Another one of those one-shots I keep sitting on my computer for ages before I decide to post it. I don't remember what inspired me to write this particular one but I think it's an okay story so I hope it will be enjoyable.

The sand feels cool underneath me, a stark contrast to earlier in the day when it was burning hot. It's been a bright sunny day here in District 4 but now that the sun is setting some of the heat is going away. The breeze from the ocean still feels refreshing but I'm pretty sure I will start to feel cold soon. I didn't bring a jacket or a sweater but I'm not going back up to the house to get one now.

We arrived in the district five days ago with the intention of a two week stay. The first week we've spent with Annie Odair and her son Crest, who has grown from the small boy he was the last time we saw him into a teenager. It's been nice staying with them but part of what I've enjoyed is the fact that for the most part Peeta and I have been by ourselves. Annie isn't particularly sane and I understood a long time ago that there's nothing that can really heal what is wrong inside of her. I don't know if what she's suffering from has to do solely with her experiences during the Games and with losing Finnick or if it's something she had within her all her life and the traumas of her life triggered it early or made it worse. I suspect it's something she was born with, since I see similar tendencies in Crest. It bothers me, seeing Finnick's only child like that.

We're only meant to stay two more nights with Annie and Crest. The second week of our trip is to be spent with my mother. I've been looking forward to coming to see her. It's been a long time since our last meeting in person and just hearing her voice over the phone can't quite replace her physical presence. She's getting older, in fact she will be turning sixty in a few years, and her hair is more silver now than it is blonde. Still, all things considered she's well-looking for her age and background. She still works as a nurse at the big District 4 hospital, running the pre- and post-surgical department. I know she loves it and that she flourishes here and I'm happy for her.

Earlier today we met with her to have lunch. She wanted to speak with us before we came over on Saturday and she had been hinting lately over the phone that she has some news to share. I've been getting my hopes up that she has finally decided to retire from her job and come back home to District 12. She could continue working there if she wants to but I would be very happy just to have her around. It's been well over a decade since Prim died and she has been to visit several times and seems to be okay with being in the district. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd long for my mother to move back again but the more I've discussed the possibility with Peeta the more excited I've become.

But her news was not that she's retiring and moving to Twelve. Her news is that she's met a man and she's getting remarried. His name is Gavin Goldman and he's a physical therapist born in District 1. They met ten years ago and became friends and over time friendship grew to love and now marriage. Gavin moved in with her a few months ago which is why she wanted to have lunch with us before we come over for our stay, so that we'd be prepared for his presence.

I didn't take it very well. In fact you might say I took it horribly. It came as such a shock to me that I almost couldn't find my words at first. Then I completely lost my cool and picked a huge fight before storming out of the restaurant. She had picked a place near the beach, about two kilometers from Annie's home so I stormed off to the shoreline and headed in that direction but when I reached the house I hadn't even almost walked off enough steam so I just kept going. I'm not sure how far I went in the end but eventually I ran out of energy and slumped down on the dunes, thankful that I was at a secluded part of the beach and no one else was around. I haven't moved from that spot since, even though at least five hours must have passed. In my anger I didn't think to bring anything with me, not even my purse, but I'm sure Peeta took all of that with him before he left. He didn't follow me outside, probably staying to try and smooth things over with his mother-in-law.

For a while now I've been wondering if he's worried about me since I've been out for so long. I just can't seem to get up from my spot and walk back to the house. It's a long walk and once I get inside Annie and her sister will probably have some questions that I can't deal with right now. I really ought to get moving anyway. The sun sets slowly in District 4 during summer but it will still be dark before I get back.

Then suddenly I see a person coming towards me. Even at a distance and in the dusky light I can tell that it's Peeta. I can recognize him from just the shadow he casts or from his silhouette. The way he moves and the shape of him and even the sound of his steps are ingrained into my mind on a subconscious level after all these years. Still to this day I'm always aware of where he is when he's around me. I'm always making sure I know that he's safe and sound and I can't really relax otherwise. Now I see him slowly approach me, carrying his right shoe in one hand, the waves washing away his footprints behind him. Seeing him makes me feel better, if only just by a little bit.

"Hey" I manage when he gets closer.

"We're missing dinner" he tells me as he approaches. "Didn't think I'd see the day when you would miss both lunch and dinner voluntarily."

"Yeah, well, I'm not that hungry" I mutter, turning my eyes back to the ocean.

"Still got to eat, though" he says simply, sitting down beside me. "You okay?"

