Chapter Text
ONE
you said you’d read me like a book but the pages are all torn and frayed
--
Annie is sitting next to Johanna’s bedside. Her mouth is bitten, red. Her hair is spiralling, loose and messy, around her face. "Jo, I need something from you."
Johanna has always liked Annie. "Name it, Angelfish." She is loose, with the morphling. It makes everything hurt less.
Annie is worrying at her lower lip and her fingers are twined together around each other and she looks so tired, so drawn and so thin. "I need you to stop Finnick," she whispers. "I need him to be here."
This is the most selfish thing Johanna has ever heard Annie Cresta say. "Annie--"
"He knows I won't hurt myself," Annie says, very soft, "because of the baby."
The baby hits Johanna like a truck. She should have thought-- she should have expected this. Somehow she didn't.
"He'd do anything for you, Jo."
She thinks, if only I could swim. "You want me to--" It is not out of the bounds of belief that Johanna would take a razor, a knife, an axe to her own wrists. It is not something that she has not done before, it is not something that he has not saved her from before.
The thing about Finnick: he has kind of a saviour complex.
"Please, Johanna." Annie's eyes are the same colour as Finnick's, the same colour as the sea.
"Yeah," she says. "Of course, Annie."
--
Finnick finds Johanna in a pool of her own blood, limbs splayed for maximum imitation of a broken doll. "Jo," he says, and his voice breaks, his voice shatters, his whole body crumples as he kneels beside her. "Jo."
(When they started-- whatever this is, being friends-- she said, you need to be needed and he had the good grace not to lie to her, just shrugged, so what if I do; it's not hurting anybody.
She met Annie and read the subtext: nobody will ever need me like Annie does.)
She twists her face and feels numb with blood-loss, cold like she is drowning all over again. It is not an act to choke out his name, to say, I need you, Finn.
So he stays.
Of course he stays.
They watch half of Katniss' team die on the cameras and Annie wraps her hand around Johanna’s left wrist, bandaged up as it is; murmurs, thank you.
Johanna watches Gale Hawthorne scramble to his feet, all sinew and heartbreak. Of course, Annie.
Part of her thinks: would Finnick have saved them?
But that is the tragedy of Finnick, he has never saved anyone in his life. He has only wanted to, tried, and been unsuccessful.
(Johanna would be part of this club, except that once upon a time she saved him.)
--
Finnick says, "You did this to stop me," and his fingernails are digging into the bandages on her wrists, a little pressure shy of drawing blood.
"Don't flatter yourself,"she snaps, lips drawn back into a snarl.
In the Capitol this is when he would kiss her, pull up her skirt and slide his fingers against her, set a fire deep inside her; but this is not the Capitol and Annie is only a few floors away.
"I could have saved them,"he says, instead. He sounds like he is about to fall apart.
"I could have, if I hadn't drowned." She shrugs, careless even though her heart is beating too fast. "We'll never know now, will we?" She is one bad decision from saying, you're just a collection of death wishes, Finnick Odair, but her therapist keeps telling her to restrain herself so she does.
"Johanna," he breathes, as though his words have weight, as though he was crowned anything other than a bloody murderer.
"Finnick," she says, and sets her mouth. "You’re going to have a kid. Save it."
His flinch is barely perceptible but it rockets through the bones of her arms, like an earthquake, like a tidal wave.
--
Katniss says, "Prim is dead." Her eyes are flat and she looks like she's going to be sick. Her skin is a latticework of scorched red earth.
Johanna doesn't know what to say; she was never first contact for any of the new victors because she's shit at this. She just sits there and feels like a lump. She never knew Primrose Everdeen, met her once or twice and she was the kind of innocuous pretty little girl that everyone loves, sweet like a little baby lamb. "Do you want some water?" she asks. "They say you can have ice chips."
Katniss laughs and it is the harshest, rawest sound Johanna has heard since Annie won her game. "Gale built the bombs, Johanna."
"Oh," Johanna says. She has never had a friend, not really, not like this. "Oh, Katniss."
--
Finnick blames her and that--
That is all right, as long as he does not blame Annie. That is all right, as long as he is alive.
Johanna has only ever been selfless about one person (two people, if you divide them, but FinnickandAnnie is the truest thing she has ever known), about one love story. There are so many horrible things that are her fault. This is her one good act.
Finnick says, Johanna, I—
and she says, I was never under any illusions. She does not add, I am glad that you love her best.
--
She sits alone in the canteen, drinking Haymitch's awful liquor out of a clear plastic cup. Finnick is not talking to her but that is all right because he is talking to Annie and they are a family, finally, and that is what this whole war was for.
Gale Hawthorne slides his tray down, next to her. It has what passes for food on it, a grey mess the smell of which is enough to make Johanna want to vomit. He’s beautiful, she notices idly, without heat; even tired and sad he has excellent bone structure and dark, sweeping eyelashes. "Hey," he says.
"Hi, handsome," she says, all reflex, no spark. "Drink?"
"No," he says, "no thanks, Johanna." The fork in his fingers dangles, poised and delicate, over the pile of mush on his plate.
She knows what he is going to ask but she is not a kind person, she is not going to pre-empt the question. She takes a sip and does not make a face at the taste. It is vile but she would not trade it for the light gorgeous flavours of Capitol liquor, the kind that makes you easily, breathlessly lost. She doesn't trust things you don't feel.
"I-- you went to see Katniss today."
"I did." Her fingernails are bitten down to the quick. Her clothes smell like the pine sachet Katniss made her when she was a stronger, whole person.
"How was she?" He sounds-- there is desperation hiding behind the coolness of his voice and she cannot help thinking of Finnick asking about Annie, after.
She relents. "She’s better than she was." She does not say, no thanks to you killing her sister. "She doesn't want to see you."
"No," Gale says, and it is like Finnick, like Finnick when he thought Annie was dead, like nothing in the world would ever mean anything ever again. "I know. Of course she doesn't."
"You had to do it," Johanna says, quietly. Somehow she is fond of him, beyond having always thought he was beautiful. There is something about his desperation that makes her think of her own blood running across the hospital floor, waiting for Finnick to come and find her. "You had to do it because the war needed to be over."
"I know that, too," he says, and he's breathless, exhausted. "I just-- I wish things would be better."
"Welcome to the real world, kid," she says, overly condescending, knowing it. "Just have a drink."
His fingers around her cup are clean, even under their fingernails, and pink. She thinks he has probably been washing his hands every moment he gets.
(She remembers, she got out and spent three hours under a scalding shower until her mentor had to pull her away, Johanna you can't stand up anymore.)
--
Peeta says, "I don't know what to do."
Johanna thinks, how the fuck should I know? She says, "Just love her. You can't fix her but you-- you can do that much."
(This is what they did, in the Capitol, that little mess of victors, survivors, family.)
He looks at her for a moment, eyes slate-grey in this light though she knows that the depth of them, the truth of them is bright blue. (Everything lies, Johanna Mason. Don't believe anything, anyone.) "Did anyone fix you?"
She laughs, and it's a ruined, hollow sound. "Nobody dared try, Peeta bread."
--
The new President tries to hold another Games. Finnick, Annie and Peeta vote no; Katniss and Haymitch exchange a look and vote yes. Enobaria and Johanna don't have to think and Johanna doesn't care about the disappointed look in Finnick's eyes, not at all.
Katniss shoots Coin dead in the heart and then retires to what used to be District Twelve, a broken wreck of what she once was. It is selfish but Johanna cannot bring herself to follow, like Peeta and Haymitch; she cannot bear the look on Katniss' face, the way she moves, too slow, too sad. She cannot flee to Four like Annie and Finn, cannot pour her whole life into the tiny thing that is growing larger and larger in Annie's belly (and isn't that right there the plot of some Capitol massacre, something awful and messy and violent).
She would rather, she thinks, pretend to be functional now that she can.
She moves to Two. There is a government, now; she can pretend, attempt to be useful.
