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Johanna is starting to get the hang of things at the clinic a few weeks in. She's still clumsy and slow - dropping things because her brain and her muscles don't sync up, or stumbling when the impulses of pain hit her in just that right way - and she takes more sick days than she'd like, laying at home with the pillow over her head in the darkness of the bedroom she shares with Enobaria, but she understands the job now. She knows the most common medications, and knows the supplies as well, so she can fetch things without asking for clarification. She can use the terminal for scheduling or sign-in, and she can prepare and clean rooms. They even have her doing minor procedures, like vaccines or eye tests or throat swabs, and she can manage them without incident.
It's all fine. She even works a little later into the afternoon for the last couple weeks since she and Enobaria aren't taking any risks, going on any outings, at least until they know the guard has been arrested. It's frustrating, not going to dinner, going to the market at the buttcrack of dawn, only hosting Antonia and the girls at their apartment instead of going to see them daily, but she's endured far worse in the Capitol and the arena, so she can tolerate it, telling herself it's only temporary.
It's about 9:30 in the morning, not long after she's arrived to the clinic, when the klaxon horn begins to shriek. It's insidious, first a low hum, but it grows louder in intensity and volume until she understands what she's listening to: an alarm, some kind of siren alerting her to danger. It ebbs back to quiet, before revving up again, droning in and out in long, minute-long waves that give her chills and fill her with dread the same way that being in the arena did.
The war was over. There were no more Games. She wracks her brain trying to think of anything that could cause such a panic that it required a District-wide alarm, but draws a blank. A natural disaster, perhaps, but the sky outside is clear and blue, there's barely any wind.
"What's happening?" she asks Nia, but she just shrugs, moving to the front windows to try to look out towards the tram stop. They can't see much past there, but there doesn't seem to be anything happening in their view.
One of the Healers, Justinian, is messing with the radio, trying to find a station with some news, some update about the alarm. The other nurse, Polly, is checking on the people already admitted, those who have been there overnight, after taking report from the night staff. Dr. Bishop had been reviewing charts, but Johanna watches her pick up the remote of the television in the waiting room and try to find a channel with some information.
"-some sort of attack pods" the radio cuts in abruptly. Justinian turns the volume up and the four of them, all but Polly, gather around it, listening in. "Possibly Capitol in origin, at least, there are Capitol insignia on the outside." It's a male voice speaking, likely a solider. "They trigger open, and then weapons and mutts come out. Deadly things."
Johanna is familiar with the pods, she had watched them as the Star Squad encountered them in the Capitol back when they were still being filmed in the beginning of their mission. What they were doing in District 2, months after the war, however, she has no idea.
Another voice comes on the broadcast, this one a serious sounding female. "We have reports of at least 3 dangerous areas in District 2. Center City near the market district, West Village near the Hospital, and Academy District, near the old Career building. Please avoid these areas, and do not leave your homes until the state of emergency has been lifted. If you are at work or on an errand, please stay where you are, it is not safe to travel. If you are in need of rescue, please dial the emergency line for an escort."
There was a pod near the hospital. Worse, there was a pod in the city center, near where she lived with Enobaria. Certainly Enobaria wouldn't risk coming home, she would obey the order and stay at the vineyard outside the city, but just the thought of it makes her nervous. What about Ophelia and Camellia? Were they at school? There was one near the Academies as well.
"We need to prepare for mass casualties," Justinian says, bringing Johanna back to the present. "We have to assume people are going to get hurt."
Johanna nods, buffetted along by the instruction. It feels nice to have a mission, to have someone tell her what to do. She sets aside her worry and begins doing as she is told: setting up every clinic room, sterilizing tools, preparing bandages and suture kits.
"Did you see one of these before?" Nia asks her. They're side by side, folding linens, and Johanna shakes her head.
"I didn't go to the Capitol until the war was all over," she says. "My friend, though…" She pauses, unsure of how to say it. Her fingers dig into the crisp white sheet she's supposed to be smoothing. "He was there, and one of the mutts… it killed him." To be honest, she's not exactly sure how it happened, since she wasn't there, but to hear Enobaria tell it, it was fairly gruesome.
"Oh wow, the Capitol can just come up with nightmarish stuff," Nia says. "Sorry about your friend."
Johanna thinks this is the understatement of the year, but she doesn't want to get into that. "We got someone!" Polly calls from the front, a welcome distraction.
