Full Summary: MOCKINGJAY SPOILERS!
Katniss Everdeen has been restricted to District 12 indefinitely. While this is no hardship, recovering from her losses and lack of complete sanity is more of a hardship than she'd like. With the help of Peeta Mellark, Katniss begins to recover her life, one step at a time. The Girl on Fire is no more. She's little more now, than a glowing ember – the signs of life so present, but so small.
DISCLAIMER: Suzanne Collins owns the location, the plot, the characters. I only hope to shed some light on events that might have followed between the end of the book and the beginning of the epilogue.
Recovering from the events of the war against the Capitol is a daily process; for Peeta and myself. I still feel like that girl, sometimes, the one who hunted in the woods, and made dandelion salads, and survived as best I could with my family. Mostly I still feel like that howling beast they dragged off to confinement after I shot Coin. Sometimes, I just stare at a wall, and think of the people I've killed, not just the ones who died at my hands.
Peeta says it's not unusual, but he has his bad days too.
There are days when I watch him bake, and those broad shoulders stiffen or hunch. Sometimes I can reach him and hold him. Sometimes he's forgotten, once again, who I truly am. Those are the very bad days, because Peeta has always been my wall and stability. When he's remembered who I am, we pass the rest of the day just holding each other, and wait for the pain to pass.
It's only been a few months since he came back to me, but already his presence has improved my life. I still grieve, but this being Peeta, I never grieve alone. I talk, and he draws and paints, and between the two of us, our pain is slowly being confined to a book that sits on the shelf beside my parents' book. These words, these private pages, go into a book of my own. I don't want anyone to forget the cost of violence, or what it takes to recover.
Gale once asked me how different it would be, taking a human life. I once reflected that it was identical in the execution, but completely different in the aftermath. Now I know for certain how I would answer him, if we could speak now.
The squirrels and rabbits and deer….they serve their purpose, and I do not mourn their loss. I give their remains back to the earth, and am satisfied. The people who have died….they never leave.
I have forgotten what the sound of Prim's laugh sounded like. I will never forget Cato's screams.