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    APRIL was a cold time of year. Not for the weather, but for the upcoming Reaping. Especially in District 2, where the Academy began to conduct its exams and performances to select the most likely winner for the upcoming games. They were announced a week before the Reaping, their faces on every poster and screen on campus, and some even in town.

    Years ago, Jupiter had been bestowed the honour. She still remembered sitting with her class when they had announced it at an assembly, and she had risen to her feet with applause. The boy she had been chosen with had met her at the front of the hall and taken his hand in hers and held them up together as a symbol of unity. She had cheered herself, glorified and hungry for a chance to prove herself. If only she had known.

    She knew things would be different this year– a Quarter Quell of all things. The announcement would be coming sooner, each day of April the Capitol growing more and more excited over the challenge for that quarter.

    Jupiter tried to avoid the 'hype' which was quite easy, as she had stopped being invited into the Capitol. Snow had not sent her any letters or made any more attempts at contact, and so she was left in the dark. The mailbox was painfully empty these days, nothing from the Capitol and certainly nothing from the Academy, except its newsletter celebrating exams beginning three months before the Reaping.

    The wounds from the night she struck Mars healed over and turned pale, and the glass framing her victory knife was not rebuilt. The empty frame had sat there for a month, its once glorified knife discarded in the bin somewhere. Jupiter couldn't even remember throwing it out amidst the cleanup, but she remembered being surprised her brother hadn't taken it for himself.

    She was surprised by a lot of things her brother did now. His conscription had placed him in the barracks for training, and he scarcely came to the house anymore. The times he did in the month gone past, he and Jupiter did not acknowledge each other. They did not speak, he did not look at her, and she did not look at him. It was cold, but better than before.

    Jupiter hated that it had taken her raising her hand to get what she wanted from him.

    Cassia had gone back to her usual ways, and Jupiter had not tried to restart their conversation from when she had been stitching her hand. She was anxiously waiting for the Quarter Quell announcement as well. Life, as it always did, went on.

    But time was passing in a way Jupiter did not like. Her days were spent in the Academy or her room, she no longer got mail from anyone she wanted, and it felt as if everything her mother watched on the TV was not a reflection of what the Districts actually were. District 2 had become a bustling centre for Peacekeeper activity, and there was a curfew now where once there had been none.

    Shipments and deliveries were still delayed, and more and more shops were shutting down or limiting their hours. Julius only survived because Jupiter had overpaid him twice in the last month when she had been by. She wasn't buying bread anymore– in fact she hadn't gone to see her dad since Mars and her had fought.

    In the early hours of that morning in April, Jupiter swung her bag over her back, only the bare essentials knowing she would likely be checked at both ends. She made sure her clothes were not something too fancy, nor too casual, something that wouldn't set off alarm bells in anyone's mind. She trudged down the stairs, casting one lingering look at the back of her mother's head before leaving the house.

    As always she kept her back to the empty house in the Victor's Village, the one her father had won as a teenager and raised his family in. They had been evicted from it the day he had slit his wrists, and Jupiter still couldn't bear to look at it. She feared the day someone would win and take it over.

    The train station was quiet as she arrived, but still filled with enough commuters as she got on amidst the crowd, blending in. When it came to the end of the line, she stopped and got off, mingling in the crowds until the Peacekeepers had passed.

    It was nothing she hadn't done before, but only a handful of times, and not with the Capitol breathing down her neck. As she switched stations, and started to wait for another train, she could hear footsteps drawing nearer.

    "Miss," one of the Peacekeepers said. She turned to him slowly, trying to look confused rather than wary. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

    "I'm so sorry," she said, suddenly, lips turning down. "I– my fiancé has been conscripted in District 2. I was trying to visit him– because you don't know what's happening out there but," she sniffed dramatically, bottom lip trembling, "they wouldn't let me in."

    The Peacekeepers both looked caught off guard by the teary display as she rummaged in her pockets. "I don't have a ticket, but– but I can pay," she continued hastily.

    She maintained her composure as the front Peacekeeper's eyes widened greedily at the gold in her hands. "That will be fine," he relented, taking a handful of it. Jupiter nodded, wiping at her nose.

    "Where did you say you were going?" the other asked, less gracefully than his companion.

    "District 4," Jupiter told him.

    She could hear the train approaching now. It was a working station for supplies between 2, 4 and 10, stopping somewhere in the middle and branching off in either direction. Platform 4 was the only one she had ever gone to.

