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Johanna stands on the stage between Haymitch and Enobaria, waiting for Katniss to kill Snow. She is dizzy, rushed to the Capitol for this public event, and no one had accounted for meals and sleep and other important basic needs, and she hurt, fuck, she hurt every damn second from the torture in that Capitol dungeon, and now that she is back near the scene of the crime, her body felt even more sensitive.
And Finnick is dead.
That fact sits like a weight in her chest that threatens to make her collapse at any moment. Every time she even comes close to touching the thought in her mind, she tries to push it away, to deal with it just a little later, because she can't possibly deal with never seeing Finnick again, never touching Finnick again, never speaking to Finnick again.
A few down from her in line, after Enobaria and Beetee, stands Annie Cresta, pregnant with Finnick's child. Johanna's hands tremble. Haymitch reaches behind - the only angle there aren't cameras on them - and squeezes her shoulder.
She turns back to Katniss, who looks weighed down with her own grief. It was her sister who was killed in the bombings, the sweet little girl everyone in District 13 was fond of. Johanna knew the bombing that killed Primrose Everdeen wasn't Capitol, that it was a District 13 plan to build anti-Capitol sentiment, or at least strongly suspected it, and she thought Katniss did as well, from the way she keeps shooting looks at Coin where she stands surveying the scene from a balcony, a queen in her tower.
But Katniss is here as Mockingjay, as Victor, as executioner, her final act as a symbol of the rebellion, and Snow is here as a pig for the slaughter. Johanna is just here to bear witness, which sounds easy, but it feels as if she has hundreds of pounds on her shoulders, and perhaps she does, all of the weight of the children she killed in the arena, all of the tributes she failed to Mentor to victory in the years since.
And then it all goes to hell.
At the last moment, Katniss turns, her hand unsteady, her eyes filled with grief, and she shoots her arrow up at the balcony. At Coin. There's a collective gasp in the crowd, someone screams, and Coin disappears from view as she falls behind the rail. A soldier springs to action beside her, aiming a rifle back at Katniss.
And then Coin stands, her shoulder bleeding, the arrow still protruding, but a defiant expression on her face.
Johanna moves at the same time as Haymitch, both of them rushing forward on the stage. She knows Haymitch is running to the Mockingjay. He always has, and he always will. But she sees Snow, alive through the chaos, sees an open chance to kill the man who made her life hell, and she's not going to waste it.
She choked a boy larger than her with her bare hands to win her Hunger Games, and she uses her hands again now to grasp Snow's neck, to squeeze the life out of him. She can feel blood drip out of his mouth and ooze over her fingers, and her grip starts to slip, but she holds on tighter, determined to kill this man. There's chaos beside her, the crowd now agitated with Coin's attempted murder, her unplanned murder, and whatever is happening with Katniss.
She assumes Haymitch is with her, keeping her from getting killed. She knows Katniss wants to die, can feel it in Katniss's very essence. But she can't look in that direction, can't even look into the shouting crowd, pressing forward. She has to finish her task. Has to do just one thing to make the world a little more right, has to balance the scales a little bit since Finnick died.
And then she feels Snow slacken, feels the way his body sinks against her. She lowers him to the ground, but still she doesn't let go, fearful of a situation where she releases him and he gasps in a bloody new breath, resurrected and revived, ready to rule again. She has to be absolutely sure.
Finally, she sees the pulse in his temple go absolutely still, and she lowers him to the ground on the stage. There are two soldiers behind her. They're from District 13, her comrades mere minutes ago. Now they have their guns at the ready as they approach her. She can feel bile rising in her throat, a defiance raging. They wouldn't dare, would they?
Other soldiers have moved into the crowd, rounding up people, preventing a stampede, checking for concealed weapons. She looks around wildly, trying to find Katniss and Haymitch. Both are gone. Haymitch is gone, he's left her.
She falls to her knees, suddenly exhausted. She did it, she fucking killed Snow, and Haymitch still left with Katniss, he still chose Katniss, and it's just like the 75th Games all over again. She sees Enobaria, the only one to remain near her on stage, and when their eyes meet, she knows she's thinking the same thing, knows she's remembering their capture after the Quarter Quell.
It's Enobaria who steps forward to help her up, and the soldiers, after glancing to make sure the crowd is handled, address them. "You're to come with us, to the council chambers."
Johanna had been expecting the dungeon where they kept her last time, or some sort of prison at least, but she finds herself in a room with a horseshoe-shaped table, several chairs, and a wall of windows that look down on the Capitol from several stories up.
She, Enobaria, Annie, Peeta, and Beetee are there, and Katniss and Haymitch are conspicuously absent. The soldiers that led them there are just outside the door, and presently they are joined by Plutarch Heavensbee, Fulvia Cardew, and Alma Coin herself.
She has a bandage on her shoulder, and her arm is supported in a sling, but she walks with purpose into the room, and sits at the head of the table. "Thank you for attending," she begins, as if they had any choice. "As you can see, the war is over. The Capitol has fallen. It is time to rebuild. I want to create the impression of stability as soon as possible, so it's important to start planning now, and showing every district how our changes are improving Panem."
Johanna bites her lip, uncomfortable with the fact that no one is acknowledging the assassination attempt, or the missing Victors. But Coin just plows on. "I gathered you all to place you all where you think you are suited best: here in the Capitol, or in another District. I can't decide for you."
The offer sounds too kind, and they all pause. They have never been given choices. It's Beetee who speaks first. "If I may, a lot of the districts need help repairing their communications networks. I would like to make a mobile team to travel district to district to help with this."
Fulvia takes notes fervently. Coin considers this and nods. "We would benefit from a communications council. That sounds good. Please, start in 12 and work your way back. And send in reports at each district."
Annie raises her hand next. "I want to have my baby near the sea," she says. "If there's something you want me to help with in 4, I'm sure I can manage."
Coin nods to this as well. "Certainly. We can send you out tomorrow on the train."
She looks at the rest of them, sitting in a line. Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria. Along with Annie, they're all the Victors captured by the Capitol after the Quarter Quell. At least for Johanna, it's uncomfortable to stay here, but what is there to go back to? Coin seems to pick up on this and continues. "If you stay, I am hoping to replace some of the councilor positions. Eventually, I would like to hold elections, but I need to fill the positions until I can get the elections set up."
