[no amount of remembering the better things will make the bad ones go away]

[learned_to_die]

WHO: Eddard Stark
WHERE: The Stark Family Cabin
WHEN: August 15 and onward
OPEN TO: OTA; feel free to jump in at any point during his halluciations.
WARNINGS: None; will updated as needed

---

It had started with redness of the skin, first on Ned's hands. It spread like blood-red ink across the paper of his skin, up his arm towards his shoulder, down his back, around his torso. It made decades'-old battles scars scarlet and renewed, the pain of touch excruciating, as though the wounds had only just been made. And then, the heat. At first, he thought it a continued byproduct of the summer temperatures, but it was the absence of perspiration that had drawn his brows together in confusion and realization: he had gotten ill.

Half a fortnight later, having spent the majority of the time bed-ridden and unable to leave the confines of his room, the visions had started.

He’d first seen his siblings’ faces: Brandon, Benjen, Lyanna. He imagined Brandon’s death, simultaneously feeling the constriction of his airways as Brandon tried to rescue their father, and wakes to a coughing fit while gasping for air. Benjen he imagined in black, half-human and half-crow, taking to the skies and soaring back to The Wall. Lyanna, he had seen bloodied and ghostly pale, her trembling hands leaving crimson paintings against his skin with every touch, while the rage and pain and impending loss stormed within him.

Second, Robert’s face - glossy-eyed and slender, the way he’d been when they’d grown alongside each other under the care of Jon Arryn. He imagined them wandering the grounds of the Eyrie, practicing their fighting with one another, Robert daring him to draw closer and closer to the Moon Door. His half of these fabricated conversations are audible to anyone near enough - even through the closed door of his chambers. None of it makes any sense, especially out of context, though it’d be easy enough for someone familiar enough to surmise that Robert was on his mind.

Next, he’d seen visions of Catelyn at their wedding; the hatred and betrayal in her face when he’d revealed to her that he had returned from war with a dark-haired babe in tow, a newly born Robb still in her arms, which she clutched tighter to her breast; the way she’d peer up at him as they lay under their furs and in each other’s arms with only the soft glow of the fire as their audience; when he’d last seen her, outside of Littlefinger’s brothel in King’s Landing, the blue scarf wrapped over her fiery crown. He reaches for her, when he imagines her with him, hands and fingers fumbling in the air for a woman who no longer exists.

Then, he’d seen each of his children at varying stages of their lives, from birth to the last he’d seen of them: Robb at Winterfell, when Ned had left for King’s Landing; Sansa when he’d knelt at the steps of the Great Sept, silently praying for her rescue; Arya when he’d spotted her in the crowd, crouching by Baelor the Blessed, doing the only thing he could to keep her safe by signaling Yoren to take her into his custody; Bran, unconscious in his bed, unsure if he’d ever open his eyes again; Rickon in the yard at Winterfell, too young to understand the weight of the world and his father’s departure beyond a glaring absence; and, though not a child of his own creation, Jon at the crossroads to King’s Landing and The Wall, promising to tell him about his mother upon their next meeting. These memories are strong enough to make a weakened, unwell Ned weep, crying out for the family from which he’d been taken, his feverish mind no longer remembering he has four of them still with him, whether by fate or by the blessings of the Old Gods.

He floats in and out of consciousness, back and forth between the world of Westeros he’d left behind and the world of the village - his second chance - though he cannot seem to convince himself that the latter exists. He wonders if he’s returned to the Children of the Forest, to the Old Gods themselves, to the Weirwood back in the Godswood of Winterfell. All the while, the skin affected by the rash blisters and reddens, leaving smears of blood on the linens underneath - though, if there is one light in the darkness, the intensity of his hallucinations seems to negate the pain from the rash, and he seems blissfully unaware of the sores.

Comments

August 17th

[chosenbytheocean]

"How does a moment last forever
How can a story never die
It is love we must hold onto
Never easy, but we try

Sometimes our happiness is captured
Somehow our time and place stand still
Love lives on inside our hearts
And always will

Minutes turn to hours
Days to years, then gone
But when all else has been forgotten
Still our song lives on

Maybe some moments weren't so perfect
Maybe some memories not so sweet
But we have to know some bad times
For our lives are incomplete

Then when the shadows overtake us
Just when we feel all hope is gone
We'll hear our song, and know once more
Our love lives on"

Moana's voice faltered. She had heard that he was sick but hadn't been able to visit him until now. She was sitting in a spare chair with Itiiti curled beneath. The little piglet looked sad as he stared at the highest point of the bed that he could see.

