Annie has a secret. Finnick knows most of her secrets, but he's been gone for months. She wants him to come home, but in a way, it's easier that he's not here right now, because he's the one she's keeping this one from.

She can't tell if Mags has guessed. It never does to underestimate Mags. Since losing her speech, she's been unable to communicate more than a fraction of what goes on in that shrewd old head.

If Finnick comes back and Mags has figured out Annie's secret and manages to communicate it...well, Annie will deal with that if it happens.

If Finnick doesn't come back...

The Seventy-Fourth Victory Ball was last night, and Annie's going to be on tenterhooks for the next few days. She's been watching television every day for months, gathering intelligence in her own way, and putting the pieces together as best she can. Maybe she can be the one who figures out in advance whether Finnick's going to be allowed home or not.

She hasn't seen any wedding announcements yet for Finnick. Just Katniss and Peeta. But even with them front and center, Finnick is so much on television that Annie's started to understand why his family considers him a disgrace. If you don't know what's driving him, that he's protecting his people and finding ways to fight back, he does look...feckless.

Annie barely recognizes him, and it's not the makeup. Watching Finnick simper and flit from one sparkly attraction to the next, nothing and no one able to hold his attention for long, is downright queasiness-inducing if you've only ever known him at his natural levels of intense focus. No wonder he comes home exhausted each year. This is one hell of an act.

Please come home.

She worries about Finnick. She wants to be the one he comes home to so he can catch his breath, not someone who makes even more demands on him. Which is why she's not telling anyone that her medication supplies have dried up due to conveniently timed shortages.

She was completely without her meds during the Hunger Games, when Mags and Finnick went to the Capitol to mentor tributes and Annie refused. Only a couple of months prior, she had made the trip in order to be by Mags' side in the hospital, but she won't—can't—go as part of the Hunger Games pageant.

Mags had warned her long ago, when she first came out of the arena, that there would be a price to pay for refusing to make her mandatory annual appearance in the Capitol, but since she jumped through all the hoops of high-profile events in which she featured, and since she doesn't need to mentor as long as Mags can do the job, she'll have a chance of flying under the radar if she makes it clear that her absence is due to illness, not defiance.

It's both.

The shortage during her Hunger Games was a warning. Annie could have gone to the Capitol for the Victory Ball and still been in compliance with the rules. Everyone else is there right now: Donn, Brine, Rudder, Octavius. It's only her and Mags in the Village today.

Annie thought about it. The Victory Ball is easier to tolerate than the Hunger Games, after all. At least no one dies, even if replays are everywhere.

She thought about it, but she can't.

She can't let them win. If she stays here, she has a chance of getting back on her feet, and of retaining some sense of integrity. Besides, someone has to be here for Mags. Even if she's got all the practical support she needs, Annie can't believe anyone remaining loves her as much as Annie.

Annie's been trying to go over to her house every day, and when she can't, Mags comes here. Annie still feels guilty that she can't move in with Mags, but the strain is too much to bear.

So instead of going to the Capitol, Annie started cutting her pills in half in the weeks leading up to the Victory Tour, to have at least something to get her through when the supplies dried up right on schedule. She's hoping her deliveries will resume again, the way they did last time, but if not, that's another problem she'll deal with.

Hopefully without Finnick finding out. Her medication is tightly controlled at the best of times, and three years ago Finnick tried bringing her a stash from the Capitol, but it was confiscated. Being Finnick, he got off with a slap on the wrist for a first offense, but she doesn't want him trying again.

"It's not an emergency," Annie insisted at the time. Better that he be free to collect the information he needs, without anyone suspecting what he's up to.

Now it's even more critical to keep him from taking this risk, now that he's facing Snow's displeasure already, and now that the revolution is on the verge of breaking out.

Annie insists to herself that keeping her secrets is a way of doing her part to support the revolution, even if she can't leave her house, even if she still can't leave her bed at mid-afternoon. This is temporary, she keeps repeating. I'll get my meds back. Then I can sleep. Then I can stop feeling like the world is ending and it'll be a relief when it finally does. I was doing better before all this happened, I was.

Her nightmares aren't just about the arena any more, or Peacekeepers raiding the house and dragging her back to the Capitol to dance to Snow's tune, or even about war. Last night, she dreamed of Mags, smothered in care until she deteriorated. With a whole district looking out for Mags' every need while the other victors are out of town, Annie's trying to help her hang on to her independence.

