Johanna wrestled with nightmares, Gale wrestled with his newfound wealth. It was easy to put Posy and the boys in new clothes, to outfit his mother with the new home, to have hot water with the turn of a tap. It was not as easy to fill the hours of the day without waking up at the crack of dawn to hunt or work. The men from the mines, the ones he would get a pint of some terrible homemade liquor with, they were not as friendly any longer. They looked at him with the same masked anger he looked at the kids from the market district with before the arena. He couldn't blame them. He didn't blame them. He passed his time with the fiddle his prep team had forced on him, or getting drunk with Haymitch. Anything to ward off the notion that he was bereft of friends. Anything to ward off the nightmares. Anything to fight the feeling of survivor's guilt. With Katniss shacked up with Johanna, and both of them sequestered in Johanna's home, he barely saw them. He and Katniss went hunting every so often, and Johanna he saw in the middle of the night when she had nightmares, but as far as friendship he became reliant on Haymitch, which was to say, not very reliable at all.
He knocked on the door to Johanna's house, listening to the scurry of socked feet and the tumble of children as they rushed to the door. There were a few high-pitched, short shouts before Celadine threw the door open with a big grin on her face, Aurelia wearing a pout behind her. "Hi Gale! Are you here for 'Hanna?"
"And Katniss. Can you get them for me, please?" He shrugged the bows higher up on his shoulder while the girl enthusiastically nodded and whirled around, bounding up the steps. It was just before school would be starting for the kids, around dawn. He had left his house much earlier that day, going into the Hob to purchase black market bows of higher quality for he and Katniss to use.
John came around to the door, giving Gale a nod of acknowledgment. Gale smirked at the boy, dressed in pressed school clothes with his tightly cropped haircut and serious disposition. He was so studious, such a departure from Johanna, that it was amazing that they shared any DNA at all, other than looking exactly like her. Now that he could afford the barber, he wore his hair tight and high like the Peacekeepers, unlike his former messy curls that mimicked Johanna's. Speaking of, Johanna stumbled sleepily down the stairs, hair wild and voice thick with sleep. Her sleep shorts exposed her legs to the mild air of the living room, the top she had thrown on coming only an inch or two below her breasts. "Hawthorne, are you dying? Why are you here this early?"
Gale stepped inside the house, closing the door behind him. "Going to the woods. I know we don't need to anymore but uh... I can't be inside all day." His wide gray eyes conveyed comical desperation and Johanna smirked.
"Not loving your new talent?"
He glowered at her and tilted his forehead forward. "Enjoying yours?" He looked around at the various fabrics strewn around the room that Cinna had sent and Johanna had ignored. "Designing" is what they had told her would be her talent; mostly because Cinna took pity on her when she failed at every other skill. Prim and her sisters had taken up the other things they tried to teach her: sewing, the flute, painting. But Johanna was often too miserable to be creative. She could sing, but that was something she wouldn't do for the Capitol in a million years.
She shrugged dismissively. "Katniss is upstairs with Prim. I'll get her and we'll meet you at the fence." Gale stood still for a beat before nodding and leaving out the front door. Johanna groaned and whirled on her bare feet, smiling as she was met with Katniss coming down the stairs with Prim in tow.
"Johanna! You're awake." Prim smiled and hugged Johanna around her bare middle. Johanna used the hug to tuck in Prim's duck tail in the back of her shirt. Prim blushed as she pulled away, tossing a glance toward John, who was busy shining his school shoes. "Thanks. It's good to see you." Johanna's nightmares kept her up so often she had begun sleeping in the daytime like Haymitch. As such, she rarely saw Prim or her own siblings with any regularity. Luckily Celadine and Aurelia were too young to understand, and Prim and John were old enough to leave the issue alone.
"You too kid." Aurelia bounded to Johanna and leapt toward her. Johanna caught her in her arms and hoisted her up in her hip. "And what trouble are you getting into, little one?" She twirled her sister's curly blonde hair around her finger.
"I'm not gettin' into trouble!" Johanna pressed her forehead against her sister's and inhaled the sweet baby powder smell. She gave her an exaggerated, sloppy kiss on her cheek, eliciting a squeal of displeasure from the young girl who tried to squirm out of her arms. She pouted as Johanna put her down and she took off toward the kitchen.
Katniss watched on with a small smile on her face. These small pockets of normalcy were something she looked forward to and cherished, aside from how generally endearing it was to see Johanna unguarded and gentle with her siblings. It didn't help that Johanna was half dressed and tousled from sleep, making the heavy lead in her stomach rumble with desire. "Did you sleep okay?"
Johanna ran her fingers through her hair to tame the unruly locks and shrugged her shoulders. "As well as I can. You up for some woods?" Johanna avoided the word 'hunting.' She didn't entirely trust that the house was not bugged with Capitol microphones. Katniss nodded her head in agreement. "Cool, just let me get dressed and I'll be down in a second. After all the rug rats are gone."
True to her word Johanna came down just after all the kids had left for school, clad in a new leather jacket and a pair of old boots. Her light sweater clung to her torso and Katniss was taken aback at the immediate lightning it sent to her stomach and fingertips. She hadn't thought about how wanting to kiss Johanna, how wanting to comfort her, was a manifestation of being physically attracted to her. But the more time they spent together, the more nights she spent tangled in her warm body, the harder it was to control her burgeoning desire.
"Let's go, Kitty Kat." Katniss rolled her eyes at the nickname but Johanna threw her arm over her shoulder and led them both out into the slight wind that Autumn had brought with it.
Gale was waiting through the fence, patiently standing there with two bows over shoulders and two sets of quivers. His face was wiped clean of expression as Katniss and Johanna approached arm in arm, chuckling to each other. He handed the bow and quiver to Katniss wordlessly, and two matching tomahawks to Johanna. She gripped them uneasily in her palms and looped them into her hunting belt that slacked around her waist.
They stalked through the woods on quiet feet, enjoying the early morning stillness of the forest. All three of them were visibly more relaxed in the expanse of the outdoors, creeping through the trees, trying not to crunch the dead leaves underfoot. Gale held out his palm and both girls came to a stop. Only a few meters away there was a young buck grazing in the grass, blissfully unaware of their presence. Gale motioned for Katniss to shoot with him. Slowly they both stretched their bows taught, arrows straight. On a silent count of three they each released their arrows, sticking the buck in the neck and the heart, felling it instantly. From their short distance away Johanna could hear the squish of the arrows into flesh and her eyes went wide in horror.
She stumbled backward, tripping over some twigs and falling onto her butt. She scrambled toward a tree as visions of Cato getting torn by mutts, of Clove choking blood, of Thresh erupting into pieces filled her mind. Her ears pounded with each flash; she cupped her hands over her ears and pressed as hard as she could, rocking back and forth. Katniss was immediately at her side, but Johanna's gaze was faraway and she wasn't responsive to her cries. Gale rushed to her other side, waving his hand in front of her face and shaking her shoulder. "Stop doing that!" Katniss yelled.
"She's in shock. I'm trying to get her attention!" he snapped back at her. "You don't know how to help her! You don't know what she's going through."
Katniss scoffed at him, gray eyes squinted in anger, eyebrow raised in defiance. "And you're the expert on Johanna now? Why, because you've been sticking your tongue down her throat?"
Gale widened his eyes and stared hard at his friend. "No, Katniss, because I was there." His even tone made Katniss look down guiltily to Johanna. "I know what she's seeing because I see it too. I see it in my dreams every night." Johanna had stopped rocking and was now just staring blankly ahead. "Take her home. I'll bag the kill and take care of the weapons."
