The footsteps become louder and faster. Nobody knocks the bright white double door. With her arms still around her legs, Annie keeps rocking back and forth over her unmade bed, skimming the rough sheets, head so deeply buried between her knees it hurts her. But there's another pain growing.
She quickly brings her hands to cover her ears and shuts her eyes closed - but her imagination is too fast. Slowly leaning back on the bed so the baby doesn't feel her anxiety, she tries to push the bad thoughts away. But it never works.
Voices are indistinguishable in the corridor, yet they don't fade. What if there's another attack? Or what if they came back in grave conditions? What if they didn't all come back? A flow of poisonous thoughts twirls and turns in her mind, like if she needed more troubling.
He was strong, he promised he'd be careful, for their child. In Annie's point of view, the best for their son would be to have a father always looking after him, starting now. But Finnick was a great man, and he wanted to change the world to its best within the little time he had before his birth.
Annie stops pressing, and almost in a painful relaxing manner, her ears come back to their natural position. With trembling hands, she stretches to her bedside table, making things fall, a glass sharply braking over her clock on the clean floor and spilling its purple content all over it. She catches the framework in the air, sighing and thanking it didn't fall too. Surely enough, if the glass of the frame had broken in pieces, her heart and mind would had too. She likes thinking they already haven't.
Finnick's smirk makes a chill travel down her spine, as she dreamingly smiles. Her thin fingers draw his strong jaw line over the cold glass as she gets lost in his smile. His real smile, not a Capitol one, nor an official photo one, but Finnick's pure essence reduced in a second-lasting smile. On the printed paper, his eyes aren't exactly the right color, and so she closes hers to see them once properly more.
After a few moments, the white blinking lights passing through her eyelids smooth and turn more yellow and natural, the footsteps outside fade into waves, and she finds herself standing on the warm wet sand, wrapped in his arms as she stares deep into his eyes. The reflection of the sea in them mixes with his iris, as the color is the same, and Annie sighs once more. They sit down awaiting to watch the sunset, but time isn't a problem anymore as the thick salty air fills her with peace again. She can feel his fingers wrapped with hers, softly pressing sand pellets between them marking his presence. The sun is still shining up and there is a relaxing warm atmosphere attenuated by the fresh wind. Birds sing mildly to the tides' rhythm and their feet are alternately refreshed by water, then lightly dried with the sand under them taking their shape. She feels a strong hand taking hold of her arm and smoothly shake it, just like the breeze on her loosen hair and feathery dress brush her tanned skin.
The shaking becomes stronger and she hears her name repeatedly.
"Annie. Wake up. Annie!"
The dark eyes aren't Finnick's.
The young doctor smiles as Annie straightens and opens her eyes abruptly.
"Annie. They say it's over! They say they're coming back! At last, Annie, at last!"
As her jaw drops and she slowly blinks, not fully understanding what he has said, the man chuckles and gives her a gentle tap on the arm before leaving to run in the bright corridors again. The artificial light makes her slightly lightheaded as she processes the information.
When the door is shut closed, Annie releases a breath she wasn't aware of holding and her breathing returns normally, the man's words finally syncing in.
"You scared me again, son of Poseidon!" she laughs quietly at the picture laying besides her.
She hadn't got any news after the bomb was released, and she had feared the doctors might have isolated her from reality to avoid another relapse. But now they were coming back, suspicions vanished and mind clear, after everything they must've realized Snow deserved to die and ended with him once and for all. That wouldn't explain the commotion outside but it did gave her hope. And that was all she needed. Finn had given it back to her when arriving at district 13 and made her smile for the first time in a long while. He had actually taught her again what it was and meant, why it was essential; the biggest reason to live. When leaving to the Capitol again, he had taken it away with him, and Annie had been worried of losing it forever, not even being able to transmit its knowledge to their child. Hope. The most powerful force after love. After all, love was a strong base to hope. She leans again and dives in sleep as much as she can, hugging the cold metallic frame against her, a smile drawn in her face. Everything in that district is cold and perfectly shining clean, except probably for Annie's crazy hair, and Finnick's warming expression.
"Annie? Annie, we've got news."
