At first, Jace just lowered his head, shaking it slightly but didn't say anything. To say Sash had been on his mind a lot was a fierce understatement. The problem was, he had been struggling to understand the tangled web of thoughts and feelings that came with it. It had been a shock the night Jesse came home from work and told them all before dinner that Justin and Sash had been in a terrible car accident that had made the international news once it was known Justin was one of the victim. At that point, they hadn't received news whether either of them survived until there were updates via friends that Sash had been trapped in the car and needed to be rescued with the jaws of life and airlifted to Sydney while Justin was in emergency surgery from the injuries he sustained. Even then, it was another couple of days before confirmation came that Sash had sustained a serious head injury and in a coma on life support. Evan had been the one who told them that it appeared Sash had a ruptured aneurysm just prior to the crash but that it wasn't the cause of the accident. They now knew more, of course. Justin had begun to heal from his injuries, though he was still unable to stand or weight-bear, which could impact his future as a professional dancer and performer. Sash had regained consciousness but the brain injury left him with traumatic retrograde amnesia and didn't remember ever knowing Justin intimately. It was hard for Jace to hear because he had suffered with both traumatic retrograde and anterograde amnesia after he was hit by the car. Still to this day, he remembered nothing about the accident, had significant memory loss in the lead-up to it and very patchy memories of his recovery that culminated in his diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury. His memory capacity now was still impaired with limited ability to read and write or retain what he read. He had to learn new things via repetition of sight or hearing. In the wake of the accident, he had been non-verbal for some time, having lost the capacity for speech and verbal communication, but a therapist was able to teach him sign language, which he was still fluent in today. It was still a massive weight on his life and he'd never with the ordeal on another young person. It was still too early to know how Sash's injuries would impact his functioning and life going forward. "Guess it's just stirring a lot up. I don't know what I'd even want to talk about, really. I wish I could just send Justin a message and tell him it'll be fine eventually but we all know promises like that aren't helpful." He looked up at Jesse again, wetting his lips as he hesitated over the next bit. "Do you think I'm getting sicker? Am I getting worse?"

"Sounds really nice, baby. We could go to the beach again. I love the beach. Always reminds me of when we got engaged. It's just peaceful. Think maybe we both need some peaceful right now. Maybe people we lose are just with us the times we feel most alone? They might not be able to do anything but they're just there. You think your dad wouldn't be for you because you never met him? I think he would be. I think maybe even once he was gone, he knew you were his. Autumn said he was one of the best dads ever. He'd want you to visit him if helped you," he decided and it was his turn to give Jesse a soft smile and rested his head against Jesse's forehead, sliding his hand up the back of Jesse's shirt to rub his back.