Redhawk Caldera then you'd love me, love me.

"Yes it is," Fin replied almost instantly, breathing deep to steady her growing misery before it could fully overcome her.  She hated crying.  She hated being weak like she had been for the past few weeks.  She hated everything about what she had become, but she felt so powerless to be anything else or to feel any other way.

"I knew I should have come back," she said after a moment, "I knew I had been gone longer than I said I'd be.  I was so selfish and stupid.  I told myself that a few more days would only give him more time to adjust to not always being around me.  Like it was helping him."  She felt physically ill over admitting the truths she had long been trying to forget, but she knew there was no holding back, not now that she'd started.

"What the fuck kind of mother does that to her son," she murmured angrily at herself, almost as though she wasn't even aware that Elwood was listening, "What kind of mother doesn't know her own kid well enough to be able to tell that she was doing the worst thing possible for him?"  Her shoulders began to shake as the dam began to break.  "I don't deserve either of you."  With that, the Blackthorn crumpled.