Author's Note: If you are reading this, it's probably because you're a fan of my other stories. Thank you for your continued support of my work!

If you are new to my work, I must suggest that you read Crept Up On Me, a Finnick-centric fic I wrote before this one, because much of Johanna's relationship with Finnick is developed there. Or you can start here. Either way, welcome.

Anything you recognize belongs to Suzanne Collins and Scholastic. Enjoy.

ALL THAT REMAINS

I might never see him again.

The thought hits like a distant lightning strike. Somewhere, a tree is burning. A tree where, perhaps, some young lovers carved their initials long ago. Or where a father hung a swing for his children. Baby birds, too young to fly away, will burn or plummet to the ground as the only home they've known is incinerated. And I'm too far away to care.

It's the morphling that makes you feel like a shadow of yourself as everything falls apart. The brightest smiles and sharpest pains all mute to the numb gray of a military uniform, to the white of your hospital sheets, to the colorless drip in your arm.

To my left, Finnick sits with his hands pushing his hair in clockwise circles around his head. He does this when he's anxious. In a few moments, he'll get bored and change directions. Usually, this turns his hair into a perfect mess that no stylist could ever quite mimic. Today, it has little effect because his hair is cropped almost to the scalp. And I find myself more concerned with the color of the remaining fuzz than with the inevitable truth that has him on edge.

I've heard others call Finnick's hair bronze. Amber. Sun-kissed. For me, it is chestnut, that rare wood that only exists in history books and in the form of an old frame in my district's Justice Building. Or at least that was the color of Finnick's hair until District 13 sucked the life out of everything. When I got here, Finnick's hair and skin were dull, different. Now the sun-deprived new hair growth is all that remains, and I'm having a hard time coming up with a different name for the color. Having his hands constantly in the way doesn't help.

"Stop looking at me like that," he says, zigzagging his fingertips through his hair in a final forward motion before dropping his hands to his lap. It doesn't matter that his nails are filed into painfully short, even crescents; the skin around them looks like he's been gnawing at it for a while.

My mouth opens to let the words through, and my teeth relinquish their involuntary hold on my lips. I've started biting them like this a lot. "Looking at you like what?" I say. The words are slow. Weightless. This, too, is an effect of morphling. You speak the words without feeling them form in your mouth.

"Like you want to kill me," he says seriously. "And you'll chew off your lips before you feel a thing if you keep letting them pump you full of that stuff."

"It's not my fault your hair looks like shit."

Bitterness is my only defense against Finnick, who tries not to call me out on too many of my issues. He'll never say anything about my family, even if I bring it up first. He doesn't say much about the decisions I've made in the Capitol. Morphling use, though, is something he's never condoned.

Everyone's used the stuff. Most of us got our first taste on the way out of the arena. Missing limb? This'll take the edge off. And if you don't get it from the medics in the Capitol, you get it from your mentor the first night President Snow feeds you to a few of his friends and makes you sorry you ever came home at all. Finnick was young, and his mentor, Mags, did her best to keep him from developing a dependency. Even so, Finnick has used drugs before. Granted, his longest binge lasted only a few days, after he dislocated his shoulder a while ago. Mags knew better than to let him keep it up for too long. Physical pain, shoulder injuries, will heal on their own. Emotional wounds are the ones that will get you hooked. And the shoulder was really the least of Finnick's problems at the time.

Probably, Annie has something to do with Finnick's opposition to morphling. Finnick's wife only exists in extremes. On her best days, she can reach him through a look alone. She grounds him and makes it possible for him to smile through all his pain. The rest of the time, she seems confused and cries for no reason. Finnick won't let anyone give her anything to ease the pain though. Better to have some of those really great days than to have her turn into whatever it is I've become.

I have no patience when it comes to Finnick's self-righteousness, and I always respond by insulting him or upsetting Annie until he's forced to back off. Still, he knows me well enough to know that I'd be less likely to react if I didn't think he was right.

And so, he smiles at the remark, flashing teeth that are just crooked enough to assure that he is, in fact, human. His smile is equally devilish and charming, and the morphling does nothing to stop the tingling sensation that runs through my legs. It's never mattered that I have no romantic interest in him; he has this effect on everyone. With a smile, he can make you feel wanted.

I don't like the feeling, and I don't want to get caught up in the memory of the one time I kissed Finnick Odair. So I counter the moment of weakness the only way I know how. "Does Annie miss being able to pull your hair?"

