I wanted to write a time travel AU. So... ta da! I was originally going to do one where Annie goes back in time and meets Finn and accidentally kills him, only he's her great-grandfather so she prevents her own birth, thus preventing her from killing him, thus meaning she can be born, meaning she can go back and kill him, creating a super-confusing paradox. In the end, as you can see, I decided to go with a completely different idea. I hope you guys like it :) If there's anything you find confusing about it though, let me know, and I'll do my best to clear things up for you :)

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Professor Crane asked. Annie nodded her head. "Good. Remember, don't do anything that might have adverse consequences. You're the first person to go back, Annie. We're trusting you."

"I know," she said. She wasn't entirely sure what else she could say.

Satisfied, Professor Crane moved across the room to the control panel. "Whenever you're ready," he nodded in the direction of the little white cubicle in the centre of the room.

Her heart was pounding in her ears. Wiping her palms, which were suddenly sweaty, on the fabric of her jeans, she opened the door to the cubicle and stepped inside.

It was small and plain, with a phone-like contraption set up on the side opposite the door so that she could communicate with the base should their mission prove successful, and a large button with a basic picture of a house on it. The idea was that she could press that, and materialise back in the lab again.

Professor Crane must've pressed the launch button on the control panel outside, because the cubicle began to shake. Just like they'd practiced, Annie placed her hands on either side of the cubicle and braced herself as the shaking got more violent. After about thirty seconds, it finally stopped.

Taking a moment to recover, Annie reached up to check that her neat bun was still in place at the back of her head. Turning on the spot, she hesitated a moment before reaching for the handle. What if it hadn't worked? Snow Labs had spent years coming up with this technology. What if it was all for nothing?

With a deep breath, Annie opened the door and poked her head out of the cubicle.

Well, whatever had happened, she certainly wasn't in the lab anymore. Instead, she found herself in the middle of what appeared to be a garden. In the distance, she could just about make out the shape of a man sitting on a bench. Judging by his clothing (or what she could see of it from so far away), he was wearing a bizarre hat and some very oddly shaped trousers. Either that, or he had very strangely shaped legs.

With an excited squeal, Annie shut the cubicle door and grabbed the "phone" from the wall.

"Hello?" she said experimentally. Rather than a response, she was instead met with the static buzzing of a dead line. She'd have to report that back to Professor Crane when she got back to the lab so that he could fix it.

That would have to wait, however. She was the first human being to time travel; it would be wrong of her not to seize the opportunity to explore.

Exiting the cubicle, Annie looked around her. She stood on a path made out of brick in different shades of red. All around there were flowerbeds packed full of various different plant varieties. It truly was beautiful, especially coupled with the clear blue sky up above her.

"Hey!" called the oddly dressed man from before.

Professor Crane had always stressed that she shouldn't talk to anyone in the past, in case she accidentally changed the future. But since this man had already noticed her, surely it would be rude to ignore him. And besides, now that she was closer than before, she could see that he was actually rather good looking. What harm could talking to one guy do?

"You, boy, come here," the man waved her over.

Annie approached cautiously, having looked over her shoulder to check that there was nobody standing behind her. "I'm a woman," she said, bewildered.

"You are?" Annie was by now standing in front of the man, who looked her up and down and shrugged. "I suppose you are. I'm sorry, but at that distance I just saw the trousers and so I thought... Why on earth are you wearing trousers, anyway?"

"I find them easier to do my work in."

"You work?" The man leaned forward on his knees, setting the piece of paper and the feather quill he had been using down on the bench beside him. "My Lord, you just keep on getting more and more interesting! What is it that you do?"

"I work for Snow Laboratories." Seeing his confusion, realising he must have no idea what she was talking about, Annie elaborated in the simplest way she could think of; "we invent things."

"Ah, you're an inventor!" He seemed amazed, maybe even proud, which Annie found rather flattering if she was honest. "Can I just say you are the prettiest inventor I've ever met?"

"Met a lot of inventors then?" Annie folded her arms. Was she flirting? God, she was, wasn't she. This definitely had to be against Professor Crane's rules.

"As a matter of fact," the man trailed off with a grin. "They usually tend to be doddery old men with beards though. You, madam, are a lovely exception, I think."

Annie looked down, blushing.

"Pray tell, madam, what is your name?" The man pressed.

"I'm Annie," she replied. "Yours?"

"Finn. Finn Odair. Keep an ear out, fair Annie; in years to come, it will be a name renowned worldwide."

"Oh?" Annie asked, struggling to remember a Finn Odair in her old school history books. She was quite sure that there wasn't one.

"Indeed," Finn Odair nodded solemnly. "Look out for me, fair Annie."

Annie shuffled her feet awkwardly, embarrassed as she was unsure of what else there was left to say.

