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Today is her birthday. Birthdays aren't usually anything special in 12 and, if it's turning 12, it's usually something to dread. The only birthday Katniss has ever cared about was 19 and she's not there yet. Instead, she's turning 18 today and if nothing had ever changed, she would be lining up for the Reaping for her last time this year. She'd have so many names in the ball that she'd be bound to be picked but Katniss likes to think she'd be lucky. After all, she made it to sixteen without ever getting Reaped, didn't she?

It had been Prim who was Reaped that year, Prim who only had one name in the ball and had the best shot out of any kid in the Seam to never get Reaped. Prim, for whom Katniss had sacrificed everything.

On her birthday, Katniss always thinks of Prim. She thinks about how Prim always made it a point to give her something on her birthday even if she didn't have the resources that Katniss had. Somehow magically, there was good flint for starting fires or a little tinder box. Her boots got patched or there was good, pliable wood for new arrows. Prim always managed to make something out of nothing.

Today, so she doesn't think about Prim, Katniss decides to work. She's taking orders in the dining room, bussing tables, working back in the kitchen. Anything to keep her hands and mind busy so that homesickness doesn't threaten to eat her from the inside out. It's always been the mental things she's struggled with. She can deal with pain, hunger, death but she never, ever has been able to deal with thinking about just how much she misses her sister each and every day.

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"Typical and unfair," Katniss says, laughing a little at the idea of Finnick as a stunning woman. Apparently they made them all stunning over in District 4, based on Katniss' limited experience with it.

"And here they can only barely make me look like a girl and I was born one."

"You're more than pretty enough," Johanna says, dismissing any of Katniss' concerns, rarely ever falling prey for that scheme in which people get compliments when they're feeling down. Her own ego makes it next to impossible to ever experience something similar, so she doesn't do it for others. "Maybe you can trick him back through the door and get a good look, yourself."

"I'll get Peeta to help me. I'm sure he would want to see that," Katniss says, thinking of the look on Peeta's face if faced with a beautiful, feminine Finnick. "It'll be better than looking at dough, dough and more dough. I don't know how he spends all day in the kitchen. I couldn't do it. I have to get out here and wait tables for a little while if I'm going to stand it for any stretch of time."

"Maybe he's hiding from something," Johanna suggests, given that their little escape into luxury paradise must weigh on people differently and sure, she's soaking it up like she deserves every single second of it, she can't imagine Katniss and Peeta would be the same.

Case in point, Katniss working here, like this. "It happened to me, too," she admits with a lazy twist of her fingers. "And before you ask, I made a gorgeous man."

Katniss snorts. "Oh really? Well, I can't say that I'm surprised. You're beautiful now, it's pretty likely that the opposite would hold true. To be gorgeous, that is."

Katniss has no idea what she would look like as a man but she imagines it wouldn't be pretty. "How long did it last for you?"

Johanna primps and teases at her hair, as if she needs to acknowledge that kind of compliment with the preening that she knows so well. "I think Finnick about had a heart attack when I turned up at the door, knocking like he owed me money," she admits with a strangled little laugh of delight. "It lasted for three or four days. One day, I was a man, the next thing I know I'm back to myself and drowning in guy's clothes."

"Peeta and I kept the same bodies," Katniss says, well aware that it's pretty telling she only saw Peeta in those three or four days. She's always been happiest with her own company and now, suddenly, she's tolerating Peeta for hours on end? It's definitely a change in routine.

"What did Annie think about all this? She didn't get...upset, did she?"

Johanna shrugs dismissively, shaking her head as she tucks into another roll, having meant it when she'd said she didn't exactly care so much anymore about what her figure looks like. It's not like she's on cameras all the time, doesn't have to worry about the Capitol finding her.

"I don't know," she says bluntly. "For Finnick's sake, I try not to get involved in that part of his life. I think it's kinder, to let him separate them. I'm a reminder of the Games, the Capitol, the mentor gig."

"Yeah, I guess. I just don't want her to be by herself," Katniss says. She worries about Annie but she guesses that Finnick knows how best to take care of her and how best to make sure she acclimates and there's little Katniss could do to help.

