Sam's comment earns a startled look from Albert, which quickly settles into a wane smile, barely reaching his eyes and where it does it carries a self-deprecating quality. "You're perceptive."

He lets out a soft breath, looking to the flowers again. They're just flowers. He starts to take the arrangement apart carefully. "No, it's not. Not the first time, or any time after. Especially not when it's you that sends them off."

He's not sure why he added that last part, why it's so easy to let it slip out to the brand new Tribute. True the entirety of Panem saw it, this is televised after all, but he hasn't talked about it since it happened. Not even with Jet. So then why Sam?

The man across from him isn't fresh-faced as the other newly reaped, he's got the same baring about him as some of those he'd known in the GSG-9, as Jet when Albert had seen him for the first time after so long, as Steve. He's a soldier, then, Albert hazards an internal guess. Not just having fought, but actually having served. It's an important distinction, that, serving a cause versus mere fighting, but there's something else about Sam Albert can't put his finger on. Something at ease even despite the situation they find themselves in.

It's as if he's never met anyone well adjusted before.

"You sound as if you have experience with loss."