Sometimes I marvel at how stupid his questions can be. Does he even have to ask? It would be so easy to take my anger out on him right now but I can't bring myself to do it. I don't' want to argue with him. I'm not particularly looking to feel better either because I don't want to feel good about what my mother told me today, but now that he's here I want for us to be in this together.

"I just can't understand…" I begin, feeling my voice quiver a bit. I take a pause and swallow hard. Crying is the last thing I want to do. "How can she expect me to be okay with this? Did you hear when she said she thought I would be happy for her?"

There's a long pause before he answers and it makes me feel prickly. The pause probably means that he disagrees with me and is trying to find the right way to tell me as much. I don't want him to tell me why I'm wrong. I want him to understand me.

"It's been twenty years since your father died" he finally says. "More than that."

"Yeah" I say shortly, ready to snap at him if he so much as implies that I should be okay with my mother's new marriage because of that time-span.

"After twenty years I didn't expect her to start a new relationship either."

I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding. He looks at me and pulls his long-sleeved sweater over his head, holding the garment out to me.

"Here. You're cold, or you're about to be."

"Well what about you?" I mumble, but I'm already pulling the sweater over my head. It's too big for me but it's soft and warm and it smells of Peeta. He shrugs a little, letting me know he doesn't mind being without the garment.

"She didn't expect to find a new relationship either" Peeta continues after a moment. "She told me as much after you left. It just sort of…"

"Snuck on up on her?" I ask in a surly tone, remembering Finnick and a conversation we once had.

"Something like that." Peeta pauses again, looking out over the ocean. He turns his eyes towards me every ten seconds or so but only for brief glances. He probably knows I don't want too much eye-contact right now. "She really tried to sell me on the guy. Couldn't stop talking about what a great man he is."

"Who cares if he's a great man?" I mutter, grabbing a fistful of sand and letting it slowly pass through my fingers.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, Peeta patiently waiting for me to open up. On one hand I'm starting to feel that I desperately want to do just that but on the other hand I don't even know where to begin with how to put what I'm feeling into words.

"I just…" I begin, but stop immediately when I feel myself welling up. I turn my eyes upward and away from Peeta, hoping to keep the tears at bay. I hate myself for having this reaction. I'm afraid I will only come off as a child throwing a tantrum. I draw a shaky breath and manage to steady my voice. "How can she just… move on and marry some physical therapist? What the hell is a physical therapist, anyway? Some ridiculous Capitol profession. We've done superbly without those in the districts all these years."

I press my lips together, furious at myself. If I'm picking on his job out of all things then my case must sound even weaker. The wind picks up a bit, blowing a whiff of sand at us, and I'm grateful that it gives me an excuse to wipe my eyes. Peeta still sits quietly beside me, hugging his knees. There's no sound other than the waves rolling in and the seagulls crying above us.

"Aren't you going to tell me that he makes her happy and that I should accept it and smile and be her matron of honor at the wedding, or something?" I manage.

Peeta turns his head and looks directly at me.

"No. No one says you have to like this. You shouldn't hate her for it, or hate him for that matter, nor should you cut her out of your life or anything but you can be as mad as you want to be."

"It's not that I want to be mad, it's that… What about my father? Doesn't he matter anymore?"

"I don't think she has forgotten about him" answers Peeta. "He's been gone a long time. She was a young woman when he died and now she's a few years away from being an old lady. She's been through a lot in those years and it's changed her the way it's changed all of us. If your father had lived and been here to change with her I'm sure they would still be together. But the truth is that he didn't live. She lived and she changed and now she loves this Gavin fellow."

"Yeah but she didn't live" I argue. "Not for several years. She was so devastated that she couldn't even care for her children. Her dead husband's children. It took years, and I mean years for her to function normally. And now he suddenly doesn't matter anymore? Now it's just Gavin?"

"No, I know. I know how she grieved. She did start to live again, though, and now she's in love with somebody else."

"It's not okay" I say forcefully. "I'm sorry but it's not. Not to me."

Peeta doesn't voice agreement or argue the point. I realize that most people would probably think I'm horrible for not being happy for my mother. After twenty plus years of widowhood she's finally found love and happiness again and I should wish her all the best. It's not that I don't think she deserves happiness. After everything she's suffered through I think she deserves it as much as the next person, or even more. I just can't approve of this new development. There are other ways of finding happiness.

"Katniss…" Peeta says after a while. "I don't know if this is where your biggest issue lies, or if it even has any part at all with what you're feeling, but… supporting your mother in this, or being okay with it at least, does not make you disloyal to your father."

"That has nothing to do with it" I mutter, though I know it's at least partially a lie.

