It hurts so much that Finnick has to laugh. Years of hunting down hotel rooms because he needed to be alone to sleep. And now that he's gotten back to the hotel room he was staying in, he can't sleep because it's empty. He knows he never slept alone by choice, but this is ridiculous.
So Finnick simply lies there on the bed, waiting. Empty. Raw, from the goodbyes. Certain he did the right thing, but knowing it's going to be a while before he's himself again. Because Annie understood and did her best to make it easy on him, but Cashmere kept looking at him with bewildered eyes like if she could just understand what it was she did or didn't do, he'd change his mind.
He hopes he hasn't hurt her too badly. He hopes Annie can help her understand that it wasn't her, that she's wonderful and gets everything right, and she's perfect—for Annie.
Perfection for Finnick comes storming in the door at half past eight, muttering to herself while she wrestles with the deadbolt in the dark, and then hits the light.
"Oh. You're back."
Finnick thinks about cracking a joke about how he was here first, so technically she's back, but he's too tired.
Johanna drops her bag by the door and comes and sits on the edge of the bed. "How'd it go? How come you look like shit? Do you need me to rip anyone's head off?"
"Fine," he says, then feels bad because he can't muster more enthusiasm. It's not Annie's fault.
"What's wrong? Is Annie okay? You found her, right?"
Finnick nods. "She was fine." He desperately wants the energy to sit up and explain how everything worked out as well as anyone could expect, and make it sound convincing. But he wasn't expecting to feel this damn tired.
"She didn't want you back?" A note of rising anger enters Johanna's voice.
"No, she did." Finnick looks inside himself for a reserve of energy, and he finds it. It's running low, but the reassurance you're still an actor comes back from deep within.
He's just about to summon his mask in the old familiar way, when Johanna's hand descends on his hair. "Did you not want to go back?" she asks more gently.
"Something like that." Finnick rolls over onto his side, closer to Johanna, and she starts stroking methodically. He closes his eyes. "I'll try to explain."
Johanna waits.
"She's fine. She's gotten help, she's got a good job, she married Cashmere, they bought a house, they adopted kids...they're doing great. I came mostly so I could see if they had any problems they needed help with, but no, it's been four years and they're solving all their own problems.
"It's been four years, and we weren't exactly strangers, but we weren't exactly not. We couldn't pick up where we left off, we'd have to start over. There's not really anything for me to do here, anywhere I fit. I could try to make something up, but I don't have much time left, and I don't want to show up, disrupt their lives, shoehorn myself in out of a sense of obligation, and die on them.
"I'd rather just carry on with what you and I've been doing. You have a country to organize, I've been helping, and now that I'm not shuttling back and forth between East and West Panem, I can stay in North Panem with you. For as long as I have the energy."
"You're coming back to Panem?!" Finnick opens his eyes. Johanna's jaw dropping is like a punch to the gut.
Shit. Of course he hadn't run any of this by her before announcing his plans to Annie.
"No, I'm sorry," he stammers, half pulling away from her hand. "I didn't ask, I just assumed-"
With an effort, Johanna recovers. "No, I'm not saying no, I just—let me get this straight. You want to carry on—what, sleeping on my floor? When you could move in with Annie and Cashmere?"
"Well, not if it's an imposition."
"It hasn't been an imposition yet!" she flares. "Just—give me a minute here. Okay. One thing we get straight now. If you're staying until you die, we can't just 'carry on.' That was temporary. Just for the war. You have to tell me what to do, and how."
Finnick shakes his head. "Nothing. Just what you've been doing."
"What I've been doing is holding down the fort until Annie could do it right!"
"You've been doing it right," Finnick says softly.
"You can't tell me you don't need sex, or affection, or-"
"That's exactly what I'm telling you. I've had sex, romance, courting, the whole shebang. I'm too tired for any of it now. I need a place to sleep, with someone I trust."
"And Annie won't give you that?"
