Haha, ironic timing. I wanted him to be gone longer than I actually was... just 'cause, really; but I also wanted it to be long enough that he could plausibly obtain a new ship, crew, and make a bunch of jumps to hopefully make it back. I thought 2 years a bit much; but 10 months felt like too short. So I gave him two more.
No, he's extremely controlled. The reason he's so emotional here is because he had just recently realized that he could indeed have a love in his life, lost her with slim-to-no chance of finding his way back(and it looked as Slim was leaving), and finally was reunited with her after almost losing hope. So it took a year of complete hell and stress and depression for him to barely crack a single tear(and the one tear that fell only fell due to inertia, not volume).
He's definitely a tough egg to crack, which gives that much more credit to his feelings toward Silver.
