Chapter Fourteen

Her finger traced the words, as though somehow by having some kind of physical connection to them she would understand them better. Somehow she was beginning to recognize some words, things like "den" which were repeated could only be something that people would say regularly like she or he or the. But even then she couldn't fit enough other words into any form of sense to fit. It had been months and she still couldn't work out what to do with the diary.

"Hey trouble," Finnick greeted from the door, causing Johanna to throw the precious item across the room. "Jeez calm it there cowboy," he requested.

"Finnick!" she yelled at him anyway, regaining the ability to breathe. How the hell did he manage to sneak up on her? He was hardly the most graceful of human beings and definitely not the quietest by any means.

"What's the matter, not so much fun when someone else does the surprising?" he asked teasingly.

"No I just don't like the fact you can get into my room without me knowing," she shot back, getting off the bed to pick up the discarded object. "What do you want anyway?" she asked.

"Just to see what you were thinking about Mag's offer," he started, raising his eyebrows in a hopeful way that implied he was fishing for her to finish his thought.

"To be honest I haven't had much time to think about it-"

"Except for your gut reaction, which let's face it is what you're going to go with," he answered knowingly. He hadn't come to see what her opinion was, he'd come in to confirm suspicions he already had.

"What makes you think that?" she asked, curious as to how much he thought he knew.

"Well you thought I was a threat when you first met me," he pointed out.

"So? I've stuck around," she countered.

"Only because you stabbed me," he half-shouted back. "Look you ran when Mags first said the words 'high school', it's obvious until someone proves it's not a threat that you're not going to go, but until you go you're not going to realize it's not a threat so I'm here to tell you that I'll protect you," he explained, having the decency to look a little bashful when he finished talking.

"Even from the big mean cheerleaders?" Johanna asked mockingly back.

"You laugh now but words cannot describe the hell they can put someone through," Finnick warned and Johanna wasn't overly surprised that he'd managed to upset more than a few females in his time.

"So you're going to protect me how?" Johanna asked.

"Well that depends who you piss of and how exactly which one of your social skills you use to do it," Finnick explained in technical voice that didn't suit his boyish grin.

"So you really think you'll be able to take better care of me than I'll be able to take of myself?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows to let him know exactly what she thought of that idea.

"Well yeah, in the same way that if I had a run in with a mobster you'd be the first one that I'd call," Finnick admitted.

"Oh great," she sighed.

"What's that mean?" he queried.

"Well you're exactly the type of person who would end up in that type of trouble," she gave him a look to challenge him to disagree.

"Well I guess it's just as well that I ran into you then isn't it?" he answered, grinning smugly at her afterwards causing her to roll her eyes in a way that was becoming all to familiar with now.

"Yeah, at least one of us got a good deal out of this anyway," she surrendered. "So what exactly are you hoping for here?"

"Well I'm hoping that you won't say no to the idea for some stupid reason or another like 'what if none of the other kids like me' or 'what if the cafeteria serves awful food and I can't eat and I starve to death' because I kid you not if either of those two excuses come out of your mouth I will drag you into that building myself, with or without Mags permission," he insisted and she felt oddly warm inside. He hadn't come to check his suspicions were right, he'd come to try and talk her out of running again, like she always did.

"It's cute how after all this time you still think you could overpower me," she joked, although half of the joking tone was missing as she really started to gain some respect for Finnick. Not that she'd ever admit it to him, he'd never ever let her forget it and then she'd remember all over again why it had taken him so long for her to give him respect in the first place. It was much nicer as a secret that was never spoken. And one that would hopefully stay between the two of them otherwise most of the population would lose respect for her judgment.

"Well I guess I'll just have to keep trying until I succeed," he half-teased back, although again there was a certain hint of seriousness that was missing in most conversations between the pair.

"You'll be trying for a while," she warned.

"I have a feeling it'd be worth it in the end, besides I'm a pretty persistent guy when there's something that I want at the end of the road," he warned back and she replied with a simple smile, hearing the real words that she didn't really want to hear him say. "I'm here as long as I need to be".

"So what's it like then?" she asked eventually, her own need to break the silence getting the better of her.

"What being over powered by me? Well I've only ever had good feedback about it but I guess the best way to find out is to-" he was cut off as a pillow made vicious contact with his face. "Try," he added on when he'd recovered from the attack.

"Not that genius, high school," she corrected him, now feeling even more embarrassed about having to ask about it.

"High school, it's basically like they got a bunch of kids in the most dramatic years of their life, decided the best thing to do was to throw them all together and hope most of them make it out alive. And of those that do make it out, they've got to try and make sure that they're useful somehow, even if it is just by teaching the same old tricks they learned in high school to kids who want to listen even less than they did when they were in school but hey, it's been this way for generations, why change the system now right?" he teased.

"You make it sound like some kind of arena of death set up by some evil government where the only chance of getting out alive is with the support of the teachers," she pointed out.