In my heart and mind we have remained a family throughout the years, even though half of its members are dead. My mother cannot have another husband if that image is to remain and it does feel like a betrayal towards my father. I believe in a life beyond this one, it's something I've come to hold on to because I can't face all the death I've seen without it, and if my father's spirit is still alive on some other plane or in some other place then this has to break his heart. If my spirit after death were to know that Peeta was getting remarried I would want to die all over again.

It would probably have been different if my mother had handled my father's death in a different way. Or if she had moved on sooner. She eventually resigned herself to widowhood but I always believed that in her heart she was still married to my father. Now it feels like she's forgotten about him or moved past him. The very thought of her smiling at Gavin the way she used to smile at my father wounds me. I can't bring myself to imagine her kissing him, lying in his arms at night, feeling the way about him that a wife feels about a husband. It makes me heartsick and it feels so deeply wrong. And there is nothing I can do to stop it. Even if I were to throw a big fit and tell my mother that she had to choose between me and her fiancé it wouldn't change her feelings for him.

"I can't go there" I say sternly. "There is no way I can set one foot in that house."

"She won't sent Gavin away for the week" Peeta informs me. "She told me that, too. He doesn't have anywhere else to stay, for one, and she wants you two to get a chance to know each other."

I cringe at the thought.

"I don't even want to meet him."

"Okay."

I turn my head and meet Peeta's eyes.

"Do I have to?"

"I don't know" he tells me. "At some point I think you have to. I can think up an excuse for why we can't come to the wedding but whether we like it or not he's going to be there now until…"

"Until death parts them" I mutter. "And even then she will be Gavin's widow, if he goes first."

Peeta's hand comes to rest on top of mine. I look out over the ocean again and realize that the sun is about halfway done setting and it will probably be dark long before we get back to Annie's house. Luckily the sky is clear and it's a full moon so we'll have some light to guide us but all the same we should get going.

I fly to my feet and wrap my arms around myself, even though Peeta's sweater is keeping me nice and warm. Peeta gets up as well, brushing the sand off his pants. When I begin to walk back he falls in beside me, his right hand shoved in his pant pocket but his left hanging freely beside him, free for me to take if I want to.

"I mean it" I say after a few minutes. "I can't go to her house." I feel like I'm about to well up again. "I want to go home."

"I'll see if I can find us a train, or a hovercraft."

Suddenly I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude that I have him and that he understands me so well and accepts me fully and that, after so many years together, he truly is my other half. I wrap my arm around his waist and move closer, resting my head on his shoulder even though it's a bit uncomfortable to walk like that.

"Thank you" I say.

"Don't mention it."

I close my eyes for a second and try my best to shove away the thoughts of what I would do if I lost him. I feel so sad and small and, truthfully, offended. I feel like my mother has gone and turned my whole world upside down without even consulting me or taking my feelings into consideration. I am well aware of how selfish it is to think like that but that doesn't make much of a difference right now. For two thirds of my life my mother has been my father's widow but now she's going to be Gavin Goldman's wife. I can't fit that into my view of the world and it bothers me on more levels than I can comprehend.

Sooner or later Peeta will try and repair the damage that has been caused between my mother and I today. I know that he will. It's the kind of thing he can't resist trying to mend. I know that he acts with my best interest at heart but I can't see him being successful in this case. For now he's letting me be, and for that I'm grateful.

"Can we go home tomorrow?" I ask.

"As soon as I can arrange it" he answers.

Two days later we're sitting on our own back porch watching another sunset. It's chillier here in District 12, it's been a bad summer overall, but at least it stopped raining this afternoon. The wooden floor of the porch is still wet so we're sitting on cushions. Peeta sits by the steps leading down to the lawn, his back supported by the bannister. I sit perpendicular to him on the top step, my feet two steps further down. His arm is wrapped around my waist and I've reached up one of my hands to run slowly up and down his arm. I'm so glad to be back home. I didn't even call my mother to tell her we weren't going to come stay with her. Peeta handled that phone call. I couldn't face her disappointment because I'm not ready to feel guilty towards her yet.

"How can you fall in love with someone new?" I ask Peeta as we sit and watch the sun go down. "I totally get getting over a crush, but wanting to marry someone new? I can't comprehend it."

"Relationships end" answers Peeta. "People move on."

"I don't understand it" I say. "How can you stop loving someone?"

"I don't know. But people do, all the time. I think maybe they change and eventually they realize that the person they are now is not in love with who the other person has become. Or, if they spent enough time apart, the feelings eventually fade. Or… perhaps love just ends sometimes."

