Author's note- Alright guys, I really hoped you liked the last chapter…here is the next installment.

Chapter 35

I want to make love with her, but her body is frail and there is no telling how her mind is at the moment. I sleep in the same bed with her in the hospital ward. They keep her for three days and then I carry her back to my compartment.

Our new home.

When I put her down, she manages a spin. It's reminiscent of the twirls she performed as she toured her new Victor's house back in 4. But this is a sad spin. When she stops, she's looking right at me. With a step, she's placed a hand on my chest and I hold her to me with a light hand on the small of her back.

"Annie," I whisper.

"They made me eat fish and birds and things."

I know physically that would have little harmful affect on her, but psychologically, it is a very damaging form of torture for Annie.

I hate Snow.

She pulls away and moves the bed. Her fingers run over the top edge. "I could hear them scream. They made me watch it. Peeta and Johanna. I couldn't help them, so I hid inside my head," she whispers, her voice sounding ashamed.

"I told you to hide, Annebelle. You promised you would."

"Oh, I did, Finnick. I did. I hid well. You would be proud."

I want to be touching her. I feel like I need to be touching her.

"They said very bad things," she continues in her hushed voice. "Especially him. He yelled your name and said you stole her. Did you steal her?"

The pain so present in her voice cuts me like Enobaria's knife. I want to move to her but my feet won't work. "No. That's just in his head."

She blinks. "And mine."

"Yes. But it's not real. I kept him alive for her."

She sits down on the bed and draws her legs up, tucking her feet beneath her. "They did things, Finnick."

I don't want to know. With Annie, she'll either shut down or talk until it's all out. But this feels like it's too soon. I'm not sure either of us can handle it.

"I missed you," I say as I finally convince my body to move. I sit down and bring her into me. She's wonderful in my arms.

"You helped them. Peeta and his lovely bride."

"I did." I didn't want to talk about the Games. I didn't want to talk about this at all. I wanted to be silent with her.

"Cailean though you were crazy. Crazy like me."

Protectiveness surges within me and my arms tighten. "You're not crazy." Annie isn't. She is just a little off. Her mind works differently but it bothers me that other people have this view of her.

She nods against my chest and I know that my three words have made her happy. "He said you'd win. I thought you'd win too, even though I couldn't…I couldn't think about…Mags and Cecelia and Beetee and Wiress and…"

Is she going to name them all?

"But Cailean said you'd win because it was the only way back to me." I look down as she looks up, beaming at me.

"He was right. I would do anything for my girl, Annie."

Her brow wrinkles. "But you didn't win."

"I didn't lose." Except her. I lost her. She looks away. "Are you upset with me? My actions?"

"President Snow said you tossed me away because you loved the fire-girl."

"That is a lie." I am angry now and as a result, I shake her. It drives me insane that she is so easily swayed that my affection for her is false.

She startles and pulls away. As she stands up, I grab for her hand but miss. "Annie, I…"

She moves to the corner where she sinks down and rocks herself while humming a high-pitched sound. Her eyes are far away, so I do what I can to bring her back.

When she finally comes around, I cup her face in my hands. "I'm sorry, Annabelle. Those things upset me. I love you and only you. I've only ever loved one person and it's you."

"But you risked…"

"For you," I cut her off. "For us. For everyone like us! I want to be your husband and the father of your beautiful, green-eyed children, not a whore!" She trembles when I say this. Very rarely have we spoken of my life of servitude and even less have we discussed it in frank terms. "I don't want to be someone so paralyzed by fear that I do nothing when my girl is threatened, when our baby is STOLEN! Annie, I did this for us. I didn't know they'd take you. I didn't know. I didn't know. I'm sorry!"

She holds my face like I hold hers and she shushes me. She quiets me. She calms me. We sit like this for a long time until she says, "I miss the sea and the sand."

"Me too."

"I want to be a fish. Will we get to go home, Finnick?"

I love how she says my name. "I don't know. What happened to it? What happened to Cailean?"

She shakes her head. "You told me to hide, so I hid. He tried to find me. I heard him calling for me, but they got close and he hid too. They found me after two nights, but I never saw him again." She lets out a deep breath. "Poor Cailean."

Yes, poor Cailean.

Poor everyone in Panem.

Annie begins tugging at my clothes as she presses closer to me. I am essentially pushed to the floor on my back as she moves to sit atop me. She brings the bottom of my shirt up and I raise my back off the floor to help her remove it. I've missed this so much.

When my shirt is off, she removes her hospital issued gown and works on my pants.

We come together so naturally. Nothing's changed. Every sensation, be it physical or emotional, is right.

Until she lays her head on my chest and I bury a hand in her hair. As she nuzzles into me, she whispers, "I won't tell you everything. There are some things the birds will keep as secrets."

I don't know what to say because this could mean anything, but I know Snow and I know he'll do anything to prove his control. My mind rolls her words around and I'm convinced that he had…patrons waiting for her.

My gut hurts.

Perhaps he even made of gift of her to himself.

I nearly panic and push her off of me so that I may go and empty my stomach, but this won't help her. Just like screaming at the top of the Training Center was selfish because I left her alone to deal with the aftermath of losing our baby, leaving her now would be selfish.

"You can tell me anything," I tell her as my arms tighten around her.

She shakes her head on my chest. "The birds will keep it. I didn't kill them. I didn't kill the birds, Finnick."

I pick us up off the floor and lie down in bed, smoothing back her hair. "I know, Annie. I know you didn't."

I am tired as she drifts off to sleep, but I cannot let myself stop looking at her. What if she disappears again? I couldn't go on.

Annie is my sole reason for living and I don't want to miss one more of her breaths