"Why is it," Gale asked, almost rhetorically, "that we end up in bed together every time we get drunk?"
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, picked up her shirt, and fastened a button at random without looking down. "Because we're too similar not to. We like the smell of pine needles, take showers, not baths-"
"So does Posy. I don't expect to see the two of you having sex any time soon."
"We fight dirty," Johanna continued, much louder than nessecary. She swivled to face him, flopping onto her stomach. "And we've been through hell about nine times too many. We look good- no, great- on camera. We'll kill if we have to. We don't make friends easily. And we don't have anyone left that we love."
Gale scoffed. "That's not true."
She lifted her head. "Really? Who do you love?"
Gale didn't have to think about his answer. "My mother. My siblings."
Her lips pursed. "That's not the kind of love I'm talking about."
"Katniss isn't dead."
"No," Johanna agreed. "But she might as well be."
Katniss was better on some days than others. On some days, she sat cross-legged in the corner of her cottage, running a hand over Buttercup's fur and humming quietly to herself. She ate the soup that Peeta brought her, and let Prim apply ointment to the thin red scratches covering her hands. On some days, Katniss was docile, distracted, a wisp of smoke rising aimlessly from the embers of the girl who was on fire.
And on some days, she wasn't.
He found Cinna sitting on a tree stump behind the cottage, balancing a stylus in his two unbroken fingers. "You're going to ask me what they did to her," the stylist said. Today, Cinna's bandages were white with black polka dots; yesterday, it had been the other way around. "And I'm going to tell you: I don't know."
Gale collapsed onto a pile of logs, feeling as burnt-out and lifeless as one of the corpses still decomposing in the Meadow. "What did they do to her," he echoed, shaking his head.
Cinna shrugged. "I don't know."
They sat in silence for several seconds, Cinna sketching in long, graceful strokes.
"I know she fought back, though."
Gale lifted his head. "Yeah?"
He nodded. "Not physically, of course- we were much too exhausted for anything like that- but mentally. I'd hear her talking to herself after they'd finished with her for the night. She'd tell herself who she was, what she was fighting for, then make lists of things she wanted to remember." A breeze rolled through the clearing, rustling the dead leaves littered under their feet. Then, quietly: "You were on those lists."
The next time Gale and Johanna encountered each other was at a masquerade festival in District 1. In retrospect, he thought, it was practically inevitable: not exactly a natural at dancing or mingling, he'd made a discreet beeline for the drinks table. His memories blurred after the first few sips: a trio of giggling teenagers sitting beside him, Finnick and Annie convincing him to dance- and a girl dressed in green, like the thorns of a rose.
A girl who griped about how noisy the party was, and wanted to go someplace quieter so that they could talk.
A girl who, after two more glasses of champagne, he'd ended up in bed with.
Later that night, Johanna yawned and sat up, pulling away between the tangled sheets. "You pretend I'm Katniss, don't you."
He didn't bother with a denial. "How did you know?"
"Because if it were me," she said, "the sex would have sucked."
Katniss is dead, Gale tells himself as the train pulls away, as the half-scorched houses of District 12 recede into the distance.
Katniss is dead.
This is only her ghost.
Katniss was better on some days than others.
On some days, she was back in the Hunger Games, constantly watching for nonexistent dangers. Peeta's soup was poison, Prim merely a hologram; she took to the trees with bow and arrow, firing a hailstorm of weaponry at anything that approached.
On these days, the embers of Katniss flared to life- not as an inspiring glow, but as a dangerous wildfire.
Then there were days when she refused to eat, to drink, to get out of bed; days when she shrank into a corner, terrified and trembling. When she stared empty-eyed into faraway nothingness, lost in some private hell he could barely imagine.
Gale didn't know what kind of fire this was, only that it was burning Katniss alive.
From time to time Katniss would reappear- not the paranoid, suspicious huntress, or the burnt-out shell curled up in a chair, but Katniss, the girl Gale had grown up with. She hugged Prim, joked with Peeta, cooed over the Odairs' newborn baby, waved hello to Madge, grinned back at Delly Cartwright. I'm still here, she'd say, I'm still fighting- and then she'd be gone.
Days like this broke Gale's heart.
He found Cinna sitting on a tree stump behind the cottage, sketching once again.
"Here," Cinna said, offering him the tablet. "Tell me what you think."
A sleevelss sundress, its wide straps trimmed with tiny feathers, the fabric patterend with flowers that grew in the Meadow and the leaves and branches of the woods outside District 12. With a pair of shorts cleverly hidden underneath, it was the sort of dress that one could wear absolutely anywhere without looking or feeling out of place.
And the model-
Gale tore his eyes away from the screen, shoved the tablet back into Cinna's hands. " Designing for Katniss? You're wasting your time- she'll never wear it."
"I know," Cinna replied, "but we can hope."
Upon seeing Peeta, Katniss had flung herself, sobbing, into his arms; upon seeing Gale, she bristled like a wildcat and punched him in the face.
Gale wasn't sure what hurt more; his bleeding nose, or the fact that Katniss still preferred Peeta over him.
"She misses you, you know," Johanna said, perching on the edge of the bed. She'd slipped her jeans back on, but hadn't bothered to fasten the button; now she played with the zipper, moving it up and down, up and down. "Asks about you all the time."
"Well, good for her," Gale muttered.
"I went to visit her the other day." As Johanna spoke, she headed to the large, round mirror over the dresser, then ran her hands through her hair, which only served to tangle it further.
"Oh, really?" He said, climbing out of bed.
Johanna's reflection nodded. "Mmm-hmm. I asked her if she'd heard from you and she wouldn't shut up. Apparently, now that the two of you had found someone to take care of your siblings, you were going to run away together and live in the woods. She seemed pretty enthusiastic about it, too."
She took Gale's hairbrush from the dresser, bent forwards, and started brushing her upside-down hair. "…yeah. Come to think of it, she wasn't exactly lucid, but-"
After putting on his pants, Gale had bent down to pick up his shirt; it slipped from his fingers, and he stood up abruptly. "Johanna? Here's an idea: let's change the subject. Permanently."
"Gale Hawthorne-" She flung the hairbrush at him. "- you are an idiot."
He looked up at her, eyebrows raised in a sardonic expression, and the hairbrush bounced off his forehead a millisecond later. "Gee, thanks for the compliment."
"No, really. I mean, if I had the chance to go back and... just once, even to say goodbye-" Johanna turned away, leaning on the dresser, and her reflection was that of a different person: the scared, scrawny child Gale remembered from watching the games, all wide, wild eyes and crocodile tears- but her composure restored itself as quickly as it had slipped, and she was back to her old self again, all confidence and sharp, thorny edges. "…Well, it doesn't matter now, but you should still go and see her. " Johanna swiveled to face him, folding her arms over her chest. "I tolerate you, Gale. I don't care about you, but I tolerate you- and that's something you should take as a compliment. It's also why I'm giving you this advice: go see her, or you're going to regret it for the rest of your life. Not that I'm threatening you or anything, but you'll regret it if you don't. You really will," she added, half to herself, shoulders slumping. Then she tossed her hair back and raised her chin. "Anyway, the next train to District 12 leaves in five minutes- after that, I don't think there's another one for at least a month."
Silence.
"Katniss is expecting you." And with that, she left.
Gale waited until he heard the door click in the lock. He counted to five, very slowly.
Then he dove for his shirt and sprinted towards the door.