Against her will, Johanna starts to count firsts.
A first: Finnick begs off play-fighting altogether.
When they've had enough snow, Johanna shapes it into a wall around the house, for insulation. Finnick comes outside and keeps her company, tells her what he remembers about science and snow, but he doesn't help her sculpt it.
When she's done, she packs a snowball invitingly into her fist, but Finnick turns away, looking embarrassed.
"Maybe later."
Johanna averts her eyes, because she knows there won't be a later.
That means they had a last time and she never even knew it. She can't exactly ask for one to remember him by, either.
It's stupid to lie awake in bed, trying to dig the last time out of her memory.
A first: they eat in bed.
Finnick's just about to serve dinner when a coughing fit leaves him too weak and dizzy to stand. He sways against the counter, trying to fight it, but in the end he grabs for a chair and sinks into it before he ends up on the floor.
Johanna hovers silently for a minute, watching, curling her fists, waiting to see if there's something she can do. Then, when he seems to have stabilized for the moment, she moves to serve the food instead.
"I put some sage in the turnips," Finnick tells her from the table, trying to maintain the cozy atmosphere. "Let me know what you think. I have no cookbook, so I'm experimenting here."
Johanna sets a plate in front of him. "Pathetic. What kind of spy are you? I'd have thought you'd have homed in on the best cook in Despard by now and ferreted out all her secret recipes."
Finnick makes a face and mimes stabbing her with his fork, but what Johanna hears is the laugh he can no longer produce.
"Turnips are fine," she comments. "Less bland than last time. We'll turn you into a cook yet." When he doesn't react, she sets down her fork and looks him up and down. "Finnick, what is it? What do you need?"
He's staring at his plate with his head propped up in one hand and his ground venison and mashed turnips untouched. "Maybe...can I eat in bed?"
"It's your bed, idiot," Johanna answers. Then she looks at his plate. "I'll put that in a bowl—do you want separate bowls, or?"
"Just dump it all in," Finnick tells her.
He's eating wearily when Johanna reappears in the doorway, holding her own bowl. "Scoot over. It's my bed too."
"Bossy," he teases gratefully. "Mind-reader."
A first: Finnick avoids company.
A knock sounds at the door. Finnick sighs, looks at Johanna, leans his head briefly against the back of the armchair, and then gets up.
"No, I'll get it," Johanna says.
"No," Finnick says. He shakes his head and continues past the door. "I can't."
Johanna freezes and watches him disappear down the hall. "Finnick!"
His steps don't slow. "I can't." His voice comes faintly, and then she hears the bedroom door close.
"Damn it."
The knock again.
"Damn it! I'm coming!"
Now she's stuck entertaining neighbors while worrying about Finnick, and she has to admit she's snarlier than usual, and distracted. He's always been the hospitable one. And now she doesn't know what to do.
What saves her is the coughing that can be heard even through a closed door. She winces in helpless sympathy, and Ella and Hanrik look up. "He's sick?"
Johanna just nods, and thanks the deeply ingrained sense of privacy of this district that she's not expected to give details.
She's even more grateful when they take the hint and get on their way sooner rather than later.
Once alone, Johanna barges into their bedroom, slamming the door against the opposite wall in her hurry. Finnick's curled up unmoving in the bed, a blanket pulled up over his face, and except for his breathing, which is now never quiet but is worse when he's awake, he might be asleep.
"Finnick?" She puts a hand on the earth-colored bedspread over his arm.
"Just tired."
Finnick pulls the blanket down a bit, and she takes that as an invitation to move her hand to his hair. He's like a cat sometimes.
"Those will be your last words, you know," she tells him. "You've been saying that for years, and I always knew you'd keep saying it right up until you keel over from exhaustion."
"How's this, then? 'Just dying.' Exhausted. Keeled over."
So used to a deliberately cheerful Finnick, Johanna feels his bitterness like a stab through the chest. No, I didn't mean-
A first: Johanna faces the spring alone.
"We haven't had a real snowfall in a week or more," Johanna announces at breakfast. "Look, the snow wall's shrinking. You can even see through the window. Want to come out and help me knock down the rest of it? I can't wait to start spending time outside again."
"I can," Finnick says glumly. "In fact, I don't think I'm going to be able to. Not to help with the snow, and not even to make contacts for you. I'm sorry. I don't know, maybe I should have stayed with Annie. You liked me because I was 'getting shit done.' You didn't like Peeta, always having to be carried."
That's different, Johanna immediately protests, without even knowing why. "What did I say about you reporting here for sleeping duty?" She crosses her arms and frowns at him.
"That was when I was going to get back on my feet."
"Listen. It's not just the work you do. Yes, you were impressive as hell, and yes, that was like a fucking moth-flame effect for me. But you've always supported my goals, and you don't know how rare that was. My father cared about me, and when I got home in the evening and told him about my day, there was plenty of that's nice and well done, but he didn't really care about the results. Sure, it was better than when he was trying to tell me I couldn't do what I was doing, and eventually he decided that whatever made me happy was good enough for him, but I could have not done any of the work I was doing and gotten the same reaction.
