Peeta doesn't notice the ring right away. He makes breakfast early. He drinks black coffee as he washes a skillet in the sink. I braid my hair and watch him out of the corner of my eye. We dress in our work clothes and head down to the construction site.
We're installing doors and windows today. Peeta's been preoccupied making sure the display window in the front is just right. We only had standard window panes in district and we had to wait weeks for the large pane of glass to arrive from the Capitol. He and Thom framed up the space last week. Peeta heads inside the framework of the bakery and positions himself on one side of the window. He sticks his tongue out at me playfully while I stand outside. The pane is lowered between us and for a moment I remember standing here with Prim looking at all the pretty cakes in the window. Peeta gives me a soft smile and I think he's there in his mind too. She's still here with us, even if she's not.
It's when we are settling the glass pane into place - Peeta on the inside looking out at me, me outside looking in – that his glance falls to my hand. The ring glimmers in the pale, November sunlight.
"Katniss," he mouths, but I can't hear him through the glass. His eyes are wide when he looks back up at me. His hand presses against the window and for a minute I remember watching him in the hospital, wishing for him to come back to me. I lift my hand and place is across from his, the glint of sunlight reflecting off the sheen of the metal band. Peeta sprints from where he is, dashing behind the wall. I watch as the bakery door we just installed is slammed open carelessly, as if it has no importance in the world other than the crime of keeping us apart.
"Hey Peet, what's going on?" Thom asks, but Peeta doesn't look away from me. He steps forward.
"Really?" he asks, his voice so eager I can't help but smile. I nod. "Really?" he says again.
"Yeah," I smile and he sweeps me into his arms and lifts me in the air. The entire work crew is staring but for once, I don't care. It's not a nation of strangers. It's the people we've grown up with. It's the people that are putting this world back together, that are putting our world back together.
"You want to marry me, Katniss Everdeen?" he whispers, looking up at me.
"Mmhmm," I nod.
He loosens his grip and I slide down his body slowly until my feet touch the ground. He presses his mouth to mine and I find that warmth, that steadiness that has encouraged me, that has told me I'm worth being loved. The crew disperses and for a moment I remember us still on the dance floor while the world spun around us. I'm living in memories this morning, but the only way I know how to move forward is to look back and remind myself where we came from and how we got here.
We finish the work day like nothing has changed but the moment we walk through the door Peeta grabs my hand and pulls me into him. He wraps his arms around me so tight it might hurt if it weren't so full of love and joy.
"I can't believe this is really happening," he whispers into my hair.
"I love you, Peeta," I say quietly into his chest. He loosens his hands slightly and rubs the muscles in my back. I melt into him.
"I love you too," he murmurs back.
It's cold outside, so we have layers and layers of clothes on. We remove them from each other with careful, icy fingers. Our skin prickles with chill as it's exposed to the air. Our fingernails are caked with dirt and our skin is sticky with dried sweat from the work day. We don't make it to the bedroom. We don't even make it out of the breezeway. We need each other – now, in this moment, and always. He comes with me and we drop heavily to the floor, our love-scorched skin pressed against the cold floorboards. I leave him panting and sated on the floor before move to the living room to start a fire. Peeta watches me as I wrap my body in a blanket from the couch and I build the flame. The cold dissipates from the air and with it the fear, the doubts that I've harbored since I lost my dad. This is right. This is supposed to happen. Peeta finally peels himself from the floor and joins me in front of the fire. I open my arms and he wraps himself inside the blanket with me. I remember us sleeping on the couch on the train. I remember listening to his heart and thinking it was the sweetest lullaby.
"You should get some bread," I whisper and his eyes shoot up at me, open wide.
"You want to do it tonight?" he asks, trying to temper himself as though I can't feel his heart hammering against my chest.
"I don't want to waste any more time," I answer. "I'm done not being your wife."
He grins so wide I think he might break his face. Peeta kisses my cheek before he slips out from under the blanket.
