Seeing as this is the last chapter, I felt obligated to make it eeeeeextra fluffy. So, watch out, or you might get buried in the fluff. XD
Thank you all SO much for reading and following and leaving reviews. You're all such wonderful readers and I love you almost as much as I love The Hunger Games itself. :) :) :)
As always and for the last time in this story... enjoy!
Epilogue
The stars look frosty tonight. Like the spiked, curling starbursts of ice on the windowpane, except glittering and silver and spread across the sky. It's very cold. The moon, barely even there in its crescent form, gives no light. And while District Twelve's electrical system is infinitely more reliable now than it was before the revolution, it still has its hiccups. Tonight is one of those hiccups- a blackout. It will be fixed by morning. But for now, we are in darkness. The only illumination comes from the cold, winking pinpricks of light above us.
I pull my feet up underneath me, tucking them, slippers and all, under the blanket. My robe and quilt warm me from the outside while the mug of hot chocolate in my hands warms me from the inside out. Peeta does both.
We're sitting on our porch- yes, our porch. He moved in, officially, four months ago. Although, really, he was living in my house long before that. We ate meals at my table, slept in my bed, worked on our book in my living room. The only thing Peeta went home to do was shower, bake and paint, and before long those activities shifted to my house, too. It was my idea. It seemed silly, with him spending all of his time at my house, for all of his things to be in his. I was just being practical when I suggested he move in. But Peeta acted as if I'd given him the sun. He caught me up and spun me around my- our- yard, then slipped and fell in the grass. That kiss reminded me so much of another one. One just before the Victory Tour. Except, instead of fur and snowflakes and lipstick, it was full of teeth and sun and dandelion seeds. That was when Summer was just coming to a close, months after Peeta had returned to Twelve. Now, at the very end of Autumn, we sit huddled up on our porch, mere yards from where we had that kiss. Our first since the Capitol.
I set down my cocoa and turn my head, nudging the empty space in front of me, until Peeta notices. He knows what I'm looking for. Our lips meet softly, and despite the bitter cold and the frost around us, I'm very warm. His arms link loosely around my waist, and my palms rest against his chest.
A slam is followed by incoherent hollers, and I know Haymitch has stumbled his way out of his house in the dark. I pull away from Peeta, sighing, and silently count down from three. On 'zero', we hear several thumps and then a slurred swear. Haymitch falling down his porch steps. Then, several more thumps, a crash of breaking glass- that must have been his bottle- the creak of his door and another slam. We sit still for a moment, listening to him bang around his house, before determining he's not dead and turning back to each other.
Just as our lips connect again, the door slams open a second time and Haymitch yells, "I know you two 're smoochin' over there! I c'n feel you makin' googly eyes fr'm here!"
I duck my head, cheeks flaming, even though there's no way he can see us in the darkness. Peeta just chuckles.
"Is he ever going to stop doing that?" I grumble.
"Probably not." He hooks a hand behind one of my knees and pulls my legs over his lap. I tuck my cold toes under his own knees. We're all knotted together, like one of the soft, salty pretzels Peeta makes on cool afternoons. After the cheese buns, I think they're the best thing he makes. He sells them by the dozen at his stand in the town center. Next summer, when they rebuild the bakery, he'll be able to sell more than just pretzels and rolls. He'll have the space and materials necessary to running a real business. He'll be able to earn all the money we have, at least, in his mind, fairly.
He hates it. He hates that we still get paid for winning the Games. He's told me more than once that he wishes they would just forget about us and leave us alone. He wants to earn everything he spends- "So that what we buy, what we eat, what we have in our home, actually means something," he says. He's made multiple calls to the Capitol, politely requesting they stop sending us our winnings. The people on the other end of the line, of course, laughed and told him how sweet he was and said we were perfectly entitled to our boatloads of money and to expect the next payment soon.