It's why she drags herself out of bed when she hears the front door open. Annie's not sure she can be sociable, but Mags will understand. Mags sat with her a few days ago, stroking her hair and letting Annie hang onto her other hand until at last her need for sleep overcame her dread of it. But Mags left before she woke, as Annie had made her promise to do. It's not falling asleep around other people that kills her. It's waking up to find she's not alone.

More noise from downstairs. The door closing. Annie's now sitting up in bed but hasn't even mustered the energy to push the blankets off her. She's still buried in a pile of quilts that are all she has to cling to.

Oh, god, she needs to get up. Mags is going to have a hell of a time on the stairs.

I can't do this.

Legs over the edge of the bed. Feet on the floor. House slippers. She can't sleep, but she can't get out of bed either. Just lie here all day hashing over everything that's gone wrong and is going to go wrong.

At the bottom of the stairs, Annie leans briefly against a rail and braces herself with her hand on an end table. She's just going to ask Mags if there's anything she needs, and if not, head straight back to bed. Yesterday she could go out. Today is not a functioning day.

She's still leaning against the wall, staring down at the ground, when a long shadow falls on the floor in front of her. She looks up.

"Finnick." Annie's voice is completely devoid of emotion.

"Annie." Finnick glows at her, but his smile slowly fades as he takes in her listlessness.

"You're home."

Is she losing her grip on time? The Victory Ball was—well, she thought it was recent enough that it wasn't possible for him to be back yet. Tomorrow at the earliest.

"I'm home," Finnick confirms. She can see him control his disappointment that she's having a bad day, but she can't do anything about that. "Everything's fine." He holds out a paper bag in one hand. "Found this on the porch."

All that time spent worrying that she wouldn't be able to keep her secrets from his eagle eye, and now the problem isn't revealing her relief at her pills, it's being too numb to feel anything at all.

When Annie stares at the bag without reaching for it, Finnick drops it on the the table. On the floor next to it, he sets something else down, a larger bag maybe, but her peripheral vision has gone all hazy. She can't pay attention to her surroundings.

Every time she tries to think of something to say, it spirals out of control in her head. If she says one thing, he might say any number of things in response that she can't predict, and then she'll have to think of something in turn that doesn't betray her secrets. The complexities of human interaction are more than she can handle today.

But he's Finnick, and even if she can't talk just now, she can read him. He's wondering if he should offer to leave, but he hasn't seen her in forever, and he wants to stay. She can't help him with that either, can't be socially polite and make this decision for him.

Making up his mind, Finnick walks into the kitchen. Annie follows, trying to hold it together. She wants to be kind to him, to give him a proper homecoming, to feel relieved that he's home at all, but the urge to be alone is overwhelming her. If she keeps having to fight it, she's going to end up curled into a ball, screaming.

Her hands, without her realizing it, have found their way to the paper bag, which she's clutching, rolled up, as she walks. Annie tries to set it down on the counter without letting him notice how she was clinging to it. He's a professional spy. He's probably noticing.

"Wait, this looks different." Finnick turns around in a circle in the middle of the kitchen. "Did you renovate while I was gone? Did you do this yourself?"

Annie just nods, too tired to elaborate. She felt better when she had something to tear out and pound on, but now she's only relieved that it might distract him from wondering about her meds.

"That's amazing!"

When he doesn't get the enthusiastic response he was looking for, Finnick tightens his lips and starts making sandwiches at the new granite-topped island. Flatbread, avocado, tomato, cheese. Annie stands with her hands clenched tight behind her and waits for him to get bored and leave on his own. She shakes her head minutely when he holds a sandwich out in offer.

"Are you sorry you had to come back?" Annie blurts out. Anything has to be better than coming home after this long to a girlfriend who acts like she didn't even miss you.

I did, she wants to say. I just...can't, right now.

Finnick's hands fall to the table as though they don't have the strength to hold a sandwich any more. He turns to Annie with eyes full of pain and a face that looks as fatigued as she feels. "What happened? Did you start watching television?"

Startled, Annie looks away. This part's not even a secret, but he's already lifted it from her mind like it was nothing. Next he'll be trading his body for her meds, and it'll be her fault when he's caught.

"Do you wish I'd come with you after all?" she asks. Her heart had broken with helplessness, watching him so utterly alone.

