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Chapter 36

Finnick

When they first tell me that the rescue mission has returned, I don't believe it. It's been months, and they've been dangling the idea of their return in front of us for as long as I can remember…I don't believe it because it's too hard to even begin to fathom that it could be true.

I snap at Plutarch and tell him to quit joking around as he smiles like a moron and scampers down the hall.

"It's no joke, Finnick! The Victors have arrived in District Thirteen! Follow me this way."

"Lying son-of-a-bitch," I mutter under my breath, skeptical entirely of Thirteen's tactics.

Yet somehow, I still manage to drop my rope and abandon it, along with my senses, in order to follow the coot.

Her voice breaks me from any and all of my doubts. I'd recognize that voice anywhere.

"Finnick!"

She crashes into me like waves hitting the shore. Her hair is wild, strung out in every which way. Her skin is loose and hangs limply on her bony frame. There marks on her body are fading, but prevalent and patterned along her arms and legs.

Her eyes, however, are what capture me. They're big, wide, and as green as I can remember them. They are here. They are now.

They are my Annie's eyes. Snow may have held her hostage for months, but he could not manage to take me away from her entirely.

"Finnick," she cries into my shoulder. Her legs fly up to wrap around my waist and her hands lock around my neck. "Oh, Finnick!"

Her voice is desparate, breaking off and flying around me as she articulates my name.

"Oh, my Annie!" I breathe out, releasing with it every ounce of anxiety that has taken up residence in my muscles and bones.

She grips onto me as if I am not real. I hold her just as close, for fear that at any moment, she could slip away from me again.

My thoughts wander back to our final night together on the beach. I held her just as I hold her now, and promised her that I would never leave her.

I broke that promise the moment I stupidly signed myself off to this rebellion without thinking of her, and she has had to pay the price for it. I am just grateful that my mistake, my foolish omission, hasn't cost me her.

Our tears comingle as our embrace pushes us against the nearest wall.

For the first time in almost a year, I kiss my Annie.

I haven't let Annie out of my sight since she returned to me from the Capitol.

Of course, having practically glued herself to my hip, she hasn't necessarily tried to leave my sights, either. I can't say I'm complaining. Having my Annie, pressed up close against me on a lazy Sunday morning, positioned beside me in a new set of propos, held tightly in my arms in an endless embrace…by all means, it's fine with me.

Because I'm never letting her go again.

From where she sits on the floor of our bunker area, cross-legged and cradling Arden joyously in her lap, Annie peeks up at me, perched on the bed and grinning at the entire scene. Her eyes glint with an iridescent joy that the baby picks up on immediately. Staring intently at Annie, the baby's lips form a small 'o' as her chubby fingers latch onto Annie's hair and tug.

Two beautiful girls, one just beginning her life and another starting over with hers, are displayed before me in a picture of paradise that even the most skilled team of propaganda artists (Capitol or Rebel), with their fancy frills and ostentatious décor, could not conjure up.

"Finn, what are you staring at?" Annie inquires, assessing my every body part that is now sprawled out on our cot, standing at attention that is meant for her and only her. Even the hairs on my arms have risen to drink in the sight of Annie Cresta, remember her every detail until the memories of her are locked away in the depths of their follicles.

When I tell her that I'm enjoying the view, she turns an adorable shade of crimson, nervously tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and averts her shy eyes to focus on the baby girl in her arms. Annie's hands have steadied on either side of Arden. She rocks the miniature version Everdeen, swaying to the beat of a silent melody inside of her head. Under long, dark lashes, Arden's sapphire-blue eyes watch Annie all the while, as if she already knows every lyric to Annie's tune.

At one month old, Arden Rose is the ideal package for the child of the Mockingjay. Complacent, intelligent, and beautiful all in one, the kid is not only a blessing in disguise to her stressed out mother, but she's also an easy babysitting job. Hesitant to care for Arden at first when Katniss asked for someone to watch her while she went hunting, Annie took on the baby with surprising ease that only a potential mother can have laying dormant inside of her.

Annie begins to hum the song—an old sea shanty I recognize from the docks of Four—aloud, and Arden's eyes soon become heavy with sleep.

Inside of me, my heart swells with pride. My girl's a natural.

One day, it will be our baby that she holds in her arms and hums to, I muse. The thought of my child, one with Annie's wise eyes and soft hair and gorgeous smile, causes a toothy grin to devour my face.

And the thought of our child growing up alongside Arden in a nation of peace and freedom fills me with incomparable warmth.

It's a future I almost destroyed, something else inside of me reminds me. Because my actions could have gotten her killed.

My insides have all been gutted from me and my breath has ceased to function. I immediately sit up, steadying myself against the edge of the bed to keep from falling over. I'm left reeling over thoughts of what the Capitol did to my Annie, my imagination filling in her cryptic blanks.

I almost lost her.

The thoughts of my future and past are interrupted by Annie's dazzling laugh, and I am brought back to the present. She's alive. She's a little roughed up, but she's here. And she's mine.

When she catches me staring yet again, this time borderline panic attack, those two crystal balls that bring me back home to the sea roll dramatically.

"What are you staring at now? The view hasn't changed since five minutes ago."

"Annie…Annie, I'm so sorry."

Brow furrowed in utter confusion over my reaction, Annie moves hesitantly. She sets Arden down in the makeshift crib of blankets and pillows that we have constructed, never once unlocking her wild eyes from mine.

