One-Shot: As Long As You Have Me
Peeta Mellark is Reaped. His childhood best friend, Delly Cartwright, is Reaped alongside him – the first time two Merchants have been sent in together since… well, possibly ever.
In his holding room in the Justice Building, he paces, after saying goodbye to his parents and brothers. He doesn't expect many more visitors, maybe a buddy or two from the wrestling squad.
Suddenly, the door opens and he hears the Peacekeeper murmuring to whoever is being admitted that they have three minutes.
Peeta turns. His jaw drops.
Katniss Everdeen is standing before him in all her immaculate beauty. Her single braid is tucked behind her ear. She used to wear her chestnut tresses in two braids, Peeta remembers. The beautiful Seam girl is staring at the floor, her soft hands bunching up the skirts of her blue Reaping dress, causing the fabric to hopelessly crease.
Katniss finally lifts her head. Throwing her shoulders back, she marches right up to him. Looks him square in the eye. Her expression is a few notches below a scowl. It is more…. neutral. Correct.
"Thank you for the bread." An awkward beat. "There, I said it."
Peeta lets out a bemused chuckle. A smile is actually fighting to tug up his lips. "What, from when we were kids?"
She nods, averting her eyes. To his shock, Peeta watches her drop her face into her palm. Something that may actually sound like a sob fights and halfway bursts free from her. At last, Katniss regains her composure.
Peeta notices she is fiddling with something at her breast. She's always had such round, curved breasts and he fights not to ogle them – ogle her. Katniss finally unfastens a grimy pin that was probably once golden from her bodice. Her hands are shaking as she works to affix it to Peeta's dress shirt.
"You're allowed to carry one token into the arena with you." Aside from the fact that she is gifting him something that isn't squirrel, Peeta is shocked by her prattling – Katniss Everdeen never prattles. The few times they have spoken, she's been known to use a rather stringent economy of words. Her grey eyes lift shyly to meet his, the lashes fluttering. "Wear… wear this for me?"
Peeta nods dumbly.
Then he's blurting out: "Shouldn't you get a token too?"
"What?" Katniss blinks. She actually smiles, bemused.
"You know, for visiting the tributes."
She lets out a nervous laugh. "That's not a thing."
"It ought to be," Peeta keeps rambling. "Hardly anyone visits our tributes anyway. Shouldn't they at least get a…. little sticker that says, 'I Visited,' or something like that? Maybe it would serve as incentive for more people to brave the doors."
Katniss laughs. He's never heard her laugh before. Heck, these are some of the few instances he has seen her smile when her sister or Gale Hawthorne are nowhere in sight.
She ducks her head shyly. "I would have come anyway," she mumbles vulnerably. "And not just for a sticker."
Peeta stares at her. Courage coursing through him like lightning, he takes one very deliberate step into her and cradles her skull in his palm, lifting her face to meet his, tilt it back.
She jerks at his touch, her voice tapering off into a choked sound. "What…. what are you doing?..." Her grey eyes are wide.
"Can I give you your token?" Peeta rumbles. "For visiting me?"
Katniss gawps at him. "You… You don't owe me anything…"
"For my token, I owe you something."
"Come home alive. That's what you owe me!" Katniss haggles. She sounds incredibly nervous.
Peeta just smiles sadly. "When have you ever made a trade you couldn't pay back?"
Katniss's grey eyes expand. "Just once. But I did eventually and I – Mmmmmm!"
Peeta kisses her full on the mouth. Katniss's grey eyes pop, darting down to where their lips have now joined as one. Their mouths move with an oddly easy tandem, a natural give and take. Peeta is waiting for Katniss to reach up and smack him, or worse, punch him, but to his surprise, she doesn't pull away.
Her hands, which came up to splay across his chest, suddenly clench, her fingers fisting the dress shirt that his mother put too much starch in this morning.
Peeta sees the moment that Katniss's eyelids droop heavily before they finally flicker closed. He feels her sway into him, at the same instant her lips part willingly under his so she can draw his tongue into her open mouth.
She kisses him back.
Baker and huntress embrace, and the kiss deepens with a fervor that startles them both. Someone moans, and Peeta's cock gives a furious twitch inside his pants when he realizes the sound came from the beautiful young woman in his arms.
"Mmmmmmhmmmmmmm…."
Katniss's groan peters off into gentle whimpers, and the couple finally release each other for air, panting, gasping. Katniss looks positively thunderstruck, her grey eyes blinking at the speed of a hummingbird's wing.
Peeta doesn't realize it, but this was her very first kiss.
