I'm not dead. I come to as they lift me back into the hovercraft to go back to Thirteen. Why am I not dead?

Cinna... Cinna...

I can only think of how grateful I am towards him as I realise that he made my Mockingjay suit bulletproof. He must've.

When we get back, I get sent to the hospital. I hear people talking about my injuries. Bruised ribs and lung, apparently. But the bullet didn't even pierce my skin.

The first proper visitor I expect to get is my mother, Prim or Rory. But instead, I get a surprise one. Johanna Mason pulls back the curtain. She still lives in the hospital, so it mustn't've been hard for her to sneak over to my ward when no one was looking.

"There she is," she says sarcastically, making jazz hands. "The Mockingjay."

She sits herself down on my bed. "That speech you gave... I mean, oh man, feels. I still have goosebumps."

I roll my eyes but stay silent.

She disconnects the morphling IV tube that's feeding into my arm and puts it in the gap that's still in hers. "You don't mind, do you? They've cut off my supply of morphling. There's this head doctor that comes in and sees me every day, trying to help me adjust to reality," she sighs as the morphling enters her system, unscrewing the cap a bit more to get more in. "As if some guy from this rabbit's Warren actually knows anything about my reality," she looks straight at me, staring into my soul. "At least twenty times in the session he tells me I'm totally safe."

I scoff. This is a stupid thing to say, especially to a victor. "Safe from the Capitol, safe from Snow," Johanna goes on. "What about you, Mockingjay? You feeling totally safe?"

"Until I got shot," I answer.

"Oh please, the bullet didn't even touch you. Cinna saw to that, of course your costume would be bulletproof," she rolls her eyes. "So what are your injuries?"

"Bruised ribs, bruised lung," I answer weakly.

"Surprised they haven't found you a new lung," Johanna speaks meaningfully, but I can still tell she's taking the mick. "I mean, I've got two, you want one of mine? After all, it's everyone's job to keep you alive."

"Is that why you hate me?" I say bluntly.

"Partly," Johanna is just as blunt, perhaps more. "You're also a little hard to swallow. The whole tacky romance drama and the defender of the hopeless act, even though it's not an act, which makes it even more annoying. Feel free to take any of this personally."

"You should've been the Mockingjay, nobody'd have to tell you what to say," I weakly remark. "And even though you're a fucking nightmare, everyone listens to you."

"True. But you hit the nail on the head. Nobody likes me," Johanna leans forward.

"They're afraid of you," I point out.

"Maybe here, but... in the Capitol, you're all that they're scared of," she says.

She then picks up the picture of my father that I got from home. "It's just stuff I brought," I explain. She then gets to Austin's locket, which is open. Inside it there's the photos of my family and the Everdeens.

Then the pearl.

"This from Austin?"

"Yeah," I answer, my voice hollow.

She holds it in her hand, silently sobbing, tears running down her scarred face.

"They've made sure we've all been broken beyond repair, haven't they?"

I sadly nod.

She goes after that: I have a feeling that she didn't want me (or anyone) to see her cry. Some doctors come in and start to wrap up my black and blue bruises. And I get another surprise. Haymitch comes in.

And he asks me to go in and see Austin.

"We showed him footage of your speech in Two, he had real memories of you," he says, trying to convince me.

"That doesn't mean I'm going in there," I instantly back out of the opportunity.

"He's strapped down, he can't hurt you," he doesn't tip the scale yet.

"No. This is different. Haymitch, I really don't want to," I complain.

"Well it doesn't matter what you want, it's for Austin!" He shouts. "You can't do it for me... or you. But can you do it for him?"

I purse my lips. Can I?

☘︎☘︎☘︎

The buzzer/siren goes off as I enter the white room in which Austin stays. I steel myself and look at him. For a second, his face flashes with genuine interest and love for me. I almost thought that my Austin was back again.

"I watched you die," is the first thing he says to me. "You looked terrible."

"You've looked better," I say, half trying to keep my anger in check and half trying to love Austin again. No compassion surfaces.

"You're not even remotely nice to say that to me right now," he bites back.

"I was never the nice one," tears start coming. "You were."

