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District 2 is not how Enobaria remembers it. It still smells the same, the warm, dry air carrying hints of the stone from the quarries and the chili peppers from the cooking, and the hot sun is ceaseless overhead during the day, but everything else is changed. She and Johanna are standing in line for a housing assignment, and although she is used to the rigor with which her home District bureaucratic principles, there is no warmth behind it, a desire to do so so that everyone can have what is theirs. There is a bitterness seeping in, a frustration that perhaps District 2 suffered in this war and got nothing for it, and now is forced to accommodate all these newcomers, a fear she thinks is not unfounded, but she wants to protect Johanna from nonetheless.
But she finds she can't, because there are two windows, one for people who served in the military in the war, and people who didn't. "Served on what side?" she asks nervously, because she is a walking contradiction, a born-and-bred District 2 Victor, as loyal as they came, and yet she was there at the end of the war, in a rebel uniform no less.
"Either," the worker tells her, tired and bored. "We're under orders to take soldiers from either side as part of the President's reunification project."
"But I already have a house here," she says, "I'm a Victor."
Here, the worker allows himself to crack a smile. "The Games are over. The Victors mean nothing anymore. You're done just collecting a check every year," he says.
She bites her lip and takes the form from him, filling it out. Johanna joins her in a moment, her face showing worry even though Enobaria can tell she's trying to hide it. "What is it?" Enobaria asks.
"Nothing, it's fine."
Enobaria glances at her form, an application for communal housing. "What is that?" she asks.
Johanna shrugs. "I didn't serve in the military, and I'm not from here. Back to the barracks, I guess."
Enobaria can understand this at some level, she supposes, but it's ridiculous to throw Johanna back in a barracks when she personally helped get Katniss out of the arena, and she endured torture for a month to keep the rebel secrets safe. Enobaria pictures her in a barracks, where they won't know how to help her with her headaches, or make sure she's eating enough. If she had another seizure, they might not get her help fast enough. No, she isn't going to let Johanna die just because District 2's reunification plan put the military above everyone else. "Maybe we can live together," she suggests, "If that's alright with you."
Johanna shrugs, but Enobaria can see her expression become hopeful. "I mean, we already did in the tiniest room ever, so…"
Enobaria goes back to the counter and asks, and the worker looks more annoyed than before, if this was possible. "Cohabitation requests are in the next room," he says. Bring your completed forms and you'll have to fill in addendum C. The whole package gets reviewed in there."
Again, this is not unfamiliar to her. She spent her entire life in District 2 filling in forms, waiting in queues, learning rules and routines. Johanna, she suspects, did not, since she heard the outer districts were far more lax when it came to most processes, but Johanna follows along to the next room, letting Enobaria fill out the addendum. Looking at Johanna's handwriting on her form, she sees why.
She stares at the reasons for cohabitation on the addendum form, pondering. A: spouse or domestic partner (proof required) B: Parent or legal guardian of child C: other relative (grandparent/aunt/uncle) D: Other (list relation here). "What do I write?" she asks, looking up to find Johanna's face inches away from hers. 'Friend' feels wrong, but so does 'Roommate'.
"My god, just write lovers," chirps the worker at this booth, much more friendly than the attendant in the last room.
Johanna rolls her eyes but blushes a little, and Enobaria thinks she looks cute. She writes girlfriend, and offers the form to Johanna for approval. "I could get another?"
But Johanna shakes her head, a soft smile on her face now. "No, don't waste paper."
They get an apartment in the city center, in a 12-story building filled with people like them: people displaced at the end of the war, and people coming to District 2 from other places. Their neighbors vary in age and origin, but it's relatively quiet where they live, in a two bedroom down at one end of the 6th floor, and they even have a small balcony where Enobaria keeps a small chili plant she picked up at the market.
Each apartment comes furnished with all the basics: beds and a stove and a small refrigerator, a dining table with two chairs, a sofa, a sink and toilet in the bathroom, and two wardrobes for their clothing. They don't buy much more, both because they want to save money, and because they're so used to the sparsely furnished room in District 13, that it's hard to imagine what more they will need.
On the second day, once she and Johanna have settled in, Enobaria calls the operator on the phone in the lobby and asks for her brother. The operator informs her that Tullus Weaver has died in the war, but his widow, Antonia is alive, and would she like to be connected? She says yes, perhaps a little too eagerly, and the phone rings three times before Antonia picks up.