A few people come in, actually. There is a man with a heavily bleeding arm, a couple young women with burn wounds, and a little girl who stumbles in looking like she is trying to keep herself from crying. Polly takes the man to prep him for Dr. Bishop, while Nia takes the girls and does the same for Justinian, and Johanna has no choice but to lead the child back to an empty room. "My name is Johanna," she says.
"I'm Claudia," the girl says, sniffling. She looks to be maybe 5 or 6 years old, and is holding her arm awkwardly.
"Can you tell me what hurts?"
"My arm, and my knee."
Johanna hadn't noticed the knee, but it is dark red, a scrape that had bled and now dried up a bit. Her arm hanging awkwardly is more concerning, likely a dislocated shoulder. "What happened to your arm?" she asks. She leads the girl to the examination table, helping her up with her uninjured arm.
"Was running away from the scary thing, and then I fell. Someone pulled me back up, but then my arm hurt."
So she just got pulled up too hard by the arm, a well-intentioned gesture that went awry in the panic of running away from a pod. Johanna remembers Nia telling her that children's joints are flexible, that it's easy to slip them back into place if you're gentle and patient, so Johanna knows what she has to do, she is just nervous. "Lay back and close your eyes," she tells Claudia. "Tell me about your best friend."
Claudia launches into a speech about her friend from school, and Johanna gently moves her arm up and back towards her collarbone. She tries again, pulling forward a bit this time, and then there is a sick feeling drop as the bone seems to slide back into place, the limb pulling out of her grip and back to where it belongs. She lets Claudia continue to talk as she puts antiseptic on the knee wound, and then covers it with a bandage.
"All finished," she says. "Let's go back out front. Is there someone you can call to pick you up when it's safe to go outside?"
Claudia nods. "My daddy. He's at work right now. He left me at the tram stop to go to work but then… but then…" she finally gives into tears as she remembers whatever came out of the pod, something with blades and flames, it seems. She runs to Johanna for a hug and Johanna hugs her back, and she doesn't bother to ask where Claudia's mom is or why she has to stand at the tram stop alone at her age because those answers are obvious.
"It's alright. The soldiers are going to take care of the bad things, and then your daddy's going to pick you up and take you home."
Johanna feels a strange pang of grief for her family that she hasn't felt in years. The realization that no one would come for her sets in, the knowledge that there was no one waiting for her back in 7, that all of her 'family' is just her spending time with Enobaria's family. But Enobaria was there, as she had been since the end of the Games. She has Enobaria, and it is enough. Claudia wipes her face and they return to the front to call her father.
Justinian and Polly decide to go out, to try to bring back anyone injured who can't make it into the clinic, and to treat people on the streets. Johanna packs them bags full of bandages, suture kits, antibiotics and antiseptics, bleeding control kits, and plenty of water. "We need pain medication," Justinian says, checking her list of the bag's inventory.
She feels stupid. She's in pain all the time, how could she forget painkillers for people who have been attacked by a literal Capitol death robot? She fetches pain medication from the supply room, adds it to the inventory, and puts it in the med pack in the backpack. "Great, thank you." She realizes that Justinian hadn't been chastising her before, just giving her a reminder.
When the other two leave, it's just Johanna, Nia, and Dr. Bishop left at the clinic. People come in waves, mostly burn wounds, and Johanna manages the room turnovers, keeping the equipment sterilized, and runs and grabs more supplies and medications for the doctor and nurse. It's tiring, and by the time she next checks, it's afternoon. The siren is no longer ringing, but the television and radio are still reporting a state of emergency, so she assumes everything is not yet handled.
She calls her apartment between waves of patients. She and Enobaria don't have a phone, but there's one in the lobby. The desk attendant picks it up, and she asks the man to put a note on their apartment door, telling Enobaria she's safe and still at work, in case she arrives home first. He agrees, and she feels better, knowing Enobaria will call the clinic if she sees the note. Johanna wonders how long this will last, if things will be back to normal by evening.
She imagines a worse scenario, where more pods get dropped, where there is an insurrection, loyalist soldiers fighting against the others, a continuation of the civil war. She feels incredibly isolated then, and tries to stop speculating, focusing on her work. She knows she needs to be precise - the last thing she wants to do is mess up someone's medication dosage, or spread infection because she didn't sterilize a room well.
"You alright?" Nia asks, catching Johanna double checking the medications she's pulling from the supply room.
