A million thanks to everyone who wrote such great reviews (and to everyone who is reading this story, to be honest)! I love hearing what you think of the story, and it makes me happy when people have such strong reactions to the characters. (Though really, who couldn't love Finnick?) Special thanks to desray for the awesome review/encouragement with the job search. I appreciate it!

And yes, I know that this chapter is sort of...depressing? Just so you all know, I do have an overarching plan for this story, and that is what I am working towards. I've read so many fics where one moment Annie and Finnick hate each other or don't even know each other, and the next they are suddenly in love, and I don't want mine to be that way. I really want to develop them both as characters, create a real relationship for them, and let the romance aspect of the story unfold organically as they both struggle with their individual demons. Of course, we all know that Annie adores Finnick already, and Finnick is just too stubborn and too jaded from his experiences to realize what is right in front of him. But there's a few more obstacles they have to overcome first...it gets worse, but then it will get better, I promise!


The Peacekeepers guarding the hospital door nod to me in recognition when I show them the authorization chip that gives me permission to be here. They step aside, and I push open the door, entering the dim room with more than a little trepidation.

Annie has been out of the arena for three days, but no one except an endless stream of doctors and psychiatrists and shrinks has been permitted to see her yet. It took the combined forces of my anger, countless threats, reminders of exactly what I can do with a trident, and a few well-timed bats of my golden eyelashes to get me in here today.

The room is gray – gray carpets, gray ceilings, gray, pictureless walls, an empty gray bed with a wrinkled gray blanket hanging off it. On the lone chair near the bed sits an untouched tray of the gray mush that must pass for food in this place. I look around, slightly worried, as I carefully set the yellow sunflowers I have brought – so colorful they hurt my eyes in this world of gray – on the pillow. Where are the doctors and nurses? Where is Annie?

I hear a whimpering, desperate noise like someone being strangled or burnt alive, and follow it to the bathroom door, which is cracked open. I peek in, freezing in place, horrified by what I see.

Annie writhes in obvious agony on the floor of the shower as water beats down on her crumpled body. The gray hospital shift she is wearing is soaked all the way through, and her brown hair is plastered to her face, tangled and matted. I open my mouth – to ask her what is hurting her, or why she has her clothes on in the shower, or why on earth she won't get off the floor – but then I notice the iron cuffs chafing at her straining wrists, holding her in place. What the hell?

"Annie?" I enter the bathroom and kneel down beside the shower, which has clearly been running an inordinately long time, as water spills from the tiles to soak my knees.

Annie looks up at me, her cries dying in her throat, choked off by the water that floods her half-open mouth. For a long, terrible minute, her dead eyes are horribly empty, but then they widen in recognition, and her lips move incoherently as she struggles to say something. My name, I realize. "M-Mis-Mister –" she begins haltingly, but I cut her off, shaking my head.

"Finnick, Annie. It's just Finnick."

She stares up at me. "F-Finn…?" Her voice breaks off, hoarse from screaming and disuse.

I smile at her, hoping it is reassuring. "That works too. Annie…what's going on? Why are you…here?"

She starts shaking and struggling again, fear all over her face. "Don't want…please…no…hate it…no water, no shower, no water, please, oh God, please…"

"Shhh," I soothe, suddenly understanding. "Shhh, Annie. It'll be okay. I'm here now. I'm gonna take care of you." I lean over her prone figure, the shower's lukewarm spray drenching my shirt, and gently unlock the restraints keeping her chained to the hard tiled floor.

Part of me wants to be shocked, wants to believe that they wouldn't actually do this to her. That no one could be so cruel as to force someone who is clearly, deathly (and quite understandably, given what happened the last time she spent in it) afraid of water to stay under the tepid shower for God knows how long. But this is the Capitol, and the Capitol's cruelty knows no bounds. There is not much they could do, no matter how vicious or vapid, that would really surprise me at this point.

I stand up, shutting off the spray with a decisive click. Annie gazes up at me, her face contorted in pain, her wrists chaffed raw from the metal restraints. She is shivering violently.

