- ASHES -

This is my fan-fiction on what happens after Mockingjay by COLLINS. I couldn't accept that that was it. I wanted to go the store and by what would be the fourth book in the phenomenal series. Even if it was just about the healing process of Peeta and Katniss and how Katniss finally allows herself to realize her love for Peeta.

I don't own any of the production values or characters.

Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?"

I tell him, "Real."

I look into his eyes and know he knows that it's true, it is real. It has been a constant battle within myself to admit it, that I love him, all-throughout the Hunger Games. The night's I held the pearl he gave me in the bunker's in 13; I thought about it. Thought about it when Prim asked me if I loved him. Turning that pearl in my hands, over and over. Asking myself, Do I love Peeta?. I have never said it allowed but I've got to try. Even Gale was aware of this during my attempted mission to find Snow and kill him in the Capitol. When we were hiding away in Tigris's shop. I would choose the one I cannot survive without and everyone knew that it was Peeta, except me.

I've loved him since the day I picked up the Dandelion at school and only now, through everything we've gone through I realize this. Through the warming kisses he gives me that leaves that stirring feeling deep within my soul, leaving me hungry for more. Yes, I finally feel as though I am going to be okay. He hold's me in his arms, protecting me from the past and my nightmare's. I slowly drift off into a sleepy haze...

I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming about Prim. Prim, with my father's cool air and my mother's calmness as she tends to wounds. Mature and womanly, in her small figure. I'm reaching out for her, to hold her but she's running away from me and I'll never catch her.

I can feel myself starting to squirm and Peeta tightens his hold around me.

"You're okay Katniss," I hear him say into my ear, "It's just a dream." He gently runs his hand down my arm. I feel instant relief and open my eyes.

"I dreamed about Prim. I was running after her and couldn't catch her." I choke back tears, that fall anyway. Peeta brushes them away.

"Perhaps, she is trying to tell you something. We'll talk about it more tomorrow, close your eyes." He comforts me. That's what he's good at, dealing with thing's so calmly. I decide he is right and turn onto my side, where he turns too and cuddles me - holding me.

"Never let go." I whisper.

"I'll never let go. I'll always find my way back to you. Right here, this is where I belong."

Before I close my eyes to sleep again, Peeta fighting off the nightmares. I realize, I was the girl on fire, the mockingjay, now raising out of the Ashes.