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Gale loves District 2. He loves the warmth, so different from the cold winters in District 12. He loves the colorful sunsets and the mountain ranges surrounding the city. The buildings are beautiful, a combination of adobe and stone masonry, stately buildings that survived the civil war. And he loves the orderliness: everything was done with a form, in a specific office. Everyone queued to get on the tram or to buy something at the market. And everyone understood their place in the most populous District in Panem.
The one thing he doesn't like in District 2 is his job, or at least the reality of it. Hypothetically, it's a perfect it: to help restructure the military. To take the rebel troops in 13 and the homegrown troops in District 2 and combine them into a new military, something fit for the new Panem. But it's not so easy. Because District 2 is complicated, actually, and he's not sure he understands it all.
He thought he would be working with loyalist troops, which would be difficult to combine with rebels, but it's far more complicated than that. There are loyalists, certainly, die-hards who are still upset about the way the war ended. But then there are just career soldiers who are in the Peacekeeper ranks because that is the career they were dealt, same as a man might go down in the mines in District 12. He thinks those soldiers might be easiest to deal with, but he can't quite get a handle on them. And then there's a third group, turncoats. People in Peacekeeper uniforms who fought for the rebels in the war. Men and women who probably won District 2 for the rebellion, if he had to put money on it.
Each day he spends a half day planning, and a half day among the soldiers, trying new training regimens, new drills, simulations that bring the different groups together. Sometimes it's new exercise uniforms that doesn't show origin, but they find other ways - hairstyles or tattoos or something to indicate where they're from and who they fought for in the way. Once he tried a drill centered on trust, and a fist fight broke out. He wonders if it's really possible to combine two sides of an army, to make them fight as one, or if he's better off with separate regiments.
He considers a resignation program, allowing anyone who wants to leave to separate without consequence, but Paylor's undersecretary shoots this down. "We need these men and women to finish their contracts," she says. "Imagine if everyone who was only here for the paycheck left, and all we had left was the most intense people on each side: the strongest rebels and the most stubborn loyalists. We need some of those in betweeners to stay, to help ease the tension."
So that plan, too, is scrapped, and Gale is not sure how to proceed. Day by day, things are fine. The men continue training and rebuilding, but he has no faith in them working together through an actual emergency, and feels it's only a matter of time before tensions come to a head: before there's in-fighting that could blow up into an all-out riot.
He takes the afternoon off after staying well into the evening the day before, and goes home around 2, feeling a little guilty for abandoning his work, but a little relieved to be away from it until the next day.
He buys one of the handpies from the market near the apartment, eating it as he walks the rest of the way home. It's delicious, and it feels good to have food whenever he wants it, rather than the strict times prescribed by District 13, or not knowing when his next meal was coming like when he was still living in District 12.
When he gets off the elevator on the 6th floor, he sees someone at the end of the hallway, a figure crouched. He walks closer, even though it's at the other end from his apartment, because the sight is odd. No one sits in the hall. No one hardly spends any time in the halls, except coming or going. They're dimly lit with poor ventilation, just a corridor for getting from the door to the elevator.
"Johanna?" he asks. It is her, he realizes, crouched just outside her apartment door, a hand to the side of her head. He is reminded of finding her in that prison, of the absolute horror that was that underground dungeon, and he pushes that memory away, leaning down to get on her level. "What's wrong?"
She pulls her hand away, and he sees blood, unexpected and brilliant red. He thinks she's hit her head, maybe stumbled coming out of the apartment, but looking closer, he can see it coming from her ear. He doesn't know much about first aid, but he knows this is something bad. "Hey, can you hear me?" he asks. She nods, her eyes squeezing shut as if in pain.
"I'm going to go inside and get you a towel or something for the blood, and then we need to go to the hospital, alright?"
She nods again, and so he enters her apartment. It's neat, almost as if they've just moved in. There's dishes drying in the rack, shoes by the door, but pretty much everything else is tucked out of sight. He grabs a towel from the same drawer where he keeps his own and brings it back out, locking the door on the way out.
"Here," he says, tucking it between her hand and her ear. It's not a lot of blood, there's no hemorrhaging, as far as he can tell, but any blood feels like too much.
"Did you kill them all?" she asks, and he doesn't know what she's talking about. She needs to get up, to come with him to the lobby so he can call a car to take them to the medical center.