Johanna nods. It's about the time she usually goes home, but that's not an option today, and it's an emergency, she can't just… stop working.
"You should take a break. Have you eaten anything yet?"
Johanna shakes her head. She should eat something, but she didn't plan to stay this long, so she didn't bring her own medications, so her nausea is kicking up again. She supposes she can just take one from the supply; it is an emergency, after all. "Yeah, I guess I'll take a break," she says.
"Good," Nia says, taking over Johanna's supplies. "I wonder if Gale is alright out there." She says this almost rhetorically, not really asking for Johanna's opinion, but it was obviously meant for Johanna, since she was the only one on staff to know Gale.
The thought that Gale could have caused something like this occurs to her, then, but she doesn't dare say it aloud, not in front of his girlfriend, and really, how could she accuse him of treason on just a suspicion? But once the seed is planted, it grows, distracting her from her Nia, from her work, until it's all she can think about. "He'll be alright," she assures Nia, because it's Gale, he was always alright. In the bombing of District 12, in the fall of the Nut, in the battle of the Capitol. Plenty of people died, but Gale always came out alright.
She goes out back, and finds the carton of cigarettes and lighter that Justinian tucks into the hollow of a cinder block. She wonders if maybe she shouldn't go outside at all, but she hasn't felt fresh air in hours, and it is nice to feel sunshine and the wind on her after smelling singed skin and antiseptic and hearing people moan and yell in pain all day. She accepts the risk: she's three feet from the door to the clinic: heavy and metal, and she can dart inside and bolt it shut if she sees some crazy weapon come around the corner. She's been in the arena twice, she has at least a small amount of danger tolerance.
She lights the cigarette and lets the smoke fill her lungs. The tobacco is fair at best: maybe from District 11 or 12, not the good stuff they have in 7, but she hasn't smoked in so long that it feels heady and nice when she exhales. She doesn't plan to pick it up as a habit again; she doesn't want the cough or the hit to her stamina when she's already useless with the symptoms from her head, but once in a while, it feels so good.
She thinks about Gale again, just considering. Could he have done this? It certainly seems possible, if only because at its core, this attack feels like the bombing in the Capitol at the end of the war. A weapon with Capitol insignia that might not actually be Capitol, innocent people hurt as casualties (Johanna hopes no one has died, but she has no idea). In the Capitol bombing, the medics and soldiers who came in at the end to help were a symbol of hope and unity… and then it clicks. Gale had been trying to unite all the soldiers. Had he deployed weapons they had to fight to make them work together? It all seemed so silly, so pointless, to make up danger, to hurt innocent people, just to make the military get along, that she almost discards it as a hypothesis. Almost.
The door opens to the back of the clinic, and to Johanna's surprise, Dr. Bishop steps outside. Her normally crisp white coat is stained with blood, and she's sweating a bit. She nods at Johanna and Johanna offers her a cigarette, but Dr. Bishop shakes her head. "I am a Healer," she says, but there's no bite in her tone. She sips from a cup of water and sits down on the rusted metal chair behind the clinic. Johanna wants to point out that Justinian is a Healer and these were his cigarettes, but she feels far too exhausted to argue. The day was long and it wasn't yet over.
"You're doing well. You stay calm under pressure," Dr. Bishop says, recovering a bit with the rest and the water. She leans back a bit, closing her eyes and listening to the crickets and birdsong. There is no noise of the trams, no sounds of haggling at the nearby shops, no sounds of humans at all. Distantly, Johanna can hear a popping noise that could be gunfire, but she tries to tune it out, because to consider it would be to consider Antonia and the girls, to think about where Enobaria is, and she cannot reckon with that while she's still trying to do her job at the clinic.
"I mean… it's like being in the Games," Johanna says, because in a way it is, only a lot easier. "You don't really get a choice, you just do it."
Dr. Bishop smiles, but it's not the pitying smile that some people gave her after considering her experience in the Games. It's a proud, satisfied smile. "You'll do well as a Healer," Dr. Bishop says. "And in District 2. Just keep facing things head-on like that." She pokes Johanna's ear lobe where the double gold hoops sit, and Johanna instinctively straightens her back, trying to stand in the same perfect posture that Enobaria and the doctor always maintain. She wonders if she's ever been acknowledged like this before, told that she could really accomplish something, and comes up empty.
