This fic was written for Holly (antarcs) for the 2019 fic exchange at Caesar's Palace. I've never written for The Hunger Games before, so I'm pretty nervous. I hope you love it, but if you don't, I hope you at least don't hate it!
Finnick grumbles into his pillow and snuggles closer to Annie when the alarm clock on her bedside table begins to buzz. Nights with Annie don't happen nearly often enough, and he isn't ready for this one to be over. He'll never be ready, but Annie is already yawning and shifting, one slender arm reaching out to her clock to make the noise stop. Then she settles back down beside Finnick with a content little sigh.
"You ready for some honest work?" she asks, resting one hand on his bare chest. Finnick hmms, still drifting on sleep and trying to memorize the feeling of her body against his. "Mags is planting her spring garden today, remember? We said we'd help."
"You said," he corrects good-naturedly, cracking one eye open. There are soft noises from downstairs, and he can already smell bacon frying. He and Annie have spent the night in their bedroom in Mags's house in the Victors' Village of District Four. They stay with her more often than in their own houses, and it puts Finnick's mind at ease to know that Mags is keeping an eye on Annie whenever he's away in the Capitol. Mags is almost as good as he is at bringing Annie out of a flashback or calming her down after a panic attack.
Gardening has been good for Annie, and Finnick can see her eagerness for today in how she climbs out of bed and starts to dress in her old, worn gardening clothes. Finnick decides to garden in the same loose pants that he's slept in - what a relief to be back in Four, away from the Capitol's stylists and the revealing outfits they force him to wear - and instead of getting dressed, he uses the time to make their bed.
His and Annie's bed, here in their room in Mags's house, is a sacred space to Finnick. They have a rule that they bring nothing - nothing - with them into this bed. Finnick has seen too much in the beds of the Capitol: everything from feathers and whipped cream, to gags and blindfolds, to whips and electric shocks. But in this bed, there's only ever the clean, sweet-smelling sheets and each other's familiar bodies. He lets his hands linger over the rustling sheets and sea-blue duvet, savoring the purity of it.
Annie goes to the window after she finishes getting dressed. She smooths down her sleep-tousled auburn hair and gathers it into a low ponytail, with a little smile on her face. Outside, the sun hasn't quite risen over the horizon, but there's just enough light to see the large, dark square of the garden's freshly-tilled soil. When she turns to smile at Finnick, framed in the window's gentle light, her eyes are bright and focused, and all his reluctance to work in the garden today vanishes. She grabs his hand as they start downstairs. This is going to be a good day.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Mags seems to be everywhere at once, for her age hasn't slowed her down one bit. She bustles about, pours mugs of coffee for Finnick and Annie, pulls a pan of buttermilk biscuits from the oven, moves the plate of bacon to the table, chides them about eating a good hearty breakfast, and starts fetching trays of delicate green seedlings from the sunroom off the kitchen.
Gardening has been Mags's talent for years. She'd had dark, rich soil imported from District Seven and made into a large garden outside her home in the Victors' Village. She'd recruited Finnick and Annie into helping her ever since their Games. "Finnick, come help a sweet old lady in her garden," she liked to say, and every time, Finnick would look around in mock surprise, asking, "Where's a sweet old lady? I don't see any sweet old lady," which always made Mags and Annie both laugh.
Annie has always loved to help Mags in her garden. She would crawl between the stalks pulling up weeds until her hands were covered in blisters, and never breathe one word of complaint. She would hoe the soil until she was soaked in sweat, and only take a break when Finnick or Mags reminded her. At first, Finnick tried to talk her out of working so hard, but then he noticed that after a day in Mags's garden, Annie always sleeps through the night. She doesn't wake up screaming or crying from a nightmare about the arena. She doesn't lie awake beside him for hours, unable to sleep at all. She sleeps so soundly that sometimes Finnick is the one who lies awake, just to listen to the deep, peaceful rhythm of her breath.
