Chapter 4
I wake up feeling my muscles aching from all the stretching and tensing. I had no idea my body would be so sore after last night. At least now I know why Johanna called it workout. Gladly, after a few nights of loving, tensing, moaning and going over the edge, my body gets more used to it and we even seem to be more fit and disposed for training.
A few days after that night, I'm able to start not caring about Peeta's rude comments; but he also seems to become more and more polite with every time we meet. Apparently, the walls actually are thin, but not thin enough for everyone to notice from what specific room the groaning comes from. Finnick knows, sometimes I wonder how much he knows. I trust him and like him, but I wouldn't like Johanna to tell him specifics of our relationship-too embarrassing. I gulp my food as soon as I sit down expecting to accelerate time with my speed. The day has been too long and I want it to be reflection time already.
"You want to go hunting later?" Gale's voice breaks my focus on speeding time. Hunting? Pff. I know how important it is for him to go hunting with me because it means that there's still a 'us'; but I didn't need that anymore. I had more…. important things to do.
"Uhm. No, thanks. I want to train more and then I'll be too tired." I answer him evasively.
"Too tired, eh?" Johanna says suggestively smirking. I grin at her.
"Shut up, Johanna. Anyway, I can't go Gale." I turn my attention to Gale before I give enough clues that prove Peeta's suggestion.
"Why not?" He asks a little agitated, which bothers me. Why does he need to push things so much?
"I already told you. Weren't you listening or you've gone deaf?" I answer back, feeling anger building up. I stand up, not being able to take anymore of Gale's insistence. "Let's go Jo. We have some training to do." Johanna smirks and stands up. Our eyes lock together and Gale seems to notice the complicity as he stands abruptly.
"Catnip. What's going on?" He asks me, looking from Johanna to me. His eyes are begging for an answer and he surely said the nickname in an attempt to bring me back to him. But I'm long gone. I slipped away from him, just like the boy with the bread slipped away from me.
"I'm not sure if you're choosing not listen or if you're actually deaf." I say annoyed. I spin on my heels and leave with Johanna by my side as I listen to Gale's heavy steps trying to catch up with us.
We are in the halls that lead to the rooms when Gale pulls me by the arm, making me stop abruptly and have to support myself on his chest so I don't fall. At the moment I touch him, I can feel Johanna's temper fuming. I push myself away from him but he holds my wrist firmly, not letting me go.
"What's going on? What are you hiding from me Cat?" He asks me. I can hear the pleading tone in his voice. What is this? I never heard Gale begging for anything.
I open my mouth to answer him, but before we are able to react or I can utter any sound a blur yanks Gale away from me. Johanna throws Gale against the wall and then pins him on the floor. Gale tries to get away from her, but Johanna locks him in a way she could easily break his neck. Both of us are startled by Johanna's speed and strength. Gale is clearly undecided of whether he should try to ease Johanna's grip or do nothing because he has never being so surprised in his life. We all knew she's strong, but we never thought she could easily overpower a man of Gale's size. This is definitely what Haymitch was referring to when he said she was a skilled assassin. And I reproach myself when I notice I'm suddenly turned-on by Johanna's protectiveness and ability.
"Are you ok? Did he hurt you?" she asks me, her eyes dripping with preoccupation.
"No," I say rubbing my wrist "it's fine, Jo."
"I promise you, Gale: You'll never be able to use a bow or set one of your snares if you hurt this girl, understood?" Johanna whispers threateningly on his ear. He nods nervously, not daring to breath.
"Let him go, Jo. Everything is okay. I'll talk to him." I tell her. Gale is the only living person I can say has been my friend since ever. I need to give him a chance, and that would give me a chance to tell him that nothing will happen between us.
"Okay. You better be careful with how you treat her, handsome." Johanna whispers a final threat in Gales ear and lets him go. "I'll wait for you at the training station" Johanna says as she walks away swaying her hips provocatively. Gale gets up trying to pretend he was never almost killed by a girl half his size.
"Is it true?" Gale asks worryingly. "What Peeta said the other day, is it true?"
"Why do you care to know?" I ask trying not be surly.
"'Cause I- You're my best friend Catnip. I care about you." He says, his voice tainted with emotion.
"You care? Then leave me be. It's not like Johanna will kill me. We are friend Gale and I care about her. We share rooms. We comfort each other through our worst nightmares." I start to get exalted. I don't want to tell him. Finnick is the only one who knows. "If you're worrying about what she might do to me, I can assure you she will never hurt me."
"That isn't all. Catnip, I- the other night I wanted to see if what Peeta said was true and went to your room. The door was locked but I- I heard something." Gale blushes. It's the first time I ever see him like this. So unsure and embarrassed; I try not to blush because I know very well what he heard. "Johanna was with someone in your room and they were- Well, they were having… a lot fun. But I couldn't find you anywhere, and everything suggested that you should be in the room too, so I wondered if"
"WHAT? NO!" I blurt the words before I can even think about what to say. "And I don't think it's your business what I do in my room or with whom!" Gale's eyes are wide. For the first time I leave him speechless.
