Aww, this is lovely! And I don't feel it's too much Ten, at all; there's plenty of Cameca in here and what attracted him then, and again now, and then:

"He cared for you," he finds himself blurting out. "He was terrible at it, absolutely rubbish, but he did. He even thought, just for a moment, how nice it would have been to stop for a while and rest.

Which is so very Ten!