From Annie, With Love

Cups fall and shatter in a whorl of messy, beautiful broken glass. The delicate patterns are still there, the colours still as vibrant as before, but so different, so… broken, gone, changed. I smile, and it feels crazy on my lips, but it feels right, because I've changed too.

Red blood runs down my arms as the glass fragments embedded in my skin make themselves known. This should hurt, shouldn't it? But it doesn't. It feels like they've always belonged there. Then without realizing it, I'm screaming, because suddenly I remember Samuel's blood running down his decapitated neck; Diamond's blood as it splatters on my face while my hand is stabbing her gut with my knife; red, red, red, blood- (oh god, oh god, make it stop)

And before I can even see through the haze of hallucinations that seem to plague me everywhere I go, Finnick is there, gently shushing me, cooing at me softly while he coaxes me up and to the healer's. I want to scream at him to let go, because I'm not the Annie he knew and loved, and he should stop trying to get her back, because she's changed forever. There's no going back. But I keep silent, because though it's selfish, I want to keep this beautiful boy with his incredible sea-green eyes with me, although he deserves so much better. I'm selfish now, in a way the old Annie never was. Just another change, I guess. (Keep you, keep you, forever)

"Zero." I mutter under my breath, and Finnick looks at me worriedly. I almost laugh at his bewildered expression, but I don't enlighten him. Zero; for the amount of similarities that are still existent between Annie and this mockery of what she, I, once was. But I don't say this to Finnick, because I don't want him to realize he's loving a shadow of a girl that will never return. He's too beautiful, and I want to keep him. There it is again, selfish.

"You okay?" Finnick asks me, voice rising and falling in his sweet natural cadence. I like it when Finnick talks this way, not the way he does in front of other people, all low and purry and seductive and not him. Finnick should stay as Finnick, sweet, easy-going and beautiful. His question though, is utterly ridiculous. Am I okay? Of course not. (And never to be again)

Gashes, so faint they almost fade away into my skin. Images of bone-crushing water. Blood. All those things combine to make me not okay. The images are there in stark clarity. I was always a forgetful person, but somehow these memories of blood and death and screams won't disappear. The hatefully grieving faces of the parents of the girl I killed and the children I out swam. I can tell they think I should not be standing there, that it should be their child. I hated the Victory Tour. (I'm sorry, I'm sorry to be alive)

I hate the Capitol more though. For doing this to me, for doing this to all those tributes, for doing this to Finnick. They think I can't see it, that I'm too lost in my demented hallucinations to realize that they are holding my life over Finnick's head, and that's why he's such a playboy flirt (when he's really a cheerful kind boy that's too good for any of them) with those ugly, ugly women (at the very least, they're ugly on the inside, though some of them are very freakish on the outside too) in the Capitol. I feel like screaming, screaming at them with all the rage I can muster, that Finnick's mine. But though my selfish side wants to keep Finnick all to myself, I'm too scared of the Capitol. How they might throw me back into another version of the Games if I act out. (and blood and tears and screams again)

Raving mad, people call me. I guess I am, but it was the Capitol that made me this way. The Gamemakers, the avid watchers, President Snow himself. Why… Why… Why!

Lovely sea-green eyes stare at me, worried. Did I just scream out loud? Hmm… I guess I did, didn't I? I try to compose myself and whisper, "It's okay, Finnick…"

But it's not. I know it, and so does Finnick. (And through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole...)

"Really, Annie?" he says, his tone matching mine. "I know people are telling you to try and act happy that you won, and I do want you happy, but not if you're faking it."

Other people are asking me to be happy. Some are demanding it. I want to oblige them, but these images, they won't leave me alone. But still they tell me to act happy about my stroke of luck, that the dam burst, and I could swim, and the others couldn't, and they're all dead, but I'm not. Everyone wants me to rejoice in the fact, except for Finnick, because he understands. And he's stronger than I'll ever be, because he can move on. I can't. I hate myself for it, but it doesn't change the fact that I can't. (Baby steps, baby steps, and I keep falling back)

Kohl lined eyes of the girl from District 1, berry-red lips of the boy from 6, pleading blue eyes from the girl (just twelve) from 8… All the lives I saw extinguished from the flood. And then there's Samuel's smile as he jokes at me, right before an axe swings and cuts off his head. (Hey, Annie, what do you call a - splat)

"Eh… Annie, you still with me?" Finnick says, waving a hand before my face. Sometime during my flashbacks (such an innocent term for such a horrific thing), I have stopped moving.