They pulled Johanna to her feet and Katniss wrapped her arm protectively around her waist. Gale shot her a look Katniss couldn't decipher and she turned away to lead Johanna back toward the village. Walking with her was almost like escorting a ghost; Johanna was unresponsive to her words, barely moving her limbs. Not to mention her skin was white as a sheet and it looked like she had lost all her blood. She steered Johanna inside the house, relinquishing her hold on her to find her mother.
Angrily she realized her mother had promised to go into town and help out the midwife of a woman with a difficult pregnancy, and she wouldn't be back until after dinner. When she retuned to the doorway, Johanna was gone. Panicked, she followed the creaking of the wooden floorboards upstairs until she found Johanna lying on her side in front of her fireplace inside her room, staring into the unlit logs. Her tomahawks were on the floor at her feet, her jacket slung over the edge of the bed. Her arms were wrapped around her as she stared into the brick hole in the wall, unmoving and eerily silent.
She stayed like that for four days.
Then one morning Katniss went into Johanna's bedroom to find her standing at her window, staring outside into the backyard. Katniss thought she finally looked focused and almost back to normal. She approached her by the window slowly, carefully, but noisily enough that Johanna knew she was there. She stood behind her, lifting and dropping her hand as the courage to touch Johanna came and fled from her body. Suddenly Johanna turned from the window and collapsed into her bed, shaking noiselessly with tears.
Katniss thought of all the things she wanted to do to the Capitol for what they had done to Johanna. For robbing her of the fire in her eyes she wanted to set the entire city ablaze. But she couldn't. One person can't affect that much change. She could, however, help repair this broken girl. And so she would, she firmed up in her mind as they lay in the bed together, Johanna attached to her tightly. She would bring Johanna back to life.
Gale had warned Katniss about the nightmares. He had explained in his detached way - which felt almost more detached than before - that they tore Johanna from her sleep and made her call out in the darkness. He had told her how holding her in the night was the only way she slept. He didn't tell her how emotionally draining it would be. Maybe it wasn't for him. But it was for Katniss.
Johanna's screams were loud. They echoed through Katniss's veins and gripped each of her blood cells tightly and didn't relent as they traveled to her heart and strangled it. They pushed her out of bed and down the hall to Johanna's bedroom with the same rapidity she used in school to win the sprinting competitions. The wild, unfocused look in Johanna's eyes when she'd wake her made Katniss's stomach twist; it looked nothing like the twinkle Johanna usually carried. Her entire countenance took on a feral state for a few moments until Katniss's hushed words and tight grip on her arms brought Johanna back to her. She hated having to do this to Johanna, but part of her adored the way Johanna would look so relieved to see her. Watching her eyes melt was the only part of the nightmare regimen that was even a little tolerable.
She'd wake up screaming for Gale sometimes, panicking until Katniss could convince her that they were home. Gale was safe. Some nights it was so bad Katniss would have to dress them both and brave the cold over to Gale's house so she could see him. He'd take Johanna in his arms and give Katniss a look over her shoulder. They didn't see each other much anymore. Keeping Johanna grounded meant keeping her away from the meadow where Gale spent most of his time now. They still ventured into the woods every now and then, but never to hunt. Only to be alone together, to escape the commotion of a house full of four kids under fifteen.
It was a funny thing, how the dynamic between the three of them had shifted over the course of a few months. Not really funny, Katniss mused, but rather tragic. Before the Games, she and Gale and she and Johanna were two separate entities. When they went hunting as a trio it was comfortable, but there was this undercurrent of awkwardness not a little bit due to the fact that they were all hiding their emotions under their jackets. Gale had feelings for her, she knew. Though she had all the right reasons to reciprocate, she never did. It was a source of some anxiety - when she wasn't starving or otherwise distracted by more pressing issues than romance - until the Games. Until she saw them kissing and knew, deep inside her bones, that she wanted to be the person making Johanna gasp like that. She didn't know where Gale would fit into that equation.
But when they came back, Gale was changed too. She never caught him looking longingly at her anymore. Instead his eyes were always on Johanna. The times they went hunting without her she was all he talked about, when he talked at all. Asking how she was, if her head had gotten any better, how she was eating, how the nightmares were. He and Johanna had always maintained a bond, Katniss had observed. They were cut from the same cloth emotionally. Unlike Katniss who could plaster a facade of indifference at any moment, Gale and Johanna wore their emotions on their faces. Usually. Johanna was a harder read than Gale, but Katniss recognized the same fire inside them both. Now, though, his concern for Johanna settled badly inside her stomach. She wasn't sure whether to chalk that up to jealousy or not, so she chose to ignore it. Maybe there was just an arena bond she'd never understand.
As Katniss rushed into Johanna's room after she heard another round of muffled cries, she sighed inwardly. Not out of exasperation, but out of sadness. Out of anger. Angry at the Capitol for thieving the best friend she ever had. Leaving this broken girl with debilitating nightmares that rendered her throat hoarse and her heartbeat too fast. Katniss entered the room to find Johanna thrashing in her sleep, pounding against the mattress with closed fists full of fabric.
She moved to the bed and tried to restrain Johanna's hands but she was unexpectedly strong. "No!" she shouted, bouncing on the bed to try and knock Katniss off of her. The brunette straddled Johanna's waist, taking her by the wrists and struggling to pin them to the mattress to prevent Johanna from hurting herself. In a swift move Johanna's eyes snapped open, knocked Katniss over onto her back and reversed their positions. The involuntary wave of arousal turned into fear as she stared up into Johanna's eyes. Her hands were gripping her wrists so hard the circulation to her fingers was being cut off. Her hair was wild around her eyes, a small dab of saliva on her lip giving her the look of a feral dog. Her breaths were coming out in harsh pants that rumbled in her chest.
For the first time in her life, Katniss was afraid of her. "Johanna?" she asked, ceasing her struggle against Johanna's vice grip. "Jo, it's just me. It's just Katniss." She tried to keep a steady voice but the venom in Johanna's eyes made her heart pound in her chest. Something latent inside her, something she never discussed with Johanna, bubbled to the surface as she saw the widely dilated pupils of her best friend stare at her like a stranger: She had watched Johanna kill someone. It created a nagging feeling of fear inside her chest that she dared not speak aloud. But now, at the mercy of Johanna's strength, it shot back up. Johanna was silent, holding her down and staring into her eyes. "Jo, please. You're hurting me."
Johanna shot backward as if Katniss had hit her with a spray of flames. She fell back on to her butt, scrambling away from Katniss and off the bed entirely. She stared down at her palms, hands shaking, then raked them through her hair, gripping the strands between her fingers tightly. She couldn't look at Katniss. Somehow her mind had placed Clove there, pinning her down and stabbing her thigh. The bed had become the arena. She could hear Katniss trying to mitigate her from the bed, but she could also see her rubbing her wrists. She had done that. She had put Katniss in pain and made that soft, wincing voice come out of her throat. She put that fear in her eyes.
Her hands gripped the edge of a wooden chair that sat in front of her desk and she hurled the furniture to the opposite wall with a grunt, splintering the wood and shattering it into pieces on the floor. Within a few moments someone pushed the door open and Johanna looked up as John slid into the room. He looked confusedly from Johanna panting to Katniss sitting up on the bed looking distraught. "It's fine John. Go back to bed."
The boy looked at his sister and nodded. He gave a glance to the broken chair and walked out, shutting the door behind him. "I can't fucking take this anymore. I'm a prisoner in my own mind." Johanna paced across the room. "I wish I had just died in the arena."
