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Johanna forces herself to stay awake for the trip to the central district of District 2. She hadn't even been positive that the rebels were in District 2, but one of the soldiers confirms this on the flight back. "We have a base set up in a sort of 'green zone'," he explains. "You'll see when we arrive."
The morphling keeps her pain at bay, but it also threatens to drag her to sleep. She'd normally be asleep now, and she sees Annie sleeping beside Finnick, and Enobaria is fitfully sleeping beside her now. Only she and Peeta remain awake. Peeta is speaking in low voices with Katniss, and Johanna is trying to watch over Enobaria.
She had no idea anything was wrong with Enobaria, and now she feels terrible about that. She walked beside Enobaria every day for weeks. She should have known. Enobaria walked more than any of them, often going out further and then doubling back again and again as they traveled. Sometimes she climbed up the mountains they passed to get a better view of the path ahead. She took more watches than the rest of them, always saying that Johanna and Peeta needed more rest because they were still recovering from the torture in the prison, and Annie because she was pregnant. And she carried more weight than the rest of them, often taking at least half of Johanna's pack, since Johanna would have slowed them down, otherwise. So now Johanna sits beside Enobaria as the medic aboard the hovercraft administers first aid, waiting for any report indicating that Enobaria will be alright, because if she's not, Johanna is certain it would be her fault, for getting Enobaria caught in the first place, and for not being stronger as they made their escape.
"I won't know for sure until we can run some tests back at the base," the medic says quietly, "But it looks like a combination of dehydration and her kidneys being overwhelmed with how much muscle tissue was being burned up. We can fix this, but she'll have to be very careful not to exert herself in the next few weeks."
Johanna nods, feeling relief flood through her in a way that makes her feel lightheaded. She stands, certain she'll fall asleep if she stays sitting, and almost falls over from exhaustion or disorientation. Finnick makes a move to get up, but Johanna catches herself on one of the guardrails and shakes her head. He ought to be sitting with Annie, she knows. Or she thinks, at least. She'd have to sort through that later, really.
It's the medic who ushers her back to her seat, the one right beside where Enobaria is laying, and checks her over: the flashlight to the eyes, the back of the hand to her forehead, the hammer to her knees. "Have you taken anything?" she asks. "Any medications or other drugs? Or has anyone given you any against your will?"
She tries to imagine what this woman is picturing. Enobaria holding her hostage, injecting her with morphling to keep her in line? She hadn't imagined District 13 as being particularly ascetic, but she'd never met them before. In fact, she wasn't sure if she truly believed they were real until she saw the arena break and the hovercraft come down during the Quarter Quell. She glances at Finnick, who gives her the smallest shake of the head. She ought to lie, then.
She takes a deep breath. Suddenly, it feels like she's going back to the Capitol, where she has to learn which things to lie about, and when it's alright to be honest. She's sure she'll learn other things too: who is to be trusted and who isn't, who actually cares about her and who just wants to use her, and so on. But for now, she supposes she's grateful that she isn't being taken to a prison to be tortured, or left to wander the desert any longer. "No, nothing. I think I'm just dehydrated, too."
She gets up a little later on the pretense of walking around again, and does much better this time, once she expects the lurch of the ship as it changes directions, and the change in blood pressure as she goes from sitting to standing. She walks over to Finnick and he stands this time, giving her a hug. "It's good to see you, Jo," he says, and she nods, because it is good to see Finnick, even if it also hurts. She slips her morphling into his hand, knowing she can trust him to hold it for her, at least.
When she gets to the rebel camp, it's evening, and they're ushered into some large tent, and then to a staircase underground. "No, no. I can't." It doesn't even sound like her voice, but she realizes it is. They bring Enobaria down, and Annie goes with Finnick - willingly! - but Peeta remains with her, reticent, it seems, to go back underground.
"Come on, we have an infirmary down there," Katniss says.
Johanna can feel her heart beating too loudly, the panic threatening to overcome her. "No! Just do it up here!" She thinks she'll hit anyone who comes too close, that even if she's weak she can still gouge out an eye or get a good kick in. She sees Peeta and he looks almost green, that same paranoid, haunted look he had in the tunnels. "Peeta, she's not a mutt," she reminds him. "You know the truth of what happened, don't even think about their lies." She feels his hand on her shoulder, then, too tight, the nails digging in, but even that pain feels good, grounding.
It feels like a standoff, with Katniss and the medic willing them to go down the stairs, and a couple more soldiers blocking the escape path, and Johanna and Peeta afraid to move anywhere. After some time - seconds? minutes? - Haymitch comes up the stairs, and his eyebrows raise as he sets eyes on them. He smiles, and it's the saddest smile Johanna has ever seen. "You're alive," he says. "I wouldn't believe them until I saw you in person."
