Through all the times when Annie doesn't know if she can do it, Cashmere sticks with her. Going to every class with her, going to work, keeping her company while she does her homework, waiting in the car while she works on someone's house, holding her while she has a bad episode and letting her shake it off. Looking impressed with her progress, telling her she's smart. Celebrating with her every time she finishes a class. Telling Jenn when Annie doesn't bring it up.

With that kind of support, Annie even makes it to the certification ceremony at the end of the program, though she has to sit in the front of the room, with the other newly minted electricians, and Cashmere in the audience. The setting is small and informal, and Annie knows almost all the students, and it doesn't remind her of receiving her victor's crown, not even a little bit.

"I wish Joule could be here," she says to Cashmere afterward, when they're standing in line at the refreshments table.

"She'd be so proud of you," Cashmere agrees, glowing. "Beetee too, everyone."

"I like to think I've made them proud. Even if they'll never know."

"Finnick will tell them," Cashmere says confidently. "When he comes back, he'll figure out how to get a message to District Three. He's good at that. Annie, I'm sorry, don't cry! He'd want you to be happy today!"

Blinking, Annie looks down at the floor. He would, but it wasn't missing him that made the tears spring to her eyes. It was realizing that Joule and Beetee and the rest of her engineer friends had been on her mind on a day like this, but Finnick hadn't. It was the shock of remembering that she might see him again, a hope that must have gradually faded without her realizing it.

It was the shame of hearing Cashmere mention him as casually as if she just saw him last week. She obviously thinks of him every day. She's looking at Annie with concern, and Annie gives her a smile she hopes is reassuring and tries to distract herself by stepping up to the table and looking over her options.

Taking a cheese-filled pastry from a tray, Annie wonders if Finnick has enough to eat where he is.

On the other side of the table, the setting sun is streaking the sky yellow and pink through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Come here, she thinks as hard as she can, as if she can make her words reach him. You can catch up on sleep, and I'll feed you like I promised.

Just then, Marthe comes up and interrupts her melancholy. "Annie! Glad you could make it after all. These are my parents." She gestures at the couple standing beside her. "This is Annie. We used to have all our study groups at her house. She made the best snacks." Marthe gestures toward the table. "Annie brought the fruit tart over there, and she actually made it. Not like me and my bakery cookies."

It's kind of nice when your friends think they came to your place because you can cook, not because you were scared to go to theirs.

"Hello, Marthe's parents." Annie juggles her plate awkwardly and shakes their hands. "Marthe helped me with math, and I promise I only made a few puns on her name when she did."

They all laugh, and wander away from the table, talking and chatting about their plans.

Only after the event, outside in the parking lot, does glancing up at the now dark sky remind Annie. The sharp stab of pain and loss runs through her again. Someone behind her bumps into her when she comes to an abrupt stop.

Annie tries to get moving again, but she can't. She looks around urgently, almost freaking out. "Wait, which direction is west?"

Cashmere knows, of course, and she understands at once. They stand together on the sidewalk, letting the crowd part around them as they hold a silent vigil, just the two of them. Cashmere wraps her arms around Annie from behind.

I'm sorry, Finnick. I don't mean to forget you. It's just that so much keeps happening. You must be pretty busy yourself.

She hopes he's busy, because the alternative is worse.

You wouldn't believe where I am tonight. I'm going to try to find us a house, you should come see. It'd be pretty crowded if you showed up now, I guess. But we'll make room. Just come when you can.

Annie hesitates for a long time, but she ends up taking an electrician job that pays well but doesn't allow Cashmere to accompany her.

"I think I can do it. If you drive me there and pick me up in the evenings. And then you can go to therapy during the day, now that we don't have to ask Raych and Nessa for the money."

Cashmere takes a lot of persuading, and it's not until Annie promises to go with her that she agrees to give it a try.

She almost gives up in the first few minutes, when Morris, her new therapist, refuses—kindly, politely, but firmly—to let Annie field the questions for her. They need to build a rapport and learn to communicate with each other, he says. Annie's not happy with it, but she subsides, watching suspiciously beside Cashmere.

Like Jenn did with Annie, Morris encourages Cashmere to ask any questions she has at any time.