Justinian became a Healer the untraditional way: by working in the clinic and taking his exams after years of study and supervised practice on all of his competencies. He didn't attend medical training school. There's no reason she couldn't do the same, Johanna just assumed she couldn't because she was well… on the same level as Camellia in most school subjects.
The door cracks open again, and Nia pops her head outside. "Hey, they're back," she says, and Dr. Bishop stands, straightening out her coat. Johanna puts the butt of the cigarette in the ash tray, and they both go back inside.
Polly and Justinian have taken off a mask and goggles, and the parts of their faces that hadn't been covered are dyed in red dust and dirt. They look exhausted, and are sitting on the waiting room chairs, sipping water and eating snacks from the break room. There's two women that Nia is leading back to clinic rooms with severe burns, and one soldier on a stretcher that Polly and Justinian have obviously carried in on a stretcher. He's bleeding badly, with some damage to his abdomen, and Dr. Bishop goes to him first.
"Johanna, bring me a cauterization kit and a bleeding kit," she says.
Johanna does as she is told, but she stops, standing a few feet away from the man, because he has a military haircut and a mustache. She almost turns and runs away, and then reconsiders. Maybe she should slam his head into the ground. Maybe she should plunge her fist into the damage in his abdomen, make him bleed more, and faster. "Johanna!" Dr. Bishop says, impatiently, and Johanna finishes her task, back on autopilot.
She stands nearby, pretending to watch the doctor work, but really, she's staring at the soldier, willing him to open his eyes, willing him to recognize her. What are the chances? What is the chance that they get one soldier all day, and it's the one who tortured her during the war? She wants to kick him in the head. That's for Enobaria! She wants to yell. How could you do that to someone from your own District? Someone on your side?
"It's too much, too fast," the doctor is saying. Justinian comes by to assist, and they talk in low voices to themselves.
"-they had left him," he says. "I don't know, he was abandoned by his own troops, was begging for help."
Johanna's hands are shaking. Did they know? Did his own unit know what a horrible person he was and leave him to die? She wants to beg the Healers to stop, tell them that he's not worth saving, but Dr. Bishop had just told her she would be a good Healer, and how could she ever live up to that if she decided who lived and who died?
"Johanna, hold this here, keep the pressure," Justinian instructs. Johanna does as she is told, but she can see how pale the soldier is. She doubts that even with a transfusion, they would be able to save him.
Somehow, just then, he opens his eyes, a little confused, but he locks onto her. They're still in the lobby, both Healers scrambling right behind her to try to save this man's life. He widens his eyes, recognizing her. He writhes, and she uses her free hand to try to settle him, but he's probably twice her size.
"Please be still, you're going to bleed out!" Justinian says. Johanna can feel blood soaking through the pack she's holding against his abdomen, and as she leans over him, it gets onto her uniform.
But he won't settle. He sees her and becomes more and more upset, but she knows she can't remove her hand, either. He reaches toward her, and she thinks he's going to hit her, or slam her head into the floor or do something horrible, but he doesn't even have strength left, and he grabs onto her shoulder with a baby's grip, maybe just confirming that she isn't a ghost. He's dead 5 minutes later. It feels like hours.
When the state of emergency is finally declared over, the sun is setting. Johanna's head is pounding, she's both hungry and nauseous, and desperately anxious to know that Enobaria is alright. The second shift staff comes in about thirty minutes after the all clear, and Justinian offers to walk Johanna home.
"I'll be alright," she assures him. "I made it through two Games."
But he insists, and he does live near her, so they set off together. The trams are still down, and the walk is rather far, so they move slowly, and she finally sees the destruction that's happened in the past few hours. There are bullet holes in the sides of buildings, blood in the streets, and metal carcasses of what she assumes are the Capitol weapons here and there along their path.
"Don't you have anyone to get home to?" she asks. She realizes as soon as she says it how rude it sounds, especially with how much everyone has lost in the war, but he smiles lightly, lighting a cigarette and handing it to her, then lighting one for himself.
"I live with my mom," he says. "She's old now, so she doesn't leave the house, so I'm sure she was safe today, so long as a bullet didn't fly in through our third floor window, but she's good with her pistol in a pinch," he says.
"She's probably worried about you," Johanna says.
"I called her, it's alright."
They walk on in silence a bit longer, until Johanna can't take it anymore. "Do you think this was Capitol?" she asks.
"I've never left 2," he says. "You're the one who lived there, is this something they would do?"
