One-Shot: When In Thirteen
When the firebombs fall on District 12, Katniss feels the heat of them from right there in the Square.
It is a desperate flight through the streets of Town for her and her family, along with the Hawthornes. There is strength in numbers, and despite all the frantic pushing and shoving, their group manages to stay together. Gale shouts for them to run for the fence at the Meadow.
In the chaos, Katniss glances back and happens to spot a golden crop of blond hair. He is only a few steps from the Bakery, which could be bombed at any moment.
Katniss doesn't care. Ignoring the shouts from her loved ones, she doubles back for him. She drags Peeta Mellark, a classmate who she's only spoken to a couple of times on trades, away from his family's establishment, just moments ahead of it being engulfed in flames.
His eyes as blue as a summer sky, fire and smoke dancing in them, gaze at her. She stares right back. Oddly, the reflective colors frolicking in his irises make her think of Toastings, their district's marriage custom.
"Stay with me," she whispers.
"Always," he breathes. The trusting in his voice shocks her.
"Come on!" she takes his hand and pulls him along, taking him with her.
There is a stampede as a good chunk of Twelve's population tears and eventually tramples over the fence. Katniss and Gale lead an exodus of people across the Meadow and into the safety of the trees.
The hunting in order to feed roughly 800 survivors begins in earnest.
Katniss searches for Peeta as she serves food, but doesn't see him. An odd, worrying pang spasms through her heart.
Three days into their ordeal, hovercrafts with Thirteen's insignia pick them up.
Katniss is assigned to Weapons Development. Gale works with her. Their hunting experience is noted, enough that the pair are given special privileges to hunt on behalf of District 13 aboveground.
She and Gale still work well together, but don't speak as much anymore. They had shared a kiss last winter, just before the Victory Tour of last year's Games, but Katniss had found less meaning in it than Gale had. They haven't spoken of it since.
All through their quiet hunts, Katniss is consumed by thoughts about the boy she saved. She should feel proud that she has repaid her debt to him, when he tossed her bread when they were children.
So why is she in such anguish?
A strange, crippling relief overcomes her when she finally sees Peeta Mellark again. He survived, and has now been put to work in the district kitchens. His talents as a Baker are of good use here.
Overtime, Katniss finds herself stealing into the back where the cooks work to talk to him, after she's returned from a hunt. Or hold up the mess line when Peeta is at the serving counter.
After a week, she and Peeta know each other's favorite colors.
After two weeks, they are friends.
Air raid sirens herald that a Capitol bombing of No Man's Land is imminent.
Katniss is swept into the tide of another mad rush, this time down to the bomb shelters.
Heavy metal doors seal them all in like a tomb. There are bunk beds with metal frames against all the walls, air mattresses spread on every tile of floor.
She manages to find Peeta in the darkness. They make a game out of casting a beam from a flashlight for Primrose's cat, Buttercup, to chase.
Peeta tells her he has learned the fate of his family: neither of his parents nor his two brothers made it out of Twelve alive. Katniss tells him she's sorry.
Their voices trail off as they listen to the pleasured moaning coming from around them. See the darkened silhouettes of lovers mounting and mating with each other.
Stealing a glance at the handsome man beside her, Katniss doesn't let the flashlight's glow illuminate the flushed pink to her cheeks. She has never understood the appeal of sex. She honestly wonders what all the fuss is about.
A pair of Victors from Four, recently extracted from behind enemy lines and offered asylum, announce their engagement.
Peeta asks Katniss one day in the kitchens if he might accompany her to the wedding. He is bashful and suddenly not as verbose when he offers to escort her. Taken aback yet also pleased, Katniss accepts.
Peeta is still clearly nervous on the day of the nuptials, which Four refugees refer to as a 'netting.' Pulling him into her arms, Katniss takes him for a dance. She shyly teaches him how to dance the reel.
