Author's Note: Just a little post-Mockingjay oneshot about my fav couple from the series. Because I may or may not still be crying over a certain character's death. Anyways, this story might not make any sense. I'm conflicted about but we'll see what happens, I suppose. I hope you enjoy.
Her first feeling, upon hearing the news, is a kind of numbness—a rejection of reality. Because how can the universe possibly be so against her? It doesn't seem possible, even in this world she's living in, for so much to go so wrong for one person.
It's easier not to talk to anyone. Especially not to anyone who knew him. Johanna makes it easy by disappearing. It's not just that Annie has no idea where she's gone off to, because no one does. She left with a backpack one evening and no one's seen her since.
Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch. They don't know what to say to her, so they say good bye. Back to District Twelve to lick their wounds and keep on surviving.
The doctors tell her she should stay in Thirteen for her pregnancy, because they have the best functioning medical facilities in the nation, at least for the moment. They're not wrong. But like everyone from the other Districts who have retreated to Thirteen during the war, she's grown to hate it. A daughter of the sea is not meant to be underground, even if District Four is in shambles.
But she does what she's told. They make it so easy to isolate herself, to not think. Not for the first time, consciousness is her enemy. It reminds her she's alone and makes the tips of her fingers go cold.
It takes her so long to react correctly, but they expect that because of how simply she has come to play that role of the mad girl, the unstable one. Three days pass in denial, living in a nightmare, before she awakens in the early hours of the morning, sobbing painfully and feeling like she's been hit by a freight train. For the first time, the words cross her mind, he's gone. Over the years, that phrase will come back to her, reminding her what is real and what is unreal.
I never wanted to leave you like this.
m m m
She calls the boy Nick, and as soon as she looks at him she can't imagine living without him.
It's the first step in not feeling so sorry for herself; because she's not alone anymore. This boy, her tiny boy, is her greatest connection to him, along with the wedding band on her finger and her still new last name.
The two of them fit well together immediately. She may still wake up crying, but he's crying too, except his problems are so instantly mendable compared to hers. He's hungry, he's tired, he needs to be changed. It makes her feel human again to be able to fix things, for once.
The agony in her left chest doesn't dissipate, though. She doesn't really expect it to.
She heads back to Four as soon as they let her, hoping to track down Lucerne and Rae.
Good, Lucerne will help. Lucerne always helps.
m m m
It's on the muddy, half rebuilt streets of Four that she realizes she has become an endangered species.
With Nick on her hip she draws stares wherever she walks. She is the last victor of District Four, one of seven left in the whole nation. The burden of being one of the last people with first hand knowledge of the arenas weighs on her—how can it only be up to her and six others to carry on the most vivid tales of horror? To prevent future atrocities?
If she can barely keep things straight in her own mind, how is she supposed to keep straight the minds of entire recovering nation?
She heads to what remains of the Victors' Village first, most of which has been burnt to the ground in the purging of the victors themselves. No one seems too clear on whether it was the Capitol or the revolutionaries that deemed the dozen or so victors a threat. No one seems to care.
She wonders what happened to the victor's children. Only a few had kids, and the children are nowhere to be seen. She later finds out that they were not only killed, but killed first, to cause their parents the maximum amount of pain possible. She still weeps when she thinks of Eldoris and Nami's sweet baby. It all seems so much more gruesome, with her own child in her arms.
Her old house in the Village is still halfway intact, because she'd been taken by the Capitol by the time the mobs came. The fire took her kitchen and sitting room, but her bedroom and the library are scorched but standing. She finds a few novels and the necklace he gave her and leaves as quickly as possible. His house is untouched also, but going in there will most certainly ruin her.
She passes through the city square, endures the mix of curious and accusatory gazes. She may not have been one of the most favorite victors, but she is recognizable nonetheless. Nick squirms and coos, as though the attention makes him uncomfortable too.
The house she comes to is modest, but it's value lies in the fact that it's actually on land, rather than a boat anchored in the marina and motored out to sea each morning to fish. Lucerne must have paid a hefty price for the dwelling, by Four standards. Rae, she assumes, is responsible for the well kept window boxes and the neatly accented shutters, painted a light green.
And it's Rae who opens the door when she knocks, and wraps Annie in a bone crushing hug. The other woman looks a little worn, like everyone who's made it through the war, but radiant as always.
"Annie! I'm so glad you're back!" she exclaims. "And who's this?"
"Nick," Annie replies, with a shy smile.
"After his father, of course," Rae's features turn melancholy, even as she reaches out to grab Nick's little hand. "Did you know we named our daughter Finna?"
"I thought I heard about that."
She turns to lead Annie inside the short entrance hall, the floor an off white linoleum. "Lucerne's just got home. He's started fishing again, got himself a position as captain on one of your father's fleet."
"Excellent."
Rae rounds on her suddenly, just before they enter the kitchen. "I'm sorry I'm babbling. I should ask, how are you holding up? I can't even imagine..."
Rae must know, from television and from marrying Lucerne and spending so much time around the Odair household, that it's minor miracle if Annie is even half as sane as she seems at this point.
"I'm managing."
Lucerne calls from the next room over, his voice growing closer. "Rae, who's—" He stops dead when he sees Annie. "You're okay."
"So are you."
"And that's..." he raises a weak hand at Nick. His eyes are rimmed with dark circles, his copper hair messy and his jaw stubbled. Annie decided a long while ago that he is, most of the time, a scruffier, older version of his brother.
"Your nephew."
"Oh my god," he takes two quick strides forward and lays a gentle, awe-filled hand on Nick's head.
"Lucerne's managing, too," Rae says simply. "Would you like to meet Finna?"
The little girl is asleep in the next room over, curled in on herself and clutching a stuffed animal shaped like a seahorse. Without having to see them, Annie knows her eyes will be a bright green.
"Finna Mags Odair," Lucerne whispers.
Annie puts one hand over her mouth, as though that will prevent her throat from tightening.
"It's a bit bewildering, isn't it?" Lucerne murmurs. "How life goes on."
Rae lays a comforting hand on his bicep.
"I always thought that if I lost him, I'd lose everything," Annie looks at him, and he nods.
"My brother used to be all I had. I know what you mean." Lucerne as rested the most tender of gazes upon his daughter. "Things change."
You're the best brother there ever was. I hope you know that.
m m m
It's Sunday, but it doesn't feel like it, because somehow Monday no longer exists.
Only a few times in life does one come across the kind of moment where there is no past and no future, the ultimate feeling of living only in the now. Annie gets a fleeting taste of this as she watches Nick splash through the waves with Finna and her sister Bella. Because this is everything they ever hoped to achieve through the revolution—children playing, unburdened by a reaping or a game. This is what she thought she'd never have, never even in witness. It's when she thinks that maybe the best way to remind people of the horror of the games, to ensure that they never happen again, is to show them what life is like without them.
Her grasp of the full beauty of this shrinks away a moment later, as these sorts of feelings generally do.
Rae is sitting on the sand next to her, dark hair pulled back in a bun and resting her head on the knees that are pulled up to her chest. She smiles and waves back at Bella, whose wet hair is plastered to her face.
"He should be seeing this," Annie says to her. "I wish he was here. He's supposed to see his son."
I wish I was there, too.