I've Been Trying to Hide // [Jack]

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

It was a relief and disappointment to be back in Ten. Two was just so... different. Fast paced. Sudden. Interesting. Ten was familiar and slow and newly boring. He'd never exactly thought in those terms before. But when life was about being entertained, you started to see the lack of it around the edges. Ten had lost its usual fuzziness, that familiarity that made it home. But then, it hadn't really been home since he'd left the northern community home.

He thought of his brothers and sisters there often, wondered how they were faring under Ma's guidance, without an educated school teacher or a born in the blood rancher. They seemed okay, more so because of the gigantic allowance he had set up. He had discussed it very briefly with Ma, outlining his directives. It was to be used on food, school supplies, for the girls who lingered beyond the age of twenty-two to find some vocation worthy of their time. That was it. Not for toys, or makeup, or a new television. He'd considered smashing the only one they had.

But there would be no point. President Snow would send him a new one.

So he preserved. Didn't think about the tributes he had lost, or the ones he would lose the next year. Because it was inevitable. Either he was shitty sponsor, or Ten never should have won in the first place, because it was pretty clear they were never going to, ever again. He had to focus on things that he could accomplish: moving things forward with Julian, providing for the community home children, caring for Whicker. It never felt like quite enough.

Which maybe explained, or rationalized, why he found himself on Jack's doorstep, shortly after he had returned to Ten. He shifted uncomfortably, his khaki pants linen from Two instead of the cheap wool that Ten occasionally manufactured. His shirt was a pressed white, dusted with a light coating of dirt on the walk over, but not stained like his shirts of old. It was comfortable, but not familiar. Like the way the rest of the district had become, and like he was sure this conversation would go. But he had to try.

Mace squared his shoulders, even while his hands remained in his pockets, and brought his grey eyes up to the door. He would meet Jack Lexington man to man, even though one of them had survived disaster and come out a parent to twins, and the other had survived the gates and come out to a child in a far off district, hardly ever to be seen. There was really no comparing the two, but Mace was ready to try. He knocked twice, resolutely, and then leaned back on his heels.