"Annie Cresta?"
Annie swallows nervously and rises from her chair. Raych looks up from the manuscript she's reading and annotating to give her an encouraging smile and nod, and Cashmere is reliable as ever, there for whatever Annie needs.
With that support, Annie walks across the waiting room and into the office. Her heart ratchets up as soon as the door closes behind her, but she manages to read the woman's body language enough to interpret the gesture inviting her to sit down.
Annie sees a brown leather loveseat and a blue armchair.
"My name is Jenn. Please, make yourself comfortable."
Annie looks around at the office, but she doesn't see anywhere comfortable. The room is too open. It's got huge floor-to-ceiling windows to her right, and she can't see anywhere that isn't exposed to those windows. The armchair is smack in the middle of the room, with wide open spaces around it, as is the loveseat. The wall across from her has a desk facing the wall; to her right is the door; behind her, bookcases and a filing cabinet cover the wall. Nowhere small and enclosed. Nowhere safe.
Finally, Annie sits down gingerly on the armchair.
Meanwhile, Jenn takes a padded black chair on wheels from her desk and spins it around to face Annie, then pulls it closer and seats herself on it.
"I don't see any records of previous treatment for you. Is this your first time in therapy?"
Annie nods. She doesn't know how Jenn can stand to be sitting in the middle of the floor like that in a chair that isn't even solid on the ground.
"Welcome, then. I hope to make it a helpful experience. Are you familiar with how therapy works, or would you like a quick overview?"
Annie shakes her head. All she knows is that this is the place where they're supposed to fix her crazy so she can get a job and go shopping.
"Very good. I'll start from the beginning, then. But before I launch into my spiel, I'll let you take a minute to get comfortable and ask any questions you may have. Of course, you can ask questions any time you want, but I like to let my clients get started with what's on their mind."
Jenn then folds her hands and sits with a relaxed, patient look, like she can wait all day for Annie.
But Annie doesn't even know where to start.
"Take your time."
Annie thinks. You can't ask someone to rearrange their office to make you feel safe. That's just silly. And she doesn't even know where to start with anything else. Can we make the Hunger Games never have happened? Can I not have been reaped? Can you promise me my husband will make it home safely?
Finally, she shakes her head, wondering if she's missing something important.
Jenn's smile is pleasant, though. "I'll start, then. And don't hesitate to ask any questions you come up with. I try to leave pauses, but interrupt me as often as you need to."
Annie listens, but motion in her peripheral vision keeps distracting her. Someone walking across the sidewalk. A bird flying by. The light in the room suddenly dimming, making her gasp, overwhelmed with images of bombers flying overhead, until she realizes it was a cloud passing in front of the sun. She needs to get used to living above ground again. Some of her last memories before she went into hiding are of peering out the window of her house, looking for bombers.
Her eyes are unfocused. She's seeing Grace's house, imagining it invaded during the Battle for Annie Cresta, with shattered glass all over the floor the morning after the first bombs were dropped.
I'm sorry, almost-sister. Please be okay.
"Annie? Annie, if you need to take a break or you need anything to get comfortable, let me know. I can only help you if we talk."
Annie realizes she doesn't know how much she missed, only that it was probably a lot, and her heart is going like a jackhammer in her chest.
Raych and Nessa are paying for this, and she can't let everyone down. She needs to get better so she can get back on her feet. This isn't the Village, where she's got winnings coming in every month and more kids to run her errands than she has errands to run.
But she can't concentrate in this strange, exposed room, not even if her life depends on it.
"Can I-" The words stick in her hoarse throat. "Can I have someone come in here with me? Is that allowed?"
"Of course." Jenn leans forward in her chair, half ready to stand up. "Is there someone in the waiting room you'd like? Or next time?"
"Cashmere," Annie chokes.
Jenn flubs the unfamiliar name at the door, but not so much that Cashmere doesn't recognize it and come quickly.
Annie breathes a deep sigh as soon as Cashmere meets her eye, and she raises her chin with a mute, pleading look.
