[reaction.]
By this point he's sort of expecting it. They're memories, or at least he's sorted that much out from the forums, but that doesn't mean it's easier this time other than he's unlikely to drown laying on the sofa watching an old musical. But it does make for a fucking mood switch when the tap dancing on the television screen filters back on top of remembered moisture on his cheeks, and the screams of a baby, and the shadow of deep emotional loss.
He reaches blindly for the remote, presses pauses, and pulls himself up to a sitting position. The sense of loss lingers despite the memory's completion, and he sighs and reaches for a cigarette, the snappy judgmental part of him thinking that this sort of thing is why he is basically religious about condom usage when he's with women. But even as he thinks it, he knows it's rarely that simple. If there's one thing he's learned the past few years, life is fucking complicated, and relationships more so, and possibly there but for the grace of God go I and all that bullshit. He lights a cigarette and heads for the back stone patio, he can't help but feel some empathy for this guy - whoever he is. Because it's hard to wake up in an empty bed, wishing it was warm and filled. It's hard to be left, and resources and money don't erase that pain at all, and it's probably harder still when you've got a baby to care for cause it's not just you being left, is it?
He lights the cigarette and sits down on stone steps, halfway between the house and the lake, and he smokes the whole thing.