For the hundredth time, Finnick faces the orderly at the hospital entrance.

"Miss Mason is in no condition to accept visitors." Only a hint of impatience. "Please return later."

"Can I just sit with her if she's asleep? What the hell are you doing, anyway, performing surgery?" Finnick finally bursts out. "What, are you performing surgery? Is she quarantined? Why won't you even let me in?"

"We have policies around patient privacy, and you're not family. You'll have to wait until she's awake and says she wants to see you."

"She doesn't have fam-" Finnick gives up. They haven't let him in yet, and they're not going to. He can try to force his way in, cause a commotion, maybe lose. Maybe take staff away from patients who need care. Or he can put some faith this alliance he helped forge and trust that the doctors from Ayre are doing the best they can for Johanna.

Mickee finds him pacing in front of the hospital. "Have you seen Johanna?"

Finnick looks at her sharply, but she doesn't act like she's fishing for information, doesn't seem to have any idea what happened earlier. Good, word hasn't gotten out that he had to carry a semi-conscious Johanna to the hospital, having flashbacks to Mags' stroke all the way. "No," he says brusquely, "she's been busy."

"Well...there's an outgoing train stuck on the tracks, and Glenn's team is trying to get it to move, and I know what to do, but they won't listen to me." She looks frustrated and embarrassed at the same time.

Finnick knows he needs something to take his mind off Johanna. And he knows that he doesn't have the luxury of hovering outside the hospital waiting for updates they're not giving him. Even when it was Mags and they let him visit her, he had to spend most of his time earning his keep in the Capitol. Never let your feelings get in the way of the mission.

Finnick starts walking side by side with Mickee. "Sure, I'll come see if I can convince them I'm manly enough that they should listen to me. Or that they should have listened to you in the first place." He winks.

"I can't make people do what I say," Mickee confesses as he follows her to a truck, and they climb inside. "I mean, I can see how Johanna does it, but I can't make myself act like that, and I can't believe I could ever pull it off even if I tried."

"There's more than one way to catch a fish. Johanna does it with vinegar, and it makes her a lot of enemies. You do what works for you."

"Yeah." She's quiet for a while, and Finnick watches her out of the corner of her eye. Something's obviously bothering her.

"Something on your mind?" he prompts gently, when she's been driving for a while without saying anything.

Mickee takes a deep breath. "Did you ever feel bad that someone you knew was dead, not because you liked them, but because you didn't?"

Finnick's heart skips a beat, but no, Johanna's still alive, and Mickee likes—or at least admires—her anyway. He tries not to let his mind paint pictures of how other people will react if Johanna doesn't wake up. Or if that was a stroke and she ends up like Mags. Finnick can't imagine she'll give up her speech nearly as gracefully.

"You mean Ashe?"

She nods.

"The Hunger Games do that to you. No one talks about it, but you're not the first to be in this situation about a tribute from your district. No matter what you thoughts went through your mind when he was being an asshole to you, or even if you said what you were thinking because you were using Johanna as your role model-"

Mickee gives a little laugh, as Finnick had intended.

"It doesn't mean you're glad he's dead. It doesn't even mean you don't think he was brave. It just means you can be a brave asshole. He wasn't the first."

"You're right." They crest a hill, and Mickee points out a train in the distance. "You're really easy to talk to, you know."

Finnick doesn't say what he's thinking, which is I work hard at it—how do you think I get everyone's secrets?

"If you're not busy later..."

"Sorry," Finnick says with his friendliest, most self-deprecating smile. "Once you've had your turn, you have to move to the back of the line. Nothing personal."

"You and your line," Mickee mutters, shaking her head, but she's not offended. "One more thing Johanna can do that I can't." She stops the truck and they get out, Finnick laughing to himself. Of course the one person who's not having sex with him is the one everyone thinks is having the most sex. There was never any other way his life was going to turn out.

Once he's at the train, Finnick does exactly what Mickee tells him needs to be done, charming, ignoring, and overriding everyone else as needed, and lo and behold, the train is speeding on its way from Three with communications equipment for Plutarch.

Finnick turns to Mickee. "Well done."

