Now Give Us A Kiss

"Mr Odair. You survived with your ally; of course you won't both be guarded. You broke our rules. She may be safe right now, living under your roof with Annie Cresta as her name, but neither she, nor your blood relations can be safe forever. One day, you'll have to choose between your family or your love."

Chapter One- One Victor

"Stop, Finn." My voice is firm as I grab hold of the bloodied trident in his hand. Despite my voice, he stares forward with a haunted look in his sea green eyes, the shake in his hands passing to mine through the trident. As he goes to move again, still seemingly unaware of me, I slam the weapon down onto the floor so that it lands with a loud thump in the sand. "Stop it!" He finally looks up- not at me, though- as I ask, "What are you doing?"

"I couldn't see them killing you," he replies angrily.

"You wanted to kill me yourself?" I suggest, taking a step back.

"No." He grabs his trident from the sandy floor and then stomps away.

I sigh, running a hand through the bits of blonde hair that blow into my eyes. What made him do that? What brought about the sudden change in his heart that made him kill all his fellow Career allies but me? I always thought he wouldn't be able to anything like that but maybe the Games have now changed him.

After a few minutes, I finally pluck up the courage to follow him and walk along the beach, copying his tracks in the sand. I soon find him at the edge of the island, his Arena boots thrown to the side so that he can finally stand in the water, resisting the temptation to just jump straight in and swim away. I know the Arena reminds him too much of home and it's been paining him to try to avoid it. However, now, it all seems to be hitting him even harder, and I'm scared he just going to disappear any second now.

"Stop, Finn," I repeat from earlier, but softer this time, to stop him from swimming away instead of stopping him from supposedly killing me.

"Move," Finnick instructs, lifting a hand to push me away, although all the determination he had has now disappeared.

"I'm not going anywhere without you," I argue, taking his hand in mine. "And that includes home."

He looks at me standing in front of him for a second, as if searching for a lie in my dark eyes, but he soon finds his quest obviously unsuccessful. He sighs and sits down at the water's edge, and I follow his movements straight away. "We can't go home together, Gina," he whispers, lying his head back onto the sand and shutting his eyes.

I sigh as well when he drops my hand, leaving me free to brush a stray bronze wave off of his forehead. I refuse to believe what he's saying because there's no way on this earth that I'm going home without him, especially not now that- and as a potential Career before I was reaped, I hate to admit this- I've unfortunately fallen in love with him.

I lie still as I examine him closely, my eyes wandering across his whole image. For his age and probably many ages older, he is extremely handsome, with an athletic build, accentuated by his muscular body, which probably came from the limited training he got in his District's newly built Career centre. Thanks to the years he spent on the beach, his skin is naturally tanned, only making his never-seen-in-such-amazingness-before incredible sea green eyes stand out more, although I can't see them when his eyelids are shut.

My eyes then go to focus on his face, the one thing that I have learnt every detail of since my name was chosen for the Arena. At first, I was sent by my fellow Careers to see what the tributes from Four were like and if they were worth allying with; they sent me because they knew that the boy was like me: the same year in school and not a volunteer. It was the wrong choice to trust me with an unbiased opinion, though, because I saw him and immediately knew that my life was destined down if I was going to have to compete against him in a death game.

It's only now, when we are sitting in silence on the Arena's beach that I finally can begin to relax, wondering if we could maybe have a chance together. Before, someone had always managed to interrupt us but it's now only the two of us. Maybe, we could somehow manage to twist the rules so that they could have two Victors once. The Capitol have needed the Games to be stirred up for a while now.

When I come back to reality from my dream world of where we are both Victors, I only then realise that my hand had absentmindedly been tracing all the well-defined features of his face. However, my blushing of the fact only causes my ally to laugh, kissing the fingers that had stopped their journey across his face at his lips. "You're beautiful when you blush," he mutters, only meaning that he increases the blush to make him smile more.

"You're beautiful, whatever you do," I answer without thinking, cringing slightly when I hear myself speak. It's the first time that I've ever said something like that out loud to him, although I have thought many similar things over and over before in my head. The truth is, I know that saying such things will buy me no favours, but, now I've said one of those things, I know that I had to say those things to him at least once, and the way that his soft lips curl into a smile after I spoke only makes me want to say more.

"I'm sure I'm nothing compared to you," he disagrees, sitting up and moving closer to me. "You'll be beautiful into your old age, whilst I won't live until a time near that."

I know what his words mean: that he doesn't plan to live until the end of the day. I know that he won't let me die, but I also know that he knows that I won't let him do that. It is a lose-lose situation for the both of us. However, I don't want to say anything that he will argue to, so I decide to stay quiet, lying on my side in the sand, my back to Finnick.