In Seven their industry is logging, their primary material is wood. She understands how to build things.
Now that the girl on fire has scorched the earth, this is what they need.
--
They put her in government housing, a neat row of apartments. She lives across the hall from Gale Hawthorne, of course, of course.
It is so convenient she almost suspects Haymitch's involvement, Haymitch the stupid fuck who has only ever wanted good things for her, like she of all people deserves them.
(Haymitch, the only other victor with absolutely nothing to lose.)
Gale Hawthorne says, "I think I owe you a drink."
This is a phrase she will never respond to with no thank you. (Fucked up life lessons the Capitol taught you, #431.)
They sit in his tiny bedroom, knees touching on his clean, spare bedspread, toasting each other. He is the one who leans in, cautious, gentle, surprisingly sweet.
She almost cries. She has never known what to do with sweet. Sweet is for other girls, for Annies and Katnisses, girls who did not laugh as they ripped people apart.
He says, "Johanna?" and his voice is soft, careful, delicate.
She realizes she is trembling, realizes that the last person who touched her like this was Finnick Odair in their own fucked up version of aftercare and that's-- that's fucked. "It’s been a while," she sighs, in lieu of anything that means something, and slips her fingers through the waistband of his pants.
--
She doesn't mean it to be anything. She just likes him and he just likes her and more than that they are damaged in similar places and that's-- that's good, that's safe, that means-- that means she isn't going to fuck this up. That means he will understand.
Obviously this is not what is actually going to happen, but there is a chance, and that means she can pretend.
If she doesn't stay the night, whatever. It is not like he is tripping over his own feet to stay with her, either.
But--
She is not ruling out that eventuality, the idea of waking in his arms to the sunlight brushing through his obscenely large, wide window.
And that is-- a new turn of events.
--
Chapter Text
TWO
give me all your hopeless hearts to make me ill
--
Finnick calls her, now and again, about nothing in particular; sometimes just to say, I am looking at the rising sun over the water and it is beautiful, Jo.
He never asks her to come visit.
She understands; they won the war but they are not so far from the Capitol, and he spent so long trying to separate his lives.
She always says, I’m doing good, Finn. He has other people to look after, these days.
Sometimes Annie calls. Her voice is light, happy, down the line. Johanna cannot see her but she imagines that pregnancy will suit Annie well, that Annie will look radiant and beautiful even if what she is is Johanna's worst nightmare.
(Here's the thing about nightmares: there is a thin line between your worst nightmare and your most unreachable dream.)
She tells Annie how she actually is.
Annie says, it will be better, and you only have to ask, Jo, and I’ll be there.
Sometimes Johanna thinks she is rubbing salt in her own open wounds because Annie- Annie is a fantastic human being despite the war, despite the games, despite drowning. Annie is somebody the world tore down, somebody who built herself up again, somebody who has seen the darkest parts of the world and is still so beautiful.
(Annie is the best person Johanna has ever met but still sometimes
Johanna wants.)
--
Haymitch says, "you could do worse than Gale Hawthorne." He looks tired but a little bit pleased.
Johanna says, "how." She is under no illusions about the dysfunctionality of this relationship, because she is fucked up and Gale Hawthorne is in love with a mad girl and that's-- if that's not a commentary on the sad, sad state of Johanna's love life she doesn't know what is.
The quirk of Haymitch's mouth is smooth and casually cruel. "Finnick Odair?"
"Fuck you," she snaps. This kind of means, I didn't know you cared, you crazy old drunk.
(When Finnick and Johanna started their-- whatever it was-- Haymitch pulled Johanna aside, probably Finnick too but she wasn't there, she doesn't know.
"What the fuck are you doing?" he whispered, and he looked genuinely concerned and this was the first time she thought maybe there might be something okay about her life, after her win.
"The masochism tango," she hissed, prickly on the outside because she has soft innards, she knows because she held them together with her own bloody hands, "what the fuck does it look like?"
"You know that he and Annie--"
"I know," she said, sighing, "I know, Haymitch, but we killed twenty-three children to get to where we are, forty-six between us, you think any normal form of morality applies to us?"
His eyes were black and hollow and she thought that he must hate being helpless.
She said, "Haymitch, I know this isn't a love story."
"Oh, Johanna," he said, and kissed her forehead as though she had ever been young.)
He laughs, a little wry, a little sweet. "Seriously, sixty-seven. This could work out okay."
She does not flinch at the number that was once her name. "Don’t get crazy, five-oh. It’s still me involved, you know."
His eyes are very, very calm. "Try not to fuck this one up. You could be happy."
That is the worst possible thing you could say, she thinks. Just because the war is over does not mean she is in any way all right. That she has in any way forgiven herself.
She sketches a salute. "Yes, sir."
"Jo," he sighs, and she knows that before Katniss Everdeen came along she was his favourite.
--
Annie says, come to Four. She says, I want you to be here when he's born.
Johanna says, I don't know—
Finn means it when he says, Jo, please come, and that is that, of course. She has always had real problems telling him no.
She says, okay, and then because good people don't win the Hunger Games, do you mind if I bring a friend?
--
The train to Four goes all the way along, almost to the beach. That’s the draw, of course.
Finnick looks beautiful by the sea. She always thought he would. She would recognize him anywhere but here he takes her breath away, looking out into the waves with the wind rippling through his hair, silhouette lean and golden and lovely.
Gale Hawthorne whispers, "Are you okay?" He is warm by her side, still and self-contained.
He has still not been back to Twelve and he's not-- not her responsibility but she's not taking him, anyway. They’re careful with each other and it's weird because she didn't know she was capable of that.
"Yeah," she says, soft, and threads the fingers of her left hand through his right, waves with her free hand. "Hey, Finn."
Finn blinks at the two of them, loping across the sand in huge long strides. "Hey, Jo. Nice to see you, Hawthorne."
She lets go of Gale's hand to kiss Finnick's cheek, hello gravity, it's been a while. "You look good, Odair." He does, tanned and safe and filled-out, wearing layers with the sex turned all the way down in favour of casual comfort, an easiness she never saw in the city, not on him but not on anybody.
He laughs and smiles his big, wide smile, the kind that the Capitol never saw, no trace of artifice just enough joy to light up the skyline. She remembers having to fight for this smile; Annie never did.
Here in Four, she thinks, he might finally be happy.
"Wish I could say the same for you, Mason. What have they been feeding you in that government installation of theirs?" There is a little suspicion in his voice. He will never trust an authority figure again but that's okay, he has his wife and his house by the sea and that is-- that is all he ever wanted. He was very good at sex symbol but it was never—he always loved the sea.
"Grey shit," Johanna says, "it's the Games all over again," and she smirks, too sharp, Jo, he'd say once upon a time, you're gonna cut yourself there.
His arms are warm and huge around her and she wraps her arms around him too, so her fingertips touch on the fabric of the back of his shirt. imissyouiwantyouiloveyou. "It's been too long, Jo."
"You never come visit," she laughs.
But she—
But it's good to be with family; it's good to be home.
--
The house is beautiful, sea-weathered and lovely. It on the coastline and has a beautiful view, including what used to be Victor's Village, an artificial island that will soon be swept away by the encroaching tide. The sun sets on the sea and it's-- Finnick used to say, I miss the ocean but Johanna never thought it would look like this, huge and wide-open like forever is right there for you to touch.
The living room has a huge wide window and clean, well-worn furniture. It is old-fashioned and Johanna runs her fingers along the chairs and the tables and thinks that it is good craftsmanship. She has never worked with driftwood but this kind of makes her want to.
Annie says, "So you and Gale Hawthorne, huh?" and she's huge, the size of a whale but she's laughing, smiling, and Johanna was right because she looks so beautiful.
Johanna ducks her head and looks away; when Annie is on she is infectious, lovely, bright-eyed and contagious. "I don't know," she says, breathing in steam from the cup of fragrant tea Annie has handed her. "Early days, okay?"