She looks pleased, and after a moment of hesitation, dares, "What does it take to get into the kind of meetings you and Johanna go to?"

Finnick shrugs. "If you're interested, I can ask about getting you included. Shouldn't be a big deal."

"Really?" Mickee's taken aback. "But I'm just a grunt soldier, I'm not in charge of anything."

"You're competent at what you do. You know more about trains and trucks than I ever will. If you think having you in a meeting might have prevented what happened today, that's a good enough reason for me to include you. It's not like you have to graduate from meeting-attending school."

Mickee laughs.

"Listen. Mags wasn't aggressive, domineering, or abrasive. She never shoved her way into the engine of a train and overpowered everyone with the sheer force of her personality, either. But she told us who to overpower and when, and we all damn well did it. If you take one lesson from Johanna, make it this: don't try to be a second-rate Johanna Mason, who, by the way, would be a second-rate Finnick Odair. Try to be a first-rate Mickee Henders."

"That makes sense. Thanks. And thanks for your help."

"My pleasure." Finnick would mean it anyway, but today it spared him an hour or two of having to worry about Johanna. Now he's on his way back to the hospital near headquarters, wondering what he's going to do if Johanna never wakes up. Stay in Seven? Supposedly, he's here because it's critical to the war effort, but there are a hundred other places just as critical. With his skill set, he could go anywhere in Panem and make himself useful. He has the freedom to choose, but it's useless to him with no way of making a choice.

Annie and Cashmere have left the country. There's no one left in Four he's close to. He can't relax around Elspa. What does that leave? Three, where Rudder doesn't want Finnick to burn out but has no ideas where to go from there? Thirteen, where Peeta needs him, in hopes Katniss comes around?

This line of thinking forces him to admit that the reason he keeps wriggling out of staying in Thirteen isn't the reason he's been giving Peeta, that the supply lines are so important. It's because he sleeps better knowing Johanna wants him here. That's why he's here wondering: what now?

That's why, even promising himself he wouldn't, he finds himself back in front of the hospital where he dropped her off early this morning. He can't get the sight of her lying on the ground, plucking at her skin and muttering to herself, totally unresponsive when he tried to talk to her, out of her mind. So much like Mags—was it a stroke? But it seemed like all her muscles were working, she was just...out of it.

Now he's imagining a head injury, and wondering if she'll ever be Johanna again. At least Mags was still Mags.

"Finnick Odair?" the orderly says, unexpectedly, interrupting his pacing. "She says she'll see you, no one else."

Sweating, trembling with relief and nerves, Finnick follows the orderly to Johanna's bedside. She's asking for him. That's...something.

She looks like a ghost of herself, lying on a dingy white sheet that's damp with patches of sweat, and Finnick wonders, with a sinking feeling, if she's even still conscious. But the moment she hears him approaching her bed, her eyes fly open and she snarls, "Well, now you know." Her eyes glare daggers even if her voice is lethargic. "Come to rub it in?"

Even knowing Johanna, Finnick has to stop and remind himself that he should have expected knee-jerk hostility. He takes a moment deciding how to reply.

"I came to give you a rundown of today's meeting, if you want it," he finally says, as levelly as he can. If she's well enough to snarl, she's better off than when he last saw her. "And if you mean I know why you're here, then no, everyone who came over from Ayre and Kedan has this thing they call confidentiality policy. Do you want the update now, or should I come back later?"

Finnick still doesn't know if she's going to make it, but she's not going to tell him until she calms down, and he thinks this is the way to do it.

When she narrows her eyes and has a staredown with him until she's satisfied, and finally mutters, "No, tell me," she proves that he knows her pretty well. "Tell me we got the tunnel."

"They're skeptical we can defend it, but I convinced them to give it a try. We didn't get the outpost." He still thinks they might have if he'd been able to go over his plan of attack with Johanna beforehand, but now he's just stuck feeling guilty over his frustration when he couldn't find her before the meeting.

While he talks, Finnick's taking in as much information about her condition as he can out of the corner of his eye, without letting on. She's sweating and shivering at the same time and breathing painfully, but he keeps not reacting, until finally she realizes she doesn't have to fight him.