She wished she knew what battles he was fighting or if there was a way that she could help but instead she saw helplessly next to him, her fingers tightly clapped around her blue shell necklace and the dormant stone that it protected. Her mother used to sing to her when she was little and Moana had inherited that lovely voice. "Ned?" She spoke his name, thinking that he had woken from his sleep. She listened to him speak to someone who wasn't in the room and continued her song in a soft voice, hoping to ease his dreams. She occasionally pressed a wet cloth to his forehead but she didn't know what use it would be.

"How does a moment last forever
How does our happiness endure
Through the darkest of our troubles
Love is beauty, love is pure

Love pays no mind to desolation
It flows like a river through the soul
Protects, perceives and perseveres
And makes us whole"

Moana leaned forward when Ned stirred again. Her voice quieted, listening to the steady exhale of her friend's breath. "When all else has been forgotten…" Her voice echoed softly. "Still our soul lives on."

'Please' She prayed silently to any god who would listen. 'Let everyone get better.'

[learned_to_die]

Moana's voice floats into Ned's dreams, the visions he's been having, though it feels more disembodied than connected to the girl he'd come to know throughout his time in the village. The girl who spent her life worrying about her people, her parents, wanting to make them both proud, who often set aside her own pain for the sake of helping others. There's only the faint trace of her now, shifting and stirring somewhere in Ned's subconscious as she fills the air with song, but not enough to draw him from his fever. His empty, vacant eyes seem to land on her face, but there's no recognition in them. He might as well be looking at the wall, and it might not even be certain that he can see her at all.

He stirs in the bed, rustling and turning his head from one side to the other, unable to locate the source of the singing. It isn't an unwelcome sound, but he wonders if he isn't still in the dungeons below the Red Keep, whether his mind has again started playing tricks on him in that endless, impenetrable darkness that had started to drive him mad. He'd questioned whether the life he'd had in Winterfell had ever existed, if the sun overhead and its light had been nothing more than a dream he'd once had, since no trace of it could be found down there.

"Maester Luwin," he cries out, "Do you hear that? Is the Children of the Forest returned? Have the Old Gods sent them to retrieve me?"

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana wasn't sure what to do. She didn't know the man that he called for and while she hadn't met everyone in the village, Moana was sure that it wasn't anyone who was currently here. Perhaps a shadow of his past? She chewed on her lower lip, uncertainty bubbling beneath her breastbone like the waves of a turbulent sea. "No. Please stay with me Ned. I need you." There was a soft plead in Moana's voice, a sound that reflected the child that helpless child that she was.

She hadn't been able to save her grandmother, she didn't think there was a way. It had been her time to go but Ned… this didn't feel right, this wasn't his time. Not yet.

"I won't let you leave us. Arya or Robb or anyone behind." Moana felt tears gather in her eyes. It'd been a stressful few weeks and this only made it worse. She couldn't imagine being in this village without Ned. He had become a pillar of strength for her to lean on, like Jax, and he was someone that Moana relied on. Sensing the new tension, Itiiti stood and softly nuzzled against Moana's ankle.

"I believe in you." She whispered to Ned, hoping that her words might reach him. If not a song… maybe a story?

[learned_to_die]

"Arya .. Robb .." Ned breathes their names like prayers, sending each out into the air like a fluttering moth. Something in them pulls him out of the darkness, just a little bit, like a hand at his throat. "The others. Where are the others? Sansa, Bran, Rickon? Where is my wife? I must tell her about Jon, I must tell her to make her kinder to him. He was but a boy, he had no fault in having been born. I tried .. I tried to ease the burdens of his life, but I couldn't carry them all." His head lolls from one side to the other, words and sentences punctuated by wheezing breaths and violent coughs that seem to wrack and crumple his entire body. Each successive cough leaves him more exhausted than the last.

"How far are we from Winterfell? I wish to be brought into the Godswood, to listen to the fluttering of its leaves and touch the roughness of its bark."