"You brought him to see us," Annie says, lightly, "so I think that must be love of some stripe."
Johanna swallows. She feels cold, all of a sudden; has to wrap her arms around herself against the chill coming from the sea, though all the windows are closed tight. "I don't know if I know what love is, Annie."
Annie blinks. When she opens her eyes they’re flinty, dark, the ocean in a storm. "Bullshit, Johanna. What you've done for me-- if that isn't love, I don't know what is. You have given me more than anyone else and you-- you didn't even know me."
Johanna hisses in a breath. "I-- I didn't know you knew about that."
(When Johanna won, they tried to tell her who to fuck. She said go fuck yourselves and they killed her mother, her sisters, everyone she'd ever said hello to and she still said fuck you and then--
and then Annie Cresta was reaped and Finnick Odair looked at her, said, I can't lose her.
Johanna Mason pulled her shoulders back and said, you win.)
Annie shrugs, stiffness sliding out of her shoulders just a little. "People forget what they say around me. They-- they may have thought I was a little more lost than I am."
Looking at Annie now, Johanna wonders how anyone could think Annie Cresta did not know her way. Annie Cresta is the surest person she has ever met.
Johanna says, "Finnick did more than I did."
(Finnick fucked half the Capitol to keep Annie safe, and Johanna cleaned him up afterwards, whispered you did the right thing even though most days she thought it'd be better if he just let Annie Cresta die.)
Annie shakes her head. "Finnick thought-- thinks, sometimes-- that was all he was worth. You knew better, knew you were worth more and other things, and you still-- you still did this thing for me."
Johanna says, "You know I’d do it again." She's never been good at lying to Annie Cresta.
Annie smiles. "See," she says. "That’s love."
--
The guest room is small but scrupulously clean and tidy. the bed is small and the sheets have seahorses on them, which makes Johanna laugh.
She is running her fingers along the fabric-- it's coarse but well-made, the weft like the pulse of the sea.
Gale slips in through the door, soft-footed, light. His hair is a mess and his eyes are dark. He hisses, "Finnick Odair just threatened to disembowel me."
If this was anybody else it would be funny. If it was Haymitch Johanna would double over, laugh for days.
It is not; it is Finnick and this is-- he has no right to this. He has defined everything else about her but he will not get this.
Johanna is white-hot, furious. She bolts to her feet. "I’m going to kill him," she snaps. "Stay here."
Gale says, "Johanna, calm down." He takes a step forward, into the vortex of her rage, and there are only two people who ever did this before.
She says, "You don't understand." Her nails are digging into her palms. She is going to draw blood.
Gale says, "Of course I do; you love him." He says it gently, carefully, but matter of fact, unmovable like a mountain. "Love makes people do stupid things, Johanna."
He does not just mean Johanna.
She says, "Jesus Christ, Hawthorne."
He laughs, shoulders falling out of the harsh structure worry gave them. "It’s kind of nice. Mostly fucked up, though. I never threatened Peeta."
You're not Peeta, she almost says. But she doesn't know who he is, doesn't know what she is in the scheme of the great terrifying love of Finnick and Annie. "Let’s be honest," she says, lightly, breathing in, "Katniss would fuck you up."
He flinches a little but they are all getting better these days. His hand fits neatly on the curve of her hip, fingers rough and calloused, not like Finn's, capitol-polished. "Hey," he says. "I’m not going anywhere."
"You'd better not," she whispers, and kisses him.
It feels like--
It feels like she just gave something away.
She doesn't mind.
--
After, she pads out onto the dark sand, wearing Gale's shirt which is long enough to fall halfway down her thighs. The water washes over her bare feet, cool like a benediction.
(See, she is getting better.
Time heals all wounds.
One of these days she will be able to swim, now that it is too late to do any good at all.)
"Johanna." She would know that voice anywhere.
"What the fuck, Finn." She snaps all the way around, feeling like a hurricane, like a forest fire. The splash of the water is very loud against her ears. "You can't just--"
Finnick looks beautiful in the moonlight, the lines of his cheekbones glorious, perfectly-sculpted, like someone built him. (Maybe someone did; she didn't know him before the Capitol. Annie would know.)
He says, "I know, I'm sorry," which takes the wind out of her sails.
"You can't just--" she wraps her arms around herself, not against the chill-- it's summer, she's fine-- but against the weight of his eyes.
"It was a stupid thing to do," he says, "it was selfish and I had no right to and I’m sorry, Jo."
"He likes me," Johanna's voice is so quiet; she has never been a quiet person except with him. Each word falls, precise, like one of Gale's bombs. "We like each other." She digs her nails into the cuffs of Gale's shirt. "You love Annie."
It is not that they have not had this conversation before. Every time it comes up he looks like he has been slapped. His mouth opens, shuts. “And I love you.”
She imagines that this is how she would feel if the sea suddenly froze, if her heart stopped and she stepped out of her body and stared at the tableau of the two of them, Finnick with his golden sprawling loveliness, Johanna small and dark and wiry, oppositional.
"Jo," he says.
She crashes back into her body. Her voice sounds wrecked as though she has been screaming, crying, calling his name from a long way off. "The Capitol doesn't exist anymore, Finn. We're not what we used to be."
(God, she wants to kiss him. God, she misses him.
God, she misses the war.)
--
Chapter Text
THREE
wait until it fades to black; ride into the sunset
--
It is traditional; the baby is born in the sea.
Johanna mutters, this is the grossest thing I can think of, and Peeta laughs, hand on her elbow, suck it up, Mason.
Katniss is at home in Twelve but Peeta got off the train today and he looks-- alive. Tired, a little bedraggled from seven hours in a car with Haymitch, but-- the last time she saw him he looked like raw meat and she's glad he's not, anymore.
She has missed her Victors. They had sort of a family, knit by blood, guilt, alienation, but it was all she had and sometimes she dreams about Blight, about Mags, about Woof and Chaff and Seeder and Cecelia and that's-- God, she's glad Finn is still here. She's not sure what she'd do if he wasn't.
Peeta and Gale smile at each other and if it's tense she doesn't care enough to see it. Gale stays on the shore with Haymitch; when Johanna shades her eyes to look at them she's kind of sad that Haymitch never had a son, but then again, he had them.
The seawater is warm against her dress and her skin and Peeta keeps his arm around her waist, careful. She’s not grateful but glad of him, glad of his existence and the fact that he is still breathing and that he and Annie and Johanna have this one thing between them that nobody else will ever touch.
Annie looks beautiful, and Finnick has his arms around her and they are perfect-- this is perfect.
It's still totally disgusting but Finnick holds the wrinkly screaming ball of flesh in his arms and Annie says, "Hello, baby."
Johanna and Peeta look at each other and she knows that the huge smile on his face must be ricocheted back, on hers; despite the blood and the placenta and the water there's something--
something right.
Annie presses the baby into Johanna's arms and he stops crying, eyes screwed up, face ugly and pink, mouth too big for his tiny body. "Say hi to Dylan," she murmurs, exhausted but ethereally beautiful.
"Hi," Johanna says, staring at the tiny ugly face. She doesn’t like babies but it takes her a moment to remember how to breathe. "Hello, Dylan."
She thinks: your name will never be in a reaping ball. How’s that for good news?
--
Finnick murmurs, "Thank you for saving my life." She knows this means, I forgive you.
Johanna rests her fingertips on the back of his wrist, her skin darker against his golden. "Do you ever think about Cinna?" (She and Peeta and Annie, they heard him die. He was quiet, until he screamed, the once. She didn't know him before that, not really.)
"I think about all of them," he says, but there is a particular hurt in his eyes. Cinna was always his favourite Capitol revolutionary; Cinna was always, somewhere, good.
"Sometimes I dream that you died," she says, too soft. "It’s the worst world I can imagine."
"Jo," he says, hand around the back of her neck, kissing her forehead. "I’m not going anywhere."
