"You've been quiet lately."

Coral jumped at Mags' voice, shifting just enough for the gravel beneath her to move into a less comfortable position. Fingers groping blindly beneath her thigh, she found the most offensive shard of stone and tossed it away from her. A pile of half tended to weeds were dumped in a bucket beside her and Mags unceremoniously flipped the thing upside down so that she could sit down.

"Are you checking up on me?" There was a touch of accusation in her words, enough that the older woman laughed.

"Is that not allowed?"

Coral opened her mouth to say no. Closed it again. Pulling the heavy gloves from her hands, she placed them against one another, palm to palm.

"I just don't understand why you care." It had been plaguing her thoughts for weeks. Not just the endurance of Finnick in approaching her since he had won the games, but in continuing to do so after Aveline had died. Mags too had come back after Ford and been a staple in the lives of the Swans. Even as they had tried to dissuade her.

The world she'd been told about, the world she'd been living in – people didn't do that. Loyalty was bought with money and infamy. Without those things, it just didn't exist. It was the lesson her father had tried to drill into her since Ford's games; For a long time, it had worked. She'd been so angry that she clung to any explanation at all. Grasping at a sliver of logic in a world of chaos.

Except when such views were held up to the light, they were full of holes. Coral had had nothing to offer Aveline except a headache and still, she'd kept coming back. She'd greeted Mags for years with sullen agreements, politeness born out of necessity until suddenly it wasn't. Finnick, Finnick, made the least sense of all. She'd done nothing but fling caustic accusations at him, cut him and yet somehow, they had settled into a quiet calm that she was almost loath to give up.

Coral angled herself so she could see Mags better. There were people in Four that claimed the old woman was too far gone to be completely understood anymore, but they were the impatient ones. Too stubborn to sit and listen in all the ways they ought to. Mags could communicate as effectively as anyone else given the opportunity. Naturally, she excelled more with the signing. It didn't require her to try to think through the formation of each word and sentence before working them past her lips. Coral had grown so used to the fits and starts in conversation that she barely even heard them anymore.

It was strange, she thought, to know this woman so much more than her own parents. Either of them. Coral had spent seventeen years of her life under the roof with Gillian and Delmar Swan, and now, she could hardly think of a single defining positive feature for either of them. One, at least, that wasn't their job or work ethic. Since Ford, they focused on the books, on their income. It was the very thing that kept Coral alive all these years, but it had come at a high cost. Gone were the days of night-time stories and her mother's old sewing projects. Swimming at the weekends. It had been Aveline's presence that had kept her sane for so long, and now, that mantle fell to Mags.

With the fading antipathy towards Finnick and other victors, Coral was finding it harder and harder to reconcile the hatred that had burned hot and fast within her chest.

Trouble was, she didn't know what she was without that fire.

Cooking helped, but even with Mags' budget, there was only so much she could do without taking advantage. It also felt gratuitous. People were starving all across Four, across Panem, and Coral was supposed to just start blowing through food like she was on some kind of mission? Not a hope.

"Why do you not want me to care?" Eyes flicking upwards, Coral opened her mouth to protest. To say that it wasn't true. Except –

"Ford was the better one. For making my parents smile. Quicker with jokes and being social." Coral, Coral, had picked fights. Even before her brother died. For a long time, she had convinced herself it had just been after, but with more time – more space – she had come to the very realisation that was hitting her now. She'd been a wretched child, full of malice and spite. Dangling spiders over other kids. Quick to tear down anyone else who dared challenge her. A girl made up of knives seeking to slip through the armour of every person she met. As far as Coral knew, she'd only become more tolerable after Ford because she'd isolated herself. "If people couldn't care about him in there, then why should they give a fuck about me? Why should you?" Her parents didn't. Not in all the ways that truly mattered. Sure, they kept her fed, watered and sheltered - but for as long as she remembered - Coral had been just as involved in keeping food on the table.

