I actually didn't want this to end. That's why it took so long to post it. But thank you to everyone that kept with me, I love you all!

It took me eight times before Katniss finally said yes to marry me. The first time was when we first moved to her hometown, not far from her childhood home where her mother and Prim still live right after Crane and Coin made their plea deals and we were free to leave the city. I took her to this fancy five-star restaurant, had the ring sitting on a plate for our dessert. She smiled when she saw the ring but said nothing else until we finally got home where she told me flat out no. The second time was a few months after that, a different fancy restaurant and the ring was at the bottom of a champagne flute, but the answer was the same; no.

So I waited another six months and I asked her a third time. Totally different tactic, I just took the ring and put it on her finger at breakfast. Katniss didn't say anything; she didn't even take it off when she went to school. But when she came back the next night she handed me a wad of cash and the ring was missing from her finger. She had gotten a full refund for the ring and didn't even ask me beforehand. That was the first night since officially living together that we went to bed anger at each other. I hated it and it made me sick to my stomach, and around midnight I ended up waking Katniss up in a fit of tears asking her why she didn't want to marry me. I didn't get a reply, only really good make up sex.

I only waited three months until asking Katniss again for her hand in marriage. Everything was going good. The bakery was booming, getting busier and busier by the day. She had just graduated early with an associate's degree and was starting a job as a biology lab technician, looking for ways to keep our waters clean or something equally as green. I generally thought that it was the right time. But of course, Katniss said no.

Katniss got pregnant after two years of being together. She didn't want the baby, she even thought seriously about abortion. That has been our biggest fight to date. I wasn't going to let her kill my child, her body or not, that baby growing inside her was just as much mine as it was hers. We didn't talk for a week straight; I started sleeping at the bakery. Katniss called me crying saying that she went to the doctors without me, with the intention of getting rid of it, but when she saw the ultrasound of the little bean growing insider her she broke down in tears. I came home immediately and we cried together.

Rosie Mellark was born nine months later; all six and a half pounds, seventeen inches of her. Rosie is the spitting image of Katniss with the exception of my blue eyes. She even had Katniss' scowl down pat by the time we brought her home from the hospital.

I asked Katniss again that night. After we laid Rosie down in her bassinette, I got down on one knee and asked for her hand in marriage. I wasn't even surprised that she said no. And when I argued that we had a kid so we need to get married, she argued back that since we already have a kid there was no way of getting rid of each other now since kids were more of a permanent thing. I didn't protest.

I stopped asking. I decided that when and if Katniss was ready, she could ask me. I even told her one morning when Rosie was a month old. Katniss smiled and rolled her eyes. I should have been annoyed but it was Katniss and everything she does I find cute.

A whole four years go by when we find out Katniss is pregnant again. I forwent my deal with myself and asked Katniss to marry me again. This time I got a not yet, which it sadly hopeful in my case.

Aran Mellark was a whooping nine pounds, twenty point three inches long when he was first born. Like Rosie took after Katniss, Aran definitely took after me. Except now Rosie was much more personable, like me, whereas you could already tell that Aran would be quiet like Katniss. They both have too much fire in them like their mother.

Prim fought her last battle with cancer when Aran was only a few months old. It was expected because she had fallen downhill in the last few months, but that didn't stop neither Katniss nor I from falling apart. I held myself together the best I could for the sake of the kids, but it wasn't easy juggling a four year old and a three month old, a business, a depressed girlfriend and her mother, along with funeral arrangements. I was quickly losing it.

I made the mistake of using Prim's death as an excuse to get married. I told Katniss that if she had just said yes to my other six proposals then Prim would have been able to see her big sister get married. And that was the only thing Prim really wanted; to see us married and for Katniss to be happy. Katniss threw a fit, breaking things and cursing. In a fit of rage, Katniss told me that maybe she wouldn't be happy if she married me, and then stormed out.

I really thought that was it. Katniss wouldn't talk to me at the funeral. Just hugged and kissed the kids, who she hadn't seen in days after her disappearance. And when the wake was over, I tried to talk to her but Katniss just shook her head as she fought back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. A full week went by with no contact. I had to hire help with the kids just so I could attempt to sleep, even though I knew it was useless. I couldn't sleep unless I was tangled up in Katniss. But finally while I was scrambling to make dinner, Katniss appeared in the kitchen. It looked like she hadn't showered since the funeral, much less ate, drank, or slept. I called the babysitter and asked her if she could take the kids just for a few hours, so they wouldn't see Katniss looking like she's at deaths door.

I nursed Katniss back to health that night. First with a long, hot bath, which she cried during the entire time, murmuring her apologies then with soup. I laid her into bed and curled my body around hers. She began to cry again, telling me that I was right and she should have just sucked it up so Prim could have seen us get married. That really hurt, because I didn't really mean that. I was just upset about everything. And of course what Katniss said about not being happy with me wasn't true either, she just felt attacked and under pressure.

