Author's Note: I felt I needed to devote a chapter to Annie and Finnick's relationship, and to Madge's relationship with them both. I know I get a bit side tracked on describing people and things, it's a habit I developed a while back and don't seem to be able to break! But it was fun to write, and I can only hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
I don't own the hunger games :(
Madge
After Gale leaves, I close my eyes, trying to remember the feeling of his hand in mine. It isn't getting easier to watch him walk out of the door, away from me. In fact, it's getting worse. Every time he leaves, I feel like he might never come back.
I hold on to the promise he gave me, about seeing Katniss, Posy and the others soon. I hope it really is soon, but who knows how long it'll be before he deems me 'unconfused' enough to see everyone.
It's stupid, really, because what could set me back on the straight and narrow better than seeing the proof of the survival of my loved ones with my own eyes? I sigh, and turn my mind back to the piano, imagining my fingers stroking the keys.
A nurse comes in. My gaze snaps up, I realise it's not Prim, and turn back to my composition.
"You can leave tomorrow Madge. Coin will want to see you in command, I think." She says, trying to smile but not succeeding very well. I look up vaguely.
"Thanks." I say absently. She tries to smile again, visits the bed opposite for a couple seconds (making sure not to leave a chink in the curtains,) before leaving.
"Fancy seeing you here, Undersee." Says a weak voice.
A voice I would recognise anywhere, in this earth or the next.
"Finnick!" I cry, leaping off the hospital bed and running to his bedside.
"Hey there." He says, returning my one armed hug.
"Oh my goodness, how are you?"
He grimaces. "Not so good."
I note the tear tracks down his face, the paper white complexion, the haunted eyes.
It's such a cliché, haunted eyes. It's used a lot in Panem. Lot's of people are suffering.
But Finnick's eyes are the true definition of haunted eyes. He looks like he's replaying some dreadful nightmare over and over, a haunting past that he cannot escape.
And I understand without asking, without thinking, because up until 2 days ago, that was me.
"Annie." I say. He nods miserable, his head resting on my arm. I stroke his hair, trying to offer comfort whilst knowing there was only one person in the world who truly could abate this pain, even if she only could for a second before needing the support herself.
I was four years old, accompanying my father on the district tour for the first time. We had half an hour before we had to be at the Justice Building, ready for three more hours of boredom.
"Here we are." My father said, smiling at me.
It was a tumbledown shack like building, the roof made of some sort of reed and the walls made of a rock I knew was found down by the beach we had visited earlier.
I fell in love with it at once.
My father rapped smartly on the door. It was promptly flung open by a broad shouldered man with sandy coloured hair, green eyes and olive toned skin.
"David!" He cries, throwing his arms around my father's neck.
"Christian!" My father laughs, patting him on the back.
"Come in, come in! Dana is just cooking the salmon you will be eating this evening at the mayors house. My sons, of course. Finnick is the elder, Taylor is the crawler. And this must be Madge!"
"It is indeed!" My father beams, eager, as always, to show me off. I dip a small curtsy, as I have been taught.
"Pleased to meet you, sir."
My father laughs. "There will be no need for that, Madge. We are among friends."
"Friends." I repeat slowly.
5 minutes later Finnick and I were playing as if we had known each other our whole lives, in the trusting way only children of four and the mature age of 12 ever could.
...
I was six years old, sat in my fathers office as he worked furiously. I was too young to fully comprehend what was going on, but we were watching the reapings. My father was adapting his speech, ready for one o clock, when he would be expected to participate in the task he hated most of all.
The hunger games.
"Daddy, can I go and play?" I asked.
"Madge honey, I told you. Your mummy isn't feeling very well, so you have to stay here and play until it's time to go to the square."
"I don't like watching the games, daddy."
"I know, sweetheart. None of us do, but we don't have a choice."
My lip trembled. "Is it really all real, daddy? All of it?"
My dads desire to protect me coincided with his desire to always tell me the truth. And the truth was I would be quite poorly protected if I thought the hunger games really were just games.
He was the mayor. He was my dad.
"Yes, sweetheart." He couldn't add anything to that. If he voiced his opinion on the games, I would repeat them, and we'd all be walking corpses. "Madge, you have to promise me you'll never tell anyone you don't like the games. If you do, they'll take us away. Do you understand?"
I nodded, and turned back to dressing the doll I was playing with. I hesitated only when I caught sight of the muted television.
"Daddy! Look! Finnick's on the television!"
My fathers pen fell to the floor, his mouth forming a perfect 'O'. It took a moment for me to catch up, before I began to cry.
"Daddy, is Finnick going into the games?"
...