Finnick hesitates. "She probably would, now. But she didn't, she couldn't, for a long time. Mags did, but then she stopped when I became a victor. And Cashmere...she'd have been happy if I slept every night next to her, but she also didn't say anything when I suggested she stay with Annie, or leave the country. She didn't fight for it. For me.
"I don't want this to sound like blame, but no one ever did. Until you. You insisted I stay every time I talked about leaving. You fought for me. And I haven't had that since Mags decided first that District Four needed to be protected from me, and then that I was a weapon for protecting District Four."
"Well. If what you want is someone to fight for you, that's the one thing I can do. I'm not good with people, but if you tell me what you need, and you're okay with me not having feelings—I'm not in love with you, you know," Johanna blurts.
Finnick smiles, amused by how reassuring those words are. "I don't need you to have warm and fuzzy feelings. I guess I need you to feel that you're better off with me around in some way. I don't want your pity."
"I've never pitied anyone in my life," Johanna snaps. "It's either despise or respect with me, and I think you know which one you are."
"I do," he says, thankful. "But you'll get something out of me staying?"
"Well, who else do I talk to?" Gruff, Johanna folds her arms and looks away. "You can keep me company when my back's hurting and I can't sleep. But you're not sleeping on the floor, that's ridiculous. I should have put my foot down years ago. We'll make room."
Finnick's about to protest, when he realizes she's saying they'll share the bed. "Yeah?"
Johanna shrugs. "We do it when we're away from home. We're doing it here. I don't mind. The only reason I didn't insist sooner was because that bed was a little cramped and I thought you might be more comfortable on the rug by the fire."
"All I need is a place to sleep, but I won't say no to sharing the bed if you don't mind."
"Then what, you're going to sleep until you sleep forever?"
"That's the idea." As long as Finnick remembers to put it that way, he doesn't feel the slightest urge to panic. "I'm looking forward to not having to do anything else."
"You don't have to, you know." Her hand reaches out to him, half involuntarily. "If you don't have to solve any problems for Annie, and you want someone to fight for you, we could tackle your problems. I could-"
Finnick actually flinches. If anything's going to make him panic, it's that. "No, I can't, I'm too tired-"
"That's what I'm saying. I'll do the work, I'll look for doctors, I'll handle all the explanations-"
"Johanna, Johanna, listen. I appreciate it. Really. But you couldn't handle the treatments for me. And even if you could...I'm too tired for what comes after I get better. I'd love to stick around and help you organize the shit out of North Panem. But just the thought scares me. I've done it, I kept doing it as long as lives were depending on me, but I feel like you can take it from here."
"And so you have to die?" Johanna asks in disbelief.
"I'm going to sleep," Finnick corrects. "And I'm asking you not to bring it up again. The offer is open, I appreciate it, I'll let you know if I change my mind."
Johanna's face falls. She's still floundering for a way to keep insisting, when he continues,
"Now what about you? You went out today?"
"No, we're not done talking about you. Give me something else to do for you, then. Something we can make happen while there's still time."
"Well, it occurs to me..." Finnick opens one eye and peers at Johanna. "Don't bite my head off."
"No promises," she retorts, but swats at him affectionately.
"Ha ha. It's about being able to contribute after I'm gone. I believe in what you're doing, and I'd like to help more. I'm getting a military pension from West Panem."
"Yeah, me too," Johanna tells him. "Something about the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games and the Seventy-Eighth and being an honorary Four Career...you didn't have anything to do with that, did you?"
"Who, me? Nah, Rudder likes you. Pearleye too." It's true, he never mentioned anything about pensions. He just kept dropping the phrase "honorary Career" here and there over the years, knowing it's not hard to get special treatment for victors in Four. He's glad they offered Johanna something for her years as Four ally. "Anyway, I asked if I could leave you my pension, but apparently the rules say only spouses and children. Even for victors. Which is stupid.
"Maybe I shouldn't care. I'm sure the money will be used to help rebuild West Panem, and that's important too. But the North Panem economy is weaker, and I've been living there, and it would mean a lot to me to be part of the rebuilding when I stop being able to work."
