Mr Taylor stood there in shock staring at the woman before him. He had met Jade once before they went on the tour and seeing her now sitting in front of him; he didn't know what to say or feel. He had all these questions that needed answering, but he couldn't think of a single thing to say aside from staring at the woman before him who was meant to assure that his son made it home safe.

"If this is a bad time, I am sorry. This was a mistake." Jade said when Mr Taylor said nothing. She went to go wheel herself away when he finally spoke.

"I'm sorry, seeing you was a shock. I had last heard you were still in a coma. Sorry please come in." He gestured towards herself and Jade didn't think about how she would get in. The house was a small simple house, but the four small dreadful stairs that led to the porch would be an issue.

"If you come through the back, there aren't any stairs." Mr Taylor suggested, and Jade nodded as he opened the side gate that she pushed herself through. The backyard was a beautiful backyard with a garden patch and a rose bed, but Jade didn't get time to really look when there was a smash like glass hitting the floor coming from inside the house.

Jade looked to the window and saw Mrs Taylor standing there watching Jade with her hands covering her mouth. Jade could see the grief in her eyes and tears started to run down her face, and it was then she knew this was a terrible idea to come here.

She wanted nothing more than to wheel herself around the side gate and back into the car that was waiting outside for her. Instead, Jade steeled herself and pushed herself inside the house where Taylor once lived.

"I am sorry for stopping by unannounced," Jade said softly once Mr Taylor directed them to the lounge room and asked if anyone wanted a drink.

"Water will be fine for me." Jade watched as Mr Taylor gently pat his wife's shoulder and left to get her and Jade a cup of water. With the silence that followed Jade looked around and saw pictures of Taylor throughout his life hanging around the room. There were pictures of his first day and school and pictures of him in his uniform for the first time.

"He was such a beautiful boy." Mrs Taylor said when she noticed Jade looking at the last photo that was ever taken of him. Jade didn't know what to say, so she just nodded her head and waited for Mr Taylor to come back.

"Thank you." She said when he returned with her glass of water. Jade wasn't thirsty, but the glass gave her something to occupy her hands with while she said what she needed to say.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, and I am sorry I wasn't there at the funeral." She looked down at her glass unable to handle the pain and grief in both their faces.

"Corporal Mass explained why you weren't there." Mr Taylor said, and Jade nodded her head.

"What happened to our son?" Mrs Taylor all, but cried and Jade looked up with tears in her own eyes.

"When I woke up from my coma 2 months ago, I remembered nothing from the tour. Slowly my memory has been coming back to me, but a lot is still fuzzy." Jade took a deep breath and tried not to show how upset and how much guilt she felt for the next thing that she would say would not be pleasant for anyone.

"Your son is dead because of me. I won't go into details because some of it is still foggy, but the mission went wrong. I was separated from everyone and when they found me a few days later I was in bad shape. The two teams tried to rescue me, but again it went wrong, and they surrounded us. I gave myself up to save everyone, I walked into the heavy fire without a second thought, but the next thing I knew I was thrown to the ground. I remember losing consciousness and when I came around, I realised your son had used his body to protect mine. He gave up his life to save me. So, it is my fault, I couldn't save him." Jade felt tears run down her face as she gripped the glass in her hands.

She looked up to see Mrs Taylor crying and her husband trying to comfort her. Jade bite her lip to try to stop herself from crying, but it wasn't helping. The guilt and sadness she felt inside would never go away. A young man was dead because of her actions and if she had just died, then he would still be alive and his family wouldn't have lost their only child.

"I never wanted him to go. I knew I knew something bad would happen and when we got that visit." Mrs Taylor stopped talking as she sobbed into her hands.

"I'm so sorry." Jade didn't know what else to say. This was a bad idea, coming here was a bad idea. She thought she could give them some comfort, but instead, she just opened new wounds for them and herself.

"He was my only boy, and now he is gone. He was so young, he had his whole life ahead of him. We couldn't even bury his whole body." Her body started to shake with her crying and there was nothing she could do but watch how she destroyed a family's life. How her action caused all this pain.

