Chapter 18: The End

After the rebellion, I return with my husband and student to District 12. The place has been bombed out, so that only the Victors' Village. We live there, and gradually, other folks return to their homeland. Houses are rebuilt. Live begins anew.

Peeta and I begin to discuss having children. When I say yes, we try for a baby. I get pregnant, and give birth to a daughter. Two years later, I bear another child: a son.

Dean helps with the child care, and my babies love their surrogate uncle. As a family, we head out to picnic and play in the Meadow almost every day. As I watch my daughter play with Dean and my husband, my infant son stirs from his nap and begins to wail.

"Ssshhh... sssshhhh..." I calm him. "Did you have a nightmare? I have nightmares, too. Someday, I'll explain it to you. Why they came. Why they won't ever go away. But I'll tell you how I survive it. I make a list in my head of all the good things I've seen someone do. Every little thing I can remember. It's like a game. I do it over and over. Gets a little tedious after all these years, but... there are much worse Games to play."

My children will know the legacy of their parents and their Uncle Dean in time. They'll see the Fallen Tributes' Graveyard. They'll see the statues in the District square, planted not long after the Third Rebellion, of District 12's Victors of the Hunger Games: Duke Vedaldi, Haymitch Abernathy, Dean Cronin, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark.

A lived a Victor's existence, it's true. And those scars won't ever go away. But I lead a new existence now - as a wife and a mother. And that existence will save me in the end.