Chapter 5

Though there's no way he could have anticipated the Capitol would destroy the Justice Building, and no way he could have known that Rye would be there when they did, Peeta carries his guilt and shame like a heavy cloak. No amount of reassurance from me changes it. Rye, who had vocally disapproved of Peeta's seditious activities, paid the ultimate price for the uprising, and Peeta can't forgive himself for that.

There is panic in the district in the days that follow, a collective flinch every time a cloud crosses the sun or the howling winds play tricks on the ears. But all too soon it becomes clear: the Capitol isn't coming back. Not to bomb us again and finish what they started. Not with hoards of Peacekeepers to crush us into submission.

Not with supply trains of life-sustaining goods.

There's no burial for Rye in the Town cemetery, no headstone next to his late mother, no one sharing words of remembrance. With more than a thousand dead, the inhabitants of 12 simply dig a mass grave in the meadow, and use old coal mining carts to bring the bodies there before they rot, an almost endless parade of horror.

My husband's despondency deepens when a grieving Libby moves back to her parents' home with her fatherless babies, severing ties between the infants and their three uncles and me, their aunt. It's the final blow in a year of horrible events. Peeta descends further and further into darkness, shutting out the world around him as I watch helplessly.

The giddy elation of uprising in the district that turned into terror when the hovercrafts appeared slowly slides into a kind of cold acceptance. Days, and then weeks pass without another word from the Capitol, and the populace is faced with the wretched reality that even though we weren't bombed off the map, like District 13, we will likely all end up dead anyway. So dependent are we on the Capitol's shipments that people don't have any idea how to care for themselves. There are no farms in District 12, no storehouses of grain, no livestock except for the few scrawny nanny goats the Goat Man still keeps, and a couple of wandering chickens that must have escaped from Rooba's yard.

Tensions in Town grow to a boiling point. There are no supplies to fix the buildings damaged by the uprising and the bombings and subsequent fires, no wares for the shops to sell, and most damning, no electricity. The grocer, the tailor, the sweetshop are all shuttered, the Bakery stands windowless and bleak, though I catch sight of a lonely stooped sentinel in the upstairs windows from time to time. I scrounge materials to cover the broken shoeshop windows, at least enough to keep the snow out, but it doesn't stop the looters or the vandals. Mr. Cartwright's home, and my future, are torn apart piece by piece and I'm powerless to stop it.

Though people in the Seam have never been above eating rats when we could catch them, the Merchants have had their every need provided for by the Capitol practically since the Dark Days. Most of the Merchant class has been sheltered from the worst of the Capitol's depravity, so the anger at their new, hopeless situation turns inward, turns against the miners who were rebels.

Turns against Peeta.

The first time a rock get thrown through the window of our little house on the edge of Town is the last time I see any spark in my husband's eyes. My cheerful, always positive Peeta vanishes in a vat of self-loathing. The shell left behind is a stranger, sullen and silent.

Winter falls hard in District 12, the snows pile up and the winds wail. Yule and New Years pass without notice, without celebration. I go to the woods almost every day. I don't need to sneak away anymore, there is no one to stop me, but there is still danger. Angry, desperate people wander the district and beyond the fence, hungry and hopeless, and a woman who is not very big, alone in the woods, is a tempting target. I have Daddy's bows, but I'm not certain I could actually use them against a real person, though if I could forget they're people, it would be no different from hunting game, I imagine. I shudder with that thought. I check the lines of mostly empty snares in the pale blue dawn, when meeting another soul in the forest or the walk back to my little home is less likely. Not that my hunts are very productive anyway, winter hunting is always scarce and what little I do bring in she feels compelled to share with Prim and Mother, with Brann and Brett, with Mr. Cartwright and Delly. Sometimes, I even leave little bits on the grocer's doorstep for my nephews, never knowing if Libby gets her tokens.

Peeta scarcely eats anything I bring home for him, barely speaks to me or even acknowledges me at all, spending his days in bed or staring out the window at our tiny snow-covered yard. Though his leg is nearly healed, he's a virtual captive in our little home, imprisoned by guilt and shame, reluctant to show his face in town where anger against the rebels still lingers. The terrible weather prevents many from attempting to visit at the little house, isolating him even further. I have never seen my Peeta like this, so lost and listless. Even when he came close to death, he still carried that aura of hope, that promise that life could be good again. But now he's a shell, almost unreachable, and it breaks my heart. He's stranded in a shadowy world and I don't know how to find him, let alone lead him out.

I don't talk about it with anyone, shouldering my pain and fear alone, and yet somehow Prim knows, handing me a carefully tied sachet one evening as she prepares to leave the little shack and head back to her own home. I know the herbs by smell, the ones Mother brews into strong tea whenever someone is afflicted with the immobilizing sickness. I look between the package and my sister, wondering how she's figured it out. Wondering when, exactly, Prim grew up. At sixteen, she is more woman than little girl now, thoughtful, empathetic and a talented healer in her own right. Prim says nothing, there's no judgment, no admonishment. Just a little bit of medicine and a long hug.

It's the coldest winter anyone can remember, and coal stores run out fast. There are some brave people who sneak down the mines, crawl deep into the dark bowels of the earth to dig out chunks of coal and haul them to the surface by hand, but it's dangerous, exhausting, back-breaking work without lights and pulley cars. Instead, people try to burn wood in their stoves. There are hatchets in the district, and a few axes and saws, but not enough for the kind of large-scale operation that would be needed to chop wood for everyone, and there's no appetite to organize it either. Dragging smallish fallen branches through the thick snow back to our homes becomes a daily chore for most people in the district. Wood doesn't burn as hot or as long as coal, but it keeps families from freezing to death.

Mostly.

The days are long, the nights longer without Peeta wrapped around me. I stop reaching for him in the night, heartbroken when he continually rolls away. He seldom even reacts to me anymore, doesn't hear me when I beg him to come back to me, refuses to touch the cups of medicinal tea I brew for him. The distance between us grows and grows, and so does my heartbreak. I find reasons to delay coming home after my hunts. Spend more and more time with my sister and with Delly. But I miss him, and I'm desperately lonely, our little home once so vibrant now a dreary husk. I'm sure he doesn't mean to be cruel, but the knowledge doesn't make it hurt any less. For all of the times I'd dreamed of a world without the Capitol's influence, it was never like this. Never so harsh and hopeless and empty.