Cashmere braces herself to spend the entirety of every session picking one thing she doesn't understand and asking about it, and struggling to make up for the rest. Maybe just having Annie here will mean Annie will explain things when they get home. If she doesn't get tired of it.

The first question comes. "Can you tell me what you're feeling right now?"

At least it's a familiar one. "I'm happy to be here and looking forward to working together."

His face is smiling and nodding, and his body language is relaxed. She must have gotten this one right.

"That's great."

Then therapy takes a very strange turn. Morris doesn't ask any more questions, like Jenn did, but he starts walking her through exercises with her body right away. Not breathing exercises, but moving different parts of her body. Fingers, toes, shoulders, elbows.

Puzzled, but relieved that this is something she can do, Cashmere obeys all the instructions. Maybe he doesn't know that she can already do this, maybe this is the beginner lesson and he'll be pleased when she can complete it.

It stays easy, though. So easy she wonders what's going on. Maybe he can tell she's not good at therapy, maybe he's taking it slow on her. She can answer these questions, where she can feel her pulse, how fast it's going, how warm or cold or fast the air currents on her skin are.

Cashmere's happy and relieved when the session draws to a close, but Annie's not. She stays put when Cashmere gets to her feet. "Am I allowed to ask a question?"

Morris gives her a polite smile that Cashmere can read before he even speaks. The answer is no.

"I appreciate how invested you are in your partner's well-being. In fact, a support system at home is one of the most important things someone in therapy can have. But it's better if our sessions proceed at Cashmere's pace. When she's ready to ask something, that's when the right time to ask will be."

Annie's tense in the car, as always, and Cashmere's running over the last session reviewing her performance for anything she can improve next time, so the way home is silent.

But as soon as they're settled back in their room, Cashmere presses up close to her. "You don't have to come next time," she promises. "If it's going to be like this, I don't mind going alone. I can do this, it's like the academy."

"And he wouldn't explain what he was doing!" Annie bursts out. "That's what worries me. I don't want this be anything like the academy."

Cashmere subsides unhappily. She tried so hard to make this work. "Maybe he wanted me to ask, there at the end?" she finally speculates. "I can ask next time, if you think I should. I want to get this right."

"All right," Annie says. "We'll go one more time. And if he's willing to explain when you ask, then maybe it will help and you should keep going. But if he doesn't, then I don't think he's someone who should be telling you what to do."

Cashmere likes having someone to tell her what to do, though. Enough that, when it continues during the second session, Cashmere starts thinking about maybe just letting Annie stay home. It's not like Annie wants to come anyway, she justifies to herself.

Maybe she can get better if she's got someone to tell her how. She may not understand it, but she went through an entire academy program without understanding anything, and that was successful.

This time, Morris has her building on what she did last time, paying attention to sensations and involuntary motions from her body, but now while reliving different memories. He starts her with a memory of feeling happy and safe, and she picks Annie's wedding to Finnick.

Then he asks for a memory where she felt terrified, like the ground was dropping from below her feet.

She doesn't want to think about Gloss, so instead she relives sitting across from President Snow learning how she let her district down with her wantonness and what the new expectations would be.

Whenever she starts to go completely blank and lose track of her body, Morris asks her where her shoulders are or how fast or slow she's breathing, or instructs her to move her toes and pay attention to the sensation of her shoes pressing back.

It's surprisingly hard to do both at the same time, relive a memory and pay attention to her body, but with him to guide her, she keeps at it until the session is drawing to a close. When he asks her if she has any questions before they end for the day, Cashmere feels Annie's elbow nudge surreptitiously against her side.

She knows what she's supposed to ask, but she also knows there's such a thing as too many questions, especially when you just met someone, and she doesn't want to use up her whole allowance before she knows the answer to the question that's really haunting her.

"Did I do it right?" Cashmere blurts before she can change her mind, and then holds her breath.

"It's not really the kind of thing you can get right or wrong," Morris says, still smiling. "It's like a medical treatment. Either it helps you or it doesn't."

Annie's elbow again.

Cashmere's relieved smile drops. Should she ask? She doesn't want to risk ruining this, but she doesn't want to disappoint Annie either.

Then she remembers that Annie's smarter than she is, and she'll know if Morris's answer means they should or shouldn't keep coming. That decides her.

"Do you...think it's going to help?" she ventures. That's the best she can do. She can't outright ask what he's doing, that'd feel too much like she's challenging him.