Enobaria can hear the hissing of something on the stove, and two girls' voices in the background: her nieces. "Hello? Toni?"
"Baria? Is that you??"
"It's me. I'm home."
Enobaria learns her sister in law and her nieces are the only members of her family to survive the war. She is invited to dinner, and when she explains that she's here living with a woman, Johanna is invited as well. She gets directions to the apartment the girls are now staying in, about a half mile away, and she and Johanna walk over once the sun starts to fall behind the mountains, making the heat a little more bearable.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asks Johanna, as she slows down a bit.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I want to meet your family. Even if they're going to cook the spiciest food."
"You don't have to eat it, they know the war was bad for everyone."
Johanna nods, but doesn't respond for a moment. "I'm sorry about your brother. And your mom, and your sister."
Enobaria reaches out and grabs her hand. "Me too."
They walk past rubble, past dark stains that could only be old blood. They see the mountain that once held the Nut in the distance, and Enobaria wonders if her sister really was stubborn enough to die inside.
When they arrive at Antonia's, Enobaria almost cries when she sees her nieces. They're tall now, almost young women, not the children she remembers leaving to go to the Quarter Quell. They are serious, the weight of the war and the loss of their father and grandmother weighing on them, and they cling to their mother closely even though the world is now safe again, but they're 10 and 12 and they're beautiful.
"Ophelia! Camellia!"
"Baria!" They run up to her, happy to be embraced. They're long-legged and skinny, just like she was at that age, just like her brother was. They look at Johanna with curiosity, but not fear, and Enobaria realizes that they've seen people ruined by the war already: they've probably seen amputees and people muttering to themselves and people crying in the streets for those they've lost, that isn't strange to them anymore.
"This is my friend Johanna, she's from District 7," she says. "She won the 66th Games." The Games might not mean anything to the attendant at the housing desk, but it still means something to Enobaria.
"That was the year you were born, Meli," Antonia says.
She invites them inside, and the apartment is warm and inviting, filled with children's drawings and schoolwork and photographs of her brother and it's the opposite of their blank and bland apartment in the city center. Enobaria realizes that slowly, she ought to make an effort to make it feel more like a home, that spending too much time in the Capitol and District 13 changed her, and she needs to get something of her District 2 self back.
They sit to eat, and the stew is as good as she remembers it, and the girls chatter about the new children at school: people from other districts, and the way the lessons have been all out of order due to the interruptions from the war.
"Maybe you can teach me something," Johanna says. "I never got to finish school."
Ophelia looks shyly at her plate, as Enobaria knew she would. But Antonia glows. "The girls are top of the class, I'm sure they could teach you something, and you could teach them something."
Johanna smiles. "Oh I'm not good at anything. I can barely write, Enobaria saw that. I'm only good at rolling tobacco and sometimes ice fishing, but you don't have any ice or fish here."
Antonia smiles. "And the girls know better than to touch tobacco."
Johanna bites her lips, a little embarrassed.
"I won the handwriting contest," Camellia says, the charms in her hair clinking a bit as she turns to tell this Johanna.
"Maybe you can help me," she says.
"I'm best in my class at reading, and third in math!" Ophelia says, now overcoming her shyness to not be left behind by her younger sister.
After dinner, the girls show Johanna their homework while Antonia works on Enobaria's hair. The braids she had put in before she was deployed to the Capitol are old and fizzy now, and she's desperate for a new style. "You're lucky," Antonia says. "I still have some hair bundles from before the war."
Antonia wears her hair natural, but she does braiding and other styling out of a little shop in the city center, so she has all sorts of products: real and fake hair, beads and charms, gels and creams. She starts in on new parts in Enobaria's hair without asking her opinion, and Enobaria defers to her expertise. "That your girlfriend, then?" Antonia asks, her voice low, as they hear the distant laugh of Johanna and the girls in the living room.
Enobaria shrugs. "I guess so." She closes her eyes as Antonia massages her scalp before continuing her parting. "We got captured together, after the Games. Over a month, in this prison. It was bad."
"Yeah?"
She keeps her eyes shut. How could she talk about this eye to eye with Antonia? "Yeah. They tortured her every day, at least. Electrocuted her. She's still not well. They… they knew I didn't know anything about the rebels. They just wanted my body."
