Laertes leans back, bun arrangement only half-finished, and folds his arms over his chest in consideration. How did he come to understand it? It had felt so clear and obvious at the time, undeniable as the fact that he lived and breathed. By the time he'd had the courage to speak it, it had felt like something he'd known all his life, although he'd known rationally that he and Sagramore had only been acquainted for a few weeks. Not even that, perhaps. "I imagined a life without him," he says at last, "and it seemed fundamentally insupportable to me."