Finnick buries his face in his hands, leaning his elbows on the kitchen table. "No," he says, his voice muffled. "I've told you. I couldn't handle switching personalities back and forth that fast, if you were there. It just drives me crazy that there are so many good things in the Capitol, and you can't have any of them."

"So I don't have a monopoly on crazy. Good to know." She's pretty sure, on days like this, that the easiest thing for both of them would be if Finnick would just give up on her already. He needs someone less damaged, someone who can help him repair his own damage.

"Annie, I told you, I don't think you're crazy."

"What do you call it, then?" Annie challenges.

"Well." Finnick has to think about it. "You're suffering, definitely. But crazy...crazy to me would mean you didn't make sense. And the longer I've known you, the more I've realized that things that looked or sounded crazy have had good, sensible reasons, and that whatever you've done has kept you alive and on your feet. And you're still so brave it hurts to watch."

Maybe. Maybe she has reasons for the things she does to keep herself going, like living alone. But spending months agonizing over whether your boyfriend will come home and what kind of state he'll be in if so, and then completely ignoring him when he does? Making him do the comforting, when you spent months fretting because he was dealing with his own problems alone? Having all the time in the world to come up with questions that will tell you how much of him really came back, and not being able to sit him down and ask them? That's the kind of crazy that scares her.

Unable to articulate any of this, Annie wanders off to the windowsill to play with some dying flowers in a vase. Keeping other things alive is so hard when it's all she can manage to do that for herself.

"If you want to see crazy, you should have seen Johanna and Brutus talking smack," Finnick laughs. It's the kind of friendly small talk that keeps the conversation non-threatening and open to whatever she might want to say, without pushing her. "I had to rescue him." She can hear the smile in his voice.

Annie's eyes fill with tears, and she blinks them back. Wow, but she is volatile today. Finnick's doing his best, but nothing's going to get through to her right now.

"Finnick." Calm. Calm. Do calm. Do sane. "I know you don't care about getting hurt." Her voice shakes, but she ignores her pride and carries on, stringing together sentences that go with each other. "I know you volunteer at fourteen and cut yourself and paint your face with your own blood and run down archers. I know you'll stick it out here as long as it takes. But I care about being the one cutting you. I'm having a really bad day, and if you stay, you'll get hurt, and I'll have to be the one who cares about that." Throughout this entire speech, her back is turned to him.

Silence from behind. Then, "Promise?"

"I promise. I'll call as soon as I'm feeling better. I'll even come by if I'm up to it. We'll talk, we'll catch up, I'll steal your dessert, it'll be good. Promise."

Annie hears the front door close. She plucks the dried-out petals from the flowers and crumbles them into dust in her hand.

Two am. Two more hours of curfew.

Finnick's fingers tug restlessly at the sheets, pulling them up over his shoulders, then pushing them down again. I should have spent the night at Mags'.

Dammit, how old are you? Twenty-four is a little old to be clingy, don't you think?

One hour and fifty-nine minutes.

It's just so hard to believe he's home. Finnick shakes with relief every time he remembers how narrowly he escaped the Capitol. He didn't think he was going to—still doesn't think he would have, if not for Katniss. But President Snow was too busy managing the fallout of her Hunger Games to worry about an impeccably well-behaved Finnick, and so when Finnick couldn't get into the ball, he slipped out of the Capitol in the middle of the night, holding his breath the whole way.

Now he's home, and he can't sleep.

One hour and fifty-eight minutes.

It was almost worth it, missing the ball. Now he'll be here when the revolution breaks out later this year. Everyone's decided that the time to strike is now, while the fury Katniss has been feeding in the other districts is still hot. Her Victory Tour was electrifying even after she stuck to the cards.

One hour and fifty-seven minutes.

But he aches so badly to help Katniss that the frustration is killing him. She's smart, she's brave, she's a warrior, and she protects her people. No one should have to navigate the waters she's in alone. Finnick did his best to communicate with Haymitch while she and the boy were in the hospital, but it wasn't enough.

It's never enough.

One hour and fifty-six minutes.

So he needs to not be wasting time here, and get down to the Career academy with Rudder, or take the ferry up to visit Pearleye, or basically anything that isn't lying in bed pretending he's going to fall asleep again. No, he needs to sleep, now, so he can be useful later.

One hour and fifty-five minutes.

Just give up already. You slept on the train. You'll sleep when you've gotten some work done today.

One hour and fifty-four minutes.

