Sequel to Burning Kisses. Spoilers for Mockingjay

You have no one left who's important to you.

It's the truth you cling to as you slowly, erratically, come to yourself; as they, the hated they, take the comfort of the morphling drip away from you.

You have no one left who's important to you.

Because while that's true, the only thing they can hurt is your body, and they're so much less adept at that than at injuries to the soul.

Peeta, poor bastard, didn't have that protection. No, he had his epic love story, and you heard his screams as they tore that away from him, leaving a bloody ruin in its wake.

You don't know exactly what they did to him, but it was bad.

For you, for you all they had was the embrace of things you can't, won't, remember. Well, as long as they keep up with the morphling, anyway.

You're safe here, they tell you, as they slowly take the drugs away.

The they may have changed, but the lie tastes just as putrid.

Nowhere is safe.

Nowhere.

No one comes to visit you, of course. It's the flip side of having no one left.

And it's good. It is.

You're not sure that you'd want anyone to see you like this. The morphling dulls your edges and, really, what are you without them?

The nothing that's left at your centre, of course.

In any case, Finnick is no doubt busy with his Annie. And her?

She's probably got enough on her plate. Not that you ask. Because asking might imply that you care.

And you've no one left who you care about.

You're not even sure that you want the kiss returned now anyway.

Just the thought of liquid, any liquid, sliding over your skin...

No.

You're not going there.

But not even the morphling can dull the edge completely.

You're sleeping when they bring her in.

Not that you remain that way. Not all the drugs in the world can dull your edge that much.

Your mouth goes dry as you affect a total lack of concern.

Luckily, they tell you anyway. It's the news of the hour, the day. The Mockingjay has had her wings clipped.

A little, anyway.

She'll be fine, they say. Just a few minor injuries, they say. Up and around and fighting the good fight in no time, they say.

You find yourself hoping that they're not lying, for once.

It's so dangerous, especially because they've got every reason to shade the truth.

It's so dangerous, because admitting, even to yourself, that you care is the first step to them finding out.

It's so dangerous, yet you nuture the hope anyway.

Further cut backs in the morphling gives you the reason you need to visit her.

No one could fault your self interest in stealing drugs from the wounded after all.

And sharing her drip, connecting the same needle that was supplying her into your feed, feels almost... intimate.

Not that you'd ever tell anyone that.

So you're there when she wakes.

Her gaze as she focusses on you is uncertain, almost soft for a second.

(And something almost forgotten inside you stirs.)

So you sit down a little harder than necessary, and are rewarded with a wince and a hardening of her eyes.

Good.

It's good to see her react again. She was always so watchful, it was just wrong to see her just lying there.

(It's good to feel that connection again, to feel like you're part of a binary system again. Push, pull. It's the only language you speak.)

So you chat for a while. Girly stuff, really. Drugs, her injuries, why you dislike her.

(But not why you don't.)

And then her cousin turns up, interrupting your flow. Can't have anyone thinking you want to be here, so it's time for you to scoot.

You can't help giving him an edged smile on the way out, though.

It's not that you care about him turning up there.

(You do, though.)

But you do have a reputation to live up to.

Maybe you could give him a kiss sometime too.

Time comes and goes. The chance to get out of here and kiss some Capitol folks, maybe even Snow himself, gives you the incentive you need to get out of here. Not the prospect of giving up the morphling, not even the hiss of, well, *that*, falling from the sky can dissuade you.

It itches and it itches though, and the tension almost kills you as you keep waiting for the burning to start.

Logic is no defense, and by the end of the day you're almost clawing at your arms just so you can get it over with.

You don't, though. You know they are watching, waiting for any sign of weakness.

(But mostly because she is there, offering something almost akin to sympathy that you neither need nor want. But, somehow, it helps. And you vow never to let her know how much it means to you.)

It's the final straw. When you get back to the hospital, they are so worried about how you are holding up, so transparently prying, seeing if there's any weakness that they can exploit, that you decide that you've had enough.

You need to get out of here.

Of course, they won't let you go without someone else, a watcher to keep an eye on you.

For your safety, they say. Just in case you have a relapse, they say. Because everyone has to share down here, they say.

They lie. The faces and the voices and what they do to you may change, but they always lie.

*That* never changes.

You've almost given up hope when she offers to share with you.

She has a sister she gave up her life for and a mother, who would undoubtedly love to have her go back to them, but she doesn't.

She chooses you.