"Come on, Annie. You need to change out of those clothes."

She just keeps staring at me.

"Annie?" I bend down, crouching beside her quaking body.

"You made it go away." Her voice is soft, incredulous. Almost awestruck.

"Yes, Annie. It's gone now. It can't hurt you anymore."

She frowns, shakes her head, and pushes herself up to a seated position, hugging her knees to her chest. "It will come back. It always comes back. But his head doesn't. It never does." Her low, haunted tone sends chills down my spine.

She sees me shiver and tilts her head in that odd, doll-like way she has. "Mr. – er, Finnick is cold?"

I shake my head, though now that she mentions it, I realize that I'm not exactly warm. My clothes are wet from the shower, and cling to my skin uncomfortably.

"Finnick is hurt." She reaches out to touch the long, shallow scab above my eye, the remnant of the cut from Seneca Crane's damn desk. Her fingers are trembling, her hands bruised and weak. "Why is Finnick hurt?" Suddenly, she slams her hands against the glass wall of the shower, so hard that she shatters the glass. Her hands drip blood, but she doesn't seem to notice, banging against the broken glass again and again as she shouts. I don't understand why there is so much anguish in her voice. "Why is Finnick hurt? Finnick should not be hurt! No, no, no, no, no!"

"Annie!" I grab her by the shoulders, not hard, but firmly enough to stop her from punching the glass anymore. "Stop that. Now." Why does it matter so much to her, this one little cut on my forehead that most other people haven't even noticed? God knows she's been in a lot worse pain lately. "Come on, mermaid. You must be cold."

I help her stand and dry her off as best I can with a gray towel. Then I go in the other room and find some clean clothes for her – another gray shift, which appears to be all this hospital has. I wish they had a sweater or something; these sorry attempts at dresses can't be very warm. I hand the shift to her, and she lets it fall to the ground, then shuts the door in my face. When she reopens it, she has changed her clothes. She is still shaking, and her wet hair drips down her back.

"Come here." I pat the edge of the bed, and she walks over slowly, almost cautiously. I wrap the towel around her shoulders, find a hairbrush, and kneel on the bed behind her, brushing the tangles out of her hair. It feels incredibly soft and silky – the one thing that hasn't seemed to change, in spite of everything she has been through. I spend a long time brushing her hair. She seems to find it relaxing, and so do I. Somehow it comforts me, the feel of her glossy hair between my fingers, solid and present and real, reminding me that she is alive.

By the time I am done, her hair is dry, curling up slightly at the ends. "Better?" I ask. She stares at me. I pull the blanket from the bed and situate it around her, wishing I could just as easily wrap her up and keep her safe from whatever inner horrors are obviously tormenting her.

"Annie, do you…do you want to talk about any of it?" I know it is pointless to ask a victor if she is okay, so I don't.

She shakes her head furiously, over and over and over again. "No…no talk…no words…don't want to think, don't want to see, don't want to hear…No! Stop it, I said! Shut up!"

She spins on me, yelling, and I abruptly wonder what I said, then just as abruptly realize that she is not talking to me. She presses her hands to her ears, claws at her face, thrashes around in the blanket. When her hands go to her eyes, her fingers scratching as though she means to dig out those wide, deep pools of emerald, I reach out and hold her hands down. She stops struggling and slumps over, all the fight sapped out of her.

Blood leaks from a scratch on her cheek, and I dab at it with the sleeve of my shirt. Suddenly, she grabs my hand, hard, with both of hers, and looks me straight in the eyes.

Her gaze is clear, alert, and I know that she remembers everything, remembers it all too well, and that she always will. The arena has done something to Annie that it didn't do to me, and her strange, beautiful mind is compensating in whatever ways it can, but it isn't enough. I don't' know if it ever will be. "Finnick?"

"Yes?"

Her sea-foam eyes peer into mine, urgent and pleading and hopeless. "Will you do something for me?"