Then, there's something of a spark in Ned's eyes - watery and red-rimmed with the exertion of his coughing fits - but there's recognition in them. It's fleeting, gone almost as quickly as it disappears, but before it diminishes, he whispers:

"Moana? Is it you?"

[chosenbytheocean]

"Jon is here... you can tell him." She didn't know what Ned was talking about but it sounded important. "I can't take you to the godswood..."

Moana reached forward to grab his hands. "Yes. Ned it's me. I'm here. Please don't go." She felt tears gather at the corner of her eyes but she refused to let them fall. "Everyone is waiting for you to get better so please." She begged. "Get better."

She snuffed softly before speaking again. "Once upon a time... that's how stories start... don't they? There was a war between the fish and the birds. The fish wanted the streams and beaches but the birds didn't want to share what was on land. They said it was theirs." Moana felt her voice falter before continuing.

"During the fight a bird called the Gogo died and the fish that killed the Gogo was the Fuga. This fish has a bone in its head... it is exactly the same shape as the bone in the head of the Gogo." She tried to smile at the image but her efforts were futile. "The fighting continued for a long time. Sometimes the fish drove the birds off and the fish made journeys up the rivers and streams and sometimes the birds were successful and drove the fish a long way out to sea. At the end, the birds lost the war. They decided that only the Gogo could catch small fish for food. The others had to go inland and find food elsewhere. The fish that were allowed to use the streams were the smaller fish called the Igaga because they were the strongest fighters... so fight and we'll see the river too... okay?"

[king_in_the_north]

Never has Robb seen his father weep. As a child, he never would have imagined it were even possible, but as an adult he now understands far too well the heavy mantle his father had carried for so many years. There must have been tears and moments of weakness, but Ned Stark was nothing if not careful, and when they happened, they must have been behind closed doors, hidden from his children and the people who relied so much upon his strength.

To see the man brought so low, delirious and sobbing, was enough to shake Robb to his core, and for a moment he could not move from his place in the doorway.

When his feet did manage stuttering steps forward, he realized quickly he had no idea what he might do, taking a knee at his father's bedside but his hand wavering and uncertain when it lifted to touch him. He hesitated, eyes wide, and then pressed a squeeze to his father's shoulder, some small attempt to soothe him.

"Father?"

[learned_to_die]

The touch at his shoulder comes like a hand through the shadow, and for a few long moments, Ned has neither clue nor inkling as to whose hand it might be. In an attempt to parse more information, he reaches up and with his opposite hand and lays it on the stranger's - or is a demon's? Some dark, malevolent force come to steal him away back to the dungeons under the Red Keep? - as though it might uncover that which he seeks. It's Robb's voice - the trepidation, fear, shock in it - that finally starts to fit the pieces together into some kind of sense.

His eyes barely open, though they do turn towards him, his head lolling to the side at which Robb kneels, squinting to try and make out his son's features.

"It cannot be you," he murmurs, "You were but a babe in your mother's arms yesterday." He's certain of it, he remembers the feeling of his swaddled form against his chest. "Who are you? What have you done with my son?"

[king_in_the_north]

The delirium had come on with startling quickness, and Robb wished he had some small knowledge of what might ease his father's fever and his mind. It was terrifying to think that after everything, Ned Stark might be lost to them yet again from something as simple as this.

"Father, it's me," he said, watching as his father struggled with the fever. "It's Robb. You've taken ill."

He pressed a hand to his father's forehead as he'd seen his mother do to the children and himself dozens of times. Finding the brow warm, however, gave him little enough clue what to do about it. There was a bowl of water and a cloth at the beside that must have been left by one of the girls, and after a tick of hesitation, Robb wet the cloth, wrung it out, and then pressed it against his father's forehead.

[learned_to_die]

"How could it be?" Ned inquires, brow stitching together with confusion and bubbling panic. He cannot seem to reconcile the small child he remembers and the grown man at his side, though he would be hard pressed not to admit that there were obvious similarities between the two. Nor can Ned ignore the fact that this man's voice is most certainly of the North; the drawls and curves of his manner of speaking are proof enough of that. "How could I have closed my eyes for but a moment to open them again and see you grown?" There's less accusation and more bewilderment in Ned's tone now, gazing down at his hands as he holds them in front of them, turning them back and forth on their attached wrists, as though he might find an answer in the callous and scars that litter his skin.

