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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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Katniss still doesn't trust the hotel but since the only door that opens for her is one that goes back into the Arena, she spends most of her days wondering if she should stick with the devil she knows or the potential safety of this place. It changes from day to day, which she wants and today she is contemplating the door again. She needs to find Peeta. She needs to make sure he's alive to take care of her sister and her mother and even Gale.

Restless feet bring her to explore the other rooms in the hotel and she isn't terribly surprised to find Finnick in the pool. He's from District 4 and he practically grew up with fins surgically attached to his feet.

"You know, the sponsors must really not exist. You would be covered in gifts by now if they did...nothing but silver parachutes as far as the eye could see."

Katniss has never received gifts just to receive them - Haymitch always sends a message with his.

Edited 2014-01-16 17:46 (UTC)

Finnick can just see the blurry outline of the Girl on Fire before he breaks through the surface of the water and is left staring up at Katniss. He still doesn't know exactly what to make of her; more of his knowledge of her is still based on what he's seen on television and whatever secondhand information has been passed down to him, rather than the minutes he spent with during training and their arrival here. He's glad she's here, if only because she's safe, but he still can't help but trust Joahnna a bit more. He and Jo have history, at the very least.

He smiles reflexively, an instinct he doesn't bother fighting; it's the smile that would make Johanna claim she feels dirty.

"How do you think I won my Games, darling?" he asks -- a lie, but one that most people would find amusing; he's sure that she won't. Sure, he had a hell of a lot of sponsors, but all the sponsors in the world wouldn't have taught him how to fight with a trident, how to find water. That was Mags, a lifetime ago, teaching him how to survive.

"Water's fine if you want to come on in," he invites with a tilt of his head, suspecting that there's no way he's going to get Katniss to strip down and take a swim with him.

The idea of being naked around Finnick is not an appealing one. Katniss doesn't think she's prudish, exactly, but Finnick is a lot more forward than anyone she's ever met from District 12 and Katniss has no desire to get wrapped up in the pageantry. It reminds her of the Capitol in all the bad ways.

She can, however, tug off her boots and dip her feet in the water. Since Finnick's been swimming in it, she trusts that it's safe enough and she does, enjoying how it feels cool around her feet and ankles.

"No thanks. Some of us like being naked but I don't."

Finnick swims a little closer when Katniss actually sits and decides to join him. He continues to tread water, not trying to crowd her too much, because he does want the chance to talk to her properly, to try and get a better handle on her. He figures they're making some progress, because she had been flustered when he was wearing his net, but she doesn't even seem to be blushing now.

He makes no comment on her lack of nudity, although some bitter and well-hidden part of brain can't help but think how ready the Capitol had been to eat her up after her Games. It had been something of a wonder that Snow hadn't just started selling her and Peeta as a two-for-one special.

"What do you think of the hotel so far then?" Finnick asks. "Been through any of these magic doors yet?"

"Only the one that goes back to the arena. I did try another that went somewhere that...there were children everywhere and everything was candy-colored, just like the Capitol. I didn't trust it as far as I could throw it. Impossible to scout it. There was too much right out in the open."

Katniss had quickly returned to the hotel after that. What she wants is to find a way back to 12 so she can warn the few people she cares about that something is brewing. This hotel can't be just what it seems on the surface.

He's only heard snatches of the one that goes back to the arena. He wonders if Katniss went through that door willingly or not. He can't imagine why she would.

"Was it your arena?" he can't help but ask, his voice distinctly less teasing and far more analytical -- a slice of the boy who managed to win his Games at 14 instead of the masquerade he now performs as a man. It doesn't hold any meaning to just say an arena; that could be anything. His arena. Johanna's arena. The arena for the 75th Games -- and if it takes them to that arena, what does it mean? And how would they know?

He processes the information about the other place she's been without much comment. There are snatches of the Capitol threaded throughout everyplace here, but it's not so blatant that he can easily say all of this was fabricated by the Capitol. It's frustrating, this game. And he hates how long it's dragged out, itches for something that he understands better.

"It's the Quarter Quell arena," Katniss clarifies. "I didn't mean to go back in there but when I pulled open the door, that's the only thing I got. I tried to look for Peeta and I couldn't find him. It's almost like all the tributes have been pulled out of it."

Katniss chews on her lower lip for a moment, thinking. "That, or the Gamemakers want me to believe there's no tributes in there. Either or."

Finnick freezes visibly when Katniss announces that it's the Quarter Quell.

"How do you know?" he asks immediately, the question slipping out of him before he's able to consider it. Was she just assuming that it was the Quarter Quell because it was an arena that was unfamiliar to her? Had Plutarch shown her the plans before she went in; that doesn't make any sense, because as far he knew, she wasn't clued into the plan. Haymitch had been so sure that she'd wear everything on her sleeve and end up exposing all of them. Hell, Plutarch hadn't even shown him and Johanna the plans, and they were some of the first tributes on his merry bandwagon of rebellion.

