Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Finnick’s pov:

The streets of District 4 had always seemed better in the late afternoon. Sunset was a wonderful thing in his district. The sky was painted orange and purple and the water reflected the setting sun with a delicacy that made the world look a little less horrible.

He loved walking near the harbour after school. He never wanted to go home early, everything was always too lonely, too gloomy. It wasn't because of Mags, of course not. The woman would always be his family. It was more for the memory of those he no longer had.

The sound of the waves and the beautiful sunset made him think that maybe it wasn't all so bad, maybe it wasn't all about accidents, Reapings, Hunger Games. Because when he looked beyond, to the horizon, where the sun was setting, there was more, there was so much more.

He heard a splash nearby, turning his attention away from the sun to search frantically for where it had come from. For a moment he could see nothing but water, until seconds later, a brown head popped out of it.
Finnick's heart raced for a few seconds, his blood rushed to his head and he was about to run to see if the person was okay, then he remembered that not everyone was afraid of water, that he couldn't swim, but almost his entire district could.
He felt humiliated then, not that he never wanted to learn, of course he did, but his parents died before they could teach him more than to move his arms and legs to keep from sinking. And then they had drowned. Since then he hasn't been able to muster the courage to enter the water. Mags has offered countless times to teach him, but he always refused or made any excuse.

When the brunette turned around, Finnick could see who it was. Those big, brown, laughing eyes, the brown hair that, when dry, fell in waves around her shoulders.
The girl swimming in the sunset with a smile so big it rivalled the sunlight was Mareena Crawford.

With his eyes, Finnick looked to see if there was anyone else on the beach with her, but all he saw was sand and the backpack that surely belonged to her.

He didn't know what to do. He had known Mareena practically his entire life. Her father worked with Finnick's, and like them, Orwell Crawford had died in the same boating accident. Still, they had never exactly been friends. In the nine years of their lives they had never exchanged more than a couple of words. Before he could think of leaving, he realised he had been staring too long when the girl met his gaze and smiled, waving her hand.

"Odair!"

Finnick had no choice but to return the smile and walk closer. He stood with his hands in his school trouser pockets to the side of where Mareena had left her bag. The brunette swam towards him, and hopped out of the water.

"Shouldn't you be out before it gets dark?" He asked, nervous, not knowing what to talk to her about.
"I love swimming at night, you can see the stars and the moon in the water. Do you want to see for yourself? Come on, let's go!" She went to grab his hand, but he was quick to pull it away from his slippery grip.
"No, uhmm, I'm fine," he denied, tucking his hands back into his trousers and avoiding Mareena's gaze.
"Oh, all right, another day, then."
"Yes, another day."

A rather awkward silence made Finnick want to run out of there at once, but before he could say goodbye and do just as he had planned, Mareena put a wide smile back on her face.

"Why don't you join me for a while? I haven't eaten anything yet and swimming makes me very hungry. My aunt made me a delicious lemon pie, we can share it, if you like. And of course, if you don't have to go now."

Finnick thought about it for a while. He still didn't want to go home and he hadn't eaten anything since the simple meal he got at school, he was hungry too.

"Yeah, okay."

After that day the two children were still not friends, they ignored each other in the corridors of the school and when they returned home they didn't say a word to each other. But every evening, when the sunset was approaching, they would meet on the beach after Mareena had swum a little to eat the girl's aunt's delicacies. They didn't have to be friends to enjoy a good afternoon together, but they became confidants. Mareena would tell him about her aunt's problems with cigarettes, how much she missed her parents, and even how angry she really felt most of the time. Finnick, for his part, had the courage to tell her about his phobia, that he couldn't swim. At first he was afraid she would laugh —after all, how was it possible to be from District 4 and not know how to swim?— But she didn't. That day they ate pie in silence until it got dark. When he went to get up, thinking that the girl wouldn't say anything about his confession, she surprised him by stopping his movements.

"What if I taught you? I understand what it's like to be scared."
"Really?"
"Yes. When I was a baby I was scared of the water too. It looked so deep...but my father taught me that the only way to live is to have fears, so we can learn to be bigger than they are, so we can learn to really live."

Finnick thought those words over and over again all night, the next morning Mags asked him if he was okay, when he looked in the mirror and saw the dark circles under his eyes he realised why. That day he didn't go to the beach, he came home early and locked himself in his room to think, he didn't even eat and Mags started to worry again. But the next day he woke up in high spirits, and in the afternoon, he arrived at the beach earlier than he usually did, shirtless, with shorts and a smile that made Mareena swim happily towards him and hug him smiling as broadly as he did.

Chapter Text

Finnick’s pov:

"The 68th Hunger Games District 4 female tribute, Mareena Crawford!"

11,208 inhabitants in District 4, 46% are female, and 18% are between the ages of 12 and 18.
Out of so many people, out of so many names, hers was chosen.

Finnick stifled a gasp when he heard Mareena's name being called by Ikaris. Normally, he liked the man well enough, but at that moment he wanted nothing more than to hit him. It wasn't his fault, he knew, but still, hearing his girl's name coming from his golden injected lips made his blood boil.

But she wasn't his girl. She wasn't his girl. Mareena. Was. Not. His. Girl.

He couldn't take his eyes off the screen, didn't even blink, didn't even notice when he started breathing so fast, his fists were so tight he felt the blood running down his palms.
He came back to it when he felt Mags' hand on his shoulder. When he turned to look at the woman he saw her eyes filled with tears. Mags loved the girl too.

At that moment a selfish thought came over him; he wished with all his being that the male tribute was one of those skinny market children, he knew it was a horrible thing to think, but he couldn't help it.

"Please, please, please, please...."
"The male tribute for district 4 is...Gill Calahard!"

The air escaped his lungs once more as he watched the muscular tribute climb the stairs to the platform. He knew the boy, they had been classmates for several years; he worked on the bays with his father, unloading the big barrels of fish. Any job like that gave good muscles and incredible strength.

"Best of luck, tributes, may the odds be ever in your favor."

When he heard that phrase on the day of his Reaping it seemed to him an injustice, a mockery, it made him so angry that he did not speak all day. But this time it was much worse, he felt the anger from the tip of his toes to the top of his head.

Mags waved to let him know that they had to go, they had to get to the train while the tributes said goodbye to their families.
As he passed through the rooms, just as one of the doors opened and out came Zarya, the woman's eyes were teary, her face red and her expression broken.

Finnick definitely understood her.

They stood there for a few seconds, looking at each other not knowing what to say. Finnick knew that Zarya was devastated. First she lost her brother and sister-in-law, and now, potentially, she would lose her only family, her niece, the girl she had raised as her daughter.
Before he could say anything, the woman surprised him by hugging him. For a moment he couldn't move, but he responded when he felt her body shake with sobs.

Zarya was a strange woman, the people said she was the black sheep of the Crawford family and that Mareena had fallen into the wrong hands, but for all her oddities she loved her niece like no one else in the world, they cared for each other, always had. When he first met her he instantly liked her, she wasn't afraid to speak her mind and that had gotten her into a lot of trouble, but when she took charge of Mareena she began to hold her tongue, knowing that the girl needed her. She was a cigarette addict and rarely he not see her coughing, but an amazing person, outgoing and the most supportive tutor.

"Promise me you'll take care of her," she whispered between sobs.
"With everything I have," he assured her, trying his best to keep his voice from breaking.

The Peacekeepers snapped to attention, demanding that he should leave now. They broke the embrace and Zarya gave his arms one last squeeze and a weak smile before leaving for the exit. Finnick turned around, and with his heart in his mouth, he walked to the train at last.

As he walked, he thought about his promise. He would give and do everything to save Mareena, whatever it took, he would get her out of the arena even if it cost him everything, not only because of his promise to Zarya, but because he would not accept a world where the Games would take Mareena away from him, because he could take so much, except that, because he had known since he was a boy eating lemon pie by the seashore, that he loved that little mermaid with all the heart he had to love.

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Mareena’s pov:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 68th Hunger Games, Mareena Crawford from District 4!"

She saw everything blurry, her head hurt as if she had been hit ten times in it, a very uncomfortable beeping tormented her, made everything more confusing. She tried to walk, she didn't know where, was she still in the arena? Where was she if not? What had happened to Venus?
She tapped her temple to try to focus her eyes. It only lasted a few seconds, but she managed to see a body, reddish hair, and lots and lots of blood painting the once white snow a deep red. She managed at that moment to remember what had happened; the girl from 2, Venus Harby and she were the last ones, Venus tricked her, lured her into a trap and when Mareena tried to help her she plunged a knife into her side. They fought for a few minutes, minutes where Mareena had been bleeding to death, where her last option was to hit Venus's head with a rock and then steal the axe from the corpse of the boy from 7 whom the redhead had already killed, to hit her in the chest with it.

At that point she had lost so much blood, was on the verge of hypothermia and was so injured she could barely stand up.

She wanted to get out of there. She wanted to see her aunt. She wanted to see Mags. She wanted to see Finnick.

"Finnick," she called his name in a mere sigh of pain.

Why wasn't anyone coming? Hadn't she won already? Had she killed so many for nothing? She was going to die, she could feel the strength draining from her body. She was going to die without seeing Finnick one last time and thanking him for everything he had done for her there, for keeping her alive, for giving her a reason to come back. She had promised him and herself that if she came back alive, the two of them would be together. She loved him, and he loved her.

"Finnick," she tried to say more forcefully, but simply could not.

A mowing light made her eyes tighten in pain, she heard voices, footsteps, but she couldn't move, she couldn't focus her gaze, no matter how hard she tried there was nothing but pain.

"I'm sorry..."

After that all there was was darkness, she felt a sharp blow to her head, and after a momentary stinging, she felt nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

"My name is Mareena Crawford, I'm 16 years old, I'm from District 4, I was in the 68th Hunger Games, I won, I'm in the Capitol, I lost my memory when I left the arena, my parents died when I was...5?" When the woman nodded, she continued, "Uhm, my aunt raised me since then; Zarya Crawford."

Zarya grinned from ear to ear and began to clap her hands and then gave her a resounding kiss on the head.

"Very good, honey, you're doing great."
ñI don't know, I feel...I feel...incomplete," the girl sighed, lowering her head and playing with the hospital bracelet. She used to do it whenever she felt bad, so far, they've had to change it twice because she broke it.
"I know, honey, I know. There are a lot of things we still need to do, but we'll get there, I promise."

They were silent for a few moments, Zarya stroking her niece's hair to bring some comfort to both Mareena and herself. When she saw her fall to the blood-soaked snow, for a moment she thought she was dead, that she hadn't made it after all and all that suffering had been in vain. Luckily, the Capitol had been enchanted by the little mermaid and had gone to great lengths to save her. When she woke up without any memory it was too hard a blow, not only for her, but she had managed to gain Mareena's trust in a short time and little by little she was getting better. Even if it was very, very slowly.

"The... the boy, Finnick? He hasn't... come back?"

The woman's heart squeezed, Finnick, the poor guy had been suffering more than anyone else. Try as they might Mareena couldn't remember him, she could barely remember his name, with too much effort she remembered her aunt, but the boy was still a stranger to her.
Of course he came back, every day he went to the hospital with a different snail, sat in the waiting room for hours, blew on the shell, shell or crusts and handed it to Zarya before leaving in the evening.

"Why, do you want to talk to him?"
"No, no I... I don't know, I wouldn't know what to say to him. Every time I see him he looks so...sad, I think it's because of me, did I do something bad to him, aunt?" She raised her head again to look at the woman, her eyes full of uncertainty.
"Oh honey, no, of course not, you haven't done anything wrong, it's just...this situation is too difficult for everyone, you'll understand later," or so she hoped.

Mareena simply nodded and went back to playing with her bracelet. There were good days and bad days. Her wounds were still not fully healed, but the doctors had assured her that she would soon be free to go home and celebrate her victory. That discouraged her even more, she didn't know what victory everyone was talking about, she had been given a brief introduction to what had happened, but she still couldn't understand it all.
The gifts kept coming. "From your fans," all the nurses kept telling her, Mareena accepted them all with a faint smile but didn't give them more than a second glance. All but a few. Every day her aunt brought her a different seashell, she said it was from someone special, but she never specified who. Something in the simplicity of the gift turned her stomach, she felt something strange when she smelled the sea still impregnated in it, felt it in her hands, placed it next to the others, it felt like something... personal, somehow meaningful, as if it was a memory hitting the walls of her lost memory to get out.

She was always trying to find out who this "special someone" was, her list was pretty short, considering the fact that she was just starting to get to know her life again; her aunt was her first choice at first, but she discarded her a few days later. She basically hung out with her all day, only leaving the room to buy coffee and pick up this mysterious gift on the way. Mags was her next suspicion. The woman had been one of the first people to visit her, from the first moment she saw her she felt extremely confident, as she was quite old she couldn't visit her that often, but every time she did Mareena had a good day. Ikaris and Ferah were two other options, the two had at first intimidated her with their outgoing presence, but they didn't fail to quickly get a couple of laughs out of her in that stressful moment. Lastly, Finnick was on her list, she had seen him the first week, he visited her every day without fail, each day he looked more tired and sore than the next, and suddenly he stopped coming, Mareena felt strangely bad the day he didn't show up.

Though at the end of the day it didn't matter who did it, what mattered more to her was the way it made her feel. At home.

She wanted to go home.

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Leaving the Capitol was quite a journey. Hundreds of people were waiting for her outside the hospital and thousands more at the train station. The so-called President Snow had even given a speech on her behalf. She had only met the man in person once. On the day of her coronation at the Presidential Palace, just yesterday, and everything about the man had inspired her distrust. Since she was going to be discharged, she had been taken to the President's house for a more "appropriate" coronation for her condition. It had been even more uncomfortable than the medical examinations, the crown had weighed heavily on her even though it was light, as if it were not hers.