For years it had been an accepted fact because she didn't know any different. All the kids in Four had chores. All the kids in Four struggled. Except that wasn't true. The more time she'd spent in the Village, the more time it pulled her out of her own home and allowed her to actually integrate with the others of Subdivision A – the more she saw. Until the last couple weeks, Coral had kept her blinkers on. She woke, went to the boats, to school, to home. Walking to Mags' had opened her up to recognising that there were parents who made sure their kids were nothing but happy between reaping's.

Mags sat silent as Coral pulled at the weeds between her feet, yanking them out from the roots. When she'd been angry, it had been easy to ignore these things. There'd been Aveline to remind her that there were still bright aspects to her world. Still redeeming features. Hating Finnick and Four, that had sustained her directly after.

Without Aveline, without quiet indignant fury - life was nothing more than a slow descent into her own self-loathing.

"Ford wasn't perfect Coral."

She spun on Mags to see the woman with hands raised, already prepared for an attack.

"None of us are. Pushing yourself to the brink just to make your parents happy might give you control but it won't fill the gaps." She choked on her indignation, knowing that it was true but also that it stung. Working at Mags' the past few weeks had shown that she could gain things like time to sleep, to rest, to learn and nothing at home would change. Her parents still treated her the same. The morning after Finnick when she had missed boat duties, her father hadn't even noticed. Tully might have covered for her, but that – that was worse. Tully had given more of a rat's ass about her whereabouts than her father had. Adding insult to injury was the conversation she'd overheard amid Delmar's drinking. Both of them were keeping secrets from her. Something big.

In just a few short weeks, her world had become splintered glass. Each edge as sharp as the next one. Each designed to make her bleed. Inhaling was painful. Exhaling was worse.

Burying her head between her knees, Coral dug her hands into her hair. Clutched at clumps of it hard enough to make her eyes water. Each new day, each new discovery, was a bladed snick snick snick at the seams of her sanity.

"I just don't understand why anyone would want to help me. I don't know why anyone would even try to trust me."

A two-fingered tap was levelled at her knees. Coral looked up to see Mags' signing.

"After my games, I thought I was invincible." Mags paused, waiting for some kind of response. Blinking back tears, she gave a small nod to show she was listening. That she was watching. "I came back and it was the first year of the Village. I took my family to this house on the hill, made sure we all had enough to eat. I waited for someone else to join me. Ten years. Twenty boys and girls with hope in their eyes and no chance against the others. We're fishermen at heart. Sure, we survive on water. We can capture and gut even the slipperiest of foes but that means nothing when it comes to doing that to other children. Then you factor in the divers and the factory workers and you know as well as I do that, we never stood a chance."

"So, I formed a plan. A genius one I thought. If Districts One and Two could make careers, why not us?" Coral's breath hitched in her throat. The fucking camps. "My idea was training systems in schools. Standardisation across all of Four to ensure every single child would know how to wield a trident. A dagger. It ran once the way I'd hoped, for the twenty-seventh. It took a year for it to be completely bastardised by the Capitol. The uprising around the thirty-fifth didn't help matters. In fact, it meant more people were starving. More people were willing to sign their children up to just put food on the table."

Another shard was embedding itself between her ribs, sharp and bloodied. Her father had crowed about not trusting a single winning tribute from Four and here was his proof. He was old enough to remember the installation of any camps. He'd have been right in the middle of his reaping's when it'd have happened if her math was right. Delmar had never said if he'd been a camp participant or not. He didn't speak about his childhood. There had, however, been aunts and uncles. People who might have been. None that she knew. None that, she suspected, were alive.

"I'm not telling you these things to destroy our trust Coral, I'm telling you that a system like this makes it impossible to be a good person no matter how much you try." Mags' hand found her knee again. Squeezed. "It's okay to need time to figure out how to try. That's all I've done. With your brother, even when it was said -"

The abrupt cut off of Mags' words made her brow furrow.

"Even when it was said?" She repeated it but received only a shake of a head in response.