Now, Peeta speaks, stuttering a bit at first, but gaining confidence as he goes. "I'll stay. I- I'd rather help here than go back to 12 right now."
Johanna wants to stop him - some old instinct from Snow's regime that the Capitol is always going to lead to exploitation, but she murdered Snow with her bare hands, so she holds her tongue.
Fulvia documents this, and then Plutarch speaks. "Excellent. We will need help with getting industry back - I think you could help a lot with that. Though if you would prefer to help with transport or education or-"
"Industry is fine, I am happy to help," Peeta manages, blushing a bit.
Then it's just Enobaria and Johanna, and although Johanna never got along with Enobaria before, she feels strangely fond of her now. There is something in the way she can see through the charades of the Capitol and the rebellion, something in the way she stood behind Johanna after she murdered Snow that makes feel like an ally. Finnick is dead. Haymitch abandoned her. Peeta is a friend but he's almost ten years younger. She wants someone remotely familiar to her.
Finally, Enobaria speaks. "We can visit home if we stay, right? I do want to help, but I have family in 2."
And Plutarch is his usual gracious self. "Of course. Anyone can travel between the districts and the Capitol, provided they have a pass for work or leisure."
"Then I'll stay."
Fulvia documents this, and then all eyes are on Johanna, the last undecided person in the room. She thinks of 7, her quiet, cold home, and she doesn't want to go back. Everyone is dead. But if she stays… "I killed Snow," she says, her voice weaker than she means it to come out. She killed the former president and no one is talking about it, telling her if she is going to face punishment or if the whole messy assassination would have any consequences at all.
And it's Coin who again speaks, walking over from the end of the table to stand right across from Johanna. She's smiling, more fully than Johanna has ever seen her. "You did. I was wrong about the Mockingjay, obviously. And she and Haymitch Abernathy have fled now, so I suppose I'll have to decide what to do about that. But you finished the task. You ended the oppressive regime we were under. You freed District 13 and began a new era. So I would be honored if you would stay."
Johanna is naturally dubious of anyone in power appealing to her, just as much as she would be to a threat, so she naturally wants to decline. But she fought so long to end Snow's rule, she fought so long for the rebellion, that now that the new administration is in power, she ought to make sure they're running it well, shouldn't she?
Katniss had tried to kill Coin. That fact rests on her like a pile of bricks. Had that just been retribution for her sister's death, or had it been for another reason, a distrust of Coin overall? Or was it all the same, really? Was Johanna too old and jaded to understand the cost of a single life, after all this time? She wishes she could ask Katniss, to understand why she shot that arrow, but that is treason now. She needs to stay and study, to try to understand. "Ok," she says at last. "I'll help."
He comes to her house in the Victor's Village after midnight during Katniss and Peeta's Victory Tour. She hates the Victory Tour and all its pompous show. Earlier in the day, she had smoked morphling cigarettes with Blight and Jackson to level themselves out before attending the stupid event. Just a few minutes ago, she'd smoked another, trying to get to sleep.
But now he's here, eyes red and muscles taut, no longer the tuned-out Mentor he was on the stage earlier, though if she was being honest, he seemed on-edge this afternoon as well. In all the years she's known Haymitch, it's the first time she's seen him outside of the Capitol, the first time she's been alone with him outside of the one-month-per-year prescribed Mentorship they both endure each Hunger Games. She thinks he's there to tell her about some rebel secret, something about the Quarter Quell and Plutarch's plan, and perhaps he is, but he surprises her in the way he closes the door and embraces her, the way his face buries into her neck, as if he can hide within her.
"Johanna," is all he says, the word a sigh, a prayer. He always uses her full name, and she drinks in the way he says it, as lovers.
"What?" she asks, pulling away cautiously, afraid of this affection, afraid something bad is following. She's never, never been offered kindness and caring without strings attached, she's almost trembling now.
Haymitch falls to his knees and she backs up a step, nearly tripping over herself to get him a glass of liquor. It's all she can think to do. Her movements are clumsy from the morphling, and she hands him the bottle instead, not risking spilling the alcohol everywhere.
"I thought you were dead," he says, his voice soft, as if he still can't believe she's there.
Perhaps he can't. Her house is almost empty, aside from a few essentials, tucked away in this snowy forest, and she's a zombie, gaunt from fear and living on morphling, tobacco, and Blight's charity. But she lives, certainly, and she moves closer again, letting him touch her thigh over her pants, and then slide his hand up and under her shirt, until his fingers press against the flesh of her stomach. "Still here," she confirms, kneeling down across from him.
He moves his hand to her neck, feeling along her collarbones, over the edge of her shoulder, and then tracing her jaw. "Seneca Crane was killed after the Games. The report said there was an accident, and a woman was there with him…"
Oh. She understands now. He's lived the last 6 months thinking Snow had killed her, thinking his Victors won but at the cost of her life. He had to wait until this stop in 7 to see that she was still alive. "You could have called," she says, turning to sit so her head falls back against his chest. "I'm no good for it, but Blight picks up the phone."
"It wasn't just the tabloid," he says. "I got a rose. I was so sure, I didn't even think to check."
She grabs his arms from his sides, pulling them around her. The house in 7 is unbelievably cold and dark, that she wonders why she tortures herself so: why she lets herself have one night of pleasure with Haymitch, because it will make every subsequent night of absolute loneliness so much starker in contrast. But eventually, they drag themselves to her bed, they fuck for the first time outside of the Capitol, and Johanna feels slightly less empty when he has to leave - like she has a little something to hold onto until they meet again in the Capitol in six months, some small bit of warmth to fill in the emptiness that threatens to consume her.
Johanna gets an apartment in a neighborhood walking distance from the council chambers. It's not the old councilors' neighborhood: those houses had been mansions, far gaudier, and she had been forced to enter them, forced into entertaining those men sexually under Snow, so it would be impossible for her to live there peacefully. It also didn't feel right to topple one government, just to take over the spot of those she spent so long opposing.
But it also didn't feel right to stay in the Training Center. The Hunger Games were over, and the building was far too large for just a couple of them to occupy. So she lives in the little apartment that was smaller than her cottage in 7, and down the hall is Peeta, and on the floor below is Enobaria. It isn't a large apartment, only three floors of four apartments each, and some remain unoccupied, and others filled with Capitolites getting their lives back together or District 13 soldiers, so it's a strange group, but Johanna mostly keeps to herself.