Now she was finally inside the train, only her aunt and Mags were with her. She would be lying if she said she hadn't been looking forward to seeing Finnick, from what she had been told, he had been her mentor at the Games, it was because of him that she had survived those atrocities, he had done everything in his power to get her out of there alive. Mareena would have liked to thank him, to apologise once again for not being able to remember him.
The two women realised this, and Mags, through signs, assured her that she would have time to talk to him when they got home.

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Finnick’s pov:

When Finnick arrived home, exhausted and broken to find President Snow himself waiting for him, his blood froze and his hands began to shake. There was no one else in the phase of Earth he hated more than this man, but also feared more.

"Oh, boy, you've finally arrived, come sit with me," the man gave him a smile that some would mistake for that of a doting grandfather, but which in reality carried the most lethal of poisons.

Finnick swallowed hard and tried to mimic a smile. Not quite sure he had succeeded, he sat down opposite President Snow, rubbing his hands on his trousers to wipe away the sweat that had accumulated on them.

"Sir, uhmm, I'm sorry, I really wasn't expecting you here," he tried to say as cordially as possible.
"Oh, yes, I am sorry for my unannounced visit, but the matter at hand would require to be discussed urgently."
"Yes, of course I understand, sir. Is everything all right?"
"I'm afraid not." After a somewhat dramatic sigh, with his gloved hands, he grabbed one of the candies that Mags always left on the table, for whenever a child from the village came to visit them or, more specifically, when Mareena came to visit them. As quickly as they arrived, he forced his head to divert thoughts of the girl. "I've heard disturbing news, Finnick. Your clients claim you haven't been... performing as expected, is there anything I should know?"

He felt the blood rush to his head and his mouth go dry in seconds. He hadn't attended to any of his "clients" in days, ever since Mareena arrived from the arena, and after the worst weeks of his life, he didn't have much desire or strength left to do much else. He knew from the beginning that his actions would have repercussions, but he never thought it would be a personal visit from the President.

"No, I-I just...."
"Don't stammer, boy, speak plainly," the man interrupted with annoyance.
"I'm sorry, sir, I haven't been feeling very well lately, I need to rest, maybe... maybe spend some time in my district, with my family," that day, when he went to visit Mareena in the hospital, or rather, stay outside and wait for Zarya, because like the great coward he was, he didn't feel able to see Mareena in person and not break down.
"But you don't have a family, Finnick, the Capitol is your family, that's who you owe your loyalty to," the words pierced his heart like poison, but he forced himself to remember that the President was wrong, he did have a family.

He had Mags, Zarya, and Mareena...maybe.

"And I do, I am loyal," he defended himself, swallowing dryly and feeling the lie catch in his throat.

It made him want to vomit to even think of that place.

"Well, there are those who don't see eye to eye," he grabbed another piece of candy and cynically popped it into his mouth.

He didn't know cold-blooded snakes could enjoy sweets. In his imagination, Snow consumed only blood and venom.

"By any chance, this wouldn't have anything to do with Miss Crawford, would it?"

He felt every muscle, bone, fibre in his body freeze, his heart thundered in his ears and he felt unable to speak. Mareena's name coming out of his mouth made hum nauseous, but more than anything else, he wanted to rip it off the man's tongue with his bare hands.

"What... I-, no, it has nothing to do with her," his subconscious forced him to find the words quickly, though not as fluently.
"I don't like lies, boy, think better of your answer," even the calmness in the old man's face was frightening.
"She's my friend, seeing her like that was hard... for all of us," he hastened to correct himself.

If Snow had even the slightest inkling of how Finnick really felt about Mareena, words couldn't tell him how much he panicked. He'd rather stick his own pitchfork in his chest before he'd let him touch her in any way.

"Yeah, I bet it was," another candy passed that dried, poisonous mouth.

After this visit, he would throw every single piece of those candies in the entire house in the trash. He would never touch one again in his life.

"Please, sir, all I'm asking for is... just a short break," if he had to get down on his knees and beg the devil, he'd throw himself on the floor and let hell swallow him up.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, there are too many high expectations still required of you to be met."
"But-"
"Of course, there are always two ways, don't you think?"

His hands began to shake.

Finnick swallowed dryly, waited nervously.

President Snow moved so close to him that he could smell his breath. No matter what sweets he had ingested, the smell of blood, roses, and poison did not dissipate.

"Let me be clear, boy, as easily as I saved her, I can also destroy her."

His whole body tensed, he lost words and rational thoughts, all he could think about was Mareena, and Snow, and the things he could do to her. He thought of what the man had done to him, that he would not hesitate to do the same to her, even if Mareena never found out why, if she didn't remember a quarter of her life.
What punishment would the President choose? Prostitution, to slap Finnick in the face with irony? Kill her? No, that would be too simple for that demon, besides, Mareena had become a favourite of the Capitol since she set foot in it, people loved her, now they even pitied her, they considered her a true survivor and that made her a thousand times more special. Would he kill Zarya? That could easily turn her against him, Mareena didn't even remember him, if because of him they killed the only family she had left and could partially remember, she would never forgive him in her life, she would hate him, she would never remember him. That, no doubt, would be a torture befitting the sadism of President Fucking Snow.

"So, are we on the same page?" The viper's voice snapped him out of his intrusive thoughts and his dreadful imagination, bringing him back to the present.

It wasn't too late.

He had subdued Mareena in the lion's den. He would not do it again. Never again. Never again would he feel the fear of being in a world without her.

Even if it meant never actually being with her.

"Y-yes, I'm sorry, sir."
"Don't say it, boy, let's pretend nothing happened here, what do you say?"

Finnick nodded.

In that moment he wished he had stayed in the Capitol, had gone into Mareena's room, had stayed with her, even if she didn't remember, reminding her himself. To remind her that he loved her, to remind her why he did it and that he had always done it, and would continue to do it forever.

Now, on the seashore, admiring the sunset and feeling a stab in his heart, as if the beautiful colour of the sky was no longer a gift but a curse, he cried out, cried out for his whole district to hear him, for the fishes, the stars, the moon and the sun to hear him, for the whole world to hear him.
Mareena would never again be in his arms, never again fall asleep on his shoulder after swimming together on the beach.

He turned to look at the shell figures beside him. In years, no one had dared to move them. Hardly anyone came near their spot, and the few people who did rarely paid attention to the figures scattered on the sand. He looked at the fin; that one had been made by him. He looked at the trident; that one she had made.

While Finnick stared with tears in his eyes at the fin made of shells. Mareena, miles away, stared at her own drawing, at the shells she had accumulated over the weeks and arranged carelessly, with no plan for what she wanted to do, looking at the trident that broke her heart without knowing why.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

"Mareena, come here, darling!" Her aunt's voice snapped her out of her trance.

She let go of her spoon suddenly, causing a small clatter as it hit the table. She glanced at the pie in front of her and pouted as she saw that she was almost done, but left the spoon on the table anyway and got up.

"I'm coming!"

There were times when getting lost in the void was all too frequent. She would slip into a trance, as if she were daydreaming. There were times when Zarya had to shake her in order to wake her up. The doctors had told them that this was normal. When you are subjected to a strange world, escaping to another in your mind makes things more bearable.

She walked into the living room, looking for her aunt with her eyes and seeing her standing in the doorway.
The first time she had walked through that one, she had felt as if she were entering someone else's life. So as not to agitate her too much, her aunt decided that they would stay at her old house, the one before Mareena was crowned victor, to see if maybe some memories would come back to her.

It wasn't as fruitful as they had hoped, but at least her remembering the walk to the beach, to the square and back to the house was a significant step. She remembered it instinctively, she hadn't even realised where she was walking until he got there. Muscle memory, the doctors had explained, her body trying to help her and encourage her to not forget.

After a week they finally had to move into the new house. It was a thousand times bigger than the old one, with better resources, a better location, and only a few miles from Mags' house.

And Finnick.

The boy was rarely there, to be honest. Most of his time was spent in the Capitol, and if he was in the district, he did his best to ignore her. He spent his time tying knots on the beach, and even though Mareena loved to go swimming, after the few times she tried to join him and was rejected, she stopped trying. If the Hunger Games were not involved, it was safe to say that there was no relationship between them.

Even though Mareena remembered almost nothing, and despite several pleas from Mags and Zarya to be removed from the mentoring group, the Capitol insisted that it was still her duty as a victor to accompany the other tributes on their journey. Her first time as a mentor had been so terrifying and overwhelming that she had been sick for a full month after those horrible days.

Now, seven years after winning her Games and losing her memory, Mareena Crawford was considered a legend, a survivor, the little mermaid who swam so deep she nearly drowned.

"Mags!" When she saw the woman standing behind her aunt, her smile soon appeared.

She approached them both and gave the old woman a gentle hug, while she stroked her back with her trembling hands.

"What about Finnick? Shouldn't he be here by now? " She asked with the most disinterested face she could manage.

In sign language, Mags told her that Finnick had decided to stay in the Capitol until tomorrow —business, she said— and that he would be in the district before the announcement of the Quarter Quell. That didn't surprise her, but it didn't leave a good taste in her mouth either.

Tomorrow would be the live broadcast of the start of the 75th Hunger Games and the Quarter Quelle, Mareena had recently learned that it meant a lot, a celebration of celebrations. As if the date wasn't horrible enough.

Mareena was worried about what the Capitol would decide to do, not wanting to have to send twice as many children to die or see atrocities three times worse than what she already saw every year.

Over the years she had been able to learn sign language to communicate more easily with Mags, and as they sat making fishhooks —another thing the woman had taught her, of all things— on the patio of the house overlooking the sea, it was the way they communicated:

"Don't worry about him, my dear, you know what he's like".
"I'm not worried about him, Mags."
"That's not what it looks like to me."
"Seriously, it's all right, I'm just... I'm worried about the Quarter Quell, I want this to be over soon."
"And it will."

Mareena sighed, finishing the last knot of her hook and rising from the table to go help her aunt with the food, leaving a kiss on the woman's head.

"I hope so."

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President Snow appeared on the screen, as elegant and pristine as ever. Mareena's skin crawled at the sight of him. She shifted her body weight from one leg to the other, uncomfortably, and couldn't help but take her eyes off the screen for a second and place them on Finnick. He was looking at her, too.

Ever since her memory loss, Mags and Finnick had been with the Crawfords at transmission time, at first so they could be there in case anything triggered her bad memories and be able to help her, then it simply became a habit. Of course, without much motivation on Finnick's part, his face always showed how desperate he was to get out of there as soon as he set foot inside.
Eventually, they were also joined by Annie Cresta. Annie and Mareena had become close friends, sharing experiences of terror in that arena and heavy psychological repercussions, Mareena didn't want to leave her alone during the Games for the same reason the others did for her; she knew how susceptible and volatile Annie could become in stressful situations; like reliving traumas that caused you lifelong damage.

Finnick swallowed dryly and looked away from her, and with a bad taste in her mouth, so did Mareena. Back to the devil in a suit.

"On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol."

Nerves began to seep through her whole body.

"The male and female tributes will be reaped."

The room was quiet, too quiet. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead.

"From their existing pool of victors."

Annie's screams echoed through the entire house, Zarya's cries soon followed. Mareena's heart stopped. For a moment nothing felt real, everything was like a dream, a nightmare. After a few moments she realised that she was holding her breath and her lungs began to burn. She tried to breathe, but it was as if her nose, throat and lungs were closed. Panic soon set in.

And with it, complete unconsciousness.

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When she woke up, the first thing she saw were images, as if a film was playing in front of her eyes. There was too much blood, two bodies, and snow, snow everywhere she looked. She was freezing. She felt it, felt the cold cruelly freezing her joints and making her body weaker and weaker. Mareena looked at the ground, the red snow and the drops of blood that were still falling. It was her blood, the snow was being stained by her blood.

Venus.

The name popped into his head.

Venus. Venus was the girl who fell only inches away, with whom her blood was mingling.

Venus. Venus was the girl who had tried to kill her in the last minutes of the Games.

Venus. Venus was the girl who had killed Vinsent, the boy from 7, the owner of the axe now embedded in the redhead's head.

Venus. Venus was the girl she had killed.

She woke up terrified, her chest heaving so hard it burned with every rise and fall. She still couldn't clear her head completely of the images, it was like she was reliving it over and over and over again without mercy. She was in a panic. She had killed someone, she knew that, she had been told that, how else had she won the Hunger Games if not? To have heard it was one thing, but to have seen it, to have relived it so vividly and to be physically and mentally prey to that nightmare, was something else entirely.

"Hey, hey, you're okay," she suddenly felt a hand stroking her hair, she don't pushed it away, for some reason, the touch, the smell, was so familiar that her heart began to calm down little by little.

Finnick was holding her, stroking her hair and giving her words of relief. It all felt so unreal, yet somehow so real, that it was driving her crazy. She couldn't believe what she'd seen in her dreams, the way her body was twitching and twitching as if every part of her body remembered. She had killed people, human beings, she had finally seen it, understood what everyone was talking about. Or at least a small part of it. She didn't even want to think about what the rest of it might be.
Then there was Finnick, so warm, close, and just right. It felt right, like this was her place, on his chest, with her head between his shoulder and his neck, this place seemed to have been made just for her. The way he stroked her hair and so easily brought her back was all too natural. Mareena didn't want to leave, and the way Finnick was holding her close, she felt he didn't either.

"I don't want to go back."

Finnick swallowed dryly and for a moment didn't say anything, as if he was trying to bring back the ability to speak coherently or was trying to calm a feeling that was tormenting him.

"You won't go."
"What if I have to?"

