, "you may have to stand in line."
Mags pushes at the photographs and moves them along. The clock is ticking.
Mags lets Finnick give her a hand getting out of her chair after lunch, and she lets him escort her to her room at night. For over a year, she's been keeping a firm hand on her independence. Even now, she makes him go do reconnaissance by checking out the other tributes in the training room, while she practices survival skills that are years rusty, but that come back with surprising ease.
But she's stopped pretending not to lean on him. With the Quarter Quell only days away, it's more unclear than ever who's taking care of whom. Finnick goes through his days cocky as hell, acting like his victory is a foregone conclusion. The only doubt he publicly admits to is whether Mags will make it to the arena, and for that he insists she needs him nearby in case she falls and breaks her hip, or has another stroke. They've always used her age as a camouflage for their teamwork.
When he disappears behind her closed doors at night, though, it's to lie beside her in bed, tense, shivering, silently wrestling with the thoughts that haunt him. Mags is almost glad the stroke means she isn't expected to say anything, because she can't find any words. Her hand, holding his or stroking his hair, is all the comfort she can give.
Tonight she has no comfort. As soon as they enter her room, Mags moves to sit at the breakfast table and pulls out the pictures of the tributes that she had pocketed earlier. A sharply inhaled gasp from Finnick tells her that he knows what's coming.
"Mags-"
Katniss. Peeta. And herself, face down, only the blank white back of the printout showing.
Finnick comes to her and kneels by her feet. Mags takes his hands in hers, and then she touches his cheek gently, telling him that she knows this isn't easy for him.
"It's not going to come to that." He may be repeating his earlier words, but he's not laughing this time. They come out in a whisper, a plea with the universe.
Mags holds on, comforting and waiting. Not relenting.
Finnick sits back on his heels and squeezes her hands. Some kind of resolution settles on his face. "I'll let you decide what you want when the time comes. That's all I can promise, Mags."
Mags nods and squeezes back, though her stomach is clenched in fear. He's leaving her a way out at the last minute, and hoping she'll take it. She's counter-hoping that she has what it takes not to, and wishing he weren't making this harder on her. Because she wants so badly to believe he's right, that he can pull this off. He is her boy, after all, and he's done the impossible before.
But Mags didn't spend her life working in secret to undermine her war now.
The last contribution she can count on is going to have to be helping Finnick through this. Everyone else is obsessing over Katniss's state of mind, but she's remembering all the years she and Finnick spent working together. A child falling asleep in her arms, a man coming home with memories he won't talk about. She only has now to get through to him.
I'm proud of you. Did I tell you that? I thought I had time. How in the rolling sea she thought she had time, she has no idea, but every day was like the one before, until suddenly it wasn't.
Finnick lays his head in her lap for a moment. Then he raises his eyes to hers, stricken. "I'm sorry, Mags. I didn't know."
Mags pulls him close, winds her fingers through his hair. She can feel his chest heaving silently. It's not your fault. How does she tell him that?
Yes, it was his idea to get Katniss out of the arena, and he was confident he could pull it off. Yes, he convinced everyone in Four to let the Reaping happen, so he could volunteer if he wasn't reaped. When no one, not even Mags, could figure out how to send a male tribute without a female one, she agreed to volunteer too, and never breathed a hint of doubt when he promised her she'd come home.
But it's not his fault that Katniss turned out to have a mind of her own. It's not his fault that Peeta volunteered, or that Katniss decided she'd rather die than walk out without Peeta. It's not his fault that his priorities suddenly got turned on their head, or that Mags is preparing to pay the price of his confidence.
My boy. She lays her hand on his chest, feels his heart pounding, and he takes a deep breath, getting himself under control. Showing her, even now, that he's thinking, not reacting. I'm proud of you.
When they turn out the lights, she pretends to be asleep, sensing that he needs privacy while he cries.
But once he's breathing slowly and quietly, Mags feels a strange sort of peace settle over her. Four is in rebellion. A lot of good men and women are going to die, but she's lived to see this day. She's dragged unwilling children into the arena, but she's trained the ones who are going to fight their people free of these shackles. After everything she did to make Annie hate her, she brought Finnick into Annie's life, and Annie forgave her. They'll be in good hands, both of them: each other's.
The only loose thread is her own life. Bittersweet as it's been, no part of her wants to let go. She may be eighty years old to look at, but like she told Annie, she'll never stop being surprised to catch sight of herself in the mirror and not see a fifteen-year-old girl.
But that fifteen-year-old has been living on borrowed time for over sixty years, and Mags has dedicated her life to earning that time. She can't stumble at the finish line.