(And you try not to let it affect you, not to give you hope, but it's what she does. She gives hope to the hopeless.

Even you.

And you try not to love her for it, because you know they will use it against you.

And you try not to hate her for it, because the best way to destroy someone who has nothing is to give them something broken. And there is no way, with all her princes and romance, that this thing she's offering you isn't broken.)

The training progresses, day after gruelling day.

But neither of you are giving up.

Both of you are survivors, having survived the worst that the Capitol can throw at you.

Both of you just want a chance to kiss that bastard Snow one last time.

The days are fine.

But the nights...

Things break through in the nights. The time you spent in the Capitol. The time you won't, can't, acknowledge.

Your dreams have no such compunction.

Sometimes, you wake up, drenched in sweat, in *water*, just waiting for the pain to start again, but still and quiet, not wanting to give them the pleasure of a reaction.

Sometimes, you find her in the bed with you, not touching, just there. Neither of you say a thing. Neither of you have to. If you don't acknowledge it, they can't use it against you.

Sometimes, she touches you. Just a light hand, letting you know she is there. That you survived that hell, that it's over now.

Sometimes, you touch each other. Not lightly, not lightly at all. Letting each other lose yourselves for just a moment, like morphling, a surcease from reality for a little while.

Neither of you ever make a noise. Neither of you never acknowledge it outside those nights.

Doing so might mean that you had something.

And things can always be taken away, used against you.

(And you never tell her how right it feels when you wake from a nightmare and she is there.

You never tell her that when it was at its worst, that you used to pretend that it was a kiss from her.

You never tell her that sometimes even you need something to hang on to, and that her kisses were always the sweetest.)

The training ends, and with it a test.

You fail.

They betray you, like you knew they would, flooding the street with something worse than acid - water.

It's worse because at least then you'd have the pain, the kiss, instead of your body just going crazy waiting for it.

For a moment, you freeze.

The next thing you know, you're back there, and they're coming for you, with all the kisses that you never wanted.

They're coming and they're coming, and they're never going to stop.

You'll never escape them.

Because they re already inside your head.

Things, mercifully, get a little hazy after that.

The next thing you know, you're in hospital again, and they are fussing over you.

You ignore their lies, and concentrate on the only good thing. The drugs they're giving you.

Finnick visits, sympathy writ large on his stupid face.

He's going, and you're staying.

He's going, and he actually has something to come back to.

He's going, and all you want to do is go and die in his place.

But they don't want soldiers who just want to die, even ones who have an inconvenient knack of surviving.

He makes some jokes, and you pretend to find them funny.

He says he'll be back soon, and you try not to believe him.

He may not be much, but apart from her, he's the closest thing you have to something.

And that's far too dangerous to contemplate.

He leaves, and you're left alone. Just the way you should be.

And that's almost enough until she visits. With a gift even. The scent of home, something to take you away from this dead place buried under so much rock.

Suddenly, it's just too much. She's almost caring for you, and that makes you... that makes you...

(Want to care back.)

So you grab her wrist as tightly as you can. One last almost kiss for the voyage. But you need something else to concentrate on.

Hate. Hate is good. Hate is safe. Hate can't be taken away from you.

You have to kill him, you say. If she kisses Snow, it will be almost like you doing it.

Don't worry, she says, not contesting your grip on her, like she knows what it means to you.

Swear it. On something you care about, you say.

(Me, you almost add. But that'd cut far too close.)

I swear it, she says, on my life.

You need something better, though. She doesn't care that much about her life. None of you do.

On your family's life, you insist.

(Part of you hopes, somehow, miraculously, that she'll correct you.)

(But the rest of you *knows* that what's between you is a broken thing. That she'll never care for you, not like that.)

On my family's life, she repeats.

(Disappointment hits you. Stupidly. Irrationally.)

(You still want to kiss her.)

Losing the energy, you let her wrist go.

Why do you think I'm going, anyway, brainless? she asks.

(And you knew, you knew, you always knew, but feeling the broken thing dying inside of you hurts beyond the morphling's numbing effect.)

(Stupid. Stupid. How do you hurt someone who has nothing?)

You make yourself smile, because this is the nearest to a kiss you're going to get.

I just needed to hear it, you say.

(You really did.)

You close your eyes, blocking her out, surrounding yourself with the scent of home.

When you open them again, she's gone, gone, gone to the Capitol.

(And she's not coming back.)

(Even if she does.)