She wraps her arms around herself, fairly sure her current state is about the minimum qualification for 'alive'. "Why can't we stay up here?" she asks, and she can feel herself shaking. She hates how desperate her voice sounds, like someone completely broken by that prison, but well, she was.
"I don't see why not," he says. The medic tuts, but he shuts her up with a look. "The risk is that we're a lot more vulnerable above ground. But perhaps if you got treatment inside the armored hovercraft, that would be a good compromise."
"That's not nearly as secure as-"
"I understand," Haymitch says, "But you're going to traumatize them for what? To give them IV fluids?"
They go to the armored hovercraft, parked a short ways away, and the medic brings a change of clothes, a meal, and an assortment of medical supplies. She takes all sorts of tests and measurements and is frustrated at each one - weight, blood pressure, lab tests, and cognitive screens - but in the end she tells Johanna she just needs rest, rehydration, and extra nutrition. "What about the pain?" she asks, biting the inside of her cheek. It's almost dark, and the morphling is wearing off, and the eternal headache is returning. It spreads down her spine, and presses into the back of her eyes, until she's forced to curl up on her side, knees to her chest.
The medic furrows her brow. "There are no injuries," she says.
"What do you mean? They zapped me with electricity every day for a month!"
"If you have a headache, I can give you an analgesic."
Johanna wants to explain that this is a headache that a regular pill won't touch, that eight regular pills won't even scratch the surface of. That she can't think about touching the food on her tray because her head hurts so badly it makes her nauseous, but she can tell that this woman will not believe her, because truthfully, she knows Johanna lied about the morphling initially, and she thinks Johanna is just trying to get more. And maybe she is. She turns away from her untouched tray and tries to sleep.
When she wakes up, Finnick is there. He's perched on the chair beside her bed, knotting and unknotting a rope. He's in casual clothes now, not the military uniform she saw him in yesterday, and today she can see the bandages peeking out from his shirt sleeves, gauze wrapping around his wrists. "Give me my stash," she says. It comes out like a moan.
He does, without even lecturing her on responsible drug use, which was a typical Finnick activity, which meant that either she really looked like she needed the painkillers, or she looked so bad in general that he would do anything she asked. She pushes a fingertip of morphling up into her gums and caps the tin, tucking it into her sock. She settles back into the pillow, closing her eyes and waiting for it to work so she can think about eating the breakfast tray that was left at her bedside. She thinks the medic is in the back, typing on her computer, maybe.
"Why did you try to kill yourself?" she asks. She wants to know why he's here, instead of with Annie, but seeing the bandages, this question had won out.
"I thought you were dead. You and Annie both. We all did. And I thought… what's the point? Why am I fighting in this cursed rebellion if Annie's dead and you're dead and-"
"Wait… what are you talking about?" The morphling is working a bit, and she can open her eyes and sit up, but her brain is cloudy. "Are you saying… no one came because they thought we were dead?"
He shakes his head, and then leans forward, so his head is in his hands. "How do I even say this?" He sighs, and then meets her eyes. "The rebels sent a rescue party, about a month after the Games. The priority was getting Peeta back, because Katniss wouldn't 'perform' without him. But the rescue party was apprehended right when they landed. It was like the plans were leaked. They were killed, all except the two in the hovercraft, circling for the escape. They were bound to be shot down by the Capitol's anti-aircraft munitions, so they asked permission to drop their payloads on the Capitol. Coin gave them permission to bomb the City Center."
"Who's Coin?"
"Oh. She's the District 13 leader."
"We felt it, the bombing, though we didn't know what it was at the time."
"It was predicted that the bombs were enough to penetrate into the tunnels. Obviously, that was wrong. But they had been fine killing you in the process of killing the Capitol elite."
"And the Avox, and the citizens who didn't have any warning."
Finnick nods. "Plutarch is here, and Beetee, and they used some rigged Games technology to find where you were being held using the trackers from the Games. They didn't move for some time after the bombing, so we thought you were dead. That's when I…." He shakes his head. "Anyways, then they did start to move, and we didn't know if it was your corpses or if you were really moving, and well, Annie didn't have one so I didn't know if she was with you, but that's how we found you."
Johanna looks at her arm, at the little cylinder now fairly obvious against the skin and bone, with the fat and muscle wasted away. "Oh, I want that out."
Finnick nods. "But it worked. Snow is dead, you're back here, it's alright now."
She turns on her side, away from him, because things don't feel alright at all. The morphling took the edge off her pain, but a lip of the stuff was nothing like a proper needle to the vein. She hasn't quite figured out where they are, but it feels like the middle of a warzone. And she hasn't seen Enobaria since they've arrived, since they brought her underground. "Shouldn't you be with Annie?" she spits, because now she's feeling cross, since she can't reflect his optimism.