It happens on a day like every other, cold and dreary, bleak, spring still a solid month away. I crawl out of bed before dawn, Peeta lying stiffly beside her. His breathing is too shallow for sleep but he doesn't acknowledge my departure and I've long since stopped expecting him to. My woods offer little solace from the drudgery of my life but I head out to them anyway, running through the motions of my routine by rote. My snares are empty and it's just too cold to lie in wait on the off chance a hare might wander by. But I can't go back empty-handed, can't sit in my cold home with my even colder husband, staring at the walls, waiting for the world to end. I wander in a direction I seldom head, skirting along the base of the mountains where the underbrush is thick and sharp. There are tall stands of spruce and juniper - I'll strip some of the needles and berries so at least there'll be tea for supper. Meager though it will be, it'll mean warmth in my belly.

I hear it before I see it, a low moan, a rustling. A dark shape huddled in the brush, too small for a bear, too large for a lynx. My bow is nocked before I realize the shape is human. But it isn't his face that catches my attention. It's the sparse knot of frozen berries he's reaching for. They're familiar, dark and glistening under a thin layer of ice, berries I haven't seen in a very long time. My father's voice comes back to her. "Not these, Katniss. Never these. They're nightlock. You'll be dead before they reach your stomach."

I shriek, and the huddle jumps, a weak squawk of protest escaping badly chapped lips when I lunge and swat his hand away from the bushes. "You didn't swallow any?" I ask, fear making my words tremble. He's silent, but I persist. "Answer me!"

"No." The voice, soft and dejected, is familiar, and I squint to look more closely. He's bearded and painfully thin, cheekbones sharp, skin sallow. Days away from death, I judge. But the sunken, rheumy blue eyes under the edge of his stocking cap regard me with a sadness so deep and gutting that it takes only a moment to recognize them.

"Mr. Mellark?" I gasp.

Peeta's father swallows hard and drags his eyes away, staring down at the snow. "Hello, Katniss," he murmurs.

"What are… why…?" I can't string together a coherent sentence. What on earth is he doing out here, past the fence, far from Town? He shrugs miserably, and understanding dawns. Rye is gone, and he was the last of the Mellark boys who kept an eye out for their father. He's alienated everyone else who ever loved him. So while I've been sharing the food I hunt and gather with the people I care about, no one has been looking after Mr. Mellark. Pity curls in my gut, softens the edge of my anger. For a moment, I let myself remember the man she once thought he was, the one who used to smile at me when I showed up at the Bakery's back door, the one who always gave me a little more than my trades were worth.

He's so weak that it takes a long time to half-drag him back to the little house on the edge of Town, and we're both frozen when I push open the door to my dim, silent home. I settle him into a chair and build up the fire as best I can with the damp chunks of wood I've dragged into the house, then make him a bit of bone broth from the scant contents of my cupboards. It isn't much, but in his starving state he can barely manage even that and nods off in his chair, the mug still clasped between his skeletal hands.

I'm lost in thought, staring out the window, watching the shadows grow as the sun sinks low in the winter sky when another voice startles me out of her reverie, one nearly as unfamiliar to me as his father's. "What is he doing here?" Peeta growls, hands on his hips as he stares at the sleeping man slumped in our living room.

"I - I found him in the woods. He was trying to eat nightlock," I whisper, too surprised by seeing and hearing Peeta to be defensive. He hasn't sought me out or spoken without prompting in weeks.

"You should have let him die."

Perhaps it's my expression of utter shock, not just that he's spoken, but at the vitriol in his voice, but Peeta seems to catch himself, seems to become aware that the only words he's given me, his wife, in weeks are terse and angry. His expression falls, shame stealing across his brow, and I sigh, fully expecting him to shuffle away and sink back into himself again. I've turned my gaze back to the window when he speaks again, low and gentle. "Katniss, I- "

"Peeta?" His father's confused rasp interrupts whatever Peeta had been about to say, and like a shadow he withdraws wordlessly to the bedroom while the older man watches his retreat with tears shining in his eyes.

"I'm sorry." I almost think the quiet voice in the darkness is a fantasy, the words ones I've longed to hear but hadn't ever expected to. I can't reconcile his soft, apologetic tone with his earlier anger and the cold way he'd left me alone all evening to care for his father, to feed and hydrate and comfort the old man, set him up on their small couch with an old afghan my mother had knit, moth-eaten but warmer than nothing.

There's only enough moonlight to see that Peeta's eyes are open, watching me warily as I climb beneath the blankets, still clad in my clothing. "It's okay," I murmur, though it's not, not by a long shot. "I got him settled all right." He'd been reluctant to stay after seeing his son's anger, but I insisted. I know that if Mr. Mellark leaves our little home, it'll be to die, and I can't have that on my conscience.

"That's not what I mean." I lay down beside him, hands folded under my face, balanced on the edge of the bed, unsure. It's been so long since we've really spoken, I find I can't read him the way I once could, and that realization makes me unbearably sad. The man I love more than my life is a stranger. Two tears slip out against my will. It isn't the first time I've cried lying beside him in our bed, miles between us. But unlike the other times, Peeta reaches out to cup my cheek, his thumb brushing away the wetness. "I'm sorry," he says again, the words regret-soaked, and I close my eyes tightly, more tears squeezing out. It's too much, I'm confused and heartsick and overwhelmed. His big hand slides down my cheek to grasp my hands, pulling them free from under my chin and holding them tightly between our bodies.

When I awaken before dawn, my hands are still clutched in his. Peeta is sleeping, really sleeping for once, his lush golden lashes brush against the deep violet circles under his eyes, his hair, long and lank, falls over his forehead. But in sleep, his expression is softer, younger. My lost boy. I wish I knew how to fix this.

