Chapter 28
I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong.
- Bob Dylan "Make You Feel My Love"
I woke up the next morning with the warm, reassuring weight of my husband-to-be resting on top of me. As I opened my eyes and the ceiling came into focus, I didn't turn my head to look at him (it wasn't as if I hadn't already been waking up with him nearly every morning for almost a decade), but instead lay there staring up at the ceiling as I ghosted my hands over his body from where they were resting on his lower back.
One hand traveled up his spine in a straight line and then crossed from one shoulder to the other as if I were drawing a giant T across his back and finally up his neck into the hair on the back of his head. I threaded my fingers through the length of it lightly so as not to wake him and nuzzled his temple with my nose softly, in awe that this wonderful, beautiful soul asleep in my arms was going to officially be my husband in a few days. I was even more in awe of how right it felt in my heart and how unfazed I was by that fact.
With the other hand, I used my short fingernails to make circles in the downy hair at the base of his spine just above his butt and then trailed down one cheek to the back of his rather hairy leg that ended in a stump above his knee.
I smiled happily when Peeta stirred and groaned into my neck, already scolding me for waking him up by tickling him.
He grumbled and lifted his head from where he had his face pressed against my collar bone on the right side and looked at the clock on the nightstand.
"Hmm…I still have like…15 minutes that I could be sleeping, Kat." He sighed and shifted so that his upper body was covering more of me and his good leg was thrown over both of mine.
I chuckled softly and finally turned my head to look down into his face with a playful smile. His eyes were squeezed shut and his face screwed up in a full on grouchy early morning pout. In short, he looked adorable and I just couldn't help bending my head down to kiss his lips softly. There was a brief but terrifying moment where I pictured a similar pout on the face of a small child with chubby, baby soft cheeks and blonde curls and I felt my heart clench at the vision. I wasn't sure what percent of the vision terrified me and what percent excited me, but I decided not to look into it too deeply when I was already preparing to take such a big step with Peeta in a few days.
"I'm sorry." I said with such little sincerity that Peeta began to chuckle as well and lifted his head to kiss me back.
"You were so warm on top of me but the parts you weren't covering were kinda freezing." I mumbled against his lips and Peeta pulled away to look us over.
He seemed to be noticing for the first time since he'd woken up that all of the blankets had found their way to the bottom of the bed at some point during the night and we were both lying in the middle of the bed stark naked.
"Oh, jeez!" He laughed and sat up quickly to pull the sheets and heavy comforter up over the both of us.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart…we must have gotten too warm all tangled up and one of us pushed them off." He said turning to his back and tugging me over into his arms where he rubbed his hands up and down my back and arms trying to warm me up.
"Mmm… 'one of us'?" I asked snuggling into his chest.
"Well, only 'one of us' needs the bedroom window open to sleep even in the winter, so I'm gonna take a wild guess at who got too warm last night…" I teased and glanced over at the window that had been left closed in all the commotion of the night before.
It was things like that I remembered from even before we were really together—the window open to sleep, the way he double knotted his shoes—that reassured me in darkest moments, reminding me that there were things about us that had remained the same. For as many ways as the Capitol and the Hunger Games had changed us all, there were certain things that they would never have the privilege to touch.
Peeta didn't even argue his case, just lifted his head and looked over at the closed window himself.
"Can I open it now?" He asked hopefully and I groaned and rolled on top of him.
"No! It's FREEZING outside…" I pouted and reached up to try and flatten his unruly bed head.
"Besides, we'll both be out there soon enough. That is if I'm still invited to come with you to work today…" I asked hopefully and slipped my arms under his pillow behind his head.
"Absolutely…" He grinned up at me and slid his arms down from where they were wrapped around my upper body to rest his hands on my backside.
"…wife…" he whispered and I smiled shyly down at him.
"Not till Monday." I whispered back and leaned down to kiss a trail from his throat up to his ear. I was a little bit amazed that when he used that word, 'wife' I felt butterflies in my stomach instead of the lead ball that usually came with thinking about marriage. It was just another sign that I was definitely ready to marry him. Or as ready as I was ever going to be.