"Yeah, I should," he says, and it stings her to hear him agree, but it is an old, familiar sting. "But I know I've disappointed her. She was fighting to get back to me this whole time, and what did I do? Try to die."
Johanna doesn't think that dying seems all that bad, in fact, she'd thought about it more than she'd like to admit during her time in the prison, but this isn't the part she latches on to. She can feel tears prick her eyes and is glad she's turned away from Finnick. "Oh, can't face Annie but you can face me? You can always show your shameful side to Johanna, same as ever. Get out."
"Jo, that's not what I-"
"Get out!"
This time, he obeys.
Enobaria knows where they are. Well, geographically, she knows what part of District 2 they are in, an area just south of the Nut that previously was used for weapons testing and had an airstrip, but no residential life. It now seems to host the rebel base, with semi-permanent buildings, tents, and trailers, along with some bunkers dug into the earth. Politically, she doesn't know where they fall, really. They call themselves rebels, but without Snow in charge, who are they rebelling against? As far as she can tell, Panem just has a bunch of warlords, Coin included, fighting for control, and they would be at war until one of them dominated the others properly.
She's told they're in a sort of green zone, an area where the District 2 army wouldn't bomb them, and in exchange they wouldn't attack the Nut, but there was no such agreement with the Capitol, so they couldn't rule out an aerial attack, or someone breaking the agreement. She wants, so badly, to leave the base, to check on her family just a few miles away, but she is told such actions are forbidden. "You just got rescued from being a hostage," they tell her. "Do you know what a valuable hostage you would be to them? With all you know about our base, now?"
She wants to tell them that she didn't ask to be rescued by the rebels. That she isn't a rebel, that she didn't ask to know any of their secrets. She imagines a different scenario where she returned to District 2 but didn't enter the green zone, she returned to the residential district instead, to be with her family. It would still be a war, there would still be destruction and death, but she would be on the side that she felt suited her. But what side is that, really?
She knows her brother is a secret rebel, if he's still alive. And she watched the Peacekeepers, her alleged allies, torture Johanna in that prison. They had raped her – someone from their own District. She knows she ought to be appreciative towards the rebels, really, but she had saved herself, she had gotten herself most of the way back home, and they swooped in at the end and expected her to be grateful.
It's Haymitch Abernathy, of everyone, who is there in her room to stop her when she goes to get up. "Hey, none of that," he says. "The Healer said you are on bedrest for a couple more days."
She understands what happened, more or less. She had felt the cramps coming on, and the tension from the standoff with the soldiers seemed to have pushed her over the edge. They had IV lines running all the time now, bags of fluids to flush her kidneys, a special diet, vitamin supplements, and she was unbelievably sore and exhausted, but she was sick of being in the bunker. She wanted to see the sun, to see her District, to see Johanna. "How's Jo?" she asks. It comes out as more of a bark than a question, and he hands her a cup of water to sip on.
"No worse than when you arrived," he says. "Probably not much better." He runs his hand through his hair, as if he's trying to decide what he wants to say. "How the fuck did you make it that far?"
She wonders what he means. How did they escape on their own? Or how did they get out of the Capitol? How did they wander the desert for so long without their bodies breaking down? "We traveled at night," she says, choosing to answer the last question, because it's the easiest. "We packed well before we left, plenty of food, a water filter, extra clothes. We got lucky that no one got seriously ill, or so injured they couldn't walk."
"Here, eat." He hands her the meal that had been perched on the table to the side, and she obeys, ravenous now that they're relatively safe. He looks awkward, watching her but not saying much, and it sets her on edge.
"What do you want?" she asks between bites.
"What do you mean?"
"Shouldn't you be with Katniss and Peeta? Or at least with Johanna?" She doesn't really know Johanna's relationship with Haymitch, truly, but Johanna had kept those rebel secrets on Haymitch's behalf, had kept Haymitch's tribute alive in the arena, so she assumes there's something there, even if it's one-sided, like it might be with Finnick and Johanna.
He takes an orange slice from her tray and sucks on it, considering the question. "I'm here and not there because I wanted to make sure that the District 13 people weren't going to… be assholes to someone from District 2," he says. "And because Peeta told me you more or less are the reason they're all alive."
It's hard to meet his eyes, suddenly. She was never particularly fond of the mentor from 12, because as much as she could appreciate that everything was stacked against the outer districts, she still thought he ought to try harder for his tributes, or not get others wrapped up in his rebel schemes. But that resentment falls away at the thought that he sat here while she slept to make sure that no one harassed her for being from 'the enemy's' side. She nods in acknowledgement. "I killed the guards. Except one of them, who Annie killed," she confirms. "I told them what to pack. Jo remembered the water filter though, that was essential. I scouted ahead."
