[It takes a moment for Jin to link it all together, but the dots eventually connect. That's why he'd reacted the way he had, before they'd all shipped out to Q-65; that's why they'd nearly come to blows after meeting each other again that fateful night in Perdition's Rest. His younger self had been angry; vulnerable and utterly disconnected. Even moreso in Oska where there was no escape and no refuge in anything like home. He had managed to reach out to the closest thing resembling a friend he'd had at the time-- and, of course, that'd been Asher.]

So you helped me. [He can't imagine that Asher wouldn't if he'd asked him for help, pathetic as he knew he looked.] And when it turned out I couldn't remember anything and treated you like I did the first day we'd met... [Asher, lonely as he knows him to be now, had to have taken it personally.] It felt like I was blowing you off?

[That sets those earliest days of friendship into an entirely different perspective: one that makes a lot more sense to him. Jin frowns tightly, sorting through all the thoughts running through his head.

Even early on, Asher had been trying to watch out for him.]