Peeta and I watch our children dance in the Meadow. Our little girl, with long dark hair and Peeta's blue eyes, dances with her younger brother. He has curly blond hair and my grey eyes. He struggles to keep up with her on his toddler legs. After eight years I finally agreed. I knew being the mother of his children would bring me a joy like no other. Still, when I told Peeta I was pregnant, I cried for two reasons. His tears were purely from happiness; it was clear from the way he scooped me up into his arms and spun me around, wearing the biggest smile in the world. When I felt her moving inside me, I experienced contrasting emotions of terror and excitement. My hands would shake as I rested them on my stomach, eyes wide. At times my heart would thump in anticipation. Because the only thing holding me back from agreeing for so long was the old lingering fear of my children being reaped for the Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games. Finally they are over for ever. The arenas have been completely destroyed. They teach about it at school, and our girl knows we played a role in them. Once Prim's children are old enough, they will learn about it too. Prim and Rory Hawthorne fell in love around 4 years after the Capitol was brought down. Years later, she fell pregnant with twins. I moved into Peeta's house in the Victor's Village. Rory moved in with Prim at the Everdeen house, where they now live with their children. I see Prim every day. She's even more beautiful grown up, and slightly taller than me. I like that we all live so close, it makes me feel that life will be good now.
Our mother moved into one of the other available houses in the Victor's Village. It brings a smile to my face to say that she, too, found happiness again. She met a doctor working at the new District 12 hospital where she is a nurse, and Prim is a trainee doctor. Peeta and I have met him many times now. His name is Adam. Even Buttercup's still around, but he's old and spends his life sleeping, only getting up to eat before dragging himself back to his previous position. I know he will hang on as long as he can, for Prim. She still loves him to pieces.
The last time I saw Gale was when he found out I was engaged to Peeta. He made an unexpected visit to our house. I expected him to give us a grudging farewell, a forced smile maybe. But he congratulated us and genuinely wished us well, telling us he was starting a new life in District Two. "Way to go, Catnip," he'd said. "I'm going to miss you. Take care of yourself." He gave me his bow and arrow, and even gave Peeta his best wishes. He did say he would come back to visit sometime, though I wasn't holding my breath. I couldn't help thinking at least part of the reason he decided to leave was because of me and Peeta. Can't be anything worse than watching the person you love marrying someone else. But somehow I know he will be OK. He will meet someone new, fall in love again. I miss him, but I've moved on now. And so will he.
Peeta has made a full and complete recovery from his tracker-jacker hijacking. It was a long process, taking around 18 months. Soon after the night I told him I loved him for real, between myself, Prim, and my mother, we helped conjure a medicine at the new factory of our district. It was made up of a combination of healing herbs that drew out the poison from his system over the course of several months. A main ingredient was the leaves that draw out infection, the ones Rue used on my stings in the arena. I refused anything invasive for him, such as surgery. Because if that went wrong, there would be no going back, and I was not about to risk losing Peeta for ever.
As the poison was being drawn out of him he suffered through night-sweats, insomnia, headaches, fatigue, and stomach pains. For a time, when he did manage to sleep, his nightmares got worse and he would scream his head off. His flashbacks seemed more intense as I watched him struggle to keep a hold on reality. But we comforted each other. We played "Real or Not Real". And over time his confusion between what was real and what wasn't slowly faded away completely. The flashbacks stopped. His memories returned to normal. That part was the hardest. I got a hold of the tape of the 74th Hunger Games, and we would sit alone together in front of the television, holding each other throughout. Each time a scene came up that triggered him – such as when I unleashed the tracker jacker nest on him and the Careers - I would take his face in my hands, look into his eyes and remind him of the truth. That I love him. That I was only acting from self-defence, out of fear that he was going to kill me. And I would watch as his dilated pupils slowly returned to normal. Every night for months we would do this. It became our routine. 7pm, dinner. 9pm, the tape.
