[ finnick/johanna mix ] alone + alive
001 SICK LITTLE GAMES (THREE DOORS DOWN)
They’re finding me out
I’m having my doubts
I’m losing the best of me
We’re all part of the same sick little games
And I need to get away
FINNICK IN THE GAMES
Johanna is fourteen when her younger brother is reaped. There’s nothing she can do to help him - nothing she’d want to do even if she could - but it kills her to see the twelve year old sent to his certain death.
He’s killed on the first day when the girl from District One snaps his neck. Johanna does not cry. She must be strong for her mother.
When Finnick Odair kills the girl from District One, Johanna laughs.
She has never seen anything more beautiful than that girl’s body impaled by the tines of a trident. Even though the pain from losing her brother is still fresh in her mind, she decides she likes the boy who kills so ruthlessly.
002 ZERO (YEAH YEAH YEAHS)
You’re zero
What’s your name, no one’s gonna ask you
Better find out where they want you to go
JOHANNA IN THE GAMES
The next year, Johanna’s boyfriend and sister are reaped.
The year after that, it’s her turn. Her mother dies of grief before Johanna is on the train (Johanna’s father, who had been a Victor, has been gone for years - Johanna was the only thing she had left).
Even though she has nothing left to come home to, Johanna is determined to win.
When she arrives in the Capitol, she’s surprised to see Finnick Odair. She knows he’s a Victor but it seems wrong for him to be mentoring as he’s barely older than she is. Still, she’s grateful for the opportunity it provides.
“Your year. The girl from District One. She killed my brother.” Johanna says to him one day during training (she won’t lay a finger on even the familiar weapons, she spends her time moping about the gym). She almost can’t thank him because she wants to do it later, she wants to do it after she’s won, but she bites it out.
It’s a shame she doesn’t stand a chance, because Finnick decides he likes the girl everyone overlooks.
003 JESUS CHRIST (BRAND NEW)
Well, Jesus Christ I’m not scared to die
I’m a little bit scared of what comes after
Do I get the gold chariot
Do I float through the ceiling
VICTORY
Johanna and Finnick quickly fall into a pattern. They spend most of their free time during the Games together, which the tabloids love because they’re both young, attractive, and available. They are never quite as close as the rumors make them out to be, but he’s the closest thing to a friend Johanna’s had in a long time.
When the tabloids say they’re planning to elope, they’re talking about death. They talk about their nightmares and the people they’ve killed. They talk about their futures and the people they will save.
They talk about hell.
When Johanna reads the magazines, she’s glad they got it wrong. Lovers are a dime a dozen. This is better.
004 DANCE WITH THE DEVIL (BREAKING BENJAMIN)
Say goodbye
As we dance with the Devil tonight
Don’t you dare look at him in the eye
As we dance with the Devil tonight
THE QUARTER QUELL
Finnick calls Johanna only hours after the Quell is announced. She wishes he’d waited longer because she’s a mess and she never wants anyone to think she’s weak ever again.
He tells her that the District Four Victors have already chosen who is going back in. She tells him that she wishes she had a choice and hangs up. She doesn’t want to hear how his friends are throwing themselves in harm’s way so he and Annie can live happily ever after. She’ll lose her will to fight.
When Finnick’s name is drawn and nobody volunteers for him, Johanna nearly cries. But Blight is here and it’s said and done and they’re on their way to the Capitol. She cannot cry.
This is a million times worse.
005 ANIMAL I HAVE BECOME (THREE DAYS GRACE)
So what if you can see the darkest side of me
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become
BACK IN THE GAMES
Even as Finnick submerges her in cool seawater, Johanna burns with hatred. It is an anger she hasn’t felt since the last time she was in the arena. As Finnick forces her underneath the water again, muting her string of profanities, she remembers a conversation they had when watching last year’s games.
“At least we’ll never have to kill again,” She had commented idly after she lost one of her Tributes (the girl from District One was the killer).
“Not directly,” He’d agreed.
She’s killed two people since then. She’s lost Blight.
Her legs give out for a second and Finnick has to hold her afloat in the water. He does not force her under again because she is no longer yelling.
She’s finally realized what this rebellion is all about.
006 LET THE FLAMES BEGIN (PARAMORE)
What a shame we all became such fragile, broken things.
A memory remains just a tiny spark.
I give it all my oxygen,
to let the flames begin.
to let the flames begin.