But I am, she thinks. But we were only ever in the Capitol together. We have never, otherwise, been the same.
She drops her head against his shoulder. "I can't believe you're somebody’s father."
He grins. “It’s fucked up, right?”
They laugh, wrapped up in each other, and she thinks, I can live with this, maybe.
--
Gale goes back to Two (home, Johanna thinks, startled by how easily that thought comes to mind) and Johanna and Peeta and Haymitch keep going all the way to Twelve.
Peeta says, "So you and Gale, huh," and he's smirking a little bit, bright-eyed and sun-warmed because that is Four for you.
"He's very good in bed," Johanna smirks. They’ve been through the wars but Peeta is still Peeta, blinking blue-eyed and startled.
Haymitch is not yet drunk; he says, "That is not something we needed to picture, Johanna."
She winks. "You're welcome." Her breath catches in her throat. She is thinking about the hot gentle press of Gale’s mouth against hers. It is a stupid thing to focus on but she is doing it anyway which is embarrassing (must be the baby, making her loose like this).
Peeta tilts his head at her, birdlike and curious. "That’s not all it is though, right?"
Outside the window the long stretch of sandy rocky beach is giving way to the irrepressible wood, waves melting away for the solid security of the roots. "No," Johanna says. "It’s more than that."
--
Katniss does not look good but she looks better; her hair is short, like Johanna's after Annie's Game when the whole world fell apart, and her eyes are smoky, haunted. Johanna is a victor and she takes what she can get, smiling to kiss Katniss' cheek.
Katniss says, "I’m sorry I wasn't what you wanted from me." Peeta has his arm around her, as though she will break if he lets go. Maybe she might.
Johanna shrugs. "We should have known better. Nobody is." She kind of misses the girl in the arena, all fury and fire, but that was never Katniss. That girl was never real. Maybe she never could be.
(She wonders, for a moment, what Gale would have been like in the Games; but Johanna likes him too much to consider that thought for long.)
Twelve is very peaceful. There are no fences. It must be good for Katniss; it would be good for anyone. The air is clean and pure, like when Johanna was a child in the high treetops and life was not painful.
(Good is not what Johanna wants. She wants Two. She wants dirt under her nails to replace the blood.)
--
Haymitch says, "Be careful with him." He has Gale's slate grey eyes, the same as Katniss'.
I will, she almost says. "He's a big boy, Haymitch."
"I know he looks like us," Haymitch says carefully, "but he isn't. He never came out of the arena."
"Look at you," she says. "Gooey marshmallow centre."
He ruffles her hair. "How about that," he says. "We match."
--
Finnick calls her very late one night. "We named him for the sea. Dylan."
She is wearing a shirt she stole from Gale and never returned. It smells like him, just a little. She used to have some of Finn's in the apartment in the Capitol, but she has not been back. "You’re Four," she says. It makes sense.
He says, "That's not all we are." He sounds wrecked, voice stripped hoarse and too-raw. She wonders if he has been sleeping.
Johanna breathes in, a shuddering deep inhalation that hurts, a little. "It's the best of what you are."
"Jo," he breathes.
She hears herself say Finn. She sounds like she has only ever wanted one thing. She rests her head against the wall. Maybe that was true once but it isn't anymore.
It does not feel like her hands pressing disconnect but she knows that they are.
--
Katniss is making a daisy chain. The flowers are pale against her dark scarred skin.
Johanna sits down next to her with Peeta's fresh-baked bread burning her hands. "Bread?"
Katniss looks at her with Gale's sharp, clear eyes. "Please tell me he is okay."
Johanna stares down at the grain of the bread, pulls it apart to show the fluffy white insides. "You could ask him yourself."
Katniss says nothing. There is no point speaking. Of course she cannot ask Gale.
Johanna swallows. "Yeah," she says. "He’s getting better."
Katniss' eyes drift down to her daisies. "Take care of him, please."
People don't usually trust Johanna with this kind of thing-- except Annie and Finn that one time. And Annie and Finn are neither of them shining examples of excellent decision-making. "Of course," she says. "I will."
Katniss keeps binding the daisies.
Johanna doesn't, can't, move. The bread sticks between her teeth.
Katniss finishes and gets to her feet, slow and shaky. "Thank you," she says, and drops the crown on Johanna's longer and longer dark hair.
--
Gale asks, "Did you miss me?" He’s taller than she remembers, wearing a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up over an honest-to-god vest. He’s cut his hair. It’s too short against his skull but she doesn’t really mind; he’s still, like, gorgeous.
Johanna's bag is heavy on her shoulder. Around them, the train station is full of reunions.
She smiles. Her hair smells like dust and the stale air on the train. "I missed the air. It’s too clean over there."
He laughs and kisses her cheek.
Part of her wants to throw her arms around him and breathe in, but Katniss is not the only person the war made fragile.
She threads her fingers through his belt loops and knows he understands.
--
"They asked me to go on TV," he says.
They are in Gale's apartment, eating takeout from the restaurant around the corner where they get a discount because the owner's daughter thinks Gale is cute. He spilled it from the cartons onto the chipped plates he’s rescued from the break room and called that see I made you dinner.
Her plate is balancing precariously on her knees. She digs around through the vegetables for a chunk of meat, chews and swallows. "Doing what?"
"Talking? I don't know, they said my point of view would be invaluable."
She looks at him for a long moment, thinks that explains the vest. "You killed people, Gale. We’re heroes now but it won't continue."
He takes a deep breath. "I know," he says, "but I- they need to know it can't happen again."
She has to look at him, at the curve of his jaw, the darkness of his skin, the line of his mouth. "Okay," she says. "Be careful." She can imagine, all too well, seeing him hurt. She does not want to see it again. When the war ended, she didn’t really know him.
When she was fucking Finn she used to stop and stare at him, drown in the unrestrained beauty of his face and mouth and hair. It is not the same, here, with Gale. She does not need to look at him, does not need to reassure herself that Gale is here.
But if she did, she’d be allowed to touch him. Anchor herself on his skin, on the warm smell of him; fresh earth and cologne and the air after a rainstorm.
He will not sweep her away.
The best times, with Finn, were not the sex.
Not that she will admit this to anyone else. Not even Finn. Especially not Finn.
Her favourite memory of Finn is the time after the game between hers and Annie’s. They sat on the roof of her building and got drunk and she fell asleep on his shoulder and woke up feeling, for the first time in the history of her life, safe.
Obviously that did not last.
The TV is off and the windows are open. Outside, cars are running, people are talking. The sounds filter into Johanna’s ears, too loud, like when she was in the Capitol. It is a little chilly because of the breezes, disturbing the warm air inside. He bought a new couch, she realizes, or found one. The old one had been grey and suspiciously stained but this one is dark brown, like an oak tree trunk.
She puts her plate down and her hand on his thigh. She is thinking, I think I feel safe with you but she says, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
He smiles. His skin is brown where Finn’s had been gold and his eyes are dark and deep and warm, where Finn’s can run ice-blue, a little terrifying. He tucks her hair, shoulder-length, what the fuck, behind her ears and whispers, “I’m too afraid you’d kick my ass.”
She laughs, “Try dismember you,” and thinks that once upon a time she would have been terrified but right now, right here, she is only comfortable.
--
Annie sends pictures of the baby, Dylan Cresta Odair. He has a huge red mouth that opens incredibly wide, so wide Johanna stares at the picture and calls Gale over to see if he thinks it's been altered.
Gale laughs, "Have you never seen a baby before, Jo? That’s how they look."
She says, "They usually come out of people I don't know," with the unspoken coda I’ve never cared about one before.
There are a lot of pictures. Her favourite is a candid that Annie took, Finn sitting out on the pier with the waves clear and beautiful, almost indistinguishable from the blue of the sky, Dylan a bundle in his arms. It’s appended with, he cried all day, until Finn had the brilliant idea of taking him to the water. This one's Four through and through.
