Epilogue

I return home to District 12, with the Victors' Crown once again on my head and with my husband's second-place, silver medal around my neck.

Almost immediately after my homecoming, there is upheaval in the District 12 Victors' Village.

As Gale Hawthorne is now deceased, his family – my in-laws – no longer have any rights to live in the house my husband and I set aside for them when we won last year. The Capitol government and the district Justice Building moves to kick them out.

Haymitch eventually solves the problem by paying for the children's room and board, and hiring Hazelle on, first as his alcohol abuse counselor, then his housekeeper… and finally, as his wife. The reforming drunk and my mother-in-law hold a quiet yet fine Toasting in the Village green that autumn.

Clad in my blue Reaping dress, I hover at the edge of the party, watching my sister and Rory Hawthorne holding each other awkwardly at arm's-length. Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn – and freeze.

My throat inexplicably goes dry.

"What…. what are you doing here?" I sound oddly breathless.

Peeta Mellark smirks, clearly amused by how I am flustered. "Prim invited me," he explains, eyebrows raised. "She thought it was only the polite thing to do, seeing as I baked the Toasting cake."

I nod dumbly. "Of…. of course." I realize this must be the first time Peeta has been in the Village since he was training us for the Quell, just before the Reaping.

We watch the reception for a while, until Peeta finally turns to me.

"Would you like to dance?"

I turn my head and appraise him. I nod quietly.

"I'd love to."

Gathering him in my arms, I take the Baker's son for a dance. I shyly teach him how to dance the reel, then a waltz, placing my hands carefully along his broad shoulders and showing him where to hold my waist. I can feel eyes watching us, but could give a damn.

It amuses me how Peeta seems uncomfortable. "Your sister is gossiping about us…" he murmurs low in my ear.

"Boy, I can and will glue my hands to you!"

It isn't entirely an idle threat, but it does the job of ensuring that Peeta dances with me all evening.

I start hunting again, bringing squirrel by the back loading dock of the Bakery to trade for bread. Peeta conducts most of the haggling now, and soon haggling morphs into conversation.

The loaves he gives me are still warm from the ovens, which was never part of the deal I made with his father, but I don't fight him on it. I don't even fight the man on it when he begins making deliveries up to Victors' Village in the evenings.

Prim seems convinced it's because Peeta wants an excuse to see me. My sister has taken to sleeping over at my mansion, sharing the bed that I used to share with Gale.

"What am I doing, Little Duck?" I ponder aloud one night. "I shouldn't be seeing him again….. I mean – I want to see him again…."

"Who wouldn't? I want to see him again," Prim smirks and even waggles her eyebrows at me.

"But still, something inside is telling me it's the right thing…."

"Perhaps it's your locket."

I finger the locket Gale gave me in the clock arena, the one with a certain blonde-haired boy's picture in it. "My locket? Do you think….?"

I don't finish the thought, yet I don't have to; Prim is grinning almost knowingly.

Winter melts into spring.

Following my second Victory Tour, it takes me several weeks to build up my nerve, but finally I blurt it all out in a breathless rush one morning on the back loading dock.

"When you bring your delivery this evening…. come out to the Meadow with me to watch the sunset." I flush. "It's…. it's a great view."

Peeta grins.

That evening, he arrives at the Village a little earlier than usual. Answering the door, I furtively close it behind me, then slip his hand in mine.

"Come with me…" I murmur low.

He and I duck the fence and sit in the Meadow on an incline, watching the fiery, dying rays sink towards the horizon. After a long moment, I feel Peeta turn his head to study me.

"Why did you bring me here?"

I turn and stare back, pondering him. "Because I owed you," I finally decide. I blush pink. "And… I know that orange is your favorite color."

Peeta chuckles, glancing back to the sunset. "You know, I wish I could freeze this moment, right now, and live in it forever."

"OK," I state simply.

There is a long companionable silence. Suddenly, I feel a large hand, calloused and warm, reach up and cradle my cheek, turning my face to his. I gaze at Peeta and how he is hovering near, in his orbs a question. I can feel my heart pounding in my ribcage.

"Katniss? Can…. Can I kiss you?"

I arch a matronly eyebrow at his grammar. "May I kiss you, please?" A beat…. and then I slowly nod.

"Yes, you may."

Peeta seems taken aback that I would say Yes. "Then you'll allow it?"

I nod again, my eyelids growing heavy, and I whisper:

"I'll allow it…."

Peeta cradles my skull in his hands, tilts it back. His mouth is a hair's-breadth from mine. I shock even myself when it is I who closes the last little distance.

Our lips meet.

To my astonishment, the kiss quickly and unexpectedly deepens, and I swing my creamy thighs into Peeta's lap as I move to straddle him, blazing kisses down to the hollow of his throat. I roll onto my back, bringing him with me, so that the tall grasses conceal our embrace.