"So far it's looking good." Morris glances at the clock. "We have a few minutes left. Are you wondering how it works?"

Cashmere studies him closely to figure out what the right answer is. Then she decides it doesn't matter, because it's Annie she's going home with and she knows the answer Annie wants. Cashmere nods, hoping it makes her look smart and curious and not stupid or defiant.

"I'm glad you asked. I think we can all agree that one of the reasons you come to therapy is to change what you're feeling, yes?"

Tentatively, she nods.

"A bit hard to change what you're feeling if you've no idea what you're feeling in the first place. Our bodies are here to give us clues, so I'm trying to help you read those clues."

Chewing this one over, Cashmere glances over at Annie, not so much for answers as to check that everything's still all right. Does she have leeway for a third question, or is this too much and she should count her blessings?

No, she can't, this one feels too much like a challenge. Cashmere snaps her mouth shut. That's good enough for today.

"I can see you have a difficult time asking questions."

Cashmere gives a tiny nod. It never takes long before anyone figures out how stupid she is. Other people have the secret to asking good questions; a secret she somehow missed out on.

He smiles at Annie. "How about we ask Miss Annie here to help us out?"

"Me?" Annie looks up, startled.

"Sure." Morris pulls an empty jar off a shelf on a bookcase of odds and ends. "Do you find it easier to ask questions at home?" he asks Cashmere.

She doesn't know what the right answer is, but she can't think of a reason to lie, and he seems to already know, so she only nods.

"That's what I thought. How's this, then?" He passes Cashmere the jar, and a small, lumpy cloth bag with a drawstring pulled tight. "Inside the bag are a bunch of beads. Every time you ask a question at home during the week, you can put in one bead. Every time you ask a question here, two beads. When the jar fills up, Annie does something special for you. The two of you decide what."

"I could bake you a treat," Annie offers.

"Like when you finished a class?" This is kind of like taking a class, Cashmere realizes.

"Exactly!" Annie looks delighted, but this is all moving too fast for Cashmere. She needs time to think, to process all this. Her head is spinning.

"I think we have time for two beads today," Morris suggests, looking pleased. Annie's already dropping some in for the questions Cashmere asked earlier.

Well, Finnick did say the rules were different everywhere. Cashmere heaves a deep breath, and goes for it.

"You said you were trying to help me figure out what I'm feeling. And that makes sense," she assures him. "What if I don't feel anything, though? I know everyone else does, all the time," she adds quickly. "But I've never been like other people. I think something is broken, or missing, inside."

Morris answers with a question. "Have you thought about what it would be like to feel more? Like other people? Would it make life easier, harder, what do you think?"

"I always thought it would be easier. I'd be able to answer questions and talk to people about everyday things, without feeling stupid, and different, and empty."

"I'm glad to hear that. It just so happens this technique helps when you're feeling numb too. If you want to keep it up, I think you can look forward to more feelings in the future."

For the first time, Cashmere thinks that maybe, if this isn't too good to be true, she might learn to be a normal person. She gives him a smile. "I'd like to keep it up."

Annie never in her wildest dreams imagined she'd get herself escorted out of the library, but for as long as she lives, she'll never regret it.

"Cashmere! Cashmere!"

Cashmere comes running from the table where she's been having her reading lessons. "Annie! What's wrong-"

Sobbing with joy, Annie holds up the newspaper she's been reading. She even ignores the librarian who comes over to ask her to please be considerate of the other patrons. "No, you don't understand, we won the war!"

"We won?!"

Cashmere bends over where Annie's showing her the headline. "The rebels have declared victory. The Capitol has no more power!"

"I'm going to have to ask you to lower your voice or step outside-"

"Do they mention anyone by name?" Cashmere asks. She tries to read the article over Annie's shoulder, but it's still slow going for her.

Just as Annie's shaking her head, the librarian firmly seizes the newspaper. "If you cannot be quiet, I'm going to-"

Annie tries to snatch it back. "I just want to take it home, just the one page, just for one day-"

"No! It does not leave this building." Another librarian comes striding over to assist. "But you're going to have to-"

"You don't understand! We won the war!" But she and Cashmere let the librarians escort them to the parking lot, Annie too far gone to even be embarrassed, Cashmere glancing worriedly behind her.

