[open]

[stillplaying]

It's been six months and five days. One hundred and eighty-six days since she had watched her sister burn like a pyre. One hundred and forty-five days since she sought out her revenge. Since she executed Coin and secured her freedom, her only chance to be free of anyone's strings and no longer be a pawn in their games. Less days than that since she returned to District 12. Only sixty-seven there. Fifty-three since Peeta's return and her first attempt to leave the house. She had made it as far as the fence and had to get a ride home in Thom's cart, sitting where all the dead had earlier that day.

The numbers roll through her head as she makes her way through the familiar forests. Reminders of how far she's come. Of life and living and that need to keep moving forward. It plays through her mind along with other words. Her name: Katniss Everdeen. Her age: eighteen. She lives in District 12 again. Commander Paylor is now President Paylor. There are no more Hunger Games. No more war. And somehow, she survived. She survived and others didn't and no matter how hard she tries, she still doesn't understand.

So it's easier to leave every morning right at sunrise. Before Dr. Aurelius can call her or Peeta can stop by. Before Haymitch might be out of his drunken stupor and before Greasy Sae or anyone else might stop by to check on her. Even in the May sun, she wears her leather jacket. Because it's easier to cover up, to hide the scars that might attract attention. Quiver and bow are slung across her back and her bag bounces against her thigh as she walks slowly along the edge of the meadow, carrying her supplies. She takes another step forward and...

...and she stops.

Gone is the fresh air. Gone is the slight breeze and the sickly sweet smell of corpses yet to be fully buried. Mockingjays no longer make noise in the distance. There's a different sort of chatter now. A different smell in the air.

Her heart skips a beat in her chest. There are people here. People in a place that looks like a bar but... but can't be a bar. Because there's no bar that looks like this in District 12. There's no time for the people of 12 to just sit around, doing absolutely nothing. Not with all the cleanup and the rebuilding and this can't be possible.

She takes a breath and forces herself to move. Her eyes dart around, aware and alert, already assessing the people in the room and the room itself. Looking for weaknesses, for entrances and exits, for anything she can use for defense in addition to her bow. She doesn't understand it. She doesn't know how she got here, why she's here, or even where here is. But she refuses to be caught off guard. She refuses to have survived this long only to die in... in some new game?

Did they change their mind? Decide that she was too dangerous to be kept in District 12 after all? Bring her back... someplace, alongside all the other unwanted and dangers from the old Capitol? She looks around and tries to spot someone familiar. When that fails, she forces herself to speak loudly, in as firm and threatening a tone as possible.

"I want to talk to President Paylor. Now."




It's only later, after matters are explained, that she's found herself sitting at one of the tables in the corner nursing a cup of tea, that she might be a little more approachable. But there's still a suspicious and angry look on her face and a steel glint in her eye. Her bow and quiver and bag are on the floor next to her but she keeps the skinning knife beside her hand.

Just in case.

The odds have never been in her favor.

Comments

[fallaces_sunt]

"President Paylor isn't here." The voice is low, feminine yet rough. It belongs to a small redhaired woman in a brown leather jacket who is just getting up from her table, her movements smooth and her hands very firmly in the air.

Don't shoot; I mean you no harm.

"If I explain, will you hear me out?" It's a question evenly spoken. There's no threat behind it, but equally, there's no fear.

[stillplaying]

She turns slowly, her right hand coming to rest on the strap that holds her bow to her back. Her posture is tense, ready to spring into action the moment anything seems out of her control. It's better than panicking or breaking down. This arena is unfamiliar. Maybe it isn't an arena. A prison? She doesn't know.

It's tempting to run. To run and find someplace to hide and just cry. Because she thought that this was all over. She thought that she was free from a life of games and politics and pain. But that was a lie, wasn't it? She's never going to be free.

Katniss scowls at the woman, taking in the way her hands are in the air and the even voice in which she speaks. She doesn't recognize her, not that she'd know every notable politician in Panem. But the way she's dressed fits someone from the Districts rather than the Capitol.

The question is ignored for one of her own. "Where's Paylor?"