My trip to the woods is more fruitful than it has been in days, two rabbits in my snares and a handful of yellowfoot chanterelles, a little desiccated from slumbering under the snow but still perfectly edible. I'm hoping I can coax Peeta's father into eating something more substantial than bone broth; he needs meat to shore up his atrophied muscles, to stave off the starvation.

I never enter the district through the Meadow anymore, it hurts too much to see that the place where I got married, where I experienced so many of the most joyful moments of my life is a graveyard now. Instead, I slip through the Seam, passing by people shoveling snow from roofs and cutting up branches for firewood. I keep my head down and my hand on my bow. It's safer in the Seam than in Town, but I'm careful anyway.

A lone figure ahead catches my attention, a young woman, stooped against the wind, her threadbare coat unable to close completely around the distended swell of her belly.

Leevy.

Leevy, all alone and pregnant in this hell of Gale's making, abandoned by the one person who should have been standing beside her. I haven't heard a peep from Gale or any of the others who left with him that horror-filled day more than two months ago, have no idea if they ever found District 13. What I do know is that soon there will be another fatherless baby in the district.

I can't walk away, can't turn my back on Leevy, not knowing she's pregnant and all alone. And though it feels like I'm supporting the whole district these days, I run ahead and press one of the rabbits into Leevy's shaking hands.

A lantern flickers in the window of my little home and my heart leaps before I remember that my father-in-law is there and he's probably the one who lit the lamp, not Peeta. The little bit of pleasure I'd been holding from helping Leevy and seeing the glow of warmth in my window seeps away, replaced by the same bleakness I've been struggling against for far too long. I'm tired, so tired.

The first thing I notice when I walk into my house is that it's warm. After months of coming home to a cold house where the fire had burned out while I was hunting, it's disconcerting to be welcomed by warmth. There's a scent in the air too; tea, but not my typical mint tea, nor pine needle either. I step fully into the house, shaking the late season snow from my hat, and two sets of eyes turn my way. Peeta and his father are both sitting in the tiny living room, tension filling every nook and cranny between them. I drink in the sight of my husband, sitting near the hearth, rolling a chipped blue mug between his palms. A vision that would have been normal in my life before is now strange and almost magical. His eyes search mine instead of flitting away, cautious but steady. I don't know what to say, how to act, so I merely lift the rabbit. "Dinner," I croon quietly.

The barest hint of a smile crosses Peeta's face, so brief I can't be certain it was there. "I'll help," he says, rising.

It doesn't happen overnight, and for every step forward there's a half step back, but slowly, with many lost days, Peeta returns to me. I'm wary, watching carefully for him to retreat back into himself, to disappear again. But he doesn't, at least not for any protracted period of time. He drinks the teas he brews from the medicinal herbs Prim sends each week. He starts to cook again, to take care of the house and himself. His cheeks steadily regain their color, the hollowness filling in. He fights hard to stay in the present, gripping the back of a chair and breathing deeply when the blackness threatens, fighting it. He and his father talk, stilted at first, but gradually more confidently, working to heal some very old, very deep wounds. Sometimes, I come home to find all three Mellark men in my kitchen, talking in hushed tones, red-eyed but resolute.

I keep busy, hunting and gathering as much as possible, distributing whatever I can spare to my friends and neighbors, making repairs at the shoe shop when I have time with whatever little bits of wood and brick I can scavenge or trade for. Finding a way. I don't avoid Peeta, not exactly. But there's a distance. I hold a part of myself back, and he doesn't seem ready, or maybe able, to bridge the gap between us.

The snows melt slowly, winter keeping its tendrils wrapped around the district until the bitter end, lashing icy rains and mudslides as it spends its fury. But finally it stops, snuffed out by the returning sun that warms and restores the district until one morning, about six weeks after I found Mr. Mellark in the woods, I see the first dandelions of spring.

It's my favorite kind of day. Early spring. The woods awakening after the long winter. I kneel in the patchy grass by the fence, gathering golden-headed weeds and thinking about spring, about rebirth, and about all of the things dandelions have meant to me over the years. I'm no longer the little girl who used to make dandelion crowns for my infant sister. I'm not the frightened child for whom dandelions were a reminder of my own resilience. I'm not the blushing bride who festooned my bouquet with sunny blooms. And yet I feel it still, holding a posy of sunshine in my hands, the hope they represent. That life goes on.

Peeta is alone in our kitchen when I get home, his father well enough now to walk to Town sometimes to visit his other son and look in on what's left of his Bakery. I'm sure that soon, Mr. Mellark will be ready to leave our home and move back to his own. But it's been good having him around. Good for Peeta and Brann to be able to tell their father how much he hurt them. Good for Mr. Mellark to finally understand and accept his culpability for the damage inflicted on his sons.

Peeta is methodically grinding acorns in a mortar, a pot of soup simmers on the stove. It's so normal that I'm almost brought to tears. He abandons his work to face me as I approach, a tentative smile curving his lips that falls as I set my trove of weeds on the counter. "Oh," he says softly, reverently, reaching out to lift a bloom from the pile.

"Fresh greens," I say with a shrug, though that's not what I think when I see dandelions.

His questioning gaze suggests he's thinking of something else too. He glances down at the flower in his hand, spinning the stem slowly between two thick fingers. "You told me once," he starts, each word halting. It's still a challenge for us to communicate, our conversations weighted by so much fear and pain. "You said that they reminded you…" Peeta trails off, but I know what he's asking.

"Yes. They still make me think of you," she confirms in a hush, holding his gaze.

His eyes soften, something like relief crossing his face. He steps towards me, no more than 6 inches separating us in the small kitchen, and tucks the dandelion behind my ear. "Katniss," he breathes, his hand sliding down to cup my cheek and I close my eyes. I want this to be real so much, but I still don't trust it. "Can you ever forgive me?"

