The Price of Peace (Finnick Odair)

Stressed, depressed, and real Aggressed

A groan involuntarily escaped Finnick Odair as he returned the the realm of the living. He could hear the distant hum of engines 

"Finnick?" A female voice sounded muffled in his ringing ears. 

"Yes, my love?" He sloppily asked his Evadine as he reached blindly to pull her closer to him. He reached out expecting the warm expanse of her soft skin only to be met with the cold hard metal of the floor beside him. 

His eyes shot open in a panic realizing that he was not in his home in district four. 

His beautiful wife was not asleep beside him, no one was beside him. He shot up out of bed, ignoring the blinding pain in his ribs as he scrambled to catch sight of his wife.

"Finnick, can you hear me?" The female voice called once more, beckoning him to the present but the blood flowing in his ears was too loud to hear her.

"Evadine! Where is Evadine? Where is my wife?!" Finnick began to panic. He didn't hear the other people enter the room, nor did he feel the hands on his arm trying to stop him from ripping out the IV. 

All at once he was wide awake and battle-ready. His blue eyes scanned the military-style medical wing around him. 

"Where am I? Where's Evadine?" The veins in his neck popped out painfully as he roared. multiple hands tried to hold him steady. 

"Chill Odair! You're gonna knock someone out! You are safe. You are in District Thirteen!" Joanna said harshly, dodging the elbow he threw at her in his terror. 

Finally recognizing someone, memories flooded back. 

The moving ground, the flying trees, the girl on fire firing that arrow into the arena, the explosion... the fear that he couldn't find his wife, the terror for her safety as he was thrown back by the force of the explosion. 

The darkness that followed. 

The 75th Hunger Games, they did it, they got out! The plan worked, so where was his dear pregnant wife? 

~

Weeks turned to months and Finnick felt like a ghost of who he once was. It was as if the soul was torn from his body and trapped in the Capitol with his wife. 

Annie, Jo, and Mags tried to comfort him but he was unreachable. 

The callouses on his fingers would bleed as he tied mindless knots in the rough boating rope, just as his father had shown him so long ago. It was repetitive, but the action kept him sane enough to function. 

He never felt hungry, but he forced himself to eat through the nausea. He needed to stay strong and stay ready in case the opportunity arose to save Evadine. The opportunity never came. 

"Hey... Can I sit?" Katniss asked, moving towards Finnick's bunk. 

He flinched at the voice of the girl on fire. For so long he held onto that rage that if he'd left Katniss to her own devices he might have gotten to Evadine. If he had run a little faster, if he hadn't hesitated... maybe she'd still be safe with him. 

"Ya..." Finnick said blindly as he stared at the small trading card of Evadine from the 75th game. She was glowing even in that horrible wet suit they were all forced to wear. 

"Snow is using Evadine to punish you. He's taunting us with them. I didn't understand until just now watching that stupid cat..." Finnick had no idea what she was talking about. Snow no doubt took Evadine for a reason, but Finnick doubted that he was even a factor in the decision.