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we can light a match and burn it down

Katniss still misses him every day. If asked two, three years ago when this whole journey of hers started how she felt about Peeta Mellark, she probably wouldn't have had an answer but now Katniss thinks that some way, some how, she might have loved him. She thinks that she is never going to have the chance to know that, now, since he's locked up in the Capitol and she's here - away from anything and everything dangerous.

She still goes back, though, to tempt fate and while she goes with her quiver on her back and her bow in her hand, Katniss doesn't think that's exactly going to be enough to stop a Capitol hovercraft if they really want to take her. She hasn't seen them, though. Any time she goes back to 12, she only sees meadows and ponds and trees and she never sees anything remotely resembling the Capitol's ominous presence.

Today, she sees two deer in the woods and bags them, deciding to bring them back. She's learned how to cook and her boss in the restaurant doesn't seem to mind when she brings back game to share; she guesses he just likes having someone show up to wait tables on a more or less regular basis and Katniss is fairly reliable.

She drags them through the door and pauses, wondering about her wisdom in trying to bring both of these back through without cleaning them first. Oh well. She's never been overly concerned with what other people think. When someone stares at her, she stares right back.

"You want to help me with this or do you just want to look?"

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Johanna shrugs with a smirk on her face, seeing as she's from Seven, but she's not exactly built to lug. She's equipped for sharp edges. "Actually, I was thinking about just watching," she replies, perched where she is, cross-legged and sitting atop one of the chairs, eating an apple as she wipes away the juice with her pinky. "You do know they serve food here, right?"

"Yeah but I like to keep the kitchen stocked," Katniss says, scowling a bit as she brings her game back into the back to dress. "You could at least keep me company while I butcher this. It's going to be a long afternoon."

Johanna is prickly most of the time but weirdly she is also one of her closest friends here and Katniss wants the company.

Johanna inhales a deep breath and holds it while she considers it, tipping her head back and forth as she considers it. She pushes out the breath, laughing coolly and figuring that she doesn't have anything better to do. "Fine, but don't expect me to get anywhere near it," she says. It's not that she gives a shit about cutting it open, but it smells.

"When I want blood on my clothes, I prefer it to be human."

"Fine," Katniss says, laughing. "How in the hell did you survive the Games without hunting?"

Katniss knows the answer to this even as soon as she says it. Johanna just hid until she rained bloody slaughter on everyone with her axe and food wasn't exactly important. Katniss had a different approach to it.

"I didn't need much," she says with a shrug. "Little bit of fruit every now and then kept me going. Besides, I needed everyone to think I was meek and starving." Never mind that she'd been slight all her life even before the Games, but it had played to her advantage. "Did you believe me?" she asks, a beggar eager for crumbs for her ego.

"Was it a good performance?"

"Well, no, since I knew how it ended." Katniss thinks back to when she watched those Games as a child. It had been several years ago but she had to watch them same as everyone else.

"It worked at the time, though. You tied all of it in. The interviews, the strategy. It was well played. It wasn't my thing, but you did well."

"It's only a shame I only got to use that strategy once," she complains, seeing as it might have been nice to go into the Quarter Quell with that up her sleeve, though the strategy had been different. Meek and quiet wouldn't have worked for the uprising they were after. "No, your thing was star-crossed lovers and babies," she mocks, blinking her eyes as if innocent. "The Capitol ate it up."

Katniss scowls at her deer carcass and works on breaking down the joints before addressing Johanna. She's struck a nerve and Katniss doesn't know if it was intentional or not; there's a good chance it is, with Johanna.

"Peeta's strategy. The berries...we weren't thinking about it that way. I just wanted to win my own way. Peeta's the one who was in love. Not me."

"Oh, honey," Johanna replies, voice dripping with mild disbelief and heavy on the disdain because she hates people who try and play dumb, especially when being sweet and meek and dumb had been her thing. "You're a good actress when you need to be, but you're not that good," she says firmly. "It wasn't just him."

"It was his strategy," Katniss protests.

"I never used that as a strategy for anything but Peeta did."

"I think you both benefitted from it, but I also think that telling the truth is one of the best strategies there is," Johanna says, wishing that she had that to work for her, but after her reveal, she'd been too sharp and crass; far too dangerous. Everyone sees her as the weapon she is, now.

It is the truth. That's the part that hurts, realizing she does love Peeta and now he's not here to tell that to. Katniss is alone again - though at least there's Johanna and Annie to help ease some of that.

"Yeah. It's a hell of a strategy, to tell the truth. Nobody will see through it when you try to lie about it."

"It just doesn't usually keep you alive," she says, knowing that as soon as the naive and precious little girl had fallen away, she'd lost her chance at donors because a cunning twist is good once. Still, it'd kept her alive. It had worked right up until Snow wanted her body and she'd refused and...

Well, she paid for that one with blood. "I haven't seen him around lately," she admits. "Did he follow the trail of blood home?"

"I don't know where he went," Katniss admits. "The only place I haven't tried is the Arena and I can't go in there. I can't do that." Maybe that makes her a coward but she thinks Johanna can understand that as well as anyone else. There is nothing for her in the Arena except death.

"I know he comes out of the Arena alive. I'm keeping to that."