"Should I show you the gardens?" Finn Odair offered, standing up and offering his arm.

Annie latched onto it and smiled up at him, "I'd love that."

She returned back to the lab exactly five minutes after she left. Upon exiting the cubicle, she was almost immediately jumped on by Professor Crane.

"It worked!" he said, breathless and excited, squeezing her shoulders and grinning from ear to ear. "Annie, we did it!"

Caught up in his excitement, Annie couldn't help but laugh. "We did, Professor! We did!"

"I sent you to 1515- it was a fun number to type because I could just hit the same two keys super fast." Again, Annie laughed. "So? What was it like? Tell me!"

"You sent me to a garden," she replied cautiously. "It was very beautiful, unlike any I've ever seen before."

"You didn't talk to anyone, did you?" Professor Crane asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

Annie shook her head. She felt bad for lying, but if he learned the truth he would never let her near lab equipment again, let alone trust her with the exciting things like time travel.

There came a knock at the door, saving Annie from Professor Crane's unconvinced glare.

"Come in," he said.

Peeta Mellark, a fellow scientist at Snow Labs, entered holding a book of romantic poetry. He'd been attempting to woo Katniss, who worked in the biology department, for a while now without success, and a friend had suggested her learn to recite some poetry. Apparently, there was no quicker way to a woman's heart than romantic poetry. By this point, Peeta was so desperate to be noticed by the surly brunette that he was more or less willing to try anything.

"Peeta, what can we do for you?" Professor Crane asked.

In response, the blond hurried across the room to present a page in his poetry book to Annie, "look at this one!"

Annie took the book from him and began to read a poem entitled "Inventor Of My Pain" while Peeta continued to talk.

"It reminded me of you. I mean, look at that description- "eyes as blue as the skies I'm under, Hair like chestnut wood." It even describes your laugh perfectly!"

Peeta had a point; the poem did seem to describe her perfectly and, after her recent encounter with a wannabe poet, she found herself feeling a little on edge.

"What did you say the poem's called?" Professor Crane asked from across the room. Peeta responded with the title. "Ah, yes, I know that one. I studied Odair in high school."

"You did?" Honestly, Annie had never heard of him before she met him.

Professor Crane nodded, "oh, yes. He wrote some gorgeous poems about his wife."

"Wife?" Annie suddenly felt bad for flirting with him.

Professor Crane, thankfully oblivious to her thoughts, nodded, "Cashmere Odair. There's a famous painting they think might depict her; she was very beautiful. He out-lived her by a few years, wrote his most famous poem in memory of her- "Golden Spun", I think it's called."

For some reason she can't quite place, the fact that Finn Odair was not only married, but to a beautiful woman, made Annie feel queasy.

Over the next few weeks, Annie visited that garden often. She told Professor Crane that it was calming, and that it helped her relax when things got too stressful for her at work. Which, in her defence, was true. But it wasn't just because of the beautiful flowers; in fact, it was slightly more to do with the beautiful owner of said flowers.

Professor Crane couldn't send her to the same day more than once, so to Finn Odair's mind Annie's visits were random and spaced out. From Annie's perspective, they happened almost daily.

They grew close. She'd never met anyone she could talk to like she could with him. She felt as though she could say what was truly on her mind, no matter how awful she felt about it, and he wouldn't judge her for it. Equally, he opened up to her. He told her about how horrible his childhood had been, how he'd actually been grateful when his abusive parents told him that they had arranged a marriage for him and that he was to move out at fourteen to start a family of his own. That had been ten years ago, and his wife had yet to give birth to a live child. He insisted he didn't mind, but Annie knew he was lying. After some gentle prodding, she managed to coax the truth out of him; he'd love to be a father, but if his wife couldn't have children then he was alright with that. He'd hate to hurt her or, god forbid, for her to die giving birth to a living child.

"She's annoying," he explained, "and she could talk the hind legs off a donkey, but ten years living in close proximity with someone means you grow fond of them."

They had their first kiss on the 25th of August 1517. Annie immediately felt bad, all too aware of what it felt like to be cheated on after a particularly horrid experience when she was seventeen. However, Finn assured her that Cashmere wouldn't mind, and that he knew of several affairs she'd had over the course of their marriage, so really he was allowed to have this little one.

About a year after meeting Finn (her time), Annie faced a dilemma.

Professor Crane was at Coin Industries, a sister laboratory, to discuss future plans and collaborations. Annie had been entrusted with the time travel suite in his absence, which ordinarily would be fine; Annie Cresta was a very responsible individual.