Cashmere knows without asking what Annie needs. She walks around the room as soon as Jenn's closed the door. First the windows, checking for vulnerabilities, the lay of the land outside, escape routes. Then the shelves and the books and knicknacks on them, anything that can be improvised as a weapon. Annie watches her eyes scan the floor and the furniture, checking out the spaces underneath and behind them, looking to see where there's room for someone or something to hide.
Only following Cashmere's gaze leads Annie to realize that there's a small table beside her, with a cup of water and a box of tissues. It hadn't even registered, in all her threat assessment, but now she takes a sip of water, trying to get herself under control. She's so glad that Cashmere's allowed to follow her here. Not like the Capitol, where Mags had to wait outside while Annie was poked, prodded, and questioned.
Once the brief inspection is finished, Cashmere gives Annie a nod and comes to stand beside her.
"Have a seat if you like," Jenn offers.
Cashmere looks at Annie, who really needs a formal bodyguard right now. "Thank you," she says politely to Jenn, "but I'd rather stand, if that's all right?"
"Quite all right. This room is all about making everyone in it as comfortable as possible. Better now?" she asks Annie.
She gives Jenn a tremulous smile. "Yes. I'm sorry, can you start over with what you were saying earlier? I promise to do better this time."
With Cashmere on guard, Annie's able to leave the window-watching and listening for sounds outside the door to her while she learns about therapy.
"In a nutshell, my job is to talk to you about whatever might be making you miserable, afraid, angry, or otherwise unhappy in your life, and help you come up with ways of managing your emotions so they're not so hard to deal with."
"So you're like a mentor," Annie says.
"Yes, mentoring is similar to what I do. Have you had good experiences with a mentor?"
Annie thinks of Mags. She hated her at first, dragging her through the hoops, abandoning her to the hovercraft taking her to the arena. Not leaving her alone afterward, when all she wanted to do was sleep. But then she loved her.
She nods slowly.
Jenn is pleased. "That's good, that will help you. One way in which I'm different from a mentor is that I've had formal training in medical techniques. I'm more like a doctor in that respect."
Annie doesn't like to think of doctors, shoving needles into her and talking about how soon she can make her appearance on Flickerman, so she thinks of Joule instead. Joule had formal training, and taught Annie what she knew. And she let Cashmere stand guard in the room so Annie could concentrate.
"If you have nightmares, or trouble sleeping, there are techniques I can teach you that should give you some relief. If you have times when nothing obviously bad is happening, yet your breath is coming short, your heart is pounding, your palms are sweaty, and you feel like you're going to die, I can help you learn to train yourself out of these episodes."
Annie gasps. How did she know?
Jenn nods knowingly at the shock on her face. "It happens to a lot of people, you'd be surprised. We have ways of helping with that.
"Unlike a doctor, though," Jenn continues, "I won't ever touch you. I will only sit over here and talk to you. I may make suggestions, like unclenching your fists, but you never have to do anything you're not comfortable doing.
"You also never have to talk about anything you don't want to. You can change the subject, say 'not now', or ask me not to bring something up. You can take a break any time you want, to think about what you want to say, or if it's getting too intense. I can only help you if I know what's bothering you, but making this into a torture session that you hate certainly won't help you."
Torture. Are they torturing Finnick now? Are they going to come for her, even all the way across the sea?
With an effort, Annie looks at Cashmere. They came for her before, and they even caught her, but Cashmere saved her. Cashmere's here.
"I can see that your mind wandered just now. Was I going on for too long, did I say something, did you think of something you wanted to say?"
Jenn adopts her waiting mode again, and she really does make Annie feel like she can take as long as she needs. It's a performance, Annie realizes, her mind flashing to Finnick, but it's not a bad one if it's only for work. She thinks again of Joule, whose lectures were sometimes rehearsed, as were her pauses for questions, but that just meant she had training, not that she lived with a mask she was never allowed to take off.
So Annie laughs off her impulse to tell Jenn she doesn't have to perform, not for Annie. She doesn't even know her! Finnick and Cashmere just have her feeling protective.
Instead, she tries to think what had her zoning out.