FIGHTING BACK
Johanna is unphased by pain. She knows that her captors know she is privy to the rebellion - but she doesn’t care. That’s probably the only thing that’s keeping her alive and they are not getting it out of her. They try - oh, they try for days but she is not going to break.
She worries about Peeta. He’s not tough like she is - he doesn’t know anything, so it’s not like he’s a threat to the rebellion, but she can hear him screaming somewhere far off. She knows it’s him, and she knows he won’t last much longer. She feels vaguely sorry for him, knowing that he won’t ever see Katniss again. She doesn’t mind that she’s never getting out of here (she lost Blight in the arena, she’s lost so much) but she wishes there was something she could do to help Peeta.
Her captors must have decided that she is not giving way easily enough, because the next dear she could swear to God that she hears Annie Cresta crying out in pain. She’s only half conscious, and beaten badly, but her mind tries to explain it. She’s hallucinating. It’s one of the Jabberjays Finnick encountered.
But every time Johanna hears Annie scream, a jolt of fear runs through her veins.
007 HERETICS (ANDREW BIRD)
We have wrought upon ourselves and others
With this blow, ambitious gun
And while platforms can be fun
Encores can be fatal
And then I hear you say,
Thank God it's fatal.
NO ONE LEFT I LOVE
Eventually Katniss comes to rescue Peeta, and Peeta insists that they find Johanna. By this point she’s been beaten so brutally that she cannot speak and can barely move - one of Katniss’s companions must carry the battered girl back to the hovercraft. She is dressed in a clean hospital gown and given fluids and the few doctors the rebellion has recruited say that she will probably recover, but the days it takes before she awakens seem ungodly long to Finnick.
Eventually, she does. She realizes what has happened and sees that Peeta is with her, and that the other beds are unoccupied. She sees Finnick sitting alone by the door and mustering the weakest of smiles.
She doesn’t need anyone to tell her that they didn’t find Annie.
008 REBELLION [LIES] (ARCADE FIRE)
People say that you’ll die
Faster than without water
But we know that’s just a lie
Scare your son, scare your daughter
REBELLION. LIES.
Johanna is not a humanitarian. She might have qualms about the things she’s been made to do, but she is not the kind of person who works serving food to starving refugees. It’s just not the kind of thing she does. She did not sign up to be a figurehead of this revolution. But that’s what she’s become. She’d already been a celebrity to them (how could they forget someone who had killed their children?). Now she is one of their Mockingjay’s fearless protectors.
A bowl of gruel might just be a bowl of gruel, but coming from Johanna Mason, it’s a glimmer of hope.
She’s sitting next to Finnick, who is rationing water. She thinks he looks sad and kind of empty (they still haven’t found Annie) but she’d never tell him that. She’s sure she looks sad and empty too (she still can’t believe that Blight is gone, gone truly and permanently). She thinks that it’s depressing and a little bit funny that Finnick is the very last thing she has in this world. Maybe she’s the last thing he has, too.
He asks her what she’s thinking about.
She says it’s not important.
009 HANG ME UP TO DRY (COLD WAR KIDS)
Careless in our summer clothes
Splashing around in the muck, in the mire
Fell asleep with stains
Caked deep in the knees, what a pain
Now hang me up to dry,
You’ve wrung me out too, too, too many times
WORN OUT BY WAR
She’s losing sight of their goal. She knows that once she would have given her life for this rebellion. But today, she can’t be bothered to get out of bed for it. She pulls her blankets so tightly around her that they are nearly a part of her, but she’s still cold and the cot is uncomfortable. She hurts all over but it’s a dull kind of ache. She couldn’t move if she wanted to.
She knows she’s late to breakfast. Maybe by this point she’s even missed it entirely, and missing a meal could be a fatal mistake considering how few and far between they are. She needs to get up and fight, but she can’t.
Around midmorning she feels a hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. She spits out something rude and hopefully off putting, but the visitor does not go away. Instead she is physically lifted into a sitting position, despite her protests.
Finnick has brought her breakfast. He makes her eat.
She’s angry and she cries and kicks but deep inside she’s grateful that he won’t let her destroy herself. She’s grateful that someone cares about her even if she doesn’t.
010 PRELUDE 12/21 (AFI)
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
NIGHTMARES
After her first Games, Johanna had experienced terrible, terrible nightmares. They’d been so unspeakably horrifying that she couldn’t sleep. Now she doesn’t dream at all, and that suits her just fine.
Finnick dreams.
