Finnick Odair (changingtide) wrote in the100, @ 2015-04-27 22:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !network post, annie cresta, finnick odair |
Who: Annie Cresta, Finnick Odair
When: Last night
Where: Hospital
What: Annie has to go and see the guy who claims to be Finnick.
Rating: TBD.
Rows of beds and curtains, machines beeping tirelessly while the weary and sick languished. Hospitals were always the same. Annie felt the only thing that changed any time she set foot in one. This one just had no windows. Everything about it reminded her of District 13. The permeating darkness that seemed to seep into even your clothes. The flicker of lights you knew would be changed out by the end of the day. That claustrophobic feeling that the walls were going to close in. It was the last place she saw Finnick before he died in the Capitol. That had been years, but Annie Cresta Odair felt as if it were yesterday. She hadn't been back to the hospital floors since her arrival. Instead, she'd spent her time on the crafting floors, making fly fishing hooks and knotting nets. It was soothing work and helped her pass the time. Tristan didn't seem phased by their new location, though he occasionally asked about his grandparents. Annie was directed to the last bed on the left. With determination, her chin rose defiantly. This imposter was going to get the worst tongue lashing of his life for daring to claim what he was. Her jaw twitched in premeditated anger as she prepared a hundred different things to say. None of them were the exact words she needed or want. None of them conveyed the emotions she felt. She reached up for Finnick's ring around her neck, squeezing it as if it were a life-life, asking for strength. Outside the curtain, she drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was no good. Her hands were beginning to tremble -- with nerves or anger or both. She was going to have to do this fast, rip the bandaid off so to speak. She drew the curtain, opened her mouth, and promptly fell silent as she stared, unblinking, at the man on the bed. … Finnick didn’t fully understand wherever he was. He had tried to listen to the explanation, but his body, and maybe especially his brain, felt as if he had been fried from the inside out. (He knew it was a miracle that he hadn’t been killed out right. That same wattage had been enough to stop Peeta’s heart, after all.) But that didn’t mean that he was any less exhausted, any less ruined by what had happened at the end of the Quell. The only thing that made it a little easier to deal with was the fact that he quite literally did not have a choice. The people at the hospital seemed all right. But if they hadn’t been, there was nothing Finnick could have done to defend himself, really. He looked up as the curtain was drawn around the bed. And the last person he was expecting to see stood on the other side of it. “Annie,” he breathed out, the word like a prayer on his lips. He had been terrified, fretted over where she could be and if she was hurt. Had Plutarch kept his promise? (He had to have; had to, because Finnick had all but held up his end of the deal. He hadn’t gotten Peeta’s tracking device out, but Peeta and Katniss were both alive, in fine enough shape to be brought to District 13.) He stared at her now with open awe, because she looked fine (if somewhat irritated) and God, he just wanted to pull her close and promise that he was never going to let her go ever again. … The room started spinning. Annie knew that sensation. It had been a long while since she'd felt it, but she did now. Her hands, both of them, went to her throat as she clutched the heavy chain with only one thought: this isn't real. It couldn't be. Finnick had died four years ago while fighting with Katniss and Peeta in the Capitol. He couldn't be inside this very mountain, and he couldn't look the same way he did when he had gone into the Quarter Quell. Her hair was frazzled from electricity or humidity. Maybe both, she wasn't sure. His skin was as bronze as ever, and he said her name with such reverence that Annie felt tears pricking her eyes. "You're not real," she whispered to herself if to no one else. She had to tear her gaze from his face. "You're not real. You can't be." … That had been the last reaction that Finnick had expected. It hurt him, a swift suckerpunch. (He had known that he was capable of hurting her, but he never thought it would be like this, this bad. Guilt swept over him, thick and heavy.) “Hey,” he said gently, kicking off the thin blanket he had been covered with. He went to her slow, one hand gently resting on her arm. (He wanted to gather her up, to hold her too tightly, but he was worried about spooking her further.) “It’s me, Annie,” Finnick said, still in the same hushed tone. “Just me. I’m real, see? And I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe.” ... The touch was like a long overdue reminder that there was softness in the world, that she could be touched. Every day, there was Tristan, and he was more loveable than she'd been at that age. She didn't think he fully grasped what he was missing from his life (or maybe she just hoped because god, it ached and she never wanted her son to know that kind of pain). Even after all this time, Finnick's voice brought her slowly woke her up. There