They huddle in the back seat of the car together, laughing and crying. "All it said is that the rebels declared victory. It was just a short blurb. The old leadership's been overthrown. I guess that means Snow."

"What was the date?" Cashmere asks. "How long ago was that?"

"Oh, I don't even know if it said," Annie says. She half makes to get out of the car and go back inside, but then she remembers. "I was too busy trying to get as much as I could about the people. But there weren't any names, not any. But that's enough for now. Let's go home and celebrate!"

With her burst of excitement-fueled energy worn off, Annie plans a menu at home to send with Cashmere to the store.

"Are there exceptions to the no alcohol rule, or-"

Nessa shakes her head. "No exceptions. But you can celebrate with anything else you like, dear."

"Okay, who likes hot chocolate?"

Everyone chimes in on that one. "Hot chocolate it is!" Annie beams, and makes notes. "I'll make a meatloaf, with biscuits, and potatoes, and squash."

"And dessert, surely," Raych adds.

Annie laughs. "You know me too well. I wish I could make a lemon meringue pie, but you don't have lemons here. I'll make a strawberry rhubarb pie."

"It'll be just as good," Cashmere promises.

And it is. Annie eats hers with gusto, talking the whole time. By the time she gets to the pie, she's gone from disbelief to joy to speculation. "I wish there were more details. They won, I think President Snow is dead, they'll be setting up a less oppressive government. That's all."

"That's quite a lot," Raych says, "for a country we never heard much about."

"But I have family! And I knew people. Like I knew some of the leaders in Four. And I've heard of a lot more. I can't stop wondering." The curiosity is eating her from the inside out, but she knows it's going to be hard to get answers without going there. And she can't do that, not yet. Just the thought makes her sick.

Then she looks at Cashmere, in shame. She knows where her family is.

But Cashmere's only got one family on her mind. Later, when they're climbing under the covers, and Annie's preparing to find out how she feels, Cashmere surprises her with a question out of the blue.

"Does Finnick like hot chocolate?"

"When he lets himself drink it," Annie answers. "Why?"

"We're going to make him hot chocolate when he comes back, right? And he can drink it in bed? Like you promised at your wedding?"

"Of course we are." Annie hugs her. She squeezes her eyes shut and pretends Finnick's there, safe between them. "And he can sleep as much as he wants. In the middle. Until he's all caught up."

She lets herself fall asleep imagining recipes to make him. It's better than imagining where he might be, or not be, right now.

Cashmere shakes her head. "No, he's much taller than General Heavensbee."

"Okay," Annie says, still staring hard at the grainy newspaper photo and trying to make the half-visible figure behind Plutarch be Finnick. "I never saw Heavensbee in person."

Not a word, not a picture.

Annie lets the paper fall heavily into her lap. "I don't know, Cashmere. I don't know where else to look."

"Just because he's not turning up in any of the media coverage doesn't mean he's dead," Cashmere insists. "Nobody even cares about the war here. The date on this article is three months ago."

"That's my point. The war ended four months ago, and he still hasn't even sent word. Nessa said Ambassador Frey said General Heavensbee said the last time anyone saw him, he was badly, maybe fatally, injured. That he made it out alive, but no one was sure how much longer he lasted. And that was a long time before the war ended. Now no one's seen him in more than a year, and he hasn't sent word? I don't want to give up, but it doesn't look good."

Cashmere folds her arms across her chest. "Maybe he's on his way here. Nessa said there's lots of immigrants coming, that east Panem is hurting for food, but it's safer to travel now that the war's over. If he was injured, it could take him months to get here over land and by boat."

"Maybe," Annie says. It's a possibility, she just doesn't think it's the most likely one. "How long do you want to wait?"

"Do you even want him to come back?" Cashmere challenges.

"I do! I want him to be okay and to come home. I just don't think he'd want us to wait around forever—in fact, I know he wouldn't."

"I don't want him to feel like we forgot about him."

Annie feels it too: the guilt of having abundant food, a comfortable place to live, a steady job, and most of all, the absence of fear. Even if she's still scared to leave the house, she knows she doesn't have to be afraid of Cashmere being captured, shot, tortured, or raped every time she steps outside. Not like Finnick, who could be lying in a mass grave somewhere.