For a moment, they stare at each other.
"I wanted to marry you."
Katniss flinches at his rueful, very deliberate use of the past tense. Her mouth, red and kiss-swollen, is agape. Peeta watches her cheeks stain pink as she blushes. She's gone back to fiddling with her skirts again. "I'm…. I'm never getting hitched."
He senses she doesn't say this to break his heart, or even let him down gently, and Peeta doesn't take offense. Besides, he'll more than likely be dead in a few weeks, so what does it matter?
The door handle jiggles and clicks as the Peacekeepers enter, and no, it can't be three minutes already. Peeta has eyes only for her as she is led away, backed out of the room.
Katniss stares right back, and there is something anguished in her expression.
"I love you!"
She blasts it out, and Peeta's blue orbs bulge because he realizes he never said the same to her. She wasn't prompted or pressured by his words to say back something she might not truly feel just to spare his feelings.
"I know. I love you too!"
He sees from the expression on her face that she hears him, registers his words. It is the last thing he sees from her before the door slams.
Peeta becomes the Victor of the 74th Hunger Games.
With her pin on his breast and her kiss still lingering, tingling, on his lips, he fights his way through tributes far better trained than he, giving District 12 their first win in nearly twenty-five years.
The Capitol adores him, Haymitch is so ecstatic that he is falling down drunk throughout much of the Closing Ceremonies. Caesar is jovial during the final interview.
Peeta turns on the charm for it all, but it feels like more and more of an effort. He is conscious now of the need to flip a switch, almost, whereas before his personality came fairly naturally.
He and Haymitch are mobbed at Lucy Gray Baird station, District 12's train terminal named for the very first Victor from the coalfields. Peeta's brothers rush him, his mother actually hugs him.
Scanning the heads of the throng, Peeta's blue eyes gradually dim as he searches and searches for that one face. From the way the Capitol camera crews are covering the scene on a sweep, it is obvious they are waiting for something too. Someone…. Peeta had mentioned in his first interview how he "sort of has a girl waiting back home." A girl he'd had a crush on forever. He never revealed her name though, and ever since, the Capitol has run itself nearly to madness trying to figure out who she is.
It's just as well that they don't. Peeta wouldn't want this for Katniss, not for anything.
Even so, he wishes he could have seen her lovely face.
Life settles into routine at Victors' Village.
The nightmares come, of course, and Peeta often wakes up screaming. Haymitch arranged for an art studio to be set up in what is actually the attic, so Peeta will go up there to paint when he can't sleep.
More often than not, he paints memories of his Games. When he doesn't paint these, he finds himself painting Katniss.
A few days after he comes home and the camera crews have left, Peeta hears a knock on his door. He opens it and is stunned to see Katniss Everdeen standing there, a squirrel's tail pinched between her thumb and forefinger. She is wearing her father's hunting jacket over her blue dress, and she looks a vision. He'd ask her to stay still, just so he could paint the image, but that would be weird.
Katniss smirks. "Never been up here before. It will be nice to expand my delivery base."
She starts to sway into him and Peeta jerks sharply. Blips of memory of blood and gore and viciousness assault him and he is terrified of hurting her. "Stay back!"
His heart howls at how the light in her grey eyes dims. "Peeta, what's wrong?"
"I'm not that guy you said goodbye to in the Justice Building. Not anymore. It's not me!"
Katniss purses her lips into a bemused, even skeptical frown. Lifting a hand, she paws her fingers through the golden strands at the nape of his neck, studying them almost contemplatively. She shifts her head to gaze into his eyes….
"….Eyes as blue as a summer sky…." At least, that's what he thinks he hears her murmur. Her grey orbs expand, and she just smiles and shakes her head.
"But it is you!" she cries. Expression radiant, she suddenly throws her arms around his neck and kisses him exuberantly on the mouth.
Peeta squeaks and the couple staggers back into his mansion. He has enough self-awareness to resist the urge of pushing her away.
When Katniss and Peeta break the kiss at last, she licks her bow lips. She smiles, satisfied.
"Just like I remember…" Katniss murmurs, mostly to herself. "From my dreams."
She's dreamt about me? Peeta's head is swimming. Ordinarily, he would be elated by this development.
With great effort, he steps out of her arms. "You need to leave."
Katniss's face falls in shock. "What? Why? Peeta…"
"I appreciate the squirrel, and the token, Katniss, but you have to go." He turns away from her, teeth set as he grinds out. "Please. It's for your own good."