She is assigned to lead the reconstruction council, tasked with rebuilding the Capitol after the bombs, gunfire, deaths, and looting. It's not fun work, exactly, but it will be good to help her understand Coin's new government, to explore the Capitol more fully.
On her first day of work, she wakes with a heaviness she doesn't expect. The pain is there as always, sharp and shooting and everywhere, and it doesn't exactly fade as she sits up, she just manages to push it to the back of her mind long enough to light a morphling cigarette. But as she smokes, she sees the rope Finnick left behind in her compartment in District 13 and she dares to run her fingers over it. She touches it gently, afraid if she handles it too much the fibers will disintigrate, that she'll have nothing of him left. And naturally, she thinks of kissing him, in District 13, in the Capitol, even once in District 7, and remembers belatedly that he's dead. She feels like vomiting. She places the rope up on a bookshelf, where she won't be as tempted to touch it.
Once she finishes her cigarette, she brushes her teeth, brushing her hair into something resembling order. It's longer now, the longest wisps approaching her chin, though it's grown back uneven. She tucks it back, unsure of what to do with the awkward length. There is no one here to impress, after all. It makes her hand shake, a bit, thinking of how alone she is, how ridiculously isolated she feels. Their victory is pyrrhic, if this is the cost: a broken city and absolutely no one she can even share a drink with.
The second part proves to be false, as she can smell wine on Enobaria's breath even as she, Enobaria, and Peeta walk to the Council chambers. Enobaria was assigned to the transportation council, after refusing Plutarch's first recommendation of defense.
"Starting early?" Johanna teases, knocking into Enobaria lightly.
Enobaria rolls her eyes, but keeps walking toward the chambers. "No change from those we're replacing, I'd say," she replies, a small smile on her lips.
Peeta, for one, looks annoyed, but holds his tongue, perhaps respecting his elders. Johanna feels for him, perhaps more than most. Katniss ditched him. Katniss kept her intentions a secret from him, and then she fled the city and left him behind. Katniss's sister was killed in the bombing, but wasn't Peeta's whole family killed in the bombing of District 12? Wasn't Peeta tortured for secrets of the rebellion? It must sting, in the same way Haymitch leaving her stings.
When they arrive, Coin is there, along with Plutarch and several others, gathered around to fill in the council seats. They have a list of tasks that need to be completed, funding to be assigned to each task, and Plutarch has a media team to cover the propos for showing off the progress they're making. Johanna's team is in charge of clearing rubble, burying the dead, and assessing which buildings can be salvaged in the Capitol, District 2, and District 12 before next month's deadline.
At the end of the meeting, she does go to a tavern with Enobaria, and Peeta comes along. She invited him, in the end, seeing too much of a kindred spirit in him to let him wander off alone to mope. Enobaria drinks wine, Johanna white liquor, and Peeta gets the same. Enobaria eyes them both. "Only people in 12 like that," she suggests.
"You're right, I hate it," Johanna manages, taking a sip of the stinging drink. She always did prefer the amber.
"Are you going to go? To 12?" Peeta asks, asking the part Enobaria was too tactful to say out loud.
Johanna bites her lip. "I don't know." Because she doesn't. Katniss fled the scene of a crime - the attempted assassination of the leader of Panem - and Haymitch helped her escape. Presumably the two of them were in 12, but they wouldn't be coming anywhere near the Capitol anytime soon. But she wants to see them, she wants to know. "I need to do the work here and in 2 first."
And she does. It's awful, clearing rubble, just to find corpses beneath. Walking into a burnt out building just to encounter someone shot to death or perished from smoke inhalation. Finding a structure she thinks they can salvage, just to realize that some of the foundation is rotting out. She has a team she's working with, a pair of masons and a surveyor named West, Silke, and Powers - last names only, District 13 style - and they make their way through the Capitol in a grid-like pattern. At the end of each day, she tends to get dinner or a drink with Enobaria and Peeta, and the two of them seem to find their work equally as challenging.
Peeta is focusing on reestablishing trade and industry in the Capitol and the Districts, working with business owners, logistics specialists, and tradesmen. Coin wants to diversify the Districts - to have specialties, but also to make sure each district can provide more of its own essentials. And Enobaria is working with the railroad directors, the shipping companies, and with the highway authority for the people who used cars in the Capitol area.
Enobaria slumps over the table at dinner that night, in the back corner of their regular tavern. "There's boats. Why didn't we know there's boats?"
"What?" Peeta asks.
"On the rivers. They use them for transporting logs and some other raw materials to District 1."
Johanna perks up at this. "Oh yeah. But only in the summer. The boats can't dock in 7 in the winter because the port freezes over."
Enobaria looks up at her with a furrowed brow. "Seriously? I'm so unqualified for this."
"Why didn't you just take defense council like Plutarch wanted? You have got to know more about that, coming from 2," Johanna suggests.
Enobaria sips her wine, her fangs flashing for a moment before answering. "Because, if I was advising the military, I'd probably have to make a decision one day, something like what ended the war.
Johanna and Peeta both nod. It is true.
Eventually, they wander home, and Johanna falls into a fitful sleep, knowing the next day was another day of digging through rubble, another day of finding bodies well into decomposing, and another day of trying to decide if she was helping Panem recover from a terrible era, or begin a new one.
When they go to District 2, Johanna isn't sure what to expect. She's only been once - on her Victory Tour - which was ten years ago now, and since she'd never Mentored anyone to Victory, she'd never gotten to go on another Victory Tour before the Hunger Games were eliminated.
But now she rides the train with Enobaria to 2, the two of them tense. Johanna lights a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the open window. "You should stay with my family," Enobaria suggests.
Johanna pulls her knees up to her chest, unworried about her shoes on the train seat. "No, they gave us rooms." Her voice is unsteady as she says it, but she can't let Enobaria in too close. It's nice to have a friend, admittedly, if she can even call her relationship with Enobaria that. But there's a distance she is afraid to cross with the word 'family'.
Besides, she wonders if Enobaria is only suggesting such a thing to be polite. If Johanna is a poor replacement for Cashmere, just as Enobaria is a poor replacement for Finnick. They're both just trying to hold onto something they lost, the only familiarity from an era now gone, the only one who might understand the other, even though they hadn't been close back then. But Enobaria doubles down. "Please consider it. If the room they give you is bad… there was a lot of fighting in 2… and a lot of animosity towards the Victors."
"You think I can't handle myself?"
