Life goes on

Epilogue (Chapter 24)

It's been about a year since I came back to District 12. A lot of people have been settling and we're starting to look like a real District.

I still walk the young girl home from school. And Haymitch visits at least once a day. Still, life just feels incomplete. Like something is missing.

Time has been travelling like a blur. That is until today.

I wake with a start. The scraping of a shovel continues. Still half in my nightmare I run down the hall, out the front door, and around the side of the house. When I see him, I pull up short. His face is flushed from digging up the ground under the windows.

"You're back," I say.

"They wouldn't let me leave the Captiol until yesterday," Peeta says.

"What are you doing?" I ask eyeing his wheelbarrow full of dirt and flowers.

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," he says. "They're evening primrose."

I hug him. We've been through so much. Even after his hijacking. A war, my suicide attempts, his episodes.

As I stand here, I realize people who have made it through this much and still come back together in the end must be meant to love one another...

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They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it.

Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I'll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won't ever really go away.

I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.

But there are much worse games to play.

THE END
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(All rights to Suzanne Collins)

PLEASE READ

Thank you for reading my story and sticking with me throughout it all.

There are 24 chapters in honor of the 24 tributes that are supposed to compete in each Games.

The end obviously is the same ending as the books. Even though I was writing a fanfiction I still wanted it to connect up with the true ending.

I've been writing this story for exactly one year and I am so happy to have shared it with you all. The Hunger Games honestly changed my life and I'm glad people enjoy it as much as I do.

Thank you for over 23,000 reads. It means more than you know. (:

For the last time, MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR.