Chapter Text
Finnick Odair stood at the shoreline in District 4, watching. Waiting. Though people in the Capitol may have thought the opposite, he could be patient. He could stand until the balls of his feet ached and the muscles in his calves began to cramp, and he could stand a little longer until his knees began to buckle and his head started to spin. He had done it before, he could do it again. Sometimes that was how he fished. He would just watch and wait as his traps lured in some poor crab, tethered to the sandy coast by a pole he had set up. This was no different.
Only a tad more painful. Lonely. Cold.
If his mother were still alive, she would be chastising him now. Finnick Odair, get your ass back into my house or so help me, I won’t let you swim for a week! she always threatened when he stood out on the moist sands as the chilly wind nipped and bit at his cheeks. But she was gone. Had been for a while now. If Mags could talk—if she could see him right now—perhaps it would be her shouting for him to get out of the cold. Perhaps it would be her pinching his ear and dragging him into the house and before a roaring hearth, protected and safe from the cold.
But she wasn’t here. Not today at least, and Finnick wasn’t even sure if she knew he was in District 4. He wasn’t sure anyone knew.
He wanted to keep it that way. Just for today. Just long enough to wait.
To wait for a boat that would row in from the west. A boat carrying a young girl with brown skin and inky-black hair that tumbled in waves down her back. She would wave to the shore, to Finnick, and she would flash a grin so wide, Finnick knew her round cheeks had to hurt. But when she showed off the gap between her crooked teeth, he was certain it didn’t matter to her. How could it when she would look so happy?
Finnick waited. There was no boat. There hadn’t been in ten years—almost ten years, he reminded himself. Her ghost had not come to haunt him yet. Not like she always did every year on the same day without fail. He would be trapped in bed, staring with unblinking eyes as sleep paralyzed his body, and he would see her again. He always saw her above him, pinned to his ceiling, dripping blood into his mouth as he soundlessly screamed for someone to free him. For someone to see what he saw. For someone to climb a ladder and unpin the girl from the ceiling, and bury her at sea. Where she belonged.
Where she felt more at home than an old, decrepit shack just a short ways up the sandy dune that sloped into the shoreline.
Finnick tore his eyes from the sea for a moment and looked up the hill where beachgrass swayed in the cold wind. He thought he would go up, do the short hike, and simply step inside of the old home. No one had lived in it for almost ten years anyway, so no one would care.
No one ever cared what he wanted to do. They all just let him…simply do.
(The Capitol’s Golden Boy, they all called him. He can do whatever he wants.)
But Finnick did not ascend the dune. Not today.
(He never did.)
He turned back to the sea. Waiting. Watching. Breathing so quietly and softly that if someone was to walk up to him, they might not even think him to be alive. A mere statue—a monolith—sculpted on the shore by brine and seawater. And sometimes, he wondered if his feet were trapped in the sand. If standing on the shore for so long made the sand crawl over his bare feet. If the sand began to trap him, drag him down into the earth, further and further until maybe only his head would remain one day. Waiting. Watching as the tide grew high and drowned him.
A brown speck rolled in from the west, teasing the horizon as the sun began to rise higher into the sky. Grey clouds trapped any bright light from reflecting off the pellucid waves, and Finnick knew as thunderclouds rolled in that it would rain soon. Perhaps there would be lightning too—he could always taste it in the air when a storm was coming, could feel it prickling across the back of his neck like a lover’s touch. Finnick looked up to the sky for just a moment. Just long enough to hear a thunderclap booming.
It would rain, he knew that now.
Just like that day.
Finnick blinked hard and snapped his head towards the sea, netting in one hand and spear in another. The waves were choppy, biting and fighting with one another, and any poor fool trapped on them was sure to meet a fate similar to Finnick’s father. Any experienced fisherman knew that. Unfortunately, Finnick’s father had not been the best fisherman—that had always been his mother.
A downpour was going to start falling soon and he lifted his spear arm up, shielding his eyes from the first wave of drizzling rain. He narrowed his vision in on the speck coming from the west. It was…a boat. A small rowboat and the person on it was…Finnick took a step closer to the wild waves that crashed against the shoreline with a vengeance, and as he squinted his eyes to try and focus even more, they suddenly widened. It was a girl. Young, if he could tell at all. Maybe the same age as him.
Finnick raised his arm and waved.
“Row with the current!” he shouted. But he didn’t think the girl heard him. He didn’t think she could. Not when the sea groaned and grumbled as the wind whipped it about.
Finnick tossed his netting to the side and he jabbed his spear into the sand. He took off across the shore, waving his arms wildly in the hopes that she would see him. He called out to her, “The current! Go with the current!” Over and over again he tried to grab her attention, hopping and skipping across the sand in any attempt to get her attention.
