Life After Mockingjay

Chapter One; Real or Not Real?

"You love me. Real or not real?" Peeta whispers in a low, shaky voice.

Without hesitation, I tell him, "Real."

I don't think. I just blurt it out. I know I love Peeta. I've loved him since the first time I kissed him.

I knew this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

I've never confessed my love to Peeta. I don't think I've ever said the words "I love you," to anyone but Prim. It's taken me so long to realize it, but I can't live without him.

I snuggle up against Peeta and listen to the steady thud of his heat beat. It is racing, and so is mine. I sink farther into his embrace, Neither of us speaking.

Though time and tragedy has forced us to grow too quickly, Peeta Mellark is finally mine.

After everything we've been through, two hunger games, hijacking, a rebellion.. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And after a few years, his lips were too.

I'll forever remember the day I saw him again. Nearly three years ago. I'd never forget such an important date. He was outside, covered in dirt, with roses in his hand. But not just any roses. Primroses. My heart skipped a beat, and all I could do was hug him. And hold on to him as long as I possibly could. The day he arrived with his wheelbarrow, I hurled the evil flowers that Snow made sure I would find. I took my first bath in two months. I had my first conversation with Greasy Sae. I went hunting, though it physically annihilated me. Buttercup returned with my grief made manifest. I opened the letter mother gave me and called her, further releasing the blackness that had held me immobile in my filthy clothes and lumpy sofa..

We grew back together slowly, and then all at once. Just Haymitch, Peeta and I in our own small family. Once Haymitch ran out of alcohol, he started raising geese. There was once a day where Peeta and I sat in the doorway and watched as tiny rain drops fell onto the rubble of district twelve, which was slowly being cleared out and rebuilt.

We decide to make a book. The page begins with the person's picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim's cheek. My father's laugh. Peeta's father with the cookies. The color of Finnick's eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness. Like the photo of Annie and her newborn son.

The meadow, though nobody seeds it, has become green again. It will forever be named Peeta and I's special place.

Recently, district 12 has grown to be the place it once was. A full district with many people. Johanna, her boyfriend, Alder, Cressida, Pollux, Effie, Annie, and her son, Finn have moved back as well.