Chapter Twenty-Eight – Fragile As a Dream
Finnick sits cross-legged on the beach, still picking at the remains of their meal while Katniss helps Peeta apply ointment to the rest of the younger man's acid burns. Tearing off a small chunk of bread, Finnick breathes deeply of its scent before popping it into his mouth. Thanks to that ointment – and Haymitch – the itching is gone, smothered under the opaque film the ointment leaves in its wake. So what if he doesn't look pretty, as Katniss so eloquently put it? If he thought it would make the people of the Capitol leave him alone, he'd slather the stuff on every day for the rest of his life. Assuming, of course, that he has a rest of his life.
And the bread… Another gift ostensibly from a sponsor, the bread means that Annie is alive and in the Headquarters Building, more specifically in the mentors' control room, and that she is well enough, whole enough in mind and body to send him something that has so many layers of meaning he can't begin to count them. Who knew that Annie's simple mistake in a recipe years ago would become a lifeline to him in the arena? None of us could have anticipated this, he thinks grimly. We were promised we'd never have to do this again.
The fact that Annie was able to send that bread in the first place – and it could only have come from her – is the most important thing. It means that she isn't in Peacekeeper custody. A shudder of relief runs through Finnick. He takes another bite of bread, reveling in the garlicky, salty taste of it. Annie isn't free, none of them are, but at least she's with Haymitch and Lyme and the others, people who can and will catch her if she falls.
Finnick stretches out beneath the midmorning sun and covers his closed eyes with his arm, trusting Katniss' instincts and that she won't leave him to die if anyone or anything else comes at them. Too much has happened in the last few hours for him to worry about Katniss herself trying to kill him; he's pretty sure that ship has sailed.
The sun, the heat, the lapping waves, the smell and feel of the salt-laden air can almost convince him that he's lying on the beach back home. That Annie will drop down on the sand beside him, tuck herself under his arm and lay her head on his shoulder as she's done so many times before. He wants it so badly it makes his chest ache and his eyes burn, so instead of hungering for what he can't have, Finnick lets himself sink into memories.
The first time Annie baked seaweed bread for him was for their first official date. She'd asked Mags for her recipe and accidentally altered it in the translation, had worried far too much about the only noticeable "mistake," something Finnick always considered more of an enhancement. He smiles, recalling that night, how he'd gone to her house for dinner, but then they'd become so distracted by each other that it was hours before they'd eaten a thing. He'd learned over the years how good sex could be with someone he cared about, but he hadn't understood until that night that it could be all-consuming with someone he loved.
Maybe that's not such a safe topic, he thinks when his body reacts to the vivid memory. There are cameras everywhere in the arena and the thin fabric of his underwear doesn't hide a thing. His only companions, holding a quiet conversation just a few feet away, are young and attractive. He doesn't want Annie to have to listen to the conjecture that's likely to come up; he knows from past Games that, unless there's something more violent happening, he, Katniss and Peeta will be the center of attention, along with a commentary full of double entendres and dirty jokes. To forestall that commentary, Finnick shifts, bending one knee to disguise his erection.
His mind, too, shifts, to the night Annie met his parents. It was supposed to be only his parents, the evening spent in their home so Annie could see where Finnick grew up, but his mom invited his sister and nephew and neglected to tell Finnick about it, knowing that he would have canceled. He and Annie had only been together for a few weeks; their relationship was too new for the test of Shandra's bluntness or Rhys' disturbingly tight focus. It was bad enough just introducing her to Jenna and Thomas, who were pretty civilized in comparison.
He hadn't known about the additions to the guest list when he tied off the speedboat, his one indulgence since becoming a victor, at his parents' dock. He helped Annie from the boat, but before leading her up to the house for introductions, he'd pulled her into the boathouse for a quick kiss. Even without knowing about Shandra and Rhys, he knew there wouldn't be any privacy for such things once his parents were aware they were there. But that kiss had quickly turned into something not at all quick. More slow and lingering, full of hands and heat and bare skin and…
"Not helping, Odair," he mutters, shifting again, trying to force his thoughts into a less problematic direction. Like Shandra sounding her boat's incredibly loud horn a few minutes later, when she and Rhys pulled up to the pier, making him jump away from Annie like a scalded cat. The smirk his sister gave him when he introduced Annie to her a few minutes later had confirmed that she knew exactly what he and Annie had been doing, that the blast of sound had been deliberate.
