A/N: So, I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy, and to say I was profoundly affected is an understatement. I wanted to throw down the book and weep for a week. It's so sad, it's so awful, it's so wonderful. I just can't work out if I liked the ending or not. I think it's growing on me. I still wish it had been a teeny-weeny bit happier, though. And I wish we knew the kids names. So I wrote this. I'll probably change it, since it still reads really depressing, but we'll see.
Sometimes
I almost wanted to call her Primrose, for my sister. I wanted to feel like she had come back to me, like there was a little part of her still running around. But there isn't. All that's left of Prim are the memories carried round with me. I did not want to call out her name, every day for the rest of my life, expecting to see her come scooting round the corner instead of my daughter. I didn't want her to grow up thinking she was some kind of replacement.
Peeta suggested Rose, but that just made me think of Snow. We pondered on Rosemary, for remembrance, reasoning that we could just call her Mary, but neither of us liked the idea.
A flower name though, definitely. My mother gave us a book, and we trawled through it, flower after flower. We thought about Teasel, or Violet, or Tulip "there's sunshine in your smile". Lily and Orchid both seemed too sweet. The same for Daisy, and Bluebell. Peeta almost like Buttercup until he remembered the awful cat, and quickly shut up.
In the end, we chose the one with the most meaning.
Iris. Wisdom and Valor. Faith. Promise in love. Hope.
My daughter became all these things to me.
The boy's was easier, even without know the meaning, "happiness."
We called him Dandelion.
They are both that bright yellow flower that means rebirth instead of destruction, they are all our promises that life, no matter how bad our losses, goes on.
Sometimes I watch them play out on the streets with other children in a way that we could never afford to do. Peeta slips his arms around my waist and holds me, and we smile. For some moments, we forget how sad we are, if only until the game ends. Some moments seem perfect. When we all lie together in bed, the children curl up between us, we extend our hands in the dark and lock us all together. We forget why we want to keep them there, so safely snug. We forget why we need to.
Sometimes.
I forget Prim's arms around me in the night. I take pleasure in Peeta's, in our children's. I hold my family together and for a moment, I realise all I need is them.
Sometimes, when I see Peeta smile at me, when I hear him whisper the sweet declarations I used to hate, when I see the children's grinning faces, their complete innocence, I realise I am happy.
Sometimes.
A/N: Let me know what you think, and how the ending affected you! Sob-sob...