"Mmm…semantics…" Peeta murmured and raised his hips up against mine.
"You feel very…. 'wifely' right now…" he said using his hands on my ass to pull me more tightly against his morning erection.
"Noo….I don't want a quickie 5 minutes before we have to get up for work." I said pulling my hips back from his a little bit and smiling to temper my words when I saw Peeta frown.
"I just mean…not after what we had last night…" I whispered sweetly and traced his jaw with my index finger.
"…it'd feel…I dunno, cheap I guess." I said and Peeta stared up at me with such love in his eyes that I was sure the next thing he was going to say would be lovely and romantic.
I was wrong.
"I'm actually really okay with cheap." He said with that dreamy look in his eyes still firmly in place and I slapped his chest hard and rolled my eyes.
"Pervert." I laughed and rolled off of him back to my side of the bed and Peeta followed more quickly than I would have expected being as he still seemed groggy just a moment before.
"Mmm…I know, but I'm your pervert." He whispered settling on top of me and bending down to kiss my neck.
"Please?" he mumbled against the hollow between my collar bones.
"No." I said petulantly even as I spread my legs and let him settle his hips between them.
"Please?" Peeta said again with a growl and nipped at my chin and jawline as he began rubbing his hips into mine suggestively.
I sighed dramatically and brought my arms up around his neck under the covers with a grown of assent as I felt him smiling triumphantly against my cheek.
"Thatta girl." He whispered and I growled at him as our lips moved frantically with one heated kiss after another.
"Yeah, yeah..." I gasped and gripped his hair on both sides of his head. "You suck, dude."
I laughed and felt Peeta smile as he moved his kisses down my neck heading toward my chest.
Later, after a distractingly late start to our morning, Peeta and I were at the bakery working on the third batch of fresh pastries for the morning and the second batch of the regular daily offerings when Haymitch ambled through the front door.
Peeta was in the back room baking and I was sitting on a stool by the register, my feet propped up on the back edge of the display case. Of course, I was in the middle of a yawn when the bells over the door signaled Haymitch's arrival and he couldn't resist the chance to harass me.
"Pretty unprofessional to be sittin' with your feet up when a customer walks in, isn't it, Sweetheart?" he smirked and I didn't even bother moving my feet down onto the floor, just leaned back in the chair more and grinned at him.
"I don't think drunken, scoundrel next door neighbors count as customers." I said as Haymitch came behind the counter and pushed my feet off the case so he could reach in through the back and pull out a danish.
"Hey!" I said sitting up as my feet hit the floor.
"Plan on paying for that?" I asked as Haymitch headed into the back room.
"Nope," He called over his shoulder through a mouthful and I rolled my eyes and stood to follow him.
There was no one else in the shop at the time but I still stood leaning in the doorway to the kitchen so that I could keep an eye on the front door. Between watching the door and listening to Peeta and Haymitch chat about the recent bout of snow we'd had, I passed shy smiles and playful glances back and forth with Peeta.
Neither of us could have helped it if we tried. After the playful morning we'd spent in bed following a night where I'd finally agreed to marry Peeta, there was no way either one of us could keep the smiles off our faces.
For Peeta, this wouldn't have been something Haymitch's sharp intuition would have picked up on as he was always, even at that time 10 years into our relationship, looking at me with the kind of love in his eyes you'd generally expect only to see in the early weeks and months of a relationship. Peeta has always claimed to be the lucky one of the two of us for having finally won me over, but I secretly know it is me who is the lucky one. I can think of no other man who would put up with what Peeta has put up with from me for what I'm sure has seemed like eons to him.
Even before the emotional trauma I sustained in the arena, it could never be said that I was particularly nice to him. For goodness sake, the boy burned a loaf of bread which he probably knew he'd take a beating for just to feed me and I was too cowardly to even thank him for it until the sentiment was way overdue.