"But Katniss—" He tries to talk.
"But nothing Gale!" I interrupt him again, pushing him away. "Why do you care? Because you love me? Lies! You only cared enough to tell me when you saw you could lose me." Now I'm shouting at him. "You have no right to do this to me. None. We are friends Gale. Don't ruin us because of a bit of jealousy." I finish and run to my room with no more motivation to train
I find Johanna in there, laying on her bed, clearly waiting for me. She sits up when I get in.
"I knew you wouldn't train after talking to Gale." She tells me. I try to smile at her and stand still, not been able to move. "What happened Kat?" her body stiffens when she notices I'm unwell.
"I—" my voice catches in my throat and I start to cry. Johanna runs to me and I hang on to her in her embrace.
"Shhh. What's wrong sweetheart? Did he hurt you?" I shake my head and try to talk through my sobbing.
"I. I. We had a fight. I was- I couldn't- I didn't tell him." I manage.
"Oh, Katniss." She whispers softly and understandingly in my ear. "It's alright. Everything will be alright." She starts kissing me all over my face, drying it with her lips, but more and more to salty tears fall down my eyes. "I know it's hard. It was hard for me too. And when I finally had the courage to be fully honest with everyone, the opportunity was snatched away from me." My heart starts to calm down as Johanna carries me to the bed and holds me tight to her, comforting me. "Don't you worry child. You'll get over this. And you know what's the best of it? I'll be right there with you and we can go through it together. I'll support you as I can and do whatever I think is best, ok? I won't let you go through the same thing I went through." My heart is slowing down as I stop to cry and notice this is my opportunity to ask Johanna those questions that creep up on me every time I hear her talking in her sleep. Now you've been talking in your sleep. Oh, oh. Things you never say to me. Oh, oh. I let time pass by as I recover my voice.
"Johanna" I try it with her name first, to make sure my voice is working properly.
"Found your voice, brainless?" She asks, trying to cheer me up with the nick name. I jokingly punch her on the arm.
"I want to ask you something." she hums nodding. I build up the courage to start the topic. "When you sleep, you talk a lot. About someone you loved and you don't want it to happen again. And why does it do these things to you and you say things you never really told me and" Johanna clears her throat and I stop talking, afraid that I touched a topic I shouldn't have.
"I talk in my sleep and say all that stuff because… Well, love is weird." She starts. "Before my games there was this girl. We were best friends, and it took me almost four years for me to notice that I loved her. Can you believe that? How stupid can you be to don't notice you're in love for four years? It took me a while to build up the courage to show her that my love and dedication went beyond mere friendship. I know, how can Johanna Mason be shy and unsure about anything she does? But that was me at the time; so fragile and vulnerable because I was in love with the most wonderful person ever. I was afraid that if the love wasn't reciprocated our relationship would get awkward. I took her to the woods, far from where everyone else was-like we always did-that day we skipped school and all our duties to spend the day together. I gathered as much food as I could and even spent my saving to buy chocolates. We spent the day eating, laughing and talking; probably one of the best days of my life. When we were tired because of all of the eating and laughing, she laid on my lap looking at the woods and I couldn't take my eyes of her. She was very different from anyone in 7. She looked so graceful, elegant and delicate. You would never believe those soft hands could wield an ax and bring a tree down. Her hair was platinum blond and her skin reminded me of sugar for it wasn't only as white, but just as sweet.
There, I kissed her. I remember calling her name for her to face me and my whole body trembled when I kissed her for fear she would reject me. She kissed me back. I expected that the trembling would stop with the relief of her loving me, but it shook even more with excitement. From then on we lived our romance, hiding it from everyone, even some members of our family. We were rapidly told by our parents that we wouldn't be well accepted by anyone in Panem if they knew of our girl-to-girl love. But we didn't care. Hiding it or not we loved each other from the moon to the sun and all the way back home. One day, when our emotions were too tense and there was no reason for us to be missed anywhere, we fully loved each other for the first time. And from then on, I would run to her house, or she would run to mine every night for us to spend every possible second of our life together.
And then it happened. I was ripped for the Hunger Games. She was going to volunteer for me, but one look to my eyes and she knew I would kill her right there if she did that. I went to the games. Everything was as good as it could be. I won the games and all that stuff. I managed to convince those idiots to let me take a companion with me during the victor tour. She wouldn't be seen by anyone. I just wanted a bit of home accompanying me during the tour. I took her with me and it didn't take long for Snow to hear about it. He soon tried to sell me, just like he sold Finnick. But I had gone through the Games already. I could swallow no more Capitol shit and denied to be sold. He gave me two days to think about it. When he came back for the final answer I said no. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't betray my heart. My heart and body belonged to one person and only one, and it wasn't for sale or rent. Unavailable. Untouchable. I would never sell myself for all the money in the world because I belonged to her and myself, not to the Capitol or Snow's minions. The only money I needed was to buy food and chocolates for her family and mine, and I had enough of that already. Well, the chocolates were especially for her-she loved chocolate. When I came out of the reunion with Snow, he disappeared as fast as he reached me. I found everyone dead. Everyone. My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. I ran to the woods, my shelter, to find her, my sanctuary." Johanna catches her breath and prepares herself to keep on telling me what happened. And suddenly I know what she going to tell me.