Katniss isn't the only one afraid to go back there. Johanna hates using that word, but she suspects it's pretty much the best one to use. It's fear, but it's also knowledge, because she's heard what happens to her, and she knows she doesn't want to live that life. "What about after? What happens to him after?"

"They messed him up," Katniss says, voice soft. It isn't something she particularly likes talking about and she's only really talked about it with Annie, who saw that for herself. "They took every memory he had of me and twisted it, made it into something wrong. He's not himself anymore. He's alive, but he's not really Peeta."

"That's what they do," she hits the words hard, as if Katniss doesn't understand when really, she knows as well as Johanna does that all the Capitol does is screw with people's hearts and minds and families. They aren't rich, they aren't chosen, and so, they don't matter. "Are you really gonna sit back and take that? You've been giving them a big fuck you since the start."

"Does that seriously stop now?"

"No," Katniss says quickly. "It's just, how do I even go back there without a plan? Without an army? I'm just one person, Johanna." Maybe she's the symbol of a revolution but she's still flesh and blood and she still has failings. She's still afraid of the Arena and afraid of Snow, even if she's going to push past it to defeat him somehow. She just needs more backing her up.

"Maybe," she agrees, but given what they have at their disposal here, it's not like they have to go back alone. "Find one of those worlds with an army. Or just stockpile your weapons until you've got so much firepower that you can raze the Capitol with the press of a button," she says, vindictive and fiery, eager to rain down destruction on them.

"Yeah, I guess. But only if we get the other victors out first. I'm not going to let Peeta die in there with Snow," Katniss says firmly. "There's no way. He doesn't deserve that."

Nobody deserves to go out like that, least of all someone she cares about.

Johanna knows that nobody deserves it, but there's a part of her that things that the victors from One, Two, and all the other career victors should probably suffer a little. Then again, that's just old beliefs. She knows she doesn't feel that way anymore, out of necessity, but there's a part of her that's still bitter. "Then how do we get him out?" is what she asks.

"We need some kind of distraction. Some way to get Snow to focus on something else while we get them out," Katniss says. She's not the best at forming plans like this but she thinks that Johanna might be slightly better at it. After all, Johanna won her games using subterfuge moreso than skill. It's more than Katniss can admit; Katniss has always been herself, for better or worse.

"What a shame we can't figure out a way to unleash the undead on Snow," she says with a pitiful little sigh, given how she'd enjoy watching them tear Snow's face off. It's only one of her biggest fantasies to watch him suffer, shaking her head.

"If you're gonna do this, you need Finnick," she says, half apologetic because she has the feeling she knows his answer. "And he's playing Daddy right now."

"And he's not likely going to want to do anything else," Katniss says, thinking it over. "And really, could we ask him to? Could we ask him to leave his wife and his son to save someone else when he's already risked so much for it?"

She doesn't like to think about Peeta being there all alone without a rescue but at the same time, can she really be so selfish as to tear Finnick away from this place with his family?

"You need someone who knows the Capitol inside and out and that man knows every last one of its' secrets," Johanna says, because he had been savvy where she'd been sharp, and had started to soak up the Capitol's precious inner knowledge. "I don't think works without him."

"What does Haymitch think?" she asks, having seen him around again.

"Haven't run it by him yet. I'm trying to make sure he doesn't drink himself to death," Katniss admits.

"And I don't think suggesting that we all go break into the Capitol is going to keep him sober. We need his help, though, if we're going to pull this off. Him and Finnick both."

"He knows which drink is the penultimate," Johanna assures dismissively, having long ago figured out that trying to interfere in Haymitch's affairs is a quick way to earn a glare. Besides, she likes drinking with him. It makes everything get better, if only for a small, small glimmer of time.

"So put a plan together. Aren't you the Mockingjay?" she says, only half sharp and cutting.

"Yeah, I am. The great symbol of the rebellion," Katniss snaps back. "Not that I can do anything about it when I'm terrified of leaving this place to go save people from Snow. I just want a chance to get people here so they can be away from all of it. That makes me a coward, doesn't it? To just want to save my family and move on? I don't want to be a symbol. I want to be me."

"It's a shame that the people decide what they want you to be," Johanna says, her inflection somewhat devoid of emotion. She's what she wants to be, but it comes at a high price that she's still not sure she's okay with having paid. "So you're the symbol of the revolution. Figure out how to work that to your advantage."

"Use it against them, huh?" Katniss has never been someone who thinks strategically. This is something that she's never found as a strength and has relied upon Peeta for but she doesn't have that option anymore.

"I guess we'd better start making a plan. A real, solid plan."

She hates it, but she's in this to bring the Capitol down. It's shitty not having the army she'd expected, but maybe they can still make it out. "We should probably start looking for ways to get to 13," she admits. "That's where we were headed after we got out of the Games. Except, you went off book," she says, a throwaway comment and nothing more.

"Well, I've been to 13 since I've been here," Katniss admits. "I don't really want to go back there but if we need 13 in order to take the Capitol down, I'll be happy to go. And stay on book this time."

She isn't sure what the throwaway comment means but she can tell a barb when she hears one.

"Well, then, we might still have a chance." If any of them are willing to go back, that is. She's not sure she's ready, but she's mostly just biding up her anger and getting it ready. They're going to take the Capitol down. As far as Johanna is concerned, there is no other option. It's what she's willing to give her life for.

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we can light a match and burn it down

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