I think of Gale and how he and I were so close at one point but then evolved in entirely different ways to the point that our friendship ended. But that was different. Peeta is not exactly the same person now as he was when I fell in love with him but I still love him. There's nothing time can do to change that. My greatest fear in life is that he should die but I am absolutely certain that if I lose him tomorrow I will still be in love with him for the rest of my life, even if I live to be a hundred. I've given my heart to him, he's given his heart to me and never do I intend to give it back.

"I don't understand it" I say again. "Once you love someone you love them for life. It's not the kind of feeling that can just go away."

"Yet it does" argues Peeta. "For a lot of people. All the time. Some people fall in love several times in their life."

"No" I said, shaking my head. "I don't buy it. Something's not genuine about that. You can't have those feelings for somebody and then not feel it anymore, but instead have that feeling for someone else."

"Well, I think that's how everyone feels when they are in love…" says Peeta carefully. "That's what love is, in a sense. Inability to imagine that anybody could be as amazing as the object of your affection. Then if you start to see that person in a new light, discovering new things about them or about yourself, then that feeling could change. Instead of falling more in love each day you begin to fall out of love until it's not there anymore. Or if you lose somebody and time passes and you begin to have a new life without them… And then somebody new comes along and that person charms you and-"

"Stop talking" I say curtly. I'm feeling wounded enough as it is without hearing all about how my husband believes people can fall out of love. For me it's only ever been him and the idea of ever loving somebody other than him in the future is as foreign to me as the idea of growing a third arm or becoming a world-class painter overnight. I need for it to be that way for him too.

"For what it's worth, I don't think your mother has stopped loving your father" says Peeta. "But Katniss, he's not coming back. It took her twenty years to allow herself to move on. That should count for something."

"Eighteen years" I correct him. "She didn't fall for Gavin just last week. She shouldn't be able to fall for him at all if she still loves my father."

"But she still has needs that your father simply can't fulfill anymore" he points out. "Physical needs but also emotional needs. She grieved your father for a long time and stayed true to his memory but at some point she has to allow her life to go on."

"Yeah but that only makes it more baffling" I argue. "If losing him devastates her to the point which it did, if she couldn't fathom being with another man for almost two decades, how can she suddenly love another man? How can anything measure up to what she lost, and how could she settle for less?"

There's a pause and in the silence I can almost hear Peeta suggesting that perhaps she has been with other men in that time, only I've never known about it. The thought makes me shudder and I move back a bit to get even closer to Peeta.

"Look…" he begins carefully. "Twenty years is a long time. She was in her thirties when her husband died. There's no sense in being that young and spending the remainder of your days holding out for someone who's never going to walk through that door."

I sit up straight and turn to glare at him.

"So, what? If I die will you move on? Find somebody else?"

"I will never love anyone else like I love you" answers Peeta without missing a beat. "But I suppose love can come in different forms. I can't say whether or not I'd eventually find love with some other woman. Right now I can't imagine it being possible and if you were to die I would certainly not be open to the idea for a long time. Besides, I'm not saying that everyone can move on and find a second love. I just think it's a bit unfair of us to judge her feelings for your father, and for Gavin, when we're not in her shoes."

"But you think at some point you'd find someone else to fill my side of the bed?" My voice is cold and harsh, accusing even. I completely ignore the things he said at the end because right now I want to be reassured that he wouldn't replace me the way I feel my father has been replaced.

"I don't know" he tells me honestly. "But if I die young I would want for you to fall in love again. It breaks my heart to think about you loving someone other than me but I can't lie, I'd be much more upset if you spent the rest of your days miserable and alone than if you eventually married someone else."

I don't really care if there's some amount of sense to what he's saying, his words just make me irrationally angry. I shove his arm away from me and glare at him, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Well I happen to believe that death is not the end and that we will be reunited with our loved ones when we die" I snarl. "Good to know you don't see it the same way. It sure is a comfort to know that if I go first I might not be your wife anymore by the time you pass; I might have to compete against some new flame of yours who you no doubt love more because you've changed and grown and she loves that version of you which is now the real version of you."

"I'm confused. Katniss…"

"Hell, even if I'm not the first one to die I now know I'll have to walk around here without you, worrying that some bimbo might be busy stealing you away in the afterlife."

"Bimbo is not really my type."

"You think this is funny?"

He leans forward and wraps his arms around me. I want to protest and shove him away but I feel a strange need for his physical presence and right now I want him to comfort me and tell me I'm wrong about what I just said.

"Katniss, I just don't want you to live without love in your life" he says. "Yes, if you die before I do and I go on to live for two or three decades more then I might, at some point, fall in love again even though I can't imagine that I would. It will never be like it is with you, though. What we have is more than love, it's…"

"Soulmates" I say in a sulk tone that doesn't really fit the word or the meaning behind it. I lean in to him a little, needing his warmth even more now.