I know my next words will determine the course of our relationship. I can hide behind a wall, like I did when Mother fell apart, block Peeta from my heart and never give him the power to hurt me again. Punish him over and over for things I know are out of his control. He would accept it if I did, I know that too. Or I can admit that he's imperfect, fallible, human. Just a man who made mistakes, a man who lost himself for awhile. Just my man. I lean into his hand and open my eyes. "Yes."

Peeta exhales a pained little laugh. Then he's dragging me into his arms, crushing me against his chest, his lips pressed to my hair, his breathing uneven. And I hold him just as fiercely, rocking slightly in our quiet kitchen. When he pulls back, I want to protest, but his lips are on mine, warm and insistent, stealing the words. Kissing me like he's never kissed me before, like I'm his oxygen, his life support. "I've missed you," I moan on a ragged breath.

Peeta steps away just long enough to move the soup off the fire, then twines our fingers together and leads me to the bedroom. It's been months since we've touched, since we've been together as husband and wife. I'm shy before him and he's tentative, fear like a live wire crackling, but as the layers of clothing fall away, so too does the wall between us.

I cry as he moves inside me, tears of relief, tears of pent-up pain and frustration, and Peeta kisses them away, whispering words of love and apology.

And after, we lie in silence, our room soaked in the amber light of a spring sunset. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I never meant to hurt you. I just couldn't—" My fingers press against his lips, stopping his apology.

"I know," I say, and it takes every ounce of my bravery to admit it. "I know you couldn't help it." I've grown since Mother's depression, matured, learned a lot about life. I understand now that the blackness isn't a sign of weakness and it isn't his fault. Nor was it my mother's, all of those years ago. I know too that it might come again. But if it does, we'll tackle it together. Always.

As the weather improves, I encounter more and more citizens in the woods, searching for food. Many of those who survived the long, treacherous winter have lost their Capitol-implanted fear of the forest; everyone feels less vulnerable once winter passes. Some cautiously approach me, ask me questions, and before long I'm leading a small group, teaching them as my father taught me years before. Sharing my knowledge, and helping to feed even more people than I'd ever imagined possible.

Peeta too begins to leave the safety of our little house. The day I come home from the woods to find him in our yard, demonstrating how to set snares to a group of teenagers, is the day I know we're truly going to be okay.

District 12 gets by, adapts to its new reality, rebuilds and redesigns. More than one in five citizens were lost in the uprising, the bombing and the killing winter that followed. Those left behind start to let go of their anger as they emerge into a new world made hopeful by spring. Brann and Brett turn out axes and saws, hammers and nails; Libby's father plants a large garden; the cooper builds a windmill that generates a small amount of electricity. One industrious young man in the Seam builds a glass forge and becomes the district glazier, his wavy panes of window glass perfectly imperfect and desperately appreciated. The school reopens, Capitol textbooks destroyed and new lesson plans created. The anger fades, the fear fades, the people who remain pull together. It must be like it once was before the Dark Days, before the Capitol's fury was wrought upon them all, though no one is alive anymore to remember. The self-sufficiency is empowering and freeing. District 12 against the world, united.

I'm returning borrowed tools to the tailor one afternoon when I see Libby, standing in the grocer's fledgling garden, a golden-headed babe on her hip. Though I don't mean to, I can't help but stop and stare. Only one baby on her hip. Panic rises swift and hot; did one of my nephews not make it through the brutal winter? But movement catches my attention. The other baby, a toddler now, standing at Libby's feet, tugging at her skirt, his white-blond curls like dandelion fluff in the sunlight. I laugh, I can't help it, joy and relief coursing through me. And Libby's head snaps up, locking eyes with me. For a moment, we simply stare. Then Libby calls my name, walking towards the garden gate. "Katniss! Wait!"

Libby is pale and far too thin, we all are these days, but the babies have gorgeous round cheeks. The one in Libby's arms regards me with solemn blue eyes, sizing me up. The other toddles through the garden, babbling to himself. They both look healthy and happy and so much like Peeta did way back when we were in kindergarten that it takes my breath away. "I wanted to thank you," Libby says shyly. "I know you're the one who kept leaving us food. We wouldn't have made it through without you." I'm not sure that's true, but I'm so glad to know that I helped in a small way to keep my nephews fed. "I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner. I, well..." Libby looks down at the ground, her tight swallow visible under the thin skin of her throat. "I was in a dark place for awhile," she whispers. "But I'm doing better now."

"The sun helps," I say knowingly, my eyes still locked on the quieter of the two babes.

"It does," Libby agrees.

Silence stretches between us, a little awkward, filled with things unsaid. The little guy in Libby's arms (I no longer know which twin is which) reaches for me, and to my surprise, Libby hands him over the gate, settling him in his aunt's arms. "Oh," I say, the warmth and weight of the babe surprising me. He stares at me only for a moment before breaking out into a four-toothed grin, then grasping the end of my braid in one chubby fist, stuffing it unceremoniously into his mouth.

Libby laughs, and the sound is startling, but so right. Babies and sunshine and laughter, it's the way things should be. But I sigh, weighted by the words I need to get out. "I'm so sorry about Rye," I say. He should be there in the perfect spring sunshine, one baby tugging his hair while the other tries to eat rocks in the garden.

"I don't blame Peeta for it," Libby blurts, as if she'd been barely holding the words back.

I nod, relieved. It isn't Peeta's fault, I've told him that so many times, but I wouldn't have begrudged Libby her anger. I should have known, though, that Libby wasn't like that. "He misses you and the babies so much."

"I miss him too, and Brann. It's just hard, they both look so much like Rye." She sniffles, then reaches down to stroke her son's downy head. "But so do these two. I guess it's inevitable that I'll be reminded of him everyday."

We chat, just lightly, for a few minutes, about the reconstruction, about the garden, about the boys and the difficult winter. Then I kiss the baby - Linus, I learn - on his squishy little cheek, and hand him back over the gate. "Is he well enough to visit? Peeta, I mean?" Libby asks, not quite meeting my gaze. "With his leg and everything?" I nod. "Would you bring him by sometime?"