"And Glenn, you knew Glenn. He wanted the Capitol to go down in flames, but he sure as hell didn't want me to be the one driving it. I don't get a lot of people caring what gets done and that I do it. A cheerleading squad is nothing to be sneezed at."
Finnick looks comforted. "What about peanut gallery?" he jokes. "Can I be the peanut gallery?"
Johanna laughs, a little forced. "Sure. Heckle me and tell me what I can do to make the house more comfortable."
"Since you ask, I was hoping you'd move the couch closer to a window, if we're going to be able to see out again. I'd like to be able to watch the weather and the wildlife, so I don't have to miss going outside."
Later that day, Johanna drags the couch into the sunroom. She's just glad he's comfortable, she tells herself.
A first: Finnick finds a way of passing the time indoors.
Johanna aches with exhaustion when she reaches the front door, but it's the good kind. She's shoveled, chopped wood, pitched in with rebuilding in the town, lugged supplies from town, and just barely beat the snow home. A car would be useful, if she could get the infrastructure in place. She has no time for all the changes she wants to make.
"Letter from Four for you," Johanna says as soon as she steps in the door. "I just need-"
A coughing fit interrupts her, and Johanna flies to the couch where Finnick is sitting, forgetting all about her parched throat.
Then there's nothing she can do but stand clenching her fists helplessly while she waits for the fit to pass. She adjusts the pillows behind him when he's done and ready to lean back against them. It's stupid, because it does nothing, the pillows were fine where they were, and what she really wants is to reach inside his chest and readjust his lungs, but he looks at her gratefully, as always, when she does this. So she does it.
Finally, he gestures weakly toward a tall glass of water on the table. Johanna offers it to him, but he shakes his head. "For you," he gasps.
"Me?" But the temptation is strong, so she gulps down water while he watches with a small smile.
"Saw you coming up the road," Finnick explains, nodding toward the window next to him. "You looked thirsty."
"I guess that's the advantage of living with a spy," Johanna chuckles. Then she notices what he's holding. "Where did you get that yarn?"
"From Ella," Finnick answers. Johanna wonders if everyone thinks it's for him, or if they think it's for her, and which would be worse. Then she notices the set of his chin. Soon, it won't be his problem. Why the hell would he care what anyone thinks of his hobby now?
"Well." She clears her throat. "You're going to make me a pair of legwarmers, right?"
A first: Johanna turns on the heat.
Johanna arrives home with her triumphant announcement. She's still not comfortable with how last winter went, Finnick holding hot water bottles to her back while she tried not to clench every muscle in her body. But now they've got proper heat, and all thanks to her.
She misses Finnick's bubbling-over enthusiasm, but above the tired smile, he manages to put a genuine light into his eyes that says all the words he can't any more.
But he doesn't get off the couch to go put his hand on the radiator next to hers.
Refusing to be disappointed, Johanna starts sorting through everything she carried from Despard. "Oh, there's a letter from Mickee." She underhands him the envelope without even looking up from her sorting.
"These what you wanted?" She hands him a small package. "You said circular knitting needles, and before I paid for these, I made him swear up and down that these are, even though they don't look circular to me-"
Finnick smiles. "Yes, sorry. Didn't realize you weren't familiar. Perfect, thank you."
Then he has to stop and catch his breath. Their conversations are getting shorter and shorter. But he makes her the legwarmers, and a shawl too.
A first: Finnick, too tired to move.
Finnick's shivering, almost too subtly to be seen. The knitting needles are still in his hands, and he's slumped against the side of the couch.
Wondering how fast he's fading, how much time she has to react, Johanna flies to his side.
A ragged breath startles her just as she's stretching her hand out to take his pulse.
Finnick's eyes flutter open. He smiles up at her. "Hey." Then he coughs, and he closes his eyes again.
Johanna wants to bite his head off, snarl at him never to do that again, but just in time she recovers enough to realize—never do what?
Instead, she looks for some concrete way of helping.
Leaving as abruptly as she entered the room, Johanna finds a blanket and drapes it over the nearest radiator. When it's good and warm, she carries it back into the sunroom.
Finnick looks grateful when she puts it over his shoulders, and another blanket over his knees.
Then she sinks with relief onto the couch, watching Finnick crochet with his feet on her lap, while she rests after a long day.
"Should you be alone here all day, while I'm out? I can arrange for some-"
Finnick shakes his head. "I'd rather," he says. "And I nap a lot."
"Still with the insomnia?" Johanna asks, disappointed.
He lifts his right shoulder, the one that's not leaning against the couch. "Not so bad. Not restless any more. I just never sleep very well..." He pauses, breathless, then finishes, "At night. I don't mind. Not much else I'm up for, anyway."
Johanna grits her teeth. Finnick the war hero, Finnick the larger than life, Finnick the ever on the move, not up for more than lying in bed or on the couch.
She does wonder if he's chosen the couch as his spot because he's heard about her father and the chair she always remembers him in during his last years. Or maybe Finnick just needs the space for his legs. No one in her family was ever six foot two.
She doesn't ask. He may not be her father, or his substitute, but the echoes are there.