"Yeah, something like that" he says. "We have a bond that goes back to when we were still kids. We were in mutual love at seventeen. We've risked our lives for each other, repeatedly. We've seen each other through hell. And we've rebuilt our life together. No one and nothing can compare to that or compete with it and nobody could ever take your place. And I know Gavin can't compare to your father. That doesn't mean he can't bring your mother happiness. What I want for you more than anything is happiness, which is why I wouldn't want you to turn away from a chance at loving again if you lost me."

"But I would always be in love with you" I point out. "How can I feel this way about more than one person?"

He shrugs and releases me from his embrace, leaning back against the bannister again.

"That's just life, Katniss. Don't ask me how, but people do get over someone they've loved. In the case of being separated by death I guess the feelings change in nature over the years. You shouldn't be so hard on your mother."

I sit back the way I was seated before, grabbing his arm to wrap it around myself again. I think of what he's saying and I suppose it makes sense on some theoretical level but to me it's incomprehensible. I know I oughtn't to judge, people are different and obviously some people can fall in love several times during their lifetime and I have no way of knowing how deep that love goes. I just can't work my head around it because my own heart doesn't work like that at all. Maybe it's as Peeta says, that everything we've been through has bound us together in a way that differs from normality. But my issue with my mother's new love still remains. If she loved my father so deeply then how could she get over him? If what she feels for Gavin isn't as strong as her love for my father was then how could she marry him? I understand needing companionship and I can understand having an infatuation, but marriage is something else entirely. When I married Peeta we were, in my eyes, bound together for eternity. Death would not part us definitively, only temporarily.

"No" I say with a light shake of my head. "I'm sorry but I don't understand it. And I can't give it my blessing. He may be her husband soon but he will never be my step-father or family member."

"Okay" says Peeta, allowing me that much.

My hand goes to my stomach, resting over the spot where our thirteen weeks old fetus is growing. I was so eager to tell my mother the news about the baby. For the most part this whole procreation thing frightens me, but when I've thought about sharing the news with my mother I've always been excited. She's my mom, after all, and I want her to celebrate this new addition to the family with me. I was hoping so badly that she was coming to live here in Twelve and would be there to support me through the pregnancy, assist me during the birth and help us out once the baby has arrived. I'm feeling heartsick over the loss of that fantasy. Perhaps she would come to live here once she finds out about it but now I no longer want her to. My mother moving here now also means Gavin moving here. I don't want any reminders of his existence, much less having him live here, in this district, where my mother married my father. I want to try as best I can to forget about Gavin and childishly pretend like nothing has changed.

"He might become my mother's husband…" I continue. "But he is not going to be our baby's grandfather. I don't want this child to as much as think the thought. I don't want this child to meet him at all." I don't even dare to glance up at my husband. "Am I horrible? Unreasonable?"

"Our baby has a grandfather" replies Peeta softly. "Haymitch even promised to stop drinking once the baby arrives, though I'll believe that when I see it." His hand caresses my stomach lovingly. "And we will tell our boy or girl about the two grandfathers up in heaven. Our child will know their names and know their faces from my paintings and know that they are his or her grandfathers."

I sigh heavily and lean closer to Peeta, resting my head against his upper arm. I will never understand how a person can get over someone they love and fall in love with somebody new. I will most certainly never understand how my mother can let somebody else take my father's place. Maybe I will feel differently a few months or years down the line but right now I'm even irrationally jealous of the hypothetical woman Peeta might hypothetically love someday down the line if I should die young. And I can't stop wondering what my father must be feeling wherever he is today.

"Peeta…" I say. "Please don't ever stop loving me."

"I promise. I think history has proven that I can't stop loving you, even when I'm brainwashed, so I'd say you're safe."

I smile slightly. My thoughts go to the child growing inside of me. It occurs to me that perhaps when the baby arrives I can begin to let go of that family I've been holding on to all these years. I already have a new family with Peeta and Haymitch but my family of birth has been something different from that. Now I have the chance to move past that and begin something new. This baby will never know his or her maternal grandfather and aunt, nor any paternal relatives. This baby will only know its father, mother and Grandpa Haymitch. And I pray that this family unit will hold for a long, long time.

I gave my heart to Peeta. He gave his to me. And I shall never, ever give it back.

I've done re-writes on the second scene several times, trying to get the tone right. I didn't want Katniss to seem too judgmental of people who love more than once and I didn't want Peeta to sound like he thinks he could easily love somebody other than her. I don't know if it ended up working in the end but I would love some feedback!