[fallaces_sunt]

She will say this for being best friends with the best archer on the planet; even if Clint's aim is almost preternaturally good, she's very used to rolling out of the way of arrows.

But there are civilians here, and she's far more concerned about them.

"I've actually never heard of a President Paylor. So, I'm gonna say that they aren't here."

Pause.

"I'm Natasha. Romanoff. You're on a ship called the USS Enterprise. I'm not going to ask you not to reach for your weapon. But I am asking you to listen before you use it. Can you do that?"

[stillplaying]

The name is as unfamiliar to Katniss as everything else. Both the woman's and the name of a ship. It does little to put her at ease. She knows this act. She's seen it before, even tried it herself. She hadn't been so successful then, standing outside the Nut in District 2 and trying to convince the injured soldiers to surrender. She still remembers the pain of the bullet. Not as bad as the pain of a burn, but still harsh and unforgiving.

She'd like to think that she'd be better than that wounded soldier. That she won't shoot this woman whose trying her best to talk her down. But she can't say for certain. Maybe she's just as trigger happy as the District 2 Peacekeeper had been, too.

Somehow, though, she refrains from taking her bow off her back. It's not a sign of acquiescence or agreement and she doesn't nod in response to the request. She doesn't shake her head either. Instead, she takes another look around and frowns. This doesn't look like any ship she's ever been on. "This isn't a hovership."

[fallaces_sunt]

Hovership. That's something. At least the technology levels won't be completely out of the realms of possibility.

"No, it's not. You're on a spaceship."

[stillplaying]

The look she gives in return is a little bit blank and a whole lot incredulity. Spaceship? The term isn't just unfamiliar, but sounds completely impossible. Machines that move through air are acceptable. Normal, even in a place as backwards as District 12.

But something that flies through space? The stars? Impossible. More than that, pointless. There's nothing out there.

[fallaces_sunt]

"Spaceship," Natasha repeats. "Currently in dock around the planet Risa." Her mouth twitches into a quick, somewhat wry smile. "We don't exactly have this kind of technology in my time, either."

She regards the girl for a long moment, and keeps her hands in the air.

"I was brought here, like you. Not by the crew, but by someone else. A guy called Q. There's a few of us now. Captain Picard and the rest of the crew treat us as guests. We're given lodging, food. They just request that we don't disturb the every day running of the ship."

Natasha holds Katniss's gaze for a moment and then, very pointedly, glances over to some of the security officers standing by. The officers have their phasers still in their holsters, and their stance is more wary than anything else, but they are there.

"May I lower my hands?"

[stillplaying]

Even if she claims that they don't have this level of technology wherever she's from, there's still a sense of understanding in the way she says it. Like this could possibly be normal for the woman. That it doesn't sound nearly as abnormal to her as it does to Katniss. Spaceship? Planet?

No. None of it makes sense. And almost everything explained to her earns a scowl.

That is except one thing.

They were brought here. Guests or not, they were brought here.

Her face goes ashen and though she doesn't let go of the bow, any thought of using the weapon is gone. Now, she's doing her best not to collapse. Not to fall on to the floor and hug her knees to her chest and cry. Quickly, Katniss shakes her head. Everything else said goes past her.

She needs to be strong. She doesn't know how to be strong.

It's a game.

"...a game?" Tougher. She needs to be tougher. "Are we in a game?"

[fallaces_sunt]

"No." Her voice is firm. She can't read the girl well enough to know if kindness would set her off faster than firmness, but it's easier to switch from the latter to the firmer.

"Not literally. What do you mean by 'a game'?"

[miniclaws]

Laura watches the new arrivals enter the bar, she dismisses many of those who are confused, there are enough people to deal with those. Old habits die hard, and she is looking for the predators and the fighters, so she can get idea of their skills before she has to fight them.

She watches the girl from a distance, for a couple of minutes, she looks like a wounded, feral animal, ready to spring at the slightest provocation. It intrigues her and she isn't afraid of being attacked. She walks slowly towards the girl, giving her time to process that there was someone approaching her.

"President Paylor is not here. They are not responsible for kidnapping you."

