He had never expected her to be the one, his first one. Sure, he was from 4, one of the traditional Career districts- but she definitely was no career. Perhaps that hadn't been so clear when she'd gone in- in fact, it hadn't been so overwhelming at first. She was small, but fit and light. Brute strength wasn't necessary for the Games. Intelligence, stealth could win just as effectively. But he could tell, something about her just didn't scream 'I can easily kill a bunch of other teenagers without getting myself killed in the process'. It wasn't a bad quality at all, of course- unless you were a tribute in the Games. In the Games, it was usually utterly necessary for survival.
He didn't really feel guilty for writing her off- he hadn't wanted her to die or anything. He'd just sort of expected it, and hoped it would be a quick, easy death. Maybe someone would get in a sure-kill shot and it would be instantaneous. He'd arraigned to give gifts of food and water so she didn't have to starve or suffer thirst for days and sort of thought his job was done. He could deal with his own demons in the Capitol... and then the boy had been beheaded and she'd utterly snapped, running off, hiding. And that was when he'd gotten worried that she'd set herself up for some brutal end- the Gamemakers having to flush her out, her running into some of the more brutal favorites to win...
And they had tried to flush her out- flush all of them out. With water. He didn't know who's idea it'd been to try and flush out a girl from 4 with water- even mentally broken she was a strong swimmer. She'd survived largely because she hadn't drowned. So now the Capitol had perhaps the most broken winner ever. It was sort of ironic, considering she was physically fine, other than the fact that she was malnourished. It was her mental condition that had her in the hospital , the doctors desperately trying to get her presentable for the cameras. It was a much easier task to heal broken limbs. A broken person was a different matter entirely.
That was where he'd come in. They'd hoped that a semi-familiar face would help soothe her. He wasn't so sure he was cut out for the job- he'd only known her for a few days, mentoring her. It was always the young victors that ended up mentoring. Most of the older ones hated doing it- hated growing attached to kids and then seeing them killed. But he didn't get attached to anyone. He had no living family, other than Mags, who'd been his own mentor five years before- he definitely counted her. But other than that... well, he surely didn't get attached to the stream of people who paid for access to his body.
Yet here he was, in the hospital room of a girl who was alive against all odds, and he was supposed to help her heal. He didn't know the first thing about that. He slowly approached her bed. She was asleep- he wasn't so sure if it was natural or if she'd been sedated. Most likely the latter. She'd been neatly arrainged on the bed- fed through a tube to help fill her back out from the weight she'd lost in the arena. Her hair was a mess- he doubted she'd cared or would've let anyone close enough to fix it for her. A curl of it was in her face, and perhaps against his better judgement he reached out to push it away. The second his fingers brushed her skin, her eyes fluttered open. Green, like his and most of their district. Although her's were full of fear, terror. Perhaps of him. He pulled back his hand. "Shhhh, Annie, it's just me, it's Finnick, no one's going to hurt you- I'll make sure of it." He didn't know it then, of course, that he'd been making a promise that he'd keep for the rest of his life. But he was glad he did.
