A/N: Another POV shift! Third person this time. Hope no one gets too confused. Also, please forgive me for the ridiculously long absence. I was gone all of June so my writing kind of fell off the boat, and then I was caught up in a bunch of other stuff. But I'm back now so let's do this thing!


Not more than a week after Johanna had returned from the Victory Tour, there was a knock at the door. Johanna and Rowan were on the couch. Rowan had a sketchbook in her hands, and Johanna was whittling away at a small block of wood. The head of a bird was just becoming distinguishable from the wooden mass. At the sound, they both looked up at the door, then at each other.

"I didn't invite anyone over," Rowan said before Johanna could ask. She set her sketchbook down and rose to open the door. Blight stood there. He had a letter in his hands. Johanna could see the envelope had already been opened.

"Rowan," he acknowledged, his voice level. "Can I come in?"

Rowan nodded as she stood back to allow him entrance. He ducked slightly as he stepped into the living room. Blight was a massive man, broad at the shoulders and well over six feet tall. Johanna wasn't surprised he had won the Games so swiftly when he was a tribute; even as a young man he must have been a giant among his peers. His blonde hair was cropped short in a nondescript cut, contrasting with the thick reddish beard that covered most of his face. He wore a jacket against the chill of the oncoming winter. He stopped a few paces short of the couch and held out the letter.

From where she sat, Johanna could see the Capitol's seal. She made no move to take the letter from his hand, her gaze flicking from the envelope to his face.

"Well? What does it say?"

Blight remained silent. Johanna laughed without humor. "I know you already opened it. Just tell me what the fucker wants from me now."

Blight sighed, his hand dropping. "He requests our presence in the Capitol. A Victor's gathering, they have one every year after the Tour."

"When is it?"

Blight scratched his beard, looking away. "Day after tomorrow."

"No." Johanna's voice cut low and quick across the room.

"Johanna -"

"I'm not going."

"You have to."

"I was just there. I just got back."

"It's not a request, Johanna."

"Then Snow's gonna have to drag me all the way there himself."

"He won't have to because I will."

Johanna's teeth automatically bared at his words. She placed the block of wood on the floor, standing with the knife still clutched in her fist. "Is that so, Blight?"

The man took a step back, palms forward, "Johanna," he said slowly, "I'm not threatening you. This is to protect you. Snow is not a man who takes lightly to being refused."

"I don't care," Johanna snarled. "I'm. Not. Going."

"Johanna." Rowan's voice was sharp. She had been standing silently near the door, arms folded, but now she stepped forward, drawing level with Blight. Johanna's eyebrows lifted at her tone. "You're going to the Capitol. Not because you want to, but because you have to." Her voice softened slightly, but something about it still commanded Johanna's attention. Rowan took a few steps closer until they were toe-to-toe. Her eyes were serious, "You're going to go and play nice and shake hands, and then you'll come home, understand me?"

Johanna's eyes left Rowan's. She tried staring a hole through the wall beyond Rowan's head, her jaw clenching. Rowan's fingers curled gently around her wrist, but she jerked away.

"Johanna -"

She ignored her and stormed to the door, throwing it open. Gesturing dramatically outside with her knife, she looked at Blight, her eyes cold.

"You can go now."

Blight looked uncertainly at Rowan.

"I'll meet you at the train station tomorrow, alright?" Johanna snapped, irritated that of the three of them, she was the one filling the role of unruly child.

Blight nodded and strode toward the door, handing the letter to Johanna on his way out, "The details are in there."

"Thanks," Johanna said venomously, and slammed the door behind him.

She stood facing the closed door, glaring into the grain of the wood.

Her whole frame trembled. The silence stretched, the reverberation of the slammed door seeming to grow louder in the emptiness. Johanna's grip was a vice on the knife; the paper of the envelope crinkled as her fingers curled into a fist. She shut her eyes, breathing hard through her nose, feeling her temper begin to spiral out of control. A tiny voice in the back of her head told her to run, to get out of the house now before this escalated, but the louder part of her roared for conflict. For retribution for this injustice.

"How many days will you be gone?" Rowan's voice was softer than it had been before.

"How should I know?" Johanna retorted sharply, not bothering to turn around.

"It probably says in the letter..." Rowan began. Johanna moved like lightning, turning on one heel and flinging the thick envelope at her. Rowan jumped, raising her arm just in time to deflect the missile. It bounced off her forearm and landed on the couch.

"Why don't you open it and see?" Johanna snarled.

Rowan's eyes flicked from the fallen letter up to Johanna, her eyebrows meeting.