It doesn't feel like something they would do, but she was captured or sick through most of the war, so what does she know? "Lying is the thing that they do," she says. "At least before the war. So whatever the reason put out is, it's probably a lie." She has a feeling that part of the Capitol probably didn't disappear overnight.
"Savvy," he says.
She says goodbye at the lobby and goes upstairs, but finds the note the desk attendant wrote still on the door. Enobaria hasn't come back to the apartment. She sees the picture hanging inside the front hall - the one Ophelia and Meli drew her when she was sick, and it makes her smile for the first time in hours, but then she feels a pang of nervousness again, hoping that they're safe. She goes back downstairs to use the phone and calls the operator to connect her to the vineyard. The old man tells her Enobaria left a couple hours ago. "The emergency declaration was still going on hours ago!" she says, not to yell at him, exactly, but she's afraid.
"I know, but she was insistent on getting back. I think she was afraid things would escalate instead of settle down."
She was probably concerned for Antonia and her nieces then, who Johanna knew had no weapons, no military training. She thanks the man and runs to Antonia's, the trip taking five minutes, but when she arrives she realizes how exhausted she is, having nothing to eat all day, and almost no breaks. She almost drags herself up the stairs, and knocks on the door out of breath, sweat breaking out on her forehead.
Antonia peers out through the chain lock, then closes the door to remove it and opens the door fully. "Baria! Jo is here!" she calls. Enobaria comes to the door, then gasps.
"Are you hurt?" she asks.
Johanna shakes her head no, but then remembers the blood on her hospital uniform. "We had a lot of people at the clinic today, it's not my blood."
"Let me get you something to change into, and you can shower," Antonia offers.
"I didn't know where you were," Johanna says, as Antonia turns away.
"I'm sorry. I came back, and the roads were all blocked. This was the only way into town, and I called the clinic, but first it was busy, and then I got through but you had left. I figured once you saw I wasn't home you'd come here."
"Why would you leave before it was safe? You could have died!"
"I was worried about them," Enobaria says. "And you! I was so far away, what if something happened?"
It occurs to Johanna then that the trams weren't running. "Did you run all the way back?"
"The old man drove me to the edge of town, and I went the rest of the way on foot."
Antonia brings Johanna some clothes, and she showers, happy to wash the day off of herself. She wonders if her uniform will ever wash clean and assumes it will - that Nia and the others have probably gotten bloody on the job before. Enobaria is leaning against the counter in the bathroom when Johanna steps out of the shower.
"Antonia is heating up a meal for you," she says. "And she's waking up the girls to say goodnight. They were worried."
Johanna nods, drying off. "Oh. Baria!"
"Yeah?"
"He's dead."
"What?"
"That soldier. He's dead. I watched him die."
"What?"
She nods. Enobaria comes closer, until they're standing inches apart. "One of the Healers brought him in, badly injured. They couldn't save him."
Enobaria doesn't smile, or look sad, she just nods, accepting this information. "There is still one unaccounted for," she says.
It was true. Four confirmed dead in the prison, one dead today, and one… somewhere. But she feels lighter in one aspect, at least. In a totally horrible day, one thing had evened out.
Ophelia and Camellia are in their pajamas, and obviously had been sleeping, but there is a nervous, shaken quality to them that Johanna hates to see. She hugs them both, assuring them she is alright, that everyone is safe, and that she can come back and do homework with them again. This, especially, cheers them, and they go back to bed in a more cheerful mood.
Later, after eating her meal and filling in Antonia on the news and thanking her for her hospitality, Johanna walks home with Enobaria. "I'm sorry I scared you," Enobaria says. "I just thought… if this really does become another war… if there's bombs, if something insane happens, I don't want to be apart."
"You don't have to apologize, I understand. I'm glad you're alright." Johanna wonders if she should tell Enobaria her thoughts about Gale, about the Capitol weapons being a trick, like the bombs were. She probably will, she decides, because she tells Enobaria absolutely everything, but maybe not tonight. "Hey, I forgot to tell you. Dr. Bishop said I would make a good Healer someday."
"I told you!"
"You did." Johanna smiles. It's bizarre to walk around wreckage in her neighborhood and smile, but she and Enobaria are safe, their family is safe, tomorrow they can work on repairing everything. "I love you." The words slip out unrehearsed, thoughtlessly, and she makes no effort to take them back.
"I love you too."