For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea. e. e. cummings 

“Did you love Annie right away, Finnick?” I ask.

“No.” A long time passes before he adds, “She crept up on me.”

AU: Finnick doesn’t die during the war and lives to see Annie again.

Finnick Odair talks about his in-game tribute, Annie Cresta.

The sound of waves cashing against the shore in the distance came drifting through the window as Annie sat, legs crossed, on the large plush sofa with her legs curled up to her chest and head drooping to the side, pressed against the soft cushions of the back board. She heard the sound of the door creaking open, but she didn’t move. Her wide aquamarine eyes stayed focused on the line where the wall and carpet met, her rosy lips pressed tightly together. And Finnick would know something was wrong.

Normally she’d be tripping over her own to feet running across the floor, soaring through the house in order to throw herself into his strong, awaiting arms. But in the present moment, the rancid scent of those overly perfumed capitol women clinging to his skin was a torture she could bare to put herself through.

“Annie?” When he walked into the room and her name escaped his lips, her muscles tensed but she remained fridged, not moving her eyes from where they were locked. She could almost feel his concern as he moved closer to her, causing the couch to jostle with the addition of his weight. “Annie, can you hear me?” He thought she was gone. Having one of her episodes, consumed by the cage that trapped her in her mind. But she wasn’t. She was here, and for once that was the more painful of the two realities.

She slowly brought her head up and craned her neck to look over at him, her lips parting but no words escaping them. She could hear the blood pounding behind her ears as her cheeks flushed pink with heat, her throat closing up. Images played, burned across her brain. News feed from the Capitol of him at parties, women drapped across his arm. The deep scarlett scratches that ran down the length of his back, his sides, his thighs, his abdomen, from where their razor sharp nails tore greedily at his skin. Images of her alone in their bed clinging to the sheets as nightmares tortured her till dawn finally penetrates through the window while he’s tangled up with one of them, sheets sticking to their sweaty bodies as moans and groans resonate between the walls.

Tears start to prickle at the corner of her eyes and her face contorts in sadness and anguish. As she speaks, her voice comes out in a strained croak. “I can’t do this anymore, Finn.” He doesn’t understand. She can see it written all across his face. But before he can say anything, she continues.

“You’re gone more than you’re here. I’m constantly forced to share the man I love with parades of women. I have to take it silently, and I have do it completely alone. And even when you’re here, it’s like a piece of you isn’t. I don’t get all of you. I only get a part of you. It’s miserable.” He goes to grab her hand but she pulls it away from him and clenches it into fist. “I don’t want to do it anymore. I love you, Finnick. But I can only handle so much misery.” She doesn’t wait for him to respond before pushing herself up and sprinting up the stairs to their room, closing the door. Somewhere along the lines tears had started falling in steady streams down her face, and now they refused to stop. So she simply let the fall, laying across the bed with her face pressed into the pillow, her body heaving with silent sobs.

Don’t give up. Not now when she needs you the most. 

“…but if Finnick loves her, that’s good enough for me.” 

And I’ll do anything to make you stay