Enobaria just blinks at her, and for a moment, Johanna knows they're both remembering that night in the 68th Games when Johanna shoved that Capitolite man, when Johanna doomed her family to death, while Enobaria watched. "We're here as representatives of the government. I don't want any incidents," she finally says.
The work itself in District 2 is very similar to the work in the Capitol, except that instead of having masons and a surveyor, she is assigned several soldiers to help her with her tasks. Well that, and the fact that the civil war has devastated District 2 in ways that it hasn't in the Capitol. The Capitol had targeted bombings and areas of damage from the "pods" that attacked the rebels, but the fighting in District 2 was widespread, truly a civil war fought between the loyalists and the rebels of the district.
The major damage is to the hospital and the Nut, the latter of which might be beyond repair as the major tunnels built into the mountainside have collapsed, but there are also massive apartment buildings that have been damaged, schools and playgrounds that need to be repaired, and storefronts, restaurants, and groceries that need help. And the bodies - it's like the Capitol, but worse.
Some of the bodies have been removed, taken by families for burial rights, and others remain trapped under the rubble. Some stayed back to defend the Nut and remain trapped in the mountain, likely never to be extracted. Johanna spends the first day just making her grid of the District, and then collapses back in her assigned room exhausted at the end of the night, her body thrumming in pain.
She lights up a morphling cigarette and sips a glass of amber liquor, knowing she should go get dinner but far too tired to walk anywhere else, when there's a knock on her door. She remembers Enobaria's warning and considers ignoring it, but then she hears a soft "it's me", and does get up to answer. Even this movement burns, and Enobaria clocks the grimace on her face immediately as she steps inside.
"My sister-in-law made too much for dinner," she says, holding out a wrapped dish. "Are you ok?"
It's so domestic, Johanna wants to run away, but she is slowed by the morphling, and any time she thinks about pulling away, she remembers that Finnick is dead, so she better not do anything to ruin her tiny friendship with Enobaria, or else she'll probably end up dead in a ditch somewhere. "Fine," she answers, stepping back to let Enobaria in.
The room assigned to her is nice enough, a bed and a small sitting area, and she pours Enobaria her own glass of amber liquor before sitting across from her at the tiny table. It's dim in there, but Johanna never liked the bright lights, and it seems Enobaria doesn't mind it either. She unwraps the plate and hands it to Johanna - some sort of stew and flatbread, and it smells delicious, but Johanna is so bad at eating now, so bad at understanding hunger among the other pain and anxiety she feels in her gut every day, that she's let herself go without more often than she should.
Now, she takes a bite and realizes that this is the first she's eaten all day. "Thanks," she offers, between bites.
Enobaria just nods, sipping the drink as she watches Johanna eat. When she finishes, she tops off her drink, sitting back to enjoy the feeling of being full. And that's when Enobaria leans forward. "Are you going to go to 12?" she asks. It's the same question Peeta asked, but coming from someone older than Johanna, and in a private room, and in such a calm, quiet voice, it had an entirely different effect.
"I… I have to," she manages.
"Because you were assigned to go there, or because Haymitch Abernathy might be there?"
Johanna can feel her brow furrowing, and moves her gaze away. "He…"
And Enobaria seems to pounce on this. "He left. He chose a traitor, he chose treason. You cannot really intend to go and find him?"
Johanna sighs, because Enobaria isn't wrong about anything at all. "I only intend to go and do my job." She finishes her second glass in a long swig, and then continues. "Haymitch chose Katniss at the end of the Quarter Quell, and we got trapped in the Capitol dungeon. I understand why he made that choice, but… it hurt. It still hurts. Now he chooses her again at the assassination and maybe he has a reason, but I don't know it. I'm not going to swallow my pride and ask to be chosen for once."
Enobaria makes a little 'hmph' of approval, and settles back in her chair a bit. "Would you turn them in?" she asks.
The first question Johanna had more or less expected, but this one she is blindsided for. She knows the answer, but still she pauses, unsure if she should lie. "I hope I don't see them," she says instead.
Enobaria nods, finishing her own drink, but waves a hand away when Johanna offers to refill it. "I know what you mean," she says. "My brother and sister were on either side of this civil war. I was stuck in the Capitol, and then they sent me to 7. Part of me wishes I was here… to help, to do something. But what would I do? Either way I would be betraying someone."
When Enobaria finally walks home, Johanna tries to sleep. But her head is spinning from the alcohol, and her stomach is full for the first time in weeks? months? an unfamiliar but not entirely unpleasant feeling that makes it impossible for her to just fall asleep. So she gets up and walks around 2 in the dark, just for a bit, just to wind down.
She passes a huge quarry, and stops, gazing into the pit. It's dizzying, to see how far down into the earth they have dug, to see the dazzling swirls of color in the cuts of stone, even in the darkness. There's a fence, but even so, there's the pull of the void.
It's easier to live now in many ways: she isn't forced to have sex with anyone she doesn't want to, the Hunger Games are over, Snow is dead, she isn't living in some insane underground bunker. But it's still hard. There's so many dead, and others who just… were lost along the way. And she's so, so, so tired. She's been working at this for years, and now she has more work to do. Pulling out corpses, planning cities, being a fucking councilor? None of this was in her plan when she first decided to help the rebellion.
She never seriously thinks about jumping into the quarry, about letting her body smash into nothingness at the bottom, but it's comforting to know that it's there. She walks a bit further and comes along a plaque, beautiful marble with a bronze inset. "In memorium of Sicinius Weaver, all glory to a life set in stone. Sic semper tyrannis." Beneath were inscribed the dates of his birth and death, and at the foot of the memorial, various trinkets, such as flowers and photos. One catches Johanna's eye and she picks it up: a photo of Enobaria and an older man who resembles her. This has to be her father, Johanna realizes.
She rechecks the dates with a horrible, sinking feeling and confirms he died during the 68th Games. A consequence of her own misdeeds, almost certainly. Johanna places the photo down as gently as possible and walks back to her room, trying to remember if Enobaria had ever, ever, lashed out at her after that year. Johanna had certainly blamed Enobaria, had certainly ignored her and yelled at her and taken the blame she couldn't put on the Capitolites and sent it towards Enobaria, but she couldn't remember a single time that Enobaria had ever even told Johanna she'd gotten her father killed, let alone gotten retribution for it. She has half a mind to turn around and jump into the quarry, but somehow, she gets back into bed to lay down, unable to do anything.