He flinches at the feeling of the cloth, but settles down quickly enough once he realizes - and feels - the desired effect.

"You are my son," he says, hands lethargically back at his sides, eyes scanning Robb's face. "You look so much like your mother." The lowering in temperature thanks to the cooler water seems to bringing some sort of lucidity back, if only a modicum. After a long silence, Ned lifts a heavy hand to place it on his son's forearm. "I know what happened," he says, words slurring like a drunk man's but with far more conviction and strength behind them, however weak Ned is from the sickness. "Margaery told me about Walder Frey, his daughter, your chosen wife. How you've carried this guilt with you ever since." The grip on Robb's arm tightens slightly, before his hand drops back to the bed. "You've made me proud from the moment they'd set you in my arms, and -" he hesitates, mouth and throat dry and hoarse, before inhaling a breath and forcing himself to continue, "- And I've loved you since then. None of that's changed. There's nothing you could do, Robb, to change that. You don't need to seek forgiveness, because there's nothing to forgive."

August 15th

[thekittenqueen]

She had heard Ned was ill later in the afternoon, after she and wondered about his absence during her walk and as she tended the animals. The symptoms of his illness were the same as the others that seemed to be falling sick. The rash, the fever, the delirium. It was troubling, but a part of her had almost been expecting this. They had all been healthy for so long. Illness was destined to spread...and something always seemed to follow the quakes.

She gathered the herbs she knew could at least ease his discomfort and ventured into the Stark home, unconcerned with contagion. Seeing Ned in this state turned her stomach. He always seemed so strong and implacable. He wasn't a weak man, even in times of vulnerability. This was something she had never expected to see and it didn't rest easy in her mind.

Gently, she rubbed aloe onto his skin, bandaging his arms to keep them from scabbing further. A cloth was pressed to his brow, continually washed to try and lessen his fever. When he seemed able, she would have him drink something, gently allowing a bit of water to run across his fevered lips.

He seemed to stir, pulling himself out of his dreams, murmuring something about promises and Dorne. "Rest, my lord. Sleep."

[learned_to_die]

"I have done nothing to deserve such kindness," Ned mumbles in a flash of lucidity, though it's covered the way a cataract conceals the eye, and he again slips underneath the surface of the fever and its hallucinations. He isn't quite sure who the woman tending to him is, how he stirs with compresses at his brow, the cooling salve on his blistered skin. He can only assume, in his stupor, that it is none other than his beloved Cate, and that he is back in their bedchamber at Winterfell.

Surely, that must be the answer.

"My love, you are far too good to me; I do not doubt the devotion Brandon could have shown towards you, but he could not have loved you more than I."

[thekittenqueen]

The words are tender and she knew they weren't meant for her. While she didn't know that Lady Catelyn was to marry Ned's brother before, she understood that he was hallucinating. What other woman could he speak to this way? Jon's mother, but that didn't seem likely. Instead, she shushed him softly and dabbed the cloth against his brow.

"It's Margaery," she murmured. Carefully, she helped raise him enough that he could drink some water, his lips clearly chapped.

"Rest, my lord. Your fever hasn't broken yet."

[learned_to_die]

"Margaery?" Ned repeats her name thrice more after sipping at the water, as though it is a foreign word he's never felt on his tongue before, sputtering up a bit of the liquid that pooled in his throat incorrectly. It's on the fourth and final repetition that there seems to be some clarity, and his eyes suddenly widen with this realization as he looks upon her face. "You're here." There's a shift in his tone, one that could almost suggest lucidity, despite the flush of his cheeks and the glossy vacancy in his gaze. "You're here," he repeats.

"I am glad it is you at my side," he admits, coughing a few more times into his elbow, before settling back down again. "You lighten my heart, when you are near."

[iron_beneath_beauty]

She could only imagine the sight that she had presented Ned in the Tower, bloodied and weakened by fever. Even after reconnecting with him in the village, she could sometimes see that look of fear and sadness in his eyes. Yet she never had imagined that their positions would be reversed or that she would have to witness her brother in such a weakened state. He had always been the strong one, during their mother's death and during all of the childhood pains.

She stayed close to his side, tending to him when others needed to rest or eat. Even while others were there, she stayed beside her brother. She slept on the floor, holding his hand as he slept and ate little, pushing away the food offered her. So long as Ned was ill, her focus rested on him entirely.