"I misspoke. I meant that I tried to help every tribute including your brother and that I try to help those left behind here - where I can – even when the Capitol makes it difficult to. If people can trust me after that, then they certainly can trust you."

There was a glint behind Mags' eyes that made Coral doubt her. For the first time, she wondered if this woman had been lying to her too. Only, try as she might, Coral couldn't even begin to think what she was being lied to about. Moving her head until her chin rested against the old woman's hand, Coral chose to let it go for now. Mags was offering trust. Not fallacies. Why else tell her the truth of the camps? It was the perfect excuse for Coral to tuck tail and run. Yet, somehow knowing that Mags had done something entirely awful with good intentions made her trust the woman all the more. It made little sense, but then, what did these days?

Resting her chin back against her arms, Coral wasn't quite sure what else there was to say. So instead she picked at a different thread, one that had been unveiling itself over the last couple weeks.

"Finnick lives here, doesn't he?" Truthfully, she should've noticed it sooner. The ease with which he swanned through the house half-dressed. How he could locate items faster than Mags herself could. It was in cleaning one of the supposed guest rooms on the second floor that she'd found her proof, a rattle of a knob on the chest of drawers suggesting that a screw was loose and thus prompting her to open it and see. Inside had been a few odds and ends, most of it comprised of fishhooks and rope twined into knots. The very same rope she'd watched him twist and curl on an endless loop during the nights he rested himself against her shins. Finnick was never far from that rope.

Mags' mouth opened, then shut. She gave a sigh.

"Yes."

"Why?" She asked incredulously. As far as Coral could tell there was an equally lovely house right across the green that'd have only been filled with a family of eight. Sure, Finnick got free meals and the like with Mags, but he'd have gotten those with his own mother. Not to mention, internally, it was hardly going to be all that different inside compared to Mags' place. It couldn't be a dislike of internal architecture.

As quick as the thought struck her, Coral's brain decided to finally snap puzzle pieces into place.

"Mags, where's Finnick's mom?"

For weeks now Coral had been visiting the Victors Village and its inhabitants. She knew each of the three kids, knew Medea and Cove's partners by sight and sound. Not enough to suggest friendliness, but she was certainly better equipped to pick out their silhouettes and answer when they called their hellos. Except for Finnick, she'd yet to see a single glimpse of another person in his house.

The knowledge rising in her made her furious again. Another fucking shard. This one was more confusing than the last.

"My mother doesn't like it up here." Both Coral and Mags flinched, neither of them having heard Finnick come around the corner into the back yard of the house.

His expression wasn't angry. It wasn't much of anything. Coral disliked this part of the boy most because no one became that guarded without building some solid walls in the process. She recognised it because she'd lived it. It was the face beneath his masks. The truth of Finnick. His resting expression, when he didn't have to woo or persuade others into loving him, was a blank slate. A piece of unfired clay that could be taken down and rebuilt until it found the perfect form.

When the walls dropped on occasion, there was a flash of something real. Buried deep. A faint smile. Soft and childlike. Vulnerable. Coral, despite all her misgivings, knew without a doubt that it was an expression she'd have done her best to protect. That kind of innocence deserved someone to fight for it.

"Wh-," She was about to ask the same thing before reconsidering and Finnick ambled across the yard to fold his legs beneath him. He dropped the basket he was carrying into the grass with gentleness, flicking back the covering briefly to reveal the fresh fruit it held inside. Mags made a noise of contentment and reached to grab a peach, brushing it off with her fingertips before taking a bite. Finnick cleared his throat and Coral looked back to him.

"She's one of those people that doesn't like to run from grief. Most of us find the first point on the horizon and chase it until we're ready to come back and face it. Mom – she dresses herself up in it. It's her life raft." Coral knew Finnick's father was dead. She'd never really bothered to try understanding the circumstances of it but it was easy to tell that the wound was raw. Finnick's bottom lip tucked itself beneath his teeth and Mags reached forward to pat his knee. The touch was so intimate it made her want to recoil. Coral couldn't remember the last time her own mother or father had offered comfort so easily. There were times she suspected they didn't know how anymore. "I left the knots after me, didn't I?"

