A/N: Trigger warnings for violence, gore.

Annie wonders if waiting was part of the challenge. If she was designing the test, she'd include it. The room has no clock, nothing on the walls, only a stainless steel bench and a woman whose crescent-moon nail marks all up her arms chronicle hours of waiting and anxiety. It is maddening, and she should know. These last few years, madness has been Annie Cresta's constant companion.

The walls of the room are creeping in towards her. At first, she'd thought it was all in her mind, another symptom left over from her days, or weeks, or perhaps only hours, it's impossible to tell, but you can't think about that now, you need to focus in solitary confinement. But when, as she so often does, she closes her eyes, covers her ears, and counts to ten because ten is long enough for Mother Silence to shoo away the monsters so everything is real again, nothing has changed. But not even Mother Silence can always be trusted to do as she ought.

Perhaps this room shrinks and disappears when it is not needed. Perhaps she'll disappear with it. Just like Thirteen does with its trash, they'll squeeze her, mold her into a perfect cube and send her up to the surface to rot. Compressed into a little cube of Annie, nobody would be able to tell that this one was different from the others. No one would ever have to know what happened. She finds herself curling in on herself, making their job that little bit easier by tucking her legs against her chest. It's how she came into this world; she might as well leave this way as well. The light brightens, and it can only means she's right, for look, the rest of the room sparkles like diamonds now, and perhaps you're a diamond too now, they're pressing so hard that it has to be.

"Private Cresta. You may enter the exam room now." Death speaks only in whispers. This woman's voice belongs to the living. She opens her eyes to see that the door has opened, but Annie doubts that what lies beyond will be any true escape. Her mind screams to stay, for untold dangers wait beyond, but still she finds herself moving into the light. It's brilliant, like the sun that never shines underground.

As much as she wants to allow the people to fade away in favor of the bright, yellow lights, the commander overseeing her exam refuses to be forgotten. The woman, her face all angles, her eyes too stern, her pose too rigid and the most rigid collapse in the wind while the yielding remain after the storm is gone, gives her what she's learned passes for a smile in Thirteen. "Your task is to get to the center of the village and take out the target. It's the figure in red – you shouldn't have any trouble picking him out." Of course he is. Targets are always red. In Training, the targets were white board with red circles on them, but in the Arena, you only see the red in your targets once you'd cut the life out of them. It's almost kind of her to mark them so obviously. There's a weight being pressed into her hands, and she knows she's been practicing with these guns for weeks now, but that doesn't mean she's ready for this, and the woman's words are so close to Mags' before she sent Annie into the Arena. She's trained for that, too. She had been so certain she was ready. "Good luck, Private Cresta."

In an instant, everything changed. Or perhaps it was nothing at all, for entire cities do not appear from nothing. But as Snow showed you, nothing can appear from where a city once stood in an instant. That's all backwards, and it's time to go forwards. Her hands wrap tightly around the gun as she takes her first, cautious steps into the village before her. After the war, maybe she and Finnick can find somewhere nice like this, where plants are potted on the front steps and one can so easily imagine children playing in the streets that she swears she hears their laughter. And here she is, walking through their streets with a gun. We could live in a nightmare after the war. It'll be like going home. She quashes down the thought as she continues further and further into their world. They aren't real; there are no children here, there can't be. There are almost no children in Thirteen, and they would not endanger those precious few for one mad girl's training exercise.

Shadows lurk everywhere she looks, and Annie could swear that a few of them are crawling towards her, ready to snag her by her ankle and draw her back into their depths. She has to keep moving, steal away any chance they have of catching her and swallowing her whole. She must be close now, for children's shouts and laughter have turned into screams of terror. They could be children. When we become afraid enough, everyone is a child again. The streets are lit by dancing flames , and shadows leap along the golden-orange light, for nightmares are demons' playgrounds. Smoke stings her eyes and nose, but she resists pulling her uniform over her face. She's too close to fail now. Snow will pay for what he's done to her, to Finnick, to everyone, and a bit of smoke will not block her path to the Capitol. Her hands have never been steadier on her rifle than as she takes her first steps into the plaza, scanning everywhere for any hint of her target. Remembering her training, Annie stays close to the brick walls, close enough that she can feel the fire on the other side through her back. Better to be warm roasted alive than picked off by a sniper watching for anyone to enter the square.

Red. How could she have been so stupid? This is meant to be a test, of course they would – No, no, no, you can't do this, they'll take you with him, and you'll be drowning in it, and he's practically bathed in it, blood everywhere. Blood's thicker than water, that's what they say. They're right, the way it runs down your fingers when you put your hand into it, the way it flows… Her heart's racing, and Annie can't breathe. The man smiles at her, or at least he head that rests next to his decapitated body does. She tells herself that he's a dummy, even if he isn't, he's already dead, and the only way out please, let me out, I can't do this is a few quick shots, and it won't even hurt him. She surprises herself. Annie's fire only adds to the noise, and the orange tongues of flame that follows her bullets are at home in this nightmarescape. She's always been a good shot like all machines that are built for death and three spent cases litter the ground beneath her when the simulation disappears around her.

Her knees want to give out underneath her, and this time, Annie does not stop herself. The wall against her back is no longer warm – the heat must have been part of the simulation – and the world's so cold now. She's shivering, drawing in on herself. Johanna says that Frost bites away at fingers and toes, but why not feed the monster? No, be quiet, no, I can't, please, don't –

"Congratulations, Annie." The woman's back or she hasn't left, has been right with you all along, wouldn't save you, and she's smiling widely wide enough to rip her face open, and as one half falls to the ground, her blood douses Annie in a baptism to hell down at her. "You did very well." She offers Annie a hand, which she accepts with only a half-second's hesitation.

Up on her feet, with the world returned as close to normal as it ever gets these days, Annie can lie to herself and say she's fine. The hand claws ready to slash at the delicate skin of her wrist that guides her out of the exam room is gentle, but her muscles stay tensed, ready.

"Annie!" Her breath picks up again as she readies herself for impact, but unlike all the others, these embraces are warm and comforting, not confining. "How did it go? Did you pass?" Finnick looks as ragged as she feels, bronze hair disheveled, deep, almost purple, bags under his eyes. But there's hope there too, and he beams when she nods. Then it's another hug, this one celebratory, rejoicing. "Me too. Ann, we passed! We'll be able to help, and…" His voice trails off, but she understands him all the same. They don't need words for this.

Realistically, Annie understands that they won't be real soldiers, but play-actors for the rebels in the same way that Katniss already is, but she nods. Help has to take many forms, after all. "Are you all right?" He'll lie that he's fine, then he'll ask her, and she'll lie that she's fine too. It's all in the pleasantries.

"I'm great. You?"

Or maybe she won't lie, and she'll nuzzle in against his chest in a way that looks a bit like a nod instead. The Thirteen officers don't try to move them. Best to let the two lovers be. They're Victors, and that's not the most stable species, after all. She laughs in her throat at that, but the sound is muffled by Finnick's chest.

She knows that he never wants to break away, and she doesn't either, but it is for the best. Annie takes the first step back, but her hand finds his immediately. She smiles up at him, and maybe he can't see that it's forced, or maybe he can and isn't saying anything, and that's half of their relationship summed up in a sentence, but they love each other, so it's fine. No, beautiful. What they have is beautiful, and as she walks down the hallway with him, hands knotted together as they ignore the schedules that have been tattooed onto their arms in favor of the other's company, she can't imagine them any other way.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Any feedback is much appreciated!