A/N- This is the three month anniversary of starting this story, so I am giving you all this chapter as a special present…. I hope. As always, please read and review, and remember that criticism is as welcome as praise. Thank you.

Finnick 20, Annie 18

It's nine months after the Games before I'm called to the Capitol again. I guess I was pleasantly surprised that it had taken that long, but that doesn't mean that seeing another letter didn't hurt. I'd actually gotten to hoping that maybe, just maybe I wouldn't have to go until the next Games, since they're only three months away now. Of course, Snow wouldn't allow that to happen, would he now?

Would you blame me if I said that I didn't tell Rafe I was leaving? Well, I don't. I tell Annie. She gives me a hug and whispers that it's going to be okay. I tell Mags and earn myself a sad look. I even tell Daisy, who looks up at me with her beautiful eyes and says that since I'm leaving her, that I at least owe her a present of some sort. Yet, I don't say a single word to Rafe. I just leave.

Now I feel slightly guilty about that, watching District 4 shrink behind me as the train speeds off, but I also know that I saved myself from another fight. We aren't exactly acting like best friends right now, and that would've just made everything worse.

I watch a rerun of my Games most of the way to the Capitol. It's gotten to the point where instead of cringing at seeing myself like that, I more or less wish I was back there. I think that trip to the arena was the main thing that started that slightly morbid thinking, but it could just be that I've started thinking differently too.

Whatever it is, seeing myself in that arena makes me wish that life would be as simple as it is in the arena. People are trying to kill you, so you kill them. Easy as that. No extra variables to consider, nothing extra in the equation. Even Arowana is just another piece in the Games. Sure, she made it more interesting, but at the end of the day, she ended up just dying like the rest of them. In real life, though, there are so many more things to think about.

Like right now, how I can't stop wondering if going to the Capitol again and again is even worth it. Oh, I know that I'm not just going to tell Snow that I refuse to do it. That would just end up with Daisy or my father dead and an axe dangling over Annie's head. No, the only way I'd get out of this without hurting anyone else would be to just off myself.

I know I won't do that, though. That's the kind of move a coward would make, someone who couldn't stand the trash that life threw at them. I'm better than that, right?

Yeah, easy to think that now, when there isn't a forty year old woman crawling all over me, when Rafe's girlfriend isn't calling me President Snow, and when I'm not reading things that have been sent to me by the people of the Districts that tell me what a disappointment I am. It's easy to think when I'm mostly absorbed by what's going on in my Games, back when things were easy, mentally easy anyway.

I sigh, forcing those thoughts out of my head. I'm not going to kill myself. I've messed up enough in this life, and I want my final act to be something that I can be proud of, not something that will completely ruin whatever blackened legacy I'm already going to leave behind.

I arrive at the Capitol early the next morning. Since I doubt there are any chicks waiting in the wings at four a.m., I just go to sleep right away.

The next morning, I head out into the main part of town, thinking of what I should get Daisy. She's damn lucky that she happens to have a sweet smile, because her sarcasm and overconfidence definitely wouldn't be enough to send me into the heart of enemy territory for her.

Okay, that's a bunch of bull. I love that kid, probably because she's a carbon copy of me, from her eyes to her hair, to the way that she can't say a sincere statement unless the situation absolutely warrants it. She's an angel, and I actually enjoy myself when I search for something to get her, just because I keep imagining the smile on that little fart's face when I give her the present.

I spend over two hours searching for something perfect, until finally I come across a book filled with pictures from across Panem. It doesn't show the true districts, like you can't see the starving people of 12, or the huge barbwired fences that I remember from 11, but there are colorful, vibrant pictures of the good parts of the Districts.

The book is obviously made for Capitol citizens, to convince them that the Districts are wonderful, beautiful places, but at least it shows what the huge mountains of District 2 look like, or the never-ending sea of grain that sweeps through Eleven. Even the factories of eight seem tall and strong, with clean metallic smokestacks. When I was Daisy's age, I hadn't seen any of this. Our textbooks at school are barren of pictures, probably because they want us knowing as little as possible about the other districts. I doubt that Snow would be thrilled that I was taking the book back to Four, but I want Daisy to see how big the nation is outside of District Four, so I buy it for her.

Present found, and my day over halfway gone, I hurry back to my quarters to get some rest before what's sure to be a long night.

