Fire In My Veins

by sohawkeward

War, to them, is the lingering hand on their shoulder. A reminder. They cope. Johanna Mason tries her very best to forget, and then Katniss turns up at the door with the recovering world behind her. Sometimes, it feels like the war hasn't ended - at least, not on the inside.

11. Atrophy I

Atrophy I

Haymitch's words begin to fail him and Effie falls apart, bit by bit, as Katniss is. Peeta reacts similarly, and the two of them, by Haymitch's side, resemble each other more than ever. I try to ignore the bitter taste in my mouth and swallow it all down when I catch Haymitch staring at me. His lips twitch a little, threatening a grin, and I have to turn away.

Even in death, even as he withers away, Haymitch refuses to let me off. Soon after I excuse myself and wait outside with Effie, pale-faced and unusually free of being caked with vibrant makeup. I gather that it is her way of mourning when she can no longer cry, and I feel a pinch of sympathy for the woman.

"Oh, Johanna," she finally breaks, tears spilling forth in waves, "I can't believe this. I just – I just can't!" She babbles on about the war, about how hard Haymitch has fought and I feel sicker and sicker the more she speaks, so I leave the house entirely after giving Effie a hug.

I walk. It is all I can do. I walk far and long until I find myself in the forest, until I can breathe again.

She finds me, hours later, up in the tree and joins me. I refuse to look because Haymitch's half-grin is still etched in my mind, a ghost to follow me for the rest of my days. And Peeta, with his lingering presence – the thought of him completes my sickness and I want to hurl, I want to get everything, everything, out of my system: the little gamble I'd agreed to, the gratefulness in Peeta's eyes, the war, Katniss' touch, Katniss' melancholic anthem –

"Johanna."

Her voice, like velvet, draws me in. Too fast for me to try and stop myself. I look her way and she is looking at me with eyes that hide nothing,nothing, from me. The forest is our place, she seems to say as she takes my hand. Ours. She completes the gesture with a kiss on the inside of my palm.

The gentleness of her actions puts my world into stasis.

All around us the forest stretches on forever – there are no districts, no Capitol, no war, no nothing. Just us two, in the one place where Peeta cannot reach her, and now where Haymitch's dying wish cannot reach me.