"Did you say something, Finnick?" Katniss asks, but sudden screaming in the distance, not close enough to be an immediate threat, saves him from answering. Finnick rolls to his feet and reaches for his trident, looking for the source of the screams. Katniss and Peeta do the same.
A portion of jungle across the water from their wedge begins to vibrate, almost like a localized earthquake. Finnick turns toward the movement, shading his eyes with one hand as an enormous wave crests high over the hill and crashes down, drowning the trees and everything else in its path. The wave collides with the saltwater far below with such force that it sends water flooding up the beach to swamp their small camp. The answering surf rolls in over Finnick's ankles almost to his knees. On its way back out, the water sucks everything after it except the mat Finnick had set up as a sun screen, the only thing anchored down in their camp. Weapons, bowls of food and water, the bits of blue fabric that used to be their jumpsuits, all of it floats away.
Peeta snags one of the flotation belts along with Katniss' extra set of arrows, but Finnick is amused to see that none of them attempts to rescue the half-disintegrated jumpsuits. During the scramble to keep from losing their things, a cannon fires. One more tribute dead. Someone else Finnick has known for years is gone and he wonders if the resulting hole inside him will be small or gaping or if it will even matter. A weird expectancy builds in the thick, humid air just before the hovercraft comes into view over the jungle canopy. The claw descends and plucks a blue-suited body from the tops of the trees. It's impossible to tell who it is. Or was.
After a moment, carrying the salvaged bread and shellfish along with his trident, Finnick follows Katniss and Peeta farther up the beach to the shade of the jungle. "You two look truly awful," he tells them, grinning as he drops down to sit, offering them the food. They really do look bad, their skin mottled and scabbed where their underclothes don't cover it, the drying ointment cracking in the heat. Finnick knows he doesn't look much better.
Peeta shrugs and takes a piece of bread. "Whatever's in the medicine that makes it green at least blocks some of the sun," he observes. Finnick judges that it's not even close to noon; the air temperature promises to be blistering as that relentless sun rises higher in the pink sky. Something that blocks the sun can't be a bad thing. When Finnick looks again toward Peeta, the younger man is watching him.
"What? Is there oyster stuck to my chin?" Finnick makes a show of brushing off his face and Peeta looks away.
"Sorry. I just…" He meets Finnick's gaze again and says, "I'm sorry about Mags."
"Peeta." Katniss says nothing more than his name, but her tone practically screams for him to shut up.
"It's okay, Katniss," Finnick tells her and right at that moment, it is okay, but he knows the grief will come tearing at him again, as inevitable as the tide.
"I wish I could have gotten to know her better," Peeta continues with a glance at Katniss. "She seemed like a great lady."
"She was." Finnick half smiles. "She'd probably smack you for calling her a lady, though." He picks a piece of seaweed from his undershirt and flings it away before adding, "She liked both of you. Especially you, Katniss."
"Me?" Finnick sees all sorts of things flit across her face as she processes the information and he guesses from the tinge of guilt in her expression that she had dismissed Mags as old and mostly useless at least once.
"You." He nods. "She liked your fire." Mags was old, but definitely not useless. Never useless. And her opinion carries – carried – a lot of weight back home. It can't hurt to let the people of District 4 know that Mags was with Katniss Everdeen for herself and not just because Mags and Finnick were a team.
"You knew her a long time?" Katniss asks, breaking Finnick's train of thought.
Finnick looks out at the water, sparkling in the sun. "All my life." He can hear the pain that creeps into his voice and apparently Katniss hears it, too.
"Maybe we should think about moving on," she says with a sympathetic glance at Finnick. She pushes up from the sand and secures the tube of medicine at her waist along with the spile. Peeta starts to say something to her, but instead he turns to look at something that catches his eye two spokes over. Finnick looks in that direction, too, along the line of the jungle, but sees nothing troubling. Even so, he stands; if they're going to break camp, he wants to take the bowls and mat he wove with them.