Our winnings aren't the only things that remind me of the Capitol. We live in the Victors' Village. Even in Twelve, and even with the other houses filled by new families, the place reeks of Snow. The artificial, blood-red roses by the gate, no matter how many times we go about trying to destroy them, somehow hang onto life just enough to spread their ghastly scent. It overrides the sweetness of the primrose blossoms and chokes me. Though they're deactivated, I know there are still bugs in the house. We haven't been pulling up floorboards to find and get rid of them, after all. Somewhere, in a white room, someone could be listening to our every conversation. Dr. Aurelius assures me they're not. They're not activated. But still… they could be. The TV, collecting dust. The odd, shiny appliances in the kitchen. The echoing, empty rooms, all of them with some dreamed-up Capitol purpose, unused and locked. The Capitol's symbol, discreetly stamped into the wood of a floorboard, like a little note. A little threat, letting us know that we're never alone. We're never done. They will always be watching us. It's like the single, white rose in my room, when I first came to Twelve after the bombing. It seems as if, no matter how much time goes by, the old Capitol will forever have ways of telling us we can't be free.
As I'm thinking of this, and staring at the ice-bright stars, something hits me. At first, the something is so big, so impossible, that I don't even know what it is. Then the haze clears and I see the details. My eyes get wide as I realize the possibilities. Think through the complications. Consider the implications. Would they, if we asked-? I could- yes- and it would be close enough for- but far enough away- this could work- oh, this could work! My hands start to tremble. We could do this!
Suddenly, Peeta is tucking my face into his shoulder and rocking me, murmuring. He thinks I'm going through a painful memory. I wriggle away, much to his confusion, and say, "Peeta."
"Yes?"
"Peeta, I've got it."
"What?" he sounds a bit alarmed, and I take his hands in mine to reassure him.
"The new bakery they're building in the summer, it's close to the fence, isn't it?"
The fence, kept up for real security reasons now. To keep the animals out, not the people in. It even has gates, accessible by anyone in the district.
"Yes. Why?"
I press my lips together, taking time to put my idea into comprehensible words, before opening my mouth. "What if we built a house in the woods?"
His silence frightens me, and I hurry on, babbling, avoiding his eyes by turning my gaze to the sky once again.
"Not far in, but just a couple of miles. Half an hour's walk, at most. It would be within walking distance of the new bakery, and the rest of the district, but far enough away that no one would bother us." I'm wringing my hands. My voice shakes violently. He's going to say no, and I'm going to feel stupid for suggesting it, and our whole lovely, cold, starlit night will be ruined because of my eagerness. "We would build a fence around the house, of course, to keep out animals, but with a yard and a pen- we could keep chickens and goats-" I choke down a little hiccup, trying to convince myself it's not a sob. It's been almost a year since I returned to District Twelve, and my emotions are still so unstable. "I'd be able to hunt so much more easily, with just a few steps to the woods, and maybe we could convince the Capitol to stop paying us, if we let them build it, and it would be quiet, and-"
I can't breathe. Peeta is crushing me so tightly to his chest that I think my lungs might collapse. And I'm not the only one "hiccupping".
"I just want to escape the Capitol. Once and for all."
He's turning me around, knocking our cups of hot chocolate over in his haste. The rich, brown liquid drips off the beams of the porch. It will freeze into a chocolate river before long. He peppers my face with kisses, half-laughing, half-crying. I respond in kind, the nervousness in my belly disintegrating with every feathery touch of his lips. "You don't… You don't think it's a bad idea?"
"Are you joking?" He kisses my temples, my eyelids, my nose, my mouth. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Let's do it. Let's leave. Let's show them they don't own us."
I smile, but then something occurs to me. "Oh, but… What about the primroses?"
"We'll take them with us. They handled being dug up once, they can handle it one more time. They'll probably be happy to be back in the woods."
He continues to nuzzle me, fingers locked in my hair. I let out a deep breath and fall against him. We really can do this. We really can start over somewhere new. In the woods, where the Capitol hasn't set foot.
"We should tell Dr. Aurelius," I whisper against his cheek.
He shakes his head, tightening his hold on me. "Not until morning," he says, pleads, almost.
So we stay on the porch, wrapped up with blankets and with each other, and watch the frosty stars fall slowly across the sky until the pink and gold dawn creeps over the horizon.
We have three goats- two dams and one billy- and about twenty chickens. The fence around our house is high and sturdy, but woven and made of mossy posts and maple boughs, so it looks more like a natural extension of the forest than a boundary. Our cellar is stocked with at least a decade's worth of preserved food, and the porch swing is strewn with pillows. Sometimes, on warm nights, we sleep there. On cold nights, we retreat to the fireplace. There are only two floors in our little cottage, if you don't count the cellar, and it's compact enough that the fireplace alone is enough to heat the house sufficiently. But we don't have to worry about that. Peeta's ovens are blazing nearly nonstop, always filling the house with one delectable smell after another. Blueberry pie, gingerbread, pastries, raisin bread, cheese buns, pretzels, and even dandelion bread, a recipe he came up with after I told him dandelions were edible. Our house always smells good. And it always has a light in each window, a lit oil lamp, just in case a traveler passes by seeking shelter. We don't go looking for guests, but Peeta insisted on this little gesture. Yet another example of the golden heart I will never be able to earn.
