By the North Star | An Odesta Fanfic

Chapter Nineteen

On Sunday morning, the skies were windy and full of clouds, the coldest day District 4 had seen in weeks. Annie and Finnick barricaded themselves inside Mags' house, sitting around the fireplace surrounded by piles of knit blankets. Salmon was there too, trying to get a few more dog treats from Annie as they played together on the floor.

"I swear he thinks he's a person now," Annie said, looking at Salmon's wide, pleading eyes. "Do you think he knows that he's not? He's never around any other dogs."

Finnick sat on the couch, staring at the blank pages of his notebook propped open in front of him.

"I wonder if he gets lonely," Annie went on. "Maybe we should try to convince Bay to buy a dog too. That way he won't be the only dog around here."

She tossed another treat to Salmon and he caught it in his mouth, his tail waving wildly. Annie shook her head.

"You know, you'll still be the biggest dog around here if we keep this up," she told him. "I don't care if it's almost winter – you're still going to be going outside and exercising."

Salmon didn't seem to care. He jumped into Annie's lap, licking her face happily until she fell backwards, laughing. A smile slipped onto Finnick's face at the sound of it.

"You can't get out of everything this way, Sammy!" Annie exclaimed. She gathered him up in her arms and picked him up off of the floor. He was certainly getting bigger. Maybe it was the sea air or the countless treats that the people of district 4 snuck to him, but Salmon was bigger than most of the tiny, pampered dogs that Finnick saw in the Capitol.

"What are you writing?" Annie asked, plopping down on the couch beside him. She pushed Salmon to the other side of the chair and peered over Finnick's shoulder. But the page was still blank, his pen only hovering over the paper. He shrugged.

"Nothing much," he said. He shut the notebook and glanced over at Annie. "Not really in the mood to write today, I guess."

But he let his eyes linger on hers just a little too long, and Annie's face fell. She could see there was something more than he was letting on.

"It's Sunday, isn't it?" she murmured. "It's Corrin's..."

She drifted off and didn't finish, but they both knew what she meant. The thought of that wedding hadn't stopped running through Finnick's head since the Dunes kids had let it slip a few days before.

"It shouldn't bother me this much," he said. "We haven't spoken in years. Not really. It's just..." He shook his head. "I'm just being sentimental."

"That's not a bad thing," Annie said quietly. She touched the necklace around her neck, maybe without even thinking about it. "It doesn't matter that it's been years. You don't just move past that in a day. You two were best friends."

"Closer, even," he murmured. "He was like my brother."

Annie was quiet. Finnick sighed, burying his face in his hands.

"I think that's the worst part of it. We used to know everything about each other. And now... now he's getting married, and I don't even know who he's getting married to. I should have been there today. Caspian –" His voice shook a little. "Caspian too. And now he's got no one."

And it's all my fault, he added, in his head. Annie would have tried to talk him out of it if he'd said it aloud, but Finnick knew that he was never really going to let go of that guilt he felt whenever he thought of Caspian's death.

"I just wish I could be there for him," he said again.

Annie jumped to her feet, startling Salmon, who was curled up comfortably in the cushions beside her. "Who says you can't be there?"