"You did great," he says. "That's why I wanted to see what you wanted."
"What?" No one has asked her what she's wanted, possibly ever, and she's unprepared for the question. She wonders who has put Haymitch up to this – perhaps Coin? – or if he's again plotting something else, and what he hopes to get out of it.
But he tosses away the orange peel and shrugs, looking half-defeated. "Listen. I'm sure you've more or less gathered, but we, the rebels, left you for dead. In fact, we actively thought we had killed you in that bombing. I quit the group that makes the decisions that day, I couldn't live with myself after that. But you brought Peeta and Johanna and Annie back alive, which is much more than any of the rebels could do. So… I'm not really useful to any of them anymore, but I can still find things and cash in favors here and there. Is there anything you want?"
She considers this. Haymitch Abernathy is asking her what she wants, and he'll try to make it happen. She can't trust her own District, and she doubts she can trust the rebels. She definitely can't trust the Capitol. But maybe, maybe, she can continue to trust other victors. She gestures for the notepad on the shelf and he brings it over, and she scrawls out a list, just the first things she thinks of. But once she thinks of one thing, another comes to mind. She decides to be greedy. If he can't make it all happen, at least she will get some of the things, she hopes. She passes it back.
He seems to struggle with her handwriting for a moment, and then raises his eyebrows as he reviews the list. To her embarrassment, he reads it aloud, and she's grateful they're the only two down in the little room. "1. Contact my family. Find out who's alive, let them know I'm alive. Fine, should be able to manage that. 2. Find a stylist to fix my hair. Ok, I can do that today. 3. If I have to share a room here, I want it to be with Johanna." He glances up at her then, but it's not the suggestive look she expects, but an inquisitive look. She turns back to her meal, and he turns back to the list. "4. District 2 red wine. I'll do my best, but they're crazy about alcohol here. Look at my face, I'm painfully sober. 5. Johanna needs morphling, or some strong painkillers." He puts down the list and looks at her properly. "This was your list, what you want."
She nods, not breaking eye contact. "That is what I want." He obviously hadn't seen Johanna, seen the way she couldn't function without the morphling.
"What happened in that prison?"
She shakes her head, put off her breakfast right at the end. "Don't want to talk about it."
Haymitch finds her a stylist that afternoon, and one of the Healers lets her back aboveground to visit her, though she has to travel there in a wheelchair. It's terrible, to not even be allowed to walk, but after getting a lecture about organ failure, she lets them do as they please, because ultimately, having her hair rebraided is more important.
The stylist, Rowena, is kind but no-nonsense, and she looks like she might have been from District 11 once, but Enobaria is too overwhelmed to ask about her origins. She takes down Enobaria's braids that are over two months old and matted in places, and washes her hair twice, and although Enobaria can't see it, she's sure the water ran brown the first time. She's afraid of lice or other infestations in her hair, but of that, at least, Rowena says she is free. After the wash, it's hours of detangling, so she sits as Rowena works combing out her hair, sectioning it off, and trimming off the split ends.
Enobaria thinks of her sister-in-law, maybe two miles away at most, the best hairstylist she knows, but she can't go to her because of the stupid war. About halfway through, Peeta comes into the room and settles into the empty stylists' chair, Katniss like a silent shadow behind him. "I was hoping to get this cut," he says to Rowena.
She nods, eyes still on Enobaria's scalp. "Sure thing, but it'll be a while yet. An hour and a half, maybe?"
Peeta nods. "Ok. I can wait." His hair is uneven, shaved roughly like Johanna's was in the prison, and then grown shaggy during their trek through the desert. He also had a bit of a beard, and Enobaria is surprised by how adult he looks, despite his age. She had been used to seeing him every day, that now that she spent one night without him, she is surprised by his appearance.
Katniss looks like she doesn't want to wait, like she'd rather do a lot of things than sit in this studio that was really an army tent with Enobaria, but Peeta is settled, so she also takes a seat after a minute.
When Rowena finishes detangling Enobaria's hair, she separates it out for 4 braids, simple but neat. She says she doesn't have much in the way of hair bundles left, since they were a mobile unit and very much into austere service cuts, but she says that when she women choose to cut their hair short, she saves it, and she uses some of that hair to add thickness and length to Enobaria's braids. It makes her happy that Rowena knew her preferred style, and that she took the time to give her something extra, even in District 13, where all the focus was on soldier readiness.
When she finishes, Peeta's eyes widen. "Wow, she did a great job. You look amazing."
Rowena has her hands on her hips, admiring her work. "Alright, let me get to work on you, so I can get to dinner on time. Think your girlfriend can get this one back to the infirmary?"
