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Johanna shoves her few possessions into the District 13 rucksack, unsure of how to extricate herself efficiently from District 4. The clothes she wears day to day were once Mags' - did that mean she should leave them all behind? But she's altered them - changed the pants to fit her shorter legs, fixed the worn-out holes in the socks. Did that make them hers?
She shoves a few changes of clothes in the bag, trying to stick with items she brought with her from District 13, but she can't resist the urge to pack the flannel button down she favors, or the brown canvas pants she wears every other day. She doesn't forget the green knit hat or the length of rope Finnick left behind with her, ages ago. She keeps the green seaglass necklace on.
She looks out the window before sneaking away, to make sure Annie isn't right there, in the kitchen window. It's evening now, time enough for her to pace, to pack, to drink a whole bottle of wine before deciding she ought to go. Annie hasn't come by, and she dares not go back over. Shame burns her even thinking about going back over. She wants to melt into the floor and she taps the side of the rucksack, reassuring herself that she has another bottle of liquor, for the train ride.
She slept with Annie. In Annie and Finnick's marriage bed.
She has no excuse, nothing that she can say that will make this forgivable. She needs to leave, as soon as she can. She gets to the platform quickly, without passing anyone she knows, and sits on the bench waiting. She didn't have money for a ticket, so she did the thing she said she wouldn't do - she stole Mags' money, pocketing it to pay the conductor. She justifies it, albeit poorly, in her mind, thinking that at least she's doing Annie and Finnick a favor, removing herself from their marriage.
All the while she sits she thinks about the last night, how many chances she had to walk away, to stop herself from reaching for things that she didn't have any right to take. And even before that, what was she thinking? She had lay with Annie the night before in the bed, she'd woken up on the couch in Annie's arms. She had been taking advantage of Finnick's absence to prey on Annie's seemingly endless kindness, and only now, after she'd obviously gone too far, was she being scared straight.
The train pulls in, finally. It's well after midnight, the sky completely dark, and only two dim lights glowing on the station platform. Once the train completely hisses to a stop, the doors open, and she grabs her bag to get on, hoping she has enough cash for the ticket. She expects the few traders she sees coming off - men in taciturn suits, good enough for the outskirts of the Capitol, at least - disembarking with exhaustion on their features, but she is unprepared to see Finnick Odair.
He doesn't see her at first, tucked into the shadows as she is, and he steps off the train with a sag in his shoulders. She wants to know what happened - if he got what he wanted, and if so, by what means - but she knows she has no right to Finnick at all anymore. She holds her breath, waiting for him to pass the spot where she's standing. She knows it's wrong to leave without saying goodbye, to sneak away from Annie and Finnick and her entire life here, but she can't bear anything else. She's been fucked over and she fucks people over, it's a cycle that started the moment she got reaped, and she fears it's endless.
She's almost in the clear when he seems to sense something in his periphery and turns to look at her. "Jo?" he asks, doing a double take. Then, realizing it really is her, he stops, blinking away sleep, trying to comprehend why she is here of all places. "What's going on? Is Annie alone?"
Of course Annie is alone. It's probably better that Annie is alone than with her. She opens her mouth to say something but thinks better of it. Maybe he'll be so desperate to see his family that he'll accept that she's done with them, he'll just let her get on the stupid train. She turns towards the boarding platform.
He grabs her wrist and she knows he knows she hates it - to be restrained - so his grip is gentle, just enough to give her pause, and then he releases her. "Johanna, talk to me," he says.
But what can she say? The voice is gone from her, any explanations falling dead on her lips. His expression is so, so tired, and she knows it well, from nights in the Capitol, nights coming home to each other. She hates that she would do anything for him, even now. "Johanna, tell me you were just seeing me back, and not leaving," he says. They both see her rucksack that she's forgotten on the bench, they both know it's not true.
"Yeah," she says, her first words to him that night. But it's enough, and she sees him visibly relax.
"Ok. Let's go home."
She follows him back to the village, always a few paces behind. He turns around to check that she's still there every minute or so, as if she might run away back to the train platform, or up the path towards the Wilds. Her mind is racing, dashing back to Annie, but she can't handle that right now, not without any morphling to calm her nerves. She thinks of Finnick, stroking her hair after they had sex, asking her not to leave. She had promised she would stay, back then.