I've gone too far. I know it as soon as the words have left my lips. In a few hours, Finnick will be leaving for the Capitol and leaving Annie behind. Worrying about how she'll cope without him must be tearing him apart. Of course, he's worried about her sanity and safety in his absence. It doesn't matter how much I drown out my own pain; his always has a way of breaking through the haze.

Finnick only says, "Let me guess: Your head doctor said you should speak your mind." He shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but his hands are in his hair again.

It's not so much what I've said, but thinking of Annie that must be bothering him. She came here from the Capitol more fucked up than ever before, and he's still done his best to take care of her. I think he's only just discovered that the two worlds can mix, that he wasn't going to hurt Annie by surrendering himself entirely to her. Here, with Annie, Finnick seems to have realized that he's not a horrible person for the things he's been forced to do. I tried showing him this truth the night I kissed him.

I can't say or do anything to stop it this time, and the night enters my mind in dreamlike bursts. Finnick's hands in fists at his sides, the drained eyes no amount of makeup could conceal. I was nineteen; Finnick was twenty-three, and he was still grieving his father's death. The guy was having a hard time coping with much of anything, and the fact that he had started sleeping with Annie in a completely platonic sense had his head a mess. She was always in his brain after that, making him feel guilty for the things he couldn't help. I wanted to prove that he could find enjoyment in something sexual, without feeling awful for it afterward.

But I wasn't just doing it for Finnick: I wanted to be able to kiss him and feel something. Lust. Power. Anything that could convince me I was still human.

What I never expected to feel was guilt, the needling guilt that the further I pushed things with Finnick, the more ruined he'd be for Annie. I couldn't be responsible for destroying the best part of him.

And, days later, when Finnick flashed the smile of a teenage boy who'd just gotten his first blowjob and casually explained that he'd managed his way through a night without pretending, I slapped him hard across his pretty, perfect face. I told him that nothing he felt, nothing but pain, was real.

"Hey," Finnick says softly, calling my mind back to the present. His hand finds my arm, and his fingers squeeze the flesh halfway between my wrist and the needle.

Instinctively, my tongue prods the inside of my mouth, checking in vain for newly bitten areas. "What?"

"I don't know," he says, retracting his hand. "You had that look in your eyes like you were thinking about something that hurts."

It's this ability to read into facial expressions that makes Finnick perfect for Annie, who has spent most of the five years since her own victory with this particular look in her eyes.

I might never see him again.

The thought strikes closer as he forces my eyes to lock on his, keeping me here in the hospital instead of on the rooftop. My arm forearm registers the tightness of his grip even though he's already let go, and suddenly it's not hard to believe that he's left bruises on Annie while trying to restrain her during one of her fits.

Then Finnick shakes his head, breaking our eye contact, and his cheeks flush. He knows that under any other circumstances I'd be calling him a fucking creep for staring at anyone so intently. I can't tell him I'm grateful. So instead I focus again on his hair.

Maybe the reason it's so hard to pinpoint the exact shade of Finnick's crew cut is because I haven't seen anything like it in forever. The only thing of real color here is the food, and even that's debatable since most of it is just a gray or brownish mix of flavorless mush. The walls, the clothes, mostly everything comes in shades of gray. All I can remember of our time training outside is the rain. Aside from the Quell arena, the only recent memory from outside that I can fully visualize is the half hour spent collecting leaves to liven the place up for Finnick and Annie's wedding.

"How does she feel about all of this, about you leaving?" I ask seriously. It's not that my heart is breaking for Annie by any means. He needs to talk about it. Finnick always needs to talk about everything.

Automatically, his hands are back on his head. He scratches the hair behind his ears before dragging his fingers quickly down his face. "No idea. She has no idea what I'm getting into. If she did..." He shakes the rest of the sentence from his head.

"No one would blame you if you decided not to go," I offer.

I want him to stay. Obviously, I would love for him to stay. But the statement isn't entirely true. Even now, Finnick is being used for his good looks. He is recognizable to everyone in Panem and therefore a useful figure. But officials in District 13 couldn't force him into battle against his will, could they?

Finnick shakes his head with more ferocity. "Annie's pregnant," he says simply. "I have to go."

The needle pulls against my flesh as I prop myself up and try to figure out Finnick's logic. Annie is pregnant. Really, it's not that surprising. Birth control is all but nonexistent in the rest of the districts, and 13 is desperate for offspring. Combine that with a wedding between a sex symbol and the only girl he's ever truly wanted, and a baby was bound to be born within the year.