Johanna goes out the next night, like a coward, afraid to face Enobaria. She doesn't know the area, doesn't know which neighborhoods to go to or avoid, so she just goes to a tavern across from a set of massive apartment buildings, hopeful that she can blend in alright with the crowd.
And it seems she can - there is a mixture of people in 2 right now: locals, runaway Capitolites, former Peacekeepers laying low - though they're distinctive with the way they hold themselves. There's also people missing limbs and with other major injuries from the war. She sees a couple Avox in the corner, using sign language. She orders white liquor and takes a seat in the corner, watching everyone come and go, watching the way so many people who would never be in the same room before the rebellion are in such close proximity, some of them singing drinking songs together.
"Johanna?"
She's interrupted, before long, by Gale Hawthorne. He takes the seat across from her at the high-top table without an invitation, an ale in his hands, still foamy, he must have just gotten here. He is taller than she remembers, and he has a bit of a beard now, and she remembers that he is older than Katniss, probably 21 or 22 now. "What are you doing here?" she asks, resisting the urge to hiss at him like she used to.
"I could ask you the same thing. I live here," he says. And there's ease in his demeanor now, not the jumpiness she felt during the war, but he's not totally settled out: she can see the almost white-knuckled grip he holds on the tankard, the way his eyes scan her as if looking for the old familiar injuries.
She bites her lips, knowing he saw her at her worst. "I work for Coin, I'm on assignment here." She says this to test the waters, to see how much he jumps. She wants to know where his loyalties lie.
But he barely reacts, in fact, he almost smiles. "Oh, I work for the government too. Not as important, but I'm helping the former Peacekeepers repurpose into a combination defense and rebuilding service."
How did she not know this? How was she councilwoman of the reconstruction committee and not known Gale Hawthorne was here in 2, transitioning Peacekeepers to builders? Most of the questions she wants to ask have no place being asked in public, in this tavern, so she takes a sip of her liquor, gathering her thoughts, like Enobaria might.
But it's Gale who recovers first, sensing her discomfort, and he takes a large swig of his beer, putting back nearly half of it. "Want to get out of here? We can go for a walk, or my apartment is just on the next block."
She agrees, and puts back her drink quickly as well. The night air is refreshing, even though it's still warm, humid summer, it's a break from the crowded, loud bar. "Why 2?" she asks, as they walk.
He shrugs a bit. "I was helping with military operations at the end of the war, it made sense to go where the military is stationed. I didn't want to stay in the Capitol, working under stupid Plutarch, and going back to 12… well, I'm not ready to go back there."
She thought he had a sibling or two, maybe, who survived the bombings of District 12, but she doesn't remember. She doesn't want to ask in case she's wrong. She didn't go back to 7, so she couldn't blame him for staying away from his home. "What's wrong with Plutarch?" she asks, to change the subject.
They enter a lobby wait for an elevator. "He's just always giving orders and whispering his plans, never getting his hands dirty. Like a spider who always slinks away. I don't trust him, even now." They take the elevator up to the 16th floor, then walk down a narrow hallway past dozens of identical doors until they get to his. His apartment is neat, with a minimal amount of possessions, and he lets her in and pours them both another drink: white liquor that looks to be imported from 12. It tastes so much like Haymitch's preferred drink she almost chokes on the first sip. She sits on the floor and leans against his couch, and he sits across from her, almost sagging.
"You could have left with Katniss," she says, once they're settled.
Now, finally, he's off-balance, though it doesn't really give her satisfaction. It just reminds her of being in District 13, when he wouldn't look at her, when Haymitch was there, when the end was yet to come.
"Yeah, I considered it," he admits. "But I have my own mess to clean up."
"The bombing?"
He shrugs, noncommittally, and she knows she's got it. What she doesn't know is if he regrets the plan overall, or if he is just sorry he killed Katniss's little sister.
She can hear Enobaria's logical, detached thinking coming out of her mouth before she even speaks. "It ended the war. If it wasn't so ridiculously tragic, no one would care."
"I know that!" Gale says, slamming his glass down hard enough that it breaks on the table, and glass shatters at them both. Instinctively she backs up, some part of her conditioned in that Capitol prison to cower away from any man shouting and slamming things, and in doing so, she gets a chunk of glass in her palm.
And whether it's the blood, or the way she is trying to get further away from him, or just his own shock at losing his temper, something changes in Gale and he is back, his features soften, and he stands, almost frozen for a moment as he tries to decide what to do, how to help. She can see his eyes grazing over the scene, his fingers opening and closing on nothing as he is paralyzed with indecision, but then he leaves the room, returning with a cloth for her hand and a broom to sweep up the shards.
She holds her breath, pulling out the glass from her own palm, and it stings, but luckily the bleeding doesn't worsen substantially, and then she covers it firmly with the cloth. "Don't move, I need to finish cleaning," he commands.
She nods, her heart still beating too rapidly to do much of anything.
Once he has picked up the glass on the table and swept the floor around her, he helps her to the chair and sweeps where she was sitting as well. Then he also takes a seat at the dining table and puts his head in his hands, sighing. "The way you jumped back there, it was like I was one of them," he says. "That's my nightmare."
She doesn't know exactly who he means - one of the Peacekeepers in that Capitol prison, she supposes. She realizes he must have seen her like that before, in the height of fear in the Capitol dungeon, starved and scared of whatever suffering was coming next, liable to jump at anyone coming close to her. She doesn't remember them coming to get her, and part of her is grateful for it. She can see now how he's aged, how he also reaches for liquor too quickly, how he buries himself in this work to try to shake of guilt that will probably never completely go away.
"Do you remember that Hunger Games with the big dam?" she asks.
He looks at her with wide eyes, almost fearful, and nods. "My Pa died that winter, it was the first Games after his accident."
It makes her realize how much time has passed, that he was just a kid during Annie's Games, and she had already been working in the Capitol for years. But then again, she was barely an adult then, really, only twenty years old. "I slept with a Gamemaker, asked him to open the dam early, so that Finnick's girlfriend could have the best shot at winning."
He just stares at her, perhaps recounting the end of the Games, or trying to piece together what she is trying to tell him. "That's different," he says at last, "23 kids were always going to die."
