they can't hurt me

“After these last few years, sitting around doing nothing is driving me crazy.” Allison sighed, and turned to face the person she'd addressed. “Do you wanna’ do something? Go for a run, or do some training? I need to keep my body busy.”

“– Yup,” she replied dryly as she walked past, already making a beeline for the training centre, having just left her psychiatrist's office. “I need to punch something.” It'd been a few months since Jo had been tentatively released from the infirmary, but she was still on a strict care plan, one she cared about less and less with each day that passed. It required her to attend two psych appointments and one physical therapy session a week, and she went along to every one, but it didn't mean she actually did anything. Jo and Noah had a care plan of their own, she didn't need anything else. Outside of her appointments, she'd had to promise to no physical exertion, but her and Noah broke that rule daily too. So what was a single training session going to do? Kill her? “Oh, and just so you know?” She continued over her shoulder. “It’s not just the ‘doing nothing’ part that makes you crazy. It’s the ‘sitting around completely alone’ part, too.”

As was expected of a soldier, Gale was stoic throughout the entire ceremony, even as he thought of the thousands in Twelve alone that he hadn't been able to lead out. Whilst he felt the weight of their deaths, he knew it wasn't his fault, or his failing. It had been the Capitol's and he'd certainly helped make sure they paid for that crime. Still, while he wouldn't be adding his parents' names to the stone, assuming his kid siblings would do it if they so desired, he still took a moment to think of them, especially his mother. She hadn't deserved what she'd gotten.

Had her rage not overspilled into an uncontrollable outburst, Johanna would've smirked at the look on Peeta's face, satisfied she'd done something to shatter this little Rebel charade, to make a point. But he didn't leave her alone like she'd hoped — in fact, it wasn't a moment later that someone else entirely joined them, no doubt there to defend Peeta's honour. Poor little Peeta, suddenly so defenseless and voiceless. She wanted to shout it but she couldn't, limbs shaking with the effort it took to claw back from the edge of psychosis, to stay present. She had to stay there so she could prove to them all that they'd failed.

Amy spotted Johanna standing in the doorway of the training centre, and was about to veer off in the opposite direction to avoid a pointless confrontation, until she noticed the expression on her face. Opposing sides of the Winchester debate or not, Amy knew she couldn't leave her in that state. Victors took care of one another, even at their worst; it was a silent agreement that'd been reinforced a million times before now. "Johanna? What's going on?"

As it fell from the sky, Jo swore she felt it against her own skin, burning with every drop. “Water,” she finally murmured, so small and quiet, so unlike herself amidst her panic. She hadn’t registered who it was speaking with her, not consciously, fear gripping her tight. But she didn't trust it, she didn't feel safe. She was on auto-pilot, responding without thought. “It’s… raining. I- can’t…” Johanna trailed off, breath hitching in her throat, unable to look away.

Ron had been a captive alongside Johanna for years, so it took him no time at all to decipher what was wrong. She hated water, she feared it, especially when it fell. He approached her slowly, with tenderness, the kind they’d offered each other back in the Capitol. “Come on. We’ll go back inside.”

The sound of the rain emptied her mind of any rational thought, completely incapable of self-soothing. Having waved off every therapist that came to her door, the only healing she’d done to this point was physical. She put on a brave face, but if Jo was being honest with herself, she was fucking terrified to begin facing the mental damage the Capitol had caused. They’d scarred her every day since she was seventeen. How could anybody ever help her unpack that? That permanent avoidance rendered her useless in situations like this, where triggers she didn’t even know she possessed suddenly controlled her entire being. Because she knew what came next — if there was water falling, then there was electricity to follow.

Peeta watched on in a respectable silence as the Rebels carried out the bonfire ceremony, feeling the familiar weight of grief pressed upon his chest. Although he'd never been close with his family, he'd still lost them during the bombings. He'd also lost his tributes during the Quell, and a few friends in the fight that had followed. All collateral damage in the horrors of war. Peeta bravely continued on despite it, helping others where he could, but not a day passed where he didn't think about those that'd fallen along the way. Nice wasn't the word for this event, but in a harrowing way, it was a comfort. An act of remembrance, of gratitude, of love. A place where the remainder could come together and mourn as a collective.

Johanna immediately rolled her eyes when she realised who was approaching, shaking her head, not in the mood for gentle words and endless patience. She was looking for a fight. She was furious, rage consuming every part of her being, the feeling sometimes even stronger than morphling. If she got angry enough, triggered enough, her adrenaline could burn straight through the drugs; though of course that didn't bother her — she always wanted more. Not even in the Capitol had she felt rage like this. Most of her captivity was spent feeling afraid or feeling nothing at all. It wasn't until she'd been found, until she'd been taken back to live side by side with the Rebels had the fury come to surface. Learning that they truly had abandoned her, that they'd all moved on, formed new relationships, been able to fully function and win the war without her — it didn't just tap into her grief and history of abandonment, it told Johanna she was worthless. And that wasn't a lesson she'd learnt in the Capitol.