Katniss rose from the bed, taking Johanna by the hands, entwining their fingers. She gripped them tighter as Johanna tried to escape her grasp. She moved her head to follow Johanna's gaze until their eyes met. Leaning down, she pressed a soft kiss on Johanna's forehead and placed her chin against the right side of Johanna's head. "Please don't say that. Your family needs you. Twelve needs you." Her soft voice got immeasurably lower. "I need you."
How long had she waited to hear Katniss say those words? Now she was here, in her room, staring into her eyes. She wasn't the woman Katniss deserved, not anymore. "I can't." Johanna leaned into the contact. "I'm not strong enough." Her voice choked in her throat. It burned for her to say that. She had to be strong. For her siblings. For everyone. Everyone was counting on her. There was no time for weakness.
Anger flared inside Katniss's stomach. Her hands shook off Johanna's and she placed them on either side of her face. "You're the strongest, bravest person I know. And if you ever don't feel strong enough, I'll be your strength. Always."
"Don't make that promise. I can't give you anything in return." Johanna dropped her gaze to the ground. Katniss wanted nothing more than to press her lips against Johanna's and alleviate some of the pain she was feeling. Gale was right, she didn't know how else to help. She hadn't been there. She hadn't killed anyone.
Even now, with her dreams stolen from her and her consciousness plagued, Johanna was concerned for her. She managed to intone care in spite of just having screamed louder than Katniss had ever heard anyone scream who wasn't dying. "Do you want me to stay?"
Most nights, nearly all nights, Katniss would crawl into bed with her and hold her until she fell asleep. Some nights she'd go to leave and Johanna would make her stay. This look of pure vulnerability and helplessness would come into her eyes and Katniss knew she couldn't leave. Truth be told, she didn't want to leave. Other nights Johanna would nod and grunt her assent and Katniss would regretfully leave the room.
Johanna shook her head. "Just get out."
The coldness of her tone made Katniss take a step backward. Johanna had been moody since birth but the way she looked, like she had switched off her emotions, made Katniss look up in surprise. "No."
Johanna raised her eyebrows. "It wasn't a question."
Katniss shrugged. "That's too bad. I'm not leaving so you can sit here and stew in your anger and self-loathing."
Johanna's mahogany eyes darkened considerably. "You don't owe me anything." She paced over to the window, placing her palms on the sill and hunching over.
Katniss balked, crossing the room to Johanna and forcibly whirling her around to face her. "Is that why you think I'm here? A debt?"
Johanna nodded. "Prim," she replied. "Because I volunteered for Prim." Off Katniss's disbelieving stare she rolled her eyes. "C'mon, like I don't know you well enough to know you hate owing people." Johanna's eyes dropped embarrassedly to the floor. "And you're a sucker for someone in pain." Though she deserved her pain it still made her feel embarrassingly weak to constantly need a midnight babysitter. It was always welcome to be near Katniss, but it wounded her pride.
Katniss blinked a few times at Johanna's perception. A sucker for someone in pain? It did take the stress and agony of the arena for her to suss out her feelings for Johanna and Gale. It was no mystery that she had grown closer to Johanna as a result of making it her mission to see her through the nightmares. But that's not all this was. "I'm not just a bleeding heart."
Johanna shook her head. "I know that. I'm just saying that I get you. I know you. You feel obligated to help me, just like I felt obligated to volunteer for Prim."
Katniss reached behind her and switched on Johanna's bedside lamp, then brought her steely gaze back to the other girl. "You say that but Jo, I could have volunteered for her. It didn't have to be you."
"Yes it did," Johanna countered softly. Katniss felt a thrill in her stomach as Johanna's brown eyes bored into her own. There was a quality there that she couldn't identify, but made her stomach turn and created a sensation between her legs she only faintly recognized. "I couldn't live with myself if I had let you or Prim go into that arena. She's too young and you're -" Johanna cut herself off, pursing her lips as she searched for the right phrase. A less revealing phrase. "You're too important to me."
They hadn't kissed since that day in the woods though Katniss's lips ached for it. Especially now, with Johanna swathed in moonlight and saying these soft, brave things to her, she wanted to kiss her. But she felt like Johanna should make the first move. She had been so upset at the forced lovers scheme with Gale that Katniss didn't want to add any other romantic pressure on her.
"And you're important to me. So let me help you," Katniss pleaded, placing her hand on Johanna's waist.
Johanna stared at her in silence for a few long moments. Finally her eyes traveled up to Katniss's. "You were scared of me." It wasn't an accusation. It was almost like an admittance of defeat. "I went into that arena to protect you. To protect Prim. And now I'm the danger."
Katniss looked down at her wrists which were red and inflamed. Yes, it that split second she had been afraid of Johanna. She was afraid of how unhinged from reality she had become. However, she swore to bring Johanna back and she would. "I'm not afraid of you."
"Maybe you should be."
Katniss rolled her eyes hard. "Let's just go to bed." Johanna wiggled her eyebrows and Katniss blushed and pinched her elbow. "Pervert."
They settled into Johanna's plush mattress and Katniss wrapped her arms around Johanna tightly. She felt Johanna's fingers begin to slowly massage her wrists in small circles. "Not afraid I'll kill you tonight?" Johanna half-joked in a whisper, prompting Katniss to encircle her tighter and place a gentle kiss on her neck. She paused, waiting to see if Johanna reacted but she only felt her shudder.
She smiled. "Like I couldn't take you."
Johanna collected a deep breath of the cold air that hurt her lungs and pushed it upward. The sky was obscured by puffy gray clouds that had overtaken 12 that morning, dropping tiny flakes of snow on Johanna's scarf and eyelashes. She blinked them out of her eyes as she traversed the edge of the woods. Today she walked alone near the meadow which was quiet with no game. She made no attempt to quiet her steps in the snow as she got closer to the electrical fence that ceased to hum. She went under the small hole they had made in the barrier and began the short trek back to the Victor's Village. The cameras would be there soon for the Victory Tour, the prep team was probably already at the house. Johanna had, of course, not paid any attention to their wishes for her to keep up with her appearance. She hadn't picked out a talent. She hadn't done anything they'd asked her to.
When she got back into the house Katniss was there to greet her, weirdly chipper with a huge grin on her face. "Johanna!" She hugged the girl and pressed her lips near her ear. Johanna tried not to swoon. "President Snow is in the office," she whispered lowly. She pulled back and took Johanna's scarf from her. "How was your walk?"
"Walk? More like ice skating," Johanna replied with a small smile. Mrs. Everdeen appeared uneasily in the doorway with a sharply dressed man at her side. She smiled at her. "Hi Mrs. E."
"This way please, Miss Mason," the man directed, cutting in front of the blonde woman and tugging Johanna along by the arm. They reached the office and he shut the door behind her, leaving Johanna alone in the room with President Snow. It reminded her of something she remembered her father telling her about when he'd wax poetic stories before bedtime. The tale of strong men in a large ...what he did call it? Johanna squeezed her eyes shut as President Snow motioned for her to sit. Colosseum! A man versus a lion, poised to fight each other to the death. She felt like the gladiator, unarmed and waiting for the inevitable death via the teeth of a lion.
"Please sit down, Miss Mason." Johanna opened her eyes and he was still there, gazing at her through his intense blue gaze. Johanna followed his instructions and sat down in the chair opposite him. "I think we'll make this situation a lot simpler by agreeing not to lie to each other. What do you think?"
"I think that would save some time."
President Snow smirked a little and tapped his fingers on the desk. "My advisors were concerned you would be difficult, but you're not planning on being difficult, are you?"
Johanna clenched her jaw. "No."