I wake up a few hours later, disappointed when I see that the sun has set. The clock reads eight p.m., and I know that Snow will have someone ready for me since I hadn't made an effort to find someone myself at all today. Usually, if I troll for chicks on my own, he's happy enough that he won't force many more on me. Today, I just didn't feel like it. Sure enough, just a half hour later, there's a knock on my door, and I let in a woman around my age, with orange colored skin and silver tattoos crawling up and down her arms and forming intricate designs on her face. It could be worse.

She tells me her name when she first comes in. I think it starts with an 'e'. I think. Well, we head out to one of the Capitol's million bars, and I watch her down glass after glass of some bright green concoction while I pretend to drink whatever she ordered for me. I think it has enough alcohol in it to kill a small horse, or at least it smells like it.

I don't drink, at all. I have too many things that I can't risk saying, and I have too many people watching me to risk losing control for even a moment. So she drinks, I pretend to drink, and the citizens of the Capitol laugh and dance and talk behind me, much louder than they need to. It's like I'm surrounded by a pod of squealing, cosmetically altered dolphins. They don't even notice when I bury my head in my hands, trying to block out the roar of high pitched voices.

Then what's-her-name grabs my arm and drags me out of the place, giggly and drunk.

"This is going to be so fun Finnick," she gushes, breaking into peals of laughter as she keeps pulling me towards my place. She doesn't talk, just keeps laughing like she wants to fill the silence. Eventually her voice trails off, though, even though she's still bouncing down on the balls of her feet.

That's when I hear a girl sobbing. I look around, my eyes finally settling on a small figure with a hood pulled over her face. Her entire body is shaking with sobs, and she's curled into a ball, leaning against the wall of the building beside mine.

"E-e-, um Chick, can you wait here for a second," I tell her. She just bursts into laughter, so I leave her where she is and carefully make my way over to the girl.

"Do you need help?" I ask softly, worried that she's hurt or something. Even if she is from the Capitol, I'd want to get her help. The girl curls up even more tightly, pulling her hood down even more over her face.

"I don't need some stupid Capitol pimp's help," she chokes out, barely able to speak through a tear-clogged voice. I look at her in surprise. She's not from here.

"Who are you?" I ask her. She shakes her head.

"Go away."

"Please, I just want to help. I'm not from the Capitol either," I tell her. She lifts her head, then. Her face is still shadowed from the hood, but I know that she can see me.

And as soon as she figures out who I am, she jumps back like she's been shocked. Of course, the wall is right there, and she whacks her head. I reflexively reach out to her, but she cringes away.

"Don't touch me Finnick Odair," she snaps. I hold my hands up.

"Okay, but please just tell me what's wrong."

"Get away from me," is her only response.

"Please, I don't want to just leave-"

"Of course you don't want to leave me here," she spits out, venom filling her words. "You want to take me back to your room, to "help" me, don't you?" I won't deny that those words hurt. I even fall back a little, like she actually hit me.

"I swear, I won't touch you. Just tell me what's wrong. You need help." She shakes her head.

"Nothing that you can do will help me." I notice that her voice isn't sad anymore, it's just pissed off. I guess anger is easier than sorrow, I know that.

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do," she says. Then she explodes out of that little ball she's in and takes of running. Despite swearing not to touch her, I chase after her, and end up tackling her to the ground. She squirms around, kicking and throwing punches like she thinks I'm going to rape her or something. I open my mouth to tell her to calm down when I notice her face. At first, it's so pale and tearstained, those sharp brown filled with so much true sorrow, that I don't immediately recognize her. Then her face registers in my brain, and I know who this is.

"Get off of me you creep," she shouts.

"Johanna," I whisper. "Please, calm down. I just want to help you. Maybe we could go somewhere and talk, and you could tell me what happen-"

"I don't want to sleep with you," she screams, loudly enough that anyone who's still out this late stares at us. I don't get too embarrassed.

"Well, that's a good thing, because that wasn't what I had in mind," I tell her. She shakes her head.

"It's that what you always have in mind?" she asks.

"Please, just come with me," I beg. "You know, I'd be too afraid to try something. You'd probably come after me with an axe." She swallows and shakes her head.

"I don't need you knowing my problems, Finnick Odair."

"Maybe I can help."

"There's nothing you can do."

"There's has to be something," I say. Then I get off of her, holding a hand out to help her up. She ignores it and gets up, then dusts herself off.

"This is a waste of time," she mutters, but she does follow me. I notice that as soon as we stop fighting, the tears start welling up in her eyes again. I pretend not to notice as I lead her back to my place. What's-her-name just happens to step in front of us, but she won't be too hurt if I ditch her now.

"What about-" she starts.

"Why don't you just go screw yourself?" I ask, then leave her standing there, gaping at me. I'm not too worried. She'll find a way back home, I don't doubt that. Really, she's probably drunk enough right now that she'll probably forget everything anyway.

I take her to my room, but be very careful to stay away from the bed, setting her on a couch, and sitting in a chair across from her.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" I ask her gently. She looks down.

"I don't trust you."

"I don't expect you to."

"You're going to tell Snow about this and laugh at me."

"I'm his lapdog, so of course there's no other option," I tell her, my tone oozing with sarcasm. Her big brown eyes look up and meet mine. Of course, she blushes and looks away. I really rather would've been born ugly, seriously. It's annoying when you can't talk to a girl without her doing something like that, not to mention that ugly tributes aren't forced into become prostitutes.

"So you won't tell him?" she asks hopefully.

"No, I won't tell him." I worry for a second about what she's going to say, hoping that the bugs in here are really gone. I've disabled them, otherwise he'd know that I knew more than I was letting on. I guess that if they did work, he would've confronted me about my spy work by now.

"You'll think it's funny," she says cautiously, like she's trying to convince herself against telling me.

"I doubt that." She looks at me one more time, then takes a deep breath.

"President Snow killed my mother," she says, and her tears start flowing again. "He told- he told me that I had to-" her words die down as she starts sobbing again. I carefully go over to the couch and sit down beside her, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder. I swallow, knowing exactly what happened.

"He said that you owed all the wonderful men of the Capitol something, he told you that if you didn't do as he said, that he'd kill your mother, but you didn't believe him. You refused, and he killed her," I say softly. She looks up at me in surprise.

"How do you-" I close my eyes, not wanting to look at her.

"President Snow has sent me my mother's head in the mail, because I wasn't being faithful to my duties to him, to the Capitol," I tell her. She gets closer to me.

"Why?" she whispers to me. "Why would he do that?"

"Because, suffering is the only thing that truly makes him happy," I tell her.

"My mother," she says through the tears, "she was the only person that I cared about. Now, now she's gone."

I put my arm around her, and she leans against me, tears flowing freely down her face. After a few minutes, when she seems to really realize that I'm not going anywhere, she grabs my hand and clings onto it for dear life.

I hold her that entire night, whispering that she's going to be okay. Both of us eventually fall asleep, but when she wakes up, the tears start again.

Then it seems like she can't cry anymore, and she just lays there quietly for a very long time.

"Who do you love?" she asks me softly. "Who would you keep doing this for?"

"Annie Cresta," I whisper. The thought of her makes me smile, and even though it's probably a little low, I wish that she was here with me, not Johanna.

"The mad girl," Johanna breathes. "Of all people, Finnick Odair would go through this for a mad girl."

"She's not mad," I argue. Johanna smiles.

"From what I've seen of her on TV, she probably sees this world exactly how it is, but is just too sweet to pretend that everything is fine."

"I'd say that's pretty close," I say.

"Well, I'm sorry to say that I'm not as sweet as your girlfriend. Snow would look good with an axe stuck out of his head. Tell me, Finnick, do you think I'll ever get a chance to do something like that?" I smile.

"Well, if you do, you'll have to fight me for it, because I think a trident would be more decorative."

"I think he'd look better with both," she says, and I find myself laughing.

"It's a deal, then. If you ever get him locked up somewhere, please give me a call."

"I owe you that," she says, then gets up and starts heading out the door. At the last second, she turns around. "And, Odair?"

"Yeah?"

"If you tell anyone that you saw me cry, President Snow isn't going to be the only one with an axe through his head."

"Don't worry, this is between you and me," I assure her. She gives me a halfhearted smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"It better." Again, she starts to leave, but turns around at the last second. "Thank you," she says sincerely, but before I can say anything else, she leaves.

Just to tell you, I never saw Johanna Mason cry again after that day. Never even a single tear.