But sleeping on the train train barely counts. It's always agitated, and full of violent dreams that leave him more tired than when he lay down. Now he's on alert, headachy, fuzzy, and frustrated with this stupid argument over whether he should try to sleep.

One hour and fifty-three minutes.

Finnick gets up and opens the window. He doesn't miss the smell of fish, exactly, but maybe if it smells and sounds like home, he'll be able to sleep.

One hour and fifty-two minutes.

The transition back to District Four is always hard.

One hour and fifty-one minutes.

Back in bed, Finnick clutches the pillow to his chest and hunches over, trying to decide what to do with himself.

He knows better than to hit the workout room down the hall in a mood like this, since he injured himself a few years back doing just that. But he can't get out of the Village, and that doesn't leave him many options.

One hour and fifty minutes.

You're exhausting Mags, Annie's voice says in his memory. And it's exhausting me to try to deflect your intensity.

One hour and forty-nine minutes.

Mags is the furthest thing from fragile, but she needs all her strength to manage her recovery. The last thing she needs is managing my frantic energy. So he's going to stick it out here and sleep alone. Or not sleep, as the case may be.

One hour and forty-eight minutes.

He wraps his hand into a fist when he realizes he's been picking at the bottom sheet enough to dislodge it from the corner at the foot of his bed.

It's two fucking more hours, Finnick growls at himself. Then you can get out and work yourself to your heart's content, and maybe sleep tonight. Or tomorrow night.

With this decision made, Finnick forces himself to lie down. Pillow under the head, he tells himself firmly, where it belongs.

One hour and forty-seven minutes.

There's going to be no shortage of problems to solve. He needs to transfer the information he's collected, and they need to work out a plan for bringing the decades of planning to open warfare. It's going to be the most intense year of his life. No wonder he can't sleep. It has nothing to do with Annie not wanting to see him earlier. He's used to that. It's just one of her bad days.

She doesn't need you to drop in in the middle of the night, and neither does Mags.

Just one hour and forty-six minutes left.

Finnick's thumb curls suddenly around the handle of the knife under his pillow before he realizes why. He freezes, until he hears the sounds downstairs. Then he creeps to his bedroom door on silent feet and listens. Not Mags: her cane is distinctive. Annie never comes by without warning, no matter how much he encourages her to. Peacekeepers? An assassin?

He keeps a trident hanging on the wall, next to other mementos of his Games. It looks like conceit, but it's meant for moments like this.

With the country teetering on the edge of revolution, Finnick's done his best to go unnoticed in connection with resistance, but he can't risk letting himself be certain that he's succeeded and will never be a target. If he has to flee tonight, he has a plan to alert the others.

Just as he's getting into position, weapon in hand and ears pricked for numbers and location of his enemy, Finnick's heart leaps in his chest at the sound of a voice. "Um. I just realized this might count as sneaking up on you?"

All at once, the tension flows out of him, and the butt of his trident thuds as it hits the floor. "For the love of—Annie, you scared me half to death!" He strides out of the room.

"I'm sorry!" She sounds sheepish, but also genuinely amused. "I didn't even know if you were home, and then it occurred to me I might have woken you up, and-"

Finnick hits the switch to the stair light, and squints down into the sudden brightness. Annie's standing at the bottom of the stairs, carrying an expensive shopping bag by the handles. She holds it up to show him. "You forgot this."

"Oh, Annie." He flies down the stairs to her.

"Finnick." Annie opens up her arms, and Finnick falls into them. Even the aborted adrenaline rush vanishes into the comfort of her touch. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," he says. "So you found it?"

"You brought me a fur coat from the Capitol," Annie accuses. "And I kicked you out."

"I didn't mean to leave it lying around for you to find. I meant, you know..." Finnick sighs. He'd completely forgotten about it. "Well, the important thing is, do you like it? Have you tried it on?" Eagerly, he begins pulling it from the bag.

Annie takes the other end and helps him pull it out. "Yes, of course, and no, I was waiting for you."

Finnick shakes it out and gets it into position for Annie to step into. She slides her arms through the sleeves, and together they fasten it up the front.

She does a pirouette with her arms held out, standing in his hallway at the bottom of the stairs in the middle of the night. "I look gorgeous in it, naturally."

Finnick's heart surges with love and pride, and he leans over to brush her forehead with his lips. More than the coat, she's trying on self-confidence in front of someone who won't laugh at her. Someone who's shown her that it's possible to say things like this.