"That's what I told them. I said any girl who goes to such lengths to preserve her life isn't going to be interested in throwing it away with both hands. And then there's her family to think of. Her brother, her sisters, her boyfriend.. her friends." Johanna furrowed her eyebrows. What friends? "I have a problem, Miss Mason. A problem that began when you defied the rules of the Game. If the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, had any brains he would've blown you to dust right then. But he had an unfortunate sentimental streak. So here you are. Can you guess where he is?"
"Dead," Johanna replied. No need to mince words. It's not like the Capitol was famous for kindness.
President Snow nodded his head. "Quite. So there was nothing to do but let you play out your little scenario. And you were pretty good, too, with the love-crazed schoolgirl bit. The people in the Capitol were quite convinced. Unfortunately, not everyone in the districts fell for your act."
Johanna raised an eyebrow and sat back into the chair. "The districts?"
"This of course, you don't know. You have no access to information about the mood in other districts. In several of them, however, people viewed your little act on the cornucopia as an act of defiance, not an act of love. And if a girl from District Twelve of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to stop them from doing the same?" he said with a cold calm. "What is to prevent, say, an uprising?"
Johanna bit her lower lip to suppress the coming of a smirk. Uprisings. The thought was equal parts elating and chilling. "There have been uprisings?"
"Not yet. But they'll follow if the course of things doesn't change. And uprisings have been known to lead to revolution." President Snow rubbed a spot over his left eyebrow, the very spot where Johanna herself got headaches. "Do you have any idea what that would mean? How many people would die? What conditions those left would have to face? Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse."
Johanna, in spite of the tension and gravity of the situation, chuckled. "Must be a pretty fragile system if two kids from the Seam can bring it down with a few words."
President Snow leaned in his chair. "It's a fragile system, but not in the way you suppose." He clasped his hands in front of him. "And let's not diminish the power of words, Miss Mason. The pen is mightier than the sword, so to speak. Of course, where words fail, action speaks."
"And you think the districts would just turn on each other?" she asked incredulously.
He shook his head. "No, no. They would turn on the Capitol, of course. But they would do irreparable damage to each other in the process, just as they did. Look at District Thirteen."
"Seems like a small price to pay. I'd gladly ruin a few districts if that meant no more Games," Johanna answered honestly.
President Snow chuckled. "And when the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said, 'At least the handle is one of us.'"
Johanna opened her mouth to respond when the door creaked opened behind her. "Her mother wants to know if you want some tea?"
"What, from the grave?" Johanna immediately retorted, turning her head to stare down the man in the suit. President Snow chuckled and nodded his head.
"Please tell her yes, I'd like some tea very much." Johanna scowled at the man as she turned back to President Snow, crossing her arms over her chest. He brought his eyes back to her. "Sorry about that. And I am sorry about your mother, and your father."
Johanna scoffed. "Can't exactly raise three kids on your sorries. I guess that's what the Games are for, right? So I can take care of my orphaned siblings?"
"And your friends." As he said it, Katniss emerged into the room with a small tray of cookies and tea steaming in two cups. Her eyes never left Snow's as she approached the table and set it down. "Miss Everdeen, thank you."
"My mother asked me to ask if you wanted anything else. She said she could cook something more substantial." For a moment, just a fleeting moment, her eyes met Johanna's. Snow caught it and shook his head.
"No, this couldn't be more perfect. Thank you." Katniss's eyes narrowed before she left the room, closing the door gently behind her. President Snow sipped the tea, picking up one of the cookies and examining it in his hand. "Did Mrs. Everdeen make these cookies?"
Johanna shook her head. "No, I think Prim did. She and Posy sometimes take lessons from Peeta Mellark, the boy whose family runs the bakery."
"Prim," he repeated, raising a puffy white eyebrow. "That's the young girl you volunteered for, isn't it?" Johanna nodded her head. "And Posy is Mr. Hawthorne's youngest sibling." Johanna nodded again. "How is the love of your life?"
Johanna's jaw tightened again, her teeth gritting against each other. "He's fine."
President Snow chuckled and took a sip of the tea Katniss had provided. "Is he? Have you seen him much? Seems to me you're much more content to spend time with his 'cousin.'" Johanna's mouth opened and closed without a word. "How's his pretty cousin?" Johanna's fingers clenched the edge of the seat and Snow's eyes darted down to her white knuckles, then back up to her eyes. "Speak, Miss Mason. Her I can easily kill off if we don't come to a happy resolution. You aren't doing her any favors by sneaking off into the woods with her."
The woods. Where they hunted illegally and said treasonous things about the Capitol. Where Johanna had kissed Katniss underneath the tree, in one of the only happy moments she'd had since coming back. Her eyes slowly dragged upward from the desk. "Please don't hurt Katniss. She's my friend. That's all... that's all that's between us."
He waved his hand with the cookie in it. "I'm only interested in how it affects your dynamic with Gale, thereby affecting the mood of the districts."
Johanna mused on that for a moment. "So if I can convince the districts that Gale and I are in love, you won't hurt Katniss?"
"Don't you have a brother? Two young sisters?" The question was hypothetical, Johanna knew. He must have seen them on the interview they did. She nodded. "Your concern isn't for them? Their safety?"
"If you killed them, Panem would know. Then you'd have the real uprisings. You can kill me, arrange some accident, but them?" Johanna leaned forward. "If you touched them I'd personally make sure this entire fucking country went down in flames and you were the pyre." Johanna rose from her chair. "You don't get to come into my home and threaten my family, my friends. I did as you asked. I won the stupid game. I kissed Gale more times than I care to remember. How is it my fault the districts are in uprising? Smart money would bet on that being because of the little girl that got killed in that arena, not us."
President Snow dabbed his lips with his napkin and rose from the chair. "That little girl is dead, Miss Mason. You are alive. And though you're young, you've lived enough to know that sometimes survival is the biggest burden of them all." He moved around the desk, stopping next to Johanna. "Convince the districts you are in love. Convince me. Because Miss Mason?" He placed a small metal cylinder on the desk and pressed a button and it lit up and sounded a high-pitched electronic noise. He leaned in close, filling Johanna's nostrils with the scent of blood. "I saw the kiss."
Behind him the image of her pulling Katniss into a kiss played on repeat.
Johanna emerged from the room with her mouth still open in shock. The President's car had gone away several minutes earlier, and the hustle and bustle of the prep team had been outside her door from the moment its engine was in the distance. They descended on her with a chorus of well-meaning but rather mean-spirited things about her appearance. Her nails were bitten down, her eyebrows in disarray, her skin dirty from her walk outside. You'd have thought she had slit a throat in front of them.
Katniss buzzed around the outside of them but there was no time for them to talk. Johanna needed to talk to her. To tell her what Snow said. To warn her to watch for anything suspicious in the district. That the woods were not safe. That the districts were in uprising. That he had seen them kiss and quite possibly knew she was in love with her. Maybe she'd leave out that last part.
The rest of the day moved too quickly. Saying good-bye to her brother and sisters, not saying good-bye to Katniss, the cameras swooping in on every kiss she and Gale forced out. The empty stares Gale gave her. Everything moved too fast for Johanna to make sense of until the train had left 12 in the distance. Finally life slowed down enough for Johanna to change into something comfortable and force down a sweet roll.
A fuel stop brought the train to a halt and Johanna wrangled Haymitch from within the chosen cave of his bedroom. The blast of snow that hit them both as they left the train made Johanna shiver without her jacket on. Haymitch seemed unperturbed by the cold, but the alcohol probably left him warm.
"Snow came to see me," Johanna blurted out, looking up at her blond mentor. "He told me that - that I have to be in love with Gale. That I have to convince him that we're in love. That if I don't... he'll kill everyone. The districts.. the districts are uprising and I can't do this."
Haymitch paused for a few moments, looking out into the frozen fields beyond them. "Then you must do this."
