Sorry! School's been rather hectic. As it is, I'm supposed to be doing my Latin homework... But that's confusing me and I really wanted to update this, so hey!
It didn't feel real.
In a slight daze, Annie all but fell onto the squishy blue sofa pressed up against the right-hand wall of the small room that she'd been ushered into.
At least she hadn't cried on television, she thought to herself. It was difficult to be proud, though, when she just felt so numb.
She wondered what it would be like to kill someone, if she would be able to.
Luckily, the door flew open before she had chance to dwell on that particular subject for too long.
Julien made straight for the sofa, sitting down beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head and looking over at their parents. Mr and Mrs Cresta stood a little way away. She twisted her hands together and stared at the floor; he fiddled with the hem of his shirt.
"Sit down." Annie said, sounding ridiculously calm given the circumstances. But, then again, she felt ridiculously calm.
She scooted along the length of the sofa, tugging her brother along with her, so that their parents had room to sit down with them.
The Cresta family sat in relative silence for a while. Julien's buried his face in Annie's hair, his hand moving up and down her arm in a fashion that might have been soothing were it not the only thing keeping her grounded in reality, preventing her from running off in a daydream and temporarily forgetting everything.
It was only when she noticed that the hair on the top of her head was slightly damp that she realised Julien was crying. He was doing it so silently that otherwise she might never have known.
"I'm sorry." Annie said. Because even though she couldn't have helped being reaped, somehow she felt guilty anyway.
"No," Her mother replied. Her voice was strained, as though she was fighting back tears, but when Annie looked over at her it was impossible to tell. Her face was just as calm as her daughter's, even if her voice told an entirely different version of the story. "It isn't your fault. It isn't anybody's fault."
"I know." Annie said, still feeling oddly numb to everything. "I'm just sorry anyway."
Julien laughed a watery laugh and wrapped his other arm around her, hugging her tight.
She wriggled out of his grip, though she let him keep one arm wrapped around her shoulders.
"Learn a few skills before you go in." Her father instructed, leaning forward a little so as to see her around her tall, lanky brother. "You'll have a mentor; ask them to teach you technique."
Annie wasn't sure she wanted to learn how to kill people. She quickly changed the subject.
"You can't give Paws to the pound." She said sincerely. "He's an old cat, but I love him. So you have to promise to feed him every day for me. He likes fresh fish best. If you go to the beach in the evening, Old Jonah is usually packing up his boat then. He'll let you have one for free if you say 'please'."
"Oh, Annie," Mrs Cresta choked. That was when she started to cry. Her loud, rasping sobs contrasted greatly with the quiet sniffling of Julien. "My poor, sweet Annie,"
The door opened, and four faces turned to look as a Peacekeeper poked his head into the room.
"Your time is up." He said flatly, like a robot, betraying absolutely no emotion. Annie supposed that one had to be so in an occupation such as his, where crying families and potential deaths were a common occurrence.
Julien pressed another kiss to Annie's head and removed his arm from around her shoulders, standing up and smiling at her despite the tears streaming down his face.
Their father had to help Mrs Cresta up, letting her hold onto his arm and cry into his shoulder once they were on their feet.
"Just try your hardest." Mr Cresta told his daughter. "And be careful who you trust."
"Sir," The Peacekeeper prompted.
"I'm coming." The man replied, using the arm that had not been stolen by his wife to give Annie a thumbs-up sign and a sad smile before taking Julien by the hand.
The door slammed behind them. Annie jumped, even though the sound was not unexpected; she had watched the door swing shut. She just hadn't expected the noise to be so loud.
She did not cry when Thalia Whishart came to collect her, just forced a smile and took the gloved hand that was extended towards her.
She did not cry as they walked to the train station, pursued by an incredible amount of funny-looking people holding cameras and shouting questions at them. At first, she'd opened her mouth to answer them, but Mags had shaken her head pointedly.
"There are too many of them for that, my dear." The kindly old woman had whispered in her ear. "Don't waste your voice on them."
She did not cry when they reached the train station. Thalia Whishart had been holding Annie and Morris' hands the whole way there, relishing in the fact that they were her 'beautiful, beautiful tributes'. She released them when they reached the station, removing a tube of copper coloured lipstick from the handbag slung over her shoulder and applying it to her lips with a practiced hand.
"Are you frightened?" Morris asked her, his voice little more than a whisper.
"No," She lied. "Are you?"
"No," He replied. She knew that he was lying, too.