When they get back to the Victor's Village, Finnick sees the damage to his house: the massive tree branch through the roof and the patchwork of plastic tarps doing a semi-good job at keeping the rain out of the second floor. "What the hell happened?" he asks.
"Finnick!" Annie must have known Finnick was coming on this train, must have been peeking out the window anticipating his arrival, because she runs out of the house, Seamus swaddled to her chest, running to embrace him. And he holds her like he's finally reunited to something precious, someone he was afraid he might not have the chance to embrace again. That was the risk they always took, going back, she knew.
They kiss, and Annie whispers something that makes him smile softly as she pulls away. Johanna feels extra, like she's not meant to be intruding on this scene, so she sneaks away back to Mags' house. It's late, stupidly late, but she can't sleep, she's too on edge. She has no sleeping pills, no morphling, barely any cigarettes. She opens a bottle of wine, the pink kind that Finnick likes, and drinks straight from the bottle. It's warm - it's summer, and she strips down to her underwear and a tank top.
She looks at herself, really looks, for the first time in months. She's gained a little muscle back from all the days of digging for clams, from helping Annie in the garden, and her arms and legs look toned, albeit in a sinewy way. It was a look Enobaria could pull off, but Johanna didn't have the height, it just made her look scrawny. Then there were the scars - round and pink-purple against her skin, some of them fading to silvery white if they sat over bone. Her face is more or less the same, but the scars at her hairline stand out, and the fine lines around her eyes and mouth will never be zapped away by the Capitol, they will only deepen now.
It's fine, it's all fine, but next to perhaps the two most beautiful people she's ever met in Finnick and Annie, she feels fairly inadequate. It's moments like this when she feels like calling Haymitch, when she wants reassurance that she isn't just a leech or better off dead. But she knows better than to call him when it's pre-dawn in District 12 and she's been drinking. She imagines if she took the train, all the way to 12. It would probably be the same thing all over again, really. She'd just sit around there and feel bad for herself in District 12, make Haymitch's life harder, until eventually she messed up enough that she had to leave there, too.
And what a mess she made. She sits down on Mags' creaky wooden floor and sips more of the wine, thinking about Annie, and the way she put the necklace around her neck, the way she reached for her so gently, the way she was conscious of everything that made Johanna nervous and was careful not to do those things. She knows why Finnick wants to protect Annie, because she's been doing it beside him for years. And now she knows why he loves Annie, because she probably loves Annie too. But she's not like Finnick, who can slough off the taint of the Capitol, who can be a good husband and lover despite it all. She is corrupted, through and through, and she corrupted Annie Cresta.
And Finnick is going to find out about what she's done. She finishes the bottle of wine, determined to just sleep on the stupid floor.
She wakes to Finnick, or maybe she's still dreaming.
"Johanna?" He's beside her, she realizes, on the bed. She wonders if they slept together.
She opens her eyes to realize she's wrong on both counts. She's on the floor, mostly undressed, and he's kneeling beside her, shaking her leg. From his expression, he looks like he's checking to make sure she still has a pulse. She licks her lips, parched from her horrible decision to sleep after drinking a bottle of wine, and sits up to a pounding headache and roiling nausea. She puts a hand to her head, wincing against the inevitable spasm of pain that travels from the back of her head down her spine, flashing like white light behind her eyelids.
"I was going to see if you wanted to go down to the beach," Finnick says, his voice growing distant as he walks to the kitchen. She can hear him pouring a glass of water. "So we could talk."
She takes the water and drinks it cautiously, thirsty as she's ever been but afraid of vomiting. She doesn't want to go outside. She doesn't want to talk. But what right does she have to say no to anything Finnick asks of her? She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on top. "Ok," she says, hoping he'll give her a minute to pull herself together.
She hears him curse, which is rare for Finnick. She cringes, knowing she's caused it. "I said I was going to," he says. "We don't have to."