[stillplaying]

By now, she's already talked to the redheaded woman. Natasha Romanoff. Her bow is no longer on her back but gripped tightly in her left hand. All arrows remain in the quiver, though, and she doesn't look quite as ready to attack. Quite as ready. She's still tense, ready to pull an arrow from her quiver at the slightest wrong move. She doesn't trust anyone here. Or anything. She's still on guard.

It's a guard that doesn't let up when the girl approaches. She doesn't necessarily look much older than Katniss, maybe even about the same age. But she knows better, knows how lethal children can be when put in the right circumstances. Knows how lethal she herself can be. To see someone close in age is far from reassuring.

The look she gives the girl isn't just wary but cold as well. "Someone already told me that."

[miniclaws]

"There are always unanswered questions, what didn't they tell you?" Laura is very literal and to the point. She quietly approves of the other girl's vigilant state, too many people on board relax and trust people when they are told by one person that they are safe.

"Did they tell you to put your bow away?"

[stillplaying]

The hint of amusement that crosses her face at the last question is barely noticeable, not so much of a grin as a flicker of light in her eyes. Did they tell her to put her bow away? Not so much in those words but she was aware of the implication. Threats were not welcome here. Her bow, alongside her quiver full of arrows, were a threat.

Katniss shrugs in response, her body language answering the question instead of words. She's not going to put it away. She's not going anywhere without her bow. There's no one she trusts here. She's not dumb enough to give up her only chance of survival.

[miniclaws]

Laura's weapons are always on her, hidden in her hands, ready at a moments notice so she does not scoff the girl for wanting to keep the bow close by. "Many people are not fighters, they are weak and will not seek out a fight with you." She does not sugarcoat and pretend the ship is entirely safe.

"Do you own a knife? Some of the corridors are narrow for shooting a bow."

[stillplaying]

She has a knife in her bag, a knife meant for skinning and gutting and not at all meant for any sort of fighting. But she remembers the sting of a cold blade against her skin. Clove's blade, firm and steady against her throat. If it hadn't been for Thresh, she would have died there. She never would have gotten the medicine that Peeta needed, they never would have lived through the 74th Hunger Games.

Her hand goes to her throat for a second as she remembers. There's no blood there now, only scars and still healing patches of skin.

"Can you get one here?"

Does she need to be prepared for someone as skilled as Clove?

[miniclaws]

"There are steak knives." Laura has not found much in the way of weapons lying around. She notices the gesture of the hand to the throat. This girl knows what it is like to face an opponent.

"There have been a handful of fights. None of them have been serious. I suggest a knife if it will make you feel safe."

[stillplaying]

Steak knives. It's still far from her weapon of choice, but it's something to consider. She wonders where she'd find one and is almost tempted to ask. But she doesn't want to seem dependent. Not on this girl. Not on anyone. Until then, she has her skinning knife. It'd be worth ruining the blade to protect herself. She also has her arrows, still sharp and pointy even if not used as a projectile.

She considers all of this for a second. Then, she shakes her head.

"I like my bow."

[fishermansweater]

Victors sit with their backs to the wall.

The vigilance of the arena is hard to let go, especially since the arena continues on long after the Games end. Alertness, vigilance, watching for danger, looking into the corners, the places people think they'll be hidden. It's only that sort of alertness that kept him alive in the arena, not once, but twice, that kept him moving through the long game he's been playing in the Capitol for so many years.

So when Finnick, healed (at least physically) of the wounds from the arena, steps into the lounge, it's with a watchfulness belied by the easy grace in his walk. He's got fresh clothes now, not quite his style, but preferable to the dirty and torn shorts he'd been in when he'd been flashed here from the arena.

He's still got Haymitch's bangle on, though; it's one thing he can hold onto as real when everything else is so unbelievable.

It's that vigilance that means that he sees her, though she's in the corner -- back to the wall. Sees her, and takes a few steps closer, his easy swagger dropped for a moment into a gait more hesitant, less certain.

What does it mean that she's here, too? The face of the revolution they'd been planning, at the heart of it all but unaware of the plans in place around her?

"Katniss!"