A wave crashed just in front of him and Finnick covered his eyes for a moment, just to shield his face from the salty water, but when he looked out to sea again, the boat was—
Finnick scrambled to pull his shirt off and he knew—god he knew—what he was doing was stupid. That what he was doing would get him in so much trouble. His mom would grab his ear and drag him home if she knew he was doing this. Finnick knew his teachers would be livid, that they would scream at him in front of the class for how stupid he was being. But if he just left…if he simply left her to drown, how could he live with himself?
You’ll drown too, the voice of his teachers and mentors hissed. Just like your father.
But so would the girl if he turned around and walked away as if he never saw her.
Finnick couldn’t do that. Too big a heart, just like your father, his mom always said.
Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Finnick ran into the water, fighting the crashing waves against his legs and thick sand around his feet. The minute the water came up to his hips, he dove in. Finnick had always been good at swimming; that was what his mom told him. Practically born in the water, she said once. If you had come out with gills, fins, and scales, I wouldn’t have been surprised!
But Finnick didn’t have gills, or fins, or scales, and he had to fight the sea with every short stroke of his arms and legs. He had to surface for air, gulping it down before a wave could crash over him and send him spinning. Weight and pressure pummeled him at every angle and Finnick knew that if he lingered too long in one spot, it would take ten times as long to move forward even half a stroke, so he streamlined his body—make yourself as flat as possible, Finnick, and take short strokes to adjust to the water if you have to—and though salt stung his eyes and water tried to fill his mouth, he did as his teachers told him. He did what felt right.
The waves fought him. They raged and roiled around him, and they tried to pummel him down. Down until he could never resurface again. But if Finnick Odair was nothing else, he was a good swimmer, and he had been trained. Not just as a fisherman’s son, not just as a boy of District 4, but a career as well, and every future tribute in District 4 knew how to swim. The good ones at least, and Finnick had always been told in training that if he was reaped, he would be one of the best Careers in the arena.
His mom hated hearing that, but to be reaped was an honor in District 4, and Finnick knew that if he was, his mother would be so proud of him. And now, though she would be upset at first, she would be proud of him for saving a girl! Finnick knew she would!
A wave splashed against Finnick’s face as he tilted it up to take a deep breath, and he sputtered to keep from choking, but in his momentary panic, another wave crashed against his side, and Finnick gasped at the searing pain that erupted in his ribs. In his lungs as he gulped down the sea water. The young boy straightened up, treading water as best he could as he coughed up the salty water as best he could. Rain pelted his face and he spun in circles to avoid swallowing more as the waves kept coming and coming, and he tried to peer over them, stretching his neck as much as possible—until it ached—to find the capsized boat and the girl who had been in it, and he swam forward a little bit more, eyes locking onto a crest of dark brown over the grey waves, and he—
Finnick found it and with a deep inhale that made his chest ache, he dove into the water once more. Short strokes. Take a short breath. Short strokes. Another breath on the other side. Left. Right. Left. Right. Arm. Kick. Cup. Pull. Finnick knew it all and despite the burn in his lungs, the tightening of his muscles in the cold water, the numbness spreading in his fingertips and toes, and the stinging pain in his side, he kept pushing forward. He kept cutting through and against the current—he knew he shouldn’t, but how else could he reach her?—and finally, finally, he came upon the overturned rowboat.
He latched onto the side, digging his fingers into a hole in the wooden paneling. If he was getting splinters, he didn’t care. He couldn’t even feel his fingers at this point. Not even the adrenaline could keep his teeth from chattering painfully against each other. The clacking echoed in his mind alongside the torrential downpour, and Finnick gulped down air as he searched the water.
“Hello!” he called out, snapping his head around to try and find the girl. “Hello!”
Finnick clenched his jaw, trying to stop his chattering teeth. Anything to lessen the amount of raucous sounds pounding in his head. Anything to try and hear the girl’s cries for help. His eyes were wide. Frantic. Wild. And his calls echoed back with silence. With thunderclaps. With a lightning bolt cutting across the almost black skies. And no girl calling for help.
Mouth beginning to water and an acidic burn knocking in the back of his throat, Finnick swallowed back the urge to vomit. He had to find her. Quick. Either she would drown or he would. Or the cold would take them both. And Finnick wasn’t intent on his mom being so upset with him about it that she would find a way to bring him back and give him a firm talking to. He hated those.
“Hello?” he shouted again.
“He—“
Finnick’s head snapped behind him, and his heart raced as he caught sight of her. She was drowning. He knew she was by the way she clawed at the water. As her hazel eyes flashed only with fear and desperation, something he remembered seeing in a District 4 tribute’s eyes last year right before she was killed—Aleah had been her name. Finnick knew her from training school. She had met her death at the end of a Capitol mutt to speed up the games. This girl was about to meet hers simply because she was exhausted.
