I guess the Capitol just couldn't let go of Finnick because when he finally returns, two weeks have passed. When I ask him why he was there so long, he replies he was attending events of rich Capitol citizens whose names I don't even recognize from watching as much television as I have in the past few weeks. When we're in the market early in the morning one day and I suggest that our families and some of his old school friends get together for his sixteenth birthday the next weekend, he shakes his head.
"President Snow wants me in the Capitol."
This takes me by surprise. "…Snow?"
He nods, expression unreadable. "He's hosting the party."
I'm silent. Shocked. Then I smile. "Your mother's not going to be very happy about that."
The edge in his voice takes me aback. "She doesn't exactly have a choice."
I decode this as 'I don't exactly have a choice.' I don't stop trying, though, convinced to get him to crack. I have to see him smile—all I've seen of him on television these past few weeks are frowns and his funny little Capitol smirks.
"Well, I have to tell you, you're really missing out. Clara was gonna make her special tuna."
There. Finnick wrinkles his nose in feign disgust.
"Oh God, anything but the tuna!" He moans, wriggling away from me.
"Careful, Odair, or I'll tell her you asked for it anyway." I tease, closing the gap he's created.
"Have mercy!" His face cracks into a grin and it feels like a damn in my chest breaks and lets all the tension and anxiety I've been holding in be released. I can almost feel myself deflate.
"I wish I could bring you." He kicks the ground.
"Me too." I say. Not just to be in the Capitol, but to help Finn remember there is still a home for him. I think he gets lost when he's in the Capitol; I think he hates it, to be honest. It takes so long to get anything but anger out of him whenever he comes back. I think of all the strange, unfamiliar people there and how they treat him like they belong to them, to that culture. He is not theirs. I hope he knows that.
"I'll tell you all about it when I come back." He promises, finally picking his gaze up off the ground.
"You don't have to, Finn." I don't want to make him recount stories of a place he clearly would rather avoid just for my benefit. Besides, maybe I can keep this slice of home pure for him to always return to when he needs it. But he shakes his head.
"No," he gives me a small smile, "I think it'll help.'
"Okay, then." I agree, returning his smile. Something flickers around in my head. Should I tell Finn about my strange behavior at school? The nightmares? No. No, of course not. They're not that big of a deal. He has enough to worry about, anyways. I have Clara, and soon Finnick will be back for good for almost a whole year after this last Capitol trip. Then everything will be back to normal.
But that never did really work out in the past, did it?
I convince Clara to come with me to the pastry shop near the main street of town to wait for Finnick. We split a slice of our favorite sweet fluffy bead and dip it into a glaze made of diluted honey and cream. The shop sells the good kind with sugar from the Capitol but it's much too expensive. The finished result of our bread-dipping procedure looks pretty gross, but it tastes heavenly. We call it cloud bread.
From our seats by the window I can see the train station across the square. After a while of sitting here I feel comfortable enough to tell Clara about my worry of Finnick relapsing back into his strange stand-offish mood upon his return, but she assures me that he'll be nothing but happy to be home. Maybe it's the pastry or maybe it's the fact that Finnick's coming home but I'm in such a good mood that I let myself believe her.
A bunch of townspeople and even a few peacekeepers come and leave the shop with their goods before I notice the train finally coming in at its ever-dizzying speed.
I watch Finnick step out of the car and stay in my seat, planning to get up and join up with him as he passes the pastry shop, but a pair of peacekeepers stops him before he can close half the distance. I watch Clara's brow furrow in mirror of my own confusion, but she says nothing. Normally peacekeepers will leave the victors alone if they can help it. It's not until Finnick starts screaming that it registers that something is very, very wrong.
I'm out of the shop and crashing into Finnick before I realize that I've even left my chair. Finnick is yelling barely comprehensible profanities at the peacekeepers who look completely unphased and even strangely prepared for his verbal assault. I have relatively weak arms but I effectively shove Finnick away, anyway.
"What happened?" I ask, turning to the peacekeepers. They look at me wearily.