"What is your problem?" Her voice was low.

"My problem?" Johanna repeated. "My problem, lover mine, is that you just fucking betrayed me."

"Betrayed-?"

"Yes, betrayed me," Johanna snapped.

She could feel heat curling in her chest. Through the Victory Tour weeks, she had held herself together by compressing the horror of the Games into a dense, hot parcel that rested at her core. It had twisted within her when she visited the Districts, when her voice rang empty across bleak, silent crowds. It had been a lead weight in her stomach when she was forced to recall the details of each tribute's death, the scenes appearing in her mind uninvited as the dead tributes' eyes stared at her from the faces of destitute family members. It had snarled in her ear when the horizon swallowed the sun, had dragged her into waking visions of terror where she flailed in the darkness of the sleeping car, desperate for her ax but unable to find it. It had risen in her throat, vile and burning, when she shook the President's hand, smelled blood on his breath, and waved for the howling, turbulent sea of neon faces.

And now it rose inside her, swelling to fill every empty space with red heat. She felt her nostrils flaring, her shoulders flexing as she met the brutality of her emotions head on.

Her words surged unchecked from her lips. "You don't understand. I just got here. I've been gone, Rowan, for months. I killed my way through the Games to make it back home, and I was ruthless, you have no idea. I went on the Tour and smiled and waved for those Capital idiots. I paid my dues, and I did it so I could come home and be left in peace. So I could come home and be with you and not have to think about the Games or the Capitol or President Snow ever again." Her voice was loud, roaring in her own ears, filling the room with a muffled echoing rage. "I did all of it, every horrible minute, for you. For us. But it's like you don't even want me here anymore. You've been distant since I got back, you've hardly touched me except to hold me after nightmares. And now here you are, all for throwing me out the door and back to those...those... hyenas."

"No, I -"

"Don't interrupt me," Johanna said harshly, "You listen." Rowan's mouth closed, and Johanna continued. "You don't know what it's like there, with them. Everywhere you turn, they're there in those stupid outfits and makeup, fawning over you. They won't shut up about how exhilarated, how mesmerized they were when I-" Her voice rose in mocking imitation of the ridiculous Capitol accent - "'chopped straight through that Dictrict 11 boy's spine' or when I 'strangled the life from the little dark girl from District 3.'" Johanna could feel her teeth showing. "They always ask me to tell them exactly how it felt when my traps went off so perfectly that the log swung right into the boy's skull."

The words were white hot in her memory, and suddenly every scene from the arena that consumed her nightmares was flashing in fast forward behind her eyes: the tiny gasp of the little girl who hardly realized Johanna's hands were on her before she snapped her neck; the inhuman screaming of the towering boy who lost both his eyes in a fight against a Career; the bloody, headless carcass of the District 9 tribute after he stumbled into Johanna's clever log trap; the sad blue eyes and gentle voice of the girl who was the last to die before Johanna became Victor. They just kept coming, each one building on the pain of the last.

Johanna's heart was racing. She fought with the words as they poured from her chest, her eyes blurring with tears. "They just can't get enough of how good I am at killing. It's amazing to them. They love it. They love me. I'm a murderer and they love me." Johanna's voice broke. Her face was twisted into a humorless grin.

Rowan didn't speak. Silent tears were already making their way down her cheeks. Her expression was pained. She looked like she was struggling for something to say, anything to alleviate the onslaught of emotion that Johanna was caught in.

Johanna felt wild. The parcel in her chest was screaming. She wanted to rip her skin off. She wanted to shatter windows and burn everything down. She wanted to fall at Rowan's feet and beg for death or for a beating or for reassurance that she was alright. She wanted to give herself over to the madness that was tearing her apart. She gritted her teeth, the angry grin widening as the tears broke free of her eyes.

"Did you watch?" Johanna asked suddenly.

Rowan blinked, her mouth opening slightly, as though stumped by a trick question, "I promised you I wouldn't.

"But did you watch?" Johanna repeated, her voice hard.

Rowan shook her head.

Johanna took a step forward. "You didn't see the monster I was. I killed children. Children, Rowan. So young they still screamed in terror and begged for their lives and cried until their cannons went off." Her voice was grating, dragging its claws across her throat and tongue. She took another step forward. "And I did it all without any regret because I wanted to come home to you."

Another step. Their faces were only a few inches apart now. The tears were flowing freely down Johanna's cheeks. She searched Rowan's eyes, finding familiarity in the particular shade of blue. Johanna felt like sinking into the floor, like crumbling into a million pieces - anything to disappear, anything to stop existing.