"So if I wanted to ask you not to bring up torture...I mean, we'll probably have to talk about it eventually, but-"
"That's exactly what I meant," Jenn says encouragingly, and she scribbles on the notepad in her lap. "Keep telling me about what bothers you, and remember, we never have to talk about anything that you're not ready for."
This is starting to sound like it might be doable. Only... "What if I decide I'm ready to tell you something, but not anyone else?" That was the best part of Finnick, when Donn was driving her crazy trying to help, and she couldn't order Mags around, but she could take Finnick out into the middle of nowhere and tell him everything she was thinking.
"That's a good question, and I'm glad you asked. What you tell me stays in this room. Only if you tell me you're a danger to someone else do I have the obligation to protect them by reporting you, but even then, only the parts where you're planning to break into your neighbor's house." Jenn smiles reassuringly, to say that she's sure Annie's going to do no such thing, but Annie's reliving events that she wasn't even there for.
Donn. Rudder. Grace.
She looks at Cashmere, and back at Jenn, pulling herself into the present more easily this time. "Okay. But if someone can overhear us..."
Jenn shakes her head. "The building was chosen with privacy in mind. The walls are very thick." She looks at Cashmere. "You couldn't hear us from the waiting room, could you?"
Cashmere shakes her head, no.
"The neighboring offices can't hear us either," Jenn assures them. "And the windows are tinted. We can see out, but no one can see in."
Annie heaves a deep breath, surprised. It's still not good, because a window is still a potential point of entry in the event of a raid, but at least no one is watching her, and no one can plan a break-in from that vantage point.
"We can close the blinds, if you like," Jenn offers. "Most of my clients prefer to be able to see outside, but it's completely up to you."
Annie glances up at Cashmere. "Your professional opinion?" She'd prefer them closed, obviously, but if Cashmere's going to protect her, she's got to be able to gather all the information about terrain and movements that she can.
"Open," Cashmere answers, exactly as Annie expected.
Somehow, it's okay even with them open, because she and Cashmere are a team. She faces Jenn again and nods for her to continue.
"If we run into each other in public, I pretend I don't know you. Not because I don't like you, but because you might not want everyone to know you're in therapy. I always err on the side of protecting your privacy. I take notes on our sessions, but I lock them up, and no one else gets to read them."
Better and better—the Capitol sure as hell didn't give a fig about her privacy—but Jenn is still only a therapist. Annie makes a slight eye-rolling gesture to the ceiling, asking about bugs and hidden cameras, but Jenn doesn't seem to get what she's asking. Annie makes a sound of frustration, but Cashmere is looking intently at her. She understands.
Later, then. She and Cashmere can sort out how it works in their new country.
"All right," Annie says. They can start with something neutral, then. "You said you can train me out of feeling like I'm going to die all the time? How does that work?" It sounds too good to be true, but the Capitol had the ability to help Mags wake up from her stroke and walk around again, when Daraleen didn't think there was anything she could do. Annie's starting to realize all sorts of things are possible that she could never have dreamed of.
Jenn smiles. "That's the spirit. I can't send you home cured today, but I can help you get started."
Annie looks up sharply from the quilt when the bedroom door opens. It's just Cashmere, and Annie unclenches her right fist. She hadn't even realized she was doing it, until Jenn pointed it out. Now she's trying to notice, and stop, if she can.
Finnick probably thought it was normal.
Cashmere sits down next to her. "I went to a park with Raych and asked her, like you said. She said there are no bugs or hidden cameras. Well, she said she can't vouch for important government buildings where they deal in secrets, but we'd never be allowed in those buildings anyway. She said we shouldn't worry about home or the therapist's office or anywhere we're likely to end up."
That rocks Annie. Cashmere must believe her, if she's willing to talk about it so openly at home.
"How can she be sure?"
"I asked her that," Cashmere says. "And she had a good point, or at least I couldn't think of anything to say. She said that we know there are bugs where we come from, because if we say the wrong thing, it gets used against us. Everybody knows, even if no one talks about it. We have our signals for asking if it's safe to talk. And I knew about all the cameras at the academy, of course."
