Finnick and Annie

Waiting

Everyone seemed to snap back to reality. The camera stopped and the crew rushed inside without a word to start editing the new material. Before I could walk off, Plutarch pulled me away. He tried to question me about some of the secrets I'd revealed but I really wasn't up for another interview. "Maybe some other time," I said.

I wondered around restlessly with Katniss. Neither of us knew what to do to keep our minds off the mission. We fooled around in special defense. Tying knots, impaling dummies with a trident. I even tried to teach her how to use it, but she wasn't very good.

"We can talk about it, you know?"

"What?" she asked

"What I said up there," I shrugged. "I know you want to know."

"Not really," she sighed. "Mostly I just feel bad."

"I really don't need the pity," I said. "Honestly, it's fine. My life could be worse."

"No... I mean. I misjudged you."

"Oh, well that's understandable. You didn't know."

"You're actually... decent."

"Well, thanks," I chuckled. She smiled.

"I'm serious, Finnick. When Haymitch suggested we should be allies I nearly strangle him... but I'm glad I listened to him."

"For once," I joked. She slapped me playfully.

When it was finally time, Beetee called us over. We stood in silence in a room full of screens. Katniss and I stood there for a full hour as Beetee and his team wrangled for control of the airwaves. The screens alternated between regular Capitol broadcasts, our interviews and the Capitol's attempts to block everything out. Most of Katniss' interview didn't make the cut so it was mostly my face on the screen. It was odd to watch. I almost felt like I was watching a completely different person on the screens.

"Let it go!" Beetee said, throwing up his hands. "If they're not out of there by now, they're all dead." Well, that's reassuring. He looked at us, as if regretting his choice in words. "It was a good plan, though. Did Plutarch show it to you?"

We shook our heads and followed Beetee into another room. He explained the plan, which was extremely complicated and hard to follow, which was good because that meant the Capitol people would struggle to understand as well.

Gale, Boggs and five other people had volunteered to rescue Annie and Peeta. They were in the Capitol, risking their lives to save the people Katniss and I loved. And there we were, stuck underground with absolutely nothing to do. So we waited in the hummingbird room because the gray walls of the underground were starting to feel suffocating. We sat together on the grass, surrounded by trees and artificial lights made to look like natural sunlight as the birds chirped happily all around us. I wondered if they knew they were prisoners in a concrete tomb.

We sat together without speaking making knots. Sometimes I'd tie mine slowly so that she could follow along, but we both refused to break the silence. It's not that we didn't want to speak to each other, but we were both too lost in thought. It was no time for small talk.

I tied knots until my fingers were raw and bleeding. Katniss' hands were even worse. I groaned in frustration and tossed my rope aside, hugging my knees to my chest the way I'd done in the arena during the Jaberjay attack.

"Did you love Annie right away, Finnick?" It took me a moment to realize Katniss had spoken. Did I love Annie right away?

"No," I answered.

I flashed back to the first day I'd seen her on the beach. There I'd been, minding my own business until tiny, scrawny Annie had come along to disturb my peace. I remembered that summer we spent together, when she'd confided in me and told me about her life. I pitied her. At least I did at first. But even when we became good friends, I didn't love her. I remembered how after that summer ended I was too ashamed to be seen with her at school so we didn't speak for months.

Even when I realized I was being an asshole, when we started talking again. I didn't love her. We were best friends, sure, but I had absolutely no romantic feelings for her. She was like the annoying little sister I'd never asked for. We hung out and talked but she was just... Annie.

I remembered the months before my games, when girls started showing a lot more interest in me. How I'd date them a few days, maybe a few weeks, then change them for someone new. It's not that I was a player or anything... I just didn't really like them. I got bored of them. Annie had hated that. You were such an idiot. I told myself. She was jealous, but of course I didn't know that back then.

I thought about the time after my games, when I'd pushed her away because I hated myself and she deserved so much better. But Annie never gave up on me. She nagged me until I opened up to her. She'd changed a lot in the time I spent away. Or perhaps I just saw her differently. I remembered the first time I actually noticed how beautiful she was. The first time I'd kissed her, on the beach. I'd been crying and she was there to comfort me, and it was finally in that moment that I realized why I could never date other girls for more than a few weeks. Annie had set the bar way too high. None of them would ever come close to being like her.

I didn't love Annie right away. Our relationship was way too complex. We started out as total strangers and then became best friends. We were just that for years, until I finally saw what had been standing right in front of me all along.

"She crept up on me."