It had been a few days since Annie had retreated into the darkness of her own mind. Everything had been a downward spiral since that moment when she witnessed the beheading of her district partner. She'd escaped from the pack of careers only barely, and only because she was the only one who could swim across the river to safety. The remainder of the games was nothing more than a blur to Annie. Even weeks after they'd ended she couldn't decide which parts had really happened and which were just a product of her cruel imagination.
As all victors did, Annie had moved in to the Victor's Village, a series of huge, modern, comfortable homes were the Victor's were isolated from the rest of the population. Annie had brought along her father to live with her, but the poor man was clueless as to how he could help her, and after he'd realized that his attempt to comfort her were hopeless he'd returned to work. It's not like he left her completely alone, he did worry about her, so he had Mags and Finnick, the only two people in the whole district that Annie felt comfortable around, check up on her.
Mags would feed her and bathe her and talk to her. She was loving and caring, and she never pushed Annie to talk or do anything that she didn't want to. Even though Annie was often aloof, the small part of her mind that remained present was grateful for her company.
Finnick was a different story. Nobody could blame him for the way he reacted, but though Annie didn't say it or show it, she felt hurt and abandoned. Finnick had tried incessantly to comfort her and to reassure her. He had been there for her throughout her interviews after the games, and he'd helped her withstand the horror of the crowds at the Capital and even back home. Though Annie had managed to keep herself somewhat composed during the madness that had ensued after she'd been announced victor, when she had returned home it was as if the thin line she'd been hanging on to had snapped. Keeping her composure had drained every last bit of her energy so when she got home for the first time she collapsed, releasing all the tension and exhaustion that had been consuming her.
The pills the doctors had prescribed to tranquilize her kept her calm and disconnected when her nightmares got so bad she forgot they weren't real. Annie had spent the last few days, maybe weeks going between the pill-induced stupor and frenetic anxiety.
Finnick had tried to be there for her the first few days. He sat by her side and talked to her. He tried to hold her and stroke her hair when things got bad, the way he'd used to right after her games. But everything was still too recent, and there wasn't the pressure of having to keep herself together. It's not like Annie wanted to hurt Finnick, in fact it pained her to do so, but she knew that keeping still and quiet would be better than letting herself go. She knew ignoring Finnick would be better than breaking down in front of him. She was terrified of showing him just how messed up she really was. She'd been trying to avoid pushing him away and in the end that's exactly what she'd accomplished.
Mags could see how hurt both of them were. She knew as well as any other victor how hard it could be to heal. She knew deep down Finnick knew it too, but he was too involved emotionally with Annie to be objective. He'd run to her house every day the first week she was back. He'd cry and talk and Mags would listen, until one day he wasn't crying anymore, but what Mags saw in his eyes was worse than pain or heartbreak, it was resignation.
"I'm not going back there," he said. "She's gone, Mags. Annie is not coming back." Mags had been absolutely furious with him so he'd stopped coming to see her as well, but things were getting out of control and she knew she had to do something about it.
So one day, after Annie' father had returned home from his shop she went over to Finnick's house, which was just two house to the right of Annie's. She knocked on his door and he didn't answer at first, but Mags could hear him walking on the other side. "I'm not leaving," she warned him, "so let me in."
Finnick obeyed and stepped away to let her inside. "Here to yell at me some more?" he asked. Mags rolled her eyes. "You know, I'm a very busy person. I have a lot of things to do."
"Name one," she said, taking a seat on the couch.
"What do you want, Mags?" he asked, annoyed.
"You don't talk to me like that, Mister," she said. Ever since Finnick's parents had passed away Mags had acted like his family and he was really grateful for that.
"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I know what you're going to say but it's pointless."
"Remember when you got back from your games?" she asked
"Yeah," he said.
"You didn't want to see anybody. You tried to avoid Annie and you always refused to talk to her about the arena," she said. "And what happened in the end?"
"I told her about the arena," he recalled with a sad smile. "She was pretty persistent."
"Yes, she never gave up on you, Finnick, and no matter how much you hated yourself, Annie always loved you. She saw the good in you."
"Mags, I tried… but it's like I'm talking to myself."
"She can hear you, Finnick. Deep down she knows you're there."
"It just hurts too much," he muttered, his voice breaking.
"It doesn't hurt you as much as it hurts her. I can promise you that."
"What if she never comes back?" he asked, wiping warm tears from his eyes.
"If you'd given her some time before giving up on her like you did you'd know that she already has. Maybe it's for short periods of time, Finnick, but Annie's still there. I've seen her. And though she refuses to talk about it or even think about it I know she needs you."
"I've been selfish," he sighed.
"It's okay, Darling. It happens to the best of us."
Finnick knew Mags was right, so the next day he went to see Annie. Mags was making lunch. "She's in her room," she told him. Finnick nodded nervously and climbed the stairs. He knocked on her bedroom door but nobody replied so he went inside anyway.
