Chapter 20: 75th Annual Hunger Games

The "We Remember" propos is meant to be a distraction for Finnick, a way to get him out of the hospital wing and thinking about something other than Annie. It was Fulvia Cardew's idea to have him narrate short segments on several of the more popular tributes who perished in the Quarter Quell, and he likes it. As he, Beetee and Haymitch are really the only ones who knew them personally, Finnick provides a lot of input to the scripts and insists on several takes of the narrations to ensure he's done justice to the fallen. The idea is to pick up any stragglers in the rebellion, and everyone – even Beetee – is optimistic about the segments.

It takes him out of the hospital wing and allows him to creatively release his energy and emotions, but Finnick can't help but wonder if the dead would have wanted this. His mind is muddled and blurred, but from what he remembers, he was never a favourite amongst the mentors.

He's not a favourite amongst the ones in District 13, either – at least, he doesn't think so. He operates under the impression that no one is quite fond of him. If they were, they would sneak him some morphling when he pleaded. They would talk to him rather than send him pitying glances. They would visit him rather than leave him alone in the stark white hospital. They might even give him a longer rope. Long enough for a noose.

Instead, all they give him is trays of food, usually canned or frozen before serving, portioned to the exact amount required for a man of his age, weight, activity level and body type. It tastes just as bleak as it looks, but he eats it for something to do.

And one night, after filming a propo for Seeder from 11 which Katniss watched from the sidelines, he sneaks out of his quarters and joins her in her compartment. They're airing a segment tonight about the mission to District 8, which he still looks back on with bitterness for not being permitted to attend.

As the bombs rain down on the screen, he pushes away his dinner tray, no longer hungry. Katniss turns her head away, unable to watch it all for the second time.

"People should know that happened. And now they do," he says, but it doesn't seem enough.

Katniss shakes her head. "I already hate this."

"What?"

She tugs on her own braid, playing with the ends. "Being the mockingjay."

A silence hangs over them. Finnick lowers his eyes to his forgotten meal, thoughtful and quiet.

"They want to paint me as brave," she continues, letting her head loll back against the wall. "Katniss Everdeen, Girl on Fire, Mockingjay, the symbol of the revolution. But I'm not brave. I'm not on fire. I'm only doing this because I'm terrified."

Finnick sighs, crossing his ankles and turning his head toward her. "Terrified of losing everyone."

She nods.

"You love too much," he remarks. "Too fiercely. That's your problem." When she meets his gaze, he offers a grim smile. "That's what Johanna would say."

A slight frown knits together her brows. "And what would you say?"

He pauses, letting his eyes travel the white walls. "Sometimes I agree with her," he says, his voice distant. "This place is cancerous to me. The more I stay here, the more I'm convinced she's right. Love can't be good if it brings so much pain. It can only be a sickness."

As he says it, Peeta's image materializes onscreen. Katniss gasps as they both realize that Beetee's programming has cut out briefly. The Capitol is retaliating.

The blond boy looks horrible. Tired, dishevelled, small and frail. His appearance is startling to Finnick, who can only imagine how traumatizing it must be for Katniss. She's frozen beside him, stiff and cold, as if she's staring into the face of death.

Peeta delivers a message to Katniss onscreen, claiming she's been turned into a weapon by the rebels, that they'll use her to spurn a war that will ravage the nation. He begs her to call it to an end. Warns her that all may not be what it seems. And then he's cut; the broadcast at an end.

Finnick reacts quickly, shutting off the television and spinning around to grab Katniss by the shoulders and demand her attention. "We didn't see it."

"What?" she asks, dazed and frightened.

"We didn't see Peeta. Only the propo on 8. Then we turned the set off because the images upset you. Got it?"

Katniss is bewildered from head to foot, and that's how Finnick knows that Peeta got through to her. His words are revolving in her mind and she's questioning what she stands for. If Heavensbee and Fulvia and President Coin know she doubts them, it will be a dangerous situation for her. For all of them. And he's sworn to protect her – even if it's against the very people with whom he made the oath.

He urges her to eat, and together they sink into a thoughtful silence

Katniss pushes her food around on her plate, and when she turns to him, her grey eyes are wide and wounded. She says despairingly to him, "If it's a sickness, I'm sick." Shaking her head, she repeats, "I'm sick."

