He's already given his younger self the best explanation he could. Everything else is just an excuse. Lies he'd told himself in his then-pressing need to keep hold of this part of his identity. How can he describe how badly that need had spiked after his cryorevival? It had been bad enough before, but being forced to literally piece himself together again had made him that much more dependent on his alternate persona. He'd thought there was no other way.

More excuses. He won't subject his alternate self to them. Instead his expression melts into quiet despair. "I was an idiot," he says, finally. "A desperate idiot who had a million chances to take it back but didn't." He grips his cup too hard, his knuckles turning white. "There was nothing to me without Naismith."