Annie wakes up with a muffled cry, kicking the tangled sheets away as if they were coiling seaweed. Something is on top of her and it's crushing her, strangling her, killing her, licking her face.

What?

Her eyes fly open and burn as the morning sun peaks through the curtains. Finnick's tiny rascal of a kitten is a grey blur on her chest as she blinks herself awake. She turns her head to find that Finnick is still sleeping, his brow furrowed with dreams.

"Skipper," Annie chastises in a whisper, rubbing the cat's soft grey ears. "Don't you know never to wake a sleeping Victor?"

Skipper wriggles out of her grip and hops off the bed in reply.

"Is that a no?" Annie chuckles softly and sits up. Finnick mumbles nonsense under his breath and Annie strokes a gentle hand through his messy hair. It's hot, it's almost always hot in District 4, yet he has blankets piled high on his side of the bed. For someone who seems to burn so bright, his feet are always like ice cubes.

He's still frowning, so his dream cannot be pleasant, but she thinks that he is at his most real when he is asleep.

Annie turns away from his sleeping body and wraps the thin sheet around her naked body, desperate for contact with something. Snow had only sold her on three occasions, each time worse than the last. It was so soon after her Games that she can hardly remember. She can't even fathom Finnick's pain, but he doesn't like to talk about it often so she doesn't press him.

The blankets rustle on her other side, and she looks over to find Finnick peering sleepily up at her.

"What are you doing awake?" He queries, his voice hoarse with sleep. "I bet it's not even seven."

I'm thinking about you, she wants to say. I'm thinking about how I'll miss you for three weeks, how I won't know if you're okay, how I won't be able to tell you when I'm not okay. I'm thinking about how they're going to hurt you.

"I want to go swimming," is what she tells him instead. Not a lie, never a lie.

"Wait an hour," he sighs, throwing an arm over his eyes. "I'm still mostly asleep."

Annie bends over and kisses Finnick's forehead before sliding out of bed with a cheeky grin. "I said I want to go swimming, I wasn't talking about what you want to do."

Finnick lets out a burst of surprised laughter and Annie tries to immortalize the sound in her mind. "Reverse psychology's never worked on me, you should ask my mother. Five minutes, then. Let me put some pants on first."

Annie creeps over to the window peers through the gauzy curtains. The water looks friendly and inviting and she wants to be consumed by it, at least for a little while. "Four minutes. The beach'll be empty for a while yet. You can leave the pants behind."