"Oh, Baria." Her hands feel good, firm and steady as she works on Enobaria's hair. "They got Tullus during the civil war. He died with a group of rebel soldiers not far from the Career Academy. They were trying to protect the District from the soldiers who were just trying to plunder it and take out their personal revenges, murder and thievery and such."
"Sounds exactly like him."
Antonia nods. Your mother died when her old apartment building collapsed. Tamora… well, you probably guessed, but she refused to abandon her post in the Nut."
Enobaria did guess as much. Antonia tells her where the memorials are, all in one spot by the Nut, but divided into sections for civilians, rebel soldiers, and loyalists.
When Antonia finishes, Enobaria has new braids halfway down her back with curls at the end, much prettier than the almost utilitarian braids she was given in District 13. "Pretty!" her nieces coo, as she rejoins them in the living room, and Johanna's eyebrows raise in approval.
"You look good," she says. Enobaria can tell her headache has returned from the way she is clenching her jaw, and knows it's time to go home.
"Ready to go?" she asks.
Johanna nods. "I got an invite to come back," she says. "Since I have a lot of tutoring needs."
Antonia laughs. "Don't let them bully you, but you can come back any time. I work until dinner time, so I wouldn't mind someone coming over after school to stay with them while they do their homework, feel free."
They walk home in the dark, hand in hand. "You do look pretty," Johanna says.
"Yeah?"
"I mean, you're pretty every day, don't you get sick of hearing it?"
"Nope." Enobaria doesn't think she'll ever get tired of hearing Johanna say it, really.
The next day she goes to the employment office, and Gale is there, too. Johanna stays home, even though she insisted she could come, but Enobaria told her to give it another week, just to be sure she was feeling better in the new weather.
Besides, working in District 2 wasn't like working in other places, as far as she understood it. People made very little money from their wages. Their housing was free, as was school and childcare and they even got ration stamps for groceries and clothing. All medical care was free, as was the utilities like water and trash and electric. The wages they took home were small, and used for luxuries, like hobbies or going out to eat, or a drink at the tavern. So it wasn't that important if Johanna couldn't work right away, they weren't going to throw her out on the street.
Once again, Enobaria is given a form to fill out, as she knew they would, and she has no idea what to fill in. What skills did she have? 10 years at the Career Training Academy? A mission as a District 13 rebel cadet? Two stints in the arena? The two most consistent skills in her life have been sex and drinking, and she knows better to write either of those down. Violence feels like the natural third, and of course she doesn't write that, either.
She wonders what Gale writes. Does he write that he helped collapse the Nut? Does he write that he murdered those children at the end of the war? She supposes that at least she doesn't have blood on her hands. She writes mostly benign things, that she's literate, that she has good physical fitness, that she has a natural heat tolerance growing up here, that she has a good sense of direction. Under hobbies, she writes that she enjoys red wine, which might be a little close to drinking, but it's about the only thing she did to pass the time.
She hands in her form before Gale does. The attendant looks it over, typing some things into a computer. She's got beautiful honey colored hair, dyed, Enobaria can tell, and she wonders if Antonia did it. "There's an opening at a vineyard just outside the city," she reports after a few minutes. "Apprentice work, things like checking on the fields, pruning the vines, maintenance on the equipment, record-keeping."
"Yes, I'll take it." She hadn't expected something so quickly. And something so suited. She could work in the fields, especially for her precious red wine.
"The commute is a bit far, but the number 7 tram goes nearly the whole way there. If you take it to stop number 14, it's just a short walk to the Rosa Vineyard."
Enobaria nods, watching as the attendant circles an area on a transportation map.
"If that's fine, please fill out this job acceptance form, and I'll send it to the vineyard. Once they do their part you can begin. Hopefully in two days' time."
Enobaria sits with the next form and Gale goes to the window to hand his application in. The attendant looks it over, doing the same actions, typing his answers into her terminal and reviewing. "You were in the military?" she asks. "In the final battle?"
He nods. "Yes, ma'am."
"President Paylor is beginning a military restructuring project, trying to combine the military of District 13 and District 2. Would you like to apply to that project?"
"I'd be honored, ma'am."
She types some more in her terminal, and he fidgets for a moment. "Enobaria was in the final battle as well," he says, and she is surprised.
