"Well, well. What have we got here?" Wild hazel eyes peer up at me as I cautiously enter the room. "It's Brainless, in the flesh. You actually came to see me."

"Johanna," I return with a grim smile. But I'm addressing a gaunt figure in a sheer hospital gown, with a shaved head and a patchwork of scars claiming every visible inch of her flesh, not the vicious tribute I knew in the Quell.

Peeta trails into the room behind me, once I've turned over my shoulder and given him the all-clear signal. Her eyes brighten considerably when she sees him. She tries to play it off, conceal her visible reaction to Peeta's presence. "Oh, right. You're a package deal. How could I forget?"

"It's good to see you, Jo," Peeta says softly, coming to rest behind me. His fingers curl around my waist and dig into the flesh there. Like it's the only thing holding him back from flying apart into a thousand little pieces.

I'll allow it.

It was Peeta's idea to visit Johanna. "It'll be a… distraction," he said, by way of convincing me this was a good idea. I agreed, despite the sinking feeling in my chest, because I needed a distraction from the waiting period ahead of us. From the inevitable verdict that Coin will hand down after the final cut of the propo airs.

But I know that this visit is more than just a distraction. I owe it to Johanna, who saved my life. Sacrificed her own for my welfare. Because she doesn't have anyone left that she loves.

"Finnick came by a few days ago," she tells us now, her lips curled into an indecipherable shape. A smirk? Or a grimace?

Peeta nods his encouragement. "He mentioned it."

Johanna echoes Peeta's nod. "He sat with me for a while. Nice of him." She sniffs. "And since then, it's been a steady stream of those insipid nurses sticking me with needles and shoveling spoonfuls of nasty shit down my throat." Johanna's eyes flash with sudden, unchecked anger. "You can't imagine."

"How are you, though?" Peeta asks, his tone taking on a serious edge. He slips away from me and settles into the chair stationed by Johanna's bedside while I stand uncomfortably by the door. "Honestly."

I've been so fixated on Johanna's face—a palette of deep purples and blues against a pallid canvas—that I haven't stopped to look at the rest of her. The tubes springing from veins in her arms, a heart monitor emitting dismal-sounding beeps. The smooth surface of her bony scalp. Cuts and burns and bruises everywhere. I shudder involuntarily.

"I've been better," she deadpans. "Couple of broken ribs. Hurts like a bitch, but those painkillers they've been giving me definitely help."

If what Finnick told me is true, then Johanna has far worse problems to deal with than a few broken bones. The haunted look in her eyes betrays her dismissive tone.

Her sharp eyes flicker over to me suddenly. "What about you, Everdeen?" she asks. "How's that arm healing up?"

My fingers instinctively move to rub the scar her knife left behind. When she dug that tracker out of my arm. "Fine," I say, ignoring the way that Peeta looks between us with mild confusion.

And I'm about to take advantage of this opportunity—to thank her for what she's done for me, her selfless sacrifice—but I can't do it. The words are lost in my tightening throat. How can I thank her, when she looks like this? So… helpless?

"This place is so fucking depressing," she says through gritted teeth, turning her attention back to Peeta. "White walls, white tiled floors. It's like a goddamn insane asylum."

Peeta grimaces. Johanna laughs bitterly, but, as if realizing that she's taken it a step too far, she swiftly changes the subject. "Anyway. What's going on out there? They won't let me leave the hospital wing," she grumbles. "Makes me feel out of touch."

So Peeta smiles. He fills her in on the political current here, somehow glossing over the fact that he's basically a pariah in this district, that his successful bid to save this place from an air raid wasn't enough to change public opinion. Tells her that we've been working on a propo to bolster Capitol support for our cause.

"Plutarch says that if we keep the star-crossed lover thing going, the people in the Capitol will rally behind us," he explains. "I don't know. Katniss and I thought it was worth a shot."

He fails to mention that if this propo fizzles out upon its debut, there's no telling what the consequences will be.

"Brainless was on board with that?" Johanna asks with an incredulous lilt. She cuts her eyes to me, studies me with skepticism. "Thought that cameras weren't your thing, in general."

I force a tight smile. "Yeah, well. We're kind of at the mercy of the rebellion."

My choices have been limited, in the short time that I have served as the Mockingjay. I've demanded the captives' rescue from the Capitol and secured Peeta residence outside of the hospital wing. But beyond that, I'm powerless.

"How are the puppet masters?" Johanna asks with an exaggerated eye-roll, her voice dripping with sarcasm. I assume that she's referring to Plutarch, the leaders in Thirteen. The people who decided that she wasn't worth saving until I made it their priority.

Her anger is far from being misdirected.

"Exactly how you'd expect them to be," I say, surprising even myself with the bitterness in my tone.

Johanna raises an eyebrow, amused. "And how's that?"

"Manipulative," I tell her in a flat tone.

Deep down, I know that I shouldn't be saying any of these things. The Mockingjay shouldn't be badmouthing the people who saved her, who have given her a purpose and a voice. But I can't help but feel a little resentful that they've clipped my wings, tried to render me powerless by feeding me lines and creating facades. I just can't.

