EDIT 3/8/12: The rest of this chapter is up, so read the end of it before continuing to Chapter II.

Foreword:

To my dearest readers,

I've written this foreword maybe three times already. I've tried to make it sound totally badass, but I can't, so I'm just going to tell you it how it is.

I've always thought of the victors as being something more than celebrities for the Capitol. You enter the arena as an example for the districts – an example of how helpless they are against the Capitol – and you exit as an example too.

An example of what? Well, that depends on the victor.

I made a one shot – one that I haven't actually published here – exploring that notion. Most of the "examples" were simple, but finding one for Annie proved to be more complex. How is the mad girl victor an example? I could stick to the simple explanation that she was an example to the districts that even winning isn't always really winning, but that's no fun.

So I thought of a different reason.

I'm going to tell you right now that if you're looking for the typical "Annie's Games" fic that you should turn around right now and keep looking. Romance with Finnick does not take the front seat in this story (partially because I'm not the best at writing it), although I can tell you that Finnick is a very significant character in this story.

Nope, this story will not follow the typical plot for those of its variety.

But it is still cannon. In fact, I've looked up quite a few things on Hunger Games Wikipedia and stuff to make sure that it still fit to cannon: It does.

(Side note: Did you know that Annie was a Career? It says so on HGWiki: "She and Enobaria are the only Career tributes alive after Mockingjay.")

I should also tell you all that I'm a double major: Environmental science and English literature. So you might see me doing some Steinbeck-esque world-building in District Four.

If you read all this, you rock. If not, then I guess you're just none the wiser.

Chapter I

The sun was fading over the ocean, its reflection glistening and refracting on the water. Most of the children collecting shells on the beach had returned home, some discarding them on the shore, others clutching them in their fingers with hope to sell them to be made into jewelry in District One. Trawling and purse-seine boats were still returning to the harbor, docking and hauling off their loads to be delivered to the packaging unit. Among those boats was a small trawler painted white with the name Annie scrawled on its side in red. The boat had come before the girl, but both of them were cherished by the owner.

"Annie," Gilbert Cresta yelled, calling out not to the boat beneath his feet but the girl standing on the dock. "Something's torn a hole in the trawling net. I want you to fix it up before you come home tonight, alright?"

Annie gave her father a warm smile and climbed on the boat, gracefully easing around the workers who were docking the Annie. "Something's torn the trawling net? That rope is made for scraping along the bottom of the sea."

"Maybe it was the ancient Lochness Monster." Gilbert Cresta returned his daughter's smile with ease. The relationship between the two had always been like this, a combination of good natured ribbing and mutual respect. Gilbert's position of wealth had ensured that his firstborn received everything she could need, all the seafood in the world, any Career training just in case…

The man's smile fell. "Don't be out too late tonight, Annie. Once you fix the net, you come along home, alright? Reaping's tomorrow and your little brother's more worried than he should be."

Annie nodded. That meant that there was a good chance that little Max would try to sneak into her bed in the middle of the night. He'd been doing that since the two of them were too young to form words, and even at twelve, the habit of coming to her room when he was scared hadn't completely dispersed.

"I'd better take a look at that net real quick now, shouldn't I?" Annie said, squeezing her father's arm as she passed. "I'll be home for dinner, I think."

"Better be," Gilbert Cresta warned, pecking his daughter's cheek before following his men with their load for the day. Annie couldn't help but note that it was quite a bit less than usual, likely hampered by the hole in the net.

She walked into the control room, eying the sonar machine from a safe distance. The machine was Capitol property, even though it was made in District Three and delivered directly to District Four. It told the boat where the fish population was more dense, and only assigned Peacekeepers were allowed to even touch it. This ensured that there was always a Peacekeeper on the boat when they were on open water, watching closely for any poaching. Touching the sonar machine was a major offense; breaking it was practically a death sentence.

Needless, to say, Annie hurried to grab the extra rope from the shelf and scrambled out of the control room before she could even chance it.

The Annie was one of the smaller trawling boats on the water, but the enormity of the net still startled the girl, despite the fact that she had been mending it for years. It took her a couple of minutes to even find where the hole was, every once in a while encountering bycatch that hadn't been thrown back into the sea. The little fishes flopped around before she hid them beneath the net again.

Despite Gilbert Cresta's inability to do anything with a length of rope – thusly relying primarily on his daughter to fix any nets – he was clever enough to hide some of the bycatch beneath the net, telling his poorer workers to come by and collect it later in order to feed their families. Annie couldn't help but respect him more for it.

She found the hole and gave it a quick once-over. It was pretty big but an easy fix. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes of weaving. Her fingers ran a section of rope through the net, carefully pulling together knot after knot, occasionally tightening one. Every time she messed up – which wasn't nearly as often as it once was – she couldn't help but imagine her mother's hands on hers, showing her how to correct the mistake. Annie's father couldn't tie a bow, let alone the intricate workings of a trawling net, so it was her mother who had taught her each duck and weave. Annie was hoping to teach Max soon, since her mother wasn't –

Annie heard someone approaching from the docks.

"Hey, Cresta." Terrence Littoral pounced onto the boat with the skill of a trained Career, which he was. Michael Benthic – the son of a scrawny balding man who worked for Gilbert Cresta – followed. They both had ratty t-shirts clutched in their hands.

Annie turned back to the net, weaving in the final knot and tightening it with a sharp jerk. "What are you doing here, Terrence?" She didn't really know him that well, but they had spotted for each other enough times in the Career Center for her to know that he was just a wealthy as her and wouldn't be scouting for bycatch.