He nods, the meaning of her words not lost on him. "I know," he murmurs, covering her hand with his. "I know, Katniss."

13 is not home, and 13 is no safety or comfort to him. But he has Katniss, he consoles himself. It's not much, especially because she's almost as broken as him, but he has her. And she has him, he reminds himself as her eyes fill with tears, her small body curling into itself on the bed. She has him until death.

Filming the propo for Mags is so difficult for him that they knock him out afterward for a full day and night. When he finally comes to, Katniss is there, insisting that he dress quickly so that he can accompany her outside.

"What do you mean, outside?" Finnick asks.

"I mean up. Aboveground. Where you can see the light of day."

Finnick frowns innocently. "We're not allowed up there."

Katniss places a hand on her hip, raising her eyebrows as if he should know better. "I made a deal with Coin," she says, referencing the president of 13.

"A deal?" he asks, suspicious.

With a groan, Katniss swings her braid behind her. "Do you want to come or not?"

He does, so he dons a pair of grey pants and an off-white shirt and follows Katniss wordlessly through the bland hallways, his eyes darting into every room they pass in fear that someone will spot them and send him back to the hospital.

Such paranoia is exhausting, but he can't help it. Beetee was right – they're still in the Arena, all of them, and one must constantly be alert.

Stepping out from the underground and onto the fresh earth is a surreal experience. The clean, crisp air fills his nostrils and the light of day blinds him, even though the sun is shrouded in clouds. A breeze drifts by, and Finnick inhales deeply, letting the air seep into his lungs and puff out his chest. It's quiet aboveground, for there's very little left on the surface in 13, but without the deafening hum of fans circulating the air or the steady beeps of machines in the hospital wing, Finnick is able to hear the chirping of birds, the rustling of grass, and the song of the wind.

"Game doesn't come this close to the exit, but it's not far. Just up past the fence, there's – are you okay?" Katniss asks, stopping in her tracks and eyeing him over her shoulder.

Tears have welled in his sea green eyes as he feels, for the first time since entering the Arena a second time, that he is human. At her question, he sniffles, blinks, and shakes his head to swallow the emotion.

"Yeah. Let's go," he says, urging her forward. He's determined not to give her the chance to decide he's too unstable for an afternoon out.

They hop a fence nearby and disappear into the woods. Finnick follows Katniss, breathing in the scent of pine and bark, moss and dirt. Katniss is at home here, but District 13 is a far cry from the sights and smells of District 4. Still, he's not about to complain. To be on earth is better than to be below it.

Katniss flinches every so often when he cracks a twig with his feet or walks unceremoniously through leaves. He's a hunter, just as she is, but his hunting days have taken place in the vast blue ocean.

"Sorry," he says with a shrug when she delivers him a pointed glare. "My steps are too heavy."

"Not that heavy," she tells him, her expression softening. Eyes downcast, she mutters, "You haven't tried to hunt with Peeta."

The mention of the blond-haired boy in custody of the Capitol hangs heavily over them, and Finnick is about to offer another apology when Katniss cuts him off.

"Let's take these off," she says, removing her communicator. She places it safely under a bush and waits for Finnick to do the same.

They're under strict orders to wear the communicators at all times, but Finnick doesn't hesitate to ditch his under the bush as well.

He snorts at the irony, remarking, "Johanna thought she was doing you a favour, tearing the tracker out of your arm in the Arena. They wouldn't be able to follow you. She thought she'd be setting you free."

Katniss watches him, wary of another one of his breakdowns. He doesn't feel one coming today. It's easier to talk about the ones he's lost in the open air. Not less painful – just easier.

"She did," says Katniss.

Finnick looks to the ground, sighing deeply. "We didn't think it would be this kind of free. We didn't tear the tracker from you so you could have another one put in."

Katniss is thoughtful as they begin to walk deeper into the brush. "You know," she says lightly, "for someone who spent so much of his life in the Capitol as a victor, you don't take to captivity very well."

He shrugs, holding aside a few branches and letting Katniss walk ahead. "They had me from the moment I was reaped at fourteen," he says. "My only two choices were to die fighting or to live in surrender. You want to fight back, but there's your family and friends to protect… in the end, it's just easier on your heart to hide. I spent all this time running from captivity. Not just for me, but for Annie. Now we're both prisoners, and not even in the same place. And it's… I can't bear it."