When she spoke again, her voice was desperate, a painful sound just above a whisper. "I told you not to watch because I didn't want you to know. I didn't want you to see. But Rowan. I don't think it matters. Because I was a monster in the Games, and I'm a monster now, and now you'll know."

The knife and letter slipped from her limp fingers. Her knees buckled and suddenly there were arms around her. Rowan caught her sagging weight. She pulled her back to lay on the couch as Johanna unraveled, sobbing into Rowan's chest. Her whole body shook with violent spasms, her hands clenched in claws on Rowan's shirt, the sound escaping her teeth like the dying scream of a wild animal. Rowan held her tightly, fighting the force of her tremors as best she could.

Minutes passed into an hour before Johanna's muscles began to unwind. The noise in her throat faded to a whimper. She trembled, weary, her chest shaking with the hiccough of ragged breaths. The sound echoed in the stillness of the house. Her cheek pressed against Rowan's heartbeat. The warm, steady rhythm slowed her thoughts, her racing terror. Rowan looked down at her, eyes deep with worry, forehead heavy with sadness. She gently stroked her cheek.

"I can't," Johanna whispered once she had regained control of her breathing. Her voice was raw. "I can't play this game anymore."

Rowan was silent, but her arms tightened around Johanna, pulling her closer. She kissed Johanna's forehead, her lips lingering. Johanna closed her eyes at the gentleness of the touch.

"I knew what I was in for," Rowan said finally, "when I said goodbye to you on Reaping Day. We've seen the Games. We've known there's more to winning than fame and money. I knew when I promised not to watch that you would transform in the arena. That you would emerge a different person than the one that went in. Every Victor does."

She paused, collecting her words, then continued, "You're right, I haven't seen what you've done. I haven't seen what you've seen. But you did what you had to so you could come home. You might condemn yourself for that sacrifice, but I won't, because it brought you back to me. Whatever may have changed about you, it's still you here in my arms now, and I haven't forgotten that."

Tears slid from beneath Johanna's eyelids, down her temples and into her hair. Rowan's fingers brushed away the wet tracks they left behind.

Her lips pressed against Johanna's right eyebrow, the tip of her nose, her mouth.

The kiss was earnest and gentle. Rowan's hand pressed softly against her cheek. She did not pull away after a short while, as she had since Johanna had returned from the Tour. Her lips explored the contours of Johanna's mouth like it was the first time and not the hundredth that she had gotten to taste her. Johanna responded in kind, her arms wrapping around Rowan's neck to pull her closer. The barest hint of a whimper escaped Rowan's throat and Johanna's eyes opened in surprise. She pulled away slightly.

"What?" she whispered hoarsely, "What did I do?"

Rowan shook her head, pressing her forehead to Johanna's. "Nothing, I just...I'm sorry," she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek, "for keeping you at a distance. It's not because I was afraid of you. I was trying to give you space to recover from the arena. I - I didn't know how bad it had been for you, so I thought maybe you wouldn't be able to handle us...doing anything for a while."

Johanna cupped Rowan's chin, forcing her gaze up. She looked into the teary blue eyes for a long moment, then murmured, "I need you to be close to me."

Rowan's response was to capture Johanna's lips in her own again. Johanna wrapped her arms tight around her torso, then, without breaking the kiss, swung her legs over the edge of the couch. She stood, lifting Rowan bridal style, and carried her down the hall to their room.

The setting sun shone through the window as trembling fingers tossed clothes to the floor and lips moved against exposed skin. They climbed onto the bed, hands tangling in hair, fingers trailing across throats and ribs. Johanna buried herself in Rowan's scent, in the taste of her lips, the exquisite lines and curves of her body. They wrapped themselves up in each other, trying to remember the counts of their altered dance.

Despite the warm familiarity as their bodies moved together, Johanna felt a rawness, a desperation that had never found its way past the bedroom threshold before. It sharpened her need, drawing her tight, bringing an acuteness to the back of her tongue and the tips of her fingers, changing the way she touched Rowan, changing the way she felt her.

Rowan sensed the difference and moved with it. She pulled their bodies closer together when Johanna startled away from a phantom Rowan couldn't see. She took Johanna's face firmly and gently in her hands, bringing her back to reality when Johanna became lost in an unwelcome memory. And when Johanna moved inside her with unfamiliar roughness, Rowan buried her face in Johanna's neck and whimpered words of love until the waves rippled, and then Johanna's name escaped her lips like a prayer and they fell together and kissed swollen lips and let sleep claim them in the warm darkness.