"But he won't," Annie promises. "Remember when we got married and we all agreed you were part of the marriage even if no one else recognized it? It'll be the same if he shows up again. We'll figure out who wants to be legally married to who. Maybe you and Finnick can have a turn." Annie smiles at Cashmere, whose brow furrows while she thinks this over.

"No forgetting?"

"Never. How long do you want to wait?"

Cashmere says, "I think we should wait at least a year."

"A year from now? Or the end of the war, or-"

"The end of the war," Cashmere says reluctantly. "If we don't have any news by then, then he's not coming."

"We can afford to buy a whole house?" Cashmere asks, astonished. "Already?"

"Well, no," Annie explains, a little discomfited. "We can afford to convince someone who can buy a house to let us live there and pay rent while we slowly give them money until we own it. Plus, the house won't be as nice and centrally located as this apartment. But it'll be ours, and we can start a family if we want. When we're ready," she adds. "Maybe not right away. But we can start planning for it. If that's still what you want. I don't want to pressure you into anything."

Cashmere's looking down at the carpet. "I feel bad about how much I want it. I always fantasized about meeting someone and being allowed to settle down. And having kids...I'm still afraid of screwing it up, but if you think we can do it together, and you say I can hug them and talk to them as much as they want and it won't ruin them, then I always wanted to do that, but I wasn't allowed."

"Why is my idea of a normal life always something you and Finnick were never allowed? Let's do it."

They agree that Cashmere will shop around for houses while Annie's at work, and report back in the evenings.

But Cashmere's first few reports of her viewings are lackluster, until finally one day she looks like she's about to cry. In a flash, Annie crosses the living room and puts her arm around her. "Come on."

Once they're in the bedroom with the door safely closed, Annie faces her. "What's wrong, honey?"

"I can't!" Cashmere is the picture of misery. "I'm sorry I'm letting you down again, but I'm not smart enough for this. I can't go out with real estate agents and look at houses and figure out what's the right house for us. I can ask the questions you gave me, but I don't understand the answer—I mean, I understand the words, but not whether it's good or bad or suspicious, and I don't know how to give the right response or make a decision or ask followup questions, and we're going to end up living in a terrible house and it'll be all my fault!"

"No, no, no, it's not your fault!" Annie immediately quells her disappointment and tells herself that reassuring Cashmere is the most important thing. "It's not fair to expect you to go look at houses and read my mind and figure out what I feel up to renovating and commit me to it. I-" Annie takes a few deep breaths and fights off the mounting fear. "I don't know why I thought it was reasonable. I guess I didn't, I was just afraid that I'd pick the first house I saw so I never have to go out again."

"I'm sorry I can't think of questions." Cashmere hangs her head.

"I'm sorry I have such a hard time going outside." Annie takes her hand. "But we'll go together. I—maybe I'll talk to Jenn first."

Annie quickly realizes how hard it is to pin down exactly how much work she's willing and able to take on, and she can't believe she expected Cashmere to decide for her. Every time she steps into a house, she has to fight off the impulse to say that it's way nicer than almost anywhere she's ever lived and she'll take it. She has a full-time job that means she'll have to keep her repairs to the evenings and weekends. She'd like to get started on kids sooner rather than later, and she wants them growing up comfortable. She doesn't want them to have her childhood.

But she can't let herself start holding her houses up to the standard of Raych and Nessa's place either, because she just started her new job, and no one will give her that kind of loan yet.

This guest house, for instance, is nice enough to be enticing, despite the black and white striped wallpaper to go with the black and white tiles. Annie immediately envisions ripping it off and applying a few buckets of paint. But it's in a very nice neighborhood, and it's just a little too expensive.

Annie makes a face when she talks it over with Cashmere. "It's nice. And I suppose we could afford it, especially since we wouldn't have to make repairs. But that's a lot of money, for us, and I don't know if I'm comfortable with that much debt."

Cashmere's giving her a bright, blank smile like she's hoping that isn't a question. Annie sighs.

"All right, I know what the right answer is. I was just tempted. Let's keep looking, then."

After looking at houses they can afford in neighborhoods without good schools, and not finding anything they can afford in better areas, Annie suggests looking further away from the city. "If you don't mind driving me all the way to work?" she says to Cashmere.

"Of course not!"

Most are still too costly, and Annie keeps having to shake her head. People like living in nice houses with yards outside the city center, and the houses are bigger for the same price but not necessarily cheaper.