"Has anyone else from home shown up?"

Johanna thinks that Katniss is a better person, that way. As far as she's concerned, she's happy to let Finnick segment his life into things he cares about and the things he's picked up along the way thanks to the Games. "I think I saw Haymitch trying to drown himself in something that could light him on fire, but that could've been any drunken idiot," she says. "You?"

"Effie showed up wondering whether or not I was late for the Arena. As if they'd let me be late and miss the Arena," Katniss scoffs. "But other than that, nobody. I...didn't tell Effie you were here."

Johanna wrinkles her nose. "Effie, that's right. I did see her. I try not to linger too long when it comes to thoughts about her. They're so bright," she says. True, she's very good at moving her victors through the paces, but she's a lot to deal with and Johanna can only manage in concentrated bursts. "I don't know how you do it."

"Effie's harmless," Katniss says. She's oddly defensive of Effie, if only because Effie seems to care about her Victors more than most in the Capitol.

"She's just...she's like a brightly colored bird or something."

"Harmless, maybe, but annoying," Johanna says, because the constant presence would send Johanna to the nearest sharp item that she can find. There's a reason that her own accompaniment tends to leave her alone and it's not because she asked nicely. "She hit gold with you two, though. Haymitch and the first dual victors? She was probably in raptures."

"Probably, but I like to think Effie actually likes us deep down beneath the makeup," Katniss says. She believes so, anyway, even if Effie is hardly rebel material. She just sticks with what she knows.

"Well, Peeta anyway."

Johanna doesn't think her stylist likes her at all. She's rough around the edges and likes murder the way that no girl from Seven is really supposed to be. Maybe if she'd been a career, it would've been different, but it's not like it matters anymore. "Does she still wear those awful glittering monstrosities, even here?"

"Yeah. Not quite as bad," Katniss concedes, "But she sure tries to make up for the lack of Capitol Couture around here. It's kind of frightening. Me personally, I'm glad nobody's trying to eliminate every scrap of my body hair."

Johanna lets her gaze slip over Katniss, as if assessing for herself, but it's not like there are any cameras to impress and Katniss doesn't have the same habit as stripping down naked as she and some of the other victors don't mind so much. "They don't really mind the hair in 12, do they?" she deadpans, tearing into another of Peeta's rolls.

"We've got other concerns. You know, like feeding our families and not getting blown to smithereens," Katniss deadpans back. "Somehow having a little extra body hair isn't that big a deal. Besides, the winters are cold."

Katniss is always so passionate and determined and, frankly, Johanna enjoys poking at her to see if she'll break. It's a happy thing, being able to test and test to that degree. "You don't need to worry about that anymore," she points out. "You're in the lap of luxury, now."

"Maybe. But what if they find us, you know? I still live a little on edge."

Katniss doesn't think she'll ever truly relax anymore, not since the Arena. Maybe she did every once in a while when she thought she would never have to go back in but the Quarter Quell dispelled that particular illusion.

"If they find us, I've been storing up weapons and they're going to understand that just because we're in a nice place, I haven't lost my edge the same as I'm sure your aim hasn't faltered a single day since you got here," Johanna says, sure of that. She folds her napkin in her lap. "Besides, we're growing in number. That means something."

"Yeah. I'm just as dangerous now as I would be then. Probably more dangerous, I actually have enough to eat here and I'm not stressed about going back into the Arena," Katniss says. A full belly is a dangerous weapon and a reason that the Careers almost always do better than tributes from other districts.

"Nobody else I've met seems to know about the Games, though. Why do you think that is?"

"Luck?" Johanna suggests deadly serious, given that she doesn't exactly think that other people should be so lucky to avoid it, but they're also lucky to have never seen a thing like the Games in their life. "Who knows? Maybe it's just not their turn yet? Maybe Panem is in their future?"

"Maybe they're from places that don't have them at all," Katniss proposes. It's a little radical but so is showing up in a place outside the long arm of the Capitol too.

"Maybe there's safe havens beyond all the doors."

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