We visit two days later, bearing fiddleheads and mint, and Libby cries as she embraces her brother-in-law. The tears turn to laughter when Peeta lowers himself awkwardly to crawl around after the babies who climb all over him, riding on his back like a horse and showering him with wet baby kisses. Peeta's smile never once dims. It's the first time I've seen him so perfectly happy in a very long time.

I come home at midday after a fruitful hunt and a tracking lesson with a pair of young mothers. I try to have lunch with Peeta most days, it's our time to reconnect, quiet time that's just ours without his father or any of the myriad of people who again drop by the little house most evenings. I find him standing by the door, a rucksack slung over one shoulder. "Will you come somewhere with me?" he asks, expression cautious but hopeful. And I simply nod, letting him take my hand and guide me back out to the woods.

Within minutes, I know we're heading for the lake. I know every path through this part of the forest, could probably find my way blindfolded. I don't ask why, simply enjoying the perfect spring day and the company of the man beside me. Though he's healed as well as could be expected, Peeta's gait is heavy as he limps through the woods, and while I am worried about him hurting, I trust him to set a pace that he can manage. It's slow-going and loud, but we have all the time in the world and no one to hide from anymore. My bow still hangs over my shoulder, but I don't even bother keeping an eye out for game. My attention is on my husband, and the comfortable conversation that we can finally enjoy again.

I haven't been to the lake in a year-and-a-half at least; we pause at the crest of the hill for a few minutes, looking down at the perfect blue jewel cradled in a bowl of green. Finally, Peeta tugs my hand and leads me into the valley.

I see right away that while it's been a long time since I was here, someone else has been much more recently. The doorway, long devoid of a door, is covered by a bed sheet, one I recognize from my rag bin, washed to the point of brittleness and patched together too many times to be useful. I glance up at Peeta, and he winks, gently nudging the frail fabric aside to let us through. "What's all this?" I laugh as I enter the small room. Our old fishing poles are still there, as is the omnipresent woodpile. But tucked into the corner, he's made a pallet of pine boughs under a quilt. The mantel is adorned with the crooked beeswax candles Leevy has started making and trading. And most charmingly, there are wildflowers everywhere, sprigs of allium and clover and rue. And dandelions. There are bunches of dandelions on every surface, the hearth stone, the window sills, scattered in a golden path from the door to the fireplace.

Peeta wraps his arms around me from behind, his voice low in my ear. "We missed our anniversary." I stiffen. Without the Capitol dictating our schedules, without the weekly television propaganda broadcasts, I've lost track of the days. He kisses the soft skin behind my ear. "I wasn't in a good place then," he continues. "But I want to make it up to you now."

"It's just a day," I say, spinning in his embrace, wrapping my arms around his neck.

Peeta kisses me, just lightly. "Our day," he murmurs, thumbs stoking my waist, soothing and arousing. "I made a lot of promises that day, and I haven't been very good at keeping them lately." I try to interrupt, to prevent him from battering himself again with self-recrimination, but he kisses me once more, silencing me in the most delicious way. "I didn't bring you here to rehash the past," he says. "I brought you here to make new promises, if you'll allow it." I wear my confusion plainly, but he just smiles. "Will you Toast with me again? Here, tonight?"

"I'd marry you a hundred times, Peeta," I say, touched by his sentimentality and understanding his need to start again, symbolically, after the awful year we've had. "Why here though?" We have a perfectly good house with a fireplace back in the district.

He ducks his head, the tips of his ears tinting red. "This is where you told me you loved me for the first time," he says. "This is where I knew it was real."

We catch fish and dig up katniss roots from the frigid water for our wedding dinner, cooking them over a campfire by the water's edge. The afternoon passes in the kind of lazy contentment I've never really known before, nowhere to be, nothing more pressing to do than catching fish and soaking in each other's company. Then, as the sun begins to spill in pink and orange sheets across the water, he leads me inside.

Like the first time, he lays a fire expertly while I sit on the hearth, watching, admiring his nimble fingers and purposeful movements. Then we kneel across from each other. I look down ruefully at my flannel shirt and stained trousers. "I'm not really dressed for a Toasting," I say.

"You have never been more beautiful to me than you are right now," Peeta says, sincerity shining on his face. He reaches out to pull the tie from my braid, unravelling the weave with gentle fingers until the chestnut mass lays in rumpled waves all around my face. "The most beautiful person I've ever seen, inside and out."

I flush, equal parts pleasure and embarrassment. I'm not pretty, I know that, I'm small and plain. But under his gaze, I feel more radiant than the sun. This is what I'd missed most when he was in his dark place, his words, his way of making everything good and right. He's the beautiful one, in every way.

He pulls a loaf of acorn bread from his rucksack and I gasp in delight. He hasn't baked bread since the accident; this, more than anything else, is a demonstration of his healing. Proof that my dandelion is back. And that he baked it for me, for us, humbles me.

Just like we had more than two years ago, we Toast by candlelight, sharing promises and gratitude and love, so much love. Our relationship, our entire lives, have been tested so cruelly, but we are still here, still together, still hopelessly in love. He kisses the ring that adorns my finger and thanks me for staying, despite everything. I promise I always will.

We make love over and over again, all through the night. Each time I reach for him, he's there, ready to hold me and kiss me and pleasure me. Making up for lost time. Affirming our commitment. I sense it's more than a celebration of our love. We're rebuilding our foundation, stronger than before. Able to withstand anything life throws at us.

The weeks pass pleasantly for the district. Food is plentiful for everyone as the work of hunting and growing and gathering and preparing is shared. The Town gets rebuilt bit by bit, some of the shops reopen though there is no longer any use for Capitol coins. Mr. Cartwright and I open the shoe store; there are enough children in the district for business to be brisk and I love making little shoes for growing feet.

Leevy gives birth to a baby boy she calls Orin, and I'm by her side, holding her hand as the unconventional friendship between us deepens. I take to popping over in the early evenings, holding Orin for an hour or so while Leevy works, making candles and mending clothing. Keeping the lonely woman company and falling in love with her black-haired infant.

