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Once Finnick leaves, Annie realizes how much he had stepped up in the past month - how many little things he was doing to care for Seamus that she hadn't had to think about, until she is doing them again. Washing the diapers is a big one, as Finnick had dumped the waste into their toilet, then scrubbed them in a basin and hung them on a line to be sun-bleached. Another is the cooking and washing up, insisting that if Annie is feeding their son, he can feed the adults. Not that there was anything much to cook besides fish and last year's potatoes lately.
Naturally, Johanna comes around again once Finnick leaves, as Annie guessed she would. She hadn't even noticed Johanna slipping back to Mags house until it happened: an hour here, a night there, until she was all but living there full time by mid-May. Annie knew why, of course. Johanna could read Finnick's tension as well as Annie could, and was extricating herself from the situation before it became a problem.
Now, with Finnick gone to the Capitol, Johanna returns, running her fingers gently through Seamus's hair as she waits for Annie to finish making coffee. "Do you want a cup too, big man?" she asks, talking to him like he's another adult at the table. "Your mom says you'll get too amped up, but I'll sneak you a sip, if you want."
Annie rolls her eyes, knowing Johanna is too terrified of doing anything wrong with Seamus to dare give him food or drink without her express permission. It makes her hands shake to think about, really. How the woman at her table murdered children with axes, carving open their chests, and she's too afraid of causing harm to her baby to pick him up, sometimes. "I just know you'll be sneaking him contraband the second you two go off on an adventure together," she laughs, pouring the coffee.
It's a test, maybe, to see if Johanna plans to stay around long-term, or to see if Johanna balks at the idea of being alone with her child in the future. So far she hasn't pushed such a thing - she needs to be there to feed Seamus anyways. But she's restless, sick of the house and the same views and the same conversations, she wants to push things a bit.
And Johanna just laughs a little, playing along. She's pretty when she laughs, small, straight teeth and sparkling gray eyes. "Serious contraband. I'll give him his first sugar rush, and maybe even show him how to climb a tree."
Annie comes and sits across from Johanna at the table, placing the coffee down. Johanna doesn't even take it right away, too busy adjusting Seamus's collar and fixing the little curls of his hair as he sits in his carrier.
"He'll be very skilled," Annie says, "If you can teach him how to climb a tree, and he has Finnick teaching him swimming."
Now Johanna turns back, placing both hands on the coffee mug, as if trying to keep them still. "About that," she says, pausing as she takes a sip. The coffee isn't great - there's no milk or sugar to add, and it's got questionable origin, but it's good when there's not much else to look forward to in the day's rations. "I was thinking maybe I should try getting in the water again."
Annie had gone with Johanna a few times, clam digging, and Johanna always had to leave as soon as the tide came in. Her grip on Annie's hand was a vice, absolutely just enduring until she could get away from the water. "Only if you want to," she says.
"I thought maybe I could do it, if it's with you," Johanna says, and to Annie it sounds like a confession.
They plan for that weekend, when the weather forecast is sunny, because for the next few days it's nothing but rain. They spend the day dealing with the showers, trying to stake down what they can outside and bring in the things that are liable to blow away in strong winds, because as the sun goes down, true to the radio forecaster's prediction, a thunderstorm begins, with strong winds that rattle the windows, splashing massive raindrops against the panes.
Annie wonders about the house - no one has done maintenance on it possibly ever - and perhaps a minute after she has this thought, Johanna finds the first leak in the roof. It's in the spare bedroom where she sleeps, and they put down a basin to catch the water. Interestingly, Seamus doesn't seem to mind the thunder and lightning - he is chuckling and burbling at Annie and his own little fists through most of the evening. It's Annie and Johanna who are tense, sitting on the couch, well past their usual bedtime, hesitant to put the lights out.
They're still down there, still wide awake when Annie hears it - the massive crack that signals that something very very bad has happened. Johanna stiffens but doesn't bolt upstairs. It's this combination, the rain and electricity and loud noises that Annie knows is the worst for her. She imagines Johanna is probably in pain, from the way she's been holding herself so rigid all night. "Stay with Seamus, I'll go take a look," Annie instructs, and Annie knows Johanna must be feeling terrible, because she just nods, accepting this.
Annie climbs the stairs, towards the direction of the noise, and as she turns she's hit with a blast of air that's decidedly cooler, 'outdoor air', and she can feel the mist of rainwater that has somehow gotten into the house. When lightning next flashes, it seems even brighter, and slowly she turns into the spare room to see that a tree branch has fallen through the roof, creating a rather large hole. Rain is falling onto the floor, soaking the bed and the floor, and Annie can see the stormy sky through the opening.
