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They're building a monument for Finnick. And Annie and Mags, apparently, but all Johanna can make out so far is the massive trident eight feet high. She wants to hate it, every part of her is prepared to hate it. Why are they wasting resources on this, when no one has enough to eat? It looks like most of the monument is being made from scrap metal, but if not a waste of money, then it's a waste of workers' time, a waste of effort, an eyesore, at least
She's probably just bitter, she realizes. Upset that all their suffering and all their efforts in the war feel like they amounted to nothing, in the end. 'Democracy' was thrown around a lot, those last few weeks in the Capitol, but she's never known democracy. Is this it - just a hastily assembled vote, the end to the Hunger Games, and some repairs to the railroads? The second reason should mean a lot more to her, she realizes, and it probably will, come July. But while she was in the Capitol for the execution, she was told by Enobaria that one of the District 7 Victors was hanged in 7, his corpse left to rot in the summer sun.
She didn't think she was going to die if she went back to 7, at least not by anyone else's hand. But how could she go back, when Blight was dead and Jackson hanged and she did… what? Got herself captured for a month? Really that was all she did to help the cause, in their eyes, she's sure. No one would understand what she did to help Katniss in the arena, the years of work she put in setting everything up. No one was going to build her a monument.
But that was how it always was, really, and generally it worked out fine. Finnick took all of the attention, which allowed Johanna to operate under the radar. Finnick had more clients, more photographs, more demands for his appearances, which allowed him to gather more secrets. She could work more precisely, picking one target and getting the thing she needed. He was on the star squad, his work ending the war televised, his battle scars obvious with that eyepatch and missing ear. Her injuries were not visible, the kind of pain that kept her from the final battle, that kept her addicted to morphling, as many promises as she'd make to herself that 'this is the last time'. But that was the difference between them. That meant that he got saved from the arena and she didn't. And that meant he got a monument and she didn't.
"Maybe I should have gone to 12," Johanna says, passing the monument again with Annie on a walk back from collecting their rations. Annie's six months pregnant now, the swell of her belly obvious, and she looks healthier now that she's been taking the prescribed supplements to help with the nausea and keep her food down.
"Do you hate it here that much?" Annie asks.
Johanna shrugs. "I'm an outsider here. The lady at the rations always asks for my card even though she knows me now."
"You'd be an outsider in 12, too," Annie reasons. Johanna can hear it, the way Annie tries to sidestep actually arguing with her. Johanna had upset her, that day in the hospital, and Annie had tried little by little to close the distance between them that Johanna had gashed open.
"Yeah, but they need all the help they can get, to hear Gale tell it. I'd like to think they'd want an extra set of hands to help rebuild. Here I'm just a leech."
"You're not a leech, Johanna."
But Johanna knows Annie understands what she means. She can't go near the water, even still, months later, so she can't join the fishing crews, and there's no work in the village. So she loiters around the house, mending clothes, making candles, trying to stay warm, mostly. She and Annie will go on long walks, clearing paths that were strewn with debris during the war, but it's still too cold to work in the garden. "When I was in the Capitol, it was fine when everything was given to me, because they were taking advantage of me every day. Even between the Games, back in 7, I took the Victor's pension because I reasoned that Snow fucked me over, that money was my right." She kicks a stone. "Maybe I should have been more like you. It would have been a bigger fuck you to have burned the house down."
She has a lot of time to think, sitting in front of the stove in Mags old house. A lot of time to dwell on her sins of complacency, and to blame others who could have done more. To go down roads of how such a death could have been avoided, how certain pains could have been lessened, but in the end, it's all meaningless, because the present won't change just because she wishes for it to.
Annie laughs a bit. "No, that was me being hardheaded and spoiled. I didn't realize a lot of things back then." It's funny, that switch, Johanna's longing to make the decision Annie had, and Annie's regret over such.
When she gets back, Ryder is waiting in Mags' living room. "I told you not to fucking come in here," she says, reaching for the rebar by the door.
He stands, hands up in surrender, and she can tell he's drunk from the way he sways. She feels for him, his wife gunned down by idiot soldiers from the Capitol. She imagines those men, just running free, probably back in the Capitol doing whatever work Paylor wants from them now. As if men like that can ever be taught anything but oppression and violence. A shiver runs through her, wondering about the prison guards that kept her and Annie and the others hidden in the Capitol. Were they all dead, or were they slinking around in the new government as well? "Are you alright?" Ryder asks her, stepping closer.