She stands, a little wobbly from the hangover, and shakes her head. "No, I really think we do," she says. She makes him wait, however, while she takes a shower and changes her clothes. There's still no hot water, but it's summer, so the water sitting in the pipes is warm enough. She vomits before she brushes her teeth, and feels a bit better after. Then she finishes the glass of water. When she comes downstairs, she's wearing a pair of District 13 training shorts, and a shirt of Mags' with a seahorse pattern, something gaudy that Annie loved.
They walk down to the beach in silence, and every time Johanna is tempted to break it, she holds back, scared. She's afraid to see what's on Finnick's face, how he feels about her now.
Finally, they get to the shore, and she sees his little dinghy, tied up on the dock. "Want to go for a ride?" he asks. She doesn't, she probably will never want to for the rest of her life. But while he was gone, she tried getting in the water, just a bit, and she thinks she can bear it. But what does it matter, really? If she dies, she dies. She wonders if this is a sick joke: even if Finnick doesn't really go for those, the universe seems to.
She shrugs, and he holds the boat steady so she can climb in and sit on one side. He gets in the other side, pushes it out, and begins to row. It's calmer than she thinks, enough that she barely thinks about how she's in water. Strangely, on this clear day, surrounded by more water than maybe she ever has been, she's not in any pain except the vestiges of her headache from drinking.
"It worked," Finnick says. He's facing her but staring out, beyond her, at the water. "I negotiated a way to get new suppliers here. We should start getting much better shipments next week."
"How?" That's the most important question, after all.
He smiles blithely. "All above board," he says. "Plenty of drinking and playing nice, both with Paylor's people and the stupid factory heads, but no one who needed to be placated in… other ways."
Johanna breathes a sigh of relief. If nothing else, there is that. The fact that Finnick Odair can get things done in the Capitol with just his words means more to her than she thought it would, really. "I'm so glad," she tells him, and she is.
"Why were you leaving last night?" he asks.
And there it is. Now that he knows he has power with his words, he isn't pulling any punches. This is more like talking to Haymitch, and she's not sure she likes it. She contemplates her answer for a second. "You and Annie should get to be parents in peace. I am just in the way," she says.
"No!" The ferocity of this claim surprises her, makes her bite her lip. "You're amazing with Seamus, I think he settles for you better than he does with me," Finnick says. "And well, aren't you also his parent?"
Was she? She'd cared for the baby certainly, but she'd never considered herself his parent. But then again, where does the line for parent begin and end? She thinks of Katniss's mother hiding out here in 4 and gets frustrated again. "I slept with Annie." The confession comes out unbidden, and it hangs in the air between them.
Finnick looks at her with surprise, and then his expression softens. "Is that why you've been so nervous?" he asks.
"Not only that, but yeah…"
Finnick stops rowing, and they float in the middle of an endless blue expanse. The water is calm, and only the flight of seabirds overhead causes the scenery to change. "Annie once told me that she wasn't threatened by you and I, because me loving you doesn't mean I love her less," he says. "I didn't understand it at the time, because I was so jealous of Gale. But… I think I get it now. Annie and you having feelings for each other… it doesn't change the way you feel about me."
And she wants to believe him, because she knows what he says is true. She loved Finnick and Haymitch both, through the Games, not more or less, exactly, just differently, and wonders for the first time if something similar is happening with her feelings towards Annie. If maybe it is possible that Annie liked her back, actually.
When they walk back to the Victor's Village, they go the long way and pass the Victor's monument. It's finished now, gleaming in the sunlight. It's got Finnick's trident, with Annie's wave in the foreground and a sunrise for Mags coming up behind. Seeing it now, completed, Johanna thinks it looks nice, or at least, she likes it a lot better than the television program they watched about the war. The monument didn't try to tell her how to feel, it just was a reminder of their efforts and sacrifices.
She stops to admire it for a moment and is shocked to see little trinkets lining the base: a drawing of a Mockingjay, a tiny coil of wire, a piece of coal, a little sapling in a pot. Her hands are shaking with the realization that someone was thinking of her.
It's the next day before Johanna is brave enough to face Annie. Finnick returns to work, and Johanna returns to Finnick's house, helping Annie with the baby, with the housework, and all of the routines they've built up in the months together.
"Did you get all that tailoring done?" Annie asks, the conversation casual, despite the elephant in the room.