"We didn't have bugs in the complex where I grew up," Annie says, "not nearly important enough. But the walls were thin and the neighbors could always be listening in on you, or a Peacekeeper patrolling down the hall. And when I got to the Victors' Village, Mags said the Capitol would be listening in on my every word and paying attention to it.
"I guess I can talk to Jenn about my history, then." She still wants to avoid anything that could be used against Finnick if the enemy were to learn of it, but almost relaxed is better than not relaxed at all.
So she keeps going to therapy, and gradually it becomes more familiar. Sometimes the hardest part is being in the car with Raych: stressed, trapped, and too embarrassed and afraid to have a meltdown.
"I can learn to drive," Cashmere offers, when Annie finally confesses her problem in therapy. "I think I'd be good at it."
"It would save Raych the time..." Annie muses. "If you really don't mind."
Raych is enthusiastic about the plan. "We'll pick up some learning material at the driving school on our way back from therapy next time." When she sees Annie's I'm trying to be grateful face, she backtracks quickly. "Or I will, on my way to work. We'll come straight home from therapy."
"Thank you so much!" Annie says with more enthusiasm.
Cashmere's blasé about the prospect of learning to drive, right up until she's in bed staring blankly at a booklet. Curled up next to her, Annie can see the blind dread in her eyes.
She knows that feeling, and she can tell Cashmere's not processing any of what she's reading. "Is the language too different, the spelling?" she asks. "I can translate it if you want, and Raych will help with anything I don't know."
But the look on Cashmere's face doesn't change at all, and Annie wonders why the offer doesn't help. "I really don't mind," she reassures her, guessing. "It's the least I can do, since I'm too afraid to drive. And maybe it'll be less scary if I know how it works." Or more scary, but Annie doesn't mention that.
Still nothing. Cashmere shakes her head, barely perceptibly, and Annie can see the panic setting in. Gently, she takes the pamphlet from Cashmere's hand and sets it aside. Prodding her with questions right now is only going to make things worse. Annie needs something to help her relax.
Spotting a hairbrush on the desk, Annie grabs it and starts running it through Cashmere's hair, murmuring soothing things at her. "It's all right, honey. Whatever it is. We're a team, we're a family, we'll figure something out."
Finally, Cashmere says, in her smallest voice, "I didn't know you had to read for driving."
Annie's no great reader like Raych, and the spelling is certainly different, and a bunch of words, and, okay, some grammar, but it's not that different. Annie's already onto short books, and this is only one pamphlet.
Then she realizes. "Oh. They didn't teach you at the academy?" She should have guessed. When would you need it, after all? In the arena? In bed?
Cashmere shakes her head. "A little bit. Not like this. I know the alphabet. I can write my name. I can read some names, especially names of tributes, and stats. When I got my lists from the President, he seemed to enjoy reading them aloud to me and making me recite them back, but he still wanted me to carry them with me. I don't know why."
Annie fumes. "Not here. I'm not letting anyone humiliate you. I'll help you. You drove a train, right?"
"But there were only a few words, and I could memorize those. Not like this."
"This is just learning to drive, though. Maybe actual driving doesn't involve much reading either. Then I could read this to you, and after that, it'll be like the train."
"But how will we know?"
"We can ask Raych. Come on, let's go." It's easier to be brave for Cashmere than for herself.
Raych's door is open, so Annie sticks her head in. "Do you have to read in order to drive?"
"Oh?" Raych's eyes flicker from Annie to Cashmere behind her. "Oh, I see." Her face goes blank while she thinks. "No, I shouldn't think so. All the signs that are for driving are different colors and shapes, you could memorize those. Now, finding your destination—usually if it's a new place, you're looking for the sign on the building with the name."
"But I can handle that," Annie jumps in. "I'll be with her."
"Then it shouldn't be a problem." Raych smiles. "Then it's just a matter of whether they'll require you to read and write for the test. The one I took was written, but I imagine they could have someone read the questions to you. I can call and find out."
"Could you? That would be great."
A minute later, Raych is hanging up. "You're all set! If Annie can help you study the material, they'll make an accommodation for you and let you take the test out loud."
