Okay, the last of my story.. I want to thank everyone for their loving reviews, I really liked to write this story :) I hope I have made some of you very happy by offering an alternative ending which is more believable for some, at least it was for me. Sigh, Gale and Katniss are such a great couple...

Epilogue

They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl. The boy with the looks of someone from the old Seam, dark hair and grey eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. When the girl turns to tickle her little brother, you can get the full appreciation of her long blond curls and blue eyes. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Gale wanted them so badly. He kept reminding me of our conversation the morning of the fatal reaping. I had said that I didn't want to have children because I was afraid that the Hunger Games might take them. He promised me that any child of mine, of this time, could grow up in peace and surrounded by love. Still, when I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much.

District 12 has changed. Whole Panem has changed. Under the fair leadership of president Paylor, new organizations and buildings have risen. Good schools for children. Decent hospitals. Orphans have been adopted. Still it's hard for the people to get used to the possibilities we have. District 12 still feels like they have to provide the coal, District 4 still fishes, District 1 is still in love with everything that glimmers. President Paylor does as much as she can to even the work over all the districts. People can travel to any district as they please. There's enough employment. The Capitol had to be build from the scratch. Transport had to be improved and so on. Gale and I did our part as well. We don't hunt anymore. Since people have started to breed chickens, turkeys, etc., it's not necessary anymore. Gale got a job in communications, taking care of telephone lines. He really started to get animated when he got a book in hands that had been lying around in a great library in the Capitol. It learned about how people used to communicate with each other and Gale talked about airwaves and little machines that could send messages, but I didn't understand what he was talking about so I just let him be.

Me, I teach children at school about plants and when my mother comes over to teach about medicine, I try to assist her, not trying to fill my sister's place. My mother is totally in love with my children. When my daughter was just a baby, she took her in her arms and cried her eyes out, the baby-blue eyes locked in hers. She's still not living in 12 but it is just because the hospital in Four takes a lot of her time. She comes over as much as she can.

Peeta's a different case. He also still lives in Four. Helping in the hospital. A few weeks after Gale and I got together, I collected all my courage and dialled his number. He answered the phone. He seemed pleased to hear my voice, but he didn't want me to come over to Four. Sometimes, he visited me in Twelve. Mostly when Gale was gone for work. They have never become friends. As for me, we're working on it. I want to have his friendship back. Still, I find it harder to call him every year. When I speak to him, every time a conversation flashes before my eyes, my first conversation with him after he was rescued. The words keep ringing in my head: "Well, you're a piece of work, aren't you?" How I walked away, upset. He was right of course.

My character has many flaws. He has always accepted those, but maybe my yelling was over the edge. Unjustifiable. He was the one who needed sympathy, not me. His love for me has always been wasted. He just had the possibility to see the whole of me, to know the real me, from every side. And he had to decide if I was worth loving. Apparently not. I'm glad he walked away when he first came to visit me in Twelve after we'd won. It was for the best for him.

He's found himself a nice girl in Four. I think her name is Tess. She's what he has deserved: friendly, good-natured, just like him. But first and foremost: she's a good shoulder to cry on for him. I know this because at some moments, when Peeta doesn't want to talk to me, I talk with her. I don't think she's actually fond of me, but I don't care, as long as she's fond of Peeta.

Although Gale and I don't hunt anymore, we still visit the woods often with our children. It's not like we are teaching them how to survive in the woods, but we feel like we have to show them how their parents used to live. My daughter loves the lake. She knows about the importance to me, knows her grandpa had something to do with it. Gale is teaching her how to swim while I watch them with my son. He wants to swim too but I think he's too young.

My children have started to grow fast. The questions about their parents lives are just beginning. The arenas have been completely destroyed, the memorials built, there are no more Hunger Games. But they teach about them and about the rebellion at school, and the girl knows we played a role in them. The boy will know in a few years. How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death? My children, who take the words of the song for granted:

Deep in the meadow, under the willow

A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes

And when again they open, the sun will rise.

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard you from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings

them true

Here is the place where I love you.

My children, who don't know they play on a graveyard.

Gale says it will be OK. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I'll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won't ever really go away.

I'll tell them how I survived it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.

But there are much worse games to play.

Please review! Let me know if you liked the story :D