"She was there, waiting for me -dead- with a bouquet of white roses in her deadly cold hands. They were stained with her blood. She looked as beautiful as she always did. Her skin had barely started to turn gray. Her blood was still hot trying to bump its way to life. But my love was long gone with a horrible red smile in her neck and a faint one in her lips. They probably caught her by surprise. She probably was very anxious not to notice Snow's agents creeping behind her. That's what I thought, and I was right. After crying for hours on her dead body, staining myself with her blood because I just couldn't cope with the fact that she wouldn't answer me, she wouldn't fill the air with her sass or her laugh, she wouldn't kiss me anymore, she wouldn't love me anymore, she wouldn't comfort me or worry or anything; I was found by some people of the town-my parents' friends. They had to knock me out so they could take me away from her and prepare her for the funeral. I woke up in my damned house. I saw her basket near my bed, the one that was next to her when she died. I pick it up, hoping it will give me something to hold on to. Maybe a letter telling me that that wasn't actually her and that she was hidden in the woods somewhere, waiting for me, so we could run away. I open it and find bread, some roots and stiff meat and a box of chocolate. She bought them all herself with her own money even though she knew I had enough to buy all that and more.
It was our anniversary. We celebrated the day, but not the amount of time because it felt like a lifetime and not some years. I couldn't help but smile. She couldn't be sweeter. But the fact that I knew she wouldn't come in through my door ever again, made me unable to feel happy. There was a letter. In that letter she declared her eternal love to me and said that we should reveal our romance for Snow to leave me alone and understand that I couldn't sell myself to others because I already belonged to someone else. She said she would run with me if I wanted to. She said that if I decided to give in and follow Snow's orders she would understand because she knew that, at the end of the day, I was hers and she was mine 'till the end of time. She said she loved me and that she would do and accept whatever was necessary if it meant to bring me safety. She wanted to marry me. She didn't mind not having kids. But I could pay for that weird thing they do in the Capitol to get women pregnant without having them have sex with a guy. I never cried so much in my life. It was a month of crying and re-reading that letter. She loved me. She wanted to marry me. She wanted to have a family with me. She was prepared to do anything for me. She was the best I could have, probably more than I deserved. And that bastard took her away from me, Katniss. He took all I had. Everyone. I loved her, Kat. I had everything I loved snatched away from me. That's why I mumble at night. I fear you'll be snatched away from me too, or Finnick. You're all I have now and I don't know how I will cope with losing you too. She loved me more than anything and I loved her just as much. I love her."
We stay quiet for a long while as I take in everything Johanna told me. This is it. This is the story behind the tough and killer Johanna Mason. This is the story of how the soft, madly in love, extremely sweet Johanna Mason became an unscrupulous, though assassin, careless and fearless Johanna Mason. I wasn't sure of how to feel about this, surely outraged by the unlimited amount of cruelty that Snow is capable of. I know very well how it is to find those damned white roses. But how stupid it is for me to feel even a bit jealous that she just told me she still loves her?
"What was her name?" I ask her, noticing she didn't say it even once. Her voice catches when she tries to talk and she tries again.
"Elsa" Johanna says in a whisper, a tear dropping with the name. "Her name is Elsa-was Elsa." I notice how hard it is for her to correct herself, to remind herself that she isn't anymore and remember that she was. I don't know what to say. I never knew she loved that much. I don't think I ever loved with such intensity, or at least not in the same way. Not that I have noticed. And then I say the only thing that comes to mind.
"Don't worry. I don't plan to leave you. I'm not going anywhere. Well, I'm probably going to the Capitol, and you'll probably go too. Then you'll be sure nothing will happen to me, and I'll probably have a whole crew to make sure nothing will happen to me." She nods and kisses me longingly.
"You'll come out of this safe and sound. I just hope that when you do come out of it, you'll still be mine." She says honestly. I definitely have no answer for that. What am I supposed to say? I want to tell her it will all be fine, but I don't know. I told Prim she had no chance to be ripped for the Hunger Games, and look how that went on. Johanna notices my inner struggle and kisses me, and that's all we do, trying to calm each other's sorrows, until our lips are too sore and our minds too tired and we sleep.
A/N: I re-posted this chapter 'cause I fixed some stuff in it, especially to make it easier for you guys to read that long part of Johanna telling her story. That was thanks to some reviews. It was just too late when I posted and I forgot to do the typical reviews I make, so thanks a lot :-) Hope you guys enjoy this. By the way, Johanna's Elsa is the Elsa from "Frozen" because I think they are just perfect for each other. It's a minimal crossover and I plan to write a fanfic about them later.