"Thank you," Cashmere breathes, still recovering from the shock of averted failure.
"Do you mind if I ask why? Were you not taught, or did you have trouble learning? We have resources, either way."
Cashmere's panic returns. Annie knows the signs of another question that seems so simple, yet Cashmere doesn't know how to answer it.
Looking perplexed, Raych tries again. "Did the other children your age have an easier time with reading, or was it just not covered?"
Cashmere just shakes her head, appealing silently to Annie for help. Annie takes her best stab at an answer. "I don't think she knew what the other children were learning, but my guess is that it wasn't covered. They didn't bother teaching her a lot of things that I take for granted."
"Every child went through a slightly different program," Cashmere finally supplies. "I found that out later, when I started teaching."
"When you were working at the academy," Annie asks, "were you supervising children practicing reading?"
Cashmere nods. She clearly has no way to judge how advanced the reading was.
"Well, anyway," Raych finally says, "the important thing is that the driving is taken care of. And if at any point you want to learn to read, do let me know."
"Everyone here is so nice," Cashmere tells her warmly.
On their way back to the bedroom, she says in an undertone to Annie, "They would never have let us ask for accommodations. They just made a note of your performance."
"We're doing this together," Annie says with determination. "I'm going to read, and you're going to memorize. You're going to drive, and I'm going to navigate."
Annie tries not to rush the process, but she can't wait until Cashmere can drive. Jenn's started suggesting assignments for her, but it's not until Cashmere has her license that Annie can force herself to get started.
"Thanks for coming out with me." Annie steps out of the car and takes Cashmere's hand.
"Annie, we go everywhere together. Do you want me to go in and do reconnaissance?"
She thinks about it, then shakes her head. "It's just a library. I'm supposed to pick the safest place outside the house I can think of to start. Let's go."
Once inside, Annie looks for a place to stand and do her own reconnaissance, and she's immediately rewarded with an embarrassment of riches. This place is amazingly comfortable.
It's the middle of a weekday, so it's not too crowded, and she pulls Cashmere into one of the empty aisles. Then she looks around while pretending to examine the books.
There's one wall of windows with desks beside them, but most of the walls are taken up with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. In fact, the whole space is carved up into smaller spaces by rows and rows of books. Any open spaces with chairs and tables are comfortably contained and easy to maneuver around the edges of.
Annie finds a couple of desks near the open spaces, where employees sit and visitors come up to them from time to time. She tiptoes in the opposite direction, still hanging on to Cashmere, and inspects the other side of the library.
One corner immediately catches her eye—and ear. It's got brighter colors than the rest of the library, and kids talking louder. With the whole library arranged in a way that has her feeling less threatened than she expected, Annie dares to venture over to that part.
Here, with Cashmere standing guard, she takes her attention off the floorplan and starts actually looking at the spines of books. She doesn't touch any of them yet, just tries to figure out how to find what she's looking for. Not that she's looking for anything in particular yet, but on her next visit, she might be.
Gradually, gaining courage, she walks around the edges of what she's identified as the part for children, and she slowly sorts out that the books are grouped together by how difficult they are. But how to find a specific book? She's still not sure.
But that's enough for a first visit. She can tell Jenn all about this next week.
"This is a good place," she says to Cashmere as they're getting in the car on the way back. "I think I might be able to come back."
"There's a whole desk where people just answer questions," Cashmere marvels, sliding into the driver's seat. It's the first time she's spoken up
"Really?" Annie was only looking around, not listening.
"Yes, everyone just kept walking up and asking where to find a book, or how to learn about a topic, or when a law was passed...and they just kept answering!"
Annie considers this. "And they were patient? They didn't mind being interrupted?"
"It didn't seem like they were being interrupted. It seemed like answering questions was their job. Of course, I could be wrong," Cashmere adds quickly, as she takes her keys out.
But Annie thinks she might be right. "Like the information desk when we went through immigration, maybe."
"She was nice," Cashmere remembers. "She helped us make calls and gave us food."