The man pulled her away from him a little, just enough so that she could look into his eyes. They were two jungles of deep darkness. They expressed a tumult of emotions that Mareena could barely read. She wanted to reach out to touch his face, to admire those blue-green eyes up close, but if physical contact already felt strange, she didn't want to make it worse.

"If you do, then you will swim out, swim and swim until your feet touch the ground again."

For a moment Mareena went blank. A distant part of her brain tried to scream at her that she had heard similar words before, but Finnick's intense gaze on her clouded all the strange mutterings at that moment.
They stayed like that, staring into each other's eyes, for a time that seemed to be as eternal as it was fleeting. Mareena had time to analyze every detail of his face, his eyes, his nose was a sensation, not to mention his eyelashes, but she didn't have enough time to speak, to try to prolong that moment for as long as possible; Finnick let go of her and got out of bed so fast that she didn't have time to prepare herself for the cold she suddenly felt. He didn't turn to look at her when he said goodbye, saying he'd see her the morning of the Reaping. Nor when he walked to the door, nor when he walked out the door.

Still trying to figure out what had happened, without the distraction of Finnick's body next to hers and his eyes fixed on hers, the echoes in her head had room to raise their voices until they were heard.
She saw no images, saw no clues, merely listened, merely felt her heart expand for no apparent reason. The sentence made no sense in itself, but to her heart, and that subconscious that kept so many secrets from her, it made all the sense in the world:

Just keep swimming.

Chapter Text

Mareena pov:

"Darling! Oh, look at you! You look beautiful," Farah crooned as soon as she saw her.

Mareena smiled slightly at the woman before hugging her. She felt a huge squeeze that knocked the air out of her. For such a thin woman, Farah was quite strong, she had proven that to her with every bone-crushing hug.

At first, when she first met the woman, she had to admit she was quite intimidated by her, a flamboyant Capitol woman with an obsession with the colour red was always something to be taken aback by. As it turned out, though, the redhead could be pleasant company. She and her aunt always got on amazingly, with that flamboyance scaring off half the people who came near them, it was as if they were made for each other.

Her stylist stopped smothering her in her embrace and planted two kisses on her cheeks.

"Okay, okay, out of the way Cherry, it's my turn," when Farah stepped back a little to look out the door, Ikaris entered with his trademark peacock elegance. "Pome, darling," unlike Farah, Ikaris had a much looser grip.

Pome. That's what the man called her for affection.

Ikaris had a tendency to nickname the more "relevant" people in his life with fruits, something to distinguish them from everyone else. Farah was Cherry, because of her obsession with the colour red and the fact that every time she painted her hair it only varied in shades of red. Max was Coco, according to Ikaris; because coconuts gave him an air of antiquity, like something precious, and Max was both of those things. Finnick was Blueberry; Blue, because most of the battles Finnick had won in his Games, and the ones the public remembered most, had been underwater. Max told them that when Ikaris had first seen Finnick fight in the water, he had sighed and said "Little Blue," as if he had known Finnick was going to come out of there alive to hear that pathetic nickname that to this day he still hated.
For her part, her nickname sent shivers down her spine every time. The first time Ikaris visited her in the hospital, when it was time to say goodbye to the visitors, he came over and kissed her forehead gently, and stood there for a few seconds as he whispered, very slowly so that only she could hear:

"Against death and all its odds, Pomegranate."

Realizing that, the fruit Ikaris was talking about was the blessed "Pomegranate", a fruit that only once in her life she had tasted —in the Arena—, because in her district it was impossible to find. It was the fruit that symbolised death. Mareena had survived death, in many ways. And the fact that the only food that kept her alive that last day was pomegranates made the whole thing all the more ironic.

"Stop badgering her, will you? I have to get her ready for the cameras."

Mareena smiled faintly, and as she was practically dragged to her room by Farah and her other stylists, she waved goodbye to her aunt and Ikaris.

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The Peacekeepers were leading all the victors of District 4 through the streets towards City Hall. The crowd soon appeared before their eyes. Almost every inhabitant of the fishing district was present, from the youngest to the oldest. Thousands of eyes on her, looking at them with such sorrow that she felt at that moment all she wanted was to make herself small and earth to swallow her whole. But as much as she wanted to disappear, she knew that invisibility was not possible, so she did what her aunt had always taught her and held her head high. Pretending confidence when inside she was dying of nerves.

They took the six victors up onto the stage and arranged them side by side. The three women on one and the three men on the other. Mareena saw the glass urns with only three slips of paper inside and suddenly had a flashback that chilled her blood from head to toe.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the 68th Hunger Games female tribute of District 4, Mareena Crawford!"

Ikaris said into the microphone, reading the slip of paper he pulled out of the ballot box full of names.

She woke up from her short memory with a jolt when she felt a hand on her shoulder. When she turned around, she saw Annie's teary eyes looking at her worriedly.

"Mare?" The girl asked in a low, shaken voice.
"Yes, I'm sorry, I zoomed out for a second."

She smoothed back the hair that had fallen over her face from her ponytail and swallowed dryly to gather the strength to finally look straight ahead.

"Today, we commemorate a very special day," Ikaris began, his usually golden lips painted a bright platinum blue. "We declare the Quarter Quell begun. Of course, we will start with the ladies, as always."

As the man approached the women's urn, his eyes met Mareena's and for a second she could see the tension in them, the concern. She smiled sideways at him, and he smiled back.

Seconds turned into minutes. The heat, normally strong in the district, was now unbearable. Her whole body was sweating and her hands wouldn't stop shaking. She felt déjà vu at that moment. She had experienced this before, of course she had, but the way her body remembered it better than her mind was terrifying.

"The female tribute from District 4 is..." Ikaris' voice brought her back to reality. She swallowed dryly, felt the burning in her throat go down to her stomach and squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, when she opened them again, the air escaped from her lungs, as did the name from Ikaris' lips. "Annie Cresta."

Annie's screams and cries made her ears ring. Mareena felt the burning in her eyes come and she couldn't breathe. She turned to look at the redhead, the despair in her face, the piercing, terrified and pained screams that came out of her. Annie wouldn't survive, she wouldn't survive again to the Arena, maybe she wouldn't even survive before getting to the arena, Annie, that girl she had been so fierce to protect during her Hunger Games, that girl she had held close when she arrived, covered in dirt and blood while she shook with the force of her sobs for hours until she fell asleep. Annie, her friend. And before she could think, the words came out of her mouth without a second thought:

"I volunteer as tribute!"

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Lying on the train bed, staring out the window sleeplessly, every time she closed her eyes she saw different images: blood painting the snow red, axes stuck in skulls, slips of paper in urns, golden lips mouthing her name, and shells in the sand.
As she tried to dig deeper, to find the twin pieces of those images in her puzzle, a sharp pang in her head, a pain in her chest, and a momentary anguish signalled the limit of her memory.

Frustrated, she got out of bed and slipped on her slippers, left her room on the train and made her way to the dining room.

Whenever insomnia attacked her at home, Zarya would warm her some milk and put a spoonful of honey in it. Her aunt used to tell her that when she was little, she couldn't sleep either, and her father would make her that same glass to soothe her sleep. The woman's eyes lit up whenever the subject of her late brother came up. She loved to talk about him, never seemed sad to do so, instead a deep joy and admiration was always there.

"Can't sleep?" A hoarse voice stopped her skipping steps.

When she looked up and saw Finnick sitting on one of the sofas drinking milk from a glass her heart stopped skipping in fright. But the intensity of her heartbeat certainly didn't diminish.

"No."
"Hot milk with honey?" He asked as he got up from his seat and put his glass on a small table, approaching the bar that held the glass bottles.
"How did you...?"

The man laughed, a curved smile revealing his teeth. He never gave her one of those charming smiles that made others fall at his feet, so seeing him smile, alone in that train carriage, she felt that tingle again, as if she were reliving a moment, a déjà vu.

"You forget that I knew you long before you got to know me again, Mareena," when he turned around, the glass of milk steaming, the smile was gone.

It was true. Mareena barely knew the guy. But every time he looked at her, he seemed to know her from head to toe. That always made her sick, nervous. She was sure Finnick knew her better than she knew herself, and that frustrated her like nothing else, specially when he appeared to dislike whatever he knew about her.

"Thank you."

He just nodded, his eyes fixed on her. That intense, emotion-filled gaze that Mareena could never identify. It made her feel exposed, so she sat down on one of the sofas and crossed her legs on the seat, not looking back at him.

The silence lasted for a few uncomfortable seconds. Until a point where she couldn't stand it any longer, and turned around to face him and open her mouth to speak.

Of course, before any words could come out, the boy finished his glass in one gulp and looked at her with that same face as always: empty.

"Enjoy your milk, I'm going to bed."

He turned around and quickly started walking towards the exit. The carriage door opened, but before he could get out, Mareena found the words to stop him.

"What is your problem?"

The man stopped in his tracks. She saw his shoulders tense and as he turned his face slightly, so did his jaw. Finnick was slow to answer, but when he did, his voice took on a dark, husky tone, almost of guilt, or disappointment, or sadness, or anger, or maybe all of those at the same time.

"You couldn't just leave it, could you?"

When she didn't know how to answer, Finnick snorted an unfunny laugh and shook his head slightly, this time exiting the carriage for good. When the door closed behind him, it clouded the sound of his footsteps, leaving room for total silence and the doubts in her head room to make a fuss.

Mareena thought and thought most of the night about what he might have meant. Her milk ran cold and sleep did not come until she saw the sun rise through the windows. She would never understand Finnick's attitude towards her. She would never understand how his smile could change tone for a second. When she finally went to bed thinking about him, the only images that invaded her sleep were shells in the sand and lemon pie in the the sunset.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

The overwhelming feeling she remembered from the day she left the Capitol attacked her again once she set foot back in it. There were so many people in the train station that she couldn't see where the sea of people ended. It wasn't just her that was overwhelmed by the situation, Annie was so nervous and anxious that she couldn't stop shaking. On the contrary, Finnick seemed to be in his natural element, waving at people and smiling from ear to ear, yet Mareena could see it clearly, the falseness in that smile, how forced it looked from her point of view. Something wasn't right, but Finnick would never admit it, much less to her.

People were shouting her name, and all she could do was half-smile and wave at a few of them. She couldn't believe that so many people were there for her, Mareena forgot everything and everyone, but it seemed like the whole world remembered her name.

"Smile a little more, Little Mermaid, the sharks are watching," feeling Finnick's hot breath on her ear she startled a little. She looked sideways at him, but the man was acting as if it had been nothing, waving and smiling at everyone who called his name.

Mareena swallowed dryly and did her best to do so, to smile more, to look more pleased. There, she was just a simple little fish, a little mermaid swimming in chains in a tank full of sharks.

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The apartment, just as she expected, was overflowing with opulence, it was beautiful, but from there she couldn't hear the sea, or the seagulls, or feel the cool morning breeze. Nothing there felt right.

"Well my little ones, settle down, eat and rest, tomorrow we have a parade to give," Farah smiled at the place as if she felt at home.

Mareena half smiled and nodded, finally letting go of Annie's hand and giving her a little hug before heading off to her own room. The previous years, being a mentor, her room was located in the mentoring area, there were several doors scattered along the corridor, now in that corridor there were only two, one hers, the other; Finnick's. Side by side, even the organisation of something as simple as a flat seemed to mock her.
She heard the voices of Ikaris and Finnick himself behind her and turned around slyly. There was still no one else but her in the dark hallway. She hurried to open the door to her room before she had to meet the cold eyes of her district mate. Inside, she realised that the room was also larger than what she had previously been used to. There was a huge window overlooking the streets of the Capitol. She approached it until she was only a few feet away. For the first time since her arrival, she didn't feel as insignificant as the people below now looked.

"I thought you got dizzy from heights," the voice behind her made her jump with shock.

When she turned and saw Finnick with his arms crossed and leaning against the door frame, her heart calmed a little. She placed a hand on her chest and sighed to calm her heartbeat before looking back up at the man.

"They do," she replied simply, shifting a little uncomfortably in her place.
"What are you doing so close to the window, then?"
"We're on a fourth floor, any higher than five and I'd be puking."

Silence again interposed itself as a constant, and as always, the man's intense gaze never left her for a second. It was seconds, maybe minutes, before she could finally speak before that gaze made her insides explode.

"Do you need something, or did you just come to see if I was okay with the height?"

Finnick laughed sideways as if what she'd just said was funny, making Mareena frown and cross her own arms.

"Did I say something funny?"
"No, Little Mermaid, no."

Mareena sighed at the nickname. It made her feel like a child, not a Hunger Games survivor, and the way Finnick Odair especially said it was like he was mocking her in the most passive aggressive way possible.

"Don't call me that."

The man frowned with a small hint of amusement and pushed off the wall, Mareena swallowed dryly as she watched him approach with predator-like strides. The height difference between the two of them wasn't much, about two inches at most, but Finnick's presence, or rather his gaze, always managed to make her feel smaller. She never showed it though, she was too proud to do so. Her aunt said it was one of the things she definitely hadn't forgotten.

"Why not? Everyone here knows you for being the little mermaid who swam too deep."
"But I came back to the surface, didn't I?" She looked at him with the counterpart of the man's gaze; as challenging as possible.
"Did you? Really, Little Mermaid, did you come back to the surface?

Mareena didn't know what to answer at that moment. She had survived, hadn't she? Finnick's riddles infuriated her every time. She lived in constant confusion and the man was confusing her more and more. Looking into his eyes there was always something that caught her, a lost, choked feeling that she could never see clearly enough to identify, and that made her even angrier. Understanding Finnick Odair was like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
After that long, intense silence in which Mareena didn't respond and simply glared at him as she tried to decipher his gaze, Finnick pulled away from her so quickly that she stopped feeling a protective warmth and returned to the cold of the room.