She's ready to despair of finding anything that will allow her to provide the kind of life she wants for Cashmere and their kids, when they find themselves in front of a dump with potential.

Annie's immediately heartened by the sight of the yard. The weeds are almost as tall as she is, and they're clinging to the porch. When they step onto the porch, she sees a sodden pile of leaves in the corner and suspects rotting wood underneath.

The paint is peeling inside and out. Annie nods to herself as she goes through and inspects all the broken window screens and windows that won't open and tries not to get excited, because this house is actually in their price range. "When was it last roofed?" The best place they've found so far she had to turn away from regretfully, because honesty forced her to admit she's not up to a total roofing job.

"Three years ago."

She'll take a look at it later, but for now, that sounds good.

On and on, the inspection goes. Annie holds her breath, but every flaw is either something she can salvage, or something she can live with. And they can afford it.

"Which bedroom would you want?" Annie's trying not to get excited, but she's half bouncing on her toes.

"Oh." Cashmere gives her a startled look, accompanied by a dread that Annie's come to know all too well.

"No, sweetie, I don't mean we have separate rooms," Annie reassures her. "I mean, which one do you want us to have, and the kids can share the other one."

"Oh!" Brightening, Cashmere goes from one to the other. "They're both so nice."

Annie laughs. "You always say that. Hm. I like the one that doesn't overlook the front yard, it feels less exposed, but then it's bigger and I think we should let the kids have the bigger room."

"So are you planning on taking it?" the real estate agent asks, smiling.

"Let me just talk to my wife," Annie asks. She puts her hand on Cashmere's elbow, and they step outside into the backyard for a moment of privacy.

"Annie, we're not married!" Cashmere breathes urgently, the moment they're alone. "Not that I don't want to be, but I'm not trying to steal you."

Annie sets her jaw. "You're family, and we got married years ago. You did my hair, and Rudder gave me chocolate, and Finnick agreed. We're married in my head as long as we all three want to be."

Cashmere looks reassured. "As long as everyone's happy...I really like it when you say 'wife'."

"I thought you would." Annie's smile is huge. She gives Cashmere a kiss, and then they're both smiling. "Now what about the house, what do you think?" She realizes they're standing next to a gate that's hanging off one hinge. "Just a sec." Annie double-checks the checklist in her hands to make sure she didn't forget this. Yes, there it is. Number seventeen. "Sorry, go on."

"I can help with the yard," Cashmere offers. "I can't make it as fancy as some of the other yards we've seen, but I can pull up weeds and keep them from taking over like this again."

"Can you help make the house comfortable? Pick out colors and suggest things you'd like?"

Cashmere looks utterly caught off guard. "I can...try? But if you want help with anything around the house, I can definitely lift and carry and do anything you tell me to, even if I don't know how to fix it myself."

"I've been counting on that. Should we put in an offer, then?"

"I just want to live with you, Annie."

"I know." Annie puts her head against Cashmere's shoulder in what could be their new yard. "And I want to raise a family with you. Here."

And so it's decided.

Raych and Nessa celebrate with them. "We promised you all the cookware which we don't even know what it's called but you've been cooking delicious things with it," says Nessa, showing them the pile of boxes waiting in the corner of the kitchen. "All yours, we'll load it up in the car and drive it over."

Annie's face flushes hot and she covers her mouth with her hands in awe and gratitude. "Thank you so much, both of you!"

"We'll be sorry to see you go, but don't be strangers." Nessa gives them both a big hug.

"Come meet our next student," Raych offers, adding her own hug.

"I don't think me or Cashmere have words for how much you've done for us. Come over all the time, let me keep cooking for you. I'll cook for your student too, make welcome brownies."

"That sounds delightful."

Their first night in their new home is scary and overwhelming and the happiest night of Annie's life. "I'm building us a bed," she promises, as they lie side by side. "No more mattresses on the floor! What color do you want the bedstead?"

Cashmere looks around. They haven't turned off the light yet, because they're too busy admiring their new bedroom. It may be rundown, but it's theirs.

"I started thinking about it, since you said you wanted me to help with that. I was wondering-" She stops. "Is that okay? It's your room too."

"Yes! It's our room, let's make it work for both of us."