Peeta and Brann help their father fix up the bakery, and Peeta teaches Mr. Mellark how to make flour from amaranth and buckwheat and flax, spending a couple of days a week helping him develop new recipes and new ways of baking with the ingredients available in their newly self-sufficient town. Eventually, Peeta convinces his father to partner with a frail but still feisty Greasy Sae. They manage to scavenge enough wobbly chairs to make a little eating area and set up shop together, and Peeta joins them in the kitchen most days. It delights me to be able to stop in at lunchtime for a bowl of soup with bread and an earful of gossip. And though Peeta is still wary around his father, his happiness at being back in the Bakery before dawn is undeniable.

A large plot of land behind the school becomes a community garden for both food and for healing herbs, planted by many hands and presided over by a proud Prim. She and Mother take over an old building on the north side of Town, not far from the remnants of the Lucy Gray Baird train station. With the assistance of many in the Seam and even in Town, they painstakingly convert it into an Apothecary, not as fancy as the one Mother grew up in, but functional. Every spare bottle and jar gets donated, and the Everdeen healers put them all to use, filling them with poultices and syrups, stocking a medicine chest the likes of which District 12 hasn't seen in several generations.

Life is good. But apprehension brews in the district as the solstice approaches, bringing with it the specter of evil.

Reaping Day, for the 79th Hunger Games.

The Capitol has left us alone for more than six months but surely they're going to want their tributes, want a pair of children to send to the slaughter.

It's the talk of Town, speculating on what might happen. Anti-Capitol sentiment is no longer the realm of back rooms and black mineshafts; people speak of it the same way they might talk about a rotted floorboard or rat infestation. The consensus seems to be that the district will no longer turn over their children without a fight. Will no longer subjugate ourselves to the Capitol's will. Adversity and abandonment have made the citizens strong and united, bolder maybe than we should be, but unwilling to go back to the way things were before.

The people of the district gravitate naturally to follow a young former miner named Thom - a smart, plain-spoken man, a born leader, even though he's from the Seam. It's Thom who suggests that we try to find out what's happening outside the district, in the Capitol and elsewhere, if we're going to be prepared for whatever will transpire for the Reaping.

The majority of communications devices were destroyed in the firebombing the previous winter, but there are still telephones in Victors' Village, the enclave of 12 stately mansions set just slightly apart from the rest of Town. Only one is occupied, by an old alcoholic who won the Games nearly thirty years ago. But when a group goes to speak with old man Abernathy, he is nowhere to be found. They knock and knock, but no one ever answers, and when they finally force the door open, expecting to find the old Victor dead of starvation or exposure, they instead find the house empty. Fetid and foul, the stench suggesting possible death, but abandoned, perhaps months earlier. And the telephone they'd been counting on is gone, a hole in the plaster the only sign it'd ever existed.

The other houses have phones, but they're silent, useless. There is discussion about trying to get one of the old Capitol-mandated televisions that still sit in nearly every house running, since they are the only remaining means of communication, however one-sided. It's possible one of the cooper's windmills would power a unit. But in the end, no one even tries. It's clear that whatever is going on in the rest of Panem doesn't involve us, not anymore.

On what would have been Reaping Day, there is a small ripple of fear through the district, an unease. But the day passes the same way that every day has passed in the solitary district since the Capitol's disappearance from our lives. People hug their children a little tighter, then get right back to the business of living. Days go by, and then weeks. While people don't forget about the Capitol or about Panem in general, while there is still that sense of apprehension, of questioning, it just isn't a topic of daily life.

It's only as July is sliding into August that the past reappears in the form of a hovercraft landing in the Meadow.

News travels fast in a district as small as 12, and within half an hour, an impressive amount of the adult population has crowded around the hovercraft, filling every inch of the Meadow and stretching back towards the Seam. It's eerily quiet for such a large group. There's open curiosity, and no small amount of distaste, but no real fear. A single hovercraft can't do much damage, after all. And nearly every man and woman in the assembly is armed, if only with knives and axes.

A bunch of Capitolites have emerged from the craft by the time Peeta and I make our way to the Meadow, as out of place as peacocks in a chicken coop. An older man, garishly dressed and portly in the way that only Capitol citizens ever are, stands in the open door of the machine, gesturing out over the district and speaking into some sort of cuff around his wrist. Two burly men with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells wander through the crowd, taking pictures, asking how the people feel about their emancipation. The townspeople, distrusting even at the best of times, meet the questions with stony silence and confusion.

It's only when some more recognizable faces emerge that the volume picks up. Four familiar forms, dressed in drab grey uniforms, materialize from within the ship next. Gale Hawthorne, two members of his old mining crew, and Madge Undersee.

Madge, who everyone thought had died in the bombings.

Madge, looking thinner than I can ever remember seeing her, more like a Seam brat than the daughter of the Mayor. Madge, with her pretty golden curls lank and tied back in a tail, wearing an ill-fitting shirt and pants of dark grey, unornamented. Madge, pale and with eyes so dark and haunted that I don't hesitate to run to her, shoving through the crowd until she can wrap her arms around her old friend.

Madge stiffens, as if coiled for attack, before realizing it's I who is embracing her. Then she bursts into tears.

Peeta and I bring Madge to our little house. She has nowhere else to go, her home is gone, her entire family lost. She doesn't speak; at first I wonder if she's been made an Avox, like they do in the Capitol to criminals. But Madge's tongue is in place - it's her will that's been lost. We don't push her, can see the shock and exhaustion in every line of her face. Madge only sleeps in fits and starts, and only when I'm beside her. She wakes frequently from nightmares, thrashing and howling in terror, or shaking wide-eyed and mute, watching horrors only she can see. Peeta and I are worried beyond measure. Something vital is fundamentally broken in Madge.

For days, I stay home and care for Madge, the way my old friend had helped me more than a year earlier when my own life had been torn apart. I cook hearty meals and Prim and Mother bring soothing teas, coaxing Madge to sit in the garden and soak up the sunshine, but her pain and grief keep her mute.

The stories emerge in bits and pieces. The people who visit Peeta at the Bakery bring some details; the ones who come out to the little house on the edge of Town fill in the rest.