Eventually, his pupils stopped dilating with fear. He stopped trembling. His hands stopped turning into fists. His jaw stopped clenching. Instead of feeling afraid after watching the tape, he started to kiss me. That was when I knew it would be OK. Deep down, I knew that already, since the night I told him I loved him for real. Because if he still hated me that night, he would never have stayed with me. And if he didn't hate me then, he had already made progress.
And, sooner than I expected, he remembered everything he felt before the hijacking, before all the torture. He transformed back into his normal self. The real Peeta. The happy, funny, witty Peeta, who loved me unconditionally. It's not so much that he fell back in love with me as it was him simply remembering how he felt before. But the result is the same.
Because, although Snow had messed with his memories of the Games, he could not touch our connection beforehand. Him throwing me the bread, my singing in music assembly and his father pointing me out to him the first day of school – those memories were untouchable. Because they were between Peeta and I. No-one else. Not Panem, not anyone. A part of me already knew that before, back when he hated me and thought I was a mutt. He hated me and yet he still remembered about the bread. It didn't give me any hope back then, but now, it means everything. Now I know it was proof that not all his memories had been poisoned. Snow didn't know Peeta and I had that connection before the Games. And now I see that without that connection, we might not be where we are today.
Knowing Peeta came back to me has given me hope that one day we will all heal from all the pain and loss and horror that ensued because of my stunt with the berries. We still remember. But we carry on.
We got married on a summer's day at the Victor's Village, on the flowered meadow ringed by the twelve Victor's houses. It was a beautiful ceremony, from what I could see of it through my tears. Tears of happiness, tears of sadness over the faces I wanted to see there. Faces I would never see again. Like Gale. I knew he wouldn't be there. But my family was there, and Greasy Sae. Even Haymitch showed up. He wasn't half-cut, either. At least, not until the reception. Peeta and I sealed our marriage with the tradition of our district, the toasting. After that, it was complete. We were joined together. Husband and wife. Sometimes I sit and twist the gold wedding ring round my finger, thinking about how I got to this moment. If there were never any Hunger Games, would I be sitting here, married to Peeta Mellark? Who would I be married to right now if things were different? But those are questions I don't care to answer.
In the town, new shops have been built, although some areas are still being built. But there is a new bakery. Peeta now owns it and has employed people to help him run it. Sometimes I come in and help, and if our kids are good we give them treats from there. We spoil them, really. But that's OK. At the new medicine factory, a special burn treatment was developed that is used to heal burn scars and skin marks, much like the full body polish in the Capitol. When my bodily burns faded away after applying the medicine, I felt strange. Because the memories still remain, even if the scars do not. Peeta asked me to apply the medicine onto his forehead for him, where the burns singed off his eyebrows. After his burns vanished and all his skin was healed and flawless again, they grew back in. It was almost like turning back time. I like that there is no longer a constant reminder of the fierce flames. We are no longer fire mutts. But no amount of full body polish can wipe away what happened.
When I'm not helping in the bakery, I work as a singer/songwriter. I write about those I love. I write about Prim. I write about Rue. My children. I was never much good with the healing thing, anyway. That's always been more Prim's specialty. Sometimes I sing for the schoolchildren in assemblies, but only because they keep requesting me to come again and again. I don't do it for the money; I already have more than my share of that, for being a victor. Every time I sing in the assemblies, Peeta comes to see me. He says it reminds him of when he fell in love with me. He begged me to learn the Valley song again so that he could hear me sing it in front of everyone. So I did. His applause lasted the longest. Plus I enrolled for the singing program Plutarch Heavensbee launched when I returned to District Twelve back when Paylor had just been voted in as president.
