Qubit doesn't reply right away, turning over the words in his mind. It's odd, he thinks to himself, how frank and dispassionate Carlisle sounds about this... or perhaps numb is a better word. These are old wounds now, after all, ones that have had ample time to heal - although, knowing Carlisle, it's more likely he just got used to them.

How must it have felt to be him back then? Trying to recover from life-altering wounds, only to have his father openly reject him? And then having to watch, powerless, as his family - the core of his world - started to disintegrate before his eyes? It makes his chest tighten to imagine it. What is it called, again? That worst, most bleak and desperate feeling, trying to cling to hope, but slowly coming to understand that nothing will ever be the same again ...

... (and it's all your fault.)

He doesn't reply right away, but when he does, it's unusually subdued - brows drawn together, a frown that deepens the lines in his face.

"... And you blamed yourself, didn't you?" A question he already knows the answer to. Another pause. "I'm sorry."