If only Finnick were here, is her first thought, and she shoves it away. She was in the Hunger Games. She was in that awful prison and lived. She can deal with this. But what is there to do?
"Everything alright?"
She can hear Johanna calling for her, probably from halfway up the steps. It isn't alright. Finnick's house is being flooded, and she doesn't know how to fix it. To say 'yes' is a lie, but to say 'no' is to make Johanna have to help her with this. She leaves, going back to the stairs. "The leaky roof got worse," she says. "I need some towels to soak it up."
"What was that crash?"
"Tree branch."
If Johanna puts it all together, she doesn't say so. She just gathers towels, handing them to Annie to soak up the water that's entered the house. Annie leaves them down, deciding the next day she would try to dry the floors properly. And maybe call Jude to see if he could put sheeting over the roof to close the hole, at least until they could fix it properly. When that's done, she changes her clothes and returns to the couch, suddenly exhausted. Annie feeds Seamus, her son still enjoying one mid-night feed, and sets him back down to sleep.
"You're in my bed," Johanna says, shoving Annie playfully. "Since, you know, the other one is kind of out of service."
"Shh, just deal with it," Annie says. "It's nice to fall asleep with the television on sometimes." And it is. It's nice with the television on low and the rain sounds outside and her baby beside her sleeping quietly, and Johanna calm and sleeping beside her as well, it's an almost perfect way to drift off.
When she wakes, it's not yet dawn, and Annie is a little sore from her neck being pushed up against the arm of the couch at a weird angle, but she doesn't dare move, as Johanna is clinging to her. Johanna's hand is grabbing onto Annie's nightgown, her leg covering Annie's possessively. She looks comfortable, though even in sleep she still has that slight furrow to her brow, constant pain or worry that never seems to cease. Annie turns her head just slightly to see that Seamus is still asleep and safe, and listens for the rain. It's just a quiet patter, and she closes her eyes again, deciding that this really isn't so bad, her neck can endure another half hour or so.
When she wakes the second time, it's to Johanna moving, extricating herself from her position against Annie. It's a feeling of loss, that separation, and she wants to pull Johanna back like she would pull Finnick back, but stops herself when she sees the way Johanna looks embarrassed, or almost scared, like she was caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "Should I start coffee?" Annie asks.
"I can do it. Your mini-me is waking up," Johanna says. She swallows, pulling her socks back on to pad away to the kitchen.
"Thanks for helping me sleep," Annie says.
Johanna looks at her, as if trying to read her, before nodding. "You slept well?"
"I did. I hate sleeping alone. It freaks me out." It's true, but it's not the whole truth. She has to trick Johanna sometimes, she's realized, and she's not sorry about it. If Johanna thinks doing something helps Annie or Finnick or the baby, then she'll be inclined to do it, much more than if she thinks it's just for her own benefit.
"I'm glad."
They assess the damage after breakfast, and things don't look good. The guest room is soaked, the towels heavy and saturated with water and twigs and leaves and bits of roofing material. The garden is waterlogged, and Annie can see some of the little plants that had been coming up now have floated away to the other side of the yard, and others have just wilted from the soil eroding around their roots. The tree in the guest room and the hole in the roof are the biggest problems, and Odessa picks up when Annie calls.
"Jude is out on the boat," she says, "But he'll be in early. I'll send him over after. The water is full of debris today, things have floated out thanks to the wind and all that rain. I think most of the guys are just getting junk away from the shoreline today."
Annie wants to call Finnick, desperately, but she doesn't know the number to try. She doesn't know where about he is, even if he's staying in the Capitol or moving on to District 2. So she bides her time with Johanna, cleaning up what she can, helping Jude and Royce once they come to nail a tarp over the roof, and taking care of Seamus.
That night, she sets Seamus in his crib in the bedroom and sits on the bed, and she assures herself that Johanna is right downstairs, but Finnick's side is so conspicuously empty. She thinks of him in the Capitol, thinks of his misery after he came home from Johanna's, thinking there was a chance someone would buy their bodies forever and ever. Later, he told her he saw one of his sponsors in the documentary they watched, and she imagines him meeting that man, needing a favor from that man, just so they can have food.
"Jo?" Her voice is small, pathetic.
Johanna is there in a few seconds, standing in the doorway, still in bare feet. She's wearing one of the old training T-shirts from District 13, and it's comforting, in a way, because it reminds Annie of when they were still hopeful - when they were waiting for the new world to begin, when her wedding was happening, before the Mockingjay broke.