"Of course, mermaid." I squeeze her cold hand. "Anything."

Her jaw clenches, and her eyes grow hard. "Kill me."

I freeze. My mouth opens, closes, opens again, almost on its own volition. How could she want that? How could she ask it of me?

I keep gaping at her, my mind a blank whirlwind, unsure of what to say. Finally, she turns away from me. "Forget I said it."

Yeah, right. Not when the thought of Annie Cresta dead has haunted me all through the Games, not after everything I did to bring her back safely. It never even occurred to me that perhaps she, like so many other victors, wouldn't want to return alive. And it's not a possibility I want to imagine right now.

"Annie…" I reach out tentatively, taking her hands in mine. They are frigid and bony and bruised. I make a mental note to talk with her doctors, to demand that they bring her blankets and good, hot meals and stop forcing her to shower in an attempt to "cure" her arena-induced fear of water. "Annie, mermaid…I can't tell you it will all go away, because it won't, and I won't lie to you. But it will get better. I promise. One day, you'll wake up and realize that there are still things that make life worth living. You'll learn to find happiness in unexpected places. You'll remember how to laugh. You'll smile again." Please, please smile again.

Annie nods, slowly. I am not at all convinced she believes me.

"It is like that now, for you?" she asks uncertainly. "You have things that…that make your life worth living?"

"Of course I do." I'm not sure why I do it, but I reach up and stroke her torn cheek. Her skin is icy and dry, yet smooth, almost like cold velvet. She shivers under my touch, and her eyes grow huge.

She doesn't say anything for a long time, clutching the bouquet of sunflowers to her chest and retreating someplace deep in her mind. I hope for her sake that it's a nice place, a place of sunshine and flowers and sea spray, a place where the Hunger Games never happened, a place full of people who care about her.

A dark-haired Capitol doctor comes in around six with a tray of gray oatmeal that Annie doesn't touch. He hooks an IV up to her frail arm and gruffly informs me that visiting hours are over.

I nod. I guess it doesn't matter if I leave – Annie is so out of it that she probably wouldn't notice if I stripped off all my damp clothes and did a dance. I doubt she'll remember my visit when she wakes up tomorrow. The doctor leaves the room again, and I stand up, touching Annie's soft hair for a moment and gently pressing her hand. Her eyes are open, but they stare right through me. Occasionally she flinches and bites down on her lower lip, drawing blood. I know that it's the arena she's seeing now.

"Bye, Annie. Sleep well," I say, my voice loud in the silence of the room.

"Finnick?" I almost jump when she speaks. Her green eyes blink up at me, filled with a sudden, unexpected warmth, and her hand tights around mine. "Finnick…so beautiful."

I look around at the endless gray, confused. "What? What is?"

"Finnick." Her eyes flutter closed, and she drifts into a restless sleep, her sunflowers wrapped up tightly in her arms.

I head back to the training center in a daze, barely hearing the thrilled shouts of the fans I pass on the streets. Lydia Frill gives me a strange look when I come in, and at dinner, Mags asks what has me grinning like an idiot. I just shake my head, unable to explain it even to myself, much less anyone else. I am still smiling when I fall asleep.

I visit Annie every day, in between my liaisons with clients and a series of unpleasant meetings with President Snow, during which Mags and I try unsuccessfully to convince him to cancel the post-Games interviews and just let Annie return home.

Some days, Annie refuses to get out of bed, staring blankly into space or screaming with her hands pressed over her ears; other times she wants to talk, or listen to music, or write. I bring her pens and notebooks, which she fills with dark, troubled words and haunting memories that bring us both back to the horrors of our own individual Games. She never asks me not to read what she writes, so sometimes I glance at the poems on the pages when she leaves her book open, but I don't make a habit of looking through her journals. She deserves some small semblance of privacy, after everything that's been torn from her.