Coral nodded while Finnick sighed, "You got there early that day. Usually, I could cover it up but should've known you'd investigate that stupid drawer. I'd been meaning to tighten the screws but got distracted."

She was almost annoyed at the accusation before he gave a small bark of a laugh.

"At least I won't need to try leg it down the trellis again at stupid hours. Near killed me the last time." Coral blinked as Mags gave a small throaty laugh.

"You've been sneaking out the windows?" Asking it dumbly, the girl shook her head as the same word rose for the third time. "Why?"

"I didn't know if you'd ruin the illusion. Capitol can't sell the shiny perfect homes if one of the victors all but refuses to live in his can they?" Pride smarting that he'd have believed her capable of that kind of petty action, Coral couldn't help but recognise there might also have been some truth in there. In her anger, she'd been happy to ignore him outright as best she could. While that rage had now vanished, Coral's track record in murder attempts on Finnick's life was pretty high all things considered. It would be logical to imagine that if she couldn't destroy him physically that she'd go for the second-best. All in all, it further solidified the truth of her own words to Mags earlier. She'd been a wretched spiteful person. Enough of one that Finnick felt it better to shimmy down a second story trellis and return through the front door rather than admit he was living with old Flanagan.

It still didn't answer why.

"But where is your mother?" Persephone Odair certainly existed. Coral remembered seeing her during the victory ceremony, crying on the stage with her husband as Finnick ran to his parents off the train. The memory of it was stark and red rimmed. Coral had been furious.

"She lives in the place I grew up. They both came up here at first, but the games sort of – messed with her. I'm their only kid, and then I get reaped and mom just –" He seemed to be searching for words he couldn't find before giving up, "She hated it up here. Hated the strangeness of it. Burst into crying at the drop of a pin because she wanted me to still be her baby boy and I just wasn't. Not anymore." A pin could've dropped and left a clang of noise in its wake for all the silence that flooded the space around them. No birds sang. The gravel beneath Coral seemed to grow softer and rustle less when she moved. She was projecting, she knew that. Except it felt right in the moment. To feel like the world had slowed down as Finnick spoke. Her self-flagellation and self-pity were being drowned out by Finnick once again.

"I didn't want to go back on tour. She was so fragile, the thought of her watching me relive each kid I'd killed – it was too much. I had no choice though, and my dad made her let me go. I remember hating every second and wanting to be home again, to try and go back to normal. The makeup team had a field day with me because I kept losing sleep. Mags used to sit with me at night." Mags inclined her head, expression sad. "Then I got word my dad died while in District Two. After that, I just was sort of numb. Got back and mom had moved back home. Said she couldn't bear to leave it behind."

The detached air was back and Coral wanted to shake Finnick free of it. To imbue him with something more easily recognisable. Anger, or grief. Something easier to face down than bland acceptance.

"Mags made me move in with her after a while. Wasn't like we'd got anyone else, and mom seems happier if I just go by the odd time. Makes it easier to maintain the illusion." Coral's foot slipped on the uneven surface beneath her and jarred her forward. It was a long moment before she realised she'd moved without any outright agreement from her own brain; Her fingers curled around Finnick's shoulder in a grip so tight she surely left indentations.

"You don't need to keep an illusion with me." She spoke it sincerely. Without a hint of a lie. Finnick reached for her hand and held it against himself. The three of them stayed put for a long stretch, Coral and Mags holding onto Finnick, Finnick reaching back to keep them in place. It was the closest thing to family Coral had felt in a long time, and they were the most unlikely of candidates to experience it with. Even so, she couldn't have denied the sense of calmness it imbued her with. Or how her pulse quickened when Finnick flashed one of those rare innocent smiles and said -

"I know."