'Cause though the truth may vary this
Ship will carry our bodies safe to shore
"What's going on?" Annie Cresta heard herself scream as she thrashed her muscles around hysterically trying to swim away from the hovercraft as it flew closer to her. The awful sound of the last cannon was still reverberating in her ears as the water lapped around her and she moved about constantly to avoid going under, the same thing she'd been doing for the past hour or so now.
"It's alright, Annie!" She heard her mentor call down as a ladder descended towards her and she bobbed up and down in the waves. It wasn't alright, it couldn't be alright, there were still people out there trying to kill her like they'd killed Sanders right in front of her snickering all the while. Her thoughts were jumbled up as Claudius startled her with his voice echoing around the dome loudly.
"Congratulations to Annie Cresta, the victor of the 70th Annual Hunger Games!" In response the aforementioned seventeen year old was so surprised that she momentarily forgot to tread water and went under. Under the water she could hear the hovercraft's blades drumming away above her and focusing closely she could make out Finnick shouting her name. Seconds after that she regained the ability to move and reappeared above water sputtering only to look up and see Finnick poised to leap out of the craft to come save her. Suddenly it hit her, really hit her, she was the only one left; everyone else was dead, she should be dead. Screaming again she started thrashing about trying to get away from the undeniable fact that they were all dead, no one was left. Some part of her brain heard both her mentor Finnick and his mentor Mags freaking out about how she was going to exhaust herself. Maybe that was best, maybe then she would be dead and gone to where everything was beautiful and nothing hurt like the memories she was facing now.
A splash awoke her from her state and she caught sight of Finnick shaking his bronze curls like a dog and narrowing his sea green eyes to find her. His panicked voice reached her as he called her name over and over again, "Annie! Annie! ANNIE!" Turning back and forth rapidly it was still a minute or two before his keen ears from year of fishing caught the sounds of her splashing about and he followed the noise to where she was still thrashing about her green eyes wide and wild looking with her dark locks sticking to her tan skin. He approached her as he would any wounded animal in the water as he went from screaming her name to cooing it gently followed by "Easy now girl, easy. Everything is going to be okay. You're safe now."
After repeating this a few times, she calmed enough for him to reach her without fear of her taking him under too and he helped her to grab onto the floatation device he'd dived into the water with. She did so with a death grip that made her knuckles go white and worried him slightly but he tried to hide it in a chuckle and a stupid comment about his clothes that her feverish and unstable mind proceeded to ignore and focused on just getting from the float to the ladder when he gestured for her to grab on. Once it had frozen them to it leading to a whimper from her as they began to move quickly up towards the craft. Silent tears streaked down her cheeks as she realized that she couldn't get away and was completely at the mercy of the Capitol. As soon as she was released from the grip of the ladder once they'd gotten in the doorway she collapsed on the ground as her legs shook uncontrollable from exhaustion.
"It's not true, I can't be the only tribute left, why'd they trick me?" She muttered to herself before glancing over at her mentor who was currently trying to wrap a blanket around her shaking shoulders and knowing that he at least wasn't lying to her, she really was the only tribute left. "But they were so much bigger and stronger than me, like the ones that got him." Him, Sanders Fisher, her fellow tribute from District 4 who had been brutally decapitated right in front of her by the male tribute from District 2, one of her fellow Careers and a supposed ally who had betrayed them both by killing her only connection to home whilst laughing about it.
"Believe me you are the only one left Annie, and it's all because you were the best swimmer. I am truly sorry about what happened to Sanders," So he did know what she was talking about when she vaguely mentioned him! "You are the victor though and 'cause the truth may vary what I've said, I really do promise that this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore, safe back home." Though she knew his words were true, didn't doubt them one bit, she had already entered into herself at the mere mention of Sander's name aloud and her previous thoughts about his death. Her hands clamped over her ears as she tried to hold off the memories beating her up on the inside. In the midst of her pain, Finnick's voice suddenly reached her, "I'm sorry I couldn't bring you back in one piece." His murmured apology meant more to her than she could articulate at the time as he, though shivering and soaked to the bone himself, picked her up and carried her all wrapped up in a blanket to the waiting hospital bed.
"Please let me put you back together." He begged as he wiped a stray strand of dark hair away from her sea green eyes after laying her curled up in the ball her body was in on the bed and plopping down in the chair beside it. Annie knew that he was trying so hard to make her better and despite her thinking otherwise she knew that Sander's death and her near death this morning hurt him too, he couldn't save either of them and the girl he did save was so broken she barely felt a part of her was salvageable. She needed to be put back together and he needed to be the one to do it, so she nodded before she closed her eyes and passed out from the sheer exhaustion and the trauma of it all. Finnick never left her side and remained there stoic as anyone had ever seen him as he tried to fulfill his promise to her and ignored his own physical state that he would later pay for with a horrible cold that was worth it, he owed her and she deserved to be put back together. Twisting a bit of rope into various knots in his hands he brainstormed a way to do so but it escaped him leaving him a broken man trying to tie himself together long enough to fix a woman as broken as he.