She holds up the metal rod, unafraid to swing it. She can see it in his eyes, how he's so hopelessly lost, but she also isn't afraid to defend herself. He's still a man, still the dominant force in this world, still too confident, too unaware of the power he holds, too sure he could ultimately take what he thinks he's owed. "I'm fine," she spits. "You were supposed to come tomorrow."
He shrugs. "I need the cash."
She curses, annoyed at being bound to his schedule. She imagines debtors chasing after him, some violent men who will eventually come after her as well. She should have never gotten involved with him, but she needed a hookup for morphling, she couldn't give it up. She hates having him in the house, certain as she is that he will steal from Mags' things. She darts forward, reaching into his jacket pocket, and his reaction is dulled by the liquor. "What the hell?" he asks, but she feels it, a metal chain, and something sharp, pricking her finger. She hopes it isn't a syringe, and she pulls back.
It's a pendant, a gemstone and seaglass on a silver chain, and a broach, mother-of-pearl inlaid into a beautiful cresting wave. Mags', certainly, as she took stock of the valuables, protecting against theft and in case she needed to pawn them. Just in case. "Fucking thief," she curses, kicking his shins. "What's in the other pocket?"
He empties his other pocket, but it's just a packet of morphling, his tin of tobacco, and a couple cigarettes. She reaches in after him but the pocket is truly empty. He raises his eyebrows in innocence, as if she hadn't just caught him with a pocket of loot. She holds out her hand, and he pulls out a smaller envelope of morphling from his larger packet. She sighs. "Go wait outside. I told you you're not allowed in here." Like she would let him see where she keeps cash. Truthfully she's running low. She had little when she arrived and no way of making more. She found a bit, a small windfall, stored away among Mags' things. She would feel horrible spending it on drugs, but she feels horrible without them, so she can't find a good solution. She takes the rest of her own cash and walks out to the stoop. "Go away," she commands him.
"Next week?" he asks.
"Two weeks." She'll regret this, she knows, but she can find him if she gets truly desperate.
Johanna is leveled out, on just a small dose of morphling, when she goes back to the hospital with Annie. She half-thought Annie wouldn't ask her along, that she would insist Finnick come with her, after they argued the last time, but the two of them made their way through the February slush towards the campus, away from the village and the trident monument. It was a little warmer lately, but just as gray as always.
Johanna is still wearing her boots and her coat, but she left the gloves and hat at home this time. Her hair has grown, down to her chin now, and Annie had trimmed it so it was straight and neat. Whatever they gave her for healing in District 13 made her hair grow rapidly, but now that she's on strict rations and can't kick morphling, it seems to have stagnated again.
She is feeling quiet today, zombie-like from the morphling, and Annie is telling her about how the baby was kicking and active in the womb. "Do you want to feel?" she asks, once they are sitting in the crowded waiting room. Johanna wants to tell Annie to wait upstairs, where it is quieter, wants to tell Annie that she is liable to get sick down here. Johanna would come get her when she is called, but she knows Annie wouldn't want to sit alone, waiting like that.
Johanna doesn't really want to feel, but she doesn't want to upset Annie either. She regrets what she had said last time, but she can't apologize properly. So she says "Sure," and lets Annie guide her hand over her protruding belly. After a moment, she feels it, a tremor, or a surge, something inhuman, or perhaps incredibly human. She hates it, and yet she doesn't move her hand. She wants to feel it again. Too soon they are called back to the appointment, more timely this month since they are on the schedule, and the Healer seems pleased. Annie is near the correct lines on the charts for everything, and the Healer talks excitedly about birthing plans.
She gives Annie a list of fish to avoid due to mercury content, a new prescription for her herbs, and another appointment for the next month. They are sent out, through the winding corridors back towards the waiting room and then to the pharmacy, but Johanna tugs on Annie's arm, stopping her. They see a woman, gathering papers to prepare to call another patient, and she's familiar, but no one in District 4 should be familiar to Johanna. Annie seems to recognize her too, and nods. "That's Mrs. Everdeen," she whispers in Johanna's ear.