He chokes on the last words, but swallows back his tears. Katniss doesn't need his misery on top of her own.

Or maybe she does. The kind of love she may feel for Peeta isn't quite yet the love shared between Finnick and Annie, but it's some kind of love. Out of everyone, she's the only one who has an inkling of the shackles on his ankles and the devastating bricks weighing his shoulders down.

"Do you regret it?" she asks, her voice faint. It's an answer she must be afraid to hear. "Being part of the conspiracy in the Quarter Quell?"

Finnick thinks about it as they walk on, his mind revolving around several different – but equally horrifying – scenarios. "If I died in there, they wouldn't go after Annie," he points out. "But then where would you be?"

"Probably dead, too," she suggests without flinching. "In a place where none of this matters anymore."

Finnick always imagined the afterlife as a place of nothingness; simply a darkness, unchanging and still. The more he thinks about it, the more he imagines it as District 13. Dead or not, this is purgatory.

They don't speak again until they reach a tall fence, signalling the district border. He has a feeling that Katniss didn't really bring him out here to hunt, so he doesn't ask questions when she takes a seat on a rung of the fence and waits expectantly for him to do the same.

It's been a couple of days since Peeta's broadcast, and Finnick's been knocked out since then, but it seems that Katniss has been waiting for a moment to discuss it with him. She speaks quickly, eager to get everything out at once, for him to know all she can't say to anyone else.

"I haven't heard one word about it," Finnick assures her, though he's been unconscious for a good chunk of time since the broadcast. "No one's told you anything?"

Katniss shakes her head, worried.

"Not even Gale?" he tries. She looks doubtful, and he wonders again about their closeness – it's almost impossible that Gale wouldn't know about the broadcast, but how could he keep something like that from Katniss? How could he love her and hide something from her?

With a stab of regret, Finnick realizes that there are a lot of things he never shared with Annie. So many secrets that she will never know. He kept them from her to protect her, so isn't it fair to assume that Gale might have done the same?
Katniss still looks bleak, so he offers, "Maybe he's trying to find a time to tell you privately."

"Maybe," she says, but she doesn't believe him.

Gale won't tell her, Finnick knows that for sure. He knows how desperate one can be to keep someone they love from hurting.

Another bout of silence washes over them, and in that time, Katniss shoots a buck that sneaks into view. It's not very large, but it's heavy enough that Finnick is sweating and panting by the time he drags it back to the entrance to the underground. Before they go down, Katniss hands him his communicator, which they picked up from the bush on their way back. She offers him a tight-lipped smile.

He sighs deeply, staring up at the clouds and sniffing the fresh air one last time. It's hard to say when he'll get to venture out again – he supposes it all depends on his mental state, which is shaky and unpredictable at best.

"Ready to go back?" she asks.

He chuckles without humour. "I'll never be ready," he replies softly. Her smile fades. He adds, "Thank you for today. I forgot about… it's just nice, to be outside for once."

She nods. "I get that."

She makes a move to climb down, but he grabs onto her wrist and begs her to stop.

"Katniss?" he asks. She raises her eyebrows in acknowledgement. "Do I regret it – going into the Arena with a mission to get you out of there? You tell me."

Katniss tenses, opening her mouth to respond without a sound.

"We knew what we were doing," he continues. "We knew what was at stake. And we agreed to it because all of us – me, Beetee, Mags, Johanna, Chaff, everyone – believed there was hope for change. And no matter where we all are now – dead, captured in the Capitol, here in 13 – none of us are going to say it wasn't worth this fate if we can bring him down."

Her hands are firmly on the ladder, and she regards him with pain and burden in her grey eyes.

"I don't know much," he says, his voice low, "but I do know that."

Annie runs, her sparkling green eyes wide with panic, but she can't escape the tsunami creeping up on her. It builds and builds as she races down the dark hallway, always looking over her shoulder. Then, with force of such magnitude it shakes the walls, the wave drops, drowning her instantly.

"No!" Finnick cries, but he can't move forward. He's trapped behind unshakeable glass, and no matter how hard he throws himself at the wall, he's boxed in. Prisoner. Removed from his love.