Enobaria wants to protest, to say she can wheel herself, but she knows she's not supposed to do anything to cause more muscle strain. Katniss looks less than thrilled with the arrangement, but she obeys, probably because doing so will get rid of Enobaria soonest. As soon as they're out of the tent and under the late afternoon sky, Katniss slows down.
"Thank you," she says. "For saving Peeta's life. I thought… I really thought he was dead."
Enobaria shrugs. "I was only trying to save myself," she says, which is more or less the truth.
"You brought him with you all the way here. I never thought I'd see him again."
Enobaria can't see Katniss, so she doesn't know what kind of face she's making. She doesn't know if she's feeling like Haymitch, like she owes Enobaria for doing something that they themselves could not do. But she thinks they're misunderstanding it. The rebels set up plans and developed things years in advance, and their plans became so convoluted they created all these moral quandaries. She just did what she could to try not to die, to try to escape, and managed to save the others along with her.
Annie is feeling better after three days at the camp. She's rehydrated, given several days of proper meals, and the vitamins she's been missing. They have treatments for her swollen feet, and a proper bed to sleep on. She can shower properly and wear clean clothes every day. Her hair is combed out and in shining, auburn waves down her back. The morning sickness is still there, however, an undeniable sign of her pregnancy.
The Healers had warned her that if she wanted to get rid of the baby, she was getting to the point where she had to make a decision, and she had explained that even if the baby was created from an unpleasant event, he was still her baby, and she still wanted him. They, of course, had made that same skeptical look that Johanna and Enobaria gave her, but they let it go, giving her prenatal vitamins instead of the standard, and an anti-nausea herbal tea.
She needed to tell Finnick. That was the last thing to do, and it shouldn't have taken three days, except that Finnick wasn't around very much. She assumes he's very busy since it's the middle of the war and he's a soldier for District 13, but she sees Katniss with Peeta and she's starting to think that perhaps he's avoiding her.
If he wasn't, it would be easy for him to know about her pregnancy. He'd notice the morning sickness, or the prenatal vitamins, or the ultrasound pictures she'd had done. She feels like she's going insane on the morning of the fourth day when she's looking at the blob that is her baby on the ultrasound and feels close to tears.
"Go for a walk," the Healer recommends. She had learned on the second day that this woman was Katniss's mother, and she was a specialist in midwifery. "Get out of the underground and get some fresh air. You'll feel better."
So Annie does as she says, and goes out into the camp. It is exciting to see all the sights and sounds, the soldiers moving here and there in formations, the smells of food cooking in the mess, the way a whole city could be formed even though it was mostly tents. But the red dirt earth of the desert also reminded her of walking and walking for days, and the uniforms on everyone reminded her of the occupation of the Capitol there, at the end, and she isn't sure she's really calming down at all.
She sees Finnick before he sees her, but she knows it's him, she would know him anywhere. He's not in his military uniform, just in casual clothes, but she knows his haircut, the slope of his shoulders, the way he steps. She rushes to keep up before she loses him in the turns of the camp, and sees him step onto a hovercraft that looks permanently docked in a corner near where they arrived, and seems to be used as a building of sorts.
She doesn't really want to follow him in, in case he's doing something for the rebels, but she creeps closer because she's been away from him for so long that she craves him in the same way she craves water, or oxygen. The hatch is open to let fresh air in and she can hear his voice. "Seriously? You don't look good."
"I don't feel good."
Something lurches inside of her at the sound of Johanna's voice. Her hands are shaking, and she backs up until she can feel the cool metal of the hovercraft against her back. Finnick was with Johanna all this time? She was waiting alone in some rank basement, pregnant with some awful soldier's baby, and her boyfriend was here, with Johanna?
She takes a deep breath to try to calm down, but it's dizzying. She had done everything right. She had taken care to make sure she came back as Finnick remembered, to take care of herself as well as she could, that when she and Johanna were before Finnick at the same time, she would be the obvious choice. And yet somehow, Johanna won.
Should Annie have been more pathetic? Should she have needed Finnick more? Every time she's seen Finnick and Johanna together, all Johanna has done is push him away, and yet here he was, instead of being with Annie. It's suddenly hard to breathe, and she feels herself sliding down the side of the hovercraft.
"Hey, stay with me."
This was the soldier medic, Annie sees, glancing up. She had been approaching the hovercraft and she stops now to check on Annie. Annie can feel a cold sweat on her brow, and her hands are still shaking. "I'm ok, I just got a little lightheaded," Annie tells her. She isn't about to confess her secrets to this woman, of all people.
"Well come inside," she says. "We have air conditioning, and I'll get you something to drink."
She doesn't want to, really, but another part of her does. She wants to look at Finnick, for him to see what he is putting her through. She wants to look at Johanna and ask if she's pleased, inserting herself in a relationship like this? Johanna's words from their argument in the desert echo in her mind as she climbs up into the hovercraft. "It takes two," she had said.