"Well, I was wondering if we could get a pink blanket and pink curtains? Nothing too bright, a very pale pink maybe? And paint the walls yellow? I hadn't really thought about the bedstead."

Annie looks around with her, imagining it and nodding. "You want a princess room?" she teases affectionately.

"Only if you want-"

"Oh, I'd love a princess room with you. How about white? That looks nice with yellow and light pink. A white bed and a white dresser?"

Cashmere nods. "And maybe a covering for the light?" She shields her eyes as she looks up.

"Oh, definitely. A bare bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling is a bit much. Already on the list. You weren't surrounded by pink all the time then in District One and the Capitol, then? Because that's what I would-" Annie stops herself mid-word. Do if I were dressing you up. "Think," she finishes lamely.

"Oh, no. They wanted me to be a sex goddess," Cashmere explains. "Red, black, gold, that sort of thing. And pastels weren't really in anyway. Everyone wore bright colors. They put me in blue a lot to bring out my eyes."

"Pink it is, then. You'll be my princess. And you can wear whatever colors you want."

Annie builds them a bedstead, and they buy a secondhand dresser and paint it white. Cashmere picks out fabric at the store while Annie's at home painting, and Annie helps her cut and sew the curtains. "If you decide you like this sort of thing more than I do, we can save up for a sewing machine someday. For now you can just sew on loops, that's faster. And then come help me with the porch, it's falling apart!"

Cooking in their new home fast becomes the best part of Annie's day. Pots bubbling, warm smells, Cashmere smiling...Annie slowly starts to feel like she's got some control over her life. The power to make it better, for her and the people she cares about.

She still has her struggles, still has to bring them to Jenn for help, but slowly she starts to feel like a storm has stopped raging, leaving her to clean up the flood damage and rebuild.

"How's therapy going?" Annie asks Cashmere, one lazy morning after a long but rewarding week, enjoying sticky homemade honey buns and the view out the kitchen window to their new backyard.

"These are really good, Annie." She always says that. But she always eats like it's true, and to be honest, Annie usually thinks it is. "I don't know. It's a little strange, trying to see everything through different eyes. But I would never have thought of any of this myself."

"You're learning things that help?"

Cashmere nods. "Like he says the reason I feel numb all the time is that I never got used to paying any attention to my body or reading its signals, because what I felt never mattered. I learned to read other people's body language, because my whole life depended on how the adults felt about me."

That makes sense. Annie wonders how she escaped that herself, always aware of her family's resentment over feeding the orphan. Maybe some part of her knew if they were going to kick her out onto the streets, they would have done it by now. So even if she felt guilty, she had that little bit of security. "I see. So that's why he had to start you on learning to read your own body."

"I always thought I was good at that! But I guess it was just athletics, because any time I try to pay attention to my emotions, I start to panic. I feel like I'm going to let everyone down. He's right: I can't read myself and someone else at the same time. If you don't keep track of whether you're pleasing everyone else, you get kicked out of the academy."

"Is it easier being alone, then?" Now Annie feels extra bad about Cashmere following her around, trying to read her and please her all day long.

"I hate being alone!" Cashmere explains. "Then I don't know how anyone feels about me, and it all feels like failure. I think maybe if I had kids to think about, take care of, it would be easier."

"You want to stay home with the kids full time? At least at first?"

"Am I supposed to?" Cashmere looks nervous. "All I knew about was that I was supposed to make sure the kids are taken care of."

"There's no 'supposed to' about it. You can stay home with them if that's what you choose."

"We don't need the money?"

Annie shakes her head. "Not if we're careful. You worked hard for many years, did everything you were told and never even had any choices—if taking care of children is what would make you happy, it'll make me happy. It's hard work too, even if you don't get paid. I just don't want you to feel trapped."

"Maybe if I had the skills and I knew what kind of job I wanted? Like you being really close to being an electrician and only needing a year of classes? I just don't have any ideas—but I'm willing to do anything you need me to!"

"I just need you to be family. You'll stay home, then, and let me know if you change your mind."

Later that night, lying with her head on Annie's lap, smiling under the petting, Cashmere confesses, "I kind of wish I'd learned these things, you know, reading and math. Or assembling things, like you do. But that's a lot of years I missed, and I feel like I'm going to have a full-time job learning the right way to raise kids. You think you can help them with their homework?"