Johanna opens her mouth, looks frustrated, closes it. Finnick can see the struggle on her face between not wanting to get married and not wanting to tell him no.
"We don't have to tell anyone," he promises her. "Nothing has to change. We go to West Panem, sign the paperwork, don't invite anyone, don't tell anyone, and deny it furiously if anyone asks. Then you send them the proof of my death when the time comes, and collect my pension."
"A sham marriage, then?" Finnick can see Johanna thinking about this.
Finnick snorts. "Nothing sham about it if I'm going to be sleeping next to you while my health deteriorates. I've been married, and let me tell you, it's the work that makes a marriage, not the sex.
"That said, if it's the work that you don't want to do, I won't hold it against you. I know you watched your father decline, and if that's not something you want to go through again, I won't be alone. Annie and Cashmere will take me in, and it'll be all right."
"Oh, no," Johanna flares. "Hell, no. You're staying with me. I don't know how this happened or why the hell you're not married to Annie, but if you want to live with me and you actually care about the same things I care about, I'll take your damn pension."
Finnick turns over in bed. "I'll let you think about it. You can change your mind if you want. Sleep on it."
"I'm not going to. But if you need to sleep...long day?"
A wry smile. "Private Odair, reporting for sleeping duty."
Johanna watches Finnick sleep in the early morning light, trying to sort out her feelings. She'd really thought Annie could take better care of him, and she only had to hang in there until they were reunited. But it turns out Annie's abdicated. And Johanna knows how long Finnick waited on Katniss to open up to him. That's one of the grudges Johanna is still carrying.
So it's up to her. He may say she doesn't have to, but she can't stand watching him carry all the burdens and get nothing in return. She can't handle the fact that he had it all arranged so that he would be captured by the Capitol instead of her. Not that she wanted to be captured. But she didn't even give any thought to making sure he made it out all right. She can't handle him bringing her meds, being the first one to reach out and keep reaching out past her hostility, mentoring her...and sleeping alone. Dying alone.
Here she is again, looking at a situation someone else should really be handling, and saying to herself, Fine, I'll do it.
Finnick stirs in his sleep, but goes still again when Johanna tentatively rests her hand on his head. She feels stupid, because all the phrases running on loop through her head are so damn useless. I'm not going to let anything happen. I won't let them hurt you.
He's already been hurt, brainless. Everything that can happen to a man has already happened to him, and you stood by and watched it happen, and now you think some pretty-sounding words are going to make it better?
Nothing's going to make it better, she tells herself. Just stay with him if that's what he wants.
The only thing stopping her from knocking Annie's door down and demanding she take Finnick back is something Finnick said casually, years ago. Annie's in Ayre and I don't know why she'd come back. Then today he announced he'd be living with Johanna, without even thinking to ask if he was welcome.
So maybe he should stay with her after all. That doesn't mean Johanna's not furious with Annie.
And Johanna's the last person who should be entrusted with someone as fragile as Finnick. She'll give him a place to stay, she'll fight for him, but she's not kind, she's not gentle, and she's not caring. She's guesses she's better than nothing, if he doesn't want to be alone, but he's settling. She wishes he didn't have to settle.
Johanna's still sitting there watching him when he turns over, stretches, and opens his eyes. She hasn't seen him bolt upright out of sleep in months, if not years, and isn't sure if that's a good sign and means the jumpiness is wearing off, or simply a sign of how tired he is. She doesn't want to ask.
He pulls himself into a sitting position, and leans back against the pillow. "What's next? Are we going home?"
"Where is home?" Johanna asks. She kicks at the edge of the bed where her legs are dangling. "Do you want to go to Four?"
He shakes his head. "Maybe Four is home, but it's too much home. Too many memories, too many feelings, everything's changed, and no one's there any more. I don't think I could even go back to visit, not if I can't swim. I just want to find a place to stay, and not have to leave again."
"Stay," she jokes.
"Woof." Finnick laughs, then grows more serious. "What about you? Are you getting help for your pain? We didn't even talk about you yesterday."