She imagines Annie smiling, tired and beautiful, her hair spilling out behind her in a dark brown tangle like seaweed on the open ocean.
--
Johanna's first assignment, she fucked up. They ran a full scan on her afterwards (for, Haymitch muttered later, whiskey-soaked and unpleasant, exactly this reason), electrodes on forehead, plastic wrapping her like a coffin. A woman with green skin frowned and told her to go to the termination clinic down the hall.
Victors do not get pregnant out of wedlock. Especially not to high ranking officials who have paid for their services.
It was Johanna's fault, the blue man at the clinic told her. He was wearing a white suit, the fabric of which contained birds that flew along his shoulders, roosted at the small of his back. One of them tilted its red-green-blue face at her as the man told her that the scheduling for the pills was very precise and she had clearly taken them too late.
She lay down in the booth, which was black like a coffin, for real. Air caught in her throat and she thought that this would hurt, that it should hurt. Not that it was a person inside her. Just potential.
While she was thinking about a baby with tiny grasping hands and a miniature axe, the man's voice, smooth and impersonal, told her it was done and she could go home. Try to avoid alcohol for the next twenty four hours.
She called Finn on the way back and they did body shots. His eyes were hollow and sharp.
(Later, Cashmere and Johanna got drunk and Cashmere said, it happened to you too, huh, and Johanna sighed, guess everyone fucks it up their first time. Cashmere's eyes were the shallow bright blue of a Capitol cartoon. She said, we can only work with what we're given, and for a moment Johanna thought about kissing her but it passed.)
It happened three times more. She asked them if it was getting dangerous. She hated going under the hood of the black box, with its stale air and plasticky smell. Women in the Capitol had implants, easier options. Johanna didn't have to ask to know they would never allow her such a thing.
The woman with pink hair blinked, surprised, and asked if Johanna had planned on children, which, when you put it like that, the point was pretty moot.
It’s easier to pretend you don't have strings attached when you can't see them all the time. When you can avoid thinking about them.
That doesn't mean you can't hang yourself.
--
Dylan is four months old, with blue eyes that blink at you and tiny fists that wave in the air. They have been to see the baby twice, because it is not like Johanna has anything else to use vacation time on; Haymitch and Peeta will come to Four when she asks, and Katniss breaks Johanna's heart more than anything used to. (Even Finn only broke her heart the once; Johanna can’t seem to inoculate herself against Katniss’ overwhelming frailty.)
Dylan cries less now. When Johanna holds him he presses his small face against her shirt and she can’t help imagining what a mess it would be if she dropped him, how everything would be bloody. Annie always looks at her, murmurs, he isn’t going to fall.
Finnick calls, late one night; Gale is about to go on TV and she is glad for the stress relief. She has not been nervous for someone in a long while.
"Hey," Finnick says. She can hear the smile in his voice, warm and familiar, because after everything else, beyond everything else they are friends and they love each other, no strings attached.
"Hey yourself," she says, smiling. Wedging the phone between her shoulder and her ear, she tucks bare feet underneath her on Gale's comfortable couch, broken in to the weight of her body. "How’s tricks, Odair?"
"Good," he says, sounding tired but not like a liar. "Annie's thinking she wants to fix the boat up."
"Wow,” Johanna says. "That’s fantastic." (They told her that when Annie was young she went all the way out to sea, that she made maps. The Games put a stop to that, to everything. Johanna does not know what it cost her to go in the sea for Dylan, but she thinks it must have been comparable to the price Johanna herself paid.)
Finn sighs and now he is ragged, yearning. "I keep dreaming," he says. "About the Capitol, about the war. Nothing helps. Annie has them too, nightmares."
Everyone does, Johanna thinks, does not say. She wakes up nights, blood spattered on the insides of her eyelids.
The good thing about Gale is: she was in the arena, he was in the war. They are similar, but not the same; there was never a crossover. The bad thing is: he cannot understand, and she will never understand. But that is probably an advantage, really. Johanna is not wired to let other people fix her.
She says, "Babies don't fix things, Finn." She hopes it does not sound too sharp.
"I know," he says. There is something desperate in it. "I just-- you know we all hoped things would be better."
She says, "Oh, Finn."
"Hanna," he says, "I miss you."
"My mother called me Hanna." Her voice is quiet; she can barely hear herself speak. There is a manuscript on the coffee table, an early biography of President Snow. She has not read it and she does not want to, but Gale says it’s fascinating in a sick way. "Did I tell you that?" She cannot really draw the line between things she knows about herself and things she has told him.
"You were drunk," he says. (That’s no kind of explanation; it’s easier to list times in the Capitol when she wasn’t under some kind of influence.)
"I miss you too," she says, softly. "Things are better. Come visit, you and Annie and Dylan. The air's not the best here, but you can have my apartment, and you're supposed to build up babies' immunity. It’s a nice quarter, too, people won't be taking too many pictures of you."
"A city," he says, like there is broken glass in his mouth.
The city was always cruel to Finnick Odair. It loved him best.
She sighs. "I guess when you find your home you don't want to leave, huh."
There is a long pause. On TV, Gale's smile fills the screen.
"Homes are nice that way," Finn says, carefully. "I’ll talk to Annie. I really do miss you."
She has been biting her fingernails. She stares down at the red, swollen mess. "We never used to say that," she says. "Do you realize that? Not even when we were apart."
--
Gale is, surprisingly, popular. There is something about him, light focused through a diamond, that catches you, pulls you close and doesn't let you look away. He speaks about nightmares, about the war, about the bodies and the way none of them can sleep at night, and people listen; people pay attention.
He is making sandwiches, meat and cheese layered on thick slices of bread. Sunlight falls through the kitchen window, brightening his grey eyes. "They want to make a documentary about the Capitol. A never again kind of thing, so that people-- our descendants-- will know what happened, what not to do."
Johanna's hair is long enough for a knot at the nape of her neck. She says, "Children never listen to their parents, you know that."
He kisses her forehead. "Don’t you think we should at least try?"
She has always been unreasonably optimistic, given her lifestyle and background.
(She does not want to think about children.)
--
She is a builder. She likes building. There are no bad memories she has associated with carpentry, not really. She didn’t kill anyone with a nail and it’s not like she has to cut the wood with an axe. It wasn’t even her talent; her talent was horticulture, flower arrangement, because the Capitol didn’t like the idea of her holding things that could one day be weapons.
The sunlight is stronger out in the ruins, on the site. They’re building temporary housing because who doesn’t need a house right now? She feels like she’s melting but it’s good to get callouses back on her hands. She thinks maybe that is part of why Annie likes to sail. They spent so long shaped by extenuating circumstances: it’s nice to know that their bodies are theirs again.
--
There is a knock on the door. Gale is making a movie in the ruins of the Capitol and Johanna is drinking a glass of wine. She gets up, glass in hand; pads her bare feet across the floor and pulls the door open and there is Finnick, standing too large for the doorway, too large for his skin, in front of her.
He says, "I miss you," and his hands are on the sides of her face, pulling her towards him. his mouth is an inferno and she is gone, as she has always been, swept away in the unrelenting tide of him.
She should say stop and she should say Dylan, Annie and think Gale and he should leave, but here is the thing: you do not say no to gravity.
(You do not ever say no to the Capitol.)
--
Annie sends her a watercolour painting. It is not very good, a washed out arrangement of streaky blue lines with a little white boat in the middle; the back says, this is unmapped sea. Johanna puts it on the fridge and tries not to feel guilty.
(She never felt guilty in the Capitol, but this is not the Capitol.
It felt like it for a moment but it wasn’t.)
She calls Annie. “I don’t think I know how to be happy.”
Annie’s voice is warm, full of love. “Is this about Gale?”
“No,” she says, and then, “maybe. I don’t know.” She presses her fingers to the windowpane, half-wishing she could see the forest, or the sea. All that’s here is the Nut and the city, human life bustling through. It has its charms, but sometimes she misses being clean.