Inhaling sharply, Finnick threw himself into the water and cut through it as best he could. He swam right to her, and the moment his fingers brushed against her arm, he snatched it—he refused to let go, even as the waves tumbled ever harder upon them and roared with the tumultuous sky.
“I got you!” he cried out, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Hold onto my back! We’ll” —he bobbed up and down, trying to keep his head above water— “hold onto the boat!”
The girl, looking drowned like a cat, only nodded, tears bubbling along her lash line. Finnick tried to smile.
“It’ll be okay!”
(He hoped it would be.)
The girl wrapped her arms around his neck and Finnick, though it took twice as long to get back to the boat, carried her to the capsized hull of wood. He grabbed onto a plank and nodded at the girl. “Climb up onto the keel!”
“Okay…” she whispered. Quiet. Hoarse. The word fell from her quivering lips as if it was hard even to think of speaking.
Finnick helped her up, pushing her up along the hull and then onto the keel, and he waited until he was certain she was secured on the wooden ridge before he dragged himself up. His arms screamed in agony—exhausted and burning from fighting the current—and he almost fell back into the water before he felt a small hand wrap around his biceps. He looked up, surprise coloring his cheeks as he met the girl’s hazel eyes. She tried to smile and then she was pulling, dark features crinkled with the strain of effort as she tried her damndest to haul Finnick up. He scrambled up and she almost went flying back into the water, but he grabbed her forearms, yanking her into him.
She collapsed into him and Finnick straddled the boat’s keel, wrapping the girl tightly to him. She shivered against him, teeth chattering and sobs rattling through her slight frame. Finnick wanted to shiver too. He was cold too. He was freezing right now and utterly terrified of the angry clouds above them both, but he steeled himself as best he could and maybe he was gripping the girl a tad too hard, but he didn’t think she minded all that much when she slumped against him so heavily. She felt more dead than alive—cold, heavy, a husk instead of a body.
But Finnick still held on.
“My name’s Finnick,” he said suddenly, looking down at the dripping mess of inky-black hair that hung dead around the girl’s face. “Finnick Odair.”
Hiccuping, she slowly lifted her face, no longer pressing it into his bare chest. If she had the energy to lift her arms, Finnick was certain she would have wiped the tears, sea water, and snot that stained her brown skin. She blinked slowly, hazel eyes so large on her face that he wasn’t sure they even belonged to her.
“Na…Nadine,” she hiccuped. Again, so quiet. She was so quiet. “Nadine…Cl-Clement.”
Finnick tried to smile despite the chills that possessed him. “I’m thirteen!”
He noticed there was a hint of blue around her pupils.
“Me too…”
Looking around, Finnick hummed. He needed to keep talking. To distract her. Him too.
“Why’re you out here?”
“Wanted” —she buried her face into his chest again— “fish.”
“Out here?”
“Mhmm. Sister likes…she likes big fish.” Nadine tucked her hands into her chest, making a few small motions with her trembling fingers. “Sells them…at…at the market.”
Finnick furrowed his brows. “Why wasn’t she out here then?”
Nadine was quiet.
And she remained quiet, the only sounds coming from her being that of an almost silent wheeze, chattering teeth, and soft sniffles. Finnick pursed his lips and let her rest, tightening his hold on her. As long as she didn’t fall asleep, then it was fine. He supposed they didn’t need to talk. Someone would find them soon.
And soon they did.
Finnick thought it was maybe an hour by the time a rescue came. The waves had flattened substantially and the rain had lessened into nothing more than a drizzle as men reached for Nadine to pull her into the new boat. Finnick climbed over after her and he was seated between two men, beside her. A black blanket was laid over her shoulders and a blue one was laid over Finnick’s. But at the sight of her shivering even more, he lifted his arm with his blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. She turned her big eyes up to him for just a moment, and though exhaustion darkened the circles beneath them, she seemed taken aback.
“We’re friends now,” Finnick said, forcing a smile onto his chapped—and undoubtedly bluing lips.
“We are?”
“Mhmm! I saved your life.”
Perhaps it came off cocky. Perhaps he didn’t deserve to be cocky and prideful in that really, he had saved her. But he was cold. Wet. Tired. And he wanted nothing more than a cup of soup and to be sitting next to his mom on the couch in front of the fire. But she wasn’t there. Not right now. So, he would go for the next best thing: leaning into the warm feeling in his chest at the idea of…of having a new friend. He didn’t have many. Boys his age didn’t like him, and all the girls just giggled around him. Nadine didn’t seem to do either. So maybe they could be friends!
Nadine frowned a moment and looked down at her fingers, fiddling with the frayed edges of the blanket. “Okay,” she said.
Finnick beamed. “Really?”
“Sure,” she mumbled, peering up at him through dark lashes. “I don’t have…lots of friends.”
