Hi lovelies!

So, I'm back with another chapter. Don't forget to review! It makes my day, and seeing what you guys have to say really motivates me to keep up with this story!

Also shout to my reviewer, I'm glad that you are nitpicky haha! I've always imagined Annie with blonde hair, which is why I wrote that into the story, but in order to stay in line with what Suzanne Collins has written, I've fixed the story so that Annie has dark hair :) And I'm glad you like it!

Now, speaking of what Suzanne Collins has written... DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Hunger Games or these characters. I'm just obsessed.

Anyway, hope you enjoy! Update coming soon!

Chapter 2: Train

I should have talked to her.

I should have stormed into that room in the Justice Building and told her I was going to help her. That I wasn't going to shut her out, and that I was going to be there for her. But for some reason, I stayed firmly planted on that bench for the entire hour, Mags shooting me nervous glances the entire time. And once again, I'm too late.

Now, we're on the train, with the thick, sweet-smelling carpets and delicious, overly-done foods that used to make my mouth water. Now they just remind me of the too-many-parties that I've attended during my stays at the Capitol. I still eat them though. Might as well take something at least mildly pleasant away from my trips.

Mags and I still haven't talked to Annie or York yet. We wait in the dining area of the train, Mags shoving water crest birds into the orange, spicy sauce while I simply sit, rubbing my hand over my forehead. I can already feel the effects of the long day wearing me down. I want to disappear to my room, but that's not allowed. Meeting the tributes and watching the recaps of the reapings today are imperative to begin building a tribute's knowledge about the Games and are mandatory viewing for the entire team. LaBelle sits across from me, daintily using her napkin to pat her mouth clean. Her bright blood-red wig and crystallized skin gleam in the dimmer light of dusk as the trees whiz past outside the window. She's been the District 4 escort for as long as I can remember, but thankfully, she's never seen me as more than an affectionate little pet of hers. I don't even want to imagine being invited into her bedroom for the night, feeling her crystal-studded skin glaze over mine…

I shudder, and abruptly my appetite is gone.

"Finnick?" LaBelle asks, her wide eyes concerned, probably worried that her lovely victor won't be able to let go of his bad mood to charm sponsors. "What is wrong, darling? You must keep up an appearance. Sponsors wouldn't want your pretty face to look so upset. You have been like this all day!"

Yup, right on target. It's all about the sponsors.

Next to me, Mags looks over with a knowing glance and the District 4 stylists, Yvonne and Odiva, nod their heads in fervent agreement with LaBelle. Yvonne doesn't look quite as horrifyingly animated as Odiva though. She's ordinary by Capitol standards, which still makes a her a little bit stranger than people back home in Four, but I like her.

"I'm fine, thank you, LaBelle," I say, mimicking the perfect manners she taught me a few years back when I was preparing for my own games. "I'm just tired, I guess. Being so charming takes work," I smirk, masking my unexplainable annoyance with a sexy grin. As long as I put up this front, LaBelle won't suspect anything.

"Ah, understandable dear!" she chimes, her gold eyelashes fluttering wildly. "It has been quite a day. So exciting!"

I nod tersely. Exciting wasn't exactly my word of choice.

"Well," Yvonne says in her soft-spoken voice, standing up gracefully. "I am going to retrieve Annie now that dinner has arrived."

"Oh yes!" Odiva cries. "I must get York."

A few moments later when everyone arrives, there is an awkward air of silence as we settle ourselves. Just another year with the same old faces, plus two new younger ones. It shouldn't be different, but it is. Especially when I can't seem to look away from Annie, who's now quietly observing as the rest of us mull about the dishes set on the table in front of us.

As usual, LaBelle is the first one to begin conversation and pretend that we are all friends who are meeting for a nice dinner, instead of a group of unwilling, tired pawns waiting for the inevitable death in the arena. "Oh, how lovely you two look! Your prep teams have done a wonderful job tidying you both up!" she pipes up, smiling brightly.

Mags just grins and pats the seat next to her, motioning for Annie to sit as York takes the seat to my left. Annie's eyes are wide again, and I know it's because she's not used to seeing this exotic, expensive food. We survived on the same things growing up, and our meals mainly consisted of salty fish and District 4's seaweed-tinted bread loaves. When I first experienced the Capitol's food, I had been in shock too. But now everything about the Capitol to me is old news.

York controls his excitement over the meal, but by the way he shovels in the food ravenously, I can tell he's never eaten this well. Most tributes haven't before the games.

It's a long dinner with a lot of small talk, and I don't contribute much. Usually these meals on the train are boring and dull as I simply joke around and then collapse into bed, but this year, I'm hyperaware the entire time and tensed with stress. The fact that Annie's here doesn't really allow me to simply sit at the table and go about eating a normal meal. I mean, she isn't some stranger. Technically, I don't think she'd be all that surprised if I simply gave our group the usual crap, making various sexual innuendos and smirking suggestively. But for some reason, I don't want to do that in front of her.