“Well,” Annie says, careful. “I think you just have to give it time. Let yourself remember that being happy won’t kill you.”
Johanna thinks: but what if it does?
--
It’s Johanna’s turn to meet Gale at the train station. He spills off the train tired and worn with lines around his eyes and a smile that fills his whole body when he catches sight of her.
She shivers a little (she has never been good at responsibility) but takes his bag anyway, slings it over her shoulder and slides her arm around his shoulders, kisses his temple and says, “Welcome home, honey.”
He laughs. “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard you say.” He is a warm solid length against her side and she can’t help smiling.
“Fuck you,” she says, and turns her face up into his when he tangles his fingers through his hair to kiss her.
She feels like:
Like sunlight is running through her entire body, like all the knots in her stomach are smoothed out, like.
Like she is going to be okay.
--
(Fuck you, Johanna Mason. You killed children.
Okay is not something that you get to be.)
--
Chapter 4: four
Chapter Text
FOUR
some might say, we are made from the sharpest things; you’d say, we are young and we don’t care
--
Johanna misses a period. Dylan is nine and a half months old, laughing down the phone line and making noises that Annie and Finnick swear are words. Haymitch has come to Two, grumbling relentlessly but that is how they know he is happy, drunk but happy in a way that she had never seen him until they won the war. (Part of her thinks it was worth it just for that. She has never loved anyone the way she loves Haymitch. She does not understand how it happened that he is her truest friend.)
She resolutely does not notice that she has been late. She has been late many times before; missed periods from stress, from lack of eating, from having a fucked up body and fucked up biochemistry. She throws up one morning and as she’s staggering back to the couch from the bathroom Haymitch says, “You know that condoms fail, right?”
“Shut the fuck up,” she says, because she’s hungover as shit and sometimes she just can’t hold her liquor, it happens. She doesn’t need Haymitch pushing her buttons too.
As it happens, the vomiting doesn’t stop even when she’s sober and Haymitch sits beside her on the floor next to the toilet and pushes her sweaty hair out of her face, holds it back from her gross-tasting mouth. “Hey, kid,” he says. He doesn’t need to say any more.
She sighs. “I should get a test."
“Yeah,” he says, doesn’t move. The lower half of his face is stubbly and dark; she is so tired and confused and everything’s spinning so she reaches out, grounds herself with the pads of her fingers against his rough tired worn-down face. “Oh, Jo.”
She laughs, raw and hollow. “God fucking damn it.”
He does not ask the question, but they are both thinking it. What if it’s yes?
--
“Hey,” Annie says, “What’s up, Jo?”
“Nothing,” Jo says, looking down at the little packet in her hand. Her reflection in the stained cracked mirror is tired, pale. She braces one hand against the bathroom counter and stares at herself, a lean tired woman with too many lines on her face, with greasy hair and chewed up lips and the phone pressed to her ear. “Just missing my favourite nephew.”
“Aw, Jo,” Annie says. (Finn would have said, only nephew, don’t get crazy.) “We miss you too.”
The bathroom lightbulb flickers. She really should change it, but she’s at Gale’s most of the time anyway. “I should come visit,” she says, “you should take me sailing.”
Annie’s voice is delighted, lovely. “We’d love that,” she says, “we really would.”
She rips the packaging open. It’s so small against her palm.
--
“Gale,” Johanna says.
He’s on the couch, feet on the table, flipping through pages of script. There’s ink on his fingers and he’s wearing glasses that she told him to get because squinting isn’t cute. “Hey, Jo. Did something happen to Haymitch?”
She wraps her arms around herself. “No,” she says. “He’s fine. I--”
“Jo,” he says, rising to his feet, setting the paper and pen aside. There is a fingerprint on the left lens of his glasses and she finds herself staring at it. His ribcage rises and falls with every breath.
She can’t breathe. She doesn’t-- she doesn’t know what to say, how to say it. “I took a test,” she says. “I was late, I--”
His entire body freezes. His eyes are magnified by the lenses, pupils huge and dark. “And?”
“Plus sign,” she grits out. “Gale?”
She doesn’t remember being this scared, not in a long time. Not since, welcome back to the Hunger Games, not since Cinna’s voice stopped screaming. She squeezes her eyes shut so she can’t see the fingerprint over his eyelashes, like an overexposed photograph.
She doesn’t see him move but she feels his arms holding her tight, feels his breath on the back of her neck and she can’t help falling forward just a little, into the warmth of him. “Okay,” he says, breath coming ragged, too deep. “Okay. You know-- you know I have your back. No matter what.”
“And?” She is remembering how to breathe, the feeling of air in her lungs. She feels like a bellows.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She can feel his fingerprints through her thin t-shirt, pressed warm against her shoulderblades.
“Not yet,” she whispers. “I don’t-- not yet.”
His lips are dry, briefly pressed against her forehead. “Okay,” he says. “Just-- just so you know I love you.”
She swallows. “I know.”
--
The train smells like peanuts and salt and stale bodies. Johanna presses one palm to the window and dials Four with the other.
“Hey,” Annie says, “say hi, Dylan!”
Dylan makes a noise that could conceivably be hello if you hadn’t heard the word in years and weren’t yet sure how to go about making your mouth move.
“Hey, kid,” Johanna says; she is sometimes blindsided by just how much she likes Dylan, likes his squirmy hands and his tiny face and his surprised, adorable laugh. “Can I talk to your mom for a sec?”
“What’s up, Jo?” Annie asks. “You wanna come sailing?”
“Do you think I could-- I kind of need to talk to Finn. I don’t know what to do, he’s--” Her voice cracks, shakes. She feels wrung out and sore. She has always loved her body; it has always been the only thing over which she has all the control. She wonders what it would look like, distorted and warped and too full.
“Your best friend,” Annie says. “Don’t even worry about it, we’ll be fine. The next train--”
“There’s one to Seven, it’ll get to Four in a couple hours. I’m on it.”
“He’ll be on it, too.”
“Thanks, Annie.”
“If you need me--” Annie starts, delicately. She is being careful and that sets Johanna’s teeth on edge.
“I have your number.”
Outside, the city subsides in favour of the sprawling, rolling plains. Johanna is leaving fingerpints on the glass, smudging over a cornfield. Annie was not her friend, in the Capitol. This shouldn’t feel like a Capitol problem but she-- isn’t used to problems from anywhere else.
--
Finn is long and sprawling and golden, wearing a loose grey shirt and dark jeans. “Hey, Jo,” he says, slinging a bag into the overhead compartment, catching her up in his long-limbed embrace.
She slips her arms around him, resisting the urge to dig her nails in, not let go. "Thanks for coming."
Around them, people are staring. Finn’s been kind of a recluse in Four, refusing interviews and media. She ignores them and breathes in the smell of his skin; salt and seaweed and a hint of lavender soap and sweat.
"So we're going to Seven," he says, raising an eyebrow, sprawling back into his seat. His t-shirt has a little frayed spot underneath his left shoulder, exposing a patch of smooth tawny skin.
"Yep," Johanna says, trying not to mourn the absence of his skin and his smell. "Haven't been in a forest in too long." She kicks off her shoes, rests her feet in his lap, drops her head against the window. Her entire body is yearning for darkness, coolness, tree roots.
--
Johanna's old house was razed a long time ago, burned to the ground as thanks for her defiance with everyone she’d ever loved in it along with the tables and chairs her parents had carved, with her first axe. Johanna's home was never the house that she grew up in, though.
She borrows a pack from the logging office and takes Finn out into the woods. He is not really good at them, tripping over tree roots and squinting through the leaf canopy, trying to see the sun, but she is glad he is here.
He wipes his brow with the back of his hand. “Where the fuck are we going, Jo?" In his defence, it’s been two hours of what must seem like aimless wandering.