Her hand tightened around his, her head resting against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "Please Ned. Don't leave me alone."

D:

[learned_to_die]

"You should be resting and in bed," Ned murmurs, knowing his sister's voice, a shining light breaking apart the clouds that have gathered in his mind, stealing him from the reality of the village and his existence in it. "We will find a maester. We will find a maester to make you well. He will save you," he adds, echoing the very things he'd told her in the Tower of Joy so many years earlier. He envisions himself the young lad he'd been then, trying his hardest to maintain his strength and bravery, even in the face of the shattering loss of his dearest, beloved sister. He's unaware that the situations have since been reversed, though he manages to reach up and smooth down the hair at the back of her head, however lethargically.

"The Seven Hells themselves could not tear me away from you," he continues, words slurred and stitched together without pause or normal cadence. "I will take care of him. I promise you. I will raise and love him as my own."

/cries

[iron_beneath_beauty]

She didn't want to jar him back to reality ad the memory that no Maester could save her life. Death had been too close at hand and she knew it would do little good. Let him have a measure of hope, though that desperation needed to be eased. "I am well, Ned." She murmured, squeezing his hand. "I have recovered. Don't think of me, save your strength."

The words eased her mind. No matter what happened in Westeros, nothing would pull her from his side now. They were together and the Others take the eyes of anyone that tried to tear them apart. "I won't leave you."

The mention of Jon made tears well up in her eyes, the emotion that she normally kept at bay. He was her weakness and her pride. "You kept your promise. I can't imagine his father doing better than you have. You have made him into the man I hoped he would be. A better person than I ever was." She brushed his hair from his face, that familiar ache in her heart. "He has all the goodness of you."

[learned_to_die]

"How could I not think of you? You've filled my thoughts from the moment I first heard your cries," he replies, closing his eyes to remember her as a babe. "So tiny. You'd been so small, it was a wonder you could exist. You gripped my finger with a strength to rival any grown man in the Seven Kingdoms." His words slur together, though the memories of her birth seem to bring him a sense of joy, curling the corners of his lips ever so slightly. "They could not get you to stop crying one night, shortly after you'd been born. Nothing could bring you comfort, nothing could soothe you, not even Milk of the Poppy."

His mind is suddenly aware of the feeling of her hand in his, though it can't quite connect and understand its size in comparison to the small baby he's envisioning. His eyes flutter open, brow stitched together in confusion as he looks upon her face, searching.

"They placed you in my arms, and you settled down almost at once - I remember your eyes, how they looked up at me in a way no other ever could or has since ..." He reaches up to roughly brush the back of his fingers against her cheek, the weight of his hand and the lack of strength in his body causing his hand to fall back to the mattress with a thump. "Do I dream you now? I fear waking and the risk of losing you all over again." He tenses his jaw, hot tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. "I would have given my life to have saved you. They could have stolen the breath from my very lungs if it meant you could have lived." He falls quiet for a moment, studying her face, though it's clear his gaze is hazy and unfocused. "But I kept my promise. I kept my promise to you. At the very least, I did that."

[bit_fairytale]

Rory's the nurse, that's what Amy keeps telling herself, but at the same time, there's things that she can do to help that don't require medical knowledge. It's not like she and Ned are close or anything, but he's given her solace a few times and when she'd heard he'd felt ill, she'd brought some food, a bowl of water, and her stubbornness with her to tend to him.

It's not really like she can do much, but she can at least try and do something more than ineffectively linger around. Dabbing at his forehead with the cloth, she frowns as she stares at the blisters and the look of him. "What did you do to yourself?" she chides, a rhetorical question that demands no answer, but has to be said.

[learned_to_die]

"Sansa?" The name escapes his lips like a dream, the only thing Ned is able to see in the haze of his fever being the color of the woman's hair at his side. It matters not that the sound of her voice and the cadence of her speech are all together different. He's far removed from his existence in the village, and the Tullys were always known for their fiery crowns. He wonders, then, if it isn't Cate - back when they were young, after they'd wed. No, the woman at his side must be his daughter. "Sansa, my child," he coughs, body wracking with the strength of each expulsion, until he falls back to the bed more exhausted than before.

"Fetch Maester Luwin, won't you? Surely he'll know what this is. Quickly, now. The last I saw him, he was walking the grounds with Ser Rodrick. Your mother will know where they are, if you are unable to find them."