But why does he feel that he has to go? If anything, Finnick should be fighting to stay and take care of his already unstable wife. Why risk dying before he gets the chance to meet his child?

"I can't risk having my child grow up in the world I've known," Finnick says in response to the question that I'm not certain has left my lips. "I can't let my kid grow up to lose everyone and everything that makes him human. You know that."

I disagree but don't argue while Finnick sits there looking determined to go but utterly defeated all the same. No child of Finnick's deserves the pain that has marked the existence of everyone in our circle of survivors. But Finnick cannot exist without Annie, and he'll get himself killed worrying about her while he's fighting his way through the mined streets of the Capitol.

I should be going. I would be going with him, if only I were stronger. My eyes focus on the bruised skin around the needle. If I wasn't so weak, if I hadn't been so quick to accept the drug, would they have let me go? What if the flood on the block wasn't the real test? What if they only wanted to see whether or not I could cope without it?

I might never see him again.

The thought echoes against my skull. Finnick's eyes are on me, asking me why I can't keep my shit together. All I can say is, "I'm sorry I'm not going with you."

"Honestly," he says, "if I'd known before I went through with all of the training and fully wrapped my head around what's about to take place, I don't know that I'd still be able to go. But it's done."

The more he talks about leaving, the more reality dilutes the drugs. I try to focus on his hair. Maybe it still is chestnut. Weathered, distressed chestnut.

"Maybe they'll let me go later," I offer, because thoughts of the Quell and Finnick's loneliness then are creeping like poison into my brain. "I'll get better again and they'll let me meet up with you later. Like they are with Peeta. I can—"

"Stop," he interrupts, placing his hand on mine. "You being here has nothing to do with weakness. Obviously I hate this," he says, flicking the plastic tube that runs from my arm into the wall, "but it's better that you'll be here."

"What does that even mean?"

He inhales deeply, hesitating because we're not supposed to talk about my issues. He must know it's now or never, that if there's anything he's kept from me—anything I've made him keep to himself—he might not get another chance to tell me. I feel his hand almost pull away from mine, but then he scratches his short nails along the top of my hand. He exhales loudly. "It means I don't fault you for anything."

With a turn of my wrist, our fingers tangle easily together. I try to find something to hold on to of the feeling, something to remember when he's gone, but just like with the kiss, I have the sense that this, us, holding hands right now, is always going to feel far away. It's not the first time we've held hands, but it's the first time in a long time that I've felt close to him or anyone. "Tell me," I say.

His free hand goes not to his hair but to mine. He pushes the unwashed, short strands across my forehead and trails his knuckles down my jaw.

I can't take my eyes off of him, mostly because I'm trying to remember whether he's ever looked at me this way before. But he hasn't. I know he hasn't, because I've never let him. I've done my best to take care of Finnick through the years. This is the first time I've allowed him to return the favor.

"When we met," he says, "it was like you were my big brother or something." He smiles, but I know what he means. I was the one telling Finnick to stop being a pussy. I was the tough one. "I know you thought you were too weak, and that that's why your family had died for you, but you were the strong one. It was going to happen to them anyway, and you made sure it happened on your terms. You didn't let anyone hold you back, and I was killing myself to save people who were dead anyway. You had it right."

I want to tell him he's wrong. Remind him he's married and that he's going to be a daddy, and that if everything so far led him to this, that he must have been doing it right all along. Only I can't speak because I know these are words he'd leave unspoken if he thought he'd have another chance, and the more I think about that, the more the pain paralyzes me.

"You never took anyone else's shit," he says, still smiling. "When we were all trying to protect Katniss and Peeta, you hit Katniss in the face just to remind her that she didn't know anything. And I know how much it hurts to get slapped by Johanna Mason." He takes a deep breath. "You've always done the things no one else could. And that's why you can't come with us."

I half raise my eyebrows in question. What? What are you talking about? My eyes search Finnick's green ones for the answer his lips won't provide. I study his face: the long nose, the lips that men and women alike would kill to have, or to feel in their most intimate places. Maybe I'm looking at him like I might be thinking this too, because he smiles.

"You're the only person I trust to protect her."

And then I realize that that the thing he needs now is for me to take care of Annie.