The water washes away after endless agonizing seconds, and Annie's crumpled form is still in that hallway, now strapped to a bed. As she comes to, her face registers with alarm and incontrollable fear. She begins to thrash, calling for help, for mercy – for him.

"Annie!" he screams, banging his fists on the glass. "Annie, hold on!"

There's nothing in the room with him; not a weapon nor a chair to break the glass. He has no way out, but he continues to throw himself against the glass, determined to get to her.

Behind him, a door opens. He whips around to face President Snow, his snakelike eyes dancing with amusement. The door closes and vanishes, and it's just him and Snow between four walls with no exit.

"Get her out of there!" Finnick orders, pointing to Annie. He takes another look at her panicked form, screaming for help. Turning to Snow, he says, his voice quivering, "I'll do anything. I promise. You can have me. Whatever you want, I'll do it. Just let her out. Please."

Snow simply smiles.

Finnick's blood boils, and he shrieks, "Let her out!"

Snow cocks his head to the side but says no words at all.

That's all it takes for Finnick to lunge at him, throttling his neck. They crash into a wall and Snow does not fight back, does not let his eyes stray from Finnick's. And as his face turns blue, he raises a hand. With his index finger, he points.

Finnick looks over his shoulder. Annie still lays strapped to the bed, and as she screams, there's a sharp buzz. A volt of electricity. It runs from her feet up to her head and her scream becomes so bloodcurdling, so excruciating that Finnick drops his hands from Snow's neck to cover his ears.

"What did you do to her?" he cries. Snow, whose face is regaining its colour, barely has time to compose himself before Finnick punches him – hard. Snow's head crashes into the wall, and as Finnick brings his fist away, gasping at the sting, he turns to Annie.

She's electrified again, and her torturous screams induce his panic.

"Let her go!" His fist crashes once again into Snow, and this time, he hears the electric shock as it races through Annie's defenceless body. "Make it stop!" he yells, throwing the old man into the wall. Snow collapses to the ground as Annie cries out again. His name.

He rushes to the window, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Annie! Annie, I'm trying!"

"Don't hurt me!" she pleads, her cheeks wet with tears.

"I'm saving you!" he shouts back, and with another burst of rage, he delivers a swift kick to Snow's gut. This time, Annie screams before the electricity even hits her.

With blood in his mouth, Snow raises his head and meets Finnick's eyes. Even defeated, he has never looked so cruel. He smiles.

Finnick kicks him again. Annie is jolted. He hears it, but she doesn't scream, and when he turns, he sees her lying there, too exhausted to make a sound. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, nearly blacking out from the pain.

He waits, hanging by a splitting thread. Nothing happens.

Snow lies groaning on the dank floor. To test his theory, Finnick kicks him lightly in the chest.

Just as he suspected, Annie is electrified again.

In horror, he stares down at Snow. Every punch, every kick – it's all taken out on her. He can't hurt the man he most wants to kill without hurting the woman he loves most.

What has he done? What is there left to do?

It used to be the stuff of his nightmares, but Finnick finds that visions now haunt him even in his waking hours, and sleep is unattainable without the help of a pill or a needle. Even then, it's restless. Not a second passes where he isn't tormented by images of a broken Annie, a victorious Snow.

So he sits in his bunker for hours on end, not speaking, tying knot after complicated knot in the short section of rope they've given him as projections of horrific, violent scenes play in his head. They're on lockdown now, after Beetee broke through Capitol command and began airing their rebel propaganda in the Capitol. Peeta warned them they'd all be dead by morning, and without his words, he would have been right. While they all climbed further and further underground, bombs rained down on District 13.

Every so often, he thinks he should find someone and ask to have a vague sense of what is happening, of when they might be free of lockdown mode, but he's too troubled by memories of Peeta's gaunt, thin form onscreen and ideas of what they might be doing to Annie. Sounds of her screams fly around his head like those mockingjays in the Arena until he's dizzy with fear and grief.

Katniss finds him one night – at least, he assumes it to be night, as everyone else seems to be asleep. There's no natural light to confirm either way. She slides beside him on his bunk and curls her knees to her chest, whispering to him her secret fears of Snow using Peeta against her. His harm for her cooperation. Finnick is smothered by his own sorrows, but he still feels badly for her. They expect so much from the Girl on Fire: strength, balance, heart. But she's just a girl, after all, and she's faring much better than even himself, a grown man. Still, everyone has a breaking point. If Katniss reaches hers, then it all may have been for nothing.

