thearena | Where I told you to run so we'd both be free.

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Where I told you to run so we'd both be free.

Who| All those on the liberation mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 11.
Where| District 11.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

If you were sick of the wet and cold weather, you're in luck. As you arrive to District 11, the weather warms up considerably, but becomes muggy and humid. District 11 is a massive district, both beautiful and hopelessly poor. The contrast within this district is easy to see as you move through the land. Sometimes, the landscape is lush, rolling farms, with fields of wheat swaying in the breeze, or a picturesque orchard with ripe fruit just waiting to be picked. But then you get to the areas where the workers actually live--little wooden cabins, many barely better than huts. The lands here may be rich, but the workers are anything but.

Because of the importance of securing food for the Capitol, District 11 is one of the most tightly controlled districts in Panem. The laws here are strict, and the authorities don't mess around when it comes to punishing anyone who breaks those laws. Public whippings had been common before the rebellion and now it's a daily occurrence, on top of the executions of those who have been found to be rebels.

Despite this, the workers are far from disheartened, and the treatment from the Capitol has only made them all the more eager to aid in the rebellion. The dust lies heavy in the air, and the people are grim, knowing it will be a long and bloody battle. But despite that, they are optimistic, encouraging each other and the rebels they meet. A lot of graffiti can be found here, often spread over the posters of Sigma, Luna, and Wesker asking compliance, all of them marked out with the the words DEFIANCE, THIS IS NOT WHAT'S RIGHT, JUSTICE, and THIS WAR IS OURS. They've been waiting for the opportunity for this for a long time. They just needed the chance.

The war continues, and in the back of everyone's mind is a familiar phrase; may the odds be ever in your favor.

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"Tell me to come with you," he says, a little firmer, because following a command is so much easier than a suggestion. The blood loss is starting to make him woozy, but he'll stay on his feet as long as he physically can for her.

He grips her hand as if she's about to be ripped away.

His words put the earpiece and its barking orders in context, and she understands what the Capitol has been doing with and to Punchy. How they've been using him. And she's silently furious at them, for everything they've done to him, pretty much from the instant they dragged him from his world to this hellish place.

"Come with me." She says it firmly, giving him an order, not a suggestion. She hates doing it, hates triggering his Avox conditioning, but if she has to do it, she's going to do it right.

And he does. He doesn't even have to think about it; it's as if his feet just move robotically, automatically, entirely inevitably. He couldn't refuse if he wanted to, and right now he doesn't. He's relieved to let the programming take over.

He pushes like a terminator behind her.

Joan moves quickly through the grain, sacrificing stealth for speed. Punchy is bleeding. And who knows if or when someone will track down his earpiece and follow their trail? Their best bet is to get back to the field hospital, and fast.

She feels it before she hears it, a sudden hot ripping pain in her gut, her breath torn from her, and as she stumbles and falls she hears the gunshot, impossibly loud, reverberating in her head, her lungs, her heart.

She tries to push herself back up, to make herself go on, but she can't. Her strength is flowing out with the bright red blood spilling over the fingers she's pressed to her abdomen.

There's no indication where it's come from. It wouldn't matter even if there were, because revenge is the last thing on Punchy's mind. When he sees Joan crumple, he throws himself over her to try and protect her, too horribly late. Too late in vain.

"Joan!" he says, not caring about if anyone knows he's missing anymore. He presses his hand to the bloody wound on her back. "Shawty, tell me where to go, I can get you to the craft..."

But, of course, she's probably the only medic they sent. He'll just be carrying her to a safe place to die.

It's a through-and-through, and it's hit something vital, judging by the quantity and color of the blood. Joan is gasping, and knows she doesn't have much time. She lies down, on her back, and reaches up with her bloodied hand to touch Punchy's cheek.

"The field hospital," she says, her voice little more than a whisper. "To the northwest from here. You have to get there."

She closes her eyes, so tired, so cold, and makes herself open them again.

"You have to know," she whispers. "I have to tell you."