"Get changed, Farah's calling us to dinner."
"I'm not hungry."

Finnick sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he were dealing with a stubborn child. Stubborn she was, a child; not anymore.

"You have to eat, I don't know if you don't know it yet, but you've got three days to prepare for hell."
"I told you I'm not hungry, Finnick. And yes, that was already clear to me, thank you."
"Keep playing, and you won't have half a chance," those words lit the rather thin fuse that had already threatened to snap. This time, it was she who approached him.
"Do you think I can't do it, Finnick, do you think I can't win?"

She couldn't, who was she kidding. She didn't remember anything about how to do it, but boy did she remember how to be stubborn.

"I don't know, Mareena, can you?"

She didn't realize how close she was until she saw that inexplicable gleam in Finnick's eyes so close. Yet she didn't pull away, didn't give the man the satisfaction of doing so.

"I've done it once, I can do it again."
A humorless laugh, then; "I wish it were true."

She couldn't catch the double meaning of those words and was again at a loss for words. She took a step backwards, turning away from Finnick's figure to lose his warmth again, the man's features so frozen again that she couldn't find any presence of the feelings from just a moment ago.

"If you don't want to eat, fine, I'll tell Farah you're tired."

Before she could reply the man turned and began to walk briskly to the open door. As he was about to leave, he stopped suddenly, and her heartbeat stopped as well. He turned his head just a little, just enough so that she could see the amusement in his expression.

"Oh, and try not to leave the door open next time you don't want to see me."

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"Finnick Odair, right?"
"Yes. He won his Games at 14, the youngest ever. Very humble."
"You're kidding."
"Of course I'm kidding. He's a peacock, very cocky. But he's the Capitol's favourite, they love him here. Charming, intelligent, and very skilled in combat, especially in the water."
"Any weaknesses?"
"One. Mareena Crawford. The little Mermaid. He was her mentor and they were close all their lives, until she lost her memory after her Games. Whoever had eyes knew he was down bad in love with her, the things he did to save her when she was in, only someone that crazy in love would be willing to give so much. Tragic really, they could have been a beautiful love story."
"She doesn't remember anything, how is she going to survive in an arena full of professionals? He must know that when the time comes he won't be able to protect her."
"Well Katniss, I hope when. No. No when, 'if' that time comes, it will be quick. Mareena is without a doubt one of the sweetest girls that the Capitol has unfortunately made pay with its cruelty. But she is not one to be underestimated, even the most beautiful rose hides the most terrible thorns. And she's probably the most beautiful of them all."

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

"Don't worry honey, we'll do all the work, when I'm done with you people are going to go crazy, relax, drink some water, and get ready for the show."

Sitting in that room Mareena was anything but relaxed. And how could she be? In a few hours she would climb into a carriage to impress millions of people. If she had felt overwhelmed at the train station, she didn't even want to begin to think about how she would feel at the parade.

Her team started attacking her before she could say anything, nails, hair, face, absolutely everything was being styled for the eyes of her spectators, while Farah watched over everything with hawk-like eyes.
She still hadn't been allowed to see the dress, or whatever it was she was going to wear. In all her years of mentoring, the outfits she had seen had never appealed to her. They were supposed to be meant to represent the beauty of each district, and none had captured the magnificent and unparalleled one that the 4th possessed, if anything, they were too extravagant or too plain. Farah, however, had captured incredible beauty when she had done hers at her first Games, the woman had shown her photos and videos of her parade, and even brought her the costume she had worn in the hope of rekindling some memory. Of course it hadn't worked, but at that moment, Mareena understood the enormous fame the stylist had in the Capitol. She was a genius, an artist who didn't limit herself to fish and fishing, but went deeper, to the beauty of the people in the district, to what it meant to be the sea. In her games, it was her mermaid-like costume that first gave her her nickname. Back then it was not just a costume like grandmothers used to sew for little girls, rather, her mermaid was the sea itself. The fabric of different blues gave the illusion of being the sea and moving, she was the sea, a mythological creature that represented the beauty and mystery in its depths.

More than an hour passed in which she could not speak, unless she wanted to be hit with a brush, in which the nerves were consuming her so much that Talia, one of her make-up artists, had to repeat her nails twice.

"Okay, ready for the dress," Farah commented as the others stood back.

With help, they brought the blissful outfit into the room, and Mareena was definitely not disappointed.

"It's like..." She couldn't find the words.
"The beach. I remember that on all my visits you would always escape to that corner of the beach, so I took the liberty of putting it in cloth and leather."
"Farah, it's... it's beautiful. Thank you," she smiled, touched by the woman's intention.
"And it will look more beautiful on you, it's time to leave the world drooling over those curves."

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"You look beautiful, darling."
"Thank you, Mags," she gave the woman a hug. "Where's Finnick?"

Mags replied with a grimace and nodded her head to a spot behind her. Mareena turned around, and frowned as she saw the man's back and the face of someone she couldn't really see clearly, but from her attire she could only guess who it was.

"It's Everdeen, isn't it?" She asked the woman, and Mags nodded.

If she hadn't seen it herself, she would swear that the past Games had been a lie, she had been told that she had survived for love, because deep inside her, even in moments between life and death, she had remembered the people who loved her and whom she loved, for whom she had to come back to life. But to the tributes of District 12, those words literally fell flat. Love had saved them both in an impossible situation. It was something that left Mareena with such deep admiration.

Whatever they had been talking about ended when Haymitch and Peeta arrived, Finnick said goodbye to the three of them and walked towards her, Mags and Annie. Once in front of her, as if he was seeing her for the first time, he swept his gaze up and down her body, taking in every part of her body and her outfit, especially her bare shoulders. Mareena couldn't tell if it was discomfort or something else she felt from that intense stare.
When Finnick finally seemed to come back to reality, he swallowed hard and looked her in the face as if it were nothing. Neither Mags nor Annie made a sound, Mareena wasn't sure they were even there anymore.

"Ready?"
"To entertain a bunch of people who want to see me dead? Of course."

Finnick struggled to hide the sly grin he was suppressing, not getting too excited and making Mareena smile. Apparently, in the face of the imminent threat of a greater evil they could appear to like each other. The boy held out a hand and she took it, with a smile and a wave of her hand, waving goodbye to Mags and Annie, while Finnick did so with a sly smile and a wink.
As he stood in front of their carriage, he helped her into it. Once up she felt her heart beating so fast and loud she could hear it in her ears, her mouth was suddenly dry, and she couldn't think of a way to hide her nerves in front of so many people.

"I thought you said you were ready, Little Mermaid," Finnick glanced sideways at her, standing side by side there was no need to raise his voice at all so it sounded husky with a mischievous edge.
"I am," she lied, of course Finnick was the last person she would tell the truth to and would admit that her nerves and fear were eating her up inside.

She thought she heard a laugh from him but she didn't dare look at him, she just closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If she looked at him and saw a mocking expression on his face, she wasn't sure she would be able to keep her composure for much longer, and it was only seconds before she would be thrown to the sharks.
The first carriage pulled out, and in the blink of an eye hers began to move forward as well. Her nerves threw her off balance and she almost fell, but the man's big, strong hand stopped her so quickly that she only moved a little. She was about to thank him, when from being on her back, his hand grabbed hers and gave it a light squeeze, Mareena didn't even realize that she had returned the squeeze, she did it as if it was a reflex. Finnick leaned a little closer to her and just before they stepped into the light, he whispered:

"You're a terrible liar, Little Mermaid, you always have been."

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In her dreams the last few days all there was were mysteries and death, there were faces, scenarios and situations that she could not understand, let alone remember. Each dream was worse than the next. From being on the beach, at sunset eating lemon pie, to watching the water of the sea turn to blood as she swam in it and feeling like she was drowning in its thickness. At least that was what today's nightmare brought for her.

"Wake up, Little Mermaid, today you train with me."

She didn't have time to finish feeling her throat close as it filled with blood when she was woken from sleep. It took her a few seconds to realize who it had been, and when she did, she didn't have the awareness to remember what Finnick had said.

"What?"
"We're training today, and you'll train with me."
"And why is that?"

The man threw her clothes in her face, she didn't have the speed to catch them, Mareena frowned when they hit her face.

"Because I'm not going to stand in front of you in the arena and stop 22 of the deadliest people in Panem from killing you. Get changed and let's go."

Mareena rolled her eyes and got up from her bed, shoving Finnick out of her room and telling him she'd be ready in five minutes. When she closed the door, she leaned against it for a moment and sighed, it was only then that she realised that her heart had stopped beating abnormally and she no longer felt that terrible fear searing her insides.

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"We have little time but we'll make the most of it, we'll start from the basics," Finnick had been talking about the training strategy since they got into the lift, but honestly Mareena couldn't pay the slightest attention to it.

She felt pressured, like she was being treated like a wounded animal, everyone saw her as a poor girl who couldn't stand up for herself but everyone wanted to get off the hook. Mareena was not helpless. If she had been able to learn the first time, she could learn again.
Finnick kept talking but her head had shut down to hear his voice. She scanned the entire training room, she had been told of the need to make allies, but so far, she saw more chance of befriending a poisonous snake than forging an alliance with any of the tributes. As she scanned the place she saw in the distance an area of nets and traps and something about it clicked. She didn't know what it was, there was just something inside telling her to get closer.

"Got it?" Finnick said, but the man had been off guard enough that Mareena was able to move away from him without him noticing. When he turned around and didn't see her, he was completely confused. "Mareena?"

The girl, now out of Finnick's sight, examined the ropes carefully, and as she did so, that terrible feeling of wanting to remember something, of familiarity, took the air out of her for a moment.

"Do you know how to make one?" The voice behind her had not been the one she had been expecting to hear.

When she turned around, she didn't see Finnick's blonde hair but Katniss Everdeen's brown, the girl looking much less tough without all the black make-up from last time, and when Mareena realised that her question was genuine and unintentional, she sighed and tilted her head to one side.

"No...maybe, I don't know, I don't remember," she laughed nervously, and Katniss smiled.
"It must be hard, huh?"
"What, not remembering anything or being looked at like a wounded animal, easy prey?"
"To go back to the place that took so much from you, and not even remembering what they took."

Mareena was silent for a second unable to answer, but collecting her thoughts she took a deep breath and turned back to the ropes again, crossing her arms.

"Yes, well, sometimes I feel like I never really left."

She grabbed one rope and turned to Katniss again without looking her in the eye, her own fixed on the rope in her hands.

That was the truth. Year after year she had to come back to mentor and accompany all those children to their deaths. Day after day something reminded her of what had happened, people pitied her and looked at her with pity, even in her dreams she had no peace. Her life had become a tragedy for everyone to enjoy from the moment her name got reaped seven years ago.

Without realising what she was doing, she began to tie the rope as if she had done it all her life, in no time she had a knot she had never seen before, or at least didn't remembered at all. When she finished, she didn't even remember how she had done it.

"I thought you didn't know how to do it," Katniss said when she saw what Mareena had done, her expression as surprised as hers.
"And I thought I didn't."
"Well, they say that even if the mind forgets, some things are impossible for the body to forget."

She thought about it for a moment and knew that Katniss was right. Her doctors had said as much a long time ago. Even after all that she had been through, she had remembered how to swim perfectly, how much she loved lemon pie, and where to find the perfect shells to make figures out of them in the sand. There were so many things she did on automatic that she'd never stopped to think that she'd learned them in her past, the one she no longer remembered, or so she thought.

"You know, I'm a hunter, so I've seen many times animals that can be even more dangerous when they're hurt," with a smile, the girl said goodbye and continued on her way to the archery range.

Mareena did not move for a moment, thinking about the girl's words and what she had just done. She looked at the knot carefully and realised that what she had thought had not been true; she had seen that knot before. Finnick might not be present in the district most of the time, but whenever Mareena saw him stressed, angry, or in one of those strange attitudes of him, he always brought a rope in his hands, tied and tied knots, and then untied them and tied them again. That particular knot seemed to be his favourite.

Now she knew where she had learned it from.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

Time was passing far more quickly than anyone would want it to when faced with death. The Games were only a night away and, although she expected to feel more nervous, as she stood in front of the mirror, admiring her reflection and the work her team had done on her appearance and outfit for the final interview, the nerves felt rather superficial, as if her subconscious was already preparing for the moment when the cannon would sound and the massacre would begin. There was nothing that could stop it now, no tears, no sorrow, no pain, no anger that could prevent it from happening.

When Caesar Flickerman called her name with an enthusiastic shout and the stage opened for her, she took a deep breath before taking her first step into the audience. The crowd began to shout and applaud, Mareena couldn't decipher everything the thousands of voices were telling her, so she concentrated only on the one inside her that told her to take baby steps and keep smiling at the camera.

"Honey, you look spectacular!" The man boasted once she reached his side, and taking her by the hand, he gave her a little twirl to drive the audience wild again.
"Well, that's very kind of you, Caesar, my ego and my stylists' egos thank you," both the audience and the presenter laughed and Mareena smiled, sometimes she thought pleasing these people was way too easy.
"Of course, of course. Now, my dear, you know I have to ask. How are you? How are you feeling? It must be hard to go back to a memory you don't even know yourself."

Before answering the question, she took a sly breath and nodded, feigning expressions as Farah advised her to do to win the hearts of the audience.

"It is, but I've been lucky to find support from everyone here. But..."

The audience pricked up their ears and Caesar moved a little closer to her with the microphone, waiting for her to speak. Farah and Ikaris had told her to do and say whatever she felt like saying, only in a dramatic and appealing way, to get to the heart of the audience to get to their wallets as well.