"I can live with that," she says weakly. "Was Glenn angry? Give me the details."

Finnick's had a lot of practice staying outwardly calm through the urge to panic. Whatever it is, it's bad enough that she doesn't want to tell him, but this isn't about him. So he gives her every detail he can remember, and he says nothing about her, even when her eyes close.

"There was some proposal to build a wall around the district, or at least the borders with One and Six, keep any more kids from being stolen next year." Finnick rolls his eyes. "I did my best to shoot that one down."

Johanna is growing more and more agitated, jerking where she lies and trying to get words out, but her eyelids keep closing on her. Finnick falls silent, realizing that she's not actually in the kind of shape she needs to be even to receive a report.

"Promise me," she finally gasps.

"Anything."

"Don't let them-" She fights to get this message out. "Knock me out again. Stay," she orders, the last word trailing off as sleep takes her.

Emotions churning, Finnick does as he's told. He sits on the floor by the side of the bed, physically blocking anyone from approaching her.

Which they do, determined to give her another shot when she starts stirring.

"It's for her own good." Damn Johanna, putting Finnick in this position. He doesn't know what kind of care she needs, doesn't know how clearly she was thinking when she made that request. But she made it, and he has to stand by her.

"Is it?" Finnick raises an eyebrow. "Or did she come to fighting last time and this makes your job easier?"

The medic's look of discomfort is so brief that Finnick would have missed it if he hadn't been looking, but it's as good as a confession, good enough that he cuts through the professional arguments that immediately follow.

"When she wakes up, she can make her own decision. Until then, I made her a promise."

There's a staredown. And almost a fight, when what feels like half the hospital staff show up as reinforcements. Finnick has to get to his feet, adopt a defensive stance, loom, be decisive without threatening, play this situation just right...all the while wishing Johanna would wake up and stand up for herself.

But she asked him to because she couldn't, and he'll do it, past all his misgivings.

They're still fighting, and Finnick's trying to keep it from escalating into physical violence—he really can't blame them for not taking his word for her wishes—when the commotion wakes Johanna.

Only a little, but it's enough.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes, kneeling by the bedside, once they're alone.

"Stay," she repeats. "Don't let them..."

Not until she finally wakes up for real, can Finnick breathe. Then he sees how confused and miserable and angry she looks, and it immediately starts him worrying again. He gives her a brief, clinical summary of what happened, in case the drugs are muddling her memory, and then he waits.

She scrubs at her eyes with her knuckles. "What time is it?"

"Just past sunrise," he answers. It's been a long night, but he got a surprising amount of sleep sitting on the floor by her bed, trusting his reflexes.

"Shit." Johanna lifts her head, moves her knees, tries to get up, and collapses before she can even make it into a sitting position. "I need to get out of here, but I can't-" Chest heaving in frustration, she closes her eyes and thinks. "Stay put, don't let them knock me out. Wake me up if it gets dark and I haven't gotten up yet."

By nightfall, she can actually stay awake, and even sip a bit of gruel, still lying down, but her next try at getting up is only a little more successful than her last, and it doesn't get her onto her feet. It's now been over a day since Finnick found her, and he's abandoned all thought of the war, responsibilities, anything that isn't sitting here as though he can will Johanna back onto her feet through sheer stubbornness.

"Just tell me what to do." Finnick's prepared for anything, but most especially being told to leave her alone. He won't even take it personally; it'd be a relief to get snapped at.

Propped up on a pillow, digging her nails into her palms in an obvious effort to control the pain, Johanna grits out, "I need out of here, and I don't need anyone to see me like this, and I don't want you to see me like this, but you're all I've got. Make sure I'm awake at midnight, and give me a hand back to my room if I still can't move."

Finnick knows better than to ask if she should be alone in her room if she's bedridden, just snaps out a "yes, ma'am" that's brisk enough to get a small nod of relief out of her.

The journey back to her room at midnight is almost as painful on him as it is on her. She can't walk but she won't be carried, he has to keep his arm around her and support her weight while casually pretending not to notice anything out of the ordinary, and definitely not telling her it's all right, because she can't hit him but she does kick his ankle, and they almost trip. This all requires too much coordination, and so Finnick shuts up.

