Disclaimer: All the genius for the characters goes to Suzanne Collins, and to Disney/Pixar for the plotline (Loosely from "Up!")
A/N: The song in this chapter is Burn by Ellie Goulding, and I do not own it. Or Monster's Inc. That is once again Disney/Pixar. And there are some direct quotes from THG series in this chapter, property of Suzanne Collins.
Chapter 9
Seven years had passed since that night in the meadow where Peeta had told her about his mother.
Ten years since her father's death.
Thirteen since the day she had first met Peeta.
She had been flipping through the Adventure Book that now had a permanent home on the coffee table due to the amount she was adding photos to it. She flipped to one of the most recent memories, and smiled. The whole gang in front of the house Haymitch had bought close to the local community college for all of them to stay in while they were in college. He had told her, "You all need to save your money for important stuff. Like food. If you're not paying rent, you can eat real food instead of that Ramen crap." She had rolled her eyes, but smiled and hugged him anyway.
She had shown the book to everyone after that, telling them to let her know if something needed to be added, and after that the book was quickly filling up.
Photos of the boys vs. girls paintball match back home in the meadow, Gale and Johanna looking adoringly at each other, a rare sight and one they had promptly threatened to torture Katniss until she gave it up, or kick a puppy or something until she had taped it to the book and they glared at her. Once something was in the book, it stayed, no matter how embarrassing or blackmail worthy. So Katniss quickly snapped a photo of the two of them side by side, arms crossed, glaring at her, and taped it into the book, writing underneath it in her green pen, "There. That's more like it."
And the most recent, the three boys in their PJs at the island in the kitchen, all eating out of their own ice cream containers. The next photo was snapped after the first's flash, and they all looked like deer in the headlights. She had captioned it, "PMS. Men get it, too." Under that, there was a photo of the three girls reaching into the freezer, which was on the bottom of their freezer/fridge, the light from the freezer the only light, and all you could see of the girls were their PJ clad bottoms in the air as they dug through the freezer. The last photo was after the flash once again, but this time it was the girls looking like deer in the headlights, but angry deer, and they had either ice cream or cookie dough in their hands, in their mouth, or spread on their face. She had captioned it, per the boy's requests, "PMS. Women are insane."
All those years, and she still couldn't believe why she had let Peeta and Finnick talk her into this. Closing the book and setting it on the coffee table, she looked up into the kitchen where Peeta was working on some cheese buns, and Finnick 'helped' – meaning he just watched and drooled a little closer than everyone else.
"Why did I let you talk me into this, again?" she asked them.
Peeta, still working the dough as he spoke, looked up with a smile and said, "Because you love me, of course."
"You're lucky you're my boyfriend otherwise I would scowl at you."
"One of the position's many perks," he added with a smirk.
"And you let me talk you into it because you love me, too, chica!" Finnick said, a sickly sweet grin on his face.
Katniss scowled at him.
"No! Not the scowl! It's my one weakness! Ahhhhhh!" Finnick ran from the kitchen flailing his arms and screaming.
Gale and Johanna walked in from the media room where they had been "watching a movie", but since they started dating, everyone avoided the room when they said that, just in case.
"What is wrong with Poseidon?" Gale asked, grabbing a pinch of cheese Peeta had measured out in a bowl, earning him a glare from Peeta, to which he just raised his eyebrows and glared back. "Good cheese, by the way. Is that provolone?" He and Peeta shared a chuckle, Peeta shaking his head and looking back to his dough, and Gale lightly punching his arm.
"Judging by the scowl Brainless is wearing, I would say she just killed him," Johanna said with a smirk.
Katniss turned her scowl on Johanna.
Throwing her arms up in surrender, Johanna said, "Hey, don't kill me! I didn't do anything! It was all Fish Boy!"
"See? It hurts, Katniss," Finnick said, poking his head around the corner of the door he had just run through. Walking back into the kitchen, his hand over his heart and a pout on his face, he walked toward her, finally placing his free hand on her shoulder. Reaching into his pocket, he flipped his hand with a flourish and held it out flat in front of her face, a sugar cube sitting on his palm. "Sugar cube, Sour Puss?"
"You seriously carry those in your pocket?" she asked him, then bent her head down and pulled the sugar cube into her mouth.
Finnick smiled and said, "Always have. You'll thank me one day. And it is in trade for your silence and secrecy."
"I know, I know, we are going to do a flash mob. It was all Annie's idea, but we are going to fix the ending and you are going to propose, blah, blah, blah. Gimmie another cube."
Finnick grinned and pulled out another cube, and Katniss grabbed it with her front teeth as Finnick pet her hair and said, "There you go, girl. Good puppy. Who's a good girl?!"
Katniss slowly raised her head to make eye contact with Finnick, but he ran from the room screaming before she could.