"But...?" The colored haired man inquired.
"There are... things, I should have had more time to sort out, some... unfinished business," she looked down, frowning slightly.
"Mhhh, by 'unfinished business' you mean...people?" The man questioned, curious.

At that point she forced a nervous smile, raising her gaze to the man and looking around the audience "apologetically".

"It could be."

The audience squealed and begged for more. She licked her lips and thought carefully about her next words. Putting the most innocent look she could master on her face, because that drove them insane, her faked innocence, her faked puppy eyes that left everyone drooling over her, it made her feel stupid, but it worked wonders.

"Oh honey, a love tragedy?"

Something inside her clicked when she heard the term, as if she had been thrown a bucket of cold water and thus awakened, something strange stirred inside her. She knew that term, she had heard it before, it resonated with her, she just didn't know exactly why.
She did her best to hide her reaction and kept her smile as best she could. She had to get down from there before people noticed her uncertainty. An uncertainty that was slowly beginning to take her breath away.

"I don't think we'll never know what could've been...or we will. I've done it once, I can do it again."

The crowd rose and applauded with all their might, Caesar laughed that fake laugh that pierced her ears, yet she kept smiling.

"Of course you can, of course you can! Ladies and gentlemen, Mareena Crawford, The Little Mermaid!"

As she walked up the stairs to where the other victors were, she let out the air she had been holding in a long sigh, took a few seconds to collect herself and then positioned next to the District 3 male tribute, seconds later, Finnick was announced, and he came out with his trademark charming smile in front of the cameras and the crowd went wild. She swallowed dryly and let out another sigh. The term Caesar had used a few minutes before was ringing in her ears again.

When the crowd finally quieted down and the interview began, Finnick conducted it as if he was born to manipulate and charm the people of the Capitol and show off in front of a camera, but Mareena wasn't surprised by any of it, she knew the man's reputation in the Capitol, if she had gotten good over time at manipulating and using her situation to her advantage on the grounds of the Capital of Panem, Finnick was certainly light years ahead of her in that.

"Finnick, I understand you have a message for someone here, can we hear it?" Finishing the interview, Mareena, who had been unable to concentrate at any point during it, finally raised her ear.

The man smiled sideways, but Mareena saw the internal conflict behind the smile, Finnick was thinking about it, battling with himself on whether to say it or not. It peaked her interest tenfold, and she swallowed dryly again as she waited anxiously for what he was going to say.

"I don't expect you to understand but...all I can think about is you, all that haunts me is you, and if I die in that arena...I want you to know that all I will ever love will be you."

The crowd went crazier than ever, every woman in the Capitol stood up and asked to be that woman, while Mareena furrowed her eyebrows slightly and again felt that weird thing stirring inside her. She didn't know why her body began to feel heavy, and this time it was much harder to hide it than before. But she kept her eyes straight ahead and didn't avert her eyes when Finnick came up the steps and positioned himself next to her. She felt his eyes on her for a few long minutes, but as soon as the next tribute was named, her gaze returned to the front.

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The whole team entered the flat in silence, no one said a word after the eventful night. Ikaris congratulated them on their wonderful performance and said goodnight before leaving the room as quickly as possible and fleeing to his room, Mareena caught a glimpse of tears in his eyes before he turned away. One by one they said their goodbyes, the hugs lasted a little longer this time, a tear or two escaped, and when only Finnick and Mareena were left, walking towards their rooms, the tension was more overwhelming and palpable than ever.
Since that morning Mareena had noticed him stranger than usual, the man avoided her gaze at all costs and only spoke when absolutely necessary. Something was bothering him, she could see it perfectly, his mind always seemed to be full of things and his brow was always furrowed, and Mareena had a feeling that it wasn't just about the Games.
Curiosity was going to kill her, she had been biting her tongue all day to keep the words from coming out of her mouth. But now it was just the two of them, in the dark corridor, both about to enter their rooms when she couldn't hold back any longer.

"You know, maybe next time you want to hide a secret, you should train your expressions. You're so good in front of the cameras, but so bad behind them."

Finnick’s pov:

Finnick stopped in his tracks, his shoulders tensed for just a few seconds before he took a deep breath and forced his rude facade to returned.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said disinterestedly, opening the door to his room ready to slam it in her face when Mareena was quicker than him, slipping inside.
"Oh, I'm sure you do. You disappeared all morning, Finnick. You told the others you were training, but I know you weren't, plus you've been acting strange all day, more than usual."
"Mareena, please stop it and leave, I'm tired," he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and putting a hand on his hip.
"What the hell did I do to you?" She asked with exasperation.

Mareena took a few steps closer to him with a distressed look on her face and a dry mouth, Finnick lifted his head and looked directly at her, the tiredness could be seen through his eyes, the bags under them were more prominent without the make-up.
He opened his mouth but closed it again, undecided as to what exactly he was going to say to her. Mareena waited patiently for a few seconds, opening her eyes slightly and raising her eyebrows as she folded her arms as if demanding the answer.

"Mareena just...please, get out, go away, don't make this any more complicated, okay?"
"I'm not moving from here until you tell me what's going on, Finnick, so we can stay here all night and tomorrow be the first to die from a lack of sleep, or you can tell me, get it over with and rest separately."

The man grunted as he ran a hand all over his face and then. Then, exasperated, he walked so fast towards her that Mareena didn't have time to move more than a step away before Finnick cornered her against the wall and put his arm around her neck, though without applying any pressure, trapping her completely between him and the wall.

"You want to know what's going on, Mareena? Well. What's wrong is that the damn world is going to fall apart and you won't let me protect you from it!"

The man's words put a stop to all her fighting to escape his grip. Mareena looked speechless, too confused and lost to respond. Her brows furrowed and her mouth opened in disbelief, but no words came out of her for a long moment, until she finally came to her senses again.

"What do you mean?" She mumbled, too confused, not needing to raise her tone when his face was so close to Mareena's, and a single breath was enough for him to hear her.

Finnick sighed and lowered his head, staying in that position for a few seconds before he took a long stride away from her, and turned his back on her. But still he felt her behind him, pushing herself off the wall and walking towards him, standing inches from his back.

"What. Do you. Mean?"

Finnick sighed again, and after a long consideration, came to the conclusion that there was no way to drive Mareena away now; she was waiting for the truth and nothing but the truth, and as she had made quite clear before, she would not leave until she had it. For a moment he saw a glimpse of the Mareena he knew. Of the incredibly stubborn girl who had challenged him like no one else in his life and he couldn't help but feel the overwhelming pressure in his chest that for so many years he had been trying to avoid but never seemed to be able to.
So he had to tell her the whole truth. The truth about the rebellion, about the Mockingjay, and about what Haymitch had asked him to do. Mareena was momentarily shocked, speechless, in fact, when he finished his short and vague explanation.

"I don't need protection, Finnick. I know you think I'm helpless because I don't remember, but I'm not. I can take care of myself and I don't need you to take care of me. I need you to trust me. Whatever happened between you and me before, whatever I did for you to...Whatever I did, I'm sorry, but if you can't trust the old Mareena, then trust the new one, because I'm not that girl anymore."

His chest caved in until there was a gaping hole in it when he heard the girl's words, his heart thundered with pressure and a sense of sorrow.

("I can take care of myself and I don't need you to take care of me. I need you to trust me.")

Mareena had said those exact same words to him years ago. She was wrong, she was so, so very wrong.
He swallowed dryly, trying to hide the longing her words left him with, and nodded, unable to speak without stumbling or trying to find coherence in what he wanted to say.

When the girl raised her chin, ready to leave, Finnick was strongly tempted to say the same thing to her that he had said to her in response to her words earlier in the past. Each word tasted bitter in his mouth, begging to be spoken, but in the end, those words remained mere thoughts as he watched her leave his room, the past taunting him like a cruel enemy.

("I know there's no one more capable in this damn district than you, but even if you don't need me, I need you.")

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

With what little light sleep she had had, it was not difficult for her to hear a faint noise and wake up exalted by it. When she opened her eyes, she first saw a blur, and then it became the silhouette of a tall, blond man with a melancholy expression.

"Finnick?" She asked hoarsely, rubbing her eyes and propping herself up on her hands.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," the man apologized.
"No, it's okay, what's wrong?" She sat up and looked at him, having regained full visibility after blinking several times.

But the blond's words became distorted as soon as he opened his mouth, and his silhouette became more and more of a blur.

"What are you saying? Finnick, I don't..."

For a moment Mareena was in a small panic attack, reality began to shake and she could no longer discern what was what. Until all the jumble of shapes and colours and sounds stopped and everything returned to a different normality than she had seen before. She was in the room that had been designated for these games, larger than the one in her dreams.

She took a deep breath and ran her hand over her face and hair, realising that it had all been a dream, but something in her chest, something that nagged at her, took her back to the rare visions of small fragments of her past that she had been having since the announcement of the Quarter Quell.

Before she could give voice to all the thoughts on the matter, the door opened and Farah entered the room.

"Good morning, sweetheart," her usual lively and colourful spirit was absent that morning, instead a paler than usual face that the redhaired woman had tried to hide with excessive make-up and tired, watery eyes betrayed the real effort of her smile.

Mareena mentioned none of this, and instead did her own best to hide the effects of her sleep by reciprocating the smile.

"Good morning."
"Ready?"

The chestnut took a heavy sigh and released it slowly, nodding slowly as she swung her feet off the bed.

"As ready as one can be."

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They were all gathered at the entrance to the lifts, she and Finnick didn't have much time to say goodbye, their hovercrafts would be leaving shortly, so none of them wasted any time in starting the final goodbyes. Farah would go with her, while Finnick's stylist would go with him.
When it was her turn to hug Annie, she stayed a little longer so she could talk to the redhead who couldn't stop crying.

"You have to be strong, okay? Zayra will take care of you and you'll take care of her, you'll keep each other company, okay?" The girl nodded and when they parted she moved into Finnick's already open arms, while Ikaris grabbed Mareena in a tight embrace.
"Against death and all its odds, Pomegranate."

For a moment Mareena wanted to cry. Those had been the same words he had said to her on the hospital gurney when she returned from her Games, and now that she was re-entering them, their meaning hit her even harder.
Finally she said goodbye to Max, asking the woman to tell her aunt how much she loved her and thanked her for everything, and how sorry she was too, to take care of Annie as if it was her, and to not give up, because she still needed her. And when there was no choice but to walk away from them, she turned away quickly so that she could no longer look them in the face and feel like she couldn't breathe.
There were two lifts in front of them, Farah and the other stylist decided to take the one on the left and let her and Finnick take the one on the right. Only 9 floors separated them from the hovercrafts that would take them to the Arena, and once they got on them, they wouldn't see each other until they were inside the arena, if they survived to do so of course.

9 floors turned into an eternity next to Finnick, the pressure in her lungs that wouldn't let her breathe was getting bigger and bigger as the numbers changed, Mareena couldn't take her eyes off them. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

"Whatever happens," Finnick spoke suddenly, she turned her gaze from the screen to the man.

8

"Don't stop swimming. You have to keep swimming."

9

The doors opened, and it didn't take the blond a blink of an eye to get out of the lift and walk too fast to keep up.
Mareena didn't know how to move for a few seconds, until the door was closing and she realised she had to get out immediately.

She had to keep swimming. And she would keep swimming.

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Farah explained the final details of the suit and the tracker she had been implanted with on the flight over in the last few seconds before entering. The woman was so frantic that she couldn't stop talking until Mareena embraced her unawares.
That was the last moment to say goodbye to everything she knew, that horrible feeling that compressed her chest returned once the chronometer indicated the last 10 seconds she had to get on the platform, the air was completely cut off and for a moment, as she saw the glass closing and Farah's uncontrolled crying start, she felt like she was going to faint. Her head began to spin and nausea settled in her stomach and throat.
Sudden images of the same scene in a different time flashed through her head, the same goodbye seven years ago replayed in her head in a blur but constantly.

The confusion of the moment left her so bewildered that she didn't notice when the platform began to rise, and a terrible feeling of claustrophobia made her feel on the verge of collapse. Until the enclosed space and lack of oxygen became a bright light and a breath of fresh air, her skin began to moisten immediately, and the salty air she was already so familiar with went up her nose.

When her vision cleared and she could get a little more control over her breathing to make her image less blurry, the first thing she saw was water, water, and then a circle of people around a large cornucopia. They were on a beach, and beyond that was jungle.

Beach, she was on a beach, there was a lot of water around her, she was in her element. That was good, wasn't it? But just as she knew her own advantage, she was also aware of the disadvantages, and it wasn't even the 22 other tributes around her. Water could be as beautiful as it was dangerous.

She searched desperately for the silhouette of a tall blond, but nowhere could she find Finnick anywhere near her field of vision, either because he was on the other side, or because the count in front of her only raised her already high heart rate and made her feel as if her chest was going to explode at any moment, leaving her unable to concentrate.

She had another 10 seconds to control herself. She looked to both sides, at the tributes standing next to her, both of whom were men and looked eager to jump in the water already.

9, 8

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if she had all the time in the world.

7, 6

She had grown up in District 4, her home in the waves, the sand, the sea, her connection to the water so strong that she had been called the Little Mermaid.

5, 4

Her first Games had been in a snowy climate, nothing like her reality would give, and yet she had found a way to survive. She could do it again, and if not, she would make sure that at least one person made it out of that damned arena alive.

3, 2

She hadn't survived to die, she hadn't gone through it to come back, and she definitely hadn't won to lose. In life or death, she would make them all pay for what they had done to her. Yesterday, she had no reason to fight here, today, she knew she wouldn't leave without giving them hell.

