Finnick wasn’t sure what was real anymore.

The war had ended, but the peace it promised never reached him. Alone on the coast, he kept himself distant—safe from others, and from the damage he might cause. Some days, he swore he saw things: ghosts in the waves, voices carried on wind, memories that bled into hallucination. So when he saw you standing at the shoreline, smiling like nothing had changed, he assumed his mind was playing another cruel trick.

But then you spoke. Said his name. Touched his arm.

You were real.

You’d known Finnick long before the Capitol took him. As kids in District 4, he was the quiet one—awkward and unsure—and you were all energy, dragging him into trouble and laughter in equal measure. Wherever you were, Finnick wasn’t far behind. He loved you even then, quietly, and you loved him too, but neither of you ever said it. And after he won the Games, he disappeared. To protect you, he claimed later.

Now, you were both back in the same place, changed but still familiar. You found him again—not as the Capitol’s golden boy, but as the boy you once knew, still carrying the weight of everything he’d lost.

You didn’t push. You just stayed.

Your routine became simple: coffee in the mornings, quiet evenings by the shore, long walks where he listened more than spoke. You brought notebooks, asking him to write what he saw, what he remembered, what he doubted. Some days it helped. Some days it didn’t. But you were always there, steady and patient, helping him sort truth from fear.

He started laughing again. Touching your hand a little longer. Sleeping through the night.

You married quietly, barefoot in the sand. No crowds, no cameras, no Capitol. Just you and him and the ocean.

He kissed you one evening with salt on his lips and whispered, “I used to dream about this.”

You smiled. “So did I.”

Now, every evening, Finnick writes while you sit beside him. Some pages are real. Some are not. But you go through them together, like everything else.

He still gets lost sometimes. But you’re always there to bring him back.

Sometimes he would stare at you for hours, studying your face, asking simple questions like:

“Did we really go swimming in the cove when we were nine?” “Yes,” you’d say. “You got stung by a jellyfish and cried for an hour.” “And… you kissed my cheek to make it better, right?” “I did. You turned red as a tomato.”

You sit at the kitchen table—an old one, made of driftwood and love—and he writes down his thoughts while you read and mark them.

“I saw Mags today. She told me she was proud of me.” You circle the sentence gently. “A dream, Finnick. But a good one.” He nods, eyes glistening.

Some entries are painful. Others are silly. Some make no sense at all. But they are all pieces of him, slowly coming back together.