Hello! I'm glad you all liked the first two chapters and I hope you like this one as well.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Suzanne Collins.

Chapter Three:

Greeting the Families

After a couple minutes of us waving at the crowd, some peacekeepers escort us to the car that will take us to the Justice Building. There are two cars waiting there for us, one for Peeta and me and the other for Haymitch and Effie. We walk down the stairs and Peeta steps in front of me to open the door for me.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Mellark," I say to him.

"You are most certainly welcome, Miss Everdeen," Peeta says. We giggle and I still find it strange how comfortable I am with flirting.

I hop into the car and scoot over so Peeta can get in. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and I rest my head on his shoulder.

As we ride to the Justice Building, I think about how it was when Peeta and I were being driven to the train station to go to the Capitol. I was sitting on one side of the car and he was on the other side with Effie in between us. He was crying and I was trying my best not to and now here we are a couple weeks later with our arms around each other. It was pretty surreal to think about how much these last few weeks had completely changed my life.

We reached the Justice Building a couple minutes later and we were escorted in where the Mayor was waiting for us.

"Hello, Miss Everdeen, Mr. Mellark. I'm sure you two are very eager to get home, but we have a couple things to take care of before you can go. So, if you two could just follow me to my office, I will try to have you out in a few minutes," Mayor Undersee says and turns around to his office. Peeta and I follow him in and take a seat in the two brown leather chairs in front of his desk.

Mayor Undersee pulls out a couple pieces of paper and lays them in front of Peeta and I. He takes the two sheets with a pen and hands them to us.

"These are your house deeds to put your houses under your names. Just sign your names at the bottom and the houses will be yours," he says and Peeta and I both sign the papers.

"Katniss, your house is 3 Victory Lane, Victor's' Village and Peeta, yours is 4 Victory Lane, Victor's Village," he says and hands us the keys to our houses.

"Alright, that's all I have for you," he says and we all stand up. He opens the door for us and escorts us to the front doors of the Justice Building.

He opens a door for us and says, "Congratulations you two and welcome home."

"Thank you," Peeta and I both say and we walk hand in hand out of the Justice Building to greet our families.

When Peeta and I reach the end of the stairs, I see Prim running at me. I quickly let go of Peeta's hand to embrace her and I hold her tight. Just holding her and seeing her again makes me want to cry. I never thought that I would ever see her again.

Prim though, does start crying and I hear her say quietly, "You're home.. You're actually home."

"I'm home, Prim," I say and I push her away from me to wipe her eyes. I give her a smile and she giggles. Then I see my mom making her way to me. I rush over to her and hug her. Something that I would normally wouldn't do and I could tell that it surprised her. We both held each other and I could feel her stroking my hair.

I don't think that my mother and I will ever fully regain the relationship that we once had, but this is a start.

When we pull away from each other, I look over to Peeta where he is with his family and he turns to me and gives me a smile. Then I feel someone tap me on my shoulder and I turn to see Gale.

"Hey, Catnip," he says and I give him a hug.

"Hey," I say back to him. I could tell things are a little awkward between us, but then Gale jumps straight to the source of our awkwardness and asks, "Is it true?"

"Is what true?" I reply.

"Are you two actually together?" he asks.

"Yeah… we are," I say with a smile and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because he turns around and walks off. I frown to myself, but then I feel Prim come up beside me and she says, "Don't worry. He'll get over it."

I give her a sad smile. I really hope that is true because I don't want to lose my best friend.

I quickly shake all that sadness off because today was supposed to be a happy day, but when I turn to look at Peeta, I see a sad look in his eyes and his family walking away.

I walk over to him and ask, "What's wrong?"

"I asked my family if they were going to move into my house with me, but they said no," he says and looks at his feet.

"Why did they say no?"

"My father said that it was because they wanted to be close to the bakery, but I know it was probably my mother who didn't want to live there," he says and I give him a hug. I already don't like him mom. I've seen what has done to him and I don't know if I would ever be able to tolerate her, but it's obvious that Peeta wants his family there and she is part of his family.

I give him a hug and say, "I'm sorry, Peeta."

He returns my hug and says, "It's okay. I'll get over it."

Once we let go of each other, I take his hand and we walk over to Prim and my mom.

"Peeta, I don't believe that you have been introduced to my family. This is my little sister, Prim, and my mother, Lillian," I say and Prim instantly runs into his arms for a hug. He stumbles back a little because he wasn't expecting that but he returns the hug and I can't help but feel happiness by looking at the two of them. They are the two most important people in my life and it makes me happy to see them get along although I had no doubt they wouldn't. Prim lets go of Peeta and he gives my mom a small hug.

"It's nice to meet you two. I've heard a lot about you," he says and you can tell that both of them are instantly under his charm. I just smile to myself and shake my head.

"It's nice to meet you, too," they reply.

I break in and say, "Shall we head to our new homes?"

They all nod their heads and Peeta grabs one of my hands and Prim grabs the other with my mother beside her and we all walk to the village together.

It's not that far of a walk and when we get there we are startled to see how big the houses are. The people in District Twelve never really walk down here unless absolutely necessary because their is no reason to. The only person that has lived here is Haymitch, although there was a victor a couple decades before him that has long since passed.

There are 12 houses in the village, two rows of six. We walk passed Haymitch's house which is the the first house on the left side of the walkway. Peeta's house and my house are right across from each other.

Prim and my mother go ahead and walk to the steps of the house and I stay with Peeta for a couple minutes.

"Do you want to come over later?" I ask. "I would hate for you to be alone."

"I'll be fine, Katniss," he says. "Plus, I'll be seeing you later for our homecoming dinner."

Oh, thats right. I forgot about that. It's a customary tradition to celebrate a victor's homecoming in their district with a feast. This is only the third time in District Twelve's history that we have had one and the last one was 24 years ago, so people are very excited.

"Oh, okay," I say. "So, I guess I will see you later."

"I'll come over to pick you up before so we can walk together there," he says and I smile at him.

"Okay," I say to him and he gives me a small peck on the lips before we turn around and walk to our houses. I put the key in the door and open it. Prim and my mother walk inside and before I walk in, I give Peeta a wave. He smiles at me and I close the door behind me.

When I turn around, the shock really sets in. I'm home from the Hunger Games. It's still hard to believe that I'm actually alive.

I start looking around the house and I see that my mother and sister have already made themselves comfortable on the couch. I look around the dining room, the living room, the kitchen, which are all made with the finest of materials. Then I head upstairs. I open the first door on my right when I get up the stairs and I claim it as my room. I kick off my shoes and lay on the bed. I didn't realize how tired I was and as soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm out like a light. I guess I have time to take a nap. We'll see.

Hope you all enjoyed! Please remember to review!

-Emily :)