wasn't much that could reach her in those times. Tristan only knew that mom had to sit and be quiet, and grandma usually took over then. She'd been so careful not to freak him out. This was a real setback, one she hoped wouldn't happen when she picked up Tristan later. One hand reached out to touch the collar of his blue jumpsuit. Her fingers gently moved up from his neck to his jawline. He felt real enough. There was skin and stubble. She swallowed the lump in her throat, but all it did was make the tears come faster. "Finnick? How -- I thought -- it's been so long." No sooner had she gotten the last words out than she threw herself at him. If this was all in her head, then she was going to take whatever bit of happiness she could. After everything she'd been through, she deserved it. Just this one, she'd give in. … It was a relief when she came back to him quickly. He would have waited. He would have waited forever for her, and would have done anything that helped her. But after the turbulence of being Reaped, going back into the Hunger Games (a whole slew of nightmares to take back with him, chief among them Mags dying so that he could live, and those clever little jabberjays that had Annie’s voice), he needed her. She touched him, fingers exploring, and he smiled up at her, a touch of sadness. He reached up, running his fingers through her hair. (It seemed longer than he remembered, but he dismissed it without thinking on it.) He closed his eyes when she finally closed the distance between them. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, buried his face into the side of her neck and breathed her in. She smelled like ocean and home, and everything he associated with her. “I’m so glad you’re all right,” he said, voice quiet. … Through the broken cries of his name and the tears, Annie clung to Finnick as if he might disappear any moment. A nurse or some other staff peeked through the curtain to see what the commotion was, but Annie was smiling though her cheeks and chin were wet. She waved her fingers at the woman, unwilling to remove her hand for just one moment from him. He was not getting away from her. Not this time. "You're alive. You're really here. I've missed you so much." … “It takes more than a little lightning to kill me,” Finnick reassured her with a smile. To be fair, it had been a lot more than a little bit of lightning. But he wasn’t particularly concerned with that at the moment. He wiped her tears away with his thumbs. He wanted to tell her she didn’t need to cry, but he knew how this felt, being torn apart from each other. He didn’t her to be upset, but he wasn’t going to deny her whatever she needed to feel. “Are you okay?” he asked seriously. He knew that she looked fine, but there was a world of difference between how someone looked and whatever they were feeling on the inside. … "What?" Annie looked up, her mouth hanging open. Turmoil was something that Annie was used to her in her every day life. This was a whole new level though. She shook her head. "I'm -- I don't know. Finnick, you don't know? You -- we're not in the Capitol. Or District Four. We're somewhere else." … “I understand that,” Finnick answered, unable to hold back his frown. Despite being aware that they had been taken somewhere that wasn’t home or the Capitol, he still felt as if he was missing something. There was a divide between them, in the ways they were talking, that Finnick didn’t exactly know how to navigate. His brain felt jammed up from the lightning, as if it was still ricocheting about his grey matter. … "It's been four years since the Quarter Quell, Finnick. Four years." Annie couldn't keep herself from touching him, to make sure he was real and that he wouldn't disappear right in front of her. His hair was a crispy mess, and she could swear that she smelled something burning the closer she got to him. He was even wearing that outfit. "We went to 13 after." Because they did. She just had the roundabout way of getting there. "I'm… Oh, there's so much to tell you!" … “What?” Finnick asked, unable to hide his confusion when she said that she was from four years after the Quarter Quell. He looked at her again, studying her for trace differences -- the length of her hair, maybe, or lines on her face that he didn’t remember being there. But she still just looked like his Annie, minutely changed by the differences of four years. “You made it to Thirteen?” he echoed an instant later, equally unable to hide the hope in his voice. She was the only reason he had agreed to join the rebellion. He’d always had too much to lose. But it was that same reason he had agreed to work with Plutarch. It was the only hope he’d have of being with Annie and Mags again, and slipping free of the noose of killing Johanna and Katniss and many of the others. He hadn’t been able to save Mags, and that still weighed on him heavily, a palpable sensation in his chest that he didn’t think he’d ever not carry. But if Annie had been safely moved out of Four, out of Snow’s reach, then he thought he could live with himself. … Annie stared at him, unwavering, as she searched his face for any hint of explanation. He was dead, long dead, when she was taken to this place. His son, Tristan, was a young boy now. There were things that Finnick would just never get to experience, and