"Of course," says Annie. "We're a team. And here's an idea. You know how Raych started me on books for children? What if we bought books for the kids when they're still babies, and you read to them when they're lying in the crib. Then by the time they're old enough to read, you'll be at least a year ahead of them."

"Reading to the kids? When they're babies?"

"Sure. Even before they understand the words, they'll like the sound of your voice. And you'll get to practice reading. Start on baby books and move up. Before you know it, you'll be reading them bedtime stories."

"So I can take care of the kids and learn at the same time," Cashmere says thoughtfully. She stretches her arms up around Annie's waist. "Annie, you have the best ideas."

"It's been a year," Annie says into the silence one morning at breakfast.

Cashmere looks down at her bowl of porridge. "Has it? I suppose." Then she looks up quickly. "Annie, it's really, really not that I don't want to be married to you. I do! More than anything! I just don't want Finnick to be dead."

"Neither do I." Annie's throat closes up, but she forces herself to continue. "I just don't think we're ever going to know. I wanted to ask if you'd like to have some kind of ceremony, something we would do if we'd gotten news and needed to grieve."

She tries war widow out in her mind, and doesn't feel anything except for a vague discomfort. She can't be a widow, not with Cashmere here.

Cashmere pushes her bowl away, not hungry any more. "Is there something you'd do in Four?"

"Well...if we had his ashes, I'm sure he'd want to be buried at sea. But we don't, and I don't even have anything that belonged to him—and I'm not giving up the coat. I was thinking of something along the lines of baking funeral cakes and telling stories. Crying. And then getting married like we would if we knew for sure."

"Could you carve something? And we could drop that into the sea? It's only a couple of hours away. Or I could go," Cashmere offers, "you don't have to come."

"I'd feel terrible sending you out to bury him at sea and staying home!" Annie protests. "I guess I could carve something with his name on it, you're right."

"Maybe a fish? So he can swim?"

Annie started this conversation as numb as could be expected, just wanting to get this behind them, but her chest is getting tighter by the minute. "I think he'd like that. Or-" Something occurs to her. "I promised him-"

Cashmere abandons her seat at the table to come around and hold Annie while she cries. When she was thinking of herself, she couldn't feel anything, but a riptide of grief seizes her when she imagines Finnick, alone in Panem. Forgotten beaten wounded torn festering erased. Crawling tired trying fighting fading lost. And no more.

"He deserved-" Annie chokes. "Okay. We'll go."

They hold his funeral, just the two of them, on the coast, because if Annie can go to class because she wants a better job, she can damn well do this one last thing for Finnick. It's not like you'll ever have to do anything for him again, she tells herself angrily. Remembering gearing up to go visit Mags in the hospital, hating her brain for trying to wriggle out of it.

It's the wrong ocean, is her first thought as they get out of the car and move toward the sea. Stormy, empty, freezing cold. The beach is too rocky, and she can see some boats and ships in the distance, but not enough. But they're all connected, aren't they? All the oceans?

Annie puts her hand into her pocket. Caressing the little carving, she realizes that she has no idea where in the world it'll wash up.

And somehow, for the first time, she starts to feel better about this, even as the tears prick her eyes.

They've reached the water. Cashmere looks to her for guidance. Hand in hand, they start walking along the coast, searching for the right spot. At Annie's suggestion, they've come as the tide is going out.

With the water pooling around her feet, Annie finds a place where the waves want to tug her far out to the deep ocean, bring her home. Someday, she tells them. Not yet.

She pulls the octopus out of her pocket, and holds it up where she and Cashmere can see.

She carved an anatomically incorrect smile on it, because if Cashmere wants to think of Finnick swimming, Annie wants to think of him laughing. After all, if anyone could find something to laugh about today, it would be him.

It's not the same octopus, she tells him. But it's the one I promised you.

The cold wind whips at her streaming eyes.

Cashmere puts her hand over Annie's, holds onto this little piece of laughing wood that is and isn't Finnick.

Together, they toss it as far out as they can, and stand silently watching it bob, until at last it's forever out of sight.

"Why an octopus?" Cashmere finally asks, as they start back up the shore, still hand in hand.

"Oh, that's a funny story." Annie laughs a little, wiping her eyes. "Walk with me, and I'll tell you."