"There," Katniss says, pointing at three figures stumbling out onto the beach just beyond where Finnick had been looking. Without a need for discussion, he and his allies fade back into the cover of the trees, but not too far; the horror and the danger within the jungle is too fresh. One of the figures drags another along the ground, heading doggedly toward the water while the third runs wobbly circles around them, looping back to join them only to circle out away from them once more.
The reddish brown figures turn a bright, solid brick red under the blazing sun and Finnick frowns. There's something familiar about the way they move, particularly the one in the lead.
"Who is that?" Peeta asks, keeping his voice low. "Or what? Muttations?"
Straightening, Katniss draws an arrow from her quiver and fits it to the bowstring. Finnick glances at his trident as the dragged figure drops completely to the ground. The one that was doing the dragging stumbles at the sudden lack of resistance, then stomps a foot in obvious frustration. When the figure looping around the others comes too close and the frustrated dragger gives it a shove, something clicks inside Finnick's brain.
"No, they're not mutts." Acting on pure instinct, Finnick drops his trident. He steps away from the meager shelter of the jungle's shadow and into the sunlight. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouts "Johanna!" and begins to run toward the figures.
Jo's answering cry of "Finnick!" couldn't be more welcome. She isn't home, not the way Annie is, but Finnick feels as though a crushing weight drops from his shoulders as he runs.
xXx
"I wish I could have gotten to know her better. She seemed like a great lady."
Annie sat on the sand, watching the waves sparkle and shimmer. Her feet were cold, chilled to the bone. The fact that she was barefoot might have had something to do with that. There wasn't much of a breeze, probably a good thing, given the chill in the air as the sun sank low in the October sky, not quite kissing the horizon.
A pair of feet in black canvas shoes swam into her vision and she jumped, had to put a hand out to steady herself or fall over, even though she was already sitting. Her heart pounded in her chest and she looked around for the threat, reached with her other hand for a knife that wasn't there.
"Annie, child?" The feet were still there, the skin covering the ankles that rose above the canvas old and blue-veined, a perfect fit for the voice and for the shoes, a little rough around the edges from long use.
"Gran?" Annie looked up, her eyes tracing the legs attached to the ankles that disappeared around mid-calf into faded denim; the red – bright, hot blood – cable-knit sweater was unfamiliar, and for a moment, so was the face of the woman to whom everything belonged.
"Lo siento, Anita." Her voice was gentle, pitched to soothe. "No, it's only me. Just old Mags, hija."
Annie blinked back sudden tears. "Mags," she said, recognizing the old woman after a few more seconds' delay. She didn't understand every word Mags said, but after a few weeks around the old woman, that wasn't anything new. And she did know that she was not only Mags, or just Mags, but she was also not her Gran. Annie's grandmother was gone, buried a few days ago beside the marker for her daughter, Annie's mother, in a public cemetery two hours by boat to the north of Victors' Island. Annie closed herself off from that new pain.
Wrapping her arms around her knees again, she looked back out over the water. She'd been watching for something, waiting, but she couldn't remember for what. A huge bird dove toward the water then rose again with a fish dangling from its talons. A flash of red at its throat at first made Annie think that it was bleeding, dying, but she shook that off as arena think. Watching the bird grow smaller as it flew off with its meal, Annie identified it as a frigatebird, partly because of that blood-red splash. She used to see them all the time back home, where she lived with Gran. She hadn't seen one here before. Annie smiled to think, if only for an instant, that maybe it had followed her here. She wondered where it belonged, where it thought of as home.
"Where's Finnick?" Annie abruptly asked Mags.
Mags lowered herself to the sand beside Annie and put an arm around her shoulders and it was so much like something her Gran would have done that Annie couldn't help the sob that escaped her. "Hush, child," Mags said, stroking Annie's hair. "He's in the Capitol. He'll be home again in a few days."
"Oh." Finnick had been with her at her Gran's house, but then he went away. He was going to help Annie and her grandmother move to the house on Victors' Island, but Gran got sick and she died and Finnick left and it was Mags who helped her bury Gran and move all their things here. Not that there was much to move, just some furniture and clothes, a few mementos.
