As soon as I return to AMU, Aidan looks flustered as soon as he sees me. "Rex is back on the ward...I've been waiting for you so you'd know where we are." He starts walking quickly, sounding out of breath with each anxious foot that he puts in front of the other. "They're only wanting two visitors per patient on the ward, so Marion is with him at the moment. I've asked her to tell him that you're here." He quietly adds, his words coated with such obvious wariness.

I force a small smile. "It's okay, Aidan...I'll understand if he doesn't want me here." Although I say it in a way that is as positive as I can realistically muster, I am feeling anything but positive. I know Rex. He is one of those men who is fiercely loyal and trusting, but if you trample on his loyalty and his trust; it's irreparably damaged. So I'm not expecting him to want to see me. It's just enough for him to know that I am here—he may not like it, but I am here.

Aidan shrugs with a relieved smile. I don't think he's holding out much hope for a happy reunion between us either. "That's good." He chorally replies, still warily smiling.

We hurry to the ward where Rex has been taken and nervously sit and wait for Marion. She isn't long at all. She saunters across the corridor with a cautious smile to greet us. "He's a little out of it, so I didn't want to be in with him for too long." She softly explains. With a warmness sitting within her green eyes, she looks directly down at Aidan. "He would like to see you."

"Did you tell him about Angel?" He asks, quickly glancing sideways at me before rising from his uncomfortable hospital seat.

With a careful nod, Marion answers. "Yes, but he only wants to see you."

Although I knew that Rex wouldn't want to see me, it still hurts to be told it. I try to hide it really well, but the hurt can certainly still be felt. Forcing yet another wide smile, I look at Aidan who is looking back at me with a face full of apology. "Don't worry about me, just go and see him." My voice is as light as I can possibly make it sound, keeping the rejection deep within my throat.

"I won't be long." He tells me, still looking more sorry than ever.

Gently nodding, I turn to look at Marion who is just about to sit beside me. "He's very weak, Angel." She slowly turns in her seat. "I just don't think he's strong enough to see you right now, so please don't be too upset about him not wanting to see you."

Everything about Marion has surprised me. I'm not entirely sure what kind of woman I had imagined her to be, but here she is; comforting me. She obviously once loved Rex a great deal; she probably still does. Yet just as I have had to accept how things are between Rex and myself—she has had to do the very same.

Her initial reaction to me was a little prickly, and understandably so. Her marriage to Rex was a failed one. She may very well still point the finger of blame at me, yet she has surprisingly decided not to be bitter about it. I can't help but admire her for that.

Marion has a dignified strength about her, and I can't help but like her because of it. My smile in her direction is genuinely warm and genuinely thankful. "I appreciate your kind words, Marion. All things considered, they are more than I deserve." I honestly say.

Her eyes slowly lift to mine, a serene smile pulling on the corners of her relaxed mouth. "I stopped hating the both of you quite some time ago. Rex's heart was totally closed off to the possibility of feeling love with someone else, because it had been completely broken by you. He did try to love me, he really did...but just like our marriage; it horribly failed." She laughs softly, a sad but gentle laugh before continuing her lonely tale. "I always felt like I was competing with the memory of you, Angel—with the memory of your love. In the end, it took its toll. Wanting what you can't have is simply beyond exhausting. I was exhausted trying to be loved by Rex and he was exhausted by trying to love me. So I filed for a divorce within seven months of our doomed marriage. Rex was truly sorry, because that's the kind of man that he is. If he could have loved me, he would have. Which is why I am saying this to you now." Her steady gaze into my attentive eyes intensifies. "If you love him, be prepared to fight for him. That heart of his has been shattered beyond recognition. Just because you were the one who done that to him, doesn't mean that he will make it easy for you when you try to carefully put it back together...because he won't."

Just as her warning words are beginning to sink in, Aidan comes around the corner of the corridor. "He wants to see you, Angel."

My stomach rolls with excitement, nerves and apprehension. "Really?" My question is pitched high with total surprise.

"Yes, but the nurse has said that you're to be quick as he really needs to rest."