I also teach some of the schoolchildren how to hunt with a bow and arrow in after-school classes. The lessons take place in the woods outside District 12. They became popular unexpectedly quickly, so instead of once a week, I now hold lessons three times a week after school. Even some of the teachers wanted to learn. One in particular took a shine to me; he tried to get me to give him private lessons and started looking at me a lot. Made endless excuses to talk to me. Of course, I declined the private lessons. It wasn't until he saw me with Peeta after I sang for the children in their assembly one day that he took the hint and backed off. The funny thing was, Peeta was so nice to him that he retreated even further, as if he thought there was some underlying threat beneath a mask of friendliness, which wasn't the case at all. But Peeta did hold my hand tighter after that. Making sure everyone around knew I was very much taken.
Haymitch still lives nearby, still alone, still drunk. Peeta regularly drops by there with a fresh loaf of bread, even though Haymitch barely acknowledges him at the best of times. But it's impossible to abandon him, as after all he is the main reason we are alive. My daughter sometimes asks about the "drunk, lonely neighbour man" and Peeta and I look at each other warily before I say, "When you're older, sweetheart." Often, she asks if she can visit him. She has Peeta's warm heart of gold, so sensitive and caring, even when it comes to people like Haymitch, who don't appreciate spontaneous visits from giggling children.
I promise myself I will teach her to hunt when she's older, along with her little brother. I want them to become skilled hunters, able to survive in the wild like I did in the Hunger Games. Just in case. No-one can predict the future. But for now, it looks hopeful.
At night, I often dream of all the lives that were lost because we won the Games. Some nights, they aren't even nightmares, and I'm left to wake up feeling confused. I don't know what's worse - the nightmares or the other dreams. Dreams where Rue is alive and well, singing her mockingjay song. Lovely Cinna designing my Capitol outfits so effortlessly. Finnick holding his newborn baby. Was it better to have a brief moment of happiness on waking up? Or was it worse to wake up happy only to remember it all? To deal with the memories, every day I make a list in my head of all the things I'm grateful for. I think of my family. And Peeta.
When I'm sick or tired, he takes care of me. When I feel down, he tells me how much he loves me. When I'm scared, he's there to hold me and protect me. I belong to him and he belongs to me. And I do the same for him. After all we've been through it couldn't have been any other way.
When we start to feel a chill in the air, Peeta and I take our kids back home, into the warmth. I start a fire, and Peeta bakes a warm hearty loaf of bread while I prepare supper. When we both tuck the children into bed, I sing them to sleep while Peeta twirls the end of my braid and listens quietly. After they're asleep, I look at him and realise he looks the almost the same as he did when we were 16. Ashy blond hair hanging in waves over his forehead, the same blue eyes. Just like always. He's looking down, then he glances up and his eyes lock with mine.
"I can't imagine anywhere in the world I would rather be right now, than here with you."
"Shh, the kids will hear you," I say. But I'm smiling, and he responds in kind.
"Katniss, I'm serious." He says, taking my hand, touching my ring. He turns my hand over and puts something small and cold into it. I open my palm and see another ring, this time with a jewel on it. I inspect it more closely.
"Diamond," says Peeta, answering my silent question.
I was speechless.
"Peeta…" I begin, trailing off.
"You're the most precious thing in my whole life. I wanted to show you a just a piece of how special and irreplaceable you are. This doesn't even begin to explain it, but I have to start somewhere."
"I don't know what to say…" I whisper.
"Why don't you put it on?" he suggests. When I do nothing, he takes the ring from me and slides it onto my wedding ring finger, until it rests right above my gold ring. Diamond and gold.
"Thank you. It's so beautiful," I say.
"We're going to be all right, you know," says Peeta.
"I know. And so will the children," I say.
Just before I go to sleep that night with Peeta holding me in his arms, he says, "No nightmares." And when I start dreaming I know he is right, because in them I see my father.
My father tells me, in our spot by the lake, that I chose right. That I chose the future he would have wanted for me. The woods suddenly go very quiet, as if even the trees are listening. He hands me a dandelion, kisses me on the forehead, and disappears into the trees. The dream ends.
When I wake up, outside the window I see a mockingjay.