"It should have been me and I will have to live with it every day that it was my fault." She looked at both of them and saw Mr Taylor shaking his head.

"Jade, it wasn't your fault, he made his choice to save you. The other men told us that you risked your own life twice to save them all. In the end, it was his choice to save you because he believed you were worth saving." Jade wanted to believe his words, but it was hard.

"I have something for you." Jade reached into her pocket and pulled out Taylor's necklace that Jade carried. Taylor had given it to her before they left in case anything happened to him and she had been carrying it around since. The necklace was simple. It was a gold chain with a cross on it. He would kiss it every time they left for a mission and every time they got back.

"This belongs to you. He gave it to me for safekeeping." Jade passed it over to Taylor's mother, and she clutched it in her hand.

"I gave this to him the first day he started school. He never took it off." She bought it to her lips as she cried. Jade couldn't handle it anymore, watching the grief of a mother was breaking her, and she knew it was time to take her please before she broke beyond repair.

"I'm sorry. I will see myself out." Mr Taylor gave her a nod of understanding as he comforted his wife. He wanted to see Jade out, but his wife was his first priority.

"Again, I am sorry for your loss." She whispered unsure if they heard or not. Jade pushed herself out the side of the house and found her father still sitting in the car waiting for her.

Paul took one look at his daughter and rushed out the car.

Jade broke down completely when she saw the father rushing over to her and he gathered her into his arms as she cried. She didn't care if she looked weak or pathetic because she knew her father wouldn't judge. She had barely managed to stop crying when her father put her back into the car and he started driving back to her place.

Jade was silent the whole way. Tears were still coursing down her face and her insides raged with guilt and grief. She thought by seeing the Taylor's it would help her. Help her start healing her mind because deep down she wanted to get better, but the visit made her hate herself more and wished she was dead or had died. Dark thoughts tumbled through her head and she wished she could feel anything, but this all dark consuming pain that was taking over her mind like a parasite. It feeds on her pain as it grew and she wasn't sure how much longer it would fester inside until it exploded along with her.

They pulled up to her apartment building and her father was worried about leaving her alone. He knew Jade going was such a terrible idea, but she insisted it would help her, but looking at her now so sad and broken he was sure it broke her more than healed her the way she hoped.

"I can stay for a bit if you would like." He offered as they both got into the lift. Jade said nothing as she stared at the elevator door waiting to arrive at her floor.

Mark helped Jade inside and watched as she pushed herself into her room and looked at her bed. He watched as she put the brakes on and tried to push herself out of the chair and onto the bed. She was still crying as she struggled so he went over to help her.

"Here let me help." Mark carefully put his daughter into bed and tucked her in. He was about to leave when she grabbed his hand.

"Can you stay with me please Dad?" She whispered so quietly that it took Mark a second to work out what she was saying.

"Of course, sweetheart. How about I go make us some tea? You relax in the meantime." Jade just nodded her head and closed her eyes while her father stood to watch for a second before wandering into the kitchen. He put the kettle on and found two mugs and grabbed the tea bags. He inspected her fridge and cupboards while and waited and was pleased to see there was food in her house. Once the kettle was boiled he made his way back to the bedroom where Jade was resting.

"Here is your tea." He put it on her bedside table and watched as she slowly opened her eyes. He put his cup on the other table kicked off his shoes and climbed on top of the bed and pulled his daughter into his arms.

"It's okay to cry, Jade." At her father's words, it was like the never-ending dam opened up. Like the gates had been opened, and every emotion came pouring out at once.

So Jade cried.

Her nose quickly became blocked, her eyes became blurry and her breaths became short as her body wracked with sobs and her father held her the whole time. He didn't say anything or try to comfort her telling her everything would be okay, he just held her. Once the tears had become dry and her body stopped shaking she looked embarrassed at the tear-stained shirt, her father was now wearing. As if reading her mind, he just shrugged.

"It's fine Jade." He reached over and grabbed some tissues and passed them to her as she blew her nose and wiped her face.

"Would you like to talk about it?" So, Jade explained to her father what happened with the Taylor's and the guilt she felt over him saving her life. Her father said nothing as Jade explained and waited for Jade to continue when it became difficult to talk about and when she was done he didn't laugh at her or tell her what she didn't need to hear.