That decides her. Annie takes a deep breath, summons all her courage once again, and grabs the handle of the car door to swing it open again. "Okay, I'm going back in to ask how the children's books are organized. Hold my hand."
"One nice thing about sounding so foreign is that everyone immediately understands when we don't know how anything works," Annie observes later.
The library was nice, but it's wonderful to be back. Back at home, back sitting on their bed with the books Annie picked out. One novel, one local history book, and one about chemistry.
"I still feel like everyone knows how stupid I am," Cashmere says quietly.
"They didn't think anything of the sort!" Annie insists. "And I don't care if anyone did, they were wrong. Why do you think they offer literacy classes? Because you're not the only one who didn't learn to read as a kid."
"I guess."
Finding out about the literacy classes was, in Annie's opinion, the biggest payoff of deciding to go back in when they were already in the car. Yes, she came out of it with three books, and yes, they were nice about letting her use Raych's subscription this one time even though she's really not supposed to, but finding out that Cashmere can go there for reading lessons was a huge surprise.
"I saw a lot of kids learning there," Cashmere says. Her voice is slow, and distant, like she's still more in the library than she is here. "Some of them were even sitting on their parents' laps. Or running around, pulling books off shelves, asking questions, deciding which book they wanted and demanding to be read to..."
Annie loved the laid-back atmosphere too, the only thing that allowed her to go back inside, much less stay so long. "Would you want kids?" Annie asks, tentatively. "I mean, not here, but someday, if we had a place of our own and the money?"
Cashmere comes out of her wistful memories of the afternoon and back to the present. "If I knew how to take care of them...but I don't."
"I told you, you're allowed to hug them and talk to them about whatever they want to talk about. Whoever told you you were bad with kids was bad with kids."
"I know you said that, and I guess everyone at the library agrees with you, but I still don't know how you raise a child the right way. What do you teach them, if you're not training them for the Hunger Games? What if I do something the way I was taught at the academy and then you say it's bad?"
That argument stops Annie. With a lifetime spent at the academy, Cashmere must be missing out on a lot that Annie takes for granted.
"I feel like I'd know what to do with kids," Annie says, "I just can't do it yet. But I think I'd like to someday, if the therapy works and I get a job and things get easier. I want to keep living with you, though, and I don't want you to be stuck with children you don't want."
"Annie, if you know what you're doing, I'd love to help out if you just tell me what to do. You're the smart one, and I'm willing to work."
"We're a team," Annie agrees, "but I wish you'd give yourself more credit. Cashmere, if I do get a job, and we have some more money, would you want to try therapy on your own?"
"Therapy?" Cashmere looks at her in confusion. "But I'm not afraid of going outside, why would I need therapy?"
"No, you don't have my problems, and I'd feel bad asking Raych and Nessa to pay for your therapy too. But some of the things Jenn and I have talked about, like my family always blaming me for hardships, and how that affected me, make me think that maybe talking about what goes on inside your head will help you feel better about yourself."
"And about having kids?" Cashmere wonders.
"Maybe. You could try it and see."
"I think I'd like that. But I don't know if I'd be any good at therapy. I've seen what you and Jenn do, and it's the kind of thing I'm bad at."
"Well, we're a team, right?" Annie asks, and Cashmere smiles reluctantly. "And you're good enough at talking when it's someone you trust. I'll help you get started, and if it's helping, you can carry on."
Cashmere's appreciative but less than enthusiastic, and she doesn't bring it up again. What she does bring up, again and again, is kids. The more questions she asks, and the more Annie explains to her what she knows about being a parent, or says they'll have to figure it out as they go along, the more Annie starts to imagine starting a family. She knows she's not quite there yet, but it's nice to dream.
Better than her other dreams, anyway.
Annie wakes with a gasp. She lies unmoving in bed, running over her life story in her head, sorting out fact from fiction.
Then she shivers, because fiction could be fact and she would never know. She wraps her arms around herself and presses her body up against Cashmere's for comfort. Cashmere's sleeping on her stomach, so Annie pushes down on the mattress so that she can slide underneath just a little.
Cashmere stirs. "Hey," she murmurs heavily. "You okay, Annie?"