    To add to the effect, Jupiter untucked the pearl from her collar, exposing it to the Peacekeepers. Apparently it was all the evidence and watery eyes they needed to let her board the train, which was quiet and empty. The security pair watched her train go, Jupiter stayed teary-eyed and desolate until she was out of sight.

    She wiped frantically at her eyes once she was safe, and fingered the pearl a few times before tucking it away again. The trip was only a few hours, and the sun was still shining above her as she disembarked from the train with a few more commuters and workers who had joined her along the way.

    The Peacekeepers at the gates fell for the same sob story and shine of gold, and Jupiter was let through as she wiped her crocodile tears.

    District 4 looked the same as it always did, bustling stone centre around the station and the city, the smell of the market already reaching her nose. As she made her way through the main square, no one recognised her, but she scanned the crowds briefly as she passed them. Like 2, there was a cloud hanging over, something cold and weary that she couldn't place.

    Peacekeepers were rampant here, too, and she ducked her head as subtly as she could as she made her way through the most-built up sector and closer to the coastline. She didn't dare take any form of public transport– the train had been enough of a mission. As the houses thinned out, she could see the Victor's Village growing nearer.

    Closer to the water, the poorer citizens had fishing huts, some built over the sea, but as she moved further, the wealth increased. The fishing boats became more robust, and the houses grander. But none grander than where the Victors lived as Jupiter kicked up sand to make it to the courtyard.

    God, she hoped he was home, as she walked up to the waterside house with a mermaid wind chime hanging outside and a trident printed in gold on the door. She practically skipped up the stairs and knocked, as frantically as she dared.

    Jupiter swayed on the balls of her feet as she waited, head down, before she heard the floorboards creak. She looked up expectantly as the door swung inward and Finnick looked at her, stunned.

    "Jove?" he asked, opening the door fully. His eyes widened in recognition and he glanced around nervously, a stark contrast to the look of eagerness and relief on her face. "Come in," he said quickly, as she slipped through the door and he locked it behind them.

    Her face lit up further as she stood in the foyer of his house, the end of the hallway spinning with reflections of the water on the ceiling and walls. She stepped in further, assuming he was alone or he would have warned her, as she came to the living suite where she had been a rare few times.

    Finnick came in after her, dressed in a white shirt and baggy jeans that she suspected the Capitol would disown him for if they saw him wearing it. But to Jupiter he looked like home– every bit the person he should have been.

    "Are you mad?" he asked immediately.

    Jupiter's face slackened. "Good to see you, too, Finnick," she said dryly.

    "I–" he cut himself off, taking a deep breath. "What happened?" Finnick asked, softer this time. "For you to take this risk, something–"

    "I don't wanna talk about it," she cut in. "I just..." she trailed off. "I just needed to get out of that house."

    Finnick looked down at her with a frown. "How did you even get past?" he asked. "With security these days." His voice faltered as he took her in, as if for the first time since she had appeared on his doorstep. Maybe it had occurred to him as well that they had not seen each other in two months.

    "I told some sob story and, maybe, paid them off," Jupiter told him.

    Finnick scoffed, and he reached his hands up to her upper arms, tracing circles across her shoulder. They travelled up to cup her face, one of his thumbs running along her cheek. "You're sure no one saw you?" he asked quietly.

    Jupiter pulled away, looking at him warily. "What do you know that I don't?"

    Finnick's features deepened at her reaction. "It's not safe. You shouldn't have come," he said quickly. Jupiter's face fell before she could stop it. "I didn't mean it like that," he sighed.

    "No, I know," Jupiter said, brushing past him and heading back for the entrance hall.

    "Hey, come on," he called. She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Put your stuff down," Finnick said simply.

    Jupiter stared at him for a few seconds, before moving back and dropping her bag in the living space. Finnick said something soft that she didn't quite catch as he pulled her into a hug, her arms going around his middle.

    "I'm sorry," he murmured against her hair. "There's... District tensions and people have gotten hurt here."

    Jupiter pulled away from him slightly, looking at him with her arms still around him. "Like– rebels?" she asked cautiously.

    Finnick hesitated. "I think so," he replied quietly, as if someone was listening. "It's all very hush-hush." He gave her a pointed look.

    Jupiter nodded, swallowing thickly. "Okay."

    "I missed you," he said sweetly before she could think too hard on the subject.

    "I missed you, too," she responded, kissing him softly, their first moment alone since the theatre opening they had abandoned together.