Finnick tosses and turns and says Annie’s name and sometimes he screams and she thinks that maybe something is wrong and she’s never been so scared in her life. But when she arrives at his bedside he’s fine. He hasn’t even woken.
She never tells him that she watches him while he sleeps. She can’t let on that she cares in the least. She knows that she isn’t what he needs. But every time she hears him scream, she has to check, just to be sure.
011 VINDICATED (DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL)
And I am flawed, but I’m cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things
You swore you saw yourself
REDEMPTION
Johanna feels like they have been fighting this war for an eternity. She does her job dutifully - she follows Katniss now without question. The girl she had so fervently hated upon their meeting is now part of the only family she has left. She kills for Katniss when less than a year ago she was gunning for her. It’s bittersweet and ironic.
Even though she will see this through to the end, Johanna hasn’t forgotten her conversations with Finnick about death, about hell. She wonders now if the people she’s killing are less important than the people she’s saving. She wonders what will become of her. She wonders the same of Finnick.
When she’s fighting, it weighs heavy on her conscience. When she’s not, she thinks that maybe she’s becoming a better person.
012 MOTORCYCLE DRIVE BY (THIRD EYE BLIND)
And there's this burning
Like there's always been
I've never been so alone
And I've never been so alive
ANOTHER VICTORY
It’s been a year since the Quarter Quell was announced and the war is winding down. They’ve won.
Standing on the shores of Finnick’s home District, looking at the ruins of the once impeccable seaside city, it’s hard to feel like they’ve won anything. They’ve already been to District Seven, which was comparably destroyed. But people had begun to return to what was left of their homes there. District Four is a ghost town.
Annie is not in the Capitol. She is not at the refugee camp. She is not in District Four.
She feels kind of numb but when she hears Finnick crying beside her, she turns to him. She reaches out just in time to catch him when his legs buckle, but he’s bigger than she is, and they fall into the wet sand. He’s crying and she’s clinging to him like somehow if she can hold him right where they are now he won’t slip away from her.
The waves that once were feet away from them now lap at their legs. Johanna holds his head above the water.
The tide is coming in.
013 IT HAD TO BE YOU (MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK)
You feel a certain sense of synergy between yourself and me
A kind of macabre and somber Wonder-twin type of harmony
What if it was you?
You that I needed all along
I felt like a fool,
Kicking and screaming and pretending we were wrong
FALLING TOGETHER
Conveying emotions isn’t Johanna’s strong suit. She’s pretty sure that’s why Finnick looks mildly shocked when she finally tells him that she’s beginning to need him. Why he sort of smirks when she corrects herself to say that she’s needed him for awhile. She’s never liked the way he smirks at her and she can feel herself blushing now, and she thinks that maybe this was a mistake, that he thinks she’s a foolish child with a stupid crush (which isn’t what it is at all, not at all). This was a mistake.
When he pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her head she knows she was stupid for ever worrying that he’d reject her. They are two deeply lonely people who are lonely in exactly the same way. It only makes sense that they fit together.
014 A TWIST IN MY STORY (SECONDHAND SERENADE)
What’s that sound? It’s my heart beat.
It’s getting much louder, my heart beat
It’s stronger than ever
I’m feeling so alive.
I’m feeling so alive.
NO HAPPY ENDINGS
Years after the war ends they are still together. It might be force of habit or it might be that nobody else can quite understand the way that they hurt. Whatever the reason, Johanna is content with it. Even though she knows that she’ll always love Finnick more than he loves her and Finnick will always love Annie more than he loves her, this is a happy ending. This is a happier ending than she could have ever hoped for when her brother died, when her sister died, when she was chosen in the reaping and forced to compete again for the Quell.
It’s a hot summer day in the new Capitol and Finnick and Johanna are standing on a makeshift stage along with Peeta and Katniss, with Beetee and Haymitch. The six of them are the only remaining people who have been in the arena. Thanks to them, no one else will ever have to know the terror and pain that they did.
Katniss is saying something, but Johanna doesn’t hear her. Her face is buried in Finnick’s shoulder. Her eyes are screwed shut. They’re here to unveil the Hunger Games memorial, but she cannot look at it. It’s the wall behind them; a wall of solid white marble that was once smooth and blank. Peeta has carved into it a Mockingjay, but instead of feathers he has used the names of every Tribute ever put into the Arena. One thousand and eight hundred names. One thousand, seven hundred and ninety four children who have been killed.
Six who are still alive.
This is their happy ending.
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