"Can you teach me how to do that?" Gale asked her.
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Katniss had been an undeclared major for her first semester when she saw a flier for an internship at a fashion firm over in Capitol. It counted towards three credits, so she thought why not.
She had gone into the office the next day to apply, and as she was leaving after handing in the application to the secretary, a man approached her. He was well dressed just like everyone else in the office, but much more understated and tasteful in her opinion. The only real clue that he was in the fashion world was the hint of gold eyeliner he wore.
"Hi, my name is Cinna," he said, shaking her hand. "I've been watching you from my office and I just want to tell you, you have the internship."
"Um, th-thank you" Katniss stammered. She had worn heels today. Maybe that was why?
"I have watched dozens of girls come in here applying, and none of them deserved it. Sure, they may know what they are talking about, but none of them even said thank you to my secretary. You even said please first."
His smile was infectious. Turning to his secretary, Cinna said, "Octavia, please hold all my calls for the next hour. I will be going over paperwork and such with Miss…."
"Everdeen," Katniss finished for him. "Katniss Everdeen."
"Katniss? What a unique name."
"Not unlike your own," Katniss smiled.
Laughing, Cinna turned around to walk back to his office. "Touché. You've got fire, Katniss. I think we are going to get along swimmingly."
"'Swimmingly'? That doesn't seem like a place for a girl on fire."
Cinna stopped in his tracks and turned around to face her, a giant grin on his face. "'Girl on fire'? 'Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire'. You are going to be a game changer, I can tell."
Katniss scoffed. "Care to bet on that?"
"Office rules say no betting, but if I could…. Girl on fire, I'm betting on you."
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The internship had morphed into more of a partnership.
Cinna had claimed Katniss as his muse, helped her use parts of her job for credits, and convinced her to become a fashion/design major. "You have an eye for color and you are sensible," he had reasoned to her, helping make her final decision to declare the major.
His most recent invention was a type of material that, when activated by a button, emitted a flame. Katniss was scared at first, fearing that Cinna had gone over the edge of insanity, but he just laughed and held his hand in the flame to prove to her it was safe.
"How do you do that?" she had asked him.
"Shhhhh…." He had said, holding his finger to his lips. "It doesn't matter."
Annie had come to pick her up that day, and had walked in when Cinna's hand was in the flame. Of course, per company rules, she would have had to sign a ton of non-discloser agreements, but Cinna waved it off, making her promise not to tell anyone.
"I'm a great judge of character," he said.
"I have a brilliant idea!" Annie exclaimed, making both Cinna and Katniss jump.
"You want people to see these soon, right?" she asked Cinna, to which he nodded. "Well, if you can make five more outfits, two girls and three boys, then me and my friends will do a flash mob to Ellie Goulding's 'Burn', and set them on fire near the end, startling people."
Behind Annie, Katniss was shaking her head and mouthing 'No' to Cinna, but he just stroked his beard thoughtfully and agreed with Annie. "It'll definitely make an impression."
Katniss smacked her forehead with her palm. This isn't what I signed up for!
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So here we are, at the plaza in the middle of the shopping center, clad in all black leather, from our necks to our wrists and ankles, skin tight…. And combat boots. And as if that wouldn't look creepy and out-of-place enough here, we are wearing trench coats over it to hide it. And sunglasses because it is sunny outside. I'm sure we look like some organized group of spies, spread across the food court courtyard, commenting on the cloudless sky, blah blah blah. This can only end badly, Katniss finished her thoughts with a smirk to herself.
Finnick casually – as casually as a person in black leather, combat boots, a trench coat and Ray Bans can - walked over to her, and looked into the store display she was pretending to be interested in.
"Have a special evening planned?" he asked her.
"What?" Only then did she realize she was looking into a Victoria's Secret display. Her cheeks burning bright red, she glanced over to Peeta who was a few storefronts down on her left and saw him glancing over at her, smirking and blushing as fiercely as her. "Did he send you over here?"
"No," Finnick grinned. "I just love torturing you."
"Be careful. I told Cinna to make one of the men's suits out of real flames."
"And let me guess, it's the one I'm wearing? Ha, ha."
"I'm not sure. I told him to surprise me."
Finnick gulped and pulled a sugar cube out of his trench coat pocket. "Sugar cube?" When she declined with a roll of her eyes, he popped it into his mouth and chewed nervously.
Leaning into her casually, he said in a low voice, "Is the eagle bald?"
In an annoyed, but still low voice, Katniss asked, "Seriously, Finnick, why are we using code? It is a proposal not a mission."
Finnick leaned away, gasping dramatically, leaving his jaw agape. After several seconds he got inches away from her face and said with over enunciation, "Is the eagle bald?"
Grinning, proud that she had gotten under his skin, she nodded. "Yes. The 2319 is a go."
