[ That sure sounds like Ruka, doesn't it? Even back then, even that young - she's bright, with or without her empathy. She's good at collecting data. At studying people, even if they don't know they're being studied, on getting the sum of them only to burst into their life having already known what they've been trying to keep secret. For Jaime, it had been terrifying, but it had also been a relief.

To be this man, covering up this terrible secret, wronging the people around him... there's no relief to be had there, is there? Just the knowledge that you messed up. You messed up so bad, and you made everyone else suffer because of it. Even a child. A child who was, by all accounts, far more clever than he was. If it wasn't so devastating, Jaime would be proud of her, in a way. She's brilliant. He's always admired that. But this isn't the direction her brilliance should have had to have been placed. On a family vacation. Something that should have been good, ruined again.

He never even had to answer for his mistakes. Not really. He just got to vanish. The coward's way out, even if he hadn't chosen it.

What an asshole. ]

What an asshole.

[ Oops. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. ]

Sorry. I know it was a complicated situation, I just -- it would have been painful enough, him coming back like that. To lead you on like that, it's just... [ He lets out a quiet exhale. ] And if he left that quickly, it's not like you could do anything else about it.

[ It would have been less cruel to have him just disappear, leaving her with at least happy memories. ]

His -- his spouse. Were they there for you?