"Gina," he whispers softly, shuffling along in the sand so that he's closer to me, his chest almost touching my back. "Gina, I don't want to hurt you, but that's why I can't come home with you. You know we can't both come home, despite how much we both want it." He drapes his arm over my side and reaches for my hand, which, when he finds it, I take a tight hold of his and plan never to let go.

"If you don't come home with me, I won't really be going home either," I answer, so quiet that he has to lean his ear against my cheek so that he can hear me properly. "If you die here, Finn, I won't ever be able to live properly again."

He groans. "But we can't both-"

"I'm not listening to that anymore!" I shout, turning over to face him, my face mere centimetres from his. "I believe we can both go home."

"And what would we do if we both went home?" he asks, sighing.

I'm stumped for a second; I haven't thought about this before. Would we go back to our separate Districts with our families and just meet up occasionally, or would we live together in one of the Districts or even the Capitol? "I don't know," I finally say.

"And now what?" he questions. "Do we just wait for one of us to die?"

"Now?" I think, before blurting out my answer without thinking. "Now give us a kiss." As I hear my answer, I cover my mouth with my hand. What did I just say?

"Really?" He sits up and looks at me, trying to work out if I actually mean it; I don't even know if I do.

I sit up as well and then drop my hand to answer. "I'm sorry, Finn, I just-"

My words are cut short as my heart stops when Finnick closes the gap between us, his lips connecting with mine. For a second- although I asked for it- I don't know what to do, until his hands slips over mine and I kiss him back, my other hand tangling in his hair. The kiss is nothing like I've experienced before, but it's something that I never want to miss again; I don't want this to ever stop.

However, we have to break apart at the sound of metal hitting metal. I give him a soft smile, my eyes glancing down to his gentle lips, before jumping to my feet and walking over to Cornucopia. Without a second thought, I climb up onto the silver horn and to where the silver parachute is. I flip the lid up and remove a single red pill with the words "Play dead. ~ Luna" written on an attached note.

Confused, I take the pill between two of my fingers, rolling it around. What does she mean?

"Gina, what is it?" calls Finnick from the sand at the bottom of the Cornucopia.

Then it hits me. It was well known that Luna would always favourite the tributes who had a love to go back to, or who was in love. She was in love before she went into the Arena, until she got home and found out that he had been killed because of something that she refused to do. She saw me with Finnick- I hope at least- and saw us in love, and then thought of what she missed out on, but what I could maybe manage to experience. She wants us both to live.

I take a deep breath before taking the pill into my mouth, swallowing it. "It was a note from the sponsors, telling us to end it soon," I lie, walking over to the edge. I jump down next to Finnick and land gracefully but, as I go to stand up, a stabbing pain shoots up my leg and causes it to buckle beneath me.

I shout a curse as Finnick runs over to me, catching me in his arms. "What's wrong?" he asks, brushing a stray strand of blonde hair out of my eyes.

I shake my head, clutching at my side as the pain moves up, quickly through my body. "I don't know- it just hurts. I can't breathe-"

"For the love of tridents, Georgie, don't die," he whispers, holding my face between his hands as he lays his forehead against mine, his warm tears falling onto my cheeks.

I laugh weakly, a slight smile making its way onto my lips. "You know, Finn, after all that time when I tried to get you to say my name properly, I prefer the way you say 'Gina'."

He laughs slightly as well, bringing a hand to my lips. "Sssh then. Don't use up your energy. You don't need to waste it on me."

A sob catches in my throat as I shut my eyes, curling up in his arms. His thumb runs up and down my arm, the hot sunshine beating down on my back, but still making shivers run through me. "I love you, Finn," I say, my words breaking up as I try to speak them.

"I love you too, Gina, but don't say things like that," he complains. "It makes you sound like you're going to die."

"I am," I argue. "It's just hurting too much." I cough. "Don't dwell on me."

"You're not going anywhere," he decides. "I'll look after you. I won't let you go. I can-"

But my vision and mind go black before I can hear anymore.

As my vision starts to come back into focus, I can first make out white, white and white. Slowly, I begin to make out a figure sitting in front of me, a worried look of her face pale face, which is surrounded by near -white, matted hair. "Luna?" I say quietly.

"Oh, Annie, are you okay?" she asks. I can just about hear rattling metal and I guess that's what's keeping her from me because, before the Arena, she gave out so many hugs.

"Annie?" I repeat, confused.

She sighs and I see her looking around at the two huge peacekeepers that stand behind her, creating two dominating presences in the room. "Two tributes can't live. But you did. It's my fault. You-" Her words are replaced by a sharp, high-pitched scream, which makes me cover my ears with my hands, curling up into a ball.

I want to stay like that for as look as this torture will go on for but someone grabs my wrists and pulls my hands away, forcing my eyes open so I have to watch my mentor. As I stay in the same position, shaking with so much fear that it will happen to me as well, I see as the woman is tortured, the one who cared for me like a mother whilst I was here and felt so strongly about love that she'd do this. Her screams fill my ears, as well as all the defence she shouts, which kind of makes me feel worse; she's dying so I can live.