"You should see this propo that we were in," I say, shaking my head. "Unbelievable. It was a disaster, and they know it, too. They're just setting us up to fail so that we'll have to do things their way from now on."

Peeta shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, but I can't miss the warning in his eyes. Don't.

"It was like swimming upstream, trying to get this thing done," I continue, ignoring Peeta's increasingly violent head-shaking.

Johanna blanches, eyes watering without warning. "What?" she asks, in a tremulous voice that I can barely recognize as her own.

My eyes dart to Peeta's for help. He bites his lip, looking anxious.

The heart rate monitor starts beeping at a frenetic pace, and Johanna whips her head toward the source of the noise, disturbing the wires and electrodes connected to the smooth skin on her scalp. A tube pops out of a vein in her arm and starts leaking brackish fluids, nearly triggering my weak stomach. "Can you—call a nurse?" Johanna gasps, shrinking into herself. I nod briskly and start to leave the room, but when I realize Peeta isn't following me, I pause in the doorway. "He can stay," she wheezes, reaching her frail hand out towards him. Without hesitation, Peeta encloses her hand between both of his own.

"Katniss, it's okay," he says when he realizes that I'm still frozen in the doorway. "You don't have to stay. Just—get help."

I stumble from the room in a daze and flag down the first nurse I can find, tell her in a breathless voice that something's wrong with Johanna. And, out of curiosity, I trail behind her to Johanna's room.

From behind the glass window, I watch the woman insert the IV into Johanna's arm, watch her administer some sort of shot that makes Johanna wince in pain. She's fighting back tears, but I get the sense that it's not because of the pinch of the needle. Peeta leans over and mutters something in her ear, and when she turns to him, saltwater cutting tracks down her pallid cheeks, she looks vulnerable. And it's definitely not an act this time.

It's a scene that I can't bear to watch for much longer.

I have to tear my eyes away from it, have to walk away, because it hurts too much. Feels like a pang of jealousy in my chest, even though I know that's not it. It's not jealousy at all.

It's the feeling that I don't belong. That I will never understand what Peeta went through. That he and Johanna share a deep connection, one that I'll never come close to approaching. That there will always be this divide between us, this feeling of guilt and remorse and resentment, no matter how much we want to pretend that it doesn't exist.

So I have to do something to quell it.

Coin presses a single button on her remote, freezing the propo on an elegant shot of me kissing Peeta. Hands cradling the sides of his face, his forehead pressed against mine. Star-crossed lovers, reunited against all odds. Exactly what Plutarch wanted.

Peeta's fingers twine with mine under the table, and when I turn to meet his eyes, he's doing an awful job of covering up the fear in his eyes. I try to smile at him encouragingly, but it's no use. We both know what's coming next.

"Our production team wants to break into Capitol programming with this footage," Coin says with a placid expression. "The question remains, however: is this inflammatory enough? Or is it simply rehashing what the Capitol itself churned out following the Seventy-Fourth Games?"

My stomach sinks with dread when the people gathered around the table start murmuring in agreement with Coin. Not just her associates, either. Even though Plutarch, who is seated near the head of the conference table, looks a little perturbed, he isn't exactly shooting up out of his chair to challenge Coin.

Finnick clears his throat, which provokes Coin to snap her head in his direction. "Pardon me if I'm mistaken, Madame President, but… wasn't this the effect that we wanted to achieve?" he asks in an almost deferential tone, before shooting a sympathetic glance in my direction. "Didn't we want to win the Capitol audience over with their love story?"

Coin stares at him in stony silence for a few moments. To his credit, Finnick doesn't shift uncomfortably under the weight of her gaze, but holds his ground, meeting her eyes with a level stare.

The rebellion leaders suggest that love is a weakness. That it makes us soft, and that it makes us incompetent soldiers. But I think that they're wrong. Before Annie was rescued, Finnick was a wreck, reduced to mindlessly tying knots with a bit of frayed rope. And look at him now, stronger than ever, more self-assured than I've ever seen him, all because Annie's here to keep him sane.

Love is not a weakness. And Finnick knows that better than anyone.

"We did," Coin tells Finnick in a measured tone. "But our goals have changed. We have other concerns that require our attention at this time, concerns that I'm not sure this propo will adequately address. Which brings me to our next item on the agenda. Commander Boggs?"

Boggs sits up straighter in his chair. With the slightest movement, he manages to command the attention of the entire room. He looks out stoically upon the room, his eyes barely grazing over my face, before he glances down at the sheet laid out in front of him on the table.

"It's a tenuous situation in Two," Boggs says simply, because he's not one for elaborate speeches. But he manages to convey the gravity of the situation with a single shake of his head. "Essentially, we're at risk of their soldiers taking their allegiances—and resources—to the Capitol. We need volunteers to get in there, to neutralize that threat, effective immediately."

Coin surveys the faces around the table, all haggard, all tired, all full of grit and determination. "Do we have any volunteers?"

I don't think. I just act.

"I'll go."

[A/N: I'm baaaaack! And very excited to be moving in a new direction with this story. Enjoy this (rare) update and I hope to get the next chapter up in the near future. Thanks for your support, I love you all!]