These moments of lucidity

Author's Note: Written before Peeta and Annie's rescue in Mockingjay. One-shot.

Scenario: Katniss wakes up from a vivid dream and goes to Finnick for comfort. Thoughts and musings on the beauty and bizarre nature of the dream-world versus reality.

o0o

I am wading in a sea of bright orange flowers that stretch out vibrant and scintillating against a pale blue sky and yet I have no idea where they came from or where I am for that matter. "Are you coming Katniss?" a voice calls out to my right. I look about and see Finnick, dressed in this ridiculous ensemble, which apart from being glittery and extravagant, somehow manages to cover nothing at all. It's all too much for me in that moment and I lose my balance in a fit of laughter.

Finnick frowns, walking over to where I've collapsed and blocks out the sky with his pink parasol, very like the ones they carry in the Capitol. "Don't I look pretty to you?" he says with mock sadness. This just sets me off again. I peek at him from behind my fingers, not quite managing to conceal my smile. He's wearing gold lipstick which strikes me as strange but in that moment it doesn't register.

"You look like an idiot."

He sighs. "As truthful as always." He flashes me a dazzling smile and offers me his arm.

"Where are we off to?" I ask as we walk amiably together. He points in a rather vague direction across the sea of flowers and for some reason which makes perfect sense at the time, the flowers have disappeared and we're standing in a field of white, soft flakes falling from the sky.

"What is it?" I ask Finnick, catching some in my hand.

Finnick does the same and sniffs it curiously. "It looks like… snow …" I find that unsettling for some reason, but I don't know why. We walk through the pristine, clear-cut snow, which had only seconds before been a field of bright orange flowers…

Orange, I muse – like Effie's hair once – I remember…

Effie

I frown, a dull pain between my eyes as I am barraged with several flickering images that make no sense. A barely discernible hair-line of a crack spiders across the sky. I crane my neck upward, glimpsing the shadowy movement out of the corner of my eye, but the sky remains deceptively still.

Finnick snorts and attempts to pull me along. "Katniss – what are you trying to do? Catch snowflakes with your nose?"

I poke my tongue out at him and allow him to pull me onwards, rather giddily towards the sea… which materialises in front of us, uncurling like a scroll and landing silvery and frothing at our toes.

The sea. I've only seen it once – in Finnick's own district. District 4… and for some reason, it makes me feel calm. The sea remains untouched by the snow and ice, completely and perfectly still with only the gentle undulating of the waves. Finnick spins the pink parasol onto the water and I watch it float in and out on the tide.

And yet it's too still. Again disquiet fills my soul. I know that this is not District 4.

Something's wrong – and I still can't quite pin-point what it is.

"Katniss? What do you think…" And his voice cuts off as if someone has turned the volume down on a radio.

"What?" I look at Finnick strangely, but don't really see him, just his bizarre glittery gold lips. It's like all of a sudden he's blocked by a murky haze. He raises his eyebrows and speaks again but all I can see is his lips moving and a distortion of sound.

Something's wrong.

His voice fades and crackles as if on a badly tuned radio until it's gone altogether.

Can he not sense that something is terribly wrong?

It's then that the porcelain sky starts bleeding and I glimpse rotting blackness underneath the shiny, smooth exterior. And a scent on the wind… Metallic, nauseating…

Blood and roses.

And an unseen, savage hand, bloated with malignant intent starts tearing down the sky and I am left with the image of a boy's face, tortured beyond recognition, a boy I loved and lost.

"Peeta!"

I scream and wake in blackness, sheets twisted around me, the clean, sterile, hospital smell filling my nose. The slow beeping of a monitor helps to calm my raw nerves.

Shivering, head pounding, I sit up, my feet touching cold tiles and make my way unsteadily towards the bed opposite mine.