Annie is seated in a chair and the medic goes to get the ice water or ice pack or whatever she's preparing for Annie. She sees Johanna on the bed towards the back, curled on her side, facing away from Finnick. Her hair still looks shockingly short, and one skinny arm is out holding the blanket over her. Finnick is sitting in a chair beside the bed, but whatever he had been saying is cut short as he catches sight of Annie. "Annie? What's wrong?" He rushes over, crouching beside her, and she can feel the tears welling in her eyes, because there is unabashed concern there, and now she's confused. She can feel Finnick's love for her, but then why was he staying away? Her loneliness and her confusion plus the pregnancy is making her too sensitive, and she feels a few tears escape.
The medic comes back at that moment, and tuts at Finnick. "Don't crowd her, Odair. Back up, will you?" And Finnick does as he's told, going back to the chair beside Johanna, but watching her all the while. Annie sips the ice water and takes the towel the medic hands her to wipe her tears and the sweat on her forehead and the back of her neck. The woman was stern, but she was practical. "You can lay down for a bit, if you like," she offers. "Mr. Mellark was discharged yesterday, so that bed is free."
She nods to the bed beside Johanna, on the other side of Finnick. "I can draw the curtain if you want some privacy."
Annie walks over to the bed, the medic beside her the whole way as if she might collapse. Honestly, she might. "It's fine, you can leave the curtain open," she says, and though the medic gives her a skeptical look, she brings the cup of water over to the bedside and doesn't insist.
"Any better today?" the medic asks Johanna.
"No. I told you-"
"And I told you, the best I can do is tranks."
"Tranks don't do anything for the pain, they just put me to sleep all the time."
"You're never going to get out of here if you don't eat."
Johanna turns to her other side, away from the medic, but now she's facing Finnick and Annie. She seems to realize this, and throws an arm over her eyes. "You can pretend to ignore me, Johanna, but I am only trying to help you. Please try to eat something, or else I'll have to call someone higher up."
"And do what?" Finnick asks. "What does that mean?"
The medic purses her lips, but it seems she is done with them all. "We're only trying to help," she insists. She turns away to go into the back where Annie assumes she has an office of some sort.
"Do you have more?" Finnick asks, his voice low.
"Barely." Johanna slips a tin of morphling out from under the sheets, one Annie recognizes from the desert, and pushes some up into her gums. She turns on her back, her arm still shielding her eyes from the light. "I can't fucking stand her."
Finnick turns to Annie then, concern still plastered on his features. He's such a far cry from the at-ease version of Finnick she's used to that she barely recognizes him. Truthfully, she knew that version was a lie, that Finnick was playing a role to suit the Capitol, and that he reprised his performance at home to keep her and his family safe, but she got so used to us, so sure that her Finnick was the real Finnick, that now she wonders if she ever knew him at all, really. Johanna saw him for less time, certainly, but she probably saw the worry, the stress, the 'real' Finnick that he never let her see.
"Annie, what happened? Are you alright? Why are you out of the infirmary?" It's a funny question, because she's back in another infirmary, but she doesn't argue about the semantics.
"Mrs. Everdeen told me to take a walk, so I did, but I got lightheaded," she says. It's the truth, or close enough. "I'm alright now."
Finnick is biting his lip. He seems to know there's something else, but is afraid to ask. But she wonders about him, too. Why had he barely been by to see her? Was he planning to break up with her? Did all of this cause him to choose Johanna, in the end?
From the bed behind Finnick, Johanna groans. "You need to tell him, Annie," she says. "That's why you passed out, isn't it?" It isn't, and she is upset at the implication. But Johanna isn't finished. "And you," she says, turning to Finnick, "Need to get over whatever hangups you have and talk to your girlfriend. This is stupid."
Finnick nods, nervously, as if he's trying to accept this advice. Then he stands and moves Johanna's breakfast tray to her bedside table. He helps her sit up, pushes the tray in front of her, and draws the curtain so that she is on one side and he and Annie are on the other. "What did you need to tell me?" he asks.
It's difficult to say it, without any preface, like this. She has Finnick's undivided attention, but she hadn't planned for it to go like this. "Why haven't you come to see me?" she asks instead.
"I… I've been ashamed," he says. "I thought… you waited for me, you were always trying to make it back to me, and I… I really thought you had died. I was grieving you! It's hard to look you in the eye when it's because of me you got captured, you got tortured, you could have been killed, and you had to save yourself."
"But you're here with Johanna," she protests, because what about what he said didn't apply to Johanna?