"I didn't mean to wake you," Annie apologizes. Cashmere usually sleeps through Annie wrapping herself around her.
Cashmere turns on to her side and holds Annie. "You didn't. I was half asleep."
Annie lets herself be comforted by the warmth of Cashmere's body and the softness of her flannel pajamas. When she feels a little like herself again, she asks, "We haven't heard from Finnick, have we?" just to be sure.
"I haven't," Cashmere answers. "Why, did yo—oh. You had a nightmare?"
"I dreamed that he was fighting, and the battle ended, and he was left for dead on the field."
"Oh, Annie." Cashmere hugs her tight. "Do you want us to go look for him, after the war ends?"
Annie gasps again, as the fear that she had just gotten under control floods her again. "We should, shouldn't we? But I don't think I can. Not unless this therapy works a lot better than it has so far."
"We don't have to," Cashmere immediately backtracks. "I'm sure he'll send word when it's over."
"If he can. I should let you go look, shouldn't I?" Annie knows she's selfish, but the thought of having both of them to worry about is a dreadful one, as dreadful as the thought of being alone when Cashmere leaves.
"I don't want to leave you. We can ask someone else to look. He's famous. Someone will recognize him."
Annie nods, relieved. "You're right. Besides, what if we go there looking for him and he comes here looking for us? We have to stay where he expects to find us."
With that decision made, Annie finally relaxes a little. She hasn't told Cashmere about the part of her nightmare where Finnick's not-quite-dead body turned into Evan's, and rose shouting at her about how if his district partner was going to get him killed, couldn't it at least not have been the useless, fragile, mad girl? Couldn't she have won a victory worth talking about and lived a life worth living?
At least Evan's an old wound, not a gaping, bleeding one like abandoning Finnick to an unknown fate. And Cashmere's here, with her strong, capable hands patting Annie's back. Under that calm, steady rhythm, Annie breathes deep, finally remembering the exercises Jenn taught her. She moves her own hand thoughtfully over Cashmere's belly. "What's it like being pregnant?" she wonders, slow and dreamy.
"Oh? It's different for everyone. That's why I couldn't be sure about you when you had skipped a couple months. But for me...I didn't throw up too much, but it made me queasy for a long time. I remember my breasts hurting, both times. Mostly I felt slow and heavy. Easily tired. Clumsy, as I started to get larger. I was used to my body being agile, easy to maneuver. That was what took the most getting used to, for me."
"Hmm." Annie contemplates. "Doesn't sound like you liked it very much."
"It wasn't very pleasant." Then her voice changes, becomes eager. "But I can do it again if you-"
"I was thinking more of me," Annie assures her. "Maybe it's better if you're looking forward to the baby. You weren't, were you?"
"Well-" Cashmere starts to sound strained, remembering. "I didn't have anyone to talk to, I didn't know anything about what was going to happen afterward—I thought either it was obvious I would have to do my part and bring them up or it was obvious that they'd go to someone who knew what they were doing. I felt so stupid for not knowing which one was obvious that I couldn't have asked even if I'd thought anyone would answer.
"But I was happy, too, more relieved than I'd been since I met President Snow. At least I hadn't screwed up so badly they didn't want my gene-" Cashmere starts to shake. Annie clutches her tight. "Do you think—when I defected—tainted blood-"
"Oh, no." Annie rocks back and forth, desperately wanting to wipe out that image. "Oh, no. They couldn't," she tells Cashmere, knowing full well that they could. "You never even met them!"
Cashmere buries her face on Annie's shoulder, shudders a couple of times, and then takes a shaky breath. "You're right. And I did kill children, and later I killed one of my students, so if I can live with that, I guess I can live with never knowing if children I never met were killed because of something I did. So you're thinking of having a baby?"
"I want to do something normal with my life. I want to live with you and get paid to fix things and raise some kids. I don't want to let the Capitol take that away from me."
"I want that too. Maybe we can have it here. Finnick was right, it's very different from Panem."
"I wish I could feel safe," Annie sighs. "But maybe, even if I can't, I can act like I would if I felt safe."