Hey my love! I'm so sorry I haven't updated in a while. There have been a lot of medical emergencies with my family and friends for the last year or so. This is the alternate ending of what would have happened if Finnick survived. NOTE: I realize Suzzane Collins has recently released the names of Peeta and Katniss' children, but I simply had to replace them with the names I had come up with. Happy reading to the LAST INSTALLMENT in this series!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE ENDING IN WHICH FINNICK SURVIVES THE WAR

Alternate Ending

A day at the beach

"Momma, look! I got my first fish! Just like daddy told me to," Demere says as he lifts up his trident with a fish on the hooks.

His smile looks just like his father's.

"I knew you could do it, squirt," Finnick says as he lifts him up and puts him on his shoulders.

I laugh, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, ya know."

"Prim! Come see the dead fish!" Demere says to the little girl.

Prim jumps up from her place next to her mom in the sand and runs over to the shore to see the thing for herself.

Katniss giggles and strings another shell onto the newly forming bracelet. I taught her how to make them when she visited our home the first time. This time, though, Peeta and Finnick are trying to teach Mitch how to swim. Katniss and Peeta's second child Mitch just mastered the art of walking on those chubby thighs, and Finnick insisted on inviting them down to teach him how to swim.

It's been 10 years since the war ended. It's amazing to see what time can heel in 10 years. Katniss' smile came back to life, Peeta knows reality, Finnick doesn't scream as much in his nightmares and I haven't heard voices since I heard my baby boy's first laugh. We're all scarred, though. There are nights when the back of our eyelids don't close out the memories of the old world and the deepest fears we've possessed haunt us all. Those nights are hard, but come less frequently now.

Katniss and Peeta had their first child, Primrose, two years after my Demere was born. It took Peeta a couple months to remember what was real and what was not, and it took Katniss a couple years to shake away the nightmares and agree to start a family. I told her that the only two things that ever helped me were holding my baby, and being held by Finnick. That's when she decided to let Peeta win, and a month later she was pregnant with Prim.

We all wondered why she chose Primrose as a name. We all thought it would make the pain harder to bear. Every time she calls her daughter, though, the joy in her voice trumps our doubts. Then, Mitch was born. Haymitch told them that after all he did for both Peeta and Katniss, the least they could do was name their child after him. They laughed, and thought, and finally came up with Mitch.

Haymitch has been sober for a couple years now. It took Effie a couple tries to get him to stop drinking, but after a while she finally fixed his addiction. Maybe it was the happiness from the promise of their wedding, or perhaps their new baby on the way. Nobody really knows and nobody questions it. All we know is the Effie made him happy enough to erase the nightmares and that's all we need to know.

"Auntie Annie, can you make me another bracelet? Momma isn't too good at them yet," Primrose asks as she comes back to her mother.

Katniss laughs, "Well excuse me young lady, but I just learned! Look I'm making you one right now!"

Katniss shows off a somewhat acceptable looking string of seashells to her daughter, and Prim giggles.

"Can I have two?" She asks.

Katniss looks at me with a smile, and I nod, "Of course you can, princess."

She claps her little hands in excitement and runs back into the water with Demere.

Moments of peaceful silence pass between Katniss and I as we admire the scene before us. Then, Katniss turns to me. "How is Johana? I haven't heard from her in a while."

I laugh "Neither have we! But then again, we don't expect anything less from her on her honeymoon. She needs to have her time away from it all."

Another moment of silent passes, but with peaceful sounds of our children and husband's laughter, we don't mind.

Seeing her happiness, I know this is a perfect time to ask her something I've wanted to ask her since the birth of Prim.

I take a deep breath. "Have you told Prim and Mitch about…?" I don't finish, knowing that I can't let the words escape my mouth even if I tried.

Her wide eyes immediately meet mine. We stare at each other, both knowing what the end of my question would be filled with.

She clears her throat and diverts her eyes back to her stringing, "No. Peeta and I haven't felt the need to yet. We know that they're including the Rebellion in the curriculum of schools now, and we've decided to not tell them until they need to study it in school."

I nod, understanding. Our young ones are too innocent for the old world. They should never learn of the evil and the cruelty of what was, but they have to.

"And what about that boy that you grew up with?" I ask Katniss.

She stops stringing again, but keeps her eyes down. Her voice cracks when she asks "Who?"

"The, uh, boy that freed Peeta and I? The one that saved all those people from Twelve?"

She answers shortly. "Oh, Gale. He's been happily married to his work for some time now. I never hear from him."

I don't ask anything more.

I look around. Peeta and Finnick are now teaching the children how to build a suitable sandcastle. Finnick does the construction, and Peeta decorates it like a cake. The children watch, amazed at their fathers. Peeta's many physical scars from the torturing and the injection points from the hijacking are still very dominantly pink on his white skin. It must be hard for him to look at those scars and remember his much deeper ones. Over the years I've memorized where mine are and have learned to not let my eyes wander.

Finnick looks over at us and smiles, "We could use some decoration!"

Katniss and I grin, bringing our seashell strings over. As we adorn the castle, little Mitch's chubby hands begin to clap. Then, he looks over at the water and yells "The sun is about to go away!" and points at the orange ball of light.

We gather around to watch the sun set, Finnick and I holding our Demere, and Katniss and Peeta holding their two angels. We all sit silently, soaking in the moment like a sponge. This moment that we are living and breathing right now is what we fought for. This peace for our children, healing for us, and happiness for all is what we almost died and lost our sanity for. Perhaps the voices will come back, the nightmares will become nightly, and the screaming on constant loop in our heads at some point, but as I lean in to Finnick harder, and hold Demere tighter, I realize that this moment will never leave me. No one can take away my memories, or my laughs, or my love anymore.

We are all free.

The sun slowly and silently kisses the ocean goodbye, and buries itself into the water. With the sound of a whispering ghost, a white rose petal blows in with the breeze and rolls along in the sand until it buries itself in between us all. We all glare at it silently, perhaps reliving moments when petals like that meant death and torture and evil. Then like a hand, the waves roll up, take in the petal, and wash it away making it look as if it was never there.

All of our heads lift up, and we look at one another. Smiles enlarge on our faces. They are mixed with love, relief, peace and sanity - Everything that we fought for.

None of us have to worry about White Roses anymore.

This is it! Omg wow... Three years of writing with beautiful characters has come to a close. Thank you to my fanfiction besties Kate and Dreamer for your support and thank you to my other amazing friends and loving family.

Stay tuned for what's to come! (Hint: Johanna needs her own story too!)

xoxo forever,

Finnick and Annie Forever (Karlee)