"Damn it to the frozen hell... it makes sense," Johanna said. "What this Place does could have been the Ancients' idea of therapy. They won't let us go because we haven't been cured. But then their standard of sanity is whatever the Ancients set up for themselves. Applying it to us would be like trying to teach raccoons to do calculus."

"It's worse than that," Peeta said. "The Place gives people a chance to live out their dreams. After what's happened out there, that's all a lot of people would ever want. They would never leave, they would never want to leave, even if they were supposed to. Katniss... If she knew of this Place, even knowing what it really was, she would come, and she would never leave. Not even for me."

"Ms. Mason," Snow said, "your case has presented special challenges for us. Not only have we faced a dearth of reference material, but we have found almost no signs of any emotional attachments, except one."

"No," Johanna said. "Don't you dare." But things were already changing. The Ophidian was changing back into Katniss, and the boy Gale was growing into a man. When the transformation was done, they stood in too-fancy uniforms with fahionable soot on their cheeks, Rebels' Rebels in a ridiculously overproduced propo. They waved, and then they kissed, basking in their own artificiality. Johanna snorted. "Please. I could eat her for lunch, and I could get him to eat the leftovers."

Then Katniss was gone, and the likeness of Johanna was in her place, in a wedding gown next to a now-clean Gale in a perfect dress uniform. Johanna felt satisfaction again, but she didn't care for the way her double cuddled against the groom, and she didn't care for being in a dress. She didn't like it any better when the double started removing the gown. "Stop," she said. Though she had freely shown her body to both of the men present, a flush of embarassment came to her cheeks. The double of Gale was looking hers over as they talked with lips flapping silently, and she knew every look. "Stop it." Beside her, the real Gale was looking shamefaced at the floor. Their doubles kissed, and Johanna braced herself for what would come.

But what she expected never came. Rather than removing his clothes, the groom Gale turned and accepted his father's belt, repeating what the ogre whispered in his ear: "I'll teach you how to mind, woman." The whip lashed and lashed again, and again.

She jerked the real Gale's head back, expecting some outcry or display that would convince her that the scene they beheld could never happen. But disbelief was the one thing she didn't see in his downcast face. "You bastard, if you ever even thought of doing that to me-" He tried to back away, but bumped into the force field.

Gale's father was at his ear. "I expected better from you, boy," the father-Mutt said. "I gave you everything I could, and you gave back more than I could have hoped for. I knew what you did, and I was proud of you, boy! That was how I knew I'd given you what you needed. Guts. Grit. Hate. What in all hells happened to you, boy? You let yourself moon over the first wench who catches your eye, and then lose her to a Townie sprat. Then you run into this one, and instead of breaking her in or cutting her loose, you just let her hang around like a pest. And now you let her talk to you like that! Didn't I tell you, boy, a mouth on a woman is like squeak on a wheel. You just gotta give a little-"

"Lubrication, I get it!" Johanna snarled. She raked her nails across Gale's face. "He's just saying what you're thinking, isn't he? I can't believe I fell in love with you!" She raked her nails across his face.

"Do not do that, or we shall have to use aversive measures," Snow said.

Johanna stared at the scratches on Gale's face and the blood on her nails, and then she looked in his eyes, and it seemed that what she saw was the terrified boy looking back. "You bastard. You utter bastard!" She shoved him down the hallway, and as she did, she whispered in his ear, "I'm getting us out of here." He nodded. Then she slammed him into the force field in front of the window, drew a knife and thrust for his heart. The knife shattered against a new force field that delivered an electric shock, and it seemed that the ground shook. Peeta and Victoria caught Johanna as she staggered back and then pushed her toward Gale, who was already crashing through the window.

Johanna landed in Gale's arms, and did not protest when he proceeded to carry her over his shoulder. "It was my guess, and I was pretty sure you were getting the same idea," she said. "You said force fields weren't reliable, and that got me thinking, and I thought I remembered hearing Beetee say once... that intersecting two force fields causes a short circuit."

Peeta passed them, and even Victoria was catching up. "Did you mean what you said?" Gale asked.

For a moment, she was merely bewildered. "Heavens' sakes," she said with rolled eyes, "we're on the run in a Mutt madhouse, and that's still the first thing you ask... But yes, Gale, it was true, and I'm pretty sure it still is. By the way, nice as it is to have your hands on my legs, I can run on my own now." Gale set her down, kissed her, and gave her a slap on the hip. She slapped him back, and they both started running.

"You realize this is entirely futile," Victoria said. "We are dealing with an adversary who can appear in any form from anywhere. The only logical explanation why we are still at liberty is that Security is already preparing a more optimal trap for us."

"Yeah," Johanna called back, "but you're still running."

They followed a kink in the shoreline, where the lake formed an inlet around a tiny island. "Have you noticed something?" Peeta said. "There are no boats on the lake. No docks. Or fishermen."

Gale pondered. "There are no fish in the lake," he said, "and there are no boats because there are no docks, and there are no docks because... because there are no boats. That's all."

"Exactly," Peeta said. "He pointed ahead, to a narrow path through an overgrown stretch of forest that went right up to the shore. "Where we want to go is Twill's house. Right through there."

"And that's the trap," Gale said.

"What do we do?" Johanna asked. Her eyes followed Gale's to the water, and she shuddered.

"I think," Gale said, "we walk in." He took her arm, and they walked hand in hand toward the path, while Victoria and Peeta headed for the shore. A gust of wind shook the trees as their feet touched the path, crunching a thick litter of dead leaves under foot. Gale looked at Johanna, and she halted and kissed him. They were still kissing as the leaves rose in a swirling, roaring mass that lunged in to engulf them. A great swirling cloud lifted them and swirled them about like rags in a washer, and they clung to each other even as their clothes were pulled from their bodies. A maelstrom of Hell stripped them of their senses of surroundings, of time, of their very selves, and still they drew tighter and tighter together.

Gale awoke with a woman in his arms. He said without looking, "Johanna." He looked down into wide eyes that were already gazing at him. "I think they didn't make it."

An after note: For the record, the Ophidian is meant to represent a creature from Mockingjay, but is also modeled after an old concept I sketched for an all-original book. I always thought the original looked like an evil muppet, but it's scared people. I still have a bit of a "lead" in terms of chapters, and am headed for a resolution. I'm going to go ahead and say that, while I don't normally get a lot of reviews and I don't generally mind, if anyone wants to review or "fav" this story, it would probably help with visibility in this fandom, and now is probably a good time.