Annie's bed was unmade but empty. He looked around and spotted her on her balcony, sitting cross-legged facing the sea. At least she got out of bed, he thought. He cleared his throat, announcing his presence, but she didn't reply. He was convinced she hadn't heard him, or that she had and wouldn't react, but then she finally spoke.
The first time was too low to understand, so when Finnick didn't reply she said it again. "I didn't think I'd see you around here again."
Was that resentment in her voice? Finnick's heart wrenched. All he wanted to do was run to her side and hug her but the tone of her voice made it clear he wasn't welcome to.
"Annie," he sighed apologetically "I'm so sorry." She stood up and turned to face him. She'd lost a lot of weight and there were bags under her eyes. Her green eyes weren't as bright as he remembered. When Finnick looked at Annie's eyes he used to see joy and passion and love but what he saw then was fear. Fear and anger and pain.
"Go away, Finnick," she said. Her voice was brittle and hoarse, as if she'd been screaming or crying, or maybe it had just gone unused for too long. Her words felt like daggers, and though he should have expected them, he was shocked.
"No." Annie looked as surprised as Finnick had when she'd told him to leave. "I'm not leaving again, Annie… I already made that mistake." Though at first glance she seemed fine, Finnick noticed her arms shook slightly and her body was tense.
"Please leave," she said almost desperately. "If you care about me then go away." She pressed her palms to her eyes and shook her head. Finnick took a tentative step towards her. She looked up again and this time her eyes were overflowing with tears.
"Annie," he whispered, chocking back his own sobs. "Please let me help you…"
"Don't you get it?" she asked "I don't want you to!" He unsuccessfully tried to mask his pain, for Annie's sake, but it was clear to her anyway."Finnick…don't you see how fucked up I am? This is me at my best. I'm already disgusting, I don't want you to see me at my worst."
"You've seen me at my worst, Annie," he said.
"Yeah, and I never cared." She sat on her bed and hugged her knees to her chest. She trembled even though the heat in the room was suffocating.
"I don't care either, Annie."
"Then why did you leave?" she demanded. Her voice broke once more and this time she couldn't contain the sobs that were soon shaking her body. "You left me because you don't want to put up with this. And you don't have to. Why are you even back here? I thought you'd made your choice."
"Annie… no," he cried, his own tears slipping from his eyes. He sat on her bed and resisted the urge to hold her in his arms. "I was being selfish, but I never left because I didn't want to put up with you… you are not a burden. It just broke my heart to see you like that, and I thought you weren't coming back to me. It was just too painful, but I should have stayed. I'm so sorry I didn't…"
"Perhaps it's better if you don't," she murmured softly. "This won't last long. The flashbacks and the nightmares will come back any moment, and I'll either thrash and scream and panic, or I'll be sedated by the pills, and I honestly don't know which is worse…"
"And I'll be right here by your side," he said. "Whatever happens."
"You're not forgiven," she reminded him without a hint of humor. "But if you want to stay and see for yourself you're welcome to. You won't last long. You didn't make it a whole week last time."
Finnick felt like something had broken between them and it was his fault. By leaving he'd proven to Annie that he couldn't stand being around her. He made her feel like he didn't love her enough to keep trying and he hated himself for that. But as painful as it was to put up with her never-ending reproaches, he stayed. He was determined to prove to Annie to Mags and to himself that he'd never leave again.
Not all days were the same. The day after he'd first returned she was asleep for hours, the day after she sat on her balcony and stared at the ocean. Her eyes were open but they lacked awareness. She was just the shell of the wonderful girl Finnick had fallen in love with, but he still stayed by her side. On those days, when she was too far-gone to remember her anger towards him, she sometimes allowed him to hold her. When he did, his warm touch, his soft breath on her hair, his steady heartbeat eased her tension, and in a few occasions he felt like she'd returned back to normal quicker.
A few days he got to see the very worst it could get, or at least as bad as he hoped it ever would. He'd been downstairs talking to Mags when he'd first heard the screaming. "Nightmare," she sighed. "I'll be right back."
"No," he said. "Let me." Finnick wasn't too sure what he would do, or even if he wanted to go up there, but he knew it had to happen eventually. He'd have to see Annie at her very worst and he needed to be strong for her.
He ran up the stairs taking them two at a time, and he slipped inside her room quietly because he didn't want to startle her. Annie was lying in bed, thrashing and screaming. Her face was red and tear-stained. Her body shook violently. He rushed to her side and tried to comfort her by resting an arm on her shoulder. A terrible mistake. His touch only upset her further as she began to scream, "Let go! Don't touch me! Please, just let me go!"
"Annie," he begged. "It's me, Finnick. I'm not going to hurt you." But his words fell on deaf ears. He soon realized there was no point in trying to wake her up because she was awake, but in her head the nightmare she was having was very real.
