A/N: Ok, so I wrote part of this ages ago and part of it today so I've no idea how it turned out. I don't know what's going on. I don't know anything. The timeline might be a little condensed or stretched but hopefully it still makes sense. Tell me what you think. I've got Haymitch and Katniss sort of on the table.

Disclaimer: Like you need me to say it

FInnick Odair.

The first thing you thought when you saw him was he's a fluke. A mistake. Because when you first saw him, mentoring for your first time, you were mean and cruel and you liked it that way, because it kept everyone out. Still, he sat right down next to you, gorgeous and blond and so cool, and told you when he was little, he wanted to be an astronaut.

You were confused. You were sixteen and you thought everyone should hate this world like you did. Finnick sat beside you, peeled back your layer of disdain, when he told you what an astronaut was, peeled back your layer of scorn when he told you it was something from the old world, the one you barely believed in, and peeled back your layer of indifference, when he told you he'd tried to fly to the sun one day, and ended up in a bush next to his front door. He thinned your heavy skin, and you felt the world go by for the first time in years.

You think the reason he liked you so much was because you didn't like him. Well no—that wasn't entirely fair. You didn't like anyone then, Finnick was just the first to cross your path.

You didn't like him, but even you, stunted as you were, could tell he was attractive. Until two seconds later, when he placed the look in your eyes, and all his warm welcomes faded to contempt. Then your hackles rose and you snapped at him, showing him why it didn't do to underestimate Johanna Mason.

You think that maybe those were the first harsh words he'd heard since he won the games, what with all the congratulations, and the whispered flirtations. So you shouldn't have been surprised when, after you'd trailed off, glaring, he shot you that dazzling smile, put his arm around your shoulders, and made your world just a tiny bit better.

At first, you really did think he was just a pretty face, with a bit of muscle to back it up. It's only when you saw him working the Capitol crowds, manipulating the insipid women (and men) who populate them, squeezing just a little bit more out of each one, that you realize what a genius he is. He's just more subtle than you. He's just better than you, because even though he takes advantage of his victory in the games, something you promised yourself you'd never do (you broke that promise. A million times over), you know he's a good man. A jaded realist, bitter to the bone, but a good man. And you are not a good woman. But you've done your best with what you had and if it's a little bit less than okay, well tough.

Because you never had Annie

He told you about it late one night, laying across your bed, drunk out of his mind, but still so broken. He was Annie's mentor. It was only two or three years after he won, so he hadn't been hurt, hadn't learned not to trust.

Annie hadn't either. She was pretty and vivacious, clever and witty, but in the end, not strong enough. Not nearly strong enough

The first time they ever met was on the train heading for the Capitol. Finnick said at first he barely noticed her. He was still so drunk on his own victory, his own success, he couldn't think straight. The rush of sex, money, fame, youyouyou made his shoulders a little bit broader and his smile a little bit wider. You rolled your eyes at that, because Finnick has always been a bit of a drama queen.

Then there was Annie.

Annie was something you never were, even before life got hard, so you did, too. Annie was personable and kind and ohsocharming. And she wanted to win. She shoved Finnick right off his power trip and into her arms. Because Finnick was something you never were, also. He was young and alive and ohsoinvincible (But in the end he wasn't. In the end, nothing is invincible but pain). And even as your tattered heart bleeds for him, you can't help but think stupid stupid stupid, because you know, you've always known, that people, they let you down. Especially when the Capital's involved. But he was in love and nothing else was real, and you think you can sort of understand what he meant.

So you can sort of understand how much pain he's in.

He tried his best, worked his ass off, to bring her back home alive. You know it made him a lot of enemies back home, because the boy tribute that year didn't stand a chance. Even as he lay, dying, he was alone, no silver parachute to bring him home for those last seconds, because at the exact moment, Annie was being tortured brutally, by some Career tributes, and Finnick was frantically working his magic behind scenes, saving her life.

(he was lucky the Gamemakers were largely female that year).

But Annie, she wasn't the same after that. Something in her snapped and not even Finnick could put it back together again. She returned home alive, but empty. Not the beautiful, perfect girl she had once been. Her charisma replaced by madness, her silver tongue replaced by dreadful, soulful screams of pain.

The damage was done. Finnick—he couldn't release her hold on him. Couldn't forget what she once was, what she still could've been, if he hadn't failed so miserably, hadn't be so bumbling and incompetent.

(You remember slapping him after that one, because if there's one thing you can't stand it's survivor's guilt. It makes you think about your Luka and your mother and you can't let anybody, ever, see you cry.)

So you're maybe the only person who knows (Haymitch was there from the beginning, drunk and angry and lost inside himself, but never a confidant) that a pretty damn big piece of Finnick is broken, too. A pretty damn big piece of him was never as strong as it seemed because he gave his heart to someone else to keep safe. And one day, his heart wasn't enough to keep the pain out, so she handed it over to please make it stopstopstop.

Finnick, for all his bravado and confidence and handsome smiles, is not strong. In fact, you think he might be weaker even than you, because Finnick Odair can't let go and he can't learn from his mistakes. He lets Annie clutch him too, too tight in her too, too mad fingers because the bruises hurt, but if she let go, there'd be nothing left of him. And he let you into his heart, you and Haymitch and Peeta, and hell even Katniss, when he should have known better. Because yes, you'd die for him and yes, you'd doing anything he asked, but there are some things you just can't do. Like hold the world on your shoulders. Or protect Annie.

And Annie was his strength.

A/N: Ok. That's Finnick. I hope I did him justice.