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Post by Seryna on Mar 30, 2012 22:47:26 GMT -5
The day before the Reaping... by the time the sun has come up, you ought to already be in the fields. Many may excuse children from the fields on this day, when emotions may be too hard for the younger ones to cope with. Some are working especially hard this day, perhaps to make up for it. The peaches still needed picking. The Capital still had a quota... and who wants to annoy them the day before a Reaping?
Several people are in the farm, walking along the rows of produce and filling their bags. From their height, you can see that they are older. You spot one or two twelve year olds who had gamely entered the fields, even if they appear distracted from their work. You even see a Maven, one of your sister's friends, pause her work to place her hands over her face for a few moments.
You know that the town center has a table where Peace Keepers monitor the years tessarae. Most people who need it have already gone, but you see one or two children drifting that way. You recall all of the times that you have applied... and some of the more memorable talks from your parents. Would you be lucky another year?
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Post by QuinnTalon on Mar 31, 2012 2:31:27 GMT -5
The girl--a friend of Jace's sister--is given an affectionate tossle her hair and a quiet smile while he works, and then goes back to singing.
He'd learned that a smile went a long way to making people feel more human, and that was what that little girl needed right now.
Everyone looked so hungry, and Jace had always found it to be sort of stupid, that people who had so much food at their fingertips every single day could look so...pitiful in their malnourishment. He'd seen it himself a time or two. Look into the water-bin, and at the same time you're threshing wheat and picking fruit, you look like you're about to waste away into nothingness.
He'd known hunger more than once. Real hunger. The kind that ripped you from the inside. The kind of hunger that made people crazy. And weak. And willing to do anything for one scrap....
...Like throw their children's lives into a fight for the death.
He's watching others head toward the tesserae, and even as he considers he feels a strong hand on his shoulder. A firm shake and a 'if you take a step in that direction, I'll pummel you myself' from an older twin who just didn't get it.
It was hard enough seeing that look of hunger on his own face. To see it on his younger brother and sister? He couldn't do it.
A 'let's go get cleaned up and go skip rocks' is met with a nod. Their ritual on The Reaping, to spend a few hours where there was no Capitol. The chances--for all District 9 was starving--that one of them would be chosen were slim, but at the same time they knew it was possible.
One of them would be sent to near-certain death for the amusement of a bunch of bored rich people with money to blow on watching children fight over food.
'You know it's the Reaping when the Colton Twins aren't working.', because he and his brother both worked constantly, even if Jan Colton was too popular with the girls to work nearly as hard as his younger twin.
But there they were, close enough to town to be seen in their 'Sunday Best', skipping rocks in the lake. Their backs to the processions and the other kids looking for all the world like desperate and terrified ghosts.
"If you're picked, I'm volunteering." Jace said it every year. Got smacked in the back of the head for his trouble every year too.
And then Jan. "If you do, I'll find you and haunt your ghost, little brother."
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Post by Seryna on Mar 31, 2012 13:16:06 GMT -5
Behind the lake, the procession of children eventually slows to a trickle. The last child eventually leaves with his gift to distribute to so many hungry mouths. In the silence of human suffering and shuffling, the noises of summer creep in. The small insects that hum and buzz around the lake. The small nearly unheard splashes of swimming creatures hunting, for every thing battles for enough food to survive this week.
A small splash is heard- louder than the one expected for an animal. Glancing over, you spot someone diving into lake.
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Post by QuinnTalon on Mar 31, 2012 14:37:27 GMT -5
People didn't bother them when they were together like this. At school, they did. But not here. Not on The Reaping.
And midsummer, there was no school. Just work. Too much work for there to be much play. It had been that way their whole lives. Would be that way for their children too, and how depressing was that....
...Jace knew of at least three girls and two other boys who'd sworn to themselves that they'd never have children. He couldn't blame them. He'd seen how stark-white his parents got on Reaping Day. How they clutched them close when they all came home unharmed and unReaped.
He wasn't stupid. He knew what toll it took on his parents. Knew without a doubt that both of his parents would rather starve than have the chance one of them could be a Victor.
It was why he ended up punished pretty harshly whenever he came home with those packages and coupons for food and grain and oil.