"It's different. Jo isn't my girlfriend," he says. He rubs his fingers over his eyes, then drags them back through his hair. Annie is overly conscious of Johanna on the other side of the curtain, of the absolute silence emanating from that side of the room. He had said she wasn't his girlfriend, but Annie knew they slept together, that they had secrets together she would never be privy to. She can't quite shake the unpleasant feeling she's carried the last few days, and for this reason, she still doesn't tell him about the baby.
Later, when he leaves, and the medic draws back the curtain again, Johanna doesn't even accuse her of chickening out. She just looks tired and hurt as well, and Annie wonders if there was ever anything to win, really. She feels a sudden desire to see Peeta, a realization that for all her thoughts that he couldn't understand her back when they were walking through the desert, maybe he understood her enough, and maybe he could help her slough off some of this endless loneliness she's felt since she got to camp.
Peeta has been let out of the infirmary with the condition that he reports to the mess three times per day for his rations, which are larger than usual to help him regain the weight he lost in the prison and during the escape, and he doesn't mind this at all, because now that he's safe and reunited with Katniss, he feels ravenous.
He was told about the bombing in District 12, and that grief was so unexpected, it takes him out for days. He tries to remember his brothers as they were, and his parents. He feels deep sadness for his father, enough that the food he's eating loses its flavor, and the new sights around camp lost any interest to him and he ends up lost once or twice. His mother's death is more complicated, and although he mourns her, it doesn't feel the same, not the same ache inside of him that his father brings. He wonders if that makes him a bad person.
It's nice to see Mrs. Everdeen and Primrose around, and some other familiar faces from District 12. He tries not to think too hard about who he doesn't see.
"Gale died in that rescue operation," Katniss tells him one morning over breakfast. "The failed one that ended with the bombing."
No one liked to talk about that operation, he finds. Peeta wonders if it's just because of the casualties, or because they never again tried to rescue the hostages, or for another reason. He thought that the operation that killed Snow would be more widely celebrated, really, but it's downplayed, or even talked about as if it was a complete and utter failure. He sees why, really. The City Center was destroyed, innocent civilians were killed, and now there was a civil war among 3 groups, not just two. "I'm sorry," he tells her, and he is, really. He knows she was fond of Gale Hawthorne, and more than that, he knows Gale had saved most of the District from the bombings, and that he had little siblings.
Katniss clenches her teeth, as if trying to understand it. "It just… how could it happen like that?"
He shrugs. He wasn't here, and he wasn't even in his right mind in the Capitol at the time. "Can you ask? Would Haymitch know? Or someone else?"
She shakes her head. "I don't think anyone will tell me. They only tell me what they think I need to know, and even then, only when I press them. That day, Finnick and I were recording something that would air while the operation was going on, something to distract people." She looks at Peeta, considering him. "Maybe you could, though."
Katniss spends the afternoon with her mother and sister, although Peeta knows she doesn't feel as though she's inclined towards healing, and he goes to the central tents, where the big meetings are held. He doesn't particularly want to meet Coin herself, so he's pleased when he finds Beetee.
"Oh, Peeta, it's good to see you looking well," he says.
Truthfully, Peeta doesn't know how well he looks. He's probably put on a few pounds from the heavy rations, and gotten a bit of sunlight, and his hair has been trimmed up properly, but he still feels like he's lacking somehow. He feels like he lost some part of himself in that prison that is probably gone forever. He feels a distance between himself and everyone else that he doesn't know how to erase, because how can he possibly communicate what it was like to have his memories altered, to feel that violent rage he never before knew? It was a violation that turns his stomach now, looking back on it: to be restrained, to be poisoned, to be brainwashed with false ideas and a killer instinct.
Peeta nods in response to Beetee, a little delayed, and attempts a smile. "Thanks. I actually wanted to talk to you," he says.
"Of course." He checks his watch. "I have a bit of time. How can I help?"
"I want to find out a little about District 13, and about the war in general. They altered my memories in the prison and I feel like I'm just behind in general. Can you help me catch up?"
It's not a lie, which is how he can justify it. And Beetee had been kind to him before the Quarter Quell, and in the arena, one of the only members of the alliance who explained their role to Peeta before the Games began. Now, Beetee leads Peeta into a little office, really just a back corner of a tent partitioned off with a canvas curtain, and logs into a computer terminal. Peeta doesn't catch the passcode as Beetee types it in, but he sees lists of records come up. It's a simple system, green monochrome and all lines of text, and Peeta wonders if the network is all local, possibly Beetee's own invention.
"So we're in District 2, which makes us District 13 mobile unit 1. We also have some forces still in 13, and some in the Capitol. There are some recruitment forces in the Districts, trying to recruit as many people as we can as soldiers, but there are not many of us, so we're spread pretty thin." He opens a file titled 'Of Concern'. "Our main opponents are the Peacekeepers in the Capitol, led by Snow's former defense councilor, Hierophant Price, and the District 2 forces who are not loyal to Price, but who have pledged allegiance to their local head, Magnus Gazette. We are lucky that they seem preoccupied with fighting each other, and have taken little interest in the rebels, so far."