"Hey!" Johanna calls, the quiet of the morphling fading against the beating of her heart and the adrenaline now surging. "What are you doing here?"
Mrs. Everdeen's eyes widen when she sees Johanna, a lot like Gale's did for a while. She was probably seeing Johanna as she was when she first arrived to District 13, since she was working in the infirmary, plus she seems jumpy at being found here. "Johanna, Annie," she greets, her voice low and quiet. Another Healer looks over and Mrs. Everdeen steps out into the hall to speak with them more quietly. She looks exhausted, her hair out of place, her cheeks more gaunt than Johanna remembers. But they all look like that since the war, really.
"Why are you in District 4?" She realizes Mrs. Everdeen could shoot the question back at her, but she doesn't. Probably because she understands that they're not the same. That Johanna doesn't have a daughter somewhere, left behind.
"I want to help," Mrs. Everdeen says, "And I heard children were sick and starving here," she says.
Johanna can feel her hands trembling, unable to voice exactly the frustration she feels. "Help your daughter," she says. She means to spit it out, to give anger to her words, but it comes out almost pleading.
Mrs. Everdeen's expression is unreadable. There is a depth of grief that Johanna cannot transcend. But even with such a misery, she finds the abandonment unforgivable. Haymitch was being a better parent than Katniss's own mother. "I can't, not right now," she says.
She wants to say more, to make Mrs. Everdeen do her job, to tell her there are bound to be hundreds of sick and starving in District 12, but she feels Annie's fingers slipping into hers, pulling her away. She lets her, lets herself be pulled all the way up to the pharmacy, where she gets another injection to ensure she definitely does not get pregnant, doesn't make any mistakes with raising children because there are so, so many ways to mess up, and she cannot trust herself to do right be any child in this world.
Some days, she walks alone, usually digging for clams. It has a dual purpose: helping put food on the table, and slowly getting her used to the water again. The tide comes in slowly and then quickly, soft waves lapping at her ankles, covering the little lumps in the sand that she's digging at, and then what feels like a minute later, the water is up to her knees. And it's still bad, she finds. She wants to get better at it, to be able to just wade through the water, but it's impossible. The cold water, even around her boots, reminds her of that cell, of the water level rising, of her being plunged in, and she finds herself bracing for the shock, her mind going blank as she tries to tether herself to anything to keep from returning to that prison.
And it hurts, still. The bending, the digging, they produce regular aches and pains, but the water, it hurts. It triggers some kind of nerve pain she can't control, the kind she needs morphling to calm. It's a deep, sharp, pulsing ache that runs from the back of her head and down her spine, until she can't think about anything else.
Later in the afternoon, she goes to the harbor, rinsing off the clams in the sinks they keep for cleaning the freshly caught fish. There's a discard bin for the rotten clams, which is better than her having to keep the stinking ones at home. It's here she sees Finnick, coming in from a day fishing with his brother-in-law. "Hey, Jo," he says, and it's almost familiar, almost like they greeted each other as Mentors in the Games for years, except now it's tentative, as it has been for months.
"Hey," she greets, filling the bucket back up with seawater, adding the clams back in, and putting the lid back on. "Heading home?"
He shakes his head. "Jude told me about a little dinghy someone was giving away, said I should check it out today or tomorrow since the water is finally calm. Want to see?"
She pictures herself on a boat, rocking in the waves, and thinks she might be sick. Just the possibility of tipping has her nervous. If she were to plunge into the ocean, she can't swim, but even with a life vest, she thinks she might let herself drown. The flashbacks, the pain would probably be unbearable. She shakes her head. "No, definitely not."
She can see he looks let down, and she knows this is how they are now: her contrarian to his wishes. Her infringing on the life he wants to lead. Annie wouldn't have said no. Annie is the right woman to be his wife, because they can actually stand to be in the same room for more than a few minutes with both of them sober. Even before the war, she doesn't know if she could say that for them.
"Well, I was going to go to the sauna first anyways, want to come? You look cold."
She is cold, but she's hesitant to go to the sauna. She pictures it as filled with the fisherman and the dockworkers, staunch District 4 men who might not welcome an outsider. "I think I'll just go home."