When she's dead, her broken and bleeding body strewn on the floor in front of me, I look at her and feel worse to see her dead than I did when I saw all those tributes dead, and I didn't feel great then. I'm made to sit in the same room with her body for a few minutes, until someone grabs my wrists again and pulls me to my feet, marching me out of the white room and down many white corridors. After a while, when I step out into the bright sunlight, I'm pushed onto some kind of supply train that will take me to District Four.

Once the train starts moving, I find a seat in the only seated part of the train. I curl up against the wall, with my feet on the seat, and read through the note that was pushed into my hand just before the doors shut, quickly then with more attention to detail, before sitting in silence, thinking over what I just had to watch. I wonder if I was the only who had to go through that or did Finnick as well? How even is he? How does he feel? Does he know how I am? I just- I just need to know that he's okay.

As the train pulls to a halt- nothing like the smooth halt of the train that took me to the Capitol- a sense of foreboding fills me. I get to my feet and pull at the short denim shorts on my tanned legs, beginning to play with the white buttons on the front of my lace shirt as I walk off the train. There are two people already standing on the platform, waiting by the doors of the train for the Victor to arrive, as the rest of the District begins to appear as well. They throw a glance in my direction and I know that they know who I actually am, as well as who I'm meant to be.

Name: Annie Cresta

Age: 13

Home: District Four

Family: None; orphan. Lives with the Odair family: Melia Odair (mother), Finnick Odair (son, 14), Dylan Odair (son, 9)

"I'm sorry," I say without thinking, looking at them. "I've caused you and your other son trouble."

"You're no problem, dear," Finnick's mum replies, patting my hand gently. "You've never been any trouble to us before, so why should you worry about it now?"

I sigh. At least I'm going to have their support here; they won't be blaming me for all this upheaval. "I'm just so nervous for him coming home. What if he's changed?" I begin bouncing on my toes in my dark blue shoes as I wait.

"He won't have changed so much that he'll have forgotten us, I can assure you that," she promises. "And if he has, I'll make sure that I change him back."

I laugh nervously, beginning to twist the knotted bracelet around my wrists in an attempt to calm myself. I'm so glad that, when they changed me and thought I was dead, they didn't take this away from me; it's my one piece of Finnick that I have until his train arrives. And anyway, once he does arrive he might not even recognise me as who I used to be, so I will need something to be able to prove myself.

I glance at his family in the silence and notice how similar they all look. They both have the same, wavy bronze hair that Finnick modelled so well, and they are both well built, with tanned skin, like everyone in the District. Finnick's inherited his mother's sea green eyes, though, and I guess that his brother has what must have been his father's blue eyes.

Now, I wouldn't recognise myself if I saw me, so I just hope that Finnick knows. I have dark, curly hair, it finishing half way down my back. I have to keep brushing it out of my eyes as the slight breeze, smelling of salt, blows up from the sea. My eyes have changed as well, as they're a green similar to Finnick's, just not quite as hauntingly beautiful. I'm so different to how I was before- I even sound different- but I suppose that was their idea. I can't look the same, or else rumours might spread.

Suddenly, a cheer sounds throughout the Square, soon replaced by a loud whisper, and I'm snapped out of my thoughts. I follow their gaze around and meet the eyes of the District's newest Victor, who's smiling in my direction, already having hugged his family. "Finnick," I sigh, running forward and throwing myself into his arms. The way that he returns my embrace straight away tells me that he knows at least a little about our situation or that he's not willing to let me get hurt again.

"I've missed you, Annie," he whispers into my ear. "I had so many bad dreams that I lost you."

"I know. I'm sorry." I am, though, that's the thing. I just can't say anything else in my defence without giving it away, so I choose to stay silent after that. Instead, I choose to get lost in my best friends arms, never planning to leave him again.

I'm going to protect him as much as he'll be protecting me. I won't give myself away, so that he's safe. As long as he's safe, I don't care about myself. I just know we're so lucky to have been able to both get out, so we can live together.

I'm never going to go through the pain that the Arena left with me again.

Author's Note: So, here it is. The eagerly anticipated- for one person at least- first chapter of Now Give Us A Kiss. I promised this to Georgie months ago, but I've only now actually written it, and I hope it's worth the wait!

I was originally planning for this to be a one-shot but, after trying for ages to try and work out how they could both get out of the Arena, I decided that how we were going to do it and what would happen afterwards could not simply be left as a one-shot. So, I will eventually update it; the updates will just be slow because I'll probably be updating my other stories first, unless you review... Lots of reviews equal quicker updates!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and I want to read on- review and everything! Thanks!