Cinna and Mags visit Annie too, much to her doctors' evident displeasure. I bring her gifts whenever I visit – bouquets of flowers to brighten the room, a warm patchwork quilt I find in a second-hand shop, a sky-blue mug and a tin of powdered hot chocolate mix. Her mouth twitches oddly when I give her the cocoa, as though she is struggling to remember how to smile, and then she dissolves into tears, and I am struck by the fact that this is the first time she's ever cried in front of me.

"Annie…" I bring her into my arms, holding her close and rocking her gently. She mutters about hell and floods and severed heads and how she wants it all to end. I want to take away the pain, to turn back time and somehow make it so her name is never chosen at the Reaping, to reach inside her heart and sweep all the shadows away, but I can't. All I can do is hold her tightly, offering her whatever strength I have as she breaks down in my arms. "I know, Annie. I know. Soon. You can go home soon. I promise."

But as usual, Snow has other plans. He schedules her crowning ceremony for the end of the week, telling me – in a tone that permits no argument – that the Capitol is getting restless, and that things will go poorly for Annie if his people tire of waiting. I silently wonder how much "poorer" things can really get for her. And then he introduces me to Sergio Everett, the pock-marked, corpulent Chief of Security, and explains that Mr. Everett has a "keen interest" in meeting the new victor, and I know things can get a lot worse.

I am a mess the night of the ceremony. I can't keep food down, my head is pounding, and I lash out at anyone who dares approach me, practically exploding when Cinna asks me a question about Annie's shoes. He just gives me an odd look and goes away, telling Annie she can wear whatever shoes she likes. She ends up going barefoot.

I sit in the front row, as close to Annie as they will let me get, scanning the audience and the assembled Peacekeepers for Sergio and contemplating exactly what they would do to me if I arranged a private meeting with the man and just happened to accidently strangle him while he was screwing me. But I know there is nothing I can do that won't result in further punishment for Annie.

My mind races as I struggle to think of a way to get her back to Four, a way to make them lose interest in the strange little mermaid with the wide eyes and the glossy hair and the endearing interview and the crazy – That's it. My stomach twists at the thought, at the utter wrongness of the idea, but I know what I have to do.

As it turns out, it's not all that much. Annie does most of it for me.

She rambles onto the stage and just stands there, shielding her eyes from the bright lights with one hand, completely oblivious to both Caesar Flickerman's attempts to engage her in conversation and the gleaming silver circlet that the President places on her head. It bothers me that her crown is silver. Mine was gold. Johanna's was gold. Even as far back as Mags, the victors' crowns have always been gold. Most people, especially the Capitol idiots, won't even notice it, but I do. And I know what it means. In his subtle, snake-like way, Snow is reminding the audience that Annie may have won the Hunger Games, but she really isn't a victor, not like the rest of us. She's not brutally strong, not lethal, not a vicious killer. She was never meant to survive. And no one should get too attached to her.

I don't realize that I am grinding my teeth and fisting my hands until Mags touches my elbow and whispers, "Calm, boy." So I force myself to smile cheekily and sit back and watch Annie perched uncertainly on the edge of her chair, playing with the ruffles on her aquamarine sundress and muttering about water, water, too much water, you think it gives life but what gives can also take away, until the audience laughs uproariously. She looks at them – at us – then, her bewildered expression almost angry, and her hands go to the crown on her head.

Her eyes land on me, and I smile at her, as encouragingly as I can. She waves with both hands, then walks over to the edge of the stage and gives me that same dainty little curtsy she gave when we first met. "Hi, Finnick! Hi! Look! I'm like a princess!"

Her enthusiastic confusion tears at me, and her childlike voice makes me want to run up on the stage, pull her close, and take her far away from the cruel, lecherous eyes of the Capitol. The crowd laughs again, unable to contain themselves.

And something in Annie snaps. She rips the crown off her head and throws it straight at President Snow, nearly hitting him in the face. She yells at everyone and no one, shouting for them to shut up, to leave her alone, to go back to their pointless, shallow lives and take their stupid crowns and their awful Games with them.

