Lyra sat on the train, finally on her way home to District Four after her almost suspiciously long stay in Twelve. She tried to think of how she would explain away what she had been doing there, Finnick and Mags, all the other district Four victors weren't believing the 'I wanted to see Haymitch again' excuse, not any more.

She knew that she wasn't the only one that Snow had put a barcode on, she knew for a fact that Finnick had one, that they had tried to put one on Johanna, but she couldn't bring the strength forth within herself to admit it to them. Haymitch, in a way, is her person. Whenever she had an appointment with a client and she wasn't mentoring at the time of the Games, he and Effie let her stay in the spare mentor's room up on the twelfth floor.

Most of the time she was actually mentoring, but Mags insisted that every once in a while she had to have a break. It's been four years since she won her games, four long and harrowing years. She doesn't have many memories of the time before she was embroiled in the politics of the Capitol, of President Snow. After her games, Finnick had kept one of his first promises to her, the victory tours' last day, when they were in the capitol dining with the president and all of his insane capitolite subjects, was her thirteenth Birthday and as promised, eighteen year old Finnick escorted her in and stayed by her side for the initial stages of the night, only disappearing when the president had glared his way, at which point he had gone and she was left, but only for a moment before Haymitch made a move to her.

He helped her make her way through the crowds of her 'adoring' fans and to a group in the corner that consisted of Beetee, Chaff, Seeder and Haymitch himself. Chaff and Haymitch were downing shots together, whilst Beetee and Seeder kept up amicable conversation, which Lyra easily slipped into.

She had been friends with that group of victors ever since.

Of course, since that night she had mentored with Finnick for the 70th, 71st and 72nd games and she was going to mentor again for the 73rd, before Mags took over on the 74th. Finnick had told her of his… forced nightly affairs, that was after her second time mentoring, when she was fourteen. By the next time she was mentoring she had a barcode on her arm and not the heart to tell him. Every night when he came back, thoroughly loathing himself and the capitol and president Snow, it was her who he told; it was her who dried his tears. But she went to Haymitch.

It was a long train ride from Twelve to Four, but she made the journey often, more often than not she took the train from Four to the Capitol, the Capitol to Twelve and then Twelve to Four in the space of a week. When the train did halt at the platform, she stepped off and immediately took a deep breath of the fresh, moist air. Her hair, mousy and a few inches past shoulder length, swung from where it was tied high on her head with every step she took.

The town had been her home for twelve years before she got her house in victor's village, but she never liked to stay there long, not after everything that had happened there. Her parents, her brother, and his wife, her other brother…

The first house she went to was not her own, instead Annie Cresta's front door was already open before she was even up the stairs, it had probably been open since dawn, when Mags popped round for their morning ritual cup of herbal tea. "Annie? You in here?" She called out. A vague sound of confirmation rang through the house, so Lyra kicked off her boots and made her way through to the living room, where the red headed girl was sat on the sofa, cross legged. She turned and spotted Lyra, a naïve, childlike grin illuminates her face and she said "Ly, you're home."

"Yeah, Annie and I shouldn't be leaving again for a while. Is Finnick around? Shouldn't he be here? He usually is at this time-"

"He left on the train a few days ago; he said that he hoped to be back today. Where were you all this time Ly? It's been two weeks and I haven't seen you." It's times like those that Lyra feels most guilty for lying to her friends, the times when Annie really demonstrates how intellectual she is. Those are the moments that you see the girl she was, three years ago, before she went in to the games.

Lyra had seen her, known her before, but not very strongly. She had been friends with Lyra's older brother, neither of them were in good shape now, her brother dead and Annie prone to fits of panic and hysteria.

"Do you want to go to the beach, Annie? Go swimming with me?"

Annie readily agreed. The two girls were in shorts and vests and stopped by to speak to Mags on their way to the beach, who readily greeted them, but then sent them on their way without her.

Together Annie and Lyra sat on the sand the water cool and refreshing on their feet. It was Annie that filled most of the silence, with all the different stories of the days she had missed. Annie, truly, was the only one in the entire district that did not suspect anything of Lyra; she believed it every time she came back and told her that she had gone to Twelve to see Haymitch.

They sat like that for an hour or two, neither noticing the person standing just off the beach, watching them intently and smiling. Finnick Odair ran a hand through his tousled sandy hair, smiling at the sight before him. Annie and Lyra. Lyra had always had a way with Annie that nobody else had ever been able to come close to. She was comfortable with Mags, had a friendship going with Finnick himself, but with Lyra, they were so close that they could almost be siblings.

He didn't have to wait much longer before Annie left the beach and headed home, whereas Lyra stayed where she was. He waited a minute or two, before he made his way over, threw his arm around her shoulders and sat beside her.

She turned to him, with a sideways glare, that was, in his opinion positively adorable. She couldn't hold it for long though, she broke out into her small endearing smile and leaned in so that her head rested on his shoulder. "I missed you Lyra." He whispered as he placed a little kiss on the top of her head.

"I missed you too." She murmured back.

"Haymitch is a lucky guy, gets to spend this much time with you."

