𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄 ‣ 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐫

xi. born to die

act three, chapter eleven – born to die

Nobody objects to resting. Pollux finds a small, warm room humming with machines filled with levers and dials and damp, warm air. Jackson works out a guard schedule. Fallon and Finnick go first.

Bodies line tightly next to each other like dominos. She looks down at the sleeping soldiers, crew, and friends, and she wonders how many of them will ever see the sun again. Because she knows what the eternal darkness is like and she couldn't bear it once more. Fallon, as she twirls her knife around her finger, knows that if any one of them dies, she will enter a manic episode. She can feel the stress constantly sing in her mind. Maybe the girl she was before the Capitol was right; getting close to people only hurt you in the end. But she feels like it's her job to defend every last one of them. If she fails...

Finnick and her are wedged next to a pipe. They're so tightly coiled around each other that they may as well be one body. He angles himself so he can look down at her. It's miraculous to her that he manages to look how he does despite everything. And the effect he has on her world. The dank grayness of the pipes manages to reveal colors she hasn't seen before through the lens of Finnick. Flecks of sea-greens, coral blues, and sandy paleness still shine through his eyes in the dark. Then, with very little effort, she imagines how this simply perfect moment could rapidly morph into a nightmare. How it's too good to be true. How she doesn't deserve to have this saint by her side.

How would she feel if he forgot who she was? She would recover. The things she wonders are despicable, below even her bar. Fallon knows she would turn into a Sim. proving that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing would be worth it if she didn't have in and just the idea of it eats her gut out from the inside. Johanna's words echo in her mind. Friendships aren't supposed to hurt. Love is. That's why it's so weird. Tears you up from the inside out.

And now, in a moment of peace where it's just them, and the rest of the squad is so exhausted that they are knocked out cold, she's happy. And then she's guilty. She's a runway in her own body. Fallon wishes she could read his complex, angelically poetic mind. That she can untangle all the nightmares and the lies and the endless pain she has caused him. Then she settles for something she hasn't done before. Because she's never asked; never told him.

"Was what you said on Caesar's show before the Quell real?" It scratches an itch that's been agonizing her since it happened. She relives the shock, then the hurt, then the anticipation of them in the bathroom.

"Oh." It looks like he didn't expect it. "Of course I did. I thought you knew that by now..." his forehead creases as he tilts his head slightly. "Why?"

Every memory of them speeds before her eyes like a film reel. When he mentored her. When he sent his first gift in the games. She still has the slip of paper that says "I'm rooting for you -F" on her dresser. When she got out and thought she was going to suffocate from the hug he gave her. When he told her he was sold, and then a few weeks later she was too. When they broke up with each other after it happened a second time. When they went to the beach and swam the day away. "No," she scans his face for a green light. "I wasn't sure."