Start with the things you know to be true. My name is Katniss Mellark. I am 39 years old. My home is district 12. Peeta is my husband. We have two children. I was the Mockingjay. Haymitch is my friend. The cadence of these words rolls through my head as I scrub the aging wooden floorboards of Haymitch's kitchen. My back is starting to cramp from a morning spent cleaning first our house and then his. I turn to look in the mirror and give a mirthless chuckle. The knees of my pants are wet and the hair that can be seen peeking out from under the kerchief I used to cover it this morning is sticking to my forehead and neck. Panem would laugh if they could see their Mockingjay now, but they likely never will again. I am no longer the beautiful girl on fire thanks to my scars both physical from the bombing and mental from the games and then from my service to Coin. All of Panem loved us as long as we could be the perfect couple to represent first the victors and then the revolution. Once broken, we were better left out of sight and out of mind so that the rest of the country could move on. The dead are easier to accept than the living as the carnage of war.
Picking up my bucket of suds and water I make my way through the quiet rooms. There is still plentiful evidence that Haymitch drinks too much but Peeta and I have gone a long way toward making his house a home. There is clean furniture in every room and actual food in his refrigerator. Most notably, portraits of our family in every stage of life adorn his walls. Peeta and I as a young teenage couple holding hands beside the lake. Those same hands holding small pieces of bread before a fire. Peeta's face utterly focused on a cake he is putting the finishing touches on. My own look of concentration as I pull back an arrow in the forest. Me in a simple but loose fitting sundress, my hand on my belly, in the late stages of pregnancy. A baby girl with her mother's raven hair sticking up comically straight while her wide little blue eyes peer out at the world. Above the fireplace, a sprawling landscape with a spirited young girl frolicking through the meadow with a smaller version of her father running after her. They are all beautiful thanks to my husband's gifted eye and talented hand. It has taken me a long time to realize that we were finally able to give Haymitch what he always needed: a girl and boy that he can mentor without ever having to send to the games.
The thought of the games makes my heart pick up and I am filled with a sudden desire to see Peeta. I need to touch him and make sure that he is ok. I have been assigned to district 12 and have never been cleared to leave but he is free to do as he chooses. He has chosen to spend every day since his return with me. We often go our separate ways during the day but are not comfortable being apart for more than a few hours. I sleep in his arms every night. I think back to the cave when seeing and touching the other meant that you were still alive too; Or to the lightning tree when we were only to be separated until midnight. I do not think our hearts or minds have ever really left the arena.
I dump my cleaning bucket off of the back porch and head down the narrow lane. It will be lunch time soon and Peeta will be coming back home with the children. I always thought that if Prim or I were to have a baby it would be delivered by my mother. It took years of him loving me and reassuring me that it was safe for me to take the chance but in the end I could not bare the thought of Peeta not going on because of me. When we conceived I called my mother but she didn't come. Instead, both of our babies were delivered into Peeta's strong and capable hands with Haymitch getting drunk in the next room.
I hear a mockingjay off in the distance and my eyes fly to the woods. If this were 25 years ago Gale would be there setting his snare line. I haven't heard from him since my return to 12 and it has been long enough now that I can admit to myself that I miss him. Peeta tries to talk about him but I refuse. He goes to the bar in town regularly to socialize with the other men and to watch the programming that comes from the capitol and the other districts. He has told me that he has seen Gale on television and that he would like to tell me what my old friend is up to when I am ready. I will never be ready. I prefer Gale as he is: a memory of a boy from my youth that I loved. I want that boy to be the real Gale, not some man with a fancy job in another district that I do not know.
The children are helping their father at the pasture this afternoon and I smile as I see the three of them coming across the meadow. Our daughter skips ahead swinging a stick in the air and singing loudly. Our son is perched on his father's shoulders, his chubby toddler legs tiring from the walk to and from where the sheep are grazing. Peeta looks up at me and my heart feels lighter. He grew two more inches after returning from the capital once his diet was regular again. He was thrilled but it made me angry to see my adult husband still struggling to grow to maturity well past the usual age because he was so stunted by the trauma of the games, his captivity, his torture, the war. As he nears me I take a moment to really look at the changes the years have brought. He is slightly taller than me with broad shoulders and strong arms. His chest is thick and his face is as boyishly handsome as ever. He spends a lot more time outdoors now than he did when his family still owned the bakery and as a result his skin has taken on a dark tan and his hair has lightened to almost platinum.
Peeta still receives a monthly income from the government for his service in the war but do not use it. Instead, it sits in an account in the one bank that district 12 manages to support for the day when our children may need it. When we returned home we had too many mixed feelings about our roles in the war to want to build a future out of the blood money we received for it. We opted for a simple life of spending time together healing our wounds and then teaching our respective traditional trades and ways of life to our children. I hunt and Peeta bakes. We sell extra game and bread to get the other things that we need. We both spend hours harvesting and splitting the wood needed to heat our home in the winter and tending the garden that grows our vegetables in the spring. Although I can easily supply us with all of the meat that we need Peeta insists on raising sheep in a pasture across from the meadow so that he can make me the lamb stew I loved so much in the capital.
He never fully regained all of his memories. Even now our time in the games together is still blurry for him. We never speak of it during the daylight hours but at night after our bodies have calmed from the strenuous but delicious task of pleasuring each other he holds me close and asks me the same old questions of real or not real. It is not ideal, but my mind holds the memory of the games and the victory tour for both of us. I still have the pearl and it reminds me that the boy who gave it to me never came back from the capital. The man sleeping beside me each night is a different Peeta, one with more scars but just as much hope and love as always.
I still have nightmares about Cato and Clove, and the Cornucopia. When I wake I am trapped in my 16 year old mind for several minutes and sometimes do not recognize the body of the man who reaches out to hold me. He is much too large and hairy to be my Peeta, but then I smell his scent and hear his voice. I relax in his embrace and know that my boy with the bread has decided to stay. I remember standing in front of the Presidential Palace and listening to President Snow announce that Peeta and I's love had inspired Panem and that it would go on inspiring them every day for as long as we both lived. He was looking straight at me as he said the words and I knew that they were meant to punish me, to force me to spend the rest of my days living a lie for the sake of the capital. It is strange to me that after all was said and done the showmance with Peeta was the only thing in my life that was real.
The sun is high in the sky by the time I meet him in the meadow and if it were not for the cool breeze the day would be stifling. It is one of the last hot days of summer and I know the leaves will be turning soon brining yet another change of season. He kisses me and we walk hand in hand back to our home. In some ways it seems off to live in the Victor's Village since it is the house I received from the capital for winning the games, but it is also the house I received for surviving together against all odds with the man I love and in that way it seems right. So many of the people we loved are buried here but it is blooming with plants and flowers once again. Shortly after our return Peeta went to gather seeds from the wildflowers that grow on the edge of the forest and brought them to scatter over the mass grave. It took time but the meadow is beautiful again and teeming with life. I see my children chase each other with loud shrieks of laughter and think about the fluttering feeling I am beginning to have from my womb again. Gale and I were always skilled in the arts of destruction, of hunting and fighting. Peeta is a force of creation, of baking and painting. He is my dandelion in the spring. He has sown new life into the meadow and into me too.