"I got you, I got you, shawty, you just gotta bump it a little more..." Punchy quickly glances at the sky to determine Northwest, then picks Joan up, ignoring his own injury, and starts running. He tries to hold her as carefully as he can as he does, so she doesn't jostle, isn't further hurt.

"I don't gotta know shit. I'm ignorant A.F. and that's good."

She reaches up and puts her arms around his neck. The intention was to help take some of her weight, but she barely has the strength to leave them there. As careful as Punchy is, every footstep is agony, and soon she's gasping in pain.

"Punchy...no...stop. Stop. I have...have to tell you."

She knows she's going to die, that getting to the field hospital won't help, and she needs to tell Punchy about Wesker, before she dies and no one on the rebellion side knows that he's been feeding her information.

"I don't want to..."

But he does stop. Even though it screams against all his instincts, all his hope to believe that she'll be okay, that he'll bring her back to District Thirteen, he stops and understands that she's dying here in his arms. And it weighs deep on him, dragging all of him down, his flesh and bone and then each synapse in his brain, into this drain at which the bottom only exists grief.

"Joanie, hold on, please."

She can't. She can feel her consciousness ebbing away, and it won't be long before the last of her life drains out. She can't stop it, and neither can Punchy. So she doesn't waste time.

"Wesker," she whispers. "He's been feeding me information, for the rebellion. No one knows. Just me. If he...if he gets in trouble...if the Capitol falls...the rebellion needs to know he's on our side."

"A'ight. A'ight." Punchy finally stops and kneels down, her in his arms like some ersatz Pieta. He used to fight these moments, to believe that if he just fought it hard enough nothing was inevitable. He knows better now.

He's held too many people as they've died not to.

He holds her close, tears running down the side of his nose. "I'm going to come save you, shawty. Won't nothing hold me 'til I do."

"There are guns," she whispers, her strength almost gone. "Under my bed. They're his. Use them. To get..." She blinks slowly, her train of thought gone. She can only hope he understands.

She reaches up, her hand shaking at the effort, and touches his cheek with her trembling fingers. There are tears in her own eyes, blurring her already fading vision. She wants to believe, has to believe, that they'll see each other again. But she can't be sure. Nothing is certain.

"I know," she whispers, softer still. "I know you will." Her hand sinks down, finding rest on the ground beside her. There are two more things she needs to say, vital things, and she takes a couple labored breaths to try to keep herself conscious, just for another minute.

"I love you."

It hurts him when she says that, because he already knows. He already knows and he wants her to save her breath so it doesn't hurt, so she doesn't exert herself on his behalf.

But there's no going back, and so while she dies he only holds her, cradling her head now, knowing there's no way to make her comfortable while her body's got a bullethole in it but trying anyway.

"I love you too, Joanie."

She knows that he knows. But if something goes wrong, if he dies, or she's never brought back, if all of Panem is firebombed out of existence, she wants those words to be part of his last memory of her.

She also hopes that it will help him forgive her for what she's about to do next.

"Field hospital. Northwest." She swallows, the words to come painful but necessary.

I'm sorry.

"Leave me." She's pushing the words above whisper, to make them as imperative as possible. "And RUN."

He wants to fight that command so badly, but it's undeniable. It's stronger than the call of God Himself, and it's as if he's standing outside himself, watching his body respond.

"I'll find you, shawty," he yells at her dying form, hating himself for running away to the field hospital, hating himself for abandoning her. He couldn't hate himself more. It's as if the logic of the situation, the reality that he can't refuse a direct order, has completely left him. So he just makes a promise, and leaves her to die.

She watches him as he disappears into the swaying grain. She wishes she didn't have to do that, but she had to make sure he will be safe. As sure as she can be, anyway. Nothing is certain.

"I know you will," she whispers, so softly that she can't be sure she even said them at all. And perhaps there is something certain after all. He will search for her. She knows that. And if she can be found, he'll find her.

All her strength is gone, and everything is fading. It doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't feel like anything anymore. Her last thought before she slips away is of Punchy, hoping he gets to safety.

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Where I told you to run so we'd both be free.

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