"It's not," she insists, pounding her fists lightly on his table. Her hand aches where it was bleeding, and she sees him half-reach for it before drawing his hand back, as if realizing they aren't that close. "23 children were going to die, but I changed things by whispering in someone's ear how and which ones. And in the 74th and 75th Games, all 23 didn't die, so who's to say the same wouldn't have happened then?"
"Those two Games were special, because you and the other rebels made them so," he says, with an eyebrow raise.
She shrugs, for the first time wondering if she is still a rebel, if her staying in the Capitol, working for the new government stripped her of that title. "That's not the point. What I'm trying to say is that you and me, we both made decisions that got people killed. We both told people to do something that had deadly consequences. But it also saved people. And now we have to live with it."
He looks at her a bit skeptically, as if trying to decide if there really is that much in common between Gale Hawthorne and Johanna Mason, and the whole time, there is too much unspoken between them, namely Katniss and Haymitch, but the air is too charged now, she doesn't dare ask. She decides she's spent enough time here, that Enobaria has come and gone to her room, if she had come at all tonight, so she stands, but Gale stands too, and the air is heavy suddenly, a tension that is a combination of the absence of Katniss and Haymitch, the circumstances of their first meeting, and the nature of their conversation just now. He takes the two steps to close the distance between them, and there's a foot difference in height between them, but she's bolstered by the knowledge that she frightens him, that he found her in such a place that will forever remind him of the true horrors of the Capitol, that galvanized him to design that final bombing to end the war.
"You can stay, if you want," he offers.
And she hasn't been with a man since she slept with Haymitch, the night before she killed Snow, months ago now. She finds him handsome, and would be suspicious of anyone who didn't, but she ultimately chooses to stay because it's nice to be desired. She wonders if that's fucked up, after, as they're laying together on his bed, him flipping through the television and her smoking a cigarette. She can't tell if it's a natural human desire or something bred in her by the Capitol: to want to be wanted, to feel important when she is in demand. Her hair is uneven and she's scarred and she doesn't bother with stylish clothes or makeup, but it's nice, that Gale Hawthorne still saw something to want in her.
The next night Johanna stays in her room, determined to make her meeting with Gale a one-night stand. When Enobaria comes, as Johanna knows she would, Johanna isn't sure what to say. Part of her wants to ignore it, to pretend that she never found out about Enobaria's father, that they can continue their awkward, tentative friendship formed on the process of elimination. But it's impossible, the memorial is right there, less than a quarter mile from her room - and part of her wonders if Enobaria knew this, if Enobaria told her to stay with her family to avoid seeing the evidence of her crimes.
So she drinks. She hopes the alcohol will loosen her tongue, will help her find the words to say to apologize for something she did almost 8 years ago, but when no answers come, she keeps pouring, until she's just picking at the admittedly delicious food so she can sip more at her liquor, while Enobaria tells her about a new Hovercraft aid program in development for the outer districts. And Johanna wants to tell her about Gale Hawthorne, ordinarily would, but she's so tense with guilt, and over running away the night before, she can't bear to turn the conversation away any further.
"I'm sorry," she says at last, cutting Enobaria off from something she had been saying. They're sitting at the small table with the dim light in her dingy assigned government room, and Enobaria cocks her head slightly, awaiting the rest of her apology, unsure of what this is about. "I- I saw the memorial. For your father. I know it was from that night you and I had to entertain those men and I assaulted that one. I didn't realize it got your family killed too."
Once she starts speaking, the words come out in a torrent. Her hands are shaking, and she feels like Haymitch, using alcohol to cope with difficult tasks, instead of just being a braver person. But Enobaria's gaze softens, and she feels even worse. She doesn't deserve sympathy, she deserves anger, she wants Enobaria to throw something at her, to storm out of there, to say 'so you finally realize it's not all about you' and then never speak to her again. Maybe for once she'll truly be completely on her own. It's perverse, wanting to be punished, probably some product of all the years under Snow, but when it doesn't come she feels like something is wrong.
"You were 18," Enobaria says quietly. She's looking down, into her drink. She takes a long pause, tapping her fingers on the table, as if deciding what she wants to say next. "I told you I couldn't take the Defense Council position because I didn't want to make a decision that I would regret." Now, she looks up at Johanna, waiting for her to nod. "That night, I knew our families were in trouble. I appealed to those men. I told them whatever they wanted to hear. I still let them have their way with me. But I always regretted it, thinking 'this is so absurd. This is really what Snow wants'. He wants me to betray another Victor like myself to side with these pigs. And then my family still suffered."
"I wish it was different," Johanna offers, pushing her glass away.
"Me too." Enobaria stands, pouring two glasses of water from the sink and bringing them to the table. "I'm glad you killed him. I was afraid in all that chaos he was going to slink away, unscathed."
Johanna smiles a little bit at this. "No way. If Katniss wasn't going to do it, I was. She didn't go through years of this bullshit we did. She didn't know exactly how much he needed to die." She stands and stumbles, and Enobaria raises an eyebrow, laughing a little at her drunkenness.
"You're going to have quite the hangover tomorrow, Mason."
"Same as it ever was," she laughs, drinking the water. "But I'm not a whore anymore, I'm a Councilor."
When they get back to the Capitol, there's a market in the main hall of the station. Peeta is there, running back and forth, arranging this and that with the vendors. "What do you think?" he asks, showing off the project.
"What is it?" Johanna asks.
"It's our first mobile station market. I've assembled vendors who can travel from the Capitol to each district station to set up and sell, and once we arrive I'm going to recruit others so we can have a whole network of traveling markets. It's a micro-version of our large-scale trading network bringing goods to every section of Panem."
"Wow, you've been busy," Enobaria says.
Peeta nods. "I'm hoping to do the same with instructors, so we can have potters and bakers and brewers and the like travel throughout Panem and teach classes, so we can have more craftsmen throughout the country."
Johanna feels a sting of jealousy, that Peeta can have such a tangible project to show at the next council meeting, and all she has is two grid-maps with notes on how many buildings are beyond repair, and how many corpses have been recovered. And then there's the third map, presumably the most difficult, that she still has to finish. "Are you going to District 12?" she asks him.
Peeta pauses, obviously uncomfortable with such a trip, but like Johanna, finding it impossible to avoid. "Yes, I think we ought to start there, since there's been so much destruction."
She and Peeta find themselves on the train to 12 in two days' time. This time, Johanna is allowed to bring her team: the masons and the surveyor, since the population of 12 is so low there will be few people on site to help her, and the vendors from Peeta's market are in attendance as well.