Terrence gave her a weird look – his District Four green eyes flashing. "I'm helping Benthic over here provide for his family. He's a bit too scrawny to be carrying home the goods without being caught." An apologetic glance at Michael Benthic. "No offense, man."

Michael smiled, although it didn't quite reach his watery eyes. "None taken. Not all of us can be big, strong Careers."

Standing and circling the net, Annie reached the part covering the bycatch and lifted it. "Do you guys need any help?" She knew that she had to return for dinner, but she couldn't help but ask.

"Of course not," Terrence said. He gathered a few fish into the t-shirt in his fist. "But we'd love if you could join us."

She placed the net back down once Michael had filled his own t-shirt. "I can't. Sorry, but I've got to get home as soon as I can, what with the reaping tomorrow and all."

Terrence shrugged. "Alright, then." They weren't good enough friends for him to insist. In fact, the invitation itself was more good manners than anything else. "Guess we'll be seeing you at the reaping then."

"Guess so."

Michael piped up as they climbed off the boat and parted ways. "May the odds be ever in your favor." And the three of them laughed, though the laughter held the sharp edginess of anxiety.

Annie ran home, half because she didn't want to be late for dinner – which was doubtlessly pickled fish – and half because she was a much weaker runner than she was a swimmer, and the threat of the reaping the next day had her wanting a little extra practice.

Few people in District Four made a habit of wearing shoes daily, and by the time she was mounting the grainy wooden steps of her front porch, Annie was certain she'd stepped on a broken shell somewhere along the way home. She sat on the top step and swung her right foot onto her lap for further inspection. A small pink shard was lodged in the ball of her foot.

"You okay, Annie?"

"Max!" Startled, Annie tore the shell she'd been inspecting from her foot, leaving a streak of blood in its wake. She winced, not because of the pain but because she couldn't stand the sight of blood, no matter how little. Wheeling around, she scowled at her younger brother. "You scared me."

Max smiled and held out a hand, pulling Annie off the ground. "I was supposed to head out to the docks and get you. Dinner's ready."

"What are we having?" Annie asked, already anticipating his response.

"Pickled fish." Max's grin widened, exposing all of his crooked teeth. Despite the Cresta family's relative wealth, there was no such thing as orthodontics in District Four, and the Cresta family had never had a great track record with teeth alignment.

Annie whistled through the gap in her front teeth. "Pickled fish? What a surprise." She whistled again with mock enthusiasm.

The siblings shared a laugh as they passed through the screen door leading into the house. Even after so many years, the wooden planks of the floor were rough enough to get splinters if one didn't tread carefully, and Annie found herself practically hopping on one foot, hand braced against the wall, which wasn't much better. As they turned into the kitchen, the came upon the same round table that had sat in the middle of the tiny room for as long as Annie could remember. Its surface was already laden with three helpings of pickled fish, its pungent aroma tainting the room with the essence of the sea.

Gilbert Cresta was sitting patiently in one of the four chairs seated at the table. "I see your Career training's really paying off, Max," Gilbert said, chuckling. "You ran all the way to the docks and back in only a minute, if that."

"Uh-huh." Max took the seat to his father's right, and Annie could see the anxiety that their father had mentioned in his eyes for the first time.

She took a brief moment to gaze at the last unoccupied chair at the table, at how it had gathered a thick film of dust from disuse. If Diana Cresta was alive and sitting in that now dust-ridden chair, then she would have known exactly what to say to her apprehensive son to make him feel better. She might have even stretched her dexterous fingers across the table to brush his.

But Diana Cresta wasn't alive. The chair next to Annie and the crib in the closet-sized spare bedroom were both gathering dust.

"Max," Annie murmured, knowing that she could take her mother's place mending nets but could never fill the hole in the family that her death had left. "About the reaping…" She trailed off, immediately regretting that she'd started talking in the first place.

Shoveling a hunk of fish into his mouth, Max huffed. "What?" he snapped, the tightness around his eyes telling her that he was holding back tears.

Annie's next words came out without a thought. "They won't reap you."

"How do you know?"

"Because…" Her eyes flickered to the abandoned chair beside hers, mind traveling unbidden to pale hands clutching at bloodstained sheets before she forced it to pale tapered fingers teaching her how to make rope from palm fronds.

Annie was six then, and deathly afraid that the Peacemakers would beat her mother for taking the palms from a tree by the shore. She'd seen them do that to a man who was collecting coconuts from the same tree not three weeks earlier, and she was too young to know that there was a difference between stealing Capitol-bound food and taking otherwise-useless palm fronds. She remembered that her mother had gathered the fronds and carefully pinched their ends, folding them over and wrapping them around each other clockwise. It was important – Diana Cresta had told her daughter in a soft, gentle tone – to keep the rope pinched tightly whenever a new frond was added so not to let the whole thing unravel. By the end of the day of sitting on the shore and lacing, Annie's mother had made the two of them rope bracelets from the fronds and Annie knew how to make rope.

Now Annie's gaze moved to her wrist, to the bracelet sitting alone there. After a few years, the tiny piece of rope had been too small to fit around the section of flesh and bone between her hands and forearms, so Annie had extended it, using the skills her mother had taught her.

"Because I won't let them."

Her words sounded soft and gentle and foreign in her own head, but they must have worked, because Annie woke up alone on reaping day.

You guys are awesome people. I'm going to continue to work on this when I can. Hopefully, I'll be able to put up a chapter a week. We'll see.

Any thoughts?