Title: i know the darkest secret of your heart
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Rating: T
Words: 1607
Characters/Pairings: Johanna-centric, Johanna/Gale, with background Johanna+Finnick and Johanna+Annie.
Prompt: the hunger games; gale/johanna; oh, come on, be alive again, don't lay down and die. by stainofmylove at the "oh babe, don't say sorry" ficathon.

For all her history in 7, she is, after the war, without roots. She wanders, aimlessly at first and then somewhat with purpose, riding the trains throughout Panem. She tries not to overstay her welcome, moving from district to district like she's on another tour.

She lies wide awake that night, still trying to piece together how the other Victor managed to get her to agree to everything in the space of a single phone call.

(It's just District 4, she thinks, but this time she's staying in that tiny house with Cresta and her little boy.)

Johanna wonders how long she'll last there, down by all that water that threatens to swallow her whole.

He calls her Auntie in that tiny voice of his, plays with the simple toys she carves by hand, always pulling her towards the waves that roar too loudly in her ears.

(She can hear his voice sometimes, warm and mocking and frustrating all at once - "Why don't you face your fears, Jo?")

Sometimes Annie will smile at her, with that faraway look in her eyes, and say, gently, always so gently, that she misses him too.

Sometimes she'll hate her for it, that she's able to wrap the words up so neatly, transform them into something pretty, worn sea glass without any sharp edges.

It is everything that Johanna is not.

She's the one that heads to the markets, that sells the vegetables in their garden and brings them back meats and fish and bread.

She always takes the long way back, along the winding path, just close enough to the shoreline that she can watch the tides, but far enough that she can still see the town in the distance.

She'll think on it then, when she's alone, of the new start and the small house with the wind chimes made of seashells and the makeshift family that fills it.

Still, she can't help feeling that there's something lingering out there, in the back of her mind and the deepest corner of her heart, waiting for her to reach out and grab it.

Johanna's spent too much time having her life decided for her - engineered for another's sport - to make light of coincidences.

So when she walks in and sees him sitting at their kitchen table, drinking tea from the mismatched mugs that Annie has set out, her grip on the baskets tightens ever just so.

"Hello," he says, looking the least bit startled to find her there.

"Hawthorne," she replies, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

He clears his throat, makes a noble attempt at polite conversation, all things considered. "It's been far too long, Johanna. How have you been?" She imagines him using that smile on Katniss once, the pair of them laughing and doing who knows what else down in the Seam, before Peeta and the Games and the rebellion and everything that came with it.

"That might have been purposeful, you know. Have to keep those remaining fans guessing and placing bets on what their favorite Victor is up to."

There's a silence now, and she lets it wash over them, staring blankly at him until he speaks. Let him drown in it, she thinks.

Annie negotiates the truce, the sound of silverware against her cup suddenly deafening. "I think I hear my son." She rises then, rests her hand on Johanna's shoulder for a moment before she leaves.

"Annie will be outside for a while, so you can spit it out now."

"Plutarch-"

"Ask the star-crossed lovers back in 12, then."

He merely lifts an eyebrow, as if to say, "Why do you think I'm here?"

She sighs. It's through Plutarch's generosity that she doesn't need to work unless she wants to, can spend her day as she pleases, and so she finds the words slipping out before she can take them back -

"How long do you need me for this time?"

She stares out the window for most of the trip, as is her usual custom, wondering what's happening on the other side of the window, about the people she can see but can not touch.

He, instead, uses his time on the train working, writing reports and answering calls and murmuring things about schedules and timelines and progress.

In terms of Escorts, she thinks, she could (did) have much worse.

When they arrive in the Capitol, she crashes with Cressida. She tells them it's because those other places hold too many bad memories for her, but really, it's because she doesn't like being alone.

Cressida doesn't mind, (has long known it). Johanna arrives to find that the guest room has already been set up the way she likes it, same as the last time.

She's expected to do a series of propos - something fitting for the fifth anniversary of the end of the war, to memorialize all those Victors who had died for the cause, even after the Gamemakers had taken so much.

As Hawthorne moves her from place to place, keeping to Cressida's strict schedule, she finds him both the same and different from how she remembers him last, polished in that way that spending too long in and near the Capitol makes you. (She questions how much was Plutarch's doing, how much was Beetee's, starts thinking she wouldn't want the answer anyway.)

It reminds her of Finnick both all at once and not at all, and she isn't sure what to make of it.

She answers question after question, trying to stay on her best behavior, to say things in the soft way she's come to associate with Annie. (There's still all of Panem as her audience, after all.)

She hates it, sitting there in that little room with the host and producer, reminiscing with a smile on her face as though she isn't still so sad and angry and utterly disappointed that there are all these people that have left her behind.

Hawthorne must notice something, because he requests a break.

She doesn't say thank you, but relaxes when he meets her eyes and nods.

Somehow, she gets through the rest of the afternoon without incident.

Cressida gets stuck in a meeting with Plutarch, so Hawthorne ends up walking back with her.

"You don't need to keep chaperoning me, you know. I've done this route enough times to reasonably expect that I won't have an episode somewhere between the studio and Cressida's place." (There's the implication, if he's listening closely enough. It won't be like that first time, after they'd made made her talk about everything that had happened in that prison, had told her to keep the description sterile and clean, palatable to others' tastes.)

His expression is even, as though he expected it, had prepared for it. "I know you can take care of yourself."

She stops, glares at him. "So," she says, punctuating each word with a jab at his chest, "why are you still here?"

He sighs. "Do you ever wonder if you deserve what you have now? If the reason we can be here when the others won't even leave their districts is because we didn't do enough during the war? That we should feel more guilty about what we did and didn't do?"

Her lack of response is answer enough, though he presses on, tone more bitter than she's heard in some time. "Well you shouldn't think that. At least, that's what the head doctor President Paylor makes me see keeps trying to get me to say. Maybe it will work out better for you."

She has the decency not to laugh out loud.

They ignore each other the rest of the way, though she makes sure to loudly slam the door behind her when she reaches the apartment, shutting him out on the other side.

She can hear him in the hallway, on that phone of his, with its obnoxiously loud speaker, letting Cressida know she'd made it back in one piece.

She wonders if she's imagining the relief she hears in their voices.

It's on the fourth day of filming that Hawthorne pulls her aside, asks if she'd like to get some air while the host has another round of hair and makeup.

He answers his phone before tossing it to her, suddenly interested in talking to that poor assistant that had been following him around like a puppy all day.

"Hello?"

"Auntie!"

She can hear Annie humming in the background before she's on the line, asking her how she's doing, back in that place that has only ever shown them the wrong kind of love. (She knows they're both thinking of more than just Finn.)

The answer spills out, more honest than she was willing. "Better than expected. Than before."

"Good," Annie says, and then - "You always were the strongest out of all of us, no matter what Enobaria will say whenever they interview her."

Johanna tells her to make sure their favorite child can't hear their conversation before responding with very carefully chosen words, sees Hawthorne looking back at her with something resembling a smile.

They go out afterwards, Beetee and Cressida and Hawthorne, after they finish filming. (Enobaria even shows up for half an hour before leaving.)

She doesn't accept the offers for drinks - she'd had too much of that loss of control with her brush with morphling, had long held Haymitch's history of decline as a warning.

Still, somehow or another, against her better judgment, she ends up throwing darts with Hawthorne by the end of the night.

She beats him each time, doesn't forget to remind him of it.

It's something of a start.