Standard author's notes and disclaimers apply. Spoiler warnings for Mockingjay Part 2

Always

Years have passed. Some of it still feels like it happened yesterday. Some images, some sounds, never fade, no matter how much time passes. There are still piles of ashes in certain places in what used to be District 12. If you walk around long enough, you might kick up some human bones that were missed in the cleanup. I don't blame my mom for not being able to come back, and it's better that Gale moved to District 2—for both of us. Some things about the war I'll never make sense of, some things I'll never sort out, but I'm trying to make peace with it. I'll never be able to trust that when I close my eyes and go to sleep, I won't be visited by nightmares too numerous and horrific to count, that I won't see Prim about to die, or hear Finnick's screams as the mutts rip him to pieces. The only assurance I take with me when I go to sleep is that Peeta will be there when I awake. And that's enough.

After everything that's happened, I would have preferred a small and private wedding, but Paylor convinced us that it would boost public morale to see us formally united. Having the wedding broadcast and inviting the most influential public figures was all that we would concede to, although Plutarch tried to persuade us in regards to a great many other things, too. He thought it would be symbolic of our victory against the capitol if we had the wedding at President Snow's old mansion, or in the ruins of District 13. After much discussion, Peeta and I decided to get married on one of the beaches of 4.

We joined our hands as the sun was setting, the sky painted that orange that Peeta loves so much, and I shed a tear for Finnick as his son toddled through the sand. I refused to wear a flashy gown, but donned a simple dress instead and decorated my hair with the white flowers I'd once laid Rue in. The pearl that Peeta gave me during the quarter quell and which I held onto so tightly for comfort when I couldn't hold onto him was set in the middle of a band that Peeta slipped onto my finger as he said his vows—vows that seemed so superfluous after everything we've been through. The mockingjay pin that became a symbol that took over my life was left at home.

Beside Peeta stood Haymitch, looking better than I'd ever seen him look. He'd gone back to the drink after the war ended, but apparently he'd cleaned up since then, and when I looked over at Effie, I suddenly knew why. After all, it couldn't be a coincidence that she almost looked like a normal human being for once and not some outrageous doll. But, when I say almost, well, Effie will always be Effie. But it seems that she and Haymitch have been good for each other. Strange how life works out.

Gale was at the wedding, too. I wasn't sure that he would come—I wasn't even entirely sure I wanted him to. But he was there, and I found that I was glad. He smiled at me and shook Peeta's hand, the old tension between the three of us gone. We caught up with each other and I found out what he'd been doing since he'd been living in 2. Later on that night, I saw him in conversation with Annie and playing with her little boy. She's had it hard, so I was happy to see her smiling again. I'd thought for a time that Gale might end up with Johanna, but on that front I was mistaken, and it became evident how wrong I was when she came to the wedding with Beetee. Strange, but with Johanna Mason, one never really did know what to expect. In a weird way, it works, Beetee's thoughtfulness and patience offering stability to Johanna's intense emotions. They've been married for three years now.

After the wedding when Peeta and I were finally alone, Peeta asked me if I might have chosen Gale if things had ended differently. He's not the jealous or insecure type, so when he asks me this, I know it's only because he wants to be closer to me and comfort me if need be. Had he asked me the previous day, I might not have known what to say, but something happened at the wedding, when I saw Gale smiling at me as I stood beside Peeta. I finally understood, in that moment, what had been in my heart all along. Struggling to survive for so long, it was all that I could focus on, and feelings were a luxury that I just couldn't afford. I still had them, but I had to bury them deep inside so that they didn't slow me down or get in my way of providing for my family and surviving the games and all that followed. I buried them so deeply and for so long and willed myself so strongly to ignore them that not only were my feelings buried, they were lost to me. And then the revolution started, amplifying all my feelings and confusion until the mere force of them overwhelmed me and threatened to destroy me. There was too much to figure out, and not enough space or time.

But the war is over now and, after so long, the smoke and ashes have cleared. I no longer need to struggle so hard to survive and, even when I do, I'm no longer alone in that struggle. Peeta is there. He always has been.

Standing with Peeta on the beach as I looked at Gale, I understood it all at once, what had once so long confused me. I understood it absolutely, without a shred of doubt or uncertainty.

"It was always you," I tell Peeta on our wedding night in answer to his question, slowly pulling him in to kiss his lips-his lips that I can never get enough of. They are food to me. They are air. They are life. "Long before the games, from the time you saved me and gave me hope and showed me the way through in my darkest hour, I've loved you. Only you, Peeta. Always you."

And it's the truth.

I remember when I saw the black eye Peeta took in order to feed me, that kindness and selflessness that I was afraid to be indebted to, and how it gave me the courage and hope to keep going. I remember how I looked from him to the dandelion and suddenly figured out how my family and I were going to survive. I never understood how much I depended on Peeta afterwards, how whenever there were storm clouds gathering over me, a single glance at him revived me and gave me what I needed to keep going. The horror I felt when his name was called at the reaping—how could I not have known then what he meant to me? But I was focused on surviving, on doing whatever I needed to do in order to get back to Prim and take care of her. Sweet Prim.