If you believe in yourself enough, who is going to dare not to believe in you?

While straightening back up, he notices a patch of fur that's stiff and matted, as though it got wet in transit. Finnick tries surreptitiously to pinch it with his thumb and forefinger to smooth it out, wondering how on earth he managed to give her something in less than perfect condition, but Annie notices. She looks sheepish again.

"I, ah, I might have cried myself to sleep into it when I found it, and slept like the dead on it."

The very fact that she can make admissions like this so straightforwardly means that some part of her, no matter what she says, believes him when he says he doesn't think she's crazy.

"But you woke up feeling better?" Finnick asks, somewhat rhetorically. It was not twenty-four hours ago that she kicked him out, as she put it.

Annie nods. "I took my meds and slept...I don't know how long."

It's amazing, the difference between her good days and her bad days. She won't be sailing around without a care in the world on any of them, but when she's playful, warm, and self-assured like this, he lets himself pretend that all will be well with the world forever.

"Then it must be a magical coat," Finnick jokes, and he's rewarded by her whole face lighting up with laughter.

"It must be." She spreads her hands over it possessively. "My talisman. I'll keep it with me always."

Then she holds up her arms to him, and Finnick picks her up and spins her around, laughing with her. This, this is what he'd imagined when he decided to bring her a gift.

Her eyes are sparkling. "So, do I get to thank you properly?"

At once, Finnick's world slips. He finds himself reacting in two different directions at once. "I'd love to," he says with his automatic smile, while desperately trying to quell the impending freakout. She's not paying for it! he tells himself fiercely. This isn't the Capitol!

He tries his hardest not to think of Annie when he's in the Capitol, because sincerity will break his persona. But this year he found himself looking at furs and thinking of her, and suddenly he couldn't stand it any more. He walked out carrying this one like spoils of war. It was free, because he's a celebrity and he can get whatever luxury item he wants, just for the asking. But looked at another way, it's the most expensive fur coat in the world.

Not letting any of his internal turmoil show, Finnick follows Annie upstairs. She shivers as soon as she opens the door, and laughs. "Mind if I close the window? It's a little chilly for what I have in mind."

Finnick gives her his best dazzling smile. "I don't think I'll need it any more," he tells her, hoping he's right.

Annie wearing only the fur coat is stunning to his eyes, and nothing at all like the Capitol. Any of his lovers, male or female, would have resorted to vomiting, pills, and surgery before they let themselves get fat like this. He gives her a good, long, appreciative look, taking in the differences since he last saw her. More weight, yes, especially on the thighs, and also what looks like some extra muscle on the upper arms. He curves his hand around her arm. "Renovating?"

"Yes." She looks down at where his hand rests, pleased. "Is it noticeable, really?"

"To me. Renovating and eating well."

It helps, but it doesn't entirely make him comfortable with giving her a luxury object and immediately following up the gift with sex. So when he's too tired and stressed to get it up right away, Finnick decides that it's for the best. No chance she's paying for anything if it's just him pleasuring her.

But Annie, being Annie, stops him as he's going down on her. "Finnick-" she warns.

Finnick doesn't even need to ask what she's getting at. He just sighs. "It's fine."

Then, when he doesn't stop, Annie insists, "No, seriously, you spent the last six months-"

"You do it for me all the time," he reminds her. Honestly, it's easier this way, though he doesn't like to admit it. "Besides, you look gorgeous, remember?" With a seductive smile, Finnick runs his hands over the light brown of the coat and the richer brown of her hair spread over it.

Annie's having none of it. "But it's not my comfort zone," she says conclusively.

So much for not admitting it. Finnick exhales through his teeth in frustration at himself. "Annie, I brought you the fur after years of not bringing you anything, because I am tired of them being able to get in the way of us enjoying ourselves. I am tired of avoiding anything that might bring up memories of them. I just want to have one relationship that isn't about how I spent the last six months."

"I know," Annie says, and she sighs unhappily. "And I know what you mean about avoiding things. Sometimes I catch myself second-guessing whether I'm reminding you of something you'd rather forget. " Looking at her, Finnick can see the strain, and suddenly it's obvious. If she had that bad a day yesterday, she's not fully recovered today. She's making the effort for him. "But we do," she continues more confidently, "we have a relationship, and we certainly don't have to straighten everything out tonight. Look, you gave me a fur coat, and it's only your first night back. Stop trying to solve everything at once!"

