FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

epilogue

Living so close to the ocean had always been something of a dream since Calypso spent those two weeks in District Four's Victor's Village after her victory tour. Some of her fondest memories had come from such a short amount of time, memories she'd cherished greatly in the years since. But enough time had passed that they'd begun to fade.

Some things she could recall vividly, like her first kiss with Finnick or the first time she and Annie spoke about their traumas, but she could no longer recall the details of her sessions with Dr Melville or what they spoke about around the dinner table at Mags' house. New memories were replacing those old ones: late nights with Finnick on the beach, visits from Katniss and Peeta, her first birthday that she was truly happy for.

Her fingers fell into the soft wet sand as they always did, picking up clumps that she let go of just as fast. The gentle waves picked it up to redeposit it neatly. Beneath the sea foam, small specks of red began to spread in the water, until it was a nasty red that she saw so often in her nightmare. Calypso did not react, just stared. The ocean turned to blood before her very eyes, but it was nothing she had not seen before. With Finnick's help, and with years of therapy with the familiar Dr Melville, it had become rather easy to dismiss such things. Both their hearts still ached. Some nights, they'd wake up screaming and some days they'd feel like doing nothing but crying. But they kept going all the time. The fight was long since over, but they kept fighting every day.

A light laugh broke her from her stupor. Calypso turned her head to see her two young daughters piling themselves atop their poor father. Finnick was always the target of their antics, something he blamed her for. The Silva gene, he called it, the ability to be an absolute nuisance while still being utterly charming. It was a funny thing to say, considering who he was.

"Save me!" Finnick called out, splashing his arms in the shallow water - blue, no longer red - while the girls rolled over his helpless body. Monica, the eldest at five-years-old, pushed her father's face to the side, making him swallow and sputter water that he strategically blew back into her face. "Calypso, if you don't hurry up she might actually drown me!"

Calypso chuckled to herself and got to her feet, striding the twenty or so metres over to her family. While Monica continued to playfully swat arms with her father, little Maisie, two years her junior, made grabby hands in her mother's direction. She leaned down and picked up the girl.

"I've got you, baby," she cooed, running a hand through her daughter's wispy blonde hair. Now that she'd grown hers out, it had become a joke among their friends that the Odairs were now known as 'The Blonde Squad'. Monica's was like Calypso's, pale and cool, while Maisie had Finnick's bright golden locks. Both their girls had his ocean eyes as well. "

"When I called you over, I meant for you to take the belligerent one," Finnick said, still fighting with Monica. With a sigh, he took her under the arms and lifted her as he got up himself. The girl giggled and hugged him tight in the aftermath. "You're a maniac."

"And you're crazy!" Monica laughed, sticking her tongue out. Finnick pretending to pout as he hugged her, his fingers coming up to readjust her necklace where it had got jostled in the water. Both the girls now own half of the silver fish coin once held so dearly by their parents, kept safe around their necks.

"Yeah, well, we all get that from your mother," he replied. He looked over to his wife and other daughter, who'd gone quiet. Calypso held Maisie tight with her eyes closed, the little girl's arms wrapped around her neck and head buried in the crook of her shoulder. He smiled. It was more often nowadays that she got lost in these moments of utter peace than she did in her traumatic flashbacks. It had taken so long to get here. But they were here. Free. Happy. Peaceful. "Ok, Mona, I'm gonna race you back home."

Without warning, he took off back towards Victor's Village. Monica cried out for him to stop, hot on his tail. Calypso opened her eyes to watch the pair go, following close behind. Finnick made for such a perfect father. He often said his girls brought out the best in him, but she didn't know it was possible for him to get any better.

"Can we see Auntie Annie?" Maisie asked, a small smile gracing her perfect face. Calypso gasped excitedly as they wandered back through the gates of their village. She bounced her daughter on her hip.

"We certainly can!" she agreed. "She has a soft spot for you."

As they made it back to their houses, Calypso caught a glimpse of Annie through her kitchen window, already waving to Finnick and Monica. On the porch sat Johanna, legs outstretched with her black cat, Dexter, sat atop them.

"This is a rare sight," Calypso quipped. "You, sat out in the sun? You finally trying for a tan?"

"Well, I certainly didn't come here to get insulted," she replied with a smirk. "Contrary to popular belief, I do enjoy the company of other people. Annie and I are making dinner if you and the girls want to come over."

"You can have them now," Calypso said, placing Maisie down on the porch and letting her walk to Johanna with only slightly wobbly steps. "I have some things to finish up in the house, first. We'll come by later."

"Oh, so I'm just the de facto babysitter now?" Johanna questioned, though she caught Maisie in a loving hug.

"You're not the de facto anything," Calypso smirked, already headed back to their own house, giving Monica a kiss atop her head as she went. "You just are, Jo. We'll see you later."

Inside the house, Calypso went into her and Finnick's study and sat down at the desk, busying herself with the half-written letter she'd started in reply to Peeta's last one. He'd given an update on his family, now properly married to Katniss with a four year old son called Rye and a newborn girl called Willow. They were happy in Twelve, and a still-sober Haymitch had taken on the role of begrudging uncle, much in the way Johanna had done for Monica and Maisie.

Finnick followed her in, stood behind her chair and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Simply following his wife around had become a favourite pastime when he wasn't looking after his daughters or out on his little boat catching fish.

"We should really tidy this all up," he commented absent-mindedly as he kissed up the side of her neck. He was right. The desk was as messy as Calypso's mind still often felt. Fitting, considering it was where she sat to do a lot of her charcoal drawings.

"Why, so we can make another baby on it?" she retorted,

"I wouldn't be opposed, you know."

"Of course you wouldn't," she scoffed amusedly. "Let me finish this letter, and maybe I'll indulge you."

Finnick let out an impatient grunt. He moved to her side, leaning against the desk, and busied his hands with one of the many piles of her drawings. On the top sat Poet, whose face had become more and more distorted as the years went on. Calypso refused to watch her first games back to try and remember his features, and so she'd opted to let them fade into the soft sunsets she still remembered him by. There was her father, whose face was always perfectly drawn. The original Maisie and Monica, Cinna and Porter. One drawing of Snow sat second to last. It was rare for her to draw him now, but for the first year before having their first daughter, she'd drawn him enough that they gathered a pile and therapeutically burned them all.

"I like this one," he said, holding the last drawing up to the light. "I think we should put it on the wall."

Calypso hummed in thought, leaning back in her chair to look at it better. It was one she'd done several months ago that had gotten lost at the bottom of the pile, but it was one of her neatest charcoal drawings to date, a lot of care put into its creation. The portrait of their daughter's side by side was the only one she'd drawn of them. She'd drawn Finnick twice in the six years since their homecoming, and the rest had been the same ghosts she'd always drawn, better kept on a page than manifesting into her reality. On some of the pictures she'd drawn, Finnick had scribbled short poems, but on this one he'd only written two words.

The Legacies.