"I…" She knows the request is unfair, now that she's asking it. Knows she and Finnick keep putting Johanna in awkward positions, but she asks it anyways because she is a little selfish, actually. "I don't want to sleep alone."
Johanna looks to her, then to the bed, to Finnick's empty spot. Then she nods. "Ok."
Annie feels a little better, once the weekend comes. There's still nothing from Finnick, but the sun comes out, and it's warm, a beautiful day for the beach. She opens up the windows to air out the house, and Johanna comes down to breakfast later than Annie, perhaps enjoying the larger bed more than she set on.
They go to the secret beach, the one next to the beach closed off for land mines. The main beaches were liable to be crowded today, since the weather was so nice, but Annie is afraid Johanna wouldn't dare get in the water if there were a lot of witnesses. So she leads her to the little beach down the path from her parents' cottage, isolated from the rest of the village, and they're the only once on the rocky shore. She tucks Seamus into the swaddle on her chest, and he's heavy now, at 13 weeks, but it's nice to hold him against her and dip the bottoms of his feet into the surf.
Johanna comes along, wearing a pair of District 13 shorts and one of Mags' button down shirts, and Annie can feel the tension radiating off her. She's sober, as far as Annie can tell, and bracing herself. "Should we start just walking in the shallows?" Annie asks.
She'd gone clam digging with Johanna a few times, and was always struck by the abrupt change, how quickly Johanna went from fine to very uncomfortable. Johanna nods, and they walk a little along the surf, just in a few inches of water. As the tide washes over their ankles, she sees the pause, just a hitch, as Johanna takes another step. "It's fine. You're safe," she reminds her.
Johanna nods again, and steps in just a bit deeper. She grabs onto Annie's hand, her other hand clawed against her thigh.
Annie quickly realizes there will be no swimming today. Instead, her role is just to remind Johanna that this is not the prison, and there is no way she can drown here. "You can leave whenever you want. No one is holding you down," she says, right into Johanna's ear. Johanna nods, taking another half step forward.
Their progress is slow and not linear. It takes thirty minutes for them to get knee deep, and Annie has probably said the same phrases twenty times over. But it seems to work. There is no freezing up, no bolting, none of the distinctive clenching that seems to signify the spasms of pain Johanna has.
Eventually, Johanna makes it in up to her waist, and turns around, looking surprised at how far she's gotten. It's taken almost an hour and a half. She laughs, in disbelief, and looks at Annie. "You'll have to teach me swimming another time," she says. "I was never any good at that, anyways."
"We'll definitely come back," she says. "Seamus seems to like it."
Johanna rolls her eyes, beginning the trudge back to shore. "Of course he likes it. He's his father's son."
Annie wonders if this is how Finnick feels: like it is possible to love two people. It's different, the way she feels for Johanna, of course. She's known her for far less time, less intimately, and in other ways, far more intimately. Johanna's seen her at her most vulnerable: she was at Johanna's mercy for a terrible few moments. She heard Johanna's screams for days on days. For a brief moment, she thought Johanna was dead before they made it back to District 13. Now, leaving the water, she thinks that she holds a part of Annie's heart as much as Finnick does. She wonders if Johanna feels the same, if their bizarre triangle is connected on all sides.
That night, at lights out, Johanna again comes to her doorway. "Do you want me to stay?" she asks.
Annie nods.
Johanna doesn't lie down right away. She's bathed, her hair sleek and clean now from the salt and sand of the beach, her shoulders tinged with a little pink of sunburn. "I would never have survived your Games," she says, pulling her knees up to her chest. She fixes her gaze at Seamus's crib, not daring to look towards Annie.
"I wouldn't have lived through yours, either," Annie says, thinking of the sheer violence of Johanna's Games, the simple truth there was no way out of the labyrinth without murder.
"I guess it's for the best that it happened like it did," she says, and Annie notices there's no wishing that they weren't reaped at all. That's an impossible thing to imagine now.
Annie nods. "It didn't turn out so bad," she says, trying to lighten the mood, knocking into Johanna a little. Because of course it turned out terribly, but if it was anyone else reaped but them, would the rebellion have happened at all? Or would it have been even better? She looks and sees Johanna crying, just a couple of silent tears slipping down her cheeks. "No, no, no, it's alright," she says, unsure if she's lying or not. But she wants so badly for Johanna to be alright that she'll lie.
Johanna nods, as if trying to convince herself. "Yeah."