"Because I just came from there before I showed up here," Katniss says, unsure why Finnick can't follow that. Is there some sort of time lapse? Has he hit his head? Katniss knows she has because Johanna took care of that for her but she doesn't know what's real and what isn't. This is not good.

"We'd been in the arena for days before I came here. Wiress figured out it was a clock, we were planning on...I don't remember. Johanna hit me in the head and I'm having trouble remembering things after that. You don't think it's the Capitol, do you? Putting in false memories or something?"

The one thing Katniss has always been able to rely on have been her senses but she remembers being stung by Tracker Jackers and having even that taken away. What's real? What isn't real? What she'd been so certain of before is unclear now that she's been talking to Finnick.

Suddenly, a great deal of the confusion he and Johanna experienced when Katniss arrives makes sense. The familiar tone she had used when she had spoken to them, that she had claimed that Johanna had hit her on the head. At the time, he had been more concerned with trying to find safety, and had let those oddities slip away. Now, his mind latches onto them. And Jo -- Johanna had arrived already on her launchpad when Finnick hadn't made it to his. He had thought that it was just that they had brought them in different ways to throw them off. Now -- what if it was because they had been brought from different times?

It's a ridiculous theory. But maybe not one without merit. After all, there are people here from different worlds. They can cross into different lands, including their own. After all that, would it be really be so difficult to bring Finnick from before the Games and Katniss during? He doesn't know. His head hurts. This sort of thing isn't his specialty. He wishes Beetee or Wiress were here.

Finnick closes the distance between himself and Katniss, bracing his arms on the side of the pool next to where she's sitting.

"Katniss," Finnick says slowly, and there's nothing teasing in his voice now. "Johanna and I both came from before the start of the Hunger Games. I never even saw the arena." He pauses, knowing how ridiculous his next words are going to sound. "I think it's possible we came from different times."

Maybe it's supposed to make sense but it doesn't. Still, showing a weakness is a bad idea and Katniss decides to operate under the assumption that Finnick is right and she's not just insane. That's a possibility, isn't it? That the simplest solution is the correct one? She wishes that Beetee and Wiress were here to sort this out for her, or Haymitch. Haymitch is surprisingly clever when it comes to things like this.

"Let's say we did. I'm not any better off than you are knowing what the arena looks like. I still couldn't find Peeta or Beetee and I still don't know why Johanna tried to kill me." Katniss laughs awkwardly. "Other than, you know. The obvious reason. We had an alliance. Me, you, Mags and Peeta. Beetee and Wiress too, and Johanna got them for me. We were trying to kill the careers and get out."

It's strange to hear their plan laid out without real understanding. Vaguely, he thinks that there's no point in pretending that he wasn't a part of the rebellion anymore; it's all exposed now. If this really was a test to weed out which of the victors were in on the scheme, well, it's abundantly clear that Johanna Mason and Finnick Odair were on it.

The cynical part of his brain thinks that this would be the perfect way to do it -- to send something that looks and talks like Katniss Everdeen to trick him, because he's been told to save her at all costs. Or to pair her with something that looks looks and talks like Johanna Mason, because the person he had trusted most in the arena, after Mags, was certainly Jo -- weak as it might make him to admit it.

He falters, wars with himself for a minute, and then just gives in. He can theorize, after all, just what Johanna was doing just based off the mark Katniss has.

"Johanna wasn't trying to kill you," Finnick says. "We were working together to get you out of the arena, Katniss. That's what the alliance was for. She was probably trying to remove your tracker."

Katniss rubs her forearm where there's still an angry mark. It makes sense when Finnick says it that way but should she trust it? Does she have a choice?

"I guess. So why are we all here, then? Are you still as much in the dark as I am?"

"I don't know," Finnick admits, and they are words he loathes to say out loud. They are the ultimate weakness. Ignorance. Ignorance was inevitably killed any tribute -- the not knowing what was coming for them, the not knowing how to handle a given situation, quell the panic.

He deals heavily in knowledge, but there was never any indication that they were going to swept away. And now here, just three of them are, but without any contact. It both worries him and assures him that Katniss is here. Whatever is happening, he's at the center of it. It's either the safest or the most dangerous spot.

"We are a pair, huh?"

Katniss doesn't think that she would have chosen to be stranded with Finnick and Johanna but it hasn't been bad so far. Finnick, especially, is surprisingly kind. Katniss hasn't known a lot of kindness.

"I guess there's no sense in worrying about the unknown but I can't help it."

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.

"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.

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