“Neither do I!”
“Okay.” She twisted her lips for a moment and Finnick leaned over, trying to get a good read on her. His mom always said he was good at that. Nadine glanced at him. “You can call me Nadi then. My sister calls me that.”
“Nadi?” She nodded. Finnick grinned and leaned back, bouncing his knees excitedly. “I like Finnick just fine, but if you ever think of something—“
“Fish.”
Finnick blinked slowly. “Huh?”
“Like a fish,” Nadine said softly. The corners of her lips twitched up. “You swam like a fish.”
“Yeah, but, nicknames usually—“
“Fish.”
(The three men in charge of rescuing the pair only exchanged looks and secret smiles, chuckling at the two kids. Weirdos, one of them mouthed to the others, and they agreed. What two kids almost drowned in a storm and then talked about the logistics of nicknames as if nothing had happened?)
“Okay…” Finnick drawled out. “Fish it is, I guess.” He pouted a little at that. Nadi was a cool nickname but she called him ‘Fish’? A part of him wondered if he should have just let her drown. He wouldn’t have! But…but as he huffed at the idea Nadi had, he wondered if he should have. Maybe he should just take his blanket back, he thought. But even as he thought it, his arm didn’t leave her trembling shoulders.
(Nadine smiled softly to herself, giggling in her head as if she was the funniest person to ever exist. Fish was funny—really funny.)
And Finnick’s arm didn’t leave Nadine’s shoulder even as they were brought back to shore. One of the rescuers helped them both out of the boat, and the minute Finnick’s feet touched land, he felt his mom’s arms encircling him.
“Oh my sweetest boy,” she cried and heaved, movements frantic as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. She grabbed his face, cupping it in her hands and she pressed kisses to his cheeks, eliciting a groan from him. “You foolish, foolish boy! What in God’s name were you—“
Finnick nodded to the side, and his mom’s sea-green eyes drifted over to where Nadine stood, soaked and trembling on the sand.
“Oh…”
Without hesitation, his mom ripped off her own jacket and scrambled to Nadine, wrapping her up in it and enveloping her in the blanket as a second layer. Finnick smiled over at his new friend as his mom worried over her.
“Her name’s Nadine,” he told her.
“Nadine?” His mom rubbed her hands up and down Nadine’s arms. “I’ll bring you to our home first, get you warmed up, and I’ll make a call to your mo—“
“Sister.”
Finnick’s mom pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “Alright. Alright, come along with Finnick and I, and I’ll make a call to your sister, alright?”
Nadine’s hazel eyes flickered to Finnick and he shot her a thumb’s-up. He wanted her to come over. He could show her his cool fish hook collection that was once his dad’s. He never had anyone to show it to!
Nadine bit her cheek and nodded slowly. “Okay…Mrs Odair.”
(Finnick’s mother, Lia, looked between her son and this girl and she caught the small smiles exchanged between them. She wanted to wring Finnick out for being so stupid, but seeing this slight girl in front of her, she supposed she would curb his punishment. For now. She’d at least allow Finnick a solid five minutes to explain why the hell he went out into such bad water by himself.)
Finnick’s mom stood up and placed a hand on both of their backs. “Come on, you two. Let’s get you changed and warm.”
“Can we make Nadi that one stew?” Finnick asked, looking up at his mom with a bright gleam in his sea-blue eyes. “My favorite one?”
His mom sighed and nodded. “Sure, Finnick. Sure.” She then looked over her shoulder and thanked the rescuers before they left.
Finnick used that moment to lean around her and grin at Nadine. “It’s the best stew ever,” he whispered conspiratorially.
“The best?” Nadine asked.
“Mhmm! She puts rice in it!”
“Oh…” The corners of Nadine’s lips curved up, lifting her full cheeks, and Finnick saw the first hints of life on her face. “And…and white fish?”
“Haddock!”
“Woah…”
“Do you like tea? I think it’s for adults, but mom lets me drink some if it’s not too late and I don’t have school in the morning, and…”
Finnick launched into a wild ramble about his favorite kinds of teas and Nadine seemed to hang onto every word. Her hazel eyes were impossibly wide and she even almost smiled. Almost. And with each quiet comment she made, Finnick’s chest grew warmer and warmer.
He had always wanted a friend.
(Nadine never had friends, and she felt a small pocket filling her chest, one that was bubbly and warm and she wanted to keep it all to herself as it replaced the bone-deep chill that almost drowning had infected her very being with. She thought it might not be that terrible to have a friend, even if that one was Finnick Odair, a boy who always scored the best in all of their training classes and didn’t seem to recognize her. But that was okay to Nadine. No one ever turned a second glance to her.
No one but Finnick Odair, and she knew she was forever indebted to him as they walked safe along the shore of District 4.)