That's my cue to stand and get my backside into the ward where Rex is now waiting for me. With no time for dithering around, I quickly follow Aidan who is thankfully leading the way. As soon as we reach a curtained off hospital bed, I feel my heart thumping against my chest with burdened beats. I'm afraid of what trauma I'll see behind that curtain and I'm afraid of the man that I love behind that curtain. I'm so afraid that he'll push me away at a time when he needs me more than ever. "I'll leave you both to it, then." Aidan quietly says, before leaving me all alone with my growing apprehension.

Inhaling a deep and brave breath, I gently pull the cubicle curtain to one side so I can quietly enter. Both of my hands fly up to my mouth as an involuntary gasp escapes my shocked throat. "Oh Rex!" I cry out with a strangled whisper, utterly shocked by the sight before me.

It's core-crushing to see someone that you care so much for, look so very depleted of all that makes them the person that they are, covered in so many wires and surrounded by scary and noisy monitors. It's emotional overload.

His heavy eyes slowly open to the sound of my broken and quaking voice. Although weakened and brief, his dull gaze is quickly removed from me, vacantly falling somewhere on the bed instead.

Undeterred by his subdued indifference, I edge closer, reaching down for his still hand. As weak as he is, his hand flinches at my touch and he pulls it free from my tentative hold. "Just don't." The warning comes out as a gravelly, faint whisper.

It hurts, his unwillingness to allow me to comfort him—it really does hurt. But I must put my selfishness to one side and try not to react to Rex's unnerving coldness. With an apprehensive half-smile, I try to engage him in any way that I can. "I know you don't want me here, so I appreciate you allowing me to see you. I hope you'll understand Rex, that I had to come. That might not make any sense to you, but it makes absolute sense to me." The corners of my mouth curl upwards, hoping that my quietly said words and my nervous smile will maybe get through to him.

Rex drags his eyes back up to mine, so defeated and sedate. "Why?" He asks, his voice so hoarse and dry.

Tilting my head with affection, my smile returns. "I'm here, because I care." Reaching for his hand again, I pray this time he doesn't flinch it away. He doesn't, so I continue trying to make him understand. "There are not enough words to tell you just how much you mean to me, Rex." My grip tightens on his very still hand, as I look deeply into his emotionless green eyes.

His expression remains blank, his face the canvas for a pallid complexion. Needing to clear his throat first, he tries to talk a little louder. "You can't be here." It is then that he frees his hand from my anxious grip.

Ignoring his weak protesting, I lean in closer. "Please don't say that, Rex." Not once do I take my eyes off him. I can't seem to find the right pleading words that will make him change his mind and allow me to stay.

"Please...just go." He hoarsely begs, staring at me with shuttered, dead eyes.

Lifting his hand again, I cradle it in both of mine, my whisper now a pitiful plea. "Let me stay with you?"

Rex looks away from me and stares up at the hospital ceiling, his hollow spheres stubbornly refuse to let me see any emotion that may be sitting within them. "I want you to leave, Angel." His voice is quiet yet determined. "I could have died. My team could have died...because of you." He doesn't grace me enough time to react to his bitter outburst. Instead, he weakly continues. "I screwed up because you are inside my head and it nearly killed me...you are killing me." He says through clenched teeth.

I grip tighter around his hand, desperate for him to stop saying such cruel things. "Don't say that, Rex. Please don't say such awful things." My begging is louder now with eyes brimming over with heavy tears.

Rex is determined in his cruel crusade, he hasn't even finished with me yet as he wrenches his hand free from my desperate grasp. "I mean every word. I need you to get out of my head and out of my life, Angel." His words come out so viciously loud, he grimaces in agony and brings his hand up against his hurting neck. He winces in my direction, taking slow and deep breaths. It is only his angry pride kicking in that makes him briefly compose himself against the horrific pain that he is now in.

Heartbreak momentarily keeps me rooted to the spot. Rex looks so very deathly pale with such masculine fragility, that it twists and tugs on my insides; silently tearing me apart from the inside out.