Looking at him smiling at me with more love than I probably deserved as he rolled dough and talked to Haymitch made me smile even wider for what could be nothing less than the greatest stroke of luck a girl of such long-running misfortune could have ever received.
About 5 minutes into their conversation, Haymitch started to realize that Peeta's attention was being split between the two of us and that Peeta was wearing a grin a mile wide that hadn't wavered since they started talking. Haymitch abruptly stopped talking mid-sentence and looked pointedly between the two of us.
My own grin had grown as well and I noticed a smile tugging at the corner of Haymitch's mouth.
"Okay, what's going on with you two, because I know this is more than the sickening lovey-dovey nonsense I usually have to put up with…" he said and Peeta's cheeks reddened even as he continued to knead the dough in front of him on the counter.
We let the silence hang in the air for a few moments and I finally answered when Haymitch crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows as he continued looking between us.
"Nothing much, we were just wondering if you were busy Monday morning?" I asked and Haymitch rolled his eyes.
"Oh sure, loads to do," He quipped sarcastically and Peeta and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes as well.
"You know me, busy, busy, busy…" he said rubbing his hands together with mock excitement and then waving them in the air, exasperated.
"Well, come on! Out with it!" he said looking back and forth between the two of us quickly. I started to open my mouth to answer him when suddenly, a small dough ball went whizzing through the air and smacked right into Haymitch's cheek and fell to the floor.
He looked stunned for a moment and reached up to touch the dusting of flour on his cheek before his eyes narrowed and he turned his head to glare at Peeta. Before he could give him hell though, Peeta leaned back against the counter and folded his arms with a smirk.
"Oh you know, nothing big. We were just wondering if you wouldn't mind staying sober long enough to come down to the Justice Building and sign our marriage license as a witness on Monday, but if you're busy..." Peeta said and I made my way across the room to put my arms around his waist, smiling like an idiot at Haymitch.
Haymitch didn't even bother with a snarky comment or over-the-top fake excitement. In fact, he looked momentarily shocked (giving me an idea of how likely he thought it to be that I would ever get to a place where I was comfortable enough with marriage to go through with it) and then a wide, genuine smile spread across his face that even reached his eyes.
"Seriously?" he asked softly and moved over to stand in front of us as Peeta reached out a hand to clap Haymitch on the shoulder.
"She's finally going to make an honest man of me." Peeta said with a wink and bent down to kiss me chastely.
When he pulled back and we both turned to look at Haymitch, he was regarding us with such open affection that I felt myself getting a little choked up and tried chuckling to cover it.
"Hey, don't go getting all emotional on us…" I sniffed and moved out of Peeta's arms to wrap my own around Haymitch's neck. "…it kinda freaks me out." I teased and pecked him on the cheek quickly.
Haymitch snorted and gently brought his arms up around me, holding me with surprising tenderness and kissed me on the cheek as well.
"Well I'll be damned…good for you, girl." He whispered and then released me before turning to Peeta.
I watched their interaction with a mixture of amusement and heartbreak. I saw before me not two Hunger Games victors, a mentor and a tribute, but an orphan seeking the approval of the man he'd looked upon as a father for years after the loss of his own beloved one.
Peeta shifted nervously from foot to foot, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously with one hand and reaching out to shake Haymitch's hand with the other. Haymitch smiled and folded his own hand around Peeta's and pumped it warmly before pulling him forward into a brief hug and giving Peeta a hearty slap on the back.
I was suddenly reminded of the time in District 13 when I was trying to film a propo while simultaneously dealing with the knowledge that whatever I said in those televised spots would be directly taken out on Peeta. I remembered the hopelessness, the soul-crushing despair I felt as I stood in front of a camera and tried to be strong for the rebellion when all I wanted was to crawl into a supply closet and weep. I remembered the way I fell into Haymitch's arms because he was the only other person left alive that truly loved Peeta as much as I did.