    It was sweet and longing, a sort of greeting after some time apart. Jupiter would never grow tired of the feeling of anticipation before she saw him or stole a moment alone with him. Even years later, their connection bloomed in secret, and amidst all the harsh, cold things in her life, it was nice to have Finnick.

    She couldn't know where they were headed. Not with the borders between them, or Finnick's position in the Capitol, but to be known and understood by someone was worth all the uncertainty.

    Finnick pulled away after a while, looking down at her fondly. "We still have daylight," he said, pulling away. His eyes caught the chain around her neck, and he untucked the pearl, looking down at it thoughtfully. He seemed to regain his train of thought. "And I have the night off."

    "I just needed to get out of that house," Jupiter told him.

    "Okay," he said softly. "When the sun starts to set we'll head out to the water."

    "Until then?" she asked, warmth spreading through her chest.

    "Whatever you want," he told her.

    Jupiter knew that whatever she wanted had to be in the grounds of safety as an imposter in 4, but she could scarcely remember a night she had felt so at peace. For a moment, everything could have been normal, Finnick might have really been her fiancé after years of their secret affair and stolen kisses, and whatever happened was between them and sea.

    As the sun sunk below the horizon and Finnick and her ate dinner in the back of his house beside the water, hair slick with salt and her cheeks sore from her laughter, the threat of rebels and Mars and the Capitol were far from her mind.

    They stayed on the sand for a while, talking about everything and nothing all at once, filling in the gaps from the last two months and making light of as much as they could. Eventually the stars came up, and while Finnick jokingly pointed out some of the constellations he knew, Jupiter only looked up wistfully.

    "That one– there," she said, adjusting Finnick's pointer finger.

    "Yeah, I see it," he said, closing one eye to get a better view. Jupiter smiled slightly at the boyish look.

    "That's Jupiter," she told him.

    "It's brighter than I thought it would be," he murmured, eyes fixated on her namesake. All Jupiter could do however was watch him, eyes half-lidded.

    "It was meant to be a star," she said abruptly.

    Finnick frowned and turned to her. "What does that mean?"

    "It's not big enough to trigger the reactions to become a star– even if it's made of the right materials," she simplified.

    He briefly looked back up at the sky. "Still pretty." Jupiter scoffed before he leaned in close, breath fanning her face. "I've lost it again."

    Jupiter obliged, taking his hand in hers and directing it back to the small, glowing spot in the sky. But Finnick again looked away from the failed star, and back to the woman beside him, smiling softly.

    "I'm sorry," Jupiter apologised for the hundredth time that night as they retired to his room, walking clumsily through the sand and tracking it into the back door of his house.

    "It's okay," Finnick responded for the hundredth time. "It all worked out."

    He hardly seemed to care for the mess as he grinned at her in the lamplight.

    She stared at the mural above his bed after they had showered the salt and sand off their bodies, and Jupiter was wrapped in clothes far too large for her that smelled like home. The mural was something akin to the sea, with swirls of bright blue and gold. Jupiter remembered that he told her Annie had painted it the year she won her games and needed something to take her mind off things.

    "Thank you," Jupiter murmured as she traced the patterns with her eyes.

    "Pleasure's all mine," Finnick responded.

    Jupiter only hummed in response, listening to the waves lap at the shore, which was so different from the birds and the wind in the trees back in 2. Finnick turned over from his back, facing her. "How're you getting home tomorrow?" he asked gently.

    Jupiter frowned, not wanting to think about leaving and going back to the house. "Same way I got here."

    "Jove," he said earnestly. She met his eyes, her head propped against a pillow. "If something happens to you, I can't–"

    "I know," she cut in. "I knew the risks when I made the trip."

    She kissed the tip of his nose and settled down into the mattress, looking across at him. They had shared a bed before and in different ways in the past, and it was the most peaceful sleep Jupiter ever had since the night her father had passed away.

    "Do you think things will go back to normal?" Jupiter asked softly as the night grew darker, Finnick's arm strung across her and her head on his chest.

    "Normal?" he asked.

    "Yeah," she said, tracing circles against his skin. "We go back to events and I can make this trip without being checked at every stop."

    "You want it to go back to normal?" Finnick clarified.

    Jupiter furrowed her brows, and if she wasn't so comfortable she would have lifted her head to see the face he made to match the tone. She only hummed in response, not sure how to answer the question or what it implied, but her hand had stopped moving.

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is this realistic? idk and idc jupiter takes a risk and it's cute, and we get some domestic junnick(??) before everything goes to shit

if finnick was ooc in this pls excuse i'm still in anakin mode <3