"Tell me!" I demand, adrenaline making my words loud and forceful.
"Althea Odair died last night of unknown causes. Because Mr. Odair is not of legal age, the younger son is being relocated to a community home in Sector 136A." The shorter of the two tells me, eyes reproachful.
Mrs. Odair is dead. Elliot is being taken away to the opposite side of the district. It feels like someone has punched me in the gut. Luckily Clara has materialized by my side and is talking to Finnick in a hushed tone, leading him away from the square and the crowd that's forming, because it feels like I've lost the ability to form words.
One glance at the look on Finnick's face and I snap out of it. I take his other arm. He's not yelling anymore, but he looks downright sick. His eyes dart around wildly as if trying to make sense of what has just happened, his jaw hanging slack. Suddenly, unannounced, he keels over and vomits onto the dirt path. Clara and I's eyes meet.
"You take him home. I'll go see what I can do about Elliot." Her voice is steady and I latch on to her words, trying to absorb her strength. I watch her back as she jogs back into the square.
When it seems like Finnick has gotten all the sick out of his system, I force him back upright and keep pulling him forward. Multiple times he stops and dry heaves, but I make him press on. Get him to the house, Annie, I repeat in my head, just get him to the goddamn house.
Finnick has started to cry by the time we get to the Victor's Circle. I approach the door of his family's house, ready to drag him inside and onto the couch when I realize what a horrible idea it is. The house is full traces of his mother and his brother, both good as dead now. I glance around desperately.
"In here, girl." The voice comes directly from my right, where a sweet-looking elderly woman stands in the doorway of her own house, beckoning us. I immediately recognize her as Mags Cohen, another one of our district's victors. I'm pretty sure she won her games before my parents were born.
I turn to find that Finnick is now crouched on his knees in front of his house, looking tortured and lost. I try to pull him up, but I'm nowhere near strong enough. I crouch down to his level.
"Finnick? Finnick, listen to me. I want to help you, but you have to stand up. Do you think you can do that?" I use my softest voice, lifting his chin so his eyes meet mine. He nods weakly and I lead him into Mags's house.
She gestures to the couch just inside the threshold, where I gladly deposit the trembling Finnick, then quickly disappears into some other part of the house.
Suddenly I'm alone with Finnick. I'm alone with the gentlest soul in the universe who has just had everything he ever loved taken away from him, so I do the only thing I can think of.
Every song, melody and lullaby that I know from hearing them so much as a child when Clara would sing them to me whenever I was scared or couldn't fall sleep. It's her steadfastness that I channel when I shakily begin the first line:
Deep in the ocean, the ocean so wide
Pray to the Sea God, there's no need to cry
Finnick stares at me with his big, watery green eyes. I push the hair back from his face and let him lay down, pulling his head into my lap.
Lift up your chin and taste the salty spray
Drowning in your love is surely the best way.
The tears flow freely now, down his cheeks and into my skirt as well as down my face and into his hair. I don't care that my voice is cracking—I go straight into the next lullaby I know. And then the next, and the next, and the next.
When I run out of songs I sing the first one again and repeat the process. Listening to the words and eventually mouthing along to some gives him something to cling on to, I think. We do this for hours; I sing, he mouths along. We both cry. Him for his family, and me for him.
It's dark when Mags comes back in, and by this time my singing has been reduced to a hoarse whisper. She holds a mug of a steaming liquid out for me to take, and I do. I take a hesitant sip. Tea.
"Thank you," I whisper. Her eyes flicker between me and Finnick, who sleeps, and in response, presses a firm kiss to the crown of my head and walks away.
I look down at Finn. His eyes are puffy and it looks like he must have scratched himself pretty bad somewhere along the way here, but overall, he looks peaceful in his sleep. Like a boy. Not the boy he was when I first knew him, but a boy nonetheless. I wish he could take this sense of peace with him into consciousness, but I know he won't. There's no way he could. All I know is that I will be here when he wakes.