She nods. "Yeah, that's what I was doing all yesterday. Got paid too," she says, wiggling her fingers in a sarcastic way, since money wasn't good for much outside of drugs and alcohol lately. Though, according to Finnick, that would change next week.
They go out to the garden to work on the weeding, taking Seamus in his silly hat and settling him in the planter box cradle. They kneel side by side in the dirt, sweating as they pull up weeds, and Johanna remembers working in the greenhouse in District 13, passing the time like this with Annie as they waited for news about Finnick when he was deployed to the Capitol.
Now, he was just off fishing with Jude, so they could rest much easier. Annie leans back to take a break, and Johanna joins her, parched. She sips from her water and surveys what they have left, waiting for Annie to rejoin when she goes to check on the baby. When Annie kneels again, she looks at Johanna's cheek, swiping away dirt with the edge of her finger. "Better," she says, wiping it on her pants leg.
Johanna flinches a bit, not from the touch being unwanted, but from herself potentially doing something wrong. Even after her talk with Finnick, she still can't settle her feelings for Annie completely.
Annie, for her part, looks hurt, and pauses from returning to the weeding. "Johanna, is everything alright?" she asks. "You seem jumpy today."
She was really going to make her say it, she thinks. "I don't want to touch you if you don't want me to-"
"But I touched you?"
She did, but how could Johanna explain?
"Did you not want me to touch you?" Annie asks, before she has a chance to.
"No, it's not that, it's just-"
Annie smiles, reassured. "Good. Because I like touching you. And kissing you. And I liked having sex with you. But I'll stop if you want."
Johanna opens her mouth but closes it again, unsure of how to even respond to this. "I don't know what I like," she settles on, because it's true. She's been expected to please people, to know when to kiss, where to touch, what to say, how to react, that it's hard to remember what she likes, truly. But she thinks she likes Annie, really and truly, at least, her touches aren't unpleasant, her gifts are dear, she likes spending more and more time with her. "But you don't have to stop."
And it feels so wrong to give herself permission to enjoy something. To love Finnick? To love Annie? To be a part of the lives of the people she loves most in the world, and not just be a millstone dragging them down? The revelation that Annie enjoyed everything they did together, the idea that Finnick didn't mind her and Annie having their own relationship? It's too much. She never ended up the winner. Part of her wants to go and use Mags' cash to buy a lethal dose of morphling, to end it all before she has a chance to ruin a good thing.
But she knows that's just what Snow would want. What her captors in that stupid prison would want. She made it out. She won the war. She's on the other side, so she gets to live her life, as haphazardly and strange as it happens to be.
Once they're done with the weeding, she and Annie clean up and change and set up a table and chairs to eat dinner outside. It's a perfect sort of evening, warm and balmy with a sunset full of brilliant hues. They make a salad, there's a loaf of bread, and Finnick brings home a perfect filet of fish, and there's even fresh cherries from the market for dessert. It's nothing fancy, but Johanna eats and eats, realizing all at once how much she's grown to love being in District 4.
At the end of the night, they bring everything inside, and Johanna turns to leave, to head back to Mags' house. Finnick catches her with a hand on her waist, pulling her back against him. She hates the instant reaction this gives her, the way she is transported through the years, to the first time she ever slept with Finnick. "Do you have to go?" he asks.
She furrows her brow. "I'm not sleeping on your couch," she says.
"Maybe we should fix that roof," he says, and to this, at least, she nods. If it's the spare room, she wouldn't mind. She could have them nearby, she could move the sewing machine over even. They could be together, and she could find it tolerable, she thinks.
When she steps out, Annie follows her, with the excuse of giving her back her sunhat. As if they wouldn't be seeing each other the next morning anyways. "You're always doing too much," Johanna teases her.
Annie taps her fingers in that distinctly Annie way. "Or maybe it's just an excuse," Annie says, smiling, and then kisses her then and there, out in the garden, under the stars.
That night, as she's in bed alone, she wonders if it'll stay alright, if this is sustainable, the three of them. She wonders if one of them is bound to mess it up - her, probably - or if it really is possible for things to be ok after so long. But there's no way to know except to try, she supposes, and there's no one else she wants to try with than Finnick and Annie.