Mags hadn't done any of the heavy lifting herself. She made a phone call and a few hours later there were so many people – Martin and Angel and Gil and Azimuth – all of them strangers but all of them victors, like Finnick and Mags (like Annie, too, Mags told her, but Annie thought she was probably wrong about that part). They packed Annie's things and carried them away, leaving nothing behind but a change of clothes for Annie to wear after the funeral. Everything was in the new house when Annie and Mags arrived a couple of days ago.
The two women sat in silence on the beach and watched the sun sink into the sea, shooting deep pink streaks into the mares' tails of cloud that drifted over the sky. Annie pretended she was with Gran. She knew it wasn't true, but it made her feel better while the illusion lasted. The evening grew cooler as the sun dipped lower and Annie shivered. Gran's arm – no, that's not right, Annie reminded herself. Mags' arm tightened around Annie's shoulders.
"Let's go inside, hija. It's too chilly out here for these old bones." Mags' warm breath sent out curling puffs of steam as she spoke. She kissed the top of Annie's head and chuckled. "I imagine it's a bit too cool for your young ones, too."
In the distance, the beacon of the lighthouse on the mainland grew brighter in contrast to the darkening sky. Annie watched it flare and then fade. She didn't know how long she watched it, the breeze playing with her hair, sending stray strands to tickle her cheeks and her lips, when a hand swam into her vision and she jumped. Mags.
"Come, child."
Annie took Mags' hand in hers and let the old woman pull her to her feet. "Will I have to go back?" she asked, her eyes never straying from the lighthouse's shining beacon.
"Back?"
"To the Capitol." Annie heard sudden, jarring laughter behind them, there and then gone. She shuddered and closed her eyes, pulled her hand away from Mags to wrap her arms tightly around herself. There was no one else on the beach.
Mags stroked Annie's arm lightly, pulling her right hand from under her left arm and closing her fingers around it. "Yes, Annie, you will have to go back at least once. For your victory tour."
"I don't want to." Annie tried to pull away from Mags, but she couldn't break her grip. Rather than fight, Annie followed her up the beach toward the dark house. She wanted to go home, but that wasn't possible. Gran was gone. That dark house they walked toward, too big and too empty, was where Annie lived now. She didn't want to go there, either.
"You're not a child any longer, Annie." Laughter bubbled up inside Annie at that declaration even as Mags continued. "There will always be things you don't want to do that you have to do anyway."
"You call me 'child' all the time," she pointed out to Mags, who squeezed her hand.
"To me, child, you are all children." Mags arched an eyebrow at Annie, making her giggle, but when they reached the steps that led up to Annie's back door, Annie stopped. She stopped laughing, she stopped walking.
"Can we go to your house instead?" Annie asked and when she thought Mags might argue, might tell her to grow up or something, she added, "Just for a little while. Please?"
Mags patted Annie's hand. "Hush. You can stay with me tonight, if you want, Annie. I know you miss your grandmother." She changed direction, going past another unlit house and then leading Annie up the steps to yet a third.
"Have you chosen your talent yet?" Mags asked as she opened the back door, reaching inside to switch on a light.
"My talent?" Annie followed her into a large, bright yellow kitchen, well used. She vaguely remembered something about victors and talents, but she couldn't chase the memory down, didn't want to chase it down. Didn't want to be a victor. But Mags was a victor and so was Finnick, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad?
"Something you like to do or that you're good at for the Capitol to ooh and ah over." Mags walked over to the refrigerator and started pulling things out, setting them on the counter by the stove. "Do you like chili?"
Frowning, Annie told her, "I like to dance." She spun around in the middle of Mags' kitchen, almost dancing. It was warmer in here than it was outside. Watching her, Mags laughed.
"You can't eat dance, hija. But do you like chili?"
"Oh. Yes, I like chili."
"Good. Chili it is then." Mags smiled. "After dinner I can show you a dance I learned as a child."
"No, they're not mutts." Finnick's voice over her headset pulls Annie from Mags' kitchen back to the control room. She blinks several times hard, and when that doesn't clear her vision, she wipes at the tears with the heels of her hands. On the screen, Finnick is running along the beach toward a group of dark red figures that look vaguely human. Two of the figures lie on the ground, one prone, the other half-sitting. "Johanna!" he shouts.