Mags had assured him that there was nothing much to do but to wait for her to calm down a bit, and if that didn't work they could inject her with tranquilizers, but Finnick refused. He had seen some of the worn-out victors who'd taken to medication to easy their suffering. They wasted away, floating through life only half present. He didn't want his beautiful, innocent Annie turned into a morphling.
So Finnick sat by her side, offering words of comfort. He didn't try to touch her again, but for moments Annie seemed lucid enough to hear him. "Finnick," she'd cried once. "Help me, please," but when he'd tried to hold her, she'd raked her sharp, bitten nails across his neck.
That first day was awful. It took Annie a full hour to calm down enough that it was no longer dangerous to approach her. Once she'd screamed so much her voice was hoarse, and thrashed so much she was soaked in sweat, she'd collapsed on her bed, her body shaking less violently with her gentle sobs.
"Annie?" he tried again, stroking her hair tentatively. She didn't slap his arm away or scream, which he took as a good sign. He continued to stroke her hair soothingly until her breathing had slowed down and her tears had run out. He caressed her messy, black, sweat-soaked hair until she was asleep.
Mags tried to pull him away from her bedside. "You need to eat!" she protested when he refused, but it was no use. Finnick had promised Annie that he would be there for her, and that was not a promise that he intended to break.
"Finnick?"
In waiting, Finnick had fallen asleep. His back was pressed against the wall and his head rested against the side of Annie's bed, but the sound of her voice pierced through his hazy unconsciousness and brought him back to his senses.
He looked up at Annie, who was sitting up in bed, cross-legged. Her hair was a frizzy mess and her face was red and swollen from so much crying, but for the first time in days her eyes weren't hateful when she looked at him. "What are you doing there?"
"I must have fallen asleep," he said, rubbing the aching back of his neck. She offered him a soft smile but her eyes were still sad.
"I'm sorry," she whispered with a quivering lip.
"Annie you have nothing to be sorry about," he assured her.
She patted the space on the bed beside her and shrugged when she saw the surprised look on his face. "Well, you can stay there too but that wall doesn't look very comfortable." Finnick smiled at the first attempt at humor she'd made at him in weeks.
Once Finnick was sitting in front of her though she struggled to meet his eyes. Instead, she scratched at her jagged, bloody nails, trying to remove the tiny blotches of nail polish that remained from her time at the Capitol. "How bad was it?" she asked.
"Oh, it really wasn't that bad," he lied. She looked up at him and her eyes were so pained it was hard to hold her gaze.
"Did I do that?" she asked, caressing the swollen cuts she'd left on his neck
"Oh, it's really nothing," he said. He couldn't even tell if they hurt or not because when he felt her warm fingers on his skin overwhelming joy coursed through his body like electricity.
"You stayed," she whispered. "I hurt you, and you stayed."
"It really wasn't so bad," he chuckled.
"I don't mean your neck… I know seeing me like that wasn't easy." She was right; it was the hardest thing Finnick had had to do. "And I know I've been hurting you for the past few days…"
"I deserved that."
She looked up at him and her eyes were teary once more. "I was awful to you… because I care too much about you. I know it doesn't make sense, but I wasn't being mean because I was mad… I just don't think you deserve this."
"I don't deserve what?"
"Me. You've already suffered so much. I don't want to be the source of your pain."
"Annie, do you remember the time when I got back from my games?" he asked, remembering Mag's wise words. She nodded slightly. "Remember how I tried to push you away? Just like you're trying to do now." She nodded again.
"It's different though," she interrupted. "You're not insane."
"And neither are you… you're going to get better with time. And maybe you'll never be the same again, and maybe this thing will never fully go away, but it will get better. Nobody makes it out of the arena untouched, Annie… I promise you're not the only one."
"But what if it doesn't get better, Finnick?" she murmured, frightened.
"I'm sure it will, Annie, but even if it doesn't, I will stay by your side to help you through it. And it will all be worth it when you do get back to me."
"Do you swear on your life you're not doing all this out of pity?" she asked.
"I'm really not as good a person as you think I am," he joked. Then he looked at her, his voice more serious "I'm here because I love you like I never have and never will love anybody else. I'm here because the days I thought I had lost you forever were the most excruciatingly painful I've ever lived and because I would have no reason to live my miserable life if you weren't in it. I love you, Annie Cresta. I'm not going anywhere. That's what best friends do… they stick by each other through the good and the bad."
"I thought that was married couples," she teased.
"Someday," he chuckled, and though Annie knew he was only teasing, the thought of them getting married in the future gave her something to look forward to. It gave her a reason to keep fighting her demons. It was all worth it if she had Finnick by her side. He gave her the courage to tell the voices in her head to fuck off, and his strong voice and warm touch always reached her, no matter how deeply lost she was in the dark, marshy maze that was her head.