He can't look at her. How is he supposed to explain? Finally, he jerks, startled by the sound of his front door slamming.
For weeks and months, every day is the same.
At some point during the day, Peeta will hear a knock at the front door of his mansion. He knows it isn't Haymitch – when his mentor needs something, he more or less barges right in. By the time he inevitably answers it after hobbling on his artificial leg, she is long gone. Only the squirrel is left behind.
Peeta starts drinking. The first time he does, it sends his head spinning so much that he barely stumbles up to his room before he crashes. Upon waking after an indeterminate period of time, he staggers downstairs to find the mess of beer bottles from before mysteriously cleaned up and placed in the trash.
One evening, Peeta comes downstairs to find her waiting for him, seated at the kitchen table.
He stares at her dully. "You shouldn't be here."
"Tough. I'm here." Katniss rises and crosses to him, one eyebrow arched. "And I'm not going anywhere." Before he can twist away, she has taken his large hands in hers. "Peeta, I can't pretend to know what it's like for a Victor. But whatever is haunting you, you can work through it."
"How?" Peeta studies her, hopeless.
Katniss takes a deep breath and steps forward, into him, head held high and her grey eyes resolute. "As long as you have me. We can work through it together."
Peeta gawps at her. He shakes his head. "I can't ask you to throw your life away like that…."
"What I do with my life, Peeta Mellark, is not your decision to make…."
"You'd be better off with…. Gale!" he throws out. It's a weak excuse, but he's been jealous of that boy for most of his life, and how the Hawthorne lad was always hanging around her.
"I don't want to be with Gale! I want you." Katniss insists.
"Yeah?" he growls. "Well, how about I make things easier for you and take myself out of the equation?"
He watches her go white in the artificial lighting of his gourmet kitchen. He's baiting her, and it's cruel, he knows it. He's just betting he'll frighten her into leaving if she thinks he's going to…
"Lucy Gray Baird did it, or so the stories say."
"She disappeared," Katniss corrects, though her voice is quavering. "There's a difference."
"Well, so can I! I could slip the fence…."
She actually laughs at this. "Boy, you wouldn't make it five miles!"
"Doesn't take five miles to get to the Hanging Tree." At least he knows where that is.
Katniss has gone even paler. "NO!" she yelps. "You're not…. thinking clearly! Don't do that!" Peeta starts to move past her, and she blocks his way, hands coming up desperately to splay along his chest. "No! Peeta – stay!"
His blue eyes narrow at her. "Why?" He leans into her, and he feels her gaze flit down to his chest. For a second, he wonders if she is afraid of him. Would it be so bad if she was? Maybe then she'd see he's a lost cause. "Give me one good reason. After all, there's no more owed between us."
"Because I don't want to lose you!" Katniss blasts out.
Peeta smirks bitterly, shaking his head. "That's not good enough."
He can practically see the gears turning frantically in her head. "Because your tributes need you. Haymitch will need you!"
Another headshake, and he turns away. "Still not good enough…"
"PEETA!" The strangled call of his name makes him freeze.
A beat that seems to last an eternity. And then…
"Marry me."
Peeta whirls around to gape at Katniss in shock. He cannot believe that she actually…. Did she actually just propose to him? Katniss is only half-looking at him, glancing down at the floor shyly.
"I'm…. asking you…. to marry me…." She only lifts her face to meet his eyes when he is nearly right on top of her. Her eyes become lidded.
He starts to go in for her lips, but she twists away just slightly. "But if we're going to have a Toasting, mister, you can't ever tell me what to do!"
Freezing, Peeta nods. In asking for his hand in marriage, she is delivering the terms for their potential union. He better let her say her piece, before she changes her mind.
"And I won't have children. Not as long as there are still Hunger Games. Babies are something to love only to become something to lose."
At one time, before the arena, Peeta wanted nothing more than to have kids. Now, he understands why Katniss would be afraid. Any babies of theirs, with a Victor for a father… the moment that child turned twelve, it would be Reaped for the arena.
"I can hunt whenever I want. Primrose can visits us here whenever she wants. And I can't promise I'll be civil to your mother."
Silence. Those are the terms, then. Smiling shyly, Katniss loops her arms about his neck.
"Go ahead, then," she smirks. "Ask me."
"Ask what?"
She just rolls her eyes. "Ask me to marry you. Propose."
So he does. He gets down on one knee and everything, despite the fact that he's still not used to his new leg. "Katniss Magenta Everdeen, will you marry me?"
Katniss beams softly. "Yes."