Caesar Flickerman immediately starts the replay of her Games, drowning out her ranting. I have never been so grateful to the ridiculous talk-show host in my life.

Annie curls into a little ball on the floor, huddled against the chair she is supposed to sit in, and watches most of the replay with wide, petrified eyes and her hands over her ears. Her face grows whiter and whiter as the film nears the spot where the Careers turned on Curtis, and I want to tell her to shut her eyes, but I can't. Why is she still looking?

Her televised, pre-recorded screams when Curtis is beheaded have nothing on the live ones. She wails, a bloodcurdling noise that for some reason has the Capitol audience in hysterics; she writhes on the stage and claws at her skin.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Snow give a signal, and two Peacekeepers leap onto the stage to try and subdue her. Caesar Flickerman approaches her thrashing body, practically begging her to calm down, but she just lashes out at them all, screaming and hitting and kicking, tearing at the nearest Peacekeeper's uniform and yanking hard on Caesar's dyed blue hair, sending his wig toppling askew. He makes a flustered face as he struggles to hold onto the hair piece, and the audience laughs again. To them, this is nothing but live comedy, provided expressly for their amusement.

Annie kicks the second Peacekeeper in the stomach, hard. He stumbles backward, and there is a sudden silence. And then five more Peacekeepers are on Annie, their clubs and fists pounding down on her with all the force they can muster.

The lights dim and the replay continues as a screen rises in front of the stage, hiding Annie from sight. I push past the Peacekeepers stationed at the side entrance, running blindly through the crowd, and before I know it I am on the stage, shoving the Peacekeepers out of the way and shouting for them to stop.

When they finally do, Annie lies motionless on the floor, one arm bent behind her back at an unnatural angle, bruises covering her face and body, blood dripping from a crack in her skull. I sink to the ground beside her, suddenly unable to breathe.

Sergio Everett stomps onto the stage, glaring at Annie's prone form. "Get her out of here."

Doctors try to yank her from my arms, but I hold on until they agree that I can ride in the ambulance with her. They put her in intensive care, but refuse to let anyone in with her. Everett even sets up a cadre of guards outside her door, as though tiny little Annie is a threat to national security. Mags, Cinna, and I stay in the waiting room all night, none of us able to sleep. I am not sure exactly what it is we are waiting for.

They pronounce her stable early in the morning, and Mags breathes out a sigh of relief. I tell her to go and get some rest. She doesn't want to leave, but I manage to convince her. Cinna escorts her back to the training center.

Leaving me alone when President Snow himself comes to see Annie in the hospital.

I put on my nonchalant, not-that-bright playboy face. I've never given Snow cause to question exactly how much I love my Capitol life, and I don't intend to now. The less he knows about my true feelings, the better.

"Finnick." He gives me a thin-lipped, snakelike smile. "Your new victor is trouble."

Well, then. He could at least pretend to care about the fact that his Peacekeepers were the ones who beat her senseless.

I walk over to him, positioning myself between her room and Snow. There is no way I'm letting him go in there alone with her.

"She doesn't understand," I say, doing my best to look concerned and slightly stupid.

"Really? She threw off her crown, Finnick. Threw it at me, I might add. She's not being…cooperative."

I fight the urge to shiver. "Mr. President, I don't think…I don't think she knows what's going on. She's not right, in the head. Never has been. Even before the Games." I add the last part hurriedly, not wanting him to think that I am blaming the Capitol for her breakdown. As though there is anyone else to blame.

Snow looks thoughtful – a thoughtful snake. "Perhaps you are right." He shakes his head. "Pity. She's not a hideous girl, when she's not gouging out her own flesh. My Chief of Security wasn't the only one taken with her. She could have made quite a life for herself here. Could've been as happy as you are."

I grin up at him. "I doubt that. No one could be as happy as me."