When the newlyweds are presented with an immaculate wedding cake with blue waves on the icing that almost look lifelike, Katniss is stunned when Peeta humbly admits he baked it himself.
"I…. used to do the cakes down at the Bakery."
Katniss smiles with admiration at him. Hesitantly, she dares to take his hand in hers. Their fingers lace together.
She feels safe.
President Coin announces the end of the war.
Cue euphoric pandemonium.
Complete strangers embrace and even kiss each other. Searching for Primrose and Mother in the crowd, Katniss suddenly feels herself being spun around and swept into a dip.
Someone's lips are on hers. She squeaks.
Her stunned gaze stares into a frightened and exhilarated pair of summer-sky blue eyes. It's as though Peeta is second-guessing, in his deliriousness, whether she even wants him to –
She pulls him closer.
Her grey eyes swoon shut.
She kisses him back.
When they break apart, his one palm is cupping her bum through her skirts amorously. To which she apparently hiked her thigh up over his hip in response.
Peeta swings her back onto her feet. Wordlessly, Katniss lets him take her by the hand and lead her with purpose away from the jubilant crowd.
They go back to his apartment.
They make love.
She lets out a cry when she is brought to orgasm. Katniss finally understands what all the fuss is about.
Peeta says, "I love you."
She says it back.
Even though hostilities have ended, men are still needed at the front, now in the heart of the Capitol city.
Katniss is terrified beyond reason when Peeta is served with deployment papers. It's a strain enough on her heart to learn that Prim is going as a medic; she had tried to forbid her sister from obeying the summons.
There are still active pods and other dangers within the Capitol's inner walls. Little pockets of sprouting popping up like flame here and there. Katniss fears for the safety of the man with whom, in almost no time, she has fallen in love.
There is suddenly a rush for District 13 couples to wed. Marriage licenses are being issued and there is a revolving door of weddings. When Peeta first proposes to Katniss down in the kitchens, she is speechless.
At one time, Katniss would have died before having anyone who asked for her hand in marriage. There is now the outside but nonetheless real possibility that she would become a widow so soon after becoming a wife.
But then, Peeta kisses her, and this is crazy, and she tells him:
"Yes."
Katniss and Peeta marry in his apartment. Their Toasting only has her family and the Hawthornes as witnesses.
A pile of pine needles and a single dandelion, harvested from aboveground, serves as Katniss's bridal bouquet. She is wearing her blue Reaping dress to get married in – the Everdeen family wedding dress, an heirloom that had been worn by her mother, was lost in the firebombings. There is a solemn exchange of rings and vows, followed by the customary sharing of toasted bread. An ex-pat from 10 named Dalton marries them and when he pronounces the couple man and wife, Peeta and Katniss lose themselves in a dreamy, desperate kiss.
Katniss tosses her bouquet aside and deepens her wedding kiss. Primrose is the one to catch the dandelion. The pine needles scatter on the floor.
The new Mr. and Mrs. Mellark clutch at each other desperately the day the newly minted Soldier ships out. Peeta gives his new bride a medallion with his picture in it, to carry with her.
When Katniss is finally released to go to the front several weeks later, she is overcome with relief to find her sister, her mother and her husband all safe.
Katniss returns with her husband to Twelve. Prim and Mother, then the Hawthornes, soon follow.
Prim gets engaged to Gale's younger brother, Rory, on the condition that they wait to wed until they're both 18.
By the time her sister does marry, it has taken Katniss several years to even agree to… but Peeta wants them so badly. So, she submits. Accepts her impending motherhood and happily. There are no more Reapings, no more Games.
When she falls pregnant, she still feels terror as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding their daughter in her arms dispels it. Carrying their son is easier, but not by much.
Now, her and Peeta's children play in the Meadow. The baby – their third – at her breast wakes up crying for his mother's milk. Katniss coos to him if he's had a nightmare and tells her son about hers. How she'll explain them to him. She'll tell him how to survive it: love. After all, there is nothing better in this world than that.