1

She heard the splashes just after the cannon, and as she looked to her sides, both tributes and everyone else she could see were already jumping into the water or swimming towards the cornucopia. She waited just a few seconds, she waited and analysed them all, she couldn't jump without first making sure there were no traps or dangers hidden beneath those treacherous waters, once she confirmed it, she jumped herself.

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Finnick’s pov:

If Finnick could list every single mistake he'd ever made in his life, leaving the beach without being able to find Mareena would definitely have to be fucking number one.
Katniss and Peeta had dragged him deep into the jungle, and as much as every part of him screamed with every cannon blast that sounded that he had to get back, it was too late to do so without putting the other two at risk.

Finally, when they were far enough in, they stopped running. The humid heat was getting heavier and heavier, the physical exertion would soon have to be doubled, and as they were just starting out, they had to take it easy.
Suddenly the cannons sounded again, and it was hard to find it in himself not to turn back.

"I guess we're not holding hands anymore."
"You think that's funny?" Katniss asked.

Finnick thought it was as funny as a hundred stabs in the back, but those were things he couldn't say, so instead he simply continued with the lie that sought to soothe the incessant pounding in his chest.

"Every time I hear that cannon, it's music to my ears."
"For some reason I find that very hard to believe. More like you get nauseous every time you hear it. Your face is pale, by the way," Katniss's words provoked a rage he couldn't quite understand, of course he felt nauseous, but he didn't need the girl in front of him to say it.
"I'm not interested in any of them."
"Well, if that's the case, then I guess we'll wait to see it until tonight."

If Peeta hadn't had the initiative to continue, he probably would have lost what little thread of sanity he was clinging to. But he forced himself to take a deep breath, keep up with them, and remember that no matter what, he would soon find her.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

Even in those moments, lying under a tree looking up at the false stars in the sky, relatively safe, Mareena still couldn't believe how she had made it out of the Cornucopia alive. It had all happened so fast, that it was only until that moment of temporary peace that she could really remember what had happened.

She had been searching desperately for Finnick, while swimming and while running, but when she reached the centre of it all, all she could focus on was the spear and knives she instinctively grabbed, and the tribute from District 8 who appeared in front of her in a matter of seconds. He was old, but fit, and he looked ready to kill her. Too willing.
The two stood staring at each other for a few seconds, until Mareena heard voices behind her, three of them. Tributes who were probably allies. She knew perfectly well that if she was caught between the man's allies, she wouldn't stand a chance.

He knew it too. He was first to close in, hard and decisive, but Mareena was quick to dodge, she spun around, making the man go straight, and as if repeating a move as if she already knew how to perform perfectly, she was behind the tribute's back and drove the spear hard into the man's back. A single groan of pain drowned in blood was all that was heard before the fall and the cannon.

For a moment she stood still, unable to move or breathe. What she did, it was as if she was replaying the same scenario, a twisted déjà vu. She had killed someone, and now she was about to die. Because the other tributes were on their way to her. Because she was running out of breath. Because she didn't know what to do. Because she couldn't find Finnick.

As her breathing began to quicken and the footsteps began to sound closer, she felt like that was the end of it, when suddenly, someone began to pull her arm so hard that she almost tripped.

"Mareena, move!" Someone urged her in a whisper.

Mechanically her legs began to move along with whoever was dragging her, but her eyes wouldn't leave the corpse. When she finally turned around, short, black hair with red highlights gave her the answer to who had saved her. Johanna led them into the jungle just as the professionals reached the corpse of the man of district 8, and from there they didn't stop running. They were joined by someone else, Johanna's district partner, she recognised, Wires and Beete.
They ran and ran until they were deep enough inside the jungle. Mareena was exhausted, her chest was rising and falling rapidly and felt heavy, each breath she took harder than the last.

"Are you all right?" Asked Johanna, approaching her and putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Yes, yes... thank you," she lied, of course she wasn't all right, but no one ever told the truth to that question anyway.

There was silence for a long moment, the only thing that could be heard were the sounds around them and the agitated breaths of the five tributes.

"Where's Finnick?" She asked the black haired, and though Mareena had started to regain some breath, her chest suddenly felt heavy again.
"I don't know, I couldn't find him," Johanna answered without looking her in the eye.

Johanna said nothing more after that, none of the five of them did. They simply walked in search of a place to rest.

"Are you hungry, my dear?" Wires asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She had been so caught up in recalling the events of that afternoon that she hadn't noticed that Johanna and Blight had momentarily disappeared, and that when they returned, they had brought fruit with them.
The older woman was now offering her one of these fruits with a kind smile, and though her hunger had been taken away by the memory of the bloodbath, deep down she knew well that she would need all the energy she could get from the food she could get.

"Thank you," she returned the smile as she received the fruit.

Mareena ate slowly, enjoying the taste. She stared into the void, thinking and thinking. About the tribute of 8, about Finnick, and most of all, about how the fuck it was that her body had remembered such a move. And when had been the first time she used it.

"What you did back there. Don't torture yourself for it. That's the way it is. Either you kill, or you get killed," Johanna told her once she sat down across from her.

Mareena looked at woman but didn't say anything back, she knew well that this was how things were, for some twisted reason of destiny she was alive for a second round of that hell. But even if she convinced herself that what she had done was self-defence, she couldn't think who had been her first victim with that move anyway. Whit what life she had learned that.

"It's not that, it's..." She shook her head, lowering it and waiting a second to reorganise her agitated mind. "My mind doesn't remember anything. Well, that's not technically true, but what I mean is...I know I was here before, because I saw the videos, because everyone tells me so, but I don't remember it, not all of it, almost none of it. But my body does, it remembers the cold and the terror and the hopelessness, it remembers the movements and it remembers...it remembers how to kill. It's... frustrating, and terrifying, to be honest."
"Believe me, some things are better forgotten, honey. You're lucky you don't remember everything, because now the only thing that matters is what you do remember."

Before she could respond, the night sky lit up and the presidential melody began the list of the dead. Mareena held her breath the whole time, clenching her hands every time the image changed and another deceased was shown, in her mind a single name kept repeating over and over and over again, and once it was over and Finnick's face was not shown, she got out the deep breath she had been holding all evening.

"Relax, that brute is as arrogant as he is skilled, he'll be fine, and he'll be looking for you," the black haired told her with a sly smile, as if she knew something that Mareena was unaware of.

The brunette laughed and shook her head, her neck began to feel wet of sweat, and in that horrible tropical heat, it really didn't suit her.

"Yeah well, I really don't think so."

They were silent for a long moment. When she finished her fruit, her mouth felt dry again, the juice of this one had managed to give her some freshness but it was still not enough against the humid weather.

"Rest, if only for a while, until someone else tries to kill us."

Mareena smiled slightly and nodded, she was sleepy, and her dehydrated body really needed a break. She lay down resting her head in her hands and looked out into the deep jungle as she drifted off to sleep. Her eyes slowly closed, and surprisingly, she managed to get some peace and quiet in that hell.

If only for a moment. The consequences of letting her guard down came a few hours later.

At first it felt like drops of water, a few, only bothering her, until more and more fell, Mareena woke up annoyed, wiping the water that had fallen on her face with her hand, only to realise that what was falling from the sky wasn't exactly water.
When she looked at her hand, red and with the thick liquid on it, she realised that it was blood, and the scream she gave woke everyone else up.

"Mareena!" Cried Johanna in concern when she saw the girl's hands and face stained with blood.
"It's blood, it's not water, it's blood!" She shouted in terror.

And just as she said it, the sky broke into a shower of blood, it rained like she had never seen. The thick, grotesque, hot liquid began to burn on her skin, and soon she felt her throat begin to close, she was swallowing blood, she was choking on it.

"I can't-" she coughed. "I can't breathe."

Everyone around her was the same, and Johanna, as best she could, shouted that they should run. So that's what they did, they tried to escape the rain of blood, desperate, terrified. Until at the end they could see a light, and the further they went, the more sand they saw. Clean sand, the sun had already been rising and there was not a trace of that dreadful rain on the beach.

"The beach!" Mareena shouted for the others to hear.

They all ran as best they could in the direction of salvation, but it felt so far away, her lungs were closing up, clogging with blood and more blood, her whole body was burning and she felt every fibre of it aching to stop. Her legs were tumbling against her will, but just when she thought she would pass out before she could get there, an explosion sent her flying.

For a moment she felt dazed, lost, she had stopped feeling the burning, and now she felt a sharp pain in her back. Her ears throbbed, and it wasn't until Johanna picked her up and shook her that she was able to ground herself in reality.

"Mare! Mare, Mareena, that's it, that's it, no more rain, no more rain, no more rain."

It took her a moment to focus, everything was spinning around, there were three bodies in front of her, and another to the side, on the floor. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and when she opened them again, she could see better. Her lungs heaved again, and she coughed, trying to get the blood out of her. Johanna helped her bend over and soothed the pain with caresses on her back.

Somehow, the rain had stopped, they were inches from the beach, she could already hear the tide lapping against the sand, and it brought her a strange feeling of comfort despite the situation.
When she looked to her side, Mareena saw that the body on the ground was Blight's, his eyes were open and staring into the void, and his clothes had burn holes in it.

"A force field, I wanted to warn you but the blood was choking me," spoke Beetee, who was helping a disoriented Wires catch her breath.
"Is she all right?" She asked, nodding to the woman.
"Dehydration, combined with everything else, has her disoriented. But she'll be fine, we just need to get to the beach."

Everyone nodded and Mareena tried to get up, her whole body nagging at her for this, but with a grimace, a lot of strength, and Johanna's help, she managed it.

"Tick-tack," said Wires suddenly, making them all look at her in confusion.

Johanna and Mareena looked at the man for answers, but he pointed to the beach again. They nodded, and leaning on each other, walked towards the beach.

She felt nastier than ever. The blood was drying on her skin, she could still taste its horrible, metallic taste in her mouth. Her body arched in pain and she felt the need to sink into the water of the beach and not come out until she felt her lungs were choking on something other than blood.

"Tick-tack," Wires repeated.

The sound reminded her of the clock in her house. Tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack, tick. The endless nights when she lay awake staring into the void, feeling empty, after her Games, and again and again after every time it was her turn to come back from mentoring, and that damn clock was all that accompanied the silence and the raw noise in her head.

Tick-tack.

This time she remembered the clock in her hospital room, on the nights she couldn't sleep, which were basically all the nights she wasn't sedated by some kind of medication, that clock made her crazy. Tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack. Every time she tried to close her eyes, vague, bloody images flashed through her head like constant nightmares.

Her current state reminded her of her arena. She had come out covered in blood that time too, obviously not as drastically as she was now, but the blood of Venus still felt fresh on her, even if it had been years ago. Only this time, she wasn't sure she would come out with the same victory as last time, quite the opposite in fact, she was pretty sure it would be the opposite.

Daylight hit her literally blood-covered face as they crossed the edge of the jungle to the beach. And it was like a huge breath of life-giving air. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the wind hit her face and the tears wiped away some of the blood.

"Mareena!"

Someone shouted in the distance. For a moment she thought the rain of blood and Blight's explosion against the forcefield had affected her more than she thought, but when she turned around, she finally felt like she was drowning in something other than blood. This time, she felt her lungs choking with relief, with hope.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

One second she was running, straining her numb, tired muscles. The next; she was in Finnick's arms, clinging to him for dear life. At last she could sigh and release the air that had been constricting her chest, and apparently one that Finnick had been holding as well.

"God, Mareena, what... why... why... you're... covered in blood," when the man finally saw her condition, he pulled her away from his embrace by the shoulders and ran over her body a hundred times with his eyes wide in concern.
"I'm fine, I'm fine...it's...it's not my blood," she spoke, still struggling, her throat feeling hoarse and scratchy from the blood she had drawn, and the metallic taste was making her desperate.
"What?" Finnick frowned in confusion, but before Mareena could tell the full story, Johanna appeared behind her.
"We were deep in the jungle. We thought we were safe; until the rain started. We thought it was water, but it turned out to be blood."
"Tick-tock," behind Johanna, Wires came up to say again those two words that were hammering in Mareena's head, the woman might be a genius, but circumstances were starting to play with that huge brain.

Johanna ignored her and continued. Mareena tried to do the same.

"Blood, thick and hot. It was choking us. We were stumbling, we were choking, we couldn't see."

Mareena closed her eyes and swallowed dryly, the feeling of the blood trickling down her skin still too present. Finnick noticed this small action, and lightly squeezed her shoulders, which he had not yet released.

"Blight slammed into a force field. And if Mare had been just a few centimetres closer...."

Mareena felt the man immediately tense, for a moment not reacting, simply staring at her with that serious, scrutinising expression he always gave her, the concern that had been only seconds ago nowhere to be found. This left the brunette unable to look him in the eye.

Tick-tack.

"What's wrong with her?" That voice managed to deflect some of Mareena's nerves and make her look up, replacing them with relief when she saw Katniss and Peeta right behind Finnick.

For a moment their gazes met and Mareena gave her a faint smile, the best she could force for the moment, but real as she was truly relieved to see the girl alive and in good company, Katniss curved one side of her mouth as well, then moved to help Wires.

In that unsuspecting moment where she had enhanced her gaze, Finnick noticed a space in one of her ears where the blood didn't look so dry and still hung like a red thread, he brought a hand to it and though it caught the girl off guard, making her pull away a little, he reached for the blood and wiped it away, looking at his fingers in the same serious way he hadn't stopped looking at her.

"Okay, uhm, maybe not all of it isn't mine."

And if that hadn't surprised her before, it definitely did when Finnick's hand went from being on her ear to being on her lips, as his thumb brushed over them, making them open slowly. Thank goodness she was already too covered in red.
For a moment she was shocked, unable to react, she looked at him with her eyes wide open and her lips still parted, but just when she wanted to speak, to ask him what the hell he was doing and just tell him and his lost look to fuck off, when the blond showed her his thumb, stained with blood.