[stillplaying]

She doesn't notice him at first. Her eyes are too busy flitting around, taking in the scenery and the moving people as fast as she can. She's not looking for anyone in particular because why would there actually be someone here that she might know? Volunteers aside, tributes to the Hunger Games had always been randomly selected. Why would it be any different with this Q? Gamemakers don't care. None of them ever have good intentions.

Why would that ever change?

Except... except for a second there, she thinks that she hears her name. Tea spills as she quickly slams the mug back on the table and looks around with renewed suspicion, if not a bit of surprise. And then she sees him.

Her eyes tear up almost automatically. Because it's him and he's looking so alive and healthy and Finnick and she remembers hearing his screams. She remembers seeing him die. The lizard mutts haunt her nightmares every night. She'll never forget. Never forget what he sacrificed for her.

Wobbling a little as she stands, she uses the table as a crutch and whispers, "Finnick?"

[fishermansweater]

He'd pledged his life for Katniss Everdeen. He'd done it before he'd even met her, before he'd come to respect the cool disdain she'd shown for the charm he knows could have drawn half the Capitol into his arms if he'd wanted it to. Before he'd watched her hair-trigger unease around him soften into the strange partnership of arena allies. Before he'd heard her screaming after Peeta hit the forcefield. Before they'd faced the jabberjays together.

Now, she's one of the few people he could even begin to trust if they showed their faces here: Katniss, Annie, Peeta, Johanna, the other conspirators. There's nobody else, nobody he trusts not to be a part of a Capitol game. Not willingly, at least.

He watches the bow, for a moment, remembering how wound up he'd been when he'd arrived, how long it had taken Doctor Bashir to persuade him even to let him treat the wounds of the arena. Katniss, though, doesn't go for the bow.

The alliance still stands.

There's more to it than that, though. When Katniss looks up at him, it's not with the relief of someone finally seeing a familiar face. When they first met, back before so many things happened in so few days, she'd told him that everyone else knew her secrets before she did, and he'd agreed with her. But there's no hidden trick to reading Katniss' secrets. They're there in her eyes, an easy confession to read for someone as experienced in secrets as Finnick.

Katniss has never looked at him like that, never spoken of him in a voice like that. Never whispered his name like she can't believe she's saying it.

"Katniss?" he asks, arch, half a smile creeping over his mouth, almost even real.

She's surely overreacting.

"When did you get here?" he asks, carefully maintaining a layer of cover over the very genuine question as he takes another few steps towards her. "Have you seen any of the others?"

[stillplaying]

She wants to touch him. She wants to place her hand on his arm or his chest and touch him and see for herself that he's real. Not a nightmare, not something in her imagination. A person. A living, breathing person trapped here with her in another game. Someone she can trust. Someone she owes far more too than could ever be repaid in her lifetime.

He died for her. How can she ever forget that?

Ever?

Maybe somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks that she ought to be covering her reaction better. Not let the secrets slip out on her face. Does he even know? Does he remember? She doesn't know. And right now, she doesn't know who to ask. She doesn't have anyone she trusts enough to give her an answer. She just has to accept it, accept him, and pretend... pretend what? Another game?

She has to play another game.

But for now, she forgets it. He takes a few steps forward and she closes the distance with a hug. She's not alone. For whatever reason, unless she really is hallucinating, she's not alone.

"A couple days ago," she mumbles to answer his first question as she rests her cheek against his chest for a second. There's a heartbeat there. He's alive.

Then, she takes a step back. "You're the first person I've seen."

[fishermansweater]

There's something off about this, and he knows it even before Katniss flings her arms around him, a move so unexpected that he barely stops himself flinching. Katniss is reserved, holds back from socializing, from contact, except when she's playing to the cameras with Peeta, playing a part that he recognizes because it's just a twist on the one he himself plays.

He plays in love with everyone. She plays in love with Peeta, except of the two of them, her role is more honest. She does love Peeta; Finnick had seen that in her desperation when he'd hit the forcefield.