Mags likes to start gardening early, practically at the crack of dawn, so when they step outside, it seems like the whole world is still misty and hushed. Not wanting to break the spell, the three of them speak in whispers as they start to work transplating the seedlings from their trays into the soil in neat rows. This spring, Mags is planting cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peas, and carrots, all vegetables that she's done well with before. Finnick and Annie work in tandem almost without needing to say anything. Their hands move together like dancers as she gently tugs each plant loose from its tray and hands it to Finnick to set in the earth, cupping it delicately, as if it were a rare, precious thing. They pat the soil down around it, and Finnick can feel Annie willing the tiny shoots of new life to take root and grow strong. Then they tie them to the wooden rods with pieces of soft yarn, because Mags says that anything coarser might chafe the plants.
In moments like this, Finnick understands why Annie loves gardening so much. The Victors' Village has one of the best views in Four, overlooking the main fishing harbor, and as the sun climbs higher and the fog lifts, whenever Finnick straightens up, he can see the dark little dots of fishing ships sailing in and out. The sea breeze that blows over the garden seems to drift right into his head and drive everything else out. Here under the hot sun, with dirt under his fingernails and sweat dripping down his back, Finnick feels like a different person from the Victor who was primped and polished to gleam like gold under the Capitol's lights. With each seedling, it feels miraculous that he, the same person forced to slay children in the arena, can now hold young, new life in his hands and help it grow. Sometimes it feels like he and Annie are holding hope itself and planting it into the hope-parched earth of Panem.
They spend most of the morning in the garden, until Mags tells them to take a break. Then they flop down in lawn chairs in the shade of the house, sipping glasses of ice water that Mags brings outside from the kitchen and watching the hummingbirds flutter and swoop over the honeysuckle on the garden fence.
Then Annie leans back in her chair and tilts her face up towards the sun. "Mags, tell us a story?" she asks, and Mags smiles and chuckles.
Mags liked to say that she was the quintessential sweet old lady, and that part of that role was knowing a lot of good stories. She started telling stories to Finnick and Annie years ago, when they were still fresh out of the arena, wounded and raw. On nights when they couldn't sleep even in each other's arms, they used to get out of bed and knock on the door of Mags's room, like two little kids going to their mom. Finnick could've easily gotten them sleeping pills in the Capitol, ones that would've made them sleep like babies all night long, but he would rather go without sleep than put anything from the Capitol in his body.
"Yeah, tell us the one about the bridge," Finnick adds, and Mags chuckles again, unsurprised, for the story about the ancient bridge has always been Finnick's favorite.
"Well, all right then, if you insist," she says, pretending to be begrudged. She gets comfortable in her chair, crossing and recrossing her legs, and she takes off her floppy gardening hat to smooth down her silver hair. "A very long ago time ago, a mighty bridge once stood in Panem, near where District Four is now..."
Mags's stories about the old days of Panem have a ring of truth to them, which is part of what makes them so good. The bridge had spanned a great bay between two cities, and it was built of golden steel and wires. It gleamed in the sun over the deep blue waters, and it was so beautiful that people traveled from miles around just to see it. They called it the Golden Gate Bridge.
It was destroyed during the Dark Days - by floods or earthquakes or both - but when Mags was a little girl, she'd heard stories that if you sailed very far out to sea, farther than anyone had ever sailed into those endless waters around Panem, until the horizon of Four was long gone, the two high towers of that bridge were still out there, somewhere.
Finnick closes his eyes and tries to picture that - the towers rising out of the infinite sea like two golden pillars, still shining in the sun just like they had in the ancient days, even though the bridge beneath them was now long underwater. He opens his eyes and looks beyond Mags's garden out to the sea, and he imagines those towers just on the other side of the horizon, looking back at him across the water. His hand finds Annie's without even needing to look at her, and when he squeezes it, he can feel her heart beating in sync with his.
Mags thinks that Finnick likes hearing the bridge story for its imagery, for the romanticism of picturing that mighty, golden bridge as it had once stood. But the truth is that he likes picturing it as it is now - if those two towers really are still standing, and Finnick believes that they are, somewhere beyond the sea. He sees himself and Annie in those towers. Hearing about the bridge, he can believe that he and Annie will live forever too, somehow, no matter what happens in the rest of Panem. Their love will endure just like the towers, its bright golden glow never fading.