"Congratulations, son." I heard him whisper softly before they both pulled back from the manly embrace.
Peeta returned to my side and wrapped an arm around my shoulders again and I looped one arm around his waist and placed my free hand on his chest over his heart.
"So you approve then?" I asked playfully and Haymitch shrugged, a sly grin tugging at his mouth as he tried and failed to resist the air of excitement penetrating the room.
"Of course I approve, you've made him wait long enough…" Haymitch grumbled with an affectionate smile and then raised his eyebrows.
"I don't have to…give you away or anything, do I?" He asked suddenly and looked me over suspiciously.
I rolled my eyes thinking there was nothing Haymitch would enjoy more than symbolically giving me the heave-ho and shook my head.
"Nope, just sign on the dotted line as a witness and you can go back to your morning bottle." I smirked and Haymitch thought on this for a long moment and then shrugged.
"Might as well follow you back to the house for your toasting." He mumbled and then raised his eyebrows at the two of us.
"You are doing the toasting aren't you?" he asked and I couldn't help but look into his face.
He had aged a respectable decade or so since I first met him in person, and with those added years, I couldn't help but think of him as an old district resident insisting that the engaged couple carry on a long-held tradition.
"Of course we are, Haymitch." I said rolling my eyes.
"I called Sae this morning and she's going to be our other witness. The two of you are the only ones welcome to the JusticeBuilding and back to our house for the toasting." I said simply but with an underlying threat of bodily harm if he told another living soul about our plans.
"Sure, sure…" Haymitch said with a dismissive wave. "But don't you think you ought to let your mother know that you and the boy are finally tying the knot?" he asked and I frowned at such a silly old expression. Tying the knot. How odd.
"We'll call her tonight, but she won't be able to get here from 4 by Monday." Peeta replied seeing that I was at a momentary loss.
I couldn't help the sad, brief memory of the similar way Finnick used to jump in to answer for Annie when her mind wandered off. It only reminded me, again, of how none of us were as sound of mind as we had been before our time in the Games.
"We're going to have something in the spring when it's warmer out." I explained, feeling like I needed to get myself back in the conversation before either Peeta or Haymitch suspected I might be having second thoughts.
"We'll put up the tent in the meadow." I suggested and then looked up into Peeta's face with a sad smile. "So that we can be near Peeta's family too."
They both knew that I was referring to the mass grave that lay beneath the soil in that beautiful meadow where all the casualties of the bombing of 12 lay buried together.
Peeta startled slightly at the reason behind my suggestion but then a sad, sweet look passed over his face and he leaned in to kiss me gently in thanks.
"Right." He said clearing his throat and turned back to Haymitch but kept me tucked possessively beneath his arm.
"And we'll invite Effie and Johanna and Jaxson. Annie and Zale. Katniss' mother, of course." Peeta said and then shrugged.
"And I suppose it wouldn't be a party unless we asked Plutarch to come." He chuckled.
I smiled and nodded then looked toward the window out at our district.
"Everyone who's come back to 12 will be invited too. After all, we've all supported each other these last 10 years, it only seems right that they should get to enjoy the party too." I explained and Peeta nodded and stroked a hand down my back, probably thinking of how far I'd come from the loner who had no friends in school to someone who wanted the whole community at her wedding reception.
"That sounds great, Katniss." He smiled and it widened into a grin. "I'll make the cake." He said wagging his eyebrows and I smiled back and nodded.
"Alright, well first things first." Haymitch said picking up his cane from where it was balanced against the cabinets on the floor.
"Let's get you two married." He said pointing at us with the pointed ended of the cane and Peeta laughed softly and swatted the stick out of our faces.
As Haymitch headed for the back door of the bakery, he turned slightly and watched us standing together, our arms wrapped casually around each other as we leaned against one of the large island counter tops.
He looked between us for a long moment and then nodded slowly with such fatherly admiration that I almost wanted to weep selfishly for my own father who wouldn't be here to see me marry the man I loved and who I knew he would greatly approve of.