Annie makes a few small comments when Odiva says she loves Annie's bronze skin, or when LaBelle tells her how beautiful she is. I have to admit I agree with both of them. Annie's long eyelashes frame her green irises perfectly, and her bronze complexion complements the lavender dress she's wearing, the same one she was wearing earlier today at the reaping. She seems extra cautious when speaking, and it makes me sad for some reason that the sarcastic, loving girl I used to know is gone. In her place is a timid, tiny person who is polite yet reserved, and definitely not willing to talk to me. The only side of Annie being revealed to me right now is the side she used to show around strangers in the shipyard. Now, to her, I might as well be just another idiotic invention of the Capitol. A freak stranger.

But I deserve that, right?

It feels strange, being back on this train for another year with someone who I know from home besides Mags. The glittery, crystal chandeliers still sparkle the same way, and the plush, maroon carpets and mahogany furniture still gleam with that expensive, impressive quality. Everything is so remarkably unchanged. Just one year ago today, I sat in this very same seat with a different pair of children, who are now dead, gone forever. It makes my heart ache with a strange kind of nostalgia. If only I could go back and do anything and everything to change the outcome for those two terrified kids who sat here with me last year.

Watching the reapings is possibly even longer than the tense dinner. I give up staring at Annie and slump my shoulders on the way to the sofa, so tired and sick of this same ride year after year. Name after name and face after face. Eventually, I don't even pretend to pay attention. Mags notices and tries to understand what's wrong with a twitch of her eyebrows, but I just shake my head imperceptibly. I don't want to talk about it or even put forth the effort myself to figure out why I'm being such an ass today. Usually, I try my best to show my tributes the charming, sensual side of my personality, the me I reveal only for the Games that lets them know they'll have a mentor who will be able to win them sponsors. Today though, I don't even want to think about the look that would be written all over her face if I played that sexy, lover-of-all-things-Capitol douche.

Snapping me out of my thoughts, Annie, who is on the velvet-covered couch a few seats over with her legs curled up to her chest, suddenly glances at me. She's noticed Mag's and I's exchange, and her perfectly arched eyebrows rise quizzically.

I keep my gaze locked on hers, and she begins to blush before darting her eyes back to the ridiculously-oversized television set. I slowly turn my attention away from her too, but the rest of the night, the image of her beautiful green eyes boring into mine burns behind my lids. I spit out a stiff-sounding good-night to Annie and York as they traipse back through the train to their compartments. Once they are finally gone, my shoulders droop and I lay my head back against the couch, sighing audibly as the stress fades from my muscles.

Mags, of course, picks up on this too. After spending so much time with me, she can read me better than anyone. Her eyes are understanding but also sad for some reason I can't put my finger on.

"What?" I finally snap, glancing over at her through tired eyes.

Mags smiles sympathetically. "You know girl?" The question hangs in the air. Mags had a stroke a while back and her speech isn't perfect, still slurred and broken. But it's not hard to understand this one.

I nod coldly, turning to watch the now-dark sky illuminate the fields with moonlight as we race past. Already the trees are beginning to fade. The night air looks so inviting, but it's just out of reach, sealed away by the window and soon to be hundreds of miles away. Already, I feel trapped, and I'm not even the one going into that arena in the next few weeks.

Mags scoots across the plush velvet of the sofa until her shoulder is pressed to mine, and she wraps her frail, soft arms around my slumped figure. When she used to do this, right after I won the Games and during the Victory Tour, I would rest my head against her shoulder and breathe in her floral, comforting smell to keep myself sane while away from home. Now that I'm nineteen, it seems stupid for me to want that, but more than anything I wish I could lean into her like a child and have her soothe me. She's the closest thing I have to family now, which is why I turn my head to look at her and decide to tell her this one story, this one little piece of my past.

"We used to be best friends," I say, staring at the lines and wrinkles of Mags' arm that's still wrapped around me. "Our parents knew each other, so we were kind of inseparable. After the Games-" my voice falters, "I came back different. You know what happened to me. And I couldn't figure out how to tell her—I thought it was going to hurt her if we stayed friends; that Snow was going to somehow use her against me like he did with my family. I couldn't tell her what was happening, even though I wanted to. So I didn't. I shut her out, and she's hated me for it ever since. These past five years, I haven't talked to her at all. Every time I saw her at home or on the streets or by the beach, she'd walk away. Now, being back here, it's just—it brings back a lot of memories."

I hate the way my voice sounds, so vulnerable and small, like a child's. But Mags only nods her head in understanding and then pats my shoulder one last time before rising. She won't give me any advice unless I ask her to, which I appreciate. I don't want to talk about it.

When she's leaving the compartment, I tell her good-night and then stay in the living area long after everyone's fallen asleep, watching the windows blur past and toying with the lacy fringe of a throw pillow. Finally, I force myself to go to my room and shower, wiping off all the caked makeup I was forced to wear today, and collapse in bed, hoping for a peaceful sleep.