"But we're not good at this!" Johanna shot back. "Gale won't even talk to me. And we have to get through this trip, otherwise-"
"It's not just this trip." Haymitch hefted a sigh. "This train never stops, Johanna. Every year from here on out, you two will be mentors. Your Games revisited, your romance checked in on. You'll never be able to do anything but live happily ever after with that boy."
Wide set brown eyes enlarged in understanding, and horror. They made their way back into the train car as Johanna's mind ran faster than the train itself. Marry Gale. Be mentors. No private life. Have his kids. The kids will get reaped, no doubt. Watch own children die. No, Johanna thought to herself. No. One of the few freedoms they have in 12 is the freedom to marry or not marry. To be with whomever you choose. Her heart was not something they were going to take away from her. She opened the door to Gale's room without knocking. "We need to talk."
Gale looked up at her and nodded, motioning for her to close the door. She sat down on the edge of the bedspread and folded her leg underneath her. "Is everything okay?"
"No." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Snow paid me a visit. Told me that if you and I didn't convince the districts we were in love then he would come after our families." Gale compressed his lips in thought. "The districts are in uprising. Or almost."
His gray eyes went wide. "Really? Johanna that's incredible."
"Yeah it is. And we can help." He raised an eyebrow and Johanna smirked. "We don't do this anymore. No more kissing. No more fucking pretending for the Capitol. We present ourselves as rebels. Or at least, as people unable and unwilling to stop this."
Gale mused on Johanna's enthusiastic idea. "And if he comes for our families?"
"How could he? Panem loves them. You saw the interviews. They're more well liked than we are." Gale scrunched his mouth in agreement. "This could be it. We could do it. If you can keep your hands to yourself." She winked at Gale who frowned at her in response.
"I'll manage if you will." Johanna smacked him in the bicep and then pulled him into a tight hug. He cradled her closely, closing his eyes into the embrace. Johanna got up and left his room, excited at the prospect of rebellion. Of being strong. Of being brave.
Haymitch and Effie were not pleased. Gale's speech in 11, which included an apology to their families and a promise of their winnings, incited a riot. In each district they apologized. They spoke on the unfairness of the Games. They made no mention of their romance. Nearly all the districts, except for the Career ones, ended in the three-fingered salute. Several ended in deaths. Each day was filled with apologies, promises of change. Each night was filled with nightmares and anxiousness, waiting for Snow to bomb their train into oblivion.
Two was the hardest for Johanna. Clove's district. The only person she had killed with her own hand. That night blood drenched her dreams. She felt like she was drowning in it. It was raining on her, filling her mouth and ears until she choked. She woke up with a start, straight up in bed, gasping for air. Gale barged into the room.
"I'm fine," she dismissed, taking in deep breaths that Mrs. Everdeen had said might help. Gale was unconvinced and entered the room, shutting the door behind him. He crossed to her bed and laid next to her, maneuvering underneath the blankets. "I said I'm fine."
"You're a good liar, Johanna. But not with me. I know better." They laid together in silence, listening to each other breathe. "It's because of Clove, isn't it?"
Johanna nodded. "I can see her. I watch the blood spurt from her mouth. The pure, complete panic in her eyes. It's like... Everyone expects to die. Especially the tributes, we knew. But she was still surprised. It's like I could see her life flashing before her eyes. Her sadness that she wasn't going to see another moment."
Tears began spilling from her eyes and soaking her pillow. Gale moved backward and pressed Johanna's shoulder down gently so she would face him. "We are going to change things, Jo. We will make sure her death wasn't in vain. That all of them, that they get the honor they deserve."
"The dead don't care about honor," Johanna choked out between light sobs.
"We care for them. We honor their memories." He placed his hand on her cheek. "We can do this." Johanna was still upset, her breathing irregular and short. Gale leaned down, and after searching her eyes briefly, pressed his lips against hers.
It quieted her crying as her lips moved almost automatically with his. Kissing Gale was comfortable, safe. It settled her stomach. It did not ignite a fire in her veins like Katniss did. He moved half on top of her, deepening their kiss with his tongue massaging hers. He tasted like smoked caramel, Johanna thought. Things quickly got wet and warm between them, her hands roaming the muscular expanse of his back as he moved his hands beneath her shirt. He pushed her shirt up toward her neck, running his lips over her stomach and ribcage. His strong, rough hunter's hands pressed against her breasts, causing her to arch her back and squeeze her eyes shut. Her fingers grasped the hem of his shirt and tore it off of him, tossing it aside.
He brought his lips back to hers for more long, languid kissing. Something about what they were doing didn't feel right, though it should have. His thigh was pressed against her center and she could feel the moisture between her legs. When she opened her eyes their gazes caught and Johanna suddenly felt all the warmth and arousal leave her body. There was something in Gale's stare that made her hesitate. Desire. Affection. He noticed her body cease to move and paused. "We don't have to do this. I mean, it doesn't have to mean anything."
"But it does to you, doesn't it?" He furrowed his brows quizzically. "This." She motioned between them. "This would mean something to you."
Gale sighed, dropping his forehead down and bringing his bottom lip between his teeth. "I don't know." He rolled off of her and she pulled her shirt back down, feeling silly and indecent. "I don't know what to think anymore."
"It's probably not right to do this if we're both thinking of the same person."
Gale's eyes shot up. "I wouldn't be thinking about Katniss." He released a deep sigh, falling on to his back. "Maybe a few months ago, but now... It doesn't matter though, does it? You feel like this would be a betrayal. You love her."
Johanna looked across the room toward her dresser. Her mind conjured up an image of Katniss, sitting with her in the meadow, running her fingers through Johanna's hair. She had always known Katniss was beautiful, she had thought so since she was in kindergarten and Johanna was in first grade. The unfortunate luck of both having lost their fathers was the string of fate that tied them together. Gale fit seamlessly into their friendship and they had a good thing going for a few years. After her mother died she saw less of them, the jealousy bubbling up inside her. She had felt that she and Gale were always competing for Katniss's attention. Not that they'd ever discuss it, but that feeling never left. Even though every night Katniss would return to her bed and hold her through the night, she often smelled of the woods. A little like smoke. Like Gale. "I do love you. Doesn't hurt that you're not the ugliest guy this side of the slag heap." Gale snorted in humor. "But I've always loved her. And you've always known. And you've always loved her, too."
"That I have. Even if she's been painfully oblivious of it. But you're both guilty of that." Johanna tossed a glare at him and he rolled his eyes. "Jo, come on. The way she dotes on you. Spending every night with you. She loves you."
Johanna scoffed. "You know Katniss. She's only there because I'm in pain. Because she thinks she's owes me for Prim. She doesn't love me like I love her. Besides, even if she did, what can I offer but a life of misery and nightmares? A life of never knowing if she'll wake up with my hands around her neck."
Gale got off the bed, picking up his shirt and pulling it back on. "I've spent a long time watching Katniss. If she looked at me for one second the way she looks at you..." He shook his head, scratching his cropped brown hair. "Nevermind. Good night, Johanna."
"'Night Gale."
The tour ends with an interview with Caesar, then an opulent party at the president's mansion. As the prep team dolled Johanna up for the cameras she caught the eye of Cinna, pleading for a moment alone. Their chatter, mostly about the tour and the possible exciting process of rebellion - which for them meant more televised entertainment - made her even more nervous. Without the guise of being lovers, they had a lot to explain. They were exposed. Cinna was on a short list of people Johanna trusted, especially within the confines of the Capitol.
Once the team had shuffled out, Johanna let out a long breath. "The birds are always circling," he said under his breath, lifting his eyebrows at her. "But the mockingjays are circling now too." He affixed the pin to her dress. "Because of you."