My being here is causing him so much physical and emotional pain, reluctantly I know that it's my time to retreat. His scathing words are now a haunting echo clinging to my numb body, and as much as I want to stay, I know that I can't. Staring down at his lost green eyes, I just need to say one more thing before I leave. "I know that you are punishing me for something that I never wanted to do to you, but know that I have always loved you and I probably always will. You'll never understand why I left you, but the reason was always to protect you...not me." My pathetic explanation is sincere and softly said.

Rex remains unnaturally still, the only movement being from the tears that traitorously begin to fill his dull and lifeless eyes. Finally, he manages to whisper out his pained and feeble reply. "Loving you has always been hopeless, Angel."

That's when I know I have to go. I have tried so hard to protect him from the whole sordid truth, when all along it has been my lies that have hurt him more. I lean over him, knowing that he's too weak to push me away. My lips delicately plant a kiss on his clammy forehead, savouring the wonderful warmth of his sallow skin. "Goodbye, Rex." I whisper above him, not wanting to distance my face away from his, but know that I must. Our gaze is uninterrupted and is one that feels like time has been put on painful pause, so we both have time to digest the enormity of our sorrowful goodbye.

It's only when a nurse comes rushing in, is our silent exchange finally broken. "I'm sorry, he really needs to rest now." She apologises, completely unaware of the moment that she has just dissipated into the desperately sad air.

"Of course, I must go." I hurriedly say it, regretfully looking down at Rex one last time. Then with a weighted feeling of loss, I walk away.

In a bereaved bubble, I just kept on walking; one heavy foot in front of the other. I vaguely remember saying goodbye to both Aidan and Marion. Their voices were muffled by my melancholy and their expressions distorted by a distraught daze.

I drove home in the same perpetual bubble of grief, everything just numbly shut out. It was only when I got in through my front door did I allow my emotions to come for me. I slid down the door with my back pressed against it and released the most primal of sobs. I cried with confusion, frustration, anger, sadness and desolation. Rex had unexpectedly come back into my life and I fooled myself into believing that there was a fateful reason for that. With my head down between my knees, I cried for every foolish thought, for every foolish emotion, for every foolish damn thing. When I left Rex all those years ago, I knew I was doing the right thing, yet ignored how terribly wrong it felt. It's wrongness became my ball and chain around the rest of my life, and it was something that I just had to learn to live with. So when I saw him again, part of me wanted to fix that wrongness; I just didn't know how.

Rex made my wrong, right.

He made everything better.

He calmed my unforgiving soul.

Only, I couldn't return those feelings to him. Seeing me again, only ripped open an unhealed wound for Rex. That old wound became raw and infected, and he couldn't handle it. I find that so very hard to deal with. He brought light to my life, yet I only brought darkness to his. He made everything sparkle, and I tainted everything for him.

I kidded myself into believing that he belonged to me once, that he maybe could again. I couldn't have been more wrong. I realise now that Rex was never mine to lose; not even for the second time. I also know that not all the glitter in the entire world could possibly bring back the sparkle to my life. Rex hates me and has every right to. The final curtain had indeed come down on us. There would never be an 'us' ever again. I have to finally accept that and start to move on.

I have been here before, and yet, I somehow always crawl my way back to Rex. I can't keep doing that. Not to myself or to Rex. He has made it perfectly clear how he feels. He hates me. He can't bear for me to look his way or to even touch him. Hell, he even blamed me for getting him shot. No, I can't keep going back. It hurts too damn much.

Slumped down on the floor, I cry and cry and cry; drowning in complete misery until the misery eventually starts to feel totally numb.

And I continued to cry.

Those tears kept falling well until the early hours.

They fell until my tears sorely ran dry. At some weary point, I depressingly made my way up to bed and with the duvet wrapped tightly around me, I eventually drifted off into a burdened sleep. Emotionally and physically I was wrung out. I promised myself that those tears were to be the last that would ever fall for Rex Ford.

He was a beautiful part of my painful past, but it was time to forget him—once and for all.