"How do you bear it?" she whispers, her voice hoarse with emotion.

He pauses his knot-tying to throw her a sceptical glance. "I don't, Katniss! Obviously, I don't." Even in his fragile state, he can see that being cooped up in the hospital half the time and able to concentrate on nothing but a frayed section of rope does not qualify as 'bearing it'. "I drag myself out of nightmares each morning to find there's no relief in waking," he continues, shaking images of Annie strapped to the bed out of his mind. More gently, he adds, "Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart."

And you can't fall, mockingjay, he thinks to himself. It's selfish, when he's spent so much time ensconced in nothing but his own anguish, but he's not the crux of the rebellion. Katniss is. He swore to the rebels to protect her life, but to himself, he swears an oath that he will not let her be like him. He'll keep her strong, if he can.

So, after one last knot, he hands her his rope. Refreshes her memory on a few of the more intricate knots. And then he urges her back to her bunk, this time with the comforting activity of knotting to keep her from slipping into dark holes.

Awake and alone, he grits his teeth and succumbs to the hell of his own mind.

By morning, the bombs have ceased for a long enough period that the prisoners – citizens, Finnick reminds himself – of 13 are permitted to climb a few levels of the underground. Most of the levels closer to the surface were destroyed, so everyone is assigned new compartments deeper in the earth.

Finnick certainly doesn't relish the thought of living even deeper in the ground, but he knows he's being unfair. After all, if it weren't for the underground hideout, everyone in 13 would be dead and they would have had nowhere to go after blowing out of the Arena. Still, he can't help feeling more captive here than he ever felt in the Arena. At least in the Arena, death was an option. A sweet escape.

He doesn't have much time to soak in his own misery, however, before Boggs pulls him aside with Haymitch, Katniss and Gale. They're to be sent up to the ground with the film crew to display the damage inflicted on 13 to Panem. With this news, Finnick brightens ever so slightly. While he doesn't much care about their onscreen propaganda, the thought of breathing in fresh air again is welcome.

"Any questions?" asks President Coin after she's finished her instructions.

No one says anything at first, and Finnick looks cautiously around the room before piping up, "Can we have a coffee?"

It's a rarity in 13, but after speaking with Katniss the night before, he didn't get much sleep.

Coin concedes to this, and Finnick almost groans with pleasure when a hot cup is placed in his hands and the warm, rich scent floats on steam to his nostrils.

Katniss, who must be just as exhausted as he is, looks reluctantly at her cup, so he pours some cream in his own cup and then in hers. She still looks reluctant, but he has not forgotten his promise to keep her from breaking.

"Want a sugar cube?" he asks her, his voice low and seductive. His Capitol voice rolls off his tongue as smoothly as ever, but it sounds foreign to his ears. It's only been weeks, he reasons, but it feels like years since he's had to use it.

Nevertheless, it arouses a smile from Katniss.

"Here," he says in serious, dropping the cubes into her drink, "it improves the taste."

She arches a wary eyebrow, but takes a sip with his encouragement. Instantly her nose scrunches in distaste.

"Maybe it's an acquired taste," he relents, "but it might still make you feel better."

She shakes her head, so disgusted that she spits the liquid back into her cup.

He chuckles lightly. "Very attractive, Katniss. Now I see why they want you on camera all the time."

Once she drowns the taste with a gulp of water, she smiles again and jabs him in the ribs. He grins, struck with the thought that he's glad she's here. Not because it was his job to save her or because she's the best hope the rebels have, but because she's his friend. The only one he has in 13.

As they leave the Defence Unit to get in their suits and climb to the surface, Finnick follows Katniss' eyes and catches Gale watching them with a scowl. As Katniss stalks away, Finnick gives the dark-haired boy a sympathetic nod. He feels Gale's anger directed at him, but he can only pity him in return. It's a lost cause, really. The more possessive he is, the more she'll resent him – and she certainly can't give herself to him while Peeta waits for her in captivity.

