He'd wanted to rehearse this speech in his mind, but every time he'd tried to pen what he was going to say, how he was going to explain this situation, he'd shied away from actually determining how to say it. He knows he doesn't want it to come out painting him some victim; he'd had little choice in the matter, but he hadn't done a very good job of playing the hand that had been dealt to him.

"Because those were the terms of my death," he answers, trying to sound calm, but his voice is more hushed, more revealing than he'd intended. "No one has tried to kill you these last three years because I have let you believe me dead."

He thinks about continuing, about dumping more information onto Watson, but he stops himself there before he goes on. It's the searching look that does it, the lack of anger, and the faint hope that he might be able to salvage something here, that always won't crack under the weight of three years. He doesn't shy away from Watson's eyes now; he gives him a searching look of his own, and prays his desperation doesn't bleed into it.