"You tried, but I'm too stubborn for you." Sighing, Johanna settles in and takes the pillow next to him, shoving it behind her back. It's too small and soft and lumpy for back support, but hell. She'll take what she can get.
"They have painkillers, but no one knows how any of them is going to work on me. Effectiveness, side effects, withdrawal, and so on. You know how it goes. I could stay and try everything and go through the usual hell in hopes of finding something. Of course, no one will talk to anyone in Panem to find out about the medication that worked for me there and if they've got the same thing here under a different name, because if countries talk to each other, shit might get done. That would be too easy."
"They're afraid of another global disaster," Finnick reminds her.
"Panem's already a disaster, but as long as it's not global, that's fine?"
"Panem was the biggest and most heavily armed country," Finnick argues, but half-heartedly. They've been over this before, and he always insists on seeing both sides of the debate.
"I am sick of everyone being too afraid to poke the bear!" Johanna exclaims. "I have gone my whole life poking the bear."
"And being the bear," he says affectionately. "I'd get everyone in communication if I could, you know that. I'm in favor of you having your painkillers."
"I know. Don't remind me. Anyway, it's only been a week, and I was meaning to ask about alternatives to painkillers. Surgery, that sort of thing."
"So you want to stay a while?"
Johanna hesitates. If Finnick wants to go home, part of her wants to drop everything and take him. But maybe if they're here, she can convince him to get treatment, and maybe he can have more than a year or two left. Even if the last week hasn't left her too optimistic about her own chances here.
"I'd like to give it another shot. If you don't mind us finding a cheaper place to stay, a room in someone's home instead of a hotel?"
"No, sure," Finnick says. "I only suggested this place because I stayed here last time. But you're right, it's probably best if you're here on business representing your country, not so much if you're paying yourself."
"It is pretty full of itself," Johanna agrees. The décor isn't exactly Capitol, but it's too far in that direction for her not to catch herself turning a corner and expecting to see the elevator to the training center. "I'll look for something while I'm out, then. You coming?" Finnick hesitates, so she guesses, "Want to catch up on your sleep?"
"Just tired."
Finnick spends the day curled up in bed, unable to sleep but not minding much. Every time the wind gusts or he hears a burst of raindrops against the windowsill, it reminds him that Johanna's out there somewhere, in Ayre, where he brought her, and where he can hope she's finding what she needs. Maybe if she does, he'll finally feel like he was able to do something for her, after she was reaped, captured and tortured, and her painkillers ran out after a year, and all he could do was watch.
When the door slams into the opposite wall on opening, Finnick just sighs. He turns over in bed. "Nothing?"
"No." Johanna's voice trembles. "Do you know what they said?!"
"Something stupid?" Finnick hazards.
"They said that being tense aggravates the pain! They wanted to send me to therapy for anger management! And now I can't even manage my anger by throwing things, because it's a hotel room and we'll have to pay for anything I break!"
Finnick hides a smile. "If you throw it at me, I'll catch it?" He sits up in bed and holds out his hands in offer.
Fists clenched, head raised, face flaming, Johanna turns to Finnick. "Am I turning into a parody of myself?" she demands.
"No," he assures her. "It's mostly people telling you to tone it down that sets you off. When it's just you and me, we get a lot done."
"Because you're the only useful person around," she mutters. "'Tension'!" Spinning abruptly on her heel, she snatches up a ceramic vase and hurls it at him.
With trained reflexes, Finnick catches it, and sets it down unharmed on the desk. Johanna comes over to sit down beside him. Her hair is damp, and she pulls off her coat and throws it on the floor, kicking at it in frustration.
"Johanna, why don't we agree that tension makes it worse, and being in pain makes you tense, and being at war makes you tense, and being tortured makes you tense, and being surrounded by people you get impatient with makes you tense."
"Fine." Johanna breathes out through her nose, sounding suspiciously like she's trying not to cry. "It probably does make it worse. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"Did you tell them that in their imaginary world where you don't have a hundred reasons for being tense, you didn't get stung by mutts in the first place?"