"Who?" he asks. He thinks of the children in the City Center in the Capitol, their faces charred, their limbs missing.
"In the prison," she says, her voice a rasp. "Did you kill all the guards?"
"I- I don't know." He hadn't been expecting this question. He pulls her to her feet, then, once he's certain she can stand, starts leading her to the elevator. "There were 4 we killed, I think."
"There were 6," she says. "Two bald, one blonde, two with buzzed military cuts, and one with dark hair and a mustache."
"I really don't remember," he says, hitting the button for the lobby. He can't understand this path of conversation, but if she did have a brain injury, perhaps it is manifesting as a preoccupation with her captors.
He hails a cab once they're on the street outside the apartment, and she stops talking to him. "To the medical center, please," he tells the driver.
"Military or civilian?"
And that is how things are in District 2: your entire life divided between if you are in the military or not. "Civilian," he says, because he knows Johanna won't answer. She has the towel pressed to the side of her head and her eyes shut, and he has a feeling she's no longer paying attention to the car ride at all.
But the man seems undisturbed by his passenger, and drives through the busy streets of the district efficiently. "Not feeling well?" he asks. "I hear there's several winter bugs going around."
Gale debates what to say, how much of Johanna's personal business he should share. "This is an old injury, from the war," he says. She doesn't even flinch, perhaps she hasn't even heard him.
"Oh, I see," the driver says. "In that case, please do not worry about the cost of the ride. I hid during the war, too afraid for my life and the life of my daughter. Now, in peace time, the least I can do is give a ride to someone suffering."
"Did your daughter survive?" Gale asks, nervous.
"Oh yes," the driver says, smiling. "She finishes school this year. Brilliant girl."
They get out at the medical center and Gale thanks the driver. Johanna nearly loses her balance, but Gale comes around in time and helps her walk into the entrance, where a nurse notices her and helps her walk to a curtained section. "Jo, I've been worried about you," she chastises. Then noticing the towel, she peeks closer. "What's happened? Oh, Dr. Bishop isn't going to like this."
Johanna curls up on her side, obviously familiar with this nurse. The nurse is pretty, with her hair in two puffs and a name badge that says 'Nia'. She smiles at Gale before she exits the cubicle. "Oh, Jo, you never told me you were dating a soldier," she teases.
This, at least, gets a response out of Johanna, who barks "I'm not!" as Nia walks away.
"I can go, if you want," Gale says, unsure what to do, now that Johanna was safe enough. He feels redundant, crowding the room, invading her privacy, but it also feels rude to just walk away and leave her by herself.
"Can you do me a favor?" she asks. He looks over at her and sees her grip white knuckled on the rail of the cot where she's lying, and tear tracks on her face. He hadn't realized she was crying. He wonders if she turned away less because of the nurse's prodding, and more because of frustration, or shame that she kept returning here.
"Yeah, of course," he says. He's skipping out on work anyways, what right does he have to complain?
"Can you call the operator and ask for Antonia Weaver? One of her daughters will pick up. I was supposed to meet them today, to do their homework with them. Tell them I won't make it."
He goes to the lobby to make the call, and true to Johanna's word, a little girl answers the phone. "Hi, Ophelia," he says. "My name is Gale, I'm a friend of Johanna's. I am calling because she's sick today, we're at the hospital. So she can't come."
He hears the little girl go quiet, and then whispering on the other end of the line. Then the voice comes back, nervous now. "Is she going to die?"
"No," he says, before he even has time to think about it. "No, she's still sick from the war, but she'll be alright."
"My daddy died in the war," Ophelia says, in the way children say things that adults keep inside.
"I'm very sorry about your father," he says.
"He was a rebel, he helped end the war," another voice says. This must be the other sister. Gale had assumed the father was a Peacekeeper, and bites his lips now.
"You should be very proud." He catches sight of Nia going back to Johanna's area and something occurs to him. "Listen, Johanna really isn't feeling well. I'm sure if you made her a card or a picture, it would cheer her up."