"They weren't supposed to exist," Johanna replied. "I don't want to remind anyone of any bad memories."
He sighed, straightening her necklace then placing one hand in each of her shoulders. "Sometimes, to move forward, we must acknowledge our past and learn from it. Evolve, just as the mockingjays have." He leaned forward to give her a hug, smelling of lemongrass. "Be brave, Johanna. I'm still betting on you."
Haymitch and Gale entered the room and Cinna looked over to them. "Didn't you see the sign?" Johanna asked with a smirk, looking at them in the reflection of the mirror. "No boys allowed." She looked over at Cinna. "Except you."
Hatmitch snickered and nodded his head. "Yeah yeah. May we have a minute alone?" Cinna kissed Johanna on the cheek and retreated silently. They smiled at him until the door clicked closed behind him, then Haymitch's face dropped. "Okay. Since you both have elected to ignore my warning, then we have to do as little damage as possible."
Johanna snorted. "Why? What's he going to do? Kill us on national television?"
"Do you think a man that has watched happily as 23 kids die each year on national television cares about two troublemakers from the Seam?" He stepped closer to Johanna. "Let me make it real simple for you sweetheart. There is no reason for Snow to keep Katniss alive now. I would be surprised if she's not hanging from a tree when we get back." Johanna surged to attack Haymitch but Gale grabbed her by the shoulders. She jerked against him like a dog on a leash, her teeth gritted together tightly. "I'm not the enemy, kid."
Johanna shook Gale off and turned around, pressing her fingers to her forehead where the nugget of headache was forming. "So what do we do? We can't take back the tour. I wouldn't. I won't."
"I don't know what they've planned. Nobody would let me in on any of the questions. Caesar won't try to leave you hanging but he's under their payroll. He's one of them too, no matter how pleasant he seems." Haymitch took his flask from his hip and stole a quick nip. "Just be careful. Try not to be too incendiary."
Gale and Johanna entered the stage together from the side, hand in hand. The audience went wild, deafening Johanna temporarily with the noise. Caesar led them to their seats, giving Johanna a hug that smelled like flowers. Not roses like Snow, but something more pleasant. Springtime. Lillies.
They began with innocuous talk about seeing the districts; Gale had liked 4, Johanna enjoyed 7. They discussed the new lives they were adjusting to of celebrity and wealth, touched briefly on their new talents. Then, they dug into the tour itself. "Now I think it's safe to say you two have had the strangest tour we've ever seen in Panem." Caesar chuckled good-naturedly. "But we didn't know what to expect with two victors. It was unprecedented!"
"We didn't know what to expect either," Gale volleyed with a small smile, looking to Johanna. They steered clear of any real contact except for her hand in his. "It was very emotional."
"Your speech in Eleven was touching to us all. How you honored that little girl who lost her life. Right folks? Not a dry eye in the Capitol." Caesar placed his hand on his heart and many in the audience echoed the sentiment.
Johanna's fingers flexed and gripped Gale tightly. They weep for her now, but how many of them had placed bets on her death? How many slept through it? "It was nice to at least have each other. And the support of the districts."
Caesar nodded and waited out the applause. "Johanna, for you, was Two the most difficult?" On the large screen Johanna watched the death of Clove again from the detached perspective of the camera. She swallowed down bile in her throat. "It's a good thing you two have each other to lean on. However - and I hope you don't mind my saying - you don't look as close as you did when you were here last. Trouble in paradise?"
They exchanged a look and Gale shook his head. "Jo and I were never a couple. We lied to everyone to keep each other alive." Gasps rippled through the audience and Caesar looked between them apprehensively. "We love each other, of course. She's my best friend and I wanted to protect her with my life. That's why we refused to kill each other. For friendship. For principle."
Caesar sighed and sat back in his plush chair, placing his fingers on his blue painted lips. "Well I have to say you were very convincing. We all saw two people in love, didn't we folks?" People the audience shouted their agreement, and Gale tightened his grip on Johanna's hand. "And that didn't stop when you left the arena."
Above their heads, played on the screen larger than any they had ever seen, was their coming home party. The check-in they had recorded in the midst of winter, when Cinna had dropped off all of Johanna's "talent" for her. But then... video of her sobbing into Gale's arms in the middle of the night on his doorstep. Katniss cut out of the frame. A few of them taking walks around 12 together, hand in hand. And then...
Johanna's room on the train. The two of them kissing. The pair looking very much like they were about to have sex, cut right before Gale stopped.
The audience whooped and hollered and some began standing up and shouting at them. People even fainted. Johanna felt the panic begin working through her veins. Of course there were cameras in the bedrooms. Snow had probably heard her plan to incite rebellions. Haymitch was right, that they would be lucky if Katniss was alive when they got back. And if she was...what she just saw... Caesar calmed the audience down and turned to them, both flushed red with embarrassment and anger.
This was how Snow was going to defeat them. Not with violence. With words. By painting them as liars. "Now you don't owe me an explanation for that, but I'm sure the folks at home would like to understand."
Gale abruptly stood up and yanked Johanna up with him. "If they want to understand what it's like to live our lives, then they can get reaped into the arena and find out for themselves!"
Johanna was sure that everyone in 12 was dead. They had just admitted to duping the Capitol and by proxy, admitted to inciting rebellions, stormed off the stage during a mandatory Capitol interview, and got caught being "friendly" on the train. People in the Capitol were beside themselves to get a picture with them as they walked through the party. They were congratulated on their Games, on their speeches, even on their stage performance. Person after person with their gaudy outfits and abhorrent personalities touching them, smiling at them.
Finally after about two hours of this, they snuck off into a corner to eat and be alone. Johanna gnawed on the same cinnamon-flavored cookie for the five minutes they stood in the corner, fingers shaking. "Johanna." She continued to stare at the pastry in her hand, examining it. "Johanna look at me." Finally chestnut eyes flicked up to meet the soft gaze of Gale. "I'm sorry about the train. I never should've -" He looked away, toward the crowd, then back to her. "You're worried about Katniss."
"I'm worried about everyone, Gale. We were - I was so stupid, thinking we could help them. We can't do anything. We can only make things worse for everyone we love." Gale shook his head in disagreement. "You're not worried about your family?"
"I'm worried about the families who can't leave." Johanna furrowed her brow in confusion. "Our families - yours, the Everdeens, mine - they can escape. They can live out in the woods. Maybe find the ruins of District 13, I don't know. We could make it. But those families we saw in Eleven? In Eight? They can't." He stepped closer to her. "We have an opportunity here that has never, ever been presented to anyone, victor or not. The difference we could make, that you could make."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. You're the one who volunteered, who made the big heroic sacrifice. You're the one who wanted to align with Rue. Your mockingjay pin, your attitude. People listen to you. They like what you represent - a girl from the poor District making good, taking on the Capitol. Doing like the mockingjays do - existing against the Capitol's wishes."
"Then they should like you too."
Gale shrugged. "And I'm sure they do. But you're the image. As long as you live, as long as you stay strong, this -" His eyes darted around the room. "This fight is far from over. It's only just begun." He took Johanna's hand and turned the cookie over. Just barely visible, in the light sprinkle of cinnamon that flowed through the cookie, the baker imprinted the mockingjay into the sugar.
The dinner at the Mayor's house went well on their return, though Katniss was conspicuously absent, but alive. Prim and her mother were there, as well as all the Hawthornes and Masons. Celadine and Aurelia chatted animatedly but quietly about their plan to visit the Hob for the first time after the Harvest Festival was over. Posy showcased the cookies she had learned to bake. John and Prim avoided each other's eyes. Madge of course, dodged Johanna's every question about Katniss's whereabouts. Everything seemed normal.
