Epilogue
Haymitch hears the cheers of his countrymen long before he sees them, as the locomotive pulls into Lucy Gray Baird train station – aptly named years and years ago for the first Victor from the coalfields.
As soon as the traincar doors open, hands seize him and pull him into the crowd, carrying him away on their shoulders. When he's finally set down just beyond the Square, he shakes hands and slaps backs while tousling his own head almost in amusement. He didn't think his neighbors cared this much…
"Mmmm….. Huhhhh…. Uhhhh….. Oh, no….." The sound of moaning, of someone in heat, is suddenly heard behind him, down a shadowed alleyway just off to his left. Curious, Haymitch follows the sound all the way to the back loading dock of what turns out to be the Bakery.
"Oh, yes…." A lustful hiss.
A strangled gasp. "Ohhhhh…. Oh, Snow's Roses, you can't be serious! Put. THAT. BACK!" Then an awkward, giggling squeal.
"Fuck, Katty girl… I want you…."
"Gods, I want you too, but…. Hmmmm….. Mmmm…. We mustn't, we really mustn't. I've never been with anyone before. Never! Nev- ahhhhh… Ahhhhhhhh….. AHHHHHHHHHH!"
Haymitch rounds the corner to find the Mellark boy pressing Belle Everdeen's eldest girl into the bricks. Her creamy thigh is lifted high, curled around his waist, the skirts of her blue Reaping dress shoved up around her hips. He's thrusting into her wildly, kissing her deeply, and he's stunned by how arduously shrewish Katniss is kissing him back. Her fingernails digging into the toned shape of his buttocks, the girl shamelessly ruts her hips back, rubbing herself against him in perfect time as he shags her.
Breaking the kiss heatedly, her lashes fluttering and her head lolling to one side, Katniss lets out a happy scream again as Peeta pumps into her more sharply. She writhes with a cry of shock and desire as she cums, her fucked body growing limp in his embrace. Dazed, her arms loop about Peeta's neck, clutching at his rippling shoulder blades.
Her voice lifts in song along with how her noodly form, its virginity taken, must sing in love:
"Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you! …. At last, I know the meaning of it all!..."
Peeta grunts and finishes himself off deep inside her, sagging against his lover as he orgasms. Tenderly touching, caressing his face, Katniss kisses Peeta lovingly, sinking into the embrace. Just before her grey eyes flutter shut, they shift and catch a glimpse of Haymitch watching.
"Mmmm! Hmmmm!" Katniss squeals and squirms against Peeta, wrenching free of the kiss with a gasp at the realization they are no longer alone. "Hay… Haymitch," she breathes, face flushing positively scarlet. "I…. that is, we…." Peeta turns and quickly, gallantly sets Katniss down from where he'd been gripping the underside of her thigh. Haymitch merely smirks at the copulating couple, caught in the act.
"Next time, you fuck her, you'd better have made an honest woman out of her, boy."
Katniss's cheeks burn pink, and Peeta can only chuckle weakly.
No one laughs harder than Haymitch, though, as, the following summer, immediately after their final Reaping, Peeta gets down on one knee and asks Katniss Magenta Everdeen to marry him. She happily accepts his proposal, despite her opinions on marriage. Weeks later, they are wed in the Justice Building, with Katniss wearing her mother's bridal gown passed down as a family heirloom. Later, at a reception held in the Meadow just beyond the fence, Katniss and Peeta Toast a bit of bread over a bonfire and share it in the presence of their family and friends.
Smiling weakly and radiantly, leaning in shyly, holding back for a moment, Katniss finally surrenders and permits her new husband to kiss her. The ardor and passion of his kiss steals the breath from her lungs in a gasp until finally… she sinks into the embrace, her fingers weaving themselves in Peeta's golden curls as, her eyes drooping shut, she kisses him back to a chorus of cheers. A fiddler strikes up a tune, and the blushing bride allows her groom to take her in his arms so the newlyweds can dance at their wedding.
Leaning against a tree at the edge of the Meadow nuptials, Haymitch watches the two young people now joined in marriage with an amused smile on his face.
"Aw, Lucy Gray, I wish you could see this…."
A light breeze tickles the scruff of his beard just then, and the Victor knows, some way, somehow, that his departed mentor has.
