"I..." he stopped, looking away again, unable to meet her eyes. Because I don't want it to be my fault, he realized. She was hurting because of his future self (because of his current self, too), and he didn't want it to be because he had chosen to leave her. He didn't want to think that for all the hopes he'd had about starting a new life with her, it would come to nothing in four years because he chose to walk out. But then, neither did he want to die - and at the moment, it seemed that those were his only two options.

"It scares me," he said softly, though whether it was in reference to his death or to the idea that he had hurt her voluntarily, he couldn't have said.