.Forest Fire (Johanna Mason X F.OC).

-Game To Play-

(Fun fact: I was still going to have Cato volunteer but I can't convince myself anymore, I have a new story line for him at the moment. :D)

"Damned trees again." Johanna complained.

"You tell me." Paige said, bored since it was yet another variation of her pre-games clothes and this time with two sleeves and reddish and brown.

"Just... Behave." Johanna simply said as the train pulled up in the Capitol for the party. "A few victors will be here too, make connections, could help if you ever care for the tributes."

"Whatever."

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"I think you'll be my best friend sweetheart." Heymitch said to Paige, both having met near the liquor bar while demanding the same drink at the same time from the barman.

"Not before I drink myself in an ethylic coma."

"I like you even better now.... And hey, I appreciate it, what you said for Kai and Oina."

"I was just saying what I thought."

"Yeah but it feels good to have some heart in these hellish games."

"Johanna is right, or I long would have been dragged in front of Snow, he has nothing he can hurt me with, so I can speak."

"Still." He pat her shoulder, downing the drink in one gulp while she still tried to look half sophisticated, she'd still play the game unlike Johanna, it was easier this way she found... But she really just wanted to throw it back too and get a new one.

"Go Heymitch, I know you've been eyeing the deserts."

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"You have a nice heart, I bet he will rethink volunteering." She turned around at the voice, seeing the fang mouthed woman.

"Enobaria."

"Oh so 7's career knows my name, how nice." She was in quite a simple blue metal dress compared to other Capitol-wear.

"You were Jasmine's mentor, of course I know you." Paige said softly, instantly taking a sip from her glass to deal with the ache.

"Mhm." She nodded. "Thank you for being her friend, she lacked those outside of that boy."

"I know, she told me."

"Trust me on this, she was grateful even if she never said it, I just know it."

"Thank you..."

The older victor pat her shoulder, walking off as if their conversation never happened and going to enjoy the party as Paige stared deeply in her glass and finished it, spinning to go get another one.

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"--And today we celebrate Paige Halavey for her victory in 71st hunger games." Snow finished the speech that seemed to go on and on, finally putting the crown that seemed to weigh more then any guilt she ever felt.

"I much appreciate it." She did a small curtsy, bowing her head along with it. "An honor."

"I hope you'll live up to your name miss Halavey." There was an edge in that voice that put her on edge.

"I'll do my best."

"You better miss Halavey." He shook her hand, she felt something pressed in it.

He turned away and walked away, she looked at her palm, seeing a small slightly elongated black pearl in her palm.

Her throat closed up as she stared at it, having seen it before.

A nightlock pill.

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She awakes, screaming her lungs out, covered in sweat as her body was already badly shaking.

Dream haunted with the face of the dead, all of those that she killed, all of those that died, the 23 haunting her, making her relive the games, blaming her for their death, screaming, demanding answers, retribution.

She heard a door slam open.

She looked over through her hair that was whipped in her face.

Still surprised how fast the seemingly hateful woman appeared in the door.

"Are you alright?" Johanna asked after a deep breath, on the train their rooms were basically one in front of the other but it still should have took some time to get here if she had been asleep.

"It's just nightmares..." Paige grabbed her face as the victor leaned against the door frame.

"Yeah.... I think all victors get those to some extent."

Paige passed her hands in her hair, hanging it as she held on the strands tightly.

She heard the woman push off the wall and walk closer, only knowing that she was coming closer because of the shadow cast with of the dim light in the hall.

Johanna sat down next to her, leaning against the headboard and crossing her legs at the ankle and her arms too, from her position seeing the younger victor's back and not her face.

"Do they ever get easier to bare?" Paige asked.

"No.... They just become a part of life, Heymitch won the 50th, a quarter quell, with 48 tributes in a poisonous arena and he is still a mess, Your..... Father won the 46th in a desert environment, Finnick won in a water arena, I won in an arctic one.... But we all have the same nightmares... We all just live with them even if it leaves us in cold sweat and fear, we live with it."

"I don't want to live with it...."

"You'll have too unless you want to leave me behind, that wouldn't be nice, it would leave me as the sole victor of 7."

"But it hurts too much."

"Yeah." Johanna looped her arm around her shoulder and pulled her against her. "I know."

Paige quietly sobbed away, with no strength to move away, crying all that she had left behind, losing the 'her' from before the games, losing everything from before the games... Everything but--

She wrapped her arms around the older victor and squeezed with all her strength, Johanna almost felt like a tube of abused toothpaste.

--Her.

"Don't leave me." Paige begged in a broken voice, only the other victor remained from her life before the games, only she was there anymore. "Please."

"Never." She hugged her a bit tighter with that one arm still looped around Paige. "Never."

Johanna let the girl cry herself to sleep and stayed, she knew she didn't mean it that way, asking her to stay but even her, in her closed off heart, couldn't have fathomed moving away in that moment.