Her fingers are so small. They hold onto my one finger so tightly. I can still remember the day you were born, the way your hand grabs onto mine. Every night that we spend here in your nursery I think about you. You are so small, how can you love someone that is so small.

"Your mother really loves you," I say through the humming. The rocking back and forth calms her, but just like both her mother and father, just putting her on my chest and she falls asleep.

Every night I check her heart beat, and every time, it is as steady as a rock. So many times, we would spend just talking in the night, well me talking her listening, her eyes fixed on mine. She typically doesn't last that long, only a couple of minutes but I talk to her anyways.

It was a great night when I heard you say your first words. Although your mom says that it was just noise I still believe that you said mama that day. Now you can talk and even write.

"Daddy," Lilly says as I put her in her bed.

"Yes beautiful," I say.

"Did you always love mama?" she asks.

"Ever since I was five," I say. "I knew that I would love your mom forever."

Placing her covers on her I tuck her into the bed. I feel her hand on my shoulder. I place my hand onto top of hers and she just looks at me.

"Now go to sleep, sleepyhead," says Katniss to Lilly. "Dream of dreams that we could only think of, of chasing butterflies in the field. You remember that?"

"Yes," Lilly says remembering the day that we just had. A picnic outside, pointing out the clouds and imagining what they are. Then of course we chased butterflies for a while, until I tickled Katniss to the ground. Lilly of course decided that it was time to tickle me off her mother. She is very protective of her. Think she gets that from her father.

"Mama," she says.

"Yes, princess," she responds.

"Sing me a song," she says.

She turns to me and I sit down on the chair.

"She will ask for a story next," she says. "Just you wait, all to get a later curfew."

Turning to Lilly. "Don't think I didn't try this with your grandmother when I was younger."

"Did Grandma sing?" she repeats almost letting out a laugh. "No, your grandmother couldn't sing, I mean she could but I don't think music was supposed to come out like that. Your grandfather was the one who sang, and your grandmother was the story teller."

She sits up.

"What did grandmother tell you about?" Lilly asks.

"Well life out there, out in the forest," Katniss says. "Me and your aunt Prim never really believed that your grandmother was ever in the forest. Turns out that's where she fell in love with your grandfather."

"So mama, a song?" asks Lilly.

"Go to sleep, sleepyhead,

Go to sleep, go to bed,

Close your eyes, rest your head

And tomorrow morning you will get…"

She stops almost unsure of what the next line should be. So she looks to me for a little bit of help.

"At least three, cheese breads," I finish with a smile.

She closes her eyes and finally Katniss kisses her nose. She smiles and giggles the same way her mother does. We walk out of the room and finally close the door. In the hallway we see how live has changed these past four years.

I bend down to pick up the toys that are now littered the hallways. Walking over to the toy chest, I place them in there. The easel is still in the living room, mines next to Lilly's. Although my painting of the flowers in the vase is more exact, Katniss grabs her daughter's version with the purple and pink flowers.

"Looks like it could hang in a gallery," I say.

"But they will not get it," says Katniss placing it back on the easel.

"Come with me," she says leading me outside to the porch. I grad the nearby blanket and walk outside to the porch. The night sky is beautiful and filled with stars that glow in the dark. We sit in the bench that oddly enough continues to stand, the other bench, not so much.

Sitting down I place the blanket over her and she smiles. She removes from her pocket three small folded up papers. Opening them, I see that the papers are not papers but folded up envelopes.

I see the handwriting and remember what they were. The three letters I wrote before we went into the arena. The goodbye letters that I never meant to give, but always wanted to be prepared.

"Katniss," I start.

"Peeta," she stops me. "I opened them; well Lilly actually found them and opened hers. She asked me to read it to her. Peeta, what you wrote…"

"I am sorry," I say.

"No," she says. "It was beautiful. It was not at all what I was expecting."

Her hands rub on the envelope.

"Did you," I start. "Read yours?"

She nods.

"Took me a while," she says.

She lifts up the one labeled to Thomas.

"Be a shame if we never opened this one," she says smiling. "Think in a couple of months I think we can."

Looking at her, I am puzzled by what she just said. In a couple of months? Read the letter labeled to Thomas? That is when she grabs my hand and places it on her stomach.

"You mean?" I say.

She nods. "My mother told me today about the test results."

I hold her and I can't help but to let out a laugh. It is the greatest thing that I could ever get from the one that I had always wanted.

"You have given me so much happiness," I say. "What did I ever do, to deserve it?"

"You saved me," she says. "Thank you for saving me."

Dear daddy,

I just wanted to say. I love you. I am so happy that I start school tomorrow and I don't know why you and mama were crying. I really like the dress that mama said was hers back when she was my age. Mama said that you would like my hair in these two tails. It is very pretty the way Mama did them.

You sure I cannot take Thomas with me to school? Mama told me that Thomas was too little to go to school. I cannot wait to go to school.

I love you daddy,

Lili

EPILOGUE

Looking at the paintings that litter the hallways of our house, it makes me smile. Katniss continues to put them up, even when Thomas just doodles something small. She says that everything that her children do she wants everyone to see.

The three bows that are near the door two large ones and one small one, it makes me smile. I can still remember that day when Katniss took her out to hunt for the first time. She was so scared and so happy to be out there with her mama.

We have been taking both of them more and more to the District. It was a decision that both of us did when Thomas was two. We wanted them to know where we were brought up.

We lay there on blanket with the picnic basket a couple of feet away.

"Funny," she says to me.

"What is?" I say.

"They run through the fields that Prim would have," she says. "Many of them are buried underneath, a graveyard."

"Time changes all things," I tell her.

"I guess," she says.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She looks up to the sky.

"Soon enough they will start to ask questions," she says. "About the Games, about the War, they will know what we did. We have protected them from the world, but now we cannot hold from it."

"My father one day asked me what I saw when I looked at him," I say. "I told him that I see my papa. He told me that people that do not matter will always label you by what you did in life. They will say that we were Victors in the Hunger Games, that we killed many people. That we were soldiers in the Great War, and that we did a lot of horrible things. But you know if we were to ask them who we were, you know what they would say."

"What is that?" she says turning to me.

"They will say the same thing that I did, you are their mama, and I am their daddy, and they love us very much," I say. "That is all that really matters. We have each other, we have the stories of our family members, we have our letters to them."

She looks up again at the clouds.

"This is how I pictured it," she says to me.

"Picture what?" I ask.

"What it would be like to be with you," she says.

I lay next to her.

"Are you happy?" I ask.

She pauses as if to try and find the right thing to say.

"I wish," she starts. "That I could freeze this moment."

I smile.

"And live in it forever?" I end the statement.

I feel her hand grab mines and there in the fields of the Meadow, while we hear the laughter of our children, we just look at the clouds trying to make up what it looks like.

END OF BOOK SIX

Thank you to all who have journey with me through the life of Peeta. Writing this has allowed me to experience his life through my eyes, and I hope that I was able to show you that through the writings.

As always thank you.

Every Wounded Son