Finnick laughs hollowly, because needing to solve everything at once is exactly why he can't slow down.

"You're right, I've let you before, and I'll let you again," Annie promises. "Just not tonight, while you're still half in the Capitol." Her hands tug at him, asking him to come lie beside her.

Finnick doesn't know how she can tell, but he follows her down onto the bed and lies on his side, facing her. "I just wanted to do something nice for you. And at least I decided not to force a reaction out of myself when I was wound up. I thought you'd prefer that."

"I didn't realize you were wound up," Annie says quietly. "You were..." Her voice trails off.

Of course I was. It's what I do. If you're interested, I'm available.

Annie puts her hand on his bare shoulder and runs it up to his hair and back down again.

"I'm sorry. I should have guessed, even if I didn't notice. But at the same time," she chides, "you should have told me. Honesty, remember?"

"There's honesty, and then there's-do you actually think I'm too messed up to make decisions about sex?" Finnick demands, his voice rising. "That you have to protect me from myself?"

Annie holds out a placating hand. "No, I-"

"Because we've been over this," Finnick continues, overriding her, "and I told you, as long as we're in this together, I won't feel like you're using me."

"I'm not, but I'm starting to think that you are."

Finnick springs up in bed, on the verge of tears. "You think I'm using you for sex?!"

"No!" Annie sits up with him and insists that he come back into her arms. "Idiot." She kisses him affectionately on the temple, and Finnick feels his pounding pulse slowly come under control again. For a moment, he thought the world was ending and he never even saw it coming. "I feel like you're using yourself," Annie explains. "You figure out what I want, you make sure I get it, the end."

Now Finnick's more lost than ever. "Isn't that what everyone decent does? Isn't it what you do?"

Annie shakes her head. Her long hair brushes his skin as it swings, and he leans in, desperate for some kind of comfort. "Not the way you do it."

"Well, I don't know any other way!" This is turning out to be the most frustrating sexual exchange they've had. Then he tries to salvage the moment with laughter. "I must say, I've never gotten this many complaints in bed before."

Sometimes Annie laughs with him, but just now she's all seriousness. "No, I don't suppose you have," she says sadly. Then she smiles. "Good thing you're with me. We'll sort it out, not to worry."

Finnick wants to believe her, but sorting this out is tiring, hard, and confusing. "You just tell me, then. Whatever will make you comfortable with this." Finnick hesitates over the next part, because it's so hard to keep from sounding petulant. "As long as you know I actually want to be here with you, and I'm not just doing it out of some habit, or because I do it with everyone, or whatever it is you're thinking-"

"No, I know, sssh." Annie rubs his arm. "It's really obvious, okay?"

Under her assurances, the defensiveness starts to relent, and Finnick lets her coax him back into lying down.

"Now come be little spoon and let me hold you. I know that's your favorite. You're a sweet boy, and I know you wanted to do something nice for me. It's just that tonight, it's your turn to let me take care of you."

Maybe he is still half in the trenches, because as he's obligingly getting into position, he hears the words "sweet boy" and suddenly he's back in Flavia's arms, with pleasure reverberating throughout his body. The same pleasure he couldn't summon at the sight of Annie's skin just now. Sex doesn't disgust him, but sometimes he disgusts himself.

Finnick shakes himself. Stop it, it's just the transition. It'll pass. It always does.

Instead, he jokes off the discomfort. "Annie, I might manage to be the inside spoon, but I think little is out of my control."

Annie laughs politely, but she's like a bloodhound tonight. "That wasn't a good shiver just now."

Finnick doesn't want to lie to her to make her feel better, even if he thought it would work, but some conversations are just exhausting. He simply shakes his head, and Annie takes the hint.

"All right, we're taking this one step at a time. You're back home, you're where you belong. Everything will start getting better now." Her fingers stroke his hair with each reassurance, but there have been too many echoes tonight, one right after another, for him to be fully sure of where he is.

"Annie?" Finnick asks, his back to her. "Say something only you would say?"

"Oh." Annie hesitates. Of course. She probably thought she was. "Um...I built a ramp for Mags? Up her front porch?"

The answer startles a laugh out of Finnick. Not at all what he was expecting, but she went for a surefire choice. And it does make him feel better, to imagine them looking out for each other while he was away. "I saw," he says warmly. "She was very happy about it."

"District Four is the best place in Panem. Way better than the Capitol!" Annie continues, gaining momentum. "And I love the smell of fish in the morning."

