The woman he'd grown up in the shadow of all his life, all but begging for her attention, his supposed mother, was a lot of things— arrogant, headstrong, indifferent. The one thing he could never envision seeing her as was defeated. She was strong, always working, never stopping and held no regard for anything other than her husband, her son and her work.

She was scary.

Now, lying in bed, frail with obvious tear tracks down her cheeks and dark ringlets of hair sprawled across the white pillow she laid on, she looked anything but. Looking at her now, he didn't understand why she'd sparked so much nausea in him so just attributed some of it to his own expectations.

He'd never be so affected if he really, truly didn't care.

"What are you doing here?" her expression was ugly as she struggled to sit up, picking the oxygen mask she'd removed to speak to her nephew and taking a couple calming inhales. "I told you to scram already."

"Oh, don't mind me," a smile quirked on his lips, a tinge of mirth leaking from his eyes. "I'm just here to gloat."

Her lips pursed. "Get out," she calmly said after a while.

"I won't," he said, smile morphing into a sneer. "What can you do about it?"

Her eyes flashed angrily as she made a lunge for him, nails hooked like sharpened, deadly claws.

Nigel made to move out of her reach but stopped when she fell short, hissing and bending over as she placed trembling fingers on her kneecaps. He glanced over, a terrible feeling crushing his gut as he reached over and pulled the covers back, eyes blinking rapidly at the morbid sight that greeted him before he let go of the blanket like he'd been scalded.

Her legs were shattered beyond repair and even if she did survive this, he didn't think she'd ever fully recover her ability to walk. How was she still so calm, so collected?

It was really scary.

"This is all your fault," she said, words falling venomously from thinly set lips.

"Don't you get tired?" he scoffed. "How the hell did the blame come back to me?"

She didn't respond immediately, eyes taking on a glazed look as she stared into the distance. It was only hours ago, too suddenly, the truck had collided with hers and Rob had protected her upper body from metal and glass. Her legs hadn't been so lucky, crushed under the weight of collapsed, heavy metal as they waited for paramedics to arrive and she gradually lost the feeling in her legs.

"I wouldn't be calling Rob and angrily going back to search if it weren't for you," she said. "I just wanted to prove I wasn't blind and capable of recognizing and finding my own son. Can't I? Obviously, I got my husband to come along with me."

Nigel silently reclaimed his seat as her eyes filled with a crazy light.

"What did I do that was so wrong?" she scoffed, turning to stare bitterly at him, tears streaming down her face. "Not love you? Not bother? Why should I? I just wanted to take care of my own son. Instead, I was stuck with you."

"What happened to him?" he asked, pulling himself out of the negativity he was about to sink into. "Your son, who was he?"

"It was a stillbirth," she said, inhaling again and then beginning to fiddle with the oxygen mask. "He was born with a weak heart so that's what everyone thought. Rob and I mourned a long time, I don't think we ever really stopped."

Nigel pursed his lips but didn't interrupt, letting her go on as much as she wanted to. Maybe she needed the opportunity or just didn't know who else to say it to, but she ended up spilling out a lot.

"I hear he was sent to an orphanage since they couldn't get in touch with us when his heart started up again," she said, voice breathy as her tears that had trickled to a stop quietly started up again. "Rob and I were passing through a remote county when I put to bed so there was too much out of our power. We were still searching, going around in circles when many years later, there was an orphanage fire and we were contacted after so many diversions."

Nigel was silent, still, as a smile turned up on her lips and she thumbed at her tears.

"We took you."

He swallowed.

"A child we thought was ours," she said. "A child abandoned, unloved and unwanted by his original parents."

"You don't know that," he said, tone thick, even if he knew it well enough in his own heart.

Why did children grow up in orphanages? Most of the time, it wasn't financial straits but the fact that they just weren't wanted in the first place. It was one thing he hated about himself the most. Why have him only to abandon him?

Of course, he also thought himself a hypocrite. How could he expect people who had no biological relations to him to love or care for him when the ones who should have, holding him in the palm of their hands, easily cast him aside?

Why? Difficulty? In finance? Raising him?

He really didn't want to care about it, about them— his biological parents and whatever reasons they had; selfish or not. He was also weak and just wanted to ask. What was so wrong with him? Why was he undeserving of love? Of affection? Of family?

Why couldn't it not matter to him?

More than anything or anyone else, he hated his own self the most.

"Afterwards, I wondered what had become of him," she said, melancholy radiating off of her. "If he was fine, having survived that fire, if he had been taken in by someone else, if he was being taken care of or. . ."