There's a sidelong look when he sees something splash itself into the lake though. His brother was too busy being himself to notice, so Jace headed in that direction. Quiet steps along the edge of the lake and toward where the person had dove in.
It looked..nice and cool on this hot day. If he were hotter--if he were working--he might have been tempted to follow suit.
As it stood, he had a lottery for his life--and that of others--to be at soon.
And he'd always been a bit too curious for his own good anyway.
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Post by Seryna on Mar 31, 2012 15:16:54 GMT -5
The boy surfaced, shaking the water from his dark hair. You recognize him as Tobias - he's sixteen and works in the farm; with deft fingers that can pluck a ripe strawberry faster than nearly any one. Yet the girl who surfaced beside him was more of a mystery - her features were delicate, pretty and for the large part, she was unknown to Jace or Jan. The two had dove in to cool off - him in his pants, her in a shift - and she seemed cool enough now. She waded out of the lake, spotting Jace. Tobias remained in the water, but followed her gaze. He reacted by raising an open hand. "Jace." Tobias greeted simply.
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Post by QuinnTalon on Mar 31, 2012 15:35:11 GMT -5
"Hey, Tobias." Soft and quiet, but not at all timid. No need to be loud when there was no call for it, and he raises his own hand, palm-flat, even as his eyes slide to the girl.
Someone he didn't know.
A gaggle of giggles, and he rolls his eyes at his brother. Down the little beach and showing off for a few girls because that was what Jan did when Jace 'wandered off', which was something that he often did. Wandered off on his own so he could think in something like quiet. Six kids and two parents in one little house didn't leave much room for 'quiet'.
For someone like Jace, quiet to a fault, it could be downright stifling.
'Thinking silence', he'd once heard someone quietly call it when they thought he wasn't listening.
There's an offer of that hand--the same palm-up he'd offered as greeting to Tobias--to the girl. One hand palm-up, and a half-smile that isn't so much subdued as it is just a little bit sweet.
"I'm Jace. And that..." He makes an upward nod behind her to where his brother is clowning around. "Is my brother. Jan."
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Post by Seryna on Mar 31, 2012 15:53:48 GMT -5
Tobias nods like none of this is new to him. Maybe he's seen Jan here the Reaping before, or perhaps the year before that. The dark skinned boy turns to the girl, who is making herself a seat by the lake, dangling her foot within. The visitation of a dragonfly momentarily distracted her as the green insect hovered near her head.
"We should go get ready for the Reaping. Its -" "I was so hot from the sun, " The girl disagrees. "- lets stay awhile longer. Its not until tomorrow." She looks towards Jace. "I'm unaccustomed to the heat, " She explains. "-I'm visiting my cousin. I am Micha."
A visitor. Travelers were rare between districts, but Peace Keepers occasionally gave permits for reasonable reasons. There hadn't been someone who had come to District 9 and then departed in Jace's lifetime, as far as he knew. It was hard to pack provisions for traveling when provisions for breakfast were hard to come by.
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Post by QuinnTalon on Mar 31, 2012 16:23:44 GMT -5
"It is pretty hot." And he would jump in too if he didn't think he'd get into trouble in his 'good' clothes. Good, because they were pretty much the only set he had that he didn't wear to school and in the fields. Hand-me-downs from his eldest brother, who got them from a cousin, who got them from someone else, who got them from someone else....
...Needless to say they were pretty close to threadbare.
"Never met someone from...somewhere else who wasn't a Peacekeeper. We don't get many visitors." None, really. No one had the resources to go anywhere, assuming they could get permission. Which they couldn't.
No one left District 9. For all they wore no chains, they were prisoners. Slaves. Broke their backs and lived and died starving. God-Above forbid any of them ate a strawberry or a blueberry or pocketed a piece of fruit to munch on. He'd seen people lose hands over that.
"Which district are you from?"
Though Tobias was right. They should probably go home. Get a good night's rest. The Reaping was always emotionally exhausting, but what could it hurt, sitting here and talking to someone different and new.
How often would he get to talk to someone from somewhere else, after all?
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Post by Seryna on Mar 31, 2012 16:33:21 GMT -5
"I was born here," She confides. "- but I grew up in District 8. My mother was born there... she had such a way of describing this place, though. It seemed golden."