They hold a press conference the next day, in lieu of Annie's victor interview. They demand her presence, though, so Cinna and the preps doll her up, covering her scarred and mottled skin with clothes and paint and shimmery makeup. It is a private conference, just our District Four team and the press, along with some of the other victors. Cinna helps Annie sit down, and says near her side throughout the whole ordeal, just out of the camera's line of sight. People are setting up equipment still, so I go over to her and kneel in front of her chair. She looks at me, her face pained and pale and joyless.

"Annie. Are you…feeling any better?"

She nods. "Yes," she murmurs, her tone mechanical, as if someone is controlling her by remote, "the Capitol is taking good care of me."

I roll my eyes so only she can see. "I tried to visit you, mermaid. They wouldn't let any of us come in…"

"It's alright. They took good care of me."

So I've heard. "Annie…please, talk to me."

Her voice is so dull and lifeless, it makes me want to punch someone. Preferably President Snow. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Stop it, Annie, just stop it, okay?" She stares up at me. "I'm gonna get you out of here, mermaid. Just…just don't listen to any of this. Don't listen, Annie. Please."

She doesn't seem to comprehend the last part, but her eyes brighten the tiniest bit at the mention of leaving. "Annie can…go home?"

I nod and take her hand. It feels so small and frail underneath my own. "Yes. Annie can go home. And never come back."

"Oh, Finnick! You're the best ever!" She throws herself into my arms, and I stumble back, taken by surprised. We both topple to the ground and stay there. I hug her, longer than I should, cherishing her warmth, her praise, her trust…her. Knowing this is the last time I will ever have any of it.

The press conference is its own kind of hell. The reporters laugh at Annie's stilted, robotic replies to everything they ask her, and I laugh along with them, because what else can I do? Cinna's eyes narrow, and Mags just looks sad, and the rest of the victors glare at me for not protecting one of our own, besides Johanna, who looks vaguely amused by the whole thing, and Haymitch, who looks drunk.

But when they ask me to comment on Annie's state of mind, when all the other victors look away and fidget awkwardly with their clothes, Haymitch Abernathy is the one who meets my eyes with his steel gaze and nods sharply.

"She's not all there," I say, repeating my words to Snow. "Never has been. Back in Four, they call her Crazy Cresta."

The reporters chuckle. Cinna's mouth falls half-open, his face a mask of obvious disgust. And Annie – Annie stares at me with wide, empty eyes full of despair, and all the strength and hope and light inside her disappears, seemingly instantaneously. She doesn't say a word. She doesn't have to. Betrayal is written all over her face.

"You would agree with the medical team, then, that Miss Cresta is clinically insane?" a tight-faced woman with teardrop tattoos falling from her eyes asks me, shoving a microphone towards me. "That she should go to the clinic in Two for treatment?"

It is the first I've heard of any clinic in Two. I thought she would just get to go back to District Four. Annie's eyes grow ever emptier, and Cinna stares at me accusingly.

"I'm not a doctor," I reply. "Though I do know a lot about female anatomy." I wink at the woman, and she trills out a giggle. "But yes, I would say that Annie needs treatment."

"Because she's insane?" the woman presses. Annie meets my gaze unflinchingly, but does not seem to read the plea for understanding that I try to express with my eyes. Why are they doing this? Why?

"Because she's insane," I say resignedly.

Annie looks away, down at the ground, her bare feet tracing patterns in the plush carpet. She refuses to meet my eyes, and when the conference is wrapped up, she turns to Cinna, and he helps her out of the room, both of them completely ignoring me when I call her name.

"Annie, wait. Please. Annie…"

I'm pretty sure she hears me. But she doesn't reply. I try to visit her before she leaves for Two, but Cinna answers the door of the hospital room they are keeping her in and tells me that neither of them wants to see my face ever again.

I find a bar, get wasted, and stumble to the train station in time to watch her train leave the next morning. I stay in the shadows, knowing she won't want me there. I watch until she has been dragged on board, watch the train disappear down the tracks, watch her goodbye committee of three – Mags, Cinna, and, absurdly, Lydia Frill – drift away with the nearly-invisible smoke that puffs up from the engine. And then I find another bar and drink until I pass out.