A/N: Written for the 2011 April Showers Drabblethon at the Day_by_Drabble LJ community.

Token of Trust

When they pull Annie, screaming and insensible, yet victor, from the flood that drowned all the other tributes of the 70th Hunger Games, her right hand is clenched tightly into a fist, as if clutching on to some valuable object-not wholly unexpected in a game in which possessions are scarce and can mean the difference between winning and losing, life and death.

But when they try to take it from her, she thrashes her arms wildly, giving one medic a black eye and breaking another's nose. So they restrain her to her bed in the infirmary, heavy, padded leather straps around skeleton ankles and wrists, but still they cannot wrest whatever it is from her grasp, because she digs her fingernails into her palm till her fist oozes blood all over the crisp white linens. The pain doesn't even seem to phase her, and her hand is closed as surely as if sewn or stapled or nailed shut, eliminating sedation as an option because Annie is so far beyond the capability of relaxing her fingers in slumber that they'd have to break them to pry them apart.

As a last resort, they call in Finnick, who chides them for not turning to him first. Striding down the hallway he's beautiful as ever with his anger billowing around him like a wave rolling into the shore, wielding authority as deftly as he wielded the trident that won him his Games. Which is exactly how he was introduced to Panem in his opening ceremony, when his stylists made him up to be Poseidon, in the flesh, with his female District 4 tribute in the role of the sea-god's consort, Amphitrite.

That's not what they see when he enters Annie's room, however. The power falls away from him as easily as his clothes always seem to do as he drops to his knees at her bedside. He takes her bound and bleeding hand in his with a tenderness that is clearly borne of a feeling much deeper and truer than any of the moves he lays on his romantic conquests.

But Annie's eyes are so clouded with madness that she doesn't see this, doesn't seem to see him.

"Oh, Annie," he croons in a voice more affecting than that sexy purr he's known for. "Annie, what have they done to you?"

He's clearly not referring to the restraints.

"Finnick? Finnick, is it really you?" she asks, as though she is blind. She reaches out her fisted hand toward his face, but the restraints hold her back.

"It'seally me, Annie. I'm here. What do you have in your-"

"Finnick!" She sounds overjoyed, but the expression on her face contorts into one of even greater terror as she grasps with her hobbled hands. "Stay with me! You won't leave me, will you?"

"I won't leave you," he says, and adds, even though he shouldn't, "I promise. But you need to show me what you've got in your hand."

"Oh," says Annie, abruptly calm, her eyes clear green, the madness passing like a brutal but brief storm at sea. "Yes, you can have it."

She uncurls her claw-like fist, and Finnick draws in his breath sharply at the torn flesh of her palm as her ragged and dirtied and bloodied fingernails withdraw from deep gashes to reveal the object she fought so fiercely to protect.

A cowrie shell.

Finnick extends his index finger to gingerly trace the ribbed shell.

"From your necklace?" he asks, unexpectedly affected. "From your token?"

It had been his token, at his Games, given to him by his little sister who'd strung the shells on a band of hemp she'd woven herself.

"I lost it in the flood," Annie says, her voice hoarse, hardly above a whisper, as if she senses his unspoken feelings . "All but this one. You can have it back." The leather restraint creaks as she strains against it, this time to offer him what's in her hand. "I don't need it anymore."

Finnick's fingers closing around the shell, slick and pinkened by her blood. "Because the Games are over?"

"No." Shaking her head, Annie looks into his eyes and gives him a small smile. "Because I've got you."