Madge, and the men and women who had snuck away from Twelve some eight months earlier, had been found in the woods by a scouting party from District 13 about two weeks into their journey. The grey-garbed strangers couldn't have come at a better time, for the snow and poor hunting had left the group hungry and vulnerable. They housed the refugees from 12 in their underground city, fed them and clothed them and once they were well, invited them to join their army of rebels. Madge, who had never before so much as killed a mosquito, became Soldier Undersee, trained to use a gun and dropped into District 8. By then, a rebellion was in full swing, uprisings in several districts stretching the Capitol's military thin. The soldiers from 13 repeatedly told them that the war would only last a matter of weeks.

It dragged on for six more months.

One of the District 12 refugees was killed in a battle in District 2, another died when the hospital in District 8 was bombed. But Madge survived, campaign after campaign, as did Gale and two others. And finally came word that it was all over. President Snow was dead, the government forces had surrendered. District 13 transitioned the Capitol's power to their own leader, a dour woman named Coin, and called her the new President of Panem. Most of the rebels were sent back to their home districts with nothing more than promises.

Gale and Madge had thought they were flying home to emancipate their district, to share with their families and friends the joyous news that we were finally free. Maybe even to a heroes' welcome, or so the portly Capitol man who accompanied them guessed, filling the hovercraft with cameras and people to record the happy reunion. But no one had ever told the District 12 refugees what had happened to their home in their absence. They'd thought Twelve was safe and secure, far from the rebel fighting, protected by our size and remoteness. They hadn't any idea until the hovercraft flew over the blackened and twisted mess of what used to be the rail line and Lucy Gray Baird station. Only then were they told the truth of what had happened to 12 when they left. The leaders in 13 had known all along. Had known how much of the town was destroyed in the Capitol bombing. Had known the district had been living without electricity, without food, without any assistance at all during the entire killing winter and all of the months since. But Gale and Madge and the others hadn't known.

The district doesn't shun the returnees - that's not our way. But there are so many questions, about why they sided with District 13, why they didn't push for the leaders there to help Twelve, alone and starving to death. Gale, in particular, is on the receiving end of a lot of anger. His family was profoundly damaged by his actions. His wife, all alone with his baby, struggling just to survive all of those months. His mother, prematurely stooped, her fire diminished by too much heartache. His two brothers, Rory and Vick, who have grown into angry, sullen young men. And his sweet baby sister, Posy, who didn't make it through the winter. Those people needed him to be here, not gallivanting through Panem, looking for a fight. And memories are long in the Seam.

I come to understand that Madge blames herself for what happened to Twelve. The Mayor's home had been a primary target; Madge believes they were punished for her escape, as illogical as that is. I realize that my husband is probably the only person who can help Madge, who can truly understand her pain struggling as he does with his own guilt and grief. I'm afraid to ask him to speak with Madge, afraid of reopening the healing wounds of his psyche, but he offers anyway, coming to the same conclusion as I had. So I spend mornings with Madge, then afternoons in the shoe shop while Peeta talks with our guest. I hadn't though it possible to love my husband more than I do, but seeing his patience and strength as he helps Madge cracks open something deep in my soul. Reassures me that no matter what challenges we will inevitably face, we'll face them together. Peeta, my Peeta, is strong in ways I've never before understood, resilient and compassionate, even after everything.

It takes weeks for Madge to start to come out of her shell, to start to cope with the flood of feelings, but with our support she improves, inch by inch. She begins to speak again, single words at first, pleasantries leading to polite conversation, and eventually to real talk. She confesses to me one long night plagued with nightmares and tears that she only joined the rebels because of me. At my horrified expression, she rushes to elaborate. "You have always been the bravest, strongest person I've ever known," Madge says softly, her words like raindrops in the deep pool of darkness. "Always taking care of everyone around you. I just wanted to be like you. I wanted you to be proud of me."

"Oh, Madge," I gasp, eyes full of tears and heart full of pain for my oldest friend. "I've always thought you were the best person I know. Quiet and kind and brave. You never needed to prove anything to me."

The other rebel soldiers struggle too, both with guilt and with a feeling of no longer fitting in the district anymore. Though I never see him, I know that Gale is living in one of the unused house in Victors' Village with one of the other men instead of with Leevy and his infant son in the Seam. There is too much anger, too much betrayal.

In spite of the fall of President Snow and the old Capitol ways, District 12 is still abandoned, the new government doing nothing to reach out to the district. There is still no electricity, no supply trains, no contact whatsoever. District 13 and the new Capitol don't even reach out to the people who had fought as soldiers for the rebel cause, their promises unfulfilled, their soldiers forgotten. But 12 knows how to care for itself now. The gardens flourish, large groups hunt and gather, bringing in huge hauls of food that most of the district helps to preserve for winter. Vast quantities of firewood are chopped, neighbors come together to repair homes and shore them up for the cold weather to come. Some of the poorest Seam families are moved into the remaining fine homes in Victors' Village, happily sharing spaces with other families, building new relationships. By the time the first killing frost hits the district, we're ready; every citizen with a pantry full of food, a yard full of firewood and a community looking out for them.

And the shattered former soldiers begin the long process of recovery too. Madge starts teaching at the district school and moves into the small flat above the butcher shop with old Rooba, a distant cousin. One of the others makes pottery crocks and plates, glazing them in bright hues. Friendships are re-established. Trust is rebuilt. Hope flourishes.

One fall day, I run into Gale in the woods, in the spot where our younger selves used to meet at the start of each hunting day, the rock ledge overlooking the valley. Seeing his stooped silhouette is like hurtling back in time, and an old familiar fondness forces away some of the anger I've held against him. I approach on near-silent feet. I don't think he hears me, continuing to stare morosely at the barren blackberry brambles, but he shifts to leave me enough space to sit beside him. We sit in silence, shoulder to shoulder, the brisk fall breeze swirling brittle leaves all around us.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," he starts, but I don't reply, unwilling, unable to absolve him. His intentions were noble, I know, but his choices had so many consequences and we all suffered for them. "I hated the Capitol so much," he continues, low and gruff. "I didn't realize there were others just as evil." Gale lifts his head, and for the first time in many, many months, we lock eyes. "I was a fool."