"You're not serious," I say too loudly, pulling my hand away. He lets go too easily, and through the drugs and the pain, I hate Annie for wrecking the moment. "I'm a fucking mess, Finnick. I'm the worst person you could want. She cries practically every time we're in the same room together. No. I can't."

Finnick must know that Annie is defenseless against my inability and unwillingness to censor myself. I need to talk, but not in the same way as Finnick. I need to downplay every horrible thing that's happened. Annie needs to forget or risk getting lost in painful memories. More than once since Annie and I have been here, Finnick has had to personally escort her out of my presence for exactly this reason.

"You're not as different as you think," Finnick says. "The way you felt on the block...you can understand what she's constantly going through."

The way I felt on the block is the reason for my most recent hospital stay. The training was too much of a reminder of the torture I tried so hard to forget. After months of avoiding water and developing a dangerous addiction to morphling—an addiction that I fought so that I might be able to go with Finnick and the others to the Capitol—a flood pushed me back into bed with a drip in my arm.

Years ago, a different flood disarmed another girl. Annie Cresta spent years away from the ocean that was once seemed to breathe life into her, afraid that her strength as a swimmer would mean the deaths of others around her. Annie's brother's funeral at sea only worsened her fear. Finnick told me how he carried her from the beach, injured shoulder and all, afraid that someone would do to her what they'd done to her brother. The Peacekeepers didn't kill Adrian Cresta; they left him dying on the floor of his girlfriend's house. Finnick did the merciful thing by ending his suffering.

I understand Annie's fears. But I've only ever tolerated her because of what she means to Finnick.

"Katniss's mom is the only other person who knows right now. She's the only one who I could trust to run the test," he adds, as though this will help.

"Am I supposed to feel special or something?"

Finnick sighs, sits up in his chair, and begins moving his hands in circles around his head again. "I'm really trying here, Jo."

"Well, I'm sorry, Finnick," I say as I lie back, not sorry at all. "What do you want me to say?"

"Just that you'll look out for her. She isn't like us."

Annie isn't a killer. Apart from the death that plagues all of our lives, she hasn't been exposed to most of the hardships the other victors have. She's pure, or at least as pure as a pregnant person can be. But Annie also has this habit of dropping in and out of conversations. Every misplaced word or thought on Annie's part is just a reminder that everything about my friendship with Finnick—most of all, the long talks—will never be the same again.

"You can't expect me to talk to her," I warn.

Finnick picks up my hand and smiles against it, probably knowing that he's won. "I don't."

"Good. Because I'm not."

He actually laughs now. "Oh, I know."

"I'm not, Finnick," I repeat. And I actually laugh too. I can't even remember the last time we laughed like this. It must have been before District 13, before the Quarter Quell even. The sound is sweet, and somewhere in the haze, I feel shades of genuine happiness. Finnick is going to be a father. I know this is something he's always wanted, something he never thought he'd have.

And so it's impossible to imagine how he can walk away from the life he's been fighting for all this time, especially when his wife needs so much care and he needs so much affection. All the years he's spent in other people's arms have made Finnick terrible at being alone.

"Who's going to take care of you?" I ask, cutting off the last notes of his joy.

Whatever ghost of a smile remained on Finnick's face fades quickly, leaving him with what I'm certain is the same look I wore earlier, the distant expression that accompanies painful thoughts.

The Finnick I knew during the Quarter Quell, who watched, helpless, as his mentor's body was destroyed by chemical burns, was one who needed to be held at night. Part of the problem with being Panem's playboy is that Finnick has always needed physical closeness in much the same way that others need drugs. When Mags, was killed on the first night of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games, something inside of me fell apart. I barely knew the woman, but then again, it wasn't her I was mourning.

Loss has never affected me the way it affects Finnick. Whatever Finnick pretended for the cameras, he had lost a part of himself. I wanted to kill Katniss for not being able to save Mags. I needed to find a way to erase Finnick's pain. When we slept, it was with our bodies pressed tightly against one another, with me kissing the skin on his neck and shoulders for both his benefit and my own. It was the night I kissed him all over again, but entirely different. He needed to know that he still had people who loved him; I needed to know that I could still love. And I did love Finnick. I do love Finnick in a way I'll never understand.

Finnick's hand finds my arm again. "You'll be taking care of me," he says. "You'll make it so that I know she's safe. You'll both be safe here. What more could I need?"

What I want to say is that he's a walking cliché and that he's full of shit, but I'm still stuck on the memory. He won't be okay but he's pretending otherwise for my sake, the same way he's always done with Annie. Because when you love someone, you do what needs to be done and try to forget about how much it hurts.

