MOCKINGJAY: REIMAGINED

CHAPTER SIX - THE REUNION

Finnick, Haymitch and I do the only thing there is to help the rescue mission, film propos that Beetee can use to jam the system and hopefully buy the rescue team some time before they're detected. It's during the filming of these propos that I finally learn about the Capitol heartthrob that is Finnick Odair, and how Snow sold him to the Capitol elite. How they paid him in secrets. My stomach twists as I consider the possibility of that being my future. He exposes Snow and his use of scented roses to mask the smell of mouth sores that never heal from the poison he uses on his victims. It's almost poetic that we're filming the propos in the place the Capitol bombers dropped thousands of the roses only hours before. Most of them now wilting all around us.

Once the propos have been filmed Finnick and I try to keep ourselves busy, we go down to special defence and try out weapons Beetee has been working on for us. We sit in the food hall and push food around on our plates. Eventually, we scoop up Pearl from my compartment where my mother is watching her and set up camp in the hummingbird room, the only place in 13 that provides some sense that the natural world still exists. Her eyes light up as she watches the birds flit around above her head and I get that warm sensation in my chest that only three people can give me. Pearl, Prim and Peeta. I shake my head in an attempt to block him from my mind. The rescue isn't over yet, he may never even make it back to 13.

"Look! She's smiling!" Finnick looks excitedly over my shoulder and down at Pearl who's curled up in my arms.

"No, my mother says she's still too little to smile. It just looks like she's smiling."

Finnick looks at me a moment, moving to sit down in the long grass, considering what he's going to say next, "C'mon, she's the daughter of two Victors. Extraordinary measures must apply to her" he's smiling, teasing me like the day we first met. It's the first time I've seen a glimpse of the old Finnick since being in 13 and because of that I smile back.

"Hmm, maybe you're right with that one." I look down at Pearl and let her wrap her tiny hand around my little finger. I don't look away from her for a very long time, trying to soak up every inch of her that reminds me of Peeta because after today it's all I might have left of him.

Finnick ties knots until his fingers bleed. Prim finds us and offers to take a sleeping Pearl back to the compartment with her, after hours of thinking about both our lives without Peeta, I let her. It must be midnight when Haymitch comes to tell us that they're back, and alive.

We walk at an average pace on account of the trance that Finnick seems to have entered. I hold his hand and lead him like a child through the hallways and elevators until we reach the hospital. A home away from home for the both of us after all these months in 13. An emancipated woman is wheeled past us on a gurney, Johanna Mason. I see the price she's paid for keeping me alive. I fear the price Peeta has paid for loving me.

I pass a room where I see Gale being treated for a wound on his torso, he's sitting upright and appears to be talking to the doctor. Injured but alive. I'm becoming more frantic now, where is Peeta? A shriek of sorts comes from behind me and I see a young woman crashing through the room towards Finnick. It must be Annie because they embrace and kiss and don't let go, both sobbing into each other's shoulders. I turn away back on my search for Peeta.

"He's in here!" Its Haymitch, standing by the door of a room at the end of the hall. I hesitate briefly outside when I reach it, "Go get your lover boy, sweetheart." Haymitch teases quietly beside me.

With that, I push open the door and see him sat on the edge of the bed facing away from the door. He looks so much smaller than before and I can see the bruises on the tip of his spine peeking out of the hospital gown. I'm a bit shocked by his condition despite seeing him on the broadcast. He looks so much worse in person. The shock makes me reveal myself to him slowly as I move around the bed until I'm facing him. His eyes contort as he sees me, registers my face, my lips are forming his name when his hands lock around my throat.