"Plutarch has given us vouchers to give to the people of 12 to spend at the market," he explains. "They don't have much money to buy wares."
The market sounds like a sham, if they're just giving people fake money to spend at it, but if it lets the people have new things, Johanna supposes she can't really complain. Besides, that's not her project. She's there to assess damages. Peeta sits stiffly the entire ride to 12, which is far longer than the ride to 2, and Johanna realizes that the death of his family is fresh, far fresher than hers.
"Hey," she says, after a little while. "You're doing the right thing."
"Am I?" he asks, looking at her with desperation. All of the baby fat he had when she first met him is gone, and he is an adult now, the metamorphosis a Victor will quickly undergo. But his eyes are still the searching eyes of a child, and she is the adult beside him. Haymitch, his only Mentor is gone, and Katniss, just as young but confident, surefooted, had left him out of her plans time and time again.
"Listen," Johanna says, checking around to make sure no one is eavesdropping on them. "You don't want to be like me, I'm kind of a shitty person, but we have more in common than we should. Snow killed our families, locked us up in that torture chamber, and now the people we had been relying on left us without a word. It doesn't get easier, it really doesn't. But you will be alright."
Peeta looks at her, his gaze searching. "Are you alright?" he asks, after a moment.
Johanna wants to say that of course she isn't - that the last time she injected morphling instead of just smoking it was more recent than she'd like to admit, that he was there to hear them drown her, shock her, for weeks on end, and how could anyone be alright after that, that Finnick was dead and how could she ever be alright if she would never see him again, that maybe Haymitch picking Katniss again hurt her more than she thought it would - but she saw the abyss in 2, the saw the way she could end her life in a moment and she walked away. "It's getting better," she says, reassuring him at the same time she is reassuring herself.
There really is just a pit of emptiness where Finnick was, and she looks for glimpses of him in Peeta. There is a hint of him there - the way Peeta holds his hand out for her to step off the train, the way Peeta greets the District 12 representative with gregarious politeness that Johanna knows is plastered on - these things are similar to Finnick. But there are the differences, too. Peeta second-guesses himself more, checking with Johanna for her opinion, and Peeta is straight-laced. He might oblige her for a single drink after their shifts, but he won't touch a cigarette or smoke pipe-weed with her, let alone try a tab of Euphoria.
Johanna smokes a cigarette laced with morphling before walking through 12. She's on edge, so she wants something to calm her down, and the long train ride has set off the pain that's always threatening to worsen. And then she walks, first through the merchant district, then through the Seam, and then over to the mines and finally the Victor's Village. She and her team make their grid on the map, while Peeta sets up his market at the station.
"Where are all the people?" one of the masons, West, asks.
"Peeta says they're mostly based in the Victor's Village now," she replies. She hopes it's true, hopes when she gets to the Victor's Village it will be a collection of people, rather than the two she both wants to and dreads seeing. She doesn't know what she would say or do if it's Haymitch and Katniss, doesn't know if she'd cry or yell or hug them. The morphling is helping, settling her out a bit, but it slows her thoughts, too.
When they finally make it over there, it is quiet. There had been massive destruction in the other parts of the district, but this section looks relatively unscathed. There's even new construction. There are a few people milling about, but the majority are out, doubtlessly lured by Peeta's market and the rumors of the free vouchers. Johanna's eyes are keen, looking for signs of anyone lurking around, anyone harboring fugitives.
But she sees nothing out of the ordinary. This area, the Victor's Village, is easy: the buildings were spared the bombings, and there's no corpses. They get through the last part of their day in record time: they will not need to return to this section of the district. "Go ahead, I want to take the long way back," she tells her team, and then she's alone.
She doesn't know Haymitch's house - the one time she was in District 12, for her Victory Tour - she did not yet know him, but she picks it out soon enough - older than the others, more lived-in. Well that, and there's a couple empty bottles of his preferred liquor being used as what appears to be slingshot target practice.
She approaches cautiously: he could have abandoned this home after the Quarter Quell - someone else could be living here now, but she needs to know, she needs to check. She presses her face to the window, but there's no movement inside. She knocks on the door and no one answers, of course, but it's unlocked and so holding her breath, she steps inside.
It smells like him. This gives her pause, and she stands in the entryway, just breathing air with that familiar scent: liquor and cotton and coal. But it's completely silent - and there's no signs of life - no food in the kitchen, no clothes in the laundry basket - though if this were Johanna's house, the same could be said even if she was occupying it. She wonders what she's doing, what she wants out of this. Did she want to leave a note? Or take something from him? Did she just want to see how he lived or prove that he wasn't here hiding from her?
She feels unsettled. She wants Finnick. She wishes he were here to tell her that she wasn't insane, that Coin really was better than Snow, that her work matters, that she matters, that just because Haymitch left with Katniss it didn't mean that he thought she was making a stupid decision, or that he had been leading her on before that. But Finnick was dead, so she gets no reassurance. Instead, she kicks over a chair in Haymitch's living room. It feels good.
He left her behind. She breaks a stack of plates. He never included her when it fucking mattered. She smashes one of his empty bottles on the floor. He fucked her, held her, asked her back to this house the night before the assassination and then disappeared into the night with Katniss. She's crying now as she throws a knife into his wall. It holds, quivering, in a wooden beam, and only then does she pause amidst the destruction she's caused.
Hands shaking, she walks back to her assigned room. Peeta is there, of course, unlocking his own room down the hall when she gets back. "Did you see them?" he asks, beckoning her over, her tear-stained face likely a dead giveaway to her distress.
"No," she croaks out, but she lets him lead her into his room, lets him sit her on the edge of the bed, lets him pour a glass of amber liquor with unpracticed hands.
She sips it gratefully, wishing she had another cigarette. "No, I didn't see them," she says.
Peeta looks at her searchingly, as if trying to figure something out, and then drops it. She doesn't want to say more, she's focused on the liquor. She told Peeta she was getting better, and that was a sign he would get better. To admit her crisis today in Haymitch's house would have the opposite effect.
"I think they're here, or they were," Peeta says. "Just the impression I got talking to people today. People who recognized me at the market."
This she hadn't considered. Peeta would know the people of District 12. There would be mutual acquaintances between him, Haymitch, and Katniss. It must feel like an extra betrayal to have them lie to his face to protect the other two.