"Is that true, Miss Weaver? You were in the forces fighting in the final battle?"
She nods, a little off-balance.
"Would you also like to participate in this project?"
She shakes her head, surprised. "No." Then, remembering her manners, "No, thank you." Why would she want to be involved in the military, when she could learn to make wine? Why would Gale choose to join such a conflict-riddled project? She cannot understand his desires, but she doesn't try to. She tunes them out as she continues filling out her application.
When Enobaria gets home, she senses something is wrong immediately. She thinks, for a moment, that maybe Johanna is out, that perhaps she did go to visit her nieces again, but her shoes are still near the door. "Jo?" she calls, but there's no response.
She walks inside to see a bag of rolls open on the counter, a knife on the counter beside them. She rushes forward, afraid of what she is going to see, but it's Jo, on the kitchen floor, knees to her chest, her head tucked between them. She can see vomit on the floor and comes around the other side, kneeling next to Johanna.
"Hey, talk to me," she says.
"It hurts," she says, and Enobaria wonders why the fuck Gale or anyone would think she would want to be a soldier anymore, when soldiers do this?
"Come on, we need to go to the clinic," she says.
She hands Johanna sunglasses and a hat against the sun, gives her a bag just in case she needs to vomit again, and they take the elevator downstairs to wait for the tram. She asks a woman in the lobby if the clinic is still where it used to be, and gets directions to take the number 2 tram five stops, so they wait for it to arrive. She holds Johanna against her on the bench and she can feel her trembling, and she panics that she will have another seizure. She may have already. She barely remembers the ride, focused as she is on Johanna who is miserable beside her, and counting the stops to make sure they get off at the right one.
It's easy enough, at the end, because the stop name is "Medical Center" and the building is just across the street. They walk in and the blast of air conditioning is overwhelming, the same relief she felt when the Games ended, and there are suddenly people there to help check them in and help Johanna and she is assured that things will be alright.
They're taken to a curtained room, and a nurse named Harmonia takes over, connecting Johanna to fluids and anti-nausea medication, and a pain drip as well. "Not morphling," she says, and explains that it tends to cause worse pain on the comedown. Enobaria does her best filling in the papers, and after about twenty minutes, Johanna perks up a bit.
"When's your birthday?" Enobaria asks.
"February 12," Johanna says, her voice raspy. "50."
"50? I was born in 46."
"Old lady."
Harmonia, who they learn goes by Nia, introduces the doctor, a strict looking woman with cropped hair and dark skin, Dr. Bishop. "I hear this is post-electric shock?" she asks, and Johanna nods.
"I didn't have anything like this before," she says. "And now I am always nauseous and my head hurts all the time. I had a seizure, I guess, before the end of the war."
"Do you know the voltage, or the duration, or any of the details?" As she speaks, the doctor takes out a flashlight and looks into Johanna's eyes, into her mouth and nose, and moves her finger around to have Johanna follow it with her eyes.
Johanna shakes her head. "They didn't exactly tell me when they were sticking the electrodes on, no," she says. "Sometimes they'd say 'turn it up' so it wasn't always the same. Enough to make my heart feel… wrong."
"This was torture, then," the doctor says, putting on her stethoscope and listening to Johanna's heart.
She nods. "Every day, at least, for a month. Sometimes they'd have my feet in water, or put a soaking towel on my face first, so I was drowning. And when you're wet… it's so much worse."
This was the most Enobaria had ever heard Johanna talk about her time in the prison, but it's not like she ever spoke about it either. They both had witnessed what happened to the other, what more was there to say? And who else was there to talk to?
Dr. Bishop writes a few things down, and then seems to make an assessment. "You're rather malnourished, and we need to get the pain and nausea under control. I'd like to keep you here at least one night, so we can see if the medications work, hopefully enough that you can eat and drink normally before leaving. Alright?"
Johanna nods, turning onto her side in a gesture Enobaria recognizes as frustrated compliance. She'd wanted to get a job, Enobaria remembers, and now she was here in the hospital again overnight. Once the doctor and Nia leave, Enobaria leans forward, kissing Johanna's forehead. "Please let the doctor treat you. I don't want to keep thinking something terrible happened to you."
"I know, and I will, I just keep thinking… those men in the prison… what if they come here? Or even if they don't… they're probably just living their lives, enjoying their freedom, and I can't even eat a fucking roll."
