.The Trackjacker & The Mockingjay (Katniss Everdeen X F.OC).

-Still In There-

Well... Being shot is something.

Just one step closer to the end of it all, be it her life or this fight.

...

Katniss was so... Tired. (I had to check, but in canon she is like... Only 17)

Tired of pain, tired of waking up once again to a white room, tired of all that's expected from her.

Katniss was tired.

"Finally awake, huh?"

Blinking, it took her a moment to move from sleepy wakefulness to being able to do more than that, looking over.

The first thing that caught her eye was, stupidly enough, the outfit. Before it was uncared for and unwashed, no one dared to say that hygiene was not something that had been cared for. But the black padded pants stuffed in half laced boots or the equally black fitted T-shirt seemed newer than new, Katniss was sure they still smelled like the storage unit they must have come from, the fingers drummed on the crossed arms.

Even the skin seemed clean, but she didn't blame Katniss herself, with all going on outside and inside, she found herself neglecting small things that just felt too big of hurdles. The hair combed, tied back, sharper than it has been in a long time, with the back leaned against the wall and the knee bent up to rest the foot against the wall and balance on the other.

It had been so long since Percy had looked like herself.

And yet the posture, the way she held herself, that look in her eyes.

This was still not her.

This was someone the Capitol created, even if she remembered most, she'd never been who she was fully.

"Do you keep your brain where you do your ribs or something? Never expected you to be brain dead."

"Ah... No..." Touching her side with a hiss, yeah maybe that was not a good idea... She is so lucky she was wearing her costume with its plating.

"Stop that." Pushed off the wall, padding over enough to unfurl one of her hands and smack Katniss' away from prodding herself before crossing them again and taking enough of her step back that she could lean her hip in the... Medical bedside table, let's call it. "Honestly, stop being so reckless, or do you want to be a martyr so bad you'd run to your death when told?"

"You should have been the Mockingjay... No one would tell you what to do, where to be, you'd make sure of that."

"Any who'd listen to me? Me? The creation of the Capitol?" A one-handed lifted in the air shrug. "It is barely if I am the Jacker, much less the Jay. No no... That's you, you can rally the masses, bring hope to the people, pure and innocent hope of a tomorrow."

"A blind fullish hope."

"Let it be such." Percy turned her back to Katniss long enough to walk back to the wall she was previously leaning against and take up her initial pose. "Blind hope is better than none at all. I brought people the strength needed to change the world."

The clock, the annoying clock, on the far wall, ticked away, marking the marching of time, of unstoppable time counting down towards their fate.

"I am aware I am broken, Katniss." Leaning her head back against the wall before staring at the ceiling. "More than anyone else is aware, for only I live with myself, a hollow parody of myself and the girl that stares back at me in the mirror every morning, the girl that curses at me to have lost her with the inability to pick up a trail back to her..."

"Percy..."

"Be it to protect yourself, spare me or flipped... Silence and mysteries do not help; they're a cage you build between me and who I should be, could be." Dropping her arms and stuffing them in her pockets. "I am aware of what I am and more than anyone, I am aware of what I am not, a face not mine, a past erased, an unheld leash. Nothing is easy, and neither am I, but silence is torture to the girl you hope to see behind these eyes, for you are covering her screams for help with hidden truths and lost connection."

Pushing off the wall.

"I am not easy to live with, what they did was..." Her mouth felt dry, swallowing. "But I ain't a mindless monster, a mutt, yes, but not a monster, no matter how easy it is to blanket reality with it. Despite this conditioning, there's or there's not a reason why, despite it all, even when my mind was barely together and haze was a way of life, how even then I decided to protect you despite my most basic instincts urging the opposite?"

Lifting her hands and clamping them around her throat but not squeezing, sighing once through it and dropping them back, hands finding their way back into her pockets, a silent sanctuary in a world that stared at every twitch of her fingers as if they were deadly weapons of mass destruction.

"Instincts are what keep us alive, but emotions make us human." Padding to the door.

Stopping at it.

"I promised you once, didn't I?" hand around the doorknob without looking back at Katniss. "A promise soldered into the forms of rings, though fake vows at the time and mixed feelings... I keep my promises no matter what... Katniss... I had the right to know that I love you..."

A soft click as she departed, and Katniss watched her go.

"Well, that was something." Her eyes snapped to her left, Johanna sitting in the nearby bed, she didn't even notice to begin with, and who Percy probably didn't care about being here and hearing this. "But she's right, you know? We all messed up in how we acted."

Katniss just blinked.

"She stayed by your side, you know? After you were brought in and cleared. I even heard rumours of Coin not being seen in public because of something Percy did, tho they won't say what... She cares for you, Katniss, even through warped lenses."

Looking back at the empty door.

M... Maybe...

A smile, was it even worth calling it a smile? It barely existed, and no one would even see it there.

Maybe there was still...

Maybe she was indeed still in there.