He drops his head into his hands, rubbing roughly at his face, breathing harsh. I rub his back and hold my tongue. He doesn't need my judgment, or empty platitudes. He just needs my friendship.

When he's calmed, he hugs me, and I return the embrace wholeheartedly. "Thank you for taking care of Leevy and Orin," he murmurs. "They're the only thing that makes sense in my life now."

"Then fight for them," I tell him. And he nods.

In my youth, the Harvest Festival had always been a bittersweet time for me, since it culminated with a visit from whatever razor-toothed Victor had emerged from the previous Hunger Games. It was always a reminder of two Seam kids slaughtered and a warning that the long, hungry winter stretched ahead. But this year, for the first time in living memory, there are no Victors coming on the train, no trains at all. No Capitol broadcasts in the square, no Peacekeepers standing perimeter around lackluster celebrations.

This year, the Harvest Festival is a true festival.

The Square has been cleaned up as much as possible, the hulking ruin of the Justice Building still stands, but the other shops and homes have been fixed up and whitewashed, remaining clean in the absence of coal dust. Merchants set up stalls, offering snacks and drinks and trinkets. Peeta helps his father and Greasy Sae serve soups and delicate cookies, I play with little Orin while Madge and Leevy sell candles and bright woolen mittens. Prim has a table of tinctures for coughs and salves to soothe winter-chapped skin, though I notice that she spends more time flirting with Rory Hawthorne than selling her wares.

As the sun begins its early winter descent, torches are lit and tables tucked away to make room for a small stage. A large bonfire glows in the square, warding off the chill. The first snows are just days away. But unlike a year ago, there is no fear among the populous. No matter what winter brings, we will survive. We will thrive.

A group of musicians gather with fiddles and pipes and strike up a reel, and immediately the Square fills with people. District 12 might be the smallest and poorest district, but we know how to dance. Laugher and chatter fills the air, an aura of happiness unlike anything that District 12 has seen in more than 75 years.

Across the bonfire, I catch sight of Gale swaying with Leevy in his arms, baby Orin tucked between them, oblivious to the rest of the crowd. Brett walks by with one twin passed out on his shoulder, his laughing husband following. Delly is chatting with the cider man, the firelight emphasizing the swell of her stomach, the life within just starting to show.

I'm watching my little sister spin with another girl when I feel my braid being pushed aside, a pair of soft lips landing on my nape. And I smile, memories of a different bonfire nearly five years ago rushing back. The girl I was then could never have imagined the life I am living now, with a loving husband and a peaceful district, free, if not perfect.

"What are you smiling at?" Peeta asks, wrapping his arms around me, his voice soft against my ear.

"Everything," I say.

CODA

Rory Hawthorne proposes to my sister just after she turns 18, after what would have been her final Reaping for the now never-to-commence 80th Hunger Games. My little Prim, now blossomed into a young woman, happily accepts, and the Toasting is held at the twilight of summer.

I am happy to pass down our mother's wedding dress - my wedding dress - to Prim; it is our inheritance, after all, and I help Mother do up her golden curls the morning of the big day.

The Justice Building is still being rebuilt, but the new District Clerk and Justice of the Peace don't let that stop them. Rory and Prim sign the papers bonding them as man and wife in the eyes of the law right in the Meadow, where Peeta and I married and hosted our own wedding reception. My sister is bubbly and resplendent, and my heart warms as I watch my husband shake hands with Rory, welcoming him into the family.

Later, as Peeta and I are waltzing in each other's arms through the tall grasses that make up the dance floor, my head on his chest, I tighten my embrace about his neck.

"I've been thinking..." I murmur. "We're free. The Games are done with now. There are no more Reapings..."

"Thank the State,"Peeta chuckles, glancing down and beaming at me. We touch lips lightly.

"And... and I know what I said, about not having children, but..."

My heart hammers with delight at how hope breaks like the dawn across Peeta's face. "But...?"

I take a deep breath. "I don't have anything to fear anymore, Peeta. And it's all because of you." I sigh, lovesick. "Besides, I've been spending more time with Libby and the boys; they're growing so fast, you know? And I feel like... that is, what I mean is... if you still want babies... I'm willing to try." I gaze up into his face, biting my lip shyly.

Suddenly, Peeta's tongue is nearly down my throat as he kisses me with a strength I have never known from the man, and I am kissing him back just as fervently and ignoring how someone (I think it might be a tag-team effort between Rory, Brett and Brann) catcalling us.

When we break the kiss at last, Peeta looks all ready to drag me home and get to work on that babymaking. "Can we start...?"

"After my sister's Toasting, Peeta!" I laugh.

"I don't know how I'll be able to stand waiting..."

I cup my hands around my middle, grinning hopefully. "You may not have to wait as long as you think... because... I think I might be pregnant already." It's true, we haven't been as careful as I once insisted on, at least ever since Prim and Rory announced their engagement.

Peeta kisses me again breathless, and by the time we stagger back into our shack on the edge of Town, we're both making out and only half-dressed.

He makes me cum again and again and again in our bed that night.

They play in the Meadow – the Meadow where their parents got married. The little boy with my hair and his father's eyes trying to chase down, on little and chubby legs, his big sister with Peeta's golden curls and my eyes.

Watching from a picnic blanket as Peeta romps in the dandelions with our two oldest, our littlest one, nestled in my arms, stirs from his nap and begins to whimper.

"Oh, sssh... sssh..." I rock him. "Did you have a nightmare? I have nightmares too. Someday, I'll explain it to you. Why they came... why they won't ever go away, not completely... But I'll tell you how I survive it. I love your father totally and utterly, and Daddy loves me back. And when we're sad, we make lists in our heads, of all the good things that we've seen from others, all the good things that have happened to us. It's like a game, and it might get a little tedious, but... there are, used to be, much worse Games to play."