Her hair is back in a ponytail. Sometimes she wonders when it got that long. "Almost there," she says, stepping through a thicket of trees into a clearing that's been here since she was a kid. It’s moss-green from the light dappling the forest floor and the scratched-up tree trunks. Squirrels run from the sounds of their feet; when Johanna was younger she was a hunter but there’s no need for that, not here, not now.
There is a stream running a little while over. The sound of it fills her ears, that and the birdsong.
She smiles, dropping her pack to the ground. “Now we’re here.”
He shades his eyes, looking up at the wood platforms dotted through the thick branches.
“Don’t look right at the sun,” she says. “You’ll burn your eyes.”
--
After they’ve set up camp in the highest platform, he sprawls across a sleeping bag and watches her, sleepy-eyed. “What’s going on, Johanna?” There are scrapes all along his hands and the knees of his jeans have ripped. “Not that it isn’t nice to see you--”
Johanna tips her head back, against the nearest branch. It’s rough, not a comfortable headrest; too uneven. “Can we-- can we not talk?”
“Jo,” he says. The sunlight is golden on his skin and his eyes are like the sea and she has never known what to do with how beautiful he is.
She takes a deep breath and pushes herself forward, into his scratched-up still-bleeding hands. She knows him better than she knows herself; he catches her, easy and sweet (after all, he has had all the practice in the world) and kisses her, hot and fierce enough to bruise.
Here is something she has always liked about Finnick: he has never treated her as though she is fragile.
--
Afterwards she pulls his shirt over her head, smooths it down along her ribcage and stretches her legs out on her sleeping bag, synthetic fabric almost slimy against her bare skin. “So I’m pregnant. It’s Gale’s, obviously, the timing--”
“Holy fuck,” he says, eyes wide. The sun’s moved so they are in shadow, now, and his arm is around her like a ward against the chill. She traces his cheekbones with her eyes. “Jo, what--”
"It's a baby," she says. "A baby. I told Gale, I mean, I-- I had to, right? What are you supposed to do? It's a person and it's-- if you fuck it up, it's like, it's fucked. And it comes out of your body."
“You told Gale, though. You didn’t-- take care of it.”
She feels her shoulders slump, curves her face into the warmth of his neck, lets his pulse bring rhythm to her breath. "I-- it's never been an option before, you know? It's always just been-- an accident. Something that would go away."
He smoothes a hand through the tangled mess of her hair. "What does he want?"
"I don't know," she says. "I mean, he didn't say-- he said whatever I wanted. That's kind of-- it's what you're
supposed to say, right? I feel like he's the kind of-- like he'd probably want it. But like, I’m a mess, Finn. I’m so fucked up. He's so fucked up. We don't-- we don't stand a chance of not fucking this kid up."
Mildly, he says, "There are worse and better levels of fucked up. You can have the best parents in the world and still be a total fuckup."
"I just.” She swallows. “I keep feeling like maybe now I'm safe. Like-- like my entire life shit has been happening to me, things keep getting cut off before they're supposed to end. It's like, for the first time in my life I could-- I could act, instead of reacting? Does that-- I just keep thinking that really, this is a better world. Things are getting better. But I keep-- I keep pretending that isn't true. I keep fucking myself up."
"Babies don't fix everything," he says, carefully, unflinching. "But-- but I think, for what it's worth, you told Gale and you told me. I think you should tell him, maybe? That you want it?"
You want it hits her kind of hard, in her chest. True things always do.
"Oh, god," she says, pulling back, staring at him, at his perfect cheekbones and his bright eyes. There’s like, this wave of want surging through her entire body; she feels on fire, suffused with it. "Oh, god. I want it."
His smile is soft, sunlight on the open waves. "Yeah, Mason," he says. "You do."
--
Annie’s hair is in a tangled, lovely braid. The darkness of her hair sets off the depth of her irises. She kisses Johanna’s cheek, murmurs, “How’s it going, Jo?” with worry sharpening the edge of her voice.
Johanna takes a deep breath and looks at Finnick, at his green eyes and his very slight smile and the freckles on the bridge of his nose. “Yeah,” she says. “Annie, I-- I’m going to have a baby.”
Annie sucks in a breath. “Holy fuck,” she says. Her smile is fierce, brilliant. It lights up her whole face, her whole body. “Mother of fuck, Johanna.”
Johanna thinks, that’s Finn’s smile and it doesn’t hurt. She says, “I know, right?”
--
The moonlight falls on Gale’s sleeping form, on the blankets strewn across the bed and his face pressed sideways into the pillow.
Johanna leans in the doorway, the carpet rough against her bare feet. There is a smudge of dirt from Seven on her right cheek but she doesn’t move. He looks peaceful, sleeping. She has this insane, terrifying urge to keep him safe.
Very quietly she slips out of her clothes; unbuttons her jeans, pulls her shirt over her head, leaving them in a pile by the door. She steals a shirt from his dresser’s top drawer and slips into bed beside him. The sheets slip cool against her skin.
He breathes in and she rests her fingers, very lightly, on his left cheekbone. He turns a little towards her; she thinks he might wake up but he doesn’t.
Three words, she thinks. She mouths them, but there is a time for everything.
--
“Hi,” he says.
She blinks away the sunlight, shining daggers into her eyes, and takes the cup of coffee he’s holding out, sits up and rests her back against the headboard. “G’morning.”
“You came back,” he says, lightly. Now in the sunlight she can see the lines of his face, the tiredness that shouldn’t dog someone his age. “I was worried for a minute there.”
“Sorry,” she says, drinking deep. “I really-- I just needed some space.”
He slides into bed beside her. His hair is doing that hilarious thing it does, standing up straight and at also at right angles to his head. “I understand.” She likes that about him; that he doesn’t lie to her, that he doesn’t make her lie to him.
She takes a long, shaky breath. “So,” she says. “I’ve been thinking. How would you feel if I kept it? It’s-- it’s been a long time since I made a choice like this. I really-- I really am sick of things that could have happened.” She doesn’t really know how to explain it, how to put in words that aren’t, I want it, Gale. I just want it and I haven’t wanted anything in such a long fucking time.
His eyes are the heart of the forest, the loam that crunches under your feet, sustaining everything. He smiles, soft and careful. “Okay,” he says. “This is going to sound-- but I was hoping you’d say that. I think -- I think I just really want to do something good.”
Very carefully she leans down, puts her coffee cup on the floor, and kisses him until she runs out of air.
--
“So you went to see Finn,” Gale says. The wind from their open window ruffles his hair, dries the sweat on his bare chest.
Johanna shrugs, twining her fingers in the sheets.. “I-- needed to know what I wanted.”
He takes a deep breath. “We should-- we should go to Twelve.”
She stares at him. She doesn’t know what to do with how much she cares about the quiet hope in his eyes, about how afraid she is that it will crunch into sparkling dust under Katniss Everdeen’s tired voice. “You sure?”
“Well,” he says, propping himself up on his left elbow. “Katniss sure as hell isn’t going to come to us. And-- I think it’s time.”
The train to Twelve takes forever but Gale is a familiar warmth beside her. He twists his hand through hers. “Holy shit,” he says. “I’m kind of terrified.”
She squeezes, twice. “Good,” she says. “That’s the appropriate feeling.” (This means, it’s gonna be okay.)
--
It’s summer so the air in Twelve makes Johanna sneeze, heavy with pollen from all the medicinal plants. The baby (the baby!) will be winter-born; bad luck, in Seven, but this is a whole new world.
“Welcome home,” Haymitch says, smiling at the both of them. He’s not a good smiler; he has too many teeth. “Try not to step on any geese.”
Gale raises an eyebrow but Johanna can feel his pulse jackrabbiting against her wrist. “Our very own victory tour.”
“You know it,” Johanna says. For the first time in her life she feels something like victorious.
--
Katniss and Peeta come over to Haymitch’s messy geese-infested house. Katniss’ hair is down in loose waves; her smile is small but not false. Peeta’s arm is slung loose around her shoulder but he grins, lets go of her to kiss Johanna’s cheek and shake Gale’s hand warmly, as if there are no sharp knives between them.