She did not cry when the train arrived, and Thalia put her tube of lipstick back into her bag. The Capitol woman placed one hand between Annie's shoulder blades and the other atop Morris' head, ushering them towards the open doors with the sort of flourishing manoeuvre that Annie doubted she'd ever be able to repeat- not that she'd want to.
Finnick Odair was so focused on flirting with one of the cameramen that he apparently didn't notice the train had pulled in, and Mags had to tap him on the shoulder and point at it before he realised.
Annie did not even cry when the five of them had all boarded the train, and the floor jerked slightly to signify that they'd started to move.
She was, however, consumed by a sudden idea.
"I want to say goodbye to it." Annie said, seemingly out of the blue. "Is there a window? I want to say goodbye to District 4."
"But Annie, sweetheart, you might come back." Thalia chastised. "So you don't need to say 'goodbye' to it really."
Mags gave the metallic Capitol woman a rather tired look.
"Finnick," The old woman said. "Take these two down to the back room. The one with the sofa."
He nodded once and held out his hands, one towards Morris and the other for Annie.
Whilst she took the hand extended towards her without hesitation, Morris eyed the other with suspicion.
"I'm not holding your hand." He said stubbornly. "I can walk by myself."
Finnick laughed at that.
"But can you keep up with me?" He teased.
Before Annie had chance to really realise what he was implying, Finnick had darted off, out of the train carriage.
She stumbled a little at first, but once she knew what he was doing she was quick to speed up. Hand in hand, they practically flew down that train, skidding to a halt only when they reached the very last carriage, right at the end.
Annie tore her hand out of Finnick's and doubled over, hands on her thighs, as she struggled to regain her breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him head up to a large blue sofa that faced a wall made almost entirely out of glass.
"Well," He said, flopping down onto the sofa and clasping his hands behind his head in a relaxed fashion. "There's your window."
Annie had never really liked running. She had heard people talk of the 'thrill' that the sport gave them, but the only thing it had ever made her feel was tired.
Plus, it always took her far too long to regain her breath afterwards.
Still panting (though trying her hardest to mask it), she sat down on the sofa as far away from Finnick as was possible. It meant that her hip was pressed up against the arm of the sofa in a rather uncomfortable manner, but she didn't really mind.
He'd made her run. She was not particularly happy with him.
In all honesty, it did not take much to make seventeen year old Annie Cresta 'not particularly happy' with Finnick Odair. Despite their annual picnics, she did not trust him in the slightest. She did not like him in the slightest.
She thought she felt his eyes on her, so made a point of ignoring him.
Staring intently at the glass window directly in front of her, it took her a moment to tear her gaze away from the rail that the train itself was running along. Being at the back of the train, she could see the way they'd come, stretching and stretching until it fell over the horizon and out of view.
The horizon also happened to be where the sea was lurking. She might've missed it had the sun not decided to come out, its glinting light upon the waves the only thing betraying their existence to her. Otherwise, they'd probably just blend into the soft blue of the sky.
Annie tried not to think about how this would probably be the last time she ever saw the ocean. Of course, in telling herself not to think about it, ultimately all she did was force the matter to the forefront of her mind.
Morris chose that moment to come running into the room; she heard him. The little boy walked around to the front of the sofa, as its back was to the door, and sat down in the large space between Finnick and Annie.
"I'm going to miss it." The young boy said, gazing out of the window at the disappearing railway line, at the receding view of the sea. "I can't believe I'm never going to see it ever again."
She couldn't say what it was. Maybe it was the fact that the train chose that moment to turn a corner, stealing the ocean from her line of sight for what may well have ended up being forever. Maybe it was the casual acceptance in the boy's voice. Maybe it was the fact that he had voiced her own thoughts so perfectly, and it somehow made a difference knowing that someone else felt the same way as her about the matter.
Whatever it was, it was in that moment that Annie Cresta began to cry.
Morris immediately looked incredibly guilty, reaching into the pocket of the smart blazer he'd been forced into for Reaping Day and offering her a mangled tissue. She took it, though she didn't use it to wipe away her tears. Sniffling, she turned it over in her hands and stared into her lap, too ashamed of herself to look anywhere else.
She'd been so angry at Marisol for crying, yet here she was. She wasn't on television, granted, but it still felt hypocritical and wrong.
Annie saw Finnick get up out of the corner of her eye, heard the automatic door slide shut behind him as he left the carriage.
Good riddance, she thought.
She didn't need him to sit by her side while she cried and pretend to care. She had Morris for that; and frankly, she would rather have it that way. Morris hadn't lied to her, or killed Marisol, or made her run.