He can sympathize, but he'll never really know how it feels for any of them – Peeta, Katniss or Gale. As it is, he's only ever loved one girl, and he knows that wherever she is and whatever they're doing to her, she fiercely loves him back.

As he dons his suit and heads to the surface, he thinks to himself that perhaps there is comfort in 13, after all.

Katniss can't do it. Up there on ground level filming the damage for the districts, she breaks in two as she realizes that every word she says will be held not against her, but Peeta. She falls apart, and Finnick falls apart with her.

He's not sure how long he's out, but sometime later, Katniss wakes him and he realizes to his disappointment that he's back in the hospital.

So frantic and faint he can barely hear her, Katniss whispers to him that they've organized a mission. Only a few are going. Gale is one of them.

They're going to try to break the prisoners out of the Capitol.

Katniss waits for his reaction, studying his expression closely and prepared to call for help if necessary. But he doesn't teeter on the cusp of sanity as usual. Instead, he feels oddly light.

"Don't you see, Katniss," he says, pushing himself off the mattress to sit up, "this will decide things. One way or the other. By the end of the day, they'll either be dead or with us. It's… it's more than we could hope for!"

For a long time, they sit with their heads together as if in prayer. It's how Haymitch finds them. While the soldiers are going in to rescue the ones left behind in the Arena, there needs to be a distraction. Something to keep busy the eyes of the Capitol.

Finnick is sure they'll want Katniss to perform again, and he's right. After they feed, dress and prep her, she's placed in front of a camera and asked for honesty. Her first meeting with Peeta. How he makes her feel. What it's like knowing he's in harm's way. Finnick isn't sure if every word rings true, but he believes the sincerity in her tone. Just like him, she'll do anything to get someone she loves out of danger.

"She's brave," Finnick says to Haymitch as they watch Katniss from the sidelines.

With his arms folded across his chest, Haymitch shrugs. "That, or scared to death."

How easy it is to confuse the two.

Plutarch Heavensbee joins them, flustered by all the excitement, but pleased overall. "Just remarkable," he says, validating his approval in Katniss and her performance. "Sure to captivate some eyes in the Capitol."

"Some?" Haymitch asks warily. "I thought the goal was to captivate all."

"It is." Heavensbee nods gravely. "But a teenage love story can only go so far. Would people stop in their tracks to hear what it's really like to be a victor of the Games?" With a sideways glance at Finnick, he adds, "I think they would."

Haymitch gives him a glance, too, and when he notices that all humour has faded from Finnick's expression, he steps in. "No, I don't think so."

"Oh, I do," Heavensbee argues. "You see, everyone in Panem thinks nothing is comparable to the glory of a victor. The riches, the glamour… for the lucky ones who come out alive, life is a dream. Wouldn't it rock them to their very core to hear an account from a victor himself? The threats, the lies… the things you were made to do?"

"No," Haymitch says firmly, trying to step in front of Finnick to weasel him out of the discussion.

"Haymitch, it's the best hope we've got."

"I don't buy that."

"You want the others brought back safely, don't you?"

The pot-bellied mentor glares at the Capitol man, hissing, "He's been through enough."

"It could be the difference between getting them home alive or in pieces," Plutarch argues in a low voice, teeth gritted.

If they're trying to keep Finnick from hearing, it isn't working. He's heard every word, and whether he trusts either of their judgment, he knows what he must do.

"Even if he did do it, there's no telling if anyone would believe him," Haymitch counters. "Sounds crazy, doesn't it? That every happy victor lived a personal hell of their own behind the smile?"

"They'd believe me," Finnick pipes up for the first time. Heavensbee and Haymitch turn to him, and he nods slowly. With resolve in his voice that he's not sure he possesses, he says, "Get me on camera and I can prove it."

Haymitch is sour as Finnick goes to take Katniss' seat in front of the camera. "You don't have to do this," he says, placing a firm hand on Finnick's shoulder.

Finnick isn't sure when Haymitch became so protective of him, but he shrugs him off. Haymitch doesn't have anyone. He can't know how far someone would go to protect the one they love.

With an image in his mind of Annie waiting for him in the waves under the sunshine, Finnick knows there's nothing he wouldn't do.