Golden as the sun that beat down on you in the fields? Micha's tone about District 9 was nearly reverent. You spy Tobias giving her a long look out of the corner of his eye as he hoists himself out of the lake.
"She hasn't been here long." He says to Jace, if by explanation. "You and your brother ... " The boy is lithe, you notice. Work thin, but somewhat muscular. " - I saw you here last year before the Reaping. I came here during the Games when the final five tributes were on that island," He confided. "- it seemed like a good place to be distracted."
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Post by QuinnTalon on Mar 31, 2012 17:12:40 GMT -5
"I went for a walk during that." Which he tended to do. They all had their ways of dealing with the fact that someone they knew--and maybe one some level cared about--was being killed on live broadcast. Parents watched their children die every year, and were powerless to do anything to stop it.
Bobbeh had been standing next to him during the Reaping. He'd looked to his immediate left and seen the momentary flare of fear before it was tamped down and he stepped forward and into the custody of the Peacekeepers.
He wasn't sure if he'd even have half as much bravery or grace as Bobbeh did if he were ever chosen.
"Jan is my twin...so we kind of have a ritual. We come down here and spend the day before the Reaping together. Just in case."
They aren't identical. Jan was bigger and broader and much more eye-catching. Blond and dark and handsome. Charismatic beyond comprehension.
Whereas Jace...wasn't. He was more wiry. Dark hair and blue eyes. The same dark-tanned skin that others of their District had from hours and days and years of toil in the hot sun....
He wasn't nearly as downright explosive as his brother. Which was all fine and good, even if sometimes he envied the ease with which Jan could mesh with the world.
Jace always felt somewhat apart from it.
Those blue, blue eyes turn to Micha. "So you'll be here for the Reaping? How does that work? Will you be Reaped for 8 or 9?"
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Post by Seryna on Mar 31, 2012 17:31:01 GMT -5
Tobias nodded, slowly. He seemed to speak slowly, with care behind his words. There was a beat before he replied. "I returned when Singer and Cypress were in the ravine," He admitted quietly. Those dark brown eyes look at some distant point behind you as he continues. "- I had this thought. The ones that come quick that I can't block out, even though it was terrible.."
"I was registered for District nine when we moved here." She responded with a frown. "It... there seemed like there were so many pages of people who had taken tessarae that day. It took them a minute to find my entry." She frowned, staring down into the water.
"I can't imagine what it'd be like... having a brother on Reaping day." She said in a near whisper. "My cousin and I are close now," She gave Tobias a look. "- and now I have someone to worry about. Its.. it makes my stomach hurt."
She seemed so earnest and open about her feelings, her expression one of intense apprehension. Tobias seemed to have his emotions under control. His eyes had that hollow look as though he may be trying not to focus too much on the present.
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Post by QuinnTalon on Mar 31, 2012 19:14:25 GMT -5
His name was on there more than a few times. More than his brothers and sisters combined, he'd wager. He was always the first to crack when the family was starving. Much to his parents' chagrin.
"People here are hungry." It's really the only thing he could say to explain it. Because it was the truth. "As stupid as that is....it's the truth."
Jace considered, and then sat down himself. Jan wasn't done clowning yet, and no matter what, they'd go for a walk later. Go home and probably spend all night talking until they were nearly dead on their feet tomorrow during the Reaping.
He just had to be patient.
"I have four other brothers and sisters, but Jan and I...we're closer. Guess it has something to do with coming into existence at the exact same moment." He shrugged. "Can't imagine my life without him in it."
Honest. Most people didn't let themselves get attached to anyone. Especially as teenagers. It was lonely, but it meant that when people were taken from you, and they were never seen again, you could move on with your life and not let it cripple you.
Losing Jan, he was sure, would cripple him. The thought of it make his throat close and his stomach clench. The mere thought....
Even that was a strength though. That the Capitol, for all their trying, hadn't been able to completely rip their capacity to love from them. Their capacity to care. To fear. To feel.
Maybe he did have an Old Soul, like grandpa said he did.