Now Finnick's belly-laughing, from relief more than anything. He feels a rush of gratitude toward Annie, who knows how he constructs his wards out of humor. "Thanks. You've convinced me."

The sound Annie makes is self-satisfied. Then she grows very quiet. "Do you really get that all the time, all the things I was saying earlier?"

Finnick debates whether he should let the whole topic slide, but he finally blurts out, "I know you think it's all rape and blood, but I told you, I enjoy it." Half his lovers are completely besotted with his celebrity persona, and they're not deliberately cruel, just oblivious. "Some of them are just trying to get their money's worth, sure, and possession's all they're after, but a lot of them are trying to be kind. They just don't know how. Would you rather not have known that?"

"No," Annie says at once. "Honesty, I told you. And I'm glad it's not all misery. I just wish...you said none of it was real. That what you 'enjoy' is not them or even the sex, but the ego trip."

"Yes," Finnick answers, "that's still the case." He's not having the sex because he enjoys it, he's enjoying the sex because he has to have it. "But I tell them it's real. And they believe me, just like you believe me."

"I believe you," Annie says stubbornly. "You can't drive me away that easily. And speaking of which, I'm sorry I was so out of it yesterday. I know you never want to be alone when you get home."

Finnick feels like apologizing too. He knows that's why she dragged herself over here the moment she felt even a little bit better. Not because she doesn't want to be here, but because she does, and it's hard, and he wishes he could help more. He wishes he could have stayed yesterday, wishes his presence made more of a difference.

"And I'm sorry I had to move out when we were living with Mags," Annie continues, following Finnick's train of thought with eerie accuracy.

"You can't sleep if there's anyone in the house?" Finnick echoes. He's heard the explanation a hundred times, but he needs to hear it again. He needs the reminder that it's not something he's doing or should be doing. Otherwise, the Why don't you feel safe with me? gets more and more insistent in his mind. I'm hardly ever home and that's still more of me than you can handle?

Annie gives him the explanation again. Her arms tighten hard around him, and Finnick can tell she feels as horrible about this as he does. "I wish I could. I wish you could hold me during my worst episodes. I wish I didn't have these abrupt mood swings where sometimes I need you close and sometimes I feel like I need to be alone or I'll die. But if I wake up and I'm not alone, I've got stories in my head about why before I even know what's real."

Finnick takes a deep breath. He's tried so hard to come up with a way that they could make this work, ever since she first told him. He's still trying. But he's got nothing. No solution. And so he had to let her go.

"It's not you. I tried again, when you were in the Capitol and Mags was alone, and I couldn't stay very long before I broke down again.

"But you're still family," Annie says firmly, directly into his ear. "So is Mags. You two didn't stop being family when you moved out at fourteen."

Finnick's not sure whether it would be worse if Annie could live with him but didn't want to, but it doesn't matter. She does and she can't.

Annie's mouth brushes his ear, then the side of his neck, nuzzling her reassurance home. Finnick's too tired to find it arousing, but that's a sensitive spot and always will be. "Let me hold you?" he asks.

"Sure." Annie opens her arms and lets him turn over so they're facing each other. Wrapped in his arms, she tucks her head under his chin and kisses the base of his throat. Another sensitive spot.

"There's so much to do," Finnick sighs. But it's getting harder to remember what. The exhaustion is hitting him like a sledgehammer now that Annie's gotten him into a place where he can allow himself to feel it instead of fighting it. "So many problems to solve, and I'm lying around in bed."

"Oh, that again," Annie says knowingly. "Well, my problem is that I missed you, and so you're going to stay right here."

Oh, Annie. She knows him better than anyone. All he needs is a reason to stay. It may not put him to sleep, but it makes the sleeplessness infinitely more bearable.

Finnick wants to kiss her back, but his body is too heavy to move. "I can't sleep," he groans.

"You don't have to sleep," Annie promises, pouring a calm assurance over him. "You don't have to do anything except lie here with me. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go."

All right. He just has to last another hour, and then curfew ends.

Finnick opens his eyes, which he doesn't remember closing, to tell Annie...what was it again? Struggling to remember, he mumbles something that might be, "Why is there a fur coat draped over me?"

Annie's smile is as bright as the sun glinting off her hair. "Because it's magical. Go back to sleep," she whispers. "All's well."

"Was I sleeping?" Finnick tries to ask. He never hears her answer.

All's well.