they’re going to sedate me again if i don’t stop. i know this, i know it, but the next heaving sob that leaves my lips cannot be stopped. HOW CAN I BE SURE OF THAT? the world is half-haze these days, sedation and hospitalization between propos and the mockingjay. i shake my head and i don’t even know what i’m saying NO to.

 IT’S MY FAULT, FINNICK, i want to scream, WE BOTH KNOW IT. peeta’s only - - - like this because of me. gone, maybe forever. here but not, not him, not himself at all and i claw my hands through my hair and shake my head and my eyes are burning and my throat is burning and when can i stop burning? WHEN? i can’t make the words come so i look at finnick through stinging eyes and struggle to make a sound that isn’t another bawl. instead i let myself pitch forward so my forehead finds finnick’s shoulder and i try not to feel pathetic and useless as i gasp for air.

“fuck off.” my voice is unfamiliar to my ears. maybe it’s the way the sound of it reverberates through these halls, off of the sheer flat grey of the walls around us. even the hospital screens don’t do enough to soften the strange ringing that follows every sound. if i let my eyes drift closed i can almost see my father in a mineshaft, hands braced on the walls as they shake and the heat and smell of burning rises, rises - - - i let out a long, slow breath and turn on my side, away from johanna, arm curling so the morphling drip is harder to get to.

it’s not that johanna couldn’t just manhandle me back around and hook herself up to the drip instead. i know she could. but i’m missing a fucking organ and even through the controlled doses of morphling the pain lingers. for a split second i miss capitol medicine and then hate myself for thinking of the blissful waking and disconcerting moment of realization that i could hear again after the first games. after a beat i roll over and look up at her, holding my arm out.

it feels wrong to refuse johanna what little comfort she can get, even if i want the relief from the persistent ache in my ribs. “they sent a camera crew in here earlier.” proof that THE MOCKINGJAY LIVES! SHE WILL BE BACK, CAPITOL! i’d grinned and bared it, for my prep team more than for anyone else, and the makeup is still heavy on my face, rosy cheeks and healthy glow despite the stitches and bruising. “i think the propo is going to be more demoralizing than uplifting.”

“congratulations,” there is a little curl of JEALOUSY in the pit of my stomach that i swallow down with a mouthful of icing. even if it is for a propo the wedding is BEAUTIFUL and there is a certain happiness in both annie and finnick’s eyes that i can only imagine in the hazy world of dreams. the fiddle music pipes through the space and people are still dancing, prim included, hand-in-hand with a new partner found in one of the district thirteen kids who she guides in the steps. even i can’t be dour in these settings. “the dress suits you.” it’s true ; i wish cinna were here to see her in it. 

the thought of cinna makes any want to finish the slice of cake i hold evaporate and i set the plate down on a table and let my arms rest at my sides. he would have loved all of this. well - - - the party. the spark of joy here even in the darkest times. annie looking gorgeous in a dress he designed. if he were here he would have relished in creating something new for her, something just for her. “and - i’m just - happy for you. you two.”

the whole CHATTING WITH THE OTHER VICTORS thing had always been peeta’s job. had. the name in past tense just jumps to mind and i feel a bit queasy at the fact it does, but he’s not HERE. i don’t want to think about peeta and yet the image of him with furious eyes and venomous words on his lips jumps to my mind without my permission. when i blink it’s gone and jet is in its place. do my eyes look as exhausted as they feel, burning and heavy? hopefully not. “you should come with us,” my voice feels stilted behind my teeth and i wish peeta or haymitch were here to forge alliances for me without my knowing they were doing it. SELFISH, i know, but still, “next time we’re sent out. get some air.”

why am i asking him? jet, who was in the quarter quell. jet with his REPUTATION i knew before i met him, who i remember from interviews gone more than sideways because of his cutting words and refusal to smile prettily and twirl when asked. there’s something sour in the pit of my stomach and i can’t help but wonder what he thought when he watched all of my pageantry. did he scoff and roll his eyes at THE GIRL ON FIRE? i’d be lying if i said i wouldn’t have. “i can convince coin if she won’t let you.”

is that what i'm doing? i feel like an exposed nerve, like a raw burn, floating without thought or purpose through the fluorescent halls of thirteen. the ring of bruises around my throat have faded to a sickly green-yellow combination but people still stare at them when they see me, even when they try not to. delly had given me a sympathetic smile and asked if i wanted to know how peeta was doing and it had stung that he would talk to her and not to me; i think she saw how it hurt because she'd apologized right after. so i don't know if i'm keeping it inside. i'm not talking about it, sure, but what is there to say?

they don't want me on camera until the bruises are less visible and i'd dissolved into incoherent tears when someone had tried to swipe makeup over them, so i'm still firmly on medical leave as my one and only task for the day. it means no one will scowl at me when they realize i've bitten my lips raw and chapped, gnawing at the lower one even now when i look at caesar and try to imagine him the first time we spoke. my dress. girl on fire. cinna in the audience, somewhere.

does he know i haven't been sleeping? he must. they all must, with how they shepherd me into quiet corners and how it always seems castor or cressida or leeg 1 have something they need to talk to peeta about when it's time for me to turn in for the night. cressida had something about beauty sleep that i think was meant to hit as a joke but had instead stung like a wound.

we're in yet another abandoned and empty capitol apartment. the furniture looks comfortable but i knew even before sitting down that it wouldn't be, and instead of sleeping i've been staring at the ceiling or at homes' back where he's crouched by a window, watching. when i shift on the sofa to roll over and look at finnick it makes my back ache and i glance at peeta and cressida in the other corner of the room before answering.

i look at madge and i can’t see a monster. no matter how hard i try. maybe this is just her trying to soothe me, in her madge-way. no, i can’t find a monster anywhere in the memory of her softer fingers guiding mine to the keys on the piano in the mayor’s house that is nothing more than ash and smolder now. i saw the spot it once stood. it’s hard to imagine anyone surviving ANY of twelve, let alone that. the thought has passed my mind several times that it was a PERSONAL JAB, and maybe that’s selfish. but there must have been bugs planted everywhere. snow must have known the loss of madge and her father would tear me to shreds.

he only half-succeeded, yet here i am. shredded. it was the second weapon - PEETA - that managed to actually finish the deal. prim would insist it isn’t FINISHED, but the bruises around my throat and the steady beeping of the hospital room around me all argue against her. my fingers tighten around madge’s and i shake my head.

IT SHOULD BE PEETA HERE. it’s the first thought that jumps to mind so often, usually when i’m curled up in a duct or behind a shelf or a few rattling pipes in that strange place half-way between asleep and awake. i am wholly awake now. unfortunately. it would feel more right to hold finnick’s hand but mine don’t seem to want to move from my lap, so i don’t. he’s right. he’s so right that it stings right down to my bones. who else is there i can trust here? mother and prim, but they’re too busy with their nursing jobs and schedules they actually follow for me to burden wither of them with this. the fact GALE isn’t on that list is something i don’t let myself think about for more than a second or else i’ll get angry about - - - everything between us again.

so finnick it is. even if it is finnick different than he was before the arena, whatever that different is. i nod at him and wonder if we’re being listened to. the paranoia here isn’t that different when it was the capitol i was worried about eavesdropping. snow had my family to kill ; coin has peeta and the other victors to try as war criminals. it’s not that different.