"Watching those kids from District 9 last year...I knew them. I couldn't do anything to help them. All I could was watch. Remember. Promise myself--and them--that for as long as I lived, I would never take what I have for granted. Remember them. Because so long as someone does?
"They aren't gone. Not really."
He frowned a little. "I'll stop waxing poetic now. It don't suit me." It never did. "Me and my brother usually go for a long walk at twilight the night before the Reaping. Maybe he'd be alright to you both comin' with us this year."
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Post by Seryna on Apr 1, 2012 21:35:18 GMT -5
Tobias and Micha listen to Jace, not seeming to mind Jace's recollections. "I didn't know them well," Tobias admits. "- but the day before the Reaping, I spoke to Singer. It was just for a few seconds, about nothing importance. Watching her in the Games was so difficult..."
"I can't imagine how it ate you up watching Bobbeh and Singer." He shakes his head. "It has to have been the hardest Game for you. It seemed easier when we were younger and the tributes tended to be at least older..."
Of course, the year or two when that hadn't been true had to be even harder. Yet the day grows old and Micha and Tobias say their goodbyes to Jace.
All too soon, the Reaping Day was upon them. Mothers and fathers prepared their children for the reaping with anxiety shining in their eyes. This is a day churning with emotion. Lyme, a trim woman in her mid - twenties, stands behind the district representative. Nora, the district representative, steps up to the microphone, grinning happily out at the crowd. Some eyes have began to wander. In addition to the two globes containing the boys and girls names, there was a third globe filled with name cards. What fresh new hell was this?
"Hello and happy Hunger Games!" Nora greets the crowd. "This year is something very special. The Quarter Quell means remembering the distant strife that gave birth to the Hunger Games. Let us see what our President wishes to impart to us."
The woman, with her hair set with different colored leaves, turns to the screens. Your eyes follow hers as President Snow appears, thanking you for arriving for a special Hunger Games. The man appears wizened as he accepts a box from a blonde girl with long braids. He straightens as the camera zooms in on the card that he has drawn.
He reads the card somberly. " To remember the sacrifice made in the Dark times, we honor the sacrifice of the former tributes and victors of the Hunger Games. In addition to the Reaping, one child of Reaping age related to a former victor or tribute shall enter the Arena."
The President lowered the card, remarking. "We thank you for your sacrifice on this day. Please remember that only one volunteer may step forward per tribute, although your pride in your district is commendable. Happy Hunger Games."
The screen fills with the faces of district children. Nora gives a little shiver as she remarks. "What a very special Quarter Quell!"
Turning back to the crowd, Nora claps her hands. "Lets begin with our brave young woman."
She does a small flourish with her hand and reaches into the femal globe. She draws a card and opens it with a happy smile.
"Our female district for the #25th Quarter Quell is Micha Grove!"
Tobias' cousin. Tobias's jaw falls open and you notice that the Peace Keepers are glancing towards him. Micha steps out from the cluster of females her age, slowly progressing towards the stage. Once she was on the stage, Mindy claps her hands together in joy. She lifts Micha's hand upwards and gestures for her to wave to the crowd.
"Now our male tribute!" Nora announced. She turns towards the second globe, reaching within. Within a moment, she changed Jace's world.
"Jace Colton!"
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Post by QuinnTalon on Apr 2, 2012 0:09:30 GMT -5
Jace Colton
I hate this day.
Everyone does. It doesn't matter the show that the Capitol puts on or how excited that cow on stage gets. This day? This day is the most terrifying day of every person's year. Whether you're someone being Reaped, or you're a parent or a brother or a sister or even an aunt or uncle, this day tears your heart to pieces and rips your guts out.
We stand here, boys separated from the girls. I see my sisters, both on the other side of the courtyard, clutching each other's hands. My youngest brother is standing behind the rope with my parents. This is my eldest brother's last year, and Jan is standing here with me.
Quarter Quell. It's the twenty-fifth anniversary, so they're doing something 'special'. Which means more bloodshed and more heartache. More pain....
...If they're trying to make us hate them? They're doing a damned good job of it.