Johanna can't help laughing a little. "If I hadn't been raised by wolves and I had proper manners, that's what I would have told them."
Finnick smiles, starts to extend his hand, then thinks better of the idea and twines it around his other hand in his lap. It's so hard to express solidarity without touch, but he just counts himself lucky Johanna will touch his shoulder when he needs it.
"Well, if they think doing something about the tension will help, what is there besides therapy? Massage? Heat?"
Johanna narrows her eyes. "They recommended massage, yes. And how did you know about the heat?"
"I'm not entirely incompetent as a spy, you know." Finnick gives her an indulgent look. "I know I've been your cover all these years."
Johanna looks sheepish but, thankfully, not angry at being found out. "Is that why you decided to move back in with me?"
"Sure. I'll pretend I'm keeping it warm for you, and you'll pretend you're keeping it warm for me, and we'll carry on pretending we're invincible."
"Speaking of which..." Johanna looks back and forth between him and the open window in confusion. "It's not exactly warm out there."
"Oh, you can close it. I was just being sentimental."
Johanna raises an eyebrow. "Homesick for Four?"
Finnick smiles through his nostalgia.
"This isn't exactly Four weather. No, it's just...A few years ago, I woke up to a rainstorm in Seven. Nothing special, just one of those moments that for some reason gets burned into your memory. It was cold and wet outside, and I was warm and dry. I was weary to the bone and had nothing to do but lie on the floor next to your bed. I was lost inside and you were there. I hadn't felt that safe since Mags died.
"Ever since then, when it rains, I think of you." Last week, lying in bed in a strange house, he found himself on the verge of tears because it was raining and Johanna wasn't there, and he was so exhausted he couldn't sleep. It was one of the reasons he was so sure he was making the right decision.
Johanna's looking uncomfortable at all these emotions, so he doesn't push it. "Anyway, what about massage? They must have someone—no?"
She's shaking her head. "It won't fix the nerves. Any of this, anger management or massage or heat, would just be to help the strain on the surrounding muscles. Apparently I clench them up when I'm in pain—well, I knew that, but like fuck I'm going to stop. I'd have to get massages regularly for them to help, and it's not worth moving here for that."
"Well, heat can be arranged back in North Panem," Finnick points out. "We can always set you on fire if we need to."
Johanna kicks his ankle. "You keep Katniss away from me."
"No, that was Cinna, remember? And I'm pretty good at massages." Footrubs, backrubs, shoulder rubs...Finnick's got a wealth of experience in it all.
Red alerts are going off in Johanna's eyes. "Haven't you done enough?"
"No, and I don't like being told that I have any more than you do." It's hard not to get snappish every time he hears that line, going back all the way to the academy days when Donn would ask him if he could please let the rest of the class catch up, up to Plutarch telling him to rest when he's not on duty. "If I'm too tired, I'll tell you."
Johanna narrows her eyes, but has to concede that point. "No, I'll be the last one to tell you not to get shit done, just...haven't you done enough with absolutely nothing in it for you?"
Finnick feels his chest go tight, and he has to make a conscious effort to take a deep breath that doesn't hurt. It's never easy to admit this weird relationship he has with touch that he can't explain even to himself. "Don't assume there's nothing in it for me," he says simply.
Johanna studies his face, and then nods. The nice thing about her is that, yes, sometimes she's abrasive and oblivious until you have to insist, but if she's perceptive enough to figure out that he's avoiding a subject, she gives a shit about what she thinks is his pride.
"If it's our last night in the hotel," he suggests, "maybe you should take advantage of the hot bath. You can tell me if I'm living up to my claims about being good at back massages."
He waggles his eyebrows comically at her, but suddenly he chokes on his own breath. He's making it all about him again, isn't he? Because he can't stand not being able to do anything. He can just hear the exasperation in Annie's voice, and see the look in Mags' eyes, understanding but asking for space all the same. Then he has to breathe out slowly and then in again and hope Johanna doesn't notice, because he really can't hold his breath any more, and he keeps forgetting.