Mareena put her hand to her mouth at that moment, she had swallowed a lot of blood, but the blood on her lips belonged to her, and she had caused it herself. It was a nasty little habit she had developed after her Games, pulling off the skin of her lips and bitting them off when she was nervous, stressed or scared until they bled, at this point, it was almost unconscious, and she didn't realise it until the next day when her lips started to burn from the wounds.

"Mareena..." His voice sounded so soft, so sweet, as if he already knew about that habit, as if he knew its causes, and for some reason, Mareena sensed that it was exactly that.
"It's nothing, it's... I'm going to wash myself," and without letting him say anything, she stepped back, out of the enclosed space they had been in and hurried to the water, which instantly turned red.

From one moment to the next she heard Johanna and Katniss fighting, but she didn't even make the effort to move from her position, sitting in the sand, the water up to her chest, staring at the deadly horizon and letting the water wash away all the blood that stained her at that moment, both from the rain and from the blood that had stained her hands since the day her name was taken from the urn.

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚𓆟

The Arena was a clock, Wires had not succumbed to the desperation of the moment, and Mareena had not gone overboard with her recollections either.
With this in mind, it was much easier for the allies to form a plan. All the threats and destruction they had witnessed so far were each part of an hour, all chronometrically organised. They needed to rearm and prepare for whatever might come, inhuman and human threats alike.

When they reached the Cornucopia, for a second she couldn't take her eyes off the exact spot where she had left the body of the Tribute of the 8th. Her gaze was lost on the ground, her head playing tricks with it, reframing the image of the man face down with the spear embedded in his chest. But then, changing to a much older memory: a boy much, much younger than the man she had killed yesterday, with strawberry blond hair, freckles and brown eyes, muscular, but dead. She didn't have to regain her memory to know that this had been Gill Calahard, her first district mate, and the first one she'd killed with that spear thrust.
The very memory of it made her gasp a little, and when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she jumped. When she turned around, exhilarated, she saw Katniss looking at her sympathetically.

"Are you all right?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine, thank you."

The girl nodded and moved on, but Mareena felt intense eyes on her. Of course, when she turned her face, she met Finnick's, and it only took seconds of his intense gaze to make her avert her eyes and continue on the same path as Katniss.

She had lost most of her weapons, she only had two knives in each calf, so the first thing she did when she arrived was to look for more. She looked all over the Cornucopia, and inside she found another spear. Though it would send shivers down her spine to even look at it, she had to admit that, while she was good with knives, she was excellent with a spear, and now she couldn't afford any traumatic resistance to what could keep her and the people who mattered there alive.

She sighed and plucked up the courage to walk towards it, and just as she grasped the cold metal, a gasp diverted everyone's attention. Mareena's eyes widened at the sight of Gloss stabbing Wires. The first to react was Katniss, killing the man with an arrow. Soon Mareena heard everything break into chaos. Cashmere appeared, but Johanna was able to kill her easily before she got to Katniss. With Enobaria and Brutus, it was not so easy.
Like Mareena, the man in 2 was holding a spear, and her first reflex when she saw him coming for Finnick and Peeta was to parry him with her own. For a moment the two of them shovelled, the man's blows were significantly more violent and blunt than hers, obviously, because of his massive muscles and brute strength, but Mareena was twice as agile and quick, and if it hadn't been for the man's partner who stopped her by the neck just in time, they would have had one less worry in that instant.
Thanks to Katniss's arrow that sent them both running from the shooter's cover, the woman let go of the her neck and Mareena managed to deliver a blow before she could hurt her with her daggers.

Mareena gasped with the adrenaline of almost feeling death, again, but before Finnick could get close to her, Katniss ran past her to follow the two professionals, and the girl had no choice but to run after her, Johanna accompanying them as well.

But as they ran, the ground suddenly began to shift, to spin, and they all fell under the sudden force. Johanna managed to catch Katniss, but Mareena had to see for herself.

"Mare!" Shouted the black-haired girl.
"Johanna!" She shouted back, desperate.

Mareena was losing her grip on the rocks, the water splashing against them made them slippery and her hands couldn't take the pain. She was clinging on for dear life, squeezing the rocks until she felt her hands were bleeding, but all her willpower was no use when the spinning force was too much, and before she could even shout to Johanna or Katniss, a desperate scream as she fell backwards into the water came out. Katniss reached out in an attempt to catch her as she shouted her name, but the few inches of distance between them was enough to keep her from catching her.

She didn't know how long it took, seconds, that's for sure, but when she fell into the water everything went to hell, the force with which the Cornucopia was spinning affected the water around her, making it almost impossible for her to swim, the current was too much, it had too much force, and even if she was an excellent swimmer, neither Mareena nor her lungs could fight it.

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚𓆟

Finnick’s pov:

As soon as everything stopped spinning, he was the first to get up and run. Running to find Johanna and Katniss, running to find Mareena. But of the three, he only found one, Finnick's chest began to rise and fall out of control and he put his hands to his hair when he didn't see her, Johanna told him vaguely that they had fallen into the water, that first it had been Mareena, then Katniss, but they saw the Mockingjay come out not far from there, while, no matter how frantically he was looking for her everywhere, Mareena didn't appear, for a moment he despaired, then, a big gulp of air and he dived immediately into the water.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

There were so many things in the Games that didn't make sense, much more to a woman who lost all memory of it. Mareena knew perfectly well she had killed to survive, that she had done things that should be consider inhumane for the sake of coming back alive, that didn’t mean, tho, that she could stomach watching it all over again. That's why, no matter how many times she sat on the TV and put her tape on, no matter how many spectators told her about it, she could never finish watching, or or pay too much attention to whoever talked to her about it, every time she sat and watch a little bit of it, she ended up throwing up and being inevitably sick before she saw herself making a second kill —she had unfortunately saw how se killed her first victim, and that had forever scarred her nightmares for life—, that's why she had never known how she killed her District mate back then.
Everything that happened in there was something only her distorted and terrified mind could know, but as was obvious, even that was a challenge.

Her life seemed to be full of those, impossible to escape, but at least now she knew the difference between drowning in blood and drowning in water, if it counted for anything.

Now, all she needed (apart from water that wasn't salty and trying to kill her, food and sleep) was a moment alone. So, despite Finnick's protests, she had offered to go in search of some food, anything that would give them even a little more energy.

“No," no sooner had she picked herself up off the ground and grabbed her spear than the blond man leapt off the ground like a spring and stood in her way.
“No?” She arched her eyebrows in confusion.
“No. Mareena, you must rest, at least for a little while.”
“Finnick, I'm fine, just like I've been telling you for the last five times.”
“Yes, but...”
“But nothing," she cut him off immediately, forcing him to shut up and listen to her, "I can take care of myself for a few minutes, I won't go far, I promise, but if I want to make it to tomorrow alive to kill those two careers, I need some sustenance, so I'll go get it, okay?” And without giving him room to argue, Mareena left after smiling in response to a "be careful" and a "don't take too long" from Katniss and Johanna.

Now, alone in the forest and with some space for a little clarity, she had a moment to think about whether this was really going to work, how the fuck were they supposed to get Katniss and Peeta out of that place, anyway? And if they did, would it be worth it? Was it really possible to end so much evil? The answer had to be yes, because, otherwise…

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚𓆟

Finnick’s pov:

Panic is a curious thing. It triggers instincts that you didn't even notice were there until they take over. It is in a matter of seconds that panic can take complete control of the whole body and not let go until you are convinced that the danger is over, and even then, the anguish left its trace, in the throat: that sour taste of fear that stayed there for hours, in the stomach: that jumble of nerves that seemed to be pushing your insides everywhere and wanting to expel everything inside.

Panic is irrational, leaving your head empty of all logical thought and instead subjecting you to impulsive actions. Your heart races and your blood heats up, your lungs shut down and suddenly it's as if your whole body starts twitching unexpectedly. But the thing about panic is that it could be as loud as it could be silent, eating you from the inside out until everything erupts in an explosion of chaos.

And panic is, in truth, what Finnick hadn't stopped feeling since he saw the first flash of light in the arena. Ironically, because of the one person he had avoided for so many years and hurt just to ensure distance between them.
He panicked when he couldn't find her in the bloodbath, when cannon shot after cannon shot rang out and he had to keep running even though he wanted to vomit up his breakfast. He panicked when he saw her covered in blood, then when Johanna told him she was almost killed by the force field. And he panicked when he didn't see her on the Cornucopia and realized she had fallen into the water.

But certainly none of those situations had terrified and paralyzed him as much as hearing her scream for help when he went after Katniss.

“Mareena!” He shouted around him, ignoring Katniss's every word as his frantic heart hammered in his head.

When the girl of twelve heard her little sister's voice and ran off, Finnick went after her, Mareena still hadn't returned from her search for food, and unlike the other times, where a part of him held out hope for the girl's ferocity, hearing her scream his name was another level of panic altogether that he had never before experienced in his life, that kind of panic that was so invasive it could be perfectly described as a parasite that ate everything from the inside out without mercy at all. Like the merciless ocean in a storm where the unforgiving waves would pull you under again every time you reached surface to try to catch a breathe, your every effort to breath would be useless, and you would know that, you would held that knowledge while wave after wave after wave sank you deeper and deeper and deeper. Or at least, that’s the only way Finnick found to describe it.

“It's not her! It's a Jabberjay, Finnick, it's not her.”

But that did little to calm him, and instead made everything worse for the man.

”Jabberjays imitate, Katniss, where do you think it get it from.”

Suddenly, before he could give in to his impulse to run and shout her name until he found her or heard the cannon, more voices joined Mareena's, among whom he could recognise Annie and Zarya. The Jabberjays kept coming and attacking, and attacking, and attacking, to the point where they had to run, run to get away from the claws and beaks descending on them, but most of all, run from the voices and cries for help that were multiplying beyond recognition, but as expected, the torture would not end until those outside did not want it to. They hit a barrier where the others were trying to hit it without success, not even their voices could be heard amidst the sea of screams all around them, reaching a point where panic turned to terror, then to anguish.

He couldn't squeeze his ears any tighter than he already was, trying to isolate himself at least a little from all the screaming, but all the strength he had wouldn't stop him from hearing Mareena screaming over and over again for help, filled with a pain that was killing Finnick from simply listen to.

“Finnick!”

When he felt hands grasping his shoulders he jumped and fell backwards, but when he saw Mareena's contracted, worried face, desperate to bring him back to reality, all the panic he had felt returned as he thought he had lost her, but it turned to unbridled relief when he felt her hands on his face, confirming that he was not torturing himself with a false vision of her.

“You're all right, okay? It’s done, the hour it’s done," she tried to smile slightly at him.

Without waiting another second, he grabbed her neck and pulled her to him, hugging her so tightly that he heard her gasp for air. But the girl didn't flinch, she didn't pull away, she simply hugged him around the shoulders and stroked his hair gently while murmuring soft reassuring words that felt too close like those of all the dreams he constantly had of her, where she would hug him just like that, and tell him everything was ok, that the life he had been living without her had just been an ugly nightmare, that’s all. The difference was that they were now in the real, awful world, nothing was ok, and he had been living such a long time without her he had already forgotten what happiness looked like, and he had just experienced the most terrifying minutes of his life at thinking he had not been fast enough to save her, that he would soon find her dead and see her image in the sky. Yeah, definitely nothing was ok right now.

“Are you all right?” Finnick asked her, his voice trembling.

Mareena laughed softly and pulled away from him just a little, to look into his eyes, still reassuring him that everything was all right with the touch of her hands. A touch that stole Finnick's breath, because it was real, at least it felt real, because Mareena was in front of him, trying to reduce his earlier terror with her delicate laughter, because she was alive, because he wouldn't have to run to find her with a million possible scenarios hammering in his head, because he wouldn't hear the sound of the cannon as he prayed he wouldn't have to. At least, all that, for now.

“Am I okay? More like are you?”
I heard you... I thought you...”
“I'm fine," with a small smile and a hand on his cheek, Mareena assured him.

Finnick nodded slightly and accepted the help to get up from the ground, and though the brunette offered to help him walk back to the beach, he declined, and walked a little forward to get away from her before he finally exploded.

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚𓆟

Johanna’s pov:

“The two of them... did they ever...?” Katniss asked her when she returned, looking in the direction of Finnick and Mareena, the later who was approaching the boy.

She sat down next to the girl and sighed, looking at the two only people she had ever dared to consider friends. Mareena, her poor Mareena, looked so nervous while approaching Finnick, and Johanna was already so aware of everything that was crossing the girl's mind she couldn’t help but twist her lip in a frown. She cared for her, deeply, that’s why she hadn’t been able to run away like Blight wanted and went back for her the moment she saw Mareena in trouble. But she cared about Finnick too, the troubled, constantly pained boy who couldn’t seem to take a grasp on happiness even if it was laid before his eyes. Yeah, that’s probably why they had got so well along.

She remembered the drunk nights were Finnick would cry himself to sleep while telling her hours-long stories about Mareena, how they had lived so stupidly happy before her Games. Also remembering every time Mareena went up to her “seeking harsh advices”, as she liked to say, because it pained her to think she had been a bad person, or made some bad things to people, before loosing her memory, because that, in her mind, was the only reason why Finnick “resented her so much”. Johanna sat in those two situations wanting to smack their heads with an axe so hard Mareena would gain back her memory and Finnick would probably lose it.

“Their history is a bit... complicated. They've known each other since they were kids, and I know on Finnick's side there have always been feelings. They were together for a while, I think, at least before Mareena went to her Games. Then it all went downhill, Finnick made his fame in the capitol, and Mareena never understood the resentment and rejection from him after she lost her memory.”