I watch the little lights grow larger as I trudge towards home, my ancient game bag in hand and my bow on my back. Living out here, with no one observing us and five miles' worth of forest between our gate and the district, I can bring my weapons with me, straight through the front door. Even after five years, it still amazes me. I give Mica, our silver-flecked horse, a pat on the way past the tiny stable, which is some yards from the house and just big enough for one horse and its tack. We have the horse so Peeta can ride it to town, so he doesn't have to walk ten miles every day just to get to the bakery and then back home. I do it all the time, but with his prosthetic, it's better not to risk it. Of course, he insists on getting me a horse, too. I expect I'll come home to find a filly sharing Mica's stable. I'll have to build an extra stall for it. Oh, well. I built everything else out here. Except for the building itself, of course, and the larger pieces of furniture. Our house is full of my handiwork, from chairs made of young aspen trunks lashed and nailed sturdily together to the oak-wood porch swing, sanded and polished to a shiny smoothness, to the front door, which is covered in a jumble of carved leaves and blossoms of every type. I was busy, the first year or so here. Peeta was, too. There isn't a room left without a mural of some sort on at least one of the walls.
I trot up the porch steps and through the door, hanging my bow and quiver on a peg next to my father's old hunting jacket. Peeta's making something with the fish I caught this morning, I can tell by the aroma wafting from the kitchen. I stop in the hallway and take a moment just to look around. Our house. Free of the Capitol. Free of prying eyes. Free in every way. Full of my carvings and Peeta's paintings and dried bunches of dandelions and the tang of pine wood smoke. Soft fur rugs. Rich ciders. A cellar bursting with food. Feather pillows. Primrose bushes below the windows. Herbs hanging from the rafters. Portraits of our families above the fireplace. And two extra rooms upstairs- "Guest rooms," Peeta explains smoothly whenever I ask. But the walls are painted in the softest pastel shades of blue, pink and yellow. The furniture, not made by me but ordered straight from District Seven, is made of smooth, white fabric and pale wood. I know they're not guest rooms. Peeta hopes for them to be rooms for children.
He asked me for children, shortly after we had our toasting two years after we moved here. I couldn't fathom it. I said no. But after, I looked around, as I am now, and saw the woodsy luxury around us. I saw how this cottage in the forest was everything my father ever wanted for Prim and I. And I told Peeta, "Maybe." Maybe, someday. But not yet.
I make my way into the kitchen, dropping my foraging bag on the table, and pull Peeta away from the stove. He drops the spoon in his hand and turns to face me, smiling a greeting. I rise up on tiptoes, so we're the same height, and kiss him. Then I snuggle into his shoulder, my arms around his neck, his around mine. This is how we usually end up, whether standing or in bed, before we go to sleep. Our scars match up, this way, so we form one whole, broken person. But, no. Not broken. Over the years, we've healed. 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 we have each other, and the book, and our home. That's all we really need.
After dinner, upon Peeta's request, I sing every line of the valley song while he plaits and unplaits my hair. I taught him how to braid it last winter, and he's barely left it alone since. The fire crackles, and over the faint white noise, I can hear that the birds outside the have quieted their evening conversations to listen. I sing so often now, alone amongst the trees, that I think they recognize my voice. Peeta is like a child himself, the way he begs to hear me sing. "Another one," he always says. "Just one more song."
If I hadn't sang on the first day of school, none of this would exist, I realize. Peeta wouldn't have fallen in love with me. We wouldn't have teamed up. We wouldn't have held out the berries. We wouldn't have sparked a revolution. We wouldn't have won our freedom. I was just a little girl... I had no idea what I was doing when I stood up on that stool.
The old Capitol is gone. The Games are gone. Snow is gone. In their place, we have food, equality, a brighter future. Hope, in the form of a small, yellow blossom.
And to think, it all started with, "Down in the valley, the valley so low. Hang your head over, hear the wind blow."
