He wanted to argue. He really did. Gale didn't know anything about him. Capitol stooge was such a simplistic way of describing everything he had been through that it was idiotic (and almost hurtful, Finnick was loathe to admit).
And it wasn't the same thing as what Gale was describing anyway. They were still those people because they had memories of being them or assurances they would be them again. Finnick didn't really have that. He had nothing here any longer. A spattering of stolen moments that neither Annie nor Tristan would remember. (His heart seized violently his chest as he was forced to remember that his son would never know him. That the short time they had spent together had been wiped from Tristan, and the only way he would exist for him was from stories from Annie.) And if he went home, he'd have only the wedding, the illusion they would have time together before it was ripped from them.
And quietly, he suspected, some part of Annie would understand. She would forgive him for letting go of himself, for collapsing without her.
But Gale's little speech was obviously so well-intentioned, that it froze any acidic remark Finnick had. (Anger was not his strong suit, he was reminded again.)
He looked down when Gale play-punched him, a gesture he understood as bonding more in theory than in practice. (In truth, he'd never understood other men well. He under their plays for power only in that he knew how to submit or dominate to survive. But he'd never had friendships with men in the same ways he'd had with women.)
He should say something here, he knew he should. But he was still too exhausted to figure out what it was.