Remembering how I involuntarily clung to Peeta during the post-Game interview when Ceaser mentioned how I could have lost him, burying myself in his warm, strong body, should have made me realize that he was more than just a friend or ally to me. And I guess part of me did know, but there was so much going on with Snow watching, and I was afraid of needing someone and of alienating Gale. It was easiest and safest just to withdraw, especially after Peeta realized that I'd been playing the sponsors. But there was more truth in the act than I knew.

I only got more confused the worse things got with the Districts and the Capital. I didn't want to lose Gale and Snow wanted me with Peeta, so choosing Gale seemed like the rebellious thing to do—what I should do—but, even with all my affection for him, it was forced; an intellectual decision. Kissing someone shouldn't be something your head tells you to do, but something your heart moves you to do. I didn't know enough about love or myself to know that. Gale at least knew that my heart wasn't in it when I kissed him in response to my grief over losing the Peeta I knew when Snow brainwashed him. "It's like kissing someone who's drunk. It doesn't count." And it ended at that. Gale's integrity kept him from taking advantage of me, and I love him the more for it. But not that way.

It took a while for me and Peeta to find each other again after the war, to accept happiness back into our lives after all of the pain and the horror. Even now, there are still ghosts, still hours when we shut ourselves up and let the world pass by around us as we fight old battles anew or try to hide from them until they pass. But Peeta is always there for me, and I'm always there for him, and it's enough to give me courage because I know that, after everything our love has survived, it can survive the ghosts, too.

"Always."

He'll say it to me in a random moment, or whisper it in my hair as I'm drifting off to sleep. His hands covered in flour as he makes bread, he'll stop and reach over to squeeze my hand and, looking in my eyes, "Always."

I smile, because there's so much in that little word, and I say it back to him. We drop it in daily conversations about mundane things when we could have used a different term or omitted it altogether, just as a reminder, and we're a little stronger for it.

Winter comes and the world is blanketed in snow, white and chilling and silencing the motley sounds of life. The ghosts howl loudest then and phantoms twist in the flying whirls of snow, memories and nightmares alike living again when all other life is gone. We shut the curtains and I sing, trying to drown the ghosts out, but the months are so long and, by winter's end, Peeta and I are both haggard and exhausted. Afterwards, we agree never to spend another winter in 12 again but to migrate to another district with the season, where there's no such cold thing as snow or where there are many friends to take the places of ghosts.

In the summer months are new holidays that have taken the place of the Hunger Games, celebrating freedom and remembering those who lost their lives in the pursuit of it. Peeta and I are frequently called on to make appearances or speeches, but we often reply that we're "exercising our freedom to decline." We paid a higher price than most for our freedom, and the scripted speeches only bring to mind other scripted speeches we were imposed upon to make for the Capital and, later, for the rebellion. We've been used enough. In some ways I think Coin may have been even worse than Snow; at least Snow and I were always honest with each other, whereas Coin was duplicitous and conniving—and how am I ever to forget that she deliberately murdered Prim? I can't think of the rebellion or 13 without tasting the bitterness of betrayal and feeling the cold demoralization of realizing that your enemy can be replaced by the ally you were fighting alongside.

Peeta's outlet for everything that the war left over is his painting. He takes all the images, feelings, and memories and puts them onto canvasses, trying to exorcise them—if only for a while—or to make sense of all the senseless tragedy, or to figure out what's real. He doesn't have as much trouble with that as he used to, but he still has times when he falls back into the confusion caused by what Snow did to him. I know that Peeta feels betrayed, too, even though his experiences with 13 weren't the same as mine; when you fight for something with all you have, only to discover that you're being used to achieve a different end from what you thought, it doesn't just anger or disappoint you; it makes you feel lost, doubtful of everything you believed in and need to be true.

"I wanted to paint with colors," Peeta says in his studio, showing me the picture that he's working on, "but they only left me with shades of gray." It's a painting of a non-specific district in ruins, a battle raging in the refuse and the ground covered in lifeless bodies. There's no color at all. The horror and agony I feel when I look at it is the reason I don't often go into Peeta's studio. Some of the paintings he keeps, but others he burns as soon as they're done, without ever showing them to anyone.

"You'll find the colors again," I assure him, leaning into his side and kissing his cheek, "you always do."

He looks down at me and-slowly-smiles, as if remembering he has me is all that he needs. "Always."

He kisses me and I return it, letting the safe, warm fire of our love build and fill me. The kiss becomes fervent, and soon we're upstairs, the studio long forgotten, and I'm holding onto my Color, my True North, my proof of goodness in the world, holding on with all my might and drawing him closer.

We pause, Peeta pulling back slightly to look down at me, a question in his eyes. I know this question without him having to speak it; he's asked it many times, but it never bothers me whenever he asks it again—maybe because he always seems so astonished by the answer. "You love me. Real or not real?"

I smile and place my hand on his chest, over his heart. "Real," I say, hungry for his body, his soul. "Always—both forward and backward in time. Only you. Always you. Always."

Joy and happiness that can never be expressed in words blooms across his face, radiant as the sun and beautiful as the first dandelion in the spring, and he kisses me again. I won't let him stop this time, wrapping myself around him tightly and pulling him closer to me, wanting to merge his very being into mine. The flames rise, the world and all its darkness falls away, and we become fire.