Johanna hugs Katniss and looks at Gale, whose mouth is a thin sad line, whose eyes are dark and full of a longing that makes her heart hurt.
Katniss ducks her head. “Hi, Gale.” Her voice is hoarse, hesitant. Too careful; everything Johanna hates, but her grey eyes are steady.
(Johanna thinks: Seam eyes. There is the same sadness in them.)
Gale exhales. “Hi.”
Johanna squeezes his hand, and lets it go.
“I keep missing you,” Katniss says, arms around herself. She’s not as thin as she used to be. Johanna remembers when she didn’t stand up on her own power.
He breathes in like he’s just remembered how. “Catnip,” he says. “We should talk.”
Johanna and Haymitch and Peeta sit in the living room, looking out the window at Katniss and Gale sitting in the meadow. They are aesthetically pleasing together, both shadows against the bright green of the grass.
Peeta’s voice is calm, restrained. “Is it Gale’s?” His eyes are very blue and he’s jammed his hands in his pockets; the line of his back is straight, unafraid.
“Fuck you,” Johanna spits, hackles up. "Of course it is."
Haymitch raises an eyebrow, pours himself a shot and downs it.
“Sorry,” Peeta says, unapologetic. “You know I had to ask.”
“Not really,” she snaps. He doesn’t even like Gale. “I’m going to assume that means congratulations.”
He smiles, bright and sweet. “Congratulations, Johanna. I’m really glad for you.”
She is really fucking terrible at being angry with Peeta. She frowns and resolves to get better at it.
Gale and Katniss slip back in. They both look tired, too sad.
Peeta wraps his arm back around Katniss, says, “We’ll see you later.” Johanna thinks he probably means it.
Gale says, “I’m really glad I saw you.”
Katniss smiles, weak but true. “Me too.” When she and Peeta leave they are perfectly in step with one another; one organism, formed from grief and loss and blood.
“Hey,” Johanna says, touching Gale’s shoulder. “You okay, kid?”
His laugh is raw, vulnerable. “Yeah,” he says. “One of these days, I will be.”
--
Nightfall in Twelve is a lot like it was in Seven, all crickets and birds and other loud noises. Gale murmurs, “I’m going to bed,” which Johanna’s pretty sure means, I need some time, so she sits back in Haymitch’s squishy armchair and sips from a cup of tea that Mrs. Everdeen swears is good for her but tastes like sweaty socks.
Haymitch says, "You and Finnick Odair, huh?" The starlight throws his eyes into sharp relief, casts the white liquor in his hand a kind of glow.
"It’s not--" she starts. It’s not like you think.
He sips from his bottle. "You know," he says, "the war is over. The Games are done. I love Peeta and Katniss. Objectively, my life is something resembling not-awful. Doesn't mean I stopped drinking."
She pushes her hair out of her eyes, thinking about Finnick’s clean smooth Capitol hands.
"Yeah," she says. "Maybe it is like that."
--
Four smells like the sea, all the way through. Johanna’s glad for the clear air and for the set of Gale’s shoulders, loose and free of hurt.
Finnick hugs her, hugs Gale, frowns at Haymitch who still smells like liquor but hugs him too.
Annie says, “It’s good to see you,” and fits warmly into Johanna’s arms.
--
Gale fucks off to shower; you wouldn’t expect him to be a neat freak but apparently now that showers every five minutes are an option he’ll take them. Annie thrusts Dylan into Haymitch’s suddenly-careful arms, grinning at his delighted face and says, smug with victory, “excellent, he likes you. Let me teach you to change him.”
That leaves Finnick and Johanna in the living room, something uncomfortable cutting through the warm familiarity that usually runs between them.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Finnick says, staring at his feet. “This-- it has to stop.”
Johanna runs her hands through her hair, stares down at her stomach, only just rounding. She wonders when the baby will start to kick. “I know,” she says. “You’re my best friend. I don’t want to fuck that up.” Gale, she thinks, and the baby, and Annie, and Dylan.
His hand still fits perfectly against her cheek. It feels like they are somewhere-- anywhere-- else.
His eyes hold hers for too long. “One last time,” he says. “For luck.” He leans down, presses a close-lipped kiss to her mouth.
She closes her eyes and sways into the warmth of him. Goodbye.
--
The sea air ripples through Annie’s hair, through Johanna’s. She braces her back against the side of the boat and stares out into the calm water, which is nevertheless surrounding them completely.
Wordlessly, Haymitch claps her on the shoulder.
Gale’s trailing his fingers over the water, tracing the rippling surface, the curves of the waves. “This is beautiful,” he says, grinning at Johanna.
“Wait till you get seasick,” she says, but there’s no bite to it.
Finnick shrugs, holding out a finger for Dylan to attempt to grasp. “It’s really not that bad.” Johanna still loves the sound of his voice.
“You were born on a boat, love,” Annie says, doing something complicated with a rope that makes the sail turn sharply, into the wind. “Have you thought about names yet?”
Johanna and Gale stare at each other. Johanna laughs, can’t stop.
Haymitch says, wryly, “I’m assuming that’s a no.”
“The only thing we know for sure,” Johanna says emphatically, “is that this is not going to be a water birth. There are going to be a lot of drugs and I am going to be on them.”
Dylan giggles, a bright high sound. He can crawl, now; not well and he falls over a lot but he is starting to grow a personality. It’s kind of fun to watch.
“I think he agrees,” Gale says, warmly.
Something-- happens in Johanna’s stomach. She thinks-- oh -- and takes Gale’s hand, careful, and presses it to the curve of her belly where their baby-- this organism, this collection of cells that she thinks probably now has a face-- has just moved.
He goes very quiet, very still. His eyes widen; is that--
Yes, she says, in a barely-there smile.
He kisses her cheek, wrapping his other arm around her. Everything smells like salt except for the line of his throat; when she breathes in deep she can taste the forest in the scent of his skin. Home.
--
When they first started this-- whatever this was-- she woke up in his shirt and rolled over to see him standing at the window, staring out. “We can’t do this again,” he said. “It’s-- it’s too stupid.” Dangerous.
“I know,” she said, hearing something else, something she didn’t have permission to know yet in the timbre of his voice. “Don’t worry, I have as much invested in not fucking up as you do.”
His smile was incredibly weary, the sun a halo behind his too-beautiful face. The spires of the city rose behind him and she thought she had never seen anyone look so sad.
She slipped to her feet, hands fisting in her too-long sleeves, and kissed Finnick’s cheek. “One last time,” she said. “Just for luck.”
Chapter 5: epilogue
Chapter Text
EPILOGUE
the only hope for is me is you
--
Ian Mason-Hawthorne comes out screaming and covered in blood. He has Johanna's eyes.
Johanna has some pretty great drugs flooding her system but she smiles at Gale, anyway. “You look terrible,” she tells him, squeezing his hand tight. She is a really big fan of these drugs. It almost feels like a bus didn’t just push its way out of her body.
Gale’s hair is sweaty, damp, falling into his eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he says. “He’s beautiful.”
Ian’s crying, louder than anything she’s ever heard. The nurse passes him to Gale, who lets go of her to wrap both arms around the baby, to cradle him gently, because he is after all the most precious thing in the entire world.
“Say hi,” he says, “say hi to Mom. Hi, Ian.”
“Hi, Ian,” Jo says. Her voice is wrecked, like Gale’s. She likes that they match.
Ian smiles at her. She thinks it’s a smile. It’s kind of hard to tell, over the screaming and through the drugs. His face is tiny and screwed up and perfect. She did not know her heart had this kind of room, that there was all this space that is now occupied by this tiny person.
She takes a breath, tears her eyes from Ian’s face to meet Gale’s. “I love you,” she says. “Just-- just so you know.”
He rocks Ian -- their baby -- back and forth in his arms. “Johanna,” he says, tired and worn and so sweet, “of course I know.”
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