But tonight, I dream of her.

She is in the arena, and I am desperately trying to win her sponsors. She needs food badly, so I resort to flirting with countless Capitol women the entire night in order to rake in enough money. They are all touching me, and wanting me to come home with them, and whispering in my ear… It makes me feel disgusting and worthless. But I continue to flirt with them, winking and running my hands through my hair. Anything for Annie, my old best friend. Finally, when the money is there, in my hands and ready to send, I can't. Snow won't let me. I beg him to let me give her what she needs, but he cackles and refuses. I'm angry and so powerless as I watch her on the screen, slowly deteriorating in her starving state. Finally, when I watch her chest heave one last time, a single tear slides down my cheek, the first time I've allowed myself to cry in the past five years. In a broken, choked sob I whisper, "I loved you."

I'm drowning, in an ocean, drowning, drowning without her…

I jolt awake, confusing memories of a sea-green ocean and a burning desert swirling in my head as LaBelle knocks on my door. "Finnick!" she calls happily. "Breakfast! Come, come!"

I groan and heave myself out of bed, throwing on the first clothes my hands touch and running my fingers through my mussed hair. The dream had felt so real. Everything about it: the worthless money in my hands, the disgustingly seductive whispers of the Capitol women, Annie's body, wracked with dehydration. And most of all those tears, salty and sorrowful, pouring down my cheeks as I told her I loved her.

I stop those thoughts cold. We aren't friends anymore, and we can't be. I'm an idiot. It was just a dream. I don't even know what love is anymore, the closest thing I have to it being Mags. But I won't ever give it away to someone else.

I force myself out of my daydream and come into the dining room, prepared to be a much more helpful, friendly mentor from now on, not the sullen, quiet pessimist I had been yesterday.

"Good morning," I say, taking a seat across from Annie. I automatically regret this when her bright green eyes lock with mine, and I find talking very distracting. My voice falters for just a moment before picking up its former tone. "What's for breakfast?"

"Battered cakes!" Odiva practically screams, bouncing in her chair with excitement. "I've eaten too many already!"

LaBelle laughs and coos, "Oh Finnick, thank goodness you look better than yesterday. I was so worried."

Odiva nods furiously. "Yes, me as well. We all were."

Mags smiles politely, but I know she wants to roll her eyes.

York allows a strange, twisted smile, and Annie simply sits there, her dark hair falling well past her shoulders in mesmerizing, tousled waves. Her face is unreadable but extremely beautiful: I can't imagine the Capitol ever wanting to genetically enhance someone so naturally perfect. Her emerald eyes are staring right into mine, and I gaze back evenly, not daring to smile in fear of making her angry. We just stare, carefully gauging each other's expressions.

"Morning, Annie," I say cautiously, carefully searching her eyes to make sure I haven't crossed any lines. This is the first time I've directly spoken to her in five years. My breath catches.

Her lip curls up in surprise, but she bites it back quickly and composes herself. "Morning, Fin." Now it's my turn to be shocked. Thankfully, I have the decency to keep my mouth from hanging wide open. She just used her old nickname for me, the one that she had coined for me back when we were kids. Besides the shock reeling in the pit of my stomach, my heart releases a small pang and then begins to flutter a little faster than before, sounding loud in my ears. Something about her calling me that makes me want to apologize for everything I've ever done to push her away these past five years right now, begging for her forgiveness. But now's not the time, and even if it was, I couldn't do it. So I simply stare, the edges of my mouth shifting upwards into a knowing smile. She simply gazes back, not even bothering to acknowledge my smile. Maybe she doesn't notice.

The sound of someone clearing their throat rips me from my focus and we both dart our gazes quickly away from each other's. I think it's York who interrupts.

"You two know each other or something?" York asks, sounding impatient and irritated as he talks around a mouthful of eggs.

Annie looks down at the table and clears her throat before leveling York's gaze with those brilliant eyes of hers. "Yes," Annie says shyly. I'm glad she doesn't offer any details.

LaBelle looks like she's about to explode with excitement. "How lovely! Why didn't you two tell us before? Secrets are never any fun!"

I speak up this time. "I guess it just never came up in conversation," I say.

"Ah, well then. At least now we know," LaBelle smiles at me with an endearing gaze. "Let's get started, shall we? When breakfast is finished, Finnick and Mags can spend some time with our lovely tributes; give them some helpful advice while we wait out the rest of the train ride. We should be arriving very soon. The chariot ride is tomorrow, so we have something very exciting to be looking forward to! I hope you two are excited to see your costumes!" she squeals, looking between Annie and York. "I have a feeling they will look fabulous on you dashing young people!"

"Thank you," Annie smiles, her timidity back in place. York just smirks and I'm already realizing that's an expression that's going to be permanently etched onto his face.

Well, at least one tribute will look beautiful tomorrow night.