In The Blowing Ashes

Chapter 16

Katniss

As the day comes to a close and the people start leaving the justice building to gather outside for our walk home, I feel butterflies forming in my stomach as I think of what is to go on tonight. I try to help clean up, but since I'm the bride, no one seems to think I can lift a finger.

"Go on home you two," Hazel says as she starts sweeping the floor. "We can finish up here. You deserve to have some time to yourselves on your wedding day." I turn to Peeta and he smiles at me.

"Thanks again for setting this up Hazel," he says and she nods.

"You are very welcome," She says and I give her a hug. She kisses my cheek and rubs my shoulders as I pull away, giving me the look of a proud mother. It's quite odd, how she's accepted the fact that her son is no longer part of my life. She just wants me to be happy. I turn to Peeta and he smirks at me as he reaches around my body and scoops me up. I wrap my arms around his neck to steady myself and he laughs at me as he starts walking towards the door.

"What do you think you're doing?" I ask and he smiles at me.

"I'm carrying my beautiful wife home for the first time," he says and I kiss his cheek gently. Nearly all of District 12 waits outside and as Peeta carries me, they follow, laughing and singing. We get to our house and it starts to rain. For some reason, I start laughing and Peeta spins me around, setting me down for a moment while he opens the door. He lifts me back up and the traditional song rings through my ears as he brings me into the house. As we pass it, I slam the door shut, leaving us alone for the first time all day.

"Well, that was rude," Peeta says and I shrug.

"Oh well," I say. "I wanted to be alone. We haven't had anytime to ourselves all day." He smiles at me as I place my bouquet in a vase someone came and set out for us along with some leftovers from our wedding dinner. A piece of bread sets out for us and I rifle through the drawers as I look for the fork we use to cook over the fire. Peeta gently taps me on my shoulder and I look up to seeing him holding it.

"Like I said last night, you'd lose your head if it weren't attached to your shoulders," he says stabbing the bread with it. "You ready?" I nod.

"Let's get this over with," I say and follow him to the fireplace. He watches quietly as I start the fire and when it's lit, we hold the bread over it together. Eventually, he turns to me and I know he means to say something. "What?"

"I was just thinking about tonight," he says.

"What about tonight?" I ask.

"A what is supposed to happen after this," he says nervously. I find myself thinking the same thing.

"I'm not afraid," I say. "I've got us covered. I'm not getting pregnant until I'm sure I'm ready for a baby. But that doesn't mean that we can't have a little fun before then." Peeta blushes and I laugh. "What? Did you think I wouldn't want to? I told you I was ready today. I'm ready for us to have the same marriage as any other couple."

"So you've decided we'll have kids?" he asks as we pull the bread out of the fire.

"I still don't really know," I admit. "But I guess we'll just have to see." He smiles at me and together we break the bread and feed it to each other. And it's in that moment, looking into his eyes, that all those stories about the magic of the toasting becomes true for us. We're more married than any piece of paper could ever make us.

Peeta stands and offers me his hand. I take it and let him help me up. We stand there, still lost in the spell cast over us. I pull him close and he does the same to me. We share a long kiss and I feel the hunger for what's going to happen consume me and I feel Peeta pick me up and start carrying me up to our room.

We open the door and Buttercup growls at us from the bed. Peeta breaks away from me for a moment a gives me an awkward look. I slide out of his arms and stomp over to the cat. I pick him up by the scruff and throw him out the bedroom door, shutting it. I turn back to Peeta and he walks over to me. I feel him take the veil from my hair and he sets it on the dresser as he gets to work untying the laced back of my dress. I feel it loosen around me and I turn to face him. I kiss him again and trail my hands down the front of his shirt as I go and pushing it off his shoulders when it's free. He stares at me and then gently lays me down on the bed.

We go slowly with the rest of our clothing taking all the time in the world because in all honesty, we've both wait for this for years. We were just to afraid to ask the other.

As I lay beneath him, not a stitch of clothing between us, I watch his eyes studying my naked form, seeing everything I've been so conscious of for so many years. He looks up at me and we exchange a smile.

"You are so beautiful," he says and I let out a sigh of relief. He kisses me in an attempt to distract me from the pain I feel as he takes my innocence, but it does very little. I don't let him know how much it hurts, knowing he wouldn't give me what I hungered for if he knew. Instead I just hold onto him, burying my face in his neck as the pain slowly fades away into a feeling better than the euphoria of morphling.

I feel him press kisses to my sweat covered neck and as my libs become ridged from the high Peeta brought me, I feel him stop and stiffen against me. A warmth fills me as we collapse against each other and Peeta falls off of me. I pull myself onto his chest and kiss him again. I know I must look a mess, but the way he runs his hands through my tangled hair and sucks on my neck, it's quite clear Peeta could give a rats ass what I look like right now.

I don't know how many times we make love that night. It was as though we were both finally releasing all the worries we had over all this and it was just the two of in the world. But after, when he asks me, "You love me, Real or not real?"

I tell him, "Real."