He seems to read her hesitation, and reaches for her hand, which she can't remember him doing since before the Quarter Quell. Perhaps it's this surprise that causes her not to pull away, and so he grabs the bucket with his other hand and leads them a short distance to a brick building. It's steaming inside, and she can see it's expansive. There are fires burning along the length of it, fueling warm baths and saunas. He puts the bucket down outside a closet-sized room and flips the sign outside of it from green to red. "You can get a bit of privacy, if you want," he says, a hint of the smile she remembers on his face.
"I'm sure being Finnick Odair doesn't hurt," she teases. She watches him strip down to his underwear, and she does the same. Modesty, especially in front of Finnick, is something she's long forgotten, but just as she's stepping into the room, she catches sight of his eyes on her, forgets she doesn't look like she used to in the Capitol: all perfect, pale skin, unblemished by man or medicine. "You don't look like you used to, either," she throws out defensively, glaring towards his missing eye, his missing ear, the scars to the left side of his face and neck. She knows she's too defensive, lashing out before he's even said a word, but she's realized that she had felt too comfortable in her body. It was the same mistake she'd made sleeping with Haymitch in the Capitol - she'd initiated things and only after stopped to wonder if her body was too changed, too broken now.
Finnick, for his part, averts his eyes, sitting on the wooden bench in the sauna, making a show of relaxing as she settles against the opposite wall, but she catches him glancing at her once, then twice, trying to see her as she is now.
"Look, if you want," she says, irritated with him, but mostly with herself. She knows there's little burn scars from the electrodes on her arms, on her chest, on her thighs, tiny circles that remain red and purple against her skin. There's the track marks on her forearms from too much morphling, irritated veins she won't let heal. And just the shape of her: all the muscle she'd worked up for the Quarter Quell starved off of her in the prison, never quite gained back as she was too busy getting her next fix. Her ribs are too prominent, her shoulders pointed, her knees knobby. She knows what she looked like, but she had been the only one. No one has looked at her in so long. Honestly, it feels good to have a witness after all this time.
"Johanna, what happened?" he asks, and she wonders if he's talking about what caused the scars, or how the two of them got so broken.
She's not ready to talk about the latter, so she chooses the former. It's hot in the sauna, and she's sweating a bit, but it's easier to talk to him like this, staring at a wall in this oppressive environment than it would be out in public. "I can't go in the water," she says. "It hurts. They messed up my brain somehow."
"I don't understand," he says.
Truthfully, she would have expected Annie to tell him all about that prison, all about what happened to her. She's a little impressed she hasn't, but how can she put it to words? She hadn't told Gale when she asked, barely told Haymitch. "They would drown me, in that prison," she says. "And then, just as I was catching my breath, they would use electricity to shock me. It's worse, way worse, when your skin is wet."
"For a month?"
She shrugs. How could she tell? Sometimes it felt like the interrogations were days apart, sometimes it felt like hours. They never turned the lights off in there. There were no windows. She lost count of how many times it happened because she lost consciousness. "I guess. It gave me this horrible feeling, up and down my spine, in my head, behind my eyes. I couldn't see, couldn't hear. Sometimes I passed out. It happens still, but less, when I get in cold water. So… I can't go on that boat with you."
He's silent for a while, and the things unsaid between them hang in the air. Why he hadn't visited her in the hospital, why their relationship had soured, the reassurance he wanted that Annie wasn't lying, that they hadn't tortured her in that prison also, what exactly happened between Johanna and Gale, and she finds that she's at her limit. Talking about the Capitol prison was all she could bear, this time around.
When they get out of the sauna, she pulls Gale's jacket back on over her sweater. "Why do you wear that?" he asks.
She wonders if he hates Gale, if he wants him hung as a war criminal like Mrs. Everdeen probably does. Another, quiet voice tells her he's jealous that she had another lover, for however a brief period. She knows it's almost certainly not true, that Finnick has his perfect wife and will soon have his perfect child, and there's no love lost for his affair with her, but she sees him glance at the jacket every time she wears it, and it's crossed her mind. "It's comfortable," she says. "I like it."
