[ miles isn't so far gone that a squeeze of his hand doesn't bring him back to the moment, and he blinks out of the memory up at lara. he opens his mouth to answer but he hovers in silence a moment instead, closing his mouth to frown slightly in thought. ]

Sometimes, in a sense. Maybe -- maybe not so much what's real and not real so much as what's real in context. What's real right now.

[ he's rambling again without even realizing it -- he often doesn't -- but this time he looks more in danger of getting lost in thought than in memory. this is about the point in the conversation where he ought to be shutting his mouth and changing the subject, but he's been increasingly lost on this topic in particular. and today has just been so damn exhausting -- he doesn't quite have the energy to remember to check himself where he should. ]

It can get hard to remember, under the right -- wrong circumstances. It's a parallel process, keeping track, and when the tracks run too close together... [ he waves a hand vaguely and tilts his head up at lara, tapping a finger lightly to his temple. ] It's all about context, y'see. Context keeps you grounded. It's easy to lose track when you lose your context.