The figure that's still standing turns toward the sound of Finnick's voice and then starts running toward him. Seconds later, they crash into each other and Finnick swings a brick-red Johanna Mason up off the ground, her legs dangling for a couple of seconds before he lets her go.
"You're crazy, Odair," Johanna accuses, but Annie hears the laughter and the relief in her voice.
Finnick's voice mirrors that relief when he pulls Johanna into his arms again and tells her, "I was so afraid one of those cannons was for you." He buries his face in her neck at the end, muffling his words. A sudden and unwelcome wave of jealousy catches Annie by surprise and she has to fight to push it away. Johanna is Finnick's friend and, more recently, she's Annie's friend, too. He's never kept his relationship with Johanna a secret; there's no reason, especially under the circumstances, for Annie to be jealous now.
Finnick releases Johanna and when she starts walking back toward the two people she pulled out of the jungle with her, he follows. "One of them almost was," she tells him over her shoulder, the sound a little distant, but clear enough. "But it ended up sounding for Blight instead of me."
"What happened?" Finnick asks as Peeta and Katniss join them. Katniss still has bow and arrow in hand. Peeta carries Finnick's trident.
"I knew it!" Annie and most of the others in the control room turn toward the shout: the mentor for District 10 is standing a few feet away from his station, watching the District 7 feed. He and Acer had been playing cards up until a few minutes ago. "Not only do you owe me for that last hand, but I won the bet, too." Haymitch throws an empty plastic cup at the man.
"Shut up, Devon."
From the other side of the room, Shale from District 2 calls, "What bet?"
Grinning, Devon answers, "I told him ain't no way Odair and Mason weren't hookin' up in the arena. Not the way they go at each other in the lounge." Eyes wide, Annie turns away, back toward her screen. It's suddenly hard to breathe.
A hand on her shoulder makes her jump. She hears Haymitch call someone, probably Devon, an asshole. Rae hunkers down beside Annie's chair and says, loud enough for the whole room to hear, "He didn't mean it the way it sounded, Annie." She shoots Devon a reproachful look.
"Oh, shit. No! I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that they'd find each other in the arena, not that they'd fu— Erm, mess around." His face is bright red. "They poke at each other all the time, is all. Bickering." Annie forces her fists to unclench.
"Finnick loves you, Annie," Rae tells her and Annie nods.
"I know. I know he does." She looks at Rae. "But he loves Johanna, too." Before Rae has a chance to respond to that, Annie hears Finnick's gasped "Shit…" over her headset. Rae turns back toward her monitors and Annie thinks Rae heard something over her headset, too, since both of her tributes are there, as well.
"Who do you think got them out of that bleeding jungle for you? You—" Johanna's voice is pitched higher than Annie remembers, her words rapid and furious. Annie didn't see what happened, but Peeta is holding Katniss back as Johanna starts toward the younger woman, murder in her eyes. Finnick grabs Johanna from behind and slings her over his shoulder before she can say anything more, carrying her away from the others, down to the water.
Johanna fights him, still apparently trying to get to Katniss, shouting at her and calling her names Annie hasn't heard before, suggesting Katniss do things to herself that don't sound possible. Johanna is still shouting when Finnick wades out into the water and drops her, pushing her head under. She comes up sputtering and swinging; Finnick ducks her fist and shoves her back down, holding her there for a couple of seconds before letting her go once more.
"I nearly died trying to save Volts for that bi—" Finnick pushes her backward into the water; already off balance, Johanna pinwheels her arms trying to keep herself from falling, but then he kicks her legs out from under her and she goes under again.
"That's enough, Jo!"
She comes up again. "You sorry son of a bitch!" No longer interested in going after Katniss, she charges a laughing Finnick, who easily sidesteps and, grabbing Johanna's wrist on the way past, swings her back into the water. Watching them, Annie doesn't know if she should laugh or cry.
xXx
Annie is a familiar warmth against Finnick's side, as familiar as the sun beating down from above to the sound of waves lapping at the beach or the sand on which they lay, hot where the sun touches it but cool where their bodies provide shade. She shifts, snuggling closer, bringing her leg over his and slipping a foot between his ankles, resting her arm over his hips, her hand at his groin. A moment later she lifts her head from his chest and nuzzles at his collarbone, opening her mouth against his skin. Finnick smiles sleepily, half awake and fully aroused. He pushes up into her hand and she presses down against him, drawing a low moan from him as he turns toward her.