The day after the Harvest Festival, after the Capitol had cleared out and 12 resumed its normal misery, Madge found Johanna walking around the square. Her mockingjay pin was on her scarf, glinting in the late afternoon sun. Madge took it between her fingers and smiled. "I gave this to Katniss before the reaping." Johanna had never really been close to Madge; her attitude toward her ping-ponged between Gale's hated and Katniss's sympathy. "I was surprised to see you wearing it in the arena."
"Do you want it back?" Johanna asked genuinely.
Madge chuckled and shook her long, blonde hair. She had that wealthy look about her, like Prim and Aurelia. Light eyes and light hair, cherubic cheeks. In spite of being one of the prettier girls in Twelve, Johanna never saw her with a date or even in a circle of girls. Katniss was one of the only people she ever talked to. "Of course not. I gave it to her for good luck, but you needed it more than she did." Johanna nodded in understanding, and Madge's hand fell from the pin. She gave a look around with her sky blue eyes and then narrowed them at Johanna. "Have you ever heard them sing?"
The woods. Katniss. Sleeping on her as she sang to the mockingjays. Perhaps the exact moment she fell in love with her best friend. "Yes."
"Katniss told me that she heard them once out in the woods." A woman selling towels and loudly shouting their price neared them both and Madge leaned in to Johanna's ear. "She likes to go there. She went there when you were gone." When she pulled away to look at Johanna, her meaning was unmistakeable. Katniss was in the woods.
Shortly after, Johanna grabbed a small backpack and headed out into the woods. Their normal meeting spot by their tree was clearly untrustworthy, and as Johanna approached with no Katniss in sight, she must've somehow known it too. Johanna continued on toward the lake where they had spent some time and as she got closer, saw the flicker of orange and yellow inside the abandoned cement hut that was still standing only a few yards from the lake. Someone long ago must've built it and due to the rock, it survived even the Dark Days.
The raven-haired girl flung her backpack on the ground as she got inside, immediately feeling the warmth of the hearth. Katniss didn't even look up at her, she merely stared into the flames, unmoved. Johanna wanted to begin one thousand apologies. But for what? For kissing Gale? She and Katniss weren't in any sort of relationship. Katniss hadn't made one move toward her since kissing her in the woods. For the rebellion? She wasn't sorry about that.
So she stood next to the fire, peeling off her jacket as the heat soaked through her and made it superfluous. The minutes became agonizingly long as they both stared into the flames. Katniss suddenly shot up from her crouched position near the fire and walked to Johanna, forcing her back against the cement. Her hands went to each side of her neck and she pulled her in for a kiss.
Johanna's knees wobbled and she latched on to Katniss's waist for support. This kiss was totally unlike the one they had when she had returned. Katniss's fingers tangled in her hair, deepening their kiss with plunges of her apple-tasting tongue. Tiny gasps of pleasure leaked from Johanna's mouth in the quick moments she paused for breath. Johanna's mind swam so groggily that she didn't even notice Katniss pull away until a few seconds after. Her eyes stayed shut and her breathing remained irregular. Her lungs burned for a moment as they regained their breath.
When her eyes finally fluttered open, she was staring into the hard face of her friend. "Is it the same?"
Johanna blinked. "What?" she asked breathlessly.
Katniss narrowed her eyes, her lips in a firm line of impatience. "When you kiss us, is it the same?" Her arms crossed over her chest. She didn't know what had come over her, but seeing Johanna had unleashed something inside her she didn't know she possessed. The reserve of anger from seeing Johanna and Gale in bed had simmered for the day or so in between the broadcast and she couldn't help how it overflowed upon seeing her again.
"No," came Johanna's very slow reply. She wasn't sure how to react. Being kissed by Katniss made her feel like she had mainlined morphling. "It's different." Katniss's forehead came to rest on hers as they leaned against the side of the building, her arms wrapped around Johanna's waist. "Snow threatened to have you killed."
Katniss moved away to look her in the eyes, but held firmly to the small of Johanna's back. "What? Why?"
"Because he saw us kiss in the woods. Because he knows that you live with me. And he wasn't convinced that Gale and I were in love and - and the districts are in uprising and he thinks he's my fault."
Katniss's gray eyes became huge. "The districts are in uprising? What does that mean? Like riots?"
Johanna nodded. "He didn't say specifically, but yeah. We were supposed to use the tour to calm them but, I can't. This is the opportunity we've all been waiting for and I want the districts to be brave enough to take it. So we had to be brave too. That's why we said what we said during the speeches. Why we told everyone we aren't a couple." Katniss's eyes fell to their torsos where they were pressed against each other. Her eyes flashed with the small peek of Johanna's skin she had seen on the television when the Capitol had played the video. "What happened on the train..."
"You don't owe me an explanation, Johanna."
"You're right, I don't. But I will give one to you anyway." Johanna sighed, tucking Katniss's hair behind her ear. "I was having nightmares and Gale came in to help. I was upset because I thought we couldn't make a difference, that even if we did Snow would kill everyone here. He was trying to calm me down and ...well, I don't know."
A pregnant pause filled the room. "Did you?"
"No," Johanna replied rapidly. "We stopped. I stopped him. It didn't feel right." Katniss let out a long sigh and nuzzled her head in between Johanna's neck and shoulder. She felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
"Good," she whispered softly into Johanna's neck.
Johanna smirked and cupped Katniss's cheek, pulling her away enough to see her face. "Good?" She raised an eyebrow and Katniss nodded firmly. She pressed their foreheads together once more and her breath washed over Johanna as she spoke.
"You are mine. And I am yours. Anything else is unthinkable." Johanna blinked a few times in surprise before fervently pushing her lips against Katniss's. The fire in her belly was stronger than the one at their feet as she spun them around and pressed Katniss tightly against the wall, holding their bodies together as closely as she could.
"You are mine. And I am yours," Johanna repeated in between breaths, moving her lips to Katniss's ear, then down the side of her neck with slow, wet kisses. Katniss gripped onto her like she was drowning, bracing her weight against the body of the other girl. As Johanna brought her lips back to Katniss's mouth they felt the ground beneath them begin to shake. A slow rumble that sounded like thunder came from overhead, a slight gust of wind that smelled of smoke filled the cabin. Johanna pulled away and went out the door. Above the trees she saw two Capitol hovercrafts whizzing by at a breakneck speed from the center of town. "Katniss something's wrong."
Katniss emerged from the cabin and looked up, seeing the trail between the clouds that the planes left. Just above their line of sight they saw gray smoke billowing into the sky. Katniss quickly shoveled dirt on to their fire as Johanna collected their things. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them back to the fence, which was now alive with electricity. "Shit."
Katniss looked up. "The tree. We can climb over it." Johanna scaled the tree with alarming rapidity, edging out onto the branch as carefully as she could. She moved down so her palms grasped the branch and then let go, falling into the few inches of snow that covered the ground. A pain shot through her ankle but she disregarded it as she waited for Katniss to do the same. She braced the other girl's fall and began running, albeit much slower now, toward the smoke. The smell of fire, fuel, and something like the smell Johanna's hair dryer made was in the air as they got closer to town. Screams were heard, the wail of sirens, the cries of children.
Once the reached the square, they both stopped dead in their tracks. The Hob, once bustling with citizens, was a smoldering pile of ruins. People with various stages of burn marks were shuffling away, coughing from the smoke. Soot and charcoal seemed to cover nearly everyone around, leaving only the wide whites of their eyes visible. Gale rushed toward the girls as they stood, mouths agape. "Where were you?" he screamed.
"What happened?" Johanna asked, deflecting his question.
