Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay, any direct quotes will be in italics.

Ch. 55

"You're back." These are the first words she utters to me. I hadn't heard her voice in who knows how long. I almost felt as if I had been set free once she spoke. This was no longer the voice I fell in love with, no, it was much different, but that voice was still underneath it all. And the way her eyes crinkled as she spoke, as if she was disbelieving that I was there.

"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," It was a partial lie. I hadn't known I could leave the Capitol. I thought District Twelve was done for. I thought I would waste away in that giant mansion. I had not known if I would ever see her face again, "By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone." I see her eyes quiver in confusion. I wonder suddenly if she was even alive enough to hear it ring.

She reaches her hand up to her face and tries to tear away the hair that covers part of her eyes. The motion is completely futile it seems because just as her hand comes back down the hair goes right back. Her eyes become accusing.

"What are you doing?" she says, trying to be harsh but failing miserably.

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up." A slight pause, could she handle hearing her name out loud? "For her. I thought we could plant them along the side of the house."

She stares at me for what seems like minutes her face registering complete anger. She calms down after a couple seconds only for her to nod her head at me and run away.

I didn't talk to Katniss for a few days after that.

She came to me with the idea. I had seen how she had began to talk sometimes sharing memories with me about Prim or her mother or even her father. Sometimes telling me how much she missed them by just the look in her eye. I could see her coming back to life, little by little, she began to trust me again and I began to trust myself.

I knew she wanted to do something, it wasn't until she told me what, that I realized how perfect it was.

She wanted to make a book about all the people we had loved and lost. Paper came and we got to work. It reminded me of our earlier work on her family herb book, but this one was much more emotional. The both of us had a lot, not sparing one of the tributes that we had came across during our Games. Haymitch had remembered all 49 names of the tributes in his year and all though we didn't have much to add on their pages they still would not be forgotten.

It was the people we loved that took up most of our time. Prim's took four days to complete, Finnick's three. Katniss studied over Rue's page until every last detail was emptied into it. My family was the hardest for me. Katniss had handed me the book and told me to start it, only adding a few more things when we were done.

This is what brought us back together and each of us fell back into routine. Katniss hunted and I baked. Haymitch drank, but not the way he did before we came along. And somehow we held each other all together.

Bit by bit Katniss came back to me.

"You don't have to leave." She had said to me one night when we had forgotten all about time and just worked over the pages for our loved ones.

"Are you sure?" The nightmares never left me and I'm sure they had never emptied from Katniss' mind either. The only thing that held us back from staying together was the fear of each other, but all of that had washed away.

There are times when the monster takes over, but all I have to do is remember who I am, who she is, and the monster retreats back behind his wall. I do realize this limits a lot of things. Katniss still looks worried for me sometimes, but I feel worried for her too.

Her nightmares are the worst and sometimes she does not feel welcome in my poorly repaired arms. Some nights neither of us get any sleep, and some nights I don't want the sleep.

We fall back into what we had before slowly. She kisses me because she wants to, I feel the hunger in her soul and it's times like these that I want to forget about everything else.

I do know that I will never want anything, but Katniss and so one late night with our arms wrapped tightly around each other I whisper, "You love me. Real or not real?"

There was no hesitation, no thinking as she said, "Real."

One last chapter guys, and it won't be that long. It is the Epilogue and then I'm done with this. As I promised there will be a five chapter one about Katniss and Peeta growing back together, because I wanted to treat this one as Suzanne had treated it. This chapter is short, but the Epilogue should be up shortly after I post this one so it will be like one long chapter.

I would also like to post the first chapter of the five chapter thing today, but let's see how that goes.

Please I would deeply appreciate it if you would REVIEW it would really mean a lot. Thanks to come on the next and last chapter, wow I really can't believe this. ~boywithbreadlover