"No. It's not okay." I finally reply to his earlier question. I do this sometimes, just space out of the world and watch those dreadful moments replay in too-clear quality. I feel like crying, and I do. Why should I bother trying to be strong when they were the ones who broke me anyway?

And before they can trial down half my face, Finnick's soft hands (fishing calluses gone because of those Capitol people. How I miss those roughened hands) are wiping my tears away. "Shh… Annie… Just breathe. I know it hurts, but try and live in the now, okay?"

No. I want to shout, and if it were anyone else, I would, but no, this is Finnick, and he is perhaps the only person in the world that I will try to be strong for. So I try to rein my tears in.

Drip. I watch as another sliver of blood falls on the ground. Finnick starts, and sighs slightly, "Look at me, upsetting you when I should be getting you to the healer's." He sounds reproachful, and I want to hug him and tell him that it's okay. As long as he's here, I'm more cheerful than any other moment. Even if I'm crying. He's the only one that can bring me out of my dazed hallucinations.

Savior. I suppose that's the only word for him. My savior, my prince charming, my handsome knight on a great white stallion. Except that I'm no princess. I'm the little crazy girl who spends half the night crying, and the other half screaming. The mad thing that gets offed by the hero out of mercy. (Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the maddest thing of all?)

Hands are gently gripping mine now, as he pulls me along to the healer's, eyes watching me with an expression I can't place. Caring? Worry? Resignment? Love? Maybe all four. I don't know what I did to deserve the first and last emotions though. But I sure as hell can place the other two. Worry for the mad girl next to him that might break at any moment. Resigned to the fact that the girl he loved is gone and he's stuck with me now. I finally can't hold it in anymore and look up, "I don't deserve you. You don't have to stay around because you think it's your duty. I'm not the same Annie you loved anymore."

And there's a moment where he doesn't look up, and I'm terrified that he's thinking about running because of his words. I know I said he could leave, and he can, but I would break, and this time, there would be no piecing me back together. (Take my heart and go, all you deserve is out there, away from me)

Then, he laughs slightly, and I'm even more afraid that he's laughing in relief of being rid of the burden of the crazy girl he's been saddled with. After all, what would such a beautiful boy, though slightly damaged admittedly, want with a shattered thing like me?

"The thing about you, Annie, is that you don't see what I see," Finnick finally says, "You don't deserve me? No, it's the other way around, sweetheart. I don't deserve to have such a beautiful, sweet, kind girl like you. And it's not my duty to stay with you, it's my pleasure, my honour. And most of all, you're still Annie, it's just that you've been made to grow up too fast and too brutally, that's all. But deep down, you're still Annie. You'll always be Annie. My beautiful, beautiful Annie."

Easy for you to say, I almost want to retort. But I can't, because I love him too much for saying those words. He's so painfully sincere about his love for me, and his belief that I'm still the same girl deep inside, that I feel myself tearing up in gratitude and adoration.

"Really?" I gasp, desperate for confirmation. He sweeps down and captures my lips in response.

Earth spins, the sun seems to shake, and I'm spiraling into space, and I feel wonderful! With Finnick's arms wrapped around me, his lips on mine, I will always be safe.

Days seem to pass when he pulls away, and at the same time, it feels much too short. For a little while, I feel like the same Annie as the one before the Hunger Games. It's glorious. ( and they lived happily ever after, except, they never did)

-0-0-0-

I wrote this about two years ago, so the style is slightly different from my current one. I love the story of Finnick and Annie. It was meant to be written in Finnick's PoV, but it never quite came out right. So I did it in Annie's.

I might turn this into a two-shot if the response is good.

The bracket stuff is to add to the atmosphere, although I'm not sure if it worked out that way. An experiment, I guess. =D

Loves & R&R
~FO