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

-Real?-

Darnkess reigned as king, and yet stars stabbed a hole through it with the gaping wound of the moon high in the sky.

...

Sleep eluded Percy.

It was in moments like this that she had no distractions, not anchors nor visual input, anything to take her mind off whirling with truth and lies.

"Could you maybe not look at me like that?" Voice colder than intended... Or maybe it was the throning night with dim light bleeding into the room that was the cause of it? Percy didn't know, for she was not master of the world.

"Hmm?" Finnick, whose guard duty it was, wasn't actually looking at her but squinting heavily at a little book's pages at the window, refusing to turn on any lights and give the group away.

Coin had told her she'd be sent up front, but she had expected... Something else...

Everyone looked at her like when she was fight brought back, her given gun was taken away and replaced by blanks for the shots they'd say, only letting her keep her blades because they'd gun her down before damage was done, the clamp on her forearm synced to the holo so Boggs could control it closely, they even set up a rotating guard around her which didn't ease her minds new natural instincts to fight back, and the comments...

She wasn't told this would be it, a monster in a cage.

"Lover, candidate, peacechild, victor, weapon, jacker, monster, mutt." She said, "Call me whatever you see fit, but stop looking at me as if it is the only thing I am."

"I--" "You were reading a book yes, you squinty fucker, but I am broken not blind, how they look at me waiting for me to snap and." A chuckled scoff. "I don't blame them, I wouldn't expect less, but it would be nice to be at least looked at like a human being."

Looking out the window Finnick was useing as a shitty nightlight.

"Fake and real cannot be sorted through if everything that's thrown back at me is what proves only one thing, that I am what they made me be."

"Might be true for 12, but the rest are not the same."

"Ah?!"

"Calm, calm, didn't mean to offend." Closing the little book and pocketing it. "I meant it like... You can fault 12 for trying to protect themselves, you, or whatever by distance or more lies, but not the others. We might not be that close, but we are friends. If not truly, then at least because we survived something in common. We don't know you like 12 either... But you can ask us for help, that's why we are here, we'll help you sort through what you know, might know, or want to know. You can't go demanding help and then expect to carry burdens alone."

"... You are frustrating, you know that, Finnick?"

He grinned.

"Maybe you should off me while you have the chance? Who'd find my body here, right?"

"Asshole." She rolled her eyes with a muttered. "... Finnick... If it comes to it..."

"Hey, nothing will happ--" "IF!... If I am a danger... I want you to put me down."

"Percy."

"No, I am serious. I might remain conscious, there's me and then there's me, hateful and deadset on stopping this through an act I'll always regret." Looking at her hands, still feeling her hands around a throat, how she squeezed, how it felt. "And how it feels right in that moment... Even if for no other reason, we need Katniss alive for the Mockingjay to be alive, even if that's the only reason that would exist."

"... So be it."

"If death's the only way to victory, I'll be ready for it."

"Ah... How original of you..." A small dry chuckle, dry from a sadness permeating it. "You and your willingness to die for Katniss, not so different from the 74th, to die to bring her home."

"Huh... So that was real..." Tracing the cloth-covered scar on her abdomen in a passing thought.

"It was, even then, as a candidate and tribute second, you were willing to die for your district and partner."

"So I didn't try to kill her in the arena."

"No, no, you joined the carers."

"But--"

Seems neither will get shut eye, but this was a start, a start at rebuilding what the Capitol took away from them, from her.

One step at a time.

Real after real.

They are getting there.

Towards the finish line.