They kiss, hesitantly at first, but then it deepens into something passionate, almost carnal. Peeta nuzzles his face into the soft curve of her neck, which suddenly feels damp, and with a jolt, he realizes it's because he is crying.
"Don't leave me…..!" he sobs.
Katniss swoons into him, resting herself against his firm chest. "I won't," she murmurs, almost croons.
She gasps when his lips now crush hers. Clutching each other tightly, their arms wound sinuously about each other, they stumble in the direction of the stairs before finally jerking apart for air, gasping.
Pupils dilated, Peeta holds out his hand to her. Gulping, Katniss takes it, and she lets him lead her with solemn purpose up the stairs to his bedroom….
Thunder has started to roll outside as it's getting on night. By the light of candles, Katniss and Peeta kiss hungrily, languorously, their lips joining in an easy give and take that vacillates from heavy making out with tongue to feverish pecks.
Katniss leans back into her lover with a sigh, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as Peeta's mouth worships her neck. She shivers from want and desire when he shrugs her blue Reaping dress off her shoulders so that the bodice falls away, revealing her bare, pert breasts.
"Huhhhhhhh… Uhhhhhhhhhhhh….."
Gripping the back of his neck, Katniss pulls his mouth back down to hers hungrily. There is a stirring in her chest, in her blood. This is the first kiss that makes her want another.
After surviving starvation as a child, she thought she was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.
Peeta amorously cups the swell of Katniss's now bare breast. Katniss turns into him, and Peeta's other hand wanders to caress and feel up the round globes of her buttocks, gripping the one cheek covetously. She nudges him to grip her thigh at the same moment she raises same thigh to his hip, hooking it around his torso in one fluid motion.
Lest her intentions aren't clear, she gallingly pushes her hips up, to cradle his.
Katniss and Peeta fall back onto the bed. Pausing in their tender kissing, they gaze into each other's eyes.
Feeling the wetness pool between her legs, Katniss wordlessly spreads them.
Peeta is gentle as he pushes into her, kissing her deeply to help ease her through the pain. Katniss feels her eyes prick with tears, which Peeta kisses away. For a moment, she nearly panics.
"Just…. just fuck me and get it over with."
Above her, Peeta freezes. "Katty girl, if you don't want this…."
"NO!" she yelps, lifting her legs to hook one over his back. "I…. I want this. I need this. I do." She gulps, gazing into his eyes.
"Make love to me, Peeta," she whispers.
He thrusts into her.
It isn't at all like what she was expecting. Katniss comes to learn that Peeta is an ardent lover, but not rough, his thrusts picking up into short bursts of speed, his breathing becoming shallow and labored as he beds her.
"I…. I love you….." Head drooping between her boobs, his lips suckling on and kissing the hardened peaks of her nipples, he seems in awe of her.
"Imagine seeing these fill up if I filled you with my seed….."
Given her position on children, Katniss should be terrified by a statement like this. Coming from Peeta, however, it oddly amuses her. And also, ironically, turns her on.
She groans and lifts her hips to draw him in deeper as Peeta thrusts into her faster, panting into the sweating, glistening and soft curve of her neck. His one hand has fisted itself in her chestnut hair, holding the strands down into the pillow as he pounds his lover into the mattress. The bedsprings creak beneath them.
Katniss gasps. Her breathing, as well as his, has become shallow, staccato.
"Huhhhhh….. Uhhhhhh… Uggghhhhhh…. Hmmmm….. Mmmmmm…. H-harder…. Faster…. Faster…. Make me cum, please make me cum, Peeta – ahhhhhh…. AHHHHHH…. AHHHHHHHHHH! Ah! – ahhhhhhhhhh…."
Katniss cums sharply. Her toes curl as her spread-eagled legs scrabble for purchase along the mattress. Her fingers, fisting the bedclothes, now unclench to lovingly encircle Peeta's rippling back in awed wonder, her nails digging into the skin there as she dazedly lilts her voice and sings:
"Ahhhh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you…..!" Peeta grunts and finally finishes inside her, ejaculating hard with a pleasured groan. "Ahhhhhhh, I know at last the secret of it all…!"
Peeta rolls a noodly Katniss onto her stomach. She props herself on all fours.
Peeta mounts her and mates with her.
The handsome Baker begins to jerk his hips into Katniss's round, toned buttocks, thrusting his cock into her anus, and with a moan, she draws him in deeper. Deeper until his balls are deliciously slapping against her ass.
Katniss squeaks when Peeta pulls her head back so he can clap a hand over her mouth, stifling her cries. For just a second, she feels panic, but then it fades, passing like a fleeting shadow.