"Kat-Katniss…." Peeta croaks. "We…. we should…. stop..."

Shaking my head, prying open his mouth with my lips, I kiss him hungrily, harder, even as I guide his hands to cup the swell of my breast through my blue dress. Let him feel how the nipple is hardening with want. With my own palm, I reach out and clasp the length of him in my fist.

Peeta chokes. "…. Katty girl! We…. we really mustn't….."

My grey eyes roving over him, I deliberately bring my knees up, the better to grip him.

"I don't care," I hiss into his lips lustily, with relish.

I spread my legs for him in invitation. The man doesn't need to be told twice. Peeta mounts me, and mates with me.

We make love.

It is the first time I have had intimate relations with a man who is not my boyfriend or husband.

Peeta bunches up the skirts of my blue dress up over my hips, and he grunts with ardor as he thrusts into me. He wrenches the bodice loose from my boobs and latches his mouth into my tits. I arch my back, pushing my breasts into his face as I let out a pleasured hum.

"Hmmmmm… Mmmmmmm… Uhhhhh… Ermmmm…. Huhhhhh….. Ugggh…. Ohhhhhhh… Ohhhhhhhhhhhh…. Peet – Peet…..ahhhhhhh…. AHHHHHHHHHH…. AHHHHHHHHHHH! Ah – ahhhhhhhhhh….."

I am moaning, gasping, sighing.

And then I am singing, my arms dazedly encircling him as I proclaim how at last I have found him, at last I know the sweet mysteries of life. At last, I know the secret of it all…

My toes curl. He brings me to orgasm. I cum.

We spend the rest of that night having sex. We play the Beast with Two Backs, rutting in heat like the animals in the wild, the beasts of the field. In between head-spinning kisses, hands clasping sweat-slicked skin as our pelvises slap together, I teach him the language of the Covey, my people.

Calor. Heat.

Anoche. Last night.

Dolor. Pain.

Placer. Pleasure.

I gaze into my lover's eyes – eyes like a summer sky.

Azul. Blue.

How do you say 'kiss me'? Bésame.

How do you say 'touch me'? Tócame.

How do you say 'fuck me'? Cojame.

When Peeta finishes deep inside me, head drooped into the valley of my breasts and kissing the mounds there, he says to me:

"I love you."

….. I say it back.

Alamanecer.

….. Sunrise.

My new lover and I court each other in secret.

Peeta's mama would not approve of him seeing a Seam woman, and a widowed Seam woman at that, even if she is a Victor.

Peeta and I take to sharing a kiss good morning on the back loading dock, the contents on my game bag spilled open and forgotten at our feet.

We kiss in the Meadow.

I eventually take him out to the woods, to the lake and my father's hunting cabin where my parents honeymooned after their Toasting. We make love on the cabin's dirt floor, under the small waterfall as we skinny-dip in the lake.

One evening, after kissing him goodnight on my porch following his bread delivery, I go through the bag only to come upon a jewelry box.

Specifically, a ring box.

A hand drawn to my mouth, I slowly pluck the engagement ring from the box and hold it to the light. It's glorious – not at all like the simple one Gale made for me when we wed in our first arena.

I suddenly realize I am crying, weeping.

Ohhhh…. He wants too much! I love him! – Isn't that enough? I can't help what's past….

I cradle the ring close, thinking of my husband. The words he spoke to me on the beach our last night together in the Quell arena.

I need for you to be happy, Catnip. Whatever decisions you make in your life, I promise I will support any decision that you make.

I sniffle. I did love Gale once…. But now I love Peeta too.

I don't know if the Baker's son left this ring box in here for me to find deliberately, but at the moment, I don't care. Jamming it on my finger, I run down to the back loading dock. I knock, hoping against hope that one very specific person answers the door, because otherwise this will be really awkward…

He does. It's him.

The minute Peeta's face appears, I throw my arms around his neck, mash his face in my hands and kiss him fiercely, violently. Peeta melts instantly and kisses me back, and when his hands wander to caress and cup the curve of my buttocks through my blue skirts, I boldly hike my leg up, curling my thigh about his torso when he raises it to his hip. I now push my own hips up, cradling them together as I mouth kisses down his face, his jawline, calling him 'precious one' and 'loved one' as I work my way to his earlobe.

Then I hiss in his ear:

"If we get married, you can't ever tell me what to do!"

Peeta draws back, slack-jawed, all the more so once I lift my hand to show him the ring glistening prominently on my finger.

"And I won't have children. Not as long as there are still Hunger Games. We can't afford to make a baby. Little ones are just something to love only to become something to lose." I search his eyes breathlessly. I've delivered the terms for this potential marriage, this union. Will he accept them?