Nigel watched, gaze sardonic as he watched her force down a heavy swallow. "Or if he was being treated like you did me?" he scoffed, watching her breaths turn shaky as she turned glassy obsidian eyes on him. "Don't you know what karma is?"

"Accumulating goodwill for one self?" she echoed subconsciously, the words far away from her.

"Maybe the world would treat him fine if you had done same to me," he managed, eyes watering so bad he quickly blinked and glanced at his thigh. "A low probability but wasn't it at least worth the shot?"

"You just want love," she gave a chuckle which soon lapsed into a sigh as her gaze found the ceiling and stayed there. "Maybe it would have. I couldn't though. It felt like I was betraying my own son."

He glanced up at her and just stared.

"I tried," she said. "Accepting you, I mean. Couldn't get past the knot in my heart. I asked myself if he was looking for me, missing me, hoping to be reunited with me, wondering if he still had a place among his own family? So, I didn't dare to do anything that might end up making him feel sidelined or forgotten if he ever returned."

Nigel stabbed his fingers into his nails so hard he drew blood. His own biological mother didn't care but at least she was loyal enough to her own son it wasn't fitting to transfer all of her love to someone they'd merely brought back. He really envied the kid, whoever he was. A part of him wondered if they'd ever crossed paths in the orphanage.

"I'd been looking at pictures of him from the hospital the night I decided to make a batch of brownies," she said, a teary smile wobbling on her lips. "Do you remember it?"

Nigel couldn't forget if he tried. She'd ruined it for him.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. "Just for always renewing your hope. Not anything else."

Nigel drew his gaze away from her face to her legs. In the end, he just kept mum, got to his feet and left her ward. Hate? He hated them more than anything. For neglecting, treating him like shit and making him feel like nothing, indispensable when compared to Saxon.

"Nic," Saxon got to his feet when he saw him step out but paused what he was about to say at the blank look in the other's eyes. He'd always been selfish so even in the midst of everything, he wanted to ask of he'd still come; to the programme he'd given him the ticket to.

It was the following morning and he just wanted at least one person who'd truly see him. If he did, then maybe he'd have hope for a better time, another time, when they weren't so shut off from each other due to circumstances of the making of others. He couldn't bring himself to be so thick-skinned at the patient look in his eyes as he waited.

"What's wrong?" he asked instead, glancing into the ward. "Are you okay?"

Nigel blinked, then shrugged before sharing a parting nod with Ava and Glenn and taking his leave.

He walked and walked and walked. Then thought and thought and thought so hard he teetered on the verge of collapse. The sun was bright, sweltering hot in the sky but didn't really trigger the subconscious memory of the fire in him like it usually did.

As it burned and he recalled everything— Nadine, Saxon, his parents— he couldn't help wondering, how good would it be if he'd never even be born?

He took a glance at where his feet had dragged him to a stop, feeling his head turn dizzy and a harshness behind his eyes as he glanced down from the overpass that was busy with trucks and cars going and coming.

Had he really fallen to this extent?

The question didn't really stop him from toying with the thought. Would it hurt that badly to throw himself off of here? It'd be excruciating, maybe, but at least it'd be over.

He'd finally be liberated.

His knuckles whitened with how hard they were gripping the iron rails in front of him then slowly let go when his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out, sighing at the sight of the name flashing across his screen before picking and placing it against his ear.

"Nigel," Riele called and when only a short silence ensued, followed up with, "what's the matter?"

She had a way of just knowing, didn't she? "I don't know," he said sincerely. It was nothing and everything, all at once.

"Where are you?" she asked instead.

"I saw Nadine today. She was in an accident," he muttered quietly, picking at the peeling rust of the iron bars. A pause, then, "I'm just tired. How can I get it to stop?"

Another stagnant purse.

"Where the hell are you?" she suddenly cursed under her breath, making a rustle about as she urgently moved about wherever she was. "Don't do anything stupid."

Stupid? It didn't seem stupid or silly to just want it over with. Not to him.

"Answer me dammit!" she all but screamed in his ears. "Get away from wherever you are. Are you fucking listening to me?"

He bit his lip against the salty taste of tears that filled his mouth. "You care," he commented dryly, the realization bitter in his mouth. "You'll miss me."

"You're fucking stupid!" she bellowed, aggravated to no end. "Of course, I would. So, just tell me where to find you, okay?"

Nigel cut the call, pocketing his cell and glancing over the edge again, the terrifying drop, addicting in its beckoning. He knew they would; they all would. Saxon, Aries, Alfie, Paul, Winona, Cass, Hayley. Fuck, Hayley. . .

But he'd always been greedy and it would never be enough for him.

His longing for a place that was his, where he belonged— somewhere, anywhere— had long since driven him mad.

Thoroughly mad.