Annie kisses her cheek, the salt water familiar, the soft skin different from Finnick's cheek. She lingers a moment too long, and the tension rises, enough that when she moves her mouth towards Johanna's, Johanna turns to meet her. She doesn't know what compels her, she's not usually so bold. But she wants this. She wants Johanna to understand she's loved and Annie has her own needs and the connection feels so natural it's uncanny, really. They were in that prison for over a month, feet apart but unable to touch due to the iron bars, so this feels like completion, like she can finally make something whole.
She uses her tongue, she tastes Johanna, and runs her fingers gently through her hair. She's afraid to cause her pain so she uses a soft touch, and is surprised when Johanna breaks the kiss to push closer into her neck, to bite lightly at the skin of her shoulder and press their chests together. "I want you," Annie says, in case there's any confusion. She gets a nod and a soft moan in response, an affirmative.
Sleeping with Johanna is a little like sleeping with Finnick, Annie finds, in some heartbreaking way. She knows too much about the mechanics of what she's doing, where to apply pressure, when to let off, and so on, and she seems to know what's expected of her. When to react, when to submit, and most alarmingly, when to brace herself for something painful.
Annie knows better than to think such things can be unlearned in one night - she's been with Finnick for years and still has to remind him that he doesn't have to perform for her, sometimes. But it's the cautious hesitance Johanna gives her, the fear that Annie might actually do her harm, that gives her pause, that makes her slow down and reorient them both and confirm that everything is still alright before she goes any further.
She's new at this. Aside from kissing a girl at the Ward for Troubled Women, she's only been with Finnick. But slowly, she and Johanna make it work, until Johanna comes quietly, her eyes closed in bliss as she arches around Annie's hand, and then a little later she regroups, and brings Annie to completion as well.
It's nice, to fall asleep after that, to relax into the fatigue she feels after an orgasm, and for a moment to forget her worries about Finnick and their lack of basic necessities. That will all come back in the morning, but for now, it's just the two of them, quiet, in this bed, her baby quiet just a few feet away.
Before dawn, Annie wakes, and the bed is empty. Seamus is fussing and she picks him up, putting him to her breast. She walks downstairs and sits at the table in the kitchen, and Johanna is there, making coffee. "You're up early," she says. It's going to be another nice day, maybe they could walk to her parents' house, she thinks.
"What was that?" Johanna asks. She's changed, into a long-sleeved button down and shorts, covered up compared to the night before. Was she ashamed?
"I don't know exactly," Annie says, honestly. Sex? A confession? Something she didn't know she wanted until she finally had the chance? "I like you." That sounds most appropriate, given the options.
Johanna bites her lip, turning away from the stove to face Annie. "What do you want from me?"
The phrasing of the question makes her sick. "It's not a transaction, Johanna," she says, as gently as she can. Seamus starts squirming and she stands to move to the changing pad beside the couch, to change his diaper. She keeps her gaze on Johanna.
But Johanna doesn't reply, she just offers Annie a look of disbelief, that nothing comes without cost. She turns the kettle off, but watches Annie, waiting to pour the hot water.
Annie shakes her head. She offers Seamus her fingers to distract him for a few seconds so she can finish the conversation. "We want you. Finnick and I both. Not something you can offer. Not part of you. There's nothing you need to give in return. I think all three of us together is better than two." It's the truth, but she knows already Johanna won't believe her.
Between the squirming baby, the mess of the conversation, and her newly returned worry about Finnick, she's at her wits end, and when Johanna says "I don't believe you," and leaves, there's regret, but a small bit of relief that Annie can just deal with Seamus and put the rest of the problems off for somewhere in the future.
But then Johanna doesn't come back. That afternoon, she plans to go next door, to find Johanna at Mags' or even walk Seamus into town if she had gone that way, but before she can get dressed, the phone rings. Annie picks it up on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"Annie?"
"Finnick?"
"It's me."
The relief she feels is palpable, making her knees weak, and she falls to a sitting position on the kitchen floor, stretching the phone cable. "How are you?"
There's a pause, but then he responds. "I'm alright." He sounds tense, or maybe tired, but she can't tell if he's lying, if he's under duress, she won't know the truth until he's back in front of her. She's used to this: the phone calls from the Capitol are proof of life, no more. "I'm heading back."
"When?" She tries not to let herself get too excited, in case he says 'in a few weeks' or something vague like 'soon'.
"Tonight, hopefully. Tomorrow or the next day at the latest."
She wants to ask him how the negotiations went, but she knows this question could be loaded. She'll wait until he's back. "That's great! I'll get the house ready."
He laughs, a little. "Don't go out of your way. It'll be enough just to see you."
And it will. She hadn't wanted them to be separated ever again, and here they were, less than a year from the end of the war, in different Districts again. "I love you," she says. "Safe travels."