Peeta finally nods. "I can live without having children, Katniss. But I can't live without you."

I smile, looping my arms about his neck. "Go ahead, then," I murmur. "Ask me."

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "Ask me to marry you. Propose."

Peeta gets down on one knee and everything. "Katniss Magenta Everdeen…. Hawthorne," he tacks on at the end, which I appreciate. "Will you marry me?"

I beam. "Yes."

Grinning into each other's eyes, we embrace and kiss. We have a Toasting to plan.

The morning that I get married for the second time, Prim and Mother adorn me in Mother's wedding dress, the one she made off with when she ran away to elope with my father. The garment is our one family heirloom, and is seen particularly in Merchant circles as a rite of passage, passed down from mother to daughter. Someday, Prim shall wear it.

I am thus escorted to the Justice Building, to meet in the chapel the man I shall wed and a small group of witnesses: Haymitch and the Hawthornes. Peeta and I had asked both my mother and my mother-in-law for their blessing.

My new mother-in-law, on the other hand, did not grant her blessing. Peeta tells me that we'll be OK. We have each other.

Standing before the District Justice of the Peace, Peeta solemnly slips a ring onto my finger. True bands like these are only really customarily seen at Merchant Toastings, but I appreciate the significance and meaning all the same.

"Katniss Magenta Everdeen…. with this ring, I thee wed."

I am trembling as I return the gesture. "Peeta Joseph Mellark…. with this ring…. I thee wed."

The Justice of the Peace declares us married in the eyes of the district law. "I now pronounce this couple man and wife. You may kiss."

Taking me in his arms, Peeta kisses me breathless, his finger curling in my chestnut hair, adorned with dandelion flowers. As I embrace my husband (Peeta's my husband!) and kiss him back, I toss aside my bouquet of dandelions and pine needles. Someone – I think it's Prim – catches the dandelions; the pine needles scatter upon the floor.

Peeta and I depart the Justice Building to the cheers of our well wishers. Taking me, his bride, by my waist, Peeta lifts me onto the back of a rented cart, which he pulls to my – our – mansion in the Victors' Village.

Once there, we are separated, as Mother, Hazelle, Prim and my bridesmaids sequester me upstairs to change me out of my wedding dress and into my blue Reaping dress.

For the most sacred part of the marriage ceremony is about to take place.

Descending the stair in my blue dress, I see Peeta waiting for me besides a roaring hearth. Ceremonially burning two pieces of bread in the flames, we Toast the bread and share it, feeding each other a piece.

Caressing his face, my lips slightly parted, I breathe out for all to hear, "I love my husband."

Peeta takes me in his arms. Flames dancing in my grey orbs, which have grown solemn, I tilt my head and permit my husband to kiss me. When our lips touch, mine petal open to greet his tongue, like a flower bursting into full bloom. We embrace.

Mr. Cartwright starts up a reel on his fiddle, and Peeta and I dance at our wedding. My husband carries me, laughing, across the threshold as Prim leads the congregation in the singing of the traditional District 12 wedding song.

But it is my Peeta who will perform the coup de grace.

As his wedding present to me, Peeta has baked our Toasting cake. When I open my eyes, I let out a cry of amazement and happiness.

"OHHHHHH! Snow's Roses, it's a vision! But… but how did you…? You didn't! You shouldn't have!" My eyes are sparkling with emotional delight.

Peeta spoons me from behind, murmuring in my ear. "Do you like it, Sweetheart?" And though I've never been one for public displays of affection, I nonetheless reach up and pull his face down to mine to kiss him soundly on the mouth.

"Oh….. darling, I love it! I love you!"

The party lasts all night. Afterwards, Peeta and I make love in our bed throughout the wee hours of the morning.

Fifteen Years Later

They play in the Meadow. The little girl with blonde hair and grey eyes, and the little boy with chestnut hair and blue eyes, trying to keep up with his sister on chubby little legs.

It had taken several years of mentoring, then a revolution, plus another five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly.

When I had first felt our daughter stirring inside me, I had felt a terror as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms had dispelled it.

The arenas have been torn down, and in their place erected memorials. There are no more Hunger Games. But they teach about them in school. I haven't told my little ones about my role in them yet, and Peeta has agreed we won't until I'm ready.

Watching my husband and our babies play in the tall grasses, I sit on a picnic blanket, our newborn asleep at my breast. He now stirs, whimpering for his mother's milk.

"Oh, sssh….. ssssh….. ssssh…." I tickle his nose. "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…. But I'll tell you how I survive it. I make a list in my head of all the good things I've seen someone do. Every little thing I can remember. It's like a game – I do it over and over. Gets a little tedious after all these years, but…. there are much worse Games to play."