Her sleep wasn't really deep as she easily wakes up. The clock, still lying on the floor, marks sometime past midnight with its phosphorescent hands. Rubbing her eyes, Annie stretches and straightens once more, smoothing down her awful, color lacking small clothes she is forced to wear. She'll be able to change them soon finally, maybe a color matching her love's eyes.
"Where's Finn?" she indolently smiles.
"Yes er, he's... -he has given his freedom for humanity's." an old man holding some kind of notepad gravely stammers. He wears a white coat, though it could almost be mistaken as grey by the dirt on it, which surprises Annie considering all their perfect surroundings, and makes him look out of place. Under the poor tickling light, his wrinkles seem like highlighted with coal and his eyes deeper in their orbits than human. Two younger doctors stand at his sides, each one with the exact same position one hand on top of the other, almost like body guards Annie thinks.
The dense words are left floating in the air as Annie gulps in thoughts.
"Nonsense! They say it's over, don't they? Over. No prisoners!" Annie cries.
"Why yes, war is over. But soldier Odair-"
"Finn." she cuts him roughly, frowning at his formality.
The man tries to smile as he nods and clears his throat.
"Finnick brought us victory through the biggest of sacrifices, as well as many others that shall remain always in our hearts."
"Wh-?"
Annie scrutinizes every inch of the three doctors' darkened faces, and then the whole big white room in search of any clue that could tell her it isn't real, or is some kind of bad joke, even a test. But the beds seem perfectly normal and the old man all the way across the room peacefully snores. It is incredibly irritating how everyone possibly breathes and acts like it was just another day in boring District-rules-for-everything-13. Like nothing has changed for anyone, not even a minute in their insipid routines.
"When is he coming back?" she asks through a fake forced giggle.
"Mrs Cresta-"
"Odair! Mrs ODAIR!"
The two younger doctors immediately try to hold her by the arms but the first one shakes his head before smiling compassionately and lifting one hand in sign for them to stop.
"Soldier Odair isn't coming back Annie." he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before continuing, "I'm so very sorry."
The words hit her like eels all over her body. The tears on her cheeks burn indicating this isn't just another nightmare that will end with the sound of all the alarm clocks as she starts shaking her head uncontrollably.
"NO!" she tries to find any way out of it' "No, it's a trap, just like with Katniss! I won't fall! I WON'T! Finn is coming back! He is! They won't get me!"
She keeps screaming as the two training doctors finally take her and the old man sighs, almost sadly.
"You'll have to take her to a private room." he nods towards the young men.
"NO!" she cries as she scratches arms and faces. She blinks rapidly trying to wipe her tears away and keep her vision neat. If she escapes, everything will be okay, and she'll join Finnick once more. She closes her hands in fists and sends kicks everyway without really directioning them, they all deserve them and worse.
On the corridor, she catches a glimpse of short, pitch black hair and immediately screams towards it, as clearly as she can.
"Johanna! They say he's gone! Finnick! Johanna, help!"
Johanna turns around to look her in the eye, her own brown eyes wet and her mouth pressed in a thin white line. Almost imperceptibly, she shakes her head and sets her jaw tighter as a single tear falls down her cheek.
"Johanna! JOHANNA! It's a trap! Finn is coming back! He isn't-, dead..." the last word comes out as barely a whisper and knots her throat until she can't breathe.
But it cannot be. Her stomach twists and is filled with acid bile. The baby. The end of the war. He IS coming back and she HAS to be there for him. He'll probably be hurt, and tired, and he'll need her.
Her yelling becomes high pitched shrieking, all her throat could've given in a whole life she gives it in minute screams. Screams for attention. Screams for comprehension and help. But mostly, screams of the highest of pains and the deepest of wounds.
She has to wake up, from this horrible nightmare, wake up to reality, and Finn will be there, on the bed besides hers, with simple scratches and minor bruises, smirking like only he could. Like only he CAN. It has to be a trap. Nothing wrong would ever happen to them again. She can't lose him. She can't lose hope.
She screams and cries until her head can't give more and threatens to explode.
Before they're able to take her to her new room, Annie faints, her cheeks and clothes soaked in salty tears, and her palms deeply marked with blood by her fingernails.