I draw the curtains aside and see Finnick awake, staring at the ceiling; long, white fingers clasped to the frayed bit of rope on his chest, bruise-like shadows underneath his eyes. "Katniss," he whispers, "I heard you scream…"

"It was just a dream," I murmur, feeling beads of sweat growing cold on my forehead.

He sits up and looks at me with blank eyes. A pale ghost in muted lighting. Then he reaches up and child-like, tentatively strokes my hair, runs a finger down the bridge of my nose, touches my lips, my eyelashes. It's inexplicably soothing and I can feel tears gathering at the corner of my eyes.

"We need to be strong, Finnick." I hear myself say. "Strong for Annie… and – for Peeta…"

I trail off, not wanting to acknowledge the tears on my own cheeks. I was prepared to tuck Peeta away in some small part of my mind, but it's not going to work what with all my nightmares and Finnick's bouts of madness. So, instead I tell him about my dream.

He's silent for a moment, and I can sense that he's taking it all in. Then he lifts the pristine white hospital covers so I can get in and continues to listen, looking at me deeply, just listening – and I feel myself stabilising enough to see sanity and normalcy where I thought there was none.

"Perhaps it is easier this way, Katniss," he says, but so quietly I can barely hear him.

"What? What's easier?" I can see the light ring of amber around his dark irises. He holds my hand.

"To pretend… It's much easier to be proclaimed insane than having to deal with the waking world – having to deal with reality… This is my – escape, as you will."

"Your escape?"

"Yes… What do you do when you start to think of Peeta?"

"I think I'll go mad."

"Right – well, place yourself in the field – see the grass around you, the breeze, the flowers – escape."

"It's not that simple Finnick!"

But he turns away from me and his eyes go black and he's off again in his own world, rocking, tying up his rope in knots upon knots and for some reason, this makes me irrationally angry.

How was it, that someone as strong and as confident as Finnick could dissolve into a complete mess? And if he wasn't in his right mind, then how could I be? All it did was give me permission to indulge in my own selfish world – that blocked out Gale – Prim, my mother and even Peeta – because everything just hurt too much.

"Stop it!" I hear the voice grinding out from within me somewhere. "Stop it Finnick…" I grab him by the shoulders. "You can't keep doing this! I know you're thinking about Annie, I know you're probably dying inside – but please – you can't keep on like this – you're frightening me…"

He stops and looks at me, devastated. Child-like eyes, vulnerable, yet clear and lucid like a forest stream.

And that's when he kisses me - fiercely, his lips melding into mine. All I can do is give into his lovely yet heart-breaking embrace and sea of pent-up emotion… It's passionate and warm and sends tidal waves of tingling sensation through my body and I think for a moment that yes – I can do this… And I realise that Gale is right, those who are crazy and starved will not weigh reality. We cling to each other like two drowning people, trying to stay afloat. But it's no use.

"I'm so sorry Katniss," he whispers, his hands shaking. And he starts to cry. Great, heaving sobs that wrack his whole body.

"Shhh," I whisper, touching his hair and pulling him into the incline of my body. "I know, I know. I understand."

Because I do… Sometimes, we do anything, anything in life – to escape the pain, to numb the senses – to not feel, because feeling is too painful… And my heart aches thinking of all those I've loved and lost. All Finnick's loved and lost. Of Annie and Peeta.

"It's ok," I whisper into his hair. "It's ok Finnick… you're safe here…"

And as he continues to weep, I do too, realising that perhaps healing comes more in experiencing the pain and learning to walk through it rather than numbing yourself to the core.

And it's in this moment of startling lucidity that I am able to gain clear-cut focus, the beautiful, volatile dream world where we were kings and queens of our own making, fading colourless into the background. The world around me comes alive; Finnick's slightly damp skin, his soft hiccoughs, the plastic crinkliness of his hospital gown, the off-white colour of the walls, the muted fluoro lighting, the sharp, sterile hospital smell. The beauty and degradation of this glorious, damaged but real world. In here and out there. And my head clears.

Now I know what I must do.

o0o