The girls agree and he hangs up, but then he wonders about what he said. She wasn't going to die, right? There was no way… But he imagines something going wrong, some hemorrhage or aneurysm triggered by the assault in that prison, something that was latent, but deadly in the end. He thought he might leave, but he goes back, taking the seat beside the bed. The nurse has cleaned up the blood, and is reviewing something with Johanna on her terminal. He still sees it, some blood stains, on the collar of her shirt, and he tries to look at the nurse instead.
"Any double vision?" she asks.
"No, just that same blurriness."
"And last one, taking all the medications as prescribed?"
"Yes, if I ever forget, Enobaria doesn't."
"Alright, Dr. Bishop should be right in."
Gale swears the nurse winks at him before she leaves this time, and again he's left alone with Johanna. "I called the girls. They were worried."
She nods. He supposes it was a bit much to expect a thank you from Johanna of all people. "Are you flirting with Nia?" she asks. "Because I don't care, I just want to know."
This, of everything, assures him that she's feeling at least a little better than when he first encountered her, because she had been incapable of any of her usual scathing remarks then. "I mean…" he won't admit to it, but she's the first woman he's seen in District 2 that's piqued his interest, who's made him not think about Katniss or the war or anything else, and just want to ask her on a date.
"She's single," Johanna whispers.
"Come here often?" he teases back.
The curtain opens to reveal a stern-looking doctor in a white coat, and she sits on a stool and comes to the bedside opposite where Gale is sitting. "Welcome back," she says, a little sarcastically.
"My brain came out of my ear," Johanna says, her tone even flatter.
"Well, not exactly, but we can get into that. Do you want your friend to stay, or do you want some privacy?"
Johanna looks at Gale, considering. "I really don't mind, since you've seen some absolute bullshit, but would you go back and tell Enobaria where I am?"
He nods, finding himself surprisingly relieved to not have to hear about Johanna's brain coming out of her ear. "Do you think you'll be here overnight?" he asks.
She looks to the doctor, who nods. "Just one night, by my guess."
When he gets home, he waits in the lobby for Enobaria. Part of him feels like it would have been less stress to just stay at work, but then he imagines Johanna, stuck in the hallway for what? hours? Someone would have helped her, he assures himself. Unless they were a loyalist or hated all these newcomers to District 2 or they just wanted to mind their own business or….
In the end, he realizes it's for the best it happened the way it did, and when he catches sight of Enobaria coming off of the tram on the way home, he stops her on the way to the elevator, even though he knows she'll be annoyed. "I need to talk to you," he says.
"What?" she nearly snaps.
"It's about Johanna."
She softens, immediately, and her expression changes to concern. "What happened? Where is she?"
He can see that she's tired, from the way she had been sagging a bit from her usual stiff posture as she got off the tram, and there is mud coating her boots. But she stands straight now, all fatigue gone from her bones. "She's at the clinic, they're keeping her overnight. It's alright, I think-"
"You think?"
"It's alright," he says. "She was joking when I left her."
Enobaria glances to the elevator, then back to Gale, as if trying to decide how much tolerance she has for him. "Let's go get dinner," she says, "And you can tell me what happened."
They sit on the patio at the tavern a block away, him drinking ale, her red wine, and eating whatever stew was on special that night, and he explains what happened: about how he found Johanna, about the ride to the clinic, about how he called the girls, who he learns are Enobaria's nieces. She listens with her usual hostile attitude, perforated only for a few seconds as she takes another sip of wine.
"Thank you," she says, after he's done explaining. "I don't think she would have made it there on her own."
"She'll be alright, yeah?" He feels nosy asking, but also feels entitled to a little information, after his help today.
Enobaria shrugs. "They said it will be more or less like this forever," she says, and her expression stays the same, but he can hear the bitterness in her tone. "But this is new, so maybe it's getting worse, actually."
He is reaching a boiling point, and he is trying to hold it back, but he can feel his grip almost white-knuckled on his fork, and he doesn't think he can stand it anymore. "Why do you hate me?" he asks. "Aren't we on the same side?"
Now she quirks an eyebrow, in that most irritating way of hers. "And what side is that?" she asks.
He wants to shout 'The rebels!' He wants to shake her by the shoulders and remind her of the rebellion, but he dares not do something so bold in the middle of District 2. And that's the crux of it, he realizes. She is born and raised District 2, always one foot in the rebellion and one foot out. She was only brought to District 13 because she had been captured by the Capitol at the end of the Games alongside the actual rebels, a reluctant addition to their forces. He tries to reel himself back in. "Didn't we fight alongside each other at the end of the war?" he asks.
