( It's strange, how hearing that strikes a chord deep in Kate's heart. She isn't cursed, isn't facing down an inevitable death, but the loss of her family stings even now, years after the fact. They're not so dissimilar after all. Perhaps she's always known that, but never wanted to reconcile that fact. Never wanted to admit that she operates on fear just as heavily as Carlisle often does.

She fights it. Gets angry at it. Tries to deny it exists with alcohol and years of hardening her heart. But she's just as scared. Scared that any family she builds from here on out will eventually be killed like the one she grew up with. Scared that she isn't enough, that her continued existence over Marc's was nothing more than a mistake. )

You're not the only one.

( And now her voice is empty, rather than taut with restrained emotion. Bland as she recalls things which have been facts for decades now. )

Lost the last member of my family ten years ago. He went to fight and I was too tired to join him. ( Even Kate can't hide the derision at herself for that decision. She's spent every day since hating it on some level. Even on the good days, it lingers. A dark cloud always reminding her. ) I was supposed to protect him. But I was too fucking tired to do it.

( The next words are so quiet it would be forgiven for missing them, especially with the way Kate's refused to look at him since the argument stilled down to these confessions. )

It should have been me.

( Marc was the smart one. The useful one. She... she was just angry and tired. She'd just spent years wanting nothing more than to be out and to do... she doesn't know what. She wouldn't be able to do anything if she'd left, anyway. )