My brother suddenly bumps me. Leans a little over and whispers 'Moo' as the woman on stage--dressed in the most ridiculous outfit I've ever had the displeasure of seeing--steps up to the podium and listens with rapt adoration to the President as he speaks and I have to bring the back of my hand to my mouth and cover my laugh with a cough. If nothing else, Jan can break the tension in any situation. Another thing I envy him. It's just not a skill I possess.
The announcement though, makes me ill. Not only will it be a boy and a girl, but someone who's related to a former Victor or Tribute? They weren't pulling any punches with the cruelty this year.
And then the girl is chosen, and I feel my throat close. We had all just spent an entire afternoon together. Me, Jan, Tobias, Micha. Walked for hours and talked. Skipped rocks.
Jan flirted mercilessly while I sang and watched fireflies. While we all tried to distract each other from what tomorrow would bring.
And tomorrow...it brought pain, and I watched her dazedly step forward and up to the stage, a sick twisting in my stomach. A thick knot in my throat that even my brother's joke just a moment ago couldn't soften.
Breathless. That was the feeling. Breathless and broken and in that moment, I hated them.
I hated every single one of them.
And then it was a boy's turn, and nothing prepared me for that woman pulling that paper from the bowl. Nothing prepared me for hearing my own name on her voice, and I wanted nothing more than to slap my name out of her mouth.
She had no right, saying my name with such glee.
I heard my mother scream. Saw my father pull her into his arms out of the corner of my eye so she could hide her face. My sisters were crying, already mourning me and I was still standing right here, alive and well, even as my vision turned sideways and tunneled. I felt my brother's strong calloused hand wrap around mine and it brought me back to myself.
My vision cleared, and everyone was looking at me.
I swallowed, and for all I wanted to look to him for strength, I knew deep down that if I did I'd lose it. If I looked at him....
....I stepped forward and his hand went with me. He wouldn't let me go. Not until our arms were stretched between us and a pair of Peacekeepers were pulling him back. I could hear his voice. I could hear him, broken and pleading, and my eldest brother had him by the time I was up on stage.
I know that, because Kal wasn't standing with his friends. Because I couldn't look at where Jan was. At my parents. At my sisters. I couldn't do it.
Because if I did, I'd lose it and right now I had to give them the only thing I had left to give.
What little strength was left in me.
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Post by Seryna on Apr 3, 2012 17:54:41 GMT -5
The Reaping continued as Jace and Micha grappled with terrible emotions. Their families seemed to be a raw font of raw emotion... This was the worse day of their lives. It may proceed a far worse day, a terrible unimaginable day where they have to watch their brother or cousin die for the entertainment of Panem. Yet the district representative was not done, she had one more child to lead to near certain death.
She drew a name card and announced it loudly with gusto.
"Abigail Grim!" Nora announces happily. The slim, petite thirteen year old slowly edged towards the stage. She looked terrified, recalling all of the terrible fates of the past tributes. She grimaced as she took the stage and Nora seized her hand, presenting her to the crowd.
The small girl whispered. "I don't want to be eaten by the shark."
Nora quickly gathered the tributes near her, encouraging them to shake hands and wave goodbye to their district. They had several awful minutes to try and find their loved ones before they would have to saw goodbye; and then hurtling them towards the Capital.
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Post by QuinnTalon on Apr 3, 2012 20:00:37 GMT -5
His hand wrapped around the little girl's when Nora pulled her up onto the stage. Wrapped around it because Jace was never really strong without someone to be strong for, and right now he could do this.
Someone had to not collapse. Someone had to stand, head held high...
...No matter how utterly terrified he was.
"Neither do I." It was all he could say. He doesn't smile. Doesn't wave like he's supposed to. Just stands, his hand wrapped around Abigail's.
"Let's not go swimming, okay?"
Because standing shoulder to shoulder with Micha, his hand wrapped around Abigail's, and only one of them--potentially--coming home?
It was time to step up. To represent the District.
To be remembered for being strong.
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Three minutes.
They gave him three minutes for his whole family. Three minutes for all of them to say goodbye to him, and his mother and father wrapped him up between them. Said nothing. Just held him, because it would be the last time they saw him alive and whole and in the flesh, and they all knew it.
His mother affixed a pin to his shirt. The dragonfly made of a pretty shining metal that their father had given her on their wedding day. His 'District Item'. To remember home. To remember that there was someone thinking of him and loving him far, far away, and his father did little more than press his lips to his forehead, look him in the eye, and then whisper a few quiet words of advice.
