A/N: It's been a while since I read a series and immediately after finishing it, I just absolutely had to write something about it. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Hunger Games series. I devoured them in a week while working at camp (and racing one of my 11-year-old girls to finish it!) They were just enthralling, engaging, interesting, and full of powerful characters and themes that make you think. I'm super happy with the way it ended, too. (Team Peeta FTW.) So here's my Katniss/Peeta tribute. *pun*

Please review!

Words: 1937
Characters: Katniss, Peeta
Time: Post-Mockingjay
Genre: General, Romance

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Suzanne Collins, not me.

Like wind made liquid, like water woven into fabric, the silk of one of Cinna's bridal gowns flowed through her hesitant fingers. It was one of the original dresses that he had designed for their sham of a wedding, that scheme designed for public delight, filled with Capitol propaganda. It wasn't like her – or Peeta – to linger on those memories.

But nevertheless, on the first evening after their engagement, Katniss revisited that closed. No matter the circumstances, Cinna had always put his heart and her best interests into all of his lovely work. If they had been married back then, like they were supposed to, Cinna would have smiled, happy to see her in such lovely garments, but his eyes would have be full of regret and understanding.

Katniss wished he were here now. To help her choose what to wear – no, choose for her, because to choose for herself meant reminding herself that he was no longer present. It meant pretending that she understood or even cared what she looked like on what was sure to be a televised event, the grand ceremony so reminiscent of the atmosphere of the Games that it made her shudder. All she wanted to do was kiss him and toast their bread and retreat quietly to their shared room. Perhaps she shouldn't touch those dresses.

But then, she thought, if Cinna were here… Imagine the joy in those eyes of his if he were to see her in one of those gowns under these circumstances. Springtime in the air, primroses just beginning to bloom… Their wedding was going to be grossly extravagant and public, but it was going to be real, so real. She would be clothed in white silk and sweet love. Sometimes, when Peeta grasped her hand, kissed her cheek, whispered in her ear, she felt that silken love surround her as warmly as the flames she once wore, licking sweetly across her skin. Cinna would be thrilled to see her in those gowns today, which is why she decided to choose one.

"Which do you like best?"

"You know I don't mind in the slightest," Peeta said. "You look beautiful in them all. You look beautiful in anything. Or nothing."

"Don't tease," said Katniss, but she couldn't help smiling, even as she gave Peeta a playful punch to the shoulder. He laughed, settling his hand on the small of her back. Leaning into his shoulder, Katniss asked him a question she had already asked him at least five times, in different wording, just for the selfish joy of hearing him answer.

"Remind me… why am I picking out a wedding dress? I've forgotten."

"Already?" said Peeta, mock hurt in his tone. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and rocked her from side to side. "We made a picnic lunch and took it out to the meadow, to your lake. With light clouds shielding the sun, the afternoon was pleasant and breezy. We ate my bread and cupcakes, your fresh game and herbs… we just lingered there, together. And then, since it's springtime, I took to picking some flowers by the water's edge, with you looking on and thinking what a child I was."

"I wasn't - "

"And then," Peeta continued, "I came back to you with a handful of dandelions. I knelt in front of you, took your hand, and tied the stem of one of the flowers around your ring finger, right here. I said, 'Marry me, Katniss.'

"You thought I was just joking for a second, just for fun. But I wasn't. I meant it, and once I saw the comprehension dawning in your eyes, I pulled the real ring out of my pocked and held it out to you, praying desperately for your approval. I knew I loved you, and I knew you loved me, but… you have no idea how terrifying it is to ask a girl to marry you. Believe it or not… it was the most nervewracking thing I've ever done."

As he spoke, Katniss untwined her fingers from his so she could touch her ring. The centerpiece was not a diamond but a pearl, soft and shining, surrounded by woven of silver and small diamonds. Soon Peeta's hands enclosed hers again; he held her more tightly to him.

"You stared at the ring. You stared at me. I stared at you so scared that I couldn't even blink. And then – and then – you lifted your hand towards me, towards the ring, and I blindly slipped it on to your finger – and it was done. We laughed and kissed and cried… and now we're here."

She could hear him, she could feel him, she could even smell him, grass and flour and musk, but standing as they were, she could not see him. She wanted to experience him with all her senses. Only then was she ever sure; like a hunter, she wanted every sense alert and active. She turned in his arms and looked into his face. Standing there, next to the old dresses, full of memories, Peeta's face flashed in her vision – a child's face, impassive; a stoic face, ascending the podium at the reaping; a painted face hidden amongst the rocks; a face that comforted her in her sleep, made her heart tremble with the beginnings of something she had not been able to define; a pained face, crazed eyes, distorted by madness, venom, and hatred; and then a face softened by desire and love and compassion. So many visions of Peeta. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. The girl on fire, the starving and mad survivor, the Mockingjay?