"Hey I never promised it'd be a convincing argument, you asked what it's like and that's what I think of it," he shrugged.

"Not really talking me into it here Finnick," she complained, lying back against the headboard.

"Ok, so what if high school doesn't sound like the best thing on the planet, it only really comes down to one thing anyway," he sighed, and she swore she heard a hint of hurt in his voice.

"And what's that?" she asked, he seemed to think he had all the answers today, even if they were very simplified insights into the situation they were interesting none the less.

"Whether or not you want to stay here," he answered, and she turned her head to look at him again, and saw that he was staring intensely at her, as though he was trying to predict the future of their friendship based on whatever expression she made now.

"Finnick it's much, much more complicated than-"

"No it isn't Johanna. At the end of the day it doesn't matter about high school, you've never mentioned any opinion on it either for or against it and you still haven't. You still haven't said "I'd never go to high school how dare Mags try and make me make this choice" or "oh jolly I'm so glad to finally get to experience a real American high school, it's all I've ever dreamed about" because that's not the decision you're trying to make. The decision you're trying to make is whether or not we're worth sticking around for, and the fact you've had to think this long about it says everything I need to know," he explained to her, crap when did Finnick get so observant?

"Finnick it's not that I just-"

"Johanna I don't know if you've worked this out or not but generally I don't let many people get away with punching walls in my best friends house, so how much do you think you meant to me after I let you stay in my house after you freaking stabbed me. I don't know why I trusted you, I don't know what part of me made me care so much but Johanna I wanted to look after you, to prove to you that you can trust someone and that above everything else it's ok for someone to protect you every now and again," he spoke and Johanna wanted nothing more than for him to leave. She wanted to curl herself up on top of the bed and try to forget what happened to the last group of people who'd tried to protect her. Even if they'd been trying to protect themselves as well. But she couldn't do that, not with Finnick watching. Because then she just might tell him everything, and she didn't even want to begin to think about what he'd do then. She could live with him hating her, could live with the fact he'd never forgive her if she ran now, but she couldn't live with the thought of someone hurting him because of something she'd told him when she was the one who was being weak and needy.

"Finnick I don't have an opinion on high school because I don't know the slightest thing about it. I don't know if you've noticed or not but I don't really have much of a normal education to base my decision on, I'm not sure that I ever thought I'd have to make the decision. In my mind it was so out of the blue that I panicked, and I'm sorry you and Mags got caught up in that panic but I'd never just leave. I'd at least explain my decision to you both, you have to believe me," she lied, just wanting to reassure him before she potentially stabbed him in the back without looking back.

"Just, let me know if there's anything you want to know," he nodded at her and left then, some part of him knew she was lying to him and she couldn't feel that part as it twisted her gut uncomfortably. She shouldn't be able to lie so easily, even if people didn't believe the lie she told some part of her believed every lie she told. Some part of her did care enough about the odd pair that she would want them to know why she had made her decision the way she had, and why no matter what there was nothing that they could do about it. Why she couldn't live in a place where the biggest threat was someone as small and threatening as Clove when outside those walls there was a darkness that would always be waiting for her to slip up. Would wait for her to make one little mistake so it could consume her and anyone who had helped her in the same way that it had consumed her family. Could she really pretend she didn't care about any of them enough to risk their lives just so she could experience a few years of normality, if even that. Could it really be that simple?

Her hand instinctively reached out and stroked the pages of the diary, now scrambled into an odd order that she could fix easily enough with the dates at the top of the pages. The only thing she had managed to salvage from her past life, a life that she had divided from herself with a wall. But there was something trying to knock down that wall and as soon as it did she would crumble under the weight of broken bricks and a life she could barely remember at the moment.

That was when she saw it.

She looked down and her eyes fell on one word, a word she couldn't believe it had taken her this long to recognize. "Mor" was scrawled across the top of the page along with another word that Johanna couldn't place. The word that she had once seen on the back of her mother's locket. The only word from her mother's past life that had ever been explained to her. She looked up at the date and sure enough, it was the same date that her mother would leave for a few hours every year to light a candle in the local church in memory of her mother's birthday and all the days they'd once spent together until she, like Johanna, had had to leave her past life behind in favor of a newer and safer one. But the word had been carved into the locket where there was the only photo of Johanna's grandmother to have survived whatever tragedy her mother had gone through. The word was mother, and Johanna nearly cried in the relief that finally, at least something was starting to make sense.

Author's Note: Hey guys! So here it is as promised the chapter of the day! Hopefully to become more of a regular thing! :) So what'd you guys think of the chat between Finnick and Johanna? And what do you think she'll do about the high school arrangement?

Also I forgot to mention last time but if you want a cool writing blog to check out then hit this up for some entertainment a long with some helpful hints :)

Anyway until next time please leave a comment if you've got any thoughts about this chapter at all :)

-R