I was seven years old, and anxious to see Finnick again after his games. I watched through the window as we drew up in the pristine station at district four, so much prettier and cleaner than the one in 12.
I leapt off the train, and Finnick was waiting.
There was a young girl at his side, perhaps 12. She was talking amicably to Finnick, her green eyes flashing. He looked at his ease, grinning and laughing. When he caught sight of me, he smiled, and opened his arms.
"Hey there squirt. You've grown." He grinned, hugging me. He put me down. "This is Annie, my friend. Annie, this is Madge."
"Hi." I say, suddenly shy.
"Hi." She says, holding out a hand. "I've heard so much about you!"
...
I was 11, sat in the Cresta's kitchen after sneaking off while my father signed paper work.
"You what?" I asked again.
"I kissed Finnick." She repeats. She's sixteen, and much more mature than me. Experiencing things that I never could, and quite frankly, wouldn't want to. But the laughter that lights her eyes still hasn't changed.
I wrinkle my nose. She laughs again. "You don't understand. But one day, Madge, you will."
"Whatever. That day can wait forever, so far as I'm concerned."
Annie and Mrs Cresta burst out laughing.
It's the last time I will hear Annie laugh for a long time.
...
It was my first reaping. The first time I had waited anxiously in line, the first time I had experienced the guilty relief that accompanied the pity as a young girl on trembling legs takes her place on the stage, the first time I had had to endure the torturous fear I would be picked.
I knew the chances of my name coming out of that bowl were incredibly slim.
It didn't stop me fearing that, that year, it might just be my turn. Because the fact of the matter was, for the first time, the games could be mine.
The 70th hunger games could be my turn to be picked.
I raced back to the house, trying to rid myself of the image of their faces as they were lead away, children I would most likely never see in school or around the district ever again.
My father caught me at the door.
"Madge, have you seen the reaping from four?" He asks anxiously.
"No." I say, my heart beating in my mouth. "Why, should I have?"
The look on his face told me enough.
"Oh my God." I said, sinking against the wall in the hallway.
For once, he didn't tell me off for the profanity that had slipped unbidden from my lips.
...
I was thirteen. Finnick was waiting for me at the station. But something was missing.
That thing was his smile.
I had seen the games. What had I expected? For her to spring back into her usual self, as Finnick had? For her face to break into a smile as she saw my face? For her to be all better?
I don't know what I had expected, but it wasn't what I experienced.
Annie was hidden behind Finnick, the only part of her that was visible a wild escaped dark curl. The anticipation I had felt the whole train ride up dissolved into fear.
I got off the train slowly, walking towards them with reluctant feet. I stood, knowing I shouldn't touch her, yet wanting nothing more than to fling my arms around her neck.
"Hey." I whisper. Finnick gave me a flinty smile, which disappeared a nano second after it had made its presence known.
"Annie?" I whisper. She peeks out from behind him, her green eyes full of fear. She hasn't left the games. Not yet, maybe not ever. She is the ghost of a girl long ago lost- a girl who had laughed like the entire world was one big joke, whose every living second was coloured with life and beauty.
She wasn't Annie.
"Annie, it's Madge." Finnick whispers. At the sound of his voice, she seems to relax. It's only a little, and it's barely perceptible, but it's enough for her to look at me.
"You know me, Annie." I whisper, touching her arm. She flinches away, back behind Finnick. I glance at him helplessly, my eyes communicating all my apologies without words, yet there is hopelessness in his eyes to mirror mine.
He knows what to do about as well as I do.
"Annie." I whisper. "It's me. Madge. I would never, ever hurt you."
She peers out again, a little less fear in her eyes. I hold out my hand for her to take, and am struck by the sense of deja vu.
"Don't be afraid." I whisper.
And without another seconds hesitation, she takes it.
Though Annie did get better, she was never, ever the same. I took to watching her games, over and over, during the weeks leading up to the quarter quell, whilst helping to train Katniss, Haymitch and Peeta. Not to help. Just to remember.
In Panem, everyone seems fascinated by eyes. I know I am. Because eyes are the windows to the soul, and speak of every experience, everything you've suffered, every torment...
In Coin's I saw nothing but military precision. Her eyes gave nothing away. In Katniss's, I saw the experience that would never leave her, no matter how hard she tried to escape. In Gale's, I saw the anger that no person on this earth was big enough to contain. In Joanna's, I saw the dejected look of long ago given up hope. In Finnick's, I saw the torture that came from being incapable of helping someone you loved, of blaming yourself for something out of your control. In Annie's, I saw the terror, I saw the ghost of what once was, I saw the pain of somebody forever trapped in the past.
Now, in my own, I saw fear. And I saw hope.