"Want my opinion?" Jade nodded her head, so her father continued. "I think you did a very brave thing by going over there, but I also think you may have opened up wounds that are healing not only for yourself but for them as well. They have had nearly 4 months to move forward and you seeing them bought it all back. I know it was your duty to explain, but sometimes it is best to leave people to deal with grief in their own way. However, I also believed you have helped them understand better what happened to their son." Jade didn't say anything and just clung to her father as her life depended on it.

"Can I tell you something?" Her father nodded his head and braced himself for what she might say.

"I wish I had died because it would have been so much easier than all this. I feel like I am always in pain. Everyone says it will get easier, but it's not. It is getting harder and harder every day and I wake up disappointed that I have to live another day. Some days I want to end it and I would if my body remembered how, but then I think how selfish I am being for those around, but is it selfish of me to want it to end? All this pain that's inside of me. Is it selfish I wish one day to never wake up so I don't have to deal with it?" She couldn't look at her father when she finished, but she felt the way he tensed up and became stiff as a board.

"Have you spoken to Marcus about any of this?" She didn't want to think about Marcus, but no she hadn't aside from yelling at him, she hadn't told why she felt the way she did, and she didn't want to.

"I don't want him to know. He knows I want to die, but I just don't want to see the sadness. I don't want him to hang around because he feels obligated like he is responsible for me." She knew her father wanted to say something more on the topic of Marcus and he kept quiet and Jade was glad she didn't have the energy to think about him.

They were both silent for a little while, both lost in their own thought before Mark spoke.

"You have been through so much in your life Jade by yourself, and I don't think it is selfish for you to want the pain to go away, anyone would. Though you now have people who care for you and want to help you. You need to let us in and share your burden. You're used to doing everything by yourself but lean on us as a clutch and don't be afraid to ask for help when you are struggling." Jade just hummed to herself and didn't say how she already felt like she was a burden to everyone around her.

"Have you heard from your mother?" Mark asked sometime later and Jade just shrugged her shoulder.

"She called the other day and told me how stupid I was for putting myself in the position I am in. She blamed me and told me it was all my fault then proceeded to tell me what a failure I was to her and that I wasted my life away." Mark clenched his fist as Jade tried not to think about the phone call she had with her mother the other day.

"She called me a cripple and said I would have been better off dead than I was now because in her words 'at least I could grieve, now I have to live with the fact that my daughter is a cripple how do I explain this to members of the community. What happens if someone I know sees you?'" Jade let out a dry chuckle because she agreed with her mother on some parts. Mark was furious. He had never been so angry at someone his whole life and wondered when this woman he used to love turned into a vicious, cruel creature.

"I can talk to her." Jade shook her head. She had been dealing with her mother for years now.

"It's fine. I told her never to contact me again before I hung up the phone on her." Jade shrugged her shoulders again like it was no big deal, but her mother words had cut her deep. She was used to her mother belittling her about her life choices but never had she wished that she was dead.

"You shouldn't have had to deal with that. If I had known what she would do..." Jade put a hand on her father's arm and look up at him.

"Don't blame yourself, Dad. I don't blame you. She made her own choices." Jade said nothing after that and she felt emotionally spent.

Jade's father stayed for a few more hours before he had to leave. Jade promised to call him if she needed anything and he saw himself out of her apartment. Once her father was gone Jade curled up in a ball and thought about what her father had said to her.

She was used to doing everything by herself. She used to be so independent, and she was struggling with the fact that she now relied on many people. Not just people to function day to day, but medication, therapy, alcohol. She never used to have to rely on anything, but herself, but circumstances had changed, and she was struggling.

So much had changed for her in the last year and it was hard. She found it hard to connect with a family she never thought she would have, to repair her heart that had been broken too many times. To fix her relationship if she would call it that with Marcus, to accept the fact that she could never work in the defence again, a thought she was still heavily denying. All these changes and she didn't know where to start or where it would ever end and she hoped she could keep up with all these never-ending changes in her life before they consumed her entirely.