The moment she's hauling her body over the edge of her own bed, not even attempting to struggle with the blankets, she insists, "I'm in charge in this district."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you." Finnick lets some of his annoyance into his voice. "I was taking orders from Mags when she couldn't talk and I had to work to figure out what the orders were. You awake now?"

"Yeah, and I want that report. Properly, this time."

"All right, and then you owe me a report."

Johanna's eyes fly open, in fury, and they have a glaring contest that relaxes Finnick a little. A Johanna that can't have a glaring contest is like knocking the ground out from under his feet.

"Report first," she finally snaps, and it's not a promise or a deal, but it's a start, and Finnick will take it.

He starts telling her about the wall that's not really a wall, just called that for shorthand, but is a big mess of ditches and landmines and barbed wire that's never going to be completed in time to do anything useful for a district as huge as this, when she interrupts him, groaning.

"You were supposed to help me support this proposal!"

"Support it?" Finnick's jaw drops at her irritation. "You can keep out an army this way, maybe, but not any and every raid that might snatch up two children, and-"

"I know that!"

"And it's useless against hovercraft, and-Wait, you know that? What the hell, then?"

"Give me some fucking credit. I don't want the wall. It's obviously a brainless idea. I want a mandate to build a wall so I can get the manpower behind me and used to following my orders, when it becomes obvious it was useless. I have a hard enough time getting any enthusiasm behind this war. There's finally some enthusiasm for preventing a repeat of Ashe, and I mean to use that."

Finnick stops, stunned. "I...suppose I see your point? I still think it's a waste of resources and manpower we can't afford, and if we throw our weight behind a project doomed to fail, it could just as easily backfire."

"Shows what you know. Besides, I was planning on starting by putting the wall where they'll do the train lines the most good, get some investment in protecting those. This is why we always go over our approach before you go showing up at meetings."

"Well, I tried. How the hell do you think I found you, off at the edge of the woods, barely conscious-" Hallucinating, too far gone to know your own name- Finnick cuts himself off before he can say something thoughtless and hurtful.

Johanna stares at him. "That was you?"

Finnick nods, once. "I went to the meeting afterward, and then the hospital staff wouldn't let me anywhere near you until you could authorize it." He wants to press her for details, but he can tell from Johanna's expression that he's still earning her trust. So he sticks to business. "Speaking of meetings, we should start inviting Mickee. She wanted me to tell you she's interested."

"Henders?" Johanna hems, thinking it over. "I'm not sure she's leadership material."

"I'm not saying she needs to be in on all the grand inter-district, international strategy planning. I'm saying we need to make better use of her. If nothing else, she's one of your most dedicated supporters, and another voice in your favor couldn't hurt."

"I guess. And she's got the hots for you," Johanna taunts, "I'm sure that doesn't hurt either."

Finnick laughs. "You know, I thought so, but now I wonder if it's just that she's trying to be you."

In an instant, Johanna's teasing expression morphs into a raging storm. "That is not what I want to be remembered for!"

"Not the part where everyone thinks you're sleeping with me all the time," Finnick assures her. "The part where you sleep with whoever you want and make no apology. You did have those public affairs in the Capitol, after all."

Johanna narrows her eyes. "I suppose. That was the point, you know."

"I do know. And I think Mickee's not quite ready to do that, I'm not even sure if she wants to, so she started with the easiest person she could find. But then again, I have my charms, so maybe it's that."

Johanna looks like she wants to throw something at his smirking face, but when her shoulder twitches, she freezes. Frowning, she changes the subject.

"Anyway, you're saying not everyone knows?"

"About your condition? Mickee didn't. I'm sure word's gotten out that you were in the hospital, but I didn't see a horde of visitors lining up to see you. Besides, if anyone did know you were there, they'd have a hell of a time getting any details. Even when I arrived carrying you, I couldn't get past the door. The medic just made me stand outside while I was questioned. And I couldn't tell them much." Finnick stops there, with his arms folded, leaving a pregnant pause.

"You don't need to know." She's obviously having an internal debate.

