Memory doesn't flood back to him as though Marcus were now a different person. He is conscious that all that just happened just happened, that the past few days have happened, and he was present for it all. It is only that he remembers it differently, that the far more neurotic spectrum of human emotion is capable of rendering it in more colours than the moment-by-moment mindset of the animal.

It doesn't feel removed from him, which is why, after an extended moment of doing as he is told—breathing—that he says, "I'm sorry," which only people close to him can say is his instinct, for wrongs perceived or real.

The hands he has flat against Jude's chest and shoulder curl fingers inwards, a subtle withdrawing even if he is not quite prepared for whatever happens after they separate fully, after the psychic comfort that Jude emanates is made less. Or maybe it will go away completely.