"What on earth are you apologizing for, silly?" she asks with an airy, dismissive giggle. "Not changing her diapers? We both knew there was no chance of you doing that…"

"No, Annie," I cut her off, leaping from the bed, kneeling down in front of her, and gripping onto her wrists with a mighty force that takes her aback. I feel her trembling beneath my grasp and suck in a breath.

It's no use. The tears start to come the moment I open my mouth.

"I…I'm sorry for everything. That night on the beach, I made you a promise. I asked you to trust me, Ann, and I told you that I would never leave you. They were supposed to keep you safe, and I never thought…when I found out that you were in the Capitol, I thought I lost you forever. And whatever those bastards did to you—whatever Snow did to you—because of me…I'll never be able to forgive myself for it. I almost got you killed, Annie. I'm sorry, Annie…I let you down."

Annie wriggles herself from my loosened grip and sits back on her heels as she takes in the sight of the broken man before her. Once, I was her rock, her safety jacket in the riptides the Capitol had us wading for our lives in. But now, I must look pitiful, pathetic, as I sink hopelessly into the waters of despair. What I had to go through in the months we were apart was nothing in comparison to the torture she must have endured.

I wouldn't be surprised if she got up and left me right now, offended by my selfishness and my revealing change of heart. I'm not the Finnick Odair I am supposed to be. Not anymore. I've been chiseled away at for far too long, and now that I've been cracked open, there's no hope at putting me back together…not for a while, at least.

To my surprise, Annie stays put. She lets me cry until the rivers have run dry on my cheeks, leaving behind a salty residue that pawns itself off as a lousy impersonator for the taste of home. When my hiccups have finally subsided, she leans forward and presses a deep kiss against my lips. It's as electric as the first time we kissed in the Training Center, right before her games.

It always is that way when I'm kissing her. It's how I allowed myself to kiss so many other lackluster lips in the past; the knowledge that I knew what it really felt like to be kissed by my love allowed me to take part in a charade that I secretly wanted nothing to do with.

"Finnick, don't you do this to yourself. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen to either of us," she whispers between kisses. Despite the convictions that she is verbalizes, we both note that her hands have gravitated toward her ears. I know that she is thinking of the unspeakable acts that took place in the Capitol.

My heart cleaves in two.

"I should have protected you. I should have never left you," I grumble. Her fingers have left her ears and instead curl under my chin. Her touch is electric. She pulls my face upward, forcing my gaze to meet hers once more.

"You never left me, Finnick. In fact, you kept me alive for all those months."

I blink back at her as if she speaks gibberish.

"What are you talking about Annie? I'm the reason you ended up there in the first place…"

I strike a dissonant chord within her as she cringes again at the thought of the Capitol, and I quickly shut up, putting aside my own agony for her sake. Her struggle is evident in her taught features, and I watch in amazement as Annie battles away her demons on her own, never once removing herself from the moment to disappear inside her mind.

"No, Finn," she answers tersely. "That night, on the beach…you told me that no matter where you go, you would always be in my heart. Your love, you told me, was something that no one could ever take away from me. So while it was…difficult…at times to want to continue fighting for my life…the thought of you reminded me why I needed to fight for my life. So I could return to the man whose place in my heart forced me to survive, because no matter what was lost, no one was going to take your love for me or my love for you away from me."

Her speech sends me into another spiral of tears and incoherent gurgles as I pull her close against my crumpled frame in an embrace that is even more powerful than when we first reunited a month ago.

She forgives me. She fought for me.

She's here for me.

And the thought of losing her again is too much to bear. In that moment, with her wrapped in my arms, I decide that I need to have her, hold her, and never let her or her love go.

"Marry me," I mumble against her soft, sweet lips. Annie flies backward, eyes as wide as saucers.

"W—what?"

"Marry me. Because we're alive. And we're here. And we're in love. And when normal people who haven't gone through our lives are all of those things, they get to do something to celebrate their love and bind them together. Annie Cresta, I am so in love with you, it physically pains me to think of ever being without you again. I want to kiss you and hold you and have babies of our own with you and grow old with you. So, I'm asking you, my beautiful Annie, will you be my wife?"

Now, it's Annie's turn to become the puddle of tears.

Somewhere, buried beneath mound of indistinguishable babbling and flailing, I make out her resounding, "Yes!"

She flings herself back into my arms, kissing me until we both are forced to break apart and come back up for air.

I am going to marry the love of my life. No Hunger Games, no Capitol, and no rebellion is going to stop me.

"I'm never letting you go again, Annie Cresta," I whisper into her soft auburn tresses as she quakes with delight and her tears begin soaking my shirt. "Not for as long as I live."

It's a promise I intend to keep.

A/N: Short chapter, but quick update! Hope you all enjoyed this much needed light chapter. I'm a pretty sappy romantic, so I apologize if Finnick's love for Annie ever got too excessive/unrealistic for you (which, in my opinion, their love is never too excessive). I personally think in the context of the story, Finnick would feel this passionately about Annie, so I tried to convey that as best as I possibly could from his standpoint.

I seriously can't thank you enough for the faves, follows, and consistently wonderful reviews you have written me. They're amazing, and to know that you guys are reading and responding so much to the fic is incredible. Please, keep it up! Even though this was a short chapter that focused on this couple, I'd still love to know your feedback or hear your thoughts for what's ahead!

Coming up next is a heavy chapter that focuses on Prim's involvement with Peeta's recovery as well as her stance on the current situation Katniss has gotten herself and her daughter into. Stay tuned!

Till next time,

-ILoVeWicked