"We did," she concedes, eerily calm, almost as if she's prepared for this conversation, "But we're not the same. I'm grateful for the rescue from that prison, but what are you doing now? You're helping the same people that put me through hell, who were this close to killing Jo!"
"I'm not!" he says, a little too loud, but he's feeling defensive. "That's not what I'm doing at all. The Peacekeepers bombed by District, they came for my people, too! I know what they're like!"
"And what are you doing about it?" she shoots back.
And what is he doing about it? Paylor wants progress, she wants them to put their differences behind them for unity, but what about those people who had bombed and murdered in cold blood and raped and tortured? They were still slinking around in the military, weren't they?
Enobaria lets him sit in his silence, and then she moves in for the kill. "Johanna is terrified that those men escaped the prison, that they're coming here, or that they already live here," she says. "She's afraid for me, for herself, for my nieces."
The conversation from earlier comes back to him, when she was trying to get him to tell her how many of the guards were confirmed dead. He had thought it was confusion, or a memory issue, but now he sees that it was just her anxiety about the dangers of living near the unchecked military. "I can look into it," he says, wondering how, exactly, to start.
She smiles thinly, her piece said. "I don't hate you," she says. "But I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye. I don't understand why you want to go back to the military, why the war didn't show you why it's time to get away from that."
He shrugs. "It's the only place I felt like I belonged, I guess. People might disagree, but we did end the war. It felt like the right thing."
Two days later at work, there's a knock on his office door, and a somewhat familiar face appears. It's Lyme, he remembers, with delayed recognition, they had met during the war while he was here with Katniss.
"Hello," he says, standing to greet her. She's tall, with that same straight-backed posture of Enobaria, and distantly he remembers that she was a Hunger Games Victor also, though he doesn't remember her Games.
"Hello. Gale, right?" she asks. It's odd, to use his first name in a military setting, but he sees she's dressed more casually, that she must have a civilian job.
"Yes. Lyme?"
She nods. "I… wanted to stop by, because I ran into Enobaria, and she said you've been struggling with this military project. I wanted to offer my assistance, if there's anything you need."
He feels annoyed, in a way, that Enobaria pities him enough to go and tell Lyme that he is failing at his job, but he imagines that from her perspective, her obligation is to her District, to its safety and rebuilding, and so if Gale fails at his job, than all of District 2 is in danger. He tries to swallow his pride and accept the offer for what it is: after all, Lyme had been an excellent resource during the war.
"I feel like it is impossible, there's no way to get the District 13 soldiers and the District 2 soldiers to combine. There's not even a good way to get all the District 2 soldiers to get along anymore, since many of them supported the rebels during the war."
She nods, coming to sit in the chair across from his desk. "If it was me, I would have two priorities," she says. "You need to get the bad eggs out. The ones who are upset about how the war turned out. The instigators, the war criminals. Those guys have to go."
He thinks about Johanna's concern over the prison guards, but the memory catches on the words 'war criminals'. Because what about him? He designed a plan to bomb children and medics, a plan specifically to bomb children and medics, and it had been executed. It had worked - the war was over, but what about him?
"And the second?" he asks, throat dry.
"You need incentives," she says. "Why should they care about the new government? Why should they get along? They're soldiers. They'll get behind the new government if there's cash, if there's better housing, if there's more leave days. If it's a better deal for them, then they will sign on. In my opinion, you need them all to sign new contracts as part of a new military. You can acknowledge the old, but moving forward, they are one."
He nods, understanding her logic. "You didn't want this job?" he asks.
"Hell no," she laughs, leaning back a bit. "I'm fine with organizing the rebuilding projects. It's interesting that they picked someone not from District 2, though," she says. "The people here are… particular."
"It's not unlike District 13," he says. "Lots of schedules and forms and precision. I think I'm getting the hang of it."
"Where do you think we learned it?" she says. "Anyways, I'm sure you'll figure it out, and then they'll praise you, and give you an even worse, harder job. That's how it goes."
"Hey… how would you go about picking out the bad eggs?" he asks, curious now.
She smiles, leaning forward again. "Well, let's think about it."