But then everything comes flooding over him in a relentless tide. Reaping Day. The arena. More blood on his hands. Mags. The Girl on Fire. Annie in the Capitol, within easy reach of Snow. The promises he made: to Katniss, though she doesn't know it, and to Annie.
Johanna.
"Jo, stop." Finnick's voice is rough from sleep and from lust and it doesn't really matter that he thought she was Annie when he woke. If the cameras pick it up, the only thing the people of Panem, including Annie – especially Annie – will see is Finnick Odair in a compromising position with Johanna Mason.
"You used to like it when I woke you like this." Jo's voice is rough, too, and she squeezes, not quite hard enough to cause pain. Finnick starts to pull away from her, but her leg over his tightens, holding him there a moment longer before letting him go.
"Not on camera." Snow may have sold him to whoever had the money, but the bastard drew the line at filming it; if any tapes exist, they never made it onto public airwaves. "And not anymore," Finnick continues, his voice softer. The night in Johanna's apartment following their last meeting with Heavensbee – before the arena, before Finnick's promises to Annie – had been their last time together, though they hadn't known it then. His gaze moves to her throat, looking for marks that faded away weeks ago, pressed into her skin by a man to whom she'd been sold. Seeing those marks had been a shock; finding out how they came to be had made him sick.
Johanna always said there was no one she cared about, no one Snow could use against her. But that night Finnick had gone home with her, just to have a couple of hours to relax before his next client, to not have to perform for a while, and he had seen those bruises on her throat. That's when he learned just how much Johanna cared about him, because it was him – and Annie – that Snow had used to gain Johanna's cooperation. The President had threatened Annie and Jo had done it to keep Annie, a woman she'd never even met, safe because of what Annie meant to Finnick.
"I asked her to marry me, Jo," Finnick whispers without preamble. This isn't how he would have chosen to tell her, but there aren't a lot of options and he needs her to know. Johanna's eyes widen.
"What?"
"She said yes." The surprise on Johanna's face gives way to some other emotion Finnick can't identify.
"When?" she asks, her whisper matching Finnick's. No one needs to know the details of this conversation.
"After the ball game at the Training Center."
"Right before they shoved us back into the arena? You moron! You stupid fuck!" She still whispers, although "moron" and "fuck" are loud and clear. Finnick has no trouble naming the emotion she's feeling now, even if he doesn't understand why she's angry.
"Jo…" A few spokes away, he hears the not-quite-thunder crack as lightning strikes a tree. He turns back toward Johanna.
"How could you do that to her?" That's not what he expected. He wonders again what she and Annie spoke about when they'd broken off from that impromptu ball game.
"Jo." He glances toward the others, at Peeta sleeping on the sand a few feet away, at Beetee just beyond Peeta, stretched out face down on the mat to keep the sand from his wound, at Katniss sitting farther away, near the water with Wiress. None of them pays any attention to Johanna and him.
"You bastard." Jo punctuates her fierce whisper with a fist brought down hard on Finnick's chest. "If Mags knew about this, she'd beat the crap out of you!" When she moves to hit him again, Finnick catches her wrist in one hand. His own anger stirs despite – or maybe because of – the fact that he had the same thought himself and he'd expected Mags to react about the same way Jo is now. But she hadn't.
"Mags did know, Jo. I told her the night of the interviews. And she told me that it gave us both something to live for." Johanna blinks at that and swallows anything else she might have said. And then she's blinking back tears, still looking as angry as Finnick has ever seen her. "Jo, I'm sorry. I didn't want to tell you like this." Some of the anger leaches from her eyes. "You know how I feel about you, Jo. You're my best friend. I don't think I could have survived the Capitol without you."
"Don't, Finnick. Just don't." She stares toward Katniss and Wiress. Settling back down beside him, she rubs her face against his shoulder, drying her eyes on his shirt. "I fucking hate the Capitol." She moves in against his side again, resuming their earlier positions with the exception of laying her hand flat on his stomach instead of further south. "For what it's worth," she says, her lips moving against his chest in an almost caress, "I hope you get the chance to marry your Annie."
xXx
Stretched out on his back a little away from the others, Finnick is half asleep when Johanna stalks away from Katniss to join him. She lowers herself to the sand and lies down beside him and Annie doubts he's aware of what he's doing when he pulls her in against his side. He doesn't open his eyes and his vital signs, hovering in the reduced levels of the sleep zone, don't change. Using him as a pillow, Johanna lays her head on Finnick's chest and closes her eyes.