Peeta nods, absorbing this information. This is more or less the same as Haymitch explained, though Beetee was far more objective and concise, since it seemed that Haymitch had the displeasure of meeting Price personally once or twice. "Why are you here, in District 2?"
Beetee opens a file called 'the upside-down triangle', enters a passcode, this time 3450, Peeta is sure, and they scan the document. It's a plan to blow up the Nut, as far as he can tell. "Now that the City Center is destroyed, the Capitol is far weaker. Plus they had less military presence than 2 to begin with. Their strength was always in their intimidation, and their riches. Ultimately, our plan is to destroy the base of military operations here, so we can kneecap both Gazette and Price, and make our move towards taking over Panem."
"Oh, that makes sense, I guess." He wants to ask about casualties, but he’s afraid to. The bombing in the Capitol was so… indiscriminate, and without warning.
"Peeta, I'm glad you're safe. I need to get to this meeting, but I'm happy to talk more later." Beetee locks the computer terminal and stands, leaving Peeta alone.
He tries the same passcode, and to his surprise, the device unlocks. He thought that perhaps there would be two different codes, but there isn't, and the files are there, before his eyes. He scans them, with their opaque titles, looking for the one he wants. He finds it before long, titled 'recovery - failed'. He enters the passcode, reads it, then reads it again to be sure of what he is seeing. He reads the relevant sections a third time, then closes it out, locks the computer, and runs back to Katniss.
She's still in the infirmary when he arrives. Annie has left now, off to the same tent as Katniss in the next section over. The only patients down in the bunker are a soldier with heat exhaustion, and another girl who cut her hand while working in the kitchen.
"Katniss, I need to talk to you," he says.
Mrs. Everdeen looks up, in concern, probably, but Katniss hops off the cot where she had been folding linens, and is at the staircase in a few seconds. "Yeah, let's take a walk," she says.
He wants to tell the others, too, but Johanna is still in the infirmary he had been in, the armored hovercraft, and when they get back to the sleeping tents, Annie is out somewhere with Finnick. It's only about dinnertime, so it's not unexpected, but he knows he can't delay much longer, or Katniss will lose her patience. He goes into the next tent, at least, looking for Enobaria, and she's there, organizing her things. "I need to talk to you," he says, and she comes too, at once, following him out to a table in an empty corner, a can of cigarette butts at the end of it.
"I looked into the rescue mission today," he says, once they're seated. "I read the report - three times, in fact - both the real one and the 'official copy'."
"What does that mean?" Katniss asks. He can see her pulling at the end of her braid, a nervous habit, but he has nothing reassuring to say.
"The real, original report says that there were two hovercrafts deployed for the mission. The first approached, the second stayed at a distance. The first was supposed to land on a shielded rooftop, get the hostages while the second provided air cover. But the first saw Snow walking through the City Center as it approached and asked permission to shoot him down. This was denied. They asked again to bomb the area, and this was denied. Then they ignored this command and dropped their whole payload on the area - where Snow was, the council chambers, Snow's mansion, and so on."
"What the hell?" Enobaria asks. "There's no way."
Peeta shrugs. He'd read the report. "The second hovercraft reported this from their vantage, and knew they would be shot down if they tried to leave Capitol airspace. There was also no rescuing the hostages at this point. At that point the decision was made to send them in to confirm Snow was dead, and to bomb certain residences of high-ranking loyalists."
Katniss is watching him with her eyebrows raised, but so far, she has had no comment.
"The official report says that the Capitol attacked first, that the first hovercraft was attacked trying to rescue the hostages, and the second bombed the area to try to free their companions."
"Even so," Enobaria says. "Even if that was true, they were the invaders. They came in, of course the Capitol would defend itself."
"They were trying to rescue you!" Katniss says, tears in her eyes now. "Doesn't that matter?"
But Enobaria smiles, more and more composed as Katniss seems to lose her cool. "No they weren't, obviously. They only went there to kill."
Katniss stands, her hands against the wood of the table, facing off with Enobaria, who flashes her teeth.
"I'm not saying if it's wrong or right," Peeta says, trying to diffuse the situation a bit. "I'm just reporting what I read."
Katniss turns to him, and it's like she's tingling with electric sparks. "Tell me," she says, breathing too fast. "Did it say which hovercraft Gale was in?"
His mouth twitches, giving away that of course it did, of course he knew everyone's names and what role they played in that debacle of a mission. "The first," he says, though he thinks she already knew.