Katniss nodded slightly, in her eyes Johanna saw the same understanding as her, that what was in Finnick’s eyes, was something way too far from resentment and rejection.

“He loves her, doesn't he?”

Johanna sighed and simply stared at the horizon, playing with her axe in the sand. She was the last person on Earth one could talk with about love, but…their love, well, she was the first person who could testify for it.

“Love is strange.”

An understatement, to say the least.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

Mareena watched the man from a distance, the idea of approaching him played in her head but her body did not move from its place. For a long moment she thought about what she might say to him if she gathered up the courage, but nothing concrete came to mind. Still, after several minutes of consideration, she decided to walk over and sit down next to the man in the sand.

“Hi.”

Finnick turned to look at her, and for a moment, just watched her, before finally answering, fortunately for Mareena's nerves.

“Hi.”
“Uhm, are you okay?”
“Yes, the horror is over, I just needed a... moment, to think things over," without letting much emotion show on his face that could tell Mareena anything more, he turned back to the water.
“Yes, of course.”

She did the same, and stared at the horizon beyond the Cornucopia for quite a while, not knowing what else to say. Until a memory popped into her mind. A memory that had always been recurrent, at least in those moments when Mareena would lose herself looking at the beautiful sky at the seashore, letting her consciousness be charged by the sound of the waves and the fresh air. She smiled unconsciously, and without looking at the man beside her, she spoke in a relaxed voice.

“I know this is going to sound ridiculous considering our situation, but for a moment, just for a one small moment, I felt like I was back home.”

Finnick turned to look at her just as she had imagined: like she was crazy. With a frown and a pursed lip, waiting for a remotely coherent explanation for the association. Mareena looked at him with a sly smile and couldn't help but snort out a laugh.

“I mean this, sitting on the seashore with the sunset in front of me. Only, of course, in my memories, there was less death and imminent danger, and more lemon pie and mermaid-shaped shells," she smiled incredulously.

Mareena didn't see the exact moment when Finnick's face changed completely, but she could hear his breath catch, and when she turned to look at him, she furrowed her eyebrows slightly at the uneasy expression on his face.

“Do you... do you remember that?” He asked, still not looking away from her, almost without blinking.
“I don't know exactly," she sighed and licked her lips, thinking for a second how to put all her confused thoughts and things into understandable words. At first it was small dreams, fragments of seconds that I would wake up to in exhilaration. First it was shells, a bunch of shells in the sand placed in different shapes, for some reason I already knew, I didn't remember but I knew," when she saw Finnick's even more confused expression, she laughed nervously at her inability to explain clearly. “When I was in the hospital, my aunt would bring me shells almost every day, and I would unconsciously arrange them next to my bed, when suddenly I would make figures with them that I hadn't even been planning on. One day my aunt stopped bringing them, I don't know exactly why, but the strange feeling of melancholy never went away.”
“And then?” Finnick asked in a whisper of a voice, as if he was afraid to ask.

Mareena looked into his eyes for a moment, trying to decipher all the emotions running through them, but it was impossible, there were too many to count. So she simply continued with her story, still looking directly at him.

“Then, when I went back to District 4, I saw them. I mean, all the shells, the figures. There were a lot of them, and I sat in the space between them and just watched the sunset. It all came to me so fast that I started to cry. In my memories there was a pie, exactly the same as the one my aunt made for me the first night after I came home. The sea looked beautiful and the sunset was setting in the distance, the feeling was so...real. I know there was someone else there, I could never see who it was but I just know there was someone," at that moment she didn't have the strength to look into Finnick's eyes anymore, there was something in them that felt too personal, too melancholic, so Mareena turned to look at her hands that were unconsciously playing with the sand and didn't take her eyes off them while she was still talking. “It felt like home, I felt happy, safe. I remember something about... swimming lessons? I don't really know, I guess whoever was with me was teaching me how to swim.”

For a moment there was silence, much, much silence, even though they were surrounded by sound there was something between them, in that atmosphere, that was simply too tense, Mareena thought for a moment that maybe she had bored him with her story, but Finnick cut off her line of thought so severely that all that probability in her head vanished.

“No," he said, his voice husky and serious, the complete opposite of how he had asked her the question before.

Mareena lifted her face and looked at him in extreme confusion, her hands no longer playing with the sand.

“What?”
“You were the one teaching, not learning.”
“How did you...?” And then it clicked. It was as if a bucket of ice water of realization fell on her.

Finnick sighed and pulled his head down for a moment, licking his lips before lifting it again and nodding slightly.

“Me. You were teaching me.”

«"Shouldn’t you be out before it gets dark?”
“I love swimming at night, you can see the stars and the moon in the water. Do you want to see for yourself? Come on, let's go!”»

«“I don't know how to swim.”
“What if I taught you? I understand what it's like to be scared.”»

Like a flash of light, that memory of the little blond and the little chestnut crossed her mind. Mareena began to jerk dizzily, wanting to vomit, and her eyes burned so badly that she could only imagine she was about to cry.

“The shells, in the...in the hospital. My aunt didn't bring them to me, did she? You brought them.”

Finnick didn't respond with words, he just nodded and without even looking at her.
Everything suddenly began to make sense, everything except why he had spent the last few years ignoring her and making her think he didn't like her. For so many years she had thought that she had done something in the past for him to hate her. But now…

“But you don't...I...you hate me," she said, completely confused. Did she did something to him when they were little? Was that the reason for his crude indifference?

Finnick raised his head quickly with a frown, Mareena could feel the atmosphere growing tenser with every second.

“I don't hate you," he said ironically, his jaw considerably tense and brow extremely frowned.
“Maybe not, but you definitely don't like me," she said this time with a slightly more defensive tone.

Finnick clenched his jaw again and closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was trying to hold back so that the conversation would stay between them and not reach the ears of the others, but he was finding it so difficult, Mareena could see it clearly, that it made her swallow dryly and wait for the man's next reaction, her own arsenal of defensive responses ready in case the barriers of their old relationship decided to resurface.

“And why wouldn't it? Yet a better question; why didn't you tell me about these...memories?” When he opened his eyes again, a forced calmness reflected in them. Mareena knew better, knew he was inwardly enraged, the reason; unknown to her.
“Because it's obvious! These last few years the only way we've been getting along has been arguments, dirty looks and honestly, a terrible attitude on your part. And as for my memories, why should I have told you? Besides from the fact that you seemed to be annoyed to even breathe the same air as me, you were also in the Capitol all the time, and I always thought you wouldn't care, so I-“
“I wouldn't care?” Finnick interrupted her with the most palpable disbelief on his face, his eyes once again on the verge of bursting with emotion. “Mareena, all I've ever cared about is you!”

The words hit her so fast that it took her a few moments to register that Finnick had actually said it.
She frowned, unable to think of coherent words. The man sighed, clutching his head in his hands while Mareena was still trying to find the words she needed.

“You don't mean that.”
“I do mean it. I'm fucking serious. I really mean it.”

Mareena analyzed every part of his face, and in it she found only sincerity and pain, a bitter pain she felt in her own throat.

“Then why did you leave?”
“Because if I didn't, I would never have forgiven myself.”

Only one name crossed her mind. A name responsible for so much suffering and pain. Mareena didn't even dare to name it out loud, knowing full well that the monster had thousands of eyes on them at that very moment.
So she simply swallowed hard and lowered her head with a bitter smile.

“You tell me this just before our possible death?” The hint of amusement in her voice failed to hide the pain in her no matter how hard she tried.
“No," Mareena raised her head, looking into Finnick's eyes, so sincere, so pure, so full of regret. “I'm telling you because I want you to finally know before I die. Because I want you to know that not a single day in these last seven years have I stopped thinking about you, that I have not stopped caring about you, and much less, Mareena, have I stopped loving you. Even if you no longer remember, even if you may never remember, you are and will always be what I love and care about most in this horrible world," with every word that came out of his mouth like a sigh he seemed to be getting an inch closer and closer. She could feel the heat of his breath on her face.

Her whole body tensed as she felt him so close.

« "Is that a proposal, Finnick Odair?”
“Mmm, think of it more as a personal wish.”
“Oh yeah?”
“No, no, more like a necessity.”
“That bad?”
“You have no idea." »

The little flashback that quickly went through her head was almost identical to the present moment, only different, the beach she was sitting on was a thousand times more beautiful and less deadly, it was her home, but the man next to her so close to her face that just a slight lean would suffice, was the same, just a few years younger, but the same light eyes, blond hair and tanned skin smiled at her with pearl teeth.

“A personal wish?“ She asked with a sigh in her voice, but with a half-smile just the same.

Finnick stretched out a smile of his own and looked into her eyes before returning his gaze to her lips, making Mareena's heart pound harder and harder.

“More like a necessity.”

And whatever happened that night, whether or not Beete's plan worked, or Plutarch Heavensbee's, that moment, those seconds before the storm, belonged to them and them alone. She let her body remember what her mind could half-remember, and Finnick let himself go in what he thought would be the last minutes of his life with her, because if he was going to die, at least he would do it with the world's best aphrodisiac back in his system. Although, to be honest, he didn't think he'd gotten her out of there in the first place.

Chapter Text

Mareena’s pov:

How had she got there? Or more importantly, where was she?

The last few hours of her life were so confusing. She could vaguely remember only a few blurry moments that blended together. Setting the plan in motion, Katniss, Johanna and her walking to the beach with Beete's reel, Johanna knocking Katniss out and her tacking the tracker off the girl’s arm. Then she ran, there was someone chasing her, she and Johanna tried to deflect the last of the careers. She searched for Finnick, she searched for Finnick and....

She couldn't remember anymore, after the explosion in the sky, everything went dark.

She looked around her, the room she was in was completely white, she was tied to a bed, and no matter how hard she tried to move even a finger, she couldn't. She was awake, she was conscious, but her body was unresponsive. She looked at her hands, at her legs; she was completely tied to the bed. She didn't even feel the pain of the straps on her skin, she didn't feel anything but panic and terrible fear.

Finnick, he wasn’t there, she couldn't see him anywhere, but to be honest, she couldn't see anything else but the door in front of her or the ceiling as white as the rest of the room.

She hadn't found him, before the explosion, the last thing she heard was his voice shouting her name, and then nothing.

The panic increased with every second. Mareena wanted to scream, and scream, and scream. But she couldn't move, couldn't speak.

Suddenly, she heard the door opening, and the panic she was feeling, she had no words to explain it. Men in white suits and helmets came in like soldiers, doctors behind them. Her breathing began to quicken, she squeezed her eyes three times to try to wake up, to open her eyes in reality and not in this nightmare. But unfortunately for her, it was all real. She heard her heart in her ears, her chest began to ache and she was running out of breath. Still, she couldn't scream, couldn't move.

“She’s having a seizure, we need a car immediately!”Shouted one of the women in white coats.

Mareena cried, and cried, and cried, and cried, but no one could hear her, because she couldn't do it out loud.

Snow. There was snow stained with blood. Blood, she was bleeding, that time she hadn't been able to move either, nor scream, only think of a single name, a single person. Finnick, Finnick, Finnick.
The memories piled up one on top of the other, the blood, the snow, Finnick. The sea, the sunset, Finnick. Blood, snow, sea, sunset, Finnick. Blood, snow, sea, sunset, Finnick.

Blood...snow...sea...sunset...

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚𓆟

Finnick’s pov:

The wall was the same as it had been half an hour ago, and yet all he could do was stare at it.
The sedative had worn off enough for his head to fill with noises and intrusive thoughts again, but not so much that he could move without his whole body aching.

He had hit what, 3, 4 doctors? Until the guards came into the room to restrain him and give him a sedative. Finnick's despair at waking up in the District 13 hospital and remembering what had happened drove him mad, drove him out of control and out of all rational thought. There was only one thing, only one thing on his mind. Mareena, Mareena, Mareena.

What had he done, what he had done… He should never parted from her, he should have never let her go. He should have never...

He didn't even hear the door open and close, didn't even notice anyone else in the room until Zarya Crawford sat on the edge of his bed. Eyes empty and lost, he looked up at her. The woman's eyes were red, her nose was red, her cheeks were still wet from all the tears she must have shed, and her gaze was so broken, even sedatives couldn't stop Finnick from feeling that same pain in his chest.

“Hello, dear. How are you feeling?”

He didn't answer, he couldn't answer, he just looked at her, lost.

“Right, the doctors said you might still be disoriented, the dose of sedative they gave you left you unconscious for a whole day. Max and Annie are very worried about you, but I managed to get them to go to rest, they were here the whole time you were asleep.”

Still, no expression, no words, no response.

“I talked to President Coin, she...she said they haven't heard anything yet, but...they're trying to find out something, and if they do, she'll tell me right away. I don't...I don't know what to expect, but at least it's something, right?” Tears welled up in her eyes again, but when she realized, she wiped them away with a forced laugh and clenched her hand a little, gritting her teeth to try to smile without her lips trembling. “But you don't worry for now, I'll tell you if there's anything. You... you must rest, make sure you're well enough for when she returns.”

Wait... he had waited so long, and now, because of it, he might have to wait forever.

The woman got out of bed and went back to wiping away the tears that were unruly. She didn't look him in the eyes, but instead at the bandages and the catheter in his hand.

“I'll get something to eat, you rest, dear, you must rest.”
“I'm...I'm sorry," he whispered before the woman walked out the door, but Zarya heard him, he knew when she stopped with a jolt, and then went out echoing down the hallway with her sobs.
“I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry....”

He repeated so many times to himself, even after the door had closed and the woman's sobs had faded away.
He closed his eyes again and again, squeezed them shut and opened them, hoping at some point to wake up, but he couldn't, he wouldn't, he never would, because the nightmare; it was the reality.