Annie leans back in her chair and stretches her legs out, accidentally sending one of her abandoned shoes farther back under the console. Flexing her ankles, she stifles a yawn. It's pushing an hour since anything much happened in the arena, which is nothing to complain about, but she's had so little sleep in the past two days and she's exhausted, both emotionally and physically. Without meaning to, Annie closes her eyes. She drifts, hovering at the edge of sleep herself.
"Jo, stop." Finnick's voice in her ear, pitched low but not quite a whisper, wakes her with a jolt. Annie straightens in her chair and blinks rapidly to clear her vision as she looks up at her monitor. He and Johanna lay as they did before, except that they're both awake and Johanna's hand has drifted below his waist.
"You used to like it when I woke you like this." A shout rises from the lounge, followed by a whistle and a smattering of applause. Annie blinks again and heat floods her face. She knows about the physical aspect of their relationship, but it's one thing being told that they were lovers – as she said to Johanna, she's never had Finnick to herself – it's another thing entirely to see evidence of it firsthand, an unwelcome surprise.
"Not on camera." Finnick puts some space between him and Johanna, but he doesn't move entirely away from her. "And not anymore." He says something else to her, but his voice is too low for the microphones to pick up. When Johanna responds, she, too, keeps her voice to a whisper and Annie turns up the volume on her headset, hating herself a little for eavesdropping, but she still can't make out what they're saying. Finnick's pulse rate is up, though, and Johanna looks angry. Annie turns the volume back down. The two continue back and forth, rapid-fire whispers, until Johanna raises her voice just enough for Annie to hear a couple of angry words, derisive names directed at Finnick, but she still can't make out the rest of it.
A crack of sound in the distance draws Finnick's attention momentarily away from Johanna, but he turns his head back toward her again when she calls him a bastard and pounds her fist on his chest. Finnick catches Johanna's arm before she can hit him again, whispering angrily at her, and she seems to deflate in his arms. He keeps talking and Johanna listens. Their anger fades. Johanna rubs her face on Finnick's shoulder and then rests her head on his chest. This time, she keeps her hands in safer territory, which makes Annie feel a little better.
Annie's stomach growls loudly enough that she can hear it past her headset. A quick glance at the clock over the door confirms that it's after noon, and Annie realizes that she's hungry; she hasn't eaten since Haymitch brought her coffee and bread five or six hours ago. She searches under the console with her foot and hooks one shoe, but can't reach the other. With a sigh she stands. Not wanting to crawl under it to look for the other shoe, she walks barefoot out of the control room, pausing at the top of the stairs to look into the victors' lounge before heading down.
The room below is full of people: victors in the Capitol solely for the Games; off-duty mentors taking a break from the stress of watching over their tributes, essentially unable to help them in any meaningful way; mentors whose charges are dead, their districts no longer in the Games. Annie doesn't know most of them, although she has seen them around the control room and lounge over the past couple of days.
When Annie reaches the bottom of the stairs she turns toward the food dispensers, debating whether to take her food back up to the control room or to eat in the lounge. Silke from District 1 is there, pouring herself a glass of ice water from a large pitcher on a table near the dispensers; the older woman nods and raises her glass in greeting before taking it back to a comfortable-looking chair in front of the television.
Annie is placing a request for fruit and a sandwich when someone turns up the volume on the television and Claudius Templesmith's voice fills the room. "—lovers' spat, do you think?" He laughs. "At least that's what it looked like to me."
"It's too bad they weren't loud enough for the rest of us to hear," Caesar Flickerman chimes in to more laughter.
"Very inconsiderate of them."
"Indeed. But that does bring up an interesting point, Claudius. The tributes this year are all adults. With the possible exceptions of our Star-Crossed Lovers from District Twelve, they all have histories with each other. Just using Finnick as an example, he hasn't only been linked with—"
Templesmith snickers at that. "'Linked with.' Oh, that's a good one, Caesar."
