Without meaning to, he leaned his cheek into the hand the touched him, the hole that he'd forcibly dug into his soul twisting in the pain of emptiness that only the girl he was looking at could possibly begin to fill. He'd let her get away. He would curse himself forever.

The irony hit him in that instant: he had, in fact, gotten his just reward. The sting of his arm attested to that.

"You look so tired... you've been good to yourself, haven't you?"

"Of course. Of course I have," he muttered, pushing himself up to his feet, his head swimming alarmingly for a moment before he was being verbally assaulted by Audrey. He gave the woman a weak smile, his reassuring words not making their way from him before Charlotte, in a move that surprised him, was taking full control of the situation and, before he realized where his feet were moving, she was shutting the door to her bedroom.

With a slow move, his hand came up, raked through the back of his hair and rested on his neck, his eyes not straying to her own. Instead, his eyes moved about the room taking in the hundreds of minor changes that had occured since he'd last been here.

"A new comforter," he said, at length, his eyes falling onto the familiar bed. "I liked the old one better."

It was only then that he met her gaze.