"I would rather have guessed," he promptly says before he can stop himself. He takes a moment to swallow down the guilt at how rude his statement it and then gathers his thoughts. "I don't think I needed to... to feel it. To experience it. Death. And illness."

A minute passes and he frowns, eyes flickering back and forth across the wood of the doctor's desk. "What am I meant to say to them? How am I meant to talk to them now? Knowing things that are so intimate, so personal. Knowing that I wouldn't want to be either of them." Frustration raises his voice a notch. "And not knowing anything that could help them."