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Finnick kept expecting for the bottom to drop out. It was hard to believe that this wasn't a charade. He'd seen plenty of devious plans hatched and carried out in the Capitol, and there were certainly many that had this sort of longevity and creativity. But this lacked a certain level of cruelty that he had always been able to taste before. If it had been an arena, the need for blood would have won out long ago. No, this was something else. Maybe it was safety. Finnick wasn't ready to believe that yet.

Still, he had decided to lower his guard a little. It helped marginally that both Johanna and Katniss were here; if something was going to happen to him, it was going to happen to all three of them, and if there were any other Victors he wanted at his side, it was the two of them.

As it was, there was little else he could do. If the Capitol was playing a trick, they were holding out the cards. So, Finnick decided to enjoy the hotel. It was nice enough. Certainly on par with some of the nicer ones in the Capitol, although perhaps lacking the gaudier decorations.

He liked being out in the gardens, because he rarely saw anything resembled nature in the Capitol. But, without a doubt, his favorite area was the pool. There still was something unnatural about swimming indoors, but it was calming all the same to do lap after lap and just hear the quiet of the building surrounding him.

That's where he was at the moment, stripped to just his skin except for Annie's necklace, which was still tied securely about his neck. He treaded water for a moment before launching himself forward, heading back toward the shallow end of the pool again.

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"It's fine," Finnick said with a laugh when she seemed to grow increasingly more flustered. "I can leave."

He pushed himself away from the wall and began to swim back toward where he'd left his clothes in a messy pile on top of a towel.

"Turn around if you want to," he warned with a wry grin. He figured it was better that he give her fair warning this time. That done, he pulled himself deftly out of the pool and reached for the towel waiting for him.

Finnick smiled charmingly at her when she moved her hand down far enough that they actually made eye contact. If he was being completely honest -- which he never was -- he would have preferred something boring himself, but boring never really seemed to be in the cards for him.

"When I feel like it," Finnick said with a lazy rise and fall of his shoulders, or rather, when it was expected of him. He'd simply given up arguing with it. Besides, when it came to swimming, he did prefer to simply be emerged in the water, to feel it against his bare skin. There was something strange about the need to put an extra barrier between them and the sea.

"Well, I don't usually get too many complaints," Finnick admitted, still smiling.

"Oh, I know you can be damn well surgical with an axe," Finnick quips immediately.

But, if she doesn't have anything that's appropriate, he's going to need to find something on his own. His mind is already starting to turn toward that, creating a map once again of the hotel. Places where he can look -- kitchen is probably the best change. Scissors or a good knife should be there. He'll need to find something to bind the wound up with. At least bandages. Something to stitch it up would be better, although he's sorely out of practice when it's come to that. But the last thing he wants is to bleed out from cutting out his own tracking device.

"Hard to tell if that's going to happen now," Finnick answers, his own voice going distant. Hard to tell if they were going to manage to get out of here at all. This would be one hell of a prison if it's thought up by the Capitol -- nice enough that they'd consider staying all on their own, removing them from the Capitol's worries by their own hand.

Finnick can't help but smile, something more genuine, something more himself, at her assessment of them. It's strange and oddly succinct and completely honest. Just days before he had been conniving, trying to find a way into Katniss Everdeen's good graces. And now, here they are, stranded and talking politely at least.

For the last year, it seems as if his entire life had orbited around hers. He'd been shocked as any when two victors had come out of the Games. And then there'd been the call to arms, the request that he go back into the arena to protect this girl who he'd seen only on a television screen.

"It's what we do," Finnick answers simply, leaving the notion of we an undefined and loose group. The worry because they need to control everything around them in order to survive.

"Big waterfall in New York? Right on the border with Canada? Lots of idiot thrill-seekers enjoy putting themselves into barrels to try and survive but usually just end up taking themselves out of the gene pool entirely?"

Felicity studied him as she spoke. "Why do I get the feeling that if I'd said all of that in a different language you wouldn't have understood it any better?"

"It's all we can do, for the most part. At least if they're intending for us to do something horrible, they're giving us a chance to get to full strength while they do. It doesn't seem very smart of the Capitol."

Katniss has never been a particularly strategic thinker and she has never been politics savvy. In this, she thinks Finnick probably has an advantage the way that Peeta and Haymitch did. Even still, she can see that putting them up in a nice hotel for a while isn't very smart.

Johanna hates the idea of being useless as much as she hates being a pawn, so she hates this more than she can say. She stares at Finnick as she turns this over in her mind and wonders what they do next. None of them are without leadership qualities, but some of them have things to lose. She's not in the same position and weirdly, she doesn't want to ask too much of them.

"So what's the swimming for?" she asks. "Relaxation or is there some greater purpose?"

"I could have been a little kid," Gwen said, as this seemed a steadier tack than acknowledging she could understand the lack of complaints. "I could have been a nun."

After she'd said this, it occurred to her that this guy, with his wide, self-satisfied smile, would probably be pretty okay with being responsible for the corruption of a woman of God.

"Can I get you something to put on? A robe? Towel? Sparkly thong?"

"No, you really don't have to," April insisted, although she was quick to spin around before she got another eyeful. "You were enjoying yourself, and I don't want-"

She clamped her mouth shut, her stomach sloshing with guilt. It was like that afternoon when Isaac had told her about being in the arena only worse, as if reading those books and seeing the movies had made her a voyeur. Complicit.

"I'm not even a very good swimmer," she finally finished. "I can just go bowl or something."

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