Johanna rolls her eyes. "You're good at everything, so why not this?" She stands up. "Fine. Come on."
She lets him get in behind her in the tub without a word, but she jerks away hard when his hand, covered in bath oil, touches her back.
He flinches back. "Johanna, I'm not hitting on you-"
"I know that! You think after all these years I don't know that?"
"Okay." Finnick raises his hands, palms forward, in surrender. He didn't think so, but with his history, it's always the first thing to come to mind. "You're not weak-"
"You have no idea what's going through my head!"
"Fine. Tell me, then!"
Johanna just shakes her head. She's sitting hunched forward, elbows on her knees, shifting around uncomfortably. He can see in the lines of her back how it gets locked up from the strain.
After a few minutes, Finnick dares the lightest touch of his fingertips on her uninjured shoulder blade, no more than that. "It's practical," he points out, trying not to push.
"I guess," she concedes. "Fine, go ahead."
He's barely gotten started, though, when she pulls away again. "It's no use, Finnick. It doesn't help. Nothing does. It only works if it gets me to relax, and I can't relax."
Finnick's hands don't stop. "Annie and I used to go on dates to a bakery cafe," he says casually. "Her favorite part was ordering dessert, and eating mine too. Sometimes she'd tell me what to order, so she could have one she knew she liked and one new one to try. And you know what she used to say?
"She used to say that chocolate didn't help her crippling fear. But she could have the fear with chocolate, or have the fear without chocolate."
Johanna doesn't say anything, but neither does she tell him to stop. She may not be relaxed, but she is thinking.
Finnick lets her think in peace, rubbing the oil over her skin and hunting for sore spots, while he makes plans for going home.
"I'm afraid," Johanna finally confesses into the silence.
"Of what?" He doesn't move, just leaves his fingertips brushing her back so lightly she shivers.
"Turning into my father," she whispers.
"You're afraid of me turning into your father?"
"No. Well, that too. But you make me afraid of me turning into my father. You don't know what it was like, watching him fade in a chair. He didn't do anything dramatic like completely shut down, or go on crying jags. He just stopped fighting. He stopped caring. Now that I look back, he seemed so utterly spent, like he'd fought uphill all his life, watched everyone he loved die, and just couldn't do it any more. It doesn't look like weakness to me any more. It looks like exhaustion.
"Now you're talking about being so tired you want to sleep forever, and I'm going to lose you too. And I'm so afraid if I stop fighting, if I don't drag myself through every day making no concessions except utter collapse, I'll just give up too. If I'm not running on full willpower, I don't know what's going to keep me getting out of bed. If you're vulnerable to being this tired, then no one's safe."
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
It's all he can think at first. Then, with mounting dread, I can't. I can't drag myself through treatment and get up every morning with a smile for the next however many years to keep from scaring you. I can't.
He chokes on his own fear, forgetting hers for a moment. But do I have to? I had to carry Peeta until I gave out. I didn't get to say I was too tired.
Finnick opens his mouth to say, All right, I'll try the treatment, but he can't do it. He would if he could.
What comes out instead is, "Jo, maybe it's better if you don't watch my decline. Annie and Cashmere will take me in, I won't be alone."
Johanna squares her shoulders. "No, you're forgetting the part where you're my mission."
"I'm not, but this mission isn't going to end well."
"It's going to end better than last time. I was so...resentful. He wasn't making my life any easier, and I was a child and he was my parent and it was his job. It wasn't your job, and you did it anyway. Making your life easier is the least I can do. And I'm not talking about obligation, or even gratitude. I'm talking about something I have to do, for myself."
Finnick understands. He may not be alone if she goes back without him, but she will.
"Promise me something." He lays his hand directly over the worst of the wounds, just below the right shoulder, giving it the lightest pressure he's capable of.
Unlike him and Annie, Johanna waits to hear what it is she's promising before committing. He smiles a little at her stubbornness.
"We don't say it, but I know I'm all you've got left. Promise me you'll find someone else. If not before, then after. Doesn't have to be romantic, just someone you can count on."