One last embrace from his older brother. One last kiss on the cheek from his older sister. His fingers ruffled his youngest brother's hair after affixing a handmade bracelet--hemp with pretty stones he'd found--around that delicate eleven-year-old wrist. 'Keep it safe for me' before his parents pulled him away.
One last song for his younger sister, and she let him hold her while he sang it. Tomorrow Will Be Kinder while she got the shoulder of his shirt wet with her tears.
And then....
...Jan.
"Don't be brave." Their foreheads pressed together, his brother's larger, calloused hands on either side of his face. Their identical ice-blue eyes locked. "Run. You get there, you grab your pack and you run. For the woods or to whatever safe place there is. You run, Jace you hear me? You run and you don't look back...."
Jace swallowed. He knew it wouldn't necessarily be that simple. He'd need more than to run to survive and win. "Don't let it change you, Jace. Don't let them take your goodness from you. Don't..."
"You have to live for us both now." He needed to interrupt him. They didn't have much time. "No matter what, Jan. No matter what. There's a very good chance....You have to live for us both. Get married. Have kids. Grow old. You have to do that for me. Please..."
There's a soft, broken sob from his twin brother and the door open, a terse 'Time's up.' as two of them came into the room.
"Jace..."
"Promise me, Jan. Please." He needed it. He needed to hear it. Before the Peacekeepers pulled him away. Before he never saw or heard his other half again.
They were tearing them apart, but Jan's hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed once. "I swear, Jace. I promise."
Then they were gone.
And he was alone and shaking, sitting in that locked office room.
Waiting.
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Post by Seryna on Apr 4, 2012 10:15:02 GMT -5
Your district representative comes for you, wrapping you into a dizzying tornado of words as she steers you towards the train. She's saying things like 'sponsors', 'make sure you comb that hair before we get to the Capital' and 'Stand up straight, girl. Show them that pretty face' Abigail has been crying. She's still sniffling, wiping her face on a threadworn long sleeved blue dress that was still an inch two long at the sleeve. Micha has attached herself to the girl's elbow, steering her after the district representative.
The district representative wore her excitement like armor, apparently not noticing the little girl in pain. She chatters on as she enters the train, recommending every one get to their rooms to freshen up. You realize she's been talking about sponsors and how the sponsors will view you when they catch sight of you at the Capitol. Now, all of a sudden, you were to put on fresh clothes and look pretty besides this over - powdered, over dressed simpleton. This was going to be a trial in more ways than one.
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Post by QuinnTalon on Apr 4, 2012 16:58:53 GMT -5
Fresh clothes 'Comb your hair'. It was only a mess because his family had been with him. Wanting to touch him one last time. To burn him into their memory and he hadn't cried until they were gone. His own eyes were a little red around the edges. Just a little puffy. He looked at himself in the mirror of his room. Splashed the cool, fresh water on his face before he washed it with warm. Get rid of some of the inherent dirt and grime before he ran a comb though his dusty black hair. On a whim--or maybe not so much of a whim as 'look as nice as you can when they first see you'--he managed to wet it in the sink. Managed to get as much dust out of it as he could before he combed it. A quick change of clothes--his mother's dragonfly firmly affixed to the jacket they left for him--he moves to sit with the girls. Strong. They need me strong.Even if it meant he'd have to go cold on them later. Distance himself as much as he could so that he wasn't the one who killed either of them. Not unless it came right down to 'them or him', which he seriously doubted it would. But he had to be strong. Had to. Eat a little. Discuss sponsorship strategy over dinner, sit with Abby on the couch when it's nearly time to go to bed, sing a few notes when no one can sleep and until the girls drift off to their own rooms. Then and only then is there time for him to be alone. To sit and stare out the window into the vast expanse of freedom that they were passing at break-neck speeds. Silent tears, and he falls asleep with curled there in that window-seat because he couldn't sleep in that too-soft bed right now. Tomorrow--win or lose--was the beginning of the end. He wondered how many of them knew that. You can never go home again.Because after this, even if he won, nothing would ever be the same.
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