"Yes, I do. If it will help her," he says, pulling the rope from its safe place in his pocket and curling it into his fist. He looks directly into the lens of the camera and says to the crew, "I'm ready."

He's not ready. He's not sure he ever will be. But somewhere in the back of his mind, there's the notion that this is right. Who else has more information on Snow than him? And what was he collecting it for if not to expose the man to the world? To bring him down?

This is what it was all for. So he begins without introduction, cutting right to the chase.

"President Snow used to… sell me… my body, that is." He clears his throat, the urge to shrink in front of the camera a new sensation to him. "I wasn't the only one," he's quick to add. "If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it."

Kills… tortures… imprisons… there are some things he can't bear to talk about. His mother. His father. What Snow did to them as Finnick's punishment.

"I wasn't the only one, but I was the most popular. And perhaps the more defenceless, because the people I loved were so defenceless. To make themselves feel better, my patrons would make presents of money or jewelry, but I found a much more valuable form of payment: secrets."

Around him, he hears light gasps in the spectators, and even the camera crew seem taken aback. This is news to everyone, it seems – but if he's played his cards right, it will be news to no one more than to President Snow.

Finnick adjusts himself in his chair and begins to talk. He lets the dialogue flow freely as it comes to his mind: stories of Anjulia Lavalle, Damellys, Ilana, and even the warped Carmela Knoff. Bringing these women to the forefront of his mind and reliving their time together makes him ill at times, but he soldiers on. He'll be damned if all eyes in the Capitol aren't on him now, suddenly interested in what he, a poor fisherman's son, has to say.

And once he's done – once he's exhausted every nasty quirk, every twisted secret that these women had to offer, he moves on to the man of the hour: President Snow. Oh, the things he knows about President Snow. Things his most trusted advisors would only know in stilted snippets. Jaws drop as he speaks, but he does not let up. He focuses on the camera and repeats every gritty, gory detail that's ever been whispered to him under the bed sheets. And when he's done, when his stream of consciousness has come to an end, he slumps in his seat and tells them to cut the scene.

Silence engulfs the room. No one speaks for a long time, though the film crew wraps up and rushes off to edit the footage. Everyone else is in too much of a stupor, even Finnick himself. All those years of gathering secrets, released in an hour. No longer his to hold onto.

He fervently hopes it wasn't for nothing.

Beetee is truly a genius, and Finnick watches him in awe as he sweats over the control boards, infiltrating and cutting off Capitol broadcasts time and time again. Most of the footage they use is Finnick's, and suddenly he realizes that a sizeable fraction of success of the mission depends on him. It strengthens and weakens him all at once.

After Beetee's work is done and Finnick's account has been successfully aired in bits and pieces, there's nothing to do but wait. Either they got in and picked up the prisoners, or they didn't. Only time will tell, for Beetee won't risk contacting them and giving away their position.

"If they're not out of there by now, they're all dead," he says matter-of-factly. Finnick thought he would be okay with it – news of Annie's death would mean her relief, her final escape – but as soon as Beetee says the words, he knows he won't be okay. She can't die. There's so little hope that she can live, but he finds it hard to believe that he could give everything he has and it still wouldn't be enough.

But there's no telling. He and Katniss deny their dinner and spend what must be hours in silence outside of Special Defence, where they're sure the news will hit first. Katniss has her own rope now and they sit side-by-side, unspeaking, tying and untying as if it's all that's keeping them going. He throws his rope away after his fingers cease to function properly and brings his knees to his chest, rocking himself back and forth as he stares at the floor. Finnick finds himself oddly anxious when Katniss leaves him for a few minutes to go to the bathroom – he's spent so much time alone that he can't live in solitude any longer, but there's no one but Katniss who understands his predicament. They're a comfort to one another.

"Did you love Annie right away, Finnick?" she asks him when she returns. It's strange to hear her speak again when they've spent so long understanding each other in silence.

"No," he replies, a quizzical tone to his voice. For half his life, Annie was just the bold, inquisitive girl next door. Gentle, harmless, but a bother all the same. It's hard to remember a time when he didn't love her. When she didn't mean the world to him. He has a hard time believing that he ever shied away from her touch or groaned at her presence, but he knows it to be true. The day he realized it was love was the day he realized it had been love for a long, long time. Slowly, he adds, "She crept up on me."