I might never see him again.

I want to ask him what will happen to me if he dies. What will happen if I turn into one of those waxy shells of a former human being? Who will hold me and kiss my shoulders and tell me that it all turns out alright in the end? But I can't speak the words because I love him too. And I have to let him go. I have to let him do this, no matter how much it hurts.

"Hey," he says softly again. Our damp eyes meet and he takes my hand in his, squeezing more tightly this time. "It's gonna be okay, Jo."

I nod, smiling and wiping my eyes with my free hand. My arm registers a quick pinch and the pressure of his thumb where the needle once pierced my skin. Finnick slides his chair closer and rests his head against my ribs, his shoulders rising and falling in quick jerks. The plastic tube of morphling swings like the pendulum of a clock, counting down the time we have left together.

My hand strokes the weathered chestnut fuzz, the something I'll hold on to of this moment, and I repeat the words back to him. "It'll all be okay."

EPILOGUE

I was still in the stages of withdrawal when Finnick died. They brought Annie to me before I could go to her, and for days we sat, unspeaking, while Katniss's mom monitored Annie's stress levels and frequently changed my sweat-soaked sheets. For a while, I thought Annie might never speak, that she'd eat her food and do her part to care for the baby inside her but do nothing to try to rejoin the world. Finnick was gone. How could I blame her?

The more my head cleared, the more obvious it became that Finnick had lied. It was always his intention for me to have to talk to Annie, to draw her out. And I couldn't. He should have known that I couldn't. But I couldn't sleep either, and when there was no one else to listen and I needed to speak, I spoke to the baby. I told him that his dad was the one I used to talk to. More than that, his dad used to always talk to me. During the hours when everyone else slept, I told the baby everything I could about Finnick. Eventually, the stories carried over into the waking hours, and when I ran out of things to say about Finnick, I told him about my older brothers, who were so like Finnick in their need to protect the ones they loved. Annie's abdomen had barely begun to swell, and already I'd told the baby—told Annie—things I'd never told anyone.

The first time I heard Annie speak was at the victors vote in the Capitol. Her voice then was stronger than I've ever heard it as she voted against another Hunger Games, and said that her husband would have done the same.

I retaliated as I always do, but it didn't matter. The president was assassinated and the world fell into chaos once more. I relapsed. Annie took over making sure I had clean linens. And slowly, the pieces fell into place.

When I open my eyes now, it's not the white and gray world of District 13 I see before me. There's the blue of the ocean, the orange of the sun. And there's the blue-green eyes of a baby, watching from his basket on the rocks as though waiting to see what I'll do. Every time I look at him, I can't help but think he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Come on," Annie calls. "He'll be fine."

Since we arrived in District 4, Annie's been on my case about getting in the water again. This, she tells me, is where Finnick took her when he wanted her to face her fears. The natural pool provides a certain sense of calm, of safety. We came once before the baby was born, and Annie scared the hell out of me as she made her way over the rocks and into the water with her enormous belly. She floated effortlessly, while I watched, terrified that she'd sink and I'd never be able to help her out. Today, it seems, it's my turn to get in the water.

I put my toes in the water and try to imagine what Finnick did to make Annie get in the water that first time. Somehow, I feel like he had more grace with her than he did the time he nearly drowned me in the Quarter Quell arena, while I yelled curses at Katniss. He'd be gentle if he were here now, I think.

And then I realize that he'd do exactly what Annie is doing and let me get in on my own terms. The best of him, the part he withheld from me, exists now in her.

It takes a while, but I manage to sink all but my head into the water. Annie climbs on the ledge to nurse the baby. And suddenly, I'm overcome with sadness that Finnick never got to see this perfect little child who could make Annie smile through her tears even on the hardest days. He never got to know that we all really would be okay.

And I never got to say that he was right, that the bouts of grief and the days when simply getting out of bed seems impossible aren't worth giving up when doing so means also giving up the joy I feel for being a part of this child's life.

So I take a last look around, suck in a deep breath, and dive. Not to escape this life, but to become a part of it.

Finnick mentioned once that it was Annie's ambition to help those who shared her fear of water. Part of me has to wonder whether this was his intention all along.

Thank you for reading. If you liked it, please take a minute to leave a review and let me know. Reviews are what keep me writing.

And, of course, please check out my other (read: better) stories about these characters.