"I'm mighty proud of you both." He whispered almost to himself before he walked out the door back into the winter cold.
Peeta and I watched the door for a long time. I could sense that Peeta wanted to say something but it was still a full 3 minutes at least before he did.
"Well he sure is getting sentimental in his old age."
He was teasing but I knew it was just to break up the cloud of sadness hanging over our heads. I knew that we were both thinking of our long-gone fathers and how much the pain of missing them still tore at our hearts.
I smiled and turned my head to look up at Peeta and he narrowed his eyes at me in that way that told me he was forever trying to guess what was on my mind.
"He sure is, Husband." I said, using the word aloud for the first time. The effect on Peeta was immediate.
He smiled shyly and leaned in to kiss me gently on the lips. When I moved a hand up to hold his cheek and deepen it, Peeta chuckled against my lips.
"Not till Monday." He said echoing my words from the morning when he had been trying (and succeeding) to coerce me into…making us late to open the bakery.
I smiled against his lips and chuckled as well before bringing both arms up around his neck and kissing him even more deeply as he pulled me closer against his solid, warm body.
"Mmm…semantics…" I said echoing his words from the morning as well. We pulled apart reluctantly when the bells over the door out front announced the arrival of a customer.
On Monday morning I was in the shower when I overheard Peeta making nervous last minute phone calls to both Sae and Haymitch to make sure they were meeting us at 11:00 on the steps of the Justice building. I smiled to myself but hoped the stress of this event wouldn't be too much for Peeta and cause him to have an episode. Actually, I couldn't think of a worse way to spend my wedding night than alone in bed while my new husband suffered away from me behind a locked door.
I called out to him when I heard his conversation with Haymitch end and Peeta stuck his head into the bathroom looking more frazzled than I'd probably ever seen him outside of when he was having an episode. He was always so reliably calm that to see him that way was a bit of a shock to me.
He was already dressed in black slacks and a pressed white shirt. The cuffs on the sleeves remained undone (something he was probably waiting for me to do when I got out) and the top two buttons on the shirt were still unbuttoned. His feet (one real, one shiny plastic) were bare, but I suspected he had a pair of black socks, his nicest black boots, and my favorite tie (a forest green one) laid out perfectly on the bed ready to go.
I still hadn't decided on which of the beautiful dresses I never wore that hung in the back of my closet like a fabric shrine to my beloved stylist I would choose for the brief JusticeBuilding ceremony. Another way Peeta and I were so different in our approach to everything.
"Hey, you need a towel?" He asked a little louder than necessary and I knew his nerves were strung tighter than the clothes line in our backyard I used in the spring and summer months to dry our wash.
I shook my head and stuck one hand out from behind the curtain, curling my index finger in toward me in a 'come here' motion. Peeta frowned slightly but entered the bathroom and walked over to lean against the wall beside the shower stiffly.
"What's up? We gotta go soon you know? I just talked to Haymitch and Sae, 11 is good for both of them." He said running a hand nervously through his hair and I smiled softly around the curtain.
"it's 9 o'clock, Peet." I said softly and rested the side of my head and one shoulder against the shower wall.
"It takes 20 minutes to walk to the JusticeBuilding from here. 5 if we drive, which I suspect we'll want to do so that no one sees us walking into town all dressed up on a Monday when you're supposed to be at the bakery." I smiled and reached out to hold one of Peeta's hands and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Calen was feeling better and had come in late Saturday and before Peeta was even able to ask, had offered to open for most of the week to make up the hours he'd lost from his bout with the flu. Peeta had readily agreed and told him he could work Monday and Tuesday alone since they would probably still not be real busy on account of the snow. What he'd really wanted was an excuse to not need to come in to work at all on his wedding day or the day after as we had planned to spend our wedding night in our cabin at the lake.
"I know…I just…I just wanna make sure everything is perfect." He mumbled shyly and I squeezed his hand again to bring his eyes up from the floor to meet mine.