Johanna makes a not-very-hopeful sound.
"Go look up Rudder," Finnick suggests. "He always speaks well of you."
"He's too stoic."
"I thought that's what you liked. Strong, silent, rugged."
"That's what I used to think too. Damn you, Finnick."
"Well, rumor has it, where rumor is named Annie, that Rudder has a personal life. You never know what you'll find in the most unlikely places. You two have been my mainstays, my anchors. Maybe you can be each other's."
"I'll try," Johanna concedes grudgingly. "I won't push everyone away. But I make no promises not to silently compare everyone to you."
"What a terrible idea! No one can possibly live up to that."
Johanna doubles over in laughter and punches him in the knee. "Never leave. Never die. You're the only one who says outrageous things like this." He can hear the tears masked by the laughter.
"You'll have to be the outrageous one," he says tenderly.
"I only do 'rageous'."
Finnick laughs with her, wincing as his chest pays the price. "Time to step up your game, then. But if you're not sure you want to go through with this, or if you change your mind, you can tell me. I'm not planning to drag it out until I need a babysitter, but at some point, I'll stop being able to pull my own weight."
Johanna mutters, "The one person I wouldn't even call it babysitting, just making up for everything you've been through..."
"Nooo," Finnick tells her tenderly, "you're going to have a good life."
She sighs. "I don't play the 'if only' game a lot, but I do wish I'd moved to Four. Rudder and I work well together. I could have handled being married if it meant being part of the rebellion. I could have gone to the academy and yelled at your kids when they whined about how cold it was every time a cloud passed overhead, about how at their age I walked to my job barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, and how they're soft and don't know how good they have it..." Johanna keeps going until they both dissolve into laughter so hard they can't get any words out.
Finnick recovers first, mostly because his lungs are forcing him to keep a damper on it. "You could have been my neighbor. I would have liked that."
The room Johanna found for them isn't as fancy as the hotel, but in some ways it's nicer. It has a nice red and white bedspread, and a rocking chair by the window, which Finnick takes when he can't stand to be in bed any longer.
But the problem is that more often he wants to spend the whole day in bed, and if he slips out to use the bathroom in the middle of the afternoon, he comes back to find the room being vigorously cleaned by the owner of the house. Which he appreciates, he supposes, but he's still mourning the death of his marriage, and telling himself that no, he really is sure he doesn't want to change his mind.
It'll be easier when he and Johanna are back in North Panem. When they have their own place, where there's nothing to think about except making the most of the time he has left.
Johanna holds out for a few more weeks, but money for this room starts growing tight, and she's just getting more and more frustrated. "I hate to give up, but..."
Lying in bed, Finnick makes a sympathetic face, but he doesn't budge. "Ready to go home?"
She gives him a long look, spreading her hands helplessly.
"I'm sure," he promises. "This is what I want. As long as..." Now he does lift his head off the pillow, so he can read her face, her body language. "Is this something you're tolerating because it's only for a couple of years? Because I don't have to sleep here-"
"No! What the hell kind of question is that?"
Finnick blinks. "It's the kind of question where you don't want to ruin a really good friendship."
"Ruin, hell. If you live to be a hundred, you sleep here. You don't go letting yourself die because you can only have nice things for a year or two."
Oh. Oh. That's why the question upset her so much. "No, it's all right," Finnick tries to reassure her. "Even if I could have all the nice things, I'm too tired to last much longer. I just don't want to lose the important things." His voice drops to a whisper. "I don't want you to be glad when I'm gone."
Johanna's hand closes painfully tight around his wrist. "If you live another hundred years," she repeats, hard and unrelenting, "you sleep here. Got it? And you don't have to go outside in the rain any more if you don't want to, either. You've earned it."
Finnick closes his eyes again, lays his head back on the pillow. "And I get to keep the friendship?"
"What, you think I'll run out of things to say in the next hundred years?"
Finnick laughs. "Not in a million." He's sorry that he can't stay and give her someone to talk to. But at least someone will be thinking of him, after.