He shuddered again as Addie kissed his cheek, let him hold on to her, and her gentleness broke the next sob out of him, and the next, until he couldn't fight them down at all--not just for this, the tears, but for the agony of the loss he hadn't been willing to face (too much to do), for every wasted year he'd looked at only too late, and for this, now, that he'd caused them all this pain--and they broke out of him in waves as he curled tighter around her.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, he heard himself say 'he left again', but he couldn't hear her answer over the sound of his breath and blood in his ears.