72 II.
Johanna walks into the Victors Banquet alone, dressed in a short, tight, long sleeved black dress with a neckline that cuts down almost to her navel and a dozen viciously sparkling bracelets on each wrist. She looks beautiful and dangerous, and as she plucks a flute of some brightly bubbly concoction off the tray proffered by a passing waiter, he visibly shrinks from her smile.
She looks around the room for Haymitch but doesn't see him among the tinkling, colorful people, all primped and puffed to the limit.
She wanders the space slowly, not talking to anyone, thinking of her own banquet here just a year ago. She wonders if anything would have been different if she had known more. Probably not.
She picks at the heavily laden tables, trying a bite or two of one delicacy after another, but she finds that the food all turns to ash in her mouth. She gets another drink.
A couple of people try to talk to her, but they slink away from her harsh, one word answers and long stretches of silence, and she is left to continue wandering among all the laughing people alone.
She sees the newest victor, Marc she thinks someone told her, and goes up to greet him. That is why she is here after all.
"Congratulations," she tells him, with a blood red smile and dark eyes, "Welcome to the club."
He looks confused and just says thank you uncertainly. He already has enough on his plate.
She sees Finnick – his entrance causes a ripple through the whole room – but has to wait until close to the end of the evening before she can get him alone.
"Care to dance?" she asks coming up to him during a lull in the conversation he was having with some Gamesmakers' silly husband.
"Johanna," he says, his smile wide and open, "looking beautiful as always. There is nothing I would like more."
He leads her out to the dance floor and they do the tight, slow, Capitol dance that the other couples around them are doing.
The evening is slowing down, and people are tiring, but the music still plays smoothly around the couples, wrapping them closer together. Johanna closes the small space between them, almost leaning her head against Finnick's chest, and she whispers, "I'm in. Whatever it is."
"Good." He nods. "Did something change?"
She had told them she needed time to think that night. She doesn't like relying on anyone other than herself, and whatever fledgling rebellion they had managed to pull together seems so directionless and impotent. They were all waiting for something, but they didn't even know what it was. It was unclear how they could pull the anger they had into something that could actually make a difference. Haymitch had been waiting for decades.
"My father's dead."
He pulls back to look at her, his face filled with surprise. "What? But not-" he stops himself, quickly scans the room, and pulls her back to his chest and murmurs into her hair.
"I thought no one else was... interested. For now. Since he. With the hospital and... So why would he..." His words pile on top of each other as he tries to navigate what he can say.
"No. He just died. Natural causes." Her voice is flat, but her eyes are glassy.
"Hey, okay, let's get out of here. Just give me a second."
He pulls her from the dance floor, leaving her in the back of the room while he finds his date, pleads exhaustion from their busy day together, and leaves her with a passionate kiss in front of all of Panem's elite. The woman flushes with pleasure.
"Don't you have a..." Johanna pauses. "A previous engagement?" She asks when he gets back to her, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
"That was earlier. I'm catching the early train tomorrow," he says as he slips back and leads her down a hallway lined with folded tables and carts piled with chafing dishes to a door that leads to the street.
It is late, the town is quiet, and all security has been concentrated at the President's mansion for the party. They walk through the empty streets to a little park that appears like an oasis in the middle of the city and sit on the little bench, hidden in the shadows of the trees.
"So. Tell me what happened," he says when they sit.
"That's it. He died. All on his own." Her hands are clenched in fists in her lap, her bracelets still winking dully in the darkness.
"Johanna..." he says gently, taking one of her hands, prying it open, and slipping it between his.
"He was already dying when I was home," she says. Finnick pulls her closer until their bodies are pressed together along one side, still holding her hand. "He was already dying." And something breaks open inside her and words come spilling out.
"Did you know I was born during the Games?" She looks up at Finnick, then looks back down.
"Yeah, happy birthday to me. I was almost a month early. And I guess the pregnancy was hard? So was the labor. And you know how they have all the mandatory viewings of the games."
"My father was trying to get the midwife since my mother was in trouble, but he was detained by Peacekeepers, and then couldn't find anyone... By the time he got back to her with help, it was too late."
"I survived somehow though, even though I wasn't supposed to." She laughs drily. "Story of my life, huh?"
"I think it destroyed him. But he had a newborn baby and Jasper was only 3 at the time – I know, Jasper and Johanna, it is ridiculous. Alliteration. But my name is the only thing my mother gave me."
"So he had to raise us, and he did. Taught us everything he knew. Fed us. Clothed us. We managed, you know? Just like everyone else did."
"Jasper and I used to get into wicked fights when we were younger. He was bigger than I was, but I always managed to get in the worse hit. And if I cried to Daddy, he was usually the one that got into trouble." She smiles a little at the memory.
"But then I got reaped, and well, we all hate the Games, but it was always so much worse for him, and then to have me gone? But I couldn't really think of anything but myself. I wanted to get back to him, but really... I just wanted to get back."
"I think watching my Games was almost impossible for him. By the time I got back..." Her voice hitches a little. "He looked so much older."
"And you know he must have heard gossip from here. And then. Then Jasper." She fiercely wipes her eyes with her free hand.
"I know he saw what a mess I was. He lost his entire family. He was already dying when I was home."
"And now there is no one left. I have no one. Nothing to lose."
Johanna leans forward, taking her hand back, putting her head in her hands. She takes in a deep breath that she lets out as a groan.
"Dammit, how did you get me to say all of that?" she says after a minute of sitting there, folded over. She runs her hands through her hair before looking over at him, her hair sticking up at crazy angles.
Finnick looks at her quietly for a moment, and then his face breaks into a little grin. "It's the face. No one can say no to this face." He gives her his sweetest look.
She eyes him skeptically but with amusement mixed in too. "Right."
"Don't take this moment of weakness as an invitation to tell your own tragic story," she says after a minute, sitting back up against the bench.
"Of course not Miss Mason. You have my word," he replies, giving her a little salute.
His voice goes soft, "It is tragic though."
She leans her head against his shoulder, shivering slightly, but whether from cold or something else, she is not sure.
"I know," she says quietly.
He takes his suit jacket off, putting it over her shoulders.
"It's really my bare legs that could use some coverage," she says, but she pulls the jacket closer around her.
He stands up, starting to unbutton his pants and doesn't stop until Johanna pulls him back down to the bench, laughing.
"Stop it! Keep your pants on. Of course Finnick Odair doesn't need any excuse to strip down. But stop trying to give me the clothes off your back. Butt. Whatever."
He sits back down next to her, and she scoots into him, sliding her head underneath his arm so that she is resting her head on his chest. She wraps her arms lightly around him.
"Thank you," she whispers into his shirt.
He drops a light kiss onto the top of her head, not saying anything, just holding her a little tighter.
They sit there quietly, just the two of them, and stay there together until the first hints of sunrise start to lighten the sky in front of them, and he has to leave to catch his train.