.

this is my winter song, december never felt so wrong, cause you're not where you belong, inside my arms

.

And the 3 of them sit in their room, restraints around their legs, tied to the bed, and Peeta is pretty sure he's slowly going even more insane then the crazy girl to the right and the axe-murderer to the left combined.

The crazy girl is Annie Cresta and she twists her hair and stares around with wide eyes, but there's no wild-eyed screaming fits, like that crazy old woman who used to live in District 12. She would randomly attack people or throw herself onto the ground screaming about voices. Annie's is a quiet crazy, just twisting her hair and staring with the biggest brown eyes Peeta's ever seen and muttering Finnick's name under her breath and then some other stuff that he thinks might be poetry, but he's not sure.

And then there's Johanna and he can't tell if she's acting defeated or if she really is defeated, because he watched her games, watched the way she flashed from a sniveling wreck that grabbed a pack and ran to a sharp eyed killer. He doesn't know, because they drag her off for questioning and he can hear the screams and he knows it's because no one ever tells him anything, not Haymitch or Katniss or any of the people who were, according the capital drones, in on a rebellion that Katniss was the center of.

It's 3 meals a day, and he's not stupid enough to not know that he and Annie are bait and that they're still trying to get information out of Johanna, and that they're only keeping them because they think they're useful, because they already killed Enobaria.

And he can hear Johanna's screams in the background, and he knows when she comes back she'll be empty looking, and he wishes he knew whether it was an act or not, because he's just Peeta the bakers son, and the only reason he's important is because Katniss pretends to be in love with him. And then there's Annie whimpering Finnick's name and maybe humming a sort of melody, and he knowsknowsknows he's going crazy.

And he knowsknowsknows he misses Katniss more than anything in the whole wide world.

.

they say that things just cannot grow, beneath the winter snow, or so I have been told

.

Johanna isn't a stupid girl. She's smart and sneaky and sick and hell of a lot of other things that begin with s, but she's not stupid.

And she can take whatever pain they throw at her.

Its electrocution one day, some kind of water torture technique the next, another time they try having some sick kind of bird peck at her feet, ripping bits of skin off. They want information, and Johanna doesn't even know that much, just that she was supposed to protect the mockingjay. But she's still not telling them that, because that would mean the Capitol would win and Johanna is not ready for that.

Sitting in that room is a whole new form of torture. Peeta, next to her, his blue eyes desperate looking, but trying to remain calm, and then that Annie girl, the girl who won the year after her, who Finn mentored, muttering under her breath and crying, and it makes her want to laugh, because she doesn't have anyone to cry over, no one to miss like her hearts breaking, because they're all dead and gone and ripped to shreds.

She tells herself she's gone through worse, she tells herself losing all her family and friends and going through the games is worse than this, but she's not even sure it's true anymore.

But Johanna is a good liar, so she just lies to herself.

.

this is my winter song to you, the storm is coming soon, it rolls in from the sea

.

Annie stays up each night, staring at the white walls, and thinking about Finnick. She doesn't want to go to sleep, because sleep is bad and so she stays up and tears keep dripping out, and it doesn't always make sense, because she can't have been drinking this much water, but there are so many tears.

And she recognizes the blonde boy who sits in the next bed, who is always trying to tell her that it's "all going to be okay, they're going to come rescue us" in a voice that makes it obvious he's trying to convince himself more than her. She recognizes him from last year's games, even though she tries not to watch them, but she knows he was one of the star-crossed lovers, and she thinks he's okay, because he's like her, he didn't mean to win the games, and it just happened. He's not a real killer and that's good because meeting new killers always makes her nervous.

Johanna makes her nervous. Finn likes her, and that should be enough, because he's Finn. But it's not, because Annie still watched the games when Johanna won, and she remembers the way her face would change, the deception, the way her axe would slice into people's heads, decapitation all over everything, her clothes, and then the sea water and it's everywhere…

Annie tries taking deep breaths, like Finn always tells her too.

It doesn't work anymore and she keeps crying.

.

is love alive?

.

mkay. this is my first hunger games thing, and it's been like 3 months since i've actually written anything.

all the song stuff (in italics, they're in random order) belongs to winter song by sara bareilles and ingrid michaelson who are both pretty amazing. and the story doens't belong to me. (24th!)

thank you for reading and please review!