He's not sure how she's done it, but Katniss' question calms him. He stops his rocking and sits still, resting his chin on his knees and drifting into a blank, serene state of mind. For a few minutes, he senses that his answer has somehow unsettled Katniss, but after a while, even she's gone, too.

They sit there for a long, long time. He stops wondering, stops yearning for answers and has simply accepted the waiting when Haymitch bursts through the door, breathless and frantic.

"They're back. We're wanted in the hospital."

Katniss jumps from her position as if she's a horse leaping out of her stall at the races, having waited for the bell to go off all this time. Haymitch's words take much longer to be fully appreciated by Finnick, who sits absolutely still in stunned silence.

They're back. They're back. They're back.

That could mean anything – Haymitch didn't specify who, or in what condition – but if he's ever to see Annie again, it's going to be now. He hears her voice clearer than ever, but somehow her face is a mystery, her dark, tangled hair no longer a feeling he recalls on his fingertips.

Before he can register what this truly means, he finds himself being led to the elevator, Katniss' hand firmly locked with his.

Annie. Annie could be here. Annie, right now. The morning of the reaping, he thought it was the last time he'd ever see her. Even when he was pulled alive from the Arena he didn't dare hope… didn't dream… and even though Snow's secrets left his lips in an attempt to save her, he didn't let himself wish that it would actually work. That they would actually meet again while both of them still drew breath.

As soon as they get off the elevator in the hospital, he's overwhelmed by the chaos. Blood seems to be everywhere, a stark contrast to the sterile white walls and floors and uniforms. Everyone is shouting. Nurses are running this way and that, and the otherwise crispy air of the wing is drenched in sweat and human suffering.

Even with Katniss' firm grip on his hand, he's nearly knocked over by a gurney that sweeps by. In horror, he sees the woman aboard: young, bruised, beaten, starved, tortured, with a shaved head and a mouth that hangs open in unconsciousness. It's Johanna. Johanna, who knew so much. If the rebels hadn't picked him up in the Arena, it could have been him hanging onto life by a thread. His stomach drops as the gurney rushes by and into a nearby room, and all he can do is shake his head and squeeze the hand in his.

Katniss squeezes back.

"Finnick!"

He snaps to attention, his eyes focusing and losing their blur for the first time since morning. It's not the name that calls him to alert, but the voice. He'd recognize that voice anywhere.

Annie. She's here.

She's here.

And there she is, racing toward him in nothing but a sheet, her sea green eyes shining with tears. She's more beautiful than he ever dared imagine, and before he has time to blink, he's moving toward her, dropping Katniss' hand. It wasn't his brain that moved him, but his heart – the magnetic pull to Annie is stronger than he's ever felt it.

"Finnick!" she cries again, and then they're connected, embracing, enfolding, entwined, touching. They crash into each other and latch on so quickly that the force of their collision throws them into a wall. Still, he doesn't care. She doesn't care. Heaven and earth could collapse in on them and still he wouldn't give a damn, not with Annie in his arms.

She's real. She feels so real in his arms, and he pulls himself from her neck and kisses her – her hair, her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, and finally, her lips. A salty tang is on his taste buds, familiar and comforting. It's hard to tell whether it's her tears or his, but he'll take it all.

District 13 is neither here nor there, but suddenly, it's home.

… hi. I feel like shrinking into a corner because I know that this is a day late… and in a much more real sense, it is three weeks and a day late. I feel terrible that I was unable to get my act together. My family got hit with some rough news a few weeks ago and I've had to re-jig much of my life because of it, and as a result, I haven't had the time or the concentration to get some writing done. I can't promise that I'm back on track, but I'm trying my darndest! Thank you all for your patience and understanding :)

I did post something in the interim – it's the first instalment of a three-shot called THE WILD ONES. While KNOTTED is Finnick's side of the story, THE WILD ONES is a "what if?" story, which is somehow even more challenging. It's also the most "mature" thing I've ever written in terms of content – I wouldn't say it's explicit by any means, but you know. Gotta be careful with those ratings. If you're at all interested in alternate pairings, you can check that out if you'd like while I work on the next chapter of KNOTTED!

Thanks again for all of your feedback, constructive or just plain ol' encouraging. I appreciate it all and wish you a happy Monday!