[bit_fairytale]

Amy raises her brows when he starts spouting extra crazy at her, but she's heard far worse before in her life. She thinks there's a Sansa here, though, which means that she should probably go get her. "Amy," she says bluntly, "I'm Amy," she strains the words as much as she can, "There's no Maester whatever here, you're out of luck," she informs him.

Still, she's working to dab his hot skin with the cold cloth, feeling pretty bad that she can't do more to help him. "Ned, it's Amy Pond," she tries again. "You're all sweaty and bulgy eyes and sick," she says, wrinkling her nose with distaste.

[learned_to_die]

"What a strange game you've decided to play," he muses, the corners of his lips straining to lift and curl - never quite actualizing their goal, but twitching in effort. "Where have you heard names such as that before? Has Old Nan been telling you stories again? She has lived through much, but she can no longer discern reality from fiction. Don't let her tell stories to your brothers and sister; she will frighten them, and they will fail to sleep."

His hands are gesturing vaguely and randomly, as though they are moving of their own volition and with no attachment or regard for whatever he might be saying. Some motions appear as though he might trying to wield a sword, or dagger, perhaps, while others are more abstract in movement. He is entirely unaware of this.

"Well, then, Amy Pond," he says, emphasizing her name in a way that suggests he'll play along with the game for now, "When you return from fetching whatever name you've assigned to Maester Luwin, won't you tell me of how your lessons are going? Septa Mordane speaks so highly of your needlework."

August 15

[tooktheblack]

Hearing that his lord father was ill was enough to deviate Jon from his normal patterns in the village and spend much of his time at his bedside, attending him as much as he could. He didn't know what he could do for him, honestly, but he bathed his forehead in cool cloths and held his hands when the nightmares became too much. He had no idea what this illness was or how his father had come to have it but all he could do now was tend to him and ease him through it.

"Father, what can I do for you? What do you think would help?"

It was a vain question, Jon knew, but he had to try. He had to do something.

[learned_to_die]

"But you are a Stark, aren't you?" Ned whispers, catching only glimpses and flashes of the young man's face at his bedside. There's no mistake of how the North paints each and every word from his mouth, the darkness of his hair, the eyes. The solemnity of his expression. "I promised her," he continues, "I promised her. I promised I'd keep you safe. She died in my arms, I had her blood on my hands. I couldn't save her. I couldn't save her. I couldn't save her." Ned rustles in the bed, violently re-living the loss of Lyanna in the Tower of Joy, feeling the sticky warmth of her blood against and in between his fingers.

"I couldn't save her, but I could save you. I had to. I'm sorry you hadn't an easier life. I'm sorry I couldn't have told you the truth, but I feared for your life. I knew what Robert'd do if he'd known. I knew. I knew what he'd do." Whatever sieve had previously contained Ned's thoughts surrounding Jon's conception, birth, and upbringing seems to have been entirely misplaced. Ned's not even entirely certain that he's speaking aloud, though Jon would hear every word, however slurred and sluggish. "I couldn't have been prouder of you if you'd been of my own blood. She'd be so proud to see the man you've become."

[tooktheblack]

"She knows," Jon said, leaning in a little closer to try and comfort his father as best he can. He didn't know what this illness was or whether or not he would catch it himself but it didn't matter. If Ned Stark needed to tell him something, he would listen.

"Lyanna knows, Father. She knows what I became and she was proud of me. She's proud of you for raising me. You couldn't have been a better father...and you're always going to be my father. Always."

[learned_to_die]

"She died," Ned groans, feeling the skin of his body crawling with sadness and loss. "She died in that tower. I had her blood on my hands, I felt it. They placed you in my arms, swaddled and minutes old. I saw the life leave her eyes. I saw her die, Jon. I saw her. How could she know? How could she know what you'd become?" Ned's fingers begin to claw at the collar of his shirt, feeling as though it's tightening like a noose around his neck. He leaves red marks in the wakes of each finger, pulling at the fabric enough to reveal the blistering rash underneath.

He seems to not feel the pain as he agitates the skin, seemingly oblivious to the blood that he conjures.

"I should've told you before. I should've told you before you went to the Wall. I'm sorry, my boy. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Please forgive me for all the things I failed to do."