"Katniss?" said Peeta, searching her eyes.

"Why did you ask?" she said on a sudden impulse.

"Why did you say yes?" he returned.

Katniss could find no answer. There was no answer, really, to either question, not one that could be explained. Katniss stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, tasting his familiar lips. They had once tasted of sweat and blood and regret; now they were sweet and soft. His hand traced circles on her back, passing over a few scars from the arena and the war. They each had them. She felt abnormally smooth, cool skin when her fingers brushed across his cheeks, his back, his chest.

"Peeta," she said into his mouth. He didn't stop kissing her. "Peeta," she repeated, insistent.

Regretfully he drew away, stroking her face instead. "What is it?"

"Fate… do you believe it was fate?"

"Fate," he said thoughtfully. "That it was your face, starving and bony, that drew my attention that day… Fate that we entered the arena together, as sweethearts, real or no - "

"That wasn't fate – that one was all your doing."

"A boy can dream, can't he?" said Peeta, grinning. "But there you go. That wasn't fate, then. Our alliances, our experiences, the torture they set up for us but that we escaped… fate? It's an interesting thought."

"Would we be here if not for that? If not for fate, or the arena, or the Capitol? What if we had never played the Games together and grown close, forced by survival, desperation, and only then by choice – what if you hadn't been captured, and we hadn't overcome everything all over again, solidifying was until, until then, only a possibility, an uncertainty… Do we owe it all, our happiness, our love, to fate, or their design? Their cruelty?"

"You've thought a lot about this, haven't you?"

Katniss nodded. Peeta considered her, then closed his eyes, apparently lost in thought, or memory. "Think back to the moments that have made you love me," he said at last.

The dandelions. The nights curled in each others' arms. The real kisses in moments of truth in the arena, the moments that rang in her heart because they required personal bravery, sacrifice, or triumph of some kind, not just scraping by against the Gamemakers' fun. The light in Peeta's eyes after she would help drive his madness away.

"For me… yes, the Capitol played a part. We would not be us without the Games, the arena. But the true moments that brought us together… I'd like to think that it was no machination. I'd like to think that it was fate, or luck, pulling all the strings. Or just us. Because we are who we are, we love each other, and that's it."

"I'd like to think that too," Katniss breathed. "Fate, or… just us."

"But no matter what it was," Peeta said, cupping her chin between two fingers, "we're here now, aren't we? We can only move forward. And that's why I asked you. And I think why you said yes. Because we're here, and we can, and I love you more than anything."

"I love you too."

Resting against him, Katniss caught sight of her dresses again. Cinna's beautiful gifts. They had always been too lovely for a faux marriage. It was only right that this day had finally come. She wondered if Cinna knew, or predicted, that someday… as commercial as their wedding would always be, someday… it would be real.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peeta reach blindly into the closet. His hand was momentarily lost amongst the sea of silk and diamonds, but then his hand closed on one hanger, and he lifted out a dress. "This one?" he said.

Katnisss remembered it as one of the first dresses Cinna had shown her. It was fairly simply cut, with a pinched bodice, narrow straps that crisscrossed in the back, and a plunging neckline lined with gems as fine as dust, so it sparkled. The skirt flowed floor-length, layered with different fabrics, creamy to translucent and all stunning. But the most remarkable thing about the dress was the way it glowed, whether by chance or by design, Katniss didn't know. It was as if the very fibers were made of moonlight spun into thread, then woven together with starlight. That light seemed to beautify everything it fell upon. Katniss wondered how this dress could have garnered a unanimous victory, back when the Capitol voted. But then, she reasoned, perhaps the shine couldn't be seen on TV screens, and it had appeared plain. Perhaps the shine came from Peeta's touch, Peeta's gaze.

"It's perfect," she said. "Thank you."

Peeta held it up to her at its proper height. Katniss took it and twirled in a circle. Peeta caught her and kissed her, the dress kept from falling by their bodies pressed together rather than their hands.

"I'm glad, Katniss," he said. "I'm glad we're here. However it happened."

"Me too. I could never be anywhere else."

And it was true. For whatever reason, she could never bear being parted from him; even in their youth he had lingered in her memory. In every arena, she had wanted him close; any separation was maddening to her, terrifying. But now, all that mattered was that she clutched him ever more tightly, for even with a ring on her finger, a dress on her skin… She never wanted to be apart from him, never wanted to be where she couldn't sense him, love him. She never wanted to lose him.

And his scarred arms embracing her told her that she never would.