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Annie had just started to let her spine relax against the mattress when Reed began to cry. He was not hungry. He couldn't be hungry, she just fed him, but feeding him would be simple. Anything else she didn't know what to do, she didn't, she just wanted to sleep. But her baby was crying, thin and upset, so with a whimper she started to struggle up.
“Hey, Annie, I'll get him,” Finnick said softly.
She stopped. “You sure?”
“It's fine.” He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “If I need you, I'll get you. Go and sleep, love.”
Annie blinked at him, but it didn't help her vision focus. “Okay,” she whispered, and let herself fall back against the bed. Reed was still crying, but she could hear Finnick murmuring to him. It was okay, Finnick had him, Reed was okay.
She shut her eyes and sleep swamped her like a wave.
She woke to singing. Finnick's singing, his voice was too quiet for her to make out more than a few words here and there. Something about fish in the sea, to the steady rhythm of a sailor's song. She didn't even care if it was one of the (many) crude sailors' songs: Reed wasn't crying, that was the main thing.
Annie pulled herself off the bed, splashed her face with water to try and clear the sleep from her eyes (it was only somewhat successful), and made her way down the hallway. As she drew closer to the living room, Finnick's voice became clearer.
“Hay ho little fishes, don't cry, don't cry.
Hay ho little fishes, don't cry, don't cry.”
He was slowly pacing the living room, his gait the rolling one of a shiphand who has forgotten that the land doesn't move. A shiphand who'd had a run in with a shark, maybe; as Finnick passed the window, the sun lit up the scars crawling down his shoulder and arm. Scars from both the Capitol mutts which had tried to kill him and the surgery after, as they tried (and mostly succeeded) in putting his shoulder back together.
Despite what Finnick worried about, the scars were healing. At least, she thought so.
Reed was in his father's arms, wrapped up tightly in a yellow blanket and his weight mostly supported by Finnick's good arm. He wasn't making a sound. It could either mean he was asleep, or staring up at his father with his huge, solemn green eyes.
She hoped he was asleep. Then she and Finnick could get some more sleep themselves.
“The ship's underway and the weather is fine.” Finnick didn't pause when he turned and spied her standing in the doorway, just briefly smiled and kept singing. “The skipper's down aft hanging out other lines.”
Is he asleep? Annie mouthed, pointing at Reed as Finnick sang the chorus again.
Finnick shook his head and Annie made a face at them. She moved over to the couch and flopped down. She should go back to bed, take advantage of the reprieve, but Finnick's scars had been a reminder and she didn't want to leave.
“The crew are asleep and the ocean's at rest,” Finnick's eyes met hers and he grinned, for a moment looking bright and boyish instead of tired, “And I'm singing this song to the one I love best.”
She could feel herself smiling, broad and stupid and not giving a damn. She loved them. As horrifically tired as she was, as stressed and prone to crying and mentally going away as she was (and oh, was she aware that without Finnick's fishing crew and her friend Yoko and Mrs Everdeen, they would be doing so much worse), she loved them. She loved them both more than she knew how to deal with.
So Annie whispered, “Dork,” at Finnick, and stifled a giggle at the mock outraged face he pulled at her.
“You going to sleep now, sweetgrass?” Finnick asked their son.
Reed was silent for a bit longer, and then sleepily burbled an answer.
Finnick sighed. “You push me to desperate measures,” he informed Reed, and started slowly singing again.
“It's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog,
All gone for beer and tobacco.”
Mrs Everdeen had long since told them that if it worked, it worked, no matter how ridiculous, and Reed was only eight weeks old. Hardly going to repeat this to anyone. Still, Annie, who'd never been very good at controlling her laughter, had to press her hand to mouth.
Finnick winked at her.
“Spent all me tin on the lassies drinking gin,
And across the western ocean I must wander...”