"Do you wish you could see her?" she asks, wondering if Peeta has made up his mind, at least.
"Of course. Maybe then I would understand some things that I can't get right in my mind," he says.
"Do you love her?"
"I think I do."
"Are you serious? You want me to die for her?"
His look is pained, as if she's really hurt him with this accusation. "You know I want you to live."
"Easy for you to say, from outside the arena." She knows this isn't fair exactly, but her hands are shaking with anger, with fear. What kind of hell is it that she has to go back, into the arena a second time, and this time one of her opponents is Finnick?
"Johanna, I-"
"So ideally I stay alive, but if I have to die, it's fine, as long as she lives?" She can feel her whole body trembling now, and she pulls back when he reaches out for her. They're in her room a few days before the Quarter Quell is set to start, Haymitch sneaking in to the 7 apartment 'to smoke with Blight' to appease any prying eyes.
Haymitch doesn't have a reply right away, and he doesn't even reach for his drink. He just sits there, staring at her, and she knows he's trying to find a way to tell her that yes, for all his affection for her, for all that they share - yes, Katniss is more important.
"I bet Finnick agreed," she spits. "I bet he said he'd do it, even though Annie is relying on him."
Haymitch's continued silence is all she needs to hear to understand that Finnick did, indeed, commit to protecting the Mockingjay with his life, if necessary.
She hates Katniss, in that moment. She's jealous of the entire rebellion's single-minded dedication to her, and especially of Haymitch's focus on getting her through the Quarter Quell, never mind if Johanna died, never mind if Finnick or Chaff or Elin or the rest of the alliance were killed in the process.
"If we can pull off the plan, we can rescue everyone," he says, but she knows him too well. She can taste the uncertainty hanging in the air, the way he's trying to reassure himself more than her. He's older, he's been waiting longer for this to happen, but that's also given him more time to doubt if it will actually work. More time for Snow to show his might and the devastation he can wreck.
"You've been in the arena," she ripostes, "Hell, you've been in a Quarter Quell. You know it doesn't work like that. 'Everyone' doesn't just make it through several days."
He sighs, a deep exhale that seems to shrink him by several inches. He's no longer the man planning this alliance, he's just the man she sleeps with, someone she's too frightened to say she loves, and now when he reaches out she lets him, and she's pulled back against him, her back now to his chest on her oversized bed in her bedroom in the Training Center. "Johanna, I can't choose." He kisses her head, his arms firm around her chest. "I care about you, and I really want the rebellion to succeed. I need you both to live."
"Fine," she sighs, wondering how many promises she's made for him, for other men, how many times she's been used to further a man's plan. "I'll protect your tributes. And the nerds from 3."
"Thank you."
They leave District 12 eight days later, once the area is mapped, the contacts are made with the merchants and instructors, and the corpses are all cleared out of the rubble. Peeta took some time to visit the remains of his family home and Johanna accompanied him, and only then did she understand - he was not from the same part of the district as Haymitch and Katniss.
But still - they were all Victors, and they had all lost their families to war and Snow's retribution, so that was a great equalizer, she supposed. Peeta is quiet on the train ride back, the charred rubble of his family's bakery undoubtedly fresh in his mind.
And when they get back, they present to the council - herself about the mapping project and the buildings that can be salvaged, Peeta about the market pilot and the expansion projects, and Enobaria about the train improvements, the Hovercraft aid packages, and the boat renovations.
Beetee also calls in to show off the communication improvements, including working phones in central hubs in 12, 11, and 10, as well as reliable emergency dispatch services. Annie calls in to report that in 4 they are working on labor unions for the fisherman and shipbuilders, as well as voting regulations to validate an election next year. Johanna wants to ask her to go to 7, some long overdue loyalty to the loggers and millers of her homeland, but she knows Annie won't leave until the baby is born, knows if anyone spreads the labor movement, it probably won't be Annie herself. And the defense, education, and budget councilmembers report in as well.
Plutarch likes the speed at which things are moving, and they announce a press conference for the next week to discuss phase 2 of their plans for rebuilding.
The morning of the press conference, Johanna feels uneasy. It's this part of being on the council that feels difficult, like she's an impostor. She's never even considered actually running for the election next year, it's always just been assumed that a "real" candidate will come forward and replace her. But for now, she's doing her duty, her ten or so more months until she's allowed to step back into the shadows.
She's prepared cards of what to say: Coin doesn't like the cards, she thinks it's weak to not memorize your lines, but Johanna isn't a trained performer, and she always gets nervous with the cameras, with the live audience. Just stepping back on a stage reminds her of her interviews before the Hunger Games, and more recently, of murdering Snow live to all of Panem. She still can't believe she's not locked up, that she is working for this new government after a stunt like that. Plutarch speaks first, updating everyone about general progress, showing some clips that had been recorded in the past week, and then it's her turn, and there's a smattering of applause.
She ignores the camera, takes her cards, and walks up to the podium. She can feel Enobaria and Peeta's eyes on her back, and that feels reassuring at least. Perhaps somewhere in Panem, Haymitch and Katniss are watching her, keeping tabs on things in the Capitol. Perhaps they've returned to their neighborhood in District 12, and Haymitch has discovered what a mess she's made of his home. She smiles a bit as she approaches the microphone, lowering it from where Plutarch had it from his opening remarks.
"Thank you for attending or viewing at home," she begins. "The reconstruction council has been working to assess damages from the war, bury the dead, and secure funding to begin rebuilding as soon as possible. Phase two of our project is to remove rubble, damaged structures, and other dangerous debris that are in the way of your communities, so we will be sending a project leader to each district to begin that process. We will need volunteers for this project, but we will be able to provide job training certificates and free meals." The camera is watching her, threateningly still. "In addition," she swallows badly, choking a bit.
She reaches for the water tucked under the podium, taking a sip. It's still nerve-wracking to see so many faces looking up at her while she speaks, but she reminds herself she's not going back into the Hunger Games. It's over. She looks closer, and they're hopeful. They want to hear the good news she's telling them.
"In addition," she begins again, "We will be working with the industry and transportation council on a train station renovation project. This will…" She can't read the words on the card, and her mind is going foggy. She can feel herself sweating, and she wills herself not to panic, here, in front of these people. "This will…" she tries again. She feels Finnick come up behind her, and she breathes a sigh of relief. He can take over this, he was always better with people than she was. She lets herself close her eyes.