"They're not here." Enobaria says it with conviction, but truthfully, she hadn't even imagined such a possibility. Now she's the one feeling sick. Had she just been too naive with hope about the end of the war and returning home that she thought things would actually be better?
"I'm glad, then," Johanna says, choosing to believe Enobaria, at least right now.
Nia returns to move Johanna to an overnight room, and tells Enobaria it's policy to limit visitors to certain hours. Enobaria stands to go. "I'll come back in the morning with some new clothes," she says.
As she leaves the clinic, she swears she sees a familiar face, just for a moment. A flash of blonde hair, shoulders standing taller than the crowd, she knew that silhouette. "Lyme?" she calls, and the figure turns, eyes widening in recognition.
"Enobaria?"
It is Lyme, and she looks different than Enobaria remembers. Not like her nieces, a little more grown, a little more solemn, but something different at her core, like she is trying to hide in plain sight. "It's me," Enobaria confirms.
Lyme smiles, brightening a bit. "Want to get a drink?"
Enobaria searches for a reason not to, but she doesn't want to go back to her apartment alone, and she isn't allowed in the clinic again until morning. She doesn't even start her job until the day after tomorrow. She would love a glass of red wine to forget the words Johanna had left her with. "Yes, wherever you like."
"Are you alright?" Lyme asks on the way over. "Were you at the medical center?"
"I'm fine," she confirms. "I'm living with another Victor, Johanna Mason, and she's still recovering from the war."
She wonders if she should say it properly, explain that she and Johanna are close now, even if they haven't been intimate. It feels deceitful not to do so, since she slept with Lyme years ago. But she did say they were living together, and in District 2 that typically only meant one thing. Regardless, the moment has passed, and they arrive, Lyme ordering amber liquor, and Enobaria red wine.
"I heard there were a lot of people coming to District 2, and I've seen some around, didn't realize other Victors were."
"Well, I think it's only Jo. But I heard that Victors don't mean anything anymore," Enobaria says, as they find a table in the corner. "They wouldn't let me have my house in the Victor's Village back."
Lyme laughs mirthlessly. "No, all those houses have been taken over by high-ranking soldiers upset about the Nut. There's some insane logic that the Victors perpetuated the rot of the Capitol so the rebels hate them, while simultaneously being the ones who started the rebellion, so the loyalists hate them." She leans in closer. "Timon was killed by a mob in the beginning of the civil war. That's why I cut my hair and laid low until the rebels could offer me protection."
Enobaria finds it funny that Lyme 'laid low' when she was easily over 6 feet tall, but she does feel a chill at the idea that another Victor was killed as a scapegoat. "They brought all the Victors to the Capitol, for the assassination," Enobaria says.
"Yes, I heard. I am no longer using that title, and I would advise you not to use it either."
Lyme fills her in on more information about the District: who survived the war and who didn't, the new lay of the land, how things feel now, politically, and Enobaria tells her at least a bit about her experience, about District 13, and about the final battle. "I got a job at a vineyard," she says. "I start in a couple days."
"You'll like that," Lyme says, her expression now softened a bit from the liquor. "You always liked your wine."
"Where do you work?"
"I work in the reconstruction office. We are a combination of the mason and military service that tries to use the military forces to help in rebuilding efforts to fix the parts of the District that were most damaged in the war."
"Like the Nut?"
Lyme laughs, shaking her head. "No, we're not touching the Nut, at least until the houses and businesses are fixed."
They leave the tavern before midnight, but Enobaria is exhausted, the time at the jobs office feeling like days ago, rather than that morning. Lyme turns to go in the other direction to walk home, but then turns back, realizing they're going their separate ways. "It was good to see you," she says, and her smile is affectionate, almost nostalgic.
"Yes, I'm glad to see you well," Enobaria agrees, the District 2 greeting coming back to her after all this time.
Lyme leans down and kisses her on the lips gently, and Enobaria had forgotten what it was like, to receive affection from someone older, someone wiser, to receive intimacy that she wanted, and wasn't coerced. She feels a trill of excitement for just a moment, but then she backs away in surprise. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm seeing someone."
Lyme nods, a little disappointedly, but her smile returns a moment later. "I should have known," she says. "I hope she gets better soon."