"MMMMMMM-HMMMMMM! MMMMMMM!" She continues to moan piteously into his palm.
Her eyes droop closed as another wave of pleasure overtakes her when Peeta brings her to orgasm.
They make love.
Afterwards, they lie together in post-coitus, Peeta spooning her from behind. Katniss's dress is barely hanging on her lithe frame, the skirts stained with semen. Peeta brushes her braid back to press a kiss into her neck.
"Why did you come tonight?" he murmurs.
She turns her head over her shoulder to peer at him. "Because I owe you," she finally decides. And she does. For the bread.
To her shock and delight, Peeta seems to know exactly what she is talking about. Liquid courage and desire fuel Katniss's blood. Boldly, she slams Peeta onto his back, rolling over and swinging a creamy thigh over his hips as she gallingly moves to straddle him. Kissing lazily, Katniss helps Peeta to peel her blue dress off her lithe frame completely, letting the garment drop to the side of the bed and pool with a rustle on the floor.
Drawing the bedsheets up over her svelte, naked frame, Katniss feels Peeta's hands clutch her shoulder blades.
She goes down on him. She rides him.
They have sex once more.
They lie together, naked, tangled under the sheets and their limbs intertwined. Resting on his chest, Katniss is prattling on about plans for the wedding, mocking up their Toasting in her head.
"…. Of course, Mama will want me to wear her dress…. Do you know she actually stole it when she eloped with my daddy?"
"No. Not surprised. I thought wedding dresses were only a Merchant thing. Mother to daughter right of passage, you know?" Peeta shifts against her with a smirk. "Still, for someone who once claimed she was never getting hitched, you sure have put a lot of thought into this…"
Katniss smirks, swatting his chest. "That's because before, I was designing Prim's Toasting, not my own!"
Peeta full on chortles, pulling his bride-to-be closer. "Tell me, have you picked out the groom for her and all?"
"Rory Hawthorne, Gale's brother." At Peeta's shocked blast of a chuckle, Katniss squirms against him and sits up in the bed they've shared, her grey eyes pleading. "Don't tell her I said that."
Peeta laughs and yanks her down for a kiss.
Peeta and Katniss first go to the Justice Building to sign a marriage license and stand before the District Justice of the Peace so that they may be wed in the eyes of the district law. Such law stipulates that they can't enter matrimony under the age of 18 unless they have at least one parent from each joining household sign off their permission. Mrs. Everdeen does so on behalf of her eldest daughter, while Mr. Mellark blesses the marriage for his youngest son. Mrs. Mellark, on the other hand, makes it clear that she does not approve, though there is little she can do to stop the nuptials. The only power play the Witch can make is to disown her son over his choice of bride.
Katniss is stunned to see how supremely unbothered her soon-to-be-husband is by this. "She'd pretty much already disowned me, after I came home," is all Peeta says about it. "She's ashamed to be related to a murderer."
Katniss grips his chin and forces him to look at her. "You're not a murderer," she states. From the look in his eyes, she can tell he doesn't agree with her, so she kisses him deeply to avoid an ethically hair-splitting argument.
Following the civil ceremony at the Justice Building, Peeta lifts his bride onto the back of a rented cart and pulls it to the edge of the district.
There, Katniss and Peeta marry in the Meadow.
Katniss is wearing her mother's wedding dress, the Everdeens' one family heirloom. There are dandelions braided into her chestnut tresses. More dandelions are in her bridal bouquet, mixed in with pine needles. The new Mrs. Mellark was a little leery to have her husband's mentor escort her down the aisle in place of her father, so she compensated by having her father-in-law help in performing the task as well. At least, then, she is guaranteed to stay upright without fear of drunk Abernathy tripping her.
Greasy Sae is the one to bless and marry them as Katniss and Peeta solemnly give their vows. They exchange rings – more of a Merchant tradition, as Merchants are the only ones who can afford to buy such devotionals – even though Peeta claims he doesn't need one.
"This can be my wedding ring," he had told Katniss, gesturing to the pin she had given him as his token. But Katniss had insisted their sign of commitment to their marriage should be different from what he carried into the arena, and to please her, Peeta had acquiesced.
Once they are declared husband and wife, Katniss and Peeta embrace and heatedly kiss, to cheers from Maid of Honor Prim, Mrs. Everdeen, Peeta's father and brothers, Haymitch and the Hawthornes. The Witch is noticeably absent. Swooning into her wedding kiss, Katniss casually touses her bridal bouquet aside. Primrose catches the sprig of dandelions; the pine needles scatter into the meadow grasses.
