You're a little bit jaded

Out of everything, she could never have expected that the pain would be the aspect that brought her the most comfort. So long now she'd felt as if she were living in a dream: First, the dream of going on alone, and then the impossible dream of being in this place with Finnick again. The pain, sharp and undeniable, had been the first thing in a very long time that felt entirely real.

And so it was because of the pain that she'd been able to really see her son, to feel him warm and tangible against her still-panting breast. It was because of the pain that she could look at Finnick, tears shining in his bright eyes, and know for the first time that he was genuinely, truly there.

Soaked with sweat and exhausted, she'd wept, and wept, and wept, and it had felt like a baptism.

Hours later, she was clean and dry, tucked up in the mound of pillows Finnick had insisted on building up around her. As she woke, the pain was the first thing she was aware of—She hurt, more than she'd ever hurt before, but she knew that she was alive.

Opening her eyes, Finnick swam into view, seated beside the bed, Tristan in his arms. For a long moment, Annie simply silently watched them, marveling that somehow those naive hopes she'd had for them so long ago had become a reality.

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.

Two more days. In the grand scheme of things, with over half a year lost, it shouldn't have been any time at all. Nothing more than a blip. 48 hours and she'd be on her way, free forever from the sickly-sweet facade of the Capitol, salty sea breezes rising up to meet her.

They'd wanted her stay. No, she'd quietly insisted, head swimming from the scent of smoke and ash, arms reflexively crossed over her abdomen.

The doctors here are better equipped, they'd said.

No, she'd repeated.

The hospital in 4 was destroyed—

NO.

But you must think of the baby, now, think of the baby, think of the BABY—

NO! She'd screamed it until she was hoarse, until they booked her a seat on the next transport south and pressed the ticket into her shaking hand.

Two days she had to wait. It was just two more days, two more sleeps if she slept at all. When she startled awake in the night, heart hammering in her ears and skin slick with sweat, she couldn't tell whether she hadn't been screaming at all or if there simply wasn't anyone left to care.

Two days, Annie told herself again as she sucked in a shuddering breath and threw back the blanket, the night air painting in whispers over her sticky skin. "Two days," she murmured to the pale rise of her belly, and pushed herself slowly to her bare feet. The clock by the bed blinked 1:16 AM.

"Shh, now," she said as she scuffed across the floor, hands rubbing rhythmically over her abdomen. "We can't go anywhere tonight, no matter how much you kick me." They'd have a bath, she thought. She could use the lavender bubbles, they didn't smell as synthetic as the others.

Only, when she lifted her head, Annie wasn't standing in the stark whiteness of a Capitol bathroom, but rather at the edge of a vast space that arched golden and echoing above her. A screech escaped her throat, sharp and terrified, before she slapped both hands over her mouth and scuttled backwards. When she hit the wall behind her and bounced the back of her head off the wooden paneling, she hardly registered the pain.