I'm not sure how long I had been sitting there in the plaza watching her, but it was long enough that I had become immune to the chill in the air that had sufficiently numbed my fingers and toes. I was watching her. Sitting in our penthouse window that overlooked the courtyard where we had all once been paraded around as Capitol fodder. She looked peaceful. Her auburn curls hanging neatly around her face. Her eyes bright, her lips pursed almost into a smile. She was beautiful. In fact, if you didn't know she had been in that exact spot since I had left in the morning...you would have no idea that anything was wrong. But it was. Very wrong.
The wind was cold and brisk, and masked the sound of Katniss approaching me. So she was seated at my side before I knew she was even close.
"Deep in thought, I see."
She whispered with a slight sarcasm and when I turned to look at her I noticed she was gazing up at Annie as well.
"Which one of us?" I returned her remark, trying as best I could to be lighthearted. A few uneasy moments of silence passed. She finally pulled her eyes from Annie and turned to me.
"I'm worried about you, Finnick..." she started, in that familiar tone of pity I had become accustomed to. She put her hand on my knee and I stared at it. "We all are." I watched her fingers on my knee cap and lost myself in the fact that I had become so cold outside I could hardly feel the warmth of her touching me. I had become numb to lots of things. I faked a weak smile and put my hand on hers.
"I'll be fine. We both will. Nothing is perfect anymore, it's not just Annie."
I tried to keep my voice from hitching. Katniss seemed uneasy. She shifted in her seat on the concrete bench beside me.
"What if it didn't have to be that way? What if we could do something that might help her? Help her to forget..."
I smiled as I watched her speak. I knew she was sincere and had come to care about Annie. But she would never know the Annie I knew and that made it hard for her to understand just what I had lost.
"Can I take her home? Leave this place? Set out to sea and never look back? Let the ocean take everything away for her? Is that what you're suggesting?" I realized as I said it that my words were more aggressive than I meant them to be. I wanted to apologize but I couldn't. She was searching my face.
"Is that what you really want, Finnick?" Her voice was full of sadness, hurt feelings and guilt. I watched her eyes bounce around and tried to decide how to answer her. The truth was that even if that would save Annie, it wouldn't save me. I had become so reliant on caring for Katniss like it was my job that I couldn't imagine my life without her, either. Hell, Peeta too, for that matter. I sighed heavily.
"No. That isn't what I want."
She stood and paced slowly while biting her lip and then knelt in front of me, her elbows on my knees.
"Beetee has been working on something you should see. He's been working with, I don't know, this electricity...trying to help some of the Capitol citizens that had been brainwashed. Peeta and I...we thought maybe it could help Annie..."
I listened to her as she spoke, it was like her words floated through the air and around me but not quite to me. Electricity.
"Electric shock. That's what you're saying." I tried to remain even keeled as I spoke to her.
"Something like that..." she could tell I wasn't as excited as she had hoped, and I immediately felt bad for disappointing her. "Look, obviously I don't know what I'm talking about here. But maybe you could talk to Beetee. See what he says. It can't hurt, Finn." She reached for my shoulder but I pulled away before she could reach me. Adjusting and closing my coat to the cold instead of letting her comfort me. I sniffled against the chill.
"It's awfully sweet of you and Peeta to worry about us." My response was thick with sarcasm and she sensed it.
"I didn't mean it like that..."
She tried to interrupt me but truthfully, as soon as I stood up from the bench I knew the conversation was over.
"Thank you, Katniss. But I don't need your pity. Neither of us do."
I pulled a hat down over my hair and brushed past her, leaving her alone in the courtyard. I glanced up at the window and Annie was gone.
I hurried through the gated entrance to our new home and rode the elevator to the penthouse, grateful that we had restored enough of a power grid that I no longer had to take the twelve flights of stairs. When I got to the door, it was locked as usual, but I had been pounding on it for several minutes before I heard the lock turn over and the door slowly open. She peeked through a crack before opening it further, as she always did...even though the building was, and had been, completely secure.
"It's me, Annie, you're safe." I whispered to her and smiled through the crack of space she had allowed before she pulled it open and stood before me.
I slipped into the house, hanging my coat and hat near the door.
"I'll light a fire, would you like that?" I turned to her as I asked, noticing she looked as cold as I felt. I scanned the room and noticed the window she had been sitting by was half open, letting a cold draft fill the suite. I touched her cool cheek slightly as I passed her to close the window.
"Do you love her, Finnick?"
I spun on my heels as I turned back to her. She hadn't spoken to anyone in days.
"I love you, Annie, you know that." I walked to her and took her face in my hands, gently rubbing her face with my thumbs. "I've always loved you."
Her eyes were glassy and vacant but I knew she heard me.
"She loves you, I think." Annie was whispering. A sad whisper. I smiled and cupped her chin in my hand.