The wedding party finally retires to Victors' Village for the most meaningful part of the ceremony and the reception. Prim and little Posy lead the singing of the traditional district wedding song, as Peeta sweeps a laughing Katniss off her feet and carries her into his – their – mansion.
"May your house be a palace, and your hearth never grow cold…"
It certainly is a palace, Katniss thinks, as her groom sets her down over the threshold of their home. Immediately, Prim, Madge Undersee – her bridesmaids – and Posy, the flower girl, have surrounded her and sequestered her upstairs to change into her blue Reaping dress. Her Toasting dress.
When Katniss descends the stair, Peeta is waiting for her beside a roaring hearth.
Toasting a bit of bread, Katniss and Peeta reverently feed each other a piece. Firelight dancing in her solemn grey eyes, Katniss tilts her head, her lips slightly parted, and permits her…. her husband to kiss her.
Before they lose themselves in the kiss, Katniss whispers against his mouth, for only Peeta to hear, "I love my husband!"
He chuckles and swings her into a dip.
Delly Cartwright's father, on Peeta's personal invitation, strikes up a reel on his fiddle. The newlyweds dance at their wedding, leading off the first jig.
"I wish Delly was here," Katniss expresses, at rest in her husband's arms.
Peeta bobs his head above where she is leaning against his chest. He's always found it hard to talk about his late district partner. "Me too."
Wedding gifts are presented. Victors getting married are rare, and there are only a few who are married, that Haymitch knows of. One of them, a woman from 8 named Cecelia, has forwarded an elaborate quilt for Katniss and Peeta's bed. The accompanying note states that it is 8 tradition for a newlywed couple to be wrapped up in one, at their marriage ceremony known as a quilting. Peeta's smile is wistful and sad as he sets the blanket aside.
"What's wrong?" Katniss frowns.
"Nothing. Just…. thinking about Cecelia's tribute. The girl that I…. had to finish off, my first night in the arena. Remember?"
Katniss leans in and kisses him tenderly. "You showed her mercy," she reminds him. "I am sure Cecelia was grateful for that."
Prim presents her sister with a full at-home medical kit. Hazelle is generous when, on behalf of the Hawthornes, she gifts Katniss with traditional kiln-fired cookware, common in the Seam. Haymitch presents his protégé and his young wife with, predictably, a bottle of wine – aged twenty years, the summer of the 55th, for back then, wine was all that was good.
However, it is still up to Peeta to perform the coup de grace.
He presents his bride with a Toasting cake – their Toasting cake, one he baked himself. Instantly, Katniss draws both hands to her mouth, and her eyes fill with tears.
"OHHHH! Snow's Roses, it's a vision! But… but how did you….? You didn't! You shouldn't have!" Her grey orbs are sparkling with emotional delight.
Peeta spoons her from behind, his breath tickling her earlobe. "Do you like it, Sweetheart?" And though Katniss is not one for public displays of affection, she nonetheless reaches up around his neck to kiss him soundly.
"Oh…. darling, I love it! I love you!"
Peeta grins bashfully. "You know…. that's not your only present."
Katniss gapes at him, letting out an adorable whimper. "There's more…?"
Peeta just laughs and signal his two brothers. Rye and Leven hike up the stairs, and moments later they return, carrying something shaped like a canvas between them. Pulling away the dropcloth, they present it to their sister-in-law.
If Katniss was stunned by the Toasting cake, now she is speechless. Her Peeta has painted a picture of her. She is in the woods, bow at the ready, wearing the blue dress she wears now with her father's hunting jacket over top of it.
"What do you think?" Peeta asks. He sounds nervous.
She turns back to him, grinning. "I hate it," she adjudicates facetiously. She hugs him. "How do you capture me so exactly?"
He shrugs. "I see you every night."
"Hmm," Katniss purrs, demurring. She loops her arms about his neck. "And now you'll get to see me every night…." She ducks her head shyly at her sultry comment. "If you'll have me."
Peeta bends and kisses her softly. "Of course."
Katniss searches his eyes. "Stay with me?"
"Always."
The reception party lasts all night. When the new Mr. and Mrs. Mellark finally retire to bed, Katniss tackles her husband to their now-quilted mattress and they make love, consummating their marriage.
Later, under an open window letting moonlight in, wrapped in each other's arms, Peeta asks into the darkness:
"You love me. Real or Not Real?"
Katniss answers him unequivocally:
"Real."