However, on this particular day, she felt stressed. There was so much paperwork to do as head of suite, and Johanna from the botanical department kept pestering her about some book she'd allegedly borrowed (Annie couldn't remember ever even seeing said book, let alone asking to read it), meaning that Annie couldn't even leave the lab without being bombarded. Now, she was enjoying the only bit of peace and quiet she'd had all day, and even that had been achieved by moving one of the desks so that it blocked the door to the lab, making it absolutely impossible for Johanna to enter. Unless she scaled the building and climbed in through the window, which Annie couldn't really put past her.

The only other person in the room was Peeta, which Annie didn't mind. She liked Peeta. He wouldn't add more things for her to do to her already crippling load.

Annie knew the only thing that could make her feel like her usual self was a meeting with Finnick. The problem was, she couldn't operate the control panel and travel back at the same time.

After much internal arguing, Annie eventually decided to go against her better judgement and ask Peeta to send her back.

"I have no idea how!" Peeta spluttered, clearly taken aback by her request.

"It's easy," Annie reassured him. "You just select a year, a day, a month, and a location. The last one is already set- you just need to pick the date."

"What date do I put?" She could hear the panic rising in her friend's voice.

"22nd of September 1527," Annie decided, after giving it a little thought. That should put her about a week after her last visit.

"Got it," Peeta said, fiddling with the controls. Satisfied, Annie entered the cubicle and shut the door, eagerly anticipating her next meeting.

Peeta only realised that he'd accidentally put 1537 instead after Annie had departed, but he figured the garden should still be there. And, after all, it was the garden that she always said relaxed her, calmed her down, so how was he to know any different?

After wandering the garden for some time and finding no-one, Annie began to grow worried. Finnick was always in the garden during the day; it was where he drew inspiration from for his poetry. It was where he saw her.

For the first time, Annie decided to approach the house.

Praying silently that it would be him who opened the door, Annie felt her heart sink when a woman with blonde hair streaked with grey opened it instead. Her eyes were blue and, though her face was worn and wrinkled, Annie could tell that she'd been a beauty in her youth.

"Excuse me," Annie said, "is Finn in?"

The woman wrinkled her nose, "is this some sort of joke?"

"No," Annie said, confused, "I'm a friend. I just wanted to see him."

"Finn died." As soon as the words left the woman's lips, her blue eyes became clouded by tears. "He died eight years ago."

"No," Annie found herself insisting. "No, that can't be right."

"He went for a walk along the cliffs, and he never came back." The woman explained. "He's dead."

"Maybe he just got lost?" Annie suggested hopefully, weakly.

The woman shook her head, "I too hoped that. But it seems not, dear. It seems not."

With a sad smile and tear-streaked cheeks, the old woman retreated back into her house and shut the door.

Annie ran back to the cubicle. Somewhere between leaving the house and reaching her time machine, Annie found herself crying. She waited until the tears had subsided before slamming the home button with all her might.

When she arrived back at the lab, Peeta was quick to comfort her, though he had no idea why she was so upset, and she refused to explain.

Annie became an avid consumer of Odair's poetry. Anything to get a little glimpse of him. Peeta had sent her ten years ahead of the date she'd suggested, and she was well aware of the risks she would face if she defied the established structure and went back to a point during those ten years.

She was never to see Finn again, and it hurt immensely. Sometimes, she still cried about it, but only when she was alone.

With her leaving Odair poetry all over the lab, it was only a matter of time before Professor Crane asked to have a talk with her. When he did, though, his opening line caught her quite by surprise; she'd been expecting him to point out how having multiple books in a lab was a health and safety hazard.

"I found this Odair poem, thought you might be interested," he said, passing a printed-out copy to her across his desk.

Upon seeing the title ("Why, Annie, Why?"), she felt her heart drop through the floor. She knew exactly where this was going.

"Didn't talk to anybody, huh?" Professor Crane raised an eyebrow.

"He spoke first; it would be rude to ignore him!" She snapped defensively.

Professor Crane, thankfully, changed the subject. "Read it. I did some research and apparently it's not in many poetry books, so I doubt you've come across it."

She'd been getting better, had been moving on from it all, but by the time she reached the end of the poem she was in floods of tears. Wordlessly, as though expecting this outcome, Professor Crane passed her a box of tissues. She accepted with a tearful "thank you".

Still, those last lines would haunt her for the rest of her life, she was sure of it.

Why, Annie, why,

Must you leave me like so,

Without a goodbye,

Or a trace,

Or a note,

Why, Annie, why,

You must realise my pain,

The sky's never blue,

Never snows,

Never rains,

Why, Annie, why,

Oh it's driving me mad!

There's pain in my chest,

Where my heart,

Has been stabbed

Why, Annie, why,

Nothing's truer than true,

I can't carry on,

I can't live,

Without you.

I apologise for the awful poem. Poetry is not my strong point.

Also, the poem titles are super cheesy because Finnick would totally give his poems cheesy names like "The Inventor Of My Pain", let's face it.