I.
She'd moved to London to escape the overwhelming sense of loneliness that had been completely suffocating her.
Nobody had quite understood it.
Though she knew they had all liked to think that they did. Aaron especially had tried and she knew he had been convinced that he got it when nobody else could. But he hadn't really.
Nobody had.
How could anybody possibly have understood that all encompassing feeling? A feeling that there had been no words to which she could accurately describe it?
She'd felt trapped within her own body, her own heart.
After almost a year of having lived completely alone, unable to trust anyone enough to call them a friend, she'd finally been back with her family — the only people who had ever truly loved her and accepted her entirely. And yet as she had spent each day surrounded by their warmth and comfort she'd found that she'd never felt so excruciatingly alone.
It had made her so mad.
Doyle was dead.
Things should have gone back to normal.
He wasn't supposed to have had any hold over her anymore.
And, for the first time, she had known for a fact that Declan was completely safe. No harm was ever going to come to him again.
Things were supposed to have been better.
She had had her family, all of them. They'd all opened their arms and hearts to her so readily. Despite how utterly undeserving she had been.
And yes there had been some trust issues initially. That much she'd expected.
But what she had struggled with was that those issues had seemed to be more between the team them than they had with her. Between those who knew the truth about her "death" and those who did not.
The feelings of underlying anger and betrayal had never, ever been directed at her even though they absolutely should have been.
No. Instead they'd just each in their own way let it go, given her grace. Expressed sometimes overly but most often not that the mere fact that she was alive trumped any negative feelings they could have been harbouring toward her.
She knew all of their words and actions had only been well meant. They'd come from the deepest places of love in their hearts.
But they had only added to her grief, to her utter loneliness.
Because the more loving and accepting they had been, the greater the guilt that settled into her heart.
The knowledge that she'd nearly had them all killed, that she'd nearly taken Jack's only living parent away from him, Henry's mom away from him, the knowledge that she'd torn the group apart emotionally in a way she hadn't been sure they'd ever recover from, the knowledge that they had grieved for her, that Derek had spent months hunting Doyle down for her, the knowledge that JJ and Aaron had had to lie, for her... It had all been too much, it was too much guilt and responsibility and grief to bear. It had been too much grace too handle. Too much to not be blamed for.
Especially with Aaron.
He was a man of such fierce integrity and loyalty. He loved working for the bureau because it was black and white. Because there was good and bad, right and wrong and despite the bullshit ways to get around the politics without having to get filthy in it. His heart beat for everything that was good and right and true and because of her, HER, he'd had to lie to and betray the people who he cared about most of all. He'd had to face these people... face his family each and every day and lie to them for months.
All because of her.
She'd dragged him into her filth, into the darkness and grime that had been her existence for so long. She'd made it impossible for him to walk in the light. All she'd done was left him in the middle of her fog of grey.
She had known in her heart that she could never, ever forgive herself for that.
More than anything else, that was the one cold hard fact that she would never have atonement for.
Despite the fact that he had been so willing to give it.
She honestly couldn't forgive herself for any of it. The team had insisted on letting it all go and moving on but no amount of reassurances had been able to help her escape the fact that she was solely responsible.
It was all, her fault.
Her's alone.
That was a fact that could not be altered. It wasn't going to fade with time.
It had been crushing, isolating and all encompassing, but it was the truth. Etched so deep into her heart, in a place nobody could reach.
And so though she had known it was incredibly selfish, selfish having been something that she'd long lost the right to be, and though she had known she would only be hurting them even more, she'd made the decision to leave.
Again.
She wanted to say that it had been difficult, that she'd wrestled it.
But that couldn't have been further from the truth.
As soon as Clyde had called her and offered her the job, she'd jumped at the chance.
She had leapt for it.
Because it had been an escape. A lifeline for her to cling to in the ever growing expanse of guilt and shame and despair that had rapidly been swallowing her whole.
Suffocating her.
She had wanted to be able to stay for them. Honestly, she had.
She had been acutely aware of how broken they all were, individually and collectively, because of her. She had known how much they thought they still needed her. She had known that to them she was an integral part of the healing process.
But she hadn't been able to do it. Even with that knowledge, she hadn't been able to stay.
And more to the point, she hadn't agreed with them either.
They didn't need her, not like that.
As deeply as she loved them and so badly had wanted to help them put all the pieces back together again, she simply hadn't been able to.
She had still been too broken herself. Her soul had been shattered, perhaps irreparably.
She hadn't been able to breathe anymore.
The truth had been that she wasn't any use to anyone anymore.
Not like that.
And even when she finally found a way to stitch herself back together again — if she found a way to, she hadn't been sure that she'd ever be able to help them even then.
Because she had known deep down, she wasn't going to ever look quite the same again.
Repaired things never did.