"You flatter me, Annie Cresta." I leaned in and kissed her gently, then pulled my head back to watch her react, holding my breath slightly. She smiled and wrapped her hands around my neck before burying her face there.
I picked her up gently in my arms, she was so slight anymore that it didn't take much effort. I eased her down onto the enormous white sofa that faced our too-big fireplace. The enormity of the Capitol still present everywhere. I lit a fire and grabbed her a favorite large grey knit blanket. She had nestled safely into the couch and managed a smile at me as I returned to her with it. I knelt beside her and covered her, tucking her in gently.
"I'll go get you some food..." She grabbed my hand as I rose to leave her, and I instinctively slunk back down to my knees, cocking my head at her as she watched me.
"Why, Finnick?"
Her strange unfinished question hung in the air and confused me as so often she could.
"Why what, Annie?" I spoke as gently to her as I ever did.
"Why...do you love me?" Her voice broke and her eyes began to shine with tears that she was fighting hard to not release, but that spilled out anyway.
I smiled at her as I caught them with my thumbs.
"Because I'm the sea, and you're my shore. I'm lost without you. You know that, Annie."
My words seemed to do more harm than good as her slow tears turned to open sobs. I slid onto the couch beside her and took her in my arms, hushing her as I took up under the blanket with her. She wept into my shoulder.
"You deserve someone like her, Finnick. I know that. Someone strong like you. I'm no good to anyone. No one..."
"You're good to me. And we all need you. Now stop this talk, Annie. Please. Please, Annie..."
I whispered to her so softly I wasn't sure she heard me over her weeping, and I kissed the top of her head all the while, stroking her hair and silently praying that she would listen. Before I knew it she had cried herself soundly to sleep, passed out against my now wet shoulder. I cradled her to me and resigned myself to sleep there with her on the couch for as long as she could find peace. Katniss' words echoed in my ears.
Not much time had passed before she shook suddenly in my arms, and then flailed wildly...tossing the blanket from us both.
"Annie, no! You're safe, Annie. I'm here." I raised my voice and tried to grab at her waving arms, but she had grabbed at something I couldn't even see and turned on me with it. She took a surprisingly strong swing at me, catching my jaw with something sharp before I managed to choke hold her wrist and pull her arms behind her back. She was screaming at me, calling names I didn't know, trying desperately to get away from me. I caught my breath and tried to assure her. She flailed against me still. And soon there were other noises in the room.
"I'll help..."
It was Joanna. Her residence was now, gratefully, right next door to ours, and she was all too familiar with the night terrors. She rounded the couch and took hold of Annie's ankles, helping me to hold her still as I tried to wrap her blanket around her. It was one of the only things that had made it out of District Four with her. A gift from her mother. It usually calmed her down...in time.
My jaw was stinging and my ears were hot as Annie finally exhausted herself into calming down before her breathing hitched and she began crying again.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." She repeated it over and over to herself more than to us. But finally she clung to the blanket and I could let go of her safely. Joanna looked at me from the other side of the couch.
"Jesus, Finnick, go clean up your face before I tell everyone a girl just kicked your ass."
It was her sweet way of telling me to take a breather. For all that she was, I had come to appreciate Joanna in a way I never thought I would. I nodded at her and rose from the couch.
"Finnick...I'm sorry, Finnick...I'm sorry, love..." Annie was calling to me from the couch but in that moment I couldn't turn and look at her. I just needed to get away. I stepped into the bathroom and examined myself in the mirror. Deep gash along my jawline, but that wasn't all. My face was sunken. Tired. No, not tired...exhausted. I started to think of how little use I was going to become to Panem if I was constantly functioning half asleep. I ran the sink and splashed water on my face.
I didn't want to think about it. But I had to. Even getting her out of town was seeming like an impossible task now.
I walked back in and saw Annie back at the window, staring into the courtyard. Joanna rose from the couch.
"You mind...staying a bit?"
"Of course not, jerk. Go."
I pulled my coat and hat on.
"I'm going to go talk to..."
"Beetee." She finished my sentence and I realized that clearly I was the last person to know that was an option. I inhaled sharply and nodded yes before gently padding over to Annie and kneeling beside her. I took her hand in mine and kissed the top of it before holding it for a minute. Neither of us spoke. She was staring at the spot I had been sitting in just hours earlier.
"Do you love her, Finnick?"
She repeated again and this time I couldn't stand the idea of a battle so I let it go unanswered. Instead I turned for the door and opted for the stairs as I made my way back out into the cold courtyard. As I walked through it I remembered being showcased through it times before. And for the first time in my life...I wondered which was worse. Being sent off to uncertain death...twice? Or seeking out someone to effectively fry the brain of the only woman you've ever loved.
May the odds be ever in my favor, I guess.