You're a little bit jaded

She wasn't supposed to watch. Finnick had been adamant about that, and Annie had agreed, because what else could she do?

She wasn't supposed to watch. Everyone else had agreed, from her mother to Finnick's sisters, but when the time had come and their homes were all filled with the Capitol, what else could she do but watch?

Months the Games had been looming over them, a slowly-creeping inevitability like a shadow over the tiny, fragile farce she and Finnick had been carefully building between his absences. The anger that had rushed so swiftly through her at seeing him bruised and subjugated had eventually blown almost entirely out, but the encroaching darkness of the Games had been inescapable, and then, all at once, it had been staring her in the face.

The two new tributes were bad enough, with all of the roiling, volatile memories they evoked, but they were easier to run away from, the breath tight in her chest and hands over her ears as she counted to twenty, or fifty, or however long it took until her pulse slowed. Finnick was more difficult, his pull inexorable, Annie standing frozen in front of his projected face with its diamond smile, unable to dislodge herself or so much as look away, even when Caesar Flickerman was cheerfully prodding him for details on his latest Capitol romance. Four, still proud, seemed more concerned with Finnick than their current tributes, and everywhere she went, there he was: If not on screens, than on the lips of weathered fishermen and swooning schoolgirls. Even had her curiosity and loneliness allowed it, she couldn't get away from him.

Could she have been expected to react in any other way than she had?

It had begun small. Strictly speaking, alcohol was forbidden, but it was easily enough obtained for a victor, even a crazy one. All she wanted, Annie had told herself, was to be able to sleep. Sleep she did, some days until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Less and less she left the house, until she was only pulling herself together for her weekly dinner with the Odairs.

The Odairs, who treated her like family, but whose mere presence reminded Annie that she would never be one of them, and who were understanding enough that they never questioned Annie slipping away from the constant onslaught of the Games to sit alone in Finnick's study.

Over the past week she'd taken nearly all of the pills she'd discovered tucked in the back of a drawer there, and still she had no idea what they were. Funnily enough, as she lay sprawled bonelessly across her bed, head dangling off the edge of the mattress, it didn't seem to matter much. In fact, nothing much mattered at all.

As it turned out, the Capitol's curiosity regarding its victors only carried so far.

Most of what Annie remembered about that night—What her escort had delicately labeled her "episode"—were little more than flashes, but with the benefit of time she could see how quickly it had all happened. There had been no attempt to return her to the ball, only Mags and Finnick bundling her swiftly onto the train. She'd lost one of her shoes at some point, like the old fairy story, and when she'd recalled this days later, she'd fallen into a sudden and manic laughing fit that lasted until she was half-hoarse.

When the train had begun to move that night and Finnick hadn't been on it, she'd laid down right where they'd placed her, curled up on her bed in her gown, hem dirty, one bare foot peeking from beneath frothy fabric. She wasn't certain how long it had been, but she remembered Mags coming in, and the gentle confidence of the old woman's fingers as she sat Annie up and carefully stripped her of the Capitol. Unpinning the weight of Annie's hair, wiping her face clean, and perhaps most tellingly, removing the dress by cutting it cleanly up the side with a pair of shears. Annie had stayed in bed the entire next day and then emerged thoroughly sober, freshly eighteen, and with a curt dismissal of her escort. Mags had given her the thumbs-up.

Her mother had hovered for awhile, had skirted on the edge of difficult questions but ultimately relented when no solid answers were forthcoming. With Annie so quiet and withdrawn, it wasn't unlike when she'd first returned from the games, but for two glaring differences: More introspection and less Finnick.

Today, Annie's mother had been the first, but not last, person to tell her about the train. Four was a large district, but in some respects it was like the smallest village, and word traveled fast. Preparing for a passenger train was unusual enough for assumptions to be made. Annie had gone for a walk.

Hours later she nudged her way through the back door and into the kitchen, shawl trailing behind her and laden basket hooked over one arm. Barefoot from the moment she returned from the Capitol, there was sand dusted like sugar up to her ankles and over her toes, and she tracked it inside without thought or hesitation. Following after was Bosun, who had been her father's water dog, a gentle giant in his old age with baleful brown eyes and silver sprinkled in his dark coat. From the moment Annie had stepped into the house after returning from the Capitol, he'd not left her side. Not once.

Just now he padded to the end of the kitchen table and sat, turning his wise, old gaze upon Finnick where he was lingering the hallway beyond. Basket still over her arm, Annie paused at the sink and flicked a glance to the doorway. Seeing Finnick again would hurt; she'd known that. What surprised her was how calm she felt, most of her anger bled out of her by time and resignation. Wordless, she turned her attention back to the basket and began carefully washing the sand from the shells she had collected.