"—Johanna Mason, but at various times with both Gloss and Enobaria."
"She is just so delightfully scary."
A woman standing in the entrance to the lounge snorts. "There must not be anything happening in the arena right now." Annie glances over her shoulder and sees Lyme from District 2. She likes Lyme, feels safe around her. "Watt, would you turn that down please?" She walks past the couch where Watt sits to join Annie at the food dispensers. Annie reaches for her sandwich, setting it on her tray with the bowl of fruit, and then steps to the side to allow Lyme to order. "I can't stand their lack of respect." Annie looks at Lyme and reaches for the pitcher of water. "They treat us as though we're pets." That last is so soft that only Annie can hear it.
"I'm happy to comfort you, pretty Annie." Watt's tone is mocking, filled with innuendo, but his words are slightly slurred and Annie wonders if he might be on something. "Come sit with me. Or on me. There's no need for you to be left out in the cold while Finnick and his—"
Annie cuts off the rest of his offer by dumping the pitcher of ice water over his head. She doesn't remember taking the necessary steps to be able to do that, but she doesn't regret it. While Watt splutters, most of the other victors in the room laugh. One of them, Annie doesn't know who, gives her a little cheer and tells her "That was a thing of beauty."
When Watt, looking angry – and wet – starts to rise from his place on the couch, Lyme shoves him back down. "You might want to clean up your mess before you leave," she tells him mildly. "All that water might damage the leather." Annie bites back a smile of her own.
Picking up her tray, Annie starts toward the stairs, but she stops cold when she hears Gloss' voice behind her. "I won't kill Finnick." Apparently, the Gamemakers finally have something more interesting than Finnick's supposed love life to show the people of Panem. The tray starts to slip from Annie's hands, but she catches it; her glass wobbles, ice clinking against the sides as the water within sloshes violently, but doesn't spill. She carefully sets the tray down on a nearby table and turns back toward the television and its main feed of the Games.
The Careers are in a clearing in the jungle, gathered around what looks like a map of the arena sketched into the sandy dirt. Three of them crouch around the map. Cashmere stands a little bit away, half turned toward the others, half toward the jungle itself, keeping watch.
"Gloss…" Brutus starts to say, but Gloss talks over him.
"Look, I know he has to die. I'm not going to stop any of you from taking him out. I…" He looks at his sister and then back at Brutus and shrugs. "I just can't kill him myself." Enobaria nods.
"And that is exactly what I am talking about!" Caesar Flickerman crows in the corner of the screen, tapping a pen on the desk at which he sits with Claudius Templesmith.
"I don't like it either," Enobaria says to the group, "but it has to be done. He, Johanna, and the girl from Twelve are the only threats remaining." She stops to think for a second and then adds, "Maybe Chaff." The others nod. "They have to go."
"Cashmere?" Brutus prompts.
She doesn't say anything at first, just continues watching out over the jungle. After a moment, she turns a little toward Gloss and says, "Only one of us can walk out of here."
Brutus nods, apparently satisfied. "We know where they are right now."
"Yeah, acting as if they own the beach," Cashmere snorts, sliding in to kneel in the space between Gloss and Enobaria. Gloss shifts toward his sister, not quite touching her.
"Exactly," Brutus agrees. "I say we circle around and hit the Cornucopia for more weapons, then…"
Annie picks up her tray again, not really hungry anymore, but knowing she still has to eat. She carries it up to the control room, but rather than sitting at her own station, she sets it down at the District 12 console and pulls out the chair beside Haymitch. He looks at her questioningly.
She offers him her sandwich, which she no longer has the stomach for, and he accepts it, unwrapping it as she tells him what she heard about the Careers' plan. "What can we do, Haymitch?" she asks, feeling like they've had this conversation before. He shakes his head.
"Sorry, Annie. Ain't nothing we can do but watch it play out."
On Haymitch's screen, Annie sees Finnick's group, Katniss in the lead and Finnick bringing up the rear, walking across one of the strips of land toward the Cornucopia.
A/N: Thank you all so much for your patience. I promise it won't be two freakin' MONTHS 'til the next chapter goes up and I apologize for keeping you hanging. 3