Katniss confessed about her fears of marriage. Her mother all but stopped living when her father died, the only person stopping her from becoming a shell was Prim and the cancer. Katniss thought up some crazy thing that if I somehow died, it wouldn't hurt as much not being married as it would being married. It also doesn't help that she still has fears that I would come to my senses and drop her for being a former prostitute because I am too good for her and Katniss doesn't deserve me or something crazy like that. I'm not sure if I fully convinced Katniss that I wasn't going anywhere and I don't care about her past, I have a sketchy past too that she doesn't care about, but we managed to agree that we wouldn't even bring up marriage until we were both ready for it.

I didn't even plan the last proposal, if that is what you call it. Rosie was six and Aran was two when we decided to have our very first camping trip. Katniss took us to the place that her and her father used to frequent when she was younger. Rosie and Katniss swam out into the middle of the lake while Aran and I stayed near the shore until it was time for Aran's nap and for me to start dinner.

It was way past the normal bedtime when Rosie was telling me all about her swimming adventures and how she found most of the Katniss root that we cooked up with dinner as we all sat around the fire that was dwindling down. Aran had falling asleep against Katniss' chest, snoring lightly. I had caught Katniss staring at me with a look that I hadn't really seen before. And I don't know what came over me but I just asked her nonchalantly, as if I was asking her about the weather. I should have been surprised when Katniss finally answered my question with a yes but it was like I already knew that she was going to yes it. And we just went back to listening to Rosie telling her stories until she couldn't keep her eyes open for more than four second intervals.

We put the kids into their sleeping bags in the tent and in out for a late night dip in the water. Our gently kisses led to I think the best sex anyone has ever had, though sex with Katniss has always been the best anyone has ever had.

We had a very small, intimate wedding at the church Katniss' parents were married in. Katniss had surprised me with my family showing up; my parents and brother along with their wives and kids. I apologized to my family, mainly my dad and brothers, shortly after opening up my own bakery. Katniss and I even took a weekend trip up to see them and we sent Christmas cards of the kids, but that was all the contact that ever was between us. So when my dad came to greet me in my dressing room in the church, I couldn't believe it.

My dad had said that Katniss called and told him about our engagement and that she didn't have anyone to walk her down the aisle and that she wouldn't mind walking alone, but it would mean a lot to me if my father did the honors. Of course Katniss was right and I was a mess even before the wedding march started to play.

"What are you thinking about?" Katniss asks me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I smile. With eighteen years of being together and five years of marriage, one might think that they'd get used to sitting around the table eating dinner with their family, but I haven't. "Just thinking about how much I love you."

"Gross," Aran stuck out his tongue. At seven, Aran is much more interested in his army men and crossbow than the story of how much his parents love each other.

"One day, you'll have a wife almost at gorgeous as your mother and sister, and then you'll understand what it's like to be in love," I tell him.

"Almost?" Rosie asks with her dark hair swept into a side braid.

"Yes almost, because you and your mother and the most gorgeous girls in the entire world."

"No they aren't. McKenzie down the street is. I'm going to marry her when I'm old."

I laugh at my son. He may have Katniss' love for everything outdoors but he's a hopeless romantic much like myself. "You better start asking her now, Son. It took me seven tries, two kids, and a full six years before your mother finally agreed to marry me."

"And was it worth the wait?" Katniss arches an eyebrow.

"Every second of it," my grin reaches from ear to ear.

The kids are bathed and sent to bed soon after dinner ended leaving Katniss and I with much needed alone time. We don't get much of it with the kids, but we get more now that they are older and becoming more independent.

"I still don't believe this is real," I whisper into the dimly lit living room.

"What do you mean?" Katniss turns in my arms to look at me.

"I keep thinking that I'm going to wake up in the Ritz hotel room having dreamt up this entire thing."

"I don't think your dreams could ever be as good as your reality," Katniss kisses me sweetly. Our lips connecting and soon our tongues.

I break the kiss and murmur against Katniss' lips, "I don't know, real life can't possibly be as good as this."

Katniss climbs onto my lap, straddling my legs and begins kissing me with more passion. When Katniss begins to grind against my fast growing erection I let out a low groan. It's been over a week since the last time we'd been intimate, and the last time being a quick blow job in the shower before work.

I can't take any chances of one of the kids coming downstairs for a glass of water and seeing their parents in the middle of intense love making, so I wrap Katniss' legs around my waist as I stand from the couch and ascend the stairs one step at a time.

Naked and sticky with sweat, Katniss and I are tangled limbs trying to catch our breath.

"Peeta?" Katniss speaks after moments of silence.

"Hm?" I answer, my eyes heavy with sleep.

"This is real."

fin.

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