I do not own Hunger Games.
Finnick Odair is precious.
The Girl With The Green Eyes
Home
And then they take her home, back to District 4.
They put her on the train, Mags and Finnick, the stylists, wardrobe.
Bothroy and Calvert.
They put her on the train and it pulls away from the Capitol.
Pulls away and Finnick doesn't look back.
He looks forward.
To home.
To Annie.
Annie.
Annie who retreats to her room, stays there and doesn't come out.
Food is taken in on trays, brought back out hours later on trays, uneaten, untouched.
In the Capitol they leave far behind, the upper echelons party, dine.
They eat until they are ill and must purge what they have eaten.
Purge so they can eat again.
In District 12, people starve.
In the Capitol, they gorge.
And on the District 4 train, Annie Cresta . . .
She'll be better there.
. . . refuses any sustenance at all.
She has to.
To her slowly perishing body.
Finnick listens to her cry in the middle of the night.
Listens to her wail and shriek.
Knows Mags is there, stroking her hair, wiping her tears.
Unable to speak but pouring love and support into the girl.
Keeping her alive.
Through all the dark hours.
They make it home, back to District 4.
The sea breeze greets them, the sound of the crashing ocean waves.
The bright blue skies and the calling seagulls.
It's warm here, warm and bright and far away from the Capitol and President Snow and The Hunger Games.
And yet they have brought it all with them.
There, waving, shouting, screaming.
Without a word.
The crowd that greets them is large and quiet, still and subdued.
Peacemakers in their bright white suits (whoever thought that was a good look, they should be laughable but everyone's terrified of them all the same), and closed helmets are there.
Weapons at the ready, imposing and deadly.
Annie, blue pill dampening her brimming madness, stands still and drawn.
Eyes downcast. Hands iron-clamped down on each other.
The mayor, a local raised to obedient status by President Snow himself, makes his announcement.
". . . back our own Annie Cresta, Victor of the 70th Annual Hunger Games!"
The crowd claps, even Avil's deadeyed family members.
She will be celebrated, she will be lifted up.
She will be remembered and revered.
And never be allowed to forget, for one single second, . . .
"Okay, let's go. Annie, can you go?"
. . . that she alone lived while twenty-three other Panem children, the youngest aged twelve and a half, died.
"Yes."
Not for the rest of her life.
But even here, in the district of her birth and childhood, she cannot be allowed to go home.
Victors do not go home.
Victors live separate, in the Victor's Village.
Every district has them.
District 4's is by the ocean.
Twelve's seaside abodes, out on the peninsula, larger and more richly furnished than any other in the community, even the mayor's.
Mags and Annie's, side by side.
Finnick's, Bothroy's, and Calvert's facing them.
Empty ones beyond, waiting to be filled with more Victors that never come home.
Grand and lovely fountain, koi pond in the middle.
Intricate cobblestone walkways between them.
The message clear and undeniable.
We are the Victors.
We are of the Capitol now.
We are better than you.
Always.
And Finnick . . .
Oh good. I'm home.
. . . hates it.
Mags lives alone, her husband dead a good six or so years.
Mags with her silence and her enduring peace Finnick can't imagine in his wildest dreams.
Finnick, with his mother and sisters.
Who love him and appreciate all he provides.
Not understanding at all their playboy family member and his flashy, dashy ways at the Capitol.
He has never told them, would never tell them.
Never tell the real truth to anyone, ever.
Some of the gifts his 'patrons' lavish on him here, just to give the required showing.
Most are in his Capitol apartment, that place he is a different person for all Panem to see.
The secrets are all in his head and he keeps them there with ruthless organization and meticulous strategizing.
They are his only true currency of any value.
And he uses them sparingly, doles them out, or the hint of them, here and there.
To ensure his survival and that of his family, in the constricting spiderweb of the Capitol.
Bothroy and Calvert keep to themselves, all necessities delivered and left upon the steps of their homes.
They are secrets not even Finnick has been able to crack.
Something that both irritates him and soothes him greatly.
And now Annie.
Annie Cresta.
Annie of the necklace and the swimming.
Annie who lived.
The first one in the five years since he won his Games.
Annie, a wraith-like shadow of her former self.
Finnick looks into her red-rimmed, green eyes.
Sees how haunted they are, how far away.
And sends her off with Mags . . .
"She'll take good care of you."
. . . to begin living the life . . .
"She always took good care of me."
. . . of a Hunger Games Victor.
He keeps to himself over the next few days.
He sleeps, window open to the pounding ocean waves, briny seabreeze filling up his nostrils with the bittersweetness of the tentative possibility of the world before he learned to kill.
Back when he thought he could escape it all, be a person with a soul and hope and heart.
Finnick Odair sleeps.
He eats.
He thinks . . .
Mags is taking good care of her.
Just being home will help.
. . . about Annie.
Whelp, they're home.
Finally.
But are they?
We'll see tomorrow.
Anyway, thanks to DinahRay for so graciously reviewing. I appreciate you very much. :)
