Annie bowed her head; she didn't want to look at them anymore. "Now I'm really alone," but even as she said it she knew it wasn't completely true. Her hand rested on her stomach where the rest of her life was waiting. Johanna gripped her hand and the pair of them sat in silence.

When she stepped off the train and her feet sunk in the soft sands of District Four she didn't head up the long path leading to the victor's village. Instead she drifted down to the beach and stared out at the unforgiving sea.

"Finnick," she whispered. The waves hushed in reply. Sunlight dappled the blue with patches of silver and gold. Birds swooped down and plucked fishes out, dragging them from one world to another. A single boat broke the line of the horizon, peacefully gliding towards the distance. On-board she could see matchstick figures, pulling the sails and hoisting in the nets. She squinted into the sunlight, desperate to see the crew- her father, her mother, Eoghan, Hake and Finnick- but the sun was too bright and the boat vanished on the waves.

"Annie-"

Her heart leapt, she turned. Her grandfather hobbled down the rocky path towards her.

"They told me you were coming back." He said, with an embarassed shrug of his shoulders.

Annie rushed towards him and threw herself into his arms. Not alone. Definitely not alone. No matter what happened. No matter who left, somehow, against all the odds, her grumpy and gnarled old grandfather always remained. Seeing him made every defence fall down. She sobbed into his chest while he stroked her hair.

"My little girl," he whispered, as if he couldn't believe she was actually there, "My little Annie."

They clung to each other as the days passed. Time slipped away like milk through a sieve- each new day blending into the one before. Life should not go on. Things should not just continue as they always had done. Annie tried to shut it out. She tried to cocoon herself, lose herself but the unrelenting growth of her unborn child forced her to remember the present. Forced her to live.

Dylan Odair was born in the sweltering stuffy heat of a midsummer afternoon. The air was so dry and close that the sea salt parched the mouths of those who breathed it in. Yet as Dylan drew his first breath the heat shattered and the clouds split open so the rain roared down from the skies.

"Can you see him, Finnick?"

Annie looked down at her newborn son with his untidy mess of dark hair- just like hers- and the brilliant green eyes of his father. It might have been a hard battle. They might have lost many soldiers on the way but this was what they had been fighting for; this moment when their son entered the world unthreatened by it.

She wondered what she would tell him. How she could ever explain how they lived before. He needed to know. He needed to understand to appreciate the value of it. He needed to know so he wouldn't forget the kind of things a boy should remember; his father's face, his words, his actions. It seemed impossible. But as the years passed them by, somehow, the words came.

"It's about a boy called Finnick who became a man too soon. He was born from the waves, a child of District Four. They say he could be like the ocean itself; he could be calm and deep or violent and tempestuous. But those who knew him best remember his playful smile- not unlike yours- his kind heart, wicked sense of humour and his poetry. His every movement was poetry, especially when he held a trident in his hand…"

AN: thank you to everyone who has read/reviewed/favourited/followed (etc) this story. You have all been lovely and very supportive.

I have been writing this fic for so long that I can hardly believe it is over. I am definitely going miss writing it (and Finnick's point of view).

Some of you have asked if I plan on writing another fanfiction. The answer at the moment is no as I wish to concentrate on my original fiction. However, that doesn't mean I won't come back to it eventually.