"The Capitol," he replied somberly. "This was them. There was a whistling in the air, then all of a sudden, explosions." He looked around. "It seems like this was the only area they touched. Cray is nowhere to be found. I asked Madge and she said her father is on the phone with the Capitol but from what she gathered, they're acting as if one of us did this. Someone from Twelve, bombing the Hob." His voice was thick with disgust.
"To make a statement," Johanna interrupted. "They're going to pretend this is what revolution does. That we'll turn on each other." Where words fail, actions speaks. "How many people are...?"
Gale shook his head. "I don't know. The Peacekeepers are keeping everyone out." Johanna looked at Gale, whose eyes were still on the burnt ground beneath them. He was keeping something. Johanna stared hard at him until he spoke. "The last I saw of John he was trying to get people out of there. Then the second hovercraft came."
The world began to spin around Johanna's head. Why had she left? She was so goddamn stupid. All of this, all of her life, was spent protecting her siblings and now in the one moment they needed her, she had been gone. Chasing her own selfish desires out in the woods. Tears welled up in her eyes as she watched people continue to stumble out of the rubble, coughing and shaking. Many of them collapsing on the ground. A few of the healers from town, including Mrs. Everdeen and even Prim, began administering any aid they could. Johanna even saw a flash of Madge's blonde hair scurrying around. Peeta Mellark from the bakery was helping with his brothers to carry people toward the doctor, or at least away from the smoldering wood and cement.
Prim shrieked as Peeta pulled a blackened figure from underneath a large wooden piece of structure, and Johanna went limping toward her. Katniss wrapped her arm around her shoulder for support as the adrenaline that had prevented Johanna from feeling the definite sprain in her ankle began to subside. The figure coughed and spit black goo on to the ground, and Johanna fell to her knees beside him.
"John?" she questioned weakly, rubbing the dirt from his face with her scarf. She crumpled it and placed it below his head. His eyes blinked open and Johanna saw the brown irises focus on her. "John."
He coughed a few more times. Prim knelt beside him, using some water or some clear liquid to begin cleaning off his face. "He pulled out a bunch of people before the second bombing," Prim explained, a shake in her voice. His mouth kept moving to say something but Prim shook her head. "Don't speak. Save your voice. We have to get you home."
John shook his head and grabbed Johanna's hand with his soot-covered own. His eyes were wide and insistent. "The girls," he croaked out in a voice that made him sound one hundred and eleven years old. "I didn't find them."
The girls? Johanna's discombobulated mind couldn't put it together. What girls? Peeta came behind them with a makeshift stretcher and he and Gale slowly pulled John on to the white-clothed wooden board. Prim instructed them to bring him right to their house and Mrs. Everdeen would follow soon to assess any injuries he had. Parts of his clothes were torn or burnt, revealing pink angry skin and some gashes.
Johanna continued to sit on the ground. Her eyes met Katniss's, whose gray hues were filled with tears. She must've understood. The girls. The girls. Her sisters. Panic overtook her and she got up and hobbled toward the remains of the Hob, pushing large pieces of wood out of her way. "Celadine!" she screamed. "Aurelia!" There could be no answer. The Hob looked more like a tomb than a market now. A large chunk of someone's store sign fell in front of her, and the pile of rubble prevented her from going any further. She grabbed hot pieces of rubble and began tearing them away, searing her hands.
Two arms came from behind her and pulled her, and the pain of her injury and the overall wildness of her emotions made her unable to fight back. "Johanna you're going to get hurt," the shaky voice said, and Johanna vaguely realized it belonged to Katniss. The world slowly lost its color. The grayness of the clouds, the black smoke of the Hob, it soaked out all the color. Johanna closed her eyes and let the grief, and pain, overtake her.
Somewhere, lost in the smell of fire and burning flesh, Johanna smelled roses.
And when the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said, 'At least the handle is one of us.'
A rebellious bombing was the official Capitol verdict. A tragic accident made by miners who were trying to blow up the new set of Peacekeepers who had come to shut down the Hob. The new head Peacekeeper, Romulus Thread, had ordered no memorial for the dead, as anyone in the Hob was committing treason against the Capitol. Many miners were executed for their "involvement" in the incident. No one dared speak of the planes they had all seen. No one dared say how no Peacekeepers were actually harmed, except for a few of the friendly ones like Darius. He was dead, too.
The Hob was converted into new quarters for the Peacekeepers, whose numbers had tripled since the bombing. A curfew was strictly enforced, with any trespassers out after midnight subject to immediate whippings of over twenty lashes. The fence was electrified at all times. The home Johanna lived in was quiet.
John had recuperated from his wounds and was treated - secretly - as a hero in 12. He alone had dragged nearly twenty people from the smoking Hob before it collapsed, saving their lives, including even Greasy Sae and her granddaughter. But not the lives of the two he had gone in to save. Celadine and Aurelia were counted among the dead, though their bodies were never found. The bombings had incinerated nearly everyone inside beyond recognition. Johanna hadn't emerged from her bedroom in two months.
She barely ate, didn't speak. Sleep was so far beyond what she was capable that her skin had become an ashy pale, the purple bags under her eyes the only color she had. Katniss was by her side as often as possible, but Johanna was nearly impossible to reach. Almost everything she ate she threw up, her sleep was spotty and no doctor in Panem could figure out why she didn't speak. Selective mutism is what they called it, but it wasn't even selective. She didn't speak at all. Word of her loss had spread through the districts and flowers and cards from the Capitol came flowing in every day. Katniss threw out nearly everything.
Late one evening they sat in her bed, with Johanna curled into Katniss's side, unblinking and unmoving. The television suddenly switched on, and though Katniss tried repeatedly to turn it off, it was a mandatory broadcast. President Snow appeared on the screen, flanked by young boys in white and stood behind a large pillar. Johanna's gaze turned to the screen and she watched intently.
He went through the typical speech of the Dark Days, of the damage the districts did to one another during that time. Then, he says it. "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors. Additionally, as a reminder that the bond of the Districts to the Capitol is stronger than that of blood or water, volunteers may only come from the family members of the victors. As every year before, victors are barred from volunteering, even for each other."
Katniss gasped. Johanna let out a high-pitched, hysterical, long peal of laughter. Long after the television had gone off, she continued to laugh. Her voice was so hoarse from not having been used, quickly she ran out of breath. She clutched her stomach, eyes tearing and little drops falling on the bed. The existing pool of victors. Their families. Pitting friends against friends. Family against family. No peace. Nothing. Just another date with death but this one, this one would stick.
"They can't do this," Katniss whispered, unable to stop the tears from falling. All of what they had worked for, what they had lost for, gone in a flash of smoke. She hated the Capitol. She hated President Snow. She felt a fire inside her unlike anything she had felt before, outside of being kissed by Johanna. But there were two different kinds of fire: one kindled by hatred, and one kindled by love. This was all the former.
Johanna looked up. "Of course they can," she said callously. "Don't you see? They can do anything and we can do nothing. We're just pawns. We think we have control over what happens in our lives, but we don't. The Capitol controls everything. Life, death, everything. Whatever illusion of control I thought I had is gone, Katniss. They've taken what I love from me, they might as well take my life, too."
But Katniss had promised to bring Johanna back to life, and part of that was keeping her alive. There had to be some benefit to being Gale's "cousin."
Author's Note: Welp that was a long one, but I wanted to get to the Quell in the next chapter. Thanks for your continued support. :)
Edit - I edited some of the conversations here to remove referencing Johanna as the mockingjay. I'm an idiot.
Special thanks for johannas-motivational-insults for beta-ing this chapter/story/being a soundboard and generally being rather awesome.