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Finnick sighs, his back aching against the hard plastic chair. He squirms, repositions, cracks a few things that probably shouldn’t make that loud of a noise, and then settles again. Annie was worth it, no matter how old these chairs made him feel. Hopefully it wouldn’t be long before they were reunited.
He tries to sleep, and as usual, images of his love float with him down the river to dreamland. Today though, it doesn’t bring him comfort. He remembers the state he left her in when he was forced out of the Emergency Room earlier; she’d looked lifeless, and scared. He was scared, too.
She was sick, and she was never shy about this fact. She wasn’t ashamed to say it– the Games broke her, and she was putting herself back together but it was a long process and it may never be over. She may never be the woman she was the day she first met Finnick, and that was okay with her. It was okay with Finnick, too. He’d only briefly known that woman. He’d much longer known her the way she is today.
Well, the way she was yesterday, at least. He hadn’t seen her the way she is today– the way she was earlier today, before he had to bring her in here, the crusty, gray-teal walled hospital in the corner of District 4– in quite some time.
The nurses said she’d be fine. They calmed her thrashing with a needle that they stuck right through the seat of her pants. She went so quiet so quickly, and then she just lay there, still turned on her side. They assured him again, she’d be fine. She looked up at him with wide eyes like she was a child. Her eyes said don’t leave me here. His heart broke into a million pieces on the linoleum as he walked away from her.
He only made it just outside the ER before he crashed into this chair, and that’s where he’s been ever since. Waiting for her like he was waiting for his soldier to return from battle. He was. The battle was just in her head.
He’s never hated the world they live in more. He’s never hated President Snow and the Games more than for what they did to Annie, what they did to the woman he loved more than anything else in their dark world. Forget what they did to him, he would take it all ten times over to take the load off her. She scared the living daylights out of him, but he loved her to the ends of the earth. It was their fault she hurt this much. So much that he had to bring her to the hospital because he didn’t know how else to help her.
A young nurse eventually emerges from the doors separating him from Annie. “You’re here with Annie Cresta?” she clarifies.
“Yes.” He stands up, rising to his feet so fast he almost trips over them.
He doesn’t care much for the look on her face, the pity. Annie wasn’t somebody to be pitied; she wasn’t someone to be babied or someone whose potential should be mourned. “She’s going to be okay. She’s sleeping off the sedative right now, and we’ll send her home with some pills. These things happen sometimes, you know she isn’t well…”
She isn’t well . That’s the best explanation anyone ever seemed to have for Annie, as if it was a mystery why she was like this, as if she’d been born this way. You made her this way, he wants to yell at the sky, he wants to yell at the Capitol. He never has, though, he’s never yelled at anyone. He just smiles and nods. None of this is the nurse’s fault.
“You can go in,” she says. “Annie should be waking up soon and she’ll be calm when she does. You can take her home, let her sleep in her own bed tonight. It’ll pass. And when it happens again… you bring her back.”
“When it happens a–” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He rubs his jaw and nods. “Thank you.”
The nurse doesn’t say anything as she walks away, but she doesn’t have to. That look is still painted on her face.
Now with express permission, he pushes open the thick metal door and saunters through the dense emergency room, right to where he left Annie. The nurse was right, she looks peaceful, almost. Someone was kind enough to cover her with a blanket and sweep her hair away from her face. He wheels over a measly stool and sits down beside her gently.
“Annie,” he whispers. “Hey, my love, it’s me. What do you think about getting out of here? Want me to take you home?”
He strokes his thumb back and forth on her arm, then softly through her hair. After a few moments, her eyes flutter open and dart around the room briefly before fixing on his. “It’s okay,” he tells her. “It’s alright, we’re at the hospital. You’re okay. We’re gonna go home now?”
She nods, but she doesn’t seem sure of it.
“Annie,” the nurse asks, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. To Finnick, everything in the background faded when he was focusing. “You know who this is?”
She nods. “Finnick,” she answers hazily. She reaches for his hand.
“You’re okay going home with him?”
She nods again. “Please?” she asks him.
He scoops her up bridal style, and that’s the end of that. Hopefully, they’d do this for real one day; the bridal style scoop. Old school, sure, but he’d known for a long while now that he wanted it all with Annie, even the stupid wedding traditions.
~
“What happened?” she asks, sitting passenger in his truck on the way home. It’s dark out now, it was daylight when they went into the hospital. It’s almost midnight. There’s a sleeve of crackers in his cupholder and she’s methodically taking them out, one by one, popping them in her mouth whole to avoid crumbs. She doesn’t talk with her mouth full; kids in Four are raised not to. He doesn’t know if she’s eaten at all today.
He doesn’t reply for a moment. “I got scared, Annie. You…”
“I what?”
He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t get off the floor, in the bathroom, you didn’t want me near you. You were screaming that you just needed it to stop, and I was looking in your eyes, and I just… I saw nothing, and I got scared. It’s like you weren’t in there. I was scared you were gonna hurt yourself. Once you came back to it a little you agreed to let me drive you to the hospital, I did ask you if that was okay–”
“You did the best thing,” she says softly. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault.” He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to look over at her. “Annie, it isn’t your fault.”
“I can’t promise it won’t happen again.” Her voice is sober now, more honest.
Now, they’re almost at Annie’s house in the Village, and Finnick drives past the turn for her street, down to where land meets sea. There’s a patch of gravel to park the truck with a view that stretches for what feels like forever, you can’t even see the horizon in the cover of night right now. He doesn’t say anything until they’re parked and when he looks over, Annie’s brows are knit together in worry.
“I’d never ask you to promise it won’t happen again,” he says. He slides his hand over hers on the middle console. “I know it’s not something you choose or that you can control. And I know what caused this, too– what kind of person would I be if I blamed you for it? It could’ve just as easily been me in your shoes. I freakin’ hate that it’s you.”
“It shouldn’t have to be anybody,” her voice is barely above a whisper. She moves the hand not holding his to touch his face, the bend of his jaw now cradled in her palm. He feels the bandage on the top of her hand graze his neck. Her eyes don’t meet his when she continues. “I watched so many people handle The Games with strength and grace over the years, you and Mags, and… I was supposed to, too.”
“It isn’t a strength thing, Annie, it’s luck,” Finnick tells her. “If it were a strength thing, you’d be an absolute champion; this all just proves it. You are the strongest person I know. ”
Annie clicks her tongue. “I was taught not to believe in luck.”
“Yeah, me too, but I know it exists cause you and I are here together. We both survived the unsurvivable, two kids from District 4, two different Games. I can’t claim I’m not the luckiest man in the world to be here with you.”
“A few hours ago I wasn’t even trusted with the strings in my sweater,” Annie reminds him. “You’re sure you’re lucky with me?”
“That doesn’t matter. Not to me.”
She rests her head on his shoulder, eyes steady on the water outside. Finnick doesn’t stir until he hears her yawn, quiet like a kitten. “Ah, we should probably get you home, you’re probably tired–”
“Will you stay the night?” she asks, before he can move. “I’d feel better if you did.”
He smiles. “Of course. Whatever you want.”