"Good."
"Why did you name your proposal after the Monster's Inc. hazmat team's code?"
"Because it is awesome."
"Understood." She nodded.
After several seconds of staring into the display again, they both burst out laughing and Finnick nudged her with his shoulder. "Thank you again, Katniss. I owe you one, Girl On Fire."
"Don't mention it, Poseidon. I'm just glad you guys got back together after that last breakup. I thought for sure that was it."
Finnick smiled a small smile, and looked over his shoulder to Annie who was beside Gale, which made for quite the funny sight – tiny Annie in their getup next to towering Gale who looked every bit the part of a spy.
"Yeah, well, it takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart. Luckily, Annie is the puzzle queen, and I, being me, together we figured out a way to piece us back together. There is still some duct tape here and there, but inch by inch, we take it off and add superglue."
"You know, that was oddly poetic," Katniss said.
Finnick turned to her with a toothy grin, "Thanks."
"….In a Finnick-y sotra way."
His grin instantly switched to a skeptical scowl, one eyebrow raised in question.
But Katniss had no time to explain as she heard the PA announcement that there was a special at Walgreens, their cue that Burn was about to come on, and get in position. There was no Walgreens at that shopping center. Once again, she thought with a smile, Finnick-y.
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Everything was going according to plan.
They had all casually gotten into position, and as the intro started, they shed their trench coats. Annie had come up with the routine, and it was all going well, until Finnick nodded to Katniss which meant "2319 is a go. 2319! We've got a 2319!"
And as the song continued playing, around the second chorus, the music stopped abruptly, and Annie, poor Annie, looked so confused.
Finnick was quickly at her side, hiding the ring box behind his back – where he had hid it in that suit, Katniss didn't know, nor did she want to – and got down on one knee. Annie gasped and covered her mouth, but not before everyone saw her blinding smile. Tears started pooling in her eyes, and Finnick swallowed, but never moved his eyes from hers.
"Annie," he began, his voice cracking, so he cleared his throat and chuckled nervously. "I… I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. You are my sun and moon, my stars and my clouds, you are my whole sky. Er, what I mean, is, you are all I see. No mater where you look, you can see the horizon. You are my horizon.
This all sounded so much better in my head. It was profound and epic and-"
"Tell her what you told me before we stared," Katniss prompted.
Finnick, a look of relief at the prompt nodded once to Katniss, then turned back to Annie.
"She said, 'I'm just glad you guys got back together after that last breakup. I thought for sure that was it.' And I said, 'Yeah, well, it takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart. Luckily, Annie is the puzzle queen, and I, being me, together we figured out a way to piece us back together. There is still some duct tape here and there, but inch by inch, we take it off and add superglue.'"
Annie's tears started to spill over. Luckily they were wearing the sunglasses, so you didn't see her makeup smear.
"Then she said, 'You know, that was oddly poetic, in a Finnick-y sotra way.'"
Annie laughed and nodded, looking to Katniss. "I know what you mean."
Once again, Finnick's grin instantly switched to a skeptical scowl, one eyebrow raised in question.
"It's a good thing," Annie reassured him.
Relief melting back into his grin, he said, "So, what I'm getting at, is…. Annie, I love you. And I want to spend my life with you, removing duct tape. Um, I mean I love you and will you marry me?" He held up the ring box, finally opening it for her to see.
"Yes," Annie whispered.
"Cross your heart?"
Nodding as she crossed her heart, she sniffled and said, "You know I do."
The audience that had gathered for the flash mob applauded, and Finnick hugged Annie as they both laughed.
"Now," Finnick said, "I believe we have a wonderful routine to finish. Hit it!"
And with that the song resumed. It was the bridge, which repeated the same thing four times.
We can light it up up up
So they can put it out out out
Finnick and Annie spun together, Peeta and Katniss, and Gale and Johanna.
Before it switched to the last pre-chorus and the music drops for a second, they all hit the buttons and their outfits went ablaze.
And we gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn
We gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn
Gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn
We gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn
When the light started out they don't know what they heard
Strike the match, play it loud, giving love to the world
We'll be raising our hands, shining up to the sky
'Cause we got the fire, fire, fire
Yeah we got the fire, fire, fire
And we gonna let it burn
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A/N: Ta-da! I loved this chapter. Next up – Odesta wedding! If you have any ideas or suggestions for this story, please PM me, or leave a comment/review! (Comment/review/follow anyway. You know you want to. :P)
Also, you can find me on tumblr: Konzelwoman
In the hopes that you have read this far, thank you. May the odds be ever in your favor, the force always be with you, and may you live long and prosper.
And once again, Disclaimer: All the genius for the characters goes to Suzanne Collins, and to Pixar for the plotline (Loosely from "Up!")