"I didn't need to break you out of the hospital," Finnick counters. "I did it because we trust each other. And I've kept your secrets, and you've kept mine, and you can't-" Scare me like that, but there are so many things you can't say to Johanna. "Come on, you know you have my support."

"I've had it until now," Johanna corrects. "That's why..."

"You're—thinking you'll lose it?" Just in time, Finnick saves himself from having to backpedal from afraid of losing it.

"You're not the only one who supports me. You're the only one whose support I can count on."

"Then count on it." Finnick fixes her with an intense stare, willing her to believe.

Johanna's silent, thinking. "Convince me," she finally challenges him. He can see from her eyes that she wants to believe, but he's going to have to work for it.

It's her intense glare, boring through his skull and into his brain, that helps Finnick find the words for this. "I could remind you of all the times I've helped cover for your medical problems. But instead I'm going to remind you of the time you decided to sleep with me on watch, surrounded by allies you didn't trust, and one you decided you did."

"I didn't have much choice," she mutters. "I had to sleep sometime." But at last, slowly, she nods. "You should have figured it out, it's the same secret I had when you met me. My back never stopped hurting from the Scorpio venom. Sometimes it hurts more, sometimes it hurts less, and sometimes my whole back locks up, probably because I've been clenching every muscle with all I've got. It's not so bad today as long as I don't move, but there's not a muscle that isn't on fire. And I can't move."

Finnick groans, and kicks himself for not guessing. "So we have the same secret?" he comments with a wry smile. "Old arena injury?"

"I guess so," Johanna says, surprised. "Except I feel like I should be able to tough it out. It's just pain. It works fine, when I'm not clenching it. Not like your lungs."

"You've been toughing it out for six years!" Finnick protests. "I couldn't even tell."

"Some days are better than others. I did without painkillers when I was living in the Village, but now I have to keep busy. So I got desperate and started experimenting."

"You can't find anything?" First Annie, now Johanna. It kills Finnick worse than his own untreated condition. At least he can pretend that's not happening. "The foreign doctors can't help you?"

"Oh, they won't give me anything!" Involuntarily, Johanna starts to sit up to express her fury, and then she flinches when she remembers why she can't. "Something about shortages and triage and life-or-death priority. They can't even find anything wrong with me. No injuries any more, I'm just in pain because of nerve damage or something.

"Everything I've been getting has been on the black market, probably stolen, and no, I can't get a steady supply of any one medication, and half of them don't work, and the ones that do have side effects, or withdrawal symptoms, or I just plain run out."

"But you have found some that work?" If there's something, that's a starting point. Maybe he can turn some up in his travels, now that he knows to look.

She makes a face. "Without making me sicker or stupider than I can stand, I had one that more or less worked if I took it at night. It made me sleepy but wore off quickly in the morning. I haven't been able to find it for over a year.

"I've been experimenting and experimenting, and I guess this time I experimented a little too much. The last time I was that out of it, I was at a Capitol party, and it was a lot more fun."

Through the pain, she flashes a 'bad girl' look at him and waits for a reaction. Finnick laughs, because laughter is the only emotion he can control.

"But today, I show up tripping on some drug I took without really knowing what it was, and now they don't want to give me anything. I've taken so many drugs-"

"They think that's what you're after?" Finnick finishes sympathetically.

"No one believes I'm in pain, and no one believes I just want to get back to work."

"I believe you," Finnick promises. "I want you back at work."

"So you won't tell anyone, and you'll be my errand boy until I'm back on my feet?" Johanna presses.

Finnick purses his lips, annoyed. "Johanna, the fact that you even have to ask...I'm offended. Now let's come up with your cover story. I can tell everyone you were shot, or even better, eaten by a bear-"

"You can't say I was eaten by a bear if I'm still alive," Johanna interrupts scornfully.

"Sure I can." Finnick thinks fast. "It swallowed you whole, but then you clawed your way out of its belly, and now you've got a new rug."

Rolling her eyes, Johanna can't help laughing. A little of the color comes back into her cheeks. For the first time, she doesn't look desperate.

"Finnick? Thanks for breaking me out of the hospital."