"I'm marrying the best person I've ever met today." I said simply and shrugged. "I can't see how you could make it much more perfect than that." I wasn't trying to be corny or romantic, I was just stating a fact, but the effect on Peeta was immediate.
His shoulders sagged slightly in a relaxing way and the worry lines on his face were replaced by the smooth grooves of deep smile lines I was proud to say I had a hand in putting there over the years. His eyes, shiny with tears looked steadily into mine and he leaned in to kiss me softly.
"Thank you." He mumbled against my lips and I held his cheek, deepening the kiss as I stuck my head out of the shower beyond the curtain.
"You're welcome." I mumbled back and let go of the curtain with my other hand and reached out to place it on his shoulder so that I could tug him closer to me.
As soon as the water from my hand began to soak through his shirt, Peeta tried to step back but I moved both arms to wrap them around his neck and pulled him closer so that my wet torso was pressing against the whole front of his shirt.
"Katniss!" He gasped and tried to pull away again. "You're getting me all wet and I have to wear this to town!" he argued even as he continued kissing me.
I smiled against his lips and chuckled as I pulled him towards me again, forcing him to step over the edge of the tub and into the shower with me.
"You have plenty of white shirts and black pants, Peeta." I argued back playfully as we stood under the spray together and Peeta's clothes became drenched in water. He pulled back from our increasingly heated kisses and looked down at me like he wanted to be annoyed but couldn't possibly when he was bursting with so much joy.
We had been given so few opportunities for joy in our still relatively young lives at the time that Peeta just sighed and shook his head as he leaned in for another kiss. My hands roved up his strong back, bunching the wet fabric of his shirt as I gently kneaded his flesh like Peeta had taught me to do with the dough in the bakery.
Peeta moaned into my mouth quietly and his own hands slid up from where they had fallen to my waist and wrapped around my torso holding me close to him. When he pulled back again, he rested his forehead to mine and sighed heavily.
"I love you so much, Katniss." He whispered and I felt his arms tighten around my back as if he was afraid that moment was a dream and he might still be lying bloody and beaten on the cold floor of his cell in the Capitol like in one of the dreams he'd told me he had frequently.
"I love you too, Peeta." I whispered back and tightened my own arms to ground him in the waking world where he had me to help fight off the nightmares that plagued him.
"…and I can't wait to be your wife." I said kissing his throat as I slid my hands around to his front and reached for the buttons on his shirt.
"Did you wash yet?" He asked quietly as I pushed the shirt off of his shoulders and unzipped his pants which fell with a squishy plop to the bottom of the tub.
"No, just rinsed off so far…you weren't the only one whose mind was preoccupied this morning." I teased and Peeta worked his boxers to the ground as well and pushed them back with his feet into the already soggy pile of clothes behind him.
"Good, turn around. I wanna do it." He said with such tender reverence in his voice and a chill went up my spine that had nothing to do with sexual gratification.
I felt… cherished by this man who had always loved me. I turned around immediately and put my hands at my sides as I heard him reaching for the body wash behind him on the shelf. My whole body tingled as I listened to him pop open the cap and gooseflesh spread over my skin from head to toe as I wondered where his hands might go first.
I felt him step closer to me again so that his front was just grazing my back and he slowly brought his hands up to my middle and began soaping my belly, hips, and sides. I sighed heavily and sank back into his chest comfortably, my head lolling to the side and giving him the access he wanted to pepper kisses down one side of my neck to my shoulder.
"Mine." He whispered possessively and the small part of my unconscious mind that liked that side of Peeta sang with joy as his soapy hands moved up to cup and knead my breasts.
"Yours." I hissed and reached back to hold onto his hips to steady myself against his loving touch.
Peeta's hands slid up from my chest to my shoulders and I felt him hesitate a moment before they rose to my neck, his strong but gentle hands moving deftly to loosen the knots of tension anywhere he felt them. I relaxed back into his arms even more, letting him know with my body that I trusted him to touch my neck without fear that he might hurt me. Peeta obviously didn't trust himself enough, spending much less time touching my neck than he had any other part of my body so far during this experience.
