Pain has defined him now for so many years that it is the shocking absence of it which finally startles him into something approaching consciousness. A steady beep tells him he is back wherever here is, and no longer there, whenever that may have been. Someone else also realises this and a small feminine hand entwines with his. An order is given to squeeze if he can hear the command to do so. Cuddy again, he thinks how old that particular dance is getting. Well he blinked before but he's dammed if he's going to squeeze now as squeezing means acknowledging that he is there and alone.
He lies there, he is words wash over him, he doesn't want to listen, the ones he catches; "Sorry", "Couldn't save", "Nothing we could do", only succeed to reinforce his loss. Usually he would battle her with his own words in order to wound and get her to stop, but he can't. He chooses instead to float away, her voice becoming little more than rain on grass.
Drifting he thinks about how this could all have been different. Maybe if Amber hadn't died, if Wilson hadn't come back to deliver him to his father's funeral, if they hadn't made that seemingly gigantic step from roommates to bed mates, god if they had just decided to forego food and head home... So many maybes and only one certainty. With this thought the pain returns, worse than ever, and fills his soul.