"When I watched you die, I remembered something, about when I saved your life," he barely utters. I gasp. "I remember... you in the rain, running, crying... and I remember the lorry of peacekeepers coming towards you... and I remember running towards you, shoving you over to save you."

"That was the first time since my father died that I felt someone cared about me," I cry, silent sobs wracking my body.

"Why would I risk my life like that for you?" He asks. I cry. Now he's questioning not only the fact that I'm human, but every loving thing he did for me when he was sane?

"Because you were kind," I cry. "And generous. And people said you loved me."

"Did people say you loved me?" He counters. That's when I know he's really gone. Austin would never ask me if I loved him. He would let me take my time to find myself before I even thought about him.

"They tried," I looked into his dead eyes. "I was never really good at love. But right before you left... on the beach-" I choke on tears- "I felt it. I think that was love. And I think that's why Snow tortured you. To hurt me."

"Snow says everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie," he speaks rapidly. "All I know is, that I would've saved myself a lot of suffering if I had never touched you that day with the lorry."

He just said he suffered loving me.

I turn and walk out, ignoring Austin, who yells something incoherent, ignoring Haymitch and Plutarch, who have, no doubt, been listening to every word we just said, and trying to ignore the voice in my head.

But for the latter, I can't.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

Coin calls me into command the following day to discuss the next move. Plutarch also sits in.

"I think the only thing left to say, is thank you," she starts the convo off with.

I lean back on my chair. "I need to be in the Capitol."

"No, you have done your job," Coin immediately shuts this down. "You've been very successful as the Mockingjay, you've unified the districts. And now we want you to rest, and to heal."

"The last the rebels saw me I was lying on the ground," I roll my eyes.

"Willow, we won't let this momentum go to waste," Plutarch promises. It doesn't make me feel better. "We'll shoot more propos right here in Thirteen, showing that you're alive."

"I should be with the troops!" I bite in.

"It'll be like being on the front lines-"

"As far as the soldiers know, you survived a bullet to the heart," Coin puts it into perspective. "It think they'll understand what you're not with them. And when we win this was, we'll fly you in for the surrender. We'll need you for the ceremony; you're very valuable to us."

I sit back. "I want to go-"

"No," Coin says, more sternly this time. "You're excused."

I stick out my tongue and leave, having no desire to be there any more than them.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

Haymitch brings me the news of a wedding the next day. I flip out. Austin barely thinks I have feelings, why would marrying him help? But Haymitch just laughs and tells me it's for Finnick and Annie, not Austin and I. I relax a bit.

But, thinking about it, I'm glad to see Finnick so happy. The look on his face as he and Annie say their vows is amazing. I've never seen him look like that before.

They kiss to end it off, and all I can think of is Austin by then. It's painful.

Whilst the violinists and others play an upbeat tune and people dance (Finnick and Annie at the centre of it all) I stand to the side, watching jealously.

Johanna comes and joins me. She's not much of a dancer either. "You saw Austin, didn't you?" She looks to me with a look of half pain, half sarcasm. "Did you tell him hi for me? We're old friends you know, we had adjoining cells in the Capitol, very familiar with each other's screams..."

I look at her in shock horror, then back to the dancing. "I'm going to kill Snow," I disclose. "Nothing good is safe while he's alive, and I can't make another speech about it. No more cameras. No more propos. No more games. He needs to see my eyes when I kill him."

She sniggers. "Well now you're talkin'."

"I'll find a way to the Capitol when everybody's looking the other way," I don't know why I'm telling Johanna Mason, of all people, this, but I am.

She leans in towards my ear. "I heard the medics talking, they're shipping supplies for the front line from Hangar two around midnight tonight. Medicine, painkillers, I was gonna go steal some for myself but I guess I could stay here and cover for you?" She turns round to me and looks me in the eye. "Anybody can kill anybody, Willow, even a President. You just have to be willing to sacrifice yourself."

We turn back towards the music. "Come on," she tells me meaningfully. "Don't you want Snow to see you dance?"

I sigh, heading into the circle in which Prim and Rory are dancing together in. Prim easily lets me cut in, so Rory and I dance for a bit, until I look at him... my brother... and I might never see him again.

And suddenly we're hugging, not dancing. And I can tell he understands what I'm going to do and I hope he does.

Because this might be the last time I'll ever see him.