A/N: Hello all! Sorry, oh so sorry, for being gone so long on this story. I know that I've left you wondering for almost four months, and that is nearly unforgivable, I beg for your mercy. I got stuck after what I had done, and so I didn't even try to write. The same thing happened with my ME story, so I have people to placate everywhere. :3
The days drag on, no rest for we weary wicked as we continue to slog through our training in the endeavor of becoming the soldiers capable of ending the nightmare of today and bringing the dawn of tomorrow. Every day is a struggle for my Katniss, every day is a fight to be better, to be stronger, to not let the memory of pain beat her. I see how tired her struggle against her addiction is making her, and in the face of that, our training is as nothing. She can handle it and so much more from everyone around us, but that battle against her own demons is draining her day by day, and it's all I can do to fill the empty spaces and lift her up within my love for her. Still, she is strong, and she is fighting so that she can keep me and not lose herself, and I do my best to remind her daily just how much that means to me, just how much I really love her.
It's not about us anymore, though I suppose it was never really about just us, but that isn't the point. The point is that she is throwing herself into the fighting, the training, the ceaselessly exhausting push to be better, stronger, faster, more, and I don't think she realizes just how destructive she's being in her need to avenge all the wrongs that have been done to us all. There doesn't seem to be a word I can say, or a gesture I can make, that keeps her from continuing her nearly suicidal push towards the Capitol, but there is one thing I will never fault her for. Her constant training has made her stronger and more dextrous, two things she already had in abundance, and she's got stores of energy that I could never hope to deplete, so the sex is mind-blowing and goes on well into the night. I just wish that she'd stop and take a breath, appreciate the colors of the sunset or the sunrise again, that she'd be my Girl on Fire again, my brainless, and not the Mockingjay that the revolution has turned her into.
I remember when I was the warrior, when I was the one you didn't push, that people looked at in fear, and I almost wish that we had those days back. I'd even settle for the days after Two, when we were recovering and wounded and the others were looking at us in pity. Anything to end these horrible days where she says she loves me, where she does all the right things, but then I look in her eyes and I see a madness there that was put in place by Snow and his regime. I'm so fucking tired of seeing that in her face, or in the way she moves, or hearing it in the things she says, and I can't take it anymore. I have to do something.
I look at her from where I've been sitting for the last three hours, sleep refusing to return to me after I woke screaming from a nightmare of Katniss dying at every possible point in the Games. She had roused and comforted me, hushed my howls and stilled my tears, and when she felt she knew I'd be alright again, she went back to sleep, so deeply under that the only detail keeping me from believing she had died was her slow breathing, one breath every ten seconds. I've just been watching her since, reminding myself that it was just a dream every time she takes another deep breath in, but now I must act. I know that she won't wake now, so I stand and silently slip out of the room, making my way to the outside world where I can stand barefoot and just think. I need the time to gather my thoughts, to know what words to say to get Coin to allow us to leave for a day and go somewhere else, and I need the air. For a moment I even allow myself to believe that the peace will last and no one will disturb me, but that hope is shattered quickly by the one and only person I do not wish to see.
Gale Hawthorne, the bane of my existence for as long as I have been in District Thirteen, moves out of the shadows where it seems he's been waiting, though for what reason I have no clue. Still, he seems to have a purpose and it's all to do with me. I groan as he breaks the quiet morning, his voice cutting through the breath of dawn with brutal efficiency. "Johanna. Trouble in paradise? Is Katniss finally waking up to the horror of living with you, of sleeping next to a soulless abomination like you?" Chills run down my spine as he voices the thoughts, the worries, that plague me day after day when I look at the beauty who wears my mark on her hand. "Is she finally realizing the atrocity of telling everyone she 'loves' you, of publicly parading a stupid fucking fantasy in front of everyone?" I fight to remain still, to keep calm and ignore his words, but then he digs the knife in a little deeper. "Did she finally remember that she hates same-sex sickness every bit as much as I do? Perhaps you're out here because she finally decided to stop playing pretend with you, and now you don't know how to deal with it."
I can't take it anymore, and he sees the moment I snap. I'm sure he was expecting me to attack him, but I don't think he was prepared to see me crumble, to see me fall prey to my own worst fears. I fall to the ground and sob, tears streaming from my eyes as I hug myself to stop the shakes, hiccups ripping through me and quickly becoming physically painful. I curl into a ball on the ground so that the world doesn't turn too quickly and throw me off, wrapping my arms around my knees to hold the pieces together. I hear him mutter a curse and I can imagine the hand movement that accompanies it, an awkward shifting of his feet as he runs his fingers through his hair and debates whether to try and help me, the woman he hates, or to run down the the room I share with Katniss and attempt to 'get her back'. A heartbeat before he can make the choice that I'm sure is inevitable, I uncurl and speak through the heartbreak and tears.
"Who do you think you are, running around leaving scars? F-f-fuck you G-gale. She didn't come to any such fucking 'r-realization', I just... I don't know what to do to help her. S-she's throwing herself into the war and the training so much and with so little rest, and I... I'm afraid she's going to kill herself." I push up onto my feet and shakily brush myself off before I continue, "I want to take her away for a day, to force her to get some rest, take a break, enjoy the day, and that's what I'm going to do. So go fuck yourself." I have finally gotten my breathing under control again, though tears still fall from my eyes with the turning of the world, and I force myself to walk past him, causing him to flinch though I don't even make a move towards him. I have a president to beg, bargain, and threaten into submission.
"Where are we going?" I grin when I hear that soft velvet voice vibrating vivaciously in my ear, when I feel her breath on my neck and her hands alight on my shoulders. I'm in the pilot's chair of the hover that I was allowed to take for the day, flying us to District Seven so that she can see where my home used to be, before I met her and found my new home in her arms. I'm not sure that she'll be thrilled, exactly, but I know that after she showed me her home I have to do this. It doesn't hurt that it's getting her away from District Thirteen for twenty-four hours, away from the guns, the sparring, the drugs, and the people that we spend every day striving to just be normal around, trying to be who they need us to be.
"Somewhere special, you'll see. I don't want to spoil the surprise, baby." I can't help but chuckle at the downcast look on her face, something I don't see because I don't deny her anything ever. That pout is just so adorable that I need to kiss it away or I'll crack and tell her everything, so I tug her forward and smash my lips into hers, sending my heart into a gallop and stopping hers, if her sudden stillness is anything to judge by. When her arms wrap around me, I know that I did the right thing and that she's forgiven me for not telling her anything. I feel my need for this ratchet up, just wanting this kiss to never end since I've been starving myself of her to make sure that I could stay objective and keep her free of the drugs, of her addiction, so when the autopilot beeps at me to tell me that we have reached our destination, I groan and mumble around her mouth for it to shut up. Still, I know that I have to set us down, so I let go and engage the landing protocols. "You ready baby?"
The hatch opens behind us and I tug her out of the cockpit, so giddy and eager that I leap out of the hover onto the ground outside like a kid on nameday. She follows just behind, my little Mockingjay hopping into my arms and looking around, taking in the trees and the pine needles on the ground, the quiet birdsong in the air, until... "Ohmygod! Jojo, did you bring me to District Seven?!" Her happiness is everything I could have hoped for, and I set her down with a kiss and a "yes", leading her into the woods towards this little logger's cabin that I know of, a picnic already set up for us. I love her so damn much...
A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, but I couldn't think of how to lengthen it, and besides, this shows more than enough of a quiet moment in their lives. ^_^ It's gonna get tougher to write soon, but hopefully rewarding in being tough for you guys to read as well, coz I want to do the whole story justice. Loves!