"Yours, Peeta." I said again and he put his hands on my shoulders, making me turn around to face him.
I startled slightly when I looked up into his eyes and saw that he was crying, his tears mixing in with the water from the shower. I suspected his tears were a little bit because he still didn't trust himself not to hurt me, but they were also because of how willing I was to trust him being so close to me after his hijacking, his early episodes and all the many, many times that red X had hung on the door in the time we'd been together.
"Yours." I whispered again determinedly and stepped forward into his arms under the spray, rinsing away the suds and hopefully some of Peeta's lingering doubts and remorse as I reached up and put my arms around his shoulders and kissed him soundly.
"Kat…" he groaned and buried his face in my neck, rocking me back and forth as we just held each other. We may have exchanged official vows in front of Sae, Haymitch, and a court justice a few hours later, but our true vows to each other were whispered beneath the healing waters of that shower on the morning we wed.
A little later, both of us noticeably calmer, I straightened Peeta's tie and he slid the clasp of my pearl necklace around to the back of my neck where it belonged and stroked the fingers of one hand down the length of the braid he'd asked me to wear my hair in for the ceremony.
"Ready?" I asked picking a piece of lint off of his gray suit coat (chosen by Peeta specifically to match my eyes) as we stood together at the end of our bed. I wore a soft cream-colored gown that I'd have to hold up on the way to the car so that it didn't drag through the dirty snow piling up around our street that Peeta and I had been shoveling aside in the past weeks. It wasn't one of the wedding dresses I'd had to choose from—I didn't want to wear any of those on my real wedding day—but it was one that Cinna had made for me.
Peeta smiled confidently and reached up to tug on the end of my braid playfully, like a little boy in school would have done to the girl he liked. Like Peeta would perhaps have done to me if he hadn't been so intimidated by his love for me from the get go.
"I've been ready for this my whole life." He said honestly and with that same reverence in his voice that I'd heard in the shower earlier.
I smiled up at him and we just looked at each other for the longest time, neither wanting to break the spell of the moment. We just wanted to take in every moment of that day. I was sure that the morning alone had given Peeta at least 3-4 months worth of moments to put on canvas and I even went as far as to ask him if he would paint our wedding portrait to hang over the fireplace downstairs.
Peeta had readily agreed.
Thinking of moments frozen in time in Peeta's artwork made me remember something Peeta had said on the roof of the training center the day before the Quarter Quell and I smiled.
"I think...I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever." I said softly and Peeta's brow furrowed slightly and he looked to his right which is something he does still when he is trying to decide if something is a memory or if it was implanted by the Capitol during his torture.
"Me too." He said softly and then looked back into my eyes. "I said that to you on the roof the day before the Quarter Quell. Real or not real?" he asked and I smiled brightly, happier than I could put into words that our day long picnic on the roof hadn't been erased from his mind.
"Real. And it was one of the most wonderful things anyone has ever said to me." I said reaching out to stroke his cheek.
Peeta raised a hand to wrap around my wrist where I was touching his face and closed his eyes. I suspected that he was giving his own thanks for having been able to keep that memory safe.
"Alright then, let's go." I grinned up at him and we held hands as we started for the bedroom door, me trying to balance in heels I suspected I'd never be comfortable in. When we reached the top of the stairs, I screeched as Peeta scooped me unexpectedly into his arms and carried me down the steps so that I wouldn't fall.
"Thank you." I whispered shyly as he set me down on my feet at the bottom and helped me on with my coat.
"You're welcome." Peeta said easily and shrugged a heavy coat of his own on before opening the door for me.
"You think Haymitch stayed sober for signing the license?" He asked both amused and concerned as I stepped out onto the porch and he followed me.
"He better have or I'm going to kick his ass." I warned and Peeta laughed as he pulled the door shut behind us.