She almost tensed, almost. She caught herself just in time, she knew Finnick was suspicious and for a moment she thought about opening up, about opening up her closet and letting him see all of the skeletons she kept in there, but she couldn't do that. He saw her as innocent, he still held her in the same regard as he had that little twelve year old girl he met on that morning, the morning before she was reaped:

She woke up that morning from another bout of fresh nightmares, her parents being shot by peacekeepers only a month or so prior plaguing her with a relentless fury. Cold sweat rolled down her back and her breath came in gasps, strained and pained. It didn't help that her first reaping day was in a few hours either. Checking her window and finding that it was still mostly dark, the first rays of sun just kissing the sky, she scrambled up, pulling on simple shorts and a pink, floral vest. At the top of the stairs she stuck her head around the door of her brothers' room. It was only her and Ricky in the house now, their eldest brother, George, having moved out to live with his wife. Ricky was still asleep, that's how he spent most of his time. He was eighteen and after an accident whilst he was out fishing he was bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. She kissed his forehead gently and then slipped on her boots at the front door and left the house.

She was light on her feet and easily evaded peacekeepers as she escaped the district into the slight shrubbery. It wasn't a long walk to where she was aiming for though. She kept going until she found her gap in the rock and she slid through it. She followed the small tunnel until it brought her out on a ledge of rock that was little more than a metre above the surface of the water. With it being reaping day she couldn't hang her legs out to touch the water out of fear of being spotted by the excess peacekeepers floating around with little to do at such an early hour, so instead she crossed them and just stared out at the water. She found it so soothing, calming after her nightmares. She ended up down here on most mornings, sick to the stomach from nightmares, with nobody to talk to. Not her brother that had moved across the district to live with his wife and had left his twelve year old sister to care for their crippled brother, not her crippled brother that had enough on his plate anyway. She nearly didn't hear somebody else coming down the tunnel behind her. But she did, turning around just in time to see the face of Panem's youngest ever victor.
Finnick Odair.

She may have been four and a bit years younger than him, but she knew that every woman in the Capitol had loved him, that's how he managed to win, with all the sponsors. He flashed her a smile, like the ones he did in his interviews with Caesar Flickerman. He knew she felt uncomfortable, but he moved to sit right next to her anyway. The cave didn't offer much space, so she couldn't object to it.
They sat in silence for a few moments before she spoke to him. "Do you have nightmares?"

He seemed stunned at her question as he gazed at her, like she was a puzzle. He was still for a few moments before he nodded.

"How do you... How do you manage?" She asked uncertainly. "Every single time I fall asleep I wake up in the middle of the night and I feel like I'm going to combust or go mentally unstable, maybe even both. How do you manage to push them away?"

Again he looked stunned, but he recovered much quicker that time "Find someone to open up to. Every night before you go to sleep, tell them everything you're afraid of. It doesn't keep them completely away, but it makes you feel more at peace with it." He paused for a moment. "What do you have nightmares about?" That was it. The question that would either have her running away from him or maybe be the beginning of his first real friendship since the games.

She was silent for an awfully long time before responding "you were around when two people were executed by peacekeepers for speaking out of turn about Snow?"

He nodded. "I asked the peacekeepers to let them be, but they shot the woman first right in the skull. The man, her husband was begging for him to be spared so he could look after his three kids. I remember him saying that his eldest had just turned twenty four and his youngest was thirteen in winter. Her first reaping and she was already having trouble sleeping. They shot him anyway."

She didn't speak. Didn't trust herself to for a few moments until she managed two words "my parents" he understood immediately, wrapping his arm securely round her shoulders. They sat there for a while, until the sun was making its ascent and they both needed to get ready for the reaping. He left first and pulled her out after him. "Before you go, what's your name?" He asked, his slightly flirty grin making its way back onto his face.

"Come find me after the games Odair and I just might tell you."
For a moment she thought he was going to stick his tongue out at her like some kind of child, but he didn't. Instead he met her eyes and said "until then, my little rebel girl." She tilted her head at him, confused by the name, but he just shrugged and headed back into district four.
Four hours later he found out her name. It was written on the slip of paper pulled from the reaping bowl.

That was the girl that he was desperate to believe that she still was. The naïve little girl, who'd just lost her parents, but still had her older brothers. The one that was young and trusted him so much that she told him her life story just after she'd met him. The girl that didn't tell him her name, the girl who broke rules and hid outside of the district on the day when most peacekeepers were about.

But that girl didn't exist anymore, dead and buried ever since she went into the games. Ever since talking to President Snow. Ever since getting that barcode on the back of her neck. That girl had looked up to Finnick Odair, her mentor, the one that got her through the games.

This girl, this Lyra Carlisle, she implicitly trusts Finnick Odair; she has no family apart from Mags, Annie and Finnick Odair. This Lyra Carlisle loves Finnick Odair and she doesn't have the heart to tell him.

So... I wrote this whilst on holiday and I thought I'd upload it anyway, even though I haven't edited it yet. I really want to know what everyone thinks of it and I hope you all enjoyed reading it.

xxx