He'd watched Katniss Everdeen last year, in the arena. His tribute had been in an alliance with Peeta, and Katniss' strategy and her score said she was a threat. So he'd watched. And he'd watched her on her Victory Tour, as well, then he'd rewatched the footage of both once the plans for the conspiracy fell into place (secretly, in his own home in the Victors' Village, where Annie wouldn't see and work out what he was planning). And he's studied her more closely in person than she knows this year, in the parade, the interviews, watching her in training.

Katniss Everdeen is not the sort to run and hug a man she barely knows. But she's hugging him, pressing her face against his chest with a sort of gentleness that nobody but Annie and Mags has used when they touch him for a long, long time. Then a moment later, Katniss is stepping away, answering his questions, almost, almost, back to the sort of emotional detachment he's more used to seeing from her about people she doesn't know well.

"I haven't seen anyone else I know, either." There's a flash of a smile at her. "Nobody even recognized me. Nobody asked for my autograph or anything."

A couple of days. Less time than him, but maybe not by much, and that's important, and he does have a more serious reply, one that could shape everything else he asks.

"From the arena?"

[stillplaying]

Finnick Odair: the darling of the Capitol, Panem's own living legend. That no one would recognize him is as impossible as no one recognizing her. He's had longer in the spotlight but she and Peeta had made their own impacts. Being the Mockingjay had only made her face more recognizable. Despite this, someone has yet to recognize her here. To those few she's talked to, she's not the girl on fire. Nor is she the face of any rebellion. She's just a girl. A very lost, very distrusting girl.

It's been freeing in a strange way. The only good thing in this new game.

Until now.

It's both a relief and a fright to see Finnick standing in front of her. And she wonders just how much she's given away in her reaction. Especially the look of surprise that appears when he mentions the arena.

"What?"

[fishermansweater]

"Did you come here from the arena?"

He repeats the question, more fully this time, and his voice slips for a second into a noticeable District 4 accent. "I did."

Surely she did, too, or she'd noticed him vanish. He wound up here, expecting to fight, and instead he'd been treated for the wounds the arena's clock of nightmares and Enobaria had left him with, given food and drink and new clothing and treated like a guest.

(Not that he trusts any of it. It reminds him a little too much of the pampering of the scared district kids before they're thrown to each other's mercies or lack thereof in the arena.)

There's an unease in his expression as he looks at Katniss; it's like the looks he'd given her on the first day in the arena, when she'd seemed ready to shoot him if Peeta hadn't intervened, in spite of Haymitch's bracelet. (He'd known that was a risk. It's hard to win Katniss Everdeen's trust.) But they'd grown less uneasy in their alliance since then. Not friends, not trusting, but firm allies. Firm enough that he'd hoped he could hold the alliance together until they were rescued.

Now, though, he can see differences. Not only does she show no sign of the burns from the arena, but she has other scars. Nastier scars, showing on her neck, nasty, but old, or at least, not fresh. Not just a couple of days old.

Scars she hadn't had when he'd last seen her.

Something is very wrong here. Scars that are both new and old. Katniss' familiarity with him, the way she hugged him like almost nobody hugs him. The look in her eyes at the mention of the arena. At the sight of his face.

"You didn't, did you? You've had those scars for a while. And you've known me longer than a few days."

[stillplaying]

Almost automatically, her hand goes to her neck. She wants to pop the collar of her father's jacket, shift it so that it better covers what shows of the scars. It's been a while since she last felt as self-conscious about them like she does now. The people of District 12 don't care. None of them had ever looked perfect, not like the sort of perfection they tried to cultivate in the Capitol. But every time she glimpses the scars, she's reminded of how she received them. Of all the costs that led to today.

She hates her scars right now. She hates her scars and her inability to lie and that Finnick's figured it all out. He put the pieces together faster than she possibly could. No, she hadn't come from the arena. And even though she's certain that her answer is written completely over her face, she shakes her head anyway. Just to be able to answer with something.

"That was almost a year ago," she finally whispers. Almost a year and so, so many deaths. Including his own. How does she even begin to tell him any of this?

It's simple, she realizes a second or two later. She doesn't tell him anything. If... if he really doesn't remember anything past the Quarter Quell, she's not going to be the one to tell him. She owes him too much to ever hurt him like that.

"It's good..." Katniss forces out. "It's good to see you again, Finnick."