Because she doesn't have the energy to explain how in that hell, where she was certain she would die, that jacket is what she saw, what she was huddled against as she was pulled out. After being left behind, being set aside, after years and years of someone else being favored, of Finnick choosing Annie every time and Haymitch choosing Katniss to rescue from the arena, it was important to be chosen, to not be left behind. She doesn't expect Finnick to understand, she doesn't think anyone has ever forgotten him since he's won. But Gale was left behind as Katniss took on the mantle of Mockingjay, and for a brief period, she and him had something in common. The jacket was a life vest from the most vulnerable period in her life, when Finnick was planning his wedding, and Haymitch was coaching the Mockingjay.
At the end of the week, Johanna folds and accepts Annie's invitation to dinner. She rarely goes to Finnick's house, she doesn't like infringing on his and Annie's married life, but she finds it hard to deny Annie things she wants. When she gets there, they have a crank radio playing, and they're huddled around it, listening to a news broadcast. They listen, delaying dinner, Finnick and Johanna sipping liquor while the District 4 broadcaster explains about the latest trade delays, the overflow at the hospital, the issues with the new government getting aid out to all the Districts.
"If this is happening in 4, I wonder how things are in the outer districts," Annie says. "I mean, we had a hospital to start with. 12 doesn't even produce food."
"Are there no Tessarae anymore?" Johanna asks. The broadcast ends and Annie sets to making up their plates, and they sit to eat.
Finnick shakes his head. "The ration system is supposed to replace it, so everyone qualifies regardless if you have kids. But the rations are incomplete without a more robust trade network, I mean half the kids here have vitamin deficiencies."
"We did this," Johanna says. "This is our fault."
"And it was the right decision," Annie says. "None of these kids have to go through the Hunger Games, and the wealth will be moved back to the Districts."
"Will it?" asks Finnick. Johanna looks at him. It's rare for him to take her side, but he seems particularly pessimistic tonight. He pours himself a second glass of liquor.
When Johanna goes home, she's itching for morphling, not for pain, just for the frank anxiety that they've made a mistake. That she's messed up the entire country in order to what? Save herself and a few other Victors from prostitution? She takes a few breaths, trying to calm herself, but it's no use. She's entirely alone here, in this empty house, without even television to distract herself, and it's freezing outside. She knows she's going to inject the morphling, it's just a matter of how long she can delay it.
When she does take it, it's a half-dose, a deal she makes with herself, since she's not really in 'pain'. The relief is instant still, her heart rate and her breathing slowing, even her thoughts slowing down, until it's hard to connect them together. But the loneliness persists, the terrible feeling that she's a few feet away from a happy couple, and she's here, in a dead woman's house, taking up space since she has no purpose. She picks up the phone, thinks of calling Gale, and realizes she has no idea where he is. She calls the operator and asks for Haymitch Abernathy in District 12.
It takes six rings for Haymitch to pick up, and he sounds mostly asleep when he answers. "Hello?"
"Haymitch?" her voice is low, her tongue heavy from the morphling, but there's palpable relief in hearing a familiar voice.
"Johanna? What's wrong? It's two in the morning here."
She takes a few breaths, suddenly unsure of why she's calling at all. She can feel the tears welling in her eyes, feel the familiar clench of sobs in her throat, and tries to hold them back.
"Johanna?" he sounds awake now. "Talk to me, you're scaring me."
"I think I made a mistake," she can hear the sob come through her voice, and her eyes cloud with tears. She can't even explain where she went wrong, the morphling is making everything hazy. It might have been moving to District 4 or it might have been participating in the rebellion or it may have been something else completely. Everything in her life feels completely wrong in this moment.
"No, everything is alright," he says. "We changed the world, and it needs time to recover, that's all."
She pulls in a shaking breath, trying to make his words make sense in her mind. "Ok," she says, because agreeing with him sounds easier than arguing. She's spent so long being contrarian, she thinks she might as well just go along with everyone for a while. "Ok," she repeats, trying to sound more sure.
"Do you want me to come there?" he asks.
She considers it, thinks about how nice it would be to have someone on her side, for once. Then she thinks about him canceling because Katniss needs him, him delaying for Katniss, and preemptively feels the sting of rejection again. She wants to put on Gale's coat, to remind herself that she has been chosen in the past, it's bound to happen again. "It's fine," she says. "Sorry to wake you."