that meant that Tristan and Annie couldn't either. Not completely anyway. And now he was here, by some strange miracle, and he smelled of burning. "You made it before me." Her voice was confused, as if she wasn't quite sure if what she was saying was true. There was a lilt to the words. "We were there together. We --" Here, she held up her hand, turned it so that he could see the simple band upon the fourth finger. "We got married." … Everything she said before the last sentence ceased to matter as soon as she held up her hand. Finnick stared at it openly, an impossible truth splayed out before him. He looked it the ring dumbly, and then back up her face. “We get married?” he echoed, scarcely allowing himself to believe that. There’d been a few things they’d had to accept about their relationship from the very beginning. They were never going to be normal, like other people. His body would always belong to her second (or sometimes third or fourth) even if his heart always belonged to her first and foremost. They would never have a family, they would never be married, they would never be publicly known for what they were. But here she was, saying that they had done the impossible. His own heart seemed to beat too fast -- and he was a breath away from sweeping her up and kissing her for as long as he could. But the expression on her face stopped him. Because she didn’t seem happy about it in the slightest. Not in the way that he would have thought she’d be. And that brought him up short, suddenly intimidated him beyond all belief. … It had never been easy to admit that Finnick was gone. No matter who opened their mouth and said the words, Annie fought herself to keep from arguing with them. Even four years later, she struggled with it. She knew it was a fact. She knew that Finnick had died fighting in the Capitol. Her life as she thought it would be from Thirteen on was over. And then she found out she was pregnant. She had something to live for again, no matter how bittersweet it was. Tristan had become her whole life, and she thought just maybe she could make due with that. It was enough, and slowly, life filled up with meaning again. It didn't mean that Finnick's loss hurt any less or that she didn't have her moments. She'd just found reasons to get up in the morning, and soon, she could remember Finnick without a stabbing pain in her chest. "Just a few months." Annie took a deep breath. "Finnick, you died. You went to the Capitol and you died." … The words were a physical blow to him. And yet, it was more painful to him to imagine her being left alone than for him to realize that he died. (That he was a short time away from his own death, that he, at best, had months left to live.) “I’m sorry,” he said. “Oh Annie, I’m sorry.” He moved toward her, his inclination to gather her up, to hold her tight. But then he halted, because he didn’t know if he was allowed to do that. For the entirety of the time they had known each other, he had known how much he was allowed to touch her. But for the first time, he was in uncertain waters. How far after his death was she from? She was still wearing her wedding ring, which had to mean something, didn’t it? … Annie had never been the logical sort. She never focused on getting from point A to B in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of hassle. She'd never be considered a Type A personality who took to things too seriously, even with the stuff she dealt with on a regular basis. She tried to be kind and considerate of other people always. Nothing was so was important that she'd disregard everything else in her haste to get to it. Except for when it came to Finnick. As Finnick stepped forward, so she did. She always met him halfway, and this time was no exception. He stopped, but it took her another second to consider that and by then it was too late. Her hands reached out for his face, one on either side as she caught his gaze and held it. "I thought I'd never see you again. There's so much to -- oh, Finnick. We had a baby. A boy. I found out I was pregnant after you -- He looks just like you." ... It was a relief when she touched him. He could feel it wash through his entire body, quelling the fear that had flooded through his veins. He leaned in and kissed her, unable to stop himself. He didn’t want to lose her. It terrified him. This was it. Most of their time together was behind him, and that was it. The end of his life. Twenty-four years, almost half of them spent well underneath Snow’s heel. It isn’t fair. He wanted to whine. He wanted to be a child, as if stomping his feet could make the reality of the situation any less. But her words brought him up short, and he stared at her in an open shock. He had to repeat what she had said to sort it out in his mind, because that had always seemed more impossible than getting married. Marriage was a contract of sorts, something that was possible, but denied specifically to them. Having children though … He had thought that was something that had been taken away from him, moved into the column of impossible. He hadn’t thought about it in years, because it had become too painful to imagine any sort of children that he and Annie would have had. That future had never been open to them, swept under the rug far before he met her. “What?” he breathed. … |