"Woah it's cold out here!" he throws a playful smile over his shoulder. It's my job to stoke the stove before we leave for the day but I was too distracted this morning. This cold house is my fault.
"Well then hurry up!" I tease back.
"Impatient, even on our wedding day," Peeta jests as he slips back into the blanket and kisses my neck. We sit on the floor and lay the blanket in front of us so it covers our legs and chests. Peeta sets the bread between us and suddenly all the playful, joking spirit evaporates. This is real. We are really doing this.
"I, um…" I ramble. Another person might mistake it for uncertainty, but Peeta knows me now. He just sits. Waits. Doesn't push. Doesn't expect anything from me. Just lets me figure out what I want to do, what I want to say. "I didn't know myself a few years ago. I was closed off, even from myself I was closed off. Then I volunteered, and your name was called, and our lives changed. The world changed with us. You are the one constant for me. Whether we were together or apart. Whether you remembered me, whether I wanted you to." I blush and look at my hands. This is probably the most words I have strung together about us. About almost anything. "All day I kept slipping back into these memories of our journey here. It's not reminiscing. It's not memorializing. I just watched the steps we took toward each other and I realized…" My throat closes and I try to get the words out without crying. "This would have happened anyway, Peeta. All roads lead to you. Games or not. War or not. I was just too stupid to get out of my own way."
"You're not stupid," he whispers, and I realize his eyes are welled up with tears.
"Shut up, I am," I choke out, laughing and crying at once. "I was. But I'm not stupid anymore. This," I gesture between us. "You and me? Us? This is it for me. Forever."
He's smiling and looks down as a tear escapes and drips off the tip of his nose. He sniffs and runs his hands over his face.
"Sorry," he mumbles, trying to regain his composure.
"Don't be," I say back, weaving my fingers in his. I stare at our hands – scarred, burned. But they match. We match.
"Katniss Everdeen," he starts, pulling the blanket tight around my shoulders. "You told me you never wanted to get married."
"Are you seriously rubbing that in my face right now?" I laugh. He kisses me softly and nods.
"It used to make me sad. Not just because I wanted you, because I have for as long as I can remember. It used to make me sad to think of you alone. Because you are this great big bright ball of love, and it would be such a waste to see you tuck that away," Peeta says. "You said you changed, but I think you are exactly the same. You have been open with your love since the moment I finally got to speak to you on the train."
I give him a look. That's not even a little bit true. He laughs.
"Not with me," Peeta adds with a smile. "With Cinna, with Rue, with Finnick. You made Haymitch care about his life again. You love people so fiercely, so strongly, that those of us that are lucky enough to be loved by you would do anything for you. I'm not the only one you've made into a lovesick fool." He leans forward and presses his hot lips on the cold skin of my neck. "I've always known what a beautiful person you are. But I don't think you could truly love me back until you finally saw that, too."
I realize what Peeta has been doing for the last three years. He's been slowly dismantling me, carefully extracting every bit of self-loathing and doubt. Of disgust and anger. He's found every piece of me that hated myself, exposed it to the light, let it wither away, and put me back together again. The only reason I'm ready to love him is because I finally love me, too.
He didn't need me to fall in love with him.
He needed me to love myself enough to want to give myself something beautiful.
To let me have him.
He studies my face as the realization overwhelms me. The corner of his mouth curls and I want to lay my lips on his.
"You love me. Real or not real?"
"Real."
We toast the bread. His bread, my flame. We kiss and talk and eat and make love until we're exhausted and our bodies tremble. We sleep in front of the fire, not wanting the night to end.
The next day we find Gerty at the new Justice Center.
"Weren't you married already?" she asks with a nasal voice as she finds the appropriate paperwork. She has us sign some forms and slides two identical steel bands across the counter. I slide mine onto my hand next to my ring. Peeta slips his on his left hand.
With that, it's done.